Thanks very much for this Aaron.

I am on the lookout for more expansive approaches to magic than those focused on addressing immediate needs.Ideally,I would like to use a system like the Solomonic to address both transcendental and more immediate concerns.Barrabbas,to whose rich post you  linked ,seems to be  consistent in that focus on the transcendental,while he seems to see the Goetic spirits as infernal,who  should be invoked only in conjunction with the angelic forces of the Shemaporesch(please forgive spelling inaccuracies)but Mark Dunn's approach to Goetia,described at his site goetia-girls.com, suggests that both can be correlated.

The question remains,though,to what degree do the traditional-here referring to the  Key of Solomon-descriptions of the Goetic spirits as lieutenants of Satan who are yet able to endow one with a range of knowledge relating to human culture, along with  more obviously magical  powers as enabling insight into the stream of time-actually represent the character of the Goetic spirits?

To what degree do these descriptions correlate with practitioner's encounters with these spirits? How helpful in understanding the factors relevant to  understand the  character of these spirits is Stratton-Kent's insistence,if I understand him well,on understanding Goetia in terms of a historical progression,in which the descriptions of the spirits and the magic associated with them have undergone transformation,as represented,perhaps,by the transformation of the ancient goddess Ishtar to the demonic Asthoreth,of Baal,the Canaanite deity into the Goetic Baal,understood as an agent of Satan? what pointers can these transformations give to the relationship between the  ontology of the spirits,their being,in relation to human agency? Do these transformations represent a growing  human appreciation of the possibilities of these spirits,or human efforts to manipulate existing ideas,as represented by the argument of Mark Dunn that the demonic characterisation of the Goetic spirits is the work of Judeao-Christian bigotry working on the gods of faiths in the Levant seen as oppositional to Judaeo-Christianity? Or the view of Aghor Pir on Evocational Magics that the Goeric Asthoreth is an invocation of the ancient goddess from a distorted perspective,or that of a contrbutor on the Solomonic listerve that Mark Dunn's erotic feminisation of those spirits represents a mode of approach that is feasible on account of the flexibility of the spirits,being non-physical agents?

Reading the accounts of practitioners with the Goetic spirits,on listserves  like  Solomonic, Evocational Magics,Black Power Satanism,Joy of Satan(and their website) and Advanced Meditation,along with sites like  those of Mark Dunn and the painful account of Rufus Opus at Strategic Sorcery,to which Aaron  Solomonic and Aghor Pir in Evocational Magics have responded with their  contrastive experiences and perspectives, along with private mails from practitioners, is revealing of a spectrum of experiences and interpretations in relation to working with these spirits.

This range of explorations that correlate the history of the texts and their accounts given of them by practitioners,from the past to the present, enable an understanding of the history of these traditions and facilitate an understanding of the metaphysical and epistemic possibilities  of the Western grimoire tradition.

Thanks

Toyin

On 4 October 2010 11:10, Aaron Leitch <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Greetings!

Circumstances have recently led me back to an examination of the Grimoire of Armadel.  While this text has often been written off as of little interest or importance, I have always felt it holds a more significant place among the ranks of operations such as the Seventh Book of Moses and perhaps even those of the Notary Arts.  That is, it is a transcendental system that appears to focus (primarily) upon spiritual/intellectual enlightenment rather than the more typical magickal powers promised by Solomonic grimoires.  As another author put it (http://fraterbarrabbas.blogspot.com/2010/09/grimoire-of-armadel-curious-history-and.html), the Grimoire of Armadel seeks to affect the "disposition" of the conjurer.

There has been some speculation that the book was written backward - with the title page at the back, preceded by the magickal requisites, preceded by the many chapters of Seals and finally (the book begins with) the conjuration and license to depart.  I find this theory to be plausible but hardly proven.  Other grimoires- such as the Goetia- give their magickal seals first and follow them with the magickal requisites.  In any case, I find it ultimately irrelevant in regard to the practical use of the text.

I do have a question for all of you, however.  A Frater Alastor published a PDF version of the text (with the order of chapters reversed), which you can read here:

http://www.hermetism.info/public/Grimoires/Grimoire%20of%20Armadel.pdf

I note that in a couple of places, Frater Alastor has given diagrams or sigils that do not appear in the Mathers translation.  Specifically, note the "Characters of Michael" and the Magickal Circle (both found near the front of the book).  Neither of these images appear in Mathers' version, but Frater Alastor claims he found them "in the German original."

What German original?  Frater Alastor entirely fails to cite the source for these inclusions.  Is there a German original of Armadel that has been discovered?  Or was Frater Alastor making things up as he went along?

LVX
Aaron