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A brass seal lies cooling on the workbench. The practitioner has spent three hours filing its curves, checking each angle against the manuscript copy. Tomorrow they will speak to Sabnock. But first they must understand what kind of spirit they are calling. Not all Goetic demons build. Not all of them wound. And very few of them do both with the same hand.

Sabnock is the 43rd spirit of the Ars Goetia, a Great Marquis who commands 50 legions and is known for building high towers, fortresses, and cities, while also afflicting wounds that rot for days. He belongs to a small subset of Goetic spirits whose domain straddles creation and destruction. To compare him to his peers is to map the full range of what the 72 spirits actually do.

What the Ars Goetia Actually Says About Sabnock

What the Ars Goetia Actually Says About Sabnock

The primary source for Sabnock appears in the Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis, specifically the first book known as the Ars Goetia. The manuscript tradition dates to the 17th century, though the material draws on earlier grimoires such as the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1583) by Johann Weyer and the Steganographia of Johannes Trithemius (c. 1500).

The text describes Sabnock (also spelled Sabnac, Savnok, or Sabnach in various manuscript families) as appearing “in the form of an armed soldier with a lion’s head.” He rides a pale horse. His office is twofold: he builds towers, castles, and cities, fortifying them against attack, and he afflicts men with wounds and sores that putrefy and do not heal for weeks.

That combination is rare. Most Goetic spirits specialize. Sabnock straddles two domains that the grimoire tradition usually keeps separate.

How Sabnock Compares to Other Builders

Several Goetic spirits build. But they build different things.

Balam (51st spirit) builds armies, not architecture. He gives invisibility and wit, but his construction is conceptual. Paimon (9th spirit) builds knowledge and binds men to the magician’s will. Astaroth (29th spirit) builds friendship with powerful figures.

Sabnock builds physical structures. The Ars Goetia specifies towers, castles, and cities. This is not metaphor. The text treats these as literal fortifications that the spirit can raise or strengthen. No other Goetic spirit claims this office with the same specificity.

Vapula (60th spirit) comes closest, but his domain is philosophy and mechanical arts. He teaches the principles by which things are built. Sabnock builds them directly.

The practical implication for the practitioner is clear. If your working involves physical protection of a place, not conceptual protection of a person, Sabnock is the spirit whose office matches the need. Calling Paimon for a wall is calling the wrong architect.

How Sabnock Compares to Other Wound-Givers

The destructive half of Sabnock’s office is equally specific. He afflicts wounds that rot. The grimoire uses the Latin vulnera putrida, putrid wounds. This is not simple harm. It is a particular kind of decay.

Andras (63rd spirit) sows discord and kills. Flauros (64th spirit) burns enemies. Zepar (16th spirit) causes lust and bodily corruption of a different kind. Bune (26th spirit) changes the dead and enriches the poor.

Sabnock’s wounds are distinctive because they do not heal quickly. The text says they last “for many days” and fester. This places him in a category closer to disease spirits than combat spirits. He does not strike once. He inflicts a condition.

The historical context matters here. The 17th-century grimoire tradition emerged where battlefield wounds routinely turned gangrenous. A spirit who could cause or cure putrid wounds had immediate, visceral meaning. A soldier who survived a battle might still die of the wound a week later. Sabnock’s office addressed that fear.

Sabnock and the Marquis Class

The Ars Goetia divides its 72 spirits into hierarchies: Kings, Dukes, Princes, Marquises, Counts, Presidents, and Knights. Sabnock holds the rank of Great Marquis. He commands 50 legions.

Other Marquises include Amdusias (67th), Andras (63rd), Aim (23rd), Cimeries (66th), and Forneus (30th). Each commands between 20 and 50 legions. Sabnock’s 50 puts him at the top of the Marquis tier.

The rank matters for practical work. In the Goetic system, Marquises are considered intermediate in power and temperament. They are more tractable than Kings but less yielding than Presidents. They respond to authority but require respect. Sabnock’s appearance as an armed soldier reinforces this. He is a military commander, not a monarch. He follows orders but expects competence.

Compare this to Bathin (18th Duke), who appears as a strong man with a serpent’s tail and moves herbs and stones. Bathin’s rank of Duke gives him greater authority over the natural world but less direct combat capability. Sabnock’s rank and appearance align with his office. He is built for fortification and siege.

The Lion-Headed Spirits of the Goetia

Sabnock’s appearance is distinctive: an armed soldier with a lion’s head. Only a handful of Goetic spirits share this hybrid form.

Buer (10th President) has the head of a lion but the body of a star or wheel. Orobas (55th Prince) appears as a horse but takes human form when commanded. Vepar (42nd Duke) appears as a mermaid. Gusion (11th Duke) appears as a Xenophilus, a figure from classical philosophy.

The lion head carries specific symbolic weight in the grimoire tradition. It signifies royalty, courage, and the solar principle. But Sabnock is not a King. He is a Marquis. The lion head here may indicate his authority over the lower orders of spirits, or it may connect him to the Lion of Judah in Christian Kabbalistic correspondences.

