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I dont see demons as adversarial, evil or out to get you. This has been my consistent experience dealing with many of them.
When I started out, I read a little bit of S Connolly. She was very instrumental in helping me view demons as just entities rather than fallen angels from the Abrahamic lens. I do not subscribe to anything from that world view.
I dont learn by reading books. In fact, I try not to learn everything about a demon from a book. To me a book, or grimoire preloads an expectation from someone else's lens and framework. I will have my own lens no matter how I do it, but I try to keep that as clean as possible. I am not saying this is the right/best way, just my way. Take it for what it is.
Lilith is my Matron, so every demon I work with, I run past Lilith to find out if it aligns with me right now or not. This helps avoid a lot of extra bullshit. This doesn't mean things wont be unpleasant or hard, but it keeps things aligned.
I dont use protections. I just evoke or invoke and develop a relationship with said demon. It really is that simple. I show respect, but I dont bow, or worship (this is where I differ from some of the Demonolaters out there). I am irreverent, but respectful. My consent is the final word. I may not be in full control of the demon, but I do control 100% of my willingness to participate in said contact.
Now, this doesn't mean every encounter is wonderful. Sometimes lessons are hard, sometimes I face shit that sucks. This doesn't mean the encounter is 'bad' in the way many seem to perceive what an encounter should and shouldn't look like.
Also, for what its worth, I do not sit and make deal with demons. I do not treat them like the infernal Santa Claus so I can get blowjobs. I work with, I dont try to get them to just give me stuff. Again, this isn't for everybody, and it isn't a strict system that I learned from books.
I learned from Lilith and the demons I work with (this requires trust, hence relationship). For example, I am currently working with Azazel. he told me that he prefers invocation rather than evocation. This may only apply to me and what he has to teach me. each experience is its own thing, this helps me keep things grounded and sane.
Last thing, this isn't for everybody and that's fine. There are many ways to work with demons, and my way isn't what the popular kids are doing and I am fine with that. I dont do this for flex or popularity. I can tell you that I am not the same man who began this path, and that is positive in every way. I would 100% do it all over again the same exact way, mistakes and all.
Hope this clears things up regarding your question. Take what helps, burn the rest of it.
Minimalism over everything, i like that haha. Are you incontact with Azazel? There is a lot of discussing around his sigil this days. Some say the saturn-famous sigil isnt what he prefers. How you came in contact with? Some say the magus need an anchor-altar, most likely a goat-tragus skull is the best for him. Can you elaborate on that matter?
I can only speak bout the GV (and while this is a JSK Verum thread, I think the bigger topics here are more important).
Daimons are LEGION. In Vodou, it's understood a Lwa's specific manifestation is the one of that specific Vodou House. So in using the GV, my Guland is MY Guland. The entity that responds to the very same name and seal for you will be a different Guland, one who manifests for you and where you are.
If your Guland shows up outside the circle as a desiccated 7-foot tall lamprey black cat thing , I will say 'that's weird,' but I can also recognize the Underworld chthonic language of black cats and disease.
I am not saying this is required for every sorcerous objective, but for things far outside of chance, or when attacking hard, spiritually protected targets, you WANT them as 'hot' (as we say) as possible, and depending on your mythic framework, they could appear very much as Hellspawn.
If you are not in a hurry, go with the gentle routes. The JSK route or by internalisng neoplatonism can get you cooler manifestations. Just be careful buttering them up too much, and or giving them too much sugar, sweet treats, and bonbons. You'll just make them 'fat and lazy,' as we say in Vodou. And then they will chat you up and maybe flatter you (Becasue deep down you still want that.) , but then real results may take a long time - OR - the results will only more than a little above normal chance if you only just put in a little effort yourself, juding only from other people's practices.
John King is to NOT wrong here to say to push harder. Pushing harder heats them up. Heating them up makes them meaner.
If you are in a hurry and/or have a BIG magical objective - meaning far outside chance - you need to 'heat them up,' as we say. Fire, hot rhetoric, and 'hot' ritual frameworks - the Catholic ones work here - can help 'heat them up,' but they will also manifest more as rabid hellspawn out to kill your enemies or get what you want. But beware, they are also given the sublunar bodies of rabid dogs and can bite your hand. At that point, a firm hand is often useful.
Fat, pasty, well-fed Neopagans in First World economies are playing on easy mode, so the more slow, 'cool and wise' placid manifestations work fine because their real-world stakes are so low. Do not judge people in other part of the world who need they a bit more firey and active.
I am sure British Luciferian Peter Grey would love all the daimons to be wise, sage, Byronic heroes, but he has to deal with this practical sublunar reality:
From Lucifer: Praxis:
"To valorise the demonic without exercising discrimination is to clutch the asp to one’s breast. It is foolish to accept, unconsciously or out of ignorance, the levelling terms of Christianity. Inversion is a reactive simplification which often leads to the removal of all the safeguards in ritual procedure, leaving the magician vulnerable to parasites, obsession, delusions and spiritual error. However, when we read the descriptions of spirits in the grimoires, we find that a nuanced world is often preserved, beyond the simple categories of good and evil. It does not mean that the demons are all demoted pagan gods whom we can placate with offerings, but neither are they one dimensional devils."
Mate, you are remarkably good at storytelling. I am sure people have told you that before, and I can easily imagine you writing some seriously badass comic-book stories, judging by how vividly you present these scenarios. A few specific examples of the situations you mentioned would be very helpful.
Also, regarding protection in the Grimorium Verum: does it rely on Adonai, angels, divine names, and similar Abrahamic elements? If so, could invoking those powers make the daimons more agitated, hostile, or aggressive than they would otherwise be—especially toward an inexperienced practitioner?
In other words, would you genuinely recommend the Grimorium Verum to a complete beginner, or is it better approached after someone has already developed experience in spirit communication and ritual work?
(or kings)! I say thou art welcome unto me, because I have called thee through Him who has created Heaven, and Earth, and Hell, and all that is in them contained, and because also thou hast obeyed. By that same power by the which I have called thee forth, I bind thee, that thou remain affably and visibly here before this Circle (or before this Circle and in this triangle) so constant and so long as I shall have occasion for thy presence; and not to depart without my license until thou hast duly and faithfully performed my will without any falsity.
My boss doesn’t need to insult me just to remind me that if I fail in my duties, they will fire me
And about the point of them being super intelligent. Look, a chatgpt model knows much more than me about any general culture topic, and it will still suggest you to walk to the car wash that is 5 minutes from your home so you can save on gas. Each of those spirits is good at something, but you wouldn’t use Sitri to find treasure, as you wouldn’t ask Bune for the love of a person. Each one is concerned with their offices.
Minimalism over everything, i like that haha. Are you incontact with Azazel? There is a lot of discussing around his sigil this days. Some say the saturn-famous sigil isnt what he prefers. How you came in contact with? Some say the magus need an anchor-altar, most likely a goat-tragus skull is the best for him. Can you elaborate on that matter?
For clarity the ritual itself is for the practitioner, not the demon. The demon doesn't give a shit what color the candles are for example, or the quality of your artwork on a sigil. Its not like Azazel is going to say "I'd show up but that's an absolute shit rendition of my sigil, so fuck no". Seems silly to me personally, but that isn't a judgment of anyone else's practice. But if you personally place higher importance on sigils and altar accoutrements, so be it, nothing wrong with them at all. I just dont think they make or break contact, again just my experience.
Authenticity is more important than the external ritual stuff. Ritual gets me into the proper internal and external space for contact, nothing more.
I dont care what others think of Azazel's sigil. It hasn't come up, and I never bothered to ask him. He may or may not be interested in that topic working with me, but very much so for another person. There are so many other things to think about in my opinion. Why make this shit harder?
To me, contact is everything. Without it, its just cosplay.
