Comte de Gabalis, the Count of Cabala, is a french work on the occult, which purports to explain the deep secrets of the universe to the reader. Widely read in france, and influential on other french writers such ad anatole france, and charles baudelaire. In recent history it's been thought of as more of a satire or send up of occult texts from the time of its publishing in the 17th century. Paschal Randolph is actually fairly well known in some of the circles I run in because of his use of sex magic in his study of the occult (I'm kind of into sex magic and the occult).