Witchcraft and Evocation Simplified

Spirit Conjuring and the Legendary Witches

It is a long tradition in the annals and legends of witchcraft that witches performed magic through the agency of demons, fairies and lesser spirits, such as elementals, fetches (created spirits), nature spirits, ancestors (both spiritual and actual), spirits of the dead and various other supernatural servitors. They had a familiar spirit that assisted them in these efforts, but much of their work involved engaging and conjuring spirits in some manner to perform some kind of special or mundane task. The greatest of the legendary witches seemed to work mostly from a spirit model of magick.

The other kinds of workings that some (but not all) performed were various types of spell-craft, such as healing, curses, jinxes, finding lost things or buried treasure, acquiring or returning lovers, getting justice, etc., which required the kind of thaumaturgical magic that hoodoo root doctors today would readily recognize. Pagan religion wasn’t much of a concern or a factor for these lone or family-based practitioners, although they might indulge in calling antique deities along with their collection of other spirits, which could consist of popular Roman pagan gods and goddesses, Christian aspects of Deity, apostles, saints, angels, or even demons. They could employ psalms from the bible or other kinds of appropriated religious texts or use church sanctioned items, such as holy water or consecrated oil (chrism) or even hosts. These workings might also sometimes include various other tropes of the spiritual left hand path including calling upon the Devil himself. Whatever worked for a given task could be employed, and traditional witches seemed not to bother differentiating between Pagan, Christian, Jewish, or Diabolical elements. They seemed immune to any kind of sectarian bias and were, in a word, nearly animistic in their practices. So much has changed in our world since those early days.

Whether witches practiced “white” or “black” magic seemed to be determined by the goal they were pursuing, either for themselves or at the behest of a paying client. Witchcraft has always been the practice of illegal and unsanctioned magic seemingly appropriated from the religious rituals of the group for the benefit of the individual, and it has assumed a kind of grey undefined area between malefic and beneficial works. The status of the legendary witch was also quite ambiguous, which would be a natural outcome associated with anyone who was capable of doing both good and evil. 

In the present times this legendary Witch and her work seems far removed from the kind of magic that Witches perform today, if indeed they perform any kind of magic at all. Believe it or not, there is a movement out there that seeks to completely erase magical practices from the workings, rites and ceremonies of Modern Witchcraft. This movement seems benignly motivated to create a legitimate and friendly pagan religion that is acceptable to all other mainstream religions and creeds.

I have said previously that I find this disturbing because it does considerable damage to the whole concept of Witchcraft. After all, isn’t the practice of magic the “craft” part of Witchcraft? Take away the magic and all its lore from the traditional witch and all you have left is some kind of modern pagan revisionist religion that is harmless, banal and also, I might add, incredibly dull. In fact, I would go so far as to say that without the magical spells and spirit conjuring there is no “craft” dimension to witchcraft whatsoever. We might as well call it that peaceful, hippie inspired, nature-religion “Wicca” instead of using the word “Witchcraft,” and that is also a change that some practitioners are heartily promoting.

Some have called for the “re-wilding” of the Craft and others have called for a darker form of Witchcraft to replace the apparently castrated and “fluffy” popular version of Wicca. Even the British Traditional Witchcraft (BTW) has apparently succumbed to mediocrity and denied the importance of the legendary witchcraft and its focus on spirit conjuring, spirit-world traveling and poisonous root work. Others have promoted various forms of hoodoo or thaumaturgy, which I would surely find more useful that religious Wicca but not as challenging as conjuring. It would seem that if a person calls herself a Witch and thereby embraces all that such a role implies then it would be important for her to master the art of spirit conjuring at the very least. My argument is that Witchcraft, as a magical religion with an emphasis on the word “craft” consisting of forms of lower and higher ritual magick, should be the basis for a modern practice of Witchcraft. Taking that argument to heart should inspire a practicing Witch to engage in all of the tropes and fetishes of the legendary Witch. We don’t need to make Witchcraft darker or wilder. We just need to be faithful to the concept of Witchcraft as established by the legends of the Witches.

As a mechanism or adjunct to the “wilding” of Witchcraft, some writers have stated that goetic conjuring should be a part of the Witches repertoire. I agree, but I believe that it should be only a part of an overall methodology for entering the world of spirit as well as trafficking with the spirits of ancestors, the unsettled or heroic dead, chthonic deities (all deities have a chthonic aspect or root), elementals, deep earth spirits and demons. A Witch following the path of traditional Witchcraft would learn to master the ability of entering into the underworld or spirit world and also have the ability to conjure the spirits of that domain into the domain of the living, which is the whole point of evocation.

The magic associated with this ability to spirit travel and conjure was known in the Greek speaking world of antiquity as the magic of the “goes,” hence the title of goetic magic that is based on the practitioner or “goes.” (The term “goes,” as I have stated in previous articles, represents the keening and moaning intonations that the witch would use to summon spirits or enter into that stygian world. It is a quasi shamanic technique that has modern precedents, as we shall see.) From my perspective then, the arts of spirit travel, conjuring and the acquisition of a familiar spirit are the repertoire of the traditional Witch. These, and other practices, are the “craft” part of Witchcraft and they are still valid and available for the modern adherent of religious Witchcraft or Wicca.   

However, approaching spirit conjuring requires some source materials and knowledge that won’t be found in any of the books on Wicca (or the standard Book of Shadows, for that matter), unless one digs very deep and comes up with a long out-of-print copy of “Mastering Witchcraft” by Paul Huson. A Witch who aspires to master conjuring spirits can either adopt the whole of the Golden Dawn or Grimoire based ceremonial magick corpus or she can use the tools that she has at hand with a few minor additions. (Allow me to illustrate what those minor additions might consist of for an erstwhile Witch following the path of the legendary Witches.)

I have decided to write this article to provide any Witch who wants to learn the art of conjuring all the necessary tools needed to accomplish that end, and these are readily at hand. She doesn’t have to invest in all of the books and materials required to become a ceremonial magician in order to master this technique. As I have explained in my previous articles, there is a distinct difference between what I call ceremonial magick and pagan-based ritual magick. They are quite different and that difference is based on the concept of immersion vs. isolation.

A ceremonial magician seeks to control and isolate the evocation of spirits so his magic circle functions as a barrier and place of protection. The reason for this isolation is that the ceremonial magician considers any direct contact with spirits to be dangerous and morally contaminating. The goetic triangle placed outside of the protective circle that he uses is to be the focus for the spirit evocation. However, the witch has a completely different model for her work.

The magic circle that she erects is not to protect her from spirits but to establish a boundary between the sacred inner world of spirits and deities and the outer world of the profane. It is a completely different kind of mechanism that causes the Witch practitioner to be exposed to all of the magical workings performed within that magic circle. That would include anyone else who happens to be in that circle when such rites are performed. The erection of a boundary in modern Witchcraft is analogous to ancient Pagan temples or sacred sites having a specific (and sometimes marked) boundary to designate the border between the sacred and profane worlds. The only difference between them is the permanence of the ancient Pagan temple precincts and the temporary nature of the Witch’s magic circle erected wherever needed.

This is the magical process that I have called immersion as set down in several of my previous writings, since the Witch is exposed to everything performed within her magic circle. The only protection that she has at her disposal to control and focus the working is the power of her familiar spirit and her own iron-like will. In the modern world of Witchcraft the familiar spirit is expanded and augmented to include the assumption of a personal Godhead, which represents her higher self and spiritual genius. This powerful godhead assumption is the core of both the witch’s religious work as well as the primary state in which she will perform all higher forms of magic, be they a form of energy work, the conjuring of spirits, or both.

The foundational state that is the precursor to all of these kinds of magical workings consists of the various levels of trance states and through them, the assumption of godhead. Modern Wicca, especially in the BTW, reserves the prerogative of the Drawing Down rite to the chief celebrant, whether that is the High Priestess (represented by the Moon) or the High Priest (symbolized by the Sun or Horned God). However, in Modern magical-based Witchcraft, this rite becomes the necessary step for any kind of magical operation, particularly higher forms of ritual magick such as spirit conjuring. The godhead assumption functions pretty much the same as the acquisition and deployment of a familiar spirit in antique forms of witchcraft. In order to assume one’s God/dess Within, a powerful trance state must be adopted. These two mechanisms represent a single seamless process in the arsenal of the Witch, and it is the most important tool that any Witch worth her salt has mastered and perfected.

Trance levels as adopted by the witch can graduate from mild to extreme, depending on what kind of operation is to be performed. Trance can be induced by any number of traditional or ad hoc methodologies, based on one’s inclination and personal preferences. However, breath-control, intoning with vocalized humming, visual focal locking, repetitive bodily movement, the ingesting of ethnogens, calling or keening wails, barbarous words of summoning can be used to facilitate different trance states. Trance is also employed for spirit travel, divination, spirit conjuring and also for godhead assumption.

