Europe's inner demons

Such were the demons of ritual magic. Essentially they belong to the hosts of hell, as these were imagined by medieval Catholicism: they are fallen, evil angels. Not that astrological links are altogether lacking: some books of magic do try to relate specific demons to specific planets, and insist that a conjuration will succeed only if it is timed with due regard to planetary influences. But this is a very minor theme. By and large the demons with which a magician concerns himself are indistinguishable from the demons whose operations we considered in Chapter 4. In some cases even the names are derived from the Bible. Thus the ruler of all the demons is Baal, the sun-god of the Canaanites, who in the Old Testament is portrayed as the greatest and more fearsome of all heathen gods and the lord of all abominations; while the “mighty king” Belial is familiar from Jewish apocalyptic, where he figures as the chief power of evil, and the “terrible duke” Berith is mentioned in the Book of Judges as the god of the infidels. Other demons bear names that are quite unknown outside the ritual magic of Europe and were obviously invented ad hoc

; but clearly they too are thought of as belonging to the same infernal hierarchy. Some of the formulae of conjuration are quite explicit on the matter: “I conjure you divels… I conjure you, and everie of you, ye infernall kings.... by your hell, and by all the divels in it…”⁽¹³⁾

Moreover, the demons who are conjured up by name — the sixty-nine demons listed by Weyer and Scot, the seventy-two listed in Goetia

— command the services of numberless lesser demons; and these are the demons whose ubiquity and incessant activity so appalled Abbot Richalmus of Schönthal.⁽¹⁴⁾

Only, in the context of ritual magic these denizens of hell, instead of wreaking havoc according to their own desires, are harnessed to the magician's will.

Many of the benefits which a magician aimed to secure through his demonic contacts, whether for himself or for his employer, carried no harmful implications for other human beings. Through ritual magic one could, without effort, master the arts and sciences; one could compel the love of the mate one wanted; one could win the favour of the great and so advance one’s career; one could discover the whereabouts of hidden or buried treasure; one could foresee one’s future. Much the same demands exists today — and are catered for by a variety of industries, from cosmetics to sweepstakes, from personality courses to horoscopy. But if these were the commonest aims of ritual magic, they were not the only ones. Causing disease, deafness, blindness, insanity; provoking men to theft and murder; producing putrid wounds, leading to death within three days; burning the magician’s own enemies— these are true maleficia, and all of them figure amongst the “offices of the spirits”. In addition ritual magic was often sponsored by the rich and powerful, for their particular purposes: some demons specialized in producing wars and battles, sinking warships, demolishing walls, burning towns to the ground.

Whatever its objective, the act of conjuration itself followed a resolutely religious pattern — which might be of either Jewish or Christian inspiration, or a mixture of both.⁽¹⁵⁾ Whether the magician was trying to scale the heights of scholarship in a flash or whether he was trying to make men kill one another, he set about it in a most pious fashion. Nowhere, in the surviving books of magic, is there a hint of Satanism. Nowhere is it suggested that the magician should ally himself with the demonic hosts, or do evil to win the favour of the Prince of Evil. Not a word is said about reversing or profaning religious rituals or observances, whether Christian or Jewish. The demons are not to be worshipped but, on the contrary, mastered and,commanded; and this is to be done through the power of the God who created all spirits as well as all human beings. Throughout, the attitude is that of a devout man who can with confidence call on God for help in his undertaking. Indeed, all the books of magic stress that a magical enterprise has no prospect of success unless the magician worships God and believes absolutely in his infinite goodness.