Devotional Practice
Planetary magic
Magical systems using the seven traditional planets through timing, correspondences, images, and invocations.
Results for “planetary magic”
Devotional Practice
Folk magic
Protective charms, witch bottles, and everyday materials in local magical traditions, with documented British museum examples.
Devotional Practice
Chaos magic
A modern approach to magic that treats techniques and belief systems as tools for practical experimentation.
Devotional Practice
Ceremonial magic
Ceremonial magic uses formally organized ritual actions. Its historical systems combine preparation, symbols, instruments, and accounts of spiritual authority in different ways.
Devotional Practice
Magical circle
A marked ritual space whose names, divisions, and purpose differ among magical texts and modern traditions.
History
Solomon in magical literature
Solomon’s name supplies authority to several magical and religious works. Attribution to the king must be distinguished from the date and authorship of the surviving text.
Texts & Sources
Three Books of Occult Philosophy
Agrippa’s Renaissance synthesis of natural, celestial, and religious magic.
Organizations & Traditions
Fraternitas Saturni
A German magical fraternity whose teaching gives Saturn a central symbolic and initiatory role.
Texts & Sources
Grimoires
A grimoire is a book or manuscript containing magical knowledge, ritual procedures, charms, conjurations, talismans, spirit catalogues, astrological instructions, prayers, or other techniques intended to produce supernatural or occult effects. The term is most strongly associated with European magic, but scholars use it within a much wider history of magical books and written ritual technologies.
History
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
A Renaissance author whose Three Books of Occult Philosophy became a major source for Western magical systems.
Texts & Sources
Ars Goetia
The Ars Goetia is the first section of the Lemegeton or Lesser Key of Solomon, an early modern English compilation of ceremonial magic. It is famous for a catalogue of seventy-two spirits, each described by name, rank, appearance, abilities, and a seal or character. In modern occultism the term “Goetia” is often used loosely for demon-summoning or work with these spirits, but historically the Ars Goetia…
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
Orias
A mounted Goetic marquis whose office includes the stars, planetary mansions, and social dignities.
Texts & Sources
Picatrix
Picatrix is the Latin title associated with an influential Arabic work of astral magic. Its cosmological and ritual framework differs from a catalogue of Goetic spirits.
Demonology & Spirits
Raziel
Raziel is an angel associated with the revelation of divine secrets, especially the legendary book given to Adam. His name appears in Jewish interpretive and magical literature and later Western esotericism, where Agrippa connects him with Chokmah, or Wisdom.
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.
History
Witchcraft
How witchcraft has meant an accusation, a magical practice, and a modern identity, with examples from museums and trial records.
History
Austin Osman Spare
An English artist and occult author whose treatment of desire and sigils influenced later magical practice.
Demonology & Spirits
Lilith
Lilith is a figure whose history spans ancient Near Eastern demonology, Jewish folklore, medieval protective magic, Kabbalah, literature, feminist reinterpretation, modern occultism, and contemporary Satanic or Luciferian religion. She is often introduced today as “Adam’s first wife,” but that familiar story is medieval rather than biblical. Earlier sources describe beings called lilith or lilin in…
Demonology & Spirits
Demonology
Demonology is the study, classification, and interpretation of demons and related spirits. In Western religious history it has included theological arguments about the nature and powers of demons, lists of named spirits, explanations of possession and temptation, magical techniques for summoning or constraining spirits, and folklore about dangerous supernatural beings. Modern theistic Satanists and…