The Key of Solomon the King

The Key of Solomon the King (in Latin, Clavis Salomonis or Clavicula Salomonis) is a grimoire, a handbook for how to carry out various magical rituals through summoning demons. Grimoires are a common element of popular culture. They are often seen in popular literature, films, and television shows, but these portrayals rarely relate very closely to historical realities. Nevertheless, The Key of Solomon the King is the source of the common image of the grimoire, with its combination of demonic conjurations and spells based on the power of magical names. The grimoire is a genre almost as old as writing in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The oldest magical handbooks had tremendous prestige, since they contained rituals for protecting and benefiting the king and the state. Over time the ritualists who used such books adapted them to the needs of a more popular audience. This trend increased as Near Eastern magic was received in the Greek and Roman worlds. Magic was mainly meant to benefit the individual at the expense of society through attacking business rivals, subverting the courts, seducing married women, and the like.

The Key of Solomon was composed in the early sixteenth century by an unknown humanist, probably an Italian priest. However, the magical way of thinking championed by the text was abandoned during the Scientific Revolution (beginning in the mid-sixteenth century) and, later, the Enlightenment, and the text fell into obscurity. The Key of Solomon assumed its historical importance in the late nineteenth century, when it was revived because it had been forgotten, to serve as the cornerstone of the modern occultist movement.