Summoning Demons

[skinny]

Do not trifle with Lamashtu.

 

[AmStramGram]

Magic in the Middle Ages by Richard Kieckhefer covers this too.

It's a very pleasant read indeed. Comprehensive and well written. Just finished it (3rd edition).

It's a pity the author doesn't develop in more depth the numerous topics covered in this general introduction about medieval magic, but I guess it would have taken thousands of pages to cover everything. The book probably lacks some developments about the long term survival of some "pagan / folkloric" magic practices (see the works of Carlo Ginzburg for more on this topic), which could have shed a somewhat different yet complementary light on the late medieval witch trials. Apart from a few mentions of the early british leech doctors, this book is more about clerical magic, and the clerical / elite perspective. But I understand the Western sources are heavily biased towards elite practices, so it's not really surprising.

Kieckhefer's "Forbidden Rites" also looks very interesting. Unfortunately, it is hard to find in my neighbourhood.

 

[AmStramGram]

I finally found a copy of Kieckhefer's "Forbidden Rites" and started reading it. Basically, it's a commented edition of a 15th century nigromancy (demonic magic) manual from central Europe (Munich).

It makes me wonder wether those who wrote these conjuration books seriously believed in their own tales, or if they simply wrote in order to please their audience and gain a better social standing (strange as it may seem in times when you could end in jail or worse for acquaintances with sorcery or heresy).

Many conjurations have futile purposes, such as organizing a fictive banquet where food does not relieve hunger, or creating a fake castle filled with fake (demonic) knights in order to simulate a fantasy siege. The common feature of these tricks is that they are aimed at a courtly audience. It's as if the purpose of the Munich manual was to seduce some powerful lord in order to become his personal magus.

There are strong folkloric overtones within the various conjuring tricks. For instance, when one conjures demons to set a fake banquet, he starts by classical drawing a magic circle on the ground. When the demons appear, clad as noble knights, they almost immediately invite the conjurer to taste their food, which he should take care not to accept. This pattern reminds me of various pieces of celtic folklore where eating food from the otherworld condemns one to never come back to the normal world. Then, the demons are said to start feasting, dancing and playing music. And again, the Munich manual warns the conjurer to refuse their invitation to join their dances. This also looks like a piece of traditional folklore : never leave a magic circle during a conjuration, never join the fairies in their dances ...

So, was the author of the book purposedly using folkloric tropes in order to please his audience, or did these folkloric stereotypes, still prevalent today, come from "nigromantic" sources ? I don't know, but I suspect the first option to be closer to truth. It would fit with the general purpose of gaining "social standing" at the court of some gullible noble.

In any case, I can't figure out how a rational person could find all this hassle and theoretical dangers worthwile. To me, it looks like a medieval hoax (or scam).

In one of the conjurations, the author explicitely says that at one point, you have to leave your clothes to the invoked demons, who will take them, and come to collect them back exactly one day later. If you fail to do so, or if you come too late, you'll die within a week. Where did he get this information ? Did he fail once to take back his clothes ? If that is so, how come he lived long enough to write his book ? It's obviously a tall tale from beginning to end. Not that I expected to find any profound esoteric knowledge in such a book, but to me this illustrates that the original author of the conjurations probably did not believe his own writings (or if he did, he was highly deluded).

The book is well worth a read though as an in depth case study in late medieval magic. Kieckhefer's commentary does make clear the expected profile of these medieval conjurers as coming from the clerical world. Their conjurations were imagined as distorted clerical rituals, and were quite similar to exorcisms. So the boundary between "straight" rituals and nigromancy was originally rather thin, and it was probably tempting for small underpriviledge clercs to profit from their ritual skills in an unusual way. Interesting.

 

[Frideswide]

@AmStramGram is it a real physical book? or online?

 

[AmStramGram]

It's a physical book. It can be purchased from the website of the publisher (there's a whole collection devoted to magic in the Middle Ages) or on Amazon.

Penn State University : https://www.psupress.org/books/series/book_SeriesMagic.html
Amazon : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forbidden-Rites-Necromancers-Fifteenth-Century/dp/0271017511

 

[Frideswide]

Just
Fabulous

You do realise that you are not helping either my book budget OR the effort to clear shelves post retirement?

Bad @AmStramGram !

 

[uair01]

I finally found a copy of Kieckhefer's "Forbidden Rites" and started reading it. Basically, it's a commented edition of a 15th century nigromancy (demonic magic) manual from central Europe (Munich).

It makes me wonder wether those who wrote these conjuration books seriously believed in their own tales, or if they simply wrote in order to please their audience and gain a better social standing (strange as it may seem in times when you could end in jail or worse for acquaintances with sorcery or heresy).

