Talisman
An object made or marked to carry a proposed protective or beneficial influence. Its design and claimed powers depend on the text and tradition.
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.
14 terms · page 1 of 1
Tarocchi
An Italian name for the tarot card game and its special trump cards.
Tarot
A pack of playing cards developed in fifteenth-century Italy with four suits and added trumps. Its use for fortune-telling and occult correspondences developed much later.
Tarot spread
An arrangement of drawn cards with positions assigned interpretive roles in a reading. Spreads are methods of later divinatory practice, not a fixed property of the early game.
Taurus
The Taurus sign of the zodiac. Taurus is fixed earth: the work of taking root, keeping faith with the senses, and giving something enough time and care to become substantial.
Theurgy
Ritual action aimed at relation with a divine realm in some ancient and later philosophical traditions; authors distinguish it from other forms of magic in different ways.
Tincture
A preparation that colors or alters another substance; in alchemical prose the word can also name the supposed agent of transmutation.
Tree of Life
Also: Etz Chaim
A biblical phrase with several Jewish uses; in Jewish mysticism it can also name a diagram of the sefirot. The diagrams used by later Hermetic writers are not one global tree.
Triangle of art
A separate marked space in some Goetic ritual instructions where a summoned spirit is directed to appear.
Trine
An approximate 120-degree relationship between chart positions, one of the classical aspects.
Triplicity
A grouping of zodiac signs sharing an element; traditional astrology also uses the word in planetary dignity schemes.
Tropical zodiac
A zodiac measured from the seasonal vernal point, with each sign occupying thirty degrees; it is not fixed to the background constellations.
Trump
Also: Major Arcana
One of the special figured cards added to the four suits in a tarot pack; early decks differ in the ordering and names of some trumps.
Trumpet
A ritual tool in Key of Solomon. A newly made wooden trumpet sounded in a fixed circuit through the four quarters before the calling begins.