I want to take some time first to emphasize I am not the end-all-be-all authority on demon worship. Depending on how you want to go about things, it can look a bit different person to person. One of the most common questions I see is “how do I worship demons if I’m in the broom closet?” Some people have no desire, or ability, to join a sect or coven, you may not have the ability to talk to others about it due to where you live, even with most limitations there is usually an approach to it that will help.
Altars and Devotion
Altars are a big part of many people’s religion. They are by no means necessary, and some people approach them in more unconventional ways. Digital altars, travel altars, modular altars, or just your standard-many people have some level of one for their worship.
If you approach a digital altar there are many resources out there for you, which kind of just relies on your own hobbies, wants, and habits. Some people like to use games like the Sims or Minecraft to have more range in building an altar they may not have in their home. This option helps a lot for people in the broom closet, and often times can be ignored by most people. You also have a lot of options for things like Picrew, which I have also seen people use for digital altars. While it’s a bit stricter in the options you have, they have some fun settings that may help you, and the images are just downloaded so there’s no real ‘interaction’ or action you can assign to it like you could in a video game, but this can be a n option for someone who wants a less time consuming, and more easily accessed digital altar.
Travel and modular altars go hand in hand for me. Travel altars being just a small version of what you need from your daily altar-often taken on trips to substitute your full one. For some a travel altar is their normal functioning altar, and they often range from the size of an Altoids can to small chests that are easy to move place to place and use. Modular altars are altars that more so come in ‘mods’ or pieces. These are designed by the person making the altar, and it can truly be anything. Some people use an array of photo boxes, some use shelves, others use a room with several areas designed into it. The possibilities are endless! I used to have a more modular-room style altar where a room of my home was dedicated to it, each corner had it’s one thing going on. Spells, books, worship, divination-I’m certain you get the idea! Then when I moved, I had to move things to shelves in one room, which shelves helped me a lot because you can rearrange most bookshelves and change it as you need to. I feel like both travel altars and modular altars are in the same vein of mobility and ‘small’, but the modular altar is more several smaller pieces to make one large one, where as your travel altar is designed to stay small and mobile. Both are great for mobility and rearranging, and modular altars can come in different looks so even having a few can be easy to hide. Who questions someone having storage does in a crawl space after all?
Now the type of altar you build to a demon I feel doesn’t matter as much as long as you can utilize it. You also want to keep in who you are building it for and build it around them. If you dedicate altar space to Lord Asmodeus, make sure it reflects him and why you worship him. This can be achieved in many ways, the way I do it now is each demon is represented by a candle, and I have a more communal altar space that holds everything I use in my path, worship or magic.
Before I had a larger space, and each demon that I worshiped had a personal space and altar, with a lot of tangible items as offerings. Overtime I’ve become much more minimalist in my craft. I do different forms of offerings like a spell jar every year, and professionally crafted artwork. Otherwise, my offerings are things I do in devotion instead of physical items, so I don’t really need the space to leave items.
And this is just an example of how flexible it truly is to set up your altar. Each Demon tends to have their own preference or approach, so there is a lot more variety than I think some people are expecting when they start. There are a few paths that have a very specific altar set up and approach-general worship of demons is not one of them. Aesthetics often don’t matter to much either when you’re starting out. Some people get in their head that it has to be perfect at the beginning. My first altar was on a plastic shelf/table thing I moved through various places in my childhood bedroom. I’ve had so many different set-ups and approaches-trust me when I say you’ll find the one that works for you as you practice. Your needs will shift and that will build your altar. You have your entire path to make it look pretty-don’t get hung up on trying to build the ‘perfect’ one before you even start. I tell people the same thing when it comes to buying stuff for spell work. Start small, workaround stuff-don’t go all in and buy $500 worth of stuff you don’t need or won’t use.
Safety Always Comes First
Having the safety to comfortable express your religion is a privilege and not a mark of status. I know some people either find pride in ‘not having to hide’ or shame in needing to hide-there’s no reason to. If you’re prideful you don’t have to hide-realize how much of a privilege this is and understand that it’s not pride you should take here. By all means be happy you don’t have to face religious prejudice-but it’s not something to turn your nose up at someone else because they don’t have the safety you do. Because at the end of the day it’s your safety and comfortability.
