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

the 55th spirit

Orobas

  • Titles Prince
  • Seal in Tin
  • Legions 20
  • Of seventy-two No. 55

Reading this entry

The number places Orobas 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-fifth Spirit is Orobas. He is a great and Mighty Prince, appearing at first like a Horse; but after the command of the Exorcist he putteth on the Image of a Man. His Office is to discover all things Past, Present, and to Come; also to give Dignities, and Prelacies, and the Favour of Friends and of Foes. He giveth True Answers of Divinity, and of the Creation of the World. He is very faithful unto the Exorcist, and will not suffer him to be tempted of any Spirit. He governeth 20 Legions of Spirits. His Seal is this, etc.

The Goetia, trans. Mathers, ed. Crowley, 1904 — spirit 55.

Sources

Goetic office canonical

Prince, 20 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 — tin 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 55
    “The Fifty-fifth Spirit is Orobas. He is a great and Mighty Prince, appearing at first like a Horse; but after the command of the Exorcist he putteth on the Image of a Man. His Office is to discover all things Past, Present, and to Come; also to give Dignities, and Prelacies, and the Favour of Friends and of Foes. He giveth True Answers of Divinity, and of the Creation of the World. He is very faithful unto the Exorcist, and will not suffer him to be tempted of any Spirit. He governeth 20 Legions of Spirits. His Seal is this, etc.”

    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 princes

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

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