Baneful & Benign

⭐ The British Book of Spells and Charms by Graham King. A survey of British folk magic, arranged by spell type. They're mostly spells from the nineteenth and early twentieth century, but some of them are older. This is a mini treasure trove of British folklore.

Traditional Wicca: A Seeker’s Guide and The Witch’s Path by Thorn Mooney. I haven’t actually read the former, but I like Mooney as an author, and I really appreciated The Witch's Path as a general guide to how to apply what you learn about magic, especially if you’re experiencing burnout. Worth reading even if you’re not Wiccan.

The Crooked Path and The Witch’s Sabbath by Kelden. The Crooked Path is a beginner’s guide to Traditional Witchcraft, a tradition that evolved alongside Wicca and is inspired by historical witchlore. A good introduction to witchcraft in general. The Witch’s Sabbath is about the Sabbath concept in particular, and how you can apply it to your practice.

Traditional Witchcraft: A Cornish Book of Ways, The Devil's Dozen and The Black Toad by Gemma Gary. Gemma Gary is one of the big names in Traditional Witchcraft, which I've been getting more into in the last couple years. I appreciate learning about her practical application of folklore and folk magic as a coherent modern tradition. Definitely worth reading if you're interested in a tradition of witchcraft apart from Wicca (or if you're interested in theistic Satanism, but want it to have a more folk horror aesthetic). More advanced than Kelden's material.

🔮 Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic by Tabitha Stanmore. A scholarly examination of folk magic and its practitioners in medieval and early modern Europe. Stanmore humanizes this history by telling the stories of individual people in a very conversational style.

🔮 ⭐ The Cunning Man's Handbook by Jim Baker. A study of the practices of primarily English folk magic, alongside material from various manuscripts, making it something of a study-cum-grimoire. Very dense, but absolutely packed with material.

⭐ A Complete System of Magic by William Dawson Bellhouse, edited by Daniel Harms. An edition of the magical notes of a nineteenth-century English cunning man, William Dawson Bellhouse. British folk magic, straight from the tap.

🔮 The Visions of Isobel Gowdie by Emma Wilby. A study of Isobel Gowdie, a woman accused of witchcraft in early modern Scotland, whose lurid confession heavily influenced modern witchcraft. I have already learned so much about Scottish witchcraft and folklore from this book!

Hermeticism and Alchemy

⭐ The Corpus Hermeticum. The foundational text of Hermetic philosophy, from Hellenistic Egypt. It's a set of short dialogues between Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary founder of Hermeticism (sort of the ancient equivalent of Merlin) and various other figures. I recommend The Way of Hermes, the translation by Clement Salaman et. al.

⭐ The Emerald Tablet. A very short, cryptic alchemical poem that first appeared in a medieval Arabic manuscript. It supposedly instructs the reader on how to create the Philosopher's Stone. (There is only one Emerald Tablet, and it's less than a page long.)

🔮 The Secrets of Alchemy by Lawrence M. Principe. A summary of the history of alchemy, written by a scholar for a lay audience. A great introduction to it! Leans more in the direction of alchemy being early chemistry than occult philosophy, though.

🔮 The Experimental Fire: Inventing English Alchemy, 1300–1700 by Jennifer M. Rampling. A scholarly history of the development of English alchemy in the medieval and early modern period.

🔮 A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery by Lyndy Abraham. Exactly what it sounds like — a dictionary of motifs in alchemical artwork, what they represent, and how they relate to each other. Excellent if you want to begin to understand alchemical art.

Alchemy and Mysticism by Alexander Roob. An encyclopedia of images related to alchemy and magic, styled like museum exhibits. Also good if you want an overview of alchemy and other philosophical ideas in Western esotericism, or want a catalogue of images related to the subject, or just want to know what all those cryptic pictures mean! For a book mainly consisting of image captions, it's surprisingly dense.

Real Alchemy: A Primer of Practical Alchemy by Robert Allen Bartlett. Instructions for how to actually perform alchemical experiments. (Do not play with mercury.)

Practical Alchemy: A Guide to the Great Work by Brian Cotnoir. A general introduction to chemical and spiritual alchemy, directed at occultists.

The Philosopher’s Stone by Israel Regardie. Regardie's analysis of alchemical texts and artwork, through the lens of the Golden Dawn system. I recommend the version with Chic and Sandra Cicero’s additional essays and commentary.

Ceremonial Magic and Demonology

⭐ Grimoires, including (but not limited to) the Lesser Key of Solomon, Ars Notoria, the Grande Grimoire, the Grimoirum Verum, the Picatrix, and the Book of Abremilin the Mage. I recommend getting scholarly editions of them, like the ones by Joseph Peterson and Stephen Skinner.

🔮 Grimoires: A History of Magic Books, The Art of the Grimoire, and The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft and Magic by Owen Davies. Owen Davies is a celebrated scholar in this field. The first book is a scholarly introduction to grimoires. The second is a survey of magical diagrams and alchemical art from manuscripts. I haven't actually read the third one yet, but it's an Oxford Handbook and I trust Davies, so it's on the list.

The Black Arts by Richard Cavendish. A history of and introduction to the Western esoteric tradition, not directed at practitioners. This is a great place to start, if a bit outdated.

The Book of Grimoires: The Secret Grammar of Magic and A Dictionary of Ancient Magic Words and Spells by Claude Lecouteux. The former is a survey of spells from various grimoires, arranged by type, which is a good introduction to grimoire magic if you're feeling overwhelmed. The latter is a dictionary of incantations and voces magicae from magical texts around the world. (Also recommended if you're a worldbuilder and you need ideas.)

