The Lemegeton claims that, Solomon bound the spirits (jinn) in “the Vessel of Brass”. The text goes on to emphasize that construction must be undertaken after one is cleansed inside and out, underlying sexual abstinence in particular. The central image is noted in the Mathers edition of the Lesser Key to depict a figure with arms raised in adoration.
It is, however, noteworthy that the description of planetary association, lunar phase and time of day as well as month, reflect the outer seal circle as a depiction of the zodiac wheel with a specific orientation. It surrounds the central figure, and forms a celestial cross around them.
Thus, the seal is made on the day of Mars (Tuesday) or Saturn (Saturday), at midnight when the moon is waxing (new to full) in the sign of Virgo. Both planets are associated with the underworld, but one needs to extend beyond a single East Mediterranean culture.
For example, the Babylonian Mars, Nergal, was lord of the Underworld, and the Greek titan Kronos was banished to Tartarus and later (in some kinder stories) moved to rule the Western Isles of the blessed also associated with the afterlife. So we are turning toward the land of the dead through layers of correspondences that are associated with it overtly or more subtly. Goetia and necromancy deal with the same domain, just different occupants of it. And yet the celestial predominates.
The parchment itself must be virgin (without prior writing), and the ink is the blood of a black rooster who also must be a virgin, just like the summoner must be as a virgin for at least a lunar cycle prior to forging the seal.
This seal, moreover, allowed Solomon to allegedly command the jinn into the vessel of brass, whereupon it covered the opening, and kept them in until Solomon said otherwise. Let's see what the seal itself tells us.
The seal description is a matter of seeing the patterns, and so less abstract and seeming like conjecture without basis as the alchemical interpretations of brass vessels and black roosters etc.
The central figure is a human being (roughly in the shape of a key-hole) standing on firm ground, and in the center of a cross aligned with the cardinal points. The three vertical levels of the figure (head, thorax and abdomen) are emphasized.
At each side of the head are two planetary glyphs that appear to represent Saturn on the left and a combination of the Sun and Mars on the right. In addition, the figure depicts a grail or bowl at heart level, and a table-top at the level of the navel.
The Saturn glyph can also be considered to contain the lunar glyph form. Thus, on the right we have active planets, and these correspond to the right eye and the right side of the body. On the left side of the figure, we have receptive planets that correspond to the left eye and left side of the body.
Surrounding the figure is the zodiac wheel, with Pisces at the top and Virgo at the bottom. The glyph of Pisces is clearly depicted, while we know that Virgo is at the bottom of the figure because it represents the zodiac with the Sun in that sign at the hour of midnight. The waxing Moon tells us that we activate the seal when the psychic forces linking us to the unseen world are on the increase.
The positioning of the planetary glyphs tells us that the right of the figure is also the right of the figure’s observer (the person looking at the page or screen). The figure does not, in other words, represent a mirror image of the individual facing it. It is as if we are looking at the back of the figure and face in the same direction as the figure.
According to the astrological directions given, the sign of Gemini at the left is to the East, and the figure is facing to the South. The South is the direction of facing for embalmed figures in Egyptian tradition. Their head pointed North and their feet southward, so that if they were standing they would be facing in the latter direction.
The Seal is the full immersion of human in cosmos, with the latter forming the circle of the human being's experience. Notice the list of spirits in the Lemegeton is different from that of its reference document, the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum. If you look at the description of the spirits in the zodiac circle, you may find consistencies in elemental symbolism in jinn of the same quarter, but this is not an absolute criteria. It is a noticeable pattern, however.
I cannot help but correlate this with the Ring of VIrtues given by Asmoday (whose legions just happen to number 72), and who was the jinn in charge of building the Temple in the Islamic stories of King Solomon. Did you know that in some of those stories Asmoday tricked Solomon out of his ring, then took on his form and had him exiled? In one version Solomon never got his throne back...nor his ring.
The result of the seal is that jinn are associated with astrological decans, two jinn per decan, with the first being a day jinn and the second a night jinn, mainly because the decans represent a day and night side, both of which are allegories, in my view.
One thing that inhibits the reader is that Qabalistic symbolism permeates the Hermetic format, and you get the most meaning out of names when you can render them into correct Hebrew, but not always.
The names surrounding the Pentagram of Solomon make sense in Hebrew. The inscriptions around the triangle and silver ring are Greek, however, while the spirit names themselves are predominantly of Hebrew origin, but with Greek and Latin sometimes mixed in.
This makes sense considering that I know of no other grimoire that has the divine names of the Shemhamephorash built in. And there is no reason why the original 72 triple letter names need to be converted to angels. What happens when instead the three letters are consonants pronounced with the vowels of the Tetragrammaton?
There is also the issue that there are permutations of the Tetragrammaton that may work better than the official version. But that's extending beyond mere interpretation, so back to topic:
The Secret Seal's symbolism appears to be both astrological and alchemical.
I am not saying one should adopt all this, but looking at the first book of the Lemegeton with the eye of a Hermetic Cabalist and Renaissance Alchemist opens up an awareness of synchronistic correspondences within the system that to me point to a format that is potentially reminiscent of the Watchtower entities of Angelic Magic (Enochian).
In my explorations, moreover, I came across a text known as the Sepher Yetsira. It's a well-known work, so nothing new there, but it has been so highly edited that the original has been practically diluted out of existence. That is until A. Peter Hayman took all the existing versions and extracted their common elements into a shorter text closer to what the original was considered to be. The idea was that the text was considered important enough that nothing was erased, just added.
This intrigued me to the point that I translated his work, from an esoteric context rather than a religious one, and the result was a work of inner alchemy and subsequent alphabet letter activation. It works, but activation takes time.
The point is that these principles if known by someone like John Dee - who could easily have had a copy older than what exists today in his extensive library - would have influenced at least some occultists as the mystical and alchemical, the psychic and magical were intertwined.
I have offered the part of the text referring to the alchemy of the ten Sephirot free online, but I am not sure if this is the right place to post that since it is on my substack page. Perhaps as a different topic, unless a mod tells me otherwise.
I apologize if I stretched a bit off-topic, but I am just starting to share this information, after bringing it to a point where it can make sense. There are few things anyone can prove in occultism, outside of just doing it and getting some kind of identifiable result.
Nevertheless, the Lesser Key's cryptic inconsistencies are worth examining through the eyes of a broader esoteric perspective. It may just give a new vantage point to a work that has more possibilities than might appear on the surface.