by J H Brennan
Equipped with the exercise book Crowley had given him, Neuburg was trying to write all of this down when the demon cunningly swept sand over the boundary of the circle and leaped upon him in the form of a naked man. An extraordinary scene ensued. The two, now locked together, rolled over and over on the sand. Neuburg tried desperately to stab the demon with his magic dagger. The creature in turn attempted to bite him in the back of the neck. Eventually Neuburg got the upper hand and drove the demon back to its triangle. He then retraced the part of the circle that had been obliterated with the sand. After remarking that the tenth Aethyr was a “world of adjectives” without substance, the demon asked permission to leave the triangle to get its clothes. Neuburg refused and threatened it with the dagger. After some further argument, the demon finally disappeared and the black-robed Crowley took its place. They lit a fire to purify the place, then obliterated both circle and triangle. The total ceremony had lasted two hours and exhausted both of them.
Since this account was extracted by Jean Overton Fuller from Neuburg’s original notes, here we have a full, eye-witness description of what happens when a magical evocation is undertaken. But Crowley had an earlier, more important experience of spirit contact that seems a little easier to accept and indicates how far-reaching the consequences of such contact may be.
In 1903, the distinguished painter Gerald Kelly introduced his sister to Crowley. The pair took to each other at once. Rose, aged twenty-nine, was widowed but no longer in mourning: she was engaged to an American named Howell, flirting with a solicitor called Hill, and planning an affair with a third admirer by the name of Frank Summers. According to Tobias Churton, “Crowley maintained she was highly intelligent and an empty-headed woman: just his type.”8 Never one to miss an opportunity for scandal, Crowley proposed she marry him—purely as a matter of form—in order to get rid of the inconvenient Howell and Hill, after which she could then have her planned affair with Summers. Rose agreed and, following a nineteen-hour engagement, the pair were married in Dingwall on August 12. At once they fell in love with each other and all plans for Rose’s affair were abandoned. Instead, they left on a tour of Paris, Marseilles, Naples, and, eventually, Cairo. Here they visited the Great Pyramid and on November 23, Crowley used his connections in the Anglo-Egyptian administration to secure them a private viewing of the King’s Chamber. Determined to liven up the honeymoon, Crowley performed an evocation of air elementals and the chamber filled with a bluish light. They extinguished the solitary candle but the light persisted until dawn. It was Rose’s first brush with spirits, but not, as it transpired, her last.
By March 1904, the couple was still in Cairo, having abandoned their hotel for an apartment near the city center. On the sixteenth of the month, Crowley attempted to recapture the magic of the King’s Chamber by evoking a spirit considerably more impressive than the air elementals—God Himself. Rose, by now pregnant, saw nothing, but she did get the feeling of something “waiting for her.”9 Crowley decided to carry on his rituals day and night for a week. It appears to have been a good decision, for the following day Thoth, the ancient Egyptian god of magic and writing, appeared. The entity filled Rose with such inspiration that she produced a psychical message for Aleister revealing that he had offended the Egyptian god Horus and ought now to invoke him. Successful results were promised for the weekend.
Crowley was astonished that Rose had even heard of Horus and determined to find out how deeply her knowledge ran. The results of his questioning were impressive:
Rose knew Horus’s nature was “force and fire”; knew his presence was characterized by a deep blue light. She recognized his name is hieroglyphics. She knew Crowley’s past “relations” with Horus in the Golden Dawn … She knew his lineal figure, colors, knew “his place in the temple,” knew his weapons, knew his connection with the sun, knew his number was five, and picked him out of first three, and then five different and arbitrary symbols … The odds against passing all the tests were enormous.10
Enormous or not, Crowley decided on one more. He turned Rose loose in the Bulak Museum with instructions to identify the god among the various exhibits. She passed several images of Horus without comment, then suddenly exclaimed, “There he is!” She was pointing to the display of an ancient funerary stele that featured a seated Horus surmounted by a sun disc, itself a Horus symbol. To Crowley the double Horus symbolism was significant, but not nearly so significant as the stele’s catalog number—666, the number of the Great Beast in the biblical book of Revelation, with whom Crowley totally identified. From that point on, he began to take Rose very seriously as a psychic. So too did Rose. She began advising Crowley on how best to evoke Horus and, while his magical experience sometimes ran contrary to what she said, she insisted the rituals follow her exact instructions, again promising results by the weekend.
