The incense smoke curls upward, carrying the same scent of myrrh and rose that drew worshippers to Canaanite high places three thousand years ago. But the name you whisper over the flame determines who answers. Astarte, the Queen of Heaven, and Astaroth, the Great Duke of Hell, share a single root but diverged into beings with opposite loyalties, different domains, and separate histories that scholars and practitioners still argue over today. No other deity-to-demon transformation in Western esotericism illustrates the power of religious conquest quite like this one.
The meta-description: How the Canaanite Queen of Heaven became a Christian demon — and why modern practitioners distinguish sharply between Astarte and Astaroth in ritual work.
Where the Names Come From (and Why They Are Not Interchangeable)
The confusion begins with the Phoenician alphabet. The original Canaanite goddess was ʻAštart (𐤏𐤔𐤕𐤓𐤕), vocalized in Greek as Ἀστάρτη (Astartē) and in Hebrew as עַשְׁתֹּרֶת (Ashtoret). The Hebrew Masoretic scribes deliberately inserted the vowels of bōšet (“shame”) into the goddess’s name, producing a deliberate corruption that read “shame of Baal” — a theological insult preserved in the Old Testament.
When early medieval grimoires began cataloging the spirits of the infernal hierarchy, the name Astaroth appeared as a masculine demon. The suffix shift from -e to -oth was not accidental. Hebrew feminine nouns ending in -oth are grammatically feminine plural, but Latin scribes unfamiliar with Semitic grammar treated the -oth ending as a masculine nominative singular. Astarte became Astaroth in the same translation error that turned the goddess Anat into the demon Amaimon.
We date the first clear appearance of Astaroth as a named demon to the early 13th century, in the De Apparitionibus et de Evocationibus daemonum (1230) attributed to Pope Honorius III. The Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577) by Johann Weyer lists Astaroth as the 29th spirit, a “great and strong duke” who appears as a “foul angel” riding a dragon and holding a viper. The Lemegeton (17th century) repeats this description and assigns Astaroth the power to answer honestly about past, present, and future.
Astarte never disappeared from worship. She survived in the syncretic cults of the Hellenistic Mediterranean, assimilated into the worship of Aphrodite at Paphos on Cyprus and at Kythera where her temple predated the Greek goddess by centuries. The Phoenician colony of Carthage carried her cult to North Africa, where the goddess Tanit (a local form of Astarte) received child sacrifice until the Roman destruction of the city in 146 BCE.
What Each Being Rules (and What They Demand)
Astarte rules life in its most material forms. Her domains are fertility, sexual love, warfare, and celestial sovereignty. She is the morning and evening star, the planet Venus in her dual aspect. In Ugaritic texts from the 14th century BCE (the Baal Cycle, tablet KTU 1.2), she serves as the primary mediator between the god El and the storm god Baal, and she is described as “the name of Baal”, his manifested power in the world. At Sidon and Tyre, her temples were the economic and political centers of the city-states, staffed by priestesses whose roles included sacred sexual rites.
The goddess demanded blood before pleasure. The Carthaginian tophet, a necropolis of cremated infant remains, was dedicated to Tanit-Astarte. Greek historians (Cleitarchus, Diodorus Siculus) record that in times of crisis, noble families offered their firstborn by fire. We do not soften this fact. The goddess of love was also the goddess of war, and her symbols include the lion, the horse, the dove, and the severed head.
Astaroth rules knowledge, false doctrine, and the revelation of secrets. As a demon of the Goetia, he is classified as a Duke, the fourth rank in the infernal hierarchy, commanding 40 legions of spirits. His seal is a circular diagram with geometric figures; his preferred manifestation is a pale naked man riding a dragon, holding a viper in his right hand. Unlike Astarte, he demands no sacrifice of blood. The Lemegeton instructs the magician to place his seal on a silver ring and speak the conjuration before him, and Astaroth will “answer truly of all things past, present, and to come, and of all secrets.”
Christian demonologists from Weyer to de Plancy (Dictionnaire Infernal, 1818) identified Astaroth as the demon who tempted Eve in the Garden and who possessed the body of Saint Bartholomew’s tormentor. The identification is etymologically forced but theologically consistent: the Queen of Heaven who gave mortals the knowledge of love became the Duke of Hell who gives them the knowledge of secrets.
Why the Confusion Matters in Practice
A practitioner invoking Astarte and a ceremonial magician evoking Astaroth perform opposite operations. The goddess receives petition and offering. The demon receives command and threat. Confuse the two, and you either command a goddess (which she will ignore, or worse) or petition a demon (which he will accept, but on terms you have not negotiated).
