Goetic Justice

Ryan realized that trying this out would not be as simple as drawing on his floor in sharpie and then lighting some candles. If he was going to do this, really commit to it, then he needed to do the research. He had to pick one of these Goetic demons, choose one that suited his problems as closely as possible, and then figure out what he needed to do in order to invoke it.

He looked at the clock on his taskbar, noticing that several hours had passed. He had been so engrossed in his research that he hadn't even noticed. He decided to sleep on it, if he still felt like doing this when he was sober in the morning, then he'd make some serious plans.

***

Ryan awoke the following morning with a renewed desire to see the project through, his sober mind now more convinced than ever that this was the right course of action. With no job to go to and no social obligations to eat up his time, he resolved to spend the entire day researching the subject.

He started on the forum, quickly realizing that the source material for these Goetic demons was split into several different tomes and grimoires. Some were ancient scriptures said to have been written by Solomon himself, pre-dating the advent of Christianity by a thousand years. Others were Medieval texts, and still more were relatively modern adaptations of the works that were overall easier to parse. He decided to start his investigations with one of those, the most famous of which was The Lesser Key of Solomon, a collection of transcriptions of ancient manuscripts.

He downloaded a PDF file of the book but quickly became discouraged as he scrolled through the document. There was a lot of detailed information here, along with lengthy descriptions of the demons and their sigils. There were meandering invocations, and chants that would let one greet or banish the spirits. It was all too much for him to parse, however, he didn't know where to start. What he needed was a how-to.

He went back into the archives, sifting through the posts and conversations, before eventually finding exactly what he required. Aleister Crowley's Illustrated Goetia. The book detailed the man's own tentative explorations into the art of summoning, along with easy to follow, step-by-step instructions and a blow by blow account of what had occurred when the spirit had been invoked. All the better, it was only a few decades old and so was not fraught with Olde English and Latin incantations. There was no better place to start. He downloaded a scanned copy of the book, then transferred it to his phone and started to read.

Immediately he was struck by the narrator's situation, so similar was it to his own that he felt chills crawl up his spine, his eyes scanning back and forth as he devoured the pages. Crowley had lost everything, jobless and contemplating thoughts that he described as too dark to entertain, he had turned to the Goetia in his time of need. In order to turn his life around he had chosen demon number fifty-five, Orobas, who was described as being trustworthy and able to grant the favor of friends and foes. Ryan admitted to himself that he didn't understand precisely what it all meant, prelacies and true answers of divinity, but Crowley seemed to have thought Orobas perfectly suited to the task and who was Ryan to question the choice?

As he read on the narrator recounted the experience of his first summoning, along with the steps and preparations that he had taken, a veritable roadmap to anyone interested in trying it out for themselves. He had anointed himself in oils and then had created an improvised temple in his son's bedroom, drawing a summoning circle on the floor using masking tape. He had used easily obtainable incense burners and candles, no arcane artifacts of any kind, and there had been no gruesome sacrifices or bloody rituals of any sort. When laid out like this, the whole affair seemed almost mundane, pedestrian.

Ryan had pictured a man in lavish robes, sacrificing a goat with a ceremonial dagger before some complex and intricate sigil, but a Goetic summoning could apparently be carried out with common household items. The elaborate and lengthy incantations detailed in Solomon's Key seemed to be unnecessary too, more to put the summoner in a meditative state than any kind of code that would cause the demon to appear. The author had not performed them, and there had been no dire consequences. As the story went on Crowley detailed his first attempt at a summoning, clumsy and almost comically inept, yet successful in invoking the demon. Becoming frustrated with his initial lack of success, he had cursed out the spirit with a slew of profanities, and when it had reluctantly appeared, he had rubbed cinnamon oil in his own eyes by accident. Ryan was fairly confident that he could do better, if not in the ritual itself, at least in his composure.

