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.
Results for “divination”
Culture & Ethics
Samhain
The Gaelic beginning-of-winter festival, Irish customs of food and divination, and its place in modern Pagan practice.
Demonology & Spirits
Furcas
The Goetic knight, associated with philosophy, learned arts, and forms of divination.
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.
Culture & Ethics
Tarot
Tarot developed as playing cards before becoming an influential tool of occult interpretation. The history of the cards differs from later claims about their hidden origins.
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.
Devotional Practice
Scrying
A divinatory or visionary practice involving a reflective surface, crystal, or other focus for reported images and messages.
Demonology & Spirits
Gremory
A Goetic duke depicted as a woman on a camel, associated with hidden knowledge, treasure, and attraction.
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…
Demonology & Spirits
Vassago
A Goetic prince associated with finding lost things and knowledge of past and future events.
Demonology & Spirits
Gusion
A Goetic duke associated with answers, reconciliation, and the obscure term Xenopilus.
Demonology & Spirits
Foras
A Goetic president associated with logic, ethics, plants, stones, longevity, and lost things.
Demonology & Spirits
Dantalion
A many-faced Goetic duke carrying a book, associated with thoughts, knowledge, and visions of other people.
History
Astrology in Western esotericism
Astrology has supplied language and organizing systems to Western esoteric texts. Its historical role should be distinguished from demonstrated predictive effectiveness.
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.