Occult Terms: B

Baal and Moloch are not rival deities from the same pantheon. Baal is a named god of storm and fertility. Moloch is a sacrificial term that later traditions turned into a god.

A man once walked into a forest, lit a fire, and prayed with such simple joy that the heavens opened.

A baby in a dream rarely predicts that you will have a baby. It most often signals the birth of something that does not yet exist: a project, a version of yourself, a cycle of life that demands your care.

A clay tablet cracks in a Baghdad museum.

Bael is a king who commands sixty-six legions and appears as a three-headed being, while Lucifer is a fallen angel whose name means "light-bringer" and who appears across Christian theology more than in the Goetia itself.

The Baha’i faith grew out of 19th-century Shia Islam, but it broke with Islam’s central claim that Muhammad is the final prophet.

Balam is the 51st spirit of the Goetic hierarchy, a demon of divination. Balaam is a non-Israelite prophet from the Hebrew Bible who blessed Israel against his employer's wishes.

Basil and oregano are two of the most common culinary herbs, but in magical practice they serve very different purposes. Basil is the herb of love, protection, and wealth. Oregano is the herb of strength, release, and purification.

The relationship between Basilides and Gnostic thought is one of radical originality: Basilides built a complete cosmic system around a God so pure that not even being itself could describe him, and he did it without the fallen Sophia myth that nearly every other Gnostic school used.

The basilisk and the cockatrice are not the same monster, though popular culture has fused them into one.

Bastet and Sekhmet are the same divine force in two different moods: Sekhmet is the lioness at war, Bastet is the lioness at rest.

Bathin is a Goetic demon whose domain is natural knowledge and swift travel, setting him apart from the warlike kings and destructive princes of the same grimoire.

BaZi (八字), literally "Eight Characters" or "Four Pillars of Destiny," is a Chinese metaphysical system that maps a person's life trajectory through the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches of their birth moment.

Beleth is a demonic king in the Ars Goetia, the 68th spirit of the 72 listed in the Lesser Key of Solomon, and he is the demon of military command, honor, and the reconciliation of quarrels.

Belial is a Hebrew word for worthlessness or wickedness that, through late Second Temple literature and medieval demonology, became the name of a high-ranking infernal king in the Goetia.

Definition: Bell art is the intentional use of bells as magical instruments, where the sound itself is the working.

The ghanta bell in Tantric rituals is a ritual implement that embodies the feminine principle of wisdom (prajna), used alongside the vajra scepter to invoke deities, mark sacred boundaries, and transform ordinary sound into the vibration of enlightened speech.

, a French divination system that blends.

Beltane and Samhain are the two great fire festivals of the Celtic year, opposite each other on the wheel, and understanding one requires understanding the other.

Beltane is the Gaelic May Day festival marking the beginning of summer, traditionally observed on May 1 (or sunset April 30) with bonfires, cattle purification, and rituals of protection and fertility.

Benitoite is a rare barium titanium silicate discovered in 1907 near the San Benito River in California, and its role in healing practices is entirely modern, built on its physical properties and color rather than any historical precedent.

A woman steps from a shrine in Kamakura holding a biwa, the ancient Japanese lute that her hand has never learned to play.

A Roman priest once told a Greek colleague that his gods had no myths, only rituals. The Greek laughed. The Roman was not joking.

A Roman naturalist once watched a Celtic druid cut a single branch from a birch tree and use it to drive out a household's fever.

The spiritual powers of Bhagalamukhi are the powers of stambhana: the ability to paralyze, freeze, and bind the mind, the body, and the speech of an enemy, and to grant the practitioner sovereignty over any situation.

The relationship between Bhairava and Kali is a divine union of two terrifying forms of the same cosmic principle: time that devours and time that protects.

A Norse skald once described a bridge so finely built that its colors shimmered like a rainbow, but its substance was fire, air, and water.

Binah (Understanding) and Geburah (Severity) are two sefirot that appear to oppose each other but actually work as a single mechanism.

Biofield therapy is a set of techniques that detect, assess, and influence this field to support health and well-being, based on the premise that the body generates electromagnetic and subtle energy patterns that can be modulated by intention and specific protocols.

The birthday number in numerology is the day of the month you were born, reduced to a single digit (or kept as a master number 11, 22, or 33).

A black aura and a dark aura are not the same. Black is a distinct color in its own right, often indicating protection, emptiness, or hidden knowledge. Dark is a shade of another color — dark red, dark blue, dark green — each with its own meaning. The key difference: black is a color; dark is a descriptor of intensity.

The black candle absorbs, repels, and contains. The white candle cleanses, amplifies, and opens.

black cat superstition.

Black Moon Lilith.

Black (kuro 黒) in Japanese culture symbolizes the unknown, potential, humility, and the mysterious state from which all things emerge.

Black tourmaline is a boron silicate mineral used in crystal magic for grounding, protection, and energetic cleansing. Its key esoteric function is to absorb negative energy and, in many traditions, to self-cleanse through sunlight, smoke, or running water.

Blocked chakras are energy centers that have stopped rotating at their optimal frequency, and anxiety is the nervous system's response to that stagnation.

The difference is simple: a lunar eclipse is the astronomical event, and a blood moon is the visual effect that occurs during a total lunar eclipse.

The difference between blue and red auras comes down to temperature, and not the kind a thermometer measures.

The Strawberry Moon and the Blue Moon are not astronomical opposites. They are different kinds of events entirely: one is a seasonal marker tied to a specific harvest, the other is a calendrical quirk that happens when the moon's cycle and the Gregorian calendar fall out of sync.

Blue symbolism in Japan.

A boline is a white-handled knife used in witchcraft for practical cutting tasks, distinct from the athame which directs energy but never cuts.

Bone throwing is a form of cleromancy (divination by casting lots) in which marked animal bones are tossed and their positions, orientations, and relationships to one another are interpreted. It works by treating each bone as a fixed symbol whose fall reveals patterns the reader learns to recognize, not messages the bones invent.

Definition: The Book of Enoch is an ancient Jewish apocalyptic text attributed to the patriarch Enoch (Genesis 5:24), preserved in full only in Ge'ez (Ethiopic) and considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, but rejected by most other Christian and Jewish traditions.

Book symbolism carries two meanings that appear to oppose each other but actually converge: the book represents revealed knowledge, and it simultaneously represents hidden mystery.

A seal drawn on parchment is not a decoration.

A priest in Pushkar once told us that Brahma’s temple there is the last one.

A Roman priest once told a Greek colleague that his gods had no myths, only rituals. The Greek laughed. The Roman was not joking.

The broken mirror superstition in India.

A broom trick is any intentional use of a besom to direct, raise, or cleanse magical energy.

Brujería is a broad term for folk magic rooted in the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas, blending Catholic iconography with Indigenous and African ritual practices.

Buddhist shadow work is the conscious integration of rejected, feared, or unconscious aspects of the self using the dharma's tools: mindfulness, compassion, and the insight of emptiness.

Tantric Buddhist symbols are not decorative. They are technological: tools designed to rewire the practitioner's perception of reality in a single lifetime, using imagery that would be sacrilegious in earlier Buddhist traditions.

Buer is the tenth spirit of the Ars Goetia, a President of Hell who governs fifty legions. He teaches philosophy, logic, and herbal medicine, and is said to cure all infirmities of mind and body, especially mental illness.

A grimoire keeper sits at a wooden table, the lamp casting a single pool of light.

The bunyip is pronounced BUN-yip.