A deep trance is used for oracular communication with the Gods, spirits or to facilitate spirit travel into their domains, but a mild trance is the basic operating state in which most workings are performed. This is because a truly deep trance is temporarily debilitating and makes performing even a simple operation very difficult. Even so, the first time that a Witch attempts to undergo a godhead assumption the associated trance state should be as extreme as possible. It is also assumed that such a first encounter would necessitate assistants, helpers or a teacher to orchestrate and guide the process. Once such a powerful trance state and assumption have been performed then the Witch should be able to develop a method of readily assuming her Godhead in a more milder trance state. When required, a Witch can easily shift from the mild trance to a deep trance and bring forward to consciousness the full embodiment of the Godhead to bear on any magical event or occurrence.

A personal Godhead is nothing more than a personalized aspect of a Pagan Deity that appeals to the practicing Witch and through which she identifies herself. While this entity might not seem to be analogous to the spirit familiar that the legendary witches sought to acquire, I believe that it does fit many of the functions and attributes associated with such an entity. Ancient sources specified that familiar spirits could take multiple forms including that of animals, and that they were considered to be either demons (malefic) or fairies (good). However, the purpose of a familiar spirit was to bridge the worlds of mankind and the worlds of spirit and thereby act as an aid and a guide to the witch in mastering both worlds. I believe that the personalized deity (as a basis for the higher self) succinctly answers this requirement. Modern witches have delegated the familiar to being a specific pet owned by them. Yet without the magical agency of bridging the spirit and material worlds such a delegation is both misleading and probably specious.

Being able to assume a Godhead completely and thoroughly (although briefly) should be considered a basic staple for any practicing Witch regardless of whether or not she intends to perform any kind of higher forms of ritual magick. There is nothing so profound and empowering as engaging with the rituals and ceremonies while under the trance induced influence of one’s personal Godhead. Trance possession by a Deity is also an important protection as well as an empowerment for the practicing Witch, since the inclusive nature of the magic circle gives her no real spiritual protection other than her own will-power. 

I have recently written an article that details my opinions and perspectives about the nature and importance of godhead assumption and how it plays an important role in the development of a Witchcraft-based form of ritual magick. For those who might have missed this article, I would recommend that they read it and also study the underlying articles that it references. I believe that this rite is a critically important part of the practice of Modern Witchcraft and that a proficiency in the performance of this rite marks the difference between the adherent of a strictly religionist Wicca and the follower of the Witchcraft path. You can find that article here.

Spirit Conjuring - Five Easy Steps

Now that we have covered all of the basic elements that a modern Witch would need in order to be able to perform a spirit conjuration, we can now go over a simple mechanism for spirit conjuration. What I am proposing here is to use a method that is the simplest and most efficient in regards to making use of the techniques and materials that a modern Witch would have at her disposal. (This technique is not the one that I use myself, which is much more elaborate, but it is one that I used in the past and have therefore fully vetted.)

As for magical tools, a Witch would have a consecrated weapon (an athame) and the use of a secluded space in which to perform this working. Those are the primary requirements that a Witch needs to perform a conjuration. Some other basic tools would be cups for lustral water (salt water) and liquid offerings (wine or ale), a pentacle for solid offerings (salt, bread or other food), an incense burner and incense, lamps or candles, a consecrated pointing stick or wand, and optionally, a consecrated sword. An ink pen and some parchment would also be useful. Most modern Witches would either have all of these materials or would be able to easily acquire them, and whatever is used for her craft should be kept apart from mundane tools and implements. Any other accouterments would be considered helpful but not essential to the work. Of course, the most important mechanism is the familiar spirit or preliminary godhead assumption and all of the associated intimate relations between the Witch and her personal Deity, and the ability to assume various levels of trance whenever required.

The five basic steps used for conjuration are based on the age-old, classical method of spirit conjuring, although one or two might not be always necessary or even needed. These steps are, in sequential order, consecration (preparation), invocation, binding, constraining and then releasing. The binding and constraining might not be necessary, depending on whether the target spirit is either emotionally hot or cold. If the spirit is hot, then it can be engaged to perform aggressive or hostile actions for the benefit of the practitioner or her client. Such a spirit might need to be bound and constrained, but even a simple invocation has some degree of binding and constraining simply because the practitioner is calling and summoning that spirit to appear in a focused manner. A spirit that is considered cold is one that is essentially benevolent (or neutral) and doesn’t require any kind of overt binding. Often binding is symbolically performed through the use of magical cords and the actual tying of knots (ligature), but that is a symbolic prop that can be just as readily performed using the power of the will and sharply focusing the intent. Whatever actions the Witch performs within her magic circle are also backed up by the personal Deity that she is operating through. Pragmatism is the actual rule here, that and one’s personal predilections, so determining what works requires a fair amount of experimentation and the use of one’s imagination.

The most important part of these five steps is the consecration and preparation stage. The more effort and time that is put into the preparation for the working will naturally result in a more powerful and successful outcome. This also includes the most important research into the nature of the target spirit and its associated symbology. A Witch conjurer must establish a deep and intimate connection with the target spirit beforehand or the attempt to conjure it will undoubtedly fail. The primary key to invoking a spirit is to know its name. There are many ways of determining the name of a spirit, but it is strategically important to know the name (and the proper spelling) in order to perform a successful conjuring rite.

This brings me to an important consideration. Some writers have stated that all that is required in order to master the art of spirit conjuration, and particularly the conjuration of demons, is to select one of the more reputable grimoires and to use it singularly and consistently. While I would admit that such a practice would produce the desired results, the problem that I have with this approach is that nearly all grimoires have a particular Christian bias in regards to depicting and characterizing angels and demons, and also the kind of dialogue associated with their invocation and the overall methodology for conjuring. There is either an attitude of hostility and suspicion towards demonic spirits (or any kind of spirit) or an avowed inclination towards aligning oneself with infernal or satanic godheads. Either perspective is decidedly Christian and completely at odds with the traditional Witch conjuror who would judge spirits based on actual contact and prolonged experience.

While there might be various elements in the old grimoires that a Witch might find useful or aesthetically pleasing, she must be careful not to accept the underlying Christian metaphysical universe as well. This is the reason why I elect to “cherry pick” useful elements from the old grimoires, but I reject using them as they currently exist because they fail to agree with my pagan spiritual perspectives.

I believe that the best approach is to shed the whole Christian perspective and approach each spirit as a unique individual that has certain qualities. These qualities may be associated with elemental, planetary or zodiacal attributes, but they should not be influenced by Christian morality. So, that means that the various descriptions of spirits as found in the old grimoires are completely useless. The only thing that has any value whatsoever is the identifying sigil or character and the spirit’s name. The overall class of spirits as well as any underlying symbolic qualifications may assist the Witch in developing an image or imago of the target spirit, but the magical techniques and approach to performing a conjuration of such a spirit should be developed separately and distinctly from the grimoire from which they are taken.

This also includes aligning oneself with various infernal chiefs or other such fabulous diabolic entities (Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifuge), since they are specifically associated with Christian or Jewish concepts spiritual duality and are not commensurate with the pagan non-dual spiritual perspectives of a Witch. All Deities are valid and real as are all spirits, but Abrahamic based theology is neither valid nor applicable to the practice of traditional Witchcraft-based magick. Thus I seek to approach these kinds of magical entities in a neutral manner, removing the obvious Christian stigmas and the accretions of misinformation to reveal the spirit’s underlying pagan characteristics. (The apparent monism of Witchcraft can be found in the idea that everything is connected to everything else, and that all of the spiritual entities in the world are united within the One which is purposely left un-named.)

Perhaps some of the most powerful and personal spirits with whom I have trafficked were known only to me and my personal magical process. They are not names of spirits found in books, and the lore associated with them is what I developed myself, so it is quite personal and intimate. We are surrounded by spirits and some of them are associated with the place and location wherein we reside or work while others are associated with our genetic lineage, spiritual lineage or our personal magical pantheon, which is always far greater than we realize. Ignoring all of these entities while cultivating the spirits found in the old grimoires is probably a very one-sided approach to Witchcraft-based magick, and it is not one that I would recommend.

I believe that the Witch conjuror should develop her ability to conjure these spirits first before engaging with spirits of the old grimoires. This will engage the Witch for a time, since she will have to determine the names, qualities and build up their images in order to conjure them and develop a lengthy and intimate relationship with them. In fact, a Witch could go far just working with the spirits in her own domain without having to traffic with the spirits listed in the grimoires. Still, the real challenge is to engage with both sets of spirits (personal domain and legendary) and master all of them in turn.

