156 
MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS 
At the best it is very far from being practical instruction. 
(The chapter on the Lamen, pp. 159-161, is even worse.) 
An analogy, not too silly, for these three: the Chess-player, 
the Opening, and the Game itself. 
But-you will object-why 
be silly at all? Why not say 
simply that the Lamen, stating as it does the Character and 
Powers of the wearer, is a dynamic portrait of the individual, 
while the Pantacle, his Universe, is a static portrait of him? 
and that, you pursue flatteringly, is why you preferred to 
call the Weapon of Earth (in the Tarot) the Disk, emphasizing 
its continual whirling movement rather than the Pantacle or 
Coin, as is more usual. Once again, exquisite child of our 
Father the Archer of Light and of seaborn Aphrodite, your 
well-known acumen has "nicked the ninety and nine and one 
over" as Browning says when he (he too!) alludes to the 
Tarot. 
As you will have gathered from the above, a Talisman is a 
much more restricted idea; it is no more than one of the 
objects in his Pantacle, one of the arrows in the quiver of his 
Lamen. As, then, you would expect, it is very little trouble to 
design. All that you need is to "make considerations" about 
your proposed operation, decide which planet, sign, element 
or sub-element or what not you need to accomplish your 
miracle. 
As you know, a very great many desirable objects can be 
attained by the use of the talismans in The Greater and 
Lesser Keys of Solomon the King; also in Pietro Oi Abano 
and the dubious Fourth Book of Cornelius Agrippa. 
You must on no account attempt to use the squares given 
in The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage until 
you have succeeded in the Operation. More, unless you mean 
to perform it, and are prepared to go to any length to do so, 
you are a fool to have the book in your possession at all. 
Those squares are liable to get loose and do things on their 
own initiative; and you won't like it. 
The late Philip Haseltine, a young composer of genius, 
used one of these squares to get his wife to return to him. He