History
Witchcraft
How witchcraft has meant an accusation, a magical practice, and a modern identity, with examples from museums and trial records.
Results for “religion”
Devotional Practice
Altar
An altar is a designated place or surface used for religious devotion, ritual, offerings, sacred objects, or symbolic focus. Altars occur in many religious traditions, but their forms and meanings vary widely. In modern theistic Satanism an altar may function as a place for Prayer, Ritual, Offerings, meditation, spirit work, or the display of symbols connected with Satan and other beings.
Theology & Cosmology
Setianism
The religious philosophy associated with the Temple of Set, the Egyptian name Set, and the idea of Xeper.
History
Anton LaVey
The founder of the Church of Satan and author of The Satanic Bible and The Satanic Rituals.
Theology & Cosmology
Satan
Satan is a figure whose meaning has changed substantially across Jewish, Christian, Islamic, literary, esoteric, and modern Satanic contexts. In contemporary theistic Satanism, Satan may be understood as a real deity, spirit, adversary, initiator, or metaphysical intelligence. Those modern interpretations draw on, but are not identical with, the much older history of the word and character.
Culture & Ethics
Baphomet
Baphomet is an occult figure whose history connects the medieval trial of the Knights Templar, nineteenth-century ceremonial symbolism, twentieth-century Satanic iconography, and the modern public imagery of The Satanic Temple. The familiar goat-headed, winged, androgynous figure is not a medieval portrait of a secret Templar god. It was created in the nineteenth century by the French occultist Éliphas…
Devotional Practice
Prayer in theistic Satanism
Prayer is intentional communication addressed to a deity, spirit, sacred power, or ultimate reality. It can include praise, petition, confession, thanksgiving, lament, dedication, silence, repetition, or simple direct speech. In theistic Satanism, prayer usually means addressing Satan or another spiritually real being rather than speaking only to oneself or performing a purely symbolic exercise.
Devotional Practice
Ceremonial magic
Ceremonial magic uses formally organized ritual actions. Its historical systems combine preparation, symbols, instruments, and accounts of spiritual authority in different ways.
Theology & Cosmology
Polytheism
Polytheism involves belief in multiple deities. The existence of several gods does not by itself settle their relationships, moral authority, or the forms of devotion directed toward them.
Culture & Ethics
Myth and literal belief
A religious myth can organize meaning while also receiving literal belief. Literary form, personal interpretation, and historical evidence should be discussed as related but distinct questions.
Organizations & Traditions
Theosophical Society
A modern esoteric society with stated aims of fraternity, comparative study, and investigation of nature and human capacities.
Texts & Sources
Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Agrippa’s Renaissance synthesis of natural, celestial, and religious magic.
Demonology & Spirits
Hekate
A Greek goddess with broad early powers and later associations with crossroads, spirits, and magic.
History
Witch trials and Devil worship accusations
Witch trials produced records of accusations about harmful magic and the Devil. Those records require attention to how testimony was obtained and to the purposes of judges and writers.
Organizations & Traditions
The Satanic Temple
The Satanic Temple is a non-theistic religious organization whose public principles and activism differ from those of the Church of Satan and from theistic Satanist devotion.
History
David Myatt
The life and writings of David Myatt, covering his extremist activism, later philosophy, and disputed identification as Anton Long.
Culture & Ethics
Faust
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.
Devotional Practice
Folk magic
Protective charms, witch bottles, and everyday materials in local magical traditions, with documented British museum examples.
Theology & Cosmology
Spiritualism
A religious movement centered on mediumship and continued personal identity after death, with church teachings and spirit photography.
Culture & Ethics
Ouija board
The patented talking-board game, its pointer and commercial history, and research on ideomotor movement and implicit memory.