The ritual burning of lists of things one wishes to let go IMO is valid. It is not magick, rather, it is a practical application of the science of psychology.
And I have, in my younger days, practiced magick, including some things from that grimoire. Including some rather....dark things....And some odd stuff happened twice. In that once, I did a ritual curse, something very, very dark indeed, this was not wicca, this was, I admit, some of the nastiest stuff you'd ever come across, now of course I cannot be sure there was cause and effect related to the ritual of the cursing, but, it was done, a nasty little ritual, directed against somebody hated.
The guy ended up very soon after finding himself with a cancer, and then soon died afterwards.
The other, was a summoning ritual and I did feel something, fighting against attempts to control, I felt a force present. And it was not something I could put down again for good, only restrain it severely.
Same place was used for both rituals, the curse was done first. And the thing summoned, it felt evil. And it WAS something known as evil, more experimental than ever directed to perform a task.
Now, the really fucked up shit, was that when a group of friends came there with me to explore, the same old, abandoned mansion this was done in and scavenge for useful items (the place had had a fire on the ground floor but the rest of everything was untouched, all the upper floors, even found a bag of weed and some valium there once, heh, looked like the owners had got the fuck out in a hurry and never came back)
There was a young girl there, amongst others, and none of these people ever knew that I'd done this stuff, bar a couple I told AFTER that I'd done such things. This particular young girl, age about 13yo, she took on a deep, deep, deep MALE voice, that I doubt she could have spoken in, very, very old, very deep, stentorian, gravelly voice. After going to a specific site in the grounds, she spoke in this voice, the words 'touched by another, forever be mine'. And was thrown bodily through the air. Nobody touched her physically, I was there. She went from a standing start, through the air like a ball struck with a bat. Thankfully it was in the grounds, as she approached the place, after speaking those words. I am still certain that at her age and size she could not physically have spoken in the way she did with female vocal chords at her age. I just don't think it would be biologically a thing she could have done. And she knew NOTHING of the fact that rituals of any kind had been performed there. Let alone that there was a potential bound entity possibly still present. The 'aura' of the place turned black as hell, everybody was getting shit up, including a trio of wiccan girls. They too did not know that I had been doing things there, twice. Not until we separated later, after making a rapid exit. They had been there before, these three, at the time close friends of mine, one my GF, and later, older of the two girls I'd been engaged to. Thankfully my younger, first fiancee, the just about 14yo one, she never went there, before or after I'd done anything bar exploration, I never took her near the place and never would have either, not after seeing the shit that went down there.
This 13yo girl's eyes rolled back in her head, until the whites of her eyes and blood vessels were showing before speaking those words in a voice she couldn't possibly have spoken in, a deep, deep male bass voice, a gravelly, grating, slow voice, that would be very deep even for an adult man of some age with a naturally very low voice. Somehow had a feeling of immense age to the sentence. Then she snapped out of it, and went flying like she had been hit with a bat big enough to fire a human like a fucking golf ball. Thankfully she was not injured physically, just badly shit up. And when I asked her what the fuck what she said meant, she had no idea she'd even said those words.
We never went back. And the wiccan girls, they freaked when told, in the sense of 'you did WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK there Lestat? fucking hell you didn't, please tell me you didn't call on that?' turning bloody pale when they were later told about just some of the things that had been done, even some purely experimental stuff. And about what was bound there. The place was demolished soon after and turned into a block of flats, after being razed to the ground. They said they felt things, as did some other friends, quite a few, who had nothing to do with magick, didn't believe in it or practice it or anything other than watch horror movies perhaps, they all were on edge round there, people fighting, attacking each other for no provocation, and remembering nothing of it, stopping instantly once dragged away from the boundary walls of the place.
They all felt something dark, corruption, nasty. Which pretty much fits in with what, in my much, much younger days, I had called upon. Not elementals, daemonic entities, things listed in that grimoire as some of the lower-ranking things from the abyss.
(I had at least that much sense, as to experiment on the book calling only on some of the most minor entities listed, save for one, one more powerful, according to the book, and specializing in vengeance, the one I petitioned to bring ruin upon the person hated)
And the same one later bound to do no harm to those who would come there. Although I hadn't the knowledge to find a way to force it to be dispelled entirely and sent back to that place from whence it was called up. Only to bind it. Using the grimoire, as well as wiccan binding rituals, called in some help from some wiccan friends, and we did our best. Although after that incident, with people going berserkirgang (not joking, really, seriously not fucking about. I had to knock a friend to the ground with a punch to stop him trying to choke a friend to death. Small guy, lifting a big fucker up by the throat, when he shouldn't have even been able to move him, let alone pick hip up as if he were a rag doll. Kid had murder in his eyes, damned if he didn't)
And they couldn't just have been faking it and putting it on, because they had no knowledge whatsoever of what had been attempted or done in there. Never told a word of it to any of them. Only the wiccans, later, AFTER these things took place, for help in if not dispelling the thing called upon, and a nasty thing at that, a strong, vicious thing from...down south, you might say. Very, very far down south, and I'm not talking bloody london, if not ridding the place of the corruption, then binding it harder still than I had done or at least attempted.
I am to this day, still not sure about it. That book has remained in my library, I got it at a cheap price, I got the feeling the wiccan shop wanted rid of it as soon as possible even buying it. But I haven't ever tried to use it again. Read it, sure, but never used it in a practical sense, only read through it.
The guy the thing was sent after, not long after, he contracted cancer. So did members of his family.
Have I blood on my hands for the things done there? I don't know. I honestly don't. But I cannot rule it out.
