and God above him. It is therefore better to repeat the Invo¬ 
cations than to proceed at once to curses. 
The Magician should also consider 1 whether die évoca¬ 
tion be in trnth a necessary part of the Karma of the 
Universe, as he has stated in his own Oath (See Cap. XVI. i), 
For if this be a delusion, success is impossible. It will then be 
best to go back to the beginning, and recapitulate with greater 
intensity and power of analysis the Oath and the Invocations. 
And this may be done thrice. 
But if this be satisfactorily accomplished, and the spirit 
be y et disobedient, the implication is thaï sonie hostile force 
is at work îo hinder the operation. It will then become 
advisable to discover the nature of that force, and to attack 
and desîroy it. This makes the ceremony more useful than 
ever to the Magician, who may thereby be led to irnveil a 
black magical gang whose existence he had not hitherto 
snspected. 
His need to check the vampiring of a lady in Paris by a sorceress 
once led Frater Perdurabo to the discovery of a very powerful 
body of black magicians, with whom he was obliged to war for 
nearly îo years before their ruin was complété and irrémédiable 
as it now is. 
Such a discovery will not necessarily impede the ceremony. A 
general curse may be pronounced against the forces hindering the 
operation (for ex hyfothesi no divine force can be interfering) 
and having thus temporarily dislodged them — for the power of 
the God invoked will suffire for this purpose — one may proceed 
with a certain asperity to conjure the spirit, for that he has done 
ill to bend before the conjurations of the Black Brothers. 
Indeed, some démons are of a nature such that they only 
understand curses, are not amenable to courteous command:— 
“a slave 
Whom stripes may move, not kindness.” 
Finally, as a last resource, one may burn the Sigil of the 
I. Of course this should hâve been done in preparing the Ritual. 
But he renews this considération from the new standpoint attained by the 
invocation. 
H5 —