About the square within the circle is the name of Jehovah in its proper form, but also reversed; on the left is that of Adonai and on the right are the three letters אהו, ACHV, followed by two points, the whole meaning: Heaven and hell are each the reflection of each; that which is above is as that which is below; God is humanity—humanity being expressed by the letters ACHV, which are the initials of Adam and Eve.[229]
On the second seal is the name אראריתא, ARARITA, and below it is ראש, RASH, encircling twenty-six Kabalistic characters. Below the seal are ten Hebrew letters, given in the following order: יב טבהברררר. The whole is a formula of materialism and fatality, which is too long, and, it may be, too perilous for explanation in this place. The prologue of the Grimoire comes next in order and may be given at full length.[230]
“The Holy Apostolic Chair, unto which the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are given by those words that Christ Jesus addressed to St. Peter: I give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and unto thee alone the power of commanding the Prince of Darkness and his angels, who, as slaves to their master, do owe him honour, glory and obedience, by virtue of those other words of Christ Jesus, addressed to Satan himself: Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve—hence by the power of these Keys the Head of the Church has been made the Lord of hell. But seeing that until this present the Sovereign Pontiffs have alone had the charge of evoking and commanding Spirits, His Holiness Honorius II, being moved by his pastoral care, has desired benignly to communicate the science and power of evocations and of empire over spirits to his venerable Brethren in Jesus Christ, with the conjurations which must be used in such case; now therefore the whole is contained in the Bull which here follows.”
Here in all truth is the pontificate of hell, that sacrilegious priesthood of anti-popes which Dante seems to stigmatise in the raucous cry uttered by one of his princes of perdition: Pope Satan, Pope Satan: Aleppe. Let the legitimate pontiff continue as prince of heaven; it is enough for the anti-pope Cadalus to be the sovereign of hell. “Be He the God of good, for god of evil am I; we are divided, but my power is equal.”
The Bull of the infernal pontiff follows,[231] and the mystery of darksome evocations is expounded therein with a terrific knowledge concealed under superstitious and sacrilegious forms. Fastings, watchings, profanation of mysteries, allegorical ceremonies and bloody sacrifices are combined with artful malice. The evocations are not deficient in poetry or in enthusiasm, mingled with horror. For example, the author ordains that an operator should rise at midnight on the Thursday in the first week of evocations, should sprinkle his room with holy water and light a taper of yellow wax—prepared on the previous day and pierced in the form of a cross. By the uncertain light of this candle, he must enter a church alone and read the Office of the Dead in a low voice, substituting in place of the ninth lesson at Matins the following rhythmic invocation which is here translated from the Latin, preserving its strange form and its refrains, which recall the monotonous incantations of old-world sorcerers.
O Lord, deliver me from the infernal terrors,
Exempt my spirit from sepulchral larvæ;
To seek them out I shall go down to their hell unaffrighted:
I shall impose my will for a law upon them.
I will call upon night and its darkness to bring forth splendour: