The Genius and the Evil Daimon are entities with a long history in the Western Mystery Tradition. The idea of the good and evil spirits assigned to people is so ingrained in the American culture that I grew up watching cartoons that frequently showed a character with a little angel with a harp on one shoulder and a little red devil with horns and a tail on the other, each giving the person advice. More often than not, the character would listen to the devil. How typical of mankind.

2.7.1 – The Genius

The term “Genius” as I’m using it in this post loosely comes from Agrippa’s Third Book of Occult Philosophy, chapter xxii. Technically, “Genius” is supposed to refer only to one part of the three-fold good Daimon that preserves the person it’s assigned to. The three parts are the Holy part, which is roughly speaking the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) of the Abramelin ritual, the Genius or “Nativity Angel,” a Spirit whose nature is determined by the placement of the stars at birth, and the Daimon of your Profession, who influences how successful we are at our chosen line of work. Agrippa refers to all three parts singularly in the title of the chapter, “That there is a threefold keeper of man.” Since it’s a singular entity, and he only gives instructions on deducing the name of a Genius, and not the HGA or Professional Demon, I’m referring to all three parts of this one entity as the Genius.

The earliest reference to the Genius that I’ve found so far is in the Corpus Hermeticum, written in Hellenized Egypt. In The Divine Pymander, it says:

This is the Logos talking about how he works with those who are pious. While it might look like a bit of a stretch, the Logos and the HGA are of the same Spirit. In Agrippa’s record written roughly 1200 years later, this corresponds to the Holy part of the Genius. Agrippa frames it thus:

Agrippa says of the Genius specifically:

In other words, the Genius is what can guide you to the roles and responsibilities you are incarnated to accomplish.

In addition, being the only part of the threefold keeper of human beings that you can get the name of from your horoscope, the Genius can also be used to establish conversation with the rest of the threefold keeper, including the HGA and the Daimon of your Profession. By “used,” I mean you can converse with it through conjurations and establish a relationship, discovering the things that are needed to be done in your life to prepare you for the next step in your Work.

As you Work with your Genius, a momentum builds up. You don’t have to choose to be a decent, pious person always choosing to do good and be kind to small furry animals, or help old ladies across the street. You don’t have to choose to be offended by injustice when you see it. You don’t have to try to find wisdom or insight in your studies. And you don’t have to make yourself seek your Race and Value in God.

Instead, you find yourself naturally doing these things. You find character flaws revealed, and the means to change them. You find yourself naturally pursuing Virtue over Vice. You stop sabotaging your progress towards your goals, and you find yourself knowing and understanding things intuitively about yourself and others around you. Glimpses of the future come in sureties felt in evaluating potential outcomes of situations. Mysteries unravel before your very eyes.

This spirit’s influence on your life can be enhanced through practical exaltation of the spirits name, which I’ll discuss below.

2.7.2 – The Evil Daimon

Heading back to The Divine Pymander, it goes on to say:

Here is the Evil Daimon, sent by God to punish the wicked with insatiable desires. My experience with this entity leads me to believe that this Demon drives you to the point where you have to turn to God to find relief from your passions, or die of despair or overdose. If you refuse to do so, when you die you return as a more brutish man, or an animal, or even a plant according to Plotinus. The further from God you turn in your life, the further from God you result in your next, each incarnation resulting in less and less opportunity to turn from God until you are a plant with no choice but to turn to the Sun to live.

People always have some degree of a relationship with this spirit. Like the cartoon characters listening to the little red demon on their shoulder, we have spent our lives listening to and following the advice of the evil daimon. A momentum builds up with the Evil Daimon just like with the Genius, and soon you find yourself surrounded by chaos and madness, if you give too much into the temptations this spirit whispers to you.

Like the demons discussed in Section 2.6, The effects of the Evil Daimon can be curbed.

