Low Magick: It's All In Your Head ... You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is - Lon Milo DuQuette 2010
The Formula of Solomon
Give therefore to thy servant an understanding heart to
judge thy people and to discern between good and bad?
FIRST KINGS, CHAPTER 3, VERSE 913
It may seem odd to you that I, as a man who more or less rejects the historicity of the Bible and most, if not all, of the Chrislemew view of spiritual reality, should spend my time praying to God, conjuring spirits, summoning demons, and communing with angels. Make no mistake, I do indeed believe in the magical reality of gods, archangels, angels, spirits, and demons, and for the purpose of some particular magical operations, I even embrace (albeit temporarily) the concept of a heaven filled with angels of high intelligence, and a hell filled with legions of dangerous demons. In fact, because I actually work with these characters in practical ways, they present to me a far greater reality than they do for the average Chrislemew who simply tucks these concepts away in a corner of his or her brain where fanciful religious abstractions are stored.
As you will soon see, several of the stories in this book deal with my experiences with Solomonic magick or Goetia. Goetia is often vilified as the most striking example of low magick. Please understand right now that I do not intend to burden you with another rehash or a tiresome reprint of the text Goetia14 with its seventy-two spirits and the traditional procedures used to conjure them. (There is a glut of books already on the market if that is what you need.) Rather, I hope by means of simple anecdotes and illustrations to gently acquaint you with the dynamics of this kind of magick—why it sometimes works, and why it sometimes doesn’t. Moreover, it is my hope that when you have finished reading this little book, you will have a greater understanding of the sublime spiritual formula that underlies this kind of magical practice—a formula, when properly applied, that promises to the tenacious and courageous magician a greater measure of personal health, happiness, and enlightenment.
The formula of Solomonic magick is very simple and uses the character of King Solomon as the mythological archetype of the ideal magician. There are many stories and traditions about Solomon that come from sources other than the Bible. An important part of the mythology of Freemasonry revolves around a peculiar story of King Solomon and the building of his magnificent temple—a story that is not found in the Bible. The Koran, the Talmud, and Ethiopian scriptures also abound with colorful tales of the great magician king who, because of his special relationship with God and his mastery of magick, could talk with animals, fly through the air on a magick carpet, and effect all manner of works and wonders, including his ability to enlist a labor force of demons and evil spirits to build the great Temple of God.
The likelihood that the biblical King Solomon probably never existed in empirical history should be of no concern to modern magicians, because the “formula” for doing this kind of magick isn’t an aspect or product of history or religion but of the mythology and traditions that are attached to Solomon’s name. The magical myth goes something like this:
When Solomon became king, his first job was to build a temple worthy to house the presence of the True and Living God Most High, something his father, David, hadn’t been able to do. Before beginning the project, Solomon paused and thought things over and wisely came to the conclusion that he couldn’t undertake such an important task without the blessing and guiding intelligence of God. In prayer, Solomon didn’t ask for money or building materials or contractors; he simply asked for an “understanding heart.”
How cool was that! It impressed God so much that Solomon was granted his request and given everything else to boot, including the divine secrets of how to magically summon the evil spirits of the world and (diverting them from their natural preoccupation with mischief) compel them to work for the good guys and help build the great temple.
On the surface, this spiritual worldview appears to be at odds with the Chrislemew doctrines we discussed in the preceding chapter. We’ve got God up above, and we’ve got demons down below, but it appears that’s where the similarity ends. In fact, the whole format of Solomonic magick appears to be an incongruous mixture of high and low magick. The key to understanding this paradox lies with the person of Solomon himself.
Solomon represents a new kind of human being—a person who has broken free of the old ways of looking at God and our place in creation—a person whose consciousness has expanded beyond the prison universe of good gods and evil devils—a person who grasps the concept of a supreme consciousness so absolute that all forces and powers of creation (even those that to others appear evil and destructive) are pressed into service of the Great G Goodness.
A true “Solomon” confidently knows his or her place in this new understanding of the divine scheme of things. A true Solomon is a proactive full citizen of both heaven and hell. A true Solomon is, in fact, encouraged by the Great G God Almighty to conjure the devils and put them to work doing good things!
Are you confused? Don’t be. You’ve just learned a fundamental secret of magick, and if you can free yourself from the old Chrislemew way of looking at things, you are well on the way to becoming a true Solomon yourself. Let me put it in less romantic terms.
The nature of existence is consciousness. We are conscious beings, each of us an integral part of the whole consciousness enchilada. There are levels of consciousness (and realities) above the one in which we normally function, and there are levels of consciousness below. As yogis, mystics, and adept magicians can attest, we can access the higher levels of consciousness in meditation or under other extraordinary circumstances. In those altered states we not only realize the oneness of the supreme consciousness, we become the oneness of the supreme consciousness. Ultimately, this transcendent state is our true and natural state of being, our true self; it is who we really are. It is the “heaven” where we dwell when we have fulfilled our adventures pretending we are somehow disconnected from the supreme consciousness. Our ascent into higher consciousness is Solomon’s prayer to God—Solomon going up to be in the presence of Deity.
However, because most of us have not yet played out our adventures of dreaming we are separate entities, we can abide these exalted states for only fleeting seconds before once again descending to the middle-muddled world of the rational mind, which in turn is supported by the “infernal” world of matter and energy at the lowest end of the consciousness scale. It is a place where the blind forces of nature (if left uncontrolled and undirected) happily discharge their wild energy in explosive flashes that surge through the streets and sewers of our souls along the paths of least resistance. From our narrow, middle-world perspective, these blind forces appear to be destructive and evil. However, when they are harnessed and directed by an intelligence that is in tune with the highest levels of consciousness, they are transformed into organized units of the constructive power—loyal servants dutifully grunting and straining to perform all the heavy lifting in the universe. These are the demons who build the Temple of God—demons Solomon draws up from hell so he might bind them to work under his enlightened and organized direction.
For the magician, archangels, angels, spirits, intelligences, and demons are merely colorful metaphors for the cascading hierarchy of all the natural forces and energies of the universe. This is the secret of Solomon. Once we’ve really pounded it into our heads, we recognize that we, too, have our unique place in the universe. Proactively operating halfway between the above and the below, we are poised to connect with and become charged by forces of the stratum of consciousness above us so that we may connect with, master, and direct the forces in the stratum beneath us.
For the magician, the energy flow of the Solomonic formula moves perpetually upward. The magician’s consciousness rises to connect with the divine consciousness (earth up to heaven) to become attuned with the divine perfection; and the demon is made to rise up (hell up to earth) to become controlled and directed by the magician. From the demon’s point of view, the magician is God, and as long as the magician’s link with the “above” is true and sure, so too is the demon’s link with the magician.
The reason this kind of low magick has earned such an evil reputation is because we so often hear of the terrible consequences to the life and sanity of the magician who violates this simple upward-flowing formula. I speak specifically of cases where in the course of the operation the spirit convinces the magician to strike some sort of bargain—a quid pro quo, perhaps a gift or sacrifice in exchange for service. “I’ll bring you a nice shiny penny … but you’ve got to kill the vicar!” Ask any Solomonic magician; he or she will most likely tell you the first thing a spirit will attempt to extract from you is a bargain of some kind, or an amendment to your original request. It is also the last thing you should consider doing.
In all fairness to the poor infernal spirit, such haggling is a perfectly understandable characteristic of its unredeemed nature to try to negotiate itself free from your control. After all, it’s been doing that in one way or another your entire life—otherwise you wouldn’t be lacking the specific thing the spirit can provide you!
But what if the formula is breached? What happens if, instead of raising the spirit up to the magician’s level, the magician descends to the demon’s level? Shouldn’t a competent magician be able to handle that?
My answer is yes. A competent magician, a true Solomon, can handle that, but one must question his or her motives for setting out to do so. Is the object of the operation to cause some change to occur in hell? Or is the object of the operation to cause some change to occur in the magician’s life here on earth? If the answer is the latter (and I can’t imagine it being otherwise), then it is probably wisest to bring the demon up to where its work is to be done, rather than casting oneself down to the hell of status quo where the spirit lounges comfortably in your screwed-up life-as-usual. The worker’s daily labor is done on the factory floor, not at the union hall.
A year or two ago, a young man wrote me a letter asking if there was some way for him to use a black mirror or other magical method so that he might actually visit the realm where the Goetic entities dwell. I was in an odd mood, so I wrote him the following response, which I hope he took in the spirit it was intended:
Dear (name withheld),
A partial answer to your question would be another question; that is … “What makes you think you are not already visiting the realm where the Goetic spirits dwell?”
I’m not kidding. If you wish to explore the realm where some of these fragments of consciousness dwell, I suggest that tonight, as an experiment, you go visit the sleaziest saloon in the roughest part of town about an hour before closing. Every untamed manifestation of the denizens of your Nephesh15 (the real spirits of your Goetia) will be poised to appear before your eyes.
Buy them a round of drinks. They will toast you. Join them in their libations. Keep drinking and talking with them until you start to think their crude and bigoted jokes are really funny and you begin to actually agree with their views of politics and religion. Breathe in the infernal incense of the cigarette smoke. Inhale the sacred perfume of body odor, spilled beer, and urinal cakes. Become one with the consciousness of the room. There! You are visiting hell on earth.
Granted, you might have the magician’s presence of mind (Ruach)16 to jot down some names and phone numbers and thus arrange to have one of these beasties meet you tomorrow in the sober light of day so that you might hire him or her to mow your lawn, paint your house, or clean your septic tank. On the other hand, you could surrender your Ruach completely and stumble home with one of your new Goetic friends for the prospect of a vomit-covered stab at intimacy (and then wake up in the morning to find yourself robbed, infected, or worse, looking every bit the demon yourself).
And so my friend, to answer your question specifically and on a practical level, yes, it is possible to visit the realm where the Goetic spirits dwell, and you won’t need an expensive black obsidian mirror to do it. Choose the seal17 of the Goetic spirit you wish to visit. Draw it carefully on a tiny piece of paper. Take it with you to that saloon tonight at midnight and swallow it with your first strong drink.
