The Grimoire Shelf

Seventeen short Greek dialogues on God as Mind, the soul's descent and ascent, and knowledge as salvation. The opening 'Poimandres' is a visionary account of creation.

Read it for · The philosophical root of Western esotericism. Start with Book I (Poimandres) and Book XIII.

G.R.S. Mead's 1906 translation (Thrice-Greatest Hermes) is a readable public-domain version.

A Neoplatonist's defence of theurgy: why ritual, symbols and sacred names are needed to unite the soul with the gods.

Read it for · The philosophy behind ritual magic. Dense — read slowly, a section at a time.

The encyclopaedia of Renaissance magic: natural magic (Book I), celestial magic and number (Book II), ceremonial and divine magic (Book III). Source of the planetary squares and countless correspondences.

Read it for · Reference. Dip into Book I on sympathies and Book II on the planets and magic squares.

Seven 'Hermetic Principles' — mentalism, correspondence, vibration, polarity, rhythm, cause and effect, gender — presented as a practical philosophy.

Read it for · A short, clear framework for magical thinking. A modern work, not an ancient one.

The founding texts of Neoplatonism: the One, Mind and Soul, the soul's descent into the body and its return by contemplation. Treatise IV.4 explains magic as sympathy within a living cosmos.

Read it for · The philosophy beneath Renaissance magic. Start with I.6 'On Beauty' and IV.4 on sympathy and magic.

MacKenna's translation is public domain in the UK.

Fragments of a lost oracular poem prized by the later Platonists, describing the Father, the fiery intellect and the ascent of the soul through theurgy.

Read it for · Short, cryptic verses at the root of theurgy. Westcott's edition is the Golden Dawn's own.

The 'Book of Formation': creation through the ten sephiroth and the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet — mothers, doubles and simples. The seed of the Tree of Life.

Read it for · The letter attributions behind the Tree's paths and the tarot trumps. Very short.

Mathers' translation of three books of the Zohar from Knorr von Rosenroth's Latin, with a long introduction that shaped Golden Dawn Qabalah.

Read it for · The introduction, for how the Victorian occultists understood Qabalah.

A physician-philosopher's guide to health for scholars. Book III, 'On obtaining life from the heavens', teaches drawing planetary influence through music, images, scents and colours.

Read it for · The birth of Renaissance astral magic. Book III.

Complete English translations are modern and in copyright; the Latin is public domain.

The cobbler-mystic of Görlitz on how every thing bears the outward 'signature' of its inner nature — a key text for the doctrine of signatures and correspondence.

Read it for · Thinking in correspondences, from a visionary rather than a scholar.

Two volumes of treatises by the rebel physician who made alchemy serve medicine: the tria prima of salt, sulphur and mercury, elemental spirits, and the archidoxes.

Read it for · Alchemy as medicine and nature-philosophy. Dip in rather than read straight through.

An anthology of classic alchemical tracts, including The Sophic Hydrolith and The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine, with their emblems.

Read it for · Reading real alchemical texts and their imagery side by side.

Fifty alchemical emblems, each with an epigram, a discourse and a three-part musical fugue — an alchemical book you can look at and sing.

Read it for · The images. They are among the most beautiful in alchemy.

In Latin; the engravings are public domain and widely reproduced.

The spells that guided the dead through the underworld, from the beautifully illustrated Papyrus of Ani — including the weighing of the heart.

Read it for · Ancient Egyptian heka in action.

Budge's translations are public domain but dated; read a modern introduction alongside.

A Victorian collector's study of Gnostic belief through its engraved gems, with many drawings of Abraxas, Chnoubis and other magical stones.

Read it for · The plates of magical gems. The theories are dated; the images are invaluable.

An English master of contemplation teaches a younger disciple to reach towards God beyond all thought, with a single short word.

Read it for · The finest Western guide to receptive, wordless prayer.

A four-week retreat of prayer and imaginative contemplation, entering scenes with all five senses.

Read it for · The method behind guided visualisation and pathworking.

A royal apothecary's textbook of chemical pharmacy in the Paracelsian tradition, with methods for plant tinctures, salts and essences.

Read it for · How spagyric preparations were actually made in the 17th century.

A sweeping survey of Jewish and Christian Kabbalah, from the Zohar and Sefer Yetzirah to the Christian Cabala of the Renaissance, with the Tree of Life and its correspondences.