@MorganBlack works in a different way than I do, and in a specific system. He is been doing it much longer than me as well so 100% worth listening to, even if its outside your practice.
I think it all depends on what your framework is, what you believe, what you want to accomplish and what you can do authentically. Everything else is extra. The real meat of it is what can YOU do authentically and then let everything else flow from that place. Authenticity over performance always. Demons can smell your bullshit a mile off.
Remember, there is no wrong way to eat a Reece's. Or if you prefer, It's only stupid if it doesn't work.
Solomonic magic simply does not make sense to me personally. I am speaking only for myself, of course, but once it is removed from the oppressive, deeply Christianized worldview of the medieval period, I struggle to understand the rationale behind treating vastly intelligent spiritual beings as though they must be threatened, constrained, and forced into submission, just to prove a point.
Would no thing in this world tempt you toward moral transgression? Is there nothing you would hoard? Nothing that would make you wrathful? Is there no temptation that could possibly pull you astray?
If you think not, you need only declare it, and immediately every indulgence will present itself. But for most, we know that there are things that could persuade us despite coming with much guilt, shame, and potential harm to ourselves or others.
And by morals here I don't mean some religious set of ideas, but basic concepts of right and wrong. You know when you are guilty, when you corrupt your own will to do something you know you ought not do but, do it anyway because you expect some sort of unusual reward.
If we, humans, follow those impulses as a species, and follow them consistently enough, not only will our individual lives suck, our species will go extinct. All the same, these are inescapable influences, we cannot help but encounter them. So they must be suppressed or else they will do to us what nature does to all things. The ability to do better is the sole thing separating us from the dirt from which we are made.
What would it take for you to not covet anything? Or desire any other woman but your one beloved? Maybe you are exempt, but most people want and desire to a point where it is pathological in one sense or another. No matter how much you try to rearrange or resolve the issue, it is always bugging you, and tugging you towards bad.
So you bind the spirit responsible for casting spells of illusion over you. EXAMPLE: Maybe you need the penthouse, maybe you only need a shack, but you call the demon to fix the problem so that you are no longer feeling like a worthless poor, even if in the end you still are. You are not calling the spirit to provide these things but to remove or alter its hold over you, to your total satisfaction. Not your compromise: your total satisfaction.
The demons arent cool with that. They are all fixtures of the human condition, governing times when our choice to do X, Y, or Z is both consequential and morally ambiguous. When we are in the dark, they are taking advantage by pushing us one way or another. Binding them stops that pushing and lets you make your own choice.
The spirit is not invited for tea, or hired as a contractor. It is brought before you as a captured criminal for sentencing. You recognize that is has power over you, and not in a good way. Why the hell would you be nice. You tell it what it must do so that you no longer feel so annoyed that you need to call demons to fix the problem.
Solomonic magic is not really built on an oppressive medieval Christian worldview. It isnt really medieval, most of it from before or after that. It isnt Christian really, not in a strict sense. What exactly do you feel is oppressive about the worldview that is present in the grimoires?
For clarity the ritual itself is for the practitioner, not the demon. The demon doesn't give a shit what color the candles are for example, or the quality of your artwork on a sigil. Its not like Azazel is going to say "I'd show up but that's an absolute shit rendition of my sigil, so fuck no". Seems silly to me personally, but that isn't a judgment of anyone else's practice. But if you personally place higher importance on sigils and altar accoutrements, so be it, nothing wrong with them at all. I just dont think they make or break contact, again just my experience.
Authenticity is more important than the external ritual stuff. Ritual gets me into the proper internal and external space for contact, nothing more.
I dont care what others think of Azazel's sigil. It hasn't come up, and I never bothered to ask him. He may or may not be interested in that topic working with me, but very much so for another person. There are so many other things to think about in my opinion. Why make this shit harder?
To me, contact is everything. Without it, its just cosplay.
@MorganBlack works in a different way than I do, and in a specific system. He is been doing it much longer than me as well so 100% worth listening to, even if its outside your practice.
I think it all depends on what your framework is, what you believe, what you want to accomplish and what you can do authentically. Everything else is extra. The real meat of it is what can YOU do authentically and then let everything else flow from that place. Authenticity over performance always. Demons can smell your bullshit a mile off.
Remember, there is no wrong way to eat a Reece's. Or if you prefer, It's only stupid if it doesn't work.
Would no thing in this world tempt you toward moral transgression? Is there nothing you would hoard? Nothing that would make you wrathful? Is there no temptation that could possibly pull you astray?
If you think not, you need only declare it, and immediately every indulgence will present itself. But for most, we know that there are things that could persuade us despite coming with much guilt, shame, and potential harm to ourselves or others.
And by morals here I don't mean some religious set of ideas, but basic concepts of right and wrong. You know when you are guilty, when you corrupt your own will to do something you know you ought not do but, do it anyway because you expect some sort of unusual reward.
If we, humans, follow those impulses as a species, and follow them consistently enough, not only will our individual lives suck, our species will go extinct. All the same, these are inescapable influences, we cannot help but encounter them. So they must be suppressed or else they will do to us what nature does to all things. The ability to do better is the sole thing separating us from the dirt from which we are made.
What would it take for you to not covet anything? Or desire any other woman but your one beloved? Maybe you are exempt, but most people want and desire to a point where it is pathological in one sense or another. No matter how much you try to rearrange or resolve the issue, it is always bugging you, and tugging you towards bad.
So you bind the spirit responsible for casting spells of illusion over you. EXAMPLE: Maybe you need the penthouse, maybe you only need a shack, but you call the demon to fix the problem so that you are no longer feeling like a worthless poor, even if in the end you still are. You are not calling the spirit to provide these things but to remove or alter its hold over you, to your total satisfaction. Not your compromise: your total satisfaction.
The demons arent cool with that. They are all fixtures of the human condition, governing times when our choice to do X, Y, or Z is both consequential and morally ambiguous. When we are in the dark, they are taking advantage by pushing us one way or another. Binding them stops that pushing and lets you make your own choice.
The spirit is not invited for tea, or hired as a contractor. It is brought before you as a captured criminal for sentencing. You recognize that is has power over you, and not in a good way. Why the hell would you be nice. You tell it what it must do so that you no longer feel so annoyed that you need to call demons to fix the problem.
Solomonic magic is not really built on an oppressive medieval Christian worldview. It isnt really medieval, most of it from before or after that. It isnt Christian really, not in a strict sense. What exactly do you feel is oppressive about the worldview that is present in the grimoires?
1) Would it be fair to say that, in your model, binding the spirit is a ritual means of mastering the corresponding passion within oneself? Or do you understand the spirit as an external intelligence that independently imposes that passion upon us? I ask because, if it is primarily the latter, there seems to be a risk of externalizing responsibility for our own desires and choices.
2) It is not orthodox Christian theology, nor exclusively Christian in origin, but many of its surviving forms are unmistakably Christianized.
The worldview I find oppressive is precisely the one you have just described: a rigid cosmic hierarchy in which the magician, invoking the authority of the Supreme God, treats another intelligent being as an already-convicted criminal, denies it any moral autonomy, and regards its coercion as entirely legitimate.
If we accept the view—common within many contemporary occult currents—that demons are not inherently good or evil, but morally complex or neutral beings, much like angels, then singling them out for threats, condemnation, and coercive treatment seems to preserve something of the obscurantist mentality of the Middle Ages.
We should also remember that, during those historical periods, the very people who practised magic could themselves be condemned, persecuted, and—in certain contexts—burned at the stake. So yes, there is something rather ironic about reproducing, within the ritual chamber, the same logic of presumed guilt, absolute authority, and sanctioned coercion that could be used against the magician outside it.
Perhaps “oppressive” becomes even more appropriate when the matter is considered within that broader historical and ethical context.
I also find the use of Hebrew and Christian divine names as protective “saviours” profoundly opportunistic. To me, it makes little sense to approach a spirit through threats and coercion and then invoke the authority of a supposedly superior religious power as protection against the consequences of the hostility one has deliberately introduced into the encounter.
