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212 THE TREE OF LIFE
power of consecration, also as well real as personal ; and they
are, as it were, certain conventions between those names with
which they are made and us who make them, strongly cIeaving to
our desire and wished effects, as when we sacrifice with certain
names or things ; as fumigations, unctions, rings, images, mirrors ;
and some things less material, as characters, seals, pentacles, enchantments,
orations, pictures, Scriptures, of which we have largely
spoken before."
The Lesser Key of SoZomo~z the k'ing or The Goetia (wllich word
is a probable derivative from a root meaning " to howl" or "to
moan " having reference possibly to the technique of the barbarous
names, a feature of the invocations of the book) deals with a minute
description of Seventy-two spirits or hierarchies of spirits which
tradition avers were evoked and bound by Solomon. It was through
their agency and by them that to Solomon was imparted that superlative
wisdom and spiritual knowledge which legend claims was his.
Opening the book as a proem is a definition of Magic in these terms :
" Magic is the Highest, most Absolute, and Most Divine Knowledge
of Natural Philosophy, advanced in its works and wonderful operations
by a right understanding of the inward and occult virtue of
things ; so that true agents being applied to proper Patients strange
and admirable effects will thereby be produced. Whence Magicians
are profound and diligent searchers into Nature ; they, because of
their skill, know how to anticipate an effect, the which to the vulgar
shall seem to be a miracle."
With Waite's judgment that The Goetia concerns itself with Black
Magic I beg to differ. My own opinion is that Waite is inclined to
dismiss as Black Magic any technical method which obtains outside
the consecrated adytum of his own organization. The system outlined
by Francis Barrett in the section of his book entitled Ceremonial
Magic is in reality based upon the Key and the book at present under
discussion as well as upon Agrippa's de Occztlta Philosophia. Several
of the rituals that he gives are taken word for word, and with only
a few minor alterations and additions, from The Goetia. Although
hardly to be compared with Abramelin in the matter of sublimity
and power of spiritual conception, The Goetia nevertheless is a system
which is comparatively easy both to understand and to operate.
For here too the Magician is not burdened with such impossible
fantastic demands as bat-blood, parricide skulls and virgin kids
or lambs. All that the Operator must observe in order to achieve