#goetia

Drew some sketches based on this idea of him being in Kirby's Dream Land 3 some months ago.

Photo by Travis Stone

What’s in a name? Or, in the case of DC-based Goetia, what’s in a subgenre identifier? If one is to believe promo chatter and Bandcamp tags, Goetia is a straight-up death metal band. All the semiotics check out: the band’s name is also (and primarily) the title of a section of an ancient grimoire, taxonomizing the 72 demons King Solomon is alleged to have harnessed to build the Temple of Jerusalem (that’s the “Ars Goetia” of the Clavicula Salomonis Regis, if you must know…). Song titles are almost comically on the nose: the title track, “Lanterns of the Dead,” “Bestial Tomb” and so on. The music? It casts a different sort of spell.

The majority of the magic I do involves me sitting in a cemetery late at night conjuring the dead, talking with the land, and putting demons to work for me. This has been my practice for the majority of my adult life. The exception being a few moments of reprieve in between where I petition angels and/or saints. Frequently just to be outright rejected. Such was the case with Saint Expedite, where in the middle of a conjuration of him he didn't come, so upon my 3rd call to him the picture I had of him hanging over my altar came falling to the floor and shattered. Breaking only in the area around his face. He clearly didn't like being called by a dirty necromancer and made this known. I even called upon some of my infernal allies for clarity, and was told that many elevated dead (saints) and angels dislike the smell of necromancers, as we tend to reek of the forgotten dead. I was advised strongly by spirit to not directly call on any angels and find infernal powers until I properly cleansed myself.

Well here we are 8 years later, still a necromancer but a wiser one. Scent has become a bigger focus in my practice, especially as I've come to see that other magicians strongly utilize spirit's scenes of smell in magic as well as in other grimoiric texts. Even still I wasn't getting the best results. Angels now come in when called, especially if the smell in a room is proper for their domain, but this manifestation was unclear and not tangible.

Now in my return to angelic magic I've come to find a balance. While spirits still tell me I reek of necromancy, it's more so about the stench i carry and not about my ritual space. I've done a very good job of keeping my necromantic spirits away from the altar I've been using for angelic conjurations, even using 2 different rooms in my home for their ritual work. This distance between the heavenly and infernal was helpful for allowing my growth in the occult, yet in the moment i never realized the magnitude of this move. This move has allowed me to engage with spirits in a whole new way, and I'm so grateful for it. As I'm now able to commune with the angelic realm without resistance.