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Title: The history of magic : including a clear and precise exposition of its procedure, its rites and its mysteries
Author: Lévi, Éliphas
Language: English
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Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other
spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
Italics are represented thus _italic_, and superscripts thus y^{en}.
Duplicate headings of the seven BOOKS have been removed.
THE HISTORY OF MAGIC
[Illustration: ÉLIPHAS LÉVI _Frontispiece_]
THE
HISTORY OF MAGIC
INCLUDING A CLEAR AND PRECISE EXPOSITION
OF ITS PROCEDURE, ITS RITES AND
ITS MYSTERIES
BY
ÉLIPHAS LÉVI
(ALPHONSE LOUIS CONSTANT)
_Opus hierarchicum et catholicum_
(Definition of the Great Work, according to Heinrich Khunrath)
TRANSLATED, WITH A PREFACE AND NOTES, BY
ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE
THE ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS ARE INCLUDED
AND PORTRAITS OF THE AUTHOR
_Second Edition_
LONDON
WILLIAM RIDER & SON, LIMITED
CATHEDRAL HOUSE, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1922
_Copyright_
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION
In several casual references scattered through periodical literature,
in the biographical sketch which preceded my rendering of _Dogme et
Rituel de la Haute Magie_ and elsewhere, as occasion prompted, I have
put on record an opinion that the _History of Magic_, by Alphonse Louis
Constant, written—like the majority of his works—under the pseudonym
of Éliphas Lévi, is the most arresting, entertaining and brilliant of
all studies on the subject with which I am acquainted. So far back
as 1896 I said that it was admirable as a philosophical survey, its
historical inaccuracies notwithstanding, and that there is nothing in
occult literature which can suffer comparison therewith. Moreover,
there is nothing so comprehensive in the French language, while as
regards ourselves it must be said that—outside records of research
on the part of folk-lore scholarship—we have depended so far on a
history by Joseph Ennemoser, translated from the German and explaining
everything, within the domain included under the denomination of
Magic, by the phenomena of Animal Magnetism. Other texts than this
are available in that language, but they have not been put into
English; while none of them has so great an appeal as that which is
here rendered into our tongue. Having certified so far regarding its
titles, it is perhaps desirable to add, from my own standpoint, that
I have not translated the book merely because it is entertaining and
brilliant, or because it will afford those who are concerned with
Magic in history a serviceable general account. The task has been
undertaken still less in the interests of any who may have other—that
is to say, direct occult—reasons for acquaintance with “its procedure,
its rites and its mysteries.” I have no object in providing unwary and
foolish seekers with material of this kind, and it so happens that the
present History does not fulfil the promise of its sub-title in these
respects, or at least to any extent that they would term practical in
their folly. Through all my later literary life I have sought to make
it plain, as the result of antecedent years spent in occult research,
that the occult sciences—in all their general understanding—are paths
of danger when they are not paths of simple make-believe and imposture.
The importance of Éliphas Lévi’s account at large of the claims, and of
their story throughout the centuries, arises from the fact (_a_) that
he is the authoritative exponent-in-chief of all the alleged sciences;
(_b_) that it is he who, in a sense, restored and placed them, under
a new and more attractive vesture, before public notice at the middle
period of the nineteenth century; (_c_) that he claimed, as we shall
see, the very fullest knowledge concerning them, being that of an
adept and master; but (_d_) that—subject to one qualification, the
worth of which will be mentioned—it follows from his long examination
that Magic, as understood not in the streets only but in the houses
of research concerning it, has no ground in the truth of things, and
is of the region of delusion only. It is for this reason that I have
translated his History of Magic, as one who reckons a not too gracious
task for something which leans toward righteousness, at least in the
sense of charity. The world is full at this day of the false claims
which arise out of that region, and I have better reasons than most
even of my readers can imagine to undeceive those who, having been
drawn in such directions, may be still saved from deception. It is well
therefore that out of the mouth of a master we can draw the fullest
evidence required for this purpose.
In the present prefatory words I propose to shew, firstly, the
nature of Éliphas Lévi’s personal claims, so that there may be no
misconception as to what they were actually, and as to the kind of
voice which is speaking; secondly, his original statement of the
claims, nature and value of Transcendental Magic; and, thirdly, his
later evidences on its phenomenal or so-called practical side, as
established by its own history. In this manner we shall obtain his
canon of criticism, and I regard it as valuable, because—with all his
imperfections—he had better titles of knowledge at his own day than
any one, while it cannot be said that his place has been filled since,
though many workers have risen up in the same field of inquiry and have
specialised in the numerous departments which he covered generally and
superficially.
Before entering upon these matters it may be thought that I should
speak at some length of the author’s life; but the outlines have been
given already in an extended introduction prefixed to a digest of his
writings which I published many years ago under the title of _Mysteries
of Magic_, and again, but from another point of view, in the preface to
the _Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental Magic_ already mentioned.
The latter will be made available shortly in a new annotated edition.
For the rest, an authoritative life of Éliphas Lévi has been promised
for years in France, but is still delayed, and in its absence the
salient biographical facts are not numerous,
In the present place it will be therefore sufficient to say that
Alphonse Louis Constant was born at Paris in 1810, and was the son of
a shoemaker, apparently in very poor circumstances. His precocity in
childhood seemed to give some promise of future ability; he was brought
to the notice of a priest belonging to his parish, and this in its turn
led to his gratuitous education at Saint-Sulpice, obviously with a view
to the priesthood. There his superiors must have recognised sufficient
traces of vocation, according to the measures of the particular place
and period, for he proceeded to minor orders and subsequently became
a deacon. He seems, however, to have conceived strange views on
doctrinal subjects, though no particulars are forthcoming, and, being
deficient in gifts of silence, the displeasure of authority was marked
by various checks, ending finally in his expulsion from the Seminary.
Such is one story at least, but an alternative says more simply that
he relinquished the sacerdotal career in consequence of doubts and
scruples. Thereafter he must, I suppose, have supported himself by
some kind of teaching, and by obscure efforts in literature. Of these
latter the remains are numerous, though their value has been much
exaggerated for bookselling purposes in France. His adventures with
Alphonse Esquiros over the gospel of the prophet Ganneau are told in
the pages that follow, and are an interesting biographical fragment
which may be left to speak for itself. He was then approaching the age
of thirty years. I have failed to ascertain at what period he married
Mlle. Noémy, a girl of sixteen, who became afterwards of some repute
as a sculptor, but it was a runaway match and in the end she left him.
It is even said that she succeeded in a nullity suit—not on the usual
grounds, for she had borne him two children, who died in their early
years if not during infancy, but on the plea that she was a minor,
while he had taken irrevocable vows. Saint-Sulpice is, however, a
seminary for secular priests who are not pledged to celibacy, though
the rule of the Latin Church forbids them to enter the married state.
In or about the year 1851 Alphonse Louis Constant contributed a large
volume to the encyclopædic series of Abbé Migne, under the title of
_Dictionnaire de Littérature Chrétienne_. He is described therein
as _ancien professeur au petit Séminaire de Paris_, and it is to be
supposed that his past was unknown at the publishing bureau. The volume
is more memorable on account of his later writings than important by
its own merits. As a critical work, and indeed as a work of learning,
it is naturally quite negligible, like most productions of the series,
while as a dictionary it is disproportioned and piecemeal; yet it is
exceedingly readable and not unsuggestive in its views. There is no
need to add that, as the circumstances of the case required, it is
written along rigid lines of orthodoxy and is consequently no less
narrow, no less illiberal, than the endless volumes of its predecessors
and successors in the same field of industry. The doubting heart of
Saint-Sulpice had become again a convinced Catholic, or had assumed
that mask for the purpose of a particular literary production. Four
years later, however, the voice of the churchman, speaking the
characteristic language of the Migne Encyclopædias, was succeeded by
the voice of the magus. _The Doctrine of Transcendental Magic_ appeared
in 1855, the _Ritual_ in 1856, and henceforth Alphonse Louis Constant,
under the pseudonym of Éliphas Lévi, which has become almost of
European celebrity, was known only as an exponent of occult science.
It is these works which more especially embody his claims in respect
of the alleged science and in respect of his own absolute authority
thereon and therein. Various later volumes, which followed from his
pen in somewhat rapid succession, are very curious when compared with
the _Doctrine and Ritual_ for their apparent submission to church
authority and their parade of sincere orthodoxy. I have dealt with this
question at length in my introduction to the _Mysteries of Magic_,
and I shall be dispensed therefore from covering the same ground in
the present place. Such discrepancy notwithstanding, Éliphas Lévi
became, in a private as well as in a public sense, a teacher of occult
science and of Kabalism as its primary source: it was apparently his
means of livelihood. He was in Paris during the siege which brought
the Franco-German war to its disastrous close, and he died in 1875,
fortified by the last rites of the Catholic Church. He left behind him
a large sheaf of manuscripts, many of which have been published since,
and some await an editor.
Passing now to the subject-in-chief of this preface, it is affirmed as
follows in the _Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental Magic_:—(1) There
is a potent and real Magic, popular exaggerations of which are actually
below the truth. (2) There is a formidable secret which constitutes the
fatal science of good and evil. (3) It confers on man powers apparently
superhuman. (4) It is the traditional science of the secrets of
Nature which has been transmitted to us from the Magi. (5) Initiation
therein gives empire over souls to the sage and full capacity for
ruling human wills. (6) Arising apparently from this science, there is
one infallible, indefectible and truly catholic religion which has
always existed in the world, but it is unadapted for the multitude.
(7) For this reason there has come into being the exoteric religion
of apologue, fable and wonder-stories, which is all that is possible
for the profane: it has undergone various transformations, and it is
represented at this day by Latin Christianity under the obedience of
Rome. (8) Its veils are valid in their symbolism, and it may be called
valid for the crowd, but the doctrine of initiates is tantamount to
a negation of any literal truth therein. (9) It is Magic alone which
imparts true science.
Hereof is what may be termed the theoretical, philosophical or
doctrinal part, the dogma of “absolute science.” That which is
practical follows, and it deals with the exercise of a natural power
but one superior to the ordinary forces of Nature. It is to all intents
and purposes comprised in a Grimoire of Magic, and is a work of
ceremonial evocations—whether of elementary spirits, with the aid of
pantacles, talismans and the other magical instruments and properties;
whether of spirits belonging _ex hypothesi_ to the planetary sphere;
whether of the shades or souls of the dead in necromancy. These works
are lawful, and their results apparently veridic, but beyond them is
the domain of Black Magic, which is a realm of delusion and nightmare,
though phenomenal enough in its results. By his dedications Éliphas
Lévi happened to be a magus of light.
It will be observed that all this offers a clear issue, and—for the
rest—the Grimoire of Transcendental Magic, according to Éliphas
Lévi, does not differ generically from the _Key of Solomon_ and its
counterparts, except in so far as the author has excised here and
enlarged there, in obedience to his own lights. He had full authority
for doing so on the basis of his personal claims, which may be
summarised at this point. (1) He has discovered “the secret of human
omnipotence and indefinite progress, the key of all symbolism, the
first and final doctrine.” (2) He is alchemist as well as magician,
and he makes public the same secret as Raymund Lully, Nicholas Flamel
and probably Heinrich Khunrath. They produced true gold, “nor did they
take away their secret with them.” (3) And finally: “at an epoch when
the sanctuary has been devastated and has fallen into ruins, because
its key has been thrown over the hedge, to the profit of no one, I have
deemed it my duty to pick up that key, and I offer it to him who can
take it: in his turn he will be doctor of the nations and liberator of
the world.”
It must be said that these claims do not rest on a mere theory or
practice of ceremonial evocations. There is no question that for
Éliphas Lévi his secret doctrine of occult science is contained in
a hypothesis concerning an universal medium denominated the Astral
Light, which is neither more nor less than the odylic force of Baron
Reichenbach, as the French writer himself admits substantially, but it
is dilated in his speculation and issues therein greatly transformed as
follows. (1) It is an universal plastic mediator, a common receptacle
for vibrations of movement and images of form: it may be called the
Imagination of Nature. (2) It is that which God created when He uttered
the _Fiat Lux_. (3) It is the great medium of occult force, but as
such it is a blind force, which can be used for good or evil, being
especially obedient to the light of grace. (4) It is the element
of electricity and lightning. (5) The “four imponderable fluids”
are diverse manifestations of this one force, which is “inseparable
from the First Matter” and sets the latter in motion. (6) It is now
resplendent, now igneous, now electric, now magnetic. (7) It has
apparently two modes, which tend to equilibrium, and to know the middle
point of this equilibrium seems to be the attainment of the Great Work.
(8) It is “ethereal in the infinite, astral in stars and planets,
metallic, specific or mercurial in metals, vegetable in plants, vital
in animals, magnetic or personal in men.” (9) It is extracted from
animals by absorption and from men by generation. (10) In Magic it is
the glass of visions, the receptacle of all reflections. The seer has
his visions therein, the diviner divines by its means and the magus
evokes spirits. (11) When the Astral Light is fixed about a centre by
condensation it becomes the Philosophical Stone of Alchemy, in which
form it is an artificial phosphorus, containing the concentrated
virtues of all generative heat. (12) When condensed by a triple fire it
resolves into oil, and this oil is the Universal Medicine. It can then
only be contained in glass, this being a non-conductor.
Again, here is a clear issue at its value, and I make this
qualification because the Astral Light is, as I have said, a
speculation, and personally I neither know nor care whether such a
fluid exists, or, in such case, whether it is applicable to the uses
indicated. It is enough that Éliphas Lévi has made his affirmations
concerning it in unmistakable language.
Let us pass therefore to the _Histoire de la Magie_, though I have
been borrowing from it already in respect of the putative universal
fluid. Magic therein is still the science of the ancient Magi; it is
still the exact and absolute science of Nature and her laws, because
it is the science of equilibrium. Its secret, the secret of occult
science, is that of God’s omnipotence. It comprises all that is most
certain in philosophy, all that is eternal and infallible in religion.
It is the Sacerdotal Art and the Royal Art. Its chief memorial is
found in Kabalism, but it derives apparently from primeval Zoroastrian
doctrine, of which Abraham seems to have been a depositary. This
doctrine attained its perfection in Egypt. Thereafter, on its religious
side, the succession appears to have been: (_a_) from Egypt to Moses;
(_b_) from Moses to Solomon, through certain custodians of the secret
law in Jewry; (_c_) from the Temple at Jerusalem to St. Peter’s at
Rome, though the method of transition is obscure—as that which was
affirmed previously is still maintained, namely, that Rome has lost the
Kabalistic Keys. It is naturally left to our conjecture as to when the
Church possessed them—from Éliphas Lévi’s point of view, perhaps in
the days of Dionysius, perhaps in those of Synesius, but not from my
standpoint, and so the question remains.
Now, if these things do not differ specifically from the heads of
the previous testimony, on the surface and in the letter thereof,
it is no less certain that there is a marked distinction alike in
general atmosphere and inward spirit. About this all can satisfy
themselves who will compare the two texts, and I need not insist on
it here. What, however, in the _Histoire de la Magie_, has befallen
that practical side which, after all the dreamings, the high and
decorative philosophy, the adornments—now golden, now meretricious—was
the evidence, term and crown of the previous work? Those who are
reading can again check me; but my answer is this: whether the subject
of the moment is the art of evoking spirits, whether it is old cases
of possession, whether it is witchcraft or necromancy, whether it is
modern phenomena like direct-writing, table-rapping and the other
occurrences of spiritism, as they were known to the writer and his
period, they have one and all fallen under the ban of unreserved
condemnation. It is not that they are imposture, for Éliphas Lévi
does not dispute the facts and derides those who do, but they belong
to the abyss of delusion and all who practise them are workers of
madness and apostles of evil only. The advent of Christianity has put
a decisive period to every activity of Magic and anathema has been
pronounced thereon. It is from this point of view that Lévi takes
the disciple through each century of the subject, sometimes indeed
explaining things from the standpoint of a complete sceptic, sometimes
as Joseph Ennemoser might himself have explained them, but never—no,
not once—like the authorised exponent of practical Magic who has tried
the admirable and terrifying experiments, who returns to say that
they are true and real, which is the testimony of the _Doctrine and
Ritual_, if these volumes can be held to signify anything. Necromancy
as a science of the abyss; spiritism as the abyss giving up every form
of delusion; sorcery, witchcraft, as rich indeed in testimony but to
human perversity alone, apart from intervention of diabolism belonging
to the other world—I testify with my whole heart to the truth of
these accusations, though I do not believe that the unseen world is
so utterly cut off from the world of things manifest as Éliphas Lévi
considered in his own paradoxical moods. But once more—what has become
of Magic? What has happened to the one science which is coeval with
creation itself, to the key of all miracles and to almost omnipotent
adeptship? They are reduced as follows: (_a_) to that which in its
palmary respects is the “sympathetic and miraculous physics” of Mesmer,
who is “grand as Prometheus” because of them; (_b_) to a general theory
of hallucination, when hallucination has been carried, by self-induced
delusion or otherwise, to its _ne plus ultra degree_; and (_c_) but
I mention this under very grave reserves, because—for the life of
me—I do not understand how or why it should remain—to the physical
operations of alchemy, which are still possible and actual under the
conditions set forth in the speculation concerning the Astral Light. It
is not as such, one would say, a thaumaturgic process, unless indeed
the dream should rule—as it tends to do—that fulfilment depends on an
electrifying power in the projected will of the adept. In any case, the
ethical transliteration of alchemical symbolism is seemingly a more
important aspect of this subject.
I need not register here that I disbelieve utterly in Lévi’s
construction of the art of metallic transmutation, or that I regard
his allegorising thereon as a negligible product when it is compared
with the real doctrine of Hermetic Mysticism; but this is not the
point at issue. The possessor of the Key of Magic, of the Kabalistic
Keys, thrown aside or lost by the Church, comes forward to tell us
that after the advent of Christ “magical orthodoxy was transfigured
into the orthodoxy of religion”; that “those who dissented could be
only _illuminati_ and sorcerers”; that “the very name of Magic must be
interpreted only according to its evil sense”; that we are forbidden by
the Church to consult oracles, and that this is “in its great wisdom”;
that the “fundamental dogma of transcendental science ... attained its
plenary realisation in the constitution of the Christian world,” being
the equilibrium between Church and State. All that is done outside the
lawful hierarchy stands under an act of condemnation; as to visions,
all fools are visionaries; to communicate with the hierarchy of unseen
intelligence, we must seek the natural and mathematical revelations set
forth in Tarot cards, but it cannot be done without danger and crime;
while mediums, enchanters, fortune-tellers, and casters of spells
“are generally diseased creatures in whom the void opens.” Finally,
as regards the philosophical side of Magic, its great doctrine is
equilibrium; its great hypothesis is analogy; and in the moral sense
equilibrium is the concurrence of science and faith.
What has happened to a writer who has thus gone back on his own most
strenuous claims? One explanation is—and long ago I was inclined
to it on my own part—that Éliphas Lévi had passed through certain
grades of knowledge in a secret school of the Instituted Mysteries;
that he was brought to a pause because of disclosures contained in
his earlier books; and that he had been set to unsay what he had
affirmed therein. I know now by what quality of school—working under
what titles—this report was fabricated, and that it is the last with
which I am acquainted to be accepted on its own statements, either
respecting itself or any points of fact. An alternative is that Éliphas
Lévi had spoken originally as a Magus might be supposed to speak when
trafficking in his particular wares, which is something like a quack
doctor describing his nostrums to a populace in the market-place,
and that his later writings represent a process of retrenchment as
to the most florid side of his claims. This notion is apart from all
likelihood, because it offers no reason for the specific change in
policy, while—if it be worth while to say so—I do not regard Lévi
as comparable to a quack doctor. I think that he had been a student
of occult literature and history for a considerable period, in a
very particular sense; that he believed himself to have discovered
a key to all the alleged phenomena; that he wrote the _Doctrine and
Ritual_ in a mood of enthusiasm consequent thereupon; that between the
appearance of these volumes and that of the _Histoire de la Magie_ he
had reconsidered the question of the phenomena, and had come to the
conclusion that so far from being veridic in their nature they were
projected hallucinations variously differentiated and in successively
aggravated grades; but that he still regarded his supposed universal
fluid as a great provisional hypothesis respecting thaumaturgic facts,
and that he still held to his general philosophy of the subject, being
the persistence of a secret tradition from remote times and surviving
at the present day (1) in the tenets of Kabalism and (2) in the
pictorial symbols of the Tarot.
It is no part of my province in the present connection to debate his
views either on the fact of a secret tradition or on the alleged
modes of its perpetuation: my standpoint is known otherwise and has
been expressed fully elsewhere. But in the explanation just given I
feel that I have saved the sincerity of one who has many titles to
consideration, who is still respected by many, and for whom my own
discriminating sympathy has been expressed frequently in no uncertain
way: I have saved it so far at least as can be expected. One does not
anticipate that a Frenchman, an occultist and a magus is going to
retract distinctly under the eye of his disciples, more especially
when he has testified so much. I feel further that I have justified
the fact of the present translation of a work which is memorable in
several respects, but chiefly as the history of a magic which is not
Magic, as a testimony which destroys indeed the whole imputed basis of
its subject. It does not follow that Lévi’s explanation of physical
phenomena, especially of the modern kind, is always or generally
correct; but some of it is workable in its way, and my purpose is
more than served if those who are drawn toward the science of the
mystics may be led hereby to take warning as to some of the dangers and
false-seemings which fringe that science.
A few things remain to be said. Readers of his History must be prepared
for manifold inaccuracies, which are to be expected in a writer like
Éliphas Lévi. Those who know anything of Egypt—the antiquities of its
religion and literature—will have a bad experience with the chapter
on Hermetic Magic; those who know eastern religion on its deeper
side will regard the discourse on Magic in India as title-deeds of
all incompetence; while in respect of later Jewish theosophy I have
had occasion in certain annotations to indicate that Lévi had no
extensive knowledge of those Kabalistic texts on the importance of
which he dwells so much and about which he claims to speak with full
understanding. He presents, however, some of their lesser aspects.
As regards the religion of his childhood, I feel certainly that it
appealed to him strongly through all his life, and in the revulsion
which seems to have followed the _Doctrine and Ritual_ he was drawn
back towards it, but rather as to a great hierarchic system and a
great sequence of holy pageants, of living symbolism. Respecting the
root-matter of its teachings, probably he deceived himself better
than he fooled his readers. In a multitude of statements and in the
spirit of the text throughout, it is certain that the _Histoire de la
Magie_ offers “negation of dogma” on its absolute side. We obtain a
continual insight into free sub-surface opinions, ill-concealed under
external conformity to the Church, and we get also useful side-lights
on the vanity of the author’s sham submissions. In this manner, we
know exactly what quality of sentiment led him to lay all his writings
at the foot of the seat of Peter, for Peter to decide thereon. It is
needless to add that his constructions of doctrine throughout are of
the last kind that would be commended to the custodians of doctrine.
At the same time there is very little doubt that he believed genuinely
in the necessity of a hierarchic teaching; that, in his view, it
reposed from a very early period in certain sanctuaries of initiation;
that the existence of these is intimated in the records of the Mosaic
dispensation; that they were depositaries of science rather than
revelation; that Kabalistic literature is one of their witnesses; but
that the sanctuaries were everywhere in the world, Egypt and Greece
included. Of all these the Church of Christ is the heir, and though it
may have lost the keys of knowledge, though it mistakes everywhere the
sign for the thing signified, it is—from his standpoint—entitled to our
respect as a witness and at least to qualified obedience.
I think that Éliphas Lévi has said true things and even great things
on the distinctions and analogies between science and faith, but the
latter he understood as aspiration, not as experience. A long essay on
the mystics, which is perhaps his most important contribution to the
_Dictionnaire de Littérature Chrétienne_, indicates that he was thinly
acquainted with the mind of Suso, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa
and St. Francis of Sales. Accordingly he has a word here and there on
the interior life and its secrets, but of that which remains for the
elect in the heights of sanctity he had no consciousness whatever. For
him the records of such experience are literature and mystic poetry;
and as he is far from the term herein, so is he remote also when he
discourses of false mystics, meaning Gnostic sects, Albigensian sects,
_illuminati_ so-called and members of secret heretical societies
representing reformed doctrine. As the religion of the mystics is my
whole concern in literature, let me add that the true idea of religion
is not constituted by “universal suffrage” (see text, p. 517), but by
the agreement of those who have attained in the Divine experience that
which is understood by attainment.
In conclusion, after we have set aside, on the warrants of this
History, the phenomenal side of Magic, that which may be held to remain
in the mind of the author is Transcendental Magic—referred to when I
spoke of a qualification earlier in these remarks; but by this is to
be understood so much of the old philosophical systems as had passed
within his consciousness and had been interpreted therein. It will be
unacceptable to most readers at this day, but it has curious aspects of
interest and may be left to stand at its value.
A. E. WAITE.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ÉLIPHAS LÉVI, TAKEN AFTER DEATH]
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION v
INTRODUCTION
False definition of Magic—It is not to be defined at
hazard—Explanation of the Blazing Star—Existence of the
absolute—Absolute nature of magical science—Errors of
Dupuis—Profanation of the science—Prediction of Count Joseph de
Maistre—Extent and import of the science—The Divine Justice—Power of
the adept—The devil and science—Existence of demons—False idea of the
devil—Conception of the Manicheans—Crimes of sorcerers—The Astral
Light—The so-called Imagination of Nature—Of what is to be understood
hereby—The effects hereof—Definition of magnetism—Agreement between
reason and faith—Jachin and Boaz—Principle of the hierarchy—Religion
of Kabalists—Images of God—Theory of the light—Mysteries of
sexual love—Antagonism of forces—The mythical Pope Joan—The
Kabalah as an explanation and reconciliation of all—Why the Church
condemns Magic—Dogmatic Magic an explanation of the philosophy of
history—Culpable curiosity regarding Magic—Plan of the present work—The
author’s submission to the established order 1
BOOK I
_THE DERIVATIONS OF MAGIC_
CHAPTER I
FABULOUS SOURCES
The Book of Enoch concerning the Fall of the Angels—Meaning of the
Legend—The Book of the Penitence of Adam—The Personality of Enoch—The
Apocalypse of St. Methodius—Children of Seth and of Cain—Rationale
of occultism—Error of Rousseau—Traditions of Jewry—The glory of
Christianity—The _Sepher Yetzirah_, _Zohar_ and _Apocalypse_—Opening
of the Zohar 39
CHAPTER II
MAGIC OF THE MAGI
The true and false Zoroaster—Doctrines of the true
Zoroaster—Transcendental fire-philosophy—Electrical secrets of
Numa—A transcript from Zoroaster on demons and sacrifices—Important
revelations on magnetism—Initiation in Assyria—Wonders performed by
the Assyrians—Du Potet in accord with Zoroaster—Danger incurred by
the unwary—Power of man over animals—Downfall of the priesthood in
Assyria—Magical death of Sardanapalus 53
CHAPTER III
MAGIC IN INDIA
The Indians as descendants of Cain—India the mother of
idolatry—Doctrine of the Gymnosophists—Indian origin of
Gnosticism—Some wise fables of India—Black Magic of the
_Oupnek’hat_—Citation from J. M. Ragon—Indian Grand Secrets—The
English and Indian insurrections 64
CHAPTER IV
HERMETIC MAGIC
The Emerald Table—Other writings of Hermes—Magical interpretation of
the geography of Ancient Egypt—Ministry of Joseph—Sacred alphabet—The
Isiac Tablet of Cardinal Bembo—The Tarot explained by the _Sepher
Yetzirah_—The Tarot of Charles VII—Magical science of Moses 73
CHAPTER V
MAGIC IN GREECE
Fable of the Golden Fleece—Medea and Jason—The five magical
epics—Aeschylus a profaner of the Mysteries—The Orpheus of
legend—Orphic Mysteries—Göetia—The sorcerers of Thessaly—Medea
and Circe 82
CHAPTER VI
MATHEMATICAL MAGIC OF PYTHAGORAS
Pythagoras an heir of the traditions of Numa—Identity of
Pythagoras—His doctrine concerning God—A fine utterance against
anarchy—Golden Verses—Symbols of Pythagoras—His chastity—His
divination—His explanation of miracles—Secret of the interpretation of
dreams—The belief of Pythagoras 92
CHAPTER VII
THE HOLY KABALAH
Origin of the Kabalah—The horror of idolatry in Kabalism—Kabalistic
definition of God—Principles of the Kabalah—The Divine Names—Four
forms of Tetragrammaton—The word which accomplishes all
transmutations—The Keys of Solomon—The chain of spirits—Whether human
spirits return—The world of spirits according to the Zohar—Of spirits
which manifest—Fluidic larvæ—The Great Magical Agent—Obscure
origin of larvæ 101
BOOK II
_FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMAS_
CHAPTER I
PRIMITIVE SYMBOLISM OF HISTORY
Allegory of the Earthly Paradise—The Edenic Pantacle—The Cherub—Folly
of a great mind—Mysteries of Genesis—Children of Cain—Magical secrets
of the Tower of Babel—Belphegor—The mediæval Sabbath—Decadence of
the hierarchy—Philosophy of chance—Doctrine of Plato—An oracle of
Apollo—Rationalism of Aristotle—The Cubic
Stone—Summary of Neoplatonism 115
CHAPTER II
MYSTICISM
Inviolability of magical science—Profane and mystic schools—The
Bacchantes—Materialistic reformers and anarchic mystics—Imbecile
visionaries—Their horror of sages—Tolerance of the true Church—False
miracles—Rites of Black Magic—Barbarous words and unknown
signs—Cause of visions—A theory of hallucinations 125
CHAPTER III
INITIATIONS AND ORDEALS
The Great Work—The four aspects of the Sphinx and the Shield of
Achilles—Allegories of Hercules and Œdipus—The Secret Doctrine
of Plato—Of Plato as Kabalist—Difference between Plato and St.
John—Platonic theosophy—Fatal experiences—Homœpathy practised by the
Greeks—The cavern of Trophonius—Science of Egyptian priests—Lactantius
and the antipodes—The Greek hell—Ministry of suffering—The Table of
Cebes and the poem of Dante—Doctrines of the Phædron—The
burial of the dead—Necromancy 133
CHAPTER IV
THE MAGIC OF PUBLIC WORSHIP
Magnificence of the true Cultus—Orthodox traditions—Dissent of the
profane—Their calumnies against initiates—An allegory concerning
Bacchus—Tyresias and Calchas—The priesthood according to Homer—Oracles
of sibyls—Origin of geomancy and cartomancy 145
CHAPTER V
MYSTERIES OF VIRGINITY
Of Hellenism at Rome—Institution of Vestals—Traditional virtue of
virgin blood—Symbolism of Sacred Fire—Religious aspect of the history
of Lucretia—Honour among Roman women—Mysteries of the _Bona Dea_—Numa
as a hierophant—Ingenious notions of Voltaire on divination—Prophetic
instinct of the masses—Erroneous opinions of Fontenelle
and Kircher on oracles—Religious Calendar of Numa 152
CHAPTER VI
SUPERSTITIONS
Their origin and persistence—Beautiful thought of the Roman pontiff,
St. Gregory—Observation of numbers and of days—Abstinence of the
magi—Opinions of Porphyry—Greek and Roman superstitions—Mythological
data on the secret properties of animals—A passage from
Euripides—Reasons of Pythagorean abstinence—Singular excerpt from
Homer—Presages, dreams, enchantments and fascinations—Magical
whirlpools—Modern phenomena—Olympius and Plotinus 158
CHAPTER VII
MAGICAL MONUMENTS
The Seven Wonders of the world and the seven magical planets—The
Pyramids—Thebes and its seven gates—The pantacle of the sun—The
pantacle of the moon—The pantacle of the conjugal Venus—The pantacles
of Mercury, Jupiter and Mars—The Temple of Solomon—Philosophical
summary of ancient wisdom 166
BOOK III
_DIVINE SYNTHESIS AND REALISATION OF MAGIA
BY THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION_
CHAPTER I
CHRIST ACCUSED OF MAGIC BY THE JEWS
The beginning of the Gospel according to St. John and its
profound meaning—Ezekiel a Kabalist—Special character of
Christianity—Accusations of the Jews against the Saviour—The _Sepher
Toldos Jeshu_—A beautiful legend from the apocryphal gospels—The
Johannites—Burning of magical books at Ephesus—Cessation of
oracles—The great Pan is dead—Transfiguration of natural prodigy into
miracle and of divination into prophecy 171
CHAPTER II
THE WITNESS OF MAGIC TO CHRISTIANITY
Absolute existence of religion—Essential distinction between
science and faith—Puerile objections—Christianity proved by
charity—Condemnation of Magic by the Christian priesthood—Simon the
Magician—His history—His doctrine—His conference with SS. Peter and
Paul—His downfall—His sect continued by Menander 176
CHAPTER III
THE DEVIL
The question considered in the light of faith and science—Satan
and Lucifer—Wisdom of the Church—The devil according to the
initiates of occult science—Of possessions in the gospel—Opinions of
Torreblanca-Astral perversities—The Sabbatic
goat—The false Lucifer 187
CHAPTER IV
THE LAST PAGANS
The eternal miracle of God—Civilising influence of
Christianity—Apollonius of Tyana—His allegorical legend—Julian the
apostate—His evocations—Jamblichus and Maximus of Tyre—Birth of Secret
Societies for the forbidden practices of Magic 193
CHAPTER V
LEGENDS
The legend of St. Cyprian and St. Justin—Magical prayer of St.
Cyprian—The Golden Legend—Apuleius and the Golden Ass—The fable of
Psyche—Curious subtlety of St. Augustine—Philosophy of the Fathers
of the Church 200
CHAPTER VI
SOME KABALISTIC PAINTINGS AND SACRED EMBLEMS
Gnosticism and the primitive Church—Emblems of the catacombs—True
and false Gnostics—Profanation of the Gnosis—Impure and sacrilegious
Rites—Eucharistic sacrilege—The Arch-heretic Marcos—Women and the
priesthood—Montanus and his female prophets—Tertullian—The dualism of
Manes—Danger of evocations—Divagations of Kabalism—Loss
of the Kabalistic Keys 208
CHAPTER VII
PHILOSOPHERS OF THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL
Ammonius Saccas—Plotinus—Porphyry—Hypatia—Incautious admissions
of Synesius—Writings of this initiate—More especially his tract on
Dreams—The commentary of Jerome Cardan thereon—Attribution of
the works of St Dionysius to Synesius—Their orthodoxy and their
value 215
BOOK IV
_MAGIC AND CIVILISATION_
CHAPTER I
MAGIC AMONG BARBARIANS
Rome conquered by the Cross—History of Philinnium and Machates—The
Bride of Corinth—Philosophical considerations thereon—Germanic and
Druidic theology—College of the Druids at Autun—Druidic transmigration
of souls—Some Druidic practices 223
CHAPTER II
INFLUENCE of WOMEN
Female influence in early France—Velleda slandered by
Chateaubriand—_Berthe au grand pied_—The fairy Melusine—Saint
Clothilde—The sorceress Fredegonde—The story of Klodswinthe—Fredegonde
and Clovis—Further concerning her history 232
CHAPTER III
THE SALIC LAWS AGAINST SORCERERS
Laws attributed to Pharamond—Explanation of a Talmudic passage by
Rabbi Jechiel—Belief in the immortality of the soul among the Jews—An
ecclesiastical council on sorcery—The rise of Mohammed—The religious
history of Charles Martel—The Reign of Pepin the Short—The Kabalist
Zedekias—His fables concerning elementary spirits—An
epidemic of visions 238
CHAPTER IV
LEGENDS OF THE REIGN OF CHARLEMAGNE
Charlemagne a prince of faerie—Charlemagne and Roland—The enchanted
sword and magic horn—The _Enchiridion_ of Leo III—The tradition
therein—The pantacles—The Sabbath—The Free Judges—Their foundation
and purpose—Power of this Tribunal—The fate of Frederick
of Brunswick—Code of the Free Judges—Laws of Charlemagne—Knight
errantry—The cultus of the Blessed Virgin 246
CHAPTER V
MAGICIANS
The pope and empire—The penalty of excommunication—Further concerning
Rabbi Jechiel—The automaton of Albertus Magnus—Albertus and St. Thomas
Aquinas—The legend of the automaton interpreted—Scholasticism and
Aristotelian philosophy—The philosophical stone
and the quintessence 256
CHAPTER VI
SOME FAMOUS PROSECUTIONS
The great religious orders and their power—The Knights Templar—Their
origin—Their secret design—The Christian sect of Johannites—Their
profanation of the history of Christ—Pontiffs of the Johannite
sect—The Johannites and the Templars—Further concerning Templar secret
doctrine—Development of the chivalry—Their projects discovered—Their
suppression—The case of Joan of Arc—The history of Gilles de
Laval 264
CHAPTER VII
SUPERSTITIONS RELATING TO THE DEVIL
Apparitions of Satan—Possessions—A philosophy of superstitions—The
crime of Black Magic—Pathological states—The soul of the world—Modern
phenomena—Fourier and M. de Mirville—Baron de Guldenstubbé 281
BOOK V
_THE ADEPTS AND THE PRIESTHOOD_
CHAPTER I
PRIESTS AND POPES ACCUSED OF MAGIC
Inviolable sanctity of the priesthood—Accusations of false
adepts—Groundless charges against Pope Sylvester II—Scandalous
story of Polonus reproduced by Platina—The legend of Pope Joan—Its
derivation from ancient Tarot cards representing Isis crowned with a
tiara—Further concerning Sylvester II—Opinion of Gabriel Naudé—The
Grimoire attributed to Pope Honorius III—The anti-pope Honorius II as
its possible author—An excursus on the content and character of the
work 291
CHAPTER II
APPEARANCE OF THE BOHEMIAN NOMADS
Their entrance into Europe early in the fifteenth century—Their
name of Bohemians or Egyptians—An account of their encampment near
Paris, drawn from an ancient chronicle—A citation from George
Borrow—Researches of M. Vaillant—The Gipsies and the Tarot—A
conclusion on this subject—Communistic Experiment in 1840 306
CHAPTER III
LEGEND AND HISTORY OF RAYMUND LULLY
Story of the _Doctor Illuminatus_ on its mythical side—Raymond Lully
and the Lady Ambrosia—His immortality and liberation therefrom—The
historical personage—Lully as an alchemist—The Rose Nobles—His
philosophical testament—Colleges for the study of languages founded by
his efforts—The Great Art—He appears at the Council of Vienna—Lully a
disciple of the Kabalists—But the tradition in his hands had
become Christian 319
CHAPTER IV
ON CERTAIN ALCHEMISTS
Nicholas Flamel and the book of Abraham the Jew—Mysterious figures
of the work—A tradition concerning Flamel—Bernard Trevisan—Basil
Valentine—John Trithemius—Cornelius Agrippa—The pantacle of
Trithemius—William Postel—Illustrations of his teaching—The story
of Mother Jeanne—The renewal of Postel—An opinion of Father
Desbillons—Paracelsus—His doctrines of occult medicine—Mysteries of
blood—Narrative of Tavernier—The _Philosophia sagax_ of Paracelsus 331
CHAPTER V
SOME FAMOUS SORCERERS AND MAGICIANS
_The Divine Comedy_ of Dante and its Kabalistic analysis—_The
Romance of the Rose_—Luther and anarchical theology—His disputes
with the devil—His sacrilegious marriage—Sorcerers during the
reign Of Henry III—-Visions of Jacques Clément—Mystic symbolism of
the rose—Union of the rose and the cross—The Rosicrucians—Henry
Khunrath—His _Amphitheatrum Sapientiæ Æternæ_—It’s pantacles—Oswaldus
Crollius—Alchemists of the early seventeenth century—A Rosicrucian
manifesto 345
CHAPTER VI
SOME MAGICAL PROSECUTIONS
Introductory remarks—Real crime of sorcerers—Some deplorable
condemnations—The case of Louis Gaufridi—The case of Urbain
Grandier—The nuns of Louviers and some other processes—Interpretation
of certain phenomena—Story of an apparition 360
CHAPTER VII
THE MAGICAL ORIGIN OF FREEMASONRY
Its appearance in Europe—Its allegorical and real end—The Legend of
Hiram—Its meaning—Mission of the Rites of Masonry—Its profanations 382
BOOK VI
_MAGIC AND THE REVOLUTION_
CHAPTER I
REMARKABLE AUTHORS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Important discoveries in China—The _Y-Kim_ of Fo-hi—Legend of
its origin—Connection with the Zohar—An example of absolute
philosophy—Opinion of Leibnitz—Emmanuel Swedenborg—His system and its
Kabalistic derivation—The discovery of Mesmer—Its theory and its
great importance—A comparison between Voltaire and Mesmer 391
CHAPTER II
THAUMATURGIC PERSONALITIES OF THE EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY
The Comte de Saint-Germain—Unpublished particulars of his life—The
report of Madame de Genlis—The Order of Saint Jakin—A pretended
initiation—Further concerning the Rosicrucians—An appreciation of
Saint-Germain—His alleged identity with the mysterious Althotas—The
alchemist Lascaris—Count Cagliostro—An agent of the Templars—A
successor of Mesmer—Explanation of his seal and Kabalistic name—His
secret of physical regeneration—His trial by the Inquisition—He
is said to be still alive 400
CHAPTER III
PROPHECIES OF CAZOTTE
The school of Martinists—The supper of Cazotte—The romance of _Le
Diable Amoureux_—Its interpretation according to the Kabalah—Lilith
and Nehamah—Initiation of Cazotte—The Mystic Mountain—Cazotte and
the Revolutionary Tribunal 416
CHAPTER IV
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
The reveries of Rousseau and their fatal consequences—The tomb of
Jacques de Molay—The Lodge in Rue Platrière—The doom of Louis XVI—A
genius of massacre—Mademoiselle de Sombreuil—Madame Elizabeth—The
Church of the Jacobins—Vengeance of the Templars—Further concerning
the Apocalypse of St. Methodius—The prophecies of Abbé
Joachim 422
CHAPTER V
PHENOMENA OF MEDIOMANIA
An obscure sect of Johannite mystics—Visions of Loiseaut—Dom Gerle and
Catherine Théot—A visit from Robespierre—The prophecy of Catherine—Her
fate and that of Dom Gerle—The Saviours of Louis XVII—Martin
de Gallardon—Eugène Vintras—Naündorff 427
CHAPTER VI
THE GERMAN ILLUMINATI
The adept Steinert—An account of Eckartshausen—Schroepfer and
Lavater—The spirit Gablidone—His prophecies—Stabs and Napoleon—Carl
Sand and Kotzebue—The Mopses and their mysteries—The magical
drama of Faust 435
CHAPTER VII
EMPIRE AND RESTORATION
Predictions relative to Napoleon—Mademoiselle Lenormand—Etteilla
and cartomancy—Madame Bouche and the Czar Alexander—Madame de
Krudener—Further concerning the Saviours of Louis XVII—Visions
of Martin de Gallardon 443
BOOK VII
_MAGIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY_
CHAPTER I
MAGNETIC MYSTICS AND MATERIALISTS
Infectious follies of Fourier—The dogma of hell—An evocation in the
Church of Notre Dame—Lesser prophets and divinities—Ganneau,
Auguste Comte and Wronski—Sale of the Absolute 453
CHAPTER II
HALLUCINATIONS
Yet again concerning the Saviours of Louis XVII—Singular hallucination
of Eugène Vintras—His prophecies and pretended miracles—The sect of
Vintras—Its condemnation by Gregory XVI—Pontificate of Vintras—His
dreams and visions 461
CHAPTER III
MESMERISTS AND SOMNAMBULISTS
The Church and the abuse of somnambulism—Baron Du Potet—His secret
work on Magic—Table-turning—A table burnt for heresy—Experiences
of Victor Hennequin—A magical melodrama 471
CHAPTER IV
THE FANTASTIC SIDE OF MAGICAL LITERATURE
Alphonse Esquiros invents a romanesque Magic—Henri Delaage
continues the work—His gifts of enchantment—His orthodoxy—Le Comte
D’Ourches—Baron de Guldenstubbé—His miraculous writings—Their
explanation—Exhumation of a fakir—History of a vampire—The
cartomancist Edmond 477
CHAPTER V
SOME PRIVATE RECOLLECTIONS OF THE WRITER
The author is presented by the magician Alphonse Esquiros to the
divinity Ganneau—Eccentric doctrines of the _Mapah_—Another Louis
XVII—A fatal result of this visit—Secret cause of the Revolution of
1848—The wife of Ganneau 495
CHAPTER VI
THE OCCULT SCIENCES
A synthesis in summary—Recapitulation of principles—The search after
the absolute 500
CHAPTER VII
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
The enigma of the sphinx and its solution—Paradoxical questions and
their answers—Knowledge and faith—The communion of faith—The temporal
power of the pope—The science of moral equilibrium—Consequences of its
recognition—A citation from the Blessed Vincent de Lerins—Another from
Comte Joseph de Maistre—An axiom of St. Thomas Aquinas—The liberation
of Magic—Purpose of this work 503
APPENDIX 526
INDEX 529
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE
I. Portrait of Éliphas Lévi in the Robe of a Magus _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
II. Portrait of Éliphas Lévi taken after death xxii
III. The Pentagram of the Absolute 2
IV. The Great Symbol of Solomon, reconstructed according to
the Zohar 20
V. The Magical Head of the Zohar 40
VI. The Great Kabalistic Symbol of the Zohar 50
VII. The Mystery of Universal Equilibrium, according to Indian
and Japanese Mythology, together with the Pantomorphic
lynx, or Twenty-First Primitive Egyptian Tarot Key 64
VIII. The Bembine Tablet 78
IX. Pantacle of Kabalistic Letters, being the Key of the Tarot,
Sepher Yetzirah and the Zohar 102
X. The Seal of Cagliostro, Seal of the Samian Juno, Apocalyptic
Seal, Twelve Seals of the Cubic Stone in Masonry, with
the Twenty-First Tarot Key in the centre of all 120
XI. Egyptian Symbols of Typhon, illustrating Göetia and
Necromancy. Typhon is depicted performing the renewal
of the empire of darkness. From the Temple of Hermoutis.
The smaller figures are from the Zodiac of Esne and the
top is a _bas relief_ in the same temple 128
XII. The Seven Wonders of the World 166
XIII. A Public Disputation between St. Peter and St. Paul on the
one side and Simon the Magician on the other. Ascent
and fall of Simon. From an engraving of the fifteenth
century 184
XIV. Hermetic Magic. Reproduced from an ancient Manuscript 224
XV. The Philosophical Cross, or plan of the Third Temple, as
prophesied by Ezekiel and planned in the building
scheme of the Knights Templar 264
XVI. Two occult Seals are shewn in the left compartment; the
first represents the Great Work; the second is that of
Black Magic. Both are from the _Grimoire of Honorius_.
The right hand compartment contains primitive Egyptian
Tarots—the 2 of Cups at the top and beneath this,
specimens of the Ace of Cups 298
XVII. The Seven Planets and their Genii, according to the Magic
of Paracelsus 340
XVIII. The Great Hermetic Arcanum, according to Basil Valentine 394
XIX. A general plan of Kabalistic Doctrine 454
XX. Apocalyptic Key: the Seven Seals of St. John 502
THE HISTORY OF MAGIC
INTRODUCTION
Magic has been confounded too long with the jugglery of mountebanks,
the hallucinations of disordered minds and the crimes of certain
unusual malefactors. There are otherwise many who would promptly
explain Magic as the art of producing effects in the absence of causes;
and on the strength of such a definition it will be said by ordinary
people—with the good sense which characterises the ordinary, in the
midst of much injustice—that Magic is an absurdity. But it can have
no analogy in fact with the descriptions of those who know nothing of
the subject; furthermore, it is not to be represented as this or that
by any person whomsoever: it is that which it is, drawing from itself
only, even as mathematics do, for it is the exact and absolute science
of Nature and her laws.
Magic is the science of the ancient magi; and the Christian religion,
which silenced the counterfeit oracles and put a stop to the illusions
of false gods, does, this notwithstanding, revere those mystic kings
who came from the East, led by a star, to adore the Saviour of the
world in His cradle. They are elevated by tradition to the rank of
kings, because magical initiation constitutes a true royalty; because
also the great art of the magi is characterised by all adepts as
the Royal Art, as the Holy Kingdom—_Sanctum Regnum_. The star which
conducted the pilgrims is the same Burning Star which is met with in
all initiations. For alchemists it is the sign of the quintessence,
for magicians it is the Great Arcanum, for Kabalists the sacred
pentagram. Our design is to prove that the study of this pentagram
did itself lead the magi to a knowledge of that New Name which was to
be exalted above all names and to bend the knees of all beings who
were capable of adoration. Magic, therefore, combines in a single
science that which is most certain in philosophy, which is eternal
and infallible in religion. It reconciles perfectly and incontestably
those two terms, so opposed on the first view—faith and reason, science
and belief, authority and liberty. It furnishes the human mind with
an instrument of philosophical and religious certitude as exact as
mathematics, and even accounting for the infallibility of mathematics
themselves.
An Absolute exists therefore in the realms of understanding and faith.
The lights of human intelligence have not been left by the Supreme
Reason to waver at hazard. There is an incontestable truth; there is an
infallible method of knowing that truth; while those who attain this
knowledge, and adopt it as a rule of life, can endow their will with a
sovereign power which can make them masters of all inferior things, all
wandering spirits, or, in other words, arbiters and kings of the world.
If such be the case, how comes it that so exalted a science is still
unrecognised? How is it possible to assume that so bright a sun is
hidden in a sky so dark? The transcendental science has been known
always, but only to the flowers of intelligence, who have understood
the necessity of silence and patience. Should a skilful surgeon open at
midnight the eyes of a man born blind, it would still be impossible to
make him realise the nature or existence of daylight till morning came.
Science has its nights and its mornings, because the life which it
communicates to the world of mind is characterised by regular modes of
motion and progressive phases. It is the same with truths as it is
with radiations of light. Nothing which is hidden is lost, but at the
same time nothing that is found is absolutely new. The seal of eternity
is affixed by God to that science which is the reflection of His glory.
[Illustration: THE PENTAGRAM OF THE ABSOLUTE]
The transcendental science, the absolute science is assuredly Magic,
though the affirmation may seem utterly paradoxical to those who
have never questioned the infallibility of Voltaire—that marvellous
smatterer who thought that he knew so much because he never missed an
opportunity for laughter instead of learning. Magic was the science of
Abraham and Orpheus, of Confucius and Zoroaster, and it was magical
doctrines which were graven on tables of stone by Enoch and by
Trismegistus. Moses purified and re-veiled them—this being the sense of
the word reveal. The new disguise which he gave them was that of the
Holy Kabalah—that exclusive heritage of Israel and inviolable secret of
its priests.[1] The mysteries of Eleusis and of Thebes preserved among
the Gentiles some of its symbols, but in a debased form, and the mystic
key was lost amidst the apparatus of an ever-increasing superstition.
Jerusalem, murderer of its prophets and prostituted over and over again
to false Assyrian and Babylonian gods, ended by losing in its turn the
Sacred Word, when a Saviour, declared to the magi by the holy star
of initiation, came to rend the threadbare veil of the old temple,
to endow the Church with a new network of legends and symbols—ever
concealing from the profane and always preserving for the elect that
truth which is the same for ever.
It is this that the erudite and ill-starred Dupuis should have found on
Indian planispheres and in tables of Denderah; he would not have ended
by rejecting the truly catholic or universal and eternal religion in
the presence of the unanimous affirmation of all Nature, as well as
all monuments of science throughout the ages.[2] It was the memory of
this scientific and religious absolute, of this doctrine summarised
in a word, of this word alternately lost and recovered, which was
transmitted to the elect of all antique initiations. Whether preserved
or profaned in the celebrated Order of the Temple, it was this same
memory handed on to secret associations of Rosicrucians, Illuminati
and Freemasons which gave a meaning to their strange rites, to their
less or more conventional signs, and a justification above all to their
devotion in common, as well as a clue to their power.
That profanation has befallen the doctrines and mysteries of Magic we
have no intention to deny; repeated from age to age, the misuse itself
has been a great and terrible lesson for those who made secret things
unwisely known. The Gnostics caused the Gnosis to be prohibited by
Christians, and the official sanctuary was closed to high initiation.
The hierarchy of knowledge was thus compromised by the intervention
of usurping ignorance, while the disorders within the sanctuary were
reproduced in the state, for, willingly or otherwise, the king always
depends from the priest, and it is towards the eternal _adytum_ of
divine instruction that earthly powers will ever look for consecration
and for energy to insure their permanence.
The key of science has been thrown to children; as might have been
expected, it is now, therefore, mislaid and practically lost.
This notwithstanding, a man of high intuitions and great moral
courage, Count Joseph de Maistre, who was also a resolute catholic,
acknowledging that the world was void of religion and could not so
remain, turned his eyes instinctively towards the last sanctuaries
of occultism and called, with heartfelt prayers, for that day when
the natural affinity which subsists between science and faith should
combine them in the mind of a single man of genius. “This will be
grand,” said he; “it will finish that eighteenth century which is still
with us.... We shall talk then of our present stupidity as we now
dilate on the barbarism of the Middle Ages.”
The prediction of Count Joseph de Maistre is in course of realisation;
the alliance of science and faith, accomplished long since, is here in
fine made manifest, though not by a man of genius. Genius is not needed
to see the sun, and, moreover, it has never demonstrated anything
but its rare greatness and its lights inaccessible to the crowd. The
grand truth demands only to be found, when the simplest will be able
to comprehend it and to prove it also at need. At the same time that
truth will never become vulgar, because it is hierarchic and because
anarchy alone humours the bias of the crowd. The masses are not in
need of absolute truths; were it otherwise, progress would be arrested
and life would cease in humanity; the ebb and flow of contrary ideas,
the clash of opinions, the passions of the time, ever impelled by
its dreams, are necessary to the intellectual growth of peoples. The
masses know it full well, and hence they desert so readily the chair of
doctors to collect about the rostrum of mountebanks. Some even who are
assumed to be concerned in philosophy, and that perhaps especially, too
often resemble the children playing at charades, who hasten to turn out
those who know the answer already, lest the game should be spoiled by
depriving the puzzle of the questions of all its interest.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” has been said
by Eternal Wisdom. Purity of heart therefore purifies intelligence,
and rectitude of will makes for precision in understanding. Whosoever
prefers truth and justice before all things shall have justice and
truth for his reward, because supreme Providence has endowed us with
freedom in order that we may attain life; and very truth, all its
exactitude notwithstanding, intervenes only with mildness, never does
outrage to tardiness or violence to the errors of our will when it is
beguiled by the allurements of falsehood.
It remains, however, according to Bossuet, that antecedent to anything
which may please or repel our senses, there is a truth, and it is by
this that our conduct should be governed, not by our appetites. The
Kingdom of Heaven is not the empire of caprice, either in respect of
man or God. “A thing is not just because it is willed by God,” said St.
Thomas, “but God wills it because it is just.” The Divine Balance rules
and necessitates eternal mathematics. “God has made all things with
number, weight and measure”—here it is the Bible speaking.[3] Measure
an angle of creation, make a proportionally progressive multiplication,
and all infinity shall multiply its circles, peopled by universes,
passing in proportional segments between the extending symbolical arms
of your compass. Suppose now that, from whatever point of the infinite
above you, a hand holds another compass or square, then the lines of
the celestial triangle will meet of necessity those of the compass of
science and will form therewith the mysterious star of Solomon.[4]
“With what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again,” says
the Gospel. God does not strive with man that He may crush man by His
grandeur, and He never places unequal weights in His balance. When
He would test the strength of Jacob, He assumes the form of man; the
patriarch withstands the onset through an entire night; at the end
there is a blessing for the conquered and, in addition to the glory of
having sustained such a struggle, he is given the national title of
Israel, being a name which signifies—Strong against God.[5]
We have heard Christians more zealous than instructed hazarding a
strange explanation of the dogma concerning eternal punishment by
suggesting that God may avenge infinitely an offence which itself
is finite, because if the offender is limited the grandeur of the
offended being is not. An emperor of the world might, on the strength
of a similar pretext, sentence to death some unreasoning child who
had soiled accidentally the hem of his purple. Far otherwise are the
prerogatives of greatness, and St. Augustine understood them better
when he said that “God is patient because He is eternal.” In God all
is justice, seeing that all is goodness; He never forgives after the
manner of men, for He is never angered like them; but evil being, by
its nature, incompatible with good, as night is with day, as discord
is with harmony, and the liberty of man being furthermore inviolable,
all error is expiated and all evil punished by suffering proportioned
thereto. It is vain to invoke the help of Jupiter when our cart is
stuck in the mud; unless we take pick and shovel, like the waggoner in
the fable, Heaven will not draw us out of the rut. Help yourself and
God will help you. In such a reasonable and wholly philosophical way
is explained the possible and necessary eternity of punishment, with
still a narrow way open for man to escape therefrom—being that of toil
and repentance.[6]
It is by conformity with the rules of eternal power that man may unite
himself to the creative energy and become creator and preserver in his
turn. God has not limited narrowly the number of rounds on Jacob’s
ladder of light. Whatsoever Nature has constituted inferior to man
is thereby to him made subject: it is for man to extend his domain
in virtue of continual ascent. Length and even perpetuity of life,
the field of air and its storms, the earth and its metallic veins,
light and its wondrous illusions, darkness and the dreams thereof,
death and its ghosts—all these do therefore obey the royal sceptre
of the magi, the shepherd’s staff of Jacob and the terrible wand of
Moses. The adept becomes king of the elements, transmuter of metals,
interpreter of visions, controller of oracles, master of life in fine,
according to the mathematical order of Nature and conformably to the
will of the Supreme Intelligence. This is Magic in all its glory. But
is there anyone who in these days will dare to give credence to such
words? The answer is—those who will study loyally and attain knowledge
frankly. We make no attempt to conceal truth under the veil of parables
or hieroglyphical signs; the time has come when everything should
be told, and we propose to tell everything. It is our intention, in
short, to unveil that ever secret science which, as we have indicated,
is hidden behind the shadows of ancient mysteries, which the Gnostics
betrayed clumsily, or rather disfigured unworthily, which is recognised
dimly under the darkness shrouding the pretended crimes of Templars,
which is met with once again beneath the now impenetrable enigmas of
High-Grade Masonic Rites. We purpose further to bring into open day the
fantastic King of the Sabbath, to expose the very roots of Black Magic
and its frightful realities, long since surrendered to the derision of
the grand-children of Voltaire.
For a great number of readers Magic is the science of the devil—even as
the science of light is identified with that of darkness. We confess
boldly at the outset that we are not in terror of the devil. “My fear
is for those who fear him,” said St. Teresa. But we testify also that
he does not prompt our laughter and that the ridicule of which he is
often the object seems to us exceedingly misplaced. However this may
be, it is our intention to bring him before the light of science.
But the devil and science—the apposition of two names so strangely
incongruous—must seem to have disclosed the whole intent in view. If
the mystic personification of darkness be thus dragged into light,
is it not to annihilate the phantom of falsehood in the presence of
truth? Is it not to dispel in the day all formless monsters of the
night? Superficial persons will think so and will condemn without
hearing. Ill-instructed Christians will conclude that we are sapping
the fundamental dogma of their ethics by decrying hell; and others will
question the utility of combating error in which, as they imagine,
no one believes longer. It is, therefore, important to enunciate our
object clearly and establish our principles solidly.
We say, therefore, to Christians that the author of this book is a
Christian like yourselves. His faith is that of a catholic strongly
and deeply convinced; for this reason he does not come forward to deny
dogmas, but to combat impiety under its most pernicious forms, which
are those of false belief and superstition. He comes to drag from the
darkness the black successor of Ahriman, in order to expose in broad
day his colossal impotence and redoubtable misery. He comes to make
subject the age-long problem of evil to the solutions of science, to
uncrown the king of hell and to bow down his head at the foot of the
cross. Is not virginal and maternal science—that science of which Mary
is the sweet and luminous image—destined like her to crush the head of
the old serpent?
The author, on the other hand, would say to pretended philosophy: Why
seek to deny that which you cannot understand? Is not the unbelief
which affirms in the face of the unknown more precipitate and less
consoling than faith? Does the dreadful form of personified evil only
prompt you to smile? Hear you not the ceaseless sobbing of humanity
which writhes and weeps in the crushing folds of the monster? Have you
never heard the atrocious laugh of the evil-doer who is persecuting
the just man? Have you never experienced in yourselves the opening of
those infernal deeps which the genius of perversity furrows in every
soul? Moral evil exists—such is the unhappy truth; it reigns in certain
spirits; it incarnates in certain men; it is therefore personified, and
thus demons exist; but the most wicked of these demons is Satan. More
than this I do not ask you to admit, and it will be difficult for you
to grant me less.
Let it be otherwise and clearly understood that science and faith
render mutual support to one another only in so far as their respective
realms remain inviolably distinct. What is it that we believe? That
which we do not know absolutely, though we may yearn for it with all
our strength. The object of faith is not more than an indispensable
hypothesis for science; the things which are in the domain of knowledge
must never be judged by the processes of faith, nor, conversely, the
things of faith according to the measures of science. The end of faith
is not scientifically debatable. “I believe because it is absurd,”
said Tertullian; and this utterance—paradoxical on the surface as it
is—belongs to the highest reason. As a fact, beyond all that we can
suppose rationally there is an infinite towards which we aspire with
unquenchable thirst, and it eludes even our dreams. But is not the
infinite itself an absurdity for our finite appreciation? We feel all
the same that it is; the infinite invades us, overflows us, renders us
dizzy at its abysses and crushes us by its awful height.
Scientifically probable hypotheses are one and all the last half-lights
or shadows of science; faith begins where reason falls exhausted.
Beyond human reason there is that Reason which is Divine—for my
weakness a supreme absurdity, but an infinite absurdity which confounds
me, and in which I believe.
The good alone is infinite; evil is not; and hence if God be the
eternal object of faith, then the devil belongs to science. In which
of the catholic creeds is there any question concerning him? Would it
not be blasphemy to say that we believe in him? In Holy Scripture he is
named but not defined. Genesis makes no allusion to a reputed revolt
of angels; it ascribes the fall of Adam to the serpent, as to the most
subtle and dangerous of living beings. We are acquainted with Christian
tradition on this subject; but if that tradition is explicable by one
of the greatest and most diffused allegories of science, what can such
solution signify to the faith which aspires only to God, which despises
the pomps and works of Lucifer?
Lucifer—Light-Bearer—how strange a name, attributed to the spirit of
darkness! Is it he who carries the light and yet blinds feeble souls?
The answer is yes, unquestionably; for traditions are full of divine
disclosures and inspirations. “Satan himself is transformed into an
angel of light,” says St. Paul. And Christ Himself said: “I beheld
Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” So also the prophet Isaiah:
“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning.”
Lucifer is then a fallen star—a meteor which is on fire always, which
burns when it enlightens no longer. But is this Lucifer a person or a
force, an angel or a strayed thunderbolt? Tradition supposes that it
is an angel, but the Psalmist says: “Who maketh his angels spirits;
his ministers a flaming fire.” The word angel is applied in the Bible
to all messengers of God—emissaries or new creations, revealers or
scourges, radiant spirits or brilliant objects. The shafts of fire
which the Most High darts through the clouds are angels of His wrath,
and such figurative language is familiar to all readers of eastern
poetry.
Having been the world’s terror through the period of the middle ages,
the devil has become its mockery.[7] Heir to the monstrous forms of all
false gods cast down successively from their thrones, the grotesque
scarecrow has turned into a mere bugbear through very deformity and
hideousness. Yet observe as to this that those only dare to laugh
at the devil who know not the fear of God. Can it be that for many
diseased imaginations he is God’s own shadow, or is he not often the
idol of degenerate souls who only understand supernatural power as the
exercise of cruelty with impunity?
But it is important to ascertain whether the notion of this evil
power can be reconciled with that of God—in a word, whether the devil
exists, and in such case what he is. There is no longer any question of
superstition or of ridiculous invention; it is a question of religion
alone and hence of the whole future, with all the interests, of
humanity.
Strange reasoners indeed are we: we call ourselves strong-minded when
we are indifferent to everything except material advantages, as, for
example, money; and we leave to their own devices the ideas which are
mothers of opinions and may, or at least can, by their sudden veering,
upset all fortunes. A conquest of science is much more important than
the discovery of a gold mine. Given science, gold is utilised in the
service of life; given ignorance, wealth furnishes only destroying
weapons.
For the rest, it is to be understood absolutely that our scientific
revelations pause in the presence of faith, that—as Christian and
Catholic—our work is submitted entirely to the supreme judgment of the
Church. This said, to those who question the existence of a devil,
we would point out that whatsoever has a name exists; speech may be
uttered in vain, but in itself it cannot be vain, and it has a meaning
invariably. The Word is never void, and if it be written that it is in
God, as also that it is God, this is because it is the expression and
the proof of being and of truth. The devil is named and personified in
the Gospel, which is the Word of truth; he exists therefore and can be
considered as a person. But here it is the Christian who defers: let
science or reason speak; these two are one.[8]
Evil exists; it is impossible to doubt it; we can work good or evil.
There are beings who work evil knowingly and willingly. The spirit
which animates these beings and prompts them to do ill is bewrayed,
turned aside from the right road, and thrown across the path of good as
an obstacle; this is the precise meaning of the Greek word _diabolos_,
which we render as devil. The spirits who love and perform evil are
accidentally bad. There is therefore a devil who is the spirit of
error, wilful ignorance, vertigo; there are beings under his obedience
who are his envoys, emissaries, angels; and it is for this reason
that the Gospel speaks of an eternal fire which is prepared, and in
a sense predestined, for the devil and his angels. These words are
themselves a revelation, so let us search their meaning, giving, in
the first place, a concise definition of evil. Evil is the absence of
rectitude in being. Moral evil is falsehood in action, as the lie is
a crime in speech. Injustice is of the essence of lying, and every
lie is an injustice. When that which we utter is just, there is no
falsity. When that which we do is equitable and true in mode, there is
no sin. Injustice is the death of moral being, as lying is the poison
of intelligence. The false spirit is therefore a spirit of death.
Those who hearken to him become his dupes and are by him poisoned. But
if we had to take his absolute personification seriously, he would
be himself absolutely dead and absolutely deceived, which means that
the affirmation of his existence must imply a patent contradiction.
Jesus said that the devil is a liar like his father. Who then is the
father of the devil? Whosoever gives him a personal existence by living
in accordance with his inspirations; the man who diabolises himself
is the father of the incarnate spirit of evil. But there is a rash,
impious and monstrous conception, traditional like the pride of the
Pharisees, and in fine there is a hybrid creation which armed the
paltry philosophy of the eighteenth century with an apparent defence.
It is the false Lucifer of the heterodox legend—that angel proud enough
to think that he was God, brave enough to buy independence at the
price of eternal torment, beautiful enough to worship himself in the
plenary Divine Light; strong enough to reign still in darkness and in
dole and to make a throne of his inextinguishable fire. It is the Satan
of the heretical and republican Milton, the pretended hero of black
eternities, calumniated by deformity, bedecked with horns and talons
which would better become his implacable tormentor. It is the devil who
is king of evil, as if evil were a kingdom, who is more intelligent
than the men of genius that fear his wiles. It is (_a_) that black
light, that darkness with eyes, that power which God has not willed but
which no fallen creature could create; (_b_) that prince of anarchy
served by a hierarchy of pure spirits;[9] (_c_) that exile of God who
on earth seems, like Him, everywhere, but is more tangible, is more
for the majority in evidence, and is served better than God himself;
(_d_) that conquered one, to whom the victor gives his children that
he may devour them; (_e_) that artificer of sins of the flesh, to whom
flesh is nothing, and who therefore can be nothing to flesh, unless
indeed he be its creator and master, like God; (_f_) that immense,
realised, personified and eternal lie; (_g_) that death which cannot
die; (_h_) that blasphemy which the Word of God will never silence;
(_i_) that poisoner of souls whom God tolerates by a contradiction of
His omnipotence or preserves as the Roman emperors guarded Locusta
among the trophies of their reign; (_k_) that executed criminal, living
still to curse his Judge and still have a cause against him, since he
will never repent; (_l_) that monster accepted as executioner by the
Sovereign Power, and who, according to the forcible expression of an
old catholic writer, may term God the God of the devil by describing
himself as a devil of God.
Such is the irreligious phantom which blasphemes religion. Away with
this idol which hides our Saviour. Down with the tyrant of falsehood,
the black god of Manicheans, the Ahriman of old idolaters. Live God and
His Word incarnate, who saw Satan fall from heaven. And live Mary, the
Divine Mother, who crushed the head of the infernal serpent.
