Glossary

291 terms from across the curriculum, each linked to the lesson that teaches it.

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A

Abjad: The old order of the Arabic letters, abjad hawwaz ḥuṭṭī…, with their numbers from 1 to 1000; the Arabic counterpart of gematria. Learn more →
Abracadabra: A word of unknown origin first found in Serenus Sammonicus (3rd century), written in a dwindling triangle against fever. Learn more →
Abramelin: A 15th-century grimoire, translated by Mathers in 1898, describing a months-long operation to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Learn more →
Abraxas: A magical name found on late-antique engraved gems, often with a cockerel-headed, serpent-legged figure. Its Greek letters add up to 365, the days of the year. Learn more →
Adularescence: The soft, floating light that seems to move across moonstone as it turns. Learn more →
Aethyr: One of thirty concentric spiritual regions in the Enochian system, from TEX (outermost) to LIL (innermost), explored through vision. Learn more →
AGLA: A Hebrew word of power on medieval charms, usually explained as the initials of Atah gibor le-olam Adonai, “Thou art mighty for ever, O Lord”. Learn more →
Agrippa: Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535), author of the Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533), the great encyclopaedia of Renaissance magic. Learn more →
Aicme: One of the four groups of five letters in the Ogham alphabet (plural aicmí), named after its first letter: B, H, M and A. Learn more →
Aiwass: The being Crowley said dictated the Book of the Law to him in Cairo on 8–10 April 1904, later identified with his Holy Guardian Angel. Learn more →
Akasha: Spirit or aether, the fifth element. In the Golden Dawn Tattva system it is shown as a black or indigo egg. Learn more →
Albedo: The whitening: the second colour stage of the alchemical Great Work, a phase of purification after the nigredo. Learn more →
Alchemy: The art of transformation — of metals, medicines and the soul — practised from Roman Egypt to the 18th century and the ancestor of chemistry. Learn more →
Almanac: The yearly book of the calendar, the Moon's phases and sign, the planets, the weather and the feast days, by which farmers, physicians and magicians chose the day; Old Moore's has appeared every year since 1697. Learn more →
Amulet: An object worn or kept mainly for protection. Compare talisman, which is made to attract a particular influence. Learn more →
Ancestor work: Honouring and relating to the dead of one's family, community or tradition through remembrance, shrines and offerings. Learn more →
Angakkuq: The Inuit shaman, who journeyed to Sedna, the Sea Woman, to comb her hair and free the sea animals. Learn more →
Arbatel: The Arbatel of Magic (Basel, 1575), a gentle, pious grimoire best known for the seven Olympic spirits. Learn more →
Archangel: A high-ranking angel. In Western ritual the four most invoked are Raphael (East), Michael (South), Gabriel (West) and Uriel (North). Learn more →
Ars Notoria: A medieval Solomonic text of prayers and figures for gaining knowledge, memory and eloquence. Learn more →
Ascendant: The degree of the zodiac rising on the eastern horizon at a given moment; it begins the 1st house. The rising sign changes roughly every two hours. Learn more →
Aspect: A meaningful angle between two planets: conjunction (0°), sextile (60°), square (90°), trine (120°) or opposition (180°). Learn more →
Asperge: To sprinkle a space, object or person with (usually salted) water to purify it. Learn more →
Astragalus: A sheep's or goat's knucklebone, used in antiquity as a die and for oracles. Learn more →
Astral projection: The experience, or practice, of moving one's awareness into a subtle body and travelling outside the physical one. Learn more →
Atbash: A Hebrew letter-substitution cipher in which the first letter is exchanged for the last, the second for the second-to-last, and so on. Learn more →
Athame: The ritual knife of modern witchcraft, used to cast circles and direct energy, not to cut physical things. Learn more →
Augury: Reading the will of the gods in the flight and cries of birds, the office of the Roman augurs. Learn more →
Axis mundi: Eliade's term for the centre that joins the worlds — a tree, pole, mountain or ladder — which the shaman climbs or descends. Learn more →
Ayami: Among the Nanai of the Amur, the tutelary spirit that chose the shaman and granted the lesser helping spirits, the syven. Learn more →
Azazel: A leader of the Watchers in the Book of Enoch, who taught metalwork, weapons and cosmetics and was bound by Raphael in the desert; also the name to whom the scapegoat is sent in Leviticus 16. Learn more →

