Source bibliography
| title | source_type | entities_linked | scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| Theoi Project main index | reference work | 473 | Greek gods, spirits, heroes in classical literature and art |
| Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days | primary text | 257 | Greek primordial cosmogony and genealogy of the gods; explicit personifications of primordial forces, fate, strife, and abstract conditions. Standard edition: M.L. West, Hesiod: Theogony; Works and Days (Oxford World's Classics, 1988). |
| Theoi Greek Gods category index | reference work | 165 | Olympians, Titans, primordials, domain categories, daimones, apotheosed mortals |
| Homer, Iliad and Odyssey (c. 750-675 BCE); trans. Richmond Lattimore (Iliad, Univ. of Chicago 1951) and trans. Emily Wilson (Odyssey, Norton 2017) | primary text | 141 | The foundational Greek primary texts; the Iliad (24 books, the rage of Achilles and the Trojan War) and the Odyssey (24 books, the return of Odysseus) are the oldest surviving Greek literary works and the primary source for Olympian personalities, divine behavior, the cosmological structure of the Greek world (Olympus / earth / Tartarus), the Nereid catalog (Iliad XVIII), the divine assembly, and the Trojan War heroes. The Nekyia (Odyssey XI) is the primary text for the underworld geography (Asphodel, Elysium, Tartarus) and the role of Hades, Persephone, Minos, Rhadamanthus, Tiresias, and the dead. Homer depicts the gods as active participants in human affairs; his characterizations of Zeus, Hera, Athena, Apollo, Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hephaestus, Poseidon, Artemis, and Demeter establish the canonical Olympian personalities that all later Greek literature responds to. |
| The Hebrew Bible / Tanakh (primary text; Masoretic Text tradition; reference editions: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia / Biblia Hebraica Quinta; citations by book, chapter, and verse) | primary text | 140 | Primary text corpus for all entities attested in the Hebrew Bible: Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy), Nevi'im (Joshua–Malachi), Ketuvim (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Daniel, etc.); covers patriarchs (Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses), prophets (Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel), kings (Solomon, David), and the full Israelite divine pantheon, demonology, and cosmology; the foundational primary source for all Israelite tradition entities and for chains into Jewish Mystical, Christian, and Islamic traditions |
| Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt | secondary scholarship | 137 | Egyptian gods and goddesses |
| Pseudo-Apollodorus, Library (Bibliotheca) (1st-2nd century CE); trans. Robin Hard (Oxford World's Classics, OUP 2008) | primary text | 133 | The most comprehensive surviving ancient handbook of Greek mythology; three books systematically covering the genealogies of the gods (Titans, Olympians, and their offspring), the mythological cycle from the Theogony forward, and the great hero cycles: Perseus, Heracles (twelve labors and full career), Theseus, Jason and the Argonauts, the Theban cycle (Cadmus through Oedipus), the Trojan War, and the Nostoi (returns of the heroes). The Library is the standard secondary compendium for ancient mythographic tradition; it does not itself record lost myths but assembles and harmonizes material from earlier sources (Hesiod, the cyclic epics, Pherecydes, Hellanicus, Acusilaus). Pseudo-Apollodorus is by convention attributed to the scholar Apollodorus of Athens (2nd c. BCE) but was likely composed later; the work is the foundational reference for genealogical claims about virtually every named entity in the Greek tradition. |
| Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd edition (ed. Lindsay Jones) | reference work | 120 | Cross-traditional comparative religion reference; theological concepts, cosmological categories, ritual practices, and religious abstractions across world traditions. 15 vols., Macmillan Reference, 2005. |
| Theoi Daemones/personifications index | reference work | 101 | Personified spirits and daimones of condition, emotion and abstraction |
| Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia | secondary scholarship | 100 | Mesopotamian gods, demons, symbols, and divine iconography |
| Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology | secondary scholarship | 89 | Egyptian mythology and divine beings |
| New Testament (primary text; Greek: Nestle-Aland 28th ed.; citations by book, chapter, and verse) | primary text | 84 | New Testament: Jesus Christ, apostles, angels, and the demonology and eschatology of early Christianity |
| Theoi Deified Mortals index | reference work | 80 | Apotheosed mortals and hero-gods |
| Qur’an | primary text | 75 | Islamic scripture, angels, jinn, shayatin, Iblis, eschatology |
| Butler’s Lives of the Saints | secondary scholarship | 74 | Christian saints, cults, patronage, relic traditions |
| Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652-54) — the canonical 72-name roster of the Shem ha-Mephorash | primary text | 73 | Renaissance Esoteric |
| Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology (trans. A. Hall, D. S. Brewer, 1993) | secondary scholarship | 73 | Norse/Germanic mythology |
| The Lesser Key of Solomon (Lemegeton), Book I: Ars Goetia; ed. S. L. MacGregor Mathers & Aleister Crowley (1904) | primary text | 72 | Goetic/Solomonic |
| Snorri Sturluson, Prose Edda | primary text | 68 | Norse gods, cosmology, giants, and mythic narratives |
| Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (University of North Carolina Press, 1975) | secondary scholarship | 64 | Sufism: history, doctrine, the formative masters, orders, and poetics |
| David Hugh Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford University Press, 5th ed. 2011) | secondary scholarship | 63 | Western hagiography |
| Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures | primary text | 63 | Gnostic texts, mythic systems, aeons, archons |
| Pausanias, Description of Greece (c. 143-176 CE); trans. W.H.S. Jones (Loeb Classical Library, Harvard 1918-1935) | primary text | 63 | A travel guide to mainland Greece in ten books written by a Greek traveler in the 2nd century CE; the single most important ancient source for the actual practice of Greek religion: cult sites, temples, statues, festivals, ritual procedures, local traditions, and hero shrines. Pausanias personally visited the major sanctuaries (Olympia, Delphi, Corinth, Athens, Eleusis, Epidaurus) and documented what was there and the traditions attached to them. Essential for: the cult of Asclepius at Epidaurus (Book 2); the Eleusinian Mysteries and Demeter/Persephone at Eleusis (Book 1); hero cults for Achilles, Ajax, Protesilaus, Heracles, Pelops, Theseus, Iphigenia; the oracle of Apollo at Delphi (Book 10); local cult forms of Zeus, Athena, Hera, and Poseidon; and the Olympia complex. Pausanias often preserves local mythological variants and cult titles not found in the literary tradition. |
| Poetic Edda | primary text | 63 | Norse mythological poems and heroic material |
| Nag Hammadi Library | primary text | 62 | Gnostic scriptures and mythological entities |
| Theoi Nymphs index | reference work | 61 | Naiads, Dryads, Nereids, Oceanids, Hesperides, Lampades and named nymphs |
| F. C. Conybeare, “The Testament of Solomon,” Jewish Quarterly Review 11 (1898): 1–45 | primary text | 59 | Late antique Solomonic demonology; Conybeare edition and translation of the Testament of Solomon; named demons, angelic controls, afflictions, decans, and ritual subjugation traditions |
| R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (Oxford University Press, 1969; repr. Aris & Phillips, 1998) | primary text | 54 | The standard English translation of the Pyramid Texts (PT), the oldest religious corpus in the world (c. 2375-2181 BCE; first attested in the pyramid of Unas, 5th Dynasty); 759 "Utterances" covering the solar theology of Ra and Atum, the Osiris myth, the Ennead genealogy, the underworld geography, and virtually every major Old Kingdom deity; primary source for establishing Old Kingdom period attestations of Egyptian deities including Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, Seth, Nephthys, Hathor, Thoth, Ptah, Anubis, Khepri, Horus, Sekhmet, Sobek, Khnum, Seshat, Wepwawet, and dozens of others |
| Avesta | primary text | 50 | Zoroastrian divine beings, cosmology, ritual, and ethics |
| Miranda Green, Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend | reference work | 46 | Celtic gods, goddesses, spirits, heroes, and cults |
| R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, ed. Carol Andrews (British Museum Press, 1972; rev. 1985) | primary text | 45 | Egyptian funerary literature |
| Homeric Hymns (7th-5th century BCE); trans. M.L. West, Homeric Hymns (Loeb Classical Library 496, Harvard 2003) | primary text | 45 | 33 hymns addressed to individual Greek deities; despite the name "Homeric" they are not by Homer but by various poets in the hexameter tradition, composed across the 7th-5th centuries BCE. The major hymns are primary sources for: Demeter (HH 2; Eleusinian Mysteries foundation myth), Apollo (HH 3; Delos and Delphi foundations), Hermes (HH 4; theft of Apollo's cattle, invention of the lyre), Aphrodite (HH 5; her affair with Anchises), and Dionysus (HH 7). The shorter hymns (HH 8-33) address Ares, Artemis, Athena, Hera, Demeter, Rhea/Mother of Gods, Heracles, Asclepius, Castor and Polydeuces (Dioscuri), Pan, Hephaestus, Poseidon, Zeus, Hestia, the Muses, Helios, Selene, and Gaia. Each hymn is the primary text for the deity's cult epithets, functions, and origin myths as understood in the archaic and early classical periods. |
| Theoi Underworld Gods index | reference work | 45 | Underworld gods, rivers, daimones and spirits |
| Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible | reference work | 44 | Biblical, Jewish, Christian, angelic and demonic traditions |
| Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies), c. 180 CE; ed. Rousseau & Doutreleau, SC 263-264, 293-294, 210-211 (Cerf, 1979-2002) | heresiological source | 44 | The five-book polemic by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon (c. 130–202 CE), is the single most comprehensive ancient source for Gnostic cosmological systems, particularly Valentinian theology. Books I.1-9 provide the fullest surviving account of the Valentinian Pleroma: the thirty aeons in their fifteen syzygies, the names of all Decad and Dodecad members, the emanation sequence from Bythos/Sige through Nous/Aletheia, Logos/Zoe, Anthropos/Ecclesia, the fall of Sophia (the 30th aeon), the production of Achamoth, and the creation of the material world by the Demiurge/Yaldabaoth. Irenaeus is writing polemically against these systems and may not always represent Valentinian theology accurately, but his account preserves details found in no other ancient source and is confirmed on many points by the Nag Hammadi texts discovered in 1945. Essential for all ENT_VAL_* entities and for the Valentinian reception of older Gnostic cosmological concepts. Cited for ENT_VAL_DECAD, ENT_VAL_DODECAD, ENT_VAL_MONOGENES, ENT_VAL_PISTIS, ENT_VAL_AGAPE, ENT_VAL_THELETOS, and the structural Yaldabaoth relationships. |
| E. A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani (London, 1895/1913) | primary text | 43 | Egyptian funerary literature |
| Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible | reference work | 42 | Biblical, Northwest Semitic, Second Temple, angelic and demonic traditions |
| Ovid, Fasti | primary text | 39 | Roman calendar, festivals, divine myths and cult aetiologies |
| Theoi Potamoi river-gods page | reference work | 39 | Greek river-gods and their genealogical/cult context |
| Catholic Encyclopedia saints entries | reference work | 38 | Christian saints, angelic beings, hagiography, patronage |
| The Mabinogion | primary text | 38 | Welsh mythological and heroic figures |
| Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah | secondary scholarship | 38 | Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah, sefirot, angelology, and esoteric traditions |
| Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature | primary text | 36 | Sumerian literary and mythological texts |
| Theoi Sea Gods index | reference work | 36 | Sea gods, Nereids, sea daimones and related beings |
| Mary Beard, John North, Simon Price, Religions of Rome | secondary scholarship | 34 | Roman religion, cult, priesthoods, and public religious practice |
| James MacKillop, Dictionary of Celtic Mythology (Oxford University Press, 1998) | secondary scholarship | 34 | Celtic mythology |
| Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, De occulta philosophia libri tres (1533) — incl. the Scale of Seven (Bk II.10) | primary text | 33 | Solomonic Magic |
| De Grummond, Nancy Thomson. Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend (University of Pennsylvania Museum, 2006) | secondary scholarship | 32 | Comprehensive treatment of Etruscan deity iconography, myth, and religious narratives drawn from mirrors, sarcophagi, and painted tombs. Standard English-language secondary source for Etruscan religion. |
| Encyclopaedia of Islam entries | reference work | 32 | Islamic religious beings, angelology, jinn, demons, eschatology, and saints |
| The Synaxarion (the Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church) | primary text | 32 | The Orthodox liturgical compilation of the lives of the saints, arranged by feast |
| Erik Hornung, The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife | secondary scholarship | 31 | Duat, afterlife books, netherworld beings |
| 3 Enoch / Sefer Hekhalot | primary text | 30 | Hekhalot angelology, Metatron, heavenly ascent, celestial bureaucracy |
| Einar Thomassen, The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the "Valentinians" (Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 60; Brill, 2006) | secondary scholarship | 30 | The definitive study of the Valentinian tradition: its pleroma, protology, Sophia myth, soteriology, and the Eastern/Western schools |
| Aleksander Brückner, Mitologia Słowiańska i Polska (Krakowska Spółka Wydawnicza, Krakow, 1918; repr. Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warsaw, 1980) | secondary scholarship | 29 | The classic scholarly reconstruction of Slavic mythology by the leading Polish Slavicist of the early 20th century. Brückner systematically evaluates the primary chronicle and ecclesiastical sources against later folk tradition, proposing a reconstructed pre-Christian Slavic pantheon. His skeptical methodology — he rejected many proposed deities as late folk invention or misidentified personifications — remains influential. Covers Perun, Veles, Mokosh, Svarog, Dažbog, Stribog, Simargl, Khors, Rod, and Rozhanitsy; critically evaluates Chernobog and Belobog (rejected as German invention). Standard citation for early scholarly treatment of Slavic paganism alongside Ivanov and Toporov (1974). |
| Manichaean Kephalaia | primary text | 29 | Manichaean cosmology, light beings, darkness beings, salvation myth |
