Practice · Tools · Key of Solomon
Trumpet
A newly made wooden trumpet sounded in a fixed circuit through the four quarters before the calling begins.
What the source describes
Chapter VII places the trumpet after the circle has been made, perfumed, and sprinkled. One side bears divine names and the other manuscript-specific characters. Its signal tells the spirits that they are about to be summoned; the operator then renews the circle and fumigations before proceeding.
Historical setting
The Key of Solomon survives as a family of manuscripts rather than one authorial master copy. Instrument names, drawings, preparation details and even which tools appear can differ between witnesses, so this page follows the cited edition and records its variants.
Common uses
Inside the circle it is sounded East, South, West, and North, in that order, followed by a short announcement. Chapter IX later abbreviates this to a sounding toward the East before invocation. It is therefore both a spatial signal and a formal threshold in the ceremony, not ambient music.
Form, materials and reconstruction
The edited passage calls for a trumpet of new wood, written with the pen and ink of the art. The divine names are variously preserved: the edition prints Elohim Gibor and Elohim Tzabaoth, while Aub. 24 gives 'God of Armies' and other manuscripts preserve corrupted or shortened forms. The design should be tied to a particular witness rather than normalized from memory.
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
Aub. 24 devotes a separate chapter to the trumpet; other witnesses abbreviate, corrupt, or omit its preparation. It should not be merged with Crowley's bell, which belongs to a different text and has a different symbolic function.
Primary account used here
Key of Solomon, Book II, Book II, chapter VII ↗
Further references
- Key of Solomon: introduction and contents ↗Editorial history and an overview of the manuscript-based edition.
- Hebrew Key of Solomon ↗A different witness with its own section on magical instruments and requisites.