Agrippa's occult philosophy

1. Introduction

Version followed: Agrippa's final printed text, De occulta philosophia libri tres (Cologne: Johannes Soter, 1533), as edited critically by Vittoria Perrone Compagni (Leiden and Cologne: Brill, 1992) and summarised in her Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry (first published 2017, revised 2025). The 1510 manuscript version is described only where historians contrast it with the 1533 text. English readers mostly meet the work through James Freake's 1651 translation (the basis of Donald Tyson's annotated edition) or Eric Purdue's 2021 translation from the Compagni Latin text. [source: Perrone Compagni, SEP; Paralibrum review of Purdue]

What it is. This is a historical current, not a therapy. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535/36) was a Cologne-born humanist, physician, lawyer and court official. His Three Books of Occult Philosophy is the best-known Renaissance synthesis of natural magic, astrology, number symbolism and Christian Kabbalah. He sent a first draft to the abbot Johannes Trithemius in 1510. An enlarged Book I appeared in Antwerp in 1531. The full work was printed in Cologne in 1533, after a Dominican inquisitor had the printing halted and the Archbishop-Elector Hermann von Wied intervened. [source: Perrone Compagni, SEP]

Core idea, as historians describe it. Agrippa pictures the cosmos as three linked worlds: the elemental, the celestial and the intellectual, with an archetypal (divine) level above them in the final text. A world-spirit (spiritus mundi) carries life through every level, so things are bound together by sympathy and correspondence. The magus works with these links and climbs back through them toward unity with God. The aim of this ascent is purification and "dignification" of the soul, grounded in piety and faith. Perrone Compagni reads the occult work and Agrippa's sceptical De vanitate (1530) as two halves of one reform project: De vanitate tears down the existing sciences, and the occult philosophy rebuilds knowledge on a religious basis. Christopher Lehrich (The Language of Demons and Angels, Brill 2003) likewise treats the occult philosophy as a coherent part of Agrippa's thought, against older views of him as a dilettante. [source: Perrone Compagni, SEP; Lehrich record, philportal]

Why it matters clinically. Clients do not come to therapy "doing Agrippa". They meet him through modern editions sold as working manuals, through ceremonial-magic and Hermetic revival groups that trace their syntheses back to Renaissance authors, and through online text archives. A client may read Agrippa as a historical or philosophical text, as a spiritual path, or as a set of operations to perform. The psychotherapist works with what this reading means in the client's life. The therapist does not teach, endorse, or perform any of the operations. [synthesis]

2. Framework

2a. The historical structure of the work (as scholars describe it)

The three books, in outline (no operations reproduced):

• Book I: natural (elemental) magic. It covers the manifest and "occult" (hidden) virtues of stones, plants, animals and human beings. These hidden powers are explained by correspondence with higher causes and work through the attraction of the world-spirit. The 1533 version adds a metaphysical frame and alchemical chapters on the elements, with earth as the receptacle of celestial influence. [source: Perrone Compagni, SEP]
• Book II: celestial (mathematical) magic. It opens with the image of the magus as a go-between who brings the sublunary world under the stars. Its chapters on number symbolism trace each number through the archetypal, intellectual, celestial, human and infernal levels. Its astrological material, including astrological images thought to draw down celestial virtue, was expanded for 1533. There astrology is called a key to all secrets and is presented as acceptable when it is not used deterministically. This guide does not reproduce the book's tables, figures, characters, seals or names. [source: Perrone Compagni, SEP]
• Book III: ceremonial (religious) magic. Religion is presented as what keeps magic free of superstition and demonic deception. The book sets out the Hermetic ideal of the perfect philosopher-magus-priest. The 1533 text draws heavily on Latin Kabbalistic sources and the Zohar (via Giorgio), covering the Sefirot, divine names, and the orders of angels and demons. It gives a fuller account of the human being as microcosm and of a three-part soul (mind, reason, sensitive soul). It also names three conditions for the magus's "dignification": natural dignity, merit (passions mastered and reason ruled by mind) and godliness (pious religious practice). Faith is called the "foundation of reason". This guide gives no divine or angelic names, invocations or ritual steps. [source: Perrone Compagni, SEP]

Reception, in brief. Esoteric writers and inquisitorial handbooks both quoted Agrippa. The Louvain theologians and the Sorbonne condemned De vanitate. Thomas Vaughan in the seventeenth century read Agrippa closely. [source: Perrone Compagni, SEP] Francis Barrett's The Magus (1801) is reported to draw most of its material from the Three Books and the Heptameron [uncertain: secondary, unverified]. A 2000 thesis traces a line of Kabbalistic magical synthesis from Pico, Reuchlin and Agrippa to S. L. MacGregor Mathers, co-founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. [source: Butler 2000, MUN abstract]

What is practised today, by whom, and how it reaches clients.