Read it for · A clear, opinionated overview of the whole Qabalistic tradition, written by a Golden Dawn member.

Waite died in 1942, so the book is public domain in the UK. Some of his conclusions are dated.

Dee's short, dense treatise on a single glyph that combines the signs of the planets and elements into one symbol, read as a map of the cosmos and of the soul.

Read it for · The origin of the magician's love of compound symbols, and of Dee's mathematical mysticism.

Written in Latin. The seventeenth-century English commentaries are also out of copyright.

Fludd's great illustrated work on the two worlds, the greater and the lesser, with engravings of the mystic cosmos, the sephiroth and the anatomy of the soul.

Read it for · The most beautiful picture-book of Renaissance cosmology, and the link between medicine and magic.

The plates are the main attraction. Facsimiles of the engravings are widely available.

A richly engraved Hermetic and alchemical work, showing the Temple of Eternal Wisdom and the laboratory of the true philosopher, with the stages of the Great Work.

Read it for · The images of alchemical and Christian Hermetic mysticism, in one of the most striking books of its age.

Written in Latin and German. Facsimile plates are widely available.

The shoemaker-mystic's first book: a vision of God's self-revelation through nature, the struggle of light and dark, and the soul's rebirth.

Read it for · Mystical theosophy, and the source of much later Western esoteric thought about nature and the divine.

The Renaissance manifesto of human freedom and dignity, which draws on Hermetic, Kabbalistic and Platonic sources and sets out why the magus can reach toward the divine.

Read it for · The intellectual climate that made Renaissance magic respectable, in a short and beautiful text.

Pico died in 1494. Choose a public-domain English translation and check its edition.

Porphyry's Neoplatonic writings, including On the Cave of the Nymphs, a reading of Homer's cave as a picture of the soul's descent into matter.

Read it for · The Neoplatonic background to symbolic reading, which magicians later adopted.

A scholarly overview of Kabbalistic literature and doctrine, with notes on the Zohar, the Sefer Yetzirah and the Christian Kabbalah.

Read it for · A readable companion to the Kabbalah lessons, covering its sources and history.

Waite died in 1942, so the book is public domain in the UK.

An anthology of English alchemical treatises and verse, including the works of George Ripley and Thomas Norton, edited by the founder of the Ashmolean Museum.

Read it for · The English alchemical tradition in verse and prose, in one edition.

Ashmole died in 1692. Scans of the 1652 edition are public domain.

A witty dialogue in which a mysterious count reveals the secret of the elemental peoples — sylphs, gnomes, undines and salamanders — and how sages may wed them. Probably satire, but it spread Paracelsus' elementals across Europe.

Read it for · The elementals as the 17th and 18th centuries imagined them, and the source of Pope's sylphs.

The great manual of astral magic: making talismans at the right astrological moment, planetary prayers and the theory of drawing celestial spirit into images.

Read it for · Planetary and talismanic magic at its source.

Complete English translations are modern and in copyright; scans of the Latin and Arabic texts are public domain.

A compact handbook of planetary-angel magic for each day of the week, with the angels, seals, circle and prayers for each.

Read it for · The planetary angels and a complete, short ritual structure.

Turner's 1655 volume, Henry Cornelius Agrippa His Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, also includes geomancy and the Arbatel.

A pious, aphoristic grimoire teaching magic as a gift to be used for others, and the seven Olympic spirits who govern the universe.

Read it for · The ethics of magic, and the Olympic spirits.

Preparation, purification, tools, the magic circle and 44 planetary pentacles — the model for the classic ceremonial grimoire.

Read it for · How a traditional operation is prepared, and the pentacles.

The 72 spirits with their seals, ranks and offices, plus the circle, triangle and conjurations.

Read it for · Historical study of demonology and evocation. Not a beginner's practical text.

A single great operation of prayer and seclusion to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, followed by magic squares for many purposes.

Read it for · The idea of the Holy Guardian Angel and a model of sustained devotional practice.

A practical sequel to Agrippa's Three Books, which his pupil Weyer called a forgery. Turner's English edition bundles it with the Heptameron, the Arbatel and treatises on geomancy.

Read it for · Making spirit seals from names, and the 17th-century English magician's working library.

