Ars Goetia: just how trustworthy is it?

Spirits, Evocation & Possession
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Consider the following conundrum.

The Ars Goetia says this of Sitri:

The 12th spirit is Sitri, he is a great prince & appeareth at first with a Leopards face, and wings as a griffin. But afterwards at ye command of ye exorcist, he putteth on a humane shape very Beautifull, Inflaming Men with womens Love, and women with mens love, and causeth them to shew themselves Naked, if he [it] be desired, &c. he governeth 60 Legions of spirits, and his seal to be worne is this.

Now, the older Pseudomonarchia of Weyer states:

(21) Sitri [Sytry], alias Bitru, is a great prince, appeering with the face of a leopard, and having wings as a griffen: when he taketh humane shape, he is verie beautiful, he inflameth a man with a womans love, and also stirreth up women to love men, being commanded he willinglie deteineth [discloses] secrets of women, laughing at them and mocking them, to make them luxuriouslie naked, and there obeie him sixtie legions.

Alright. There are things here not in the Ars Goetia. The name Bitru and the part about disclosing secrets and mockign women. So we might assume the author of the Lemegeton left these out … but then we look at a French grimoire older than either and … would you look at this

Bitur Bitur est ung grant marquis qui apert en forme d'ung beau jouvencel et donne l'amor des femmes de quelque lieu que elles soi[e]nt, et destruict villes et chasteaulx si le maistre luy commande, et faict depposer de ses grantz honeurs et dignités de ce monde si le maistre luy commande ; et a xxxvi legions.

So Bitur is a Marquis who appears as a beautiful young prince who, my French is not great, receives? gives? the love of women wherever they are?, destroys cities and grants honours and dignities.

Ummm … ok. Someone here was full of shit.

But wait … there’s more:

Dam Dam est ung grant conte qui appert en belle figure, qui apporte or et argent et toutes aultres choses si on luy commande, et faict mourir ou languir toutes personnes que on luy commande. Et si dict touz les secretz des femmes, et si les faict despouiller et dancer toutes nues ; et a xxv legions.

Alright, so here’s one who will tell you the secrets of women and cause them to dance naked, like one part of the office of Sytry aka Bitru in Weyer. Oh boy. Now I’m really confused.

Sitri - Bitru - Dam

Damn!

What the hell?

I’m trusting the French, as far as Bitru and Dam are concerned. So what about Sitri? Is he Bitru? Is he Dam? Did Weyer fuck it up? Why aka Bitur? Did he think they sounded similar and conflate two spirits? How did that bit of Dam get in there? Did the Goetia just follow Weyer? And what si the precise meaning of the text in the Goetia?

The bit about inflaming? Is it the beautiful shape he puts on that is inflaming? Like with Bitru, apparently? Note the texts: “he putteth on a beautiful shape, inflaming” and “he is very beautiful, inflaming”

What do you think? I’m inclined to think Weyer was full of shit about aka Bitru.

I mean, from my experience, Sitri is a devilish séducteur who makes women reveal things they wouldn’t and behave in ways that are very embarrassing to them the next morning. I absolutely get the feeling he loves making fools of them. I can almost hear him laughing right now. I don’t know anything about destroying cities and castles and such.

1 Like
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As far as that goes I could say that a queens love affair with a stable boy could be enough to destroy a city in that time period if it were discovered. As for the varying names and offices I can’t give any clarity because I’ve only been able to get hold of the crowley/mathers edition myself.

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I mean, obviously Weyer is full of shit. His soruce tradition must be the same as that of the French, but he cuts a whole chunk from the beginning, which is why the Ars Goetia mentions Amayomon and Lucifer, but provides no information on them The missing hierarchy of the Goetia actually look like this:

At the top, 3 spirits:

Lucifer
Belzebuth
Sathan

Following them, the 4 kings of the 4 directions:

Orient
Paimon
Amaymon
Egyn

Only the description of Egyn aka Equi is missing from the French, although the French has fewer spirits than the Pseudomonarchia, so it is itself derivative of a larger corpus.

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About the names variations, I’m sure it’s due to medium misinterpretation/or close interpretation of it when talking with the spirit. Some months ago at night I was charging “at distance” some talisman for a friend of mine who practices Reiki, she entered the “alpha” state and followed the instructions/visualizations I gave her, and says she “heard” the name Jo-a-nna “spoken” (her name is not Joanna).

I was calling Yehova, but I suppose she misinterpreted Ye-ho-va as Jo-a-na. There a lot of experiences of telepathy (wich is how we communicate with spirits), in wich one guy send another a symbol (wich is easier to transmit) and the other guy gets it perfect, or very close, not the same as with names, wich arrived a lil’ varied at the end side.

There’s a full chapter on David St. Claire’s Lessons in Instant ESP, reccomended.

5

Also worth considering is that a Grimoire (generally) is a magicians notes. So it is possible that Weyer was fully aware of previous versions but in his own workings with the spirit only chose to record those details which were relevant to the workings he was performing.

6

I thought of it like this, when we evoke a spirit we bring it into existence, the spirit uses our perception to give itself form and shape subjective to each magician. So each magician will perceive it how it best makes sense to him/her.

If you take five people and have them write a description of a world class pick up artist you’ll get five different descriptions. One may say ladies man, another may see a womanizer, another may see a mentor etc., although he is a physical being their subjective reality each assigns him different attributes according to what he displays to them.

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[quote="-TWF-, post:6, topic:1521"]I thought of it like this, when we evoke a spirit we bring it into existence, the spirit uses our perception to give itself form and shape subjective to each magician. So each magician will perceive it how it best makes sense to him/her.

If you take five people and have them write a description of a world class pick up artist you’ll get five different descriptions. One may say ladies man, another may see a womanizer, another may see a mentor etc., although he is a physical being their subjective reality each assigns him different attributes according to what he displays to them.[/quote]

^^^^^^^^ This. These entity’s are not human, I’m sure they can shape shift or show what they want. Even if they did look the same all the time, the evokers imagination could change what they look like. Is everybody seeing demons as they are wrote in the Goetia??? And if so do you think its because you read that’s what they are suppose to look like so your mind shows you what you expect? (sorry for the spelling)