The Journal publishes essays by the keepers and trustees of the Athenaeum on the history of Pagan, occult, esoteric, and mystical books and on the craft of reading them. New essays appear a few times a year. All are reviewed before publication by our journal editor, and corrections are welcome at journal@adocentyn.us.
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Monastic Libraries and the Survival of Hermetic Texts
How the books of Hermes came through the Middle Ages: less by secret vaults than by ordinary copying, lucky miscellanies, and translators working between languages.
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What Is a Grimoire?
A book of magic is first of all a book. Where the word comes from, what a grimoire contains, who owned such books, and how to read one.
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Reading the Picatrix
The book that gave us our name is long, repetitive, learned, and strange. What is in its four books, who read it, and how to approach it.
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Choosing a Translation
Most of this literature reaches English readers through translators. Seven things to check, and a few tests you can make at the shelf.
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Rescuing Personal Libraries
What happens to a lifetime of books when their reader dies, why it matters especially in our fields, and what you can do about your own.