Keep in mind that to a modern pagan we have around us many Gods, Goddesses, Earth Spirits, Deities of place and location, ancestors, cultural heros, the unsettled spirits of the dead, demons, fabulous creatures and a host of lesser or even unknown deities and spirits. It is a very crowded spiritual universe and it is important for the Witch to build up a pantheon of meaningful Deities and Spiritual Sponsors, not to mention the most important of all spirits, which is her familiar spirit. This is the first task (in my opinion) that faces the Witch who aspires to be a conjurer. Once she is well vetted with the conjuration of spirits in her own domain then she can take on the spirits of legend as they occur in the various old grimoires. 

I have based this inclusive spiritual perspective of many Gods and Spirits and rejected the bias of my Christian upbringing because it was a source of my own previous confusion and lack of clarity when it came to dealing with these entities in a practical and pagan manner. I discovered that this confusion was completely resolved the moment I rejected the dualistic notions and tendencies associated with Christian theology so imbedded in our world and saturating our cultural values.

These spiritual biases suffuse the old grimoires because they were written by Christians, although some of those authors did display a pronounced predilection for diabolism in their practices. I discovered the hard way that it is better to base one’s spiritual beliefs on a pagan perspective (even if it is modern in scope) and only to that add the various spirits and entities associated with any of the old grimoires rather than attempt to emulate the mind-set behind them. In this manner, the Witch as conjuror doesn’t take on all of the baggage associated with the various classes of spirits, be they angels, demons, chthonic deities, infernal chiefs or whatever. With this in mind, the traditional Witch can appropriate various spirit lists, sigils, characters and other attributes and tropes from the old grimoires without any trouble, but she should keep her spiritual beliefs and alignments completely intact and not forget her own personal spiritual contacts. This is particularly true regarding her familiar spirit, which consists of her personal alignment to a personal Deity and all of the associated liturgical obligations and spiritual connections that such a relationship entails.

In order to engage in conjuring the legendary spirits, the Witch will appropriate various spirit lists, characters/sigils and associated zodiacal attributes (if feasible) and select one of these spirits as the target of a conjuration. While the descriptions might be highly misleading, the functional attributes (what the spirit can do if it is successfully conjured) are a basic starting point. As the Witch conjurer becomes more experienced and familiar with the various spirits associated with a particular grimoire or class then the descriptions and details of each spirit will be filled out to include a great deal of detailed experiential knowledge. The most important task in preparing for a conjuration is to develop a personal connection or alignment with a specific target spirit. Perhaps that spirit is a specialized gate-keeper for access to a whole class of spirits (such as Scirlan in the Grimoirum Verum) or it might just be one of a distinct class. Regardless, the Witch approaches this spirit with a powerful emotional desire to summon and to experience a thorough engagement with it.

The preparation work requires a period of preliminary summoning where the Witch creates the consecrated parchment with the spirit’s name and its character or sigil and makes the association between the symbol on the parchment and the entity itself a powerful reality in her mind. The act of fashioning this consecrated talisman for the purpose of conjuring it will be the first step in successfully evoking it. This is because the consecrated talisman is a physical link for that spirit. Other things can be used to augment the conjuration of the target spirit, such as the use of colored altar cloths and candles, incense, oils, herbs, gems, precious metals etched with the spirit’s name and character; all of these are based on the symbolic qualities associated with the spirit, but all of them are merely supplemental when compared to the consecrated parchment sigil.        

While the grimoires have quite a number of items that need to be consecrated and prepared for the working, such as vestments, weapons and other tools, the Witch already has all of her tools consecrated and ready for use. She only needs to fashion and consecrate the parchment sigil, and once that is done, she will spend many hours or even days focusing on the parchment character and internally call and summon the spirit. I could well imagine that the Witch sits in her dark sequestered temple holding the consecrated parchment in her hands before a lit candle specially made and consecrated for that use, whose light is dimmed by the clouds of incense smoke. Within that twilight stygian atmosphere she is whispering the name of the spirit over and over again, thereby powerfully reinforcing her intention to invoke this spirit. (I typically perform this same action days prior to a scheduled invocation and I have found it to be a potent tool for reinforcing the invocative working, even though I use a much more elaborate ritual lore.)

A Witch might also use this preparation time to gather and prepare any other ingredients that she might need, such as bitter or aromatic herbs or other items that are a regular part of her work. She will pick an auspicious night for the planned invocation based on the cycle of the moon and planets, but all of this will be a normal part of her cyclic work. It will also depend on the class and type of spirit that she intending to invoke, but the cycle of the moon will be sufficient to complete her task. The actual effort of preparation, though, is the fortification of the mind and the will to successfully accomplish the work, since these will be the most essential elements used in the invocation.

When the scheduled time for the invocation working arrives then the Witch will sequester herself in her temple domain for the duration of the working. This domain may be a permanent location or it might be a room or outdoor area temporarily reserved for that purpose. Regardless, the Witch will perform her usual circle consecration rite, empowerment and godhead assumption in order to begin the working. She will have the charged and consecrated parchment sigil that she has focused on for days and this will be the central focus for the working. If she is employing planetary hours or timing the working to specific astrological aspects then once the circle is consecrated the perception of time within that barrier becomes locked or frozen for the duration of the working.

Performing an actual invocation, that is calling and summoning the spirit to appear and using various authorities and words of power to make it emphatically so, is something of an acquired artistry. Certainly, the invocations written in the grimoire might suffice for a model or example of how to proceed with an invocation, but of course, the tone and the principalities or authorities cited should be completely changed. Many invocations found in the old grimoires establish a hostile relationship to the spirit being summoned, and they also use obvious Abrahamic attributes of Deity in order to reinforce or legitimize the summoning. A Witch doesn’t need either authority or legitimacy to summon a spirit. She uses the invested power of her will fortified with her personalized godhead that is consciously present within her.

However, she does need to pepper her invocation with various words of power, such as those purloined from the Greek Magical Papyri or other grimoires, or she can use words made up for the occasion (talking in tongues). She should call upon the powers of all of her spiritual alignments so as to have the proper weight or “gravity” to draw the spirit to her. She will also practice and perfect the technique of intoning her words when she speaks them, or she could add a keening wail or screeching sound for effect. She might even sing or chant her invocation while playing a drum or a bell. We can assume that a practiced Witch will develop her own unique way of speaking and resonating verbal intonations when summoning a spirit, but it will sound powerful and even frightening to an outsider. This is because when we seek to get the attention of spirits, otherworldly vocal sounds and intonations can greatly empower an invocation.

Perhaps the simplest of all spells associated with spirit conjuration is to use of what I call the ceremony of naming and un-naming. The ceremony of naming is where the syllables of the spirit’s name are built up from the right to the left until the full name is expressed. It begins with a single letter and joins to it the first syllable and then the second, and so on. Here’s an example.

Ceremony of Naming for the spirit Nogorathes:

S

ES

HES

THES

ATHES

RATHES

ORATHES

GORATHES

OGORATHES

NOGORATHES  

Likewise, the ceremony of Un-naming for the spirit Nogorathes:

NOGORATHES

OGORATHES

GORATHES

ORATHES

RATHES

ATHES

THES

HES

ES

S

The Witch conjurer can use the ceremony of naming and un-naming to summon a spirit and also to dismiss or release it. It is an antique method and a really good one. I still use it myself, although I usually add to it other invocative techniques. You can slowly and sonorously step through each syllable and either build up or redact the spirit’s name, and you can do this once or three times, depending on your inclination. 

The content or verbiage of the invocation used by a Witch is neutral. It names the spirit and summons it to appear in a repetitious manner. Unlike the old grimoires, she doesn’t threaten or insult the summoned spirit nor attempt to angrily coerce it, thereby assuming a haughty superiority to the targeted entity. If anything, she uses her magnetic power to seduce and draw the spirit to her, employing bribes or the promise of bribes (offerings) to accomplish her end. She also seeks to draw the spirit into her sacred circle domain to be with her and her personal godhead.

Once this task is accomplished there is an immediate connectivity between the conjuring Witch and her target spirit. This is a decidedly different methodology than either invoking a spirit into a triangle that is exterior to the magic circle or for that matter, performing a scrying session from the safe confines of one’s sacred space. The invocation is performed in an iterative manner until the Witch receives direct contact and communication from the spirit, and once accomplished she can move to the next step. (The invocation will likely be successful because the Witch has spent many hours and days with her preliminary summoning and establishing a link with the target spirit.)

