[Edit: Jan 31]

Ok, big “DUH!” here.  LOL.  If I would’ve taken a bit more time looking through the work that Skinner and Rankine are publishing, I would’ve realised that the “Veritable Key …” is what most of us “old timers” refer to as “The Greater Key of Solomon.”  Versus the “Lesser Key,” which is the Lemegeton- which Skinner and Rankine issued under the name “The Goetia of Dr. Rudd;”  SO, I still need to get me a copy of Dr. Rudd’s Goetia and Skinner & Rankine’s “The Keys to the Gateway of Magic,” in order to complete their 4-volume set “Sourceworks of Ceremonial Magic.”  Hopefully that’s a bit clearer than the mud I strew out the other day(see below), LOL.

The only thing that irks me about “The Sourceworks” is that they’re pressed in such limited numbers – it’s a real pain to try and buy them at a fair price before they’re unavailable and sell for extremely high prices between the long delays of subsequent pressings. Grrrr.  And Golden Hoard sells them for a significant mark up compared to Amazon – Veritable Key on Amazon was around $41 (and included free shipping for me as a “Prime”) whereas GH has it on their website for $65 + overseas shipping from England – ARGH!

[end Edit]

I just got a new edition of the Lemegeton, and it’s definitely one of the nicer ones I’ve seen. It’s called “The Veritable Key of Solomon” – I think it may be a re-release of “The Goetia of Dr. Rudd,” but I’m not sure of that since I don’t own that title to compare it against. (Goetia is pronounced go-AY-shiah – at least that’s how they said it in a DVD I’ve got). Anyways, this edition isn’t just the goetia, it includes the rest of the “Lesser Keys of Solomon” aka “The Lemegeton” as well, plus a lot of extra material that has never been published before – at least not that I’m aware of.

It includes vast amounts of information compared to other manuscripts.  I’ll need to take a closer look at it over the weekend, but from what I could see immediately, it’s quite a fascinating and exciting volume.  Many added illustrations make the work even more valuable. We have certainly come a long way since the days when:

1. You rarely found any kind of edition of this work available for sale
2. When you could find it, it was a bad reproduction, or incredibly terse
3. Or over the last few years a plethora of what I would call “pamphlets” (basically re-packagings of the very short volumes by Mathers or Crowley or editions that only include the Sloane MS2731)
4. To today where there are two extremely fine editions available, this “Veritable” version, and another very complete edition by Peterson.

Anyways, like I’ve said many times before I find this subject area extraordinarily fascinating and I love all the illustrations and the mechanics of how it’s all supposed to work – I think it would make great material for computer games and simulation.  Ah, if I just had the time, LOL!  Hopefully I’ll have some quality time over the weekend to peruse this new edition of Lemegeton so I can follow up with a real review instead of this quick pre-view. Hope your weekend it shaping up to be a great one! Go Cardinals!  Woot!