Rank: King · Legions: 40 · Element: Fire · Direction: East · Enn: Lirach tasa vefa wehlc Balam
Balam, written also Balaam and Balan, is the fifty-first spirit of the Ars Goetia, a King the grimoire calls terrible, great, and powerful, who governs forty legions of spirits. He appears with three heads — the first like a bull, the second like a man, the third like a ram — with the tail of a serpent and flaming eyes, riding upon a furious bear and carrying a goshawk upon his fist, and he speaks with a hoarse voice. His offices are three: he gives true answers of things past, present, and to come; he makes men go invisible; and he makes them witty. The key to him is written in his name, for Balam is Balaam, and Balaam is one of the most famous seers in all of scripture — the prophet of the Book of Numbers who was hired by a king to curse the people of Israel, and who found, each time he opened his mouth to curse, that the words came out as blessing instead, for the truth was not his to bend. That is the whole meaning of Balam. He is the true seer, the diviner whose word comes out true regardless of what he or anyone else would have it be, and his central office — true answers of past, present, and to come — is that ancient story made into a gift. To come to Balam is to ask for the truth, and to be answered with it; and the lesson his terrible flaming-eyed shape teaches before he even speaks is that the true answer is not always the one you hoped to hear.
He is Balam in most modern books, Balaam or Balan 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. But the name is far older than any grimoire, and carries a whole story with it, for it is the name of the prophet Balaam of the Book of Numbers — and the grimoire's Balam is that prophet's shadow and inheritor, the seer of true answers descended from the most famous ambiguous prophet of the ancient world.
To understand Balam one must know his namesake. In the Book of Numbers, Balaam is a renowned seer of the nations, sought out by Balak, the king of Moab, who feared the people of Israel and hired Balaam to lay a curse upon them. Three times Balaam went up to curse, and three times, when he opened his mouth, God turned the curse in his throat and only blessing came out — until the hired curser had, against his own commission and his own intent, blessed Israel with some of the most soaring words in scripture, and foretold the star that should rise out of Jacob. Along the way came the famous sign of the talking donkey, which saw the angel standing in the road with a drawn sword when the great seer himself, for all his sight, did not. Balaam is a figure of deep ambiguity: a genuine prophet whose visions were true and even glorious, and at the same time a mercenary of dubious character, remembered by later tradition as one who sold his gift and led others astray. This Vault does not sanitise him, for that ambiguity is the truth of him and worth keeping: Balam is a true seer, and a true seer is not the same thing as a safe or a comfortable one. What he shares with his namesake is the one thing that matters most — that the truth spoke through him whether he willed it or not, and could not be bent to the wish of the one who paid for it.
Balam appears with three heads: a bull, a man, and a ram, the same three that crown the King Asmoday, and worth reading here in his own light. If Asmoday's three heads are the passion, the intellect, and the drive gathered in one king, Balam's are the three-fold sight of the seer, the three faces turned toward the three directions of time his office names — one gazing back into what has been, one upon what is, one forward into what is to come. He is a spirit built to look three ways at once, and his three heads are the outward sign of the three tenses he sees. Add the serpent's tail, the old sign of wisdom and cunning that belongs to his gift of wit, and the flaming eyes — the burning gaze of the true seer, the fire of a sight that sees through — and the whole figure is one of terrible, penetrating vision.
Balam rides a furious bear and carries a goshawk upon his fist, and the two beasts are worth reading together, for they are the two halves of his kingship. The bear is raw ferocity, wild strength, the untamed power of the deep instinct — and Balam does not fight it but rides it, a king who has mastered the furious animal force and made it carry him. The goshawk upon his fist is the opposite and the complement: the keen-eyed hunting bird, the sharpest sight in the sky, the raptor that spots the smallest thing from the greatest height. It is the very emblem of the seer — the far and piercing eye, the sight that misses nothing — and it was, in the old world, the bird of the augur, whose whole art was reading the truth from the flight and bearing of birds. Balam masters the bear's ferocity and carries the hawk's sight: the power beneath and the vision above, the terrible king who has made the wild carry him and the far-seeing eye sit tame upon his hand.
At the centre of Balam is the office that his name promises: he gives true answers of things past, present, and to come. Among the many seers and diviners of the Goetia, Balam is the one whose defining note is simply truth — not the gentle counsel of Vassago, nor the stark exposure of Vine, nor the veiled mystery of Crocell, but the plain true answer of the prophet, given with a king's authority and a prophet's certainty. And the story of his name is the warning that comes with the gift: the true answer cannot be bent to your wish. Balaam could not curse where the truth was blessing; Balam will not tell you the comfortable thing where the true thing is otherwise. To come to him is to ask for the truth about a matter of past, present, or future, and to receive it as it actually is — which is a gift beyond price to the one who genuinely wants the truth, and a hard thing to the one who wanted only to be reassured. He is the seer for those ready to hear the true answer, whatever it turns out to be.