Bon voyage!
The formal technique of Solomonic magick is simple, almost intuitive. First, I need to have an “object of my operation,” a change I wish to effect in my life, e.g., “I want Mary, the girl next door, to fall in love with me.”
I start by creating a circle of sacred space in a convenient area of my home or garden. I draw out a triangle on the floor before my circle and do whatever I think necessary to contact and invoke the blessing and presence of the Great G in the likeness and character of the deity of my choice. (I will discuss the importance of invocation and the choice of one’s deity in later chapters.) Once I am confident that my motives are in harmony with the divine order and that I am the living representative of the Great G, I use that authority to summon a demon from the “infernal regions” into the magick Triangle. Once the demon appears (either tangibly or in my mind’s eye), I give it its marching orders: “Cause Mary to fall in love with me.” Then I set it loose to do my bidding.
Sounds corny and melodramatic, doesn’t it? It is corny and melodramatic! It’s supposed to be corny and melodramatic. That’s the romance and charm of the Solomonic magick art form. But it is easy to perform, and if all the factors of the formula are in place, it will work. However, it is likely to work in ways you might not expect.
In the case of our example, let’s not forget that Mary has a divine—and potentially omnipotent—Will of her own. Unless she somehow recognizes the cosmic correctness of falling in love with me—unless she cooperates in this operation, I’m going to remain eternally snubbed. It is likely that Mary is not in love with me because I’m currently not the kind of person Mary is ready to fall in love with. It’s not Mary who will have to change, it’s me. If it is truly my Will to be Mary’s lover, I will have to be transformed into the kind of person with whom Mary falls in love.
Chances are, in the days and weeks following my evocation—in the ordinary course of my life—under circumstances that might appear to have nothing to do with my magical operation—I will be called upon to seriously play the part of a magician, and to play that part well. As a matter of fact, it is likely that (as the result of my Goetic evocation) I will find myself involved in some kind of adventurous struggle.
I’ve often said that the only thing I can change with magick is myself. I believe that. Whatever changes I wish to effect with magick, the first and only thing that will be directly changed by my magical operation will be me. Once I am changed, then the new changed me will then somehow affect or attract the desired object of my operation. However, we seldom know in advance what changes we’ll need to undergo to become that new person. Furthermore, it is a cold hard fact of life that change often comes as the result of trauma. Perhaps Mary is the kind of girl who can only fall in love with a blind man, or an amputee, or a Republican.
Funny thing about demons. If you’re a Solomon, they make wonderful employees. But if you’re not, they make terrible bosses. They are easy to call up. They run amok in our lives as the frenzied menagerie of our own uncontrolled and undirected energies. When we willfully put one to work for us, we are in essence saying to the cosmos of consciousness, “I will conquer and redeem this demon from hell, and the battle will take the form of a character-building adventure. The adventure will transform the demon into a loyal and worthy employee, and transform me into a new and different person—a masterful person—the kind of person the object of my magical operation happens to—the kind of person Mary falls in love with.”
So bring it on, the magician shouts. Let the adventure begin!
THE MAGICIAN18
O Lord, deliver me from hell’s great fear and gloom!
Loose thou my spirit from the larvae of the tomb!
I seek them in their dread abodes without affright:
On them will I impose my will, the law of light.
I bid the night conceive the glittering hemisphere.
Arise, O sun, arise! O moon, shine white & clear!
I seek them in their dread abodes without affright:
On them will I impose my will, the law of light.
Their faces and their shapes are terrible and strange.
These devils by my might to angels I will change.
These nameless horrors I address without affright:
On them will I impose my will, the law of light.
These are the phantoms pale of mine astonied view,
Yet none but I their blasted beauty can renew;
For to the abyss of hell I plunge without affright:
On them will I impose my will, the law of light.
[contents]
13 The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts. Translated from Aramaic by George M. Lamsa (Philadelphia, PA: A.J. Holman Company, 1967), 378.
14 The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King—Translated into the English Tongue by a Dead Hand and Adorned with Divers Other Matter Germane Delightful to the Wise, the Whole Edited, Verified, Introduced and Commented by Aleister Crowley (Inverness, Scotland: Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, Boleskine, Foyers, 1904). Known as the Lesser Key of Solomon, it is the First Book of the Lemegeton (c. 1687). Translated by S. L. MacGregor Mathers (the “Dead Hand” referred to in the full title above) from the British Library Sloane Manuscripts nos. 2731 and 3648. Most recent edition with engraved illustrations of the spirits by M. L. Breton and foreword by Hymenaeus Beta (York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1996).
15 According to Qabalists, the Nephesh (animal soul) is the lowest of the four parts of the human soul. Above the Nephesh is the Ruach (the intellect), above that, the Neshamah (soul intuition), then, at the top, the Chiah (life force).
16 Ibid.
17 See chapter 13.
18 The Magician, translated from Eliphas Lévi’s version of the famous hymn. See chapter VII of my book Angels, Demons & Gods of the New Millennium (York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser, 1997), 151—166.