The Goetia Ritual: The Power of Magic Revealed

In our research, we found that demon binding has a long history and many traditions. The tradition that Crowley’s book fell within is the Western magic esoteric tradition: the Western Qabalah; kept alive mainly through magical manuscripts known as grimoires. In their original medieval form these were hand-written texts for professional magicians. The grimoires only contained the most essential information; much was left out. In short, the grimoires in their raw state were incomplete. When the printing revolution took hold at the end of the medieval period, the grimoires resurfaced as published texts. However, these published grimoires remained incomplete and because of this their magic maintained its mysterious quality. Over time they gained a reputation for being dark and dangerous; but this was more to do with attempted demon-binding with an incomplete magical technology, making the risks greater than would otherwise be if it were complete.

Crowley was aware of this hazard. In his co-edited publication on the Goetia, he not only relied on original manuscripts, but also included a vital operation for the invocation of the Divine. Moreover, while Crowley added much he also was careful not to offer complete operations; as he sought to separate the serious minded from dilettantes. Given the value of Crowley’s research, his Goetia was quickly plagiarized by others. Not surprisingly, Crowley did not publish another work of this kind again. Unfortunately, the many publications, since Crowley’s seminal 1904 Goetia, have added little to make the work complete and hence easily accessible.

In writing our book we have approached Goetia with Crowley’s zeal for research, basing our work on credible sources and have sought to complete the task that Crowley started. The Goetia is broken down into its classic operations with each operation given an introductory chapter that explains its purpose. Maintaining the work’s authenticity to its magic Qabalah tradition, we have used Latin headings for each operation. This allows each operation to be easily identified and differentiated. In brief, these are the “Consecratio,” “Invocatio,” “Evocatio,” “Ligatio,” and finally the “Licentia.” The Consecratio provides the necessary litanies for sacralising yourself, your ritual space, and all material things required. Following this is the Invocatio, where you invoke the Divine; and open a dimensional portal for evoking your chosen demon; taken from the 72 Goetia demon profiles provided within the book. The Evocatio provides you with the essential Evocatory Calls for evoking the demon. On making contact with your chosen demon, the Ligatio arms you with the binding litanies that will bind the demonic force to your specific intent. Once this is effected, the ritual arch is completed with the Licentia, where you perform banishing litanies, close the dimensional portal, and finally re-cleanse your ritual space.

As a bonus all this is brought together in an easy to follow guide located near the back of this book. This guide provides a continuous magic-operational piece that we have termed, “Quickstart Goetia Ritual.”