Compiled by Joseph H. Peterson. Last updated October 19, 2019.

13th century BCE? Zarathushtra founds Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Magi;

Moses founds Judaism;

mythical date of Hermes Trismegistus.

10th century BCE Solomon, son of David, King of Israel flourished

4? BCE-33 CE Jesus founds Christianity

1st century CE Apollonius of Tyana flourished

1st to 3rd CE (?) Testament of Solomon composed

100-300 CE composition of Corpus Hermetica

204-270 CE Plotinus, Neoplatonic philosopher and mystic (born in Egypt)

233-305 CE Porphyry, Neoplatonic philosopher and mystic (born in Phoenicia)

250-325 CE Iamblicus, Neoplatonic philosopher (was born in Chalcis, Coele-Syria)

411-485 Proclus, Neoplatonic philosopher (born at Constantinople, Byzantium)

500 CE (circa) Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite flourished, probably a native of Syria

6th CE Sefer Yetzirah edited

10th CE Sword of Moses composed

1004-1007 (?) al-Majriti, author of Picatrix, dies

1054 Rome splits from orthodox church, forms Catholic church

1175?-1235 Michael Scot (Scottish)

1220?-1292 Roger Bacon (English)

1227 Pope Honorius III dies

1232 Ramon Llull born (Majorca)

1240 Abraham Abulafia, Sicilian Kabbalist, founder of ecstatic Kabbala, born in Saragosa

1248 Joseph Gikatilla, Spanish Sephardic Kabbalist, born

1250? Liber Juratus (Sworn Book of Honorius) compiled by Honorius of Thebes, son of Euclid

1200-1250 ? Latin version of the Clavicula Salomonis ("Key of Solomon") likely composed then. (cf Weill-Parot in Fanger et al 2012 p. 223)

1257-63 "The book of Solomon which is called Ars Notoria and Liber Semamphoras mentioned mentioned in a correspondence attributed to Roger Bacon (cf. Véronèse 2019 p. 188.)

1259 Peter de Abano [Pietro d'Abano], Italian physician and philosopher born. Professor of medicine in Padua.

1260 Anonymous author of the Speculum astronomiae mentions a series of magic books of Solomon

1266 John Duns Scotus, Scottish scholastic philosopher and thrologian, born

1267-70 Roger Bacon mentions the existence of libri Salomonis ("books of Solomon") used to obtain the aid of demons

1274 Ramon Llull's vision on Mount Randa

1280? Sefer Ha-Zohar written by Moses de León but attributed to Simon ben Yohai

1292? Abraham Abulafia dies

1301-15 John of Morigny florished

1308 John Duns Scotus dies

1310 Date of earliest surviving manuscript of Clavicula Salomonis ("Key of Solomon")

1314 Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, burned at the stake in Paris

1316? Ramon Llull dies;

1316 Peter de Abano dies

1323 Joseph Gikatilla dies

1346 Berengarius Ganellus writes the Summa sacre magice

1433 Marsilio Ficino, Italian philosopher born. Under the patronage of the de'Medicis, he translated many Greek classics including the Corpus Hermetica

1446 Date of BnF Ital. 1524, which includes Italian version of Clavicula Salomonis. Edition in Vedrai Mirabilia

1453 Fall of Constantinople to the Turks caused dispersal and spread of Greek manuscripts and scholarship

1455 Johannes Reuchlin, German humanist and lawyer, born. Reuchlin wrote on Kabbalah and propagated Hebrew studies

1462 Johannes Trithemius born at Trittenheim on the Moselle. Trithemius was a famous scholar and Benedictine abbot.

1463 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Italian philosopher and scholar, born

1466 Francesco Giorgi (or Giorgio, aka Zorzi), Venetian philosopher, born. Author of De Harmonia Mundi (Venits, 1525)

1471 Ficino's translation of Corpus Hermeticum published

1474 Ferdinand and Isabella ascend to the throne

1483 Martin Luther born Eisleben, Saxony, Germany.

1486 Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa born in Cologne Germany;

Malleus Maleficarum published, major instrument of witch hunters;

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola takes his theses to Rome

1489 Ficino's Libri de Vita published

1492 Ferdinand and Isabella expel Jews from Spain, center of Cabalistic studies, caused dispersal and spread of Jewish and Cabalistic manuscripts and scholarship; discovery of the New World

1493 Paracelsus (Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim) born Einsiedeln Switzerland. Swiss physician and philosopher. He was tutored (by his account) by Trithemius.

