Low Magick: It's All In Your Head ... You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is - Lon Milo DuQuette 2010
The Exorcism of Our Lady of Sorrows
PART I
A School Possessed
I don’t fear Satan half as much as I fear those who fear him.
SAINT TERESA OF AVILA
Perhaps the most dramatic example of Low Magick (at least as we are defining the term in this book) is the art of exorcism. Exorcism reaches back into prehistory, and, together with rites of fertility and the hunt, vies for the title of humanity’s oldest spiritual practice. Writing about exorcism is in its own way as dangerous as exorcism itself—perhaps more so, as there is so much opportunity for serious misunderstanding, not to mention all the evils ignorance and fear can visit upon superstitious humanity.
For young magicians, dabblers, and dilettantes the fantasy of waging magical war with a hideous demon who has taken up residence in some tormented soul reeks with the prospect of heroism, spiritual romance, and adventure. In truth, more often than not, where the subject of exorcism is concerned, the whole sad business merely reeks.
As I feel I must keep reminding you, I am not a mental health expert nor do I have a degree in psychology, so please understand that my opinions on this subject are drawn purely from a magical perspective and from my experiences with individuals who have solicited my advice and/or assistance (some of whom I felt actually needed an exorcism, though most of whom I believe did not).
Let’s bear in mind that the science of mental health is still in its infancy, and that in centuries past, maladies such as epilepsy, schizophrenia, depression, dissociative identity disorder (a.k.a. multiple personality disorder), and countless other conditions both mental and physical were believed to be the result of supernatural causes. The ancient physicians who attributed certain physical and mental abnormalities to demon or spirit possession might not have been so off the mark, especially when we remember that their patients’ spiritual reality included a solid belief in spirit illness and demon possession. Even today, rather than viewing a disease as our body’s natural reaction to an unhealthy lifestyle, chemical or biological poisoning, or an inherited abnormality, we apply a personal face to the malady as a malicious enemy that needs to be resisted and battled and defeated.
The wise witch doctor, shaman, or physician of old knew that if one can first heal the mind, the body would likely follow. If in the patient’s mind the illness could be simply personified as a common garden-variety demon—a bothersome pest that could driven off by a skilled exorcist—then the immense negative energy of the patient’s own fear and superstition could be turned back upon itself and used as a positive force to alleviate the illness. Inspired by healings chronicled in the New Testament,91 modern faith healers still effectively apply variations of this prehistoric art upon ailing members of their flocks whose spiritual worldview is similarly superstitious, simple, and absolute.
In this place, however, I am not going to regale you with tales of exorcisms or faith healing, or even exorcisms in which (and whereby) an alleged discarnate entity or spiritual force is driven from the body and mind of an afflicted individual. Instead, I’m going to share with you the story of the exorcism of a school whose faculty and students were visited by a disturbing string of tragedies.
It would be improper (indeed, unwise) for me here to reveal the actual name of the school92 or the city or state where it is located. I will tell you that it is an Archdiocesan high school for girls that has been administered for more than one hundred years by a particular group of Dominican Sisters; and that I was retained by the principal of the school (who I will refer to as Sister Martha) under circumstances that I am now about to relate.
Before I go any further, however, I must pause and remind the reader that the Roman Catholic Church has a formal Rite of Exorcism93 that (in rare occasions and under the direction and authority of a bishop) is performed to cast out demons and evil spirits à la the popular film The Exorcist.94 There are several reasons the rite is so infrequently employed today; one of them likely being the modern Church’s discomfort with something that appears so embarrassingly medieval, with another being the miles of ecclesiastical red tape involved in proving to the Church’s satisfaction the necessity for such a radical confrontation with the Prince of Darkness.
The criteria for such proof are very specific and involved. If, however, the evidentiary hurdles are cleared, it can take additional time to find a bishop willing to authorize the procedure, and (if the bishop is unable or unwilling to do the job himself) to find an exorcist capable and willing to perform it. It often takes years to get a first-rate Roman Catholic exorcism on the road. More often than not, by then the possessee has gotten better (or has died most colorfully) before the exorcist walks out of the theatrical fog and comes knocking at the door.
The reason a bishop is required to perform (or order) an exorcism springs from the Christian tradition that bishops are supposedly possessed of a kind of magical electricity that evil spirits hate, fear, and cannot resist. The Church, of course, doesn’t refer to this power as being “magical,” but when they describe the nature of this force, one can conclude it can be nothing else but magical. They maintain that this current is passed from individual to individual by the laying on of hands with full intent to transmit it. In other words, one bishop makes another bishop by laying his hands on another man95 and saying something to effect of , “John Doe, it is my intention to make you a bishop, and so I’m going to lay my hands on you and pass some of my magical electricity on to you. It’s okay … I can make more.”
Supposedly this magical juice comes down through an unbroken chain of guys who were touched by a guy who was touched by a guy who was touched a guy, etc., etc., back to the first century to a guy who was touched by a guy who was touched by Saint Peter.
Please don’t think I’m being unreasonably disrespectful when I observe that Peter, despite his other admirable spiritual qualities, was according to the Gospels probably the stupidest of the disciples of Jesus. How stupid was he? He was so stupid that during a rare outburst of exasperation, Jesus called him a “rock.” Contrary to the absurd interpretation concocted in the Dark Ages by an understandably confused and embarrassed church, calling someone a rock in first century Palestine was not a compliment. In Aramaic, “rock” is a most insulting epithet. It doesn’t mean, “I think you’re heavy, man,” it means, “I think you are an idiot—as dense and stupid as a stone!” Jesus goes on to say something to the effect that it would be on such immovable rock that the whole future church would be built.96 (Obviously, in this instance, Jesus is proven to be a great prophet!)
This chain of magical electricity from Saint Peter to the modern bishop is called apostolic (as in apostle) succession. Like electricity, the power (real or imagined) is in itself neutral. Once you have it, you have it. It cannot be taken away. If the Church dared to admit such power could be taken away then they would have to also concede that it wasn’t all that powerful in the first place. Ultimately (and technically) one’s membership in the Church (indeed, in any church) has nothing to do with it. Faith or morality or personal piety or virtues have nothing to do with it. If you were touched by a person that has it—and if they touched you with full intent to pass it on—then you have it, too. Just like cooties!
I realize that all this talk of bishops and magical electricity might seem a departure from the more colorful subject of this chapter, but I want you to know this so that you may understand one of the reasons I was retained to exorcise a Roman Catholic school. The fact is that even though I am not a Roman Catholic or an Orthodox Christian, I possess the bishop cooties too!