I continue to believe that this creates an artificial antagonism—one that is fundamentally doctrinal and structured according to human assumptions about authority, guilt, obedience, and punishment. Are we seriously expected to believe that spiritual intelligences or deities worshipped for thousands of years are locked into the same sectarian conflicts that human beings have constructed, while we appoint ourselves as their judges and referees? That makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.
Furthermore, if the underlying assumptions of Solomonic magic were universally true—if these spirits were inherently hostile forces that could be approached safely only through divine names, circles, threats, and compulsory bindings—then other systems that engage the same or comparable spirits respectfully and without such coercive safeguards should consistently fail or result in possession, obsession, or spiritual attack. Yet that is clearly not what practitioners across other traditions uniformly report.
In fact, accounts of violent resistance and hostile manifestations seem to arise most frequently within religiously charged frameworks that already define these beings as enemies and approach them through suspicion, threats, and attempts at domination. That does not necessarily prove that every spirit is harmless, but it does raise an obvious question: how much of the reported hostility belongs inherently to the spirit, and how much is produced—or at least intensified—by the adversarial framework and coercive manner in which the encounter is conducted?
After all, when you begin an interaction by attempting to threaten, imprison, or subjugate another intelligence, hostility is hardly an inexplicable outcome.
Again, this is merely my personal perspective. I take everything I read on this forum with a grain of salt, and I try to apply the same degree of scepticism to my own responses regarding Solomonic Magic. At the end of the day, everyone will ultimately follow the approach that works best for them.
Hmm there is only so much you can learn paying attention to manifestations of other magicians. I have written on mine on this site, and will be writing more in the future. I know much of what magicians write seems like the tales by drug-addled fabulists, but I swear it is all true.
If you want to see what spirit conjuration looks like, I recommended the late, great Jason Black. He also let them run around too much, but i think that too is a balance. He did die of a drug overdose, I hear. I honor him but he was also cautionary tale.
The macro-level topic here might be 'Shifting into a Daimonic Universe.' More below. I'd been meaning to post these excerpts from the early 1990's book Pacts with the Devil (by S. Jason Black & Christopher S. Hyatt, Ph. D., New Falcon Press, 1993) as the evocatory bookend to the simple but...
wizardforums.com
Among the authors magicians John King, Stephen Skinner, JSK , B.J. Swain have all been successful. A handful of others. Without naming names, many famous magical authors seem to have never has any manifestations from what I can tell.
Echoing what Faria wrote, disordered desire and inflaming the passions is part of their sublunar manifestations. Part of the job of sublunar spirits is to inflame our disordered desire. (Sublunar just means mixed natures, called "unclean" in more Catholic langage - and which just means chaotic and disordered, and incoherant , not evil .) Learning to be cool, calm, to have Stotic discipline but with compassion for yourself and others, is a good balance here. For me that can look very Catholic / Buddhist but the underlying inner resolve and stance is important here, and less what you think about it all with your chatty, left-hemisphere thinky brain.
I also suspect the modern Transvocation style of working keeps in them more as mental-realm thought beings , and never quite brings them down to the sublunar levels, and bypasses some of this, but I can't say for sure, since I don't work that way. Some people say they have good results there, others say it doesn't work for them . I have no idea what the variables are.
Dude, that is honesty the best question ever. I think so, but I am biased, and I think there is an element of Fate in play here. Just listen to us all and try your best.
The GV is a middle ground. It's not exactly spirit -friendly the way WitchTok is, but it also does not have the Chain Curse. And the goat was just a meal back then, not a big to do. Substitions are allowed . Paper and a bloodstone here. Just don't be a parsimonious min-maxer. Trying to get everything with no personal risk and nor investment just sets everything off on the wrong footing, I feel
Hmm there is only so much you can learn paying attention to manifestations of other magicians. I have written on mine on this site, and will be writing more in the future. I know much of what magicians write seems like the tales by drug-addled fabulists, but I swear it is all true.
If you want to see what spirit conjuration looks like, I recommended the late, great Jason Black. He also let them run around too much, but i think that too is a balance. He did die of a drug overdose, I hear. I honor him but he was also cautionary tale.
The macro-level topic here might be 'Shifting into a Daimonic Universe.' More below. I'd been meaning to post these excerpts from the early 1990's book Pacts with the Devil (by S. Jason Black & Christopher S. Hyatt, Ph. D., New Falcon Press, 1993) as the evocatory bookend to the simple but...
wizardforums.com
Among the authors magicians John King, Stephen Skinner, JSK , B.J. Swain have all been successful. A handful of others. Without naming names, many famous magical authors seem to have never has any manifestations from what I can tell.
Echoing what Faria wrote, disordered desire and inflaming the passions is part of their sublunar manifestations. Part of the job of sublunar spirits is to inflame our disordered desire. (Sublunar just means mixed natures, called "unclean" in more Catholic langage - and which just means chaotic and disordered, and incoherant , not evil .) Learning to be cool, calm, to have Stotic discipline but with compassion for yourself and others, is a good balance here. For me that can look very Catholic / Buddhist but the underlying inner resolve and stance is important here, and less what you think about it all with your chatty, left-hemisphere thinky brain.
I also suspect the modern Transvocation style of working keeps in them more as mental-realm thought beings , and never quite brings them down to the sublunar levels, and bypasses some of this, but I can't say for sure, since I don't work that way. Some people say they have good results there, others say it doesn't work for them . I have no idea what the variables are.
Dude, that is honesty the best question ever. I think so, but I am biased, and I think there is an element of Fate in play here. Just listen to us all and try your best.
The GV is a middle ground. It's not exactly spirit -friendly the way WitchTok is, but it also does not have the Chain Curse. And the goat was just a meal back then, not a big to do. Substitions are allowed . Paper and a bloodstone here. Just don't be a parsimonious min-maxer. Trying to get everything with no personal risk and nor investment just sets everything off on the wrong footing, I feel
How is the bloodstone a proper substition? That spesific crystal means something "special" to the Daimons?
Would offering a few drops of one’s own blood with a lancet be enough to avoid coming across as a parsimonious min-maxer? Hahaha.
Anyways, thats what i am doing i am trying to read your exp. while taking everything as i already stated, with a grain of salt.
I have the 1st edition of GV Joseph Peterson, btw. If I’m not mistaken, a newer, second edition was published in 2022.
Why is that bloodstone even there? It's probably because it has been used as part of the tradition for centuries. Before then, it probably just vibed solar and resonated with underworld solar daimons for all the Catholics who wrote the GV and established the tradition (meaning here the GV - Secret of Solomon - Black Dragon - Grand Grimoire line). See the Doctrine of Signatures. Now it's just an accepted part of the Grimoirium Verum Bat-Signal we light up to get their attention.
Much of this is getting their attention and then negotiating. Any one thing might get their attention, but you might as well use the signals they expect to see and have been used for a very, very long time. The GV is not a book - well , I mean, it is a book, it is more than that, it is a legit tradition, warts and all, that perhaps kept enough of the total traditional evocation Bat Signal process in place to make it so effective. But I am biased.
My take: this is inter dimensional diplomacy with a somewhat chaotic and trickster class of entities that will adapt to a degree to you own expectations, personal character and ritual framework . The paranormal level of all this is just a bit intrinsically weird. The more coherence you bring to yourself and your own spiritual universe, the better this all goes - at least when working at the paranormal level.