• Books. Freake's translation stays in print in annotated form, including Tyson's edition, which is marketed to practising magicians as a working manual [uncertain: not verified]. Purdue's translation (Inner Traditions, 2021) is offered for study [source: Paralibrum review]. Critical scholarship includes Perrone Compagni's edition and Lehrich's study.
• Revival groups. Ceremonial-magic and Hermetic orders in the Golden Dawn lineage draw on Renaissance syntheses that include Agrippa [source: Butler 2000 abstract]. How much any present-day group uses Agrippa directly varies [uncertain: not verified].
• Online. Websites host older English texts of the Three Books and of the spurious Fourth Book, and they are widely discussed in online occult communities [uncertain: not verified]. Paid courses built around Agrippa may also exist [uncertain: not verified].

2b. The psychotherapist's framework when a client brings this material [synthesis]

No source gives session counts or a phased protocol for this situation. The phases below are a clinical structure built from the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI) and the spiritual and religious competencies literature. They are not a manualised treatment. Number of sessions: as clinically indicated; none is specified by a source.

3. Guiding principles

• Describe, don't adjudicate. Agrippa's concepts (world-spirit, occult virtues, celestial influence, angels and demons) are described as he and his readers hold them. Practical meaning: use the client's terms with a short gloss, and neither affirm nor debunk them. [source: synthesis for the stance; Perrone Compagni, SEP, for the concepts]
• Evidence status in one line. Claims that magical or astrological operations produce physical, predictive or healing effects lack support from controlled research. Practical meaning: if asked, say so plainly and briefly, then return to what the practice means to the client. [synthesis] [uncertain]
• History is an ally. Agrippa himself framed magic as subordinate to piety and printed his own critique of magic alongside it. Practical meaning: a client's spiritual or intellectual interest has a long, serious scholarly context, and you can respect it without endorsing operations. [source: Perrone Compagni, SEP]
• The therapist is not a magus, reader, initiator or teacher. Practical meaning: no readings, no ritual advice, no recommending texts or groups, and no joint practice in session. [synthesis]
• Public outline only. Practical meaning: you may discuss the purpose and structure of a practice at the level scholars describe it. You do not need, and should not seek, the client's ritual words or steps unless that is clinically essential (for example, to assess harm). [synthesis]
• Culture and spirituality are part of assessment. Practical meaning: use the CFI and its Module 5 routinely. The APA states the CFI material may be reproduced by clinicians for use with their patients. [source: CFI Supplementary Modules PDF]
• Competence in spiritual and religious diversity. Practical meaning: work within the 16 attitudes, knowledge and skills competencies proposed by Vieten et al. (2013), and seek consultation for unfamiliar traditions. [source: Vieten et al. 2013 via IONS]
• Belief is not pathology; impairment and distress are what you assess. Practical meaning: assess form, context, function, distress, insight and the norms of the client's community, not the content of the belief alone. [synthesis]
• Name the problem type accurately. Practical meaning: where distress centres on spiritual or religious questions without a disorder, ICD-10-CM Z65.8 includes "Religious or spiritual problem". DSM-5-TR wording for this category is [uncertain: not verified]. [source: Unbound Medicine ICD-10-CM]
• Autonomy and informed consent. Practical meaning: the client decides whether to practise. Your role is to help them weigh effects on their health, relationships and money. [synthesis]
• Keep dual roles separate. Practical meaning: a therapist who practises ceremonial magic or astrology privately keeps that out of the therapy. Self-disclosure is rare, brief and only for the client's benefit. [synthesis; check against your own ethics code, e.g. the APA Ethics Code, https://www.apa.org/ethics/code]

4. Intervention inventory

4a. The historical practices: public outline only

These are the kinds of operation Agrippa's books discuss, described only by purpose, structure and context as historians give them. No steps, words, names, characters, seals, number squares or timings are given, and the therapist does not teach them. [source: Perrone Compagni, SEP; outline only]

