Lucifer

LUCIFER

Lucifer gives us the knowledge to become independent and free. He directs us to be masters of our own lives and destinies. Lucifer and his Demons are always there to help us when there are things we cannot yet handle.

Who Lucifer is to practitioners today

Lucifer is the Light-Bearer, the morning star, and for most people on the Left Hand Path today he is not a spirit you summon for a favor. He is a teacher you build a relationship with.

Ask practitioners in demonolatry, Luciferian and theistic Satanic communities what he is to them and the answers sound less like a grimoire and more like a description of a mentor: the one who shows you the truth about yourself, who expects you to stand up straight, and who gives back in proportion to the work you bring. Some meet him as a living being, some as the awakened part of their own mind, and many stop worrying about the difference once the work begins.

This page starts with how people actually work with him now, the prayers they use, the questions they ask and what they report, and ends with what the old books say.

Why people work with Lucifer

People search for the right spirit for the right purpose. These are the reasons practitioners come to Lucifer, from the oldest and best-known to what people actually ask him for today.

Classic reasons

• Knowledge: learning of every kind, and occult knowledge above all
• Illumination: seeing a situation, or yourself, clearly and without illusion
• Self-mastery: discipline, willpower and breaking the habits that keep you small
• Independence: freedom from imposed authority and inherited rules
• Ascent: self-deification, raising yourself toward your own divinity
• Personal power: sovereignty, standing in your own authority
• Initiation: a first teacher and guide onto the Left Hand Path
• Access to other spirits: opening the way to Goetic kings, dukes and other powers

Modern reasons

• Confidence and self-worth: people pray to Lucifer when they are at their lowest, and many report that he reminds them of their own value
• Breaking free of religious guilt: ex-Christians work with Lucifer to shed fear, shame and the voice of a strict upbringing
• Career and leadership: petitions for promotion, authority at work and the nerve to lead
• Success and recognition: spells with Lucifer for visibility, reputation and being taken seriously
• Study and exams: people invoke Lucifer for focus, memory and the discipline to keep studying
• Creativity: writers, artists and musicians call on him for inspiration and the courage to finish their work
• Shadow work: facing what you have buried, with him as the light that shows it
• Beauty and glamour: his Venusian, morning-star aspect is petitioned for allure, presence and magnetism
• Guidance through upheaval: help to rebuild after a job loss, breakup or move
• A mentor or patron: many summon Lucifer simply to ask him to teach them and walk the path with them
• Clarity in decisions: asking him through tarot or pendulum which road to take
• Calm and mental clarity: people report praying to him for relief from anxiety and a clearer mind

Traditional, for reference

What the old grimoires and demonologies assign him. This is historical background, not modern practice.

• Grimorium Verum: Emperor of the spirits, ruling over Europe and Asia
• Grand Grimoire: source of treasure and wealth through pacts, made with his Prime Minister, Lucifuge Rofocale
• Dictionnaire Infernal: first to be invoked in the litanies of the Sabbath; carries witches to the Sabbath on his shoulders; called “a lover of justice in hell”
• Older demonologies generally: can be called to command and summon lesser demons
• Abramelin: one of the four superior princes over the spirits, alongside Leviathan, Satan and Belial (Mathers’ translation)

Lucifer at a glance

• Name: Latin lucifer, “light-bearer”
• Greek names: Phosphoros, Eosphoros, “dawn-bringer”
• Rank: Emperor in the Grimorium Verum and Grand Grimoire; in our tradition, Dark Lord and High Prince
• Chief minister: Lucifuge Rofocale
• Enn: Renich Tasa Uberaca Biasa Icar Lucifer (see our demonic enns page)

Correspondences

Used in Black Witch Coven (from our own practice and modern demonolatry):

• Planet: Venus (morning star)
• Direction: East. Set up your altar to him in this direction when spell casting or during ritual
• Element: Air
• Day: Monday
• Incense, herbs, oils: Dragon’s Blood, Sandalwood, Frankincense, Myrrh
• Metal: Gold
• Colors: Black, Blue, Teal, White, Yellow, Gold, Silver
• Crystals/stones: Quartz, Black tourmaline, Herkimer Diamond

Also used by other practitioners:

• Second element: Fire
• Second day: Friday, the day of Venus
• Second planet: the Sun
• Incense and herbs: Cinnamon, Lavender
• Stones: Carnelian, Garnet, Amethyst, Black onyx, Ammonite

Working with Lucifer today

No old grimoire gives a devotional rite for Lucifer. What follows is the practice that has grown up in living communities over the last twenty years, together with how we approach him in Black Witch Coven.

Relationship before requests

The most consistent advice across every forum is to get to know him before you ask him for anything. People who open with a demand, especially a large one, tend to report silence. People who spend a few weeks simply showing up, talking to him, making small offerings and paying attention report that contact builds. One long-time demonolater put it simply: learn who he is first, then ask.

