Rank: President · Legions: 50 · Element: Earth · Direction: South · Enn: Erato on ca Buer anon
Buer is the tenth spirit of the Ars Goetia — a great President who governs fifty legions of spirits and comes, like a handful of his fellows, when the Sun stands in the sign of the Archer. He is among the most benevolent and useful of all the Goetic spirits: a healer who cures the diseases of the body, a philosopher who teaches the moral and natural sciences and the art of logic, a master of the hidden virtues of every herb and plant, and a giver of good and faithful familiars. In him the physician and the teacher are joined into one, for his healing is not a mere lifting of symptoms but a teaching of the principles of health, and his philosophy is not idle learning but the practical wisdom by which a life is well lived. To seek Buer is to come before a great and patient teacher-physician of the Goetia — one who does not merely cure and instruct, but who works to make of the seeker a healer and a thinker in their own right.
He descends to the modern practitioner through the long chain of grimoires under the steady name Buer. He appears among the presidents of the infernal hierarchy in Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of 1577, and was carried over as the tenth 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, where the famous engraving of his wheel-like form was made. Across all of these the account holds firm: the Great President who comes in Sagittarius, the healer of all the body's distempers, the teacher of philosophy and logic, the master of the virtues of herbs and plants, and the giver of good familiars. He is one of the most consistently and warmly described spirits of the whole catalogue.
Buer is among the small number of Goetic spirits for whom a precise astrological timing is given: the grimoires say he appears when the Sun is in Sagittarius, in the late weeks of the year. Of his shape the tradition speaks in two voices. The older Goetia says simply that his form is that of Sagittarius itself — the centaur-archer, half-man and half-horse, the sign under which he comes. The later and more famous image belongs to de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal, whose celebrated engraving shows Buer as a strange wheel or star: a lion-like face at the centre from which five goat legs radiate like the spokes of a wheel, so that he may roll in any direction. This bizarre and unforgettable form has become his best-known emblem. Readers have found much in it — the pentagram set in motion, the five senses or the five elements gathered around a central wholeness, a rolling wheel of health and vitality. These are interpretations laid upon the image rather than doctrine handed down, but the wheel of five radiating legs has fixed Buer in the imagination as a spirit of balance, motion, and health turning always toward wholeness.
Buer holds the rank of President — in the Goetic hierarchy an office of presiding authority, held by spirits who govern, reveal, and teach rather than merely command armies in war. He rules over fifty legions of spirits, a considerable host, and his presidency is bound up entirely with knowledge and healing. The president is one who answers, instructs, and oversees, and Buer presides over the secrets of medicine, of the natural world, of philosophy, and of the healing virtue hidden in growing things. To call upon this President is to come before a kind of magistrate of the healing and learned arts — one who sits in benevolent authority over the knowledge of the body and the mind, and dispenses it freely to those who approach him rightly.
The first of Buer's great gifts is healing. The grimoires say plainly that he heals all distempers, all the diseases and infirmities of the body in man — that there is no sickness beyond the reach of his curing art. This places him, with Marbas and a few others, among the great medical spirits of the Goetia, and it has always been a chief reason practitioners sought him. But Buer's healing carries a particular character: he is a teacher as much as a curer, and the tradition remembers him not merely for lifting an illness but for imparting the understanding of health and disease themselves. Where a lesser cure quiets a symptom, Buer is said to teach the principle beneath it — to make the seeker not only well but wise in the ways of wellness, and so, in time, a healer in their own right. His curing is understood by serious practitioners today as spiritual and supportive work that stands alongside, and never in place of, the care of physicians; but within that dimension he is sought as one of the most generous and searching of the healing spirits.
