De secretis

Clavicula Salomonis de Secretis.

Been on something of a binge of downloading Solomonic grimoires lately, mostly from the Wellcome Institute collection.  Since the bulk are directly downloadable as PDFs from the Wellcome website anyway, no point in my sticking them on Scribd.  Wellcome 4670, apparently only obtainable as images of individual page spreads, I might make an exception for, but it'll take a while.

Anyway, in the process of looking for more information about a work called Traite Universel, des clavicules de Salomon, which appears appended to two copies of the more familiar 2-book version of the KoS (Wellcome MS. 4659, p. 101; Wellcome MS. 4669 p. 77; see also the third "Book" of the Lansdowne MS. 1202 Clavicules, transcript by Joseph Peterson here), turned up a 17th-century ancestor of the Traité Universel, in Latin (& my Latin is a *lot* better than my French).  Joseph Peterson posted a transcription & information on MS. sources in 2013 or so & more recently published an English translation (The Secrets of Solomon: a Witch's Handbook from the Trial Records of the Venetian Inquisition, the somewhat sensational title referring to the fact that a copy of this work featured in a sorcery case in the 1630s).

The copy linked is assembled from page images posted on the site of the Polish collection that holds the MS. (site won't let you bulk download without a login, hence why I did this).

Another "De Secretis" copy is Mscr. Dresd. N91, which can be viewed or downloaded here.  I personally found this slightly harder to read (that's entirely relative though, the handwriting is still pretty good), although it does contain 24 pentacles which were omitted (only appear as blank borders) in the other copy.

[Also the Dresden copy has about 50 pages of additional material filling out the notebook, including a Liber Officiorum variant, various characters and sigils, and a couple of passages in Italian which was presumably the scribe's first language (as remarked above, yet another copy of De Secretis was involved in a sorcery trial in Venice in the 1630s).]

Besides the Traité Universel, De Secretis has a better-known descendent in the Grimorium Verum: they have an analogous hierarchy of three chief infernal spirits, each with two immediate subordinates (Elestor has become Astaroth in the GV, and the subordinates have been garbled[1]), and a further list of 18 spirits with stated characters and offices, all under Syrach, who in turn is one of the chief underlings of Lucifer.  The order differs, some of the names are barely recognisable, some of the characters completely unrecognisable (the French editions of the GV also appear to lack the characters for the six "Dukes").

De Secretis, in turn, contains noticeable borrowings from the Heptameron (or possibly the Lucidarium, but -- given it *also* contains a substantial excerpt, slightly paraphrased, from the Liber quartus de occulta philosophia -- probably the printed Heptameron), although the characters for Anael and Sachiel are completely different and that for Cassiel bears only a vague resemblance to the central part of the angel's seal in pseudo-Abano; the compiler also appears to have devised characters for several of the angels of the quarters for each day.

The character on the first leaf of De Secretis, by the way, is almost certainly the character of Scirlin or Scyrlin, a supposedly vital part of the GV ritual which is missing in the original printed editions (along with the characters of the six Dukes, as noted, and various symbols called for in the miscellaneous and minor procedures).

(For "A" and "B," substitute your initials.) 

* * *

[1] De Secretis has:

• Satanachi and Syrach under Lucifer
• Agateraptar Kymath and Ftheruthi under Belzebuth
• Serphagathan and Resbiroth under Elestor.

The Grimorium Verum has:

• Put Satanachia and Agalierap under Lucifer
• Tarchimache and Fleruty under Beelzebuth
• Sagatana and Nesbiros under Astaroth

"Put" is possibly from reading a carelessly-written sunt or et as part of a proper name. It appears that Agateraptar Kymath (Agaleraptar Kymath in Dresden N91) got garbled into Agalerap Tarchimath and then turned into two different demons.  The 18 lesser spirits for whom characters and offices are given are still said to be under Syrach in the GV.

The Grand Grimoire / Dragon Rouge has the same three chiefs as the GV; the six immediate subordinates are mostly the same although Tarchimache has disappeared and Lucifuge joined them at the top of the list as "Prime Minister" (the others have been given military ranks and are not assigned to individual chiefs).  A different list of 18 lesser spirits follows, three under each of the second-tier chiefs; no characters or offices for them are given, and in any case they are simply the first 18 of the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (on balance, it seems *much* more likely that the writer of the GG used Wier, or a source deriving from Wier, and bolted on a modified version of the chiefs from the GV rather than deriving from a De Officiis Spirituum MS. tradition which did not suffer decapitation; as such, the GG chiefs are unlikely to be the same as those in Wier's source).

1. Bael.
2. Agares.
3. Marbas.  (Marbas alias Barbas in Wier)
4. Pruslas.  (Pruflas, alibi invenitur Bufas in Wier)
5. Aamon.  (Amon vel Aamon in Wier)
6. Barbatos.
7. Buer.
8. Gusoyn.
9. Botis.
10. Bathin.  (Bathym, albibi Marthim in Wier)
11. Hursan.  (Pursan, alias Curson in Wier)
12. Eligor.  (Eligor, alias Abigor in Wier)
13. Loray.  (Loray, alias Oray in Wier)
14. Valefar.  (Valefar, alias Malaphar in Wier)
15. Faraï.  (Morax, alias Foraii in Wier)
16. Ayperos.  (Ipes, alias Ayperos in Wier)
17. Naberus.  (Naberus, alias Cerberus in Wier)
18. Glosialabolas.  (Glasya labolas, alias Caacrinolaas vel Caassimolar in Wier)