Introduction 6th Century BCE Pythagoras Comes to Crotona 5th Century BCE Empedocles Invents the Four Elements Late 5th Century BCE The First Horoscopes 347 BCE Death of Plato 186 BCE Rome Outlaws the Bacchic Mysteries 1st Century BCE Miriam the Alchemist 33 CE Death of Jesus 57 CE Fall of Mona c. 1st Century CE Invention of the Runes 1st Century CE Apollonius of Tyana c. 120 Basilides of Alexandria 2nd Century Magic on Trial 155 Valentinus Loses a Papal Election 3rd Century The Corpus Hermeticum 244 Plotinus Begins Teaching in Rome c. 300 Zosimos of Panopolis 330 Death of Iamblichus of Chalcis 363 Last Pagan Emperor of Rome 396 End of the Eleusinian Mysteries 538 The Edicts of Justinian 573 Merlin and the Battle of Arderydd c. 800 Jabir ibn Hayyan 9th Century Canon Episcopi 1118 Founding of the Knights Templar 1208 The Albigensian Crusade c. 1230 Origins of the Cabala 1256 Translation of Picatrix 1271 Fall of Harran 1279 Abraham Abulafia Goes to Saronno 1307 Arrest of the Knights Templar 1327 Cecco d'Ascoli Burned at the Stake 1382 The Philosopher's Stone 1418 Origin of the Tarot 1428 The Great Valais Witch Trials Begin 1464 Translation of the Corpus Hermeticum 1486 The Malleus Maleficarum 1494 Johannes Reuchlin's On the Miraculous Word 1526 Paracelsus Comes to Basel 1533 Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy 1555 The Prophecies of Nostradamus 1559 John Dee Schedules a Royal Coronation
1570 Isaac Luria Arrives in Safed
1575 The Benandanti
1587 The Legend of Faust
1600 Giordano Bruno Burned at the Stake
1610 The Visions of Jacob Boehme
1611 Johannes Bureus Interprets the Runes
1614 The First Rosicrucian Manifesto
1628 Casting Spells for the Pope
1630 Gerard Thibault's Academy of the Sword
1647 William Lilly's Christian Astrology
1694 Rosicrucians Arrive in Pennsylvania
1717 The First Masonic Grand Lodge
1736 Passage of the Witchcraft Act
1744 The Visions of Emanuel Swedenborg
1746 Founding of the Hellfire Club
1767 The Élus Coens
1778 Franz Anton Mesmer Comes to Paris
1781 Tracing the Tarot to Egypt
1783 Etteilla Publicizes Tarot Divination
1795 Alessandro Cagliostro Dies in Rome
1798 Druids Celebrate the Autumn Equinox
1801 Francis Barrett's The Magus
1820 Johann Georg Hohman's The Long Lost Friend
1821 Thomas Taylor Translates On the Mysteries
1844 The Visions of Andrew Jackson Davis
1848 Birth of Spiritualism
c. 1850 The “Voodoo Queen”
1855 Éliphas Lévi's Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic
1862 Jules Michelet's The Sorceress
1874 The Brotherhood of Eulis
1875 The Theosophical Society
1884 The Martinist Order
1887 The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
1892 The First Salon de la Rose+Croix
1897 The First Hoodoo Drugstore
1899 Charles Godfrey Leland's Aradia, or The Gospel of the Witches
1902 Guido von List's Vision of the Runes
1904 Aleister Crowley's The Book of the Law
1910 The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck
1912 Carl Jung Breaks with Sigmund Freud
1913 Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophical Society
1914 Evangeline Adams Acquitted of Fortune-Telling
1917 The Thule Society
1921 Margaret Murray's The Witch-Cult in Western Europe
1922 Alfred Watkins Discovers the Leys
1924 Harry Houdini Battles Fake Mediums
1925 The “Wars of the Roses”
1926 The Fulcanelli Enigma
1928 Manly P. Hall's The Secret Teachings of All Ages
1929 End of the Order of the Star in the East
1935 Dion Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah
1936 Dane Rudhyar's The Astrology of Personality
1948 Raymond Palmer Founds Fate Magazine
1954 Gerald Gardner's Witchcraft Today
1960 The Modern Alchemical Revival
1969 John Michell's The View Over Atlantis
1979 Wicca Goes Mainstream
1983 Ralph Blum's The Book of Runes
2012 The End of the Thirteenth Baktun