• Natural magic (Book I). Purpose: to use the hidden sympathies between natural things and higher causes. Structure: knowing the correspondences of stones, plants, animals and the elements, so that the world-spirit is drawn toward a desired effect. Context: Ficino's natural magic and medieval natural philosophy (Albertus Magnus, Pliny).
• Celestial magic (Book II). Purpose: to draw celestial virtues through number, harmony and astrological images. Structure: choosing astrologically suitable conditions, and number symbolism tied to the levels of the cosmos. Context: Renaissance astrology, which Agrippa's final text treats as non-deterministic.
• Ceremonial or religious magic (Book III). Purpose: the soul's purification and ascent toward the divine, with protection from demonic deception through religion. Structure: the magus's "dignification" through natural endowment, moral self-mastery and pious practice, framed by Christian Kabbalah, the doctrine of divine names and the hierarchy of angels and demons. Context: Pico, Reuchlin, Giorgio and the Zohar in Latin mediation.
• The spurious Fourth Book. An operative text circulated under Agrippa's name and rejected as spurious by his pupil Johann Weyer [source: Museum of Witchcraft and Magic record]. Modern readers who say they are "working from Agrippa" may in fact mean this text or later grimoire compilations. Explore which text, without asking for its content. [synthesis]

Who teaches these today: annotated popular editions, Hermetic and ceremonial-magic orders in the Golden Dawn lineage, and online communities (see section 2a). Refer clients who want instruction to their own community. The therapist is not the teacher. [synthesis]

4b. The psychotherapist's interventions

All items below are [synthesis] unless a source is named. They draw on the CFI, Vieten et al. (2013) and general clinical practice. None is a technique Agrippa or his editors describe.

1. Client-led exploration of meaning

• Purpose / when: In early sessions, whenever a client mentions Agrippa, "occult philosophy", Hermeticism or ceremonial magic. The aim is to find out what the interest does in the client's life.
• Steps:
  1. Ask permission to talk about it, and say clearly that you are not going to judge it.
  2. Ask how they came to it (a book, a group, online, a family member) and how long ago.
  3. Ask what kind of engagement it is: reading and study, contemplative or devotional practice, ritual performance, group membership, or teaching others.
  4. Ask what it gives them (meaning, beauty, a sense of order, belonging, control, hope) and what it costs (time, money, sleep, relationships, fear).
  5. Reflect the meaning back in their own vocabulary, with a short gloss, and check you have it right.
  6. Ask how they would like it handled in therapy: left alone, explored, or treated as part of the problem.
• Example language (illustrative): "You mentioned Agrippa's Three Books. I'm not here to judge it or teach it. I'd like to understand what it means to you. Is it more something you study, something you practise, or both?" / "When you say the work gives you a sense of the world being connected, what does that feel like day to day?"
• Watch for: Defensiveness or expecting to be mocked. Name your neutrality again. Watch, too, for the client wanting you to share or validate the worldview: keep a warm, curious stance without endorsing anything. It is working when the client speaks freely and in detail, and when the meaning can be linked to goals.

2. Cultural Formulation Interview with Module 5

• Purpose / when: At intake or once esoteric involvement appears significant. The aim is to understand the cultural and spiritual context before you form a clinical judgement. [source: CFI Supplementary Modules PDF]
• Steps:
  1. Use the CFI core interview to cover the client's definition of the problem, their cultural explanations, stressors and supports, cultural identity, coping and help-seeking.
  2. Add Supplementary Module 5 (Spirituality, Religion and Moral Traditions; 16 questions). Its domains are: spiritual or religious identity and affiliation, including multiple traditions and family background; the role of these traditions in daily, family and community life; how they help the client cope (leaders, texts, practices); and stresses or conflicts linked to them. [source: CFI Supplementary Modules PDF]
  3. Where wider identity matters, use Module 6 (Cultural Identity), which has a shorter spirituality section. [source: CFI Supplementary Modules PDF]
  4. Record the findings in the cultural formulation, in the client's terms.
• Example language (illustrative): "Some people find their spiritual practice helps with stress, and for others it adds to it. Where does your work with these texts fit for you right now?" / "Is there a group, teacher or community connected to this, and what is your relationship with them like?"
• Watch for: Secrecy obligations. Some orders ask members not to disclose material. Reassure the client that you only need the broad outline, not the content. It is working when you can say how the practice helps and how it strains the client, and the client agrees with your summary.

