{"title":"Occult, Esoterica, Hermetic","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003eAlchemy, magic, mysticism, hermetic thought, esoteric systems, divination, the occult archive, and stranger symbolic traditions.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-sacred-magician-a-ceremonial-diary-by-georges-chevalier","title":"'The Sacred Magician - A Ceremonial Diary' by Georges Chevalier","description":"\u003ch4\u003eOkay, brace yourselves.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"1649\" data-start=\"1229\"\u003eThe Sacred Magician: A Ceremonial Diary is a firsthand account of a six-month Abramelin operation. This was the demanding ritual intended to contact the Holy Guardian Angel and subdue the demonic forces of the self. Written under the pseudonym Georges Chevalier, this diary documents the discipline, monotony, hallucination, failure and breakthrough of actually attempting the working rather than merely theorising about it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"2022\" data-start=\"1651\"\u003eOriginally issued by Paladin in 1976, this first paperback edition sits in the lineage of Crowley’s \u003cem data-end=\"1791\" data-start=\"1751\"\u003eThe Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage\u003c\/em\u003e, but swaps grandstanding for boredom, obsession, hunger, and the strange bureaucracy of the occult. It’s as much psychological record as magical text, and one of the few sustained diaries of the ritual ever published.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"2022\" data-start=\"1651\"\u003eWeird! Love it. Reminds me of Joe Mellen's 'Bore Hole'. Priced because first edition Paladin occult paperback, v. desirable. (Still a bargain)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43402766909523,"sku":null,"price":42.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/2325df1e-3564-4e71-8db4-7ea946f37585.jpg?v=1768960038"},{"product_id":"giordano-bruno-and-the-hermetic-tradition-by-francis-yates","title":"'Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition' by Francis Yates","description":"\u003ch4 data-end=\"553\" data-start=\"156\"\u003eYates being influential — by becoming controversial. Anyone who cares about the occult, \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003emysticism, astronomy, theology, and political power should consider reading this.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"553\" data-start=\"156\"\u003eReconstructing the intellectual world of the Renaissance, Yates argues that Bruno’s cosmology, philosophy, and eventual execution cannot be understood without attending to Hermeticism, magic, and esoteric traditions that sat alongside emerging modern science.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"929\" data-start=\"555\"\u003eYates shows how mysticism, astronomy, theology, and political power were deeply entangled. Bruno emerges not as a proto-scientist or martyr for rationalism, but as a radically uncontrollable thinker whose ideas threatened both religious and intellectual order.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"1105\" data-start=\"931\"\u003eMeticulously researched and unapologetically interpretive, this is a book that reshaped Renaissance studies — and still provokes debate about where modernity actually begins. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"1105\" data-start=\"931\"\u003eVery big read. But I believe in you.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43448905695315,"sku":null,"price":22.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/f1fbbb2e-5c35-40c3-b9a2-2defd0a8c48a.jpg?v=1768950205"},{"product_id":"seances-and-sensitives-for-the-millions-by-edward-albertson","title":"'Séances and Sensitives for the Millions' by Edward Albertson","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"238\" data-end=\"306\"\u003eA time capsule from the golden age of American spiritualism revival.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"308\" data-end=\"686\"\u003eUnintentionally campy, curious, and stylish, Séances and Sensitives for the Millions is exactly what it promises. This is a populist guide to mediums, spirit communication, trance states, psychic phenomena, and the theatre of the séance room. Written at the height of 1960s occult curiosity, Edward Albertson walks through famous cases, fraudulent exposures, genuine believers, and the mechanics of contacting the beyond.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"688\" data-end=\"913\"\u003eA fun little capsule of mass-market paranormal culture at its most democratic and high energy output. If you're all about ouija boards, table-rapping, trance mediums, ectoplasm, and the personalities who built the séance industry, get a bite out of this.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"688\" data-end=\"913\"\u003eFirst edition, first printing.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44165476876371,"sku":null,"price":18.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Untitleddesign-2026-03-03T111850.260.png?v=1772497155"},{"product_id":"man-in-the-universe-by-reinhold-ebertin","title":"'Man in the Universe' by Reinhold Ebertin","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"191\" data-end=\"599\"\u003e\n\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eDefinitely for deep readers interested in the history of esotericism, astrology, and alternative cosmologies.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"191\" data-end=\"599\"\u003eGerman astrologer Reinhold Ebertin sets out the principles of what he called cosmobiology—a mid-twentieth-century attempt to synthesise astrology with astronomy, psychology, and statistical observation. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"601\" data-end=\"1002\"\u003eEbertin’s work sits within a particular postwar European tradition that sought to modernise astrology by stripping away mythological symbolism and replacing it with geometric and astronomical structures. \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eThe book outlines the technical foundations of the system: planetary cycles, angular relationships, midpoints, and their proposed correlations with human character and events.