Tarot of Ceremonial Magick: A Pictorial Synthesis of Three Great Pillars of Magick


Lon Milo DuQuette - 1995
    The concept is a breakthrough for occultists of all paths. Each card is illustrated with a list of the Zodiacal, Enochian, Ceremonial, Goetic, Tattvic and Elemental components. DuQuette explains how the cards relate to each other and makes immediately accessible the more difficult conceptual connections the Crowley made so easily. Through DuQuette's wit and decades of practical knowledge of magical practice, students of the arcane arts can gain a whole new level of udnertsnading of how and why magick works.

The Portable Anais Nin


Anaïs Nin - 2010
    A handy source book of Nin's most important writings, arranged chronologically and annotated by Nin scholar Benjamin Franklin V.

Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers


John Schilb - 1999
    The writing text helps students learn to analyze literature and develop responsible and persuasive claims about it — making it matter to them as it hasn’t before.Reading it — when it explores issues that matter. The stories, poems, plays and essays in the anthology are uniquely organized into thematic clusters focusing on life issues that speak to students and evoke their engaged response.

The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth


Robert Graves - 1948
    In this tapestry of poetic and religious scholarship, Graves explores the stories behind the earliest of European deities—the White Goddess of Birth, Love, and Death—who was worshipped under countless titles. He also uncovers the obscure and mysterious power of "pure poetry" and its peculiar and mythic language.

Departmental Ditties & Barrack Room Ballads


Rudyard Kipling - 1892
    John Whitehead, critic and biographer who himself served with the Indian Army in Burma, has provided this in full measure in his entertaining and scholarly Introduction and comprehensive textual Notes. This Centenary Edition of the ballads is unlikely ever to be superseded.

The Nag Hammadi Library


Unknown Nag Hammadi
    It is a collection of religious and philosophic texts gathered and translated into Coptic by fourth-century Gnostic Christians and translated into English by dozens of highly reputable experts. First published in 1978, this is the revised 1988 edition supported by illuminating introductions to each document. The library itself is a diverse collection of texts that the Gnostics considered to be related to their heretical philosophy in some way. There are 45 separate titles, including a Coptic translation from the Greek of two well-known works: the Gospel of Thomas, attributed to Jesus' brother Judas, and Plato's Republic. The word gnosis is defined as "the immediate knowledge of spiritual truth." This doomed radical sect believed in being here now--withdrawing from the contamination of society and materiality--and that heaven is an internal state, not some place above the clouds. That this collection has resurfaced at this historical juncture is more than likely no coincidence.--P. Randall Cohan

Rosa Alchemica


W.B. Yeats - 1913
    Called by critics his best work of fiction, "Rosa Alchemica" incorporates not only the lush language and imagery of early Yeats, but also his personal interests: Irish culture, myth and legend, and his lifelong membership in the society of the Golden Dawn, a secret society that believed it could practice magic. Yeats believed that "poetry and romance cannot be made by the most conscientious study of famous moments and of the thoughts and feelings of others, but only by looking into that little, infinite, faltering, eternal flame that we call ourselves."

Beautiful Losers


Leonard Cohen - 1966
    The novel centres upon the hapless members of a love triangle united by their sexual obsessions and by their fascination with Catherine Tekakwitha, the 17th-century Mohawk saint. By turns vulgar, rhapsodic, and viciously witty, Beautiful Losers explores each character’s attainment of a state of self-abandonment, in which the sensualist cannot be distinguished from the saint.

Wormwood Star: The Magickal Life of Marjorie Cameron


Spencer Kansa - 2011
    As well as illuminating her early childhood and wartime experiences, the book offers a fresh perspective on the role she played in the infamous Babalon Working magick rituals, that were conducted by her husband, the maverick rocket scientist and Aleister Crowley disciple, Jack Parsons, and the future founder of Scientology, L Ron Hubbard. Following Parsons death in 1952 from a chemical explosion, Cameron inherited her husband's magickal mantle and embarked on a lifelong spiritual quest, a journey reflected in the otherworldly images she depicted, many of them drawn from the Elemental Kingdom and astral plane. The biography also takes an in-depth look at Cameron's artistry and film appearances, and features reminiscences from the many artists, poets and movie star friends she inspired along the way. With so much of her life and work shrouded in mystery, Wormwood Star sheds new light on this most remarkable artist and elusive occult icon.

