Of political villains and goetic demons
Pick a political hate figure, and match him/her with a hound of hell.
A light-hearted Twitter discussion today (the only good kind of Twitter interaction) has set me thinking again of how our more psychopathic political leaders may be matched with demons listed in the Ars Goetia: the first book of the Lesser Key of Solomon. This is of course an utterly pointless exercise, but nonetheless fun and arguably cathartic.
The Ars Goetia catalogues just 72 demons, which is far, far fewer than the number of politicians who belong in hell, but psychopathy often comes with multiple personalities. Also, we should not restrict ourselves to the Ars Goetia when there are other useful similar sources of dubious historical repute, including the Grand Grimoire.
This is expedient on my part, as the grimoire contains reference to one Lucifuge Rofocale, aka the Prime Minister of Hell. Can you see where this is shamelessly heading?
The thing about Lucifuge Rofocale is that the demon is often invoked by human fools looking to make a Faustian pact which brings them power and riches. I say fools, as more often as not Lucifuge fails to keep his side of the bargain.
We are all of us fools, at times, but one would like to think we have agency and some sense of good judgement, such that our grosser stupidities remain few and far between. But this is difficult to reconcile on a population-wide scale when so many otherwise mostly harmless folk vote for leaders whose aims and actions are entirely against the public interest.
So we turn now to Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, whose very name is grimoiric. If there is any human avatar of Lucifuge Rofocale, it is ‘Boris’ Johnson. He is a congenital lier and psychopath with delusions of grandeur and ability. And this would-be ‘world king’ is, for the time being at least, a prime minister.
Put your trust in Boris Johnson, and you will surely come a cropper. It’s actually worse than this, as the group of three nations over which Johnson rules is now the laughing stock of the civilised world.