THE KEY OF SOLOMON THE KING
(Clavicula Salomonis)
Translated and edited from manuscripts in the British Museum by S.Liddell MacGregor Mathers
$14.95
The Key of Solomon is the most famous, or infamous, of all magical textbooks. Although the grimoire is of unknown origin, MacGregor Mathers, who prepared this edition from seven manuscripts in the British Museum, believes it was written by King Solomon. The King instructs his disciples in incantations that summon and master the spirits. The process of summoning these beings illustrates the extraordinary complexity of Western ritual magic -- choosing a time and place; preliminary prayers; fasting, fumigations, and preparations; as well as the need for magical equipment, robes and trappings.
This work is of interest not only as the most celebrated of the Western magical texts, but also because it is edited by MacGregor Mathers, who was head of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, perhaps the most influential of all modern magical groups. While he detested black magic, the Key itself amply demonstrates that the distinction between black magic and white, evil magic and good, is not so simply drawn.
Included in this edition is a new foreword by R.A. Gilbert, esoteric scholar and antiquarian bookseller. Gilbert highlights the importance of the Key as a primary source for those interested in Western ritual magic, as well as the historical background and contemporary magical contexts of MacGregor Mather's editorial work and commentary.
Samual Liddell MacGregor Mathers (1854 - 1918) was a prominent scholar and leader of the occult revival of the Western Mystery Tradition in Britain in the late 1800s. A life-long fascination with mysticism and Celtic symbology led him to hold high office in the Societas Rosicruciana in Angelia (Rosicrucian Society of England), where he met Dr. William Wynn Westcott and Dr. William Woodman. With these two he co-founded the influential Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. MacGregor Mathers also published The Kabbalah Unveiled (1907; reissued Weiser, 1970), The Grimoire of Armadel (first English translation 1980; reissued Weiser 1995), and The Book of Abra-Melin the Mage (1898). He also wrote The Tarot, a history and discussion of reading the Marseilles deck (1888; reissued Weiser 1969).