400 
MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS 
to those mentioned by Levi, but in much greater intensity, 
even of a kind more formidable, and directed by malignant 
will. 
There 
is a mighty volume of theory and practice 
concerning this and cognate subjects which will be open to 
you when-and 
if-you attain the VlUO of O.T.O. and 
become Pontiff and Epopt of the Illuminati. Further, when 
you enter the Sanctuary of the Gnosis-oh boy! Or, more 
accurately, oh girl! The forces of Nature employed in these 
presumably abominable practices are similar or identical. 
The doctrine of "Vital Force" has been so long and so 
completely exploded that I hardly need to tell you that in 
some 
still undiscovered (or, rather, unpublished) and 
unmeasured form it is certainly a fact. Haven't I told you one 
time how we nearly starved on Iztaccihuatl with dozens of 
tinned foods all round us, they being ancient; of how one can 
get drunk on half a dozen oysters; of how the best meat I 
have ever eaten is half-raw Himalayan sheep, cut up and 
thrown on the glowing ashes before rigor mortis had set in? 
There is a difference between living and dead protoplasm, 
whether the chemist and his fellow twilight-gropers admit it 
or no. I do not blame the ignorance of these fumblers with 
frost-bitten fingers; but they make themselves conspicuously 
asinine when they flaunt that ignorance as the Quintessence 
of Knowledge; Boeotian bombast! 
Is it possible to intensify the devitalizing process, so as to 
weaken the victim physically, perhaps even almost to the 
point of death? Yes. 
How? The traditional method is to get possession of some 
object or substance intimately connected with the victim. On 
this you work magically so as to absorb its virtue. It is best if 
it was as recently as possible part of his living tissue; for 
instance, a nail-paring, a hair plucked from his head. 
Something still alive or nearly so, and still part of the 
complex of energies that he included in his conception of his 
body. 
Best of all are fluids and secretions, notably blood and one