London; New York: Bloomsbury, 2015. — viii, 400 p. "Superstition and Magic in Early Modern Europe" brings together a rich selection of essays which represent the most important historical research on religion, magic and superstition in early modern Europe. Each essay makes a significant contribution to the history of magic and religion in its own right, while together they...
London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1921. — X, 246 p. The Art and Its Appeal. General History. Myth and Early History. Arabian Alchemy. Mediaeval Alchemy. Decadence. Transition to Science. The Idea of Transmutation. Suggestions from Natural Processes. Philosophy of Transmutation. Alchemy and Animism. Magic and Astrology. The Objects of the Quest. The...
London: Arthur Barker Limited, 1935. — V, 302 p. Alchemy. Astrology. Black Magic Buddhist Occultism. Chinese Occultism. Devil worship. English Literature and the Occult. Fairies. Ghosts. History of Occult Ideas. Illusion and Hallucination. Indian Occultism. Literature of Occultism. Occultism in Ancient Greece and Rome. Psycho-Therapy and Psychic Phenomena. Spiritualism. The...
New York: Pantheon Books, 1948. — 504 p. First edition of the book "History of Magic". This is a meaningful book with 255 illustrations. Mesopotamia. Persia. The Gebrews. Egypt. Greece. Gnosticism. The Roman Empire. Alchemy. The Middle Ages. The Devil. Witchcraft. Diabolic rites. Portraits. Cabala. Magical arts. Reformers. The eighteenth century. Epilogue.
Bear & Company, 2019. — 294 p. — ISBN: 9781591433170. A hands-on guide to advanced spiritual transformation through the combined sacred arts of alchemy and shamanism -Recasts the 7 stages of the alchemical “Great Work” as a transformative shamanic journey and initiatic experience -Provides step-by-step instructions for 18 shamanic alchemy practices for inner transformation,...
McFarland & Co., 2012. — 308 p. An in-depth look into the foundations of mysticism and alchemy, this book describes both physical and spiritual aspects of the various theories and practices of transformation, with attention to the beliefs of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sufism, Tantrism, Taoism and Yoga. The connection between early mystical pursuits and...
Brill, 2018. — 264 p. In Magic and Memory in Giordano Bruno Manuel Mertens unravels the enigmatic knot between the mnemonic treatises and the magical writings of the sixteenth-century Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno. Since long the magical orientation of the Brunian art of memory has been a preoccupation for Bruno scholars (like Paolo Rossi, Frances Yates and Rita Sturlese)....
World Wisdom, 2010. — 296 p. Offering the most comprehensive biography of Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) yet published, Fitzgerald's work features quotations from Schuon's articles, books, memoirs, and correspondence, combined with a wealth of reliable information from people who knew Schuon well. With over 75 color and black-and-white photos and illustrations, readers will gain...
Yorkshire ; Philadelphia: Pen and Sword History, 2019. — xvii, 202 p. : 50 illus. Broomsticks and cauldrons, familiars and spells: magic and witchcraft conjure vivid pictures in our modern imaginations. The History of Magic and Witchcraft offers a window into the past, illuminating the lives of ordinary people and shining a light on the fascinating pop culture of the pre-modern...
London, U.K.: IB Tauris, 2019. — x, 254 p. : 13 illus. Parting company with the trend in recent scholarship to treat the subject in abstract, highly theoretical terms, Magic in Ancient Greece and Rome proposes that the magic-working of antiquity was in reality a highly pragmatic business, with very clearly formulated aims - often of an exceedingly maligant kind. In seven...
Llewellyn Publications, 2019. — 288 p. — ISBN: 978-0-738761-19-0. Take a journey through the magickal folk traditions of Scotland. Barbara Meiklejohn-Free, a Scottish hereditary witch, shares her own spiritual awakening into the craft and shows you how to integrate these practices into your own life. Discover the secrets of divination, scrying, faery magick, and communication...
Springer, 2019. — 515 p. — (Archimedes 55). This book explores the changing perspective of astrology from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Era. It introduces a framework for understanding both its former centrality and its later removal from legitimate knowledge and practice. The discussion reconstructs the changing roles of astrology in Western science, theology, and...
Harper & Row, 1982. — 159 p. Looks at how several styles of religious architecture make use of geometry and suggests what religious symbolism various geometric shapes exhibit.
Oxford University Press, 2012. — 152 p. — (Very short introductions, 299). - ISBN: 978-0-19-958802-2. Magic is a much-used term with a complex and controversial history. As a concept and a practice, it has attracted the attention of theologians, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, artists, and historians over the centuries. This Very Short Introduction explains why....
2nd Edition — Quest Books, 2006. — 352 p. P. D. Ouspensky's classic work In Search of the Miraculous was the first to disseminate the ideas of G. I. Gurdjieff, the mysterious master of esoteric thought in the early twentieth century who still commands a following today. Gurdjieff's mystique has long eclipsed Ouspensky, once described by Gurdjieff as "nice to drink vodka with,...
Inner Traditions, 2010. ― 448 p. ― ISBN: 9781594778575 Beginning with a review of the rationalist writings on Atlantis — those that use geographic and geologic data to validate their theories — renowned scholar Joscelyn Godwin then analyzes and compares writings on Atlantis from many of the great occultists and esotericists of the 19th and 20th centuries, including Fabre...
Brill, 2019. — 820 p. — (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, 189). — ISBN: 978-90-04-39075-1. In the midst of academic debates about the utility of the term "magic" and the cultural meaning of ancient words like mageia or khesheph, this Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic seeks to advance the discussion by separating out three topics essential to the very idea of magic. The...
2da ed. — San Pablo, 2000 — 207 p. — ISBN13: 9789586079341 La palabra «reencarnación» significa volver a tomar cuerpo, en un cuerpo nuevo. El mismo término es empleado también para indicar la doctrina filosófica de cuantos piensan que el alma humana pasa por más de una existencia corporal o terrestre, sea para evolucionar, sea para redimirse o reparar por sus propios esfuerzos...
