Rank: Duke · Legions: 37 · Element: Water · Direction: South · Enn: Tasa fubin Uvall on ca
Uvall, written also Vual and Voval, is the forty-seventh spirit of the Ars Goetia, a Duke great, mighty, and strong, who governs thirty-seven legions of spirits and was, before the fall, of the Order of Powers. He appears first in the form of a mighty dromedary, and then, at the command of the one who works with him, puts on a human shape and speaks the Egyptian tongue — though, the grimoire is careful to note, not perfectly. His offices are all of one kind, though it is easy to miss until they are set side by side. He procures the love of women; he procures friendship between friends and foes; and he tells of things past, present, and to come. Two of his three offices are the binding of people together — the drawing of love, and the making of friendship even between enemies — and the third, his knowledge of time, serves the same end, for to reconcile and to love wisely one must know what has been and what is coming. Uvall is a spirit of the bond between people, and his form tells how he works it. The dromedary is the beast of the desert, the one who crosses vast dry distances with patience and endurance, bearing its burden the whole long way and carrying its own water within. That is exactly what Uvall does with the distances between hearts: he crosses them. He is the patient carrier who bridges the gulf between two people — the lover and the beloved, and hardest of all, the friend and the foe — and the long desert crossing is the truth of how it is done.
He is Uvall in many modern books, Vual or Voval in the older ones. 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. The texts agree on his particulars: the mighty dromedary, the human shape and the imperfect Egyptian speech, the procuring of love and of friendship, the knowledge of past and future, and his former place among the Powers — the Duke of thirty-seven legions.
Uvall comes first as a dromedary, the single-humped camel, and of all the beast-forms in the Goetia few carry so much meaning so quietly. The camel is the beast of the desert and of the long crossing. It endures what would kill another animal — the heat, the thirst, the endless dry miles — and it endures by patience, by the steady placing of one foot after another over distances that have no visible end. It bears its burden the whole way without complaint. It carries its own water within it, drawing on an inner reserve when there is nothing to be had without. And it remembers the route, holding the way to the far oasis in its memory across trackless sand. Every one of these is a virtue Uvall lends to his work, for the bringing-together of people is itself a long desert crossing: it is not done in a moment but in patience, over distance, bearing the weight of the estrangement the whole way, drawing on an inner reserve when there is no encouragement to be had, and holding steadily to the far goal of reconciliation or love when no path to it can yet be seen. The dromedary is not an incidental shape. It is the whole method of the spirit, walking.
When Uvall takes his human shape he speaks the Egyptian tongue — the language of the oldest land of wisdom, the deep past of the mysteries — and the grimoire adds a small and striking detail: he speaks it, but not perfectly. It is a rare thing for the old books to grant a mighty duke an imperfection, and it is worth pausing on, for it is oddly tender. Even this great spirit, speaking the ancient tongue, speaks it haltingly, reaching for words he does not fully command. And there is a truth in it that belongs to his whole office, for the language of love and of reconciliation is exactly a tongue that no one ever speaks perfectly. To reach across to another person — to say the thing that will draw them near, or the thing that will end a long enmity — is always done imperfectly, in halting and inadequate words, never with the flawless eloquence one wishes one had. Uvall speaking the old tongue imperfectly is the image of every honest attempt to reach across the distance to another: not perfect, but real, and reaching. The imperfection is not a failing in him. It is the mark of the genuine.
Set his offices together and Uvall stands revealed as the crosser of distances between people. The love of women, the friendship of friends and foes, the knowledge of times — all of it serves the bridging of the gulf that separates one heart from another. And the greatest of these, the one that marks him most, is the last and hardest: he procures friendship between friends and foes. To bring warmth between those already friendly is a small crossing; to bring friendship between foes is to cross the widest desert there is, for the enemy is the person furthest away, separated by a distance of grievance and fear that seems impassable. This is Uvall's particular mastery. He is the patient dromedary who will cross even that waste, bearing the long weight of an old enmity the whole way, to bring two who were foes to the far oasis of friendship. It is worth setting him beside Amon, the seventh spirit, who is also a reconciler and a mender of quarrels; but where Amon mends the broken bond of those who were once close, Uvall crosses the greater distance to those who were never friends at all, and his gift is the patience the long crossing demands.
