The Occult Rejects

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RESEARCH BIBLIOGRAPHY 
I. CHEMISTRY, MEDICINE, AND EXPERIMENTS
1. Weinstein, S., and R. J. Manning. “Intermediate Oxidation Products of Epinephrine.” Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine 32, no. 7 (1935): 1096–1097. doi:10.3181/00379727-32-7983P.
Link: https://doi.org/10.3181/00379727-32-7983P
Access/evidence: Publisher text available. Episode use: Early adrenaline oxidation; do not describe this as proven isolation of modern adrenochrome.
2. Green, David Ezra, and Derek Richter. “Adrenaline and Adrenochrome.” Biochemical Journal 31, no. 4 (1937): 596–616. doi:10.1042/bj0310596.
Link: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1266980/
Access/evidence: Full article accessible. Episode use: Foundational chemistry and historical nomenclature.
3. Osmond, Humphry, and John Smythies. “Schizophrenia: A New Approach.” Journal of Mental Science 98, no. 411 (1952): 309–315. doi:10.1192/bjp.98.411.309.
Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14917992/
Access/evidence: Citation verified; full text not reviewed. Episode use: Original proposed biochemical hypothesis.
4. Hoffer, Abram, Humphry Osmond, and John Smythies. “Schizophrenia: A New Approach. II. Result of a Year’s Research.” Journal of Mental Science 100, no. 418 (1954): 29–45. doi:10.1192/bjp.100.418.29.
Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/13152519/
Access/evidence: Citation and publisher extract verified; full paper not reviewed. Episode use: Early follow-up research.
5. Hoffer, Abram. “Adrenochrome in Blood Plasma.” American Journal of Psychiatry 114, no. 8 (1958): 752–753. doi:10.1176/ajp.114.8.752.
Link: https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/ajp.114.8.752
Access/evidence: Citation verified; full paper paywalled. Episode use: Hoffer’s claimed measurement, not an accepted consensus.
6. Szára, Stephen, Julius Axelrod, and Seymour Perlin. “Is Adrenochrome Present in the Blood?” American Journal of Psychiatry 115, no. 2 (1958): 162–163. doi:10.1176/ajp.115.2.162.
Link: https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/ajp.115.2.162
Access/evidence: Publisher abstract available. Episode use: Reports nondetection using the researchers’ method; a direct historical contrast with Hoffer.
7. Cohen, Gerald, Bernard Holland, and Marcel Goldenberg. “The Stability of Epinephrine and Arterenol (Norepinephrine) in Plasma and Serum: A Comparison of Normal and Schizophrenic Subjects.” AMA Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry 80, no. 4 (1958): 484–487. doi:10.1001/archneurpsyc.1958.02340100084020.
Link: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/archneurpsyc/article-abstract/652760
Access/evidence: Publisher abstract/introduction available. Episode use: A related but distinct experimental question about catecholamine behavior.
8. Heacock, R. A. “The Chemistry of Adrenochrome and Related Compounds.” Chemical Reviews 59, no. 2 (1959): 181–237. doi:10.1021/cr50026a001.
Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cr50026a001
Access/evidence: Bibliographic record and period text identified. Episode use: Comprehensive contemporary chemistry review.
9. Payza, A. N., and M. E. Mahon. “Spectrofluorometric Estimation of Adrenochrome in Human Plasma.” Analytical Chemistry 31, no. 7 (1959): 1170–1174. doi:10.1021/ac60151a028.
Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac60151a028
Access/evidence: Citation verified; full paper paywalled. Episode use: Analytical-method dispute and measurement limitations.
10. Payza, A. N., and Margaret Mahon. “Modification of Spectrofluorometric Determination of Aminochromes in Human Plasma.” Analytical Chemistry 32, no. 1 (1960): 17–19. doi:10.1021/ac60157a005.
Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac60157a005
Access/evidence: Citation verified; full paper not reviewed. Episode use: Follow-up modification to assays.
11. Grof, Stanislav, M. Vojtěchovský, V. Vítek, and S. Pranková. “Clinical and Experimental Study of Central Effects of Adrenochrome.” Journal of Neuropsychiatry 4 (1963): 33–50.
Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14089791/
Access/evidence: PubMed bibliography verified; full study not reviewed. Episode use: Historical publication and experimental research context; no specific numerical outcomes in the final script pending original paper.
12. Throne, M. L., and C. W. Gowdey. “A Critical Review of Endogenous Psychotoxins as a Cause of Schizophrenia.” Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal 12 (1967). doi:10.1177/070674376701200209.
Link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/070674376701200209
Access/evidence: Publisher entry located; full review not reviewed. Episode use: Period critique of the psychotoxin hypothesis.
II. SCOTTISH RITE, ROCKEFELLER, AND HISTORICAL CORRESPONDENCE
13. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library. Melvin M. Johnson Records, Dementia Praecox Committee archival descriptions, including June 1952 proceedings (Box 65, Folder 15) and September 1952 proceedings (Box 71, Folder 4).
Link: https://srmml.libraryhost.com/subjects/1437?page=2
Access/evidence: ARCHIVE CATALOG ONLY; minutes not acquired. Episode use: The catalog documents a collection; it does not disclose the meeting’s contents.
14. McGill University Library, Osler Library/Penfield Fonds. Nolan D. C. Lewis correspondence to Wilder Penfield, July 17, 1935.
Link: https://digital.library.mcgill.ca/images/penfieldfonds/large/pen_a_n_16_1_item07.pdf
Access/evidence: Original archival file identified; page-image check needed. Episode use: Early committee/program affiliation, long before the adrenochrome hypothesis.
15. Hoffer, Abram. Published 1980 article discussing the Scottish Rite Dementia Praecox Committee and the claimed 1952 Waldorf Astoria presentation. Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry 9, no. 1 (1980), starting p. 2.
Link: https://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1980/pdf/1980-v09n01-p002.pdf
Access/evidence: Later participant account; not contemporaneous minutes. Episode use: Use attribution such as “Hoffer recalled” for 1952 events.
