Looking for books to help with research.

Darkshore · May 2, 2011

I'm looking for "Reputable" books on Angealogy, Demonology, and different types of Magic (Magick, Magickk). Now when I say "Reputable" I'm basically just hoping for some books written by someone with at least some respect in the background or perhaps even a P.H.D. I'm not looking for a random made up account of said things. Anyone know of any books like these? Have you used any in your writing? I'm still in the semi-world-building, semi-first draft, part of my novel. Thanks in advance.

Kitti · May 3, 2011

There are tons of academic history books on magic, witchcraft, demonology, etc. You'll probably get better suggestions if you're more specific. Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon, is a good one on the 20th/21st century. For older time periods, look for books by Erik Midelfort, Wolfgang Behringer, Brian Levack or Lyndal Roper.

Ria13 · May 3, 2011

Kitti said:
There are tons of academic history books on magic, witchcraft, demonology, etc. You'll probably get better suggestions if you're more specific. Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon, is a good one on the 20th/21st century.

I wouldn't suggest Triumph of the Moon. (haven't heard of the other books.) that goes into the social history of neopaganism and Wicca as a social movement, doesn't go into other branches of occultism and doesn't delve that much into the belief system.

some suggestions for basic books:

* The Black Arts by Richard Cavendish (a historical overview; out-of-date)
* Modern Magick by Donald Michael Kraig
* Magic and Witchcraft: From Shamanism to the Technopagans by Neville Drury (coffetable book with historical overview)
* Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner Traditions by Richard Smoley and Jay Kinney (historical overview divided into topics; some relevant chapters, others less relevant to your interests because they deal less with topics like ritual magic)
* The Magician's Reflection by Bill Whitcomb

dirtsider · May 3, 2011

What exactly are you looking for? Are you looking for occultism of the 19th/20th Century? If so, Ronald Hutton is good if you're interested in the background of Neopaganism. He also has other books out on King Arthur and the Druids, again more for the social history of the Neopagan, 20th/21st Century period. Or are you looking for something a little further back? And what do you mean by 'made up accounts'? Something like the Necronomicon?

If you could clarify that, perhaps we could help you a bit more.

Darkshore · May 3, 2011

I'm currently working on more in depth world-building for my novel. It's an Urban Fantasy that takes place in modern day. The overall plot-line for the series relies heavily upon angels and demons. Angels being the more mysterious of the two. Demons are a constantly reoccurring enemy. It also includes well...honestly just about any other cool creature of myth and legend that I can fit into the story. A big focus is that basically everything supernatural actually exists, though I change them up a bit and they may not be the exact same creature from the legends per-say. As for Magic well...honestly anything that delves into some occult magic, demon or spirit summonings, exorcism rites entropy magic, thaumaturgery, anything that can give me a strong foundation to build a magic system out of. I have a fairly good idea but I feel more information on the subject would help me be more specific. I also like to base things off of what some people or cultures actually believe rather than a magic system like lets say..D&D. I know that's a mouthful but I think that narrows it down a bit as to what exactly I'm trying to find. Thanks

.

Deleted member 42 · May 3, 2011

You might want to specifically look online for "Enochian magic."

Also, AW member Diana Hignutt might have a good bibliography for you.

Diana Hignutt · May 4, 2011

Medievalist said:
You might want to specifically look online for "Enochian magic."

Also, AW member Diana Hignutt might have a good bibliography for you.

Did somebody call?

First, a link that might be helpful to my old Diana's Magick Thread:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18583

Now, I am a sorceress of some note. I no longer use magician as I used to, as it involves all kinds of connotations: robes, spells, circles, that I have found to be redundant and unnecessary for my purposes.

Now, as Medi suggests, Enochian Magick might just be perfect (angels and demons) for your uses. However, it happens to be the most complicated and obscure form of the Western Occult Tradition.

The source for all Enochian writings is Dr. John Dee, advisor to QE1, mathematician, navigator, and magician. His work is in either Latin or Old English and is difficult to penetrate.

To start a proper education in general "modern" magick:

Magick - Aleister Crowley
Psychic Self-Defense - Dion Fortune
The Tree of Life - Isreal Regardie
Transcendental Magic - Eliphas Levi (A.E. Waite's translation)

For Demonology:

The Goetia: Or the Lesser Key of Solomon - Abramelin (tranlated by Crowley & Mathers)--an actual grimoire

Enochian:

Let me check my library for proper references.

I shall return.

DrZoidberg · May 4, 2011

I think Wikipedia has excellent articles on all of this.

