Rank: Duke · Legions: 40 · Element: Air · Direction: West · Enn: Tasa alora foren Astaroth
Among the seventy-two spirits of the Ars Goetia, few carry a name as ancient or as heavy as Astaroth. He is set down as a Great Duke of Hell — the twenty-ninth spirit of the Lesser Key — yet his significance runs far beyond that modest number, for behind the demon stands a god. Astaroth is the demonised form of one of the oldest deities of the ancient world, and something of that lost divinity still moves beneath the infernal title. He is a lord of knowledge above almost all else: of the liberal sciences, of the secrets of past and future, and — most singularly — of the fall of the spirits themselves, the one subject of which he speaks willingly where other demons keep silence. To study Astaroth is to follow a thread that runs from the temples of the ancient Near East through the Christian demonologies and into the working magic of today, and to meet a spirit at once vastly learned, proud, and dangerous, who gives profound knowledge to those who approach him with respect — and with protection.
The name reaches the modern practitioner, as the others do, through the long chain of grimoires. He appears — as Astaroth, Astarot, or Ashtaroth — in Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of 1577, where he is already a great duke who speaks willingly of the creation, the fall, and the faults of the demons. Gathered into the Ars Goetia, the first book of the Lemegeton or Lesser Key of Solomon, he became the twenty-ninth spirit, a Great Duke commanding forty legions. Jacques Collin de Plancy fixed his image for the modern imagination in the Dictionnaire Infernal of 1863, whose famous engraving shows him as a fearsome figure astride a dragon-like beast; and in the Grand Grimoire and the Grimorium Verum he is elevated higher still. Across all of these the portrait holds — the dragon, the viper, the foul breath, and the boundless, dangerous knowledge — yet his story begins long before any of them, in a place the grimoires themselves only half remember.
Astaroth's name descends not from Hell but from heaven — or rather from the high temples of the ancient Near East. He is the demonised form of Astarte, called Ashtoreth in the Hebrew scriptures and kin to the Mesopotamian Ishtar and the Sumerian Inanna: among the very greatest deities of the ancient world, a goddess of love and war, of sovereignty and of the planet Venus, the bright evening and morning star. As the older faiths gave way, the gods of rival peoples were not forgotten but inverted, recast as devils to be shunned; and so a great goddess, worshipped for millennia, was hardened into a male demon and filed among the spirits of Hell. This is the deepest truth of Astaroth, and the one the casual reader most often misses: that beneath the hurtful angel of the grimoires lies one of humanity's oldest objects of reverence, and that his nature is far stranger, older, and more ambiguous than any single infernal rank can hold.
The grimoires are vivid in their account of his coming. Astaroth appears, they say, in the form of an angel — described as hurtful or foul, though some accounts allow him a terrible beauty — seated upon an infernal beast in the likeness of a dragon, and bearing in his right hand a viper or serpent. It is an image dense with old meaning: the serpent of wisdom and of the underworld, the dragon of primordial power, the fallen angel who was once something far greater. But the texts attach to this splendour a sharp warning. Astaroth's breath is foul and poisonous, and the magician is counselled to hold a magical silver ring before the face as a defence against it. The stench is more than a hazard; it is a threshold, a reminder that one is treating with a power that can harm the careless, and that knowledge of this order is never had without precaution.
Within the Goetia Astaroth holds the rank of Great Duke and commands forty legions of spirits. Yet his standing in the wider demonological literature is far greater than that figure suggests. The Grand Grimoire and the Grimorium Verum raise him to the very summit of the infernal order, naming him one of the three supreme spirits — with Lucifer and Beelzebub — who govern all of Hell, a dark trinity beneath which the lesser hierarchies are ranged. Elsewhere he is called a Grand Duke and a treasurer of Hell, and a prince of its western reaches. Whatever the system, the verdict is consistent: Astaroth is no minor spirit but one of the crowned powers, and the forty legions of the Lesser Key are the smallest measure of his weight.
Like the great teaching spirits, Astaroth makes men wonderfully knowing in all the liberal sciences — the arts and disciplines of the trained mind, philosophy and the rest. He is sought by those who would master difficult learning and by those who pursue knowledge for its own sake. But his teaching has a particular cast: where another spirit gives the arts of men, Astaroth gives understanding of the deeper architecture beneath them — the hidden mechanics of reality, the structure of the created world, the reasons things are as they are. His is a knowledge that does not merely inform but reframes, and those who study under him describe learning that unsettles as often as it satisfies.