So cry with one voice the traditions of saints, and so cry faithful
hearts. The attribution of any greatness whatsoever to a fallen spirit
is a slander on Divinity; the ascription of any royalty whatsoever
to the rebel spirit is to encourage revolt and be guilty, at least
in thought, of that crime which the horror of the middle ages termed
sorcery. For all the offences visited with death on the old sorcerers
were real crimes and were indeed the greatest of all. They stole fire
from heaven, like Prometheus; they rode winged dragons and the flying
serpent, like Medea; they poisoned the breathable air, like the shadow
of the manchineel tree; they profaned sacred things and even used the
body of the Lord in works of destruction and malevolence.
How is all this possible? Because there is a composite agent, a natural
and divine agent, at once corporeal and spiritual, an universal
plastic mediator, a common receptacle for vibrations of movement and
images of form, a fluid and a force which may be called, in a sense
at least, the imagination of Nature. By the mediation of this force
every nervous apparatus is in secret communication together; hence come
sympathy and antipathy, hence dreams, hence the phenomena of second
sight and extra-natural vision. This universal agent of Nature’s works
is the _Od_ of the Jews and of Reichenbach, the Astral Light of the
Martinists,[10] which denomination we prefer as the more explicit.
The existence and possible employment of this force constitute the
great secret of Practical Magic; it is the Wand of Thaumaturgy and the
Key of Black Magic. It is the Edenic serpent who transmitted to Eve
the seductions of a fallen angel. The Astral Light warms, illuminates,
magnetises, attracts, repels, vivifies, destroys, coagulates,
separates, breaks and conjoins everything, under the impetus of
powerful wills. God created it on the first day, when He said: “Let
there be light.” This force of itself is blind but is directed by
_Egregores_, that is, by chiefs of souls, or, in other words, by
energetic and active spirits.[11]
Herein is the complete explanatory theory of prodigies and miracles.
How, as a fact, could good and bad alike compel Nature to reveal her
hidden forces, how could there be divine and diabolical miracles, how
could the reprobate and bewrayed spirit have more power in certain
ways and cases than the just spirit, which is in truth so powerful in
simplicity and wisdom, unless we postulate an instrument which all can
use, upon certain conditions, but some for the great good and others
for the great evil?
Pharaoh’s magicians accomplished at first the same miracles as Moses.
The instrument which they used was therefore the same; the inspiration
alone differed; when they confessed themselves conquered, they
proclaimed that, for them, human powers had reached their limit, and
that there must be something superhuman in Moses.[12] This took place
in Egypt, that mother of magical initiations, that land where it was
all occult science, hierarchic and sacred instruction. Was it, however,
more difficult to make flies appear than frogs? No, assuredly; but
the magicians knew that the fluidic projection by which the eyes are
biologised cannot proceed beyond certain bounds, and these had been
passed already by Moses.[13]
A particular phenomenon occurs when the brain is congested or
overcharged by Astral Light; sight is turned inward, instead of
outward; night falls on the external and real world, while fantastic
brilliance shines on the world of dreams; even the physical eyes
experience a slight quivering and turn up inside the lids. The soul
then perceives by means of images the reflection of its impressions and
thoughts. This is to say that the analogy subsisting between idea and
form attracts in the Astral Light a reflection representing that form,
configuration being the essence of the vital light; it is the universal
imagination, of which each of us appropriates a lesser or greater part
according to our grade of sensibility and memory. Therein is the source
of all apparitions, all extraordinary visions and all the intuitive
phenomena peculiar to madness or ecstasy.
The appropriation or assimilation of the light by clairvoyant
sensibility is one of the greatest phenomena which can be studied by
science. It may be understood in a day to come that seeing is actually
speaking and that the consciousness of light is a twilight of eternal
life in being. The word of God Himself, Who creates light, and is
uttered by all intelligence that conceives of forms and seeks to
visualise them. “Let there be light.” Light in the mode of brightness
exists only for eyes which look thereon, and the soul enamoured with
the pageant of universal beauty, and fixing its attention on that
luminous script of the endless book which is called things manifest,
seems to cry on its own part, as God at the dawn of the first day, the
sublime and creative words: _Fiat lux_.
We do not all see with the same eyes, and creation is not for all
the same in colour and form. Our brain is a book printed within and
without, and with the smallest degree of excitement, the writing
becomes blurred, as occurs continually in cases of intoxication
and madness. Dream then triumphs over real life and plunges reason
in a sleep which knows no waking. This condition of hallucination
has its degrees; all passions are intoxications; all enthusiasms
are comparative and graduated manias. The lover sees only infinite
perfections encompassing that object by which he is fascinated. But,
unhappy infatuation of voluptuaries, to-morrow this odour of wine which
allures him will become a repugnant reminiscence, causing a thousand
loathings and a thousand disgusts.
To understand the use of this force, but never to be obsessed and never
overcome thereby, is to trample on the serpent’s head, and it is this
which we learn from the Magic of Light; in such secrets are contained
all mysteries of magnetism, which name can indeed be applied to the
whole practical part of antique Transcendental Magic. Magnetism is
the wand of miracles, but it is this for initiates only; for rash and
uninstructed people, who would sport with it or make it subserve their
passions, it is as dangerous as that consuming glory which, according
to the allegorical fable, destroyed the too ambitious Semele in the
embraces of Jupiter.
One of the great benefits of magnetism is that it demonstrates by
incontestable facts the spirituality, unity and immortality of the
soul; and these things once made certain, God is manifested to all
intelligences and all hearts. Thereafter, from the belief in God and
from the harmonies of creation, we are led to that great religious
harmony which does not exist outside the miraculous and lawful
hierarchy of the Catholic Church, for this alone has preserved all
traditions of science and faith.
[Illustration: THE GREAT SYMBOL OF SOLOMON]
The primal tradition of the one and only revelation has been preserved
under the name of Kabalah by the priesthood of Israel. Kabalistic
doctrine, which is that of Transcendental Magic, is contained in the
_Sepher Yetzirah_, the _Zohar_ and the _Talmud_.[14] According to
this doctrine, the absolute is Being, and therein is the Word, which
expresses the reason of Being and of life. The principle therefore is
that Being is being, אהיה אשד אהיה. In the beginning the Word was,
which means that it is, has been and shall be; and this is reason
which speaks. In the beginning was the Word. The Word is the reason of
belief, and therein also is the expression of that faith which gives
life to science. The Word, or Logos, is the wellspring of logic. Jesus
is the Incarnate Word. The concord of reason with faith, of science
with belief, of authority with liberty, has become in these modern days
the real enigma of the sphinx. Coincidentally with this great problem
there has come forward that which concerns the respective rights of
man and woman. This was inevitable, for between the several terms of
a great and supreme question, there is a constant analogy, and the
difficulties, like the correspondences, are invariably the same.
The loosening of this Gordian knot of philosophy and modern politics
is rendered apparently paradoxical, because in order to effect an
agreement between the terms of the required equation, there is always
a tendency to confuse the one with the other. If there is anything
that deserves to be called supreme absurdity, it is to inquire how
faith becomes a reason, reason a belief and liberty an authority; or
reciprocally, how the woman becomes a man and the man a woman. The
definitions themselves intervene against such confusion, and it is by
maintaining a perfect distinction between the terms, and so only, that
we can bring them into agreement. The perfect and eternal distinction
between the two primal terms of the creative syllogism, for the
demonstration of their harmony in virtue of the analogy of opposites,
is the second great principle of that occult philosophy veiled under
the name of Kabalah and indicated by all sacred hieroglyphics of the
old sanctuaries, as by the rites, even now understood so little, of
ancient and modern Masonry.
We read in Scripture that Solomon erected two brazen columns before
the door of his Temple, one of them being called _Jachin_ and the
other _Boaz_, meaning the strong and the weak.[15] These two pillars
represented man and woman, reason and faith, power and liberty, Cain
and Abel, right and duty. They were pillars of the intellectual and
moral world, the monumental hieroglyphic of the antinomy inevitable to
the grand law of creation. The meaning is that every force postulates
a resistance on which it can work, every light a shadow as its foil,
every convex a concave, every influx a receptacle, every reign a
kingdom, every sovereign a people, every workman a first matter, every
conqueror something to overcome. Affirmation rests on negation, the
strong can only triumph because of weakness, the aristocracy cannot
be manifested except by rising above the people. For the weak to
become strong, for the people to acquire an aristocratic position,
is a question of transformation and of progress, but it is without
prejudice to the first principles; the weak will be ever the weak and
it matters nothing if they are not always the same persons. The people
in like manner will ever remain the people, the mass which is ruled
and is not capable of ruling. In the vast army of inferiors, every
personal emancipation is an automatic desertion, which, happily, is
imperceptible because it is replaced, also automatically; a king-nation
or a people of kings would presuppose the slavery of the world and
anarchy in a single city, outside all discipline, as at Rome in the
days of its greatest glory. A nation of sovereigns would be inevitably
as anarchic as a class of experts or of scholars who deemed that they
were masters; there would be none to listen; all would dogmatise and
all give orders at once.
The radical emancipation of womanhood falls within the same category.
If, integrally and radically, the woman leaves the passive and enters
the active condition, she abdicates her sex and becomes man, or
rather, as such a transformation is impossible physically, she attains
affirmation by a double negation, placing herself outside both sexes,
like a sterile and monstrous androgyne. These are strict consequences
of the great Kabalistic dogma respecting that distinction of contraries
which reaches harmony by the analogy of their proportions. This
dogma once recognised, and the application of its results being made
universally by the law of analogies, will mean a discovery of the
greatest secrets concerning maternal sympathy and antipathy; it will
mean also a discovery of the science of government in things political,
in marriage, in all branches of occult medicine, whether magnetism,
homœopathy, or moral influence. Moreover, and as it is intended to
explain, the law of equilibrium in analogy leads to the discovery of an
universal agent which was the Grand Secret of alchemists and magicians
in the middle ages. It has been said that this agent is a light of life
by which animated beings are rendered magnetic, electricity being only
its accident and transient perturbation, so to speak. The practice
of that marvellous Kabalah to which we shall turn shortly, for the
satisfaction of those who look, in the secret sciences, after emotions
rather than wise teachings, reposes entirely in the knowledge and use
of this agent.
The religion of the Kabalists is at once hypothesis and certitude,
for it proceeds from known to unknown by the help of analogy. They
recognise religion as a need of humanity, as an evident and necessary
fact, and it is this alone which for them is divine, permanent and
universal revelation. They dispute about nothing which is, but
they provide the reason for everything. So also their doctrine, by
distinguishing clearly the line of demarcation which must exist for
ever between science and faith, provides a basis for faith in the
highest reason, guaranteeing its incontestable and permanent duration.
After this come the popular forms of doctrine, which alone can vary
and alone destroy one another; the Kabalist is not only undisturbed by
trivialities of this kind, but can provide on the spot a reason for the
most astonishing formulæ. It follows that his prayer can be joined to
that of humanity at large, to direct it by illustrations from science
and reason and draw it into orthodox channels. If Mary be mentioned,
he will revere the realisation in her of all that is divine in the
dreams of innocence, all that is adorable in the sacred enthusiasm of
every maternal heart. It is not he who will refuse flowers to adorn
the altars of the Mother of God, or white banners for her chapels, or
even tears for her ingenuous legends. It is not he who will mock at the
new-born God weeping in the manger or the wounded victim of Calvary.
He repeats nevertheless, from the bottom of his heart, like the sages
of Israel and the faithful believers of Islam: There is no God but
God. For the initiates of true science, this signifies: There is but
one Being, and this is Being. But all that is expedient and touching
in beliefs, but the splendour of rituals, the pageant of divine
creations, the grace of prayers, the magic of heavenly hopes—are not
these the radiance of moral life in all its youth and beauty? Could
anything alienate the true initiate from public prayers and temples,
could anything raise his disgust or indignation against religious
forms of all kinds, it would be the manifest unbelief of priests or
people, want of dignity in the ceremonies of the cultus—in a word, the
profanation of holy things. God is truly present when He is worshipped
by recollected souls and feeling hearts; He is absent, sensibly and
terribly, when discussed without light or zeal—that is to say, without
understanding or love.
The adequate conception of God according to instructed Kabalism is that
which was revealed by St. Paul when he said that to attain God we must
believe that He is and that He recompenses those who seek Him out. So
is there nothing outside the idea of being, in combination with the
idea of goodness and justice: these alone are absolute. To say that
there is no God or to define what He is, constitutes equal blasphemy.
Every definition of God hazarded by human intelligence is a recipe
of religious empiricism, out of which superstition will subsequently
extract a devil.
In Kabalistic symbolism the representation of God is always by a
duplicated image—one erect, the other reversed; one white, and the
other black.[16] In such manner did the sages seek to express the
intelligent and vulgar conceptions of the same idea—that of the God of
light and the God of shadow. To the miscomprehension of this symbol
must be referred the Persian Ahriman—that black but divine ancestor of
all demons. The dream of the infernal king is but a false notion of God.
Light in the absence of shadow would be invisible for our eyes, since
it would produce an overpowering brilliance equal to the greatest
darkness. In the analogies of this physical truth, understood and
considered adequately, a solution will be found for one of the most
terrible of problems, the origin of evil. But to grasp it fully,
together with all its consequences, is not meant for the multitude, who
must not penetrate so readily into the secrets of universal harmony.
It was only after the initiate of the Eleusinian mysteries had passed
victoriously through all the tests, had seen and touched the holy
things, that, if he were judged strong enough to withstand the last and
most dreadful secret, a veiled priest passed him at flying pace and
uttered in his ear the enigmatic words: Osiris is a black god. So was
Osiris—of whom Typhon is the oracle—and so was the divine religious
sun of Egypt, eclipsed suddenly, becoming the shadow of that grand,
indefinable Isis who is all that has been and shall be, and whose
eternal veil has no one lifted.
Light is the active principle for Kabalists, while darkness is
analogous to the passive principle, for which reason they regarded the
sun and moon as emblems of the two divine sexes and the two creative
forces. So also they attributed to woman the first temptation and sin,
and subsequently the first labour—the maternal labour of redemption:
it is from the bosom of the dark itself that light is reborn. The void
attracts the _plenum_, and thus the abyss of poverty and wretchedness,
pretended evil, seeming nothingness and the ephemeral rebellion of
creatures, attracts eternally an ocean of being, wealth, mercy and
love. This interprets the symbol of the Christ descending into hell
after pouring out upon the cross all immensities of the most marvellous
forgiveness.
By the same law of harmony in the analogy of opposites the Kabalists
explain also all mysteries of sexual love. Why is this passion more
permanent between two unequal natures and two contrary characters? Why
is there in love one always who immolates and one who is victim? Why
are the most obstinate passions those the satisfaction of which would
seem impossible? By this law also they would have decided once and for
ever the question of precedence between the sexes, as brought forward
in all seriousness by the Saint-Simonism of our own day. The natural
strength of woman being that of inertia or resistance, they would have
ruled that modesty is the most imprescriptible of her rights, and hence
that she must neither perform nor desire anything demanding a species
of masculine boldness. Nature has otherwise provided to this end by
giving her a soft voice, not to be heard in large assemblies, unless
raised to a ridiculously discordant pitch. She who would aspire to the
functions of the opposite sex must forfeit thereby the prerogatives of
her own. We know not to what point she may arrive in the ruling of men,
but it is certain at least that in reaching it she will lose the love
of men and, that which will be more cruel for her, the love of children.
The conjugal law of the Kabalists[17] furnishes further, by analogy,
a solution of the most interesting and difficult problem of modern
philosophy, being the agreement between reason and faith, authority
and liberty of conscience, science and belief. If science be the sun,
belief is the moon—a reflection of day amidst night. Faith is the
supplement of reason in the darkness left by science before and behind
it. It emanates from reason but can neither be confounded therewith nor
bring it to confusion. The trespasses of reason upon faith or of faith
upon reason are eclipses of sun or moon. When they come about, both
source and reflector of light are rendered useless.
Science perishes on account of systems which are no other than beliefs
and faith succumbs to reason. In order to sustain the edifice, the
two pillars of the temple must be parallel and separate. When they
are brought by force together, as Samson brought them, they are
thrown down, and the whole building collapses on the blind zealot or
revolutionary, whose personal or national resentment has destined him
beforehand to death. The struggles between the spiritual and temporal
powers at all periods of humanity have been quarrels over domestic
management. The papacy has been a jealous mother, seeking to supplant a
husband in the temporal power, and she has lost the confidence of her
children, while the temporal power in its usurpation of the priesthood
is not less ridiculous than a man who should pretend to know better
than a mother how to manage the home and nursery. The English, for
example, from the moral and religious point of view, are like children
swaddled by men, as we may appreciate by their spleen and dulness.
If religious doctrine is comparable to a nurse’s story, on the
understanding that it is ingenious and beneficial morally, it is
perfectly true for the child, and the father would be very foolish
to contradict it. Give therefore to mothers a monopoly in tales of
faerie, in songs and household solicitudes. Maternity is a type of the
priesthoods, and it is because the Church must be a mother only that
the catholic priest renounces the right of man and transfers in advance
to herself his claim on fatherhood. It must never be forgotten that
the papacy is either nothing or that it is the universal mother. It
may be even that Pope Joan, out of which protestants have constructed
a tale of scandal, is only an ingenious allegory, and when sovereign
pontiffs have ill-used Emperors and Kings, it has been Pope Joan trying
to beat her husband, to the great scandal of the Christian world. So
also schisms and heresies have been other conjugal quarrels; the Church
and Protestantism speak evil one of another, lament one another, make
a show of avoiding and being weary one of another, like spouses living
apart.
It is by the Kabalah, and this alone, that all is explained and
reconciled. All other doctrines are vivified and made fruitful thereby;
it destroys nothing but, on on the contrary, gives reason to all that
is. So all the forces of the world are at the service of this one and
supreme science, while the true Kabalist can make use at his pleasure,
without hypocrisy and without falsehood, of the science possessed
by the wise and the zeal of believers. He is more catholic than M.
de Maistre, more protestant than Luther, more Jewish than the chief
rabbi, and a prophet more than Mahomet. Is he not above systems and the
passions which darken truth? Can he not at will bring together their
scattered rays, so variously reflected in all the fragments of that
broken mirror which is universal faith—fragments which are taken by
men for so many opposite beliefs? There is one being, one law and one
faith, as there is only one race of man— אהיה אשר אהיה.
On such intellectual and moral heights it will be understood that the
human mind and heart enter into the deep peace. “Peace profound, my
brethren”—such was the master-word of High-Grade Masonry, being the
association of Kabalistic initiates.[18]
The war which the Church has been forced to make against Magic was
necessitated by the profanations of false Gnostics, but the true
science of the Magi is catholic essentially, basing all its realisation
on the hierarchic principle. Now, the only serious and absolute
hierarchy is found in the Catholic Church, and hence true adepts have
always shewn for it the deepest respect and obedience. Henry Khunrath
alone was a resolute protestant, but in this he was a German of his
period rather than a mystic citizen of the eternal Kingdom.[19]
The essence of anti-christianity is exclusion and heresy; it is the
partition of the body of Christ, according to the beautiful expression
of St. John: _Omnis spiritus qui solvit Christum hic Antichristus est_.
The reason is that religion is charity and that there is no charity in
anarchy. Magic had also its anarchists, its makers and adherents of
sects, its thaumaturgists and sorcerers. Our design is to vindicate
the legality of the science from the usurpations of ignorance, fraud
and folly; it is in this respect more especially that our work will
stand to be useful, as it will be also entirely new. So far the History
of Magic has been presented as annals of a thing prejudged, or as
chronicles—less or more exact—of a sequence in phenomena, seeing that
no one believed that Magic belonged to science. A serious account
of this science in its rediscovery, so to speak, must set forth its
developments or progress. We are walking in open sanctuary instead of
among ruins, and we find that the Holy Places, so long buried under the
débris of four civilisations, have been preserved more wonderfully than
the mummified cities which excavation has unearthed, in all their dead
beauty and desolate majesty, beneath the lava of Vesuvius.
Bossuet in his magnificent work has shewn us religion bound up
everywhere with history; but what would he have said had he known
that a science which, in a sense, was born with the world, provides
an explanation of primeval dogmas, belonging to the one and universal
religion, in virtue of their combination with the most incontestable
theorems of mathematics and reason? Dogmatic Magic is the key of all
secrets as yet unfathomed by the philosophy of history, while Practical
Magic alone opens the Secret Temple of Nature to that power of human
will which is ever limited, yet ever progressive.
We are far from any impious pretence of explaining the mysteries of
religion by means of Magic, but our intention is to indicate after what
manner science is compelled to accept and revere those mysteries.[20]
It shall be said no longer that reason must humble itself in the
presence of faith; on the contrary, it must do honour to itself by
believing, since it is faith which saves reason from the horrors of
the void on the brink of the abyss, and it is its bond of union with
the infinite. Orthodoxy in religion is respect for the hierarchy as
the sole guardian of unity. Let us therefore not fear to repeat that
Magic is essentially the Science of the Hierarchy, remembering clearly
that, before all things else, it condemns anarchic doctrines, while it
demonstrates, by the very laws of Nature, that harmony is inseparable
both from power and authority.
The chief attraction of Magic for the great number of curious persons
is that they see therein an exceptional means for the satisfaction of
their passions. The unbeliever’s horizon is of the same order. The
avaricious would deny that there is any secret of Hermes corresponding
to the transmutation of metals, for otherwise they would buy it and
so enjoy wealth. But they are fools who believe that such a secret is
sold. Of what use would be money to those who could make gold? That is
true, says the sceptic, but if you, Éliphas Lévi, possessed it, would
you not be richer than we are? Who has told you that I am poor? Have I
asked for anything at your hands? Where is the sovereign in the world
who can boast that he has acquired from me any secret of science? Where
is the millionaire whom I have given reason to believe that I would set
my fortune against his? When we look at earthly wealth from beneath it,
we may yearn for it as the sovereign felicity, but it is despised when
we consider it from above and when one realises how little temptation
there can be to recover that which has been dropped as if it were hot
iron.
But apart from this, a young man will exclaim that if magical secrets
were true, he would attain them that he might be loved by all women.
Nothing of the sort; a day will come, poor child, when it will be too
much to be loved by one of them, for sensual desire is a dual orgie,
the intoxication of which causes disgust to supervene quickly, after
which anger and separation follow. There was once an old idiot who
would have liked to have become a magician in order to upset the world.
But if you were a magician, my hero, you would not be an imbecile, and
before the tribunal of your conscience you would find no extenuating
circumstances, did you become a criminal.
The Epicurean, on his part, demands the recipes of Magic, that he may
enjoy for ever and suffer nothing at all. In this case the science
itself intervenes and says, as religion also says: Blessed are those
who suffer. But that is the reason why the Epicurean has lost faith in
religion. “Blessed are those who mourn”—but the Epicurean scoffs at the
promise. Hear now what is said by experience and by reason. Sufferings
test and awaken generous sentiments; pleasures promote and fortify base
instincts. Sufferings arm against pleasure; enjoyment begets weakness
in suffering. Pleasure squanders; pain ingarners. Pleasure is man’s
rock of peril; the pain of motherhood is woman’s triumph. Pleasure
fertilises and conceives but pain brings forth.[21] Woe to him who
cannot and will not suffer; he shall be overwhelmed by pain. Nature
drives unmercifully those who will not walk; we are cast into life as
into an open sea: we must swim or drown. Such are the laws of Nature,
as taught by Transcendent Magic. And now reconsider whether one can
become a magician in order to enjoy everything and suffer nothing. Yet
the world will ask: In such case, what profits Magic? What would the
prophet Balaam have replied to his she-ass had the patient brute asked
him what profits intelligence? What would Hercules have answered to
a pigmy if he had inquired what profits strength? We do not compare
worldly people to pigmies and still less to Balaam’s ass: it would
be wanting in politeness and good taste. We say therefore, with all
possible graciousness, to such brilliant and amiable people, that for
them Magic is absolutely useless, it being understood further that they
will never take it seriously. Our work is addressed to souls that toil
and think. They will find an explanation therein of whatsoever has
remained obscure in our _Doctrine and Ritual_. On the pattern of the
Great Masters, we have followed the rational order of sacred numbers in
the plan and division of our works, for which reason this History of
Magic is arranged in seven books, having seven chapters in each. The
first book is dedicated to the Sources of Magic; it is the genesis of
that science, and we have provided it with a key in the letter _Aleph_
expressing Kabalistically the original and primal unity. The second
book contains historical and social formulæ of the magical word in
antiquity; its seal is the letter _Beth_, symbolising the duad as an
expression of the word which realises, the special character of the
Gnosis and occultism. The third book is concerned with the realisations
of antique science in Christian society. It shews after what manner,
even for science itself, the word takes flesh. The number three is that
of generation, of realisation, and the key of this book is the letter
_Gimel_, a hieroglyph of birth. We are introduced in the fourth book
to the civilising power of Magic among barbarous races, to the natural
productions of this science amidst peoples still in their childhood,
to the mysteries of Druids and their miracles, to the legends of
bards, and it is shewn after what manner these things concurred in the
formation of modern societies, thus preparing a brilliant and permanent
victory for Christianity. The number four expresses Nature and force,
while the letter _Daleth_, which stands for it in the Hebrew alphabet,
is represented in that of the Kabalists by an emperor on his throne.
The fifth book is consecrated to the sacerdotal era of the middle
ages, and we are present at the dissensions and struggles of science,
the formation of secret societies, their unknown achievements, the
secret rites of grimoires, the mysteries of the _Divine Comedy_,
the divisions within the sanctuary which must lead later on to a
glorious unity. The number five is that of the quintessence, religion
and the priesthood; its character is the letter _He_, represented in
the magical alphabet by the symbol of a high priest. The sixth book
exhibits the intervention of Magic in the work of the Revolution.
The number six is that of antagonism and strife in preparation for
universal synthesis, and the corresponding letter is _Vau_, symbol of
the creative _lingam_ and the reaper’s sickle. The seventh book is
synthetic, containing an exposition of modern workings and discoveries,
new theories on light and magnetism, the revelation of the great
Rosicrucian secret, the explanation of mysterious alphabets, the
science of the word and its magical works, in fine, the summary of the
science itself, including an appreciation of what has been accomplished
by contemporaneous mystics. This book is the complement and the crown
of the work, as the septenary is the crown of numbers, uniting the
triangle of idea to the square of form. Its corresponding letter is
_Zain_, and the Kabalistic hieroglyphic is a victor mounted on a
chariot, drawn by two sphinxes.[22]
Far from us be the ridiculous vanity of posing as a Kabalistic victor;
it is the science alone which should triumph; and that which we expose
before the intelligent world, mounted on the cubic chariot and drawn
by sphinxes, is the Word of Light, the Divine Fulfiller of the Mosaic
Kabalah, the human Sun of the Gospel, that man-God who has come once
as Saviour and will manifest soon as Messiah, that is, as definitive
and absolute king of temporal institutions. It is this thought which
animates our courage and sustains our hope. But now it remains to
submit all our conceptions, all our discoveries and all our labours
to the infallible judgment of the hierarchy. To the authorised men
of science be that which belongs to science, but the things which
connect with religion are set apart to the Church alone and to that one
hierarchic Church, the preserver of unity, which has been catholic,
apostolic and Roman from the days of Christ Jesus to our own. To
scholars our discoveries, to bishops our aspirations and beliefs. Woe
to the child who believes himself wiser than his parents, to the man
who acknowledges no masters, to that dreamer who thinks and prays
by himself. Life is an universal communion and in such communion do
we find immortality. He who isolates himself is given over to death
thereby and an eternity of isolation would be eternal death.
ÉLIPHAS LÉVI.
BOOK I
_THE DERIVATIONS OF MAGIC_
א—ALEPH
CHAPTER I
FABULOUS SOURCES
The apocryphal _Book of Enoch_ says that there were angels who
consented to fall from heaven that they might have intercourse with
the daughters of earth.[23] “For in those days the sons of men having
multiplied, there were born to them daughters of great beauty. And
when the angels, or sons of heaven, beheld them, they were filled with
desire; wherefore they said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose wives
from among the race of man, and let us beget children.’ Their leader,
Samyasa, answered thereupon and said: ‘Perchance you will be wanting in
the courage needed to fulfil this resolution, and then I alone shall be
answerable for your fall.’ But they swore that they would in no wise
repent and that they would achieve their whole design. Now there were
200 who descended on Mount Armon, and it was from this time that the
mountain received its designation, which signifies Mount of the Oath.
Hereinafter follow the names of those angelic leaders who descended
with this object: Samyasa, chief among all, Urakabarameel, Azibeel,
Tamiel, Ramuel, Danel, Azkeel, Sarakuyal, Asael, Armers, Batraal,
Anane, Zavebe, Samsaveel, Ertrael, Turel, Jomiael, Arazial. They took
wives, with whom they had intercourse, to whom also they taught Magic,
the art of enchantment and the diverse properties of roots and trees.
Amazarac gave instruction in all secrets of sorcerers; Barkaial was
the master of those who study the stars; Akibeel manifested signs; and
Azaradel taught the motions of the moon.”
This legend of the Kabalistic Book of Enoch is a variant account of
the same profanation of Mysteries which we meet with under another
form of symbolism in the history of the sin of Adam. Those angels, the
sons of God, of whom Enoch speaks, were initiates of Magic, and it was
this that they communicated to profane men, using incautious women
as their instruments. They split upon the rock of sense-attraction,
becoming enamoured of the female sex, and the secrets of royalty and
priesthood were extracted from them unawares. Primitive civilisation
collapsed as a consequence, and the giants, who typified brute force
and unbridled appetite, fought together for the world, which escaped
only by immersion in the waters of the deluge, wherein all traces of
the past were effaced. This deluge symbolised that universal confusion
into which humanity is brought of necessity when it ignores and does
outrage to the harmonies of Nature.[24] There is kinship between the
fall of Samyasa and that of Adam; the lure of sense seduced both;
both profaned the Tree of Knowledge; and both were driven far away from
the Tree of Life. It is needless here to discuss the views, or rather
the simplicity, of those who take everything literally and believe that
knowledge and life were once manifested under the form of trees; let
us confess rather and only to the deep meaning of sacred symbols. The
Tree of Knowledge does actually inflict death when its fruit is eaten;
that fruit is the adornment of this world; those golden apples are the
glitter of earth.
[Illustration: THE MAGICAL HEAD OF THE ZOHAR]
In the Arsenal Library there is a very curious manuscript entitled
_The Book of the Penitence of Adam_, and herein Kabalistic tradition
is presented under the guise of legend to the following effect: “Adam
had two sons—Cain, who signifies brute force, and Abel, the type of
intelligence and mildness. Agreement was impossible between them; they
perished at each other’s hands; and their inheritance passed to a third
son, named Seth.” Here is the conflict of two opposing forces diverted
to the advantage of a synthetic and united force. “Now Seth, who was
just, was permitted to approach as far as the entrance of the Earthly
Paradise, without being threatened by the Kerub and his flaming sword.”
In other words, Seth represented primeval initiation. “It came to pass
in this manner that Seth beheld the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of
Life, incorporated together after such a manner that they formed but
a single tree”—signifying the harmony of science and religion in the
transcendental Kabalah. “And the angel gave him three seeds containing
the vital power of the said tree.” The reference is here to the
Kabalistic triad. “When Adam died, Seth, in obedience to the directions
of the angel, placed the three seeds in the mouth of his father, as a
token of eternal life. The saplings which sprang up from these, became
the Burning Bush, in the midst of which God communicated to Moses his
Eternal Name—
אהיה אשר אהיה
signifying He Who is and is to come. Moses plucked a triple branch of
the sacred bush and used it as his miraculous wand. Although separated
from its root, the branch continued to live and blossom, and it was
subsequently preserved in the Ark.[25] King David planted the branch
on Mount Zion, and Solomon took wood from each section of the triple
trunk to make the two pillars, _Jachin_ and _Boaz_, which were placed
at the entrance of the Temple. They were covered with bronze, and the
third section was inserted at the threshold of the chief gate. It was
a talisman which hindered things unclean from entering within. But
certain nefarious Levites removed during the night this obstacle to
their unholy freedom and cast it, loaded with stones, at the bottom of
the Temple reservoir. From this time forward an angel of God troubled
the waters of the pool, imparting to them a miraculous value, so that
men might be distracted from seeking the tree of Solomon in its depths.
In the days of Jesus Christ the pool was cleansed and the Jews, finding
the beam of wood, which in their eyes seemed useless, carried the
latter outside the town and threw it across the brook Cedron. It was
over this bridge that our Saviour passed after his arrest at night in
the Garden of Olives. His executioners cast him from it into the water;
and then in their haste to prepare the instrument-in-chief of His
passion, they took the beam with them, which was made of three kinds
of wood, and formed the cross therewith.”[26]
This allegory embodies all the great traditions of the Kabalah and the
secret Christian doctrine of St. John, which is now utterly unknown.
It follows that Seth, Moses, David, Solomon and Christ obtained from
the same Kabalistic Tree their royal sceptres and pontifical crooks.
We can understand in this manner why the Christ was adored in His
manger by the Magi. Let us recur, however, to the _Book of Enoch_, as
greater authority attaches to it than can be attributed to an unknown
manuscript; the former is cited in the New Testament by the Apostle
St. Jude. Tradition refers the invention of letters to Enoch, and it
is to him that we must therefore trace back the teachings embodied in
the _Sepher Yetzirah_, which is the elementary work of the Kabalah,
its compiler—according to the Rabbins—being the patriarch Abraham,
as the heir of the secrets of Enoch and as the father of initiation
in Israel. Enoch would seem in this manner to be identical with the
Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus, while the famous _Book of Thoth_, written
throughout in hieroglyphics and in numbers, would be that occult Bible,
anterior to the book of Moses and full of mysteries, to which the
initiated William Postel alludes so frequently throughout his works,
under the title of the _Genesis of Enoch_.[27]
The Bible says that Enoch did not die, but that God translated him from
one life to another. He is to return and confound Anti-Christ at the
end of time, when he will be one of the last martyrs, or witnesses of
truth, mentioned in the Apocalypse of St. John. That which is said of
Enoch in this respect has been said also of all the great initiators
recorded in Kabalism. St. John himself, according to the primitive
Christians, was saved from death, and it was long thought that he
could be seen breathing in his tomb.[28] The explanation is that the
absolute science of life preserves against death, as the instinct of
the people has always led them to divine. However this may be, the
extant memorials of Enoch are contained in two books, one of which
is hieroglyphic and the other of the nature of allegory. The first
comprises the hieratic keys of initiation, while the second is the
history of a great profanation which caused the destruction of the
world and the reign of chaos after that of the giants.
St. Methodius, a bishop in the early days of Christianity, whose
writings are found in the collection of the Fathers of the Church, has
left a prophetic Apocalypse which unfolds the world’s history in a
series of visions. It is not included among the saint’s acknowledged
writings, but it was preserved by the Gnostics and has been printed
in the _Liber Mirabilis_ under the assumed name of Bermechobus, which
illiterate compositors have substituted in place of Bea-Methodius,
an abbreviation of _Beatus Methodius_.[29] This book corresponds in
several respects with the allegorical treatise entitled _The Penitence
of Adam_. It tells how Seth migrated eastward with his family and so
reached a mountain in the vicinity of the Earthly Paradise. This was
the country of initiates, whilst the posterity of Cain invented a
spurious or debased Magic in India, the land of fratricide, and put
witchcraft into the hands of the reckless.
St. Methodius predicts in a later place the struggles and successive
predominance of the Ishmaelites, being the name given in his apocalypse
to those who conquered the Romans; of the Franks, who overcame the
Ishmaelites; and then of a great race from the North whose invasion
will precede the personal reign of Anti-Christ. An universal kingdom
will be founded thereafter and will fall into the hands of a French
prince, after which there will be the reign of justice for a long
period of years. We are not concerned with prophecy in the present
place, but it is desirable to note the distinction between good
and evil Magic, between the Sanctuary of the Sons of Seth and the
profanation of science by the descendants of Cain.[30] Transcendental
knowledge, as a fact, is reserved for those who are masters of their
passions, and virgin Nature does not deliver the keys of her nuptial
chamber to adulterers.
There are two classes—freemen and slaves; man is born in the bondage
of his passions, but he can reach emancipation through intelligence.
Between those who are free already and those who as yet are not there
is no equality possible. The part of reason is to rule and of instinct
to obey. On the other hand, if you impose on the blind the office of
leading the blind, both will end in the abyss. We should never forget
that liberty does not consist in the licence of passion emancipated
from law, which licence would prove the most hideous of tyrannies;
liberation consists in willing obedience to law; it is the right to do
ones duty, and only just men can be called free. Now, those who are
in liberation should govern those who are in bondage, and slaves are
called to be released, not from the government of the free but from the
yoke of brutal passions, as a consequence of which they cannot exist
without masters.
Confess with us now for a moment to the truth of the transcendental
sciences. Suppose that there does actually exist a force which can
be mastered and by which the miracles of Nature are made subservient
to the will of man. Tell us, in such case, whether the secrets of
wealth and the bonds of sympathy can be entrusted to brutal greed;
the art of fascination to libertines; the supremacy over other wills
to those who cannot attain the government of their proper selves. It
is terrifying to reflect upon the disorders which would follow from
such a profanation; some cataclysm is needed to efface the crimes of
earth when all are steeped in slime and blood. Now, it is this state of
things that is indicated by the allegorical history of the fall of the
angels, according to _The Book of Enoch_; it is this which was the sin
of Adam, and hereof are its fatal consequences. Of such also was the
Deluge and its wreckage; of such at a later period the malediction of
Canaan. The revelation of occult secrets is typified by the insolence
of that son who exposes his fathers nakedness. The intoxication of Noah
is a lesson for the priesthood of all ages. Woe to those who lay bare
the secret of divine generation to the impure gaze of the crowd. Keep
the sanctuary shut, all ye who would spare your sleeping father the
mockery of the imitators of Ham.[31]
Such is the tradition of the children of Seth respecting the laws of
the human hierarchy; but the latter were not acknowledged by the family
of Cain. The Cainites of India invented a genesis to consecrate the
oppression of the strong and to perpetuate the ignorance of the weak.
Initiation became an exclusive privilege of the high castes, and entire
races of humanity were doomed to unending servitude on the pretence of
inferior birth: they issued, as it was said, from the feet or knees of
Brahma. Now, Nature engenders neither slaves nor kings, but all men
indifferently are born to labour. He who pretends that man is perfect
at birth but is degraded and perverted by society is the wildest of
anarchists, though he may be the most poetic of maniacs. But in vain
was Jean Jacques a sentimentalist and dreamer; his deep implicit of
misanthropy, when explicated by the logic of fanatical partisans, bore
fruits in hate and destruction. The consistent architects of the Utopia
imagined by the susceptible philosopher of Geneva were Robespierre and
Marat.
Society is no abstract personality that can be rendered responsible
separately for the stubbornness of man; society is the association
of men; it is defective by reason of their vices and sublime in
respect of their virtues; but in itself it is holy, like the religion
which is bound up inseparably therewith. Is not religion, as a fact,
an association of the highest aspirations and the most generous
endeavours? After this manner does the blasphemy of anti-social
equality and of right in the teeth of duty give answer to the lie about
castes privileged by Nature; Christianity alone has solved the problem
by assigning supremacy to self-sacrifice and by proclaiming him as the
greatest who offers up his pride for society and his appetites for the
sake of the law.
Though they were the depositaries of the tradition of Seth, the Jews
did not preserve it in all its purity, and were infected by the unjust
ambitions of the posterity of Cain. Believing that they were a chosen
people, they deemed that God had allotted them truth as a patrimony
rather than as a security held in trust for humanity at large.[32]
Side by side with the sublime traditions of the _Sepher Yetzirah_, we
meet with very curious revelations among the Talmudists. For example,
they do not shrink from ascribing the idolatry of the Gentiles to
the patriarch Abraham himself; they say that to the Israelites he
bequeathed his inheritance, namely, the knowledge of the true Divine
Names; in a word, the Kabalah was the lawful and hereditary property of
Isaac; but the patriarch gave, as they tell us, certain presents to the
children of his concubines; and by such presents they understand veiled
dogmas and cryptic names, which became materialised speedily, and were
transformed into idols.[33] False religions and their absurd mysteries,
oriental superstitions, with all their horrible sacrifices—what a gift
from a father to his disowned family. Was it not sufficient to drive
Hagar with her son into the desert? To their one loaf and their pitcher
of water must he add the burden of falsehood, as a torment and poison
in their exile?
The glory of Christianity is that it called all men to truth, without
distinction of races and castes, though not without distinction in
respect of intelligence and of virtue. “Cast not your pearls before
swine,” said the Divine Founder of Christianity, “lest treading them
under foot, they turn and rend you.” The Apocalypse or Revelation of
St. John, which comprises all the Kabalistic secrets concerning the
doctrine of Christ Jesus, is a book no less obscure than the _Zohar_.
It is written hieroglyphically in the language of numbers and images,
and the Apostle appeals frequently to the knowledge of initiates. “Let
him understand who has knowledge—let him who understands compute”—he
says frequently, after reciting an allegory or giving a mystic number.
St. John, the beloved disciple and depositary of all the secrets of the
Saviour, did not therefore write to be understood by the multitude.
The _Sepher Yetzirah_, the _Zohar_ and the _Apocalypse_ are the
masterpieces of occultism; they contain more meanings than words;
their method of expression is figurative, like poetry, and exact, like
numerical formulæ. The _Apocalypse_ summarises, completes and surpasses
all the science of Abraham and Solomon, as we will prove by explaining
the Keys of the transcendent Kabalah.
It is not less astonishing to observe at the beginning of the
_Zohar_[34] the profundity of its notions and the sublime simplicity
of its images. It is said as follows: “The science of equilibrium is
the key of occult science. Unbalanced forces perish in the void. So
passed the kings of the elder world, the princes of the giants. They
have fallen like trees without roots, and their place is found no more.
Through the conflict of unbalanced forces, the devastated earth was
void and formless, until the Spirit of God made for itself a place in
heaven and reduced the mass of waters. All the aspirations of Nature
were directed then towards unity of form, towards the living synthesis
of equilibrated forces; the face of God, crowned with light, rose over
the vast sea and was reflected in the waters thereof. His two eyes
were manifested, radiating with splendour, darting two beams of light
which crossed with those of the reflection. The brow of God and His
eyes formed a triangle in heaven, and its reflection formed a second
triangle in the waters. So was revealed the number six, being that of
universal creation.”
The text, which would be unintelligible in a literal version, is
translated here by way of interpretation. The author makes it plain
that the human form which he ascribes to Deity is only an image of
his meaning and that God is beyond expression by human thought or
representation by any figure. Pascal said that God is a circle, of
which the centre is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. But how
is one to imagine a circle apart from its circumference? The _Zohar_
adopts the antithesis of this paradoxical image and in respect of the
circle of Pascal would say rather that the circumference is everywhere,
while that which is nowhere is the centre. It is however to a balance
and not to a circle that it compares the universal equilibrium of
things.[35] It affirms that equilibrium is everywhere and so also is
that central point where the balance hangs in suspension. We find that
the Zohar is thus more forcible and more profound than Pascal.
[Illustration: THE GREAT KABALISTIC SYMBOL OF THE ZOHAR]
Its author continues as follows his sublime dream. That synthesis of
the word, formulated by the human figure, ascended slowly and emerged
from the water, like the sun in its rising. When the eyes appeared,
light was made; when the mouth was manifested, there was the creation
of spirits and the word passed into expression. The entire head was
revealed, and this completed the first day of creation. The shoulders,
the arms, the breast arose, and thereupon work began. With one hand
the Divine Image put back the sea, while with the other it raised up
continents and mountains. The Image grew and grew; the generative
organs appeared, and all beings began to increase and multiply. The
form stood at length erect, having one foot upon the earth and one upon
the waters. Beholding itself at full length in the ocean of creation,
it breathed on its own reflection and called its likeness into life.
It said: Let us make man—and thus man was made. There is nothing so
beautiful in the masterpiece of any poet as this vision of creation
accomplished by the prototype of humanity. Hereby is man but the shadow
of a shadow, and yet he is the image of divine power. He also can
stretch forth his hands from East to West; to him is the earth given as
a dominion. Such is Adam Kadmon, the primordial Adam of the Kabalists.
Such is the sense in which he is depicted as a giant; and this is why
Swedenborg, haunted in his dreams by reminiscences of the Kabalah, says
that entire creation is only a titanic man and that we are made in the
image of the universe.
The _Zohar_ is a genesis of light; the _Sepher Yetzirah_ is a ladder
of truth. Therein are expounded the two-and-thirty absolute symbols of
speech—being numbers and letters. Each letter produces a number, an
idea and a form, so that mathematics are applicable to forms and ideas,
even as to numbers, in virtue of an exact proportion and a perfect
correspondence. By the science of the _Sepher Yetzirah_ the human mind
is rooted in truth and in reason; it accounts for all progress possible
to intelligence by means of the evolution of numbers. Thus does the
_Zohar_ represent absolute truth, while the _Sepher Yetzirah_ furnishes
the method of its acquisition, its discernment and application.
CHAPTER II
MAGIC OF THE MAGI
It is within probability that Zoroaster is a symbolical name, like that
of Thoth or Hermes. According to Eudoxus and Aristotle, he flourished
6000 years before the birth of Plato, but others say that he antedated
the siege of Troy by about 500 years. He is sometimes represented as
a king of the Bactrians, but the existence of two or three distinct
Zoroasters is also one of the speculations.[36] Eudoxus and Aristotle
alone would seem to have realised that his personality was magical, and
this is why they have placed the Kabalistic epoch of an entire world
between the birth of his doctrine and the theurgic reign of Platonic
philosophy. As a fact, there are two Zoroasters, that is to say, two
expounders of mysteries, one being the son of Ormuzd and the founder of
an enlightened instruction, the other being the son of Ahriman and the
author of a profanatory unveiling of truth. Zoroaster is the incarnate
word of the Chaldeans, the Medes and the Persians; his legend reads
like a prophecy concerning that of Christ, and hence it must be assumed
that he had also his Anti-Christ, in accordance with the magical law of
universal equilibrium.
To the false Zoroaster must be referred the cultus of material fire
and that impious doctrine of divine dualism which produced at a
later period the monstrous Gnosis of Manes and the false principles
of spurious Masonry. The Zoroaster in question was the father of that
materialised Magic which led to the massacre of the Magi and brought
their true doctrine at first into proscription and then oblivion.
Ever inspired by the spirit of truth, the Church was compelled to
condemn—under the names of Magic, Manicheanism, Illuminism and
Masonry—all that was in kinship, remote or approximate, with the
primitive profanation of the mysteries. One signal example is the
history of the Knights Templar, which has been misunderstood to this
day.
The doctrines of the true Zoroaster are identical with those of pure
Kabalism, and his conceptions of divinity differ in no wise from those
of the fathers of the Church. It is the names only that vary; for
example, the triad of Zoroaster is the Trinity of Christian teaching,
and when he postulates that Triad as subsisting without diminution or
division in each of its units, he is expressing in another manner that
which is understood by our theologians as the circumincession of the
Divine Persons. In his multiplication of the Triad by itself, Zoroaster
arrives at the absolute reason of the number 9 and the universal key of
all numbers and forms. But those whom we term the three Divine Persons,
are called the three depths by Zoroaster. The first, or that of the
Father, is the source of faith; the second, being that of the Word, is
the well of truth; while the third, or creative action, is the font
of love. To check what is here advanced, the reader may consult the
commentary of Psellus on the doctrine of the ancient Assyrians: it may
be found in the work of Franciscus Patricius on _Philosophical Magic_
p. 24 of the Hamburg edition, which appeared in 1593.
Zoroaster established the celestial hierarchy and all the harmonies of
Nature on his scale of nine degrees. He explains by means of the triad
whatsoever emanates from the idea and by the tetrad all that belongs
to form, thus arriving at the number 7 as the type of creation. Here
ends the first initiation and the scholastic hypotheses begin; numbers
are personified and ideas pass into emblems, which at a later period
become idols. The Synoches, the Teletarchæ and the Fathers, ministers
of the triple Hecate; the three Amilictes and the threefold visage of
Hypezocos—all these intervene; the angels follow in their order, the
demons and lastly human souls. The stars are images and reflections of
intellectual splendours; the material sun is an emblem of the sun of
truth, which itself is a shadow of that first source whence all glory
springs. This is why the disciples of Zoroaster saluted the rising day
and so passed as sun-worshippers among barbarians.
Such were the doctrines of the Magi, but they were the possessors in
addition of secrets which gave them mastery over the occult powers
of Nature. The sum of these secrets might be termed transcendental
pyrotechny, for it was intimately related to the deep knowledge of fire
and its ruling. It is certain that the Magi were not only familiar with
electricity but were able to generate and direct it in ways that are
now unknown. Numa, who studied their rites and was initiated into their
mysteries, possessed, according to Lucius Pison, the art of producing
and controlling the lightning. This sacerdotal secret, which the Roman
initiator would have reserved to the kings of Rome, was lost by Tullus
Hostilius, who mismanaged the electrical discharge and was destroyed.
Pliny relates these facts on the authority of an ancient Etruscan
tradition and mentions that Numa directed his battery with success
against a monster named Volta, which was ravaging the district about
Rome. In reading this story, one is almost tempted to think that Volta,
the discoverer, is himself a myth and that the name of Voltaic piles
goes back to the days of Numa.
All Assyrian symbols connect with this science of fire, which was the
great secret of the Magi; on every side we meet with the enchanter who
slays the lion and controls the serpents. That lion is the celestial
fire, while the serpents are the electric and magnetic currents of the
earth. To this same great secret of the Magi are referable all marvels
of Hermetic Magic, the extant traditions of which still bear witness
that the mystery of the Great Work consists in the ruling of fire.
The learned Patricius published in his _Philosophical Magic_ the
Oracles of Zoroaster, collected from the works of Platonic writers—from
Proclus on Theurgy, from the commentaries on the _Parmenides_,
commentaries of Hermias on the _Phædrus_ and from the notes of
Olympiodorus on the _Philebos_ and _Phaidon_.[37] These Oracles are
firstly a clear and precise formulation of the doctrine here stated and
secondly the prescriptions of magical ritual expressed in such terms as
follow.
DEMONS AND SACRIFICES
We are taught by induction from Nature that there are incorporeal
dæmons and that the germs of evil which exist in matter turn to the
common good and utility. But these are mysteries which must be buried
in the recesses of thought. For ever agitated and ever leaping in the
atmosphere, the fire can assume a configuration like that of bodies.
Let us go further and affirm the existence of a fire which abounds in
images and reflections. Term it, if you will, a superabundant light
which radiates, which speaks, which goes back into itself. It is the
flaming courser of light, or rather it is the stalwart child who
overcomes and breaks in that heavenly steed. Picture him as vested
in flame and emblazoned with gold, or think of him naked as love and
bearing the arrows of Eros. But if thy meditation prolongeth itself,
thou wilt combine all these emblems under the form of the lion.
Thereafter, when things are no longer visible, when the Vault of Heaven
and the expanse of the universe have dissolved, when the stars have
ceased to shine and the lamp of the moon is veiled, when the earth
trembles and the lightning plays around it, invoke not the visible
phantom of Nature’s soul, for thou must in no wise behold it until thy
body has been purified by the holy ordeals. Enervators of souls, which
they distract from sacred occupations, the dog-faced demons issue from
the confines of matter and expose to mortal eyes the semblances of
illusory bodies. Labour round the circles described by the rhombus of
Hecate. Change thou nothing in the barbarous names of evocation, for
they are pantheistic titles of God; they are magnetised by the devotion
of multitudes and their power is ineffable. When after all the phantoms
thou shalt behold the shining of that incorporeal fire, that sacred
fire the darts of which penetrate in every direction through the depths
of the world—hearken to the words of the fire.[38]
These astonishing sentences, which are taken from the Latin of
Patricius, embody the secrets of magnetism and of things far deeper,
which it has not entered into the heart or people like Du Potet and
Mesmer to conceive. We find (_a_) the Astral Light described perfectly,
together with its power of producing fluidic forms, of reflecting
language and echoing the voice; (_b_) the will of the adept signified
by the stalwart child mounted on a white horse—a symbol met with in
an ancient Tarot card preserved in the _Bibliothèque Nationale_;[39]
(_c_) the dangers of hallucination arising from misdirected magical
works; (_d_) the _raison d’être_ of enchantments accomplished by the
use of barbarous names and words; (_e_) the magnetic instrument termed
_rhombos_,[40] which is comparable to a child’s humming top; (_f_)
the term of magical practice, which is the stilling of imagination
and of the senses into a state of complete somnambulism and perfect
lucidity.[41]
It follows from this revelation of the ancient world that clairvoyant
extasis is a voluntary and immediate application of the soul to the
universal fire, or rather to that light—abounding in images—which
radiates, which speaks and circulates about all objects and every
sphere of the universe. This application is operated by the persistence
of will liberated from the senses and fortified by a succession of
tests. Herein consisted the beginning of magical initiation. Having
attained the power of direct reading in the light, the adept became a
seer or prophet; then, having established communication between this
light and his own will, he learned to direct the former, even as the
head of an arrow is set in a certain direction. He communicated at his
pleasure either strife or peace to the souls of others; he established
intercourse at a distance with those fellow-adepts who were his peers;
and, in fine, he availed himself of that force which is represented by
the celestial lion. Herein lies the meaning of those great Assyrian
figures which hold vanquished lions in their arms. The Astral Light is
otherwise represented by gigantic sphinxes, having the bodies of lions
and the heads of Magi. Considered as an instrument made subject to
magical power, the Astral Light is that golden sword of Mithra used in
his immolation of the sacred bull. And it is the arrow of Phœbus which
pierced the serpent Python.
Let us now reconstruct in thought the great metropolitan cities of
Assyria, Babylon and Nineveh; let us restore to their proper place
the granite colossi; let us formulate the massive temples, held up by
elephants and sphinxes; let us raise once more those obelisks from
which dragons look down with shining eyes and wings outspread. Temples
and palaces tower above these wondrous piles. For ever concealed, but
manifested also for ever by the fact of their miracles, the priesthood
and the royalty, like visible divinities of earth, abide therein. The
temple is surrounded with clouds or glows with supernatural brilliance
at the will of the priests; now it is dark in the daylight and again
the night is enlightened; the lamps of the temple spring of themselves
into flame; the gods are radiant; the thunders roll; and woe to that
impious person who may have invoked on his own head the malediction of
initiates. The temples protect the palaces and the king’s retainers do
battle for the religion of the Magi. The monarch himself is sacred; he
is a god on earth; the people lie prone as he passes; and the maniac
who would attempt to cross the threshold of his palace falls dead
immediately, by the intervention of an invisible hand, and without
stroke of mace or sword. He is slain as if by the bolt, blasted by fire
from heaven. What religion and what power. How mighty are the shadows
of Nimrod, of Belus, of Semiramis. What can surpass these almost
fabulous cities, where such mighty royalties were enthroned—these
capitals of giants, capitals of magicians, of personalities identified
by tradition with angels and still termed sons of God or princes of
heaven. What mysteries have been put to sleep in these sepulchres
of past nations; and are we better than children when we exalt our
enlightenment and our progress, without recalling these startling
memorials?
In his work on Magic,[42] M. Du Potet affirms, with a certain timidity,
that it is possible to overwhelm a living being by a current of
magnetic fluid. Magical power extends beyond this limit, but it is not
confined within the measures of the putative magnetic fluid. The Astral
Light as a whole, that element of electricity and of lightning, can be
placed at the disposition of human will. What must be done, however, to
acquire this formidable power? Zoroaster has just told us; we must know
those mysterious laws of equilibrium which subjugate the very powers of
evil to the empire of good. We must have purified our bodies by sacred
trials, must have conquered the phantoms of hallucination and taken
hold bodily of the light, imitating Jacob in his struggle with the
angel. We must have vanquished those fantastic dogs which howl in the
world of dreams. In a word, and to use the forcible expression of the
Oracle, we must have heard the light speak. We are then its masters and
can direct it, as Numa did, against the enemies of the Holy Mysteries.
But if in the absence of perfect purity and if under the government of
some animal passion, by which we are still subjected to the fatalities
of tempestuous life, we proceed to this kind of work, the fire which
we kindle will consume ourselves; we shall fall victims to the serpent
which we unloose and shall perish like Tullus Hostilius.
It is not in conformity with the laws of Nature for man to be devoured
by wild beasts. God has armed him with the power of resistance; his
eyes can fascinate them, his voice restrain, his sign bring them to a
pause. We know indeed, as a literal fact, that the most savage animals
quail before a steady human glance and seem to tremble at the human
voice. The explanation is that they are paralysed and awe-stricken by
projections of the Astral Light. When Daniel was accused of imposture
and false Magic, both he and his accusers were subjected by the king
of Babylon to an ordeal of lions. Such beasts attack those only who
fear them or of whom they are themselves afraid. It is utterly certain
that the tiger will recede before the magnetic glance of a brave man,
although the latter may be disarmed.
The Magi utilised this power and the kings of Assyria kept tigers,
leopards and lions in their gardens, in a state of docility. Others
were reserved in vaults beneath the temples for use in the ordeals
of initiation. The symbolic bas-reliefs are the proof; they depict
trials of strength between men and animals, and the adept, clothed
in his priestly garb, controls the brutes by a glance of his eye and
stays them with his hand. When such animals are depicted in one of the
forms ascribed to the sphinx, they are doubtless symbolical, but in
other representations the brute is of the natural order, and then the
struggle seems to illustrate a theory of actual enchantment.
Magic is a science; to abuse is to lose it, and it is also to destroy
oneself. The kings and priests of the Assyrian world were too great
to be free from this danger, if ever they fell; as a fact, pride did
come upon them and they did therefore fall. The great magical epoch of
Chaldea is anterior to the reigns of Semiramis and Ninus. At this time
religion had begun already to materialise and idolatry to prevail. The
cultus of Astarte succeeded that of the heavenly Venus and royalty
arrogated to itself divine attributes under the names of Baal and of
Bel, or Belus. Semiramis made religion subservient to politics and
conquests, replacing the old mysterious temples by ostentatious and
ill-advised monuments. This notwithstanding, the magical idea continued
to prevail in art and science, sealing the constructions of that epoch
with the characteristics of inimitable power and grandeur. The palace
of Semiramis was a building synthesis of entire Zoroastrian dogma,
and we shall recur to it in explaining the symbolism of those seven
masterpieces of antiquity which are called the wonders of the world.
The priesthood became secondary to the empire as the result of an
attempt to materialise its own power. The fall of the one was bound
to involve the other, and it came to pass under the effeminate
Sardanapalus. This prince, abandoned to luxury and indolence, reduced
the science of the Magi to the level of one of his courtesans. What
purpose did marvels serve if they failed in ministration to pleasure?
Compel, O enchanters, compel the winter to produce roses; double the
savour of wine; apply your power over the light to make the beauty
of women shine like that of divinities. The Magi obeyed and the king
passed from intoxication to intoxication. But it came about that war
was declared and that the enemy was already on the march. That enemy
might signify little to the sybarite steeped in his pleasures. But
it was ruin, it was infamy, it was death. Now Sardanapalus did not
fear death, since for him it was an endless sleep, and he knew how to
avoid the toils and humiliations of servitude. The last night came;
the victor was already upon the threshold; the city could stand out no
longer; the kingdom of Assyria must end on the morrow. The palace of
Sardanapalus was illuminated and blazed with such splendour that it
lightened all the consternated city. Amidst piles of precious stuffs,
amidst jewels and golden vessels, the king held his final orgie.
His women, his favourites, his accomplices, his degenerate priests
surrounded him; the riot of drunkenness mingled with the music of a
thousand instruments; the tame lions roared; and a smoke of perfumes,
going up from the vaults of the palace, enveloped the whole edifice
in a heavy cloud. But tongues of fire began to penetrate the cedar
panelling; the frenzied songs were replaced by cries of terror and
groans of agony. The magic which, in the hands of its degraded adepts,
could not safeguard the empire of Ninus, did at least mingle its
marvels to emblazon the terrible memories of this titanic suicide. A
vast and sinister splendour, such as the night of Babylon had never
seen, seemed suddenly to set back and enlarge the vault of heaven; a
noise, like all the thunders of the world pealing together, shook the
earth, and the walls of the city collapsed. Thereafter a deeper night
descended; the palace of Sardanapalus melted, and when the morrow came
his conqueror found no trace of its riches, no trace even of the king’s
body and all his luxuries.
So ended the first empire of Assyria, and the civilisation founded of
old by the true Zoroaster. Thus also ended Magic, properly so called,
and the reign of the Kabalah began. Abraham on coming out from Chaldea
carried its mysteries with him. The people of God increased in silence,
and we shall meet before long with Daniel confounding the miserable
enchanters of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar.[43]
CHAPTER III
MAGIC IN INDIA
We are told by Kabalistic tradition that India was peopled by the
descendants of Cain, and thither at a later period migrated the
descendants of Abraham and Keturah; in any case it is, above all
others, the country of Göetia and illusionary wonders. Black Magic
has been perpetuated therein, as well as the original traditions of
fratricide imposed by the powerful on the weak, continued by the
dominant castes and expiated by the pariahs. It may be said of India
that she is the wise mother of all idolatries. The dogmas of her
gymnosophists would be keys of highest wisdom if they did not open
more easily the gates leading to degradation and death. The astounding
wealth of Indian symbolism seems to suggest that it is anterior to all
others, and this is supported by the primeval freshness of its poetic
conceptions. But the root of its tree seems to have been devoured by
the infernal serpent. That deification of the devil against which we
have already entered an energetic protest is displayed in all its
grossness. The terrible Trimurti of the Brahmans comprises a Creator, a
Destroyer and a Preserver. Their Adhi-nari, who represents the Divine
Mother, or Celestial Nature, is called also Bohani, to whom the thugs
or stranglers make votive offerings of their murders. Vishnu, the
preserver, incarnates only to destroy an inferior devil, who is always
brought back to life by the intervention of Siva or Rudra, the god of
death. One is conscious that Siva is the apotheosis of Cain, but there
is nothing in all this mythology which recalls the mildness of Abel.
The mysteries of India are notwithstanding grandiose in their poetry
and singularly profound in their allegories; but they are the Kabalah
in profanation, and hence so far from sustaining the soul and leading
it to supreme wisdom, Brahminism, with its learned theories, plunges it
into gulfs of madness.
[Illustration: THE INDIAN AND JAPANESE MYSTERY OF UNIVERSAL EQUILIBRIUM
AND THE EGYPTIAN PANTOMORPHIC IYINX]
It was from the false Kabalism of India that the Gnostics borrowed
their reveries—by turns horrible and obscene; it is also Indian
Magic, manifesting on the threshold of the occult sciences with a
thousand deformities, which terrifies reasonable minds and provokes
the anathemas of all the understanding churches. It is this false
and dangerous knowledge, so often confounded by the ignorant and by
smatterers with true science, which has involved all that bears the
name of occultism in a general condemnation, to which the author of
these pages himself subscribed sincerely before he had attained the key
of the magical sanctuary. For theologians of the Vedas, God manifests
as force only; all progress and all revelations are determined by
conquest; Vishnu incarnates in monstrous leviathans of the sea and in
enormous wild boars, which mould the primeval earth with their snouts.
Still it is a marvellous pantheistic genesis and the authors of its
fables are lucid at least in their somnambulism. The ten Avatars of
Vishnu correspond numerically to the _Sephiroth_ of the Kabalah. The
god in question assumed successively three animal or elementary forms
of life, after which he became a sphinx and then a human being. He
appeared next as Brahma and in a guise of assumed humility possessed
the whole earth. He was a child on another occasion, and as such the
consoling angel of the patriarchs. After this he assumed the mask of a
warrior and gave battle to the oppressors of the world. Again he was
embodied as diplomacy, opposing it to violence, and seems at this point
to have abandoned the human form to assume the agility of the monkey.
Diplomacy and violence consumed one another, and the world awaited
some intellectual and moral redeemer. Vishnu thereupon incarnated as
Krishna. He was proscribed even in his cradle, beside which there
watched the symbolical ass. He was carried far away to save him from
the power of his enemies; he attained manhood and preached the doctrine
of mercy and good works. He descended into hell, bound the infernal
serpent and returned gloriously to heaven. His annual festival is in
August, under the sign of the Virgin. Here is astonishing intuition
concerning Christian mysteries and so much the more impressive when
we remember that the sacred books of India passed into writing many
centuries before the Christian era. To the revelation of Krishna
succeeded that of Buddha, who married the purest religion to philosophy
of the highest kind. The happiness of the world was thus held to be
secured and there was nothing further to expect, pending the tenth and
final incarnation, when Vishnu will return in his proper form, leading
the horse of the last judgment—that dread steed whose fore foot is
raised always and when it is set down the world will be strewn in atoms.
We may note herein the presence of the sacred numbers and prophetic
calculations of the Magi. Gymnosophists and Zoroastrian initiates
drew from the same sources, but it was the false and black Zoroaster
who remained master of theology in India. The final secrets of this
degenerate doctrine are pantheism and its legitimate consequence,
being absolute materialism masquerading as the absolute negation of
matter. But what, it may be asked, does it signify whether spirit
is materialised or matter spiritualised so long as the equality and
identity of the two terms are postulated? But the consequence of such
pantheism is, however, mortal to ethics: there are neither crimes
nor virtues in a world where all is God. We may expect after such
teachings a progressive degradation of the Brahmans into a fanatical
quietism; but as yet the end was not reached. It remained for their
great magical ritual, the Indian book of occultism, otherwise the
_Oupnek’hat_, to furnish the physical and moral means of consummating
the work of their stupefaction and arriving by a graduated method
at that raving madness termed by their sorcerers the Divine State.
The work in question is the progenitor of all grimoires and the most
curious among the antiquities of Göetia. It is divided into fifty
sections and is a darkness spangled with stars. Sublime maxims are
blended with false oracles.[44] At times it reads like the Gospel of
St. John, as, for example, in the following extracts from the eleventh
and forty-eighth sections.
“The angel of creative fire is the word of God, which word produced
the earth and the vegetation that issues therefrom, together with the
heat which ripens it. The word of the Creator is itself the Creator
and is also His only Son.” Now, on the other hand, the reveries are
worthy only of the most extravagant arch-heretics: “Matter being only
a deceptive appearance, the sun, the stars and the very elements are
genii, while animals are demons and man is a pure spirit deceived by
the illusions of forms.” We are perhaps sufficiently edified by these
extracts in respect of doctrinal matters and may proceed to the Magical
Ritual of the Indian enchanters.
“In order to become God, the breath must be retained—that is to
say, it must be inhaled as long as possible, till the chest is well
distended—and in the second place, the divine OM must be repeated
inwardly forty times while in this state. Expiration, in the third
place, follows very slowly, the breath being mentally directed through
the heavens to make contact with the universal ether. Those who would
succeed in this exercise must be blind, deaf and motionless as a log
of wood. The posture is on knees and elbows, with the face turned to
the North. One nostril is stopped with a finger, the air is inhaled
by the other, which is then also closed, the action being accompanied
by dwelling in thought on the idea that God is the Creator, that He
is in all animals, in the ant even as in the elephant. The mind must
be absorbed in these thoughts. OM is at first recited twelve times
and afterwards twenty-four times during each inspiration, and then
as rapidly as possible. This regimen must be continued for three
months—without fear, without remission, eating and sleeping little. In
the fourth month the Devas will manifest; in the fifth you will have
acquired all qualities of the Devatas; in the sixth you will be saved
and will have become God.”
What seems certain is that in the sixth month the fanatic who is
sufficiently imbecile to persevere in such a practice will be dead or
insane. If, however, he should really survive this exercise in mystic
breathing, the _Oupnek’hat_ does not leave him in the happy position
mentioned but makes him pass to other experiences.
“With the end of one finger close the anus, and then draw the breath
from below upwards on the right side; make it circulate three times
round the second centre of the body; thence bring it to the navel,
which is the third centre; then to the fourth, which is the middle of
the heart; subsequently to the throat, which is the fifth; and finally
to the sixth, which is the root of the nose. There retain the breath:
it has become that of the universal soul.”
This seems simply an auto-hypnotic method of inducing a certain
cerebral congestion. But the author of the treatise continues:
“Think therefore of the great OM, which is the name of the Creator
and is that universal, pure and indivisible voice which fills all
things. This voice is the Creator Himself, Who becomes audible to the
contemplative after ten manners. The first sound is like that of a
little sparrow; the second is twice the first in volume; the third is
like the sound of a cymbal; the fourth is as the murmur of a great
shell; the fifth is comparable to the song of the Indian lyre; the
sixth is like the sound of the instrument called _tal_; the seventh
resembles the sound of a _bacabou_ flute, held close to the ear; the
eighth is like that of the instrument called _Pakaoudj_, which is
struck with the hand; the ninth is like the sound of a little trumpet
and the tenth like that of a thunder cloud. At each of these sounds
the contemplative passes through different states, and at the tenth he
becomes God. At the first sound the hairs of his whole body rise erect;
at the second, his limbs become torpid; at the third, he feels through
all his frame the kind of exhaustion which follows the intercourse of
love; at the fourth, his head swims and he is as one intoxicated; at
the fifth, the life-force flows back into his brain; at the sixth, this
force descends into him and he is nourished thereon; at the seventh,
he becomes the master of vision, can see into the hearts of others,
and hears the most distant voices; at the ninth he becomes so ethereal
that he can pass wheresoever he will and can see without being seen,
like the angels; at the tenth, he becomes the universal and indivisible
voice. He is the great creator, the eternal being, exempt from all and,
having become the perfect peace, he dispenses peace to the world.”
