Terms of art
Glossary
The vocabulary this subject uses is largely borrowed — from Greek philosophy, Roman administration, Egyptian astronomy and Jewish mysticism — and the borrowing is usually the point. Where a word’s history explains a figure’s history, it is said here.
119 terms, A to Z, each tagged with the kind of thing it is. Filter by kind:
The objects and terms of art the operative books use. Described here as things to identify in a manuscript, not as things to do.
Showing 16 of 119 terms · clear the filter
A
2 terms- AdjurationApparatus
- A formula that binds by invoking a higher authority. The term marks a whole genre of material in these books; naming and dating that genre is study, and reproducing its text is not, which is the line this corpus draws. What this corpus will not carry.See alsoExorcismGoetia
- AntiphonApparatus
- A short sung or spoken verse framing a psalm in liturgy. Its presence in a rite is a dating and setting marker: it places the text inside the ordinary offices of a church rather than in the private operative tradition the grimoires belong to.See alsoClauseExorcismAdjuration
C
3 terms- CharactercharacteresApparatus
- A mark that is written rather than drawn — letter-like signs, often ring-tipped, standing in rows as though they were script. Characters are older than the seals and appear on excavated objects, which makes them evidence from a period the seal tradition cannot reach. The marks.See alsoSigilVoces magicaeDefixio
- CircleApparatus
- The bounded ground the operator is described as standing within. As an object of study it is chiefly interesting for what is written around its edge, which is usually a list of divine names datable to the century of the manuscript rather than of Solomon.See alsoTriangle of artPentacle
- ClauseApparatus
- One numbered part of a rite, as the book prints it. Splitting a rite into clauses is what lets this site describe its shape — how much of it is instruction to the priest and how little is addressed to the spirit — without reproducing it as a continuous script. The rites.See alsoRubricSignAntiphon
E
1 term- ExorcismApparatus
- A rite whose direction of travel is a spirit being sent away rather than called. The surviving rites are liturgical documents with their own rubrics of restraint, and they are carried here as historical evidence of what a church believed it was dealing with. The rites.See alsoAdjurationAffliction
G
1 term- Gematriaisopsephy; cf. notarikonApparatus
- Reading the numerical values of letters to connect words with equal sums — isopsephy is the Greek equivalent, and notarikon the related practice of treating a word as initials. It generates identifications rather than recording them, which is why a link established this way is evidence about its author and not about its subject.See alsoMagic squareFolk etymologyVoces magicae
L
1 termM
1 term- Magic squarekameaApparatus
- A grid of numbers summing equally along every row and column, assigned to a planet in the Renaissance occult books and used to generate seals by tracing a name's numerical values across it. The construction is arithmetic, which is why several sigils can be checked rather than merely described. The seals are younger than the list.See alsoSigilGematriaPlanetary hours
P
2 terms- PentacleApparatus
- A disc or figure bearing inscribed names and geometry, used in the Solomonic books as a protective object rather than a summoning one. The word has been attached to a five-pointed star only since the nineteenth century; in the manuscripts it names the medium, not the shape.See alsoSigilLamenCircle
- Planetary hoursApparatus
- A scheme dividing daylight and night each into twelve unequal hours ruled in turn by the seven planets. Its presence in a book is a dating marker rather than a curiosity: it ties that text to a particular astrological tradition and to the centuries in which that tradition was current.See alsoDecanGrimoireMagic square
R
1 term- RubricApparatus
- An instruction to the officiant rather than words to be said, printed in red in the manuscripts — which is where the word comes from. The rubrics of the exorcism rites are the most restrained part of them: they are largely warnings about when not to proceed. The rites.See alsoClauseExorcismSign
S
2 terms- Sigilseal, characterApparatus
- A drawn mark standing for a named spirit. This site treats sigils as dated objects: the seventy-two Goetic seals are attested centuries later than the list of names they belong to, which makes them evidence about the seventeenth century and not about antiquity. The seals are younger than the list.See alsoLamenPentacleGrimoire
- SignApparatus
- A criterion a rite gives for judging that a spirit is present at all. The 1614 Roman rite gives three, and the far longer list the public believes it gives comes from film. Counting the signs a text actually prints is one of the cheaper corrections this corpus can make. The rites.See alsoRubricExorcismAffliction
T
1 term- Triangle of artApparatus
- A triangle drawn outside the circle, which the Lemegeton describes as the place a spirit is to become visible. It appears late and in few witnesses, and its familiarity today owes more to nineteenth- and twentieth-century printings than to the manuscript tradition.See alsoCircleSigil
V
1 term- Voces magicaebarbarous namesApparatus
- Strings of untranslatable syllables in ritual texts, often garbled Egyptian, Hebrew or nonsense preserved for its sound. Scholars study their transmission — how a divine name degrades over three languages of copying — and this site describes that process without reproducing the strings themselves.See alsoMagical papyriFolk etymologyHapax legomenon