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The Brass VesselMila'sExotic Plants & CuriositiesA living collection by Luminary OdditiesThe Seventy-Two Spirits · 05
Answering about hidden matters, causing and curing diseases, teaching mechanical arts, and changing people's forms. [1]
Goetia 1904
In Scot’s inventory the names are Marbas and Barbas. The spirit first appears as a powerful lion and then assumes human shape. His thirty-six legions, answers about hidden matters, and powers to bring or cure disease all precede the 1904 account. [2][1]
Scot glosses the mechanical arts as handicrafts, placing skilled making beside wisdom and knowledge of hidden matters. He also gives Marbas the power to change a person’s form. That bodily transformation extends an office which already includes causing disease, curing it and teaching practical arts. [2][1]
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 5, Marbas; facsimile PDF page 11 (PDF index includes three preliminary plates)
Full passage · accessed 2026-10-10Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584); Brinsley Nicholson’s reprint of the first edition (1886), Project Gutenberg transcription. Book XV, chapter II, Marbas; 1886 reprint page 314
Full passage · accessed 2026-10-10