Solomon's Magic Without Primary Sources: A Perspective from the Chinese-Speaking World

[baobaoking]

I’ve been lurking for a long time, and this is my first post. I come from the Chinese-speaking world. My background is in the path of devotion—the old-school approach involving vows and covenants. I strictly adhere to the separation of lineages; I do not mix altars or blend different traditions. Over the past year, I’ve been seriously studying the Solomon materials, including the editions by Skinner, Peterson, and Mathers, and I’ve also taken Aaron Leitch’s course. To be honest, that course was worth every hour of sleep I lost. Cross-referencing is the most agonizing part—comparing Skinner to Peterson to Mathers, and then matching that against a manuscript that doesn’t align with any of the three.

I’d like to share what this tradition looks like from my perspective. I suspect most of you haven’t seen it from this angle.

Over the years, I’ve encountered many self-proclaimed Solomonic magicians, about 99.9% of whom are in the Chinese-speaking world.

These people have virtually no primary sources to draw upon. What’s circulating on the market consists of translations of translations, courses reverse-engineered from fragments, and the personas of instructors built on top of those courses. The tradition washes ashore like a set of theatrical costumes, with no manuscripts underneath. No one can verify anything because the texts needed for verification simply don’t exist in Chinese. As a result, the transmission of this tradition is entirely at the mercy of the sellers, and their asking prices rise in tandem with their level of confidence.

If you truly want the texts, you’ll ultimately have no choice but to do what I did: buy the English editions and plow through them line by line. I often joke with myself that after plowing through so much dense English, I might as well just take the TOEFL exam.

Here’s the part I didn’t expect. While reading old posts on this forum, I discovered that you’re facing another version of the same problem. From what I’ve observed, almost everyone here is also self-taught through books. Teachers are scarce, and the groups that offer instruction follow a different system; half of those who call themselves teachers are the very subjects of scam-warning posts. The difference is that while you lack oral transmission, we don’t even have the books themselves. It’s like two floors in the same building, both clutching a grimoire and asking, “So what now?”

So I’d like to ask you all two questions.

1. To the veterans who entered the field before the excellent editions by Peterson and Skinner were published: What did the scam courses of your era look like, and how did you learn to spot them?

2. To those of you practicing on your own by following the books: When a book isn’t clear on a certain step, how do you fill that gap? Do you consult older parallel texts, borrow from other living traditions, or rely on trial and error? At what point does filling in the gaps mean it’s no longer “Solomon’s”?

Feel free to ask me anything about the Chinese-speaking community. It’s a mirror that reflects a rather strange image.

 

[dzb10035]

I don't have a lot of thoughts regarding your first question since I never really cared much to try and find a course for Solomonic magick. I always preferred to learn by myself anyway. So I can tell you about the second question. The first part we have to understand is that Solomonic magick is a much wider field than simply the Goetia / Lesser Key of Solomon, which is what I think you are referencing in your post. And even in the best of translations (e.g. Skinner, Peterson), you will find the grimoires lack a lot of step-by-step instruction and crucial context on what you need to do in a proper evocation. The instructions are scattered throughout the text and you often need to piece these things together yourself, which I think you already get.

For me, I consult the different translations / editions and would use that as a base. There is a particularly nice structure that Stephen Skinner provides in his Goetia of Dr. Rudd on the different stages of a Solomonic evocation, this is a great point that is omitted from Peterson's work. So parallel cross-referencing is always helpful between editions of the same work. Going further with older texts, you would need to be careful about going too far towards different works. They contain similar ideas (e.g. the circle, the wand, the triangle), but their methods can differ significantly. I would keep to the versions and use those as a skeleton. I do like placing more modern approaches (e.g. banishing rituals) into the steps proposed by skinner, but that's because I think the grimoires often provide archaic steps that are better fulfilled by modern rituals as opposed to older rituals, but you will find people disagreeing with me who are traditionalists. Truthfully, this part is up to you.

 

[baobaoking]

Thank you for your detailed response. I have Rudd’s book—the annotated edition by Skinner and Rankine. Until now, I’ve mainly used it as a reference for looking up sigils, and I haven’t yet set aside the section on the structure of the summoning stages that you mentioned to read it separately, but I’ll do that next.

Regarding the framework, our approaches are almost identical. In addition to the editions of the Lemegeton and The Key of Solomon you mentioned, my foundation also includes Skinner’s annotated edition of the Hygromanteia, which I treat as the upstream source of the entire system. In terms of theoretical framework, Stratton-Kent’s Geosophia has had the greatest influence on me. Since I originally came from the devotional path and primarily studied the PGM tradition, Geosophia’s argument tracing Goetia back to the Greek underworld tradition perfectly bridged my two lines of study. I also have a collection of annotated editions and scholarly works related to Goetia here locally, so I won’t list them all one by one.

My principles may be somewhat extreme. For every pronunciation and every stroke, I insist on tracing it back to the original text; I reject any fabrication. My interest in the Solomonic system stems, ultimately, from the fact that—at least where I live—I don’t trust people. Some things are simply true, and others are simply false; I trust only texts that can be verified.

Let me describe the reality over here. I’ve asked some Solomonist practitioners in the Chinese community why a certain step is done a certain way or why a specific symbol is drawn a certain way. The usual response is, “That’s what my teacher taught me.” I’d then ask, “Which teacher? What book and which specific procedure is that based on?” Many of them flew into a rage on the spot. One even threatened to summon a minor demon to beat me up. So you can understand that being able to discuss the origins of a step as calmly as we are now is, in itself, a luxury for me.

I’ve also purchased courses from English-speaking teachers. It wasn’t so much about wanting to take classes as it was about paying for knowledge—a form of respect for others’ research—something that’s very hard to achieve where I come from. I’ve spent quite a bit of money—and that doesn’t even include the astronomical sums I’ve been swindled out of by local scammers in the past. Sometimes I feel like I’m not pursuing some grand dream; I simply want to learn, yet learning itself has become an extremely costly endeavor.

Theologically, I hold only one principle: I believe the position at the very top of the hierarchy is unknowable. I’m certain He exists, but I won’t claim to know who He is.

Practically speaking, I’ve already gathered all the tools for DSIC, but I haven’t started yet. On the one hand, I feel I’m not rigorous enough; on the other hand, DSIC isn’t entirely the path I’ve ultimately settled on. Instead, I’d like to hear your thoughts on DSIC. Where I live, many people are using this approach, though I don’t know how genuine they are. To say something that might be controversial: given my background in chthonic-oriented work, my view is that in a place where lying is the norm, the local spirits are likely just as prone to lying—especially those wild spirits not listed in any registry. If something impersonates a spirit, many people will fall for it. I’ve seen this happen far too often in my own work experience to list every instance. Still, I understand the principle: to learn to swim, you have to get in the water.

By the way, this forum has actually helped me once before. While reading through old posts, I came across a line saying that there are no “safe” spirits in Goetia—stability comes from technique, not the spirits themselves. That statement was incredibly helpful to me.

To be honest, this past year of intense study has left me completely exhausted, and the more books I read, the more baffled I sometimes feel.