Devotional Practice
Invocation and evocation
Invocation and evocation are terms used for related but differently framed religious or magical actions. Their definitions vary between authors and practice systems.
Results for “religious history”
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.
History
Gnosticism
A modern umbrella term for several ancient religious movements and texts concerned with saving knowledge and divine origins.
Texts & Sources
Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Agrippa’s Renaissance synthesis of natural, celestial, and religious magic.
Texts & Sources
Book of Abramelin
A grimoire built around religious preparation, the guardian angel, and subsequent work with spirits and magical squares.
History
The Devil
The Devil is the principal personification of evil in much of Christian tradition and a major source for later Western images of Satan. The term is not identical with every historical use of Satan, nor does it describe one unchanging character across the Bible, theology, folklore, literature, art, and modern religion. In contemporary speech “the Devil” often functions as a proper name for Satan, but…
Texts & Sources
Testament of Solomon
The Testament of Solomon is a pseudepigraphal religious narrative in which Solomon questions and commands spirits. It differs from later procedural Solomonic grimoires.
Devotional Practice
Divination
Divination consists of practices that interpret signs as answers, indications, or guidance. Methods differ in their religious assumptions and in the kinds of claims they make.
Theology & Cosmology
Monotheism and dualism
Monotheism and religious dualism concern different questions about ultimate reality. The presence of an adversary does not automatically establish two equal divine principles.
Texts & Sources
Satan in Zechariah
Zechariah 3 presents Satan accusing Joshua the high priest within a vision of judgment and restoration. The scene has a specific religious and literary purpose.
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.
Devotional Practice
Occult diaries and record keeping
An occult diary records religious or magical work as it occurs. Separating observations from interpretations makes reflection and comparison more reliable.
Theistic Satanism
Symbolic and theistic Satanism
Symbolic and theistic Satanism are broad labels used to distinguish Satanist traditions according to how they understand Satan’s reality. In theistic Satanism, Satan is ordinarily regarded as a real deity, spirit, intelligence, or independently existing being. In symbolic or non-theistic Satanism, Satan is understood primarily as a symbol, literary figure, archetype, cultural adversary, or name for a…
History
Michael Aquino
A founder and major author of the Temple of Set, associated with the modern Setian interpretation of Xeper.
Demonology & Spirits
Leviathan
Leviathan appears in biblical poetry and later religious symbolism. The vivid descriptions belong to different literary contexts and should be interpreted accordingly.
Texts & Sources
Serpent in Genesis
The serpent in Genesis 3 persuades the woman to eat from the tree of knowledge. The chapter does not name Satan. Later texts and interpretations connect the serpent with the Devil, adding to the history of the Eden story.
History
Witchcraft
How witchcraft has meant an accusation, a magical practice, and a modern identity, with examples from museums and trial records.
History
Salem witch trials
The Massachusetts prosecutions of 1692-1693, the spread of accusations, spectral evidence, and the surviving court archive.