The Black Arts: A Concise History of Witchcraft, Demonology, Astrology, and Other Mystical Practices Throughout the Ages 9780399500350

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An absorbing account of witchcraft, demonology, and other mystical practices throughout tht

The Black Arts

The Goat of the Witches'

Sabbath, or Goat of Mendes, after Eliphas Levi

The Black Arts BY

Richard Cavendish

Capricorn Books

New

York

CAPRICORN BOOKS EDITION

1968

©Richard Cavendish 1967 Fifth Impression thereof, must All rights reserved. This book, or parts permission. not he reproduced in any form without

Library of Congress Catalog

Card Number: 67-10950 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contents

Chapter

One The World of the Black Magician

1.

The Magician's Universe

2.

Imitative

3.

Analogies and Correspondences

4.

The

Chapter

page

i

Magic and the Magical Link

Modem

Magicians

Two Names and Numbers Numbers

1.

Fortunes by

2.

The Roots of Numerology

3.

The Numbers Revealed

Chapter Three

43

The Cabala and

1.

The Splendid

2.

The

3.

Gematria

4.

The Names of Power

the

Names of Power

81

Lights

Paths and the Tarot

Chapter Four

The Stone and

the Elixir

1.

The Foundations of Alchemy

2.

The Making of the Stone

3.

The

Elixir

of Life

143

Contents

Chapter Five Astrology

page i8i

1.

Natal Astrology

2.

Mundane Astrology

3.

Astrology and Daily Life

4.

Astrology and Magic

Chapter Six Ritual Magic

Magic

229

1.

Preparations and the

2.

The

3.

The Lords of Darkness

4.

Necromancy and Psychic Attack

5.

Low Magic

Sacrifice

Chapter Seven

and the Summoning

The Worship of the Devil

1.

The Origins of Satan

2.

Witchcraft

3.

The Black Mass

Appendix

1

Circle

The Grimoires

281

339

Appendix 2 The 'Hebrew* System in Numerology

341

Notes

343

Bibliography and suggestions for further reading

351

Index

361

Diagrams

page 87

1.

The Tree of Life

2.

Correspondences of the Sephiroth

3.

The Paths and

4.

Correspondences of the Twenty-two Paths

5.

Love Talisman from

91 loi

the Tarot

the

Key of Solomon

103

126

6.

The Sun

7.

The Signs of the Zodiac

192

8.

The Ascendant

198

g.

The Houses

200

10.

Sample Birth Chart

202

11.

Symbols of Planetary

12.

A Magic Circle

238

The Triangle of Solomon

239

The Pentagram of Solomon

242

13.

The Double Seal of Solomon

243

16.

Magic Symbols of Devils from

13.

1

4.

in the

190

Zodiac

Spirits from the

the

Arbatel of Magic

Lemegeton

226

262

chapter

One

The World of the Black Magician

The

driving force behind black magic

aim was Eden.

Its

ultimate

enough, by the serpent in the Garden of and Eve were afraid that if they ate the fruit of the Tree of

Adam

Knowledge of Good and

*Ye

shall

not surely die for :

then your eyes

and

hunger for power.

stated, appropriately

the

of,

is

evil'.i* In

shall

Evil they

would

die.

But

the serpent said,

God doth know that in the day ye eat there-

be opened and ye

occultism the serpent

is

shall be as gods,

a

knowing good

symbol of wisdom, and for

have devoted themselves to the search for the forbidden fruit which would bring fulfilment of the serpent's promise. Carried to its furthest extreme, the black magician's ambition is to centuries magicians

wield supreme power over the entire universe, to

Black magic large part of

rooted in the darkest levels of the mind, and

is

its

make himself a god.

attraction,

but

much more

it is

love of evil or a liking for mysterious

than

a

man

is

a

product of the

mumbo-jumbo.

attempt to exalt the stature of man, to put

this

It is a titanic

in the place

which

reUgious thought reserves for God. In spite of its crudities and squalors this gives it a certain

The it is its

magnificence.

great fascination of

magic

based. Magical thinking

own logic,

which

is

is

in the type of thought

not random,

it

has

its

own

on which laws and

It

leaps to conclusions

are usually scientifically unwarranted, but

which often seem

but

poetically right.

it is

poetic rather than rational.

It is a

type of thinking which has been prevalent

all

through the history of Europe, which lies behind huge areas of our religion, philosophy and Uterature, and which is a major guide-post * The numbers refer to the notes references only.

at the

end of the book. These notes contain

The World of the Black Magician to the regions of the spiritual and the supernatural, the regions of which science has nothing to say. There

many

a

far-away,

summoning

is

no

necessity to accept

bell in the depths

it,

but

it

rings

of the mind.

natural to think of magic as a thing of the past,

which must have withered to dust under the hard light of modem science and scepticism, but, in fact, this is not the case. Magical thinking is still deeply embedded in the human mentahty. Magic has been practised throughout European history, down to and including the present day, and it has attracted more interest and support in the last hundred years than at It is

any time since the Renaissance. No one is a black magician in

own

and modern occultists, whatever their beliefs and practices, think of themselves as highminded white magicians, not as sinister Brothers of the Left-hand Path. In October 1964 the Los Angeles police arrested thirty-nine gipsies on charges of fortune-telling. The gipsies immediately accused the police of violating their rehgious freedom. They were not telling fortunes, but giving 'spiritual readings*. 'Gipsies are bom with the power to look into the future. It's part of our reHgion. We are members of the Palmistry Church.' About a year earher the British witch covens celebrated one of their great annual festivals, All-Hallows Eve, with rites involving the magic circle, the magic knife, incantations, nudity and frenzied dances. One of the St. Albans witches, naked except for a string of beads, is reported as saying, 'We are not anti-Christian. We just have other means of spiritual satisfaction.' The most notorious and most briUiantly gifted of modem magicians, Aleister Crowley, was regarded as a black sorcerer by many other occultists, and his rituals are saturated with sex and blood to an extent which, to put it mildly, scarcely fits the normal conception of white magic. But he himself professed nothing but contempt for black magicians. Among them he included Christian Scientists and Spiritualists, as well as those of his fellow occultists who disapproved of him. In the same way, the writers of the old grimoires, or magical textbooks, which instruct the reader in methods of calling up evil spirits, killing people, causing hatred and destruction or forcing women to submit to him in love, did not think of themselves as black magicians. On the contrary, the grimoires are packed with prayers to God and the angels, fastings and self-mortifications and ostentatious piety.

which

is

The

his

eyes,

principal process in the Grimoire of Honorius,

usually considered the

most diabohcal of them

with impassioned and perfecdy sincere appeals to 2

all,

overflows

God and devout

The World of the Black Magician sayings of Mass.

It

also involves tearing

slaughtering a lamb, and It is

labels

its

purpose

is

out the eyes of a black cock and to

summon up

the Devil.

not merely that people are naturally disinclined to pin nasty

on themselves and that

human mind can always find excellent or killing an enemy or causing harm and

the

reasons for evoking the Devil

The magician sets out to conquer the universe. To succeed he must make himself master of everything in it - evil as well as good, cruelty as well as mercy, pain as well as pleasure. Deep at the heart of destruction.

the magical outlook

is

the pagan but not ignoble conviction that

and that all types of experience are potentially rewarding. The complete man, which is what the magician attempts to be, is the man who has experienced and mastered all things. This conviction is closely related to the magical theory of the relationship between God, man and the everything has

universe.

its

place and function in the order of the universe

.

The Magician's Universe

I.

'The soul goes round upon a wheel of

stars

Good and

is

in a

reahse in your heart,

you not

that there

is

wheel that

of one thing;

all

things return.

one thing and not many.

do you not beHeve behind

but one reahty and

are but aspects

into

go round

evil

and

we

a centre

are

its

all

your

shadows and that ;

where men melt

into

all

.

.

Do

beliefs,

things

Man and Man

God?'

'No,' said Father

Brown. G. K,

'Man

is

made

observed that accepted

Dagger with Wings

image of God' and it has often been sardonically 'God is made in the image of man'. Both statements are in the

as true in

magic.

Man

the divine spark within him.

man

CHESTERTON The

He

can is

make himself God

a miniature

because he has

image of God and

God

Crowley defined God as 'the Ideal Identity of a man's inmost nature. Something ourselves [I erase Arnold's imbecile and guilty 'not'] that makes for righteousness' and 'the Great Work is the raising of the whole man in perfect balance to the power of Infinity', at which point he becomes God. Another notorious is

writ large. Aleister

sorcerer, the great Renaissance

how

magician Cornelius Agrippa, writing

was possible for a man to wield magical powers and answered, 'No one has such powers but he who has cohabited with the elements, vanquished nature, mounted higher than the heavens, elevating himself above the angels to the archetype itself, with whom he then becomes co-operator and can do all thiiigs.'^ This 'Ideal Identity' or 'archetype' is the fundamental unity which magicians see behind all the apparently diverse and disorderly phenomena of the universe. The world we live in may seem to be a rag-bag of odd, fortuitously assembled bits and pieces, but magicians believe that it is really a whole - like a design or a machine - and that all its parts are necessarily connected together in a certain way. Human beings are wholes of this kind. A man is made of many different things - his body and appearance, his mental and spiritual characteristics, his moods, his humour, his different ways of expressing himself at different times and in different circumstances - but these arc all linked together into one organism with one underlying personality. about

1

5 10,

asked

it

The World of the Black Magician

magic the universe is a human organism on a colossal scale. Just as all the facets of a man's character and behaviour are aspects of a single personahty, so all the phenomena of the universe are aspects of some one thing which underlies and connects them. This one thing is a being, a force, a substance, a principle, or something which it is not possible to describe in words ai: all. It is the One, or God. The Universe and everything in it constitutes God. The universe is a gigantic human organism and man is a tiny image of it, a toy replica of God. Because he is a miniature of the universe, by a process of In

spiritual

expansion a

man can mystically extend his own being

to cover

world and subject it to his will. It is because all things arc aspects of one thing that all things are grist to the magician's mill. The complete man, who has experienced and mastered all things, has vanquished Nature and mounted higher than the heavens. He has reached the centre where man becomes God. The achievement of this is the Great Work, the supreme magical operation, which may take a the entire

lifetime or

many

lifetimes to complete.

§ In this unified magical universe mysterious forces are at work,

moving

beneath the external fabric of things like the invisible currents of the sea.

Their

effects are all

their true nature.

The

around

universe

is

us,

but most of us do not recognise

man on a huge scale and the

impulses

which move man - love, hate, lust, pity, the urge to survive, the urge to dominate - are found on a much greater scale in the universe. For instance, all things contain a greater or lesser amount of 'life-force', an immensely powerful drive which impels life to continue. It shows itself in

the instinct of self-preservation, in the urge to survive - the

struggle of everything in Nature to cling to

life

even in cruel and

hopeless conditions - and in the universal urge to procreate, to ensure life's

continuation by reproducing one's

own

kind. Magicians also see

of violent destructive energy in the universe, which is a greater counterpart of man's destructive impulses and hes behind every form of savagery, bloodshed, warfare and havoc. These forces are named for gods and planets. The life-force is called the force of the sun, because the sun's light and heat are necessary for the existence of all life a force

on earth. The violent destructive force is named for Mars, the Roman god of war. The great moving forces of the universe are described and classified in various ways. Magicians

who

follow the theory of a mysterious

The Magician's Universe

body of doctrines

called the

Cabala

list

ten of them. Until fairly

recent times astrologers believed in seven major forces,

connected with the sun, the nine or ten,

Numerologists

moon and

five planets.

which they

They now have

adding Uranus and Neptune and sometimes Pluto. list

nine forces, which they connect with the numbers

from I to 9. The magician masters these forces by experiencing them, by absorbing them into his own being and subjecting them to his will. He can do this because the forces are inside him as well as outside him. They are his own impulses magnified. The channel between his inner impulses and the forces outside him is his imagination, and a powerful imagination is his most important single piece of equipment. His powers of concentration are also vitally important. He must be able to focus the whole force of his being on a single aim, a single idea. He trains his powers of imagination and concentration to an abnormal pitch of efficiency by various techniques. The importance of concentration in magic is reflected in the old belief that you can recognise a magician by the fixed stare of his eyeballs. If a magician wants to turn the current of destructive energy associated with Mars against an enemy, he sets his imagination to work to construct an intensely vivid mental picture of the force. Everything available to him which will contribute to this picture is used - gestures and dancing, drink, drugs, sex. He chants incantations which state the nature and attributes of the force of Mars. He fiUs his mind with images of blood and torment, rage and ruin and pain. If he is thoroughgoing the mimicry will extend to actual bloodshed and the torture of an animal or another human being. He unleashes all his own inner tides of hatred and violence and the ceremony gradually works up to a frenzy of savagery in which the force takes possession of the magician's entire being, in which he himself becomes the force, controls it by his will and hurls it against his victim. Magicians believe that

this

ceremony, properly performed, will have

The theory

is

that

strong emotion or feeling carries a charge of force which

is

likely to

crushing and scarifying effects on the victim.

affect the

person at

whom

it is

directed.

The

effect will

any

vary with the

strength of the feeling and the sensitivity of the target.

When you

emotion radiating from another person and, as often happens, you seem to understand immediately what that person is feeling, you sense an

of force whose nature you recognise you were a kind of radar receiver registering

are reacting to a current

instinct-

ively, as if

invisible

The World of the Black Magician

waves

in the atmosphere. In

wave of powerful emotion is by someone who has developed his

magic

projected with calculated intent

a

and according to occultists the results can be far-reaching. An exceptionally gifted and powerful magician may be able to kill by the sheer force of concentrated hatred, especially if his victim is someone of unusual sensitivity. We recognise that in ordinary life someone who has a strong personality can make himself obeyed by the force of his will. The same thing is considered true in magic, but to a much greater degree. Man is potentially God and the human will, wielded by a magician who has learned how to concentrate and project it, has potentially the hmitless power of God. As the nineteenth-century French magician Ehphas Levi put it, 'To affirm and will what ought to be is to create: to affirm and will what ought not to be is to destroy.'^ powers to an abnormal

pitch,

§

The great forces cannot be described as either good or evil. They have a good side and an evil side, or in occultists' terms a positive and a negative aspect. The evil side is the province of powerful evil beings called 'demons'. (The good side, correspondingly, is the province of the 'angels' or beneficent spirits, but black magicians are much more interested in the demons.) The magical universe is like an ocean. The great tides move through it invisibly and men are swept about by them, but are sometimes strong enough and clever enough to master

and use them. And

in the cold black currents

which come up from the

deeps there are strange and sinister creatures lurking - evil intelligences

which tempt and corrupt and

destroy, malignant elementals, astral

nightmare things which the mahce of sorcerers has created, the 'shells' or 'husks' which are the waste products of the universal organism. This is a development of the belief held by many corpses, zombies,

primitive peoples that diseases are evil

spirits.

The demons

are the

and waste products of the human body. Or from the psychological point of view, they are the universal equivalents of the dark, cruel, animal depths of the human universe's parallel to the viruses, impurities

mind.

