Raising

Screencap from BuffyWorld.com

“As it was written, they shall prepare the way, and the very gate of hell shall open. That which is above shall tremble, for that which is below shall arise. And the world shall know the beast--and the beast shall know the world.”

―Vocah, quoting the scrolls of Aberjian

The Raising, seen in the episode "To Shanshu in L.A.," was a ritual described in the Scrolls of Aberjian, which was used to raise a great evil from the vortex of Hell. Wolfram & Hart hoped to raise someone that would lure Angel from his mission. The raising cannot be performed without the scrolls.

In order to steal back the scrolls and perform the ritual, lawyers including Holland Manners, Lindsey McDonald and Lilah Morgan hired a pair of monks to summon the demon Vocah, "the bringer of calamity." He prepared the ritual after first slaughtering the Oracles and planting his mark on Cordelia, opening her up to endless visions and incapacitating her.

After finding from the spirit of one of the Oracles that the way to spare Cordelia was an incantiaion also contained on the scrolls, Angel followed the lawyers to the Raising, interrupting Vocah. As he fought the demon, Lindsey stepped up and finished the ritual.

It was revealed afterward that, in order to distract Angel from his mission (especially after he had seen the Shanshu Prophecy on the scrolls), Wolfram & Hart had raised his sire, Darla, nearly four years after he staked her in Sunnydale. As a side effect of such a ritual being performed on a vampire, Darla was restored to life, including the diseases that plagued her before being sired by The Master, as well as her human soul, but with the memories of the four centuries she lived as a vampire intact, leaving her with a mounting sense of confusion over who she truly was.

The Ritual

“Et illi quinque sacrificium est et ille que est mortuus vivet [. . .] dum vita et mors non duas res sed unas sunt. In tenebris lux est, in luce tenebrae sunt. Serge! Serge! Serge!”

―Lindsey McDonald, quoting from the Scrolls of Aberjian

“And the five shall be a sacrifice, and the one who is dead will live [. . .] even as life and death are not two things but one. In darkness is the light, in light the darkness. Arise! Arise! Arise!”

―a translation from the Latin

The ritual is performed with five vampires chained to a large box--a cage for the being summoned from hell. Vocah performs it in a masoleum with a five-pointed star inside a circle on the floor. In preparation, which must be done in darkness, his attendents (presumably the monks who summoned him) drew the blood of a living human and anointed the space with oil.

In performing the ritual, an incantation is read from the scrolls. A portion can be read in English, though the end must be read in Latin (Manners complains upon arriving that Vocah has not even gotten to the Latin yet). While speaking of the vampires being held as part of the ritual, there is a call-and-response; the one performing the ritual speaks of how there is no time (or sun, etc.) for the five, and his attendants respond "Yet they live." Though Vocah's attendants are reluctant to respond in kind for Lindsey, they do so. Upon reaching the end of the Latin, the five vampires are exterminated, spontaneously dusting, one by one, as they are sacrificed to summon the being from hell.

The Incantation

Vocah has already started the ritual when the lawyers or Wolfram & Hart arrive, but the incantation from that point proceeds as follows:

Five are without breath (yet they live).
Five are without time (yet they live).
Five are without soul (yet they live).
Five are without sun (yet they live).
Five are dead (yet they live).
Et illi quinque sacrificium est et ille que est mortuus vivet
dum vita et mors non duae res sed una sunt.
In tenebris lux est, in luce tenebrae sunt.
Serge! Serge! Serge!

Vocah's ritual is interrupted at "Five are dead," and that line is where Lindsay takes over, having to repeat the line after shouting "say it!" to the attendants so they would respond.

The Latin read by Lindsey contains at least two mistakes, as "the five" should take a plural verb. It would be rendered better "Et illi quinque sacrificia sunt." Likewise, because "two things" should obviously be plural, the second line of Latin should use "rei" instead of "res."