A Library Of Witchcraft Philosophy Treasures?

10:12 This is such a welcome little pep talk. I’m a practitioner, but I’ve still felt called to dive deeper: our local college library had a copy of James P. Allen’s “Middle Egyptian: an Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs.” I’m about 3 chapters in, and while it is slow going, the more I learn, the more “do-able” this feels, which is astonishing to me. Taking notes, making flash-cards, quizzing myself, and just really thinking about language is giving my mind such a healthy ongoing challenge! Taking myself “back to school,” purely for the challenge, enjoyment, and empowerment of it, is a choice I am not regretting. I’m already compiling a little “wish list” from the Esoterica library to help supplement this pursuit. Thank You, Dr. Sledge, for putting this “next level” within reach for practitioners.

I really appreciate this list, sir. Figuring out where to start has been difficult, despite my own habit of reading modern scholarly articles on a range of topics over the past decade. This field in particular has proven dense and nigh-impenetrable for someone without a degree in philosophy or the classics (maybe for them, too, I wouldn’t know). My pocketbook, however, has some choice words for you, as seven minutes with your bibliography is set to cost me over a hundred dollars. Well worth it, and far cheaper than what a solo meandering would cost, but still.

The profound giving heart of the true academic is on display here, thank you for this resource Dr Sledge! I hope this little beginners list fuels not only a passion for further study amongst viewers, but a greater drive to make accessible and preserve the harder to find, and more expensive volumes. It sucks that texts go out of print.

This is amazing. As to your study/recording studio reorganization, I’m sure we’d all love to see the before and after! Also, do you have some sort of wish list? I’m sure there are those of us on here who would love to contribute a book or a piece of equipment to help with your amazing work. Love all this stuff and I can’t wait until next week’s collaboration with Dr. Puca!

Of course I skipped by the entire bibliography and instead located Volume 1 of A History of Magic and Experimental Science. Opening a page at random, I found Pliny, who is referenced often in another book I’m reading. Truly there are no coincidences. Thank you for your deep scholarship. I will now go back and acquire Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed. I’m an old woman, so these two books may last me the rest of my life.

This website and Mr Mythos are my two primary sources for research materials. I am currently strugglging with the guilt of Christianity as well as some kind of spiritual attachment. I wish I knew how to get rid of it but my fear prevents me being a practitioner so I just study that which I see as academic

The timing is rather odd. I started getting addicted on reading academic and historical books about magic last week and was looking for a good reading list this Tuesday. I especially wanted a good recommendation on the Bible, since it’s hard to find non-christian recommendations, even in the scholar field. In fact, I even looked in your website for it. A few days later you posted it. I’m so happy!

This dropped at the perfect time for me. I’ve got a creative project around HP Lovecraft. I’ve taken the recrurring character of Randolph Carter and imagined a modern day Miskatonic student finding his lost journals. The student is then sharing Carter’s notes on Lovecraft’s own stories as well as on some essoteric texts that I am imagining Carter researched. Now I have a great list of texts to pull from. Thank You!

Thank You SO MUCH for this! Had I the money I would throw it at you for compiling such an invaluable resource! I remember a few years ago you had some obscure texts that you mentioned you wanted to sell but were considering options. By the time I saw the article there were too many comments to be seen, but at that time I was going to suggest scanning/ digitizing & creating your own saleable digital copies. A “Dr. Sledge Library of the Obscure and Esoteric” would be a great way to support yourself/ the website or other such philosophical endeavors. I love that these texts have endured some academic rigor as well as an academically rigorous filter of your scholarship as well. Hurray! You even gave an entry level survey!! Thank you again.

Two Gnostics perusal this moment: 13:00 (very loosely applied but understandable wordplay reference, maybe not for Steve Rogers, though) 🌟 🗡⚔️🔫 🪖 Gnostic apprentice: “Can this power be learned??” Sethian Gnostic Master: “Not from a Jeuian…” (Hope you catch this reference anew, and may we strike back at the empirical cartel, to usher in the rerun of the Jeuian (Gnosticism episode)!

ESOTERICA, or Dr. Sledge, would you some day do an introduction to Lullism? I’m not sure it’s your field of expertise, but you are probably quite familiar to a degree, for it has ties to mysticism. It’s an author that doesn’t really recieves coverage, not in english, and not too much in spanish or catalan.

8:58 Being a practitioner, I have found the most relevance in studying the solidly known historical foundations and engaging with others, historians, practitioners and the general public on topics in esotericism on those grounds by far more productive. To my mind, the mythological elements are for me and me alone to find myself in; by sticking to what can be known and internalizing that the importance of mythology as the importance of imagination, I can not only maintain the purity of my practice and avoid corrupting the practice of others (except nazis, corrupting their practices is called praxis) but it’s very helpful in never suddenly realizing I fell into a narcissistic personality cult. I also would love to hear you talk about Mesmerism.

