Source books
Books
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239 books of 370 · showing 1–50 · oldest first
Mesopotamian divination and magic 1
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2nd–1st millennium BCE
Extispicy manuals
Manuals for reading the features of sacrificial organs. The British Museum's cuneiform collections preserve portions of both the celestial-omen and the divinatory traditions.
Jewish scripture and tradition 3
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early 10th century
Book of Definitions
Short definitions of philosophical terms, and the earliest Jewish statement of a Neoplatonic descent from a First Cause through intellect and soul.
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written c. 1045; Latin translation c. 1150
Fons Vitae
A dialogue on matter and form in which a divine Will stands between an unknowable God and everything that proceeds from him. Written in Arabic, lost in the original, and...
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completed in the Land of Israel, c. 1267–1270
Commentary on the Torah
A mainstream biblical commentary carrying brief kabbalistic allusions, flagged as 'by way of truth' and deliberately left unexplained.
Greek and Roman mysteries 4
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c. 430 BCE
Histories
Nine books of enquiry into the Persian wars and the peoples around them. Book II is given almost entirely to Egypt, and is the oldest sustained account of Egyptian religion by...
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fifth century BCE
On Nature
A cosmological poem explaining the four roots, cosmic cycles, perception and natural phenomena.
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fifth century BCE
Purifications
Traditionally treated as a separate religious poem on reincarnation, pollution, divine exile and purification. Scholars debate whether it and On Nature originally belonged to...
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c. 211–229 CE
Roman History
Cassius Dio's history includes an early explanation of the seven-day planetary week and the planetary-hour order used to derive it.
Natural philosophy 1
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After 1248; probably completed 1261–1262
De mineralibus
Albertus Magnus studies stones, metals and intermediate substances through Aristotelian natural philosophy while recording alchemical and astrological theories current in the...
Hermetism 2
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roughly 2nd–3rd centuries CE
Asclepius
A Hermetic dialogue surviving complete in Latin, containing cosmology, theology and the famous discussion of statues animated through divine or spiritual powers.
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1463
Latin translation of the Hermetic writings
Made philosophical Hermetism accessible to Renaissance Latin readers, and gave it a prestige built on a mistaken date.
Neoplatonism 8
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late third century
Life of Pythagoras
A religious-philosophical biography that helped turn Pythagoras into an archetypal sacred philosopher.
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third century
Letter to Marcella
A spiritual and ethical exhortation to his wife.
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c. 301
Life of Plotinus
Our fundamental biographical source for Plotinus, and an introduction to the Enneads.
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early fourth century
On the Pythagorean Life
Transforms Pythagoras into an exemplary initiatory philosopher, and preserves a great deal of Pythagorean tradition.
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early fourth century
Protrepticus
A spiritual-philosophical exhortation incorporating older Pythagorean and Platonic material.
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fifth century
Commentaries on Plato
On the Timaeus, Republic, Parmenides and others, transmitting elaborate cosmological and metaphysical systems to later thinkers.
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fifth century
Hymns
Poetic devotional works, revealing that his philosophy was also religious practice.
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fifth century
Platonic Theology
A vast account of the hierarchy of divine realities found in Plato.
Christian scripture and mysticism 3
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c. 500
The Divine Names
Explains how divine names express manifestations of a God ultimately beyond all names.
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c. 500
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
Connects earthly liturgy and hierarchy to their celestial counterparts.
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c. 500
The Mystical Theology
A foundational text of apophatic mysticism: God is approached by stripping away concepts and affirmations.
Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah 13
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Possibly the earliest Merkavah text; date contested
Re'uyot Yehezkel
A mystical midrash on the single verse Ezekiel 1:1 that enumerates what Ezekiel saw, and gives an unusually detailed account of seven heavens with their names, dimensions and...
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5th–9th century CE (redaction; contested)
Hekhalot Rabbati
The longest and best known Hekhalot text follows R. Ishmael and R. Akiva through seven guarded palaces, where seals and divine names open the way. The journey is called a...
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5th–9th century CE (contested); some material argued to be older
Hekhalot Zutarti
Shorter, denser and more magical than the Greater Palaces, turning on the disclosure of divine names. It carries the water vision: the warning that when the one who descends...
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Late antiquity, 5th–9th century CE (contested)
Ma'aseh Merkavah
The most liturgical of the Hekhalot texts: a collection of prayers and hymns inside a dialogue between R. Ishmael and R. Akiva, which embeds the ascent instructions in recited...
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early 13th century
Commentary on Sefer Yetzirah
The earliest kabbalistic commentary on Sefer Yetzirah that can be attached to a named teacher. It does not point at the Text this site holds for Sefer Yetzirah: that row is the...
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first half of the 13th century
Commentary on the Ten Sefirot
Thirteen questions and answers, written to defend the sefirot against the objection that a perfectly simple God can have no parts. The defence is Neoplatonic and the vocabulary...
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1273
Book of Redemption
An early prophetic work articulating his understanding of revelation.
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1280
Life of the World to Come
One of his clearest manuals of ecstatic technique involving letters and divine names.
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1280
Secrets of the Torah
A commentary on Maimonidean philosophy interpreted through mystical methods.
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1285–86
Treasury of the Hidden Eden
An extensive synthesis of his prophetic Kabbalah.
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c. 1285–88
Book of the Sign
A highly visionary prophetic work.
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late 13th century
Sha'arei Orah
Gates of Light: the ten sefirot expounded through the divine names, taken from the lowest gate upward. The source this site reads for the names on the Jewish tree.
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1291
Words of Beauty
Among the latest datable products of his career.
Islamic esotericism 3
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before 1186
Intimations
Integrates Peripatetic reasoning with his developing illuminationist perspective.
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before 1191
Temples of Light
A shorter metaphysical exposition emphasising the human soul and luminous realities.
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completed 1186
Philosophy of Illumination
His central systematic work: reality understood through hierarchies of light.
Astrology 1
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unfinished at his death
Disputations against Divinatory Astrology
Attacks deterministic judicial astrology, despite his earlier enthusiasm for other forms of occult philosophy.
Alchemy 4
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c. 300
Cheirokmeta
Surviving in portions only. It combines practical chemical procedures with visionary, mythic and spiritual interpretations of transformation.
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written 1471; printed 1591
The Compound of Alchymy
The work in twelve gates, from calcination to projection, in verse.
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c. 1529–30
Paragranum
Sets out the foundations of medicine: philosophy, astronomy and astrology, alchemy, and virtue.
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c. 1531
Opus Paramirum
Develops his distinctive medical and alchemical understanding of disease.
Renaissance magic and Christian Cabala 7
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1486
900 Conclusions
Propositions covering philosophy, theology, magic and Kabbalah, arguing among other things that properly understood magic and Kabbalah confirm Christianity.
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1487
Apology
His defence of the condemned theses.
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1489
Heptaplus
An elaborate sevenfold interpretation of the biblical creation narrative.
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Basel, 1494
De Verbo Mirifico
On the Wonder-Working Word: a dialogue arguing that the name of Jesus is the pronounceable form of the Tetragrammaton. Christian Cabala's founding argument, and its founding...
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Augsburg, 1516
Portae Lucis
A free Latin translation of part of Sha'arei Orah, and the book through which Christian Europe first read a kabbalistic classic in its own language. Its title page shows a man...
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Hagenau, 1517
De Arte Cabalistica
On the Art of Kabbalah: three books of dialogue, and the first full European account of the subject as a subject. It is where a Latin reader could find out what the sefirot were...
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1530
On the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Arts and Sciences
A sceptical or penitential critique of human knowledge, including the occult arts.