Goetic experience is actually quite common, but the experience or contact is so subtle, so easy to miss, that few are recorded let alone recognised. I have helped a number of aspirants to work with the Goetia.
During the writing of this essay I had not one but two visions, both very similar in content, and both centring on the 72nd Spirit Andromalius. Andromalius is not a spirit I had contact with before. Early in the first vision the seed of a question naturally formed in my mind:
“I am writing this essay…”
“We know…” They chuckled.
“Do you want me to write about it?” More laughter.
I was not alone during both visions, the visions happened at different times, people (who were unaware of what I was seeing), and places. Andromalius was with me on the half hour walk to the next meeting through Brighton shopping centre packed with Christmas shoppers, and my mind was taken to aspects of cosmology the Goetia wanted me to comprehend.
15th November 2007 – First Vision of Andromalius
I was chanting the Divine Names of God, and I ‘saw’ that a colleague needed healing. I focussed on him, and he was surrounded by snakes emanating from his feet. The vision intensified, as did the number of the snakes. Were they Nagas? My mind came to consider the Goetia, and the vision changed subtly and then transformed. The snakes morphed together, and began to separate from my friend, as they did so I perceived the figure of a man; ‘Andromalius’ came to mind. I had never had dealings with him before, but I vaguely remembered he associated with a serpent. I only had the vision for confirmation – I was miles from my books or the internet.
The chanting intensified. As I acknowledged his right to be there, I noticed all the other seventy-one spirits appearing outside the Circle, and yet they were also inside the Circle. The spirits formed equidistant around their own circle, and the circle began to rotate anti-clockwise. Their circle rotated within and beyond my circle, and it was as if they were also generating a translucent sphere that shimmered with its own light. As I pondered, and continued to chant, I noticed that the circle (was it one or two circles? I could not distinguish, yet I understood the nature of it) was around me, and it was immediately within my heart.
The spheres were generated by the balanced energies of the seventy-two Spirits stationed on the equator; the spheres continued to spin anti-clockwise. As I gazed, a larger spirit at the centre in a dark brown robe with a white turban appeared. He was an Ifrit, more powerful than the Jinn, known to us as Goetia.
I was given more insights into the work of the Jinn, and the powerful Ifrit, as the energy from the spinning sphere increased. As the prayers were recited, their work done, the Spirits gradually faded away.
Andromalius’s Office is
To bring back both a Thief, and the Goods which be stolen; and to discover all Wickedness, and Underhand Dealing; and to punish all Thieves and other Wicked People and also to discover Treasures that be Hid.
Goetia – S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1904)
The powers of Andromalius perfectly summed up the situation of my friend. He returned the next day, looking calmer, in control, and already he was working hard to recover things that he had lost.
In so many ways the Vision and the Workings encapsulate my approach to the Goetia. The vision of the seventy-two spirits on the circumference of the circle in perfect balance, confirming (as if I needed it), their relationship to the quinances of Astrology. The Goetia arrived in response to my need for a healing solution. They did not appear immediately, but as a result of my discovering the snakes as the problem. They responded to the chanting of the Divine Names – it was as if the Divine Names provided the energy and space to contain the work, but let it not be said that the Spirits were in any way confined. They were there because they chose to be there, and they chose to be seen which confirmed their equal status between themselves. Clearly for greatest effect, all the Goetia should be present, with the focus on the Spirit who is doing the Working. Note that I did not ‘call’ or invoke or evoke any spirit. Indeed, I believe it was the power of the Divine Names that empowered my query or quest to help my colleague. It was the Goetia themselves who presented Andromalius to be the agent of change, and it may be that he was also released from some nefarious duty as a result of the Working.
Vision of the Ifrit
For me, the most fascinating aspect of the entire Working is the appearance of the Ifrit at the centre of the spirits and the circle. In Islamic mythology, the Ifrit is an infernal class of beings whose lives are structured. This jars with my description above, where the Goetia are seen equally on the circumference of the Circle, but I think the West has conflated the Jinn with the Ifrit. The only infernal aspect of the vision was at the beginning, when I was trying to release the serpents from my colleague. The chanting of the Divine Names automatically creates a sacred space, and it was within that space that the Goetia appeared to help me and my colleague.
The ability to conduct such an operation takes many years. For me, it was nearly twenty-five years, and it started when I had lost my belief in any kind of spirit, or ghost. While the West focuses on the need to perform the Abra-melin and Goetic rituals perfectly, I was taken on a journey where I was helped by a living Master who had worked with Spirits all his life. He saw my potential at a time when all I wanted was to meditate and simply live a spiritual life. So, to understand my journey, we have to go back to the beginning.
Unlike ‘normal’ magickal and spiritual journeys, the aspirant is aware of what is to come, what is to be expected, and he is conversant with the technical terms. The roadmap is familiar – after all others have been down that path before, so the books tell us. By contrast, I never knew the roadmap, and I had no idea of the milestones to come, or even when I was coming close to them. I never knew the tests that I had to face, or when the tests were taking place, and I have to presume I passed those tests satisfactorily. I may well have had to do many retakes, but I cannot tell you what they were, or when it happened, primarily because I rarely faced the same situation twice, and if I did, I had to do things differently. I am talking in riddles, but for many years my life was an enigma living the shadow of the Enigma that is my teacher, and the Enigmas that were the Spirits. There are many strictures surrounding working with the Goetia. The fear in the face of experienced magicians when I have broached the subject! In the course of my Goetic Journey I became aware of those strictures, so when the Goetia did appear, it was hard for me to confirm my experiences. The Western Occult method was the only approach Goetically speaking. A further complication is that my journey was done mostly in silence. There is the Silence of the Way, the silence of my teacher in response to my desperate questions to find some comprehension of what is going on, and the silence I had to work under, knowing that there was nobody else to turn to.