Tanakh
Torah, Prophets, and Writings
תנ״ך
The Hebrew Bible supplies creation by speech, the divine names, Jacob’s ladder, Sinai, prophetic encounter, Ezekiel’s chariot, Daniel’s visions, and the psalms later mystics repeatedly reopen.
87 cards · one living archive
A timeline of mystical literature—tracing the transmission of cosmological models, contact records, and visionary disciplines from biblical antiquity through the classical Kabbalah.
Explore the archive
Filter by tradition, or follow a single figure—from Enoch and Abraham to Akiva and Metatron—as their teachings echo across the centuries.
Textual current
Figure index
Showing 87 cards across the complete tree.
Fourteen traditions · 87 cards
Some texts emerged in a single lifetime; others accumulated layers across centuries. Follow the chronological progression of the manuscripts below.
First millennium BCE
The biblical visions, creation accounts, names, wisdom, and throne imagery from which later Jewish mystical writing draws its language.
Torah, Prophets, and Writings
תנ״ך
The Hebrew Bible supplies creation by speech, the divine names, Jacob’s ladder, Sinai, prophetic encounter, Ezekiel’s chariot, Daniel’s visions, and the psalms later mystics repeatedly reopen.
The tale and sayings of the sage Ahiqar
סיפור אחיקר
A court tale and wisdom collection about a royal counselor betrayed by his adopted son; its early Aramaic form provides a neighboring world for later Jewish wisdom literature.
Third–first centuries BCE
Wisdom, rewritten scripture, heavenly tablets, Watchers, sectarian covenant, martyrdom, and the first surviving maps of the unseen world.
The Wisdom of Jesus son of Sira
חכמת בן סירא
A Hebrew teacher joins practical wisdom to creation, Torah, worship, mortality, and a long praise of Israel’s ancestors.
The Book of Tobit
ספר טוביה
Raphael travels in human disguise, guides a family through exile and healing, and teaches Tobias how to drive away the demon Asmodeus.
The First Book of Enoch
ספר חנוך א׳
A composite revelation of the Watchers, Enoch’s journeys, heavenly tablets, cosmic order, judgment, and the history of the world seen from above.
The Book of the Divisions of Times
ספר היובלים
Genesis and early Exodus are retold through angelic revelation, heavenly tablets, a solar calendar, Watcher traditions, covenant, and measured periods of forty-nine years.
The Book of the Watchers’ Giant Children
ספר הענקים
Dreams warn the giant offspring of the Watchers that judgment is coming; only fragments survive, so its narrative must be reconstructed cautiously.
The Rule of the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
ברית דמשק
Admonition and law recount a community’s hidden history, covenant, calendar, Teacher of Righteousness, angelic camps, and disciplined life in expectation of judgment.
Aristeas’ account of the Greek Torah
איגרת אריסטיאס
A courtly narrative tells how seventy-two Jewish elders translated the Torah for Alexandria and surrounds that story with Temple description and royal wisdom questions.
The Second Book of Maccabees
מקבים ב׳
A history of persecution and revolt centers the Temple, angelic intervention, bodily resurrection, creation from what is not, and the deaths of faithful witnesses.
First century BCE–third century CE
Pseudonymous seers and patriarchs cross heavens, question destruction, watch souls judged, and recast biblical lives as records of revelation.
Eighteen psalms attributed to Solomon
מזמורי שלמה
Eighteen Greek-transmitted Jewish psalms answer invasion and corrupt rule with confession, judgment, resurrection hope, and an ideal Davidic king.
The Wisdom attributed to Solomon
חכמת שלמה
Wisdom stands beside creation and enters holy souls; the book explores immortality, judgment, idolatry, exodus, and the ordered intelligibility of the cosmos.
The life of the first parents after Eden
חיי אדם וחוה
Adam and Eve recount expulsion, penitence, illness, the failed search for Tree-of-Life oil, Satan’s refusal, Adam’s death, and angelic burial.
