Choronzon
Encyclopedia
Choronzon is a demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...

 or devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...

 that originated in writing with the 16th century occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...

ists Edward Kelley
Edward Kelley
Sir Edward Kelley or Kelly, also known as Edward Talbot was an ambiguous figure in English Renaissance occultism and self-declared spirit medium who worked with John Dee in his magical investigations...

 and John Dee
John Dee (mathematician)
John Dee was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination and Hermetic philosophy....

 within the latter's occult system of Enochian magic
Enochian magic
Enochian magic is a system of ceremonial magic based on the evocation and commanding of various spirits. It is based on the 16th-century writings of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley, who claimed that their information was delivered to them directly by various angels. Dee's journals contained the...

. In the 20th century he became an important element within the mystical system of Thelema
Thelema
Thelema is a religious philosophy that was established, defined and developed by the early 20th century British writer and ceremonial magician, Aleister Crowley. He believed himself to be the prophet of a new age, the Æon of Horus, based upon a religious experience that he had in Egypt in 1904...

, founded by Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...

, where he is the Dweller in the Abyss
Abyss (Thelema)
Within the mystical system of Thelema, the Abyss is the great gulf or void between the phenomenal world of manifestation and its noumenal source.-Theory and Practice:...

, believed to be the last great obstacle between the adept and enlightenment. Thelemites believe that if he is met with proper preparation, then his function is to destroy the ego, which allows the adept to move beyond the Abyss of occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...

 cosmology.

Spelling variations

Including Crowley's spelling of the name, Choronzon, there appear to be three alternatives. Meric Casaubon
Méric Casaubon
Méric Casaubon , son of Isaac Casaubon, was a French-English classical scholar...

 states that the name is Coronzon (without an 'h') in his ‘True and Faithful Relation…’. However, this is at variance with the spelling that appears in Dr. John Dee's
John Dee (mathematician)
John Dee was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination and Hermetic philosophy....

 own journals. Laycock's Enochian dictionary gives the latter spelling as Coronzom, citing an original manuscript (Cotton XLVI Pt. I, fol. 91a) as the source for the variant.

Choronzon according to Crowley

Otherwise known as the Demon of Dispersion, Choronzon is described by Crowley as a temporary personification of the raving and inconsistent forces that occupy the Abyss. In this system, Choronzon is given form in evocation only so it may be mastered.

Crowley states that he and Victor Benjamin Neuburg evoked Choronzon in the Sahara Desert in December 1909. In Crowley's account, it is unclear whether Choronzon was invoked into an empty Solomonic triangle while Crowley sat elsewhere, or whether Crowley himself was the medium into which the demon was evoked. Nearly all writers except Lawrence Sutin
Lawrence Sutin
Lawrence Sutin is an author and professor. Sutin is a full professor in the MFA and MLS programs at the Hamline University Graduate School of Liberal Studies in St. Paul, Minnesota. Sutin has written biographies of occultist Aleister Crowley and science fiction author Philip K. Dick, entitled...

 take him to mean the latter. In the account, Choronzon is described as changing shape, which is read variously as an account of an actual metamorphosis, a subjective impression of Neuburg's, or fabrication on Crowley's part.

The account describes the demon throwing sand over the triangle to breach it, following which it attacked Neuburg 'in the form of a naked savage', forcing him to drive it back at the point of a dagger. Crowley's account has been criticised as unreliable, as the relevant original pages are torn from the notebook in which the account was written. This, along with other inconsistencies in the manuscript, has led to speculation that Crowley embroidered the event to support his own belief system. Crowley himself claimed, in a footnote to the account in Liber 418, that "(t)he greatest precautions were taken at the time, and have since been yet further fortified, to keep silence concerning the rite of evocation." Arthur Calder-Marshall, meanwhile, asserts in The Magic of my Youth that Neuburg gave a quite different account of the event, claiming that he and Crowley evoked the spirit of "a foreman builder from Ur of the Chaldees," who chose to call himself "P.472". The conversation begins when two British students ask Neuburg about a version of the story in which Crowley turned him into a zebra and sold him to a zoo. Neuburg's response in this book contradicts both the words attributed to him in Liber 418 and the statement of Crowley biographer Lawrence Sutin.