| Robert G. Hoyland, Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam (Routledge, 2001) | secondary scholarship | 28 | Comprehensive scholarly survey of ancient Arabian civilization including South Arabian kingdoms (Saba, Qataban, Hadhramaut, Himyar) and their religion; covers the South Arabian inscriptional evidence for the major deities (Almaqah, Athtar, Shams, ʿAmm, Sin) and their relationship to pre-Islamic north Arabian religion; documents the lunar-deity-as-chief-deity pattern unique to South Arabia and the masculine Venus (Athtar) tradition |
| Virgil, Aeneid (19 BCE) | primary text | 28 | Latin epic poem in 12 books composed by Publius Vergilius Maro; foundational text for Roman religious mythology. Attests Roman deity personalities, cult epithets, and divine interventions in the Trojan/Italic founding narrative. Standard edition: R.D. Williams, Virgil: Aeneid (Bristol Classical Press); trans. David West (Penguin). |
| Ginza Rba | primary text | 27 | Mandaean scriptures, lightworld beings, cosmology, and myth |
| Oxford Classical Dictionary, Roman Religion entries | reference work | 27 | Roman gods, cults, interpretatio, and religious institutions |
| Herodotus, Histories (c. 430 BCE) | primary text | 26 | Primary Greek source for comparative religion and cultural anthropology of the Near East and Egypt; documents identifications of Arabian, Egyptian, and Phoenician deities with Greek counterparts; Herodotus 2.41-44 on Egyptian and Phoenician religion; 3.8 on Arabian deities; 2.44 explicitly describes the Phoenician Heracles/Melqart sanctuary at Tyre |
| Zohar | primary text | 26 | Kabbalistic divine emanations, Shekhinah, sefirot, mystical symbolism |
| Cicero, De Natura Deorum (45 BCE) | primary text | 24 | Philosophical dialogue by Marcus Tullius Cicero presenting Stoic, Epicurean, and Academic views on the nature of the Roman gods. Books I–III. Most systematic ancient Roman treatment of the divine council and theology. Standard edition: A.S. Pease (Cambridge, 1955); trans. P.G. Walsh (Oxford World's Classics). |
| Dáithí Ó hÓgáin, The Lore of Ireland: An Encyclopaedia of Myth, Legend and Romance (Boydell Press, 2006) | secondary scholarship | 24 | Irish heroic cycles, sovereignty figures, and folklore beings |
| Augustine of Hippo, De Civitate Dei (413–426 CE) | primary text | 21 | The most systematic patristic demolition of Roman/Greek religion; Books II–VIII argue pagan gods are either morally evil demons or poetic fictions; Book VIII–X refutes Apuleius and argues daimones cannot mediate between humans and God; key source for theological demonization of the entire Greco-Roman pantheon |
| Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend | primary text | 21 | medieval saints, legends, martyrdom and cult traditions |
| Elias Lönnrot, The Kalevala (Kalevala taikka vanhoja Karjalan runoja Suomen kansan muinosista ajoista), expanded edition 1849; trans. Keith Bosley (Oxford World's Classics, Oxford University Press, 1989) | primary text | 21 | The national epic of Finland, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from oral folk poetry (runo-songs) collected mainly from Karelia between 1828 and 1834, with an expanded edition in 1849 (50 cantos / runos, ~22,795 verses). The oral tradition underlying the Kalevala is far older, preserving pre-Christian Finnish and Karelian religious material; the earliest layer of the runo-song tradition is estimated to the Iron Age or earlier. The Kalevala is the primary source for Finnish mythology: it presents the creation of the world from a cosmic egg (Runo 1, Ilmatar), the shaman-bard Väinämöinen as the central culture hero, the forest deity Tapio and his wife Mielikki (Runo 14, 32, 46), the sea deity Ahti/Ahto (Runo 42-49), the thunder deity Ukko (Runo 2, 47), and the antagonist Louhi, mistress of the northern realm Pohjola (Runos 5-8, 10-11, 30-38, 42-49). Keith Bosley's Oxford translation (1989) is the standard modern English edition. Primary citation for all Finnish entities in this layer. |
| Apocryphon of John (The Secret Book of John), NHC II,1 / III,1 / IV,1 and BG 8502,2; c. 2nd c. CE, Egypt | primary text | 20 | Sethian cosmogony: the Invisible Spirit, Barbelo, the Four Luminaries, Sophia, Yaldabaoth and the archons |
| Bundahishn | primary text | 20 | Zoroastrian cosmology, creation, and spiritual beings |
| Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Latin votive and dedicatory inscriptions) | primary inscription/artifact | 20 | The epigraphic record of Roman cult: dedications to Silvanus, Sol Invictus, the Magna Mater, Dea Roma |
| Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah (the Life of the Messenger of God), c. 760 CE (recension of Ibn Hisham) | primary text | 20 | The earliest biography of the Prophet Muhammad |
| Marvin Meyer, The Gnostic Bible | primary text | 20 | Gnostic scriptures and mythological traditions |
| Rudolf Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology | reference work | 20 | Germanic and Norse gods, beings, cosmology, and mythological terms |
| 1 Enoch | primary text | 19 | Watcher and apocalyptic traditions |
| John Dee & Edward Kelley, the Enochian diaries (Heptarchia Mystica; Liber Loagaeth; Liber Scientiae / the Aethyrs), Sloane MSS | primary text | 19 | Renaissance Esoteric |
| Harry A. Hoffner Jr., Hittite Myths, 2nd ed. (Society of Biblical Literature, 1998) | primary text | 19 | Standard English translation of the Hittite mythological corpus including the Song of Kumarbi (succession myth), Song of Ullikummi, Illuyanka myth, and other Hittite/Hurrian religious texts from Hattusa; essential source for Hurrian pantheon transmitted via Hittite cuneiform |
| Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus | primary text | 19 | Akkadian and Sumerian texts and scholarly editions |
| Lebor Gabála Érenn | primary text | 18 | Irish mythic cycles and divine ancestries |
| Manichaean Psalm Book | primary text | 18 | Manichaean devotional and mythological beings |
| Pseudo-Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy | primary text | 17 | Christian angelic hierarchy |
| Servius, In Vergilii Carmina Commentarii (Commentary on Virgil), c. 400 CE | secondary scholarship | 17 | The late-antique grammarian's commentary preserving the metamorphoses of Leuce and Chelone |
| Piotr Taracha, Religions of Second Millennium Anatolia (Dresdner Beiträge zur Hethitologie 27; Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2009) | secondary scholarship | 17 | Comprehensive study of Anatolian religious traditions from the Bronze Age through the Iron Age transition, covering Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian, and Palaean religious systems alongside their interrelations. The chapter on Luwian religion surveys the major Luwian deities of the Neo-Hittite Iron Age states (c. 1200-700 BCE): Tarhunza (storm deity), Sharruma, Kubaba, Kamrusepa, and others as attested in Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions from Carchemish, Malatya, Karkamish, Zincirli, and Karatepe. For Kubaba specifically, Taracha discusses her role as the city goddess of Carchemish — the principal Neo-Hittite state and the city where her cult was most prominent — her divine attributes (enthroned with pomegranate and mirror, associated with the lion), her connection with divine sovereignty and queenship, and the transmission of her name into Phrygian as "Kubileya" (thus completing the etymological chain Kubaba → Kubileya → Cybele). Cited for ENT_LUW_KUBABA. |
| Georg Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer (2nd ed., Munich, 1912) | secondary scholarship | 17 | Roman religion |
| Marija Gimbutas, The Balts (Thames and Hudson, London, 1963) | secondary scholarship | 16 | The foundational English-language survey of Baltic culture and religion, covering Lithuanian, Latvian, and Old Prussian traditions from the Bronze Age through the medieval Christianisation period. Chapter 9 (The Religion of the Balts) is the standard academic overview of the Baltic pantheon in English: Dievas (sky god), Perkūnas (thunder), Velnias/Vels (chthonic), Laima (fate), Saulė (sun), Meness (moon), Žemyna (earth), and associated folk deities. Gimbutas draws on chronicle sources (Lasicki 1615, Stryjkowski 1582, Grunau 1517-21) and comparative Indo-European evidence. Standard citation for Baltic deity attestation in the secondary literature. |
| Livy, Ab Urbe Condita (Books 1–10, 21–45; c. 27 BCE – 9 CE) | primary text | 16 | Latin historical narrative by Titus Livius covering Rome from its founding to 9 BCE. Key source for Roman state religion, prodigies, vow-fulfillment, and temple foundation; attests Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Quirinus, Mars, Janus, Vesta, and the role of the Lares and Penates in Roman civic religion. Standard edition: B.O. Foster et al. (Loeb Classical Library). |
| Ovid, Metamorphoses, c. 8 CE | primary text | 16 | The great Latin epic of transformation; the canonical locus for many nymph and metamorphosis myths |
| Daniel T. Potts, The Archaeology of Elam: Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State (Cambridge World Archaeology; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999) | secondary scholarship | 16 | The comprehensive reference on Elamite civilization from the Proto-Elamite period (c. 3200 BCE) through the Neo-Elamite collapse (539 BCE). Chapter 8 ("Elamite Religion") surveys the pantheon systematically: Inshushinak as the supreme city deity of Susa and judge of the dead; Napirisha as the "great god" of the Middle Elamite period and the patron deity of the Untash-Napirisha dynasty (builders of Chogha Zanbil, c. 1250 BCE); Kiririsha as the principal goddess of Liyan and Susa; Humban as the dominant divine name in Old and Neo-Elamite royal nomenclature. Potts documents the Chogha Zanbil (Dur-Untash) ziggurat complex in detail — the best-preserved ancient ziggurat and the most important Elamite religious monument — which was dedicated to both Inshushinak and Napirisha, with subsidiary temples to Kiririsha and other deities. Also covers the bronze statue of Napirisha (c. 1340 BCE, Louvre), the Inshushinak votive objects from Susa, and the Neo-Elamite royal inscriptions invoking Humban and Kiririsha. Primary scholarly citation for all four Elamite entities. |
| Johannes Quasten, Patrology, 4 vols. (Spectrum / Christian Classics, 1950-1986) | secondary scholarship | 16 | Standard reference survey of the Church Fathers: their lives, works, and doctrine, from the Apostolic Fathers through the Latin and Greek patristic Doctors. |
| Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians | secondary scholarship | 15 | Zoroastrian theology, cosmology, divine beings, and ritual |
| Byock, Jesse L. (trans.), The Saga of the Volsungs: The Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer (Penguin Classics) | primary text | 15 | Germanic Legend — the Volsung/Nibelung heroic cycle: Sigurd, the Volsungs, Fafnir, Brynhild, the Gjukungs, Andvari's cursed gold |
| E. S. Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran | secondary scholarship | 15 | Mandaean religion, beings, rituals, cosmology, and priesthood |
| Samuel N. C. Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China | secondary scholarship | 15 | Manichaean history, cosmology, and religious transmission |
| Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, completed c. 1469-1470, printed by Caxton 1485 CE | primary text | 15 | The compendious English prose synthesis of the whole cycle; the canonical Anglophone form of the legend |
| Mandaean Book of John | primary text | 15 | Mandaean traditions concerning John, lightworld beings, and polemical myth |
| The Orphic Hymns (87 hymns; with the Orphic cosmogony), trans. Thomas Taylor (1792) and Athanassakis & Wolkow (2013) | primary text | 15 | Orphic theology: Protogonos/Phanes, Physis, Chronos, Nyx, Ouranos, Aether and the Orphic pantheon |
| Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris (De Iside et Osiride, c. 100–120 CE) | primary text | 15 | The fullest surviving Greco-Roman account of Egyptian religion; documents the Osiris myth, Seth as cosmic evil, the creation of Serapis under Ptolemy I, interpretatio graeca of Egyptian deities (Thoth=Hermes, Amun=Zeus, Hathor=Aphrodite), and the Isis mystery tradition; essential source for Egyptian→Greco-Egyptian transmission |
| Sahih al-Bukhari, the canonical Sunni hadith collection, c. 850 CE | primary text | 15 | The foremost Sunni hadith compendium; the angels, paradise and hell in prophetic tradition |
| Theoi Agrarian and Mystery Gods index | reference work | 15 | Agrarian, Eleusinian and mystery-associated powers |
| Varro, Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum (c. 47 BCE, surviving via Augustine City of God) | primary text | 15 | Marcus Terentius Varro's systematic taxonomy of Roman religion in 16 books; largely lost but extensively quoted by Augustine (City of God Books VI–VII). Distinguishes mythical, physical, and civic theology; the most comprehensive ancient Roman account of deity functions. Reconstructed via Augustine and other secondary citations. |
| The (Two) Books of Jeu (Bruce Codex), c. 3rd-4th c. CE, Egypt | primary text | 14 | Jeuian ritual cosmology: Jeu the overseer of the Light, the emanations, seals and names, the Fire Baptism and the ascent of the soul |
| Proinsias Mac Cana, Celtic Mythology | secondary scholarship | 14 | Irish and Welsh mythological traditions |
| Pistis Sophia (Askew Codex), c. 3rd-4th c. CE, Egypt | primary text | 14 | Late-Gnostic cosmology: the First Mystery, the Treasury of Light, the Virgin of the Light, the penitent Pistis Sophia and the rulers of the aeons |
| Sefer ha-Razim (The Book of the Mysteries), ed. Margalioth; trans. M. A. Morgan | primary text | 14 | Jewish Mystical |
| The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection (Apophthegmata Patrum), trans. Benedicta Ward, Cistercian Publications, rev. ed. 1984 | primary text | 14 | Early Christian monastic apophthegmata (Egyptian desert monasticism, 4th-5th c.) |
| N. Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit, 2nd ed. (Sheffield Academic Press, 2002) | primary text | 14 | Translation with commentary of the full corpus of Ugaritic religious texts including the Baal Cycle (KTU 1.1-6), Aqhat, Kirta, and ritual texts; primary source for Dagon as father of Baal (KTU 1.5 VI 24), Resheph as gatekeeper, and the full Ugaritic pantheon |
| Nejla M. Abu-Izzeddin, The Druzes: A New Study of Their History, Faith and Society (Brill, 1984) | secondary scholarship | 13 | Druze history, doctrine of tawhid, the hudud, al-Hakim, al-Darazi, Hamza, transmigration |
| Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (Harvard University Press, 1992) | secondary scholarship | 13 | Documents the 8th-7th c. BCE transmission of Near Eastern — primarily Mesopotamian and Levantine — mythology, literature, and iconography into Greek culture; argues for craftsmen, mercenaries, and merchants as the transmission vectors; documents specific parallels between Mesopotamian and Greek deities, myths, and ritual practices |
| Cath Maige Tuired (The Second Battle of Mag Tuired), ed. E. A. Gray (ITS, 1982) | primary text | 13 | Irish mythological cycle |
| Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature, 3rd ed. (CDL Press, 2005) | primary text | 13 | The standard comprehensive anthology of Akkadian literary texts; covers the major mythological compositions in Akkadian (Enuma Elish / Epic of Creation, Atrahasis Epic, Descent of Ishtar, Erra and Ishum, Nergal and Ereshkigal, Adapa, Etana) and poetic/hymnic texts across the Old Babylonian, Middle Babylonian, and Standard Babylonian periods; essential for Akkadian-period deity attestations (Marduk, Ishtar, Ea/Enki, Nergal, Ereshkigal, Nabu, Adad) where ETCSL covers the Sumerian side |
