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The Brass VesselThe Seventy-Two Spirits · 06
Valefor offers a familiar’s companionship and the temptation to steal. The Goetia gives this dangerous associate a lion’s body, an ass’s head and a bellowing voice. [1]
Goetia 1904
The Goetia calls Valefor a good familiar who tempts the person he accompanies to steal. He is a duke commanding ten legions. [1]
In Valefor’s printed character, an oval curve containing a small cross sits above a long crossed stem with looped ends, surrounded by the letters of Valefor’s name. The notice requires the seal to be worn whether or not he is chosen as a familiar. [1][3]
Scot’s earlier account names Valefar, also called Malephar, and gives the lion a thief’s head. The friendship ends at the gallows: he becomes familiar with a person until bringing that person to execution. The 1904 Goetia retains ten legions and the perilous companionship, but its appearance has an ass’s head and its warning stops at the temptation to steal. [2][1]
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 6, Valefor; first-edition facsimile PDF p. 11, printed p. 14, including the instruction to wear his seal whether or not he is chosen as a familiar.
Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584); Brinsley Nicholson’s reprint of the first edition (1886), Project Gutenberg transcription. Book XV, chapter II, Valefar, alias Malephar; Nicholson’s 1886 reprint p. 315.
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. First preliminary plate, figure 6, the character of Valefor; facsimile PDF p. 1.
