The Black Arts
Notes from"The Black Arts" by Richard Cavendish 1967:
In occultism, the serpent is a symbol of wisdom, and for centuries magicians have devoted themselves to the search for the forbidden fruit which would bring fulfilment of the serpent's promise. Carried to it's furthest extreme, the black magician's ambition is to wield supreme power over the entire universe to make himself a god.
Magical thinking is still deeply embedded in the human mentality. Magic has been practiced throughout European history, down to and including the present day, and it has attracted more interest and support in the last hundred years than any time since the Renaissance.
Old grimoires or magical textbooks instruct the reader in methods of calling up evil spirits, killing people, causing hatred and destruction, or forcing women to submit to him in love did not think of themselves as black magicians. On the contrary, the grimoires are packed with prayers to god and the angels, fastings and self-mortification and ostentatious piety. The principal process in the Grimoire of Honorius, which is usually considered the most diabolical of them all, overflows with impassioned and perfectly sincere appeals to god and devout saying of Mass.
The great forces cannot be described as either good or evil. They have a good side and an evil side, or in occultist terms a positive and a negative aspect. The evil side is the province of powerful evil beings called demons.
In one tradition, the devil is the magicians god and his favor is won by worshipping him and doing his will. In the other, the demons are evil intelligences which have great power but which can be dominated by a magician who is sufficiently strong and daring. Demons are subdued by the force of the magicians will in rituals of blood and sacrifice, perfumes, symbols and curses.
The Sumerians and their successors, the Mesopotamians, the Babylonians, and Assyrians, believed that if a corpse was not properly buried with the appropriate ceremonies and gifts, it would come back and stalk the streets attacking the living and trying to suck their blood. The greeks thought that offerings must be made at graves of dead relatives whose ghosts would take revenge if they were neglected.
Necromancy-the art of controlling the spirits of the dead
God, or the one, cannot be described as either masculine or feminine. The one links all the opposites together in unity and it combines male and female.
The left is associated with evil. Black magic is the left hand oath. Moving to the left in magic is done with evil intent and attracts evil influences.
Ritual Magic
The magician's central preoccupation is with the exercise of power, but his use of his powers is as various as his methods. From a tremendous ceremony in which he displays his mastery of all the forces of he universe, he may turn to something as trivial as afflicting an enemy with boils. At one moment, weltering in the graveyard products of necromancy; at the next he is slyly turning people into animals.
The grimorie called the Lemegeton lists the names and powers of 72 devils and an analysis of their functions-most of them have more than one-gives an interesting picture of the magaicians's use of power. The Lemegeton's major interest is in the gaining of knowledge. More than half the devils listed include teaching as one of their functions.
This emphasis on knowledge and secrets reflects the traditions that the rebel angels, who lusted ater the daughters of men, taught them all arts and crats. It is also a reflection of the occult importance of knowledge, rather than virtue, as the key to spiritual progress, and the belief that knowledge of the universe is synonymous with it's control.
The first essential is that the magician must be magically consecrated, which means that he must set himself apart from the everyday world and his ordinary life.
The ceremony should be held in a secluded place where no one is likely to interrupt. If the place has an atmosphere of mystery, romance, or evil, so much the better. The ceremony can be preformed in the ruins of a castle, a church or a monastary, in a graveyard, in a wood or a desert, or at a place where three roads meet, sacred to Hecate, the goddess of sorcery.
The vital requirement is that evverything used must be virgin. Tha magician must either make his instruments or magical weapons himself from previously unused materials or he may buy them brand new and especially for his operation.
The circle has been considered powerful in magic from time immortal, though it is not known why. The use of a circle to make the boundary of a sacred or protected area is very old.
There must be no gap or break in the cirrcle through which evil forces might get into it. Care must be taken not to scuff or blurr it's lines. A gap is left for the magician and his assistanst to enter the circle and once they are in their place the gap is closed.
The origin of the belief that the pentagran is a barrier against evil is unknown. Th stock medievil explanation of it's power is that the five points of the star stand for the five wounds iinflicted on the body of Christ and for this reason devils are terrified of it. In the modern theory, the pentagram represents god or man.
The pentagram with one point upwards, repels evil, but a reverse pantagram with one downwards is a symbol of the devil and attracts sinister forces because it is upside down and because it stands for the number 2. It represents the great goats of the witches sabbath and the two upwards points are the goats horns.