BeUef

in the existence

stinctive. In all

known

of

evil supernatural beings

societies

down

to

modem

seems to be in-

times people have

demons and ghosts. The fear of something which lies in wait and pounces has a particularly long-lasting hold on humanity. The seven terrible Babylonian devils called maskim, which were the evil believed in

8

The Magician

s

Universe

counterparts of the gods of the planets (just as in

modem

demons

were beings which

are the evil side

of the great occult

forces),

theory the

and waits in hiding, ready to spring. The well-known verses of Psalm 91 probably refer to demons -'Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in

lurked in ambush.

The Arab ghul

sets traps

darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.' (This

passage was beheved to be a powerful

charm

against evil spirits.)

The

Egyptian Book of the Dead mentions sinister beings which set snares and work nets and are fishers. Their leader is the god whose face is behind him, which fmds an echo hundreds of years later in the Devil of the witches' sabbath who has a face before and behind. Even today, in an

atmosphere of general scepticism about such things, there are probably very few of us who have not felt the presence of the terror by night. Occultists do not beUeve that demons can be dismissed as products of overactive

human

imaginations (nor do

Roman

Catholic theologians).

There are two streams of magical tradition about the Devil and

his

one tradition the Devil is the magician's god, as in witchcraft, and his favour is won by worshipping him and doing his will. In the other, the demons are evil intelligences which have great power angels. In

but which can be dominated by a magician

who

is

sufficiently strong

and daring. Demons are subdued by the force of the magician's wall in rituals of blood and sacrifice, perfumes, symbols and curses. These operations are said to be extremely dangerous. Fear of the dead is another old terror and graveyards are still not widely regarded as pleasant places at night. Prehistoric burials have been discovered in which it is clear that the corpse was tied up in a cramped, foetus-like position soon after death. When modem primitives

do

this it is usually to

attack the living.

prevent the dead from coming back to

The same motive may

lie

behind prehistoric burials

of bodies in jars or under heavy stones: to stop something from getting out. The Sumerians and their successors in Mesopotamia, the Babylonians and Assyrians, believed that if a corpse was not properly buried with the appropriate ceremonies and gifts it would come back and

and trying to suck their blood. The Greeks thought that offerings must be made at the graves of dead relatives, whose ghosts would take revenge if they were neglected. The art of controUing the spirits of the dead is necromancy, which is also extremely dangerous. Modem occultism brings in the notion of stalk the streets, attacking the living

the astral corpse.

When

a

man

dies his

body remains on

earth, but in

The World of the Black Magician 'body of light' - a rephca of the earthly body made of finer and subtler material - he goes to a mysterious, ethereal plane of existence which is called the astral plane. His soul eventually mounts to stiU his

higher planes, leaving the body of light in the corpse. Just as the earthly

grow

body

retains

plane as an astral

astral

enough innate

life-force to

and hair for a time after death, the astral corpse retains a faint spark of life. It has an intense desire to live again, like the Mesopotamian vampire-corpses which would suck people's blood to recover life, and it can be attracted back into the normal world, either consciously by necromancy or sometimes unconsciously. It can then absorb enough life-energy from living creatures to prolong its shadowy its nails

existence almost indefmitely.

seances really

Some

summon not 'spirits'

occultists believe that Spiritualist

but

astral corpses.

Another important magical theory about the universe is the doctrine of opposites. The early Greek philosophers were impressed by the existence of pairs of opposites in Nature. They saw that the life of the

pendulum swings. Day gives way to night and summer to winter, calm follows storm, what is bom must eventually die and what grows strong will in time grow weak. But they did universe seems to

move

in

not think that the universe could be entirely explained in these terms.

They

believed that there was something

opposites,

swimg

something which held them in

regularly to and

firo,

from day

more fundamental than the balance so that the pendulum to night

and back to day,

something of which the opposites "were themselves a

The

magician's search

connects the opposites, diversity in unity.

of opposites.

To

which the mysterious One which

is

The path

for this 'something'

to the

One

experience and master

reconcile opposites -

part.

good and

evil,

underlies reconciles

as in the

Hegelian

all

hes through the reconciliation all

things

is

to experience

and

the spiritual and the material,

fireedom and necessity, reason and passion, laughter and

magic,

and

tears.

In

comes through the reconin a synthesis which trans-

dialectic, progress

ciUation of opposites, thesis and antithesis,

cends them.

The Greeks

between opposites

and magicians have a correspondingly high regard for exact balance and equilibrium. To achieve a reconciliation of opposites there must be a

10

called a perfect balance

'justice*,

The Magician's Universe perfect balance

hate in

between them.

my own

I

nature unless

I

cannot reconcile the forces of love and

have brought them both to an equal

Otherwise one will outweigh the other and no true synthesis will be obtained. The magician tries to bring all the forces of his being into a proper balance. He must not, for instance, devote himself to pitch.

reason and intelligence at the expense of his instinctive drives, his passions

and emotions.

summon up and unleash the animal driving forces from the deeps of human nature. The whole man is to be raised to the power of infinity, not man as civilised thinker or man as ravening beast, but man as a combination Many

magical ceremonies are deUberately designed to

of both.

One of the occult applications of this theory of opposites and balance of sex. The stock

example of progress through the reconciliation of opposites is the union of male and female (the two opposites) which results in the creation of new life - a child. Eliphas Levi remarked that 'Generation is in fact a work of the human androgyne; in their division man and woman remain sterile.'* It is not merely that man and woman are physically sterile if kept apart. In is

in the area

occultist's

magical theory they are also spiritually

There

is

sterile.

man was originally bisexual. A Jewish man on his right side and a woman on

an old tradition that

legend says that

Adam was

a

and God separated the two halves. In another version Adam and Eve were originally joined at the shoulders, back to back, and God split them with an axe. These stories were intended to reconcile the existence of two sexes with the behef that man was made in the image of God. God, or the One, carmot be described as either masculine or feminine. The One links all the opposites together in unity and it combines male and female. If man was made in God's image he must originally have been bisexual. The magician cannot become the One unless he becomes bisexual. One step towards this is for the male magician to cultivate the female side of his nature, but without impairing his masculinity, and the female magician vice versa (carried to the point of dehberate homosexual activity in some cases). Another method is copulation. In a sense the beast with two backs is a bisexual creature, a human androgyne, and copulation in which man and woman are joined into one being can therefore be a mystical approach to the One. This idea should not be written off as merely an ingenious justification for sex orgies. The feeling that sex is sinful, dirty and utterly his left,

II

The World of the Black Magician

unworthy of the realm of the spirit and the divine is entirely foreign to magic, as it was foreign to the pagan world in which magic has its roots. On the contrary, in antiquity it was thought that just as in man

new life is

the result of copulation so

of the sexual

all life

in the universe

is

the result

of the gods. There are numerous myths which describe the creation of the world as the result of a copulation between gods. Aeschylus in the Danaids saw the life of Nature as the offspring of the union of earth and sky. 'Holy sky passionately longs to penetrate the earth and desire takes hold of her to achieve this union. Rain from her bedfellow sky falls and impregnates the earth and she brings forth for mortals pasturage for flocks and Demeter's livelihood.'^ Among the Sumerians 4,000 years ago the king went through a rite of sacred copulation each year with a priestess who represented Inanna, the goddess of procreation, to ensure that the land of Sumer and its people would be fruitful and prosperous in the coming year. The same rite is found in many other societies. activity

When sexuality is admitted into the world of the divine it is possible to think of union with the divine in sexual terms (and

mystics have spoken of union with

God

many

Christian

in these terms). In the

pagan

mystery religions union with the god was often achieved symbolically

An essential element of witchcraft is sexual union with the god (the Devil). Among the witches of the primitive Ozark hill country in the United States initiation as a witch involves by sexual

intercourse.

intercourse with the Devil's representative, a

member of the

cult.

man who

is

already a

A woman who decides to become a witch goes to

her family burying-ground at midnight in the dark of the moon. There she formally renounces the Christian faith and offers herself body and

naked and copulates with the man who is responsible for teaching her the secrets of the cult. Both of them repeat certain words which are believed to attract demons and ghosts of the evil dead, and the ceremony ends with the recitation of the Lord's Prayer backwards. It is repeated for three nights in succession and must be wimessed by at least two other initiates who are also naked. The ceremony is far from being merely a sex orgy. Vance Randolph, who soul to the Devil. She strips

investigated the

Ozark

enced both that

'the witch's initiation

crisis

witches,

was told by

than that which the Christians

is

a

women who

had experi-

much more moving spiritual

call conversion'.^

Magical ceremonies designed to release the driving forces from the depths of man's being naturally tend to be heavily spiced with sex. The sex-drive

12

is

a powerful force in

man, and correspondingly

in the

The Magician's Uuiverse

which the magician must experience and control. Inhibitions and repressions are obstacles to the development of the complete man and must be swept away. Magic takes a pagan delight in the pleasures of the senses, but magical theory insists that sensual indulgence for universe,

own sake will not serve the magician's purpose (and it is interesting that many witches said that intercourse with the Devil was extremely

its

painful). If the

magician

lets

himself be carried

away on

desire he has failed to achieve the perfect balance

the tides of

of opposites from

which magical progress comes.

One of the most deeply reverenced of magical documents is the Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus. Magicians, who deal in mysteries, are always enthralled by anything which

is

exceptionally mysterious, and

Emerald Table is impenetrable in the extreme. It is said to have been a tablet of emerald, engraved with writing in Phoenician characters, which was discovered by Sarah, the wife of Abraham (or alternatively by Alexander the Great), in a cave-tomb where it was clutched in the fmgers of the corpse of Hermes Trismegistus. Hermes was the Greek god of wisdom and patron of magic. Hermes Trismegistus - thricegreatest - was supposedly a grandson of Adam, a sage of surpassing the

wisdom and

A

Latin version of the Emerald Table was in existence

earlier it

the builder of the pyramids.

No

Arabic versions have been discovered.

agree and none of

them make very much

purposes the important part of version - quod superius

est

sicut

it is

sense,

translations

of

but for magical

the opening sentence of the Latin

quod

quod superius ad perpetranda miracula

two

by 1200 and

rei

itiferius

et

quod

inferius est sicut

which is above is like like that which is above,

unius, 'that

below and that which is below is to achieve the wonders of the one thing'. This is the great magical doctrine of 'as above, so below', which is the foundation of the art of astrology. It is one way of putting the theory that man is the earthly counterpart of God: as God is in heaven so man is on earth. It is also a statement of the old belief that events on earth parallel the doings of that

which

is

the gods in heaven.

Events on earth run parallel to events in heaven because both

depend on the workings of the same force ('the one thing' which reconciles the opposites of 'above' and 'below'), like two wheels turned by the same cog-wheel. Astrology developed originally in Mesopotamia, where each city-state had its own patron god and every change in 13

The World of the Black Magician the balance of

power between

the city-states

was seen

as the direct

of a change in the relationships of the gods. Modem astrology on this same belief, with the planets substituted for the old

reflection built

is

gods, because the Babylonians and Assyrians connected their principal

gods with the planets. For example, a conjunction of Jupiter (the planet of health) with the two malevolent planets Saturn and Mars is a portent of plague. In

was thought that the terrible Black Death of 1348 had been signalled by one of these conjunctions in 1345. It was later accepted that another conjunction of the three planets heralded the arrival of syphilis in Europe. Modem astrologers say that a man who is bom when Venus is close to the sun in the zodiac is likely to be effeminate - femininity (Venus) affects his personality (the sun) - and if the fourteenth century

Saturn

is

it

opposite the sun in the sky he will catch cold with unusual

frequency, because Saturn the

is

from discovery of Uranus, Neptune

the coldest planet, the one furthest

warmth of the sun (or it was until the

and Pluto). Napoleon's tendency to overeat could have been predicted from the fact that Venus was in the sign of Cancer when he was bom. Venus stands for love and Cancer rules the stomach, so Napoleon was naturally afflicted with

These are

-

'as

cases

of

undue love of his stomach and

'as

below, so above' -

its

pleasures.

above, so below' reasoning, but the converse is

also important.

Events in the sky are signals

of events on earth, but it is equally true that occurrences on earth are evidence of conditions in heaven. By inspecting the markings on a sheep's liver I can discover whether the gods or the stars are favourable for any enterprise which I have in mind. This is the basis of many highly eccentric methods of predicting the future, because any event, however trivial and apparently meaningless it may be, can give a clue to the direction in which the universe as a whole is moving. The ancients drew omens from the internal organs of animals, dreams, lots, the shapes taken by oil or flour dropped on the surface of water, unusual events like monstrous births, and the movements of animals and birds. Agnes Sampson, a famous Scottish witch who was executed in 1590, used to predict whether sick people would recover or not by watching the behaviour of a large black dog. Plutarch, who lived at the turn of the first and second centuries a.d., said that the Egyptians drew omens from the chance remarks of children.

The

thirteenth-century astrologer and magician Michael

Scot believed that sneezes are portents of the future. If you sneeze twice or four times 14

when you

are involved in

some

business venture

The Magician's Universe and you immediately get up and walk about, the venture will be successful. When a contract has been drawn up, if you sneeze once it will be kept, but if

you sneeze

three times

it

will be broken. Sneezing

twice in the night for three successive nights

is

a sign

of death

in the

house.'

Modem methods of fortune-telling are just as odd,

if not

depend on the same theory of the universe. Books which

odder, and

you how

tell

to interpret dreams, palms, playing-cards or tea leaves can be found in

many bookshops and

public libraries.

A

curious technique

is

mole-

osophy - divination by moles on the body. If you have a mole on the right side of your forehead you are talented and likely to succeed, but if it is on the left side you are stubborn, extravagant and dissipated. A mole on the right knee means a happy marriage, on the left knee bad temper, on the right hand success in business, on the left hand the curse of an artistic temperament. These rules come from a book published in the United States, with perfect seriousness, in 1945.^ All these methods,

which seem

to involve

events - the

random

chance remarks of children, a sneeze or two, a mole on the body -

depend on the

belief that the events are not

whole,

Any

is

a

a great design.

random

event which occurs

at all. is

The

universe

part of the design

and can be used to predict events in the future because they are also parts of the design. The principle of 'as below, so above' is not limited to fortunetelling. Events 'above' and 'below' run in parallel courses. By manipulating events here 'below' I can affect the course of events 'above'. At Rome in 1628 Pope Urban VIII employed a magician called Tommaso Campanella, an ex-Dominican friar who had earlier been imprisoned for heresy, to ward off an eclipse which the Pope feared would be the signal for his death. Campanella and the Pope sealed off a room against the outside air and draped it in white hangings. They used two lamps to stand for the sun and moon and five torches for the planets. They assembled jewels, plants and colours connected with the benevolent planets Jupiter, Venus and the sun, drank liquor which had been distilled under the influence of Jupiter and Venus, and played 'Jovial and Venereal' music. They were trying to create their own little favourable sky in the sealed room in place of the hostile real sky outside, either to prevent the eclipse from occurring at all or at least to guard the Pope, who was in the sealed room, against its effects. Their efforts were evidently successful, as

Urban

VIII did not die until 1644.®

15

Imitative

2.

the Magical Link

Magic and

Superstitions are instinctive,

and

very nature of things, to which

all

that

is

instinctive

fact the sceptics

is

founded

in the

of all times have given

insufficient attention.