Sigil and enn

Draw his sigil by hand rather than printing it, because the act of drawing is the first offering of attention. Then:

• Gaze daily. Ten minutes a day, relaxed and steady eyes, slow breathing.
• Chant the enn. Renich Tasa Uberaca Biasa Icar Lucifer, slowly and rhythmically, until the room feels different. There is no correct number of repetitions.
• Watch for the shift. People describe a thickening of the air, a rise in warmth, or a sense of being watched with interest.
• Keep it or burn it. Lore among practitioners: keep the sigil for a lasting bond, since it is said to strengthen with use; burn it to release a single, specific working.

Practitioners often describe the lines shimmering, the sigil glowing, or the strange sense that it has vanished and only blank paper remains.

The altar

Face it East. Beyond that, modern altars to Lucifer vary enormously, and practitioners treat that as a feature, not a problem. Common items:

• His sigil, hand-drawn
• Gold, black or white candles
• A dish for incense and a cup for wine
• For his Venusian aspect: flowers, soft colored lights, star imagery, mirrors and beautiful objects
• Something that represents your own work, such as a notebook, a certificate or a tool of your trade

That last item matters. The altar is where you show him what you are building. Some practitioners keep nothing more than a single candle and a sigil on a bookshelf, and that works too.

Offerings

• Red wine: the most common offering, often with a drop of the practitioner’s own blood stirred in
• Incense: dragon’s blood, frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, sandalwood
• Candles: left to burn while you give thanks
• Food: dark chocolate, oranges, blood oranges
• Flowers: roses
• Rum and tobacco
• Written work: poems, letters, essays, a page of your journal read aloud
• Effort: a finished piece of study, a mastered skill, a habit given up for thirty days in his name
• Blood: a drop or two of your own blood on the candle, on his sigil or in the offering wine. Blood is life force, the most personal offering there is

Effort is the offering experienced practitioners mention most. As one explained to a newcomer, an offering is an exchange of energy, and giving something up can count for as much as giving something over.

Timing

• Monday: his day in Collin de Plancy’s lore
• Friday: the day of Venus, popular with modern practitioners
• Dawn: especially while Venus is visible as the morning star
• Morning-star months: Venus rises before the sun for roughly eight to nine months of each nineteen-month cycle; an astronomy app shows which phase it is in. Some save larger rites for these months
• Midsummer: some work with him under the strongest sun of the year
• Night: many simply work when the house is quiet

Consistency matters more than the calendar.

Signs of contact

• Heat: the most common sign by far, warmth through the body, fire in the chest or hands, sometimes enough to sweat
• Light: candle flames stretching tall, a white light in the mind’s eye, a glowing sigil
• Candles and lamps: flickering, or candles burning down unusually fast
• Body: pressure between the eyes, vibration, dizziness
• Afterward: feeling wired and wide awake for hours
• Dreams: the most common doorway for first contact, often a few days after a ritual rather than during it
• Daily life: a song that answers that morning’s question, a phrase on a billboard, a conversation that lands exactly where you needed it

Communities are split on smaller signs such as feathers or orbs in photos. The practical test most people use is whether the sign comes with meaning, not only with novelty.

How he appears

Nearly all of us who know him agree on his appearance. He is not red with horns and a tail, and he does not look like a Halloween monster with flaming eyes and rubbery wings. Those who see him describe great beauty, often a radiant young man, sometimes a figure of pure light. Collin de Plancy recorded the face of a beautiful young child that turns monstrous and inflamed when he is angry.

The upheaval

This is the part of working with Lucifer that people talk about most and are least prepared for. A striking number of practitioners describe their lives coming apart in the months after they began. Commonly reported:

• A job lost
• A relationship ended
• A move they did not plan
• Friendships falling away
• A long, dark season of the soul

The tarot community calls this a Tower moment, after the card that shows lightning striking a tall building. Practitioners read it in three main ways:

• A test: a stripping away of everything false so something true can be built.
• The path of least resistance: magick takes the fastest route, so a vague request for “change” or “freedom” can arrive in its harshest form.
• Your own awakening: once you look honestly at your life, you stop tolerating what was never working.

Most people who write about it a year or two later describe it as the most important thing that happened to them, and many say they would not undo it. Those who say they shaped the upheaval rather than simply received it describe asking for specific things and doing their own part in the physical world.

Pacts

A pact is a formal agreement with terms on both sides, and modern pacts with Lucifer look very little like the soul-for-treasure bargains of the old books. A typical modern pact:

• Is written by the practitioner
• States a clear exchange: what you ask, what you will give, and for how long
• Is signed in ink, often with his sigil drawn beside the signature or a personal token placed with it
• Is read aloud before his sigil
• Is then kept on the altar or burned

Common terms include a period of devotion, a recurring offering, a public or private dedication, or a commitment to a body of work.

Many practitioners describe making their pact once a relationship was already in place rather than as a first act, and report that a short, specific term they could keep served them better than a lifetime promise. When a pact seemed refused or went nowhere, the usual reading in those accounts is that it asked for a great deal very early.

