#5
Goetia Spirit · President · North
Marbas
The 5th spirit of the Lesser Key of Solomon.
The old books set Marbas down as a President of the Goetia, 5th of the seventy-two, commanding 36 legions and approached from the North. The recorded form: great lion. What follows is what the sources say, and the name of the answer they give.
A note on this material
This is a defensive reference, not an instruction in summoning. Every spirit here is set beside its countermanding angel, the Watcher whose office stands opposite. You are given the name of the answer, never the procedure of the call.
What the Lesser Key records
- Number in the Goetia
- #5 of 72
- Rank
- President
- Legions commanded
- 36
- Direction approached from
- North
- Also known as
- Barbas
- Appearance recorded
- Great lion
- Domain / Powers
- Answers truly on hidden things, causes/heals diseases, gives wisdom
- Countermanding angel
- Mahasiah
- Paired angel number
- 555
Where the sources differ
Weyer set this spirit 3rd in his catalogue of 1577. The Lemegeton, assembled the following century, moved it to 5th and reordered the hierarchy around rank. Neither list is a copy of the other.
The name travels badly. Marbas appears variously as Barbas — the drift of a name carried through Latin, French and English hands over four centuries.
If this spirit’s domain has touched your life
The domain the tradition assigns to Marbas is this: answers truly on hidden things, causes/heals diseases, gives wisdom. If you believe something of that shape is working against you or around you, the older grammar is blunt about the response. You do not address the spirit. You call the angel set against it.
Call on Mahasiah. The Watcher whose office stands opposite this domain. Read the full profile and the traditional prayer →
The protection the tradition prescribes
- Name the pattern. Write down, clearly, the specific way you suspect the influence is operating. Vague suspicion gives the influence cover.
- Call on Mahasiah by name. Speak or write the call. Do not address the spirit directly.
- Guard against the compulsion to know. Set down the question you keep returning to and leave it unanswered for the forty days. This office trades on the certainty that you cannot bear not knowing.
- Carry the stone the tradition gives. The medieval lapidary assigns particular stones to particular protections — see the Crystal Directory.
- Repeat for forty days. The tradition is consistent on this duration — long enough to break a settled pattern.
Common questions
Is it dangerous to read about Goetia demons?
No. Reading what a tradition recorded about a spirit's domain is not the same as calling on it, and nothing here gives a procedure for calling. These are the same attributes catalogued in every serious historical and academic treatment of the Lemegeton, set down so that a reader can recognise a pattern and find the protection named against it.
Who is the angel that counters Marbas?
Mahasiah. The pairing runs through the countermanding tradition, angel set against office. Mahasiah's profile, prayer, and paired stone →
How was the Goetia compiled?
The Goetia is the first book of the Lesser Key of Solomon, assembled in the seventeenth century out of older material. Johann Weyer had printed much of the same catalogue in 1577, and Reginald Scot carried it into English in 1584. The lists do not always agree, which is the most useful thing about them.