Customer Reviews

Veritable Key of Solomon (Sourceworks of Ceremonial Magic Series Vol. 4)

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The Key of Solomon is perhaps THE single grimoire to own. It's a treasure trove of ancient magickal practice. It gives detailed instructions on how Solomon prepared everything from parchment to talismans, to magickal tools. Reading it you can't help but feel as though Solomon is teaching you.

I actually think some parts of it give better instruction than some of todays grimoires. Although you'll probally never find the resources to actually practice anything in the book, it is THE must add title to any library of magickal studies.

I own the half leather limited edition with color plates of this book. It was obvious long before it was released that this would be something totally different then Mathers version. Tons of research went in to this book that have changed the way many of us see the key now. Just the amount of different versions David and Stephen found while researching for it shows that modern magicians have underestimated its role among earlier magicians. This was probably the first grimoire that the earlier magicians got a hold of and one could ask them self if it might have been considered a primer back then.

The book it self present one of the most complete and complex manuscripts available of the key. There are practically tons of earlier not published information that are crucial for the understanding of the grimoire tradition. The commentary gives us an enormous insight and theories from two of the best grimoire scholars and magicians of today.

If you ever buy a grimoire let it be this one and it will amaze you.

Veritable Key of Solomon (Sourceworks of Ceremonial Magic Series)

As a fan of Skinner's careful and scholarly "Terrestrial Astrology: Divination by Geomancy" I was very much looking forward to this new edition of the "Key". The old Mathers compilation has needed some competition for a very long time, and I thought that this might be it. Unfortunately the "Veritable Key" does not shed much light on poor old Solomon. Instead it presents copies of three, rather muddled and confusingly edited "Key" manuscripts (there are hundreds of others that might have been selected). One of the chosen manuscripts is an obviously late confection that has been scrambled together with irrelevant matter from Agrippa and Abano, which is of no help to either the practicing magician or indeed to the student of grimoire history, except perhaps as an example of how to fake a grimoire to sell to the gullible. Why this particular ms should have been selected is beyond me. Furthermore, a work as ambitious as the "Veritable Key" pretends to be needs far more careful and knowledgable editorial attention than has apparently been bestowed on it to make it readable or useful. The editors would have been wise to follow the example of Joseph Peterson's excellent edition of the "Lesser Key" to see how it could be done.

Very well written with numerous references. Excellent scholarly work. I especially enjoyed their introduction. The rest of the book is well laid out and much easier to follow than other Keys out there.

I deleted my post on this book because now that I had some time to look at the limited edition one, it is still in my opinion a bad copy.I have done some research and did some comparing on skinners seals and the original and there
are alot of mistakes.Anything from words missing in the seals to mistakes in how they were drawn this copy or shall I say book is still not worth using.The only reason why I got my copy is just to collect numbered copies but as I began to look deeper into this book I realized how much skinners works are worthless to the real practicing magician.So if your looking for a good book go else-were.