For more on the intrinsically fucked UP characteristics of the sublunar level see:
George P. Hansen's The Trickster and the Paranormal
I looked around this could not be found. About the Book Paranormal and supernatural events have been reported for millennia. They have fostered history’s most important cultural transformations (e.g., via the miracles of Moses, Jesus, Mohammed). Paranormal phenomena are frequently portrayed...
wizardforums.com
Once they have bodies made of this chaotic flux your job as a diviized magican (however you think of that) is to give them better self coherence and better bodies ,not just made of all random astral flux and etheric garbage, mixed with your own peevish worst self. The astrological timing are part of that making sure the astral garbage and bullshit is kept to a minimum. At least, that is how it seems to work, in my experience. YYMV. I am not even sure the Transvocation methods even count as paranormal, but whatever. If it works, stick with them.
Why is that bloodstone even there? It's probably because it has been used as part of the tradition for centuries. Before then, it probably just vibed solar and resonated with underworld solar daimons for all the Catholics who wrote the GV and established the tradition (meaning here the GV - Secret of Solomon - Black Dragon - Grand Grimoire line). See the Doctrine of Signatures. Now it's just an accepted part of the Grimoirium Verum Bat-Signal we light up to get their attention.
Much of this is getting their attention and then negotiating. Any one thing might get their attention, but you might as well use the signals they expect to see and have been used for a very, very long time. The GV is not a book - well , I mean, it is a book, it is more than that, it is a legit tradition, warts and all, that perhaps kept enough of the total traditional evocation Bat Signal process in place to make it so effective. But I am biased.
My take: this is inter dimensional diplomacy with a somewhat chaotic and trickster class of entities that will adapt to a degree to you own expectations, personal character and ritual framework . The paranormal level of all this is just a bit intrinsically weird. The more coherence you bring to yourself and your own spiritual universe, the better this all goes - at least when working at the paranormal level.
For more on the intrinsically fucked UP characteristics of the sublunar level see:
George P. Hansen's The Trickster and the Paranormal
I looked around this could not be found. About the Book Paranormal and supernatural events have been reported for millennia. They have fostered history’s most important cultural transformations (e.g., via the miracles of Moses, Jesus, Mohammed). Paranormal phenomena are frequently portrayed...
wizardforums.com
Once they have bodies made of this chaotic flux your job as a diviized magican (however you think of that) is to give them better self coherence and better bodies ,not just made of all random astral flux and etheric garbage, mixed with your own peevish worst self. The astrological timing are part of that making sure the astral garbage and bullshit is kept to a minimum. At least, that is how it seems to work, in my experience. YYMV. I am not even sure the Transvocation methods even count as paranormal, but whatever. If it works, stick with them.
So, did Joseph H. Peterson compile and synthesize the various manuscripts and source materials of the Grimorium Verum into a single, coherent grimoire? Does the 2022 second edition contain any substantial new material? Is it worth buying for the additional information, or is it essentially just a more luxurious and visually polished version of the first edition published in 2004-2009?
So, did Joseph H. Peterson compile and synthesize the various manuscripts and source materials of the Grimorium Verum into a single, coherent grimoire?
My take. Yes, and no. The GV is not a book per se (it is a bunch of them in several countries over centuries) but a tradition of folk sorcery (well, several) over many centuries by many people.
Joseph Peterson's 2nd edition is very different from his 1st edition, with some of the more complex seals of the Three Chiefs (Lucifer, Belzebuth, and Astaroth) replaced by some earlier, simpler ones. I happen to like the more complex ones and really couldn't care much if there is an argument that the earlier ones are more "authentic."
Counter to the modern occult and neopagan view that "older = more authentic = better" in my view older is often just older, and not yet improved by our human-manifested Logos (creativity and creative reason). But who knows? Try them both out and see what responds to each.
I am not a grimoire purist, but I am a grimoire fundamentalist. The grimoire used is important since it colors the type of manifestations you get (I think of each as a shared UI/UX server in the sublunar world).
Each of the grimoires you use will color the type of manifestations you get. I do not use the Lesser Key because it makes no sense to me (and I'm not saying it is not great for other magicians here), and the manifestations I got were trippy compared to the GV, where they were more solid and darker. I can't say they will be that for everybody since I am not EXACTLY sure what gets their attention, but the GV "is" both more chthonic and "Lovecraftian" (I am grateful to John King, who on his blog spent time with a GV magician and observed the same thing, which is confirming).
Pardon my Vodou framework here , I tend to be somewhere in the middle of this and work "warm", just to make up a spectrum of types. Neither "hot" like Julio Cesar Ody and John King (all respect to them. Julio is initiate in Quimbanda where life force offerings are used to give them "ghost bodies"as I sometimes joke. All good. Blood is also "hot" ) I have worked "hot" and they can make things happen overnight, but fast magic is often chaotic magic, in my view. I also do not work "cool" like JSK and the very wonderful guys in the school of JSK Verum like Mat Hadfield.
I sometimes will work applying methods of New World sorcery traditions in something that sort of looks likeNovenas. Basically, I Karen the fuck out of them for 3 consecutive days, or 7, or 9 days. This takes a little longer to work - a few weeks to a month or so, but that may also be my inner expectation. Using this approach I once removed a psychopathic executive at a very famous Japanese game publisher who was harassing my wife who worked under her there. I did not kill her, as I would have when I was much younger and much meaner, I just got her fired in a probability field where executives are an untouchable, feudal over-class. Fuck them. No mercy. And no fuss, no muss. But I will say the GV daimons are weird in all the best ways. Learn mediation so when they show up looking insane you do not freak out.
Since I never plan to sell magic books and courses, so I have no problem recommending people I like . I swear I am not Mat Hadfield. Again I may have some quibbles here, but I am just glad to see others putting the GV to use.
Mat's school seems to work very "cool" but there is nothing wrong with that, and it is probably safer. I will caution against taking any of the framework they are uncovering and using too literally. Anglo-occultism is missing a mythic language and has to fill it in with "Science," and he is using the stars to make a mythic synthesis for his own inner synthesis. But again, who knows.
Maybe this is 100% litrally true. But how would we ever know for sure ? I just run with the school of Pragmatism of William James: The effects that you get and witness are what they "are."
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Oh.
Let me add a quick note about mythic frameworks and about using them more as descriptions and NOT explanations.
JSK had gotten some pushback recently for calling the daimons 'pagan gods,' - and while I agree with some of that, he was very clear he thought of them as the earlier pre-Homeric chthonic gods. That word, 'chthonic,' is key here, not 'god.' In ancient Greek culture they used the word 'theos' for all sorts of things. Anything that inspires awe or fear was just a 'theos' - a god - and the wors was inclusive of all sorts of weird sublunar stuff, and really should not be thought of using a modern framework like the neopagans make them out to be and "gods and goddesses." I mean, you can, and it may even help cool their flames and trim their claws some.
I wish everyone would pay attention more closely to their writing and try to read between the lines. Like me, I think they all just want people to try the GV, and so they tend to smooth over the more weird parts. I don't plan to sell magic books, so I can speak more directly.
I sometimes think of them Lovecraftian Angels of Purgatory, and in other ways, but again, I am also not an author selling books, who is afraid of scaring potential readers off.
Jake was no fool. And Mat Hadfield is no fool. Mat had posted this image to his Substack. I suspect he knows.
Grimorium Verum Cenobites isn't too bad a descriptor either.
My take. Yes, and no. The GV is not a book per se (it is a bunch of them in several countries over centuries) but a tradition of folk sorcery (well, several) over many centuries by many people.
Joseph Peterson's 2nd edition is very different from his 1st edition, with some of the more complex seals of the Three Chiefs (Lucifer, Belzebuth, and Astaroth) replaced by some earlier, simpler ones. I happen to like the more complex ones and really couldn't care much if there is an argument that the earlier ones are more "authentic."
Counter to the modern occult and neopagan view that "older = more authentic = better" in my view older is often just older, and not yet improved by our human-manifested Logos (creativity and creative reason). But who knows? Try them both out and see what responds to each.
I am not a grimoire purist, but I am a grimoire fundamentalist. The grimoire used is important since it colors the type of manifestations you get (I think of each as a shared UI/UX server in the sublunar world).