What is noticeable in these most curious extracts is their exhaustive
description of phenomena which characterise lucid somnambulism combined
with a complete practice of auto-hypnosis; it is the art of inducing
ecstasy by tension of the will and fatigue of the nervous system. We
recommend therefore to mesmerists a careful study of the mysteries of
the _Oupnek’hat_. The graduated use of narcotics and of a scale of
coloured discs will produce effects analogous to those described by
the Indian sorcerer. M. Ragon has provided the recipe in his work on
_La Maçonnerie Occulte_.[45] The _Oupnek’hat_ gives a simpler method
of losing consciousness and arriving at ecstasy; it is to look with
both eyes at the end of the nose and to maintain this act, or rather
this grimace, until paralysis of the optic nerve supervenes. All such
practices are equally painful, dangerous and ridiculous; we are far
from recommending them to anyone; but we do not question that in a
shorter or longer time, according to the sensibility of the subjects,
they will induce ecstasy, catalepsy and even a dead swoon. In order
to obtain vision and the phenomena of second sight, a state must be
reached which is akin to that of sleep, death and madness. It is in
this that the Indians excel and it is perhaps to their secrets that we
must refer the strange power of certain American mediums.
Black Magic may be defined as the art of inducing artificial mania in
ourselves and in others; but it is also and above all the science of
poisoning. What is however generally unknown, and the discovery in our
days is due to M. Du Potet, is that it is possible to destroy life by
the sudden congestion or withdrawal of the Astral Light. This may take
place when, through a series of almost impossible exercises, similar to
those described by the Indian sorcerer, our nervous system, having been
habituated to all tensions and fatigues, has become a kind of living
galvanic pile, capable of condensing and projecting powerfully that
light which intoxicates or destroys.
We are not, however, at the end of the _Oupnek’hat_ and its magical
wonders; there is a final arcanum which the darksome hierophant
entrusts to his initiates as the supreme secret of all; it is actually
the shadow and reverse side of the great mystery of Transcendent Magic.
Now, the latter is the absolute in morality and consequently in the
direction of activity and in freedom. On the other hand, that of the
_Oupnek’hat_ is the absolute in immorality, in fatality and in deadly
quietism: it is expressed as follows by the author of the Indian work:
“It is lawful to lie in order to facilitate marriages, to exalt the
virtues of a Brahman or the good qualities of a cow. God is truth,
and in Him shadow and light are one. Whosoever is acquainted with
this truth never lies, for his very falsehood turns true. Whatever
sin he commits, whatever evil he performs, he is never guilty; if he
committed a double parricide; if he killed a Brahman initiated into the
mysteries of the Vedas; in a word, whatever he did, his light would not
be impaired, for God says: I am the Universal Soul; in Me are good and
evil, which are moderated one by the other; he who knows this cannot
sin, for he is universal even as Myself.”
Such doctrines are incompatible with civilisation, and furthermore, by
stereotyping its social hierarchy, India has imbedded anarchy in the
castes, whereas social life is a question of exchange. Now, exchange
is impossible when everything belongs to a few and nothing to others.
What do social gradations signify in a putative civil state wherein
no one can fall or rise? Herein is the long-delayed punishment of the
fratricide; it is one which involves his entire race and condemns it to
death. Should some alien, proud and egotistic nation intervene, it will
sacrifice India—even as oriental legends tell us that Cain was killed
by Lamech. Woe, notwithstanding to the murderer of Cain—so say the
sacred oracles of the Bible.
CHAPTER IV
HERMETIC MAGIC
It is in Egypt that Magic attains the grade of completion as an
universal science and is formulated as a perfect doctrine. As a
summary of all the dogmas which obtained in the ancient world, nothing
surpasses and indeed nothing equals those few paragraphs graven on
precious stone by Hermes and denominated the Emerald Tablet. Unity of
being and unity in the harmony of things, according to the ascending
and descending scales; progressive and proportional evolution of
the Word; immutable law of equilibrium and graduated progress of
universal analogies; correspondence between the idea and its expression
providing a measure of likeness between Creator and created; essential
mathematics of the infinite, proved by the dimensions of a single angle
in the finite: all this is expressed by the one proposition: “that
which is above is like that which is below, and that which is below is
like that which is above, for the fulfilment of the wonders of the one
thing.” Hereunto are added the revelation and illuminating description
of the creative agent, the pantomorphic fire, the great medium of
occult force—in a word, the Astral Light.
“The sun is its father and the moon its mother; the wind has borne
it in the belly thereof.” It follows that this light has emanated
from the sun and has received form and rhythmical movement from the
influences of the moon, while the atmosphere is its receptacle and
prison. “The earth is its nurse”—that is to say, it is equilibrated and
set in motion by the central heat of the earth. “It is the universal
principle, the TELESMA of the world.”
Hermes goes on to set forth in what manner this light, which is also a
force, can be applied as a lever, as an universal dissolvent and as a
formative and coagulative agent; how also this light must be extracted
from the bodies in which it lies latent in order to imitate all the
artifices of Nature by the aid of its diverse manifestations as fire,
motion, splendour, radiant gas, scalding water or finally igneous
earth. The Emerald Tablet contains all Magic in a single page.[46] The
other works attributed to Hermes,[47] such as the _Divine Pymander_,
_Asclepius_, _Minerva of the World_, &c. are generally regarded by
critics as productions of the School of Alexandria; but they contain
notwithstanding the Hermetic traditions which were preserved in
theurgic sanctuaries. For those who possess the keys of symbolism
the doctrines of Hermes can never be lost; amidst all their ruin,
the monuments of Egypt are as so many scattered leaves which can be
collected and the book of those doctrines thus reconstructed entirely.
In that vast book the capital letters are temples and the sentences are
cities punctuated with obelisks and by the sphinx.
The physical division of Egypt was itself a magical synthesis, and the
names of its provinces corresponded to the ciphers of sacred numbers.
The realm of Sesostris was divided into three parts; of these Upper
Egypt, or the Thebaid, was a type of the celestial world and the
land of ecstasy; Lower Egypt was the symbol of earth; while Middle
or Central Egypt was the land of science and of high initiation.
Each of these parts was subdivided into ten provinces, called Nomes,
and was placed under the particular protection of a god. There were
therefore 30 gods and they were grouped by threes, giving symbolical
expression in this manner to all possible conceptions of the triad
within the decad, or otherwise to the threefold material, philosophical
and religious significance of absolute ideas attached primitively to
numbers. We have thus the triple unity or the first triad, the triple
binary[48] formed by the first triad and its reflection, being the Star
of Solomon; the triple triad or the complete idea under each of its
three forms; the triple quaternary, being the cyclic number of astral
revolutions, and so onward. The geography of Egypt under Sesostris
is therefore a pantacle or symbolical summary of the entire magical
dogma originating with Zoroaster and rediscovered or formulated more
precisely by Hermes.
In this manner did the land of Egypt become as a great volume and the
instructions contained therein were multiplied by translation into
pictures, sculptures, architecture through the length and breadth
of the towns and in all temples. The very desert had its eternal
teachings, and its word of stone was set squarely on the foundations
of the pyramids. The pyramids themselves stood like boundaries of
the human intelligence, in the presence of which the colossal sphinx
meditated age after age, sinking by insensible degrees into the desert
sand. Even at this day its head, defaced by the work of time, still
emerges from its sepulchre, as if waiting expectantly the signal for
its complete entombment at the coming of a human voice revealing to a
new world the problem of the pyramids.
Egypt from our standpoint is the cradle of science and of wisdom, for
it clothed with images the antique dogma of the first Zoroaster more
exactly and more purely, if not more richly, than those of India.
The Sacerdotal Art and the Royal Art made adepts by initiation in
Egypt, and such initiation was not restricted within the egotistic
limits of caste. We know that a Jewish bondsman himself attained not
only initiation but the rank of minister in chief, perhaps even of
Grand Hierophant, for he espoused the daughter of an Egyptian priest,
and there is evidence that the priesthood in that country tolerated
no misalliance. Joseph realised in Egypt the dream of communism; he
established the priesthood and the state as sole proprietors and thus
sole arbiters of labour and wealth. In this way he abolished distress
and turned the whole of Egypt into a patriarchal family. It is a
matter of common knowledge that his elevation was due to skill in
the interpretation of dreams, a science which even devout Christians
now refuse to credit, though they recognise that the Bible, which
narrates the wonderful divinations of Joseph, is the word of the Holy
Spirit. The science of Joseph was none other than a comprehension
of the natural analogies which subsist between ideas and images, or
between the Word and its symbols. He knew that the soul when immersed
by sleep in the Astral Light, perceives the reflections of its most
secret thoughts and even of its presentiments; he knew further that the
art of translating the hieroglyphics of sleep is the key of universal
lucidity, seeing that all intelligent beings have revelations in dreams.
The basis of absolute hieroglyphical science was an alphabet in which
deities were represented by letters, letters represented ideas, ideas
were convertible into numbers, and numbers were perfect signs. This
hieroglyphical alphabet was the great secret which Moses enshrined
in his Kabalah; its Egyptian origin is commemorated in the _Sepher
Yetzirah_, in which it is referred to Abraham. Now this alphabet is the
famous Book of Thoth, and it was divined by Court de Gebelin that it
has been preserved to our own day in the form of Tarot cards. It passed
later on into the hands of Etteilla, who interpreted it in the wrong
sense, for even a study extending over thirty years could not atone for
his want of common sense or supply deficiencies in his education. The
record exists still among the drift and waste of Egyptian monuments;
and its most curious, most complete key is found in the great work on
Egypt by Athanasius Kircher. It is the copy of an Isiac tablet which
belonged to the celebrated Cardinal Bembo. The tablet in question is
of copper with figures in enamel, and it has been unfortunately lost.
The copy supplied by Kircher is, however, exact.[49] The learned Jesuit
divined that it contained the hieroglyphic key of sacred alphabets,
though he was unable to develop the explanation. It is divided into
three equal compartments; above are the twelve houses of heaven and
below are the corresponding distributions of labour throughout the
year, while in the middle place are twenty-one sacred signs answering
to the letters of the alphabet. In the midst of all is a seated
figure of the pantomorphic IYNX, emblem of universal being[50] and
corresponding as such to the Hebrew _Yod_, or to that unique letter
from which all other letters were formed. The IYNX is encircled by the
Ophite triad, answering to the Three Mother Letters of the Egyptian
and Hebrew alphabets.[51] On the right are the ibimorphic and serapian
triads; on the left are those of Nepthys and Hecate, representing
active and passive, fixed and volatile, fructifying fire and generating
water. Each pair of triads in conjunction with the centre produces
a septenary, and a septenary is contained in the centre. The three
septenaries furnish the absolute number of the three worlds, as well
as the complete number of primitive letters, to which a complementary
sign is added, like zero to the nine numerals. The ten numbers and
the twenty-two letters are termed in Kabalism the Thirty-two Paths of
Wisdom, and their philosophical description is the subject of that
venerated primæval book known as the _Sepher Yetzirah_, the text of
which will be found in the collection of Pistorius and elsewhere.[52]
The alphabet of Thoth is the original of our Tarot only in an indirect
manner, seeing that the latter is of Jewish origin in the extant copies
and that its pictures are not older than the reign of Charles VII. The
cards of Jacquemin Gringonneur are the first Tarots of which we have
any knowledge, but they reproduce symbols belonging to the highest
antiquity. The game in its modern form was an experiment on the part of
astrologers to restore the king, who has been mentioned, to reason.[53]
The oracles of the Tarot give answers as exact as mathematics and
measured as the harmonies of Nature. Such answers result from
the varied combination of the different signs. But it requires a
considerable exercise of reason to make use of an instrument belonging
to reason and to science; the poor king, in his childish condition, saw
only the playthings of an infant in the artist’s pictures and he turned
the mysterious Kabalistic alphabet[54] into a game of cards.
[Illustration: EXPLANATORY DIAGRAM OF THE ASTRONOMICAL AND ALPHABETICAL
TABLET OF BEMBO]
We are told by Moses that the Israelites carried away the sacred
vessels of the Egyptians when they came out of the land of bondage.
The account is allegorical, for the great prophet would scarcely
have encouraged his people in an act of theft; the sacred vessels in
question were the mysteries of Egyptian knowledge, acquired by Moses
himself at the court of Pharaoh. We are by no means suggesting that
the miracles of this man of God are referable to Magic; but we know
on the authority of the Bible that Jannes and Mambres, who were the
magicians of Pharaoh and consequently grand hierophants of Egypt, began
by performing in virtue of their art wonders which were similar to
those of Moses. They transformed wands into serpents and serpents again
into wands, which might be explicable by prestige or fascination; they
changed water into blood; they produced a swarm of frogs in a moment;
but they could not cause flies to appear or other parasitic insects,
for reasons which we have explained already, as also the manner in
which they were forced to confess themselves vanquished.
Moses triumphed and led the Israelites out of the land of bondage. It
was at this period that true science became lost to Egypt, for the
priests, abusing the implicit confidence of the people, allowed that
knowledge to degenerate into brutalising idolatry. Such is the rock of
peril for esoteric science; the truth must be veiled, yet not hidden
from the people; symbolism must not be disgraced by a lapse into
absurdity; the sacred veil of Isis must be preserved in its beauty and
dignity. It was over this that the Egyptian priesthood failed; the
vulgar and the foolish understood the hieroglyphic forms of Isis and
Hermanubis as real things, so that Osiris was understood to be an ox,
while the wise Hermes was a dog. The transformed Osiris masqueraded in
the fantastic guise of the bull of Apis, nor did the priests hinder the
people from adoring flesh intended for their kitchens. It was time to
save the holy traditions; Moses established a new nation and forbade
all worship of images; but the people unfortunately had dwelt long
among idolaters and memories of the bull of Apis remained with them
in the desert. We know the history of that Golden Calf to which the
children of Israel have been always a little addicted. Moses, however,
did not wish the sacred hieroglyphics to pass out of memory, and he
sanctified them by their consecration to the purified worship of the
true God. We shall see how all objects which entered into the cultus
of Jehovah were symbolic in character and recalled the venerable signs
of primæval revelation. But we must first finish with the Gentiles
and follow through pagan civilisation the story of materialised
hieroglyphics and of ancient rites degenerated.
CHAPTER V
MAGIC IN GREECE
We pass now to the period when the exact sciences of Magic assumed
their natural external form, being that of beauty. We have seen in the
_Zohar_ how the human prototype rose in heaven and was reflected below
in the waters of being. This ideal man, this shadow of the pantomorphic
god, this virile phantom of perfect form was not destined to dwell
alone in the world of symbolism. There was given to him a companion
under the beneficent sky of Hellas. The celestial Venus, the chaste
and fruitful Venus, the triple mother of the three Graces, rose in her
turn, no longer from the sleeping deeps of chaos, but from the living
and flowing waves of that echoing archipelago of poetry, where islands
embroidered with green trees and flowers seem as the vessels of gods.
The magical septenary of Chaldea passes into music on the seven
strings of the Orphic lyre. It is harmony which transforms the woods
and wildernesses of Greece. To the melody of the songs of Orpheus,
the rocks are smoothed, the oaks sway in measures and the wild beasts
become subject to man. By such magic did Amphion raise up the walls
of Thebes—that wisdom-city of Cadmus, the city of initiation, itself
a pantacle like the seven wonders of the world. As Orpheus gave life
to numbers, so Cadmus bound thought to the sigils of letters. The one
established a nation dedicated to all things beautiful, and for that
nation the other provided a native land, corresponding to its genius
and its love.
In the ancient Greek traditions, Orpheus is numbered among the
heroes of the Golden Fleece, who were the primeval conquerors of the
Great Work. The Golden Fleece is the vesture of the sun itself; it is
light in application to the needs of man; it is the grand secret of
magical works; it is in fine, initiation as this should be understood
essentially; and it was the quest of these or this which carried the
allegorical heroes into a mystic Asia. On the other hand, Cadmus
was a voluntary exile from the glorious Thebes of Egypt; he brought
into Greece the knowledge of letters and that harmony of which they
are images. The new Thebes, the typical city of wisdom, was built to
the measures of that harmony, for science consists in the rhythmic
correspondence between hieroglyphical, phonetic and numeral characters,
the inherent motion of which follows the eternal laws of mathematics.
Thebes is circular and its citadel is square; like the sky of Magic,
it has seven gates, and its legend was destined to become the epic of
occultism and the foreshadowed history of human genius.
All these mysterious allegories, all these inspired traditions,
are the soul of Greek civilisation; but we must be dissuaded from
seeking the real history of their poetic heroes otherwise than in the
transformations of oriental history carried into Greece by unknown
hierophants. It was only the history of ideas which was written by the
great of those days, and they were at little pains to acquaint us with
the human struggles belonging to the birth of empires. Homer followed
in their path, marshalling the gods, who are the immortal types of
thought; it was in this sense that a world’s upheaval followed on the
frown of Jupiter. If Greece carried fire and sword into Asia, it was
to avenge the profanations of science and virtue in their sacrifice to
lust; it was to restore the empire of the world to Minerva and Juno,
in despite of that sensuous Venus who ruined her devoted lovers. Such
is the sublime mission of poetry, which substitutes gods for men,
or causes in place of effects and eternal concepts for the sorry
incarnations of greatness on earth. Ideas raise up and they also cast
down empires; a faith of some kind is at the root of all grandeur, and
in order that faith may be poetry, or in other words creative, it must
be founded on truth. The only history which is worthy to occupy the
wise is that of the light which is victorious over darkness for ever.
That which is called a civilisation is one great day of this sun.
The fable of the Golden Fleece connects Hermetic Magic with Greek
initiations. The Golden Fleece of the solar ram, which must be
obtained by those or by him who would possess universal sovereignty,
is figurative of the Great Work. The Argonautic vessel, built of
timber from the prophetic oaks of Dodona, the speaking vessel, is the
ship of the mysteries of Isis, the ark of life-force and renewal, the
coffer of Osiris, the egg of divine regeneration. The adventurer Jason
is he who is prepared for initiation, but he is a hero in his valour
only; he has all the inconstancy and all the weakness of humanity, but
he takes with him the personifications of all power. Hercules, who
signifies brute force, has no real part in the work, for he goes astray
from the path in pursuit of his unworthy loves. The others arrive in
the land of initiation, of Colchis, where the remnant of Zoroastrian
secrets is still preserved. The question is how to obtain the key of
these mysteries, and science is once again betrayed by a woman. Medea
delivers to Jason the arcana of the Great Work, with the kingdom and
the life of her father; for it is a fatal law of the occult sanctuary
that the revelation of its secrets entails death upon him who has
proved unable to preserve them. Medea informs Jason of the monsters
with which he must do battle and of that which will ensure his victory.
There is firstly the winged serpent of earth, the astral fluid which
must be seized and fixed; its teeth must be drawn and sown in a waste
place, which has been previously ploughed by the bulls of Mars. The
dragon’s teeth are those acids[55] which dissolve the metallic earth
after its preparation by a double fire and by the earth’s magnetic
forces. A fermentation follows, comparable to a great battle; the
impure is devoured by the impure, and the splendid Fleece is the reward
of the adept.
So ends the magical romance of Jason and that of Medea follows, for
Greek antiquity sought to include in this history the complete epic
of occult science. Hermetic Magic is succeeded by göetia, parricide,
fratricide, infanticide, sacrificing all to its passions but never
enjoying the harvest of its crimes. Medea betrays her father like Ham
and assassinates her brother like Cain. She stabs her children, poisons
her rival and reaps the hatred of him whose love she has coveted. It
may be surprising on the surface that Jason does not gain in wisdom by
the mastery of the Golden Fleece, but it must be remembered that he
owes the discovery of its secrets to treason only. He is a ravisher
after the manner of Prometheus and not an adept like Orpheus; he is in
search of wealth and power rather than of knowledge. Hence he perishes
miserably, for the inspiring and sovereign virtues of the Golden Fleece
will be never understood except by the disciples of Orpheus.
Prometheus, the Golden Fleece, the Thebaid, the Iliad and the
Odyssey—these five great epics, full of the mysteries of Nature and
human destinies, constitute the bible of ancient Greece, a cyclopean
monument, a Pelion piled upon an Ossa, masterpiece over masterpiece,
form on form, beautiful as light itself and throned upon eternal
thoughts, sublime in truth. It was however at their proper risk and
peril that the hierophants of poetry committed to the Greek people
these marvellous fictions in which truth was shrined. Aeschylus who
dared to depict the Titanic struggles, superhuman woes and divine
hopes of Prometheus—Aeschylus, the awe-inspiring poet of the family of
Œdipus—was accused of betraying and profaning the mysteries and escaped
with difficulty a severe condemnation. We are unable at this day to
realise his whole intent, which was a dramatic trilogy embracing the
entire symbolic history of Prometheus. It follows that he exhibited
to the assembled people how Prometheus was delivered by Alcides and
how Jupiter was cast from his throne. The omnipotence of genius in its
suffering and the decisive victory of patience over power are fine no
doubt, but the crowd might see therein the future triumph of impiety
and anarchy. Prometheus overcoming Jupiter might be understood as the
people destined to be liberated one day from their priests and kings;
and guilty hopes might count for much in the prodigal applause accorded
to him who unveiled this prospect imprudently. To the leanings of dogma
towards poetry we owe the masterpieces in question, and we are not
therefore to be counted among the austere initiates who would wish,
like Plato, to crown and then exile the poets; for the true poets are
ambassadors of God on earth and those who cast them forth deserve no
blessing from heaven.
The great Greek initiator and he who civilised it first was also
its first poet, for even in allowing that Orpheus was a mystical or
fabulous personality, we must believe in the existence of Musæus
and attribute to him the verses which pass under the name of his
master.[56] It matters little to us otherwise whether one of the
Argonauts was called Orpheus or not, for the poetic creator has done
more than live; he lives in immortality for ever. The Orphic fable is
a complete dogma, a revelation of priestly destinies, a new ideal form
of the worship of beauty. The regeneration and redemption of love are
indicated already therein. Orpheus descends into hell, seeking Eurydice
and must bring her back without seeing her; so must the pure man create
his companion, raise her to himself by devotion and not by desire of
her. It is in renouncing the object of passion that we deserve to
possess the object of true love. We are already in the atmosphere of
the pure dreams of Christian chivalry. But the hierophant is still a
man; he falters, questions and looks. _Ab miseror Eurydicem._ She is
lost, the error is committed, the expiation must now begin. Orpheus
is widowed and remains as such in purity; the marriage with Eurydice
had not attained consummation, and as the widower of one who was a
virgin he rested himself in virginity. The poet is not two-hearted
and children of the race of gods love once and once alone. Paternal
inspirations, yearnings for an ideal which shall be found beyond the
tomb, widowhood made holy in its consecration to the sacred muse.
What a revelation in advance of inspirations yet to come. Orpheus,
bearing in his heart a wound that nothing but death shall heal, becomes
a doctor of souls and bodies; he dies at length, the victim of his
chastity—the death which he suffers is that of initiators and prophets.
He perishes proclaiming the unity of god and the unity also of love:
this at a later period was the root of the Orphic Mysteries.
Having shewn himself raised so far above his own epoch, Orpheus earned
in due course the reputation of a sorcerer and enchanter. To him, as
to Solomon, were attributed the knowledge of simples and minerals,
of celestial medicine and the philosophical stone. With these he was
doubtless acquainted, since he personifies primitive initiation, fall
and reparation in his legend—the three divisions of the great work of
humanity.
Orphic initiation may, according to Ballanche, be summarised in the
following manner: “Made subject in the first place to the influence
of the elements, man’s own influence must afterwards govern these.
Creation is the act of a divine magism which is continuous and eternal.
True being resides for man in self-knowledge. Responsibility is for
him a conquest and the very penalty of sin is another occasion for
victory. All life is founded on death, and palingenesis is the law
of reparation. Marriage is the reproduction in humanity of the great
cosmogonical mystery. It should be one, as God and Nature are one. It
is the unity of the Tree of Life, while debauch is division and death.
Astrology is a synthesis, because the Tree of Life is a single tree
and because its branches—spread through heaven and bearing flowers of
stars—are in correspondence with its roots, which are hidden in earth.
The knowledge of the medical and magical virtues resident in plants,
metals and bodies endowed with varying degrees of life, is also a
synthetic knowledge. The capacities for organisation in their various
grades are revealed by a synthesis. The aggregations and affinities
of metals, like the vegetative soul of plants and like all powers of
assimilation, are also made known by a synthesis.”
It has been said that the beautiful is the splendour of the true, and
it is therefore to this great light of Orpheus that we must ascribe
the perfection of form which was manifested for the first time in
Greece. To him also—as to a source—is referable the school of divine
Plato, that pagan father of all high Christian philosophy. From him
did Pythagoras and the _illuminati_ of Alexandria alike derive their
mysteries. Initiation does not suffer vicissitude; it is one and the
same, wheresoever we meet with it through the ages. The last disciples
of Martines de Pasqually are still the children of Orpheus; but they
adore the Realiser of antique philosophy, Who is the incarnate Word of
Christians.
We have said that the first part of the fable concerning the Golden
Fleece embodies the secrets of Orphic Magic and that the second part
is dedicated to judicious warnings against the abuses of Göetia or
the Magic of darkness. False or Göetic Magic, known at the present
day under the name of sorcery, can never rank as a science: it is the
empiricism of fatality. All excessive passion produces a factitious
force of which will cannot be the master, but that force is obedient
to the tyranny of passion. This is why Albertus Magnus counsels us
to curse no one in our wrath. It is the story of the malediction of
Hippolytus by Theseus. Excessive passion is real madness, and the
latter in its turn is an intoxication or congestion of Astral Light.
This is why madness is contagious and why passions in general operate
as a veritable witchcraft. Women are superior to men in sorcery because
they are more easily transported by excess of passion. The word
sorcerer clearly designates victims of chance and, so to speak, the
poisonous mushrooms of fatality.
Greek sorcerers, but especially those of Thessaly, put horrible
precepts to the proof and were given over to abominable rites. They
were mostly women wasted by desires which they could no longer satisfy,
antiquated courtesans, monsters of immorality and ugliness. Jealous of
love and life, those wretched creatures found lovers only in the tombs,
or rather they violated sepulchres to devour with foul caresses the icy
bodies of young men. They stole children and stifled their cries by
pressing them to their dangling breasts. They were known as _lamiæ_,
_stryges_, _empusæ_; children were the objects of their envy and thus
of their hatred, and they sacrificed them for this reason. Some, like
that Canidia who is mentioned by Horace, buried them as far as the head
and left them to die of hunger, surrounded with food which they could
not reach; others cut off the heads, hands and feet, boiled their fat
and grease, in copper basins, to the consistence of an ointment, which
they afterwards mixed with the juice of henbane, belladonna and black
poppies. With this unguent they anointed the organ which was irritated
unceasingly by their detestable desires; they rubbed also their temples
and arm-pits, and then fell into a lethargy full of unbridled and
luxurious dreams. There is need to speak plainly—these are the origins
and this is the traditional practice of Black Magic; these are the
secrets which were handed down to the middle ages; and such in fine are
the pretended innocent victims whom public execration, far more than
the sentence of inquisitors, condemned to the flames. It was in Spain
and in Italy above all that the race of _stryges_, _lamiæ_ and _empusæ_
abounded, even at a late period; those who doubt should consult the
most experienced criminologists of these countries, digested by
Franciscus Torreblanca,[57] Royal Advocate of the Chancelry of Granada,
in his _Epitome Delictorum_.
Medea and Circe are the types of Malefic Magic among the Greeks. Circe
is the vicious female who bewitches and debases her lovers; Medea is
the brazen poisoner who dares everything and makes Nature itself the
abettor of her crimes. There are actually creatures who enchant like
Circe and whose proximity defiles. They can inspire nothing but brutal
passions; they exhaust and then disdain you. They must be treated
according to the policy of Ulysses, by compelling them to obedience
through fear and by being able to leave them in the end without regret.
They are beautiful, heartless monsters and their vanity is their whole
life. They were depicted by antiquity in the form of syrens.
As to Medea, she is perversity incarnate, willing and working evil.
She is capable of love and does not yield to fear, but her love is
more terrible than her hate. She is a bad mother and the destroyer
of children; she loves the night and under the rays of the moon she
gathers noxious herbs for the brewing of poisons. She magnetises the
air, brings dole to earth, infects water and makes even the fire
venomous. Reptiles provide her with their skins; she mutters frightful
words; the track of blood follows her; and mutilated limbs fall from
her hands. Her counsels madden, her caresses beget horror.
Such is the woman who has sought to rise beyond the duties of her sex
by familiarity with forbidden sciences. Men avoid her, children hide
when she passes. She is devoid of reason, devoid of true love, and
the stratagems of Nature in revolt against her are the ever-renewing
torment of her pride.
CHAPTER VI
MATHEMATICAL MAGIC OF PYTHAGORAS
He who initiated Numa, and of whose proficiency in Magic something
has been said already, was a personage known as Tarchon, himself the
disciple of a Chaldean named Tages. Science had then its apostles who
went to and fro in the world, making priests and kings therein. Not
infrequently persecution itself was overruled to fulfil the designs of
Providence, and so it came about toward the seventy-second Olympiad, or
four generations after the reign of Numa. Pythagoras of Samos sought a
refuge in Italy from the tyranny of Polycrates. The great promoter of
the philosophy of numbers had visited all the sanctuaries of the world
and had even been in Judæa, where he suffered circumcision[58] as the
price of his admission into the mysteries of the Kabalah, communicated
to him, though not without a certain reserve, by the prophets Ezekiel
and Daniel. Subsequently, but again not without difficulty, he obtained
Egyptian initiation, being recommended by the King Amasis. The
capacities of his own genius supplemented the imperfect revelations
of the hierophants, so that he became himself a master and one who
expounded the mysteries.
Pythagoras defined God as a living and absolute truth clothed in
light; he defined the Word as number manifested by form; and he
derived all things from the _Tetractys_—that is to say, the tetrad. He
said also that God is supreme music, the nature of which is harmony.
Religion was, according to him, the highest expression of justice;
medicine was the most perfect practice of science; the beautiful
was harmony; force, reason; felicity, perfection; while truth in
application consisted in distrusting the weakness and perversity of men.
When he made his dwelling at Crotona, the magistrates of that city,
seeing that he exercised so great an influence over minds and hearts,
were at first in some anxiety concerning him; but ultimately they
sought his advice. Pythagoras counselled them to cultivate the muses
and maintain the most perfect accord among themselves, because feuds
between masters fomented rebellion among servants. Thereafter he
imparted to them his grand religious, political and social precept:
There is no evil which is not to be preferred before anarchy—an axiom
of universal application and almost infinite depth, though one which
even our own age is not as yet sufficiently enlightened to understand.
Outside the traditions of his life, the remains of Pythagoras are his
Golden Verses and his Symbols, of which the former have passed into
commonplaces of popular morality, so great has been their success
through the ages. They have been rendered as follows:[59]—
“First worship the immortal gods, as they are established and ordained
by the Law. Reverence the oath and next the heroes, full of goodness
and light.... Honour likewise thy parents, and those most nearly
related to thee. Of all the rest of mankind, make him thy friend who
distinguishes himself by his virtue. Always give ear to his mild
exhortations, and take example from his virtuous and useful actions.
Avoid as much as possible hating thy friend for a slight fault.
Understand that power is a near neighbour to necessity.... Overcome
and vanquish these passions—gluttony, sloth, sensuality, and anger.
Do nothing evil, neither in the presence of others nor privately, and
above all things respect thyself. In the next place, observe justice in
thy actions and in thy words.... The goods of fortune are uncertain; as
they may be acquired, so may they likewise be lost. Always make this
reflection, that it is ordained by destiny that all men shall die....
Support with patience thy lot, be it what it may, and never repine at
it; but endeavour what thou canst to remedy it. Consider that fate does
not send the greatest portion of these misfortunes to good men.... Let
no man by his words, or by his deeds seduce thee; nor entice thee to
say or to do what is not profitable for thyself. Consult and deliberate
before thou act, that thou mayst not commit foolish actions. For it is
the part of a miserable man to speak and to act without reflection.
But do that which will not afflict thee afterwards, nor oblige thee
to repentance. Never do anything which thou dost not understand; but
learn all that thou oughtest to know, and by that means thou wilt lead
a very pleasant life. In no wise neglect the health of thy body; but
give it drink and meat in due measure, and also the exercise of which
it has need.... Accustom thyself to a way of living that is neat and
decent without luxury.... Do only the things which cannot hurt thee,
and deliberate before thou dost them. Never suffer sleep to close thy
eyelids, after thy going to bed, till thou hast examined by thy reason
all thy actions of the day. Wherein have I done amiss? What have I
done? What have I omitted that I ought to have done?”
Up to this point the Golden Verses seem to be only the instructions
of a schoolmaster. They bear however a very different construction.
They are the preliminary laws of magical initiation, which constitute
the first part of the Great Work, that is to say, the creation of the
perfect adept. This is proved by the following verses:
“I swear by him who has transmitted into our souls the Sacred
Quaternion, the source of nature, whose cause is eternal. Never
begin to set thy hand to any work, till thou hast prayed the gods to
accomplish what thou art going to begin. When thou hast made this habit
familiar to thee, thou wilt know the constitution of the Immortal Gods
and of men. Even how far the different beings extend, and what contains
and binds them together ..., and nothing in this world shall be hid
from thee.... O Jupiter, our Father! if thou wouldst deliver men from
all the evils that oppress them, shew them of what daimon they make
use. But take courage; the race of men is divine.... When, having
divested thyself of thy mortal body, thou arrivest at the most pure
Æther, thou shalt be a god, immortal, incorruptible, and death shall
have no more dominion over thee.”
Pythagoras said otherwise: “As there are three divine concepts
and three intelligible realms, so is there a triple word, because
hierarchic order is ever manifested by the triad. There are (_a_)
simple speech, (_b_) hieroglyphical speech and (_c_) symbolical
speech. In other terms, there is the word which expresses, there is
the concealing word and, finally, there is the word that signifies:
all hieratic intelligence is in the perfect science of these three
degrees.” After this manner he enshrined doctrine in symbols, but
eschewing personifications and images which, in his opinion, begot
idolatry sooner or later. He has been even charged with detestation
of poets, but it was the makers of bad verses to whom he forbade the
art: “Thou who hast no harp, seek not to sing in measures,” he says
in his symbols. A man so great as he could never disregard the exact
correspondence between sublime thoughts and beautiful figurative
expressions; indeed his own symbols are full of poetry: “Do not scatter
the flowers of which crowns are made.” In such terms he exhorts his
disciples never to diminish glory and never to flout that which it
seems good for the world to honour.
Pythagoras was chaste, but far from commanding celibacy to his
disciples he married on his own part and had children. A beautiful
saying of his wife has remained in memory: she had been asked whether
purification was not requisite in a woman after intercourse with
a man, and in such case after what lapse of time she might regard
herself as sufficiently purified to approach holy things. She replied:
“Immediately, if it be with her husband; but if it be with another,
never.”
The same severity of principles, the same purity of manners, qualified
in the school of Pythagoras for initiation into the mysteries of Nature
and so was attained that empire over self by which the elementary
powers could be governed. Pythagoras possessed the faculty which by us
is termed second sight and was known then as divination. Being with his
disciples one day on the seashore, a vessel appeared on the horizon.
“Master,” said one of the companions, “would it mean wealth if they
gave me the cargo carried by that ship?” “To you it would be more than
useless,” Pythagoras answered. “In such case I would keep it for my
heirs.” “Would you wish to bequeathe them two corpses?” The vessel came
into port and proved to be bearing the body of a man who desired to be
buried in his own country.
It is related furthermore that beasts were obedient to Pythagoras. Once
in the middle of the Olympic Games, he signalled to an eagle winging
its way through heaven; the bird descended, wheeling circle-wise, and
again took rapid flight at the master’s token of dismissal. There
was also a great bear, ravaging in Apulia; Pythagoras brought it to
his feet and told it to leave the country. It disappeared accordingly
and when asked to what knowledge he owed such a marvellous power, he
answered: “To the science of light.” Animated beings are, in fact,
incarnations of light. Out of the darkness of ugliness forms emerge and
move progressively towards the splendours of beauty; instincts are in
correspondence with forms; and man who is the synthesis of that light
whereof animals may be termed the analysis, is created to command them.
It has come about, however, that in place of ruling as their master, he
has become their persecutor and destroyer, so that they fear and have
rebelled against him. In the presence of an exceptional will which is
at once benevolent and directing they are completely magnetised, and a
host of modern phenomena both can and should enable us to understand
the possibility of miracles like those of Pythagoras.
Physiognomists have observed that the majority of men have a certain
facial resemblance to one or another animal. It may be a matter
of imagination only, produced by the impression to which various
physiognomies give rise, and revealing some prominent personal
characteristics. A morose man is thus reminiscent of a bear, a
hypocrite has the look of a cat, and so of the rest. These kinds of
judgments are magnified in the imagination and exaggerated still
further in dreams, when people who have affected us disagreeably during
the waking state transform into animals and cause us to experience all
the agonies of nightmare. Now, animals—as much as ourselves and more
even than we—are under the rule of imagination, while they are devoid
of that judgment by which we can check its errors. Hence they are
affected towards us according to the sympathies or antipathies which
are excited by our own magnetism. They are, moreover, unconscious of
that which underlies the human form and they regard us only as other
animals by whom they are dominated, the dog taking his master for a dog
more perfect than himself. The secret of dominion over animals lies
in the management of this instinct. We have seen a famous tamer of
wild beasts fascinate his lions by exhibiting a terrible countenance
and acting himself as if he were a lion enraged. Here is a literal
application of the popular proverb which tells us to howl with the
wolves and bleat with the sheep. It must also be realised that every
animal form manifests a particular instinct, aptitude or vice. If we
suffer the character of the beast to predominate within us, we shall
tend to assume its external guise in an ever-increasing degree and
shall even come to impress its perfect image on the Astral Light;
more even than this, when we fall into dreams or ecstasy, we shall
see ourselves as ecstatics and somnambulists would see us and as we
must appear undoubtedly in the eyes of animals. Let it happen in such
cases that reason be extinguished, that persistent dreams change into
madness, and we shall be turned into beasts like Nebuchadnezzar. This
explains those stories of were-wolves, some of which have been legally
established. The facts were beyond dispute, but the witnesses were not
less hallucinated than the were-wolves themselves.[60]
Cases of coincidence and correspondence in the dream-state are neither
rare nor extraordinary. Persons in the state of magnetic ecstasy
can see and talk to one another from opposite ends of the earth. We
ourselves may meet someone for the first time and he or she will seem
to be an old acquaintance because we have encountered frequently in
dream. Life is full of these curious occurrences and as regards the
transformation of human beings into animals, the evidences are on every
side. How many aged courtesans and gluttonous females, reduced almost
to idiocy after threading all sewers of existence, are nothing but old
she-cats egregiously enamoured of their tom.
Pythagoras believed above all things in the soul’s immortality and in
the perpetuity of life. The endless succession of summer and winter,
day and night, sleeping and waking, illustrated amply for him the
phenomenon of death. For him also the particular immortality of human
souls consisted in persistence of memory. He is said to have been
conscious of his previous incarnations and if the report is true, it
was something suggested by his reminiscences, for such a man as he
could have been neither impostor nor fool.[61] It is probable that he
came upon former memories in his dreams, while simple speculation and
hypothesis have been constructed as positive affirmation on his part.
However this may be, his thought was great, for the real life of our
individuality consists in memory alone. Those waters of Lethe pictured
by the ancients were the true philosophical type of death. The Bible
appears to impart a divine sanction to this idea when it is said in the
Book of Psalms that “the just shall be in everlasting remembrance.”[62]
CHAPTER VII
THE HOLY KABALAH
Let us now have recourse to the origin of true science by recurring
to the Holy Kabalah, or tradition of the children of Seth, taken from
Chaldea by Abraham, communicated by Joseph to the Egyptian priesthood,
ingarnered by Moses, concealed by symbols in the Bible, revealed by the
Saviour to St. John, and embodied in its fulness in hieratic images,
analogous to those of all antiquity, in the Apocalypse of this Apostle.
Whatsoever was in kinship with idolatry was held in detestation by
the Kabalists, which notwithstanding, God is represented by them
under a human figure, but it is purely hieroglyphical. For them He
is the intelligent, the loving, the living infinite. He is neither
the totality of all beings, nor being in abstraction, nor a being
who is philosophically definable. He is in all things, being more
and greater than all. His very name is ineffable, and yet this name
gives expression only to the human ideal of His divinity.[63] It is
not possible for man to understand God in Himself. He is the absolute
of faith, but the absolute of reason is Being. Being is self-existent
and is because it is. The cause of Being is Being itself. It is matter
of legitimate speculation why this or that exists, but it would be
absurd to inquire why Being is, for it would be to postulate Being as
antecedent to Being.
It is demonstrated by reason and science that the modes of existence in
Being are equilibrated in accordance with harmonious and hierarchic
laws. Now the hierarchy is graduated on an ascending scale, becoming
more and more monarchic. At the same time reason cannot pause in the
presence of one absolute chief without being overwhelmed by the heights
which it discerns above this supreme king; it takes refuge therefore in
silence and gives place to adoring faith. That which is certain, for
science and for reason alike, is that the idea of God is the grandest,
most holy and most serviceable of all aspirations in man; that morality
and its eternal sanction repose on this belief. In humanity it is
therefore the most real phenomenon of being, and if it were false
therefore, Nature would formulate the absurd, the void would affirm
life, and it might be said at one and the same time that there was God
and there was no God. It is to this philosophical and incontestable
reality, or otherwise the notion of Deity, that the Kabalists give
a name, and all other names are contained therein.[64] The ciphers
of this name produce all numbers and the hieroglyphical forms of
its letters give expression to all laws of Nature, with all that is
therein. We shall not recur in this place to that which has been dealt
with already as regards the divine Tetragram in the _Doctrine of
Transcendental Magic_; but it may be added that the Kabalists inscribe
it in four chief ways: (1) as יהוה, JHVH, which is spelt but not
pronounced. The consonants are YOD, HE, VAU, HE, and they are rendered
as JEHOVAH by us in opposition to all analogy, for the Tetragrammaton
so disfigured is composed of six letters.[65] (2) אדני, ADNI, meaning
Lord and pronounced by us ADONAI.[66] (3) אהיה AHIH, which signifies
Being and is pronounced by us EIEIE.[67] (4) אגלא, AGLA, pronounced
as it is written and comprising hieroglyphically all mysteries of the
Kabalah.[68]
[Illustration: PANTACLE OF KABALISTIC LETTERS]
The letter _Aleph_, א, is the first of the Hebrew alphabet, and
expressing as it does unity, it represents hieroglyphically the
dogma of Hermes: that which is above is analogous to that which is
below. In consonance with this the letter has two arms, one of which
points to earth and the other to heaven with an identical gesture.
The letter _Gimel_, ג, is third in the alphabet; it expresses the
triad numerically, and hieroglyphically it signifies childbirth,
fruitfulness. Lamed, ל, is the twelfth letter and is an expression of
the perfect cycle. Considered as a hieroglyphical sign it represents
the circulation of the perpetual movement and the relation of the
radius to the circumference. The duplicated _Aleph_ represents the
synthesis. Therefore the name AGLA signifies: (1) unity, which
accomplishes by the triad the cycle of numbers, leading back to unity.
(2) The fruitful principle of Nature, which is one therewith. (3)
The primal truth which fertilises science and restores it to unity.
(4) Syllepsis, analysis, science and synthesis. (5) The Three Divine
Persons Who are one God; the secret of the Great Work, which is
the fixation of the Astral Light by a sovereign act of will and is
represented by the adepts as a serpent pierced with an arrow, thus
forming the letter _Aleph_. (6) The three operations of dissolution,
sublimation and fixation, corresponding to the three essential
substances, Salt, Sulphur and Mercury—the whole being expressed by the
letter _Gimel_. (7) The twelve keys of Basil Valentine, represented
by _Lamed_. (8) Finally, the Work accomplished in conformity with its
principle and reproducing the said principle.
Herein is the origin of that Kabalistic tradition which comprises
all Magic in a single word. To know how this word is read and how
also it is pronounced, or literally to understand its mysteries and
translate the knowledge into action, is to have the key of miracles. In
pronouncing the word AGLA it is said that one must turn to the East,
which means union of intention and knowledge with oriental tradition.
It should be remembered further that, according to Kabalah, the perfect
word is the word realised by acts, whence comes that expression which
recurs frequently in the Bible: _facere verbum_, to make a word—that
is, in the sense of performing an act. To pronounce the word AGLA
Kabalistically is therefore to pass all tests of initiation and
accomplish all its works.[69]
It has been said in the _Doctrine of Transcendental Magic_ that the
name Jehovah resolves into seventy-two explicatory names, called
_Shemahamphorash_.[70] The art of employing these seventy-two names and
discovering therein the keys of universal science is the art which is
called by Kabalists the Keys of Solomon. As a fact, at the end of the
collections of prayers and evocations which bear this title, there are
found usually seventy-two magical circles, making thirty-six talismans,
or four times nine, being the absolute number multiplied by the tetrad.
Each of these talismans bears two of the two-and-seventy names, the
sign emblematical of their number and that of the four letters of
Tetragrammaton to which they correspond. From this have originated the
four emblematical Tarot suits: the Wand, representing the _Yod_; the
Cup, answering to the _He_; the Sword, referable to the _Vau_; and the
Pentacle, in correspondence with the final _He_. The complement of the
denary has been added in the Tarot, thus repeating synthetically the
character of unity.[71]
The popular traditions of Magic affirm that he who possesses the Keys
of Solomon can communicate with spirits of all grades and can exact
obedience on the part of all natural forces. These Keys, so often lost
and as often again recovered, are no other than the talismans of the
seventy-two names and the mysteries of the thirty-two hieroglyphical
paths, reproduced by the Tarot. By the aid of these signs and by their
infinite combinations, which are like those of numbers and letters, it
is possible to arrive at the natural and mathematical revelation of
all secrets of Nature, and it is in this sense that communication is
established with the whole hierarchy of intelligence.
The Kabalists in their wisdom were on their guard against the dreams
of imagination and hallucinations of the waking state. Therefore they
avoided in particular all unhealthy evocations which disturb the
nervous system and intoxicate reason. Makers of curious experiments in
phenomena of extra-atural vision are no better than the eaters of opium
and hasheesh. They are children who injure themselves recklessly. It
may happen that one is overtaken by intoxication; we may even so far
forget ourselves voluntarily as to seek the experience of drunkenness,
but for the man who respects himself, a single instance suffices. Count
Joseph de Maistre says that one of these days we shall deride our
present stupidity, much as we deride the barbarity of the middle ages.
What would he think, did he see our table-turners or listen to makers
of hypotheses concerning the world of spirits? Poor creatures that we
are, we escape from one absurdity by rushing over to its opposite.
The eighteenth century thought that it protested against superstition
by denying religion and we in return testify to the impiety of that
period by believing in old wives’ fables. Is it impossible to be a
better Christian than Voltaire and still not believe in ghosts? The
dead can no more revisit this earth which they have quitted than a
child can return into the womb of its mother.[72] That which we call
death is birth into a new life. Nature does not repeat what it has
once done in the order of necessary progression through the scale of
existence, and she cannot bely her own fundamental laws. Limited by its
organs and served by these, the human soul can enter into communication
with things of the visible world only by the intermediation of these
organs. The body is an envelope adjusted to the physical environments
in which the soul abides here. By confining the action of the soul it
makes her activity possible. In the absence of body the soul would be
everywhere, and yet in so attenuated a sense that it could act nowhere,
but, lost in the infinite, would be swallowed up and annihilated in
God.[73] Imagine a drop of fresh water shut up in a globule and cast in
the sea; as long as that sheath is preserved intact, the drop of water
will subsist in its separate form, but let the globule be broken and
where shall we look for the drop in the vast sea?
In creating spirits, God could endow them with self-conscious
personality only by their restriction in an envelope, so to centralise
their action and by restriction save it from being lost. When the soul
separates from the body it changes environment of necessity, since it
changes the envelope.[74] It goes forth clothed only in the astral
form, or vehicle of light, ascending in virtue of its nature above
the atmosphere, as air rises from the water in escaping from a broken
vessel. We say that the soul ascends because the vehicle ascends and
because action and consciousness are both attached thereto.[75] The
atmospheric air becomes solid for luciform bodies which are infinitely
rarer than itself, and they could only come down by assuming a
grosser vehicle. Where would they obtain this in the region above
our atmosphere? They could only return to earth by means of another
incarnation, and such return would be a lapse, for they would be
renouncing the state of free spirit and renewing their novitiate. The
possibility of such a return is not admitted, moreover, by the catholic
religion.
The doctrine here set forth is formulated by the Kabalists in a single
axiom: The spirit clothes itself to come down and unclothes itself to
go up. The life of intelligence is ascensional. In the body of its
mother, the child has a vegetative life and draws nourishment through
a cord to which it is attached, as the tree is attached to the earth
by its root and is also nourished thereby. When the child passes
from vegetative to instinctive and animal life, the cord breaks and
henceforth he has free motion. When the child becomes man, he escapes
from the trammels of instinct and can act as a reasonable being. When
the man dies, he is liberated from the law of gravitation, by which
he has been previously bound to earth. When the soul has expiated its
offences, it grows strong enough to emerge from the exterior darkness
of the terrestrial atmosphere and mount towards the sun.[76] The
unending ascent of the sacred ladder begins therein, for the eternity
of the elect cannot be a state of idleness; they pass from virtue
to virtue, from bliss to bliss, from victory to victory, from glory
to glory. There is no break in the chain, and those of the superior
degrees can still exercise an influence on those who are below, but it
is in harmony with the hierarchic order and after the same way that
a king who rules wisely does good to the humblest of his subjects.
From stage to stage, the prayers arise and the graces pour down, never
mistaking the path. But spirits who have once gone up cannot again come
down, for in proportion to their ascent the zones solidify below them.
The great gulf is fixed, says Abraham, in the parable of the rich man,
so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot.[77]
Ecstasy may so exalt the powers of the star-body that it can draw the
material body after it, thus proving that the destiny of the soul is to
ascend. The stories of aerial levitation are possible, but there is no
instance of a man being able to live under the earth or in water. It
would be not less impossible for a soul in separation from the body to
subsist for a single moment in the density of our atmosphere. Therefore
departed beings are not about us, as spiritists suppose. Those whom we
love may see us and to us may still manifest, but only by mirage and
reflection in the common mirror of the Astral Light. Furthermore they
can take interest no longer in mortal things; they hold to us only by
that which is highest in our feelings and is in correspondence with
their eternal mode.[78]
Such are the revelations of Kabalism as imbedded in the mysterious book
of the Zohar; for science they are of course hypothetical, but they
rest on a series of exact inductions and these inductions are drawn
from facts uncontested by science.
We are brought at this point into touch with one of the most dangerous
secrets in the domain of Magic, being the more than probable hypothesis
concerning the existence of those fluidic _larvæ_ known in ancient
theurgy under the name of elementary spirits. Something has been said
upon the subject in _The Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental Magic_,
and the ill-starred Abbé de Villars, who jested with these terrible
revelations, paid for his imprudence with his life.[79] The reason
that the secret is dangerous is because it verges on the great magical
arcanum. The truth is that the evocation of elementary spirits implies
power to coagulate fluids by a projection of the Astral Light, and this
power, so directed, can produce only disorders and misfortunes, as will
be shewn at a later stage. Meanwhile, the grounds of the hypothesis
and the evidence of its probability follow: Spirit is everywhere, and
is that which animates matter; it overcomes the force of gravity by
perfecting the vehicle which is its form. We see everywhere around us
how form develops with instincts, till intelligence and beauty are
attained: these are efforts of the light attracted by the charm of
the spirit; they are part of the mystery of progressive and universal
generation.
The light is the efficient agent of forms and life, because it is
both motion and heat. When fixed and polarised about a centre, it
produces a living being and draws thereafter the plastic substance
needed to perfect and preserve it. This plastic substance is, in the
last analysis, formed of earth and water and, with good reason, is
denominated slime of the earth in the Bible. But this light is in
nowise spirit, as believed by the Indian hierophants and all schools
of Göetia: it is only the spirit’s instrument. Nor is it the body of
the _protoplastes_, though so regarded by theurgists of the school
of Alexandria. It is the first physical manifestation of the Divine
Breath. God creates it eternally and man, who is in the image of God,
modifies and seems to multiply it.[80]
Prometheus, says the classical fable, having stolen fire from heaven,
gave life thereby to images formed of earth and water, for which crime
he was blasted and chained by Jupiter. Elementary spirits, say the
Kabalists in their most secret books, are children of the solitude of
Adam, born of his dreams when he yearned for the woman who as yet had
not been given to him by God.[81] According to Paracelsus, the blood
lost at certain regular periods by the female sex and the nocturnal
emissions to which male celibates are subject in dream people the air
with phantoms.[82] The hypothetical origin of _larvæ_, according to
the masters, is here indicated with sufficient clearness and further
explanation may be spared.
Such _larvæ_ have an aerial body formed from vapour of blood, for which
reason they are attracted towards spilt blood and in older days drew
nourishment from the smoke of sacrifices. They are those monstrous
offspring of nightmare which used to be called _incubi_ and _succubi_.
When sufficiently condensed to be visible, they are as a vapour tinged
by the reflection of an image; they have no personal life, but they
mimic that of the magus who evokes them, as the shadow images the body.
They collect above all about idiots and those immoral creatures whose
isolation abandons them to irregular habits. The cohesion of parts
being very slight in their fantastic bodies, they fear the open air,
a great fire and above all the point of a sword. They become, in a
manner, as vapourous appendages to the real bodies of their parents,
since they live only by drawing on the life either of those who have
created them or those who appropriate them by their evocation. It may
come about in this manner that if these shadows of bodies be wounded,
their parent may be maimed in real earnest, even as the unborn child
may be hurt and disfigured by the imaginations of its mother. The world
is full of such phenomena; they justify these strange revelations and
can only be explained thereby.
Such _larvæ_ draw the vital heat of persons in good health and they
drain those who are weak rapidly. Hence come the histories of vampires,
things of terrific reality which have been substantiated from time to
time, as it is well known. This explains also why in the neighbourhood
of mediums, who are persons obsessed by _larvæ_, one is conscious of a
cooling in the atmosphere. Seeing that their existence is due to the
illusions of imagination and divagation of the senses, such creatures
never manifest in the presence of a person who can unveil the mystery
of their monstrous birth.
BOOK II
_FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMAS_
ב—BETH
CHAPTER I
PRIMITIVE SYMBOLISM OF HISTORY
To explain Holy Scripture from the religious and dogmatic standpoint
forms no part of our warrant. Subject above all things to the
hierarchic order, we surrender theology to the doctors of the Church
and we render to human science whatsoever is included in the domain of
experience and reason. Therefore on those occasions when we may appear
to be risking a new application of some biblical passage, it is always
with proper respect for ecclesiastical decisions. We do not dogmatise
on our own part, and we submit our observations and researches to the
lawful authorities.
On reading the earliest history of the human race in the sacred work
of Moses, that which strikes one at once is the description of the
Earthly Paradise, which is summarised in the figure of a perfect
pantacle. It is circular or square, since it is watered equally by four
rivers arranged in the form of a cross, while in the centre are found
two trees representing knowledge and life, stable intelligence and
progressive motion, wisdom and creation.[83] The serpent of Asclepios
and Hermes is coiled about the Tree; beneath its shadow are the man
and woman, active and passive, intelligence and love. The serpent,
symbolising the primal attraction and the central fire of the earth,
tempts her who is the weaker, and she causes the man to succumb;
yet to the serpent she yields only in order that she may overcome
it subsequently: one day she will crush the head of it by giving a
Saviour to the world. All science is represented in this admirable
scene.[84] The man abdicates the realm of intelligence by yielding
to the solicitations of the sensitive part; he profanes the fruit of
knowledge, which should be the sustenance of the soul, by applying
it to the uses of unjust and material satisfaction; he loses in
consequence the sense of harmony and of truth. He is clothed thereafter
with the skin of a beast, because the physical form takes shape sooner
or later, and invariably, in correspondence to moral dispositions. He
is cast out of the circle which is watered by the four rivers of life,
and a cherub, armed with an ever-moving, burning sword, prevents his
return into the domain of unity.
As we have observed in the _Doctrine of Magic_, Voltaire discovered
that the Hebrew word for cherub signifies a bull and was highly amused
at the story. He might have been less entertained, had he recognised in
the angel with the head of a bull, the image of an obscure symbolism
and in the revolving sword of fire those flashes of ill-understood
and illusory truth which provided, after the Fall, a pretext to the
idolatry of nations. The burning sword typified also that light which
man knew no longer how to direct, so that, instead of governing its
force, he was made subject to its fatal influence. The great magical
work, understood in an absolute sense, is the conquest and direction of
the burning sword, and the cherub is the angel or soul of the earth,
represented invariably under the figure of a bull in the Ancient
Mysteries. Hence in Mithraic symbolism, the master of light is seen
vanquishing the bull of earth and plunging into his flank that sword
which sets free the life, represented by drops of blood.
The first consequence of Eve’s sin is the death of Abel. By separating
love from understanding she separated it also from power, and this,
reduced to blindness and in the bondage of earthly desires, became
jealous of love and slew it. The children of Cain perpetuated the crime
of their father; the daughters whom they brought into the world were
disastrously beautiful but, being void of love, they were born for the
damnation of angels[85] and for the scandal of the descendants of Seth.
After the deluge and as a sequel to the prevarication of Ham, some part
of the mystery of which has been already indicated, the children of men
attempted to realise an insensate project, by constructing an universal
pantacle and palace. It was a vast experiment in socialistic equality,
and the phalansterium of Fourier is a sorry conception in comparison
with the tower of Babel.[86] The latter was an active protestation
against the hierarchy of knowledge, a citadel built against floods
and tempests, a promontory from the elevation of which the deified
people would soar above the atmosphere and its commotions. But one does
not ascend to knowledge on ladders of stone; the hierarchic degrees
of the spirit are not built with mortar like the stories of a tower.
Against such a materialised hierarchy anarchy itself protested, and men
ceased to understand one another—a fatal lesson and one misinterpreted
utterly by those who in our own days have dreamed of another Babel. The
negations of equality give answer to doctrines which are hierarchic
only in the sense of brutality and materialism. Whenever the human race
builds such a tower, the summit will be contested and the multitude
will desert the base. To satisfy all ambitions, the summit must be
broader than the base and the result an unstable edifice which will
collapse at the smallest shock.
The scattering of men was the first result of the curse pronounced
against the profane descendants of Ham, but the race of Canaan bore in
a particular manner the burden of the malediction in question, which
at a later period made all their posterity anathema.[87] That chastity
which is the guardian of the family is also the distinctive character
of hierarchic initiations; profanation and revolt are always unclean;
they tend to promiscuity and infanticide. Desecration of the mysteries
of birth and destruction of children were the basis of the religions
of ancient Palestine, given over to the horrible rites of Black Magic;
the black god of India, the monstrous priapic Rutrem, reigned therein
under the name of Belphegor. The Talmudists and the Platonic Jew Philo
recite things so shameful respecting the worship of this idol, that
they appeared incredible to the learned lawyer Seldenus. It is said
to have been a bearded image, with gaping mouth and a tongue like a
gigantic phallus; the worshippers exposed themselves without shame in
the presence of such a visage and presented offerings of excrement.
The idols of Moloch and Chamos were murderous machines which sometimes
crushed unfortunate little children against their brazen breasts and
sometimes consumed them in their red-hot arms. There was dancing to the
sound of trumpets and tambourines, so that the cries of the victims
were stifled, and these dances were led by the wretched mothers.
Incest, sodomy and bestiality were the authorised practices among these
infamous people, and even formed part of the sacred rites.
Such is the fatal consequence of doing violence to universal harmony;
one does not sin against truth with impunity. In revolt against God,
man is driven to the outrage of Nature, despite himself. Identical
causes ever produce the same effects, and the Sabbath of the Sorcerers
in the middle ages was but a repetition of the festivals of Chamos and
Belphegor. It is against such crimes that a decree of eternal death is
pronounced by Nature itself. Worshippers of black gods, apostles of
promiscuity, preachers of public wantonness, enemies of the family and
hierarchy, anarchists in religion and politics are enemies of God and
humanity; not to isolate them from the world is to consent that the
world shall be poisoned, or such at least was the view of inquisitors;
but we are far on our own part from desiring to re-establish the cruel
executions of the middle ages. In proportion as society shall become
more truly Christian it will realise more fully that we must heal those
who are diseased and not destroy them; now, criminal instincts are
surely the most appalling of mental maladies.
It must not be forgotten that transcendental Magic is called the
Sacerdotal Art and the Royal Art; in Egypt, Greece and Rome it shared
the grandeur and decadence of the kingdom and the priesthood. Every
philosophy which is at issue with the cultus and its mysteries is
baneful to the great political powers, for these, in the eyes of the
multitude, lose in grandeur if they cease to be symbols of Divine
power. Every crown is broken which comes into collision with the tiara.
The eternal dream of Prometheus is to steal fire from heaven and cast
down the gods therefrom. The popular Prometheus, unbound on Caucasus by
Hercules, who typifies labour, will ever bear about with him his rivets
and chains; he will carry his undying vulture, fastened on his gaping
wound, till he shall learn obedience at the feet of Him, who, being
born the King of kings and God of gods, has elected in His turn to be
nailed in hands and feet and pierced in the side for the conversion of
all rebellious spirits.
By opening the career of power to intrigue, republican institutions
endangered the principles of the hierarchy. The task of forming Kings
was confided no longer to the hierarchy and was either replaced by
right of inheritance—which abandons the throne to the unequal chances
of birth—or by popular election—which sets aside religious influence
to establish the monarchy on a basis of republican principles.
Those governments which presided successively over the triumphs and
humiliations of Greek and Roman states were formed in this manner.
The science reserved to the sanctuaries fell into neglect, and men of
boldness or genius, who had not been accepted by those who dispense
initiation, devised another science in opposition to that of the
priests, substituting doubt or denial for the secrets of the temple.
In the excess of their adventurous imagination, such philosophers
were landed quickly in absurdity and laid upon Nature the blame which
belonged to their own systems. Heraclitus fell a-weeping, Democritus
took refuge in laughter, and the one was a fool like the other.
Pyrrhon ended by believing in nothing, which can scarcely exonerate
him for the fact that he knew nothing. Into this philosophical chaos
Socrates brought a certain light and good sense, by affirming the
existence of pure and simple morality. But what does morality profit in
the absence of religion? The abstract Deism of Socrates was interpreted
by the people as atheism. It came about, however, that Plato, the
disciple of Socrates, attempted to supply that system of doctrine which
was wanting in the latter and of which indeed he had never dreamed.
[Illustration: THE TWENTY-FIRST KEY OF THE TAROT, SURROUNDED BY MYSTIC
AND MASONIC SEALS]
The doctrine of Plato was epoch-making in the history of human genius,
but it was not his own invention, for, realising that there is no truth
apart from religion, he went to consult the priests of Memphis and
to obtain initiation into their Mysteries. He is even credited with
a knowledge of the Jewish sacred books.[88] In Egypt, however, his
initiation could have been imperfect only, for the priests by that time
had forgotten themselves the import of their primeval hieroglyphics,
as is indicated by the history of that priest who spent three days in
deciphering a hieratic inscription found in the tomb of Alcmene and
sent by Agesilaus, King of Sparta. Cornuphis, who was doubtless the
most learned among the hierophants, consulted the old collections of
signs and characters; in the end he found that the inscription was
in the script of _proteus_, being the Grecian name of the _Book of
Thoth_, consisting of movable hieroglyphics, capable of variations as
numerous as there are possible combinations of characters, numbers and
elementary figures. But the _Book of Thoth_, being the key of oracles
and the elementary work on science, should not have involved such
long research before its signs were identified, if Cornuphis had been
really proficient in the Sacerdotal Art. Another proof that primeval
truths were obscured at this period is the fact that the oracles which
registered their protest on the subject were in a style that was
understood no longer.
After his return from Egypt, Plato was journeying with Simmias on
the confines of Caria when he was met by some men of Delos, who
begged him to interpret an oracle of Apollo. It declared that to
make an end of the woes in Greece the cubic stone must be doubled.
The attempt had been made with a stone kept in the temple of Apollo;
but the work of doubling it on every side resulted in a polyhedron
having twenty-five surfaces; to restore the cubic form they had to
increase it twenty-six times the original volume of the stone, by a
process of successive doubling. Plato sent back the emissaries to the
mathematician Eudoxus,[89] saying that the oracle had counselled the
study of geometry. Whether he did not himself understand the deep sense
of the symbol or disdained to unveil it to the ignorant are points
which must be left to conjecture; but that which is certain is that
the cubic stone and its multiplication explains all secrets of sacred
numbers, including the mystery of perpetual motion, hidden by adepts
and pursued by fools under the name of squaring the circle.[90] By this
cubic agglomeration of twenty-six cubes about a single central cube,
the oracle indicated to the Delians not only the elements of geometry
but the key of creative harmonies, explained by the inter-relation
of forms and numbers. The plan of all great allegorical temples
throughout antiquity is found in the multiplication (_a_) of the cube
by the cross, (_b_) about which a circle is described, and then (_c_)
the cubic cross moving in a globe. These notions, which are rendered
more intelligible by a diagram, have been handed on to our own days in
Masonic initiations, and they are a perfect justification of the name
attributed to the modern societies in question, for they are also the
root-principles of architecture and the science of building.
The Delians thought to answer the geometrical question by reducing
their multiplication by half, but they had already obtained eight times
the volume of their cubic stone. For the rest, the number of their
experiments may be extended at will, for the story itself is probably a
problem set to his disciples by Plato. If the utterance of the oracle
has to be taken as a fact, we can find a still deeper meaning in it;
to double the cubic stone is to extract the duad from unity, form from
idea, action from thought. It is to realise in the world the exactitude
of eternal mathematics, to establish politics on the basis of exact
sciences, to harmonise religious dogma with the philosophy of numbers.
Plato has more eloquence but less depth than Pythagoras; he aspires
to reconcile the philosophy of logicians with the immutable dogmas of
seers; he does not seek to vulgarise but would reconstruct science.
So was his philosophy destined at a later date to provide dawning
Christianity with theories prepared beforehand and with vivifying
doctrines. Notwithstanding, however, that he based his theorems on
mathematics, Plato was poet rather than geometrician; he was rich in
harmonious forms and was prodigal of marvellous hypotheses. Aristotle,
who was a calculating genius exclusively, referred everything to debate
in the schools; he made everything subject to the demonstrations of
numeral evolutions and the logic of calculations. Excluding the faith
of Platonism, he sought to prove all and likewise to comprehend all
in his categories; he turned the triad into syllogism and the binary
into enthymeme. For him the chain of being became a _sorites_. He
reduced everything to an abstraction and reasoned on everything; being
itself passed into an abstraction in his process and was lost amidst
the hypotheses of ontology. Plato was destined to inspire the Fathers
of the Church; Aristotle to be the master of mediæval scholastics;
God knows what clouds gathered about this logic which had no faith in
anything and yet set out to explain all. A second Babel was in plan and
another confusion of tongues was at no far distance. Being is being and
in being is the reason of being. In the beginning is the Word and the
Word, or Logos, is logic formulated in speech, or spoken reason. The
Word is in God and the Word is God Himself manifested to intelligence.
But this is precisely a truth which exceeds all philosophies and is
that, also precisely, which must be believed, under the penalty of
knowing nothing and falling back into the irrational doubt of Pyrrho.
As guardian of faith, the priesthood rests entirely on this ground of
science, and we are compelled to salute in its teaching the Divine
principle of the Eternal Word.
CHAPTER II
MYSTICISM
The legitimacy of Divine Right is so rooted in the priesthood that true
priesthood does not exist apart from it. Initiation and consecration
are a veritable heritage. So is the sanctuary inviolable on the part
of the profane and so also it cannot be seized by sectarians. For the
same reason the glorious lights of divine revelation are diffused in
accordance with supreme reason, because they come down in order and
harmony. God does not enlighten the world by means of meteors and
flashes, but He causes every planetary system to gravitate about its
particular sun. It is this very harmony which vexes certain souls, who
have grown impatient with duty, and it is thus that people come forward
to pose as reformers of morals, having failed in coercing revelation
to concur with their vices. Like Rousseau, they exclaim: “If God has
spoken, why have I heard nothing?” And then presently they add: “He
has spoken, but it is to me.” Such is their dream, and they end by
believing it themselves. So do the makers of sects begin, and these are
fomenters of religious anarchy: we would by no means condemn them to
the flames, but it is certainly desirable to intern them as sufferers
from contagious folly. It is precisely in this manner that those mystic
schools were founded which brought about the profanation of science.