The circumstances that conspired to confer this curious distinction upon me are interesting, but would take us even farther afield from the subject of this chapter. Suffice to say, I am a bona fide bishop possessed of legitimate apostolic credentials from at least thirty lineages traceable to Saint Peter or one of the other apostles of Christ.97 I think it important for you to know, however, that I do not believe that being so consecrated imbues me (or anyone else) with extraordinary spiritual merit or magical power. Like anyone else on this planet, any virtues or magical powers I may or may not possess are borne of the caprice of my inherited destiny and my own efforts toward spiritual evolution. They are certainly not the result of being touched by a long string of guys who were originally touched by Peter the Idiot. Sister Martha’s spiritual worldview, on the other hand, obliges her to believe otherwise.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s how events unfolded.
It began with a conversation my brother Marc had while giving a healing treatment to his Reiki instructor. For reasons even Marc cannot explain, he is a naturally powerful healer. (Please see appendix 1 for more background information on Marc’s unique ability.) I tease him that his chi98 basket is broken and he spills the subtle energy everywhere he goes. Be that as it may, whenever his teacher falls ill, Marc is the only practitioner he allows to work on him. During the course of the treatment, Marc’s teacher mentioned that his sister is a Dominican nun (Sister Martha) and that she is the principal of Our Lady of Sorrows high school in a nearby city. It is one of the oldest Catholic girls’ school in the state. She had recently complained to him how psychically unhealthy the old school building seemed to “feel” and asked him if he knew someone who might come in and give the building a good spiritual cleansing. He told his sister-the-Sister that he did indeed know someone whom he believed radiated an extraordinary amount of good energy and recommend she contact Marc.99
Sister Martha called Marc and he agreed to come and give the school a good once-over. Several nights later, he was left alone in the building for the entire night. He systematically walked through and “cleansed” each room on every floor. It was nearly dawn before he finished. Sister Martha contacted him several days later and thanked him, adding that the building “felt” much better. That seemed to be that, and Marc didn’t hear from Sister Martha until she called him again, a little over a year and a half later, to tell him something terrible was happening at the school.
She went on to describe a string of misfortunes and tragedies that had befallen the staff, faculty members, and their families in the last thirty days. It started with a car crash in which a young administrative assistant and her baby were burned to death. A few days later, a teacher, a man in his late forties, announced he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died within a week. The maintenance man severed a finger. The accountant fell and broke her hip.
The staff was soon talking of a curse, and the more they talked, the worse things got. Every day brought a new and terrifying event: a broken bone, breast amputation, unexpected illness, murder or suicide in the family. To add to the litany of personal tragedies, the school building itself was starting to “act” strangely. Teachers arrived in the mornings to find desks moved and papers strewn on the floor. A fluorescent light tube in a classroom ceiling burst, scattering shards of glass upon the heads of students. The entire administration had become paralyzed with fear. In whispered conversations in the teacher’s lounge, they crystallized their collective terror and superstitiously personified the horrible chain of events as an attack by the devil himself.
For the students, the most horrifying and traumatic event occurred just hours before Sister Martha phoned my brother. Sister Catherine, the school’s most beloved and popular teacher, a vibrant young woman in her mid-twenties with no known health issues, collapsed in her classroom and died in the throes of a grotesque and violent seizure before the eyes of her terrified pupils.
Sister Martha was truly frightened and admitted frankly that she believed there was an evil presence in the school that needed to be exorcized. Marc confessed that exorcisms were a bit out of his line but said that his brother was a ceremonial magician and a consecrated Gnostic bishop who had participated in several exorcisms in the past. Sister Martha asked Marc to please contact me and see if we might be able to come to the school that night.
Marc called me and repeated as much as he could. As you might imagine, this was something that interested me very much. I asked him to call Sister Martha and tell her we would both come and meet with her, and, if agreeable, stay the night in the building.
I hung up the phone and I sat for a moment wondering what I had gotten myself into. How would I go about exorcising a school building? What was it exactly that I’d be exorcising? It’s my firm conviction that all schools are haunted, especially high schools which, even under the most ideal circumstances, are seething swamps of chaotic sexual energy created by decades of confused and tormented adolescents. Hell! I still haunt the halls of my old high school and junior high! In dreams and nightmares, I find myself running late to a class, unable to remember the time of day or room number. Sometimes I find myself climbing the stairs or trapped somehow between the walls of unremembered hallways. High schools are ghost traps—even for the living!
How much more intense the energy must be in a very old Catholic girls’ high school where year after year, decade after decade, its spooky icon-festooned chambers are crammed with hundreds of girls all undergoing the mystifying metamorphosis into womanhood—all generating the immense and unpredictable psychokinetic energy that accompanies the uniquely female mystery of the first issue of blood. It is with good reason that, when investigating hauntings and paranormal phenomena, the first question the professional investigator asks is, “Is there a menstruating girl or woman in the house?” The premise of Stephen King’s novel and film Carrie is not that much of an exaggeration.
And so, I was not at all surprised that the school building itself was capable of snagging and enraging a malignant force. What I didn’t as yet know was exactly what that force was. Furthermore, I needed to figure out what magick formula would be appropriate for an operation such as this.
My mind was spinning too fast. I needed to pull myself together. I needed to ground myself. I needed to enter sacred space—a telephone booth to God—a place where the true omniscient “me” talks and the not-so-omniscient me listens. As it happened, I knew of just such a place—and it was just a few steps from my telephone. I stripped off my clothes and stepped into the shower.
There, where the blessed hot water descends like the Holy Spirit from my crown to my toes—while my hands busy themselves with the automatic routine of the bath—while my brain runs on automatic pilot and my senses are engaged by familiar smells and sensations, my mind is released to listen to the great intelligence of which my own is merely the small and opaque reflection.
I have composed entire songs in the shower. I have conceived books in the shower. Month after month I figure out how I will pay the rent in the shower! And that afternoon, before the hot water turned cold, I knew precisely how I would go about exorcising Our Lady of Sorrows high school.
PART II
Preparation
Father Damien Karras: “I think it might be helpful if I gave you some background on the different personalities Regan has manifested. So far, I’d say there seem to be three …”
Father Merrin: “There is only one.”
THE EXORCIST100
It has been my observation (always in hindsight) that the real “magick” of a magical operation is accomplished in the preparation process rather than the execution of the ceremony itself. The magick ritual is merely the seal that grounds the current of the magician’s will and completes the circuitry on all planes.