The next day was Saturday, the start of the weekend, but while Crowley followed orders the ritual produced no results at all. Sunday, however, was a different matter. As Crowley completed the evocation, Rose brought through a message revealing that this was the Equinox of the Gods, the starting point of a new age, the Age of Horus, replacing the old age associated with Jesus Christ and Christianity. Crowley, said the entranced Rose, had been chosen as the link with the new gods. This heady message did not originate from Horus himself but from an entity named Aiwass. Crowley was unsure whether this was a spirit being or not:
The only point undetermined is whether He is a discarnate Being or … a human being, presumably Assyrian, of that name. And that I simply do not know and cannot reasonably surmise because I do not know the limits of the powers of such an One.11
It was not long before he found the answer for himself. Just over two weeks later, Rose delivered another, remarkably straightforward trance message: for the next three days, Aleister was instructed to enter the temple in their flat precisely at noon, write down what he heard, and stop precisely at 1:00 p.m.
Once again, Crowley did what he was told. On April 8, 1904, he entered the temple12 and sat down at the desk, equipped with his Swan fountain pen and several sheets of quarto paper. What happened next is perhaps best described in his own words:
The voice of Aiwass came apparently from over my left shoulder from the furthest corner of the room. It seemed to echo itself in my physical heart in a very strange manner, hard to describe … The voice was of deep timbre, musical and expressive, its tones solemn, voluptuous, tender, fierce or ought else as suited the moods of the message. Not bass—perhaps a rich tenor or baritone.
The English was free of either native or foreign accent, perfectly pure of local or caste mannerisms, thus startling and even uncanny at first hearing.
I had the strong impression that the speaker was actually in the corner where he seemed to be, in a body of “fine matter,” transparent as a veil of gauze, or a cloud of incense smoke. He seemed to be a tall, dark man in his thirties, well-knit, active and strong, with the face of a savage king, and eyes veiled lest their gaze should destroy what they saw. The dress was not Arab; it suggested Assyria or Persia, but very vaguely.13
Crowley hastily began to scribble down the words the figure dictated: “Had! The manifestation of Nuit. The unveiling of the company of heaven. Every man and every woman is a star. Every number is infinite; there is no difference. Help me, o warrior lord of Thebes, in my unveiling before the Children of men!”14
As the warrior lord struggled to keep up, the message became a little more obscure. “Be thou Hadit, my secret centre, my heart & my tongue! Behold! it is revealed by Aiwass the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat. The Khabs is in the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs. Worship then the Khabs, and behold my light shed over you!”15 To Crowley himself, this was more understandable than it might be to the average reader. He knew, for example that the khu was the spirit-soul of Egyptian mythology, while khabs translated as the “starry sky.”
Crowley, apparently of his own volition, broke the message down into numbered verses, rather like those of
a Bible, so he may have had some intuition of what the whole operation was all about. But in any case, Aiwass brought the truth home to him during their very first session together. Verse 35 of Chapter 1 explained, “This that thou writest is the threefold Book of Law.”
As instructed by Rose, Crowley finished his work promptly at 1:00 p.m., but returned at noon the following day and the day after to continue with the task. The result was a 6,235-word manuscript, broken into three chapters, that literally changed his life. It pronounced that the “word of the Law” was thelema (Greek for “will”) and the essence of a spiritual life was “do what thou wilt”: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” The phrase has echoes of Rabelais, who also advocated do what thou wilt, John Dee whose angels told him “do that which most pleaseth you,” and even Saint Augustine who preached “Love and do what you will.” Crowley, who would certainly have approved of Rabelais and believed himself to be the reincarnation of Dee’s medium, Kelley, worked hard to make the doctrine his own, both in his personal behavior and as a teaching to his students. Like so many spirit-inspired doctrines, it is followed to this day by Thelemites who admire Crowley and members of the magical Order of the Silver Star, cofounded by Crowley in 1907.
