Theurgia-Goetia (Lemegeton, Book Two)

The Theurgia-Goetia is the second book of the Lemegeton. It describes thirty-one chief aerial spirits ruling the points of the compass, each with a large retinue of dukes and servants, and gives their seals and the conjurations for calling them. Unlike the spirits of the Goetia, these beings are presented as mixed in nature, some good and some evil, which is why the compiler joined the terms theurgia, divine working, and goetia, the calling of lower spirits. The material derives largely from the first book of the Steganographia of Johannes Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim, written around 1500 and printed in 1606. Trithemius presented his spirit conjurations as a cover for systems of secret writing; the Lemegeton compiler took the spirit names and hierarchy at face value and reworked them into an operative ritual, complete with seals that the manuscripts draw in varying forms. The book is therefore a good example of how Renaissance cryptography and learned magic became entangled in the seventeenth century, and how a text could be reinterpreted as it passed from one genre to another. The work instructs the operator to use a crystal or a scrying stone in some operations, connecting it with the period's interest in scrying spirits. Peterson's edition of the Lemegeton prints the Theurgia-Goetia from Sloane 3825 with variant readings and comparative notes on the Steganographia, making it easy to see what the compiler borrowed and what he added.

What it contains

• Thirty-one chief aerial spirits of the compass points
• Subordinate dukes and servants for each prince
• Seals of the princes and dukes
• Conjurations for calling the aerial spirits
• Directions related to the compass and timing
• Borrowings from Trithemius' Steganographia