A student once wrote to us, asking why a Goetic invocation had gone wrong. He had called “Aum” as a demon’s name, expecting a crow-headed spirit to appear. Nothing happened. He had confused a sacred syllable with a spirit of the Ars Goetia. The mistake is common, and it matters. Raum is a Goetic Earl of Hell, a spirit of destruction and decay. Aum is the primordial sound of creation in Hindu and Buddhist traditions, a mantra that precedes all form. They share three letters and nothing else.
Where the confusion begins
The spelling is the trap. “Raum” and “Aum” differ by a single letter, and in English transliteration both can appear in occult texts without diacritics. A reader skimming a grimoire might see “Aum” listed among the seventy-two spirits and assume it is a variant of Raum. It is not. Raum appears in the Ars Goetia, the first book of The Lesser Key of Solomon (compiled around 1655 by unknown editors, drawing on earlier manuscripts such as the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of Johann Weyer, 1563). Aum appears in the Rigveda (c. 1500–1200 BCE) and is central to the Upanishads, especially the Mandukya Upanishad (c. 1st century BCE). The two come from different continents, different eras, and different metaphysical systems. They cannot be swapped.
Raum: the Goetic Earl of Ruin
In the Ars Goetia, Raum is the fortieth spirit, an Earl who commands thirty legions. He appears first as a crow, then takes human form at the magician’s request. His office is destruction: he destroys cities, the dignities of men, and reputations. He also reveals past and future events and reconciles friends and enemies. The crow is not decorative. Crows are carrion birds, creatures of the battlefield and the gallows. They eat what is dead. Raum’s work is to bring things to their end so that something new can begin.
The human consequence is direct. A magician who calls Raum is not asking for subtle influence. He is asking for collapse. In the 17th-century grimoire tradition, such spirits were summoned within a protective circle, with the magician holding a consecrated ring or lamen. The goal was control, not worship. Raum was bound by the names of God written in Hebrew, and the magician commanded him to appear without harming the operator. The practice was dangerous, not because the spirit was evil in a moral sense, but because destruction, once released, is hard to contain.
Aum: the sound that was before the world
Aum (often written Om) is not a name. It is a syllable that represents the entire universe in its unmanifest and manifest forms. The Mandukya Upanishad states that Aum is the Self, the Brahman, the totality of past, present, and future. It is composed of three sounds: A (creation), U (preservation), M (dissolution), followed by the silence that is the fourth state, turiya. Where Raum ends things, Aum contains the cycle of ending and beginning within itself.
The practice of Aum is meditative, not invocatory. A yogi chants it aloud or silently to still the mind and merge with the absolute. In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (c. 400 CE), the repetition of Aum and meditation on its meaning is given as a method for attaining samadhi. There is no circle, no triangle, no binding. There is only the breath and the vibration.
A concrete detail: when we chant Aum in our own practice, we feel it first in the chest. The “A” opens the throat, the “U” rolls forward through the mouth, the “M” closes the lips and vibrates the skull. The silence that follows is not empty. It is the space from which the sound came. That is the opposite of Raum’s crow, which arrives with a cry and leaves with a silence of ashes.
What each power actually does
Raum is a tool for directed change through destruction. In ceremonial magic, he is called to break down obstacles, to end relationships that have soured, to dismantle institutions that no longer serve. The magician does not ask Raum to build. He asks him to raze. The spirit’s crow form is a reminder that what is destroyed becomes food for something else.
Aum is a tool for realization through identification. The practitioner does not ask Aum for anything. He becomes Aum, or rather, he recognizes that he always was that sound, that consciousness. The syllable is not a spirit to be commanded. It is the substrate of all spirits, all gods, all matter.
The difference is not merely semantic. A person who treats Aum as a demon will get no response. A person who treats Raum as a mantra will get chaos. The two practices require different mindsets, different preparations, different ethics.
How you spoke to each
In the Goetic tradition, the magician prepares a circle and a triangle of art. He wears a clean robe, often of linen, and holds a wand or a sword. He calls the spirit by its name and its seals, using the conjurations from the Ars Goetia. The spirit must appear, answer questions, and perform tasks. The relationship is hierarchical. The magician is the operator; the spirit is the instrument.
In the yogic tradition, the practitioner sits in a comfortable posture, spine straight. He inhales and chants Aum on the exhale, focusing on the vibration. There is no circle. There is no command. The relationship is one of union. The practitioner is not separate from the sound.
We have done both. We light a candle for Raum in a fireproof bowl, using a seal drawn in ink on parchment. We chant Aum in the morning, before the sun clears the horizon. The two never meet. They belong to different rooms of the library.
Common misconceptions
“Aum is a demon.” No. Aum is a sacred syllable in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It appears in no grimoire as a spirit. The confusion arises because some modern occult writers have listed “Aum” as a variant of “Amon” or “Aim” in the Goetia, but this is a transcription error. The standard editions of the Ars Goetia (including the 1904 Mathers-Crowley translation) do not include Aum.
“Raum is the same as Aum because both are about destruction.” Raum destroys external structures. Aum includes dissolution (the M sound) but as part of a cycle that returns to silence and creation. The goal of Aum is liberation, not ruin.
“You can use Aum to summon Raum.” You cannot. The two operate in different metaphysical frameworks. Mixing them produces neither a spirit nor a meditative state. It produces confusion.
“Raum is evil, Aum is good.” Both are beyond human moral categories. Raum is a force of nature, amoral, useful or harmful depending on the operator’s intent. Aum is the ground of being, which includes both good and evil in its scope. Neither is a friend or an enemy.
FAQ
Can Raum appear as a crow? Yes. The Ars Goetia describes him as appearing first as a crow, then taking human shape. The crow is his primary form.
Is Aum mentioned in any grimoire? Not in the classical grimoires. Some modern syncretic texts may reference it, but it has no place in the Solomonic tradition.
Which is more powerful? The question is meaningless. Power in Goetia is measured by the number of legions a spirit commands. Raum has thirty. Power in yoga is measured by the depth of realization. Aum is the entire cosmos. They are not comparable.
Can a beginner work with either? We advise against working with Raum without a solid foundation in protective magic and a clear purpose. Aum is safe for anyone, but it requires patience and consistency.
The two names sit on different shelves. Raum belongs to the history of European ceremonial magic, a spirit of endings bound by seals and circles. Aum belongs to the contemplative traditions of the East, a sound that never began. To confuse them is to mistake a crow for the sky it flies through. If you want to explore the Goetic spirits further, begin with our guide to the Ars Goetia. For the sacred syllable, see the glossary entry on Aum. And if you are still unsure which you need, read how to distinguish between invocation and meditation. The library holds both. The choice is yours.