7th century

This category treats the esoteric and divinatory disciplines as fields in their own right: Western and Chinese astrology, the I Ching, numerology, tarot, Kabbalah, alchemy, palmistry and the rest. Unlike a religion, a discipline belongs to no single faith (astrology and alchemy were practised across Christian, Muslim, Jewish and pagan settings alike), and is defined instead by its subject matter and method.

Each entry describes what the discipline does, where it comes from, how it developed, and its relation to the neighbouring fields, giving the reader a way into the practice as a whole before meeting its individual terms elsewhere in the atlas.

The atlas describes these disciplines as historical and cultural systems, what practitioners have believed and done, without ruling on whether their claims are true. Astrology, alchemy and divination have long and serious histories, deeply entwined with the development of astronomy, chemistry and philosophy, and are treated with that history in view rather than as mere superstition or as established fact.

Because a discipline organises many of the other categories here: astrology gathers the planets, signs and houses, and alchemy the operations and stages. A discipline entry serves as a doorway into a whole cluster of related pages.