A handsome English compendium of natural magic, talismans, Qabalah and ceremonial magic, compiled largely from Agrippa and the Fourth Book, with coloured plates of demon heads.

Read it for · How the old magic reached English readers before the Victorian revival.

A critical survey of the grimoires — the Grimorium Verum, Grand Grimoire, Red Dragon, Black Pullet and more — with long extracts. Waite disapproves, but documents everything.

Read it for · Reading the 'black' grimoires in one place, with a sceptical guide.

Seals and conjurations claimed to be Moses' secret books. Cheap American printings made it a staple of Pennsylvania Dutch powwow, hoodoo and Caribbean folk magic.

Read it for · How a German grimoire became folk magic across the Americas.

Twenty books of 'natural magic' — the hidden powers of nature — covering plants, perfumes, magnets, optics, cookery and tricks. The first edition printed recipes for witches' flying ointments.

Read it for · How the Renaissance blurred magic and experimental science.

Waite's anthology of grimoire material, from the Goetia and the Clavicles to Faust and the pacts with spirits, presented with commentary.

Read it for · A readable tour of grimoire literature and its darker side, with context for each text.

Waite died in 1942, so the book is public domain in the UK.

A medieval Latin grimoire of ritual prayers, angel-invocations and the consecration of the magician's tools, bound by an oath to keep its secrets, and an ancestor of the Key of Solomon.

Read it for · The medieval root of the ceremonial grimoires, read beside the Key of Solomon and the Ars Notoria tradition.

Attributions to Honorius are legendary. Use the Latin text or a public-domain edition, and check the translation you choose.

A seventeenth-century English defence of magic as an ancient and natural art, going back to Adam, with discussions of the sympathies, the spirits and the lore of the Egyptians and Chaldeans.

Read it for · How an English writer of the 1650s justified magic, and which authorities he called on.

A seventeenth-century text, long out of copyright. Read it critically: many of its authorities are doubtful.

A Pennsylvania German collection of charms, prayers, cures and folk remedies, used for healing, protection, the finding of lost things and the control of animals.

Read it for · The folk grimoire of the American countryside: how charms and remedies were actually written down and passed on.

Read the German or a public-domain English edition, and treat its medical advice with caution. Ask a doctor about any health claim.

A medieval compilation of 'secrets' of nature: the virtues of stones, herbs and animals, household recipes, and the marvels of sympathetic magic, attributed to the great scholastic philosopher.

Read it for · The natural-magic side of the grimoires, the source of many herb and stone virtues repeated later.

The attribution to Albertus is doubtful. Many editions are old and out of copyright; check each one.

The Ars Notoria, a medieval method of prayers, notae (mystical drawings) and repeated invocations said to give swift learning of the liberal arts and sciences, here in Robert Turner's seventeenth-century English translation.

Read it for · The study-magic of the grimoires: how memory and learning were pursued through ritual, and the notae that make the text distinctive.

Turner's 1657 translation is public domain, but it omits the notae drawings, which are the heart of the art. Joseph Peterson's online edition and Matthias Castle's 2023 translation are in copyright, so do not use them as a public-domain source.

The first English edition of spells from the Greek magical papyri in the British Museum, including the rite of the Headless One that became the Golden Dawn's Bornless Ritual.

Read it for · The Headless Rite in its earliest English form, to compare with the Golden Dawn and Crowley versions.

A working magician's handbook in late Egyptian: lamp and bowl divination with a boy medium, dream oracles, love charms and remedies.

Read it for · The lamp-divination rites — the fullest ancient account of lychnomancy.

Jewish visionary writings. The opening Book of the Watchers tells how two hundred angels fell, taught humanity forbidden arts and fathered the giants whose spirits became demons.

Read it for · Chapters 6–16, the root of Western ideas about fallen angels. Enoch's heavenly journeys follow.

Charles' 1912 translation and Richard Laurence's of 1821 are both public domain.

The short treatise that arranged the angels into nine choirs in three triads, passing divine light down the ladder of being.

Read it for · The source of the nine choirs, and a mystical theology of purification, illumination and union.

Parker's translation appears in his Works of Dionysius the Areopagite (1897–99).

Solomon receives a ring from the archangel Michael and makes demon after demon confess its name, its work and the angel that defeats it, while they labour on the Temple.

Read it for · The ancestor of every grimoire's spirit list. Short and strange.