2da ed. — San Pablo, 2000 — 207 p. — ISBN13: 9789586079341 La palabra «reencarnación» significa volver a tomar cuerpo, en un cuerpo nuevo. El mismo término es empleado también para indicar la doctrina filosófica de cuantos piensan que el alma humana pasa por más de una existencia corporal o terrestre, sea para evolucionar, sea para redimirse o reparar por sus propios esfuerzos...
London; New York: Routledge, 2003. — VII, 371 p. — ISBN 0-415-31129-2. Matthew W. Dickey. Magic and wizards in the Greco-Roman world. This study is the first to assemble the evidence for the existence of sorcerors and sorceresses in the ancient world. Compelling and revealing in the breadth of evidence employed this will be an essential resource. Sources. Terms for witches and...
Cambridge University Press, 2015. — 612 p. The story of the beliefs and practices called 'magic' starts in ancient Iran, Greece, and Rome, before entering its crucial Christian phase in the Middle Ages. Centering on the Renaissance and Marsilio Ficino - whose work on magic was the most influential account written in premodern times - this groundbreaking book treats magic as a...
2nd Edition — Oxford University Press, 2001. — 512 p. Ronald Hutton is known for his colourful, provocative, and always exhaustively researched, studies on original subjects. This work is no exception: the first full-scale scholarly study of the only religion England has ever given the world, that of modern pagan witchcraft, which has now spread from English shores across four...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. — 259 p. This book marks twenty years since the publication of Professor Ronald Hutton’s The Triumph of the Moon , a major contribution to the historical study of Wicca. Building on and celebrating Hutton’s pioneering work, the chapters in this volume explore a range of modern magical, occult, and Pagan groups active in Western nations. Each...
Cambridge University Press, 2016. — 514 p. Mysticism and esotericism are two intimately related strands of the Western tradition. Despite their close connections, however, scholars tend to treat them separately. Whereas the study of Western mysticism enjoys a long and established history, Western esotericism is a young field. The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and...
New York, NY: Overlook Duckworth, 2013. — 414 p. : illustrations. It is possible that major world events are affected by spirits -- even if we don't believe in them? In Whisperers bestselling novelist and expert on the occult J. H. Brennan explores how the "spirit world"--whether we believe in it or not--has influenced our own since the dawn of civilization. With a novelist's...
Brill, 2007. — 486 p. The Handbook of New Age is a comprehensive survey of alternative spiritualities: their history, their global impact, their cultural influence and how they are understood by scholars. Chapters by many of the leading scholars of the movement give the latest analysis of contemporary spiritual trends, and present up-to-date observations of the interaction...
Oxford University Press, 2011. — 376 p. The Western magical traditions are currently undergoing an international resurgence. In Stealing Fire from Heaven , Nevill Drury offers an overview of the modern occult revival and seeks to explain this growing interest in ancient magical belief systems. Gnosticism and the Hermetica, the medieval Kabbalah, Tarot and Alchemy, and more...
Routledge, 2005. — 320 p. A controversial issue of public debate during the recent years, esotericism can be described as the search for an absolute but hidden knowledge that people claim to access through mystical vision, the mediation of higher beings, or personal experience. In Western cultural history these claims often led to conflicts with more established forms of...
Routledge, 2009. — 202 p. This book analyzes the gendered transformation of magical figures occurring in Arthurian romance in England from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. In the earlier texts, magic is predominantly a masculine pursuit, garnering its user prestige and power, but in the later texts, magic becomes a primarily feminine activity, one that marks its user as...
Routledge, 2019. — 568 p. The Routledge History of Medieval Magic brings together the work of scholars from across Europe and North America to provide extensive insights into recent developments in the study of medieval magic between c.1100 and c.1500. This book covers a wide range of topics, including the magical texts which circulated in medieval Europe, the attitudes of...
Historical Review Press, 1995. — 70 p. This short book summarizes and exposes the subversive, anti-western nature of Freemasonry and how they have conspired and were conspiring against the traditional Europe. It also goes into the Jewish dominance and influence over Freemasonry. Arguably Freemasonry is the Jewish revolutionary spirit in action.
Oxford University Press, 2019. — 232 p. A sizeable minority of people with no particular connection to Eastern religions now believe in reincarnation. The rise in popularity of this belief over the last century and a half is directly traceable to the impact of the nineteenth century's largest and most influential Western esoteric movement, the Theosophical Society. In Recycled...
State University of New York Press, 2019. — 212 p. — (SUNY series in Western Esoteric Traditions). A unique historical study of the personal nature of religion, spirituality, and healing in the twentieth century based on the letters of ordinary people from around the world. The Panacea Society was a small religious community of women that was established in England in the early...
Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. — 288 з. The only comprehensive, single-volume survey of magic available, this compelling book traces the history of magic, witchcraft, and superstitious practices such as popular spells or charms from antiquity to the present day. Focusing especially on Europe in the medieval and early modern eras, Michael Bailey also explores the ancient Near East,...
Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. — 288 з. The only comprehensive, single-volume survey of magic available, this compelling book traces the history of magic, witchcraft, and superstitious practices such as popular spells or charms from antiquity to the present day. Focusing especially on Europe in the medieval and early modern eras, Michael Bailey also explores the ancient Near East,...
Park Street Press, 2019. — 224 p. Just as the search for the philosopher’s stone is the core symbol of the alchemical tradition, Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., psychotherapist and one of the respected elders of the psychedelic research community, sees it as the central metaphor of his life-long quest to find methods of healing and insight through heightened states of consciousness....
Oxford University Press, 1999. — 1093 p. This is a work of fundamental importance for our understanding of the intellectual and cultural history of early modern Europe. Stuart Clark offers a new interpretation of the witchcraft beliefs of European intellectuals based on their publications in the field of demonology, and shows how these beliefs fitted rationally with many other...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. — 248 p. Different conceptions of the world and of reality have made witchcraft possible in some societies and impossible in others. How did the people of early modern Europe experience it and what was its place in their culture? The new essays in this collection illustrate the latest trends in witchcraft research and in cultural history in general....
Routledge, 2014. — 320 p. New Age and holistic beliefs and practices - sometimes called the "new spirituality" - are widely distributed across modern global society. The fluid and popular nature of new age makes these movements a very challenging field to understand using traditional models of religious analysis. Rather than treating new age as an exotic specimen on the margins...
