Ars Salomonis: Being of that Hidden Arte of Solomon Rex
By G. St. M. Nottingham
Mercurius Press, 2009, 126pp
This little book is a fine example of the alchemists art! The author has taken and elucidated on the edition of the Key of Solomon produced by MacGregor Mathers in 1889, the only version available to magicians until 2008. He reproduces all the pentacles from this work, giving the appropriate translation of the associated Psalms, and also the sigils for the spiritual creatures on the pentacles. This refining of the material immediately transforms the Mathers edition into something more workable. Sadly Mathers, in his mixing of documents, lost much of the practical flavour of many of the Key of Solomon manuscripts, which can be seen in The Veritable Key of Solomon (Golden Hoard, 2008). But the author does not stop here, he goes on to provide practical instructions for the consecration and use of the talismans, without which they are inert and useless. Gary Nottingham is to be congratulated on this work which unlocks the corpus of one of Mathers’ most significant works, and showing how the application of magical principles is the key to success, and even to other keys!