I myself am luckily enough I can be relatively open about my craft with those who matter to me-but overall, I am a private person and don’t discuss these things already. This is mainly because I am not ignorant to the social backlash that can come from worshiping demons, and how being tied to it can even hurt me professionally. A lot of people are in areas worse than I am-with people who are less understanding and accepting. I am lucky and consider myself such. But I will say it bothers me when I see people in our communities and chatrooms stick their nose up at others because they feel like they’re special that they do it ‘openly.’ But it’s not a matter of status or class. This isn’t a car or a house-it’s religion.
If you have to hide-hide. There are many ways to build an altar that’s not going to scream “I WORSHIP DEMONS HERE!” but it will depend on what is actually safe for you to do. This of course varies heavily based on what your situation looks like so sadly I can’t give any clear ‘this is what you should do.’ What I can do is tell you your safety is first priority and any demon you would worship will not take heavy offense to you doing what you can in the meantime.
How To Go About Studying Demons
Now Demons aren’t as obscure as they once were, but it can still be pretty hard to find information on them if you’re not sure where to start. There are websites, YouTube channels, books… For me I prefer to read up on the history of demons and generally study them before I really consider them for worship, but some people may study a demon that caught their attention and find they want to worship them. I wouldn’t say there’s a right way-just however you prefer to do it. I like to study demons in general, so it makes sense for me to approach it the way I do- you’ll find your approach.
I do heavily suggest fully looking into a demon-or trying to-before declaring worship as a baseline, however. I have seen many people who are unsure where to start, or how to go things, rely on others to answer every question they may have-instead of reading anything. I’ve even seen people say the ‘Don’t like to read websites or books’ when provided free websites or PDF links. Religion is work, and maybe this is just my personal view but if you’re offering any entity worship it’s going to be seen as an insult if YOU are not willing to actually do the work to worship them. They’re not accessories you can clip on and off your bag these are supposed to be your religious view. While some mainstream religious groups do kind of do that-I would say that doesn’t mean we should too.
But if you’re not willing to read something or do the work… it may not be the religion for you. You should feel a passion, a drive-something-for what you believe in, if you don’t even have the drive to read a web page it may just be time to look into other options (or burnout recovery!)
To further explain my approach, I like to just generally study demons. It takes a while, but to me it’s fun and often times challenging in a good way. Because the nature of Demons I would say it can get difficult. Sometimes it’s hard to find anything on a particular demon, or when you do it’s all the same information over and over. There are a few different websites that catalog demons as well, and they can be very useful too, I just like to use multiple sources. In my experience Goetic Demons are easier to research as there’s a lot documented on them, but Demons outside of the Ars Goetia are documented significantly less. Then with some cases, like the Dukante Hierarchy where there is even less documented. Now not all Goetic demons have pages upon pages dedicated to them, but they’re usually much more documented. Like with demons such as the Lords Asmodeus, Lucifer, Mammon, and Beelzebub. These demons all have a lot documented on them, about them, devoted to them-I would almost argue they are close to the ‘household’ names of Demons. Even people who don’t worship demons are more than likely going to recognize a few of the names on this list and may even know the sin they’re tied to.
I have a series of books on hand that I’ve found have been helpful for learning the history of the religion behind them. Often, we’ll see that demons from the bible are just demonized figures for other religions. There’s a lot of history you can see transfer over to the worship of these demons and I like to find those connections and see where some stuff carried over. Not always, but it can be fun and eye opening to see the ‘birth’ of a demon from a previous energy.
I like The Dictionary of Demons by M Belanger because it has a list of demons and correspondences as well as mentioning other books the demons are mentioned in. It gives me a good starting point in my research and helps illuminate the overall picture. Normally I’ll follow the book trail as much as I can before switching to web-research and looking into more personal testimony. For websites for the most part I would look into forums for Demonolatry and Witchcraft and LHP stuff, see if there was anything consistently being cited and looked there to see what else I could find. I do not endorse, nor am I endorsed, by any websites but there are a lot of them out there if you are looking for them, I think the important thing for web-based research is knowing how to cross reference. Some websites can be shady and give bad information-look into stuff at your own risk, cross reference and vet all sources as always.
