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'4
Talismans & eivocations oF the Golden Dawn
Inside the octagram were two other officers - the Magus of
Fire, responsible for keeping a steady stream of perfumed smoke
and the Magus of Water who had to keep the temple pure.
There was some nervousness in the participants. The ritual had
been to be cancelled once because they had all developed
mysterious illnesses. However, according to the diary notes of the
participants, the ritual worked well. All four reported seeing an
arm and a leg appear in the triangle of the art and gradually a grey
human form emerged.
The effect was short lived, for within a few minutes the figure
disappeared and all feeling of power left the room.
This ritual was declared a success.
Evocation techniques were introduced in the Golden Dawn to
candidates hoping to attain the Theoricus Adeptus Minor grade.
In the 19& century, evocation literature abounded in the British
Museum and on dusty book shelves. But the Golden Dawn was
more systematic, combining techniques with pertinent points from
their Neophyte or initiation ritual to provide checks and balances.
Adepts had to study what they were evoking and to what level
they wanted to appear. It is possible to evoke a spirit or angel, a
dead person (which comes under the heading Necromancy), or an
elemental.
Evocation by a Golden Dawn magician had a definitive pattern
which can be traced to a first century Greek text called the The
Testament of Solomon. '
The text tells of how Solomon's favourite servant was enslaved
by a demon during the building of the temple. The demon also
appeared in the temple at night and knocked down the previous day's
building work(other versions have the demon robbing Solomon daily).
Solomon called upon God's help and the Archangel Raphael
(or Michael, depending on what version you read) appeared and
handed him a ring2 which was engraved with a magic five pointed
Translated by Fleck ftom the Greek to the German around 1850, and then
translated by Conybeare into English in the Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. XI,
London, 1899.
This was said to be made of iron, a metal which demons cannot abide. Other
stories say it was a diamond in a shamir stone, while other sources say it was made
fiom the root of a mandrake plant (a plant which is said to have magical powers in
exorcism).