Letting Go of Control in Demon Conjuration

The thing about working with demons is that people get really tense about it. I'm not talking about anti-demon stigma in this case, but more in regards to the practitioners themselves. While protective measures are certainly essential, part of the reason the more violent Goetia tactics persist is because people truly just think That Is the Way to Do It in order to be safe or just to get what they want.

This rigidity, however, can lend itself to control issues. Like, putting demons in a triangle or some other binding without assessing if they're actually a threat first. Being rude and demanding to them because Solomon said so or whatever. Threatening their names with knives, which is just jerk behavior. I already talked about how friendly conjuration is worthwhile and ethical, I won't get into it much more here.

This is not to downplay the consequences of a conjuration gone wrong, which can get pretty gnarly. But sometimes things don't go the way you planned and it turns out okay. To illustrate, I want to share my recent story of a much more mild conjuration that went sideways.

First, it is an important detail that my patronage under Lucifer has worked very effectively so far as a giant DO NOT EAT ME sign* for demons. Additionally, I don't call up any demon without giving him the heads up and getting his okay beforehand. So this is to say I go in stripped down in comparison to many people who do demon conjurations, but I did not go into my meeting with Belial stupid (which, with the higher ranking demons like him, you probably can).

The reason I reached out to Belial at all was because Lucifer nudged me toward him when I expressed I wanted more help with all the shit that's going on in the political sphere right now. Even before then, when I started doing conjurations he would push me toward my books and tell me to "find a belial," which I think just meant "pick out a spirit" while giving me an adjacent heads up. However, these references came to a point where in my last reading with David of Aladekoju, he said it looked like I was to have one more entity in addition to the three Grimoirium Verum chiefs connected to me and I was like, "yeah, that's probably Belial."

Notably, I intentionally do not look at demonology or demonalatry communities online because I don't want them to accidentally influence my perception of the spirits. So I just read what the Ars Goetia says of Belial, which is that "his office is to distribute preferments of senatorships." And I was like great! Sounds exactly what I want, someone who does government or whatever. I ignored that niggling concern in the back of my mind that the language in these older books does not use words the way we mean them now. After all, Lucifer has been talking up this guy for a bit. It's going to be a piece of cake, right?

For the first time ever, I was not at all nervous to conjure a demon. I ascended the stairs and reached my area where I perform the rituals. As soon as I got there, I heard a languid voice say, "Wine would be nice..."

Andromalius had really liked the red wine I had given him the first time I conjured him so I had talked to Lucifer before about what offering would be appropriate for Belial. He had said white wine. But he had also more recently said I didn't need an offering, in retrospect because he just wanted me to stop getting hung up on obtaining it as an excuse for not doing the conjuration. Now at the face of a request, and almost compulsively wanting to be a good host, I left and walked down to the grocery store to procure a bottle of wine.

I return and Belial says, "Give the wine." I say, "Um... I'd rather do a full conjuration because then I can perceive you better." However, I am now thrown off and Lucifer has taken a step back, so I end up super half assing a conjuration. Belial is clearly unimpressed. I give him my ask about the politics. Contrary to what Lucifer said, he replies, "Why should I help you?"

"Because I am asking you to help "the worthless" and your name means "worthless" because you are supposed to be their** leader and advocate!"

I receive a silence bent a certain way that indicates he sees my point. However, we proceed to go back and forth for a bit. I don't fully remember the order of dialogue that happened, but I do remember telling him I am prone to arguing with spirits "because I'm Jewish" and that was the point where he turned to Lucifer and asked him, "What is this one?" A Jew, Belial, aren't you listening?! WHERE DO YOU THINK YOUR NAME COMES FROM?

It was a terribly awkward first impression, at least for me.

I ended up walking away from that conjuration with nothing, which was bizarre because of the previously mentioned build up to it all. I go to Lucifer and ask him what the hell was this all about and he grins at me. "Why are you grinning?!" He grins more. "Did he know I was going to call him or did you just tell me?" He grins more and pats my butt. "Stop grinning so much!"

I have my weekly check in with Astaroth. "Something weird happened with Belial."

She smiles, oh so ambivalently. "Is that so?"

"Come on, not you too!"

The grimoires do not warn you that the most dangerous thing about Lucifer and Astaroth is that they may find you adorable and amusing. It's terrible. Out of confusion and impatience with their lack of answers, I give up the idea of not getting other humans' input and went to my friend Noah on what happened. To which he replied, "But Belial isn't good for what you asked; he's good at granting influence, wealth, and power."

"Oh great, so I was misled."

"I don't think you were misled..."

Did I mention I hate asking for what I see as self-serving things!! Which Lucifer of course knows!! I don't want to be powerful; I just want the fucking world to be fixed. However, I have to strategically acknowledge that every demon can theoretically use their unique skills toward my goals, so...

A day later, I pick up the seal of Belial I had drawn for the conjuration and stare at it real hard.

Belial picks up the psychic phone. "What do you want?"

Little ruder than Bune was, but I had expected that. "I feel like we got off on the wrong foot."

The silence that replied oddly suggested not necessarily.

"Can you help me to get the best field placement from my school program where I can gain the most amount of influence in helping people?" I ask.

"Yes," Belial readily agrees.

He goes onto explain to me that there have always been differences in ability, influence, and power between individuals even in more peaceful human societies throughout history. That if I want to advocate for my society to be more like those past societies, that was alright, but his work is to empower the individual to do their best work. So he does not go out to the world at large and make requested change, like I did in our first meeting, but that he must work through me and my capabilities—which he also refines—in order to accomplish my ask. He didn't phrase himself as 'like a demon life coach,' but I 100% thought 'like a demon life coach.'

Once I had finally absorbed this, I had one more request. "Also the book says you give excellent familiars, so can you look at the cat Lucifer picked out and see if she would make a good companion for me?"

Belial looks... and he starts laughing. He agrees she would make a good familiar, using the word 'rascal' in the process. I am terrified of his laughter because we have no rapport, but I am getting this cat anyway.

Some of the above is rephrased or shortened for humorous effect, but for the most part it really is how it happened. Anyway, I screwed up a demon conjuration, I still have all my limbs, and I am still traumatized by enduring the dumbest, most affectionate torture ever by demon monarchs via them making me have a straight conversation with one of their colleagues which is what I should have done in the first place. I guess the lesson here is don't get hung up on what you think something "should" look like in this realm and assume things will go poorly if your expectations aren't fulfilled. Chill out a bit. Have some lunch. Go back and have a chat when you're ready.

*If you have pure intentions and willingness to build relationships, you can ask Lucifer or Astaroth for the same protection before doing demon work (their discretion over whether or not they'll grant it to you, but still worth asking). The grimoires don't have this knowledge, probably because the authors were adversarial to the entities they were writing about

**Belial means "worthless" in Hebrew, not just meaning a person who doesn't have value, but with a stigmatizing or villainizing edge to it. By that rationale, marginalized people such as those who are transgender or unhoused fall under this definition of belial