NocturnalRites

The rites of the Temple are held by night. The sun is the eye of the Demiurge; when it has set, the world is unguarded and the gates stand thin. The working begins after midnight and ends before the first grey of dawn.

The dark of the moon is the time of the greater rites. The old nights of the witches’ sabbath — the eve of May and the eve of November — are kept as nights when the dead and the spirits walk closest to the living.

The altar faces west, toward the setting sun and the land of the dead. It is draped in black. Upon it stand black candles, the seal of the Temple, the sigil of the power to be called, the chalice, the blade and the skull.

The skull is the reminder that the flesh is already the property of the grave. The chalice receives the offering. The blade does not wound; it is the will of the adept made iron, and it opens the gate in the air.

Sulphur, myrrh and black resin are burned until the chamber is filled with smoke. In smoke the spirits take form.

The circle is drawn widdershins, against the course of the sun. Within it the inverted star is inscribed, its single point turned down toward the abyss, and the names of the infernal hosts are written around its rim.

The circle of the Right-Hand Path is a wall that keeps the spirits out. The circle of the Temple is a gate that lets them in.

The invocation is spoken aloud, slowly, in a voice that does not plead. The Adversary is not begged. He is called by those who have already chosen him.

No god is called with empty hands. The offering is the bond between the worshipper and the god — the proof that the call is meant.

Wine black as blood, fire, incense, bread, the vow spoken and kept. And blood itself: the vessel of life, the oldest currency between the worlds, poured into the chalice and upon the sigil as at the altars of every ancient god. What is given upon the altar is given wholly, and it is never taken back.

When the Adversary has been hailed, the spirit of the working is called by its name and its seal. The sigil is gazed upon until the eye no longer sees ink but an opening. The name is vibrated until the chamber itself seems to speak it back.

The spirits answer in their own way: in a sudden cold, in the movement of smoke against the draught, in the flame that bends without wind, in dreams that come in the nights after. Their answers are recorded without embellishment.

The spirits are not banished, for they were invited. They are thanked and given leave. The candles are extinguished from west to east, the inverted cross is traced in the air over the altar, and the chamber is left in darkness until morning.

Of what passed in the rite nothing is spoken outside the circle.