Cambridge University Press, 2011. — 319 p. The dictionary definition of tradition refers to beliefs and practices that have been transmitted from generation to generation, however, 'tradition' can rest simply on the claim that certain cultural elements are rooted in the past. Claim and documented historical reality need not overlap. In the domain of religion, historically...
Robinson - Running Press, 2011. — 420 p. This wide-ranging book explores the diversity of esoteric and occult beliefs. Neo-Paganism is one of the fastest-growing new religions in the western world where witchcraft or Wicca, Druidry, and Urban Shamanism are thriving. Alongside this there has been an upsurge in New Age ideas of an even wider variety, including astrology, Tarot,...
Cornell University Press, 1997. — 468 p. A pioneering, richly interdisciplinary volume, this is the first work in any language on a subject that has long attracted interest in the West and is now of consuming interest in Russia itself. The cultural ferment unleashed by the collapse of the Soviet Union reawakened interest in the study of Russian religion and spirituality. This...
Palgrave MacMillan, 2018. — 220 p. This book explores the relationships between ancient witchcraft and its modern incarnation, and by doing so fills an important gap in the historiography. It is often noted that stories of witchcraft circulated in Greek and Latin classical texts, and that treatises dealing with witch-beliefs referenced them. Still, the role of humanistic...
Routledge, 2017. — 176 p. Rediscovering Renaissance Witchcraft is an exploration of witchcraft in the literature of Britain and America from the 16th and 17th centuries through to the present day. As well as the themes of history and literature (politics and war, genre and intertextuality), the book considers issues of national identity, gender and sexuality, race and empire,...
London, The Penguin Press, 1993. — 337 p. — ISBN: 0-7139-9091-0 Without Sin chronicles the rise and fall of nineteenth-century America's most succesful experiment in Utopian living: New York's Oneida Community (1848-1880). Founded by the charismatic Christian Perfectioniost John Humphrey Noyes, this remarkable society flourished for more than thirty years as a unique world...
London, The Penguin Press, 1993. — 337 p. — ISBN: 0-7139-9091-0 Without Sin chronicles the rise and fall of nineteenth-century America's most succesful experiment in Utopian living: New York's Oneida Community (1848-1880). Founded by the charismatic Christian Perfectioniost John Humphrey Noyes, this remarkable society flourished for more than thirty years as a unique world...
State University of New York Press, 2010. — 136 p. A survey of Western esoteric currents since late antiquity, with an emphasis on the last six centuries. Widely received in France, this brief, comprehensive introduction to Western esotericism by the founder of the field is at last available in English. A historical and pedagogical guide, the book is written primarily for...
3rd edition. — London: Aeon, 2017. — 328 p. Acclaimed as an instant classic on its original publication and eagerly sought by students of magic ever since, Paths of Wisdom is a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of the magical Cabala, as practiced in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and most other contemporary Western occult traditions. Engaging and...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. — 307 p. This book traces the history of ritual landscapes in the British Isles, and the transition from religious practice to recreation, by focusing on a highly understudied exemplar: the coin-tree. These are trees imbued with magical properties into which coins have been ritually embedded. This is a contemporary custom which can be traced back in...
Oxford University Press, 2012. — 152 p. — (Very short introductions, 299). — ISBN: 978-0-19-958802-2. Magic is a much-used term with a complex and controversial history. As a concept and a practice, it has attracted the attention of theologians, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, artists, and historians over the centuries. This Very Short Introduction explains why....
Fifth Edition. — Gale Group, 2001. — ISBN10: 0810394898; ISBN13: 978-0810394896. A Compendium of Information on the Occult Sciences, Magic, Demonology, Superstitions, Spiritism, Mysticism, Metaphysics, Psychical Science, and Parapsychology, with Biographical and Bibliographical Notes and Comprehensive Indexes.
Park Street Press, 2018. — 256 p. Explores the role of magic and the occult in art and culture from ancient times to today. Examines key figures behind esoteric cultural developments, such as Carl Jung, Anton LaVey, Paul Bowles, Aleister Crowley, and Rudolf Steiner. Explores the history of magic as a source of genuine counter culture and compares it with our contemporary...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. — 264 p. This book explores the life and ideas of the enigmatic twentieth century philosopher, mystic, and teacher of esoteric dances George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, performing a hermeneutic textual analysis of all his writings to illuminate the place of hypnosis in his teaching. Foreword by J. Walter Driscoll. Mohammad Tamdgidi is Assistant Professor in...
Routledge, 2017. — 192 p. Magic: The Basics is a concise and engaging introduction to magic in world history and contemporary societies. Presenting magic as a global phenomenon which has manifested in all human cultures, this book takes a thematic approach which explores the historical, social, and cultural aspects of magic. Key features include: - attempts to define magic...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2003. — 265 p. This is the first modern study of Agrippa's occult philosophy as a coherent part of his intellectual work. By demonstrating his sophistication, it challenges traditional interpretations of Agrippa as an intellectual dilettante, and uses modern theory and philosophy to elucidate the intricacies of his thought. It also argues for a new,...
Routledge, 2014. — 208 p. Magic has always been a widespread phenomenon in Greek Society, starting from Homer’s Circe (the first ‘evil witch’ in western history) and extending to the pervasive belief in the ‘evil eye’ in the twenty-first century Greece. Indeed, magic is probably the most ancient and durable among social and religious phenomena known to classical and other...
2nd revised edition — Quest Books, 1984. — 210 p. — (With an Introduction by Huston Smith). "Superlative... the most powerful statement of the grand, or better, primordial, tradition. It is original in incorporating what our age for the first time demands: that religion be treated in global terms." - Huston Smith Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) is acclaimed as the greatest...
2nd revised edition — Quest Books, 1984. — 210 p. — (With an Introduction by Huston Smith). "Superlative... the most powerful statement of the grand, or better, primordial, tradition. It is original in incorporating what our age for the first time demands: that religion be treated in global terms." - Huston Smith Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) is acclaimed as the greatest...