De Umbris Idearum: On the Shadows of Ideas


Giordano Bruno
    To memorize anything, distribute vivid, emotionally stirring imagined images around a piece of familiar architecture. This is the method of loci, or memory palace method, first developed in classical antiquity. Giordano Bruno perfected the art in the late 16th Century. He published a series of books on the subject, beginning with De Umbris Idearum (On the Shadows of Ideas). His work and life would lead him across the major centers of Renaissance Europe, to the patronage of kings and nobles, the scorn and envy of academics, and ultimately to his imprisonment and execution at the hands of the Roman Inquisition in 1600.Bruno's works have been reprinted periodically since his death. The current edition is the first complete English translation to be published.

The Magical Revival


Kenneth Grant - 1972
    This history of 20th-century magic presents a detailed analysis of a pre-Christian occult tradition which survived persecution and reappeared in recent times.

They Do It with Mirrors


Agatha Christie - 2012
    Her fears are confirmed when a youth fires a gun at the administrator, but that isn't the only shooting!

The I Ching or Book of Changes


Richard Wilhelm
    It has exerted a living influence in China for 3000 years and interest in it has spread in the West. Set down in the dawn of history as a book of oracles, the Book of Changes deepened in meaning when ethical values were attached to the oracular pronouncements; it became a book of wisdom, eventually one of the Five Classics of Confucianism, and provided the common source for both Confucianist and Taoist philosophy. Wilhelm's rendering of the I Ching into German, published in 1924, presented it for the 1st time in a form intelligible to the general reader. Wilhelm, who translated many other ancient Chinese works and who wrote several books on Chinese philosophy and civilization, long resided in China. His close association with its cultural leaders gave him a unique understanding of the text of the I Ching. In the English translation, every effort has been made to preserve Wilhelm's pioneering insight into the spirit of the original.This 3rd edition, completely reset, contains a new forward by Hellmut Wilhelm, one of the most eminent American scholars of Chinese culture. He discusses his father's textual methods and summarizes recent studies of the I Ching both in the West and in present-day China. The new edition contains minor textual corrections, bibliographical revisions and an index.

The Poetry of Allama Iqbal


Muhammad Iqbal - 2001
    He wrote his poetry in Urdu and Farsi (1873-1938), and that bridged and encompassed the past many centuries of man's endeavours in the realms of thought and intuition. He emblazoned the high standards set by Mirza Asadullah Khan 'Ghalib', and glorified the literature in his own way. He was a scholarly personality, and wrote on various subjects, from philosophy to politics, from romance to emotions and so on. He wrote world famous poem 'sare jahan se acha Hindustan hamara' and many other such 'nazams' which are even today considered as great poetical creations. He was honoured with the title 'sir' by the British Government for his contributions to the literature.The present collection is a representative of Iqbal's Urdu poetry, which has been transliterated into English verses, with translation into Devanagari (Hindi) and Roman script. The English translation has been done by Khwaja Tariq Mahmood, who earlier translated the poems of Mirza Ghalib and Sahir Ludhianvi, and is now working on many other collections.

Sane Occultism


Dion Fortune - 1920
    Contents: What is Occultism? Is Occultism Worth While? Deeper Issues of Occultism; Credulity in Occult Research; Meditation & Psychism; Use & Abuse of Astrology; Records of Past Lives; Numerology & Prophecy; Group Karma; Authority & Obedience; Secrecy in Occult Fraternities; Left-hand Path; Occultism & Immorality; Psychic Pathologies; Mental Trespassing; Occultism & Vegetarianism; Eastern Methods & Western Bodies; Standards of Judgment; Ideals of Occultism.