Each of the grimoires you use will color the type of manifestations you get. I do not use the Lesser Key because it makes no sense to me (and I'm not saying it is not great for other magicians here), and the manifestations I got were trippy compared to the GV, where they were more solid and darker. I can't say they will be that for everybody since I am not EXACTLY sure what gets their attention, but the GV "is" both more chthonic and "Lovecraftian" (I am grateful to John King, who on his blog spent time with a GV magician and observed the same thing, which is confirming).
Pardon my Vodou framework here , I tend to be somewhere in the middle of this and work "warm", just to make up a spectrum of types. Neither "hot" like Julio Cesar Ody and John King (all respect to them. Julio is initiate in Quimbanda where life force offerings are used to give them "ghost bodies"as I sometimes joke. All good. Blood is also "hot" ) I have worked "hot" and they can make things happen overnight, but fast magic is often chaotic magic, in my view. I also do not work "cool" like JSK and the very wonderful guys in the school of JSK Verum like Mat Hadfield.
I sometimes will work applying methods of New World sorcery traditions in something that sort of looks likeNovenas. Basically, I Karen the fuck out of them for 3 consecutive days, or 7, or 9 days. This takes a little longer to work - a few weeks to a month or so, but that may also be my inner expectation. Using this approach I once removed a psychopathic executive at a very famous Japanese game publisher who was harassing my wife who worked under her there. I did not kill her, as I would have when I was much younger and much meaner, I just got her fired in a probability field where executives are an untouchable, feudal over-class. Fuck them. No mercy. And no fuss, no muss. But I will say the GV daimons are weird in all the best ways. Learn mediation so when they show up looking insane you do not freak out.
Since I never plan to sell magic books and courses, so I have no problem recommending people I like . I swear I am not Mat Hadfield. Again I may have some quibbles here, but I am just glad to see others putting the GV to use.
Mat's school seems to work very "cool" but there is nothing wrong with that, and it is probably safer. I will caution against taking any of the framework they are uncovering and using too literally. Anglo-occultism is missing a mythic language and has to fill it in with "Science," and he is using the stars to make a mythic synthesis for his own inner synthesis. But again, who knows.
Maybe this is 100% litrally true. But how would we ever know for sure ? I just run with the school of Pragmatism of William James: The effects that you get and witness are what they "are."
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Oh.
Let me add a quick note about mythic frameworks and about using them more as descriptions and NOT explanations.
JSK had gotten some pushback recently for calling the daimons 'pagan gods,' - and while I agree with some of that, he was very clear he thought of them as the earlier pre-Homeric chthonic gods. That word, 'chthonic,' is key here, not 'god.' In ancient Greek culture they used the word 'theos' for all sorts of things. Anything that inspires awe or fear was just a 'theos' - a god - and the wors was inclusive of all sorts of weird sublunar stuff, and really should not be thought of using a modern framework like the neopagans make them out to be and "gods and goddesses." I mean, you can, and it may even help cool their flames and trim their claws some.
I wish everyone would pay attention more closely to their writing and try to read between the lines. Like me, I think they all just want people to try the GV, and so they tend to smooth over the more weird parts. I don't plan to sell magic books, so I can speak more directly.
I sometimes think of them Lovecraftian Angels of Purgatory, and in other ways, but again, I am also not an author selling books, who is afraid of scaring potential readers off.
Jake was no fool. And Mat Hadfield is no fool. Mat had posted this image to his Substack. I suspect he knows.
Grimorium Verum Cenobites isn't too bad a descriptor either.
Your reasoning strikes me as extremely interesting. At the other end of the spectrum is @FireBorn , and I find it fascinating that he is able to achieve results and communicate directly with daimons—or sublunary spirits, or whatever we choose to call them—without relying on any grimoire or pre-existing system whatsoever.
How would you explain that? Does this essentially suggest that a grimoire is not a prerequisite for establishing direct contact, performing an invocation, or forming a successful pact?
Also, could you point me in the right direction as to where I might find the second edition of the Grimorium Verum? I only have the first edition. Is the second edition available as a PDF anywhere on this site?
FireBorn is great! As a magician I will not speak against someone's results. We are friends and have no issue with simplified conjuring methods in theory. I have not used them, and only reserve my opinion for things I have worked with in depth.
I spend time on a Daemonology forum and the simplified methods does not work for everybody either. In Vodou we would say you are born with a Spiritual Court , and for some folks the spirits around them may just as well respond to those methods because that is their - there are no good words here in English - ancestral dharma. FireBorn has an IRL Unusual Background Story RPG perk, you'll have to ask him about.
Try them out, and if they don't, try the more trad stuff. I just started in the 1990s long before any of that, but I will say even my GV work is pretty loose. The daimons have told me to tighten it up, but that is probably just part of the mythic journey we are on.
If you "have" a daimon that agrees to use those simplified Daemonology methods, , just use 'em. If you don't like the results you're getting with them - say they want to chat and not do anything usefu - then politely dismiss them and try again, or use the formal protocols... and send up a homing signal into the darkness.
I don't know where the idea came about that you do the full "really true and correct' ritual exactly - OR - all you need to do just wander out into the ether with no radio beacon or signal flare in the darkness. It's not that binary. It's not that either you have to do the full formal protocols , or have none of them.
Let's say FireBorn decided to call Guland, a health/disease demon from the GV and one of my allies . The only reason people would think his Guland and my Guland are the same entity is because of this mythic literalism the neopagans AND TradCaths both interject here. Vodou says they are different entities, and I think that is a far more accurate view, and one which keeps people from squabbling like little petulant children over the "real" nature of these entities.
The full GV ritual is a Rite of Approach. The GV is very "witchy" One you have them you habe them pacted you can forgoe the full ritual protocols - unless it is " :fancy dress" diplomacy affair. Then they will sort of haunt your life and are always around. This can be very weird. As we say in Vodou, "Beware what you say out loud , you never know who is listening." And once you have them you can do all sort of crazy "magical " things, that will shock you or even horrify you.
People in modern occultism and neopaganism are Romantics and hippies, and to them, being a sorcerer or a witch sounds wonderful. But if you are above age 33, and once you do enough sorcery, it can also make you feel very, very separate from the rest of humanity, and a bit of a monster. Just be careful to maintain connection with regular folks and work on cultivating compassion, forgiveness, and kindness.
Could you elaborate on the other things one should consider, that appear far more important?
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1) Would it be fair to say that, in your model, binding the spirit is a ritual means of mastering the corresponding passion within oneself? Or do you understand the spirit as an external intelligence that independently imposes that passion upon us?
I characterize the spirits as sock puppets of the Devil, not as a population of independently-minded beings or as parts of humanity.
Around the time of St. Paul, people wondered why the world couldn't get its shit together no matter how hard people try. The govt is always evil, it's a miracle if your relationships work, etc. No matter what you do, the universe throws a wrench into it. It's not really anyone's fault, and it's not any specific identifiable source of trouble, it's just a fact of life. Paul called it dark powers in high places: ultimately all the bad stuff traces back to nebulous sources or a combination of sources that converge on what ends up being bad.
And we as individuals cannot really see "bad." We see it historically, sometimes, but in the midst of it we are usually bound up by illusions. The task of the magician (in relation to the spirits) is to break those illusions, free the person shackled by them, so that their will prevails and not that of the spirit.
2) It is not orthodox Christian theology, nor exclusively Christian in origin, but many of its surviving forms are unmistakably Christianized.
The worldview I find oppressive is precisely the one you have just described: a rigid cosmic hierarchy in which the magician, invoking the authority of the Supreme God, treats another intelligent being as an already-convicted criminal, denies it any moral autonomy, and regards its coercion as entirely legitimate.
