Counterculture
The twentieth-century movements through which much of this material reached a wide readership again.
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 5 of 18
Court card
A suit card depicting a social rank or person, such as king, queen or knight; ranks vary between decks.
Coven
A working group in modern witchcraft. The word carries no authority in the older grimoire material.
Crucible
A heat-resistant vessel for melting, heating or reacting materials at high temperatures.
Daughter figure
One of four geomantic figures read from corresponding lines of the four Mothers.
Decan
A ten-degree subdivision of a zodiac sign; historical schemes attach different figures or rulers to the decans.
Delineation
Also: Delineations
A written reading of one placement — what a given planet in a given house or sign is held to mean.
Demiurge
A maker of the material cosmos. In some Gnostic myths the maker is ignorant of a higher divine realm; Plato's demiurge is not the same figure.
Descendant
The point opposite the Ascendant, at the western horizon; it is associated with the seventh-house cusp in many chart systems.
Digestion
Keeping materials under gentle, sustained heat for an extended period in a laboratory process.
Dignity
A traditional scheme for assessing a planet's condition by sign or degree. Different schools have their own rules and rankings.
Dissolution
Breaking down or dissolving a material in a liquid. Alchemical writers could describe this materially or figuratively.
Distillation
Also: distilling
Heating a mixture and collecting its condensed vapor to separate or concentrate materials, a central operation in early chemical work.
Divination
A practice of seeking guidance or knowledge through signs, lots, charts or other interpretive methods. The specific rules belong to the method being used.
Divine name
A sacred name used in prayer or ritual writing; its spelling, language and role must be read from the particular text rather than reconstructed from a generic list.
Divine Will
In Ibn Gabirol's Fons Vitae, the power standing between God and everything that proceeds from him, and the hinge every later account of emanation inherits.
Domicile
The sign a planet is held to rule and to be at home in.
Dualism
An account that sharply distinguishes two principles or realms. The word can describe parts of Gnostic thought, but it can flatten important differences between ancient texts.
Earth Pentacle
A ritual tool in Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn's Earth implement: a two-sided wooden disc quartered in citrine, olive, russet, and black beneath a white hexagram and border.
Ecliptic
The Sun's apparent annual path against the sky, used as the reference circle for zodiacal longitude.