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August 14, 2021 · 7:34 pm

Pacts With Spirits – and How Not To Make Them

This is a Spiritual successor (!) to a blog post I wrote almost two years ago (Review: Angels of Wrath by Gordon Winterfield), in which I would like to focus specifically on the subject of making Pacts with Spirits, and how to avoid the problems associated in the popular mind therewith. In so doing I hope that I can demonstrate that Ceremonial Magick when performed responsibly can be a rewarding and uplifting experience, whilst avoiding all types of unpleasantness.

Within the past day or so, there has been news that the murderer of two young women in London was in fact a Satanist supposedly carrying out a pact he had made with a demon, based upon information he had found on the internet. NB: I too spotted the irony of the BBC just so happening to come up with a story about a Satanic killer on Friday the 13th … but I digress. The information in question emanated from an American occultist who up to now had been notorious in the occult community for the egregious manner in which he hawked the magical services he had to offer. On the one hand, the teaching he puts out is based upon well-known grimoires dating back over a hundred years, but on the other, these same grimoires pander to a salacious and lurid interpretation of magick which reinforces popular prejudices against the subject – and which ought to be discredited nowadays in the light of modern scholarship.

In short: the pact that this killer downloaded off the internet is the wrong way to go about making a Pact with a Spirit. Later in this post, I will give you an example of how to create a Real Pact – but suffice to say, if any occult teaching tells you that you need to sell your soul, or harm any person or harm yourself, or commit any act which goes against the law of the land, or against your own conscience – you can confidently reject it as bogus.

Instead, I would invite you to consider the following – this is excerpted from The Book of Treasure Spirits, a grimoire dating from 1649. In relation to an evocation of the spirit Agares, who in some places is also referred to as a demon or fallen angel – the grimoire prescribes first conjuring Agares to visible appearance by the Holy names of God, including Jesus Christ, which done, the Magician compels the Spirit to “sign” the following:

I Agares, the first Captain under the King of the East, not Compelled by Command or Dread, but willingly and on my own accord, do Especially bind my Self by these Presents firmly, to Obey at all times & in Every place [INSERT NAME OF MAGICIAN HERE] to Do his Command In all things, appertaining to my Duty, & Especially by these words, the most powerful In this Magick Art, Lay, Alyzm, Mura, Syron, Walgava, Ryshin, Layganum, Layarazin, Lasai: And by that Virtue wherewith the Sun & moon were Darkened, before that terrible Day of the Lord (as in the Gospel) and shall be turned into Blood, And by the head of my Prince, & by his Circles & Characters: and Chiefly by this Seal firmly binding, In Witness of which Guilty Person, I have Signed this Obligation, with mine one Seal the Commanding one, to which I Always Stick Close.

This is the Pact with the Spirit Agares. Note how the wording of this Pact does not mention anything about selling one’s soul, or doing anything evil, or even getting the magician to make any kind of offering or sacrifice. This Pact is simply an agreement in written form that Spirit acknowledges the authority of the magician, that the magician has validly called it forth, and that it agrees to carry out the magician’s requests. That Agares would consent to this depends purely on the magician having evoked it in the proper manner in the first place, and nothing else.

By taking this as a template one can see that it ought to be possible to take the concept of making this sort of Pact and integrate it into the practice of responsible Ceremonial Magick. One could even turn this into a ritual like this:

Example: A Pact with Bethor to gain Wealth and Riches

Firstly: in advance of your ceremony, write out two copies of the following. One is for you to read from and so can just be printed on regular paper, but the other you should go to town on by compositing in Calligraphy script on fancy vellum which you can get from an Art supply shop.

The Seal of Bethor, Olympic Spirit of Jupiter

PACT between Bethor, and Frater (vel Soror) Utpay Ouryay Amenay Erehay

I, Bethor, Olympic Spirit of Jupiter, of my own free will and accord, swear as follows:

I recognise the authority of the divine and angelic names of the sphere of Tzedeq: EL, Tzadqiel, Iophiel and Hismael; as well as the Holy Guardian Angel of Frater Utpay Ouryay Amenay Erehay; and that the said Frater has validly and properly evoked and exorcised me;

I promise to fulfil the said Frater’s commands in general insofar as they relate to the sphere of Tzedeq, including the increase of his wealth, good fortune, and power and influence, and knowledge of all things astrologically and qabalistically associated with the planet Jupiter;

I shall always speak truthfully to the said Frater;

I shall always keep safe the said Frater, his loved ones, and the place in which he resides;

When manifesting to visible appearance I shall always appear in a fair shape before him;

I shall only depart when licenced to do so, which I shall do promptly and quickly;

I shall send the said Frater a familiar spirit who shall act as trusty and reliable Spirit-guide in all matters Jovial;

And finally, in the future I agree to appear to the said Frater without the need for a full ceremony, but instead when he chants my name four times.

In witness whereof I cause my Spirit-Signature to appear magically upon this Pact document.

Secondly: perform a ceremony of Evocation of the spirit Bethor along traditional lines, but placing the fancy copy of the pact within the Triangle of Art. When you are satisfied that Bethor has manifested, conjure the spirit with the appropriate divine and angelic names, and tell him you want him to agree to the pact you have prepared: whereupon you read out what you have written. When you “see” Bethor’s spirit-signature appear on the fancy version of the Pact which you have placed in the Triangle, you may take this as an indication that Bethor has agreed and that your ceremony has been successful – in which case you may then address Bethor on any specific Jupiter-request that you have on your mind at that moment. After which you may conclude the ceremony in the appropriate manner.