We see this mistake most often in beginners who find a grimoire with “Astaroth” and assume a feminine energy because of the name’s sound. Astaroth is grammatically masculine in the grimoires and is described with masculine pronouns. The Goetia lists Astaroth as “he” in every source text. There is no neutral ground here. The spirit is not the goddess with a different accent.
The practical difference shows in the offering. Astarte in ancient practice received doves, cakes molded in the shape of stars or vulvae, myrrh, copper, and the flesh of consecrated animals (the kedeshim, temple prostitutes, were themselves offerings). Her festival at Byblos included ritual mourning for the dead Adonis, followed by his resurrection on the third day, a cycle that prefigures later Mediterranean mystery cults.
Astaroth in ceremonial magic receives the smoke of lignum aloe, the blood of a dove (symbolic, not sacrificial in the grimoire texts), and the inscribed seal on virgin parchment or silver. The magician does not worship. The magician commands. The Lemegeton specifies that Astaroth must be “talked to courteously” but firmly, and that the spirit should be constrained within a triangle outside the magician’s circle.
How the Transformation Happened (and What It Means)
The transition from goddess to demon took roughly 1,000 years, from the composition of Deuteronomy (7th century BCE) to the Testament of Solomon (3rd century CE). The biblical writers of the Hebrew Bible consistently condemned the “Ashtaroth” as abominations of the Philistines and Phoenicians, alongside the worship of Baal. In 1 Samuel 7:3-4, the prophet Samuel commands the Israelites to “put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth”, a plural common noun that later became a singular proper noun for a demon.
By the time the Testament of Solomon named “Astaroth” as a spirit who harassed a boy by draining him of blood through his fingers (a detail that echoes the goddess’s warrior aspect), the transformation was complete. The Church Fathers, Jerome, Augustine, Eusebius, followed the Septuagint’s rendering of “Ashtoret” as “Astarte” and identified her with the Greek Aphrodite, then systematically reduced all pagan goddesses to demons tempting Christians toward idolatry.
The irony is that Astaroth’s grimoire descriptions retain traces of Astarte’s iconography. The viper in his hand echoes the snake held by the Minoan snake goddess, whom scholars link to the Semitic Astarte through trade routes. The dragon he rides is the chaos serpent Tiamat from Mesopotamian creation myth, another defeated goddess reduced to monster. The image on his seal, geometric circles and intersecting lines, may preserve the form of the star of Ishtar, the eight-pointed Venus symbol.
The Misconception That Will Not Die
The most persistent error in contemporary occult writing is the claim that Astaroth is simply Astarte under Christian demonization, and that the two can be used interchangeably if you “strip away the medieval bias.” This is not supported by any primary source.
Astaroth as a named entity in the grimoires has his own distinct seal, personality, and hierarchy. He is not Astarte wearing a mask. The goddess continued to receive worship in the Hellenistic world through the Roman period. The demon emerged from a separate line of transmission, the medieval Solomonic tradition that compiled Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek magical texts into a new synthesis. They overlap in name and in a few attributes (both have knowledge of the future; both are associated with Venus). They diverge in every other respect: gender, rank, requirement, and the correct method of approach.
A practitioner who wants Astarte should study the Ugaritic tablets, the Carthaginian votive stelae, and the Hellenistic cult of Aphrodite Urania. A practitioner who wants Astaroth should read Weyer, the Lemegeton, and the Dictionnaire Infernal. The two reading lists do not cross.
FAQ
Can I call Astaroth “Astarte” and expect the same result? No. The two respond to different names, different seals, and different methods. Astaroth is commanded; Astarte is petitioned. Treating one as the other produces neither result.
Is Astaroth always evil in the grimoires? The grimoires do not use the category “evil.” Astaroth is a spirit of the infernal hierarchy who can be compelled to serve the magician’s will. The Goetia presents him as dangerous but useful.
Did the Carthaginians really sacrifice children to Astarte? Archaeological evidence from the tophet at Salammbô in Carthage supports the Greek accounts of infant sacrifice to Tanit-Astarte, though scholars debate the frequency and the victims’ social status. The practice ended with the Roman destruction of Carthage in 146 BCE.
Why does Astaroth ride a dragon? The dragon represents the chaos serpent of pre-Israelite mythology, symbolizing the primordial forces that the god of order subdues. Riding it showed Astaroth’s power over these forces.
Further Reading
The distinction between Astarte and Astaroth is one example of how religious conquest shapes the spirits we work with. For more on the goddess tradition, see our guide to the Divine Feminine in Mediterranean worship. For the seal system and evocation techniques, the Goetic spirits library covers the full hierarchy. And for the specific ritual forms that survived from Phoenician practice into modern ceremonial magic, the Astarte working guide offers the preparation and protocol.
The name you speak determines who comes. Know which name you mean.