B

Baneful herbs: Poisonous plants such as belladonna, henbane, mandrake and hemlock, linked in folklore to witches. Studied for their history, never used by students. Learn more →
Banishing: A ritual to clear a space and mind of unwanted influences, usually performed at the start and end of magical work. Learn more →
Bazi: “Eight characters”: the Four Pillars of Chinese astrology, the stems and branches of the year, month, day and hour of a birth. Learn more →
Beltane: The festival of 1 May marking the start of summer, associated with fire, fertility and the fairies. Learn more →
Benefic: A planet of moderate, life-giving nature: Jupiter (the greater benefic) and Venus (the lesser benefic). Learn more →
Bibliomancy: Divination by opening a book at random, as in the Sortes Virgilianae. Learn more →
Bija: Sanskrit 'seed': a short syllable such as laṃ, vaṃ or raṃ said to hold the essence of an element or deity. In the chakra maps each of the lower five lotuses holds one in its heart, and it is sounded on the out-breath in practice. Learn more →
Binaural beats: The pulse the brain makes from two tones a few hertz apart, one in each ear, described by H. W. Dove in 1839. Sold as 'brainwave entrainment', for which the evidence is thin. Learn more →
Birthstone: A gem associated with a month of birth. The familiar modern list was adopted by American jewellers in 1912. Learn more →
Body of light: The subtle body formulated in imagination by Western magicians for vision and astral travel; compare the Neoplatonic ochēma. Learn more →
Book of Shadows: In Wicca and modern witchcraft, a practitioner's or coven's book of rituals, spells and notes. Learn more →
Brass vessel: The vessel in which, legend says, Solomon shut the 72 spirits of the Goetia before casting it into a lake near Babylon. Learn more →
Braucherei: “Powwow”: the Christian charm-healing of the Pennsylvania Germans, whose best-known book is Hohman's Long Lost Friend (1820). Learn more →
Breastplate of judgement: The high priest's breastplate in Exodus 28, set with twelve engraved stones for the tribes of Israel — the origin of birthstone lore. Learn more →
Bríatharogam: A 'word-ogham': the short poetic kenning the medieval tracts give each ogham letter, such as 'highest of trees' for the oak. Learn more →
Buduḥ: The 3×3 magic square of 1 to 9, named from the letters b-d-w-ḥ (2, 4, 6, 8) in its corners; a charm for childbirth and protection. Learn more →

C

Calcination: Burning a substance to ash, the first stage of many alchemical operations; in plant alchemy it frees the plant's salts. Learn more →
Calls (Enochian): Invocations in the angelic language received by Dee and Kelley in 1584, usually counted as nineteen. Learn more →
Capnomancy: Divination by reading smoke. Learn more →
Catoptromancy: Divination using mirrors. Learn more →
Celtic Cross: A ten-card tarot spread published by A.E. Waite in 1910 and still the most famous layout. Learn more →
Centering: Gathering scattered attention to a single point in the body before practice. Learn more →
Chakra: Sanskrit 'wheel': one of the centres of the subtle body in Indian tradition, usually six along the spine plus the crown. Learn more →
Chalcedony: Quartz made of crystals too small to see: the family of agate, carnelian, onyx, jasper, bloodstone and flint. Learn more →
Chaldean order: The traditional order of the seven planets by apparent speed: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. It generates the planetary days and hours. Learn more →
Chaos magic: A results-focused approach to magic that emerged in 1970s England, treating belief itself as a tool. Learn more →
Charaktêres: Magical signs of late antiquity, often letters with small circles at their ends ('ring-letters'). Learn more →
Charging: Fixing an intention into a sigil, talisman or object, typically during a peak of focused awareness (gnosis). Learn more →
Charm bag: A small pouch of herbs, stones and symbols assembled for a purpose and carried or placed somewhere relevant. Learn more →
Chatoyancy: A moving band of light across a polished stone, like a cat's eye — as in tiger's eye. Learn more →
Cherubim: The second of the nine choirs of angels: guardians of Eden and the Ark, pictured by Ezekiel with four faces and many eyes — not the winged infants of later art. Learn more →
Chiromancy: Palmistry: reading character in the lines and mounts of the hand; its companion chirognomy reads the hand's shape. Learn more →
Chnoubis: A lion-headed serpent engraved on late-antique gems, usually green, worn for the health of the stomach. Learn more →
Circle: A ritual boundary, drawn or visualised, that marks a space as set apart and protected for magical work. Learn more →
Combust: Said of a planet within about 8½° of the Sun: 'burned up', hidden and weakened. Learn more →
Contemplation: Quiet, receptive attention to the divine or to a symbol, as opposed to concentration on a single point or discursive thought. Learn more →
Core shamanism: Michael Harner's method (1980) of the drum journey to the lower, middle and upper worlds, presented as free of any one culture. Learn more →
Correspondence: A symbolic link between things that share a quality — a planet, metal, colour, plant and day, for example. Learn more →
Court cards: The sixteen Kings, Queens, Knights and Pages of the tarot (the Golden Dawn's Knights, Queens, Princes and Princesses), read as the elements within the elements and as people, roles or approaches. Learn more →
Coven: A small working group of witches, traditionally up to thirteen. Learn more →
Crystallomancy: Divination by gazing into a crystal or other clear stone; crystal gazing. Learn more →
Cunning folk: Professional folk magicians of Britain who healed, found lost goods, told fortunes and broke curses, until the early 20th century. Learn more →
Curandero: The traditional healer of Latin America, from Spanish curar, mixing Indigenous, Catholic and African medicine. Learn more →

