Chapter 2: Summoning for Dummies

“Hi, do you have, uh ... Myrrh Oil?” Ryan stammered, the shop assistant giving him a strange look as he read from his shopping list of ingredients. He was in a holistic medicine store, the only place that he could find that might have the component oils required to make the Oil of Abramelin described in Crowley’s Goetia, which was apparently necessary for the ritual.

“We do,” she replied, leading him towards one of the shelves in the cramped building. There were dreamcatchers and charms hanging from the ceiling, little porcelain models of fairies and dragons behind glass cabinets, and the walls were lined with jars containing all manner of plants and herbs. “What do you need it for? It’s great for treating fungal and bacterial infections, and new studies have shown that it has anti-cancer properties.”

Ryan choked back a derisive snort. He couldn’t stand these new-age types, but he quickly realized that attempting to summon a demon was hardly a more credible use for the essential oil than treating athlete’s foot.

“I need some other things, too,” he said as he showed her his list. She paused for a moment, reading the crumpled piece of paper, then handed it back to him.

“We do carry cinnamon oil and galangal, but you’d have to get olive oil from a supermarket or maybe a general store. What’s this for, if you don’t mind my asking? I might be able to make some suggestions if I know more.”

“Oh, my girlfriend loves this stuff,” he said. “Got any candles? Maybe some incense burners? It’s her birthday, and I want to treat her to a relaxing bath.”

The woman clapped her hands together gleefully, apparently pleased by his reply.

“Of course, and you’ll be wanting some relaxing bath salts as well. We have some lavender bubble bath that’s just lovely. Might I recommend a CD, also? There’s a recording of rainforest sounds that will just release all of that negative energy, you know?”

“Oh yeah, negative energy. Can’t be doing with that.”

Before long, he was leaving the store with a biodegradable carrier full of oils and candles. He didn’t necessarily need a lot of the soaps and salts, but Crowley had taken a lengthy bath in order to cleanse himself before the summoning, so he should too. Next stop was the general store to pick up some olive oil, a Goodwill to pick up some clothes that he could use as robes, and then a hardware store for the metal plate that he would need to engrave the demon’s sigil onto.

Although Crowley’s first summoning had been somewhat makeshift, Ryan had decided on following at least some of the more detailed instructions listed in Solomon’s Key. Chiefly, the use of wards and protections, which would serve to confine whatever entity he managed to invoke and protect him from any harm that might befall him. He also kind of just wanted to draw on things, and making occult robes would be a lot of fun.

Ryan had cleared out the small living room in his apartment and had ended up with a space of roughly eight by eight feet of hardwood flooring, the furniture pushed up against the walls to make as much space as possible. It was on the small side, and the book stated that nine feet was necessary, but it would have to do. The grimoires didn’t account for magicians living in apartment blocks.

He was hard at work drawing sigils on pieces of card, intending to attach them to a bathrobe that he had acquired from the used clothing store. It wasn’t quite a wizard’s robe, but it was more than Crowley had available when he had summoned his first demon. Ryan was copying the elaborate drawings from Solomon’s Key, doing his best to replicate them. These were not necessary to bring the demon forth but rather to ensure the optimal containment of it and the protection of the summoner. It was all quite elaborate, and once again, the sheer quantity of information gave the whole affair credence.

First, there was the Solomon’s Sexangle, a figure that resembled a Star of David contained within a circle, decorated with writing and runes. He would find a way to hang the card from the cloth belt of the bathrobe. It was intended to be flashed at the demon when it appeared, which would supposedly compel it to be obedient and to take a humanoid form.

Next, he would make a Pentagonal Figure of Solomon. It was a pendant to be worn around the neck with a ward used to protect the user on one side and the sigil of the chosen demon on the other. He could use some string and thread it through a hole in the paper. Nowhere did it state that these had to be made from any specific material like metal or wood.

The final piece of his costume would be a Ring of Solomon, a circular ward containing odd writing that would be worn on or near the face to protect him from acrid fumes – sulfur and brimstone and all that. He would draw it on a piece of card and staple it to a sweatband. Easy. There was one more ward listed, the Secret Seal of Solomon, but that was to be used for containing the entity within a brass vessel like a Genie in a lamp. Ryan had no such vessel, nor did he have any desire to attempt to confine a demon should he succeed in invoking one.

He had chalk for drawing the magick circle, which was going to be an absolute bitch, along with the Triangle of Solomon that was used to confine disobedient spirits – a sort of time-out for naughty demons. The circle was going to take the most time to make by far, as it was full of Hebrew writing that he didn’t understand and sigils within sigils that looked especially hard to reproduce.

He had fashioned a wand from a stick by shaving away the bark with a pocket knife, and he had all of the candles and incense that he had bought on hand, unsure of what scents a demon might prefer.

There were a few other complications. Some demons could only be summoned at certain times of the month depending on their rank in Hell’s armies, and some of the invocations required that the summoner hath not defiled himself by any woman in the space of a month. That last part wasn’t going to be an issue, and for a moment, he considered asking the demon to make it so that Becky ended her days in the company of two dozen cats.

