The Skeleton Key of Solomon

A note about the price: This book is of a rare nature, not for the general public, and the author has priced it accordingly. Less affluent readers are invited to pursue used copies or contact the author directly. Whether carved into amulets, daubed onto parchment, traced through ashes, or scratched in sand, ritual diagrams are the age-old precursors to our modern circuit boards, their intricately flowing lines summoning powerful energies. Five thousand years ago in China, the Yin-Yang alchemists of Taoism painted mysterious calligraphy onto rice paper, creating magic talismans imbued with the secrets of the universe. Each stroke and dot of their ink comprised a program for channeling the forces of nature, whether it be to influence human events or to establish contact with the non-material realm. In later years, and on other continents, the spiritual ancestors of the Taoist sorcerers developed their own systems of charms. In West African Vodou ceremonies, we find striking vévé diagrams, those stylized "character sketches" that compel the deities to come forward. In Europe, we find the goetic sigils, those mystical glyphs documented in the grimoires of Medieval evocation rites. Interestingly, the sigils and the vévés share some striking parallels. In both cases, the diagrams conjure astral forces into the earthly plane, and they do so with some very similar symbols. Do the similarities constitute mere coincidence, or do they point to a profound significance?