Magick Without Tears

24 Necromancy and Spiritism Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Really, you make me ashamed of you! To write to ignorant me to wise you up about necromancy, when you have at your elbow the one supreme classic-Levi's Chapter XIII in the Dogme et Rituel! 1 What sublimity of approach! What ingenuity of "considerations"! With what fatally sure steps marches his preparation! With what superb technique does he carry out his energized enthusiasm! And, finally, with what exact judicial righteousness does he sum the results of his great Evocation of Apollonius of Tyana! Contrast with this elaborate care, rightness of every detail, earnestness and intentness upon the goal-contrast, I say, the modem Spiritist in the dingy squalor of her foul back street in her suburban slum, the room musty, smelling of stale food, the hideous prints, the cheap and rickety furniture, calling up anyone required from Jesus Christ to Queen Victoria, all at a bob-a-nob! Faugh! Let us return to clean air, and analyse Levi's experiment: I believe that by the application of the principles set forth in my other letters on Death and Reincarnation, it will be simple to explain his partial failure to evoke 1. Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Levi. 178