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The seal of Camio, from the 1904 edition
S. L. MacGregor Mathers & Aleister Crowley (1904 edition). Wikimedia Commons ↗ · Public domain.

the 53rd spirit

Camio

Also called Caim.

  • Titles President
  • Seal in Mercury
  • Legions 30
  • Of seventy-two No. 53

Reading this entry

The number places Camio in this edition's seventy-two-part catalogue. Its titles and the metal assigned to its seal come from the edition's classified appendix; the legion count is read from the entry itself. The passage below may describe an appearance, an office, a voice or an older order of beings. These are things the book says, not independent facts about a spirit. The original wording is left intact so a reader can check exactly where the description ends and our notes begin.

Edition: Mathers translation, Crowley edition, 1904. View the printed volume ↗

What the book says

From the 1904 edition, with its spelling and capitalisation preserved.

The Fifty-third Spirit is Camio, or Caim. He is a Great President, and appeareth in the Form of the Bird called a Thrush at first, but afterwards he putteth on the Shape of a Man carrying in his Hand a Sharp Sword. He seemeth to answer in Burning Ashes, or in Coals of Fire. He is a Good Disputer. His Office is to give unto Men the Understanding of all Birds, Lowing of Bullocks, Barking of Dogs, and other Creatures; and also of the Voice of the Waters. He giveth True Answers of Things to Come. He was of the Order of Angels, but now ruleth over 30 Legions of Spirits Infernal. His Seal is this, which wear thou, etc.

The Goetia, trans. Mathers, ed. Crowley, 1904 — spirit 53.

Sources

Goetic office canonical

President, 30 legions

Rank and legion count as the 1904 edition gives them. The legions come from the phrase that closes almost every entry; the rank comes from the book's own appendix, which classifies all seventy-two and states the metal each rank's seal is to be made in — mercury for this one. The entries use rank words descriptively as well — Eligos appears 'in the form of a goodly Knight' and Barbatos comes 'with four noble Kings' — so a rank harvested from the prose would invent titles the book does not give. Only the appendix classifies.

Sources (1)
  1. Lemegeton , The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King — The Goetia, spirit 53
    “The Fifty-third Spirit is Camio, or Caim. He is a Great President, and appeareth in the Form of the Bird called a Thrush at first, but afterwards he putteth on the Shape of a Man carrying in his Hand a Sharp Sword. He seemeth to answer in Burning Ashes, or in Coals of Fire. He is a Good Disputer. His Office is to give unto Men the Understanding of all Birds, Lowing of Bullocks, Barking of Dogs, and other Creatures; and also of the Voice of the Waters. He giveth True Answers of Things to Come. He was of the Order of Angels, but now ruleth over 30 Legions of Spirits Infernal. His Seal is...”

    Verbatim, cut from the 1904 text by script/extract_goetia.rb. Mathers' spelling and capitalisation are left exactly as printed.

    Read at archive.org ↗

Goetic rank canonical

The APPENDIX classifies this spirit, not its entry. The entries use rank words descriptively as well — Eligos appears 'in the form of a goodly Knight' — so a rank taken from the prose would invent titles the book does not give.

Sources (1)
  1. Lemegeton , The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King — Classified List of the 72 Chief Spirits

    Read at archive.org ↗

Other presidents

Correspondences 1 sourced correspondence
Relation To First attested
Goetic rank President 1600 CE

See it on the map As a table The goetic spirits table