On Summoning and Evocation:

What to Expect
by Neres Wane
—copyright 2015—
 Introduction
So much can be said of what occurs in the art of summoning spirits—the
experience, that is, of evocation—but much can also be said through silence.
Personal, subjective experience, being multifold, does not always lend itself
to rigorous and precise descriptions, and sorcery is no exception in this
regard: a person may experience one particular constellation of phenomena in
the context of sorcery and evocation whereas another's experience may be
quite different. The material from which a spirit forms its communications
appears to be the sorcerer's psyche, and thus the vast differences in various
psyches will invariably equate to potentially vast differences in experiences.
Nonetheless, there are common themes, common expressions and common
results. It is with that commonality in mind that I write this brief treatise.
Is such a treatise beneficial? After all, you may have quite different
experiences than what I describe—perhaps none of my descriptions apply to
you at all, or perhaps your practice of sorcery involves no subjective
experiences whatsoever, being merely a means of acquiring magical results.
Still, it might be of interest to know what others are experiencing, and as the
constant flux of all things is the Law—immutable and self-evident—you
cannot expect your current blend of experiences to remain the same. They
will change. And we should prefer change, for stasis—if it could even exist—
is death. To speak of it colloquially, change is the spice of life—it is the spice
of the universe, the spice of experience and the spice of magic. Sorrow, dread
and despair all arise due to our lack of acceptance and appreciation of change.
Whatever you cling to will be taken from you, but if you empty yourself and
embrace change you can hold and bear all things.
Even sorrow and dread have their place. They, too, may arise in the
summoning of spirits. That, I hope, is the real message of this book: to
navigate the strange waves of magic, it is necessary to appreciate them.
Human beings often possess the indignity of appreciating dark things in
movies, literature, art, music, etc. yet not in life. They prefer only heavenly
blessings—blessings which are nothing without the occasional touch of
hellish flames. Magic, at its fullest, is both an ascent and a descent—worlds
of light above, abysses of darkness below. There is no center and we should
not wish for one. And your stagnation is best killed by a quick snap of
curiosity's blade. You can always go further—always.
I fear I am beginning to sound like a puerile self-help book now. Forgive me.
To more plainly introduce this treatise, I will be describing four aspects of
what may be encountered in summoning spirits. They are:
The Feelings and Sensations Inspired
The Gifts they Give
Secret Knowledge
Apparitions
I will also write briefly on Unintended Consequences—a constant danger in
magic, as with all things. If you want someone to explain to you how to avoid
unintended consequences, I am not your man. They are unavoidable, in my
experience, and, again, we shouldn't wish them to be avoidable. Growth
occurs through pain and magical power particularly grows through the pain
of unintended consequences. Deny them and you deny the beyond. Perhaps
you wish to remain in your cage—I do not blame you. But no cage lasts
forever. It is better to break it yourself. Watch and see.
Often introductions are too long. This, hopefully, is not one of them. On to
the treatise itself. . .
 On the Feelings and Sensations Inspired
Successful summonings and conjurations will eventuate in new feelings and
sensations—feelings and sensations which will become more familiar as time
matures. Feeling is here defined as mental whereas sensation is defined as
physical. It is not only the mind (or soul, if you prefer) that is affected by
summoning, but also the body. Truly, the two are not as distinct as it seems,
for what occurs to one often occurs to the other, though not always. Feelings
and sensations both serve as indications that the summoning is at least a
partial success, though they are by no means the only indicator. A sense of a
presence, awe, bliss, serenity, sexual arousal, trance, fear and anger are the
most common mental feelings one will experience in summoning. They do
not always correspond to the summoned spirit, either—at least, not in the
way one might imagine. A spirit of a darker nature may inspire pleasant
feelings just as a spirit of a lighter nature may inspire fear. Spirits do not
always play by the rules or fit your expectations of them. They come as they
want and inspire what they want, just as the sorcerer reacts based on his
conditioning and habits.
