Source books
Books
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All 336 books · showing 1–50 · oldest first
Egyptian religion and magic 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...
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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...
Mesopotamian divination and magic 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.
Jewish scripture and tradition 6
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c. 1200–165 BCE (composition); canon fixed by c. 100 CE
Tanakh
The Hebrew Bible in its Jewish arrangement of Torah, Nevi'im and Ketuvim. Kabbalists read its Hebrew closely: a root, a vowel or a divine name may open the verse toward a...
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3rd century BCE–1st century CE
1 Enoch
First Enoch is an ancient Jewish apocalyptic collection that names Michael, Gabriel and Raphael among a group of holy angels. The work assigns them distinct responsibilities,...
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Probably 3rd–2nd century BCE
Book of Tobit
The Book of Tobit is an ancient Jewish narrative in which Raphael travels in disguise, guides Tobias, heals Tobit and delivers Sarah. Near the story's conclusion Raphael...
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Final form c. 167–164 BCE
Book of Daniel
The Book of Daniel is the earliest canonical biblical source to name Gabriel and Michael. Gabriel appears as an interpreter of visions, while Michael is described as one of the...
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Compiled c. 3rd–6th centuries CE
Babylonian Talmud
The Babylonian Talmud is a multi-generational rabbinic corpus of legal discussion, interpretation and narrative. Particular passages preserve early discussions of Metatron and...
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c. 8th–9th century
Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer
A narrative midrash retelling Genesis and Exodus, with an account of creation and of the angels about the divine throne.
Greek and Roman mysteries 5
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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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2nd century
The Golden Ass
Ancient Roman novel by Apuleius
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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.
Natural philosophy 1
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c. 350 BCE
On Generation and Corruption
Aristotle explains change among the four simple bodies through the contrary qualities hot and cold, dry and moist.
Hermetism 3
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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...
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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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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...
Neoplatonism 14
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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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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. 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...
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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
Elements of Theology
A rigorously organised series of propositions mapping emanation from, and return toward, the first principle.
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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 4
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c. 500
The Celestial Hierarchy
Organises the angels into a systematic hierarchy.
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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 7
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Late antiquity; the tradition is attested by the 2nd century, the surviving texts are later (contested)
Shi'ur Qomah
An enumeration of the measurements of the divine body, given in figures so vast they defeat comprehension, which is generally taken to be the point of them.
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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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Final redaction 5th–6th century CE; Byzantine or Babylonian provenance contested
3 Enoch
Third Enoch is a central source for the tradition in which Enoch is elevated and transformed into Metatron. It develops Metatron's heavenly offices and titles, including Prince...
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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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probably 3rd–6th centuries CE
Sefer Yetzirah
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...
Islamic esotericism 1
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Arabic, probably second half of the tenth century
Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm
A large handbook of astral magic, carried into Renaissance occultism through its Latin translation as the Picatrix.
Astrology 1
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second century CE
Tetrabiblos
The most influential astrological text ever written, and the reason Western astrology has the shape it has. It sets out the signs, their elements and modalities, the houses of...
Alchemy 1
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c. 300
Cheirokmeta
Surviving in portions only. It combines practical chemical procedures with visionary, mythic and spiritual interpretations of transformation.