Buer’s learning joins moral and natural philosophy with logic and the virtues of plants. He heals human ailments and provides good familiars; his appearance is associated with Sagittarius. [1]
The great president Buer teaches moral and natural philosophy, the art of logic, and the virtues of all herbs and plants. His office includes healing every kind of human ailment and giving good familiars. Fifty legions stand beneath him. [1]
His appearance is linked to the Sun’s passage through Sagittarius. The caller wears his character when summoning him into view. [1]
The earlier sign and the missing-word conjecture
Scot’s Buer has much the same teaching and healing office, with fifty legions, but is merely ‘seen in this sign’. In his 1886 notes, Nicholson compared that clause with an asterisk after the sign reference in Weyer’s Latin. He understood the mark as a place where a word or passage was missing, rather than as a sufficient description of the spirit’s shape. [2][3]
The 1904 text names Sagittarius where Scot leaves the sign unexplained. [1][2]
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, translated; Aleister Crowley, edited, The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King (1904), first-edition facsimile supplied by Keep Silence. Shemhamphorash, entry 10; printed p. 15, PDF p. 12
Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584); Brinsley Nicholson’s reprint of the first edition (1886), Project Gutenberg transcription. Book XV, chapter II, Buer; 1886 reprint page 315
Brinsley Nicholson, editorial Notes in the 1886 reprint of The Discoverie of Witchcraft. Nicholson’s Notes, reprint p. 561, item (x): Buer’s sign reference and the missing-word conjecture.
