King Belial: Unlock Demonic Power & Independence

Belial is one of the main demons I recommend when the problem is weakness.

I mean that broadly. Weakness of will, weak boundaries, fear of competition, dependence on other people, lack of ambition, inability to tolerate pressure.

Sometimes the situation itself really is bad, but sometimes you have simply become too soft for the situation you are in. Belial is useful in both cases.

He is an Earth spirit, strongly connected with red and black, worldly power, passion, anger, ambition and physical force. His current is heavy and grounding rather than dreamy or abstract.

I would not go to Belial because I wanted to spend the evening contemplating the mysteries of existence. I would go to him because something in my life needed to move, and politeness had stopped working.

That is also why I consider him one of the better demons for people who want to become more formidable rather than merely obtain one isolated result.

Who Is Belial?

Belial appears as a powerful king in the Ars Goetia. The grimoire gives him authority over many spirits and attributes to him the ability to grant offices, dignities and favor.

That old description still makes sense today.

We no longer spend much time trying to obtain a title from a medieval court, but rank, favor, influence and position remain very real concerns. The setting changed. Human nature did not.

Belial is still an excellent spirit for advancement, authority and getting people to take you more seriously.

He is also deeply connected with independence and the idea of being without a master. This is one of the most useful ways to understand him, provided you do not reduce it to adolescent rebellion.

Real independence is expensive.

You need money. You need competence. You need the ability to make decisions without somebody holding your hand. You need enough internal stability that another person’s disapproval does not send you into an existential crisis.

Belial works very naturally in that territory.

Why Work With Belial?

I originally wrote about Belial as a demon of motivation, strength and overcoming obstacles, and I still consider that one of the best summaries of his current.

There are demons I would choose because I wanted knowledge. Others for wealth, protection, divination or attraction.

Belial is different because often the thing being changed is your own ability to deal with reality.

That is why his powers seem broad without actually being random.

Confidence, authority, physical strength, ambition, competitiveness and independence all point in roughly the same direction. They concern your ability to stand your ground, act decisively and exert more force upon the circumstances around you.

If that sounds vague, it becomes much clearer once you start looking at where you are actually weak.

The Kind of Motivation Belial Is Good For

When I say Belial can be used for motivation, I do not mean feeling inspired for an afternoon.

That part is easy.

I mean the point where the novelty is gone, the work has become repetitive and you would much rather do something easier.

That is where most people’s grand ambitions quietly die.

Belial is particularly useful for that ugly middle part, where the excitement has disappeared but the result still requires months or years of effort.

I have compared his current before to the mentality associated with people such as David Goggins. The comparison is slightly exaggerated, but the underlying principle is useful. Discomfort stops being interpreted as evidence that something has gone wrong.

Sometimes the work is simply unpleasant.

Sometimes you are tired.

Sometimes the person competing with you is genuinely better.

Fine. Now what?

That question fits Belial very well.

Belial, Anger and Aggression

Anger belongs naturally within Belial’s current, but anger needs direction.

Losing control and smashing things is not power. Usually it is the opposite.

Useful anger is different.

You realize you have tolerated something for too long. Perhaps somebody has been taking advantage of you. Perhaps you have wasted years doing work you despise. Perhaps the person you are most angry with is yourself.

There is enormous energy in that realization if you know how to use it.

Belial is particularly good for turning resentment into movement.

Resentment on its own is useless. You can remain resentful for twenty years and nothing has to change.

Anger that becomes a decision is another matter.

Competition

Belial is also one of the better demons for competitive people, or for people who need to become more competitive.

Not everything in life is competition, but quite a lot of it is.

Jobs are limited. Attention is limited. Money is limited. Positions of authority are limited. People compare themselves constantly while often pretending that they do not.

There is no virtue in becoming obsessed with hierarchy, but there is equally little virtue in pretending hierarchy does not exist while everyone else climbs over you.

Belial helps when you want to stop shrinking in the presence of stronger personalities and start meeting them on more equal terms.

Sometimes the answer is not removing the competition.

Sometimes the answer is getting better.

Physical Strength and Belial

Belial works particularly well with physical goals.

That connection makes sense because Earth is bodily, material and tangible. You cannot bullshit your way through physical strength for very long. Eventually something heavy has to move.

A Belial working can be directed toward greater discipline in training, more aggression when effort becomes difficult, increased tolerance for discomfort and a stronger identification with physical power.

The ritual does not replace training, obviously.

If summoning demons could replace lifting weights, occultists would have considerably better physiques.

What Belial can influence is the mentality behind the work.

There is also something fitting about bringing a physical objective to an Earth spirit. The result eventually has to express itself through flesh, habit and action.

Confidence and Fear

I am less interested in using Belial to make someone “feel confident” than I am in using him to make fear less important.

Those are not quite the same thing.

