The Occult Book

A Chronological Journey from Alchemy to Wicca

By: John Michael Greer

Narrated by: Eric Martin

Explore the occult from ancient times to the modern day with one of its most respected scholars and practitioners.

Take an enlightening journey through occult history, exploring 100 dramatic incidents, arcane knowledge, and key historical figures from around the world. John Michael Greer delves into two millennia of tradition, from the earliest alchemists to pagan rituals; from the philosopher's stone to cabala, the first tarot, and the Knights Templar; and from the first horoscopes to fortune-telling trials and the birth of modern witchcraft, or Wicca.

©2017 John Michael Greer (P)2019 Tantor

Great Reference

Audio is the absolute best format for this book! I loved the lore of each time period.

Great Overview

A great launching pad for anyone beginning a study in the history of Western Occultism.

Occult history laid out from ancient times to today.

The beginning of this narrative is all about the history of the Occult and how it was stamped out by the Church. The latter part of the book is the exchange of ideas: the creation of new groups and spiritual movements. Anything occult the Christian church has always tried to stamp out since ancient times. In fact the word occult itself means hidden and the Catholic church is the ones that forced it into hiding. Yet like a phoenix, a form of occultism dies out and then another rises again. Seems to be that mankind seeks spirituality and not dogma hence the reason for the occult continually being reborn in a dogmatic world. Oddly enough Christian Mysticism and Christian Kabbalah were readily accepted: these religions love their own image and even if it is occult but cloaked in their own image they will readily accept the idea. It just has to look like their predetermined ideas for them to accept the truth.

Great timeline and explanation

The book is very thorough, provides great contextual comprehension. I would recommend this book to a serious practitioner

Great Overview of Ocultism

if you have an interest in the history of alternative thought, this is for you. Unbiased, this narration guides you as an outside observer through a high-level overview of thoughts and teachings from obscure mythologies.

Great Book from a Historical Point of view

The narrator was not my favorite but it's still easy to listen to. Takes a historical approach and mentions some things that are found in his book on secret societies. Overall great no for understanding where the occult knowledge we have today originates from.

A good introduction to the occult!

A good place to start in researching the occult. The author drops a lot of names of authors, books, and famous occultists to do a deeper dive if you’re interested, and gives you a broad overview and some good history.

clear and educational

A well written chronological history of the occult. I enjoyed a lot! Accents were well done as well

Informative

This book was so good. Extremely informative with many additional references, and books to read or listen to, I am so glad I did not pass this book over, I learned so many new bits of information leaving me very inspired! Thank you John Michael Greer for your time, efforts and hours of research you invested in sharing this information and getting this information out to many!

Snippets into the esoteric

For a free Audible Plus book, you could do a lot worse when looking for the occult and esoteric. You might not find exactly what you are looking for here, as this book covers many things with less depth, but this book does an excellent job of being a jumping off point for items of interest. Happy learning.