Secrets of the Magical Grimoires by Aaron Leitch. A general introduction to grimoires, another good place to start if you're feeling overwhelmed.

🔮 A Grimoire Encyclopedia, Vol. 1 and 2 by David Rankine. This is a very dense, scholarly two-volume encyclopedia on grimoires. The first lists all the grimoires we know of, all their manuscript copies and call numbers, etc. Great if you want to look up manuscripts! If you're not a scholar, I would just get the second one, which compares the content of all the grimoires to each other, listing spell ingredients and correspondences.

🔮 Unlocked Books by Benedek Láng: Part of Penn State University Press's "Magic in History" series, this is a scholarly book about medieval and early modern manuscripts of occult texts, and the state of occultism in Europe.

🔮 Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic by Claire Fanger. Another book from the "Magic in History" series, this is a compilation of scholarly analyses of medieval ritual magic in various grimoires.

🔮 Magic in the Middle Ages by Richard Kieckhefer. An academic but readable book about the history of medieval magic.

A Dictionary of Demons by Michelle Belanger. A long list of every demon found in historical grimoires. Great if you’re interested in demonology!

A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels by Gustav Davidson. A long list of every angel in the huge corpus of Abrahamic texts.

🔮 Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa by Anthony Grafton. A historical study of a specific culture of ceremonial magic among the European elite. Haven't read it yet, but it looks very promising!

🔮 The Magic Books: A History of Enchantment in 20 Medieval Manuscripts by Anne Lawrence-Mathers. A brand new work of scholarship on the history of medieval magic through the lens of manuscripts specifically. Very excited about this one!

Practical Magic

Hands-On Chaos Magic by Andrieh Vitimus. Still one of my favorite occult books. It takes a decidedly chaote approach towards magical practice, but that means it isn't working within any specific religious framework (e.g. Wicca) It teaches you all the necessary skills you'll need to practice magic, and encourages experimentation. If you do the exercises in this book, you'll have learned the basics.

Nocturnal Witchcraft, Gothic Grimoire, and Nocturnicon by Konstantinos. These are great if you’re a spooky type. Nocturnal Witchcraft was one of the first “advanced” books I read. Nocturnicon is the most advanced, and concerns death and lovecraftian magic. Despite the edgy presentation, I like Konstantinos' down-to-earth, conversational style.

Shadow Magick Compendium by Raven Digitalis. A guide to Shadow work and general magic with a spooky bent. This book introduced me to sigil work and some other magical practices that I still use. I like Raven Digitalis' writing style a lot, and I also have his Goth Craft and Esoteric Empathy.

Sorcerer’s Secrets: Strategies in Practical Magick by Jason Miller. A general guide to magic, good for beginners. I read this one pretty early on, and it got me thinking about the logic of magic in a way I could easily understand. I've also heard good things about Miller's Consorting With Spirits, though I haven't read it.

The Essential Golden Dawn: An Introduction to High Magic by Chic Cicero and Sandra Cicero. An introduction to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn’s system of magic, one of the foundational systems of Western occultism. Even if you don't plan to practice it, it's a good idea to get a basic understanding of it.

Ancient Greek Magic

⭐ The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation by Hans Dieter Betz. An English edition of the Greek Magical Papyri (or PGM). It is the earliest known grimoire in the Western tradition, one of our best sources for Ancient Greek magic, and an absolute gold mine.

🔮 Drawing Down the Moon and Redefining Ancient Orphism by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III. The former is a scholarly but accessible overview of the different types of magic in Ancient Greece and Rome, and their place in Greco-Roman culture. It covers the definitions and contexts of magic, curses, love spells, divination, theurgy, philosophy, basically everything you need to know. Even if you're not interested in Ancient Greek magic, I recommend reading it, because it's a good introduction to the anthropological study of magic in general. The latter is a much denser look at Orphism specifically, also recommended if you're interested in mystery cults.

🔮 ⭐ Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World by John G. Gager. English editions of curse tablets!

🔮 ⭐ Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds by Daniel Ogden: A sourcebook of ancient literature concerning magic.

Ancient Magic: A Practitioners Guide to the Supernatural in Ancient Greece and Rome by Philip Matyszak: A simple and straightforward introduction to Ancient Greek magic, less scholarly but very easy to follow and directed at practitioners.

⭐ The Golden Ass by Apuleius: A Roman novel about a man who is turned into a donkey by a witch. A very entertaining story, also our source for "Cupid and Psyche" and one of the best sources on the Mysteries of Isis that we have.

⭐ The Orphic Hymns: A New Translation for the Occult Practitioner by Patrick Dunn. Exactly what it says it is, a translation of the esoteric Orphic Hymns directed at modern practitioners. I've had a lot of success with it!

The Hekataeon by Jack Grayle. By far the best modern grimoire I've found, synthesizing ancient PGM-style magic with modern folk magic. I've had a lot of success with this, too!

Misc

🔮 The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. Exactly what it says it is, an introduction to the historical development of Western magic. It's a bit out of date, and it skips over the Middle Ages almost entirely (so make sure to pick up one of the books on medieval magic!), but it's still worth reading.

🔮 Occult: Decoding the Visual Culture of Mysticism, Magic, and Divination by Peter Forshaw. A history of occultism through the lens of art history! Similar to The Art of the Grimoire and Alchemy and Mysticism.

⭐ The Red Book by Carl Jung. My personal favorite mystical text, with some truly stunning artwork. It is a trip. I recommend studying Jung in general if you're interested in mysticism.