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"601\" data-end=\"1002\"\u003eWhether approached as a historical curiosity or as a technical manual for practitioners, the book offers a window into one of the more influential strands of twentieth-century astrological thought.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44174245953619,"sku":null,"price":10.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/ScholarsCreatingDigitalMapsofSpinoza_sEthics-2026-03-08T141323.585.png?v=1772939730"},{"product_id":"ozark-magic-folklore-by-vance-rudolph","title":"'Ozark Magic \u0026 Folklore' by Vance Rudolph","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"136\" data-end=\"488\"\u003eA compendium of Ozark superstition, ritual, and everyday belief, drawn from fieldwork rather than armchair myth-making.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"136\" data-end=\"488\"\u003eRandolph moves through specific practices—charms for illness, signs of death, witchcraft accusations, ghost encounters—recording not just what people believed, but how those beliefs structured daily life, conflict, and social order.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"490\" data-end=\"801\"\u003eA book of how people use systems—sometimes contradictory ones—to manage fear, illness, land, and each other. It reads less like a catalogue of oddities and more like a map of how a closed world explains itself when formal institutions don’t quite reach.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"837\" data-end=\"931\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eDover edition (1964), unabridged republication of the 1947 Columbia University Press original. Paperback in good condition. Some edge wear and creasing to covers; light handling marks; binding sound; interior clean.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44494540472403,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Untitleddesign-2026-04-14T220545.512.png?v=1776168362"},{"product_id":"the-oxford-companion-to-australian-folklore-edited-by-gwenda-beed-davey-graham-seal","title":"'The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore' edited by Gwenda Beed Davey \u0026 Graham Seal","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"90\" data-end=\"500\"\u003eThis companion gathers bush legends, urban myths, convict tales, Indigenous narratives, rituals, sayings. It moves from Dreaming stories through colonial superstition to contemporary myth-making, showing how belief mutates alongside settlement, violence, landscape, and isolation.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"502\" data-end=\"914\"\u003ePublished in 1993 by \u003cspan class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"whitespace-normal\"\u003eOxford University Press\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e, it sits at that moment where folklore studies were shifting from quaint preservation to something closer to cultural analysis. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"916\" data-end=\"1089\"\u003eDense, referential, occasionally strange in its breadth. Less for cover-to-cover reading, more for opening at random and falling into a pocket of the country’s subconscious.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1104\" data-end=\"1213\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHardcover, Oxford University Press (1993). Good condition—some wear to dust jacket, interior clean and solid.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44531077677139,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Yourparagraphtext_18.png?v=1777164979"},{"product_id":"the-little-world-of-elves-fairies-by-ida-rentoul-outhwaite","title":"'The Little World of Elves \u0026 Fairies' by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"68\" data-end=\"439\"\u003eA beautiful anthology collecting the work of one of Australia’s most iconic fairy illustrators, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"68\" data-end=\"439\"\u003eOriginally emerging in the early twentieth century, Outhwaite’s work sits somewhere between children’s literature, Art Nouveau dream imagery, and the strange twilight atmosphere of European folklore translated through Australian bushland sensibilities.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"441\" data-end=\"741\"\u003eThere's so much scale and texture to these drawings. The fairies are never overly sweet or flattened into commercial fantasy. They feel elusive, slightly eerie, hidden inside roots and branches and dusk-light. The full-colour reproductions here hold onto that atmosphere remarkably well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"743\" data-end=\"947\"\u003eA genuinely lovely object for collectors of illustration, folklore, children’s publishing history, or anyone drawn to that late-Victorian\/Edwardian threshold where fairy art becomes almost occult in mood.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"743\" data-end=\"947\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1985 Angus \u0026amp; Robertson paperback edition. Large-format illustrated volume with full-colour reproductions throughout. Clean interior and bright plates with light shelf wear and minor edge rubbing to covers. Binding remains firm.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44570439057491,"sku":null,"price":20.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Yourparagraphtext_73.png?v=1778052896"},{"product_id":"zealot-by-jo-thornley","title":"'Zealot' by Jo Thornley","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"39\" data-end=\"342\"\u003e\n\u003cem data-start=\"93\" data-end=\"101\"\u003eZealot\u003c\/em\u003e moves through some of the most infamous cults and charismatic movements of the twentieth century trying to dig out what actually draws people toward systems of total belief in the first place.