Like Minerva leaping from the cloven skull of Zeus, my plan for the exorcism was fully formed before I stepped out of the shower. It crystallized in my brain in the timeless moment between the shampoo and rinse, and was triggered by a simple vision—a childhood memory of old Mr. Jacobs, the janitor at my old elementary school,101 sweeping the floor of the gymnasium. His technique was simple, methodical, and tidy. He would first sweep all the dirt and debris from every corner of the gym floor and concentrate the mess into one neat pile in the center of the floor. Then, with a final flourish of the broom, he dispatched the nasty pile into his dustpan.
I would do the same. I would sweep the totality of the phenomena—the entire conglomerate of forces and energies that were tormenting the school and its inhabitants—into one pile, and then I would treat that pile as a single spiritual entity. I would focus and create one master devil that embodied all the lesser demons that severally worked their specific acts of mischief and terror—one spirit that I would evoke into the Solomonic Triangle of art. Once I had the nasty critter trapped, I would have a proper talk with it, banish it, curse it, and if necessary, annihilate it using the tried-and-true techniques of the art of Solomonic magick.
You might think this somewhat presumptuous of me. After all, where does DuQuette get off creating demons? Aren’t there already enough evil spirits running around the cosmos? I confess these questions didn’t even occur to me, because for all intents and purposes the staff, faculty, and students of Our Lady of Sorrows had already created the devilish spirit. They just didn’t know its name. And, for the moment, neither did I.
What’s in a name? It is a universal axiom, promulgated by the magical traditions of nearly every age and culture, that discovering the name of a spiritual entity gives the magician power over it. Recall the story of Rumpelstiltskin. In traditional Solomonic magick or Goetia, the names of the seventy-two spirits are provided in the text.102 The book also contains the images of each spirit’s “sigil” or seal. The seal is a very important ingredient in the recipe of evocation. Indeed, it is upon the seal in the Triangle that the spirit appears before the magician.
Two copies of the sigil are used in the classic ceremony: one is drawn on a medallion that is worn around the magician’s neck; the other is drawn on parchment and placed within the Triangle where the spirit will appear. The magician and the spirit are thus linked by the two sigils. The spirit is drawn to its own sigil, and then becomes trapped in the Triangle while the magician stands in the relative safety of the Circle. I’ll talk more about that in a moment.
My first task would be to discover the spirit’s name, and then use the letters of its name to generate the image of its sigil, which I would use in the operation. Other magicians I’m sure will have their own ideas about how this is best done. On this occasion, I chose to use the pendulum. Over the years I’ve gained some proficiency applying this marvelous tool in magical and divinatory operations. My pendulum is a small brass plumb that was given to me many years ago by my dear friend Donald Weiser. It is attached to a string about eighteen inches in length. I use it in a variety of ways, but for this task I would use it to determine a series of “yes” or “no” questions—a clockwise rotation indicating “yes” and a counterclockwise rotation indicating “no.”
I went to the garage and got down the family’s Scrabble103 game, opened it up, and emptied the lettered tiles on the living room coffee table. I turned the tiles face down on the table and swirled them around for a moment. I then tied the string of my pendulum to the tip of my magick wand and began the process of selecting the letters that spelled the name of the demon.
It must have been quite a scene—a large man in a black robe sitting on the couch and dangling his wand and pendulum like a tiny fishing pole over each Scrabble tile while asking out loud to (seemingly) no one in particular, “Is this a letter in name of the demon of Our Lady of Sorrows?”
About ten minutes later, the pendulum had chosen only three tiles, which I set aside (still face down) while I put the rest of the tiles back in the box. Then, one by one, the pendulum determined the order of the three letters in the spirit’s name. I then turned the tiles over and, voilà! The name was revealed.
It was a funny looking name with no vowels: S L G. Would that be pronounced Slug? Slog? Slig? Sloog? Slyge? Sludge? I had to admit “Slug” sounded like a perfectly proper and nasty name for a demon. If these were Hebrew letters, they would probably be 
(Samekh), 
(Lamed), and 
(Gimel). Each Hebrew letter also represents a number. In this case Samekh = 60; Lamed = 30; and Gimel = 3. Together they total 93.
Now, 93 is a pretty important number for many modern hermetic Qabalists who, like me, subscribe to the magical doctrines of Thelema,104 and the watchwords “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” and “Love is the law, love under will.” If you’ve ever corresponded with a Thelemite, you’ve perhaps noted that we begin our letters and e-mails with the former phrase and close with the latter. The words “will” and “love” in Greek are “thelema” and “agape” and each enumerate to 93. In informal communications and in social settings, Thelemite magicians often abbreviate these phrases to their numerical essence and simply greet each other with a friendly, “93.”
This amused me at first, as if the demon were being playful. My amusement soon cooled as it occurred to me that the “S” in the spirit’s name could also be treated as the Hebrew letter 
(Shin), whose number is 300, and in that case the name Sh L G would add to 333.
I realize that not everyone reading this book is a magician or a hermetic Qabalist, and therefore should not be expected to appreciate what all the fuss is concerning these numbers. But, for many modern magicians, no number carries more terrifying implications than does 333. It is the number of the archdevil Choronzon, the dweller in that horrible pathless anti-region of the Tree of Life known as the Abyss.
Every magician, as he or she ascends the evolutionary ladder of consciousness, is sooner or later obliged to pass through the looking-glass of this Abyss. It is the final barrier preventing the true essence of the magician’s consciousness from identifying completely with that of the Divine. The ego cannot make it through the Abyss; indeed nothing that the magician has heretofore considered “self” can pass through that awful non-place. If the “crossing” is successful, what emerges on the other side is the equivalent of a Buddha—a Master of the Temple—a level of consciousness represented by the third Sephirah, Binah, on the Tree of Life. If unsuccessful, the magician (still clutching to and identifying with the false self of ego) falls into the Abyss and is lost in the perpetual madness of a “false” Sephirah, Daath, closed off and separated from both the divine influence from above105 and the merciful distractions of mundane consciousness from below.106
Now, before any of us gets too carried away here, I want to make it perfectly clear that I presently dwell conspicuously low on the Tree of Life’s initiatory ladder of consciousness. I do not believe that I was on that day, nor am I now, poised upon the precipice of that great initiatory crisis. But at the time I did interpret the numbers 93 and 333 to be an unmistakably personal two-part message to me from the demon, which I will vulgarly and succinctly boil down to something like this:
· “93”—Hi Lon. I’ve got YOUR number, Mr. Hot-shot Thelemic Magician! and
· “333”—Don’t mess with me. I’m one bad-ass demon!