Moses’ final revelation and departure
צוואת משה · עליית משה
Moses privately gives Joshua a history of Israel’s corruption, persecution, heavenly judgment, and restoration; the surviving Latin breaks off before the promised departure.
The story of Joseph’s marriage to Aseneth
יוסף ואסנת
An Egyptian priest’s daughter rejects idols, receives a luminous angelic visitor and a living honeycomb, and enters a transformed identity before marrying Joseph.
The Fourth Book of Maccabees
מקבים ד׳
A philosophical sermon retells the Maccabean martyrs to argue that devout reason can govern passion even under torture and death.
Abraham’s final journey
צוואת אברהם
Abraham resists death, tours the inhabited world with Michael, sees souls judged at heavenly gates, and finally meets Death in a changing form.
The Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch
ברוך ב׳
Baruch mourns Jerusalem, questions justice, receives visions of history and the end, and hears of heavenly records, resurrection, transformation, and a restored creation.
The Fourth Book of Ezra
עזרא ד׳
Ezra disputes suffering with the angel Uriel, sees the mourning woman become Zion, receives symbolic visions, and restores lost scripture through inspired dictation.
The Revelation to Abraham
חזון אברהם
After rejecting his father’s idols, Abraham ascends with Yahoel through fire and song to the divine throne and a panoramic vision of creation, history, and judgment.
The Greek Apocalypse of Baruch
ברוך ג׳
An angel leads Baruch through multiple heavens where he sees cosmic gates, strange beings, the sun’s chariot, angelic administration, and the fate of human deeds.
The Slavonic Book of Enoch · The Book of Secrets
ספר חנוך ב׳
Enoch passes through layered heavens, sees their inhabitants and storehouses, receives a creation account, is transformed before the divine face, and returns to teach his household.
Final teachings of Jacob’s twelve sons
צוואות שנים עשר השבטים
Each patriarch reviews his life and warns his descendants; Levi’s visions of layered heavens and priestly investiture make the collection especially important here.
Oracles spoken in the voice of the Sibyl
חזיונות הסיבילות
A Greek collection uses a pagan prophetic voice to recast empires, creation, catastrophe, judgment, and restoration from changing Jewish and Christian vantage points.
Isaiah’s death and journey through seven heavens
מות ישעיהו ועלייתו
A martyrdom tradition and a Christian ascent vision join as Isaiah rises through seven heavens, changes form, hears praise, and sees the descending Beloved.
Solomon’s account of the ring and the spirits
צוואת שלמה
Solomon receives a seal-ring, summons named spirits, questions their powers and thwarting angels, and compels them to labor on the Temple.
Second–eleventh centuries
Ethical instruction, angelic books, adjurations, and the Talmudic Solomon cycle develop beside the visionary literature.
Chapters of the Fathers
פרקי אבות
A chain of teachers passes concise teachings on judgment, discipline, study, speech, work, freedom, and the inner posture required to receive Torah.
The Book of Mysteries
ספר הרזים
Seven firmaments are populated by named angelic companies and linked to timed rites for knowledge, protection, healing, coercion, and celestial address.
The Talmudic tale of Solomon and Ashmedai
אשמדאי · גיטין סח
Solomon seeks the shamir for the Temple, captures Ashmedai, questions him, loses his throne, and returns after learning how unstable commanded power can be.
The Sword of Moses
חרבא דמשה
Moses receives a long chain of names from angelic princes; the text then applies that ‘sword’ through tightly specified adjurations and operations.
Fourth–tenth centuries
The complete Merkabah branch: vision, divine measure, ascent, seals, guardians, hymns, cosmology, and the ordered service around the Throne of Glory.
The Visions of Ezekiel
ראויות יחזקאל
Ezekiel’s chariot becomes a guided disclosure of seven heavens, four living creatures, the throne, and the celestial order surrounding divine glory.
The Measure of the Stature
שיעור קומה
Secret names and impossible measurements map the enthroned divine form from feet to crown, turning bodily scale into a language of transcendence.