3. Differential assessment without pathologising belief

• Purpose / when: When there are unusual experiences (presences, voices, visions, a sense of influence or of special mission), changes in sleep or energy, intrusive fears of demonic harm, or a sharp drop in functioning.
• Steps:
  1. Separate the content of belief (normative within ceremonial-magic circles) from its form and consequences: fixity, distress, loss of functioning, and whether peers in the same tradition see it as unusual.
  2. Screen for psychosis: thought disorder, experiences of passivity or control, perceptual disturbance outside the practice context, and a loss of insight.
  3. Screen for mania or hypomania: reduced need for sleep, grandiosity beyond the tradition's ideals (for example, believing oneself uniquely chosen), pressured activity, overspending.
  4. Screen for dissociation, depersonalisation and derealisation, especially after intensive or prolonged ritual or visualisation practice.
  5. Screen for OCD and scrupulosity: compulsive rituals of protection or purification, fear of having made a ritual "error", reassurance-seeking.
  6. Screen for grief: practice aimed at contact with a dead person.
  7. Use collateral information, with consent, including a respected member of the client's own tradition if the client wishes.
  8. If no disorder is present but distress centres on spiritual questions, consider ICD-10-CM Z65.8, which includes "Religious or spiritual problem". [source: Unbound Medicine ICD-10-CM]
• Example language (illustrative): "Within your tradition, how would a more experienced practitioner see what's been happening to you?" / "Has your sleep changed since you started practising more intensively?"
• Watch for: Diagnostic overshadowing in either direction: calling belief psychosis, or calling psychosis spirituality. Urgent signs are command hallucinations, risk to self or others, severe sleep loss or a manic picture. Route these to urgent psychiatric assessment. It is working when you can state your differential and the evidence for it, in language the client can accept.

4. Adverse-effects check-in

• Purpose / when: At regular intervals for any client actively practising ritual or contemplative operations.
• Steps:
  1. Ask directly about fear, nightmares, sleep disruption, feelings of unreality, intrusive images, and a sense of being watched or attacked.
  2. Ask about the intensity and frequency of practice and any recent escalation, without asking for ritual content.
  3. Ask about isolation and secrecy from family and friends.
  4. Agree a personal threshold: what signs would tell the client to pause or reduce the practice and to talk to you.
  5. Plan grounding and sleep protection with standard methods (sleep hygiene, routine, social contact).
• Example language (illustrative): "I'm not going to ask for the details of what you do. I'd like to know how it's leaving you afterwards: steadier, or more on edge?" / "What would be your own signal that it's time to step back for a while?"
• Watch for: Practice that escalates when the client is distressed, which may be a sign of avoidance or compulsion. Note that the meditation adverse-effects literature (Lindahl et al. 2017, PLOS ONE; Farias et al. 2020, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica) is a nearby, not identical, evidence base [synthesis]. It is working when the client notices early warning signs and adjusts their practice on their own.

5. Historical-context conversation (only on the client's request)

• Purpose / when: When a client asks what scholars think of Agrippa, or treats a modern edition as an unbroken secret tradition and that belief is feeding distress (for example, fear of having broken an "ancient law").
• Steps:
  1. Ask first whether the client wants a historian's view. Never offer it as a way to debunk.
  2. Share brief, sourced facts. Agrippa revised the work between 1510 and 1533 and drew on named Renaissance and Kabbalistic sources. He printed his own critique of magic with the 1533 edition. He framed magic as subordinate to piety and faith. The Fourth Book was rejected as spurious by his pupil. [source: Perrone Compagni, SEP; Museum record]
  3. Point to scholarly reading if they want it (Perrone Compagni's edition and SEP entry; Lehrich 2003). Do not recommend operative manuals.
  4. Ask what difference, if any, this makes to them.
• Example language (illustrative): "Historians see the book as something Agrippa revised and argued with over twenty years, not a fixed rulebook. Does knowing that change anything for you, or not really?"
• Watch for: Shame, or a sense that you are taking something away from them. Stop and repair (section 5). It is working when the client's rigidity eases, while their respect for the tradition stays.

6. Dependency and financial-exploitation screen

• Purpose / when: When a client pays a teacher, order or online provider, or relies on operations or consultations to make decisions.
• Steps:
  1. Ask about money and time spent each month, any escalating fees, payment for "higher" teachings, and debts.
  2. Ask whether decisions about relationships, health, work or money depend on ritual or astrological timing or on a teacher's approval.
  3. Ask about pressure: urgency, fear-based selling (for example, protection that must be bought), and isolation from critics.
  4. Look together at the pattern on paper, and let the client draw the conclusions.
  5. Where appropriate, give information about consumer protection or legal advice routes. [synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "Can we jot down roughly what this has cost you this year, in money and time, so you can see it laid out?" / "If you had to make that decision without checking the timing first, what would happen?"
• Watch for: Reassurance-seeking loops and decision paralysis. Watch for a teacher who discourages therapy. It is working when the client makes some decisions on their own judgement and spending is under their control.

