Rank: President · Legions: 36 · Element: Fire · Direction: East · Enn: Reyen ka Amy ayer
Amy, written also Avnas, is the fifty-eighth spirit of the Ars Goetia, a Great President who governs thirty-six legions of spirits and was, before the fall, partly of the Order of Angels and partly of the Order of Powers. He appears at first in the form of a flaming fire, and after a while he puts on the shape of a man. His offices are to make one knowing in astrology and all the liberal sciences, to give good familiars, and to reveal treasure that is kept and guarded by spirits. The old texts add that he hopes to return, after twelve hundred years, to the seventh throne — a hope the compiler Mathers dismissed as not credible, but which this Vault reads more gently. The key to Amy is his first form, for he comes as pure fire, and among the seventy-two, whose shapes run to beasts and warriors and kings, the spirit who appears as a flame alone is rare and telling. Fire is light, and light is knowledge; Amy is the flame of knowledge, the burning light of learning made a spirit. He teaches the reading of the celestial fires — the stars, in his astrology — and all the liberal sciences, the whole illumination of the trained mind; and his own fallen yearning to rise again to the seventh throne is the very nature of flame, which always reaches upward toward its source. He is the light of learning that fell, and still aspires.
He is Amy in many books, and Avnas in others. He appears in Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of 1577, passed into the Ars Goetia as it was gathered into the Lemegeton in the seventeenth century, and was set into modern English by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley in their 1904 edition. The texts agree on his account: the flaming fire that becomes a man, the astrology and the liberal sciences, the good familiars, the treasure guarded by spirits, the double origin among Angels and Powers, and the disputed hope of returning to the seventh throne after twelve hundred years — the Great President of thirty-six legions.
Amy comes first as a flaming fire, and only afterward as a man, and the form is the whole of him. Fire is, in every tradition, the element of light and of knowledge — the flame that drives back the dark, the lamp of learning, the spark of genius, the illumination of the mind. To come as pure fire before taking any shape is to announce, before a word, that here is a spirit of light and of the burning intellect. And fire is more than illumination: it warms, it transforms, it purifies, it rises. All of these belong to Amy's knowledge, which lights the dark of ignorance, warms the cold of the untaught mind, transforms the one who receives it, and reaches always upward. That he wears the flame before the man is his declaration: he is the fire of the mind made visible, and the human shape he later takes is only the flame teaching in a form a person can sit with.
The heart of Amy is the union of fire and learning, and it is a union older than the grimoires. Knowledge has always been imagined as light — we speak of enlightenment, of illumination, of a bright idea and a brilliant mind, of the dawning of understanding; the flame is the oldest emblem of the lit intellect. Amy is that flame made a spirit. What he gives is not the dry accumulation of facts but the kindling of the mind, the lighting of the inner fire by which a person comes to understand — the spark that catches, the sudden brightness of a thing grasped, the steady lamp of a discipline mastered. He teaches as fire teaches: he lights the darkness of not-knowing, and once lit, the flame in the student can spread and grow of its own. To work with Amy is to have one's own inner fire of learning kindled by the pure fire of it — the flame of knowledge passed, as one lamp lights another, without diminishing.
Amy's teaching has two named parts, and both belong to his fire. He teaches astrology — the reading of the heavens, the science of the stars and planets in their courses — and there is a deep rightness in the flame teaching the stars, for the stars are the celestial fires, the lights of heaven, and the fire-spirit reads the fires of the sky as his own kindred. And he teaches all the liberal sciences besides, the whole curriculum of the illuminated mind, the full light of learning. From Amy one gains not one lit lamp but the whole bright house of knowledge: the heavens read, the sciences mastered, the mind kindled through and through. His is a comprehensive illumination, the fire spread to every corner of the trained understanding.
Amy's treasure-office is a particular one, and worth marking against the others of the book. He does not merely reveal where treasure lies, as Gremory does; he reveals treasure that is kept and guarded by spirits — the hoard under a guardian, the buried thing that another spirit watches over and keeps hidden. His is the light that finds what is concealed even under active guard, that shows what a keeper would keep dark. Read inwardly, as this Vault reads such offices, this is a striking gift: the treasure guarded by spirits becomes the worth in oneself that some inner guardian keeps buried and defended — the gift or the value walled off by fear, by an old wound, by the part of oneself that stands watch over what it will not let one claim. Amy's light reveals it past its guard, and shows the treasure that even one's own defences had hidden.
