The original manuscript of the Key of Solomon is lost, and only copies of the original script are in circulation. Like the Bible, these copies have been rewritten, retranslated, edited etc. over and over again. The original author of the original manuscript is believed to be the biblical Solomon, the son of King David of the Israelites. For the most part, the Key of Solomon book contains a lot of ‘witchcraft’ spells both affirmative and positive magic spells but also negative magic spells to be used to destroy enemies. Our concern in the context of this article is the so called ‘pentacles’ related to the Sun in the medieval version of the Key of Solomon, the Clavicula Salomonis dated 1572, and regarded as the oldest manuscript. The author of the original script that was used for the translation of the medieval Clavicula Salomonis is believed to be Ptolomy the Grecian. The pentacles in the Key of Solomon manuscripts vary from manuscript to manuscript and the oldest manuscripts dealt only with the planets and their virtues in their astrological context. These are Greek versions of the pentacles.

Notice that many of the pentacles contain a four or eight pointed cross. A first glance, the medieval manuscript Clavicula Salomonis reveals a lot of drawings of what seem to be eight-pointed crosses. The ultimate secret is that the key of Solomon is the eight-pointed cross, and this cross represents precession in general and the Great Celestial Conjunction in particular, as we will next demonstrate. The most interesting pentacles are the seven pentacles concerning the Sun.

The first pentacle depicts the head of ‘Metatron.’ The versicle that appears on the rim of the pentacles is taken from the bible.  The Latin text translates into 'Behold his face and form by whom all things were made, and whom all creatures obey’ and is written on the rim.  It’s important to understand that these texts could not have been part of the original Key of Solomon for the simple reason that the original Key of Solomon is much older than the bible. These texts could therefore be confusing and may have been added by subsequent authors to ‘clarify’ the original manuscript. 

First pentacle related to the Sun.

Second pentacle of the Sun.

Notice the eight-pointed cross in the pentacle. Around the rim, the four names of the angels Shemeshiel, Paimoniah, Rekhodiah and Malkhiel are written. The mystical characters on the radii have not been deciphered. We surmise that the four-pointed cross in this pentacle that connects the four angels represents the Galactic Cross. The other cross therefore represents the Earth Cross of the overlapped eight-pointed zodiac crosses.

Third pentacle of the Sun.

The Hebrew name of God, IHVH (Jehovah), is repeated twelve times in the pentacle and most likely refers to the twelve signs of the zodiac. On top, the eight-pointed cross is depicted again. In addition, the tilted square within the outer square suggests another eight-pointed cross since the diagonals of these two squares form an eight-pointed cross. The Latin inscription on the rim translates into 'My kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and my dominion endureth from age to age’. The inscription clearly is referencing the precession cycle of the Sun since the Sun moves through all of the twelve signs of the zodiac, and each passage into a new sign is considered a new Age. The Sun’s kingdom is everlasting since after one precession cycle has been completed, another one is started.

Fourth pentacle of the Sun.

The fourth pentacle of the Sun is very interesting. In the first place, is it showing the eight-pointed cross again, with the cryptic characters at the end of the radii. The cryptic characters belong to an occult alphabet developed by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa in the 16th Century. The name of this alphabet is . . .   ‘The Passing of the River’.  The name of this alphabet is believed to be referring to the passing of the Jews of the Euphrates, on their return from exile in Babylon, to the Holy Land to rebuild the destroyed Temple of Solomon at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The question is ‘why was this strange alphabet chosen and its characters placed at the end of the radii of the eight pointed cross’? The occult message may be that it is not referring to the passing of the river Euphrates by the Jews, but to the passing of the river by the Sun!  In a Great Year of a complete precession cycle, the Sun passes that great river in the sky the Milky Way exactly four times, twice at equinoxes and twice at solstices. While Agrippa developed two other occult alphabets, the ‘Passing of the River’ alphabet was chosen for this pentacle because it contains an occult message.  Although the Clavicula Salomonis contains many pentacles with eight pointed crosses, the pentacles pertaining to the Sun are the only pentacles that use the alphabet of the ‘Passing of the River’. Other mystical alphabets have been used in the pentacles such as the secret alphabet of Malachim for the pentacles pertaining to Mars, which makes the application of the ‘Passing of the River’ conspicuous because it’s being used for the pentacles pertaining to the Sun.

