History
The written record
Every book, corpus, manifesto, translation, deck, diary and treatise in the chronology, filed under the period of the person it belongs to. Find one by either of its titles or by any name of its author, or narrow the list to the works this study holds in its source catalogue.
A work has no page of its own — many share a title — so each one opens at its place in its author's account.
214 works across 19 periods
No work in the chronology matches that. Show every work
I Before named occultists 1500–900 BCE · 4
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assembled mainly 2nd–1st millennia BCE
Enūma Anu Enlil
A vast series of celestial omens correlating astronomical phenomena with earthly events. One major root of what eventually becomes judicial astrology.
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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.
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probably standardised in the 1st millennium BCE
Maqlû
A ritual series against witchcraft and hostile magic, with prayers, incantations and the ritual destruction of images of the alleged witch.
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1st millennium BCE
Šurpu
Purification incantations for misfortune whose precise supernatural cause is unknown.
II Ancient Egypt 2350–1550 BCE · 3
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c. 2400–2300 BCE
Pyramid Texts
Inscribed inside royal pyramids, among the oldest substantial religious texts known. Their utterances concern the dead king's transformation, protection, ascent and identification with the gods.
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c. 2100–1650 BCE
Coffin Texts
Extends formerly royal funerary privileges to a broader elite, elaborating the journeys, dangers and powers available after death.
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from c. 1550 BCE
Egyptian Book of the Dead
A changing collection of funerary spells rather than one fixed book. Individual papyri were assembled for the deceased and supplied the knowledge, incantations and instructions needed to pass through the afterlife.
III Greek mystery religion and Pythagoreanism 450 BCE · 2
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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 one larger work.
IV The Late Antique synthesis 175–900 · 22
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late second century CE
The Chaldean Oracles
Fragmentary theurgical revelation on the soul's ascent, the paternal intellect, and the rites by which the two are joined.
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mainly c. 100–300 CE
Corpus Hermeticum
Philosophical-religious dialogues on God, Mind, cosmos, humanity, rebirth and divine knowledge. Its central movement is inward and contemplative: humanity awakens to its divine origin through gnosis.
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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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written c. 253–270; arranged and published by Porphyry c. 301
Enneads
Plotinus wrote separate treatises rather than a book called The Enneads. Porphyry arranged fifty-four of them into six groups of nine.
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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
On Abstinence from Animal Food
Connects vegetarianism with purification and the philosophical life.
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c. 270–300
Isagoge
A work of logic whose medieval influence reached far beyond occultism.
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third century
Letter to Marcella
A spiritual and ethical exhortation to his wife.
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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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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 Mysteries
Written as a response to Porphyry and framed as by the Egyptian priest 'Abammon'. It argues for divination, sacrifice, sacred symbols and theurgy as legitimate means by which humans participate in the gods.
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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
Exhortation to Philosophy
A spiritual-philosophical exhortation incorporating older Pythagorean and Platonic material.
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fifth century
Elements of Theology
A rigorously organised series of propositions mapping emanation from, and return toward, the first principle.
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fifth century
Platonic Theology
A vast account of the hierarchy of divine realities found in Plato.
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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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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 Mystical Theology
A foundational text of apophatic mysticism: God is approached by stripping away concepts and affirmations.
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c. 500
The Celestial Hierarchy
Organises the angels into a systematic hierarchy.
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c. 500
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy
Connects earthly liturgy and hierarchy to their celestial counterparts.
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earliest secure forms medieval, probably Arabic
Emerald Tablet
A very short alchemical text that eventually produces the formula usually paraphrased as 'as above, so below'. Its legendary attribution to ancient Hermes is much older than the surviving evidence for the text itself.
V Medieval alchemy, Kabbalah and Islamic esotericism 400–1500 · 17
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probably 3rd–6th centuries CE
Sefer Yetzirah held
ספר יצירה
Ten sefirot, twenty-two letters, thirty-two paths. Its division of the letters into three Mothers, seven Doubles and twelve Simples is the structural rule every later tree is measured against.
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Arabic, probably second half of the tenth century
Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm
غاية الحكيم
A large handbook of astral magic, carried into Renaissance occultism through its Latin translation as the Picatrix.
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appears c. 1176; incorporates older material
Sefer ha-Bahir held
ספר הבהיר
Fragmentary, deliberately obscure, and the earliest place the ten sefirot appear as divine potencies.
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before 1186
Intimations
Talwīḥāt
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.
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composed and revised over decades
The Meccan Openings
al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya
A gigantic encyclopedic treatment of cosmology, spiritual practice, mystical states, prophecy, imagination and metaphysics.
