|
Asmodeus
(Page 2)
Asmodeus also figures in the
apocryphal
Book of Tobit as the personal tormentor of Tobias' wife-to-be, Sarah, and causes the death
of seven husbands in succession, each on his bridal night. He was finally driven into
Egypt through a charm
made by Tobias of the heart and liver of a fish burnt on perfumed ashes, as described by
Milton in
Paradise
Lost
(1667). Hence Asmodeus figures as the spirit of matrimonial jealousy
or unhappiness.
"Better pleased Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume That drove him, though enamoured, from the
spouse Of Tobit's son, and with a vengeance sent From Media post to Egypt,
there fast bound."
Paradise
Lost.
In the
Testament of Solomon Asmodeus
reveals himself as the demon pledged to plot against the newly wedded. In it
Asmodeus answered King Solomon's question concerning his name and functions as
follows:
"I am called Asmodeus among mortals, and my
business is to plot against the newly wedded, so that they may not know one
another. And I sever them utterly by many calamities; and I waste away the
beauty of virgins and estrange their hearts. . . . I transport men into fits
of madness and desire when they have wives of their own, so that they leave
them and go off by night and day to others that belong to other men; with
the result that they commit sin and fall into murderous deeds."
Solomon obtained
the further information that it was the archangel Raphael who could render
Asmodeus innocuous, and that the latter could be put to flight by smoke from a
certain fish's gall. The king availed himself of this knowledge, and by means of
the smoke from the liver and gall he frustrated the "unbearable malice" of this
demon. Asmodeus then was compelled to help in the building of the Temple; and,
fettered in chains, he worked clay with his reet, and drewwater. Solomon would
not give him his liberty "because that fierce demon Asmodeus knew even the
future."
Thus, in the Testament of Solomon, Asmodeus is
connected on the one hand with the Asmodeus of Tobit, and possesses on the other
many points of contact with the Ashmedai of rabbinical literature, especially in
his relation to Solomon and the building of the Temple.
The Hebraic name Ashmedai
(Destroyer, or "evil spirit") was probably from the Persian Aesham-dev
or Aeshma, the demon of concupiscence and wrath. The term 'flight of Asmodeus' is derived from a work of
literature by
Alain Renι Lesage (Le Diable Boiteux, 1707) in which Asmodeus takes
Don Cleofas for a night flight, and by magical means removes the roofs from the houses of a
village to show him the secrets of what passes in private lives.
Asmodeus bios:
Rank: King
Adversary: John the Baptist
Sign: 10° - 20° Aquarius (January 30 - February 8)
Time of Day: Day
Planet: Sol (Sun)
Metal: Gold
Tarot Card: 6 of Swords
See
Heptameron,
Demonology,
Demonomancy,
Grimoires,
Casting Black Magic Spells,
Commanding Spirits,
The Tarot Store and
Divination & Scrying Tools and
Supplies.
Sources: (1) Masello, Robert,
Fallen Angels. . . and Spirits of the Dark,
The Berkley Publishing Group; (2) Spence, Lewis,
An Encyclopedia of
Occultism, Carol Publishing Group; (3) de Plancy,
Collin, Dictionnaire Infernal,
Editions; (4) Wier, Johann,
De Praestigiis Daemonum, Pegasus;
(5) Mathers, S. Liddell
MacGregor,
The Goetia, The Key of Solomon the
King, The Book Tree; (6) Milton, John,
Paradise
Lost; (7)
Lewis,
James R.,
Angels A to Z,
Visible Ink Press.
|
|
|