2.7.3 – Working With the Genius and the Evil Daimon

To Work with these entities, the first thing you’ll need is their name. These are discovered through your horoscope, as discussed in Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book 3, at the end of chapter xxvi:

Ok, did you catch all that? No? Well, fortunately I’ve got a spreadsheet I use to make the process a little easier. I don’t know how the renaissance magicians managed without the power of modern technology.

I’ve got all the Hebrew letters associated with the degrees for the Good Genius and the Evil Daimon lined up with their appropriate degrees. To determine the name, you get a horoscope of the your birth, and write down the degrees of the sun, moon, ascendant, and part of fortune. Then you find the syzygy, and that’s the fifth letter of the name. The syzygy is the location of the moon at the closest full or new moon to the date you’re charting. To find this, you get another horoscope of the time of the nearest full or new moon, and write down the degree the moon is in. Pretty simple, eh?

No, not really. It’s a bit of a pain in the hindquarters, honestly. But this is worth it.

Once you’ve got their names, you can conjure and commune with your Genius by creating a Lamen of the spirit. Spell out its name in Hebrew in a circle with the names of God written around the perimeter. I use the Celestial Script from Agrippa, and the Lamen looks like this (That’s YHVH in the script, you’d need to change the name to use it):

Poke a little hole in the top, and you wear it during the ritual. Conjure the spirit in a crystal or other scrying medium and you’re all set.

On the flip side, you’ve got the Evil Daimon’s name. I intend to bind mine in a lead-lined spirit pot.

In fact, I’ve got this idea for a multi-purpose talisman. I’ve got a log that I’m carving to serve as a means to exalt the Genius and bind the Evil Daimon at the same time. I’ll be burning incense and candles in the top where the Genius name is inscribed in gold leaf, and the Evil Daimon will be bound in the hollowed-out, lead-lined base.

It should look something like this when I’m done:

In the Neo-Platonic tradition, in the grimoires that comprise it, in the writings of Hermes Trismegistus that frame it, and in the writings of Agrippa that provide the most comprehensive resource of the modern occult, there are mentions of demons, maleficent spirits that cause trouble. I would personally rather believe that all spirits are basically neutral, and they don’t have any ill will in and of themselves towards humanity. Unfortunately, the Neo-Platonic writings (and my experience) fail to support this belief.

Going back thousands of years, mankind has known that there are spirits that are out to make life miserable for humans. It’s in the Bible, the Hesiod, and in the African Traditional Religions. From the steppes of Siberia to the Amazon rain forest, shamans deal with evil spirits every day. Modern cultures have lots of rational ways to explain away the existence of demons, from anti-Christian rhetoric that says the Church is to blame for misrepresenting gods of other cultures (which is true, to a degree), to psychological models that say they’re all in our heads (which is also true, from the perspective implied by the notariqon ARARITA). Regardless of the veracity of these explanations, the pragmatic truth is that if you are doing magick regularly, you will run into spirits that will behave as if they are Demons.

2.6.1 The Role of Demons

Fortunately, we have the benefit of thousands of years of occult research on our side. We know from sources like the Bible and the Divine Pymander that the evil spirits are under the authority of God. If you’re into paganism, you’ll find in the story of Pandora’s box that evil spirits contained in a divine spirit pot were sent to plague mankind by Zeus after Prometheus gave us fire. They’re serving god. In the Divine Pymander, Pymander tells Hermes that the Evil Daimon is sent to the impious to drive man further away from the Logos by filling the senses with desire for more sensations than can ever be appeased. In the Bible, evil spirits are sent to set up kings to fall, to reveal the glory of God.

They are sent by God into the world to wreak havoc in the lives of those who are ignorant of God. Their primary victims are those who have grown ignorant of their Race and Value in God and instead of seeking their Source, people who seek satisfaction in the things of the material world. Demons serve as tempters, bringers of illness, and they serve to create situations that result in spiritual advancement. They perform evil acts, but they do them to draw people closer to God.

