Category
Disciplines
116 entries. Click any to see everything it connects to.
The esoteric and divinatory disciplines the Atlas covers as fields of practice: Western and Chinese astrology, the I Ching, numerology, tarot, Kabbalah, alchemy, palmistry and the rest. Each entry describes what the discipline does, where it comes from and how it relates to its neighbours. Many categories in the Atlas are attached to a discipline, which is how a system's parts are held together.
Facts
Overview
- Entries in the Atlas
- 116
- What Defines This Grouping
- Fields of esoteric and divinatory practice defined by subject matter and method rather than by confession. Astrology, alchemy, divination and the arts of correspondence were pursued in Christian, Jewish, Muslim and pagan settings alike, and belong to no one tradition. 1
Status
- Standing as a Comparative Category
- Contested: what scholarship calls Western esotericism was constituted as a field out of material earlier dismissed as rejected knowledge, and its boundaries were drawn around Europe - so they do not contain the Chinese and Indian systems this category also holds. 2
Learn More
Esoteric and Divinatory Fields of Practice
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.
Practice, Not Verdict
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.