IN ANY EXAMINATION OF PERSONAL CONTACTS WITH SPIRIT BEINGS, WE NEED to be particularly careful not to allow our postmodern prejudices to color any reaction we might have to the evidence presented. It is relatively easy to accept Crowley’s account of the voice of Aiwass as something he genuinely experienced. Mediumistic communications of this type are so commonplace, they are even demonstrated on television. But Neuburg’s report of the demonic conjuration in the Egyptian desert may prove a step too far for rationalists. These are no longer the Middle Ages. Surely demons and their ilk have long ago been banished as primitive superstitions?
The point is not whether demons exist in their own right as sentient entities, but whether the phenomenon of demonic encounter forms part of human experience, and whether this phenomenon can be induced by, for example, ritual evocation. Historically, of course, there can be little doubt that it does and it can. Consider, for example, the account that appears in the papers of Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571), Italy’s master Renaissance sculptor.1
In 1533 or 1534 (the exact date is uncertain), Cellini met with a Sicilian priest versed in the art of ritual magic who agreed to show him an evocation, having first voiced a few dire warnings about the dangers. The site chosen was the ruins of the Roman Coliseum. Cellini brought his friend Vincentio Romoli, while the priest was accompanied by a second magician from Pistoia. The equipment laid out included ceremonial robes, a wand, several grimoires, a pentacle, incense, kindling, and a supply of assafœtida grass. While the others watched, the Sicilian drew circles on the Coliseum floor and fortified them ceremonially. One of the circles was left incomplete. The magician led his companions through the gap before closing it and concluding his ritual preparations. Cellini and Romoli were given the job of lighting a fire in the circle. When they got it going, they were instructed to burn quantities of incense. While the man from Pistoia held the pentacle, the priest began a conjuration ritual. An hour and a half later it bore fruit. According to Cellini’s own account, the Coliseum was filled with “several legions” of spirits.
Cellini expressed himself satisfied with the demonstration, but the Sicilian undertook to perform the ceremony again in the hope of obtaining more spectacular results. To this end, he made a fresh stipulation: he wanted a virgin boy to attend. Cellini brought a young servant with him, a twelve-year-old named Cenci.
Romoli returned to the Coliseum for the second operation, but the magician from Pistoia did not. His place was taken by another of Cellini’s friends, Agnolino Gaddi. Once again the circles were drawn and consecrated, the fire lit, and the incense burned. Cellini himself held the pentacle this time as the Sicilian priest began the evocation. It is plain from Cellini’s account that the conjuration—spoken in a mixture of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin—was directed toward demons who controlled legions of infernal spirits. Much sooner than before, the Coliseum was packed with entities. Cellini asked them to bring him a woman with whom he was in love, a Sicilian girl named Angelica. The spirits replied through the mouth of the magician that Cellini and she would be together within a month.
Although all seemed well at this point, the operation quickly began to go wrong. The magician himself was the first to notice. There were, he said, too many spirits present—possibly as many as a thousand times more than he had called up. Worse, they had begun to misbehave. Twelve-year-old Cenci screamed that they were all being menaced by a million of the fiercest “men” he had ever seen. Four giants, fully armed, were trying to enter the fortified circle. The priest launched into a formula of dismissal. The little boy began to moan and buried his head between his knees, convinced they were all as good as dead.
Cellini tried to reassure him but failed, possibly because he himself was shaking like a leaf. The child cried out that the Coliseum was on fire and that flames were rolling toward them. He covered his eyes with his hands in a paroxysm of terror. The magician broke off his chanted license to depart in favor of stronger means. He instructed Cellini to have his assistants pile assafœtida on the fire. But Cellini’s assistants were by now too paralyzed with terror to comply. Cellini lost his temper and shouted at them. It had the desired effect and soon the foul-smelling grass was burning merrily. The spirits began to depart “in great fury.”