16. Rockefeller Foundation. Annual Report, 1954, pp. 86 and 110.
Link: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/Annual-Report-1954-1.pdf
Access/evidence: OFFICIAL REPORT; cited amounts remain pending page-image review. Episode use: Separate reported Hoffer travel assistance from University of Saskatchewan schizophrenia research funding.
17. Rockefeller Foundation. Annual Report, 1957, pp. 107–108.
Link: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/Annual-Report-1957-2.pdf
Access/evidence: OFFICIAL REPORT; page-image recheck pending. Episode use: Later Saskatchewan research support and Hoffer’s program role.
18. University of Saskatchewan / Saskatchewan Archives and associated holdings. Abram Hoffer Fonds inventory, including experimental records and Rockefeller Foundation correspondence. Digitized finding aid hosted by Purdue University Libraries.
Link: https://collections.lib.purdue.edu/psychoactive/assets/pdfs/HofferInventory.pdf
Access/evidence: ARCHIVE FINDING AID ONLY; folders/experiments not acquired. Episode use: Research papers, cat-experiment slides, and grant correspondence require direct access.
19. Huxley, Aldous, and Humphry Osmond. Psychedelic Prophets: The Letters of Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond. Edited by Cynthia Carson Bisbee, Paul Bisbee, Erika Dyck, Patrick Farrell, James Sexton, and James W. Spisak. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018.
Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv7r40jc
Access/evidence: Published correspondence identified; specific passages should be checked against edition. Episode use: Primary historical correspondence in an edited scholarly edition; includes discussion of related compounds and research support.
III. INTELLIGENCE DOCUMENTS, PATENTS, AND REGULATION
20. Dulles, Allen W. Memorandum on psychochemical research, December 3, 1955. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950–1955, The Intelligence Community, document 244. U.S. Department of State.
Link: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950-55Intel/d244
Access/evidence: OFFICIAL TEXT AVAILABLE. Episode use: Cold War psychochemical context; does not show CIA adrenochrome administration.
21. Central Intelligence Agency. “Report of Trip, 6–11 April 1955, to [Redacted].” Report dated April 11, 1955; MORI/document number 146122, 44 pages.
Link: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/REPORT%20OF%20TRIP%2C%206-11%20APRIL%201955%2C%20TO%20%28DELETED%29%5B12885865%5D.pdf
Access/evidence: INDEXED LEAD ONLY; full scan not obtained. Episode use: Indexed excerpt appears to mention adrenochrome; exact author, page, and full context are unverified.
22. Patterson v. United States litigation materials. Court-filed exhibit dated April 6, 2012, listing CIA/MKULTRA FOIA records, including MORI 146122.
Link: https://edgewoodtestvets.org/court-filed-documents/pdfs/20120406-405-Patterson-Dec-ISO-MTC-22-Ex-V.pdf
Access/evidence: COURT EXHIBIT/INDEX; does not include the entire 1955 report. Episode use: Independent record identifier, not proof of a CIA adrenochrome experiment.
23. United States Patent and Trademark Office. Adrenochrome Compositions, U.S. Patent 2,581,850, issued January 8, 1952.
Link: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2581850A/en
Access/evidence: PATENT TEXT AVAILABLE. Ep

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN SOURCES
Diodorus Siculus. Bibliotheca Historica (Library of History), Book IV. Especially the discussion of Hermaphroditus as the offspring of Hermes and Aphrodite and as possessing combined male and female characteristics.
Ovid. Metamorphoses, Book IV, especially the episode of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus.
Plato. Symposium, especially Aristophanes’ speech, 189d–193d, for the myth of primordial male, female, and androgynous human beings and their division by Zeus.
Theophrastus. Characters, especially the discussion of the “Superstitious Man,” traditionally connected with early evidence for Hermaphroditus.
Posidippus. Hermaphroditus. Surviving fragment/testimonia concerning the lost Hellenistic comedy.
Ajootian, Aileen. “The Only Happy Couple: Hermaphrodites and Gender.” In studies of ancient representations of Hermaphroditus and erotic sculpture. Useful for the Hellenistic and Roman iconographic tradition.
Brisson, Luc. Sexual Ambivalence: Androgyny and Hermaphroditism in Graeco-Roman Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Important for the broader ancient history of androgyny and hermaphroditism.
JEWISH, RABBINIC, AND KABBALISTIC SOURCES
Genesis Rabbah 8:1. Especially the teachings concerning Adam as androgynos and du-parzufim.
Babylonian Talmud. Berakhot 61a and Eruvin 18a. For related rabbinic discussions of the original human as double-sided or possessing two faces.
Philo of Alexandria. De Opificio Mundi (On the Creation). Relevant to earlier Jewish-Hellenistic speculation concerning primordial humanity and sexual differentiation.
Sefer ha-Bahir. For early medieval Kabbalistic material contributing to later gendered sefirotic symbolism.
The Zohar. Especially passages concerning masculine and feminine divine configurations, the Shekhinah, Tiferet, Adam, and supernal union.
Tishby, Isaiah. The Wisdom of the Zohar: An Anthology of Texts. 3 vols. Translated by David Goldstein. Oxford: Littman Library, 1989.
Scholem, Gershom. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New York: Schocken Books.
Scholem, Gershom. On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism. Translated by Ralph Manheim. New York: Schocken Books, 1965.
Idel, Moshe. Kabbalah: New Perspectives. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.
Wolfson, Elliot R. Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995.
Wolfson, Elliot R. Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Wolfson, Elliot R. Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination. New York: Fordham University Press, 2005.
Brown, Jeremy Phillip. “God as Androgyne in Medieval Kabbalah: Toward a History of the Doctrine.” Traditio 80 (2025). Particularly important for reassessing older claims concerning the antiquity of fully developed divine-androgyny doctrines within Provençal Kabbalah.
CHRISTIAN CABALA AND RENAISSANCE OCCULT PHILOSOPHY
Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni. Conclusiones Nongentae (900 Conclusions). 1486.
Reuchlin, Johannes. De Verbo Mirifico. 1494.