Bound up with his healing is the gift for which Buer is most distinctively remembered: the knowledge of the virtues of all herbs and plants. The grimoires say he teaches the hidden properties of every growing thing — which herb heals and which harms, what virtue sleeps in root and leaf and flower, how the green world may be turned to the mending of the body. In the old medicine, when nearly every remedy was drawn from the plant world, this was knowledge of the highest practical value, and it makes Buer the great patron of the herbalist and the maker of medicines. His element is Earth, and his wisdom is the wisdom of things rooted in the soil: the quiet, patient virtue of the growing world, and the art of drawing healing out of it. To those who work with plants — the herbalist, the gardener, the student of natural medicine — Buer has long been a fitting and generous teacher.
Buer is not only a healer of bodies but a teacher of minds. The grimoires say he teaches philosophy, both moral and natural — the whole of the learned curriculum of the old world. Moral philosophy is the knowledge of how to live: of ethics, of virtue, of the well-ordered life and the good conduct of the self. Natural philosophy is the knowledge of the world: the study of nature, of the workings of the physical creation, the science of how things are. To be a teacher of both is to be a teacher of the whole compass of human understanding, from the governing of one's own soul to the comprehension of the cosmos. In this Buer is a true philosopher-spirit, and those who seek not merely facts but wisdom — an understanding of how to live and of how the world is made — have long found in him a patient and generous master.
To philosophy and medicine Buer adds a third teaching: the art of logic, the discipline of clear and ordered reasoning. Logic was, in the old learning, the very tool of thought — the art of arguing rightly, of distinguishing the true from the false, of following a matter through to its sound conclusion. A spirit who teaches logic teaches not a body of facts but a way of thinking, and this rounds out Buer's character as a teacher: he gives the herbalist their remedies, the philosopher their wisdom, and the thinker the very method of sound reasoning by which all the rest is made secure. For students, scholars, and all who must think clearly and argue well, Buer is a fitting patron of the disciplined mind.
The last of his named gifts is companionship. The grimoires say that Buer gives good familiars — that he provides faithful and helpful spirit-companions to those who earn his favour. In the old magic a familiar was a spirit who attached itself to a practitioner as an ongoing helper and ally, and to be given a good one by a benevolent president was a gift of lasting worth. This gift sits naturally beside his teaching, for a good familiar is itself a kind of ongoing tutor and aid, a companion in the long work of learning and healing. It marks Buer once more as a spirit of generous and continuing help rather than of single, spectacular marvels.
What gathers all of Buer's offices into one is the marriage of healing and wisdom. He is the physician who is also a philosopher, the herbalist who is also a logician, the curer who teaches the principle of the cure. In him medicine and learning are not two separate gifts but two faces of a single mastery: the understanding of how things — bodies, minds, and the natural world — truly work, and the turning of that understanding toward health and right living. This is what practitioners come most to value in him. He does not merely mend and instruct; he empowers. The seeker who works long with Buer is meant to come away not only healed and taught but changed into a healer and a thinker — someone who understands the virtue of herbs, the principles of health, the ways of clear thought, and the art of a well-lived life.
Within demonolatry and the modern left-hand path, Buer is honoured as one of the gentlest and most generous of the Goetic spirits — a healer and teacher approached with respect and warmth rather than dread. 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 benevolent and learned President to be met with sincerity and a genuine wish to be healed or taught. He is widely held to be patient, kindly, and reliable with those who come to him honestly, and especially close to healers, herbalists, scholars, and all who seek both wellness and wisdom. To work with Buer in this spirit is to enter a kind of apprenticeship to a great teacher-physician — to be healed, and taught, and slowly made able to heal and understand in one's own right.
The journey from the medieval and renaissance grimoires to the modern altar has changed how Buer 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 Buer as one comes to a beloved teacher and physician, with the seal, the Enn, and an honest need. His healing is now most often sought as spiritual and supportive work that stands alongside, and never in place of, the care of doctors and medicines; his herbal wisdom by those who work with plants and natural remedies; his philosophy and logic by students, scholars, and seekers of a well-lived life; and his familiars by those who wish for a lasting spirit-companion. The forms have softened; the spirit described is the same great healing-teaching President who has answered seekers for four centuries and more.