So, to be clear, you are describing Christianity itself as oppressive? This type of sentiment is common among occultists as most of them feel resentment over whatever religious scorn they get from friends and family about their interests. Also common among homosexuals and anyone who feels butthurt about grandma and her favorite TV preacher telling them they're going to hell. And that's true of many forms of Christianity, but those people never were the entirety of the religion.
The underlying theology behind the grimoires comes from so many different sources. Greek esotericism, various ancient extinct Middle Eastern cults, late Roman paganism, anything Europeans could import. The existence of grimoire literature is a symptom of dissatisfaction with the major sects and their dogmas, not a vindication of their beliefs.
But on the whole yes, Christian doctrine supports the idea of an Almighty Supreme God, an utterly unopposed sovereign, the true absolute reality behind reality. Most of the banned heretical sects were those who denied that supremacy.
If we accept the view—common within many contemporary occult currents—that demons are not inherently good or evil, but morally complex or neutral beings, much like angels, then singling them out for threats, condemnation, and coercive treatment seems to preserve something of the obscurantist mentality of the Middle Ages.
If we get into a time machine, go back 50,000 years and talk to cavemen about electricity, they might understand it in an empirical sense as a spirit. These arguments, to me, seem like the kind of thing those cavemen would say when we talk about how the electricity needs to be trapped in a copper wire and cannot be touched or it will kill you. Don't feel sympathy for the static electricity demon, shove it into the wire.
We should also remember that, during those historical periods, the very people who practised magic could themselves be condemned, persecuted, and—in certain contexts—burned at the stake. So yes, there is something rather ironic about reproducing, within the ritual chamber, the same logic of presumed guilt, absolute authority, and sanctioned coercion that could be used against the magician outside it.
Again, I feel that this historical complaint against Christian supremacists is an entirely separate issue from Christian theology. Any time you tell a group of people that they are #1, they will go and beat up whoever is #2. Yes, those people were jerks. It doesn't invalidate the idea of a True God, morals, or other elements of the religion.
It isn't exactly true, either. While there definitely were people harmed for heresies, the grimoire literature comes from an educated class of people who were not clergy. The Lemegeton was written in the same place and within two months of the very first Speculative Masonry initiation. The people responsible for grimoires were not religious nuts, they were worldly men whose physical books often contained sciences, chemistry, other notes that give no evidence of religious mania or persecution anxiety.
I continue to believe that this creates an artificial antagonism—one that is fundamentally doctrinal and structured according to human assumptions about authority, guilt, obedience, and punishment. Are we seriously expected to believe that spiritual intelligences or deities worshipped for thousands of years are locked into the same sectarian conflicts that human beings have constructed, while we appoint ourselves as their judges and referees? That makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.
That is the basis of Solomonic magic: that an individual, even you, are more important than all the gods ever worshiped, a rough stone polished until it can be set into the crown of God.
Biblical prophets are primarily sent to make war against the idols. Moses vs the Egyptian gods, Solomon vs. everybody, John the Baptist vs. Baal and Astaroth, Paul vs. Artemis, etc. All of those are also one person vs. the gods given worship by many. The prophets announce that those beings are not God, and demonstrate that they can be defeated as proof of it. Solomonic magic seeks the same thing: showing those spirits that they, as Psalm 82 and John 10 declare, "are called gods and sons of God, but will be judged like men."
In my own practice, when the spirit has been charged with something, and then I want to back out in terror of what I've done to my life, the spirits have been adamant that fulfillment of my desires is critical to their salvation.
In fact, accounts of violent resistance and hostile manifestations seem to arise most frequently within religiously charged frameworks that already define these beings as enemies and approach them through suspicion, threats, and attempts at domination.
Almost every time I find a person getting into Solomonic magic from other occult branches, they immediately go from "lots of interesting things happening" to nothing, or negative reactions. I think of it like the difference between inviting your neighbor over to re-do your plumbing vs. calling the pros. Your neighbor might work for a beer, get the job done, and go home, but what if they completely destroy your whole bathroom? Judge Judy isn't going to like the fact that you tried to get out of paying for proper plumbing and now want to sue your neighbor for a predictable problem. Western civilization has collectively decided that when you hire professionals, you get them to sign a contract in which they acknowledge that there will be severe penalties for messing around. You might not be a jerk about it, but that contract is threatening them with financial ruin or even prison, and they are fully aware of it and OK with that. If you hire a contractor and don't want a contract, they might refuse the job, or you might get someone who does a bad job and then leaves you with the bill. The "interesting things" stop happening because the spirits aren't allowed to do whatever they want to you anymore. No more bumps and candle flares, they are forced to actually do something, and at that point they become hostile. If you want something stupid or bad for yourself, and the spirit happily fulfills that wish, you aren't doing yourself any favors by being nice. Sticking it to them forces them to declare why your plan is dumb.
1. Romans loved it, and the GV is Italian. Even though the stone is common enough to be expected to be sold by any random druggist, bloodstone intaglio jewels were the Roman equivalent of wearing a Rolex. It's extremely hard stuff! I have seen people break hundreds of dollars worth of bits trying to carve the GV sigils. back in the day, they were using brass wires with sapphire or diamond abrasives. Getting this produced marks you as someone who matters.
2. Bloodstone is associated with scrying, put into a bowl and stared at like a black mirror.
3. Bloodstone is associated with invisibility. Before you do anything else, the GV has you go to the druggist and get the stone, carry it always. I suspect that this is done to make you effectively invisible to the spirit you are about to bind, so it won't interfere with what you are doing.
1. Romans loved it, and the GV is Italian. Even though the stone is common enough to be expected to be sold by any random druggist, bloodstone intaglio jewels were the Roman equivalent of wearing a Rolex. It's extremely hard stuff! I have seen people break hundreds of dollars worth of bits trying to carve the GV sigils. back in the day, they were using brass wires with sapphire or diamond abrasives. Getting this produced marks you as someone who matters.
2. Bloodstone is associated with scrying, put into a bowl and stared at like a black mirror.
3. Bloodstone is associated with invisibility. Before you do anything else, the GV has you go to the druggist and get the stone, carry it always. I suspect that this is done to make you effectively invisible to the spirit you are about to bind, so it won't interfere with what you are doing.
I have had mine since the mid 1990's. I wish I could compare effects to not having it, but in no span of time did I not have it. This is part of why I feel we need many more younger magicians trying and reporting back. DIY it folks, and let us know!
FireBorn is great! As a magician I will not speak against someone's results. We are friends and have no issue with simplified conjuring methods in theory. I have not used them, and only reserve my opinion for things I have worked with in depth.
I spend time on a Daemonology forum and the simplified methods does not work for everybody either. In Vodou we would say you are born with a Spiritual Court , and for some folks the spirits around them may just as well respond to those methods because that is their - there are no good words here in English - ancestral dharma. FireBorn has an IRL Unusual Background Story RPG perk, you'll have to ask him about.
Try them out, and if they don't, try the more trad stuff. I just started in the 1990s long before any of that, but I will say even my GV work is pretty loose. The daimons have told me to tighten it up, but that is probably just part of the mythic journey we are on.
If you "have" a daimon that agrees to use those simplified Daemonology methods, , just use 'em. If you don't like the results you're getting with them - say they want to chat and not do anything usefu - then politely dismiss them and try again, or use the formal protocols... and send up a homing signal into the darkness.
I don't know where the idea came about that you do the full "really true and correct' ritual exactly - OR - all you need to do just wander out into the ether with no radio beacon or signal flare in the darkness. It's not that binary. It's not that either you have to do the full formal protocols , or have none of them.
Let's say FireBorn decided to call Guland, a health/disease demon from the GV and one of my allies . The only reason people would think his Guland and my Guland are the same entity is because of this mythic literalism the neopagans AND TradCaths both interject here. Vodou says they are different entities, and I think that is a far more accurate view, and one which keeps people from squabbling like little petulant children over the "real" nature of these entities.
