Talk:The Lesser Key of Solomon

message: I am removing it from jewish mysticism because it is not jewish since there is prayers in it to jesus--Java7837 18:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Its just because its more well known, and probably because all the teenage rebels out there don't want to read about angels, they want demons, and the Goetia gives them that.  In addition to that its also just plain easier to read. Ahkaris (talk) 20:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: question

message: It's claimed that "These are called here the angels of men, because all persons are born under a zodiacal sign, with the Sun at a specific degree of it." However, the text, or at least the version I'm familiar with (a pdf version by Benjamin Rowe), is rather ambiguous about what exactly is meant by "signs & degrees every man is born in". What makes me question this is a passage concerning the angels of the 12 signs, saying "they may make use of these Angels, if be so that they know the sign that ascends." This would appear to refer to the ascending sign, not the sun sign. So which is used to determine the angel of the degree? Elcalen (talk) 22:26, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Ars Paulina and astrology

message: With the AfD for Flauros complete as redirect back here it might be wise to go through all 72 demons and determine which of them are notable other than being demons in Pseudomonarchia and the lesser key.  I suggest those that wouldn't pass the notability litmus test redirect back here rather than just getting deleted.  Any volunteers to help comb through the demons and figure which ones deserve independent notability? Simonm223 (talk) 03:19, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not particularly familiar with the subject area, but have seen some of the demons listed at AfD and did some looking around. While some, like Baal, certainly should have stand alone articles, others like Eligos or Stolas probably shouldn't. It seems like it could be cumbersome to try and incorporate information on all of them in this article, but it would be a shame to lose the info in the smaller articles. I suggested at one of the AfD's that a new article or list along the lines of Demons of Ars Goetia could be created to merge all of the smaller articles into one. It's a thought; perhaps someone with knowledge of the subject could make it work. Wine Guy Talk 07:31, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I know this is an old discussion, but I have a list of spirits mentioned in the Lemegeton, the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, the Officium Spirituum, le Livre des Esperitz, the Testament of Solomon, Magical Treatise of Solomon, Codex Latinus Monacensis, the Book of Abramelin, and a few other works.  About forty could stand to have their own articles on the basis that they're mentioned in more than the Lemegeton and Weyer. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:31, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging back in 

message: While the Lemegeton undoubtedly dates to the 17th century, our article several times claims that various sections are compilations of much earlier material. No reference is provided for any of these claims. We should find references for these claims (if it exists) for two reasons. Firstly, among the sort of people who take these sorts of books seriously, there is a strange belief that the older a text is, the more reliable it is. Consequently there is a strong bias towards exaggerating the age of everything. Secondly, and more importantly, several of these "older" texts are apparently taken from the Steganographia. That book -- or rather, its third volume -- was long considered to be a work of demonlogy, but it has recently been conclusively proven to be a "covertext" for discussions on cryptography and steganography. (The first two volumes also superficially appear to be about demonology, but it has been known for centuries that they aren't really: the Clavis, or decryption key, was worked out and published in the 16th century.) The third volume is actually also a couple of exercises demonstrating the principles of Trithemius's communication systems. Unfortunately, he made his exercises a little too hard for the average reader (complicated, perhaps, by the fact that it was never finished), and unlike the first two volumes this one was only cracked in the late twentieth century. (Although even in the seventeenth century, several authors claimed to have "cracked" volume three and proved that it was about ciphers, but all of them either did not publish their proof, or else published it in yet other ciphers. One of these was recently "cracked" by the same cryptologist who recently solved Book III, and the seventeenth century author had indeed got it right!) We now know that consistently throughout the Steganographia, the false "black art" of magic is a metaphor for something much more dangerous, the true "black art" of cryptology, the maker and unmaker of kings. The "spirit names" in Steganographia were probably made up nonsense -- certainly some of the "ancient authorities" quoted by Trithemius were also made up -- and are most definitely not compilations of centuries-older "goetic wisdom". -- 202.63.39.58 (talk) 00:16, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claims of sections supposedly written centuries earlier 

message: Is this book a potential forgery.  How can we tell?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.50.30 (talk) 07:01, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: That the book was written in the 17th century (without a BC or BCE following the century), but claims to be written by King Solomon pretty much seals the deal.  Actually reading it (especially the older manuscripts) it also makes plenty of references to Christianity and late medieval European political structures (earls, dukes, counts).  Ian.thomson (talk) 08:20, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Speaking of modern political terminology, what is this stuff about demons being presidents? Of course it is Latin and therefore as old as Ancient Rome, but it always meant something like chairman, leader of a gathering in the procedural sense of the word. We understand president to denote de facto leader of something large (e.g. head of state) but I think this is a fairly recent usage. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:D42F:67D7:70A8:3986 (talk) 07:47, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forgery 

message: I have revised the article more or less from scratch (keeping the sections "The seventy two demons" and "external links" more or less intact, while expanding the "editions" section) properly citing reliable sources.  I may go on later and add more detailed descriptions of each section of the book.  Although I am semi-retired, I have been compiling some information on different spell books and spirits for role playing games, and may try to revise the articles for such things accordingly.  Ian.thomson (talk) 23:34, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overhaul 

message: Substituted at 18:27, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: I think that The is the start of the main English version of the title, given that it appears as such in all titles listed in § Editions. 
Although this page has already been moved once from that title in 2014, there was no justification or discussion I could find as to why.
In some other articles, the title is given as the Lesser Key of Solomon but in title case/capitalization, the first word of the title (or after a colon, BTW) is always capitalized, and if a word isn't part of the title, it wouldn't be italicized. See: MOS:T & MOS:CT. Thanks! Geekdiva (talk) 21:54, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''The'' as the start of the title: ''The Lesser Key of Solomon'' 

message: The three paragraphs explaining the word goetia seem quite excessive and off-topic. It looks like this was the result of a goetia article being merged into this article in 2019. I'm not sure why it would make sense to merge goetia into this article, as it is the rough equivalent of merging cooking into Mastering the art of french cooking. Regardless, the merge is a fait accompli and what remains is to clean up the results. Would anyone mind if I trim down this section substantially? Nosferattus (talk) 22:49, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I just noticed the previous discussion about the merge above. Any concerns with me trimming down the goetia content? Nosferattus (talk) 22:55, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Trimming the goetia content seems to be a good idea. Klbrain (talk) 08:40, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Excessive etymology 

message: The redirect Halahel has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached.  Utopes (talk / cont) 01:49, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  "[[:Halahel]]" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]]