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My main doubt as a magic(k) neophyte

Huckle

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After reading a couple of books on Goetia, the thing that stood out the most to me is how many of the symbols and names used, especially in banishments and for protection, are from biblical/Hebrew origin.

Historically, I know how deeply ingrained Hebrew traditions got in Europe after many centuries of Christianity, so it's not that surprising, but it's weird in itself since it's granted that someone practicing black magic doesn't believe in the bible, at least literally, for obvious reasons (condemning oneself to eternal hell is probably beyond even the biggest of masochists).

What are your views on that?

Personally, the idea doesn't really appeal to me. I was a fundamentalist Christian for a couple of years, delved pretty deeply into it and I'd be lying if I said I don't feel a degree of resentment against it now, considering that it robbed me of years of potential experiences, making me uselessly repress myself and feel so much undue shame, guilt, you know, the whole sin stuff. So, complementing that doubt with a request, any good pagan entities you'd recommend using for protection and banishment instead?
 

AbammonTheGreat

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The overarching worldview of the environment and time period Goetia/Demon Summoning was developed in was Christian whether the magus was or not so they didn't really have much context to work outside a Christian framework or heirarchy. Historically, however, a lot of the techniques and development of the European Grimoiric tradition was done within monasteries or Christian universities/academies. There are records of French students at the University of Paris in the middle ages trying to summon demons to help them with their exams and studies, one of the most legendary conjurers of the Rennaissance, Trithemius, was an abbot, and even as recent as Eliphas Levi (of the goat-headed Baphomet fame) was a Catholic seminary drop out.

The idea behind the technology was, "If we can use techniques to exorcise demons then maybe we can invert those same techniques to control them". The historical idea behind demon summoning and demon binding was one of controlling them, of threatening them, of not being their friend but being their master. That was "the idea" however obviously there are tons of instances of people using this magical technology for nefarious purposes and the practice itself has always been condemned by church authorities.

The idea of Demonalatry, which for lack of a better term is a "progressive" view of them, where you work in cooperation with them, maybe practice devotion to them, have them be your patron, and generally be on some kind of friendly terms with them is a very recent perspective. And one that I personally believe is naive as the reality of demons is that they are demonic. In every sense of the word.

I do however agree with your sentiment that it doesn't make much sense for someone who is against Abrahamism or Abrahamic values to engage in an Abrahamic framework, but the nature of the entities we call Goetic demons is consistent amongst many cultures. Eastern cultures have demons, tribal cultures may call them evil spirits, and Iamblichus described these entities before the Christian European concept of the demon was really crystallized or solidifed. You'll also see a lot of the Goetic spirits names can be traced to pagan spirits. For example if you follow the name Paimon back far enough you'll land in the classical world with the name "Maymon" in the same office as him (a king spirit of the cardinal directions).

As for pagan entities the spirit fauna is much the same across cultures. You have low level parasitic entities (leeches, shadow stuff), fear-inducing animalistic and one dimensional spirits (demons), ambivalent aerial spirits (daemons), trickster spirits, spirits of the dead, elementals, celestial spirits (higher order spirits), and these one directional bulldozers (angels in an abrahamic context). You can explore the daemons of the classical world as those ones can be benefic or malefic, a great place to find some of their names is in the PGM but some of those "daemons" are the demons of the Ars Goetia.
 

Faria

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any good pagan entities you'd recommend using for protection and banishment instead?
No, go with the original or leave it. The entire concept of The Goetia is that The True God is the sole dispositor of existence and that the idols must submit to Judgment. Whatever deity you decide to invoke instead of Tetragrammaton is probably one of those 72 whose seals appear in the book, a defeated name whose real cult died off ages ago. The church people don't own the idea of God, don't let them (personally or historically) ruin God for you. The people who put grimoires together over hundreds of years believed in God but probably weren't much into religion as their contemporaries knew it. There is a lot hidden within the Bible talk that cannot be replaced by cherry pickings from your favorite mythology.
 

