I recently watched an interview with Dr. Stephen Skinner in which he talked about how many practitioners get little to no results from evoking demons because they overlook two crucial factors: the PRECISE timing of the evocation and the direction from which the spirit is supposed to approach.
The direction seems relatively straightforward to determine in most cases, but I have no idea how to work out the exact timing. I understand that if e.g. a spirit is associated with Venus, for example, it might make sense to perform the evocation on a Friday. But how do you determine the specific planetary hour?
Are there any grimoires or other sources that explain this in detail, particularly for the demons of the Ars Goetia? I’m looking for something more specific than the usual advice to choose the appropriate day of the week , ideally, a source that explains how to determine the exact planetary hour for a particular spirit.
Dr Stephen Skinner is a Solomonic magickian, who enjoys and adheres closely to the Solomonic current. He is also a respected scholar in occult history.
This means the source book is the grimoire, The Lesser Key of Solomon.
If you are embedded in the Solomonic tradition this can be true as your belief makes it true. For the rest of us, experiences are not in line with this. I’d recommend trying it and find out what works best with your energy.
The thing is, in that interview he talked about various traditions and grimoires. He had been talking about the Ars Goetia shortly before that, so I assumed he was referring to it. I mean he translated and is working with many traditions, not only Solomonic..
But even in the Key of Solomon and other editions, commentaries, and appendices, I can’t find any tables listing the exact hours for demons. I’ve been looking for a whole week now.
There are tables for angels, but not for demons, at least not the ones that anyone knows :D. I did find one table in the Key of Solomon that lists demons by planetary hour, but they’re spirits nobody seems to know anything about, and I can’t find any information about their attributes or powers anywhere.
Yes - same thing… so, the Ars Goetia is one of the books in the Lesser Key of Solomon - it’s like a little libray. Another one is the Lemegeton. I forget the others.
Yes - in Solomonic magick, I think - this isn’t my area so others will have to explain better - you don’t call the demons directly, you use the “angels” - which are not really angels they are the names of god - to constrain them.
If you look up the Shem Hamephorash angels there’s an angel for every “demon”, in pairs. Wikipedia has a list.
It’s a very different way of thinking than the “modern grimoiric” tradition such as that found on grimoires by E.A. that I use. I use a circle and the sigil method to evoke entities directly without using the angels. I do not consider the planets or hours, and I do not use a triangle of manifestation. The modern grimoiric system is very stripped down to just what actually works, as we consider it. Obviously Solomonic mages feel differently.
After that I don’t do Solomonic magick at all so I will have to let others explain more.
The planetary hours are determined by your geographical location. There are online calculators available that will figure them out for you. You just need to enter in the hours of sunrise and sunset for your area.
The Lemageton, is actually the Latin title of The Lesser Key. The five books are the Ars Goetia, Ars Thugia-Gotia, Ars Paulina, Ars Notoria, and Ars Almadel.
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I know how to calculate planetary hours, but where can I find out which hours correspond to specific demons? I’ve found the planetary hours for two demons that are known: Asmoday and Vassago, in the tables in the Lesser Key of Solomon. But I’d love to find the corresponding hours for the rest of them (at least 70:)) too. More than just two, at least
The demons in the Ars Goetia are split into demons of the day, and demons of the night. The planetary hours were traditionally assigned to the demon’s rank, rather than their specific name. Kings are assigned to the Sun, for example. The Marquises are the Moon, Presidents are Mercury, Dukes are Venus, Princes are Jupiter, Earls are Mars, and Knights are Saturn.
The astrological “ruling days” and decans were a later addition by Aleister Crowley, who expanded upon Mathers’ earlier assignments based on the Golden Dawn’s Kabbalistic framework and were not part of the original Sloan manuscript.