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Read researched articles and historical primers on alchemy, Gnosticism, ceremonial magic, grimoires, and the Western esoteric tradition. Every article connects back to a book.
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New research, historical primers, and reading guides from across the catalog.
In 1570 a Londoner who made his living in trade published the first complete English translation of Euclid's Elements, and he did something strange with the…
Modern readers who meet John Dee through legend expect a magician. The man who allegedly spoke with angels, folded into every story about Elizabethan…
In February 1570, a printer named John Day pushed through his presses an enormous English translation of Euclid, and pinned to the front of it a long essay…
In 1570, at the back of a book about triangles, one of England's greatest mathematicians paused to defend himself against the suspicion that he was a…
Open any grand history of Elizabethan England and you will find Dr. John Dee holding conversations with angels, naming the British Empire, or lending his…
Every documentary record ends somewhere, but few end as strangely as the angel diaries of Dr John Dee.
Prague, 27 March 1587. Two English alchemists stand summoned before a bishop of the Church, accused of necromancy, in a city where the Emperor keeps…
In September 1583 a Polish aristocrat slipped out of England after four months of banquets, borrowed money, and conversations with angels.
In 1659 a London printer named D. Maxwell, working for the bookseller T. Garthwait, issued one of the strangest volumes of the century: the private diaries…
In the winter of 1770, a tall Scottish traveller stood at a marshy spring in the Ethiopian highlands called Gish Abay and, by his own account, obliged his…
From The Book of Enoch
Somewhere near the start of the Mutus Liber, a ladder leans against the sky. Figures climb it, and above them angels wring out clouds like wet linen,…
Ask a room full of people what an enneagram is and most will describe nine personality types, a quiz, maybe a number they identify with.