Source books
Books
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206 books of 336 · showing 1–50 · oldest first
Mesopotamian divination and magic 1
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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.
Greek and Roman mysteries 3
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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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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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After 1248; probably completed 1261–1262
De mineralibus
Albertus Magnus studies stones, metals and intermediate substances through Aristotelian natural philosophy while recording alchemical and astrological theories current in the...
Hermetism 2
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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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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.
Neoplatonism 8
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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
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 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
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 3
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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 13
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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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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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1273
Book of Redemption
An early prophetic work articulating his understanding of revelation.
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1280
Life of the World to Come
One of his clearest manuals of ecstatic technique involving letters and divine names.
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1280
Secrets of the Torah
A commentary on Maimonidean philosophy interpreted through mystical methods.
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c. 1290
Sha'arei Orah
The most systematic medieval account of the divine names and their sefiroth. Its ten gates climb from Adonai in Malchut to Ehyeh in Keter, and each opens with a verse containing...
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1285–86
Treasury of the Hidden Eden
An extensive synthesis of his prophetic Kabbalah.
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c. 1285–88
Book of the Sign
A highly visionary prophetic work.
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1291
Words of Beauty
Among the latest datable products of his career.
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Late 16th century; the Arizal's teaching as recorded by Vital
Pri Etz Chaim
The Lurianic manual of practice — the intentions to be held during prayer and the festivals, arranged as gates. Gate 22, the Gate of the Omer Count, is the source of the scheme...
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Early 17th century; printed Peremyshl 1896–1898
Ohr HaChammah
A commentary on the Zohar assembling the readings of the Safed kabbalists. It is cited here for one thing it does that its sources do not: it states the mapping of the seven...
Islamic esotericism 3
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before 1186
Intimations
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.
Astrology 1
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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.
Alchemy 4
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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. 1529–30
Paragranum
Sets out the foundations of medicine: philosophy, astronomy and astrology, alchemy, and virtue.
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c. 1531
Opus Paramirum
Develops his distinctive medical and alchemical understanding of disease.
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first form 1595; expanded 1609, posthumous
Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom
One of the great emblematic books of Christian alchemy, in which the laboratory and the oratory are the same room.
Renaissance magic and Christian Cabala 11
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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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1487
Apology
His defence of the condemned theses.
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1489
Heptaplus
An elaborate sevenfold interpretation of the biblical creation narrative.
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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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1558
Propaedeumata Aphoristica
Astrological and cosmological aphorisms exploring celestial influences.
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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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1582
Cantus Circaeus
Uses magical imagery and memory technique in a philosophically charged setting.
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1582
On the Shadows of Ideas
A complex art-of-memory work in which combinatorial images become instruments for organising mind and reality.
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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
On Bonds in General
A disturbing and brilliant analysis of the forces by which minds, desires and persons can be bound or influenced.
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c. 1590, manuscript
On Magic
Examines the different meanings of magic and develops his theory of bonds, sympathies and spirit.