Practice · Tools · Ars Goetia
Goetic lamen
A spirit's individual character worn on the operator's breast as a lamen during that spirit's calling.
What the source describes
In Sloane MS 3825, 'lamen' often describes how a spirit's seal is worn rather than a single universal badge. Bael's character is to be worn as a lamen before him; later entries repeat that a seal is made and worn as a lamen. The catalogue therefore joins identity and ritual display: the lamen is the selected spirit's sign in wearable form.
Historical setting
The Ars Goetia is the first part of the seventeenth-century Lemegeton compilation. Its diagrams and implements belong to that textual setting; attribution to Solomon is part of the work's traditional frame, not a historical authorship claim.
Common uses
It is worn before the operator during the named spirit's invocation. The catalogue claims that particular spirits recognize, obey, or do homage before their characters. Those claims vary in wording from entry to entry and should be read as part of the manuscript's instructions, not as a tested guarantee.
Form, materials and reconstruction
The source does not provide one generic lamen design. Its content changes with the spirit, and the surviving seals can differ among manuscripts. A responsible reconstruction starts from the chosen spirit's figure in a specified witness and records the support and method only when that witness supplies them.
Element: No fixed element
This source does not assign this particular instrument a fixed element. Its materials or effects should not be turned into an elemental correspondence without a named source.
Sources and variations
The pentagonal figure worn on the breast and the individual spirit-seal worn as a lamen are related pieces of the Goetic apparatus, but not necessarily the same object. Crowley's later Book 4 lamen has a different symbolic theory again.
Primary account used here
Lemegeton, Ars Goetia, The magical circle, triangle and lamen ↗
Further references
- Lemegeton: manuscript introduction ↗Places the Goetia within the larger five-part compilation and identifies the manuscripts used.
- Key of Knowledge, Add. MS. 36674 ↗A related Solomonic witness for comparing circles, instruments and ritual layout without treating the texts as identical.