It may surprise people that despite my years of Goetic and “Demon” work, I have ONE pact. Wasn’t what I intended, but it’s how it ended up. And most were cancelled by the “demons” themselves.
The Demonic Pact is something of fantasy and fact. They exist, usually not with fledgling Satanists that don’t know what they’re doing. Pacts exist, for sure. Agreements, absolutely. Deals, even more so. I typically separate them based on severity – not necessarily by punishment for failure or failing to deliver. Think more longevity, seriousness, and scope of change.=
I made a pact with Belial one time to gain Occult knowledge and be able to fulfill the “path” that I could see before me. It was a pact of progression, learning, and power, with a little self-indulgence, but indulgence was not the main part by any means. There was a sliding scale of offerings and benefit. I couldn’t see it being one-sided, negotiated an out/end to it if it wasn’t beneficial to both, and called it good.
I kept up with it for a bit, all within the sliding scale. I knew I wanted to do more, but this was for MY purposes. I could feel that that was going to be “at odds”, but in a minor way and I only know this from measuring the link between us. You can measure the relationship with another entity by checking the quality of the link, when there’s a longer term one, but this can vary. How active the direct interactions are can cause this, even as a pact is upheld without direct interaction. It was appropriate here. I kept it up and then one day Belial approached me and told me he wanted to cancel the pact.
Truth was he felt it wasn’t going to be as beneficial to ME, so he asked to cancel it. I have to admit, I was a bit stung by it. Mostly, I didn’t know how to take it. I didn’t understand what he meant. What I heard as the reasoning was that it was so far skewed that he felt it wasn’t “fair” to me. Some may wonder if it was a parasite that did this, but it was not. The pact was witnessed by several other powerful spirits of similar level, because of my paranoia.
I knew it was “right”, but my pact had been broken. Rejected, in a way.
My next was with Leviathan. Years afterward as Leviathan kept telling me to wait despite being the second entity I evoked upon Hecate’s direction. I pledged myself to him in a fealty sort of way, not in a worshipful way. He accepted me as a dedicand somewhere around 4 years after I first contacted him. I learned quite a bit from him, especially with energetic rituals. This is why, when I produce rituals requiring energetic openings of a ritual/spell I use his sigil to do it. It’s exceptionally good for that, as he is largely Water based in this aspect, healing, “sea of plenty”, and resources thereof.
Yet after a bit, this, too, was cancelled. Instead, he wanted me to bring the energies of him (and some of Tiamat for balance) into myself to learn and grow from that. I have to admit, this was a hard loss. For years, I had called on him here and there to see if now was the time. I do admit to feeling a bit rejected when the time was never right and getting that “now” was a source of pride and purpose for that one area I knew I HAD to go down, but not why or when.
Eventually, he called me to ritual and told me it was time and he was releasing me from service.
In both cases, it had nothing to do with my service, but rather that the call to service was so that they could teach and influence things that called for that. Am I suggesting that ALL pacts are that way? No. But you don’t need a pact to get bamboozled, end up as a feeding source, or generally misled. Spirits will do that all the time for dabblers and those not on “their path”. Or those so desperate to BE or HAVE something they reduce logical tests in favor of emotion. I’ve absolutely been there, too.
All of it is a bit ephemeral. Because we can’t tell others how something should go, how they should feel, what exact things should occur to make things so. Paths, Progressions, Orders, and similar will always try to do so.
But this is about the only pact that remains for me – that with Lucifuge Rofocale. And what is it? It was brought to me by him. I must keep learning and experimenting with my spiritual progression/Occult. I will get “riches” and “wealth” from it. Notice that there aren’t monetary signs attached. There will be some monetary gain, but it’s more of a 85/15 at best (more like 1% monetary, but that’s how it goes). If I don’t upkeep my end, there’s nothing to gain.
This is the type of pact that one can keep for a lifetime. And after many run-ins with other entities over the years (variety of reasons, don’t assume by type or you’re hosed), this is the type of arrangement one should consider seeking.
I was recently contacted by LR for work he wanted in on that didn’t involve “payment”. I am a know heavy payer person for those I want services from, as I work across different paradigms, paying what is appropriate and asked for. This has been a pattern of responses across that paradigm and one I wanted to highlight. I have not hit LR up for tasks or similar that didn’t come up in one of my “Campaigns” or that I have produced a book towards and provided internet posts for.
But, I was thinking about a target and LR offered to help with part.
What’s the point?
You don’t need a pact to get work done, to learn things, or to get things.
I would suggest petitions or agreements for smaller things like that where the payments are typically smaller and there is a shorter duration of time. One could argue these are semantic distinctions and that is typically the case in this area, not dissimilar to curses, hexes, and jinxes. I don’t particularly care about one book’s definitions or one guru‘s or another. Practically speaking, they are done similarly. The mechanics for these within paradigms are similar, minus the window dressing and theatrics.
Now, if I were to get into my agreements, well, that would take a while… I have a lot of business-like relationships. Those are much longer-term, can be cancelled, and mostly involve assisting my progression so I know where to put my efforts for best result. Almost none of them are about work. None for “riches, b*ches, and fame” in similar ways to most younger folks on the Left Hand Path (regardless of actual age).
I would consider what your priorities are and see what make up of pacts, agreements, and similar that would make sense for your practice. Part of this will depend on where you want to go with Life, too, but the nice thing about being a magician is that we can always grow enough to help influence that. Give it some thought.
