Strange Texts · Manuscripts & Books

The Lesser Key of Solomon

A compilation of ritual-magic texts best known for the Ars Goetia and its catalogue of spirits.

Plate of spirit seals and an astrological circular diagram from the 1916 de Laurence edition of The Lesser Key of Solomon
Seals and diagram · de Laurence edition, 1916

Illustrated plate from The Lesser Key of Solomon, Goetia, the Book of Evil Spirits, edited by L. W. de Laurence (Chicago: de Laurence, Scott & Co., 1916). View digitized edition at Project Gutenberg.

Seventeenth-century compilation · Demonology

Also called the Lemegeton, the Lesser Key is distinct from the Key of Solomon, although both invoke the same legendary author. Its component sections circulated within evolving manuscript traditions. Modern editions have made the Ars Goetia particularly famous, but the larger compilation and its textual variants provide a fuller historical picture.

A point of interest

How related titles can conceal quite different texts and transmission histories.

Explore further

← Back to Strange Texts