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…
Astrology has supplied language and organizing systems to Western esoteric texts. Its historical role should be distinguished from demonstrated predictive effectiveness.
Modern Pagan religious witchcraft, its Gardnerian and Alexandrian traditions, ritual practice, and relationship to Satanism.
A Goetic duke connected with the speech of animals, enchanted treasure, and reconciliation.
A Goetic king riding a pale horse, associated with desire and an elaborate ceremonial reception.
A Goetic earl depicted as a hart with a fiery tail, associated with storms and constrained answers.
A Goetic marquis with a winged wolf form, described as a fighter who hopes to return to a heavenly throne.
A Goetic marquis in bird form, associated with concealment, royal money, and unreliable answers.
A Goetic marquis portrayed with a bird's head on a wolf, associated with discord and a warning of danger.
Ethics in theistic Satanism concerns the moral principles, responsibilities, virtues, prohibitions, and methods of judgement developed by Satanists who regard Satan or related beings as real rather than purely symbolic. There is no universal Satanic ethical code. Theistic Satanism is decentralized, and its practitioners may draw on personal conscience, religious devotion, philosophical individualism,…
Hermeticism names several related traditions associated with Hermes Trismegistus. Philosophical dialogues, alchemical texts, and later occult systems require separate historical treatment.
A Goetic king riding a bear, with offices concerning hidden knowledge, treasure, and cosmology.
The religious and philosophical tradition associated with Aleister Crowley and The Book of the Law.
Western esoteric systems that adapt Kabbalistic ideas through ritual, correspondence tables, and symbolic interpretation.
Paimon is a royal spirit described in the Ars Goetia and related literature. Musical procession and the teaching of knowledge are important elements of his received image.
Fallen angels are heavenly beings portrayed as losing their place or proper condition through transgression. Enochic descent, Satan’s refusal to honor Adam, and the war in Revelation are distinct accounts that later interpretation can bring together.
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.
Iblis is the figure who refuses God’s command to bow to Adam in the Qur’an. Islamic commentary and Sufi literature explore his pride, his relationship to the jinn, his role as a tempter, and the meaning of his disobedience.
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.
The second Goetic spirit, described as an elderly rider with a crocodile and a goshawk.