If you feel that was Belial, ask it to show you it’s sigil, if it shows you Belial’s sigil it’s Belial. If it gives you a different sigil, or worse, a “personal” sigil because you’re so special, it’s trying to get a shoe in the door to drink your milkshake. How to detect imposter spirits and other time wasting things
I’m leaning towards impostor at the moment, because I pulled a card and got “Archon and Aion”. The Belial in me doesn’t feel connected to this imagery, buut that could be a me thing, which I’ll explain.
Generally though, don’t let spirits come to you. You invite them by name, vet them and then you have a chance that they’re who they say they are. That appearance seems to also be playing on some very basic muggle trope about what “the devil” is supposed to look like. Set up wards and shields to stop randoms from getting at you - this is a basic need you should have in place BEFORE you start summoning, not after you get uninvited freeloaders, and know how to banish as well to get rid of gatecrashers.
I don’t use the term “Infernal Empire” because it doesn’t fit in my worldview - there are a million underworlds and they are places in the astral created by humans, for humans, imo. (Infernal means “of the underworld”.) I also think most of these being are ETs, so the idea that for some reason ETs have an “empire” in the astral, which largely is populated by and belongs to humans on this planet, doesn’t make sense to me. They’re not all even in the same species or faction or from the same planet or stellar system, they’re not a monolith.
Belial was and is still, for want of a better word, a god, there’s nothing underworld-like about him in my experience, and I’m not JCI, so I don’t accept any of JCIs characterizations of any entity, most of which pre-dated the invention of JCI religions anyway.
I don’t see Belial as any kind of prey animal, much less a goat, this is JCI imagery layered over entities not their celebrity A List, as I call it - you’re a saint, or Angel, or you’re a demon and there’s no in between. If you expect them to appear with the cartoonish imagery implied by Christian monks then that’s what you’ll probably get until you can keep an open mind.
Goat Background:
The goat in modern grimoires is imo a very miserable concept - it comes from 2 places -
a) psyop demonization by JCI religions of pagan fertility gods like Cernunnos, who deified their need for the farm animals to be numerous (or you won’t make it through the winter) and
b) the Semitic practice of blaming some dumb animal for their crimes and “scapegoat” them - driving them into the desert to die of starvation.
That latter is a completely dumb and evil concept imo. How did these people imagine they could really absolve their responsibilities by torturing animals? Because of my revulsion at JCI stupidity like this, I do not see any entity as goats, unless it’s the actual Deva of goats.
Basically there’s no reason for them to appear that way other than you think they should and they’re trying to be recognized. Appearances are thus personal, and only meaningful to the viewer.
If you’re drawn to the Infernal Empire worldview, there’s some of that in the way E.A. Koetting approaches Belial in his Belial Compendium book.
