Source books

Books

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277 books of 336 · showing 101–150 · oldest first

Astrology 2

  1. 1619

    Harmonices Mundi

    Johannes Kepler

    book by Johannes Kepler

    Primary source Landmark also Natural philosophy

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗

  2. 1647

    Christian Astrology

    William Lilly

    William Lilly’s large practical manual of horary and natal astrology, including concise accounts of the planets and twelve houses.

    Primary source Notable

    Read at archive.org ↗

Grimoires and ritual magic 4

  1. manuscripts mainly seventeenth century

    Lemegeton

    Five books under one attribution, beginning with the catalogue of seventy-two spirits that later came to overshadow the rest.

    Primary source Major

    Read at esotericarchives.com ↗ and 3 more editions

  2. 1668

    Le Petit Albert

    18th-century grimoire

    Primary source Notable

    Read at esotericarchives.com ↗

  3. probably eighteenth century in recognisable form

    Grimorium Verum

    Spirit hierarchies, seals and conjurations, framed as a Solomonic inheritance it does not have.

    Primary source Major

    Read at esotericarchives.com ↗

  4. eighteenth–nineteenth-century textual tradition

    The Grand Grimoire

    The pact with Lucifuge Rofocale, and the apparatus for compelling it.

    Primary source Notable

    Read at esotericarchives.com ↗

Renaissance magic and Christian Cabala 1

  1. volumes from 1617 into the 1620s

    History of the Two Worlds

    Robert Fludd

    An illustrated encyclopaedia in which the greater world and the human body mirror one another.

    Primary source Unmeasured also Rosicrucianism

    No free edition

Rosicrucianism 4

  1. 1614

    Fama Fraternitatis

    Tells the story of Christian Rosenkreutz and announces a hidden fraternity devoted to universal reform.

    Primary source Notable

    No free edition

  2. 1615

    Confessio Fraternitatis

    Expands the ideological programme and announces a coming transformation of religion, philosophy and science.

    Primary source Notable

    No free edition

  3. 1616

    The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz

    A bizarre, symbolically dense initiatory-alchemical romance involving a royal wedding, trials, death and regeneration.

    Primary source Major also Alchemy

    Read at gutenberg.org ↗

  4. 1670

    Comte de Gabalis

    Nicolas-Pierre-Henri de Montfaucon de Villars

    17th-century French occult text

    Primary source Notable

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗

Freemasonry 5

  1. 1723; revised 1738

    The Constitutions of the Free-Masons

    James Anderson

    Regulations, charges, and a legendary history of Masonry reaching back into remote antiquity.

    Primary source Major

    No free edition

  2. delivered in versions c. 1736–37

    Ramsay's Discourse

    Andrew Michael Ramsay

    Links Freemasonry imaginatively with chivalric and crusading traditions.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

  3. 1827

    Illustrations of Masonry

    William Morgan

    Primary source Unmeasured

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗

  4. 1866

    Primary source Unmeasured

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗

  5. 1872

    Morals and Dogma

    Albert Pike

    book by Albert Pike

    Primary source Notable

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗ and 1 more edition

Christian theosophy and Swedenborg 18

  1. written 1612; circulated in manuscript; first printed 1634, posthumous

    Aurora

    Jakob Böhme

    An unfinished visionary account of God, creation, nature and the emergence of opposites.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

  2. 1619

    The Three Principles of the Divine Essence

    Jakob Böhme

    Develops his dynamic conception of divine manifestation and nature.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

  3. 1621

    The Signature of All Things

    Jakob Böhme

    Perhaps his most directly esoteric book: visible nature contains signatures revealing invisible spiritual realities.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗

  4. 1749–1756

    Secrets of Heaven

    Emanuel Swedenborg

    A large spiritual interpretation of Genesis and Exodus built through his doctrine of correspondences.

    Primary source Notable

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗

  5. 1758

    Heaven and Hell

    Emanuel Swedenborg

    His best-known account of the afterlife: heaven and hell as states corresponding to inward loves rather than external rewards and punishments.

    Primary source Notable

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗ and 1 more edition

  6. 1763

    Divine Love and Wisdom

    Emanuel Swedenborg

    Systematic metaphysics of God, creation and spiritual reality.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗ and 1 more edition

  7. 1764

    Divine Providence

    Emanuel Swedenborg

    A study of divine governance and human freedom.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗ and 1 more edition

  8. 1766

    Apocalypse Revealed

    Emanuel Swedenborg

    A spiritual interpretation of Revelation.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗

  9. 1768

    Conjugial Love

    Emanuel Swedenborg

    Spiritual sexuality and the correspondence of marriage.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗ and 1 more edition

  10. 1771

    True Christian Religion

    Emanuel Swedenborg

    The great synthesis of his later theology.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗

  11. composed c. 1770–72; first complete printed edition 1899

    Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings

    Martinès de Pasqually

    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.