None of the experimenters felt like leaving the protection of their magic circle. They stayed huddled together until morning when only a few spirits remained “and these at a distance.” With the sound of Matins bells ringing in their ears, the sorry group left the circle and headed home, with little Cenci clinging desperately to Cellini and the Sicilian. Two spirits accompanied them, racing over the rooftops and along the road.
The last word on this remarkable experience goes, some centuries later, to Madam Blavatsky, who wrote, “The subsequent meeting of Cellini with his mistress, as predicted and brought about by the conjurer, at the precise time fixed by him, is to be considered, as a matter of course, a ‘curious coincidence.’”2
Another historical record that may point toward an even more dramatic encounter with demonic forces is contained in A True Account of the Jena Tragedy of Christmas Eve, a German judicial inquiry issued 1716. The story it told was one of the most interesting and frightening in the annals of magical practice, although the inquiry itself was investigating not magic, but violent death.3
The affair began about a year before the inquiry itself. A peasant named Gessner was working in his vineyard when he discovered a coin. The inquiry did not record what it was, but it proved sufficiently valuable to persuade Gessner to hunt for more. One or two more coins turned up. Gessner concluded they were an indication of a buried hoard that would make him rich and wondered where he could get a grimoire to help him find it. Many German grimoires of the day contained advice on how to persuade spirits to reveal treasure. Gessner had actually owned one, a collection of conjurations entitled Theosophia Pneumatica, but lost it prior to his discovery of the coins.
Gessner discussed the problem with a friend, a tailor named Heichler, bemoaning the fact that he no longer had a grimoire that would enable him to find the rest of the treasure by magical means. Heichler was sympathetic. More important, he was able to introduce Gessner to a practicing magician, a student named Weber. Weber was reputed to be the owner of various ritual implements and such rare grimoires as the Clavicula Salomonis and the Key to Faust’s Threefold Harrowing of Hell.
The meeting took place in Weber’s rooms, which he shared with a youth named Reche. Gessner asked for the magician’s help, but Weber was hesitant. Conjurations were lengthy, tiresome operations, and he had no intention of undertaking one unless he was sure it would prove worth his while. Gessner told Weber he had taken part in conjurations before (which may have been true) and claimed he had seen the treasure hoard in the vineyard; or at least seen its guardian spirit. He produced the coins, claiming he had managed to steal them despite the guardian’s attempts to stop him, then went on to describe other spirits he had seen in the locality.
Weber was impressed. He agreed to lend his magical talents to the search and the two men worked out an arrangement by which Weber was to receive a portion of the treasure when it was found.
At this point, an individual named Zenner entered the story. He was, like Gessner, a peasant and seems to have bought his way into the conspiracy with the aid of a mandragore. A mandragore is the specially prepared root of a mandrake plant. The tuber contains a toxic narcotic that, if it fails to kill, may produce visions. In the eighteenth century, it had a fearsome reputation among magicians, who believed it shrieked in agony when uprooted. Since the plant is inedible, it was harvested only for magical purposes. By an accident of nature, mandrake roots often take humanoid shape: two arms, two legs, and an abundant leafy growth taking the place of hair. To create a mandragore, the effect was often heightened by carving, after which the root was cured in vervain smoke to accompanying incantations. A mandragore was considered a talisman of enormous potency. Zenner, who had stolen his from the husband of his mistress, told Gessner, Weber, and Heichler that it could open locks at a distance.
Two mandragores, magical instruments for opening treasure locks and circumventing their spirit guardians
The four began their preparations. Working on the basis of Gessner’s description, Weber concluded that the guardian of the hoard was the spirit Nathael, apparently a Hebrew demon. Christmas Eve, only days away, was considered propitious for a conjuration. Weber consulted his textbooks and discovered an odd number of participants was specified. Heichler, the tailor, was busy during the pre-Christmas rush and readily agreed to drop out. Finding a site for the operation proved more controversial. Heichler offered an empty room in his house, but Gessner objected. He was convinced demons were deceitful and he was afraid they might try to fool their conjurers by taking on the appearance of inhabitants of the house. It would be safer, he argued, to hold the conjuration in some remote spot. After considerable discussion, their final choice fell on a little hut owned by Heichler, situated in the same vineyard where the treasure was buried.
