It’s funny, there are a lot of schools of thought regarding how easy or hard it might be to get the Devil’s attention.
In one school of thought, which is most commonly held by certain types of Christians, almost anything can summon Old Scratch. Ever hear the phrase “speak of the Devil and he will appear?” In this worldview, things like masturbating, listening to rock music, any stray “sinful” thought whatsoever, is pretty much enough to bring down the Evil One.
On the far end of the spectrum, you have the ceremonial magicians, who might say that to summon Lucifer you need to be a powerful magus and do the six month long Abramelin ritual, complete with all sorts of prayer, fasting, sexual abstinence and spiritual cleansing.
So which is it?
Hilariously, I lean closer to the first opinion. The Devil is everywhere, in every shadow, every restless breeze, every floorboard creak. He’s in the rain and the lightning, in the stars, in the city lights, lurking in every dark ally, loitering on every corner, haunting every crossroads. He’s in music, in poetry, in technology, in every single thing that springs from human genius and invention. He stares back at me from the eyes of every animal. Most of all, he’s in my most intimate thoughts and feelings. He’s in my desires, my questions, my hopes, my dreams. The Devil is never far away.
I have a little ritual I do when I want to deliberately call him up and really connect with him. It’s simple. I light some frankincense and some candles, maybe eat an apple in memory of Eden. I might recite the Lord’s Prayer backwards or chant his enn. But I do these things for me, not for him. He’s already there. The ritual is just to get me focused enough so I can hear him.
I walk through a haunted maze past creatures wrapped in gauze and painted with scars and blood, towering above me on circus stilts, nearly levitating off the ground, faces either masked and unreadable or twisted into bloody snarls or stretched into cartoon-large latex grins. Red lights glimmer, draped across deep forest hedges around me, gleaming like a nightmarish moonlight. I take the monsters in, transfixed, traveling slowly and dreamlike. I am reminded of myths of All Hallow’s Eve, when the line between life and death is meant to blur, and the supernatural may traverse among us.
Death, here, is not about death – it’s about a doorway. I am not interested in dying, but I am interested in exploring and uncovering. It’s about magic stronger than everyday mundanity. Yet the dead maintain their boundaries. While these creatures sneer and threaten for instants, they freeze before they touch me, and return to their unbreachable floating. I imagine one might break the thrall, and finish through on that scythe at my neck, or better, lead me somewhere Else. I smile at a devil in a carnival booth. He looks past me, with a gaze I can’t follow. I gape in awe as a towering ragged spirit lurches toward me, then sinks maddeningly away. I’d like to shatter this surreal boundary between us. I’d like to shake off the dreamlike stupor of their slow gaits and either pull them toward my reality, or leap into theirs.
Their presence thrills me with a glimpse of Something More, with a faint notion that this is larger than a transient dream with a looming exit sign. When I finally step out, it’s like clinging to subconscious while steadily waking up: Unfortunately, inevitable.
Church of the Morningstar 