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c. 1230
The Ringstones of Wisdom
Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam
A concentrated presentation of divine wisdom through a sequence of prophets.
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1273
Book of Redemption
Sefer ha-Geulah
An early prophetic work articulating his understanding of revelation.
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1280
Secrets of the Torah
Sitrei Torah
A commentary on Maimonidean philosophy interpreted through mystical methods.
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1280
Life of the World to Come
Ḥayyei ha-Olam ha-Ba
One of his clearest manuals of ecstatic technique involving letters and divine names.
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principally late thirteenth century; circulated from the 1280s
Zohar held
ספר הזוהר
A vast mystical commentary on the Torah concerned with the sefirot, divine masculine and feminine dimensions, cosmic symbolism, evil, souls and mystical interpretation.
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1285–86
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c. 1285–88
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1291
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written 1471; printed 1591
The Compound of Alchymy held
The work in twelve gates, from calcination to projection, in verse.
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manuscript tradition, medieval to early modern
Clavicula Salomonis
Consecrated tools, planetary hours, and the pentacles that give the tradition its visual signature.
VI Renaissance magic 1463–1650 · 29
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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.
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completed 1474; printed 1482
Platonic Theology
A massive defence of the immortality of the soul and a Christianised Platonic metaphysics.
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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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written 1486
Oration on the Dignity of Man
Originally conceived as an introduction to his proposed disputation.
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1487
Apology
His defence of the condemned theses.
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1489
Three Books on Life
De vita libri tres
The most overtly occult of his works: medicine, astrology, music, planetary influence, images, substances, and methods by which the learned can bring themselves into harmony with celestial forces.
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1489
Heptaplus
An elaborate sevenfold interpretation of the biblical creation narrative.
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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.
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written c. 1499; first printed 1606
Steganographia
It appears to teach the summoning of spirits for communication across distances, yet much of its opening can also be decoded as cryptographic instruction. The magic may conceal the cipher, or the cipher the magic.
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1518, posthumous
Polygraphia
A substantial cryptographic work presenting numerous systems of secret writing.
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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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1530
On the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Arts and Sciences
A sceptical or penitential critique of human knowledge, including the occult arts.
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c. 1531
Opus Paramirum
Develops his distinctive medical and alchemical understanding of disease.
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draft 1510; Book I printed 1531; complete 1533
Three Books of Occult Philosophy held
Divides magic into elemental or natural, celestial or mathematical, and intellectual or ceremonial, and synthesises correspondences, astrology, number, Hebrew names, angels, spirits, talismans and natural virtues.
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1558
Propaedeumata Aphoristica
Astrological and cosmological aphorisms exploring celestial influences.
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1564
Monas Hieroglyphica
His famous enigmatic synthesis of planetary, elemental, alchemical and mathematical symbols into a single glyph.
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1570
Mathematical Preface to Euclid
Not an occult manual, but part of Dee's belief that mathematics could open the order hidden in nature.
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1575
Arbatel of Magic
The seven Olympic spirits, their seals and their governance of historical periods, framed with unusual restraint.
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1582
On the Shadows of Ideas
De umbris idearum
A complex art-of-memory work in which combinatorial images become instruments for organising mind and reality.
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1582
Cantus Circaeus
Uses magical imagery and memory technique in a philosophically charged setting.
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principally 1580s; partially published 1659 by Meric Casaubon
Spiritual and angelic diaries
Records of the angelic sessions: voices, letter tables, a purported angelic language and the cosmology disclosed through them.
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c. 1590, manuscript
On Magic
De magia
Examines the different meanings of magic and develops his theory of bonds, sympathies and spirit.
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c. 1590
On Bonds in General
De vinculis in genere
A disturbing and brilliant analysis of the forces by which minds, desires and persons can be bound or influenced.
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first form 1595; expanded 1609, posthumous
Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom
Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae
One of the great emblematic books of Christian alchemy, in which the laboratory and the oratory are the same room.
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written 1612; circulated in manuscript; first printed 1634, posthumous
Aurora
An unfinished visionary account of God, creation, nature and the emergence of opposites.
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volumes from 1617 into the 1620s
History of the Two Worlds
Utriusque Cosmi Historia
An illustrated encyclopaedia in which the greater world and the human body mirror one another.
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1619
The Three Principles of the Divine Essence
Develops his dynamic conception of divine manifestation and nature.
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1621
The Signature of All Things
Perhaps his most directly esoteric book: visible nature contains signatures revealing invisible spiritual realities.
