Hermes Trismegistus: The Abrahamic Inversion (Shax)

Shax, the stork of the catalogues, is one of three grimoire names the Temple traces to Hermes Trismegistus. None of them is a name to pray with: they were made to slander the Original Gods. Approach Hermes by His eternal name.

Shax

Shax, Shaz and Shass are late spellings, and the record of this Daemon does not begin with them. The earliest secure printed and nameable witness is Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia daemonum of 1577, where he appears as Chax, alias Scox. Boudet's comparison table is important here: it lists "Chax, al. Scox" only as Weyer number 37, not as an entry from the Livre des esperitz. This means the first recoverable text for Shax is Weyer, not the French Livre des esperitz.^1,2

Chax, al. Scox, dux et marchio magnus, 30 lég. W37.

This is the plain catalogue signal: Chax, also Scox, is a great duke and marquis with thirty legions in Weyer. A similar-looking medieval name, Svcax or Sucax, appears in another manuscript list, but Joseph Peterson explicitly notes that it does not seem to correspond to Weyer or the Goetia.^1,2

Johann Weyer says his Pseudomonarchia was drawn from an Officium spirituum or Liber officiorum spirituum, but he also admits he deliberately omitted material so that the conjuring text could not be used whole. That means there may have been an older textual ancestor behind Weyer, but the first text we can actually cite by the name Chax or Scox is his 1577 work.²

Chax, alias Scox, Dux est & Marchio magnus: Similis ciconiæ rauca voce & subtili. Mirabiliter aufert visum, auditum & intellectum jussu exorcistæ: aufert pecuniam ex qualibet domo regia, & reportat post mille ducentos annos, si jussus fuerit: abripit & equos. Fidelis esse in omnibus mandatis putatur: ac licet se obsecuturum exorcistæ promittat, non tamen in omnibus facit.

Mendax est, nisi in triangulum introducatur: introductus autem loquitur de rebus divinis & reconditis thesauris, qui à malignis spiritibus non custodiuntur. Promittit insuper se collaturum optimos famulos, qui accepti sunt, si non fuerint deceptores. Huic subjacent legiones triginta.

The Latin says that Chax, otherwise Scox, is both a duke and great marquis. He appears like a stork (similar to a a pelican like Thoth), with a hoarse and subtle voice. At the order of the exorcist he removes sight, hearing and understanding; he steals money from any royal house and returns it after twelve hundred years if ordered; he also seizes horses. He is thought faithful in commands, but does not actually perform all that he promises.²

The central warning is that he lies unless he is brought into the triangle (the thrice great triangle). Once introduced there, he speaks about divine things and about hidden treasures not guarded by malignant spirits, probably a reference to the Emerald Tablets and other Hermetica. He also promises excellent servants or familiar spirits, provided that these are not themselves deceivers. This is the basic Shax complex: stolen perception, stolen wealth, stolen horses, false speech outside restraint and sacred speech only under coercion. It inverts the stealing aspect of Hermes.²

Reginald Scot's English transmission of Weyer in 1584 gives the first major English form. Scot has "Shax [Chax], alias Scox" and renders him as a dark and great marquis like a stork. The word "darke" is probably produced from Weyer’s Latin dux, since Weyer calls him a duke and marquis, not a black or dark-coloured spirit. Scot then carries the rest of the Weyer profile: hoarse subtle voice, removal of sight, hearing and understanding, theft from kings' houses, the twelve-hundred-year return, horse theft, lying outside the triangle, hidden treasures and thirty legions.^2,3

The later Ars Goetia standardises the demon as Shax, with the spellings Shaz and Shass also reported in later printed occult editions. It also changes the bird from Weyer's stork into a stock dove, similar to what occurs with Halphas, possibly indicative of confusion between the two. The functions remain recognisably Weyerian: taking away sight, hearing and understanding, stealing money from kings' houses, fetching horses or anything else, deceiving outside the triangle, and revealing hidden things once restrained.⁴

Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire infernal keeps the French popular form Scox or Chax. There he is still a duke and great marquis of hell, stork-shaped, hoarse-voiced and inclined to lying. The dictionary tradition therefore does not give an earlier origin; it preserves the Weyer profile in a nineteenth-century French demonological form.⁹

In Dr. Rudd's Goetic angelology, Shax is opposed by the Shem-ha-Mephorash angel Ielahiah, Hebrew ילהיה. Rudd's table places Ielahiah as the forty-fourth angel , of the order of Virtues, corresponding exactly to the forty-fourth Goetic spirit Shax in the later Goetia order.⁵

The exact psalm attached to Ielahiah in these tables is Psalm 119:108 in common English numbering; in strict Vulgate numbering it belongs under Psalm 118. TIt indicates accepted speech, voluntary offering and instruction in divine judgments, paralleling Hermes' role in the Odyssey and other materials to grant this and give good counsel. Against Shax, whose power is lying speech and the removal of sight, hearing and understanding, the angelic key is therefore ordered speech and restored judgment.^5,8

Lenain gives the fuller practical profile of Ielahiah. He calls the angel's attribute "Dieu éternel," gives the holy name Bosa according to the language of the Mexicans (it is unknown what this means), places his ray from the 216th to the 220th degree of the sphere, and assigns him to the twenty-second decan under the genius Sentacer. He gives the days 2 May, 13 July, 23 September, 4 December and 14 February. In later Ambelain-style tables the missing daily hour is supplied as 2:20 to 2:40 in the afternoon.^6,10

Lenain says Ielahiah is invoked for the success of a useful enterprise, for the protection of magistrates and for winning a trial. He protects against weapons and gives victory. The person born under his influence loves travelling in order to learn, succeeds in undertakings, and is distinguished by military talent and bravery. The contrary genius presides over war and over those who violate capitulations and massacre prisoners without pity.⁶

Papus repeats the same line in compressed cabalistic form: Ielahiah is "Dieu éternel," tied to the same name Bosa, the same 216 to 220 degree ray, and the same martial-judicial field of victory, enterprise, protection and the bad genius of cruel war. Papus does not move the origin of Shax earlier than Weyer; he only continues the angelological apparatus later used to oppose the demon.⁷