ELIPHAS LEVI The

Doctriite

and Rilual of Magic

Magic depends heavily on mimicry. Campanella and Urban VIII constructed an imitation sky in their sealed room. The magician tortures or kills an animal in a ceremony of hatred as an imitation of the action of the force he

is

trying to arouse.

When a

magician musters

way, he believes that he causes the forces of the universe outside him to act in the same way. This is an extension of the rule of 'as below, so above'. As the magician the full

power of his

will

and

acts in a certain

behaves 'below' so will the forces of the universe behave 'above'.

Knots are very tie a

knot

of the

magically to

is

spell.

sinister things, tie

much

used by witches, because to

and impede the person

An example is the

terrible

who

is

the target

death talisman of the string with

The string is tied with a fierce concentration of hatred against an enemy and hidden somewhere close to him. The knots slowly throttle the life out of him and he dies. The only cure is to find the string in time and untie the

nine knots, sometimes called 'the witches' ladder'.

knots.

cows from giving milk, but their main use in witchcraft was to prevent a couple from enjoying the pleasures of the bed. Jean Bodin, the political philosopher who was also an authority on witchcraft, was told by a witch at Poitiers in 1567 that there were more than fifty ways of tying a knot for this purpose. The knot could impede the man alone or the woman alone for a day Witches sometimes

or a year or a lifetime. in return, or

it

tied knots to stop

It

could make one love the other, but be hated

could make the pair tear each other with their

nails in

love-making. Different types of knot would prevent intercourse or procreation or urination.^**

17

The World of the Black Magician In the second Idyll of Theocritus, written about 2^5 B.C., the witch

draw her faithless lover Delphis back to her by another type of imitative magic. She lights a fire and throws grain on to it, Simaetha

tries

to

saying that the grain represents her lover's bones. She burns bayleaves

flesh to

powder

as it melts so

his

me

- 'Delphis racks in the

may

fire.'

I

bum him in these bays. wax

She heats

over the

...

fire,

So waste

his

chanting that

Delphis be melted with love. She has stolen part of

robe and she shreds

as the ingredients

;

it

and drops

of the charm

it

on

bum in

the flames. She beheves that

the fire so Delphis will 'burn'

with love for her. In a similar scene in VirgU's eighth Eclogue the witch twines threads around a small figure of her lover, made of clay

and wax, to 'entwine' him in her love. Mimicry alone is not enough. Imitating the action of a force arouses it to act in the way which is imitated, but to direct it at a particular victim there must be a link between the spell and the victim, otherwise the force will not hit the intended target. The link may be created simply by words, by saying that the grain is the victim's bones and the bay-leaves his flesh, or by making a doll which is a miniature replica of him, or by working on a part of his body or his clothes or something which has been closely connected with him. A grim Scottish method of finding out whether someone who is ill will recover or not establishes a magical link by the force of words alone. Dig two holes in the ground. Call one 'the living grave' and the other 'the dead grave'. Fetch the sick man and put him on the ground between the holes, without telling him which is which. If he turns his face to the living grave he wUl recover, if to the dead grave he will

die.

The

be imagined.

It

sensations

may

of the

sick

have worked

the psychological effect

on

man who

bound to get well or doomed Once the link has been made

who

many

of discovered that he was

efficiently in

the patient

believes in this test can cases because

to die.

the effects of the spell follow the prin-

of imitative magic, the law of 'like to like'. In 1597 Isobel Ritchie of Aberdeen was accused of murdering Thomas Forbes. She took two pillows to his house and weighed them against each other and then,

ciple

words of the accusation, 'in thy inchanting manner appointed the one pillow to be the said Thomas and the other Elspet Forbes, his daughter, and because the said Thomas his pillow was the lightest, by in the

thy witchcraft he

died'.^^

The

heavier pillow stood for the plumpness

life

and

health, the lighter for the shrunkenness

death.

The

force of

of

18

words

said in

of starvation and

an 'inchanting manner' created a

Imitative

link

Magic and

the

Magical Livk

between Thomas Forbes and the Hghter pillow, and so he

Physical contact or nearness also establishes a link.

unpleasant cure for a child's

round the

neck in

child's

whooping cough

is

A

singularly

to tie a nest

of mice

This links the mice with the cough in

a bag.

the child's throat and as the mice starve to death in the bag the will gradually disappear.

the

last five

Writing

in 1944, Christina

years in Cheshire she had

their children's warts

convinced that

with a

snail

Hole

cough

said that in

known women who rubbed

and impaled the

died the warts

as it lingeringly

died.

snail

on

a thorn,

would dwindle away

to

woman

was arrested in a suburb of San Francisco and accused of charging $70 to cure stomach pains by rolling an egg to and fro on the sufferer's stomach and then smashing the egg on the floor. Another kind of link is provided by the magical law that anything which has once been part of a man's body or in close contact with him

nothing.i2

retain

ij^

December 1962

connection with

its

his

a

body even

after

it

has been physically

from him. This is the basis of the well-known primitive fear of allowing your cut hair or nails to fall into anyone else's hands be-

separated

They are still magically linked with your body and whatever is done to them will aflfect you. In a famous case at York, Pennsylvania, in 1929, John H. Blymyer was cause they can be used against you.

sentenced to

Rehmycr,

life

who

imprisonment for the murder of Nelson Rehmyer. was notorious in the area as a black magician, was

of his hair, which was to be buried as part of a charm against him. Aleister Crowley, who had much to fear from certain rival magicians, was always careful to see that no one killed in a struggle to get a lock

could get hold of his

hair,

nail clippings, excreta or other

bodily

products.

The best-known type of imitative magic relies on creating a link with its victim by making an image of him in wax, clay, rags or whatever material

is

to hand, usually including his hair or nail clip-

blood or sweat, which retain their connection with him. The image is pierced with a nail or a needle, broken in pieces, twisted and tortured, burned or sunk in water, and because it is a replica of the

pings,

victim, linked to

him through

its

appearance and the products of

his

done to it is done to him. Image magic has been practised in every part of the world and in all periods of history. In some prehistoric cave paintings animals are shown pierced with arrows, probably as a magical aid to hunting them. A recent example is the discovery in February 1964 of the figure of a

body, whatever

is

19

The World of the Black Magician

naked woman, six inches long and made of modelling clay, near Sandringham in Norfolk. It was stuck through the heart with a sharp sliver of hawthorn and near it were a black candle and a sheep's heart.

This figure

may have been meant either to

kill

or to seduce. Piercing

the image's heart can be intended to pierce the victim's breast with

A

love.

fifteenth-century book, written in a mixture of

Hebrew and

you should make a female figure of shown. The face should be as good a

Yiddish, says that to seduce a girl

wax, with the sex organs

clearly

of the figure write her name, name) and daughter of (mother's

likeness as possible. Across the breast * ,

daughter of

(father's

name).' Write the same thing

on

Then say over it, 'May it be Thy

between the shoulders. Lord, that N. daughter of N.

the back

will,

O

burn with a mighty passion for me.' Bury the figure carefully so that its limbs are not broken and leave it for twenty-four hours (probably near the girl's house or a path which she often takes, to create a link with her by physical nearness, but the charm does not say this). Dig

up again and wash it three times in water, doing this once in the name of the Archangel Michael, once in the name of Gabriel, once in the name of Raphael. Then dip it in urine (presumably your own, to create a link between the girl and you) and afterwards dry it. When you want to arouse passion in the girl pierce the figure's heart with a brand-new needle. This entire charm appears in the book the figure

written backwards.^^

was sentenced to imfor invoking demons and making wax images to win the love of women. He moulded the wax with his own blood and spittle (magically mingling his own body with the woman's body represented by the image). Then he buried the image under the woman's threshold. He said he had seduced three women in this way and had given thanks to Satan with sacrifices afterwards. In January i960, while the office building of the Hereford Rural District Council was being repaired, a small figure of a woman was found in the cellar. Tucked into its skirt was a piece of paper worn and dirty with age, on which was written the name Mary Ann Wand and the words - 'I act this spell upon you from my whole heart, wishing you to never rest nor eat nor sleep the restem part of your life. I hope your flesh will waste away and I hope you will never spend another penny I ought to have. Wishing this from my whole heart. '^^ Almost three centuries before, at Salem in 1692, images were found In 1329, Pierre Recordi, a Carmelite

prisonment for

20

life

friar,

Imitative

in another cellar with

much more

Magic and

the

serious consequences.

Magical Link

According to

Cotton Mather's account of the trial of Bridget Bishop, in his Wonders of the Invisible World, John Bly and WiUiam Bly gave evidence that when they knocked dowTi the cellar wall of the old house she used to live in 'they did in the holes of the said old Wall fmd several Poppets,

made up of Rags and

Hogs-bristles with headless Pins in them, the

whereof she could give no account unto the Court that was reasonable or tolerable'. There were several other charges of witchcraft against Bridget Bishop. She was hanged from Points being outward;

the branches of an oak-tree eight days later.

In 1560 a

wax image of Queen Elizabeth I with a

pin jabbed through

was found in Lincoln's Inn Fields, to the horror of the court. The witches of North Berwick tried to kill James VI of Scotland (afterwards James I of England) with a wax image. Agnes Sampson and nine others met near Prestonpans, the Devil their master being with them. The image, wrapped in a linen cloth, was showm to the Devil. After he had approved it, the image was passed from hand to hand, all saying, 'This is King James the Sixth, ordained to be consumed at the instance of a nobleman, Francis, Earl Bothwell.' The image was to its

breast

be roasted to

kill

the king.

Many writers have suggested that the 'Devil*

was the Earl of Bothwell himself Here, as in many other cases, the link between the victim and the image is strengthened by formally giving the image the victim's .' In 13 15, Hugh Geraud, name. 'This is King James the Sixth. Bishop of Cahors, and two other bishops who were fanatical enemies of Pope John XXII were accused of plotting the Pope's death by poison and sorcery. They first tested the efficiency of their magic by killing the Pope's favourite nephew with a wax image and then went on to the main task. Three wax images were baptised in full form with the names of the Pope and two leading members of his court. They were in this case

.

.

hidden in loaves of bread and sent to the papal court at Avignon. The messengers were searched at the gates of Avignon. The loaves and images were found in their baggage with a whole battery of sorcerer's equipment - poisons and herbs, arsenic, quicksilver, rats' tails, spiders, toads and lizards, marjoram, mint, vervain and the hair of a criminal

who had been and burned in

hanged.

Hugh Geraud was found

guilty, flayed alive

13 17.

The American

journalist

William Seabrook came across two

cases

of image magic near St. Remy in southern France in 1932.^5 ^ friend of his fell on a tangled path down a hillside and lost the use of his legs, 21

The World of the Black Magician although there was nothing physically the matter with him. Seabrook discovered that his friend had been bewitched, went to the witch's

jumbled mass of thorns and brambles, which was a doll with a china head. It wore a man's costume and eyes were covered with a black cloth. Its legs and feet were tangled a criss-cross network of thorns. *It slumped, sagging there at an

house and found in the in its

in

cellar a

ugly angle, neither upright nor

body of a

soldier caught in

fallen,

grotesquely

barbed wire.'

An

altar

sinister, like

the

stood against one

was written INRI, with the letters distorted into obscene shapes. Above this again was a pair of horns. INRI was written above the head of Jesus at the Crucifixion, the letters standing for 'Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews'. The horns belong to the great Goat of the witches' sabbath. Horns and all forked or two-pointed objects are symbols of the Devil. They deny the One, which is God, and assert the Two, God and the Enemy. In the other case Seabrook found an image which was intended to do murder. The doll was stuck through with pins and smeared with wall of the cellar and above

it

have long been popularly believed to be poisonwas a Bible and on the Bible an inverted crucifix from

toad's blood. (Toads

Near it which hung a toad, crucified head downwards. If the image is accidentally damaged, the victim is not harmed. The image created the necessary link with the victim, but what injures him is the fierce current of deliberate hatred for which the image provides a focusing point. The torture of the image is often accompanied by rites designed to work the magician's malicious fury up to a pitch of frenzy - appeals to the Devil and acts of sacrilege (the obscene distortion of INRI, the toad crucified upside down), the burning of materials like henbane or black hellebore which give oflf intoxicating fumes, slaughtering an animal near the image or drenching it with poison. The powerful psychological 'kick' which the magician derives from these rites strengthens the waves of destructive violence ous.)

which he projects at the image. In this way he attempts to charge the image with a malevolent force which will obsess the victim's mind and destroy him. 'All these

rites',

a

modem occultist explains, 'can play their

part in causing an image - especially one already associated with destruction - to spring into a black, abounding vitality which can bum itself into

the conscious and subconscious, especially during sleep.

22

.'^^ .

.

.

Analogies and Correspondences

3.

How are we in

its

to explain the strength and grip of superstition? Certainly

origin and development sinister

play a great role.

.

non-human demoniac

influences

.

PHILIPP

SCHMIDT

S.J. SupeTStUioit

and Magic

form of science, but it is very much nearer to poetry than to even the most rudimentary science and, like poetry, it relies extensively on the use of analogy. The whole magical universe itself is built on the analogy of the human body. Imitative magic, which depends on the principle of analogy, the law of like to like, is only one more example of this tendency. Magic makes use of all kinds of associations and cormections between things whose relationship to each other is a matter of similarities and parallels. For instance, things which are backwards or upside down - an inverted Magic

is

sometimes said to be

a primitive

backwards - are linked with evil and the Devil because they reverse the normal and proper order of

crucifix or saying the Lord's Prayer

things and the Devil established

This

is

a natural parallel for the

between

merely symbohc but

is

who

seeks to overturn the order

by God.

the connection

two

the arch-rebel

is

evil

real.

mind

to

draw, but in occult theory

and things which are reversed

Man

is

a tiny replica

things are naturally associated together in the

an image of the 'mind* of the universe,

is

not

of the universe.

If

human mind, which

this is

evidence of a real

connection between the two things in the universe.

Many

of the

important magical analogies and cormections are not natural to most

minds today, but have been handed down by tradition from the remote past. This enhances their value for occultists, who beUeve that humanity was a great deal wiser in these matters in the remote people's

past than

it is

An example are

now. is

of salt to ward off demons. All devils and no salt should be used in ceremonies

the magical use

supposed to detest

it

23

The World of the Black Magician designed to attract them. Salt

Demons

is

anti-demonic because

which corrupt and

it is

a preserva-

Anything that has preservative quaHties is contrary to their nature, and disagreeable to them. Iron can also be employed against demons, because men discovered and used meteoric iron long before they found iron ore in the earth. Since it first came from the sky, iron is 'heavenly' and devils tive.

fear

are creatures

it.

On

the other hand, the left

'the Left-hand Path'.

Moving

is

associated with evil. Black

to the left in

Some

intent

and

move

to the left while repeating them.

the

destroy.

left

attracts evil influences.

with

evil

is

very old.

When the

magic

spells will

is

magic is done with evil

only

work

if

you

The tendency to connect Babylonians drew omens they

bad and the right side good. In Homer omen, but birds which fly the left to are unfavourable. 'Sinister' was the Latin word for both left and evil and has kept the double meaning in English (it still means left usually considered the left side

birds flying to the right are a favourable

in heraldry).