Third Enoch · The Book of Palaces
ספר היכלות
Rabbi Ishmael ascends through the palaces, meets Metatron, and hears how Enoch became the celestial prince who serves beside the throne.
The Greater Palaces
היכלות רבתי
A manual and hymn-cycle of descent to the chariot: palace gates, guardian angels, seals, purification, ordeal, and praise before the throne.
The Lesser Palaces
היכלות זוטרתי
Compact ascent traditions center on Rabbi Akiva, divine names, seals, and the dangerous passage through the heavenly palaces.
The Work of the Chariot
מעשה מרכבה
A collection of throne hymns and ritual instructions for the practitioner who seeks entrance to the chariot liturgy.
The Greater Order of Creation
סדר רבה דבראשית
A distinct cosmological treatise orders heavens and earth, their chambers, prayers, angels, punishments, and mirrored structures.
The Great Chariot
מרכבה רבה
Teachings on the Prince of the Presence, the celestial Youth, divine names, seals, and mysteries surrounding Solomon’s throne.
The Laws of the Throne
הלכות הכסא
A map of the Throne of Glory: its creation, dimensions, rivers, curtains, attendants, voices, and relation to earthly prayer.
An untitled commentary on the Chariot
פירוש אנונימי על כיסא הכבוד
An independent text preserved beneath Halakhot ha-Kisse explains Metatron, the throne’s supports, angelic names, and the architecture of the chariot.
The Tractate of the Palaces
מסכת היכלות
Twelve sections unfold throne cosmology, palace teaching, angelic princes, hymns, and an exchange between Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiva.
Eighth–thirteenth centuries
Alphabet midrash, creation cosmology, and the German Pietists connect sacred letters, angelic names, prayer, ethics, and the hidden order of the world.
The Letters of Rabbi Akiva
אותיות דרבי עקיבא
The Hebrew letters appear as speaking powers before creation, each revealing its shape, name, number, scriptural force, and claim to begin the world.
The Midrash of Establishing
מדרש כונן
A compact cosmology describes creation, heavenly storehouses, Eden and Gehenna, primordial materials, angelic orders, and the world’s hidden measurements.
The External Teaching on the Work of Creation
ברייתא דמעשה בראשית
A distinct teaching arranges the acts and hidden structures of creation through scriptural exposition, measures, heavens, and named powers.
This Is the Work of Creation
זה מעשה בראשית
A third independent work in the creation cluster follows the architecture of the cosmos, its inhabitants, and the acts by which it was established.
Secrets of Secrets
סודי רזיא
A vast esoteric compilation binds divine and angelic names, creation, cosmology, prayer, ritual, repentance, and inherited secret traditions.
The Book of the Pietists
ספר חסידים
Hundreds of cases turn fear, repentance, prayer, dreams, spirits, household conduct, suffering, and unusual events into a demanding discipline of daily holiness.
Third–twelfth centuries
The Book of Creation establishes letters and sefirot; centuries later the Book of Illumination opens the symbolic world of the Tree and divine emanation.
First Kabbalistic foundation
The Book of Creation
ספר יצירה
Creation unfolds through thirty-two paths: ten sefirot and twenty-two letters arranged across number, sound, direction, time, and the human body.
Second Kabbalistic foundation
The Book of Illumination
ספר הבהיר
Two hundred compact teachings use parable and scriptural wordplay to explore divine light, the sefirot, the Tree, letters, souls, and channels of blessing.
c. 1200–1260
The first named Kabbalists and the anonymous Iyyun circle form distinct accounts of emanation, contemplation, and divine unity.
Commentary on the Book of Creation
פירוש ספר יצירה
A fragmentary commentary turns Yetzirah’s sefirot and letters into a language of emanation, contemplation, and return to the hidden source.
Explanation of the Ten Sefirot
ביאור עשר ספירות
A concise dialogue explains the Infinite, the ten sefirot, emanation, unity, and how the finite proceeds from the boundless.
