Jacques Collin de Plancy  

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Dictionnaire Infernal

Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy (1793-1887) was a French occultist, demonologist and writer; he published several works on cultism and demonology. He was born in 1793 in Plancy-l'Abbaye and died in 1887. He was a free-thinker influenced by Voltaire. He worked as a printer and publisher in Plancy-l'Abbaye and Paris. Between 1830 and 1837, he resided in Brussels, and then returned to France after it returned to the Catholic religion.

Collin de Plancy followed the tradition of many previous demonologists of cataloguing demons by name and title of nobility, as it happened with grimoires like Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, and The Lesser Key of Solomon among others. In 1818 his best known work, Dictionnaire Infernal, was published. In 1863 were added some images that made it famous: imaginative drawings concerning the appearance of certain demons. In 1822 it was advertised as:

"Anecdotes of the nineteenth new century or historiettes, recent anecdotes, features and words little known, singular adventures, various quotations, bringings together and curious parts, to be used for the history of customs and the spirit of the century when we live compared with the last centuries."

It is considered a major work documenting beings, characters, books, deeds, and causes which pertain to the manifestations and magic of trafficking with Hell; divinations, occult sciences, grimoires, marvels, errors, prejudices, traditions, folktales, the various superstitions, and generally all manner of marvellous, surprising, mysterious, and supernatural beliefs.

By the end of 1830 he ostensibly became an enthusiastic Catholic -- to the confusion of his former admirers and detractors.

In 1846 you could purchase (for 16 francs for two volumes) the Dictionnaire Sciences Occultes et des Idée'es superstitieuses [1] which is another listing of demons.

Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy was the father of Victor Emile Marie Joseph Collin de Plancy (1853-1924) who for nearly a decade starting in 1884 served as French Minister to Korea and whose collected art works and books went on to comprise a core of the Korean collections of the French Bibliothèque Nationale and the Musée Guimet in Paris.

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