Some practitioners never make a formal pact at all and describe their whole devotional life as the agreement.

If you would like a pact made with an experienced guide, see our Demonic Pact with Savannah.

Self-initiation and apotheosis

For many Luciferians, the point of working with Lucifer is not to receive things from him but to become more like him. This is apotheosis or self-deification: raising yourself, through knowledge, discipline and experience, toward your own divinity.

Michael W. Ford’s Luciferian writing and the Assembly of Light Bearers frame it as liberation, illumination and ascent, and one model they use moves through three stages: clay (the uninitiated self), the fire of the forge (the self in the struggle of becoming), and light awakened.

A self-initiation into Lucifer’s current usually takes the form of a dedication rite:

• A night of fasting or vigil
• A written statement of what you are dedicating yourself to
• The enn chanted until you feel his presence
• The statement read aloud and sealed with an offering, very often a drop of the practitioner’s own blood on the signed page

What matters most, practitioners say, is what you do the morning after. The initiation is the first day of the work, not a graduation.

Prayers and invocations to Lucifer

Most people who work with Lucifer pray to him far more often than they perform formal ritual. Prayer is how the relationship is kept alive between the big workings.

The prayers below are written by Black Witch Coven for your own use. Speak them as they are, or let them teach you the shape of a prayer and then use your own words, which many practitioners say he prefers.

How people pray to him

• Spoken aloud: the most common way, standing, facing East. Many practitioners say he answers best to people who stand before him, so they do not kneel.
• Written and burned: a prayer written by hand, read aloud, then burned in his candle flame so the smoke carries it. Popular for gratitude and for prayers too private to say twice.
• Simply talking: plenty of devotees never use set words at all. Sitting with him and speaking plainly is a prayer.
• Candle colors: gold or white for illumination and devotion, black for protection and the deep work of upheaval, red for strength and passion, blue or silver for calm and clarity.
• Repetition: a short prayer said every day for a month builds more than a long one said once. Many people repeat a devotional prayer three times, or chant the enn nine or thirteen times before praying.

Prayer and petition

A prayer keeps the relationship. A petition asks for something. Prayer is praise, thanks, attention and conversation, offered with nothing attached. A petition is specific: it names what you want, what you will do yourself, and what you will give in return, and it is often written, signed and placed under his sigil or burned.

Practitioners who pray to Lucifer regularly report that their petitions land far better than those of people who only call when they need something, much as a friend you have kept up with is more willing to help than one who only phones in a crisis.

His enn

Renich Tasa Uberaca Biasa Icar Lucifer

Chant it slowly, on the out-breath, letting each word fall into a steady rhythm. Begin aloud, then let your voice drop to a murmur and finally to a whisper as the atmosphere changes. Most people chant it before a prayer or ritual to open the way, and some use it alone as a complete devotion.

Opening invocation for ritual

Lucifer, Light-Bearer, Morning Star,
first light in the eastern sky,
I call you to this place and to this hour.
I stand before you awake and unafraid.
Open the way, open my eyes,
and be present in this work.
Renich Tasa Uberaca Biasa Icar Lucifer.
Hail Lucifer.

Spoken standing, facing East, after the candles are lit and the enn has been chanted until the room shifts.

Daily devotional prayer of the morning star

Morning Star, you rise before the day
and do not wait for permission to shine.
As you climb the dark, let me climb mine.
Let me carry a little of your light into this day,
into my work, my choices and my words.
Let me be honest with myself before I am honest with anyone else.
I greet you, Lucifer, and I begin.

Said at dawn or on waking, ideally at an East-facing window. When Venus is visible before sunrise, many say it while looking straight at her. Some add the line from the ancient Easter hymn, the Exsultet, that names the morning star “which never sets” (lucifer, qui nescit occasum), a public-domain Latin text still sung today.

Prayer for knowledge and illumination

Lucifer, bringer of light to the mind,
you gave fire where there was only cold and dark.
Show me what I have refused to see.
Sharpen my thinking, steady my study,
and lead me to the teachers, books and moments that will open me.
I do not ask to be handed wisdom.
I ask for the eyes to find it and the will to keep it.
Illuminate me.

Popular before study, exams, divination and occult reading. Burn a gold or white candle and leave your books open on the altar while you pray.

Prayer for strength through upheaval

Lucifer, you fell and did not stay fallen.
Everything I leaned on is shaking,
and I will not pretend it does not hurt.
Let what is false in my life fall cleanly,
and let what is true in me stand.
Give me your pride when I am ashamed,
your fire when I am cold,
and your clear sight when I cannot see the road.
I will rebuild, and I will rebuild higher.

Said by candlelight, often with a black candle, during the Tower season described above. Many practitioners write it out and keep it by the bed. Byron gave his Lucifer a line that suits this season, telling Cain to “think and endure, and form an inner world” (Cain, 1821, public domain).

