As I completed the words, a warm and electric feeling rose in me, like the way the air pressure drops at the approach of a storm or the way your ears pop when an airplane takes off. The gods were here now, watching me.

But I was still too weak, still all too mortal. If I was to walk with the gods I would have to leave my humanity at the door. Now it was time for the step of sanctification, or what the Verum described as flagellation and penance.

It wasn't necessary to actually maim myself, but here I would lay all my sins bare. I would gut my hide and tan my skin like the vellum of the infernal contract's parchment.

I took the elder wand in my right hand and the hazel wand in my left and mimed the blow of whips upon my back from behind my shoulders. I took a pause to consider my words, I needed to speak from my heart.

"I am selfish and inconsiderate!" I said, striking my back and thinking of how I had distanced myself from my mom after dad died.

"But still I stand willing!"

"I am jealous and spite-filled with poison!" I said, raking my back and chastising myself for the way I envied Rene and how much more exciting and joyous her life seemed.

"Yet I still stand willing!"

"I am gluttonous and base!"

I said, slapping my shoulder and feeling the fat of my back, aware in my posture of the heaviness around my middle.

"Yet I still stand willing!"

"I am lustful and desire my body violate!"

I said, hitting my back strongly and wincing to consider the way I'd let boys use my body just to feel wanted.

"Yet I still stand willing!"

"I have been callous and vile." I said, hitting myself in regret when I thought of how I'd spoken to Annie the previous night and of the people around me who I'd alienated and hurt because my heart wasn't open.

"Yet I still stand willing!"

"I am utterly naive, stupid, and drawn to flights of fantasy!" I declared, drawing the wand just to the surface of my skin and stopping. Maybe this was all just nonesense. Maybe I was just running from the inevitable. But you know what? Even so, I knew in that moment it was still worth doing.

"Yet I still stand willing!"

"I never see what is good until it is gone, and pleasure turns to ash in my mouth!" I said drawing the wand up, thinking of how much I missed my dad. How differently I would have treated him and the time we had had together if I knew he would be gone so soon.

"Yet I still stand willing!"

Now that I had wallowed in my humanity and cast my iniquities aside, it was time to seize the authority to speak with the spirits. Now I would invoke my goddess, my identity dissolving completely into hers, our voice as one.

I knelt at the altar and lit another coal, burning incense of frankincense, myrrh, and storax in my lady's honor. I stood up, held the conjuring wand above me towards the ceiling like a torch, and spoke the Orphic hymn aloud:

I call lovely Hekate of the Crossroads where three roads meet,

Adored in sky, earth, and sea in saffron robes,

Sepulchral spirit who revels amidst the ghosts,

Persian, fond of loneliness, who delights in deer,

Nocturnal guardian of the hounds, Irresistible Queen

Drawn by a yoke of bulls,

Queen who holds the keys to all the cosmos,

Nurturer, you who looks after the little ones,

you who haunt the mountains

Pray maiden, fall upon my hallowed rites,

Be always gracious to your flock and delight in my sweet smoke

With my eyes still closed, I felt the heat of a roaring flame billowing from the tip of the wand and sweat caked my skin. I slowly unveiled my heavy lids, my crescent eyes at one with the howling and silence of the shade-haunted night.

I knelt and pinched mace, aloe-wood, and frankincense onto the censer's burning coal. I took up the elder wand in my right hand and the ritual knife in my left, and called aloud the barbarous names from the Verum:

"Heloy, Tau, Varaf, Panthon, Hominaram, Elemiath, Serugeath, Agla, On, Tetragrammaton, Casily, Come Forth, Scirlin!"

As soon as I had called out the incantation I felt a warmth rush to my head. It felt right, I moved forward in the conjuration:

"Lucifer, Ouyar, Chameron, Aliseon, Mandousin, Premy, Oriet, Naydrus, Esmony, Eperinesont, Estiot, Dumosson, Danechar, Casmiel, Hayras, Fabelleronthou, Sodirno, Peaham, Come, Lucifer!"

After I had shouted the magical words, a great silence came over the black room. I waited for something to happen, and my eyes softened to the flame of the candle on the altar which seemed to glow brighter.

My eyes wandered from the brightness of the flame towards its reflection in the mirror, and that's when I saw it-

The figure of a young boy, like a cupid or cherub of classical statue, seemed to flicker out from the candle. His brightness was brilliant and strong.

"Hail Lucifer! Hail Light-Bringer!" I greeted it.

I watched the figure waiver and dance gracefully upon the flame until finally it dispersed.

I continued on with the barbarous words through the lesser spirits, commanding forth with the elder wand:

"O Surmy, Delmusun, Atalsloym, Charusihoa, Melany, Liamintho, Colenon, Paron Madoin, Merloy, Bulerator, Donmedo Hone, Peloym, Ibasil, Meon, Alymdrictels Purson, Crisolay, Leman Sessle Nidar Horiel Peunt, Halmon, Asophiel, Ilnostreon, Baniel, Vermias, Slevor, Noelmay, Dorsanot, Lhavala, Omor, Framgam, Beldor, Dramgin, Come Aglierap!"

After speaking the names I turned again to the candle flame, and watched as it began to grow bold and intense, slashing out in strong licks that shot forth in every direction, forming the impression of a face from which protruded a menacing assemblage of horns and tusks, like the face on Aglierap's seal.

"Hail Aglierap!" I called.

Only a moment after my salutation the flame contracted and swayed gently.

"Come Syrach!" I called.

Syrach's appearance was not so dramatic as his forebearers. The flame now wavered in a way slow yet deliberate, like the rippling of a great cloak of light in the wind.

"Hail Syrach!" I called.

The flame continued to sway before flickering once more into an erratic pace.

Butterflies welled in my stomach. It was time. After all these trials, it was finally time to call those words and bring the aim of my will forth: