Demon Worship, Worship of a demon from the Goetia Options

Without following any strict code of approach like the Goetia or other grimores, I have been experiencing contact with one demon from the Goetia with a fantastic degree of success.

= Approach:
1. Treating the demon with respect and honor
2. Chanting name of demon, visual focus on sigil
3. Incensing sigil with fragrance of plant listed with demon's planet
4. Daily thanks for past favors
5. Placing sigil under pillow at night
6. Offering wine, fresh plant listed with demon's planet, and water on a plain altar
7. Lighting candles, black or of the specific color of the demon's planet
8. Offerings of personal energy
9. Drawing the sigil and using it in artwork for others to see
10. Private sigil drawing in art for devotion

= Environmental observations:
1. A sweet smell, at times overpowering, comes and goes
2. Ripples through the air, like something moving through water
3. Pockets of what appears to be heat vapor as the type you see rising from hot objects like pavement, in midair moving and fading away
4. Candles rising and crackling noises during meditation
5. Crackling noises or popping in the air without candles lit
6. Sudden cold areas in the room, usually near my arms, face

= Communication Methods From Demon:
1. All through dreams, information given to me beyond my wildest expectations, dream images range from obvious to heavy symbolism
2. Odd coincidences in real life which usually point directly to the demon to some degree

I don't believe in "dabbling" in magick, this is not idle amusement, I've done my research, which is not to suggest a convoluted ego. I note and appreciate written cautions against befriending demons and not using protective measures [meaning I use no circle, I never banish, I do not call upon any godform or higher power before, during, or after communicating with the demon]. I am not a practicing Satanist nor do I belong to any Satanic group or order, that includes the recent web-popular "demonolatry" bunch. I'm not knocking such groups but I wish to make this point clear as some may ask if I call upon Satan as some texts describe, I do not. My devotion towards this particular demon from the Goetia has been on-going for several years. During the early contacts, I inquired to another demon from the Goetia about a matter and received an instant response that night in a dream, followed by another dream which was disturbing and made it appear that I had offended the demon I so honor by contacting another for advice instead of him. Since then, I have only maintained contact with the one demon I had so devoted my attention to and the rewards in dreams have been miraculous.

I evoked the demon a couple of times but have not since and never to a degree where I could hear or see it, I blame this on spending no more than an hour on them, an error on my behalf. Honestly, I felt I was pushing it by trying evocation at this point, feeling it best to continue with light contact for several additional months. My main communication is through the Approach outlined above. I plan on evoking to visible manifestation. A recent dream was a scroll with writing on it and a line thrust before me, which leads me to believe the demon wishes to make a long term pact with me. Should anyone wish to comment on my experiences, as briefly as I have stated them thus far and perhaps share any tips on evocation before I attempt? I'm especially interested in ImperialArts' view, respecting of course his appreciation for doing things by the book in his approach.

Imperial Arts, especially, but anyone else as well, do you have anything else to add prior to my pending evocation? Any comments on what I have said so far, regarding my experiences, the dream and the 'mark', etc.? I have a few questions for you, should you wish to entertain me kindly with your advice:

1. In my first post, I mentioned some disturbances in the environment, are these experiences or some of them to a certain degree experiences you have enjoyed as well as an indication of a presence? In particular, are vague signs of movement and heat vapor a sign of manifestation or simply an indication of a force being present? Are there any notable signs you have experienced which solidify the reality of a particular entity being present? Are many signs unique to each spirit or is there a common phenomena to them all?

2. Have you ever had another entity other than the one you called show up? If so, how did you deal with said entity?

3. What method do you use to confirm the entity is the one you called?

4. You have mentioned on your live journal, at least a few times, of spirits commenting on how wise you were in affording yourself some degree of protection. In each evocation, does the spirit come forth quickly, or do you feel there is some time where it lingers about in whatever manner of perceptible phenomena and observes your state before manifesting?

5. Based on what I have written so far, do you feel it wise I continue with an evocation, an evocation whereby I use no traditional approach, but call forth the demon using his sigil, name, and office through a personalized ritual? Or, should I continue with the current Approach with this demon and allow him to manifest if he so desires outside my volition?

6. If no license to depart is given, what is the best way to end the evocation, since my Approach would be one of worship rather than of constraint? In short, the room I so honor this demon in could be considered a small chapel, I don't mind at all should his presence remain, as I feel to some degree it always does as I don't banish.