Gratitude and offering prayer

Lucifer, I thank you.
For the light you have shown me, and for what it revealed,
even what I did not want to see.
I give you this offering freely, owing nothing and asking nothing,
as a sign of my respect and my devotion.
Take it as you will.
Hail Lucifer, Light-Bearer.

Said as the wine is poured, the incense lit or the written offering placed on the altar. Name the offering aloud before you speak the prayer.

Closing and release

Lucifer, Morning Star, I thank you for your presence in this work.
What was spoken here is sealed.
Go as you came, with my respect,
and stay near as you will.
This rite is ended.

Spoken at the end of every ritual before the candles are put out. Many practitioners prefer to snuff the candles rather than blow them out, and leave the offering in place until the next day.

The sealed dedication prayer

Lucifer, Light-Bearer, Morning Star,
I stand before you of my own will.
I set my name to this path and my life to this light.
I take you as my teacher and my lord,
and I give you what is most my own:
my blood, my breath, my word.
As this drop falls, the bond is made.
What I have written, I will keep.
Renich Tasa Uberaca Biasa Icar Lucifer.
Hail Lucifer.

Spoken at the close of a self-dedication, after the vigil and the written statement. A drop of the practitioner’s own blood is placed on the signed statement or on his sigil as the last lines are spoken, and the page is kept on the altar or burned in his candle flame.

Questions people actually ask

These are the questions that come up again and again in demonolatry, Luciferian and Left Hand Path communities, answered the way we would answer them.

Will he punish me if I stop or take a break?

In everything we have read and experienced, no. People step back for weeks, months or years because of illness, a new baby, a move, or simply a change in their path, and the overwhelming report is that he is there when they return. Practitioners often say spirits do not experience time the way we do.

What does seem to matter is how you leave. Close any promise you made honestly, thank him, and if you are ending a pact, end it by its terms. A broken promise is the thing people say he remembers, not an absence.

Can I work with him alongside other spirits?

Yes, and most people do. Many practitioners approach Goetic kings, dukes and other powers through Lucifer, asking him to open the way. Others work with Lilith, Paimon, Asmodeus, Belial or Lucifuge alongside him. One devotee described Lucifer deliberately stepping back for a season so she could grow with other spirits, while still showing up when she needed him.

The only real dispute is over Satan: some practitioners say the two work together seamlessly, and others, including some well-known practitioners, say they are separate powers who do not mix well.

What if nothing happens?

This is the most common question of all, and the answer from experienced practitioners is consistent: silence is usually about perception, not rejection. Most people expect a dramatic sign and miss the subtle ones, such as a thought that does not feel like their own, a half-heard word, an image, a sudden warmth. What practitioners report helped:

• Keeping a journal
• Daily meditation
• Gazing at his sigil
• Writing down dreams
• Asking through tarot or a pendulum whether he is present
• Giving it months, not days

Some people find they were trying too hard and that contact came only once they relaxed. A smaller group of practitioners say that if he did not want to work with you, he would tell you plainly rather than ignore you.

Should I sign a pact?

Many practitioners describe building the relationship first: learning how he communicates with them and keeping a few small promises before any pact. Those who go on to make one mostly report specific, realistic, time-limited terms. Many experienced practitioners make one only after a year or more of work, and some never make one at all.

Is Lucifer the same as Satan?

Practitioners genuinely disagree. Historically the names come from different places: Lucifer from the Roman name for the morning star, Satan from the Hebrew word for the adversary, and Christian theology joined them. Demonolatry in the Connolly tradition, and many Luciferians, treat them as distinct beings. Many theistic Satanists treat them as one being with two names, using one in casual speech and the other in formal rites.

In practice the best guide is your own experience: people who have worked with both often describe them as feeling quite different.

Joy of Satan writers hold firmly that they are one being: Satan, they say, is called Lucifer in East and West alike, and they link him with Venus, the planet the Vedic tradition names Shukra, and with Sanat Kumara, the lord whom Theosophy says came to earth from Venus. One of them described a habit many devotees share: “I always preferred to call him Lucifer when speaking about him casually, and Satan when speaking of him formally. Our morning star.”

Does he charge for his help? Do I have to sell my soul?

No one in modern practice is asking for your soul. He is said to expect devotion rather than worship, effort rather than supplication, and honesty above all. The “price” practitioners describe is that you have to do the work he points you toward. People often say he will not carry you, but he will walk beside you.

Do I need to give blood?

It is not required. Blood is life force and the most intimate offering there is, and many practitioners give it: a drop on the candle, on his sigil or in the wine, or to seal a pact or a dedication. Others never give it, and their offerings of wine, writing and effort are taken as readily, in most people’s experience.

Is he my patron? I feel like he’s calling me.

Many people feel drawn to Lucifer long before they do any formal work: repeated dreams, a fascination with the morning star, his name turning up everywhere. Practitioners treat “patron” as a serious word that implies a long commitment, and suggest you work with him for a while and ask him directly through divination before claiming it. If he is your patron, the relationship will tell you over time.