Of all Astaroth's gifts the strangest is this: he will speak, willingly and at length, of the fall of the spirits. The old texts say he declares how the angels fell and why, and discourses freely on the creation and the faults of the demons — matters of which the other spirits are silent or evasive. For the seeker of the deepest mysteries this makes him almost unique, a witness to the founding catastrophe of the infernal world. Yet here the grimoires set their subtlest warning. Astaroth will tell the truth of how the spirits fell — but concerning his own fall he is said to deceive, claiming he was cast down unwillingly or wrongfully, never admitting his own part. The lesson is pointed and worth carrying: even the spirit who reveals the great truths will lie about himself, and the seeker must bring discernment, and a willingness to face uncomfortable truths, to everything he is told about the self and the fall.
Astaroth gives true answers of things past, present, and to come, and can discover all secrets. He is a spirit of prophecy and divination of a high order, sought for the uncovering of what is hidden, the reading of what is to be, and — in several traditions — the locating of concealed treasures. His knowledge is not the narrow foresight of a fortune-teller but the wide sight of an ancient power who has watched the ages turn; and those who bring him a genuine question, asked with respect, report answers of unusual depth, though always to be weighed with the discernment his own deceptions teach.
In the influential classification of the demonologist Sebastien Michaelis, Astaroth is ranked among the highest orders of fallen spirits and named the tempter who works through sloth, vanity, and idleness — the demon who whispers that effort is pointless and that one may rest content in one's own self-regard. There is a hidden key in this for the practitioner. A spirit who rules a vice also commands its remedy; and many who work with Astaroth do so precisely to break the grip of inertia, procrastination, and stagnation — to find the drive to act, the purpose to begin, and the steady will to see a thing through. Michaelis names his heavenly adversary as Saint Bartholomew, a detail of the old spiritual warfare that the modern operator may take or leave.
It is worth dwelling on Astaroth's exalted place, for it shapes how he is rightly approached. He is not a spirit one summons lightly between errands. In the Grand Grimoire's hierarchy he sits among the three who rule all; in de Plancy he is a Grand Duke and treasurer; in the older goddess-faith he was a sovereign deity in his own right. To treat with Astaroth is to treat with royalty several times over — divine, then demonised, then crowned again within Hell — and the respect, the protection, and the ceremony the grimoires demand are not superstition but the simple courtesy owed a power of that magnitude.
Among practitioners Astaroth is regarded with a mixture of reverence and caution found around few other spirits. He is described as intensely intelligent, proud, ancient, and exacting — willing to share profound knowledge, but only with those who approach correctly, and known to harm the careless or disrespectful. The warnings attached to his name, unlike those of the gentler dukes, are real: the foul breath, the protective ring, the demand for proper protocol. Yet the tradition is equally clear that what he offers is worth the care — a depth of knowledge, a candour about the great mysteries, and an ancient, almost oracular wisdom that the safer spirits cannot match. He is the duke for the serious seeker, not the dabbler.
Astaroth re-entered living practice with the occult revival at the turn of the twentieth century, when the Goetia was edited and printed anew — most famously in the 1904 edition of Mathers and Crowley — and passed into the hands of working magicians. From the demonolatry currents of recent decades he received the spoken Enn by which he is now most often called: Tasa alora foren Astaroth, a chant in the old tongue used to attune the practitioner to his presence. In the same modern revival a second movement has gathered around him: the conscious reclamation of the goddess beneath the demon. Many contemporary practitioners, mindful of his origin in Astarte and Ishtar, approach Astaroth as a returned divinity rather than a mere devil — a spirit of the divine feminine, of Venus, of love, sovereignty, and ancient wisdom — and find in him a presence quite unlike the hurtful angel of the medieval page. Both currents are genuine; Astaroth has always been more than one thing.
In the living practice of magic Astaroth is sought by those who want knowledge at its deepest: the hidden mechanics of reality, the truths of past and future, the great questions of creation and the fall, and the kind of self-knowledge that only an unflinching mirror provides. He is sought, too, by those wrestling with inertia and stagnation who would turn his rulership of sloth to their advantage; by diviners and seekers of secrets; and, increasingly, by those drawn to the goddess-current that runs beneath his name. He is not a spirit for the casual or the timid. Those who treat with him faithfully — with respect, protection, and a real hunger for truth — describe a teacher of extraordinary depth, ancient and proud, who gives what few others can.