The narrator had been successful, and the demon had appeared to him in the form of a tiny horse with a miserable expression, seen not with the eyes but as one sees an idea formed in their mind. A series of almost hysterical threats and promises had kept the creature under control, and after some back-and-forth between the two parties, a sort of contract had been formed. Orobas would use the spirits under its command to help Crowley get his life back on track, and according to him, it had worked as advertised. He had seen positive results that very same day in the form of an old friend appearing on his doorstep and giving him a car that he had desperately needed for transport. By the end of the afternoon, he had found a new job in the classifieds section of a newspaper.

Coincidence, some claimed, but the author was adamant that it was Orobas who had orchestrated his sudden good luck.

The only real problem was that the author had not started out on the same footing as Ryan, he had been educated in what he referred to as High Magick and had been tutored by a more senior Magician. Would Ryan be able to accomplish the same feats without that careful tutelage? Fuck it, this was the information age, he could obtain anything that he needed to know online. The worst case scenario was that it just didn't work and made him feel foolish. What harm was there in giving it a go?

He resolved to follow the instructions laid out in this book, to obtain the necessary information and tool and then attempt to summon his own Goetic demon.

CHAPTER 2: SUMMONING FOR DUMMIES

"Hi, do you have, uh...Myrrh Oil?" Ryan stammered, the shop assistant giving him a strange look as he read from his shopping list of ingredients. He was in a holistic medicine store, the only place that he could find that might have the component oils required to make the Oil of Abramelin described in Crowley's Goetia, apparently necessary for the ritual.

"We do," she replied, leading him towards one of the shelves in the cramped building. There were dreamcatchers and charms hanging from the ceiling, little porcelain models of fairies and dragons behind glass cabinets, and the walls were lined with jars and bottles containing all manner of plants and herbs.

"What do you need it for? It's great for treating fungal and bacterial infections, and new studies have shown that it has anti-cancer properties."

He choked back a derisive snort. He couldn't stand these new-age hippies, but he quickly realized that attempting to summon a demon was hardly a more credible use for the essential oil than treating athlete's foot.

"I need some other things too," he said, showing her his list. She paused for a moment, reading the crumpled piece of paper, then handed it back to him.

"We do carry cinnamon oil and galangal, but you'd have to get olive oil from a supermarket or maybe a general store. What's this for, if you don't mind my asking? I might be able to make some suggestions if I know more."

"Oh, my girlfriend loves this stuff," he said. "Got any candles too, maybe some incense burners? It's her birthday, and I want to treat her to a relaxing bath."

The woman clapped her hands together gleefully, apparently pleased by his reply.

"Of course, and you'll be wanting some relaxing bath salts too, we have some lavender bubble bath that's just lovely. Might I recommend a CD also? There's a recording of rainforest sounds that will just release all of that negative energy, you know?"

"Oh yeah, negative energy. Can't be doing with that."

Before long he was leaving the store with a biodegradable carrier full of oils and candles. He didn't necessarily need a lot of the soaps and salts, but Crowley had taken a lengthy bath in order to cleanse himself before the summoning, so he should too. Next stop was the general store to pick up some olive oil, a Goodwill to pick up some clothes that he could use as robes, and then a hardware store for the metal plate that he would need to engrave the demon's sigil onto.

Although Crowley's first summoning had been somewhat makeshift, after doing some more research Ryan had decided on following at least some of the more detailed instructions listed in Solomon's Key, chiefly the use of wards and protections that would serve to confine whatever entity he managed to invoke and protect him from any harm that might befall him. He also kind of just wanted to draw on things, and making occult robes would be a lot of fun.

***

Ryan sat at a desk in his apartment, he had cleared out the small living room and had ended up with a space of roughly eight by eight feet of hardwood flooring, the furniture pushed up against the walls to make as much room as possible. It was on the small side, and the book stated that nine feet was necessary, but it would have to do. The grimoires didn't account for magicians living in apartment blocks.

