E. A. Koetting - staticfly.net

CHAPTER TWELVE
BANEFUL MAGICK
One of the greatest arguments against the objective reality of
Black Magick, or any Magick at all, is that of individual reality as
determined by perception. In his Initiated Interpretation of Ceremonial
Magic, which acts as a preface to the second edition of the Goetia, Aleister
Crowley writes:
The spirits of the Goetia are portions of the human
brain. Their seals therefore represent methods of
stimulating or regulating those particular spots
(through the eye). The names of God are vibrations
calculated to establish: (a) General conrol of the brain.
(Establishment of functions relative to subtle world.)
(b) Control over the brain in detail. (Rank or type of
the Spirit.) (c) Control of one special portion. (Name
of the Spirit).'
Crowley then gives specific examples of spirits of the Goetia
which stimulate specific portions of the human brain, thereby bringing
a noticeable result in the Operator. All of the examples given therein
demonstrate that no effect is made in the outside world, but is made
only in the brain of the Evocator, who then may act upon the outside
world, the act of ritual becoming nothing more than a form of motivation
for the Black Magician. When confronted with the task of rationalizing
into his presumed paradigm the evocation of demons who will destroy
the enemies of the Sorcerer, Crowley cites that these Operations in fact
"excite compassion" towards one's enemy, stemming from the
realization of duality and that the destruction of the enemy is in
actuality only the destruction of the less desirable aspects of the
Magician, and more so is the destruction of his desire for destruction.
Although the above may very well be true in vague ways
that only mystics seem adept to conjure - the system of reasoning begins
to fall apart when the victim of the curse actually dies. It is often
proclaimed by the psychological apologists of Black Magick that it is the
victim's own fear of the curse that brings his demise. Even though he
may not believe in its power, and will laugh when he is told that Baneful
}lagick is being used against him, his atavistic memory tells him
otherwise. His fear of a thing in which he places no stock drives him to
subconsciously create destructive circumstances around him, in much
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