Dictionnaire infernal, tome 1

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He was born in 1793, only four years after the crowning (or most condemnatory) event of the Enlightenment: the French Revolution. 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. 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. While it’s true that the grand experiment of the Enlightenment was supposedly to shine the light of rationality upon the shadows of superstition, the desire to assemble all possible information is one which the grimoire and the dictionary share.

If there is any consolation to be found, it’s that controlling our demons is possible if we’re able to name them, whether they are of the supernatural or of the rationalist variety — and in either case, a dictionary is what we shall need. A specialist in early modern and early American literature, he holds a PhD in English from Lehigh University, and his most recent book is Printed in Utopia: The Renaissance's Radicalism (Zero Books, 2020). Le Breton’s illustration portrays him in full pompous glory as an ass-headed version of the Yazidi’s “Peacock Angel”. It also covered a wide range of topics related to the occult, such as magic, divination, grimoires, folklore, and superstitions.For example, among the more minor demons there is “Adramelech, great chancellor of the underworld, steward of the wardrobe of the sovereign of the demons, president of the high council of the devils”, who “showed himself in the form of a mule, and sometimes even that of a peacock”. 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.

He also aimed to provide instruction on both the history and the practical utility of the more exalted among Satan’s minions. And it’s a good thing he did, as the bizarre images that accompanied the text are some of the most indelible depictions of demons ever created. A few pages later there is Amon, a horrific hell beast with globular pitch-black eyes, a “great and powerful marquis of the infernal empire” who appears as a “wolf, with a serpent’s tail .Both of those titles contained hierarchical descriptions of Hell’s many denizens, versions of which de Plancy included in his text.