History of the Goetia and modern accounts of Goetic experience

General Discussion
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(NOTE: I’m not and have never been in university or college and thus I have no “institutionally recognised” education in literature, religion or any language other than English so don’t think that my opinion is substantial evidence to form solid conclusions.Do some research! I have never attempted to use magick or evoke a spirit of any sort and thus have no personal experience with magick and spirits as of yet.)
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Greetings fellow occultists!

I have done an immense amount of reasearch into the Goetia(multiple versions), the Stegonographia by Johannes Trithemius, the Pseodomonarchia Daemonum by Johann Weyer alongside many other religious texts and medieval grimoires as well as BALG forums for better insight on the goetic demons and their personalities, experiences, similarities in energy and appearance etc. A part of me says “These entities can be explained as reactions of the mind to the given stimuli due to complex, intricate workings in the mind of The All” and another that says “These entities are to precise to be merely mental creation”.

There are many issues with the Goetia and all that it encompasses, yet we can not ignore the numerous claims of its effects, unless they are fools who proclaim a false truth! (which unfortunately and undoubtedly, there shall certainly be :frowning_face:). This leads to many other questions, such as: in what language are the enns’ spoken, what are the meanings of individual symbols within the sigils, where are the first appearances of these demons in known literature and other intriguing questions. With much time and effort, I hope to become a conjurer myself and write my own detailed, refined book on demons and their elaborate history to put to rest the concerns of those who have doubts in the Goetia.

… this is where you come in!
I can Google all the ancient pdf files I want, but as the title states, all accounts of the Goetic demons are welcome! If there is a text or grimoire you feel could be connected to the Goetia and any of it’s prayers, rituals, sigils, appearances of the demons, even conspiracy theories… anything that can be of use in tracing their language and true origins are all wanted and appreciated. Hopefully, this forum will bring light upon a dark topic :wink:.

“Self-discipline begins with thought. If we are not aware of what we think, then we are not aware of what we do.” ~FR. Tenebrae

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You can write whatever you want, but some of those doubts are created by operational experience. It is not like grabbing a hammer and hit a nail with it.

I suggest you to get those experiences

So you can ask them those things yourself

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Welcome @Surphet It is a rule of this forum for all new members to properly introduce themselves, so PLEASE CLICK THE LINK BELOW and tell us about yourself and any experience you have in magick, such as what you practice, how long you have practiced, areas of interest, etc:

handIntro

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It’s not that I do not want to, I simply can not due to my position in life right now. Nevertheless, I don’t want Crocell to tell me of creation, I want historical proof in text or writing of Crocell’s first appearance in literature and entities of similar appearance or name etc. The purpose is not the proving of the work’s authenticity itself(of which I have no doubts), but rather the association of different works into a more complete literal framework. When I get to it, I will surely ask them questions instead of an Internet forum, but keeping it academical has wider benefits for other intellectual groups besides occultists as well. Like I said earlier, it’s not about proving or finding anything from the demons, rather from human records and experiences.

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Welcome to the world of nobody knowing anything, and also, you must introduce yourself

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My opinion. According to a old catholic priests, from spain and 40 years in Vatican church. enns never existed in goetia never… But its latin conjurations, and hebrew. Yes from centuries ago. In latin. I have never read a italian or spain uk guy say enns. #2. The oldest record. Not body knw. But someone i knw in forum say its Egyptian stuff way too old. And if you look close tey have the sumwrian demons, whixh are recorded. And the simon necronomicon., olus pazuzu. Which are Babylon records. Gowtia is more new. Is far i knw the enns are new like 1400 century and still in doubts. A lot.

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Not my opinion but a lot of old guys in europe i pm a lot tell me tat…

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The goetia for the most part are ‘fairly’ new, however, often times people try and cement their history by tying them to the pagan Gods, despite there not being really any historical presence of them ever being such, besides maybe 1 or 2 while the rest are more of a recent forced connection.

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The Goetia’s been the industrial standard of ceremonial evocation in Western magic for a few centuries now because it works.

Idk what else to tell ya.

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U have a point. Westwr magick. But u may knw we are given waterdow magick. From the original sources. In 1986 goetia was expanding their knwlge to America. From 1990 to 2000s it was the boom. But tat was old school in uk. And wester europe. Yes it work. And i have work whit them. Its why we need tp adk spirts we invoqe,. Or learn mahick languages. Such france. Italian. Russian. And Greek. But goetia work yes. The dukante stuff someone claim is 14 century but 1964 tey found a dairy which record tat… Ona use enns. But not much goetia just a few.

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You can search online and read dusty old books all you want, but there is no better way to gain an understanding of what these beings are and what they can do than by summoning them and experiencing their power and presence for yourself. There’s a good reason why practicing occultists will often laugh at “armchair magicians.”