How do you communicate with spirits, or sense or somehow perceive them? It is a mental process that one has to develop over time and a solid trance state is the best foundation for communication and perception. I believe that it is impossible to “talk” to spirits unless one has undergone quite a lot of trance work and deep meditation. (Those of us who can readily talk to spirits have built up quite a bit of experience and can quickly shift our state of consciousness into that of a mild trance state.) We all have to learn to listen with our spirit ears and talk with our spirit voices in order to engage properly with spirits. Admittedly, these actions take quite a bit of practice and preparation. However, the assumption of the godhead working should give the erstwhile Witch a much needed foundation for being able to communicate with spirits, since this rite allows a full conscious link to be developed between the Witch and her familiar spirit. Also, I have found that the assumption of godhead mind-state acts as an effective mechanism for communicating, translating and even allowing one to see a spirit assuming a recognizable shape in it’s own domain. 

What occurs next in the conjuration is a dialogue between the conjuror and the invoked spirit. This is referred to as the process of establishing a “quid pro quo” relationship with that entity. The conjuror tells the spirit what he or she wants (supposedly that is within the domain of the spirit’s capabilities) and then asks what the spirit wants in return. This can go on for a while, but at some point either an agreement is reached or not. When an agreement has been reached, then the spirit and the conjuror are “bound” together for a mutual task. If there is no agreement, then the conjuror politely releases the spirit. Still, I don’t subscribe to developing a legal style document or pact and then forcing the spirit to agree to it, usually with an underlying threat. If a spirit is “hot” to begin with, then coercing and threatening it will only create a stressful and hostile relationship, which is subject to the problematic issue of dominance. Such a relationship may even work for a time (as it does in human interactions), but in the end it will unleash the putative retribution of a very pissed-off spirit. It could even cause the invocation to completely fail. Let me give you an overly simplified example of how this works. 

Did you ever get a phone call from an obnoxious and pushy salesperson interrupting whatever you were doing? Were you inclined to listen indulgently or did you instead insult the caller and then hang up? You might not even have bothered to answer if you knew that the caller wasn’t someone whose number you recognized. The same is true with spirits, although the mechanism is considerably different. Unless you subscribe completely to the mental outlook that all spirits (except angels, saints and Jesus Christ) are inherently bad or untrustworthy, then it behooves you to take a much more positive and open attitude to the spirit that you intend to invoke. It is for this reason that the binding and constraining of an invoked spirit takes on a completely different tone when the conjurer has a positive and open attitude towards the invoked spirit. It also has the effect of making one’s relationship with all spirits positive and rewarding. Such an attitude is more typical of a pagan spirituality than one steeped in the Abrahamic faiths. Binding can be done with the art of ligature, and the binding or sealing of the partchment sigil is a good example of how that might be accomplished, that is, if it’s even necessary.

However, I have found that there is no real need to constrain a spirit to physical appearance nor to bind it to some kind of irrevocable pact if the conjuror has instead established a positive and empowering relationship with that spirit. Such a relationship can and does become an active part of the Witch’s personal religious cult (whose central Deity is the personal deity associated with one’s higher self) and so the spirit, once invoked, receives regular offerings like the other deities and spirits associated with her pantheon.

If you want a spirit to perform certain actions at your bequest whenever needed then you will need to develop a relationship with that spirit and give it regular offerings, much as one would do with the ancestors and the Gods. However, for a spirit that is invoked for a specific purpose with no inherent need to continue the relationship, then the agreement is the bargain that briefly binds the spirit and conjurer together. I make it a point to give an initial or partial offering and then when the agreement is fulfilled by the spirit, the rest of the offering is made. Once the spirit fulfills its part of the bargain then the conjurer is obligated to make the final offering very soon afterwards. Not fulfilling a bargain with a spirit may not seem to be worse than skipping a car payment or a mortgage payment since the repercussions to such a miserly action are more subtle and less outwardly legal, at least initially. It’s particularly bad for a conjuror to get the reputation of being a “welcher” because then few spirits would even entertain the notion of appearing when being invoked.

When I speak of making offerings to spirits what am I actually referring to? Offerings are the items given to the spirit as part of the agreed upon relationship (also known as the binding and constraining factors). The relationship might be short term, thus necessitating a formal release, or it might be long term, which would entail that the Witch gives regular offerings to that spirit. In fact, she might even have an idol fashioned for that spirit, consecrated, charged and ensconced upon her shrine with the other statues, tokens and fetishes of her personal religious practice. Offerings normally include some kind of food and drink, or other substances as requested and negotiated with the target spirit. It is here that I need to say a few words about the offering of one’s own blood or the blood of a sacrificial beast.

Blood offerings are sometimes required, but they are really based on one’s tastes and practices. If a spirit required me to give it blood I would negotiate for a surrogate, such as a bloody piece of cooked meat or perhaps some blood-red wine (or a concoction of dragon’s blood). Because the binding and constraining really consists of a negotiated exchange and an agreement over time, there is always the possibility of arriving at an offering that is satisfactory to both parties. I reserve blood offerings to very special rites and I always use my own blood instead of that of some hapless creature, unless the offering is for food, specifically, cooked meat. Still, I have found that nearly all of the spirits that I have worked with only require a token offering instead of some onerous sacrifice. The real hard sacrifices are typically required by Deities, even so, no God or Goddess that I have worked with has ever asked me to take a life in their name. It is with Deity alone that I have shared my blood in an offering, and thankfully, it is a rare event.

If the negotiated agreement between the conjurer and the target spirit is for a specific desire in exchange for a singular offering, then once the invocation has reached a satisfactory conclusion, the conjuror should make a partial offering, thank the spirit for appearing and then courteously dismiss it. This is called releasing or in the old grimoires it is called “giving a license to depart.” If there is no need nor desire to make the spirit a regular part of one’s spiritual shrine, then it is very important to release the spirit. A Witch conjurer can use an elaborate and official method of releasing or use instead a simple and fond farewell, and, “till we meet again someday,” sort of closing.

The various information that a conjurer receives through the performance of an invocation of a spirit, including the consecrated parchment sigil or talisman used as the link, are assembled together a put into the pages of a book specially made and consecrated for that purpose. It is called a Liber Spiritum, or Book of Spirits. This book would include such information as the log or diary of the invocation, what transpired, the image or imago that the spirit assumed (if any), the nature of the agreement and the intention of the invocation, anything that the spirit imparted specifically to the conjurer (the giving of a mark - part of the constraint), and the ultimate outcome.

Obviously, if the spirit becomes a part of the conjurer’s pantheon, then a veritable book could be assembled to contain all of the material passed on between the spirit and the conjurer. Also, a spirit that has been previously invoked and put into the Book of Spirits can be more easily accessed by using the sigil pasted to a page of the book as a connecting link. This is where the term “Bell, Book and Candle” can be used by the Witch conjurer. All she has to do is to take the book into sacred space, open it to the page where the sigil of a specific spirit resides, light a candle and ring a bell to summon and reconnect with a previously invoked spirit in the Book of Spirits. I would also add lighting some special incense and quietly intoning and summoning the spirit to appear. I would call such a rite used to re-establish a previous working to be a “macro-rite” and I use these shorthand processes wherever possible to make my magick more efficient.

You can imagine that over time a Witch would assemble quite a repertoire of invoked spirits in her Book of Spirits, and such a book would be far more important, powerful and useful than any common Gardnerian Book of Shadows. Additionally, the Witch could also write up her rituals and techniques into the book and use it as a focus for her spirit conjuring work. The book also has the quality of being transportable, so she can take it with her wherever she goes, and it only requires a shift in consciousness for her to mentally erect the proper sacred space. While the book would be important to the singular Witch who owned it, it would be far less useful or valuable to an outsider. An outsider wouldn’t have spent the time and effort in summoning and evoking the spirits named in it, and so he or she wouldn’t be able to establish such a connection simply by possessing the book. This is because what is in the book is powerful and meaningful only to the Witch who produced it, and all of the spiritual connections illustrated in such a work would be indelibly represented within the sphere of her mind and soul. The book would only function as an outward artifact of her own personal power as a sorceress, and then, only in her possession.

Witch As Conjurer - Recap

We have briefly covered the various elements and techniques needed for one to function as a Witch conjurer. I wrote this article so that any experienced Witch could quickly assemble her tools and techniques and become a conjurer of spirits. I believe that it is a distinguishing characteristic of what it means to be a Witch to have the capability of conjuring spirits, and I think that it is part of our legacy and innate nature. This capability does indeed require a lot of practice, and like any skill, the more effort that one puts into it, the more proficient one becomes in doing it. However, a Witch can become a conjurer without having to adopt one’s practice to either the Golden Dawn based system of magick or the techniques and tropes associated with one or more of the old grimoires. It is my belief that modern Witchcraft already has all of the essential elements needed to master the art of spirit invocation and evocation. You can pursue a simple path or develop an elaborate one, but you don’t have to change what you are already doing.

