Rank: King and Earl · Legions: 36 · Element: Water · Direction: West · Enn: Eyesta nas Vine ca laris
Vine, written also Vinea, is the forty-fifth spirit of the Ars Goetia, and one of the few in the whole book to hold two ranks at once: he is named a Great King and an Earl together. He governs thirty-six legions of spirits and appears in the form of a lion riding upon a black horse, bearing a viper in his hand. His offices fall into two motions that together define him. First he reveals: he discovers things hidden, he discovers witches and wizards, and he tells of things present, past, and to come. Then he reshapes: at the command of the one who works with him he will build towers, throw down great stone walls, and make the waters rough with storms. This is the whole shape of him — revelation and upheaval, in that order. Vine first shows what is truly there, hidden beneath the surface of things, and then he gives the power to build what should stand and throw down what should fall. He is the spirit who sees, and then acts upon what he has seen. And among the things he sees is the one office that this Vault must meet directly and honestly, for it touches the tradition's oldest wound: he reveals witches. What that means, and what it must not be allowed to mean, stands at the heart of this entry.
He is Vine in most modern books and Vinea in the older ones, and the grimoires are unusually consistent about him. 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 edition of 1904. The account holds wherever he is found: the lion upon the black horse with the viper, the discoverer of hidden things and of witches, the teller of past and future, the builder of towers and thrower-down of walls, the raiser of storms — the Great King and Earl of thirty-six legions.
Vine comes crowned in the imagery of power. He is a lion — the beast of sovereignty and of martial strength, worn by several of his fellows, though few so completely — and he rides upon a black horse, where Sabnock before him rode the pale. The black horse is the mount of the hidden and the nocturnal, fitting for a spirit whose first office is to bring buried things to light. In his hand he bears a viper, and the serpent is the old double sign: venom and wisdom at once, the danger that is also the knowing. Taken together the image is of a spirit fierce and regal, who carries in one hand the very thing — the coiled serpent — that most warns the wise to look carefully before they trust. It is the figure of one who sees clearly and moves with force, and who is not to be approached carelessly.
Almost alone among the seventy-two, Vine holds two ranks together, named a Great King and an Earl in the same breath. It is easy to pass over as a scribe's flourish, but it suits him, for his nature is doubled through and through. He reveals and he acts. He builds and he throws down. He is sovereign and servant of the sovereign at once. The doubled title is the grimoire's own quiet acknowledgement that Vine is not a spirit of one motion but of two opposite motions held in one hand — the same hand that raises the tower can level the wall, and the practitioner who works with him is working with a power that faces both ways.
Vine's first office is revelation. He discovers things hidden, and he tells truly of things present, past, and to come. This places him among the Goetia's seers and finders — Vassago the gentle diviner, Foras who finds what is lost, Stolas who reads the heavens — but Vine's revealing has a particular edge to it. Where a gentle diviner draws back a veil, Vine drags the buried thing into the daylight whether it wished to come or not. He is a spirit of exposure as much as of sight: the concealed made plain, the hidden brought up from where it lay. Turned to knowledge of past and future, this is divination of a stark and clarifying kind — not the soft counsel of a friend but the plain showing of what was, what is, and what is coming, laid bare. For the seeker who genuinely needs to see clearly, and can bear what clear sight shows, this is a powerful gift.
The Revealer of Witches — and What the Vault Makes of It
Here is the office that this Vault will not pass over, for to do so would be a quiet betrayal of everything it stands for. Among the hidden things Vine discovers, the grimoire names witches and wizards — he reveals the workers of magic. Read at its worst, and read exactly as the centuries of persecution would have read it, this is the office of the witch-finder: the informer's power, the inquisitor's tool, the light turned upon the hidden practitioner to expose them to those who would burn them. This Vault holds the memory of that fire. The cunning-folk, the witches, the magicians, the followers of the older and the left-hand ways — these are the very kin of everyone who reads these pages, and they were hunted, exposed, and destroyed by exactly the impulse that a witch-finding spirit would seem to serve. So let it be said plainly: this Vault will not use Vine, or any spirit, to expose, out, hunt, or endanger any practitioner of any path. That reading of his office is disavowed entirely and without reservation. But the power beneath the office is not itself the persecution, and turned rightly it becomes something the practitioner genuinely needs. To reveal hidden magic can mean to see the working aimed at you — the curse laid in secret, the ill-will worked in the dark, the hostile magic you would otherwise never know was there — so that you may defend against it. To discern the true worker from the false can mean to recognise your own kin and your own teachers, to know real knowledge from empty performance, to see through the one who plays at power to the one who holds it. This is the same faculty that Shax governs — discernment, the seeing-through of what is dressed to deceive — turned now upon the field of magic itself. Vine, in this Vault, is the revealer of hidden magic for the sake of protection and true recognition, and never the finger that points out the hidden to their harm. The office is kept; the persecution is refused.