2nd revised edition — Quest Books, 1984. — 210 p. — (With an Introduction by Huston Smith). "Superlative... the most powerful statement of the grand, or better, primordial, tradition. It is original in incorporating what our age for the first time demands: that religion be treated in global terms." - Huston Smith Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) is acclaimed as the greatest...
World Wisdom, 2004. — 296 p. Prayer Fashions Man is the second in a new series of titles from World Wisdom featuring the essential writings of Frithjof Schuon. The series begun by The Fullness of God: Frithjof Schuon on Christianity (World Wisdom, 2004) continues, with a collection of Schuon’s chapters on the deep seated human need for prayer — our primary way of communing with...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2013. — 494 p. — (Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion 7) Few religious currents have been as influential as the Theosophical. Yet few currents have been so under-researched, and the Brill Handbook of the Theosophical Current thus represents pioneering research. A first section surveys the main people and events involved in the Theosophical...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2015. — 511 p. — (Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion 9) The Brill Handbook of Spiritualism and Channeling marks the first extensive collection on these two interrelated movements and examines themes such as gender, race, performance, and technology in each instance. Part 1: Locating Spiritualism Mesmerism and the Psychological Dimension of...
Brill, 2010. — 242 p. — (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History) This is the first encyclopaedic work on Western esotericism in Scandinavia. Structured along the lines of the Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericsm (2005), it contains over 80 articles written by 47 specialists. It consists of critical overviews of all the major esoteric currents in Denmark, Finland,...
Brill, 2010. — 242 p. — (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History) One characteristic of European history of religion is a two-fold pluralism — a pluralism of religious identities on the one hand, and a pluralism of various societal systems that interact with religious systems on the other. Addressing discourses of perfect knowledge in Western culture between 1200 and 1800, this...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2006. — 330 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 2) In 1914, a remarkable poetic work appeared in Sydney, Australia, written in the form of a Symbolist livre compose by one of Stephane Mallarme's earliest admirers, Christopher Brennan. The book, simply titled "Poems", shows that Brennan was exploring pressing religious...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2007. — 349 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 6). In its historical development from late antiquity to the present, western esotericism has repeatedly been the issue of polemical discourse. This volume engages the polemical structures that underlie both the identities within and the controversy about esoteric currents...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2007. — 360 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 4) This volume examines the history of the 18th-Century secret order of the Golden Rosicrucians (Gold- und Rosenkreuzer), one of the most mysterious, exclusive and successful Masonic societies in the German speaking countries of that time. The order and its esoteric roots...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2006. — 251 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 1) This study positions Paracelsian alchemy, medicine and medical physiology within the apocalyptic discourse of the Protestant Reformation. A comparison is made between alchemical theory concerning the perfectibility of prime matter and Christian eschatological doctrine...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2008. — 544 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 7) From rumours about gnostic orgies in antiquity to the explicit erotic symbolism of alchemical texts, from the subtly coded eroticism of medieval kabbalah to the sexual magic practiced by contemporary occultists and countercultural translations of Asian Tantra, the history...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2008. — 436 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 8) Women have been structurally part of the masonic enterprise from at least the middle of the 18th century. Yet, little is known about the ways in which they themselves obtained and exercised power to influence the systems they were involved in, in order to adapt them to be...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2010. — 442 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 11) The persistence of kabbalistic groups in the twentieth century has largely been ignored or underestimated by scholars of religion. Only recently have scholars began to turn their attention to the many-facetted roles that kabbalistic doctrines and schools have played in...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2010. — 491 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 11) The question of constructing tradition, concepts of origin, and memory as well as techniques and practices of knowledge transmission, are central for cultures in general. In esotericism, however, such questions and techniques play an outstanding role and are widely...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2012. — 518 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 13) Freemasonry is generally regarded a male phenomenon. Yet, both before 1723 and since 1744, women were initiated as well. This book is about the rituals, used for the initiation of women in the Adoption Lodges, since the middle of the 18th century. It describes their...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2012. — 183 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 15) Sheila A. Spector’s translation of the Sketch of Christian Kabbalism, by Francis Mercury van Helmont (1614-98), is the first English version of the foundational seventeenth-century treatise appended to Knorr von Rosenroth’s compendium, the Kabbala Denudata. After a...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2007. — 986 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 5) The daunting writings of Paracelsus — the second largest 16th-century body of writings in German after Luther’s — contributed to medicine, natural science, alchemy, philosophy, theology, and esoteric tradition. This volume provides a critical edition of essential writings...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2014. — 279 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 20). In Gurdjieff and Music Johanna Petsche examines the large and diverse body of piano music produced by Armenian-Greek spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff (c.1866-1949) in collaboration with his devoted pupil Thomas de Hartmann (1885-1956). Petsche draws on a range of...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2014. — 406 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 19) In Esotericism in African American Religious Experience: “There is a Mystery” …, Stephen C. Finley, Margarita Simon Guillory, and Hugh R. Page, Jr. assemble twenty groundbreaking essays that provide a rationale and parameters for Africana Esoteric Studies (AES): a new...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2014. — 243 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 18) In Dark Enlightenment Kennet Granholm explores the historical, sociological, and discursive contexts of contemporary esoteric magic. The book is focused on the Sweden-originated Left-Hand Path magic order Dragon Rouge in particular, but through a detailed contextualizing...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2011. — 583 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 9) This collection of essays analyzes the relationships that exist between esotericism and music from Antiquity to the 20th century, investigating ways in which magic, astrology, alchemy, divination, and cabbala interact with music. The volume seeks to dissolve artificial...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2011. — 583 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 14) The reign of Peter the Great (1672-1725) was marked by an unprecedented wave of reform in Russia. This book provides an innovative reappraisal of the Petrine Age, in which hitherto neglected aspects of the tsar’s transformation of his country are studied. More...
Brill Academic Publishers, 2014. — 412 p. — (Aries Book Series: Texts and Studies in Western Esotericism 17) The relationship between Nazism and occultism has been an object of fascination and speculation for decades. Peter Staudenmaier’s Between Occultism and Nazism provides a detailed historical examination centered on the anthroposophist movement founded by Rudolf Steiner....