Typically, a follower of Wicca is engaged in the modern pagan spirituality of nature, celebrating the changing seasons and the cycle of the moon. She engages with the natural mysteries inherent in life itself and feels the pulse and power not only within her body, but also within her soul and the core of her being. She may have learned how to perform thaumaturgy from books or teachers, and she will have an effective knowledge of sensing and engaging with the various Gods and Goddess of her cultural heritage as well as the Deities of place, location, and geophysical topology. However, she will have to master certain techniques in order to begin the process of learning spirit conjuring. These techniques are:

• Mastery of Basic Witchcraft Rites (Consecration, Sacred Space, Raising Power, Sigil Magic, Lunar and Solar mystery rites, Initiation Rite (self or tradition))
• Mastery of Trance States
• Mastery of the Godhead Assumption Rite (the Draw)
• Development of the Familiar Spirit (Personal Godhead)
• Development of Spirit Listening, Talking and even Seeing - also Spirit Traveling

Once these techniques reach a certain degree of competency then the Witch Conjurer can focus on the following tasks.

• Develop a spirit summoning rite - basic pattern/outline
• Develop techniques of the preliminary summoning
• Develop techniques of Invocation (methods and verbiage of summoning)
• Focus on the Personal Domain of Spirits - develop spirit lists and build a personal pantheon
• Build a personal shrine for Deities and Spirit
• Consecrate a Book of Spirits
• Collect specific examples of the Old Grimoires and develop a methodology for conjuring spirits from the various spirit lists
• Build up an expertise in Spirit Conjuration over many years of experimentation and practice.

I have written articles about many of these subjects already, and you can find them in the index on the left hand side of the blog below all the rest of the blog-based doodads. Sometimes using this index is a pain in the neck, but the discovered articles found using this tool are well worth the effort.

So what you have to do to become a spirit conjurer is to add some additional techniques to what you already possess and practice. All it takes is time and a willingness to develop new lore and to experiment, which I do believe is the really fun and interesting part of being a Witch.

Frater Barrabbas

Does Culture Influence Occultism and Spirituality?

I have been pondering this theme for some time now, and it really boils down to a question of what is evil, what is good, and if our culture says something or someone is evil, can that belief be overturned or ignored? Do what the masses believe have any power over what individuals believe or practice, even if what those individuals believe or practice goes completely contrary to what the masses believe?

This may seem a bit nebulous, but I would like to bring this line of questioning into the frame about the debate about whether witchcraft and paganism are endemically or intrinsically evil (which, of course, I adamantly deny), and whether such religious characters such as Satan or Lucifer are indelibly stained by cultural contagion. Social movements can supposedly reclaim culturally accepted definitions, or redefine them, and over time, those movements can actually have some success in changing the public mind about certain things.

This has certainly occurred in the religion of modern witchcraft, where due to a persistent and continuous effort, the public opinion has altered and changed its mind about this topic. The witch has gone from a feared bogey and social pariah, to fairy tale nemesis, and finally to whimsical fantasy figures. Reclaiming had to deal with a thematic character who was no longer believed to exist in the real world and therefore, rendered harmless, except to those who espoused more fanatical (fundamentalist) religious beliefs.

Reclamation has not quite had the same success with the devil, since many people, even educated and sophisticated individuals, still believe in a force of evil of some kind operating in the world, even if it is often divorced from the usual religious based theology or characters, such as Satan. This would assume that Satanists or devil worshipers would even want to reclaim their deity and eliminate the notoriety or bad press associated with the Devil. Calling oneself a witch is not as big a deal in our culture and society as declaring oneself an adherent of Satanism. While there is some push-back in the more orthodox religious communities against allowing the reformation of a religious witchcraft, there is much more controversy for anyone who espouses devil worship regardless of other people’s religious beliefs.

The fact that some Satanists actually enjoy the notoriety and cultural disharmony that their declared religious beliefs have caused in public has also made reclamation to be a difficult and nearly impossible feat. Successfully reforming the Devil so that he is perceived in a positive light would probably be counter-productive anyway, since then the appeal and fascination (as well as power) would likely completely evaporate. A thoroughly white-washed devil would be pretty boring and indistinguishable from any of the other more obscure savior or spiritual intermediary types. Besides, as Anton La Vey was so fond of saying, the Devil has kept the Christian church in business for most of its lifetime. So I would doubt that anyone in the Christian community would ever agree to allowing others to redefine the nature of Satan and thus rob them of an important theological foil.

These considerations can also be used in thinking about the reclamation of demons as well, since Satan is believed by Christians to be their leader and lord. It would seem that because of this powerful and longtime association, that anyone who traffics with demons would be considered by some to be a Satanist, whether or not they declared that as true, or just vehemently denied it. This singular painting of the world as either black or white has the effect of judging everything that is not in strict alignment with what is defined as good, proper or orthodox in Christian organizations must be, by default, considered evil, improper and unorthodox.

While it may be tempting or even justifiable for some Christians to either declare or hide the fact that they traffic through ceremonial magick with demons, the rest of us who don’t share their beliefs or faith are left in the unenviable situation of having to deal with these myths and their associated social powers and stigma. Since many of the grimoires and other books of ceremonial magick that propose trafficking with demons are typically wedded to the theme that demons are evil, it could be assumed that someone who whole heartedly believes in these books and uses them as they are written would experience some of the blow-back associated with socially empowered myths. How much of an impact this phenomenon would have on a would-be goetic practitioner is dependent on whether that operator is open minded and flexible, or closed minded and sectarian. I would suspect that the latter operator would find himself or herself in the unenviable situation of performing goetic work with a guilty conscience, others wouldn’t be so afflicted.

What would seem to be the determining factor is both the intent and spiritual alignment established by the practitioner. Does the operator intend to do “evil” to others through a malefic demonic based cantrip (justified or not), and if so, are the demons that he or she engages with considered inimical and spiritually toxic? Those who stand between an alignment to Christian spirituality and an indigenous native pagan-based belief system might find themselves in either situation, or perhaps even on both sides of the issue at once. Spiritual alignment is the key to identifying whether someone is functioning as a Christian diabolist, as a pagan-Christian heterodox, or completely through a pagan magickal perspective.

Intent is also important, although it becomes less so if the operator has decided to willingly abrogate any kind of Christian morality. If the operator has revoked Christian morality and approaches all deities and spirits with an open mind and a generous disposition, then that individual would readily and easily pass through the threshold of judgement and socially based stigmas to arrive at a place of pragmatic truth. Such individuals would find their own ethics and learn their own limitations, often the hard way, but inexorably so. I would refer to such a place of pragmatic truth as a domain beyond the simple values of good and evil.

This brings me to the real core of my article, and that is to question how useful the old grimoires are in regards to trafficking with goetic demons. Probably the most illustrative point that I have encountered recently was found when I was reading over the newest addition to the published grimoire collection, which was the Scarlet Imprint edition of the “Crossed Keys.” This newly published book consists of two classic grimoires, the more obscure Black Dragon, and the more famous Enchiridion of Pope Leo III. The Black Dragon is concerned with a system of demonic magick that is driven by the four Infernal Princes, and the Enchiridion is a grimoire of psalm and prayer magick. How these two could be combined into one book is one of the more interesting questions, but I found that the book seemed to work well as a unit despite the differences in the two systems of magick. (Crossed keys could be seen as a symbol of the keys to heaven and hell, but I will defer any comment until I actually review the book.) I will assemble a review of that work sometime in the near future, but something that really caught my attention was the apparent dissonance that the writer/translator experienced when attempting to work with the Black Dragon. In the original preface to the work, the following couple of introductory paragraphs pretty much define the spiritual alignment and character of the demons that the magician is supposed to evoke.

“Indeed, it is no trivial matter to have direct relations with demons, for they are our greatest enemies, yours, mine, and all of humanity, and each time they are able to bring us misfortune, there is relief and joy for them.”

“They will reveal themselves according to your character - that is to say, in accord with your weakness, whether you are submissive, thoughtful, polite, courteous, or loud, ostentatious, quick tempered and threatening - with the intention of deceiving or intimidating you always for your loss and for their relief. Be composed, resolute and upright and it will be easy to avoid their trops.”
(Crossed Keys - Black Dragon, p. 4.)   