| Peter Schäfer, Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur | primary text | 13 | Hekhalot textual corpus; Merkabah ascent, throne beings, angelic liturgy |
| Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity | secondary scholarship | 13 | Aksumite |
| Juan Carlos Olivares Pedreño, Los dioses de la Hispania céltica (Bibliotheca Archaeologica Hispana 15; Real Academia de la Historia / Universidad de Alicante, Madrid, 2002) | secondary scholarship | 13 | Comprehensive study of the indigenous deities of the Celtic regions of Hispania — primarily Lusitania and the NW Iberian peninsula (modern Portugal and Galicia) — analyzing the distribution of theonyms, their linguistic analysis, the degree of Celtic vs. pre-Celtic substratum, and the functions inferred from dedicatory formulae and findspot contexts. Olivares Pedreño provides detailed analysis of Bandua (the deity most widely attested across Lusitania and NW Hispania, with 25+ inscriptions), Nabia (river/mountain goddess), Trebaruna (attested in Lusitanian-language inscriptions including the Arronches plaque), Endovelicus (the healing-oracular deity of São Miguel da Mota), and Ataegina (chthonic goddess widely attested across Lusitania and Baetica). This is the key reference for the linguistic and functional analysis of the deities in this layer. |
| Philo of Byblos, Phoenician History (Sanchuniathon), via Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 1.9-10 | primary text | 13 | Phoenician theogony |
| Scholarship on the pre-Christian Sámi noaidi religion (e.g. Bäckman & Hultkrantz) | secondary scholarship | 13 | Sámi |
| Dennis Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit | secondary scholarship | 13 | Ugaritic religion and divine hierarchy |
| The Apocrypha (NRSV) — Tobit, Judith, 1-2 Maccabees, additions to Daniel (Susanna), and related deuterocanonical books | primary text | 12 | Deuterocanonical narrative figures and martyr traditions |
| Corpus Hermeticum | primary text | 12 | Hermetic divine mind, cosmos, nous, logos, anthropos, ascent |
| Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Harvard University Press, 1973) | secondary scholarship | 12 | Foundational analysis of El, Baal, and Yahweh; El epithets absorbed into Yahweh theology; Baal storm attributes in Hebrew hymnody; canonical source for Canaanite→Israelite religious transmission |
| Gustav Davidson, A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels (The Free Press / Macmillan, New York, 1967) | secondary scholarship | 12 | NEW — standard reference cross-attesting the names and zodiacal/planetary assignments of the zodiacal and planetary angels |
| Hayyim Vital, Etz Hayyim (the Tree of Life), c. 1573 (the systematic exposition of Isaac Luria's teaching) | primary text | 12 | The foundational systematic text of Lurianic Kabbalah: the tzimtzum, the partzufim, the shevirah and the tikkun |
| Mark Miravalle (ed.), Mariology: A Guide for Priests, Deacons, Seminarians, and Consecrated Persons (Seat of Wisdom Books / Queenship, 2007) | secondary scholarship | 12 | Catholic Mariology — Marian titles, dogmas, and approved apparitions |
| Peter Schäfer, The History of the Jews in the Greco-Roman World | secondary scholarship | 12 | Second Temple Judaism: sages, sects, historians, and the Hellenistic-Roman political background |
| Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible | reference work | 12 | Northwest Semitic and biblical divine beings |
| Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek, 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1973) | primary text | 12 | The foundational publication of the Linear B decipherment (Ventris deciphered Linear B in 1952); provides transliterations, translations, and commentary for the major Linear B tablets from Knossos, Pylos, Mycenae, and Tiryns; primary source for all Mycenaean deity attestations (di-we, po-se-da-o, po-ti-ni-ja, e-ma-a, di-wo-nu-so, e-ra, a-re, e-nu-wa-ri-jo, di-u-ja); essential for establishing which Greek deities pre-date the Dark Age and which do not (notably Apollo's absence); standard reference for all Linear B religious evidence |
| José Miguel de Barandiarán, Mitología Vasca | secondary scholarship | 11 | Basque |
| Bibliotheca Sanctorum (Istituto Giovanni XXIII, Rome, 1961-1970) | secondary scholarship | 11 | hagiography |
| Helena P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (London: Theosophical Publishing Company, 1888) | primary text | 11 | Theosophical cosmology; Mahatmas (Masters of Wisdom); root races; cosmic evolution; synthesis of Eastern and Western esoteric traditions |
| Manfred Clauss, The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries (tr. R. Gordon, Routledge 2000) | secondary scholarship | 11 | Standard monograph on the iconography, grades, ritual and diffusion of the Roman Mithraic mysteries. |
| Aleister Crowley, Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law) (Cairo, 1904; The Equinox Vol. I No. 1, London: Crowley, 1909) | primary text | 11 | Thelemic theology; the three chapters voiced by Nuit (I), Hadit (II), and Ra-Hoor-Khuit (III); Aiwass as the dictating intelligence; the Aeon of Horus; True Will doctrine |
| Tamara M. Green, The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran | secondary scholarship | 11 | Primary scholarly study of the Harranian Sabian planetary cult, its temples, deities, and Hermetic-philosophical milieu from late antiquity through the Abbasid period. |
| Algirdas Julien Greimas, Of Gods and Men: Studies in Lithuanian Mythology (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1992; trans. Milda Newman and Joseph Fitzgerald) | secondary scholarship | 11 | Structuralist analysis of Lithuanian mythology by a leading semiotician and linguist. Covers the Dievas–Velnias–Perkūnas triad, the celestial family myth cycle (Saulė, Meness, Ašvieniai), Laima as the fate-spinner, and the deep structure of Baltic cosmic myth. Greimas distinguishes the Lithuanian mythological tradition from Slavic parallels and traces Indo-European cognates. The most analytically rigorous secondary source for Lithuanian mythology; supplements Gimbutas on theological structure. Reference for the celestial myth cycle and the Perkūnas vs. Velnias cosmic battle. |
| Hadith general reference layer | primary text | 11 | Islamic angelology, eschatology, jinn, and devotional traditions |
| John F. Healey, The Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus (Leiden: Brill, 2001) | secondary scholarship | 11 | Comprehensive scholarly treatment of Nabataean religion, including Dushara, Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat; documents the Nabataean inscriptional evidence, Greek identifications (Dushara=Dionysus), and the role of the Nabataean kingdom in transmitting pre-Islamic Arabian religion into the Hellenistic and Roman worlds; essential source for the Pre-Islamic Arabian→Greek/Roman reception chains |
| Picatrix (Ghayat al-Hakim), trans. Greer & Warnock; ed. Pingree | primary text | 11 | Astral Magic |
| Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy (Peri tes ekklesiastikes hierarchias), c. 500 CE (trans. J. Parker, 1897) | primary text | 11 | Pseudo-Dionysian corpus |
| Theoi Rustic Gods index | reference work | 11 | Rustic, pastoral, agrarian and country gods |
| The Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli), c. 500-600 CE | primary text | 10 | The foundational rabbinic compendium; its angelology and demonology |
| Alice A. Bailey, A Treatise on the Seven Rays; Initiation, Human and Solar | primary text | 10 | Theosophical |
| George Brandon, Santeria from Africa to the New World: The Dead Sell Memories (Indiana Univ. Press, 1993) | secondary scholarship | 10 | Yoruba orisha tradition and its Cuban Lucumi/Santeria diaspora, including the orisha-saint syncretism |
| Christian demonology reference layer | reference work | 10 | Christian demons, adversarial beings, and inherited Jewish/Second Temple demonology |
| Delamarre, Xavier. Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (Éditions Errance, 2003; 2nd ed.) | secondary scholarship | 10 | Standard scholarly dictionary of the Gaulish language. Covers all attested Gaulish inscriptions, deity names, personal names, and place names with etymological analysis. The essential reference for reconstructing Gaulish deity name meanings and Proto-Celtic roots. Used for all name-etymology claims in Gaulish tradition entries. |
| Duval, Paul-Marie. Les dieux de la Gaule (Presses Universitaires de France, 1957; rev. ed. Payot, 1976) | secondary scholarship | 10 | Classic French-language study of Gaulish gods based on epigraphy, iconography, and Roman-period dedications. Systematic review of attested Gaulish deity names by region and function. Standard secondary reference for Gaulish polytheism alongside Green (1992) and Mac Cana (1970). |
| Enuma Elish (the Babylonian Epic of Creation), c. late 2nd millennium BCE | primary text | 10 | The Babylonian creation epic; the theogony from Apsu and Tiamat and the exaltation of Marduk |
| M. Reza Hamzeh'ee, The Yaresan: A Sociological, Historical and Religio-Historical Study of a Kurdish Community (1990) | secondary scholarship | 10 | Foundational ethnographic and historical study of Yarsan theology, the Haftan, and the manifestation doctrine. |
| Hesiod, Works and Days (c. 700 BCE), trans. Evelyn-White | primary text | 10 | Greek didactic epic; the two Strifes, Pandora, the Five Ages, and the personifications Aidos, Nemesis, Elpis, Pheme, Dike, Arete |
| Iamblichus, De Mysteriis | primary text | 10 | Theurgy, divine classes, daimones, angels, archangels, heroes, purified souls |
| John Lindow, Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs (Oxford University Press, 2001) | secondary scholarship | 10 | Norse mythology |
| Edward Lipiński, The Aramaeans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 100; Peeters, Leuven, 2000) | secondary scholarship | 10 | The comprehensive scholarly reference on Aramean history, culture, and religion covering the period from the emergence of the Arameans in the late Bronze Age collapse (c. 1200 BCE) through the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Chapter 22 ("The Religion of the Aramaeans") surveys the Aramean pantheon systematically: Hadad as the chief storm deity of Damascus (attested in the Zakkur stele, c. 800 BCE; the Tel Dan stele of Hazael, c. 840 BCE; the Ben-Hadad stele; and Assyrian records of the Damascene kingdom); Baalshamin ("Lord of Heaven") as the pan-Semitic sky deity attested across Syria, Phoenicia, and Arabia in Iron Age and Hellenistic inscriptions; Atargatis as the Aramean form of the great goddess tradition. Lipiński provides the epigraphic corpus for Aramean divine names, analyses the inscriptions from Zinjirli (Sam'al), Hamath, and Arpad, and covers the Palmyrene continuation of Aramean religious traditions. Primary scholarly citation for all three Aramean entities. |
| al-Shaykh al-Mufid, Kitab al-Irshad (The Book of Guidance into the Lives of the Twelve Imams), c. 1000 CE | primary text | 10 | The canonical Twelver Shi'a biography of the Twelve Imams |
| Boris B. Piotrovsky, The Ancient Civilization of Urartu: An Archaeological Adventure, trans. James Hogarth (Cowles / Cresset Press, New York / London, 1969) | secondary scholarship | 10 | Authoritative survey of Urartian civilization by the foremost Soviet scholar of Urartu, drawing on excavations at Karmir Blur (Teishebaini) and the wider corpus of Urartian archaeology. Covers the pantheon, cult centers, and religious iconography alongside the material culture. Chapters 5-6 treat the divine triad (Khaldi, Teisheba, Shivini), the Musasir temple, and the secondary deities including Arubani. Piotrovsky's excavations at Karmir Blur (the Urartian fortress-city named "city of Teisheba") produced the richest archaeological evidence for Urartian cult practice, including bronze shields with divine figures, temple furnishings, and the famous Rusa II's dedicatory inscriptions. Cited for all four Urartian entities in this layer. |
| R. G. Collingwood & R. P. Wright, The Roman Inscriptions of Britain (RIB) | primary inscription/artifact | 10 | Romano-British epigraphy |
| Agathangelos, History of the Armenians (Patmut'iwn Hayots'), 5th c. CE; trans. Robert W. Thomson (State University of New York Press, Albany NY, 1976) | primary text | 9 | Account of the conversion of Armenia to Christianity under King Tiridates III (r. 287-330 CE) and Bishop Gregory the Illuminator. Composed in the 5th century CE but preserving important descriptions of the pre-Christian Armenian cult as it existed immediately before conversion. §§14-22 name the five principal deities (Aramazd, Anahit, Vahagn, Nane, Tir) and their temples, describe their Greek equivalents (Aramazd = Zeus, Anahit = Artemis, Nane = Athena, Tir = Hermes), and record the destruction of the cult statues by Gregory. The most detailed ancient description of the Armenian pantheon from a near-contemporary perspective. Thomson's 1976 SUNY translation is the standard English edition. |
| Stephen J. Davis, The Early Coptic Papacy: The Egyptian Church and Its Leadership in Late Antiquity (American University in Cairo Press, 2004) | secondary scholarship | 9 | Standard scholarly history of the Alexandrian patriarchate and the formation of the Coptic (miaphysite) Church from its origins through late antiquity; covers the papal succession, the monastic movement (Anthony, Pachomius, the Kellia/Scetis fathers, Shenoute and the White Monastery), the post-Chalcedonian schism, the major Coptic martyrs of the Diocletianic persecution, and the leadership culture that shaped figures down to the modern Coptic papacy. |
| Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts, 2 vols. (Oxford University Press, 2003) | primary text | 9 | The definitive critical edition of the Epic of Gilgamesh in all its versions (Old Babylonian, Middle Babylonian, Standard Babylonian, Sumerian); primary source for Gilgamesh, Enkidu, Utnapishtim, and Ninsun; essential for the flood narrative (Tablet XI), the Cedar Forest episode, the Bull of Heaven, and the quest for immortality; also covers the Sumerian Gilgamesh poems |
| Gospel of the Egyptians (Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit), NHC III,2 / IV,2 | primary text | 9 | Sethian liturgy: the Invisible Spirit, Barbelo, the luminaries, Seth and his seed |
| Scholarly reconstruction of pre-Christian Magyar religion (e.g. Róheim; Diószegi) | secondary scholarship | 9 | Hungarian |
| Movses Khorenatsi, History of Armenia (Patmut'iwn Hayots'), 5th c. CE; trans. Robert W. Thomson (Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 1978) | primary text | 9 | The fundamental historical and mythological source for pre-Christian Armenian religion. Written in the 5th century CE (though some scholars debate a later 8th-century date for the final composition, the sources used are archaic), it preserves the names and attributes of the principal Armenian deities, the mythology of the Artaxiad royal dynasty, and — crucially — the Vahagn birth hymn (I.31): the oldest surviving Armenian poem, describing Vahagn's birth from the sea, fire, and sky. Book I covers the mythological period; Book II covers the Armenian kings and their divine patrons. Khorenatsi explicitly names Aramazd as father of the gods, Anahit as his daughter, and Vahagn as dragon-slayer. Thomson's 1978 Harvard translation is the standard critical English edition. |
| Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit (KTU), ed. Dietrich, Loretz & Sanmartín | primary text | 9 | Ugaritic alphabetic corpus |
| Alfred Métraux, Voodoo in Haiti (trans. Hugo Charteris, Oxford UP, 1959) | secondary scholarship | 9 | Ethnography of Haitian Vodou; the lwa, nanchon, possession, and Catholic syncretism |
| Sebastien Michaelis, The Admirable History of the Possession and Conversion of a Penitent Woman (Histoire admirable de la possession et conversion d'une penitente, Aix-en-Provence, 1612; Eng. tr. 1613) — incl. the 'Pneumalogie' demon-hierarchy | primary text | 9 | Christian demonology |
| Joseph M. Murphy, Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora (Beacon Press, 1994) | secondary scholarship | 9 | Afro-diasporic religions incl. Haitian Vodou; ceremony, lwa, saint syncretism |
| Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1971-1989) | secondary scholarship | 9 | Doctrinal history of ancient heresiarchs (Arius, Nestorius, Pelagius, Eutyches, Sabellius, etc.) and conciliar definitions |
| The Philokalia (anthology of the hesychast Fathers), comp. 1782 | primary text | 9 | The collection of Orthodox ascetic and mystical texts on inner prayer and theosis |
| Piacenza Liver (c. 100 BCE) | primary inscription/artifact | 9 | Bronze model of a sheep's liver found near Piacenza, c. 100 BCE. Surface divided into regions inscribed with Etruscan deity names used in haruspicy. Primary evidence for the Etruscan divine council. Key deities inscribed: Tinia, Uni, Menrva, Nethuns, Fufluns, Usil, Thesan, Turan, Lasa, Voltumna. |
| Stephen Pollington, The Elder Gods: The Otherworld of Early England (2011) | secondary scholarship | 9 | Anglo-Saxon paganism, deities, cosmology and ritual |
| Reinhard Pummer, The Samaritans: A Profile (Eerdmans, 2016) | secondary scholarship | 9 | Standard scholarly profile of Samaritan religion, scripture, theology (Moses, the Glory, angels), priestly genealogy, and messianism. |
| Mark S. Smith, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle (Brill, 1994-2009) / The Origins of Biblical Monotheism (OUP, 2001) | secondary scholarship | 9 | Ugaritic religion |
| John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination | secondary scholarship | 8 | Second Temple apocalyptic cosmology |
| Arbatel de magia veterum (Basel, 1575) — the seven Olympic Spirits | primary text | 8 | Renaissance Esoteric |
| Wilhelm Baum & Dietmar W. Winkler, The Church of the East: A Concise History (Routledge, 2003) | secondary scholarship | 8 | East Syriac / Church of the East history and principal figures |
| Bryce, Trevor R. The Lycians: A Study of Lycian History and Civilisation to the Conquest of Macedonia (Vol. 1, The Lycians in Literary and Epigraphic Sources) | secondary scholarship | 8 | Lycian history, language, and religion; the native Lycian pantheon and its Greek interpretatio |
| Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae, c. 1136 CE | primary text | 8 | Pseudo-historical chronicle that fixed Arthur, Uther, Igraine, Merlin (Ambrosius), and the early matter of Britain |
| Frank Graziano, Cultures of Devotion: Folk Saints of Spanish America (Oxford University Press, 2007) | secondary scholarship | 8 | Unofficial folk saints of Spanish America: Difunta Correa, San La Muerte, Niño Fidencio, Sarita Colonia, and others |
| Munn, Mark. The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia: A Study of Sovereignty in Ancient Religion (University of California Press, 2006) | secondary scholarship | 8 | Lydian and Anatolian sovereignty religion; Kuvava/Kybebe, Santas, and the transmission of the Mother of the Gods into Greek and Roman cult. |
| Marvin Meyer (ed.), The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The Revised and Updated Translation of Sacred Gnostic Texts (HarperOne, 2007) | primary text | 8 | Complete modern translation of the Nag Hammadi codices and related texts |
| Nestor (trad.), Povest' Vremennykh Let (Primary Chronicle), compiled c. 1113 CE; Laurentian redaction c. 1377 CE | primary text | 8 | The foundational East Slavic historical chronicle, compiled at the Kyiv Cave Monastery c. 1113 CE and attributed to the monk Nestor; surviving in the Laurentian (1377) and Hypatian (c. 1425) redactions. The entry for AD 980 records Vladimir I's pantheon: "And Vladimir began to reign alone in Kiev, and he set up idols on the hills outside the palace: Perun of wood with a head of silver and a mustache of gold, and Khors, Dažbog, Stribog, Simargl, and Mokosh." This is the primary and most explicit ancient source for the names and existence of the core Slavic deities. The entry for AD 988 records their forced destruction at Christianisation. The oath formulas earlier in the chronicle (AD 945 Igor treaty, AD 971 Svyatoslav treaty) invoke Perun and Veles together — the earliest attestation of the Perun-Veles opposition. Standard scholarly edition: D. S. Likhachev (ed.), Pamyatniki literatury drevney Rusi (Moscow, 1978); English translation: Samuel H. Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text (Medieval Academy of America, 1953). |
| Peter Smith, An Introduction to the Bahá'í Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2008) | secondary scholarship | 8 | Authoritative scholarly survey of Bahá'í history, central figures, theology of progressive revelation, and administrative institutions. |
| Aeschylus, Oresteia trilogy (Agamemnon, Choephoroi, Eumenides), 458 BCE | primary text | 7 | The tragic trilogy; Alastor, Poine, Thrasos, Hermes Chthonios, the Eumenides, Themis at Delphi |
| Walter Burkert, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, trans. John Raffan (Harvard University Press, 1985; original German: Griechische Religion der archaischen und klassischen Epoche, 1977) | secondary scholarship | 7 | The standard comprehensive scholarly account of ancient Greek religion; covers Mycenaean religious continuity and discontinuity (chapter 2), the major deity cults, mystery religions, and the structure of the Greek pantheon; documents the implications of Linear B for understanding which deities are Mycenaean survivals vs. post-Dark-Age additions; essential for contextualizing the Linear B attestations and their relationship to the Classical Olympian pantheon |
| Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992, rev. 1997) | reference work | 7 | Authoritative compendium of Catholic doctrine; articles on the Last Things (eschatology) defining Heaven and the Beatific Vision, Purgatory and final purification, Hell, and traditional teaching on the Limbo of the Fathers (Limbus Patrum) and the limbo of unbaptized infants. |
| Yaron Friedman, The Nusayri-Alawis: An Introduction to the Religion, History and Identity of the Leading Minority in Syria (Islamic History and Civilization 77; Leiden: Brill, 2010) | secondary scholarship | 7 | Foundational scholarly survey of Nusayri-Alawi doctrine (Ayn-Mim-Sin trinity, cyclical manifestation), history, and the lineage from Ibn Nusayr through al-Khasibi. |
| Terryl L. Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought — Cosmos, God, Humanity (Oxford University Press, 2015) | secondary scholarship | 7 | Standard scholarly synthesis of LDS theology: premortal existence, Godhead, Heavenly Father/Mother, exaltation/theosis, council in heaven, three degrees of glory. |
| Greek Magical Papyri | primary text | 7 | Late antique ritual beings, voces magicae, angels, daimones, decans, gods |
| Jami, Nafahat al-Uns (Breaths of Fellowship, 1478) | primary text | 7 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften (KAI), ed. Donner & Röllig | primary inscription/artifact | 7 | Northwest Semitic epigraphy |
| Olmsted, Garrett. The Gods of the Celts and the Indo-Europeans (Archaeolingua, 1994) | secondary scholarship | 7 | Comparative Indo-European analysis of Celtic deity names and functions, reconstructing Proto-Celtic divine typology from Irish, Welsh, Gaulish, and Celtiberian evidence. Useful for cross-tradition reception chains and etymology of deity names. |
| Juha Pentikäinen, Kalevala Mythology, trans. Ritva Poom (Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN, 1999) | secondary scholarship | 7 | Standard English-language scholarly monograph on Kalevala mythology and Finnish folk religion. Covers the mythological background, the oral tradition underlying the text, the structure and meaning of the principal myths, and the religious practices reflected in the runo-songs. Chapters address cosmogony (the Ilmatar/world-egg creation), shamanism (Väinämöinen as paradigmatic shaman), the cult of the forest (Tapio, Mielikki), the sea deity Ahti, the thunder deity Ukko, and the antagonist figure Louhi as mistress of Pohjola. Also covers bear cult (central to Mielikki), death rituals, and the relationship between Finnish folk religion and broader Uralic/Siberian shamanic traditions. Primary secondary citation for all Finnish entities in this layer. |
| László Török, The Kingdom of Kush: Handbook of the Napatan-Meroitic Civilization (Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 1: The Near and Middle East, Vol. 31; E.J. Brill, Leiden / New York / Cologne, 1997) | secondary scholarship | 7 | The standard comprehensive reference on the Kingdom of Kush in the Napatan (c. 750–270 BCE) and Meroitic (c. 270 BCE – 350 CE) periods. Part IV (Chapters 16-18) surveys Meroitic religion, the pantheon, cult centers, and the relationship between indigenous Meroitic deities and Egyptian religious borrowings. Török discusses Apedemak as the most distinctly Meroitic deity — he has no Egyptian counterpart and appears first in the temple programs of Musawwarat es-Sufra (c. 270 BCE); Arensnuphis and his identification with Anhur/Onuris at Philae; Mandulis as the solar deity of Lower Nubia attested at Kalabsha (ancient Talmis) in dozens of Greek and Demotic dedications; Sebiumeker as the creator deity of Musawwarat es-Sufra; and Amesemi as Apedemak's consort. Primary scholarly citation for all five entities in this layer. |
| John J. Wilkes, The Illyrians (Blackwell, 1992) | secondary scholarship | 7 | Illyrian peoples, history, religion and epigraphic record of the western Balkans |
| Mikael Agricola, Se Wsi Testamenti (The New Testament) and Psalttari (Finnish Psalter), 1548/1551; deity list in the Psalter introduction (Rucouskiria, 1544) | primary text | 6 | Mikael Agricola (c. 1510-1557), Bishop of Turku and father of written Finnish, included in the prologue to his 1551 Finnish Psalter translation a poetic catalogue of deities worshipped by the Häme (Tavastians) and Karelians — the earliest written attestation of Finnish deity names. The Häme list includes Ukko (thunder, crops), Tapio (forest game), Ahti (water, fish), Piru (evil spirits), Rauni (Ukko's wife), Egres (beans/turnips), Kekri (harvest), and others. The Karelian list adds further deities. This is the single most important pre-Kalevala primary source for Finnish deity names, predating Lönnrot's compilations by nearly three centuries and confirming that the Kalevala deities were historically worshipped. Cited here for Ukko, Tapio, and Ahti. |
| Farid al-Din Attar, Tadhkirat al-Awliya (Memorial of the Saints, c. 1220) | primary text | 6 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Cunliffe, Barry. The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe (Oxford University Press, 2019) | secondary scholarship | 6 | Comprehensive recent survey of Scythian culture, archaeology, and religion by a leading authority on Iron Age steppe peoples. Chapter 9 covers Scythian religion and the Herodotean divine names in the context of comparative Iranian/Indo-European religious evidence. Standard English-language secondary source for Scythian divine typology. |
| J. A. S. Collin de Plancy, Dictionnaire Infernal (1818; 6th ed. 1863) | secondary scholarship | 6 | Goetic/Solomonic |
| Digital Egypt for Universities | reference work | 6 | Egyptian religion, places, material culture |
| Mike Dixon-Kennedy, Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend (ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, 1998) | secondary scholarship | 6 | South Slavic and pan-Slavic deities and folk beings |
| Wouter J. Hanegraaff (ed.), Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism (Leiden: Brill, 2006) | reference work | 6 | Western esotericism from Late Antiquity to the present: Hermeticism, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, occultism, Baphomet, Lévi, Neopaganism, Satanism, Golden Dawn, New Age |
| Helmold of Bosau, Chronica Slavorum (c. 1170) — the Polabian and Pomeranian Slavic gods | primary text | 6 | Slavic |
| Wouter F. M. Henkelman, The Other Gods Who Are: Studies in Elamite-Iranian Acculturation (Achaemenid History XIV, NINO 2008) | secondary scholarship | 6 | Elamite |
| Hippolytus of Rome, Refutatio Omnium Haeresium (Philosophumena), c. 225-235 CE | heresiological source | 6 | Accounts of the Naassenes, Peratae, Sethians, Basilideans, Valentinians and others; preserves hymns and diagrams |
| Ali ibn Uthman al-Hujwiri, Kashf al-Mahjub ("The Unveiling of the Hidden"), c. 1075 CE (trans. R. A. Nicholson) | primary text | 6 | Earliest Persian Sufi treatise; biographies and doctrines of the early masters |
| Classical Sunni Islamic tradition (the schools of law; the devotional enumeration of the Ninety-Nine Names) | secondary scholarship | 6 | Islamic |
| Thomas Kinsella (trans.), The Táin (Oxford University Press, 1969) | primary text | 6 | Ulster Cycle: Táin Bó Cúailnge and remscéla (foretales) |
| W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (Eisenbrauns, 2013) | secondary scholarship | 6 | Mesopotamian theogony / An=Anum |
| Malcolm Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Gregorian Reform to the Reformation (3rd ed., Blackwell, 2002) | secondary scholarship | 6 | Medieval dualist and dissenting movements: Bogomils, Cathars, Paulicians, Waldensians, Bosnian Church |
| Alfred Laumonier, Les cultes indigènes en Carie (Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome 188, Paris, 1958) | secondary scholarship | 6 | Foundational monograph on the indigenous and civic cults of Caria: Zeus Labraundos, Zeus Osogo/Zenoposeidon, Zeus of Panamara/Stratios, Hecate of Lagina, the god of Sinuri. |
| Doctrine and Covenants (LDS canonical scripture, 1835–) | primary text | 6 | Primary source for the three degrees of glory (Celestial/Terrestrial/Telestial, D&C 76 and 131), exaltation, and the identification of Michael as Adam (D&C 27, 107, 116). |
| Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend, c. 1260) | primary text | 6 | Christian |
| Liber Razielis (Latin, compiled for Alfonso X) | primary text | 6 | Solomonic Magic |
| The Liver of Piacenza (bronze model liver, c. 100 BCE) with the names of the Etruscan gods of the templum | primary inscription/artifact | 6 | Etruscan divination |
| Albert G. Mackey, An Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences (1874; rev. eds.) | secondary scholarship | 6 | Masonic symbolism, ritual, and legend: G.A.O.T.U., Hiram Abiff, the pillars Jachin and Boaz, and the Royal Arch word Jahbulon. |
