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OCCULT HISTORY
Saturn in Retrograde: Counter-Culture Murder, Bad Trips & Demon Fantasies By Headpress, Martin Jones From kaleidoscopic Mexican death cults to out-of-control paranoid gurus, Saturn in Retrograde unearths the killers who extinguished the dreams of a whole generation against a psychedelic backdrop of God, sex, music, LSD, and Vietnam. Includes Magdalena Solis, a prostitute who assumed the role of a deity for blood sacrifice; Gary Krist, a bungled kidnapper with a trail of bodies; John Frazier, a would-be Manson but without the girls; Herbert Mullin, an acid-fried advert for the banning of drugs; Patrick Mackay, possessed by evil spirits, fixated by Nazis; and many more. MORE... USA MORE... UK Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Collection of Ancient Texts By Georg Luck 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 by witches and sorcerers, magi and astrologers, in the Greek and Roman worlds. In this new edition, Luck has gathered and translated 130 ancient texts dating from the eighth century BCE through the fourth century CE. Thoroughly revised, this volume offers several new elements: a comprehensive general introduction, an epilogue discussing the persistence of ancient magic into the early Christian and Byzantine eras, and an appendix on the use of mind-altering substances in occult practices. Also added is an extensive glossary of Greek and Latin magical terms. MORE... USA MORE... UK The Key to Solomon's Key: Secrets of Magic and Masonry By Lon Milo DuQuette Sketching out a fascinating network of historic figures, cults, and Christendom, this book by an occult studies expert and respected authority on magic and sorcery takes western spiritual traditions seriously- but examines them with common sense and self-effacing humor. Working backward from the Freemasons to one of their original orders, the 14th-century Knights Templar, the account considers sorcery, heresy, and intrigues; explores the legend that the Knights possessed a powerful secret dangerous to the Church of Rome; and finds an essential clue to the order's practices in their connection to the biblical Solomon, king of Israel in the 10th century B. C. MORE... USA MORE... UK The Roots Of Modern Magick: An Anthology By A. H. Greenfield This is an anthology giving glimpses into 300 years of magical spirituality, from 1700 to 2000, with suggestions for the future. The Authentic Magical Tradition is difficult to pin down, but the author has come closer than perhaps anyone in identifying the authentic tradition in the essential roots of magical spirituality today, and for tomorrow. 20 years of research and 40 years of experience in this area identifies the author as a major historian of the magical authentic tradition. MORE... USA MORE... UK Oracles of the Dead: Ancient Techniques for Predicting the Future By Robert Temple An examination of the shadow side of prophecy in human history and our attitudes toward fate and predicting the future. Many methods for predicting the future, such as tarot, runes, the I Ching, and other divinatory oracles, can be traced back to ancient cultures. In Oracles of the Dead Robert Temple examines the Greek and Roman traditions and techniques of divination and compares them to those of ancient China. He reveals the real physical location of the "hell" of the ancient Greeks--known in antiquity as the Oracle of the Dead and used for séances intended to contact the spirits of the dead--and provides photographs from his explorations there. Relating them to the ancient belief in the Oracle of the Dead, Temple examines the various mysteries associated with Delphi and the other oracles of the ancient world and explains how they were used to allow visitors to experience contact with the divine. Furthermore, his examination of the Chinese oracular system shows how the latest developments in science are validating the system of the I Ching. MORE... USA MORE... UK Stages of Evil: Occultism in Western Theater And Drama By Robert Lima "The evil that men do" has been chronicled for thousands of years on the European stage, and perhaps nowhere else is human fear of our own evil more detailed than in its personifications in theater. In Stages of Evil, Robert Lima explores the sociohistorical implications of Christian and pagan representations of evil and the theatrical creativity that occultism has engendered. By examining examples of alchemy, astronomy, demonology, exorcism, fairies, vampires, witchcraft, hauntings, and voodoo in prominent plays, Stages of Evil explores American and European perceptions of occultism from medieval times to the modern age. MORE... USA MORE... UK The Occult in Mediaeval Europe By P. G. Maxwell-Stuart The medieval period is often seen as an age of superstition. This study challenges this assumption, offering students a varied collection of documents--many of which appear in English for the first time--surveying what people throughout Europe actually thought and believed about the occult sciences at the time. The