King Solomon's Goat

by George Willard Bartlett

All magic is religious, having been invented by the priests or Magi. It is said that the religious bodies copied their demonology from the Kabala of the Jews, and that the latter borrowed their system of theurgy and theology from the Egyptian and Babylonian priests. If any one outside of the religious bodies started any opposition devil-worship, they were promptly burnt. All the magic rituals are derived from the Key of King Solomon, claimed to have been found in his sepulchre at Jerusalem.

In the Magic Grimore, ascribed to Pope Honorius, he says: “We have seen with what power Jesus commanded demons, which power was transmitted to St. Peter, and, as the lawful successors of St. Peter, having the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and desiring to share the power of invoking and commanding spirits, which has been reserved unto us alone, with our brethren, we have included in this Bull the manner of their invocation. And because it is meet that the ministers of the altar should have authority over rebellious spirits, we hereby depute unto them all the powers which we possess in virtue of the Holy Apostolic Chair.”—Book of Black Magic, 100.

In invoking the Devil or other choice spirits, it is necessary to murder some being. If the conjurer cannot or dare not murder a human being, he takes an innocent virgin lamb and cuts its throat and tears off its skin to use for a magic apron or parchment. Instead of the skin of a lamb, the caul of a new-born child may be used.—Idem.

The sign manual of the demon Valefor, the patron of thieves, contains two Maltese crosses rampant and three links. As Solomon and his entourage worshipped the demon Astaroth, they probably stole from him the two pillars at the door of the Temple and the double triangle above them, for they appeared in the seal of that spirit. There are two or more crosses in each of the seals or signatures of Solomon’s seventy two black fiends. Their motto is, “In this sign we conquer.”

Solomon imprisoned the seventy two devils, with all their legions, in a brazen vessel and sank it in a deep lake in Babylon. The Babylonians, thinking that there must be a great treasure in the vessel, took it out of the lake and broke it open, when out flew the chief devils immediately, with all their legions following them.—See Waite’s Book of Black Magic.

We still worship pagan gods. The Hexagram, or double triangle of Solomon, is still used by different sects and societies. On it is the name of Agla, a pagan sun-god, and also the name of Tau, the Egyptian bull christ Taurus, with the pagan symbol, the Tau cross. The god A. and O., Alpha and Omega, with which the Hexagram is adorned, is a foul Babylonian idol, the same as IO. It has been represented that the Devil falls prostrate before the cross. But, to tell the truth, Lucifer uses the sign himself, also the double triangle and the single triangle in his signature. And Belial has four crosses by which he lies.

When a sorcerer conjures up one of the seventy two demons, he must draw the double seal of Solomon (double triangle) and the Pentagram, (five-pointed star) on a parchment of calfskin. These must be worn on his white vestment, together with the seal of the spirit invoked. And the secret seal of Solomon (the pillar standing in a circle) must be drawn with the blood of a black, virgin cock on virgin parchment. This is part of the conjuration: “I invoke and conjure you, O Spirit, by God the Father, by God the son, by God the Holy Ghost, by the Most Glorious and Holy Mother of God, by her Sacred Heart, by her Blessed Milk, by the Power and Victory of Hell, by the Ministers of the Tartarean Seat. I exorcise thee in the names of El, Elohim, Zabaoth &c. do thou forthwith appear. I conjure thee by the Living and True God Heliorem (Helios, the sun god) and Tetragrammaton Jehovah (the God of four letters). Come! I Adonai Saday, King of Kings, commands thee.” See Lesser Key of King Solomon, 55.

There is no use in trying to invoke spirits or perform any tricks in black magic unless you have confessed and received the Holy Communion, and you must pray for assistance to the pagan gods Adonai, Eloim, Ariel, Yahveh and Gibor, and fast, and abstain from the society of females for nine days, and take a bath, and wear the garb of a priest or a Levite, and you must have the sacred Masons’ implements, the sword, the staff, the rod, the sickle and the poniard. See Waite’s Book of Black Magic.

That part of nature called the astral light or universal spirit was virtually the supreme god of all religions. It was the Heaven or Nirvana of the Buddhist, (where the soul is blown out like a lamp some believed.) When he attained to perfection and was reabsorbed in this godhead, he had stormed the heights of Heaven and attained eternal bliss. He considered that his spirit would no longer be subjected to endless incarnations in material forms. But there is no knowing when it would again by choice or compulsion enter the ether and form another atom and again commence the unavoidable cycle.

All the vile religions have scared the human race into ca’niption fits by their assertion that our souls will be lost unless we bow down to their priests and worship their idols. According to the original parent religion, the Hindu, if we obey the priests faithfully, we will go to Nirvana and become a creator or electron, or elementary spirit. And all the authorities, both pagan and Christian, agree that the elementary spirits are mischievous, wicked entities. It would be better to lose our souls, for in that case they are banished into the ether or chaos and become the nucleus of a material atom. If we go to Nirvana, we are one step farther removed from the ultimate goal of all the ambitions of all the heavenly electrons and material atoms, the supreme pinnacle of attainment, man’s high estate, which is greater than that of the gods.