ColossiansOne

Demonic · Goetic Spirit · c. 1577 CE

Foras

Also called Forcas, Furcas

One of the most broadly credited entries in the book — herbs and stones, logic and ethics, invisibility, lost property, hidden treasure, and, alone among the seventy-two, long life. He arrives in plain human shape, which is itself unusual here.

24attested

Single lineage

Form. A strong man in human shape.

Offices. Teaches the virtues of herbs and precious stones, logic and ethics; makes men invisible, witty and eloquent; discovers treasures and recovers lost things; gives long life.

Identity

Where does the name come from?

Where it was actually worshipped

None. The Ars Goetia is a conjuring manual and not a liturgy: its spirits are constrained, put to work and dismissed, never housed or offered to. Not one of the seventy-two has a temple, a shrine, a festival or a place-name anywhere.

A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.

At a glance

Vitals

Vitals

Also known as

ForcasFurcas
Named there as
Forras
Rank
President
Order
Goetic Spirit
Base of operations
None. The Ars Goetia is a conjuring manual and not a liturgy: its spirits are constrained, put to work and dismissed, never housed or offered to. Not one of the seventy-two has a temple, a shrine, a festival or a place-name anywhere.
Era
c. 1577 CE
Traditions
Solomonic, Folk & Demonological

Traits

Traditional form
A strong man in human shape.
Goetic rank
President

Stats

Source base24/100
Legions commanded29
Position in the Goetia31 of 72
Texts naming it2
Powers attributed6

6 attributed

What is it said to do?

Where these powers cluster

The 6 offices attributed to Foras, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.

A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.

  • knowledge2
  • divination2
  • martial1
  • transformation1

1 mark

Which marks is it attached to?

A mark a figure carries and a mark used against a figure are opposite claims, so each link says which it is.

2 texts

Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?

When these texts were written

Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Foras, placed at that text's approximate date.

A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.

2 texts spanning roughly 327 years

Where the texts differ

  • Name: given as Forras, Foras
  • Rank: given as President; The President
  • Position in list: 29, 31 depending on the text
ForrasPresident#29

Weyer lists this spirit 29th of his sixty-nine, with substantially the same offices. His order is not the Goetia's — the two texts arrange the same spirits quite differently.

ForasThe President#31

Teaches the virtues of herbs and precious stones, logic and ethics; makes men invisible, witty and eloquent; discovers treasures and recovers lost things; gives long life.

The Thirty-first Spirit is Foras. He is a Mighty President, and appeareth in the Form of a Strong Man in Human Shape.

Connections

What is it connected to?

Nothing, and that is what the source says. The Ars Goetia gives Foras a rank, a number of legions, a list of offices and a seal, and no relationship to any other spirit in the book — no lineage, no faction, no quarrel. Sixty-seven of the seventy-two are in the same position. A catalogue of self-contained entries is what that text is, and the emptiness here is the shape of it rather than work outstanding.

Placement

Where does it sit in the hierarchies?

Answered from the sources

Common questions

Which texts mention Foras?

ColossiansOne records 2 texts naming Foras: Pseudomonarchia Daemonum and The Lesser Key of Solomon, Book I: Ars Goetia. The earliest is Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577), which gives the name as Forras.

What rank is Foras?

The texts do not agree. Foras is given as President and The President depending on which source is consulted, which is normal for figures that pass through several traditions — each one assigns a rank from its own system rather than inheriting one.

How else is Foras spelled?

The name appears as Forras, Forcas and Furcas. Variation on this scale is the norm: these names cross Ugaritic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin and vernacular transmission, and each step reshapes the spelling. Every profile records the name as each text gives it.

What is Foras said to do?

The sources credit Foras with 6 distinct powers or offices, including Teaches the Liberal Sciences, Teaches Herbs & Stones, Discovers Hidden Things, Reveals Treasure and Commands Legions. Each is attributed on the profile to the text that claims it. ColossiansOne describes what the texts say; it does not endorse the claims or reproduce them as instruction.

How old is Foras?

The earliest attestation in this corpus dates to c. 1577 CE. That is when the name first appears in a surviving text, which is a lower bound rather than an origin — a figure known from three tablets was probably named in many more that did not survive. Foras is classified as infernal in ColossiansOne.

Nearest in the corpus

If Foras is what you came for, these are next

Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.

Amy

President · Goetic Spirit

24

Recovers the particular class of treasure that other spirits are guarding, which is a narrower promise than the plain treasure-finding around it. He arrives as a flaming fire before taking human shape.

Infernalc. 1577 CE36 legions
2 sources5 powers
Historical depiction of Buer, President demonic

Buer

President · Goetic Spirit

24

Appears under Sagittarius as a lion's head with five legs radiating from it like the spokes of a wheel. His teaching is medical: moral and natural philosophy, the virtues of every herb and plant, and the cure of all distempers.

Infernalc. 1577 CE50 legions
2 sources5 powers

Camio

President · Goetic Spirit

24

Answers out of burning ashes or coals rather than speaking directly, which is unusual even among the seventy-two demons of the Ars Goetia. What he gives is comprehension of things that do not speak: the voices of birds, oxen and dogs, and the sound of running water.

Infernalc. 1577 CE30 legions
2 sources4 powers
Historical depiction of Haagenti, President demonic

Haagenti

President · Goetic Spirit

24

Turns every metal into gold and water into wine, and the wine back into water. The Goetia adds, without elaborating, that he also makes men wise; he appears as a winged bull, then as a man.

Infernalc. 1577 CE33 legions
2 sources3 powers

Malphas

President · Goetic Spirit

24

Builds houses and high towers and gathers the craftsmen to do it, then dismantles an enemy's desires and thoughts before they can be acted on. A president among the seventy-two demons of the Ars Goetia, he is a crow until he becomes a man, and speaks hoarsely either way.

Infernalc. 1577 CE40 legions
2 sources4 powers

Marbas

President · Goetic Spirit

24

Inflicts disease and cures it — a pairing almost nothing else in the seventy-two is given, and one that makes his entry read less like a demonology than a physician's. A lion until he chooses to be a man, he also teaches the mechanical arts and changes men's shapes.

Infernalc. 1577 CE36 legions
2 sources6 powers

The books behind Foras

Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.

Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.