[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:
- You rarely found any kind of edition of this work available for sale
- When you could find it, it was a bad reproduction, or incredibly terse
- 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)
- 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!