The Goetia

84,000 crores of yojanas a second for 84,000 crores of mahakalpas—yet neither reached an end. But I reach an end. BOLESKINE HOUvUSE, Foyers, N.B., July, 1903. Note.—I had intended in this place to devote a little attention to the edition (save the mark) of the “Goetia” produced by Mr. A. E. Waite in the “ Book of Black Magic.” But a fresh perusal of that work reveals it to be such a farrago of twenty-fifth-rate shoddy schoolboy journalism that disgust compels me to refrain. I may merely mention that the letterpress is garbled and the seals abominably drawn. To give one concrete example; on p. 202 Mr. Waite observes : “This” (that the compiler of the Lemegeton was acquainted with the N. T.) “is proved by the references in the Third Conjuration to the Living Creatures of the Apocalypse.” There is no such reference! In the Second Conjuration, for I have corrected Mr. Waite’s careless blunder, there is a reference to Living Creatures ; there is also a reference to the same beings in the Apocalypse. The argument then stands: The Book of Chronicles refers to King Solomon (unknown date). Mr. Waite refers to King Solomon (1898), Therefore, The author of the Book of Chronicles was acquainted with Mr. Waite’s book.’ We will conclude by condoling with the author of the Book of Chronicles. * Even apart from this, if Living Creatures are really existent things—which the name would suggest—the argument stands: The Rig-Veda, The Old Testament, The Insidecompletuar Britanniaware, The Sword of Song all refer to the Sun. *, there is a common source in literature. Mr. Waite’s fallacy is all very well, though, for people who have never kept Living Creatures, nor even made a fourth at Bridge. 5