Magic Words: A Dictionary
Astronumerography
Upmanship Tricks: Secrets of One-Upping Magicians
The Pencil Witch
Seance Parlor Feng Shui
The Care and Feeding of a Spirit Board
Divination By Punctuation
Heirs to the Queen of Hearts: Tracing Magical Genealogy
How to Believe in Your Elf
The Skeleton Key of Solomon
The One Minute Mystic
The Egyptian Secrets in Your Name
The Original Cloudbuster (iOS App)
Oracle of the Two-Fold Gods
The Young Wizard's Hexopedia
Of Feeding & Caring For Sheet Ghosts
ESP Symbols: An Entire Language For Psychic Spies?
Of Drinking in Remembrance of the Dead
Nostradamus Predicted Your Next Diet
How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook
Magic Archetypes
Astragalomancy: A Loaded Guide
The JINX Companion
Machinarium Verbosus
A Field Guide to Identifying Unicorns by Sound
The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine
Trump L'Oeil: Tarot of Portmeirion
The Magician's Hidden Library: Select a book to read online or get one for your shelf
Unique resources to inspire pure wonder and awe



The Skeleton Key of Solomon
Unlocking the Secret Reflection of Sigils and Vévés

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?

Featured in this book are side-by-side comparisons of sigils and vévés for you to consider.  Because two vastly different cultures are represented, the names and descriptions of the spiritual entities will vary.  However, the diagrams’ similar shapes and design motifs may suggest a higher commonality, and we’ll pose some intriguing questions at the end of our survey.

PRAISE FOR THE SKELETON KEY OF SOLOMON

The Skeleton Key of Solomon is an amazing book.  The similarities between vévés and sigils are truly remarkable.”  Gordon Meyer, author of Smart Home Hacks


About the Author


Craig Conley is a magic enthusiast and scholar.  Recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation,” his intensive and eccentric research has led him to compile a true masterwork entitled Magic Words: A Dictionary.  He has also authored One-Letter Words: A Dictionary, among other strange and unusual lexicons, and is a regular columnist for Pentacle magazine.  Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time.  He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan.  His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size.

Featured Works:
  • Magic Words: A Dictionary
  • Magic Archetypes: The Art Behind the Science of Conjuring
  • The Skeleton Key of Solomon
  • The Collected Oldest Trick(s) in the Book(s)
  • Esoteric Articles
  • Trump L’Oeil: Tarot of Portmeirion

    Published Works
    Published Works by Craig Conley


  • Online Resources


  • Jeff McBride’s YourMagic.com
  • Eugene Burger’s MagicBeard.com
  • Rebuilding a Mystery
  • Abecedarian blog
  • Magic Words blog
  • The Mystic's Book of Days

    A free daily symbolic outlook
    for magical people


    You open The Mystic’s Book of Days at page 845,118.  How does each symbol speak to you?  Watch for patterns and note the flow.  For further insights, generate and print your own personal symbolic calendar for the month...


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