Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi
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p. 297Pursuing our curious researches, we come now to the most horrible mysteries of the grimoire, those which are concerned with the evocations of devils and pacts with hell. After attributing a real existence to the absolute negation of goodness, after having enthroned the absurd and created a god of falsehood, it remained for human folly to invoke the impossible idol, and this maniacs have done.
We were lately informed that the most reverend Father Ventura, formerly Superior of the Theatines, Bishops' Examiner, etc., after reading our Doctrine, declared that the kabbalah was, in his opinion, an invention of the devil, and that the star of Solomon was another diabolical device to persuade the world that Satan was the same as God. See what is taught seriously by the masters in Israel !
The ideal of nothingness and night inventing a sublime philosophy which is the universal basis of faith and the keystone of all temples ! The demon placing his signature by the side of God's ! My venerable masters in theology, you are greater sorcerers than you or others are aware, and He who said : " The devil is a liar like his father," would have had some observations to make on the decisions of your reverences.
The evokers of the devil must before all things belong to a religion which admits a devil, creator and rival of God. To invoke a power, we must believe in it. Given this firm faith in the religion of the devil, we must proceed as follows to enter into correspondence with this pseudo-Deity:
MAGICAL AXIOM. In the circle of its action, every word creates that which it affirms. DIRECT CONSEQUENCE.
He who affirms the devil, creates or makes the devil. Conditions of Siwcess in Infernal Evocations. 1, Invincible obstinacy; 2, a conscience at once hardened to crime and most subject to remorse and fear ; 3, affected p. 298or natural ignorance ; 4, blind faith in all that is incredible ; 5, a completely false idea of God. We must afterwards — (a) Profane the ceremonies of the cultus in which we believe ; (6) offer a bloody sacrifice ; (c) procure the magic fork, which is a branch of a single beam of hazel or almond, cut at one blow with the new knife used for the sacrifice.
It must terminate in a fork, which must be armoured with iron or steel made from the blade of the before-mentioned knife. A fast of fifteen days must be observed, taking a single unsalted repast after sundown ; this repast should consist of black bread and blood seasoned with unsalted spices or black beans and milky and narcotic herbs.
We must get drunk every five days, after sundown, on wine in which five heads of black poppies and five ounces of pounded hemp seed have been steeped for five hours, the infusion being strained through a cloth woven by a prostitute ; strictly speaking, the first cloth which comes to hand may be used, should it have been woven by a woman.
The evocation should be performed on the night between Monday and Tuesday, or that between Friday and Saturday. A solitary and condemned spot must be chosen, such as a cemetery haunted by evil spirits, an avoided ruin in the country, the vaults of an abandoned convent, a place where some murder has been committed, a druidic altar or an old temple of idols.
A black seamless and sleeveless robe must be provided ; a leaden cap emblazoned with the signs of the moon, Venus, and Saturn ; two candles of human fat set in black wooden candlesticks, carved in the shape of a crescent ; two crowns of vervain; a magical sword with a black handle; the magical fork; a copper vase containing the blood of the victim ; a censer holding the perfumes, namely, incense, camphor, aloes, ambergris, and storax, kneaded with the blood of a goat, a mole, and a bat ; four nails taken from the coffin of an executed criminal ; the head of a black cat which has been nourished on human flesh for five days ; a bat drowned in blood ; the horns of a goat
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