Thanks for another great article, Justin! Your articles and book recommendations have played such a helpful role in my own academic journey over the years. My research is on the PGM and belief and cult in Late Antique Egypt, and I have a couple of recommendations you may find helpful. For more up-to-date translations of the material covered by Betz, Meyer and Smith, I would highly recommend getting your hands on Greek and Egyptian Magical Formularies by Christopher Faraone and Sofia Torallas Tovar for the Graeco-Egyptian material, and Papyri Copticae Magicae by Korshi Dosoo and Markéta Preininger for the Coptic Christian magical tradition. For secondary literature, the works of David Frankfurter are invaluable. I would highly recommend his Religion in Roman Egypt and Christianising Egypt for discussions of the PGM and Coptic magical tradition in context. The volume he edited a few years ago Guide to the Study of Magic is also a fantastic introductory text (although I have a sneaking suspicion it was published by Brill). For older material, I think Jonathan Z. Smith’s Map is Not Territory is dated but a classic. I hope this is helpful. Keep up the great work!

I think one of the most spiritual exercises is reading old books on ancient history with a problem in mind, because once that connection is made, wow what a mindgasm. It’s like slowly putting a mental puzzle together and fitting one of those pieces, that historical picture becoming clearer, nothin better. It’s actually one of the reasons I believe in the transmigration of souls, I believe the most accurate way of explaining it is that it’s a feeling of retrieving lost data, recollecting lost memories.

Thank you for your articles, your book recommendations and most of all your empowering words. I’m deeply interested in this subject but am easily intimidated in many paths of learning. I am frequently and easily discouraged when I go to learn a new thing, especially if the teacher is haughty or mean about it, which is often enough the case in academic or professional matters. It’s very encouraging and refreshing to hear someone, even a stranger, say, “You can do this.” You are appreciated, Doc. Be well.

I confess to knowing nothing, my sources back in the day started with Symonds biography of Aleister Crowley, and these authors inter alia:. Israel Regardie, Idries Shah, W E Butler, Frances Yates and A E Waite. I was very interested in the history of freemasonry back in the day and I guess that led me to Frances Yates. I have read an incredible amount of bull, the best coming from Rabelais himself, notwithstanding Urquharts translation. I would say though for fiction Algernon Blackwood cannot be beat, I am busily recreating his Willows on the banks of the river Sowe right now, come and camp there if you dare 🙂

This is absolutely incredible! Thank you so much for doing this. Your articles, as well as those of other websites you frequently collaborate with, have been an indispensable resource during a period of resurgence in my interest in these topics. Reliable and accessible information felt out of reach for a long time, which is a big part of why it slipped out of my immediate interest, but I have held a lifelong fascination with magick, alchemy, all things esoteric and mystery schools, and contextual information about the history of contemporary religion and it’s etymology. I always appreciate your book recommendations, and have been wanting to go through and consolidate some of the ones in my immediate interests for a while, so thanks for saving this procrastinator that time. I’ll try to put the time I saved to actually reading lol.

The issue of finding good books on the esoteric are the same as finding any other information, but escalated due to bad actors. And that is that in academia and literature there is a lot of garbage, let’s say, to sort through. And in especially in esotericism there’s a lot of people who plainly don’t know what they’re talking about, but believe they do. Or people who know they’re saying nonsense and doing it on purpose. I recently got gifted a large encyclopedia of crystals and their use in the occult from a relative who had mistakenly acquired two copies. However upon reading into this book, it wasn’t long before I found mention of a gemstone I knew doesn’t exist. And they wrote at length about this crystal. It was at this point I grew suspicious of the authors, so I flip to the front cover and take out my phone to google who these people are. I find the people involved were con artists who literally made up the existence of a crystal and sold them on their now defunct website for ridiculous amounts of money. But at the end of the day they were just selling titanium plated quartz points, but making it seem more extravagant by saying this was a new crystal that’s only just appeared and has been blessed by the sun itself. It’s… not a very good con for anyone with half a brain. But now I have this encyclopedia that is largely useless. It also has a bunch of fluff and new age nonsense that brings it down more. Which is a shame because it does do a thing I like that approaches it from a Taoist perspective, relating different gemstones to the Taoist elements rather than the classical ones.

I’ve been trying to track down some of your book recommendations from individual articles—for example, Hermetica II by M. David Litwa. I understand that the recommendations from specific articles are a little more specialized to individual topics. Can I start with some of those books? The Evil Creator looks fascinating. Will it go over my head or should I start with one of the books from this article?

Isn’t there a way to get to these books via a library? I live in Germany and even in the small town in the middle of nowhere and the community library could get books sent from bigger libraries. Also if you live in or near a bigger city there has to be a big library, right? Those 300$-books aren’t ment to be bought by normal people. Edit: Typos

What are your thoughts on Manly P. Hall’s The Secret Teachings of All Ages? Not sure if it fits all criteria, but for me it was first glimpse into an existence of schools of thought that are different from what we were told on religion lessons in school (don’t ask, I’m not from US :)) Also illustrations in that book definitely had influence on my artistic tastes and interests.