Reuchlin, Johannes. De Arte Cabalistica. 1517.
Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius. De Occulta Philosophia Libri Tres (Three Books of Occult Philosophy). Complete edition, 1533.
Copenhaver, Brian P., ed. and trans. Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a New English Translation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Forshaw, Peter J. Studies on the conjunction of Cabala, magic, and chymistry in early-modern European esotericism. Particularly useful for understanding the intellectual environment connecting Christian Cabala with alchemical and magical traditions.
MEDIEVAL AND EARLY-MODERN ALCHEMY — PRIMARY SOURCES
Aurora Consurgens. Medieval/early Renaissance alchemical manuscript tradition. Especially important for the development of sexual, generative, and composite alchemical imagery before the printed Rosarium Philosophorum.
Rosarium Philosophorum. In De Alchimia. Frankfurt, 1550. Essential for the sequence of Sol and Luna, the royal couple, conjunction, death, purification, regeneration, and hermaphroditic transformation.
Khunrath, Heinrich. Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae. Hamburg, 1595; expanded posthumous edition, Hanau, 1609. Especially the circular figures known as Adam Androgyne, Rebis or Alchemical Hermaphrodite, and the Oratory-Laboratory.
Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. Strasbourg, 1616.
Maier, Michael. Atalanta Fugiens. 1617/1618. Especially Emblem XXXVIII, “Rebis, ut Hermaphroditus,” explicitly connecting the Rebis with Hermaphroditus, Mercury, and Venus.
Pseudo-Basil Valentine. Azoth, or The Azoth of the Philosophers. Early seventeenth-century tradition. Especially the celebrated diagram centered on the hermaphroditic Rebis.
Paracelsus. Selected alchemical, medical, and natural-philosophical writings. Useful for the broader Paracelsian environment inherited by Khunrath and later Christian alchemists.
MODERN SCHOLARSHIP ON ALCHEMY
Abraham, Lyndy. A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Forshaw, Peter J. The Mage’s Images: Heinrich Khunrath in His Oratory and Laboratory. 4 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2025. Particularly important for Khunrath’s Adam Androgyne, Rebis or Alchemical Hermaphrodite, the structure of the four Theosophical Figures, and the relationship between Cabala, magic, alchemy, oratory, and laboratory.
Moran, Bruce T. Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.
Newman, William R. Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
Newman, William R. Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
Newman, William R., and Lawrence M. Principe. “Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins of a Historiographic Mistake.” Early Science and Medicine 3, no. 1 (1998): 32–65.
Principe, Lawrence M. The Secrets of Alchemy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Principe, Lawrence M., ed. Chymists and Chymistry: Studies in the History of Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry. Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications, 2007.
Devun, Leah. The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021. Especially useful for medieval discussions of Adam, bodily sex, hermaphroditic figures, and alchemical imagery.
ÉLIPHAS LÉVI AND BAPHOMET
Lévi, Éliphas. Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie. 2 vols. Paris, 1854–1856.
Lévi, Éliphas. Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual. Translated by Arthur Edward Waite. London, 1896.
Lévi, Éliphas. The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic: A New Translation. Translated by John Michael Greer and Mark Anthony Mikituk. New York: TarcherPerigee, 2017.
Churton, Tobias. Éliphas Lévi and the French Occult Revival. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2016.
GOLDEN DAWN
Regardie, Israel. The Golden Dawn. Multiple editions. Major published collection of Golden Dawn rituals, knowledge lectures, magical instructions, and Inner Order material.
Crowley, Aleister, ed. The Equinox, vol. I. London, 1909–1913. Relevant for Golden Dawn-derived ritual material published by Crowley, including the symbolism of equilibrium and the Neophyte ceremony.
Howe, Ellic. The Magicians of the Golden Dawn: A Documentary History of a Magical Order, 1887–1923. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972.
Gilbert, R. A. The Golden Dawn: Twilight of the Magicians. Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1983.
Gilbert, R. A. The Golden Dawn Companion. Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1986.
ALEISTER CROWLEY, THELEMA, AND THE O.T.O.
Crowley, Aleister. Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law). 1904.
Crowley, Aleister. Liber XV: Ecclesiae Gnosticae Catholicae Canon Missae (The Gnostic Mass). Especially the Creed’s use of Chaos, Babalon, the Serpent and Lion, and Baphomet.
Crowley, Aleister. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. Especially Chapter 85 for Crowley’s explicit discussion of adopting Baphomet as his O.T.O. motto.
Crowley, Aleister. Liber LII: Manifesto of the O.T.O.
Crowley, Aleister. Liber Agapé. Relevant to O.T.O. sexual-magical doctrine.
Crowley, Aleister. Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abiegni. Relevant to Babalon, dissolution, offering, and sexual-mystical symbolism.
Crowley, Aleister. The Book of Thoth. London, 1944.
Crowley, Aleister. Magick in Theory and Practice. Paris, 1929.
Bogdan, Henrik. Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
Bogdan, Henrik, and Martin P. Starr, eds. Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Kaczynski, Richard. Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley. Revised and expanded edition. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2010.
Urban, Hugh B. Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
JUNG AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REINTERPRETATION OF ALCHEMY
Jung, C. G. Psychology and Alchemy. Collected Works, vol. 12. Princeton: Princeton Universi

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Babcock, Barbara A., ed. The Reversible World: Symbolic Inversion in Art and Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978. This is one of the major theoretical works behind our discussion of symbolic inversion, reversal, reflexivity, and why societies sometimes institutionalize behavior that deliberately contradicts ordinary norms.
Black Elk [Nicholas Black Elk], as told through John G. Neihardt. Black Elk Speaks. Originally published 1932; complete annotated edition, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Chapter 16, “Heyoka Ceremony,” is the important material for our comparison, particularly Black Elk’s explanation that Heyoka authority is connected with visions of the Thunder Beings and that sacred power is expressed through apparently foolish or reversed behavior. The modern Nebraska edition includes annotations by Lakota scholar Raymond J. DeMallie and additional contextual material.