Vine's second motion is upon the world itself, and it too is doubled: at command he builds towers, and he throws down great stone walls. The two belong together, and they are the practical face of his revealing — for once you truly see what stands where, you know what should be raised and what should be levelled. The tower is what must be built: the stronghold raised, the height gained, the thing that should stand made to stand and made to endure. The stone wall thrown down is what must fall: the old barrier, the ossified obstruction, the fortification that once protected and has since become a prison. This is Vine's particular gift among the Goetia's builders — for where Halphas stocks his towers for war and Sabnock raises his to outlast a siege, Vine is as much the breaker as the builder, and his wisdom is in the discernment of which is called for. Not every wall should stand; some have become the very thing keeping you from where you need to be, and the power to throw down a great stone wall — an inner barrier, a hardened defence, a limit long mistaken for a boundary — is as much a liberation as the power to build is a strength. Vine builds what should stand and levels what should fall, and asks you first to see clearly which is which.
Vine's third power is over water: he makes the waters rough with storms. It places him among the sea-spirits of the Goetia, and among them he is the storm-raiser specifically — where Focalor is sovereign of the drowning deep and Vepar the guide and physician of the sea, Vine is the one who stirs the calm water into tempest. It is his upheaval expressed upon the element of water, the same force that throws down the wall now troubling the still surface. Turned outward this Vault holds only symbolically, as it holds all such raw powers — never the literal raising of a real storm upon real waters where real people sail. Turned inward it is the more useful reading: the storm is upheaval, and there are times when a still surface is not peace but stagnation, when the settled water has gone stale and needs troubling before it can clear. Vine's storm, rightly asked, is the necessary disturbance — the churning-up that breaks a stagnation, the upheaval that must come before a true settling. He is not a spirit of calm, and does not pretend to be; he is a spirit who knows that some things must be stirred to the depths before they can come right.
Vine is placed in the element of Water and the quarter of the West — fitting for a spirit whose power reaches the sea and the storm, and whose revealing draws the hidden up from the depths as water gives up what was drowned in it. For the planetary correspondence this Vault reads him, with an honest hesitation, under Saturn. His fierce lion and his violent storms could as easily be read as martial, under Mars, and a practitioner who felt that reading would not be wrong; but his deeper spine is Saturnian. Saturn is the lord of walls and boundaries and stone, of the structures that are built and the structures that fall; Saturn is the keeper of time, of the past and the future Vine tells; Saturn is the weight of the buried and the hidden that Vine brings to light; and Saturn is the severe, exposing, judging power that reveals what was concealed. The building and the throwing-down of stone walls, the knowing of past and to come, the dragging-up of the hidden — these are Saturn's own offices, and they are the heart of Vine. Set his metal as lead, his day as Saturday, his colours the storm-black of his horse and the green of the viper in his hand. 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 Saturnian reading follows from the walls, the time, and the buried things at the centre of them.
In the older demonology Vine is treated with a certain respect for his usefulness and a certain wariness for his force. Weyer and the Ars Goetia both give him the double rank and the full range of his offices, and both mark the witch-finding among them without comment — a reminder of the world those texts came from, in which the exposure of witches was a thing a grimoire could list among a spirit's virtues rather than name as the horror it was. The modern practitioner reads that line differently, as this Vault does, and the difference is itself a measure of how far the tradition has come in reclaiming its own. Beyond that line, Vine's reputation in the old books is of a powerful and reliable spirit for uncovering the hidden and for works of building and breaking — fierce, effective, and not to be trifled with.
Carried into the modern revival through the 1904 Mathers and Crowley edition and the grimoire tradition that followed, Vine is worked today chiefly for two things: clear sight into hidden matters, and the doubled power to build and to break. Modern practitioners tend to set the witch-finding office aside, or to reframe it — as this Vault does — toward protection and discernment rather than exposure, an instinctive righting of an old wrong. He is valued as a spirit who shows the truth of a situation, including the uncomfortable truth, and who then lends the force to act on it: to raise what should be raised and tear down what should come down. His storms are read inwardly, as upheaval and necessary disturbance. He remains a King and Earl of real power, approached by those who want to see clearly and are prepared to act on what they see.
Vine is fierce, clear, and doubled — a spirit of two motions, revelation and upheaval, held in one regal hand. He shows the hidden without softening it, builds and breaks with the same authority, and stirs the still water when the still water has gone stale. He is not gentle and does not counterfeit gentleness; his gift is the hard clarity of seeing what is truly there and the power to reshape the world to match. Met with respect and worked with a clear purpose and a clean conscience — above all the conscience that refuses to turn his revealing against the innocent — he is among the most useful of the Goetic kings for the seeker who needs to see the truth of a thing and then do something about it.
The grimoires give Vine a single striking form: a lion, the beast of sovereignty and strength, riding upon a black horse and bearing a viper in his hand. The lion marks his regal, fierce nature; the black horse is the mount of the hidden and the nocturnal, suited to a spirit who brings buried things to light; and the viper -- the coiled serpent held openly in his hand -- is the old double sign of venom and wisdom, the danger that is also the knowing, and a standing reminder to look carefully before trusting. He does not come gently. Practitioners describe his presence as fierce, clear, and heavy with authority -- a regal and somewhat severe spirit who shows what is there without softening it, and whose sight can feel like exposure. There is nothing coy in him; what he reveals, he reveals plainly, and the discomfort of that plainness is part of how he is known.
