(occult characters to be inscribed within the head of the wax figure)

Make a small image of yellow wax, in the form of a man, in the month January and in the day and hour of Saturn, and at that time write with a needle above the crown of its head and upon its skull which thou shalt have adroitly raised, the character following [see top of page]. After which thou shalt replace the skull in proper position. Thou shalt then write upon a small strip of the skin of a frog or toad which thou shalt have killed, the following words and characters.

Thou shalt then go and suspend the said figure by one of thy hairs from the vault of a cavern at the hour of midnight, and burning Temple Incense under it, thou shalt say:

"METATRON, MELEKH, BEROTH, NOTH, VENIBBETH, MACH, and all ye, I conjure thee O Figure of wax, by the Living God, that by the virtue of these Characters and words, thou render me invisible, wherever I may bear thee with me. Amen."

And after having burned Temple Incense again under it, thou shalt bury it in the same place in a small deal box, and every time that thou wishest to pass or enter into any place without being seen, thou shalt say these words, bearing the aforesaid figure in thy left pocket:

"Come unto me and never quit me whithersoever I shall go."

Afterwards thou shalt take it carefully back unto the before-mentioned place and cover it with earth until thou shalt need it again.

Spells of invisibility should be understood to work by obscuring or distracting the perceptions of others, so that they do not notice the magician who has enacted the magic. They do not render the magician transparent to light, but merely cause him or her to pass unnoticed and unremembered. The practical result is the same as it would be were the magician truly invisible.

It should not be assumed that such things are impossible, when we consider that almost everyone can be hypnotized, and that during hypnosis the hypnotized subject can, by suggestion alone, be made to see things that are not there, or fail to see things that are present. This is not to say that ancient spells of invisibility relied upon hypnosis -- in my view they did not employ hypnosis as we commonly understand it -- but the fact that an average person can be made not to perceive an object that is plainly visible merely by listening to a few hundred spoken words indicates that the human mind is able to readily exclude from consciousness the information of the five senses, provided that the mechanism that brings about this exclusion is triggered. One such trigger is hypnotic induction -- there may well be others.

The little formula of invisibility presented here is from The Key of Solomon the King, also known as the Greater Key of Solomon to distinguish it from the grimoire titled the Lesser Key of Solomon. The Key of Solomon is the most famous, and in many ways the most powerful, of all the grimoires. It was edited by one of the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, S. L. MacGregor Mathers, in 1888. Mathers used several source manuscripts. This fragment is derived from 1203 Lansdowne manuscript in the British Library collection, which is titled "The Veritable Keys of Solomon translated from the Hebrew into the Latin language by the Rabbin Abognazar." The manuscript is in French, not Latin. Mathers rendered the text into English.

The wax image is here used as the dwelling place for a familiar spirit who is made to inhabit the image. The power of the spirit is the ability to cloud the perception and attention of others and remain unnoticed. It should be about three inches in height, and need not be perfect -- distinct arms and legs are not necessary provided it is human-like in shape. It can be carved from a thick candle. The image represents the spirit within it, not the person who will use it -- if the image were intended to represent the magician, it would bear the magician's name, or contain hair and other organic matter from the magician's body, or be clothed in cloth taken from the magician's garment.

It is interesting that yellow wax is specified for the figure. I am not sure if the distinction is being made between yellow wax and white wax, or yellow wax and beeswax. Most candles were yellow until they began to be made from the spermaceti of sperm whales, which allowed a very white, clean-burning candle. This text was probably written before candles of spermaceti became popular. If beeswax was intended, it is likely beeswax would be explicitly indicated. My guess is that yellow wax is being contrasted with the darker beeswax, which is of an amber color. Beeswax is a solar material, because the bee is a solar creature. Probably yellow wax is intended as a lunar material by the original author. It would not be appropriate to use a solar wax in the making of this figure. Consequently, for modern construction the whitest wax available is best, since white wax best accords in its color with the nature of the moon.

The month for making the figure is specified as January because this month occurs in the dark of winter, when the days are short and the nights are long. Being the first month of the year, it is an appropriate month for acts of creation. The day of Saturn is of course Saturday. The hour of Saturn is the first hour following sunrise on the day of Saturn, and every eighth hour after.

In traditional magic, the planetary hours are determined by dividing the period between sunrise and sunset into twelve parts, and the period between sunset and sunrise into twelve parts. The easiest and most common method is to divide day and night each into twelve equal parts. In the winter months the days are short, so the planetary hours of the day are briefer than the planetary hours of the night; conversely, in the summer the days are long, and the planetary hours of the day are longer than those of the night.