Reading this introduction, and also examining the invocations will lead one to presume that demons are really irredeemably evil and toxic entities, but that they are also weak, cowardly and able to be commanded if one is composed, morally astute and resolute - in other words, beyond being corruptible. In looking over this grimoire and judging it from the standpoint of its obvious spiritual alignment, there is nothing surprising about anything contained within it. Demons are the enemy of mankind, but they can bullied, coerced and commanded through the words of power and the authorities of the Christian Deity and his representatives.

However, when the author, Michael Checchetelli attempted to perform these invocations, carefully following the directions and intoning the memorized invocations exactly as they were written, he discovered that not only did the infernal lords find his invocations offensive, but that they felt no loyalty or fealty to the entire spiritual hierarchy through which the grimoire was invested. The demonic spirits only materialized out of curiosity and interest in the operator, and perhaps lured by the offering of his own blood. How did this happen and what does it mean? Are the old grimoires somehow terribly flawed and deliberately misleading? Is the purist doctrine espoused by some writers that the old grimoires should be used exactly as they are written faulty and specious?

Somehow, I think that Mr. Cecchetelli had the experiences that he had due more to his own personal spiritual alignment than to any fault or discrepancy involved in the grimoire. He did discover that there were some omissions and mistakes in the versions of the grimoire that he possessed, which interestingly, the demons helped him to remedy, but the whole spiritual theme of the grimoire didn’t match up with the operator’s internalized spiritual perspective.

The reason for this occurrence is subtle, but it should have been obvious to all magicians (including me). When the grimoire operations were magickally realized, then Michael’s internal spiritual alignment was also activated, and these two processes fused in union to form an energized domain. Yet within the matrix of that energized domain, the pious sentiments and clear theological dictates written into the grimoire had become completely irrelevant, since they were not relevant or meaningful to the operator. If Michael had been a very strict Christian who would have fervently believed in the theology of the Black Dragon, then everything that would have happened would have been part of the “empowered” script. What Michael actually discovered in his working was the core of his own spirituality, merged and animated as it was with the grimoire working. We can also assume that this would likely be the outcome for any modern person who would seek to use one of the grimoires for the purpose of demonic or even angelic magick. The outcome would be dependent on the deeply held belief system of the operator, and that is the key to whether or not any magickal practitioner should engage with supposed demonic or angelic spirits.

What all of this means is that there just isn’t one way of judging or evaluating everything that is spiritual or religious. If you believe strongly in the Judeo-Christian spiritual themes, then for you those themes are relevant, powerful and compelling. A magician whose spiritual foundation is Christian theology is going to experience blessed angels and perfidious demons, yet all conforming and being commanded through the authority of Jesus Christ and his proxies. Yet on the other hand, if you don’t believe strongly in the Judeo-Christian spiritual theme, or if your beliefs are mixed with other beliefs, or if you completely and passionately reject it, then your magickal and spiritual experiences are going to be quite different. This means that the old grimoires are completely correct and relevant only for those whose spiritual foundation matches that of the old grimoires. It also signifies that the old grimoires must be adapted, redacted or even completely rewritten for those individuals who are unable or unwilling to adopt the conservative and pious religious views upon which they were founded. I also believe that it is nearly impossible for anyone to completely reconstruct the spiritual sentiments and world view that someone had over five centuries ago, so the result of working with Renaissance themed grimoires (even if they were posthumously written in the late 18th century) will be quite variable even for a devout Christian.

The question of good and evil therefore becomes a relative question instead of one that is steeped in universal principles. In order to intelligibly speak about demons, devils and spirits of the dead, we need to first define our own spiritual foundation, and based on that alone, establish our judgements on the nature of these spirits, their use in magick, and their overall spiritual characteristics. This is why individual practitioners who have vastly different spiritual foundations will also have very different experiences when they perform magickal operations using the same spirits. An operator’s spiritual context should always be stated first before he or she opines about any kind of magickal working and its results, especially when an occult topic as loaded with expectations like a goetic working is being discussed. While universal doctrines are useful for categorizing spiritual beliefs and organizing a religious creed, they can’t be taken literally and presented as universal truths. That means that a demon is one thing to me, another thing to another person, and it all depends on the foundational spiritual belief system that one espouses.

If what I have said is true, then what are we to do about the old grimoires? That depends on our core spiritual beliefs. If a magician is a pagan and witch, such as I am, then a lot of the themes and pious sentiments are completely irrelevant and need to be changed in order for the magick to be optimally successful. It means that a grimoire such as the Goetia would have to be completely reworked if you are not an adherent of the Abrahamic faith, and it also means that a grimoire like the Grimorium Verum would lend itself as a better model for someone who sought to develop a system of pagan based goetic magick. It also means that substitutions, redefinition, and extracting the basic system and putting it into a completely pagan based religious architecture is something that pagans and witches would find quite rewarding. Some grimoires would not easily lend themselves to this kind of revisionism (such as the Grimoire Armadel), others would easily enable such a rewriting. As far as engaging with chthonic deities, spirits of the dead (ancestors, heros, etc.), and even goetic demons, this would be completely up to the pagan or witch. However, assiduously avoiding the darkness has its own problems, since attempting to be an exclusive white-light wiccan practitioner would be to gut witchcraft and paganism of its power and mystery. As I have said to many of my students in the past, the mysteries are not to be found in the light, they are to be found in the darkness, where reside all of the hidden things.

I think that another book recently published by Scarlet Imprint succinctly says everything that I have been trying to say in this article. I am referring to the book on Palo Mayombe, written by Nicholai da Mattos Frisvold. I recently bought this book at my favorite occult book store, and happened to stumble across this quote when I was superficially examining it. The quote encapsulated my whole point in a simple statement, much to my pleasure. I haven’t read this book yet, but my attention has been powerfully captivated. I will quote the pertinent text here so you may enjoy it as well.

“You cannot have the day without the night and otherness is always around us, like an invisible mirror leading to the land of death and ancestry.”

“Given the cruel history of the Palo Mayombe, it is amazing to see how this movement towards unity and connectedness is still at work.” [This because unity and connectedness are central to all forms of magick. -FB]
(Nicholae da Mattos Prisvold - Palo Mayombe, Scarlet Imprint, p. 30)

When we approach any religious or magickal system, we have to put away all of our prejudices and biases in order to truly understand how that system functions. We shouldn’t judge that system or evaluate it using our own spiritual beliefs and values. This is especially true when examining a religion that is quite different than our native faith or beliefs.

On other hand, the words demon, devil and evil spirit are loaded with obvious Christian values, and if we accept them into our own workings without critically re-evaluating them, we will unwittingly build up egregious errors into our understanding and our magickal practices. We should first approach these various entities in a neutral manner, understanding that we must eventually join them within the context of our own belief system. I have made this mistake myself in the past, and now I must mitigate that mistake when re-approaching this material. As a pagan and witch, I am not obligated to see reality as a pious Christian, and so when I work magick using material from the old grimoires, that magick should be based on a pagan spiritual definition - to do otherwise is to add to the overall confusion.

Frater Barrabbas

Ancient Greece - Sole Source of Goetic Magick?

I have recently read an article about a forthcoming book from Scarlet Imprint that touts the revelation of the source of Goetic magick as being a purely Greek phenomena. The book that is promoting this perspective is the much anticipated second installment of the Encyclopaedia Goetica, written by Jake Stratton-Kent, which has the title, “Geosophia: The Argo of Magic.” You can find the announcement of this new book here – I will certainly buy it, at least to thoroughly acquaint myself with Jake’s thesis.

While I must wait just like everyone else for this book to be printed and distributed, which will occur some time later this autumn, I can at least make a few comments about the reputed theme of this work. I will have to read it thoroughly before I can accurately gauge its usefulness and judge the plausibility of its principle theory. I have to admit that I am a bit skeptical about this claim. I feel this way because I have read the book “The True Grimoire,” and found within it some of Jake’s pronouncements about the historical authenticity of that grimoire compared to the Goetia of the Lemegeton. These comments seemed to be quite personally biased, and in my opinion, without much merit. I have found that what Jake has said contradicts what David Rankin and Stephen Skinner have proposed in their book “Goetia of Dr. Rudd.” Jake has some strong opinions about Goetic magick, its history and evolution from the early Renaissance to the 21st century. Jake seems to believe that the actual history of Goetic magick goes all the way back to the practice of necromancy in ancient Greece, and that the Goetic tradition, represented by some grimoires, has an unbroken lineage of practitioners.

While there is little doubt that there is a Greek source to the Goetic tradition, there are other cultural elements that were mixed in as well. I also don’t agree with any argument that proposes an unbroken lineage based on very sketchy circumstantial evidence. However, Jake is a brilliant writer and occultist, even if some of his arguments don’t seem to be very plausible to me. However, his opinions are often controversial but also compelling, so they are not easily dismissed or overturned. Instead, they offer quite a bit of material to ponder, analyze and compare against what others have said - practitioners and scholars.