The conspirators then fell to discussing luck pennies, which were supposed to reproduce themselves when the relevant ceremony was performed over them. Was there, they wondered, a chance that the spirit might exchange luck pennies for ordinary pennies if they brought a few along? They decided it would be worth a try despite the fact that, according to Weber’s grimoires, each participant had to have a specific number of coins, carried in a bag of a particular material, purchased at a given price. Heichler agreed to make the bags, which he gave to his wife who, in turn, sold them back to him and his three colleagues at the specified price.
In the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Gessner and Weber called to collect Zenner. But now that the ordeal was close at hand, Zenner was beginning to take fright. He urged his companions to change the venue to somewhere less isolated and suggested using an empty house of which he was the caretaker. The three men went off to inspect the premises, but quickly discovered it unsuitable. There were no shutters on the windows; besides which, Zenner had mislaid his key. Consequently, armed with lanterns and protective amulets, they set out for the vineyard hut. Before entering, Weber penciled the word Tetragrammaton on the door.
The three men went inside to discover that Heichler had left them some coals for their brazier and a tallow candle. The brazier itself was makeshift: they used a flowerpot and the fire gave off so much fumes that they were forced to open the door. Weber drew a magical circle on the ceiling, then began to read the conjuration from The Key to Faust’s Threefold Harrowing of Hell. After a time he began to feel dizzy, then fell unconscious across the table. His last memory was of his two companions regarding him curiously.
The following day, Christmas, the tailor Heichler made his way to the hut to find out what the other three were doing. Gessner and Zenner were both dead. Weber was alive, but apparently insane. He could not speak. When aroused from his torpor, the best he could produce was grunts and gibbering. Heichler called in the authorities, who stationed three watchmen at the hut to guard the corpses until they could be fully examined. The next morning, one of the watchmen was dead and the other two were unconscious.
The judicial inquiry from which this account is drawn centered on the fate of Weber and his associates, so there is little information about the death of the watchman. But the record had a great deal to say about the would-be magicians. The body of the unconscious Weber was covered with marks and bruises. Zenner’s corpse was in an even more appalling state: it was covered in huge weals and scratches. His tongue protruded horribly and there were many individual burns on his face and neck. No instrument was found in or near the hut that could have explained such injuries. The only source of fire was the flowerpot brazier, but this was undisturbed and the corpse nowhere near it.
Accounts like these raise the question of how conjurations are actually carried out, a problematic investigation since, while instructive grimoires abound, there are very few detailed first-person accounts of what really happens when the instructions are put into practice. Nonetheless, the record of one such operation has come down to us, made especially interesting since it was written by a Victorian magician whose works remain required reading for Western occultists to the present day. More interesting still, Alphonse Louis Constant, the French author better known by his pseudonym Eliphas Lévi, was, for most of his life, a theoretical magician only. His account of the evocation of Apollonius of Tyana is the only recorded instance of his ever having undertaken a practical magical experiment:
In the spring of the year 1854 I had undertaken a journey to London, that I might escape from internal disquietude and devote myself, without interruption, to science. I had letters of introduction to persons of eminence who were anxious for revelations from the supernatural world. I made the acquaintance of several and discovered in them, amidst much that was courteous, a depth of indifference or trifling. They asked me forthwith to work wonders, as if I were a charlatan, and I was somewhat discouraged, for, to speak frankly, far from being inclined to initiate others into the mysteries of Ceremonial Magic, I had shrunk all along from its illusions and weariness. Moreover, such ceremonies necessitated an equipment which would be expensive and hard to collect. I buried myself therefore in the study of the transcendent Kabalah, and troubled no further about English adepts, when, returning one day to my hotel, I found a note awaiting me. This note contained half of a card, divided transversely, on which I recognized at once the seal of Solomon. It was accompanied by a small sheet of paper, on which these words were penciled: “Tomorrow, at three o’clock, in front of Westminster Abbey, the second half of this card will be given you.” I kept this curious assignation. At the appointed spot I found a carriage drawn up, and as I held unaffectedly the fragment of card in my hand, a footman approached, making a sign as he did so, and then opened the door of the equipage. It contained a lady in black, wearing a thick veil; she motioned to me to take a seat beside her, showing me at the same