Post originally by Alex White at 2003-09-20 19:53:19
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It depends on what kinds of occult you are interested in.

I personally find most of the 19th century stuff absolute crap.

Stick to the original stuff. The Enneads by Plotinus for example is a classic (although close to unreadable), as it essentially created the discipline of Theurgy.

There is a great book called "The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation" edited by H.D. Betz, which is a big book of spells and rites by magicians from the second and third centuries (ie, spells that people really performed, by magicians whose primary source of income was the performance of these spells).

The Sefer Zohar is the quintessential Kabbalistic text, hard to get in a complete form.

The Corpus Hermeticum is also worth getting, but like the Enneads, is mostly unreadable.

De Mysteri by Proclus (or is it Iamblichus?) is also worth trying to get a hold of, but outside of large university libraries, I doubt it's available.

For a comprehensive history of magic, I suggest the "Athlone History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe", edited by Bengt and Ankarloo. Goes from the Biblical period to the eighteenth century, and is very scholarly (ie, not new age).

~Alex