The full GV ritual is a Rite of Approach. The GV is very "witchy" One you have them you habe them pacted you can forgoe the full ritual protocols - unless it is " :fancy dress" diplomacy affair. Then they will sort of haunt your life and are always around. This can be very weird. As we say in Vodou, "Beware what you say out loud , you never know who is listening." And once you have them you can do all sort of crazy "magical " things, that will shock you or even horrify you.
People in modern occultism and neopaganism are Romantics and hippies, and to them, being a sorcerer or a witch sounds wonderful. But if you are above age 33, and once you do enough sorcery, it can also make you feel very, very separate from the rest of humanity, and a bit of a monster. Just be careful to maintain connection with regular folks and work on cultivating compassion, forgiveness, and kindness.
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It is not, but you are not missing anything, in my opinion.
So, despite the role of subjugator that you assume—and which the daimons themselves apparently allow you to occupy—they still manifest within that framework and willingly cooperate with you? In other words, not only do they refrain from becoming hostile or retaliating when you attempt to tame or subordinate them through the Grimorium Verum, but they have even told you to adhere to its procedures more rigorously, despite the fact that, as you said, your own GV work is “pretty loose.” Have I understood that correctly ?
Curiosity arose regarding the bad reputation Solomonic magic has acquired, as well as the anecdotal accounts of practitioners supposedly experiencing the wrath of daimons after attempting to tame, coerce, or even torment them with arrogance and hubris. I understand that the Grimorium Verum is “mild” when it comes to sub-jugating spirits and making pacts with them, but that element still seems to be present. This stands in sharp contrast to modern Demonolatry, where the procedure may be as simple as creating a circle for protection, lighting a candle, and invoking the daimon—and that is essentially it. Is there something I’m misunderstanding?
Yes. But not at the beginning. I have some deep scars, so I would not necessarily just wing it.
I have been asked to share what happened but I do not like scaring people . Lets just say it gate me some serious PTSD. But I hoestly have not had any issues since then, whci was many years ago .
As to them telling me to tighten this, this is a deep practice with many stages. It is just how one goes deeper. Or one of them. Not saying it is even required for basic sorcery.
What Faria wrote about was also very shocking and confirming to me. What he says here I also see with them.
You do not have to accept his framework 100%, but this core dynamic is the key thing here - and it is probably consistent in some form whether you are secular, Catholic, Protestant, or pagan. I do not have a good way to talk about it except through my own mythic synthesis and practice, which is very Catholic. I don't dragging religion into these conversations becasue some might think I am recruiting - I am not - and I also attract the crazies who want to attack me.
Let me say am aware this is very much my personal gnosis - in my living experiences as a mystic and sorcerer- but they WANT me to be even more spiritual.
What i THINK is going on: I think they want us to access higher dimensions for them. They get something from it... grace, kindness, succor, it seems. You don't have to be Catholic here, but you might consider humans as the fulcrum of reality (or at least ours) and through our Logos (by whatever name) and we have access to dimensions they can't see or feel. We have to be the Divine, The Numinous to them.
I also think it just the sublunar chaos the live in once we bring them down fully into it. As Imago Dei we do that to them, so we do have a bit of an obligation, I feel. Imagine if you were on drugs or woke up in the hospital once day brain-damaged. And then just being around someone your mind clears and you feel normal again , even good. Sadly that person it also the person that rammed your car and put you in the hospital in the first place. Divine magicians appear to do that for them. Again, I do not want to say this is literally 100% the case.
This stands in sharp contrast to modern Demonolatry, where the procedure may be as simple as creating a circle for protection, lighting a candle, and invoking the daimon
Oh, are they back to that? That I can get behind. But as always nuance an context is needed.
They have getting been vastly better over the past 3 years or so becasue there is an excellent Neoplatonic magician who somehow became a big influencer over there. Doing the Lord's work, he is. Dude deserves a medal. Over 10 yearsthey went from... just thinky-think at them , then it was blood and more blood, spunking on a sigil was in there someplace, then it was hysteria over astral parasites... then it was back to thinky-think methods... Just a big mess. But now they are becoming legit magicans.
David Wilson-Steer, Corundum, this is getting very off-topic, and the HGA has nothing to do with the Verum system. I am not unsympathetic to what you're saying, but please make another thread.
That said, I'd love my HGA and talk with her every day. As the resident god of my universe, I don't need demons for magic and can make miracles myself. I do Goetia because I enjoy it, and I like the daimons of the Underworld.
The Underworld Initiation is greatly misunderstood, but while more dangerous, the benefits and adventure are also tremendous. I should probably write more about it one day.
The HGA is an Overworld Initiation method, but I challenge you to ask yourself what "becoming divine" looks like in other cultures that are not specifically Abrahamic in mythic structure. For instance, the Logos can "be" both Christ and Hermes as reason and meaning itself enters the biosphere. Claiming all the people who are not using your highly specific mythic framework and methodology are "doing demons wrong" is not helpful.
I am just a voice on the internet, and you have no reason to believe me, but I have lived a very full life in my half century - and the underworld daimons have been a huge assist with rising to the highest ranks as director level at very famous and/or creative companies in the video game, film and tech industries. Because I wanted to. Those are what i wanteds to do with my life at that time. So I did. The demons were a big help here. You attack JSK, asking what "did demons do for him," but maybe they did exactly what he wanted them to do? His life is not my life. I strongly suggest you cannot judge the life expression of another person's soul and their own HGA or divine spark.
But you know this, I'm sure, having achieved Knowledge and Conversation of your Holy Guardian Angel, and all.
"I strongly suggest you cannot judge the life expression of another person's soul and their own HGA or divine spark." And yet, that's exactly what you're doing. And ... in your ego rant you're doing it by accusing me of writing things I didn't write.
Dude, I agree with you about the HGA in general , but my criticism still stands. It is not part of the Verum system, at least not with all the usual Anglo-Protestant baggage attached. Now, if you want to go into the fine points of the HGA vs. the Catholic Guardian Angel when using a Catholic grimoire, I think that is a fine topic in another thread.
But also, WTF? . Have you really been sitting on that for OVER a year? Damn.
And let me say, as Catholic magician, I reserve the solemn, sacred right to call out filthy heresy when I see it. It's just basic counter-Reformation protocol. And if I’m going to take an ego trip, it’s going to be a fully paid, first-class Holy pilgrimage. I expect to be addressed as the Grand Inquisitor of the Grimorium Verum from here on out.
Deus Vult!
Joking aside, apologies if I you felt personally attacked by me.
Oh, are they back to that? That I can get behind. But as always nuance an context is needed.
They have getting been vastly better over the past 3 years or so becasue there is an excellent Neoplatonic magician who somehow became a big influencer over there. Doing the Lord's work, he is. Dude deserves a medal. Over 10 yearsthey went from... just thinky-think at them , then it was blood and more blood, spunking on a sigil was in there someplace, then it was hysteria over astral parasites... then it was back to thinky-think methods... Just a big mess. But now they are becoming legit magicans.
The practices you describe, however, also appear in the grimoires and, more broadly, in virtually every tradition that seeks to establish communication with daimons. Moreover, the distinction between higher daimons and lower or potentially harmful spiritual entities—what we might now call “astral parasites”—was already present in the Neoplatonic traditions.
Perhaps I have missed something, but I am not sure I fully understand the precise nature of your criticism of modern Demonolatry. Would you mind elaborating on what, in your view, it fundamentally gets wrong, and how that Neoplatonic magician has corrected or improved it? @MorganBlack
Oh, are they back to that? That I can get behind. But as always nuance an context is needed.
They have getting been vastly better over the past 3 years or so becasue there is an excellent Neoplatonic magician who somehow became a big influencer over there. Doing the Lord's work, he is. Dude deserves a medal. Over 10 yearsthey went from... just thinky-think at them , then it was blood and more blood, spunking on a sigil was in there someplace, then it was hysteria over astral parasites... then it was back to thinky-think methods... Just a big mess. But now they are becoming legit magicans.