Among his offices Uvall procures the love of women, and this Vault holds it, as it holds every love-office in the Goetia, to a single firm ethic: love is drawn, never compelled. A love forced upon a person against their will is not love but a cage, and it is worth nothing and does harm to both. What Uvall rightly gives is the crossing of the distance that keeps two people apart when the feeling might genuinely grow — the opening of the way, the drawing-near, the removal of the shyness and the misunderstanding and the fear that hold apart two who might otherwise come together. He works upon the space between, not upon the will of the beloved. Come to him to become more able to be loved and to cross toward another with an open heart, and to let a true affection find its way; never to seize or bind a particular person against their choosing. The dromedary crosses the desert; it does not drag the oasis to itself.
Uvall also tells of things past, present, and to come, and in him this divining office is bound to the rest, for the wise crossing of the distance between people needs the knowledge of time. To reconcile a long enmity one must know how it began, in the past that shaped it; to draw a love wisely one must read the present truly and the future it tends toward. His sight of the times is the map of the desert he crosses — the knowledge of where the distance began and where, if crossed well, it may end.
Uvall was, before the fall, of the Order of Powers — the Potestates, who in the old celestial hierarchy were the warrior-angels set to guard the borders of the cosmos and hold the boundaries against chaos. There is a quiet irony, or perhaps a deep continuity, in what he became: the guardian of boundaries is now the crosser of them, the one who once held the borders now the one who bridges the distances between people. Whether one reads it as inversion or as the same nature turned to a new work, it marks him as a spirit long concerned with the lines that divide — once to keep them, now to cross them.
Uvall is placed in the element of Water and the quarter of the South — the element of feeling and of the heart, wholly fitting for a spirit whose every office is the bond of affection between people. For the planetary correspondence he belongs, more clearly than almost any of his fellows, to Venus: the planet of love, of friendship, of harmony and concord, of the drawing-together of people and the reconciling of discord. Venus governs both the love of the lover and the friendship of friends, and she is the ancient adversary of the strife that Mars sows — exactly the discord Uvall crosses the desert to heal. Set his metal as copper, his day as Friday, and his colours the desert-rose — the rose that the dry sands themselves crystallise, uniting the rose of Venus with the desert of the camel — and the warm copper of his planet. These correspondences are read as symbolic rather than handed down as documented tradition; the grimoires give only his element, his forms, and his offices, and the Venusian reading follows plainly from the love, the friendship, and the reconciliation at the heart of them.
In the old demonology Uvall is a well-regarded spirit, valued for his gentle and useful offices and treated with none of the wariness reserved for the fiercer kings. Weyer and the Ars Goetia give the same account — the dromedary, the imperfect Egyptian, the love and the friendship and the knowledge of times, the former place among the Powers — and later commentators have tended to note the tenderness of his offices and the curiosity of the camel-form and the halting ancient speech. He is a spirit more loved than feared, sought for the warmth he brings rather than dreaded for any harm.
Carried into the modern revival through the 1904 Mathers and Crowley edition, Uvall is worked today chiefly for matters of the heart and of human bonds: the drawing of love, the healing of friendships, and above all the reconciliation of estrangements and enmities that seem past mending. Modern practitioners tend to prize him for that last and hardest office, the friendship between foes, and to read his love-work through the consent-minded ethic this Vault shares. His dromedary and his imperfect Egyptian are cherished as among the most evocative details in the whole book — the patient desert-beast and the halting old tongue, images of the long, imperfect, worthwhile work of reaching across to another. He remains a warm and approachable Duke, sought for the crossings only patience can make.
Uvall is patient, warm, and enduring — a spirit of the long crossing, who bridges with the dromedary's steadiness the distances that keep people apart. He draws love without forcing it, mends friendship, and crosses even the widest desert of enmity to bring foes to the far oasis of peace, and he does all of it as the camel does, by patience and endurance and the steady holding of the far goal in view. His imperfect old speech is the mark of his honesty, the sign of a spirit who reaches across in real and halting words rather than flawless ones. Met with respect and a genuine wish to bridge a distance rightly — drawing rather than seizing, reconciling rather than manipulating — he is among the gentlest and most humane of all the spirits of the Goetia, and among the most quietly powerful, for the crossing of the distance between two hearts is no small work.
The grimoires give Uvall two forms. He comes first as a mighty dromedary -- the single-humped desert camel, beast of the long crossing, patient and enduring, bearing its burden across trackless distances -- and then, when commanded, puts on a human shape in which he speaks the Egyptian tongue, the language of the oldest land of wisdom, but (the texts note pointedly) not perfectly, reaching haltingly for words he does not fully command. Both details carry his nature: the camel is the patience and endurance of the long crossing between hearts, and the imperfect ancient speech is the honest, halting reaching-across that all true love and reconciliation require. Those who work with him describe a warm, patient, steady presence, gentle rather than fierce, with a quality of enduring calm -- the felt sense of a spirit who is in no hurry and will cross whatever distance is needed, however long the way.
