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.
three
The Law of Attraction,
the Power of Intent &
My Date with Linda Kaufman
Intent is the mechanics through which spirit
transforms itself into material reality.
Deepak Chopra,
The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire
In the last few years, we’ve heard a lot about the Law of Attraction and the Power of Intent. At the risk of being shunned and ridiculed by the more hard-core wizards of the occult community, I have to confess my deep and abiding respect for the works of Louise Hay, Deepak Chopra, and Dr. Wayne Dyer, among others, for bringing to a wider audience of seekers the fundamental secrets of true magick in ways that are understandable and acceptable to people of all spiritual backgrounds.
Perhaps you don’t think that such fluffy New Age pundits could actually be tossing around the supreme secret of the ages on public television sandwiched between cooking shows and reruns of Masterpiece Theatre … but they are! Magick may be the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with Will, but the mechanism of that Will can be at least partially