To define these in order—
The presence
The most prominent and common experience is the palpable, unmistakable
sense that there is another presence in the room of the ritual—disembodied,
yet powerful and, at times, distinctly personal. This is a sign the summoning
is a success. Without presence, all the sorcerer has is his uncertainty. Not
much needs to be said of this—or, rather, I do not have the talent to describe
just what a presence feels like to one who hasn't felt one before. The sense of
presence perhaps goes without saying but it is truly the heart of the
summoning experience. Other perceptions usually emerge from it and act as
elaborations upon it—but not always.
Awe
It is not possible to encounter a spirit without a sense of awe—at least not at
first. A bodiless creature, intelligence without flesh, dwelling in a world
beyond our comprehension—such are the implications of what a spirit is and
everything in our psychology intuitively reacts to this. And there is always a
degree of confusion in awe, for the vast majority of our lives are spent in
encountering only those beings that are almost invariably tied to their meat.
However, when you encounter a spirit, you will never be the same. You will
know definitively that a spiritual reality exists and that our world is in contact
with it—or at least potentially so. That fact in itself is enough to change
everything, but more to the point: the sensation of the real spirit near you,
speaking to you in its way, learning of you just as you learn of it—all of this
can only be described as an experience of awe. Other sensations will attend
your encounters, but the sense of awe will never truly lessen.
Bliss
Your experience will not end with awe—bliss, also, will come. It is not the
central bliss of liberation nor is it necessarily the same type of bliss
encountered by the religious ecstatic. It is, rather, the bliss of encounter. For
the religious ecstatic, bliss is an end in itself, and is often oriented
hierarchically, with the mystic below and God above. The bliss of Spirit
summoning is of an altogether different nature, though blissful nonetheless: it
is reciprocal, the sorcerer and the spirit existing in a sphere of mutuality. The
sorcerer does not look above and the spirit does not look below—they look at
one another at opposite ends of an level plane, equals. In addition to the bliss
of encounter, the bliss that arises is also a bliss of recognition and power—
the discovery of power, its intoxicating nature, and its implications. They say
absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the same is true of bliss, but be
advised: corruption is no offense when it encounters the purifying depth of
infinity. And that depth is always around the corner in magical circumstances
like these.
Serenity
After bliss, tranquility or serenity comes. It comes like a daydream, like a
fog, like a veil—another sky reaching down to you, enfolding you,
enveloping you, sending all your darkness way. The spirit arrives in splendor
and every inch of your being is responsive to this splendor, imbibing of it as
if it were a quiet light sinking delicately into the quilt-like pattern of your
soul. Few sorcerers truly understand this sense of serenity, for they are too
eager to conquer, to achieve and seek their revenge. Obsessed with
immaterial things, they miss out on the great beauty that rests beneath the
shade of their own sword—where the spirit, incandescent beyond natural life,
touches the sorcerer's soul with its deep quiescence and everlasting silence.
The spirit, being disembodied by nature, has a capacity for peace that is
simply not present in those who are still enthralled by dying flesh. The
sorcerer will experience a deep serenity, if he allows it, and in that serenity he
will find a greater capability to thrive. You, being the sorcerer, will find
yourself in this place as well, should you be able to take it.
Sexual arousal
This aspect is not often spoken of, but silence on it is perilous. It is curious to
me that many occultists never seem to ask why spirits are willing to speak to
us at all. We are, after all, conglomerations of dust. We are not beings of pure
energy as they, and our existence is altogether more weighty and brief than
theirs Why should they speak with us? The answer is sexuality. Spirits,
lacking flesh, generally also lack sexuality. Therefore they are not privy to
the intensities of the orgasm. Inevitably, the sorcerer will experience sex
ghosts—incubi and succubi. This most often happens because the sorcerer
stifled arousal in the act of evocation, not allowing it to flourish even though
the spirit clearly inspired such a feeling. In evocation, you will often find
yourself sexually aroused and should realize that this is a hint from the spirit
of something it wants. It can feel what you are and feel what you feel—let it
feel it. It will be far more obliging if you do.
Trance
Trance will also come. Consciousness will be stunned and unable to move.