Enn: Tasa fubin Uvall on ca
Working with Uvall is working with the crosser of distances -- the patient dromedary who bridges the gulfs between people, drawing love, mending friendship, and reconciling even foes. He is a warm and gentle Duke, enduring rather than fierce, and he works as the desert-camel works: by patience, over distance, holding the far goal steadily in view. This Vault comes to him to bridge distances rightly -- drawing love rather than seizing it, reconciling rather than manipulating -- and with the understanding that his gifts, like a desert crossing, are given to patience and not to haste. What follows is a guide built around that patience and that ethic.
Come to Uvall gently and with a genuine heart, for his offices are all of warmth and he answers warmth far better than force. Cleanse yourself and the space, and set his seal at the centre of the working. Where the correspondences are followed, the Venusian suits him: desert-rose and copper, the metal copper, the hours of Venus and of Friday. Be clear and honest before you begin about the distance you wish to cross -- between yourself and a beloved, between estranged friends, between yourself and a foe -- for he works upon real bonds and answers a true wish more readily than a vague one. Then open the way by reciting his Enn -- Tasa fubin Uvall on ca -- steadily until a warm, patient, enduring presence gathers, and greet the dromedary without fear, for there is nothing fierce in him.
Commanding the Human Shape and the Patience of the Crossing
When Uvall has come in his dromedary form, bid him with respect take his human shape and speak with you. And as you do, take the camel's lesson to heart, for it governs all his work: the crossing you are asking for is a long one, and it will be made by patience, not by a single stroke. Do not come to Uvall expecting a distance to vanish in a moment. Come ready to walk it -- to bear the weight of an estrangement or a longing the whole way, to draw on an inner reserve when there is no encouragement, and to hold the far goal in view when no path to it is yet visible. To work with Uvall well is to accept the dromedary's pace.
For his greatest office, come to Uvall with the distance you would cross between yourself and another -- an estranged friend, or hardest of all, a foe. Name the enmity honestly, including your own part in it, and ask him to help you cross toward peace. Understand that genuine reconciliation is the aim, not the mere appearance of it and not the manipulation of the other into a false ease you can exploit -- Uvall crosses the desert to a true oasis, not a mirage. Ask him for the patience the crossing needs, for the softening of your own grievance as much as the other's, and for the wisdom (through his knowledge of times) to see where the enmity began and where it might end. Be prepared for the crossing to change you as much as the other, for a distance is closed from both sides.
For his love-office, hold firmly to the ethic that governs all love-work in this Vault: draw, never compel. Come to Uvall to open the way between yourself and another where a true affection might grow -- to cross the distance of shyness, misunderstanding, or fear that holds two apart -- and to become more able to love and be loved. Ask him to help you reach across with an open heart. Never ask him to seize or bind a particular person against their will, for that is a cage and not a love, and it is beneath the warmth of the spirit and of the seeker both. Let him work upon the space between, and leave the other's heart free.
To ask Uvall's knowledge of past, present, and to come, bring it in the service of a crossing: ask him to show you how a distance began, what its present truth is, and where it may lead if crossed well or left uncrossed. Take what he shows as the map of the desert, to be weighed and tested, and let it guide the patience of your crossing rather than replace it.
Practitioners describe Uvall's presence as warm, patient, and steadying, a calm that takes the urgency out of a longing or a grievance. When he has heard, his help tends to arrive slowly and surely rather than suddenly -- a hardened enmity beginning, over time, to soften; a closed door easing open; a distance that felt impassable becoming, step by patient step, a road. Do not look for a lightning-stroke; look for the steady closing of a gap. Keep a written record over time, for his workings are best seen across the length of the crossing rather than in a single day.
Work with Uvall in the spirit of his own patience and warmth. Draw love, never compel it; seek true reconciliation, never the manipulated appearance of it. Do not demand haste of a spirit whose whole nature is the long crossing -- impatience is the one thing that defeats his work. Be willing to be changed by the crossing, and to cross toward the other rather than only pulling them toward you. Take his knowledge of times as a map to be tested. He is a gentle and enduring Duke, a bridger of the distances between hearts, and to the seeker who wants to close a gap rightly and is willing to walk the patient miles of it, he is among the warmest and most humane spirits in the whole book.