When it comes to finding testimonies of people who have worshiped or researched a demon themselves, I typically look for things that are already posted or ask in place that are geared to be more social and chattier. I usually don’t record specific answers from people but often times you can see the overarching details. It’s useful to see the overall shared gnosis that’s formed and have a bit of guidance from others who have already ‘gotten in the water’ for lack of better terms.
Now the hard part is not all demons are easy to worship. Some are actually really hard and have very little documented on them, or very few people worship or interact with them (and talk about it online, anyway). Or when there’s things like the demons from the Dukante Hierarchy which are almost entirely documented in online space, with only one author really writing about them. It can be rewarding work, but it can also be very frustrating work. This is also why I do not stick to any one source and often go through the three phases of research I’ve described above. Usually by the time I’ve done all of that I have a semblance of a path to go, even if it turns out all I ended up with is research.
How do you know you’re ready?
There is no definitive answer. You are the one who knows this, you are the one who will be able to tell what it is that holds you back and what it is that makes you want to. It can be scary to hear that no one can give you an answer on this, but it’s kind of where it’s at. No one but you can give a true answer for when you are ready-but you’ll know. I don’t think I could tell you when I ‘knew’ I was ready to continue my worship more independently-there was just a moment where I started and its kind of just made sense to then.
It’s also important to remember that not all people are built the same or can do the same. You really can’t pit yourself against others to measure how ‘good’ of a worshiper you are. You may also have to leave behind any preconceived notions you formed from previous religious views-and I’d argue that may be the biggest tell of readiness if you need one.
I myself grew up around witchcraft and alternative religions. I don’t think I struggled much with a ‘transition’ to solitary demon worship as it was already around me. However, I also have to ask a lot of very basic questions to my catholic husband-I didn’t know mass referred to just going to church, and I’ve learned a lot about lent since we moved in together. I didn’t have a struggle when I started my own practice outside my family because all I was doing was separating from them. *
*Author’s Note: I only clarify this now because I’ve received a lot of the same question in recent years. “If your family followed religion like this, why don’t you follow the same path as them?” Because they suck as humans, not as witches. A lot of people often are surprised to learn my family had more alternative views but were heavily abusive, sadly worshiping demons or practicing witchcraft doesn’t make someone a good person instantly. I don’t have a lot of access to the family books or documents without being ‘a part’ of the family, so to step away from them I did have to forge on my own a bit, and I’m happy that I did I feel I’ve learned and have grown so much more in the past few years than I did the previous 20 something years.
Overall! You will know when you’re ready, but I would say the first step is just ditching any previous religious hang-ups you have, and approach it as a new slate. Sometimes I feel like people try to take your basic Christian dynamic and just switch out God and Lucifer-but then they struggle because they don’t feel ‘right’ or like it ‘fits.’
This is because the previous way you were taught to worship was built around that religion and that entity. It can be hard to drop the old habits, even I hung onto some things over the years that were still working for me. You just kind of need to go in with an open mind that you may not be doing ALL of the same stuff you were before-but that’s common for any pagan religion, it’s not limited to us here.
Am I going to Hell?!
I guess technically the answer could be yes-if you believe you’re going to hell, it is your beliefs.
I don’t really believe in the Christian or Catholic ideas of Heaven and hell, I have different beliefs on death and the afterlife overall-so I will check my own bias there, but I do not believe worshiping demons damns you to hell. The demons I worship have never asked me to do anything I feel is actually wrong or bad. I pay my taxes, go to work, raise my child, do my gardening…
I don’t see a single thing in my life that is ‘worth’ me going to hell over. Maybe for you feel differently-that would be an internal conflict to work out. But it would be up to you what you feel happens. Sorry, that may not be the ‘fun’ answer and may even be a bit confusing. I don’t feel it’s up to me to make that choice for you-but I truly do not feel this is a hell-damning life ruining thing. If anything, demons push me more to be a better person.
What Now?
Go research some demons, maybe buy a book or two or find some PDFs. There’s a lot of websites out there that have a lot of information on them already for free. Check out Demonolatry forums and communities, talk to people. I wouldn’t say dive in nose first but if you have an interest explore it, see if you think it fits for you. Maybe you like it but would prefer a sect, maybe you like the solitary approach. You may not have figured it out by the end of this article, but I hope you’ve gotten a decent place to start.
Share your thoughts!