2.6.2 How Demonic Influence Manifests

In your life, you’re going through all kinds stress that I can’t begin to know about. Job insecurity, financial woes, emotional problems, and sickness plague us all. Most of the people reading this blog have it pretty good compared to poorest of the poor on the planet, but that doesn’t make the problems we face any easier to bear in the moment.

I don’t believe every bad thing that happens is the result of a demon, but they do happen to be present every time bad things happen. I’m sure it’s a coincidence, really. They could just be attracted to bad things… sure… that could be it…

Alright, I really do think all bad things that happen are the result of demonic activity. I’m a Christian, for Christ’s sake. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers, principalities, and wickedness in high places.” It’s the simple truth.

They set the stage for pain and suffering, they sit at the edges of our sphere whispering thoughts that sound a lot like our own, speaking fear and doubt and anger and anguish and despair into our minds. They entice our senses with lights and shining things. They use the people at work like pawns to challenge us, to bring us to the brink of catastrophe. They influence kings, presidents, princes, senators, congressmen and women, people in power across the lands of the earth to create a realm that will drive those with an understanding of their race and value closer and closer to the Logos within.

Pretty nasty, really. And as annoying as hell.

2.6.3 How to Deal with the Bastards

Demons are under God’s authority. God’s within. We deal with spirits in every ritual. We have the names of the demonic princes from Agrippa’s Book 2, chapter 7. We know how to make talismans and spirit pots. They can only do what they’re allowed to, and God sets the boundaries.

The fastest way to lessen the effects of the evil spirits is to put the Demonic Kings in spirit pots and bind them with melted lead sealed with the Names of the four Elemental Kings. I’ve got a makeshift version of this on my altar at the moment. It hasn’t completely eliminated bad things from happening, but it sure has cut down on the extremes of my emotional reactions to bad things when they come. That in itself robs the demons of their powers over us and our lives.

“The Great Work”

A magnificent phrase, eh? I’ve been through so many online debates and discussions about what the Great Work “means” that it isn’t even funny anymore. There are those who say it is “attaining unity with the Divine.” Others say it is becoming the best that you can. Others believe that every person has their own Great Work to do, that it represents the climactic culmination of all their efforts in life.

In tracking back the phrase in the esoteric community, I ended up back with the Alchemists. I’m sure it goes back further, but I’ll be damned if I can find it quickly enough to suit my purposes. If anyone has any input, let me know. 🙂

Briefly (there’s never enough space), the alchemists saw the Great Work as the accomplishment of a spiritual transformation. It was also seen as the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone, a stone with the ability to turn base materials into finer materials, like lead into gold. One couldn’t create the Philosopher’s Stone (in my opinion) without being spiritually “advanced.” The process of creating the Stone resulted in perfection of the person, and the perfection of the person resulted in the ability to create the Philosopher’s Stone. There’s a marriage here of physical and spiritual elements that I think cannot be stressed enough.

In the NP context, the goal of man is to return to the Source of all that is. The Philosophers saw this as a process of training the mind to think like a God without becoming falsely proud. Plotinus speaks of the process as “reclaiming” our race and value. I love that concept.

It isn’t becoming a God. (You’re already a manifestation of “the good,” “the One,”, the “Primum Mobile.) It’s a process of remembering where you came from. The reason we forget is detailed in the Enneads of Plotinus, and they’re an interesting read. Here’s an excerpt that pertains:

It must be noted, however, that the process of reclaiming your race and value did not result in anything spectacularly fabulous. No lightning from the fingertips, or flaming balls of fire. What it did result in was a change in the person you are. It changed the way you acted and interacted with everything else. You remember you’re here, and what your purpose in life is, and you’re suddenly happy. You see things as a whole complete process, and the painfulness of the moments of sadness are gone, and the moments of joy are magnified. It was a philosophical change, a change of Mind that brought satiety, the sense of being completely fulfilled. And if you weren’t feeling that way, you had forgotten, and needed to remember where you were from again.