D

Daimon: In Greek thought, a being between gods and humans; an intermediary, guide or guardian spirit. Not originally evil. Learn more →
Dantian: The three 'elixir fields' of Chinese internal alchemy, below the navel, at the heart and between the brows, in which the three treasures of essence (jing), breath (qi) and spirit (shen) are refined. Learn more →
Decan: One of 36 ten-degree divisions of the zodiac, each ruled by a planet. The Golden Dawn assigned them to the tarot pip cards.
Defixio: A Greek or Roman curse tablet, usually of lead, inscribed to 'bind' a rival or thief and deposited in a well, spring or grave. Learn more →
Demonology: The systematic study and classification of demons, from the Testament of Solomon to the catalogues of Weyer and Collin de Plancy. Learn more →
Dermatoglyphics: The scientific study of the skin ridges of the fingers, palms and soles, named by Harold Cummins in 1926; it can read inheritance and some medical conditions, not character. Learn more →
Dignity: A planet's strength by sign: strong in its own sign (domicile) or exaltation, weak in detriment or fall. Learn more →
Discernment of spirits: Testing whether a spirit, vision or inner prompting can be trusted — by its consistency, its effect on you and its fruits over time. Learn more →
Divination: Seeking knowledge of hidden matters or the future through signs — cards, runes, dreams, scrying and so on. Learn more →
Doctrine of signatures: The belief that a plant's shape, colour or habit reveals what it is good for — walnut for the brain, eyebright for the eyes. Learn more →
Double-blind test: A test in which neither the person tested nor the person scoring knows the right answer in advance, so that expectation cannot steer the result. Learn more →
Dowsing: Searching for hidden water, metal or objects with a rod or pendulum that seems to move by itself. Learn more →
Dream sign: Something that keeps recurring in your dreams, such as flying, a particular place or text that changes. Noticing your own signs gives you a cue to become lucid. Learn more →

E

Egregore: From the Greek for the wakeful Watchers of the Book of Enoch, by way of Lévi: a collective spirit made by a group's shared will and imagination — a lodge's, a church's, a nation's. Chaos magic took the word up in 1987. Learn more →
Elder Futhark: The oldest runic alphabet, 24 runes in three groups (aettir) of eight. Learn more →
Electional astrology: Choosing the best moment to begin something — a journey, a marriage, a ritual or a talisman — by the positions of the planets. Learn more →
Elementals: Paracelsus' beings of the four elements: gnomes of earth, undines of water, sylphs of air and salamanders of fire. Learn more →
Elements: Fire, Water, Air and Earth (plus Spirit) — the four classical building blocks of the world in Western magic. Learn more →
Elixir: In alchemy, a medicine of life and health; also used for the philosopher's stone in liquid form. Learn more →
Emerald Tablet: A brief alchemical text attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, known in Arabic by the 9th century, source of the phrase 'as above, so below'. Learn more →
Enochian: The angelic language and magical system received by John Dee and Edward Kelley between 1582 and 1589. Learn more →
Entheogen: A substance used to produce religious or mystical experience, such as the psilocybin mushrooms of Mazatec ceremony. Learn more →
Ephesian letters: Six famous protective words of the ancient world: askion, kataskion, lix, tetrax, damnameneus, aisia. Learn more →
Ergotism: Poisoning by ergot, a fungus of rye, which caused the medieval epidemics called St Anthony's fire. Learn more →
Esbat: In modern witchcraft, a ritual gathering held at the full (or new) moon, as distinct from the seasonal sabbats. Learn more →
Evil eye: Harm believed to be caused by an envious look; warded off with the nazar, the hamsa and many other charms. Learn more →
Evocation: Calling a spirit to appear outside the magician, traditionally into a triangle beyond the protective circle. Compare invocation. Learn more →
Execration text: In ancient Egypt, the names of enemies written on pots or figurines that were then smashed or buried. Learn more →

F

Fairy ring: A ring of mushrooms or darker grass made by a fungus growing outward, said in folklore to mark where fairies danced. Learn more →
Familiar spirit: A spirit attached to a person to serve or advise them. In witch-trial accounts familiars often took animal form; many Goetic spirits are said to 'give good familiars'. Learn more →
Feng shui: “Wind and water”: the Chinese art of siting tombs, houses and cities to receive good qi. Learn more →
Flying ointment: An ointment that early-modern writers claimed witches used to fly to the sabbat; some accounts list poisonous nightshade-family plants. Learn more →
Four Worlds: The Qabalistic levels of reality — Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah and Assiah — matched with the four letters of YHVH and the four elements. Learn more →
Fu: A Taoist talisman: an order to gods and spirits, written in red on yellow paper in a script only priests can read. Learn more →
Fylgja: In Norse belief, a 'follower' spirit that goes with a person through life, often seen in dreams as an animal. Learn more →

