The dictionary of demons, p.1
The Dictionary of Demons, page 1
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M. Belanger is an occult expert, presenter, singer, media personality, psychic, and author of over thirty books on paranormal and occult topics. Belanger has been featured on TV shows including A&E’s Paranormal State, Paranormal Lockdown, and the Travel Channel’s Portals to Hell. Consulted for numerous documentaries and books, Belanger has also lectured on paranormal and occult topics at colleges and universities across North America. Belanger offers classes and weekend retreats on psychic development at Inspiration House in Oberlin, Ohio, a 150-year-old home with the coziest haunting you could hope to find.
To learn more about Belanger’s work, start by exploring MichelleBelanger.com, where you’ll find classes, books, music, and Inspiration House events. Follow Belanger on social media at twitter.com/sethanikeem or offer your support at patreon.com/haunted.
Llewellyn Publications
Woodbury, Minnesota
Copyright Information
The Dictionary of Demons: Tenth Anniversary Edition: Names of the Damned © 2020 by M. Belanger.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.
First e-book edition ©2021
E-book ISBN: 9780738765495
Book design and format by Donna Burch-Brown
Cover design by Kevin R. Brown
For a complete list of art credits, see page 487.
Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Belanger, M., author.
Title: The dictionary of demons : names of the damned / by M. Belanger.
Description: Tenth anniversary edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Llewellyn
Worldwide, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary:
“This premium-hardcover, limited edition of one the world’s most
important books on demonology has been expanded to include even more
fascinating details about even more demons”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020023460 (print) | LCCN 2020023461 (ebook) | ISBN
9780738765365 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780738765495 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Demonology—Dictionaries.
Classification: LCC BF1503 .B36 2020 (print) | LCC BF1503 (ebook) | DDC
133.4/203—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023460
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023461
Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.
Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.
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Manufactured in the United States of America
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments For The Tenth Anniversary Edition
Preface to the New Edition
Introduction
An Overview of the Expanded Material
DICTIONARY OF DEMONS
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
Appendix I: The Biblical Hosts of Hell
Appendix II: Where Demons Come From
Appendix III: The Testament of Solomon
Appendix IV: The Star of Baphomet
Appendix V: A Pagan Perspective on Angels
Appendix VI: A Curious Genesis: Early Roots of the Dictionary of Demons
Demons and the Decans of the Zodiac
Infernal Correspondences
Planetary & Elemental Correspondences
Goetic Demons and Constraining Angels
Bibliography
Art Credits
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are several people who helped me at various stages in the creation of this book. Some lent their expertise and insight. Others lent their artistic talents. Others simply lent their faith and support. All of them contributed things of value that I feel helped to improve upon the quality of this work. I cannot rate or rank their worth, and so in the spirit of this dictionary, I present them in alphabetical order: Father Bob Bailey, Christine Filipak, Clifford Hartleigh Low, Merticus, Dar Morazzini, Mykel O’Hara, and Joseph Vargo. I extend my warm and heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you. Your talents have been an immense help.
I must also extend a very special thanks to artist and traditional scribe Jackie Williams. Jackie was kind enough to design a demonic alphabet expressly for this dictionary. She also helped me through the long and sometimes arduous process of writing this book, assisting with scans, explaining the vagaries of medieval scribes, and—most importantly—reminding me to take a break and eat once in a while. Thanks also go out to the good people at Dover Publications who have generously allowed me to reproduce images from several of their books. And finally, I want to extend my gratitude to Joseph H. Peterson of EsotericArchives.com for both his dedicated scholarship and his generosity in making that scholarship freely available to all.
