My Work with Bune

One night, after an evening of frustratedly drawing and re-drawing Bune's complex seal, I went to bed and slid into hypnagogia. Near the back of my head, I heard my preferred name spoken in a clear, distinct tone. I quickly identified that the spirit had approached me, much the same way Lucifer had almost 9 months prior.

"How can I help you?" I had been given the heads up of Bune's formal ways by a fellow Luciferian who prefers to take a relational style to so-called demons in the goetic texts. This direct, clipped tone very much confirmed the preference for procedure that had been relayed to me.

"Are you the chariot driver, Bunene?" I needed to ask first.

He paused at the question in these spirits' customary way before conceding, "That was a long time ago."

*

My ventures into restorative demonology have naturally taken me to learning more about Near Eastern religions, given that all of the chiefs of the goetic grimoire tradition are granted mention in the Hebrew Bible. The Bible itself is an artifact of Near Eastern culture and acts as a witness to the polytheist traditions that surrounded its authors. This witnessing can often be libelous, but some details have also been confirmed by corresponding archaeological discoveries in the region.

I discovered the name Bunene while investigating academic journals and immediately noticed the similarity to the name of the spirit semi-famous in modern occult circles. Bunene was mostly known for his relationship to the Sumerian and Akkadian sun god of justice, known as Utu and Shamash (Šamaš). Most notably, Bunene was Utu/Shamash's chariot driver. He was also the sun god's vizier and plenipotentiary, invested with all the powers of the deity. A handbook of gods and goddesses of the ancient Near East : three thousand deities of Anatolia, Syria, Israel, Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, and Elam by Douglas R. Frayne notes him as Utu's son, though not Shamash's. However, under Shamash, Bunene enjoyed a high profile as part of the tripartate cult center at Sippar. Shamash was an exceedingly popular and necessary deity for these cultures; as part of court order, Bunene was often approached as his intercessor.

The goetic grimoire texts have a known issue of inconsistent and unreliable naming, often smudging syllables together or using alternate spellings. In fact, Joseph Peterson has a note in Bune's entry where he explains that he had to repair Bune's name back from the mistaken Bime. It would be easy to see how a once prolific deity's assistant, practically a god in his own right, may lose a syllable in the course of thousands of years. Still, I was tempted to write the similarities between the two names off as a coincidence.

Until, that is, I looked at Bune's seals.

They obviously are shaped quite a bit like chariots.

To make sure I wasn't jumping to conclusions, I showed the images to my occultist friends and explained the connection that I had made. They agreed that the seals looked like chariots. Some pointed out that chariots were specifically war vehicles, which made them leery. This is partially because of the reputation for the spirits found in the goetic texts, but also Bune themself received a hit to their reputation when known occultist Rufus Opus blogged about his house burning down after making a financial request of them.

However, straight from the horse's mouth, "DOING GOETIA DIDN'T BURN DOWN MY HOUSE!" There is nuance to the story that even the person involved wants us to consider. RO had a longstanding relationship with Bune and his blog posts reflect courses of actions he wished had undertaken differently in order to create more financial opportunity and stability. There is no reason to assume there was any hostility on the part of Bune, who is again is a procedural-driven spirit who previously and continued to give financial aid according to the confines presented to them.

This leads to a few other points I want to make about these spirits as a group. While they don't appreciate the abusive gestures promoted in the goetia, they remain open to friendly conjuration and prefer varying levels of structure and formality. Spirits like Bune and Beezelbub have demonstrated specific expectations of the individuals who approach them. Other occultists have reported to me that for financial workings, Bune has requested weekly check-ins, something that was also asked of me by Astaroth.

Pointedly, and this continues to be difficult to balance as a pagan of 5 years who had a previous group of allies before being approached by Lucifer, these spirits do not seem to like to work with other spirits unless they are of the same type. Magical blacksmith and metalworker Satyr Magos has written that their first 5 years of running xir business with Bune contained much prosperity until the spirit ceased their contributions at the use of Jupiter talismans for the same work. Lucifer similarly prefers that I don't bring my needs to anyone but him, the other chiefs, and the lesser spirits of the goetia (which is sort of ironic because I am far from the only Luciferian who has relationships with Greek and planetary deities). I never encountered this with any other pantheon in my previous spiritual explorations and I suspect it is a Near Eastern worship characteristic. In comparing the writing in the Hebrew Bible that is competitive with neighboring religious groups and their practices, the emotions of these beings seem aligned.

To note, I have other friends who have had successful work done with Bune. None of them swore to only work or have relationships with demonized entities. But I still feel all this worth mentioning because this group of spirit have expressed their preferences, and they're worth sharing in order to present an accurate set of expectations to those who may be interested in approaching them.

*

At the time that Bune approached me, I was planning my very abrupt out-of-state move to the Pacific Northwest, something I later learned that the three chiefs of the Grimoirium Verum very deeply wanted me to undertake. So with that in mind, I asked Bune for their aid in this endeavor. He agreed and I gave some red wine, but in actuality what they wanted of me was to make this blog post. So thanks for reading it!

More specifically, I asked Bune for two assistances. To help make my 2 day drive from the very tip of southern California all the way up to Oregon as fast as possible and to get all my possessions packed and shipped safely and undamaged to my new PNW home.

Even though Bune seemed unattached to his previous life as Bunene when we initially spoke, I did get the impression that he had a bit of fun nudging my car at the very last second into the correct exit during one point in my drive through California. As I finally reached Oregon, heavy rains began as if the state smirked while presenting a disclaimer that this, indeed, was where I had chosen to move.

"You can go a little faster here," Bune said with his usual dryness. I could feel him in the engine as I cruised through the rain. Green flanked the sides of the highway, the desert of southern California long behind me. I don't imagine Bune felt as sentimental toward the sands of what is now called Iraq, but perhaps there was something expansive to becoming a spirit that has been and continues to be invoked all across the world.

I arrived safely in my new city and so did my storage container a couple days later. Inside, my tower of stuff had toppled due to my lacking cables or ropes to tie it all together. Miraculously, other than a few spots of scuffed paint on a couple pieces of furniture, everything arrived intact!

So, while Bune nowadays is most often called for his financial work, know that he does not just "change the places of the dead." He can also change the place of you, and very effectively, if needed!