G

Galdr: Norse magic by the voice: a spell chanted or intoned, often with runes carved alongside it. From the verb gala, 'to chant'. Learn more →
Galdrastafur: An Icelandic magical stave, such as the Vegvísir or the Helm of Awe, drawn or carved for a single practical aim. Learn more →
Gem elixir: Water in which a stone has been placed, a modern practice. Never use toxic minerals such as malachite, turquoise or pyrite. Learn more →
Gematria: Interpreting words by the number values of their letters; words of equal value are held to be related. Learn more →
Geomancy: 'Earth divination' using sixteen four-line dot figures, built into a chart called a shield. Learn more →
Girdle of Venus: A curved line above the heart line, beneath the middle and ring fingers, read as keen emotional sensitivity. Learn more →
Gnosis: In chaos magic, a state of single-pointed altered awareness used to charge sigils; in Hermeticism, saving knowledge of the divine. Learn more →
Goetia: The first book of the Lemegeton, listing 72 spirits with their seals; more broadly, the evocation of such spirits. Learn more →
Golden Dawn: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded in London in 1888, whose synthesis shapes most modern Western magic. Learn more →
Golem: In Jewish legend, a figure of clay brought to life by a scholar's mastery of sacred letters and Sefer Yetzirah. Learn more →
Grand Tableau: The Lenormand's full spread: all thirty-six cards laid in four rows and read by where they lie — near and far, above and below the querent, and in which house. Learn more →
Greek Magical Papyri: The working spellbooks of Roman Egypt (2nd c. BCE – 5th c. CE), edited by Preisendanz as the Papyri Graecae Magicae (PGM). Learn more →
Grimoire: A book of magic — literally a 'grammar' — containing rituals, seals, prayers and instructions. Learn more →
Grounding: Reconnecting with the body and the earth to stabilise yourself before practice and release excess energy afterwards. Learn more →
Gut: The Korean rite of offerings, song, dance and oracle performed by a mudang, in phases called gori. Learn more →

H

Hagstone: A stone with a natural hole through it, hung for protection against witches and nightmares in British folk tradition. Learn more →
Headless Rite: A rite of the magical papyri (PGM V. 96–172) calling on the Headless One; the Golden Dawn's Bornless Ritual and Crowley's Liber Samekh. Learn more →
Heka: The ancient Egyptian word for magic, also personified as a god. Learn more →
Heptameron: A short grimoire attributed to Peter of Abano, giving the angels, spirits and conjurations for each day of the week. Learn more →
Hermes Trismegistus: 'Thrice-Great Hermes', a legendary sage combining Greek Hermes and Egyptian Thoth, to whom the Hermetic writings are attributed. Learn more →
Hexagram: One of the sixty-four figures of the Yijing: six lines, each whole (yang) or broken (yin), read as two trigrams. Lines that are 'old' change and make a second hexagram. Learn more →
Holy Guardian Angel: A personal divine guide or higher self, whose 'Knowledge and Conversation' is the goal of the Abramelin operation. Learn more →
Hoodoo: The African American spiritual tradition of conjure and rootwork, developed by enslaved people in the American South. Learn more →
House (astrological): One of the twelve divisions of a chart, counted from the Ascendant, each governing an area of life. Learn more →
Humour: One of the four bodily fluids of Greek medicine — blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm — each tied to an element and a temperament. Learn more →

I

Icaro: A medicine song of the Amazon, held to be taught by the plants, sung or whistled to the rustle of the chakapa leaf rattle. Learn more →
Ideomotor effect: Movement made unconsciously by expectation — the force behind dowsing rods, pendulums and talking boards. Named by William Carpenter in 1852. Learn more →
Imbolc: The festival of 1–2 February marking the first stirrings of spring, associated with Brigid. Learn more →
Incubation: Sleeping with a deliberate question, or in a sacred place, to receive a meaningful dream. Learn more →
Initiatory illness: The sickness or crisis that marks a future shaman's calling in many traditions, ending when the call is accepted and the training begins. Learn more →
Intelligence (planetary): In Agrippa, the benevolent governing spirit of a planet, paired with a more raw planetary spirit. Both are listed in the Correspondences tool.
Invocation: Calling a divine or spiritual power into oneself or one's space. Compare evocation. Learn more →
Itako: The blind women mediums of northern Japan, trained in cold water and song, who call the dead to speak on Mount Osore. Learn more →

K

Kahve falı: Turkish coffee-cup reading: the grounds left in the cup, turned over onto its saucer to cool, are read for shapes. Learn more →
Kamea: A planetary magic square, in which every row, column and diagonal adds up to the same number. Learn more →
Kosha: Sanskrit 'sheath': in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, one of five layers of the person, one within another: of food (the body), of breath, of mind, of understanding and of bliss, with the Self within them all. Learn more →
Kundalini: In Tantra, the 'coiled' power said to lie at the base of the spine and to rise through the chakras. Learn more →
Kybalion: A 1908 book presenting seven 'Hermetic Principles'; a modern New Thought work rather than an ancient text. Learn more →

