Pandemonium - Jake Stratton-Kent

[Calin]

So I am a self confessed book lover, and have a reasonably large collection of books. Some are better than others, so I thought I should start doing some reviews.

Now I know with a little searching many occult books can be easily downloaded without paying, but I encourage you to save your pennies and purchase books, as without this income, the world will slowly be bereft of wonderful academics such as Jake Stratton-Kent. And a gentle reminder, do not post any links to free texts on this forum, it infringes copyright and puts S&S at risk...

So! I am going to start with this pearl of a book by Jake Stratton-Kent, one of my favourite contemporary occult authors, "Pandemonium - A Discordant Concordance of Diverse Spirit Catalogues". Published by Hadean Press, 2016. 257 pages. I picked my copy up from Amazon.

Now this isn't an introductory book, but for those who know their demons and hierachies. This master of contemporary Goetia successfully challenges the long accepted categorisation of demons, the Goetia of Solomon, and seeks to share a more complete spirit catalogue. He covers little known continental grimoires such as the Livre Des Esperitz (translated as "Book of Spirits" from the French) and the recently translated Book of Oberon. He conducts a comparative analysis of the various goetic grimoires, with lots of tables showing the different hierachies across the grimoires. He urges us to rethink the tendency to place the highest stock in earliest known manuscripts, rather to seek out a more complete picture.

He provides corrected sigils for all of the demons, and his stated goal is to clarify the important personalities, their roles and inter-relations of the grimoire spirits. It is a dense read, and is an invaluable reference book that you will come back to over and over. It provides new insights into the demons we work with. The book is a great follow up to his True Grimoire, which is available for purchase at Scarlet Imprint https://scarletimprint.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; It gives new insights into the role of spirits such as Lucifuge Rofocale, how and where Satan fits into this construct, and many other brilliant insights.

If you haven't read any of his works before, he is closer to our way of thinking than most occultists. From the book "..departure from the grimoires, particularly the routine employment of coercive elements and dualistic models, is not a break with tradition, it is a return". He does not see demons as evil, rather spirits that can and should be worked with. He does use a circle but does not use any of the command and threaten that you see in the original grimoires.

I highly recommend it.

[Yekarah]

Thank you for sharing this.


This book will definitely be one of my future purchases.

It looks like a valuable read.



Infernal dark blessings⛧

[laalbieglna]

Thank you for this (and especially for the reminder to support the livelihood of our authors). I've been reading "Pandemonium", too, extremely valuable. I am also enjoying his "Geosophia", though it looks like they're only really available in ebook format.

[Calin]

Thank you for this (and especially for the reminder to support the livelihood of our authors). I've been reading "Pandemonium", too, extremely valuable. I am also enjoying his "Geosophia", though it looks like they're only really available in ebook format.

Thanks Laalbeiglna,

Geosophia is still available from Scarlet Imprint, in the red (softcover) series, it comes as a set of two books. I am re-reading those at the moment, along with the Book of Oberon, which I am going to do a review of too given the larger goetic list of spirits in it.