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"344\" data-end=\"823\"\u003eJo Thornely approaches cults as distorted mirrors of ordinary desires — belonging, certainty, transcendence, identity, intimacy, structure. The book moves through familiar figures and movements, paying as much attention to vulnerability, charisma, performance, and social conditions as it does manipulation. There’s a strong thread throughout about how ideology becomes emotional furniture.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"825\" data-end=\"1202\"\u003eParasociality, wellness culture, internet gurus, conspiracy ecosystems, fandom, self-optimisation — the line between “cult” and socially rewarded devotion feels increasingly blurry and Thornely is attentive to that ambiguity rather than pretending cult psychology belongs to another era.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1204\" data-end=\"1291\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2019 Australian paperback edition in very good condition with light general shelf wear.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44577559412819,"sku":null,"price":15.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Yourparagraphtext-2026-05-08T160405.798.png?v=1778220260"},{"product_id":"the-hero-with-a-thousand-faces-by-joseph-campbell","title":"'The Hero With A Thousand Faces' by Joseph Campbell","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"0\" data-end=\"561\"\u003eJoseph Campbell’s \u003cem data-start=\"18\" data-end=\"50\"\u003eThe Hero with a Thousand Faces\u003c\/em\u003e fed frankly ridiculous amount of twentieth-century storytelling, cinema, psychology, fantasy, self-help, spiritual writing, and narrative theory.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"0\" data-end=\"561\"\u003eFirst published in 1949, it draws from comparative mythology, psychoanalysis, religion, folklore and literature to argue that heroic stories across cultures often move through a shared symbolic structure: departure, ordeal, transformation, return.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"563\" data-end=\"1152\"\u003eThat idea — later flattened into “the hero’s journey” by screenwriting manuals and franchise factories, because of course capitalism found the dragon and turned it into a workflow — is both the book’s great force and its danger. Campbell is at his best when he is reading myth through caves, thresholds, fathers, goddesses, monsters, death, birth, descent, return. He treats stories as psychic technology, ways human beings organise terror, longing, maturity, violence, wonder, and the fact of being born into a world without instructions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1154\" data-end=\"1691\"\u003eIt is also very much a book of its era: sweeping, synthetic, occasionally too confident in its universalising gestures. For anyone interested in narrative structure, religion, Jung-adjacent thought, fantasy, film, psychology, or why certain stories keep returning wearing different animal skins, this remains a foundational object.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1702\" data-end=\"1919\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBollingen Series \/ Princeton University Press paperback, third printing, 1973. Solid reading copy, good condition.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44656192356435,"sku":null,"price":20.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Yourparagraphtext-2026-05-25T165622.748.png?v=1779692195"},{"product_id":"return-to-the-stars-evidence-for-the-impossible-by","title":"'Return to the Stars: Evidence for the Impossible' by","description":"\u003ch4 data-start=\"11\" data-end=\"501\"\u003eOdd, confident, dated, occasionally ridiculous, and genuinely fun as a document of speculative twentieth-century thought.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"11\" data-end=\"501\"\u003e\u003cem data-start=\"11\" data-end=\"61\"\u003eReturn to the Stars: Evidence for the Impossible\u003c\/em\u003e is Erich von Däniken doing exactly what the title threatens. It is a gathering of archaeological fragments, myths, monuments, technological speculation, dream logic, cosmic leaps and suspiciously confident conclusions. First published in English in 1970, this is classic ancient-astronaut material; not science, exactly, more like speculative archaeology wearing a lab coat it found in a theatre prop cupboard.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"503\" data-end=\"963\"\u003eThe book argues, in von Däniken’s familiar mode, that traces of extraterrestrial contact might be hidden inside ancient art, architecture, religion, memory, myth and technological anomaly. The appeal is not really whether you “believe” it. The appeal is the texture: Cold War futurism, pseudo-scientific wonder, space-age occultism, diagrams of geoglyphs, and the weird mid-century conviction that the past was full of machines we were too boring to recognise.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"965\" data-end=\"1397\"\u003eNow it reads as both cult object and cultural fossil. It belongs to the same shelf as UFO paperbacks, forbidden archaeology, Atlantis arguments, fringe science, Forteana, and all those books that helped build the modern conspiracy imagination before the internet turned the whole thing into a leaking basement. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"965\" data-end=\"1397\"\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHardback, first published in Great Britain by Souvenir Press in 1970; translated from the German by Michael Heron. Dust jacket present with visible rubbing, edge wear and some creasing\/marking, especially around the corners and laminate; pages show age-toning but appear clean and intact. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44658047778899,"sku":null,"price":26.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Yourparagraphtext-2026-05-26T141831.068.png?v=1779769122"}],"url":"https:\/\/bowerbooks.com\/collections\/occult-esoterica-hermetic-1.oembed","provider":"bower books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}