I’m not going to attempt to further explain the magical nuances implied by the manifestation of these numbers as they relate to the demon’s name and my own magical career; neither do I wish to overstate or overdramatize the significance of either number 93 or 333 in this particular context. It is enough that you understand that for me this bit of Qabalistic information added a new and disturbingly personal spiritual dimension to this operation—one that informed me in no uncertain terms that the struggle in which I was about to engage was inextricably linked to unseen and unrecognized issues relating to my own initiatory journey—indeed, it was my battle, my crisis, my initiation. Sister Martha didn’t know it, but in asking me to exorcise Our Lady of Sorrows she had also retained me to call forth and exorcise a demon from myself. When you think about it, how could it be otherwise?
As for the true and proper name of the demon, I decided to incorporate both spellings and call it SLG-ShLG,107 pronounced Slug-Shlug (very Lovecraftian, I thought).
I created a simple Slug-Shlug sigil by using the large lettered rose from the center of the Hermetic Rose Cross.
Hermetic Rose Cross
Sigil of Slug-Shlug Drawn on the Rose of the Hebrew Alphabet
Sigil of Slug-Shlug
Sigil of Slug-Shlug within the Triangle of Evocation
Drawn on a yellow 3 × 3 Post-it Note
The Pentagram of Solomon
The Hexagram of Solomon
Now that I knew the spirit’s name and had its sigil, I used a Magic Marker to draw the sigil on the front of a circular copper medallion. The medallion was attached to a chain. I would wear it around my neck and show it to Slug-Shlug immediately upon its appearance in the Triangle, thus binding it to me for the duration of the ceremony. Etched on the reverse side of the medallion is the image of the Pentagram of Solomon. It is the symbol of the microcosm and the magician’s mastery of himself (or herself) and the world of the elements. It is the second image the magician displays to the spirit on its appearance—sort of like a police officer showing his or her badge to the bad guy. It is also a handy thing to flash if the spirit becomes obstinate … or worse.
I drew another version of the sigil within a triangle on the top sheet of a new pad of yellow 3 × 3 Post-it Notes. I will soon explain why I used a Post-it Note for this purpose. For now, please be satisfied with knowing that I would place this pad in the Triangle during the ceremony of evocation, and that it would later play a prominent role in the exorcism itself.
I now had everything I needed to evoke the demon Slug-Shlug. Marc was due to pick me up in less than two hours. I needed to work fast. This would not be a straightforward evocation whereby I simply evoke the spirit, introduce myself, give it its assignment, then order it to run along like a good fellow and do its duty. On this occasion, I was to do something that I had never done before, even in my past capacity as exorcist. This time I would formally conjure the spirit at one location (my home), then, without dismissing it from the Triangle, and without me stepping out of the protective precincts of my Circle, I would transport my activated temple (including myself inside the Circle and the demon inside the Triangle) to another location (Our Lady of Sorrows high school). There, in the middle of the night, I would resume the operation and proceed with the exorcism.
I will now describe how it was done.
PART III
Preliminary Evocation
“… for his Robe hath he not a nightdress; for his instrument a walking stick; for his suffumigation a burning match; for his libation a glass of water?”
LIBER ASTARTÉ108
I’m afraid the following description of my hurriedly composed and extempore evocation of the demon Slug-Shlug will be somewhat of a disappointment to magicians (and would-be magicians) who are enraptured by the glamour of the elaborate trappings of the ancient art of evocation. I assure you that in the last thirty-five years, I have on many occasions taken great pains to adorn myself with the most proper vestments, arm myself with the most proper weapons, and erect the most proper pieces of temple furniture (including a most proper Circle and Triangle festooned with the most proper divine names and words of power). The essence of the structure is hard-wired in my psyche and I dare say I could reconstruct the essential setup in my dreams. Now that I think about it, I have on occasion done just that.
For this working, however, I needed to operate quickly and under extraordinary conditions. My working area and weapons by necessity needed to be spartan and portable. These are the consecrated109 magical items I used on this occasion:
· A wand of almond wood seventeen inches in length.
· A thin silken cord approximately eleven feet long. When the ends are tied together and it is laid out on the floor, it forms a circle approximately three and a half feet in diameter.
· A carpenter’s segmented ruler which, when its segments are fully extended and then folded into three equal segments, forms a perfect triangle of twenty-two inches per side.
· The copper medallion (with chain) bearing the seal of Slug-Shlug on the front, and the Pentagram of Solomon on the back.
· The Post-it Note with the image of the seal of Slug-Shlug within a Triangle.
· A clip-on juror’s badge I once “accidentally” wore home from jury duty. To this ill-gotten prize I glued a paper image of the Hexagram of Solomon. The Hexagram is clipped to my robe to display to the spirit that I have made an unbreakable link with the macrocosmic deity, and that I am operating under the auspices of the Most High.
For the evocation ceremony itself, I wore a purple yarmulke on my head, and my plain black robe, over which I hung my bishop’s stole—a long, wide band of richly embroidered material that hangs around the back of the neck and falls over the front of the body. My stole displays on its wide red and gold bands images of the Greek Cross, the Eye in the Triangle, the descending dove, and the Holy Grail. Later, for the exorcism at the school, I would wear the yarmulke and the stole over street clothes (black slacks, white dress shirt, and a plain black tie).
I quickly cleared a space on the floor in my office (itself a Herculean labor akin to that of cleaning the Augean stables). I banished and purified the temple pretty much as I described in chapter 6. I unfolded and arranged the carpenter’s ruler to form a triangle and placed it on the floor. I put the Post-it Note pad bearing the sigil of the spirit in the center of the Triangle. (Please remember, the image on the Post-it Note also contains a Triangle within which the sigil is drawn.) I placed a stick of burning incense in a small burner in the Triangle next to the sigil. I tied together the ends of the silk cord and arranged it on the floor to form a crude Circle. My Temple was ready.
I sat down in the Circle, wand in hand. I took a moment to gaze into the Triangle at the yellow Post-it Note sigil of Slug-Shlug. Everything looked comically serene—the demon’s sigil resting there next to the stick of burning incense, its tiny red coal politely spitting up an undulating serpent of smoke. I closed my eyes and proceeded to mentally chant my Ganesha mantra and visualize the cosmic banishing/invocation dance I described in chapter 11. As always, the exercise did its magick. In just a few moments I was infinitely centered. I opened my eyes with the realization that contrary to all appearances there was no “outside of myself”—that I was one and the same with the Great G.
Once thus firmly connected with the above, I proceeded to connect with the below. I aimed my wand directly at the spirit’s sigil and conjured Slug-Shlug into the Triangle.
