Person, Persona and Attribution

Two problems recur in this material and the atlas addresses both. First, influential esoteric writing is often pseudonymous or misattributed, credited to a prestigious ancient name; the entries separate the real author, where known, from the legendary one. Second, some figures accreted so much legend that the person is hard to see behind the persona, and the entries distinguish the documented life from the later tradition.

Some individuals are dual-modelled (a historical figure here and, in their own tradition, a founder or saint elsewhere in the atlas), and the pages are kept complementary rather than duplicated.