Bael is the first of the seventy-two spirits of the Ars Goetia, a book from the Lemegeton that becomes traceable in the 17th century and was newly translated in the 19th century by S. L. MacGregor Mathers.
Within the demonic hierarchy, Bael stands as king at the head of the catalogue and commands sixty-six legions. His name refers to the Semitic god Baal, a former high god of the Syro-Canaanite region who was shifted into the register of fallen spirits by Christian demonology.
Bael is the first of the seventy-two spirits of the Ars Goetia, a book from the Lemegeton that becomes traceable in the 17th century and was newly translated in the 19th century by S. L. MacGregor Mathers.
Within the demonic hierarchy, Bael stands as king at the head of the catalogue and commands sixty-six legions. His name refers to the Semitic god Baal, a former high god of the Syro-Canaanite region who was shifted into the register of fallen spirits by Christian demonology.
Type: Demon, King of the Ars Goetia
Origin: West Semitic region, derived from the divine name Baal
Rank: First of the 72 spirits, king over 66 legions
Sources: Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577), Ars Goetia, Dictionnaire infernal
Related: Beelzebub, Paimon, Belial, Asmodai
The principal sources date from the early modern period. The Pseudomonarchia Daemonum appeared in 1577 as an appendix to Johann Weyer’s work De praestigiis daemonum. The manuscript transmission of the Lemegeton only becomes traceable in the 17th century, though some of its sources reach further back.
The Dictionnaire infernal by Collin de Plancy appeared in 1818, with the influential illustrated edition following in 1863. The name’s background in the history of religion reaches back to the second pre-Christian millennium.
The name Bael points to the West Semitic region, that is, Syria, Phoenicia and ancient Israel, where the divine name Baal was widespread.
The demonological figure of Bael, by contrast, is a product of the Western European grimoire tradition and is attested primarily in France, England and the German-speaking world. Through the English Goetia edition of 1904, the figure reached an international audience.
The central texts are the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum by Johann Weyer, the Ars Goetia as the first book of the Lemegeton, and the Dictionnaire infernal.
Weyer took over an older list and reorganized it. Whether the Goetia list goes back to a single historical core or was compiled from multiple sources remains an open question in scholarship. Joseph Peterson, editor of an annotated edition, leans toward the compilation thesis and points to older Arabic and Jewish spirit lists.
The name Bael is one of many spelling variants of the Semitic word baʿal, which simply means lord or owner. In the West Semitic world, Baʿal was not a proper name but a title applied to various local deities.
Best known is the Ugaritic storm god Baʿal, whose myths are preserved on the clay tablets from Ras Shamra. Beyond him there were the Baʿal of Tyre, the Baʿal-Hammon of Carthage, and numerous local deities who each counted as lord of their cult site.
In the grimoire tradition the figure appears as Bael; in popular culture also as Baal or Bhaal. A closely related intermediate form is Beelzebub, whose name appears as baʿal zəbûb, lord of the flies, in the Second Book of Kings.
These spelling variants obscure the fact that several distinct strands of tradition lie behind them: the ancient storm god, the biblical polemic, and the early modern prince of hell.
The iconographic tradition of Bael is striking. According to the Ars Goetia, he appears with three heads: in one variant a toad’s head, a human head, and a cat’s head, carried on spider’s legs. There are also depictions with two animal heads instead of three. The Lemegeton text speaks of a rough, hoarse voice.
The ability attributed to him in the texts is the power to grant the conjurer invisibility, along with cunning.
The animal-human hybrid form is not unusual in Western European grimoire material, but the combination of human, cat, and toad is unique to Bael. Its iconographic form was established by Collin de Plancy in the illustrated edition of the Dictionnaire infernal of 1863.
This illustration continues to shape the popular image of Bael to this day. Older sources such as the Munich Handbook of Necromancy from the 15th century contain no images and record the description only in words.
The toad-head iconography has nothing to do with the historical storm god Baal; it is an independent product of the late medieval and early modern imagination.
The following fields summarize the most important information from the sources on Bael.
The name derives from the Semitic Baal, one of the most important divine names of the Syro-Canaanite region. Baal means lord and designated both Hadad, the storm and weather god, and local protective deities.
Christian demonology moved this former high god into the register of fallen spirits. No trace of a storm or fertility function remains in the Lemegeton.
Bael is king and stands in first place in the Goetia catalogue. Sixty-six legions are subordinate to him. According to the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, he rules over the eastern part of the infernal realm. The king stands above the dukes, marquises, counts, presidents, and knights who follow in the remainder of the catalogue.
According to the Ars Goetia, Bael appears with three heads: a toad’s head, a human head, and a cat’s head, carried on spider’s legs. His voice is described as rough and hoarse. There are also depictions with two heads instead of three. The image commonly used today goes back to the Dictionnaire infernal of 1863.