We have seen how the Indian fakirs attained their so-called uncreated
light, that is to say, by the help of erethism and cerebral congestion.
Egypt had also its sorcerers and enchanters, while Thessaly, in the
days of Greece, swarmed with conjurations and witchcraft. To enter
into direct communication with deities is to suppress the priesthood
and subvert the basis of the throne—a fact which is realised keenly by
the anarchic instinct of pretended illuminism. It was by the allurement
of licence that such conspirators looked to recruit disciples, giving
absolution beforehand to every scandal in manners, on the condition
of strictness in revolt and energy in protestation against sacerdotal
legitimacy.[91]
The Bacchantes, who dismembered Orpheus, believed themselves inspired
by a god, and they sacrificed the great hierophant to their deified
drunkenness. The orgies of Bacchus were mystical tumults; the
apostles of mania have always had recourse to disordered movements,
frenetic agitations and horrible convulsions. From the effeminate
priesthood of Bacchus to the Gnostics; from whirling dervishes to
epileptics at the tomb of Paris the deacon; the characteristics of
superstition and fanatic exaltation have been always the same. It
has been invariably under the pretext of purifying doctrine and in
the name of an exaggerated spiritualism that the mystics of all
times have materialised the symbols of the cultus. It has been the
same precisely with those who have profaned the science of the
Magi, for transcendental Magic, as it is needful to remember, is
the primeval priestly art. It condemns all that is done outside the
lawful hierarchy, and it justifies the condemnation—though not the
torture—of sectarians and sorcerers. The two classes are here connected
intentionally, because all heretics have been evokers of spirits and
phantoms, whom they have foisted upon the world as gods; all have
arrogated to themselves the power of working miracles in support of
their falsehoods. On these evidences they were all practisers of
Göetic, that is to say, of Black Magic.
Anarchy being the point of departure and the palmary characteristic
of dissident mysticism, religious concord is impossible between
sectarians, and yet they are in astonishing unanimity upon a single
point, being the hatred of hierarchic and lawful authority. This
in reality is the whole root of their religion, as it is the sole
bond which links them one to another. It is ever the crime of Ham,
contempt of the family principle and outrage offered to the father,
whose nakedness and shame they expose with sacrilegious mirth. All the
anarchic mystics confuse the Intellectual with the Astral Light; they
worship the serpent instead of doing honour to that dutiful and pure
wisdom which crushes its head. So are they intoxicated by vertigo and
so fall inevitably into the abyss of folly.
All fools are visionaries and may no doubt believe sincerely that
they work wonders; indeed hallucination is contagious and things
inexplicable occur, or seem to occur, frequently enough in their
vicinity. Moreover, the phenomena of the Astral Light in the excess
of its attraction or projection are themselves of a kind to confuse
those who are half-educated. It is centralised in bodies and, as the
result of violent molecular distention, it imparts to them so high a
degree of elasticity that bones may be twisted and muscles stretched
out of all measure. It forms whirlpools and waterspouts, so to speak,
which levitate the heaviest bodies and can sustain them in the air
for a length of time proportionate to the force of the projection.
The sufferers feel on the point of bursting and cry for compression
or percussion to relieve them. The most violent blows and the utmost
constriction, being counterpoised by the fluidic tension, cause neither
bruises nor wounds and relieve instead of crushing the patient.
As fools hold physicians in horror, so the hallucinated mystics detest
wise men; they flee them in the first place and afterwards persecute
them blindly, as if against their own will. In so far as they are mild
and indulgent, it is in respect of vices; towards reason in submission
to authority they are implacable; the most tolerant of heretics in
appearance will be seized with fury and hatred, if conformity and
the hierarchy are mentioned. Hence heresies have led to disturbances
invariably. The false prophet must slay if he cannot pervert. He
clamours for tolerance towards himself but takes good care in what
sense it shall be extended to others. Protestants were loud in their
outcries against the faggots and pyres of Rome at the very time that
John Calvin, on the warrant of his private judgment, condemned Servetus
to be burnt. The crimes of the Donatists, Circumcisionists, and others
too many for enumeration, drove Catholic rulers into excess and caused
the Church to abandon those who were guilty to the secular arm. Would
it not be thought that Vaudois, Albigensians and Hussites were lambs
if one gave heed to the groans of irreligion? Where was the innocence
of those darksome Puritans of Scotland and England who brandished
the dagger in one hand and their Bible in the other, while preaching
the extermination of Catholics? One only Church in the midst of so
many reprisals and horrors has always postulated and in principle at
least has maintained its hatred of blood: this is the hierarchic and
legitimate Church.[92]
[Illustration: EGYPTIAN SYMBOLS OF TYPHON]
Now, in admitting the possibility and actuality of diabolical miracles,
that Church recognises the existence of a natural force which can be
applied for good or evil; and hence it has decided in its great wisdom
that although sanctity of doctrine can legalise miracle, the latter
of itself can never authorise novelties in religious teaching. To say
that God, Whose laws are perfect and never falsify themselves,
makes use of a natural instrument to produce effects which to us seem
supernatural—this is to affirm the supreme reason and immutable power
of God; it is to exalt our notion of His providence; and sincere
Catholics should realise that such view by no means challenges His
intervention in those marvels which operate in favour of truth. The
false miracles caused by astral congestions have invariably an anarchic
and immoral tendency, because disorder invokes disorder. So also the
gods and familiars of heretics are athirst for blood and commonly
extend their protection at the price of murder. The idolaters of Syria
and Judea drew oracles from the heads of children torn from the bodies
of the poor little victims. They dried these heads and, having placed
beneath the tongues a golden lamen bearing unknown characters, they
fixed them in the hollows of walls, built up a kind of body beneath
them composed of magical plants secured by bands, lighted a lamp at the
foot of the frightful idols, burnt incense before them and proceeded
to their religious consultation. They believed that the heads spoke,
and the anguish of the last cries had doubtless distracted their
imaginations; moreover, as said already, blood attracts _larvæ_. The
ancients, in their infernal sacrifices, were accustomed to dig a pit,
which they filled with warm and smoking blood; then from all the deep
places of the night they beheld feeble and pallid shadows ascending,
descending, creeping and swarming about the cavity. With a sword’s
point steeped in the same blood, they traced the circle of evocation
and kindled fire of laurel, alder and cypress wood, on altars crowned
with asphodel and vervain. The night seemed to grow colder and still
more dark; the moon was hidden behind clouds; and they heard the feeble
rustling of phantoms crowding about the circle, while dogs howled
piteously over the countryside.
All must be dared in order to achieve all—such was the axiom of
enchantments and their associated horrors. The false magicians were
banded together by crime and believed that they could intimidate others
when they had contrived to terrify themselves. The rites of Black Magic
have remained revolting like the impious worships it produced; this was
the case indifferently in the association of criminals who conspired
against the old civilisations and among the barbaric races. There was
always the same passion for darkness; there were the same profanations,
the same sanguinary processes. Anarchic Magic is the cultus of death.
The sorcerer devotes himself to fatality, abjures reason, renounces
the hope of immortality, and then sacrifices children. He forswears
marriage and is given over to barren debauch. On such conditions he
enjoys the plenitude of his mania, is made drunk with iniquity till he
believes that evil is omnipotent and, converting his hallucinations
into reality, he thinks that his mastery has power to evoke at pleasure
all death and Hades.
Barbarian words and signs unknown, or even utterly unmeaning, are
the best in Black Magic.[93] Hallucination is insured more readily
by ridiculous practices and imbecile evocations than by rites or
_formulæ_ which keep intelligence in a waking state. Du Potet says
that he has tested the power of certain signs on ecstatics, and those
which are published in his occult book, with precaution and mystery,
are in analogy, if not absolutely identical, with pretended diabolical
signatures found in old editions of the Grand Grimoire.[94] The same
causes always produce the same effects, and there is nothing that is
new beneath the moon of sorcerers, any more than under the sun of
sages.
The state of permanent hallucination is death or abdication of
consciousness, and one is then surrendered to all the chances comprised
by the fatality of dreams. Every remembrance begets its own reflection,
every evil desire creates an image, every remorse breeds a nightmare.
Life becomes that of an animal, but of a peevish and tormented animal;
the sense of morality and of time is alike absent; realities exist no
longer; it is a general dance in the whirlpool of insensate forms.
Sometimes an hour seems protracted over centuries, and again years may
fly with an hour’s swiftness.
Rendered phosphorescent by the Astral Light, our brains swarm with
innumerable reflections and images. We close our eyes, and it may
happen that some brilliant, sombre or terrific panorama will unroll
beneath our eyelids. He who is sick of a fever will scarcely close them
through the night without being dazzled by an intolerable brightness.
Our nervous system—which is a perfect electrical apparatus—concentrates
the light in the brain, being the negative pole of that apparatus,
or projects it by the extremities which are points designed for the
circulation of our vital fluid. When the brain attracts powerfully
some series of images analogous to any passion which has disturbed the
equilibrium or the machine, the interchange of light stops, astral
respiration ceases and the misdirected light coagulates, so to speak,
in the brain. It comes about for this reason that the sensations of
hallucinated persons are of the most false and perverse order. Some
find enjoyment in lacerating the skin with thongs and in roasting their
flesh slowly; others eat and relish things unfit for sustenance. Doctor
Brierre de Boismont has collected a great series of instances, and
many of them are extremely curious.[95] All excesses in life—whether
through the misconstruction of good or through the non-resistance of
evil—may overstimulate the brain and occasion the stagnation of light
therein. Overweening ambition, proud pretence of sanctity, a continence
full of scruples and desires, the indulgence of shameful passions
notwithstanding repeated warnings of remorse—all these lead to syncope
of reason, to morbid ecstasy, hysteria, vision, madness. The learned
doctor goes on to observe that a man is not mad because he is subject
to visions but because he believes in his visions rather than in
ordinary sense. Hence it is obedience and authority that alone can save
the mystics; if they have obstinate self-confidence there is no cure;
they are excommunicated already by reason and by faith: they are the
aliens of universal charity. They think themselves wiser than society;
they dream of founding a religion, but they stand alone; they believe
that they have secured for their private use the secret keys of life,
but their intelligence is plunged already in death.
CHAPTER III
INITIATIONS AND ORDEALS
That which adepts have distinguished as the Great Work is not only
the transmutation of metals but also and above all the Universal
Medicine—that is to say, the remedy for all ills, including death
itself. Now, the process which produces the Universal Medicine is the
moral regeneration of man. It is that second birth alluded to by our
Saviour in His discourse to Nicodemus, a doctor of the law. Nicodemus
did not understand, and Jesus said: “Are you a master in Israel and
know not these things?”—as if intending to intimate that they belonged
to the fundamental principles of religious science, of which no
professor could dare to be ignorant.[96]
The great mystery of life and its ordeals is represented in the
celestial sphere and in the annual succession of the seasons. The four
aspects of the sphinx correspond to these seasons and to the four
elements. The symbolical figures on the shield of Achilles—according to
the description of Homer—are analogous in their meaning to the Twelve
Labours of Hercules. Like Hercules, Achilles must die, after having
conquered the elements and even done battle with the gods. Hercules, on
his part, triumphant over all the vices, represented by the monsters
whom he fought, succumbs for a moment to love, the most dangerous of
all. But he tears from his body the burning tunic of Dejanira, though
the flesh comes with it from the bones; he leaves her guilty and
vanquished, to die on his own part—but as one liberated and immortal.
Every thinking man is an Œdipus called to solve the enigma of the
sphinx or, this failing, to die. Every initiate must become a Hercules,
who, achieving the cycle of a great year of toil, shall, by sacrifices
of heart and life, deserve the glory of apotheosis. Orpheus is not
king of the lyre and of sacrifices till he has successively won and
has learned how to lose Eurydice. Omphale and Dejanira are jealous of
Hercules: one would debase him, the other yields to the counsels of an
abandoned rival, and so is induced to poison him who has emancipated
the world; but in the act she cures him of a far more fatal poison,
which is her own unworthy love. The flame of the pyre purifies his
too susceptible heart; he perishes in all his vigour and is seated
victorious close to the throne of Jupiter. So also Jacob was not
appointed the great patriarch of Israel till he had wrestled with an
angel through the length of an entire night.
Ordeal is the great word of life, and life itself is a serpent which
brings forth and devours unceasingly. We must escape from its folds; we
must set our foot upon its head. Hermes duplicated the serpent, setting
it against itself, and in an eternal equilibrium, he converted it into
the talisman of his power, into the glory of his caduceus.
The great ordeals of Memphis and Eleusis were designed to form kings
and priests by entrusting science to strong and valiant men. The price
of admission to such tests was the surrender of body, soul and life
into the hands of the priesthood. The candidate descended thereafter
through dark subterranean regions, wherein he traversed successively
among flaming pyres, passed through deep and rapid floods, over bridges
thrown across abysses, holding in his hand a lamp which must not be
extinguished. He who trembled, he whom fear overcame never returned to
the light; but he who surmounted every obstacle intrepidly was received
among the _mystæ_, which meant initiation into the Lesser Mysteries. He
had yet to vindicate his fidelity and silence; it was only at the end
of several years that he became an epopt, being a title equivalent to
that of adept.[97]
Philosophy, in competition with the priesthood, imitated these
practices, and put its disciples to the proof. Pythagoras exacted
silence and abstinence for five years. Plato opened his schools to
none but geometricians and those skilled in music; furthermore, he
reserved part of his instruction to initiates, so that his philosophy
had its mysteries.[98] He attributed the creation of the world to
demons and represented man as the progenitor of all animals. But the
demons of Plato signify the Elohim of Moses, being those powers by the
combination and harmony of which the Supreme Principle created. When he
represents beasts as begotten by humanity he means that they are the
analysis of that living form, the synthesis of which is man. It was
Plato who first proclaimed the divinity of the Word, and he appeared
to foresee the approaching incarnation of this creative Word on earth;
he proclaimed the sufferings and execution of the perfect just man,
condemned by the iniquity of the world.
This sublime philosophy of the Word is part of the pure Kabalah,
whence Plato was in no wise its inventor.[99] He makes no secret of
this and he proclaims that in any science only that must be received
which is in harmony with eternal truths and with the oracles of
God. Dacier, from whom this quotation comes, adds that “by these
eternal truths Plato signified an ancient tradition which he supposes
primeval humanity to have received from God and transmitted to later
generations.” It would be impossible to speak more clearly without
actually naming the Kabalah: it is definition instead of name; in a
sense, it is something more precise than the name itself.
Plato says otherwise that “the root-matter of this great knowledge is
not to be found in books; we must seek in ourselves by means of deep
meditation, discovering the sacred fire in its proper source.... This
is why I have written nothing concerning these revelations and shall
never even speak about them. Whosoever shall undertake to popularise
them will find the attempt futile, for, except in the case of a very
small number of men who have been endowed with understanding from God
to discern these heavenly truths within themselves, it will render
them contemptible to some, while filling others with vain and rash
self-confidence, as if they were depositaries of marvels which they do
not understand all the same.”[100]
To the younger Dionysius he wrote: “I must bear witness to Archedemus
concerning that which is far more precious, more divine by far,
and that which you desire earnestly to know, having sent him to me
expressly. He gives me to understand that in your view I have not
explained to you sufficiently what I hold as to the nature of the
First Principle. I can only write in enigmas, so that if my letter
be intercepted on land or water, he who may read it shall understand
nothing: all things encompass their king, from whom they draw their
being, he being the source of all good things—second for those which
are second and third for those which are third.”
These few words are a complete summary of sephirotic theology.[101]
The King is Ensoph—Supreme and Absolute Being. All radiates from this
centre, which centre is everywhere, but we regard it after three
especial manners and in three distinct spheres. In the Divine world,
which is that of the First Cause, the King is one and first. In the
world of science, which is that of secondary causes, the influence of
the First Principle is felt, but is conceived only as first of the
said causes. Therein the King manifests by the duad, which is the
passive creating principle. Finally, in the third world, which is that
of forms, he is revealed as perfect form, the incarnate Word, supreme
goodness and beauty, created perfection. The King is therefore, at one
and the same time, the first, second and third, seeing that He is all
in all, centre and cause of all. Let us be silent on the genius of
Plato, recognising only the exact knowledge of the initiate.
Let it therefore be said no longer that our great apostle St. John
borrowed from the philosophy of Plato the proœmium of his gospel. It
is Plato, on the contrary, who drew from the same sources as St. John;
but he had not received that spirit which makes alive. The philosophy
of him who expounded the greatest of human revelations might aspire
towards the Word made man, but the gospel alone could give that Word to
the world.
The Kabalah taught by Plato to the Greeks assumed at a later period
the name of Theosophy and ended by embracing the whole of magical
doctrine.[102] It is to this sum total of secret doctrine that all
discoveries of research gravitated successively. The ambition was to
pass from theory to practice and to find the realisation of words in
works. The dangerous experiences of divination taught science how it
might dispense with the priesthood; the sanctuary was betrayed, and
men who had no mission dared to make the gods speak. It is for this
reason that theurgy shared in the anathemas pronounced against Black
Magic and was suspected of imitating its crimes because it could not
exculpate itself from a share in its impiety. The veil of Isis is not
lifted with impunity, and curiosity blasphemes faith when Divine things
are concerned. “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed,”
says the Great Master.
The experiments of theurgy and necromancy are always fatal for those
who are abandoned to their practice. To set foot upon the threshold of
the other world spells death, and it follows often in a strange and
terrible manner. Vertigo supervenes, catalepsy and madness finish the
work. It is unquestionable that in the presence of certain persons a
disturbance takes place in the air, wainscots split, doors shake and
creak. Fantastic signs and even stains, as of blood, seem to impress
themselves on virgin-parchment or on linen. The nature of these
signatures is always the same and they are classified by experts under
the name of diabolical writings. The mere sight of such characters
sends sufferers from magnetic hysteria into convulsions or ecstasy;
they believe that they behold spirits, and Satan, or the genius of
error, is transfigured for them into an angel of light. The pretended
spirits require, as the condition of their manifestation, some kind
of contact between the sexes, the putting of hand in hand, foot to
foot, breathing face to face and even immodest embraces. Devotees are
besotted by this kind of intoxication; they think that they are elected
by God, that they are interpreters of heaven, and they regard obedience
to the hierarchy in the light of fanaticism. They are the successors of
the Indian race of Cain, victims of hasheesh and fakirs. They profit by
no warnings, and they perish by their own act and will.
To restore sufferers of this kind the Greek priests resorted to a
species of homœopathy; they terrified the patients by exaggerating the
disease itself, and for this purpose they put them to sleep in the
cave of Trophonius.[103] The preparation for this experience was by
fastings, lustrations and vigils; the patients were then taken down
into the vault and shut up in total darkness. Intoxicating gases, like
those in the Grotto of the Dog near Naples, filled the cavern, and the
visionary was overcome speedily. Incipient asphyxia induced frightful
dreams, from which the victim was rescued in time and carried forth
palpitating all over, pale and with hair on end. In this condition
he or she was seated on a tripod and prophetic utterances preceded
complete awakening. Experiences of this sort so distracted the nervous
system that their subjects never recalled them without trembling and
in future did not dare to mention evocations or phantoms. Some of
them never smiled again or felt the impulse of gaiety; the general
impression was so melancholy that it passed into a proverb, and it
was said of anyone who did not unbend: “He has slept in the cave of
Trophonius.”[104]
For the remanents of science and the recovery of its mysteries we
must have recourse to the religious symbolism of antiquity rather
than to the works of its philosophers. The priests of Egypt were
better acquainted than ourselves with the laws of motion and of life.
They could temper or promote action by reaction, and they foresaw
without difficulty the realisation of effects the cause of which
they had postulated. The pillars of Seth, Hermes, Solomon, Hercules
symbolised in magical traditions this universal law of equilibrium,
while the science of equilibrium led the initiates to that of universal
gravitation about centres of life, heat and light. So in the Egyptian
sacred calendars, where it is known that each month was placed under
the protection of three decani or genii of ten days, the first decanate
in the sign of Leo is represented by a human head with seven rays;
the body has a scorpio-tail and the sign of Sagittarius is under
the chin. Beneath the head is the name of IAO, and the figure was
called Khnoubis, an Egyptian word which signifies gold and light.
Thales and Pythagoras learned in the Egyptian sanctuaries that the
earth gravitated round the sun, but they did not seek to publish the
fact generally because it would have involved the revelation of a
great templesecret, being the dual law of attraction and radiation,
of fixity and movement, which is the principle of creation and the
unfailing cause of life.[105] So also the Christian writer Lactantius,
who had heard of this magical tradition, but as an effect in the
absence of a cause, scoffed loudly at theurgical dreamers who believed
in the motion of the earth and in antipodes, the result of which
would be the fact that we walked on our heads with the feet upward,
though our heads appeared to be erect. Furthermore, as he added, with
the logic of children, in such case we should infallibly fall head
downwards through the heaven below us. So philosophers reasoned, while
priests, without answering or even smiling at their blunders, continued
to write in creative hieroglyphics concerning all dogmas, all forms of
poetry and all secrets of truth.
In their allegorical description of Hades, the Greek hierophants
concealed the palmary secrets of Magic. We find four rivers therein,
even as in the Earthly Paradise, _plus_ a fifth, which wound seven
times round the others. There was a river of sorrows and silence,
called Cocytus; there was a river of forgetfulness, or Lethe; and then
there was a swift and irresistible river which carried all before it,
flowing in an opposite course to yet another river of fire. The two
last were named Acheron and Phlegethon, one being the negative and
one the positive fluid, flowing eternally each in each. The black and
icy waters of Acheron smoked with the warmth of Phlegethon, while the
liquid flames of the latter were covered with thick vapours by the
former. _Larvæ_ and _lemures_, shadowy images of bodies which have
lived and of those which have yet to come, issued from these vapours
by myriads; but whether they drank or not from the flood of sorrows,
all desired the waters of oblivion, to bring them youth and peace. The
wise alone do not seek to forget, for memory is their reward already;
so also they only are truly deathless, since they only are conscious of
their immortality. The tortures of Tenarus are truly divine pictures
of the vices and their eternal chastisement. The greed of Tantalus,
the ambition of Sisyphus, will never be expiated, since they can never
be satisfied. Tantalus is athirst in the water, Sisyphus rolls a stone
towards the top of a mountain, hoping to take his seat thereon, but
it falls back continually and drags him down into the abyss. Ixion,
unbridled in licence, would have violated the queen of heaven and
was scourged by infernal furies. He did not consummate his crime,
for he embraced only a phantom. The phantom may have condescended in
appearance to his love and may have ministered to his passion, but when
he disowned duty, when his satisfaction was at the price of sacrilege,
that which he thought was love proved hatred in a mask of flowers.
It is not from beyond the tomb, it is rather in life itself that we
must seek the mysteries of death. Salvation or condemnation begin here
below, and this earth has also its heaven and hell. Virtue is ever
rewarded, vice is ever punished; if the wealth of the wicked incline us
at times to think that they enjoy impunity, that instrument of good and
evil seeming to be given them by chance, there is woe notwithstanding
to the unjust; they may possess the key of gold, but for them it opens
only the gate of the tomb and hell.
All true initiates have recognised the immense value of toil and
suffering. A German poet tells us that sorrow is the dog of that
unknown shepherd which leads the flock of humanity. Learn how to suffer
and learn also to die—such are the gymnastics of eternity and such is
the immortal novitiate. This is the moral lesson of Dante’s _Divine
Comedy_, and it was outlined in the allegorical Table of Cebes, which
belongs to the time of Plato. An account of it has been preserved and
many painters of the middle ages reconstructed the picture therefrom.
It is at once a philosophical and magical monument, a perfect moral
synthesis, and moreover the most audacious demonstration ever attempted
of that Great Arcanum or Secret, the revelation of which must subvert
heaven and earth. Our readers will unquestionably expect us to furnish
its explanation, but he who has solved this enigma knows that it is
inexplicable by its nature and is a sentence of death to those who take
it by surprise, even as to those who reveal it.[106]
This secret is the royalty of the sage and the crown of that initiate
who is represented coming down as a victor from the mount of ordeal in
the beautiful allegory of Cebes. The Great Arcanum has made him master
of gold and light, which fundamentally are one thing; he has solved the
quadrature of the circle; he directs perpetual motion; and he possesses
the Philosophical Stone. Those who are adepts will understand me. There
is neither interruption in the process of Nature nor a blank space in
its work. The harmonies of heaven are in correspondence with those of
earth, and eternal life fulfils its evolutions in accordance with the
same laws which rule in the life of a day. The Bible says that God
disposes all things according to weight, number and measure, and this
luminous doctrine was also that of Plato. In the _Phædon_ he represents
Socrates as discoursing on the destinies of the soul in a manner which
is quite in conformity with Kabalistical traditions. Spirits purified
by trial are emancipated from the laws of weight, and they soar above
the atmosphere of tears; others grovel in darkness and are those who
manifest to the weak or criminal. All who are liberated from the
miseries of material life come back no more to contemplate its crimes
or share its errors: once is truly enough.
The care taken by the ancients over the burial of the dead protested
strongly against necromancy, and those who disturbed the sleep of the
grave were always regarded as impious. To call back the dead would
condemn them to a second death, and the dread of earnest people,
belonging to old religions, lest they should remain without burial
after death, was in view of the possibility that the corpse might
be profaned by stryges and used in witchcraft. After death the soul
belongs to God and the body to the common mother, which is earth.
Woe to those who dare to invade these asylums. When the sanctuary of
the tomb was disturbed, the ancients offered sacrifices to the angry
_manes_ and a holy thought lay at the root of this practice. As a
fact, were it permitted anyone to attract, by means of conjurations,
the souls floating in darkness but aspiring towards the light, such a
person would be begetting retrograde and posthumous children, whom he
must nourish with his own blood and with his own soul. Necromancers are
makers of vampires, and they deserve no pity if they die devoured by
the dead.
CHAPTER IV
THE MAGIC OF PUBLIC WORSHIP
Forms are the product of ideas, and they in their turn reflect and
reproduce ideas. So far as sentiments are concerned, these are
multiplied by association in the union of those who share them, so that
all are charged with the enthusiasm common to all. It comes about in
this manner that if one or another individual be deceived easily on
questions of the just and the beautiful, the people at large will, this
notwithstanding, continue to exalt in their minds whatsoever things are
sublime, and they will do it with a longing which is itself sublime.
These two great laws of Nature were known to the ancient Magi and led
them to see the necessity of a public worship which should be one in
its nature, imposed on all, hierarchic and symbolic in character, like
all religion, splendid as truth, rich and varied as Nature, starry as
heaven, odoriferous as earth—a worship in fact of the kind established
afterwards by Moses, realised in all its glory by Solomon, and, once
again transfigured, centralised to-day in the great metropolis of St.
Peter at Rome.
Humanity as a fact has never known more than one religion and one
worship. This universal light has had its uncertain reflections and its
shadows, but ever after the dark night of error we behold it emerge,
one and pure like the sun.
The magnificence of the cultus is the life of religion, and if Christ
chose poor ministers, his sovereign divinity did not demand poor
altars. Protestants have failed to understand that ritual constitutes
an instruction and that a sordid or negligible god must not be created
in the imagination of the multitude. The English, who lavish so much
wealth on their own homes, who also affect to prize the Bible highly,
would find their particular churches exceedingly cold and bare if they
remembered the unparalleled pomp of Solomon’s Temple. But that which
withers their forms of worship is the dryness of their own hearts; and
with a cultus devoid of magic, splendour and pathos, how shall their
hearts be ever informed with life? Look at their meeting-houses, which
resemble town-halls, and look at those honest ministers—dressed like
ushers or clerks—and who can do otherwise in their presence than regard
religion as formalism and God as a justice of the peace?
Orthodoxy is the absolute character of Transcendental Magic. When
truth is born into the world the star of science announces the fact
to the Magi, and they come to adore the infant creator of futurity.
Initiation is obtained by understanding in respect of the hierarchy,
as also by the practice of obedience, and he who is initiated truly
will never turn sectarian. The orthodox traditions were carried from
Chaldea by Abraham; in combination with the knowledge of the true God,
they reigned in Egypt at the period of Joseph. Koung-Tseu sought to
establish them in China, but the imbecile mysticism of India, under
the idolatrous form of the Fo cultus, was destined to prevail in that
great empire. As by Abraham out of Chaldea so was orthodoxy taken out
of Egypt by Moses, and in the secret traditions of the Kabalah we find
a theology at once complete, perfect, unique and comparable to our
own at its grandest, when seen under the light of its interpretation
by the fathers and doctors of the Church—a perfect whole, including
lights which it is not given to the world yet to understand. The
_Zohar_, which is the head and crown of the Kabalistic sacred books,
unveils furthermore all depths and enlightens all obscurities of
ancient mythologies and of sciences concealed in the sanctuaries of
eld. It is true that we must know the secret of its meaning in order
to make use of it, and it is further true that the keenest intellects
which are not acquainted with the secret will find the _Zohar_ beyond
all understanding and even unreadable. It is to be hoped that careful
students of our works on Magic will attain the secret for themselves,
that they will come in their turn to decode and thus be able to read
the book which explains so many mysteries.[107]
Initiation being the necessary consequence of that hierarchic principle
which is the basis of realisation in Magic, it follows that the
profane, after striving vainly to force the doors of the sanctuary,
have been driven to raise altar against altar and to oppose ignorant
disclosures of schism to the reticence of orthodoxy. Horrible histories
were circulated concerning the Magi; sorcerers and vampires cast upon
them the responsibility of their own crimes; they were represented
as feasting on infants and drinking human blood. Such attacks of
presumptuous ignorance against the prudence of science have invariably
met with success sufficient to perpetuate their use. Has not some
miserable creature set forth, in I know not what pamphlet, how he
has heard with his own ears, and within the precincts of a club, the
author of this book demanding the blood of the wealthy to make it into
puddings for the nourishment of starving people? The more monstrous the
calumny, the greater the impression that it produces in the minds of
fools.
Those who slandered the Magi committed themselves the enormities of
which they accused them and were abandoned to all the excesses of
shameless sorcery. There was everywhere the rumour of apparitions
and prodigies, and the gods themselves came down in visible forms to
authorise orgies. The maniacal circles of pretended _illuminati_ go
back to the bacchantes who murdered Orpheus. Since the days of those
fanatical and clandestine circles where promiscuity and assassination
were combined with ecstasies and prayers, a luxurious and mystical
pantheism increased continually. But the fatal destinies of this
consuming and destroying dogma are recorded in one of the finest
fables of Greek mythology. Certain pirates of Tyre surprised Bacchus
in his sleep and carried him on board their vessel, thinking that the
god of inspiration had so become their slave; but on a sudden, in the
open sea, their ship was transfigured, the masts became vine-stocks,
the rigging branches; satyrs were seen everywhere, dancing with
lynxes and panthers; the crew were seized with frenzy, they felt
themselves changed into goats and cast themselves into the sea. Bacchus
subsequently landed in Bœotia and repaired to Thebes, the city of
initiation, where he found that Pentheus had usurped the supreme power.
The latter in his turn attempted to imprison the god, but the dungeon
opened of itself and the captive came forth triumphant. Pentheus was
enraged and the daughters of Cadmus, transformed into Bacchantes, tore
him in pieces, thinking that they were immolating a young bull.[108]
Pantheism can never form a synthesis, but must be disintegrated by
the sciences, which the daughters of Cadmus typify. After Orpheus,
Cadmus, Œdipus and Amphiaraüs, the great fabulous symbols of magical
priesthood in Greece are Tiresias and Calchas; but the first of these
was an undiscerning or faithless hierophant. Meeting on a day with two
interlaced serpents, he thought that they were fighting and separated
them by a stroke of his wand. He did not understand the emblem of the
caduceus, and hence sought to divide the forces of Nature, to separate
science from faith, intelligence from love, man from woman. He mistook
their union for warfare, wounded them in the act of separation, and
so lost his own equilibrium. He became alternately male and female,
but neither in a perfect way, for the consummation of marriage was
forbidden him.[109] The mysteries of universal equilibrium and creative
law are revealed fully herein. Generation is in fact a work of the
human androgyne; in their division man and woman remain sterile, as
religion without science and conversely, as mildness without force and
force apart from mildness, justice in the absence of mercy and mercy
divorced from justice. Harmony results from the analogy of things in
opposition; they must be distinguished with a view to unite them and
not separated, so that we may choose between them. It is said that
man shifts incessantly from black to white in his opinions and ever
deceives himself. It is so of necessity, for visible and real form is
black and white; it manifests itself by an alliance of light and shadow
which does not confuse them together. So are all contraries in Nature
married, and he who would part them risks the punishment of Tiresias.
Others say that he was smitten with blindness because he had surprised
Minerva naked—that is to say, he had profaned the Mysteries. This is
another allegory, but it is always the same thing symbolised.
Bearing no doubt this profanation in mind, Homer depicts the shade
of Tiresias wandering in Cymmerian darkness and seeking amidst other
hapless shades and larvæ to quench his thirst with blood when Ulysses
consulted spirits, using a ceremonial which was magical and terrific
after another manner than the contortions of our own mediums, or the
harmless precipitated missives of our modern necromancers.
The priesthood is almost silent in Homer, for Calchas the diviner is
neither a sovereign pontiff nor a great hierophant. He seems to be
in the service of kings, with an eye to their possible wrath, and he
dares not speak unwelcome truths to Agamemnon till he has besought the
protection of Achilles. Thus he sows division between these chiefs
and brings disasters on the army. All the narratives of Homer contain
important and profound lessons, and he sought in the present case to
impress upon Greece the need for divine ministry to be independent of
temporal influences. The priestly caste should be responsible only
to the supreme pontificate, and the high priest is incapacitated if
one crown be wanting in his tiara. That he may be on equality with
earthly sovereigns he must be himself a temporal king; he must be king
in understanding and science, king also by his divine mission. Homer
seems to tell us in his wisdom that failing such a priesthood there is
something wanting to the equilibrium of empires.
Theoclymenes, another diviner, who appears in the Odyssey, fills almost
the part of a parasite, purchasing a not too friendly hospitality from
the suitors of Penelope by a useless warning and prudently withdrawing
before the disturbance which he foresees.
There is a gulf between these good and bad fortune-tellers and the
sibyls dwelling unseen in their sanctuaries, which are approached in
fear and trembling. This notwithstanding, the successors of Circe yield
only to daring; force or subtlety must be used to enter their retreat;
they must be seized by the hair, threatened with the sword and dragged
to the fatal tripod. Then, crimsoning and whitening by turn, shuddering
and with hair on end, they utter disconnected words, escape in a fury,
scribble on the leaves of trees detached sentences forming prophetic
verses when collected, and casting these leaves to the wind, they
shut themselves up in their refuge and ignore any further calls. The
oracle thus produced had as many meanings as the modes of its possible
combination varied. Had the leaves borne hieroglyphical signs instead
of words the interpretations would have been multiplied further, while
destiny could have been also consulted by their chance combination, a
method followed subsequently in the divinations of geomancers by means
of numbers and geometrical figures.[110] It is followed also at this
day by adepts of cartomancy who make use of the great magical Tarot
alphabets, for the most part, without being acquainted with their
values. In such operations accident only chooses the signs on which the
interpreter depends for inspiration, and in the absence of exceptional
intuition and second sight, the phrases indicated by the combinations
of sacred letters or the revelations of the combined figures prophesy
according to chance. It is insufficient to combine letters; one must
know how to read. Cartomancy in its proper understanding is a literal
consultation of spirits, without necromancy or sacrifices: but it
postulates a good medium; it is otherwise dangerous and we do not
recommend it to any one. Is the memory of our bygone misfortunes not
enough to embitter the sufferings of to-day, and must we then overload
them with all the anxiety of the future, by partaking in advance of the
catastrophes which it is impossible to avoid?
CHAPTER V
MYSTERIES OF VIRGINITY
The Roman Empire was but the Greek in transfiguration. Italy was
a Greater Greece, and when Hellenism had perfected its dogmas and
mysteries, the education of the children of the wolf was the next task
before it: Rome was already on the scene.
The particular feature of the initiation conferred on the Romans by
Numa was the typical importance ascribed to woman, following the lead
of Egypt, which worshipped the Supreme Divinity under the name of
Isis. The Greek god of initiation is Iacchos, the conqueror of India,
the splendid androgynous being wearing the horns of Ammon,[111] the
Pantheus holding the sacrificial cup and pouring therefrom the wine of
universal life—Iacchos, the son of thunder, the conqueror of tigers
and lions. When the bacchantes dismembered Orpheus, the Mysteries of
Iacchos were profaned; and under the Roman name of Bacchus he was
only the god of intoxication. It was from Egeria, goddess of mystery
and solitude, a sage and discreet divinity, that Numa sought his
inspiration.
His devotion was rewarded; he was instructed by Egeria as to the honour
which should be paid to the mother of the gods. Under this dedication
he erected a circular temple beneath a cupola, and a fire was burnt
therein which was never suffered to go out. It was maintained by four
virgins, who were termed vestals and so long as they were faithful to
their trust, they were surrounded with strange honours, while, on the
other hand, their failure was punished with exceptional rigour. The
maid’s honour is that also of the mother, and the sanctity of every
family depends on the recognition of virginal purity as a possible
and glorious thing. Herein already woman is emancipated from the old
bondage; she is no more an oriental slave, but a domestic divinity,
guardian of the hearth, the honour of father and spouse. Rome in this
manner became a sanctuary of morality, and on such condition was also
queen of the nations and metropolis of the world.
The magical tradition of all ages attributes a certain supernatural and
divine quality to the virgin state. Prophetic inspirations adorn it,
while it is the hatred of innocence and virginity which prompted Göetic
Magic to sacrifice children, whose blood was regarded notwithstanding
as having a sacred and expiatory virtue. To withstand the allurement
of generation is to graduate in the conquest of death, and supreme
chastity was the most glorious crown set before hierophants.[112] To
expend life in human embraces is to strike roots in the grave. Chastity
is a flower which is so loosely bound to earth that, when the sun’s
caresses draw it upwards, it is detached without effort and takes
flight like a bird.
The sacred fire of the vestals was a symbol of faith and of pure
love. It was an emblem also of that universal agent, the terrible and
electric nature of which Numa could produce and direct. If by culpable
negligence the vestals allowed their fire to die out, it could only
be rekindled by the sun’s rays or by lightning. It was renewed and
consecrated at the beginning of each year, a custom perpetuated and
observed among us on Easter Eve.
Christianity has been wrongly accused of taking over all that was
beautiful in anterior forms of worship; it is the last transfiguration
of universal orthodoxy, and as such it has preserved whatsoever
belonged to it, while rejecting dangerous practices and idle
superstitions.
Furthermore, the sacred fire represented love of country and the
religion of the hearth. To this religion, and to the inviolability of
the conjugal sanctuary, Lucretia offered herself in sacrifice. Lucretia
personifies all the majesty of ancient Rome; she could doubtless
have escaped outrage by abandoning her memory to slander, but good
repute is a _noblesse qui oblige_. In the matter of honour a scandal
is more deplorable than an indiscretion. Lucretia raised her dignity
as a virtuous woman to the height of the priesthood by suffering an
assault so that she might expiate and avenge it afterwards. It was
in memory of this illustrious Roman lady that high initiation in the
cultus of the fatherland and the hearth was entrusted to women, men
being excluded. It was for them to learn in this manner that true love
is that which inspires the most heroic sacrifices. They were taught
that the real beauty of man is heroism and grandeur; that the woman
capable of betraying or forsaking her husband blasts both her past and
future and is branded on the forehead with the ineffaceable stain of
a retrospective prostitution, aggravated further by perjury. To cease
loving him to whom the flower of her youth has been given, is the
greatest woe which can afflict the heart of a virtuous woman; but to
publish it abroad is to falsify past innocence, to renounce probity
of heart and integrity of honour; it is the last and most irreparable
shame.
Such was the religion of Rome; to the magic of such a moral code she
owed all her greatness, and when marriage ceased to be sacred in her
eyes, her decadence was at hand. In the days of Juvenal the mysteries
of the _Bona Dea_ are said to have been mysteries of impurity, which
it may perhaps be possible to question, seeing that as women alone were
admitted to these pretended orgies they must have betrayed themselves;
but on the assumption that the charge is true, because anything seems
possible after the reigns of Nero and Domitian, we can only conclude
that the clean reign of the mother of the gods was over and was giving
place to the popular, universal and purer worship of Mary, the Mother
of God.
Initiate of magical laws, and knowing the magnetic influences of
communal life, Numa instituted colleges of priests and augurs,
living under prescribed rules. This was the first idea of conventual
institutions, which are one of the great powers of religion. Long
anterior to this, the Jewish prophets were joined in sympathetic
bonds, having prayer and inspiration in common. It would seem that
Numa was acquainted with the traditions of Judea; his _flamines_ and
_salii_ worked themselves into a state of exaltation by evolutions and
dances recalling the performance of David before the ark. Numa did
not establish new oracles intended to rival those of Delphos, but he
instructed his priests especially in the art of auguries, which means
that he acquainted them with a certain theory of presentiments and
second sight, determined by secret laws of Nature. We despise nowadays
the art of soothsaying and portents, because we have lost the profound
science of light and the universal analogies of its reflections. In his
charming tale of Zadig, Voltaire delineates, with light and unserious
touch, a purely natural science of divination, but it is not for that
less wonderful, presupposing as it does an exceptional fineness of
observation and that power of deduction which escapes habitually the
limited logic of the vulgar. It is said that Parmenides, the master
of Pythagoras, having tasted the water of a certain spring, predicted
an approaching earthquake. The circumstance is not extraordinary, for
the presence of a bituminous and sulphureous flavour in water may
well have advised the philosopher of subterranean activities in the
district. Even the water itself may have been unusually disturbed.
However this may be, the flight of birds is still considered
premonitory of severe winters, and it may be possible to foresee some
atmospheric influences by inspecting the digestive and respiratory
apparatus of animals. Now, physical disturbances of the air have not
infrequently a moral cause. Revolutions are translated therein by the
phenomena of great storms; the deep breathing of nations moves heaven
itself. Success proceeds coincidently with electric currents, and the
hues of the living light reflect the motions of thunder. “There is
something in the air,” says the crowd, with its particular prophetic
instinct. Soothsayers and augurs knew how to read the characters which
the light inscribes everywhere and how to interpret the sigils of
astral currents and revolutions. They knew why birds wing their flight
in isolation or in flocks, under what influences they turn to North or
South, to East or West, which is just what we cannot explain, though
we scoff now at the augurs. It is so very easy to scoff and it is so
difficult to learn thoroughly.
It was owing to such predetermined disparagement and to denial of
what is not understood that men of parts, like Fontenelle, and
men of learning, as Kircher, have written such intemperate things
concerning the ancient oracles. Everything is craft and jugglery for
strong minds of this order. They suppose automatic statues, concealed
speaking-trumpets and artificial echoes in the vaults of every temple.
Why this eternal slander of the sanctuary? Has there been nothing but
roguery in the priesthoods? Would it have been impossible to find
men of uprightness and conviction among the hierophants of Ceres or
Apollo? Or were these deceived like the rest? And in such case how did
it happen that the impostors continued their traffic for centuries
without ever betraying themselves, individual rogues not being gifted
with immortality? Recent experiments have shewn us that thoughts can
be transferred, translated into writing and printed by the unaided
force of the Astral Light. Mysterious hands still write on our walls,
as at the feast of Belshazzar. Let us not forget the wise observation
of a scholar who assuredly cannot be accused either of fanaticism or
credulity: “Outside pure mathematics,” said Arago, “he who pronounces
the word impossible is wanting in caution.”
The religious calendar of Numa is based upon that of the Magi; it is
a sequence of feasts and mysteries, recalling throughout the secret
doctrine of initiates and perfectly adapting the public enactments
of the _cultus_ to the universal laws of Nature. Its arrangement of
months and days has been preserved by the conservative influence of
Christian regeneration. Even as the Romans under Numa, we still hallow
by abstinence the days consecrated to the commemoration of birth and
death; but for us the day of Venus is sanctified by the expiations of
Calvary. The gloomy day of Saturn is that during which our incarnate
God sleeps in His tomb, but He will rise up, and the life which He
promises will blunt the scythe of Kronos. That month which Romans
dedicated to Maia, the nymph of youth and flowers, the young mother who
smiles upon the year’s first-fruits, is consecrated by us to Mary, the
mystical rose, the lily of purity, the heavenly mother of the Saviour.
So are our religious observances ancient as the world, our feasts are
like those of our forefathers, for the Redeemer of Christendom came to
suppress none of the symbolic and sacred beauties of old initiation. He
came, as He said Himself, in reference to the figurative Law of Israel,
to realise and fulfil all things.
CHAPTER VI
SUPERSTITIONS
Superstitions are religious forms surviving the loss of ideas. Some
truth no longer known or a truth which has changed its aspect is the
origin and explanation of all. Their name, from the Latin _superstes_,
signifies that which survives; they are the dead remanents of old
knowledge or opinion.
Ever governed by instinct rather than by thought, the common people
cleave to ideas through the mediation of forms, and it is with
difficulty that they modify their habits. The attempt to destroy
superstitions impresses them always as an attack on religion itself,
and hence St. Gregory, one of the greatest popes in Christendom, did
not seek to suppress the old practices. He recommended his missionaries
to purify and not destroy the temples, saying that “so long as a people
have their old places of worship they will frequent them by force of
habit and will thus be led more easily to the worship of the true God.”
He said also: “The Bretons have fixed days for feasts and sacrifices;
leave them their feasts and do not restrain their sacrifices; leave
them the joy of their festivals, but from the state of paganism draw
them gently and progressively into the estate of Christ.”
It came about in this manner that older pious observances were replaced
by holy mysteries with scarcely a change of name. There was, for
example, the yearly banquet called _Charistia_, to which ancestral
spirits were invited, so making an act of faith in universal and
immortal life. The Eucharist, or supernal _Charistia_, has replaced
that of antiquity, and we communicate Easter by Easter with all our
friends in heaven and on earth.[113] Far from maintaining the old
superstitions by such adaptations, Christianity has breathed soul and
life into the surviving signs of universal beliefs.
That science of Nature which is in such close consanguinity
with religion, seeing that it initiates men into the secrets of
Divinity, that forgotten science of Magic, still lives undivided in
hieroglyphical signs and, to some extent, in the living traditions or
superstitions which it has left outwardly untouched. For example, the
observation of numbers and days is a blind reminiscence of primitive
magical dogma. As a day consecrated to Venus, Friday was always
considered unlucky, because it signified the mysteries of birth and
death. No enterprise was undertaken on Friday by the Jews, but they
completed thereon the work which belonged to the week, seeing that it
preceded the Sabbath, or day of compulsory rest. The number 13, being
that which follows the perfect cycle of 12, also represents death,
succeeding the activities of life; and in the Jewish _Symbolum_ the
article relating to death is numbered thirteen. The partition of the
family of Joseph into two tribes brought thirteen guests to the first
Passover of Israel in the Promised Land, meaning thirteen tribes to
share the harvests of Canaan. One of them was exterminated, being
that of Benjamin, youngest of the children of Jacob. Hence comes
the tradition that when there are thirteen at table the youngest is
destined to die quickly.[114]
The Magi abstained from the flesh of certain animals and touched no
blood. Moses raised this practice into a precept, on the ground that
it is unlawful to partake of the soul of animals, which soul is in the
blood. It remains therein after their slaughter, like a phosphorus of
coagulated and corrupted Astral Light, which may be the germ of many
diseases. The blood of strangled animals digests with difficulty and
predisposes to apoplexy and nightmare. The flesh of _carnivora_ is also
unwholesome on account of the savage instincts with which it has been
associated and because it has already absorbed corruption and death.
“When the soul of an animal is separated violently from its body,” says
Porphyry, “it does not depart, but, like that of human beings which
have died in the same way, it remains in the neighbourhood of the body.
It is so retained by sympathy and cannot be driven away. Such souls
have been seen moaning by their bodies. It is the same with the souls
of men whose bodies have not been interred. It is to these that the
operations of magicians do outrage, by enforcing their obedience, so
long as the operators are masters of the dead body in whole or in part.
Theosophers who are familiar with these mysteries, with the sympathy
of animal souls for the bodies from which they are separated, and with
their pleasure in approaching these, have rightly forbidden the use of
certain meats, so that we may not be infected by alien souls.”
Porphyry adds that prophecy may be acquired by feeding on the hearts
of ravens, moles and hawks; here the Alexandrian theurgist betakes
himself to the processes of the _Little Albert_, but though he lapses
so quickly into superstition it is by entering a wrong path, for his
point of departure was science.[115]
To indicate the secret properties of animals, the ancients said that
at the epoch of the war of the giants, various forms were assumed
by the gods with a view to concealment, and that they resumed these
subsequently at pleasure. Thus, Diana changed into a she-wolf; the sun
into a bull, lion, dragon and hawk; Hecate into a horse, lioness and
bitch.
The name of _Pherebates_ was, according to several theosophers,
assigned to Proserpine because she lived upon turtle-doves, and these
birds were the usual offering which the priestesses of Maia made to
that goddess, who is the Proserpine of earth, daughter of the fair
Ceres, and foster-mother of the human race. The initiates of Eleusis
abstained from domestic birds, fish, beans, peaches and apples; they
abstained also from intercourse with a woman in child-bed, as well as
during her normal periods. Porphyry, from whom this information is
derived, adds as follows: “Whosoever has studied the science of visions
knows that one must abstain from all kinds of birds in order to be
liberated from the bondage of terrestrial things and find a place among
the celestial gods.” But the reason he does not give.
According to Euripides, the initiates of the secret cultus of Jupiter
in Crete touched no flesh-meat; in the chorus addressed to King Minos,
the priests in question are made to speak as follows: “Son of a
Phœnician Tyrian woman, descendant of Europa and great Jupiter, King
of the Isle of Crete, famous through an hundred cities, we come unto
thee, forsaking temples built of oak and cypress fashioned with knives;
leaders of a pure life, behold, we come. Since I was made a priest of
Jupiter-Idæus, I take no part in the nocturnal feasts of Bacchanals, I
eat no half-cooked meats; but I offer tapers to the mother of the gods.
I am a priest among the Curetes clothed in white; I keep far from the
cradles of men; I shun also their tombs; and I eat nothing which has
been animated by the breath of life.”
The flesh of fish is phosphorescent and hence is aphrodisiacal. Beans
are heating and cause absence of mind. For every form of abstinence,
including the most irregular forms, a deep reason, apart from all
superstition, can probably be found. There are certain combinations of
foods which are opposed to the harmonies of Nature. “Thou shalt not
seethe the kid in his mother’s milk,” said Moses—a prescription which
is touching as an allegory and wise on the ground of hygiene.
The Greeks like the Romans, but not to the same extent, were believers
in presages; it was good augury when serpents tasted the sacred
offerings; it was favourable or the reverse when it thundered on the
right or the left hand. There were presages in the ways of sneezing and
in other natural weaknesses which may be left here to conjecture. In
the Hymn of Mercury, Homer narrates that when the god of thieves was
still in his cradle he stole the oxen of Apollo, who took the youngster
and shook him, to make him confess the larceny:
_Mercure s’avisant d’un étrange miracle,
De ses flancs courroucés fit entendre l’oracle;
Jusqu’au grand Apollon la vapeur en monta._[116]
It was all presage with the Romans—a stone against which the foot
struck, the cry of a screech-owl, the barking of a dog, a broken vase,
an old woman who was first to look at you. All such idle terrors had
for their basis that grand magical science of divination which neglects
no token but from an effect overlooked by the vulgar ascends through a
sequence of interlinked causes. This science knows, for example, that
those atmospheric influences which cause the dog to howl are fatal for
certain sufferers, that the appearance and the wheeling of ravens mean
the presence of unburied bodies—which is always of sinister augury;
localities of murder and execution are frequented by these fowl. The
flight of other birds prognosticates hard winters, while yet others, by
their plaintive cries over the sea, give the signal of coming storms.
On that which science discerns ignorance remarks and generalises;
the first sees useful warnings everywhere; the other distresses and
frightens itself at everything.
The Romans furthermore were great observers of dreams; the art of
their interpretation belongs to the science of the vital light, to
the understanding of its direction and reflections. Men versed in
transcendental mathematics are well aware that there can be no image
in the absence of light, be it direct, reflected or refracted; and by
the direction of the ray, the return under the fold of which they know
how to find, they arrive by an exact calculation, and invariably, at
the source of light and can estimate its universal or relative force.
They take into account also the healthy or diseased state of the visual
mechanism, external or internal, and attribute thereto the apparent
deformity or rectitude of images. For such persons, dreams are a
complete revelation, since dream is a semblance of immortality during
that nightly death which we call sleep. In the dream-state we share
in the universal life, unconscious of good or evil, time or space. We
leap over trees, dance on water, breathe upon prisons and they fall;
or alternatively, we are heavy, sad, hunted, chained up—according to
the state of our health and often that of our conscience. All this
is useful to observe, and unquestionably, but what can be inferred
therefrom by those who know nothing and are without the wish to learn?
The all-powerful action of harmony, in exalting the soul and giving it
rule over the senses, was well known to the ancient sages; but that
which they employed to soothe was wrested by enchanters to excite and
intoxicate. The sorceresses of Thessaly and of Rome believed that
the moon could be dragged from the sky by the barbarous verses which
they recited and that it fell pale and bleeding to the earth. The
monotony of their recitations, the sweep of their magical wands; their
circumambulations about circles, magnetised, excited, and led them by
stages to fury, to ecstasy, even to catalepsy itself. In this kind of
waking state, they fell into dream, saw tombs open, the air overcast by
clouds of demons, the moon falling from heaven.
The Astral Light is the living soul of the earth, a material and fatal
soul, controlled in its productions and movements by the eternal laws
of equilibrium. This light, which environs and permeates all bodies,
can also suspend their weight and make them revolve about a powerfully
absorbent centre. Phenomena which have been so far insufficiently
examined, though they are being reproduced in our own days, prove
the truth of this theory. To the same natural law must be ascribed
those magical whirlpools in the centre of which enchanters located
themselves. It explains the fascination exercised on birds by certain
reptiles and on sensitive natures by others which are negative and
absorbent. Mediums are generally diseased creatures in whom the void
opens and who thus attract the light, as abysses draw the water
of whirlpools. The heaviest bodies can then be lifted like straws
and are carried away by the current. Such negative and unbalanced
natures, whose fluidic bodies are formless, can project their force
of attraction, delineating by this means supplementary and fantastic
members in the air. When the celebrated medium Home makes hands without
bodies appear in his vicinity, his own hands are dead and frozen.
It may be said that mediums are phenomenal beings in whom death
struggles visibly against life. As much may be concluded in the case
of enchanters, fortune-tellers, those with the evil eye and casters of
spells. Consciously or unconsciously, they are vampires, who draw the
life which they lack and thus disturb the balance of the light. When
this is done consciously, they are criminals who should be punished,
and when otherwise they are still exceedingly dangerous subjects, from
whom delicate and nervous people should be carefully isolated.
Porphyry tells the following story in his life of Plotinus. “Among
those who professed philosophy, there was a certain Olympius, who was
of Alexandria and for a time disciple of Ammonius. He treated Plotinus
with disdain, being ambitious to surpass him in repute. He sought
also to injure him by magical ceremonies, but having found that the
attempt re-acted on himself he admitted to his friends that the soul of
Plotinus must be one of great power, since it could turn back on his
enemies their own evil designs. Plotinus was conscious of the hostile
attempts of Olympius, and there were times when he said suddenly: ‘Now
he is having convulsions.’ This kind of thing being repeated, and
finding that he was afflicted himself with the evils which he would
have wrought on Plotinus, Olympius ceased to persecute.”
Equilibrium is the great law of the vital light; projected with force
and repelled by a nature more balanced than our own, it comes back upon
ourselves with equal violence. Woe therefore to those who would employ
natural powers in the service of injustice, since Nature is just and
her reactions are terrible.
CHAPTER VII
MAGICAL MONUMENTS
We have said that Egypt of old was itself a pantacle, and as much might
be affirmed concerning the elder world at large. In proportion as the
great hierophants were at pains to conceal their absolute science, they
sought more and more to extend and multiply its symbols. The triangular
pyramids, with their square bases, represented metaphysics grounded on
the science of Nature; and the symbolical key of this science assumed
the gigantic form of that wonderful sphinx which, in its age-long vigil
at the foot of the pyramids, has hollowed for itself so deep a bed in
the sand. Those seven great monuments called the wonders of the world
were sublime commentaries on the pyramids and on the seven mysterious
gates of Thebes. At Rhodes there was the Pantacle of the Sun, in which
the god of light and truth was symbolised under a human form clothed
with gold; he raised in his right hand the torch of intelligence and
in his left held the shaft of activity. His feet were fixed on moles
representing the eternal equilibrating forces of Nature, necessity and
liberty, active and passive, fixed and volatile—in a word, the Pillars
of Hercules. At Ephesus was the Pantacle of the Moon, which was the
Temple of Diana Panthea, made in the likeness of the universe. It
was a dome surmounting a cross, with a square gallery and a circular
precinct recalling the shield of Achilles. The tomb of Mausoleus was
the Pantacle of the Chaste and Conjugal Venus; in form it was after
the manner of a _lingam_, having a square elevation and a circular
precinct. In the middle place of the square rose a truncated
pyramid, on which was a chariot with four horses, harnessed so as to
form a cross. The Pyramids were the Pantacle of Hermes or of Mercury.
The Olympian Jupiter was the Pantacle of that god. The walls of Babylon
and the citadel of Semiramis were Pantacles of Mars. In fine, the
Temple of Solomon—that universal and absolute pantacle destined to
replace the others—was for the Gentile world the terrible Pantacle of
Saturn.
[Illustration: THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD]
The philosophical septenary of initiation, according to the mind of the
ancients, may be summarised as three absolute principles, reducible
to a single principle, and four elementary forms, which are one form
only, the whole constituting an unity composed of form and idea. The
three principles are as follows: (1) Being is being; in philosophy this
signifies the identity of the idea and that which is, or truth; in
religion it is the first principle, the Father. (2) Being is real; this
means in philosophy the identity of knowledge and of that which is,
or reality; in religion it is the Logos of Plato, the Demiourgos, the
Word. (3) Being is logical; in philosophy this signifies the identity
of reason and reality; in religion it is Providence, or the Divine
Action by which the good is realised, the mutual love of the true and
the good, called the Holy Spirit in Christianity.
The four elementary forms were the expression of two fundamental laws:
resistance and motion; the fixed state, or that inertia which resists,
and active life, or the volatile; in other and more general terms,
matter and spirit-matter being that nothingness which is formulated by
passive affirmation, spirit being the principle of absolute necessity
in that which is true. The negative action of material nothing on
spirit was termed the evil principle; the positive action of spirit on
this same nothingness, so that it might be filled with creation and
with light, was called the good principle. To these conceptions there
corresponded, on the one hand, humanity and, on the other, the rational
and saving life, redeeming those who are conceived in sin—that is to
say, in nothingness—because of their material generation.
Such was the doctrine of secret initiation, such the admirable
synthesis that the spirit of Christianity came to vivify, enlightening
by its splendour, establishing divinely by its dogma and realising by
its sacraments. Under the veil which was intended to preserve it, this
synthesis has vanished. It is destined to be recovered by man in all
its primitive beauty and all its maternal fecundity.
BOOK III
_DIVINE SYNTHESIS AND REALISATION OF MAGIA BY THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION_
ג—GIMEL
CHAPTER I
CHRIST ACCUSED OF MAGIC BY THE JEWS
At the beginning of the Gospel according to St. John there is one
sentence which is never uttered by the Catholic Church except in the
bending of the knees; that sentence is: “The Word was made flesh.”
The plenary revelation of Christianity is comprised therein. So also
elsewhere the Evangelist furnishes the criterion of orthodoxy, which is
the confession of Jesus Christ manifested in flesh—that is to say, in
visible and human reality.
After emblazoning in his visions the pantacles and hieroglyphs of
esoteric science; after exhibiting wheels revolving within wheels;
after picturing living eyes turning to all the spheres; after deploying
the beating wings of the four mysterious living creatures—Ezekiel,
the most profound Kabalist of the ancient prophets, beholds nothing
but a plain strewn with dry bones. At his word they are covered with
flesh and so is form restored to them. A pitiful beauty invests these
remnants of death, but that beauty is cold and lifeless. Of such were
the doctrines and mythologies of the elder world, when a breath of
love descended upon them from heaven. Then the dead shapes rose up;
the wraiths of philosophy gave place to men of true wisdom; the Word
was incarnate and alive; it was no longer the day of abstractions
but one of reality. That faith which is proved by works replaced the
hypotheses which ended in nothing but fables. Magic was transformed
into sanctity, wonders became miracles, the common people—excluded
by ancient initiation—were called to the royalty and priesthood of
virtue. Realisation is thus of the essence of Christian religion, and
its doctrine gives a body even to the most obvious allegories. The
house of the young man who had great possessions is still shewn in
Jerusalem, and it might be in no sense impossible for careful research
to discover a lamp which, by a similar tradition, once belonged to one
of the foolish virgins. Such ingenuous credulities are fundamentally
not very dangerous; indeed they prove only the living and realising
power of the Christian faith. The Jews accused that faith of having
materialised belief and idealised earthly things. In our _Doctrine
and Ritual of Transcendental Magic_ we have recited the scandalous
parable of the _Sepher Toldos Jeshu_ which was invented to support the
accusation. It is related in the _Talmud_ that Jesus ben Sabta, or the
son of the divorced woman, having studied profane mysteries in Egypt,
set up a false stone in Israel and led the people into idolatry. It was
acknowledged notwithstanding that the Jewish priesthood did wrong when
it cursed him with both hands, and it is in this connection that we
find in the _Talmud_ one beautiful precept which is destined hereafter
to unite Christendom and Israel: “Never curse with both hands, so that
one of them may always be free to forgive and to bless.” As a fact, the
priesthood was guilty of injustice towards that peace-bringing Master
who counselled his disciples to obey the constituted hierarchy. “They
are in the seat of Moses,” the Saviour said; “Do therefore that which
they tell you but not as they do themselves.” On another occasion he
commanded ten lepers to shew their persons to the priests, and they
were cured on the road: what touching abnegation in the Divine Worker
of miracles, Who thus ascribed to His most deadly enemies the very
honour of His miracles. For the rest, were those who accused Christ
of setting up a spurious corner-stone acquainted themselves with the
true one? Had not the Jews in the days of the Pharisees lost the
science of that which is at once the corner-stone, the cubic stone, the
philosophical stone—in a word, the fundamental stone of the Kabalistic
Temple, square at the base and triangular above like the pyramids? By
impeaching Jesus as an innovator did they not proclaim that they had
themselves forgotten antiquity? Was not that light which Abraham saw
and rejoiced extinguished for the unfaithful children of Moses, and
was it not recovered by Jesus, Who made it shine with a new splendour?
To be quite certain on the subject, the Gospel and _Apocalypse_ of St.
John must be compared with the mysterious doctrines of the _Sepher
Yetzirah_ and _Zohar_. It will then be realised that Christianity, so
far from being a heresy in Israel, was the true orthodox tradition of
Jewry, while it was the Scribes and Pharisees who were sectarians.
Furthermore, Christian orthodoxy is proved by the consent of the world
at large and by the suspension of the sovereign priesthood, together
with the perpetual sacrifice, in Israel—the two indisputable marks of
a true religion. Judaism without a temple, without a High Priest and
without a sacrifice survives only as a dissident persuasion; certain
persons are still Jews, but the Temple and Altar are Christian.
There is a beautiful allegorical exposition in the apocryphal
gospels of this criterion of certitude in respect of Christianity:
its evidence is that of realisation. Some children were amusing
themselves by fashioning birds of clay, and among them was the child
Jesus. Each little artist praised his own work, and only Jesus said
nothing; but when He had moulded His birds, He clapped His hands,
telling them to fly, and they flew. So did Christian institutions
shew their superiority over those of the ancient world; the latter
are dead, but Christianity is alive. Considered as the fully realised
and vital expression of the Kabalah—that is to say, of primitive
tradition—Christianity is still unknown, and hence that Kabalistic and
prophetic book called the _Apocalypse_ yet remains to be explained,
being incomprehensible without the Kabalistic Keys. The traditional
interpretation was long preserved by the Johannites, or disciples of
St. John; but the Gnostics intervened—to the total confusion and loss
of everything, as will be made clear at a later stage.[117]
We read in the Acts of the Apostles that St. Paul at Ephesus collected
all the books which treated of things curious and burnt them in
public. The reference is no doubt to the old Göetic texts, or works
of necromancy. The loss is regrettable assuredly, since even from
the memorials of error there may shine some rays of truth, while
information may consequently be derived which will prove precious to
science.[118] It is a matter of general knowledge that at the advent
of Christ Jesus the oracles were silenced everywhere, and a voice went
wailing over the sea, crying: “Great Pan is dead.” A pagan writer,
who takes exception to the report, declares on his own part that the
oracles did not cease, but in a little while no one was found to
consult them. The rectification is valuable, for such an attempted
justification is more conclusive than the pretended calumny. Much the
same thing should be said concerning the works of wonder, which fell
into contempt in the presence of real miracles. As a fact, if the
higher laws of Nature are obedient to true moral superiority, miracles
become supernatural like the virtues which produce them. This theory
detracts nothing from the power of God, while the fact that the Astral
Light is obedient to the superior Light of Grace signifies in reality
for us that the old serpent of allegory places its vanquished head
beneath the foot of the Queen of Heaven.
CHAPTER II
THE WITNESS OF MAGIC TO CHRISTIANITY
Magic, being the science of universal equilibrium and having the
truth, reality and reason of being for its absolute principle,
accounts for all the antinomies and reconciles all actualities which
are in conflict one with another by the one generating principle of
every synthesis—that harmony results from the analogy of opposites.
For the initiate of this science religion is not in doubt because it
exists, and we do not deny what is. Being is being— אהיה אשר אהיה.
The apparent opposition of religion and reason is the strength of
both, establishing each in its distinct domain and fructifying the
negative side of each by the positive side of the other: as we have
just said, it is the attainment of agreement by the correspondence
between things that are contrary. The cause of all religious errors and
confusions is that, in ignorance of this great law, it has been sought
to make religion a philosophy and philosophy in its turn a religion,
subjecting matters of faith to the processes of science, which is no
less ridiculous than the subjection of science to the blind obedience
of faith. It is no more the province of a theologian to affirm a
mathematical absurdity or reject the demonstration of a theorem than it
is the province of a man of learning, in the name of science, to oppose
or maintain the mysteries of dogma.
If we inquire of the Academy of Sciences whether it is mathematically
true that there are Three Persons in one God and whether, on the basis
of physiology, it can be certified that Mary, the Mother of God, was
conceived immaculate, the Academy of Sciences will decline to judge
thereon, and it will be right. Scholarship has no title to pronounce,
as the questions belong to the realm of faith. An article of faith is
believed or is not believed, but in either case it is not a matter of
discussion: it is of faith precisely because it eludes examination by
science.
When Joseph de Maistre assures us that one of these days we shall speak
in terms of wonder about our actual stupidity, he is referring, no
doubt, to those people of pretended strong mind who daily inform us
that they will believe in the truth of a dogma when it has been proved
scientifically. This is equivalent to saying that they will believe
when nothing is left for believing, when dogma as such is destroyed,
having become a scientific theorem. It is another way of suggesting
that we shall confess to the infinite when it has been explained,
determined, circumscribed, defined, or, in a word, changed into the
finite. We will believe in the infinite when we are quite certain that
it does not exist; we will admit the immensity of the ocean when we
see it put into bottles. But then, my friends, that which has been
proved to you and brought within your comprehension is henceforth a
matter of knowledge and not of faith. On the other hand, if you are
informed that the Pope has decided that two and two are not four and
that the square of the hypotenuse is not equal to the squares drawn on
the two other sides of a right-angled triangle, you would be justified
in replying that the Pope has not so decided because he has no title;
these things do not concern him and he may not meddle therein. Here
a disciple of Rousseau will exclaim that this is all very well, but
the Church does require us to believe in things which are in formal
opposition to mathematics. All mathematical science tells us that the
whole is greater than the part; this notwithstanding, when Jesus Christ
communicates with his disciples, He must hold His entire body in His
hand and put His head in His own mouth. The miserable pleasantry in
question occurs textually in Rousseau. It is easy to answer that the
sophist is confounding science with faith and the natural order with
that which is supernatural or divine. Were it claimed by religion that
in the communication of the Eucharist our Saviour had two natural
bodies of the same form and size, and that one was eaten by the other,
science would be entitled to protest. But religion lays down that the
body of the Master is divinely and sacramentally contained under the
natural sign or appearance of a fragment of bread. Once more, it is
a question of believing or not believing: whosoever reasons thereon,
and discusses the thing scientifically, deserves to be classed as a
fool.[119]
Truth in science is proved by exact demonstrations; truth in religion
is proved by unanimity of faith and holiness of works. We have
authority in the Gospel to recognise that he who could say to the
paralytic: “Take up thy bed and walk,” had the right to forgive sins.
