Gematria
A method of attending to the numerical values of Hebrew letters and words. A shared value can invite interpretation but does not establish that two words mean the same thing.
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.
13 terms · page 1 of 1
Gemini
The Gemini sign of the zodiac. Gemini is mutable air: quick exchange, comparison, language, and the lively traffic between one mind, place, or version of a story and another.
Geomancy
A divinatory art in which an initial set of four-line figures is cast and the rest of a chart is derived by rules. This site's method follows Turner's 1655 English text.
Geomantic figure
One of sixteen four-line patterns, each line containing one or two marks. A figure's interpretation depends on the source and its position in a chart.
Geomantic shield
The full chart built from four Mothers, four Daughters, four Nieces, two Witnesses and a Judge by the method's arithmetic.
Gnosis
Greek for knowledge; in many texts called Gnostic it means transformative knowledge of divine origin and the human condition, not just information.
Gnosticism
A modern umbrella name for several late-antique movements whose surviving texts value revelatory knowledge. Their mythologies and views of the world differ, so this is not one uniform religion.
Goetia
A word used historically for spirit-working or sorcery, and also shorthand for the Ars Goetia book; the two senses should not be collapsed.
Goetic circle
A ritual tool in Ars Goetia. The operator's inscribed enclosure in the Ars Goetia, paired spatially with the external Triangle of Art.
Goetic lamen
A ritual tool in Ars Goetia. A spirit's individual character worn on the operator's breast as a lamen during that spirit's calling.
Goetic seal
A ritual tool in Ars Goetia. The individual graphic character attached to one spirit in the catalogue and used to identify that spirit in the ritual apparatus.
Goetic spirit
One of the named spirits in the Ars Goetia catalogue. Descriptions, ranks and seals are claims of that text and can vary in manuscript witnesses.
Grimoire
A book of magical instructions, often gathering prayers, diagrams, names and procedures. The label says what sort of book it is, not who truly wrote it.