time the other half of the card. The door closed, the carriage drove off, and the lady raising her veil I saw that my appointment was with an elderly person, having grey eyebrows and black eyes of unusual brilliance, strangely fixed in expression. “Sir,” she began, with a strongly marked English accent, “I am aware that the law of secrecy is rigorous amongst adepts; a friend of Sir B—L—4 who has seen you, knows that you have been asked for phenomena, and that you have refused to gratify such curiosity. You are possibly without the materials; I should like to show you a complete magical cabinet, but I must exact beforehand the most inviolable silence. If you will not give me this pledge upon your honour, I shall give orders for you to be driven to your hotel.” I made the required promise and keep it faithfully by not divulging the name, position or abode of this lady, whom I soon recognized as an initiate, not exactly of the first order, but still of a most exalted grade. We had a number of long conversations, in the course of which she insisted always upon the necessity of practical experience to complete initiation. She showed me a collection of magical vestments and instruments, lent me some rare books which I needed; in short, she determined me to attempt at her house the experiment of a complete evocation, for which I prepared during a period of twenty-one days, scrupulously observing the rules laid down in the thirteenth chapter of the “Ritual.”
The preliminaries terminated on 2nd July; it was proposed to evoke the phantom of the divine Apollonius and interrogate it upon two secrets, one which concerned myself and one which interested the lady. She had counted on taking part in the evocation with a trustworthy person, who, however, proved nervous at the last moment, and, as the triad or unity is indispensable for Magical Rites, I was left to my own resources. The cabinet prepared for the evocation was situated in a turret; it contained four concave mirrors and a species of altar having a white marble top, encircled by a chain of magnetized iron. The Sign of the Pentagram, as given in the fifth chapter of this work, was graven and gilded on the white marble surface; it was inscribed also in various colours upon a new white lambskin stretched beneath the altar. In the middle of the marble table there was a small copper chafing-dish, containing charcoal of alder and laurel wood; another chafing-dish was set before me on a tripod. I was clothed in a white garment, very similar to the alb of our catholic priests, but longer and wider, and I wore upon my head a crown of vervain leaves, intertwined with a golden chain. I held a new sword in one hand, and in the other the “Ritual.” I kindled two fires with the requisite prepared substances, and began reading the evocations of the “Ritual” in a voice at first low, but rising by degrees. The smoke spread, the flame caused the objects upon which it fell to waver, then it went out, the smoke still floating white and slow about the marble altar; I seemed to feel a quaking of the earth, my ears tingled, my heart beat quickly. I heaped more twigs and perfumes on the chafing-dishes, and as the flame again burst up, I beheld distinctly, before the altar, the figure of a man of more than normal size, which dissolved and vanished away. I recommenced the evocations and placed myself within a circle which I had drawn previously between the tripod and the altar. Thereupon the mirror which was behind the altar seemed to brighten in its depth, a wan form was outlined therein, which increased and seemed to approach by degrees. Three times, and with closed eyes, I invoked Apollonius. When I again looked forth there was a man in front of me, wrapped from head to foot in a species of shroud, which seemed more grey than white. He was lean, melancholy and beardless, and did not altogether correspond to my preconceived notion of Apollonius. I experienced an abnormally cold sensation, and when I endeavoured to question the phantom I could not articulate a syllable. I therefore placed my hand upon the Sign of the Pentagram, and pointed the sword at the figure, commanding it mentally to obey and not alarm me, in virtue of the said sign. The form thereupon became vague, and suddenly disappeared. I directed it to return, and presently felt, as it were, a breath close by me; something touched my hand which was holding the sword, and the arm became immediately benumbed as far as the elbow. I divined that the sword displeased the spirit, and I therefore placed it point downwards, close by me, within the circle. The human figure reappeared immediately, but I experienced such an intense weakness in all my limbs, and a swooning sensation came so quickly over me, that I made two steps to sit down, whereupon I fell into a profound lethargy, accompanied by dreams, of which I had only a confused recollection when I came again to myself. For several subsequent days my arm remained benumbed and painful. The apparition did not speak to me, but it seemed that the questions I had designed to ask answered themselves in my mind. To that of the lady an interior voice replied—Death!—it was concerning a man about whom she desired information. As for myself, I sought to know whether reconciliation and forgiveness were possible between two persons who occupied my thoughts, and the same inexorable echo within me answered—Dead!