Most modern Solomonic magicians use the Lesser Key of Solomon110 as their guidebook and script for evoking spirits. It is filled with page after page of addresses, conjurations, cures, and greater curses designed to cajole, threaten, or otherwise terrorize an unwilling spirit into the Triangle. I believe, however, that these hypnotic and rambling speeches do not really serve to bamboozle the spirit into the Triangle, but rather, are designed to bamboozle the magician into confidently believing he or she has the full authority, power, and ability to do it! That afternoon my conjuration was extremely loud and very, very brief.
“Slug-Shlug! Come!”
I was oddly awakened by the sound of my own words. It was though I had commanded every dog in the universe to “Sit!” and they had no choice but to obey. It must have been pretty loud, because a bird that had been minding its own business outside my office window was startled into flight. The sound of its fluttering wings instantly summoned into the Triangle of my mind’s eye the image of a huge Norwegian magpie.
Again, I was surprised to the point of distraction. I have seen these marvelous birds many times on my visits to Norway and England. They are more audacious and mischievous than crows or ravens, and because of their thieving habits and reputation for eating the eggs and babies of other birds, they are held in superstitious awe by many European cultures. In England, the appearance of a single magpie is an omen of great evil that can only be warded off by respectfully saluting the solitary bird.
“I’m here,” it squawked.
“I salute you,” I answered.
Such conversational exchanges with demons are difficult to describe because the answers from the spirit enter the mind of the magician on the same brainwaves that carry the questions. The bird cocked its head to the side and dipped a quick bow of acknowledgement. I held up the copper medallion and showed the spirit its sigil.
“Do you see this?”
“I see it.”
“What is it?”
“My mark,” it answered coldly. I turned the medallion around and showed Slug-Shlug the Pentagram of Solomon.
“Do you see this?”
“I see it.”
“What is it?”
“The mark that binds me.”
I held up the juror’s badge with the Hexagram of Solomon glued on it.
“Do you see this?”
“I see it.”
“What is it?”
“The mark that binds you!” it said sarcastically.
These answers satisfied me. It was now time to put the operation on ice.
“You will remain in the Triangle. I will visit you again soon. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Swear it!”
Then, as much as a talking bird can, it cleared its throat and said, “I swear. I will remain in the Triangle.”
Without further conversation or ceremony, I stood up within the Circle, removed my yarmulke and stole and stripped off my robe. I then carefully gathered around me the silken cord of my Circle, wrapped it tightly around my naked body, and tied it securely in place. I would not take off the medallion or leave this Circle until the exorcism was accomplished.
PART IV
Interview with Sister Martha
The doors of heaven and hell are adjacent and identical.
NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS,
THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST
I quickly dressed (concealing my silken magick Circle and medallion under a clean white shirt and black tie). I jotted down a few notes in my magical diary (including a hastily composed “oath”) and threw it my briefcase along with a few other items necessary for a traveling exorcism:
· My almond wand (wrapped in its red satin bag)
· My yarmulke
· My bishop’s stole
· A vial of Oil of Abramelin (see chapter 6)
· The yellow Post-it Note pad with the sigil of Slug-Shlug permanently trapped in its own little Triangle
· A flask of “Holy Water” (see chapter 6)
· Two fresh votive candles and a glass candleholder
· Two cigarette lighters
· Six sprigs of fresh rosemary (clipped from our backyard herb garden)
· The lid to a medium-sized saucepan
Marc arrived to pick me up, and soon the DuQuette Brothers’ Traveling Exorcist Show was on the road to Our Lady of Sorrows high school. It was early evening and the campus was closed when we pulled up to the towering Spanish wrought iron gate. Marc pushed the security button and announced our presence to the voice in the black box. Just as if in a proper gothic horror movie, the gates groaned open and we drove through.
Sister Martha stood outside the door on the side of the main building and indicated where we should park. She was a rather small woman in her mid-forties wearing a black skirt and simple gray suit jacket over a white blouse. I was disappointed she was not decked out in full medieval drag. Still, if I were asked to pick out the nun in room full of women, she’d have been my choice.
After introductions, Sister Martha gave us a brief tour of the building, pointing out the locations of various “supernatural” manifestations as we went along. We spent several minutes in the classroom that witnessed the death of young Sister Catherine, and the tour ended at the faculty lounge and the administrative staff area.
The lounge seemed innocuous enough, but I was immediately disturbed by the layout of the staff area, which was reminiscent of the nightmarish set designs of early German expressionist films. It was an asymmetrical and chaotic maze of misshapen cubicles completely devoid of clean right angles or unobstructed lines of sight. The office of the vice principal was the only enclosed office; its large windows provided a perfect overview of the panorama of chaos.
I am by no means an expert on feng shui, but I couldn’t help but think this entire area was surely a serious impediment to any kind of energy flow—a severe case of chi constipation if I ever saw one!
The whole scene would have been comical had it not been so overpoweringly claustrophobic and suffocating. The area was accessible by only one door that opened onto the hallway. Just standing there made me gasp for air and want to run away, but it was here that Sister Martha lingered as she related details of the specific tragedies and misfortunes that had recently befallen the poor souls who labored for their daily bread in that warped little trapezoidal hell.
She had, in fact, prepared a one-sheet dossier (complete with name, age, picture, job title, and the sad details of each victim’s particular affliction, accident, or tragedy), which she clipped to the hanging in-box attached outside each victim’s door or cubical entrance. For example:
Jane Doe—34—accountant—(picture)
Fractured arm while recovering from breast surgery. Office formerly occupied by Janet Doe who perished with baby in car fire.
Marc and I were impressed.
Before she left us to our work, we sat down for a few minutes in her office to chat. She told us that she had been busy all afternoon arranging the school’s memorial service for Sister Catherine. She was visibly upset and very tired. She told us we would have access to the entire building up until 6:00 a.m. when people would start arriving for the next school day. There would be only one other person in the building during the night, Larry the IT man, who did his computer duties at night.
She rang Larry in his office and asked him to please come to her office. When he appeared, Sister Martha introduced him to Marc and me and told him we would be in the building for several hours during the night doing “some work” for her, adding that we had her permission to go anywhere in the building and that he was not to disturb us.
Larry was a gaunt man, perhaps forty years old, in jeans and a dark gray T-shirt. He seemed a bit high-strung, and I got the clear impression that he viewed us with suspicion.
“What kind of work?” Larry asked nervously.
“Nothing at all to do with your computers, Larry. They won’t be disturbing you,” Sister Martha quickly interjected before either Marc or I could respond.
