Source books
Books
Start by searching for a title or author. Open Filters to narrow the list by tradition, the role a book played, whether a free edition is available, or how much public attention it receives. Last, choose date or name order. Every choice stays in the address, so you can bookmark the result or send the same list to someone else.
239 books of 370 · showing 151–200 · oldest first
Mesopotamian divination and magic 1
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1999
Mesopotamian Magic: Textual, Historical, and Interpretative Perspectives
Essays on exorcistic texts and practices in ancient Mesopotamia. The collection examines how incantations and rituals worked in their social, medical and religious settings.
Jewish scripture and tradition 1
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1939
Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah 3
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1926
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1929
The Holy Kabbalah
A massive if idiosyncratic history and interpretation of Kabbalah from a mystical-Christian perspective.
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1974
Kabbalah
Scholem's one-volume survey of Kabbalah: a historical essay on the basic ideas followed by encyclopaedia entries on texts, figures and terms.
Alchemy 1
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2001
Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe
The collection containing Principe and Newman's “Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy”, the essay that argues the spiritual reading is a Victorian and...
Renaissance magic and Christian Cabala 1
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1978
The Complete Enochian Dictionary
A linguist's dictionary and grammatical description of the angelic material, and the standard reference for it. Laycock counts about 250 words in the corpus, over half of them...
Witchcraft and demonology 1
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1931
The God of the Witches
A more popular restatement of the witch-cult thesis centred on a horned god.
French occultism 1
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1972; revised edition 2011
Eliphas Lévi and the French Occult Revival
A history of Éliphas Lévi and the nineteenth-century French occult revival, extending to his predecessors, successors, occult organizations and literary reception.
The Golden Dawn 1
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four volumes, 1937–1940
The Golden Dawn
Rituals, knowledge lectures and practical instructions from the Stella Matutina, published in defiance of initiatory secrecy.
Theosophy and its descendants 6
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1922
Letters on Occult Meditation
Meditation taught as part of occult initiation.
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1925
The Masters and the Path
On the Masters and the stages of the spiritual path.
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1925
A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
Her gigantic metaphysical cosmology of energies, rays, planes and cosmic evolution.
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1927
The Chakras
An enormously influential Western reinterpretation of the Indian chakra system.
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1936–1960, later volumes posthumous
A Treatise on the Seven Rays
A multi-volume system correlating seven fundamental energies with psychology, astrology and spiritual evolution.
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1948
The Reappearance of the Christ
Anticipates a renewed manifestation of a universal spiritual teacher.
Thelema 4
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written at the Abbey of Thelema; printed 1929
Liber Samekh
A long recension of the invocation Crowley had printed at the front of the 1904 Goetia, divided into lettered sections with a commentary that gives each of the barbarous names...
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received/written February–March 1946
Liber 49
Parsons regarded it as a divinely received continuation or complement to Crowley's Book of the Law.
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1949
The Book of Antichrist
A short manifesto announcing his magical identity and rejection of oppressive moral structures.
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essays, collected later
Freedom Is a Two-Edged Sword
Essays on liberty, magic and society, gathered after his death.
The Fourth Way 2
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1931
A New Model of the Universe
Connects cosmology, recurrence, psychology and esoteric traditions.
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posthumous, 1970s
Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am'
An unfinished third series concerned more directly with inner work.
Twentieth-century magic 6
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received 1923–24; published in parts from 1925
The Cosmic Doctrine
An elaborate cosmogony which Fortune said was communicated by inner-plane teachers.
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1928
The Secret Teachings of All Ages
A large illustrated survey of mystery religions, alchemy, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Tarot and symbolic philosophy.
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1930
Psychic Self-Defence
Her best-known practical book, interpreting psychological and interpersonal danger through an occult model.
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1932
The Tree of Life
A systematic introduction to ceremonial magic written before his Golden Dawn initiation.
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1935
The Mystical Qabalah
A readable synthesis of the Golden Dawn Tree of Life, Christian mysticism and Fortune's own psychological interpretation.
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1938
The Middle Pillar
Connects a Golden Dawn body exercise with psychotherapy and helped make the practice one of the order's most widely adopted techniques.
Traditionalism 6
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1923
The Spiritist Fallacy
Critiques Spiritualism and mediumistic explanations of the dead.
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1925
The Esoterism of Dante
Interprets Dante through initiatory and symbolic traditions.
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1927
The Crisis of the Modern World
Diagnoses modern civilisation as spiritually inverted and cut off from traditional principles.
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1927
The King of the World
Traditions of a hidden supreme spiritual centre.
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1931
The Symbolism of the Cross
Uses the cross as a metaphysical symbol of multiple states of being.
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1932
The Multiple States of Being
One of his most rigorous metaphysical works.
Modern witchcraft 5
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1949
High Magic's Aid
A novel used to place ritual material into print before Gardner could write publicly about a living witch religion.
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1973
An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present
An alphabetical introduction joining folklore, ritual practice and the history of modern witchcraft.
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1975
Natural Magic
A practical account of magic using ordinary materials and local landscapes.
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1978
Witchcraft for Tomorrow
Presents adaptable rites for readers without access to an initiatory coven.
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1989
The Rebirth of Witchcraft
Her memoir and internal history of the twentieth-century witchcraft revival.
Late-modern and chaos magic 11
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1977
Nightside of Eden
Develops a shadow-side reading of the Qabalistic Tree and the tunnels associated with it.
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1978
The Book of Results
Ray Sherwin's early practical account of sigils and results-oriented magic.
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1978
Liber Null
A stripped-down magical curriculum emphasising altered states or 'gnosis', sigils, belief manipulation and practical experimentation.
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1982
Psychonaut
Extends the approach into group magic, paradigms and broader magical theory.
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combined edition, 1987
Liber Null & Psychonaut
The combined edition, and probably the defining textbook of chaos magic.
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1992
Liber Kaos
Pushes his magical theories in increasingly mathematical and cosmological directions.
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1993
Prime Chaos
Moves beyond beginner sigil magic toward ritual construction, group work and more developed practice.
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1994
Outer Gateways
A late synthesis of Typhonian magic, dream, fiction and extra-human intelligence.
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1995
Condensed Chaos
Probably the most accessible introduction to chaos magic.
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1995
PsyberMagick
A playful, compressed collection of advanced chaos-magical ideas.
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1996
The Pseudonomicon
Applies chaos-magical thinking to Lovecraftian imagery — illustrating the willingness to use a fictional symbolic system without requiring belief that it is historically or...