Traditions

The magic of method over belief: sigils, gnosis, and servitors stripped of dogma, invented in 1970s England and spread worldwide through books and the internet.

The tradition of the divine spark: matter made by a lesser god, salvation by direct knowledge, and the texts returned to light at Nag Hammadi.

The foundational modern ceremonial order behind much of Western magic.

The western occult adaptation of the Tree of Life: the master filing system of the western mystery tradition, its correspondences, and the practices built on it.

The philosophical and practical tradition of the Hermetic texts: divine mind, experiential knowledge, and the regeneration of the self, taught from Alexandria to the modern orders.

The Jewish mystical tradition: Ein Sof and the sefirot, the Zohar and Luria's tikkun, and the practice of prayer and study that sustains the divine balance.

Antinomian currents centering self-deification and taboo as method.

The brotherhood of the rose cross: a myth announced in 1614 that became real orders, correspondence courses, and esoteric Christianity's most durable institution.

The manuscript tradition of the Keys of Solomon and related grimoires.

Crowley's religion of the True Will: the Law of Thelema, the grade system of the A∴A∴, and the Gnostic Mass at the centers of the world's Thelemic lodges.

The Afro-Brazilian religion of the orixas: the terreiros of Bahia, initiation's year in white, and the drumming and possession at the faith's heart.

The Afro-Haitian religion of the lwa: the service and the drums, possession's mounting, the kanzo initiation, and the tradition's journey from suppression to recognition.

African-American folk magic: conjure and rootwork, condition work for hire, the Bible as the spellbook, and the open-closed debate the tradition itself is still having.

Yoruba religion and divination system centered on Orunmila and the babalawo priesthood.

The distinct Voodoo tradition of New Orleans and the Gulf, blending African, Catholic, and local currents.

Caribbean spiritual and magical practice with West African roots.

Congo-derived Cuban tradition working with the dead and the nganga.

The Afro-Cuban religion of the orishas: divination by cowries and palm nuts, initiation through godparents, and the drum ceremonies where the spirits arrive.

The source religion: Vodun of Benin, Togo, and Ghana, the shrines and convent initiation, the Fa divination, and the national day that brought it back from suppression.

Nature spirituality under the Druid name: the Awen's inspiration, the three grades, the wheel of festivals, and groves from Stonehenge's solstice to the correspondence courses.

Witchcraft practiced outside a single lineage: self-taught, self-designed, drawn from many sources.

Revived worship of the Greek gods.

Revived ancient Egyptian religion.

The modern revival family of nature-venerating religions that grew out of mid-20th-century Europe: Wicca, Druidry, Heathenry, Hellenic and Kemetic revivals, and the many eclectic paths that draw on pre-Christian European, Near Eastern, and other ancestral religious worlds.

Revived Norse religion of the gods, ancestors, and land wights.

The modern revival of pre-Christian Slavic religion: gods of the pantheon, household devotion, and the seasonal cycle rebuilt from folklore and fragments.

Witchcraft currents outside Wicca, drawing on folkloric and regional craft.

The religion of modern witchcraft: Goddess and God, the cast circle, the wheel of eight festivals, and a worldwide community split between initiatory covens and self-taught solitaries.

Buddhism's tantric vehicle: deity yoga and mantra under empowerment and vow, from the Indian tantras to the Tibetan schools and Japanese Shingon.

The living tradition of the Korean mudang, entered by calling and initiation.

Japanese kami worship and the mountain ascetic path of the yamabushi.

The pan-Asian esoteric tradition: mantra, yantra, and transgressive ritual for liberation and power, from the medieval Shaiva age to the living tantriks of South Asia.

Daoism's esoteric core: internal alchemy's refinement of the three treasures, the talismanic priests, and the monastic and communal branches of the oldest continuous Chinese tradition.

Hinduism's esoteric currents: tantra's ritual system of mantra and yantra, the guru's initiation, and the living traditions behind the West's borrowed word.

The hillfolk's own tradition: granny women and blood stoppers, the Bible's verses as charms, the passing-down rules, and the mountain medicine of plants and scripture.

The historical service magicians of Europe: healers, finders, and unwitchers.

Italy's domestic magic: the evil eye and the oil test, the grandmother's secret prayer, the kitchen charms, and the diaspora that carried malocchio to America.

The German-American healing tradition of Pennsylvania: braucherei's whispered charms and the Bible, the hexerei boundary, and the hex signs that tourism attached to it.

The folk magic of the Slavic world: whispered healing spells, the household spirit's care, the calendar customs, and the village tradition carried through the double faith.

Harner's cross-cultural distillation of shamanic technique for modern practitioners.

Practices that genuinely span many traditions, belonging to no single lineage.

Metaphysical movement behind affirmations, mind-cure, and manifestation.

The religion of spirit communication: mediums as ministers, the demonstration of evidence as worship, and the churches and camps where the dead are heard.

The tradition of the Ancient Wisdom: a universal esoteric doctrine, the Masters who guard it, and the reincarnation cosmology that became modern esotericism's parent system.

The oldest continuous spiritual traditions on earth, held by Aboriginal peoples.

The plural, nation-specific spiritual traditions of Native North America, held by their peoples.

The source traditions from which the word shaman was taken.

Spanish-language witchcraft traditions across Latin America and its diaspora.

Latin America's folk healing: the curandera's specialties, the limpias that cleanse illness, and the botanica economy serving communities biomedicine misses.

The Arabic-Islamic magical corpus of letters, jinn, talismans, and spiritual sciences.

Islamic mysticism: the path of dhikr and the orders, fana's annihilation and baqa's subsistence, and the contested status of the tradition within its own faith.