There are many schools of sorcery, from those practiced in Mesoamerican culture, to the Obeah men of African tradition, to Arab Sha’irs. It’s actually a long list each with its own culture of sorcery.

In modern western society, we are most familiar with a bastardized form of Semitic sorcery. Semitic meaning having its origin in the regions and cultures of the region that gave rise to the Nation of Israel and its cousins.

Kabbalah? Kabbalism has some semblance to sorcery, but seeks more of a mystical state of union, a sort of enlightenment that is not sorcery but it still uses elements of sorcerous structure.

Sorcery traces its roots back to early shamanic practice. Shaman lore didn’t incorporate the concept of a divine sovereign, at least not initially, and thus the intelligences of the world could not be influenced by servitude or worship. Instead, they saw these intelligences as another form of people, and attempted to influence them as they might have members of another clan or tribe.

In voodoo, they even make reference to spirits being organized into families, and these families having traits in common. The reason voodoo works with the loa or spirits is in their belief the original creative power cannot be safely contacted directly, and instead it created lesser powers to govern the various aspects of its creation. This is a model that incorporates a mix of priestly rites, sorcery, and shamanism. But back to sorcery…

Sorcery took time to develop. In part because the observations it is based on couldn’t arise until a system of codifying their experience with the intelligences could be established. These codexes often go by the name grimoire in modern lingo. One of the earliest such codexes was attributed to Solomon the Wise. Though the idea that he actually authored it is perhaps doubtful, but as an example it will suffice.

King Solomon? Yes. In some obscure lore, King Solomon was even seen to be the half-brother of the king of the spirits he interacted with.

A nephilim? Yes, exactly.

Anyone familiar with nature guides or the old medieval bestiaries, like a bird watchers handbook say? The lore behind sorcery is perhaps rather much like that. It catalogs spirits by descriptive characteristics and sometimes even names, records their behavior and gives advice for dealing with them, even describing how they might be interacted with in a beneficial way.

Is the spirit catalog available today? It and others are, yes, though the publishing is questionable on many fronts, and the reconstruction tends to be a bit spotty. If you wanted to hunt, you could find something useful.

Most forms of exorcism are actually just theurgic sorcery, which is why they give instructions along the lines of the necessity of learning the spirits name when conducting the exorcism. They give false names, but if the preparations are solid you can force the spirit into voicing at least half-truths and can put the clues together from that. They also tend to be obsessive creatures so they have behavioral ticks they can be identified by. Like in the case of the loa known as Baron Samedi and his obsession with smoking.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~