Rank: Prince · Legions: 36 · Element: Fire · Direction: North · Enn: Desa on ca Ipos ata
Ipos, written also Ipes, Aiperos, or Ayporos in the older books, is the twenty-second spirit of the Ars Goetia — an Earl and a mighty Prince who governs thirty-six legions of spirits. He appears in a strange and composite form: with the body of an angel, the head of a lion, the foot of a goose, and the tail of a hare. He knows all things past, present, and to come, and his most valued gift is the making of men witty and bold — the sharpening of the mind and the steeling of the nerve. In Ipos the seeker meets the Goetia's spirit of wit and courage, a prince who grants the quick and clever mind and the confident, daring heart. He is approached, in the reverent tradition, for the sharpening of the wit and the strengthening of boldness — for cleverness, eloquence, and quickness of mind, and for the courage and confidence to act and speak without fear — and for the knowledge of things across the whole span of time.
He descends to the modern practitioner through the long chain of grimoires, his name written as Ipos, Ipes, Aiperos, or Ayporos. He appears among the earls and princes of the infernal hierarchy in Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of 1577, and was carried over as the twenty-second 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 Earl and mighty Prince of the strange composite form — angel, lion, goose, and hare — who knows all things past, present, and to come, and who makes men witty and bold, ruling over thirty-six legions of spirits. He is remembered, wherever he appears, as the spirit of wit and courage.
The grimoires give Ipos one of the strangest forms in all the Goetia, and it repays a close reading. He has the body of an angel — the sign of a higher and celestial nature; the head of a lion — the beast of courage, boldness, and sovereign strength; the foot of a goose; and the tail of a hare. The goose and the hare are, in the old imagination, creatures of timidity — the startled goose, the fleeing hare — and yet here they are joined to the lion's bold head and the angel's high body. Many have read this composite as the very picture of what Ipos gives: the timid made bold, the fearful joined to the courageous, the startled goose and fleeing hare crowned with the lion's fearless head. The hare, moreover, is in folklore a creature of swiftness and cleverness, a nimble trickster — a fitting sign of the quick wit that Ipos also grants. To picture him rightly is to see this strange union — the angelic, the bold, and the timid-made-swift-and-brave — the very emblem of a spirit who takes the fearful and makes them witty and bold.
Ipos holds a double rank: he is named both an Earl and a mighty Prince. The earldom is a title of nobility and command; the princedom is a high office of sovereignty, and the grimoires call his a mighty one. Together they mark him as a spirit of unusual dignity and power, ruling over thirty-six legions of spirits. To call upon Ipos is to come before a doubly-titled prince, a noble and mighty spirit whose power is bent toward the sharpening of wit and the granting of boldness.
Ipos shares in the prophetic sight that marks several of the great spirits: the grimoires say that he knows all things past, present, and to come — the whole span of what has been, what is, and what will be. He is therefore a spirit of prophecy as well as of wit and courage, sought for the understanding of a matter across its whole reach of 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. This knowledge joins naturally to his other gifts, for wit and boldness are best exercised by one who sees a matter clearly across time.
The gift for which Ipos is most valued, and most distinctive, is the making of men witty and bold. This is a double gift, and its two halves belong together. To be witty is to have the quick and clever mind — the sharpness of thought, the readiness of speech, the nimbleness of wit that finds the right word and the clever turn, the intelligence that thinks fast and speaks well. To be bold is to have the confident and daring heart — the courage to act, the nerve to speak, the boldness that does not shrink from the difficult or the frightening. Ipos grants both, and the tradition prizes their union, for wit without boldness is a cleverness that never dares to speak, and boldness without wit is a courage that blunders; but the two together make the person who thinks quickly and acts bravely, who speaks well and dares to speak. He is the great patron of the sharp mind and the steady nerve, sought by all who would be quicker of wit and bolder of heart.