If a single thread runs through every account of Astaroth, it is depth — of age, of knowledge, and of ambiguity. He is ancient beyond the other dukes, proud, exacting, and not to be trifled with; he can harm the careless and deceive the credulous, and he demands protection and protocol as his due. Yet to those who meet him rightly he is among the most rewarding of all the spirits, a keeper of the oldest mysteries and the great truths, and — for those who sense it — a god remembered. What he asks is respect, caution, and an honest and serious desire to know; what he gives is knowledge that reshapes the one who receives it. To walk with Astaroth is to stand at the meeting-place of the temple and the abyss, and to be changed by what is learned there.
Astaroth is described throughout the grimoire tradition as an angel — most often called hurtful or foul, though some accounts grant him a terrible and unsettling beauty — seated upon an infernal beast in the likeness of a dragon, and holding in his right hand a viper or serpent. De Plancy's famous nineteenth-century engraving fixed this image for the modern eye: a crowned and winged figure astride the dragon, serpent in hand, at once regal and monstrous. The texts add a crucial and unusual detail: his breath is foul and poisonous, and the magician is advised to hold a magical silver ring before the face as a defence against it — a protection distinctive enough that it has become one of the signatures of his evocation. Practitioners who reach him in vision or meditation describe a presence of great age and weight — ancient, proud, and intensely intelligent, sometimes serpentine, sometimes regal, and not infrequently bearing a feminine or dual quality that recalls the goddess beneath the name. Some perceive the winged figure and the dragon directly; others feel only an immense, watchful intelligence, a sense of deep time, or the cool presence of something far older than the working at hand. There is often an impression of being weighed and tested, and of a knowledge held just out of reach until respect has been shown. The signs associated with his presence and favour are accordingly strange and deep: a sudden surfacing of knowledge or truth, sometimes unwelcome; the scent of incense, earth, or something faintly rank at the edge of awareness; dreams of serpents, stars, ancient places, or the fall; a breaking of long inertia and a return of drive and purpose; and the sense that a long-hidden thing has been brought, at last, into the light. Across these accounts the common thread is gravity. Astaroth manifests as a power of immense antiquity and intelligence, and those who meet him with the respect and protection he demands tend to come away not merely informed but altered — carrying knowledge they did not have before, and a sense of having looked into something very old.
Enn: Tasa alora foren Astaroth
Working with Astaroth is unlike working with the gentler spirits, and the difference begins with respect and protection. He is an ancient and exalted power — a demonised god, a crowned prince of Hell — and the grimoires are unanimous that he can harm the careless and deceive the credulous. He is not cruel to those who approach him rightly; on the contrary, he gives profound knowledge to the serious and the well-prepared. But he demands protocol, he demands protection, and above all he demands honesty, for his domain is truth and the fall, and one cannot deal in those while lying to oneself. What follows is a guide to that relationship — how to protect yourself, how to approach him, and how to work with him in his great domains of knowledge, truth, and transformation.
Begin with the protection the tradition insists upon. The old texts warn of Astaroth's foul and poisonous breath and counsel the magician to hold a magical ring — classically of silver — before the face as a defence against it. Whether taken literally or as a symbol, the instruction carries a real meaning: one does not stand unguarded before a power of this magnitude. Prepare a protective token, a cleansed and warded space, and a settled, grounded mind before you call him. This is not fear — Astaroth does not reward cowardice — but the simple readiness of one who knows the weight of what they are summoning, and means to meet it on steady footing.
Make a clean, ordered, and well-protected space, and set his seal at the centre of it as the focus of the work, with your protective token to hand. Where tradition is followed, face the West. Prepare yourself as carefully as the room: ground and settle the mind, and — this is essential with Astaroth — come honest. He is a spirit of truth and of the fall, and he tests the self-deceptions one brings to him; arrive willing to hear what you might rather not, and clear about the genuine question you mean to ask. A serious, truthful, and well-defended approach is the whole foundation of working with him.