In contemporary demonolatry Buer is approached through his seal and his Enn — the chanted phrase Erato on ca Buer anon — by which practitioners open the way to him and hold his presence near. He is called upon for the healing of body and mind, for the knowledge of herbs and natural medicine, for the study of philosophy both moral and natural, for clarity and skill in reasoning, and for the gift of a good and faithful familiar. Those who keep company with him describe a presence that is calm, patient, and benevolent — a sense of a wise and kindly teacher turning his attention toward the seeker's wellness and understanding, of a searching wish to make one not merely well but wise. He rewards sincerity, diligence, and a genuine willingness to learn, and he is, by the long testimony of the tradition, generous and mild with those who come to him with a real need and a readiness to do their own part of the work.
What endures across every telling is the generous wisdom of him. Buer is power bent toward healing and understanding: the wheel that rolls always toward wholeness, the physician who teaches the principle of the cure, the master of the green virtue of herbs, the teacher of how to think and how to live, the giver of faithful companions. He is gentle where many spirits are fierce, constructive where many are merely powerful, and close to the oldest and most hopeful of human wishes — to be made well, to be taught wisdom, and to be helped to understand. He asks for sincerity, patience, and honest effort, 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 benevolent President: the healer who teaches, and the teacher who heals.
The tradition gives Buer two forms and names the season of his coming: he appears when the Sun is in Sagittarius, in the late weeks of the year. The older Goetia says his shape is that of Sagittarius itself — the centaur-archer, half-man and half-horse, the sign under which he comes. The later and more famous image, from de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal, shows him as a strange wheel: a lion-like face at the centre from which five goat legs radiate like spokes, so that he may roll in any direction — an emblem long read as a wheel of health and wholeness, or a pentagram set in motion. Those who work with him today describe less a fearsome apparition than a calm and benevolent presence — a sense of a wise and kindly teacher-physician whose attention turns toward healing and understanding, steady and generous rather than strange.
Enn: Erato on ca Buer anon
Working with Buer is, at its heart, an apprenticeship to a great teacher-physician. He is a benevolent President of generous and patient nature, willing to heal and to teach those who come to him with respect and a genuine need, and his gifts are among the most useful of the whole Goetia — the mending of the body, the wisdom of herbs, the knowledge of philosophy and logic, and the gift of a faithful familiar. His healing is a teaching, and his teaching a kind of healing, for he works always to make the seeker not merely well and learned but able to heal and understand in their own right. What follows is a guide to that relationship: how to approach the President, how to ask rightly for healing and for learning, and how to work with him honestly and to good purpose.
Come to Buer as you would come to a beloved teacher and physician — with courtesy, sincerity, and a clear sense of why you have come. He is not a spirit of terror to be guarded against but a benevolent and learned President, and he answers best to those who bring him a genuine need — a real illness, a true wish to learn, an honest search for wisdom — rather than idle curiosity. Approach him with respect for his knowledge and his kindness, neither grovelling nor presuming, and be ready to learn as much as to ask, for his every gift is bound up with teaching. The relationship with him is built, like the trust between a student and a master or a patient and a healer, upon sincerity and diligence, 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 the calm and attentive mind of one about to learn or to be healed. Many practitioners cleanse themselves and the space beforehand and set out his seal as the single focus of the working. Because his nature is bound up with herbs and the green world, some bring plants, herbs, or growing things into the working; where the work is for healing, some place clean water, a candle, and a token of the one to be healed near the seal; where it is for study, the books or emblems of the learning are set close by. Settle your breathing and your mind, and bring with you a clear statement of what you seek — the illness to be mended, the herb-craft or philosophy to be learned, the reasoning to be sharpened, or the familiar to be sought.
