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Click to view DEVIL FROM HEARNE'S PRINT OF THE "DESCENT INTO HELL." Engraved by Michael Burghers , c. 1676. CHAPTER I The Preparation of the Operator § 1. Concerning the Love of God THE rites of so-called Transcendental Magic are, ex hypothesi , divine and religious rites, and the counsels, spiritual and moral, which are found in its instructions are, in their meagre and puerile way, the vulgarised counsels of perfection, whatever element of sovereign contra-reason may obtain in its experiments. The Composite Rituals, despite the result of their analysis, also partake largely of the nature of substituted religious observances, at times Judaistic, at times Christian. In both cases this fact is readily intelligible; to communicate with the fabled Spirits of the Firmament and to practise an art which offers to its adepts the regeneration of Enoch, King of the Inferior World, "who was not, for God took him," may well demand a high degree of sanctity from its candidate, to whatever ends it may lead him; while to dominate the so-called Spirits of the Elements, the Kabalistic Kliphoth and the Evil Demons, it is reasonable to assume that the [paragraph continues] Magus must be free from common weakness, from common vice and must be fortified by the grace and favour of the superior world. Given the magical standpoint in each case, the conditions essential to operation seem, in this respect, above challenge. Its recommendations, however, were more especially of times and seasons; they were for the work of the art in hand rather than for the high and transcendental art of holy life. But it will assuredly appear at first sight a bizarre anomaly that Black Magic should involve also religious observances and should exact similar conditions, both inward and outward, from those who would undertake its enterprises. It is not, as generally supposed, either Christianity à rebours or a reversed religion of Israel; it is not the intentional profanation of religious ritual and observance; it is something less outrageous but logically more insensate; so far as it has re. course to such ritual and such observance, it is not to do outrage to God in the interests of diabolism, but to derive power and virtue from above for the more successful control of Evil Spirits, and this obtains indifferently whether the purpose of the operator be otherwise lawful or not. The Divine Love, says the book of True Black Magic , must precede the acquisition of the Science of Solomon, son of King David, who said: The beginning and Key of my Wisdom are the fear of God, to do Him honour, to adore Him with great contrition of heart, and to invoke His aid in all our intentions and aspirations; which fulfilling, God will lead us into the good way. To account for this anomaly it is insufficient to say that the book of True Black Magic is simply the Key of Solomon adapted to Goëtic intentions. In the first place, as already seen, it is impossible to read the Goëtic intention out of either of the Clavicles; and, in the second place, the same characteristics are found in the Grimoires which derive least of all from the Clavicles, namely, that of Honorius, and that called the Grand Grimoire . To meditate continually on the undertaking and to centre every hope in the infinite goodness of the Great Adonai, is the rule established by the latter as the first principle of success. Nor does the insensate nature of the processes of Black Magic offer explanation by itself.