The Fourteenth Chapter. Concerning the Convocation of the Spirits

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THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER.

CONCERNING THE CONVOCATION OF THE SPIRITS. ¹

HOUGH the following advice may be scarcely necessary for the most part, since I have already explained unto you all things necessary to be done; and also seeing that your Guardian Angel will have sufficiently instructed you in all that you should do; yet nevertheless I will here declare plainly certain matters unto you, with the idea rather of making the account of the Operation complete in this Book, ² and also to give you every opportunity of possessing the matter thoroughly through reading these things many times; so that having received the Vision of the Angel, you may find yourself thoroughly instructed in all the essential points.

Having then reposed yourself during the night, you shall rise in the morning before dawn, and shall enter into the Oratory; and having placed the lighted Charcoal in the Censer, light the Lamp also. You shall then robe yourself, taking first the White Vestment, and over this you shall put on that ³ of Silk and Gold, then the Girdle, and upon your head you shall place the Crown, and you shall lay the Wand upon the Altar. Then, having put the Perfume in the Censer you shall fall upon your knees, and pray unto Almighty God to grant you the Grace to finish your Operation unto the Praise and Glory of His Holy Name, and for your own use and that of your neighbour. Also you shall supplicate your Guardian

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[paragraph continues] Angel to aid you, and to govern your heart with his counsel, and all your senses. After this you shall take the Wand in your right hand, and pray unto God to give unto this Wand as much virtue, force, and power as He gave unto those of MOSES, of AARON, of ELIJAH, and of the other Prophets whose number is infinite.

Now place yourself beside the Altar looking towards the Door and the open Terrace; or if you be in the Country place yourself at the Western ¹ side, and commence by summoning the Chief Spirits and Princes.

But your Angel will already have instructed you how to convoke them, and will have sufficiently impressed it on your heart.

And as well in this as in the Orison, we should never proceed and act by the mouth only or by written Conjurations alone; but with a free heart and intrepid courage because it is certain that there is more difficulty in convoking the Evil Spirits ² than the Good, which latter usually appear more readily when they are first called if it be by persons of good intent; while the Evil Spirits flee as much as possible all occasion of submitting themselves to man. This is wherefore he who wisheth to constrain them should be upon his guard, and follow out faithfully from point to point the instructions which his Guardian Angel will have given him, and that he impresseth

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them well upon his memory following them from point to point; seeing that while no Spirit Good or Evil can know the secrets of your heart. before you yourself bring the same to light, unless God Who alone knoweth all things should manifest them; they (the Spirits) nevertheless can penetrate into and understand that which you are thinking by means of your actions and your words. ¹ This is the reason why he who wisheth properly to convoke and conjure the Spirits, should first well consider the following Conjuration; and afterward perform it with feeling and freely by heart; and not by writing, because in using that composed by others, the Spirits thence judge that we ourselves are ignorant, and render themselves straightway more intractable and stubborn. ² The Evil Spirits be about you, though invisible, and they keenly examine whether he who conjureth them is courageous or timid, whether he is prudent, and whether he hath a true faith in God Who can perform all things with ease. We can constrain them (the Spirits), and force them to appear; but a few words ill pronounced by an ill-Intentioned person only produce an effect against the person himself who ignorantly pronounceth them; and an individual of such a character should in no way undertake this Operation, for such would be the true way to make a mock of God and to tempt Him.

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OF THE CONJURATIONS.

I have many times repeated unto you that the Fear of God is the principal subject of the instruction of your Guardian Angel, against which you should never commit any fault, even if it be but slight.

Firstly: You should perform the Conjuration in your mother tongue, ¹ or in a language that you well understand, and conjure the Spirits by the authority of and their obedience to the Holy Patriarchs, rehearsing unto them examples of their ruin and fall, of the sentence which God hath pronounced against them, and of their obligation unto servitude; and how on one side and on another they have been vanquished by the Good Angels and by Wise Men; all which points you will have had plenty of opportunity to study in the Sacred Writings during the Six Moons (of preparation). Also you shall menace them, in case they are unwilling to obey, with calling unto your aid the Power of the Holy Angels over them. Your Guardian Angel will also have instructed you to perform this Convocation with modesty, and in no wise to be timid, but courageous, yet in moderation, however, without too overbearing hardiness and bravery. And in case of their being inclined to resist, and unwilling to obey you, you must not on that account give way to anger, because thus you will only do injury to yourself; and they will ask nothing better, it being exactly what they would be endeavouring to do; but (on the contrary) with an intrepid heart, and putting your whole trust in God, with a tranquil heart you shall exhort them to yield, letting them see that you have put all your confidence in the Living and Only God, reminding them how

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powerful and potent He is; thus, therefore, govern yourself, using prudence towards them.

