Remember that Discussion on Goetia?

Anyone who is interested in doing Goetic work (or any other kind of evocation) really needs to read this fantastic post from Devi.  She provides a very clear and concise list of the skills which you should master before moving on to evocation work, along with pointers on how one can acquire those skills. This is a valuable addition to the literature on Evocation. It's difficult to write solid introductory material for beginners (hence the reams o'crap we find in the Alternative Religion section of our local bookstore).  It's even harder when you're trying to do a 101-level piece on a 301-level topic. Devi has succeeded admirably here: Goetists-to-be are advised to read this piece and take her lessons to heart.

Spiritual Obsession

During the recent discussions on Goetia, the word "obsession" came up a few times.  Balthazaar said

Demonic obsession gets mentioned a lot in this discussion. Well, I know a lot of people who are obsessed by the Holy Spirit - to the extent that the other day I had to deal with a DNS poisoning issue with this blog, which kept redirecting the URL to some evangelical ministries website, assumedly devised by some righteous holy hacker. I also had to deal with a spiritual attack from the self same bunch waged most likely with imprecatory prayer. Talk about obsession. Lord only knows why my little blog would provoke such an effort - I wasn't going to give them any air time, for fear of encouraging their bigoted shenanigans but it seems appropriate to mention. I am not going to even go into the religious nut-jobs who kill, beat and maim for Jesus. Is the Holy Spirit a corrosive, inhuman demon?

This is a very interesting point. The atrocities committed in the name of Satan pale next to the death toll from people who killed, tortured and enslaved in the name of Christ. Is this the fault of the Holy Spirit and are these people suffering from spiritual obsession?  Spiritual oppression leads to personality changes: so do many mystical experiences.  And trying to sort out positive from negative personality changes is a tricky endeavor.  Lots of martyrs were inspired by mystical experiences to go to the stake for their faith, and very few people would say that being burned alive is a positive life-change.  What some may call devotion to a cause others may call brainwashing by a cult.

I suspect that many of these cases are not spiritual obsession, but rather psychological imbalance propping itself up with religion.  If they weren't Hackers for Christ or Fag-Bashers for Jesus, they'd be using Karl Marx, Allah or some similar excuse for their misbehavior. But this of course begs the question: how many of the people who report "Goetic obsession" are merely suffering from a psychological imbalance triggered by the events which led them to resort to the Goetia?

Perhaps it would be helpful to draw a distinction between individuals who have sustained changes after an encounter with the spirit world and those who appear to be suffering continued oppression from a spirit entity. Divine encounters frequently result in changes in the mystic's life and outlook, but the entity in question doesn't stay around and micromanaging the mystic's consciousness.  With spirit oppression, there's Something Else which steps in and starts reprogramming the person. In my experience, this Something Else is typically either a wandering ghost or a lesser spirit: gods and archangels don't generally do this. Neither do lwa or orisha: they may ride a horse but they depart when the ride is finished.

Those who can see spirits will frequently see something hovering around or just within the auras of those suffering from spirit infestation. Those who can't will sometimes note that the person "doesn't feel right" -- their eyes are "weird" and their aura feels "tainted," like you're standing next to a sculpture made out of rotting meat. Unfortunately, this is difficult to replicate in a laboratory and so it is hard to use these guidelines as hard and fast rules for determining when infestation is taking place.

It also appears that in cases of infestation "like attracts like." Someone with anger management issues is likely to get infected by a wrathful spirit, greedy people may host spirits of avarice, sexual obsessives become prey to lust-spirits, etc. Since the Goetia focuses primarily on working changes in the material world, it's not surprising that those who use it are generally greatly desiring a new sex partner, more money, an ass-whipping for a hated enemy, etc. And since the Goetic spirits appear to be closer to and more interested in this material plane, it's not surprising that they both work more quickly and are more likely to stick around and have some fun with their new host.

Again, this is all rather preliminary. I think the nature of spiritual oppression needs more careful analysis and discussion. The term gets bandied about a lot, and most working magicians I know would agree that such a thing exists. But there's no clear-cut definition and little in the way of theories as to why it occurs, what the spirits gain from oppressing individuals, and how spiritual oppression relates to other forms of spiritual or etheric alteration or damage.

And the Goetia Discussion Continues

In his latest post, Frater Rufus Opus says:

Have you noticed how quick people are to blame the spirits in Goetia when things go badly? I've never seen any system so quick to get booted to the curb in spite of previous successes. Magicians can have years of good results with a spirit, but if they have one bad experience, all the spirits of the system are bad bad bad.

There are so many assumptions and prejudices surrounding these spirits that the skills required to use them effectively, consistently may never be gained, documented, and disseminated to the occult community. It's annoying as hell. If people shelved Angelic Magic, Planetary Magic, or even your average Pagan conjurations of Hekate every time they had a ritual provide results they didn't like, no one would do any magic at all.

