The Ars Goetia
The Ars Goetia is the first book of the Lemegeton, or Lesser Key of Solomon. It is not one book by one hand but a compilation made in the seventeenth century out of older material, and it survives in a family of manuscripts rather than in a single authoritative copy. It names seventy-two spirits, and gives each of them a rank, a number of legions, a seal, and an account of what he can be asked for.
The seals here are reproduced from The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King, edited by S. L. MacGregor Mathers and published by Aleister Crowley in 1904, which prints the manuscript tradition of British Library Sloane MS 3825 and its relatives. Very nearly every Goetia seal in circulation today descends from that edition’s plates.
72 seals, free to read
Johann Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum of 1577 is often named as the source of these seals. It lists sixty-nine spirits and gives no seals at all. The seals belong to the seventeenth-century manuscripts, not to Weyer.
Lemegeton manuscripts, 17th century. First printed 1904. The text and the seals are in the public domain.
The Olympic Spirits, The seven governors of the Arbatel, who divide the world between them and each rule it in turn for 490 years. 7 characters.
The Pentacles of Solomon, Forty-four pentacles from the Key of Solomon, seven to a planet, each with the use the book puts it to: many of them protective. 44 pentacles.
The Angels of the Days, The seven angels who govern the days of the week, each with the sigil the Heptameron sets beside him. 7 sigils.
The Elder Futhark, The twenty-four runes of the oldest runic alphabet, each with the stanza the Old English Rune Poem gives it. 24 runes.
The Characters of the Planets, The seal of each of the seven planets, with the characters of the intelligence and the spirit Agrippa sets over it. 20 characters.
The Theban Alphabet, A cipher alphabet of the Renaissance, one character to a letter, as Agrippa printed it in 1533. 24 characters.