Hmmm. I have no serious issue with Daemonolatry. I don't like critiquing other people whose practices have little to do with mine except the surface names. It is not my tradition, so try to leave well enough alone, but since you asked.
I am pretty ecumenical about whatever people want to try. But I only ask the same reciprocal respect for us. We can get pretty salty sometimes because everyone wants to "explain" the daemons to us.
The GV is not the Lesser Key but we are all Grim Trad magicians over here. While we do not always agree on exact specifics were are still more alike than not . I just usually try to speak more ecumenically and inclusively and like to entreat people to come try it out. But this is still a GrimTrad thread about a specific grimoire and does not stop people from outside the traditions from interjecting here.
By some reports these practices work for some. And by other reports they don't. (and that is true for the grims as well. )And while I have total respect for my more TradCath brothers, if the simplified methods have real results, great.
But to be more critical here - which I do not like doing - a full evocation is also not totally necessary for magical results. Some of the trad methods include the pretty conjure / folk magic approach seen in the 'Secrets' section of the GV. This is very much like how conjure people work today and was probably the bulk of what most people did in these practices over the centuries. Calling the daimons into a seal and some herbs and other materia magica.
Jason Miller suggested, and I tend to agree, what is going on is they are tapping into the spirit's power throughwhat he called Resonance, all without the spirit knowing or being aware they are taking some their force (the "pattern' they bring to reality, imho). That channeling of their force comes with a bunch of mental hallucinations and self-generated internal chit chat , so that they think is the daemon is talking to them. They get all sort of wild ideas.
All good on the way to results but the UPG is also sort baked in - compared to more Grim Trad methods that air-gaps them from ego and left-hemisphere chatty brain more through the methods we use. Then those folks come over here and spread their UPG around because they have really-real Truth of it All. The grims only look like ego to them becaue they are are held up as a personal choice in a modern magic marketplace.
I want add that s the pact-based grims like the GV are very Chthonic. GV is very Mars and Saturn codeded. Wheather you want to or not, ego or not, you are signing up for a very Orphic / Catholic Underworld Hero's Journey here, so brace youself. It is dangerous to go it alone, find allies.
Pacts, contracts, agreements are an inherent quality of the Underworld. Thomistic Catholicism is not wrong to say "Hell" deals with us in a very legalsstic what in legalities. Catholic demonology wasn't pulling it out of thin air when it framed Hell as a domain dealing in legalities, contracts, and technicalities.
They were reskinning very old, pre-Christian maps of the shamanic underworld (Hell, Purgatory, Tartarus, Hades in the Western langugage ) . See the video below. Jake frame this in more pagan terms, but if you dig a little bit we can see the the same territory , which Jake frames iusing a "pagan" language andmyths, but that isretty surface level paintover to not alienate potential readers.
Even in Classical Greek paganism the Underworld was still governed by a rigid legalism. Swearing on the River Styx was a binding covenant. Even the gods swore an oath upon the Styx as an absolute cosmic contract enforced by Tartarus itself. Breaking a Stygian oath carried severe, legal consequences so the a god was rendered paralyzed and breathless for a full year, followed by nine years of exile from the divine council.
And if the god beaks a very serious oath then Hell send their enfocers from depepest Tartarus. The Erinyes were essentially personified curses. To swear an oath was to invite self-destruction if the pact was broken. The moment an agreement was breached or perjury committed, the Erinyes were triggered, hunting the oath-breaker. In grimoire work the pact sets the terms, boundaries, and consequences for both the operator and the spirit.
What looks like ego-centric and leglaism to neopagan diabolists (who are very late newcomners on the "magic" scene btw) and modern magicans alikewas simply just bulit into the Catholic frameowork and worldview where the Grim Trad tradtions was formulated.
For a more nuanc on Catholic GrimTrad worldview this video from Glith Bottle is very infomative.. The host the excellent Alexander Eth is Catholic btw.
Hmmm. I have no serious issue with Daemonolatry. I don't like critiquing other people whose practices have little to do with mine except the surface names. It is not my tradition, so try to leave well enough alone, but since you asked.
I am pretty ecumenical about whatever people want to try. But I only ask the same reciprocal respect for us. We can get pretty salty sometimes because everyone wants to "explain" the daemons to us.
The GV is not the Lesser Key but we are all Grim Trad magicians over here. While we do not always agree on exact specifics were are still more alike than not . I just usually try to speak more ecumenically and inclusively and like to entreat people to come try it out. But this is still a GrimTrad thread about a specific grimoire and does not stop people from outside the taditions from interjecting here.
By some reports these practices work for some. And by other reports they don't. (and that is true for the grims as well. )And while I have total respect for my more TradCath brothers, if the simplified methods have real results, great.
But to be more critical here - which I do not like doing - a full evocation is also not totally necessary for magical results. Some of the trad methods include the pretty conjure / folk magic approach seen in the 'Secrets' section of the GV. This is very much like how conjure people work today and was probably the bulk of what most people did in these practices over the centuries. Calling the daimons into a seal and some herbs and other materia magica.
Jason Miller suggested, and I tend to agree, what is going on is they are tapping into the spirit's power throughwhat he called Resonance, allwithout the spirit knowing or being aware they aretaking somethat power. That channeling of their force comes with a bunch of mental hallucinations and self-generted intral chit chat , so that they think is the daemon is talking to them. They get all sort of wild ideas.
All good on the way to results but the UPG is also sort baked in - compared to more Grim Trad methods that air-gaps them from ego and left-hemisphere chatty brain more through the methods we use. Then those folks come over here and spread their UPG around because they have really-real Truth of it All. The grims only look like ego to them becaue they are are held up as a personal choice in a modern magic marketplace.
I want add that s the pact-based grims like the GV are very Chthonic. GV is very Mars and Saturn codeded. Wheather you want to or not, ego or not, you are signing up for a very Orphic / Catholic Underworld Hero's Journey here, so brace youself. It is dangerous to go it alone, find allies.
Pacts, contracts, agreements are an inherent quality of the Underworld. Thomistic Catholicism is not wrong to say "Hell" deals with us in a very legalsstic what in legalities. Catholic demonology wasn't pulling it out of thin air when it framed Hell as a domain dealing in legalities, contracts, and technicalities.
They were reskinning very old, pre-Christian maps of the shamanic underworld (Hell, Purgatory, Tartarus, Hades in the Western langugage ) . See the video below. Jake frame this in more pagan terms, but if you dig a little bit we can see the the same territory , which Jake frames iusing a "pagan" language andmyths, but that isretty surface level paintover to not alienate potential readers.
Even in Classical Greek paganism the Underworld was still governed by a rigid legalism. Swearing on the River Styx was a binding covenant. Even the gods swore an oath upon the Styx as an absolute cosmic contract enforced by Tartarus itself. Breaking a Stygian oath carried severe, legal consequences so the a god was rendered paralyzed and breathless for a full year, followed by nine years of exile from the divine council.
And if the god beaks a very serious oath then Hell send their enfocers from depepest Tartarus. The Erinyes were essentially personified curses. To swear an oath was to invite self-destruction if the pact was broken. The moment an agreement was breached or perjury committed, the Erinyes were triggered, hunting the oath-breaker. In grimoire work the pact sets the terms, boundaries, and consequences for both the operator and the spirit.
What looks like ego-centric and leglaism to neopagan diabolists (who are very late newcomners on the "magic" scene btw) and modern magicans alikewas simply just bulit into the Catholic frameowork and worldview where the Grim Trad tradtions was formulated.
For a more nuanc on Catholic GrimTrad worldview this video from Glith Bottle is very infomative.. The host the excellent Alexander Eth is Catholic btw.