The first half of Ipos's gift is wit — the sharpening of the mind. He is sought by those who would think more quickly, speak more cleverly, and carry themselves with the nimble intelligence that wit affords: the student and the scholar for quickness of understanding, the writer and the speaker for readiness of word and cleverness of turn, and all who would meet the moment with a sharp and ready mind rather than a slow and fumbling one. His is the gift of the quick tongue and the clever thought, of eloquence and humour and the swift grasp of a matter. In the hare's swiftness and cleverness the tradition finds the sign of this: the nimble, darting wit that Ipos lends to those who seek it.
The second half of his gift is boldness — the steeling of the nerve. He is sought by those who would overcome timidity and fear, who would speak up where they have been silent, act where they have hesitated, and carry themselves with confidence where they have shrunk back. His is the gift of courage in speech and action, of the confidence to face what has frightened one, of the boldness that dares. In the timid goose and hare crowned with the lion's fearless head the tradition finds the very image of this transformation: the fearful made brave, the one who fled made able to stand. To those troubled by shyness, hesitation, or fear, Ipos is sought as the spirit who lends the lion's boldness to the timid heart.
Within demonolatry and the modern left-hand path, Ipos is honoured as the spirit of wit and courage — a mighty prince who sharpens the mind and steels the nerve, approached with respect and a genuine wish for the quickness and boldness he grants. 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 noble and mighty 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 would be quicker of wit and bolder of heart — the shy who would grow confident, the hesitant who would grow daring, the slow of tongue who would grow eloquent. To work with Ipos in this spirit is to gain a prince's aid in the sharpening of one's own mind and the steeling of one's own courage.
The journey from the medieval and renaissance grimoires to the modern altar has changed how Ipos 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 Ipos with the seal, the Enn, and an honest wish — most often for wit and quickness of mind, for boldness and the overcoming of fear and shyness, or for knowledge of a matter across its span of time. His strange composite form is understood as the emblem of his gift: the timid made bold, the mind made quick. The forms have softened; the spirit described is the same mighty prince of wit and courage who has answered seekers for four centuries and more.
In contemporary demonolatry Ipos is approached through his seal and his Enn — the chanted phrase Desa on ca Ipos ata — by which practitioners open the way to him and hold his presence near. He is called upon for wit, cleverness, and quickness of mind, for eloquence and readiness of speech, for boldness, confidence, and the overcoming of timidity and fear, and for knowledge of things past, present, and to come. Those who keep company with him describe a presence that is sharp, quick, and emboldening — a sense of a keen and lively spirit, of a lion's boldness and a hare's quickness, of a kindling of confidence and wit. He rewards sincerity and a genuine wish to grow quicker and bolder, and he is, by the long testimony of the tradition, a capable and lively ally to those who would sharpen their minds and steel their nerve.
What endures across every telling is the quick and bold spirit of him. Ipos is wit and courage made a prince: the strange composite of angel and lion and goose and hare, the knower of the span of time, and above all the maker of the witty and the bold. He is sharp where many spirits are slow, emboldening where many are fearsome, and close to two of the most wished-for of human gifts — to think quickly and speak well, and to act bravely and without fear. He asks for sincerity and a genuine wish to grow, and to those who bring them he is, by the steady witness of the grimoires and of those who work with him still, an Earl and a mighty Prince: the spirit who sharpens the mind and steels the nerve, and makes the timid witty and bold.
The grimoires give Ipos one of the strangest forms in the Goetia: the body of an angel, the head of a lion, the foot of a goose, and the tail of a hare. The angel's body is the sign of a higher nature; the lion's head, of courage and bold strength; and the goose and the hare — creatures of timidity in the old imagination, yet also, in the hare, of swiftness and cleverness. Joined together, they are read as the very emblem of his gift: the timid made bold, the fearful crowned with the lion's fearless head, the swift and clever wit of the hare made courageous. Those who work with him today describe a presence that is sharp, quick, and emboldening — a sense of a keen and lively spirit, of a lion's boldness and a hare's quickness, of a kindling of confidence and wit.
Enn: Desa on ca Ipos ata
Working with Ipos is the meeting of a mighty prince of wit and courage — a spirit whose gift is the sharpening of the mind and the steeling of the nerve, and who knows the whole span of time besides. His is a quick and emboldening power, rightly sought by those who would think faster, speak better, and act more bravely, and it is granted to those who come to him sincerely and are willing to use the wit and boldness he lends. He comes in a strange and lively form, and he answers those who approach him with respect and a genuine wish to grow. What follows is a guide to that relationship: how to approach the Earl and Prince, how to seek wit and boldness from him, and how to draw upon his knowledge of time.