[contents]
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR THE
TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
The Dictionary of Demons is an ambitious work and, with the tenth anniversary edition, I’ve striven to make it even more extensive. Without the support, talents, and inspiration of many excellent people, I could not have done that, especially not in the time frame I had. First and foremost, I want to thank Elyria Little. It is not easy to learn how to navigate the creative process of a writer, but I wouldn’t get through any of it without your unflagging support. To Catherine Rogers, who has graciously put up with random three a.m. texts asking for drawings of obscure demonic sigils (and then drawn them by the next day), I can only hope the rest of the world comes to appreciate your talents and shining spirit the way I do. To Kirsten Brown for taking a chance and adding her talents to this massive undertaking. More eyes need to be on your work as well, and I hope I can help make that happen. To everyone at the Wellcome Collection for their swift response. You do the world a great service by making your extensive library of materials freely available to all. (Seriously, check out their online collection.) To Katrina Weidman for being that friend who always has my back even in some of the darkest (and coldest!) places in the country. To Jack Osbourne for his exuberant and open-minded curiosity no matter how strange our experiences may get. And, finally, to Ali A. Olomi: We have only met in virtual space, but your encyclopedic knowledge of the Jinn and other Islamic folk beliefs has vastly enriched my world. Thank you.
[contents]
Preface to the New Edition
So many things have happened since I sat with these same files, these books scattered across every level surface of my home—but I’ve missed them. I’m not sure what it’s like for other writers, but once a book of mine has been published, I avoid reading it. The urge to edit is just too powerful, and if I let myself read the book, I would realize that, even though it’s published and out in the world, it’s not finished.
They’re never finished.
At best, a published book is as good as it can be at the time. But time changes things—it changes us, it changes the world and culture we live in, it changes the technology and the information we have available—and, hopefully, that also changes how we see and interact with all of those things. A book is this frozen moment, a kind of snapshot of where a person was during the production of the work. I don’t go back and read my own books because, even if only a week has gone by since I finished the manuscript and sent it to the publisher, I’m already not the same person who wrote that book. Ideally, I’m a better person, wiser, with opinions that have evolved as more information has become available. And I can’t alter the book to reflect any of those things once it’s out in the world—unless I get a chance to write a new edition.
That’s what I’ve found so exciting about this process. Almost ten years have passed and so much has changed. So m
It’s exciting to be able to make such changes—both to the text you hold in your hands and also to my understanding of its contents. And those are only a small taste of the updates. There was so much to explore for this edition. I know I didn’t get it all—I cannot possibly get it all. The Dictionary of Demons is a book that will always have room to be revised, expanded, to evolve. That’s the nature of the subject matter: demons are incredibly diverse, and humanity’s approach to them spans art, literature, folklore, cinema, games, philosophy, and religion—not just the grimoiric tradition. Even narrowing the focus to include only those demons given proper names in the grimoiric tradition of Europe, there is still so much to cover.
This is a work that will never be completely finished. But, as I look back over what I have collected, changed, edited, and expanded over these past few months to bring you this tenth anniversary edition, I feel pretty good about the book in front of me.
It is as good as it can be at this time.
—M. Belanger
December 16, 2019
[contents]
Introduction
This book had its genesis in a conversation with Father Bob Bailey. Some of you might recognize Father Bob from his appearances on the A&E television series Paranormal State. Father Bob and I were on a case together, and we had a little time to chat over tea. We’d never really had a chance to get to know one another, and this seemed as good a time as any.
For some of my fans, the idea of me hanging out in a hotel lobby with a Catholic priest might seem pretty strange. Father Bob and I come from very different worlds. He’s an ordained priest with a parish in Rhode Island. He is also the co-founder of a group of paranormal investigators called the Paranormal Warriors of Saint Michael. I’m Pagan clergy, and I study everything from the occult to vampires. I’m the founder of a magickal society called House Kheperu. You would think that we would mix like oil and water, yet our shared interest in the paranormal guarantees that we have at least some common ground.
Because of the limits placed upon me as a psychic for the show, we could not talk about anything connected with the case. So, instead, we opted to talk about our different experiences with ghosts and spirits. Because Father Bob is often consulted on the topic of exorcism, inevitably demons came up. Father Bob was lamenting that there were no good resources out there that listed the names of demons, as names are seen as important in the process of deliverance. Although Father Bob cannot do full exorcisms without the sanction of the Catholic Church, he does get called in to do house cleansings and to perform blessings on people who feel that they are being haunted by something much darker than a simple human ghost.
