Rank: President · Legions: 60 · Element: Water · Direction: South · Enn: Jedan tasa hoet naca Botis
Botis, written also Otis in some of the old books, is the seventeenth spirit of the Ars Goetia — a great President, and an Earl besides, governing sixty legions of spirits. He shows himself at first in the form of an ugly viper, and only at the command of the one who calls him does he put off the serpent and rise in a human shape, with great teeth and two horns, bearing a bright and sharp sword in his hand. Beneath these fierce forms his gifts are among the wisest and most conciliating of the whole catalogue: he tells all things past and to come, and he reconciles friends and foes alike — not only mending broken friendships but making peace even between enemies. In Botis the seeker meets the serpent-sage of the Goetia and its great peacemaker, the spirit of foresight and of the hard, high work of reconciliation. He is approached, in the reverent tradition, for the knowledge of what has been and what will be, and above all for the making of peace — the healing of a broken friendship, and the harder healing of an enmity.
He descends to the modern practitioner through the long chain of grimoires, his name written as Botis or Otis. He appears among the presidents of the infernal hierarchy in Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of 1577, and was carried over as the seventeenth spirit when that material was gathered into the Ars Goetia, the first book of the Lemegeton or Lesser Key of Solomon in the seventeenth century. Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley fixed the modern English text in their edition of the Goetia in 1904, and Jacques Collin de Plancy kept his memory among the spirits of his Dictionnaire Infernal. Across all of these the account holds firm: the great President and Earl who comes first as an ugly viper and then as a horned and fanged man bearing a bright sword, who tells all things past and to come, and who reconciles friends and foes, ruling over sixty legions of spirits. He is remembered, wherever he appears, as a spirit of foresight and of reconciliation.
The grimoires are vivid about how Botis comes. He appears first in the form of an ugly viper — a serpent, low and coiled and unlovely — and only when the one who calls him commands it does he take a human shape, and even that is fierce: a man with great teeth and two horns upon his brow, carrying a bright and sharp sword in his hand. Each of these forms carries meaning. The serpent is the oldest of all emblems of wisdom and of transformation, the creature that sheds its skin and is renewed, the keeper of hidden knowledge; the horns and the great teeth are signs of power and of a fierceness that is not to be trifled with; and the bright sword is the blade of discernment and of decision, the edge that cuts cleanly through what is tangled. That a spirit of reconciliation should bear a sword is no contradiction: the making of true peace often requires the clean cutting-through of a knotted enmity, and the sword of Botis is the sword that severs the tangle of discord so that peace may be made.
Botis holds a double rank, unusual among the spirits: he is named both a great President and an Earl. The presidency is an office of presiding authority — of one who governs, reveals, and teaches — and the earldom is a title of nobility and command. Together they mark him as a spirit of unusual dignity and weight, at once a magistrate of hidden knowledge and a noble lord, ruling over sixty legions of spirits. To call upon Botis is to come before a doubly-titled power, a presiding and noble spirit whose authority is bent toward foresight and the high work of making peace.
The first of Botis's gifts is his foresight. The grimoires say that he tells all things past and to come — that he sees across the span of time, both what has been and lies hidden in the past and what is yet to come. This is the serpent's wisdom, the old knowledge of the coiled and shedding creature, and it makes Botis a spirit of prophecy and of understanding. He is sought for the uncovering of what is hidden in a matter's past, for the foreseeing of what is coming, and for the wisdom to understand a situation across the whole reach of its time. As with all such gifts in the tradition, his telling is understood as insight and counsel to guide wise action rather than as fixed and unalterable decree.
The gift for which Botis is most distinctive, and most valued, is reconciliation — and here he goes further than almost any of his fellows. The grimoires say that he reconciles friends and foes: not only does he heal broken friendships, as several spirits do, but he makes peace even between enemies. This is a rare and precious office. To mend a friendship is one thing; to reconcile foes — to bring those who have stood as enemies into peace, to end a feud, to transform enmity into accord — is a far harder and higher work, and it is Botis's own particular domain. His bright sword serves this end: it cuts through the knot of enmity, severs the entanglement of grievance and retaliation, and clears the ground on which a true peace may be built. Practitioners have long sought him for exactly this — for the ending of quarrels that will not otherwise end, for the making of peace with an adversary, for the reconciliation that seems impossible.
What unites Botis's gifts is the joining of the serpent's wisdom to the sword's discernment. The serpent sees — across time, into the hidden, beneath the surface of a quarrel to its true root — and the sword acts, cutting cleanly through what the wisdom has understood. In reconciliation this union is everything: to make peace between enemies one must first see truly what lies beneath their enmity, and then cut cleanly through the tangle of grievance without flinching. Botis is the spirit of this doubled work — the wisdom to understand a conflict wholly and the decisive edge to resolve it. It is this, more than prophecy alone, that practitioners come to value in him: a wisdom that does not merely know but reconciles, and a fierceness turned not toward war but toward the hard-won making of peace.