Conybeare's translation was published in the Jewish Quarterly Review (1898).

A catalogue of 69 demons with their ranks, legions and powers, printed by a physician to expose the magicians — and soon the main source of the Goetia.

Read it for · Comparing with the Goetia's 72. Read it in Scot's English translation.

The epic of the war in heaven, the fall of Satan and his angels, and the fall of humanity. Its Satan shaped every later picture of Lucifer.

Read it for · Books I and II, the fallen angels in hell, are the place to start.

An alphabetical encyclopaedia of demons, spirits and superstitions. Louis Le Breton's engravings for the 1863 edition created the popular images of Baal, Asmodeus and the rest.

Read it for · The pictures, even if you don't read French.

In French. The 1863 engravings are public domain and widely reproduced.

A Jewish retelling of Genesis and Exodus with an account of the fallen Watchers and the demons that followed them, central to later ideas about the origin of evil spirits.

Read it for · The early source of the fallen-angel stories that the grimoires and Enoch tradition later developed.

Charles died in 1936, so his translation is public domain in the UK.

Dante's journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, guided by Virgil and Beatrice, with the demons of the lower pit, the angelic orders of the heavens and the vision of God at the end.

Read it for · The most influential Western picture of demons, angels and the afterlife, and a readable introduction to the medieval cosmos.

Cary's translation is public domain. Dante died in 1321.

Swedenborg's report of years of conversation with angels and spirits, describing the heavens, the hells and the states of the soul after death, arranged by subject.

Read it for · The eighteenth-century source of many modern ideas about the afterlife, angels and spirit-contact.

Swedenborg died in 1772, so the English translation is public domain.

Blake's prose-poem of 'Proverbs of Hell', 'Memorable Fancies' and a visionary dialogue with an angel, which turns conventional ideas of good and evil upside down.

Read it for · A poetic challenge to the ideas of angels and devils, and a mirror of the visionary tradition.

Blake died in 1827. Facsimiles of his illuminated pages are public domain.

A Jacobean account of the nine orders of angels and their work, drawn from Dionysius and the Bible, with stories of angels helping humanity.

Read it for · How an English writer of the 1600s explained the angelic orders, for a general reader.

Heywood died around 1641. Scans of the 1635 edition are public domain.

A Renaissance treatise on secret writing that also lists angelic intelligences and the hours and names used to call them, for which it was later notorious.

Read it for · The origin of many angel-calling tables later used in the grimoires, with the cipher ideas attached.

Trithemius died in 1516. The occult sections are the part most read today.

Mather's account of the Salem witch trials, presenting the accused as agents of Satan and describing the spiritual warfare he saw in the afflictions of the community.

Read it for · A primary source on demonic belief in colonial New England, and the discernment that the trials lacked.

Mather died in 1728. Read it critically: it is an argument for the trials, not a neutral record.

The Slavonic 'Second Enoch', describing Enoch's journey through the ten heavens, the angels who guard them and the fallen angels who were cast out.

Read it for · A companion to 1 Enoch, with a detailed map of the heavens and their angelic guardians.

Charles died in 1936, so the translation is public domain in the UK.

A Jewish-Christian vision in which Isaiah is shown the seven heavens, the angelic praise of God and Satan's rule over the lower air.

Read it for · An early account of the angelic hierarchy and of Satan's power in the heavens.

Charles's translation is public domain in the UK.

Dee's own records of his angelic sessions with Edward Kelley and others — the source for much of the Enochian system.

Read it for · A model of meticulous record-keeping, and a strange, gripping human story.

Waite's guide to the Rider–Waite–Smith deck: the meaning of every card and the Celtic Cross spread.

Read it for · The meanings behind the most widely used tarot deck.

The great textbook of ancient astrology: the natures of the planets and signs, aspects, dignities and how to read a nativity.

Read it for · Where traditional astrology's rules come from. Book I covers the essentials.

The first great astrology textbook in English, by the most famous astrologer of the Civil War. Its heart is horary: answering a question from a chart cast for the moment it is asked.

Read it for · Horary astrology and the planets' significations. Book I teaches the basics.

The ancient world's dream manual, built from thousands of dreams the author collected, with the insight that a symbol's meaning depends on the dreamer's life.

Read it for · Dream interpretation before Freud. Book I lays out the method.

