Traditional Solomonic Evocation vs Modern Demonolatry (Dukante,S.Conolly)

[AxelAchiLles]

Greetings, everyone.


I would like to open a discussion and hear from practitioners who have experimented with different approaches to demonic evocation—particularly older ceremonial methods, in which angels and divine names are employed to bind or constrain demons, compared with modern approaches in which a demon is invoked directly, without coercion or angelic intermediaries.


I would also be interested in hearing your thoughts on the Connolly–Dukanté tradition, which seems to occupy something of a grey area and tends to provoke rather divided reactions. What I find particularly interesting is how widespread the use of enn chants and sigils derived from modern grimoires has become among contemporary practitioners.


For those who have worked with both traditional and modern methods, how did your experiences compare? Did you notice any meaningful difference in the spirit’s manifestation, the effectiveness of the operation, the relationship established with the spirit, or the eventual results?
Does anyone know whether the Dukanté family actually existed, or whether it was simply an invention? Connolly’s methods do appear to work for some practitioners, at least judging by the accounts I have encountered across various forums.


My apologies in advance if this subject has already been discussed elsewhere on the forum. If there is an existing thread addressing the same questions, please feel free to direct me to it.


Thank you.

 

[diana_i_gusarova]

Modern demonolatrists view demons as partners, and sometimes as mentors. Medieval magicians (many of whom were Catholic priests) viewed demons as powerful beings capable of doing many things, but extremely malevolent and dangerous. For them, demons were akin to bandits. A bandit had to be captured, convicted, shackled, and sent to hard labor. If the bandit refused to work, he would be flogged, tortured, and so on. The demon must be summoned, bound with divine names, and forced to carry out the magician’s will. If the demon refuses to do so, the magician will burn its sigil, curse it with the names of God, and so on, which, as was believed, causes the demon suffering.

 

[agloval]

Hi!

I've worked with both approaches quite a bit and here's my take, though everyone's mileage varies.

Classic method (circle, triangle, divine names, angelic constraint): the main difference I notice is control. When you work with the constraint structure, you invoke by authority, you don't beg the spirit, the manifestation tends to be cleaner. Less noise, less of that feeling that you're dealing with something resisting you or playing games. The cost is the rite takes longer and demands more precision. If you botch a voice or a name, you feel it. I personally work mainly from Rudd and the Heptameron, and honestly for anything I actually need results from, that's still my go to.

Modern method (direct evocation, no intermediaries): faster, more intimate, and for certain spirits the relationship you build ends up better long term, less master/servant, more something like a deal between parties. The downside is that without the containment structure, if you run into something uncooperative you're a lot more exposed. I've seen people do well with it and people get into trouble skipping protection because they figured they didn't need it.


On Connolly-Dukanté: my honest opinion is Connolly pulled that family lineage straight out of his ass. There's no documentary trace of that family before the book, and the enn structure doesn't match anything you'd expect from an orally transmitted tradition spanning generations. That said, invented doesn't mean useless. Some people genuinely seem to use the enns and modern sigils as a channeling aid, a rhythm to focus the mind and drop into the working, even if the backstory behind them is fiction. I'm not knocking that use case, it's just not where I personally put my weight for anything serious.

Bottom line: classic for control and heavier work, modern for rapport and speed. If anyone's worked the same spirit both ways with comparable results, I'd genuinely like to hear it, that's the kind of data you don't get any other way.

 

[AxelAchiLles]

Thank you for the information!

Some people claim that the Solomonic method—particularly its angel–demon hierarchy and its emphasis on commanding or constraining spirits—angers demons. Could this be true, and might it be one of the reasons why so many stories have developed around exorcisms, spiritual attacks, and the apparent “discomfort” or hostility that demons sometimes display? After all, who enjoys being dominated or coerced?

We are also essentially dealing with a Judeo-Christian system of evocation, correct? Heaven and Hell, at least as they are commonly understood today, are largely products of Christian theology, so perhaps the idea that angels possess authority over demons belongs to that same theological framework.

Others argue that angels and demons are two sides of the same coin, and that invoking them together produces a more effective, grounded, stable, and controlled evocation.

There are also demonic circles of protection in which the practitioner invokes the nine demonic divinities, if I am not mistaken.

I would also appreciate it if you could recommend a few books on these different approaches. Thank you!

Hi!

I've worked with both approaches quite a bit and here's my take, though everyone's mileage varies.

Classic method (circle, triangle, divine names, angelic constraint): the main difference I notice is control. When you work with the constraint structure, you invoke by authority, you don't beg the spirit, the manifestation tends to be cleaner. Less noise, less of that feeling that you're dealing with something resisting you or playing games. The cost is the rite takes longer and demands more precision. If you botch a voice or a name, you feel it. I personally work mainly from Rudd and the Heptameron, and honestly for anything I actually need results from, that's still my go to.

Modern method (direct evocation, no intermediaries): faster, more intimate, and for certain spirits the relationship you build ends up better long term, less master/servant, more something like a deal between parties. The downside is that without the containment structure, if you run into something uncooperative you're a lot more exposed. I've seen people do well with it and people get into trouble skipping protection because they figured they didn't need it.


