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Origin 1577
Ose is the 57th spirit of the Ars Goetia, the first book of the Lesser Key of Solomon (Lemegeton), one of the seventy-two spirits sealed and bound by King Solomon into a vessel of brass. It is ranked as a President and commands 30 legions of spirits. It appears first as a leopard and then as a man; it makes men cunning in the liberal sciences, gives true answers of divine and secret things, and can transform a man into any shape, so that he believes himself to be that thing. Studied here academically as a shadow entry, it is paired in the arrangement of Thomas Rudd with an opposing angel of the Shem ha-Mephorash: the demon of a given degree is set against, and held in check by, the Shem angel of that same degree, here Nemamiah.
Facts
Origins
Origin Period1577 1Tradition: Weyer, Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577) Origin Period1584 2Tradition: Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) Origin Period1904 to 2000 3Tradition: The grimoire tradition Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own accountManuscripts run 1641 to 1712; text cannot predate 1665 4Tradition: Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own accountMid-seventeenth century composition 4Tradition: Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis Place of OriginScot's rendering and every Lemegeton manuscript are English 3 Place of OriginWeyer's catalogue printed on the Continent in Latin 3 Attributed Author / CompilerJohann Weyer (1515-1588), Dutch physician to the Duke of Cleves 5 Attributed Author / CompilerSourced to the subject's own accountNo compiler named in any Lemegeton manuscript 4 Attributed Author / CompilerPrinted the ancestor catalogue in 1577 against the witch prosecutions 5 Attributed Author / CompilerSourced to the subject's own accountSolomon ascription is an inherited frame, not a manuscript claim 4 LanguageSourced to the subject's own account Rival Systems
A Rival System's AttributionSourced to the subject's own accountThat Harley 6482 pairing is associated with Thomas Rudd 4Tradition: Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis A Rival System's AttributionSourced to the subject's own accountThe angel pairing by matching number belongs to the Harley 6482 tradition 4Tradition: Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis A Rival System's AttributionSourced to the subject's own accountThe Ars Goetia itself assigns no angel to any of the seventy-two spirits 4Tradition: Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis Status
Standing as a Comparative CategorySourced to the subject's own accountA modern system making claims scholarship never entertained; it never held scholarly standing 4 Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseNow read and reprinted as a manual, inverting its original purpose 5 Contested or Appropriated Modern UseWeyer compiled it to argue the accused were deluded, not guilty 5 Learn More
The Spirit, Its Rank and Its Legions
Ose is listed as spirit number 57 of the seventy-two in the Ars Goetia, the first book of the Lesser Key of Solomon (Lemegeton). The grimoire gives it the rank of President and places 30 legions of spirits under its command. The ranks used throughout the catalogue, king, prince, duke, marquis, president, earl (count) and knight, are borrowed from the hierarchy of a European royal court and the medieval nobility rather than from any infernal order of precedence, and the legion-counts serve as a conventional literary measure of a spirit's standing.
The particular office ascribed to Ose, the powers it is said to grant an operator who "calls" it, is recorded in the entry's description. The material is set out here as a documented feature of an early-modern magical text, with no suggestion that the spirit is real or that the operations described have any effect; the Lesser Key is treated as a subject of historical and literary study, and no invocation or ritual instruction is given.
The Textual Tradition: Weyer, the Lemegeton and Mathers
The Ars Goetia is the best-known part of the Lemegeton, a compilation of five magical treatises assembled in the mid-seventeenth century (the earliest surviving manuscripts date to around 1641) out of considerably older material. Its immediate ancestor is the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, a catalogue of spirits printed by the Dutch physician Johann Weyer in 1577 as an appendix to his work against the persecution of witches; Weyer listed sixty-nine spirits, and the Goetia's total of seventy-two was reached by later additions.
Reginald Scot rendered Weyer's catalogue into English in The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584). The version through which nearly all modern readers meet the text is The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King, edited by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and published by Aleister Crowley in 1904; the rank and legion-count given here for Ose follow that standard list. The tradition is described in historical and academic terms, as a body of early-modern demonological literature, and the spirits are not presented as real beings.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Attested In
Catalogued with its rank, office and seal in the first book of the Lemegeton.
Derived From
The Ars Goetia's seventy two spirit catalog draws on Weyer's sixty nine, close to seventy recognizable one for one, with the source's critical framing removed.
Originates in Language
Sources
1. Pseudomonarchia Daemonum
Johann Weyer, Officina Oporiniana, 1577The spirit in Weyer's catalogue of demonsView the Source 2. The Discoverie of Witchcraft
Reginald Scot, Elliot Stock, 1584the English rendering of Weyer's catalogue; the Goetia's text descends from the enlarged edition of 1665, not from this oneView the Source 3. Grimoires: A History of Magic Books
Owen Davies, Oxford University Press, 2009chs. on the early modern grimoire and its English manuscript traditionView the Source 4. Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis (The Lesser Key of Solomon)
Anonymous (unidentified compiler)the Ars Goetia: the seventy-two spirits with their ranks, legions and sealsView the Source 5. De Praestigiis Daemonum
Johann Weyer, Johannes Oporinus, 1563the argument of De Praestigiis Daemonum against the reasoning of the prosecutionsView the Source The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King
Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers (trans.); Aleister Crowley (ed. and publisher), 1904Entry for Ose, spirit 57 of the GoetiaView the Source Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
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