Magick Without Tears

BEINGS I HAVE SEEN 359 intense magical effort on the traditional lines; there was no accident about it; when I evoked N to visible appearance, I got N and nobody else. But even so, there isn't much to splash! The first definitely physical sight was due to the "evocation to visible appearance" of the Goetia demon Buer by myself and V.H. Frater "Volo Noscere." (Our object was to prolong the life, in imminent danger, of V.H. Frater lehi Aour-Allan Bennett-Bhikkhu Ananda Metteya-and was successful; he lived another 20 odd years. And odd years they were!) I was wide awake, keyed up, keenly observant at the time. The temple was approximately 16 feet by 8, and 12 high. A small "double-cube" altar of acacia was in the centre of a circle; outside this was a triangle in which it was proposed to get the demon to appear. The room was thick with the smoke of incense, some that of Abramelin, but mostly, in a special censer in the triangle, Dittany of Crete (we decided to use this, as H.P.B. once said that its magical virtue was greater than that of any other herb). As the ceremony proceeded, we were aware that the smoke was not uniform in thickness throughout the room, but tended to be almost opaquely dense in some parts of it, all but clear in others. This effect was much more definite than could possibly be explained by draughts, or by our own movements. Presently it gathered itself together still more completely, until it was roughly as if a column of smoke were rising from the triangle, leaving the rest of the room practically clear. Finally, at the climax of the ritual-we had got as far as the "stronger and more potent conjuration"-we both saw, vaguely enough, but yet beyond doubt, parts of a quite definite figure. In particular, there was a helmet suggesting Athene (or, horror! Brittania!), part of a tunic or chlamys, and very solid footgear. (I thought of "the well-greaved Greeks.") Now this was very far from satisfactory; it corresponded in no wise with the appearance of Buer which