Origin 1577
The seventy-two spirits of the Ars Goetia, the first book of the Lesser Key of Solomon, each have a name, a rank, a number of legions and a description of what they teach or grant. The compilation dates from the seventeenth century, drawing on earlier material including Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of 1577, and it belongs to the Solomonic grimoire tradition of spirit conjuration. Many of the names are altered forms of the names of older gods.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period1577 2Tradition: Weyer, Pseudomonarchia Daemonum: the sixty-nine-spirit catalogue Origin Period1904 1Tradition: Mathers and Crowley's edition, the text most modern practice follows Origin Periodmid-17th century 1Tradition: Ars Goetia, first book of the Lemegeton Place of OriginThe Rhineland and the Low Countries for Weyer's catalogue; England for the Lemegeton manuscripts and for the 1904 edition. 1 Origin of the NameThe category name is the grimoire's own: Ars Goetia, the art of goeteia, from the Greek goeteia, sorcery, and goes, a sorcerer. The word was pejorative in Greek and stayed pejorative in Latin; it is what the practice's opponents called it. 1 Whose Classification This IsThe immediate ancestor of the list is Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, printed with De Praestigiis Daemonum in 1577, which gives sixty-nine spirits in a different order. Weyer printed the catalogue in order to argue that such conjuring was delusion. 2Tradition: Weyer, Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577) Whose Classification This IsThe seventy-two spirits with their ranks, legions and seals stand in the Ars Goetia, the first book of the Lemegeton, compiled in England in the mid-seventeenth century from material a century and more older. 1Tradition: Ars Goetia (Lemegeton), mid-17th century Structure
StructureSeventy-two spirits, each with a name, a courtly rank, a seal, a number of legions under it and an office - what it teaches, finds or grants. The book sets out the summoning, constraint and dismissal that go with them. 1 Overview
Size of the Traditional SetSeventy-two spirits 1Tradition: Ars Goetia (Lemegeton) Size of the Traditional SetSixty-nine spirits, in a different order and with some different offices 2Tradition: Weyer, Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577) Comparison
Era of Origin Learn More
The Seventy-Two Spirits of the Goetia
The seventy-two spirits of the Ars Goetia, the first book of the Lesser Key of Solomon, each have a name, a rank, a number of legions of lesser spirits under them, and a description of what they teach or grant: knowledge, favour, the finding of hidden things, and much else. The book gives detailed instructions for their summoning, constraint and dismissal within a protective circle.
The compilation dates from the seventeenth century but draws on earlier material, notably Johann Weyer's sixteenth-century list of demons, and it is among the most influential of the grimoires in modern ceremonial magic.
Spirits, Ranks and Legions
The seventy-two spirits are organised by courtly rank (kings, princes, dukes, marquises, earls, presidents and knights), each rank carrying its own dignity, and each spirit commanding a number of legions. Modern occultism has read the Goetia in several ways, from literal spirit-evocation to a psychological work upon the self.
The atlas gives each goetic spirit its rank, its legions, its office and its seal, describing the tradition without endorsing its claims. The ranks the spirits hold are treated in the spirit-rank category, and the angelic counterparts under the Shem angels, within Angels, Spirits & the Shadow.
All Goetic Demons
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Sources
1. Grimoires: A History of Magic Books
Owen Davies, Oxford University Press, 2009ch. 3, on the Lemegeton and the Solomonic grimoiresView the Source 2. Pseudomonarchia Daemonum
3. Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
atlas entity-description, era statementQuote, atlas entity-description, era statement
The compilation dates from the seventeenth century, drawing on earlier material including Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of 1577, and it belongs to the Solomonic grimoire tradition of spirit conjuration.
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