Abaddon
A biblical name associated with destruction, used in Revelation for the angel of the abyss.
What links here
20 published articles link to Reading religious primary sources.
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Alchemy
Alchemy concerns historical approaches to material transformation and the interpretation of nature. Spiritual readings form part of its reception but should not replace the material history.
Book of Enoch
1 Enoch brings together accounts of heavenly beings, judgment, celestial order, and righteousness. It is a composite work rather than a single continuous biography of Enoch.
Cimejes
A mounted Goetic marquis associated with grammar, rhetoric, logic, and hidden treasure.
Corpus Hermeticum
The Corpus Hermeticum is a collection of philosophical religious dialogues concerning mind, the divine, the cosmos, and human knowledge. It should be distinguished from later works marketed as Hermetic teaching.
Ereshkigal
A Mesopotamian queen of the underworld, known through myths of descent and traditions concerning Nergal.
Foras
A Goetic president associated with logic, ethics, plants, stones, longevity, and lost things.
Gospel of Judas
An early Christian revelation dialogue preserved in Coptic, known from the manuscript called Codex Tchacos.
Iblis
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.
Life of Adam and Eve
The Life of Adam and Eve is a group of related apocryphal narratives about the first humans. Its versions expand the Eden story through accounts of repentance, the Devil’s hostility, illness, burial, and hoped-for restoration.
Myth and literal belief
A religious myth can organize meaning while also receiving literal belief. Literary form, personal interpretation, and historical evidence should be discussed as related but distinct questions.
Samael
Samael appears in Jewish interpretive literature in roles that vary between texts. His relationship with Satan, the serpent, and other figures should be described source by source.
Satan in 1 Chronicles
In 1 Chronicles 21, Satan or an adversary incites David to count Israel. Comparison with 2 Samuel 24 raises questions about divine agency, translation, and the development of the adversary figure.
Satanic Panic
The Satanic Panic refers to a wave of allegations concerning organized Satanic abuse, especially in the late twentieth century. Actual evidence of harm must be distinguished from expansive conspiracy claims.
Temptation of Jesus
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.
The Book of the Law
The three-chapter revelatory text at the center of Thelema, also titled Liber AL vel Legis.
Theosophical Society
A modern esoteric society with stated aims of fraternity, comparative study, and investigation of nature and human capacities.
Third Enoch
The Hebrew Enochic work associated with heavenly palaces and Enoch’s transformation into Metatron.
Unverified personal gnosis
Unverified personal gnosis identifies a spiritual claim or interpretation whose source is personal experience rather than established textual or communal authority.
Vual
A Goetic duke first appearing as a dromedary, associated with affection, friendship, and knowledge.