Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 2)

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 —