He was hard at work drawing sigils on pieces of card that he intended to attach to a bathrobe that he had acquired from the used clothing store. It wasn't quite a wizard's robe, but it was more than Crowley had available when he had summoned his first demon. Ryan was copying the elaborate drawings from Solomon's Key, doing his best to replicate them. These were not necessary to bring the demon forth but rather to ensure the optimal containment of it and the protection of the summoner. It was all quite elaborate, and again the sheer quantity of information gave the whole affair credence.

First, there was the Solomon's Sexangle, a figure that resembled a Star of David contained within a circle, decorated with writing and runes. He would find a way to hang this from the cloth belt of the bathrobe, he was supposed to flash it at the demon when it appeared, which would supposedly compel it to be obedient and to take a humanoid form.

Next, he would make a Pentagonal Figure of Solomon, a pendant to be worn around the neck with a ward intended to protect the user on one side and the sigil of the chosen demon on the other. He could use some string and thread it through a hole in the card. Nowhere did it state that these had to be made from any specific material like metal or wood.

The final piece of his costume would be a Ring of Solomon, a circular ward containing odd writing that would be worn on or near the face to protect him from acrid fumes, sulfur and brimstone and all that. He would draw it on a piece of card and staple it to a sweatband, easy. There was one more ward listed, the Secret Seal of Solomon, but that was to be used for containing the entity within a brass vessel, like a Genie in a lamp. Ryan had no such vessel, nor did he have any desire to attempt to confine a demon should he succeed in invoking one.

He had chalk for drawing the magical circle which was going to be an absolute bitch, along with the Triangle of Solomon that was used to confine disobedient spirits, a sort of time-out for naughty demons. The circle was going to take the most time to make by far, it was full of Hebrew nonsense that he didn't understand, and sigils within sigils that looked especially hard to reproduce.

He had fashioned a wand from a stick by shaving away the bark with a pocket knife, and he had all of the candles and incense that he had bought on hand, unsure of what scents a demon might prefer or even if it mattered at all.

There were a few other complications. Some demons could only be summoned at certain times of the month depending on their rank in Hell's armies, and some of the invocations required that the summoner hath not defiled himself by any woman in the space of a month. That last part wasn't going to be an issue, and for a moment he considered asking the demon to make it so that Becky ended her days in the company of two dozen cats.

Speaking of which, he still hadn't decided which Goetic demon he was going to attempt to summon. He couldn't continue much further without choosing one, as its sigil was required for several of the wards. The problem was that there were so many to choose from, and the archaic language used in Solomon's Key made many of their attributes vague at best. How the hell was he supposed to know what he changeth ye dead bodyes and putteth them into one another's places actually equated to? Fortunately, Crowley's Illustrated Goetia contained just that, illustrations of all of the demons along with some brief descriptions in modern English.

As he examined the extensive list, he began to realize how arbitrary some of their stated powers and areas of expertise were. If you wanted to bend trees for some reason, then you could summon number sixty-seven, Amduscias. He was your guy when it came to tree bending, and that seemed to be about all that he did. Number thirty-one, Foras, could make you invisible and also lecture you on logic and ethics. Many of them seemed to have artistic or academic pursuits that they would teach you, from foreign languages to philosophy and painting. Perhaps risking your immortal soul was preferable to dealing with student loan collectors.

He was somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of demons that could allegedly be summoned, it was like going through a list of goddamned Pokemon. They could do everything from transmuting metals to gold, to making women fall in love with him, and they could even teach him to speak to dogs. He had to think hard about what would actually solve his problems, as the author of Crowley's Illustrated Goetia had been very specific about only asking for things that you actually needed from the demons, as if they would somehow be able to tell if your motivation was greed or lust. Ryan was confident that his own needs were severe enough to warrant the intervention of a demon, and so he wasn't too worried about that. As long as he chose his invocation wisely, it shouldn't be a problem.

Perhaps he should just go with Orobas, the one that had been summoned in the story that he had read. It was a fairly low-level demon, and it was described as being loyal and reliable. It had helped Crowley get out of a similar pickle. No, he needed to make the right choice, he needed a demon that perfectly suited his needs.

