The silence is never read as the spirit not existing. It is read as the spirit being busy, or already in chains.
What this is
The 1904 edition sets out four conjurations to be said in order, and this is the third. The first two ask. This one names the penalty, and the operator who reached it had already spent a long evening getting no reply.
It is printed with a rubric between the prayers, telling the operator how to interpret a silence. That rubric is the most revealing writing in the chapter, because it is the only place where the book considers the possibility of nothing happening and explains it away.
What the text was understood to do
To force a summoned spirit to appear by threatening to imprison it.
A note before the text. What follows is a historical document and a reading of it. It is recorded, not recommended.
The text, the reading of it, and where to find it.
The passage as S. L. MacGregor Mathers printed it in 1904, quoted in full and unaltered; the same passage in modern English; how the working was put together and what each part of it was for; the commentary; and the book, chapter and page it stands on.
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