Huckle

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The overarching worldview of the environment and time period Goetia/Demon Summoning was developed in was Christian whether the magus was or not so they didn't really have much context to work outside a Christian framework or heirarchy.
Yeah, it's understandable.

The idea behind the technology was, "If we can use techniques to exorcise demons then maybe we can invert those same techniques to control them". The historical idea behind demon summoning and demon binding was one of controlling them, of threatening them, of not being their friend but being their master.
That was another aspect of it that caught my attention while reading. DuQuette's Illustrated Goetia repeatedly mentions being harsh with the entities and threatening them, which is something very different from any spiritual practice I've ever tried, I must say.

The idea of Demonalatry, which for lack of a better term is a "progressive" view of them, where you work in cooperation with them, maybe practice devotion to them, have them be your patron, and generally be on some kind of friendly terms with them is a very recent perspective. And one that I personally believe is naive as the reality of demons is that they are demonic. In every sense of the word.
Don't you think the stigmatizing of demons comes from Christian morals, though? Some of the Goetia ones are described as extremely cruel or aggressive, but some are described in a pretty neutral or even positive way. Overall, they come across to me as the typical pagan pantheon containing good, evil and mixed/neutral entities, as opposed to Christianity which has an extremely black or white, "us versus them" division.

I do however agree with your sentiment that it doesn't make much sense for someone who is against Abrahamism or Abrahamic values to engage in an Abrahamic framework, but the nature of the entities we call Goetic demons is consistent amongst many cultures. Eastern cultures have demons, tribal cultures may call them evil spirits, and Iamblichus described these entities before the Christian European concept of the demon was really crystallized or solidifed. You'll also see a lot of the Goetic spirits names can be traced to pagan spirits. For example if you follow the name Paimon back far enough you'll land in the classical world with the name "Maymon" in the same office as him (a king spirit of the cardinal directions).

As for pagan entities the spirit fauna is much the same across cultures. You have low level parasitic entities (leeches, shadow stuff), fear-inducing animalistic and one dimensional spirits (demons), ambivalent aerial spirits (daemons), trickster spirits, spirits of the dead, elementals, celestial spirits (higher order spirits), and these one directional bulldozers (angels in an abrahamic context). You can explore the daemons of the classical world as those ones can be benefic or malefic, a great place to find some of their names is in the PGM but some of those "daemons" are the demons of the Ars Goetia.
Thanks, that's soothing to know. I had already read about many pagan elements surviving through disguising themselves as Christian (there was most likely no other way), so it doesn't feel that drastic to just use the Christian names for entities and symbols that had many names throughout history in many cultures. Purging oneself of Christianity completely as a westerner is almost utopic at this point; the west is drenched in it to a degree that even the staunchest atheist will most likely have a deeply Christian worldview and moral values (unless they really put a lot of work into purging it).

No, go with the original or leave it. The entire concept of The Goetia is that The True God is the sole dispositor of existence and that the idols must submit to Judgment.
I don't doubt you, you certainly know a lot more about it than I do. But I do wonder how much of that structure was forced onto people by Christianity.

Whatever deity you decide to invoke instead of Tetragrammaton is probably one of those 72 whose seals appear in the book, a defeated name whose real cult died off ages ago.
I don't really like the idea of capitalizing on the 72 entities, or paganism for that matter, as "defeated", since it sounds like a "might makes right" type of argument, that feels unnatural to me to be applied in a spiritual sense. But it's an interesting way to see it nonetheless.

The church people don't own the idea of God, don't let them (personally or historically) ruin God for you. The people who put grimoires together over hundreds of years believed in God but probably weren't much into religion as their contemporaries knew it.
Yeah, it goes along with a lot of what @AbammonTheGreat wrote. Describing some random European from the Middle Ages as "Christian" is kinda like describing a random European from today as "antiracist"; you're most likely right, but those things were forced onto people so it's tricky.