You will feel the energy of the spirit seize you and take you. It will hold you
close, shutting down all your abilities—both for physical movement and
intellectual thought. And, in the delicacy and fortification of your trance,
visions will arise, covering the face of your arms, resting you deep into those
other lands. To be entranced is to feel a quietude in both mind and limb, for
that which stands before you is too interesting, too beautiful, too valuable to
risk a disturbing motion. This, I foretell, is something you will truly love
when you find it. Sorcerers often become addicts for trances. It is
understandable: you know how boring common life is, with its daily grinds
and thousands of meaningless actions. To find yourself slipping away into the
gravity of a magical trance—oh, how mature and innocent you will be on that
day when it first alights upon you! Trances, however, are not as integral to
magical consciousness as one might think, for trance implies the occupation
of the conscious mind with contents—albeit magical ones. When
consciousness lacks content, magic has a tendency to be more powerful, but
consciousness is incapable of noticing a lack of content, for if it were to
notice that it lacked content, it would have content, would it not? Magic is
transgression. It comes in moments beyond noticing, when noticing stops—
unawareness, unconscious stillness, what you can never see. Nonetheless,
trances make such states all the more common. Therefore delight in the
trances that come to you, but be advised of this: if you seek them, they are
slower to arrive. And if you cherish them, they become more rare. The
sorcerer who is truly filled with all the potential ecstasies that come before
his mind is the one who has let go of almost everything, becoming like an
inert stone in the face of glory. But no one can decide to go there or rise to
such a state—like life, it happens to you, and there is nothing you choose.
Fear
Evocation will introduce you to fear. You may not like to read this, but it is
the case. If you dabble in the magical arts, eventually you will encounter
things you'd wish you hadn't. Is it not the same way with all dabbling? No
point of our lives is free of risk and it is the height of naivety to believe that
the magical arts are any exception. No sorcerer worth his salt will have a
magical career free of fear. In fact, the presence of fear tells you that you are
doing something right, for if magic were relegated exclusively to the
desirable aspects of imagination, it would not lead to such fear. And, contrary
to popular belief, it is not only demons which evoke fear. Angels are just as
ferocious and inspiring of terror. Fear, also, is not undesirable for the
sorcerer. The greater the intensity felt in evocation, the greater its power, and
this is true regardless of where that intensity comes from. Intense fear can
even be more powerful than other intensities, for fear has a devilish way of
putting us into deep contact with our vital energies—energies which are
necessary for all magical workings. Yes, you will find fear, and the fear will
not end merely because the evocation is ended. Did you truly suppose that
magic was an easy path, that all can tread? Only a fool believes this. The
sorcerer opens himself to all peril by virtue of what he is doing and, truth be
told, the magical path is littered with the bodies of fallen sorcerers—those
who have gone mad with fear, driven to life's brink, burning in the hell of
consciousness. If you never encounter fear, you are either ineffective or
extremely ignorant. You should be afraid—especially when you walk such
dark paths as these. True, perhaps we ultimately have nothing to fear in so far
as life is ultimately a meaningless gesture on part of a depraved cosmos, but
in the short-term we can easily find ourselves set with all manner of sorrow,
madness and pain. Spirits bestow maleficence just as surely as they grant
beneficence. Fear will also manifest in all manner of forms—frightful
visions, feelings of panic, terror, absolute horror, etc. Audible manifestations
are not uncommon. The spirits you summon forth will test you and often that
test involves the inspiration of fear. Some will not do your bidding unless you
pass through the wall of fear, and this is as it should be: if you cannot stand
before them, fearlessly, you do not deserve their work. And though this is not
the case with all, it is true of many.
Anger and grief
Though not often spoken of, anger and grief are also common. Little needs be
in their regard, as you will not like them when they come. They will come,
however. Anger and grief are forms of temporary insanity and you cannot
possibly expect to court one temporary insanity without courting others.
Sorcery is a form of insanity, communing with beasts invisible to the eye.