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manuscripts mainly seventeenth century
Lemegeton held
Lemegeton vel Clavicula Salomonis Regis
Five books under one attribution, beginning with the catalogue of seventy-two spirits that later came to overshadow the rest.
VII Rosicrucianism 1614–1616 · 3
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1614
Fama Fraternitatis
Tells the story of Christian Rosenkreutz and announces a hidden fraternity devoted to universal reform.
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1615
Confessio Fraternitatis
Expands the ideological programme and announces a coming transformation of religion, philosophy and science.
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1616
The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz
A bizarre, symbolically dense initiatory-alchemical romance involving a royal wedding, trials, death and regeneration.
VIII Freemasonry, Christian theosophy and Illuminism 1723–1802 · 21
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1723; revised 1738
The Constitutions of the Free-Masons
Regulations, charges, and a legendary history of Masonry reaching back into remote antiquity.
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delivered in versions c. 1736–37
Ramsay's Discourse
Links Freemasonry imaginatively with chivalric and crusading traditions.
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1749–1756
Secrets of Heaven
Arcana Coelestia
A large spiritual interpretation of Genesis and Exodus built through his doctrine of correspondences.
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1758
Heaven and Hell
His best-known account of the afterlife: heaven and hell as states corresponding to inward loves rather than external rewards and punishments.
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1763
Divine Love and Wisdom
Systematic metaphysics of God, creation and spiritual reality.
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1764
Divine Providence
A study of divine governance and human freedom.
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1766
Dissertatio physico-medica de planetarum influxu
His medical dissertation on planetary influences and a universal physical fluid.
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1766
Apocalypse Revealed
A spiritual interpretation of Revelation.
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1768
Conjugial Love
Spiritual sexuality and the correspondence of marriage.
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1771
True Christian Religion
The great synthesis of his later theology.
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composed c. 1770–72; first complete printed edition 1899
Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings
Traité de la réintégration des êtres
The theological foundation of his system. It was not conceived as a public occult handbook, and publication came more than a century after his death.
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probably eighteenth century in recognisable form
Grimorium Verum
Spirit hierarchies, seals and conjurations, framed as a Solomonic inheritance it does not have.
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1775
Of Errors and Truth
Des erreurs et de la vérité
His first major work, published as 'The Unknown Philosopher'. Humanity is fallen from an original spiritual condition and capable of restoration.
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1779
Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal
The foundational statement of animal magnetism.
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1782
Tableau naturel
Develops his account of humanity, nature and the divine order.
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1790
The Man of Desire
L'Homme de désir
A devotional and mystical work expressing the soul's longing for reintegration.
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1792
Ecce Homo
A meditation on spiritual regeneration and the true human condition.
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1790s
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eighteenth–nineteenth-century textual tradition
The Grand Grimoire
The pact with Lucifuge Rofocale, and the apparatus for compelling it.
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1800
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1802
Ministry of the Man-Spirit
Le Ministère de l'homme-esprit
One of his mature statements concerning humanity's spiritual vocation.
IX The birth of occult Tarot 1781–1790 · 5
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nine volumes, 1773–1782; the Tarot essay in volume VIII, 1781
Le Monde primitif
Volume VIII contains the famous Tarot essay asserting an Egyptian origin and a 'Book of Thoth'.
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installments 1783–1785
Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées Tarots
The first systematic published instructions for divinatory Tarot. It assigns upright and reversed meanings and integrates astrology and elemental correspondences.
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1785
Fragment sur les hautes sciences
Further develops his 'higher sciences'.
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1789
The Etteilla Tarot
Not a book but a specially constructed occult deck — the ancestor of every later purpose-designed esoteric Tarot.
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c. 1790
Cours théorique et pratique du Livre de Thot
A late synthesis of his Tarot theories.
X Spiritualism and the nineteenth-century revival 1850–1889 · 14
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1850
A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery held
The book that began the modern reading of alchemy as an inner discipline, withdrawn and burned by its author within months of publication.
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two parts, 1854 and 1856
Dogma and Ritual of High Magic
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie
His masterpiece. Twenty-two chapters in each half implicitly parallel the Tarot trumps, building a theory and practice of ceremonial magic.
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1857
The Spirits' Book
A structured series of questions and answers on God, spirits, reincarnation, morality and the afterlife.
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1860
History of Magic
Histoire de la magie
An influential but highly mythologised history linking ancient mysteries, Kabbalah, magic and Christian esotericism.
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1861
The Mediums' Book
A practical and theoretical manual on mediumship, manifestations and methods of testing communications.
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1861
Key of the Great Mysteries
La Clef des grands mystères
Develops his occult philosophy of correspondences and universal equilibrium.