There is a lot hidden within the Bible talk that cannot be replaced by cherry pickings from your favorite mythology.
I mean, I can't say I like it, but you're probably right...
 

Faria

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Don't you think the stigmatizing of demons comes from Christian morals, though?
The popular notion is that demons, in this case the 72 famous ones, are their own kind of creatures who are given a bad rap by the mainstream religion. In this sense, the demons exist within the same theological hierarchy as the saints, just on the other end of it. I think this sort of invents a whole spiritual order (demons) that already exist under another name: assorted pagan gods.

Time and time again, people think this or that is The True religion, and every time it gets off the ground in an organized way, they end up being wrong. They fail to account for some aspect of people or nature and in the end they and their religion more or less pass away. We are left with whatever traditions and beliefs became institutional as a result of their misplaced devotions.

I don't see them as evil trickster deities, but as the regular deities as they were known to some British guy in the 1640s. All of them are things people want to believe in, what they love and agree with, but reality has its own set of rules and those things just don't work out even if they are tempting. So there is submission to God, both for the magician and for the spirits.

People like to quote Christ saying "You are gods," but that quote is from the Psalms. It speaks to the gods of the pagans, saying that they will be judged as men. The Goetia spends an awful lot of time talking about the Last Judgment, and it is related. Removing all that mucks up the works, turns the system on its head rather than streamlining it.

As unpleasant as it might sound, you are way better off finding some esoteric way to be OK with the God stuff in its hoary form rather than trying to wedge something else in where it doesn't belong.
 

AbammonTheGreat

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Don't you think the stigmatizing of demons comes from Christian morals, though? Some of the Goetia ones are described as extremely cruel or aggressive, but some are described in a pretty neutral or even positive way. Overall, they come across to me as the typical pagan pantheon containing good, evil and mixed/neutral entities, as opposed to Christianity which has an extremely black or white, "us versus them" division.
I would say that the negative perception of these spirits on a theoretical level may look like "christ-washing" but whatever you choose to call them or how you choose to place them in a spiritual model their behavior indicates they are not a friend. They lie to you, are violent, assume possession of your home or body if given the opportunity, introduce depression, anxiety, and irrational anger to your life, and if you develop a relationship with them may seem copacetic at first but begin stripping you of your authority, agency, and ability so they can bind you.

So maybe these things may have assumed names from pagan gods or entities, but the spirit itself behaves in a way that is destructive, irrational, and malevolent. So whatever you may choose to call a demon, or how you understand where their names are from, the fact of the matter is that there is a type of spiritual entity out there that is incredibly malevolent towards humans, is incredibly easy to conjure, and will destroy the conjurer if they do not approach them with the same tact you would approach a caged tiger. These are the spirits the Ars Goetia and Demonic grimoires are attempting to teach proper procedure with and because of the environment and time period the grimoires were developed in used a Christianized technological model to deal with them.
 

Huckle

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I would say that the negative perception of these spirits on a theoretical level may look like "christ-washing" but whatever you choose to call them or how you choose to place them in a spiritual model their behavior indicates they are not a friend. They lie to you, are violent, assume possession of your home or body if given the opportunity, introduce depression, anxiety, and irrational anger to your life, and if you develop a relationship with them may seem copacetic at first but begin stripping you of your authority, agency, and ability so they can bind you.

So maybe these things may have assumed names from pagan gods or entities, but the spirit itself behaves in a way that is destructive, irrational, and malevolent. So whatever you may choose to call a demon, or how you understand where their names are from, the fact of the matter is that there is a type of spiritual entity out there that is incredibly malevolent towards humans, is incredibly easy to conjure, and will destroy the conjurer if they do not approach them with the same tact you would approach a caged tiger. These are the spirits the Ars Goetia and Demonic grimoires are attempting to teach proper procedure with and because of the environment and time period the grimoires were developed in used a Christianized technological model to deal with them.
I appreciate the warnings. The whole thing is new to me so as much as I have a bit of a hurry with some things going on in my life now, I think I'd better read, lurk around and learn more before pulling any big demonic guns.

