Tiresias: The Abrahamic Inversion

The seer Tiresias is the figure the late catalogues turned into Seere. That name was slander against the Original Gods and Their own, and it is not to be used in invocation; Tiresias is honoured by the name Tiresias.

Seere

The Daemon miscast in our day as Seere (Seer), Sear, or Seir came late into the Goetic canon. Therefore, he was not a spirit in the Middle French Livre Des Esperitz, nor a figure depicted by Johann Weyer or translated by Reginald Scot. Similarly, neither Dantalion nor Andromalius appears in Weyer. As such, the earliest identifiable and direct references to Seere are the 17th Century English Lemegeton manuscripts and the Proto-Lemegeton manuscript complex. The most concise reference to Seere can be found within London, British Library, Sloane Manuscript 3824, folio 114v.1^1,2,3,4,5

Of the spirit Seere His Character nature & Office &c.
This spirit Seere is under the King of the East, He goes & comes & brings all things to suddaine and expeditious effects, He can carry & recarry, & pass over the whole world, in a moment, yea in the twinkling of an Eye. He makes true relation of all sorts of thefts & of treasure trove, & sheweth true relations of many other things. He is by nature indifferent good, mild courteous and affable, & willingly performeth whatsoever is desired of him &c.

Seere's early Sloane 3824 notation has almost every component of what defines Seere. He is under the King of the East. He moves and returns things quickly. He travels across the world in a moment. He provides truthful information regarding theft and treasure troves, as the prophet Tiresias does to Odysseus. He is described as being indifferent, good natured, mild, polite and agreeable. There is no depiction of Seere as a handsome man riding upon a winged steed. Also, the fixed number of twenty-six legions does not appear in this earlier form. Both components define the full and complete standardization of Seere within the Ars Goetica.^1,2

In Sloane MS 3825, The First Book of the Lemegeton presents the expanded Ars Goetica format whereby Seere became the seventieth spirit. This version keeps the sudden movement, true reports, treasure and theft functions, but adds the rank of mighty prince under Amaymon, the beautiful male apparition, the winged horse and the number of legions.^1,3

The 70^th spirit in order is called Seere, he is a Mighty Prince and powerfull under Amaymon, king of y^e East he appeareth in y^e forme of a Beautifull Man, riding on a strong horse w^th wings: his office is to goe & come, and to bring all Things to pass on a sudden & to carry & recarry any Thing where Thou wilt have it, or have it from for he can pass over y^e whole world in y^e Twinckling of an Eye, he maketh a True relation of all sorts of Theft and of Treasures hidd, and of all other things, he is Indifferent good Natured, willing to do any thing y^e Exorcist desireth; he governeth 26 Legions of spirits.

The reference to Pegasus is blatant. Here the Theban and Corinthian myths seem to be mixed up, with Tiresias being confused for Bellerophon.^1,2,3

Identification with the biblical Seir, Edom, or Mount Seir is possible but not indicated.^1,2,3

In Dr. Rudd's angelological correspondence, Seere is opposed by the Shem-ha-Mephorash angel Jabamiah, Hebrew יבמיה.⁶

Lenain calls Jabamiah's attribute Verbe qui produit toutes choses, meaning the Word that produces all things, befitting of the prophet. He gives the corresponding divine name as Aris, places the ray from the 346th to the 350th degree of the sphere, assigns the decanal genius Thopibui, and puts the angel under Jupiter. The invocation time is eleven o'clock to eleven-twenty at night.⁷

Lenain's profile turns Jabamiah toward generation, regeneration and the phenomena of nature. The angel protects those who want to regenerate themselves, perhaps oppositionally to the tragedy of Thebes. A person born under this influence is said to distinguish himself by genius and to become one of the great lights of philosophy. The contrary genius is atheism..^7,8

The exact scriptural indication for Jabamiah is, strangely, not a Psalm. Lenain and Papus attach him to Genesis 1:1. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."^7,8,9