7. Scrupulosity, magical thinking and OCD

• Purpose / when: When the client fears catastrophe from ritual "errors", performs protective or purifying acts compulsively, or seeks repeated reassurance about spiritual safety.
• Steps:
  1. Assess OCD with standard tools, and separate the client's sincere practice from compulsions done to neutralise anxiety.
  2. Explain the OCD cycle in neutral terms that do not attack the belief system.
  3. Offer or refer for exposure and response prevention (ERP) with a clinician trained in religious scrupulosity. Plan exposures collaboratively, with consent, contraindication checks and a graded pace. Never design exposures that require the client to break their sincere commitments. [synthesis; uncertain: IOCDF guidance not verified]
  4. If the client wishes, involve a trusted member of their tradition to help tell sincere practice apart from compulsion.
• Example language (illustrative): "It sounds like the ritual has stopped feeling like practice and started feeling like something you must do, or else. Shall we look at that pattern together?"
• Watch for: Subtle reassurance-seeking directed at you. Notice escalation of protective acts between sessions. It is working when the urges are less frequent and the client's chosen practice feels voluntary again.

8. Group, teacher and coercive-control assessment; leaving

• Purpose / when: When the client belongs to an order, coven, lodge or online group.
• Steps:
  1. Map the structure: grades, fees, teacher authority, secrecy, and rules about outside relationships.
  2. Ask about freedom to question, take breaks or leave, and what happens to people who do.
  3. Ask about boundary crossings by teachers: sexual, financial or psychological. Respond under your safeguarding and reporting duties.
  4. If the client is leaving, support grief for the community and the loss of meaning, and help rebuild a social network. Watch for religious trauma symptoms.
  5. Support family members who are worried by focusing on keeping the relationship, not on confrontation.
• Example language (illustrative): "If you decided to take six months off from the group, what do you imagine would happen?"
• Watch for: Fear of reprisal or spiritual threat for leaving. Unchecked secrecy around exploitation. It is working when the client can describe their involvement as a choice and has supports outside the group. (No present-day Agrippa-based group is named here as a source of harm; documented harm specific to this current is not established.) [uncertain]

9. Role boundaries: requests, self-disclosure and the therapist's own practice

• Purpose / when: When a client asks you to do a reading, choose an astrologically timed date, bless or "protect" them, or join a practice, or asks whether you practise.
• Steps:
  1. Decline warmly and explain why: your role is to help with their life and wellbeing, not to act within the tradition.
  2. Explore what the request is about (wanting certainty, fear, wanting connection).
  3. If you have your own esoteric practice, keep it outside therapy. Disclose only rarely and briefly, only if it benefits the client, and seek supervision.
  4. Check your competence against the attitudes, knowledge and skills competencies, and consult where needed. [source: Vieten et al. 2013]
• Example language (illustrative): "I'm not going to do a reading or ritual with you. That isn't my role here, and it could blur what we're doing together. Can we look at what you're hoping it would settle?"
• Watch for: Feeling flattered by being treated as a fellow initiate. Watch for any pull toward a dual relationship. It is working when the request turns into a conversation about the underlying need.

10. Community involvement and referral

• Purpose / when: When the client wants input from their tradition, or the presenting problem needs other services.
• Steps:
  1. Ask whether there is someone in their tradition (a teacher, elder, or religious adviser for a client who is also Christian, Jewish or of another faith) whose input they would value. With written consent, consider involving them.
  2. Refer to psychiatry for suspected psychosis, mania or severe sleep loss, and for any medication question. Never advise starting, stopping or changing medicines.
  3. Refer to an ERP specialist for OCD and scrupulosity. Refer to trauma services for religious trauma or abuse, and to legal or consumer advice for exploitation.
  4. Children: if a minor is involved in a parent's ritual practice in a way that frightens them, replaces medical care, or isolates them, follow local safeguarding procedures and seek the child's assent and the parents' consent for any assessment.
• Example language (illustrative): "Would it help to have someone from your own tradition in a conversation about this? I can be open to that if you'd like."
• Watch for: Referral felt as rejection. Present it as an addition to your work, not a replacement. It is working when the client accepts and attends the referral and comes back to report on it.

5. Handling problems

None of the historical or scholarly sources address therapy. All guidance in this section is [synthesis].