Even after the eloquent and comprehensive explanation about why there's so much Abrahamic stuff in Goetia you and @Faria kindly gave me, I must say that I still fail to grasp how things like drawing a mere circle around me, or laying some names of Hebrew entities I'm not even fond of around, can act as any protection against such deep spiritual perils a demon can represent, assuming it's really that easy to contact a hell boss with dozens of demonic legions under them.
 

MidnightProphet

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After reading a couple of books on Goetia, the thing that stood out the most to me is how many of the symbols and names used, especially in banishments and for protection, are from biblical/Hebrew origin.

Historically, I know how deeply ingrained Hebrew traditions got in Europe after many centuries of Christianity, so it's not that surprising, but it's weird in itself since it's granted that someone practicing black magic doesn't believe in the bible, at least literally, for obvious reasons (condemning oneself to eternal hell is probably beyond even the biggest of masochists).

What are your views on that?

Personally, the idea doesn't really appeal to me. I was a fundamentalist Christian for a couple of years, delved pretty deeply into it and I'd be lying if I said I don't feel a degree of resentment against it now, considering that it robbed me of years of potential experiences, making me uselessly repress myself and feel so much undue shame, guilt, you know, the whole sin stuff. So, complementing that doubt with a request, any good pagan entities you'd recommend using for protection and banishment instead?
The Judean context precedes the Christian context by at least two thousand years. The Christian context is always in the shadow of the Church of Rome, which, as you may have guessed, many Hebrew occultists either rejected completely or never even saw. Christianity as a context, in my opinion, ought to be disregarded completely. Its rules preclude the practice of anything except giving your money to the Church and thinking you're a pile of garbage.

The Goetic and grimoire traditions, while not widely published until the 1500's, date back to times of greater antiquity. The reason they developed the way they did is not because Yahevuah or any other "God" dictated them to be, but because this was the way, as discovered by the Ancients, that the spiritual realm in these contexts actually operated. Adonai was an immovable gem. The rest was able to influence and to be influenced.

Take them or leave them. Many people say that you can replace names with whatever fluff you want, then talk about how they don't think it's real or it doesn't work. In my opinion, if you need a plumber don't call an electrician. Regardless of our oh-so-ever-important "feelings" toward religion and religiosity, if we want something, we are wiser to play by the rules of the system. The system doesn't play by the rules (or lack thereof) of pee-ons like humans. We lose nothing, sacrifice no autonomy, and are not diminished in any way by experimenting with subjugating ourselves to the expectations of the systems in which we wish to work. It seems like everyone wants results, but they want them delivered by Amazon Prime.
 