Open the way to Buer by setting your attention upon his seal and reciting his Enn — Erato on ca Buer anon — 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 calm and benevolent presence, a sense of a patient and kindly attention turning toward you. By the oldest instruction his season is that of Sagittarius, and some practitioners choose to work with him then, when the Sun is in the Archer; but the reverent working is not bound to it, and he answers the sincere seeker in any season. Do not rush the opening; let his gentle, teacherly presence gather and settle before you ask anything of him.
For the work of healing, name plainly the one who is sick — yourself or another — and the trouble that afflicts them, and ask Buer for his aid in mending it. Ask not only that the symptom be quieted but that the true health of the body be restored, for his healing is searching and whole, and ask too, if you would, to be taught something of the principle beneath the cure, for that is his particular gift. And hold fast to this above all: the healing work of Buer is understood by serious practitioners as spiritual and supportive work that stands alongside, and never in place of, the care of doctors and medicines. Petition him for the unseen and inward dimensions of an illness, but do not set aside a physician's treatment, and never let a working become a reason to refuse real medical care. To honour him as a healer is to use every good gift — his and the physician's alike — toward the mending of the body.
To seek Buer as a teacher of herb-craft, name the plants or the healing art you wish to understand, and ask him for the knowledge of their hidden virtues — which herb heals what trouble, what property sleeps in root and leaf, how the green world may be turned to medicine. Bring plants or herbs into the working where you can, and join the asking to real study and practice: read, grow, tend, and handle the plants themselves, and bring what you learn back to him. He teaches the virtue beneath the herb, the principle of the remedy, and his teaching takes root best in hands that actually work with growing things. Attend to what comes — an insight into a plant's use, a turn of attention toward a remedy overlooked — and put it to careful and responsible use.
To seek Buer as a teacher of the mind, name the study you wish to pursue — the moral philosophy of how to live, the natural philosophy of how the world is made, or the logic by which sound thought is ordered — and ask him not merely for knowledge but for understanding. He teaches the principle beneath the learning and the method beneath the argument, and so his teaching is best received by one already doing the work of study and thought. Bring your books, your questions, or your difficulty into the working; ask for clarity where you are confused, for sound reasoning where you are tangled, for wisdom where you seek to live well. Then return to your study and your thinking and put what you are given to use, for he sharpens the diligent mind and not the idle one.
Buer gives good familiars, and to seek one, come to him having earned some measure of his favour through honest work and sincere relationship, and ask him for a faithful spirit-companion to aid you in your ongoing path of healing and learning. This is not a thing to demand at a first meeting but to grow toward, as a student earns the trust of a master. Ask sincerely, be clear about the help you seek, and be prepared to keep faith with the companion you are given, for a familiar is a lasting bond and not a tool to be used and discarded. Tend the relationship with the same diligence you bring to all your work with him.
Practitioners describe the signs of Buer's presence and favour in calm and kindly terms fitting to a benevolent teacher-physician. There may be a gathering sense of patient, benevolent presence, a feeling of a wise attention turned upon the matter at hand, an ease and steadiness rather than any dread. In healing work some report a warmth or easing where the trouble lies, or a turn toward mending in the days that follow; in study, a sudden clarity, an insight into a plant or a problem, a new order in confused thought. Keep a written record of what comes during and after the working — sensations, insights, images, and the turn of events and understanding in the following days — for his gifts, like all teaching and healing, unfold and deepen over time.
Work with Buer honestly, diligently, and with due respect for the gravity of his gifts. Above all, in matters of health, let his work stand beside and never instead of proper medical care: see your physicians, take your medicines, treat any serious illness with the seriousness it demands, and treat any herb or remedy with proper knowledge and caution, for the virtue of plants includes the power to harm as well as to heal. Ask his teaching as one ready to do the real work of study and practice, not as a shortcut around it. Keep faith with any familiar he gives, and turn all his gifts — healing, herb-craft, wisdom, and reason — toward good and responsible ends. Come to him always in good faith, sincere in your need and diligent in your effort — for he is a great and benevolent President who answers sincerity with generosity, and idleness or ill use with silence.