1494 Reuchlin's De verbo mirifico published;

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola dies

1499 Marsilio Ficino dies

(late 15th ce) Date of oldest Latin Clavicula Salomonis (Key of Solomon) exemplar, Coxe 25 (BPH 114)

1510 Agrippa's De Occulta philosophia finished

Guillaume Postel, French mathematician, Kabbalist, and mystic born

1515 Johan Weyer born

1516 Johannes Trithemius dies

1517 Reuchlin's De arte cabalistica published;

Martin Luther posts theses

1520 Jacques Gohory born (Jan. 20)

1522 Johannes Reuchlin dies

1525 Giorgi's De harmonia mundi published

1527 John Dee born in London

Maximillian II born

1533 Agrippa's De Occulta philosopha published;

Isaak Luria, Jewish Kabbalist, born in Jerusalem;

Queen Elizabeth I born at Greenwich palace in London (September 7)

1535 Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa dies;

Giambattista della Porta born in Naples. Author of Magia naturalis (Natural Magic) (1585, 1589)

1538? Reginald Scot born. Author of Discouerie of Witchcraft (1584)

1540 Francesco Giorgi dies;

Faust dies

1541 Paracelsus dies

1542 Inquisition established in Rome

1546 Martin Luther dies

1547 Venetian Inquisition started, originally to address protestant reform.

1548 Giordano Bruno, Italian philosopher born in Nola Italy.

1552 Simon Forman born

Emperor Rudolph II born

Guillaume Postel publishes Latin translation of Sefer Yetzirah

1554 Society of Jesus (Jesuits) founded

1555 Edward Kelley born

1558 Elizabeth I becomes queen of England;

Giambattista della Porta's Magia Naturalis published;

Zohar printed

1559 pseudo-Agrippa's Liber quartus published.

1560? Heinrich Khunrath born in Leipzig

1564 Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica published

1566? Michael Maier, physician, alchemist, and philosopher, born in Rensburg, Holstein (Germany). Physician to Emperor Rudolph II.

1572 Isaak Luria dies

1574 Robert Fludd, English physician, philosopher, and mystic, born

1575 Jakob Boehme, German religious mystic, born;

Arbatel Of Magic first appears

1576 Maximillian II dies

Jacques Gohory dies (Mar. 15)

1580's Venetian Inquisition surns more attention to prosecuting practitioners of magic.

1581 Dee and Kelley start their "mystical experiments"

Guillaume Postel dies

1584 Bruno's Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast published

1588 Johan Weyer dies

1595 Edward Kelley dies (Nov)

1599 Reginald Scot dies

1600 Giordano Bruno burned at the stake in Rome

1602 Athanasius Kircher born in Geisa a. d. Ulster, Germany (May 2)

William Lilly, astrologer and translator of Trithemius, born in Diseworth, county Leicester, England

1603 Queen Elizabeth I dies;

accession of James I

1605 Heinrich Khunrath dies

1606 Trithemius' Steganographia first published

1608 John Dee dies

1611 Simon Forman dies

1612 Emperor Rudolph II dies

1614-15 Rosicrucian manifestos published in Germany

1615 Giambattista della Porta dies

1617 Elias Ashmole born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England (May 23)

1617-19 Fludd's Utriusque cosmi historia published

1618 Maier's Atlanta Fugiens published

1618 Johann Baptista Grossschedel publishes Calendarium magicum (The Magical Calendar)

1620 Robert Turner 'of Holshot', translator of magical texts, born

1622 Thomas Vaughan, English Rosicrucian, born

Michael Maier dies

1624 Jakob Boehme dies

1636 Christian Knorr von Rosenroth, German mystic and Kabbalist, born.

Leonardo Longo and Fransco Viola tried for witchcraft by Venetian Inquisition.

