Pandemonium: A Discordant Concordance of Diverse Spirit Catalogues

PANDEMONIUM by Jake Stratton-Kent is truly a first of its kind, and a necessity for the further development of traditional magic in a modern context. While not intended to be the last word, it opens up territory that demands further examination. It starts with the first English translation of a major spirit catalogue and ends with an appendix redefining ‘traditional’ grimoirists. Sandwiched between these is a comparative survey of several important spirit catalogues, which is much more than ‘a dictionary of demons’. Totally geared to emergent practice, leading us away from the prevalent focus on ‘tools and rules’, authors and manuscripts, towards a developing relationship with the dramatis personæ essential to the whole tradition.

In PANDEMONIUM Jake Stratton-Kent offers a comparative study of the spirits of Le Livre des Esperitz, the Grand Grimoire, the Book of Offices, the German Honorius, Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, the Goetia of Solomon, Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft, and more. In doing so he explores the Trinitas, the spirits of the seven days, the spirit council, the four Kings, eighteen-ness, the Long Text Group, and ghosts in the machine.