So Plotinus said there’s two ways to remember your race and value. You honor the things of the higher realms, and dishonor the things of the lower realm. I’ve turned this into contemplative method of getting rid of the horrors of embarrassing moments that haunt you through your life. I broke it into steps at this link.

Asceticism blossomed under this philosophy. Lots of Gnostics took up the mantra of “all things material are evil and to be avoided at all costs.” This view influenced a lot of the early Christians too. Paul, for instance, expresses a lot of ascetic notions in his writings in the New Testament.

Iamblichus, meanwhile, took things down a different route. He was a “wee bit” more into the Hellenised Egyptian mythology. As a result of his initiations into the Egyptian mystery cults, he participated in the Theurgic rituals of his day. I’m intensely jealous. In the Theurgia, his reply to a letter written by Porphyry criticising Theurgy, he explains how working with the spirits of the higher realms results in getting you closer to God. He also talks about our role in this realm of matter.

Each level of emanation from the higher realms, each entity that inhabits the realms between the material and the Source of Everything has a purpose. We are also manifestations, and our greatest goal as magicians is to remember that we are emanations of God, and that we are here to do something specific. The Work is a process of learning what that purpose is, and how we’re supposed to accomplish that purpose while we’re here. We work with the spirits to learn, and to be raised higher and closer to God, but at the same time, we guide them in their ministrations here in the realm of matter, because that’s where we fit into the hierarchy of things. We’re the part of God that came to matter (Nature) out of love for matter to care for the matter and minister to it through the actions of the spirits on the higher levels. The trick is to remember what we’re here for, and then to learn to do it the right way.

In the Neo-Platonic tradition, in the grimoires that comprise it, in the writings of Hermes Trismegistus that frame it, and in the writings of Agrippa that provide the most comprehensive resource of the modern occult, there are mentions of demons, maleficent spirits that cause trouble. I would personally rather believe that all spirits are basically neutral, and they don’t have any ill will in and of themselves towards humanity. Unfortunately, the Neo-Platonic writings (and my experience) fail to support this belief.

Going back thousands of years, mankind has known that there are spirits that are out to make life miserable for humans. It’s in the Bible, the Hesiod, and in the African Traditional Religions. From the steppes of Siberia to the Amazon rain forest, shamans deal with evil spirits every day. Modern cultures have lots of rational ways to explain away the existence of demons, from anti-Christian rhetoric that says the Church is to blame for misrepresenting gods of other cultures (which is true, to a degree), to psychological models that say they’re all in our heads (which is also true, from the perspective implied by the notariqon ARARITA). Regardless of the veracity of these explanations, the pragmatic truth is that if you are doing magick regularly, you will run into spirits that will behave as if they are Demons.

2.6.1 The Role of Demons

Fortunately, we have the benefit of thousands of years of occult research on our side. We know from sources like the Bible and the Divine Pymander that the evil spirits are under the authority of God. If you’re into paganism, you’ll find in the story of Pandora’s box that evil spirits contained in a divine spirit pot were sent to plague mankind by Zeus after Prometheus gave us fire. They’re serving god. In the Divine Pymander, Pymander tells Hermes that the Evil Daimon is sent to the impious to drive man further away from the Logos by filling the senses with desire for more sensations than can ever be appeased. In the Bible, evil spirits are sent to set up kings to fall, to reveal the glory of God.

They are sent by God into the world to wreak havoc in the lives of those who are ignorant of God. Their primary victims are those who have grown ignorant of their Race and Value in God and instead of seeking their Source, people who seek satisfaction in the things of the material world. Demons serve as tempters, bringers of illness, and they serve to create situations that result in spiritual advancement. They perform evil acts, but they do them to draw people closer to God.

2.6.2 How Demonic Influence Manifests

In your life, you’re going through all kinds stress that I can’t begin to know about. Job insecurity, financial woes, emotional problems, and sickness plague us all. Most of the people reading this blog have it pretty good compared to poorest of the poor on the planet, but that doesn’t make the problems we face any easier to bear in the moment.