Larry did not appear satisfied with Sister Martha’s answer. He looked at Marc and me as if he hoped we would offer more information. When none was forthcoming he stammered, “Well, I’ll be backing up the system all night so if they want to look at …”
“They’ll not be working with the computers, Larry,” said Sister Martha with a tinge of irritation in her voice.
I quickly decided I didn’t like Larry. When he disappeared, Sister Martha told us how to lock the building and gave us the security code to open the gate. She then thanked us again for coming, presented us with a check (a very generous figure, we thought, for such an intangible service), and said she’d leave us to our work. She opened her handbag and was fishing for her car keys when her cell phone rang. She plucked it from her purse, flipped it open, and answered.
“Yes dear. How are you doing?” She obviously knew the caller.
Then after a long moment of silence, Sister Martha sat down and sighed, “Oh dear, when? Is anyone with you?” She listened silently for a couple of minutes more before saying, “We are all praying for you, dear. Try to get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She flipped her phone shut and glared blankly at Marc and me.
“That was Sister Catherine’s mother. Her husband, Catherine’s father, was devastated by her death. He collapsed and died about half an hour ago.”
For an uncomfortably long moment it seemed that Sister Martha was going to say something more. She didn’t. She picked up her purse and keys.
“I’ll let you get started now.”
PART V
The Exorcism
What an excellent day for an exorcism!
REGAN, FROM THE EXORCIST
Marc and I were in a pretty somber mood after Sister Martha left. Marc said he would like to systematically go through the building as he had done previously and when he was finished would wait for me in the faculty lounge. I told him I would more or less follow in his wake. We conferred for a few minutes in the hallway as we confirmed our respective routes through the school.
As the faculty lounge would be our base camp and final meeting place, we agreed we would both start there. I waited in the hallway while Marc did his thing. When he was done, he went on his way and I reentered the lounge and prepared myself for the magical marathon to come.
I sat down in the most comfortable chair in the room and put my briefcase on my lap. I closed my eyes, took a couple of deep breaths and repeated my Ganesha banishing/invocation mantra and visualization. Then I reluctantly got up out of my comfy chair, loosened my tie, unbuttoned the collar of my shirt, and fished out the medallion bearing the image of the Pentagram and the sigil of Slug-Shlug. I arranged it so it neatly hung over my tie. I then rebuttoned my collar and slid the knot of my tie trimly against my throat. For some reason, I felt it was vitally important for me to appear as “professional” as possible. I opened my briefcase and again anointed my head with a tiny dab of Oil of Abramelin, popped on my yarmulke, clipped my juror’s badge hexagram to my shirt pocket, and put on my bishop’s stole.
For the first time, I noticed the life-sized and obscenely gruesome crucifix hanging on the wall near the bulletin board. How could I have missed that? I moved closer to have a better look. Surprisingly, my dark cynicisms regarding the church and Christianity in general disappeared, and for a moment I saw the Great G in that ghastly symbol. I looked into the helpless eyes of God and uttered this thirty-three-word oath.
I, Tau Lamed111 swear by everything I hold sacred, that I will not leave this building until I have exorcised the spirit that torments this school and those who labor and study here.
I lit the small votive candle and turned off all the other lights in the room. I then removed my wand from its bag and proceeded banish, purify, consecrate, and seal the room in the following manner:
· With the wand, I performed the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.
· With the wand, I performed the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagram.
· I purified the room by sprinkling the four quarters with holy water, and announced, “This room is purified with water.”
· I consecrated the room by approaching the four quarters with the votive candle in hand. With it, I “drew” an equal-armed cross in the air at each quarter, and announced, “This room is consecrated with fire.”
· I suffumigated the room by approaching the four quarters with burning rosemary, which I kept igniting from the flame of the votive candle that I carried from quarter to quarter on the lid of the saucepan (which also served as my ashtray).
· Returning to the center of the room, I placed the forefinger of my right hand against my lips and took a deep breath. I then forcefully expelled my breath as I swept my hand down in front of me and to the side and back of my body as I shouted, “Apo pantos kakodaimonos!” (Greek for “away [and/or behind me] evil spirits!”)
· Upon leaving the newly banished, purified, and consecrated area, I sealed the room by dabbing Oil of Abramelin on my fingertip and “painting” a pentagram upon the inside of the door, and three Tau Crosses (T) on the outside of the door (one each on the left, right, and upper door posts).112 As I drew the Tau Crosses, I whispered the words, “In nomine Babalon Amen. Restriction unto Choronzon!”113
For the next two and a half hours, I systematically repeated these seven steps in every room and hallway of the building I could access. The second to the last area I cleared in this manner was Sister Martha’s office and its adjoining bathroom. I remember thinking she must be a truly good person. Her office was a sane and calm oasis in an otherwise troubled and disturbed universe. I wanted to linger there, but it was getting late and I knew the most difficult part of the evening was still before me.
I sealed Sister Martha’s office with three sweet cinnamon-scented crosses and crossed the hallway to descend into the feng shui hell of the administrative staff area. The place seemed even more terrible than it had just a few short hours ago. I performed the full seven-part ritual inside each tiny cubicle, pausing to read each dossier. It was very difficult (and a little dangerous) wending my way by candlelight through the maze of desks and chairs. After over an hour the smoke from all the burning rosemary became so thick in the enclosed area that I feared it would set off the smoke alarm system. Mercifully, that did not happen.
I came at last to the semi-private office of the vice principal. Here I would resume the evocation that I had put “on ice” so many hours ago back home. Like old Mr. Jacobs, the janitor in my vision, I had swept the filth of the entire building into one neat pile.
I chose this area for the final showdown for several reasons. First, it had the most room for me to work. Second, all of its walls (including the one with the door and windows that opened to the common area) reached from floor to ceiling. It seemed like the nerve center of the problem and the perfect venue to trap a demon. Lastly, I have to confess, I took perverse pleasure in remembering how in my rambunctious school days I had confronted several other rather obnoxious demons in a high school vice principal’s office.
Those of my readers who are experienced magicians can imagine my state of mind after spending so many hours of banishing, etc. Even simple ceremonies such as these raise a remarkable amount of energy and require an intense level of concentration just to hold the visualizations in place. I was physically exhausted yet at the same time psychically energized. Very few times in my magical career had I reached this exalted level of spiritual intoxication. By the time I reached the VP’s office, the borderline between the material and the magical worlds had essentially vanished. To say I was hallucinating would be an understatement. For hours now, my pentagrams and hexagrams had hung visibly in the air around me, and each time I spat out the words, “Apo pantos kakodaimonos!” every spirit entity, good or evil, went scurrying off to anywhere in the building that had not been cleared and sealed off by the wild-eyed exorcist. The only place left for all that concentrated smutch to take refuge was here—and the air in the room hung thick with the stinking demonic chum of the entire building.
