The Picatrix &: a manual for astrological magic used in early medieval times. One of the many interesting things about this text is the way it lays out a vision of magic that is very different from the early-modern-period paradigms of magic that are dominant in our own era.
For those who are interested, here is some more general info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picatrix
http://www.esotericarchives.com/picatrix.htm
The version I own is this one:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Picatrix-Classic-Astrological/dp/125776785
One passage I find exquisitely fascinating is from the introduction:
"…nearly all the magical traditions that fill the pages of Picatrix and provided the medieval wizard with his stock in trade are unfamiliar to most of today's occultists, and the magical philosophy that underlies them will be even more so. Readers steeped in modern occult lore may be startled to find that today's popular notion of magical power as a function of the magician's will energizing forms in the imagination appears nowhere in Picatrix. This should come as no surprise; the concept in question was introduced to the magical traditions by Eliphas Levi in 1854 in his Dogme et Ritual de la Haute Magie, which took it from the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, and it existed nowhere in magical teachings before that time.
Picatrix is the product of an older world, and its magic draws on a conception of the nature of magic and the universe that differs in almost every imaginable way from today's occult traditions. In the magic of Picatrix, the sources of magical power are in the macrocosm rather than the microcosm; power is native to the universe, not to the mage. Vast currents of creative force set in motion by the Godhead itself cascade downward through multiple levels of being. They are refracted by the stars and planets like rays of light striking moving crystals, and descend to the earth with greater or lesser force, depending on the complex geometries of astrological relationship. The magician is the one who knows how to catch these currents at the moments of their greatest power, store their energies in material objects appropriate to them, and direct those energies to carefully chosen ends.
The differences between modern occultism and the old magic of Picatrix are sweeping…"
Thoughts?