various branches of magic, divination, astrology and alchemy which helped people to make sense of their world are presented through translated extracts from religious, legal, medical and scientific documents. MORE... USA MORE... UK Table-Rappers: The Victorians and the Occult By Ronald Pearsall The Victorian age was the most haunted of all. At dark seances spectators watched spirit hands descending from above, and fondled 'spirits' who had coyly emerged from cabinets. The age of reason had done away with the supernatural. But the Victorians wanted it back and they made certain they got it. Astrology and fortune-telling enjoyed a boom, and in country districts the witches and the cunning men plied their arts, selling and casting spells, and applying the evil eye. The Table-Rappers deals with all aspects of the Victorian occult - the credulity of believers certain that a thing of gauze and muslin was their dead aunt, the venom of the professional mediums who sabotaged each others' seances, and the still unexplained phenomena - levitations, the fire test where mediums handled red-hot coals, and strange materialisations where both spirits and mediums were in the room at the same time. Behind all the heavy breathing in darkened rooms, the implausible spirit photographs, the interminable dotty table-rapping and inconsequential scribbling on slates, lay a whole world of absurd tricksters, well-meaning dolts, credulous gulls and some unforgettable characters. MORE... USA MORE... UK Magic In Medieval Manuscripts By Sophie Page Magic existed in diverse forms in the Middle Ages, from simple charms to complex and subversive demonic magic. Its negative characteristics were defined by theologians who sought to isolate undesirable rituals and beliefs, but there were also many who believed that the condemned texts and practices were valuable and compatible with orthodox piety. Magic in Medieval Manuscripts explores the place of magic in the medieval world and the contradictory responses it evoked, through an exploration of images and texts in British Library manuscripts. These range from representations of the magician, wise-woman and witch, to charms against lightning, wax images for inciting love, and diagrams to find treasure. Most elaborate of all the magical practices are rituals for communicating with and commanding spirits. Whether expressions of piety, ambition, or daring, these rituals reveal a medieval fascination with the points of contact between this world and the celestial and infernal realms. MORE... USA MORE... UK Witch Craze: Terror And Fantasy In Baroque Germany By Lyndal Roper A powerful account of witches, crones, and the societies that make them. From the gruesome ogress in Hansel and Gretel to the hags at the sabbath in Faust, the witch has been a powerful figure of the Western imagination. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thousands of women confessed to being witches—of making pacts with the Devil, causing babies to sicken, and killing animals and crops—and were put to death. This book is a gripping account of the pursuit, interrogation, torture, and burning of witches during this period and beyond. Drawing on hundreds of original trial transcripts and other rare sources in four areas of Southern Germany, where most of the witches were executed, Lyndal Roper paints a vivid picture of their lives, families, and tribulations. She also explores the psychology of witch-hunting, explaining why it was mostly older women that were the victims of witch crazes, why they confessed to crimes, and how the depiction of witches in art and literature has influenced the characterization of elderly women in our own culture. MORE... USA MORE... UK The Magical Universe: Everyday Ritual and Magic in Pre-Modern Europe By Stephen Wilson The universality of the magical beliefs which have existed throughout Europe from the time of the Romans to the present has been hidden by a focus on the sensational aspects of magic, and on witch trials in particular. The Magical Universe shows how magical beliefs and practices permeated all aspects of work and of family life, and profoundly influenced the approach of men and women to health and healing, birth, marriage and death. Magic offered the hope of protection in a dangerous and uncertain world, if the correct rituals were observed. Magical beliefs borrowed from and were incorporated in church rites. Such beliefs, shared by the powerful as well as the poor, lasted remarkably late in many rural areas and have still not completely vanished. MORE... USA MORE... UK Witches and Witch-Hunts: A Global History By Wolfgang Behringer In this major new book, Wolfgang Behringer surveys the phenomenon of witchcraft past and present. Drawing on the latest historical and anthropological findings, Behringer sheds new light on the history of European witchcraft, while demonstrating that witch-hunts are not simply part of the European past. Although witch-hunts have long since been outlawed in Europe, other societies have struggled with the idea that witchcraft does not exist. As