I think one of the reasons for this is that when Goetic workings go bad they tend to do so in a spectacular fashion. Planetary or Pagan workings don't generally explode with quite that degree of messiness.  (I have, however, seen this kind of blowback from lwa and orisha workings that went awry. I've talked to at least one person who sought Oya's assistance in solving the problems with the money pit house he had just purchased. Oya solved them by burning said house down. Unfortunately, he had been so busy paying for repairs that he neglected to purchase homeowner's insurance. He later on became an initiate in Lukumi: I don't recall whether or not Oya was his crowning orisha, but I trust that in any event he was more careful about asking her for favors).

If lots of people who have worked with the Goetia tell horror stories about the Goetic spirits turned on them, they may all be falling prey to their Judeochristian conditioning. Or they may have decided the risk outweighs the reward. It seems that lots of people who have worked with the Goetia talk about getting their fingers burned. Not all of them are cowards, Christian fundamentalists or incompetent magicians.

That being said, I would be interested in seeing a useful system which allowed magicians to work with the Goetic entities safely, consistently and effectively. Such systems exist for the lwa and orisha: those who get badly burned generally do so because they don't know those systems or think they are unnecessary.  I suspect that consistently safe Goetic workings will involve many of the trappings which some modern magicians believe are unnecessary.

The really funny part though? When things go well with Goetia, it's because the magicians are following the grimoire's instructions properly, or are psychically shielded, or somehow appropriately initiated, or otherwise prepared the way a good magician should be, but if things go badly, the spirits themselves are somehow corrupt, kick you when you're down, or are "corrosive."

If a spell works, I presume it is because the magician did things correctly. If a spell blows up in the magician's face, I presume it is because said magician made a mistake. I'm not sure why Frater R.O. would object to that classification. If one keeps a magical diary, presumably one of the reasons is to ascertain what works, what does not work, and what really, really, really does not work.

I hear many more tales of Goetic workings gone awry than Angelic, Enochian, Wiccan, Planetary, etc. workings.  My own experience suggests that the spirits I worked with had detrimental effects on my mental and spiritual well-being. (I believe that I could have avoided much if not all of that pain by being more careful with shielding and coming at the ritual from a place of calm rather than a highly emotional state: I found that Goetic work, like boxing, requires concentration and focus and once you start fighting rather than boxing you've lost the match... ). So I think it is reasonable to at least entertain the idea that these creatures are hard to handle at best and actively hostile to humanity at worst.

Again, I am not using the words "corrupt," "evil," "demonic," etc. to describe the Goetic entities. I am simply suggesting that there may be some good reasons for their bad reputation.  I believe they are more difficult to handle than many other spirits and less forgiving of mistakes on the part of the summoner. This is not the same as saying they are "evil." Venomous snakes are no more "evil" than nonvenomous snakes -- but I don't recommend handling a king cobra the same way you handle a boa constrictor.

Objectively speaking, I've had at least as many, if not more positive results that I was happy with after Working the so-called demons as I've had with alleged Angels. I've been disappointed more with the Angels, but mostly because when I want something badly enough to do magic about it, I want the results like fucking yesterday, man! Not in a couple of weeks.

This is another thing which makes me think the Goetic entities are very like the "djabs chaud" (hot djabs) of Haitian magic. They get you quick results, and tend to specialize in making changes to the material world. But they are hard to handle and can do injury to the summoner and those in the immediate vicinity if they get too riled up.  It doesn't mean they are to be avoided altogether: there are many magical workings one can do with a djab as an ally or a travay (work) spirit. But it is vital that the practitioner recognizes the danger and takes the appropriate precautions.

Still More Demonic Stuff II: Good, Evil, and Goetia

The Goetia discussion continues throughout the Blogsphere, and since comments I made have come up in a few posts, I thought I'd respond here.

On his blog Balthazar commented:

The idea that all Goetic spirits are inherently corrosive and non-human seems a bit heavy handed coming from a Vodou practitioner. The same allegations have been made about the Lwa, many of whom are quite dangerous and unpredictable in their own right - and have been demonized for that very reason - either by protestant or evangelical observers citing that as evidence of their inhuman, corrosive nature. Calling them demons. Are the Lwa in fact demons, or would it be more correct to say that some people are more skilled at handling them than others?

What's more is that the spirits of the Goetia are quite frequently forms of older pagan spirits who remained useful but because they didn't fit into the oppressive theological hegemony of the time were made into demons - because presumedly all pagan spirits must necessarily be demons. Sound familiar?

I find this comment interesting because I specifically avoided using the words "demon" and "evil" to describe the Goetic entities.  I agree with Balthazar that these terms obfuscate rather than clarify: they are generally used as shorthand for "other people's gods" and "things I don't agree with," respectively. If that wasn't clear enough in my first post, hopefully this will remove any confusion.

However, I will note that for centuries the Goetia has been considered the "Book of Evil Spirits." The person who first compiled this book considered them to be evil: the people who worked with this book considered them to be evil. I think it is worthwhile to question why they considered these spirits to be demonic while referring to other spirits as angelic. There are certainly many grimoires which teach you how to summon archangels, angels, planetary spirits and other entities which are not classified as "demons." Why did these magicians, who presumably had experience working with angelic magic, decide that the Goetic entities were "evil spirits" and "demonic?"  Writing that off as mere superstition and bigotry on their parts is an easy gloss over a difficult question.