Enn: Eyesta nas Vine ca laris
Working with Vine is working with a doubled power -- the spirit of revelation and upheaval, who first shows what is hidden and then reshapes the world to match. He is a Great King and an Earl at once, fierce and clear and severe, and he does not soften what he shows. This Vault comes to him for hard clarity and for the doubled strength to build and to break, and it comes with one conscience held above all others: his revealing is never, on any account, turned against the innocent or used to expose a fellow practitioner to harm. What follows is a guide built around that clarity and that conscience.
Come to Vine with respect and with a steady nerve, for he is fierce and does not flatter. Cleanse yourself and the space, and set his seal at the centre of the working. Where the correspondences are followed, the Saturnian suits him: storm-black and viper green, the metal lead, the hours of Saturn and of Saturday. Be clear before you begin about which of his two motions you seek -- to see, to build, or to break -- for he is a spirit of definite purpose and answers a definite asking far better than a vague one. Then open the way by reciting his Enn -- Eyesta nas Vine ca laris -- steadily until a fierce, clear, regal presence gathers, and greet the lion upon the black horse without fear and without flinching from what he may show.
Before any working with Vine, hold this firmly, for it is the one rule his nature makes necessary. His office of revealing witches and workers of magic will not, in this Vault, ever be turned to expose, out, hunt, endanger, or harm any practitioner of any path. That is the persecution the tradition itself suffered, and to wield a spirit toward it would be a betrayal of everything the Vault holds. His revealing of magic is turned only two ways: toward protection -- seeing the hostile working aimed at you, so that you may defend -- and toward true recognition, the discerning of real kin and real knowledge from the false. If ever a working with Vine begins to bend toward exposing another to their harm, stop it. This is not a caution at the edge of the work; it is the ground the work stands on.
Because Vine shows the hidden plainly and without softening, prepare yourself to receive a hard sight. Ask yourself honestly whether you are ready to see the truth of the matter you bring him, including the parts you may have preferred not to see, for he will not spare you them. Come with a specific question -- a hidden thing you need uncovered, a matter of past or future you need known truly -- and come willing to accept the answer. As with all revealing spirits, and as with Shax especially, weigh what he shows against what you can verify, but expect from Vine a starker and more exposing clarity than the gentler seers give.
To ask Vine to reveal hidden magic worked against you, name plainly your suspicion that something has been laid in the dark, and ask him to bring it into the light so that you may defend against it -- and then act on what he shows by protecting and warding, not by striking back at a person. To ask his discernment, bring the practitioner, the teacher, the claim, or the knowledge you are uncertain of, and ask him to show you the true from the false. In both, the purpose is your own protection and clear sight -- never the exposure of another to danger.
For his work upon the world, be clear which motion you need. To build, bring him the thing that should stand -- the project, the stronghold, the structure in your life that you would raise and make endure -- and ask his power to raise it. To throw down, bring him the wall -- and be sure first, by his own revealing, that it is a wall that should fall and not one that still protects you. His speciality is the great stone wall that has become a prison: the hardened barrier, the old defence, the limit long mistaken for a boundary. Ask him to level it, and be ready for the upheaval that follows, for a wall thrown down leaves the ground changed.
Vine's storm is upheaval, and it is not to be asked lightly or for its own sake. Where a stillness in your life has become stagnation rather than peace -- a settled thing gone stale, a calm that is really a refusal to move -- you may ask him to trouble the waters, to stir up what has stood too long so that it can clear. Ask this only when you genuinely want the disturbance and are ready to weather it, for Vine does not raise a storm gently, and the churning must run its course before the settling comes. Never ask his storm turned outward upon the world or upon another; hold it to your own stagnant waters.
Practitioners describe Vine's presence as fierce and clear, weighty and regal, sometimes uncomfortably exposing. When he has heard, his revealing tends to arrive as a sudden hard clarity -- a hidden thing abruptly plain, a truth about a situation you can no longer avoid seeing, a false thing seen through. His works of building and breaking show as movement in the matter itself: a thing that would not stand beginning to hold, a barrier that would not shift beginning to give. Keep a written record of what he shows and what follows, for his sight is stark enough that it rewards being set down and returned to.
Work with Vine with respect for his force and with an unbending conscience about his revealing. Never turn his witch-finding office against any practitioner to expose or harm them -- this above all. Be certain, before you ask him to throw down a wall, that it is truly one that should fall. Ask his storm only upon your own stagnations, never upon the world or another. Receive his hard sight honestly, and act on it by building, warding, and freeing -- never by striking at a person. He is a King and an Earl of real and doubled power, fierce and clear and severe, and to the seeker who wants to see the truth of a thing and then act rightly upon it, he is among the most useful and most bracing of the Goetic kings.