In his line of work, the name of the demon is important. In the Catholic rite of exorcism, known as the Roman Ritual, this ties back to a story recorded in both the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Luke. Here, when Jesus is confronted by a possessed man, he very specifically asks the name of the demon before driving it out. The passage implies that the name has power over the demon. This concept itself ties back to very ancient beliefs from Babylon, Sumer, and Akkad—related cultures with a very lively demonology. Interestingly, in the biblical story, Jesus eventually drives out the demons into a herd of swine. In ancient Sumer, thousands of years before the Gospels were penned, one common method of exorcism involved transferring a possessing demon into an animal substitute—often a goat or a pig. In these rites as well, a powerful component was the demon’s true name.
I joked with Father Bob about how great it would be if there were a real version of Tobin’s Spirit Guide—the fictional book they used in the movie Ghostbusters to find the names of all the weird spirits that kept turning up in New York. And then I thought about it for a minute or two. Tobin’s Spirit Guide might be a convenient plot device used in a funny movie, but there really are books out there that list the names of spirits—demons, angels, and everything else in between. They are called grimoires, and they are books of ceremonial magick written mainly between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries in Western Europe. Although the grimoiric tradition was not exclusive to Western Europe, they became a mainstay of Western European occultism throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
I’d long been collecting grimoires, and back in 2002 I’d even started a casual list of the names contained in these sometimes infamous books. The list of names was a personal reference for my creative efforts. I collected baby-name books for the same reason—I loved learning about the origin and meanings of names. Sometimes a particularly interesting or obscure name could inspire an entire tale. The grimoires were a good source of highly unusual names with extraordinary meanings—the sort you just couldn’t find in your average baby-name book. Why not take that personal reference and expand upon it? My collection of names was already in a spreadsheet format, so it wouldn’t be too hard to separate out all the demons, then expand each of them into full entries, like a dictionary . . .
As Father Bob and I sat sipping our tea in the quiet hotel lobby, my brain starting churning. It would be a lot of work to develop something definitive from the skeletal resource I had on hand, but since I knew where to look, it was a doable project. Maybe a little insane considering the amount of work it would require, but definitely doable.
“You want names to go with your demons?” I asked after thinking about it for a while. “Give me a little time, Padre. I might have a book for you.”
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Words had power in the ancient world, and few words were viewed with more fear than those that named the forces of evil. Among many ancient peoples, the names of demons and devils were thought to act as a kind of beacon, calling those beings up from the depths whenever their names were uttered. As a result, these names were often approached with superstitious dread. Some people in the modern era are still reluctant to pronounce the name of a demon out loud. In the Europe of the Middle Ages, this fear gave rise to a number of nicknames for Satan. Called Old Nick or Old Scratch, it was a common folk belief that these nicknames of the Devil had less power to draw his influence directly into a person’s life when uttered out loud.
And yet, as far as the ancients were concerned, the names of devils and demons could do more than simply attract their attention. The names of spirits were thought also to compel them, control them, bind them, and banish them. In Jewish demonology, the many names of the night-demon Lilith were inscribed upon protective amulets because those names were thought to have power over her. Properly applied, they didn’t attract her—they could drive her away. In the Testament of Solomon, King Solomon demands the names of a series of demons so he can then put them to work building the Temple of Jerusalem. By surrendering their names, one after the other, they acknowledge Solomon’s power over them.
The Testament of Solomon and its related tradition had a tremendous impact on the European concept of demons. It helped to establish the belief that demons could be compelled and bound using the names of angels as well as magickal names of God. It presented demons as a very real—albeit largely invisible—force in the world, tormenting humanity with death, disaster, and disease. These concepts were already widely present in the demonology of other ancient cultures, from the Sumerians to the Egyptians to the Greeks, but with King Solomon in the story, the material became relevant to Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. The book also helped to promote an idea that many demons were either fallen angels or the misbegotten progeny sired by those angels once they had come to earth—a concept that tied into even older traditions present in Jewish legends and hinted at within the first few books of Genesis.
