The Philosophus is peculiarly liable to this because from the nature of the Method he cannot remain skeptical; he must, for the time, believe in his particular Deity. But let him (1) consider that this belief is only a weapon in his hands, (2) affirm sufficiently that his Deity is but an emanation or reflection or eidolon of a Being beyond him, as was said. For if he fail herein, since man cannot remain permanently in Samadhi, the memorised Image in his mind will be degraded, and replaced by the corresponding Demon, to his utter ruin. (Crowley)


I went to Priam when he cried out, only to see him tumble the weight of a body off his brawny squared shoulder. It was Thanatos the Healer. He was quite dead and with a brazen smile eternally curled upon his mouth.. which made it seem all the more garish, I suppose. How could this have happened? And yet I know for certain that when the villagers catch wind of the man's death, they will seek out Bryony as the culprit. Do not ask me why that is.

Priam the Executioner will bury the truth before dawn. For he is also the village Undertaker. But first things first. For we have a little business to conjure, and he an old score to settle.

It seems Priam once had a lover by the name of Emma, who as a result of their secret liasons became pregnant. Not so much harm in that really.. except that Emma was a married woman, whose husband had been away more than a year trading with the citizens of the City of Gates. When he returned and discovered her belly ripe with a child that could not possibly have been his own, she was charged with adultery before the village council and condemned to the Executioner's axe. To be buried headless in the potter's field down at the furthest edge of the cemetary proper.

It was said that the man whom she had her relations with, must have been a passing traveler. For not a soul in the Village of Eunomia spoke up in her defense, nor to share in the woman's conviction.

Emma's last tearful request as she peered up from the chopping block into Priam's eyes: She would like to be buried with her head, unlike all the rest of the unfortunates who have fallen beneath the Executioner's axe.

But it seemed Priam did not have it within him to confess to her ghostly apparition when we conjured her from the dead.. that her head had been later torn apart by rabid wolves when it was tossed outside the village gates on that very same night of her death. In his haste to make ammends for this great wrong.. the Executioner exhumed her gravesite and buried the head of Thanatos the Healer alongside the decayed remains of Emma.

Before he could refill the plot again with dirt, I took Bryony with me.. and I tossed my witch board and planchette down into the quagmire with Priam. He wondered whether I had gone mad. Yet I assured him quite the opposite, in fact: "Do this, Priam. And do not demand an accounting of me. Whatever more you ask of me, it shall be done before this night is through."

Rest in peace, Alexandra.
And you as well, both Emma and Thanatos.