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The Brass VesselMila'sExotic Plants & CuriositiesA living collection by Luminary OdditiesThe Seventy-Two Spirits · 69
Discovering the virtues of birds and precious stones, and producing bird likenesses that fly, sing and drink like natural birds. [1]
Goetia 1904
Decarabia first appears as a star in a pentacle and then as a man. Figure 76 separately prints his character. The star describes the spirit’s initial appearance; the character is the mark attached to his name. These are distinct parts of the entry, one concerning a changing body and the other a written sign. [1][3]
The Greater Key uses pentacle for its planetary diagrams, each accompanied by an attributed purpose, inscription and planetary place. The Goetia uses the same word in describing Decarabia’s star-shaped appearance. In one setting it names a class of written figures; in the other it supplies the setting of a spirit’s first visible form. [1][4]
Scot’s Decarabia, or Carabia, appears as a printed star-like sign and knows the virtues of herbs and precious stones. The Goetia describes a star in a pentacle, adds a subsequent human form, and gives the virtues of birds and stones. Both assign thirty legions, while the Goetia also names the rank of Great Marquis. [2][1]
Scot’s birds fly before the questioner and remain as though tame, drinking and singing. The Goetia calls them likenesses which behave like natural birds. Their convincing movement and sound are therefore part of the promised appearance, separate from the star and subsequent human form in which Decarabia himself arrives. [2][1]
Nicholson treats the star-like mark in the earlier wording as an asterisk in Weyer’s Latin. In his notes, venit simili* belongs with obscure clauses under Buer and Aim; he conjectures that the asterisk marks a word or words a copyist could not supply. The Goetia’s explicit star in a pentacle gives a clearly named appearance where the earlier printed mark leaves its meaning uncertain. [2][1][5]
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, translated; Aleister Crowley, edited, The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King (1904), first-edition facsimile supplied by Keep Silence. Shemhamphorash, numbered catalogue entry 69, Decarabia; facsimile PDF page 27 (PDF index includes three preliminary plates)
Full passage · accessed 2026-10-10Reginald Scot (1584); Brinsley Nicholson’s reprint of the first edition (1886), Project Gutenberg transcription. Book XV, chapter II, Decarabia; 1886 reprint page(s) 324.
Full passage · accessed 2026-10-10Mathers and Crowley, The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King (1904), first edition. Three preliminary plates, figures 1–80; figure 76 for Decarabia is on facsimile PDF page 3.
Full passage · accessed 2026-10-10S. L. MacGregor Mathers, The Key of Solomon the King (1889). Book I, Order of the Pentacles; planetary diagrams and accompanying passages.
Full passage · accessed 2026-10-10Brinsley Nicholson, editorial Notes in the 1886 reprint of The Discoverie of Witchcraft. Notes, reprint page 561, item (x), Decarabia, Buer and Aym; commentary on Book XV, chapter II.
Full passage · accessed 2026-10-10