Afterwards, take the fancy version of the Pact document and put it carefully away for safe-keeping – this is now a magical object, and should be treated with the utmost of respect. Do not damage it in any way, because that would be an insult to the spirit. Ideally a specially prepared document holder should be prepared, so you can preserve it safely.

In this manner you have created a Pact with a Spirit – in this case Bethor – without any of the nastiness associated with the vile practices that the deluded Satanist got himself involved in, and instead maintained the integrity of a real ceremonial magician throughout. It ought to be obvious that by changing the names and associations in this Pact as appropriate, one could use the same approach for any spirit that you might care to work with.

The Olympics 2014

No, not those Olympics!

This follows on from a discussion on a Facebook group the other day, in which a poster alleged that the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn viewed the Olympic Spirits as “evil.” This rather astounded me, as I had never heard of such a thing. In fact, in Regardie’s Black Brick, the Olympic Spirits are not mentioned at all, save for a diagram of their sigils, which is presented without elaboration.

However, Regardie’s book describes rituals which were notoriously truncated. By going back to older versions of the Outer Order rituals, one finds that the Olympic Spirits were mentioned, albeit briefly, in the grade of Practicus. At a certain point in the path of Resh, the Hegemon shows the candidate a diagram containing their sigils, saying:

Before you is the Tablet of the Olympic or Aerial Planetary Spirits with their Seals, Arathror of Saturn, Bethor of Jupiter, Phalegh of Mars, Och of the Sun, Hagith of Venus, Ophiel of Mercury and Phul of the Moon.

As far as I can make out, this constitutes the sole reference to the Olympic Spirits in the whole of the Golden Dawn. There are however certain conclusions we can legitimately infer, viz.: a Practicus would have been expected to know the identities and seals of the Olympic Spirits for his 3=8 exam; and that practical instruction would be forthcoming on how to work with them in the Inner Order (it never was).

The earliest explanation for the Olympic Spirits comes from the grimoire the Arbatel de magia veterum, which dates from 1575, where they are described thus:

They are called Olympick spirits, which do inhabit in the firmament, and in the stars of the firmament: and the office of these spirits is to declare Destinies, and to administer fatal Charms, so far forth as God pleaseth to permit them: for nothing, neither evil spirit nor evil Destiny, shall be able to hurt him who hath the most High for his refuge. If therefore any of the Olympick spirits shall teach or declare that which his star to which he is appointed portendeth, nevertheless he can bring forth nothing into action, unless he be permitted by the Divine power. It is God alone who giveth them power to effect it. Unto God the maker of all things, are obedient all things celestial, sublunary, and infernal. Therefore rest in this: Let God be thy guide in all things which thou undertakest, and all things shall attain to a happie and desired end; even as the history of the whole world testifieth and daily experience sheweth. There is peace to the godly: there is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord.

The same grimoire gives their names and sigils, as well as describing their specific powers. Moreover, these spirits are described as Governors or rulers of hierarchies of spirits underneath them, of provinces in the spiritual realm – and of ages in human history.

“So,” I hallucinate that I hear you ask, “what has all this got to do with the Golden Dawn?”

The following is my own personal theory. It is speculation, but please humour me at least until you get to the end of the article. It is that teachings regarding the Olympic Spirits were going to be given to Adepti in the higher grades of the second order, but – like a lot of things – these teachings were never written, owing to Mathers’ creative juices running out after his estrangement from Westcott. More specifically –

THE GOLDEN DAWN WAS GOING TO FIT THE OLYMPIC SPIRITS INTO AN ELABORATE HIERARCHY – AT THE HEAD OF THE ENOCHIAN SYSTEM!

In the GD, the first Enochian Magic taught – the four Watchtowers – is actually the last part that Dee and Kelley received. I believe that the original intention of the GD was to teach Enochian Magic to its Adepti in reverse order – the Watchtowers first, and the more advanced – which Dee had receive before the Watchtowers – only later. I have seen evidence in private collections, in the form of notebooks of Adepti dating from around 1916, which clearly show that post-schismatic members of the second order were certainly exploring the more advanced stuff, such as the Sigillum Dei Aemeth, along with their other Golden Dawn studies.

Thus the putative structure of GD Enochian Magic would have been something like this:

The four Watchtowers, + the Tablet of Union;
The thirty Aethyrs;
The Tablet of Nalvage;
The Tabula Bonorum Angelorum;
The Holy Table;
The Sigillum Dei Aemeth.

John Dee’s Five Books of Mystery, edited by Joseph H Peterson

However, we can actually take this further – because Dee was performing Angel Magic before he started receiving Enochian and proto-Enochian material. In fact, in the first of his Five Books of Mystery, Dee makes reference to the spirit OCH – who is the Olympic Spirit of the Sun – being the ruler of the then current age. Now the story goes that the couple who owned Dee’s manuscripts before Elias Ashmole got a hold of them lost half the material because their maid, not knowing what they were, used them to drain pies. I am willing to speculate that the lost material contained records of Dee’s magical operations before 1581, and that they would have contained details of Dee working from (amongst other grimoires), the Arbatel de magia veterum.

Thus, it makes sense to place the Olympic Spirits at the head of the Enochian system – a sort of Pre-Enochian or Ur-Enochian system, as it were – because as far as Dee would have been concerned, the Olympic Spirits set the whole context for all his subsequent Angel workings – which would make them very important primal forces indeed.