I suggest that you use a grimoire by a modern author to contact these spirits. I have experience using Demons of Magick by Gordon Winterfield, and other books include The Magick of Angels and Demons by Henry Archer, Goetia Pathworking by Corwin Hargrove, and The Goetia by Orlee Stewart at BALG.

I am no expert in the history of the Goetia, but the text you will hear about most often is the Lemegeton, which is a section of The Lesser Key of Solomon, if I recall correctly. The first two books I mentioned also pull from texts such as The Goetia of Dr. Rudd and Shorshei ha-Shemot, and perhaps Sepher Raziel ha-Malach, though I may be confusing that one with some other magick. The first is available in English, though the latter two are in ancient Hebrew (perhaps there are translations available). I do not suggest that you read any of these older texts until you have practical experience, unless you enjoy musing and theorizing more than having magickal experiences.

Some of the demons can be found in other pantheons and spiritual traditions. Baal (Bael), for instance, is found in several ancient Mesopotamian pantheons, and there is at least one well-recorded myth featuring him (I suggest the book Stories from Ancient Canaan, second edition, by Michael Coogan and Mark Smith). The spirit is perhaps more famously known as the pagan god the Israelites created a bronze statue of while Moses was atop Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments (digging deep into the Catholic school memories for that one).

To my knowledge, though, almost all (if not all) of the other demons first appeared in the Lemegeton, or if not there then in other grimoires with lists of demons. Like I said, I’m not exactly a history expert, but you will hear others assert (usually quite definitively and without evidence) that all these spirits were intentionally “demonized” by Christians (though given the timeline it would probably make more sense to say Jews) and that all of them were once “ancient gods” who got demoted by “monotheists.”

There’s a whole fucking lot of nonsense I could start unpacking there, and even more reasonable and perhaps even interesting ideas we could expound on and contemplate and wax academic, but this whole discussion is more-or-less completely irrelevant to the practice of magick. Someone who does one single ritual with a demon and gets results knows infinitely more about the demons than someone who dedicates their entire life to reading books without ever performing a single ritual. There is immense value to be found in ancient texts, and without the work of scholars and other academics we would often be scrambling in the dark, but we have reached a point in history where modern magick, developed over decades by working groups of occultists, has eclipsed the methods of the ancients (using the spirit names of old grimoires, sure, but with refined and improved techniques for summoning them).

Read all you want, but until the moment you find yourself in the presence of a demon, you will remain ignorant.

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Dont be an armchair magician…

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Genuinely curious: do you beliebe the spirits in the Goetia were invented with no prior basis in paganism whatsoever? Tbh this seems rather improbable given the Abrahamic religions’ (and those operating within their framework) habit of taking something pagan and manipulating it according to their agenda. Where do these spirits come from in your opinion?

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I believe majority were an invention of demonization of the Gods but they are not the gods themselves. If these beings theoretically were the goetia than by that idea the goetia do not exist. These beings for the most part in my opinion are just that demons, no not the negative idea people constantly attach to demons. Sumerian demons were seen as messengers and punishers for the Gods. Demons are living beings too, it’s just people can’t seem to let go of the negative idea around them or view them lesser than other beings. I view the goetia no less than I view the gods simply another race, as I view deity as a race of beings as well.

The goetia to me are their own people, linked to the Gods due to the LHP for the most part. They may have been demonized but the names such as sitri, haagenti, etc weren’t created by the ones that demonized them it was created by someone(s) who opened themselves up to the goetia and got a name.

Many people have met the gods and the goetia at the same time and often times the excuse is “well they can show multiple aspects at the same time” which I find just an easy bandaid to cover denial.

The goetia are no less powerful just being themselves, they don’t need to be forced into being entities they’re not. Just as people try and built Lucifer up by saying he’s Loki, azazel, Prometheus, and so many others he’s not.

The Abrahamic faith did take and alter from older faiths but there’s no evidence that it was the goetia, there’s evidence that Greece tried to absorb and change the Egyptian Gods, but there’s no history of Set being Sitri, or Haagenti being Bastet, Shezmu was already a demon who was deified in Egyptian faith his place didn’t change really.

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Thank you all for the responses!

I just made an introduction now.

There are three criteria of knowledge that I’m looking for: literal(Goetia, Sumerian/Accadian texts etc.), first hand experience(evocation of Sytri) and second hand information(your account of summoning Astaroth backfiring of Belial being surprisingly pleasant). In fact BALG is, to my knowledge, the best place for second hand knowledge of this sort and to receive you must first ask.

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@dusk if I thought It doesn’t work, I’d never have put so much effort into studying it.