Routledge, 2015. — 277 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic) Investigating the impact of Arabic medieval astrological and magical theories on early modern occult philosophy, this book argues that they provided a naturalistic explanation of astral influences and magical efficacy based on Aristotelian notions of causality. Arabic Theories of Astral...
Routledge, 2014. — 320 p. — (Gnostica) The idea that the human body consists of 'subtle bodies' - psycho-spiritual essences - can be found in a variety of esoteric traditions. This radical form of selfhood challenges the dualisms at the heart of Western discourse : mind/body, divine/human, matter/spirit, reason/emotion, I/other. 'Angels of Desire' explores the aesthetics and...
Routledge, 2014. — 369 p. — (Gnostica) In Western religious traditions, God is conventionally conceived as a humanlike creator, lawgiver, and king, a being both accessible and actively present in history. Yet there is a concurrent and strong tradition of a God who actively hides. The two traditions have led to a tension between a God who is simultaneously accessible to humanity...
Routledge, 2014. — 448 p.— (Gnostica) The study of contemporary esoteric discourse has hitherto been a largely neglected part of the new academic field of Western esotericism. Contemporary Esotericism provides a broad overview and assessment of the complex world of Western esoteric thought today. Combining historiographical analysis with theories and methodologies from the...
University of California Press, 2014. — 332 p. This powerful study weaves the story of Freemasonry into the narrative of American religious history. Freighted with the mythical legacies of stonemasons’ guilds and the Newtonian revolution, English Freemasonry arrived in colonial America with a vast array of cultural baggage, which was drawn on, added to, and transformed during...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. — 349 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). This book breaks with three common scholarly barriers of periodization, discipline and geography in its exploration of the related themes of heresy, magic and witchcraft. It sets aside constructed chronological boundaries, and in doing so aims to achieve a clearer picture of what ‘went...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. — 454 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). The book provides a comprehensive exploration of witchcraft beliefs and practices in the rural region of Eastern Slovenia. Based on field research conducted at the beginning of the twenty-first century, it examines witchcraft in the region from folkloristic, anthropological, as well as...
Dover Publications, 2003. — 395 p. Written by a venerable author of occult studies, The Werewolf in Lore and Legend is the first definitive book on werewolfery and the remarkable successor to Montague Summers's popular work, The Vampire . Unsurpassed in its sheer scope and depth, it employs an extensive range of historical documentation and folklore from throughout Europe to...
Watkins Publishing, 2011. — 496 p. In early 20th-century England, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was considered “the wickedest man in the world.” Today he's seen as a prophet, a master of the occult, and a spiritual pioneer–and his reputation just keeps on growing. This new biography, written with the cooperation of leading Crowley scholars and including new revelations from...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. — 412 p. This book provides a selection of studies on witchcraft and demonology by those involved in an interdisciplinary research group begun in Hungary thirty years ago. They examine urban and rural witchcraft conflicts from early modern times to the present, from a region hitherto rarely taken into consideration in witchcraft research. Special...
De Gruyter, 2017. — 780 p. There are no clear demarcation lines between magic, astrology, necromancy, medicine, and even sciences in the pre-modern world. Under the umbrella term 'magic,' the contributors to this volume examine a wide range of texts, both literary and religious, both medical and philosophical, in which the topic is discussed from many different perspectives....
Oxford University Press, 2010. — 144 p. Witchcraft is a subject that fascinates us all. Indeed, from childhood most of us develop some mental image of a witch–usually an old woman, mysterious and malignant. But why do witches still feature so heavily in our cultures and consciousness? From Halloween superstitions to literary references such as Faust and, of course, Harry...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. — 204 p. Anthropology and the Limits of Secular Reason Gnosticism and the Pursuit of the Sacred Traditionalism: A Dialectic of Authenticity Gnostics, Religion, and the (Mis)Recognition of Modernity Modern Mystics: Toward a Gnostic Science The Inner Journey of the Gnostic Self: Ethics and Politics Other Worlds or Ours? Sacred/Secular/Gnostic/Modern What...
Boston, Koln: Brill, 2002. — 334 p. The aim of the present work is to study the esoteric characterization of King Solomon that became popular in certain currents of Judaism and Christianity of Late Antiquity and to establish a typology of it. Representative texts are analyzed, first to establish precisely the development of the different esoteric traditions linked to King...
Cambridge University Press, 1992. — 253 p. Early New Englanders used magical techniques to divine the future, to heal the sick, to protect against harm and to inflict harm. Protestant ministers of the time claimed that religious faith and magical practice were incompatible, and yet, as Richard Godbeer shows, there were significant affinities between the two that enabled layfolk...
Cambridge University Press, 2003. — 260 p. Ranging from the pre-Christian era to Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton at the end of the seventeenth century, this Reader covers a broad range of alchemical authors and works. Organized chronologically, it includes around thirty selections in authoritative but lightly-modernized versions. The selections will provide the reader with a...
World Wisdom, 2011. — 272 p. This renowned book, which has been translated into over a dozen languages, has attracted much attention over the years. Prof. Seyyed Hossein Nasr says that it is Schuon’s “most important work on Islam and [from] among the books written by a Westerner on Islam, [this is] the one most universally accepted by Muslims.” Islamic Quarterly has called...
World Wisdom, 2003. — 264 p. This book, according to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “is the second work of Schuon (following The Transcendent Unity) which is devoted primarily to comparative religion. Beginning with two essays on the distinction between truth and presence and form and substance in religions, the author then turns to major metaphysical studies of the most subtle nature...
World Wisdom, 2005. — 560 p. — Edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Frithjof Schuon had a unique ability to penetrate to the heart if the world's great spiritual traditions, revealing new dimensions that astounded general readers and scholars alike. Schuon's insights on religion, prayer, the spiritual life, aesthetics and philosophy shine throughout this book. Seyyed Hossein Nasr is...
State University of New York Press, 2004. — 196 p. The first book in English devoted to the religious philosopher Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) to appear since his death, this biography also provides an analysis of his work and spiritual teachings. Relying on Schuon's published works as well as unpublished correspondence and other documents, the authors highlight the originality...