| Maimonides, Mishneh Torah (Hilkhot Yesodei haTorah) | primary text | 6 | Medieval halakhic code; the ten ranks of angels at Yesodei haTorah 2:7. |
| Przemyslaw Piwowarczyk, A Lexicon of Spiritual Powers in the Nag Hammadi "Library" in the Light of the Texts of Ritual Power | reference work | 6 | Onomastic catalogue of the spiritual powers (aeons, archons, angels, demons) of the Nag Hammadi corpus |
| Aldo L. Prosdocimi, studies on the Venetic language and pantheon (Lingue e dialetti dell'Italia antica; 'Le religioni dell'Italia antica') | secondary scholarship | 6 | Venetic theonyms, votive epigraphy, and cult of Reitia at Este/Lagole |
| James R. Russell, Zoroastrianism in Armenia (Harvard Iranian Series 5; Harvard University Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Cambridge MA, 1987) | secondary scholarship | 6 | The standard scholarly monograph on the Iranian / Zoroastrian substratum of Armenian religion. Demonstrates that Aramazd derives from Ahura Mazda, Anahit from Anahita, Nane from Nana, and Vahagn from Verethragna via systematic linguistic and theological analysis. Covers the Artaxiad period (189 BCE – 1 CE) when Zoroastrian influence was strongest, the Arsacid dynasty's Iranian connections, and the survival of Iranian divine names in Armenian personal names and place names. Also covers Mihr (Mithra), Tir (Tishtrya?), Spandaramet (Spenta Armaiti), and the transformation of the Iranian yazata system into the Armenian divine court. Primary secondary citation for all Iranian-derived relationships in this layer. |
| Rudolf Steiner, An Outline of Esoteric Science (Die Geheimwissenschaft im Umriss) | primary text | 6 | Anthroposophy |
| Strabo, Geographica (Geography), c. 7 BCE-23 CE | primary text | 6 | The major Greek geography; cult topography, the Kabeiroi/Korybantes, Anatolian Men |
| The Uruk List of Kings and Sages (W 20030,7) and Bit Meseri III (the antediluvian apkallu) | primary inscription/artifact | 6 | Mesopotamian apkallu tradition |
| Versluys, M.J. — Visual Style and Constructing Identity in the Hellenistic World: Nemrud Dag and Commagene under Antiochos I (Cambridge, 2017) | secondary scholarship | 6 | Royal dynastic cult, syncretic pantheon, hierothesion program, and Greco-Iranian theonyms of Commagene |
| The Vulgate Cycle (Lancelot-Grail), c. 1210-1235 CE | primary text | 6 | Vast Old French prose cycle: Estoire del Saint Graal, Merlin, Lancelot proper, Queste del Saint Graal, Mort Artu; standardized Galahad, the Grail quest, and the fall of the realm |
| Lyndy Abraham, A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery (Cambridge University Press, 1998) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Standard reference glossing the tria prima, Green Lion, Azoth, King/Queen, Rebis and other personified alchemical images from the primary corpus. |
| Catherine L. Albanese, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion (Yale Univ. Press, 2007) | secondary scholarship | 5 | American metaphysical religion, New Thought, and the esoteric/Martinist lineage |
| Zosia H. Archibald, The Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace: Orpheus Unmasked (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Standard scholarly monograph on the Odrysian kingdom and Thracian religion across the Iron Age and Hellenistic periods. Covers the principal Thracian deities — Sabazios, Bendis, Cotys, Zalmoxis, and the Thracian Horseman — their attestation in Greek literary sources and Thracian epigraphy, and the reception of Thracian cults in Athens and the broader Greek world. Chapter 8 ("Religion") is the key reference for the Bendideia in Athens (official state reception by 429 BCE decree), the Cotytian rites, and the Sabazios tradition. Archibald situates Thracian religion within its socio-political context as a peripheral culture in intense contact with the Greek world. pp. 299-306 address Zalmoxis and Gebeleizis in the Getae tradition. Primary citation for all Thracian entities in this layer. |
| William Bascom, Ifa Divination: Communication between Gods and Men in West Africa (Indiana Univ. Press, 1969) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Yoruba religion, Orunmila/Ifa, and the orisha pantheon (public ethnographic description) |
| José María Blázquez, Religiones primitivas de Hispania, Vol. I: Fuentes literarias y epigráficas (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, 1962; 2nd ed. 1983) | secondary scholarship | 5 | The foundational academic survey of pre-Roman Iberian religion, assembling the literary and epigraphic sources for the native deities of the Iberian peninsula. Blázquez catalogues the votive inscriptions for Endovelicus, Ataegina, Bandua, Nabia, and Trebaruna alongside the full corpus of Lusitanian and Hispanian indigenous theonyms attested in Roman-period Latin inscriptions. He analyses their distribution, the degree of Roman syncretism, and the evidence for their pre-Roman functions. Blázquez's epigraphic catalogue remains the starting point for all subsequent scholarship on Hispanian indigenous religion. Cited for the entire Iberian/Lusitanian layer. |
| The Chaldean Oracles (ed. R. Majercik / E. des Places), c. 2nd c. CE | primary text | 5 | The verse revelation underlying late-antique theurgy; the Father, Hecate, the connective orders |
| Susan Guettel Cole, Theoi Megaloi: The Cult of the Great Gods at Samothrace (EPRO 96, Brill, 1984) | secondary scholarship | 5 | The Samothracian Great Gods, their named tetrad (Axieros, Axiokersa, Axiokersos, Kadmilos), epigraphy, and Cabiric identifications. |
| Dante Alighieri, La Divina Commedia (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso, c. 1308–1321) | primary text | 5 | The structured Christian afterlife cosmos in Dante's poem: the nine descending Circles of Hell, the seven Terraces of Mount Purgatory with ante-Purgatory and the Earthly Paradise at its summit, the nine revolving Celestial Spheres, and the Empyrean culminating in the Beatific Vision; principal medieval-poetic source for the literary topology of the Christian otherworld. |
| Markus Dressler, Writing Religion: The Making of Turkish Alevi Islam (Oxford UP, 2013) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Genealogy of modern Alevi identity, the Alevi understanding of the Ali-centric triad, and the Kizilbash-Alevi tradition's formation |
| Bill Ellis, Aliens, Ghosts, and Cults: Legends We Live (2001) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Lúcia dos Santos, Fátima in Lúcia's Own Words (Memoirs) | primary text | 5 | Christian |
| Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature | primary text | 5 | The standard anthology of Akkadian literature in translation (the Erra Epic, Adapa, Etana, hymns) |
| Philip G. Kreyenbroek, Yezidism: Its Background, Observances and Textual Tradition (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Yazidi theology, the Seven Mysteries, Sheikh Adi, cosmology, hymn texts |
| al-Kulayni, al-Kafi (Kitab al-Hujja), c. 940 CE | primary text | 5 | The foundational Twelver Shi'a hadith collection; the Imamate, the Mahdi, and the Occultation |
| Christian Lange, Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2016) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Islamic eschatology and cosmic geography: Jannah, Jahannam, their levels and gates, Barzakh, al-Sirat, al-Araf, Sidrat al-Muntaha |
| Glenn Markoe, Phoenicians (London: British Museum Press / University of California Press, 2000) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Comprehensive survey of Phoenician civilization, religion, and culture; covers the major Phoenician deities (Melqart, Eshmun, Tanit, Baal Hammon, Astarte) and their westward transmission to Carthage and the Mediterranean world; documents inscriptional and archaeological evidence for Phoenician religion from c. 1200-332 BCE |
| Menog-i Khrad (The Spirit of Wisdom), Pahlavi text, 6th c. CE | primary text | 5 | A Middle Persian catechism on cosmology, eschatology and the demons |
| Khanna Omarkhali, The Yezidi Religious Textual Tradition (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2017) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Yazidi sacred oral hymns (qewls and beyts), avatars of the Heptad, sheikhly and pir lineages |
| Christopher Partridge (ed.), UFO Religions (London: Routledge, 2003) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Scholarly survey of contactee, channeling, and flying-saucer movements (Raelism, Heaven's Gate, the Ashtar/Nine channeling milieu, Space Brothers) |
| Malaclypse the Younger (Greg Hill) & Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst (Kerry Thornley), Principia Discordia, or How I Found Goddess and What I Did to Her When I Found Her (1965; 4th ed. 1970) | primary text | 5 | Discordianism |
| Roller, Lynn E. In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele (University of California Press, 1999) | secondary scholarship | 5 | The standard scholarly study of the Phrygian Matar Kubileya and her Hellenic reception as Cybele. Covers the rock-cut Phrygian shrines, the Midas City and Gordion evidence, the transmission to Greece through Phocaean traders, and the eventual Roman adoption as Magna Mater. Essential for distinguishing the Phrygian Matar tradition from its Greek and Roman syncretic descendants. |
| David Shankland, The Alevis in Turkey: The Emergence of a Secular Islamic Tradition (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Ethnography of Alevi cem ceremony, dede/ocak system, Muharrem/matem observance, and Anatolian Alevi belief and practice |
| Eszter Spat, The Yezidis (London: Saqi, 2005) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Yazidi religion, mythology, the Heptad, Tawusi Melek, Lalish, oral qewls |
| Aleksandar Stipcevic, The Illyrians: History and Culture (Noyes Press, 1977) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Illyrian archaeology, cult, deities and religious iconography |
| Michael F. Strmiska (ed.), Modern Paganism in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives (ABC-CLIO, 2005) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Modern Heathenry, Druidry, Goddess movement and reconstructionist Paganism worldwide |
| Javier Teixidor, The Pantheon of Palmyra | secondary scholarship | 5 | Aramean |
| Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain (Univ. of Wales Press, 4th ed. 2014) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Welsh triadic tradition |
| Martin L. West, The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997) | secondary scholarship | 5 | Comprehensive argument that early Greek poetry (Homer, Hesiod) directly draws on West Asian literary and mythological traditions; documents Kumarbi=Kronos, Teshub=Zeus, Ullikummi=Typhon parallels exhaustively; essential for Hittite→Greek and Mesopotamian→Greek transmission chains |
| Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica, 3rd c. BCE | primary text | 4 | The Hellenistic Argonaut epic; the Samothracian Great Gods, Ophion and Eurynome, Brimo |
| John Kingsley Birge, The Bektashi Order of Dervishes (Luzac/Hartford, 1937) | secondary scholarship | 4 | Foundational study of Bektashi doctrine, cosmology, the Allah-Muhammad-Ali triad, Kirklar/cem tradition, and Haji Bektash Veli |
| Sebastian Brock, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem the Syrian (Cistercian Publications, 1992) | secondary scholarship | 4 | West Syriac symbolic theology; Ephrem and the Syriac patristic tradition |
| Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Harvard University Press, 1987) | secondary scholarship | 4 | The Greco-Roman mystery cults (Eleusinian, Samothracian/Cabiric, Dionysiac, Metroac, Mithraic): organization, initiation, theology, and inner casts. |
| Heidi Campbell (ed.), Digital Religion: Understanding Religious Practice in New Media Worlds (2013) | secondary scholarship | 4 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Elizabeth Carter and Matthew W. Stolper, Elam: Surveys of Political History and Archaeology (University of California Publications, Near Eastern Studies 25; University of California Press, Berkeley / Los Angeles / London, 1984) | secondary scholarship | 4 | The classic survey of Elamite political history (Carter) and archaeology (Stolper) covering Old Elamite (c. 2200–1600 BCE), Middle Elamite (c. 1600–1100 BCE), and Neo-Elamite (c. 1100–539 BCE) periods. Carter's chapters on the Old and Middle Elamite periods document the royal inscriptions in which the Elamite kings invoke Inshushinak, Napirisha, Kiririsha, and Humban — providing the primary epigraphic evidence for their functions and relationships. Particularly important for the Middle Elamite religious synthesis under Untash-Napirisha (c. 1340–1300 BCE), who built Dur-Untash/Chogha Zanbil as a sacred city combining the Susian Inshushinak cult with the Anshan Napirisha cult, creating a unified Elamite national religion. Stolper's survey of Neo-Elamite material covers the period in which Humban re-emerges as the dominant theophoric element in Elamite royal names (Humban-Haltash, Humban-Numena, Humban-Undasha) before the Achaemenid conquest. Cited for historical context and epigraphic evidence for all four entities. |
| John Colarusso, Nart Sagas from the Caucasus: Myths and Legends from the Circassians, Abazas, Abkhaz, and Ubykhs (Princeton University Press, 2002) | secondary scholarship | 4 | Primary translated corpus + commentary on the Nart epic cycle and its figures (Batraz, Satana, Sosruko, Syrdon, Warzameg). |
| Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica (Library of History), c. 60-30 BCE | primary text | 4 | The universal history; Rhodian Telchines, the Kouretes and Korybantes, Libyan Lamia |
| The Community Rule (Serekh ha-Yahad, 1QS), Dead Sea Scrolls, c. 100 BCE | primary text | 4 | The Qumran sectarian rule, incl. the Treatise of the Two Spirits (1QS 3:13-4:26) |
| The War Scroll (Milhamah, 1QM), Dead Sea Scrolls, c. 1st c. BCE | primary text | 4 | The eschatological war of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness |
| Ennis B. Edmonds, Rastafari: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2012) | secondary scholarship | 4 | Rastafari beliefs, key figures, and worldwide spread |
| Hesiod (attrib.), The Shield of Heracles (Aspis / Scutum), c. 6th c. BCE, trans. Evelyn-White | primary text | 4 | The ekphrasis of the shield of Heracles and its war-daimones (Pursuit, Rout, Tumult, Achlys) |
| R. F. Hoddinott, The Thracians | secondary scholarship | 4 | Thracian |
| Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford: OUP, 1999) | secondary scholarship | 4 | Origins and history of modern pagan witchcraft in Britain; 19th-century Romantic Pan revival; Lévi's role in British magical revival; Theosophical Society and Mahatmas; Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn; Gerald Gardner and Wicca |
| Classical Islamic lore of the jinn (al-Jahiz, Kitab al-Hayawan; al-Damiri, Hayat al-Hayawan; pre-Islamic Arabian tradition) | secondary scholarship | 4 | Islamic |
| C. G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy (Collected Works vol. 12, 1944/1968) | secondary scholarship | 4 | Symbolic and psychological interpretation of the alchemical principles, the coniunctio, Rebis, Sol/Luna, and Mercurius. |