Religion is true if it is the realisation of perfect morality. Works
are the proof of faith. It is permissible to ask science whether
Christianity has constituted a vast association of men for whom the
hierarchy is a principle, obedience the rule and charity a law. If
science answers, on the basis of historical documents, that this is the
case but that the association of Christians has failed in the matter
of charity, then I take it at its own word, which admits the existence
of charity, since it recognises that there can be deficiency therein.
Charity is at once a great word and a great thing; it is a word which
did not exist prior to Christianity and that which it stands for is
the sum total of religion. Is not the spirit of charity the Divine
Spirit made visible on earth? Has not this Spirit manifested its
sensible existence by acts, institutions, monuments and by immortal
works? To be brief, we do not understand how a sceptic, who is a man
of good faith, can see a daughter of St. Vincent de Paul without
wishing to kneel and pray. The spirit of charity—this indeed is God;
it is immortality in the soul; it is the hierarchy, obedience, the
forgiveness of injuries, the simplicity and integrity of faith.
The separated sects are death-struck at the root because in separating
they were wanting in charity, while in trying to reason on faith they
were wanting in simple good sense. It is in the sects that dogma is
absurd because it is pseudo-reasonable. As such it must be a scientific
theorem or nothing. Now, in religion we know that the letter kills and
that the spirit alone gives life; but what is the spirit in question
unless it be that of charity? The faith which moves mountains and
withstands martyrdom, the generosity which gives all, the eloquence
which speaks with the tongue of men and angels—all this, says St.
Paul, is nothing without charity. He adds that knowledge may vanish
away and prophecy may cease, but charity is eternal. Charity and its
works—hereof is the reality in religion: now true reason never denies
reality, for it is the demonstration of that being which is truth.
It is in this manner that philosophy extends a hand to religion, but
without ever wishing to usurp its domain, and, on this condition,
religion blesses, encourages and enlightens philosophy by its loving
splendours. Charity is the mysterious bond which, according to the
dream of Greek initiates, must reconcile Eros and Anteros. It is that
coping of the door of Solomon’s Temple which unites the two pillars
_Jachin_ and _Boaz_; it is the common guarantee between rights and
duties, between authority and liberty, between the strong and weak,
between the people and the government, man also and woman. It is the
divine sentiment which is requisite for life in human science; it is
the absolute of good, as the triple principle Being-Reality-Reason is
the absolute of the true. These elucidations have been necessary for
the proper interpretation of that beautiful symbol of the Magi adoring
the Saviour in the manger. The kings are three—one white, one tawny and
one black; they offer gold, frankincense and myrrh. The reconciliation
of opposites is expressed by this double triad, and it is precisely
that which we have just been seeking to explain. Christianity, as
expected by the Magi, was in effect the consequence of their secret
doctrine; but this Benjamin of ancient Israel caused, by the fact of
its birth, the death of its mother. The Magic of Light, that of the
true Zoroaster, of Melchisedek and Abraham came to an end with the
advent of the Great Fulfiller. Henceforth, in a world of miracles, mere
prodigies could be nothing more than a scandal and magical orthodoxy
was transfigured into the orthodoxy of religion. Those who dissented
could be only _illuminati_ and sorcerers; the very name of Magic could
be interpreted only according to its evil sense, and it is under this
inhibition that we shall follow hereafter its manifestations through
the centuries.
The first arch-heretic mentioned in the traditions of the Church was
Simon the Magician; his legend embodies a multitude of marvels; it is
an integral part of our subject and we shall endeavour to separate
its basis from the cloud of fables by which it is surrounded. Simon
was by nationality a Jew and is believed to have been born in the
Samaritan town of Gitton.[120] His master in Magic was a sectarian
named Dositheus, who gave out that he was sent by God and was the
Messiah foretold by the prophets.[121] Under his tuition, Simon not
only acquired the illusory arts but also certain natural secrets which
belong really to the tradition of the Magi. He possessed the science
of the Astral Fire and could attract great currents thereof, making
himself seem impassible and incombustible. He had also the power to
rise and remain in the air. Feats of this kind have been performed
frequently, in the absence of science and, so to speak, accidentally,
by enthusiasts intoxicated with Astral Light, as for example the
convulsionaries of St. Médard; and the phenomena recur at the present
day in the mediumistic state. Simon magnetised at a distance those
who believed in him and appeared to them under various figures. He
produced images and visible reflections—_e.g._, everyone, on a certain
occasion, thinking that they could see fantastic trees in a bare
country. Moreover, objects which are normally inanimate were moved in
his vicinity, as furniture is now moved within the atmosphere of Home,
the American; and, finally, when he intended to enter or leave a house
the doors creaked, shook and ended by opening of their own accord.
Simon performed these wonders before the chief people of Samaria,
and as his actual achievements were in due course exaggerated, the
thaumaturgist passed for a divine being. It came about also that as he
owed his power to states of excitement by which reason is disturbed,
so he came to regard himself as such an exceptional being that he did
not hesitate to claim divine honours and dreamed modestly of usurping
the worship of the whole world. His crises or ecstasies produced
extraordinary physical results. Sometimes he appeared pale, withered,
broken, like an old man at the point of death; sometimes the luminous
fluid revitalised his blood, so that his eyes shone, his skin became
smooth and soft, and he appeared regenerated and renewed suddenly.
The easterns have great capacity for the amplification of wonders;
they claimed to have seen Simon passing from childhood to decrepitude
and again at his will returning from decrepitude into childhood. His
miracles were noised abroad everywhere, till he became not only the
idol of Jewish Samaria but also of the neighbouring countries.
However, the worshippers of marvels are generally hungry for new
emotions and they did not fail to get weary of that which at first
had astonished them. The Apostle St. Philip having reached Samaria,
to preach the gospel therein, a new current of enthusiasm was thus
started, with the result that Simon lost all his prestige. He was
conscious, moreover, that his abnormal states had ceased, as he thought
through loss of power; he believed that he was surpassed by magicians
more learned than himself, and the course which he took was to attach
himself to the apostles in the hope of studying, discovering or buying
their secret.
Simon was certainly not an initiate of Transcendental Magic, which
would have told him that wisdom and sanctity are needful for those who
would direct the secret forces of Nature without being broken thereby;
that to play with such terrible weapons without understanding them was
the act of a fool; and that swift and terrible death awaits those who
profane the Sanctuary of Nature. Simon was consumed by an unquenchable
thirst, like that of a drunkard; the suspension of his ecstasy was the
loss of all his happiness, and made ill by past excesses, he thought
to regain health in renewed intoxication. One does not willingly come
back to the state of a simple mortal after posing as a god. To recover
that which he had lost Simon submitted therefore to all the rigours
of apostolic austerity; he watched, he prayed, he fasted, but the
wonders did not return. Then he reflected that between Jews it might
be possible to reach an understanding, and he offered money to St.
Peter. The chief of the apostles drove him indignantly away; and he who
received so willingly the contributions of his disciples was now at the
end of his resources; he abandoned forthwith the society of men who
had shewn such disinterestedness, and with the money which St. Peter
disdained he purchased a female slave named Helena.[122]
Mystical vagaries are always akin to debauch. Simon became passionately
enamoured of his servant; that passion, at once weakening and exalting,
restored his cataleptic states and the morbid phenomena which he
termed his gift of wonders. A mythology full of magical reminiscences,
combined with erotic dreams, issued fully armed from his brain; he
undertook pilgrimages like the apostles, carrying Helena with him,
dogmatising and shewing himself to those who were willing to worship
and doubtless also to pay him.
According to Simon, the first manifestation of God was by means of
a perfect splendour which produced its reflection immediately. He
was himself this sun of souls and the reflection was Helena, whom he
affected to call Selene, being the name of the moon in Greek. Now
the moon of Simon came down at the beginning of the ages on that
earth which the magus had mapped out in his perpetual dreams. There
she became a mother, impregnated by the thought of his sun, and she
brought into the world angels, whom she reared by herself without
speaking of them to their father. The angels rebelled against her and
imprisoned her in a mortal body. It was then that the splendour of God
was compelled to descend in its turn that it might redeem Helena, and
so the Jew Simon was manifested on earth. There he had to overcome
death and carry his Helena through the air, followed by the triumphant
choir of the elect, while the rest of mankind was abandoned on earth
to the eternal tyranny of the angels. Thus the arch-heretic, imitating
Christianity but in the reverse sense, affirmed the eternal reign
of revolt and evil, represented the world as created or at least
completed by demons, destroyed the order and the hierarchy, to pose
alone with his concubine as the way, the truth and the life. Here was
the doctrine of Antichrist, and it was not to perish with Simon, for
it has been perpetuated to our own days. Indeed prophetic traditions
of Christianity speak of his transitory reign and triumph to come as
heralding the most terrible calamities. Simon claimed the title of
saint and, by a curious coincidence, the chief of a modern Gnostic sect
which recalls all the sensuous mysticism of the first arch-heretic—the
inventor of the “free woman”—is also named Saint-Simon. Cainism is the
name which might be given to all the false revelations issued from this
impure source. They are dogmas of malediction and of hatred against
universal harmony and social order; they are disordered passions
affirming license in the place of duty, sensual love instead of chaste
and devoted love, the prostitute in place of the mother, and Helena,
concubine of Simon, in place of Mary, the mother of the Saviour.
Simon became a notoriety and repaired to Rome, where the emperor,
attracted by all extraordinary spectacles, was disposed to welcome
him: this emperor was Nero. The illuminated Jew astonished the crowned
fool by a trick which is common in jugglery. He was decapitated,
but afterwards saluted the emperor, his head being restored to his
shoulders. He caused furniture to move and doors to open; in a word,
he acted as a veritable medium and became sorcerer in ordinary at the
orgies of Nero and the banquets of Trimalcyon. According to the legend
makers, it was to rescue the Jews of Rome from the doctrine of Simon
that St. Peter himself visited that capital of the world. Nero, by
means of his inferior spies, was informed speedily that a new worker of
Israelitish wonders had arrived to make war on his own enchanter, and
he resolved to bring them together for his amusement. Petronius and
Tigellinus were perhaps at this feast.[123]
“May peace be with you,” said the prince of apostles on entering. “We
have nothing to do with your peace,” answered Simon. “It is by war that
truth is discovered. Peace between adversaries is the victory of one
and the defeat of the other.”
[Illustration: DISPUTATION BETWEEN SIMON THE MAGICIAN AND SS. PETER AND
PAUL]
St. Peter answered: “Why do you reject peace? The vices of men have
created war, but peace ever abides with virtue.”
“Virtue is power and skill,” said Simon. “For myself I face the fire, I
rise in the air, I restore plants, I change stones into bread; and you,
what do you do?”
“I pray for you,” said St. Peter, “that you may not perish the victim
of your enchantments.”
“Keep your prayers; they will not ascend to heaven as quickly as
myself.”
And behold the magician passing out by a window and rising in the air
outside. Whether this was accomplished by means of some aerostatic
apparatus concealed under his long robes or whether he was lifted up,
like the convulsionaries of Paris the Deacon, owing to an exaltation of
the Astral Light, we are unable to say; but during this phenomenon St.
Peter was praying on his knees, and Simon fell suddenly with a great
cry, to be raised with his thighs broken. Nero imprisoned St. Peter,
who seemed a far less diverting magician than Simon; the latter died
of his fall. The whole of this history, which belongs to the popular
rumours of the period, is now relegated, though perhaps wrongly, to
the region of apocryphal legends.[124] On such account it is not less
remarkable or less worthy to be preserved.
The sect of Simon did not end with himself, and his successor was one
of his disciples, named Menander.[125] He did not pose as a god, being
contented with the role of a prophet; but when he baptized proselytes,
a visible fire came down upon the water. He also promised immortality
of soul and body as the result of this magical immersion, and in the
days of St. Justin, there were still followers of Menander who firmly
believed themselves immortal. The deaths which occurred among them by
no means disabused the others, for those who died were excommunicated
forthwith, on the ground that they had been false brethren. For these
believers death was an actual apostasy and their immortal ranks were
filled up by enrolling new proselytes. Those who understand the extent
of human folly will not be surprised to hear that in this present year,
being 1858, there exists in America and France a fanatical sect in
continuation of that of Menander.[126]
The qualification of magician added to the name of Simon rendered Magic
a thing of horror to Christians; but they did not on this account cease
to honour the memory of the Magi-Kings who adored the Saviour in His
cradle.
CHAPTER III
THE DEVIL
By its clear formulation of concepts respecting the Divine,
Christianity leads us to the understanding of God as the most absolute
and the most purest love, while it defines, not less clearly, the
spirit which is opposed to God, the spirit of revolt and hatred:
hereof is Satan. But this spirit is not a personality and is not to be
regarded as a kind of black god: it is a perversity which is common
to all extralineal intelligences. “My name is legion,” says Satan
in the Gospel, “for we are many.” The birth of intelligence may be
compared to the Star of the Morning and, after it has shone for an
instant, if it fall of its own accord into the void of darkness, we may
apply to it that apostrophe which was uttered by Isaiah to the king
of Babylon: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, Son of the
Morning?” But does this mean that the celestial Lucifer, the Morning
Star of intelligence, has been changed into a brand of hell? Can the
name of Light-bearer be applied justly to the angel of trespass and
of darkness? We think not, more especially if it be understood, as
we understand, who have the magical tradition behind us, that the
hell personified by Satan, and symbolised by the old serpent, is
that central fire which encompasses the earth, consuming all that it
produces and devouring its own tail, like the serpent of Kronos—in a
word, that Astral Light of which the Almighty spoke to Cain when He
said: “If thou doest evil, sin shall be straightway at thy gates”—that
is to say, disorder will take possession of all thy senses; “yet unto
thee I have made subject the lust of death, and it is for thee to rule
it.”[127]
The royal and almost divine personification of Satan is a blunder which
goes back to the false Zoroaster, or otherwise, to the sophisticated
doctrine of the later and materialistic Magi of Persia; it was they
who represented the two poles of the intellectual world as deities,
making a divinity out of passive force in contradistinction to that
force which is active. We have indicated that the same grave error
was made by Indian mythology. Ahriman or Siva is the father of the
demon, as the latter is understood by superstitious makers of legend,
and hence it was said by our Saviour: “The devil is a liar like his
father.” On this question the Church rests satisfied with the Gospel
texts and has published no dogmatic decisions, having the definition
of the devil as their object. Good Christians avoid even naming him,
while religious moralists recommend the faithful to take no concern
regarding him, seeking to resist his arts by thinking only of God. We
cannot but admire this wise reserve on the part of priestly teaching.
Why indeed should the light of doctrine be reflected on him who is
intellectual obscurity and darkest night of the heart? Let the spirit
which would distract us from the knowledge of God remain unknown by us.
It is assuredly not of our intention to perform what the Church has
omitted; we certify on such a subject only as to the secret instruction
of initiates in the occult sciences. They have said that the Great
Magical Agent—accurately termed Lucifer because it is the vehicle of
light and the receptacle of all forms—is a mediating force diffused
throughout creation; that it serves for creation and destruction; that
the fall of Adam was an erotic intoxication which made his race subject
to that fatal light; that all amorous passion which invades the senses
is a whirlpool of this light, seeking to draw us down into the gulf of
death; that madness, hallucinations, visions, ecstasies constitute an
exceedingly dangerous exaltation of this interior phosphorus; finally,
that the light in question is of the nature of fire, that it is warming
and vivifying in its prudent use, but that it burns, dissolves and
destroys in its excess. Over this light man is called, on the one hand,
to assume a sovereign empire, so earning his immortality, but, on
the other, he is menaced by the intoxication, absorption and eternal
destruction thereof. In its devouring, avenging and fatal aspect, the
Astral Light may be called the fire of hell, the serpent of legend,
while the tormented sin which abounds therein, the tears and the
gnashing of teeth on the part of the abortions that it consumes, the
phantom of life which escapes them and seems to insult their misery—all
this may be termed the devil or Satan. Among the pomps and works of
hell may be included, in fine, those actions, those illusionary images
of pleasure, wealth and glory which are misdirected by the vertigo of
this light.
Father Hilarion Tissot regards certain nervous diseases which are
accompanied by hallucinations and delirium as diabolical possessions
and, understood in the sense of the Kabalists, he is right assuredly.
Whatsoever delivers our soul to the fatality of vertigo is truly
infernal, since heaven is the eternal reign of order, intelligence
and liberty. The possessed people of the Gospel fled away from Jesus
Christ; the oracles were silenced in the presence of the Apostles;
while those who are prey to the disease of hallucination have ever
manifested an invincible repugnance for initiates and sages. The
suspension of oracles and obsessions proved the triumph of human
liberty over fatality. When astral diseases reappear, it is an
ominous sign of spiritual enervation, and manifestations of this kind
are followed invariably by fatal disorders. The disturbances here
referred to continued till the French Revolution, and the fanatics of
Saint-Médard were the prophets of its sanguinary calamities. The famous
criminologist Torreblanca, who had gone to the root of Diabolical
Magic, describes accurately all the phenomena of astral disturbance,
when classifying the works of the demon. Here are some extracts from
the 15th chapter of his work on _Operative Magic_:[128] (1) The demon
is endeavouring continually to lead us into error. (2) He deludes the
senses by disturbing the imagination, though he cannot change its
nature. (3) When things abnormal are manifested to the eye of man, an
imaginary body assumes shape in the mind and so long as that phantom
remains therein, the phenomena continue. (4) The demon destroys
equilibrium in the imagination by a disturbance of the vital functions,
whether by irregularity in health or actual disease. (5) When some
morbid cause has destroyed this equilibrium, and that also of reason,
waking dream becomes possible and that which has no existence assumes
the semblance of reality. (6) The mental perception of images in this
manner makes sight unworthy of trust. (7) Visions are bodied forth,
but they are merely thought-forms. (8) The ancients distinguished two
orders of disease, one of them being the perception of imaginary forms,
which was termed frenzy, and the other corybantism, or the hearing of
voices and other sounds which have no existence.
It follows from these statements, which are curious in several
respects, that disease is attributed by Torreblanca to the demon,
who indeed is disease itself, with which we should agree entirely—if
permitted by dogmatic authority. The recurring efforts of the Astral
Light to disintegrate and absorb entities are part of its nature; its
ceaseless currents have a wearing effect like water and it consumes
even as fire, for it is the very essence and dissolving force of fire.
The spirit of perversity and the love of destruction which characterise
those whom it governs are instincts of this force. They are further
consequent on the suffering of the soul, which is conscious of
incomplete life and feels torn in opposite directions. The soul yearns
to make an end of itself, yet fears to die alone, and therefore would
include all creation in its destruction. Such astral perversity assumes
frequently the form of the hatred of children; an unknown power impels
certain subjects to kill them, and imperious voices seem to demand
their death. Dr. Brierre de Boismont cites terrible examples of this
mania, recalling the crimes of Papavoine and Henriette Cornier.
Sufferers from astral perversion are malevolent, and they are jealous
at the joy of others; they are especially inimical to hope, and
even when offering consolation they choose the most desperate and
heartrending figures of speech. The explanation is that their life is
synonymous with suffering and that they have been whirled into the
dance of death. It is, moreover, astral perversion and the lust of
death which abuses the act of generation, leading to its perversion
or dishonour by sacrilegious mockeries and shameful pleasantries.
Obscenity is a blasphemy against life. Each of these vices is
personified by a black idol or by a demon, which is the negative and
distorted reflection of the divinity who communicates life: these are
idols of death. Moloch is the fatality which devours infants. Satan
and Nisroch are gods of hatred, fatality and despair. Astarte, Lilith,
Nehamah, Ashtaroth are idols of debauchery and abortion. Adramelech
is the god of murder, while Belial is that of eternal revolt and
anarchy. Such are the monstrous conceptions of reason, when it pauses
on the verge of extinction and slavishly worships its destroyer, so
that it may reach the end of its torment by the destroyer absorbing
it. According to the Kabalists, the true name of Satan is that of
Jehovah reversed, for Satan is not a black god but the negation of
Deity. He is the personification of atheism and idolatry. The devil
is not a personality for initiates but a force created with a good
object, though it can be applied to evil: it is really the instrument
of liberty. They represented this force, which presides over physical
generation, under the mythological figure of the horned god Pan, and
hence comes the goat of the Sabbath, brother of the old serpent, the
light-bearer or phosphorus, converted by poets into the false Lucifer
of legend.
CHAPTER IV
THE LAST PAGANS
The eternal miracle of God is the unchangeable order of His providence
in the harmonies of Nature; prodigies are derangements and are
attributable only to degeneration in the creature. Divine miracle
is thus a providential reaction for the restoration of the broken
order. When Jesus cured the possessed He calmed them and suspended the
marvels which they produced; when the apostles subdued the exaltation
of the pythonesses they put an end to divination. The spirit of error
is a spirit of agitation and subversion; the spirit of truth brings
tranquillity and peace in its path. Such was the civilising influence
of Christianity at its dawn; but those passions which are friends of
disturbance did not, without a struggle, leave it in possession of the
palm of easy victory. Expiring polytheism drew powers from the Magic of
the old sanctuaries; to the mysteries of the Gospel it still opposed
those of Eleusis. Apollonius of Tyana was set up as a parallel to the
Saviour of the world, and Philostratus undertook to construct a legend
on the subject of this new deity. Thereafter came the Emperor Julian,
who would have been himself deified if the javelin which slew him
had not also struck the last blow at Cæsarian idolatry. The enforced
and decrepit rebirth of a religion which was dead in its forms was a
literal abortion, and Julian, who attempted it, was doomed to perish
with the senile offspring which he strove to bring into the world.
This notwithstanding, Apollonius and Julian were two curious, even
great personalities, and their history is epoch-making in the Annals
of Magic. Allegorical legends were in fashion at that period. Those who
were masters embodied their doctrine in their personality, and those
who were initiated disciples wrote fables which combined the secrets of
initiation. The history of Apollonius by Philostratus, too absurd if it
be taken literally, becomes memorable when its symbolism is examined
according to the data of science. It is a kind of pagan gospel, opposed
to that of Christianity; it is a secret doctrine at large, and we are
in a position to reconstruct and explain it.
In the third book of Philostratus, the initial chapter contains an
account of Hyphasis, a wonderful river which rises in a certain plain
and is lost in unapproachable regions. That river represents magical
knowledge, which is simple in its first principles but difficult to
deduce accurately in respect of final consequences.[129] Philostratus
tells us in this connection that marriages are not fruitful unless
consecrated by the balsam of trees which grow on the banks of Hyphasis.
The fish of this river are sacred to Venus; their crest is blue, the
scales are of many colours and their tail is golden: they can raise the
tail at will. In the river there is also an animal resembling a white
worm, the stewing of which produces an inflammable oil that can be kept
in glass only. The animal is reserved only for the king’s service, as
it has power to overthrow walls. When the grease of it is exposed to
the air it ignites, and there is then nothing in the whole world with
which the flame can be extinguished.
By the fish of the river Hyphasis, Apollonius signifies universal
configuration which magnetic experiments have recently proved to
be blue on one side, golden on that which is opposite and of many
colours at the centre. The white worm is the Astral Light, which
resolves into oil when condensed by a triple fire, and such oil is the
universal medicine. It can only be contained by glass, this being a
non-conductor for the Astral Light, its porousness being inappreciable.
This secret is reserved to the king, which means an initiate of the
first order, for it is truly concerned with a force by which cities
can be destroyed. Some important secrets are here indicated with great
clearness.
In the next chapter Philostratus speaks of unicorns and says that the
horn of these animals can be fashioned into drinking-cups which are
a safeguard against all poisons. The single horn of the symbolical
creature represents hierarchic unity, and hence Philostratus adds, on
the authority of Damis, that the cups in question are also exclusive to
kings. “Happy,” says Apollonius, “is he who is never intoxicated but in
drinking out of such a goblet.”
Damis narrates further that Apollonius met with a woman who was white
from feet to breasts but black in the upper region. His disciples were
alarmed at the prodigy, but the master gave her his hand, for he knew
her. He told them that she was the Indian Venus, whose colours are
those of the bull Apis, adored by the Egyptians. This harlequin female
is magical science, the white limbs—or created forms—of which reveal
the black head, or that supreme cause which is unknown to man at large.
But Philostratus and Damis knew, and it was under emblems like these
that they gave expression in concealment to the doctrine of Apollonius.
The secret of the Great Work is contained in the fifth to the tenth
chapters of this third book, and the form of symbolism adopted is that
of dragons defending the entrance to a palace of the wise.[130] There
are three species of dragons —dwellers respectively of marshes, plains
and mountain. The mountain is Sulphur, the marsh Mercury and the plain
is the Salt of the Philosophers. The dragons of the plain are pointed
on the back, like a saw-fish, referring to the acid potency of salt.
Those of the mountains have golden scales and a golden beard, while the
sound of their creeping movement is like the tinkling of copper. In
their head is a stone by which all miracles can be worked. They bask
on the shores of the Red Sea and they are caught by the help of a red
cloth embroidered with golden letters; on these enchanted letters they
lay their head and fall asleep, and they are then decapitated with an
axe. Who does not recognise here the Stone of the Philosophers, the
Magistery at the Red and the famous regimen of fire, represented by
golden letters? Under the name of Citadel of the Wise, Philostratus
goes on to describe the Athanor as a hill surrounded by a mist but open
on the southern side. It has a well four paces in breadth, from which
an azure vapour rises, drawn up by the warmth of the sun and displaying
all colours of the rainbow. The bottom of the well is sanded with red
arsenic. In its vicinity is a basin filled with fire and thence rises
a livid flame, odourless and smokeless, and never higher or lower than
the basin-edge. There are also two reservoirs of black stone, in one of
which rain is stored and in the other wind. The rain-cistern is opened
when there is excessive drought and then clouds come forth which water
the whole country. It would be difficult to describe more exactly the
Secret Fire of the Philosophers and that which they term their _Balneum
Mariæ_. It follows from this account that the ancient alchemists
employed electricity, magnetism and steam in their Great Work.
Philostratus speaks subsequently of the Philosophical Stone itself,
which he calls indifferently a Stone and Light. “The profane are not
permitted to discover it, because it vanishes if not laid hold of
according to the processes of the Art. It is the wise only who, by
means of certain verbal formulæ and rites, can attain the _Pantarba_.
This is the name of the Stone which at night has the appearance of
fire, being flaming and sparkling, while in the day it dazzles by its
brightness. This light is a subtle matter of admirable virtue, for it
attracts all that is near it.[131]
The above revelation concerning the secret doctrines of Apollonius
proves that the Philosophical Stone is no other than an universal
magnet, formed of the Astral Light condensed and fixed about a centre.
It is an artificial phosphorus containing the concentrated virtues of
all generative heat, and the multitude of allegories and traditions
extant concerning it are as testimonies to its certain existence.[132]
The entire life of Apollonius, as recorded by Philostratus, following
Damis the Assyrian, is a tissue of apologues and parables, the
concealed doctrine of great masters of initiation being written in
this manner at the period, as already intimated. We know therefore why
the recital embodies fables and underneath the text of these fables
we should expect to find, and may even look to understand, the secret
knowledge of the hierophants.
His great science and conspicuous virtues notwithstanding, Apollonius
was not a successor in the hierarchic school of the Magi. His
initiation had India as its source and he was addicted to the
enervating practices of the Brahmins; further he preached rebellion and
regicide openly: he was a great character in a wrong path. The figure
of the Emperor Julian seems more poetic and beautiful than that of
Apollonius; he maintained on the throne of the world all the austerity
of a sage; and he sought to transpose the young sap of Christianity
into the enfeebled body of Hellenism. He was a noble maniac, guilty
only of too much devotion to the associations of the fatherland and
the images of its ancestral gods. As a counterpoise to the realising
efficacity of Christian doctrine, he called Black Magic to his aid and
plunged into darksome evocations, following the lead of Jamblichus and
Maximus of Ephesus. But the gods whom he desired to resuscitate in
their youth and beauty appeared before him cold and decrepit, shrinking
from life and light, and ready to fly before the sign of the cross.
The closing had been taken in full according to the grade of Hellenism,
and the Galilean had conquered. Julian died like a hero, without
blaspheming Him who overcame, as it has been falsely pretended.[133]
Ammianus Marcellinus portrays his last moments at length: they were
those of a warrior and philosopher. The maledictions of Christian
sacerdotalism echoed long over his tomb; has not the Saviour, that
lover of noble souls, pardoned adversaries less interesting and less
generous than the unfortunate Julian?
On the death of this emperor, Magic and idolatry were · involved in
one and the same universal reprobation. At this time there came into
existence those secret associations of adepts, to which Gnostics and
Manicheans gravitated at a later period. The societies in question
were the depositaries of a tradition of errors and truths admixed; but
they transmitted, under the seal of terrific pledges, the Great Arcanum
of ancient omnipotence, together with the ever-frustrated hopes of
extinct worships and fallen priesthoods.
CHAPTER V
LEGENDS
The strange narratives embodied in the _Golden Legend_, how fabulous
soever they may be, are referable notwithstanding to the highest
Christian antiquity. They are parables rather than histories; the
style is simple and eastern, like that of the Gospels; and their
traditional existence proves that a species of mythology had been
devised to conceal the Kabalistic mysteries of Johannite initiation.
The _Golden Legend_ is a Christian Talmud expressed in allegories and
apologues. Studied from this point of view, the newer in proportion
as it is more ancient, the work will become of real importance and
highest interest.[134] One of the narratives in this Legend so full of
mysteries characterises the conflict of Magic and dawning Christianity
in a manner which is equally dramatic and startling. It is like an
outline in advance of Chateaubriand’s _Martyrs_ and the _Faust_ of
Goethe combined.
Justina was a young and lovely pagan maiden, daughter of a priest of
the idols, after the manner of Cymodoce. Her window opened on a court
which gave upon the Christian church, so that she heard daily the pure
and recollected voice of a deacon reading the holy gospels aloud. The
unknown words touched and stirred her heart, so deeply indeed that when
her mother remarked one evening how grave she seemed and sought to be
the confidant of her preoccupations, Justina fell at her feet and said:
“Bless me, my mother, or forgive me: I am a Christian.” The mother wept
and embraced her, after which she returned to her husband and related
what she had heard. That night in their sleep the parents were both
visited by the same dream. A divine light descended upon them, a sweet
voice called them and said: “Come unto me, all ye that are afflicted
and I will comfort you. Come, ye beloved of my father, and I will give
unto you the kingdom which has been prepared for you from the beginning
of the world.”
The morning dawned; father and mother blessed their daughter. All
three were enrolled among the catechumens and, after the usual
probation, they were admitted to Holy Baptism. Justina returned white
and radiant from the church, between her mother and aged father, when
two forbidding men, wrapped in their mantles, passed as Faust and
Mephistopheles going by Margaret: they were Cyprian the magician and
his disciple Acladius. They stopped dazzled by the apparition, but
Justina went on without seeing them and reached home with her family.
The scene now changes and we are in the laboratory of Cyprian.
Circles have been traced, a slaughtered victim still palpitates by a
smoking chafing-dish; the genius of darkness stands in the presence
of the magician, saying: “Thou hast called me; I come. Speak: what
dost thou require?”—“I love a virgin.”—“Seduce her.”—“She is a
Christian.”—“Denounce her.”—“I would possess and not lose her: canst
thou aid me?”—“I tempted Eve, who was innocent and conversed daily with
God Himself. If thy virgin be Christian, know that it is I who caused
Jesus Christ to be crucified.”—“Thou wilt deliver her into my hands,
therefore.”—“Take this magical unguent, and anoint the threshold of her
dwelling: the rest concerns me.”
And now Justina is asleep in her small and simple room, but Cyprian
is at the door murmuring sacrilegious words and performing horrible
rites. The demon creeps to the pillow of the young girl and instils
voluptuous dreams full of the image of Cyprian, whom she seems to meet
again on issuing from the church. This time, however, she looks at him;
she listens, while the things which he whispers fill her heart with
trouble. But she moves suddenly, she awakes and signs herself with the
cross. The demon vanishes and the seducer, doing sentinel at the door,
waits vainly through the whole night.
On the morrow he renews his evocations and loads his infernal
accomplice with bitter reproaches. The latter confesses his inability,
is driven forth in disgrace, and Cyprian invokes a demon of superior
class, who transforms himself by turns into a young girl and a
beautiful youth, tempting Justina by advice as well as caresses. She
is on the point of yielding, but her good angel helps her; she joins
inspiration to the sign of the cross and expels the evil spirit.
Cyprian thereupon invokes the king of hell and Satan arrives in person.
He visits Justina with all the woes of Job and spreads a frightful
plague through Antioch; the oracles, at his instigation, declare that
it will cease only when Justina shall satisfy Venus and love, who are
alike outraged. Justina, however, prays in public for the people, and
the pest ceases. Satan is baffled in his turn; Cyprian compels him to
acknowledge the omnipotence of the sign of the cross and defies him by
making it on his own person. He abjures Magic, becomes a Christian, is
consecrated bishop and meets with Justina in a convent. They love now
with the pure and lasting love of heavenly charity; persecution befalls
both; they are arrested together, put to death on the same day and
ratify in the breast of God their mystical and eternal marriage.[135]
According to the legend, St. Cyprian was Bishop of Antioch, but
ecclesiastical history says that his seat was that of Carthage. It
matters little, for the rest, whether the personalities are the same;
the one belongs to poetry, while the other is a father and martyr of
the Church.
There is extant among the old Grimoires a prayer attributed to the St.
Cyprian of legend, who is possibly the holy Bishop of Carthage: its
obscure and figurative expressions may have given credit to the idea
that prior to his conversion he was addicted to the deadly practices of
Black Magic. It may be rendered thus.
“I, Cyprian, servant of our Lord Jesus Christ, have prayed unto God the
Father Almighty, saying: Thou art the strong God, my God omnipotent,
dwelling in the great light. Thou art holy and worthy of praise, and
Thou hast beheld in the old days the malice of Thy servant and the
iniquities into which I was plunged by the wiles of the demon. I was
ignorant of Thy true name; I passed in the midst of the sheep and they
were without a shepherd. The clouds shed no dew on earth; trees bare
no fruit and women in labour could not be delivered. I bound and did
not loose; I bound the fishes of the sea, and they were captive; I
bound the pathways of the sea, and many evils did I encompass. But now,
Lord Jesus Christ, I have known Thy Holy Name, I have loved Thee, I am
converted with my whole heart, my whole soul and all my inward being.
I have turned from the multitude of my sins, that I may walk in Thy
love and follow Thy commandments, which are henceforth my faith and my
prayer. Thou art the Word of truth, the sole Word of the Father, and
I conjure Thee now to break the chain of clouds and send down on Thy
children Thy goodly rain like milk, to set free the rivers and liberate
those who swim, as also those which fly. I conjure Thee to break all
the chains and remove all the obstacles by the virtue of Thy Holy
Name.”
The antiquity of this prayer is evident and it embodies most remarkable
reminiscences of primitive types belonging to Christian esotericism
during the first centuries of this era.
The qualification of Golden given to the fabulous legend of allegorical
saints is a sufficient indication of its character. Gold, in the eyes
of initiates, is condensed light; the sacred numbers of the Kabalah
were called golden; the moral instructions of Pythagoras were contained
in _Golden Verses_; and for the same reason that mysterious work of
Apuleius in which an ass has an important _rôle_, is called the _Golden
Ass_.
The Christians were accused by Pagans of worshipping an ass, and the
slander in question is not of their own devising; it is referable to
the Jews of Samaria, who expressed Kabalistic ideas on the Divinity by
means of Egyptian symbols. Intelligence was represented in the symbol
of a magical star, venerated under the name of _Rempham_; science was
depicted by the emblem of _Anubis_, the latter name being altered into
_Nibbas_; whilst vulgar faith or credulity appeared in the likeness
of _Thartac_, a god represented holding a book, wearing a mantle and
having the head of an ass.[136] According to the Samaritan doctors,
Christianity was the reign of _Thartac_, or blind faith and vulgar
credulity set up as an universal oracle, superior to understanding
and knowledge. This is why, in their intercourse with Gentiles and
when they heard themselves identified by these with Christians, they
protested and begged not to be confounded with the worshippers of
an ass’s head. The pretended revelation diverted the philosophers,
and Tertullian mentions a Roman caricature, extant in his days,
which exhibited _Thartac_ in all his glory, identified as the god of
Christianity, much to the amusement of Tertullian, though he was the
author of that famous aphorism: _Credo quia absurdum_.[137]
The Golden Ass of Apuleius is the occult legend of _Thartac_. It is a
magical epic and a satire against Christianity, which the author had
doubtless professed for a period, or so at least he appears to intimate
under the allegory of his metamorphosis into an ass. The story of the
work is as follows. Apuleius was travelling in Thessaly, the country of
enchantments. He received hospitality at the house of a man whose wife
was a sorceress, and he seduced the servant of his hostess, thinking to
obtain in this manner the secrets of her mistress. The maid promised
to deliver to her lover a concoction by means of which the sorceress
changed herself into a bird, but she made a mistake in the box and
Apuleius was transformed into an ass. She could only console him by
saying that to regain his proper form it would be sufficient to eat
roses, the rose being the flower of initiation. The difficulty at the
moment being to find roses in the night, it was decided to wait till
the morrow and the servant therefore stabled the ass, but only for it
to be taken by robbers and carried off. There was little chance now of
coming across roses, which are not intended for asses, and gardeners
chased away the animal with sticks.
During his long and sad captivity, he heard the history of Psyche
related, that marvellous and symbolical legend which was like the soul
and poetry of his own experience. Psyche desired to take by surprise
the secrets of love, as Apuleius sought those of Magic; she lost
love and he the human form. She was an exiled wanderer, living under
the wrath of Venus, and he was the slave of thieves. But after having
journeyed through hell, Psyche was to return into heaven, and the gods
took pity on Lucius. Isis appeared to him in a dream and promised
that her priest, warned by a revelation, would give him roses during
the solemnities of her coming festival. That festival arrived, and
Apuleius describes at great length the procession of Isis; the account
is valuable to science, for it gives the key of Egyptian mysteries.
Men in disguise come first, carrying grotesque animals; these are the
vulgar fables. Women follow strewing flowers and bearing on their
shoulders mirrors which reflect the image of the great divinity. So do
men go in front and formulate dogmas which women embellish, reflecting
unconsciously the higher truths, owing to their maternal instincts. Men
and women came afterwards in company as light-bearers; they represented
the alliance of the two terms, the active and passive generators of
science and life.[138] After the light came harmony, represented by
young musicians, and, in fine, the images of gods, to the number of
three, followed by the grand hierophant, carrying, instead of an
image, the symbol of great Isis, being a globe of gold surmounted by a
Caduceus. Lucius Apuleius beheld a crown of roses in the hands of the
high priest; he approached and was not repulsed; he ate the roses and
was restored to human shape.
All this is learnedly written and intermingled with episodes which are
now heroic and again grotesque in character, as befitted the double
nature of Lucius and the ass. Apuleius was at once the Rabelais and
Swedenborg of the old world at the close of the epoch.
The great masters of Christianity either failed or refused to
understand the mysticism of the _Golden Ass_. St. Augustine in the
_City of God_ asks in the most serious manner whether one is to
believe that Apuleius was metamorphosed literally into an ass and
seems disposed to admit the possibility, but only as an exceptional
phenomenon—from which nothing follows as a consequence. If this be an
irony on his part, it must be allowed that it is cruel, but if it be
ingenuousness—however, St. Augustine, the acute rhetorician of Madaura,
was scarcely given to being ingenuous.
Blind and unfortunate indeed were those initiates of the Antique
Mysteries who ridiculed the ass of Bethlehem without perceiving the
infant God Who shone upon the peaceful animals in the stable—the Child
on whose forehead reposed the conciliating star of all the past and
future. Whilst philosophy, convicted of impotence, offered insult to
victorious Christianity, the fathers of the Church assumed all the
magnificence of Plato and created a new philosophy based upon the
living reality of the Divine Word, ever present in His Church, reborn
in each of its members and immortal in humanity. It would be a greater
dream of pride than that of Prometheus, were it not at the same time a
doctrine which is all abnegation and all devotion, human because it is
divine and divine because it is human.
CHAPTER VI
SOME KABALISTIC PAINTINGS AND SACRED EMBLEMS
In obedience to the Saviour’s formal precept, the primitive Church
did not expose its Most Holy Mysteries to the chance of profanation
by the crowd. Admission to Baptism and the Eucharist was in virtue
of progressive initiations; the sacred books were also held in
concealment, their free study and, above all, interpretation being
reserved to the priesthood. Moreover, images were fewer and less
explicit in character. The feeling of the time refrained from
reproducing the figure of Christ Himself, and the paintings on the
catacombs were, for the most part, Kabalistic emblems. There was the
Edenic Cross with the four rivers, where harts came to drink; the
mysterious fish of Jonah was replaced frequently by a two-headed
serpent; a man rising from a chest recalls pictures of Osiris.[139] All
these allegories at a later period fell under proscription, owing to
the Gnosticism which misapplied them, materialising and debasing the
holy traditions of the Kabalah.
The name of Gnostic was not always rejected by the Church. Those
fathers whose doctrine was allied to the traditions of St. John
frequently made use of this title to designate the perfect Christian.
Apart from the great Synesius, who was a finished Kabalist but of
questionable orthodoxy, St. Irenæus and St. Clement of Alexandria
applied it in this sense. The false Gnostics were all in revolt against
the hierarchic order, seeking to level the sacred science by its
general diffusion, to substitute visions for understanding, personal
fanaticism for hierarchic religion, and especially the mystical licence
of sensual passions for that wise Christian sobriety and obedience to
law which are the mother of chaste marriages and saving temperance.
The induction of ecstasy by physical means and the substitution of
somnambulism for sanctity—these were the invariable tendency of those
Cainite sects which perpetuated the Black Magic of India. The Church
could do no less than condemn them energetically, and it did not swerve
from its mission; it is only regrettable that the good grain of science
often suffered when the spade was driven and the flame kindled in
fields overgrown by tares.
Enemies of generation and the family, the false Gnostics sought
to insure sterility by increasing debauch; their pretence was to
spiritualise matter, but actually they materialised spirit, and this
in the most repulsive manner. Their theology abounds in the copulation
of Eons and in voluptuous embraces.[140] Like the Brahmans, they
worshipped death under the symbol of the _lingam_; their creation was
an infinite onanism and their redemption an eternal abortion.
Looking to escape from the hierarchy by the help of miracle—as if
miracle apart from the hierarchy proved anything but disorder or
rascality, the Gnostics, from the days of Simon Magus, were great
workers of prodigies. Substituting the impure rites of Black Magic for
the established worship, they caused blood to appear instead of the
Eucharistic wine and substituted cannibal communions for the peaceful
and pure supper of the Heavenly Lamb.[141] The arch-heretic Marcos,
a disciple of Valentinus, said Mass with two chalices; he poured wine
into the smaller and on pronouncing a magical formula the larger
vessel was filled with a liquor like blood, which swelled up seething.
He was not a priest, and he sought to prove in this manner that God
had invested him by a miraculous ordination.[142] He incited all his
disciples to perform the same marvel in his presence. It was women more
especially whose success was parallel to his own, but when they passed
subsequently into convulsions and ravishment, Marcos breathed upon
them, communicating his own mania, so that they covenanted to forget
for his sake, and for that of religion, not only all prudence but all
decency.
Such intervention of woman in the priesthood was always the dream of
false Gnostics, for in so equalising the sexes they introduced anarchy
into the family and raised a stumbling-block in the path of society.
Maternity is the true priesthood of women; modesty is the ritual of the
fireside and the religion thereto belonging. This the Gnostics failed
to understand, or they understood it too well rather, and in misguiding
the sacred instincts of the mother they cast down the barrier which
stood between them and complete liberty for their desires.[143]
The sorry candour of lewdness was not, however, a gift possessed by
all. On the contrary, the Montanists, among other Gnostics, exaggerated
morality in order to make it impracticable. Montanus himself, whose
acrid doctrines inveigled the paradoxical and extremist genius
of Tertullian, was given over, with Priscilla and Maximilla, his
prophetesses, or—as we should now say—his somnambulists, to all the
boundless licentiousness of frenzy and ecstasy. The natural penalty of
such excesses was not wanting to their authors; they ended in raving
madness and suicide.
The doctrine of the Marcosians was a profound and materialised Kabalah;
they dreamed that God had created everything by means of the letters
of the alphabet; that these letters were as so many divine emanations,
having the power of generating beings; that words were all-powerful and
worked wonders virtually, as also in literal reality.[144] All this
is true in a certain sense, but not in that of the Marcosian heresy.
The heretics in question supplemented actualities by hallucinations
and believed that they went invisible because they were transported
mentally where they wished in the somnambulistic state. In the case
of false mystics, life and dream are frequently so confused together
that the predominant dream-state invades and submerges reality: it is
then uttermost rule of folly. The natural function of imagination is to
evoke images and forms, but in a condition of abnormal exaltation it
can also exteriorise forms, as proved by the phenomena of monstrous
pregnancies and a host of analogous facts which official science would
do more wisely to study rather than deny stubbornly. Of such are the
disorderly creations which religion brands justly under the name of
diabolical miracles and of such were those of Simon, the Menandrians
and Marcos.
In our own days a false Gnostic named Vintras, at present a refugee in
London, causes blood to appear in empty chalices and on sacrilegious
hosts. The unhappy being then passes into ecstasies, after the manner
of Marcos, prophesies the downfall of the hierarchy and the coming
triumph of a pretended priesthood, given up to unrestricted intercourse
and unbridled love.[145]
After the protean pantheism of the Gnostics came the dualism of Marcos,
formulating as religious dogma the false initiation prevalent among the
pseudo-Magi of Persia. The personification of evil produced a God in
competition with God Himself, a King of darkness as well as a King of
Light, and there is referable to this period that pernicious doctrine
of the ubiquity and sovereignty of Satan against which we register our
most energetic protest. We make no pretence in this place of denying
or affirming the tradition concerning the fall of angels, deferring
herein, as in all that concerns faith, to the supreme and infallible
decisions of the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church. But
assuming that the fallen angels had a leader prior to that apostasy,
the event in question could not do otherwise than precipitate them
into total anarchy, tempered only by the inflexible justice of God.
Separated from that Divinity which is the source of all power, and more
guilty by far than the others, the prince of angels in rebellion could
be nothing but the last and most impotent of all outcasts.
But if there be a force in Nature which attracts those who forget God
towards sin and death, such force is no other than the Astral Light,
and we do not decline to recognise it as an instrument in subservience
to fallen spirits. We shall recur to this subject, prepared with
a complete explanation, so that it may be intelligible in all its
bearings and all its orthodoxy.[146] The revelation of a great secret
of occultism thus effected will make evident the danger of evocations,
all curious experiences, abuses of magnetism, table-turning and
whatever connects with wonders and hallucinations.
Arius had prepared the way for Manicheanism by his hybrid creation
of a Son of God distinct from God Himself. It was equivalent to the
hypothesis of dualism in Deity, inequality in the Absolute, inferiority
in Supreme Power, the possibility of conflict between the Father
and the Son, and even its necessity. These considerations, and the
disparity between the terms of the divine syllogism, make inevitable
the rejection of the notion. Is there any question whether the Divine
Word can be good or evil—can be either God or the devil? But this was
the great dilemma involved by the addition of a diphthong to the Greek
word [Greek: omousios], by which it was changed to [Greek: omoiousios].
In declaring the Son consubstantial with the Father, the Council of
Nicæa saved the world, though the truth can be realised only by those
who know that principles in reality constitute the equilibrium of the
universe.
Gnosticism, Arianism, Manicheanism came out of the Kabalah
misconstrued. The Church was therefore right in forbidding to its
faithful the study of a science so dangerous; the keys thereof should
be reserved solely to the supreme priesthood. The secret tradition
would appear as a fact to have been preserved by sovereign pontiffs,
at least till the papacy of Leo III, to whom is attributed an occult
ritual said to have been presented by him to the Emperor Charlemagne.
It contains the most secret characters of the Keys of Solomon. This
little work, which should have been kept in concealment, came into
circulation later on, necessitating its condemnation by the Church, and
it has passed consequently into the domain of Black Magic. It is known
under the name of the _Enchiridion_ of Leo III and we are in possession
of an old copy which is exceedingly rare and curious.[147]
The loss of the Kabalistic keys could not entail that of the
infallibility of the Church, which is ever assisted by the Holy
Spirit, but it led to great obscurity in exegesis, the sublime imagery
of Ezekiel’s prophecy and the Apocalypse of St. John being rendered
completely unintelligible. May the lawful successors of St. Peter
accept the homage of this book and bless the labours of their humblest
child, who, believing that he has found one of the keys of knowledge,
comes to lay it at the feet of those who alone have the right to open
and to shut the treasures of understanding and of faith.
CHAPTER VII
PHILOSOPHERS OF THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL
On the eve of its extinction the school of Plato diffused a great
light at Alexandria; but, victorious after three centuries of warfare,
Christianity had assimilated all that was permanent and true in the
doctrines of antiquity. The last adversaries of the new religion
attempted to check the progress of men who were alive by galvanising
mummies. The time had come when the competition could be taken
seriously no longer, and the pagans of the school of Alexandria,
unwillingly and unconsciously, were at work on the sacred monument
raised by the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth to confront all the
ages. Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus are great names in
the annals of science and virtue; their theology was elevated, their
doctrine moral, their own manners were austere. But the chief and
most touching figure of this epoch, the brightest star in the whole
constellation, was Hypatia, the daughter of Theon—that virginal and
learned girl whose understanding and virtues would have taken her to
the baptismal font, but she died a martyr for liberty of conscience
when they attempted to drag her thereto. Synesius of Cyrene was trained
at the school of Hypatia; he became Bishop of Ptolemais, and was one
of the most instructed philosophers as well as the best Christian
poet of the early centuries. It was he who remarked that the common
people always despised things which are of easy understanding and that
what they require is imposture. When it was proposed to confer on him
episcopal dignity, he wrote thus in a letter to a friend: “The mind
which is drawn to wisdom and to the contemplation of truth at first
hand is forced to disguise it, so that it may be rendered acceptable
to the multitude. There is a real analogy between light and truth, as
between our eyes and ordinary understandings. The sudden communication
of a light too brilliant dazzles the material eye, and rays that are
moderated by shadow are more serviceable to those whose sight as yet
is feeble. So, in my opinion, fictions are necessary for the people,
truth being harmful to those who are not strong enough to contemplate
it in all its splendour. If therefore the ecclesiastical laws permit
reserve in judgment, and allegory in mode of expression, I can accept
the dignity which is offered me; the condition is, in other words, that
I shall remain a philosopher at home, though I shall tell apologues and
parables in public. What can there be in common, as a fact, between
the vulgar crowd and sublime wisdom? Truth must be kept in secret; the
multitude need instruction proportioned to their imperfect reason.”
It is regrettable that Synesius should write in this strain, as nothing
can be more impolitic than to let a reservation appear when one is
entrusted with public teaching. As the result of similar indiscretions,
there is the common remark of to-day that religion is necessary for
the people; the question is for what people, seeing that no one will
tolerate inclusion in this category when understanding and morality are
involved.
The most remarkable work of Synesius is a treatise on dreams, in which
he unfolds the purest Kabalistic doctrines and appears as a theosophist
whose exaltation and obscure style have rendered suspect of heresy;
but he had neither the obstinacy nor the fanaticism of sectarians. He
died as he had lived in the peace of the Church, confessing his doubts
frankly but submitting to hierarchic authority: his clergy and his
flock asked nothing better at his hands. According to Synesius, the
state of dream proves the individuality and immaterial nature of the
soul, which in this condition creates for itself a heaven, a country,
palaces shining with light, or otherwise darksome caverns—according to
its inclinations and desires. Moral progress may be estimated by the
tendency of dreams, for in these free will is suspended, while fancy
is abandoned entirely to the dominant instincts. Images are produced
in consequence as a reflection or shadow of thought; presentiments
take bodily shape; memories are intermingled with hopes. The book of
dreams is inscribed sometimes with radiant and sometimes with dark
characters, but accurate rules can be established by which they may be
decoded and read. Jerome Cardan wrote a long commentary on the treatise
of Synesius and may even be said to have completed it by a dictionary
of all dreams, having their explanation attached. The whole is to be
distinguished entirely from the little books of colportage, and it
really claims a serious place in the library of occult science.[148]
A certain section of criticism has ascribed to Synesius those
remarkable works which appear under the name of Dionysius the
Areopagite; in any case, these are regarded as apocryphal and
belonging to the brilliant period of the school of Alexandria. They
are monuments of the conquest of higher Kabalism by Christianity,
and they are intelligible only for those who have been initiated
therein. The chief treatises of Dionysius are on Divine Names and
the Celestial and Ecclesiastical Hierarchies. The first explains and
simplifies all mysteries of rabbinical theology. According to the
author, God is the infinite and indefinable principle; in Himself He
is one and inexpressible, but we ascribe to Him names which formulate
our own aspirations towards His divine perfection.[149] The sum of
these names and their relation with numbers constitute that which is
highest in human thought; theology is less the science of God than
that of our most sublime yearnings. The degrees of the spiritual
hierarchy are afterwards established on the primitive scale of numbers,
governed by the triad. The angelical orders are three, and each order
contains three choirs. It is on this model that the hierarchy should
be established on earth, and the Church is its most perfect type:
therein are princes, bishops and lastly simple ministers. Among the
princes are cardinal-bishops, cardinal-priests and cardinal-deacons.
Among prelates there are archbishops, simple bishops and suffragans.
Among ministers there are rectors or vicars, simple priests and those
who hold the diaconate. The progression to this holy hierarchy is
by three preparatory degrees, being the subdiaconate, minor orders
and clerkship. The functions of all correspond to the angels and the
saints; they are to glorify the threefold Divine Names, in each of the
Three Persons, because the Undivided Trinity is adored in its fulness
in each of the Divine Hypostases. This transcendental theology was
that of the primitive church, and possibly it is attributed to St.
Dionysius only in virtue of a tradition which goes back to his and
the apostolic times, much as the rabbinical editors of the _Sepher
Yetzirah_ attributed that text to the patriarch Abraham, because it
embodies the tradition perpetuated from father to son in the family
of this patriarch. However it may be, the books of St. Dionysius
are precious for science; they consecrate the mystical marriage of
antique initiation with the gospel of Christianity, uniting a perfect
understanding of supreme philosophy with a theology which is absolutely
complete and in all things above reproach.
BOOK IV
_MAGIC AND CIVILISATION_
ד—DALETH
CHAPTER I
MAGIC AMONG BARBARIANS
Black Magic retreated before the light of Christianity, Rome was
conquered by the cross, and prodigies took refuge in that dark circle
with which the barbarous provinces enringed the new Roman splendour.
Among a large number of extraordinary phenomena there is one which
was verified in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. At Tralles in Asia,
a young and noble girl named Philinnium, originally of Corinth and
daughter of Demostrates and Charito, was captivated by Machates, a
youth of mean condition. Marriage was impossible, for, as it has been
said, Philinnium was noble, being, moreover, an only daughter and a
rich heiress. Machates was a man of the people and kept a tavern. The
passion of Philinnium was increased by difficulties; she escaped from
her father’s home and took refuge with Machates. An illicit intercourse
began and continued for six months, when the girl was discovered by
her parents, rescued by them and sequestered carefully. Measures were
now projected for leaving the country and removing her to Corinth; but
Philinnium, who had visibly wasted since separation from her lover,
was seized thereupon with a languishing disorder, neither smiling nor
sleeping, and refusing all nourishment. It came to pass, in fine, that
she died. The parents then relinquished their determination to depart
and purchased a vault, where the young girl was deposited, clothed
in her richest garments. The sepulchre was situated in an enclosure
belonging to the family and no one entered therein after the burial,
for pagans did not pray at the tombs of the departed. The noble family
were so anxious to avoid all scandal that all the arrangements took
place in secret, and Machates had no idea as to what had become of
his mistress. But on the night following the entombment, when he was
about to retire, the door opened slowly and, coming forward with lamp
in hand, he beheld Philinnium magnificently apparelled, but pallid,
cold and fixing him with a dreadful stare in the eyes. Machates ran
to meet her, took her in his arms, asked a thousand questions amidst
as many caresses, and they passed the night together. Before daybreak
Philinnium rose up and disappeared, while her lover was still plunged
in profound sleep.
[Illustration: HERMETIC MAGIC]
Now the girl had an old nurse who loved her tenderly and wept bitterly
at her loss. She may have been an accomplice in her misconduct, and
since the burial of her beloved, being unable to sleep, she rose
frequently at night in a kind of delirium and wandered round the
dwelling of Machates. It came about in this manner that a few days
after the episode just narrated, she observed a light in the young
man’s chamber; drawing nearer and looking through the chinks of the
door, she recognised Philinnium seated beside her lover, looking at
him in silence and yielding to his embraces. In a state of distraction
the poor woman ran back to awaken the mother and gave account of what
she had seen. It was regarded at first as the raving of a visionary,
but in the end, persuaded by her entreaties, the mother rose and
repaired to the house of Machates. All were asleep therein and there
was no answer to knocking. The lady looked through the chinks of the
door, the lamp was extinguished, but a moonbeam lighted the chamber
and the mother saw on a chair the draperies of her daughter and could
distinguish two persons asleep in the bed. She was seized with fright,
returned home trembling, not daring to visit the sepulchre of her
child, and passed the rest of the night in agitation and tears. On the
morrow she sought the lodging of Machates and questioned him gently.
The young man confessed that Philinnium visited him every night. “Why
refuse her to me?” he said to the mother. “We are affianced before the
gods.” Then opening a coffer he shewed Charito the ring and girdle of
her daughter, adding: “She gave me these last night, pledging me never
to belong to anyone but her; seek therefore to separate us no longer,
since we are united by a mutual promise.”
“Will you therefore in your turn go to the grave in search of her?”
said the mother. “Philinnium has been dead for these four days, and
it is doubtless a sorceress or a stryge who has assumed her likeness
to deceive you. You are the spouse of death, your hair will whiten
to-morrow, and the day after you also will be buried. In this manner do
the gods avenge the honour of an outraged family.”
Machates turned white and trembled at this language; he began to fear
on his own part that he was the sport of infernal powers; he begged
Charito to bring her husband that evening, when he would hide them near
his room, and at the time of the phantom’s arrival, would give a signal
to warn them of the fact. They came, and at the allotted hour came also
Philinnium to Machates, who was in bed, but fully clothed and only
pretending to sleep. The girl undressed and placed herself beside him;
Machates gave the signal; the parents entered with torches and uttered
a great cry on recognising their daughter. Philinnium, with pallid
face, rose from the bed to her full height, and said in a hollow and
terrible voice: “O my father and my mother, why have you been jealous
of my happiness and why have you pursued me even beyond the grave? My
love had compelled the infernal gods; the power of death was suspended;
three days only and I should have been restored to life. But your cruel
curiosity makes void the miracle of Nature; you are killing me a second
time.”
After these words she fell back, an inert mass, upon the bed; her
countenance faded; a cadaverous odour filled the chamber; and there was
nothing now but the disfigured remains of a girl who had been five days
dead. On the morrow the whole town was in commotion over this prodigy.
People crowded to the amphitheatre, where the history was recounted in
public, and the crowd then visited the mortuary vault of Philinnium.
There was no sign of her presence, but they came upon an iron ring and
a gilded cup, which she had received as presents from Machates. The
corpse was in the room of the tavern, but the young man had vanished.
The diviners were consulted and they directed that the remains should
be interred without the precincts of the town. Sacrifices were offered
to the Furies and to the terrestrial Mercury; the celestial _manes_
were conjured and there were offerings to Jupiter Hospitalis.
Phlegon, a freedman of Adrian, who was the ocular witness of these
facts, and relates them in a private letter, adds that he had to
exercise his authority to calm a place disturbed by so extraordinary
an event, and he finishes his story with the following words: “If you
think fit to inform the emperor, let me know, that I may send some
of those who have been witnesses of these things.” The history of
Philinnium is therefore well authenticated. A great German poet[150]
has made it the subject of a ballad which everyone knows under the
title of the _Bride of Corinth_. He supposes that the girl’s parents
were Christians, and this gives him the opportunity to make a powerful
poetic contrast between human passions and the duties of religion. The
mediæval demonographers have not failed to explain the resurrection, or
possibly the apparent death of the young Greek lady, as a diabolical
obsession. On our own part, we recognise an hysterical coma accompanied
by lucid somnambulism; the father and mother of Philinnium killed her
by their rough awakening and public imagination exaggerated all the
circumstances of this history.[151]
The terrestrial Mercury, to whom sacrifices were ordained by diviners,
is no other than the Astral Light personified. It is the fluidic genius
of the earth, fatal for those who arouse it without knowing how to
direct; it is the focus of physical life and the magnetised receptacle
of death. This blind force, which the power of Christianity enchained
and cast into the abyss, meaning into the centre of the earth, made its
last efforts and manifested its final convulsions by monstrous births
among barbarians. There is scarcely a district in which the preachers
of the gospel did not have to contend with animals in hideous forms,
being incarnations of idolatry in its death-throes. The _vouivres_,
_graouillis_, _gargoyles_, _tarasques_ are not allegorical only; it is
certain that moral disorders produce physical deformities and do, to
some extent, realise the frightful forms attributed by tradition to
demons. The question arises whether these fossil remains from which
Cuvier built up his mammoth monsters belong really in all cases to
epochs preceding our creation. Is also that great dragon merely an
allegory which Regulus is represented as attacking with machines of war
and which according to Livy and Pliny lived on the borders of the river
Bagrada? His skin, which measured 120 feet, was sent to Rome and was
there preserved until the period of the war with Numantia. There was
an ancient tradition that when the gods were angered by extraordinary
crimes, they sent monsters upon earth, and this tradition is too
universal not to be founded upon actual facts; it follows that the
stories concerning it belong more frequently to history than mythology.
In all memorials of barbarian races, at that epoch when Christianity
conquered them with a view to their civilisation, we find (a) the last
traces of high magical initiation spread formerly throughout the world,
and (b) proofs of the degeneration which had befallen such primitive
revelation, together with the idolatrous vileness into which the
symbolism of the old world had lapsed. In place of the disciples of the
Magi, diviners, sorcerers and enchanters reigned everywhere; God was
forgotten in the deification of men. The example was given by Rome to
its various provinces, and the apotheosis of the Cæsars familiarised
the whole world with the religion of sanguinary deities. Under the name
of Irminsul, the Germans worshipped and sacrificed human victims to
that Arminius or Hermann who caused Augustus to mourn the lost legions
of Varus. The Gauls referred to Brennus the attributes of Taranis and
of Teutas, burning in his honour colossi built of rushes and filled
with Romans. Materialism reigned everywhere, idolatry being synonymous
therewith, as is also the superstition which is ever cruel because it
is always base.
Providence, which predestined Gaul to become the most Christian land
of France, caused, however, the light of eternal truths to shine forth
therein. The original Druids were true children of the Magi, their
initiation deriving from Egypt and Chaldea, or in other words, from
the purest sources of primitive Kabalah.[152] They adored the Trinity
under the names of Isis or Ilesus, being supreme harmony; Belen or Bel,
meaning the Lord in Assyrian and having correspondence with the name
Adonai; Camul or Camael, a name which personifies divine justice in the
Kabalah.[153] Beneath this triangle of light they postulated a divine
reflection, also consisting of three personified emanations, being:
Teutas or Teuth, identical with the Thoth of the Egyptians, and the
Word or formulated Intelligence; then Strength and Beauty, the names
of which varied like the emblems. Finally they completed the sacred
septenary by a mysterious image representing the progress of dogma and
its developments to come. The form was that of a young girl, veiled and
bearing an infant in her arms; they dedicated this symbol to the virgin
who shall bear a child.[154]
The ancient Druids lived in strict abstinence, preserved the deepest
secrecy concerning their mysteries, studied the natural sciences, and
only admitted new adepts after prolonged initiations. There was a
celebrated Druidic college at Autun, and, according to Saint-Foix,
its armorial bearings still exist in that town. They are azure, with
serpents argent couchant, surmounted by mistletoe, garnished with
acorns vert, to distinguish it from other mistletoe, it being the oak
and not the mistletoe which naturally bears the acorns. Mistletoe is a
parasitic plant which has fruit particular to itself.[155]
The Druids built no temples but worked the rites of their religion
on dolmens and in forests. The mechanical means by which they raised
such colossal stones to form their altars is even now a matter of
speculation. These erections are still to be seen, dark and mysterious,
under the clouded sky of Armorica. The old sanctuaries had secrets
which have not come down to us. The Druids taught that the souls of
ancestors watched over children; that they were made happy by their
glory and suffered in their shame; that protecting genii overshadowed
trees and stones of the fatherland; that the warrior who died for his
country expiated all his offences, fulfilled his task with dignity,
was elevated to the rank of a genius and exercised henceforth the
power of the gods. It followed that for the Gauls patriotism itself
was a religion; women and even children carried arms, if necessary, to
withstand invasion. Joan of Arc and Jeanne Hachette of Beauvais only
carried on the traditions of these noble daughters of the Gauls. It is
the magic of remembrances which cleaves to the soil of the fatherland.
The Druids were priests and physicians, curing by magnetism and
charging amulets with their fluidic influence. Their universal remedies
were mistletoe and serpents’ eggs, because these substances attract
the Astral Light in an especial manner.[156] The solemnity with which
mistletoe was cut drew down upon this plant the popular confidence and
rendered it powerfully magnetic. It came about in this manner that it
worked marvellous cures, above all when it was fortified by the Druids
with conjurations and charms. Let us not accuse our forefathers of
over great credulity herein; it may be that they knew that which is
lost to us. The progress of magnetism will some day reveal to us the
absorbing properties of mistletoe; we shall then understand the secret
of those spongy growths which draw the unused virtue of plants and
become surcharged with tinctures and savours. Mushrooms, truffles, gall
on trees and the different kinds of mistletoe will be employed with
understanding by a medical science which will be new because it is old.
We shall cease to ridicule Paracelsus, who collected moss (_usnea_)
from the skulls of hanged men; but one must not move quicker than
science, which recedes that it may advance the further.
CHAPTER II
INFLUENCE OF WOMEN
In imposing upon woman the severe and tender duties of motherhood
Providence has entitled her to the protection and respect of man. Made
subject by Nature itself to the consequence of affections which are her
life, she leads her masters by the chains which love provides, and the
more fully that she is in conformity with the laws which constitute and
also defend her honour the greater is her sway, and the deeper that
respect which belongs to her in the sanctuary of the family. To revolt
is for her to abdicate, and to tempt her by a pretended emancipation
is to recommend her divorce by condemning her beforehand to sterility
and disdain. Christianity alone has the power to emancipate woman by
calling her to virginity and the glory of sacrifice. Numa foresaw this
mystery when he instituted the vestals; but the Druids forestalled
Christianity by giving ear to the inspirations of virgins and paying
almost divine honours to the priestesses of the island of Sayne.
In Gaul women did not prevail by their coquetry and their vices, but
they ruled by their counsels; apart from their concurrence, neither
peace nor war were made; the interests of the hearth and family were
thus pleaded by mothers and the national pride shone in the light of
justice when it was tempered by the maternal love of country.
Chateaubriand calumniated Velleda by representing her as yielding to
the love of Eudorus; she lived and died a virgin. When the Romans
invaded Gaul, she was already advanced in years and was a species of
_Pythia_ who prophesied amidst great solemnities and whose oracles
were preserved with veneration. She was clothed in a long black
vestment, having no sleeves; her head was covered by a white veil,
which came down to her feet; she wore a vervain crown, and a sickle
was placed in her girdle; her sceptre was in the form of a distaff;
her right foot was shod with a sandal and her left foot wore a kind
of _chaussure à poulaine_. At a later period the statues of Velleda
were taken for those of Berthe _au grand pied_. The High Priestess
bore, as a fact, the insignia of the protecting divinity of the female
Druids; she was Hertha, or Wertha, the youthful Gaulish Isis, the Queen
of Heaven, the virgin who must bring forth a child. She was depicted
with one foot on the earth and the other on the water, because she was
queen of initiation and presided over universal science. The foot set
upon the water was usually supported by a ship, analogous to the bark
or conch of the ancient Isis. She held the distaff of the Fates wound
about with a thread, part black, part white, because she presided over
all forms and symbols, and it was she who wove the vestment of ideas.
She was also given the allegorical form of the syrens, half woman and
half fish, or the torso of a beautiful girl whose legs were serpents,
signifying the flux of things and the analogical alliance of opposites
in the manifestation of all occult forces of Nature. Under this last
form Hertha took the name of Melusine or Melosina, the musician, the
singer, that is to say, the syren who reveals harmonies. Such is the
origin of the legends concerning Queen Bertha and the fairy Melusine.