Fons Vitae, 2004. — 176 p. Coomaraswamy's final un-published essays, including: The Iconography of Sagittarius, Philo's Doctrine of the Cherubim, Concerning Sphinxes, and The Concept of Ether in Greek and Indian Cosmology, are complemented by the author's own illustrations from his personal archives. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877 - 1947) was a philosopher, historian and a patron...
Yale University Press, 2017. — 376 p. Why have societies all across the world feared witchcraft? This book delves deeply into its context, beliefs, and origins in Europe’s history The witch came to prominence — and often a painful death — in early modern Europe, yet her origins are much more geographically diverse and historically deep. In this landmark book, Ronald Hutton...
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. — 568 p. Magic, miracles, daemonology, divination, astrology, and alchemy were the arcana mundi, the "secrets of the universe," of the ancient Greeks and Romans. In this path-breaking collection of Greek and Roman writings on magic and the occult, Georg Luck provides a comprehensive sourcebook and introduction to magic as it was practiced...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. — 283 p. This volume is a collection based on the contributions to witchcraft studies of Willem de Blécourt, to whom it is dedicated, and who provides the opening chapter, setting out a methodological and conceptual agenda for the study of cultures of witchcraft (broadly defined) in Europe since the Middle Ages. It includes contributions from...
Bratislava: Pro Historia, 2005. — 255 p. — ISBN: 80-969366-3-8. This book is an outcome of an international interdisciplinary conference held on 25th – 27th October 2004 in the Congress centre of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the picturesque Smolenice castle. The conference focused on the broader context of popular and learned magic in general, aimed to examine the full...
Oxford University Press, 2017. — 333 p. — ISBN: 978-0-19-960844-7. This richly illustrated history provides a readable and fresh approach to the extensive and complex story of witchcraft and magic. Beginning with the invention of writing in the ancient world, the author explores a wide range of magical beliefs and practices, the rise of the witch trials, and the depiction of...
Faber & Faber, 2006. — 188 p. Did mushroom tea kick-start ancient Greek philosophy? Was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a thinly veiled psychedelic mushroom odyssey? Is Santa Claus really a magic mushroom in disguise? The world of the magic mushroom is a place where shamans and hippies rub shoulders with psychiatrists, poets, and international bankers. Since its rediscovery...
Park Street Press, 1996. — 490 p. These four remarkable women, core members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, left a lasting imprint on the politics, literature, and theater of 19th-century Europe. Less well-known than the famous men in their lives, including Yeats and Shaw, their stories are now told.
London, Trübner & Co, MDCCCLXVI (1866). — 38 p. Edited from the Sloane MS. 73, about 1460 – 70 A. D. A small 15th-century English medical treatise on Hermetic alchemy. A tretice in englisch breuely drawe out of þe book of quintis eſſentijs in latyn, þat hermys þe prophete and kyng of Egipt, after þe flood of Noe, fadir of philosophris, hadde by reuelacioun of an aungil of god...
Oxford University Press, 2017. — 333 p. This richly illustrated history provides a readable and fresh approach to the extensive and complex story of witchcraft and magic. Beginning with the invention of writing in the ancient world, the author explores a wide range of magical beliefs and practices, the rise of the witch trials, and the depiction of the Devil-worshipping witch....
Random House, 1971. — 601 p. Primitive man believed the world was full of unseen forces: the orenda (spirit force) of the American Indians, the Imaca of the ancient Peruvians. The Age of Reason said that these forces had only ever existed in man's imagination; only reason could show man the truth about the universe. The trouble was that man became a thinking pygmy, and the...
State University of New York Press, 1990. — 361 p. — (SUNY Series in Judaica: Hermeneutics, Mysticism & Religion). Idel's thesis is that the role of the golem concept in Judaism was to confer an exceptional status to the Jewish elite by bestowing it with the capability of supernatural powers deriving from a profound knowledge of the Hebrew language and its magical and mystical...
Routledge, 2016. — 199 p. Experiences of magic and witchcraft in the early modern period have often been presented as extraordinary occurrences, when they were, from the perspective of people living during this period, part of a shared and familiar cosmological outlook. By presenting a range of everyday supernatural experiences, from spirit-assisted treasure hunting to...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. — 643 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). The Varieties of Maleficium Maleficium and Society The Devil in the Duchy of Württemberg Witch Dances and Witch Salves Sorcery, Satanism, and Shamanism Divination and Prophesy Beneficent Manipulative Magic Magic and Society
Böhlau-Verlag Gmbh, 2015. — 216 p. The contributions of the book examine the »realia« of astrological activity, a domain which has received little attention within in the field of the history of astrology in Medieval and Early Modern times. What can be said about the social and academic background of the astrologers? What kind of techniques and methods did they use and how can...
Cambridge University Press, 2015. — 810 p. — (Cambridge Histories Online: General History). This book presents twenty chapters by experts in their fields, providing a thorough and interdisciplinary overview of the theory and practice of magic in the West. Its chronological scope extends from the Ancient Near East to twenty-first-century North America; its objects of analysis...
New York: Columbia University Press, 1941. — XXII+695 p. The fifth volume of Lynn Thorndike's study "The History of Magic and Experimental Science" is dedicated to the 16th century - the "Faustian" age of science, when the demarcation between science and "non-science" did not yet exist, astronomy was inseparable from astrology, and the role of natural science was played by...
New York: Columbia University Press, 1934. – XXVI+829 p. Lynn Thorndike (1882-1965) is a renowned historian of medieval science. In the third volume of his seminal study, The History of Magic and Experimental Science, Thorndike examines the development of alchemy, astrology, and other proto-scientific practices in the 14th century. The Outlook at the Opening of the Fourteenth...