The probable explanation of this the fact that the right

hand

normally the stronger and the

left

left is

hand

comes from the Anglo-Saxon word lyft, which meant weak. To be left-handed is pecuHar and suspect, a reversal of the proper order of things, and so the left is associated with the powers of evil which rebel against God. Some modem psychologists say that left-handedness is often a characteristic of men who are sexually abnormal - homosexual or perverted. A stock example is the Emperor Tiberius, a notorious pervert who was left-handed. A more obvious but equally ancient connection is the link between blood and life. Primitive people who observed that as a man loses blood he weakens and eventually dies came naturally to the conclusion that his blood contains his life. But the magical connection is not merely the weaker.

The word

is

general disapproval of the

the physical one.

A

'left'

man's

life

includes

all his

experiences, character-

and these are contained in his blood. A classical cure for epilepsy is to drink the blood of a slaughtered gladiator, which conveys his strength and healthy vitality into the epileptic's body. The gladiator should be freshly killed, because the energy in his blood istics

and

qualities,

some before he was it came warm

will dissipate quite quickly. Pliny's Natural History says that

found it most effective to reach the gladiator actually dead and gulp the invigorating blood down as and bubbling from the dying man's wounds. The sadistic Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory bathed regularly epileptics

24

Analogies and Correspondences

human blood girls who were in

to preserve her looks.

Her

kept in chains in the

cellars

supplies

came from

of her

peasant

and whose

castle

young blood was expected to give the Countess's skin a youthful bloom. When she was arrested in 1610 the dead bodies of about fifty of these girls were found. She once wrote to her husband, 'Thorko fresh

has taught

me

a lovely

new

one. Catch a black hen and beat

it

to death

with a white cane. Keep the blood and smear a little of it on your enemy. If you get no chance to smear it on his body, obtain one of his garments

The magical theory behind this is that the hen's life, which was characterised by an agonised death, has been transferred to the enemy in the hen's blood. His death in the same agony will and smear

it.'

follow. Beating the black hen to death with a white cane

is

an interest-

ing example of a reconciliation of opposites.^''

The blood of an executed

criminal

is

a strong protection against

and misfortune, because it carries the vigorous energy of a man cut off in full health and the powerful force of his resentment and fury at the fact. Spectators at executions, including those of Charles I of England and Louis XVI of France, struggled to dip cloths and handdisease

kerchiefs in the dead man's blood.

gunman and bank

When John Dillinger,

robber, was shot

down and

killed

the notorious

by

F.B.I, agents

round and soaked their handkerchiefs or pieces of paper in a pool of his blood on the sidewalk. Some of the women dipped the hems of their skirts in it. The blood was quickly used up, but enterprising local tradesmen sold large quantities of fake in

Chicago

in 1934, people gathered

Dilhnger blood.

A

you can absorb a man's qualities by drinking his blood or eating part of his body is provided by recent experiments with flatworms at the University of Michigan. The worms sidelight

on

the beUef that

are conditioned to respond to lights

ditioned

worm

is

and to negotiate

then killed and fed to an untaught

worm

a

maze.

worm.

A In

con-

some

worm's ability to respond to the lights and the maze simply by eating it. The tentative explanation is that the conditioned worm's memory is connected with

cases the

untaught

acquires the conditioned

a chemical, possibly ribonucleic acid, in

menters have not obtained the same

Most of us do not

its

body, but other experi-

results.

associate the colour green, copper, the

the dove, the sparrow,

and the swan together

in

number

7,

our minds, but in

magical theory these things are linked because they are

all

connected

with the force of Venus, the universal current of love. These cotmections are part of what is called a 'system of correspondences'. From the 25

The World of the Black Magician earliest

times

constructed

gods

who

men

by

tried to understand the

classifying all the features

way

in

which the world

of the universe in terms of the

controlled them. Magicians have followed

suit,

substituting

the great driving forces of the universe for the gods. Everything classified in

terms of the force with which

The system is extremely part of it Planets

is

detailed,

is

it is

is

connected.

but the oldest and most important

the set of links between planets, metals and colours.

Analogies and Correspondences

seems to be very old. The Sumcrian term for dn was 'metal of heaven',

which suggests that they already connected it with the ruler of the sky and possibly they thought the sky was made of tin. Quicksilver belongs to Mercury (and is called mercury) because it is the most mobile of the metals and Mercury is a particularly fast-moving planet, which shoots across the sky at great speed, as

is

suitable for the

god who

carried the

other god's messages. Lead, the darkest and heaviest of the metals, was naturally assigned

dimmest and slowest-moving planet, which trudges heavily through its slow path round the sun. In the old cosmology Saturn is the farthest planet from the sim, the ruler of life, and is the lord of death. The analogy between death and night was drawn very early. Black is the colour of night and the colour invariably associated with death in Western countries. Copper is the metal of Venus, probably because Aphrodite, the Greek Venus, was closely associated with Cyprus and Cyprus was the classical world's chief source of copper. The cult of Aphrodite ('the Cyprian') seems to have spread to Greece from the Near East through Cyprus, from which copper was also imported, and one of her principal shrines was at Paphos in western Cyprus, where she had been bom from the sea. Venus is not only the ruler of love but also the mistress of Nature and the characteristic colour of Nature is green. In most languages the word for green is connected with words for plants, leaves and grass. Our 'green' comes from the Germanic root^o, which probably meant 'to grow' and also appears in 'grow' and 'grass'. The most interesting of the correspondences is the link between Mars, iron and red. Iron became the metal of Mars when the superiority of iron weapons over bronze weapons was discovered. The Hittites were the first people to develop the use of iron weapons. (They were also noted for the use of horses in batde and the horse is a beast of Mars in magic as a resvilt.) The Assyrian army was equipped with iron weapons by 800 B.C. and dominated the Near East for two hundred years. The Dorians brought the Iron Age to Europe when they invaded Greece and defeated the bronze-wielding Achaeans. Red is coimected with Mars through several chains of association. The planet has a reddish look and the Egyptians called it 'the red star'. Red is the colour of blood and Mars was the god of bloodshed and war. The war-chiefs of Rome in early times painted themselves bright red with vermiHon and the same custom has been found among other primitive peoples. Red is the colour of energy and vitaHty to Saturn, the

*7

The World of the Black Magician

and in astrology Mars

The word

rules all

forms of violent energy and

activity.

most languages is based on the fact that red is the colour of blood. Our 'red', Greek eruthros and Latin ruber and for red in

rufus are all akin to Sanskrit rudhira, 'blood'. In primitive belief, the

blood contains the body's

and so red becomes the colour of vigour and vitality. This is probably the explanation of the prehistoric custom of colouring corpses red. In a prehistoric graveyard near Nordlingen in Bavaria thirty-three human skulls were found embedded in red ochre (and all facing west, where the sun 'dies' in the evening). Finds at Grimaldi in Italy included a boy's skeleton stained red with peroxide of iron, three bodies in a grave lined with red ochre and the scarlet skeleton of a man whose bones had been covered with powdered haematite. The intention was probably to keep the body in a usable condition in case its owner might need it again, by painting it with the colour of life and vitality.^^ The connection with blood and death gives red some sinister overtones. An ancient Egyptian papyrus contains a prayer to the goddess Isis - *0 Isis, thou great magician, heal me and save me from all wicked, frightful and red things.' The Egyptians had the curious custom of jeering at red-headed men on certain religious occasions. They connected red with Typhon, a demonic dragon and evil power. In Scotland and Ulster imtil fairly recent times a fisherman who met a red-headed woman on the way to his boat would turn back because he would have no luck with his fishing that day. If a woman with red hair came into a house where the milk was being churned it was life

thought that her presence would spoil the butter.

of energy and vigour red can be used to make a particular powerful poison. In 1580 an epidemic broke out at Aix in France and an English doctor named Thomas Flud said it was Because

it

carries a current

by Jews who had gone about rubbing poison on the town's door-knockers. The poison was snake venom, but it was made peculiarly virulent by being strained through people with red hair. Flud said that the Jews kidnapped a red-haired man and tied him to a cross, keeping his mouth open with a wedge of wood. Then they stung him with adders and collected the poisonous froth from his mouth. Others stripped a red-headed woman, buried her in the ground up to her middle, stung her breasts with adders and drained the slaver from her caused

Ups.i9

seem to match their traditional remarkably neatly, whether because colours really

People's reactions to colours today occult significance

28

Analogies and Correspondences

do have their ovvn innate force or simply as the result of the association of the same ideas with them for centuries. Green, which is traditionally the colour of Venus, the force of love, peace and harmony, does exert a peaceful, pleasant, tranquillising influence. Blue has a subduing effect

which all

is

an appropriate reaction to the colour of Jupiter, the ruler of

things. Red, the colour

lating

of energy and

vitality, has a

highly stimu-

and exciting influence. B. J. Kouwer found that the ideas which

people tend to associate with red are passion, emotion, temperament, action,

rebelliousness,

victory, shame.

Most of

astrological character battle, action,

force,

sexuahty,

these

of red

as

fit

tension,

love,

spontaneity,

very well with the magical and

the colour of Mars, the planet of force,

energy, vitality, with connotations of violent emotion,

passion and sexual vigour.

Ovid

in his Fasti called Priapus, the

god of

and it is the red light which marks the brothel. Similarly, Kouwer found that the ideas generally associated with black, the colour of the grim and ominous Saturn, are death, night, murder, anxiety, misery, defeat.20 the phallus, 'red Priapus',

.

Modem

The

4-

To

Magicians

attain the sanctum regnum, in other

words, the knowledge and power

of the magi, there are four indispensable conditions - an inteUigence illuminated

by

which nothing can break, and and nothing

SILENCE

which nothing can check,

study, an intrepidity

intoxicate.

a discretion

a will

which nothing can corrupt

TO KNOW, TO DARE, TO WILL, TO K£EP

- such are the four words of the magus

ELIPHAS LEVI The

.

.

Doctrine and Ritual of Magic

of the widening gulf which has increasingly tended separate the ordinary educated person from both Christianiry and

Perhaps to

as a result

science in the last to have

hundred years

been on the

increase.

interest in occultism

The

and magic seems

of magic has

practice

also flourished

and magicians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - especially EHphas Levi, MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley - hold a high place in magical history.

EHphas Levi, whose

bom

real

name was Alphonse

Louis Constant, was

shoemaker and the family were poor, but the boy was precociously clever and was educated for the priesthood. He was expelled from the seminary for holding peculiar and heretical opinions and never became a priest. The conflict between his orthodox CathoHc education and his fascination with magic nms in Paris about 1810. His father

was

a

books and although he tried hard to reconcile the two waning tendencies in his thinking he was never really successful. through

all his

His expulsion from the seminary suggests that Levi was attracted to occultism at an early age. his

own

instructions to

did not keep entirely

of Le Dogme

et

know,

silent.

Rituel de

As

la

a

magician he undoubtedly followed

to dare

and to

will,

but fortunately he

In 1855-6 he published the

Haute Magie,

his

most

brilliant

two volumes book. Wildly

and woollily romantic, vague and verbose, often abstruse and sometimes patently absurd, able evocative practice

it is

written with zest and imagination, consider-

power, and

a

of magic which make

depth of insight into the theory and it

well worth reading over a century

afterwards. His later books are less interesting, including his History of

Magic (i860) and The Key of

the Mysteries (1861),

which he himself 31

The World of the Black Magician

when he was reincarnated as Aleister Crowley. Levi made very little money from his books. He earned a pinched

translated into English

living

by giving

lessons in occultism to aspiring students,

an imposing

figure with a great spade beard, rather dirty personal habits and a

gluttonous appetite.

He was

reconciled to Catholicism

died in 1875, comforted by the

The

last rites

by i860 and

of the Church.

learned English occultist A. E. Waite,

who was not a reincarna-

tion of Levi, but succeeded in translating the Doctrine and Ritual

same, said that in

it

all

the

Levi revealed the secrets of an occult society into

which he had been initiated, and was expelled from the society for doing so. Waite does not say whether this was the English occult group headed by Bulwer Lytton, the novelist, but Levi apparently was a member of this group in the early 1850s. He was always more interested in theorising about magic than in actually practising it, and the only magical operation he is known to have performed was one of necromancy, though of an unusually pure and elevated kind, the evocation of the ghost of the pagan philosopher and magician Apollonius of Tyana. This happened in 1854 in London. Levi's description of this operation is strikingly simple and straightforward when compared to his usual high, rhapsodical style. He was persuaded to attempt it by a mysterious woman in black who said she '. He prepared himself by fasting and L was a friend of 'Sir B abstinence for twenty-one days beforehand. (3 and 7 are both magically powerful numbers and 21 3X7.) The ceremony was conducted

=

room with four concave mirrors and an altar resting on a new white lambskin. The sign of the pentagram by Levi

alone, without witnesses, in a

was carved in the white marble top of the altar, around which was a magic circle - a chain of magnetised iron - as a barrier against evil forces. On the altar was a small copper chafmg-dish with charred laurel and alder wood in it. Another chafmg-dish stood at one side on a tripod. Levi wore a white robe - the prevalence of white was to show the purity of his intentions and appeal to bcneficient influences - and on his head a wreath of vervain leaves entwined in a golden chain. Traditionally, vervain has the power to ward off demons. He held a brand-new sword in one hand and a copy of the ritual for

(a

five-pointed

the

ceremony

star)

in the other.

two chafing-dishes, so that the smoke would provide material from which the ghost could make itself a visible body, Levi

lit fires

in the

and chanted a long and mysterious incantation to summon the ghost from the world of shades. 'In unity the demons chant the praises of 32

Modem

Magicians

Cerberus opens

his triple

The

God; they jaw, and

fire

lightning .

.' .

He

lose their

.

.

.

maUce and

chants the praises of

fury.

.

.

.

God with

the three tongues of the

the soul revisits the tombs, the magical lamps are lighted.

The

chanted in a low voice, gradually rising higher in pitch.

seemed

though the earth began to shake and Levi's heart beat more quickly, He heaped more twigs on the fires and as the flames sprang up he saw in front of the altar the figure of a man, which dissolved and vanished away.

smoke eddied and

floated about the altar.

It

as

Le\d repeated the incantation. Something seemed to brighten in the depths of the mirror behind the altar and in

towards him. Closing appear.

'When

I

his eyes,

summoned the ghost to was a man in front of me,

of shroud, which seemed more melancholy and beardless.'

to foot in a species

gray than white; he was lean,

Levi was fHghtened. His body tried to speak

he saw a figure moving

he three times

again looked forth there

wrapped from head

it

felt

abnormally cold and when he

he found that he could not articulate properly.

He

put

one hand on the pentagram for protection and pointed his sword at the apparition, mentally ordering it to obey him. The figure became

He commanded sword-arm, which went numb

shado\\'y and disappeared.

touched

his

it

to return.

to the elbow.

