History of Genii and Familiar Spirits

John Beaumont, born c. 1650, died 1731, was a physician and antiquarian who lived in Somerset, in the southwest of England. Through his fossil collecting, as well as papers documenting new mining techniques, Beaumont became a fellow of the Royal Society. However, Beaumont also had a secret, one which he would expose first in his History of Genii and Familiar Spirits and later in Gleanings of Antiquities. For years, Beaumont had conversations with entities that he publicly labeled Genii, but that in personal communications he labeled Fairies. These beings gave him advice and told him about their nature. Beaumont's communication with these spirits, which he declares happened thousands of times over the course of many years, is what lead to the composition of History of Genii and Familiar Spirits, published in 1705. The book was written to vindicate the idea of a personal Genius or Familiar Spirit, who advises and guides an individual in all the vicissitudes of life, as a valid phenomenon, one not caused by mental illness or other physical disorder, and also not the work of evil spirits. Beaumont was made use of some of the most sophisticated sources of his day for this purpose. He marshaled sources from the Renaissance, classical Greece and Rome, and from the vernacular tradition, using them to great effect, synthesizing them into a coherent whole which is still authoritative today. Many of sources that Beaumont employs are translated into English for the first time by the author, making the work especially valuable. This edition of History of Genii and Familiar Spirits also includes the chapter Notes concerning Genii or Familiar Spirits from the later Gleanings of Antiquities, published in 1724.