The Book of Contemplation
ספר העיון
An anonymous meditation on hidden unity, primordial powers, colors, light, and the ordered unfolding of the divine world.
The Fountain of Wisdom
מעין החכמה
A linguistic-theological treatise follows wisdom from its concealed source through letters, speech, circles, and the powers of emanation.
The Tractate of Emanation
מסכת אצילות
A compact account of ten powers, angelic ranks, and the passage from divine unity into the created worlds.
c. 1260–early fourteenth century
Sefirotic symbolism, ecstatic letter practice, the Other Side, cosmic cycles, and the Zoharic imagination develop beside one another.
By Way of Truth
על דרך האמת
Passages marked ‘by way of truth’ weave creation, divine names, sefirot, commandments, and scripture’s hidden sense into a public Torah commentary.
The Treatise on Left-Side Emanation
מאמר על האצילות השמאלית
Isaac ha-Kohen maps Samael, Lilith, and the ordered powers of the left as a structured demonic counterpart to holy emanation.
The Seven Palaces of Impurity
שבעה היכלות הטומאה
A companion map of seven impure palaces, their rulers, names, and descending hierarchy.
The Book of the Image
ספר התמונה
The shapes of Hebrew letters open onto cosmic sabbatical cycles, the divine name, and successive orders of creation.
The Garden of the Nut
גנת אגוז
Joseph Gikatilla links letters, vowels, numbers, and divine names into a single account of creation and revelation.
Life of the World to Come
חיי העולם הבא
Abraham Abulafia gives a practical discipline of letter permutation, breath, vocalization, and head movement aimed at prophetic consciousness.
The Light of the Intellect
אור השכל
Abulafia teaches prophetic Kabbalah through letter combinations, divine names, disciplined imagination, and the union of intellect with its source.
The Book of Splendor
ספר הזוהר
An Aramaic library of journeys, homilies, and symbolic readings in which the sefirot, Shekhinah, souls, exile, and union form a living divine drama.
The Gates of Light
שערי אורה
Ten gates lead through divine names and their sefirot, showing how prayer and scripture move blessing through the whole system.
Words of Beauty
אמרי שפר
Abulafia’s final known work gives a dense theoretical account of prophecy, intellect, language, and the divine names.
The Order of Divinity
מערכת האלהות
An anonymous handbook organizes divine unity, the sefirot, emanation, commandments, prayer, and the relation between upper and lower worlds.
The Book of Raziel the Angel
ספר רזיאל המלאך
A layered anthology joins creation lore, celestial divisions, divine and angelic names, seals, astrology, sacred alphabets, and ritual timing.
The Rectifications of the Zohar
תיקוני הזוהר
Seventy interwoven readings of בראשית unfold letters, sefirot, Shekhinah, exile, prayer, and repair from a single opening word.
Late fourteenth–early sixteenth centuries
Large pseudonymous works recast commandments and Genesis, while an exiled Spanish commentator carries the medieval system into print culture.
The Book of the Reed
ספר הקנה
A pseudonymous dialogue reads commandments through divine names, sefirot, cosmic structure, and sharp criticism of ordinary religious life.
The Book of Wonder
ספר הפליאה
A vast commentary on Genesis joins creation, letters, commandments, cosmology, and Kabbalistic polemic in the voice of the Qanah–Peliah circle.
The Offering of Judah
מנחת יהודה
Judah Hayyat’s commentary expands Ma’arekhet into an independent synthesis of Zoharic Kabbalah, written amid the upheaval of the Spanish expulsion.
1548–1603
Cordovero orders the inherited literature; Luria and Vital reorganize creation, rupture, repair, and reincarnation; dispersed Zoharic texts enter a new collection.
The Orchard of Pomegranates
פרדס רמונים
Moses Cordovero compares earlier schools and organizes sefirot, names, colors, channels, souls, angels, and emanation into one comprehensive system.