I don’t believe every bad thing that happens is the result of a demon, but they do happen to be present every time bad things happen. I’m sure it’s a coincidence, really. They could just be attracted to bad things… sure… that could be it…

Alright, I really do think all bad things that happen are the result of demonic activity. I’m a Christian, for Christ’s sake. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers, principalities, and wickedness in high places.” It’s the simple truth.

They set the stage for pain and suffering, they sit at the edges of our sphere whispering thoughts that sound a lot like our own, speaking fear and doubt and anger and anguish and despair into our minds. They entice our senses with lights and shining things. They use the people at work like pawns to challenge us, to bring us to the brink of catastrophe. They influence kings, presidents, princes, senators, congressmen and women, people in power across the lands of the earth to create a realm that will drive those with an understanding of their race and value closer and closer to the Logos within.

Pretty nasty, really. And as annoying as hell.

2.6.3 How to Deal with the Bastards

Demons are under God’s authority. God’s within. We deal with spirits in every ritual. We have the names of the demonic princes from Agrippa’s Book 2, chapter 7. We know how to make talismans and spirit pots. They can only do what they’re allowed to, and God sets the boundaries.

The fastest way to lessen the effects of the evil spirits is to put the Demonic Kings in spirit pots and bind them with melted lead sealed with the Names of the four Elemental Kings. I’ve got a makeshift version of this on my altar at the moment. It hasn’t completely eliminated bad things from happening, but it sure has cut down on the extremes of my emotional reactions to bad things when they come. That in itself robs the demons of their powers over us and our lives.

I hope you enjoyed the update on the Bune spirit pot earlier. That particular vessel is an example of the brass vessel described in the Goetia within the Lemegetton. The Lemeggeton is a Solomonic grimoire, and like all the grimoires I’ve seen, it is fundamentally rooted in the Neo-Platonic system we’ve been discussing. Personally, I place the spirits of the Goetia in the elemental realm, mostly within the sphere of the Aire.

Spirit pots are an interesting subject. I don’t think they are the specific product of the Neo-Platonic system, but like the brass vessel in the Goetia, they certainly fit nicely into the scheme of things. In Greek mythology (at least in Hesiod from over 500 years before Christ), there’s the story of Pandora’s “Box,” which in the original Greek was a jar. The jar as a vessel for trapping spirits can be found in many cultures, and frankly, I can’t tell whether it originated in one culture and traveled, or if it’s a universal constant across all cultures. The use of pots to contain spirits or their effects can be found in Persian stories in 1001 Arabian nights (along with rings), African Tribal Religions, Hesiod in the Greek traditions, and even in the Bible in the form of the Ark of the Covenant. (Ok, that might be stretching it a bit, but functionally, it’s the same thing.)

The reason I bring up the spirit pot in the context of this system is because it’s going to play a significant role when I get back to the Glyph.

My understanding about spirit pots in Palo and Hoodoo practices is that they are usually homes for spirits specific to the magician. That is to say, the spirits in a Palo or Hoodoo pot aren’t going to be conjured at any given time by three or four hundred magicians reading from the same grimoire. I don’t know how many magicians are working with Bune at any given time, but I’ve talked to at least three other magicians who have worked with Bune, and God knows how many other mages or would-be demonologists are summoning Bune right now.

Spirit pots can be made for any spirit. They generally seem to function like an icon to a saint. Burning candles in its vicinity with a statement of intent results in a manifestation of the desired outcome in the way the Spirit interprets the request. For instance, asking to get a specific dollar amount has resulted in Bune providing a huge series of very lucrative opportunities in my chosen line of work. Bune hears the request and goes about manifesting it according to his role, his designated nature. It’s like the dollar figure gets filtered through a Jupiter-Sagittarius screen and then manifests in my physical sphere.