The pale horse he rides is equally significant. In Revelation 6:8, the pale horse carries Death. Sabnock rides it but does not kill. He wounds. The image suggests a spirit who has access to death’s domain but operates at the threshold, not beyond it.

The 50 Legions: What the Number Means

Sabnock commands 50 legions. In the Goetic system, a legion is not a fixed number. The Ars Goetia does not define it. But the total number of spirits under Sabnock’s command places him in the upper third of the hierarchy.

Compare the legion counts of other spirits:

  • Bael (1st King): 66 legions
  • Agares (2nd Duke): 31 legions
  • Vassago (3rd Prince): 26 legions
  • Paimon (9th King): 200 legions
  • Sabnock (43rd Marquis): 50 legions
  • Andromalius (72nd Duke): 36 legions

The number of legions correlates roughly with the spirit’s rank and power, but not perfectly. Some Kings command fewer legions than some Dukes. The system is not purely numerical. It reflects the manuscript tradition’s uneven transmission rather than a consistent hierarchy.

For the practitioner, the legion count matters for one reason only: it indicates the scale of the spirit’s network. A spirit with 50 legions has access to a substantial body of subordinate spirits. When you call Sabnock, you are not calling one entity. You are calling a commander who can deploy forces.

Sabnock in the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum

Johann Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1583) predates the Ars Goetia by roughly half a century and contains an earlier version of the same material. In Weyer’s text, Sabnock appears as “Sabnac” and his description is nearly identical: he builds towers and castles, afflicts wounds, and appears as an armed soldier with a lion’s head riding a pale horse.

The differences are minor. Weyer gives Sabnock 50 legions, the same as the Ars Goetia. He does not specify the duration of the wounds. The later grimoire adds the detail that the wounds rot for many days.

Weyer’s text is important because it places Sabnock in a different context. The Pseudomonarchia Daemonum was written as a catalog of demonic deceptions, not a working grimoire. Weyer was a physician and occultist who believed that most magic was fraud or demonic trickery. His catalog was meant to expose, not instruct. The fact that Sabnock appears there in nearly the same form suggests the tradition was already stable by the late 16th century.

Practical Comparisons: When to Call Sabnock vs. Other Spirits

The practitioner’s question is not academic. It is operational. Which spirit do you call for which purpose?

For physical protection of a place: Sabnock builds towers and fortifies cities. For personal protection: Balam gives invisibility and wit. For binding enemies: Andras sows discord. For healing: Buer teaches herbal medicine. For wealth: Bune enriches the poor.

Sabnock’s dual office makes him useful for situations that require both construction and destruction. If a working involves building a protective structure while also wounding an opposing force, Sabnock is the spirit whose office covers both. Calling two separate spirits for these tasks risks conflict between their natures.

The grimoire tradition warns against mixing spirits whose offices oppose each other. A spirit of healing and a spirit of wounds called in the same working create a contradiction. Sabnock resolves this by holding both offices in a single nature. He builds and wounds. He does not heal what he wounds.

Common Misconceptions About Sabnock

Misconception: Sabnock is a demon of war. He is not. He is a spirit of fortification and wounding. War involves strategy, movement, and command. Sabnock’s domain is static. He builds walls and inflicts conditions. He does not lead armies or plan campaigns.

Misconception: Sabnock’s wounds are always physical. The grimoire tradition treats spiritual and physical wounds as continuous. A wound that rots for days can be literal or symbolic. The practitioner should consider both possibilities.

Misconception: Sabnock is evil. The Ars Goetia does not use the language of good and evil. It describes offices. Sabnock does what his nature dictates. The practitioner’s intent determines the moral valence of the working.

Misconception: Sabnock is difficult to control. His rank of Marquis makes him more tractable than Kings. He responds to authority. The difficulty lies not in controlling him but in framing the request correctly. He builds towers. If you ask for a tower, he will build one. If you ask for something else, he may not understand.

FAQ

Is Sabnock the same as Sabnac? Yes. The name varies across manuscript families. Sabnac appears in Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. Sabnock appears in the Ars Goetia. They refer to the same spirit.

Can Sabnock heal the wounds he causes? The grimoire does not say. His office is to afflict wounds, not to cure them. Some practitioners report that he can remove the wounds he has inflicted, but the primary sources do not support this.

What metal corresponds to Sabnock? The Ars Goetia does not assign metals to individual spirits. Later occult systems associate Sabnock with iron due to his military appearance and his office of building fortifications.

How many legions does Sabnock command? Fifty legions, according to both the Ars Goetia and the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum.

Closing

Sabnock occupies a narrow but powerful niche in the Goetic hierarchy. He builds what others cannot and wounds what others merely threaten. Understanding where he fits among the 72 spirits is not a matter of cataloging. It is a matter of knowing which tool to reach for when the working demands both a wall and a wound. For a deeper look at how the spirits relate to one another, explore our guide to Goetic demonology. The glossary of Goetic terms can help with the specialized vocabulary. And for a direct comparison of the builder spirits, our guide to Goetic builders covers Balam, Vapula, and the others who shape the material world.