Solomonic Magic

Gal Sofer, MD, PhD, is a senior lecturer in the Department of the Arts at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He has studied medieval and early modern magic and Kabbalah, focusing on knowledge transmission and transformation across linguistic boundaries.

• PrefaceList of Figures and TablesA Note on Hebrew TransliterationPart 1 Methodology1 Philology1 Genes and Scale Shifting2 Textual Networks2 Solomonic Magic: A Term in Flux or a Distinct Tradition?1 Defining through Polemical Discourses2 The Anatomical Anomaly of “Solomonic Magic”3 From Micro(s) to Macro: Multi-Sources and Scribal Strategies1 Practitioners’ Confessions2 Genesis NarrativesPart 1: SummaryPart 2 TextsClusters and Nodes: A Brief Introduction4 Liber Bileth (LB)1 Liber Bileth: Fusing Two Texts into One2 The Book of Spirits3 The Marvelous Ring4 Liber Bileth: Preliminary Intra-Clusteric Genetic Analysis5 Clavicula Salomonis (CS)1 Italian and Latin Claviculae: The Clavicula’s Ritual and Six Methods2 An English Clavicula: The Return of Bileth Son of Aned3 French Clavicula4 Hebrew Claviculae5 Clavicula Salomonis: Preliminary Intra-Clusteric Genetic Analysis6 Sapientia Salomonis (SP)1 A Consecrated Catalog of Demons2 Liber consecrationum3 Ḥokhmat Shlomo: The Hebrew SP s4 Sapientia Salomonis: Preliminary Intra-Clusteric Genetic Analysis5 Liber centum regum6 Intra- and Inter-Clusteric AnalysisPart 2: SummaryPart 3 HistoriesIntroduction: Beyond the Solomonic Veil7 The Babylonian Background1 Ḥover Ḥaver—The Reception of a Biblical Term2 Babylonian Jews and Demons—Expelling or Gathering?8 Sefer Haqqevitza1 Gathering Demons in Fustat—Sefer Haqqevitza and the Four Elements2 Sefer Haqqevitza—A Babylonian Component of the Solomonic Network3 Solomonic Attribution4 Where Are You, Arabic Sources? Some Short Notes on a Great Lacuna9 Binding Demons in Medieval Ashkenaz and Provence1 Ashkenazic Ḥasidim and Sefer Haqqevitza2 The Chiefs of the Teli3 The Demonology of the Kohen Brothers10 Binding Demons in Medieval Spain—The Astral Turn1 Moses of Burgos and Nachmanides2 Liber Razielis3 Berit Menuḥa11 Berengar Ganell and Liber Theysolius1 The Magisterium and the Summa2 Repositories of Names: The Case of Liber Theysolius12 The Age of the Clavicula1 Clavicula Salomonis: An Italian Reaction to Information Overload2 SQR Genes in the Early Modern Period3 Abraham Colorni and the Untold Story of the Hebrew Claviculae13 Curating Wisdom—The Art of Knowledge Cataloging1 Making Catalogs I: Demons2 Making Catalogs II: Pentacles14 The Greek Myth1 Rethinking the Hygromanteia Hypothesis2 Catoptromancy and the Solomonic NetworkPart 3: SummarySolomonic Magic: Final ThoughtsBibliographyIndex