The French occultist's synthesis of tarot, Qabalah, number and the divine name YHVH — the book that made the tarot a key to the whole occult system.

Read it for · The French occult tarot that the Golden Dawn built on and argued with.

A level-headed Edwardian study of scrying in crystals, mirrors and water — its history, methods and psychology.

Read it for · Practical scrying advice alongside the history. Short.

A lifetime's dream journals and experiments in becoming aware within dreams and steering them — the founding book of lucid dreaming.

Read it for · Practical observations still useful today.

The French original is free online; the English translation (1982) is in copyright.

A great medieval scientist's question-and-answer textbook of astronomy and astrology: planets, signs, houses, lots and their meanings.

Read it for · A clear, systematic reference to the traditional significations.

The medieval Irish grammar that explains the Ogham letters, their names and the many variant oghams.

Read it for · The primary source for the Ogham tree-names.

Cicero's dialogue weighing the claims of dream-interpretation, augury and oracles, with a sceptic's arguments against them.

Read it for · A Roman argument about divination from a sceptic's point of view, useful for thinking clearly about any method.

Check which translation you use; several older English versions are public domain.

Waite's companion to the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, explaining the symbolism of each card and the Major Arcana as a spiritual journey.

Read it for · The standard early guide to reading the Rider-Waite-Smith cards.

Waite died in 1942, so the book is public domain in the UK.

The best-known palmistry book of its age, by the society palmist who read for the famous: the hand's shape, the mounts of the planets and the lines, with many drawings.

Read it for · Classic palmistry in full, and a window on the Victorian fashion for it.

The great Renaissance book of mining and metallurgy, with its famous woodcut of miners dowsing for ore with forked twigs — and Agricola's own doubts about the rod.

Read it for · Book II, on dowsing: the earliest detailed account, from a sceptical expert.

The Hoovers' translation was made by the future US President and his wife.

A sceptic's attack on the witch trials that, ironically, preserved many charms and conjurations by quoting them in order to debunk them.

Read it for · Elizabethan folk magic and a humane voice against persecution.

Hundreds of English plants with their descriptions, ruling planets and uses — the classic source for planetary herb lore.

Read it for · Planetary herb correspondences. Not a guide to safe modern medicine.

A Scottish minister's sober account of fairy belief and the second sight among his parishioners.

Read it for · Fairy lore from the source, before Victorian prettification.

Material Leland said he received from an Italian folk witch: the myth of Diana and her daughter Aradia, and spells and invocations.

Read it for · A major influence on modern witchcraft — read critically, as its origins are debated.

A sweeping, now-dated study of magic and religion worldwide, famous for its laws of sympathetic magic and its seasonal customs.

Read it for · The laws of similarity and contagion, and a treasury of folk customs. Its grand theories are no longer accepted.

The notorious witch-hunters' manual: arguments that witches exist, how they work through pacts with the devil, and how to try and condemn them.

Read it for · Understanding the witch trials from the persecutors' side. A grim read.

A dialogue on witchcraft and spirits by the king who had presided over the North Berwick witch trials, written to refute the sceptics Scot and Weyer.

Read it for · Royal belief in witchcraft, and the background to Macbeth.

The self-styled Witchfinder General's short defence of his methods, written after his campaign in East Anglia had led to around a hundred executions.

Read it for · A primary source for the worst English witch-hunt. A few pages long.

Hymns, blessings, charms and incantations collected from Gaelic speakers in the Scottish Highlands and Islands — for milking, smooring the fire, healing, protection and journeys.

Read it for · Living folk charms and the blessings of hearth and home.

Oscar Wilde's mother's collection of Irish folklore: the fairy host, changelings, the evil eye, healing charms and the customs of May Eve and Samhain.

Read it for · Irish fairy lore and folk magic in the words of those who told it.

Over a thousand plants with their botany, medicinal uses, cultivation and folklore — the great 20th-century English herbal.

Read it for · Looking up any herb's lore and properties. Check medical claims against modern sources.

Grieve died in 1941, so it is public domain in the UK.

The great Elizabethan English herbal: over a thousand plants with woodcuts, uses and lore — including Gerard's scornful debunking of the shrieking mandrake.

Read it for · Plant lore in Shakespeare's English, and the woodcuts.

A Victorian mycologist's guide to Britain's fungi with coloured plates, full of history and lore as well as identification.

Read it for · The plates and the history. For identification, use a modern guide and an expert.

Never rely on a 19th-century book alone to decide whether a mushroom is safe to eat.

Tiffany's gem expert gathers the folklore of stones from every age: amulets, birthstones, the breastplate, crystal balls, planetary and zodiacal stones, and stones in medicine.

Read it for · The best single source on stone lore. Dip in by stone or by subject.

The Roman encyclopaedist's books on stones and gems, full of mining, trade, medicine and the claims of the magi — which he often doubts.

Read it for · The ancient roots of almost every later lapidary. Book 37 covers gems.

Sixty stones and their virtues in Latin verse, the most copied lapidary of the Middle Ages.

Read it for · How medieval people understood the powers of gems.

The Latin text is free online; modern English translations are in copyright.

Kunz's companion to The Curious Lore of Precious Stones: amulets, talismans, crystal balls, engraved gems and lucky charms from many cultures.

Read it for · The history of stone amulets and crystal balls, with fine plates.

A Victorian jeweller's guide to the gems: their properties, sources, famous stones and the lore attached to them.

Read it for · How 19th-century jewellers understood the stones, before the modern crystal movement.

A classic collection of fairy beliefs from across Europe, from the elves and nixies of the North to the fairies of the British Isles, with stories and sources.

Read it for · The folk material behind modern fairy and otherworld lore, before it was made esoteric.

The ancient Greek physician's herbal and pharmacopoeia, describing some six hundred plants and their uses, which shaped European herbal medicine for fifteen centuries.

Read it for · The source of many herbal uses and properties that later magic borrowed.

Goodyer's English was edited by R. T. Gunther in 1934 (The Greek Herbal of Dioscorides). Check the edition you use.

Lady Gregory's collection of the stories and beliefs of the people of Galway and Clare: fairies, the dead, healing and the charms that were still in use.

Read it for · Living folk belief, recorded with care, from the Irish countryside.

Gregory died in 1932, so the book is public domain in the UK.

The great German scholar's survey of the gods, spirits, elves, witches and customs of the Germanic peoples, drawn from folklore and early sources.

Read it for · The source of much of the Northern material in modern witchcraft and folk magic.

Aubrey's notes on the customs, charms, rites and beliefs of the English past, including the folk-magic he collected from his neighbours.

Read it for · An early English folklorist's notebook of magical practice, written with curiosity rather than contempt.

The manuscript was first printed in 1881. Aubrey died in 1697.

Browne's 'Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenets', which tests popular beliefs about animals, plants, stones and the supernatural against reason and observation.

Read it for · A seventeenth-century sceptic's check on folk belief about herbs and stones, useful for critical reading.

The Old Norse poems of the gods and heroes, including Hávamál — Odin's wisdom, the winning of the runes and his eighteen charms — and Sigrdrífumál, where the valkyrie teaches the runes of victory, healing and speech.

Read it for · The primary source for Norse magic. Begin with Hávamál and Völuspá.

Bellows' 1923 translation is in the public domain and widely available.

An Icelandic chieftain's handbook of the myths, written two centuries after the conversion: the creation, the gods and goddesses, and the end of the world.

Read it for · The clearest retelling of Norse myth. Read it alongside the Poetic Edda.

The saga of the Norse in Greenland and Vinland, with the fullest description of a seeress at work: her clothes, her staff, her high seat and the ward-songs sung for her.

Read it for · Chapter 4, the visit of Þorbjörg the little völva — the key text for seiðr.

The life of the poet and rune-master Egill Skallagrímsson: the poisoned horn, the scorn-pole against a king, and the girl made ill by runes carved wrongly.

Read it for · Rune magic as the sagas imagined it — and Egill's warning about carving runes you cannot read.

The book that launched the occult revival: magic as the science of will and imagination, tarot linked to the Hebrew letters, and Lévi's Baphomet.

Read it for · Where modern magic's style and confidence come from.

Crowley's systematic account of ceremonial magick, from the definition of magick to ritual, banishing and the Holy Guardian Angel.

Read it for · A demanding, influential modern system. Best after the Ceremonial track.

Public domain in the UK and, as a 1929 publication, in the US.

