In Memoriam: Claude Lecouteux (1943-2025)
Claude Lecouteux
The Occult Library mourns the recent passing of renowned scholar and writer Claude Lecouteux. Our staff sends heartfelt condolences to his friends, family, and colleagues.
Born in 1943, Lecouteux passed away last month on November 13th, 2025. His prolific body of scholarship has proven invaluable to occult practitioners, seekers, and researchers alike.
Of French descent, Lecouteux was a student at Blaise Pascal University in Clermont-Ferrand, France. He also studied at the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris, where he not only received a PhD, but later served in a faculty role. In particular, Lecouteux held the chair of German civilization and Literature of the Middle Ages at the Paris institution. At the time of his passing, he held the title of Professor Emeritus. Prior to his Sorbonne engagement, Lecouteux served at the University of Caen.
Lecouteux’s area of specialization focused on Germanic, Nordic, and greater-European languages, and related cultures of folk-magical beliefs. Particularly, his work focused on Medieval currents.
However, Lecouteux’s examinations extend far beyond the confines of academic life. Seminal studies such as the 1992 text, Witches, Werewolves and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages, have informed the approaches of occultists, pagans, and lay researchers across the world.
Witches, Werewolves and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages. 1992.
Writings within Lecouteux’s wide-ranging bibliography have been translated into numerous languages. As such, they serve as global staples upon the shelves of those concerned with European magical practices, spirit encounters, ghosts, folkloric threads, and indeed the pagan mind itself.
Other notable works from Claude Lecouteux include the 1996 book The Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind, the 1999 work Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and Ghostly Processions of the Undead, and the 2000 text The Tradition of Household Spirits. Ancestral Lore and Practice.
His most recent full-length text from 2025, entitled, At the Borders of the Wondrous and Magical: Nature Spirits, Shapeshifters, and the Undead in the Never-Ending Middle Ages, was received eagerly, and with great anticipation and excitement, among many circles.
At the Borders of the Wondrous and Magical: Nature Spirits, Shapeshifters, and the Undead in the Never-Ending Middle Ages. 2025.
The Occult Library recognizes that human beings themselves are like libraries: lives filled with knowledge and vocation, often marked by a personal mandate to share openly with others. Many, like his Sorbonne colleague Astrid Guillame, have remarked on the both encyclopedic quality of Lecouteux’s mind, and the integrity of his person.
We thank Claude Lecouteux for his life and scholarship, and encourage all of our readers to explore his body of work.
In Gratitude,
— The Occult Library staff