| Memar Marqah (Tibat Marqe), 4th-c. Samaritan Aramaic theological treatise attributed to Marqah, ed./trans. J. Macdonald (BZAW 84, 1963) | primary text | 4 | Foundational Samaritan theological work on Moses as supreme prophet, the divine Glory, and creation. |
| Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Inner Truth and Outer History: The Two Worlds of the Ahl-i Haqq of Kurdistan (IJMES 1994) | secondary scholarship | 4 | Ethnography of Ahl-e Haqq belief, the ritual jam, and the doctrine of successive divine manifestations. |
| The Pearl of Great Price (LDS canonical scripture: Book of Moses, Book of Abraham, Joseph Smith—History, Articles of Faith) | primary text | 4 | Primary source for Kolob, the council in heaven, the premortal council, Michael=Adam, the creation account, and Moroni's appearances (Joseph Smith—History). |
| Jesper Aagaard Petersen (ed.), Contemporary Religious Satanism: A Critical Anthology (2009) | secondary scholarship | 4 | Scholarly survey of organized/practiced Satanism: Church of Satan, theistic Satanism, Temple of Set, Luciferianism, The Satanic Temple. |
| Pindar, Odes and Fragments (Snell-Maehler), c. 498-446 BCE | primary text | 4 | The victory odes and fragments; Tyche, Nomos, Hymenaios, Alala |
| Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names (Peri theion onomaton), c. 500 CE (trans. J. Parker, The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, 1897) | primary text | 4 | Pseudo-Dionysian corpus |
| The Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans (Qolasta), trans. E. S. Drower, 1959 | primary text | 4 | The Mandaean liturgical corpus of baptism and the masiqta (ascent of the soul) |
| Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum (c. 1200) — the West-Slavic temple cults of Rügen | primary text | 4 | Slavic |
| Shivhei ha-Besht (In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov, 1814) | primary text | 4 | Jewish Mystical |
| Hugh B. Urban, The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion (Princeton University Press, 2011) | secondary scholarship | 4 | Scholarly history of Scientology covering Hubbard, Dianetics, the thetan, the OT levels and the Xenu/Incident II cosmogony |
| Doreen Valiente, Witchcraft for Tomorrow (London: Robert Hale, 1978) | primary text | 4 | Insider liturgical handbook of Wiccan practice: the Goddess and Horned God, the Dryghtyn, the Guardians of the Watchtowers, casting the circle, and the eight sabbats of the Wheel of the Year. |
| Paul E. Zimansky, Ecology and Empire: The Structure of the Urartian State (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 41; Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago, 1985) | secondary scholarship | 4 | The standard English-language monograph on Urartian political structure, economy, and religion. Chapter 4 ("The Urartian Pantheon") surveys the divine hierarchy from the primary triad (Khaldi-Teisheba-Shivini) through the attested secondary deities, drawing on the corpus of royal annals and dedicatory inscriptions. Zimansky analyses the divine triad structure as reflecting a merger of indigenous Urartian tradition with the Hurrian theological inheritance, demonstrates Khaldi's role as the war-deity who commands and legitimates the royal campaigns, documents Teisheba's cognate relationship with Hurrian Teshub, and discusses the solar deity Shivini's role as witness to oaths. Also covers the Musasir temple complex (principal Khaldi sanctuary, sacked by Sargon II of Assyria in 714 BCE) and its implications for Urartian-Assyrian religious relations. Primary scholarly citation for the Urartian layer. |
| Robert T. Anderson & Terry Giles, The Keepers: An Introduction to the History and Culture of the Samaritans (Hendrickson, 2002) | secondary scholarship | 3 | Survey of Samaritan history, religion, the Mt Gerizim cult, the priesthood, Marqah and Baba Rabba, and the Taheb expectation. |
| Athanasius of Alexandria, Life of Antony (Vita Antonii), c. 360 CE | primary text | 3 | The founding hagiography of Christian monasticism; the desert ascetic Antony |
| Meir M. Bar-Asher and Aryeh Kofsky, The Nusayri-'Alawi Religion: An Enquiry into its Theology and Liturgy (Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture 1; Leiden: Brill, 2002) | secondary scholarship | 3 | Detailed analysis of Nusayri theology and liturgy, including the deification of Ali, the role of Muhammad and Salman, and the seven cycles of manifestation (adwar). |
| E. A. Wallis Budge (trans.), The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelek (Kebra Nagast) (London, 1922) | primary text | 3 | Kebra Nagast cycle: Makeda, Menelik I, the Ark/Tabot, the Solomonic dynasty |
| Dylan M. Burns, Apocalypse of an Alien God: Platonism and the Exile of Sethian Gnosticism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014) | secondary scholarship | 3 | The Platonizing Sethian treatises (Zostrianos, Allogenes, Marsanes, Three Steles of Seth) and their Neoplatonic context |
| Chretien de Troyes, Arthurian romances (Erec, Lancelot/Le Chevalier de la Charrette, Yvain, Perceval/Le Conte du Graal), c. 1170-1190 CE | primary text | 3 | Founding verse romances; introduced Lancelot, the Grail (graal), Perceval, and the Camelot court |
| Clement of Alexandria, Stromata and Excerpta ex Theodoto, c. 195-205 CE | heresiological source | 3 | Basilidean and Valentinian fragments, sometimes verbatim; the Carpocratian Epiphanes |
| John Day, God's Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea (Cambridge University Press, 1985) | secondary scholarship | 3 | Systematic treatment of Lotan→Leviathan, Yam→chaos sea imagery, Tiamat→Tehom in the Hebrew Bible; primary scholarly reference for Canaanite chaos-monster reception in Israelite texts |
| The Descent of Ishtar to the Netherworld (Akkadian), trans. S. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia (Oxford University Press, 2000) | primary text | 3 | Mesopotamian netherworld (Irkalla/Kur), its gates, and Ereshkigal's rule |
| The Book of Giants (4Q203, 1Q23 etc.), Dead Sea Scrolls; also the Manichaean Book of Giants | primary text | 3 | The Enochic narrative of the Watchers' giant offspring; later adopted by Mani |
| Georges Dumézil, Le livre des héros: légendes sur les Nartes / Romans de Scythie et d'alentour | secondary scholarship | 3 | Comparative analysis linking the Ossetian Nart sagas to Scytho-Sarmatian and broader Indo-European mythology; Batraz as war-god, Uastyrdzhi cult. |
| Heinz Halm, Die islamische Gnosis: Die extreme Schia und die 'Alawiten (Zurich/Munich: Artemis, 1982) | secondary scholarship | 3 | Standard study of the ghulat (extreme Shi'a) and Alawite gnostic cosmology, divine manifestation cycles, and the Ma'na-Ism-Bab triad. |
| David J. Hufford, The Terror That Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions (1982) | secondary scholarship | 3 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Hypostasis of the Archons (The Reality of the Rulers), NHC II,4 | primary text | 3 | Sethian Genesis exegesis: the archons, Norea, Eleleth, Sabaoth |
| Ibn al-Arabi, Fusus al-Hikam ("The Bezels of Wisdom"), c. 1229 CE | primary text | 3 | Akbarian metaphysics: wahdat al-wujud and the Perfect Man |
| James C. VanderKam (trans.), The Book of Jubilees (2 vols.; CSCO 510–511, Scriptores Aethiopici 87–88; Peeters, Leuven, 1989) | primary text | 3 | The Book of Jubilees (also "Little Genesis") is a Second Temple Jewish pseudepigraphon (c. 160–150 BCE) presented as a revelation to Moses during his 40 days on Sinai, retelling Genesis 1 through Exodus 12 in a solar-calendar framework. It is the primary source for the figure of Mastema (the chief adversarial spirit who heads the evil spirits descended from the Watchers; Jubilees 10:8-9; 11:5; 17:16; 48:1-18), and provides a systematic account of the Watchers tradition (Jubilees 4:15; 5:1-10) that diverges from but overlaps with 1 Enoch. Jubilees is canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and is attested in multiple Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts (14 copies at Qumran, more than any non-canonical text except 1 Enoch). VanderKam's 1989 CSCO edition provides the critical Ethiopic text with English translation and is the standard scholarly reference. The book is essential for understanding the Second Temple Jewish angelology/demonology cluster: Mastema, the evil spirits as disembodied Nephilim, the Watchers, and the solar calendar used to date the Enochic revelations. Cited for ENT_ISR_MASTEMA. |
| James R. Lewis (ed.), The Gods Have Landed: New Religions from Other Worlds (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995) | secondary scholarship | 3 | Edited volume on UFO new religious movements, contactee theology, and extraterrestrial salvation narratives |
| Lucan, Bellum Civile (Pharsalia) (c. 60–65 CE) | primary text | 3 | Latin epic by Marcus Annaeus Lucanus on the Roman civil war. Book 1.444-446 is the primary source naming the three principal Gaulish gods: Esus, Teutates, and Taranis, described with their ritual practices (human sacrifice in water, tree, fire respectively). Scholia on the passage add interpretatio romana identifications. Standard edition: A.E. Housman (1926); trans. S.H. Braund (Oxford World's Classics). |
| H. C. Mason, The Hesiodic Aspis: Introduction and Commentary on vv. 139-237 (DPhil thesis, Oxford, 2015) | secondary scholarship | 3 | Critical commentary on the shield-ekphrasis and its personifications |
| Mark L. Prophet & Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Saint Germain On Alchemy: Formulas for Self-Transformation (Summit University Press, 1985) | primary text | 3 | Devotional/instructional primary text of Church Universal and Triumphant on the Mighty I AM Presence, the Violet Flame, and Saint Germain as Aquarian-age hierarch |
| Sappho, Fragments (Lobel-Page/Voigt), c. 600 BCE | primary text | 3 | The lyric fragments of Sappho of Lesbos |
| 19th-century Spiritualist literature (Andrew Jackson Davis, The Harmonial Philosophy; and related) | secondary scholarship | 3 | Spiritualist |
| Harba de-Moshe (The Sword of Moses), ed. Gaster; trans. Harari | primary text | 3 | Jewish Mystical |
| Ali Harazim, Jawahir al-Ma'ani (the foundational compendium of Ahmad al-Tijani's teaching, early 19th c.) | primary text | 3 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Book of Tobit | primary text | 3 | Deuterocanonical/apocryphal Second Temple text (c. 3rd–2nd century BCE); primary attestation of Asmodeus (Tobit 3:8, 8:3) as demon who kills Sarah's husbands and is bound by Raphael using fish gall; key evidence for Zoroastrian demonological influence on Second Temple Judaism |
| Xenophon, Memorabilia, c. 371 BCE (incl. Prodicus's Choice of Heracles, 2.1.21-34) | primary text | 3 | The allegory of Virtue (Arete) and Vice (Kakia) at the crossroads |
| Frances A. Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (1972) | secondary scholarship | 3 | Rosicrucian manifestos, Christian Rosenkreutz legend, the Invisible College, and early-modern Hermetic-esoteric reform. |
| R. C. Zaehner, Zurvan: A Zoroastrian Dilemma (1955) | secondary scholarship | 3 | The standard study of the Zurvanite heresy and the figure of Zurvan/Time |
| 2 Enoch (the Slavonic Apocalypse of Enoch), c. 1st c. CE | primary text | 2 | The Slavonic apocalypse of Enoch's ascent through the heavens |
| Ahmad al-Alawi, Diwan and treatises (early 20th c., as transmitted in M. Lings, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century) | primary text | 2 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Apuleius, Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass), c. 160 CE | primary text | 2 | The Latin novel containing the tale of Cupid and Psyche |
| Aristophanes, Frogs (Batrachoi), 405 BCE | primary text | 2 | The comedy of Dionysus' descent; the phantom Empusa |
| Ars Notoria, ed./trans. Veronese | primary text | 2 | Solomonic Magic |
| Asclepius | primary text | 2 | Hermetic ritual, ensouled statues, cosmos, gods, daimones |
| Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas (The Most Holy Book), Bahá'í World Centre edition | primary text | 2 | Central book of Bahá'í laws and covenant, including provisions establishing the Universal House of Justice. |
| Ahmadou Bamba (Cheikh Amadou Bamba), Khassaïd (devotional poems of the Mouridiyya) | primary text | 2 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Leonard E. Barrett, The Rastafarians (Beacon Press, rev. ed. 1997) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Rastafari history, theology, and social context |
| Roger Beck, The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire: Mysteries of the Unconquered Sun (Oxford 2006) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Cognitive/astronomical interpretation of the tauroctony, the mithraeum as cosmos, the grades and the Sun-Mithras relationship. |
| Bede, De temporum ratione (The Reckoning of Time), c. 725 CE | primary text | 2 | Old English month-names; sole attestation of Eostre and Hreda |
| D. A. Brading, Mexican Phoenix: Our Lady of Guadalupe — Image and Tradition across Five Centuries (Cambridge University Press, 2001) | secondary scholarship | 2 | The cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Tepeyac and the documented Tonantzin association (esp. Sahagun's report); used for the Guadalupe-Tonantzin syncretism seam. |
| Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, The Mandaeans: Ancient Texts and Modern People (Oxford University Press, 2002) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Mandaean light-world/dark-world parallels for the cross-tradition cognate links |
| Rhonda Byrne, The Secret (2006) | primary text | 2 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Callimachus, Hymns, c. 270 BCE | primary text | 2 | The six Hellenistic hymns; Amaltheia (Hymn to Zeus), the Nesoi (Hymn to Delos) |
| The Cologne Mani Codex (CMC), Greek, on the life and revelations of Mani, c. 5th c. CE | primary text | 2 | The miniature Greek codex recounting Mani's youth and the revelations of his heavenly Twin |
| Damascius, De Principiis (Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles), c. 520 CE | primary text | 2 | The last Neoplatonist's work, preserving the Orphic Rhapsodic theogony (Hydros, Thesis) |
| Mawlay al-Arabi al-Darqawi, al-Rasa'il (Letters of guidance, early 19th c.) | primary text | 2 | Islamic/Sufi |
| The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth (NHC VI.6), c. 2nd-3rd c. CE | primary text | 2 | The Hermetic initiatory ascent of Hermes and Tat into the Ogdoad and the Ennead |
| Underwood Dudley, Numerology: Or, What Pythagoras Wrought (Mathematical Association of America, 1997) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Theosophical |
| Kais M. Firro, A History of the Druzes (Brill, 1992) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Druze social and political history; community formation in the Levant |
| Timothy Gantz, Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Comparative source-critical treatment of the Typhon/Echidna monster genealogy and its variants across early Greek poetry and art |
| The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn corpus (cipher manuscripts; Regardie, The Golden Dawn) | primary text | 2 | Modern Occult |
| Wouter Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought (1996) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Sufi Message (collected teachings, Western Sufi Order) | primary text | 2 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Medieval and early-modern Jewish folklore (Sefer Hasidim; East European and Lurianic demonological tradition) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Jewish Mystical |
