On the Lion Skin Belt

While doing some research on pagan magic and necromancy I came upon some interesting texts that caused me to reflect upon the use of the Lion Skin Belt in the grimoire tradition (notably in the so-called Lemegeton or Lesser Key of Solomon).

The other materialls are a sceptre or sword; a miter or cap, a long white Robe of Linnen, with shoes and other Clothes for ye purpose also a girdle of Lyons skin 3 inches broad, with all the names about it as is about the uttermost round Circle... 

(The Lesser Key of Solomon Peterson ed.)

The lion skin belt is rather infamous as one of the hardest to acquire pieces of the Solomonic toolkit. It is generally understood to serve a protective purpose and has both solar and martial attributes. In the spirit of full disclosure, I do not myself have a lion skin belt but rather use a bracelet woven of wolf fur (acquired from wolves I have actually met without any harm being done to them). My wolf fur replacement is not as random as it might at first seem as this quotation from Jake Stratton-Kent's Geosophia might suggest:

It is significant for example that the helmet of invisibility was the attribute of the King of spirits himself, the god Hades. A little heard detail regarding this helmet was that it was in some way connected with wolves, and was perhaps made of wolf skin. The wolf was a symbol of Apollo, who also  originally had pronounced underworld roles - as well as being the pre-eminent deity of the original goetes.

The wolf fur maintains a martial correspondence but at first seems to miss the solar one. However, the connection to Apollo might suggest some hint of a solar aspect though it is likely a hold-over from his older chthonic elements. The connection to both Hades and chthonic Apollo suggests a Saturnian connection as well, which roughly matches my intuitive grasp of the wolf as martial and saturnine. For now, note the connection between the wolf and the underworld helmet of invisibility. This is a theme we will return to later.

To get back to the lion skin belt, I was reading some of the Ancient poet Lucian's descriptions of necromancy. Lucian is a famous satirist so his works are certainly not to be taken literally. However, in order to make fun of something you still need to capture enough of its actual practice so that it is both an honest satire and a recognizable depiction. 

In Lucian's Necyomantia the main character of Menippus describes to his friend Philonides a journey he took to the Underworld through the assistance of a Chaldean necromancer named Mithrobarzanes. Before venturing into the Underworld the necromancer gives Menippus various tools and clothing and informs him to only answer to certain names. 

Me. He... gave me the cap, lion’s skin, and lyre which you see, telling me if I were asked my name not to say Menippus, but Heracles, Odysseus, or Orpheus.  

Phi. What was that for? I see no reason either for the get-up or for the choice of names. 

Me. Oh, obvious enough; there is no mystery in that. He thought that as these three had gone down alive to Hades before us, I might easily elude Aeacus’s guard by borrowing their appearance, and be passed as an habitue; there is good warrant in the theatre for the efficiency of disguise.  

A key part of the operation, then, is a type of invisibility. Specifically, Menippus must pass through the underworld under the guise of Heracles, Odysseus, and Orpheus. The lion skin and lyre correspond to Heracles and Orpheus respectively. In the course of the journey the lyre is used to quiet Kerberus and the lion skin convinces Charon the boatman that Menippus is actually Heracles:

Nevertheless, when good Charon saw the lion’s skin, taking me for Heracles, he made room, was delighted to give me a passage, and showed us our direction when we got off.

Both Jake Stratton-Kent and Peter Grey have stressed the likely connection between works of invisibility in the grimoires and necromancy - or more generally a connection with the chthonic nature of spirit work in general. To access spirits such as a goetic worker might be interested in certain guardians may have to be circumvented, in the same way that someone traveling to the underworld must dodge the guards at the gates. Indeed, to draw on Ogden's Greek and Roman Necromancy, every act of necromancy (which goetia in general can be argued to largely be) is also a katabasis (or a going-down into the underworld):

The focus of the book is necromancy as opposed to descent by the living into the underworld (katabasis), but some reference to the latter remains inevitable. Not only did one "descend" into some oracles of the dead, but, as we have seen, even when evocating ghosts a necromancer could be imagined to be dissolving the boundaries between the lower world and the upper one in such a way that the distinction between the descent of the consulter and the ascent of the ghosts is effaced.

It may just be, then, that the lion skin belt is about more than its animal and planetary resonances but rather plays the role of identifying the practitioner with Heracles who was able to pass into the underworld and back again safely. More than a tool of protection, it is instead one of disguise with overt necromantic connections - it is another piece of the "invisibility" toolkit that has been getting increasing and much deserved attention over the recent years. This, in turn, adds a bit more legitimacy to my, admittedly, ad hoc use of wolf fur rather than lion skin - opening up the basis for an identification with, or impersonation of, Hades rather than Heracles. One even more suited for katabasis in all its forms.