Confidence comes and goes. Even capable people sometimes feel uncertain.

What matters is whether uncertainty stops you.

Someone who can act while nervous is usually more effective than someone who needs to feel perfectly confident before doing anything.

That is the direction I would take a Belial working.

Fear may still appear. Embarrassment may still appear. Doubt may still appear. The change is that these things start losing their authority.

Eventually you discover that being uncomfortable is survivable.

An astonishing discovery, apparently.

Belial and Independence

Independence is where Belial becomes particularly serious.

It is easy to say that you want freedom. Most people do.

The more interesting question is what happens after you get it.

If you become financially independent, you lose certain protections along with certain restrictions. If you leave a relationship, you may gain freedom and lose familiarity. If you stop organizing your life around other people’s expectations, some of those people may become considerably less pleasant.

Belial does not make independence painless.

His current is better suited to making you capable of carrying it.

That is an important distinction.

The objective should not always be “remove this thing that controls me.” Sometimes the stronger operation is to become difficult enough to control that the structure begins losing its grip before it is ever removed.

Career, Rank and Recognition

The traditional connection between Belial and dignities is one reason I still recommend him for career work.

This is especially relevant when the problem involves hierarchy.

Maybe you are consistently overlooked. Maybe you have competence but very little authority. Maybe you are stuck beneath people who are simply better at making themselves important.

That happens.

Professional success is not a perfectly fair tournament where the most competent person automatically rises to the top.

Belial can be used to strengthen your position within that environment.

I would usually make the objective broader than one promotion or one person’s approval. Recognition, influence, better opportunities and stronger authority leave much more room for movement.

You want your position to improve, not merely one bureaucratic box to be checked.

Belial in Black Magic

Belial also has an obvious place in black magic.

Although his element is Earth, there is a distinctly fiery quality to the way his power expresses itself. He is forceful, aggressive and very comfortable with conflict.

This makes him suitable for workings where the intention is not simply to attract something desirable, but to push back against opposition, break another person’s influence over your life or bring a hostile situation under control.

I would consider Belial when the work has teeth.

There are gentler spirits I would choose if the goal were reconciliation, persuasion or quietly improving circumstances. Belial makes more sense when there is already conflict and you have decided that being endlessly accommodating is no longer producing anything useful.

This can include defensive black magic, breaking the influence of an enemy, reversing an oppressive power dynamic or strengthening your own position when somebody is actively working against you.

He can also be brought into more aggressive operations, although that is the point where experience and judgment become particularly important. Anger can give a ritual tremendous force, but it can also make the magician careless.

Belial is not valuable in black magic merely because he can be aggressive. His greater strength is that he combines aggression with authority.

The objective is not always to lash out at an opponent. Sometimes the better outcome is to strip away the opponent’s leverage and strengthen your own position, thereby leaving them with much less ability to interfere with you.

That is usually the kind of result I prefer.

Someone who becomes obsessed with attacking every person who crosses him is still being controlled by those people, just in a different way. Belial is far more interesting when the work leaves you stronger and the opposition weaker or increasingly irrelevant.

What Is Belial Like to Work With?

Belial has a reputation for being demanding.

There is some truth in that, although I think people sometimes turn demons into motivational caricatures.

You do not summon Belial and immediately acquire a supernatural drill sergeant following you around and criticizing your breakfast choices.

The pressure is usually subtler than that.

Things you have been avoiding become more obvious. Weakness starts irritating you more. Situations that once seemed tolerable begin to feel increasingly difficult to justify.

Sometimes the first effect of a working is simply that your excuses stop sounding convincing.

That can be uncomfortable.

It can also be very useful.

Belial does not need to punish you for weakness. Once you become sufficiently aware of it, weakness often becomes irritating enough on its own.

Belial’s Sigil

Belial’s sigil is the main visual key used in work with him.

It can be drawn by hand or printed and placed on the altar. During meditation, keep your gaze relaxed rather than staring aggressively at one point. After enough time, the lines may appear to shift, disappear or become unusually vivid as trance deepens.

There is no need to manufacture these effects.

The important thing is sustained attention.

The sigil becomes the center of the working, particularly when combined with Belial’s enn.

Belial’s Enn

Belial’s enn is:

Lirach tasa vefa wehlc Belial.

It can be chanted while gazing at the sigil, during meditation or as part of a larger invocation.

I prefer repetition until the words begin flowing without much conscious effort. Counting repetitions is less important than reaching the point where ordinary mental chatter has quieted and the atmosphere of the ritual begins to change.

If you have never worked with enns before, I explain the practice in What Is a Demonic Enn?. Belial’s enn also appears in my Demonic Enns List.

A Simple First Working With Belial

You can make initial contact with Belial using a very simple structure.

Use his sigil, one red candle and incense. Frankincense and myrrh both work well.