Xemuno

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Pasé por el mismo adoctrinamiento ultrarreligioso, ya fuera evangélico por mi padre o católico romano en la escuela. Con el tiempo, la realidad del mundo me hizo reflexionar y me apegué a las explicaciones científicas y basadas en hechos. Al profundizar en la física cuántica, la especulación sobre la energía, el tiempo, el universo y la Filosofía de la Ciencia, comencé una especie de redescubrimiento de la idea de Dios, o la Mente Universal, y me encontré con fenómenos como la magia mental, la detección de espíritus asociados con narcisistas malignos, con sus fenómenos poltergeist asociados, su capacidad para detectar y perseguir a personas buenas o empáticas, las sombras asociadas con sus hogares o dondequiera que caminan; todo lo cual me llevó a la idea de que estas entidades en realidad operan en una dimensión mucho más paralela a la nuestra y fácilmente accesible. Por lo tanto, sus reglas predominan, con la correspondiente preponderancia y éxito de quienes están en sintonía. Pero también con una enorme autodestrucción de quienes los rodean y de sus propias Luces. Decidí que si no puedes con ellos, lo mejor es unirte a ellos, y me tatué el sigilo de uno de los cuatro reyes demoníacos o irredentos. Una noche de luna llena, apareció con una mujer, no de forma horrible, sino con armadura, y él en forma humana, ella completamente desnuda. Aunque no recordaba haberla invocado, más tarde leí, investigando quién era, que el Rey suele frecuentarla. Aunque a menudo la confunden con su ilustre madre, la hija es la actual consorte del Rey. Tras un breve beneficio, y una petición aparentemente para bien, todo se descontroló. Y la protección que creía tener parecía haberse transformado en un problema tras otro. Apelando a la idea de Abramelin de que no es bueno tratar con ellos sin la mínima protección angelical, apelé, aunque en teoría era un pecador, a la misericordia que exalta la figura del Dios Universal, y al invocar a sus ángeles mediante sus sigilos y el párrafo correspondiente del salmo, logré la paz. Parece que los seres humanos y sus asuntos han sido abandonados a su suerte desde hace mucho tiempo, y la presencia divina se limita a acudir cuando se la invoca, solo mediante procedimientos específicos. Descubrirlas depende de cada individuo. No están presentes todo el tiempo. Por lo tanto, las entidades demoníacas operan más en este plano, teniendo un acceso más cercano a nosotros, y ni siquiera en todos los casos los demonios están afiliados a una facción de su rey. Algunos son libres y no están bajo el mando de ninguno de los cuatro. No pueden alimentarse ni recibir ningún tipo de sustento en su mundo porque están fuera de los reinos de su plano. Por lo tanto, solo pueden alimentarse de energía humana, pasando todo su tiempo aquí, utilizando a los humanos como instrumentos. Y sienten un gran odio por la humanidad. Disfrutan haciendo daño. Si no te respetan, no tendrán piedad e incluso atacarán a tus hijos o seres queridos.No es cierto que todos sean amables con los humanos. Pero diría que muy pocos Reyes están interesados en poseer almas mediocres, carentes de cualquier poder potencial, para sus filas. No necesitan vampirizar a ningún humano, como los anarquistas y los demonios menores, sino que son selectivos y estudian a quién vale la pena integrar. Tal como opera este Rey. Aunque es conocido por su ira, no es tan sádico como el Rey Africano que empieza por B. Aunque la Iglesia y las religiones oficiales nos torturan con la idea de que debemos ser perfectos y sin pecado ni error, el Dios que nos creó y nos mantiene vivos, incluso a los Demonios, porque les da ánima, es bastante misericordioso y paciente. Consciente de nuestras pasiones carnales y de cuánto nos atraen, Él no nos necesita a nosotros, ni a nuestro sufrimiento, ni a nuestra culpa. Son los ángeles quienes recomiendan (en mi opinión, movidos por su genuina dedicación) que nos acerquemos, glorificando Su nombre, porque Él es todo lo que nos rodea y mantiene vivos a todos los seres, corpóreos o no, otorgándoles el poder de elegir lo que desean hacer. Ya sea regresar a Él mejorados o permanecer polarizados en la antinomia. Es decir, sin Paz. Porque no se puede elegir tenerlo todo. La elección es de cada ser, y Él tiene tanta paciencia que incluso los ángeles son libres de elegir, y no los castiga. Pues bien, el castigo es el mismo alejamiento de la luz, en el que el alma se derrumba sobre sí misma, anhelando volver a su chispa divina. En este sentido, incluso los demonios tienen alma. Algunos esperan la oportunidad de redimirse; otros están inmersos en su eterno resentimiento, pues no comprenden el significado cosmológico de la organización tal como se les ha otorgado. Y anhelan el poder sin agradecer a nadie su vida ni su ser, solo a sí mismos. Algo que es un sueño, pues solo hay UNO que se AUTOGENERA y GENERA. Espero que si tu camino para descubrir estos secretos pasa por la magia, nunca dejes de mantener la humildad ante el UNO, las cosas y seres que crea, y también una buena relación con sus arcángeles.Son los ángeles quienes recomiendan (en mi opinión, movidos por su genuina dedicación) que nos acerquemos, glorificando Su nombre, porque Él es todo lo que nos rodea y mantiene vivos a todos los seres, corpóreos o no, otorgándoles el poder de elegir lo que desean hacer. Ya sea regresar a Él mejorados o permanecer polarizados en la antinomia. Es decir, sin Paz. Porque no se puede elegir tenerlo todo. La elección es de cada ser, y Él tiene tanta paciencia que incluso los ángeles son libres de elegir, y no los castiga. Pues bien, el castigo es el mismo alejamiento de la luz, en el que el alma se derrumba sobre sí misma, anhelando volver a su chispa divina. En este sentido, incluso los demonios tienen alma. Algunos esperan la oportunidad de redimirse; otros están inmersos en su eterno resentimiento, pues no comprenden el significado cosmológico de la organización tal como se les ha otorgado. Y anhelan el poder sin agradecer a nadie su vida ni su ser, solo a sí mismos. Algo que es un sueño, pues solo hay UNO que se AUTOGENERA y GENERA. Espero que si tu camino para descubrir estos secretos pasa por la magia, nunca dejes de mantener la humildad ante el UNO, las cosas y seres que crea, y también una buena relación con sus arcángeles.Son los ángeles quienes recomiendan (en mi opinión, movidos por su genuina dedicación) que nos acerquemos, glorificando Su nombre, porque Él es todo lo que nos rodea y mantiene vivos a todos los seres, corpóreos o no, otorgándoles el poder de elegir lo que desean hacer. Ya sea regresar a Él mejorados o permanecer polarizados en la antinomia. Es decir, sin Paz. Porque no se puede elegir tenerlo todo. La elección es de cada ser, y Él tiene tanta paciencia que incluso los ángeles son libres de elegir, y no los castiga. Pues bien, el castigo es el mismo alejamiento de la luz, en el que el alma se derrumba sobre sí misma, anhelando volver a su chispa divina. En este sentido, incluso los demonios tienen alma. Algunos esperan la oportunidad de redimirse; otros están inmersos en su eterno resentimiento, pues no comprenden el significado cosmológico de la organización tal como se les ha otorgado. Y anhelan el poder sin agradecer a nadie su vida ni su ser, solo a sí mismos. Algo que es un sueño, pues solo hay UNO que se AUTOGENERA y GENERA. Espero que si tu camino para descubrir estos secretos pasa por la magia, nunca dejes de mantener la humildad ante el UNO, las cosas y seres que crea, y también una buena relación con sus arcángeles.
 