The main theme of the book is quoted from the pre-sales text found on the publisher’s web page. I would like to discuss this theme and add some of my own questions and thoughts about it for my readers to ponder along with me.

“Geosophia is a very important text. Tracing the development of magic from the Greeks to the grimoires it lays bare the chthonic roots of ritual. By exposing the necromantic origins of much of modern magic we are able to reconnect with the source of our ritual tradition. There is a continuity of practice in the West which encompasses the pre-Olympian cults of Dionysus and Cybele, is found in the Greek Magical Papyri and Picatrix and flows into the grimoires.”

While I might be intrigued by the ideas promoted in this book’s advertisement, some of Jake’s opinions are both puzzling and appear to go against the grain of what academics have established as a basic understanding of the period of late antiquity, and the various occult ideas that were flourishing at that time. We should keep in mind that the time period and culture that we are talking about existed over a couple of thousand years ago. Existing source material is scarce, even for popular writings of such philosophers as Plato and Aristotle, or even the plays of Aristophanes, some of which are lost to time. Obscure grimoires and occult writings are nearly nonexistent. Modern occultists have had to reconstruct these ancient systems using very meager literary sources enlivened with a great deal of imagination. For instance, to this day, we still know very little about the mystery cults practiced in antiquity, and in most cases, not enough information exists to accurately replicate them.

Using single sources, such as the “Greek Magical Papyri” as representing the whole of the tradition of magick in late antiquity could also be a problem. Often, practical magick is a regional phenomenon, related to place and time. The bulk of the “Greek Magical Papyri” are a collection of Graeco Egyptian magick spells, whose place would be Hellenized Egypt, and whose time would be from the first two centuries before and after the common era. Location is an important consideration, since the original massive scroll that makes up this work was supposedly found in the tomb of a rich man who was buried in the Karnak area (Thebes). This should inform us that the collection of spells are particular to Egypt during and after the Ptolemaic period. While there are identifiable sources in that collection from Jewish, Greek and even Persian sources, it should be considered mostly an Egyptian collection, with a particularly Egyptian perspective on magick.

There are quite a large number of obvious spells and rites in the PGM that use Jewish formulations, in fact a number of sections of the papyri are devoted exclusively to these cultural artifacts. The editor of this scroll assembled a large number of the spells together from many sources, and seemed to be more driven by their reputed power than if they were Greek, Egyptian, Hebrew or even of Persian derivation. The mixture of cultures, god names, heros, and cultural sources represents a phenomenon that was characteristic of the times - cultures, languages, religious beliefs and superstitions were melted together to form a massive heterodoxy, much like gnosticism. The magickal language consisting of words of power also seem to meld various words from several languages together to form a strange polyglot, what scholars have called a verba ignota (unknown tongue). It’s interesting to note that the verba ignota was a feature of some Christian European grimoires, but not the Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon, or the Grimoirium Verum.

A further quote from another website that Jake has authored presents his opinions in a clearer manner. It’s taken from Hadean Press’s “Mark Ye Well the Dead Underworld of Hadean Press.”

“The Hellenic sources of the Picatrix are indicative of the real roots of the entire genre. The form and style of the grimoires were determined millennia in advance by magical texts in Greek. This far predated the influx of Christianised Kabbalah into Western magic in the late 15th century; erroneously credited with supplying the basis of Western occultism. ”

I would agree that the Picatrix, an Arabic grimoire from the 11th century (translated into Latin in the middle of the 13th century) drew its sources from earlier Greek manuscripts and practices. The original source of this grimoire, now lost, was very likely produced from the occult tradition that thrived through the various writings and teachings of Neoplatonism. How Neoplatonism found its way into Arabic culture of the early middle ages could be explained by the transition of Greek philosophy and the academy in Athens to Harran (529 CE), and the building of a university there by the Caliph, Umar II (717 CE). The Neoplatonists thrived in their new location and continued their work until the around the 11th century, and two centuries later, the Picatrix was translated in Spain.

During that time, Jews lived and congregated in the Persian and Parthian areas of influence, and later managed to continue to thrive within the newly established empire of Islam. Since Jews were expelled from Alexandria during the Christian era, it is possible that they sought refuge in various parts of the middle east where they had been living for centuries, including Mesopotamia, which would have also placed them in Harran at the same time as the Neoplatonic philosophers. It is possible, and even likely, that magickal and occult practices continued to blend together, with Judaism supplying a large share of the derived lore. The Qabbalah would have had its birth during this time (Sepher Yetzirah - 4th century CE), and the first example of a grimoire working with both angels and demons (Testament of Solomon). 

We can see the same kind of blending occurring in the earliest writings of the Qabbalah, where the obvious Neoplatonic concept of emanation became a critical part of that occult system. The Qabbalah as we know it today is a thorough mixture of Hebrew occultism, Neoplatonism and Christian theology. If one were to attempt to purge one or more of these strains from the Qabbalah, it would cease to be useful or perhaps, even recognizable. There were obviously a lot of ideas being passed back and forth between occult scholars over the past two millennia, and this exchange powerfully impacted the various practices of Qabbalah, alchemy, astrology and ceremonial magic. I believe that to attempt to extract and remove Christian and Hebrew influences from the various ceremonial magickal grimoires would be not only an impossible task, but one that would undoubtedly produce a whole new system of magick. It would be something contrived and derived, not representing the more original source, which is obviously lost to time.

Whatever was practiced in ancient Greece and called necromancy had already been contaminated by Pythagorean beliefs and practices at the beginning of the classical period. Pythagorean philosophy probably had eastern sources and influences, as the belief in the transmigration of souls appears to attest. Not much is known about Pythagorus or his philosophy, and what is known was probably written a couple of centuries after his death. However, Pythagorean philosophers were reputed to be able to see the ghosts of dead people, and were able to call them up and talk to them. This appeared to be a grafting of Pythagorean teachings with more primitive shamanic practices involving divination of the dead, or necromancy. Pythagoreans were often conflated with goetic magicians who specialized in necromancy.

How we get to the conjuration of demons from the summoning and incubation of the spirits of the dead is probably a bit of a logical over-reach. I have already written two articles that explore this idea from two different perspectives, but it would seem that the Greek concept of the invocation or summoning of daimons would be quite different than the ceremonial magician conjuring demons - they represent cultural perspectives separated by more than fifteen hundred years. There is also the consideration that Jewish and Christian religious influences have had a huge impact on this system of magick, making it nearly impossible to retrieve the earlier system intact.

Without an authentic source document written from that time period (predating Christian and Jewish influences), I believe that no one could reconstitute the ancient Greek system of Goetic magick. It’s also very likely that ancient Goetic magick was an oral tradition practiced by individuals who couldn’t read or write. However, this is all speculation, since records of what was actually practiced don’t really exist.

What we have are just intriguing fragments and literary constructs, possibly derived from a combination of realistic observation and fantasy. The fragments of actual magickal workings consists of curse tablets and various bits and pieces of parchment and papyri. The PGM is the only complete source scroll from that time, and relying too heavily on a single source is problematic. So the task of deriving a pure source of occult and magickal practices from antiquity to the compilation of the grimoires in the 16th century is likely a fool’s errand, since none of this would pass the inspection of historians, archaeologists and anthropologists. What we are dealing with here is an “As If” approach to reconstruction, where we use creativity and our imaginations to fill in the huge gaps in actual evidential knowledge.

Even an examination of the various names of the goetic demons reveals that there are Hebrew, Greek and Latin elements merged together. Some names are taken directly from Hebrew folk traditions, gathered together from many Semitic sources (Akkadian, Canaanite and Egyptian), and then there are the Greek and Latinized names whose source is completely unknown. Attempting to put together a list of demonic names reclaimed from ancient Greek sources would be nearly impossible, since some of the names are obviously of Semitic derivation. What we would have to do is to detach the list of goetic demons from the infernal princes and put them into a chthonic pagan context, a task that I have promoted in my previous articles about this subject. 

Perhaps a clue as to what Jake is proposing can be found in his article published in the anthology “Both Sides of Heaven.” In the article entitled “Grimoires for Pagans,” Jake lays the foundation for establishing a pagan chthonic perspective to goetic grimoires, such as the Grimoirium Verum. The principal infernal triumvirate that rules over the demonic hoards are Lucifer, Belzebuth and Astaroth, and to these demonic princes, Jake has attributed the Greek gods Hermes, Hades and Persephone.  One would also want to add Dionysus, Cybele, Circe, Orpheus, Isis and Osiris (from the mystery cult), and most importantly, Hecate, to the assembly of gods, goddesses and demigods as well.

