
Solomon in magical literature
Solomon’s name supplies authority to several magical and religious works. Attribution to the king must be distinguished from the date and authorship of the surviving text.

Solomon’s name supplies authority to several magical and religious works. Attribution to the king must be distinguished from the date and authorship of the surviving text.

Protective charms, witch bottles, and everyday materials in local magical traditions, with documented British museum examples.

A modern approach to magic that treats techniques and belief systems as tools for practical experimentation.

Magical systems using the seven traditional planets through timing, correspondences, images, and invocations.

Ceremonial magic uses formally organized ritual actions. Its historical systems combine preparation, symbols, instruments, and accounts of spiritual authority in different ways.

A marked ritual space whose names, divisions, and purpose differ among magical texts and modern traditions.

A grimoire is a book or manuscript containing magical knowledge, ritual procedures, charms, conjurations, talismans, spirit catalogues, astrological instructions, prayers, or other techniques intended to produce supernatural or occult effects. The term is most strongly associated with European magic, but scholars use it within a much wider history of magical books and written ritual technologies.

Demonology is the study, classification, and interpretation of demons and related spirits. In Western religious history it has included theological arguments about the nature and powers of demons, lists of named spirits, explanations of possession and temptation, magical techniques for summoning or constraining spirits, and folklore about dangerous supernatural beings. Modern theistic Satanists and…

The Ars Goetia is the first section of the Lemegeton or Lesser Key of Solomon, an early modern English compilation of ceremonial magic. It is famous for a catalogue of seventy-two spirits, each described by name, rank, appearance, abilities, and a seal or character. In modern occultism the term “Goetia” is often used loosely for demon-summoning or work with these spirits, but historically the Ars Goetia…

Sigils are graphic signs used in particular magical systems. Historical spirit seals, ceremonial figures, and modern personal signs should be distinguished.

The medieval Liber Juratus, a work of sacred magic concerned with divine vision, angels, and ritual authority.

Raziel is an angel associated with the revelation of divine secrets, especially the legendary book given to Adam. His name appears in Jewish interpretive and magical literature and later Western esotericism, where Agrippa connects him with Chokmah, or Wisdom.

Faust is the scholar or magician at the center of a European legend about bargaining with the Devil. The 1587 Faust book, Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, and Goethe’s Faust give the story different treatments of knowledge, desire, damnation, and human striving.

How witchcraft has meant an accusation, a magical practice, and a modern identity, with examples from museums and trial records.

A German magical fraternity whose teaching gives Saturn a central symbolic and initiatory role.

An English artist and occult author whose treatment of desire and sigils influenced later magical practice.

Lilith is a figure whose history spans ancient Near Eastern demonology, Jewish folklore, medieval protective magic, Kabbalah, literature, feminist reinterpretation, modern occultism, and contemporary Satanic or Luciferian religion. She is often introduced today as “Adam’s first wife,” but that familiar story is medieval rather than biblical. Earlier sources describe beings called lilith or lilin in…

The left-hand path is a modern esoteric category used for religious and magical currents that emphasize themes such as individual self-direction, antinomianism, self-deification, initiatory transformation, or deliberate engagement with symbols rejected by dominant religious culture. It overlaps with some forms of Satanism, Luciferianism, Setianism, and modern occultism, but the terms are not synonymous.

Occultism and Western esotericism provide an important historical and intellectual background for many forms of modern Satanism, but neither term is a synonym for Satanism. Western esotericism is an academic field encompassing currents such as Renaissance Hermetism, alchemy, astrology, Christian theosophy, Kabbalistic reception, Rosicrucianism, ceremonial magic, spiritualism, occultism, and later…

Invocation and evocation are terms used for related but differently framed religious or magical actions. Their definitions vary between authors and practice systems.