On Connolly-Dukanté: my honest opinion is Connolly pulled that family lineage straight out of his ass. There's no documentary trace of that family before the book, and the enn structure doesn't match anything you'd expect from an orally transmitted tradition spanning generations. That said, invented doesn't mean useless. Some people genuinely seem to use the enns and modern sigils as a channeling aid, a rhythm to focus the mind and drop into the working, even if the backstory behind them is fiction. I'm not knocking that use case, it's just not where I personally put my weight for anything serious.

Bottom line: classic for control and heavier work, modern for rapport and speed. If anyone's worked the same spirit both ways with comparable results, I'd genuinely like to hear it, that's the kind of data you don't get any other way.

Post automatically merged: Today at 2:07 PM

Also, shout-out to this brother over here. @MorganBlack
Seems highly knowledgeable on the subject, and I would greatly appreciate it, if he could share his insights with us.

 

[agloval]

Does constraint anger spirits, some do push back, yeah. I've had rougher experiences with certain goetic spirits. But that's what the structure is for.
You don't skip the seatbelt because the car might not crash.
That said, there's a difference between constraint and disrespect. If the text says King, I address a King. I don't grovel, but I don't walk in like I own the place either. Whether those titles are ontologically real or just how humans catalogued them, probably the latter, but the protocol works either way.
Is it Judeo-Christian, yes, and the names still operate. I don't need the theology to use the tech.

 

[AxelAchiLles]

Does constraint anger spirits, some do push back, yeah. I've had rougher experiences with certain goetic spirits. But that's what the structure is for.
You don't skip the seatbelt because the car might not crash.
That said, there's a difference between constraint and disrespect. If the text says King, I address a King. I don't grovel, but I don't walk in like I own the place either. Whether those titles are ontologically real or just how humans catalogued them, probably the latter, but the protocol works either way.
Is it Judeo-Christian, yes, and the names still operate. I don't need the theology to use the tech.

Any books that you might recomend as a must to a beginner?

 

[agloval]

For practical work: DuQuette, great guy.

John King IV: he documents actual evocations like field reports, what worked, what didn't.

 

[MorganBlack]

Thank you for the ping, @AxelAchiLles !

What Agloval says fits with my own intuition. I am also the wrong person to ask about Daemonolatry methods, because I have not used them, and I try to reseve my hard pinions of practice only to my experiences. (

I do I love how they get everyone out of the magician's armchair. Like, rock on! One of the mods on a Daemonolatry forum is very much of the Neoplatonist school , an excellent magician, and has been educating that community for years now. He shares moderation with a more witchy pagany type with mutual respect. We are all much closer together than we were 10 years ago when they first started getting popular.

I also agree with JSK that the GV has many valid points of entry, and I feel that is true with all of this. I only know about the GV, and only have little experience in other methods, so as always YMMV. I've used the Lesser Key, and they seem more trippy. Using the GV they are more solid and darker, and Lovecraftian . The rituals you use matters. Gen-X magicians on Yahoo forums noticed this back in the 2000s: if we used an Egyptian ritual framework, they were more cosmic and austere. Greek rituals, they were more personal and philosophical. Hard TradCath rituals get more Hellfire demons.

For me I don't think this is a problem, and I rather like it. Personally, I like them having teeth and claws (and being rather Lovecraftian). John King wrote about this, echoed by my experience when he was hanging out with a GV magician he knows, and he also called them Lovecraftian. Not to make this a "real" thing either - I think it's just them rummaging around in my game artist / art director soul and finding astral clothes to take form in that matches the chthonic underworld "vibe"of the GV, tailored (heh) for who I am and where I am at that time.

That said, a certain percentage of that is probably also just me, my soul. I was a very spooky kid. Other GV magicians are mediatating on the daimons' stellar connection and from what they say, they seem to come through much cooler and easy-going, if a little placid appearing to my more high-octane personality and lifestyle.

To echo what Agloval is saying, we can think of each of the grimoires is kind of like a radio (or Bat Signal, heh) . You can strip it out and it will still work, even while the signal might be a little fuzzy and mixed with a lot of your personal subconscious "stuff" (FYI, This is in part the theurgy aspect of doing the rituals, to restructure our souls and our consciousness to tune into the centuries of magicians using the GV / Geotic / Grand Grimoire / Lesser Key / Black Dragon framework. Time is an illusion and we are ALL making this shared Goetic reality right now, us and the daimons, in my opinion.)

The GV is a series of grimoires across centrue and mutiple coutries , with a huge folk magic tradition we are still tracking down. We are begininng to suspect he bulk of magic with the spirits entailed using pretty simple folk magic conjure methods that probably look a lot like this:

JSK Verum: Conjureman Ali - 'Verum Hoodoo Results' (2011)

I'm glad people are interested in the Grimorium Verum again. I was not aware it was on anyone's radar much. I hope this unedited Yahoo Groups post from Conjureman Ali (albertgreat27 ) from 2011 will be useful to those starting to explore the Verum “system” as JSK would sometimes phrase it...

wizardforums.com

I have used simple conjure methods like the above - more physical conjure and less mental telepathy methods - and with the GV daimons who are not my pacted allies contacted through the formal protocols, and they work great! No muss, no fuss. I will say it's a bit more "wild" since it is unstructured and they can just show up anytime, but that is true even with circles and the kit.

JSK said, and I agree working this way you are foregoing some of the safety protocols built into the GV's more from formal opening of inter-dimensional diplomatic relations, but this is different from saying it can't work, when it obviously does. But the issue is mostly for newcomers who have not yet made solid protective allies just yet.