Working with Paimon: arts, sciences, secret things, and a bath before you ask
Paimon, and the weight of a King
In the Grimoire Companion material, Paimon is a King with 200 legions, who teaches all arts and sciences and secret things, and grants dignities and loyal familiars. That is a large field, and a large number of legions, and both points should slow a practitioner down, rather than speeding them up. A King in the old material is not approached casually, and a spirit whose field covers all arts and sciences is not a spirit to approach with a vague wish to be cleverer.
Arts and sciences, here, mean skilled work that can be learned, practised, and judged: music, writing, craft, mathematics, philosophy, and the other disciplines that take years to master and a lifetime to keep sharp. Secret things, in the same material, mean knowledge that is not on the surface, whether because it is hidden, because it is hard to learn, or because it is only taught to those who have prepared themselves to receive it. Dignities mean standing, office, and recognition, the kind of standing that has to be held once it is given, or it slips away quickly.
Loyal familiars, in this material, are presented as helpers who stay with the work. Loyalty, in that sense, is a two-way matter. A practitioner who asks for a loyal familiar and then neglects the working, the record, and the ordinary study that goes with it, is asking for a relationship they are not keeping up. If you are not prepared to keep up your side, start with the study, and let the rest follow from a practice that is already steady.
Why a bath comes before this kind of work
It is the part of the practice where you wash off the day, slow down, and arrive at the working with a clearer head than the one you had when you came in from errands, arguments, or ordinary worry. For work with a King, that clearing is not a courtesy. It is part of showing that you understand the scale of what you are asking for.
A bath for work with Paimon is therefore not a general cleansing bath for any purpose you can think of. It is preparation for a particular kind of work, where an art or a science needs to be learned properly, a secret thing needs to be understood rather than merely glimpsed, or a dignity needs to be held with steadiness rather than grasped at in haste. If you take the bath and then do no working at all, you have still washed and settled yourself, but you have not done Paimon work. The bath prepares the working; it does not replace it.
It is also worth being honest, before you bathe, about what you are actually asking for. If the art you name is one you have no intention of practising, or the dignity you name is one you have no plan for holding, then the working has no ground to stand on. Write the art, the question, or the office down, in one clear sentence, and write down what you will do yourself, in ordinary work, to meet it halfway. That written plan is what keeps the working honest.
How the bath is made, and how it is used
The baths in this line are made from 100% pure roots, herbs, and sometimes essential oils. No synthetics are used.
To use any of these baths, you add them to a pot of water, approximately 1 litre or so. If you pour everything in, including the bits of herbs, just use either a strainer to get the chunks out after your bath, or one of those fish tank nets, or a bird catching net. That practical detail matters: herb bits in a drain are a nuisance, and a bath that ends with plumbing trouble is a poor preparation for any working. Strain the bath, keep the water, and dispose of the herb matter tidily.
That three-day rhythm is itself part of the preparation. A single bath on the night of a working is a wash. Three days in a row is a pattern, and a pattern gives you time to notice whether your question is getting clearer, or whether it is shifting under you as you sit with it. If the question changes during those three days, let it change, and write the change down, rather than clinging to the first wording out of stubbornness.
Take the bath in the ordinary way, with ordinary care. Hot water, a clean tub, and enough time that you are not rushing to get out and get on with something else. Dry yourself properly, change into clothes you do not wear for ordinary errands, and go to your working space without filling the gap with noise, news, or argument. The bath is a threshold. Treat the time after it as part of the working, not as a break before the working starts.
Preparing the question, and the study that follows it
Preparation for Paimon work is mostly preparation of the question and the study that follows it. A good question for this kind of work is specific, and it admits an answer you could check. Asking about all arts and sciences in general terms leaves you with nothing to work with afterwards, except a feeling. Asking about a particular art, a particular problem in it, or a particular secret thing you are ready to study, gives you something you can test against what you already know, and against what you learn later.
It helps to write down, before the working, what you already know about the matter, what you do not know, and what you will study next, in ordinary terms, after the working. Keep those lists separate, and keep the study list realistic. A working that is followed by no study at all is hard to read, because there is nothing for it to act on. Set a regular study or practice time, even a short one, and keep it, whether or not you feel inspired on a given day.
Prepare the room and yourself in the same way you would for any Goetia working: clear the space, set it aside for this purpose, and know what you are going to say, in your own words, before you begin. A clear head is a working tool, just as much as a bath, oil, or incense is. If your practice calls for cleansing or consecration of tools, follow the instructions you already follow in your system. A general article like this one is not a substitute for proper teaching in the system, and it should not be used to invent a rite you have not been taught.
A simple working order, to adapt to your own practice
The following is a general order, not a fixed script. Adapt it to the system you already work in. First, take the bath, as above, each day for 3 days in a row, with the question written down before the first bath. Second, prepare the room and yourself, and set out any seal, oil, incense, or candle you will use. Third, speak your petition, clearly and once, rather than repeating it until it loses its shape. Fourth, sit quietly for a time and listen, rather than filling every moment with more words. Fifth, close the working properly, in whatever way your practice requires, and put your tools away in their proper places.
Paimon also has a matching incense, at $44 CAD, for spirit work and spellwork with Paimon. This article is about the bath, so it does not turn into a second article about incense, but it is worth knowing that companion exists, because fumigating the tools and the working space is a companion practice to bathing the practitioner, and both are forms of preparation, one for the person and one for the place.
Afterwards, write down what you did, when you did it, and what you noticed. Not what you hoped would happen, but what actually happened, in plain language. For Paimon work, that record should include the question as written, the answer as received, and the study or practice that followed, with dates. That later note is the important one. A record without a follow-up note is only half a record, because you cannot tell, from the night itself, whether an answer was true, or only convincing.
After the working: holding what is given
Do not repeat the same working endlessly in the hope that repetition alone will force a clearer answer. Do the work properly, once, observe, and then decide, calmly, whether a second working, a different approach, or no further working is the right next step. Repetition without reflection is not persistence. It is noise, and in work with a King it is also a poor showing of the steadiness that dignities require.
Give an answer time to be checked, and give a dignity time to be held. Some knowledge arrives at once, in a book, a teacher, or a plain fact you had overlooked. Other knowledge takes weeks of study to confirm, as you practise and test it. Keep the record open for that period, and add to it as facts arrive, rather than closing it on the night of the working with a verdict you cannot yet support.
If nothing changes, that is also information. It may mean the question was unclear, the study time was too short, the work was not appropriate, or simply that the situation needs a different approach, such as ordinary study, a teacher, or waiting until you are ready for the art you named. A bath and a working do not replace ordinary ways of learning. They sit alongside them, and a practitioner who uses both, and keeps a record of both, will learn more than a practitioner who uses only one.
Paimon Goetia bath
A bath for Paimon work should prepare you to ask clearly, and to study steadily afterwards.
I make these baths from 100% pure roots, herbs, and sometimes essential oils, with no synthetics, and I bless each one myself before it is sent out. This one is Paimon, for a magick bath for work with Paimon, to be taken each day for 3 days in a row as preparation for the working. I make no promise about what it will do for you, only that it is made by hand, for this work.
If you want a Paimon bath made in this way, this is the one I offer: Paimon Goetia bath, $44 CAD. View the product
Use: add to a pot of water, approximately 1 litre or so, strain out herb bits with a strainer, fish tank net, or bird catching net, and take each day for 3 days in a row. Matching Paimon incense is also, $44 CAD.
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