Behringer shows, witch-hunts continue to pose a major problem in Africa and among tribal people in America, Asia and Australia. The belief that certain people are able to cause harm by supernatural powers endures throughout the world today. Wolfgang Behringer explores the idea of witchcraft as an anthropological phenomenon with a historical dimension, aiming to outline and to understand the meaning of large-scale witchcraft persecutions in early modern Europe and in present-day Africa. He deals systematically with the belief in witchcraft and the persecution of witches, as well as with the process of outlawing witch-hunts. He examines the impact of anti-witch-hunt legislation in Europe, and discusses the problems caused in societies where European law was imposed in colonial times. In conclusion, the relationship between witches old and new is assessed. This book will make essential reading for all those interested in the history and anthropology of witchcraft and magic. MORE... USA MORE... UK Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath By Carlo Ginzburg Emerging from testimonies during witchcraft trials in Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries are consistent descriptions of the Witches' Sabbath: night flying, ritual cannibalism, etc. Most scholars dismiss these descriptions as torture-induced gibberish. Ginzburg proves that these descriptions are bastardized accounts of ecstatic experiences practiced by a shamanic culture. In addition, he links the persecution of the witches with that of other social outcasts (lepers, Jews, and Muslims). Europeans thought that these groups conspired against society, which led to their wholesale slaughter. Very interesting and very convincing. Ginzburg weaves early accounts of witchcraft--trial records, ecclesiastical tracts, folklore, and popular iconography--into new patterns, and presents evidence of a hidden shamanistic culture that flourished across Europe and in England for thousands of years. MORE... USA MORE... UK The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern By Alex Owen Exploratory sex magic. Mind-altering drugs. Astral travel. Alchemy. Alex Owen's new book places these practices squarely alongside revolutionary understandings of rationality in a demonstration of how a newly psychologized magic operated in conjunction with the developing patterns of modern life. By the end of the 19th century, Victorians sought 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 models mind. James George Frazer was subjecting magic, myth, and ritual to systematic inquiry. Why, then, in this modern moment, did late-Victorian and Edwardian men and women become absorbed by metaphysical quests, spiritual encounters, and occult experimentation? Rescuing occultism from its status as an "irrational indulgence" and situating it at the center of British intellectual life, Owen argues that an involvement with the occult was a leitmotif of an intellectual avant-garde. She details such fascinating examples of occult practice as the sex magic of Aleister Crowley, the pharmacological experimentation of W. B. Yeats, and complex forms of astral clairvoyance as taught magical societies like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. MORE... USA MORE... UK Inner West: A New Consciousness Reader By Jay Kinney The founder of the influential 'Gnosis' magazine collects essays by some of today's finest spiritual writers to explore the West's magical and esoteric traditions. Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Gnosticism, The Knights Templar... few understand their true meaning. In 'The Inner West', more than twenty essays by seventeen leading authors shine a light on some of the most mysterious and closely held aspects of the Western tradition. Its authors bring to life the symbolist and occult philosophies that populate the history and beliefs of the Western way. These same philosophies- which include variants of Christian and Jewish mysticism, and the teachings of figures like Rudolf Steiner and G. I. Gurdjieff- can present a deep and different spiritual path. Spiritual seekers have often looked to the East for inspiration and guidance. Yet increasing numbers of people are discovering that many helpful wisdom traditions have existed right here in the West. With the Kabbalah and Tarot cards more popular than ever, and alternative spirituality from Wicca to Sufism gaining a new audience, The Inner West is a timely book for this expanding audience MORE USA... MORE UK... History of Witchcraft and Demonology By Montague Summers First published in 1925. Firmly believing in the whole paraphernalia of Satanism, the author has a wonderfully good time describing its nefarious orgies with a gusto which even the reader of feeble faith is apt to catch. Contents: Introduction; The witch - heretic and anarchist; Worship of the witch; Demons and familiars; The Sabbat; The witch in Holy Writ; Diabolic possession and modern spiritism; The witch in dramatic literature. This work about witchcraft, sorcery, black magic, neuromancy, damnation, satanism