The hours of Saturn on a Saturday are the first hour after sunrise, the eighth hour of the day, and the third hour after sunset. Provided you know the times of sunrise and sunset on the day you mean to work, it is an easy matter to divide day into twelve equal hours and night into twelve equal hours. In January the hours of the night will be much longer than those of the day in the northern hemisphere.

The magical name of the first hour of the day is Yayn, the name of the eighth hour of the day is Thainé, and the name of the third hour of the night is Thanu. The name of the angel of Saturday and of Saturn is Zamael. This angel rules the first and eighth hours of the day on Saturday, and the third hour of the night on Saturday. It would be prudent and appropriate to include an invocation to Zamael during the construction of the wax figure, since it is to be made under the rule of this angel. In my opinion, the best hour to work is the third hour of the night on a Saturday in January. This is a spell of concealment, which makes the darkness appropriate.

The work is done under the auspices of Saturn because this planet was the outermost or most distant planet visible in the night sky. For this reason Saturn was associated with darkness and hidden things.

In the same hour the figure is carved from wax, the occult characters at the top of this page are to be written with a hot needle into the wax of the figure's head. The instructions are far from clear, but seem to imply that the head of the wax figure must be cut across and opened up so that the characters may be inscribed on the inside of the upper part of the head. After they have been written, the top of the head is folded back into place and sealed by melting around its edges. Again there is concealment -- the occult symbols are hidden from view inside the figure.

The characters inside the head of the doll represent its identity; or rather, the identity of the spirit that will be made to inhabit it.

The second set of words and occult characters illustrated above is to be written on the skin of a frog or toad, also in the same hour of its making. Both the frog and toad are creatures of the moon. Both tend to hide themselves from sight. Since it may be difficult to find a frog or toad when you need it, and in any case no living creature should be killed in this magic, you may substitute another lunar substance that can be written upon. I suggest a small square of perfectly white, new paper. Use a pencil to write the words and symbols upon it. White is a lunar color. The lead in the pencil is the metal of Saturn. It is even better if you have a small black-and-white photograph of yourself that you do not mind losing. The image of a black and white photograph is formed from silver, the metal of the moon. Write the occult words and characters on the back of this photograph in pencil. Be sure the photograph shows only you, no one else. It will help to connect you with the spirit of the wax image.

Using a single hair plucked from your head, suspend the wax figure in a chamber below ground level. The author of the grimoire suggests a cave, but you will find it more convenient to use a basement. It does not matter where this is done provided that the place is private and below ground level. This suspension should be done in the hour of midnight, which is the seventh or middle hour of the night and bears the occult name Netos. In my opinion, the best time to do this is the midnight hour following the creation of the figure. If you shape the wax doll in the third hour of the night on a Saturday, you can suspend it below the level of the ground in the seventh hour of that same night, which in a magical sense is the night of Saturday -- the 24 magical hours of each day begin at sunrise on the day in question. The seventh hour of a Saturday night belongs to Venus and the angel Gabriel.

A good way to accomplish the suspension is by using a steel spring clip or spring-loaded clothespin to grasp one end of your hair -- the other end of the hair should be embedded in the head of the wax figure. This can be done by melting a groove in the head with a hot needle and pressing the hair into the groove before it cools. In this way even short hairs can be used. If you use a candle to carve the figure, you may be able to tie the hair around the stub of the wick. It is better to take a hair from the back of your head -- the part that is usually unseen by you and by anyone facing you, which symbolically represents the unconscious mind and matters hidden from view. The spring clip can be tied up on the end of a piece of string so that the wax figure is suspended about a foot above the surface of a table.

That the wax image may be suspended by a single hair gives a good indication of its maximum size and weight. It must be quite light and small to avoid breaking the hair (although a hair is stronger than it appears and can support a surprising amount of weight). I have indicated three inches as a good size for the image because it must easily fit into the pocket, and must be small enough to be supported by a single hair. Three is the traditional number of Saturn, because the magic square or kamea of Saturn, which is the smallest possible magic square, has three rows and three columns.

Incense must be burned beneath the wax image in such a way that the smoke from the incense rises all around and touches and veils the image. The wax figure must be high enough that the heat from the burning incense does not melt it or soften it significantly. Temple incense is probably frankincense. Any incense may be used, but those that are strong and somewhat rough are best -- avoid very sweet, cloying types of incense. The scent should be in harmony with the nature of Saturn and the moon. Sweet scents are more appropriate for the sun and Jupiter, and are wrong for this magic.