Burke, Charles H. “Circular 1665: Indian Dancing.” Office of Indian Affairs, April 26, 1921; “Supplement to Circular No. 1665: Indian Dancing,” February 14, 1923; and “To All Indians,” February 24, 1923. Copies are preserved in the Indian Rights Association Papers, reel 40, D’Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies, Newberry Library. These are the crucial primary federal documents behind our discussion of attempts to discourage, regulate, and suppress Native dances. Contemporary archival citations confirm the dates and repository.
Mathiowetz, Michael D. “The Keepers of Tradition: Clown Societies in the Casas Grandes and Puebloan Worlds.” KIVA: Journal of Southwestern Anthropology and History 91, no. 2 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1080/00231940.2025.2461803. This is the major new archaeological source in Part Two. Mathiowetz argues that clown societies existed within the Casas Grandes cultural world during the Medio Period, approximately AD 1200–1450, and may have influenced later Pueblo clown institutions; he also explores relationships with governance, Sun Youth, katsina ritualism, medicine societies, and agriculture.
Mathiowetz, Michael D. “The Sun Youth of the Casas Grandes Culture, Chihuahua, Mexico (AD 1200–1450).” KIVA 84, no. 3 (2018): 367–390. https://doi.org/10.1080/00231940.2018.1463685. This earlier article supplies much of the archaeological and iconographic background underlying Mathiowetz’s later clown-society argument, particularly his reconstruction of Sun Youth and the political-religious complexity of Paquimé.
National Gallery of Art. “Awa Tsireh: Two Kossa,” ca. 1925. Corcoran Collection, accession 2015.19.381. This is the primary museum record for the artwork we discuss throughout Part Two: two Kossa figures painted by San Ildefonso Pueblo artist Awa Tsireh during the period of the Pueblo dance controversy.
National Gallery of Art. “Expressing the Individual” and “Artists Who Expand Views of the Southwest.” These NGA interpretive resources are particularly valuable because they discuss Awa Tsireh’s repeated representation of Kossa, the possibility that his clown imagery responded to federal attempts to suppress Pueblo ceremonial life, and his practice of omitting or altering details to protect sacred Pueblo knowledge from non-Pueblo viewers.
National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution. “Statement on Online Collections and Culturally Sensitive Collections.” This is the major contemporary museum source behind our section on restricted knowledge. NMAI explicitly states that it withholds culturally sensitive images and information when requested by authorized Native or Indigenous communities and can present records without publicly displaying the objects themselves.
National Museum of the American Indian. Koyemsi (Mud Head Clown) Mask, ca. 1966. A (Zuni), catalog no. 25/8935. This object was especially useful because NMAI identifies it as a ceremonial/ritual object and currently withholds its image, making it a concrete example of the principle that museum possession does not automatically make ceremonial material unrestricted public property.
National Park Service. “John Fire Lame Deer (Tahca Ushte).” NPS biographical resource. Useful as a supplementary source for the Heyoka comparison because the NPS explicitly identifies Lame Deer as a Heyoka, explains the association with dreams or visitations involving Thunder Beings, and distinguishes that sacred role from ordinary clowning.
Parsons, Elsie Clews. Hopi and Zuñi Ceremonialism. Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, no. 39. American Anthropological Association, 1933. Used for the comparative discussion of Hopi and Zuni ceremonial organization, including katsina institutions, rain and weather-control functions, society structure, and Koyemshi within the larger ceremonial world.
Pueblo de Cochiti. “Visiting for Cultural Events.” Official Pueblo de Cochiti guidance. This should remain one of the most important contemporary sources in the entire two-part show because it comes directly from the Pueblo rather than from an anthropologist: Cochiti describes tribal dances as religious ceremonies rather than public performances, prohibits photography and recording during cultural events, and explicitly asks visitors not to press people for information.
Stevenson, Matilda Coxe. The Zuñi Indians: Their Mythology, Esoteric Fraternities, and Ceremonies. Twenty-Third Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1901–1902. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904. Used as an important historical ethnographic source for the placement of Ko’yemshi within the wider structure of Zuni ceremonial life; like other early ethnography in the episode, it is treated as a historical source rather than a complete statement of contemporary A religious doctrine.
Swentzell, Roxanne. Oral history interview by Mija Riedel, November 8–9, 2011. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Used for Swentzell’s Indigenous explanation of Pueblo clown imagery, social reflection, difficult communication, and the clown’s capacity to reflect behaviors such as greed back toward the community.
Turner, Victor W. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1969; later editions by Routledge. This provides the comparative anthropological vocabulary we use near the end of Part Two—particularly liminality, communitas, structure, anti-structure, and rituals of status reversal. Turner was studying Ndembu ritual rather than Pueblo religion, which is exactly why we use his framework comparatively rather than presenting it as an Indigenous explanation of Koshare.
Wenger, Tisa. We Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. https://doi.org/10.5149/9780807894217_wenger. This is probably the single most important secondary source for Part Two. Wenger reconstructs the fight over Pueblo dances, missionary and federal accusations, Charles Burke and Indian Affairs, the political deployment of the category “religion,” Pueblo resistance, and the complicated consequences of defending Indigenous ceremonial traditions through Euro-American concepts of religious freedom


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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beals, Ralph L. Preliminary Report on the Ethnography of the Southwest. Berkeley, CA: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Field Division of Education, 1935. This is one of the major historical comparative sources behind the sections on Pueblo ceremonial organization, clown societies, katsina dances, agriculture, rain ceremonialism, medicine societies, and policing functions.
Benedict, Ruth. Tales of the Cochiti Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 98. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931. This is the primary historical source for the Cochiti narratives we used, particularly “The Recovery of the Koshare” and the material concerning the recovery of the katsinas.
Howard, Courtney. “[Interview] Costume Designer Colleen Atwood Fashions Character Into Clothing in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” Fresh Fiction, September 19, 2024. Interview with Colleen Atwood discussing Aggie Guerard Rodgers’ work on the original film and Atwood’s statement that the original Beetlejuice appearance derived from a Tim Burton sketch centered on the striped suit.
