Esoteric Notebook
This site tries to gather the foundations of Western occultism, including the Tree of Life, tarot, ritual, and astrology, and presents each through the books and traditions that shaped it. Every correspondence is traced back to its source wherever possible, and where a correspondence's origins are uncertain, that uncertainty is noted rather than smoothed over. Our aim is a clear, citable reference that shows not only what the traditions say but how their pieces connect.
Systems
- Qabalah The Tree of Life, its paths, and the old correspondences gathered around it along with a brief history of K/C/Qabalah.
- Solomonic The seventy-two spirits of the Goetia, their seals, and some of the books that catalogue them.
- Planetary magic The seven classical planets (pre-Copernicus) in celestial timing, images and checked numerical squares.
- Enochian Dee and Kelley's angelic script, the figures they were given, and the words with a recorded meaning.
Arts
- Tarot An exploration of the seventy-eight cards across four decks, from Renaissance play to our modern divination.
- Astrology The signs, planets and houses of a natal chart, along with a chart generator.
- Alchemy The art of perfecting bodies — its principles, the colours of its work, its operations, and the argument over whether it was ever meant inwardly.
- Geomancy Divination comprised of sixteen figures of four lines each, and a shield in which eleven of the fifteen are not chance.
Practice
- Rituals The pentagram ritual and its companions, illustrating their words, gestures and names.
- Orders The initiatory bodies — who founded them, what came out of what, and how much of it can actually be shown.
- Tools Ritual implements and magical weapons, along with their uses and source-specific elemental assignments.
Reference
- Correspondences Planets, metals, plants, names and symbols, with the texts that bind them together and an interactive map to illustrate them.
- History The people, books, quarrels and revivals that shaped Western esotericism- all of this shown via an adjustable timeline.
- Source books A collection of the books that the tradition is written in, what role each played, and where each can be read free.
- Glossary A searchable guide to terms in occultism and some adjacent traditions.
- Symbols The signs of astrology, alchemy and geomancy, drawn from their Unicode characters and linked to what the study says about each.
- Alphabets The Hebrew letters as a script and as numbers, with where each stands on the Tree.
Things to do
The interactive parts
Most of this site is written down and meant to be read. These nine are not: you put something in and they answer, or they are diagrams you drive. Nothing any of them makes is stored — a reading, a cast and a chart are all links, which is the whole of what this site keeps.
It answers you
- Tarot reading Ask a question, choose a spread, and deal. The cards go out face down, one at a time, and you turn them.
- Geomantic cast Ask a question and cast four Mothers. Eleven of the fifteen figures that follow are arithmetic, not chance.
- Natal chart A date, a time and a place, and you get a chart — with the sidereal time and the house cusps shown.
- Gematria Type Hebrew and read it back as a number, letter by letter.
- Enochian script Type in English and watch it come back in Dee's alphabet, right to left, with the gaps named.
You drive it
- The Tree of Life Four arrangements, each one drawn and driveable — turn lenses on, walk a sequence, open any node's sources.
- Correspondence atlas A map of what corresponds to what. Move around it and follow any edge to the text it rests on.
- Chronology Two thousand years on one chart. Turn layers on, drag it sideways, and follow a life across it.
- The geomantic walk Step or play through a shield being built, one line of one figure at a time.
Method and provenance
How to read it
- Begin with an overview. It defines the subject, gives the history in brief, and says what this study deliberately leaves out.
- Open the thing you want to explore. Each sphere, card, book, ritual or symbol gets its own explanation before any tables or technical detail.
- Follow the source when a claim matters. The evidence shows who made what connections, where it appears, and what still remains unclear.
All the occult traditions evolve by copying, translating, extensive arguing, and changing old material. The source notes follow that trail as far back as the surviving (and searchable) record allows. The label beside each claim tells you what kind of support was found.
How the evidence is labelled
- Canonical
- Found in a primary text, with the passage quoted where possible.
- Traditional
- Well attested in the tradition, though shaped by later hands.
- Modern
- A later systematization or interpretation, identified with its author and date.
- Contested
- The surviving sources give more than one account.
- Disputed
- A source or attribution is directly challenged by another source.
- Unsourced
- Common in practice, but without a securely identified first source.
1,804 claims · 80 catalogued texts · 83 historical figures and corpora · 3 trees · 78 cards across 4 decks