When your mind's floodgates are opened, darkness will follow with light. At
times it will be conceptual and at others a nonconceptual, visceral and
irrational response. Anger and grief will not ruin you, though. You will likely
be able to sustain them. Fear is a greater enemy. You may not be able to
maintain yourself in the face of fear, though you must. At times the anger and
grief will correspond to painful memories of your own life, though you will
likely just as often be enraged at the new insights arising in your
consciousness, or find yourself in a depression. Whatever the case, press on.
Sensory phenomena
In addition to all the many mental phenomena you will experience, there are
also a plethora of sensory phenomena—each corresponding exactly to what
you would expect to experience via the body. You will encounter images,
fragrances, audible sounds, tactile sensations of various sorts, flavors of
unknown origin, etc. Though they are not as common as mental phenomena,
or even dream visions, they can and will occur, and no sorcerer worth his salt
will endure the entirety of his career without occasionally encountering them.
When they arise, they may have nothing to do with the spirit being contacted,
nor anything with magic in general—nothing conceivable or perceptible, at
least. Such phenomena are simply a mimic of that which is encountered in
the physical world. On occasion they will mirror something involving the
spirit summoned in the ritual, but not always. It is not entirely clear whether
they are simply hallucinations brought on in the context of ritual or whether
they have a supernatural origin, but in both cases they are not to be
considered as the ritual's central piece. They are merely indicative of a
deepening of the sorcerer's mental state and, therefore, their presence is quite
promising—or at least potentially so. Do not pay that much attention or, if
you are forced to pay them much attention, do not do so for an extended
period of time. It will not help you. The power of evocation is primarily
emotional, and sensations such as these are not especially useful, regardless
of how much success they might indicate.
I fear that what I said above is a little too brief so, for the sake of fleshing out
the text, I will now attempt to describe some of the more common sensations
which will be encountered.
Images
Geometric shapes are common, often floating directly on the periphery of
vision. Also common are blotches of color, shadows of brightness or
darkness and even the occasional clear image. If you are familiar with
hypnagogia, you will be able to anticipate some of the more common visions.
These are more common on the scrying mirror but they can just as easily
occur anywhere in your vision.
Sounds
Ringing in your years, hissings and voices distant or near, strange rustlings,
crinklings and otherwise—all of these you may find yourself an audience to.
It is rare, I believe, to hear the audible voice of the spirit, but it will speak
within you as a voice, and you will hear it is a phenomena which appears to
be both an idea and an audible sound, yet neither.
Scents
Sulfur is common. Strange scents, also—some of which might be quite
pleasant.
Flavors
These are exceedingly rare and unworthy of much attention, but they do
occur.
Bodily sensations
Changes in temperature, tingling sensations, the feeling of rising or falling—
all are common. You may feel pinpricks, tickles with a sudden desire to
switch and convulse. Strange currents of ecstasy and pain may also find
themselves alighting upon the general sphere of your sensations.
To reiterate, all of these are to be expected and, when they occur,
disregarded. They, like most incidental sensations, have no special value for
you.
 On the Gifts they Give
The work of sorcery is the work of causing effects to occur. It is not
mysticism—the mystic passively accepts the presence of a supernatural
reality, seeking salvation or ecstasy through it. The sorcerer is not inclined
this way—not quite. The sorcerer seeks to change reality. Normally this
change is in accordance with his will, but not always. True, knowledge is
sought at times, but knowledge is not valued by the sorcerer for what it is.
Knowledge, rather, is valuable for what it does—what it accomplishes, what
it can change. The sorcerer is a man of action and when he seeks out gifts
from a spirit, he seeks them for their utilitarian benefit. While the mystic may
practice sorcery—just as the philosopher may practice it—a mystic is not a
sorcerer and the sorcerer is not a mystic. A sorcerer is one who is devoted to
the concept that reality is action over essence, and that if there is any
understanding of fulfillment to be achieved, it must be achieved in the midst
of action. Stasis is death and to passively court the ecstasies of static deities is
nothing more than an attempt to resemble death before dying. When mystics
resort to sorcery, they do so in order to fund their mysticism. When sorcerers
resort to mysticism, they do it only to increase the power of their sorcery. As
you can see, they are related worlds, but nonetheless constitute a true duality.