In the middle hour of the night of Saturn, ignite the slip of paper or your black and white photograph and allow it to burn completely to ashes, positioning it so that the smoke from its burning mingles with the rising smoke of the incense and enfolds the wax figure. As the smoke from the paper or photo is rising around the image, recite the words indicated in the spell that begins, "Metatron, Melekh, Beroth...". Recite these words so that the entire formula is spoken while the smoke from the paper or photo still rises.

The names Metatron, Melekh, Beroth, Noth, Venibbeth and Mach are all names of power. The living god is perhaps El Chai, a Hebrew divine name that translates "Mighty Living One." The Key of Solomon is not a Christian document, so it is unlikely that Christ is intended.

After the paper or picture bearing the second set of occult characters has been reduced to ashes, continue to allow the incense smoke to rise around the image as you contemplate it.

In the original instructions, the temple incense is presumed to be in the form of a powder that is spread across glowing embers in an iron or brass charcoal brazier. The smoke of the powder rises for only a brief time, and so must be renewed. The original intent was that the strip of frog or toad skin be dropped upon these glowing embers so that it would be burned amid the first infusion of incense, and that after the words of the conjuration were spoken, fresh incense be applied to the embers. If a miniature charcoal brazier is used to burn powdered incense, care must be taken that the wax doll is high enough that it is not melted.

After this ritual, the doll should be let down by cutting the hair that suspends it. Do not remove the stub of the single hair projecting from the doll's head, if you have embedded the hair in the wax. Wrap the doll carefully in black cloth to keep it clean and bury it in a small, unfinished pine box filled with dry soil that is gathered from near the place of the ritual. Keep the box in the same room where the ritual was performed, below the level of the ground. This procedure is much easier than putting the image into a box and burying the box beneath the ground, but is equally effective.

When you need to pass unnoticed among other persons, remove the doll from its box and place it in your left pocket. As you put the doll into your pocket, say the words "Come unto me and never quit me whithersoever I shall go." This in an invocation to the spirit that has been induced to dwell inside the doll to extend its power into your body through your left side. The left side of the body is receptive, and is also the side of hidden actions, symbolically. By making the doll a part of yourself by bringing it within the envelope of your aura, and by receiving the influence of the spirit dwelling inside the doll, you acquire the occult qualities of that spirit, which are those of concealment and obscurity.

The act of removing the doll from your pocket breaks the link between you and the unnamed spirit dwelling within the doll. It is once again wrapped in black cloth and buried in the box filled with earth, or in a box beneath the earth, so that its power of concealment will not be lost. Never show the wax figure to anyone or explain its use. Insure that its hiding place is not discovered. When you need to pass unnoticed again, remove the doll, place it in your left pocket and recite the words.

You may be asking yourself whether this procedure would be effective in conferring invisibility. For those who merely go through the motions of the ritual mechanically, having no skill or training in magic, it will have no effect. A spirit possessed of the glamour of concealment must be made to actually dwell within the wax image. In my opinion, a skilled magician could achieve results with this method provided it was expanded -- it is presented in the Key of Solomon only in outline form. Image magic is quite powerful.

Success would not necessarily be total -- it is possible that the person carrying the image would not pass completely unseen, but would pass unrecognized as just another anonymous face in the crowd; or the facial features of that person might be unremembered, so that those who had seen him could not say the following day who they had seen.

I might be more skeptical about invisibility spells were in not that years ago I was successful with one that I worked just prior to attending an amateur production of a play. At the theatre I found myself surrounded by dozens of persons I knew well, some of them very well, yet all night not a single individual turned to look at me or spoke to me, even though on numerous occasions I stood close to those I knew, and even stared directly at them. These were persons who would never have passed me without exchanging a glance or a few words. It was a very odd feeling.

My first indication that the spell had produced an effect came when I met a very old nun in an elevator. The play took place in an auditorium of a large public building with which I was not familiar. I got lost in a darkened and deserted wing of the building and asked the nun for directions. She escorted me to the auditorium. All the while she kept glancing at me in the most curious fashion with an expression of reverence or awe, as though I were glowing. At the time I had not yet realized that the spell had taken effect, and put her odd behavior down to old age. Why she was able to see me, I don't know, but I suspect it was because I addressed her directly, and also because we were alone when we met. For the rest of the evening I passed completely unnoticed.