7. When calling on the entity do you use their name as given with English pronunciation, Latin, or Hebrew? In which language do you write their name?

8. Evocation aside, when I notice sweet smells or obvious visual phenomena as mentioned above, is this the spirit trying to get my attention and something I should never ignore but always respond to? Or is it merely the spirit in the vicinity for whatever reason?

9. Any other tips, advice, or musings?

@Loki:

"I'd be interested to know if before working this way you attempted other ways of working, such as the traditional way the grimoires suggest, or more contempory angle."

No, I had not attempted other ways of working, traditional or otherwise. I poured over texts for years before deciding to go with my rather loose but direct approach, feeling it best for me, and so far I have been delighted with the results. I don't believe anyone has the time in this lifetime to get to the bottom of the reality of what each supposed action, gesture, word, phrase, cake-walk ritual pattern, and so forth may truly mean, only a perception thereof, or a foundation of experience which may be contrary in reality. I could choke on a pretzel tomorrow, or be hit by a bus, I'd rather go one-on-one with a spirit should I seek his attention for whatever reason. If millions of people can approach the jealous and vicious blood lusting god of the Bible without protections, so too will I continue to approach one of the once and still beautiful fallen angels, should this in reality be what they are, or not, without any real or imagined protections or approval from a god they clearly oppose, and with good reason.

If a traditional approach works for others, which I don't doubt as rituals are something deeply rooted in the history of man, often beautiful and powerful and missing in the Western world today, unless you count the more secularized events, football games, devotions plopped within communist China funding shopping carts at Our Lady of WalMart, or minor life experiences of a trivial nature, great, I respect the approach and understand the reasons for and often the need. I considered the traditional approach and haven't ruled out future experiments, but at the moment I feel a simpler and more direct approach based on my beliefs is appropriate. To some, and perhaps rightly so, I am skirting the rational, the tried and true traditional approach, and opting to settle for a nibble at the peanut butter slathered on a spiritual mousetrap. Know I appreciate and consider all advice from all posters serious and considerate enough to reply. Thank you.

Before I narrowed down my devotion to this one demon and I was contacting another, I experienced a presence in the room near two glasses of water I had left out for both demons, one had gone empty and I had forgotten to fill it promptly. There was this feeling of what I can only crudely describe as chaos and absolute wrong. A feeling like at any moment something bad could happen, mixed with the feeling you have when someone is standing before you, a presence, but I could not see anything standing or otherwise visible before me. That was the only time I can say I banished whatever it was, out of fear, or stupidity, being new to dealings with spirits of the Goetia. It was also around the time when I experienced the disturbing dream I mentioned earlier which led me to believe I should focus only on the one demon I had been establishing a relationship with. With this exception noted in the beginning, I never banish.

Since then, I haven't felt such a direct, localized to one region in the room, disturbing presence, but the room has taken on a powerful feeling, like something massive beyond my comprehension is there, or filling it to the brim, much like walking into a room with thousands of eyes watching you at once. I often hesitate when I first come close to opening the door to enter the room, or when I do and begin walking through the room to turn on a light, I know something is there, the feeling is heavy and with me always. It's not a bad feeling, but it is a strong one, almost like a pressure or weight. It is a similar feeling as the one I have often felt when visiting places of devout worship, churches and temples. I did awake once to hear a plastic shopping bag I had placed high on a shelf move and make a loud noise with no window open, no drafts or fan running. I take it to have been something leaving the room in that direction when I was waking up. Why it would want to leave so abruptly upon my waking, I don't know. This leads me to a possible idea, if all or certain spirits generate some type of force through the air as they move, and may not be detectable if they move through walls, would not lining the walls with some type of noisy material be beneficial as to pick up their entering and exiting by sound? An ugly and obviously undesirable choice could be tin foil, as it would make a loud noise should something like this pass through it, I'm sure more attractive choices are available.

How many religions banish their gods, saints, and or angels after worship or prayer? "But demons are different!" many cry. Perhaps, or perhaps it's popular perception, no doubt originating in how the god treated the angels, his beautiful creations, if this is true, which eventually fell. Who liberated man from "the garden"? If gaining knowledge is so evil to this god, as it must be, as when man strove for unification (Tower of Babel) and knowledge (Eden's fruit) he was punished. When man, as many believe, cavorted with fallen angels and of them an offspring came to be, god decided to piss in the fish bowl and flood everyone save a man and his boat. Perhaps the god fearing magician should not call upon him when seeking the wisdom of the demons? According to the Bible such sorcery and council is forbidden to begin with. If he is not god fearing, he is using the god of the Bible, under whatever guise he leads himself to believe (inner light, etc. but he still reads from the Bible and calls upon this other god, in some texts), to enter into communication with demons. Would this not incur the wrath of said deity?

