Learning to work with the Greater Key of Solomon: seals, spirits, and steady study

A grimoire is a working book, not a reading book alone

The Greater Key of Solomon is a grimoire, and a grimoire is a working book. It can be read, and it should be read, but reading alone is not working with it. Working with it means learning its seals, learning the spirits contained in it, and learning how to use it in practice, in your own system, under teaching you trust. That is the subject of the course in this article: to learn to work with the Greater Key of Solomon, its planetary seals as well as the spirits contained in it, and also how to utilise it for working with the Goetia, or Lemegeton.

That last point deserves attention, because it is easy to treat the Greater Key and the Goetia as two separate books that never meet. In practice, many workers use them together, and learning how they relate is part of learning either one well. The Greater Key gives planetary seals and a framework for working with spirits. The Goetia gives a particular set of spirits, with seals, offices, and methods of its own. Learning how to utilise one for working with the other is therefore not a shortcut. It is a study in how two systems fit together, where they agree, where they differ, and where a worker must choose, deliberately, which method to follow for a particular working.

Start with the seals, and learn them one at a time

Planetary seals are the first thing to learn, and they are worth learning one at a time, rather than all at once. A seal is not a decoration. It is a figure with a place in a system, and that place gives it meaning. Learn what planet a seal belongs to, what that planet governs in the system you are studying, and how that seal is used in a working, before you move on to the next one. A notebook that lists seals you have not yet learned is not the same as a notebook that records seals you have actually worked with, and it is worth keeping the two apart.

Copying a seal by hand, slowly, is a better way to learn it than printing it and filing it. Copying forces you to look at each line, each letter, and each proportion, and to notice where your copy differs from the original. Those differences are information. They tell you where you have not yet seen the seal clearly, and where you need to look again. Do not rush this stage. A seal learned slowly, and learned well, will stay with you when you need it in a working. A seal skimmed quickly will leave you at the moment you need it most.

Keep a record for each seal: when you studied it, what you learned about it, what working you used it in, and what you noticed afterwards. That record is what turns a collection of seals into a working knowledge of seals. Without it, you have a library. With it, you have a practice.

Then learn the spirits contained in the book

Spirits contained in the Greater Key are not names to collect. Each one has a place, an office, and a method of working, in the system as it is taught. Learn them in the same way you learn the seals: one at a time, with attention to place and office, and with a record of what you actually did, rather than a list of what you have read about. A spirit you have read about, and a spirit you have worked with, are not the same thing, and it is worth being honest with yourself about which one you mean when you say you know a spirit.

Preparation is most of the work, and that is true for study as well as for a formal working. Clear the space you will use for study, set it aside for that purpose, and study at a regular time, in a regular place, if you can. That regularity is not fussiness. It is how a practice becomes a habit, and how a habit becomes a part of your life, rather than a thing you do when you happen to remember it. Study in short, regular sessions, rather than in long, irregular bursts, and write down what you learned at the end of each session, in plain language, while it is still fresh.

If you have a teacher, follow that teacher's instructions for working with spirits in this system, rather than improvising a method from a general article. A general article like this one is not a substitute for proper teaching in the system, and it should not be used to invent a rite for a spirit you have not been taught to work with. If you do not have a teacher, be honest about that as well, and study the book itself, slowly, before you attempt a working that the book describes.

Using the Greater Key for Goetia work

Learning how to utilise the Greater Key for working with the Goetia, or Lemegeton, means learning where the two books meet, and where they do not. The Goetia has its own seals, its own offices, and its own methods, and those methods should be learned on their own terms, before they are combined with another system. Once you know both systems separately, you can begin to see, with a teacher's guidance, how a planetary seal from the Greater Key might frame, support, or clarify a Goetia working, and where combining the two would blur a distinction that the books themselves keep clear.

That combining, when it is done well, is deliberate. It names what is being taken from each book, why it is being taken, and what is being left out, and why. It does not mix methods because they sound similar, or because a seal looks similar to another seal. Similarity of appearance is not similarity of office, and a working that treats them as the same will be confused in its petition, even if it looks impressive in its tools. Be specific about the working: which spirit, which seal, which method, and what petition, in one clear sentence, before you begin.

Keep the same record for combined work as for single-system work, with one addition: note, for each working, which book each element came from. That note is what lets you tell, weeks later, whether a result, or a lack of result, had anything to do with the combination, or with one element alone. Without that note, you will not know what to repeat, and what to change, and you will be left with a feeling about a working, rather than a record of it.

A steady study practice, and knowing when to stop

A course in a grimoire is not a race. It is a steady study practice, and it is worth treating it that way. Study regularly, practise what you study, record what you practise, and review your record at intervals, rather than rushing to the end of the book and calling that completion. Completion, in this kind of work, is not finishing the last page. It is being able to work, calmly and clearly, with the seals and spirits you have studied, and to say, in plain language, what you did, why you did it, and what you noticed.

Do not repeat the same working endlessly in the hope that repetition alone will force a result. Do the work properly, once, observe, and then decide, calmly, whether a second working, a different approach, or no further working is the right next step. Repetition without reflection is not persistence. It is noise. The same is true for study: do not reread the same chapter endlessly without practising it, and do not practise endlessly without reviewing what your practice actually showed you.

Sometimes the right answer is not a spirit working at all. If the situation is a legal matter, a safety matter, or a medical matter, deal with that matter in the ordinary world first, or at the same time. Ritual work is not a substitute for a lawyer, a doctor, or for leaving a dangerous situation. If you are unsure whether a working is appropriate, wait, ask a teacher you trust, or choose a simpler practice first and see how that sits. The course is offered for learning to work with the Greater Key of Solomon, in the terms given here, and what follows from that learning, in terms of magical result, is yours to observe, not mine to guarantee. That wording is about magical result, not about delivery dates for a course or a physical item.

Learn to work with the Greater Key of Solomon course

A grimoire is a working book, not a reading book alone. Learning to work with it means learning its seals, its spirits, and how it relates to Goetia work.

This course is for learning to work with the Greater Key of Solomon grimoire, its planetary seals as well as the spirits contained in it, and also how to utilise it for working with the Goetia, or Lemegeton. I make no promise about what it will do for you, only that it is taught for this work, in the terms given here.

If you want to learn in this way, this is the course I offer: Learn to work with the Greater Key of Solomon course, $216 CAD. View the product

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