Something

He

turned

sword do\%'nwards. The figure immediately reappeared, but Levi felt a sensation of intense weakness and evidendy fainted. Levi's arm was numb and painful for several days afterwards. The figure had not spoken, but the two question he had meant to ask it seemed to have answered themselves in his mind. The answers were 'death' and 'dead'. He did not believe that the figure was the ghost of Apollonius and he says that the preparation for the ceremony and the ceremony itself had the effect on his mind of 'an actual drunkenness of the imagination', which might have caused hallucination, but he was con\'inccd that he had seen and touched something real. 'I do not explain the physical laws by which I saw and touched; I affirm solely that I did see and that I did touch, that I saw clearly and distincdy, apart from dreaming, and this is sufficient to establish the real efficacy of the point of the

magical ceremonies. ...

I

commend

the greatest caution to those

who

propose devoting themselves to similar experiences; their result intense exhaustion,

is

and frequently a shock sufficient to occasion illness.'^i

Another French magician, a few years older than Levi, was Pierre Vintras, who announced that he was a reincarnation of Elijah with a mission to prepare the way for Christ's Coming in Glor)\ He founded a mysterious sect called the

Work

of Mercy which prided

itself

on

a

33

The World of the Black Magician large collection of

communion

on

blood. Levi examined the marks

The

marked with bloody hosts and

wafers, miraculously

three of these

was the sinister sign of the reversed pentagram - a five-pointed star with two points upwards - which is a symbol of Satan, the two upper points representing the horns of the sabbatic goat. 'It is the goat of lust attacking the Heavens with its horns. It is a sign execrated by initiates of a superior rank, even at the Sabbath.' The second was a reversed caduceus, with the heads and tails of the intertwined snakes pointing outwards instead of inwards, and above the snakes' heads was a V. Like all reversed symbols and symbols of Two, these are emblems of evil. The third host was marked with the Hebrew letters of Jehovah upside down. This is again a symbol of the Devil, signifying the reversal of the right order of things - 'Fatality diagnosed them

alone

as devilish.

God and

exists,

first

the Spirit are not. Matter

is all,

and

spirit is

only

of this matter demented.'^^

a fiction

When

Vintras died in 1875 the leadership of the

passed to a defrocked Catholic priest, the

Abbe

Work

of Mercy

Boullan, and this set

the stage for the great 'battle of bewitchment' of the 18 80s and '90s.

Boullan was

bom

spiritual director

in 1824. After he

of

a

mm

called

had taken orders he became the

Adele Chevaher,

who

heard super-

natural voices and claimed to have been miraculously healed of a disease

by

the Virgin Mary. Boullan and Adele ChevaHer

became

founded the Society for the Reparation of Souls which in spite of its high-sounding name was devoted to sex-magic and on at least one occasion to ritual murder. On December 8, i860, Boullan ceremoniously sacrificed a child, bom to him by Adele

lovers. In 1859 they

who had a pentagram

Chevalier, as the high point of a Mass. Boullan,

tattooed at the

comer of

his left

eye (the

left

being the side of

evil)

on which an inverted cmcifix was embroidered, specialised in exorcism - the casting out of evil spirits. He recommended consecrated hosts mixed with faeces (which as a fertiliser contains powerful life-energy) as a cure for nuns who complained that they were tormented by devils. He also taught them how and celebrated Mass

in vestments

were copulating with to enjoy sexual intercourse with his own

to hypnotise themselves into thinking that they

Christ and the saints and astral

how

body.23

In 1875 Boullan announced that he was a reincamation of John the

Work

of Mercy. Some members of the sect refused to accept him, but he gathered a group of followers around him at Lyons. Late in 1886 they were visited by the young Baptist

34

and the new leader of the

Modem

The

who

Magidatis

founded the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross in Paris, Guaita had read Ehphas Levi the year before and was enthusiastically inunersed in the study and Marquis

Stanislas

de Guaita,

practice of magic.

He

He encouraged

with other mortals, and the Life,

or ritual copulations.

morphine addict

later

Lyons and came away that humanity's path to God lay through intercourse with supernatural beings and group performed ceremonious Unions of Guaita said that the practical result of

stayed

disgusted. Boullan believed

the sex act.

a

two weeks

at

Boullan's teaching was unlimited promiscuity with adultery, incest,

and masturbation practised as solemn acts of worship. A month later a follower of Boullan's called Oswald Wirth also left Lyons in disgust. Guaita and Wirth joined forces. In May 1887 they wrote to Boullan announcing that they had judged him and had condemned him. They explained aftervs'ards that all they meant by bestiahty

this

was

that they

would show him up

in public as a scoundrel,

but

Boullan was convinced, perhaps righdy, that they intended to kill him by black magic. He took the necessary measures to defend himself and the great battle of bewitchment began.

The

story of this magical contest

was not It is

at all

humorous

for those

is

irresistibly

who were

comic now, but

involved in

it

at the time.

not clear whether the Guaita faction were actually casting

against Boullan at his life

all,

it

spells

but Boullan was convinced of it and in terror of

launched appalling anathemas, conjurations and incantations

He was assisted by his housekeeper, Julie Thibault, who was clairvoyant. One of Boullan's supporters, Jules Bois, describagainst the foe.

ing the scene at Lyons, said that Boullan asked Julie Thibault if she

could discern what the workers of iniquit)' were doing. She said they

were putting

a portrait

of Boullan into a cofEn

(to kill

him by

imitative

Next she announced that they were saying a Black Mass against him. Boullan retahated with a ceremony called the Sacrifice of Glory of Melchisidek, in which 'the feminine rite allied to the masculine rite, red wine mingled with white, created ... a victorious ferment, by which the impious altars were overthrown and the hierophants of magic).

Satanism struck dead'. Unfortimately,

it

turned out that the Satanic

hierophants had been only temporarily discommoded,

on a later fist on flesh,

as

occasion mysterious thumping noises, like the blovs's of a

were heard. Lumps appeared on Boullan's face and with a loud cry he tore open his robe to show a bleeding wound on his chest.^'* Another of Boullan's partisans, firom 1890 on, was the novelist J-K. Huysmans, who dabbled extensively in the occult and whose novel 35

The World of the Black Magician

La Bas contains one of the most famous descriptions of a Black Mass. Huysmans was with Boullan at Lyons in 1891. By this time Boullan had enlisted another clairvoyant girl besides Julie Thibault. Boullan's party were convinced that Guaita had tried to poison the girl. They believed that he could volatalise poisons and project them through space. (He was also supposed to own a familiar spirit, which was kept locked in a cupboard when not needed.) However, the girl had retaliated. Writing to a friend, Huysmans said that Guaita 'ought now to be in bed, and the arm he usually injects with morphine should be looking like a balloon. .'. Boullan was 'flinging himself about all over the place. .

I'm told that de Guaita poisoned the little clairvoyante, who promptly counterattacked by virtue of the law of return. So that it would be interesting to know whether, in fact, de Guaita had been laid low. The

two women here

see

him

in bed.'

The law of return

is

the principle

which fails rebounds on the head of the sorcerer. In another letter Huysmans said, 'Boullan jumps about like a tigercat, clutching one of his hosts and invoking aid of St. Michael and the that the force

of a

spell

eternal justiciaries

out "Strike

down

of eternal justice: then standing Peladan, s.d.P., s.d.P."

hands folded on her beUy, announces,

"it

at his altar

And Maman is

done."

'

he

cries

Thibault, her

(Peladan was one

of Guaita's group.)^^ Huysmans became convinced that he himself was one of the targets of Guaita's sorcery. He felt the presence of an invisible force all about him and something cold moving across his face. At bedtime what he called 'fluidic fisticuffs' were aimed at him. His cat seemed to be suffering from the same symptoms. He appealed to Boullan for help. Boullan sent him one of the blood-marked hosts from the Vintras collection and a paste made of myrrh, incense, camphor and cloves which would keep evil influences at bay if burned in the fireplace. (Like salt, spices have

power against demons because they are preservatives.) On one occasion Boullan warned Huysmans not to go to his office next day. Huysmans stayed at

on

home and in his absence a heavy mirror fell down and smashed

his desk.

Anyone

sitting at the

desk

would probably have been

killed.

The

battle reached

its

climax

at the

begimiing of 1893.

3rd Boullan wrote to Huysmans, saying that the

new

On January

year was one of

omen. 'The figures 8-9-3 form a combination which foreshadows 20 and 2+0= 2, which is bad news' (probably because 8+9+3 the number of evil and the Devil). During the previous night Julie Thibault dreamed of Guaita and in the early hours of the morning 'a ill

=

36

The

Modem

Magicians

was the herald of the attack.' Boullan woke at 3 a.m., feeling that he was suffocating. He lost consciousness for half an hour, but by four o'clock he believed that the danger was past. He was mistaken. He died the next day, January 4th.26 Both Huysmans and Jules Bois were convinced that Boullan had been killed by sorcery. After Bois had published violent attacks on Guaita, in which he accused him of being a black magician, Bois and Guaita fought a duel with pistols. As the day of the duel approached it was believed that both sides were filling the atmosphere with frantic spells and conjurations. On the way to the duel one of the horses pulling the carriage Bois was in stopped dead in its tracks and began to tremble and then to stagger as if it had seen the Devil himself. This trembling fit lasted for twenty minutes. At the duel itself each man fired once and neither was hit. Afterwards it was found that a bullet was stuck in the barrel of one of the pistols. The Bois supporters were convinced that his gun had fixed and that they had magically prevented Guaita's bullet from leaving his pistol. Three days later Bois fought a duel with one of Guaita's friends, an occultist who called himself 'Papus' and wrote one of the standard books on the Tarot cards. On the way to this duel Bois again had to cope with what seemed to be occult interference with the horses. The horse drawing his first carriage collapsed. He took another, but this horse fell and the carriage overturned. Bois arrived battered and bleeding at the duel, which was fought with swords. Neither man was injured. While these fearsome events were taking place in France an important occult societ)% the Order of the Golden Dawn, had been founded in England. At its peak the Golden Dawn had one hundred members and lodges in London, Paris, Edinburgh, Bradford and Weston-superMare. Members included W. B. Yeats, two writers of occult thrillers, Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, the Astronomer Royal of Scotland, and an elderly clergyman who had succeeded in making the elixir of life thirty years before, but had always been frightened to drink it. Now that he really needed it, it had evaporated. Another member was the eccentric Allan Bennett, who eventuallv became a Buddhist monk. He had been brought up a Roman Catholic, but renounced this faith at the age of 16 when he discovered the mechanism of childbirth. According to Aleister Crowley, Bennett's reaction was, 'Did the omnipotent God, whom he had been taught to worship, devise so revolting and degrading a method of perpetuating the species? Then this God must be a Devil, delighting in loathsomeness.* black bird of death cried out.

It

37

The World of the Black Magician Bennett carried a used *It

it

glass 'lustre*

or candlestick about with

to blast a Theosophist

who had

him and once

dared to doubt

its

powers.

took fourteen hours to restore the incredulous individual to the use

of his mind and muscles. '27 The Golden Dawn's most precious possession was a mysterious manuscript written in code, which had been discovered on a London bookstall in 1884 by a clergyman, Dr. Woodman. Woodman showed it to William Wynn Westcott, a doctor who was an authority on the Cabala and became both London Coroner and Supreme Magus of the Rosicrucian Society in England. Neither of them could

much of it. They

make very

consulted Samuel Liddell Mathers.

Apart from the fact that had he been to Bedford Grammar School, where he distinguished himself as a runner, very litde is known of his early life. With the help of his wife, who was clairvoyant, he deciphered the mysterious manuscript, which turned out to deal with certain problems of the Cabala and the Tarot. Once installed in the Golden Dawn, Mathers began to chum about like an infant cuckoo in the nest until he had forced out the founders and could take command of the society himself. He claimed to have a magical link with three Secret Chiefs in Paris who confirmed him as Visible Head of the Order. Westcott finally resigned in 1897 (and in this year the Marquis Stanislas de Guaita died, aged 36, of an overdose of drugs). According to Mrs. Mathers, in her introduction to the 1938 edition of her husband's Kabbalah Unveiled, the Golden Dawn studied 'the intelligent forces behind Nature, the Constitution of man and his relation to God' with the good magical objective that man 'may Mathers was in

his early forties at this time.

ultimately regain union with the Divine spite

of

this

Man latent

in himself.

.

.'.

In

high aim the Order was soon disrupted by personal

quarrels, especially after Aleister

Crowley became

a

member and

Many

of the members complained that Mathers had absurdly high pretensions - he announced that he was spiritually directed from the Temple of the Holy Spirit and the society broke up in quarrelling and confusion. It was later revived and reconstituted under the respectable leadership of A. E. attempted to

seize the leadership firom

Mathers.

Waite.

of the philosopher Henri Bergson, lived in Paris. (Mathers tried to convert Bergson to magic, but without success.) Their house was decorated as an Egyptian temple Mathers and

his

wife Moina, the

sister

and they celebrated 'Egyptian Masses', invoking the goddess 38

Isis.

The Mathers

officiated in a

long white robe,

a

Modem

Magicians

metal belt engraved with the

of the zodiac, bracelets round his wrists and ankles, and a leopardskin slung across his shoulders. He was convinced that he was descended from the Scottish clan MacGregor and took to calling himself Macsigns

Gregor Mathers, Chevalier MacGregor and Comte de Glenstrae. W. B. Yeats, whose magical name in the Golden Dawn was Daemon est Deus Inversus (The Devil is God Reversed), was a frequent visitor to the Mathers household in Paris. In the evenings they used to play a

form of chess for four players. Yeats and Mrs. Mathers played against Mathers and a spirit. Before moving his spirit-parmer's piece Mathers would shade his eyes and stare earnestly at the spirit's empty peculiar

chair at the other side of the board.^s

Mathers edited and translated important magical textbooks - the famous Key of Solomon, which he unfortunately bowdlerised, the Sacred Magic ofAbramelin the

Mage and

the Kabbalah Unveiled,

largely either unintelligible or tedious, but

introduction

by Mathers. He

also

worked out

which has

which

is

a valuable

a far-reaching

system of

which was taken over and developed by Aleister Crowley. Mathen and Crowley were bitter enemies. When Mathers died in 19 18 many of his friends were convinced that Crowley had murdered him by black magic. Aleister Crowley - poet, painter, mountaineer, traveller, chess magical correspondences (described in Chapter

player, brilliant talker

when

in the

mood,

3)

asthmatic, heroin addict,

and master magician - was bom in 1875, the year of Eliphas Levi's death. He later became convinced that he was a reincarnation of Levi. (In earlier lives he had been Cagliostro and Alexander VI, the Borgia Pope.) His father, a brewer, left Crowley a fortune which he

satyriac

were Plymouth Brethren and he was brought up in a stricdy puritanical atmosphere. He was educated at Malvern, Tonbridge and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he acquired a chess blue, a homosexual love affair, and the beginnings of a highly-sinister reputation. He enjoyed mountainclimbing and as a young man made creditable assaults on K2 and Kangchenjunga. In 1903 he married Rose Kelly, sister of the painter Gerald Kelly, who was afterwards President of the Royal Academy. She had clairvoyant powers and it was through her that a spirit named Aiwass dictated Crowley's first important magical work, the Book of the Law, in Cairo in 1904. She took to drink and Crowley eventually

spent with astonishing rapidity. His parents

divorced her.