The ‘Passing of the River’ alphabet is also used in the fifth and sixth pentacles related to the Sun. These pentacles are more abstract than the previous ones. The letters in the angles of the triangle form the name of Shaddaï. On top the hexagram, the Star of David is depicted. Its significance remains a mystery to the authors.

Fifth pentacle of the Sun

Sixth pentacle of the Sun

Seventh pentacle of the Sun

Wayne Herschel has cleverly identified the eight stars in the rim of diagram A as parts of the Pleiades constellation. On his website, Herschel explains in great detail how the Pleiades can be constructed from these stars. His explanation is rather complex and involves the joining of the stars with a jump in the sequence for star number ‘6’ and removing the pencil from the paper not once, but twice!  According to Herschel, star number 6 is a ‘lost’ star of the Pleiades constellation that is no longer visible in our present time.

Aaron Parlier has worked out a far simpler and more logical rendition of the Pleiades star cluster.  His solution requires neither a jump in the sequence nor does it involve removing the pencil from the paper.  Also, Parlier’s rendition does not account for an irregularity with any ‘lost’ star.

The Pleiades in the Key of Solomon form the pointer to the Silver Gate, the place of the Sun during a Great Celestial Conjunction at an Equinox or Solstice.

Starting at position 1 in the rim the stars are assembled by, as Herschel states, ‘binding’ them. Each star has a beam protruding from it and when these beams are connected in a counter clockwise direction starting with star 1 in exactly the same layout as they occur in the diagram, the Pleiades star cluster is formed.  The beam of star number 5 is pointing downwards exactly in the direction of the Silver Gate. The Pleiades template in the picture above is exactly the same template that has been tested on Stonehenge whereas the star map was pointing to the Summer Solstice Sun on the Silver Gate at the current Great Celestial Conjunction (summer solstice 1998).

In the diagram, star number 5 (red encircled) appears straight above the central star with the light beam inside the square. The beam of star 5 is pointing exactly downwards towards the central Sun with the beam. Since the central Sun itself inside the square represents the Equinox Sun, the authors therefore surmise that: 

Diagram A in the Key of Solomon symbolizes a Great Celestial Conjunction (8-pointed cross) during an Equinox (double cross bars in the 8-pointed cross and Equinox Sun in the central square). The diagram may therefore refer to the last Great Celestial Conjunction when the vernal equinox was in the Gate of Silver! This amounts to 25,920 (years in a Great Year)/4 = 6480 years ago. That equates to +/- 4482 B.C. and is roughly the same year as encoded in the Palette of Narmar.

References

http://www.keyofsolomon.net

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon

http://www.esotericarchives.com/solomon/ksol.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(constellation)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_God

http://ancientegypt.hypermart.net/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal

http://www.keyofsolomon.org/Pleiades%20starmap.php

Mystery star and position of the Sun on the ecliptic

On Herschel’s website we find proof for the hypothesis of this article that the so called ‘mystery’ star in Herschel’s star maps which he thinks refers to a star near the Pleiades, is in fact denoting the position of the Sun on the ecliptic.

On Herschel’s website the exact position of the Sun on the ecliptic is explained as follows: “between the bulls horns in Taurus when direction matches ancient sites” (See text bottom right in the image).

So the location where the ‘mystery’ star is pointing too is the place where:

THE SUN IS ON THE MILKY WAY AT SUMMER SOLSTICE 1998!

The summer solstice Sun of 1998 will be in between the horns of Taurus when the Sun is on the Milky Way (See picture 7)!

