Transmutation Publishing

07/26/2026

07/26/2026

Witches Still Live by Theda Kenyon, published in 1929. A firsthand account of surviving traditions of witchcraft, folk magic, and popular superstition gathered during Kenyon's travels through Italy, Sicily, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and other regions of the Mediterranean. Seeking out village healers, charmers, sorcerers, and practitioners of traditional magic, she records contemporary beliefs surrounding the Evil Eye, protective amulets, curse magic, love charms, ritual healing, divination, magical incantations, talismans, spirit beliefs, and ceremonies intended to influence unseen forces. Rather than treating witchcraft as a relic of the past, Kenyon argues that these practices remained woven into everyday rural life, preserving ancient magical traditions beneath the outward forms of Christianity. Rich in firsthand observations of magical practitioners, vernacular occult customs, and surviving pre-Christian folk beliefs, the work remains one of the more engaging early twentieth-century studies of living European and North African folk magic. Hardcover with the original dust jacket showing light chipping and shelfwear; original owner's library stamp on the front endsheet and on one chapter heading. $350.00

01/23/2026

The Pass-Keys to Alchemy: The Lost Book of Lapidus by Lapidus (David Curwen), published in 2012. Limited edition. A remarkable modern alchemical text by one of the most enigmatic figures in twentieth-century alchemy, Lapidus, the nom de plume of British laboratory alchemist David Curwen, one of the very few known practitioners of operative alchemy in the United Kingdom during the latter half of the century. Long believed that In Pursuit of Gold was Curwen’s only alchemical work, this volume reveals a second, long-concealed manuscript that circulated privately for decades among a small circle of trusted adepts. According to the publisher, The Pass-Keys to Alchemy details a series of essential “pass-keys” to the successful confection of the Philosophers’ Stone, each chapter distilling insights drawn from a lifetime of practical laboratory experience. The work engages deeply with canonical alchemical authorities including Eirenæus Philalethes, Ali Puli, Paracelsus, Benedictus Figulus, Sir Edward Kelly, and Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens, among others. Included are an introductory essay by Tony Matthews, grandson of Lapidus, and sixteen of Theodor de Bry’s engraved emblems from Atalanta Fugiens, each accompanied by Lapidus’s commentary. A rare and serious contribution to modern alchemical literature, presenting practical, theoretical, and symbolic material of exceptional depth. Hardcover with the original dust jacket, exhibiting only the very lightest shelfwear. www.transmutationpublishing.com

01/18/2026

A Commentary on the Mutus Liber by Adam McLean, published in 1991. A detailed interpretive study of the Mutus Liber, the celebrated seventeenth-century alchemical picture book whose sequence of enigmatic engravings presents the alchemical process through image rather than text. McLean offers a careful symbolic and philosophical analysis of the plates, exploring their Hermetic, spiritual, and practical dimensions while situating the work within the broader tradition of emblematic alchemical literature. The commentary provides valuable guidance for understanding the visual language of alchemy and the inner processes of transformation it was intended to convey. Highly regarded among students and collectors of alchemical literature, this volume is an essential companion to the Mutus Liber itself. Hardcover with gilt lettering, near fine. Publisher’s prospectus laid in. www.transmutationpublishing.com

01/17/2026

Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition by Frances A. Yates, published in 1971. A landmark study that reshaped modern understanding of Renaissance philosophy, examining the life and thought of Giordano Bruno and his engagement with Hermetic, magical, and Neoplatonic traditions. Yates situates Bruno within the broader context of Renaissance Hermeticism, exploring how ancient esoteric texts, cosmology, and magical philosophy informed his radical vision of an infinite universe and the divine presence within nature. The work traces the transmission of Hermetic ideas from antiquity through the Renaissance and demonstrates their profound influence on Bruno’s metaphysics, memory systems, and cosmological speculation. Long regarded as a foundational text in Renaissance studies and the history of Western esotericism, this volume remains essential for scholars and collectors interested in Hermetic philosophy, intellectual history, and the intersections of magic, science, and religion. Hardcover, with the original dust jacket, showing light shelfwear to the corners and ends of the jacket. www.transmutationpublishing.com

01/15/2026

The Magus; or, Celestial Intelligencer by Francis Barrett, published in 1875 in London.

The book that launched modern Western magic. Barrett’s The Magus is the single most important grimoire ever printed in English, serving as the bridge between Renaissance Hermeticism and the modern occult revival. Drawing upon Agrippa, Trithemius, Paracelsus, and other early masters, it preserved a vast body of magical, astrological, cabalistic, and ceremonial knowledge at a moment when the original sources had become nearly unobtainable. From the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn to Aleister Crowley, nearly every twentieth-century magical tradition traces its lineage directly to this work.

Lavishly illustrated with engraved and hand-colored plates, including the celebrated folding chart of “The Cabala: The Tables for the Calculation of the Names of Spirits Good and Bad, under the Presidency of the Planets and Twelve Militant Signs.” Its seals, sigils, spirit hierarchies, magical alphabets, and celestial diagrams became the visual language of ritual magic for generations.
This copy is fully collated and beautifully bound in full hand-tooled calf, featuring an embossed Solomonic star drawn from the text itself, with marbled endpapers and raised spine hubs—an exceptional presentation of a legendary work.
A true cornerstone of occult history and one of the most desirable grimoires ever printed.

01/12/2026

Sadducismus Triumphatus: Or, A Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions by Joseph Glanvill. London, 1726. A landmark work in the intellectual history of the supernatural, Sadducismus Triumphatus stands as one of the most influential early modern attempts to defend the reality of witchcraft, spirits, and apparitions against the growing skepticism of the Enlightenment. www.transmutationpublishing.com