Crowley joined the Order of the Golden

Dawn

in 1898, taking the

39

The World of the Black Magician magical

name of Brother Perdurabo

(I

shall endure). In a brilliant

biography of Crowley, The Great Beast, John Symonds describes

Crowley attempted

to oust

how

Mathers and take over the leadership.

Mathers, outraged, sent a vampire to attack him, but Crowley 'smote her with her

own

current of evil' and defeated her.

waged hotly on both

The

struggle

was

Mathers succeeded in striking Crowley's entire pack of bloodhounds dead at one blow and caused Crowley's servant to go mad and try to kill Mrs. Crowley. The servant had to be sides.

overpowered with a salmon gaff. In reply, Crowley summoned up the demon Beelzebub and forty-nine attendant devils and sent them off to chastise Mathers in Paris. Expelled from the Golden Dawn, Crowley founded his own society, the A .•. A .'. {Argentinum Astrum - Silver Star), but its membership was never as numerous or as distinguished as the Golden Dawn's. By T914 it had thirty-eight members. In 1910 Mathers obtained a court order to stop Crowley from publishing the Golden Dawn's secrets in his magazine. The Equinox. Crowley appealed against this order, and, rather impertinently, used a talisman from the Sacred Magic of Abramelin, which Mathers had translated, the one recommended for 'gaining the affection of a judge'. The talisman was effective and Crowley's appeal was successful. This talisman consists of the following letters, written on parchment:

A L

M

A N A H

L

MARE A A

L B E

H A

N A R

E

H A

H

I

L

A

through Crowley's poetry and magical writings. He had a remarkable appetite for women and was apparently very attractive to them. He wore a special Perfume of Immortality, made of one Sexuahty runs

all

part ambergris,

two

parts

musk and

which gave him women and also horses,

three parts civet,

which he said attracted which always whinnied after him in the streets.^^ In 19 12 the leaders of a German occult society specialising in sex-magic, the Order of a peculiar odour, but

40

The

Modem

Magicians

Templars of the Orient, were alarmed by the fact that Crowley was publishing their Order's secrets in The Equinox. They approached him

London, found that he had discovered these secrets independently through his own researches, and invited him to join the Order. He became British head of the O.T.O. with the title of Supreme and Holy King of Ireland, lona and all the Britains that are in the Sanctuary of

in

the Gnosis.

Crowley spent anti-British

the First

World War

in the

United

States,

writing

propaganda for the Germans. Blood and iron always

appealed to him. In 19 16, living in Bristol,

New Hampshire, he ascended

of Magus, going through a ceremony of his which he baptised a toad as Jesus Christ and crucified

to the high magical grade

own

invention in

it.

In 1920 he

Thelema

went

to Cefalu in Sicily

('the will' in

and

set

up

his

Sacred

Abbey of

Greek), with his current mistresses, the Scarlet

Woman

and Sister Cypris (a name of Aphrodite). Very few disciples arrived and very little money. Crowley was in urgent need of both for most of his life. Rumours of abominable rites and orgies, some of them well founded, floated out from the abbey, and Mussolini's Government expelled Crowley in 1923. He was later expelled from France as well and wandered forlornly from England to Germany and Portugal and back again, much in the eye of the popular Press, which called him 'the wickedest

man in

the world'.

He

himself preferred the

title

'The Great

Beast'.

Crowley's numerous magical writings appeared in obscure maga-

were published in limited editions at his own expense. The clearest and most accessible of his books are his brilliant occult thriller Moonchild and his masterpiece Magick in Theory and Practice, published in 1929. Although he had the usual occultist's love of obscurity for its own sake, Crowley had great gifts as a writer, with a pleasingly sardonic sense of humour and, when he chose to use it, a talent for clarity. His Magick in Theory and Practice is probably the best single book ever written on the subject. Crowley died at Hastings in 1947. His orgiastic 'Hymn to Pan' was recited during his extremely odd funeral service in the chapel of the crematorium at Brighton, to the scandal and annoyance of the local authorities. The last few lines show him as he liked to think of himself. zines or

...

I

am

thy mate,

Goat of thy

flock,

I I

am thy man, am gold, am I

god,

41

The World of the Black Magician Flesh to thy bone, flower to thy rod.

With hoofs of steel Through

And

I

solstice

rave; and

Everlasting,

I

race

on the rocks

stubborn to equinox. I

rape and

I

rip

and

world without end,

Mannikin, maiden, maenad, man. In the might of Pan. lo Pan! lo

42

Pan Pan! Pan!

lo

Pan!

I

rend

Two Names and Numbers chapter

The conviction

that the

name of

a thing contains the essence

of

its

one of the oldest and most fundamental of magical beliefs. Names are used to identify things. Instead of reciting a long and detailed

being

is

more convenient to between the name frog and the

description of the characteristics of an animal, say, this

is

a 'frog'.

But

to distinguish

it is

modem

and sophisticated habit of mind. For the magical thinker the name sums up all the characteristics which make the animal what it is, and so the name is the animal's identity. If it did not have this name but some other - 'toad' perhaps - it would not creature itself

be what This

it is,

is

is

a

but something different.

the root of the magical theory that the

miniature image of it, which can be used itself

name of a

thing

as a substitute for the

is

a

thing

A man can be injured as effectively by working on this miniature

image of himself, his name, as by working on a figure of him in clay or wax; and when a wax image is used it is often baptised with the name of the victim it represents. A classical method of killing or injuring an enemy is to write his name on a piece of lead, wax or pottery, add an appropriate curse and bury it. Many of these curses have been found in tombs and temples in Greece, Asia Minor and Italy. 'As the lead grows cold" one says, 'so grow he cold.' Sometimes a nail was driven through the name, to pierce the enemy. 'I nail his name, that is, himself.' Some of the curses were connected with lawsuits. The name of an opponent in the courts was buried to stifle his sUppery tongue. Others were intended to strike the victim with disease. 'I

put quartan fever on Aristion to the death.'

An early outgrowth of the

^

magical theory of names was the concept

43

;

Names and Numbers any man can be subjected to magical influence simply by using his name, life becomes altogether too dangerous and it must also have been observed that knowing a thing's name did not actually give a magician power over it. This was explained by saying that the ordinary names of things are merely convenient labels. The name which enshrines the essence of a creature's identity is its 'real'

of the

'real'

name.

name, which

is

If

secret.

many primitive societies a man has two names. One is for ordinary, everyday use and the other, his real name, is kept secret. It may be so secret that the man himself does not know it - it was whispered into his ear by his mother when he was a baby. If a sorcerer discovers the real name he can destroy the man, for instance by magically enticing the name into leaves or straw which he bums or scatters. As the name is turned In

to ashes in the fire or

blown away on

name is

the wind, the victim weakens

and as it disintegrates so does he. The real names of gods, angels and demons were also kept secret, for the same reason. Plutarch said that in early times the name of the guardian deity of Rome was carefully concealed. It was forbidden to ask this god's name or anything else about it, even whether it was male

and

dies.

His real

his identity

or female, probably because the

Romans were

afraid that enemies

could nullify the god's power or even charm the god away from them if its name was known. In the Bible the rider on a white horse of

who

and True has another, secret name. 'His eyes were as a flame of fire and on his head were many crowns and he had a name written that no man knew but he himself The angel who visited Manoah, the father of Samson, refused to reveal his name - 'Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?' The angel who wrestled with Jacob also refused to tell his name,

Revelation

is

called Faithful

,

presumably because he thought Jacob could use it to defeat him. Jewish commentators believed that this angel's real name was Sammael. He was the terrible angel of death and poison, whose name means

Venom of God.^ The

belief that the

name of

a thing

is

the thing

lies

behind the

of using 'God's name' to mean 'God'. God says 'he shall build a house for my name', meaning 'for me', and tells Moses to obey biblical habit

who goes before the Israelites because 'my name is in him', meaning 'I am in him'. St. Paul says that God raised Christ 'above the angel

named', meaning 'above every being that exists'.^ An Egyptian legend describes how the goddess Isis tried to capture the power of the sun-god Ra and reign supreme over all the world. every

44

name

that

is

Names and Numbers

To do this,

she had to discover his real name.

coUected some of

Ra was old and he dribbled

dropped spittle (which magically retained its connection with his body) and mixed it with earth to make a venomous snake. The snake stung Ra and the god was in agony. When every remedy had been tried without success he agreed that Isis should take his name. 'I consent that Isis shall search into me and that my name shall pass from me into her.' In taking his name, Isis was really taking his identity. By herself becoming Ra she could exercise his supreme power.^ There are many survivals of the old belief in the magical significance and slobbered.

Isis

his

of names. Parents take trouble about choosing often with the underlying feeling that the character.

name

a

name

for a child,

will affect the child's

To help them choose, books and magazines list the 'meanings'

of names. In Jewish tradition,

still

frequendy observed,

a child

should

named for a relative who is alive, because the relative will die if his name is taken for the child. People who enter reUgious orders take new names to show that as new men and women they are beginning a new life: so do people who join occult societies, and witches sometimes took new names on entering the Devil's service. Beyond this, most of us still tend to make the deep-rooted magical assumption that words have meaning independendy of the way in which they are never be

used and that terms like 'beauty' or 'democracy' are the names of things

whose

characteristics are

independent of our opinions about them.

only in recent times that

this

It is

assumption has been questioned by

philosophers.

One of the most is

interesting survivals

of the magical theor}' of names

modem numerology. A respectable numerologist would not attempt

to destroy

name

you by means of your name, but he does beheve

contains the essence of you. If it

fact that

analysed according to a

your character and your destiny. your name distinguishes you from other people

traditional rules,

The

is

that

it

your set of

reveals

is

the

of the numerologist's conviction that it enshrines your individualBut anyone who sets out to discover the true meanings of names

basis ity.

runs into the difficulty that the multitudes of different people in the

world have multitudes of different names. The task of analysing all these names is hopeless unless they can be reduced to a reasonably small number of types. This is done by turning all names into numbers. Only the numbers from i to 9 are used (sometimes with 11 and 22 added) and this gives the numerologists a manageable quantity of categories to

work

on.

45

I.

Numbers

Fortunes by

The power which

the student

trying to realise the inner

sometimes so great the end

is

insanin.'.

as to

may

meaning of

cause physical

find the

these great

names and powers

breakdown

is

... In extreme cases

In milder cases a slight mental trouble may easily result.

lEOKASD BOSMAN

To

sometimes draw into himself when

The Mea/wig mul PhUosophy of Sumbers

number of your name your stan by

of the name into

turning each letter

number. Unfommately, numerologists do not agree about the number value to be given to each letter. There are rv,-o main s^'stems. In the fint, the 'modem' s\-stem, the numbers fi-om i to 9 are s\Titten do-^m and the letters of the alphabet are •v^iitten undera

neath in their normal order.

123456789 ABCDEFGHI KL

J

TUVWXYZ

S

The second s^-stem,

the 'Hebrew' s^-stem,

alphabet v.ith assistance

and does not

list

MNOP QR

fiom

the Greek, does not use the figure 9

the alphabet in the

12

3

which is based on the Hebrew-

4

normal order. 5

6

7

8

ABODE UOF I

K G

Q R

L

J

S

M H T

N

V Z

P

W X

Y 47

Names and Numbers same values in both systems and often give different interpretations of the same

Less than half the letters have the

numerologists will

name, because they are using ing examples use the

different

Hebrew

system,

number systems. All the followwhich is based on two alphabets

were used as numbers, where our ABC has never been used in this way. In Hebrew there were no purely numerical symbols - like our, i, 2, 3 - and the letters of the alphabet also stood for numbers. The same thing is true of classical Greek, in which all the letters did double duty as numbers, and of Latin, in which some of the letters stood for numbers and some did not. Using the Hebrew alphabet, numbers can be assigned to most of the letters of our alphabet. A is i because the Hebrew A [aleph) stood for I. Similarly, B (beth) is 2 and G {gimel) is 3. Zeros are disregarded, so that L {lamed - 30) is 3 and T {tau - 400) is 4. Number equivalents in

which the

letters

X

which do not exist in Hebrew are taken for letters like J and the Greek alphabet. (The details are given in Appendix 2.)

The absence of 9 from

the system has contributed to the

esteem which numerologists have for

this

knew

awe and

number. The celebrated

palm-reader and numerologist Cheiro says there ancient masters of occultism

from

is

no 9 because

'the

that in the "Highest Sphere" the

number 9 represents the 9-lettered name of God'.^ This is mumbojumbo and the real explanation is much simpler. There is no 9 in the Hebrew system because the Hebrew letters which stood for 9, 90 and 900 have no equivalents in our alphabet. Whichever system you prefer, the method of finding your number is the same. Write down your name and the number equivalents for each letter. Then add the numbers. If the total has two figures or more, add these figures together and repeat the process until you reach a single figure,

which

is

called the 'digital root'. For examples:

FRANCIS

T.

BAKER

8-h2+i+5+3+i+3+4+2+i+2-F5+2 Total 39

The numbers 3 is

total 39.

the digital root

Add 3+9

=

12

=3

to give 12.

Add 1+2

to give

3.

of 39 and the number of the name Francis T.

Baker.

You 48

should write

down

the

name by which you

usually think of

Fortunfs by

Numbers

Baker does not normally use his middle initial, he should leave it out. If he thinks of himself as Frank instead of francis, he should put down Frank Baker. Mr., Mrs. and Miss should not be included, as yourself. If

pan of your indi\'idual name. When a woman marries she changes her name. The number of her maiden name shows her personaliry and fomme before she married. The number of her married name shows how marriage has affected her. The number found by this method is the most important number they are not

shows your character and personahty, the type of life, you will lead, the path you follow through life's jungle. Your name contains other numbers as well. You can find the total of all the vowels and the total of all the consonants. Francis T. Baker's vowels add to 8, his consonants to 4. (Y is treated as a vowel only when there is no other vowel in the word. In L\Tm Y is a vowel, in Billy contained in your name.

it is

It

a consonant.)

The reveals

of your

total

of the vowels

is

often called the Heart

your inner character, the exterior, the person

interests,

you

self

which

are at heart.

ambitions, likes and dislikes.

usually called the Penonaht\-

is

Number, and

hidden under the

It

The

Number, and

indicates

it

shell

your deepest

of the consonants is gives the clue to your

total it

you make on those around you. This distinction goes back to Hebrew. When Hebrew is \sTitten dov.-n only the consonants are v,Titten, no vowels. (The letter aleph, A, is really a 'breathing' in Hebrew, not a voweL) Because the vowels are not shown in wrinen Hebrew the total of the vowels reveals your hidden self, the person you are under the surface. The total of the consonants, which are sho\sTi, indicates the pctsonaht)which you show to the world. Many numerologists stress the importance of still another number the Birth Number - which is found by adding up your date of birth. If you were bom on November 14, 1928, for instance, your Birth outer personaht)', your

Number

is

manner and beha\*iour,

9.