21. THREE CONJURATIONS
IN ANY EXAMINATION OF PERSONAL CONTACTS WITH SPIRIT BEINGS, WE NEED to be particularly careful not to allow our postmodern prejudices to color any reaction we might have to the evidence presented. It is relatively easy to accept Crowley’s account of the voice of Aiwass as something he genuinely experienced. Mediumistic communications of this type are so commonplace, they are even demonstrated on television. But Neuburg’s report of the demonic conjuration in the Egyptian desert may prove a step too far for rationalists. These are no longer the Middle Ages. Surely demons and their ilk have long ago been banished as primitive superstitions?
The point is not whether demons exist in their own right as sentient entities, but whether the phenomenon of demonic encounter forms part of human experience, and whether this phenomenon can be induced by, for example, ritual evocation. Historically, of course, there can be little doubt that it does and it can. Consider, for example, the account that appears in the papers of Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571), Italy’s master Renaissance sculptor.1
In 1533 or 1534 (the exact date is uncertain), Cellini met with a Sicilian priest versed in the art of ritual magic who agreed to show him an evocation, having first voiced a few dire warnings about the dangers. The site chosen was the ruins of the Roman Coliseum. Cellini brought his friend Vincentio Romoli, while the priest was accompanied by a second magician from Pistoia. The equipment laid out included ceremonial robes, a wand, several grimoires, a pentacle, incense, kindling, and a supply of assafœtida grass. While the others watched, the Sicilian drew circles on the Coliseum floor and fortified them ceremonially. One of the circles was left incomplete. The magician led his companions through the gap before closing it and concluding his ritual preparations. Cellini and Romoli were given the job of lighting a fire in the circle. When they got it going, they were instructed to burn quantities of incense. While the man from Pistoia held the pentacle, the priest began a conjuration ritual. An hour and a half later it bore fruit. According to Cellini’s own account, the Coliseum was filled with “several legions” of spirits.
Cellini expressed himself satisfied with the demonstration, but the Sicilian undertook to perform the ceremony again in the hope of obtaining more spectacular results. To this end, he made a fresh stipulation: he wanted a virgin boy to attend. Cellini brought a young servant with him, a twelve-year-old named Cenci.
Romoli returned to the Coliseum for the second operation, but the magician from Pistoia did not. His place was taken by another of Cellini’s friends, Agnolino Gaddi. Once again the circles were drawn and consecrated, the fire lit, and the incense burned. Cellini himself held the pentacle this time as the Sicilian priest began the evocation. It is plain from Cellini’s account that the conjuration—spoken in a mixture of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin—was directed toward demons who controlled legions of infernal spirits. Much sooner than before, the Coliseum was packed with entities. Cellini asked them to bring him a woman with whom he was in love, a Sicilian girl named Angelica. The spirits replied through the mouth of the magician that Cellini and she would be together within a month.
Although all seemed well at this point, the operation quickly began to go wrong. The magician himself was the first to notice. There were, he said, too many spirits present—possibly as many as a thousand times more than he had called up. Worse, they had begun to misbehave. Twelve-year-old Cenci screamed that they were all being menaced by a million of the fiercest “men” he had ever seen. Four giants, fully armed, were trying to enter the fortified circle. The priest launched into a formula of dismissal. The little boy began to moan and buried his head between his knees, convinced they were all as good as dead.
Cellini tried to reassure him but failed, possibly because he himself was shaking like a leaf. The child cried out that the Coliseum was on fire and that flames were rolling toward them. He covered his eyes with his hands in a paroxysm of terror. The magician broke off his chanted license to depart in favor of stronger means. He instructed Cellini to have his assistants pile assafœtida on the fire. But Cellini’s assistants were by now too paralyzed with terror to comply. Cellini lost his temper and shouted at them. It had the desired effect and soon the foul-smelling grass was burning merrily. The spirits began to depart “in great fury.”