Mathiowetz, Michael D. “The Keepers of Tradition: Clown Societies in the Casas Grandes and Puebloan Worlds.” KIVA: Journal of Southwestern Anthropology and History 91, no. 2 (2025): 147–179. https://doi.org/10.1080/00231940.2025.2461803. Particularly important for understanding Pueblo clown societies as institutions associated with governance, katsina ceremonialism, medicine societies, and the agricultural cycle, rather than merely as comic performers.
Parsons, Elsie Clews. Taos Pueblo. General Series in Anthropology 2. Menasha, WI: George Banta Publishing Company, 1936. Used as part of the historical ethnographic background concerning community sanctions, ridicule, Pueblo social organization, and ceremonial clowning.
Parsons, Elsie Clews, and Ralph L. Beals. “The Sacred Clowns of the Pueblo and Mayo-Yaqui Indians.” American Anthropologist 36, no. 4 (1934): 491–514. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1934.36.4.02a00020. One of the foundational comparative studies of Pueblo ceremonial clown traditions and particularly useful for demonstrating that the various clown societies should not be collapsed into one supposedly universal Native American figure.
Roediger, Virginia More. Ceremonial Costumes of the Pueblo Indians: Their Evolution, Fabrication, and Significance in the Prayer Drama. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1941; reprinted 1991. The principal historical source used for the detailed descriptions of black-and-white body striping, hair arrangements, cornhusk elements, clown behavior, mimicry, village gossip, and ceremonial appearance.
White, Leslie A. The Pueblo of Sia, New Mexico. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 184. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962. Particularly important for the Sia/Zia material concerning Koshairi and Kwairina, ceremonial societies, katsina dances, corn-dance responsibilities, contrary behavior, doorkeepers, clowning, and disciplinary authority.
Wenger, Tisa. We Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. This is the major modern scholarly source behind our discussion of missionary accusations, alleged obscenity, Charles Burke, federal regulation of Pueblo dances, religious suppression, and the political struggle over whether Pueblo ceremonies would be recognized as “religion” under American religious-freedom discourse.
Swentzell, Roxanne. Oral history interview by Mija Riedel, November 8–9, 2011. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. The interview runs approximately four hours and thirty-seven minutes with a 120-page transcript. It is particularly valuable for Swentzell’s own discussion of clown imagery, the use of the clown as a means of speaking about difficult subjects, and works such as For Sale.
Godrèche, Dominique. “Speaking With Clay, Mud and Clowns: Pueblo Potter Roxanne Swentzell.” ICT News, November 26, 2013. This contains one of the most important Indigenous explanations used in Part One: Swentzell’s discussion of Koshares as figures who help maintain balance, communicate messages other community members cannot comfortably say, and reflect problematic behavior such as greed back at the person displaying it.
Pueblo de Cochiti. “Visiting for Cultural Events.” Official Pueblo de Cochiti visitor guidance. Important for our methodological distinction between publicly accessible information and restricted Pueblo ceremonial knowledge; Cochiti explicitly describes dances as religious ceremonies rather than public performances and identifies kivas and ceremonial rooms as sacred, restricted spaces.
Yestewa, Loretta. Seated Koshare Katsina Carving, ca. 1990. Gorman Museum of Native American Art, University of California, Davis. Cottonwood, yarn, corn husk, metal tacks, shell, and wool. The museum record identifies Yestewa as Tewa/Hopi Pueblo and describes the figure carrying watermelon and piki, providing one of the museum sources behind our discussion of food and Koshare imagery.
Yestewa, Cal. Koshare (Hano Clown) Kachina, 1980–1982. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, catalog no. 25/5588. Cottonwood, paint, cornhusk, commercially tanned leather, and glass beads. Used as material-culture evidence for the continuing presence of cornhusk and black-and-white clown imagery in Pueblo artistic representation.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
CARDIAC ARREST, RESUSCITATION, AND CONSCIOUSNESS
Dreier, Jens P., Sebastian Major, Brandon Foreman, et al. “Terminal Spreading Depolarization and Electrical Silence in Death of Human Cerebral Cortex.” Annals of Neurology 83, no. 2 (2018): 295–310. DOI: 10.1002/ana.25147.
Parnia, Sam, Ken Spearpoint, Gabriele de Vos, et al. “AWARE—AWAreness during REsuscitation—A Prospective Study.” Resuscitation 85, no. 12 (2014): 1799–1805. DOI: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2014.09.004.
Parnia, Sam, Tara Keshavarz Shirazi, Jignesh Patel, et al. “AWAreness during REsuscitation—II: A Multi-Center Study of Consciousness and Awareness in Cardiac Arrest.” Resuscitation 191 (2023): 109903. DOI: 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2023.109903.
West, Rebecca L., Quentin Otto, Ian R. Drennan, Sarah Rudd, Bernd W. Böttiger, Sam Parnia, and Jasmeet Soar. “CPR-Related Cognitive Activity, Consciousness, Awareness and Recall, and Its Management: A Scoping Review.” Resuscitation Plus 10 (2022): 100241. DOI: 10.1016/j.resplu.2022.100241.
van Lommel, Pim, Ruud van Wees, Vincent Meyers, and Ingrid Elfferich. “Near-Death Experience in Survivors of Cardiac Arrest: A Prospective Study in the Netherlands.” The Lancet 358, no. 9298 (2001): 2039–2045. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(01)07100-8.
Greyson, Bruce. “The Near-Death Experience Scale: Construction, Reliability, and Validity.” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 171, no. 6 (1983): 369–375. DOI: 10.1097/00005053-198306000-00007.
THE DYING BRAIN
Vicente, Raul, Michael Rizzuto, Can Sarica, et al. “Enhanced Interplay of Neuronal Coherence and Coupling in the Dying Human Brain.” Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience 14 (2022): 813531. DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.813531.
Greyson, Bruce, Pim van Lommel, and Peter Fenwick. “Commentary: Enhanced Interplay of Neuronal Coherence and Coupling in the Dying Human Brain.” Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience 14 (2022): 899491. DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.899491.
