There is an historical body of literature on various kinds of summoning magic, starting with the Picatrix.
Those particular sigils are from the Lemegeton, also known as the Lesser Key of Solomon. Which verifiably predates the neopagans. The general idea of constraining the demon by writing its sigil and summoning it has existed for a long time, although in the Lesser Key (and most sources afaik) the demon is summoned into a triangle, with the sigil drawn within, and it is the triangle which constrains it.
I can't recommend doing any of these things, but if someone wants to, I highly suggest not naively following the directions of a satirical blogpost.
This seems to be mostly a history of ideas about devils and demons, but it also has things that sound like the oversimplified/mythologized versions of history that neopagans come up with. Mainly this:
> The traditional method of summoning demons involves drawing the sigil of your desired demon on the ground. If your summoning ritual is successful the demon will be conjured on the location of the sigil and be unable to move away from it. They are constrained to that particular location, and cannot affect anything beyond it.
And then the list of sigils. Is that, or any other specific thing, the "traditional" way to summon demons?
It's an interesting theory, unfortunately none of the magical texts from that period that I'm aware of actually work that way. Many occultists of the time believed magic and demonology was justified by Christ giving his followers power to command demons and the elements in the New Testament.
The whole thing is magic, really. We assemble relatively mundane things that we understand together in certain specific ways, and somehow get something that can talk etc. A conjurer of old - who would similarly assemble bells and candles - would probably say that we summoned a demon.
Despite the name, LaVeyan Satanism has nothing to do with summoning occult beings as in GP's post. The latter (as with worship of the devil more generally) would instead be comprised under "Diabolism" which is very much a niche pursuit. It's even hard to tell if what looks like Diabolist practice isn't something subtly different, and more like the Voudun practice of summoning some "negative, dark, powerful" archetypal beings who are however quite recognizably different from any "devil". Heck, occasionally even something as basic as worship of the god Cernunnos (a very recognizable archetype of nature and the "male" principle) gets conflated by some with Diabolism.
I forget, is your quote attributable to Michael Scott or Wayne Gretsky?
You assume I've neither read the article or researched demonology. I have.
All of the neopagan bullshit and demonic sigils can be traced back to obvious frauds starting in the 19th century, when occultist grifting was in vogue.
This is a simplistic article on an already childish subject.
"Summoned" implies it's only possible for people who know the arcane secrets, I'm not personally a fan of removing people's agency when talking about something like this.
im thinking in the context of pre-judeo christian society.
these tablets are close to 4000 years old.
being possesed by gods was an in thing, a believe demons were a prechristian idea as well, so if witch, and demon could be interchanged somehow, i think that fits the era.
Magical thinking at its best. The Middle Ages are back. You are not allowed to pronounce anything similar to the powerful incantation, lest the demons emerge. Regardless of context.
Of course, in practice, the demons are regular people with stones in their hands ...
Given the stigma attached to summoning demons I would expect a dearth of accurate historical documentation. Practitioners would have taken pains not to leave evidence of their activities.
> the angel who teaches astrology and spells to drive away demons in the Book of Tobit
I think we need to be careful in how we are using words like "astrology" and "spells", since it is easy to group many ideas under those umbrellas in a way that people living long ago wouldn't have.
For a start, I don't see any mention in Tobit chapter 6 of astrology[0], and the technique given for driving away a particular demon is "thou shalt take the ashes of perfume, and shalt lay upon them some of the heart and liver of the fish, and shalt make a smoke with it: And the devil shall smell it, and flee away, and never come again any more" followed by "and pray to God".
We wouldn't say that someone is casting a spell if they used cayenne pepper to keep cats away from their garden, and early readers of Tobit wouldn't have considered fish organs to be an unholy or forbidden substance. For a process to deserve the designation of a "spell", it would have to involve either a means or an ends that was forbidden by God.
One does not have to believe "that the supernatural claims behind these rituals are real in some literal sense" to be very wary of this sort of stuff - magick is not something that works along "literal" lines in the first place! Anything that you do in a serious magickal ritual (and if you're intending to "sell your soul", that definitely qualifies!) can have very real and long-lasting effects in the spiritual plane. That's what's especially troubling about this: it's definitely doing something, that something it's doing is going to be very much not-nice (since you're expressly intending to deal with malevolent beings) and we don't even know what exactly is happening! It's just madness unless you happen to be very familiar with this sort of left-hand path stuff, and even then there's plenty of reason to be very careful since you're straying way off from even most acknowledged "left-hand path" stuff (which is ultimately about skillfully leveraging evil and chaotic forces in ways that will accomplish some greater Good).
I see you are somewhat versed in Enochian workings. I'm a bit surprised, but the tech community has knowledge extending every direction. Yes, Enochian Magic was created by John Dee in reference to the apochryphal book of Enoch. It entails in working with both positive and negative angels under YHVH (Judeao/Christian/Moslem deity).
That's one of the reasons why I mentioned chaos magic. It is devoid of any deity worship, and is more that of being a sorcerer.Golden Dawn also used Enochian magic, albeit only the second book. And they also involved themselves with YHVH, Egyptian deities and Celtic deities. For no deity workings, perhaps Tantra or Chaos would apply.
If anyone is interested in this from the point of view of folklore or mythology, or as a source for worldbuilding, I suggest the Youtube channel Esoterica[0] which covers historic occult rituals and texts. The Lesser Key of Solomon, referenced in the article, is discussed here[1].
Edit: a depressing number of people in this thread seem to take this stuff seriously. A lot of your parents wouldn't let you play D&D or listen to Black Sabbath as kids, huh?
Let go of your fear of the boogeyman, he isn't real.
If demon-summoning circles are going to be a thing that exists, I'd much rather have them in every household than have them used exclusively by the rich and powerful.
But more than that, I'd rather they not be used by either group.
There is an historical body of literature on various kinds of summoning magic, starting with the Picatrix.
Those particular sigils are from the Lemegeton, also known as the Lesser Key of Solomon. Which verifiably predates the neopagans. The general idea of constraining the demon by writing its sigil and summoning it has existed for a long time, although in the Lesser Key (and most sources afaik) the demon is summoned into a triangle, with the sigil drawn within, and it is the triangle which constrains it.
I can't recommend doing any of these things, but if someone wants to, I highly suggest not naively following the directions of a satirical blogpost.
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