L

Labradorescence: The flashes of blue, green and gold seen in labradorite, caused by light scattering between thin layers in the crystal. Learn more →
Lamella: A thin metal sheet inscribed with a spell and rolled up to be worn as an amulet. Learn more →
Landvættir: The 'land-wights' or spirits of a place in Norse belief; four of them guard Iceland on its coat of arms. Learn more →
Lapidary: A book on the kinds and virtues of stones, such as Marbod of Rennes's Liber de lapidibus; also a gem-cutter. Learn more →
Latifa: Arabic 'subtle thing' (plural laṭāʾif): in Sufism, one of the subtle centres of the person, such as the qalb (heart) and the ruḥ (spirit). The Naqshbandī Mujaddidī scheme places five in the chest, each with a colour and a prophet; other orders count six or seven and place them differently. Learn more →
LBRP: The Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, the Golden Dawn's foundational daily ritual. Learn more →
Lekanomancy: Divination by gazing into a bowl of water, sometimes with oil. Learn more →
Lemegeton: The Lesser Key of Solomon, a 17th-century compilation in five books: the Goetia, Theurgia-Goetia, Ars Paulina, Ars Almadel and Ars Notoria. Learn more →
Liber Resh: Crowley's four daily adorations of the Sun, at dawn, noon, sunset and midnight, to Ra, Ahathoor, Tum and Khephra (1911). Learn more →
License to depart: The formal words dismissing a spirit at the end of a working, sending it 'peaceably and quietly' back to its own place. Learn more →
Life path number: In modern numerology, the digits of the birth date added down to a single figure (or 11 or 22) and read as the theme of a life. The system descends from L. Dow Balliett, early in the twentieth century. Learn more →
Lightning Flash: The order in which the ten spheres of the Tree of Life unfold, falling in a zigzag from Kether, the Crown, to Malkuth, the Kingdom. Learn more →
Lo Shu: The 3×3 magic square of 1 to 9 that legend says appeared on a turtle from the River Luo; Saturn's square in Agrippa. Learn more →
Lucid dream: A dream in which the dreamer knows they are dreaming. Learn more →
Lucifer: Latin for 'light-bringer', the morning star. From Isaiah 14:12, Christian writers made it the name of the devil before his fall through pride. Learn more →
Lychnomancy: Divination by the flame of a lamp, often with a medium gazing into it, as in the Demotic magical papyri. Learn more →

M

Machi: The Mapuche healer and religious leader of Chile and Argentina, today most often a woman. Learn more →
Magick: Crowley's spelling of magic, to set it apart from stage conjuring: “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will”. Learn more →
Magus: A learned magician; in the Renaissance, a philosopher-scholar who worked with the hidden harmony of the cosmos. Learn more →
Major Arcana: The 22 trump cards of the tarot, from The Fool (0) to The World (XXI). Learn more →
Mala: A ring of counting beads, traditionally 108, for repeating a mantra or prayer; the rosary and the Islamic misbaha are its cousins. Learn more →
Malefic: A planet of excessive nature that brings difficulty: Saturn (the greater malefic) and Mars (the lesser malefic). Learn more →
Mandrake: A poisonous plant with a human-shaped root, said to shriek when pulled up; prized as a charm and feared as a poison. Learn more →
Merkstave: A reversed or upside-down rune in a casting, usually read as the rune's meaning blocked or turned negative. Learn more →
Middle Pillar: A Golden Dawn exercise building five spheres of light along the central column of the Tree of Life in the body. Learn more →
Midheaven: The highest point of the zodiac in the sky at a given moment (Medium Coeli, MC); in quadrant systems it begins the 10th house. Learn more →
Minor Arcana: The 56 suit cards of the tarot: Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles. Learn more →
Mohs scale: A scale of mineral hardness from 1 (talc) to 10 (diamond); a harder stone scratches a softer one. Quartz is 7. Learn more →
Mojo bag: In Hoodoo, a small flannel bag of roots, stones and other items carried on the body: “a prayer in a bag”. Learn more →
Mother letters: Aleph, Mem and Shin, the three Hebrew letters that Sefer Yetzirah assigns to air, water and fire. Learn more →
Mudang: The Korean ritual specialist, mostly women, who performs gut for gods and ancestors; the kangsin-mu are possessed by them, the hereditary sesŭp-mu are not. Learn more →
Mycelium: The web of fine threads that is the main body of a fungus; mushrooms are only its fruit. Learn more →
Mystic cross: In palmistry, a cross standing on its own between the head and heart lines: by long tradition the mark of one drawn to the occult. Learn more →

N

Nadi: A channel of the subtle body in Indian teaching; the chief three are the left iḍā, the right piṅgalā and the central suṣumṇā along the spine. Learn more →
Nazar: The blue glass eye amulet of Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean, which looks back at the evil eye. Learn more →
Nephesh: The 'animal soul' of Qabalistic psychology — instinct, feeling and vitality — placed at Yesod. Learn more →
Nephilim: The giants of Genesis 6, born — in the Book of Enoch — to the Watchers and human women; their spirits became the first demons. Learn more →
Nigredo: The blackening: the first alchemical colour stage, of decomposition — psychologically, a dark night of breakdown. Learn more →
Nine choirs: Pseudo-Dionysius' hierarchy of angels in three triads: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Dominions, Virtues, Powers; Principalities, Archangels, Angels. Learn more →
Nine Herbs Charm: An Old English charm of about 1000 CE, chanted over a salve of nine herbs including mugwort, plantain, chamomile and fennel. Learn more →
Noaidi: The Sámi specialist in trance and divination, who used a painted drum and a pointer laid on its skin. Learn more →
Notariqon: Forming a word from the initials of a phrase, or expanding a word into a phrase, as AGLA from Atah Gibor le-Olam Adonai. Learn more →