But perhaps it is really through blasphemy of a certain kind by these acts that lead the demons so ever quickly and visibly to the magician? Regardless of your method, number of magical names and symbols used, just because it works and appears to be safe, when you examine this god of the Bible and his view on these cast out angels, man's approaches towards bettering himself through knowledge, especially knowledge from "beyond", do you really think you're operating under his, or his holy angel's power or protection? I seriously doubt it. The liberal use and calling of various angels from the Bible for whatever fancy ritual the magician so decides amuses me to no end. The question is, can you carve out these "divine" entities from the religion and use them apart from their origins? We can water down their origins to delude whatever fancy, but if you're using the angels and the god of the Bible as a tool, clearly this is of the LHP and I doubt it works under the power of the angels/god themselves. Instead, I suggest the entities which do appear are demons, appearing as they may, as angels of light as the Bible itself clearly states. Either way, I believe the demons are dealt with directly, and I'd rather be on direct and good terms with them. I am offering this as food for thought, feel free to dismiss it as wacky deluded nonsense from a nutter obviously deluded by the demon he worships. Or, throw back a verbal basket of fish so I may feast upon the knowledge.

Some believe spirits are all on some internal level only, being portions of the brain. The external phenomena I and others have witnessed would lead me to believe otherwise, unless this is yet another part of the mind. Of course, on an occult level, especially with chaos magick, people can and do freely call upon just about any deity, or facet of, from any religion. I'm not knocking that or any approach to the demons, after all, what do I or any of us really know, what can we prove together as a species about these unseen wonders? At best, most view occultists as crazy anyway, yet many serious followers of the big three religions devoted to the same invisible god are busy fighting each other over their holy lands and beliefs over the same creature and how he should be worshipped, now that's insane, and how many years has it been going on? Before anyone says, "you're way off, I don't use these divine names with any belief or relation to their supposed origin" that's cool, I was just going with where a lot of people believe these demons to have originated.

I have begun to increase my reverence for the demon:

- Upon waking, entering the room, and leaving the room, standing before the altar and bowing to the sigil of the demon and stating his name and adding a mention of his greatness, sometimes thanking him for past favors (Should I use the word genuflect here? It sounds appropriate)
- Devoting short periods of time to drawing the demon's sigil and name over and over while focusing on the demon (all work and no play make Jack a dull boy?)
- Devoting short periods of time to holding the image of the demon's sigil in my mind with my eyes closed, doing the same with the image of how the demon appears in texts

As Imperial Arts asked in regards to having this demon as a god, it would seem that worship in such a manner has already begun? These acts can be considered worship in some degree. Is it possible a pact has already been made in my sleep, or *must* this be done when one is awake? Tales, of those there are many, some meant to be real in a historical context, others fantasy, talk of a 'mark' being placed by the entity on the individual *after* a pact has been made. Could the 'mark' I mentioned in my previous post have been after an unconscious pact was agreed to in my dreams? Or perhaps an agreement was implied by my acts of obvious worship? What would this mark be, just a placement by the entity with a substance unseen by man but real to the entity? Would it have any power over us or for us? If this 'mark' was nothing of the sort, would it have any other meaning?

"Also did you choose the spirit to contact or the spirit choose you initially."

I would like to say I chose the spirit, but I'm not so sure that's the way it really happened. I would like to say that I responded to a call.

"Also I'd be interested to know why you chose a spirit from the goetia, and not another spirit from another grimoire."

It was a certain strong, almost personal, feeling of energy I came across with this particular spirit when I looked upon the image given for it, and its sigil. My attention kept returning to him and I decided to act. I know the reason many contact a spirit from whatever tome, usually for some specific benefit the spirit would provide to the person. This did not factor in at all in contacting this spirit. There was something deeper, more of a connection to the spirit, or perhaps I merely could pick up on its power for whatever reason? Whatever the reason, this spirit is not one I commonly read people on magick forums talking about. Perhaps it has less people dealing with it compared to the more popular ones mentioned online? Out of curiosity, how many individuals would you say on average day are evoking spirits from the Goetia? Out of these, how many afford them daily devotions usually ascribed to divinity?