Speaking of which, he still hadn’t decided which Goetic demon he was going to attempt to summon. He couldn’t continue much further without choosing one, as its sigil was required for several of the wards. The problem was that there were so many to pick from, and the archaic language used in Solomon’s Key made many of their attributes vague at best. How the hell was he supposed to know what he changeth ye dead bodyes and putteth them into one another’s places actually equated to? Fortunately, Crowley’s Illustrated Goetia contained just that – illustrations of all of the demons along with some brief descriptions in modern English.

As he examined the extensive list, he began to realize how arbitrary some of their stated powers and areas of expertise were. If you wanted to bend trees for some reason, then you could summon number sixty-seven, Amduscias. He was your guy when it came to tree bending, and that seemed to be about all that he did. Number thirty-one, Foras, could make you invisible and also lecture you on logic and ethics. Many of them seemed to have artistic or academic pursuits that they would teach you, from foreign languages to philosophy and painting. Perhaps risking your immortal soul was preferable to dealing with student loan collectors.

He was somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of demons that could allegedly be summoned. It was like going through a list of goddamned Pokemon. They could do everything from transmuting metals to gold to making women fall in love. They could even teach people to speak to dogs. He had to think hard about what would actually solve his problems, as the author of the Illustrated Goetia had been very specific about only asking for things that you actually needed from the demons, as if they would somehow be able to tell if your motivation was greed or lust. Ryan was confident that his own needs were severe enough to warrant the intervention of a demon, and so he wasn’t too worried about that part. As long as he chose his invocation wisely, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Perhaps he should just go with Orobas, the one that had been summoned in the story that he had read. It was a fairly low-level demon, and it was described as being loyal and reliable. It had helped Crowley get out of a similar pickle. No, he needed to make the right choice. He needed a demon that perfectly suited his needs.

Ryan had finally narrowed it down to three demons. Dantalion, Gamori, and Orobas. He rubbed his eyes, checking the clock on his phone. It was already past midnight. He had spent the whole day researching demons and preparing his ritual.

Dantalion was number seventy-one, a genderless creature that appeared to the summoner as a mass of shifting heads. Its domain was teaching arts and sciences, it had the ability to read minds and to relay the thoughts of others to the summoner, and it could also cause women to fall in love. Those were all useful to Ryan. He could learn a profession that might land him a job, know the thoughts of employers in order to influence them, and it seemed that he could have any woman of his choosing. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that last part, it seemed a little too close to brainwashing, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

Gamori was the fifty-sixth demon listed in the Goetia, and she appeared before the summoner as a beautiful woman riding on a camel. Her area of expertise was predicting the future. The power of prescience would help him in all manner of pursuits, from job searching to dating, and again the demon appeared to grant the love of any woman that he desired. As much as he did indeed desire the love of a woman, he wasn’t sure if he needed it so severely as to invoke a demon. He was perfectly capable of dating on his own.

If he asked for something that wasn’t urgent or too difficult for him to achieve by himself, it seemed as if bad things would happen. There was nothing explicitly forbidding it that he could find, but everything pointed to it being at best a faux pas and at worst a grievous offense. Better to just keep things simple. Asking for invincibility and riches would surely backfire in some ironic way, and any demon that could bestow such things was of high rank and no doubt beyond his ability to control.

Lastly, there was Orobas, as described in Crowley’s first summoning. This demon appeared in the form of a horse. He could grant dignities and prelacies, though Ryan wasn’t quite sure what those were yet, and he could grant the favor of friends and foes. He could see the past, present, and future, and he was described as being especially loyal.

Fuck it, Orobas it was. He would begin carving his sigil into the metal plate that he had purchased at the hardware store, and start drawing it onto the back of the Pentagonal Figure of Solomon. That should be everything. There was some nonsense about astrology and planetary hours and all kinds of other minutia mentioned in the guides that he had found online, but Crowley had not bothered with that, so neither would he. There would be no chants or prayers, no meditation, none of the intricate and overly complex steps that would draw this out for longer than he had the patience for.

After all, what did it matter if he invoked a demon through a complex and rambling chant that had to be memorized, or through simply asking it plainly to appear? Crowley had hurled insults and expletives at Orobas, and it had manifested itself all the same, which led Ryan to believe that many of the more elaborate parts of the ritual were just there for flair.

If any of this was to be believed, then it was a kind of science, albeit an arcane and spiritual science. As long as he followed the steps as they were outlined, it should work, and the more religious and superstitious aspects could be glossed over. He chuckled to himself, realizing how stupid that sounded – criticizing the superstitious when he was about to attempt a demon summoning.

It had gotten late, but everything was ready. He would get some sleep and perform the invocation the next day.