Xu, Gang, Temenuzhka Mihaylova, Duan Li, et al. “Surge of Neurophysiological Coupling and Connectivity of Gamma Oscillations in the Dying Human Brain.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120, no. 19 (2023): e2216268120. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2216268120.
Martial, Charlotte, Pauline Fritz, Olivia Gosseries, et al. “A Neuroscientific Model of Near-Death Experiences.” Nature Reviews Neurology 21 (2025): 297–311. DOI: 10.1038/s41582-025-01072-z.
O’Grady, Greg, and Chris Varghese. “Limitations of Neurocentric Models for Near-Death Experiences.” Nature Reviews Neurology 21 (2025): 461. DOI: 10.1038/s41582-025-01117-3.
Parnia, Sam, Jignesh Patel, Erik Kulstad, et al. “Recalled Experiences of Death: Need for Empirical Research without Prejudice.” Nature Reviews Neurology 22 (2026): 196–197. DOI: 10.1038/s41582-026-01186-y.
Fritz, Pauline, Charlotte Martial, Olivia Gosseries, et al. “Reply to ‘Recalled Experiences of Death: Need for Empirical Research without Prejudice.’” Nature Reviews Neurology 22 (2026): 198. DOI: 10.1038/s41582-026-01187-x.
PEOPLE WHO CAME BACK AND APPARENT PERCEPTION
Sepioni, Francesco, Antonio Metastasio, and Manuel Monti. “A Distressing Near-Death Experience with Veridical Perceptions during Coma: Psychiatric and Clinical Reflections from a Rare Case.” Rivista di Psichiatria 61, no. 1 (2026): 33–36. DOI: 10.1708/4641.46507.
Smit, Rudolf H. “Corroboration of the Dentures Anecdote Involving Veridical Perception in a Near-Death Experience.” Journal of Near-Death Studies 27, no. 1 (2008): 47–61.
Sabom, Michael B. Light & Death: One Doctor’s Fascinating Account of Near-Death Experiences. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998. [Primary published source for the Pam Reynolds account.]
Ebbern, Hayden, Sean Mulligan, and Barry L. Beyerstein. “Maria’s Near-Death Experience: Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop.” Skeptical Inquirer 20, no. 4 (1996): 27–33. [Critical investigation of the Maria’s-shoe case.]
Sharp, Kimberly Clark. “The Other Shoe Drops: Commentary on ‘Does Paranormal Perception Occur in Near-Death Experiences?’” Journal of Near-Death Studies 25, no. 4 (2007): 245–250. [Response concerning the Maria’s-shoe controversy.]
EXPERIMENTALLY INDUCED NDE-LIKE STATES
Lempert, Thomas, Michael Bauer, and Dieter Schmidt. “Syncope and Near-Death Experience.” The Lancet 344 (1994): 829–830. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(94)92389-2.
Martial, Charlotte, Andrea Piarulli, Olivia Gosseries, Héléna Cassol, Didier Ledoux, Vanessa Charland-Verville, and Steven Laureys. “EEG Signature of Near-Death-Like Experiences during Syncope-Induced Periods of Unresponsiveness.” NeuroImage 298 (2024): 120759. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2024.120759.
Whinnery, James E., and Angela M. Whinnery. “Acceleration-Induced Loss of Consciousness: A Review of 500 Episodes.” Archives of Neurology 47, no. 7 (1990): 764–776. DOI: 10.1001/archneur.1990.00530070058012.
Whinnery, James E. “Psychophysiologic Correlates of Unconsciousness and Near-Death Experiences.” Journal of Near-Death Studies 15, no. 4 (1997): 231–258. DOI: 10.17514/JNDS-1997-15-4-p231-258.
Blanke, Olaf, Stéphanie Ortigue, Theodor Landis, and Margitta Seeck. “Stimulating Illusory Own-Body Perceptions.” Nature 419 (2002): 269–270. DOI: 10.1038/419269a.
Kondziella, Daniel, Jens P. Dreier, and Markus Harboe Olsen. “Prevalence of Near-Death Experiences in People with and without REM Sleep Intrusion.” PeerJ 7 (2019): e7585. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.7585.
KETAMINE, DMT, AND NEUROCHEMICAL MODELS
Martial, Charlotte, Héléna Cassol, Vanessa Charland-Verville, et al. “Neurochemical Models of Near-Death Experiences: A Large-Scale Study Based on the Semantic Similarity of Written Reports.” Consciousness and Cognition 69 (2019): 52–69. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2019.01.011.
Timmermann, Christopher, Leor Roseman, Luke Williams, et al. “DMT Models the Near-Death Experience.” Frontiers in Psychology 9 (2018): 1424. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01424.
LIFE REVIEWS, MEMORY, AND PHENOMENOLOGY
Katz, Judith, Noam Saadon-Grosman, and Shahar Arzy. “The Life Review Experience: Qualitative and Quantitative Characteristics.” Consciousness and Cognition 48 (2017): 76–86. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2016.10.011.
Thonnard, Marie, Vanessa Charland-Verville, Serge Brédart, et al. “Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences Memories as Compared to Real and Imagined Events Memories.” PLOS ONE 8, no. 3 (2013): e57620. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057620.
Cassol, Héléna, Charlotte Martial, Johan Annen, et al. “A Systematic Analysis of Distressing Near-Death Experience Accounts.” Memory 27, no. 8 (2019): 1122–1129. DOI: 10.1080/09658211.2019.1626438.
Bush, Nancy Evans, and Bruce Greyson. “Distressing Near-Death Experiences: The Basics.” Missouri Medicine 111, no. 6 (2014): 486–490.
Greyson, Bruce, and Nancy Evans Bush. “Distressing Near-Death Experiences.” Psychiatry 55, no. 1 (1992): 95–110.
Greyson, Bruce. “Seeing Dead People Not Known to Have Died: ‘Peak in Darien’ Experiences.” Anthropology and Humanism 35, no. 2 (2010): 159–171. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1409.2010.01064.x.