Of all Botis's works, the making of peace with enemies is the deepest and the most demanding. Enmity is a knot pulled tight by grievance and pride, by fear and the memory of harm, and it does not loosen easily. To reconcile foes is not to pretend that no wrong was done, nor to surrender to an adversary, but to cut through the cycle of retaliation and to find the ground on which former enemies may stand at peace. This is grave and serious work, and Botis is its patron. He is sought by those who would end a long feud, make peace with one who has been an enemy, or lay down a quarrel that has poisoned their life — and his serpent-wisdom and his cutting sword are bent, together, toward that hard and healing end. It is among the most valuable of all the offices of the Goetia, for peace with an enemy is one of the rarest and most freeing of human achievements.
Within demonolatry and the modern left-hand path, Botis is honoured as the serpent-sage and great peacemaker of the Goetia — a spirit of foresight and of reconciliation, approached with respect and a genuine wish for peace or understanding. The reverent practitioner does not regard him as a slave to be coerced by threats, as the older exorcists' rites would have it, but as a wise and noble being to be met with sincerity. He is widely held to be capable and direct with those who come to him honestly, and especially close to those who seek to understand a matter across its whole reach of time, to heal a broken friendship, or — hardest of all — to make peace with an enemy. To work with Botis in this spirit is to gain a wise and cutting ally in the work of reconciliation — one who sees the root of a conflict and severs the knot of enmity so that peace may be made.
The journey from the medieval and renaissance grimoires to the modern altar has changed how Botis is approached without much changing who he is said to be. The old rites framed every Goetic spirit as a danger to be bound within a triangle and compelled by divine names. The modern reverent practitioner, by contrast, comes to Botis with the seal, the Enn, and an honest wish — most often for the understanding of a matter across time, for the healing of a broken friendship, or for the making of peace with an adversary. His fierce forms and his bright sword are understood less as threats than as the signs of the decisive wisdom by which he cuts through discord; his foresight as counsel for wise action; and his reconciliation as the highest of his gifts. The forms have softened; the spirit described is the same serpent-sage and peacemaker who has answered seekers for four centuries and more.
In contemporary demonolatry Botis is approached through his seal and his Enn — the chanted phrase Jedan tasa hoet naca Botis — by which practitioners open the way to him and hold his presence near. He is called upon for knowledge of things past and to come, for understanding a matter across the whole reach of its time, for the healing of broken friendships, and above all for the making of peace with enemies and the ending of long quarrels. Those who keep company with him describe a presence that is fierce yet wise, sharp yet conciliating — a sense of a coiled and knowing power, of a serpent's understanding joined to a cutting decisiveness, turning toward the resolution of a conflict. He rewards sincerity and a genuine wish for peace, and he is, by the long testimony of the tradition, a capable and reconciling ally to those who come to him in earnest.
What endures across every telling is the reconciling wisdom of him. Botis is the serpent made a President: the coiled viper who becomes a horned swordsman, the knower of past and future, the healer of friendships, and — rarest and highest — the maker of peace with enemies. He is fierce where many spirits are subtle, wise where many are blind, and close to one of the hardest and most freeing of human hopes — to understand a matter truly, and to lay down an enmity that has bound the heart too long. He asks for sincerity and a genuine wish for peace, and to those who bring them he is, by the steady witness of the grimoires and of those who work with him still, a great and noble President: the serpent who sees, and the sword that severs the knot of enmity so that peace may be made.
The grimoires give Botis fierce forms and a serpent's beginning: he appears first as an ugly viper, a low and coiled serpent, and only at the command of the one who calls him does he take a human shape — and even that is fierce, a man with great teeth and two horns upon his brow, bearing a bright and sharp sword in his hand. The serpent is the ancient emblem of wisdom and transformation; the horns and great teeth are signs of power not to be trifled with; and the bright sword is the blade of discernment, the edge that cuts cleanly through what is tangled. Those who work with him today describe a presence that is fierce yet wise, sharp yet conciliating — a sense of a coiled and knowing power, of a serpent's understanding joined to a cutting decisiveness.
Enn: Jedan tasa hoet naca Botis
Working with Botis is the meeting of a fierce and wise spirit — a great President and Earl whose gifts are the knowledge of past and future and, above all, the high work of reconciliation. His is the serpent's wisdom joined to the sword's discernment, rightly turned toward understanding a conflict wholly and cutting cleanly through it so that peace may be made — the healing of a broken friendship, and the harder healing of an enmity. He comes first as an ugly viper and gives his fiercer human counsel only to the one who can command it without flinching. What follows is a guide to that relationship: how to approach the President, how to draw upon his foresight, and how to seek from him the reconciliation of friends and the making of peace with foes.