There is a long tradition of the lwa being served as benevolent protectors. There is an equally long tradition that some lwa are not so benevolent and should be approached with caution.  I don't "demonize" Marinette Bwa Cheche or Linglessou Bassin-Sang (Linglessou Bucket-of-Blood) when I advise that they should only be petitioned by or with the aid of experienced practitioners, and only for a damned good reason.  They serve a vital role within the Vodou tradition, but they are still dangerous. Spiders and bacteria are an important part of the ecosystem, but I'm not going to snort anthrax spores or drop Black Widows down my shorts to prove my oneness with nature. 

Balthazar makes another, very interesting observation:

Demonic obsession gets mentioned a lot in this discussion. Well, I know a lot of people who are obsessed by the Holy Spirit - to the extent that the other day I had to deal with a DNS poisoning issue with this blog, which kept redirecting the URL to some evangelical ministries website, assumedly devised by some righteous holy hacker. I also had to deal with a spiritual attack from the self same bunch waged most likely with imprecatory prayer. Talk about obsession. Lord only knows why my little blog would provoke such an effort - I wasn't going to give them any air time, for fear of encouraging their bigoted shenanigans but it seems appropriate to mention. I am not going to even go into the religious nut-jobs who kill, beat and maim for Jesus. Is the Holy Spirit a corrosive, inhuman demon?

This is a very important point. If we are going to talk about Goetia (or possession work), we need to discuss the nature of obsession and oppression.  I will be discussing this in further detail in my next post: in the meantime I thank Balthazar for his input.  I am impressed by how this discussion has produced a lot of intelligent and informative material. While there are obviously disagreements among various practitioners, they have been presented politely and rationally: we may not all come to complete agreement but I think we can all learn something from each other.

That Old Black Magic: the Lesser Key of Solomon

There has been some Goetia discussion on two of my favorite blogs, with Jason Miller and Frater Rupus Opus offering commentary on their work with the Lesser Key of Solomon. Since it was sparked by a comment I made in my Amazon review of Jason's excellent Sorcerer's Secrets, I thought I should chime in with my tuppence.

I agree that using terms like "good" and "evil" only serves to muddy the water. I prefer the Vodou lingo of "hot" and "cool" spirits. By that definition, Goetic entities are definitely hot. They are fast-acting, strong and close to the material plane: they can also be difficult to handle and have a tendency to turn on the summoner if they sense weakness. There are plenty of djabs which behave in this fashion, and plenty of practitioners who are able to work successfully with those djabs.

In my experience I have found that Goetic entities are, for lack of a better word, corrosive. If the proper shields and protections are not in place, the magician can experience negative effects.  From an alt.magick post I made in March 1995:

In January of 1991 I had a Goetic working backfire on me. I had worked with this particular entity (Furcas, aka Forcas) before and had always had positive results. This time I summoned him with a somewhat more negative intention: to cause grievous bodily injury to a person who had ripped me off for a substantial sum of money.

No, I wasn't found with one toe outside my "Ritual Circle" and my head twisted 180 degrees. And yes, I did get some results. The person who ripped me off had several ribs broken in a gang attack, lost his girlfriend, and went from being a promising musician to having all his guitar equipment stolen.

What happened was the Furcas energy or entity "bled over" from magickal space (i.e. the ritual) and started obsessing my personality. (I see the Goetic demons as constructs within the collective unconscious; others may disagree with me). Several very close friends refused to have anything to do with me, as they said I had become "hard" and "mean." (I found stuff like Faces of Death unutterably funny, for example). I became fascinated with Richard Ramirez to the point where I stuck up a picture of him in my apartment (the one where he's holding up the pentagram drawn on his hand). I also remember a profound feeling of disassociation. There were times when I would look into a mirror and not recognize the person looking back.

In a couple months this went away. To this day I still haven't regained some of the friends I lost, though (not that it matters at this point) and still feel like there's emotional "scar tissue" in certain points of my psyche. Not as spectacular as a dragon summoning killing a dozen people, true... but that's the best I have to offer.

(I should note that I now see the Goetic entities as indepenent and sentient entities, not constructs. Other than that, this post remains a pretty accurate description of my experience with Furcas).

My personal feeling is that Goetic entities (I'm deliberately avoiding calling them "demons" because I realize that is a loaded term that contains a lot of Christian baggage) are not just non-human but non-mammalian. David Cronenberg's line about "insect politics" comes to mind.  They are not capable of mammalian emotions like bonding and nurturing: they aren't going to become our friends and they see attempts to negotiate as signs of weakness. The only language they understand is power: the only way to deal with them is to force them to do your bidding.  And once you've done this you had best watch your back, since they have long memories.

Others may have had a different experience than mine and may have established a different relationship with the Goetic entities. All I am going by is what I have seen and felt. As I said in the original review of Jason's book, we can agree to disagree. When it comes to magic, there are no experts: there are only those who have come to the Temple by their own path.