This is the final book written by the seventeenth-century occultist and alchemist, Thomas Vaughan (1621 66). Originally published under Vaughan's penname, Eugenius Philalethes, in 1655, the work found a new audience in the Rosicrucian circles of the nineteenth century, when William Wynn Westcott, Supreme Magus of the Society, republished the volume in 1896 with a commentary by an associate, S. S. D. D. 'I have read many Alchemical Treatises', its annotator comments, 'but never one of less use to the practical Alchemist than this.' For its later readers, however, the value of the text lay in its insights into the history of hermetic thought rather than its alchemical advice. An important work of occultist philosophy in both its seventeenth- and nineteenth-century contexts, it purports to reveal nothing less than the origin of all life. The paragraph-by-paragraph commentary in turn demonstrates the history of its reception and interpretation.

Eliphas Levi, born Alphonse Louis Constant, (1810-75) was instrumental in the revival of Western occultism in the nineteenth century, and published several influential books on magic that are also reissued in this series. This posthumous publication (1896) is a translation by William Wynn Westcott, co-founder of the 'Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn', of an unpublished French manuscript by Levi, then owned by the spiritualist Edward Maitland. It includes eight of the author's drawings. Each short chapter outlines the meaning of one of the twenty-two tarot trumps and is followed by a brief editor's note describing the card's iconography and summarising interpretations (sometimes deliberately misleading) given in Levi's earlier publications. The book ends with Kabbalistic prayers and rituals, praise of Jesus Christ as the great initiate, and a surprising assertion that Christianity has superseded ancient magic, revealing the life-long tension between Catholicism and magic in Levi's personality and thought.

Vol. I Hermetic Arcanum of Penes Nos Unda Tagi, with a preface and notes by Sapere Aude, Fra. R.R. et A.C. Vol. II The Pymander of Hermes, with a preface by the editor. Vol. III A Short Enquiry Concerning the Hermetic Art by A Lover of Philalethes, Preface by Non Omnis Moriar, An Introduction to Alchemy and Notes by S.S.D.D. Vol. IV AEsch Mezareph or Purifying Fire, A Chymico-Kabalistic Treatise Collected from the Kabala Denudata or Knorr Von Rosenroth. Translated by a Lover of Philalethes, 1714, Preface, notes and explanations by Sapere Aude. Vol. V Somnium Scipionis, Translated into English with an Essay "The Vision of Scipio Considered as a Fragment of the Mysteries" by L.O., The golden Verses of Pythagoras, by A.E.A., The Symbols of Pythagoras, by S.A. Vol. VI The Chaldaean Oracles of Zoroaster, edited and revised by Sapere Aude, with an introduction by L.O. Vol. VII Euphrates or the Waters of the East by Eugenius Philalethes 1655, with a commentary by S.S.D.

The Book of Formation and the 32 Paths of Wisdom. Contents: The Sepher Yetzirah; Sephiroth, Numbers, Letters; The Twenty-two Letters; The Triad; The Heptad; Supplement; The Dodecad; Conclusion; The Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom; Notes to the Sepher Yetzirah, Notes to the Thirty-two Paths.