The latter came, it is said, in the eleventh century to a lord of
Lusignan; she was loved by him, and their espousals took place on the
condition that he did not seek to penetrate certain mysteries of her
existence. That promise was given, but jealousy begot curiosity and
led to perjury. He spied upon Melusine and surprised her in one of her
metamorphoses, for once every week the fairy resumed her serpent legs.
He uttered a cry which was answered by one far more despairing and
terrible. Melusine disappeared but still returns, making lamentation
whenever a member of the house of Lusignan is at the point of
death.[157] The legend is imitated from the fable of Psyche and refers,
like this, to the dangers of sacrilegious initiations, or profanation
of the mysteries of religion and of love; it is borrowed from the
traditions of the ancient bards and derives evidently from the learned
school of the Druids. The eleventh century took possession of it and
brought it into prominence, but it existed from the far past.[158]
In France it would seem that inspiration was attributed more especially
to women; elves and fairies preceded saints, and the French saints have
almost invariably something of the fairy character in their legend.
St. Clothilde made us Christians and St. Geneviève kept us French,
repelling—by the force of her virtue and her faith—the threatening
invasion of Attila. Joan of Arc is, however, rather of the fairy family
than the hierarchy of holy women; she died like Hypatia, the victim
of marvellous natural gifts and the martyr of her generous character.
We shall speak of her later on. St. Clothilde still performs miracles
along the countryside. At Andelys we have seen a crowd of pilgrims
thronging about a _piscina_ in which the statue of the saint is
immersed annually, and according to popular belief the first diseased
person who goes down into the water subsequently is cured at once.
Clothilde was a woman of action and a great queen, but she went through
many sorrows. Her elder son died after his baptism, and the fatality
was ascribed to witchcraft; the second fell ill and reached the point
of death. The fortitude of the saint did not yield, and Sicambre when
standing one day in need of more than human courage, remembered the
God of Clothilde. She became a widow after converting and practically
founding a great kingdom, and she saw the two children of Clodomir
butchered practically under her eyes. In such sorrows do queens on
earth resemble the Queen of Heaven.[159]
After the great and brilliant figure of Clothilde, history presents us
with a hideous offset in the baleful personality of Fredegonde, the
woman whose glance was witchcraft, the sorceress who slew princes. She
accused her rivals of Magic and condemned them to tortures which she
alone merited. Chilperic had one remaining son by his first wife; this
young prince, who was named Clovis, was attached to a daughter of the
people whose mother passed for a sorceress. Mother and daughter were
both accused of disturbing the reason of Clovis by means of philtres
and with murdering the two children of Fredegonde by magical spells.
The unhappy women were arrested; the daughter, Klodswinthe, was beaten
with rods, her beautiful hair cut off, and this was hung by Fredegonde
on the door of the prince’s chamber. Subsequently Klodswinthe was
brought up for sentence. Her firm and simple answers astonished the
judges, and the chronicle says that it was proposed to submit her to
the test of boiling water. A consecrated ring was placed in a tub set
over a great fire and the accused, clothed in white, after having
confessed and communicated, had to plunge her arm in the tub, in
search of the ring. Her unchanged features made everyone cry out that
a miracle had taken place, but there was another cry, which was one
of reprobation and horror, when the unhappy child drew forth her arm
frightfully burnt. She then asked permission to speak and said to her
judges and the people: “You demanded a miracle from God to establish my
innocence. God is not to be tempted, and He does not suspend the laws
of Nature in response to the caprice of men; but He gives strength to
those who believe in Him, and for me has performed a greater wonder
than that which He refused to you. This water has burned me, yet have
I plunged my whole arm into it and have brought forth the ring. I have
neither cried, whitened, nor quivered under this horrible torture. Had
I been a magician, as you say, I should have resorted to witchcraft so
that I might not be burnt; but I am a Christian and God has given me
grace to prove it by the constancy of martyrs.” Such logic was not of
the kind that they understood at that barbarous epoch; Klodswinthe was
sent back to prison, there to await execution; but God took pity upon
her, and the chronicle from which the account is drawn says that He
called her to Himself. If it be a legend only, it must be allowed that
it is beautiful and deserves to be kept in memory.
Fredegonde lost one of her victims but not the other two. The mother
was put to the torture and, overcome by her sufferings, she confessed
whatever was required, including the guilt of her daughter and the
complicity of Clovis. Armed with these admissions, Fredegonde obtained
the surrender of his son by the ferocious Chilperic. The young prince
was arrested and stabbed in prison, Fredegonde declaring that he had
escaped from remorse by suicide. The corpse of the unhappy Clovis was
shewn to his father, with the dagger still in the wound. Chilperic
looked on coldly; he was entirely under the rule of Fredegonde, who
dishonoured him with effrontery among the officers of the palace,
taking so little pains at concealment that the evidence was before his
eyes, almost despite himself. Instead of slaying the queen and her
accomplice, he departed on a hunt in silence. He might have concluded
to suffer the outrage, through his fear of displeasing Fredegonde,
but the latter was ashamed on his account, and did him the honour
of believing in his wrath, that she might have a pretext for his
assassination. He had glutted her with crimes and meanness: she killed
him out of disgust.
Fredegonde, who destroyed on the pretext of sorcery the women whose
sole guilt was to have displeased her, experimented herself in Black
Magic and protected some of those whom she thought were skilled
therein. Ageric, bishop of Verdun, had a pythoness arrested who made a
great deal of money by recovering stolen objects and identifying the
thieves; she was probably a somnambulist. The woman was examined, but
the demon refused to go out of her as long as she was chained; if the
pythoness were left in a church, unguarded and unwatched, he agreed to
leave her. They fell into the trap; it was the woman herself who went
out, to take refuge with Fredegonde, who hid her in the palace and
ended by saving her from being further exorcised, as also probably from
the stake. On this occasion therefore she did good without meaning it,
yet it was rather through her pleasure in evil.[160]
CHAPTER III
THE SALIC LAWS AGAINST SORCERERS
Under the rule of the first French kings, the crime of Magic did not
entail death save for those of exalted position, while there were
some who were proud to die for an offence by which they were raised
above the vulgar crowd and became formidable even in the sight of
kings. There was the general Mummol, for example, who, on the rack by
the orders of Fredegonde, declared that he experienced nothing, who
provoked more frightful tortures and died braving the executioners,
while the latter were moved to forgive him at the sight of such
extra-natural fortitude.[161]
Among the Salic laws, supposed to have been enacted in 474, and
attributed to Pharamond by Sigebert, the following ordinances are found.
“If anyone shall testify that another has acted as a _héréburge_ or
_strioporte_—titles applied to those who carry the copper vessel to
the spot where the vampires perform their enchantments—and if he shall
fail to convict him, he shall be condemned hereby to a forfeit of 7,500
_deniers_, being 180½ _sous_.... If anyone shall charge a free woman
as a vampire or as a prostitute, and shall fail to prove his words, he
shall forfeit 2500 _deniers_, being 62½ _sous_.... If a vampire shall
devour a man and be found guilty, she shall forfeit 8000 _deniers_,
being 200 _sous_.”
It will be seen that in those times cannibalism was possible on terms
and, moreover, that the market-price of human flesh was not at a
premium. It cost 180½ _sous_ to slander a man, but for a modicum above
that sum he could be killed and eaten, which was at once more honest
and thorough. This remarkable legislation recalls an equally curious
Talmudic recital, being one which was interpreted after a memorable
manner by the famous Rabbi Jechiel in the presence of a certain queen
who is not named in the book.[162] It was most likely Queen Blanche,
for Rabbi Jechiel lived in the reign of St. Louis. He had been called
upon to answer the objections of a converted Jew named Douin, who had
received at baptism the Christian name of Nicholas. After various
discussions on texts of the Talmud, they came to the following passage:
“If anyone shall offer any blood of his children to Moloch, let him
die the death.” The Talmud annotates thus: “He therefore who shall
offer not a modicum of blood alone but the whole blood and the whole
flesh of his children, does not come under the judgment of the law
and no penalty is declared against him.” Those who took part in the
debate clamoured at a construction which passed all understanding: some
laughed in pity, some quivered with indignation. Rabbi Jechiel could
scarcely obtain a hearing, and when he succeeded at last, there was
every mark of disfavour, to indicate that he was condemned beforehand.
“With us,” said he, “the penalty of death is an atonement and
consequently a reconciliation, not an act of vengeance. All who die by
the law of Israel die in the peace of Israel; they partake of peace
in death, and they sleep with their fathers. No malediction descends
with them into the grave; they abide in the immortality of the House
of Jacob. Death is therefore a crowning grace; it is the cure of a
poisoned wound by the hot iron. But we do not apply the iron to those
who are past cure; we have no jurisdiction over those the extent of
whose transgression has cut them off for ever from Israel. Such are
as now dead, and it is not therefore for us to shorten the term of
their reprobation on earth: they are delivered over to the wrath
of God. Man is warranted to wound only that he may heal, and we do
not apply remedies to those who are beyond recovery. The father of
a family punishes only his children and is content to shut the door
against strangers. Those great criminals upon whom our law pronounces
no sentence are thereby excommunicated for ever, which is a penalty
greater than death.”
The explanation of Rabbi Jechiel is admirable and breathes all the
patriarchal genius of ancient Israel. Truly the Jews are our fathers
in science, and if we—in place of their persecution—had sought to
understand them, they would not have been at this day so far alienated
from our faith.
The above Talmudic tradition shews the Jewish antiquity of belief
in the immortality of the soul.[163] What is this reintegration of
the guilty in the family of Israel by an expiatory death unless it
be a protest against death itself and a sublime act of faith in the
perpetuity of life? Comte Joseph de Maistre understood this doctrine
well when he raised the executioner’s sanguinary mission into a kind of
peculiar priesthood. The anguish of punishment supplicates, said this
great writer, and blood in its outpouring still remains a sacrifice.
Were capital punishment other than a plenary absolution it would be
nothing but retaliation on murder; the man who suffers his sentence
fulfils all his penance and enters by death into the immortal society
of the children of God.
The Salic laws were those of a people still in the state of barbarity,
where everything is redeemed by a ransom, as in time of war. Slavery
still obtained and human life had a debatable and relative value.
That must be always purchasable which there is a right to sell, and
only money is due for the destruction of an object which has a price
in money. The one efficacious legislation of the period was that of
the Church, and its councils took the most stringent measures against
the vampires and poisoners who went under the name of sorcerers.
The Council of Agde in Lower Languedoc, held in 506, pronounced
excommunication against them. The first Council of Orléans, convened
in 541, condemned divinatory operations; that of Narbonne, in 589, not
only visited sorcerers with the greater excommunication but ordained
that they should be sold as slaves for the benefit of the poor. The
same council decreed public whipping for _amatores diaboli_; meaning no
doubt those who were concerned about him, feared him, evoked him and
attributed to him power which was in any wise like that of God.[164] We
offer our congratulations sincerely to the disciples of M. le Comte de
Mirville that they did not live in such days.
While these events were passing in France an eastern visionary was
engaged in founding a religion which was also an empire. Was Mahomet an
impostor or was he hallucinated? For the Moslems he is still a prophet,
and for Arabic scholars the Koran will be always a masterpiece. An
unlettered man, a simple camel-driver, he created notwithstanding the
most perfect literary monument of his country. His success might pass
as miraculous, and the martial fervour of his successors threatened
for a moment the liberty of the whole world. But the day came when
Asia broke under the iron hand of Charles Martel. That rough soldier
tarried little for prayer when there was fighting to be done; when
he wanted money he looted monasteries and churches, and even sold
ecclesiastical benefices to his warriors. As the priesthood, for
these reasons, could not suppose that his arms were blessed by God,
his victories were ascribed to Magic. Indeed, religious feeling was
so stirred up against him that St. Eucher, the venerable Bishop of
Orléans, learned in a vision from an angel that the saints whose
churches he had spoliated or profaned forbade him to enter into heaven,
and even disinterred his body, which they plunged with his soul into
the abyss. St. Eucher communicated the revelation to Boniface, Bishop
of Mayence, and to Fulfvad, arch-chaplain of Pepin the Short. The tomb
of Charles Martel was opened, the body proved to be missing, the inner
side of the stone was blackened as if by burning, a foul smoke exhaled
and a great serpent came out. An authentic report of the opening was
sent by Boniface to Pepin the Short and Carloman, who were the sons of
Charles Martel, praying them to take warning by the dreadful example
and to respect holy things. Yet there was little of that virtue on the
part of those who violated the grave of a hero on the faith of a dream,
and attributed a destruction which had been completely and rapidly
accomplished by death itself to the work of hell.[165]
Some extraordinary phenomena, occurring publicly in France,
characterised the reign of Pepin the Short. The air seemed to be
alive with human shapes; heaven reflected illusory scenes of palaces,
gardens, tossing waves, ships in full sail and hosts in battle array.
The atmosphere was like a great dream, and the details of these
fantastic pageants were visible to everyone. Was it an epidemic
attacking the organs of vision or an aerial perturbation projecting
illusions on condensed air? Was it not more probably a general delusion
occasioned by some intoxicating and pestilential effluvium diffused
throughout the atmosphere? The likelihood of the latter explanation is
increased by the fact that these visions provoked the populace, who in
their imagination beheld sorcerers in the clouds scattering unwholesome
powders and poisons with open hands. The country was smitten with
sterility, cattle died, and the mortality extended also to human beings.
The occurrences offered an opportunity to circulate a story, the
success and credit of which was in proportion to its extravagance. At
that time the famous Kabalist Zedekias[166] had a school of occult
science, where he taught not indeed the Kabalah but the entertaining
speculations arising therefrom and forming the exoteric part of a
science which has been ever hidden from the profane. With mythology of
this kind Zedekias diverted the minds of his hearers. He told how Adam,
the first man, originally created in an almost spiritual estate, abode
above our atmosphere, in a light which gave birth at his pleasure to
the most wonderful vegetation. He was served by choirs of beautiful
beings, fashioned in the likeness of male and female, of whom they were
animated reflections, formed from the purest substance of the elements.
They were sylphs, salamanders, undines and gnomes; but in his unfallen
condition Adam reigned over the gnomes and undines only by the agency
of the salamanders and sylphs, who alone had the power of ascending to
his aerial paradise.
There was nothing to equal the felicity of our first parents amidst
the ministry of the sylphs; they were perishable spirits, but they
had incredible skill in building and weaving the light, causing it to
flower in a thousand forms, more varied than the most brilliant and
fruitful imagination can now conceive. The earthly paradise—so named
because it reposed upon the earthly atmosphere—was therefore a domain
of enchantments. Adam and Eve slept in palaces of pearls and sapphires;
roses sprang up around them and formed a carpet for their feet; they
glided over waters in sea-shells drawn by swans; birds communed with
them in delicious speech of music; flowers stooped to caress them.
But all this was lost by the fall, which cast our progenitors down
on earth, and the material bodies which clothed them henceforth are
those skins of beasts mentioned in the Bible. They were alone and
naked, where no one obeyed their caprice of thought. They forgot their
life in Eden, or viewed it only as a dream seen through the glass of
memory. But the realms of paradise still and forever extend above the
earthly atmosphere, inhabited by sylphs and salamanders, who are thus
constituted guardians of man’s domain, like mournful retainers still in
the house of a master whose return they expect no more.
Imaginations were fired by these astonishing fictions when the visions
of the air began to be seen in the full light of day. They signified
unquestionably the descent of sylphs and salamanders in search of their
former masters. Voyages to the land of sylphs were talked of on all
sides, as we talk at the present day of animated tables and fluidic
manifestations. The folly took possession even of strong minds, and
it was time for an intervention on the part of the Church, which does
not relish the supernatural being hawked in the public streets, seeing
that such disclosures, by imperilling the respect due to authority and
to the hierarchic chain of instruction, cannot be attributed to the
spirit of order and light. The cloud-phantoms were therefore arraigned
and accused of being hell-born illusions, while the people—anxious
to get something into their hands—began a crusade against sorcerers.
The public folly turned to a paroxysm of mania; strangers in country
places were accused of descending from heaven and were killed without
mercy; imbeciles confessed that they had been abducted by sylphs or
demons; others who had boasted like this previously either would not
or could not unsay it; they were burned or drowned, and, according to
Garinet, the number who perished throughout the kingdom almost exceeds
belief.[167] It is the common catastrophe of dramas in which the first
parts are played by ignorance or fear.
Such visionary epidemics recurred in the reigns following, and all the
power of Charlemagne was put in action to calm the public agitation.
An edict, afterwards renewed by Louis the Pious, forbade sylphs to
manifest under the heaviest penalties. It will be understood that in
the absence of the aerial beings the judgment fell upon those who made
a boast of having seen them, and hence they ceased to be seen. The
ships in air sailed back to the port of oblivion, and no one claimed
any longer to have journeyed through the blue distance. Other popular
frenzies replaced the previous mania, while the romantic splendours of
the great reign of Charlemagne furnished the makers of legends with new
prodigies to believe and new marvels to relate.
CHAPTER IV
LEGENDS OF THE REIGN OF CHARLEMAGNE
Charlemagne is the real prince of enchantments and the world of faerie;
his reign is like a solemn and brilliant pause between barbarism and
the middle ages; while he himself is a grand and majestic apparition,
recalling the magical pageant of Solomon’s sway: he is at once a
resurrection and a prophecy. In him the Roman empire, overleaping
Frankish and Gaulish origins, reappeared in all its splendour; in
him also, as in a symbol, evoked and manifested by divination, there
is delineated beforehand the perfect empire of the ages of mature
civilisation, the empire crowned by priesthood and establishing its
throne beside the altar.
The era of chivalry and the marvellous epos of romances begin with
Charlemagne; the chronicles of his period are like the _Four Sons of
Aymon_, or _Oberon, King of Faerie_. Birds utter speech and direct the
French army when the path has been lost in the forest; brazen colossi
appear in mid-ocean and indicate to the emperor a free way eastward.
Roland, first of the paladins, wields a magic sword, baptized like
any Christian and bearing the name of Durandal; the hero addresses
this sword, which seems to understand him, and nothing can resist
its supernatural onset. Roland has also an ivory horn, contrived so
skilfully that the lightest breath wakens a response within it, and
that answer is heard for twenty leagues around, causing even mountains
to quiver. When the paladin falls at Roncesvalles, overwhelmed rather
than conquered, even then he uprises like a giant beneath some
avalanche of trees and rolling rocks; he winds his horn, and the
Saracens take refuge in flight. Charlemagne, at a distance of more than
ten leagues, hears the signal and would speed to his aid, but he is
prevented by the traitor Ganelon, who has sold the French army to the
barbaric horde. Finding himself abandoned, Roland for the last time
embraces his Durandal, and then, summoning all his strength, strikes
it with both hands against a mountain block, hoping to shatter the
weapon, lest it fall into the hands of infidels; but the block itself
is cloven, the sword is not even indented. Hereat Roland clasps it to
his breast and yields up his spirit with so high and proud a mien that
the Saracens do not dare to approach, but, still shaking, direct a
cloud of arrows against their conqueror, who is no more. To be brief,
Charlemagne, bestowing a throne upon the papacy and receiving from its
hands the empire of the world in return, is the most imposing of all
personalities in French history.
We have spoken of the _Enchiridion_—that minute work which combines the
most secret symbols of the Kabalah with the most beautiful Christian
prayers. Occult tradition[168] attributes its composition to Leo III
and affirms that it was presented by this pontiff to Charlemagne, as
the most precious of all offerings. Any king who owned it and knew how
to use it worthily could become master of the world. This tradition is
not perhaps to be cast aside lightly.
It assumes (1) the existence of a primitive and universal revelation,
explaining all Secrets of Nature and harmonising them with the
Mysteries of Grace, conciliating reason with faith, since both are
daughters of God and concur to illuminate intelligence by their double
life. (2) The necessity—which imposes itself—of concealing this
revelation from the multitude, lest the same be abused by those who
do not understand it, and lest they turn against faith not only the
power of reason but that of faith itself, to the confusion of reason,
which is never too well within the comprehension of the vulgar. (3)
The existence of a secret tradition, reserving the knowledge of these
mysteries for the sovereign priesthood and the temporal masters of the
world. (4) The perpetuity of certain signs or pantacles, expressing the
said mysteries in a hieroglyphical manner which is understood only by
adepts.[169]
The _Enchiridion_, from this point of view, should be regarded as a
collection of allegorical prayers and its secret Kabalistic pantacles
are keys thereto. Some of the chief figures may be described as
follows. The first, which appears on the cover of the work itself,
represents a reversed equilateral triangle inscribed within a double
circle. The two words, which are written within the triangle in
the form of a cross, are _Elohim_ and _Tzabaoth_, meaning the God
of armies, the equilibrium of natural forces and the harmony of
numbers.[170] On the three sides of the triangle are the three great
names—_Jehovah_, _Adonai_, _Agla_; above the name of Jehovah is the
Latin word _Formatio_; above that of Adonai is _Reformatio_; and above
Agla is _Transformatio_. Thus creation is ascribed to the Father,
redemption or reform to the Son and sanctification or transmutation
to the Holy Spirit—in consonance with the mathematical laws of action,
reaction and equilibrium. Furthermore, Jehovah is to be understood as
the genesis and formation of dogma in accordance with the elementary
significance of the four letters comprised in the sacred Tetragram;
_Adonai_ is the realisation of this dogma in human form, that is to
say, in the Lord manifest, who is Son of God or perfect man[171]; and
_Agla_, as we have explained fully elsewhere, expresses the synthesis
of all dogma and all Kabalistic science, seeing that the hieroglyphics
of which this name is formed exhibit in a clear manner the triple
secret of the Great Work.[172]
The second pantacle is a head, having three faces, crowned by a tiara
and issuing from a vessel filled with water. Those who are initiated
into the mysteries of the _Zohar_[173] will understand the allegory
which is presented by this head. The third pantacle is the double
triangle, known as the Star of Solomon. The fourth is the Magical
Sword, bearing the device—_Deo duce, comite ferro_: it is an emblem
of the Great Arcanum and the omnipotence of the adept. The fifth is
the problem of the human form attributed to the Saviour, as resolved
by the number forty. It is the theological number of the _Sephiroth_
multiplied by that of natural realities.[174] The sixth is the
pantacle of the spirit, represented by bones, duplicating the letter E
and the mystic Tau, or T. The seventh and most important is the Great
Magical Monogram, interpreting the keys of Solomon, the Tetragram, the
sign of the _Labarum_, and the master-word of adeptship.[175] This
pantacle is read by its revolution wheelwise and is pronounced Rota,
Taro or Tora. The letter A is frequently replaced in this seal by the
number 1, which is its equivalent. The pantacle in question contains
also the form and value of the four hieroglyphical emblems of the
Tarot suits—being the Wand, Cup, Sword and Denier. These elementary
hieroglyphics recur everywhere on the sacred monuments of Egypt; while
Homer also depicts them on the shield of Achilles, placing them in the
same order as the author of the _Enchiridion_. The proofs of these
explanations, if offered in the present place, would divert us from our
immediate subject and would moreover demand a special study which we
hope to undertake and make public at some future time.[176]
The magical sword or dagger depicted in the _Enchiridion_ seems to have
been the particular symbol of the Secret Tribunal, or Company of Free
Judges. It is in the form of a cross and is concealed or enveloped by
the device which surrounds it. God alone wields it, and he who strikes
therewith is responsible to none for his actions. As such, it is
terrible in its menace and so also in its privilege. We know that the
Vehmic dagger smote in the dark those who were guilty, their crime
itself often remaining unknown. What are the facts respecting this
appalling justice? The answer involves an excursion into realms of
shadow which history has failed to enlighten and recourse to traditions
and legends for light which science cannot give.
The Free Judges were a secret association opposed, but in the interests
of order and of government, to anarchic and revolutionary societies
which were secret in like manner. We know that superstitions die hard
and that degenerated Druidism had struck its roots deeply in the savage
lands of the North. The recurring insurrections of Saxons testified
to a fanaticism which was (a) always turbulent, and (b) incapable of
repression by moral force alone. All defeated forms of worship—Roman
paganism, Germanic idolatry, Jewish rancour conspired against
victorious Christianity. Nocturnal assemblies took place; thereat the
conspirators cemented their alliance with the blood of human victims;
and a pantheistic idol of monstrous form, with the horns of a goat,
presided over festivals which might be called _agapæ_ of hatred. In a
word, the Sabbath was still celebrated in every forest and wild of yet
unreclaimed provinces. The adepts who attended them were masked and
otherwise unrecognisable; the assemblies extinguished their lights and
broke up before daybreak; the guilty were to be found everywhere, and
they could be brought to book nowhere. It came about therefore that
Charlemagne determined to fight them with their own weapons.
In those days, moreover, feudal tyrants were in league with sectarians
against lawful authority; female sorcerers were attached to castles
as courtesans; bandits who frequented the Sabbaths divided with
nobles the blood-stained loot of rapine; feudal courts were at the
command of the highest bidder; and the public burdens weighed with all
their force only on the weak and poor. The evil was at its height
in Westphalia,[177] and faithful agents were despatched thither by
Charlemagne entrusted with a secret mission.[178] Whatsoever energy
remained among the oppressed, whosoever still loved justice, whether
among the people or among the nobility, were drawn by these emissaries
together, bound by pledges and vigilance in common. To the initiates
thus incorporated they made known the full powers which they carried
from the emperor himself, and they proceeded to institute the Tribunal
of Free Judges.[179]
They were a kind of secret police, having the right of life and
death. The mystery which surrounded their judgments, the swiftness
of their executions, helped to impress the imagination of people
still in barbarism. The Holy Vehm assumed gigantic proportions; men
shuddered in describing apparitions of masked persons, of summonses
nailed to the doors of nobles in the very midst of their watch-guards
and their orgies, of brigand-chiefs found dead with the terrible
cruciform dagger in their breasts and on the scroll attached thereto
an extract from the sentence of the Holy Vehm. The Tribunal affected
most fantastic forms of procedure: the guilty person, cited to appear
at some discredited cross-road, was taken to the assembly by a man
clothed in black, who bandaged his eyes and led him forward in
silence. This occurred invariably at some unseemly hour of the night,
for judgment was never pronounced except at midnight. The criminal was
carried into a vast underground vault, where he was questioned by one
voice.[180] The hoodwink was removed, the vault was illuminated in
all its depth and height, and the Free Judges sat masked and wearing
black vestures. The sentences were not capital invariably, for those
who judged were familiar with the circumstances of the crime, though
nothing transpired concerning them, as death would have overtaken the
revealer instantly.[181] Sometimes these formidable assemblies were so
crowded that they were comparable to an army of avengers; one night the
emperor himself presided over the Secret Tribunal, and more than one
thousand Free Judges sat in a circle round him.[182] In the year 1400,
ten thousand members existed in Germany. People with a bad conscience
suspected their own relations and friends. William of Brunswick is
reported to have said on a certain occasion: “If Duke Adolphus of
Schleswig should pay me a visit, I must infallibly hang him, as I do
not wish to be hanged.” Frederick of Brunswick, a prince of the same
family, who was emperor for a moment, refused to obey a citation of
the Free Judges, and from that time forward he went armed from head to
foot and surrounded by guards. One day, however, he fell a little apart
from his suite and had occasion to loosen some part of his armour.
He did not return and his guards entered the copse where he had
sought retirement for a moment. The unfortunate man was in the act of
expiring, with the dagger of the Holy Vehm in his body and his sentence
attached to the weapon. Looking round in all directions, they could
distinguish a masked man retreating at a slow pace, but no one dared to
follow him.
The Code of the Vehmic Court was found in the ancient archives of
Westphalia and has been printed in the _Reichstheater_ of Müller, under
the following title; “Code and Statutes of the Holy Secret Tribunal of
Free Counts and Free Judges of Westphalia, established in the year 772
by the Emperor Charlemagne and revised in 1404 by King Robert, who made
those alterations and additions requisite for the administration of
justice in the tribunals of the illuminated, after investing them with
his own authority.”
A note on the first page forbade any profane person to glance at the
book under penalty of death. The word illuminated, here given to the
associates of the Secret Tribunal, unfolds their entire mission: they
had to track down in the shadows those who worshipped the darkness;
they counterchecked mysteriously those who conspired against society
in favour of mystery; but they were themselves the secret soldiers of
light, who cast the light of day on criminal plottings, and it is this
which was signified by a sudden splendour illuminating the Tribunal
when it pronounced sentence.
The public provisions of the law under Charlemagne authorised this holy
war against the tyrants of the night. The records may be consulted to
ascertain the penalties inflicted on sorcerers, diviners, enchanters,
_noueurs d’aiguilette_, and those who administered poison in the
guise of love-philtres. The same laws made it penal to trouble the
air, raise tempests, construct characters and talismans, cast lots,
practise witchcraft and magical charms, whether on men or cattle.
Sorcerers, astrologers, diviners, necromancers, occult mathematicians
are declared execrable and made subject to punishment in the same way
as thieves and assassins. Such severity will be understood by recalling
all that has been said on the horrible rites of Black Magic and its
infant sacrifices. The danger must have been grave indeed when its
repression assumed forms at once so severe and numerous.
Another institution which is referable to the same root was that of
knight-errantry. The knights-errant were a species of Free Judges
who appealed to God and their spears against all the oppressions
of castellans and all the malice of necromancers. They were armed
missionaries, who protected themselves with the sign of the cross and
then clove miscreants asunder; after such manner did they earn the
remembrance of some noble dame, sanctifying love by the martyrdom of a
life which was one of utter self-devotion. We are far removed already
from those pagan courtesans to whom slaves were offered in sacrifice
and for whom the conquerors of the ancient world burnt cities. For
the ladies of Christendom other sacrifices were requisite; life must
have been risked in the cause of the weak and oppressed, captives must
have been set free, punishment meted out to the profaners of holy
affections; and then those lovely and white ladies, whose skirts were
embroidered with heraldic badges; whose hands were pale and delicate;
those living madonnas, proud as lilies, who came back from church, with
Books of Hours under their arms and rosaries at their girdles, would
remove a veil broidered with gold or silver and give it as a scarf to
the knight who knelt before them, praying to them and dreaming of God.
Let us forget Eve and her errors; they are forgiven a thousand times,
and are more than atoned for by this ineffable grace of the noble
daughters of Mary.
CHAPTER V
MAGICIANS
That fundamental dogma of transcendental science which consecrates
the eternal law of equilibrium attained its plenary realisation in
the constitution of the Christian world. Two living pillars—the Pope
and Emperor—supported the structure of civilisation. But the empire
suffered partition when it slipped from the feeble hands of Louis
the Pious and Charles the Bald. The temporal power, abandoned to the
chances of conquests or intrigue, lost the providential unity which
kept it in harmony with Rome. The Pope had often to intervene as
grand justiciary and, at his proper risk and peril, he restrained the
ambitions and audacity of many competitive sovereigns.
Excommunication was at that time a terrible penalty, for it was
sanctioned by universal belief, and it produced phenomena which
awed the crowd, being mysterious effects of the magnetic current of
condemnation. There is the example of Robert the Pious, who, having
incurred this terrible penalty by an unlawful marriage, became the
father of a monstrous child, similar to those effigies of demons which
mediæval art represented in such ridiculous aspects of deformity.
The melancholy fruit of a forbidden union bore witness at least to
the tortured conscience and frightful dreams by which the mother was
possessed. Robert accepted the event as a proof of the wrath of God
and submitted to the papal judgment. Renouncing a marriage which the
Church declared incestuous, he repudiated Bertha to espouse Constance
of Provence, and it remained for him to recognise in the questionable
morals and arrogant character of his new bride a second chastisement of
heaven.
The makers of chronicles at the period were enamoured of diabolical
legends, but their records exhibit more of credulity than of good
taste. Every monkish malady, every unhealthy nightmare of nuns, is
looked upon as a case of veridic apparition. The result is repellent
phantasmagoria, stupid allocutions, impossible transfigurations, to
which the artistic spirit of Cyrano de Bergerac is the one thing
wanting to render them entertaining creations. From the reign of Robert
to that of St. Louis there is nothing, however, which seems to deserve
recounting.[183]
The famous Rabbi Jechiel, great Kabalist and truly remarkable
physician, lived in the reign of St. Louis. All that is told of his
lamp and magical nail goes to prove that he had discovered electricity,
or was at least acquainted with its most important uses.[184] Ancient
as that of Magic, the knowledge of this force was transmitted as one of
the keys of the greater initiation. When the night came a radiant star
appeared in the lodging of Jechiel, the light being so brilliant that
no eye could gaze thereon without being dazzled, while the beam that it
darted was tinted with rainbow colours. It was never known to fail and
it was never replenished with oil or other combustible substance extant
at that time. When importunity or ill-intentioned curiosity sought to
intrude on Jechiel by knocking persistently at his door, the Rabbi
struck a nail fixed in his cabinet, producing simultaneously a blue
spark on the head of the nail and the door-knocker. The ill-advised
person was shaken in such a manner that he cried for mercy, believing
that the earth was opening under his feet. One day a hostile mob
swarmed about the entrance, uttering murmurs and menaces, while they
stood with interlaced arms to resist the commotion and supposed quaking
of the ground. The boldest among them plied furiously at the knocker,
but Jechiel pressed his nail; in a moment the assailants were tumbled
one over another and fled crying out like people who have been burnt.
They were quite sure that the earth had opened and swallowed them as
far as the knees; they knew not how they got out; but nothing would
persuade them to return and renew the attack. The sorcerer thus earned
quietude by the terror which he diffused.
St. Louis, great Catholic as he was, was also a great king, and wishing
to know Jechiel, he summoned him to his court,[185] had several
conversations with him, was satisfied fully by his explanations,
protected him from his enemies, and during the rest of his life never
failed to testify esteem for him and to act benevolently towards him.
Albertus Magnus lived at the same period, and he still passes among
the people as grand master of all magicians.[186] Historians of the
time affirm that he possessed the Philosophic Stone[187] and that after
studying for thirty years he had succeeded in solving the problem of
the android—in other words, that he had fabricated an artificial man
who was endowed with life and speech, who could, in fact, answer
questions with such precision and subtlety that St. Thomas Aquinas,
infuriated at being unable to silence the image, broke it with a
blow of his stick. Such is the popular fable; let us now see what it
signifies.
The mystery of the formation of man and of his primitive appearance on
earth have continually absorbed seekers after the problems of Nature.
Man, as a fact, appears last in the world of fossils, and the Mosaic
days of creation have deposited their successive remains, bearing
witness that those days were in reality long periods of time. How then
was humanity formed? Genesis testifies that God made Adam from the
slime of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life—a
statement the truth of which we do not question for a moment; but we
repudiate notwithstanding the heretical and anthropomorphic idea of a
Deity moulding clay with His fingers. God, being a pure spirit, has no
hands, and He causes His creatures to develop one from another by the
power which He has imparted to Nature. If therefore the Lord made Adam
from the dust of the earth, we must understand that man came out of
that earth under the Divine Influence and yet after a natural manner.
The name Adam in Hebrew signifies red earth,[188] but what is this
earth actually? It is that which the alchemists sought, and it follows
that the Great Work was not the secret of metallic transmutation—a
trivial and accessory result—but the universal secret of life.[189] It
was the quest for the middle point of transformation, at which light
becomes matter and condenses into an earth containing within itself
the principle of motion and of life. It was the generalization of
the phenomenon which tinges the blood red by the creation of those
innumerable corpuscles which are magnetic even as the worlds and are
alive like animals. For disciples of Hermes, the metals were the
coagulated blood of earth, passing, like that of man, from white to
black and from black to crimson, following the work of the light.[190]
To set this fluid in motion by means of heat and impart thereto the
tingeing fructification of light by the aid of electricity—such was
the first part of the work of wisdom. The end was more arduous and
sublime; it was a question of recovering the adamic earth, which is
the coagulated blood of the vital earth; and the supreme dream of
philosophers was to accomplish the work of Prometheus by imitating the
work of God—that is to say, by producing a man who should be the child
of science, as Adam was child of divine omnipotence. The dream was
insensate perhaps, and yet it was sublime.
Black Magic, which ever apes the Magic of Light, but takes it, as it
were, backwards, was also concerned with the android, that it might be
used as an instrument of passion and an oracle of hell. For this object
it was requisite to outrage Nature and obtain a species of venomous
fungus, full of concentrated human malice—the living realisation of all
crime. For this reason magicians sought the mandragore beneath a gibbet
from which some corpse was suspended; they caused it to be torn up by
a dog tied to the plant, a mortal blow being inflicted on the animal.
The eradication was effected by the convulsions of the agonised beast;
the dog’s soul passed into the plant and also attracted thereto that
of the hanged man. Enough of these horrors and absurdities; those who
are curious in such knowledge may consult the common grimoire known
along the countryside under the name of _Little Albert_. They will find
further the method of making a mandragore in the form of a cock with
a human face. Stupidity and impiety vie one with another in all such
processes, for Nature cannot be outraged wilfully without at the same
time reversing the laws of reason.
Albertus Magnus was neither infanticide nor deicide; he was neither
guilty of the crime of Tantalus nor that of Prometheus; but he had
succeeded in creating and arming at all points that purely scholastic
theology, outcome of the categories of Aristotle and the sentences of
Peter Lombard, that logic of syllogism consisting of argumentation
in place of reasoning and of finding an answer for everything by
subtleties concerning the terms. It was less a philosophy than a
philosophical automaton, replying in an arbitrary manner and unrolling
its theses like the revolution of machinery. It was in no sense the
human _logos_, but the unvaried cry of a mechanism, the inanimate
speech of an android. It was the fatal precision of machinery, in
place of the free application of rational necessities. St. Thomas
Aquinas,[191] with one blow, shattered this scaffolding of words when
he proclaimed the eternal empire of reason in that magnificent sentence
which has been cited already so often: “A thing is not just because
God wills it, but God wills it because it is just.” The approximate
consequence of this proposition, in arguing from the greater to the
lesser, was: A thing is not true because Aristotle has said it, but
Aristotle could not say it reasonably unless it were true. Seek first
therefore truth and justice, and the science of Aristotle shall be
added unto you. Aristotle, galvanised by scholasticism, was the
veritable android of Albertus Magnus, while the master’s wand of St.
Thomas Aquinas was the doctrine of the _Summa Totius Theologiæ_, a
masterpiece of power and reason which will again be studied in our
theological schools when it is proposed to return seriously to sane and
healthy subjects.[192]
As for the Philosophical Stone bequeathed by St. Dominic[193] to Albert
and by the latter to St. Thomas Aquinas, we must understand it as the
philosophical and religious basis of ideas prevalent at the period.
Had St. Dominic been able to accomplish the Great Work he would have
secured for Rome that empire of the world about which he was so jealous
for the Church, and would have diverted the fire which consumed so many
heretics to the heating of his own crucibles. St. Thomas changed all
that he touched into gold, but this is a figure of speech only, gold
being in this case an emblem of truth.
It is opportune at this point to say a few further words concerning
that Hermetic science cultivated from the first Christian centuries
by Ostanes, Romarius, Queen Cleopatra, the Arabian Geber, Alfarabius
and Salmanas, by Morien, Artephius and Aristeus.[194] Understood
in an absolute manner, this science may be called the Kabalah in
realisation, or the Magic of Works. It has therefore three analogous
degrees—religious realisation, philosophical realisation and physical
realisation. The first is the solid basis of empire and priesthood; the
second is the establishment of an absolute doctrine and an hierarchic
instruction; the last is the discovery and application, within the
measures of the Microcosm or lesser world, of that creative law which
peoples incessantly the greater universe. The law in question is one
of movement combined with substance, of the fixed with the volatile,
humid with solid. Its principle is divine impulsion, its instrument the
universal light—ethereal in the infinite, astral in stars and planets,
metallic, specific or mercurial in metals, vegetable in plants, vital
in animals, magnetic or personal in men.
This light is the quintessence of Paracelsus and is either latent
or active in all created substances. Such quintessence is the true
elixir of life, and it is extracted from earth by cultivation; from
metals by incorporation, rectification, exaltation and synthesis; from
plants by distillation and coction; from animals by absorption; from
men by generation; from the air by respiration. In this sense we are
told by Aristeus that air must be derived from air; by Khunrath that
living mercury must be obtained from the perfect man formed by the
androgyne; by practically all the sages, that the medicine of metals
must be derived from metals and that this medicine—though fundamentally
one in all kingdoms—is graduated and specified according to forms and
species. Its use is threefold—by sympathy, repulsion or equilibrium.
The graduated quintessence was only the auxiliary of forces; the
medicine of each kingdom must be derived from the kingdom itself, with
the addition of basic mercury—terrestrial or mineral—and of synthetic
living mercury, or human magnetism.
Such is the rapid and summary sketch of this science, which is vast
and profound as the Kabalah, mysterious as Magic, real as the exact
sciences, but too long and too often discredited by the frustrated
greed of false adepts and by the obscurities with which true sages have
surrounded their theories and their processes.
CHAPTER VI
SOME FAMOUS PROSECUTIONS
The societies of the elder world perished through the materialistic
egoism of castes, becoming petrified on their own part, isolating the
common people in a hopeless reprobation and reserving the reins of
power to a small number of the elect, so that it was deprived of that
circulation which is the principle of progress, motion and life. Power
without antagonism, without competition and hence without control,
proved fatal to the sacerdotal royalties. The republics, on the other
hand, perished by the conflict of liberties which, in the absence of
all duty, hierarchically and highly sanctioned, are speedily converted
into so many tyrannies in rivalry with one another. To find a stable
point between these two abysses, the idea of Christian hierophants was
to create a society pledged to self-sacrifice by solemn vows, protected
by severe rules, recruited by initiation, and, as sole depositary of
the great religious and social secrets, making kings and pontiffs
without being itself exposed to the corruptions of empire. Such was
the secret of that kingdom of Christ Jesus which, without being of
this world, ruled over all its grandeurs. The same idea presided over
the establishments of the great religious orders which were so often
at war with secular authorities, whether ecclesiastical or civil. A
similar realisation was also dreamed by dissident sects of Gnostics and
Illuminati, which claimed to pin their faith on the primitive Christian
tradition of St. John. A time came when this dream was an actual
menace for the Church and the State, when a rich and dissolute Order,
initiated into the mysterious doctrines of the Kabalah,[195] seemed
ready to turn on legitimate authority, on the conservative principles
of the hierarchy, menacing the entire world with a gigantic revolution.
The Templars, whose history is understood so little, were the terrible
conspirators in question, and it is time at length to reveal the secret
of their fall, so absolving the memory of Clement V and Philippe the
Fair.
[Illustration: THE PHILOSOPHICAL CROSS, OR PLAN OF THE THIRD TEMPLE]
In 1118 nine crusading knights, then in the East—among whom was
Geoffrey de Saint-Omer and Hugh de Payens—dedicated themselves
to religion, placing their vows in the hands of the patriarch of
Constantinople, which seat had always been hostile, secretly or
openly, to that of Rome since the days of Photius. The avowed object
of the Templars was to protect Christians on pilgrimage to the holy
places; their concealed end was to rebuild the Temple of Solomon on
the model foreshewn by Ezekiel. Such a restoration, predicted formally
by Judaising mystics of the first Christian centuries, had become the
secret dream of the Eastern patriarchs. So rebuilt and consecrated to
the Catholic worship, the Temple of Solomon would have been in effect
the metropolis of the universe. East would prevail over West and the
patriarchs of Constantinople would seize the papacy.[196]
To explain the name of Templars adopted by this military Order,
historians assume that Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem, gave them a
house in the vicinity of the Temple of Solomon. But they are guilty of
a serious anachronism, since at that period the edifice in question
had not only ceased to exist, and not only was there no stone of
Zerubbabel’s Second Temple left upon another, but it would have been
difficult to indicate the site on which they stood. It is to be
concluded that the House allotted to the Templars by Baldwin was not
situated in the vicinity of Solomon’s Temple but of that place on which
these secret and armed missionaries of the Eastern patriarch designed
to rebuild it.
The Templars took for their scriptural models the military Masons
of Zerubbabel, who worked with sword in one hand and trowel in the
other.[197] Hence sword and trowel became their insignia when at a
later period, as we shall see, they concealed themselves under the
name of Masonic Brothers. The trowel of the Templars is fourfold; the
triangular blades are disposed in the form of a cross, constituting a
Kabalistic pantacle known as the Cross of the East.[198]
The inmost thought of Hugh de Payens, in establishing his Order,
was not precisely to serve the ambition of the patriarchs of
Constantinople. At that period there was a sect of Christian Johannites
in the East who claimed to be alone initiated into the inner mysteries
of the Saviour’s religion; they claimed also to know the true
history of Jesus Christ. Adopting some part of the Jewish traditions
and Talmudic accounts, they regarded the facts in the gospels as
allegories, of which St. John had the key. The proof was his saying
that if all things done by Jesus were recorded, “I suppose that even
the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.”
They held that such a statement would be ridiculous exaggeration unless
it referred to allegory and legend, which can be varied and prolonged
to infinity. As to the actual historical facts, the Johannites
recounted what follows.
A young girl of Nazareth, named Miriam, betrothed to a young man of
her own tribe, named Jochanan, was surprised by a certain Pandira or
Panther, who entered her chamber in the garb and under the name of her
lover and by force fulfilled his desires. Jochanan, becoming acquainted
with her misfortune, left her without compromising her because as
a fact she was innocent; and the girl was delivered of a son, who
received the name of Joshua or Jesus. The infant was adopted by a
Rabbi named Joseph, who carried him into Egypt, where he was initiated
into the secret sciences, and the priests of Osiris, recognising that
he was the true incarnation of Horus so long promised to the adepts,
consecrated him sovereign pontiff of the universal religion. Joshua and
Joseph returned to Judea, where the knowledge and virtue of the young
man excited very soon the envy and hatred of the priests, who one day
reproached him publicly with the illegitimacy of his birth. Joshua, who
loved and venerated his mother, questioned his master and learned the
whole history respecting the crime of Pandira and the misfortunes of
Miriam. His first impulse was to deny her in public when he said in the
middle of a marriage-feast: “Woman, what is there in common between you
and me?” But afterwards, realising that an unfortunate woman must not
be punished for having suffered what she could not prevent, he cried:
“My mother has in no wise sinned, nor has she lost her innocence; she
is virgin and yet is mother: let the twofold honour be paid to her. As
for me, I have no father on earth; I am the son of God and humanity.”
We will not proceed further with a fiction so distressing to the hearts
of Christians; let it suffice to say that the Johannites went so far as
to make St. John the Evangelist responsible for this spurious tradition
and that they attributed to the apostle in question the foundation of
their secret church. The grand pontiffs of this sect assumed the title
of Christ and claimed an uninterrupted transmission of powers from the
days of St. John. The person who boasted these imaginary privileges
at the epoch of the foundation of the Temple was named Theoclet.
He was acquainted with Hugh de Payens, whom he initiated into the
mysteries and the hopes of his supposititious church;[199] he seduced
him by ideas of sovereign priesthood and supreme royalty; in fine, he
designated him his successor. Thus was the order of Knights of the
Temple tainted from the beginning with schism and conspiracy against
kings. These tendencies were wrapped in profound mystery, for the Order
made profession externally of the uttermost orthodoxy. The chiefs alone
knew whither it was tending, the rest following in good faith.
To acquire wealth and influence, to intrigue on the basis of these
and at need fight for the establishment of Johannite dogma—such were
the means and end proposed by the initiated brethren. “Observe,” they
argued to themselves, “the papacy and rival monarchies engaged in the
work of haggling, selling one another, falling into corruption and
to-morrow perhaps destroying one another. All this indicates heritage
for the Temple; a little while, and the nations will demand sovereigns
and pontiffs from among us; we shall be the equilibrium of the
universe, arbiters and masters of the world.”
The Templars had two doctrines; one was concealed and reserved to the
leaders, being that of Johannism;[200] the other was public, being
Roman Catholic doctrine. They deceived in this manner the enemies that
they hoped to supplant. The Johannism of the adepts was the Kabalah
of the Gnostics, but it degenerated speedily into a mystic pantheism
carried even to idolatry of Nature and hatred of all revealed dogma.
For their better success, and in order to secure partisans, they
fostered the regrets of every fallen worship and the hopes of every
new cultus, promising to all liberty of conscience and a new orthodoxy
which should be the synthesis of all persecuted beliefs. They went even
so far as to recognise the pantheistic symbolism of the grand masters
of Black Magic, and the better to isolate themselves from obedience
to a religion by which they were condemned beforehand, they rendered
divine honours to the monstrous idol Baphomet,[201] even as of old the
dissenting tribes had adored the Golden Calf of Dan and Bethel. Certain
monuments of recent discovery and certain precious documents belonging
to the thirteenth century offer abundant proof of all that is advanced
here. Other evidences are concealed in the annals and beneath the
symbols of Occult Masonry.
With the seeds of death sown in its very principle and anarchic because
it was heretical, the Order of Knights of the Temple had conceived a
great work which it was incapable of executing, because it understood
neither humility nor personal abnegation. For the rest, the Templars,
being in most cases without education and capable only of wielding the
sword successfully, possessed no qualification for over-ruling or for
binding at need that queen of the world called public opinion. Hugh
de Payens did not possess the depth of view which distinguished at a
later period the military founder of a militia not less formidable
to kings. The Templars were Jesuits who failed. Their principle was
to become rich in order to purchase the world and, as a fact, they
so became, for in 1312 they possessed in Europe alone more than 9000
manors. Wealth was also the rock on which they broke; they became
insolent and permitted their disdain for the religious and social
institutions which they hoped to upset to appear in public. Everyone
knows the answer of Richard Cœur de Lion to the confidential priest who
had said to him: “Sire, you have three daughters who cost you dearly
and of whom it would be to your great advantage if you were set free:
they are ambition, avarice and luxury.” ... “That is true,” said the
king. “Well, well, let us marry them. I give ambition to the Templars,
avarice to the monks and luxury to the bishops. I am certain in advance
of the consent of all the parties.”
The ambition of the Templars proved fatal to themselves; their projects
were divined and anticipated. Pope Clement V and king Philip the Fair
gave the signal to Europe, and the Templars, caught so to speak in a
net, were arrested, disarmed and cast into prison. Never was a _coup
d’état_ accomplished with such appalling uniformity. The entire world
was dumbfounded and awaited the strange revelations of a prosecution
which was to echo down through the ages. But it was impossible to
unveil before the people the plan of the Templar conspiracy; to do
so would have initiated the multitude into secrets reserved for
masters. Recourse was had therefore to the charge of Magic, for which
accusers and witnesses were both forthcoming. The Templars, in the
ceremony of their reception, spat upon the image of Christ, denied
God, gave obscene kisses to the Grand Master, adored a brazen head
with carbuncles for eyes, held commune with a great black cat and
had intercourse with female demons. Such are the items put forward
seriously in the act of indictment. The end of this drama is familiar;
Jacques de Molay and his companions perished in the flames, but before
dying the grand master of the Temple organised and instituted Occult
Masonry. Within the walls of his prison he founded four Metropolitan
Lodges—at Naples for the East, Edinburgh for the West, Stockholm for
the North and Paris for the South. The Pope and King perished speedily
in a strange and sudden manner.[202] Squin de Florian, the accuser in
chief of the Order, was assassinated. In breaking the sword of the
Templars it was converted into a dagger and their proscribed trowels
henceforth were utilised only in the erection of tombs. Let them pass
at this point into darkness, wherein they took refuge while maturing
their vengeance. We shall see them reappear at the great epoch of the
Revolution and we shall recognise them by their signs and by their
works.
The greatest magical prosecution to be found in history, after that of
the Temple, was the trial of a maid who was, moreover, almost a saint.
The Church, in this case, has been accused of subservience to the base
resentment of a vanquished party, and it has been asked earnestly what
anathemas of the Chair of St. Peter fell upon the assassins of Joan of
Arc.[203] To those who are really unacquainted, it may be said at once
that Pierre Cauchon, the unworthy Bishop of Beauvais, struck suddenly
with death by the hand of God, was excommunicated after death by
Callixtus IV, his remains being taken from consecrated ground and cast
into the public sewers. It was not therefore the Church which judged
and condemned the Maid of Orléans, but a bad priest and an apostate.
Charles VII, who gave up this noble girl to her destroyers, fell
afterwards into the hands of an avenging providence; he died of
self-starvation, through dread of being poisoned by his own son. Fear
is the torment of the base. The king in question gave up his life to a
courtesan, and for her he burdened with debt a kingdom which had been
saved to him by a virgin. Courtesan and virgin have been celebrated by
our national poets—Joan of Arc by Voltaire and Agnes Sorel by Béranger.
Joan perished in her innocence, but the laws against Magic were
vindicated soon after in the case of one who was chief among the
guilty. The personage in question was one of the most valiant captains
under Charles VII, but the services which he rendered to the state
could not counterbalance the extent and enormity of his crimes. All
tales of ogres and Croquemitaine were realised and surpassed by the
deeds of this fantastic scoundrel, whose history has remained in the
memory of children under the name of Blue Beard. Gilles de Laval, Lord
of Raiz, had indeed so black a beard that it seemed to be almost blue,
as shewn by his portrait in the Salle des Maréchaux, at the Museum of
Versailles. A Marshal of Brittany, he was brave because he was French;
being rich, he was also ostentatious; and he became a sorcerer because
he was insane.[204]
The mental derangement of the Lord of Raiz was manifested in the
first instance by sumptuous devotion and extravagant magnificence.
When he went abroad, he was preceded invariably by cross and banner;
his chaplains were covered with gold and vested like prelates; he
had a college of little pages or choristers, who were always richly
clothed. But day by day one of these children was called before the
marshal and was seen no more by his comrades; a newcomer succeeded him
who disappeared, and the children were sternly forbidden to ask what
became of the missing ones or even refer to them among themselves.
The children were obtained by the marshal from poor parents, whom he
dazzled by his promises, and who were pledged to trouble no further
concerning their offspring, these, according to his stories, being
assured a brilliant future.
The explanation is that, in his case, seeming devotion was the mask and
safeguard of infamous practices. Ruined by imbecile prodigality, the
marshal desired at any cost to create wealth. Alchemy had exhausted
his last resources and loans on usurious terms were about to fail
him; he determined therefore to attempt the last and most execrable
experiments of Black Magic, in the hope of obtaining gold by the aid
of hell. An apostate priest of the diocese of Saint-Malo, a Florentine
named Prelati, and Sillé,[205] who was the marshal’s steward, became
his confidants and accomplices. He had espoused a young woman of
high birth[206] and kept her practically shut up in his castle at
Machecoul, which had a tower with the entrance walled up. A report was
spread by the marshal that it was in a ruinous state and no one sought
to penetrate therein. This notwithstanding, Madame de Raiz, who was
frequently alone during the dark hours, saw red lights moving to and
fro in this tower; but she did not venture to question her husband,
whose bizarre and sombre character filled her with extreme terror.
On Easter Day in the year 1440,[207] the marshal, having communicated
solemnly in his chapel, bade farewell to the lady of Machecoul, telling
her that he was departing to the Holy Land; the poor creature was even
then afraid to question, so much did she tremble in his presence; she
was also several months in her pregnancy. The marshal permitted her
sister to come on a visit as a companion during his absence. Madame
de Raiz took advantage of this indulgence, after which Gilles de
Laval mounted his horse and departed. To her sister Madame de Raiz
communicated her fears and anxieties. What went on in the castle? Why
was her lord so gloomy? What signified his repeated absences? What
became of the children who disappeared day by day? What were those
nocturnal lights in the walled-up tower? These and the other problems
excited the curiosity of both women to the utmost degree.[208] What
all the same could be done? The marshal had forbidden them expressly
even to approach the tower, and before leaving he had repeated this
injunction. It must assuredly have a secret entrance, for which Madame
de Raiz and her sister Anne proceeded to search through the lower rooms
of the castle, corner by corner and stone after stone. At last, in the
chapel, behind the altar, they came upon a copper button, hidden in
a mass of sculpture. It yielded under pressure; a stone slid back and
the two curiosity-seekers, now all in a tremble, distinguished the
lowermost steps of a staircase, which led them to the condemned tower.
At the top of the first flight there was a kind of chapel, with a cross
upside down and black candles; on the altar stood a hideous figure,
no doubt representing the demon. On the second floor they came upon
furnaces, retorts, alembics, charcoal—in a word, all the apparatus of
alchemy. The third flight led to a dark chamber, where the heavy and
fetid atmosphere compelled the young women to retreat. Madame de Raiz
came into collision with a vase, which fell over, and she was conscious
that her robe and feet were soaked by some thick and unknown liquid. On
returning to the light at the head of the stairs she found that she was
bathed in blood.
Sister Anne would have fled from the place, but in Madame de Raiz
curiosity was even stronger than disgust or fear. She descended the
stairs, took a lamp from the infernal chapel and returned to the third
floor, where a frightful spectacle awaited her. Copper vessels filled
with blood were ranged the whole length of the walls, bearing labels
with a date on each, and in the middle of the room there was a black
marble table, on which lay the body of a child murdered quite recently.
It was one of these basins which had fallen, and black blood had spread
far and wide over the grimy and worm-eaten wooden floor.
The two women were now half-dead with terror. Madame de Raiz
endeavoured at all costs to efface the evidence of her indiscretion.
She went in search of a sponge and water, to wash the boards; but she
only extended the stain and that which at first seemed black became
all scarlet in hue. Suddenly a loud commotion echoed through the
castle, mixed with the cries of people calling to Madame de Raiz.
She distinguished the awe-striking words: “Here is Monseigneur come
back.” The two women made for the staircase, but at the same moment
they were aware of the trampling of steps and the sound of other voices
in the devil’s chapel. Sister Anne fled upwards to the battlement of
the tower; Madame de Raiz went down trembling and found herself face
to face with her husband, in the act of ascending, accompanied by the
apostate priest and Prélati.
Gilles de Laval seized his wife by the arm and without speaking dragged
her into the infernal chapel. It was then that Prélati[209] observed to
the marshal: “It is needs must, as you see, and the victim has come of
her own accord.” ... “Be it so,” answered his master. “Begin the Black
Mass.” ... The apostate priest went to the altar, while Gilles de Laval
opened a little cupboard fixed therein and drew out a large knife,
after which he sat down close to his spouse, who was now almost in a
swoon and lying in a heap on a bench against the wall. The sacrilegious
ceremonies began.
It must be explained that the marshal, so far from taking the road
to Jerusalem, had proceeded only to Nantes, where Prélati lived; he
attacked this miserable wretch with the uttermost fury and threatened
to slay him if he did not furnish the means of extracting from the
devil that which he had been demanding for so long a time. With the
object of obtaining delay, Prélati declared that terrible conditions
were required by the infernal master, first among which would be the
sacrifice of the marshal’s unborn child after tearing it forcibly from
the mother’s womb. Gilles de Laval made no reply but returned at once
to Machecoul, the Florentine sorcerer and his accomplice the priest
being in his train. With the rest we are acquainted.
Meanwhile, Sister Anne, left to her own devices on the roof of the
tower and not daring to come down, had removed her veil, to make
signals of distress at chance. They were answered by two cavaliers
accompanied by a posse of armed men, who were riding towards the
castle; they proved to be her two brothers who, on learning the
spurious departure of the marshal for Palestine, had come to visit
and console Madame de Raiz. Soon after they arrived with a clatter
in the court of the castle, whereupon Gilles de Laval suspended the
hideous ceremony and said to his wife: “Madame, I forgive you, and the
matter is at an end between us if you do now as I tell you. Return to
your apartment, change your garments and join me in the guest-room,
whither I am going to receive your brothers. But if you say one word,
or cause them the slightest suspicion, I will bring you hither on their
departure; we shall proceed with the Black Mass at the point where it
is now broken off, and at the consecration you will die. Mark where I
place this knife.”
He rose up, led his wife to the door of her chamber and subsequently
received her relations and their suite, saying that his lady was
preparing herself to come and salute her brothers. Madame de Raiz
appeared almost immediately, pale as a spectre. Gilles de Laval never
took eyes off her, seeking to control her by his glance. When her
brothers suggested that she was ill, she answered that it was the
fatigue of pregnancy, but added in an undertone: “Save me; he seeks to
kill me.” At the same moment Sister Anne rushed into the hall, crying:
“Take us away; save us, my brothers: this man is an assassin”—and she
pointed to Gilles de Laval. While the marshal summoned his people, the
escort of the two visitors surrounded the women with drawn swords; and
the marshal’s people disarmed instead of obeying him. Madame de Raiz,
with her sister and brothers, gained the drawbridge and left the castle.
On the morrow, Duke John V invested Machecoul, and Gilles de Laval,
who could count no longer on his men-at-arms, yielded without
resistance.[210] The parliament of Brittany had decreed his arrest as a
homicide, the ecclesiastical tribunal preparing in the first place to
pronounce judgment upon him as a heretic, sodomite and sorcerer. Voices
of parents, long silenced by terror, rose upon all sides, demanding
their missing children: there was universal dole and clamour throughout
the province. The castles of Machecoul and Chantocé were ransacked,
resulting in the discovery of two hundred skeletons of children; the
rest had been consumed by fire.
Gilles de Laval appeared with supreme arrogance before his judges.[211]
To the customary question: “Who are you? “he answered: “I am Gilles de
Laval, Marshal of Brittany, Lord of Raiz, Machecoul, Chantocé and other
fiefs. And who are you that dare to question me?” He was answered: “We
are your judges, magistrates of the Ecclesiastical Court.”—“What, you
my judges! Go to, I know you well, my masters. You are simoniacs and
obscene fellows, who sell your God to purchase the joys of the devil.
Speak not therefore of judging me, for if I am guilty, it is you, who
owed me good example, that are my instigators.”—“Cease your insults,
and answer us.”—“I would rather be hanged by the neck than reply
to you. I am surprised that the president of Brittany suffers your
acquaintance with matters of this kind. You question that you may gain
information and afterwards do worse than you have done.”
But this haughty insolence was demolished by the threat of
torture.[212] Before the Bishop of Saint-Brieuc and the President
Pierre de l’Hôpital, Gilles de Laval made confession of his murders and
sacrileges. He pretended that his motive in the massacre of children
was an execrable delight which he sought during the agony of these
poor little beings. The president found it difficult to credit this
statement and questioned him anew. “Alas,” said the marshal abruptly,
“you torment both yourself and me to no purpose.” “I do not torment
you,” replied the president, “but I am astonished at your words and
dissatisfied. What I seek and must have is the pure truth.” The marshal
answered: “Verily there was no other cause. What more would you have?
Surely I have admitted enough to condemn ten thousand men.”
That which Gilles de Laval shrank from confessing was that he sought
the Philosophical Stone in the blood of murdered children, and that it
was covetousness which drove him to this monstrous debauchery. On the
faith of his necromancers, he believed that the universal agent of life
could be suddenly coagulated by the combined action and reaction of
outrage on Nature and murder. He collected afterwards the iridescent
film which forms on blood as it turns cold;[213] he subjected it to
various fermentations, digested the product in the philosophical egg
of the athanor, combining it with salt, sulphur and mercury. He had
doubtless derived his recipe from some of those old Hebrew Grimoires
which, had they been known at the period, would have been sufficient
to call down on Jewry at large the execration of the whole earth.
Persuaded, as they were, that the act of human impregnation attracts
and coagulates the Astral Light in its reaction by sympathy on things
subjected to the magnetism of man, the Israelitish sorcerers had
plunged into those enormities of which Philo accuses them, as quoted
by the astrologer Gaffarel.[214] They caused trees to be grafted by
women, who inserted the graft while a man performed on their persons
those acts which are an outrage to Nature. Wherever Black Magic is
concerned the same horrors recur, for the spirit of darkness is not one
of invention.
Gilles de Laval was burned alive in the _pré de la Magdeleine_,
near Nantes; he obtained permission to go to execution with all the
pageantry that had accompanied him during life, as if he wished to
involve in the ignominy of his punishment the ostentation and cupidity
by which he had been so utterly degraded and lost so fatally.[215]
CHAPTER VII
SUPERSTITIONS RELATING TO THE DEVIL
We have borne witness to the sobriety of decisions pronounced by the
Church respecting the genius of evil; she has recommended her children
not to be in fear concerning him, not to be preoccupied about him and
not even to pronounce his name. This notwithstanding, the propensity
of diseased imaginations and weak minds towards the monstrous and the
horrible lent, during the evil days of the middle ages, a formidable
importance and most portentous forms to the darksome being who deserves
nothing but oblivion, because he has rejected truth and light for
ever. This seeming realisation of the phantom expressing perversity
was an incarnation of human frenzy; the devil became the nightmare
of cloisters, the human mind fell a prey to its own fear and, though
supposed to be reasonable, trembled at the chimeras which it had
evoked. A black and deformed monster spread its batwings between heaven
and earth, to prevent youth and life from trusting in the promises of
the sun and the still peace of the stars. This harpy of superstition
poisoned all things with its breath, infected all by its contact.
There was dread over eating and drinking lest the eggs of the reptile
should be swallowed; to look upon beauty was to court perhaps an
illusion begotten of the monster; to laugh suggested the sneer of the
eternal tormentor as a funereal echo; to weep pictured him insulting
the mourner’s tears. The devil seemed to keep God imprisoned in heaven
while he imposed blasphemy and despair upon men on earth.
Superstitions lead quickly into absurdity and mental alienation;
nothing is more deplorable and more irksome than the multitudinous
accounts with which popular writers on the history of Magic have
burdened their compilations. Peter the Venerable beheld the devil
leering in lavatories; another maker of chronicles recognised him under
the form of a cat, which, however, resembled a dog and skipped like a
monkey; a certain lord of Corasse was served by an imp named Orthon,
which appeared as a sow, but exceedingly emaciated and indeed almost
fleshless. The prior of St. Germain des Prés, named William Edeline,
testifies that he saw him in the form of a sheep which, as it seemed to
him must be kissed below the tail, as a mark of reverence and honour.
Wretched old women confessed that he had been their lover; the marshal
Trivulce died of terror, while protecting himself by cut and thrust
against the devils swarming in his room. Hundreds of wretched idiots
and fools were burnt on admitting their former commerce with the
malignant spirit; rumours of _incubi_ and _succubi_ were heard on all
sides; judges deliberated gravely on revelations which should have been
referred to doctors; moreover, they were actuated by the irresistible
pressure of public opinion, and indulgence towards sorcerers would have
exposed magistrates themselves to all the popular fury. The persecution
of fools made folly contagious and the maniacs tore one another to
pieces; people were beaten to death, burnt by slow fire, plunged into
icy water in the hope of compelling them to break the spells which they
had cast, while justice intervened only to complete on the stake what
had begun in the blind rage of the multitude.
In recounting the history of Gilles de Laval we have indicated
sufficiently that Black Magic may be not only a real crime but the
gravest of all offences; unfortunately the method of the times confused
the diseased with malefactors and punished those who should have been
cared for with patience and charity.
At what point does man’s responsibility begin and at what point does it
end? The problem is one which may well disturb frequently the virtuous
depositories of human justice. Caligula, son of Germanicus, appeared
to have inherited all the virtues of his father, but his reason was
distracted by poison and he became the terror of the world. Was he in
reality guilty, and ought not his crimes to be laid at the doors of
those base Romans who obeyed instead of imprisoning him?
Father Hilarion Tissot, who has been mentioned previously, goes
further than ourselves and would include even voluntary crime in the
category of madness, but unfortunately he explains madness itself as
obsession of the evil spirit. We might ask this good ecclesiastic
what he would think of the father of a family who after shutting his
door on a wastrel known to be capable of every kind of evil, should
give him leave to frequent, advise, abduct and obsess his own little
children? Let us therefore admit, so as to be truly Christian, that the
devil, whomsoever he may be, obsesses only those who give themselves
voluntarily to him, and that such are responsible for everything which
he may prompt them to do, even as a drunken man is held liable rightly
for the disorders of which he may be guilty under the influence of
drink. Drunkenness is a transient madness and madness is a permanent
intoxication; both are caused by a phosphoric congestion of the
cerebral nerves, which destroys our etheric equilibrium and deprives
the soul of its instrument of precision. The spiritual and personal
soul then resembles Moses bound and swaddled in his cradle of rushes,
and abandoned to the rocking of the Nile waters. It is carried away by
the fluidic and material soul of the world, that mysterious water over
which the Elohim brooded, when the Divine Word was formulated by the
luminous sentence: Let there be light.
The soul of the world is a force which tends automatically to
equilibrium; either will must predominate over it or it conquers
the will. It is tormented by any incomplete life, as if this were a
monstrosity, and it strives therefore to absorb intellectual abortions.
Hence maniacs and hallucinated people experience an irresistible
yearning for destruction and death; annihilation seems to them a
blessing, and they would not only attain death on their own part but
would delight in witnessing that of others. They realise that life is
escaping them; consciousness stings and even goads them to despair;
their very existence is a perception of death, and it is hell-torment.
