Price: 1 330 EUR, 1 370 USD, 1 100 GBP
Technique: ink drawing
Size: 650 × 550 mm
Date: 2011
History, origin, description, and inspiration for the work
At one point in my life I was going through an occult period, which, like many other things in my life, was black. I was interested in demonology, specifically in the grimoire called The Lesser Key of Solomon. In the past, I had illustrated this grimoire and reimagined all 72 hell entities. The project was almost finished when by the end we didn’t reach an agreement on the payment with the project initiator, and so that cooperation ended. Nonetheless, my interest in the topic did not cease with that, so I continued to investigate the subject of Goetia by myself.
This drawing is simple, almost a bit amateurish from my personal perspective, depicting a very intense course of the event in which a young demonologist contemplates the ritual evocation of one of the Goetic demons named Orobas emerging from the abyss of the ancient chaos.
Other previews of the work





A bit of infernal philosophy
The demonologist in the drawing is not suffering. Writings of occultists, especially Czech ones, coming from the Hermetic tradition are usually full of unpleasant experiences. Headaches, feelings of nausea, horror hallucinations, strange sensations, underlying unhappiness, and so on. The whole Goetia and demon practice ritual is very offensive towards these egregores, if you can call them that. A ceremony often involves ritual abuse in the form of coercion, threats of divine power, seal whipping, etc. I should point out that these old grimoires are strongly Judeo-Christian in origin, thus relying on strict dualization between the evil and the good, where demons are by default stigmatized as bad and despicable. For centuries no one bothered to pay attention to Socrates’ legacy on this matter, in line with which daimons can be seen as angels and demons at the same time. Because of that, magical grimoires dating from before the 20th century are generally full of all sorts of inconsistencies. For example, in Goetia itself, the list of demons includes the mythical bird Phoenix, which in that source receives a humorously fantastic description of its infernal title and the number of legions in the army under its lead. There are more entities stolen from other pantheons, which could be seen as pagan. Some others are, for a change, probably made up entirely.
My goal with this drawing was to depict the demonologist as someone with an almost libertarian attitude who does not feel stigmatization, condemnation, or automatic hatred towards these egregores. He is someone who wants to make contact, at which he has succeeded, and to keep a conciliatory relationship without harassment with such demons, whether we believe in their existence or consider them entirely imaginary. It is as if he’s managed to establish balance, peace and symbiosis.
editing: Arianne Perrier
web design: Brbla