If you are a real sorcerer, you act—your concern for feeling is only insofar as
feeling aids the greater work of committing actions.
With that being said, the sorcerer's eye is perpetually tuned to what his
sorcery may do for him. He does not question what a spirit is so much as he
questions its gifts. And, generally speaking, the gifts that spirits give are
uniform and easily categorizable. They are:
1. Knowledge
2. Curses
3. Blessings
Only the first is neutral, albeit sliding towards the beneficial. I realize that the
gifts bestowed by spirits of far more manifold than these three simple
headings, but I also believe that if one has a little imagination, these three
headings can and should cover all that can be expected of spirits. They will
show you new truths and new lies. They will harm and bless yourself and
others. Taken as a whole, such are the goals of sorcery.
Knowledge we will deal with in the next chapter. Let's confine ourselves of
the topics of cursings and blessings. Sadly, many occult books depict these in
the most obvious and artless of ways, treating the reality of the spiritual
world and its interface with our physical reality as if spirits were genies or,
worse, Gods after the fashion of what one might find in a quaint Midwestern
church. Nothing could be further from the truth—to open up one's body and
mind to spirits is to open the door to the cosmic wilderness, where things are
always and forever uncertain. Facile minds who believe that they can use the
great, awe-inspiring and miraculous power of spiritual summoning and
evocation for such common purposes as life, wealth, love, happiness—all of
these goals are under death's shadow and will soon be taken away. Worms eat
them. They will rot. Those who place their treasure inside them will be taken
away by the same worms, rotted and grotesque. Only a fool seeks these—the
true sorcerer seeks something else.
What, then, are true blessings and true cursings?
Astrological parallels can be given here. Blessings are Jupiter and Venus in
their most esoteric sense whereas cursings are Saturn and Mars. Further,
blessings are under the auspices of the Sun while cursings are found beneath
the Moon's silver shade. The middle point of them all—the plane of
coagulation or conglomeration—is Mercury. What does this mean?
Jupiter is the principle of expansion and Venus is the principle of connection.
When the sorcerer is blessed by these two forces, he is able to expand and
connect in a way greater than what the body allows. The blessing is what
occurs to his soul, not to the surrounding world. If any blessings do occur, it
is a gift of power, and nothing more. The true sorcerer is able to grant his
own wishes or, even better, to have no wishes, being himself the plane of his
desire. He opens himself to the glories of the spirits only insofar as he may
mirror that glory in himself one day, mimicking them and knowing how to
channel the subtle energies within himself so as to be able to manifest on a
level with what they can accomplish.
Saturn is the principle of limitation and Mars is the principle of
disconnection. The sorcerer allows these two cursing forces into his soul so
that they might fortify him, making him stronger, bestowing upon him their
power. As a weightlifter become stronger through the trauma caused to his
muscles and weightlifting, so too does the sorcerer become more powerful by
traumatizing all the elements of his soul with the spiritual dew of evil—
emanations and omissions from the baleful planets, allowing the darker
reality of the world to transgress the borders of all that he is.
The Sun is the self. The Moon is the other. Blessings is what flows forth from
you. Cursings are what flow forth to you. This is their esoteric truth and
though you may not wish to understand it, it is nonetheless so. So many who
become involved in magic are merely dabblers, intent on pleasing their
orifices in ways that they could not otherwise do. They will be destroyed in
due time—no one can open this black door and remain whole. If you do not
seek the deep fragmentation of your entire consciousness, you will never get
what you seek through magic. Magic is there to destroy, to instigate conflict,
to burn and to break. Even the seemingly harmless and safe effects of
beneficially disposing reality to one's favor are, in reality, fragmentation's of
the natural order. You cannot deny this: to act beyond the domains of the
body and mind, without resorting to speech or physical action, is to stir the
pot, so to speak, and bring forth strange things into the otherwise
harmoniously regulated path of the world. This is a path of initiation and
change—not of atrophying by pleasing your puerile desires.