Darkshore · May 4, 2011

Diana Hignutt said:
Did somebody call?

First, a link that might be helpful to my old Diana's Magick Thread:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18583

Now, I am a sorceress of some note. I no longer use magician as I used to, as it involves all kinds of connotations: robes, spells, circles, that I have found to be redundant and unnecessary for my purposes.

Now, as Mac suggests, Enochian Magick might just be perfect (angels and demons) for your uses. However, it happens to be the most complicated and obscure form of the Western Occult Tradition.

The source for all Enochian writings is Dr. John Dee, advisor to QE1, mathematician, navigator, and magician. His work is in either Latin or Old English and is difficult to penetrate.

To start a proper education in general "modern" magick:

Magick - Aleister Crowley
Psychic Self-Defense - Dion Fortune
The Tree of Life - Isreal Regardie
Transcendental Magic - Eliphas Levi (A.E. Waite's translation)

For Demonology:

The Goetia: Or the Lesser Key of Solomon - Abramelin (tranlated by Crowley & Mathers)--an actual grimoire

Enochian:

Let me check my library for proper references.

I shall return.

Those books look like they are exactly what I was looking for. They seem interesting enough to deserve a read in their own right even if it wasn't for research. Thanks a ton. :snoopy:

Zelenka · May 4, 2011

Try also www.sacred-texts.org as well, as they have a lot of public domain texts here, listed by subject, and it's searchable. There's also another site which I don't recall the name of offhand, but I can find it once I'm home from work.

Diana Hignutt · May 5, 2011

While the technicalities of Encohian would probably confuse a casual researcher more than help, I can think on one book that might eludicate best: The Vision and the Voice - Aleister Crowley, which is an account of his "opening and entering" the various Enochian gates and meeting the "angels" that resided there, all based directly on Dee's experiments. That might be helpful too.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions, BTW.

Oh, my friend, sorcerer Richard Eldritch recommends Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castenada for anyone interested in the practicalities of sorcery, and I find it hard to disagree.

dirtsider · May 5, 2011

Also read Grimoires by Owen Davies. It's about the history of Grimoires and mentions different Grimoires you might want to look up. The Goeta is mentioned there. I suggest reading this to get an idea of how these magical books spread throughout the world over the course of the past few centuries.

Other suggestions are:
*The Key of Solomon the King (not to be confused with the Goeta which is the Lesser Key of Solomon).
*The Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Agrippa

Some non-Grimoire reading:
*The History of Witchcraft and Demonology - Montague Summers: it's an early 20th Century book on, well, the history of witchcraft (as in pre-Wicca)
*The Black Arts: Someone already suggested it upthread

I would also suggest reading Ronald Hutton's Triumph of the Moon for the social history of Neopaganism because it does have a good section on secret magical societies in the 19th Century and early 20th Century, as researched from a historian's point of view.

I also suggest looking at folklore for some basic magical aids. I'm doing similar research and came across Signs, Cures, and Witchery which touches on some Appalachian folklore.

GradyHendrix · May 5, 2011

If you want some colorful reading, then Montague Summers is your man. But if you want accuracy, avoid him. A deeply devout minister, Summers relied on mistranslations, faulty conclusions and, frankly, lying to write all of his books. They are wonderfully entertaining and if you take them with a fistful of salt they make good starting places, but they do not give an accurate view of, well, anything.

Most people who write in this field have an agenda, so take it all seasoned with plenty of salt. Some academic works on witchcraft, magic and belief systems that you can more or less rely on include:

The Night Battles
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0801843863/?tag=absowrit-20
This is the closest we'll come to an accurate reconstruction of the pre-15th century agrarian belief systems (mostly shamanic) that many historians feel were the seed from which the witch persecutions of the next 200 years grew.

Malleus Maleficarum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum
The classic witch-hunting text from the 15th century. It's repetitive and dense but it'll give you a good idea of what was so scary to folks about magic.

The European Witch Craze of the 16th and 17th Century
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061314161/?tag=absowrit-20
Not a bad hand held study of the entire European witchcraft phenomena.

There are several other sources here for historical witchcraft:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/apr/19/top10s.witch.persecution

If you're interested in magic (or "magick" or "magiqqueguk" or however folks are spelling it these days) then you should do some reading up on the hermetic tradition which is what most of it springs from. A good place to start is Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0226950077/?tag=absowrit-20

Diana Hignutt · May 5, 2011

there is a difference between magic(k) and witchcraft. be sure to be sure of which way you're gonna go, and stick to it. either way is fine, it depends on your story.

