Occultism is considered the rejected knowledge of the Western world. One hundred self-contained contributions, each accompanied by an illustration, narrate the more than two-and-a-half-millennia-long history of the suppression, survival, and rebirth of the occult. The narrative spans from the first alchemists in ancient Egypt to the origins of Kabbalah and Tarot, the crusade against the Cathars, the prophecies of Nostradamus, and the emergence of Freemasonry and the modern Wicca religion. Readers can expect an exciting cultural history of the theories and practices of occultism.