Source books
Books
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192 books of 336 · showing 1–50 · oldest first
Egyptian religion and magic 2
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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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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...
Jewish scripture and tradition 7
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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.
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1170–1180
Mishneh Torah
Maimonides's Mishneh Torah gathers Jewish law and philosophy into fourteen books. In the opening book, Sefer HaMada, Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah gives a tenfold hierarchy of angels;...
Greek and Roman mysteries 3
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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 2
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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.
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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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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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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 6
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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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third century
On Abstinence from Animal Food
Connects vegetarianism with purification and the philosophical life.
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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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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.
Christian scripture and mysticism 3
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c. 500
The Celestial Hierarchy
Organises the angels into a systematic hierarchy.
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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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14th century
The Cloud of Unknowing
late 14th-century English mystical work
Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah 13
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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...
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appears c. 1176; incorporates older material
Sefer ha-Bahir
Fragmentary, deliberately obscure, and the earliest place the ten sefirot appear as divine potencies.
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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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Late 13th–early 14th century
Tikkunei Zohar
Seventy interpretations of the first word of Genesis, and the home of the Patach Eliyahu — the passage beginning 'Elijah opened' that maps the sefirot onto the parts of a body,...
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principally late thirteenth century; circulated from the 1280s
Zohar
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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1548, first printed 1592
Pardes Rimonim
Cordovero's systematisation of Zoharic Kabbalah into thirty-two gates, written before Luria's teaching reorganised the field. It is the most orderly pre-Lurianic presentation of...
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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...
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 2
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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...
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1555
Les Prophéties
literary work by Nostradamus
Alchemy 1
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1100
Turba Philosophorum
alchemical work
Grimoires and ritual magic 4
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13th century
Liber Juratus
medieval grimoire
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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.
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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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1577
Pseudomonarchia Daemonum
appendix to De praestigiis daemonum (1577) by Johannes Wier
Renaissance magic and Christian Cabala 3
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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 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...
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draft 1510; Book I printed 1531; complete 1533
Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Divides magic into elemental or natural, celestial or mathematical, and intellectual or ceremonial, and synthesises correspondences, astrology, number, Hebrew names, angels,...
Witchcraft and demonology 1
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1487
Malleus Maleficarum
treatise on the prosecution of witches