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1864
The Gospel According to Spiritism
Interprets Christian teaching through reincarnation and Spiritist ethics.
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1865
Heaven and Hell
Rejects eternal damnation in favour of progressive spiritual development.
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1868
The Genesis
Attempts to reconcile cosmology, miracles and spiritual law with contemporary science.
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1874
Eulis!
An explicitly occult work developing his theories of love, sexuality, magic and spiritual transformation.
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1877
Isis Unveiled
A sprawling attack on materialism and dogmatic Christianity, coupled with a defence of occult and ancient wisdom traditions.
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1888
The Secret Doctrine
Her cosmological synthesis, presented as a reading of the Stanzas of Dzyan: cycles of evolution, root races, reincarnation and hidden spiritual hierarchies.
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1889
The Key to Theosophy
A much more accessible question-and-answer exposition of Theosophical teaching.
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1889
The Voice of the Silence
A devotional and mystical text presenting an ideal of spiritual compassion in strongly Buddhist-influenced vocabulary.
XI French occultism and Martinism 1886–1897 · 6
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1886
At the Threshold of the Mystery
Au Seuil du Mystère
An introduction to occult doctrine and symbolism.
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1887
L'Occultisme contemporain
A survey of the contemporary occult revival.
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1888
Traité élémentaire de science occulte
A hugely influential introductory manual presenting occultism as an organised science.
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1889
The Tarot of the Bohemians
Le Tarot des Bohémiens
Integrates Tarot with Kabbalah, numerology and esoteric cosmology.
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1891
Le Serpent de la Genèse I: Le Temple de Satan
The first instalment of an ambitious exploration of evil, magic and occult philosophy.
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1897
Le Serpent de la Genèse II: La Clef de la Magie Noire
A dense study of astral forces and what he understood as black magic.
XII The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn 1887–1929 · 10
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English translation, 1887
Sepher Yetzirah held
Helped make a foundational Kabbalistic text available to English-speaking occultists.
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1887
The Kabbalah Unveiled held
Translation of portions of Knorr von Rosenroth's Latin Kabbala Denudata, making Zoharic material accessible in English.
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1889
The Key of Solomon the King
An influential English edition of the Solomonic grimoire tradition.
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1890
Numbers: Their Occult Power and Mystic Virtues
A concise presentation of occult numerology.
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1893 onward
Collectanea Hermetica
A series he edited, making Hermetic, alchemical and Kabbalistic material available to students.
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1898; later substantially revised
The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts
A historical and critical survey of the grimoires rather than an instruction manual.
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1898
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage
Introduced English occultists to the Abramelin system: prolonged purification, communion with the Holy Guardian Angel, and subsequent command of spirits.
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1909
The Rider–Waite–Smith Tarot
Images designed by Pamela Colman Smith under Waite's direction. Probably the most influential Tarot design in modern history.
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1910
The Pictorial Key to the Tarot held
The textual companion to the deck illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith.
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1929
The Holy Kabbalah
A massive if idiosyncratic history and interpretation of Kabbalah from a mystical-Christian perspective.
XIII Theosophy's descendants 1896–1927 · 12
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1896
The Astral Plane
A systematic map of the supposed astral world.
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1896
The Devachanic Plane
Describes a higher postmortem mental world.
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1897
The Ancient Wisdom
A systematic introduction to Theosophical cosmology.
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1899
Clairvoyance
Attempts to categorise different kinds of extrasensory perception.
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1902
Man Visible and Invisible
Describes subtle bodies and aura colours.
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1904
Theosophy
Introduces his account of the human spiritual constitution and postmortem development.
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serialised from 1904; later in book form
How to Know Higher Worlds
A practical programme of inner discipline and spiritual perception.
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1905, with C. W. Leadbeater
Thought-Forms
Claims to show the shapes and colours of thoughts and emotions as seen clairvoyantly, illustrated in vivid plates.
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1908, with Besant
Occult Chemistry
Claims clairvoyant observation of atomic structures.
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1910
Occult Science: An Outline
His major esoteric cosmology, describing cosmic evolution, reincarnation and spiritual beings.
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1925
The Masters and the Path
On the Masters and the stages of the spiritual path.
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1927
The Chakras
An enormously influential Western reinterpretation of the Indian chakra system.
XIV Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way 1912–1975 · 6
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1912
Tertium Organum
Higher dimensions, consciousness and the grounds of mystical knowledge.
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1931
A New Model of the Universe
Connects cosmology, recurrence, psychology and esoteric traditions.
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1949, posthumous
In Search of the Miraculous
Probably the clearest systematic account of Gurdjieff's early teaching.
