For over thirty years, Richard Kaczynski has been a scholar, speaker and writer on Western esotericism, particularly the life and work of British occultist Aleister Crowley. His publications include Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley (2002, 2010), The Weiser Concise Guide to Aleister Crowley (2009), Forgotten Templars: The Untold Origins of Ordo Templi Orientis (2012), Friendship in Doubt: Aleister Crowley, J. F. C. Fuller, Victor B. Neuburg, and British Agnosticism (2024), and the just-released Mind Over Magick: The Psychology of Ritual Magick (2025). He also edited, annotated and introduced a critical edition of Aleister Crowley's The Sword of Song (2021, 2025). He has spoken internationally at both academic and pagan/occult conferences, and appeared in several documentaries. He holds a Ph.D. in psychology with a minor in statistics. His doctoral dissertation examined the structure and correlates of metaphysical beliefs.

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What happens when a work of fiction becomes a real grimoire? In this episode, we explore The Demons of the Necronomicon, H. P. Lovecraft’s imagined pantheon of cosmic entities and their extraordinary transformation into living figures within modern occultism. Drawing on peer-reviewed research, we trace how Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, and Nyarlathotep escaped the pages of pulp horror to become objects of ritual, devotion, and philosophical speculation. From Kenneth Grant’s Typhonian Thelema to chaos magic’s postmodern experiments, this video unveils how fiction, faith, and imagination converge in the making of contemporary demonology.

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RECOMMENDED READINGS 📖

REFERENCES 📚

Asprem, E. (2014). The problem of disenchantment: Scientific naturalism and esoteric discourse, 1900–1939. Leiden: Brill.

Asprem, E., & Granholm, K. (Eds.). (2013). Contemporary esotericism. Sheffield: Equinox.

Bolton, K. R. (2011). The Influence of H. P. Lovecraft on Occultism. Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, 9, 2–21.

Burleson, D. R. (1990). Lovecraft: Disturbing the universe. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.

Dyrendal, A., Lewis, J. R., & Petersen, J. A. (Eds.). (2016). The invention of Satanism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Engle, J. (2014). The troubling use of fiction in cultic practices: Lovecraft and religion. Mythlore, 32(1), 15–34.

Evans, T (2005) — Timothy H. Evans, “A Last Defense Against the Dark: Folklore, Horror, and the Uses of Tradition in the Works of H. P. Lovecraft” (Journal of Folklore Research, 2005).

Grant, K. (1972). The magical revival. London: Frederick Muller.

Harms, D., & Gonce, J. W. (2003). The Necronomicon Files: The truth behind Lovecraft’s legend. St. Paul, MN: Weiser.

Hine, P. (1994). Pseudonomicon. Chaos International.

Joshi, S. T. (1996). H. P. Lovecraft: A Life. Baltimore, MD: Necronomicon Press.

Joshi, S. T. (2001). A dreamer and a visionary: H. P. Lovecraft in his time. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.

Laycock, J. (2015). Dangerous games: What the moral panic over role-playing games says about play, religion, and imagined worlds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Partridge, C. (2004). The re-enchantment of the West: Volume 1 — Alternative spiritualities, sacralization, popular culture, and occulture. London/New York: T & T Clark.

Punter, D. (1996). The literature of terror: A history of Gothic fictions from 1765 to the present day. London: Longman.

Schultz, D. E. (2006). The cosmology of chaos: H. P. Lovecraft and the modern horror of entropy. Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, 17(1), 45–62.

Joshi, S. T., & Schultz, D. E. (2001). An H. P. Lovecraft encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Urban, H. B. (2006). Magia sexualis: Sex, magic, and liberation in modern Western esotericism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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Asmodeus is more than the “demon of lust.” In this episode, I trace his journey from the Avestan aēšma in Zoroastrian texts to Ashmedai in Jewish literature, through the Book of Tobit and the Babylonian Talmud, into Islamic narratives of Solomon’s throne, and on to Christian demonology, Renaissance grimoires, Enlightenment satire, and modern occult reinterpretations. Rather than a single biography, Asmodeus emerges as a cultural palimpsest that different communities used to think about desire, power, and knowledge. We examine philology, theology, ritual technologies, and iconography to ask what this demon reveals about changing ideas of evil and the management of sexuality. If you value evidence-based scholarship on magic and esotericism, this one is for you.

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RECOMMENDED READINGS 📖

REFERENCES 📚(full list on screen)

Boyce, M. (1975). A history of Zoroastrianism: The early period. Brill.

Duling, D. C. (1983). Testament of Solomon: A new translation and introduction. In J. H. Charlesworth (Ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Vol. 1, pp. 935–987). Doubleday.

Fitzmyer, J. A. (2003). Tobit. De Gruyter.

Al-Ṭabarī. (2001). The history of al-Ṭabarī: Volume III, The children of Israel (W. M. Brinner, Trans.). State University of New York Press.

Clark, S. (1997). Thinking with demons: The idea of witchcraft in early modern Europe. Oxford University Press.

Davies, O. (2009). Grimoires: A history of magic books. Oxford University Press.

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00:00 Introduction: Who is Asmodeus the Demon?

06:57 Asmodeus: Philological Archaeology and Zoroastrian Foundations

11:38 Asmodeus inJewish Tradition and Second Temple Literature

13:40 Asmodeus Reimagined in the Testament of Solomon

16:49 Asmodeus in Christian Demonology

18:53 The possessed Nuns of Loudun

21:37 Islamic Adaptations of Asmodeus

26:05 Asmodeus in Renaissance Grimoires and Systematic Demonology

31:44 Modern Occult and Esoteric Reinterpretations of the Demon King Asmodeus

36:46 Conclusion: The Demon as a Cultural Palimpsest

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