Cambridge University Press, 1995. — 304 p. — (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture). Salem Story engages the story of the Salem witch trials through an analysis of the surviving primary documentation and juxtaposes that against the way in which our culture has mythologized the events of 1692. Salem Story examines a variety of individual motives that converged to...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. — 279 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). This book is a collection of essays on Scottish witchcraft. Unlike most such works, it concentrates on witchcraft beliefs rather than witch-hunting. It ranges widely across areas of popular belief, culture, and ritual practice, as well as dealing with intellectual life and incorporating...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. — 271 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). Not ‘the Usual Suspects’? Male Witches, Witchcraft, and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe Male Witches in the Duchy of Lorraine Men as Accused Witches in the Holy Roman Empire Witch-Finders, Witch-Hunters or Kings of the Sabbath? The Prominent Role of Men in the Mass Persecutions of...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. — 338 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). The Trial of Peter Kleikamp or-So Many Questions The Persecution of Men as Werewolves in Burgundy Male Witches on Trial: An Empirical Approach Witch-hunts and the Male Witch: A Chronology Men as Potential Witches in Demonological Treatises Magic and Gender in Popular Culture The...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. — 384 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). Robert Hunt and the Somerset Witches The Trial of the Bideford Witches The Politics of Pandaemonium John Beaumont: Science, Spirits and the Scale of Nature Public Infidelity and Private Belief? The Discourse of Spirits in Enlightenment Bristol Methodism and Mummery: The Case of George Lukins
Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. — 236 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). An interdisciplinary study of the supernatural and the occult in fin-de-siècle France (1870-1914), the present volume examines the explosion of interest in devil-worship, magic and mysticism both from a historical perspective and through analysis of key literary works of the period.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. — 157 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). Thomas Perks and His Circle Arthur Bedford and His Circle The Second Phase: Bristol and London 1760–79 Evangelical Publishing Astrologers The Nineteenth Century: Medicine, Spiritualism and Christianity
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. — 272 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). ScotlancTs First Witch-Hunt: The Eastern Witch-Hunt of 1568–1569 The Countess of Angus’s Escape from the North Berwick Witch-Hunt Exporting the Devil across the North Sea: John Cunningham and the Finnmark Witch-Hunt The Witch, the Household and the Community: Isobel Young in East Barns,...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. — 269 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). Prologue: Abracadabra Omnipotens The Judicial Backdrop: Saragossa and the Three Justice Systems Magic Circles and Enchanted Treasures. Magic for Love or Subjugation Saludadores and Witch-Finders The City as Refuge Rural versus Urban Magic Epilogue: In Times of Plague
Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. — 217 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). Tales, Magic, and Fairy Tales Egyptian, Greek, and Roman Magic Tales Jewish Magic Tales Magic Tales in Medieval Christian Europe Magic Tales in the Muslim Middle Ages Magic at Court and on the Piazza The Problematics of Magic on the Threshold of Fairy Tale Magic: Straparola’s Early...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. — 232 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). Witchcraft Belief in Early Modern Ireland Witchcraft Legislation and Legal Administration in Early Modern Ireland Cunning-folk in Early Modern Ireland Witchcraft Accusations in Early Modern Ireland Witchcraft Trials and Demonic Possession in Early Modern Ireland Witchcraft in Modern...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. — 278 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). Today, werewolves are primarily known through films: as humans who change into wolves under the influence of the full moon. Although this is a recent image, werewolves have a long, fragmented and discontinuous history. Werewolf Histories is the first academic book in English to address...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. — 224 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). This book offers the first ever attempt to compare lay and inquisitorial witchcraft prosecutions. In most of the early modern period, jurisdiction in Italy relating to witchcraft rested with the Roman Inquisition, whereas in Denmark only the secular courts raised trials. Kallestrup...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. — 193 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). While early modern Finland was Lutheran in theory, a religious plurality – embodied in ceremonies and rituals and interpreted as magic – flourished. Unorthodox and superstitious practices merged with catechism hearings and sermon preaching among the laity. This book details how western...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. — 398 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). Introduction: Following the Witch Fixing the Limits of Belief The Idea of Witchcraft Demons, Devilry and Domestic Magic: Hunting Witches in Scotland Darkness Visible Bemused, Bothered and Bewildered: Witchcraft Debated “Worshipping at the Altar of Ignorance”: Some Late Scottish...
Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. — 276 p. — (Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic). Magic on the Walls: Ritual Protection Marks in the Medieval Church Apotropaic Symbols and Other Measures for Protecting Buildings against Misfortune Instances and Contexts of the Head Motif in Britain Witch Bottles: Their Contents, Contexts and Uses Concealed Animals Shoes Concealed in...
London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013. — 224 p. — ISBN: 978-1-4411-8897-7. Western esotericism has been a pervasive presence in Western culture from late antiquity to the present day, but until recently it was largely ignored by scholars and surrounded by misconceptions and prejudice. This accessible guide provides readers with the basic knowledge and tools that will...
Cambridge University Press, 2012. — 480 p. — ISBN: 978-0-521-19621-5. Academics tend to look on 'esoteric', 'occult' or 'magical' beliefs with contempt, but are usually ignorant about the religious and philosophical traditions to which these terms refer, or their relevance to intellectual history. Wouter Hanegraaff tells the neglected story of how intellectuals since the...
Amsterdam University Press, 2009. — 168 p. — ISBN: 9789056295721. Hermes in the Academy commemorates the tenth anniversary of the Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (GHF) at the University of Amsterdam. The center devotes itself to the study of Western esotericism, which includes topics such as Hermetic philosophy, Christian kabbalah and occultism....
Leiden; New York; Koln: Brill, 1996. — 594 p. — ISBN: 9004106952. Presents the first systematic analysis of the structure and beliefs of the New Age movement, and the historical emergence of "New Age" as a secularized version of Western esoteric traditions. Recent years have seen a spectacular rise of the New Age movement and an ever-increasing interest in its beliefs and...
Leiden; Boston, Brill Academic Publishers, 2006. — 1230 p. — ISBN13: 9789004152311. Edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff, in collaboration with Antoine Faivre, Roelof van den Broek and Jean-Pierre Brach This is the first comprehensive reference work to cover the entire domain of “Gnosis and Western Esotericism” from the period of Late Antiquity to the present. Containing around 400...
Routledge, 2011. — 310 p. — (Routledge Library Editions: Witchcraft). This is a comprehensive guide to the practices of witchcraft from their inception to the present day. Summers argues that all witchcraft is essentially the same, regardless of geographical location. He examines the practices of the cult in great detail, and its historical progression, within the context of...
