Reading Guides

Reading the Solomonic Books

Begin with the books behind the stories, spirits and pentacles. The Greater Key and the Lesser Key share Solomon’s name, but organise his teaching in different ways. [1][2]

The Greater Key and the Lesser Key

The Greater Key of Solomon contains preparations, instruments, experiments and planetary pentacles. Mathers’s 1889 English edition arranges these in two books. The Lemegeton, commonly called the Lesser Key, gathers books of spirits and prayers. Its first part, Goetia, gives the seventy-two spirits and the brass-vessel account. [2][1]

Their historical titles overlap. The Latin name Clavicula appears in titles of the Greater Key and in the 1904 heading Lemegeton vel Clavicula Salomonis Regis. Mathers nevertheless explicitly distinguishes the Lemegeton from the work he edits in 1889. The forms Salomonis and Solomonis are spelling variants of Solomon’s name. [2][1]

The named parts of the Lemegeton

The introductory descriptions name Goetia as the book of evil spirits bound by Solomon. Theurgia-Goetia concerns aerial spirits of mixed good and evil natures. Ars Paulina, the Pauline Art, assigns spirits to planetary hours and degrees of the zodiac. Ars Almadel concerns the four altitudes; some versions also describe the three hundred and sixty zodiacal degrees. [1]

Three of the printed descriptions include a fifth book of prayers and orations used at the Temple altar. They call it Ars Nova; the description headed The Whole Lemegeton or Clavicula also gives Ars Notaria. Another description counts four parts. The 1904 volume publishes the first book, Goetia, while printing these introductory outlines of the larger work. [1]

Stories of wisdom and hidden teaching

The Greater Key opens with Solomon’s instruction to Roboam. One introduction gives Homadiel’s visit before sleep and the later discovery of a book in an ivory casket. The Goetia’s imprisoned company is kept in a different object: a brass vessel opened by Babylonian treasure-seekers. [2][1]

The Book of Solomon follows these episodes through eight chapters, beginning with the gift of wisdom and continuing through inheritance, discovery, the Temple notes, the spirit company and the vessel. The final chapter follows the teaching into language-transmission stories and later editions. [2][1]

More than one revelation account

Mathers prints another Greater Key introduction from Lansdowne MS 1203. Its revelation appears as a blazing star at the end of a shaded vista of trees and a voice of thunder. The Lemegeton’s introductions instead name Michael and notes received at the Temple altar. [2][1]

Three ways into the collection

For the stories, begin with The Gift of Wisdom and follow the chapter sequence. For the spirits, choose a name or rank and explore the offices, legions, forms and seals recorded in the Goetia. Paimon’s arrival on a dromedary with a musical procession gives one vivid entrance to that catalogue. [1][2]

For the pentacles, begin with a planetary or manuscript group. Mathers’s Book I, chapter XVIII gives forty-four planetary figures with individual notices. A face opens the Sun sequence; a gateway opens the Moon sequence. Wider manuscript groups preserve other arrangements, including a photographed Hebrew leaf and printed Greek sets. Their overviews introduce the specific source before the individual figures. [2][3][4]

Sources and editions

The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, translation; Aleister Crowley, editor, first edition, 1904. Latin heading, printed p. 6 (PDF p. 4); parallel introductory descriptions, pp. 7–10 (PDF pp. 5–8); Paimon, notice 9, p. 15 (PDF p. 12); vessel account, p. 31 (PDF p. 28).
The Key of Solomon the King
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, 1889. Preface, vi–viii (PDF pp. 5–7); introductions, pp. 1–6 (PDF pp. 8–13); Book I, chapter XVIII, pp. 56–70. The planetary order is on p. 58 (PDF p. 65), the first Sun pentacle on p. 65 (PDF p. 84), and the first Moon pentacle on p. 69 (PDF p. 96).
Sepher Maphteah Shelomo: Book of the Key of Solomon
Hermann Gollancz, photographic facsimile, 1914. Photographed folio 49a, Wellcome canvas 90; contents, printed xxii, identifying the Kandariri section at ff.48a–49a.
Anecdota Atheniensia, volume I
Armand Delatte, 1927. Athens MS 115, printed drawings on pp. 19–20 (PDF pp. 32–33); description of manuscript B on p. 2 (PDF p. 15).

Return to The Brass Vessel

Loading Luminary Oddities