I slapped Slug-Shlug’s little Post-it-Note sigil and Triangle on the desk pad of the VP’s desk and stepped back a few feet. I checked to make sure I was still wearing my yarmulke, magical juror’s badge, and the medallion bearing the pentagram and the demon’s sigil. Lastly, I patted the outside of my shirt to assure myself that I was safely wrapped in my magical circle. Everything being in order, I aimed my wand at the Triangle and commanded as before, “Slug-Shlug! Come!
Slug-Shlug appeared immediately—quietly, peacefully, as if only a moment had passed since our last encounter—a large, handsome Norwegian magpie perched pleasantly upon his yellow Post-it Note. I marveled at how normal it all seemed. I was almost happy to see him, grateful for his exotic and dangerous companionship amid this cowed and colorless hell of a Catholic school. His presence made the evening come suddenly alive and interesting.
Like a fool, I initiated a conversation.
“Why do you torment these people?”
“Is it evil for the crow to feast upon the eyes of a dangling knight?”
Right now, as I’m writing these words, they appear on the page to be melodramatic and corny, like something pulled from a demonic fortune cookie. At the time, however, they sounded anything but corny. In fact, Slug-Shlug’s response took my breath away. In my fevered brain, the allusion was unmistakable. The demon was describing the doom of the luckless Knights of the Round Table who failed in their quest for the Holy Grail; they were hung from trees like obscene fruit, and their eyes were plucked out and eaten by crows.
I didn’t answer—at least, I didn’t make a conscious effort to answer. I stood accused by my own tidy spiritual worldview—paralyzed by the paradoxes of my smug philosophy. Indeed! Who was I to presume to understand and judge the rightness or wrongness of the tragedies of Our Lady of Sorrows? Were not little goods and little evils both parts of the Great G “goodness” of the supreme consciousness? Had I plumbed the depths of the souls of these people? Had I weighed their infinitely complex karmas—their inherited destinies—and found some profound miscarriage of cosmic justice that only Lon Milo DuQuette could put right? Did I think I was some knight in shining armor galloping down the freeway to save the fair nuns and children? Was my clarity of vision so superior that I could, with ego-driven impunity, tamper with the momentum of life and death of hundreds of people I’ve never met? Indeed! Is it evil for the crow to feast upon the eyes of a dangling knight?
Why was I here? What really was my motive for doing this? Why was I standing here with my almond wand and my holy water and my magick toys and my purple yarmulke and my pretty bishop’s stole? Did I look cool? Did I think all this was going to look impressive in my magical diary? Maybe I’d even write a book about this someday!
These thoughts triggered in my exhausted brain a chain reaction of even more crippling doubts and self-recriminations—all as the great bird grew more noble and stately as it stared silently at me from within the Triangle of my magical mind’s eye. But then, I realized that he wasn’t being silent, and that the accusatory voice I was hearing was that of the demon and not my own inner soliloquy. It was the damned magpie that tormented me with these thoughts, these ideas, these images.
I had to hand it to Slug-Shlug; this was classic demonic behavior and I had fallen for it hard. My concentration had been severely broken and as soon as I realized what was going on, Slug-Shlug started to flap his wings and lift himself into the air. I brandished my wand toward the Triangle as if I were snapping a whip.
“Back down! You son of a bitch!”
Every ounce of will flowed through my extended arm and out the barrel of my wand. It took everything I had to bring the great bird down upon the Triangle. The moment his talons touched down, I heard a noise outside in the hallway. Out of the corner of my right eye I saw the door to the staff area suddenly swing open.
“Oh! Sorry!” was all Larry the IT man could say after barging into a smoky, candle-lit room to find a red-faced wizard in a yarmulke and a bishop’s stole aiming a stick at a tiny yellow Post-it Note.
I did not move; neither did I take my eyes off the Triangle. With the same strange voice that called forth Slug-Shlug, I snarled at poor Larry through gritted teeth, “You’re going to have to leave, Larry!”
Larry left.
That did it! No more talking to Slug-Shlug. I didn’t care any more why I was doing this. I didn’t care whether or not I was here because of my ego or my insecurities or my karma or my duty or my goddamned spiritual quest. Screw my motives! Screw good and evil! I was here, doing what I was doing because the universe had conspired to put me in this place. That was enough! The momentum of my life put me here and I wasn’t going to leave until the job was finished. There would be no attempts to redeem this spirit. I would not fart around trying to cajole, torture, banish, exile, or otherwise attempt to reprogram this monster into an “angel of light.” I was insanely angry—filled with a rage that exploded from my heart and arm, and through the death-ray gun of my wand.
I would not abide its existence for one second longer. I took fiendish delight in spitting out the most hideous curse in my arsenal of Solomonic curses:
Christeos cormfa peripsol amma ils! (“Let the company of heaven curse thee!”)
Christeos ror, graa, tofglo aoiveae amma ils! (“Let the sun, moon, all the stars curse thee!”)
Christeos luciftia od tofglo pir peripsol amma ils, pujo ialprg ds apila, od pujo mir adphaht! (“Let the light and all the Holy Ones of Heaven curse thee, unto the burning flame that liveth forever, and unto the torment unspeakable.”)114
Slug-Shlug dissolved without a squawk. I felt as though my body was set in stone, my arm and wand still leveled at an empty desk. Oddly enough, I did not feel triumphant, or even relieved. My overall feeling was that of embarrassment over the fact that I had allowed the spirit to toy with me, and that I had not simply annihilated it immediately upon conjuration.
I composed myself for a moment or two, then performed the seven part banishing procedure and sealed the vice principal’s office. I took the Post it Note Triangle (with the departed spirit’s seal) into Sister Martha’s bathroom, burned it, and flushed the ashes down the toilet. I packed my gear back into the briefcase and joined Marc who was waiting for me in the faculty lounge.
PART VI
Post Mortem
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary;
men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
JOSEPH CONRAD
Marc and I treated ourselves to a couple bottles of water as we debriefed in the faculty lounge. Neither of us shared many details of our labors. I did mention that Larry had burst in on me at the climax of my conjuration. We giggled uncomfortably for a moment, then fell silent as we both realized that Larry’s office was the only place in the building neither of us had worked on. At that moment the door opened and Larry poked his head in.
“Sorry if we bothered you, Larry.” I said with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“I just wanted to make sure you guys were all right. What was it that you were doing?” Larry was visibly agitated. Marc shot back an answer.
