The Key of Solomon

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God appeared before me at the time when I was saying O how wonderful are the works of God original: "O quam mirabilia opera Dei", How great and admirable are the works of God. All of a sudden I perceived at the end of an alley thick with trees a light in the form of a burning star which said to me in a thundering voice: Solomon, Solomon, be not astonished; the Lord is willing to satisfy your curiosity by giving you the knowledge of the thing which will be most agreeable to you; I command you to ask of Him what you desire: Whereupon, having recovered from the surprise I was in, I replied to the Angel that, after the will of the Lord, I desired only the gift of Wisdom The term "Sapience" refers to divine wisdom or spiritual insight, and by the goodness of the Great God, I obtained in addition the enjoyment of all Celestial Treasures and the knowledge of all natural things. It is, my Son, by this means that I possess all the virtues and riches which you see me enjoy at present; and if you are willing to be even slightly attentive to all that I am going to relate to you, and if you carefully retain what I am going to tell you, I assure you that the graces of the Great God will be familiar to you, and that the Celestial and terrestrial Creatures will be obedient to you, a science

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which operates only through the force and power of natural things, and of the pure Angels who govern them, of whom I shall give you the names in order, their particular exercises and offices to which they are destined, together with the days over which they particularly preside, so that you may be able to accomplish everything that you will find in this my Testament; the success of which I promise, provided that all your works tend only to the honor of God, who has given me the power to dominate not only over terrestrial things, but also over Celestial things—that is to say, over the Angels, whom I can dispose of at my will and obtain from them very considerable services.

You must first know that God, having made all things to be subject to Him, wished to carry His works to the most perfect degree by making a work that participates in both the Divine and the Terrestrial—that is to say, Man, whose body is coarse and earthly, and the soul spiritual and celestial, to whom He has subjected all the earth and its inhabitants, and has given him means by which he can make the Angels familiar to him, who