Demonolatry London

I’ve recently had the wonderful opportunity to read Lucifer and the Hidden Demons: A Practical Grimoire from The Order of Unveiled Faces by Theodore Rose (you find it on Amazon!).

This is an interesting grimoire and one I recommend for those trying to find their footing in demonolatry. For example, if you’re not sure if ceremonial magic versus informal magic is right for you? Or you’ve never tried demonolatry before and you want an accessible way to dive in first (safely).

Overview: This book, or rather this grimoire, provides a complete, easy-to-use and beginner friendly way to start working with demons. The magic in this grimoire is a mix of informal and ceremonial magic, by which I mean there is structure to the practices, but most of the work is done in your mind (rather than you planning the right date, finding the right materials etc).

The grimoire starts with some of the foundational beliefs the author and their order work on the basis of. They take you through how they view demons and what they think your relationship should be like with them. Interestingly, they take a departure from the usual give-and-take approach I know many practitioners (including myself) take when working and building relationships with demons. While I didn’t find I agreed with most of their views of what working relationships should look like with demons, I still think there is value in hearing them out and reaching your own conclusion. Likewise, the author themselves emphasises that your own critical analysis of their beliefs is warranted. I admire this refusal to impose their beliefs on others.

The grimoire then moves on to take you through some examples of how you can use the visualisation tools. You are then presented with one of the most complete toolbox for working with demons I have ever seen. Once you’ve gone through the list of demons & their areas of specialism, the visualisation instructions and the order in which you should go through them – you are essentially ready start working with demons.

The magic system:

Really, really interesting!!! This grimoire basically has you read a short paragraph, line by line. Each line has you visualise something, each line taking you along a certain path and having you visualise each step to the final visual destination.

Every demon has their own paragraph which once you’ve finished reading/visualising, summons them. You need to combine them based on which demon you need to summon with Lucifer as the universal base / starting point. So for example, if you wanted to summon Lucifer only, you would read the visualisation cues for Lucifer and stop there. If you wanted to summon another demon such as Beelzebub, you would first read Lucifer’s visualisation cues + summon Lucifer. You would then move on to read Beelzebub’s visualisation cues and summon Beelzebub. Once you have summoned the demon in question, you would then put forward your request as clearly and as detailed as you can (although as the author notes, the demons will understand you even if you don’t put forward every single detail or concern regarding you request).

My favourite part:

My favourite part was in the beginning when the author says that reading fiction is one of the best ways to improve your magical abilities. I could not agree more. His reasoning (and I think it ties in specifically with the magic system of this grimoire) is that reading fiction trains your brain’s imagination muscle. When you read fiction, you’re playing a movie in your head and each scene is something your brain visualises and puts together.

What I liked:

• No missing parts: I really liked the fact that this is a complete grimoire. You could use this grimoire by itself and get incredible results for the rest of your life. You do not see this very often across older and modern publishing.
• Safe: It is also beginner friendly because the visualisation cues have been built to summon the demons of your choice and only them (i.e. you lower the chances of any spiritual fraudsters trying to trick you).
• Informative and effective: This book provides a whole list of which demons to use for specific purposes. It also takes you through how to deal with nuanced situations, especially ongoing circumstances where you may need to summon demons everyday as the situation evolves. As I was reading, I felt the power of the visualisation cues – I have no doubt the magic in this grimoire is extremely effective when practiced sincerely.

What I did not like:

• Personal views: It’s not entirely that my views clash with some of the foundational views in this grimoire, it’s more so the delivery. They are not extreme views but I think they could have been conveyed with more tact. I also think that the truth is always grey rather than black-or-white so I would have appreciated some more flexibility with how some of the opinions were expressed in this grimoire. Then again, it’s their book! So they are perfectly entitled to write as they so please. In any event I found their views interesting to consider. Also, again, they themselves encourage the reader to criticise and challenge their views so I really can’t fault them and this is a minor point.
• Demon names: I respect the different use of names for demons however I thought it would have been helpful to include references to what certain demons are known more widely by. This grimoire does not use more widely accepted names for certain demons so I found myself a bit overwhelmed by the amount of names I had never encountered. This does not impact the usability of the grimoire, so not critical but just would have been helpful.

Finally, not so much a point I didn’t like but I would have loved to have read some personal anecdotes from the author about how they’ve used the magic in the grimoire and what it’s done for them. They’re a great writer and I really appreciated their sense of humour throughout the book.

Conclusion: A great read for any demonolatry practitioner of any level. It has changed how I see demonic rituals and I will definitely be trying out the rituals in this grimoire. At this moment, I think this is the best grimoire I have ever come across on.

Give it a read!

Demonolatry London