Balam makes men witty — quick, clever, sharp in mind and ready in speech. It is the natural companion of true sight, for the one who sees clearly is well placed to think and answer quickly, and the serpent's tail he wears is the old sign of exactly this cunning. His wit is not the shallow cleverness of the show-off but the quickness that comes with real seeing: the ready mind that grasps a situation fast because it perceives it truly. From him one may sharpen the mind toward that quick and clear-sighted cleverness that is a seer's, not a trickster's.
Balam also makes men go invisible, and this Vault reads the power, as it reads such powers throughout the Goetia, in its grounded and useful sense: the going-unseen that is the power to move through the world unnoticed. It is the gift of withdrawing from the notice of others when one needs to — the privacy of the unobserved, the quiet of not being a target, the ability to slip below the attention of a room, a crowd, or an adversary. There are times when to be unseen is a real protection and a real peace, and Balam grants it. Held rightly, it is the power to keep one's own counsel and one's own privacy, to move and watch without being watched; it is never, in this Vault, a cover for doing in secret what one would be ashamed to do in the light, for the seer of true answers is the last spirit to help a lie hide.
Balam is placed in the element of Fire and the quarter of the East — Fire for his flaming eyes and his terrible burning nature. For the planetary correspondence this Vault reads him under the Sun, and few images fit a true seer so well. The Sun is the king of the heavens, as Balam is a king; it is the source of the fire that flames in his eyes; and above all it is the great eye of the sky from which nothing is hidden, the light that shows all things as they truly are and lets nothing lie concealed in shadow. Nothing is hidden from the sun — and that is the very definition of the true answer, the sight that sees everything as it is. In the old world the Sun was Apollo, god of the oracle and of true prophecy, the far-seeing and far-shooting lord of Delphi; and Balam the true seer is a solar spirit in exactly that sense, the prophet-king lit by the all-revealing light. Set his metal as gold, his day as Sunday, and his colours the blood-red and burning gold of his flaming eyes. Where the other solar spirits of this book wore the Sun as the healer, the phoenix, or the alchemist's gold, Balam wears it as the all-seeing eye and the true oracle. 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 from the flaming eyes, the kingship, and the all-revealing truth at the heart of them.
In the old demonology Balam is a notable and much-noticed spirit, both for his terrible three-headed form and for the weight of the biblical name he bears. Weyer and the Ars Goetia give the same account — the three heads, the serpent tail and flaming eyes, the bear and the goshawk, the true answers, the invisibility and the wit — and commentators from the beginning have connected him to the prophet Balaam, reading his gift of true answers through that ancient story of the seer who could not curse where the truth was blessing. He is a King respected for the authority and truth of his prophecy, and approached with the caution his terrible aspect invites.
Carried into the modern revival through the 1904 Mathers and Crowley edition, Balam is worked today chiefly by those who want the true answer and are prepared to receive it — diviners and seekers of hard truth about the past, the present, and what is coming. Modern practitioners tend to read his invisibility as the practical power of going unnoticed, his wit as the sharpening of the clear-sighted mind, and his true answers, above all, as prophecy that will not flatter. His descent from the prophet Balaam is cherished as one of the richest name-origins in the whole book. He remains a terrible and authoritative King, sought for truth rather than for comfort.
Balam is terrible, penetrating, and true — a three-headed king with flaming eyes and a prophet's ancient name, who rides the wild bear of ferocity and carries the far-seeing hawk of sight, and who gives, above all, the true answer. His truth cannot be bent to the asker's wish any more than his namesake's curse could be kept from turning to blessing; he sharpens the mind toward a seer's quick wit, and grants the quiet power of going unseen. Met with courage and a genuine hunger for the truth — past, present, or to come — rather than for reassurance, he is among the most authoritative and valuable seers in the whole book, for what the true prophet gives is the one thing worth having from any oracle: the truth as it actually is.