Picture 7)  Summer solstice Sun 1998, the Sun is in between the Bull’s horns (Taurus)

Herschel’s own website provides us with the arguments that our thesis may be correct and that the ‘mystery star’ in Herschel’s star maps is NOT a star near the Pleiades at all, but in fact is a way shower to the Sun on the ecliptic in between the horns of Taurus! This position is where the Sun is on the ecliptic at the summer solstice of 1998 at the last Great Celestial Conjunction!

Pleiades Template

Picture 8) Pleiades template

To further test and proof the hypothesis that the Pleiades in Herschel’s star maps may be pointing towards the 1998 solstice sun on the Milky Way a template of the Pleiades was created using the free open source astronomy software Stellarium. Stellarium presents a realistic 3D representation of the sky similar to what we see with a naked eye observation of the stars. Stellarium will allow us to test out thesis.

The template (picture 8) is created from a screenshot of Stellarium at the moment of summer solstice 1998. The green line in this template is exactly aligning the stars Alcyone and Pleione with the 1998 summer solstice sun on the Milky Way. The orange line is a base line of the Pleiades constellation connecting the stars Taygeta, Maia and Alcyone of the Pleiades constellation with the stars HP 17832 and HP 17900.

This template will be tested on Stonehenge to see if the angle between the Pleiades and the solstice sun on the Milky Way has any significance with respect to Stonehenge.

Stonehenge

It is an established fact that Stonehenge was an astronomical observatory for both solar and lunar observations. One of its functions was the determination of the summer solstice date using the summer solstice sunrise. At the 21st of June the rising sun in the North East shines its light in between the Heel Stone onto the Alter Stone at the center of the Trilithons or horseshoe of Stonehenge.

Picture 9) Stonehenge summer solstice Sun alignment

South West of Stonehenge we find the Winterbourne Stoke Barrows.  Herschel claimed that the Winterbourne Stoke Barrows at Stonehenge actually represented a star map of the Pleiades and indeed these barrows seem to have the shape of this constellation. The Winterbourne Barrows as the Pleiades are pointing the way to Stonehenge according to Herschel.

Picture 10) Winterbourne Stoke barrows

Now let’s superimpose our Pleiades template on the Winterbourne Stoke barrows and see if we can make a match first. To this end we align the stars on the orange base line in our template with the corresponding barrows at Stonehenge.

Picture 11) Winterbourne Stoke barrows at Stonehenge (Google Earth)
superimposed with the Pleiades template

It’s quit obvious from the picture above that the barrows do not perfectly fit the stars of the Pleiades. Although the stars of the Pleiades constellation take on the same contours of the barrows, the geometrical pattern of the constellation itself is somewhat distorted since it is stretched along the orange base line. Surly the ratios between our template and the actual ground plan of the Pleiades do not match. Over long periods of time stars drift and this may very well explain why the barrows don’t match up perfectly with the actual constellation of the Pleiades any longer thousands of years later. However the barrows that are running in a straight line from South West to North East will allow for the mapping and alignment of the Pleiades star map template onto the Winterbourne Stoke barrows. 

If our hypothesis is correct and the orange base line of the Pleiades is aligned with the barrows, the green line should be pointing towards Stonehenge! So let’s zoom out and see what we got:

Picture 12) Stonehenge pointing the way to the AvonRiver (Milky Way)

The green line of our template is running straight through Stonehenge!

The green line runs through Stonehenge and eventually ends up intersecting the Avon river. The intersection is the place where the ‘Sun is on the Milky Way’.

Let’s double check our thesis in reverse order. First we take a picture of the skies at summer solstice 1998 when the Sun is on the Milky Way with the aid of the Stellarium software. Next we superimposed that picture onto Stonehenge making sure the Pleiades are superimposed on the Winterbourne Stoke barrows and the Sun is residing on the Avon river like this:

 
Picture 13) Summer Solstice 1998 superimposed on Stonehenge.
 (white line represents the summer solstice sunrise to which Stonehenge is aligned)