Many conjurations have futile purposes, such as organizing a fictive banquet where food does not relieve hunger, or creating a fake castle filled with fake (demonic) knights in order to simulate a fantasy siege. The common feature of these tricks is that they are aimed at a courtly audience. It's as if the purpose of the Munich manual was to seduce some powerful lord in order to become his personal magus.

There are strong folkloric overtones within the various conjuring tricks. For instance, when one conjures demons to set a fake banquet, he starts by classical drawing a magic circle on the ground. When the demons appear, clad as noble knights, they almost immediately invite the conjurer to taste their food, which he should take care not to accept. This pattern reminds me of various pieces of celtic folklore where eating food from the otherworld condemns one to never come back to the normal world. Then, the demons are said to start feasting, dancing and playing music. And again, the Munich manual warns the conjurer to refuse their invitation to join their dances. This also looks like a piece of traditional folklore : never leave a magic circle during a conjuration, never join the fairies in their dances ...

So, was the author of the book purposedly using folkloric tropes in order to please his audience, or did these folkloric stereotypes, still prevalent today, come from "nigromantic" sources ? I don't know, but I suspect the first option to be closer to truth. It would fit with the general purpose of gaining "social standing" at the court of some gullible noble.

In any case, I can't figure out how a rational person could find all this hassle and theoretical dangers worthwile. To me, it looks like a medieval hoax (or scam).

In one of the conjurations, the author explicitely says that at one point, you have to leave your clothes to the invoked demons, who will take them, and come to collect them back exactly one day later. If you fail to do so, or if you come too late, you'll die within a week. Where did he get this information ? Did he fail once to take back his clothes ? If that is so, how come he lived long enough to write his book ? It's obviously a tall tale from beginning to end. Not that I expected to find any profound esoteric knowledge in such a book, but to me this illustrates that the original author of the conjurations probably did not believe his own writings (or if he did, he was highly deluded).

The book is well worth a read though as an in depth case study in late medieval magic. Kieckhefer's commentary does make clear the expected profile of these medieval conjurers as coming from the clerical world. Their conjurations were imagined as distorted clerical rituals, and were quite similar to exorcisms. So the boundary between "straight" rituals and nigromancy was originally rather thin, and it was probably tempting for small underpriviledge clercs to profit from their ritual skills in an unusual way. Interesting.

I once contacted an academic grimoire researcher with this same question. I got no real answer. And I felt criticized for asking such a question at all. Not because it was taboo, but more like no serious researcher would ask something like that ....

Well ... now you've triggered me and I'll ask the AI ...

Belief in the Effectiveness of Rituals: Scholars generally agree that many practitioners of magic in the medieval period genuinely believed in the power of their rituals, including the summoning of daemons. This belief was deeply embedded in the worldview of the time, which did not draw sharp distinctions between the natural and supernatural realms the way modern Western thought does. The practice of magic was often seen as a form of knowledge or a technology that could manipulate hidden forces of the world.

The Role of Intention and Interpretation: When rituals did not produce the expected visible results, such as the physical appearance of a daemon, practitioners might not have necessarily seen this as a failure. Academic interpretations suggest that the success of a ritual could be understood in various ways, including internal experiences, symbolic outcomes, or changes in the world that could be attributed to the ritual indirectly. The intention of the practitioner and the interpretive frameworks available to them played significant roles in how outcomes were perceived.

Adaptive Practices: Researchers point out that magical practices were adaptive. If a ritual did not produce the desired outcome, it might be modified, repeated with more precision, or accompanied by additional rituals to enhance its effectiveness. The complex nature of medieval magic meant that failure could often be attributed to a lack of proper preparation, incorrect timing, or the practitioner's spiritual purity, rather than the ineffectiveness of magic itself.

Skepticism and Rationalizations: There was also a spectrum of belief within medieval society. Some practitioners and observers were skeptical of certain magical practices or offered naturalistic explanations for the phenomena associated with magic. Skepticism and belief coexisted, and reactions to the apparent failure of magic could range from rationalization (e.g., attributing failure to minor errors in ritual performance) to doubts about specific practices or the practitioner's abilities.

 

[Erinaceus]

Just
Fabulous

You do realise that you are not helping either my book budget OR the effort to clear shelves post retirement?

Bad @AmStramGram !

One of the Amazon reviews -

Loved the booked taught me amazing things!... Accidentally resurrected my dead nan though which she wasn't really happy about so 4 stars

 

[packshaud]

Summoning demons, huh. I just found this thread, while I read it I'm leaving this text here:
https://www.ecosophia.net/notes-on-the-lemurian-deviation/
Summary: occultist writes an over 3000 words blog post on how when Sundaland was dry land, magicians there linked humanity with demons for the lifetime of the species. This affair is dimly remembered as legends about "The Fall".