Mercury is the ultimate result—the completion. There, self and other become
one. The internal state of the sorcerer and his external state are merged in a
perfect dance of inter-flux. This is the real goal of magic and, despite what
you may think, this is exactly where you are going. Sadly, it is inevitable for
you. Once the idea has infected your mind, there is no turning back. Those
who truly encounter a spirit will be forever changed by it and it will give
them a gnawing wish to be more than what they currently are. This is as it
should be. The Sun and Moon merge, along with all the other planetary
forces, into the luminescent pool of Mercury—the ultimate state which, in
reality, is not ultimate at all, but merely the most adept way to navigate the
endless changes in seasons of this cosmos. A Chinese sage wisely wrote, "the
highest wisdom and the highest virtue resembles water, for it always suits
whatever circumstance it finds itself in, yet retains its essential nature." This,
in brief, is what Mercury is and what you shall eventually become as you
continue on the path of magic.
Are you confused? Read this chapter over again carefully. If it is not clear,
summon the astrological forces in the exact order I mentioned—Jupiter,
Venus, Saturn, Mars, Sun, Moon, Mercury—and see. It will soon become
clear.
 On Secret Knowledge
A "secret" need not be a universal mystery. Anything formerly unknown is,
for you and I, a secret. And the most coveted form of knowledge is the
knowledge of reality.
Though the truth of things is most simple, it is also complex enough to
contain infinity within itself. Western magic is informed by the teachings of
Plato. According to Plato, it is not the form that reveals the essence of the
thing, but rather the preexistent and primordial ideal form which determines
its subsequent manifestation. Behind all reality is a seething miasma of these
ideal forms—perfect spirits, without any individual distinctions, embodying
basic and fundamental laws. In the course of time, these ideal forms become
manifest, and the world that you see—alongside your own self—is a faraway
echo of these ideal forms. One might compare them to Gods. . .
The knowledge of reality is the knowledge of ideal forms. To know what
something is, you must know what it is before it is—that is, you must behold
it in its essence. Essence is that which exists prior to attribute or form. The
secret knowledge that the spirit bestows is the ability to perceive the nature of
all things prior to their manifestation and the spirit allows you to see that
hidden world which exists prior to all things and, peering into that hidden
world, to find body and soul awakened an ecstasy.
Do you doubt this? Do you not understand? Look closer. You can tell that
any material object—no matter how banal—is something which is composed
of laws, symmetries and operations beyond itself. Gravity is one of many
example of these laws though uniquely suitable for the purpose of
illustrations. Gravity is everywhere in evidence, yet looks in itself nothing
like the things it helps to create: it is intangible, invisible, inconceivable by
the mind. Yet it is clearly there, clearly presents and clearly possessed of
creative potential. Now what would it be to seek gravity for what it is,
independent of the objects it helps to compose? It would be to peer into the
nature of an ideal form. Gravity exists prior to the productions of gravity, and
gravity exists, therefore, independent of its productions. Even in the absence
of all objects, gravity remains. This is the hierarchy of existence—cause
exists independent of effect, forever isolated and free of whatever it may
bring into being.
To see the primordial form is to see the cause that exists prior to the effect.
And to see such a cause is to become that cause—or, rather, to resemble that
cause. The sorcerer becomes what he sees. He always finds himself
resembling the forms that meet his eye. It matters not whether that eye is
spiritual, material or otherwise—everything which looks into something else
begins to resemble what it. This is the simple law of osmosis and isomorphy
that characterizes all things. And, also, such is the way that power is
achieved, for if the sorcerer beholds powerful things he will necessarily
become powerful. If he sees the ideal forms behind manifest nature, he will
become as them, a God, knowing good and evil. This this is means of the
"immortality" spoken of by the ancients, for to behold eternity is to resemble
eternity, and to resemble eternity is to identify with the undying. And to
identify with such an undying, internal and infinite essence as the Plenum of
ideal forms which preexist all things is to no longer be bound by the chains of
matter. Such as why the sorcerer can act independently of matter, for he is
exercised and become intimate with that part of himself which preexist matter
—or, in other words, he has come to resemble the ideal forms that exist
beyond and, in resembling them, has become a more perfect manifestation of
them.
