Just in time for the Christmas rush, “…there be three Devils in the Art of Necromancy; viz: Lucipher, Beelzebub and Satan…”

I am very pleased to announce the release of “The Offices of Spirits”, a Hockley MS with a fascinating history to rival its content. I have edited and provided an introduction to this work, which is principally a listing of spirits with close ties to the infamous Goetia. It is originally from a 1583 MS “on magic and necromancy”, placing it in the same period as the aforementioned Goetia as well.

So, you ask, why should you care? What makes this meaningful in the grand scheme of Renaissance demonology? The fact that I like it and/or wrote about it isn’t enough? Preposterous! …but very well, I shall suffer the explanation.

German monk and magical apologist, tutor and influence on Agrippa, author of the crypto-magical work Steganographia, and all-around swell guy, Trithemius compiled a listing of demonological works – something he was dead-set against in his defense of both his own reputation and the proto-scientific magia naturalis – called Antipalus Maleficiorum. (This section is reproduced by Zambelli in “White Magic Black Magic in the European Renaissance”.) In this are two works, noted to be quite similar, whose titles translate to “The Offices of Spirits”.

This title, we recall, is also the source of Wier’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, included in later editions of his De Praestigiis Daemonum, a refutation of the witch hunter’s manual Malleus Maleficarum. It is there noted as “Officium Spirituum vel Liber officiorum spirituum seu Liber dictus Empto. Solomonis”. A translation of this appendix would then become a chapter in The Discoverie of Witchcraft by Scot, and some admixture of these two would result in the MS variants we now know under the name Goetia. (See Peterson’s The Lesser Key of Solomon for a much better analysis of the stemma than I shall afford here.)

In fact, for anyone interested in Goetia, this is a parallel listing of spirits whose descriptions match very closely to the spirits in that work. While I have resisted the temptation of including a full comparative analysis, cross-pollination between these two works is readily apparent – indicating a probable sourcework of even earlier origin. It also includes descriptive content for the four demon kings, something referred to but not elaborated on within the scope of Goetia. Furthermore, it provides equal treatment for the three infernal kings Lucipher (sic), Beelzebub, and Satan.  These three were generally unmentionable even in the scope of demonology for fear of the Inquisition – there was no defense of their being “good” spirits!

For anyone insterested in the history or practice of goetic magic, this should make a great addition to the book shelf. (I was ecstatic when I finally came across a copy.) It’s also a black quarto hardcover with gilt front and spine, and you don’t get much cooler than that.

This book is available through Teitan Press at http://www.teitanpress.com and at fine occult bookstores everywhere!

In the last few weeks, I’ve done a great deal of research on the idea of sealing spirits into brass vessels, a common thread in Solomonic grimoires. Most people, including myself, first encounter the story of Solomon’s sealing spirits into a brass vessel within the text of Goetia.  It is also present in its precursor, Weir’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, though in Goetia it is given special note after the listing of spirits, where in Weir’s work it is given within the listing of spirits itself.

As the story goes, Solomon sealed all 72 of the spirits in a vessel of brass and threw it into a deep pit or well.  (The idea of a lake, repeated in later manuscripts, appears to have been introduced by Scot in The Discoverie of Witchcraft, though Weir’s text reads a great pit or well: puteum grandem valde.) The author notes that his master never said why Solomon bound the spirits, but nonetheless the vessel was discarded. However, the Babylonians, thinking that there was a treasure therein, recovered the vessel and opened it, once more releasing the spirits into the world.

This story is repeated in one form or another in many places, and not only works that are (ostensibly) Hebrew in origin. The famous collection of Arabic folk tales, One Thousand and One Nights has a story entitled “The City of Brass”.  In this story, a group of sailors are blown off course deep into Africa and are greeted by a local tribe, the leader of which happens to speak Arabic.  In resting at this seaside village, the sailors are amazed that the fishermen of that place routinely bring up brass vessels sealed in lead from the depths of the ocean. Upon opening these vessels, a spirit escapes! Inquiring of the chieftain, they are given the answer that this is indeed quite common and that the vessels belonged to King Solomon, who sealed spirits in the vessels by impressing them with his signet.

What is interesting here – at least to me – is that the ring of Solomon becomes the seal used to contain the spirits, rather than a distinct seal mentioned in Goetia. In Arabic, the word “khatam” refers to a ring or signature, since in earlier times one’s signature was (or could be) literally the “seal” of the signet ring.  It would certainly make sense that the ring, connected in The Testament of Solomon with his ability to compel spirits, would be the item used to constrain them in the vessel.  So was the discrete seal given in Goetia a later invention of someone ignorant of the use of the ring in this context?

This is where I get to say, “We’ll never know.”  … but I lean toward that theory.  However, there is a catch: if one were making an impression in lead of Solomon’s ring (used as a signet), which is made of silver (or gold, or silver and iron, or some similar), wouldn’t that deform the soft metal of the ring just as much as the lead?  Wax is all fine and good, but making an impression of one metal into another usually requires some force, which usually means the “stamping” metal must be relatively hard.  Here’s the counter-point: if it were being used to compel the spirits “away” into the vessel, then the ring would have been iron – silver was only used to make them do things for you – which is more than study enough to make an impression in the soft leaden seal.

And Solomon, stop throwing lead into our oceans.  It’s not good for anyone, but I suppose if you’re willing to make seals out of mercury, I can’t expect much.

Every so often I “chase the dragon” of Solomonic literature and go digging through what online archives are available for this sort of research.  It’s a magician’s version of playing buzzword bingo with the manuscript search engines.  While it might not completely intersect with whatever project I am working on, I almost always learn a good deal, despite the fact that I usually end up reading through a great deal of medieval Latin (which I am not very good at), French (which I can get through passably), and German (which I cannot manage at all).

I recently found Tractus Contra Demonum Invocatores, a “Treatise Against the Conjurers of Spirits,” a Latin text in the German Bibliothek Wolfenbuttel written under the name Johannes Vivetus and dating to 1487.  (I was searching for a French text called Le Triple Vocabulaire Infernale, so you see just how far afield these searches can bring you.)  The British Library’s link to the Bibliothek Wolfenbuttel’s digital images can be found here.

I found what seems to be a parallel to a story given in the description of Belial in Wier’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (the English translation of which is given in Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft): ”Certeine nigromancers doo saie, that Salomon, being on a certeine daie seduced by the craft of a certeine woman, inclined himselfe to praie before the same idol, Beliall by name: which is not credible…. For wise Salomon did accomplish his works by the divine power, which never forsooke him.”

Aside from an early mention of four demon kings – Belial, Sathanas (Satan), Vehemot (Behemoth), and Leviatan (Leviathan) – as well as a reference to Albertus Magnus (as all good German authors were wont to do), there is a reference in Contra Demonum Invocatores to Solomon and ”foreign gods” such as Astarte, Chemosh, and Moloch: Salomon cum iam ??? senex depravatum est cor eius p mulieres ut sequerent deos alienos nec erat cor eius p sectum cum uno deo suo sicut cor de primus  eius. sed colebat Salomon Astartem deam Sidonios et Chamos deam Moabitos et Moloch ydolum Amonitas. (p. 20) [Latin scholars: feel free to attempt a more critical translation than I could manage.]

Thus we have a similar account of Solomon – as a dirty old man (senex depravatum), no less! – with women (mulieres) and foreign gods (deos alienos).  The term colebat might be read either as “toppled” or “fell down before,” so the sense to me is still uncertain, but I feel that the latter is the correct reading.  Belial is not mentioned, per se, but the idea is the same.

Support for this is given in Kings, 11-7: “Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that [is] before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon.”  While much has been made of Solomon’s supposed invocation of spirits, here is a Biblical passage that shows he appears at least to have made shrines unto extra-Judaic gods, repeated here with the exclusion of Astarte.  Most of these gods were later demonized within the corpus of Judeo-Christian magical literature: Astaroth, Moloch, etc.

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Side-Comment: I was also looking up information on Toz Graecus recently, but had set it down to research other avenues.  Lynn Thorndike cites the potential of this being the same entity as both Gemma Babilonensis and Hermes Trismigestus, yet Contra Demonum Invocatores cites them in turn: … magus quam compleverunt Thot Greci et Gemma Babilonicus et Hermes Egyptius in primis.  Thus, at least at this point, the three personages had already come together as one.  Thoth Graecus and Hermes Aegypticus are basically the same name, but reverse the Greek and Egyptian associations, where Greek Thoth = Egyptian Hermes… and apparently Babylonian Gemma.