This course is free and always will be. No account, no email needed. Your progress stays in your own browser. If you have ever read that something in magic is “ancient” and wondered whether it is true, you are exactly who I wrote it for.
Occult History for Beginners: A Novice’s Path tells the real story of the Western esoteric traditions in ten short lessons. We start with what “occult” and “esotericism” mean and how historians study them, then follow the Hermetic texts of Roman Egypt, medieval and Renaissance magic, alchemy and the Rosicrucians, Kabbalah and its branches, the nineteenth-century revival and the twentieth century. Lesson 7 gives you a simple method for checking any claim yourself, and the last three lessons put it into practice with a primary source, a timeline and a reading year.
What you will learn
- What the words occult and esotericism mean, and how historians define them.
- Who Hermes Trismegistus was said to be, and when the Hermetica were really written.
- Natural and demonic magic, grimoires and the Renaissance magus.
- What alchemy really was, and the story of the Rosicrucian manifestos.
- Jewish Kabbalah, Christian Cabala and Hermetic Qabalah.
- Spiritualism, Theosophy and the Golden Dawn.
- Crowley, Gardner, the witch-cult myth and how to check a claim.
How it works
Open a lesson, read it, try the exercise and press “Mark as done”. Your progress is saved privately in your browser, so nothing is sent to me. When every lesson is done, you can open your certificate of completion.
I label what I teach in three layers, as everywhere on this site: Historical for what the evidence shows, Later tradition for what writers and occultists added later, and Modern for practice today. Modern does not mean fake. It means honest about its age.
The lessons
- What esotericism is, and how historians study it
- The Hermetica and Hermes Trismegistus
- Magic in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
- Alchemy and the Rosicrucians
- Kabbalah, Cabala and Qabalah
- The nineteenth-century occult revival
- The twentieth century and how to read claims
- Reading a primary source
- Tracing a claim and building a timeline
- Esotericism today and your reading year
How each lesson works
Every lesson opens with why the topic matters. Then comes the teaching itself in plain prose, a worked example that shows the idea in action, one small exercise for your notebook and a short recap, with the sources I used listed at the end. A three-question quiz at the bottom checks the main idea, and nobody sees your answers. The last part of each lesson links to the next one. If a lesson needs a second evening, give it one.
Who this course is for
This course is for curious beginners, for witches and tarot readers who want to know where their tools come from, and for history lovers. It does not ask you to believe or disbelieve anything. It asks you to keep three things apart: what the evidence shows, what later writers added and what we practise today.
What you need
A notebook and a pen. Every lesson links to free texts or images where you can see the sources for yourself.
Start now
Begin with What esotericism is, and how historians study it. It takes about ten minutes.
Go deeper
My history of witchcraft, Goetia history and history of tarot go deeper into three of the threads, and esoteric art shows how these ideas became images. The Demons for Beginners course follows the grimoires in detail.
Sources
- Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
- Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2008).
- Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
- Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford University Press, 1999).
0% done · 10 of 10 lessons ready
Comments
Questions and notes from readers. Anyone with a free account can comment, and I reply when I can. Please read the community guidelines.
Comments load from Google Firebase (EU) when you ask for them. Nothing is stored on your device. Privacy