One hears an imperious voice commanding him to kill his son in the
cradle. He struggles, he weeps, he flees, but ends by taking a hatchet
and slaying the child. Another, and this terrible story is a thing of
recent occurrence, is driven by voices crying for hearts; he beats
his parents to death, opens their breasts, tears out their hearts and
begins to devour them. Whosoever of his free will is guilty of an evil
action offers by that fact an earnest to eternal destruction and cannot
foresee whither this fatal bargain will lead him.
Being is substance and life; life manifests by movement; movement
is perpetuated by equilibrium; equilibrium is therefore the law of
immortality. Conscience is the awareness of equilibrium, which is
equity and justice. All excess, when it is not mortal, is corrected by
an opposite excess; it is the eternal law of reaction; but if excess
subverts all equilibrium it is lost in the outer darkness and becomes
eternal death.
The soul of the earth carries with it in the vertigo of astral movement
all which offers no resistance in virtue of the equilibrated forces
of reason. Wherever an imperfect and ill-formed life manifests, this
soul directs its energies to destroy it, just as vitality pours in
to heal wounds. Hence the atmospheric disorders which occur in the
neighbourhood of certain diseased persons, hence fluidic commotions,
the automatic movement of tables, levitations, stone-throwing, and the
visible and tangible projection of astral hands and feet by obsessed
persons. It is Nature at work on a cancer which it is trying to
extirpate, on a wound which it seeks to close, or on some vampire whose
death is desired, that it may revert to the common source of life.
The spontaneous movement of inert objects can result only from the
operation of forces which magnetise the earth; a spirit, or in other
words, a thought can raise nothing in the absence of a lever. Were it
otherwise, the—so to speak—infinite toil of Nature for the creation
and perfecting of organs would be without an object. If the spirit
freed from the senses could render matter obedient to its will, the
illustrious dead would be the first to manifest in accordance with
order and harmony, but in place of this there are only incoherent and
feverish activities produced about diseased and capricious beings.
These are irregular magnets which derange the soul of the earth; but
when the earth is in delirium through the eruption of such abortive
beings, it is because it is passing through a crisis on its own part,
and through one which will end in violent commotions.
There is extraordinary puerility in some who pass for serious. There is
for example the Marquis de Mirville,[216] who refers all inexplicable
phenomena to the devil. But, my dear Sir, if the devil could intervene
in the natural order, would he not demolish everything? By the
hypothesis concerning his character, scruples could scarcely influence
him. You will reply that God’s power restrains, and that it does or
does not is obvious; but on the first supposition the devil is rendered
impotent, while on the second it is he who is master. M. de Mirville
might say further that God suffers him a little while. Does he mean
just enough to deceive poor men, just enough to puzzle their heads, so
wooden already—as is known? In this alternative it is no longer the
devil who is master; it is rather God Who is—but no, one dares not
continue: to go further would be to blaspheme.
We do not understand properly the harmonies of being, which follow an
ordered sequence, as the illustrious maniac Fourier well said. The
spirit acts upon spirits by means of the Word; matter receives the
imprints of spirit and communicates therewith by means of a perfect
organism. Harmony in forms is related to harmony in ideas, and the
light is the common mediator. Light is spirit and life; it is the
synthesis of colours, the accord of shadows, the harmony of forms; and
its vibrations are living mathematics. But darkness and its phantastic
illusions, the phosphorescent errors of slumber and words spoken in
delirium—all these create nothing, realise nothing and in a word do not
exist. Such things belong to the limbus of life, are vapours of astral
intoxication and delusions of tired eyes. To follow these will o’ the
wisps is to walk in a blind alley; to believe in their revelations is
to worship death: such is Nature’s testimony.
Incoherence and abuse are the only messages of table-turning; they
are echos of the low-life deeps of thought, absurd and anarchic
dreams, words which the scum of the people make use of to express
defiance. There is a book by Baron de Guldenstubbé,[217] who pretends
to conduct a correspondence with the other world. He has had answers,
and such answers—obscene sketches, despairing hieroglyphics and the
following Greek signature, [Greek: pneuma thanatos], which may be
translated “spirit of death.” Such is the last word of the phenomenal
revelations according to American doctrine; such is doctrine itself in
separation from sacerdotal authority and in the attempt to establish it
independently of hierarchic control. The reality and importance of the
phenomena, the good faith of those who believe them, are in no sense
denied; but we must warn all who are concerned against the dangers
to which they are liable if they do not prefer the spirit of wisdom,
communicated divinely and hierarchically to the Church, before all
these disorderly and obscure messages, in which the fluidic soul of the
earth reflects automatically the mirage of intelligence and the dreams
of slumbering reason.
BOOK V
THE ADEPTS AND THE PRIESTHOOD
ה—HE
CHAPTER I
PRIESTS AND POPES ACCUSED OF MAGIC
We have explained that owing to the profanations and impieties of
Gnostics the Church proscribed Magic. The condemnation of the Knights
Templar completed the rupture, and from this time forward, compelled
to seek concealment and plan revenge in the shadows, Magic ostracised
the Church in turn. More prudent than those arch-heretics who opposed
altar to altar in public day, and thus entailed denunciation and the
headsman’s axe on themselves, the adepts dissimulated their resentment
as well as their doctrines. They bound themselves together by dreadful
oaths and, realising the importance of first securing a favourable view
at the tribunal of public opinion, they turned back on their accusers
and judges the sinister rumours by which they were pursued themselves
and denounced the priesthood to the people as a school of Black Magic.
So long as his convictions and beliefs are not rooted in the
irremovable foundation of reason, man ardently and indifferently
desires both truth and falsehood; on either side he finds that there
are cruel reactions. Who shall put an end to this warfare? Only the
spirit of Him who has said: “Render not evil for evil, but overcome
evil by good.”
The Catholic priesthood has been charged with the spirit of
persecution, though its mission is that of the good Samaritan, for
which reason it superseded the unpitying Levites who continued
their way without extending compassion to him who had fallen among
thieves. It is in the exercise of humanity that priests prove their
Divine consecration. Hence it is a supreme injustice to cast upon
sacerdotalism at large the crimes or certain men who are unfortunately
sealed with the priesthood. For a man, as such, it is always possible
to be wicked; but a true priest is, on the contrary, always charitable.
Now, the false adepts did not look at the question from this
standpoint;[218] for them the Christian priesthood was made void and
was hence an usurping power since the proscription of the Gnostics.
What, said they, is a hierarchy whose degrees are no longer regulated
by conscience? The same ignorance of the Mysteries and the same blind
faith drive into the same fanaticism or the same hypocrisy the prime
leaders and lowest ministers of the sanctuary. The blind are leaders
of the blind. The supremacy between equals is no longer anything but
the result of intrigue and chance. The pastors consecrate the sacred
elements with a gross and disordered faith; they are jugglers in
bread and eaters of human flesh; they are no longer thaumaturgists
but sorcerers. Such was the sectarian verdict. To support the calumny
they invented fables, affirming for example that the popes had been
given over to the spirit of darkness ever since the tenth century. The
learned Gerbert, who was crowned as Sylvester II, made confession—as
it is said—to this effect on his death-bed. Honorius III, being he
who confirmed the Order of St. Dominic and preached the Crusades,
was himself an abominable necromancer, author of a Grimoire which
still bears his name and is reserved exclusively to priests. The same
false adepts paraded and commented on this Grimoire, seeking in such
manner to turn against the Holy See the most terrible of all popular
prejudices at that period—the mortal hatred of those who, wrongly or
rightly, passed publicly for sorcerers.
Some malevolent or credulous historians have favoured these lying
inventions. Thus Platina, a scandalous chronicler of the papacy,
reproduces from Martinus Polonus the calumnies against Sylvester II.
According to this fable, Gerbert, who was proficient in mathematical
science and the Kabalah, performed an evocation of the devil and
required his assistance to attain the pontificate. The fulfilment of
his ambition was not only promised by the demon but it was affirmed
further that he should not die except at Jerusalem, to which place it
will be understood readily that the magician determined inwardly that
he would never go. He became pope as promised, but on a certain day,
when he was saying Mass in a church at Rome, he felt seriously ill and
remembering suddenly that the chapel wherein he was officiating was
dedicated to the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, he realised what had come to
pass. He caused a bed to be put up in the chapel and, summoning his
cardinals, confessed publicly that he had engaged in commerce with
demons. He ordained further that his dead body should be placed upon
a chariot of green wood and should be drawn by two virgin horses, one
black and the other white; that they should be started on their course
but neither led nor driven; and that his remains should be interred
wherever a halt was made. The chariot proceeded in this manner across
Rome and stopped in front of the Lateran. Loud cries and groans were
heard for a few moments, after which there was silence and the burial
took place. So ends a legend the proper place of which is in the
hawker’s chap-books.
Martinus Polonus, on the faith of whom Platina repeats such reveries,
had borrowed them on his own part (a) from a certain Galfridus and (b)
from Gervaise, a maker of chronicles, whom Naudé terms “the greatest
forger of fables and the most notorious liar that ever took pen in
hand.” From sources of similar value the protestants have derived a
scandalous and obviously apocryphal story concerning a pretended Pope
Joan, who was also a sorceress, as we have all heard: indeed she is one
to whom books on Black Magic are still attributed. We have glanced at
a memoir of this female pope by a protestant historian and have taken
note of two very curious engravings contained therein. They are assumed
to be portraits of the heroine but are in reality ancient Tarots,
representing Isis crowned with a tiara. It is well known that the
hieroglyphic figure on the second Tarot card is still called the female
pope, being a woman wearing a tiara on which are the points of the
crescent moon, or the horns of Isis. One example in the protestant book
is even more remarkable; the hair of the figure is long and scanty;
there is a solar cross on the breast; she is seated between the two
pillars of Hercules: and behind her flows the ocean, with lotus-flowers
blooming on the surface of the water. The second portrait represents
the same divinity, with attributes of the sovereign priesthood and
holding her son Horus in her arms. As Kabalistic documents, the two
pictures are of singular value, but they are little to the purpose of
those who are concerned with Pope Joan.
To dispose of the accusation of sorcery in respect of Gerbert,
supposing that it could be taken seriously, it would be enough to
mention that he was the most learned man of his century and having been
preceptor of two sovereigns, he owed his election to the gratitude
of one of his august pupils. He had extraordinary proficiency in
mathematics, and his knowledge of physics may have exceeded that of
his epoch; in a word, he was a man of universal erudition and great
ability, as the letters which he left bear witness, though he was
not a denouncer of kings like the terrible Hildebrand. He chose to
instruct princes rather than excommunicate them, and enjoying the
favour of two French kings and three emperors, he had no need, as Naudé
has judiciously pointed out, to sell himself to the devil for the
archbishoprics of Rheims and Ravenna, or for the papacy in succession
to these. It is true that he attained the successive positions, to some
extent in spite of his merit; it was an age when able politicians were
taken for possessed people and those who were learned for enchanters.
Gerbert was not only a great mathematician, as we have said, and
a distinguished astronomer, but he excelled also in mechanics,
and—according to William of Malmesbury—he erected at Rheims such
wonderful hydraulic machines that the water itself executed symphonies
and played most enchanting airs. Moreover, according to Ditmare, he
adorned the town of Magdebourg with a clock which registered all the
motions of heaven and the times when the stars rose and set. Finally,
by the evidence of Naudé,[219] whom we cite once again with pleasure,
he made “that test of brass which was devised so ingeniously that the
before-mentioned William of Malmesbury was himself deceived thereby
and referred it to Magic. Further, Onuphrius states that he saw in
the Farnese library a learned book on geometry composed by this same
Gerbert; and for myself I estimate that, without adjudicating on the
opinion expressed by Erfordiensis and some others, who regard him as
the maker of timepieces and of arithmetic as these exist now among us,
all these evidences are sufficiently valid to warrant the conclusion
that those who had never heard of cube, parallelogram, dodecahedron,
almicantar, valsagora, almagrippa, cathalzem and other names, familiar
enough in these days to such as understand mathematics, conceived that
they were those of the spirits invoked by Gerbert and that such a
multitude of things so rare could not emanate from a single personality
in the absence of extraordinary advantages, from the possession of
which it followed therefore that he must have been a magician.”
To indicate the lengths of impertinence and bad faith reached by
makers of chronicles, it remains to say that Platina[220]—that
maliciously naïve echo of all Roman pasquinades—affirms that the tomb
of Sylvester II itself turned sorcerer, weeping prophetically at the
approaching downfall of each pope and that the reprobate bones of
Gerbert shook and rattled together when one of them was about to die.
An epitaph engraved on the tomb lends colour to these wonders—so adds
unblushingly the librarian of Sixtus IV. Such are the proofs which
pass among historians as sufficient to certify the existence of a
curious historical document. Platina was librarian of the Vatican; he
wrote his history of the popes by order of Sixtus IV; he wrote also
at Rome, where nothing could be easier than to verify the truth or
falsehood of such an assertion, which notwithstanding the pretended
epitaph never existed outside the imagination of the authors from whom
Platina borrowed with incredible lack of caution[221]—a circumstance
which moves justly the indignation of honest Naudé, whose further
remarks shall follow: “It is a pure imposture and manifest falsehood,
both in respect of the experience—being the pretended prodigies at
the tomb of Sylvester II—the same having never been witnessed by
anyone—and of the alleged inscription on the tomb, that inscription—as
it exists really—having been composed by Sergius IV and so far from
supporting the supposed magical fables, is, on the contrary, one of
the most excellent testimonies that could be desired to the good life
and integrity of Sylvester. It is truly a shameful thing that so many
catholics should be abettors of a slander concerning which Marianus
Scotus, Glaber, Ditmare, Helgandus, Lambert and Herman Contract, who
were his contemporaries, make no mention.”
Proceeding now to the Grimoire of Honorius, it is to the third bearer
of that name, or to one of the most zealous pontiffs of the 13th
century, that this impious book is attributed. Assuredly Honorius III
was eminently likely to be hated by sectarians and necromancers, and
well might they seek to dishonour him by representing him as their
accomplice. Censius Savelli, crowned pope in 1216, confirmed that
Order of Saint Dominic which proved so formidable to Albigensians and
Vaudois—those children of Manicheans and sorcerers. He established
also the Franciscans and Carmelites, preached a crusade, governed the
Church wisely and left many decretals. To charge with Black Magic a
pope so eminently catholic[222] is to cast similar suspicion on the
great religious orders which he instituted, and the devil thereby could
scarcely fail to profit.
Some old copies of the Grimoire of Honorius bear, however, the name of
Honorius II, but it is impossible to make a sorcerer of that elegant
Cardinal Lambert who, after his promotion to the sovereign pontificate,
surrounded himself either with poets, to whom he gave bishoprics for
elegies—as in the case of Hildebert, Bishop of Mans—or with learned
theologians, like Hugh de Saint-Victor. But it so happens that the
name of Honorius II is for us as a ray of light pointing to the true
author of the frightful grimoire in question.[223] In 1061, when the
empire began to take umbrage against the papacy and sought to usurp
the sacerdotal influence by fomenting troubles and divisions in the
sacred college, the bishops of Lombardy, impelled by Gilbert of Parma,
protested against the election of Anselm, Bishop of Lucca, who had
been raised to the papal chair as Alexander II. The Emperor Henry IV
took the part of the dissentients and authorised them to elect another
pope, promising to support them. They chose Cadulus or Cadalus, an
intriguing Bishop of Parma, a man capable of all crimes and a public
scandal in respect of simony and concubinage. He assumed the name
of Honorius II and marched at the head of an army against Rome. He
was defeated and condemned by all the prelates of Germany and Italy.
Returning to the charge, he gained possession of part of the Holy City
and entered St. Peter’s; he was expelled and took refuge in the Castle
of St. Angelo, whence he only obtained leave to retire on the payment
of a heavy ransom. It was then that Otho, Archbishop of Cologne, the
Emperor’s envoy, dared to reproach Alexander II in public for having
usurped the Holy See; but a monk named Hildebrand took up the cause of
the lawful pontiff with such force of eloquence that the Emperor drew
back in confusion and asked pardon for his own criminal attempts. The
Hildebrand in question was already in the sight of providence that
fulminating Gregory VII who was to come and who thus inaugurated the
work of his life. The anti-pope was deposed by the Council of Mantua
and Henry IV obtained his pardon. Cadalus returned into obscurity
and it is then probably that he decided to become the high priest
of sorcerers and apostates, in which capacity, and under the name of
Honorius II, he composed the Grimoire that passes under this name.[224]
[Illustration: OCCULT SEALS AND PRIMITIVE EGYPTIAN TAROTS]
What is known of the anti-pope’s character lends colour to an
accusation of the kind; he was daring in the presence of the weak,
grovelling in that of the strong, debauched and intriguing, devoid of
faith and morals, seeing nothing in religion but an engine of impunity
and rapine. For such a person, the Christian virtues were obstacles and
faith in the clergy was a difficulty which had to be overcome; he would
therefore make priests after his own heart, or capable, that is to say,
of all crimes and sacrileges. Now, this would seem to have been the
purpose in chief of the Grimoire called that of Honorius.
The work in question is not without importance for those who are
curious in the science. It appears at first sight to be a mere tissue
of revolting absurdities,[225] but for those who are initiated in the
signs and secrets of the Kabalah, it is literally a monument of human
perversity, for the devil appears therein as an instrument of power.
To utilise human credulity and to turn the bugbear which dominates it
to the account of the adept and his caprices—such is the secret of
the work. It aspires to make darkness darker before the eyes of the
multitude by usurping the torch of science, which at need, and in bold
hands, may become that of butchers and incendiaries. To identify faith
with servitude, reserving power and liberty for oneself, is indeed to
imagine the reign of Satan on earth, and it should not be surprising if
the authors of such a conspiracy against public good sense and religion
should hope to manifest and, in a sense, to incarnate on earth the
fantastic sovereign of the evil empire.
The doctrine of this Grimoire is the same as that of Simon and the
majority of the Gnostics: it is the substitution[226] of the passive
for the active principle. A pantacle which forms a frontispiece to the
work gives expression to this doctrine, being passion as predominant
over reason, sensualism deified and the woman in priority to the man, a
tendency which recurs in all antichristian mystic systems. The crescent
moon of Isis occupies the centre of the figure and it is encompassed
by three triangles, one within another. The triangle is surmounted
by a _crux ansata_ with double cross-bar. It is inscribed within a
circle and within the space formed by the three segments of the circle
there is on one side the sign of the spirit and the Kabalistic seal of
Solomon, on the others the magic knife and the initial letter of the
binary, below a reversed cross forming the figure of the lingam, and
the name of God אל= AL, also reversed. About the circle is written:
“Obey your superiors and be subject unto them, for they will see that
you do.”[227]
Rendered into a symbol or profession of faith, this pantacle is
therefore textually as follows:—Fatality reigns by virtue of
mathematics, and there is no other God than Nature. Dogmas are aids
to sacerdotal power and are imposed on the multitude to justify
sacrifices. The initiate is above any religion and makes use of all,
but that which he says is the antithesis of that which he believes. The
law of obedience prescribes and does not explain; initiates are made to
command and those who are profane to obey.
All who have studied the occult sciences know that the old magicians
never expressed their doctrine in writing but formulated it by the
symbolical characters of pantacles. On the second page of the book
there are two circular magical seals. In the first is the square of
the Tetragram with an inversion and substitution of names. Instead of
אהיה = EIEIE יהוה = JEHOVAH; אדני = ADONAI; אגלא = AGLA—the four sacred
words signifying:[228] The Absolute Being is Jehovah, the Lord in
Three Persons, God and the hierarchy of the Church, the author of the
Grimoire has substituted: יהוה, JEHOVAH; אדני, ADNI; דראר, D’RAR; אהיה,
EIEIE—which signifies: Jehovah, the Lord, is none other than the fatal
principle of eternal rebirth, personified by this same rebirth in the
Absolute Being.
About the square within the circle is the name of Jehovah in its
proper form, but also reversed; on the left is that of Adonai and on
the right are the three letters אהו, ACHV, followed by two points, the
whole meaning: Heaven and hell are each the reflection of each; that
which is above is as that which is below; God is humanity—humanity
being expressed by the letters ACHV, which are the initials of Adam and
Eve.[229]
On the second seal is the name אראריתא, ARARITA, and below it is ראש,
RASH, encircling twenty-six Kabalistic characters. Below the seal are
ten Hebrew letters, given in the following order: יב טבהברררר. The
whole is a formula of materialism and fatality, which is too long, and,
it may be, too perilous for explanation in this place. The prologue of
the Grimoire comes next in order and may be given at full length.[230]
“The Holy Apostolic Chair, unto which the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven
are given by those words that Christ Jesus addressed to St. Peter: I
give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and unto thee alone
the power of commanding the Prince of Darkness and his angels, who,
as slaves to their master, do owe him honour, glory and obedience,
by virtue of those other words of Christ Jesus, addressed to Satan
himself: Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou
serve—hence by the power of these Keys the Head of the Church has been
made the Lord of hell. But seeing that until this present the Sovereign
Pontiffs have alone had the charge of evoking and commanding Spirits,
His Holiness Honorius II, being moved by his pastoral care, has desired
benignly to communicate the science and power of evocations and of
empire over spirits to his venerable Brethren in Jesus Christ, with the
conjurations which must be used in such case; now therefore the whole
is contained in the Bull which here follows.”
Here in all truth is the pontificate of hell, that sacrilegious
priesthood of anti-popes which Dante seems to stigmatise in the
raucous cry uttered by one of his princes of perdition: _Pope Satan,
Pope Satan: Aleppe_. Let the legitimate pontiff continue as prince of
heaven; it is enough for the anti-pope Cadalus to be the sovereign of
hell. “Be He the God of good, for god of evil am I; we are divided, but
my power is equal.”
The Bull of the infernal pontiff follows,[231] and the mystery of
darksome evocations is expounded therein with a terrific knowledge
concealed under superstitious and sacrilegious forms. Fastings,
watchings, profanation of mysteries, allegorical ceremonies and bloody
sacrifices are combined with artful malice. The evocations are not
deficient in poetry or in enthusiasm, mingled with horror. For example,
the author ordains that an operator should rise at midnight on the
Thursday in the first week of evocations, should sprinkle his room with
holy water and light a taper of yellow wax—prepared on the previous
day and pierced in the form of a cross. By the uncertain light of this
candle, he must enter a church alone and read the Office of the Dead
in a low voice, substituting in place of the ninth lesson at Matins
the following rhythmic invocation which is here translated from the
Latin, preserving its strange form and its refrains, which recall the
monotonous incantations of old-world sorcerers.
O Lord, deliver me from the infernal terrors,
Exempt my spirit from sepulchral larvæ;
To seek them out I shall go down to their hell unaffrighted:
I shall impose my will for a law upon them.
I will call upon night and its darkness to bring forth splendour:
Rise up, O Sun; and, Moon, be thou white and brilliant;
To the shades of hell I will speak and confess no terror:
I shall impose my will for a law upon them.
Dreadful in aspect are they, their forms in appearance fantastic:
I will that the demons shall once again become angels.
Whence to their nameless distortion I speak, never fearing:
I shall impose my will for a law upon them.
These shades are illusions evoked by the eye affrighted;
I and I only can heal their loveliness blasted,
And into the deeps of hell I plunge unaffrighted:
I shall impose my will for a law upon them.[232]
After many other ceremonies there comes the night of evocation. In a
sinister place, in the light of a fire kindled with broken crosses, a
circle is traced with the embers of a cross, reciting while so doing a
magical hymn containing versicles of several psalms. It may be rendered
as follows:[233]
“O Lord, the king rejoices in Thy power; let me finish the work of
my birth. May shadows of evil and spectres of night be as dust blown
before the wind.... O Lord, hell is enlightened and shines in Thy
presence; by Thee do all things end and all begin by Thee: JEHOVAH,
TSABAOTH, ELOHIM, ELOI, HELION, HELIOS, JODHEVAH, SHADDAI. The Lion
of Judah rises in His glory; He comes to complete the victory of King
David. I open the seven seals of the dread book. Satan falls from
heaven, like summer lightning. Thou hast said to me: Be far from thee
hell and its tortures; they shall not draw to thy pure abodes. Thine
eyes shall withstand the gaze of the basilisk; thy feet shall walk
fearlessly on the asp; thou shalt take up serpents, and they shall be
conquered by thy smile; thou shalt drink poisons, and they shall in
nowise hurt thee. ELOHIM, ELOHAB, TSABAOTH, HELIOS, EHYEH, EIEAZEREIE,
O THEOS, TSEHYROS. The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof; He
hath established it over the gaping abyss. Who shall go up unto the
mountain of the Lord? The innocent of hands and clean of heart; he who
hath not held truth in captivity, nor hath received it to let it remain
idle; he who hath conceived the height in his soul and hath not sworn
by a lying word. The same shall receive strength for his domain, and
hereof is the infinite of human birth, generation by earth and fire,
the divine bringing forth of those who seek God. Princes of Nature,
enlarge your doors; yoke of heaven, I lift thee. Come to me, ye holy
cohorts: behold the King of glory. He hath earned his name; he holds in
his hand the seal of Solomon. The master hath broken the black bondage
of Satan and hath led captivity captive. The Lord alone is God, and
He only is King. To Thee only be glory, O Lord; glory and glory to
Thee.”[234]
One seems to hear the sombre puritans of Walter Scott or Victor Hugo
accompanying, with fanatic psalmody, the nameless work of sorcerers in
_Faust_ or _Macbeth_.
In a conjuration addressed to the shade of the giant Nimrod, the wild
huntsman who began the Tower of Babel, the adept of Honorius menaces
that ancient reprobate with the riveting of his chains and with torture
increased daily, should he fail in immediate obedience to the will
of the operator. It is the sublimity of pride in delirium, and this
anti-pope, who could only understand a high-priest as a ruler of hell,
seems to yearn after the usurped and mournful right of tormenting the
dead eternally, as if in revenge for the contempt and rejection of the
living.
CHAPTER II
APPEARANCE OF THE BOHEMIAN NOMADS
At the beginning of the fifteenth century hordes of unknown swarthy
wanderers began to spread through Europe.[235] Sometimes denominated
Bohemians, because they claimed to come from Bohemia, sometimes
Egyptians, because their leader assumed the title of Duke of Egypt,
they exercised the arts of divination, larceny and marauding. They
were nomadic tribes, bivouacking in huts of their own construction;
their religion was unknown; they gave themselves out to be Christians;
but their orthodoxy was more than doubtful. Among themselves, they
practised communism and promiscuity, and in their divinations they made
use of a strange sequence of signs, allegorical in form, and depending
from the virtues of numbers. Whence came they? Of what accursed
and vanished world were they the surviving waifs? Were they, as
superstitious people believed, the offspring of sorceresses and demons?
What expiring and betrayed Saviour had condemned them to roam for ever?
Was this the family at large of the Wandering Jew, or the remnants of
the ten tribes of Israel, lost sight of in captivity and long enchained
by Gog and Magog in unknown regions? Such were the doubting questions
at the passage of these mysterious strangers, who seemed to retain only
the superstitions and vices of a vanished civilisation. Enemies of
toil, they respected neither property nor family; they dragged their
women and children after them; they pestered the peace of honest
house-dwellers with their pretended divinations. However all this may
be, their first encampment in the vicinity of Paris is told by one
writer as follows:—
“In the next year, 1427, on the Sunday after the middle of August,
being the 17th of the month, there came to the environs of Paris twelve
so-called penitentiaries—a duke, earl and ten men, all on horses,
saying that they were good Christians, originally of Lower Egypt. They
stated further that in former times they were conquered and turned
to Christianity, those refusing being put to death, while those who
consented to baptism were left as rulers of the country. Some time
subsequently the Saracens invaded them, and many who were not firm in
the faith made no attempt to withstand or defend their country, as in
duty bound, but submitted, became Saracens and abjured our Saviour. The
Emperor of Germany, the King of Poland and other rulers having learned
that the people renounced their faith so easily, becoming Saracens and
idolaters, fell upon them and conquered them again easily. It appeared
at first as if they had the intention to leave them in their country,
so that they might be led back to Christianity, but, after deliberation
in council, the emperor and the rest of the kings ordained that they
should never own land in their native country without the consent of
the Pope, to obtain which, they must journey to Rome. Thither they
proceeded in a great body, the young and the old, involving great
suffering for the little ones. They made confession of their sins at
Rome, and the Pope, after considering with his advisers, imposed on
them, by way of penance, a seven years’ wandering through the world,
sleeping in no bed. He ordained further that every bishop and croziered
abbot should give them, once and for all, ten livres of the Tours
currency as a contribution towards their expenses. He presented them
with letters to this effect, gave them his benediction, and for five
years they had been wandering through the world.
“Some days afterwards, being the day of the martyrdom of St. John
the Baptist, or August 29, the general horde followed and were not
permitted to enter within Paris, but were lodged at the Chapelle St.
Denis. They numbered about 120 persons, including women and children.
They stated that when they left their own country they consisted of
one thousand or twelve hundred souls; the others had died on the road,
their king and queen among them; the survivors were still expecting to
become possessors of worldly goods, for the holy father had promised
them good and fertile lands when their penance was finished.
“While they were at the chapel there was never so great a crowd at
benediction, for the people flocked to see them from St. Denis,
Paris, and the suburbs. Their children, both boys and girls, were the
cleverest tricksters. Nearly all had their ears pierced and in each
ear were one or two silver rings, which they said were a sign of good
birth in their own country; they were exceedingly dark and with woolly
hair. The women were the ugliest and blackest ever seen; their faces
were covered with sores, their hair was black as the tail of a horse,
their clothes consisted of an old _flaussoie_ or _schiavina_ tied
over the shoulder by a cord or morsel of cloth, and beneath it a poor
shirt. In a word, they were the most wretched creatures who had ever
been seen in France, within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. Their
poverty notwithstanding, they had sorceresses among them who inspected
the hand, telling what had happened to the person consulting them in
their past life and what awaited them in the future. They disturbed
the peace of households, for they denounced husband to wife and wife
to husband. And what was still worse, while talking to people about
their magic art, they managed to fill their purses by emptying those of
their hearers. One citizen of Paris who gives account of these facts
adds that he himself talked to them three or four times without losing
a halfpenny; but this is the report of the people everywhere, and the
news reached the bishop of Paris, who went thither taking a Minorite
friar called the little Jacobin, and he, by the bishop’s command,
preached a great sermon and excommunicated all, male and female who had
told fortunes and all who had shewn their hands. The horde was ordered
away and departed accordingly on September 8, proceeding towards
Pontoise.”
It is not known whether they continued their journey North of the
capital, but their memory has survived in a corner of the Department
du Nord. “As a fact, in a wood near the village of Hamel, five hundred
feet from a druidic monument consisting of six stones, there is a
fountain which is called the Sorcerer’s Kitchen, and it is there,
according to tradition, that the _Cara Maras_ rested and quenched
their thirst. Now these were assuredly the _Caras’mar_, namely, the
Bohemians, or wandering sorcerers and diviners, to whom ancient Flemish
charters granted the right to be fed by the inhabitants.”
They left Paris, but others came in their place, so that France was
exploited as much as other countries. There is no record of their
landing in England or in Scotland, but before very long the latter
kingdom numbered more than one hundred thousand.[236] They were called
_seard_ and _caird_, as much as to say artisans, craftsmen, for the
Scotch word is derived from the Sanskrit k + r, whence comes the verb
to do, the _Ker-aben_ of the gipsies and the Latin _cerdo_ or bungler,
which they are not. If there was no trace of them at the same period
in northern Spain, where the Christians took refuge against the Moslem
domination, it was doubtless because the Arabs in the South were more
to their liking; however, under John II the gipsies were clearly
distinguished from these latter, though no one knew whence they came.
To sum up, it came about that, from the time in question forward,
they were generally known over the whole European continent. One of
the bands of king Sindel appeared at Ratisbon in 1433, while Sindel
himself, accompanied by his reserve, camped in Bavaria in 1439. He
seemed to have come from Bohemia, for the Bavarians, unaware that in
1433 the tribe had given themselves out as Egyptians, termed them
Bohemians, under which name they reappeared in France and so have been
known therein. Willy-nilly, they were tolerated. Some perambulated
the mountains, seeking gold in the rivers; some forged shoes for
horses and chains for dogs; others—more marauders than pilgrims—crept
about, ferreting everywhere, and everywhere thieved and pilfered. A
few of them, weary of shifting and fixing their tents continually,
came to a stand and hollowed out hovels, square huts of four to six
feet, underground, and covered with a roof of green branches, the
ridge of which, set across two stakes, in the form of a Y, rose
scarcely more than two feet above the soil. It was in this den, of
which little more than the name has remained in France, that the whole
family was huddled together pell-mell. In such a lodging, with no
opening but the door and a hole for the smoke, the father hammered,
the children—crouched round the fire—blew the bellows and the mother
boiled the pot, which contained only the spoil of poaching. Among
old clothes, a bridle and a knapsack hung from long wooden nails,
with no other furniture than an anvil, pincers and hammer—there met
credulity and love, maid and knight, lady of the manor and page.
There they shewed their bare white hands to the penetrating glance of
the sibyl; there love was purchased, happiness was sold, and lying
found its recompense. Thence came mountebanks and cardsharpers, the
star-spangled robe and peaked hat of the magician, the vagrants and
their slang, street dancers and daughters of joy. It was the kingdom
of idleness and _trupherie_, of Villon manners and free meals. They
were people who were continually busy in doing nothing, as a simple
story-teller of the middle ages terms it. A scholar who is equally
modest and distinguished, M. Vaillant, author of a history of the
_Rom-Muni_ or Bohemians, some of whose pages we have cited, gives no
more flattering portrait, though he ascribes to the gipsies great
importance in the sacerdotal history of the ancient world. He recounts
how these strange Protestants of primitive civilisation, travelling
through the ages with a malediction on their foreheads and rapine
in their hands, excited curiosity at first, then mistrust, finally
proscription and hatred on the part of mediæval Christians. It will be
readily understood what dangers might attach to this people without
a fatherland, parasites or the whole world and citizens of nowhere.
They were Bedouins who perambulated empires like deserts; they were
nomadic thieves who glided about everywhere and remained nowhere. It
came to pass speedily that the people regarded them as sorcerers,
even as demons, casters of lots, stealers of children, and there was
some ground for all this. Moreover, the nomads began to be accused
everywhere of celebrating frightful mysteries in secret; they were held
responsible for all unknown murders, for all mysterious abductions,
as the Greeks of Damascus accused the Jews of killing one of their
fraternity and drinking his blood. It was affirmed that they preferred
boys and girls from twelve to fifteen years old. Here was an effectual
way to insure that they should be held in horror and avoided by the
young; but it was odious all the same, for the child and the common
people are only too credulous, while as fear begets hatred, so also
it tends to breed persecution. It was this which came to pass; they
were not only avoided and fled from, but they were refused fire and
water; Europe became like India in their respect and every Christian
was a Brahman armed against them. In some countries, if a young girl
approached one of them to give alms out of charity, her distracted
governess would warn her to beware, for the gipsy was a _katkaon_, an
ogre, who would suck her blood when she was asleep in the night. The
girl drew back trembling. If a boy passed near enough for his shadow to
fall on the wall near which they were seated, and where perhaps a whole
gipsy family was eating or basking in the sun, his master would cry:
“Keep off, child; these vampires will steal your shadow and your soul
will dance at their Sabbath through all eternity.” So did Christian
hatred resuscitate the _lemures_ and goblins, the vampires and ogres
as a ground of their impeachment. “They were descended from Mambres,
whose miracles competed against those of Moses; they were sent by the
king of Egypt to spy everywhere on the children of Israel and render
their lot intolerable; they were the murderers made use of by Herod to
exterminate the first-born of Bethlehem; they were pagans indeed, for
others, but they did not understand a single word of Egyptian, their
language comprising, on the contrary, a good deal of Hebrew, and they
were therefore the refuse of that abject race who slept in the tombs
of Judea after devouring the corpses which they contained; they were
otherwise those miscreant Jews who were tortured, chased and burned in
1348 for having poisoned our wells and cisterns, and they had returned
once again to the work. As a final alternative, whether Jews or
Egyptians, Essenians or Chusians, Pharaohnians or Caphtorians, Assyrian
Balistari or Philistines of Canaan, they were renegades, and it was
testified in Saxony, France and everywhere that they were fit only for
burning and hanging.
The proscription which came upon them fell also on that strange book in
which they used to consult destiny and to obtain oracles. Its coloured
cards bearing incomprehensible figures are undoubtedly the monumental
summary of all ancient revelations, the key to Egyptian hieroglyphics,
the keys also of Solomon, the primeval scriptures of Enoch and Hermes.
The author to whom we refer gives proof here of uncommon sagacity,
speaking of the Tarot as a man who as yet does not understand it
perfectly but has made it a profound study. What he says is as follows:—
“The form, disposition, arrangement of these tablets, and of the
figures which they depict, though considerably modified by time, are
so manifestly allegorical, while the allegories correspond so closely
to the civil, philosophical and religious doctrine of antiquity, that
one is compelled to regard them as a synthesis of the matter of faith
among ancient peoples. We have sought to make evident already that
the Tarot is a deduction from the sidereal _Book of Enoch_, who is
Henochia; that it is modelled on the astral wheel of Athor, who is
As-taroth; that, like the Indian Ot-tara, which is the polar bear or
Arc-tura in the northern hemisphere, it is the force major (_tarie_),
on which rests the solidity of the world and the sidereal firmament
of earth. Consequently, like the polar Bear, which is regarded as the
chariot of the sun, the chariot of David and of Arthur, it is the Greek
fortune, the Chinese destiny, the Egyptian hazard, the lot of the
Romanies; and that, in their unceasing revolution about the polar Bear,
the stars pour down on earth those auspices and fatalities, that light
and shadow, cold and heat, whence flow the good and evil, the love and
hatred which make up human happiness.
“If the origin of this book is so lost in the night of time that
no one knows where or when it was invented, everything leads us to
believe that it is of Indo-Tartaric origin and that, variously modified
among ancient nations, according to the phases of their doctrines and
the characteristics of their wise men, it was one of their books of
occult science, possibly even one of their sibylline books. We have
sufficiently indicated the road by which it has reached us; we have
seen that it must have been known to the Romans and that it came to
them not only from the first days of the empire but of the Republic
itself, by the intervention of those numerous strangers of eastern
origin, who were initiated into the mysteries of Bacchus and of Isis,
and who brought their knowledge to the heirs of Numa.”
Vaillant does not say that the four hieroglyphical signs of the
Tarot—being Wands, Cups, Swords and Deniers, or golden circles—are
found in Homer, sculptured on the shield of Achilles; but according to
him: “the Cups are the arcs or arches of time, the vessels or ships of
heaven. The Deniers are the constellations, fixed and movable stars.
The Swords are fires, flames, rays; the Wands are shadows, stones,
trees, plants. The Ace of Cups is the vase of the universe, the arch of
celestial truth, the principle of earth. The Ace of Deniers is the sun,
the great eye of the world, the sustenance and element of life. The
Ace of Swords is the spear of Mars, whence come wars, misfortunes and
victories. The Ace of Wands is the serpent’s eye, the pastoral crook,
the cowherd’s goad, the club of Hercules, the emblem of agriculture.
The two of Cups is the cow, Io or Isis, and the bull Apis or Mnevis.
The three of Cups is Isis, the moon, lady and queen of night. The
three of Deniers is Osiris, the sun, lord and king of day. The nine of
Deniers is the messenger Mercury, or the angel Gabriel. The nine of
Cups is the gestation of good destiny, whence comes happiness.”
Finally, M. Vaillant tells us that there is a Chinese diagram
consisting of characters which form great oblong compartments, of
equal size and precisely that of the Tarot cards. These compartments
are arranged in six perpendicular columns, the first five consisting
of fourteen compartments each, making seventy in all; whilst the sixth
is only half filled and contains seven compartments. Moreover, this
diagram is formed after the same combination of the number seven; each
complete column is of twice seven or fourteen compartments, while the
half column contains seven compartments. It is so much like the Tarot
that the four suits of the latter occupy the four first columns; in
the fifth column are the twenty-one trumps, while the seven remaining
trumps are in the sixth column, the last representing the six days
constituting the week of creation. Now, according to the Chinese, this
diagram goes back to the first epoch of their empire, being the drying
up of the waters of the deluge by IAO. The conclusion is, therefore,
that this is either the original Tarot or a copy thereof; that in any
case the Tarot is anterior to Moses, is referable to the beginning of
the ages, or the epoch of the formulation of the Zodiac; and that its
age is consequently six thousand six hundred years.[237]
“Such is the Romany Tarot from which by transposition the Hebrews have
made the word _Torah_, signifying the Law of Jehovah. So far then from
being a game, as it is at the present day, it was a book, and a serious
book, the book of symbols and of emblems, of analogies or the relations
between stars and man; the book of destiny, by the aid of which the
sorcerer unveiled the mysteries of fortune. Its figures, their names,
their number, and the oracles drawn from these made it naturally
regarded by Christians as the instrument of a diabolical art, a work of
Magic. It will be hence understood with what severity they proscribed
it, the moment it became known to them by that abuse of confidence
which the rashness of the _Sagi_ committed on public credulity. In this
manner, faith being lost in its message, the Tarot became a game, while
its pictures underwent modification according to the taste of nations
and the successive spirit of centuries.[238] It is to the work in this
trivial form that we owe our modern playing cards, the combinations
of which are comparable to those of the Tarot in the same way as the
game of draughts is comparable to the game of chess. It follows that
the origin of cards is attributed wrongly to the reign of Charles VI,
and it may be noted further that the initiates of the Order of the
Belt, established before 1332 by Alphons XI, king of Castile, pledged
themselves not to play cards. Le Sage tells us that, in the days of
Charles V, St. Bernard of Sienna condemned cards to be burnt and that
they were then called _triumphales_ after the game of triumph played in
honour of the victorious Osiris or Ormuzd, represented by one of the
Tarot cards. Furthermore, that king himself proscribed cards in 1369
and the reason that little Jean de Saintré was honoured by his favour
was because he did not play. In those days cards were termed _Naipes_
in Spain and _Naibi_ in Italy, the _Naibi_ being she-devils, sibyls and
pythonesses.”
M. Vaillant, from whom we have been again quoting, considers therefore
that the Tarot has been modified and altered, which is true for the
German examples bearing Chinese figures, but not for those of Italy,
which have only been altered in details, nor for those of Besançon,
in which traces remain of primitive Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the
_Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental Magic_, we have shewn how
untoward in their results were the labours of Etteilla or Alliette
in respect of the Tarot. This illuminated hairdresser, after working
for thirty years, only succeeded in producing a bastard set, the Keys
of which are transposed, so that the numbers no longer answer to the
signs. In a word, it is a Tarot suited to Etteilla and to the measure
of his intelligence, which was not of great extent.
We are scarcely in agreement with M. Vaillant, when he suggests that
the gipsies were the lawful proprietors of this key to initiations.
They owed it doubtless to the infidelity or imprudence of some
Kabalistic Jew. The gipsies originated in India, or their historian
has at least shown the likelihood of this theory. Now the extant Tarot
is certainly that of the gipsies and has come to us by way of Judea. As
a fact, its keys are in correspondence with the letters of the Hebrew
alphabet, and some of its figures reproduce even their forms. What then
were the gipsies? As a poet has said: They were the debased remnant of
an ancient world; they were a sect of Indian Gnostics, whose communism
caused them to be proscribed in every land; as they may be said to
admit practically, they were profaners of the Great Arcanum, overtaken
by a fatal malediction. A horde misled by some enthusiastic fakir,
they had become wanderers through the world, protesting against all
civilisations in the name of a pretended natural law which dispensed
them from almost every duty. Now the law which seeks to prevail in
violation of duty is aggression, pillage and rapine; it is the hand of
Cain raised against his brother, and society in defending itself seems
to be avenging the death of Abel.
In 1840 certain mechanics of the Faubourg St. Antoine, weary, as they
put it, of being hoodwinked by journalists and of serving as tools
for the ambition of ready speech-makers, resolved to found and to
edit a journal of pure radicalism and of logic apart from evasion
or circumlocution. They combined therefore and deliberated for the
firm establishment of their doctrines; they took as their basis the
republican device of liberty, equality and the rest. But liberty seemed
to them incompatible with the duty of labour, equality with the law
of property, and they therefore decided on communism. One of them,
however, pointed out that in communism the sharpest would preside over
the division and would get the lion’s share; it was decreed thereupon
that no one should have the right to intellectual superiority. But
it was further remarked that even physical beauty might constitute
an aristocracy, so they decreed that there should be an equality
in ugliness. Finally, as those who till the ground are yoked to
the ground, it was settled that true communists could not follow
agriculture, must have only the world for their fatherland and humanity
itself for their family, whence it became them to have recourse to
caravans and go round the world eternally. We are not relating a
parable, we have known those who were present at the convention in
question and we have read the first number of their journal, which was
entitled _The Humanitarian_ and was suppressed in 1841. As to this, the
press reports of the period may be consulted. Had the journal continued
and had the incipient sect recruited proselytes for the Icarian
emigration, as the old attorney Cabet was doing at the same period, a
new race of Bohemians would have been organised, and vagabondage would
have counted one race the more.
CHAPTER III
LEGEND AND HISTORY OF RAYMUND LULLY
We have explained that the Church proscribed initiation because
it was indignant at the profanations of the Gnosis. When Mohammed
armed eastern fanaticism against faith he opposed savage and warlike
credulity to the piety which is ignorant but which prays. His
successors set foot in Europe and threatened to overrun it speedily.
The Christians said: Providence is chastising us; and the Moslems
answered: Fatality is on our side.
The Jewish Kabalists, who were in dread of being burnt as sorcerers in
countries called catholic, sought an asylum among the Arabs, for these
in their eyes were heretics but not idolaters. They admitted some of
them to a knowledge of their mysteries, and Islam, which had already
conquered by force, was before long in a position to hope that it might
prevail also by science over those whom educated Araby termed in its
disdain the barbarians of the West. To onslaughts of physical force
the genius of France opposed the strokes of its own terrific hammer.
Before the flowing tide of Mohammedan armies a mail-clad finger had
traced a clear line and a mighty voice of victory cried to the flood:
Thou shalt go no further. The genius of science raised up Raymund
Lully, and he reclaimed the heritage of Solomon for that Saviour Who
was the Son of David; it was he who for the first time called the
children of blind faith to the splendours of universal knowledge. The
pseudo-scholars, and the people who are wise in their own conceit,
continue to speak with scorn of this truly great man; but the popular
instinct has avenged him. Romance and legend have taken up his story,
with the result that he is pictured as one impassioned like Abelard,
initiated like Faust, an alchemist even as Hermes, a man of penitence
and learning like St. Jerome, a rover after the manner of the Wandering
Jew, a martyr in fine like St. Stephen, and one who was glorious in
death almost as the Saviour of the world.
Let us make our beginning with the romance: it is one of the most
touching and beautiful that have come within our knowledge.
On a certain Sunday, in the year 1250, a beautiful and accomplished
lady, named Ambrosia di Castello, originally of Genoa, went, as she was
accustomed, to hear mass in the church of Palma, a town in the island
of Majorca. A mounted cavalier of distinguished appearance and richly
dressed, who was passing at the time in the street, noticed the lady
and pulled up as one thunderstruck. She entered the church, quickly
disappearing in the shadow of the great porch. The cavalier, quite
unconscious of what he did, spurred his horse and rode after her into
the midst of the affrighted worshippers. Great was the astonishment
and scandal. The cavalier was well known; he was the Seigneur Raymund
Lully, Seneschal of the Isles and Mayor of the Palace. He had a wife
and three children, while Ambrosia di Castello was also married and
enjoyed, moreover, an irreproachable reputation. Raymund Lully passed
therefore for a great libertine. His equestrian entrance into the
church of Palma was noised over the whole town, and Ambrosia, in the
greatest confusion, sought the advice of her husband. He was apparently
a man of sense, and he did not consider his wife insulted because
her beauty had turned the head of a young and brilliant nobleman. He
proposed that Ambrosia should cure her admirer by a folly as grotesque
as his own. Meanwhile, Raymund Lully had written already to the lady,
to excuse, or rather to accuse himself still further. What had prompted
him, he said, was “strange, supernatural, irresistible.” He respected
her honour and the affections which, he knew, belonged to another;
but he had been overwhelmed. He felt that his imprudence required
for its expiation high self-devotion, great sacrifices, miracles
to be accomplished, the penitence of a Stylite and the feats of a
knight-errant.
Ambrosia answered: “To respond adequately to a love which you term
supernatural would require an immortal existence. If this love be
sacrificed heroically to our respective duties during the lives of
those who are dear to each of us, it will, beyond all doubt, create
for itself an eternity at that moment when conscience and the world
will permit us to love one another. It is said that there is an elixir
of life; seek to discover it, and when you are certain that you have
succeeded, come and see me. Till then, live for your wife and your
children, as I also will live for the husband whom I love; and if you
meet me in the street make no sign of recognition.”
It was evidently a gracious _congé_, which put off her lover till
Doomsday; but he refused to understand it as such, and from that day
forth the brilliant noble disappeared to make room for the grave and
thoughtful alchemist. Don Juan had become Faust. Many years passed
away; the wife of Raymund Lully died; Ambrosia di Castello in her turn
became a widow; but the alchemist appeared to have forgotten her and to
be absorbed only in his sublime work.
At length, one day, the widow being alone, Raymund Lully was announced,
and there entered the apartment a bald and emaciated old man, who held
in his hand a phial filled with a bright and ruddy elixir. He advanced
with unsteady step, seeking her with his eyes. The object which they
sought was before them but he did not recognise her, who in his
imagination had remained always young and beautiful.
“It is I,” she said at length. “What would you with me?”
At the accents of that voice, the alchemist startled violently; he
recognised her whom he had thought fondly to find unchanged. Casting
himself on his knees at her feet, he offered her the phial, saying:
“Take it, drink it, it is life. Thirty years of my own existence are
comprised in it; but I have tried it, and I know that it is the elixir
of immortality.”
“What,” asked Ambrosia, with a sad smile, “have you yourself drunk it?”
“For two months,” replied Raymund, “after having taken a quantity of
the elixir equal to that which is contained here, I have abstained
from all other nourishment. The pangs of hunger have tormented me; but
not only have I not died, I am conscious within me of an unparalleled
accession of strength and life.”
“I believe you,” said Ambrosia, “but this elixir, which preserves
existence, is powerless to restore lost youth. My poor friend, look at
yourself,” and she held up a mirror before him.
Raymund Lully recoiled, for it is affirmed by the legend that he had
never surveyed himself in this manner during the thirty years of his
labours.
“And now, Raymund,” continued Ambrosia, “look at me,” and she unbound
her hair, which was white as snow; then, loosening the clasps of her
robe, she exposed to him her breast, which was almost eaten away
by a cancer. “Is it this,” she asked piteously, “which you wish to
immortalise?”
Then, seeing the consternation of the alchemist, she continued: “For
thirty years I have loved you, and I would not doom you to a perpetual
prison in the body of an infirm old man; in your turn, do not condemn
me. Spare me this death which you term life. Let me suffer the change
which is necessary before I can live again truly: let us renew our
nature with an eternal youth. I have no wish for your elixir, which
prolongs only the night of the tomb: I aspire to immortality.”
Raymond Lully thereupon cast down the phial, which was broken on the
ground.
“I deliver you,” he said, “and for your sake I remain in prison. Live
in the immortality of heaven, while I am condemned for ever to a living
death on this earth.”
Then, hiding his face in his hands, he went away weeping. Some months
after, a monk of the Order of St. Francis assisted Ambrosia di Castello
in her last moments. This monk was the alchemist, Raymund Lully. The
romance ends here and the legend follows. This legend merges several
bearers at different periods of the name Raymund Lully into a single
personality, and thus endows the repentant alchemist with a few
centuries of existence and expiation. On the day when the unfortunate
adept should have expired naturally, he experienced all the agonies
of dissolution; then, at the supreme crisis, he felt life again take
possession of his frame, like the vulture of Prometheus resuming its
banquet. The Saviour of the world, Who had stretched forth His hand
towards him, returned sorrowfully into heaven, and Raymond Lully found
himself still on earth, with no hope of dying.
He betook himself to prayer, and devoted his existence to good works;
God granted him all graces save that of death, but of what profit are
the others in the absence of that which should complete and crown them
all? One day the Tree of Knowledge was shewn to him, laden with its
luminous fruits; he understood being and its harmonies; he divined the
Kabalah; he established the foundations and sketched the plan of an
universal science, from which time he was saluted as the illuminated
doctor. So did he obtain glory, that fatal recompense of toil which
God, in His mercy, seldom confers upon great men till after their
death, because it intoxicates and poisons the living. But Raymund
Lully, who could not by death give place to the glory after, might have
occasion to fear that it would perish before himself, and meanwhile it
could seem to him only a derision of his immortal misfortune.
He knew how to make gold, so that he might purchase the world and all
its kingdoms, yet he could not assure to himself the humblest tomb. He
was the pauper of immortality. Everywhere he went begging for death,
and no one was able to give it him. The courtly nobleman had become an
absorbed alchemist, the alchemist a monk; the monk became preacher,
philosopher, ascetic, saint, and, last of all, missionary. He engaged
hand to hand with the learned men of Arabia; he battled victoriously
against Islamism, and had everything to fear from the fury of its
professors. Everything to fear—this means that he had something to
hope, and that which he hoped for was death.[239]
He engaged a young Arab of the most fanatical class as his attendant,
and posed before him as the scourge of the religion of Mohammed. The
Arab assassinated his master, which was what he expected; but Raymond
Lully did not die; it was the assassin that he would fain have forgiven
who killed himself in despair at his failure, so that conscience had an
added burden instead of deliverance and peace.
He was scarcely cured of his wounds when he embarked for Tunis, in
which place he preached Christianity openly; but the Bey in admiration
of his learning and his courage protected him against the madness of
the crowd and caused him to re-embark with all his books. Before long
he returned to the same parts, preaching at Bone, Bougia and other
African towns; the Moslems were stupefied and feared to lay hands upon
him. In the end he revisited Tunis and collecting the people in the
streets, he proclaimed that, though driven from the place, he had come
back to confound the impious doctrines of Mohammed and to die for Jesus
Christ. This time there was no protection possible, the enraged people
hunted him, a veritable insurrection broke out; he fled, to encourage
them further; already he was broken by many blows, pouring with blood,
covered with wounds; and yet he continued to live. He sank finally,
buried—literally speaking—under a mountain of stones.
On the same night, says the legend, two Genoese merchants, Steven
Colon and Louis de Pastorga, sailing over the open sea, beheld a great
light shining from the port of Tunis. They changed their course and,
approaching the shore, discovered a mound of stones, which diffused far
and near this miraculous splendour. They landed in great astonishment,
and finally discovered the body of Raymund Lully, mangled but still
breathing. He was taken on board the ship and carried to Majorca, where
in sight of his native land the martyr was permitted to expire. God set
him free by a miracle and his penance was so finished.
Such is the odyssey of the fabulous Raymund Lully; let us come now to
the historical realities.
Raymund Lully, the philosopher and adept, being the one who deserved
the title of illuminated doctor, was the son of that seneschal of
Majorca who was made famous by his ill-starred passion for Ambrosia
di Castello.[240] He did not discover the elixir of immortality, but
he made gold in England for King Edward III, and this gold was called
_aurum Raymundi_. There are extant certain very rare coins which are
called _Raymundins_ by experts. Louis Figuier identifies these with the
rose-nobles which were struck during the reign in question,[241] and
suggests, a little frivolously, that the alchemy of Raymund Lully was
only a sophistication of gold which would be difficult to detect at a
period when chemical processes were much less perfect than they are at
the present day. This notwithstanding, he recognises the scientific
importance of Lully and gives his judgment concerning him as follows:—
“Raymund Lully, whose genius embraced all branches of human knowledge,
and who brought together in the _Ars Magna_ a vast system of
philosophy, summarising the encyclopædic principles of science as
it then stood, could not fail to bequeathe a valuable heritage to
chymists. He perfected and described carefully various compounds which
are used widely in chemistry; we owe him the preparation of carbonate
of potassium by means of tartar and by wood ashes, the rectification of
spirits of wine, the preparation of essential oils, the cuppellation of
silver, and the preparation of sweet mercury.”[242]
Other scientists, feeling sure that the rose-nobles were pure as gold,
have speculated that, having regard to the very imperfect processes
of practical chemistry during the middle ages, such transmutations
as those of Raymund Lully, and indeed other adepts, were merely
the separation of the gold found in silver mines, and purified by
means of antimony, which is actually indicated, in a great number of
Hermetic symbols, as the efficient and chief element in the Powder of
Projection.[243] We agree with them that chemistry was non-existent at
the period in question, and we may add that it was created by adepts
or rather that the adepts, while keeping to themselves those synthetic
secrets which were the treasure of the magical sanctuaries, instructed
their contemporaries as to some of the analytical processes. These were
afterwards perfected, but they have not as yet led men of science to
reach that ancient synthesis which constitutes Hermetic philosophy, in
the proper sense of the term.
In his philosophical _Testament_, Raymund Lully has set forth all the
principles of this science, but in a veiled manner, following the
practice and indeed the duty of adepts. He also composed a _Key_ to
the _Testament_ mentioned, and finally a _Key_ to the _Key_ or, more
definitely, a codicil, which is in our opinion the most important of
his writings on alchemy. Its principles and modes of procedure have
nothing in common either with the sophistication of pure metals or
with the separation of alloys. As a theory, it is in conformity with
the principles of Geber and as a practice with those of Arnaldus de
Villanova; in respect of doctrine it is in conformity with the most
exalted ideas of the Kabalah. Those earnest minds, who refuse to be
discouraged by the discredit into which ignorance brings the great
things, should study Kabalistically the codicil of Raymund Lully, if
they seek to carry on that research of the absolute which was followed
by the greatest men of genius in the elder world.[244]
The whole life of this pre-eminent adept, the first initiate after St.
John who was devoted to the hierarchic apostolate of holy orthodoxy—his
entire life, we repeat, was passed in pious foundations, in preachings,
in immense scientific labours. Thus, in 1276, he established at Palma
a college of Franciscans dedicated to the study of Oriental languages,
and Arabic especially, with the object of refuting the works of
Mohammedan doctors and of preaching the Christian faith among the
Moors. John XXI confirmed this institution by a pastoral letter dated
from Viterbo on December 16, in the first year of his pontificate.
From 1293 to 1311, Lully solicited and obtained from Pope Nicholas
IV and from the kings of France, Sicily, Cyprus and Majorca, the
establishment of many other colleges for the same purpose. Wherever
he went he gave instructions in his Great Art, which is an universal
synthesis of human knowledge, and has as its prime object the
institution of one language among men as also one mode of thought. He
visited Paris and there astonished the most learned doctors; afterwards
he crossed over to Spain, tarried at Complute, where he founded a
central academy for the study of languages and sciences. He reformed
a number of convents, went on to Italy and recruited soldiers for a
new military order, the institution of which he advocated at the very
Council of Vienna which condemned the Templars. The catholic science
and the true initiation of St. John were intended thereby to rescue the
protecting sword of the Temple from faithless hands. The great ones of
this world derided poor Raymund Lully, and yet in their own despite
they did all that he desired. This illuminated personality, termed
by derision Raymund the Fantastic, seems to have been pope of popes
and king of kings; he was poor as Job and gave alms to sovereigns; he
was called a fool, and he was of that order of folly which confounds
sages. The greatest politician of the period, Cardinal Ximenes, whose
mind was as vast as it was serious, never spoke of him except as the
divine Raymund Lully and the most enlightened doctor. He died in 1314,
according to Genebrard, or in 1315, according to the author of the
preface to the _Meditations_ of the Hermit Blaquerne. He was eighty
years old, and the end of his toilsome and holy existence came on the
Festival of the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul.[245]
A disciple of the great Kabalists, Raymund Lully sought to establish an
absolute and universal philosophy by substituting for the conventional
abstractions of systems a fixed notion of natural actualities and by
substituting a simple and natural mode of expression for the ambiguous
terms of scholasticism. He condemned the definitions of the scholars
at his period because they perpetuated disputes by their inexactitude
and amphibology. According to Aristotle, man is a reasonable animal,
but it may be replied that he is not an animal and is only rarely
reasonable. Moreover, the words animal and reasonable cannot be brought
into harmony; a fool, in this sense, would not be a man, and so forth.
Raymund Lully defined things by their right names and not by their
synonyms or approximations; afterwards he explained the names by
etymology. To the question—What is man?—he would therefore reply that
the word, in its general acceptation, signifies the state of being
human, but taken in a particular acceptation it designates the human
personality. What, however is this human personality? Originally, it is
the personality which God made by breathing life into a body compounded
of earth (_humus_); literally it is you, it is I, it is Peter, Paul,
and so on. Those who were accustomed to scientific jargon protested
to the illuminated doctor that anyone could talk like this; that on
the basis of such a method the whole world might pose as learned; and
that popular common sense would be preferred before the doctrine of
academies. “That is just what I wish,” was the answer of Raymund Lully
in his great simplicity. Hence the reproach of puerility made against
his enlightened theory; and puerile it was in a sense, but with the
puerility of His counsel Who said: “Except ye become as one of these
little ones, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” Is not the
Kingdom of Heaven also that of science, seeing that the celestial life
of God and men is but understanding and love?
The design of Raymund Lully was to set the Christianised Kabalah
against the fatalistic _magia_ of the Arabs, Egyptian traditions
against those of India, the Magic of Light against Black Magic. He
testified that, in the last days, the doctrines of Antichrist would
be a materialised realism and that there would be a recrudescence of
all the monstrosities of evil Magic. Hence he sought to prepare minds
for the return of Enoch, or otherwise for the final revelation of that
science the key of which is in the hieroglyphical alphabets of Enoch.
This harmonising light of reason and faith is to precede the Messianic
and universal reign of Christianity on earth. So was Lully a great
prophet for true Kabalists and seers, while for sceptics who at least
can respect exalted characters and noble aspirations, he was a sublime
dreamer.
CHAPTER IV
ON CERTAIN ALCHEMISTS
Nicholas Flamel belongs to alchemy exclusively, and he enters only into
our consideration because of the hieroglyphical book of Abraham the
Jew, in which the scrivener of the rue Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie found
the absolute keys of the Great Work. This book was founded on the Keys
of the Tarot and was simply a hieroglyphical and Hermetic commentary
on the _Sepher Yetzirah_. We find as a fact, by the description of
Flamel himself, that the leaves were 21 in number, making 22 with the
title,[246] and that they were divided into three septenaries, having
a blank leaf at every seventh page. Let us here bear in mind that the
Apocalypse, that sublime Kabalistic and prophetic summary of all occult
types, also divided its symbols into three septenaries, between each of
which there is silence in heaven, thus instituting a striking analogy
with the uninscribed leaf in the mystic book of Flamel.[247] The
septenaries of the Apocalypse are (_a_) seven seals to open, meaning
seven mysteries to be learned and seven difficulties to be overcome;
(_b_) seven trumpets to sound, being seven utterances to understand;
(_c_) seven vials to empty, which signify seven substances which must
be volatilised and fixed.
In the work of Flamel the first seventh leaf has as its hieroglyphical
character the wand of Moses overcoming the serpents brought forth by
the magicians of Pharaoh. They are seen devouring one another, and the
figure as a whole is analogous to the Victor of the Tarot, yoking to
his cubic chariot the white and black sphinxes of Egyptian Magic. The
symbol in question corresponds to the seventh dogma in the creed of
Maimonides: we acknowledge but one prophet, who is Moses. It represents
the unity of science and the work; it represents further the Mercury of
the Wise, which is formed by the dissolution of composites and by the
reciprocal action of the Sulphur and Salt of metals.
The emblem on the fourteenth page was the Brazen Serpent set upon a
cross. The cross represents the marriage of the purified Sulphur and
Salt, as also the condensation of the Astral Light. The fourteenth
Trump card in the Tarot depicts an angel, who is the spirit of the
earth, mingling the liquids in two ewers, one of gold and one of
silver. It is the same symbol formulated after another manner. On the
21st leaf of Flamel’s book there was the type of space and universal
life, represented by a desert with springs of water and serpents
gliding hither and thither.[248] In the Tarot, space is typified by
the four signs allocated to the cardinal points of heaven, and life
is represented by a naked girl dancing in a circle. Flamel does not
specify the number of springs and serpents, but the former would
probably be four, springing from one source, as in the Pantacle of
Eden; the serpents would be four, seven, nine or ten.
On the fourth leaf was the figure of Time, preparing to cut off the
feet of Mercury. Close by was a rose-tree in blossom, the root being
blue, the stem white, the leaves red, and the flowers golden.[249] The
number four is that of elemental realisation. Time is atmospheric
nitre; his scythe is the acid which is extracted from this nitre,
and the Mercury is fixed thereby, being transformed into salt. The
rose-tree represents the Work and the successive colours which
characterise its stages: it is the mastery passing through the black,
white and red aspects, out of which gold is produced as a blossom that
buds and unfolds.
The number 5 is that of the Great Mystery, and on the fifth page blind
men were represented digging up the ground round the rose-tree in
search of the grand agent which is present everywhere. Some others,
who were better advised, were weighing a white water, resembling a
solidified air.[250] On the reverse side of this page was the massacre
of the innocents, with the sun and moon descending to bathe in their
blood. This allegory, which is the literal secret of Hermetic art, has
reference to that process of taking air into air, as Aristeus[251]
puts it; or, to speak intelligible language, of using air as force,
expanding it by means of Astral Light, just as water is changed into
steam by the action of fire. This can be accomplished by the aid of
electricity, magnets and a powerful projection of the operator’s
will, when directed by science and good intent. The children’s blood
represents that essential light which is extracted by philosophical
fire from elementary bodies. When it is said that the sun and moon come
down to bathe, the meaning is that the silver therein is tinctured into
gold and that the gold acquires a grade of purity by which its sulphur
is transformed into the true Powder of Projection.
We are not writing a treatise on alchemy, although this science
is really Transcendental Magic put into operation; we reserve its
revelations and wonders for other special and more extended works.
Popular tradition affirms that Flamel did not die and that he buried a
treasure under the tower of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie. According to
illuminated adepts, this treasure, contained in a cedar box covered
with plates of the seven metals, was the original copy of the famous
book attributed to Abraham the Jew, with commentaries in the writing
of Flamel and sufficient specimens of the Powder of Projection to
transmute the sea into gold, supposing that the sea were Mercury.
After Flamel came Bernard Trevisan, Basil Valentine and other famous
alchemists. The twelve Keys of Basil Valentine are at once Kabalistic,
magical and Hermetic. Then in 1480 appeared Trithemius, who was the
master of Cornelius Agrippa and the greatest dogmatic magician of the
middle ages. Trithemius was an abbot of the Order of St. Benedict,
of irreproachable orthodoxy and unimpeachable conduct. He was not so
imprudent as to write openly on occult philosophy, like his venturesome
disciple Agrippa. All his magical works turn on the art of concealing
mysteries, while his doctrine was expressed in a pantacle, after the
manner of true adepts. This pantacle is excessively rare, and is found
only in a few manuscript copies of his tract _De Septem Secundeis_.
A Polish gentleman and man of exalted mind and noble heart, Count
Alexander Branistki possesses a curious example which he has kindly
shewn to us. The pantacle consists of two triangles joined at the base,
one white and the other black. At the apex of the black triangle there
is a fool crouching, who turns his head with difficulty and gazes
awe-struck into the triangle, where his own likeness is reflected.
On the apex of the white triangle stands a man in the prime of life,
armed as a knight, having a steady glance and an attitude of strong
and peaceful command. In this triangle are inscribed the letters of
the divine Tetragram. The natural and exoteric sense of the emblem may
be explained by an aphorism as follows: The wise man rests in the fear
of the true God, but the fool is overwhelmed by the terror of a false
god made in his own image. By meditating on the pantacle as a whole,
and thereafter on its constituents successively, the adepts, however,
will find therein the last word of Kabalism and the unspeakable formula
of the Great Arcanum. In other words, it is the distinction between
miracles and prodigies, the secret of apparitions, the universal theory
of magnetism and the science of all mysteries.
Trithemius composed a history of Magic, written entirely in pantacles,
under the title: _Veterum Sophorum Sigilla et Imagines Magicæ_. In
his _Steganography_ and _Polygraphy_ he gives the key to all occult
writings and explains in veiled terms the real science of incantations
and evocations. Trithemius is in Magic the master of masters, and we
have no hesitation in proclaiming him the most wise and learned of
adepts.
It is otherwise with Cornelius Agrippa, who was a seeker all his life
and attained neither science nor peace. His books are full of erudition
and assurance; he was himself of an independent and phantastic
character, so it came about that he passed for an abominable sorcerer
and was persecuted by the priesthood and princes. In the end he wrote
against the sciences which had failed to bring him happiness, and he
died in misery and abandonment.
