The fallen DOMINATIONS: Paimon and Marchosias, the choir of government

The choir that governed

Of the fallen choirs. Today, the Dominations: the choir of celestial government. Two daemons of the Goetia declare having belonged to it: Paimon and Marchosias.

According to Pseudo-Dionysius, the Dominations signify an elevation free from all servitude, a superiority without tyranny, turned toward true Lordship. Gregory the Great says it more simply: they are called Dominations because the other choirs are subject to them in obedience.

Thus, they were the choir of just command. Let us see what that command became when it fell.

Paimon, the king in subjection

The ninth spirit is Paimon... a great king, very obedient to Lucifer. The Goetia says that he is of the order of the Dominations. This is his seal. He appears with a crown, on a dromedary, preceded by music and trumpets. He teaches all arts and sciences, and the secrets of the earth... he gives dignities... and subjects the will of the invoker to his own. Under his command are two hundred legions: some of the order of Angels, others of that of the Powers. The government of the Dominations... turned into subjection of wills.

Marchosias, the fallen soldier

The thirty-fifth spirit is Marchosias. The Goetia says that he was of the order of the Dominations. This is his seal. He appears first as a fierce she-wolf with griffin wings and a serpent's tail, vomiting fire; and at the request of the exorcist he takes the form of a man. He is a strong combatant, and answers with truth. And he confesses something moving: he hopes, after one thousand two hundred years, to return to the seventh throne. The discipline of angelic government... preserved as military force, but turned into violence.

The discrepancy: Balam

There is a third name, but it demands honesty. In Weyer's Pseudomonarchia, from 1577, it is said that Balam is of the order of the Dominations.

But the later Ars Goetia, as preserved in the Sloane manuscript, no longer keeps that phrase for Balam. It is one of those discrepancies between the two great sources that a good account cannot hide.

So, rigorously: Paimon and Marchosias declare it in the Goetia; Balam only in Weyer. Three names, two levels of certainty.

Government turned coercion

The irony of the Dominations is perhaps the clearest of all. The choir that the others obeyed by just order... appears fallen as the power to subject the wills of others.

Paimon subjugates the will of the one who invokes him and distributes dignities like an earthly king. Marchosias preserves the obedience and discipline of the soldier, but as violence and fire.

The command without tyranny that Dionysius described... became tyranny without divine command. The same authority, inverted. Government turned into coercion.

The lost command

Paimon and Marchosias are the two daemons of the Goetia who declare having been Dominations; Balam says it only in Weyer. The choir of just government, fallen into the art of subjecting.

Documentary reconstruction from real sources, for study purposes. We do not affirm that the seventy-two come from the nine choirs: the majority declares none.

In the next chapter, a choir with an even more bitter irony: the Powers... the choir whose mission was to chain daemons.