Ria13 · May 5, 2011

all right... more suggestions. a number of authors have come up with books along the lines of A Dictionary of Angels and A Dictionary of Demons or Devils. (these draw from the same sources so you will generally see the same information repeated from book to book.) you can also find these online.

if you want to research according to Crowley, I would start with his Magick Without Tears. in fact, I think I should have recommended that to begin with. or I would begin with his Book IV. some publishers have published Magick and Theory and Practice as two separate books. actually, Crowley intended Book IV as the first part of Magick, explaining the basics before you get into the complicated stuff.

the big fat Weiser edition of Magick puts both in one volume, though.

if you want simple, lucidly explanations, go for Magick Without Tears. that doesn't go into angels or demons though except in very basic theoretical terms.

Ria13 · May 5, 2011

BTW, Darkshore, as a general tip, when posting to Story Research, it helps to put some specific information in the subject line. instead of "Looking for books to help with research", then, "Looking for books on [X]".

dirtsider · May 5, 2011

GradyHendrix said:
If you want some colorful reading, then Montague Summers is your man. But if you want accuracy, avoid him. A deeply devout minister, Summers relied on mistranslations, faulty conclusions and, frankly, lying to write all of his books. They are wonderfully entertaining and if you take them with a fistful of salt they make good starting places, but they do not give an accurate view of, well, anything.

Most people who write in this field have an agenda, so take it all seasoned with plenty of salt. Some academic works on witchcraft, magic and belief systems that you can more or less rely on include:

The Night Battles
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0801843863/?tag=absowrit-20
This is the closest we'll come to an accurate reconstruction of the pre-15th century agrarian belief systems (mostly shamanic) that many historians feel were the seed from which the witch persecutions of the next 200 years grew.

Malleus Maleficarum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum
The classic witch-hunting text from the 15th century. It's repetitive and dense but it'll give you a good idea of what was so scary to folks about magic.

The European Witch Craze of the 16th and 17th Century
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061314161/?tag=absowrit-20
Not a bad hand held study of the entire European witchcraft phenomena.

There are several other sources here for historical witchcraft:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/apr/19/top10s.witch.persecution

If you're interested in magic (or "magick" or "magiqqueguk" or however folks are spelling it these days) then you should do some reading up on the hermetic tradition which is what most of it springs from. A good place to start is Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0226950077/?tag=absowrit-20

Thank you for the warning. I agree, most authors in this field do have their own agendas, one way or the other. (And thanks for the list, I've been doing my own research on this subject.) But the main reason why I mentioned Summers was to offer an idea of how witchcraft and demonology was viewed/written about at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Grady, have you read Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550 - 1750 yet? I have it but haven't read it yet. I'd like to get your opinion if you have. The editor is listed as Marion Gibson and it looks like she's brought together a lot of primary sources of the time period on the subject.

GradyHendrix · May 5, 2011

Don't get me wrong, Summers is really a lot of fun to read. And you're right, he gives a really great early 20th century perspective on all this. It's funny to think of him co-existing with the Jazz Age and then the Great Depression. He's such a 19th Century throwback - heck, more like 18th Century or earlier.

I have read some of Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550 - 1750 and I actually think it's a terrific book mostly because it's original documents and primary sources. I don't think the Shakespeare or Marlowe is very helpful because you can find it in so many places, and I think books like Malleus Maleficarum and Saducismus Trumphatus make more sense when you have to wade through the whole thing rather than excerpts. It's one thing to read a chapter or two from either one, but you only get a sense of how crazy all this was and how small-minded and how...nerdy when you have to read 20 - 30 chapters of each.

BUT that said, I think Witchcraft and Society is a really good overview. And it puts the American witch trials and the European ones together and draws some parallels which is nice. Although I think European, English and American witchcraft were all really different in a way, it's rare that a book lumps them all together and I think that's not a bad thing.

Looking for books to help with research.

Darkshore

Stranger

Kitti

procrastinatrix

Ria13

dirtsider

Not so new, really

Darkshore

Stranger

Deleted member 42

Diana Hignutt

Very Tired

DrZoidberg

aka TomOfSweden

Darkshore

Stranger

Zelenka

Going home!

Diana Hignutt

Very Tired

dirtsider

Not so new, really

GradyHendrix

New kid, be gentle!

Diana Hignutt

Very Tired

Ria13

Ria13

dirtsider

Not so new, really

GradyHendrix

New kid, be gentle!