For the rationalist lexicographer this means that mastery of rhetoric and syntax can affect our lives through the ability to explicate and convince; for the wizard this means that the magic of words can conjure alteration. He was born in 1793, only four years after the crowning (or most condemnatory) event of the Enlightenment: the French Revolution.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. As if le Breton’s rendition of the beast wasn’t terrifying enough, Collin de Plancy reminds us that this nightmare creature “knows the past and the future”. L. MacGregor Mathers’ The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon, a famous grimoire that describes how to summon and control 72 demons. It lists, describes, and provides illustrations of a variety of demons, including most of the Goetia, as well as demons pulled from other religions, such as Hinduism, and re-branded as Christian demons. Collin de Plancy’s dictionary may be a grimoire, or his grimoire may be a dictionary, but fundamentally the distinction between them is less stark than might be supposed.Among the spirits presented in de Plancy’s book are well-known evils such as Lucifer and greedy Mammon, but also more obscure devils such as the lower demon Ukobach, who tends to fireworks and oils, and the bellows-bearing fallen angel Xaphan. He combined the rectilinear logic of men like Voltaire and Diderot with the chthonic visions of the symbolist and decadent poets of a generation later — Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Verlaine, who drunkenly stomped through the rainy streets of Paris clutching their fleurs du mal. This book attempts to provide an account of all the knowledge concerning superstitions and demonology. De Plancy published dozens of titles in his lifetime, but he never surpassed the success (or infamy) of the Dictionnaire Infernal, which first appeared in 1818 and was followed by several updated editions.

Etymology was like dissection, another Enlightenment innovation, and the dictionary a sort of dissection theater. His face — described by Collin de Plancy as that of a “very ugly angel” — is rendered by le Breton as thin and effete, almost equine, with eyes dismissive and uncaring, a slight sneer of cold command. Dictionnaire infernal: ou Répertoire universel des êtres, des personnages, 1863 PDF download available.There is Asmodeus, who the Talmud claimed was born of a succubus who slept with King David, but who Collin de Plancy argued was “the ancient serpent who seduced Eve. Collin de Plancy did not just convince himself that demons were real, but indeed he developed a wish to control them through language, a desire as fervent as that of his Enlightenment forebears to categorize and define words and ideas in dictionaries and encyclopedias.