Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 2)

assists the lesser characters to get out of themselves at the suprême moment. Following the climax there should always be an unre- hearsed ceremony, an impromptu. The most satisfactory form of this is the dance. In such ceremonies appropnate libations may be freely used. The Rite of Luna (Equinox I. VI) is a good example of this use. . Here the climax is the music of the goddess, the assistants remaining in silent ecstasy. In the rite of Jupiter the impromptu is the dance, in that of Saturn long periods of silence. It will be noticed that in these Rites poetry and music were large!y employed mostly published pièces by well-known authois and composers. It would be better 1 to Write and compose specially for the ceremony 2. (f ** PERHAPS ! One can think of certain Awful Conséquences”. “But, after ail, they wouldn’t seem so to the authors! ” “But — pity the poor Gods!” “Bother the Gods! ” 2. A bodv of skilled Magicians accustomed to work in concert may be competent to conduct impromptu Orgia. To cite an actual instance in recent times; the blood of a Christian being required for some purpose, a young cock was procured and baptized into the Roman Catholic Church by a man who, being the son of an ordained Priest, was magicaliy an incarnation of the Being of that Priest, and was therefore congenitally possessed of the powers thereto appurtenant. This cock, “Peter Paul,” was consequently a baptized Christian for ail magical purposes. Order was then taken to imprison the bird; which done, the Magicians assuming respectively the characters of Herod, Herodias, Salome, and the Execu- •tioner, acted out the scene of the dance and the beheading, on the lines of Oscar Wilde’s drama, “Peter Paul” being cast for the part of John the Baptist. This ceremony was devised and done on the spur of the moment, and its spontaneity and simplicity were presumably potent factors in its success. On the point of theology, I doubt whether Dom Gorenflot sucessfully avoided eating méat in Lent by baptizing the pullet a carp. For as the sacrament — by its intention, despite its defects of form — could not fail of efficacy, the pullet must hâve become a Christian, and therefore a human being. Carp was therefore only its baptized name — cf. Polycarp — and Dom Gorenflot ate human flesh in Lent, so that, for ail he became a bishop, he is damned. - 178 -