Come to Botis as you would come to a wise and fierce elder whose counsel you seek — with respect, sincerity, and a genuine wish for understanding or peace. He is not a spirit to be summoned idly, for his gifts touch the deep matters of time and of enmity, and he answers best to those who come with a real need for foresight or reconciliation rather than mere curiosity. Approach him with respect for his wisdom and his fierceness, steady and unflinching before the serpent and the sword, neither grovelling nor presuming, and be honest about the conflict or the quarrel you bring. The relationship with him is built upon sincerity and a genuine wish for peace, and what is begun in earnest he tends to meet in kind.
Prepare a clean and quiet place where you will not be disturbed, and prepare yourself with a calm and honest mind, ready to look upon a conflict truly. Many practitioners cleanse themselves and the space beforehand and set out his seal as the single focus of the working. Settle your breathing and your thoughts, and bring with you a clear and honest statement of what you seek: the matter to be understood across its span of time, the broken friendship to be healed, or the enmity to be laid down. Where you seek peace, come honest about your own part in the quarrel, for the making of true peace begins with an honest reckoning.
Open the way to Botis by setting your attention upon his seal and reciting his Enn — Jedan tasa hoet naca Botis — slowly and steadily, letting the chanted words carry your intent and call his presence near. Repeat the Enn until you feel the air of the working change: a gathering of coiled and knowing presence, a sense of a fierce and wise attention turning toward you. Do not flinch from the fierceness of what comes — the serpent, the horns, the sword are all him — and do not rush; let his sharp, conciliating presence gather and settle before you bring your matter before him.
Botis sees across the span of time, and to seek this knowledge, name the matter you would understand and ask him to show you its truth — its roots in the past, and its course into what is coming. His is a serpent's wisdom, and he is well sought for understanding a conflict in its whole reach of time, for the root of a quarrel often lies buried in what has gone before. Ask honestly and without a wished-for answer already fixed in mind, and attend to what comes — an image, a word, a sudden understanding of how a thing began and where it tends. Then treat what he shows as counsel for wise action, especially as the ground on which a reconciliation may be built.
For the healing of a broken friendship, name plainly the friendship you would mend and the quarrel that has broken it, and ask Botis for his aid in restoring accord. His serpent-wisdom sees the true root of the estrangement, and his sword cuts through the tangle of grievance that keeps it unhealed. Seek this in the spirit of genuine reconciliation, be honest about your own part in the breach, and be ready to do the work of mending — to reach out, to make amends where amends are due. He aids the reconciliation that the seeker genuinely wishes to live out.
The highest and hardest of the works to undertake with Botis is the making of peace with an enemy, and it is his own particular gift. To seek it, name honestly the enmity you would lay down — the feud, the adversary, the quarrel that has poisoned your life — and ask him to help you cut through the knot of it and find the ground of peace. Understand that this is not surrender to an adversary nor the pretence that no wrong was done, but the ending of the cycle of retaliation and the finding of a true peace. Be honest about your own part in the enmity, be genuinely willing to lay it down, and ask his serpent-wisdom to show you the root of the conflict and his sword to sever the tangle of grievance. This is grave and serious work; approach it soberly, and be prepared for the peace to ask something of you — the setting-down of a grievance long held, the letting-go of the wish for retaliation.
Practitioners describe the signs of Botis's presence and favour in fierce yet clarifying terms fitting to a serpent-sage. There may be a gathering sense of coiled, knowing presence, a feeling of a fierce and wise attention turned upon the matter at hand, a sharp clarity rather than any comfort. In the days that follow some report a sudden understanding of the root of a conflict, a knot of grievance loosening, an unexpected softening in a quarrel, or a real opening toward peace where none seemed possible. Keep a written record of what comes during and after the working — the insights, the turns of understanding, the shifts in a quarrel — for his reconciliations often unfold over time.
Work with Botis honestly, soberly, and with a genuine wish for peace rather than for the mere besting of an adversary. Seek his reconciliation in the spirit of true accord: be honest about your own part in a quarrel, be genuinely willing to lay down a grievance, and do not use his aid to manipulate or to win a false peace that is only surrender or trap. Treat his foresight as counsel for wise action rather than as fixed fate, and use his cutting wisdom to end enmity, never to sharpen it. Approach the making of peace with an enemy soberly, for it is grave work that may ask much of you. Come to him always in good faith, honest in the conflict you bring and genuine in your wish for peace — for he is a wise and noble President who answers sincerity with reconciling wisdom, and a false or manipulative approach with silence.