Lemodac: The Dragon Duke of Macariel

Lemodac is a chief duke of the wandering aerial prince Macariel, appearing in the Ars Theurgia Goetia, the second book of the Lemegeton or Lesser Key of Solomon. Although modern demonological works usually describe Lemodac simply as a demon, the world from which he emerges is considerably stranger than the familiar infernal hierarchy of the Ars Goetia. The Theurgia Goetia concerns spirits of the air, beings divided between good and evil natures, governed by princes who inhabit particular regions of the invisible world and accompanied by vast companies of subordinate spirits. Lemodac belongs to this restless aerial kingdom.

Macariel is the ninth of the eleven great wandering spirits described in this portion of the grimoire. Unlike the twenty princes whose mansions remain fixed according to the compass, the wandering princes move through the aerial regions and are not permanently confined to a single direction. Macariel commands forty dukes together with numerous lesser servants, although only twelve of his chief dukes are named in the surviving text. Lemodac appears as the last of those twelve, following Claniel, Drusiel, Andros, Charoel, Asmadiel, Romyel, Mastuel, Varpiel, Gremiel, Thuriel and Brufiel.

The Dragon with Virgins’ Heads

The Ars Theurgia Goetia does not provide Lemodac with an elaborate individual biography or a unique catalogue of supernatural powers. Instead, it gives a collective description of Macariel’s dukes, stating that they may appear in diverse forms but most commonly manifest as a dragon bearing virgins’ heads. This strange image has sometimes been simplified in later demonological literature into a many-headed dragon, but the wording of the grimoire is more disturbing because it combines the monstrous body of the dragon with human feminine faces.

The image is characteristic of the unsettling composite beings encountered throughout ceremonial magic. Human and animal forms dissolve into one another, producing entities that cannot be placed comfortably within the natural order. The dragon suggests force, danger and supernatural sovereignty, while the virginal faces introduce an almost beautiful element into what would otherwise be purely monstrous. Lemodac therefore belongs to a class of spirits whose outward manifestation contains contradiction, where beauty may emerge from something inhuman and where the familiar human face becomes part of a creature that belongs to another order of existence.

It is important, however, not to pretend that this appearance belongs exclusively to Lemodac. The grimoire applies it to Macariel’s dukes collectively. Lemodac may manifest in this form, but the text explicitly states that these spirits can assume many shapes. His dragon form should therefore be understood as his most characteristic manifestation within Macariel’s hierarchy rather than as an immutable body.

A Spirit of the Wandering Air

Lemodac’s place beneath Macariel associates him with one of the most mysterious divisions of the Theurgia Goetia: the wandering spirits. The grimoire distinguishes between celestial or aerial rulers whose locations are fixed and others who continually move from place to place. Macariel belongs to this mobile order, and his dukes participate in the same unsettled supernatural environment.

The idea of wandering spirits gives the Theurgia Goetia a very different atmosphere from the rigid royal courts commonly associated with later demonological catalogues. These beings inhabit the air itself, crossing invisible territories beyond normal human perception. They possess ranks and superiors, yet their world is mobile. The magician attempting to contact them is dealing not with a spirit imagined as permanently seated upon some infernal throne, but with a power believed to move through the unseen spaces surrounding the human world.

This aerial character also reflects the deeper ancestry of the Theurgia Goetia. Large portions of its hierarchy closely parallel the first book of Johannes Trithemius’s Steganographia, written around 1500 and first printed in 1606. Trithemius presented an elaborate system of spirit princes and subordinate intelligences that simultaneously concealed methods of secret communication. During the seventeenth century, material related to this system became transformed into the magical spirit hierarchy preserved in the Lemegeton.

Lemodac therefore stands at the end of a strange historical transformation in which cryptography, angelic language, ceremonial conjuration and aerial spirits became entangled. The being later catalogued as a demon is ultimately part of a much more ambiguous magical system.

The Rank of Duke

Within Macariel’s hierarchy, Lemodac holds the rank of chief duke. Macariel himself possesses forty dukes, but the text reveals the names and seals of only twelve principal figures. Lemodac’s inclusion among these twelve places him among the higher-ranking spirits immediately beneath the wandering prince.

The Theurgia Goetia states that these twelve chief dukes have hundreds of servants attending them. The principal manuscript used in Joseph H. Peterson’s edition gives the number as 400, while another manuscript gives 700, demonstrating that even apparently precise numerical details in grimoires can shift during transmission. The wording also leaves uncertainty over whether the number belongs collectively to the twelve dukes or should be understood as a force associated with each one individually. Later dictionaries have often interpreted Lemodac as personally commanding 400 subordinate spirits, but the original wording does not justify presenting that interpretation as unquestioned fact.