Choronzon is deemed to be held in check by the power of the Goddess Babalon
Babalon
Babalon—also known as The Scarlet Woman, The Great Mother, or the Mother of Abominations—is a goddess found in the mystical system of Thelema, which was established in 1904 with English author and occultist Aleister Crowley's writing of The Book of the Law...

, inhabitant of Binah
Binah (Kabbalah)
Binah, , in the Kabbalah of Judaism, is the second intellectual Sephirah on the tree of life. It sits on the level below Keter , across from Chokmah and directly above Gevurah...

, the third Sephirah of the Tree of Life
Tree of life (Kabbalah)
The Tree of Life, or Etz haChayim in Hebrew, is a mystical symbol used in the Kabbalah of esoteric Judaism to describe the path to God and the manner in which he created the world ex nihilo...

. Both Choronzon and the Abyss are discussed in Crowley's Confessions (ch. 66):
"The name of the Dweller in the Abyss is Choronzon, but he is not really an individual. The Abyss is empty of being; it is filled with all possible forms, each equally inane, each therefore evil in the only true sense of the word—that is, meaningless but malignant, in so far as it craves to become real. These forms swirl senselessly into haphazard heaps like dust devils
Dust Devils
Dust Devils is an independently published role-playing game set in the Old West, written by Matt Snyder. It was voted the 2002 Indie RPG of the Year; it also won the Best Synergy of Game and Rules category, as well as placing in the Best Production and Most Innovative Game categories.The game uses...

, and each such chance aggregation asserts itself to be an individual and shrieks, "I am I!" though aware all the time that its elements have no true bond; so that the slightest disturbance dissipates the delusion just as a horseman, meeting a dust devil, brings it in showers of sand to the earth."

Non-Thelemic views of Choronzon

In much the same way that Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...

 has been championed by some of those who object to Christianity, Choronzon has been turned into a positive figure by some iconoclastic occultists, in particular chaos magic
Chaos magic
Chaos magic is a school of the modern magical tradition which emphasizes the pragmatic use of belief systems and the creation of new and unorthodox methods.-General principles:...

ians who object to what they see as the stultifying and restrictive dogma of Thelema
Thelema
Thelema is a religious philosophy that was established, defined and developed by the early 20th century British writer and ceremonial magician, Aleister Crowley. He believed himself to be the prophet of a new age, the Æon of Horus, based upon a religious experience that he had in Egypt in 1904...

. Peter Carroll's "Mass of Choronzon" is a ritual with the purpose of casting the energy of one's ego into the universe to effectuate an unknown desire. This, in part, has served as an inspiration for modernised ritual effectuation based on the "333 Current".
Carroll himself states in the afore-mentioned book, however, that Choronzon is simply the name given to the obsessional side-effects of any deluded search for a false Holy Guardian Angel
Holy Guardian Angel
The term Holy Guardian Angel was possibly coined either by Abraham of Würzburg, a French Cabalist who wrote a book on ceremonial magick during the 15th century or Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, the founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, who later translated this manuscript and...

, or anything which the magician would mistake for his own profound genius itself.

In popular culture

  • Thrash/Metal band "Megadeth
    Megadeth
    Megadeth is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California which was formed in 1983 by guitarist/vocalist Dave Mustaine, bassist Dave Ellefson and guitarist Greg Handevidt, following Mustaine's expulsion from Metallica. The band has since released 13 studio albums, three live albums, two...

    " mentions Choronzon in their song "Looking Down the Cross" from their 1985 album, Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good!
    Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!
    Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good! is the debut album by the American heavy metal band Megadeth, released in June 1985 through Combat and Relativity Records. During the beginning of 1985, the band was given $8,000 by Combat Records to record and produce their debut album, but this...

  • The death metal
    Death metal
    Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....

     band Internal Suffering
    Internal Suffering
    Internal Suffering is a death metal band from Pereira, Colombia. The band plays a technical brand of Brutal death metal with deep guttural vocals, extensive use of blast beats, frantic guitar sweeps and lyrical themes heavily influenced by Thelema and Magick...

     have many references to Thelema and related metaphysics in their lyrics, including much glorification of Choronzon. Perhaps most notably so on the album Choronzonic Force Domination.
  • In the MMORPG
    MMORPG
    Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

     RuneScape
    RuneScape
    RuneScape is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in January 2001 by Andrew and Paul Gower, and developed and published by Jagex Games Studio. It is a graphical browser game implemented on the client-side in Java, and incorporates 3D rendering...

