Invoking Buer in Magic: Powers, Correspondences & Dangers
Buer is one of the most unusual spirits in the Ars Goetia — a healing demon who teaches philosophy, grants moral virtue, and excels at curing disease. That combination is rare in the grimoire tradition, where most Goetic spirits deal in knowledge, power, or destruction. If you are working with Buer, you are working with a spirit whose domain sits at the intersection of the mind, the body, and the moral will. This article is your foundation for that work: who Buer is, what he governs, how to align your practice with his energy, and what specific risks come with invoking his name.
Who Is Buer? Rank, Power, and Nature
Buer holds the rank of President in the hierarchy of the 72 spirits catalogued in the Ars Goetia, the first book of the 17th-century grimoire The Lesser Key of Solomon. He is listed as the 10th spirit in that sequence. The rank of President is significant — Presidents in Goetic classification are spirits who appear in human form and govern areas of knowledge, intellect, and practical wisdom. They are distinct from Dukes, Marquises, or Kings in that their power tends to be more accessible and their manner less overtly aggressive, though no less commanding.
Buer commands 50 legions of spirits, which places him among the mid-to-upper tier of Goetic spirits in terms of raw authority. Fifty legions is not a small number — for comparison, many well-known spirits command far fewer. His authority is real and should be treated as such. He is not a minor spirit you can approach carelessly just because his domain sounds gentle.
His described powers in the Ars Goetia are specific and consistent across most manuscript variants. Buer teaches philosophy, logic, and the virtues of herbs and plants. He heals all infirmities, particularly diseases of the body, and can cure those afflicted with illness when properly petitioned. He also teaches moral and natural philosophy — meaning he deals not only with physical healing but with how a person thinks about right conduct, ethics, and the structures of the natural world. He is said to give good familiars, which in grimoire tradition means he can connect practitioners with spiritual allies suited to their work.
Buer's appearance is one of the more striking in the tradition. He is most commonly described as a centaur-like figure — in some versions bearing the head of a lion and five goat-legs arranged radially, allowing him to move in any direction with equal ease. This wheel-like or star-shaped form appears in the woodcuts associated with various editions of the Lemegeton. Some later sources describe him more plainly as a centaur bearing a bow, though the multi-legged radial form is the more widely recognized depiction. His form speaks to his nature: multi-directional, balanced, capable of moving through every domain simultaneously.
In terms of affiliations, Buer does not have strong documented relationships with other named Goetic spirits the way some Presidents and Dukes do. He operates with a degree of independence within the hierarchy. He is sometimes grouped thematically with spirits like Marbas (the 5th spirit, also a healer and teacher of natural knowledge) due to their shared domain of disease and medicine, and with Naberius (the 24th, a teacher of logic and rhetoric) due to their mutual interest in philosophical instruction. These are not formal hierarchical bonds but functional overlaps worth knowing if you are doing multi-spirit work around healing or knowledge.
As a President, Buer is traditionally invoked during daylight hours — Presidents are solar-affiliated spirits in the Goetic system, appearing when the sun is active. He has no listed limitations in the standard Ars Goetia text beyond the usual boundaries established through proper ritual containment. However, his domain of moral philosophy is not incidental — it shapes how he responds. Buer does not reward work that is ethically incoherent. If your intention contradicts the very principle of healing or justice that governs his nature, do not expect a smooth working.
Buer's Magical Correspondences
Correspondences are the symbolic language of magic — the colors, planets, elements, and materials that vibrate at the same frequency as a given force. When you align your ritual space, tools, and timing with Buer's correspondences, you are not decorating. You are building a coherent energetic environment that focuses your will and signals clearly to the spirit you are calling. Here are Buer's core correspondences as understood in traditional and modern practice:
- Element: Earth, reflecting Buer's grounded mastery of herbal medicine, physical healing, and natural philosophy — the body and the material world are his domain
- Direction: North, the directional anchor of Earth in most Western magical systems, reinforcing the physical and material dimensions of Buer's power
- Planet: Jupiter, the planet of expansion, wisdom, justice, and moral authority — Jupiter governs both healing in a broad philosophical sense and the ethical dimension Buer embodies as a teacher of virtue
- Number: 10 (his position in the Goetic sequence — use in repetitions or arrangements of ritual elements); 50 (his legion count — less commonly used but meaningful in petitions involving authority and power); 4 (Earth numerology, grounding and physical manifestation)
- Colors: Deep green (healing, herbs, vitality), royal blue (wisdom and philosophy), gold (Jupiter's color, solar authority)
- Metals: Tin (Jupiter's metal, used in seals or offerings), copper (linked to healing and vitality in planetary magic)
- Incense and Herbs: Cedar (purifying and commanding), sage (healing and clarity), frankincense (solar and Jupiterian alignment), bay laurel (victory and wisdom), vervain (a classic spirit-work herb with strong healing associations), hyssop (traditional purification and physical healing)
- Stones and Crystals: Malachite (deep healing and transformation, strongly Earth-aligned), lapis lazuli (wisdom and philosophical truth), green aventurine (physical health and renewal), amethyst (spiritual clarity and protection during spirit work)
- Sigil: Buer's unique sigil from the Ars Goetia — used as the focal point of any invocation or petition working
- Day: Thursday, Jupiter's day — the traditional timing for workings under Jupiterian influence, aligned with Buer's philosophical authority and expansive healing power
- Time: Midday or the first hour after sunrise — Presidents operate in solar hours, and Buer's power is strongest when the sun is active and rising in influence
When building a ritual space for Buer, the goal is coherence. You do not need every correspondence on this list — choose what resonates and what you have access to. A green candle, frankincense, his sigil, and a clear intention set on a Thursday morning is already a well-aligned working. The correspondences are amplifiers, not requirements. Your will is the actual engine.
