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sorcerer can do what he will. It is possible to destroy its influence by anointing the
threshold of the door, or other places through which entrance may be gained to a house,
with an unguent composed of the gall of a black cat, grease from a white fowl and the
blood of a screech-owl. This should also be confected in the dog-days.
It is to be regretted that this signal process does not rest upon the personal testimony of
its historian, but he was present, as report tells us, at the trial of several who confessed,
under torture, that they had applied it with complete success. It is to be regretted also that
the alternative experiment must remain, as regards its materials, in the language of its
inventor. It will be seen, however, that the Hand of Glory is not a hand, but a serpent; the
process has, in fact, no connection whatever with its name, but this is wholly in
accordance with the genius of Black Magic, its variants and its substitutes.
Arrachez le poil avec sa racine d'une jument en chaleur, le plus près de la nature, saying:
DRAGNE, DRAGNE, DRAGNE. Tie the same in a knot, and go forthwith to purchase,
without haggling, a new earthen pot, fitted with a lid. Return home at full speed; fill the
said pot with spring water within two inches of the brim. Place your material therein,
cover the vessel, and set it where neither you nor any one can perceive it, for the same is
danger, saith the Grimoire. At the end of nine days, and at the hour of concealment, bring
it forth, open it, and you will discover a small animal in the form of a serpent, which will
at once spring up. Say then: I accept the pact. Touch not the creature with your hand, but
transfer it into a new box, purchased expressly, without bargaining; for the food
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of the monster give husks of wheat only, and those daily. When you are in want of gold
or silver, place as much as you need in the box; retire to rest with the box at your bedside;
sleep, if you wish, for the space of three or four hours; then rise, and you will find double
the amount of money which you have entrusted to the serpent. What you originally
placed in the box must, however, be left therein; and it becomes therefore a sort of
transcendental savings-bank which doubles its capital daily. Should the reptile be of
ordinary appearance, you must not try for more than one hundred francs at a time; but if
your planet give you the ascendant in things supernatural, the serpent will have a human
face, and you may deposit a thousand francs. In either case, should the operator part with
his possession, two conditions must be observed: the recipient must be a consenting party
to the gift, and a figure, to be drawn on virgin parchment, but omitted by the Grimoire,
must be placed in the box. if, however, you prefer to destroy it, let the serpent be
provided, not with his usual bran, but with some of the flour used for consecration in the
first Mass of a priest, after eating which he will die. On the whole, it will be simpler to
retain the enchanted animal, more especially as the vague responsibilities of the pact are
not apparently transferred in the one or annulled in the other case. No jest is intended,
says the dry author of the Grimorium Verum, but the process of the Gold-Finding Hen is
on the whole simpler, as it is also more cleanly.
§ 5. Concerning the Vision of Spirits in the Air