Clavicules of King Solomon by Armadel, Book III (Lansdowne MS 1202)

The third book of the French Clavicules attributed to Armadel, in British Library Lansdowne MS 1202, is devoted to spirits and their capacities and marks the point where the respectable Key of Solomon shades into the 'black' grimoire tradition. It sets out a hierarchy headed by Lucifer, Belzebuth and Elestor, the same triad found in the Secrets of Solomon, each with chief officers and the regions or functions they govern, and then describes individual spirits and the services they can render: bringing wealth and treasure, controlling the weather, causing love, conferring invisibility and producing banquets. It includes practical instructions for a magic wand, for making rain and snow, for opening closed things and for summoning gold coins, as well as talismans and seals. Joseph Peterson's notes show close correspondence with the Grimorium Verum, suggesting that the Verum's compiler and the Armadel scribe drew on a common Italian source of the Secrets of Solomon type. The manuscript is a mid-eighteenth-century French copy and belongs to the luxury manuscript trade of the period, in which collectors commissioned handsome copies of magical texts. Mathers drew on other parts of Lansdowne 1202 for his Key of Solomon but largely ignored this demonic book. The archive edition includes Karl Niedershuh's English translation of 2004, so readers can follow the French and its rendering side by side.

What it contains

• Hierarchy of Lucifer, Belzebuth and Elestor
• Chief officers and their regions
• Spirits for wealth, weather, love and invisibility
• Instructions for the magic wand
• Operations for rain, snow, opening locks and summoning coins
• Talismans and seals