Lesser Key Of Solomon

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Note:A considerably enlarged edition of the Lesser Key of Solomon is nowavailable:

The Lesser Key is one of the best-known grimoires, primarily for the first section, the Goetia, which features charming descriptions of the 72 demons conjured by Solomon, along with illustrations of their sigils, and the tools required for summoning. Jan 24, 2017 - Explore Charles Rhodes's board 'Lesser Key Of Solomon' on Pinterest. See more ideas about demonology, angels and demons, demon.

Detailing the ceremonial art of commanding spiritsboth good and evil

Edited by Joseph H. Peterson,
March 27, 1999
Copyright © 1999

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the British Museum for allowing me to studythe manuscripts firsthand, and for their help in copying the manuscriptsonto microfilm.

Introduction

The Lemegeton is a popular handbook of sorcery known from the 17th century¹ in more or less the same formas I will present it. Most of the material however is found invarying forms in earlier manuscripts, and some of the materialdates back as early as the 14th century or earlier².Reginald Scot, in his lists of magicaltexts³, mentions Ars Paulina,Ars Almadel, and Ars Notoriain the same breath. He also includes a text closely related tothe Goetia⁴. So the bulk of the materials were possibly collected together by1584.

1. The date 1641 occurs in the text, and may indicate that its present form dates to then.

2. To this period has been dated an important text of the Solomonic literature, Liber Iuratus, or The Sworn Book of Honorius, which has important connections with our present work.

3. Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, Book 16, chap. 31 and chap. 42.

4. Op. cit. chapter 2 consists of a translation of J. Wier's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. See below.

The name Lemegeton is probably naively invented becauseof the compiler's ignorance of Latin. He or she was no doubt familiarwith the Clavicula Salomonis (Key of Solomon) and wantedto title this work the 'Little Key of Solomon;' thisbecame 'Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis.'

The major texts used for this edition have been all from the BritishLibrary Manuscript collection. They include:

Harl. 6483	Dated 1712-3. This is probably the latest, and contains innovations and much additional material ('Dr. Rudd').
Sloane Ms. 2731	Dated January 18, 1687. It is important because it has itself been compiled from multiple versions (including Sloane 3648). This text is unfortunately incomplete, and omits all of book 5. It was also one specifically mentioned by A. E. Waite in his Book of Ceremonial Magic, who incorrectly declared it to be complete..
Sloane Ms. 3825	This is a more complete and internally consistent text. It is also interesting in that it contains a shorter version of The Notary Art to which has been added the remaining portions as found in Robert Turner's translation (dated 1657).
Sloane Ms. 3648	Circa 1655+. Also mentioned by Waite, who said simply that it was 'another manuscript.'

Other manuscripts include:

Douce Ms. 116	London: Bodleian. Second half of 17th ce. A collection which can be considered a proto-Lemegeton. Includes demon sigils, hexagram, pentagram, excerpts from Heptameron and many other magic texts.
BL Sloane 3805 ff. 111-114	Dated 1685. Contains only a portion of Book 1.
Sloane MS. 3824	Longobardus. A collection which can be considered a proto-Lemegeton
Wellcome MS 3203.	Lea’s copy of Hockley’s copy.
Wellcome MS 4665.	Hockley’s copy. Fragm. Only contains part of Book 1.
NLW MS 11117B.	John Harries' Book of Incantations, etc. 1814-1859. Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales. Contains excerpts from Books 1 and 2.

Fasciculus Rerum Geomanticarum (Plut 89 Sup 38) (dated 1401-1410) has a large collection of demon sigils, but they seem to be unrelated.

I have followed Sloane 3825 for this edition except for the Ars Notoria. For the latter the manuscripts are clearly dependent on Robert Turner's translation; I have therefore used his 1657 edition as the primary source. Variants from other manuscriptsare noted in square brackets []. Also in square brackets are thefolio numbers from Sl. 3825. I have resisted the temptation tomodernise the language.

