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one, and the other is a distant danger. Obviously, however, in order to reach his
determination, he must arm himself with intrepidity and prudence, and this is the first
counsel of his guides to the Sanctum Regnum of Goëtia.
"O men! O impotent mortals!" cries the author of the Grand Grimoire, 1 "tremble at your
own temerity when you blindly aspire to the possession of a science so profound. Lift up
your minds beyond your limited sphere, and learn of me that before you undertake
anything it is necessary that you should become firm and immovable, besides being
scrupulously attentive in the exact observation, step by step, of all things whatsoever that
I shall tell you, without which precautions every operation will turn to your disadvantage,
confusion and total destruction; while, on the contrary, by following my injunctions with
precision, you will rise from your meanness and poverty, achieving a complete success in
all your enterprises. Arm yourselves, therefore, with intrepidity, prudence, wisdom and
virtue, as qualifications for this grand and illimitable work, in which I have passed sixtyand-seven
years, toiling night and day for the attainment of success in so sublime an
object." 2
p. 144
One would think that there were shorter roads to wealth and the satisfaction of the other
common appetites.
143:1 Book I. c. 2.
143:2 The speaker is pseudo-Solomon.
Footnotes
§ 3. Concerning Continence and Abstinence
The Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, referred to Cornelius Agrippa, but composite in
character and spurious in attribution, as already seen, gives an exceedingly curious
explanation of the rule of sanctity prescribed by all forms of Ceremonial Magic. The
instruments used in the Art are ineffective without consecration. The act of consecration
is the act by which virtue is imparted to them, and this virtue derives from two sources,
the power of sanctification residing in Divine Names and in the prayers which
incorporate them, and the power of sanctification residing in the holiness of the person
consecrating. 1 An indispensable part of this holiness was the preservation of chastity for
a defined-but, it should be observed, a limited-period preceding operation, and it was to
be combined with a fast of graduated severity. In their directions concerning these points
the Rituals of Black Magic differ little from their prototypes, the earlier Keys of
Solomon, the work of pseudo-Agrippa, 2 or The Magical Elements of Peter de Abano.
Here is the direction of the Neophyte which occurs in the Grand
p. 145