Belial
Belial is the 68th of the 72 spirits catalogued in the Ars Goetia, the first section of the Lemegeton. He is described with the title of King. Among the catalog's 72 names, Belial stands out for having the most extensive and oldest independent textual history, documented in sources predating the Ars Goetia by well over a millennium.
Last reviewed: 2026-07-20
Historical fact
The name Belial carries the most extensive and best-documented textual history of any name in the Ars Goetia catalog, predating the grimoire's compilation by well over a thousand years. In Hebrew, the expression 'beli ya'al' originally functioned as a common noun, roughly meaning 'worthlessness' or 'without value,' before becoming personified as a proper name in Jewish literature of the late Second Temple period. Belial figures prominently among the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran — notably in the War Scroll (1QM), where he is named as the leader of the forces of darkness arrayed against the 'Sons of Light.' The name also appears in other apocryphal and pseudepigraphal works, including the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Ascension of Isaiah, generally as a major personification of wickedness or an adversarial spiritual figure. This textual presence extends into the New Testament: in 2 Corinthians 6:15, the apostle Paul asks rhetorically, 'what accord has Christ with Belial?' — using the name as a byword for the devil or for supreme wickedness. In Mathers' edition (1904) of the Ars Goetia, Belial is described as appearing in the form of two beautiful angels seated in a chariot of fire, speaking with a fair voice, and declaring — according to the text's own narrative — that he fell from among the more worthy angelic ranks that existed before Michael and the other heavenly angels.
Interpretation — Solomonic Tradition (Mathers/Crowley, 1904)
In Mathers' edition, published with commentary by Aleister Crowley, Belial holds the catalog's 68th position and is described as a King, mighty and terrible, commanding 80 legions of spirits according to the text. The manuscript states that he was created next after Lucifer, and he is listed with the attribute of distributing preferments — offices, favors, and the goodwill of friends — to those he governs, per the text's own documentary description.
Interpretation — Dr. Rudd's Tradition (manuscript, c. 1650)
The manuscript attributed to Thomas Rudd, predating Mathers' edition by roughly two and a half centuries, documents a related but distinct version of the catalog — in it, each of the 72 spirits, including Belial, is paired with a corresponding angel drawn from the Kabbalistic Shem HaMephorash system (72 divine names), a restraining/governing structural element absent from Mathers' edition. No reliable record of the specific angel name Rudd's manuscript assigns to Belial was found among the sources consulted for this entry; the general pairing practice is documented by researchers such as Joseph Peterson.
Interpretation — Luciferian Tradition (modern interpretation)
Modern Luciferian authors, chiefly Michael W. Ford (in works such as The Luciferian Goetia), reframe the Ars Goetia's 72 spirits as archetypal masks of the practitioner's own consciousness rather than external powers subordinate to a higher divine authority — the Solomonic model. Belial's case carries particular weight in this reading precisely because of his deep pre-Goetia textual history: centuries before he was catalogued as the 68th spirit, 'beli ya'al' was already Hebrew shorthand for worthlessness and, by the Qumran community's War Scroll, had become the personified leader of an entire opposing order of being, set against the 'Sons of Light.' Luciferian writers who revisit this lineage — much as they treat Bael's echo of Baal or Astaroth's echo of Astarte — read that ancient adversarial role not as objective evil but as a record of how sanctioned authority has long branded whatever it casts out as worthless or dark. In this frame, the manuscript's own claim that Belial fell from among the angelic ranks that existed before Michael is reinterpreted as the archetype of a sovereignty that predates and refuses subordination to any imposed hierarchy, and his office of distributing preferments is read as the capacity for self-authorized value — determining one's own worth rather than receiving it from external favor.
This section presents one tradition's interpretation, not a verifiable fact.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is Belial considered the most textually significant name among the Ars Goetia's 72 spirits?
- Unlike most names in the catalog, Belial is not merely a repurposed title of an ancient deity (as with Bael/Baal or Astaroth/Astarte) — he is a personified figure extensively documented in Jewish and Christian sources predating the Ars Goetia by well over a millennium, including the Dead Sea Scrolls (where he leads the forces of darkness in the War Scroll), the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the New Testament (2 Corinthians 6:15). This direct, sustained textual continuity is the most significant case of its kind in the entire catalog.
- What does Mathers' edition attribute to Belial in terms of appearance and rank?
- According to the text, Belial appears in the form of two beautiful angels in a chariot of fire, speaks with a fair voice, holds the title of King, commands 80 legions, and the manuscript states he was created next after Lucifer, distributing preferments and favors to those he governs.
- Is the Luciferian reading of Belial as old as the Mathers and Rudd traditions?
- No. It's a modern interpretation, developed mainly from the 2000s onward by Luciferian authors such as Michael W. Ford, who reframe the Ars Goetia's spirits as psychological archetypes for self-development — a contemporary symbolic reading, not a historical manuscript like Mathers' or Rudd's.
Sources
- S. L. MacGregor Mathers (trans.), Aleister Crowley (ed.). The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King (1904).
- Joseph H. Peterson (ed.). The Lesser Key of Solomon (2001).
- Thomas Rudd (manuscript), ed. Adam McLean. Dr. Rudd's Treatise on Angel Magic (c. 1650 (2007 ed.)).
- Michael W. Ford. The Luciferian Goetia (2007).