Amy also gives good familiars — faithful attendant spirits, helpful and serviceable, as several of his fellows do. In a teacher of the sciences this is a fitting gift, for the good familiar is a companion in the long labour of study, an aid and a helper to the one kindling their mind at his fire. It is a benevolent and warming note, of a piece with the friendly light of him.
The old texts record that Amy was partly of the Order of Angels and partly of the Order of Powers, and that he hopes, after twelve hundred years, to return to the seventh throne — to rise again to the height from which he fell. Mathers, in his edition, appended the dry judgement that this is "not credible," doubting the fallen spirit's redemption. This Vault reads it otherwise, and more kindly, as it has read the like hope in Marchosias, in Phenex, in Focalor. For the yearning of a fallen light to rise again to its source is the very nature of flame, which never rests but reaches always upward; and there is something both poignant and fitting in the fire-spirit who aspires to return to the heights. Whether the return is credible is not the point. The aspiration is, and it is an image the Left-Hand Path knows well — the fallen who does not despair but reaches, the light that fell and still climbs. Amy's hope is the flame's own hope, and the flame always rises.
Amy is placed in the element of Fire and the quarter of the East — Fire above all, for he is a flame before he is anything else, the burning light of learning. For the planetary correspondence this Vault reads him under the Sun, and the fit is deep. The Sun is the great celestial fire, the source of light, the lamp of the world — and Amy is a spirit of fire and of light. The Sun is Apollo, god not only of the sun but of the arts and the sciences, of music and of prophecy, the far-seeing lord of the ordered heavens whom the astrologer reads — and Amy teaches astrology and all the liberal sciences under exactly that solar light of knowledge. And the Sun is the height, the throne of the sky, toward which the fallen flame of Amy yearns to return. Where the other solar spirits of this book wore the Sun as the healer, the phoenix, the alchemist's gold, or the all-seeing oracle, Amy wears it as the flame of knowledge and the light of learning, the fire of the illuminated mind. Set his metal as gold, his day as Sunday, and his colours the white flame of his burning form and the starlit gold of the heavens he reads. These correspondences are read as symbolic rather than handed down as documented tradition; the grimoires give only his element, his form, and his offices, and the solar reading follows plainly from the fire, the light, and the learning at the heart of them.
In the old demonology Amy is a well-regarded spirit, noted for his striking form of pure flame, his teaching of astrology and the sciences, and his disputed hope of redemption. Weyer and the Ars Goetia give the same account — the flaming fire, the liberal sciences, the good familiars, the guarded treasure, the double angelic origin, the hope of the seventh throne — and Mathers's skeptical note upon that hope has drawn comment ever since, a small window onto the old debate over whether a fallen spirit might rise again. He is a President regarded with respect, valued for the light he gives.
Carried into the modern revival through the 1904 Mathers and Crowley edition, Amy is worked today chiefly as a spirit of learning and illumination — by students of astrology and the sciences, seekers of knowledge and of the kindled mind, and those drawn to the image of the aspiring fallen light. Modern practitioners prize his fire as the light of learning and his astrology as the reading of the celestial fires, read his guarded-treasure office as the uncovering of buried worth past its defences, and hold his hope of the seventh throne, as this Vault does, as the flame's own aspiration rather than a claim to be doubted. He remains a bright, warm, and illuminating President, sought for the fire of knowledge.
Amy is bright, warm, and illuminating — the flame of knowledge, the burning light of learning made a spirit. He comes as pure fire and kindles the mind, teaches the reading of the celestial fires and all the liberal sciences, reveals the treasure that even a guardian would keep dark, and aspires, as flame does, to rise again to the height from which he fell. He is a spirit of light in every sense — the light that teaches, the light that finds the hidden, the light that reaches upward. Met with a genuine hunger to learn and to be kindled, he is among the brightest and most generous of all the spirits of the Goetia, a fire that lights other fires and asks only that they burn.
The grimoires give Amy a rare and striking form: he appears first as a flaming fire -- pure flame, before any shape of beast or man -- and only after a while puts on the shape of a man. The flame is the whole of him, the emblem of light and knowledge and the burning intellect, and the human form he later takes is the fire teaching in a shape a person can sit with. Those who work with him describe a bright, warm, luminous presence, often felt as heat and light and a kindling energy, an eagerness in the mind, a sense of things becoming clear and lit; it is one of the more benevolent and warming manifestations in the book. Many remark on the quality of illumination that attends him -- not a fierce or consuming fire but the friendly flame of the lamp and the hearth, the fire that lights and warms rather than burns.
