Macrocosm
The larger ordered cosmos invoked when writers compare the world with the human 'microcosm'.
Reference · Glossary
Glossary
A guide to the words used across this site and in the texts behind it. Definitions describe historical usage, not proven supernatural effects. A term may mean different things in different traditions; the tradition label tells you which sense is meant here.
Looking for a sign rather than a word? Symbols draws the signs of astrology, alchemy and geomancy and links each to what this study says about it.
23 terms · page 1 of 2
Macroform
Also: Macroforms
A large and unstable textual unit that circulated in varying arrangements rather than as one fixed work. The Hekhalot writings are usually described this way.
Magic square
A grid of numbers arranged so each row, column and main diagonal has the same sum. In planetary magic such grids are assigned to planets.
Magic Sword
A ritual tool in Golden Dawn. A scarlet-and-emerald sword of Mars and Geburah, used for forceful banishing and defence and kept distinct from the yellow Air Dagger.
Magical circle
A marked ritual boundary within which the operator stands in many grimoire instructions; its markings and claimed role differ by text.
Magician's Crown
A ritual tool in Crowley, Book 4. A gold band, crimson cap, and uraeus representing attainment, with pentagrams, a hexagram, and a central jewel.
Magick Fire and Thurible
A ritual tool in Crowley, Book 4. A three-legged censer on open brasswork, where charcoal and incense stage the passage from aspiration through smoke to consuming fire.
Magnum opus
Also: Great Work
The 'great work' of an alchemist, often the long process imagined to yield the philosopher's stone. Texts do not agree on one recipe or sequence.
Malkhut
Also: Malkuth, Malchut
Kingdom. The tenth and lowest sefirah, where everything above it arrives in the world.
Mars
A classical astrology planet. Mars shows directed force: the capacity to cut, compete, defend, pursue and act before consensus has formed.
Measuring cord
A ritual tool in Key of Solomon. The practical radius-line that turns the quill knife's centre point into a measured ritual circumference.
Mediation
Also: Mediating
The role of whatever stands between an unknowable source and the world, making action possible without compromising the source's simplicity.
Mercury
A classical astrology planet. Mercury concerns exchange: speech, writing, calculation, curiosity, dexterity and the way one thing is translated into another.
Mercury in alchemy
A metal and a recurring theoretical or symbolic term in alchemical writings. Context matters: an author may mean the material, an imagined principle or a coded ingredient.
Merkavah
Also: Merkabah, Merkava
Chariot. The throne-chariot of Ezekiel's vision, and the name given to the earliest Jewish mystical literature built on it. The noun is not in Ezekiel 1 itself; it reaches that vision from elsewhere in scripture.
Microcosm
The notion that a human being reflects the larger cosmos in miniature. The exact analogy changes by author and tradition.
Midheaven
Also: MC, Medium Coeli
The point connected with the upper culmination of the ecliptic in a chart, commonly used as a house angle, though house systems place it differently.
Midrash
Interpretation. Rabbinic commentary that reads scripture by expanding its narrative and language, and the body of literature doing so.
Minor Arcana
A later term for tarot's four ordinary suits, each with numbered and court cards; it is not the medieval name of those cards.
Monism
The position that everything is finally one substance or principle, however many things appear.