O

Ochēma: Greek 'vehicle': in Neoplatonism, the subtle, star-like body that carries the soul and sees in dreams. Learn more →
Ogham: The early Irish alphabet of strokes and notches cut along a line, found on about 400 stones of the 4th–6th centuries. Learn more →
Olympic spirits: Seven planetary governors described in the Arbatel: Aratron, Bethor, Phaleg, Och, Hagith, Ophiel and Phul. Learn more →
Oneiromancy: Divination by dreams. Learn more →
Ouroboros: The serpent swallowing its own tail: a symbol of eternity, cycles and the unity of all things. Learn more →

P

Partzufim: The 'faces' of Lurianic Kabbalah: the ten sephiroth regrouped as five faces of God, Arich Anpin (Keter), Abba (Chokmah), Imma (Binah), Zeir Anpin (the six from Chesed to Yesod) and Nukva (Malkuth). Learn more →
Path of the Serpent: The winding course through all twenty-two paths of the Tree of Life, in the order of the Hebrew letters from Aleph to Tav. Learn more →
Pathworking: Guided imaginative journeying along a path of the Tree of Life, often using its tarot card as a doorway. Learn more →
Pentacle: A talismanic disc bearing a seal (as in the Key of Solomon); also the tarot suit and altar tool of Earth. Learn more →
Pentagram: The five-pointed star; in ritual magic, traced in the air to banish or invoke the elements. Learn more →
Perfection (geomancy): In the geomantic house chart, the meeting of the querent's figure and the matter's by occupation, conjunction, mutation or translation. Without it the chart denies the matter. Learn more →
Philosopher's stone: The goal of alchemy: a substance that perfects metals into gold and gives health and long life — and, inwardly, the perfected self. Learn more →
Picatrix: An 11th-century Arabic manual of astral magic, translated into Latin around 1256 at the court of Alfonso X. Learn more →
Piezoelectricity: The small voltage made when quartz and some other crystals are squeezed, discovered by the Curie brothers in 1880 and used in quartz clocks. Learn more →
Planetary hours: The division of day and night into twelve unequal hours each, every hour ruled by a planet in the Chaldean order. Learn more →
Planetary metals: Gold (Sun), silver (Moon), quicksilver (Mercury), copper (Venus), iron (Mars), tin (Jupiter) and lead (Saturn). Learn more →
Planetary type: The Victorian palmists' seven kinds of person — Jupiterian, Saturnian, Apollonian, Mercurian, Martian, Lunarian and Venusian — named for the planet that rules the hand. Learn more →
Poppet: A doll representing a person, used in sympathetic magic — today mostly for healing and self-work. Learn more →
Power animal: Core shamanism's name for an animal tutelary spirit met on the journey; the Siberian ayami and the Inuit tuurngaq are the older, particular forms. Learn more →
Pseudomonarchia Daemonum: Johann Weyer's 1577 catalogue of 69 demons with their ranks, legions and powers — the main source of the Goetia. Learn more →

Q

Qabalah: The Hermetic, Western adaptation of Jewish Kabbalah, centred on the Tree of Life. Learn more →
Qabalistic Cross: The opening and closing gesture of the Lesser Banishing Ritual: touching forehead, breast and both shoulders with the words Ateh, Malkuth, ve-Geburah, ve-Gedulah, le-Olahm, Amen. Learn more →
Qliphoth: The 'husks' or 'shells' of Kabbalah: in the Zohar, what surrounds and hides holiness; in Western occultism, a Tree of Death or Night Side beneath the Tree of Life with one shell to each sphere, read as that sphere's quality gone out of balance. Learn more →
Quintessence: The 'fifth essence': Aristotle's aether, the alchemists' purest distillate, and in magic the element of Spirit. Learn more →

R

Radiesthesia: The 20th-century French name for dowsing with a pendulum or rod — "sensitivity to radiation" — taken up by priests and healers; its claims have not held up in blind tests. Learn more →
Reality check: A test made several times a day, asking honestly 'Am I dreaming?' by reading text twice or counting your fingers, so that the habit carries into dreams and the test fails. Learn more →
Rock crystal: Clear quartz. The ancients believed it was ice frozen so hard it could never melt. Learn more →
Ruach: The conscious mind and personality in Qabalistic psychology, centred in Tiphareth, between the Nephesh below and the Neshamah above. Learn more →
Rubedo: The reddening: the final alchemical colour stage, completion and the making of the stone. Learn more →