Is it normal to feel a romantic or partner-like bond with him?

It is more common than most people admit. Some practitioners describe a loving, intimate bond with Lucifer, and a few describe themselves as spirit spouses. Others find the idea strange and experience him only as a teacher.

Both are recognized relationships in the communities, and we cover the sexual side of spirit work later on this page.

My life fell apart after I started. Did I do something wrong?

Probably not. See “The upheaval” above. People who have been through it describe looking honestly at what fell away and asking whether it was holding them back, then making specific requests for what they wanted to build next and doing their part.

The prayer for strength through upheaval above was written for exactly this season.

The help I got faded after a few days. Did I offend him?

Practitioners often describe early help, such as calm, clarity or relief, that fades. The common reading is that he gives you a taste of what is possible and then expects you to do the deeper work of reaching the root cause yourself. It is a nudge toward self-sufficiency, not a punishment.

Do I have to believe he’s literally real?

No. Some Luciferians treat Lucifer as the archetype of the awakened self, the spark of light inside, and work with him through meditation and reflection rather than prayer. Others meet him as a fully independent being. Organizations such as the Assembly of Light Bearers explicitly leave the question to the individual. What matters is that the work is real.

What works, what doesn’t

These patterns come from first-hand accounts on Reddit, practitioner forums and blogs and our own coven. None of it is a rule, and accounts sometimes contradict each other.

What practitioners report works

• Small, daily practice over one big ritual. Ten minutes with the sigil every day for a month does more than a single elaborate evocation.
• Asking for knowledge, clarity and growth. These are answered more readily than requests for a quick favor.
• Pairing every request with your own action. “Help me pass this exam; I will study two hours every evening.”
• Keeping your word. As one practitioner put it, “Most demons will expect that you keep to your word.” Lucifer especially.
• Standing before him. Respect offered upright, neither in supplication nor in command.
• Regular prayer between rituals. People who keep up daily devotion report their petitions land better.
• Confirming through divination. Tarot and pendulum help tell his voice apart from wishful thinking.
• Journaling. Write down every sensation, dream and coincidence, then review after thirty days.

What practitioners report working less well

• Treating him as a savior. He is described as a teacher, not a rescuer.
• Vague requests for change. “Change my life” is the request most often blamed for a harsh Tower experience.
• Overpromising. Big pledges of body and soul made in the excitement of a first ritual are the ones people later say they could not keep.
• Asking for too much too soon. Ambitious first pacts are often reported as refused or going nowhere.
• Signs measured against social media. People who compared their contact with short videos about feathers and flickers often describe anxiety and confusion.
• Straining. Trying too hard to feel something is a common block.

What people report from their first months

• Opening with a demand before any relationship existed
• Making a pact as the very first act
• Coming on their knees, or the opposite, trying to command him, before settling into standing respect
• Expecting a dramatic sign and missing the quiet ones
• Stopping after a few weeks, before contact had time to form
• Promising an offering and not delivering it

What changed when they kept going

People who have worked with Lucifer for years describe a shift from drama to quiet. The fireworks of the early months, such as the heat, the overwhelming arrivals and the wired nights, give way to a calm, steady sense of presence and a voice that is easier to recognize. Many say he becomes less a figure they summon and more a standard they hold themselves to. Several describe him stepping back as they became more capable, which they read not as absence but as the point of the whole relationship: he wanted them able to stand on their own.

The darker work: blood, pacts, curses and sex

Lucifer’s current is not only light and study. Practitioners bring him their most intimate and most forbidden work too, and we would rather explain it than pretend it does not happen.

Blood offerings

Blood is the oldest and most personal offering there is, and nearly every religion on earth has treated it as life itself. In Lucifer’s work it usually takes the form of a few drops from the practitioner’s own body:

• A drop on the candle before it is lit
• A drop on his sigil
• A drop stirred into the offering wine
• A drop to sign a pact or seal a dedication

Those who give it describe it as a statement that the bond is physical and real, not only mental. Some give blood once, at their dedication. Others give it at every major working. Many never give it, and the communities treat all three as part of the path.

The Grimorium Verum and other old books went further, to animal sacrifice, as the section on that book below sets out; Luciferian practice today centres on the practitioner’s own blood.

Binding pacts

Beyond the devotional pacts described above, some practitioners make deeper, binding agreements with Lucifer: a dedication of their whole path, a pact for a major life change, or a long-term exchange of service for power. These are sealed with something of the practitioner’s own so the bond feels physical and real, not only mental. Common seals:

• A signature in ink, with his sigil drawn beside it
• A personal token placed with the pact, such as a lock of hair or a ring
• A single drop of your own blood. Blood is life force, and nearly every religion on earth speaks of blood as life itself, so a drop on the signature gives the pact something of you that nothing else can
• An oath spoken aloud three times before the sigil
• The pact burned in his candle flame, or kept sealed on the altar for its full term

Some make a binding pact once, at their dedication. Others renew theirs every year at the same date. The old grimoires set their own terms, often the operator’s surrender at the end of a fixed span, as the Grand Grimoire section below shows; a modern binding pact is written in the practitioner’s own terms.