None of the experimenters felt like leaving the protection of their magic circle. They stayed huddled together until morning when only a few spirits remained “and these at a distance.” With the sound of Matins bells ringing in their ears, the sorry group left the circle and headed home, with little Cenci clinging desperately to Cellini and the Sicilian. Two spirits accompanied them, racing over the rooftops and along the road.
The last word on this remarkable experience goes, some centuries later, to Madam Blavatsky, who wrote, “The subsequent meeting of Cellini with his mistress, as predicted and brought about by the conjurer, at the precise time fixed by him, is to be considered, as a matter of course, a ‘curious coincidence.’”2
Another historical record that may point toward an even more dramatic encounter with demonic forces is contained in A True Account of the Jena Tragedy of Christmas Eve, a German judicial inquiry issued 1716. The story it told was one of the most interesting and frightening in the annals of magical practice, although the inquiry itself was investigating not magic, but violent death.3
The affair began about a year before the inquiry itself. A peasant named Gessner was working in his vineyard when he discovered a coin. The inquiry did not record what it was, but it proved sufficiently valuable to persuade Gessner to hunt for more. One or two more coins turned up. Gessner concluded they were an indication of a buried hoard that would make him rich and wondered where he could get a grimoire to help him find it. Many German grimoires of the day contained advice on how to persuade spirits to reveal treasure. Gessner had actually owned one, a collection of conjurations entitled Theosophia Pneumatica, but lost it prior to his discovery of the coins.
Gessner discussed the problem with a friend, a tailor named Heichler, bemoaning the fact that he no longer had a grimoire that would enable him to find the rest of the treasure by magical means. Heichler was sympathetic. More important, he was able to introduce Gessner to a practicing magician, a student named Weber. Weber was reputed to be the owner of various ritual implements and such rare grimoires as the Clavicula Salomonis and the Key to Faust’s Threefold Harrowing of Hell.
The meeting took place in Weber’s rooms, which he shared with a youth named Reche. Gessner asked for the magician’s help, but Weber was hesitant. Conjurations were lengthy, tiresome operations, and he had no intention of undertaking one unless he was sure it would prove worth his while. Gessner told Weber he had taken part in conjurations before (which may have been true) and claimed h
e had seen the treasure hoard in the vineyard; or at least seen its guardian spirit. He produced the coins, claiming he had managed to steal them despite the guardian’s attempts to stop him, then went on to describe other spirits he had seen in the locality.
Weber was impressed. He agreed to lend his magical talents to the search and the two men worked out an arrangement by which Weber was to receive a portion of the treasure when it was found.
At this point, an individual named Zenner entered the story. He was, like Gessner, a peasant and seems to have bought his way into the conspiracy with the aid of a mandragore. A mandragore is the specially prepared root of a mandrake plant. The tuber contains a toxic narcotic that, if it fails to kill, may produce visions. In the eighteenth century, it had a fearsome reputation among magicians, who believed it shrieked in agony when uprooted. Since the plant is inedible, it was harvested only for magical purposes. By an accident of nature, mandrake roots often take humanoid shape: two arms, two legs, and an abundant leafy growth taking the place of hair. To create a mandragore, the effect was often heightened by carving, after which the root was cured in vervain smoke to accompanying incantations. A mandragore was considered a talisman of enormous potency. Zenner, who had stolen his from the husband of his mistress, told Gessner, Weber, and Heichler that it could open locks at a distance.
Two mandragores, magical instruments for opening treasure locks and circumventing their spirit guardians
The four began their preparations. Working on the basis of Gessner’s description, Weber concluded that the guardian of the hoard was the spirit Nathael, apparently a Hebrew demon. Christmas Eve, only days away, was considered propitious for a conjuration. Weber consulted his textbooks and discovered an odd number of participants was specified. Heichler, the tailor, was busy during the pre-Christmas rush and readily agreed to drop out. Finding a site for the operation proved more controversial. Heichler offered an empty room in his house, but Gessner objected. He was convinced demons were deceitful and he was afraid they might try to fool their conjurers by taking on the appearance of inhabitants of the house. It would be safer, he argued, to hold the conjuration in some remote spot. After considerable discussion, their final choice fell on a little hut owned by Heichler, situated in the same vineyard where the treasure was buried.