and every kind of magic and occult is written by the undisputed scholar in the field and is a work of unprecedented authority, of interest to all who are connected with the subject. MORE... USA MORE... UK Witch Hunters: Professional Prickers, Unwitchers and Witch Finders of the Renaissance By P. G. Maxwell-Stuart The history of a unique reign of terror. A thoroughly readable book on the lives and careers of possibly the most sadistic group of people of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the "great age" of witch-hunting in Europe and North America. From the doyen of witch-hunters, the Jesuit del Rio, to the British Matthew Hopkins, not to mention Pierre de Lancre, a judge who was responsible for burning 600 women, Maxwell-Stuart charts the progress of these fierce and dangerous zealots, while providing an insight into the world they perceived as evil and which they sought to destroy. MORE... USA MORE... UK Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius By Gary Valentine Lachman How did a decade that dawned with the Age of Aquarius end in Altamont and the Manson Family bloodbath? The 1960s were a time of revolution - political, social psychedelic, sexual. But there was another revolution that many historians forget the rise of a powerful current that permeated pop culture and has been a central influence on it ever since. It was a magical revolution - a revival of the occult. Previously rejected and ridiculed beliefs took centre stage, reaching the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, saturating the the hippies and flower power, hitting the big screen with Rosemary's Baby and the bookshelves with Lord of the Rings. The Tarot. I Ching, astrology, Kabbala, yogis, witchcraft, UFOs, Aleister Crowley. Yin Yang and the Tibetan Book of the Dead now became the common currency they are today. But the vibes went bad, the auras darkened. Did that darker undercurrent win out? Gary Lachman here charts this explosion, its rise and fall, and its enduring legacy MORE... USA MORE... UK An Endless Trace: The Passionate Pursuit of Wisdom in the West By Christopher Bamford, Philip Zaleski Two powerful motives weave beneath the surface of our spiritual history: the desire to know and the desire to love. The secret history of the West is the story of saints, mystics, alchemists, poets, and philosophers trying to unite these two streams and to celebrate the sacred marriage of Logos and Sophia, Word and Wisdom. This book, an impressionistic history of the Western spiritual tradition, follows the traces, from ancient Greece into modern times, of those who sought to know the world and themselves. Discusses Pythagoras, Sophia, Celtic Christianity, the Troubadours, the Grail, the Rose Cross, Renaissance spirituality, Romanticism, 19th-century occultism, and 20th century esotericism. MORE... USA Spiritualism, Madame Blavatsky, and Theosophy: An Eyewitness View of Occult History By Rudolf Steiner Without the spiritualist movement and the amazing personality of Helena P. Blavatsky, the creator of the Theosophical Society, the spiritual revolution of the 20th century - the so-called New Age - would be unimaginable. And the work of Rudolf Steiner, G.I. Gurdjieff, Schwaller de Lubicz, and C.G. Jung could not have become what it was. Steiner moves into the realm of occult history, where he relates Theosophy to its historical ground in Western esotericism, especially Rosicrucianism. He reveals events from the 17th century that led to the emergence of Freemasonry and other secret societies, as well as the hidden history of the creation of Theosophy in the 19th century. MORE... USA MORE... UK Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook By Daniel Ogden In a culture where the supernatural possessed an immediacy now strange, magic was of great importance in the literary and mythic tradition and in ritual. This book presents 300 texts in new translations. Alongside descriptions of sorcerers, witches, and ghosts in the works of ancient writers, it reproduces curse tablets, spells from ancient magical recipe books, and inscriptions from magical amulets. Each translation is followed by a commentary that puts it in context within ancient culture. Authors include the well known (Sophocles, Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Pliny) and the less familiar, and extend across the whole of Greco-Roman antiquity. MORE... USA MORE... UK
