History
Witchcraft
How witchcraft has meant an accusation, a magical practice, and a modern identity, with examples from museums and trial records.
Results for “witchcraft”
Theology & Cosmology
Wicca
Modern Pagan religious witchcraft, its Gardnerian and Alexandrian traditions, ritual practice, and relationship to Satanism.
Texts & Sources
Malleus Maleficarum
The Malleus Maleficarum is a Latin treatise associated with the inquisitor Heinrich Kramer. It combined demonological argument with proposals for prosecuting alleged witches. Its allegations, treatment of women, and influence require critical historical reading.
Devotional Practice
Folk magic
Protective charms, witch bottles, and everyday materials in local magical traditions, with documented British museum examples.
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…
History
Salem witch trials
The Massachusetts prosecutions of 1692-1693, the spread of accusations, spectral evidence, and the surviving court archive.
History
Johann Weyer
The physician and author whose Pseudomonarchia daemonum supplied an important source for later spirit catalogues.
History
Witch trials and Devil worship accusations
Witch trials produced records of accusations about harmful magic and the Devil. Those records require attention to how testimony was obtained and to the purposes of judges and writers.
Culture & Ethics
Halloween
The public holiday of 31 October, including lanterns, visiting customs, disguise, and its Celtic and Christian histories.
Culture & Ethics
Samhain
The Gaelic beginning-of-winter festival, Irish customs of food and divination, and its place in modern Pagan practice.
Culture & Ethics
Satanic holidays
The different holiday calendars published by the Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple, with dates and organizational meanings.
Devotional Practice
Altar
An altar is a designated place or surface used for religious devotion, ritual, offerings, sacred objects, or symbolic focus. Altars occur in many religious traditions, but their forms and meanings vary widely. In modern theistic Satanism an altar may function as a place for Prayer, Ritual, Offerings, meditation, spirit work, or the display of symbols connected with Satan and other beings.
Theology & Cosmology
Satan
Satan is a figure whose meaning has changed substantially across Jewish, Christian, Islamic, literary, esoteric, and modern Satanic contexts. In contemporary theistic Satanism, Satan may be understood as a real deity, spirit, adversary, initiator, or metaphysical intelligence. Those modern interpretations draw on, but are not identical with, the much older history of the word and character.
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
Hekate
A Greek goddess with broad early powers and later associations with crossroads, spirits, and magic.
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.