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Tarot
Recommended reading etc.
Top 20
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In 1453, Constantinople fell to the Turks, ending the Byzantine empire.
This date also marks the beginning of the Renaissance, since the waves
of Greek refugees spread knowledge of Greek throughout Europe.
Included with the newly available Greek manuscripts were the Corpus Hermetica,
Plotinus, and the works of the Neoplatonists.
Shortly thereafter in 1492, Isabella and Ferdinand expelled the Jews from
Spain. This sent waves of Jewish refugees throughout Europe, spreading
knowledge of Hebrew and of the Kabbalah.
Renaissance philosophers sought to integrate these traditions with the
view of unifying the rapidly disintegrating religious factions and also
ending the constant political strife. Thus they are the forerunners or
prophets of the Rosicrucian and Illuminati movements.
Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516)
Master cryptographer and magician, Trithemius was the mentor of
Henrich Cornelius Agrippa.
Heinrich Agrippa
The most influential writer of renaissance esoterica.
Athanasius Kircher
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Dr. John Dee (1527-1608)
Another influential Renaissance figure, Dee was Queen Elizabeth's
scientific advisor. In later life, he became disillusioned with
pure science and started experimenting with occult techniques of the
day. Many of his esoteric writing were kept secret and only discovered
by accident long after his death.
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Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)
Bruno was one of the most original and colorful thinkers of the Renaissance.
The Inquisition considered him a dangerous heretic, and had him burned
at the stake in 1600.
Jacques Gohory (1520-1576)
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Classical magic texts (aka Grimoires)
Key of Solomon variants:
This is the most famous and influential handbook of magic.
- Key of Solomon
Mathers' edition.
- The Key of Knowledge. A Sixteenth-Century
English translation of the Key of Solomon.
- The Clavicle of Solomon, revealed by Ptolomy the Grecian. (Sloane 3847)
- Clavicules du Roi Salomon, Par Armadel. Livre Quatrieme. Des Esprits qui gouvernent sous les Ordres du Souverain Createur.
(The Key of King Solomon, Book 4: The Spirits which govern under the Orders of the sovereign Creator.) (Excepts, French)
- The Veritable Clavicles of Solomon,
Translated from Hebrew into the Latin Language by Rabbi Abognazar (Lansdowne MS. 1203).
- Mafteah Shelomoh / Clavicula Salomonis,
A Hebrew Manuscript Newly discovered and now described, by Hermann Gollancz (1903)
- Sepher Maphteah Shelomoh
(Book of the Key of Solomon) An exact facsimile of an original book of magic
in Hebrew, ed. by Hermann Gollancz, (1914)
- Zecorbeni sive Claviculae Salomonis
Transcribed from Oxford, Bodleian Libraries MS. Aubrey 24.
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- The Lesser Key of Solomon (Lemegeton):
All five books. This famous 16-17th century grimoire was compiled from earlier texts.
It was considered important by Crowley, Mathers, Waite, and others.
The scrying methods correspond closely with Dee's.
- Liber Trium Animarum ("The Book of Three Souls")
(Latin)

- The Magical Calendar
(Calendarium Naturale Magicum Perpetuum)
by Johann Baptista Großchedel. (excerpts)
- Messalah: The Book of the Seven Rings of the Planets of Messalah,
edited and translated by Mihai Vârtejaru.
Used with permission.
- Paracelsus: Archidoxis of Magic (excerpts, English)
- Peter of Abano (pseudo):
- Picatrix (The Goal of the Wise) pseudo-Majriti. (Summary)
- Reginald Scot's collection of magical texts
A fine example of Elizabethan English
- Romanus-Büchlein
Little Charm-book of the Roma (Gypsies). One of the main sourceworks for
Hoodoo and American Folk magic. (German and English)
- A. W. Greenup: Sefer ha-Levanah -- The Book of the Moon (Hebrew)
- Sefer Shimmush Tehillim - Book of the Magical Uses of the Psalms
- Ebenezer Sibly,
A New and Complete Illustration of the Occult Sciences, Book 4. (1795?)
Methods used for raising up and consulting Spirits are laid open,
including a general Display of the Mysteries of Witchcraft, Divination, Charms,
and Necromancy. Also includes an alchemical process for raising
the form of plants from their essences (ala Borelli).
- Sepher Raziel (English translation from Sl. 3846, colophon dated 1564)
- Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses.
This has already become one of the most requested documents at this site.
- Sword of Moses
Tenth century Hebrew handbook of magic
- Testament of Solomon
One of the oldest magical texts attributed to King Solomon, dating First to
Third Century A.D. Includes a catalog of demons summoned by King Solomon,
and how they can be countered by invoking angels and other magical
techniques.
- Theosophia Pneumatica [pdf].
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Vadian manuscript (VSG 334)
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One of the earliest texts of the Key of Solomon as well as Lucidarium of the Art of Necromancy.
Used with permission.
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Black Magic
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Sigillum Dei Aemeth
- UPenn LJS 226 (1410)
- Ganell's Summa Sacre Magice, Kassel 4° Ms. astron. 3, fol. 104r.
- My reconstruction based on description in Liber Iuratus and Ganell's drawing
- Athanasius Kircher Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652) Kircher's discussion of
Sigillum Dei Aemeth (Latin)
- Leipzig mag. cod. 16, p. 175, from uni-leipzig.de (ca 1750)
- BNF ms. 14783 f6r
- Sloane 313, fol 4r. (late 14-early 15 ce)
- My reconstruction based on Sl. 313
- Sloane 3850, fol 70v
- Sloane 3853, fol 127v
- From Faust, Magia Naturalis et Innaturalis
- From an Italian manuscript of the Key of Solomon in the Bodleian Library,
MS. Mich. 276, fol 13r.
- Redrawn but based on Mich. 276.
- From a Latin manuscript of the Key of Solomon in the Bodleian Library, MS. Aubrey 24, fol. 60r (1674)
- Kircher
- John Dee
- From Will Erich Peuckert, Pansophie (Berlin, 1956)
- La Véritable Magie Noire ("Rome", "1750")
- Oxford, History of Science Museum (16th ce?)
Miscellaneous
- FONTS
- Occult symbols and esoteric GIF's
- Angel Registry:
Index of Angel names, magical words, and names of God
- Theodore Besterman, Crystal-Gazing
- Chaldaean Oracles of Zoroaster (W.W. Wescott, 1895)
- Chaldaean Oracles (Stanley, 1661)
- Images from Bartholomeus Cocles, Chyromantie ac phisionomie anastasis (Bononie 1504)
- Dionysius the Areopagite: Mystical Theology
- Dionysius the Areopagite: The Celestial Hierarchies
- E.S. Drower: Peacock Angel (1941)
- Magical Psalter
- Magic wand lore
- Pseudo-Psellos, On the Operation of Daemons.
- Solomon and the Ars Notoria:
From Lynn Thorndike, Magic and Experimental Science, 1923-58,
Chapter XLIX.
- Iamblichus: Theurgia, or the Mysteries of Egypt
- Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Of Being and Unity
- Pico: Conclusiones sive Theses DCCCC (Latin)
- Proclus: Metaphysical Elements
- The Sphere of Sacrobosco
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