In the ritual context of the Goetia, Bael is invoked with attention to astrological correspondences, typically in relation to the sun and the element of fire. The invocation follows the prescriptions of the Solomonic texts. iWell Guard adheres to the religious-studies description and refrains from providing instructions for conjuration.
Bael is assigned a sigil in the Lemegeton: a geometric drawing of lines and circles that is reproduced in modern grimoire editions. The sigil serves as an anchor for the invocation and in ceremonial magic is traditionally executed on parchment or metal. Aleister Crowley‘s edition of 1904 transferred the sigil into a modern occult reading.
Within the Lemegeton, Bael opens a series of kings that includes Paimon as the ninth spirit, Asmodai as the thirty-second spirit, and Belial as the sixty-eighth spirit. Closely related is also Beelzebub, who, like Bael, derives from the divine name Baal. The differences between the kings in the original text are minor.
It is important for the classification that Johann Weyer did not intend to write a book of conjuration.
He was a physician and student of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, and he pursued an enlightenment-oriented goal: he wanted to demonstrate how absurd and contradictory the notions of magicians were, in order to undercut the witch trials.
That his catalogue was later read as a practical guide ran counter to his intentions. Owen Davies has identified this shift from polemic to instruction manual as typical of the reception history of such texts.
With the rediscovery of the grimoires by the occult movements of the 19th century, Bael returned to popular imagination. A key role was played by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, who published an English edition of the Lemegeton in 1904 under the title The Goetia, with Aleister Crowley also involved.
This edition made the catalogue of the 72 spirits accessible to a wider audience and became the basis for almost all later references. Crowley interpreted the spirits as aspects of one’s own consciousness, a psychologizing reading fundamentally different from the older ceremonial tradition.
In fantasy literature, role-playing games, and video games, the name appears in countless spelling variants, often as Baal or Bhaal. In the process, two distinct strands of tradition are regularly blurred: the ancient storm god and the grimoire demon.
This mixing is not an error of transmission but a typical process of popular-cultural appropriation, in which a resonant name is detached from its historical meanings. John Milton’s Paradise Lost already introduces Baal as a fallen angel, though without the three-headed aspect.
In comparative religious studies, Bael is compared with storm and royal deities of related cultures, such as the Mesopotamian Adad, the Hittite Tarhuns, or the Ugaritic Baal-Hadad.
These comparisons aim not at historical filiation but at typological kinship. The line in the history of religion is clearer here than with other Goetia spirits, since the name itself establishes the connection to the West Semitic pantheon.
The Bael of the Goetia is an example of the revaluation of ancient gods by Christianity, a process that religious studies refers to as interpretatio diabolica. The Church Father Augustine formulated the principle that the gods of the pagans are demons.
By this route the former high god entered Christian demonology. Anyone wishing to study Bael should therefore keep the layers separate: the Canaanite storm god, the biblical polemic, and the early modern prince of hell.
The protective practice described here is a religious-studies classification of historical traditions. iWell Guard connects to this cultural-historical line of portable protective objects and represents a contemporary form of it. More about iWell Guard →
Bael is the first of the seventy-two spirits of the Ars Goetia, the first book of the Lemegeton. In the demonic hierarchy, he stands as king at the head of the catalogue and commands sixty-six legions. His name refers to the Semitic god Baal, a former high god of the Syro-Canaanite region who was shifted into the register of fallen spirits by Christian demonology.
The name Bael is a spelling variant of the West Semitic word baʿal, which simply means lord or owner. In the West Semitic world, Baʿal was not a proper name but a title applied to various local deities, such as the Ugaritic storm god or the Baʿal of Tyre. Behind the spelling variants lie several distinct strands of tradition: the ancient storm god, the biblical polemic, and the early modern prince of hell.
According to the Ars Goetia, Bael appears with three heads: in one variant a toad’s head, a human head, and a cat’s head, carried on spider’s legs. There are also depictions with two animal heads instead of three, and the Lemegeton text speaks of a rough, hoarse voice. The texts attribute to him the ability to grant the conjurer invisibility. The iconography familiar today was established by Collin de Plancy in the illustrated edition of the Dictionnaire infernal of 1863.
The central texts are the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum by Johann Weyer from 1577, the Ars Goetia as the first book of the Lemegeton, and the Dictionnaire infernal by Collin de Plancy. Weyer took over an older list and reorganized it, but pursued an enlightenment-oriented aim with his work rather than providing a conjuration guide. Through the English Goetia edition of 1904, in which Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley were involved, the figure reached an international audience.
Against its influence, cross-cultural tradition names these protective means:
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