Spirituality and the Occult: From the Renaissance to the Modern By B. J. Gibbons MORE... USA MORE... UK Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Biblical and Pagan Societies By Bengt Ankarloo MORE... USA Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Ancient Greece and Rome By Bengt Ankarloo MORE... USA MORE... UK Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Middle Ages By Bengt Ankarloo MORE... USA MORE... UK Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Period of the Witch Trials By Bengt Ankarloo MORE... USA MORE... UK Witchcraft and Magic in 16th-And 17th-Century Europe By Geoffrey Scarre MORE... USA MORE... UK Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The 18th and 19th Centuries By Bengt Ankarloo MORE... USA MORE... UK Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The 20th Century By Bengt Ankarloo MORE... USA MORE... UK Eros and Magic in the Renaissance By Ioan P. Culianu MORE... USA MORE... UK Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age By Frances Amelia Yates MORE... USA MORE... UK Rosicrucian Enlightenment By Frances Amelia Yates MORE... USA MORE... UK A History of Pagan Europe By Prudence Jones, Nigel Pennick MORE... USA MORE... UK The Occult in Early Modern Europe: A Documentary History By P. G. Maxwell-Styart MORE... USA Magic in the Ancient World By Fritz Graf MORE... USA MORE... UK Magic in the Middle Ages By Richard Kieckhefer MORE... USA MORE... UK The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe By Valerie I. J. Flint MORE... USA The Myth of the Magus E. M. Butler MORE... USA MORE... UK Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer's Manual of the Fifteenth Century By Richard Kieckhefer MORE... USA Ancient Magic and Ritual Power By Marvin W. Meyer MORE... USA MORE... UK Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World By John G. Gager MORE... USA MORE... UK From Sphinx to Christ: An Occult History By Edouard Schure MORE... USA MORE... UK Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook By Daniel Ogden MORE... USA MORE... UK Greek and Roman Necromancy By Daniel Ogden MORE... USA MORE... UK Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion By Christopher A. Faraone MORE... USA MORE... UK The Theosophical Enlightenment By Joscelyn Godwin MORE... USA MORE... UK Spiritualism, Madame Blavatsky, and Theosophy: An Eyewitness View of Occult History By Rudolf Steiner MORE... USA MORE... UK Real History of the Rosicrucians By Arthur E. Waite MORE... USA MORE... UK Gnosis and Hermeticism: From Antiquity to Modern Times By R. Van Den Broek MORE... USA MORE... UK Two Essays on the Worship of Priapus By Richard Payne Knight MORE... USA MORE... UK The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion By James George Frazer MORE... USA The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook: Sacred Texts of the Mystery Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean World By Marvin W. Meyer MORE... USA MORE... UK		The History of Magic By Eliphas Levi MORE... USA Behind the Crystal Ball: Magic, Science, and the Occult from Antiquity Through the New Age By Anthony Aveni MORE... USA MORE... UK Babylonian Magic and Sorcery By Leonard W. King MORE... USA MORE... UK Chaldean Magic By Francois Lenormant MORE... USA Semitic Magic: Its Origins and Development By R. Campbell Thompson MORE... USA MORE... UK History of Early Witchcraft By Susan Greenwood MORE... USA MORE... UK The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft By Ronald Hutton MORE... USA MORE... UK Satanism and Witchcraft: The Classic Study of Medieval Superstition By Jules Michelet MORE... USA MORE... UK Witchcraft: Magic and Alchemy By Emile Angelo Grillot De Givry MORE... USA MORE... UK Thinking With Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe By Stuart Clark MORE... USA MORE... UK Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in Early Modern England By J. A. Sharpe MORE... USA The Discoverie of Witchcraft By Reginald Scot MORE... USA MORE... UK The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger MORE... USA MORE... UK Compendium Maleficarum By Francesco Maria Guazzo MORE... USA The Bathhouse at Midnight: Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia By W. F. Ryan MORE... USA The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture By Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal MORE... USA MORE... UK The Occult Underground By James Webb MORE... USA The Secret Teachings of All Ages: By Manly P. Hall MORE... USA The Romance of Sorcery By Sax Rohmer MORE... USA MORE... UK Religion and Its Monsters By Timothy K. Beal MORE... USA MORE... UK The Hell-Fire Clubs: A History of Anti-Morality By Geoffrey Ashe MORE... USA MORE... UK The History of Hell: By Alice K. Turner MORE... USA Lure of the Sinister: The Unnatural History of Satanism By Gareth J. Medway MORE... USA MORE... UK The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity By Jeffrey Burton Russell MORE... USA MORE... UK The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History By Jeffrey Burton Russell MORE... USA MORE... UK Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages Jeffrey Burton Russell MORE... USA MORE... UK Satan: The Early Christian Tradition By Jeffrey Burton Russell MORE... USA MORE... UK Raising Hell: A Concise History of the Black Arts and Those Who Dared Practice Them By Robert Masello MORE... USA Complete Book of the Devil's Disciples By Leonard R. N. Ashley MORE... USA MORE... UK The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890-1935 By Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke MORE... USA Voices in the Dark: Esoteric, Occult & Secular Voices in Nazi-Occupied Paris 1940-44 By William Patrick Patterson MORE... USA