The Book of Ceremonial Magic (A.E. Waite) · 77 of 175 · tr. Arthur Edward Waite
Page 37 (part 1)
§ 8.
The Gold-Finding Hen I must pass, however, to the incubation of the gold-finding hen, which is the head and crown of the proceedings.
The grand Oromasis, the father of Zoroaster, was the first person who possessed one of these marvellous fowls, which are hatched from an egg in the following manner.
Take aromatic woods, such as aloes, cedar, orange, citron, laurel, iris-root, with rose-leaves dried in the sun.
Place them in a golden chafing-dish; pour balsamic oil over them; add the finest incense and clear gum.
Next say: ATHAS, SOLINAM, ERMINATOS, PASAM; set a glass over the chafing-dish; direct the rays of the sun thereon, and the wood will kindle, the glass will melt--obviously by the magical power which resides in the operation--a sweet odour will fill the place and the compost will burn speedily to ashes.
Place these ashes in a golden egg while still red-hot; lay the egg upon a black cushion; cover it with a bell-glass of faceted rock-crystal; then lift up your eyes and stretch your arms towards heaven and cry: O SANATAPER, ISMAÏ, NONTAPILUS, ERTIVALER, CANOPISTUS.
Expose the glass to the most fierce rays of the sun till it seems enveloped in flame, till the egg ceases to be visible, till a slight vapour rises.
Presently you will discern a black pullet just beginning to move, when if you say: BINUSAS, TESTIPAS, it will take wings and nestle in your bosom.
it is not said that anything disastrous follows, but rather a certain advantage, which will appear in the next paragraph.
While this is the true process of the Pyramids and easy no doubt to an heir direct of Oromasis, it is obvious that it has its difficulties to those born merely under the common moon of sorcery, and, merciful, like all its companions, to human limitations, the Grimoire provides an alternative method suitable to persons of small means.
Take an unspotted egg; expose it to the meridian rays of the sun; then select the blackest hen that you can meet with; if it have any coloured feathers, pluck them.
Should the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals not intervene opportunely, contrive to hood this bird with a kind of black bonnet, drawn over the eyes so that it cannot see.
Leave it the use of its beak.
Shut it up in a box, also lined with some black material, and large enough to hold it comfortably.
Place the box in a room where no light of day can penetrate; give food only in the night to the fowl; see that no noise disturbs it, and set it to hatch the egg.
As everything will be black to the bird, its imagination, which is likely enough, will be overwhelmed by the sense of blackness, and if it should survive the incarceration, it will ultimately incubate a perfectly black chicken, provided only that the operator by his wisdom and virtue is worthy to participate in such sacred and divine mysteries.
It does not appear how or why a fowl incubated after this uncomfortable fashion should have a particular instinct for detecting the places wherein gold is hidden, but such is the faculty attributed to it, and it can only be concluded that the Black Pullet is a degree more foolish than its idle company of Grimoires.
The simplified process did not, however, in the opinion of sorcery, seem the last word which it was possible to say upon the subject.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The ritual relies on the affinity between solar rays, specific materials (gold, blackness), and the desired outcome (gold-finding), reflecting a belief in hidden cosmic affinities.
Fire is central to the operation, involving burning aromatic woods in a chafing-dish and exposing materials to the 'fierce rays of the sun' until enveloped in flame.
The maintenance of a state of cleanliness—physical, moral, or spiritual—required for encounter with the divine.
The alternative method requires an 'unspotted egg' and a hen plucked of colored feathers to ensure the correct magical outcome, indicating requirements for ritual cleanliness or specificity.
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
The core mechanism of the ritual relies on uttering specific barbarous names and formulas to cause physical transformations like melting glass or hatching a magical hen.