Come to Ipos as you would come to a lively and noble prince whose gift you genuinely seek — with respect, sincerity, and an honest wish to grow quicker of wit or bolder of heart. He is not a spirit to be summoned idly, for his gifts touch the mind and the nerve, and he answers best to those who come with a real wish to sharpen themselves rather than mere curiosity. Approach him with respect for his dignity and his quickness, steady and sincere, neither grovelling nor presuming, and be clear about the wit or the boldness you would gain. The relationship with him is built upon sincerity and a genuine wish to grow, and the earnest seeker he tends to meet with a lively and emboldening aid.
Prepare a clean and quiet place where you will not be disturbed, and prepare yourself with an alert and willing mind. 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 sense of what you seek: the wit and quickness of mind you would sharpen, the boldness and confidence you would gain, the timidity you would overcome, or the matter across time you would understand. Come ready not merely to receive his gift but to use it, for wit and boldness are proven in the doing.
Open the way to Ipos by setting your attention upon his seal and reciting his Enn — Desa on ca Ipos ata — 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 sharp and lively presence, a sense of a keen and emboldening spirit drawing near, perhaps a kindling of quickness and confidence. Do not rush this; let his quick, lively presence gather and settle before you ask anything of him.
To seek Ipos for wit, name plainly the quickness of mind you would gain — the sharpness of thought, the readiness of speech, the cleverness and eloquence you would have — and ask him to sharpen your wit and quicken your mind. His is the gift of the nimble, darting intelligence, and it is well sought by students, writers, speakers, and all who would meet the moment with a ready mind. Then use the quickness he lends: think, speak, and write, and exercise the wit he grants, for his gift is sharpened in the using and dulls in the idle. Ask, and then apply what is given.
To seek Ipos for boldness, name plainly the timidity or fear you would overcome and the courage you would gain — the confidence to speak up, the nerve to act, the boldness to face what has frightened you — and ask him to lend you the lion's boldness and steel your nerve. His is the gift that makes the fearful brave, and it is well sought by the shy, the hesitant, and all who would carry themselves with confidence. Then act upon the boldness he lends: speak where you were silent, act where you hesitated, face what you feared, for courage, like wit, is proven and strengthened only in the doing. He emboldens the one who is willing to be brave.
Ipos knows the whole span of time, and to seek this knowledge, name the matter you would understand and ask him to show you its truth across time — its roots in the past, its state in the present, and its course into what is coming. Ask honestly and without a wished-for answer already fixed in mind, and attend to what comes. Then treat his telling as counsel for wise action, all the wiser for being met with the quick mind and bold heart he also grants.
Practitioners describe the signs of Ipos's presence and favour in sharp and lively terms fitting to a spirit of wit and courage. There may be a gathering sense of keen, quick presence, a feeling of a lively and emboldening spirit near at hand, a kindling of confidence or a sharpening of thought. In the days that follow some report a new quickness of wit, a readier tongue, a boldness where there had been fear, a confidence to speak or act that had not been there before, or a sudden clear understanding of a matter across time. Keep a written record of what comes during and after the working — the sharpenings of wit, the turns toward boldness, the insights — for his gifts prove and grow in the exercising of them.
Work with Ipos honestly, sincerely, and with a genuine willingness to use and exercise the gifts he lends. Seek his wit to think and speak well rather than to deceive or to wound, and his boldness to act rightly and confidently rather than recklessly or cruelly; wit turned to malice and boldness turned to recklessness are the corruptions of his good gifts. Use the quickness and courage he grants in the doing, for they are sharpened only in the exercise and fade in the idle. Treat his telling of time as counsel for wise action rather than as fixed fate. Come to him always in good faith, sincere in your wish to grow quicker and bolder — for he is a lively and noble prince who answers sincerity with wit and courage, and idle or ill use with silence.