Robert Ramsay

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After reading a couple of books on Goetia, the thing that stood out the most to me is how many of the symbols and names used, especially in banishments and for protection, are from biblical/Hebrew origin.

Historically, I know how deeply ingrained Hebrew traditions got in Europe after many centuries of Christianity, so it's not that surprising, but it's weird in itself since it's granted that someone practicing black magic doesn't believe in the bible, at least literally, for obvious reasons (condemning oneself to eternal hell is probably beyond even the biggest of masochists).

What are your views on that?

Personally, the idea doesn't really appeal to me. I was a fundamentalist Christian for a couple of years, delved pretty deeply into it and I'd be lying if I said I don't feel a degree of resentment against it now, considering that it robbed me of years of potential experiences, making me uselessly repress myself and feel so much undue shame, guilt, you know, the whole sin stuff. So, complementing that doubt with a request, any good pagan entities you'd recommend using for protection and banishment instead?
IMO, the intensity with which you believe is more important than whatever the thing is, that you believe in. The Goetia, like any magical system, is a product of its time. If it resonates with you, then sure, go for it. If not, then either find another system that speaks more strongly to you, or declare yourself Grand High Poobar of the Universe and invent your own. Magic is an edge condition of normal human consciousness. Everyone has the potential to be a magician, but, like running; mostly everyone can run, but very few can do a four minute mile.
 
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