***

Ryan had finally narrowed it down to three demons. Dantalion, Gamori, and Orobas. He rubbed his eyes, checking the clock on his phone. It was already past midnight, he had spent the whole day researching demons and preparing his ritual.

Dantalion was number seventy-one, a genderless creature that appeared to the summoner as a mass of shifting heads. Its domain was teaching arts and sciences, it had the ability to read minds and to relay the thoughts of others to the summoner, and it could also cause women to fall in love. Those were all useful to Ryan. He could learn a profession that might land him a job, know the thoughts of employers in order to influence them, and he could have any woman of his choosing it seemed. He wasn't sure how he felt about that last part, it seemed a little too close to brainwashing, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

Gamori was the fifty-sixth demon listed in the Goetia, and she appeared before the summoner as a beautiful woman riding on a camel. Her area of expertise was telling the future and causing women to fall in love. The power of prescience would help him in all manner of pursuits, from job searching to dating, and again the demon appeared to grant the love of any woman that he desired. As much as he did indeed desire the love of a woman, he wasn't sure if he needed it so severely as to invoke a demon. He was perfectly capable of dating under his own power.

If he asked for something that wasn't urgent, or too difficult for him to achieve by himself, it seemed as if bad things would happen. There was nothing explicitly forbidding it, at least not that he could find, but everything pointed to it being at best a faux pas and a worst a grievous offense. Better to just keep things simple. Asking for invincibility and riches would surely backfire in some ironic way, and any demon that could bestow such things was of high rank and no doubt beyond his ability to control.

Lastly, there was Orobas, as described in Crowley's first summoning, who appeared in the form of a horse. He could grant dignities and prelacies, though Ryan wasn't quite sure what those were yet, and he could grant the favor of friends and foes. He could see the past, present, and future, and he was described as being especially loyal.

Fuck it, Orobas it was. He would begin carving his sigil into the metal plate that he had purchased at the hardware store, and start drawing it onto the back of the Pentagonal Figure of Solomon. That should be everything. There was some nonsense about astrology and planetary hours and all kinds of other minutia mentioned in the guides that he had found online, but Crowley had not bothered with that and so neither would he. There would be no chants or prayers, no meditation, none of the intricate and overly complex steps that would draw this out for longer than he had the patience for.

After all, what did it matter if he invoked a demon through a complex and rambling chant that had to be memorized, or through simply asking it plainly to appear? Crowley had hurled insults and expletives at Orobas, and it had manifested itself all the same, which led Ryan to believe that many of the more elaborate parts of the ritual were just there for flair.

If any of this was to be believed, then it was a kind of science, albeit an arcane and spiritual science. As long as he followed the steps as they were outlined, it should work, and the more religious and superstitious aspects could be glossed over. He chuckled to himself, realizing how stupid that sounded, criticizing the superstitious when he was about to attempt a demon summoning.

It had gotten late, but everything was ready. He would get some sleep and perform the invocation the next day.

***

The summoning circle was all drawn out in chalk on the hardwood floor of his apartment, this might be a pain to clean up, but it wasn't as if he was going to get his deposit back anyway. It had taken him a couple of hours, writing out all of the little Hebrew incantations and drawing all of the pentagrams, making sure that it was lined up with the cardinal directions and triple checking that everything was properly transcribed from the Lesser Key of Solomon. He had his own little triangle to stand in that was decorated with wards, and there was the containment triangle which was intended for trapping unruly demons within its confines. He remembered that the instructions had asked for a nine-foot circle and about twelve feet of space overall, but he had to make do with what was available. If this didn't produce any measurable results, then so much might have gone wrong that it was hardly worth sweating over the details.

Even stripped of its more flamboyant elements, the ritual seemed needlessly complex, with layers of dependencies where one misstep could cause a cascading failure. He was confident of his wards and sigils, however. He was about as defended from hostile entities as it was possible to be without having a proton pack on hand, unless he had completely misunderstood some crucial element that would result in his soul being immediately devoured. Oh well, he didn't have much going on these days anyway.