Goetia

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see The Goetia for the 1904 book by Crowley and Mathers.
The circle and triangle, used in the evocation of the seventy-two spirits of the Ars Goetia.
The circle and triangle, used in the evocation of the seventy-two spirits of the Ars Goetia.

Goetia (Middle Latin, anglicized goety (IPA: [ˈgəʊɪtɪ]), from Greek γοητεία goēteia "sorcery") refers to a practice which includes the Invocation of angels or the Evocation of demons, and usage of the term in English largely derives from the 17th century grimoire The Lesser Key of Solomon, which features an Ars Goetia as its first section. It contains descriptions of the evocation of seventy-two demons, famously edited by Aleister Crowley in 1904 as The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King.

Contents

[edit] Etymology

Ancient Greek γοητεία (goēteia) means "witchcraft, jugglery"[1] from γόης "sorcerer, wizard"[2]. The meaning of "sorcerer" is attested in a scholion, referring to the Dactyli, stating that according to Pherecydes and Hellanicus, those to the left are goētes, while those to the right are deliverers from sorcery.[3] The word may be ultimately derived from the verb γοάω "groan, bewail". Derived terms are γοήτευμα "a charm" and γοητεύω "to bewitch, beguile".

γοητεία was a term for witchcraft in Hellenistic magic. Latinized goetia via French goétie was adopted into English as goecie, goety in the 16th century.

[edit] Renaissance magic

During the Renaissance goeteia (Latinized goetia, French goétie, English goety) was sometimes contrasted with magia as black (evil) vs. white magic, or with theurgy as "low" vs. "high" magic.

James Sanford in his 1569 translation of Agrippa's Of the vanitie and uncertaintie of artes and sciences has

The partes of ceremoniall Magicke be Geocie, and Theurgie.

Georg Pictorius in 1562 uses goetie synonymously with "ceremonial magic".

[edit] The Ars Goetia

Main articles: The Lesser Key of Solomon and Goetia (Crowley)

Ars Goetia is the title of the first section of The Lesser Key of Solomon, containing descriptions of the seventy-two demons that King Solomon is said to have evoked and confined in a bronze vessel sealed by magic symbols, and that he obliged to work for him. The Ars Goetia assigns a rank and a title of nobility to each member of the infernal hierarchy, and gives the demons "signs they have to pay allegiance to", or seals. The lists of entities in the Ars Goetia correspond (to high but varying degree, often according to edition) with those in the Steganographia of Trithemius, circa 1500, and Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum an appendix appearing in later editions of his De Praestigiis Daemonum, of 1563.

A revised English edition of the Ars Goetia was published in 1904 by Samuel Liddell and Aleister Crowley as The Goetia, and it serves as a key component of Crowley's popular and highly influential system of magick.

[edit] In Literature and Fiction

  • The term plays a certain role in the discussion of magic in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, because it appears in an unsent letter draft (Letters, no. 155), apparently in a sense corresponding to sanwe-latya, but it was not used by Tolkien in any other known instance.
  • Goetia is referenced several times in Inkling Charles Williams's last novel All Hallows' Eve.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ LSJ
  2. ^ LSJ
  3. ^ K. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum Paris: Didot, 1841-1870, fr. 7, Ἀριστεροὶ μὲν, ὥς φησι Φερεκύδης, οἱ γόητες αὐτῶν· οἱ δὲ ἀναλύοντες, δεξιοὶ, ὡς Ἑλλάνικος.

[edit] References

  • Garstin, E. J. Langford. Theurgy or The Hermetic Practice: A Treatise on Spiritual Alchemy. Berwick: Ibis Press, 2004. (Published posthumously)
  • S. L. MacGregor Mathers (ed.), Samuel Liddell (trans.), The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King. York Beach, ME : Samuel Weiser (1995) ISBN 0-87728-847-X.

[edit] See also

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