Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) · 61 of 123 · tr. A.E. Waite
13. Necromancy-d
Every evening at the same hour we must shut ourselves in the chamber consecrated to the memory of the lamented person, using only one small light, such as that of a funeral lamp or taper.
This light should be placed behind us, the portrait should be uncovered, and we should remain before it for an hour in silence; finally, we should fumigate the apartment with a little good incense, and go out backwards.
On the morning of the day fixed for the evocation, we should adorn ourselves as if for a festival, not salute anyone first, make but a single repast of bread, wine and roots, or fruits.
The cloth should be white, two covers should be laid, and one portion of the broken bread should be set aside; a little wine should be placed also in the glass of the person whom we design to invoke.
The meal must be eaten alone in the chamber of evocations and in presence of the veiled portrait; it must be all cleared away at the end, except the glass belonging to the dead person, and his portion of bread, which must be set before the portrait.
In the evening, at the hour for the regular visit, we must repair in silence to the chamber, light a clear fire of cypress-wood and cast incense seven times thereon, pronouncing the name of the person whom we desire to behold.
The lamp must then be extinguished, and the fire permitted to die out.
On this day the portrait must not be unveiled.
When the flame dies down, put more incense on the ashes and invoke God according to the forms of that religion to which the dead person belonged, and according to the ideas which he himself possessed of God.
While making this prayer, we must identify ourselves with the evoked person, speak as he spoke, believe in a sense as he believed.
Then, after a silence of fifteen minutes, we must speak to him as if he were present, with affection and with faith, praying him to appear before us.
Renew this prayer mentally, covering the face with both hands; then call him thrice with a loud voice; remain kneeling, the eyes closed or covered, for some minutes; then call again thrice upon him in a sweet and affectionate tone, and slowly open the eyes.
Should nothing result, the same experiment must be renewed in the following year, and if necessary a third time, when it is certain that the desired apparition will be obtained, and the longer it has been delayed the more realistic and striking it will be.
Evocations of knowledge and intelligence are performed with more solemn ceremonies.
If concerned with a celebrated personage, we must meditate for twenty-one days upon his life and writings, form an idea of his appearance, converse with him mentally and imagine his answers.
We must carry his portrait, or at least his name, about us, following a vegetarian diet for twenty-one days and a severe fast during the last seven.
We must next construct the magical oratory, described in the thirteenth chapter of our “Doctrine”, and see that all light is excluded therefrom.
If, however, the proposed operation is to take place in the day-time, we may leave a narrow aperture on the side where the sun will shine at the hour of evocation, place a triangular prism before this opening and a crystal globe filled with water facing the prism.
If the experiment has been arranged for night, the magic lamp must be so situated that its single ray shall fall upon the altar smoke.
The purpose of these preparations is to furnish the Magic Agents with elements of corporeal appearance, and to ease as much as possible the tension of imagination, which could not be exalted without danger into the absolute illusion of dream.
For the rest, it will be understood easily that a beam of sunlight or the ray of a lamp coloured variously and falling upon curling and irregular smoke can in no way create a perfect image.
Ritual maintenance of relationship with the dead as ongoing presences whose favour is cultivated and whose offence is propitiated. Shinto uji-gami and obon, Norse disir and the alfablot, Celtic samhain and the feast for the deceased, Roman lares and parentalia, Chinese ancestor rites, Vedic śrāddha. Practice-coded rather than belief-coded: distinct from soul_migration (cosmological doctrine of soul-transmigration) and theosis_deification (deification trajectory); ancestor_veneration centres the living's ongoing ritual obligation to the dead.
The passage is entirely dedicated to rituals for maintaining a relationship with and evoking the dead.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
The practitioner is instructed to meditate for twenty-one days on the life and writings of the personage.
A clear fire of cypress-wood is explicitly lit as a central component of the evening ritual. [quarantine-w3: ritual_fire x western_esoteric — see rellm data/quarantine/dossiers.jsonl]
Iamblichean ritual practice that engages the gods directly through consecrated material symbols and actions, on the premise that divine power descends into properly prepared matter — distinct from philosophical contemplation alone.
Material symbols like incense, light, and bread are used to engage spiritual agents.
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.
Calling aloud with specific tones is used to summon the apparition directly.