When the space is ready and your protection is in place, light the candle, fix your gaze upon his seal until it holds your attention, and recite his Enn — Tasa alora foren Astaroth — slowly and steadily, letting it settle the room and draw his presence near. Greet him with the respect owed an ancient and crowned power, by his title of Great Duke, and — if it is true for you — with acknowledgement of the older divinity beneath the name. State your purpose clearly and truthfully. Then hold your composure and attend, remembering both his depth and his danger.
Astaroth is sought first for knowledge, and his is of a deep and structural kind. Bring him a real subject — a science, an art, a difficult body of learning, or a great question about the nature of things — and ask not merely to be informed but to understand, to see the hidden architecture beneath the surface. He makes the diligent wonderfully knowing in the liberal sciences, but his teaching reframes as much as it fills; be ready for understanding that unsettles, and pair his aid with genuine study, for he opens depths but does not spare you the work of descending into them.
For prophecy and the uncovering of secrets, approach him with a clear and honest question. Astaroth gives true answers of things past, present, and to come and can discover what is hidden, and he is among the great divinatory powers of the Goetia. Ask plainly, attend to what surfaces — in thought, image, dream, or the turning of outward events — and record it. But weigh what he gives with discernment: a spirit who deceives about his own fall teaches, by that very deception, that even true oracles must be received with a clear and critical mind, especially on the matters nearest to oneself.
Here is Astaroth's rarest gift, and his most demanding. He speaks willingly of the fall of the spirits — how and why they fell — and in doing so opens a mirror onto the great questions of origin, guilt, exile, and return. Many work with him for exactly this: to confront their own past, their own falls and faults, the buried and the disowned; to do the deep shadow-work of self-knowledge; and to come, through it, to a hard-won self-acceptance. Approach this work with courage and with honesty, and remember his warning in your own bones: as he conceals the truth of his own fall, so the self will always tempt you to flatter and excuse it. The whole value of the work lies in refusing that temptation.
Because the old demonologists named Astaroth the ruler of sloth, he is also, in the practitioner's hands, a breaker of it. Bring him your stagnation — the project unbegun, the will gone slack, the long inertia that vanity and idleness dress up as rest — and ask for the drive to act and the purpose to begin. A spirit who commands a vice can lift its weight; many who work with Astaroth in this way describe a return of momentum and a clarity about what is worth doing. As with all his gifts, the petition must be matched by your own movement: he supplies the spark, but you must do the rising.
For those who feel it, there is a current in Astaroth older than the grimoires. Mindful of his origin in Astarte and Ishtar, many modern practitioners approach him as a returned divinity — a spirit of the divine feminine, of Venus, of love, sovereignty, and ancient wisdom — rather than as the hurtful angel of the medieval page. Worked in this way he is met with reverence rather than mere caution, honoured with the offerings and symbols of the goddess, and sought for matters of love, self-sovereignty, and the reclaiming of a buried power. Not every practitioner walks this path, and it should not be forced; but it is no invention, and for those drawn to it the goddess answers as surely as the duke.
Astaroth's presence is felt as antiquity and intelligence — a vast, watchful, proud awareness, sometimes serpentine, sometimes regal, sometimes unmistakably feminine. Watch, in the working and the days that follow, for the signs of his answer: a sudden surfacing of knowledge or truth, now and then unwelcome; the scent of incense or something faintly rank at the edge of awareness; dreams of serpents, stars, ancient places, or the fall; a long inertia breaking and drive returning; a hidden matter coming undeniably to light. His way is deep and weighty rather than quick and bright, and the sense of having been changed — of knowing something true that you did not know before — is itself among the surest signs that the duke has heard.
With Astaroth the cautions are not formalities. Keep your protection in place and your space well-guarded; the grimoires warn of real harm to the careless, and the warning is to be honoured. Come honest, for he deals in truth and will expose the self-deceiver. Weigh his answers with discernment, especially concerning yourself, remembering that he conceals the truth of his own fall. Do not summon him idly, lightly, or to show off; he is a crowned and ancient power, not an entertainment. Never attempt to coerce him, and take full responsibility for the knowledge you gain, for some of it cannot be un-known. Approached with respect, protection, honesty, and a serious purpose, Astaroth is among the most profound allies in the whole tradition — but every one of those conditions is the price of his teaching, and none of them is optional.