Shax

Also called Shaz and Shass.

Titles Marquis
Seal in Silver
Legions 30
Of seventy-two No. 44

Reading this entry

The number places Shax 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 Forty-fourth Spirit is Shax, or Shaz (or Shass). He is a Great Marquis and appeareth in the Form of a Stock-Dove, speaking with a voice hoarse, but yet subtle. His Office is to take away the Sight, Hearing, or Understanding of any Man or Woman at the command of the Exorcist; and to steal money out of the houses of Kings, and to carry it again in 1,200 years. If commanded he will fetch Horses at the request of the Exorcist, or any other thing. But he must first be commanded into a Triangle, J, or else he will deceive him, and tell him many Lies. He can discover all things that are Hidden, and not kept by Wicked Spirits. He giveth good Familiars, sometimes. He governeth 30 Legions of Spirits, and his Seal is this, etc.

The Goetia, trans. Mathers, ed. Crowley, 1904 — spirit 44.

Sources

Goetic office canonical

Marquis, 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 — silver 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)

Lemegeton , The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King — The Goetia, spirit 44
“The Forty-fourth Spirit is Shax, or Shaz (or Shass). He is a Great Marquis and appeareth in the Form of a Stock-Dove, speaking with a voice hoarse, but yet subtle. His Office is to take away the Sight, Hearing, or Understanding of any Man or Woman at the command of the Exorcist; and to steal money out of the houses of Kings, and to carry it again in 1,200 years. If commanded he will fetch Horses at the request of the Exorcist, or any other thing. But he must first be commanded into a Triangle, J, or else he will deceive him, and tell him many Lies. He can discover all things that are...”

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)

Lemegeton , The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King — Classified List of the 72 Chief Spirits
Read at archive.org ↗

Other marquises

Correspondences 1 sourced correspondence

Attested correspondences for Shax
Relation	To	First attested
Goetic rank	Marquis	1600 CE

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