Curses and justice work

Collin de Plancy recorded Lucifer as “a lover of justice in hell,” and some practitioners take that literally, bringing him cases of betrayal, abuse or theft and asking him to set things right.

Others say Lucifer himself is rarely the spirit they choose for baneful work and that he prefers to teach you how to deal with an enemy rather than deal with them for you. One of our own members was told to offer sympathy to those who considered themselves her enemy.

Practitioners who do curse through him usually describe it as a request for justice, with the outcome left in his hands, rather than a specific harm dictated in detail. Many also approach baneful work through his ministers and allied spirits, with Lucifer’s blessing on the working.

Sexual workings

Sex magick runs all through the Left Hand Path, and Lucifer’s Venusian aspect makes him a natural focus for it. Practitioners use sexual energy in several ways:

• As an offering in itself
• As fuel to charge a sigil or a petition
• As a doorway into trance
• Through the offering of sexual fluids, which some practitioners list among his offerings

Spirit-spouse relationships, in which a practitioner understands themselves to be in a committed, sometimes sexual bond with Lucifer, are discussed openly in demonolatry communities, and the dream encounters and felt touches people describe are often part of that bond. Some practitioners work with Lucifer and Lilith together as a sacred pair.

What the old grimoires say

The modern practice above is the living part of Lucifer’s work. The old books are its background, and knowing them helps you see where today’s ideas came from and where they part ways.

Where the name comes from

To the Romans, Lucifer was the planet Venus as the morning star, the brightest light in the eastern sky before dawn. The Greeks called it Phosphoros or Eosphoros.

Isaiah 14:12 mocks a king of Babylon as Helel ben Shahar, “shining one, son of the dawn,” who tried to climb above the stars and was thrown down. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translated Helel as lucifer, and the King James Bible kept it as a name: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!”

Early Christian writers such as Origen and Tertullian read that passage alongside Luke 10:18 and Ezekiel 28 and made Lucifer the Devil’s name before his fall.

The older, bright meaning never disappeared: the same Vulgate calls the morning star that rises in believers’ hearts lucifer (2 Peter 1:19). From the Romantics onward, and through Helena Blavatsky’s journal Lucifer (1887), the name returned to its roots as the bringer of light, mind and freedom, which is where most modern Luciferianism begins.

Other faces of the morning star

• Inanna and Ishtar: in Sumer and Babylon the morning and evening star was the goddess herself, Inanna, who went down into the underworld and returned
• Athtar and Shahar: in the Canaanite texts of Ugarit, Athtar, the morning star, is set on Baal’s throne when Baal dies but cannot fill it, his feet failing to reach the footstool, and he goes down to rule the earth; many scholars see here the background of Isaiah’s “shining one, son of the dawn”
• Anzu: the Mesopotamian bird who stole the Tablet of Destinies from Enlil and was brought down by Ninurta, another who reached too high
• Phaethon: the son of Helios who drove the sun’s chariot and was struck from the sky
• Shukra: in the Vedic tradition the planet Venus is Shukra, teacher of the asuras
• Christian tradition: a seraph of great beauty and music, cast down after his war with Michael, and given the names Prince of Darkness, the Evil One and Lord of Temptation
• The hymns: the name stayed bright in Latin worship. Hilary of Poitiers’ hymn Lucis largitor splendide calls Christ verus mundi lucifer, “the true light-bearer of the world,” and Ambrose’s Aeterne rerum conditor sings of the morning star, lucifer, freeing the sky from darkness

Hans Wilhelm explains the name’s long journey in this video.

The Goetia does not name him

Many websites, including older versions of this page, describe Lucifer as the head of the Goetic hierarchy. The Ars Goetia lists seventy-two spirits and never names Lucifer as their ruler. The idea that he stands above the Goetic kings comes from the French grimoires and from later practice.

The Goetia does tie its Kings to him: Paimon is “very obedient unto Lucifer,” and Belial was “created next after Lucifer.” Our earlier page set out the nine Goetic Kings, Bael, Paimon, Beleth, Purson, Asmoday, Vine, Balam, Zagan and Belial, as standing first beneath him, and many practitioners still read the hierarchy that way.

The Grimorium Verum

Attributed to “Alibeck the Egyptian” and probably written in the eighteenth century, the Grimorium Verum places Lucifer at the top:

• Emperor: Lucifer, ruling the spirits of Europe and Asia
• Prince: Beelzebuth
• Grand Duke: Astaroth
• Directly under Lucifer: Satanachia and Agaliarept

The book gives a seal (character) and conjuration for Lucifer, and states plainly that spirits “do not give anything for nothing.” Its preparations include animal sacrifice.