Enn: Reyen ka Amy ayer
Working with Amy is working with the flame of knowledge -- the bright, warm President who appears as pure fire and kindles the mind toward learning, teaches the reading of the stars and all the liberal sciences, reveals the treasure that even a guardian keeps dark, and aspires, as flame does, to rise. He is among the most benevolent and illuminating of the spirits, and the relationship with him is warm rather than wary. This Vault comes to him to be kindled -- to have the inner fire of learning lit and fed -- with a genuine hunger to know. What follows is a guide built around that fire.
Come to Amy with eagerness and an open mind, for he is a warm and generous spirit and answers a true hunger to learn. Cleanse yourself and the space, and set his seal at the centre of the working. A flame suits him as no other furnishing does -- a lit candle or lamp set at the working is his own element and his form made present. Where the correspondences are followed, the solar suits him: white flame and starlit gold, the metal gold, the hours of the Sun and of Sunday. Then open the way by reciting his Enn -- Reyen ka Amy ayer -- steadily, and let a bright, warm, luminous presence gather, felt first perhaps as heat and light before it takes the shape of a man.
For his central gift, come to Amy to have your mind kindled. Do not come merely for facts to be handed over; come to have the inner fire of learning lit -- the spark of genuine understanding, the eagerness that makes study a joy rather than a labour, the brightness in which a difficult thing suddenly becomes clear. Bring the subject you wish to learn and ask him to light your mind toward it, and then feed the flame he lights with your own steady work, for his fire, once kindled in you, grows by being fed. This is his deepest gift: not knowledge poured in, but the fire lit by which you come to know for yourself.
For his teaching, bring what you would study. For astrology, ask him to teach you the reading of the celestial fires -- the stars and planets and their courses -- for the fire-spirit reads the fires of heaven as his kindred. For any of the liberal sciences, bring the discipline and ask his illumination. Take what he gives as the lighting of a lamp you must then carry and tend: the beginning of a real learning, to be fed by your own study, not a finished mastery handed over.
For his particular treasure-office, come to Amy when what you seek is not merely hidden but guarded -- kept dark by a keeper, watched over, defended. Ask his light to reveal it past its guard. And consider the inward working, which is among his most valuable: name the treasure in yourself that some inner guardian keeps buried -- the gift, the worth, the possibility walled off by fear or by an old wound, watched over by the part of you that will not let you claim it -- and ask his light to reveal it past that guard, so that you may see and claim what even your own defences had hidden.
There is a subtler working with Amy, drawn from his own nature as the aspiring fallen light. As the flame always rises and Amy always hopes to return to the height, so you may ask him to kindle and tend your own aspiration -- the upward reach of the mind and the spirit toward what is higher, greater, and more luminous. To sit with his flame is to be reminded that the light in you, whatever its fall, may always reach upward. Let his fire feed not only your learning but your aspiration.
Practitioners describe Amy's presence as bright, warm, and kindling, often felt as heat and light and an eager quickening of the mind. When he has heard, his help tends to arrive as illumination -- a subject suddenly clearer and more alive, an eagerness to study where there was reluctance, a difficult thing lit and grasped, a buried worth revealed. Look for the kindling of your own fire, the sense of the mind lit and reaching. Keep a written record of what he illuminates, for his gifts grow by being tended, like a flame.
Amy asks few cautions, for he is a warm and benevolent spirit, but a few hold. Feed the fire he kindles with your own real work, for a flame unfed goes out; his gift is the kindling, and the tending is yours. Take his teaching as a lamp to carry, not a mastery handed over. Treat his light with gratitude, and let it warm and illuminate rather than consume -- do not let the eagerness he lights burn into a feverish or scattered overreach; a good flame is steady. And where his own aspiration inspires yours, let it lift you toward the true and the higher, not into a proud overreaching. He is the flame of knowledge, among the brightest and most generous of all the spirits of the Goetia, and to the seeker with a true hunger to learn and to rise, he gives the best of gifts -- a fire that lights other fires, and asks only that they burn.