The grimoires give Balam a terrible and unforgettable form: a king with three heads -- the first of a bull, the second of a man, the third of a ram -- with the tail of a serpent and eyes that flame with fire, riding upon a furious bear and bearing a goshawk upon his fist, and speaking with a hoarse voice. Every part carries meaning: the three heads are the three-fold sight turned toward past, present, and future; the serpent tail is the old sign of the wisdom and cunning of his wit; the flaming eyes are the burning gaze of the true seer; the furious bear is the raw ferocity he has mastered and made to carry him; and the goshawk on his fist is the keen far-seeing eye of the seer and the augur. He is fierce and penetrating in aspect, and those who work with him describe a powerful, weighty, authoritative presence, terrible at first and demanding of courage -- and, to the one who does not flinch, an unflinchingly truthful one, the felt presence of a king who will tell you exactly how a thing is.
Enn: Lirach tasa vefa wehlc Balam
Working with Balam is working with the true seer of the Goetia -- a terrible three-headed King with flaming eyes and the ancient name of the prophet Balaam, who gives the true answer of past, present, and to come, sharpens the mind toward a seer's wit, and grants the power of going unseen. His defining note is truth, and truth that cannot be bent to the asker's wish. This Vault comes to him for the true answer and is prepared to receive it, whatever it turns out to be -- for like his namesake, Balam speaks true, and the true word is not always the comfortable one. What follows is a guide built around that truth and that readiness.
Come to Balam with courage, for his aspect is terrible -- three heads, flaming eyes, the furious bear -- and the fierceness is meant to test whether you truly want what he gives. Cleanse yourself and the space, and set his seal at the centre of the working. Where the correspondences are followed, the solar suits him: blood-red and burning gold, the metal gold, the hours of the Sun and of Sunday. Before you call him, ask yourself honestly whether you want the truth or only reassurance, for he gives the first and not the second, and the seeker who wants only to be comforted should not call the true seer. Then open the way by reciting his Enn -- Lirach tasa vefa wehlc Balam -- steadily until a powerful, weighty, authoritative presence gathers, and meet his terrible form without flinching, for the one who does not flinch is the one he answers truly.
For his central gift, bring a real question about a matter of past, present, or future, and ask him plainly for the truth of it. Then -- and this is the whole discipline of him -- be ready to receive the true answer as it actually is, and not as you wished it to be. Remember his namesake, who was hired to curse and could speak only blessing, because the truth was not his to bend: Balam will not tell you the flattering thing where the true thing is otherwise. Do not argue with the answer, do not bargain it toward what you hoped, and do not ask again in different words hoping for a better reply. Receive it, sit with it, and act on it, for a true answer honestly received is worth more than a hundred comfortable lies. As with all the seers, weigh what he gives against what you can verify -- but expect from Balam a plainness and an authority that the gentler diviners do not carry.
To seek his gift of wit, ask Balam to sharpen your mind toward the quick, clear-sighted cleverness that is a seer's -- the readiness that comes of perceiving a thing truly and grasping it fast. This is not a trickster's cleverness but a seer's quickness, and it grows with his gift of true sight; ask for the two together, the clear seeing and the quick mind that goes with it.
For his gift of invisibility, come to Balam for the grounded power of going unnoticed -- to move through a room, a crowd, or a difficult situation without drawing attention, to keep your privacy, to slip below the notice of an adversary, to have the quiet of not being watched. Ask him for this when you genuinely need the protection or the peace of being unseen. Never ask it as a cover for doing in secret what you would be ashamed to do in the open, for Balam is the seer of true answers, the last spirit who would help a lie hide from the light -- and to ask the truth-teller to hide your falsehood is to work against his very nature.
Practitioners describe Balam's presence as powerful, weighty, and authoritative, terrible at first and then steadying, with a quality of unflinching truthfulness. When he has heard, his true answers tend to arrive with a marked plainness and certainty -- a knowing that lands as simple fact rather than as hopeful guess, sometimes uncomfortably clear. His wit shows as a sudden quickening and sharpening of the mind; his invisibility as a felt easing of others' attention, a slipping out of notice. Keep a written record of his answers and, honestly, of how they proved out, for the true seer rewards being checked and, over time, trusted.
Work with Balam in the spirit his nature demands: want the truth, or do not ask. Meet his terrible aspect with courage and do not flinch. Receive his true answer as it is, without arguing or bargaining it toward what you hoped -- the truth is not his to bend, nor yours. Use his wit as a seer's clarity, not a trickster's trap. Use his invisibility for privacy and protection, never as a cover for what should not be hidden. Weigh his answers against what you can verify, and over time learn to trust the plainness of his truth. He is a terrible and authoritative King, the true seer of the whole book, and to the seeker with the courage to want the truth and receive it, he gives the one thing worth having from any oracle -- the truth exactly as it is.