HYPOTHERMIA, CIRCULATORY ARREST, AND “SUSPENDED ANIMATION”
Stecker, Mark M., Andrew T. Cheung, Alberto Pochettino, et al. “Deep Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest: I. Effects of Cooling on Electroencephalogram and Evoked Potentials.” Annals of Thoracic Surgery 71, no. 1 (2001): 14–21. DOI: 10.1016/S0003-4975(00)01592-7.
Stecker, Mark M., Andrew T. Cheung, Alberto Pochettino, et al. “Deep Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest: II. Changes in Electroencephalogram and Evoked Potentials during Rewarming.” Annals of Thoracic Surgery 71, no. 1 (2001): 22–28.
Drabek, Tomas, et al. “Induction of Profound Hypothermia for Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation Allows Intact Survival after Cardiac Arrest Resulting from Prolonged Lethal Hemorrhage and Trauma in Dogs.” Circulation (2006). PMID: 16618818.
Wu, Xianren, Tomas Drabek, Samuel A. Tisherman, et al. “Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation with Profound Hypothermia, Oxygen, and Glucose Allows Reliable Neurological Recovery after 3 h of Cardiac Arrest from Rapid Exsanguination in Dogs.” Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism 28, no. 2 (2008): 302–311. DOI: 10.1038/sj.jcbfm.9600524.
Tisherman, Samuel A., et al. “Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation for Cardiac Arrest from Trauma.” International Journal of Surgery 33 (2016): 209–212. PMID: 26497780.
ClinicalTrials.gov. “Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation for Cardiac Arrest from Trauma (EPR-CAT).” ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01042015. Trial terminated in 2025; no study results posted.
HISTORICAL AND MYTHOLOGICAL FRAME
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet, Act III, Scene I. “The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn no traveller returns.”
Plato. Republic, Book X, 614b–621d. The Myth of Er.
Dalley, Stephanie, trans. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. [For Mesopotamian descent traditions, including Inanna/Ishtar.]
Assmann, Jan. Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. [For Egyptian conceptions of death, Osiris, and postmortem transformation.]

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PART TWO BIBLIOGRAPHY
Christianity Created the Western Occult
Primary Sources
Paracelsus. Paracelsus: Essential Theoretical Writings. Edited and translated by Andrew Weeks. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2008. This is the edition I’d use for Paracelsus rather than modern occult compilations; it gives the German and English texts with extensive scholarly commentary. Wellcome Collection
Dee, John. John Dee’s Five Books of Mystery: Original Sourcebook of Enochian Magic. Edited and translated by Joseph H. Peterson. Weiser Books, 2003. A modern edition of Dee’s Mysteriorum Libri Quinque and one of the most useful primary-source collections for the early angelic sessions. Red Wheel/Weiser
Böhme, Jakob. Aurora: The Day-Spring, or Dawning of the Day in the Orient. Originally written 1612. Any scholarly or reliable critical edition can be used for the primary material concerning Böhme’s early cosmology.
Böhme, Jakob. The Way to Christ. Useful for the explicitly Christian and regenerative side of Böhme rather than treating him merely as an abstract occult cosmologist.
Swedenborg, Emanuel. Heaven and Hell. Originally published in Latin in 1758. I’d use the New Century Edition, translated by George F. Dole, because it includes scholarly historical material and annotations. Swedenborg Foundation
Saint-Martin, Louis-Claude de. Theosophic Correspondence between Louis Claude de Saint-Martin and Kirchberger, Baron de Liebistorf. Translated by Edward Burton Penny. Especially useful for documenting Saint-Martin’s engagement with Böhme and his increasingly interior understanding of Christian theosophy. Theosophy Society
Eckartshausen, Karl von. The Cloud Upon the Sanctuary. The A. E. Waite translation is historically useful because Waite’s transmission of the text is itself part of its later occult reception.
Lévi, Éliphas. Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual. Translated by A. E. Waite. Important as a primary document for Lévi’s synthesis of Kabbalah, ceremonial magic, Christian symbolism, priesthood, polarity, and magical theory.
Lévi, Éliphas. The History of Magic. Again, use this as a primary source for what Lévi believed, not as reliable modern historiography.
Waite, Arthur Edward. The Hidden Church of the Holy Graal. Essential for understanding the specifically Christian-mystical dimension of Waite’s esotericism.
Waite, Arthur Edward. The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry. Useful for Waite’s conception of mystical initiation and the “secret tradition.”
Fortune, Dion. The Mystical Qabalah. First published 1935. Essential primary material for Fortune’s attempt to interpret Qabalah through the twentieth-century Western Mystery Tradition.
Medieval Grimoires, Ritual Magic & Angelic Practice
This is the group I would rely upon heavily for the material we added concerning Christian prayer, exorcism, angels, grimoires, consecration, and the unstable boundary between religion and magic.
Kieckhefer, Richard. Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer’s Manual of the Fifteenth Century. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997/1998. Absolutely essential. Kieckhefer edits and analyzes a real medieval magical manuscript containing prayers, conjurations, astral operations, spirit catalogues, and ceremonies for consecrating magical books. PSU Press
Fanger, Claire, ed. Invoking Angels: Theurgic Ideas and Practices, Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012. One of the strongest sources for our thesis because it specifically examines medieval and Renaissance attempts to obtain knowledge or supernatural assistance through angels. PSU Press
Fanger, Claire. Rewriting Magic: An Exegesis of the Visionary Autobiography of a Fourteenth-Century French Monk. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015. Especially important for John of Morigny, monastic visionary practice, and the tension between Christian revelation and forbidden magic.
Page, Sophie. Magic in Medieval Manuscripts. University of Toronto Press/British Library. An accessible but scholarly overview of the manuscript environment in which learned medieval magic circulated.
Klaassen, Frank. The Transformations of Magic: Illicit Learned Magic in the Later Middle Ages and Renaissance. Cambridge University Press, 2013. Extremely useful for understanding how learned magic changed between medieval and Renaissance environments and how practitioners negotiated religious legitimacy.