@zorrito Very interesting information on the enn’s. I knew that their use is more for reinforcement in the ritual than an integral part of it. As to the origins, I can’t say. The sigils appear to have Egyptian influence so I won’t throw away that idea just yet.

Some claim that reoccurring instances of some deities(such as Belial) in different historical texts were discovered independently from one another. So perhaps the enns come from a good source, but physical evidence of such origins has been lost/ not been discovered yet.

The Goetia is more of a recycled grimoire than anything, but finding the origins of its contents is tricky.

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Good question, would like to see what people’s thoughts are🤔.

Personally, I can’t say. But with their loose origins all over the place, we could assume that they’re false being scattered as they are or we could consider that these beings have always been around and have appeared to humanity at different times in different forms with different names to suit their own agendas. IMHO, the best conjurer(even if that were supposedly King Solomon) could never truly comprehend beings who’ve lived as long and experienced as much as they have. Even a summoning doesn’t wholly bring forth their true being/form/nature, but rather an expression of the entitiy. Perhaps, the transmutation of the sigils could bring forth different expressions of the entity being summoned, manifestating them in a more physical/powerful/indepent form.

I must say my opinions are just guesses of one without experience, so I could be completely wrong.

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Here’s what I got from King Paimon directly (I work with Him a lot):

I think it’s pretty interesting, and at the time I asked Him I didn’t really have any opinion one way or another, just a faint inkling that the truth, as always, lies in the middle between “they’re not older gods” and “they’re all pagan gods mislabeled as demons”. The demon label, meaning “evil spirit”, is most definitely falsely attributed. They’re not all necessarily super friendly to humans, either. I think some (imo most of them, but I’m not here for a debate) have been derived from pagan origins, but may have been built upon so to speak (just as deities have been conflated into one that used to be seperate, creating a new deity that is, and yet is not, what it was before). I can completely accept the notion that these spirits are powerful enough as they are and needn’t be forced into the God category when that’s not what they are. But, imo anyway, just because we can’t find the links to pagan origins doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Just like saying spirit X is pagan god X doesn’t make it so either, and I do believe that any serious practicioner should always multiple-check their own bias and not get carried away with notions based on superficial parallels. Having said that, we’re talking about archetypes here that have been anthropomorphized to a degree, given various differing attributes depending on the culture. Each culture has their version of a sun god/dess, moon deities etc, which doesn’t mean that the Sumerian sun deity is the same as the Egyptian, for instance, but that they are different versions of the same archetype, each version being their own entity.

Another thing that’s important afaic is the fact that the Christian version of Lucifer, for example, that the Goetia talks about, is not the same as the pagan version of Lucifer (meaning the pagan god Phosphorus), who - correct me if I’m wrong - has nothing to do with Hell as it is described within the Abrahamic view. Then we’d be talking about two versions of the same spirit in this case. What happens - this is strictly theoretical speculation here - if, say, the “demonized” version of the pagan Lucifer began to take on the attributes of the “Lord of Hell” label put on Him by the Christians simply because so many people refer to Him as such and are no longer worshipping the pagan god? Does that mean that another Lucifer emerges from this “mix”? I’m not voicing an opinion here, it’s just a thought. It’s very interesting how the Goetia seems to come up with these spirits out of nowhere save from a few that can be identified with certainty. This does give rise to suspicions about their origin, which is why I can see where someone is coming from when they deny prior origins.

Edit to add: After writing this, I stumbled upon this image, which I think is so fitting to this theme:

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104494650_2751981688264041_6715757464323813922_o1440×1800 720 KB

Layers within layers within layers… On a side note, sometimes I get the feeling that the spirits get a kick out of gradually giving us glimpses of themselves, but never the whole picture.

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@shinri you are 110% correct

However, as much as I’d love to, the Goetia isn’t going anywhere. While my education is top priority in my life right now, I’ve become enthralled by the Goetia and always find myself returning to it. Once my situation allows for it, I will most probably try summon Crocell or Purson first and maybe even dabble in other summonings and rituals.

Off topic, How do you think Goetic entities feel about a conjurer knowing about them in detail before summoning them? Pleased or indifferent? I think they don’t care, but it doesn’t hurt to ask

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Haven’t read the entire thread so I will just say what my own research into this has led to. The spirit catalog comes from pseudomonarchia daemonum by Weyer. His source document was called Book of Offices of Spirits.

Weyer intentionally changed some things with the purpose of making things unusable. He stated as much. Comparing the two side by side, I can see that names have been changed in some cases and the hierarchy has been butchered beyond all recognition.

The compiler of the Goetia drew on a variety of sources , including Weyer, Agrippa, and Heptameron. Unfortunately, Weyer’s corruptions were left intact. As for arguments as to whether these spirits are pagan gods, look at their original names in the Book of offices and go from there.

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