Routledge, 2011. — 273 p. — (Routledge Library Editions: Witchcraft) This book approaches witchcraft and demonology through literary records. The works discussed deal with the contemporary theories propounded by those who sought either to justify, or to refute persecution. Eight contributors of differing interests, and with different approaches to their subject, examine a...
Berkeley — Los Angeles — London: University of California Press, 2006. — 350 p. Sexuality and the occult arts have long been associated in the western imagination, but it was not until the nineteenth century that a large and sophisticated body of literature on sexual magic--the use of sex as a source of magical power — emerged. This book, the first history of western sexual...
Sussex Academic Press, 2006. — 316 p. This book contains the first comprehensive examination of popular familiar belief in early modern Britain. It provides an in-depth analysis of the correlation between early modern British magic and tribal shamanism, examines the experiential dimension of popular magic and witchcraft in early modern Britain, and explores the links between...
Knockabout Comics, 1997. — 133 p. Magic Mushrooms Around the World – A scientific Journey Across Cultures and Time by Jochen Gartz presents new unifying theories based upon years of research into the ethnobotanical aspects of magic mushrooms. Jochen Gartz documents how it was not only early american cultures who used a range of mushrooms but also European cultures have a...
Oxford University Press, 2007. — 272 p. Alchemists are generally held to be the quirky forefathers of science, blending occultism with metaphysical pursuits. Although many were intelligent and well-intentioned thinkers, the oft-cited goals of alchemy paint these antiquated experiments as wizardry, not scientific investigation. Whether seeking to produce a miraculous panacea or...
Lang: Unfreakable Press, 1999. — 191 p. Symbols play a big part in our lives, but we often take them for granted. To illustrate the meaning of symbols this book uses the example of the American flag, and explains what the symbols found on the flag really mean. The important point is that without an understanding of American history we'd not know how to interpret the symbols on...
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. — 384 p. — (Magic in History). A general introduction to medieval magic, containing a little-known handbook from the late Middle Ages. 'Forbidden Rites is the best book on magic in the late Middle Ages and a great introduction to the problematic relations of magic and religion in general.' H. C. Erik Midelfort, University of Virginia...
Penguin Global, 2012. — 880 p. Witchcraft, astrology, divination and every kind of popular magic flourished in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from the belief that a blessed amulet could prevent the assaults of the Devil to the use of the same charms to recover stolen goods. At the same time the Protestant Reformation attempted to take the magic out of...
The Pennsylvania State University, 2012. — 400 p. During the Middle Ages, the Western world translated the incredible Arabic scientific corpus and imported it into Western culture: Arabic philosophy, optics, and physics, as well as alchemy, astrology, and talismanic magic. The line between the scientific and the magical was blurred. According to popular lore, magicians of the...
Oxford UK: The Clarendon Press., 1921. — 262 p. Among the believers in witchcraft everything which could not be explained by the knowledge at their disposal was laid to the credit of supernatural powers; and as everything incomprehensible is usually supposed to emanate from evil, the witches were believed to be possessed of devilish arts. As also every non-Christian God was, in...
London: Routledge, 2004. — 232 p. Scepticism and Catholic reform: introductory remarks. ‘Into the realm of the senses’: Nicole Obry and the Miracle of Laon Marthe Brossier. Priestcraft and witchcraft: introductory remarks. The trial of Louis Gaufridy, Aix-en-Provence, 1609–11. Fighting fire with fire? Exorcism against ecstasy, Louviers, 1642–54. Ecstasy, possession, witchcraft:...
Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2010. — 378 p. This introduction to the writings of Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998), the pre-eminent spokesman of the Perennialist or Traditionalist school of comparative religious thought, is the first book to present a comprehensive study of his intellectual and spiritual message. In addition to a clear explanation of Schuon's message of metaphysics and...
Ashgate, 2004. — 394 p. Magic and divination in early Islam encompassed a wide range of practices, including belief in jinn, warding off the evil eye, the production of amulets and other magical equipment, conjuring, wonder-working, dream interpretation, predicting the weather, casting lots, astrology and physiognomy. The ten studies here are concerned with the pre-Islamic...
Boulder: Westview Press. — 2000. — 240 p. — ISBN10: 0813391431; ISBN13: 978-0813391434. In Mystical Society Philip Wexler, a well-known critical theorist with a background in social psychology and a special interest in spirituality, examines the revitalization of spirituality manifesting itself in society and in education. Describing what he calls "cultural changes toward the...
Leiden: Brill, 2014. — 689 p. Freemasonry is the largest, oldest, and most influential secret society in the world. The Brill "Handbook of Freemasonry" is a pioneering work that brings together, for the first time, leading scholars on Freemasonry. The first section covers historical perspectives, such as the origins and early history of Freemasonry. The second deals with the...
Tauris Parke Paperbacks, NY 2005. — 304 p. As we witness the renewed growth of the far right across Europe, America and the former East Bloc, The Occult Roots OfNazism helps illuminate its ideological foundations. By examining the occult ideas that played midwife to the Hitler movement, the most destructive right-wing ideology in history, we can better understand their...
University of Chicago Press, 2004. — 355 p. By the end of the nineteenth century, Victorians were seeking rational explanations for the world in which they lived. The radical ideas of Charles Darwin had shaken traditional religious beliefs. Sigmund Freud was developing his innovative models of the conscious and unconscious mind. And anthropologist James George Frazer was...
Monographic work. — New York: SUNY, Series in Western Esoteric Traditions, 2007. — 247 p. Historical exploration of masonic rituals of initiation. For more than three hundred years the practice of Masonic rituals of initiation has been part of Western culture, spreading far beyond the boundaries of traditional Freemasonry. Henrik Bogdan explores the historical development of...
London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1891. — 147 p. This work contains a collection of the customs, usages, and ceremonies current among gypsies, as regards fortune-telling, witch-doctoring, love-philtering, and other sorcery, illustrated by many anecdotes and instances, taken either from works as yet very little known to the English reader or from personal experiences. Within a very few...
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