AKA
Peyman, Poymon, Beyemon, Gomory/Gemyem(?), Azazel (?)
Goetia 9
Title
King of the West
Hierarchy
Cardinal Directions
Expertise
Arts and sciences, cosmology, the mind. Also fish?
Time & Place
The West
Description
A young man with an effeminate face sitting upon a camel with a glorious crown (though whether Paimon wears a crown or the camel does occasionally varies). He’s usually accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and music, and tends to shout unless he’s asked not to.
Paimon is a high-ranking demon, a king of the four directions placed just under Lucifer in the hierarchies (along with Egyn, Oriens, and Amaymon).
As one of the most powerful and better-known demons, the list of Paimon’s powers and abilities is extensive, and seems to begin with “all knowledge.”
Story Notes
Gender ambivalence – Demons aren’t particularly bound by gender, but Paimon is specifically described as being effeminate. In Pandemonium Stratton-Kent discusses the concept of “ghosts” in the Goetia, repetitions in the list due to scribal error, spirits with a common ancestry, and so on, and suggests that Paimon and Gemory are the same spirit. They have some similar powers, and both are elegant, crowned camel-riders. In the folk-horror movie Hereditary Paimon is, if not the movie’s main villain, part of the horror landscape of the film, and the demon’s gender-swapping nature is an important plot point.
Backstory: Paimon is a fallen angel, most likely a Dominion (a middle-management type angel). The Pseudomonarchia Daemonum suggests that he was a cherubim, which is a higher order of angel that fits his current elite status.
Azazel: In Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage Paimon is linked to Azazel, possibly because “azazel” is sometimes used as a word for the chief demon. It doesn’t appear that any other writers pick this up, and the “king of the hairy goat demons” seems a far cry from the graceful “king of the west wind.”
Has anyone written a story about a demonic pie man? I feel like the world is missing an opportunity.
Gomory – separated at birth?
Links
grimoire.org – wiki – demonic paradise – demons and demonolatry
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