Reading Guides

Finding Passages and Figures

Follow a reference from the name or figure to its original words and image. A printed page, numbered notice, manuscript folio and plate number each point to a different part of the source. [1][2][3][4]

From a name to its notice

Begin a Goetia search with the spirit’s name and notice number. Paimon is number 9 on printed page 15 of the 1904 edition. The notice brings his arrival, teaching, legions and written character together. In the linked facsimile, that printed page is PDF page 12: the file counter and the number printed on the page are different. [1]

For rank, turn to the classified list on printed pages 32–33. For the collective vessel narrative, turn to page 31, immediately after Andromalius. The two vessels and the Secret Seal belong to the later apparatus: captions on pages 36–37 identify figures 158–161 on Plate III. A named spirit’s seal and the vessel’s covering seal thus have separate routes through the volume. [1]

From a planetary ordinal to a plate

In Mathers’s Greater Key, use the planet and ordinal to find the notice in Book I, chapter XVIII. The first Saturn pentacle is figure 11; the first Sun is figure 32. The figure number then leads to its drawing on the plates. The notice explains the assigned purpose, while an Editor’s Note may identify names, alphabets or a verse. [2]

The sixth Moon pentacle requires a longer turn through the book. Its notice ends the lunar sequence on printed page 70, PDF page 97. It calls the design figure 54 and prescribes silver, water and a lunar day and hour for rain. The diagram appears later at the centre of Plate XIII, PDF page 116, among figures of instruments and their characters. [2]

The two sides of a manuscript leaf

A folio is a leaf with two sides. Recto is the front, abbreviated r; verso is the back, abbreviated v. Thus folio 36v means the back of leaf 36, not page 36 of a later printed transcription. Peterson places the Aubrey 24 letter-square notice there and prints it on page 47 of his transcription, PDF page 55. [5]

Gollancz labels the two sides a and b. The nine Kandariri are photographed on 49a; the contents give their section as 48a–49a. The folio marker identifies a leaf in the manuscript, while the digital facsimile’s image counter identifies the reproduction containing it. [3]

Follow both ends of a comparison

For Aubrey 24, read the short Latin notice at 36v and Peterson’s footnote 62 on transcription page 47. The note points to Mathers figure 11, the first Saturn pentacle. Read that notice on printed pages 58–59 of the 1889 edition, then look at its corresponding plate. These are the two source locations behind the comparison. [5][2]

For Harley 5596, begin with Delatte’s supplementary text on printed page 425. Its folio 31 marker introduces twenty-four seals, and note 16 sends the reader back to pages 19–20. Those pages print the Athens drawings. The reference connects the passages; it does not turn the Athens illustrations into photographs of the Harley manuscript. [4]

Sources and editions

The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, translation; Aleister Crowley, editor, first edition, 1904. Paimon, notice 9, printed p. 15 (PDF p. 12); vessel account, p. 31 (PDF p. 28); classified list, pp. 32–33 (PDF pp. 29–30); vessel and Secret Seal, pp. 36–37 (PDF pp. 33–34); Plate III (PDF p. 3).
The Key of Solomon the King
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, 1889. Book I, chapter XVIII: Saturn 1, pp. 58–59 (PDF pp. 65 and 68); Sun 1, p. 65 (PDF p. 84); Moon 6, p. 70 (PDF p. 97). Figure 54 appears on Plate XIII (PDF p. 116).
Sepher Maphteah Shelomo: Book of the Key of Solomon
Hermann Gollancz, photographic facsimile, 1914. Photographed folio 49a, Wellcome canvas 90; contents, printed xxii, Wellcome canvas 26, identifying the section at ff.48a–49a.
Anecdota Atheniensia, volume I
Armand Delatte, 1927. Harley 5596, f.31: printed p. 425 (PDF p. 438), note 16; Athens drawings on pp. 19–20 (PDF pp. 32–33).
Clavicula Salomonis, MS Aubrey 24
Joseph H. Peterson, editorial transcription of Bodleian MS Aubrey 24. Manuscript f.36v; Peterson’s transcription, printed p. 47 (PDF p. 55), footnote 62; compare Mathers figure 11 and its notice on pp. 58–59.

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