The parts of the Lemegeton are as follows:

Goetia

The first book, Goetia, corresponds closely with the catalogof demons published by John Wier (or Johann Wierus) as Pseudomonarchia daemonumin his 1563 De Praestigiis Daemonum. In Wier's text thereare no demonic seals, and the demons are invoked by a simple conjuration,not the elaborate ritual found in the Lemegeton.

Theurgia Goetia

This text has close parallels with book one of Trithemius' Steganographia.Although the abundant spirit seals are not found in Trithemius,those few that can be found match exactly. For example, thesefour seals are found in Steg. I. chapter xi, dealing withUsiel and his subordinates:

Compare these with the following seals found in the Lemegetonin the section dealing with the eleventh spirit, Usiel, and hissubordinates (Adan, Ansoel, Magni and Abariel):

It should be noted that Trithemius' conjurations are actuallyhis examples of hidden writing ('steganography'), and do not correspondwith the conjurations found in Theugia Goetia. Steganographiawas written in 1500, but was not published until 1608. It was,however, widely circulated in manuscript form.

Ars Paulina

The spirits in Part 1 of this book coincide exactly with thosefound in Trithemius' Steganographia, Book 2.According to Thorndike⁵, the 'The Paulineart,' was purported to have been discovered by the ApostlePaul after he had been snatched up to the third heaven, and deliveredby him at Corinth. Robert Turner mentions a sixteenth-centurymanuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale⁶.Although this text is based on earlier versions, repeated mentionof the year 1641 and guns, shows a late redaction. The 'tableof practice' has similarities with Dee's 'holy table'.In the former the seven seals have the characters of the sevenplanets, which also occur in the Magical Calendar(1614.)

5. Magic and Experimental Science, chapter xlix, 1923, pp. 279 ff.

6. BnN 7170A. See Robert Turner, Elizabethan Magic, 1989. pp. 140-1.

Saturn

Jupiter

Mars

Sun

Venus

Mercury

Moon

The descriptions of the seals for each sign of the Zodiac areevidently abstracted from Paracelsus, The Second Treatise ofCelestial Medicines, cf. Archidoxes of Magic translatedby Robert Turner, 1656, pp. 136 ff.

Ars Almadel

In 1508, Trithemius mentioned a long list of books on magic, includingthe book 'Almadel attributed to King Solomon'⁷ Ars Almadel is also found in the Hebrewmanuscript of the Key of Solomon, ed. Gollancz, Sepher Maphteah Shelomoh,1914, fol 20b. Turner mentionsa fifteenth-century manuscript in Florence.⁸

7. See critical edition of the Latin versions, Véronèse, Julien. L'Almandal et l'Almadel latins au Moyen Âge: introduction et éditions critiques. Firenze: SISMEL edizioni del Galluzzo, 2012. See also I. P. Couliano, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, Chicago, 1987, p. 167.

8. Ibid. Florence II-iii-24.

Ars Notoria

The Ars Notoria is a Medieval Grimoire of the 'SolomonicCycle'. Many Latin manuscripts are extant, the oldest are datedthirteenth century, and possibly earlier. Like Liber Juratus(also thirteenth century), the text centers around an even oldercollection of orations or prayers which are interspersed withmagical words. The orations in Ars Notoria and those inLiber Juratus are closely related. The orations in both works are said to have mystical properties which can impart communion with God andinstant knowledge of divine and human arts and sciences.

Older manuscripts of the Ars Notoria contain exquisite drawings,the 'figures' mentioned in the text.⁹Their omission adds greatly to the confusion of the text.

9. See below. For other examples of the illustrations, and an excellent discussion of the Ars Notoria, see the article by Michael Camille in Claire Fanger, Conjuring Spirits, Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, pp. 110 ff.

Not all manuscripts of the Lemegeton include the ArsNotoria, their contents listing only four books. Those thatdo are entirely dependant on Robert Turner's 1657 edition, whichis evidently his own translation from the Latin.

