Occult Books

Non-Mythos works (generally real-world) are often mentioned side-by-side with fictional Mythos Tomes in work by Lovecraft and others.

Dæmonolatreia

Remigius' Dæmonolatreia (1693)

French judge Remigius (Nicolas Remy) wrote this essential work on witch-hunting, Dæmonolatreia, which was published in three books in Lugduni in 1595. Since there have been a German translation (1693) and an English one by Montague Summers under the name Daemonolatry (1930). Like the witch hunting works of Trithemius and Sprenger & Kramer (the infamous Malleus Maleficarum)*, the Daemonolatreia explains the horrors and dangers of the power of the witches, how to distinguish them, and how to torture and destroy them.

("The Festival" "The Dunwich Horror")

The Golden Bough

Frazer's The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion or The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (1890)

A wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion, written by the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer (1854–1941). It was first published in two volumes in 1890; in three volumes in 1900; the third edition, published 1906–15, comprised twelve volumes. The work was aimed at a wide literate audience raised on tales as told in such publications as Thomas Bulfinch's The Age of Fable, or Stories of Gods and Heroes (1855).

Frazer offered a modernist approach to discussing religion, treating it dispassionately[1] as a cultural phenomenon rather than from a theological perspective. The influence of The Golden Bough on contemporary European literature and thought was substantial.

("The Call of Cthulhu")

Picatrix

Picatrix, or The Aim of the Sage or The Goal of The Wise (10th-11th century)

Picatrix is the name used today, and historically in Christian Europe, for a 400-page book of occult magic and astrology originally written in Arabic under the title Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, which most scholars assume was originally written in the middle of the 11th century, though a supported argument for composition in the first half of the 10th century has been made. The Arabic title translates as The Aim of the Sage or The Goal of The Wise. The Arabic work was translated into Spanish and then into Latin during the 13th century, at which time it got the Latin title Picatrix. The book's title Picatrix is also sometimes used to refer to the book's author. A composite work that synthesizes older works on magic and astrology. The most influential interpretations suggests it is to be regarded as a handbook of talismanic magic and celestial magic.

Saducismus Triumphatus

Saducismus Triumphatus, or, Full and plain evidence concerning witches and apparitions. In two parts. The first treating of their possibility. The second of their real existence. by Joseph Glanvill (1681)

The book affirmed the existence of witches with malign supernatural powers of magic, and attacked skepticism concerning their abilities. Glanvill likened these skeptics to the Sadducees, members of a Jewish sect from around the time of Jesus who were said to have denied the immortality of the soul. The book is also noted for the account of the Drummer of Tedworth, an early poltergeist story, and for one of the earliest descriptions of the use of a witch bottle, a countercharm against witchcraft. Strongly influenced Salem witch-hunter Cotton Mather.

The Witch-Cult in Western Europe

The Witch-Cult in Western Europe by Margaret Murray (1921)

Describes the theory known as the witch-cult hypothesis, described in further detail in The God fo the Witches, which suggests that the things told about witches in Europe were in fact based on a real, ancient, existing, secret, pan-European pagan religion that worshiped a horned god, which was influential on the witchcraft revival of the 20th Century, introducing many of the ideas that would be incorporated into witchcraft as a modern religion. Murray suggested that the secrets of this religion were originally handed down by oral tradition among a hidden human race of "little people" who were constantly driven deeper into the wildernesses by the encroachment of civilization.

The God of the Witches

The God of the Witches Margaret Murray (1931)

Continues describing the theory known as the witch-cult hypothesis first put forward in The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, which suggests that the things told about witches in Europe were in fact based on a real, ancient, existing, secret, pan-European pagan religion that worshiped a horned god, which was influential on the witchcraft revival of the 20th Century, introducing many of the ideas that would be incorporated into witchcraft as a modern religion. Murray suggested that the secrets of this religion were originally handed down by oral tradition among a hidden human race of "little people" who were constantly driven deeper into the wildernesses by the encroachment of civilization.

Hermetic Corpus

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Turba Philosophorum

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Liber Investigationis

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Key of Wisdom

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Zohar

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Albertus Magnus

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Ars Magna et Ultima

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Thesaurus Chemicus

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Clavis Alchimiae

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De Lapide Philosophico

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Magnalia Christi Americana

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Wonders of the Invisible World

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Malleus Maleficarum

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Corpus Hermeticum

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