Demonology & Spirits
Samael
Samael appears in Jewish interpretive literature in roles that vary between texts. His relationship with Satan, the serpent, and other figures should be described source by source.
Results for “Reading religious primary sources”
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
Life of Adam and Eve
The Life of Adam and Eve is a group of related apocryphal narratives about the first humans. Its versions expand the Eden story through accounts of repentance, the Devil’s hostility, illness, burial, and hoped-for restoration.
Texts & Sources
Temptation of Jesus
The temptation of Jesus is an encounter with Satan in the wilderness narrated by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Its differing forms connect hunger, divine sonship, scriptural argument, worldly rule, and worship.
Culture & Ethics
Halloween
The public holiday of 31 October, including lanterns, visiting customs, disguise, and its Celtic and Christian histories.
Organizations & Traditions
Temple of Set
The Temple of Set is an initiatory organization whose identity centers on Set and Xeper. Its relationship with Satanism requires attention to both historical origins and later self-description.
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…
Demonology & Spirits
Cimejes
A mounted Goetic marquis associated with grammar, rhetoric, logic, and hidden treasure.
Texts & Sources
Gospel of Judas
An early Christian revelation dialogue preserved in Coptic, known from the manuscript called Codex Tchacos.
Demonology & Spirits
Bael
Bael is a ranked spirit in early modern magical catalogues. The Goetic figure should be distinguished from the wider use of the ancient title Baal.
Texts & Sources
Revelation and the dragon
Revelation 12 identifies its dragon with the Devil and Satan. The chapter’s imagery should be read in its apocalyptic narrative before being used to interpret other passages.
Culture & Ethics
The Devil (tarot card)
The Devil is a tarot trump commonly numbered XV. Its imagery and interpretation vary between decks and writers. Waite and Papus connect it with material constraint, fatality, and occult forces, while tarot’s history begins in the world of playing cards.
Devotional Practice
Black Mass
A term for ritual inversion of Christian worship, with Huysmans's literary portrayal and a modern distinction from Satanic Mass.
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…
History
Occultism and Western esotericism
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…
Theology & Cosmology
Hermeticism
Hermeticism names several related traditions associated with Hermes Trismegistus. Philosophical dialogues, alchemical texts, and later occult systems require separate historical treatment.
Theistic Satanism
Demonolatry
Demonolatry refers to devotion to demons or daemonic beings. Modern accounts vary in theology, authority, and their relationship with historical grimoires.
Demonology & Spirits
Foras
A Goetic president associated with logic, ethics, plants, stones, longevity, and lost things.
Texts & Sources
The Book of the Law
The three-chapter revelatory text at the center of Thelema, also titled Liber AL vel Legis.
Texts & Sources
Third Enoch
The Hebrew Enochic work associated with heavenly palaces and Enoch’s transformation into Metatron.