• What the book requires: the characters of the spirits are drawn on virgin parchment made from a young kid. In the text A.E. Waite printed, the kid’s throat is cut at a single stroke while the operator names the spirit to be called: “I slay thee, N, in the name and to the honour of N.” The animal is then skinned and the parchment made from its hide.
• Exchange: the book is plain that spirits “do not give anything for nothing,” and the operator pays what was promised.
• Its lineage: animal sacrifice is among the oldest acts of religion: the burnt offerings of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Passover lamb, the qurbani of Eid al-Adha, and the sacrifices of Mesopotamia, Egypt and Vedic India. Christianity places the blood of the Lamb at the centre of the Eucharist. The Verum stands in that lineage.
• How practitioners work with it today: some keep the rite as written, most often where animals are slaughtered for food as a matter of course. Others consecrate parchment or vellum already made, or give their own blood in place of the animal’s. Black Witch Coven does not practise animal sacrifice.

The Grand Grimoire and Lucifuge

The Grand Grimoire, also called the Red Dragon, claims dates in the 1500s but is almost certainly much later. It keeps the same three rulers and adds six superior spirits:

• Prime Minister: Lucifuge Rofocale
• The other five: Satanachia, Agaliarept, Fleurety, Sargatanas and Nebiros

The operator never deals with Lucifer directly. He deals with Lucifuge, who offers treasure in exchange for the operator’s surrender after twenty years. In the version A.E. Waite translated, the operator haggles, threatens Lucifuge with “the potent words of the Clavicle,” and finally settles terms: a coin set aside on the first Monday of each month, and calls no more than once a week, between ten at night and two in the morning.

This is why so many magicians still approach Lucifer’s practical and money work through Lucifuge, and approach Lucifer himself for knowledge and initiation.

The Dictionnaire Infernal

The Dictionnaire Infernal (Collin de Plancy, 1818 and later editions) gathers the folklore. According to some magicians, Lucifer rules over the East and commands the Europeans and the Asians. He is often referred to as the king of hell, and is superior to Satan according to some demonologists. He was evoked on Monday in the middle of a circle which contained his name and remained content when a mouse or venison-bit was offered to him. One says he is facetious, and that he often pulls witches off brooms on their way to the Sabbath and gives them a ride on his shoulders, which accused witches in the Swedish trials claimed in the late 1600s. They also describe Lucifer as gray with blue arms and red culottes decorated with ribbons. Lucifer has the face of a beautiful young child, which changes to monstrous and inflamed when he is angry. According to some demonologists, he is a lover of justice in hell. He is also the first to be invoked in litanies of the Sabbath.

Abramelin

The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, in Mathers’ 1898 translation, places Lucifer among the four superior princes of evil spirits, with Leviathan, Satan and Belial. Mathers notes: “Lucifer: From Latin, Lux, Light, and Fero, to bear, – A Light Bearer.” He adds: “There is a name ‘Lucifuge’ also employed occasionally, from Lux, Light, and Fugio, to fly from, – He who shuns the Light.”

What the books will tell you

• He can be summoned by witches riding on brooms into the Sabbath so as to let them ride atop his shoulders.
• He can be invoked to summon any other lesser demon which the conjuror wishes to evoke.
• He is very powerful and could presumably be evoked to achieve a wide array of tasks although it is very risky for inexperienced conjurors.

We will tell you that perhaps the above is true, however, we found Lucifer is more of a supreme being and can offer you wisdom and guidance.

Solomonic command and demonolatry

The old grimoires come from the Solomonic tradition, in which the magician stands inside a protective circle as an agent of God and compels the spirit to appear and obey. Spirits are bound by divine names, threatened with curses and chains if they resist, and dismissed by command.

This is the grimoires’ method on its own terms, descended from the binding of spirits by names of power in the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri and in Jewish magic, and ceremonial magicians still work it. The Grand Grimoire‘s bargaining with Lucifuge shows it plainly: the operator presses the spirit with the words of the Clavicle until terms are agreed.

Devotional demonolatry approaches the same powers from the other side:

• Stance: a spirit commanded by divine authority in the Solomonic rite; a teacher or ally honoured in demonolatry
• Authority: the divine names in the one; the practitioner’s own relationship in the other
• Exchange: constraint, with offerings where the book requires them, in the one; offerings and prayer at the centre of the work in the other
• Aim: a specific charge carried out, or a lasting relationship

Many people today blend the two, keeping the circle, the seal and the formal structure of the old books while making offerings in the manner of demonolatry. Most practitioners who work with Lucifer in particular report that he answers relationship more readily than command.

Further study

For more on the belief system itself, see our pages on Luciferianism and a compendium of Luciferian beliefs, and our page on the Dukante Hierarchy, which places Lucifer at the eastern quarter with Leviathan, Belial and Flereous.

From our coven

These accounts come from Black Witch Coven members and students.