 On Unintended Consequences
This will be the most useful chapter, by far. Summonings are rarely
performed merely to have a chat—tangible results are desired, and why
should it be otherwise? Our entire being is a tangible result seeking other
tangible results. This is the cosmos in the context of sentience.
With that being said, attempts at achieving results can fail. They can also go
extremely wrong. The sorcerer's intent does not dictate the outcome of the
ritual. Nor does the nature of the spirit summoned dictate the outcome of the
ritual. A ritual, like all things, is dictated by such a vast and complex series of
causal chains that its ultimate effect can never be perfectly quantified. Or,
said a different way, the sorcerer can never know if his ritual will be
successful, nor can the spirit which he summons give him perfect assurance
that the sorcerer will will get exactly what he asks. Unintended consequences
are inevitable and frequent. This is something that the sorcerer must live with
and except.
What I mean by unintended consequences? Suppose you seek to rise on the
corporate ladder of your chosen profession. You summon a spirit and request
that the spirit make this happen for you. The spirit comes through and obliges
your request—or, at the very least, conveys to you that it will do as you say.
A new position unexpectedly opens the following week. It appears that the
poor gentlemen who formerly occupied the position now has a family
emergency to deal with and can no longer occupy the position. For whatever
reason, you now have the position. You may feel a little guilty considering
that your spell possibly instigated the family conflict or tragedy that the
former employee experience, but not that guilty. Yet after a few weeks in the
new position you realize that the stress levels that the position inspires is
simply too much to take and you soon you find yourself contemplating
whether or not you should put in your resignation. A few more weeks
thereafter of intolerable stress and you find yourself speaking to your boss,
telling him that he simply cannot do the job. He returns you to another, less
stressful position—perhaps your old one. But what have you really
accomplished? You may have induced a personal tragedy in someone else's
life and, since your new position was not to liking, have only incurred more
grief to yourself. You have made a mess of things. You have failed.
The spirit did do as asked. It gave you what you requested. The problem is
that it did not give it to you in the way you wanted the request to proceed.
Unintended consequences result. They will not always result, but they will
often result—more often than you would like. You must accept this and
prepare for it. It is not the case that every single spirit you summon will be
consciously trying to grant your wishes in a negative way. That is a good
story for Hollywood, but it is simply not true. Nonetheless, it is naive to
believe that the spiritual world is any less dangerous or less dysfunctional
than the material world—they are both cesspools, truly, and neither one of
them will grant your desires perfectly. You will still try to achieve your
desires, naturally, but you are sorely mistaken if you think everything will go
smoothly for you. Many sorcerers find their career as a sorcerer shipwrecked
due to their inability to handle the unintended consequences of their rituals.
They open a door to the abyss hoping to find a lily—it is no wonder that they
later abandon the project altogether. Everyone wants everything to go
smoothly but reality often has other ideas.
Is there a way to ensure that unintended consequences do not result? Yes and
no. If you can adequately anticipate what negative consequences will likely
attend a given ritual's success, you can make a request of the spirit to avoid
such consequences at all costs. The spirit, upon hearing these, may then
refuse to carry it out, but a refusal is still better than dealing with intolerable
fallout. But even if you can anticipate most unintended consequences of a
spell, you will never be able to anticipate them all. Every spell is cast with a
degree of risk involved and if you are not prepared to deal with these risks
coming to fruition, you're simply not prepared for sorcery. The sorcerer must
accept all manner of tragedy, chaos and ruin, for these will all surely come to
him. They are integral to the magical path and no one is capable of working
good magic without passing through such fiery baptisms. This is why
initiations were often so gruesome in the ancient world—any person who
could endure them unscathed would come out a powerful mage or mystic.
Even the clarity of their thought increases, for evolution and heaven is won
by suffering.
This is how the book is to be concluded. I have given you some notes and, in
fact, my notes are more useful to you—or will be, in due time—that many of
my other expositions. The reason is that I have struck to the heart of
evocation in this work. I told you things that, were you to truly learn and
implement them, would increase your success in ways currently
unimaginable to you—unless, of course, you are already highly accomplished
in this work. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoyed what I have had to say and
found it useful.