November II This

the impression

number

is

14

1928

+i4+i-h9-r2-r8=45

=9

an indication of the stamp which the m^-sterious forces

move the universe impressed on your character and destiny at the moment when you were bom. It will affect you all your life and it may not harmonise \s-ith the number of your name. If it does not,

that

49

Names and Numbers

you can expect

by inner

to be torn

always struggling against

conflict

and you may seem to be

fate.

People whose names add to one have great fixity of purpose and an unswerving drive towards achievement in their own particular line.

They

are 5m^/e-minded, or one-track-minded.

- positive,

They

are powerful

and self-assertive, ambitious and aggressive. They have excellent powers of concentration and good memories. They lead, create, originate and invent. They are pioneers, always drawn to the new and the unusual. Extremely independent people, they do not take orders well or co-operate easily with others. They resent advice and usually refuse to follow it. They are not always very pleasant people. They tend to have Httle real interest in friendship or love and usually have few close friends. If they are friendly and characters

sympathetic,

be

so.

They

to the point

may

it

obstinate, self-reUant

be because they think

are likely to

it is

to their advantage to

dominate everyone around them, sometimes

of tyranny. They are

essentially people

who

'look after

Number One'. People whose number

is

two have the quaHties which are tradition-

They have soft, sweet natures. They are quiet, tactful, conciHatory. They are et/e«-tempered, lovers of peace and harmony. They tend to play second fiddle and make excellent subordinates, conscientious, tidy and modest. They are followers rather than leaders, and if they do get their own way they do it by penuasion and diplomacy, not by asserting themselves. Often they are shy and self-conscious. They are likely to change their minds ally

regarded

as

feminine.

frequendy and tend to put things off and generally also a dark

is

and

itself in cruelty,

shilly-shally.

sinister side to the 2-character

mahce and

There

which may show

deceit.

Like other magical thinkers, numerologists accept the theory that the association of

two

things in the

human mind

connection between them. 'To play second

fiddle'

figure of speech to the numerologist, but evidence

number 2 and subordination. If your number is three you

indicates a real is

not a mere

of a link between

the

and

energetic.

You

are briUiant, imaginative, versatile

express yourself boldly, vividly and

occasions. Threes sparkle

and

all

possible

ghtter. Witty, Hvely, charming, they

are likely to be extremely successfril in talented, especially in the arts.

50

on

They

They are often highly things Ughdy and easily

life.

take

Numbers

Fortunes by

and they tend to be lucky - they seem to succeed without really trying. Proud and independent-minded people, they are ambitious, commanding,

sometimes

too

efforts wastefully in

thing seriously.

Their

dictatorial.

They

many

directions

They

tendency to spread their

and an

inability to take

any-

are also inclined to be overanxious for popularity

and other people's approval. Four is the number of soHd, people.

faults are a

practical, uninspired

lack any creative spark, but they

may

and uninspiring

be

efficient

organ-

and administrators. Down-to-earth, calm, steady, industrious, respectable, they think of themselves as pillars of society. They like routine and detail and hard work. They have an unfortunate tendency to be stem, grim, repressive, plodding, suspicious and resentful of anyone whose ways are not like their own. There is an odd streak in the 4-nature, which comes out in fits of melancholy or sudden outbursts of rage and violence. Fours are not likely to be successful in life and any success they have will not be won easily. 4 is traditionally the number of poverty, misery and defeat. Most modem numerologists isers

try to gloss this over as far as they can, but their picture

of 4

is

not a

happy one.

A Jive is a much brighter person altogether. He He

clever, impatient.

him.

fascinate

He

lives

on

his nerves.

loves travel,

new

is

and jumpy,

restless

The unusual and

the bizarre

people, different surroundings.

and masters of none, attracted by everything but held by nothing. They enjoy gambling, speculation and risks. Fives are jacks

of all

trades

They make excellent salesmen. They are adventurous, quick-tempered,

sometimes conceited and

responsibihty and avoid

it.

They

attractive people,

sarcastic.

hate to be tied

down

They

detest

or in a rut.

Often inconsiderate and self-indulgent, they are resourceful,

resilient,

many-sided people, hard to analyse or pin down. For reasons explained the key to 5

later,

'sex'

adds to

5,

is

the fact that

incidentally.) Fives

it is

the

number of sex. (The word

have interesting but highly unstable

love hves and the dark side of their nature

may show

itself in excess,

debauchery or perversion. Six

is

the

number of harmony, domesticity and

peaceful happiness.

They have a great talent for friendship and for home and family life. They are loyal, conscientious, idealistic and affectionate. Wholesome and conventional, Sixes are equable, kindly, reliable, well balanced.

unlike the fives, and without the brilliance of the threes, they

more

may

be

successful than either in the long run, especially in the arts or in

teaching.

Although they are capable and thorough workers, they 51

Names and Numbers usually lack

any

real flair for business.

They

are happiest in a quiet

of friends and family. They are sometimes inclined to be smug and self-satisfied, fussy and gossipy, obstinate and conceited. Seven is the number of the scholar, the philosopher, the mystic and the occultist. Sevens are natural recluses. They like to withdraw from the maddening bustle of the world and be alone to meditate and reflect. Dignified, reserved, self-controlled, serious, they have no patience with circle

They care nothing for money and very little for physical comfort. They have powerful and penetrating intellects, but there is also a dreamy side to their character, highly imaginative, sometimes fey and strange. They are often extraordinarily bad at foolishness or frivolity.

explaining themselves and their ideas and they tend to dislike being

questioned or argued with.

They

are sometimes deeply

people, pessimistic, disappointed, aloof, superior,

unhappy

witheringly sar-

castic.

Eight stands for power,

money and worldly

number of material success or failure.

involvement.

It is

the

Eights are strong, tough, practical

people, successful businessmen or politicians, but their course through life is

never easy. They do not accumulate

of the

threes.

money with the careless

Their careers are built on struggle,

strain, effort, care

ease

and

They conduct their operations cautiously and tenaciously, without inspiration. They can be hard, materialistic, selfish, sometimes tyrannical and unscrupulous. They are not very attractive characters drudgery.

and they may be keenly and sadly aware of the fact. Beneath their often grim and chill exterior there is likely to be a layer of wild eccentricity, waywardness and rebelliousness. They have the capacity for massive success, but they constantly face the possibility of resound-

ing failure.

Nine

is

the

number of high mental and

spiritual

achievement. Nines

are large-minded, visionary, idealistic. Romantic, passionate, impulsive,

they are people of wide sympathies and great charm.

They have

an intense urge to help other people and to serve the cause of humanity at large. They make brilhant scientists, teachers and artists. Strongwilled and determined people, inspired and inspiring, they are often

condemned by their duller contemporaries as wild, unorthodox and impractical. They are easily imposed on, they constantly fall in and out of love, and they have a genuine horror of ugliness, poverty, old age and unhappiness, for themselves and everyone else. They can be uncharitable and intolerant when opposed. Their desire to do good may be expressed in a repellently conceited and egocentric way. Sometimes 52.

w

Fcrt ies ky

NimAas

fdlow men in genetal to bodier ibout the feehngs of individoals. But on the whcJc the numerologist's picture of 9 is an attractive and inspiring one. The names of Presidents Lincohi and Kennedy both add to 9. Any number above 9 is usually reduced to its digital root, but numerologists sometimes make an exception for the nimibers 1 1 and 22. The name George Washington, for instance, adds to 65 6— 5 gives II. The normal rule adds i-f i to give 2, but some authorities halt the addition process at 1 1, especially as 2 does not fit nociceaUy wdl with Washington's character and adiicvements. 1 1 and 22 are particularly fortunate and excellent numbers, representing a higher plane of experience dian die numbers from i to 9. Eleven is the number of revelation and martyrdom. Elevens are people who have a special message to give to the w-3. 354, 355-6, 368, 37D, 9-40; 377. 319 ; «fcBo«yq'^^ing, 136-7, 295;

of witches, 304-5.

306, 308; flying ointment, 305

129, 130, 137 eight, influence of, 52, 53, 55, 66, 106; origin, 77-78 ; and aspeas, 204

fly-the-lights, 259, 321

eighteen, 105 Eleazar of Worms, 117, 126

114. 121, 139 Fortune, Dion, 89, 170-1, 241, 271,

elementab,

8,

259-60;

elements, the four, 95,

artificial,

no,

272

150, 159,

162, 163, 169, 170, 177. ^i; theor>- of, 70, 147-8. I5i. I53;

Fool, the, 100, 102, 104, 112, 113,

273-4 four, influence of, 51, 53, 54, 55, 57 58, 66; origin, 65, 69-70; and

eleven, influence of, 53-54, 109; origin, 78-79

construction of universe, 70, 78, 90, 125, 242; in alchemy, 153, 159, 168-70, 172; in astrology, 204, 214 fourteen, 107 Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy,

of Life, 37, 175-80 Emerald Table, 13, 138 Emperor, the, 100, 102, in,

219, 227, 235, 264, 339 frankincense, 244, 245 fi-enz>', see ecstasy

zodiac signs, 193 elephant, 94

;

and

spirits,

and

259

Elixir

112,

113-14 Empress, the, 100, 102, in, 112, 113 endive, 276 equilibrium, magical, lo-ii, 109, 121, 168, 213 Ereshkigal, 271 Erichtho, 269-70

friendship, operations of, 92, 93,

224, 225

fumes and fumigation,

9, 22, 230,

232, 235, 238, 243-6, 251, 252, 253, 257,268, 319, 335;

theory of, 32, 243, 248; correspondences of, 244-5

Enores Gazariorum, 308, 318 euphorbium, 244 Euron^inous, 260, 264 cxalurion, 160, 167, 168, 169, 171,

galbanum, 244 galingal, 253

Ganymede, 106 garUc, 232

172. 174

garters, 323 fallen angels, see

Falling

no,

Tower,

demons

the, 100, 103, 106-7,

121, 162

fasting, see abstinence;

Black Fast

Gaufridi, Louis, 263, 330 Geburah, 92, 108, no, 265, 271 gematria, 117-21, 126-8, 130, 133,

157; principle of, 117, 120 of, 192-3, 195, 207, 208, 211, 217; correspondences of, 102, III

Faust, 90, 238-9, 301, 321 the, 100, 102, 1 12-13, 121

Gemini, influence

fermentation, 35, 160, 167, 168, 169, 171-2, 174

Genesis,

Female Pope, fennel, 244

fern,

276

Fian, John,

276

Book

of^ i, 11, 72, 79, 88,

99, 117, 118, 125, 150, 281, 285, 287; and alchemy, 15 1-2, 159, 165,

173

365

Index Geraud, Hugh, 21 ghosts, 8, 9-10. 12, 32-33. 76. 113, 246, 267-71, 277-8, 304, 305, 306,

Guaita, Stanislas de, 35-37, 38 Guazzo, F-M., 273, 274, 309

Guibourg,

Abb^

333-5

320 Hades, 94, 123, 133

ghul, 9 ginseng, 245

hair, 19, 21, 64, 157, 179, 271. 275.

276

gladwyn, 236-7 gnosis, 82, 84, 112, 159, 229, 293 Gnosticism, and the Cabala, 82, 89,

90; and the Tarot, 100, 1 13-14; and names of power, 138-9, 253-5; and alchemy, 150, 153-6; and the Devil, see Devil; Devil-worship and the Devil, 107, 295, 299, 337; at the sabbath,

goat, 239, 270, 272;

22, 34, 242-3, 307, 308, 309, 310,

311, 313-15. 316, 323.330; connection with Azazel, 313-15

220, 226; in alchemy, 143-5, 148, 154, 157, 167, 180; perfect metal, 149, 158, 159; as elixir, 178

Golden Dawn, Order of the, 37-40, 253 good and evil, 3, 8, 10, 67-68, 180, 230, 281-2, 284, 289, 290, 292, 293. 335. 338 Isobel,

317

grades, magical, 41, 85-86, iii, 112

Graeco-Egyptian

texts, 130, 139-41,

230, 231, 253-5, 271 Grail legends, 100

Grand Grimoire, 232, 234-5, 238, 260, 321-2, 339 Grandier, Urbain, 320-1 Graves, Robert, 120 Great Albert, 221 Great Beast, 41, 71. 86, 90, 138, 140;

nvimber of, 119-20 Great Work, the, 6, 154, 170, 338 also

hallucination, 33, 243-4, 256-7,

273-4, 305

Hand of Glory, 278-9 Hanged Man, the, no, 121, 164

100, 102, 108-9,

hatred, operations of, 7, 17, 19-22, 26, 92, 136-7, 221, 224, 225, 271-2,

278 hawthorn, 20 hazel, 234-5, 322

Goat of Mendcs, frontispiece, 314-15 gold, and the sim, 26, 93, 107, 143,

Gowdie,

Haizmann, Christoph, 319

{see

man, becoming God)

Great Year, 208-9, 217 green, and Venus, 25, 26, 27 grey, 26 Grillandus, Paulus, 317, 328

heart

number, 49

Hebrew

letters, 79-80, 99, 120-1, 124, 127-8, 130 {see also gematria); in numerology, 47-48, 49, 341; and the Tarot, 102-3, 104, 105, 108,

109, III, 114; correspondences of, 102-3,

104 Hecate, 89, 113, 267, 268, 269, 304, 305, 316; and crossroads, 233, 304, 320 heUotrope, 105 hellebore, see black hellebore

hemlock, 244, 268, 305 hemp, 244 hen, 25, 248 henbane, 22, 244, 268, 335 hermaphrodite, 93, 151, 187 Hermes, 13, 123, 234, 271; Hermes Trismegistus, 13, 138 the, 100, 102, 109-10, 173 Herodias, 305

Hermit,

Hesed, 90-92, 109, no hexagram, 230, 242, 243, 247, 330 Hindu chart, 185 Hitler, 55, 119, 205, 216, 325

Hod, 93-94, 105

Hokmah,

88-89. 90, 91,

in,

112, 153

Grimoire ofHonorius, 2-3, 130-1, 237, 240-1, 255, 328-9. 339 grimoires, 2, 128, 230, 232, 233, 247-8, 253, 255, 259, 260, 264-5,

Holda, 305 Hone, Margaret, 193 honey, 157, 166 homed god, 303, 304, 316, 323

321, 339 {see also names of individual grimoires) Grimorium Verum, 125, 222, 234,

horns, and the Devil, 22, 35, 107, 243, 279. 313. 316, 336 horse, 107, 313; and Mars, 27, 97,

247, 260, 277-8. 339

366

227

Inde> horse-racing, 56, 215 host, consecrated, 34. 36, 327. 328, 329; in Devil-worship, 296, 298, 310, 311 {see also Black Mass) hours of planets, 223-4

houses, see astrology Hugh of St. Victor, St., 68, 77

Huysmans,

J.-K., 35-37.

knife, magic, 2, 234, 235, 237, 239,

247, 256 Knights Templar. 298, 310. 311 knots, 17, 134 knowledge, operations oC 94. 224, 225 {see also gnosis); and demons, see

335-7 lamb,

18, 19-22, 43. 222, 225-7. 264-5. 271, 322, 327, 329 imagination, 7. 158, 254, 319. 338;

image magic,

training of, 95-9*5 imitative magic, 7, 15. 17-22, 35. 130, 134-5. 154. 221, 267-8, 269,