A clear, warm introduction to the Tree of Life, sphere by sphere, by one of the 20th century's great occult teachers.

Read it for · The best next step after the Tree of Life lesson.

Public domain in the UK (Fortune died in 1946); check your local copyright rules elsewhere.

A practical study of psychic attack, its signs and its remedies, written by a magician who believed she had suffered one. Much of its advice is plain good sense about rest, routine and boundaries.

Read it for · Before any work with spirits.

Fortune died in 1946, so the book is public domain in the UK; check before reproducing it elsewhere.

A short study by the actress and Golden Dawn adept, interpreting Egyptian and Gnostic texts for practising magicians.

Read it for · How the Golden Dawn read Egypt — by one of its leading women.

Lévi's sweeping, romantic history of magic from the Magi to the 19th century, written to show a single secret doctrine running through it all.

Read it for · The 19th-century occultist's view of history. Enjoy it more as literature than as fact.

A Golden Dawn founder's survey of number symbolism from Pythagoras and the Qabalah to the Victorian occultists, number by number.

Read it for · Background to numerology and gematria. Pairs with the Numerology tool.

A short paper to the Society for Psychical Research, classifying the author's dreams and coining the term 'lucid dream'.

Read it for · A brief, vivid first-hand account. Half an hour's reading.

A translation and commentary on two Tantric texts on the chakras and kundalini, which introduced the subject to Western readers.

Read it for · What the chakras meant in their own tradition, before the modern rainbow scheme.

A Theosophist's map of the astral world and its inhabitants, which shaped the modern vocabulary of astral travel.

Read it for · Understanding where the language of the 'astral' comes from. Read critically.

An account of the Tattvas and the science of breath from Indian sources, which the Golden Dawn drew on for its Tattva visions.

Read it for · The source of the Tattva symbols and the idea of the tattvic tides.

The sacred text Crowley said was dictated to him in Cairo: the Law of Thelema, with its maxim "Do what thou wilt" and its doctrine of True Will.

Read it for · The foundation of Thelema, read alongside Magick in Theory and Practice.

Crowley died in 1947, so the text is public domain in the UK; check the rules where you live. Many editions carry commentary that is still in copyright.

Fortune's account of the occult orders of her day, their methods and their ideals, with a clear view of initiation, discipline and the inner life.

Read it for · How a twentieth-century initiatory order actually worked, from one of its own members.

Fortune's later lectures on the inner worlds, the nature of the soul and the esoteric understanding of the cosmos, delivered to her students.

Read it for · A calm, practical introduction to inner-plane work after Psychic Self-Defence.

Fortune died in 1946, so the book is public domain in the UK.

A vast, combative defence of an "ancient wisdom" behind all religions and sciences, with long passages on Egyptian, Hermetic, Kabbalistic and Eastern magic.

Read it for · The book that launched the Theosophical movement, and much of the modern occult vocabulary.

Its claims about ancient sources are not historically reliable. Read it as a document of its time.

Blavatsky's major work on cosmic evolution, the root races and the esoteric meaning of world religions, based on claimed ancient teachings.

Read it for · The source of Theosophy's cosmology, and of many later ideas about 'root races' and occult history.

Like Isis Unveiled, its historical claims are contested. Read with that in mind.

A Theosophical guide to the difference between the magic that serves the higher self and the magic that serves selfish desire, with warnings about its dangers.

Read it for · An early, plain-spoken discussion of ethics and safety in magic.

Hartmann died in 1912, so the book is public domain in the UK.

A novel of a Rosicrucian adept, his immortal companion and the trials of initiation, set in Naples and Paris, which influenced the Victorian occult imagination.

Read it for · Fiction, but a vivid picture of how nineteenth-century readers pictured an initiate's life.

A novel. Bulwer-Lytton died in 1873, so it is public domain in the UK.

A short, lyrical guide to the inner life, written as a set of precepts for the disciple: purity, the silence of the heart, and the service of others.

Read it for · A gentle and devotional start to inner work, often read beside the meditation lessons.

Collins died in 1927, so the book is public domain in the UK.

Heindel's account of the cosmos in seven stages, the evolution of the soul and the path of the initiate, drawing on Rosicrucian and astrological teachings.

Read it for · A clear picture of the early twentieth-century Rosicrucian cosmology.

Heindel died in 1919, so the book is public domain in the UK.