Stellas Daemonum: The Orders of the Daemons

by David Crowhurst, Lon Milo DuQuette (Foreword)

An exploration of the 93 spirits or “star demons” as revealed in the medieval grimoires and classical esoteric texts, and their correspondences in magic and astrology

Stellas Daemonum offers an in-depth analysis of the spirits that appear in several late medieval and early modern grimoires. The book unravels these texts’ mythical, etymological, magical, and religious meanings, and draws out their astrological correspondences.

The author shows how the spirit entities featured in these Goetic grimoires can be best understood by studying the celestial nature apparent in the ancient concept of the daimon and through an extensive study of 93 of spirits featured in medieval and renaissance texts. The book also explores how traditional Judeo-Christian religion ultimately demonised such expressions due to their polytheistic roots and made punishable by death any attempts to reconnect with them.

The nature of this work is strongly influenced by the author’s own magical practices, but its presentation does not resort to subjective or personal experiences, having a style that is more formal and research-based.

Genres: Occult

368 pages, Hardcover

Published June 1, 2020

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book is an absolute kitchen sink of onomastic conjectures, numerological hypotheses, and strained mythological derivations, all precariously balanced upon the author's idiosyncratic emanationist ontology. While this material makes for interesting speculation, and in some instances may even hint at valid interpretations, the lack of an index makes locating any of it for research purposes onerous to the point of uselessness. Perhaps one redeeming element (especially, and indeed only, for practitioners) is the author's discussion of the astrological aspects and conditions that may be particularly conducive to working with each spirit—if one has the patience to look page-by-page for the daemon in question—based upon consonances with the offices and functions they have been traditionally ascribed. That being said, anything of use here is already available in a more accessible form in any number of more focused publications. Cannot recommend.

[HALLOWGEN · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Stellas Daemonum is essentially an entomological and astrological demon encyclopedia. Reading this cover to cover is a bit like trying to read a bestiary or wildlife guide cover to cover, which given its purpose makes sense.

The lack of an index is supremely irritating, especially since like I said, this is essentially an infernal reference book. Fortunately for me, my partner made me one, so I don't have that problem anymore. But, it really should come with an index.

I like the information in here. The astrology part is near-incomprehensible unless you have some base knowledge, so I mostly ignored it. The different names, and their history, as well as a brief historical background, appearance, and associations with each demon, and fun to peruse. I wish there were more sigils, but I liked that a lot of them had illustrations to break up the text. A lot of the tables comparing different aspects of them are cool too.

I haven't owned many different grimoires with similar text information besides the The Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon the King itself, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but if you want a beautiful demonolatry reference book this is a pretty good pick.

[A R]

DNF.

My eyes glazed over when the contents delved into astrology.

Faith and belief doesnt overtake reasoning and logic--even the religious man needs to have a reason for being as he is unless he just never bothered to question his ideology whatever it may be. There is absolutely no reason to base reality and decisions on the position of the stars...even Abrahamic traditions don't do this and if the top two religions recognized globally aren't assuming credibility to what we see when we look up (there are numerous learned men and intellectuals in those traditions) why should a random layperson like me consider it seriously?

It's kind of like the ideas you'd have a child but then never grew out of it and began to write them down in the articulate manner of a 14th century literate adult.
Mental illness in a book.

[Mitchell Stern · Rating 4 out of 5]

A dry read that is useful but repetitive if you’ve read most grimoires

[william m manzie]

Engrossing and very interesting,one of those books that open the mind up to possibilities.

[Lia P · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful when you don’t have another grimoire, plus it is very informative but it is a boring and dry read