Devil worship and me

 Pictured: Me and Martin in our devil worship days

I'm the one wearing the white tie

Back in the 70s there was a weekly magazine which was very popular for a while. It was called Man, Myth and Magic, and it built up over the months into an encyclopaedia which explored Satanism, Demons, Alchemy, Pagan gods, and many other dark areas of knowledge. Subjects which fascinated the gullible and the young.

I was both, so it was perhaps unsurprising that I bought the odd copy now and again when I could afford  to.

As I recall, there was one article in it that I read with particular interest. It was about Aleister Crowley, the so-called ‘Wickedest man in the world’. It quoted his famous principle: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”. That got my attention.

Somewhere else I read an account of his attempt (successful, it was said) to summon up the great god Pan. Apparently the experience turned him into an insane babbling wreck. Or it could just have been the drugs he took that did that.

Whatever it was, I showed the article to my good friend Martin, and we both decided that we could think of nothing better to do that afternoon than emulate Crowley by summoning up the great god Pan ourselves.

We needed a secluded location to work in, so we went to Dean Woods, where we set about our task with much enthusiasm.

A god needs a blood sacrifice before he will appear to man. That was our belief, anyway. What were we to kill that would entice Pan sufficiently to get him to leave his realm and visit ours?

We thought about rabbits and mice and so on, but in the end we were either too nice or just too plain chickenshit to kill any animals, so we killed a few plants instead. We picked them from the forest floor and hacked them to pieces. Quite viciously. We thought Pan would approve of that. Then to make sure they were dead, we burnt them.

We chanted a few spells while we were at it, and made any number of blasphemous statements, but, disappointingly, Pan never appeared, so we went home for a cup of tea instead.

Actually, I think both of us were secretly relieved that Pan couldn’t be bothered with us.

We’d both have shat ourselves if he he'd paid us a visit.

See: 

Acid, weed, speed and me

Working in a morgue

An interview with myself

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