Kieckhefer, Richard. Magic in the Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press. Still one of the most useful general studies of the distinction between learned magic, folk practices, necromancy, astrology, and Christian religious culture.


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Primary Sources
Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius. Three Books of Occult Philosophy. Trans. James Freake; ed. and annotated by Donald Tyson. Llewellyn, 1993. The work itself dates to Agrippa’s developing project from 1510, with the complete revised three-book edition appearing in 1533. Google Books
Augustine of Hippo. Confessions. Trans. Henry Chadwick. Oxford University Press, 1991. Particularly important for Augustine’s encounter with the “books of the Platonists,” inward ascent, and his Christian appropriation of Platonic metaphysics. WorldCat
Ficino, Marsilio. Three Books on Life. Ed. and trans. Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies/Renaissance Society of America, 1989. This is one of the most important primary texts for the astrology, medicine, music, planetary influence, and natural-magic portions of the episode. Google Books
Meister Eckhart. The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense. Trans. Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn. Paulist Press, 1981. Google Books
Nicholas of Cusa. On Learned Ignorance: A Translation and an Appraisal of De Docta Ignorantia. Trans. Jasper Hopkins. 2nd ed. Arthur J. Banning Press, 1985. WorldCat
Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni. Syncretism in the West: Pico’s 900 Theses (1486): The Evolution of Traditional Religious and Philosophical Systems. Ed. and trans. Stephen A. Farmer. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1998. This should be one of our major Pico sources rather than relying on summaries of the 900 Conclusions. WorldCat
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The Complete Works. Trans. Colm Luibheid, with Paul Rorem. Paulist Press, 1987. Includes The Divine Names, The Celestial Hierarchy, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and Mystical Theology. Cambridge University Press
Core Modern Scholarship
Faivre, Antoine. Access to Western Esotericism. State University of New York Press, 1994. Very useful for correspondence, living nature, imagination, mediation, transformation, Christian Kabbalah, Hermeticism, and defining Western esotericism without treating it as one secret continuous religion. JSTOR
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2008. An excellent broad academic overview covering Renaissance magic, Cabala, planetary and angel magic, and later Western esoteric developments. OUP Academic
Hanegraaff, Wouter J. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge University Press, 2012. Important for keeping our larger historical thesis rigorous and avoiding the mythology of one uninterrupted underground occult tradition. Cambridge University Press
Hanegraaff, Wouter J. Western Esotericism: A Guide for the Perplexed. Bloomsbury Academic, 2013. Probably the best compact methodological source for explaining what scholars mean by “Western esotericism,” including magic, astrology, alchemy, Rosicrucianism, Christian theosophy, and occultism. Bloomsbury
Magee, Glenn Alexander, ed. The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism. Cambridge University Press, 2016. Especially useful for our argument that mysticism and esotericism overlap historically without being identical categories. Cambridge University Press
Walker, D. P. Spiritual and Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella. Originally 1958; Pennsylvania State University Press edition, 2000. Still a foundational scholarly study of Ficino and Renaissance magic, although we should supplement it with newer scholarship rather than treating a 1958 interpretation as the final word. Penn State University Press
Christian Platonism and Mysticism
McGinn, Bernard. The Foundations of Mysticism. Vol. 1 of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. Crossroad, 1991.
McGinn, Bernard. The Growth of Mysticism. Vol. 2 of The Presence of God. Crossroad, 1994.
McGinn, Bernard. The Flowering of Mysticism. Vol. 3 of The Presence of God. Crossroad, 1998.
Louth, Andrew. The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys. Oxford University Press. Excellent for exactly the transition we are tracing from Platonism into Christian mystical theology.
Rorem, Paul. Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence. Oxford University Press, 1993.
Turner, Denys. The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism. Cambridge University Press, 1995. Very useful for Dionysius, Eckhart, The Cloud of Unknowing, and apophatic theology.
Pseudo-Dionysius is especially central because current scholarship describes him explicitly as a Christian Neoplatonist who transposed late pagan Neoplatonism, particularly Proclus, into a distinctively Christian context. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Ficino, Pico, Christian Kabbalah and Renaissance Magic
Wirszubski, Chaim. Pico della Mirandola’s Encounter with Jewish Mysticism. Harvard University Press, 1989. Essential for Pico and the actual Jewish material behind his Christian Kabbalah.
Farmer, Stephen A. Syncretism in the West. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1998. Useful both as a primary-text edition and a huge scholarly commentary on Pico.
Dan, Joseph, ed. The Christian Kabbalah: Jewish Mystical Books and Their Christian Interpreters. Harvard College Library, 1997.
Copenhaver, Brian P. Studies on Renaissance magic, Ficino, Pico, and the philosophical context of natural magic. Copenhaver is one of the scholars I’d rely on whenever we need to distinguish Ficino’s natural/spiritual magic from sensationalized claims about Renaissance occultism.
Walker, D. P. Spiritual and Demonic Magic. Particularly valuable for Ficino’s spiritus, music, astrology, and the theological problem of distinguishing natural/spiritual operations from demonic magic. Penn State University Press
The Pico material deserves extra source discipline because scholarship is very clear that Christianizing Kabbalah was one of Pico’s central projects, not merely an incidental interest; his 900 Conclusions contained 119 explicitly Kabbalistic theses, and he interpreted Kabbalah as supporting Christology and Trinitarian theology. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Agrippa
Lehrich, Christopher I. The Language of Demons and Angels: Cornelius Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy. Brill, 2003. Excellent for ritual, language, signs, sigils, Kabbalah, angels, demons, and Agrippa’s theory of occult communication. De Gruyter Brill
Nauert, Charles G. Agrippa and the Crisis of Renaissance Thought. University of Illinois Press, 1965. Still useful for Agrippa’s intellectual and religious context.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s revised Agrippa entry is also particularly useful because it emphasizes that Agrippa’s project was a deliberate attempt to restore magic as a “sublime and sacred science,” divided across natural, celestial, and religious/ceremonial magic, while connecting magical practice ultimately to God and spiritual pur

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