Today I asked “who has a message for me…..” and it is the big guy himself … Lucifer. Hail Lucifer! Thank you for all you have done for me and my path. The message I received was to give sympathy for those who consider themselves my enemy. The “light bringer” can now open the minds of people blinded by false scriptures. Slowly and with sympathy for these “haters” …. things will change!

It was the deepest meditative state I’ve reached, my soul was completely separate from my body. I met with Lucifer and he guided me through time, space and then I fell into different dimensions. There was a point where I felt the presence of spirits circling around my body to take me away but I used Aegishjalmur to fend them off, pretty easily. I then found myself struggling to find my body, my eyes were constantly squinting but I couldn’t open them because my soul had not returned. I then asked Lucifer for a gift, a small part of his power. He gave me a task where he told me to look through my eye, I saw many eyes (still squinting) until I reached a sphinx and got this eye symbol, which I found out to be a dimensional gateway to the magick realms.

– WWD Student

Black Witch Coven’s view

We found Lucifer to be more of a supreme being than a spirit for hire, and the one who offers wisdom and guidance above everything else. He gives us the knowledge to become independent and free, and he directs us to be masters of our own lives. That is a gift with a price: he will not carry you. He meets you in proportion to the effort you bring, and when parts of your life are false, he has a way of letting them fall. People who come to him for a shortcut are often disappointed. People who come to him to learn, and who keep their word, describe a teacher unlike any other. His name has meant the Devil to one tradition and the light of dawn to another for two thousand years, and in our experience both are true: he is the light that comes before the day, and that light shows everything, including what you would rather not see.

Work with Lucifer through Black Witch Coven

• Ritual to Lucifer: Light of Liberation, Wisdom, and Sovereignty: if you would rather have the working done for you
• Lucifer Oleum: for your own altar work
• Luciferian Ascent Mentorship: if you want a guide on the path
• Monthly Demonic Praise Subscription: ongoing devotion on your behalf
• Demonic Pact with Savannah: for a pact
• Lucifuge Rofocale Oleum: practical and money work through his Prime Minister
• Luciferian Goetia: The Book of Howling by Michael W. Ford: in our pre-loved books

As with all magick, results are never guaranteed.

Related spirits

Our earlier page named the closest to him as the other crowned kings of hell, Astaroth, Azazel and Beelzebub, and noted that some hold Lucifer to be Ra, the number of the sun being 666.

• Satan: the Adversary; one being with Lucifer for some, distinct for others
• Lucifuge Rofocale: Lucifer’s Prime Minister in the Grand Grimoire
• Satanachia: one of the superior spirits under Lucifer in the French grimoires
• Beelzebub: Prince in the Grimorium Verum triad
• Astaroth: Grand Duke in the same triad
• Azazel: the watcher who taught forbidden knowledge to humanity
• Sammael: the angel of death and accuser, often merged with Lucifer and Satan in later lore
• Leviathan and Belial: with Lucifer and Flereous, the four elemental princes of demonolatry, and with Satan, Lucifer’s companions among the four princes of Abramelin

Sources

Isaiah 14:12, King James Version (1611)	“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!”
Isaiah 14:12, Latin Vulgate (Jerome, c. 400)	“Quomodo cecidisti de caelo, lucifer, qui mane oriebaris”
2 Peter 1:19, Latin Vulgate	“…donec dies elucescat et lucifer oriatur in cordibus vestris”
Exsultet, the Easter Proclamation (Latin, early medieval)	“Flammas eius lucifer matutinus inveniat: ille, inquam, lucifer, qui nescit occasum”
Lord Byron, Cain: A Mystery (1821)	Lucifer to Cain: “think and endure, and form an inner world”
The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, trans. S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1898)	“Lucifer: From Latin, Lux, Light, and Fero, to bear, – A Light Bearer.”
Dictionnaire Infernal, J. Collin de Plancy (1818; later editions)	Lucifer evoked on Monday; rules the East; “a lover of justice in hell”
Grimorium Verum (18th c.)	Lucifer as Emperor, with Beelzebuth and Astaroth; spirits “do not give anything for nothing”
Grand Grimoire, in A. E. Waite, The Book of Ceremonial Magic	Lucifuge Rofocale’s terms: “except thou dost give thyself over to me in twenty years”

Further reading: Michael W. Ford, Luciferian Witchcraft, Bible of the Adversary and Wisdom of Eosphoros (with Jeremy Crow); Asenath Mason (ed.), Rites of Lucifer; S. Connolly, The Complete Book of Demonolatry; Peter Grey, Lucifer: Princeps; Theodore Rose, Lucifer and the Hidden Demons; Ruben van Luijk, Children of Lucifer.

• Assembly of Light Bearers: Introduction to Luciferian Magick
• A Solitary Midsummer with Lucifer, Witches & Pagans
• The Book of Ceremonial Magic (Grand Grimoire pact), Sacred Texts
• Grimorium Verum text, Esoteric Archives
• Helel ben Shahar, Wikipedia