The Adventures of EP Didymous, Independent Exorcist I As long as I can remember Ive had an interest in the occult and the

hermetic sciences as brought down through the ages by the great Trismegistrus, also called Hermes, Thoth or Tahuti. The fact that these apparently pagan belief systems and concepts were detrimental or otherwise potentially damnaging to my eternal soul was not lightly endured on my part - or on the parts of my parents and parish - but the more I read the more I learned the universal priniciples underlying these acts of pagan worship - principles that may very well have first raised their etherial heads in ancient Babylon, before the fall of the tower. Or at least, that was the view expressed by certain occultist Saints who practiced their strange thaumaturgy part in parcel with the holy mass and saw no discrepencies in their actions. If, indeed, the study of what lies beyond the veils of Enoch is forbidden man, then I must accept the reward awaiting me in the pit - but I have faith that a just and loving god will see that my heart was ever pure, and my intentions ever turned to the good and the righteous. If I have not always been christlike in my methods and behaviors, I have always attempted to emulate the deeds performed by the messiahs brief sojourn across the earth. From an early age I attempted to utlize my will to influence the world around me finding that for the most part it was only through the interposition of a limb or other physical agent that my will would be done. It all came to a head on the day that I hurled a stone into a tree and struck a blue jay dead as doornails. As I watched the azure plumed bird descend from the boughs I felt my heart breaking inside for the loss of it. I

cursed myself for my action - a thoughtless nay a willless - an unwilled action and the disastrous consequences wrought. At that moment I understood that action was tantamount, and intention - will or unwill merely a guide for said action. An initation, a rifled barrel through which the bullet of action may spin and increase in accuracy or tumble and bounce and richochet off as chance and god see fit. I understood that the only valid actions were willed actions. Any unwilled actions were on par with masturbation - Unclean and icky. I raced home through the streets and backyards as the bluebird sky began turn a reddish hue. I threw open the door and without explanation (which annoyed my parents to no end) I ran down the hall, slammed my door, and threw myself upon my knees at my bedside and began to pray to godalmighty for the lessons he had chosen to impart upon me that day.

I dont know what it was that drew me to the book in the first place, but upon laying eyes on it, I knew I had to have it. The Penguin groups publication of the Lesser Key of Solomon was a faithful transposition of the original manuscripts and plates albeit in a lackluster and rather pretentiously academic format including a foreward and afterward both decrying the likelihood that the great grimoire was, in fact, penned upon vellum by the founder of the temple. The sigils were strange to me, and the rites ponderous and the ends mystifying. Summon fallen angels? Why would anyone want to do that? I read through the descriptions of the various fiends one could conjure with the correct runic inscriptions and their listed benefits. More than a few claimed to offer the exorcist (for that is how conjurers of the netherworlds prefer to be called) the ability to find hidden treasure, to

become invisible, to teach languages and knowledge. First of all, who was it that was burying all this treasure? My mind raced with images of antediluvian pirates, having looted the treasures of the earth during the flood of Noah suddenly being stranded upon the shallows as the waters began to recede. Of course! What would these biblical buccaneers do when faced with the real and true danger of landlock? Bury their treasure, and swear an oath of secrecy in a black ritual known only to the rovers of the sea - and their witnesses the various outcast angels. New vistas revealed themselves to me, as I imagined these aquatic sons of cane going about their business - seeking wenches with whom to begin repopulating the world and slowly, through backstabbery or accident or too much grogmagog, their numbers dwindle until only the tales dead men do not tell remain and the fallen angels who apparently can still tell tales - having never been alive in the human sense.

I read through the book, but I found it mostly a frustrating pseudo-bliblical mishmash of beliefs and teachings that my Church had never mentioned. Fearing heresy, I put the book away on my shelf and there it sat for many a month until that fateful night, during a youthgroup sleepover, someone brought The Craft and we watched it well into the witching hour. It was during a pivotal scene in this watershed film that spawned so many direct to video imitators (for in these days, video was still the format of the land) involving substantially more bared breasts and a deeper emphasis on the sexual side of magick I would not come to know for still many a ah, but I get off track, as memories of Neve Campbell often incline me. As I was saying.

During a pivotal scene in this magnificent film, their grimoire is opened as they chant to their witch-god Menaul (which, as it turns out, is the name of a street in Albuquerque, New Mexico) and what should appear on the page? Why, the plates describing the proper appearance and make of the ceremonial dagger and staff of the book of Solomon! A coincidence? Perhaps, you may say - but I took it for the sign that it was. After the nerve-shattering climax of the film we were all feeling the heady effects of fear and that unstated low level buzzing eroticism that permeates all encounters of young men n the throes of youthful vigor, not yet having tasted of the bitter apple of adulthood. The boys sat round in wrapt attention and bated breaths caught only in husky gasps as I described the rituals necessary to contact, compel, contain and chastise (the four Cs of exorcising most spirits - but I dont want to give away ALL the trade secrets here at the beginning). I described the construction of a blasting rod, the fat amber tip that was to be thrust passionately again and again into enflamed wood. I even demonstrated, receiving lusty squeals from the other boys. I described the dagger necessary for rending the veil so as to be able to see with eyes that can see that which was never meant to be seen. At the end of it, the oldest boy - second in our church only to the deacon who was second to the altarboy - after careful thought and much grumbling stood up and put his shirt and pants back on. Youre going to hell for this. Was all he said as he sponged the sweat from his chest and upper lip, and then he departed to go curl up under the altar and sleep. The rest of us followed en suite.

II In the morning it seemed as though nothing had ever happened. The video had been secreted, and everyone was making the usual morning grumbling and groaning as the lot of us reluctantly shambled back into consciousness. As we heard the vicar begin unlocking the churchs ponderous iron door (the only door in or out, no way for Satan to sneak in!) another boy around my age took me aside. In the spirit of not identifying any of the parties involved I will simply call him Tubeneck Odoyle. Tubeneck for short. Tubeneck took me aside and said to me...