    Primary source Minor

    No free edition

  12. 1775

    Of Errors and Truth

    Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

    His first major work, published as 'The Unknown Philosopher'. Humanity is fallen from an original spiritual condition and capable of restoration.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

  13. 1782

    Tableau naturel

    Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

    Develops his account of humanity, nature and the divine order.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

  14. 1790

    The Man of Desire

    Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

    A devotional and mystical work expressing the soul's longing for reintegration.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

  15. 1792

    Ecce Homo

    Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

    A meditation on spiritual regeneration and the true human condition.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

  16. 1790s

    The New Man

    Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

    An account of inward rebirth.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

  17. 1800

    The Spirit of Things

    Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

    Attempts to read nature as a spiritual revelation.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

  18. 1802

    Ministry of the Man-Spirit

    Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin

    One of his mature statements concerning humanity's spiritual vocation.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

Mesmerism and Spiritualism 8

  1. 1766

    Dissertatio physico-medica de planetarum influxu

    Franz Anton Mesmer

    His medical dissertation on planetary influences and a universal physical fluid.

    Primary source Unmeasured also Astrology

    No free edition

  2. 1779

    Mémoire sur la découverte du magnétisme animal

    Franz Anton Mesmer

    The foundational statement of animal magnetism.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

  3. 1857

    The Spirits' Book

    Allan Kardec

    A structured series of questions and answers on God, spirits, reincarnation, morality and the afterlife.

    Primary source Major

    No free edition

  4. 1861

    The Mediums' Book

    Allan Kardec

    A practical and theoretical manual on mediumship, manifestations and methods of testing communications.

    Primary source Notable

    No free edition

  5. 1864

    The Gospel According to Spiritism

    Allan Kardec

    Interprets Christian teaching through reincarnation and Spiritist ethics.

    Primary source Notable

    No free edition

  6. 1865

    Heaven and Hell

    Allan Kardec

    Rejects eternal damnation in favour of progressive spiritual development.

    Primary source Notable

    No free edition

  7. 1868

    The Genesis

    Allan Kardec

    Attempts to reconcile cosmology, miracles and spiritual law with contemporary science.

    Primary source Notable

    No free edition

  8. 1874

    Eulis!

    Paschal Beverly Randolph

    An explicitly occult work developing his theories of love, sexuality, magic and spiritual transformation.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

Tarot 4

  1. nine volumes, 1773–1782; the Tarot essay in volume VIII, 1781

    Le Monde primitif

    Antoine Court de Gébelin

    Volume VIII contains the famous Tarot essay asserting an Egyptian origin and a 'Book of Thoth'.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

  2. installments 1783–1785

    Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées Tarots

    Etteilla

    The first systematic published instructions for divinatory Tarot. It assigns upright and reversed meanings and integrates astrology and elemental correspondences.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

  3. 1785

    Fragment sur les hautes sciences

    Etteilla

    Further develops his 'higher sciences'.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

  4. c. 1790

    Cours théorique et pratique du Livre de Thot

    Etteilla

    A late synthesis of his Tarot theories.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

French occultism 3

  1. two parts, 1854 and 1856

    Dogma and Ritual of High Magic

    Éliphas Lévi

    His masterpiece. Twenty-two chapters in each half implicitly parallel the Tarot trumps, building a theory and practice of ceremonial magic.

    Primary source Notable

    Read at archive.org ↗

  2. 1860

    History of Magic

    Éliphas Lévi

    An influential but highly mythologised history linking ancient mysteries, Kabbalah, magic and Christian esotericism.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    Read at gutenberg.org ↗ and 1 more edition

  3. 1861

    Key of the Great Mysteries

    Éliphas Lévi

    Develops his occult philosophy of correspondences and universal equilibrium.

    Primary source Unmeasured

    No free edition

Theosophy and its descendants 1

  1. 1877

    Isis Unveiled

    Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

    A sprawling attack on materialism and dogmatic Christianity, coupled with a defence of occult and ancient wisdom traditions.

    Primary source Major

    Read at sacred-texts.com ↗ and 2 more editions