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conjurations, all exceedingly brief. The third of these exhorts the Evil Spirit on the quaint
ground that now it is the time of the Great Name Tetragrammaton. The purpose of
citation is not indicated; the formulæ are Christian, broken up by innumerable crosses and
by names and terms which defy conjecture as to their significance. The hierarchy of the
spirit is determined by the closing words: "I command thee, O Spirit Rumoar, even by
Lucifer, thy mighty sovereign."
Footnotes
110:1 The modern reprint of Scheible reads Usiel throughout, as does also the MS.
English translation. Supposing the latter to have followed the original edition, it would
seem conclusive that the blunder--for such it evidently is--occurs also in that.
111:1 Cornelius Agrippa died in 1535
112:1 Part II. c. 9.
§ 6. The Black Pullet
The Black Pullet, the Druid of Menapienne, Red Magic, or the Cream of the Occult
Sciences, with derivatives from the first of these works, such as the Queen of the Hairy
Flies, the Green Butterfly, &c., form a class by themselves, and, with one exception, they
are quite unserious publications, which can scarcely be called spurious, as they are almost
without pretence. 1 They belong to the late end of the eighteenth century. Dr. Encausse,
the head of the French Martinists, suggests that they were all fabricated at Rome and
infers--as seen previously--that we owe them to the industry of priests, which seems to
follow somewhat loosely from the evidence, is characteristic of himself and his school,
and is indeed of much the same value as the statement in Isis Unveiled, that the habitual
practice of Black Magic at the Vatican could be "easily proved."
The Black Pullet is far the most curious of its class and there is indeed sufficient
individuality in its narrative to lift it much above the paltry impostures with which it
connects. Its chief occult interest centres in the series of talismanic rings which it
incorporates with the text, itself a species of magical romance. It makes no claim to
antiquity, except that it embodies its wisdom, and it does not appeal to Solomon. In a
book of Black Magic, as it certainly is, though the Goëtic intention is disguised, such
modesty makes for virtue. Many of the Talismans seem to be original devices; at least
they connect with nothing in occult symbolism known to the present
p. 114
writer. At the same time they are constructed in accordance with the rules laid down by
the Fourth Book attributed to Cornelius Agrippa as regards infernal signatures.