Darken the room enough that the candle becomes the dominant light source and place the sigil where you can look at it comfortably. Begin chanting the enn and allow the rhythm to settle naturally.

Do not rush this part.

One mistake beginners make is trying to detect results every thirty seconds. They chant briefly, inspect the candle, check whether their hands are tingling, wonder whether the spirit has arrived, return to chanting, then spend the rest of the ritual monitoring themselves.

That usually gets in the way.

Give the atmosphere time to develop.

Let the enn become repetitive. Let your eyes settle on the sigil. When the mental noise begins thinning out, stop chanting for a while and remain still.

You may notice pressure, heat, imagery, a shift in mood or simply an unusual sense of presence. You may also have a quieter first contact.

That is perfectly fine.

A first contact with a spirit does not have to involve furniture moving across the room.

Offerings to Belial

Dark red wine is a good offering for Belial.

Strong incense also fits him well.

Beyond that, offerings can be selected according to the nature of the working. I find this much more useful than copying enormous correspondence lists where every demon apparently requires half a supermarket and seven different crystals.

An offering should have a reason to be there.

If I am performing serious Belial work, I would rather present one appropriate offering deliberately than fill the altar with objects that contribute nothing to the actual operation.

Belial Correspondences

Belial’s element is Earth. Red and black are his strongest colors in ritual work, while iron fits the heavier and more martial side of his current.

Obsidian, smoky quartz and garnet all work well around him. Frankincense, myrrh, patchouli and vetiver can be used depending on the atmosphere being built.

You do not need everything on this list.

Correspondences strengthen the ritual environment. They are not admission requirements.

How to Summon Belial

Meditating with Belial and performing a full evocation are two different levels of work.

If you want to move beyond introductory contact, I have already written a more developed ceremony in How to Summon Belial: The Red Candle Procession Ritual.

That ritual gives you a proper structure for evoking Belial rather than simply meditating with his sigil and enn. It is a method I have used and one I am comfortable teaching publicly, but naturally it represents only part of how I approach Belial in serious ceremonial work.

This is where experience begins to matter.

Anyone can read a sequence of instructions and reproduce the visible actions. The more difficult part is knowing how to build the operation around the actual objective, which correspondences are worth emphasizing, how long to remain in a particular phase, when the atmosphere has developed enough to proceed, what to do when communication is weak, and when the structure of the working itself needs to change.

Those decisions are not decorative extras.

They are a large part of ceremonial magic.

This is also why I do not publish every professional ritual as an exact step-by-step transcript. A useful public ritual should teach you how to begin working with the spirit and give you a real ceremonial framework. It does not need to hand over every technique I have developed through repeated work.

Is Belial Dangerous?

Belial deserves respect, but I think people often worry about the wrong danger.

The obvious question is whether the spirit might harm them.

A better question is whether they actually want what they are asking for.

If you ask Belial to make you independent, what happens when the structures keeping you comfortable begin losing their grip?

If you ask to become powerful, are you prepared to carry more responsibility?

If you ask him to destroy weakness, you should at least consider the possibility that some habits you are rather fond of belong in the weakness category.

That is more realistic than worrying that one badly pronounced syllable of the enn will open a portal beneath your chair.

Professional Belial Work

The practices described here give you a legitimate way to begin working with Belial yourself. They are intentionally accessible, but they should not be confused with the full range of techniques that can be brought into a professional ceremonial operation.

When I perform Belial work for a client through my Ritual for Hire service, I do not simply open one of my articles and perform the public version on their behalf.

The ceremony is built around the case.

A working for professional authority requires a different emphasis from one involving fear, competition, independence or a persistent external obstacle. Depending on the objective, I may change the timing, correspondences, manifestation structure, divination, offerings, petition, methods of spirit communication and other parts of the operation.

This is where the difference between following a ritual and knowing how to perform ritual becomes important.

A written method can show you what to do.

Experience tells you why you are doing it, what deserves emphasis, what can be discarded and what needs to change when the working does not develop exactly as expected.

That judgment is the part that cannot be reduced to a generic checklist.

Final Thoughts

Belial is not a demon I would approach because I wanted life to become soft and accommodating.

He makes much more sense when you have decided that becoming stronger is the better solution.

That strength may be physical, psychological, financial or social. The form changes, but the underlying current remains recognizable: greater force, less dependence, stronger will and a growing unwillingness to remain weak where strength is possible.

If you are new to Belial, begin with his sigil and the enn Lirach tasa vefa wehlc Belial. Learn the current before trying to complicate the work unnecessarily.

When you are ready to go further, my Red Candle Procession Ritual for summoning Belial gives you a more developed ceremonial structure.

And if the objective is important enough that you would rather have the operation constructed and performed professionally, you can use my Ritual for Hire service.