The sixty-first spirit — a King and President who first appears as a bull with griffin's wings, then transforms into human form. Zagan is the great alchemist of the Goetia: he turns wine to water, blood to oil, oil to wine, and all metals into the coin of the realm. He makes men witty and wise. Of all the Goetia's spirits, he works most directly with the transmutation of substances — the operation that was the heart of practical alchemy.
Zagan's appearance is unique in the Goetia in that it involves a described transformation — he first appears as a bull with griffin's wings, then changes into human form. This shape-shift is not merely a detail of description. It is itself a statement of his nature: Zagan governs transformation, and he demonstrates that governance by transforming in front of the conjurer before the operation begins.
The winged bull is an image of enormous antiquity in the ancient Near East — the lamassu, the great guardian figures of Assyrian and Babylonian palaces, were precisely this: human-headed winged bulls, placed at doorways as protective intelligences. A spirit appearing as a winged bull appears in the form of a guardian of thresholds — an appropriate image for a being who governs the transformation from one substance or state to another, since transformation always passes through a threshold.
The griffin's wings specifically — rather than eagle's wings — add the griffin's composite nature to the image: the griffin combines eagle (sky, spirit, vision) and lion (earth, sovereignty, strength). Wings of a griffin on a bull create a composite of three: bull-earth-body, griffin-lion-sovereignty, griffin-eagle-spirit. A being that combines all three and then becomes human is demonstrating the full range of transformation available to it.
The Sixty-first Spirit is Zagan. He is a Great King and President. He appeareth at first in the Form of a Bull with Gryphon's Wings; but afterwards he putteth on Human Shape. He maketh Men Witty. He can turn Wine into Water, and Blood into Oil, and Oil into Wine; also he can turn all Metals into Coin of the Dominion that Metal is of.
— Ars Goetia, Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis, 17th centuryZagan's most distinctive powers are his transmutations — the ability to change one substance into another. The list in the Goetia is specific and deserves careful attention, because each transformation carries symbolic weight that goes beyond the literal meaning.
The wine-water-blood-oil circuit is a sacramental cycle. These are precisely the substances that appear in the sacraments of multiple religious traditions — water in baptism, wine in the Eucharist, oil in anointing, blood in the theology of sacrifice. Zagan governs the transformation between these sacred substances — he is, in effect, the spirit of the sacramental process itself, the intelligence that presides over the moment when one substance becomes another in a sacred context.
The metals-into-coin transformation is the economic equivalent of the alchemical work. Where classical alchemy sought to transmute base metals into gold, Zagan performs a more practically useful operation: whatever metal is at hand becomes the coin that governs exchange in that realm. This is not about producing wealth but about producing appropriate currency — the form of value that works in the specific context where value is needed.
The alchemical connection: alchemy and the Goetia tradition developed in close proximity in medieval and early modern Europe, sharing practitioners, texts and vocabulary. Zagan's transmutations are the most explicitly alchemical of any spirit's powers in the Goetia. The great alchemical operation — turning base matter into gold, turning the impure into the pure — is precisely what Zagan governs, applied to a specific set of substances that together describe the full circuit of sacred and economic value in the Western tradition.
In modern practice, Zagan is sought by those working with processes of transformation — not merely material but psychological, social and spiritual. The practitioner who seeks to transform a situation, to convert what they have into what is needed, to find the appropriate form of value in a given context — these are Zagan's domains. His wine-to-water and metals-to-coin powers translate, in contemporary terms, to the capacity to find the right expression of what one possesses in whatever form the current situation requires.
His gift of wit and wisdom makes him valuable for those engaged in intellectual or creative work — he sharpens both the rapid response and the deep understanding. The combination of quick wit and genuine wisdom is rare, and Zagan confers both simultaneously — perhaps because his nature as a transformer means he understands both the immediate conversion (wit) and the deeper structure of what is being converted (wisdom).