Angelic · Above the choirs · c. 1180 CE
Raziel
Also called Ratziel, Galizur
Keeper of divine secrets. The book of all knowledge he is said to have given Adam is the archetype every later grimoire is imitating.
Single lineage
Raziel is the archetype of the grimoire, which makes him structurally central to a corpus built out of grimoires. The tradition holds that he kept the secrets of creation and gave Adam a book containing them, and every later magical text claiming descent from a heavenly original is imitating that claim — including the Solomonic literature that supplies most of this site's demonology. The Sefer Raziel HaMalakh that circulates under his name is a medieval compilation, printed in 1701, and is not the book the legend describes. The gap between the two is the useful thing here: an unobtainable heavenly book is what gives an obtainable earthly one its authority, and the pattern repeats for the Key of Solomon and the Lemegeton alike.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
None. He is a book before he is a figure — the Sefer Raziel is the thing that actually exists.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah · c. 1180
- Rank
- Archangel
- Order
- Above the choirs
- Base of operations
- None. He is a book before he is a figure — the Sefer Raziel is the thing that actually exists.
- Era
- c. 1180 CE
- Traditions
- Jewish
- Placed in
- The Great Archangels
Traits
- Domain
- Secrets, the celestial book, esoteric knowledge
Stats
3 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 3 offices attributed to Raziel, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- knowledge1
- divination2
knowledge
- Teaches the Liberal Sciencesno text cited
divination
- Discovers Hidden Thingsno text cited
- Reveals Divine Secretsno text cited
1 texts
Which texts say so?
Absent from Maimonides' ranks; belongs to the mystical rather than the philosophical stream.
Connections
What is it connected to?
No relationship to another figure in this corpus is recorded in the texts cited above. Where an edge exists here it is because a source states it, so an empty section means the sources are silent rather than that the connection is unknown.
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Raziel?
What rank is Raziel?
How else is Raziel spelled?
What is Raziel said to do?
How old is Raziel?
Nearest in the corpus
If Raziel is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Gabriel
Archangel · Archangels / Chief Princes
The messenger. The angel who explains Daniel's visions, announces two births in Luke, and in Islam delivers the entire Qur'an.
Michael
Archangel · Archangels / Chief Princes
The warring archangel: prince of Israel in Daniel, captain of the host in Revelation, and the only angel the New Testament calls an archangel outright.
Raphael
Archangel · Archangels / Chief Princes
The healer, whose name means 'God heals'. He spends the Book of Tobit disguised as a human travelling companion, which makes it the longest sustained portrait of an angel anywhere in the biblical corpus.
Uriel
Archangel · Archangels / Chief Princes
'Fire of God' — the archangel of the fourth seat, never named in the canonical Bible, and formally struck from the approved list by a Roman synod in 745.
Raguel
Archangel · Archangels / Chief Princes
The archangel who takes vengeance on the world of the lights — and one of those condemned by name at the Roman synod of 745.
Remiel
Archangel · Archangels / Chief Princes
Set over those who rise — the archangel of the resurrection and of true visions.
The book behind Raziel
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. It is public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah
Moses Maimonides · c. 1180 · Hebrew
Read Mishneh Torah, Yesodei ha-Torah in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Blaisio Ugolino · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.