From the Lemegeton: Ars Goetia + Ars Theurgia
This set includes Ars Goetia and Ars Theurgia, both in their second edition
Translated and Introduced by Paul Summers Young
This set brings together the second editions of Ars Goetia and Ars Theurgia, published by Black Letter Press as part of an ongoing series exploring the Lemegeton corpus through its early modern sources.
The Lemegeton, or The Little Key of Solomon, is not a single fixed work but a family of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts. These texts draw on earlier authorities such as Johannes Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum and Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft, while also absorbing material from Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and Peter of Abano. What later became widely known through the editions of S. L. MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley is only one late crystallisation of a far more fluid and historically layered tradition.
Rather than reconstructing a hypothetical “definitive” version, Black Letter Press approaches the Lemegeton as a living textual constellation—shaped by transmission, adaptation, and use. This series situates the material within its cultural and intellectual context: a subculture of magical practice entangled with early modern religious tensions, experimental knowledge, and what has been called the Hermetic Enlightenment.
Ars Goetia
This volume assembles multiple early sources of the Ars Goetia, restoring a sense of textual plurality often lost in later standardised editions. By placing variant manuscripts, excerpts, and related materials side by side, it reveals how the hierarchy of spirits, their seals, and their functions developed over time.
Particular attention is given to the pre-nineteenth-century transmission of the text—before its codification during the occult revival—allowing readers to encounter the Goetia not as a fixed manual, but as a dynamic body of practice shaped by scribes, practitioners, and compilers.
The second edition refines the transcription, expands the critical apparatus, and deepens the contextual framing, making it both a scholarly resource and a working text.
Ars Theurgia
Ars Theurgia uncovers a quieter, more elusive current within early modern magic, rooted in the work of Johannes Trithemius. What began as a system of encoded communication in Steganographia gradually transformed into a fully developed magical practice centred on directional spirits, atmospheric intelligences, and localised presences.
Drawing on rare manuscripts by figures such as Peter Smart, Dr. Thomas Rudd, and John Harries, this volume traces how Trithemius’ method was absorbed into the Solomonic tradition. Here, elaborate ceremonial structures give way to something more subtle: orientation, attention, and intentional contact.
The book features high-quality transcriptions, reconstructed diagrams of the spirit compass, seals of the princes of the winds, and extensive contextual material. It also situates these practices within a broader continuum—from early modern crystal vision and angelic communication to contemporary explorations of altered states and anomalous perception.
Together, these volumes present the Lemegeton not as a closed canon, but as an evolving field of practice and interpretation. Carefully typeset and produced in the distinctive style of Black Letter Press, they combine rigorous scholarship with a sensitivity to the material and aesthetic qualities of early texts—offering both depth and presence on the page.