And communicate unto them also the Form ¹ in the which you wish them to appear; the which you can not determine, nor even themselves, but you ought the evening before to have demanded this from your Guardian Angel, who knoweth better than you your nature and constitution, and who understandeth the forms which can terrify you, and those of which you can support the sight. ²

And you must not think that this can he done otherwise, as certain Accursed Persons write; that is to say, by means of Seals, and Conjurations, and Superstitious Figures, and Pentacles, and other Abominations, written by Diabolical Enchanters; ³ for this would be the coin wherewith the Hideous SATAN would buy you for his slave.

But let your whole trust be in the Arm, the Power, and the Force of God Almighty; then shall you be in all safety, and the Guard of your Angel will defend you from all dangers. This is why you should have good courage, and have confidence that no adversity can happen unto you. Observing then the doctrine that your Angel will have given unto you, and persevering in placing all your trust in God, at length they will appear in the form commanded upon the Terrace, upon the sand; when, according to the advice and doctrine received from your

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[paragraph continues] Holy Angel, and as I will clearly teach you in the following Chapter, you shall propound your demand, and you shall receive from them their oath. ¹

The Spirits which we should convoke on the first day are the Four Superior Princes, ² whose Names will be written in the Nineteenth Chapter, and this is the Conjuration of the First Day.

THE CONJURATION OF THE SECOND DAY.

On the following day, having performed the ordinary Orison, and the aforesaid Ceremonies, you shall briefly repeat the aforesaid Conjuration unto the said Spirits, bringing to their remembrance their promises and Oaths made on the preceding day to send unto you the Eight Sub-Princes; ³ and address the Conjuration unto all the Twelve together, and in a little while they will appear visibly, the Eight Sub-Princes in the form which hath been commanded them; and they will promise and swear unto you (allegiance), as will be more fully shown in the following Chapter.

The Names of the Eight Sub-Princes are described hereafter in the Nineteenth ⁴ Chapter.

THE CONJURATION OF THE THIRD DAY.

The Conjuration of the Third Day is the same as that of the Second Day, seeing that we are then to remind the Eight Sub-Princes of their Promises and Oaths (of Allegiance); and we are to call and convoke them with all their adherents, and then they do appear once

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more in visible forms, the whole particular cohorts of each will appear also invisibly, surrounding the Eight Sub-Princes. But while invoking God your Lord for strength and surety, and your Holy Angel for counsel and assistance, never forget what the latter will have taught you, for it is a necessary point.

Here followeth the Fifteenth Chapter which teacheth what we should demand from the Spirits, who are divided into three classes.

Footnotes

86:1 I.e., those of a material force; many being evil, some few inclined to good, most of a mixed nature somewhat good yet the evil predominating in their dispositions.

86:2 I.e., this Second Book of the three constituting the treatise.

86:3 I.e., the Red Robe, or Mantle.

87:1 "Ou si vous estez en Campagne mettes vous ducosté du ponant." This word "ponant" is almost obsolete in modern French, being only employed in a nautical sense, and even then but rarely. It implies the "West," or rather the part of the "Ocean towards the West". Even in the middle ages this expression was not in wide use. The Occult student will remark here the idea of "turning to the East to pray, and to the West to invoke". But usually in Magic it is advisable to turn towards the quarter sympathetic in nature with that of the Spirit you wish to summon.

87:2 That is if you convoke them to serve you. But all mediæval tradition implies that they are ready enough to come if you are an evil-minded person wishing to make a pact with them to obtain magical force, i.e. a Göetic Magician as opposed to an Initiate Adept.

88:1 This is why in religious and magical writings such stress is laid on the importance of controlling the thoughts; which are as it were our prototypical speech and action in all matters of importance. Modern thought-reading would alone suggest this to persons unskilled in Occultism.

88:2 "Les Esprits jugent parla denostre ignoranse et serendent plus reveches et ostinez." The initiate knows the value of an invocation written by himself, in harmony with and expressing exactly his will and idea. But this does not deny the utility of many of the Conjurations handed down by tradition.

89:1 Yet the advantage of its being in a language which you do not immediately associate with the things of every-day life is great, provided always that you understand the words and repeat them and pronounce them correctly.

90:1 This recalls the phrase so frequent in Conjurations, in which the Spirits are commanded to appear "in human form without any deformity or tortuosity".

90:2 Because some of the Demonic forms are so terrible that the shock of their sight might cause a person of a nervous temperament to lose his reason.

90:3 I must again repeat that it is only evil and perverted symbols which come under this denunciation of Abraham the Jew; for nearly all Pentacles and Seals are the Symbols and Sigils of Divine and Angelic Names.

91:1 I.e., of allegiance to you.

91:2 The four Superior Spirits and Princes are: Lucifer, Leviathan, Satan, and Belial.

91:3 The Eight Sub-Princes are: Astaroth, Magoth, Asmodeus, Beelzebuth; Oriens, Païmon, Ariton, and Amaymon.

91:4 By a very evident slip, "Chapitre IX." is written in the MS. instead of XIX.