Source books
Books
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53 books of 370 · showing 1–50 · oldest first
Egyptian religion and magic 1
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1901
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 4
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1886–1903
A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature
The standard dictionary of rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic.
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1891–1906
A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament
The standard Hebrew lexicon of the Hebrew Bible, based on Gesenius.
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1901–1906
The Jewish Encyclopedia
The Jewish Encyclopedia is an early twentieth-century reference work whose signed articles gather biblical, rabbinic and mystical source trails. Its accounts of variant angel...
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1939
Greek and Roman mysteries 6
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c. 175–180 CE
The True Doctrine
Celsus's anti-Christian treatise survives through Origen's third-century refutation. Book VI preserves a report of a seven-gated Mithraic ladder whose gates are assigned both...
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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.
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1890
The Golden Bough
1890 non-fiction work by James George Frazer
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1891
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1903
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1911
Natural philosophy 1
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undated
Gnosticism 2
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1887
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1900
Neoplatonism 1
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2014
Divination and Theurgy in Neoplatonism: Oracles of the Gods
A study of oracles, divination and theurgy in Porphyry and Iamblichus, set within the religious and philosophical debates of late antiquity.
Christian scripture and mysticism 1
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1911
Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah 6
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1913
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1913
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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.
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undated
Islamic esotericism 1
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2018
The Occult Sciences in Pre-modern Islamic Cultures
Studies of arithmology, physiognomy, astrology, divination, geomancy, lettrism, alchemy, magic and gnosis in pre-modern Islamic cultures.
Astrology 1
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1912
Alchemy 6
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1841
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
1841 collection of historic anecdotes about human follies by Charles Mackay
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1914; English 1917
Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism
A psychoanalytic reading of an alchemical parable, later retitled Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts.
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1944; English translation 1953
Psychology and Alchemy
Jung's reading of alchemical imagery as a projection of psychic processes, and the book through which most twentieth-century readers met alchemy at all.
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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...
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undated
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undated
Renaissance magic and Christian Cabala 2
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1834
Lives of the Necromancers
1834 book by William Godwin
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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 4
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1862
La Sorcière
essay by Jules Michelet
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1921
The Witch-Cult in Western Europe
Argues from witch-trial material for an organised pre-Christian religion surviving into the early modern period.
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1931
The God of the Witches
A more popular restatement of the witch-cult thesis centred on a horned god.
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undated
Rosicrucianism 2
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1887
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1907
Christian theosophy and Swedenborg 1
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1885 English translation
Jacob Boehme: His Life and Teaching, or Studies in Theosophy
An English translation of Martensen's theological study of Jacob Böhme, combining a biography with an extended account of his theosophy.
Mesmerism and Spiritualism 1
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1902
Modern Spiritualism: A History and a Criticism
A two-volume history and critical examination of modern Spiritualism by Frank Podmore, a member of the Society for Psychical Research. It follows the subject from possession and...
Tarot 1
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2009
A Cultural History of Tarot: From Entertainment to Esotericism
A cultural history of tarot from its use as a card game in Renaissance Italy through French occultism, the Golden Dawn and modern divination.
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 2
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1887
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2016
The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism
Asprem's chapter 'The Golden Dawn and the O.T.O.' (pp. 272–283) is this study's scholarly anchor for both orders: what they were, when they ran, and what was new about treating...
Theosophy and its descendants 1
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2021
Occult Roots of Religious Studies: On the Influence of Non-Hegemonic Currents on Academia around 1900
Studies of the exchanges between occult and esoteric currents and the emerging academic study of religion around 1900.
The Fourth Way 1
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2025
The Teachings and Legacy of G. I. Gurdjieff: Conference Anthology
Proceedings from a 2024 Harvard conference on Gurdjieff, the Work and their reception. The volume combines scholarship with reflections by practitioners and...
Traditionalism 1
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2021
Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements
A multidisciplinary handbook on the histories, ideas and institutions of Islamic and related movements, including chapters on Sufism, René Guénon and Gurdjieff.
Modern witchcraft 1
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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 1
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2012
Contemporary Esotericism
An edited collection on Western esotericism since the 1950s, including studies of appeals to tradition, popular culture, new media and exchanges with other institutions.