Zozo...

[Spudrick68]

...I've been reading around about the ouija board recently and during my Googling found out about a forthcoming film called "I Am Zozo". There are questions dating back a couple of years asking if this Zozo demon is real. I know that a previous film exists called Zozo. There is also a clip on You Tube. Can viral marketing start such a long time ago for something like this? I assume that the name is made up, but may become urban myth in the future. Any ideas?

 

[Moooksta]

I've read about Zozo as well. The earliest mention of him I found, which predates the internet was in the early 80's, it still shows up in Google - though really proves nothing as I could claim I encountered Zozo on a Ouija board back in the 1930's. Prove me wrong.

Viral marketing is a pretty new technique, Harvard coming up with the term in the mid nineties.

There's no way of knowing if new "fake" videos out there are being hoisted up to promote the new film or the previous entry, claiming to be encounters with Zozo from years ago but actually filmed yesterday. I've never read anything where an encounter resulted in a anything but a bit of a scare though I'm sure the film makers will milk it for all it's worth and we'll end up with Paranormal Activity / Exorcist / Omen action.

Certainly it's clever free marketing for your product if you tack it onto an existing legend with a well illustrated back story thus saving on your marketing budget.

 

[Cochise]

Were not the runes on Led Zep 4 supposed to spell the demon Zoso ?

 

[Moooksta]

Were not the runes on Led Zep 4 supposed to spell the demon Zoso ?

That's interesting. Given he's contacted by a glass moving over letters of the alphabet, did the demon change the spelling of his name is later years or was it misinterpreted by folks using Ouija boards, influenced by the Zep album, spelling it wrong?

 

[GNC]

Any relation to Pazuzu from The Exorcist?

 

[Cochise]

I went and looked it up :shock: cos my memory ain't what it used to be.

According to a Led Zep bio by Mick Wall, it's not the four symbols that spell Zoso, its the leftmost one that is supposed to read Zoso. According to the same book the first mention of Zoso is in 1557 in a book called Ars Maguica Artefacti by J. Cardan. The symbol of the demon Zoso stands (again, 'allegedly') for invocation, sexual energy, and immortality. We are talking 'magick' here so the symbol has power by itself quite apart from any actual manifestation of the demon.

Anyone wanting to know more is better off investigating Aleister Crowley and related materials because to me its a load of balloons

But I bet there is a practical connection between the two, because its not uncommon for people in the creative arts to get inspiration from Crowley. Certainly Jimmy Page of Zep did and it is the symbol he chose for the album - each group member picked one of them.

 

[Spudrick68]

Thanks for that Cosishe. I'd wondered whether there was some occult tome somewhere where this name has been mentioned. Your quote about reading about Crowley being a load of balloons made me laugh 'cos I'm included to agree.

 

[Moooksta]

The symbol of the demon Zoso stands (again, 'allegedly') for invocation, sexual energy, and immortality. We are talking 'magick' here so the symbol has power by itself quite apart from any actual manifestation of the demon.

But they're two different things.

"Zoso" is the "magick" symbol and "Zozo" is the name of a demon spelled by a glass physically moving twice to the letter "Z" on a Ouija board, not to the letter "Z" and then "S". "Zozo" has many variations apparently but "Zoso" isn't named.

Or am I being a bozo and in "magick", Zoso and Zozo can be the same thing? Oh no !

According to the "I am Zozo" website, though it doesn't name it's origin, the earliest mention of "Zozo" the demon was "as early as 1816 in an account of a possession involving a young girl".

Any relation to Pazuzu from The Exorcist?

Spot on gncxx, well according to This Google Translation page

Source: Manuel A. MALET - 1906 - The ancient Eastern Greece

This Assyrian-Chaldean god scary ... is the one that appears at the beginning of the famous film THE EXORCIST ! ... Pazuzu is the name (there are diminutives and variations), it appears under the name "Zozo" in a book of the nineteenth century ... INFERNAL DICTIONARY!

Seems there's a lot of people out there tampering with Ouija boards and they're encountering Zozo.

 

[papillon]

I'm only playing devil's advocate* here, but since demons and the like are supposed to be quite old, and predate the latin alphabet, I'd assume it's usually safe to say that when discussing such matters, when two things sounds very similat and serve a similar purpose, they could actually be the same thing transliterated differently.

I'm making no statement as to the legitimacy of this theory or the existence of demons either way in this post.

*tee hee, pun

 

[Xanatic_]

I´m not sure if I would say viral marketing is a new thing. P T Barnum would get fake newspaper stories running, before exhibiting some of his new freaks/artifacts.

 

[Cochise]

I'm no Magick expert, but I understand the demon and the symbol to be related, that is the symbol has power without summoning the demon, but it has the power because it represents the demon.

I would think it highly likely that Zoso and Zozo are the same demon. Why would a demon even use the Western alphabet? (Except obviously when scaring Ouija board users on his day off.) Why am I trying to work out what a demon would do? Where am I?

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Western brains use the Western alphabet and the Western imagination comes pre-loaded with all sorts of bizarre goodies, thanks to the modern media. Never underestimate the power of the imagination in search of a narrative.

Who puts a name to demons, anyway?

A rose by another name would smell as sweet.

 

[_Lizard23_]

The foul-language-spewing angry ouija board troll of my teenage experience was called 'Jojo'.

 

[Cochise]

But, PM, how do you know its a Western _demon_? Even the Chinese have them

I should make it clear I was just trying to look up some souces that might be relevant for the original posters - even if there are malevolent supernatural entities out there I don't believe AC and his ilk have any special knowledge about them. But of course there are those, such as Jimmy Page, who do. (or he did at some point in his life, if his biographer is to be believed).

 

[LordRsmacker]

But I bet there is a practical connection between the two, because its not uncommon for people in the creative arts to get inspiration from Crowley. Certainly Jimmy Page of Zep did and it is the symbol he chose for the album - each group member picked one of them.

He even bought Crowley's old house on Loch Ness.

I think the most common link between AC and "people in the creative arts" is likely to be their consumption and love of narcotics,