In my last post about Julius Evola's works, one of my commenters asked if I'd include a list of lesser known occult authors that people might consider looking into.
So here's a small (and not complete) list of occult authors that I personally think people should read. Note that I'm not including Crowley's work or any work derived from Crowley, as obviously they are already very well known. I want to focus on the authors people may not know about.
So the list:
Franz Bardon. He only wrote three books on magic (not counting the fictional book Frabato the magician): Initiation into Hermetics, Evocation, and The Key to the True Quaballah. I've only read the first two at this point, but I'd suggest both as excellent books that detail how hermetics work without the usual flowery language or focus on obsfucation.
Julius Evola. He wrote a number of books, some of which were political commentaries, and some of which were occult works. His political commentaries would be far right/fascist works, which I'm sure would upset some of the more activism/leftist oriented occultists I know, but might be a good read precisely because they represent a different perspective than is usually found in occult activism. The books on magic Tantra: the Yoga of Power and Introduction to Magic are useful books to read. He does an excellent job of presenting an accurate perspective of Tantra and what I've read so far in Introduction to Magic is also an excellent work. He's written other books on the occult, some of which are in print, some of which are not. I haven't read them as yet, but most of them either focus on sex magic or hermeticism, and I'm sure are worth getting. They are on my amazon wishlist.
William G. Gray is another writer who presents some excellent works on both quabalah and ceremonial Magic. One of my favorite books is Modern Ritual Methods, but Inner Traditions of Magic is also good as is his books focused on quabalah: Ladders of Light, The Talking Tree, and Quabalistic Concepts. Recently some of his books have gone back into print, so now would be a good time to pick them up.
On a side note, Gray and Evola's works are some of the few occult works I'd consider spending money at this point, in part because what they write about are advanced concepts, and also because of the thoroughness of what they write about.
Kaostar by Francis Breakspear looks to be an intriguing work...and I'd also recommend the Art of Memetics by Edward Wilson and Wes Unruh for contemporary perspectives on magic.
To get an alternate take on demonology, check out books on Demonolatry by S. Connolly and J. Thorp They provide an alternate take which is useful to read, and will provide some intriguing perspectives in that area.
Jan Fries is an intriguing author who offers up different perspectives on chaos magic, seith workings, runic workings and even a perspective on celtic. I've read several of his works and found them to be insightful.
Dale Pendell offers a trilogy called pharmakon...not overtly occult, it still is some useful works to read.
There's more authors I could refer to...many, many different authors on a variety of topics ranging from Far Eastern energy work and mysticism to alchemy, but what I mentioned here is a good start to expanding the foundation of knowledge a person has as well as getting different perspectives on occult practices.