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1950, posthumous
Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson
A vast and deliberately difficult allegorical cosmology meant to interrupt habitual thought.
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1963, posthumous
Meetings with Remarkable Men
Semi-autobiographical narratives of his search for wisdom.
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posthumous, 1970s
Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am'
An unfinished third series concerned more directly with inner work.
XV Thelema 1904–1944 · 5
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received 8–10 April 1904; first printed 1909
The Book of the Law
Liber AL vel Legis
The short scripture of Thelema, centred on the maxim 'Do what thou wilt'. Crowley said the text was dictated by a non-human intelligence called Aiwass.
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1909
Liber 777 held
Tables aligning Qabalistic, astrological, elemental, mythological and magical systems. This is one of the principal mechanisms by which Golden Dawn correspondences became portable.
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issued intermittently from 1909
The Equinox
A serial publication carrying Crowley's essays, rituals, received texts, fiction, poetry and instructions for the A∴A∴.
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parts published 1912–1936
Book 4
His principal instructional work on yoga, ceremonial equipment, magical theory and the method he called magick.
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1944
The Book of Thoth held
Crowley's account of the Tarot system embodied in the deck painted by Frieda Harris.
XVI Independent twentieth-century magic 1905–1950 · 29
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1905
Earth Inferno
An early artist's book combining drawings, aphorisms and a private cosmology.
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1913
The Book of Pleasure
Spare's central statement on desire, the subconscious, sigils and the state he called neither-neither.
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1914; English 1917
Problems of Mysticism and its Symbolism held
A psychoanalytic reading of an alchemical parable, later retitled Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts.
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1921
Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines
Establishes his distinction between traditional metaphysics and modern Western philosophy.
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1921
Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion
A hostile critique of Blavatskian Theosophy.
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1921
The Focus of Life
An illustrated continuation of his magical and psychological system.
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1922
Initiation, Human and Solar
Describes a hierarchy of Masters and the stages of spiritual initiation.
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1922
Letters on Occult Meditation
Meditation taught as part of occult initiation.
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1923
The Spiritist Fallacy
Critiques Spiritualism and mediumistic explanations of the dead.
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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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1925
A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
Her gigantic metaphysical cosmology of energies, rays, planes and cosmic evolution.
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1925
The Esoterism of Dante
Interprets Dante through initiatory and symbolic traditions.
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1927
The King of the World
Traditions of a hidden supreme spiritual centre.
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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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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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1931
The Symbolism of the Cross
Uses the cross as a metaphysical symbol of multiple states of being.
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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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1932
The Multiple States of Being
One of his most rigorous metaphysical works.
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1934
A Treatise on White Magic
A practical and theoretical account of spiritual development and magical service.
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1935
The Mystical Qabalah held
A readable synthesis of the Golden Dawn Tree of Life, Christian mysticism and Fortune's own psychological interpretation.
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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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four volumes, 1937–1940
The Golden Dawn
Rituals, knowledge lectures and practical instructions from the Stella Matutina, published in defiance of initiatory secrecy.
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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.
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1945
The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times
His great critique of modern materialism and the reduction of quality to quantity.
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received/written February–March 1946
Liber 49
The Book of Babalon
Parsons regarded it as a divinely received continuation or complement to Crowley's Book of the Law.
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1948
The Reappearance of the Christ
Anticipates a renewed manifestation of a universal spiritual teacher.
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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.
XVII Modern witchcraft 1921–1989 · 9
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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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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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1954
Witchcraft Today
Gardner's first public nonfiction account of the religion he called the witch cult.
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1959
The Meaning of Witchcraft
A broader defence and historical interpretation of modern witchcraft.
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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.
XVIII Late-modern revisions 1969–2010 · 16
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1969
The Satanic Bible
The foundational statement of LaVeyan Satanism, combining polemic, ritual and an individualist ethic.
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1972
The Magical Revival
The first of the Typhonian Trilogies, rereading Crowley and modern occultism through Tantra, dream and hidden correspondences.
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1972
The Satanic Rituals
A collection of group rites drawing freely on literary and historical sources.
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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
Liber Null
A stripped-down magical curriculum emphasising altered states or 'gnosis', sigils, belief manipulation and practical experimentation.
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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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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 metaphysically true.
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2008
The Apophenion
Continues his later speculative system.
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2010
The Octavo
Further development of the same speculative cosmology.
No securely known author 1597 · 1
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printed 1597
The Mirror of Alchemy held
A short English treatise, printed under Roger Bacon's name, that defines alchemy, derives every metal from quicksilver and sulphur, and names the colours of the work.