Other manipulations of the spirit pot have provided results that have led me to the conclusions I currently hold. Polishing the lid resulted in clearer manifestations. Placing it in an exalted status on my altar by putting it on a stand resulted in more authoritative results. I went from working with co-workers on projects to working directly with management. The spirit pot has given me the ability to fine-tune my interactions with Bune in a way that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Making a spirit pot is easy. A friend made one out of a paper box. All you need is a container, the means to get the spirit’s attention, and something to inscribe the appropriate seals around it to influence the Spirit’s activities in your sphere. I prefer metal containers for their durability. I like to inscribe metal with my dremel tool. It’s fun. The Spirit’s representation should be at least its name and/or its seal. Any corresponding materials that are in tune with its nature can be included. I have dirt and rocks from my local bank in Bune’s pot, along with things from the same line of 777 that Crowley puts Bune on.

The names that constrain the Spirit’s influence should be representative of the macrocosm. Ideally, all seven classical planets and the Primum Mobile should be represented in your work with the Spirit. For example, the names on the front of the Mathers-Crowley version of the brass vessel in the Goetia are “AShR AHIH: GBRiAL: MIKAL: HANIAL:”. From the GD interpretation of things, these are the God-Name of Kether, the GD Archangels of the Moon, Venus and Mercury. On the back is the notariqon ARARITA (One is His Beginning: One is His Individuality: His Permutation is One) followed by ChShMLIM, the name of the order of angels of the Sun, and Tzadkiel, the Archangel of Jupiter. Mars and Saturn can be found on the Secret Seal of Solomon, and Michael on the Triangle of Art.

At the very least, the Spirits in charge of the Spirit you’re working with should be inscribed somewhere on the pot. This ensures the Spirit is constrained to operate with your best intentions in mind. This is more important with the troublesome “demonic” entities than with the neutral or angelic spirits, but it can never hurt.

Now we get to the meat of the matter. This is the post I’ve been looking forward to the most. Unfortunately, I’m short on space. My posts don’t look that big when I’m writing them, but then they’re huge on the blog. So I’ll keep it brief. I did finally break down and get a web page hosting service, so as soon as I find some nifty templates and do some quick-and-easy plug and play stuff, I’ll have a web site with the space for the huge rambling dissertations I’m fond of writing. 😀

1.3.1 Why we Work with Spirits

In the NP system, we work with the Spirits to get closer to God. This is called theurgy. Iamblichus, a student of Plotinus, taught that working with the Spirits was a means to purify the sphere of the magician, to make it more like the creator and less like the created. He recognized that when you conjure up a Spirit of Mars, you’re working with something on a higher level, and that something has emanated something into what eventually manifested as you. As it is more pure, its very presence close to your sphere purifies your own sphere, restoring a bit of the awareness of your own divinity as it relates to the powers over which that particular spirit presides.

From the Thomas Taylor translation of Iamblichus’ Theurgia (Section IV, Chapter II):

“in all theurgical operations the priest sustains a twofold character; one, indeed, as man, and which preserves the order possessed by our nature in the universe; but the other, which is corroborated by divine signs, and through these is conjoined to more excellent natures, and is elevated to their order by an elegant circumduction, this is deservedly capable of being surrounded with the external form of the Gods.”

1.3.2 How we Work with Spirits

The chapter I quoted from is in the context of how Iamblichus taught that we are to interact with spirits. He was addressing an argument from Porphyry, another of Plotinus’ students, who asked why a mortal man in the flesh would be conjuring a “superior” being, and then turn around and command it to act in such-and-such a way. (I’m paraphrasing.)

The answer is that while yes, we are in matter, we are of two parts, the divine and the flesh. The divine aspect of the self has existed since before time within the One, God, who emanated down through all the spheres and beings and elements and stuff-ness of everything. The flesh part is the temporary shell of the divine spirit, and while it is lower in the cosmic hierarchy, the spirit within is still in authority. Therefore, the magician surrounds the material part of themselves with the symbols of the divinity within, and petitions the higher spirits to appear using the classic conjuring orations from such sources as the grimoires.