To alter and exchange the demonic princes with these three Greek gods is a startlingly revelation, certainly one that could begin an entire process of reclamation. I have long sought to encourage this kind of complete rewriting of the goetic magickal tradition using a completely pagan perspective, since dealing with the infernal princes through their ambassador (Scirlin) assumes that one has bought into the whole Judeo-Christian theological premise of demons being evil fallen angels. Some proponents of goetic magick have maintained that only those who are piously associated with the “Abrahamic” traditions should have a right to work this magick. At least I can agree with this approach, since I am not a adherent to this tradition.

What all of this seems to mean is that Jake is in the process of creating a whole new tradition, starting at the top and working on down to the very foundation. When he is finished, in my opinion, he will have created a completely new and unique magickal perspective, not unlike others who espouse either a chthonic pagan perspective or outright demonalotry. Jake will then take the Grimoirium Verum out of it’s Christian environment, and put it into a newly derived context, one that will integrate old and new elements together. Thus, we can expect that the end result will be a whole new approach to goetic magick and very likely, a new set of grimoires to replace the ones that were first printed in the previous epoch. I very much look forward to that day, since that will certainly end the debate in various magickal circles between Neopagans and Christian occultists, both of whom claim the goetic tradition as their own.

So we can look forward to the publishing of Jake’s new book “Geosophia: The Argo of Magic,” regardless whether we agree with the whole of his premise, or not. 

Frater Barrabbas

Further Thoughts on Goetic Magick & St. Cyprian’s Grimoire

This article represents some further thoughts about goetic magick and Jake Stratton’s Book, “The True Grimoire.”  My original article can be found here.

Yesterday I got a mailer from Avalonia Books about a new grimoire that is now available to the general public, part of their “Sourceworks of Ceremonial Magic” series of grimoires edited by Stephen Skinner and David Rankin. This book is entitled, “The Grimoire of St. Cyprian - Clavis Inferni.” I went to the website and looked over the advertisement for the grimoire and I have decided to pass on purchasing it at this time. This has nothing to do with the quality of the book, which is quite exquisite and exceptional, but more to do with the fact that I already have a large collection of grimoires, and this one would not add anything to that collection. My reason for collecting grimoires is their use to me as magickal resources and not as a collector of rare or obscure books.

According to the advertisement, this book has colorful illustrations, sigil characters and invocations of the four infernal kings of the underworld of Hell. It also has associated invocations of the four principal archangels (who are used to control the infernal kings), as well as an invocation of Metatron. It’s a rather short tome and this appears to be the extent of the content of this version of the grimoire. One could see it as a companion to the Grimoirum Verum, Grimoire of Pope Honorius or the Grand Grimoire. St. Cyprian was reputed to be a powerful magician before he converted to Christianity in late antiquity, but it’s obvious that his name is being lent to this work, much like Solomon’s name was lent to an entire tradition of magick.

However, the larger group of grimoires supposedly authored by St. Cyprian (and the most famous) were called “Libro de San Cipriano”, which had their origin in a part of Spain called Galicia, dating from around the late 18th century. These books were reputed to aid treasure finders, so in addition to invoking the demon kings to scare away the minor demons protecting treasures, there were techniques devised to divine their location and safely extract them. One group of grimoires used methodologies to find treasures that didn’t even involve using the demon kings, others incorporated materials from other French grimoires (like the Grand Grimoire). The Galician version of the grimoire was translated into Portugese, and both the Spanish and Portugese versions were widely disseminated in the Carribean and South America, where they found avid use amongst the adherents of Santeria and Macumba.

There were two known branches to the grimoires associated with the St. Cyprian, the Spanish being one branch, and there was a German or Scandinavian branch, called the Cyprianus or Black Book. The German or Scandinavian version had a large number of magical recipes and treasure hunting techniques, but ironically omitted the methods for evoking demons. More information on these grimoires can be found here.

The Clavis Inferni, written in Latin and cipher codes, doesn’t appear to be a direct variation of either above group of grimoires, even though it, too, is dated to the late 18th century. Perhaps it represents a unique branch unto itself. It also appears to be missing the typical treasure finding recipes of this series, although one would have to consult an actual copy of the book to be certain. Another possibility is that the treasure hunting techniques in the other two branches may have been derived from the Grand Grimoire.

One interesting point that the Clavis Inferi makes is that the erstwhile magician invokes the demon kings under the control and empowerment of the archangels, so as to maintain balance between angelic and infernal forces. This is a point that I have made in previous articles, although it’s doubtful that an archangel would effectively shield the magician who happened to invoke one of the demon kings, but that is the intent of the working. Since I am a pagan and a witch, the entire infernal hierarchy is not particularly relevant to me, but this work would be very useful to someone who was working with the Grimoirum Verum, perhaps providing the balance between angelic and demonic forces that seems to be missing in the “True Grimoire.” If one adds to the mix the unstated requirement of having obtained the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel (via the Book of Abramelin), then you might have a combined system that could be balanced and tenable. Although for obvious reasons, I would recommend using the Cherubim to shield the magician rather than archangels. Yet the Cherubim would force the magician to maintain a highly ethical use of demons and would not allow any direct contact with them. This would also be true of the Holy Guardian Angel, ruling out any kind of blood bond or pact with the infernal spirits, which appears to be the core of the Grimoirum Verum’s methodology.

Another point that I would like to make is regarding Jake Stratton-Kent’s opinion that a goetic magician could approach the use of demons similarly to that found in the Macumba, particularly the performance of Umbanda, which is the darker or punitive rites of that religion. Magical religions of the Caribbean and Brazil, which blend African and Christian practices as well as incorporating some European occultism, make a clear distinction between sanctioned and unsanctioned practices. To call upon the gods, saints and spirits of the ancestors, sacramental based spell craft (herbal remedies, use of fetishes, sacrifices), performed along with other Christian Catholic liturgy (offerings and votive prayers) represents sanctioned practices, performed by official priests and priestesses of the cult. These practices and their officiators are readily considered forces of good in their community and function as an adjunct to the traditional Catholic church and its local operation.

Unsanctioned practices would be to seek domination, retribution, vengeance, to cause sickness and death in targeted victims, to gain assistance from the unhallowed dead and their demi-god controllers or assistance from evil spirits. These unsanctioned practices would require the help of a specialist who would perform such rites in private. One could easily categorize the evocation of goetic demons in this class of unsanctioned practices, whether of Umbanda, Palo Mayombe or Voudoun Petro. Unsanctioned practices such as these are often tolerated due to the abject fear of such specialists or their occasional discrete use by clients. Despite the obvious associated cultural ambiguities, these practices would be considered evil and outlawed by the greater public. Some practitioners of these unsanctioned arts, whether real or imagined, have been persecuted and murdered by angry outraged members of their community. Like the folkloric theme of the classic witch known worldwide, such practitioners have always been considered outside the law and prime suspects when things in a community go awry. Is this a useful model for a modern goetic magician to follow? I greatly doubt it.

As I have pointed out in my previous article, in order to deal with the goetic demons as pagan deities, one would have to extract them completely from their place in the Christian spiritual hierarchy and build a new hierarchy based on the ancient Semitic pagan gods. This would include giving them offerings and devotions as part of a reconstitution of the old pagan religion that they once were a part, if that could even be accomplished. Jake Stratton-Kent’s book, “The True Grimoire” may make some interesting comparisons with Brazilian witchcraft and show (in a limited fashion) how some of the demon names may be distorted names of old pagan gods, yet it doesn’t give any indication that either Jake (or anyone else associated with him) is actually practicing a form of magick that would adhere to this complete redefinition. Nor does he appear to be an initiate of some Afro-Brazilian cult.

Instead, the reader is left with a kind of permission to use the newly reformed and edited version that Jake has provided as it currently exists, representing a kind of diabolic goetic magickal practice. Obviously, Jake is obscuring the fact that the infernal spirits would probably have been counter balanced by superior angelic agencies and the manifestation of the Holy Guardian Angel. The Clavis Inferi and the Goetia of Dr. Rudd would seem to indicate that this balancing was very likely part of what the magician did when resorting to the evocation and use of goetic demons. Therefore, Jake’s book and his apparent practice probably does more harm than good to the magician who is contemplating using this system. Therefore, in my opinion, the book “The True Grimoire”, despite being well written and brilliantly researched, is deeply flawed because of the misinformation that it has put into the hands of the public and the espoused tradition that it has spawned. Those who use this book as written will ultimately find themselves in great spiritual jeopardy or candidates for the local asylum.

Frater Barrabbas