04/08/2025
Astaroth, 2025 I created this illustration with the intent of evoking the essence of Astaroth, one of the darkest and most fascinating figures of the infernal pantheon, while deliberately recreating the face of Richard Ramirez, the infamous “Night Stalker,” whose icy and malevolent gaze has always fascinated me, at times bordering on obsession. That very gaze, laden with violence and curse, I chose as the window through which one can glimpse the dual and corrupting nature of Astaroth.
The name Astaroth originates from Astarte, a Phoenician goddess worshipped around the 2nd century BC, the Babylonian equivalent of Ishtar, and before her, the Sumerian Inanna. His first appearance as a male demon is found in the nineteenth chapter of the Book of Abramelin, a grimoire written in the first half of the 15th century. In 1577, Johann Weyer, in the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, described him as “a great and powerful duke, who manifests directly in the form of a fallen angel,” noting that he had to be invoked with a magic ring to protect oneself from his foul breath (curiously, the very trait described by Ramirez’s surviving victims). In the Dictionnaire Infernal of 1818, Astaroth is depicted as a naked man with two pairs of wings, dragon-like hands and feet, a crown topped with a bell, and a serpent clutched in his hand. The blood on his lips and the feral features of his face recall not only his predatory nature but also the direct reference to Richard Ramirez. In my vision, Ramirez becomes a kind of modern incarnation of the demon: a man whose eyes seem to mirror the very archetype of earthly evil.
One must ask whether evil is truly only an external entity, or if, like the serpent, it can slip inside us, ready to take shape and dominate our will. The ruthless wickedness of Ramirez is an open channel through which the shadow of Hell has manifested itself in the real world.