[Preface from Harl. 6483]

[The sixth Sheet of Dr. Rudd

Liber malorum Spirituum

seu Goetia

This Book contains all the names, orders, and offices of all thespirits Salomon ever conversed with. The seals and charactersbelonging to each spirit, and the manner of calling them forthto visible appearance.

Some of these spirits are in Enoch's Tables which I have explained,but omitted their seals and characters, how they may be known;but in this book they are at large set forth.

The definition of Magic

Magic is the highest most absolute and divine knowledge of naturalphilosophy advanced in its works and wonderful operations by aright understanding of the inward and occult vertue of things,so that true agents being applied to proper patients, strangeand admirable effects will thereby be produced; whence magiciansare profound and diligent searchers into nature, they becauseof their skill know how to anticipate an effect which to the vulgarshall seem a miracle.

Origen saith that the magical art doth not contain anything subsisting,but although it should yet that must not be evil or subject tocontempt or scorn; and doth distinguish the natural magic fromthat which is diabolical.

Tyaneus only exercised the natural magic by which he perfornedwonderful things.

Philo Hebreus saith that true magic by which we come to the secretworks of nature is so far from being contemptible that the greatestmonarchs and kings have studied it. Nay amongst the Persians nonemight reign unless he was skillfull in this great art.

This noble science often degenerates, and from natural becomesdiabolical, from true philosophy turns to nigromancy, which iswholly to be charged uppon its followers who, abusing or not beingcapable of that high and mystical knowledge do immediately hearkento the temptations of Sathan, and are misled by him into the studyof the black art. Hence it is that magic lies under disgrace andthey who seek after it are vulgarly esteemed sorcerers. And thefraternity of the Rosicrucians thought it not fit to style themselvesmagicians, but philosophers. Thay are not ignorant empirics1 butlearned and experienced physicians whose remedies are not onlylawful but divine.]

[100r]

The little Key of Salomon the King which containeth all the names,orders and offices of all the spirits that ever he hadd any conversewith, with the seales or Characters belongeing to Each spirit,and the manner of calling them forth to [visible] appearance,in 5 Parts, called Books viz - - - - -:

The first part, is a Book of evill spirits, called Goetia,shewing how he bound up those spirits and used them in severallthings, wherby he obtained great fame.
The second part is a Booke of [aerial] spirits, partly goodand partly evill, w^ch is called Theurgia Goetiabeing all spirits of the ayre.
The Third part is [a book] of spirits governing y^ePlanetary houres, and w^t spirits belong to every degreeof the signes and planets in y^e signes, and is calledArs Paulina.
The fourth part of this Booke is called Ars Almadel Solomonis[sic], contayning 20 cheife spirits w^ch governe thefour Altitudes or the 360 degrees of the world & signes [zodiac]&c.
These twoo last orders of spirits is of good, and are called thetrue Theurgia, and it is to be sought affter by divine seeking&c.
The fifth part is a Booke of orations and prayers that wiseSalomon used upon the alter in the Temple which is called ArtemNovam [sic. (Ars Nova)] The w^ch was revealedto Salomon by the holy angel of God called Michael, and he alsorecieved [sic] many breef Notes written by the fingar of God w^chwas delivered to him by y^e said Angell, with Thunderclaps, without w^c Notes Salomon hadd never obtainedto his great knowledge, for by them in short time he knew allarts and siences both good and badd which from these Notes [thisbook] is [also] called Ars Notoria.
In this Booke is contained the whole art of Salomon although therebe many other Bookes that is said to be his yet none is to becompared with this, for this containeth them all, although [100v]they be titled with severall other names, as the Booke Helisoew^ch is the very same as this last [book] is, w^chcalled, Artem Novam & Ars Notaria &c..

These Bookes were first found in the Chaldean & hebrew tonguesat Hierusalem, by a Jewish Rabbi, & by him put into the greekeLanguage, & from thence into y^e Latine, as it issaid &c.

APPENDIX - Other examples of some of the drawings