The Spirits (and I’m including the “gods”, angels, daemons, elementals, or whatever else you would call them in your branch of the Western Mystery Tradition) appear in response to the conjurations because they have a vested interest in us. They are also aspects of the One within us. However, they are of a different form, and in that form they don’t have the same capacities that we do. Once they appear, the differences in the nature of our emanation place us in a position of authority over the spirits, and we are therefore able to “command” the spirits to do our bidding.

Now, the basic formula for conjuring the spirits is pretty simple. You surround yourself with the things the spirit has an affinity for. Each Spirit is responsible for emanating an aspect of the One into the material realm. Michael, Archangel of the Sun, is responsible for emanating the things that manifest with a solar nature in the material realm. You surround yourself with the things that have solar properties to get his attention, and conjure him in the name of God that describes his function. Now, as a ceremonial magician, the best thing you can have that Michael has emanated into the material realm is his Arch-angelic Seal that he revealed to magicians. His Name itself is the means he revealed himself to this realm. The names of God that are associated with him are also revealed by Michael into this realm in order to establish contact with him.

So to conjure Michael, you would burn some solar incense, wear the seal of Michael, and conjure him in the Name of God associated with the Sphere of the Sun, “Eloahv Da’at.” (Your spelling may differ.)

When Michael appears, you explain your need, remembering that yes, he is superior to you in some ways, but at the same time, you are his boss (in a VERY spiritual way). That is to say, the Logos within you is the same Logos Michael receives his orders from.

If you’re commanding the Spirits from the authority of the part of yourself that is the flesh, you’ll get no results. As a Christian, I know that I have been “Born of the Spirit,” and my work with my HGA has resulted in certain “initiations” that grant me the awareness of my Roles and Responsibilities in the cosmic Hierarchies, so I’m getting pretty consistent results. Not always pleasant from the mundane perspective, but always beneficial.

So the proper order for conjuring the spirits is:

1. Be right with God. Know your place. “Thou hast cleansed me with hyssop, oh Lord!” and so forth. (Remember in the Exorcist, the priest kept chanting, “It is not I, but Christ that commands you…”)
2. Have the seal of the spirit.
3. Call the spirit (“Thou spirit Michael, I conjure thee here in the name of the Most High God, in the Name of the Logos-Christ within me, in the name Eloahv Da’at, to appear before me in this crystal…”)
4. Explain what you want from the Spirit. (It’s a good idea to get confirmation that it understands, and have it tell you how it will do what it agrees to.)
5. Thank the Spirit, and bid it to go and do as it agreed.

Pretty simple, eh? The rest of the details of the various grimoires and such are cultural necessities. That means that when the Almadel has you make a Beeswax Angel Conjuring Device, you make a Beeswax Angel Conjuring Device if you expect to work with the spirits of the Almadel. If you’re OK with working with something that MIGHT be LIKE the spirits of the Almadel, you’re free to make your own adaptations, but the results are not guaranteed. I must stress, you have to know the rules before you can break them.

The three stages of Classical Education are Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. Grammar teaches the basic building blocks, Logic teaches how the building blocks are assembled, and Rhetoric is the stage where you demonstrate your understanding of the pieces and parts by assembling them in new ways.

The Grimoires themselves contain the elements of the Grammar stage. Lists of spirits. Means of contacting them. Performing the instructions in the Grimoires brings you in touch with the Spirits, who teach the Logic stage. After you’ve been “initiated” you advance to the Rhetoric stage, and you can make things up based on your knowledge and understanding gained from research AND experience. I’m not advocating Chaos Magick, but I’ve grown to recognize the elements of Chaos Magick that are true in certain contexts. What gets on my nerves is that Chaos Magick doesn’t give magicians the context necessary for success. :sigh: I’ve ranted on that elsewhere.

So much for keeping it brief. 🙂