The Palm Tree of Deborah
תומר דבורה
The ten sefirot and thirteen attributes become an ethics of conduct: the reader is asked to embody mercy in ordinary life.
Inquiries Concerning Angels
דרישות בענייני המלאכים
Forty-nine inquiries classify angels by rank, substance, task, movement, speech, and relation to human beings.
The Tree of Life
עץ חיים
Hayyim Vital’s foundational presentation of Lurianic cosmology: contraction, primordial humanity, vessels, shattering, configurations, worlds, and repair.
The Gate of Reincarnations
שער הגלגולים
A sustained map of soul-roots, reincarnation, impregnation, repair, inherited tasks, and the paths by which souls return.
The New Zohar · The New Splendor
זוהר חדש
A separately assembled collection preserves Zoharic material on Genesis, Exodus, Ruth, Song of Songs, and Lamentations absent from the first printed body.
1730s–1796
Later authors recast inherited systems as ordered propositions, defended tradition, and a daily discipline of consciousness and conduct.
The 138 Openings of Wisdom
קל״ח פתחי חכמה
Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto states 138 propositions that recast Lurianic Kabbalah as a precise account of divine governance, rupture, repair, and final purpose.
The Guardian of the Faith
שומר אמונים
A dialogue between skeptic and Kabbalist explains the tradition and argues that divine contraction must not be read as a literal withdrawal.
It Was Taught · Collected Sayings
תניא · ליקוטי אמרים
Five connected parts turn Lurianic metaphysics into a practical psychology of two souls, thought, feeling, action, return, and the discipline of the beinoni.
Late antiquity–thirteenth century
Three later Christian works preserve major afterlives of Adam, Seth, Noah, relics, angels, and sacred history. Their relation to Jewish traditions is visible without changing their identity.
The Syriac Cave of Treasures
מערת האוצרות
A continuous history from creation onward follows Adamic relics, Seth’s line, Noah, the patriarchs, kings, and the transmission of sacred objects toward Christian fulfillment.
The First and Second Books of Adam and Eve
מאבק אדם וחוה בשטן
Adam and Eve repeatedly confront Satan outside Eden through grief, temptation, rescue, repentance, and visions of a future salvation history.
The Syriac Book of Collected Knowledge
ספר הדבורה
A compact encyclopedia gathers creation, angels, patriarchs, kings, prophets, Christian history, death, resurrection, and the end of the world.
Thirteenth–eighteenth centuries
The medieval and early modern works transmitted under Solomon’s name form several related—but distinct—ritual and manuscript traditions.
The Notory Art · Golden Flowers
ארס נוטוריה · פרחים זהובים
Latin prayers and complex figures promise divinely assisted memory, eloquence, and knowledge; the work existed independently before later copies placed it inside the Lemegeton.
The Magical Treatise of Solomon
היגרומנטיה
A Greek Solomonic tradition arranges planetary timing, prayers, implements, circles, spirits, and operations; its manuscript family helped shape later Key traditions.
The Key of Solomon
מפתח שלמה
A Hebrew manuscript handbook gathers seals, angelic and spirit names, planetary hours, ritual preparations, prayers, and an Almadel section.
The Little or Lesser Key of Solomon
למגטון · מפתח שלמה
A composite ritual book joins the Goetia, Theurgia-Goetia, Ars Paulina, Almadel, and a late Ars Notoria reception into one Lesser Key tradition.
The Key or Greater Key of Solomon
מפתח שלמה
A distinct ritual handbook organizes prayers, purity, timing, tools, circles, pentacles, and operations; it is the Greater Key, not the Lemegeton.
The line of transmission
The dates follow the strongest ranges current scholarship can support. A card may date a work's composition, the formation of a layered collection, its earliest surviving manuscript, or a decisive print edition. The qualifier beneath each date tells you which.
Research behind the tree
The numbered markers on every card lead here. Together these studies and institutional catalogues establish the dates, textual families, manuscript witnesses, and corpus boundaries.