    , a quest requires the player to kill a large demon called Chronozon, in a reference to Choronzon.
  • A minor demon named Choronzon appears several times in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. His behavior may allude to the occult conception of Choronzon, but the relationship is questionable.
  • An unnamed demon appears in Hellblazer
    Hellblazer
    Hellblazer is a contemporary horror comic book series, originally published by DC Comics, and subsequently by the Vertigo imprint since March 1993, the month the imprint was introduced, where it remains to this day...

     as one of the three devils. Its characteristics mirror Aleister Crowley's descriptions of the demon, such as having no true form and constantly changing shape.
  • Choronzon is one of the collectible demons in the Shin Megami Tensei
    Shin Megami Tensei
    is a console role-playing video game from Atlus that was originally released on October 30, 1992 and later on several platforms, although no installment was released outside of Japan. It was originally released on the Super Famicom and was later ported to the PC Engine Super CD-Rom and Mega-CD...

     series of games.
  • Choronzon is the name of a god-like posthuman character in Karl Schroeder's
    Karl Schroeder
    Karl Schroeder is an award-winning Canadian science fiction author. His novels present far-future speculations on topics such as nanotechnology, terraforming, augmented reality and interstellar travel, and have a deeply philosophical streak...

     science fiction novels "Ventus
    Ventus
    Ventus is a 2001 science fiction/fantasy novel by Karl Schroeder. It was Schroeder's debut solo novel, and introduced his concept of thalience. The novel is available for free under the Creative Commons license at Schroeder's website...

    " and "Lady of Mazes".
  • Choronzon is the title of a song from Tangerine Dream
    Tangerine Dream
    Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...

    's 1981 album Exit
    Exit (Tangerine Dream album)
    Exit is an electronic music album released in 1981 by the German group Tangerine Dream. The first track features an uncredited female voice chanting, in Russian, the names of the continents of the world and pleading to end the threat of "limited" nuclear war, which was a potential danger facing the...

    .
  • Choronzon
    Choronzon (album)
    Choronzon is the third studio album by English blackened death metal band Akercocke, released in 2003 on Earache Records. A promotional music video for the track "Leviathan" was shot by KERRANG genius Paul Harries....

     is the title of the 2003 album by blackened death metal band Akercocke
    Akercocke
    Akercocke is an English progressive blackened death metal band from London, England. They take their name from a talking monkey in Robert Nye's interpretation of the Faust-legend, and are notable for their heavily Satanic and sexual lyrical content....

    .
  • Choronzon is a recurring theme in the lyrics of Dutch death metal
    Death metal
    Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....

     band Nox (not to be confused with the Hungarian Pop band
    Nox (band)
    Nox is a Hungarian pop band which mixes traditional Hungarian music with more modern sounds. To date, they have released 7 albums. The band has 2 fixed members - Szilvia Péter Szabó, and Tamás Nagy.-Eurovision performance:...

    ).
  • Choronzon is featured in the 2009 Horror film Necromentia
    Necromentia
    Necromentia is a 2009 horror film directed by Pearry Teo.-Summary:Three men have their lives turned over by the existence of a tattooed Ouija Board which opens the gateways to other dimensions. Hagen keeps the corpse of his lover in his house, hoping that one day she will come back from the dead as...

  • There is a boss in Wild Arms 3
    Wild Arms 3
    Wild Arms 3, known in Japan as , is a role-playing game developed by Media.Vision and published by Sony Computer Entertainment and the sequel to Wild Arms and Wild Arms 2. It was released in 2002 on the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console....

     called "Colonzon", an obvious gaff at romanizing Choronzon.
  • In the Horus Heresy
    Horus Heresy
    In the fictional Warhammer 40,000 universe, the Horus Heresy was a galaxy-spanning civil war that marked the end of the Great Crusade which took place in the 31st millennium. First described in the 1988 Games Workshop book Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness, it was used as the background for the...

     series of the Warhammer 40,000
    Warhammer 40,000
    Warhammer 40,000 is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop, set in a dystopian science fantasy universe. Warhammer 40,000 was created by Rick Priestley in 1987 as the futuristic companion to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, sharing many game mechanics...

     universe, Graham MacNeill's novel A Thousand Sons, Choronzon is identified with Tzeentch under the title of the Daemon of Dispersion.
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