S

Sabbat: In modern witchcraft, one of the eight seasonal festivals of the Wheel of the Year. Learn more →
Saining: Scottish ritual blessing and cleansing, for example by filling a house with juniper smoke at New Year. Learn more →
Samhain: The festival of 31 October–1 November, start of winter, associated with the dead and divination. Learn more →
Sator square: The Latin palindrome SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS, found at Pompeii before AD 62 and used as a charm for 1,500 years. Learn more →
Scrying: Gazing into a reflective or translucent surface — mirror, water, crystal — to receive images or insight. Learn more →
Seal (of a spirit): A sigil belonging to a particular spirit, angel or planet, drawn or engraved to call on or bind it. Each spirit of the Goetia has its own. Learn more →
Sect: Whether a chart is diurnal or nocturnal. The Sun, Jupiter and Saturn belong to the day sect; the Moon, Venus and Mars to the night. Learn more →
Sefer Yetzirah: The 'Book of Formation' (3rd–6th c. CE), the oldest text of Jewish esoteric speculation: creation through ten numbers and twenty-two letters. Learn more →
Seiðr: Norse trance magic of seeing and prophecy, associated with Freyja and practised above all by women; for men it carried the shame of ergi. Learn more →
Sephirah: One of the ten spheres on the Tree of Life (plural: sephiroth). Learn more →
Seraphim: The highest of the nine choirs of angels, the six-winged 'burning ones' of Isaiah's vision. Learn more →
Servitor: A deliberately created thought-form given a single task, with a set lifespan. Learn more →
Seven princes of hell: Peter Binsfeld's 1589 scheme matching a demon to each deadly sin: Lucifer, Mammon, Asmodeus, Leviathan, Beelzebub, Satan and Belphegor. Learn more →
Shaman: From the Evenki (Tungusic) word šaman, via Russian: a Siberian specialist who enters trance to travel to the spirit world; later used by scholars for similar figures everywhere. Learn more →
Shem ha-Mephorash: The 72-fold 'explicit name' of God drawn from three verses of Exodus 14, which gives the names of 72 angels. Learn more →
Shew-stone: John Dee's term for the crystal used in his angelic sessions. Learn more →
Sigil: A symbol representing a desire or a spirit. In chaos magic, a glyph made from the letters of an intention. Learn more →
Sīmiyā: The medieval Islamic letter-magic of the divine names, contrasted with forbidden sorcery (siḥr). Learn more →
Sinbyeong: The Korean 'spirit sickness' that precedes a mudang's initiation, ended by the naerim gut. Learn more →
Sleep paralysis: Waking unable to move, sometimes with a sense of a presence; common, harmless and brief, though frightening. Learn more →
Somniale Danielis: The medieval dream book under the prophet Daniel's name: an alphabetical list of dream signs, each good or evil, copied in Latin and the vernaculars from the ninth century onwards. Learn more →
Sortilege: Divination by casting lots — stones, dice, knucklebones or marked slips. Learn more →
Soul loss: Illness understood as the free soul gone missing — strayed, stolen or frightened out — which the shaman journeys to fetch back. Learn more →
Sovereign hexagrams: The twelve hexagrams of stacked yang and yin that the Han scholars set over the months, from Return at the winter solstice to the Creative, and from Coming to Meet at midsummer to the Receptive. Learn more →
Spaced repetition: Reviewing what you are learning at growing intervals, timed to just before you would forget it, after Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve. Leitner's box of 1972 is the paper form; the Study Cards the digital one. Learn more →
Spae-wife: In Scotland, a woman who foretold the future — to spae is to foretell — often by reading the teacup by the fire. Learn more →
Spagyrics: Plant alchemy: separating a herb into Mercury, Sulphur and Salt, purifying them and recombining them. The word was coined by Paracelsus. Learn more →
Speculum: A mirror or scrying surface used for divination. Learn more →
Suffumigation: Smoke or incense offered in ritual; Agrippa gives each planet its own blend. Learn more →
Susto: The Latin American 'fright sickness', in which a sudden scare is held to drive the soul from the body; treated by curanderos, and listed by the DSM-5 as a cultural concept of distress. Learn more →
Sympathetic magic: Magic based on resemblance (like affects like) or contact (things once joined stay connected), as described by Frazer. Learn more →
Synthemata: The 'tokens' of the gods that the theurgists found in stones, plants, animals and names, also called symbola. Learn more →

