I've never called Frimost myself. I'm a tall, dark, brooding, and handsome charmer of garters already.
wink
I'm really glad you brought this up, Aglova! In time I hope we can all come together to articulate best practices for future GV magicians to get over any humps.
My 2 centavos:
If we step back and look at it, pact-based grimoires are extremely chthonic. The Grand Grimoire being another. (Shudder. I got burnt hard by the GG early on.
@Yazata is the best voice here for that grim.)
Internet-inculcated modern occultism has created the impression that all magic is a mental or intellectual exercise. I had an effective GV practice before the internet threw up a bunch of wheeze, noise, and intellectualism magicians now have to wade through beofre they get serious. Think Saturnian serious here. Goetia is very Saturn and Mars, death, discipline and campaigns.
A quick note: we are touching on areas and topics uncomfortable for us humans, and it's far too easy to flip too far into Dark Fluff edge-lord land - something also to be avoided. I firmly reject any trauma-based or shame-based magical practices. This is all supposed to be fun.
Without psychologizing the greater animist universe: for us, the Chthonic realm is our body, our body-based feelings, often clustering around our animal self-preservation instincts (which form a huge part of our "Shadow"). So there is this huge cluster of hind-brain power tied up there from us refusing to even look at death, disease, misfortune, and the slow decline of age.
The modern monoculture's capitalistic focus on toxic positivity, analytical optimization, and polymorphously perverse "good times" - which are all efforts to shape your soul into an efficient hyper-consumer - does not work here. The shopping mall does not want you to think about your mortality, what is truly important to you, or eternal principles, when they are busy selling you sexy times and more sugar bonbons to gorge yourself on.
So the GV, I think, demands your full bodily and feeling engagement.
When we look at the Faustian grimoires we can see it's all about giving it your all. Mind, body, and soul. (Not literally, but for the extent of the ritual you must take it deadly seriously. No half-assing it. No treating it as a random LARP with astral chatbots. Keep occult mentalism to a minimum, I feel.)
I have found it useful to enter into the worldview the grimoire was originally written in, which was an early modern Catholic worldview (which was never as mythically literal as most occultists and modern pagans are). But this is also not totally required.
World myths often speak about the Underworld forces and beings as enforcers of Oaths, responsibility, and effort. Some examples of world Underworld myths that echo the Catholic one:
The Erinyes / The Furies are pre-Olympian deities of vengeance who dwell in dark Erebus. They are explicitly summoned to punish perjury, betrayal of family, and the breaking of natural order.
In Mesopotamian myths, the Anunnaki are seven underworld Judges, led by Ereshkigal and Nergal, who sit before the throne of death. When a soul or an initiate enters, they fix their Eyes of Death upon them, stripping away worldly illusions, status, and personality armoring.
In the Egyptian myths, The Forty-Two Assessors of Ma'at are chthonic deities sitting in the Hall of Two Truths, each representing a moral and cosmic infraction. The deceased must address each entity by its secret name and declare a confession.
So yes, I have found they very much HATE it when you do not fulfill your word. I did not early on, nor did I even really believe they existed, and I bear some deep scars from that encounter.
You have to meet them halfway, and they demand a certain level of sincerity, responsibility, and honor. The GV was written in a Catholic cultural context, and treating the entire ritual like a Lent + Death + the Harrowing of Hell in the form of a novena (an extended working) works well. With fasting, you are closer to death. Giving up things for Lent—also closer to death. Meditating on the Cross and suffering is another gateway. In a Folk Catholic worldview, suffering is Hell. And when you are in "Hell," ritually here, you are meeting them where they live.
Half the job is already done. After that, call them successively over 3 or 9 days like a Catholic novena. This is a very Catholic grim.
The GV is also very shamanic and expects a long term human-spirit relationship. They know if you are seeking this becasue they can read all of you through time. Or so they say. So I think the "one and done" Crowleyan approach of call, charge, dismiss, works less well here. After you have a pacted ally, you can call them pretty muchany time with simple cantrips they will give you. This assumes you have woven them into your life.
OK, I hope that helps some. Again I am just a simple end user. This is based on my pratice and UPG, whcih I try to validate some by checking against actual history, but without being 100% tied to it.
