The Seal of Solomon in the Caribbean: How a European Grimoire Shaped Obeah

A protection talisman with roots in Jewish and medieval European magic, absorbed into Jamaican folk spiritual practice through a 19th-century book almost nobody expects.

The Seal of Solomon looks like it belongs to one tradition — the six-pointed talisman tied to King Solomon’s legendary command over spirits, documented in the medieval grimoire Clavicula Salomonis, the Key of Solomon. But the actual history of how that symbol reached the Caribbean runs through a specific, traceable path: a 19th-century occult text called The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, and the real, documented Jamaican spiritual tradition it helped reshape.

A Grimoire’s Long Journey

The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses presents itself as ancient Hebrew wisdom — “the wonderful arts of the old Hebrews,” drawn from Kabbalah and Talmud — but it’s actually an 18th- or 19th-century compilation that pulled directly from Christian grimoires including the Key of Solomon. Cheap publishing and the era’s fascination with Spiritualism carried the book first through African-American communities in the United States, then into the Anglophone Caribbean.

What It Actually Did to Obeah

Obeah — Jamaica’s own, older Afro-Caribbean spiritual and folk-magic tradition — didn’t need European grimoires to exist. But anthropologist W.F. Elkins documented that mass-produced copies of The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses “significantly influenced” the growth of a specific early-20th-century form of Obeah called “Science” — practitioners who blended older Obeah practice with grimoire lore and synthetic ritual products. Separately, anthropologist George Eaton Simpson, researching Jamaican Revival faith in the 1950s, found the same grimoire held real importance on “the magical side of revivalism.”

DeLaurence’s copies of The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses significantly influenced the growth of Obeah “Science” in early 20th-century Jamaica. — W.F. Elkins, anthropologist

Why the Symbol Still Carries Weight

This is not a case of a symbol getting borrowed for aesthetics. The Seal of Solomon entered Caribbean spiritual practice through an actual, traceable text, absorbed by real practitioners into an existing tradition, and documented by name in the anthropological record. Wearing it as a protection talisman today connects to that specific, real transmission — not a generic “spiritual” association invented for retail.

The Facts

• Origin of the seal: Clavicula Salomonis (Key of Solomon), a grimoire compiled 15th–17th century
• Carrier text into the Caribbean: The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, 18th–19th century compilation
• Route: cheap publishing + Spiritualism boom → African-American communities in the US → Anglophone Caribbean
• Documented effect: shaped the early-20th-century “Science” strand of Jamaican Obeah (W.F. Elkins)
• Also documented in: 1950s Jamaican Revival faith practice (George Eaton Simpson)