At some point there is a beginning…even at the time of nothing – yet the hidden or better yet with the “Occult” no one has ever quite found it’s beginning as its cord is attached to times birth. If we start at the definition many will argue that nothing is hidden…in fact everything is apparent and staring most right in the eye. In earlier times thousands of years past today those before saw with their third eye….a star guiding them into the constellations, the reinterpretation of angelic dialects to the reveal of to demons of the Goetia..only to name a few esoteric paths practised.
So where are the beginnings of what so many swear their lives and sometimes souls upon? Is it that we hunger so much for intuitively thinking that there must be more than just the dogmatic religious approach? Why is it we feel that there must be a higher calling and power beyond our own to identify with? Even more does the ego crave to swallow all around it becoming bigger than god? These questions and more will be addressed below in the brief chronological timeline of the occult history to understand where we’ve come from and where we’re going: But before you venture into the past to the present I ask you to ponder on where we go tomorrow as present categorically only reinvents the seekers of yesterday rather than carve a pavement towards a new path as so many of past.
If however we have found the truths, and unlocked the hidden then we can only concede to the to the cause of the abundance of reinvention being a glorious celebration of song. As we all know that this is not true, there is still much hidden…still much to be learned, discovered, and consciousness raised more than ever before.
Of all the long list of those who have contributed to the DNA of the occult knowledge we’ve further researched, today’s aspiring adept occultist on an average do more reinventing than discovery simply put. Reinvention varies from authors publishing belief systems from a “different” perspective to claiming truth to something previously put in a different way. I can accept that after looking at the chronological occult summary that I have provided that perhaps we may be going through a very slow transition…or even more it may be time for other areas of what makes an existence to merge and it’s not all about spirituality but a raised consciousness of combined knowledge into a whole.
Comprehensive Summary of the Occult Time Line
Where do you fit in? Where are the seeds of today and will there be any tomorrow?
c.580/570-c.500 B.C.E. Pythagoras : A Presocratic philosopher. Founder of a major school of philosophy/religion that emphasized the mystical interconnections in numbers, nature, and the human soul. The natural and the ethical world were inseparable.
c.515-c.450 B.C.E. Parmenides : On Nature, extant in fragments. Another of the Presocratics. Extends Pythagoras by insisting that all that exists is unchanging and unified. Therefore, if something is changing, it is illusory. This paves the way for the two-world view important for much mysticism. Influences: Pythagoras.
428-348 B.C.E. Plato : Sophist, Republic, Parmenides, many others. Most important of ancient philosophers. His philosophical system provides the basis of most later mystical forms. Influences: Pythagoras, Parmenides.
384-322 B.C.E Aristotle .: Metaphysics, De Anima, Nicomachean Ethics. While Aristotle himself is not really considered to be a mystic, he is an important influence on later mystics, especially when combined with Plato by Plotinus, and also when Christianized in the high Middle Ages.
c.20 B.C.E.-c.41 C.E. Philo : The Contemplative Life. An Alexandrian Jew who drew from Platonist tradition, Stoicism, and neo-Pythagoreanism to create a fusion of the active or virtuous life and the contemplative life.
6 AD – the Sefer Yetzirah was edited
c.205-270 C.E. Plotinus : Enneads. The non-Christian, neo-Platonic basis for much Christian, Jewish, and Islamic mysticism. Influences: Plato, Aristotle.
c.232-304 C.E. Porphyry : Isagoge. Compiled Plotinus’ Enneads, and wrote a life of Plotinus. He was strongly anti-Christian, yet he became important in the history of Christian mysticism.
411-485 C.E. Proclus or Proclusthe Lycian : Neoplatonic philosopher was born. The Elements of Theology. Athenian Neo-platonist, who influenced Pseudo-Dionysius, and beyond him most of the mystical tradition. While respecting Plotinus, Proclus also amended his philosophical structure.
485 AD – Proclus, Neoplatonic philosopher died
1175 AD -Michael Scot was born
1235 AD – Ramon Llull was born
1240 AD – Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia, kabbalahist, was born
1248 AD – Joseph Gikatilla, Spanish Sephardic Kabbalist, was born
1259 AD – Peter de Abano [Pietro d’Abano], Italian physician and philosopher was born
1266 AD – John Duns Scotus, Scottish scholastic philosopher and thrologian, was born
1274 AD – Ramon Llull’s vision on Mount Randa
1280 AD – Albertus Magnus died
1294 AD – Roger Bacon died
1308 AD – John Duns Scotus died
1313 AD – According to Max Heindel a Rosicrucian Order was formed in the inner worlds
1314 AD – Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burned at the stake in Paris
1315 AD – Ramon Llull died
1316 AD – Peter de Abano died
1323 AD – Joseph Gikatilla died
1433 AD – Marsilio Ficino, Italian philosopher was born
1453 AD – the fall of Constantinople to the Turks caused dispersal and spread of Greek manuscripts and scholarship
1455 AD – The Gutenburg Bible was first printed
1455 AD – Johann Reuchlin was born
1458 AD – The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage dates itself internally to this year
1462 AD – Johannes Trithemius was born
1463 AD – Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Italian philosopher and scholar, was born
1466 AD – Francesco Giorgi, Venetian philosopher, was born
1471 AD – Ficino’s translation of Corpus Hermeticum was published
1483 AD – Martin Luther was born
1486 AD – The Malleus Maleficarum, a major instrument of witch hunters was published
1486 AD – Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was born
1486 AD – Giovanni Pico della Mirandola took his theses to Rome
1489 AD – Ficino’s Libri de Vita was published
1492 AD – Ferdinand and Isabella expeled Jews from Spain helping to spread Kabbalistic ideas.
1493 AD – Paracelsus was born
1494 AD – Giovanni Pico della Mirandola died
1494 AD – Reuchlin’s De verbo mirifico was published
1499 AD – Marsilio Ficino died