For petition work focused on healing, lean into the green and Earth correspondences — malachite, sage, green candles, and herbs drawn from his domain. For workings centered on knowledge, philosophy, or moral clarity, pull from the Jupiterian layer — frankincense, lapis lazuli, blue or gold, and Thursday timing. If you are seeking a familiar or a spiritual ally through Buer, combine both layers: ground the working in Earth energy while opening it upward through Jupiter's expansive, connective influence.
Specific Dangers of Working With Buer
Buer's domain of healing and philosophy can make him seem like one of the safer Goetic spirits to approach. That is a mistake worth correcting before you begin. The dangers of working with Buer are not about aggression or sudden attack — they are subtler and, in some ways, harder to detect until they have already taken root.
The first risk is dependency. Buer's healing ability is genuinely potent, and practitioners who work with him repeatedly for physical or psychological ailments sometimes find themselves relying on his intercession rather than developing their own capacity to heal or to address the root cause of their suffering. Buer teaches the virtues of herbs and philosophy — he is a teacher first. If you treat him as a service provider rather than an instructor, the working can become a crutch. Over-reliance on any spirit weakens your own will, which undermines the entire foundation of effective magic.
The second risk is tied specifically to his role as a teacher of moral and natural philosophy. Buer responds to internal coherence. If you petition him for healing while actively perpetuating the behavior or situation that caused the harm, he may grant a surface-level result that dissolves quickly — or worse, he may illuminate the root of the problem in ways you were not prepared for. Practitioners have reported sudden, uncomfortable clarity about their own patterns and choices following Buer invocations. This is not punishment. It is his nature operating honestly. But if you are not ready for that level of self-examination, a Buer working can destabilize more than it resolves.
Third, because Buer governs herbal knowledge, there is a practical danger in any workings where his influence is applied to physical remedies or plant-based preparations. Do not interpret symbolic or spirit-communicated guidance as a substitute for medical knowledge. If Buer's working reveals an herb or remedy to you intuitively, research it rigorously before applying it physically. The spirit world and the physical world operate by different logics, and conflating them in the context of health is genuinely dangerous.
Finally, Buer commands 50 legions. He is a President of Hell by classical definition, not a benign nature spirit or an angelic healer. Approach him with respect and with proper ritual framing. Do not work with him casually, without a clear intention, or while emotionally destabilized. A spirit of that rank, contacted without clear boundaries, will fill whatever space your lack of intention leaves open — and that space may not be filled in the direction you wanted.
Historical Roots: Buer Through the Centuries
Buer appears in several key texts of the Western grimoire tradition. His earliest clear appearance is in Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, the 1577 catalogue of demons compiled by Johann Weyer as an appendix to his work De Praestigiis Daemonum. Weyer's list predates the Ars Goetia and is considered one of its primary sources, making Buer one of the older documented spirits in the Solomonic tradition. His powers in Weyer's account are consistent with what appears in the later Lemegeton: teaching philosophy, healing the sick, and instructing in the virtues of herbs.
The Ars Goetia itself, as it appears in the 17th-century manuscript tradition of The Lesser Key of Solomon, crystallized Buer's position and attributes into the form most practitioners use today. The Lemegeton draws from Weyer, from earlier Hebrew and Arabic magical traditions, and from medieval European demonology — Buer's placement as the 10th spirit and his rank of President reflect a systematic hierarchical framework built over several centuries of manuscript transmission and revision.
His radial, wheel-like form is sometimes interpreted by modern scholars as a visual echo of ancient solar wheel symbolism — the rotating form capable of moving in all directions simultaneously echoes prehistoric depictions of solar motion. Others read his centaur-adjacent form as a connection to Greek mythological figures like Chiron, the wounded healer and teacher of medicine and philosophy. Whether these parallels are intentional attributions or organic symbolic resonances, they are worth holding in mind. Buer's roots reach further back than any single grimoire.
In modern magical practice, Buer has seen a significant revival alongside the broader resurgence of interest in Goetic and Solomonic work. Practitioners working in chaos magic, ceremonial magic, and eclectic witchcraft have all found productive use for his energy — particularly in healing-focused workings, philosophical study, and developing a deeper understanding of plant magic. His accessibility as a President, combined with the genuine usefulness of his domain, makes him one of the more frequently invoked Goetic spirits among serious practitioners today.