| Ahmet T. Karamustafa, God's Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period 1200-1550 (Univ. of Utah Press, 1994) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Antinomian Anatolian dervish milieu (Abdalan-i Rum, Qalandars) underlying Bektashi formation |
| Anton Szandor LaVey, The Satanic Bible (1969) | primary text | 2 | Foundational text of the Church of Satan; LaVeyan symbolic Satanism, the self as god, the Four Crown Princes of Hell, the Sigil of Baphomet. |
| Liber Juratus Honorii (The Sworn Book of Honorius), ed. Hedegard | primary text | 2 | Solomonic Magic |
| J. Gordon Melton, Encyclopedia of American Religions (8th ed., Gale, 2009) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Scholarly reference on the I AM Activity, Church Universal and Triumphant, and the Ascended-Master family of new religious movements |
| The Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone), c. 840 BCE; ed. John A. Dearman, Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab (Scholars Press / ASOR, Atlanta, 1989) | primary inscription/artifact | 2 | The Mesha Stele (also: Moabite Stone; KAI 181) is a basalt monument erected by King Mesha of Moab c. 840 BCE, now in the Louvre. At 34 lines it is the longest Iron Age inscription from the southern Levant and the most detailed pre-biblical account of Kemosh as national deity. The text names Kemosh nine times, attributes Moab's subjugation under Omri of Israel to Kemosh's anger, and records Kemosh's command to retake Israelite-held territory ("Go, take Nebo against Israel"). It explicitly mirrors the Deuteronomistic theology of Yahweh applied to Kemosh: divine anger, military defeat, divine favour, restoration. Dearman (1989) provides the standard critical edition and commentary; the KAI (Kanaanäische und aramäische Inschriften) number is 181. Primary source for all Kemosh claims in this layer. |
| Classical Midrash (Genesis Rabbah, Lamentations Rabbah, Pesikta, etc.), late antique | primary text | 2 | The classical aggadic midrashim of late antiquity |
| O. Neugebauer & R. A. Parker, Egyptian Astronomical Texts, 3 vols. (Brown Univ. Press / Lund Humphries, 1960-1969) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Egyptian astronomy / the decans |
| The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, 325/381 CE | primary text | 2 | The conciliar creed defining the Father, Son and Holy Spirit |
| Nonnus of Panopolis, Dionysiaca, c. 5th c. CE | primary text | 2 | The vast late-antique Greek epic of Dionysus; Zagreus, Beroe |
| Said Nursi, Risale-i Nur (Epistles of Light, early 20th c.) | primary text | 2 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Gregory Palamas, Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts, c. 1338-1341 | primary text | 2 | The defence of hesychasm and the doctrine of the uncreated divine energies/light |
| Christopher Partridge, The Re-Enchantment of the West, vols. 1–2 (2004–2005) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Alexandre Piankoff, The Litany of Re (Egyptian Religious Texts and Representations 4 / Bollingen XL.4, 1964) | primary text | 2 | Egyptian afterlife literature |
| Plato, Republic (c. 375 BCE) | primary text | 2 | Plato's central dialogue on justice, the ideal state, and the nature of the soul. The opening sentence (Republic 327a) explicitly situates the dialogue at the Piraeus festival of Bendis: "I had gone down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon son of Ariston to pray to the goddess, and also because I wanted to see how they would conduct the festival, since this was its first celebration." The goddess is identified as Bendis, confirming that the Thracian deity's Athenian cult was of recent, official establishment. The Piraeus Bendideia is thus attested in one of the most widely-read texts of classical antiquity. Also relevant for Thracian soul-doctrine: Plato Charmides 156d-157c cites a Thracian physician of Zalmoxis who teaches that the soul must be treated before the body — presenting Zalmoxis as a revealer of holistic soul-medicine. |
| Plato, Symposium (c. 385-370 BCE), trans. various | primary text | 2 | Greek philosophical dialogue; the genealogy of Eros, and Penia and Poros |
| Proclus, The Elements of Theology (Stoicheiosis Theologike), c. 5th c. CE | primary text | 2 | Proclus' systematic metaphysics; the henads and the orders of being |
| Benjamin Radford, Tracking the Chupacabra (2011) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Robert de Boron, Joseph d'Arimathie / Merlin / Perceval (the Little Grail Cycle), c. 1190-1210 CE | primary text | 2 | Christianized the Grail as the cup of the Last Supper / vessel of Christ's blood brought to Britain by Joseph of Arimathea; gave Merlin his demonic begetting |
| Paul Rorem, Pseudo-Dionysius: A Commentary on the Texts and an Introduction to Their Influence (Oxford Univ. Press, 1993) | secondary scholarship | 2 | Pseudo-Dionysian studies |
| Jalal al-Din Rumi, Masnavi-i Manavi, c. 1258-1273 CE | primary text | 2 | Persian Sufi didactic poetry; love-mysticism and the path |
| Sefer Raziel ha-Malakh (The Book of Raziel the Angel) | primary text | 2 | Jewish Mystical |
| Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By (Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1944) | primary text | 2 | Authoritative Bahá'í history of the first Bahá'í century covering the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh, Abdu'l-Bahá and institutional development. |
| Ahmad Sirhindi, Maktubat (Collected Letters, early 17th c.) | primary text | 2 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Suda (Souda), Byzantine Greek encyclopedic lexicon, c. 10th c. CE | reference work | 2 | The great Byzantine lexicon preserving otherwise-lost ancient attestations |
| al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa'l-Muluk (History of the Prophets and Kings), c. 915 CE | primary text | 2 | The major early Islamic chronicle; the caliphate of Ali and the martyrdom of Husayn at Karbala |
| Tacitus, Germania (De origine et situ Germanorum), c. 98 CE | primary text | 2 | Germanic religion / interpretatio romana |
| UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology | reference work | 2 | Egyptian religion and Egyptology |
| Hayyim Vital, Etz Chaim (the Tree of Life — Luria's teachings, c. 1573) | primary text | 2 | Jewish Mystical |
| Louis V. Žabkar, Apedemak, Lion God of Meroe: A Study in Egyptian-Meroitic Syncretism (Aris & Phillips, Warminster, 1975) | secondary scholarship | 2 | The dedicated monograph on Apedemak, the pre-eminent indigenous Meroitic deity. Žabkar analyzes all attestations of Apedemak across the relief programs of Musawwarat es-Sufra, Naga (including the famous Lion Temple of Apedemak built by Natakamani and Amanitore, c. 1–20 CE), and Meroe itself. He demonstrates that Apedemak is not an Egyptian import but an indigenous Nubian/Meroitic lion deity who developed his iconographic program partly by borrowing Egyptian artistic conventions while remaining theologically distinct — there is no Egyptian lion war god precisely corresponding to him. Covers Apedemak's role in the Meroitic royal ideology as the divine guarantor of military victory, his lion-headed human iconography (and variant multi-headed, multi-armed forms at Naga), and his relationship with the queen and king in Meroitic royal theology. Cited primarily for ENT_MER_APEDEMAK and secondarily for Amesemi as his consort. |
| Francesco Diedo, Vita Sancti Rochi (Acta of St Roch), 1478 CE | primary text | 1 | Hagiography of the plague-saint Roch of Montpellier |
| The Acts of Paul and Thecla, c. 2nd c. CE | primary text | 1 | The apocryphal acts of Thecla, disciple of Paul |
| Shelley R. Adler, Sleep Paralysis: Night-mares, Nocebos, and the Mind-Body Connection (2011) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Aeschylus, Suppliants (Hiketides), c. 463 BCE | primary text | 1 | The tragedy of the Danaids; Pothos in Aphrodite's retinue |
| Alcaeus of Mytilene, Fragments (Lobel-Page), c. 600 BCE | primary text | 1 | The lyric fragments of Alcaeus; Amechania, sister of Penia (fr. 364) |
| Alphabet of Ben Sira (Aleph-Bet de-Ben Sira, c. 9th–11th century CE) | primary text | 1 | Medieval Jewish midrashic anthology; contains the definitive narrative of Lilith as Adam's first wife who refused subjugation and fled Eden (23rd letter entry, Aleph section); primary source for the Lilith-as-first-wife tradition that became foundational to Kabbalistic demonology and later Western occultism |
| The Apocalypse of Abraham, c. 1st-2nd c. CE | primary text | 1 | The apocalypse of Abraham's heavenly ascent, guided by the angel Yahoel |
| Aristophanes, Birds (Ornithes), 414 BCE | primary text | 1 | The comedy of Cloudcuckooland; Basileia (Sovereignty) |
| Aristophanes, Knights (Hippeis), 424 BCE | primary text | 1 | The political comedy; the libation to the Agathos Daimon |
| Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae, 411 BCE | primary text | 1 | The comedy of the women's festival; Kalligeneia |
| The Atrahasis Epic (Akkadian flood and creation-of-humanity myth), c. 1700 BCE | primary text | 1 | The Old Babylonian epic of the creation of humankind and the great flood |
| Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Íqán (The Book of Certitude), Bahá'í World Centre edition | primary text | 1 | Doctrinal exposition of progressive revelation and the station of the Manifestations of God in relation to prior prophets. |
| John R. Bartlett, Edom and the Edomites (JSOT Supplement Series 77; Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, 1989) | secondary scholarship | 1 | The standard scholarly monograph on Edomite history and religion. Chapter 6 covers the Edomite deity Qos (Qaus): the name does not appear in the canonical Hebrew Bible as a divine name, but is attested as a theophoric element in Edomite personal names recovered from inscriptions at Umm el-Biyara, Buseirah (biblical Bozrah), Horvat Qitmit, and En Hazeva (7th–5th c. BCE). Bartlett surveys the onomastic evidence and concludes Qos was the national deity of Edom, a thunderstorm deity comparable in function to Kemosh for Moab and Milkom for Ammon. Also covers Edomite culture, the Edom–Israel relationship in biblical texts, and the archaeology of the Edomite heartland. Standard citation for all Qos claims. |
| Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, Shah Jo Risalo (Sindhi Sufi poetry, 18th c.) | primary text | 1 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Bonaventure, Legenda Maior (Life of St Francis, c. 1263) | primary text | 1 | Christian |
| Bulleh Shah, Kafis (Punjabi Sufi poetry, 18th c.) | primary text | 1 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Christian H. Bull, The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus (Brill, 2018) | secondary scholarship | 1 | The standard study of the Hermetic milieu and the way of Hermes |
| Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, trans. Edwin L. Minar (Harvard University Press, 1972; original German: Weisheit und Wissenschaft, 1962) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Greek |
| Ismail Haqqi Bursevi, Ruh al-Bayan (Sufi Qur'an commentary, early 18th c.) | primary text | 1 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Tara Isabella Burton, Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World (2020) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Cassius Dio, Roman History, c. 3rd c. CE | primary text | 1 | Roman/Romano-British history |
| Catullus, Carmina, c. 54 BCE | primary text | 1 | The Neoteric poems; Carmen 63 on Attis and the Magna Mater |
| R. Andrew Chesnut, Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint (Oxford University Press, 2012; rev. 2017) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Santa Muerte and the comparative cult of personified Death; Latin American folk sanctity |
| Carole M. Cusack, Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith (Ashgate, 2010) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Discordianism |
| Farhad Daftary, The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines, 2nd ed. (Cambridge UP, 2007) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Fatimid Ismaili background; al-Hakim's reign; the Druze schism |
| Uthman dan Fodio, Ihya al-Sunna wa-Ikhmad al-Bid'a and reform corpus (early 19th c.) | primary text | 1 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Davis, Clifton, Weaver, Hurwitz, Johnson & Griffiths, 'Survey of entity encounter experiences occasioned by inhaled N,N-dimethyltryptamine' (J. Psychopharmacology, 2020) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Denkard (Acts of the Religion), Pahlavi compendium, 9th-10th c. CE | primary text | 1 | The great Middle Persian encyclopedia of Zoroastrian doctrine and cosmology |
| Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life (1609) | primary text | 1 | Christian |
| 11QMelchizedek (11Q13), Dead Sea Scrolls, c. 1st c. BCE | primary text | 1 | The Qumran midrash on Melchizedek as the heavenly eschatological deliverer |
| Alan Dundes, 'Bloody Mary in the Mirror: A Ritual Reflection of Pre-Pubescent Anxiety' (in Bloody Mary in the Mirror, 2002) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Euripides, Bacchae, 405 BCE | primary text | 1 | The tragedy of Dionysus at Thebes; the Maenads |
| Euripides, Heracleidae (Children of Heracles), c. 430 BCE | primary text | 1 | The tragedy of the Heraclid suppliants; the self-sacrifice of Macaria |
| Euripides, Heracles (Herakles Mainomenos), c. 416 BCE | primary text | 1 | The tragedy of Heracles' madness; Lyssa |
| Faustina Kowalska, Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul (1930s) | primary text | 1 | Christian |
| Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Ihya Ulum al-Din ("The Revival of the Religious Sciences"), c. 1105 CE | primary text | 1 | Synthesis of Sufi inner life with Sunni law and theology |
| Gregory the Great, Dialogues, Book II (Life of St Benedict), c. 593 CE | primary text | 1 | The earliest life of Benedict of Nursia and his miracles |
| Labib Habachi, The Sanctuary of Heqaib (Elephantine IV; Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Mainz, 1985) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Egyptian deified humans |
| Hekhalot Rabbati ('The Greater Palaces'), Merkavah text, ed. in P. Schafer, Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur | primary text | 1 | The seven heavenly palaces (hekhalot) and the ascent of the descender to the chariot |
| Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias (c. 1151) | primary text | 1 | Christian |
| Christopher Hine et al. / scholarship on meme magic, the Kek/Pepe egregore, and 4chan occulture (2016–2018) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Hyginus, Fabulae, c. 1st-2nd c. CE | primary text | 1 | The Latin mythographic handbook; the genealogy of personifications (Praefatio) |
| Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises (1548) | primary text | 1 | Christian |
| John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul (c. 1585) | primary text | 1 | Christian |