T

Talisman: An object made at a chosen moment and charged to attract a particular planetary or spiritual influence. Learn more →
Tasseography: Reading the shapes left by tea leaves or coffee grounds in a cup. Learn more →
Tattva: One of five coloured elemental symbols used by the Golden Dawn for visualisation and scrying. Learn more →
Tattva tide: In the doctrine Rama Prasad brought west, the flow of the five tattvas in turn through the day, about twenty-four minutes each from sunrise, beginning with akasha; a frame for choosing the hour of a working. Learn more →
Tektite: Natural glass formed by a meteorite impact, such as moldavite. Learn more →
Temperament: Character as shaped by the dominant humour: sanguine (air), choleric (fire), melancholic (earth) or phlegmatic (water). Learn more →
Temurah: Exchanging letters by a fixed rule to reveal hidden words, as in the Atbash cipher. Learn more →
Testament of Solomon: A Greek text of the 1st–5th centuries CE in which Solomon uses a ring from Michael to bind demons and learn the angel that defeats each one. Learn more →
Tetragrammaton: The four-lettered divine name YHVH (Yod Heh Vav Heh), whose letters are matched to the four worlds and elements. Learn more →
Thelema: The religious and magical philosophy founded by Aleister Crowley in 1904, centred on discovering one's true will. Learn more →
Theurgy: 'God-work': ritual aimed at uniting the soul with the divine, defended by the Neoplatonist Iamblichus. Learn more →
Thought-form: An image or entity built up by concentrated thought and emotion; the basis of the servitor. Learn more →
Tikkun: Hebrew for 'repair': in Isaac Luria's Kabbalah, the gathering of the divine sparks trapped in the shards of the shattered vessels, and so the mending of the world. Learn more →
Toli: The round brass, copper or bronze mirror worn by Mongolian and Buryat shamans, often many at once, as armour against hostile spirits and a home for helpers. Learn more →
Tree of Life: The Qabalistic diagram of ten sephiroth joined by twenty-two paths, used as a map of the cosmos and the soul. Learn more →
Tria prima: Paracelsus's three principles — salt, sulphur and mercury — said to make up all things. Learn more →
Triangle of Art: The triangle drawn outside the magic circle in Solomonic evocation, in which the spirit is commanded to appear. Learn more →
True Will: In Thelema, a person's real calling or purpose, distinct from passing wants: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” Learn more →
Tulpa: A being formed by concentrated thought, as Alexandra David-Néel described making one in Magic and Mystery in Tibet (1929); the servitor's nearest ancestor, and a warning that such things can slip the leash. Learn more →
Tunnels of Set: The twenty-two pathways of the Night Side in Kenneth Grant's Nightside of Eden (1977), from Amprodias to Thantifaxath, set against the twenty-two paths of the Tree of Life. Learn more →
Tuurngaq: The helping spirit an Inuit angakkuq gained in training, visible only to them. Learn more →

V

Via Combusta: The 'burnt path' from 15° Libra to 15° Scorpio, traditionally an unlucky stretch for the Moon in elections. Learn more →
Vibration: Intoning a divine name slowly and resonantly so it seems to fill the body and the universe. Learn more →
Voces magicae: The 'magical words' or barbarous names of the papyri, such as ABLANATHANALBA, kept untranslated for their power. Learn more →
Void-of-course Moon: The Moon when she will make no more major aspects before leaving her sign — a time to avoid for beginnings. Learn more →
Völva: A Norse seeress, 'staff-bearer', who prophesied from a high seat with songs sung around her. Learn more →
Vuorbi: The pointer of brass, horn or bone laid on a Sámi drum, which danced to the hammer's strokes and rested on the figure that gave the answer. Learn more →

W

Wafq: Arabic for a magic square, wafq al-aʿdād, “the harmonious arrangement of the numbers”. Learn more →
Wake back to bed: A lucid-dreaming method: wake after about five hours of sleep, stay up quietly for fifteen to thirty minutes, then return to sleep with the intention of becoming lucid. Learn more →
Watchers: The angels of the Book of Enoch who came down on Mount Hermon, took human wives and taught humanity forbidden arts. Learn more →
Watchtowers: The four elemental quarters of the Enochian Great Table; in modern witchcraft, the guardians of the four directions. Learn more →
Watchtowers (Enochian): The four elemental tablets of Dee's Great Table, with the Tablet of Union for Spirit, from whose squares the Golden Dawn drew the names of its angels and the quarters of its temple. Learn more →
Wheel of the Year: The modern cycle of eight seasonal festivals: the solstices, equinoxes and four cross-quarter days. Learn more →
Wicca: The modern witchcraft religion publicised by Gerald Gardner from the 1950s. Learn more →
Wildcrafting: Gathering plants from the wild — ethically, legally and only when you can identify them with certainty. Learn more →
Witch bottle: A sealed jar of pins, nails and personal items buried near a house to trap and turn back harmful magic. Learn more →
Witch's ladder: A knotted cord with feathers or charms worked into it; named after an 1878 find in Somerset. Learn more →
World tree: The great tree whose branches hold the heavens and whose roots reach the underworld: Yggdrasil, the Altaic birch, the Maya ceiba, the tree painted on Siberian drums. Learn more →
Wuxing: The five phases of Chinese cosmology — wood, fire, earth, metal and water — linked by cycles of generation and overcoming. Learn more →

Y

Younger Futhark: The sixteen-rune row of the Viking Age, in long-branch and short-twig forms, in which one rune served several sounds: the script of the runestones. Learn more →

Z

Zohar: The 'Book of Splendour', the central text of Jewish Kabbalah, written in Castile in the late 13th century. Learn more →