• The client wants you to confirm the magic works, or that it doesn't. Give the evidence status in one sentence if asked. Then name your role: you are there to help with how it affects their life. Illustrative: "Research doesn't support claims of that kind of effect. What I can help with is what this has meant for you and how it's going."
• The client fears your judgement and withholds. Restate your neutrality. Say that you don't need any secret content. Ask only about effects. Be consistent over time; trust builds slowly.
• A rupture after a historical comment felt like debunking. Name it, apologise for the impact, and ask what landed badly. Go back to the client's own meaning. Offer historical context only when the client explicitly asks.
• The client is stuck in ritual-error fear. Treat the pattern as OCD and scrupulosity (intervention 7). Do not give reassurance about spiritual safety, as that keeps the cycle going. Refer for ERP.
• Overwhelm after intensive practice: unreality, fear or insomnia. Start with grounding and sleep stabilisation. Agree with the client to pause or reduce the practice while the symptoms settle; this is their decision, made with your input. Assess for psychosis or mania, and refer urgently if red flags appear (section 4, intervention 3).
• Practice used as avoidance. Notice when rituals rise during conflict or grief. Explore the function with the client, and work on the underlying problem with standard methods.
• Non-adherence to the therapy plan because operations take priority. Do not compete with the practice. Link therapy goals to values the client holds within their tradition, such as Agrippa's own emphasis on self-mastery and piety, which historians report [source: Perrone Compagni, SEP for the emphasis].
• A grandiose or messianic identity. Separate the tradition's ideals (the perfected magus) from a personal belief of unique mission that comes with sleep loss, overspending or risk. The second calls for an assessment for mania or psychosis.
• A teacher or group discourages therapy. Explore the client's own view. Avoid power struggles. Keep the door open and address any coercion or safety issue directly.
• The client is using the spurious Fourth Book or later grimoire material and reports frightening experiences. Do not ask for the content. Assess the effects and the risk, and help the client decide whether to stop, pause or seek guidance from their own community. Refer clinically as needed.
• The therapist's own reactions (fascination, fear, contempt, or a shared private interest). Take them to supervision. If personal practice is pulling you into a dual role, consider whether you can keep it separate, and refer the client on if you cannot.
• Family members are alarmed by books on demons and angels. Psychoeducation about the historical and scholarly context of the text can lower alarm. Focus on behaviour and wellbeing, not doctrine. Raise safeguarding only for concrete risk, especially to children.

Sources

Web sources:

• Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (Vittoria Perrone Compagni), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The language of demons and angels: Cornelius Agrippa's occult philosophy (Lehrich), catalogue record, philportal
• Review of Three Books of Occult Philosophy, translated by Eric Purdue, Paralibrum
• Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, Museum of Witchcraft and Magic catalogue record
• The Magus (Barrett book), Wikipedia [uncertain: secondary, unverified]
• The revival of the occult philosophy: cabalistic magic and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (Butler, MA thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2000)
• APA DSM-5 Cultural Formulation Interview Supplementary Modules (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)
• ICD-10-CM Z65.8 (Unbound Medicine): Z65.8 "Other specified problems related to psychosocial circumstances" (includes: religious or spiritual problem)
• Spiritual and religious competencies for psychologists (Vieten et al. 2013), Institute of Noetic Sciences

Books and articles cited:

• Agrippa, H. C. (1992). De occulta philosophia libri tres, ed. V. Perrone Compagni. Leiden and Cologne: Brill.
• Agrippa, H. C. (2021). Three Books of Occult Philosophy, trans. E. Purdue. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions.
• Agrippa, H. C., trans. J. Freake (1651); annotated edition by D. Tyson [uncertain: not verified].
• Lehrich, C. I. (2003). The Language of Demons and Angels: Cornelius Agrippa's Occult Philosophy. Brill's Studies in Intellectual History. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
• Vieten, C., Scammell, S., Pilato, R., Ammondson, I., Pargament, K. I., & Lukoff, D. (2013). Spiritual and religious competencies for psychologists. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 5(3), 129–144.
• Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, American Psychological Association
• Lindahl, J. R., Fisher, N. E., Cooper, D. J., Rosen, R. K., & Britton, W. B. (2017). The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists. PLOS ONE, 12(5), e0176239.
• Farias, M., Maraldi, E., Wallenkampf, K. C., & Lucchetti, G. (2020). Adverse events in meditation practices and meditation-based therapies: a systematic review. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 142(5), 374–393.