History
Johann Weyer
The physician and author whose Pseudomonarchia daemonum supplied an important source for later spirit catalogues.
Results for “modern religion”
History
Éliphas Lévi
A nineteenth-century French occult author associated with ceremonial symbolism and the influential image of Baphomet.
Demonology & Spirits
Watchers
The Watchers are heavenly beings whose descent, teachings, and punishment are narrated in 1 Enoch. Their literary identity must be distinguished from later religious interpretations.
Demonology & Spirits
Semjaza
Semjaza is a leading figure in the Enochic account of the Watchers’ oath and descent. His role differs from the teaching and punishment associated with Azazel.
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.
Texts & Sources
Grimorium Verum
A grimoire with a hierarchy centered on Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Astaroth, followed by spirit operations and practical recipes.
Demonology & Spirits
Hekate
A Greek goddess with broad early powers and later associations with crossroads, spirits, and magic.
Texts & Sources
Key of Solomon
The Key of Solomon is a transmitted family of magical texts concerning preparation, ritual, and ceremonial instruments. It should be distinguished from the five-part Lesser Key of Solomon.
Texts & Sources
Pseudomonarchia Daemonum
Pseudomonarchia Daemonum is a spirit catalogue associated with Johann Weyer. Its transmission helps explain similarities and differences in the later Ars Goetia.
Theistic Satanism
Luciferianism
Luciferianism describes different religious and philosophical approaches that give Lucifer a positive role. Belief, practice, and identity vary among writers and communities.
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
Isaiah 14 and the morning star
Isaiah 14 addresses the downfall of a ruler through an image of a fallen morning star. Later religious interpretations connect the passage with Lucifer and Satan.
History
Romantic Satanism
Romantic Satanism concerns literary and political readings that give Satan a positive role in opposition to tyranny or conventional authority. It should be distinguished from membership in a religious organization.
Texts & Sources
Book of Giants
The Book of Giants names a fragmentary Jewish Enochic work represented at Qumran and a related Manichaean adaptation. Its surviving witnesses concern the offspring of the Watchers, ominous dreams, Enoch, and impending judgment.
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.
Culture & Ethics
Halloween
The public holiday of 31 October, including lanterns, visiting customs, disguise, and its Celtic and Christian histories.
History
Salem witch trials
The Massachusetts prosecutions of 1692-1693, the spread of accusations, spectral evidence, and the surviving court archive.
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.
Demonology & Spirits
Gremory
A Goetic duke depicted as a woman on a camel, associated with hidden knowledge, treasure, and attraction.
Devotional Practice
Gnostic Mass
The central public liturgy of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, written by Aleister Crowley as Liber XV.