323 ; principle of, 17. 23 incantation, 2, 7. 18-19. 32-33. 75. 223, 230, 234. 245. 249-55. 268-71, of, 130-4. 307, 322, 329. 334; theory 326 250-1, 248, 249, inkwell. 125 invisibility, 136, 224, 225, 277-8

Irenaeus, St., 292-3, 325 iron, 24, 32. 240, 252, 270 {see also nails) ; and Mars, 26, 27. 220, 222, 28, 38, 44-45, 154

iynx, 93 jackal,

97

Tetragrammaton name of, 41. "8, 123, 127-8,

Jehovah,

see

237. 238, 321-2

Job, 283-4 Jones, M. E., I75 Juggler, the, 100, 102, 112. 113 Jung, C. G., 107, 161, 168 Jupiter, magical force of, 15, 92. 221, 225, 226, 234; influence, in

astrology, 14. 181. 187. I9i. I94. 203, 204, 205, 206, 208, 211, 213,

215, 217, 219; correspondences of 26-27, 91, 102, 109, 220, 244; day and hour of, 223-4; spirits of, 225,

227; square of, 138 Justice, 100, 102, 108, 109

Kether, 88, 89, 91. 92, 112. 114 Key of Solomon. 39, 125, 13 5. 224, 235. 237. 247 kid, 238, 239. 247. 248

incanution 276

see

La Voisin, 332-4 lead, and Saturn, 26. 27, 219, 220; in alchemy, 144. I59; in magic, 43, 238. 239 leek, 276 left, and evil, 15, 24, 34. 87. 89, 93. 86 317, 318; Left-hand Path, 2, 24, Letnegeton, 128-9, 140, 229-30. 236, 237, 242, 243. 249-53. 255. 260, 261, 262, 263, 264. 321, 339 Mile., 114 of. 191. 192-3. I94. influence Leo, 211, 219; corres208, 204, 202,

Lenormand,

pondences

of,

102

leopard, 97

276

Levi, Eliphas, 35. 39. 80, 81, 139. 232, 248, 314-15; life, 31-32; occult

32-33. 273; quoted, 8, II, 17. 31. 34. 134. 172, 180; on numbers, 66, 73 ; on the Tarot.

experiments

jasmine, 245, 276 Jesus,

239, 298. 329

laurel, 32, 227, 232,

lettuce,

271 Isis,

3, 32,

language, magical,

113

ibis,

demons

of,

on names of power. 123, circle, 239; on the magic 135; on

no,

114;

Devil, 319. 338 Leviathan, 288, 289. 321 Liber Samekh, 139-41. 253-5 Libra, influence of, 192-3. 195-6. of, 102 197, 211,219; correspondences

Ucence to depart, 252-3 Lilith, 265,

313

link, magical. 20, 21, 22. 25. 45, 75.

179, 223, 231, 240, 271-2, 275-6,

277-8, 279; theory of, 18-19, 222 lion. 93. 134. 151. 226, Little Albert,

227

278-9

lobster, 108 Logos, see Spirit

of

God

Lord's Prayer, 23. 138, 245; in Devilworship, 12. 278, 325 love-magic. 20, 73. 93. 94. 125, 132, 136, 137. 221. 222-3. 224, 271.

275-7. 328, 333-4

1

Index Lovers, the, loo, 102, iii, 172 Lucifer, 133, 260, 312, 322; rebellion of, 286-7, 289; as chief of devils, 113-14, 261, 321, 330, 337; and the sun, 297, 322-3 Luciferans, 296-7, 299, 303, 310, 312 Lucifuge, 265, 321-2 Lyndoe, Edward, 202, 204, 213

lynx, 97

mastic, 245, 268 Mathers, S. L. MacGregor, 31, 81, 88, III, 139; life, 38-40; on magic

on magic on demons, 265 236;

squares, 136-7, 138; circle,

measuring charm, 75-76

Melchom, Milcom,

260, 261

Mephistopheles, 256, 321 Mercury, magical force of, 93-94, 224; influence, in astrology, 187, 191,

mace, 235, 245 Magical Elements, 235, 339 magnets, occult, 179-80, 235 {see also animal magnetism) magpie, 11 Mahomet (demon), 260, 298 Maier, Michael, 144-5, 169 Malkuth, 94-95, 97, 104 Malleus malejicamm, 311, 329 Mammon, 261, 264, 312 man, in magical theory: potentially

God,

5-6, 8, II, 38, 73, 81, 84, 120, 155, 180, 335, 338; 85,99, becoming God, 6, 81, 84, 86, 88, I,

110-13, 114, 121, 140-1, 153-4. 156, 158, 171-3, 240-1, 242, 243, 253-5, 293, 294, 317, 326; image of the imiverse, 6, 8, 12-13, 23, 81, 96, 131, 149, 182; occult powers of 7-8, 132, 133, 180, 232-3, 240, 248, 249, 251, 253-5, 272; animal nature of, 8, II, 12-13, 93, 94, 107-8, 155, 158, 316-17; true self of, 94, 109-11, 141, 155, 171-2, 254

mandrake, 94, 157, 236, 244, 245, 268, 276-7 Manicheans, 150, 173

Marduk,

187, 288

marjoram, 21 marjory, 235 Mars, magical force of, 6, 7, 26, 29, 92, 224, 271 ; influence, in astrology, 14, 28, 29, 84, 108, 181, 187, 188,

191, 194, 197, 203, 204, 205, 207, 211, 215, 217; correspondences of, 26, 27-28, 91, 103, 106-7, 108, 220,

222, 244; (by and hour of, 223-4; spirits of, 225, 227; and Azazel, 314

maskim, 8-9,

124,

241-2

masks, 316-17, 331 Mass, the, 310, 311, 325, 331; in magic, 3, 38. 267-8, 325-9 (see also Black Mass); alchemical, 165, 325

368

195, 203, 207, 208, 215, 217, 219; of, 26, 27, 91, 102,

correspondences 113, 220, 245;

223-4;

day and hour 227

of,

spirits of, 225,

mercury

(metal), 26, 144, 149, 151-3, 160-1, 162, 163, 164, 165, 168, 169,

172, 173, 237

Mesmer, Franz, 179-80 Messalians, 294

Metatron, 125 mint, 21, 235 Mithras, mysteries of, 154

mole, 333

moleosophy, 15 Moloch, 260, 261, 265

money, operations

of, 92, 221, 225 abo treasure) Monroe, Marilyn, 55 Montespan, Mme. de, 333-5 Montrose, 56 moon, magical force of, 71-72, 94, 9^,

277, 278-9

{see

214-15, 219, 220, 221, 222-3, 224, 225, 234, 239, 277; influence, in astrology, 7, 71, 181, 186, 191, 196, 202-3, 204, 208, 217; correspondences of, 26, 91, 102, 220,

245; day and hour of, 223-4; spirits of, 225, 227; Mansions of, 215; and the unconscious, 94, 112-13, 186; and Hecate, 304 Moon, the (Tarot), loi, 103, 105-6, 161 multipUcation, 160, 167-8, 172-3 Murray, M. A., see witchcraft, Murray theory of

musk, 40, 244, 245 myrrh, 36, 244, 245, 253 myrtle, 244, 335 mystery reUgions, 12, 153-4, 164

Naamah, 265 human,

nails,

19, 64, 271,

43. 238, 239, 240, 278

275; iron,

;

Index names, in magic, 21, 41, 222-3, 251-2, 254, 260, 272, 332; theory of, 43-45. 65. 79. 80. 225; in numerology, 45, 47-50, 54-57. 64 names of God, 48, 84, 85, 124-9, 130. 131, 139, 170, 172, 234-5. 2,40,

243, 248, 249-52, 256, 278; origins, 124-5

names of power,

118, 120-1, 123-35, 222-3, 232, 236, 237-8, 242, 249-52, 268, 269-70, 271, 322, 329; theory of, 123, 141; GraecoEg>'ptian, 129-30, 138-41, 253-5

Napoleon,

14, 57, 119, 181, 194,

244

narcissus, 245

olive oil, 253

one, and God, 6, 10, 11, 68, 69, 72-73. 77. 79. 86, 88, 113. 242; influence, in

numerology,

55. 57. 66, 67; origin, 65,

alchemy, 153, 168-71, 172 onycha, 245 opium, 244, 268 opposites, theory of, 10-11, 13, 66-67, 83, 88, 89, 121, 179-80; reconciliation of, 10-11, 13, 25, 73-74. 87, no. 111, 112-13, 254, 338; in

alchemy, 144, 151, 153, 155. 162, 163, 168, 169, 170, 172, 173; in astrology, 209, 211, 214

necromancy, 9, 94, 108, 224, 225, 229, 338; methods of, 32-33, 267-71 Neptune, 7, 14, 189, 196, 203, 208, 215, 216

OrthcUus, 152 Ovid, 29, 76 owl, 112

Nergal, 260, 263

pact, see Devil, pact

Nero, 119-20 nettle, 92, 105

pahn(trce), 113, 154 Pan, 41-42. 315. 316 pansy, 276

Neuburg, Viaor, 229, 255-6 Nicomachus, 65, 76

parsle\',

Netsah, 93, 94, 96-97

Nider, John, 302, 305, 308 nigredo, 163-5, 166 nine, in magic, 17, 75-76, 134. 237. 275, 278, 319; influence, in numerology, 48, 52-53. 56, 57. 66, 67, 94, 105; origin, 76; in

necromancy, 267, 268, 270; and the spheres, 84-85

Norton, Thomas, 157 notarikon, see gematria nudity, in witchcraft, 2, 12, 235, 316, 323; in Devil-worship, 297-8,

331

numerology,

50, 53,

72-73; in

Ozark witches, 12 widi

Paracelsus, 117, 153, 173, 174, 178, 179

244

paths, see

Twenty-two Paths

Paul, St., 44, 164, 173, 176, 287, 288 Pauhcians, 294

pentagram, 26, 32, 33, 34, 230, 242-3, 247, 256; theory oC 242; reversed, 34, 242-3 of Solomon, 242, 252 Pcntagrammaton, 128 pepper, 244, 278 ;

pcrfiimcs, see fiiines

periwinkle, 235, 276 Persephone, 94, 271, 323 Proserpine)

{see also

7, 88, 99, 222; principles of, 45, 54, 55-6o, 65, 80,

personaHrs' number, 49 personal year number, 58

120; methods of, 47-50, 54-55, 59-60, 341 and time, 57-61

phallic s^Tnbolism, 29, 67, 73, 77, 89, 92, 94, 106, 108, 109, 113, 115,

;

number

characteristics, 50-54, 55, 69-80; their origins,

56, 57-58,

63-68, 69-80; odd and even, 67-68, 69, 76; and vibration, 63-64; and opposites, 66-67

mix vomica, 92 oak, 109 obscene kiss, 296-7, 298, 308, 309, 310 Och, 225, 226, 245

234 Philosopher's Egg, 157 Philosopher's Stone, 237, 243; man becoming God, no, 145, 155-6, 158, 172-3. 174; and gold. III, 144-5, 149. 156. 168, 176; descriptions o£, 144; "laHng of, 149. 152-3. 154. 157-73; astral lity,

and

body, 173-4; and immorta-

175

369

1

Index phoenix, 93, 264 Picard, Mathurin, 331-2

Rhazes, 153

pig, 313, 330

Rhodes, Anna, 298 Rhodes, John, 132

pigeon, 137, 255 Pipi, 130

Ricci, Paul, 85 Righter, Carroll, 188

Pisces, influence of, 106, 192-3,

196-7, 201, 202-3, 209, 210, 211, 221 ; correspondences of, 103 Plato, 147, 151, 161, 179, 217, 222 Pliny, 24, 75, 215

Plutarch, 14, 44, 67, 94, 314 Pluto, 7, 14, 189, 208, 215; as demon, 260, 264 pneuma, 150-1, 153 {see also spirit) Pope, the, 100, 102, 111-12, 113, 114,

Rimmon, 261 rings, planetary, 26,

239, 242 rod, see wand

Rose, Antoine, 309

poppy, 105, 244, 276

rose, 244 rosemary, 235 rubedo, 166, 167 ruby, 26, 220, 271

Primematum,

rue, 107, 335

121, 173 128, 239, 250, 251,

220

Ripley, George, 160, 161, 165 Ritchie, Isobel, 18 robes, magical, 26, 32, 39, 235-^,

252; origin, 129 progression, see astrology

Sacred Magic of Abramelin, see

projection, iii, 144, 160, 168, 172-3 Proserpine, 260, 264, 269, 304 {see

sacrifice, 22,

Persephone) psychic attack, 271-4 Ptah, 254, 255 Ptolemy, 71, 191 purslain, 276 also

{see also

hatred)

214 mercury

Ra, 44-45, 139, 244. 254. 255. 264

Rabdos, 234 see

opposites Recordi, Pierre, 20 red,

and Mars,

26, 27-28, 29, 187, 215,

220, 222, 244, 271; and blood, 28; and evil, 28, 235, 273-4, 330, 33 1, 336, 337; in alchemy, 159, 166, 167; red hair, 28; red thread, 314

Red Dragon,

248, 339

Regiomontanus, 201, 214 Reuchlin, John, 127-8 Revelation, Book of, 44, 70, 80, 90, 112, 119-20, 129, 138, 165, 240, 245, 264, 288-9, 295, 298 reversed symbols, 12, 20, 22, 23, 34, 132, 241-2, 242-3, 317, 321, 335

370

Black Mass)

saf&on, 244, 268

quadruplicities, 19 1-3,

of opposites,

sacrilege, 22, 41, 279, 296, 298, 299,

307, 308, 309, 310, 311, 331 {see

pyramidology, 60-6 Pythagoras, 60, 64; Pythagorean niunber theories, 64-68, 74, 85, 86

reconciliation

247-9, 257; human, 34, 248-9, 295, 332, 333, 334

also

putrefaction, 107, 163-5, 166, 167

quicksilver, see

Abramelin

sage, 235 Sagittarius, influence of, 107, 192-3,

194-5, 211; correspondences of, 102 St.-Germain, Coimt of, 176-7 salt, 23-24, 36, 178, 232, 267, 278; in alchemy, 153, 159, 162, 163, 169 Samhain, 306, 323 Sammael, 44, 127, 265 Sampson, Agnes, 14, 21 sandalwood, 244, 245 Satan, 133, 260, 265; as chief of

devib, 20, 61, 139-40, 246, 261, 285, 286, 287, 294, 295, 299, 303, 307, 311, 312, 318, 319, 320, 321, 336; in Old Testament, 283-4

Satanism, see Devil-worship Sator formula, 137-8 Saturn, magical force of, 90, 97, 219-20, 225-6, 239; influence, in astrology, 14, 181, 188, 191, 195, 203, 204, 205, 207, 208, 211, 213, 217; correspondences of, 26, 27, 91, 103, 105, 159-60, 209, 220, 244; day and hour of, 223-4; spirits of, 225, 227; and death, 27, 29, 89; square of, 138

Index Satuminus, 392

numerology, 51-52.

vammony, 244

93-93 origin, 7