Ryan appraised his summoning circle, all drawn out in chalk on the hardwood floor of his apartment. This might be a pain to clean up, but it wasn’t as if he was going to get his deposit back anyway. It had taken him a couple of hours to write out all of the little Hebrew incantations and draw all of the pentagrams. He had made sure that it was lined up with the cardinal directions using a GPS app on his phone, and he’d triple-checked that everything was properly transcribed from the Lesser Key of Solomon. There was a little triangle for him to stand in that was decorated with wards, and there was the containment triangle, which was intended for trapping unruly demons within its confines. He remembered that the instructions had asked for a nine-foot circle and about twelve feet of space overall, but he had to make do with what was available. If this didn’t produce any tangible results, then so much might have gone wrong that it was hardly worth sweating over the details.

Even stripped of its more flamboyant elements, the ritual seemed needlessly complex, with layers of dependencies where one misstep could cause a cascading failure. Ryan was confident of his wards and sigils, however. He was about as defended from hostile entities as it was possible to be without having a proton pack on hand, unless he had completely misunderstood some crucial element that would result in his soul being immediately devoured. Oh well. It wasn’t like he had much going on these days anyway.

He had taken a long and thorough bath, using the soaps and salts that the enthusiastic woman at the new age store had sold him. Apparently, being clean in body was as important as any of the spiritual aspects of the summoning. After all, you wouldn’t invite a guest into your house and then greet them unwashed. That was just bad manners...

The only thing that he was wearing was his bathrobe. The material was linen, which seemed to be important. It had been mentioned frequently enough in the texts that he had sought one out specifically. He had stapled the piece of card with the Sexangle drawn on it to his belt, which was supposed to compel the demon to be obedient and to take human form upon request. Then, there was the Pentagonal Figure that hung from a piece of string around his neck, designed to ward off danger. Finally, the sweatband with the Ring of Solomon attached to it, which he was wearing around his head. As a complete package, it looked like one of those budget cosplay jokes, where someone used household items to approximate the costume of a superhero or a cartoon character in a way that was intentionally terrible. But, insofar as he could tell, his getup was perfectly in line with the rules.

He switched off the lights and began to walk around the circle, lighting his candles one by one as he went, the contrasting aromas of lavender and vanilla wafting into the air. He lit the incense burner, too. It was some scent called dragon’s blood, but to him, it just smelled like hand cream. He found himself wishing that his Ring of Solomon worked against regular smells as well as the sulfur spewed by demons. His apartment was starting to smell like a goddamned massage parlor.

He closed the blinds to ensure that the room was as dark as possible, the flickering firelight from the candles casting long, dancing shadows on the walls. There was a haze in the air from all the crap that he was burning, and it was all finally starting to feel like a genuine summoning. Get some teenagers in here with a Ouija board, and they’d scare themselves into hysterics within minutes. He had done a pretty good job of setting the mood, all things considered.

Okay, time to do this.

Ryan stooped to pick up a small vial that contained the Oil of Abramelin that he had mixed the night before and anointed himself with it. He dipped his finger into the liquid, touching it gently against the psychic centers of his body that were described in the books. The top of his head, between his eyes, his throat, chest, navel, and groin. He winced as it began to burn. He could have used some of the shit your pants hot sauce that was sitting on the kitchen counter and saved himself the trouble.

There were some rituals listed in Crowley’s account of his summoning, and so Ryan performed them as the author had. He held up a printout of the Lesser Banishing Ritual and the Preliminary Invocation of the Goetia, reading from the texts and trying to put on his best commanding voice. He waved his makeshift wand as he chanted the invocations, feeling somewhat foolish, like a character from one of those wizard movies that had been so popular a few years back.

When he was done, the next step was to concentrate on the triangle that he had drawn on the floor and will the demon to appear there. He pointed the wand at the chalk drawing, illuminated by the flickering candlelight, and spoke in the most confident tone that he could muster.

“Orobas, I summon you!”

He stood in silence for a few moments, waiting for something to happen, but there was nothing. Not one to be so easily discouraged, he pointed the wand again and repeated the demand in a sterner tone.

“Orobas, I summon you into the triangle!”

Bupkis. He was feeling a little disheartened now. Should he repeat the invocation, or had the lengthy diatribes described in the Lesser Key actually been necessary after all? No, Crowley had not used them, or he would surely have documented it in his book. Maybe he should add a little flair after all. Perhaps the demons appreciated the theatrics? He cleared his throat and gave it another try.

“I hereby command you, Demon Prince Orobas, to appear before me. By the true name of the God whom you are bound to serve, and by the names of the Kings that rule over you, I conjure you.”

Ryan felt a chill crawl up his spine. The sensation that he was being watched suddenly crept over him, as if there was some unseen presence in the room. He felt his heart quicken as he glanced around the gloomy apartment, yet he saw nothing. Could this really be working? Was it all true? No time to contemplate the implications – he had to stay on track. Courage and concentration were central to the ritual. Trying to banish the creeping feeling that someone was lurking somewhere behind him, his animal instincts urging him to run as his veins were flooded with adrenaline, he pressed on.