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THE TREE OF LIFE 135
3
Peculiarly connected with the Will and Imagination in the ceremonial
invocations is anotller power or force, the presence or
absence of which spells success or failure to the operation. 'I'he
secret of all Ceremonial Magic is a simple though not always an
obvious one. To officiate at magical ceremonies, conducting each
minute detail with care, performing the external banishings and
suffumigations and circumambulations, bellowing sonorously the
conjurations and moaning the barbarous names of evocation, is no
real criterion that the invocation will succeed in its ostensible purpose,
or that the ecstatic climax of the operation will " come off." The
failure to realize this lies at the bottom of a good many rathcr
humorous stories about Magic told by people who, having bccome
intellectually interested in its technique, and having followed
carefully the instructions laid down in the ordinary easily obtainable
grimoires, have been disappointed with the paucity of result. All
proper precautions were taken. Beautiful robes of the best silk
were provided, candelabras of silver and brass, expensively compounded
incenses, and elaborately written conjurations Despite
all this p~eparation, liowever, nothing at all happened Not the
slightest strain was set up in the surrounding astral at~nosphere,
and a hand cautiously placed outside the confines of the Circle was
not paralysed, as legend would have it, as though by a flash of
lightning llul-led from an enraged spirit. There is one splendid
story which occurs to mind of an entllusiastic student who endeavoured
to " do maglc " before having arrived at an understanding
of the elementary principles underlying Ceremonial hfagic. He was
desirous, as a test, of invoking an undine, a spirit of the element
Water, and to do so it occurred to him that an operation conducted
in the proximity of water would eliminate many of the difficulties.
Eastbourne was chosen as tlle scene of ope ratio^^, and this student,
bearing with him the equipment of art, elltrained for this " solitary "
seaside. Fairly late one evening, when most of the respectdble
citizens of this seaside were quietly asleep, he went down to the
edge of the sea, the tide being very far out. Tracing his circle,
after the altar and lights had been set up on the sand, he commenced
his conjurations in an ever-thickening mist. Loud were his bellows,
and fierce were his sonorous moanings as the barbarous names made
li~deous the peaceful call11 of the night ; clouds of heavy incense