A Catalogue of Seventy-Two Demons of the False Kingdom · Johann Weyer · Basileæ MDLXXVII · British Library copy, with marginalia in pencil by an unidentified hand
The catalogue here following names and describes the seventy-two demons of the False Monarchy, after whose summoning the careful magician may compel obedience for such times and to such ends as the rituals permit. Of the matter of A., which is not numbered among the seventy-two, the present work is silent — for A. is not, in our considered judgement, a demon, but a place through which demons travel on their way to other places.
№ I.
Bael
King; appears with three heads (cat, toad, man); commandeth sixty-six legions; maketh men to go invisible. (Of A., when asked, he hath no opinion: "that which is below me is not my concern.")
[marginal note, in pencil] — NB. The phrase “that which is below me” recurs verbatim in the entries for № 1, № 7, № 12, № 31, and № 71. The demons are unanimous, and unanimously cannot bring themselves to specify what they will not specify.
№ XXXI.
Foras
President; teacheth logic and ethics; discovereth treasures and lost things. (Of A., he hath this answer: "do not ask me. ask the floor.")
[marginal note, lower margin, in the same hand] — Foras, when pressed a second time, identified “the floor” as the entity I have here transcribed as A. The transcript was sent to the printer; the printer returned only the catalogue, and not this note. The note is reproduced here for completeness.
It is to be observed, by any reader who completes the catalogue, that the seventy-two demons are not unanimous on any other matter — not on the colours of their robes, not on the proper means of dismissal, not on whether the magician should pronounce their names aloud or only think them — yet are unanimous on this one point: that A. is not a demon. The unanimity itself is suspicious. The author has noted the suspicion. He has not pursued it.
[final marginal note, opposite the colophon] — If any reader, having read the entire catalogue, finds that he has overlooked a seventy-third demon between № 72 (Andromalius) and the closing prayer — do not return to look for him. He is the one being looked for.
The British Library copy of the 1577 edition contains some thirty-one marginal annotations in a hand previously attributed to Reginald Scot but now considered, on palaeographic grounds, to be unattributable. The notes are reproduced in the present transcript with light modernisation of orthography. The hand has not been identified.