Written May 9th, 2016 | Edited: 25th February 2019

Bear in Mind that everything written here was written by a young, novice occultist who was just starting to write.

A few weeks ago I did an invocation of Samael, and it was also my first experience working with the Armadel. If you want to know more about it, try the Grimoire of Armadel by S.L. Mathers.

The invocation was done on Tuesday in the Hour of Mars during the waxing Moon. I do pretty much all my magick, except bindings/exorcisms, during the waxing moon. I’m a non traditional person, so I did not follow the working EXACTLY as it was prescribed in the book, instead taking John Dee’s advice on following your heart and doing what your gut tells you when invoking angels. I think this is a good title for my first blog post, and I hope you find it informative.

EDIT (2019): Generally following the gut instinct is good. I am a very traditional practitioner these days, but it also happens so that many Grimoires have incomplete or misleading information in them, and are heavily influenced by personal bias. However, the Armadel is not one of those. On the other hand, many grimoires, like this one, have needlessly long rituals and formalities that are not needed for a modern practitioner who knows what he is doing.

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Who is Archangel Samael?

The first thing before any invocation is getting a good background on the spirit being invoked, and luckily for me, I’ve read about and worked with Samael since the beginning. Mythology often is not a record of stuff that literally happened, but stories our ancestors wrote in an attempt to understand and explain the natures of beings on higher planes, but which often ended up altered and corrupted over the ages.

EDIT (2019): All “workings” I had prior to this were mostly meditations and channeling. None of it should be considered on the same level as an actual Invocation. I largely did not know what would happen either.

In the Talmud, he is the ruler of the fifth (sometimes seventh) Heaven, and the Angel of War and of Glory, who rules over the Planet Ma’adim (Mars), although on the Tree of Life the ruler of Mars is Kamael. He is part of the heavenly host, but also rules Death.

Samael means “the venom of God” in Hebrew. In the story of Adam and Eve, Samael is the Serpent who tempted Eve into eating the fruit, so naturally they equated him to Satan/Lucifer. The reason his name varies is because all of this stuff was taken from many different sources. I’m not going to get into the history of these two religions, but in the Serpent story he is specifically called Samael, not Satan or Lucifer (the Eden story is much older than the more recent rebellion story, going back to Mesopotamia).

It is written that he later left the Garden and became Lilith’s consort, and they had a son, the Angel Sariel. There’s many later stories of him, but most of these came around AFTER all the drama that happened to Christianity in the late Roman Empire.

EDIT (2019): The account I had given of Samael is derived from different sources both archaic and contemporary. The story of HIM being the Serpent largely comes from the meditations of Sufi saints. The Judeo-Christian mythology has many versions and interpretations.

At other times in Hebrew lore, he is known as the Angel of Death, whose job is to collect souls of the dead. He also plays the role of “accuser” and “destroyer”. There are three other stories of him I found.

One, where Jacob, an important Biblical figure, saw him in the highest heaven, tall and with burning eyes, and was informed by Metatron that this was the Angel of Death, Samael. This comes from the Book of Enoch. He is the Angel who protected Esau

He is also the one who stopped Abraham from killing his son, although in the Bible it does not mention Samael by name. I believe this interpretation comes from Samael Aun Weor.

He was said in Rabbinical writings to be the patron of Edom/Rome. Naturally this is false, because the Romans were pagans, and did not pray to angels. I think this might be because Samael was the Angel of War, and the patron of Rome was Mars, the God of War.

I guess the Rabbis, being Abrahamic, equated Mars to Samael. Also, since it is said the Romans crucified Christ, I guess this was a good way to put them in bad light. Remember, by now Samael was already equated to Satan and Lucifer, and this way they could make it sound like the Romans worshiped Satan himself (ah, glorious misinformation).

Now, to the occult. As I said, Samael rules Mars, but is not on the Tree of Life (he’s on the Qliphoth though. This might hint at his role in ruling the “darker” aspect of Geburah), or even in the Shamharphorasch. Kamael rules the sphere of Geburah, which happens to be associated to Mars, but there’s still space for flexibility.

Samael has become pretty important as an Archangel distinct from Kamael to modern occultists, especially since he is part of the seven Archangels in Armadel, and is said to rule over the occult, magick, jurisprudence (fancy word for legal studies) and necromancy, and is also a protector against evil and threats (in the Christian occult sense, he was said to be the protector of missionaries in foreign lands).

EDIT (2019): This may be because Samael has inherently “foreign” or alien qualities about him. Being both an entity of Darkness and Light, he would be associated with both the Known and Unknown. Protector in a foreign land is pretty good archetype to assign to him.

He is the Angel of Death, Destruction and Wisdom (also Lust and War) and I think he suits the planet Mars, but suits Saturn too. The God Mars was also known to be a bit of a rebellious kid, so I feel Samael too, rules of rebellion, liberation and freedom. After all, rebellion is often violent, and his might be the source of the story of Lucifer’s Rebellion and the subsequent War in Heaven.

An interesting thing of note is that he is both ruling over Wisdom and Death. I could not help but think about how the Hindu God of Death, Yama, is also known to be very Wise.
The idea that there is wisdom after death is common. And the Serpent of Wisdom and the Serpent of Destruction are also a common occult themes (think of the Caduceus)

He’s basically the average emo teenager’s dream. Before the occult, I too was an emo teen, so I guess now you know how I got drawn to Samael.

EDIT (2019): I was never emo, just very interested in spirituality, but never content with organised religion.