“Just helping out Sister Martha. You’ll have to ask her for details.”
“Well, if it has anything to do with the computers, I’m doing a backup tonight and it will take a while.”
“Nothing to do with your computers.” I told him. “And we’re done for the night.” Larry said nothing in response. He just lingered in the doorway for a moment as if unsure what to do or say next.
Marc and I were indeed done for the night. We were both very tired. I wanted nothing more than to get home, take a long shower and sleep all day—which is pretty much what I did. I woke up early in the afternoon and in the cold light of day replayed the events of the night before in my mind.
I was generally pleased with the exorcism and harbored little doubt that I had magically done everything I was capable of doing. However, I was convinced that Sister Martha would need to address a couple of very serious issues if the school was ever to become psychically healthy—the most obvious (and the easiest to correct) being the layout of the administrative staff area. I would be completely remiss in my exorcist’s duty if I neglected to advise Sister Martha in the strongest terms to immediately hire a commercial feng shui consultant to rearrange the area.
My second concern would be more difficult to address head-on, because it dealt exclusively with my own very personal and subjective impressions. I had to be very careful as to how I would go about advising Sister Martha on this issue; I’m referring, of course, to the issue of Larry.
Please don’t misunderstand me. Not in my wildest magical fantasies did I suspect Larry was consciously some kind of Satanic minion—a “Renfield” to Slug-Shlug’s Dracula. I had no reason to believe that he was anything more or less than a harmless IT nerd doing his best every night to make a living. But his insecurity, paranoid behavior, and willingness to defy Sister Martha’s instructions led me to question, at the very least, his personal integrity and emotional stability. I am not a mental health expert, and my impressions are totally subjective, but Larry’s conduct and demeanor left me with the distinct impression that he was a very disturbed man; and very disturbed men make effective conduits, capacitors (condensers), storage batteries, and amplifiers of magical and psychic energy.
You may beg the question, “Did the evil school building make Larry crazy, or did crazy Larry make the school building evil?” It does not matter. Larry was likely every bit a victim as Sister Catherine, or the maintenance man who cut off his finger. As a magician, however, I cannot ignore the obvious. When I conjured the demon Slug-Shlug by name, Larry-the-IT-man walked into the room. Larry was in all likelihood an unwitting cog in the great nightmarish machine that was Slug-Shlug. I strongly believed that for the good of the school, and for Larry’s own good, he should be removed from that environment.
I called Marc, and we discussed our conclusions. Marc then called Sister Martha and told her that the staff area needed a feng shui professional to rearrange things. Being inclined to embrace New Age concepts, she enthusiastically agreed and said she would do that immediately.
Marc then mentioned that we both had our serious concerns about Larry—that he twice interrupted us and made us feel uncomfortable. She then confided that she too was uncomfortable with Larry working there at night and that there were other issues she didn’t want to share regarding his character and “habits.” She said she was probably going to soon let him go.
I wish I had a more colorful and dramatic way to end this story, but I don’t. I think that’s probably a good thing. Several months later Marc asked his Reiki instructor how his sister was and how things were going at Our Lady of Sorrows. He told Marc as far as he knew things were going fine. In this case, I’m hoping no news is good news.
[contents]
91 Matthew 9:22, 15:28; Mark 5:33—35; Luke 8:42—49; Acts 14: 8—10. See also my book Accidental Christ: The Story of Jesus as Told by his Uncle (Chicago: Thelesis Aura, 2006).
92 I here call it “Our Lady of Sorrows.” That is not, however, actually the name of this historic school.
93 The liturgical text of the exorcisms in the Roman Ritual was written in 1614; it was revised following Vatican Council II. A “New Rite for Exorcisms of the Roman Ritual” was presented by Cardinal Jorge Medina in 1999.
94 The Exorcist. Warner Brothers, 1973. Book and screenplay by William Peter Blatty.
95 Bishop making has nearly always been a man thing in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.
96 Matthew 16:18.
97 See appendix 2. Those of you for whom such things matter will be interested to know that the consecrations to which I refer in this place come from apostolic lines other than those I also possess in my capacity as archbishop of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, the ecclesiastical arm of Ordo Templi Orientis.
98 Chi (or qi) the active principle or energy flow of life. Similar to the concept of prana in yoga.
99 You might think that this conversation sounds very New Agey and subjective, but let’s remember these two siblings grew up in an environment that allowed one to become a Roman Catholic nun and the other a New Age healing practitioner.
100 The Exorcist (see chap. 12, n. 4).
101 Highland Park Elementary School, Columbus, Nebraska. I remember Mr. Jacobs having long, curved fingernails as thick as an eagle’s talons.
102 Crowley, Book of the Goetia, 27—64.
103 Scrabble is made by the Hasbro company.
104 From Wikipedia: “Thelema is a philosophy or religion based on the dictum, ’Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law … Love is the law, love under will,’ as presented in Aleister Crowley’s Book of the Law—Liber AL vel Legis. The word is the English transliteration of the Koine Greek noun 
: ’will,’ from the verb 
: to will, wish, purpose.”
105 The Supernal Triad of the Tree of Life, Sephiroth 1, 2, and 3 (Kether, Chokmah, and Binah).
106 The seven Sephiroth below the Supernal Triad of the Tree of Life, Sephiroth 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 (Chesed, Geburah, Tiphareth, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Maluth).
107 In Hebrew, 
= 426 the same number as 
= “Savior” from Isaiah 45:15, “Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior.”
108 The magician consecrates each of his or her magical tools in separate ceremony that takes the object through a series of steps that largely mirror the landmarks of the ritual of initiation. The object is treated as the candidate. It is banished, purified, and charged with its specific duty; then anointed with the Holy Oil and dedicated exclusively for magical purposes. All the items I use to evoke spirits, no matter how simple or improvised they may be, have been so consecrated.
109 If by chance you have not read this chapter, please do so now.
110 Crowley, Book of the Goetia.
111 Tau Lamed (or T. LMD) is my ecclesiastical name and motto. The Hebrew letter 
, Lamed, is spelled 
, Lamed, Mem, Daleth (LMD), the initial letters of my name.
112 I did this in imitation of the lamb’s blood sprinkled on the doorposts to prevent the angel of death from visiting the Egyptian homes of the mythological Children of Israel.
113 I consider these the most powerful words of protection that can be uttered by a magician of my particular religion.
114 The Goetia—The Lesser Key of Solomon the King—Clavicula Salomonis Regis. Translated by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. Edited with an Introduction by Aleister Crowley. Illustrated second edition with foreword by Hymenaeus Beta (York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1996), 118.