What remains certain is that Lemodac is not portrayed as an isolated entity. He stands within a chain of command extending upward to Macariel and downward into a largely unnamed multitude of attending spirits. His identity is therefore inseparable from hierarchy, one of the fundamental principles governing the supernatural universe of the grimoire.

Neither Bound to Day nor Night

Later descriptions of Lemodac sometimes claim that he is bound to no particular hour and may therefore manifest whenever he chooses. The Ars Theurgia Goetia says something more precise and considerably more occult in character. Macariel’s dukes may indeed be called during the day or during the night, but their calling must follow the planetary order.

This matters because ceremonial magic traditionally understands time as possessing different supernatural qualities according to planetary influence. An operation undertaken beneath one planetary hour does not necessarily possess the same character as one performed beneath another. Lemodac is therefore less restricted than spirits confined solely to daylight or darkness, yet he is not presented as entirely free from occult timing.

The distinction reveals something fundamental about the magical universe of the Theurgia Goetia. Spirits may wander, but their wandering does not imply chaos. Beneath apparent movement exists an invisible order governed by direction, planetary influence, rank, seals and ritual authority.

A Good-Natured Demon?

Perhaps the most surprising statement concerning Lemodac is that Macariel’s dukes are described as good by nature and obedient to the will of the exorcist. This is difficult to reconcile with the modern habit of treating every spirit in the Lemegeton as a demon in the Christian sense of an inherently evil being. The Theurgia Goetia itself refuses such simplicity. Its opening explicitly describes the aerial spirits as divided between good and evil natures, and different hierarchies display radically different temperaments.

Immediately after Macariel’s hierarchy, for example, the wandering prince Uriel and his spirits are described as evil, unwilling to obey and deceitful in their dealings. Macariel’s dukes are given precisely the opposite character. The contrast appears deliberately preserved within the grimoire.

Lemodac therefore occupies an uncomfortable position within demonology. He is a dragon-shaped spirit appearing in a Solomonic grimoire and serving beneath an aerial prince, yet the text does not portray him as malevolent. He belongs to the ambiguous territory of theurgical magic where terrifying appearance does not necessarily signify evil and where spirits classified by later writers as demons may possess qualities that resist conventional Christian demonology.

The Mystery of Lemodac’s Name

Even Lemodac’s name is unstable.

The principal textual tradition used in modern editions gives Lemodac, but other manuscript witnesses preserve strikingly different names for the final duke of Macariel. Variants include Albenusy, Aromusy and Aldrusys. One scholarly edition even suggests that some of these forms may have arisen through scribal corruption involving the neighbouring hierarchy of Uriel.

Such variations are common in grimoires. Names were copied by hand across generations, sometimes from damaged manuscripts, sometimes by scribes who did not understand the words before them. A single unfamiliar letter could mutate into another, and a spirit could acquire an entirely new name through nothing more supernatural than a copying error.

Yet for the occultist, this textual instability creates another question. If magical names are believed to contain power, what happens when the name itself changes?

Lemodac survives precisely within that shadow between manuscript and spirit. Whether Lemodac, Aromusy and Albenusy represent corruptions of one original name, competing traditions or identities that became confused during transmission cannot now be established with certainty. The grimoire gives us a seal, a hierarchy and a place among Macariel’s dukes, but the being behind the ink remains far more elusive.

Lemodac in the Aerial Hierarchy

What survives of Lemodac is therefore fragmentary but compelling. He is one of twelve named chief dukes beneath Macariel, belonging to a wandering hierarchy of aerial spirits whose movements cross the invisible world. He may assume many forms, although the dragon with virgins’ heads is the manifestation most strongly associated with his order. He participates in a company described as naturally good and obedient, commands or shares authority over numerous lesser spirits, and may be called by day or night according to planetary order.

Beyond these details, the grimoire becomes silent.

That silence should not be filled with invented powers, fabricated correspondences or modern claims presented as ancient tradition. Lemodac’s mystery lies precisely in how little the manuscripts reveal. He is a name at the edge of a seventeenth-century magical hierarchy, accompanied by a seal and an image of something monstrous moving through the air beneath the authority of a wandering prince.

For those who read grimoires only as catalogues, Lemodac is another obscure name among hundreds. For those who understand what these books actually represent, he is a surviving fragment of an invisible cosmology in which the atmosphere itself was populated by ranked intelligences moving according to laws concealed from ordinary sight.

Go Further Than the Names

Reading the names of demons is easy. Understanding the systems that place them within hierarchies of command, planetary power, ritual authority and supernatural intelligence is where serious occult study begins. Enter the Occult World Mystery School if you are finished with harmless occult trivia and want to study Demonology, Power, Black Magick and the hidden mechanisms by which occultists have attempted to control their own world. Stop collecting names as though knowledge alone makes you powerful. Learn the structures behind them, understand how power is organised, and begin developing the discipline required to stop being pushed around by circumstances and start exercising conscious command over the direction of your own life.