| Pitchfork / Genius profiles of Juice WRLD's '999' philosophy (inverting 666; the 999 Club) and its posthumous adoption by fans as a memorial and protective sign (2018-2020) | journalism | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love (c. 1395) | primary text | 1 | Christian |
| Ted Kaizer, The Religious Life of Palmyra: A Study of the Social Patterns of Worship in the Roman Period (Oriens et Occidens 4; Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, 2002) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Comprehensive study of religious practice in Palmyra (ancient Tadmor, modern Syria) during the Roman period (1st–3rd centuries CE), based on the rich Palmyrene inscriptional corpus (200+ religious texts in Aramaic and Greek), the sculptural and numismatic evidence, and the temple programs. Chapter 3 covers Baalshamin, who had one of Palmyra's major temple complexes (the Baalshamin temple, built 131 CE, well-preserved until its destruction by ISIL in 2015); Chapter 4 covers Bel and the triadic grouping; Chapter 9 covers the full range of divine beings in the Palmyrene tradition. Kaizer analyzes Baalshamin's relationship with Zeus in the Greek-Palmyrene bilingual inscriptions (many of which render Baalshamin simply as "Zeus"), the festival calendar, and the social organization of the priestly colleges. Cited primarily for ENT_ARA_BAALSHAMIN and secondarily for the Aramean/Palmyrene context of all three entities. |
| John A. Keel, The Mothman Prophecies (1975) | primary text | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Éliphas Lévi, Dogme et rituel de la haute magie (Paris: Germer Baillière, 1854-1856) | primary text | 1 | 19th-century ritual magic; Baphomet as occult symbol; invoking pentagram; Astral Light; Kabbalistic and Hermetic synthesis; coined "occultism" as a term |
| James R. Lewis (ed.), Scientology (Oxford University Press, 2009) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Edited scholarly volume on Scientology belief, practice, body thetans, and the Marcab Confederacy in the auditing cosmology |
| Lucian of Samosata, Alexander the False Prophet (Alexandros), c. 180 CE | primary text | 1 | Lucian's expose of the oracle-cult of the snake-god Glycon |
| Lucian of Samosata, De Dea Syria (On the Syrian Goddess), c. 150 CE; ed. and trans. Harold W. Attridge and Robert A. Oden Jr. (SBL Texts and Translations 9, Graeco-Roman Religion 1; Scholars Press / Society of Biblical Literature, Missoula, 1976) | primary text | 1 | The most detailed ancient description of the cult of Atargatis at Hierapolis-Bambyce (modern Manbij, northern Syria). Written c. 150 CE by Lucian of Samosata (himself from nearby Samosata on the Euphrates) in mock-Herodotean style, De Dea Syria describes the great temple complex, its sacred fish-pools and sacred animals, the castrated galli priests and their self-mutilation in honor of the goddess, the annual pilgrimage festival, the sacred prostitution traditions, the mythological narratives (including traditions linking the cult foundation to Semiramis, Deucalion, and Dionysus), and the iconographic program of the temple. Lucian explicitly opens by noting that the Syrians call her "Hera" (i.e. equate her with the Greek Hera as queen of heaven) but that she also encompasses Athena, Aphrodite, Selene, Rhea, Artemis, Nemesis, and the Fates — a panthea (all-goddess) reading of the Syrian Goddess. De Dea Syria is the primary literary source for Atargatis and provides crucial evidence for the nature of Syrian religion in the Roman period. Cited for ENT_ARA_ATARGATIS. |
| Lucian of Samosata, Heracles (the "Ogmios" prologue), c. 2nd c. CE | primary text | 1 | Gaulish Ogmios |
| T. M. Luhrmann & colleagues; and Samuel Veissière, 'Varieties of Tulpa Experiences' (in Somatosphere / Hg. Studies, 2016) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Mnaseas of Patrae, Fragments (incl. On Europe), c. 3rd c. BCE | primary text | 1 | The fragmentary periegete; Homonoia, daughter of Soter and Praxidike |
| William J. Murnane, Texts from the Amarna Period in Egypt (Scholars Press, Atlanta, 1995) | primary text | 1 | Critical edition and translation of inscriptions from the Amarna Period (reign of Akhenaten, c. 1353-1336 BCE), including the Great Hymn to the Aten (EA 25), the Shorter Hymn to the Aten, boundary stelae proclamations, and administrative texts from Akhetaten (Tell el-Amarna). The Great Hymn is the primary theological statement on Aten as sole creator and sustainer of all life; it is cited in scholarly literature as one of the earliest surviving expressions of monotheistic or henotheistic theology. Primary source for all Aten theological claims. |
| Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, devotional and Akbari commentarial corpus (e.g. al-Wujud al-Haqq; Diwan al-Haqa'iq, late 17th–early 18th c.) | primary text | 1 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Nahj al-Balagha (Peak of Eloquence): sermons, letters and sayings of Ali ibn Abi Talib, comp. al-Sharif al-Radi, c. 1009 CE | primary text | 1 | The foundational collection of the words of the first Shi'a Imam |
| Gregory of Narek, The Book of Lamentations (Matean Voghbergut'ean / Narek), c. 1002-1003 CE; trans. Thomas J. Samuelian, Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart (Vem Press, Yerevan, 2002) | primary text | 1 | The masterwork of Armenian Christian mysticism: 95 prayer-poems of penitential dialogue with God. Primary attestation for Gregory of Narek as mystic-poet of the Narek monastery (Vaspurakan), proclaimed a Doctor of the Universal Church in 2015. |
| Ibrahim Niasse, Kashif al-ilbas (Removal of Confusion, Tijani revival doctrine) | primary text | 1 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Ovid, Heroides, c. 15 BCE | primary text | 1 | The verse epistles of mythic heroines; Phyllis (Heroides 2) |
| The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis), c. 203 CE | primary text | 1 | The prison diary and martyrdom of the African martyrs Perpetua and Felicity |
| Andrew Peck, 'Tall, Dark, and Loathsome: The Emergence of a Legend Cycle in the Digital Age' (Journal of American Folklore, 2015) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Domino Renee Perez, There Was a Woman: La Llorona from Folklore to Popular Culture (2008) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, c. 220 CE | primary text | 1 | The biography of the Neopythagorean sage; altars of Techne at Gadeira |
| Corpus of Phrygian Inscriptions (various; primary) | primary inscription/artifact | 1 | The corpus of Phrygian-language inscriptions from sites across ancient Phrygia: Midas City (Yazılıkaya), Gordion, Boğazköy, and others. Key texts include the rock-cut dedications to Matar Kubileya. Old Phrygian inscriptions (8th–5th c. BCE); New Phrygian funerary curses (2nd–3rd c. CE). Edited: Claude Brixhe and Michel Lejeune, Corpus des inscriptions paléo-phrygiennes (1984); Brixhe, Corpus des inscriptions néo-phrygiennes (2019). |
| Jim Pieper, Guatemala's Folk Saints: Maximon/San Simon, Rey Pascual, Judas, Lucifer, and Others (Pieper and Associates, 2002) | secondary scholarship | 1 | The living Guatemalan folk-saint cult of Maximon and his identification with San Simon and Judas Iscariot, and the underlying Maya figure Mam; used for the Mam/Maximon syncretism seam. |
| Plotinus, Enneads (ed. Porphyry), c. 270 CE | primary text | 1 | The foundational Neoplatonic treatises; the One, Intellect and the World Soul |
| Posidippus of Pella, Epigrams (incl. Greek Anthology 16.275), c. 270 BCE | primary text | 1 | The Hellenistic epigrams; the dialogue on Lysippos' statue of Kairos |
| Proclus, On the Hieratic Art According to the Greeks (De sacrificio et magia), c. 5th c. CE | primary text | 1 | Proclus' practical guide to theurgy: cosmic sympathy, symbola and synthemata, the animating of statues |
| Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, The Mystical Theology (Peri mystikes theologias), c. 500 CE (trans. J. Parker, 1897) | primary text | 1 | Pseudo-Dionysian corpus |
| Pyrgi Gold Tablets (c. 500 BCE) | primary inscription/artifact | 1 | Three gold lamellae found at Pyrgi (port of Caere/Cerveteri), c. 500 BCE. Two in Etruscan, one in Phoenician. The Phoenician text equates Etruscan Uni with Phoenician Astarte. Primary evidence for Etruscan-Phoenician religious contact and Uni's supreme status. |
| W. R. S. Ralston, The Songs of the Russian People, as Illustrative of Slavonic Mythology and Russian Social Life (Ellis & Green, London, 1872) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Slavic folk ritual, nature spirits, and rain-magic customs |
| Raymond of Capua, Legenda Maior of Catherine of Siena (c. 1395) | primary text | 1 | Christian |
| Al Ridenour, The Krampus and the Old, Dark Christmas (2016) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Shah Waliullah, Hujjat Allah al-Baligha (18th c.) | primary text | 1 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha'rani, al-Tabaqat al-Kubra (Lawaqih al-Anwar; hagiographic lives of the saints, 16th c.) | primary text | 1 | Islamic/Sufi |
| Gregory Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus (Penn State Univ. Press, 1995) | secondary scholarship | 1 | Neoplatonic theurgy |
| Rick Strassman, DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2001) | primary text | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum (Lives of the Caesars), c. 121 CE | primary text | 1 | The imperial biographies; the deification of the Caesars |
| Sulpicius Severus, Life of St Martin (Vita Martini), c. 397 CE | primary text | 1 | The founding hagiography of Martin of Tours |
| Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle (1577) | primary text | 1 | Christian |
| Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem (and Adversus Valentinianos), c. 207-212 CE | heresiological source | 1 | The fullest patristic account of Marcion's two gods and edited canon |
| Theocritus, Idylls, c. 270 BCE | primary text | 1 | The Hellenistic bucolic poems; the child-bogey Mormo (Idyll 15) |
| Theognis of Megara, Elegies, c. 6th c. BCE | primary text | 1 | The elegiac corpus; Sophrosyne fled to Olympus |
| Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul (1898) | primary text | 1 | Christian |
| Martin van Bruinessen, studies on Ahl-i Haqq and Kurdish heterodox religions | secondary scholarship | 1 | Comparative study placing Yarsan among Kurdish heterodox traditions and relating it to Alevi-Bektashi currents. |
| Vendidad (Videvdad, 'Law against the Demons'), Younger Avesta, ed./trans. J. Darmesteter, SBE 4 | primary text | 1 | Zoroastrian law, eschatology, and cosmography incl. the Chinvat Bridge and post-mortem realms |
| M.J. Vermaseren, Cybele and Attis: The Myth and the Cult, trans. A.M.H. Lemmers (Thames and Hudson, London, 1977) | secondary scholarship | 1 | The standard monograph on the Attis myth cycle and the mysteries of Cybele and Attis in the Greco-Roman world. Vermaseren surveys all the mythological variants of Attis — the Pessinuntine version (Pausanias 7.17.9-12; Arnobius, Adversus Nationes 5.5-7), the Lydian version (Diodorus 3.58-59), and the Phrygian-Sabaziast traditions — alongside the Roman cult as instituted in 204 BCE (importation of the Magna Mater stone from Pessinus) and the later development of the taurobolium and criobolium rites. Covers the annual festival cycle: the March 15-27 festival series (Canna Intrat, Arbor Intrat, Sanguem/Day of Blood, Hilaria) that enacts Attis's death and resurrection; the role of the Galli (castrated priests) in the cult; Catullus Poem 63 as the most vivid Latin literary treatment; Ovid Fasti 4.179-246 on the pine tree and Attis myth. Cited for ENT_PHRYG_ATTIS. |
| Virgil, Georgics, 29 BCE | primary text | 1 | The didactic poem on farming; the Aristaeus epyllion and the bugonia |
| Doreen Virtue, Angel Numbers (2005) | primary text | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Vita S. Dunstani by the author "B.", c. 1000 CE | primary text | 1 | The earliest life of St Dunstan of Canterbury |
| Audoin (Dado) of Rouen, Vita Eligii (Life of St Eligius), 7th c. CE | primary text | 1 | Merovingian hagiography of the goldsmith-bishop Eligius |
| Johann Weyer, Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (appendix to De praestigiis daemonum, 1577) | primary text | 1 | Goetic/Solomonic |
| Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, c. 1200-1210 CE | primary text | 1 | Middle High German Grail epic; the Grail as the stone (lapsit exillis), the Fisher King Anfortas, the Grail castle Munsalvaesche |
| David Auerbach, 'The Most Terrifying Thought Experiment of All Time' (Slate, 2014); LessWrong forum record of Roko's Basilisk | secondary scholarship | 1 | Contemporary Folklore & Vernacular Religion |
| Zenobius, Epitome of Proverbs (transmitting Sappho fr. 178), 2nd c. CE | primary text | 1 | The paroemiographic collection preserving the Sapphic attestation of Gello |
| P. Alexander, 3 Enoch, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha vol. 1 | primary text | 0 | Metatron, Sar Torah, angelic hierarchies, heavenly ascent |
| Neil Forsyth, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton University Press, 1987) | secondary source | 0 | The combat myth (chaoskampf) from Near Eastern and Greek antecedents (Tiamat, Yam, Typhon/Python) into Jewish and Christian conceptions of Satan as dragon-adversary |
| Robert Graves, The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth (Faber & Faber, 1948) | secondary source | 0 | The Maiden-Mother-Crone Triple Moon Goddess formulation later adopted by Wicca |
| Sabrina Higgins, "Divine Mothers: The Influence of Isis on the Virgin Mary in Egyptian Lactans-Iconography," Journal of the Canadian Society for Coptic Studies 3-4 (2012): 71-90 | secondary source | 0 | Iconographic relationship between Isis lactans and Maria lactans; reviews the scholarly debate on Isis-to-Mary influence |
| Justin Martyr, First and Second Apologies (c. 150–165 CE) | primary text | 0 | Earliest systematic Christian apologetic; 1 Apol. 5 argues Greek gods are demons under Satan; 1 Apol. 9, 24 names Zeus, Apollo, Artemis, Poseidon, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus, Dionysus, Hermes as objects of demon-orchestrated worship; 1 Apol. 21–22 uses pagan gods as typological parallels to Christ (Hermes, Asclepius) |
| David Pingree (ed.), Picatrix: The Latin Version of the Ghayat al-Hakim (London: Warburg Institute, 1986) | primary text | 0 | Medieval Arabic-Latin astral magic handbook describing the 36 decans/faces (wujuh) of the zodiac and their images |
| Thomas Rudd, Treatise on Angel Magic / 'The Goetia of Dr Rudd' (17th c.; ed. Skinner & Rankine) — the Shem-angel vs Goetia-demon pairing | primary text | 0 | Renaissance Esoteric |
| V. Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans: Corpus des monuments greco-romains d'Isis allaitant Harpocrate (Leiden: Brill, 1973) | secondary source | 0 | Corpus of Greco-Roman Isis lactans (nursing) iconography and its relation to later Maria lactans imagery |
| Kevin van Bladel, The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science (Oxford University Press, 2009) | secondary scholarship | 0 | Definitive scholarly study of how Hermes Trismegistus entered Islamic intellectual tradition as the prophet Idris; traces the Idris=Hermes identification through Jabir ibn Hayyan, al-Kindi, and Sabian literature; documents the convergence of Enoch, Hermes, and Idris across Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradition |