The Book of ceremonial Magic

of Solomon under another title, but it p. 61 is probably the Latin version of the Sepher
Rasiel. Whether any of these works were printed does not explicitly appear, and the
Abbé, like Christian himself, knew very little of his subject. It is he, however, who
supplies the information concerning Gretser, but it reads very differently. "Perhaps this
(Liber Pentaculorum) is the same as the treatise De Necromantia ad Filium Roboam,
which Father Gretser, a learned German Jesuit, had seen written in Greek in the library of
the Duke of Bavaria." The collected works of Gretser are in seventeen folio Volumes,
and there are limits to research. It may be affirmed, however, that the Catalogus Codicum
Manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Regiæ Bavariæ, auctore Ignatio Hardt, ejusdem
bibliothecæ supræfecto, 5 vols., Monarchii, 1806, does not mention such a work. The
reference to the printed edition of the Clavicle occurs at pp. 36, 37 of D'Artigny's article,
and describes it as consisting of 125 pp. in quarto, without name of place or printer. The
frontispiece (? title) reads "Clavicle of Solomon," with a cross within a circle beneath,
and below this symbol is the date 1655. The whole work is divided into twelve
paragraphs, of which D'Artigny transcribes part of No. 9, an Exorcism of the Spirits of
the Air, which most certainly does not occur in any known edition of the Grand Clavicle,
and is apparently adapted from the Lemegeton.
61:1 A bibliography of Papus appended to his Methodical Summary of the Kabalah
enumerates forty-seven separate Kabalistic treatises which appeared in Hebrew between
the middle of the thirteenth and the close of the sixteenth century. These are only the
most noted, and extra Kabalistic literature was far larger. I mention this source of
reference for the benefit of the occult student, as it may be ready to his hand. The Magna
Bibliotheca Rabbinica of Bartolocci, forming--with its supplement by another hand--five
volumes in folio, is the great and monumental catalogue of literature in Jewry.
§ 2. The Lesser Key of Solomon
The Lemegeton, or Lesser Key of Solomon, Rabbi and King, is a work of far more
exalted pretensions, which deploys all the hierarchies and evokes spirits by milliards.
About its antiquity there is no need for serious dispute; it claims to be translated from the
Hebrew, but its earliest perfect examples are in French of the seventeenth century, and no
one has heard of the original. It must have existed, however, in a much earlier form; it is
the subject of continual reference by demonologists like Wierus, under the style of the
sorcerer's Liber Spirituum, and it is from this source that the scornful sceptic who was the
pupil of Agrippa, derived his Pseudomonarchia Dæmonum, with, however, significant
variations from the known copies.
The Lemegeton is divided into four parts, which control the offices of all spirits at the
will of the operator, from whom the ordinary conditions are exacted. 1 With the exception
of the first part, which gave materials to Wierus, this curious, and in many respects
memorable, work has never been printed, although it has been taxed surreptitiously for
contributions by most makers of Rituals and Grimoires. It deals,. as I have said, with the
evocation of all classes of spirits, evil, indifferent and good; its opening Rites are those of
Lucifer, Bel, Astaroth and the whole cohort of Infernus; it is entitled Goëtia, which
sufficiently explains itself, 2 and contains the forms of conjuration