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The Altar

The altar that is given in the Almadel, is for use in evocation. Since this was an invocation, I did not make a physical almadel, which is basically a wax altar with stuff written on it. Instead, I just took my altar table and laid it out for Samael. I don’t have a picture of it, but this is what was on it:

My dagger and wand
Samael’s seals (I made both of the seals from the book, one round, one square)
Incense
A red candle
A Black Feather
A Red Stone

I had actually made two swords out of cardboard just for fun, years ago. I placed these of either side. You can probably put a real sword, knife or dagger.

EDIT (2019): All you really you need is one Seal, maybe with the Angel’s special behind it, a red candle, a circle and some incense. For Samael, some iron might be nice too.
Everything else is optional. Do what feels right, build a space that will help you Invoke. Remember, these are simply to aid YOU, not help them come. They come when called.

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The Incense and Seals

The incense I used was of the Martian variety. So in other words I just threw in Martian herbs in a mortar and pestle until I was satisfied. Most are common kitchen ingredients. I put in:

Chilly Powder
Cayenne Pepper
Cardamom
Red Chilli, dired and ground 
Ginger
Garlic
Coffee (Samael seems to like coffee)

After it was on the charcoal, I also added a few drops of Basil Essential Oil.

For angels, incense in enough. They don’t care if you give them food, as they are not Gods. You can choose to give alcohol, whiskey in this case, but I didn’t.

EDIT (2019): Offer whatever you can. Be generous. It’s not about the offering, it’s about gratitude, and the willingness to sacrifice. These things extend way beyond just Rituals. A poor man who will share his bread with you is more virtuous than the millionaire who has to unwillingly decide to give you the last sip from his day old bottle of champagne. This is Jupiterian law.

Now for the seals. I made both seals on some cartridge paper. I made them both in the Hour of Mars.

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The Invocation

I did not follow the actual language of the Almadel, instead choosing to just call out to Samael. I listened to some binaural beats with the frequency of Mars.

I stared into the flame, entered a trance, and then just began chanting whatever came to mind. I can’t recall exactly, but it was a Hymn for Samael. I did not track what I said, but that’s fine. It’s your choice really, you can chant like this, memorise official invocations, or just do whatever feels right or is part of your own tradition. The best would be hymns and mantras, be they your own, channeled, or historical. There is nothing wrong with ready out of a paper either. Angels tend to come immediately, and so did Samael.

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Samael’s Visit

So first of all, he scolded me about a bunch of stuff I was doing wrong, specifically when I asked for guidance. He said I had to stop obsessing over divination and try to do my own thing more. I asked him some personal things too, and this being an invocation, I also gained many things and insights that have helped me on my path, some during the invocation, and some after. He also told me to be strong and overcome my fears. I’m not going to talk too much about the personal stuff, but about more generic stuff.

His energy feels hot, intense, and powerful, like a warrior, but it’s also got a sense of liberation to it, as if you’re a freedom fighter, and you just defeated your oppressors. On the other hand, he also gives off the feeling of a wise Hermit, who has seen a lot and has a lot to teach. I actually asked him to help me learn certain things too, and so far I have had good results.

I’m going to clear out the devil myths too. I asked him straight up if he was Satan. He said no, that’s just Church propaganda. Was he Lucifer? He said there was indeed a being by that name, but he was not him. He said he was not Azazel either, or a Goetic king, or even a demonic king. At the time I forgot about the Qliphoth.

He said people have a tendency to succumb to greed, and tend to use his power’s for evil. He does teach necromancy, magick and calling on him can make you energised and give you fighting strength. It’s easy to see how all these things can be used for harming others. THAT’S the meaning behind the Eden story. He can lead you to wisdom, but one can be tempted to use that knowledge and power for Evil, as many often do (cough the media cough the politicians). War and revolution too, though they led to death and destruction, were necessary for Universal balance.

EDIT (2019): Samael is indeed a Ruler of the Qliphoth, as well as the Archangel of Mars. Samael is considered the Highest among the Qliphoth, over even the sphere Thaumiel. Given how the Qliphoth is generally said to be the result of unbalanced forces in Geburah, this has a lot of implications.
Secondly, the Eden story means FAR more than just this. But the simplest way to put it is this: Kamael is the Archangel of Geburah, while Samael is the archangel of Mars. The Sephirothic angels and Planetary angels can differ in some cases.

So, did he hate us and want us to commit evil? Of course not, he, like all the other Archangels, played a certain role and wanted to help. He also reminded me that “good” and “evil” are just a matter of perspective, and from his perspective the Universe looked very, very different than what it looked like to us. For example, a pacifist might say War is evil, a pro life activist might say Death is evil, a fundamentalist Christian might say knowledge is evil, and to the layman, the word necromancy sounds evil and deranged.

He also played another role, which was to guide the dead souls.

He told me there were no “rulers” of planets, and both he and Kamael were associated with Mars, much like both Michael Jackson and David Bowie were associated with Music. But do either of them rule music? No, even if you call them King of Pop. Music is it’s own thing. However, Kamael is the Angel of Geburah, not Samael.

After that I thanked him and ended the ritual.

There is one important thing I have learned from him, which is protective shielding, but i’ll go into that some other time.

EDIT (2019): At the time, I was not capable of understanding anything beyond this fairly crude metaphor. Of course, multiple Beings can be assigned to the same Sephiroth/Planet. I did not understand at the time that all these were simply systems of correspondence. Also, for protection click here or here or here.

So, I guess this is it for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this rather long post. It’s my first post, and I appreciate feedback, so I can improve my future posts. Farewell for now. You can also follow me on Instagram @WhiteRavenMagus

~White Raven