1637 Robert Fludd dies

1652 Kircher's Oedipus Aegyptiacus published

Thomas Vaughan publishes English translation (not his own) of the Rosicrucian Fama and Confessio

1666 Thomas Vaughan dies

1677 Christian Knorr von Rosenroth published first volume of Kabbala Denudata

1680 Athanasius Kircher dies

1681 William Lilly, astrologer and translator of Trithemius, dies

1684 Christian Knorr von Rosenroth published second volume of Kabbala Denudata

1688 Emanuel Swedenborg, scientist and mystic, born in Stockholm, Sweden.

1689 Christian Knorr von Rosenroth dies

1692 Elias Ashmole dies

Salem witchcraft panic

1707 Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, Hebrew poet and Kabbalistic mystic, born Padua

1734 Franz Anton Mesmer born in Iznang, Swabia (Germany) (May 23)

1747 Moses Hayyim Luzzatto dies

1749-56 Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia published

1751 Ebenezer Sibly born

1772 Emanuel Swedenborg dies

1799 or 1800 Ebenezer Sibly dies

1801 Francis Barrett publishes The Magus

1808 Frederick Hockley born (Oct. 13)

1810 Eliphas Levi, (Constant, Alphonse Louis), French occultist, born in Paris, France. He is said to be largely responsible for the revival of magic in the 19th century.

1815 Franz Anton Mesmer dies

1831 Helena Petrovna Blavatski (Helena Petrovna von Hahn), cofounder of the Theosophical Society, born of German parents in Yekaterinoslav (now Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine).

1832 Henry Steel Olcott, cofounder of the Theosophical Society, born

1865 Papus (i.e. G.A.V. Encausse), French occultist and author born

1846 Anna Kingsford (Annie Bonus) born

1847 Annie Besant (née Wood), author and noted Theosophist born

1848 William W. Wescott born

1854 Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers born in London

1856 Levi's masterpiece Le Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie published

1857 Arthur Edward Waite born in Brooklyn, New York

1861 Rudolf Steiner born

1865 William Butler Yeats born in Ireland

1875 Eliphas Levi, (Constant, Alphonse Louis) dies (May 31)

1875 Aleister Crowley (Crowley, Edward Alexander) born (October 12)

1885 Frederick Hockley dies

1889 Mathers' edition of Kabbalah Unveiled published

1888 Anna Kingsford (Annie Bonus) dies

Papus' Traité Elémentaire de Science Occulte published;

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn established in London

1889 Mathers' edition of Key of Solomon published

1890 Dion Fortune (i.e. Violet Mary Firth) born;

W.B. Yeats joins the Golden Dawn

1891 Helena Petrovna Blavatski (Helena Petrovna von Hahn), cofounder of the Theosophical Society, dies

1897 Levi's Le Clef des Grandes Mystères published

1898 Julius Evola born

Aleister Crowley joins the Golden Dawn;

Mathers publishes The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage [Abramelin]

1899 C.G. Leland publishes Aradia, the Gospel of the Witches

1900 Crowley expelled from the Golden Dawn

1901 Manly Palmer Hall born

1907 Henry Steel Olcott, cofounder of the Theosophical Society, dies

Israel Regardie born

1909 Franz Bardon born

1916 Papus (i.e. G.A.V. Encausse), French occultist and author dies

1918 Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers dies

1925 William W. Wescott dies

Rudolf Steiner dies

1933 Annie Besant (née Wood), author and noted Theosophist dies

1937 Israel Regardie publishes the Golden Dawn, which includes the bulk of the Golden Dawns' rituals and teachings.

1939 William Butler Yeats dies

1942 Arthur Edward Waite dies

1946 Dion Fortune (i.e. Violet Mary Firth) dies

1947 Aleister Crowley (Crowley, Edward Alexander) dies

1958 Franz Bardon dies

1974 Julius Evola dies

1985 Israel Regardie dies