I am stating facts as they occurred, but I would impose faith on no one. The consequence of this experience on myself must be called inexplicable. I was no longer the same man; something of another world had passed into me; I was no longer either sad or cheerful, but I felt a singular attraction towards death, unaccompanied, however, by any suicidal tendency. I analysed my experience carefully, and, notwithstanding a lively nervous repugnance, I repeated the same experiment on two further occasions, allowing some days to elapse between each. There was not, however, sufficient difference between the phenomena to warrant me in protracting a narrative which is perhaps already too long. But the net result of these two additional evocations was for me the revelation of two kabalistic secrets which might change, in a short space of time, the foundations and laws of society at large, if they came to be known generally.5
Cellini’s story of the Coliseum conjuration was not written for publication, nor for any form of personal aggrandizement. It formed a part of his private papers and was only discovered after his death. The tragedy at Jena was recorded in a judicial inquiry that had no agenda other than to establish the truth behind some bizarre deaths. Dr. E. M. Butler, formerly Schröder Professor of German at the University of Cambridge, went on record with the statement that:
The circumstantial evidence is so realistic, even including a diagram of the scene; the account is so sober; the admissions of the one remaining witness ring so true; the judicial procedure was so meticulous; the strict adherence to known facts so close; that, together with the absence of torture, they positively command belief.6
Although Lévi did publish an account of his experiences, there seems little indication of self-aggrandizement here either. By that time, his reputation was already well-established, as was his extreme reluctance to involve himself in demonstrations of the magical arts. He once said, “To practice magic is to be a quack; to know magic is to be a sage.” On this occasion, he seems to have been persuaded to “quackery” by the mysteriously romantic circumstances of the unnamed lady’s invitation.
In all three cases, there is no reason to conclude the reports are anything other than accurate accounts of unusual human experiences, although how we should interpret these experiences remains for the moment an open question. Crowley’s demon in the desert, Cellini’s frightening encounter, and the Jena tragedy all raise the question of whether infernal experiences are still possible in the modern era, again with essentially the same answer. The reports of America’s Ed and Lorraine Warren, whose investigations of more than three thousand paranormal disturbances included the case that subsequently became famous as the Amityville Horror, are only some among many that attest to demonic experiences up to the present day.7 Crowley was not above producing fiction designed to inflate his reputation as a magician, but we must remember that the description of what happened in the Egyptian desert was penned by Victor Neuburg, an altogether more modest and more reliable character.
We need also to examine our own preconceptions of what spirits can and cannot do, preconceptions that can be alive and well even in those who do not actually believe in spirits. They arise from a consensus picture formed by the particular emphases given by the authors of various contact reports. But the consensus is not the whole of the picture. Sometimes spirits prove capable of things seldom mentioned in the literature that has accrued around them. They may, for example, do more than make contact; they may elect to share, more or less permanently, the same mind-space of those they wish to speak to. More peculiar still, they may actually be donated by one contact to another.