# AGLA

**Atah gibor le-olam Adonai**

**Known today as.** A name of God formed, as Agrippa explains, from the first letters of a Hebrew verse, “the mighty God for ever”; his modern editor notes that the words open the second benediction of the *Shemoneh Esreh*.

Kind: Amulet

## What was it used for?

Written and graven, with the other names of God, on the wands and knives and in the conjurations of early modern Christian magic.

## What does modern science say?

Found in the conjuring texts, such as those Reginald Scot printed in 1584.

## What lore surrounds it?

A Hebrew name of God taken into Christian magic: Agrippa explains its Hebrew origin, while Scot’s conjurers simply invoke it among “these holie names of God.”

## What did the older authorities say?

**The Catholic Encyclopedia.** The Catholic Encyclopedia remarks that the Gnostics “were especially notable for their employment of amulets; the names found most frequently in their invocations are Adonai, Sabaoth, Jao, Michael, Raphael, Souriel (Uriel), and Gabriel,” and that in magic “all rely on the power of words, the utterance of a hidden name, or the mere existence of the name on an amulet or stone.” On a demotic papyrus stands the prescription, “in time of storm and danger of shipwreck cry Anuk Adonai and the disaster will be averted.”

## Sources

- Kieckhefer, R. (1989). *Magic in the Middle Ages*. Cambridge University Press.
- *The Catholic Encyclopedia* (New York, 1907–1914), “Amulet.” newadvent.org/cathen/01443a.htm
- *The Catholic Encyclopedia* (New York, 1907–1914), “Occult Art, Occultism.” newadvent.org/cathen/11197b.htm
- Scot, R. (1584). *The Discoverie of Witchcraft*, book XV. Ed. B. Nicholson (1886).

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*AGLA.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/agla

Historical description, not medical advice.