Alembic
A distilling vessel or still, used to heat substances and guide the vapor toward collection.
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.
342 terms · page 2 of 18
Allegory
Also: Allegorical, allegorically
A reading that takes a text to mean something other than what it says, systematically. Much of the alchemical corpus has been read allegorically, and the argument over whether it should be is live.
Altar
A ritual tool in Crowley, Book 4. Book 4's double-cube centre: the fixed basis of the work, the law under which it proceeds, and the container of every temple implement except the lamp.
Amulet
A carried or worn object credited with protection; unlike a general talisman, the protective purpose is central to the word's common use.
Angelic alphabet
The special letterforms recorded for Dee's angelic language. Their names and shapes are matters of textual witness, not ordinary English translations.
Angular house
A house connected with a primary chart angle. Traditional astrology distinguishes angular, succedent and cadent places.
Apocalyptic literature
Also: Apocalyptic, apocalypse
Writing that reveals what is hidden — the heavens, the end, the throne — usually through a vision given to a named ancient figure. The throne visions behind the chariot literature are of this kind.
Apocrypha
Also: Apocryphal
Writings outside an accepted scriptural canon. Which writings those are depends on whose canon is meant.
Apocryphon of John
A late-antique revelatory text whose myth of divine realms and the lower creator is central to many modern studies of Sethian material.
Apophatic
Also: Via negativa, apophasis
Saying what something is not. A way of speaking about a God held to be beyond description, and the manner in which Ein-Sof is usually approached.
Apotropaic
Intended to avert danger or harmful influence, for example when a text prescribes a protective sign or object.
Aquarius
The Aquarius sign of the zodiac. Aquarius is fixed air: a sustained idea, rule, or common cause, with the distance to see a social pattern and the stubbornness to keep testing it.
Archangel
A high-ranking angel in several religious and esoteric classifications. Lists and roles vary by source and tradition.
Archon
A ruler or cosmic power in some Gnostic accounts, often associated with the lower world and obstacles to a soul's ascent.
Aries
The Aries sign of the zodiac. The wheel begins here. Aries is cardinal fire: the first push, the clean break, and the courage to move while the road is still being made.
Ars Goetia
The first book of the Lemegeton, presenting a catalogue of seventy-two spirits and a ritual apparatus for addressing them.
Ascendant
Also: Rising sign
The point of the ecliptic rising at the eastern horizon for a chart's time and place; it begins the first house in many house systems.
Ascent
The soul's movement toward a divine realm or condition in some late-antique philosophical and religious texts, often narrated through cosmic levels.
Aspect
A measured angular relationship between chart positions. A sign-to-sign relationship is only an approximation of an exact planetary aspect.
Athanor
A furnace associated with sustained heating in an alchemist's workshop.