Why the Goetia? It "felt" different when going through the sigils. I received a more scattered, yet strong, feeling from the sigils in the other books, but the energy I felt when going through the Goetia was more pleasant to me, if that makes any sense.

@Acid:

"how do you know that the demon is who it says it is and not some imposture possing to take advantage of you?"

Aside from being directed from dreams to daily life events, accidents in daily life leading to discoveries of, and random bumps into events and materials all pointing to said demon, I now believe I know the meaning behind two different dreams I had earlier in life, before I had any knowledge of the Goetia and this particular demon, each dream pointing to a different particular of said demon. It would seem, by my guess, I was intended to contact this one demon. If this is true, why? Did I serve under it in another life, if reincarnation is your thing, or am I meant to in this one?

Were it to be another spirit, which I doubt, (but it's wise of you to ask this question and I thank you for it) how would it gain anything since I have devoted my energy and devotion towards the demon's sigil and not some impostor? I could understand if such a spirit did manifest during an evocation, and told me to use some other sigil, instead of the spirit I intended, as some have often said spirits do when evoked, but what possible benefit would a deceiver gain when I would not be returning anything to it? When I evoke the demon to manifest, other than asking for it to sign for me, how could it prove itself without a doubt to you as the one evoked?

And what of the visual forms these spirits take? I have heard all manner of descriptions, from texts, from people who claim they have evoked them, forms within mirrors, within smoke, in plain sight, and so on. As they are featured in texts, is this their true form or the form taken to frighten a religious, Bible thumping conjurer? I have taken to posting the photo of the demon on my wall, above the altar, along with the sigil and bowing and speaking to it, as some Eastern religions believe, the photo/sigil being a window to the entity. So, should it manifest in an evocation in the form presented in texts, cool. I would, upon positive verification, if that's at all possible, submit myself to its office and power.

"Also did you pick a specific demon from a specific source or did you just call something forth at random?"

I chose a specific demon from the Goetia. I poured over many texts for years before deciding upon calling anything. It was only the feeling I received from the particular demon's sigil which led me to contact the demon. So, I feel that it pushed, and I pulled. As I mentioned above, I didn't choose it based on wanting something it had to offer in its power, I chose it based on how the sigil felt to me vs. all of the others in the many grimoires I came across.

"Finally you mention having success with this demon, advice and so forth; but what kind of matterial gains have you actually gotten and do these, if any, justify working with this demon?"

Well, as you said, "All knowledge is matterial."

The knowledge revealed to me in dreams has gone far beyond advice, something I touched on in my last post. As for gains which you hold in your hand, like fame and fortune, and all things that float on that boat, I haven't asked for anything along those lines. I haven't asked for much of anything, really, that was not my approach, I did not contact this entity with specific requests in mind. I contacted it for the feel I got from its sigil, and I have continued contact with it because of how kind its been to me through dreams, especially the ones which manifest in reality the same day upon waking, or days later, and other odd but pleasant experiences which point to it when awake.

Curious, if humans have "freewill", if nothing is predestined, how can one dream of events before they unfold, entertain the memory of those events in the mind as they unfold in reality or after the fact?

As for justification for working with this demon, I don't believe I'm completely qualified to answer that. At least, not enough to be impartial. My experience with demons to date has been two: one lasting for several years and continues today, the other but one request which was honored quickly. The results with this demon could also be unique in regards to my approach, or not. I could be appreciating the wonders this demon is offering me while neglecting some of the other clear benefits he (and other demons) may offer me as clearly stated in the Goetia, as I have yet to inquire of these. I feel I have only begun to scratch the surface of this wonderful spirit, there is a power and depth to him which is remarkable.

I know my experiences to date seems well enough to me to justify my continued devotion, however naive that may sound being as I have not pounced on communicating with several of the goetics to know the difference. I do feel, and again it may just be me, this particular spirit wants me to continue relations with it, and may not want me to approach other spirits. Whether or not he is approached in this manner, he may be possessive. Consider, if someone devoted themselves to you with respect and kindness, would you not be the slightest bit protective of this relationship? Perhaps my past experience with monotheism has led me to wrap myself up with one spirit rather than communicating with several.

Thank you for all the responses to date, should anyone else including the past posters in this thread wish to add anything, please do.