Raising Hell Read Free Page B

had marshaled their forces to help in the buildingof the Temple in Jerusalem. In the Greater Key, he set out all the necessary steps for summoning a spirit and keeping hold of the reins, as it were, once you had. The book also included the fasting and purification rituals to which the magician must submit himself before trying any such conjuration, along with practical advice on what to wear, what equipment to use, how to go about drawing the magic circle, etc.

    The demon Belial presenting his credentials to Solomon. From Jacobus de Teramo’s Das Buch Belial, printed at Augsburg, 1473. *
    In the Lesser Key, which was often thought even more useful, Solomon left off with the general advice and really got down to brass tacks. In the first section, entitled “Goetia” ("magical arts"), he described just how to conjure up seventy-two chief demons and their respective ministers. In the second, “Theurgia Goetia,” he discussed spirits and their main characteristics. In the third, the “Pauline Art,” he ran through the angels of the hours and the days, and the signs of the zodiac; and in the fourth, the “Almadel,” he described the angels who presided over the altitudes, as the compass directions, north, south, east, and west, were then called.
    According to legend, both of these Keys were buried underSolomon’s throne, where they would have stayed forever if it hadn’t been for the intervention of some troublemaking demons. After Solomon died, the demons whispered where the books were hidden to a few of the king’s courtiers, who promptly dug them up and unleashed all kinds of trouble on the world.
    In addition to the two Keys of Solomon, there were other grimoires, which were also considered hallmarks of the occult trade. They shared a great deal of common advice on the proper ways to invoke the infernal powers (for the space of an entire quarter of the moon, the sorcerer was advised to keep his thoughts centered on the task before him, to eat no more than two meals a day, to sleep little, change his clothes as infrequently as possible, etc.), along with words of wisdom on how to thwart the demons’ own evil intentions.
    In one such book, the Grimoire of Honorius, a veritable catalog of the fallen angels was offered, along with advice on how to raise them. Credited to Pope Honorius III, who succeeded Innocent III in 1216, it pretended to carry the imprimatur of the papacy and was first published in Rome in 1629. Heavily freighted with Christian formulas and benedictions, it not only instructed priests in the arts of demonology but virtually ordered them to learn how to conjure and control demons, as part of their job. The brief introduction reads surprisingly like a modern-day sales pitch: “But until the time of this Constitution,” it says in part, “only the Ruling Pontificate has possessed the virtue and the power to command the spirits and invoking them. Now his Holiness, Honorius III, having become mellowed by his pastoral duties, has kindly decided to transmit the methods and ability of invoking and controlling spirits, to his brothers in Jesus Christ, the revered ones.”
    What followed the introduction claimed to be a papal bull, or edict, from Honorius himself, addressed to all the brethren of the Holy Roman Church. “In the times when Jesus, the Son of God, the Saviour, of the tribe of David, lived on this earth: we see what power he exercised over Demons. This power hepassed on and communicated to Saint Peter with these words: ‘Upon this Rock I shall build my Church, and the Gates of Hell shall not succeed against it.’ “
    The bull goes on to explain that although this power over infernal spirits had indeed resided only in the pope until that time, Honorius now felt every priest and deacon, abbott and archbishop, ought to know how to perform such feats: “We feel that while exorcising those who are possessed, they [the clergy] might become overcome at the frightful appearances of the