The Objective Existence of Demons: Against Skepticism in Magick

In one of his older Youtube videos, E.A. Koetting recounted the time he summoned Azazel to ask him whether or not he objectively exists. Azazel answered by saying that when Koetting evokes Azazel, he causes Azazel to exist, and that when Azazel answers Koetting, he causes Koetting to exist. If you boil this answer down to its simplest interpretation, Azazel said that he is just as real as Koetting.

Due to the things I have experienced and had related to me in my correspondence and collaboration with fellow magickians, I have come to reject the suppositions that (i) the existence of demons is subjective and (ii) the demons are parts of the operator’s mind or consciousness, and for the sake of the argument I am going to make, let’s assume I am wrong in doing so.

Whenever I write an article on a demon, I recount observations made by several modern authors. The authors whose texts I refer to include S. Conolly, John R. King IV, Michael W. Ford, the 218 Current, Asha’Shedim, T.B. Scott, the Joy of Satan Ministries, Rufus Opus, J. Thorp, E.A. Koetting, Cort Williams, T.J. Dawson, S. Aldarnay, Asenath Mason, Linda Falorio, Daemon Barzai, Kuriakos, and a handful of Demonolatry blogs.

These sources range widely in their usefulness, and they exhibit a clear pattern in doing so. Of the many black magickal weltanschauungen which my sources are divided amongst, the practitioners of Demonolatry, Khaos-Gnosticism, and Spiritual Satanism consistently provide the best insights into demons.

It is not a coincidence that the best promulgators of modern Demonography adopt the most spiritual viewpoints and approaches to demons, nor is it coincidental that skeptical authors, who reject the objective real-ness of demons, fall consistently short in comparison to their more religious contemporaries.

The argument I am trying to make, in hypothetically conceding the real-ness of demons, is that the approach which treats demons as objectively and autonomously extant creatures, is the most effective manner of relating to demons, even if they do not actually exist.

If demons are not demons in truth but are really parts of mind, and if the existence of demons is truly subjective, then they are, to an extent, imaginary. I do not state that skeptical magickians are entertaining the act of imagination to insult them, but rather to make a proposition.

If you are willing to entertain, to an extent, imagination, then I would propose that you commit to it. If you doubt the existence of demons yet call upon them nonetheless, leave your doubt behind and imagine that their existence is objective, because even if you are contacting hidden parts of the mind, the spiritual approach to doing so is very clearly best.

“The magician should treat the entities he calls upon as friends and companions, for even an ‘impersonal’ device will respond better to a conscientious and respectful user.” –The Satanic Rituals by Anton LaVey (1972)

-V.K. Jehannum
Agios Octinomos-Drakosophia

One thought on “The Objective Existence of Demons: Against Skepticism in Magick

  1. The last point is key. There is a book by Lon Milo DuQuette entitled “It’s all in your head.. You just have no idea how big your head is” where he suggests something similar.
    In the long run the level of reality you attribute to dæmons matters to no one (especially the dæmons) . If treating them as discrete entities enables you to accomplish what you set out to do (whether it is to win friends, gain gnosis or vanquish enemies) than whether or not they are really real is irrelevant.
    My own opinion, for what its worth is that they have both a subjective and an objective reality. Within us we contain every energy and entity that there is and if we are truly a microcosm, then this is also true of the macrocosm. Magic becomes effective when the particular force we evoke or invoke microcosmically connects to its prime macrocosmic self.

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