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In the Ars Goetia some of the demons are bastardized pagan gods (ex. Ashtaroth = Astarte, IPOs = Anubis, Haures - Horus, etc) so would that make the goetic demons their own being or an aspect of the original pagan god?!
I recently did a deep dive into Goetic etymology, chased the names through historical literature, primary sources, the works. Honest assessment? Most of them are Goetic natives with no traceable pre Christian origin. Only a handful stand out as legitimately older.
If you're in love with the mystical narrative around the Lemegeton's origins, the historical record will disappoint you. Sometimes it's better to just work with what's there rather than chase the backstory (read as: almost always)
That said, yes, I do believe the Jews deliberately demonized certain pagan deities and spirits. It was like a theological crowd control, a way to ensure no one burned offerings to competing entities, cause apparently thats bad. They weren't the first culture to do this and won't be the last.
To your actual question though; Vepar and Bitru have no historical evidence of anything predating the Book of Offices, which was Weyer's source for the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, which fed into the Lemegeton. Goetic natives. And yet both are completely real to me. Whatever the historical story is, it doesn't change what shows up when you work with them.
Asteroth is one of the strongest cases of historical ties predating the Book of Offices. We just have to be careful about whats actually historical and accurate, and whats internet stuff that people think sounds cool. The latter being a cancer within the occult as a whole.
In my personal opinion, encountering a demon is incredible enough without the extras.
The messiness of the origins is just humans being human. It doesn't touch the reality of the contact.
even baal was a deity. Its not uncommon for a devil to take on a persona. Humans define a persona, an entity takes it on to feed off humans.
So yes some of the ars goetia are deities, and some of the ars goetia are deities in disguise. In a particular case i discovered christ to be lucifer because the light christ shines is an illusion and lucifer is a master of light as an illusion in terms of skills.
Basically despite religious claims, religions that have you hand over your soul to them are definitely of the devil type, and while the religious will demonise others, they themselves are worshipping devils.
The translation of the demonic bible writes this at the start before getting down to pointless rituals of working with them. I wouldnt bother with the rituals but the theory is indeed accurate about religion.
So theres the comparative mythology/religious studies approach that traces them as a lineage of old gods demonized by the church... and then theres actually interfacing with them through evocation. I can guarantee you that what ever you come into contact with using goetia proper is not a diety and is a demon by its nature. How that works I am not sure, but when you use solomonic magic to evoke Ashteroth it is not the same thing that you experience when you work with the goddess Astarte.
So theres the comparative mythology/religious studies approach that traces them as a lineage of old gods demonized by the church... and then theres actually interfacing with them through evocation. I can guarantee you that what ever you come into contact with using goetia proper is not a diety and is a demon by its nature. How that works I am not sure, but when you use solomonic magic to evoke Ashteroth it is not the same thing that you experience when you work with the goddess Astarte.
If you're in love with the mystical narrative around the Lemegeton's origins, the historical record will disappoint you. Sometimes it's better to just work with what's there rather than chase the backstory (read as: almost always)
Definitely true. I must say the same for modern vampirism. You go to history, there is nothing but wishful thinking about new system that evolved from the past but on itself is new and doesn't exactly have any ancient roots.
Mammon and Moloch for instance were seen as pagan gods by the time demonology was codified. Yet we know now they didn't exist as dieties (nobody had cults for them)
Other spirits like Azazel, Asmodeus.... have conflicted stories and different versions through history.
I share the same feeling about Raphael and Uriel as we use them in contemporary magick systems/beliefs. They don't fit the associations they had through canon and non canon Biblical texts. They seem like products from 20th century magicians.
This is why the theory all those demons have pagan roots don't make sense to me.
I just think goetic demons (listed, collected or created) exist through their own system.
I think whether or not the daemons are actually pagan deities or not matters not. The philosophy that their even is and that people are just born bad is what causes issue.
If daemons do exist then and they are their own class of entity then the fact they've been seen as just bad and nothing more nuanced is probably bad. Very bad. Especially for people since they probably are in charge of something. Maybe just human psychology but still.
If they don't exist or are just pagan gods or maybe even if they stiII do just are not the abrahmaic understanding of it. Then the entire philosophy of most religions are called into question. The ability to call someone a daemon and label as just bad with no exploration of nuance to motivations has consequneces.
Especially when someone is put into a position of leadership. To know why being that way doesn't work would probably lead to far less of bad actions commited by people in leadership or just people in general.
Someone thought I had a terrible entity like that attached to me. But I hadn't even worked with entities at that point and I was just dealing with a regular ghost/spirit. Heck I don't even know if I want to work those egregores/entities. Maybe just ghosts
I was just existing and I didn't choose that spirit to be around me. So this has consequneces to it.
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Goetia daemons are interesting in that their story is related to abrahmaic religion with king Solomon. Yet some might have been just other deities worshipped at the time or like some have said just from another pantheon.
Someone thought I had a terrible entity like that attached to me. But I hadn't even worked with entities at that point and I was just dealing with a regular ghost/spirit. Heck I don't even know if I want to work those egregores/entities. Maybe just ghosts
By terrible entity I mean like big well known entity not that the entity itself is terrible. It does sound like that when I reread it.
But it just goes to show just say something is daemonic presence even if it might not be like in my case with just a regular ghost. This is probably how the witch trials even started. The witches accused might not even have been witches or might have just talking with spirits of the land. Or even just the dead.
And even if it was daemonic if its not causing anyone harm who cares? And let me say that other practices not involving daemons can also cause harm. The evil eye being an example.
Goetic spirits have deep roots in Canaanite culture, and you even see remnants of it today in Judaism. Like the "Baal" title for rabbis and kabbalists, which basically means someone has mastered a spiritual subject. Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag is honored as Baal HaSulam (Master of the Ladder) because of his commentaries on the Zohar, for example.
Yet in popular culture (especially increasingly in modern hysterical alternative media), Baal is a scary demon. And of course, this name survives as "Bael" in the Goetia.
Another example: Mammon is a demon of wealth with a name derived from Aramaic, yet Maimon is a Jewish personal name that means "luck" or "fortune". A great medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher, who codified Jewish law, was called Maimonides.
I believe there are deep wells of disowned spiritual power in the Goetia that have been demonized by the Judeo-Christian world, yet are part of our cultural ancestry. The Canaanites were the bad guys of the Bible, but they were relatives of the Israelites too! This is kind of the lens through which I view Goetic spirits tbh. I don't really buy into the perspective in the grimoires.
When summoning any spirits it is important to remember the context of their summoning. The spirits in the Ars Goetia are demonic in nature because the system built around them labels them so.
This does not retroactively reduce the entities which inspired their creation from gods to demons.
If you perform a working to summon Astarte, for example, you will be summoning Astarte the goddess and not Astaroth the demon provided that you as the summoner consider the spirit of Astarte as a goddess and not as a demon. This would, however, require a different ritual to summon her than the one laid out in the Ars Goetia as those rituals are attuned to the demonic energies laid out in the system and text for it.
In other words, a lot of the characteristics of any entity summoned, if not all of them, are determined by the caster and their personal impression of the entity being summoned as the summoner's attunement directly correlates to the attunement of the summoned spirit.
Focusing your will on summoning a spirit of darkness and harm will attract a spirit attuned to those energies, focusing on a spirit of light and protection will attract one attuned to those energies and so on.
That said, when summoning an egregores of any sort their energies are attuned to the thoughts masses of practitioners who have summoned or worshipped them before.