We now come to the mild and pleasing figure of that learned and sublime
Postel who is known only by his over-mystical love for an elderly but
illuminated woman. There is something far different in Postel from the
disciple of Mother Jeanne, but vulgar minds prefer to disparage rather
than to learn and have no wish to see anything better in him. It is not
for the benefit of these that we propose to make known the genius of
William Postel.
He was the son of a poor peasant, belonging to the district of
Barenton in Normandy; by force of perseverance and much sacrifice,
he contrived to teach himself and became the most learned man of his
time; but poverty pursued him always and want occasionally compelled
him to sell his books. Full of resignation and sweetness, he worked
like a labouring man to win a morsel of bread and then went back to
his studies. He acquired all known languages and sciences of his
period; he discovered rare and priceless manuscripts, including the
apocryphal gospels and the _Sepher Yetzirah_; he initiated himself
into the mysteries of the transcendental Kabalah,[252] and in his
simple admiration for that absolute truth, for that supreme reason of
all philosophies and dogmas, it was his ambition to reveal it to the
world. He therefore spoke the language of mysteries openly and wrote
a book entitled the _Key of Things kept Secret from the Foundation of
the World_.[253] He dedicated this work to the fathers assembled at the
Council of Trent, entreating them to enter the path of conciliation and
universal synthesis. No one understood him, some accused him of heresy
and the most moderate were contented to say that he was a fool.
The Trinity, according to Postel, made man in Its image and Its
likeness. The human body is dual and its triadic unity is through the
union of the two halves. The human soul is also dual; it is _animus_
and _anima_, or intellect and emotion; it has also two sexes, the male
being resident in the head and the female in the heart. Redemption in
its completion must also be dual in humanity; the mind by its purity
makes good the errors of the heart, and then the generosity of the
heart must rescue the egoistic barrenness of the brain. Christianity,
from Postel’s standpoint, has been so far understood only by the
reasoning mind and has not entered into the heart. The Word has been
made man, but the world will be saved when the Word shall have been
made woman. The sublime grandeurs of the spirit of love will be taught
by the maternal genius of religion, and then reason will be harmonised
with faith, because it will comprehend, interpret and restrain the
sacred excesses of devotion.
Observe, he remarks, how religion is understood by the majority of
Christians; it is only as an ignorant and persecuting partiality, a
superstitious and stupid stubbornness, and fear—base fear—above all.
Why is this? Because those who profess it have not the woman-heart,
because they are foreign to the divine enthusiasms of that mother-love
which explains all religion. The power that has invaded the brain
and binds the spirit is not that of the good, understanding and
longsuffering God; it is of the wicked, imbecile and cowardly Satan.
It comes about in this manner that there is far more fear of the devil
than love for the Divine. The frozen and shrivelled brain weighs on
the dead heart like a tombstone. What an awakening will it be for
understanding, what a rebirth for reason, what a victory for truth
when the heart shall be raised by grace. Why am I the first and almost
the only person to comprehend this, and what can one who has attained
resurrection perform alone among the dead who can hear nothing? Come
therefore and come quickly, O mother-spirit, who appeared to me at
Venice in the soul of a virgin inspired by God; descend and teach the
women of the new world their redeeming mission and their apostolate of
holy and spiritual life.
It is a fact that Postel owed these noble inspirations to a pious woman
named Jeanne, whose acquaintance he had made at Venice. He was the
spiritual adviser of this elect soul and was drawn into the current
of mystic poetry which eddied about her. When he administered the
Eucharist to her she became radiant and transfigured in his eyes, and
although she was more than fifty years old, the poor priest confesses
innocently that he would have taken her for less than fifteen: so
did the sympathy of their hearts transform her in his eyes. One must
have followed the life of asceticism to understand such celestial
hallucinations and lyrical puerilities, such a mystic marriage between
two virginal beings, such extraordinary enthusiasms of love in two pure
souls. In her he discerned the living spirit of Jesus Christ by which
the world would be regenerated. I have seen, says he, this light of the
heart which will drive the hideous spectre of Satan from all minds; it
is no chimera of my dreams; she has appeared in the world, has taken
flesh in a maid, in whom I have hailed the mother of the world to
come. This is analysing rather than translating Postel, but the rapid
abridgment of his sentiments and language will make plain that he spoke
figuratively and, as maintained by the learned Jesuit Desbillons, in
his notice on the life and works of Postel, that nothing was further
from his thoughts than to represent, as some have pretended, a second
incarnation of divinity in this poor hospital sister who had only drawn
him by the brightness of her humble virtues. We are utterly certain
that all those who have slandered and ridiculed Postel are not worth
one Mère Jeanne.
The mystical relations of Postel and the nun continued for about five
years, at the end of which time she died, assuring her confessor that
she would never be parted from him but would help him when freed from
the bonds of material life. “She kept her promise,” says Postel; “she
has been with me at Paris, has enlightened me with her own light and
has harmonised my reason and my faith. Two years after her ascent
into heaven, her spiritual body and substance descended into me and
permeated sensibly my whole body, so that it is she rather than
myself who lives in me.” After this experience Postel always regarded
himself as a risen being and signed himself _Postellus Restitutus_. As
a matter of fact one curious result followed; his white hair became
again black, his wrinkles disappeared and the ruddy colour of youth
was assumed by his countenance, previously made thin and pallid by his
austerities and vigils. His derisive biographers assert that he dyed
his hair and painted his face; it was insufficient to picture him as a
fool, and so out of his noble and generous character they produced a
juggler and charlatan. Assuredly the imbecility or bad faith of cold
and sceptic minds, when they pass judgment on enthusiastic hearts, is
more wonderful than the eloquent unreason of the latter.
“It has been imagined,” writes Father Desbillons, “and is still, I
understand, believed that the regeneration supposed to have been
accomplished by Mother Jeanne is the foundation of his system; it
had however been completely developed before he was aware of her
existence, and he never departed from it, unless indeed he did so
a few years before his death. It had come into his mind that the
evangelical reign of Jesus Christ, established by the Apostles, could
be no longer maintained among Christians or propagated among infidels
unless enforced by the light of reason. To this principle, which
affected him personally, he added another, being the destination of
the king of France to universal monarchy. The way of the Second Advent
must be prepared by conquest of hearts and conviction of minds, that
there may be henceforth but one faith and Jesus Christ reigning over
the whole world in the person of a single king and in virtue of one
law.” According to Father Desbillons, this proves that Postel was mad.
Mad for having thought that religion should reign over minds by the
supreme reason of its doctrine and that the monarchy, to be strong
and permanent, should bind hearts together by the victories of public
prosperity under the dominion of peace. Mad for having believed in the
coming of that kingdom about which we say daily—His kingdom come. Mad
because he believed in reason and justice on earth. Well, well, they
spoke truly; poor Postel was mad. The proof of his madness is that
he wrote, as already said, to the Fathers of the Council of Trent,
entreating them to bless the whole world and to launch anathemas
against no one. As another example, he tried to convert the Jesuits
and cause them to preach universal concord among men—peace between
sovereigns, reason among priests, and goodness among the princes of
this world. In fine, as a last and supreme madness, he neglected the
benefits of this world and the favour of the great, lived always humbly
and in poverty, possessed nothing but his knowledge and his books, and
desired nothing but truth and justice. May God give peace to the soul
of poor William Postel.
He was so mild and so good that his ecclesiastical superiors took pity
upon him and, thinking probably, as was said later on of La Fontaine,
that he was more silly than wicked, they were contented with shutting
him up in his convent for the rest of his days. Postel was grateful for
the quiet thus ensured toward the close of life, and he died peaceably,
retracting everything that his superiors required. The man of universal
concord could not be an anarchist; he was before all things the
sincerest of catholics and humblest of Christians. The works of Postel
will be rediscovered one of these days and will be read with wonder.
[Illustration: THE SEVEN PLANETS AND THEIR GENII]
Let us pass to another maniac who was called Theophrastus Aureolus
Bombast and was known in the World of Magic under the famous name
of Paracelsus. There is no need to recapitulate what has been said
concerning this master in our _Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental
Magic_, but something may be added on the occult medicine restored by
Paracelsus. This truly universal medicine is based upon a spacious
theory of light, called by adepts fluid or potable gold. Light, that
creative agent, the vibrations of which are the movement and life of
all things; light, latent in the universal ether, radiating about
absorbing centres, which, being saturated thereby, project movement
and life in their turn, so forming creative currents; light, astralised
in the stars, animalised in animals, humanised in human beings; light,
which vegetates in plants, glistens in metals, produces all forms of
Nature and equilibrates all by the laws of universal sympathy—this
is that light which exhibits the phenomena of magnetism, divined by
Paracelsus, which tinctures the blood, being released from the air as
it is inhaled and discharged by the hermetic bellows of the lungs. The
blood then becomes a true elixir of life, wherein ruby and magnetic
globules of vital light float in a slightly gilded fluid. These
globules are actual seeds, ready to assume all forms of that world
whereof the human body is an abridgment. They can become rarefied and
coagulated, so renewing the humours which circulate in the nerves and
in the flesh encompassing the bones. They radiate outside, or rather,
in rarefying, they are drawn by the currents of light and circulate in
the astral body—that interior and luminous body which is dilated by
the imagination of ecstatics, so that their blood sometimes colours
objects at a distance when these have been penetrated and identified
with the astral body. In a special work on occult medicine that which
is stated here will be proved, however strange and paradoxical it may
seem at first sight to men of science.[254] Such were the bases of
medicine as put forward by Paracelsus; he cured by sympathy of light;
he administered medicaments not to the outward material body, which is
entirely passive, which can be rent and cut up without feeling anything
when the astral body has withdrawn, but to the inward medium, to that
vehicle which is the source of sensations. The quintessence of these
he renewed by sympathetic quintessences. For example, he healed wounds
by applying powerful reactives to the spilt blood, thus sending back
its physical soul and purified sap to the body. To cure a diseased
limb he made a limb of wax and, by will-power, transferred thereto the
magnetism of the diseased limb. Then he treated the wax with vitriol,
iron and fire, thus reacting by imagination and magnetic correspondence
on the sick person himself, to whom the limb of wax had become an
appendix and supplement. Paracelsus knew the mysteries of blood; he
knew why the priests of Baal made incisions with knives in their flesh,
and then brought down fire from heaven; he knew why orientals poured
out their blood before a woman to inspire her with physical love; he
knew how spilt blood cries for vengeance or mercy and fills the air
with angels or demons. Blood is the instrument of dreams and multiplies
images in the brain during sleep, because it is full of the Astral
Light. Its globules are bisexual, magnetised and metalled, sympathetic
and repelling. All forms and images in the world can be evoked from the
physical soul or blood.
“At Baroche,” says the estimable traveller Tavernier,[255] “there is
a first-class English house, which I reached on a certain day with
the English president, on my way from Agra to Surat. There came also
certain jugglers, asking leave to exhibit some of their professional
skill, and the president was curious to see it. In the first place
they lighted a great fire, at which they heated iron chains, then
wound them about their bodies and pretended that they were suffering
in consequence, but no harm followed. They next took a morsel of wood,
set it in the ground and asked one of the spectators to choose what
fruit he liked. His choice fell upon mangoes, and thereupon one of
the performers put a shroud about him and squatted on the ground five
or six times. I had the curiosity to ascend to an upper room, where I
could see through a fold in the sheet what was being done by the man.
He was actually cutting the flesh under the arm-pits with a razor, and
rubbing the wood with his blood. Each time he rose up the wood grew
visibly; on the third occasion there were branches and buds thereon, on
the fourth the tree was covered with leaves, and on the fifth it was
bearing flowers.
“The English president had brought his chaplain from Amadabat to
baptize a child of the Dutch commander, the president acting as
godfather. The Dutch, it should be mentioned, do not have chaplains
except where soldiers and merchants are gathered together. The English
clergyman began by protesting that he could not consent to Christians
assisting at such spectacles, and when he saw how the performers
brought forth from a bit of dry wood, in less than half an hour, a
tree of four or five feet in height, having leaves and flowers as in
springtime, he felt it his duty to put an end to the business. He
announced therefore that he would not administer communion to those
who persisted in witnessing such occurrences. The president was thus
compelled to dismiss the jugglers.”
Dr. Clever de Maldigny, to whom we owe this extract, regrets that
the growth of the mangoes was thus stopped abruptly, but he does not
explain the occurrence. To our mind it was a case of fascination by the
magnetism of the radiant light of blood, a phenomenon of magnetised
electricity, identical with that termed palingenesis, by which a living
plant is made to appear in a vessel containing ashes of the same plant
long since perished.
Of such were the secrets known by Paracelsus, and it was in the
application of these hidden natural forces to purposes of medicine that
he made at once so many admirers and enemies. For the rest, he was by
no means a simple personality like Postel; he was naturally aggressive
and of the mountebank type; so did he affirm that his familiar spirit
was hidden in the pommel of his great sword, and never left his side.
His life was an unceasing struggle; he travelled, debated, wrote,
taught. He was more eager about physical results than moral conquests,
and while first among practical magicians he was last among adepts
of wisdom. His philosophy was one of sagacity and, on his own part,
he termed it _philosophia sagax_.[256] He divined more than anyone
without knowing anything completely. There is nothing to equal his
intuitions, unless it be the rashness of his commentaries. He was a
man of intrepid experiences, intoxicated with his own opinions, his
own talk, intoxicated otherwise on occasion, if we may believe some
of his biographers. The works which he has left are precious for
science, but they must be read with caution. He may be called the
divine Paracelsus, understood in the sense of diviner; he is an oracle,
but not a true master. He is great above all as a physician, for he
had found the Universal Medicine. This notwithstanding, he could not
prolong his own life, and he died, while still young, worn out by work
and by excesses.[257] He left behind him a name shining with fantastic
and ambiguous glory, due to discoveries by which his contemporaries
failed to profit. He had not uttered his last word, and is one of those
mysterious beings of whom it may be said, as of Enoch and St. John: He
is not dead, and he will come again upon earth before the last day.
CHAPTER V
SOME FAMOUS SORCERERS AND MAGICIANS
Amidst a great multiplicity of commentaries and studies on the work of
Dante, no one, that we are aware, has signalised its characteristic
in chief. The masterpiece of the glorious Ghibelline is a declaration
of war against the papacy by a daring revelation of mysteries. The
epic of Dante is Johannite and Gnostic; it is a bold application of
Kabalistic figures and numbers to Christian dogmas, and is further
a secret negation of the absolute element therein; his visit to the
supernatural worlds takes place like an initiation into the Mysteries
of Eleusis and Thebes. He is guided and protected by Virgil amidst the
circles of the new Tartarus, as if the tender and melancholy prophet of
the destinies of the son of Pollio were, in the eyes of the Florentine
poet, the illegitimate yet true father of the Christian epic. Thanks to
the pagan genius of Virgil, Dante emerges from that gulf above the door
of which he had read the sentence of despair; he escapes by standing
on his head, which means by reversing dogma. So does he ascend to the
light, using the demon himself, like a monstrous ladder; by the force
of terror he emerges from terror, from the horrible by the power of
horror. He seems to testify that hell is without egress for those only
who cannot go back on themselves; he takes the devil against the grain,
if I may use so familiar an expression, and attains emancipation by
audacity.[258] This is truly protestantism surpassed, and the poet of
Rome’s enemies has already divined Faust ascending to heaven on the
head of the defeated Mephistopheles. Observe also that the hell of
Dante is but a negative purgatory, by which is meant that his purgatory
seems to take form in his hell, as if in a mould; it is like the lid
or stopper of the gulf, and it will be understood that the Florentine
titan in scaling Paradise meant to kick purgatory into hell.[259]
His heaven is composed of a series of Kabalistic circles divided by
a cross, like the pantacle of Ezekiel; in the centre of this cross
a rose blossoms, thus for the first time manifesting publicly and
almost explaining categorically the symbol of the Rosicrucians. We say
for the first time because William of Lorris, who died in 1260, five
years before the birth of Dante, did not complete the _Romance of the
Rose_, his mantle falling upon Clopinel some fifty years later. It
will be discovered with a certain astonishment that the _Romance of
the Rose_ and the _Divine Comedy_ are two opposite forms of a single
work—initiation by independence of spirit, satire on all contemporary
institutions and an allegorical formula of the grand secrets of the
Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross.
These important manifestations of occultism coincide with the fall of
the Templars, since Jean de Meung, or Clopinel, a contemporary of Dante
in the old age of the latter, flourished during his best years at the
court of Philip the Fair. The _Romance of the Rose_ is the epic of
old France, a profound work in a trivial form, a revelation of occult
mysteries as instructed as that of Apuleius. The roses of Flamel, Jean
de Meung and Dante belong to the same bush.
A genius like Dante could not be an arch-heretic. Great men give an
impetus to intelligence, and the impetus takes effect subsequently
in activities which are started by restless mediocrities. It may
have been that Dante was never read and he would assuredly not have
been understood by Luther. This notwithstanding, the mission of the
Ghibellines, made fruitful by the potent thought of the poet, raised up
the empire against the papacy by slow degrees; it was continued from
century to century under various names, and in the end it made Germany
protestant. It was certainly not Luther who produced the Reformation;
it was the latter which took possession of Luther and impelled him
forward. This square-shouldered monk could boast only obstinacy and
daring, but he was the needful instrument for revolutionary ideas.
Luther was the Danton of anarchic theology; superstitious and rash,
he believed that he was obsessed by the devil; it was the devil who
dictated his arguments against the Church, made him declaim, spout
nonsense, and above all things write. The inspiring genius of all the
Cains asked nothing at that time but ink, preassured that, given this
fluid flowing from the pen of Luther, there would be presently a sea of
blood. Luther was conscious of the fact, and he hated the devil because
he was another master; one day he threw the ink-horn at his head, as
if to satiate him by the violent libation. The episode recalls that
jocular regicide who daubed his accomplices with ink when he signed the
death-warrant of Charles I.
The device of Luther was: “Turk rather than papist;” and as a fact
protestantism at its root is, like Islamism, simple Deism organised
into a conventional cultus, or if it differs therefrom it is only by
its remnants of catholicism imperfectly effaced. From the standpoint of
the negation of catholic dogma, the protestants are Moslems with a few
superstitions the more and a prophet the less.
Men renounce God less unwillingly than they give up the devil, as the
apostates of all times have proved abundantly. Speedily subdivided by
anarchy, the disciples of Luther had but one bond of belief in common;
all had faith in Satan, and this spectre, magnifying in proportion as
their spirit of revolt took them the farther from God, reached terrible
proportions at last. Carlostad, archdeacon of Würtemberg, being one day
in the pulpit, saw a black man enter the temple, take a seat in front
of him and stare at him with dreadful fixity through the entire length
of his sermon. He became anxious, left the pulpit and questioned the
assistants; but no one had seen the phantom. Carlostad returned home
in a state of dismay; he was met by the youngest of his sons, who said
that a stranger in black had inquired for him and promised to return in
three days. There was no room for doubt in the mind of the hallucinated
archdeacon; that stranger was the spectre of his vision. A fever was
brought on by his terror, he retired to bed and died before the third
day.
These unhappy heretics were afraid of their own shadows; their
consciences had remained catholic and consigned them to hell without
pity. Walking one evening with his wife Catherine de Bora, Luther
looked up to heaven, which was bright with stars, and said in an
undertone, as he sighed deeply: “Ah, beautiful sky, which I shall
never see!” “What!” exclaimed his wife. “Do you then think that you are
condemned?” Luther answered: “Who knows whether God will not punish
us for having been unfaithful to our vows?” Supposing that Catherine,
seeing his lack of self-confidence, had cursed and left him, it may
be that the reformer, overcome by the Divine Warning, would have
recognised his criminal offence in betraying that Church which was his
first spouse and would have turned weeping towards the cloister which
he had left wilfully. But God, Who withstands the proud, doubtless
found him unworthy of this saving affliction. The sacrilegious comedy
of Luther’s marriage was the providential punishment of his pride, and
as he remained obstinate in his sin, that punishment was always with
him and derided him to the end. He died between the devil and his wife,
appalled at the one and exceedingly embarrassed by the other.
Corruption and superstition are well paired together. The epoch of the
dissolute Renaissance, equally persecuting and credulous, was certainly
not that of the second birth of reason. Catherine de Médicis was a
sorceress, Charles IX consulted necromancers, Henry III played at
devotion and debauch. It was the heyday then of astrologers, though a
few of them were tortured from time to time, to make them change their
predictions. There were, moreover, the court sorcerers, who dabbled a
little in poisoning and deserved the hangman’s rope. _Trois-Échelles_,
the magician of Charles IX, was a juggler and rogue; one day he made
confession to the King and his misdeeds were not peccadillos; the King
forgave him, but promised his cure on the gallows if he had a relapse;
he did relapse, and was hanged in due course.[260]
When the League vowed the death of the weakly and miserable Henri III
it had recourse to witchcraft and Black Magic. L’Étoile[261] declares
that a wax image of the King was set on the altars where priests of the
League said Mass, and that the image was stabbed with a knife during
a prayer embodying maledictions and anathemas. When the King failed
to die with sufficient celerity, it was concluded that he was also a
sorcerer. Pamphlets were published representing Henri III as holding
conventions where the crimes of Sodom and Gomorrah were but the prelude
of more frightful and unheard of outrages. Included among the King’s
minions there was said to be one who was the devil in person, and young
virgins were abducted and prostituted by force to Beelzebub.[262]
The people believed these fables, and a fanatic was found at last
to execute the threats of sorcery. Jacques Clément suffered from
visions and imperious voices, which commanded him to kill the King;
he sought regicide like a martyr and died laughing like the heroes of
Scandinavian mythology. Scandal-mongering chronicles have pretended
that a great lady of the court supplemented the inspirations of the
monk’s solitude by the magnetism of her caresses; but the anecdote is
wanting in probability. It was the monk’s continence which promoted
his exaltation, and had he begun to lead the blind life of passion an
unsatiable appetite for pleasure would have possessed his entire nature
and he would not have been willing to die.
Whilst religious wars incarnadined the world, secret illuministic
associations, which were nothing but theurgic and magical schools, were
incorporated in Germany. The most ancient of these seems to have been
that of the Rosicrucians, whose symbols go back to the times of the
Guelphs and the Ghibellines, as we see by the allegories in the poem of
Dante and by the emblems in the _Romance of the Rose_.
The rose, which from all times has been the type of beauty, life, love
and pleasure, expressed mystically the secret thought of all protests
manifested at the Renaissance.[263] It was the flesh in rebellion
against the oppression of spirit; it was Nature testifying that, like
grace, she was a daughter of God; it was love refusing to be stifled by
the celibate; it was life in revolt against sterility; it was humanity
aspiring towards natural religion, full of reason and love, founded
on the revelations of the harmony of being, of which the rose, for
initiates, was the living floral symbol. It is in truth a pantacle; the
form is circular, the leaves of the corolla are heart-shaped and rest
harmoniously on one another; its tint offers the most harmonious shades
of the primitive colours; its calyx is of purple and gold. We have seen
that Flamel, or rather the _Book of Abraham the Jew_, represents it
as the hieroglyphical sign of the fulfilment of the Great Work.[264]
Here is the key to the romance of Clopinel and William de Lorris. The
conquest of the rose was the problem offered by initiation to science,
whilst religion was at work to prepare and to establish the universal,
exclusive and final triumph of the Cross.
The problem proposed by high initiation was the union of the
Rose and the Cross, and in effect occult philosophy, being the
universal synthesis, must take into account all phenomena of being.
Considered solely as a physiological fact, religion is the revelation
and satisfaction of a need of souls. Its existence as a fact is
scientific, and to deny it would be a denial of humanity itself. No
one has invented it; like laws and civilisations, it is formed by
the necessities of moral life. From this merely philosophical and
restrained standpoint, religion must be regarded as fatal if one
explains all by fatality, and as Divine if one confesses to a Supreme
Intelligence as the mainspring of natural laws.[265] Hence it follows
that the characteristic of every religion, properly so called, being
to depend directly from Divinity by a supernatural revelation—no other
mode of transmission providing a sufficient sanction of dogma—it must
be concluded that the true natural religion is religion that has been
revealed; this is to say, it is natural to adopt a religion only on the
understanding that it has been revealed, every true religion exhorting
sacrifices, and man having neither the power nor right to impose the
same on his fellow-creatures, outside and especially above the ordinary
conditions of humanity.
Proceeding from this strictly rational principle, the Rosicrucians
were led to respect the dominant hierarchic and revealed religion.
They could be therefore no more the enemies of the papacy than of
legitimate monarchy, while if they conspired against popes and kings,
it was because they considered these or those personally as apostates
in respect of duty and supreme abettors of anarchy.[266] What in fact
is a despot—whether spiritual or temporal—but a crowned anarchist?
It is possible to explain in this manner the protestantism and even
radicalism of certain great adepts, who were assuredly more catholic
than some popes and more monarchic than some kings—of certain eccentric
adepts, such as Henry Khunrath and the true _illuminati_ of his school.
By all but those who have made a particular study of the occult
sciences, Khunrath is practically unknown; he is a master
notwithstanding, and one of the first rank. He is a sovereign prince of
the Rosy Cross, worthy in all respects of this scientific and mystical
title.[267] His pantacles are splendid as the light of the _Book of
Splendour_, called _Zohar_; they are learned as Trithemius, precise
like Pythagoras, complete in their disclosure of the Great Work as the
book of Abraham and Nicholas Flamel.
Khunrath, who was chemist and physician, was born in 1502, and he
was forty-two years old when he attained transcendent theosophical
initiation.[268] The _Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom_, which is
the most remarkable of his works, was published in 1598, for the
approbation of the Emperor Rudolph annexed thereto was dated on
June 1 of the year in question.[269] Though professing a radical
protestantism, the author claims loudly the titles of catholic and
orthodox; he testifies that he possesses, but keeps secret as he ought,
a key to the Apocalypse, which key is one and threefold, even as
universal science. The division of the work is sevenfold, and through
these sections are distributed the seven degrees of initiation into
transcendental philosophy. The text is a mystical commentary on the
oracles of Solomon,[270] and the work ends with a series of synoptic
schedules which are the synthesis of Magic and the occult Kabalah—so
far as concerns that which can be made public in writing. The rest,
being the esoteric and inexpressible part of the science, is formulated
in magnificent pantacles carefully designed and engraved. These are
nine in number, as follows: (1) The dogma of Hermes; (2) Magical
realisation; (3) The path of wisdom and the initial procedure in
the work; (4) The Gate of the Sanctuary enlightened by seven mystic
rays; (5) A Rose of Light, in the centre of which a human figure is
extending its arms in the form of a cross; (6) The magical laboratory
of Khunrath, demonstrating the necessary union of prayer and work; (7)
The absolute synthesis of science; (8) Universal equilibrium; (9) A
summary of Khunrath’s personal doctrine, embodying an energetic protest
against all his detractors.[271] It is a Hermetic pantacle surrounded
by a German caricature, full of liveliness and ingenuous choler. The
philosopher’s enemies are depicted as insects, zanies, oxen, and
asses, the whole being decorated with Latin legends and gross German
epigrams. Khunrath is shewn on the right in the garb of a citizen,
and on the left in that of his student’s apartment; in both he makes
faces at his adversaries. As a townsman he is armed with a sword and
tramples on the tail of a serpent; as a student he is carrying a pair
of tongs and is crushing the serpent’s head. In public he demonstrates
and at home instructs, but as indicated by his gestures, the truth is
the same always and expressed with disdain for the impure breath of his
adversaries. The latter notwithstanding is so pestilential that the
birds of heaven fall dead at their feet. This exceedingly curious plate
is wanting in many copies of the work.
The book as a whole contains all mysteries of the highest initiation.
As the title announces, it is Christo-Kabalistic, Divine-magical,
physico-chemical, threefold-one, and universal. It is a true manual
of Transcendental Magic and Hermetic Philosophy. A more complete and
perfect initiation cannot be found elsewhere, unless indeed it is in
the _Sepher Yetzirah_ and _Zohar_. In the four important corollaries
which follow the explanation of the third figure, Khunrath establishes:
(1) That the cost of accomplishing the Great Work (apart from the
operator’s maintenance and personal expenses) should not exceed the sum
of thirty thalers. He adds: “I speak with authority, having learned
from one who had knowledge; those who expend more deceive themselves
and waste their money.” It follows that either Khunrath had not himself
composed the Philosophical Stone or did not wish to admit it for fear
of persecution. He proceeds to establish the duty of the adept not to
devote more than the tenth part of his wealth to his personal use,
the rest being consecrated to the glory of God and works of charity.
Finally, he affirms that the mysteries of Christianity and Nature
interpret and illuminate one another, and that the future reign of
Messiah will rest on the dual foundation of science and faith. The
oracles of the Gospel being thus confirmed by the book of Nature, it
will be possible to convince Jews and Mohammedans regarding the truth
of Christianity on the grounds of science and reason, so that—with the
help of Divine Grace—they will be converted infallibly to the religion
of unity. He ends with this maxim: “The seal of Nature and of Art is
simplicity.”
Contemporary with Khunrath there was another initiated doctor, Hermetic
philosopher and disciple of Paracelsian medicine; this was Oswald
Crollius, author of the _Book of Signatures, or True and Vital Anatomy
of the Greater and Lesser World_.[272] The preface to this work is a
sketch of Hermetic philosophy, exceedingly well done; Crollius seeks
to demonstrate that God and Nature have, so to speak, signed all
their works, that every product of a given natural force bears the
stamp of that force printed in indelible characters, so that he who
is initiated in the occult writings can read, as in an open book, the
sympathies and antipathies of things, the properties of substances and
all other secrets of creation. The characters of different writings
were borrowed primitively from these natural signatures existing in
stars and flowers, on mountains and the smallest pebble. The figures of
crystals, the marks on minerals, were impressions of the thought which
the Creator had in their formation. The idea is rich in poetry and
grandeur, but we lack any grammar of this mysterious language of worlds
and a methodical vocabulary of this primitive and absolute speech. King
Solomon alone is credited with having accomplished the dual labour;
but the books of Solomon are lost. The enterprise of Crollius was not
a reconstitution of these, but an attempt to discover the fundamental
principles obtaining in the universal language of the creative Word.
It was recognised on these principles that the original hieroglyphics,
based on the prime elements of geometry, corresponded to the
constitutive and essential laws of forms, determined by alternating
or combined movements, which, in their turn, were determined by
equilibratory attractions. Simples were distinguished from composites
by their external figures; and by the correspondence between figures
and numbers it became possible to make a mathematical classification
of all substances revealed by the lines of their surfaces. At the root
of these endeavours, which are reminiscences of Edenic science, there
is a whole world of discoveries awaiting the sciences. Paracelsus had
divined them, Crollius indicates them, another who shall follow will
realise and provide the demonstration concerning them. What seemed the
folly of yesterday will be the genius of to-morrow, and progress will
hail the sublime seekers who first looked into this lost and recovered
world, this Atlantis of human knowledge.
The beginning of the seventeenth century was the great epoch of
alchemy; it was the period of Philip Muller, John Torneburg, Michael
Maier, Ortelius, Poterius, Samuel Norton, Baron de Beausoleil,
David Planis Campe, Jean Duchesne, Robert Fludd, Benjamin Mustapha,
D’Espagnet, the Cosmopolite—who is in the first rank—de Nuisement, who
translated and published the Cosmopolite’s writings, John Baptist van
Helmont, Eirenæus Philalethes, Rodolph Glauber, the sublime shoemaker
Jacob Böhme.[273] The chief among these initiates were devoted to
the researches of Transcendental Magic, but they concealed most
carefully that detested name under the veil of Hermetic experiments.
The Mercury of the Wise which they desired to discover and hand on to
their disciples was the scientific and religious synthesis, the peace
which abides in the sovereign unity. The mystics themselves were but
blind believers in the true _illuminati_, while illuminism, properly so
called, was the universal science of light.
In the spring of 1623 the following strange proclamation was placarded
through the streets of Paris: “We who are the authorised messengers of
the Brothers of the Rosy Cross, making visible and invisible sojourn in
this town, by the grace of the Most High, towards Whom the hearts of
sages turn, do give instruction, without external means, in speaking
the language of the countries wherein we dwell,[274] and do rescue
men who are our fellow-workers from terror and from death. If anyone
shall seek us out of mere curiosity, he will never communicate with
us; but if he be actuated by an earnest desire to be inscribed on the
register of our fraternity, we, who are discerners of thoughts, will
make manifest to such an one the truth of our promises, so only that we
do not disclose the place of our abode, since thought in its union with
the firm will of the reader shall be sufficient to make us known to him
and him likewise to us.”
Public opinion took hold of this mysterious manifesto, and if anyone
asked openly who were those Brothers of the Rosy Cross, an unknown
personage would perchance take the inquirer apart, and say to him
gravely[275]: “Predestined to the reformation which must take place
speedily in the whole universe, the Rosicrucians are depositaries of
supreme wisdom, and as undisturbed possessors of all gifts of Nature,
they can dispense these at pleasure. In whatsoever place they may be,
they know all things which are going on in the rest of the world better
than if they were present amongst them; they are superior to hunger
and thirst and have neither age nor disease to fear. They can command
the most powerful spirits and genii. God has covered them with a cloud
to protect them from their enemies, and they cannot be seen except
by their own consent—had anyone eyes more piercing than those of the
eagle. Their general assemblies are held in the pyramids of Egypt; but,
even as the rock whence issued the spring of Moses, these pyramids
proceed with them into the desert and will follow them until they enter
the Promised Land.”
CHAPTER VI
SOME MAGICAL PROSECUTIONS
The Greek author of the allegorical Tablet of Cebes gives expression to
this admirable conclusion: “There is one only real good to be desired,
and this is wisdom; there is but one evil to fear, and it is madness.”
Moral evil, wickedness and crime are indeed and literally mania. Father
Hilarion Tissot has therefore our heartfelt sympathy when he proclaims
without ceasing in his extravagantly daring pamphlets that in place
of punishing criminals we must take them under our charge and cure
them. But, sympathy notwithstanding reason rises in protest against
excessively charitable interpretations of crime, the consequence
of which would be to destroy the sanction of morality by disarming
law. We liken mania to intoxication, and seeing that the latter is
nearly always voluntary, we applaud the wisdom of judges who punish
the misdemeanours and crimes committed in the state of drunkenness,
not regarding the voluntary loss of reason as an excuse. There may
come even a day when the self-induced condition will be counted as an
aggravating circumstance and when the intelligent being who by his
own act sets himself outside reason will find that he is also outside
the pale of law. Is not law the reason of humanity? Woe to him who
gets drunk, whether with wine, pride, hatred, or even love. He becomes
blind, unjust, the sport of circumstance; he is a walking scourge and
living fatality; he may slay or violate; he is an unchained fool, and
let him be denounced as such. Society has the right of self-defence; it
is more than a right, it is duty, for society has children.
These reflections are prompted by the magical prosecutions of which
we have to give some account. The Church and Society have been too
often charged with the judicial murder of fools. We admit that the
sorcerers were fools, but theirs was the folly of perversity. If some
innocent but diseased persons have perished among them, these things
are misfortunes for which neither Society nor the Church can be held
responsible. Every man who is condemned according to the laws of his
country and the judicial forms of his time is condemned justly, his
possible innocence being henceforth in the hands of God: before men he
is and must remain guilty.
In a remarkable romance, called _The Sorceresses’ Sabbath_,[276] Ludwig
Tieck depicts a holy woman, a poor old creature outworn by macerations,
mentally enfeebled by fasts and prayers, who, being full of horror
at sorcerers, yet disposed by excess of humility to accuse herself
of all crimes, ends in believing that she is a witch, confesses it,
is convicted by error and prejudgment, and finally is burnt alive.
What would such a history prove, supposing that it were true? Neither
more nor less than the possibility of a judicial blunder. But if such
mistakes are possible in fact they cannot be so in equity, or what
would become of human justice? Socrates condemned to death might have
had recourse to flight and his own judges would have furnished the
means, but he respected the laws and resolved therefore to die.
The severity of certain sentences must be blamed to the laws and not
the tribunals of the middle ages. Was Gilles de Laval, whose crimes and
their punishment have been narrated, condemned unjustly, and must he be
absolved as a fool? Were those horrible imbeciles innocent who composed
philtres from the fat of little children? Moreover, Black Magic was the
general mania of this unfortunate epoch. By their incessant application
to questions of sorcery, the very judges occasionally ended by
thinking that they also had committed the same crimes. The plague
became epidemic in many localities and executions seemed to multiply
the guilty.
Demonographers like Delancre, Delrio, Sprenger, Bodin, and Torreblanca
give reports of many prosecutions, the details of which are equally
tedious and revolting. The condemned creatures were mostly hallucinated
and idiotic, but they were wicked in their idiocy and dangerous in
their hallucination. Erotic passion, greed and hatred were the chief
causes which brought about disorder in their reason: they were indeed
capable of anything. Sprenger says that sorceresses were in league
with midwives to secure dead bodies of new-born children. The midwives
killed these innocents at the very moment of their birth, driving long
needles into the brain. The babe was said to have been still-born and
was buried as such; on the night following, the stryges dug up the
ground and removed the corpse, which they stewed in a pan with narcotic
and poisonous herbs, afterwards distilling this human gelatine. The
liquor did duty as an elixir of long life, and the solid part—pounded
and incorporated with soot and the grease of a black cat—was used for
magical rubbing. The stomach turns with loathing at such abominable
revelations, and pity is silenced by anger; but when one refers to
the trials themselves, sees the credulity and cruelty of judges, the
lying promises of mercy employed to extract admissions, the atrocious
tortures, obscene examinations, shameful and ridiculous precautions,
and finally the public execution, with the derisive ministrations of
a priesthood which surrendered to the secular arm and asked mercy on
those whom it had just condemned to death, amidst all this chaos one
is forced to conclude that religion alone rests holy, but that human
beings are all and equally either idiots or scoundrels.
In the year 1598 a priest of Limousin, named Pierre Aupetit, was
burned alive for ridiculous confessions extracted from him by
torture.[277] In 1599 a woman named Antide Collas was burned at Dôle
because there was something abnormal in her sexual conformation, and it
was regarded as explicable only by a shameful intercourse with Satan.
Repeatedly put to the torture, stripped, scrutinised by doctors and
judges, overwhelmed with shame and suffering, the unfortunate being
confessed everything that she might somehow end it all.[278] Henri
Boguet, judge of Saint-Claude, relates how he caused a woman to be
tortured as a sorceress because there was a piece missing from the
cross of her rosary, and it was a certain sign of witchcraft in the
view of this ferocious maniac. A child of twelve years, brought up by
the inquisitors, accused his own father of taking him to the Sabbath.
The father died in prison as the result of his sufferings, and it
was proposed to burn the boy, which was opposed by Boguet—who made a
virtue of the clemency. Rollande de Vernois, thirty-five years old,
was imprisoned in such a freezing dungeon that she promised to admit
herself guilty of Magic if she might be allowed to go near a fire.
As soon as she felt its warmth she fell into frightful convulsions,
accompanied by fever and delirium. In this condition she was put to
the torture, made every required statement, and was dragged in a dying
condition to the stake. A storm broke out, extinguished the fire, and
thereupon Boguet gloated over the sentence which he had pronounced,
since she who in appearance was thus protected by heaven must really
and incontestably be aided by the devil. This same judge burnt Pierre
Gaudillon and Pierre le Gros for travelling by night, the one in the
form of a hare and the other in that of a wolf.
But the prosecution which caused the greatest stir at the beginning of
the seventeenth century was that of Messire Louis Gaufridi, curé of the
parish of Accoules, at Marseilles. The scandal of this affair created a
fatal precedent, which was only followed too faithfully. It was a case
of priests accusing a priest, of a minister dragged before a tribunal
of his associates in the ministry. Constantine had said that if he
found a priest dishonouring his calling by some shameful sin he would
cover him with his own purple, which was a beautiful and royal saying,
for the priesthood ought to be stainless, even as justice is infallible
in the presence of public morality.[279]
In December 1610 a young woman of Marseilles went on a pilgrimage to
Sainte-Baume in Provence, and there fell into ecstasy and convulsions.
She was named Magdelaine de la Palud. Louise Capeau, another devotee,
was similarly seized some short time after.[280] The Dominicans
and Capuchins believed that it was possession by the devil and had
recourse to exorcisms. The result was that Magdelaine de la Palud and
her fellow-victim presented that spectacle which was renewed so often
a century later during the epidemic of convulsions. They screamed,
writhed, begged to be beaten and trampled under foot. One day six men
walked successively over the breast of Magdelaine without the slightest
suffering on her part. While in this state she made confession of the
most extraordinary licentiousness, saying that she had given herself,
body and soul, to the devil, to whom she had been affianced by a priest
named Gaufridi.[281] So far from incarcerating the distracted girl,
she obtained a hearing, and the exorcising monks despatched three
Capuchins to Marseilles for the purpose of secretly acquainting the
ecclesiastical superiors with the state of affairs at Sainte-Baume,
the object, if possible, being to bring the curé Gaufridi thither and
confront him with the supposed demons.[282]
Furthermore, the monks put on record the infernal inspirations of the
two hysterics, which were discourses full of ignorant and fanatical
devotion, presenting religion as this was understood by the exorcists
themselves. In a word, the possessed women seemed to be relating the
dreams of those who exorcised them: it was precisely the phenomena of
table-rapping and mediums in our own days. The devils assumed names not
less incongruous than those of the spirits in America; they declaimed
against printing and books, delivering sermons worthy of the most
fervent and illiterate Capuchins. In the presence of demons made in
their own image and their own likeness, the fathers were confirmed in
the fact of the possession and in the veracity of the infernal spirits.
The phantoms of their diseased imaginations assumed bodily shape and
living manifestation in the two women, whose obscene admissions at once
stimulated their curiosity and their indignation, full of secret lust.
Such were their dispositions when the unhappy Louis Gaufridi was at
length brought before them.
Gaufridi was an all too worldly priest, of agreeable countenance,
weak character and more than dubious morality.[283] He had been the
confessor of Magdelaine de la Palud and had inspired her with an
insatiable passion, which, being changed by jealousy into hatred,
became a fatality and drew the unfortunate priest into its whirlpool of
madness, by which he was carried ultimately to the stake. Whatsoever
was said by the accused in his own defence was turned against him. He
called on God and Christ Jesus, on the Blessed Mother of Christ and the
precursor St. John Baptist; but they answered: You are excellent at
reciting the Litanies of the Sabbath. By God, you understand Lucifer;
by Jesus Christ, Beelzebub; by the Holy Virgin, the apostate mother of
Antichrist; by St. John Baptist, the false prophet and precursor of Gog
and Magog.
Gaufridi was put to the torture and promised mercy if he would sign
the declarations of Magdelaine de la Palud. Distracted, circumvented,
broken, the poor priest signed whatever was required; it was sufficient
for his burning, and this was the object in view.[284] This also was
the frightful spectacle which the Provençal Capuchins gave to the
people as a lesson in violating the privileges of the sanctuary. They
shewed how priests are killed, and the people remembered later on. A
rabbi who witnessed the prodigies which went before the destruction of
Jerusalem by Titus exclaimed: “O Holy Temple, what is it that possesses
thee, and why frighten thyself in this manner? “Neither Chair of
Peter nor bishops protested against the murder of Gaufridi, but the
eighteenth century was to come, bringing the Revolution in its wake.
One of the possessed women[285] who had destroyed the curé of Accoules
testified that the demon was leaving her to prepare the murder of
another priest, whom she named prophetically in advance and in the
absence of all personal knowledge: this was Urbain Grandier. It was
then the reign of that terrible Cardinal de Richelieu, for whom
absolute authority alone could guarantee the salvation of states;
unfortunately his tendencies were political and subtle rather than
truly Christian. One limitation which characterised this great man
was a certain narrowness of heart, which made him sensible to personal
offence and also implacable in revenge. And further, that which he was
least ready to pardon in talent was independence; while he preferred
men of parts for auxiliaries rather than flatterers, he took a certain
pleasure in destroying whatsoever desired to shine apart from him. His
ambition was to dominate all; Father Joseph was his right hand and
Laubardemont his left.
There was then in the provinces, at Loudun, an ecclesiastic of
remarkable genius and exalted character, possessed also of learning and
talent but lacking in circumspection. Made to please multitudes and
attract the sympathies of the great, he might on occasion have become
a dangerous partisan; protestantism was at that period bestirring in
France, and the curé of St. Peter’s at Loudun, predisposed to the new
ideas by his dislike of ecclesiastical celibacy, might prove at the
head of such a party a preacher more brilliant than Calvin and not less
daring than Luther. He was named Urbain Grandier. Serious differences
with his bishop had already given instances of his ability and his
inflexible character, but by mischance it was maladroit ability, since
from enemies who were powerful he had appealed to the King and not,
unhappily, to the Cardinal. The King held that he was right, but it
remained for the Cardinal to teach him how far he was wrong. Grandier
meanwhile had gone back in triumph to Loudun, and had indulged in the
unclerical display of entering the town bearing a branch of laurel.
From that time he was lost.[286]
The Lady-Superior of the Ursuline nuns at Loudun was named Mother
Jeanne des Anges in religion, otherwise, Jeanne de Belfiel,
grand-daughter of the Baron de Cose. She could not be termed fervent
in piety, and her convent was not to be ranked among the strictest in
the country; in particular, nocturnal scenes took place which were
attributed to spirits.[287] Relatives withdrew boarders, and the house
was on the point of being denuded of all resources. Grandier was
responsible for certain intrigues and was a little careless regarding
them, while he was much too public a character for the idleness of a
small town not to make a noise over his shortcomings. The pupils of the
Ursulines heard them discussed mysteriously by their parents; the nuns
spoke of them, deploring the scandal and dwelling over much upon him
through whom it arose; of that which they talked by day they dreamed by
night; and so it came about that at night they saw him appear in their
dormitories under circumstances which were conformable with his alleged
morals; they uttered cries, believed themselves obsessed, and in this
manner the devil was let loose among them.
The directors of the nuns, who were mortal enemies of Grandier, did
not fail to perceive the advantage they could draw from the affair in
the interests of their rancour and in those of the convent.[288] They
began to perform exorcisms—at first privately and afterwards in public.
The friends of Grandier felt that there was a plot hatching, and
were anxious that he should exchange his benefice, in order to leave
Loudun, believing that everything would quiet down when he was gone.
But Grandier was brave and could not tolerate yielding to calumny;
he remained therefore and was arrested one morning as he entered his
church, clothed in sacerdotal vestments. He was treated forthwith as
a State prisoner; his papers were seized, seals were placed on his
effects, and he was conducted, under a strong guard, to the fortress at
Angers. Meanwhile a dungeon was prepared for him at Loudun which seemed
intended for a wild beast rather than a man. Richelieu, informed of
everything, had despatched Laubardemont to make an end of Grandier and
forbade the parliament to take cognisance of the affair.
If the conduct of the Curé of Saint-Pierre had been that of a
worldling, the demeanour of Grandier, a prisoner on a charge of Magic,
was that of a hero and a martyr: so does adversity reveal great souls,
and it is much easier to withstand suffering than prosperity. He wrote
to his mother: “I bear my affliction with patience and pity yours more
than my own. I am very unwell, having no bed; try to have mine brought
me; for if the body does not rest the mind gives way. Send me also my
breviary, a bible, and St. Thomas for my consolation. For the rest, do
not grieve; I hope that God will vindicate my innocence.”[289]
There is no question that God does sooner or later take the part of
persecuted innocence, but He does not invariably deliver it from
enemies on earth, save indeed by death. This lesson was about to be
learned by Grandier. On our own part, do not let us represent men worse
than they are in fact; his enemies did not believe in his innocence;
they pursued him with fury, but he whom they pursued was for them a
great criminal.
The phenomena of hysteria were little understood at the time, and
somnambulism was quite unknown; the convulsions of nuns; their
bodily motions exceeding all normal human power; their astonishing
evidences of second sight were things of a nature to convince the
least credulous. A well known atheist of the day, being the Sieur de
Kériolet, counsellor in the parliament of Brittany, came to witness
the exorcisms and to deride them. The nuns, who had never seen him,
addressed him by name and published sins which he supposed to be
unknown to anyone. He was so overwhelmed that he passed from one
extreme to another, like all hot-headed natures; he shed tears, made
his confession and dedicated his remaining days to the strictest
asceticism.
The sophistry of the exorcists of Loudun was that absurd unreason which
M. de Mirville has the courage to sustain at the present day: the devil
is the author of all phenomena which cannot be explained by known laws
of Nature. To this illogical maxim they joined another which was, so to
speak, an article of faith: the devil who has been duly exorcised is
compelled to speak the truth and can therefore be admitted as a witness
in the cause of justice.
The unfortunate Grandier was not therefore delivered into the hands
of malefactors but rather of raving maniacs, who, strong in their
rectitude of conscience, gave the fullest publicity to this incredible
prosecution. Such a scandal had never afflicted the church—howling,
writhing nuns, making the most obscene gestures, blaspheming, striving
to cast themselves on Grandier like the Bacchantes on Orpheus; the most
sacred things of religion mixed up with this hideous spectacle and
drawn in the filth thereof; amidst all Grandier alone calm, shrugging
his shoulders and defending himself with dignity and mildness; in fine,
pallid, distraught judges, sweating profusely, and Laubardemont in his
red robe, hovering over the conflict, like a vulture awaiting a corpse:
such was the prosecution of Urbain Grandier.
Let us say for the honour of humanity that one is compelled to assume
good faith in exorcists and judges alike, for such a conspiracy as
would be involved in the legal murder of the accused is happily
impossible. Monsters are as uncommon as heroes; the mass is composed of
mediocrities, equally incapable of great virtues and great crimes. The
holiest persons of the day believed in the possession at Loudun; even
St. Vincent de Paul was not unacquainted with its history and was asked
to give his opinion about it. Richelieu himself, though he might in any
case have found some way of getting rid of Grandier, ended by believing
him guilty. His death was the crime arising from the ignorance and
prejudice of the period; it was a catastrophe rather than a murder.
We spare our readers the details of his tortures: he remained firm,
resigned, patient, although confessing nothing; he did not even affect
to despise his judges but prayed mildly for the exorcists to spare
him: “And you, my fathers,” he said to them, “abate the rigour of my
torments, and reduce not my soul to despair.” Through this moan of
complaining nature, one discerns all the meekness of the Christian
who forgives. To hide their emotion, the exorcists replied with
invectives, and the executioners wept.[290] Three nuns, in one of
their lucid moments, cast themselves before the tribunal, crying that
Grandier was innocent, but it was believed that the devil was speaking
by their mouth,[291] and their declaration only hastened the end.
Urbain Grandier was burnt alive on August 18, 1634. He was patient
and resigned to the end. When he was taken from the cart, his legs
being broken, he fell heavily face down on the earth without uttering
a single cry or groan. A Franciscan, named Father Grillau, squeezed
through the crowd and raised up the sufferer, whom he embraced weeping:
“I bring you,” said he, “the blessing of your mother: she and I pray
God for you.” “Thank you, my father,” answered Grandier; “you alone
pity me; console my poor mother and be a son unto her.” The provost’s
lieutenant, deeply affected, then said to him: “Sir, forgive me the
part I am compelled to take in your anguish.” And Grandier answered:
“You have not offended me and are obliged to fulfil the duties
committed to your charge.” They had promised to strangle him before the
burning, but when the executioner sought to tighten the rope it proved
to be knotted, and the unfortunate Curé de St. Pierre fell alive into
the flames.
The chief exorcists, Fathers Tranquille and Lactance, died soon after
in the delirium of violent frenzy; Father Surin, who succeeded them,
became imbecile; Manoury, the surgeon who assisted at the torturing of
Grandier, died haunted by the phantom of his victim. Laubardemont lost
his son in a tragical manner and fell into disgrace with his master;
the nuns remained idiots. So is it true that the question was one of a
terrible and contagious malady, the mental disease of false zeal and
false devotion. Providence punishes people by their own faults and
instructs them by the sad consequences of their errors.
Ten years after the death of Grandier, the Loudun scandals were renewed
in Normandy, where the nuns of Louviers accused two priests of having
bewitched them. Of these priests, one was already dead, but they
violated the sanctity of the tomb to disinter his corpse. The details
of the possession were identical with those of Loudun and Sainte-Baume.
The hysterical women translated into foul language the nightmares of
their directors. Both priests were condemned to the flames, and—to
increase the horror—a living man and a corpse were bound to the same
stake. The punishment of Mezentius, that fiction of a pagan poet, came
so to be realised by Christians; a Christian people assisted coldly at
the sacrilegious execution, and the ministers did not realise that in
thus profaning at once the priestly office and the dead, they gave
a frightful precedent to impiety. When the call came, the eighteenth
century arrived to extinguish the fires with the blood of priests, and,
as it happens almost invariably, the good paid for the wicked. At the
beginning of that century the burning of human beings still proceeded;
though faith was dead, hypocrisy abandoned the youthful Labarre to the
most horrible tortures because he refused to uncover when a procession
went by. Voltaire was then in evidence and conscious in his heart of
a vocation like that of Attila. While human passions were profaning
religion, God sent this new destroyer to remove religion from a world
which was no longer worthy of it.
In 1731, a young woman of Toulon, named Catherine Cadière, accused
her confessor, the Jesuit Girard, of seduction and Magic. She was a
stigmatised ecstatic who had long passed as a saint. Her history is one
of lascivious swoons, secret flagellations and lewd sensations. Where
is the sink of infamy with mysteries comparable to those of celibate
imagination disordered by dangerous mysticism? The woman was not
believed on her mere word and Father Girard escaped condemnation; the
scandal for this reason was not less great, but the noise which it made
was echoed by a burst of laughter: we have said that Voltaire was among
us.
Superstitious people till then had explained extraordinary phenomena by
the intervention of the devil and of spirits; equally absurd on its own
part, the school of Voltaire, in the face of all evidence, denied the
phenomena themselves. It was said by the one side that whatsoever we
cannot explain comes from the devil; the answer on the other side was,
that the things which we cannot explain do not exist. By reproducing
under analogous circumstances the same series of eccentric and
wonderful facts, Nature protested in the one case against presumptuous
ignorance and in the other against deficient science.
Physical disturbances have, in all times, accompanied certain nervous
maladies; fools, epileptics, cataleptics, victims of hysteria have
exceptional faculties, are subject to infectious hallucinations
and produce occasionally, in the atmosphere or in surrounding
objects, certain commotions and derangements. He who is hallucinated
exteriorises his dreams and is tormented by his own shadow; the body
is surrounded with its own reflections, distorted by the sufferings
of the brain; the subject beholds his own image in the Astral Light;
the powerful currents of that light, acting like a magnet, displace
and overturn furniture; noises are then heard and voices sound as in
dreams. These phenomena, so often repeated at this day that they have
become vulgar, were attributed by our fathers to phantoms and demons.
Voltairian philosophy found it more easy to deny them, treating the
ocular witnesses of the most incontestable facts as so many imbeciles
and idiots.
What, for example, is better accredited than the extraordinary
convulsions at the grave of Paris the deacon, or at the meetings
of Saint-Médard ecstatics? What is the explanation of the strange
buffetings demanded by the convulsionaries? Blows rained by thousands
on the head, compressions which would have crushed a hippopotamus,
torsions of breasts with iron pincers, even crucifixion with nails
driven into hands and feet? And then the superhuman contortions and
levitations? The followers of Voltaire refused to see anything but
sport and frolic therein; the Jansenists cried miracle; the true
Catholics sighed; science which should have intervened, and that only,
to explain the fantastic disease, held aloof. It is to her nevertheless
that there now belong the Ursulines of Loudun, the nuns of Louviers,
the convulsionaries and the American mediums. The phenomena of
magnetism have placed science on the path of new discoveries, and the
coming chemical synthesis will lead our physicians to a knowledge of
the Astral Light. When this universal force is once known, what will
prevent them from determining the strength, number and direction of its
magnets? A revolution will follow in science and there will be a return
to the Transcendental Magic of Chaldea.
Much has been talked about the presbytery of Cideville; De Mirville,
Gougenot Desmousseaux and other uncritical believers have seen in the
strange occurrences which took place therein a contemporary revelation
of the devil; but the same things happened at Saint-Maur in 1706,
and thither all Paris flocked. There were great rappings on walls,
beds rocked without being touched, other furniture was displaced. The
manifestations finished in a climax during which the master of the
house, a young man of twenty-four or twenty-five years old, and a
person of weak constitution, fell into a deep swoon and believed that
he heard spirits speaking to him at great length, though he could never
repeat subsequently a single word that they said.
One history of an apparition at the beginning of the eighteenth century
may here follow; the simplicity of the account proves its authenticity;
there are certain characteristics of truth which cannot be simulated by
inventors.
A pious priest of Valognes, named Bézuel, was invited to dinner on
January 7, 1708 by a lady related to the Abbé de Saint-Pierre, the Abbé
being also of the company, and the priest recounted, at their request,
the appearance of one of his deceased comrades in open day, some twelve
years previously. In 1695, he told them that he was a young scholar,
about fifteen years old and that he was acquainted with two lads, sons
of Abaquène, a solicitor, who were scholars like himself. “The elder
was my own age and the other, who was some eighteen months younger,
was named Desfontaines; we walked together and shared our amusements;
and whether or not Desfontaines had greater friendship for me, or was
more lively, more affable, more intelligent than his brother, I know
that I cared for him more. We were wandering in the cloister of the
Capucins, in 1696, when he told me that he had been reading a story of
two friends who had promised one another that whichever of them died
first should bring news of his condition to him who survived; that one
of them who did pass away redeemed his pledge and told the survivor
astonishing things. Desfontaines then said that he had a favour to
ask me, which was to make a similar promise, he doing likewise on his
own part. I was, however, unwilling and indeed declined the proposal;
several months passed away, during which he recurred frequently to the
idea, I always resisting. About August, 1696, when he was on the point
of leaving to continue his studies at Caen, he pressed me so much,
and with tears in his eyes, that at length I consented. He produced
thereupon two little slips of paper on which he had written beforehand,
one signed with his blood and in which he promised me, in the event of
his death, to give me news of his state, the other in which I entered
into a similar bond. I pricked my finger, and with the blood which
issued therefrom I signed my own name. He was delighted to receive the
promise and embraced me with a thousand thanks. Some time after he
left, accompanied by his brother; the separation was grievous to both
of us; we wrote from time to time, and then there was a silence for
the space of six weeks, after which the event happened that I am about
to relate. On July 31, 1697, being a Thursday and a day which I shall
always remember, the late M. de Sortoville, with whom I lodged and
who was always exceedingly good to me, begged me to go into a meadow
adjoining the Franciscan monastery and help his people in haymaking.
I had not been there for more than a quarter of an hour when, about
half past two, I suddenly felt giddy and overcome with weakness. It
was to no purpose that I tried to lean on my hay-fork; I felt obliged
to lie down on the hay and so remained for about half an hour, trying
to recover my strength. The feeling passed away but, having never had
such an experience previously, it caused me some surprise, and I feared
that it was the beginning of an illness. I have no special recollection
regarding the remainder of the day, but on the following night I slept
less than usual.
“At the same hour next day, as I was walking in the meadow with M. de
Saint-Simon, grandson of M. de Sortoville, then about ten years old,
I was overcome in exactly the same way and sat down in the shade on
a stone. It passed again and we continued our walk; nothing further
occurred on that day and the next night I slept scarcely at all.
Finally, on the morrow, being the second day of August, I was in the
loft where they stacked the hay at precisely the same hour, when I was
again seized with a similar giddiness and weakness, but more serious
than before. I swooned and lost all consciousness. One of the servants
saw me and asked what was the matter, to which it is said that I
replied, stating that I had seen what I should have never believed.
I do not however recollect either the question or answer. The memory
which does remain with me is that I had seen someone in a state of
nakedness to the waist, but it was not anyone whom I recognised. I
was helped down the ladder; I held tight to the rungs; but when I saw
Desfontaines, my comrade, at the foot of the ladder, the weakness
returned, my head fell between two of the rungs and again I lost
consciousness. I was laid upon a wide beam which served for a bench on
the Grande Place des Capucins; I saw nothing of M. de Sortoville nor of
his servants, though they were present, but I observed Desfontaines,
still by the foot of the ladder, signalling for me to come to him,
and I drew back on my seat as if to make room for him. Those who were
by me and whom I did not see, though my eyes were open, observed this
movement. He did not respond and I rose to go towards him; he then
came forward and taking my left arm in his own right arm, he led me
some paces forward into a quiet street, with arms still interlocked.
The servants thinking that my giddiness had passed and that I was
going about some business of my own, went back to their work, with the
exception of one youth, who told M. de Sortoville that I was talking to
myself. He came up to me and heard me questioning and answering, as he
has since told me. I was there for nearly three quarters of an hour,
talking to Desfontaines, who said: I promised that if I died before
you I would come and tell you. I was drowned the day before yesterday
in the river at Caen. It was just about this time, and I was walking
with some friends; it was exceedingly warm, we decided to bathe, a
weakness came over me and I sank to the bottom. My companion, the Abbé
de Menil-Jean, dived to bring me up. I caught hold of his leg and as
I clung very tight he may have thought that it was a salmon or he may
have had to come up quickly, but he struck out so roughly with his leg
that I received a blow upon the chest, throwing me again to the bottom,
where the depth is considerable at that point!
“Desfontaines subsequently told me all that had happened in their walk
and the subjects discussed between them. I was anxious to learn whether
he was saved, whether he was damned, whether he was in purgatory,
whether I was myself in a state of grace and whether I should follow
him speedily; but he continued speaking as if he had not heard, or
refused to listen. I tried to embrace him several times, but I seemed
to embrace nothing; yet I felt him still holding me tight by the arm,
and when I attempted to turn away my head, so as not to see him because
of the grief which it caused me, he tightened his grasp as if to compel
me to look as well as to listen. He seemed taller than when I had last
seen him and taller even than he was at the time of death, though he
had grown a good deal during the eighteen months since we met. I
saw him as far as his waist only and he was naked, his head bare and
a white paper twisted in his beautiful fair hair over the forehead;
the paper had writing on it, but I could read only the word: IN, &c.
His voice was the same voice; he seemed neither gay nor sad, but in a
calm and tranquil state. He begged me on his brother’s return to give
him certain messages for his father and mother; he begged me also to
say the seven penitential psalms, which had been imposed on him as a
penance the previous Sunday and which he had not yet recited. Finally,
he again advised me to speak to his brother and then bade me farewell,
saying as he went: ‘Till I see you again,’ which was our usual formula
when we parted at the end of a walk. He told me also that at the time
he was drowned his brother, who was making a translation, regretted
having let him go apart from him, in case of an accident. He described
so well where he was drowned and the tree in the Avenue de Louvigny
on which he had cut some words that two years afterwards, when in the
company of the late Chevalier de Gotot, one who was with him at the
time, I pointed out the very spot and counting the trees on one side,
as Desfontaines had specified, I went straight to the tree, there to
find the inscription. I learned also that it was true about the seven
psalms which had been given him as a penance at confession. His brother
also told me that he was writing his translation and reproached himself
for not being with him.
“As a month went by before I was able to do as Desfontaines asked me
in regard to his brother, he appeared to me on two other occasions
before dinner in a country house a few miles away, to which I had
been invited. Feeling unwell, I made an excuse of being tired, saying
that it was nothing and that I should return. I went into a corner
of the garden and Desfontaines reproached me for not having spoken
to his brother; he talked to me for a quarter of an hour, but would
not answer questions on my own part. The second appearance was in
the morning, as I was going to Notre Dame de la Victoire, but the
apparition was for a shorter time; he impressed on me about speaking
to his brother and left me repeating: ‘Till I see you again’—still
without answering my questions. One remarkable fact is that I always
had a pain in the arm where he had taken a hold of me the first time,
and it remained till I had spoken to his brother. For three days I had
no sleep owing to the astonishment in which I was. After the first
conversation I told M. de Varonville, my schoolfellow and neighbour,
that Desfontaines had been drowned, that he had appeared to me and told
me so. He hurried to his relations, asking whether this was true; they
had just had news on the subject but, owing to a misunderstanding,
believed that it was the elder boy. He assured me that he had seen
the letter of Desfontaines and he thought that this was correct; I
maintained that it must be wrong, for Desfontaines himself had appeared
to me. He went again to his relatives and returned in tears saying: ‘It
is only too true.’
“Nothing has happened to me since, and such was my experience simply.
It has been told in many ways, but I have never related it otherwise
than as I do now. The late Chevalier de Gotot stated that Desfontaines
also appeared to M. de Menil-Jean, but I do not know him. He is fifty
miles from here, near Argentan, and I can tell you no more.”
We should notice the characteristics of dream which prevail
throughout in this vision of a man who is awake, but in a state of
semi-asphyxiation produced by the emanations of the hay. The astral
intoxication following congestion of the brain will be recognised.
The somnambulistic condition which followed showed M. Bézuel the last
living reflection left by his friend in the Astral Light. He was naked
and was visible down to the waist only, because the rest of his body
was immersed in the water of the river. The supposed paper in his hair
was probably a handkerchief used to confine his hair when bathing.
Bézuel had further a somnambulistic intuition of all that took place,
and it seemed to him that he was learning it from the lips of his
friend. The friend appeared neither sad nor gay, an indication of the
impression made upon him by an image which was lifeless and consisting
only of reminiscence and reflection. On the occasion of the first
vision, M. Bézuel, intoxicated by the scent of the hay, fell off the
ladder and injured his arm; it seemed, with the logic of dreams that
his friend was grasping the arm, and when he came to himself, he still
felt the pain, which is explained quite naturally by the hurt that he
had received. For the rest, the conversation of the deceased person was
simply retrospective; there was nothing about death or the other life,
proving once more how impossible is the barrier which separates this
world from the next.
In the prophecy of Ezekiel life is represented by wheels which turn
within one another; the elementary forms are symbolised by four
beasts, which ascend and descend with the wheel and pursue one another
without ever overtaking, like the signs of the Zodiac. The wheels of
perpetual movement never return on themselves; forms never go back to
the stations which they have quitted; to return whence one has come,
the entire circle must have been traversed in a progress always the
same and yet always new. The conclusion is that whatsoever manifests
to us in this life is a phenomenon which belongs to this life and it
is not given here below to our thought, to our imagination, or even to
our hallucinations and our dreams, to overstep even for an instant the
formidable barriers of death.
CHAPTER VII
THE MAGICAL ORIGIN OF FREEMASONRY
That great Kabalistical association known in Europe under the name of
Masonry appeared suddenly in the world when revolt against the Church
had just succeeded in dismembering Christian unity. The historians
of the Order are one and all in a difficulty when seeking to explain
its origin. According to some, it derived from a certain guild of
Masons who were incorporated for the construction of the cathedral of
Strasburg. Others refer its foundation to Cromwell, without pausing
to consider whether the Rites of English Masonry in the days of the
Protector were not more probably developed as a counterblast to this
leader of Puritanical anarchy. In fine, some are so ignorant that they
attribute to the Jesuits the maintenance and direction, if not indeed
the invention, of a society long preserved in secret and always wrapped
in mystery.[292] Setting aside this last view, which refutes itself,
we can reconcile the others by admitting that the Masonic Brethren
borrowed their name and some emblems of their art from the builders
of Strasburg cathedral, and that their first public manifestation
took place in England, owing to radical institutions and in spite of
Cromwell’s despotism. It may be added that the Templars were their
models, the Rosicrucians their immediate progenitors,[293] and the
Johannite sectarians their more remote ancestors. Their doctrine is
that of Zoroaster and of Hermes, their law is progressive initiation,
their principle is equality—regulated by the hierarchy and universal
fraternity. They are successors of the school of Alexandria, as of all
antique initiations, custodians of the secrets of the _Apocalypse_
and the _Zohar_. Truth is the object of their worship, and they
represent truth as light; they tolerate all forms of faith, profess
one philosophy, seek truth only, teach reality, and their plan is to
lead all human intelligence by gradual steps into the domain of reason.
The allegorical end of Freemasonry is the rebuilding of Solomon’s
Temple; the real end is the restoration of social unity by an alliance
between reason and faith and by reverting to the principle of the
hierarchy,[294] based on science and virtue, the path of initiation and
its ordeals serving as steps of ascent. Nothing, it will be seen, is
more beautiful, nothing greater than are such ideas and dedications;
unhappily the doctrines of unity and submission to the hierarchy have
not been maintained in universal Masonry. In addition to that which was
orthodox there arose a dissident Masonry, and all that is worst in the
calamities of the French Revolution were the result of this schism.
Now, the Freemasons have their sacred legend, which is that of Hiram,
completed by another concerning Cyrus and Zerubbabel. The legend of
Hiram is as follows. When Solomon projected his Temple, he entrusted
the plans to an architect called Hiram. This master-builder, to ensure
order in the work, divided the craftsmen according to their degrees
of skill. They were a great multitude, and in order to recognise
craftsmen, so that they might be classified according to merit or
remunerated in proportion to their work, he provided Pass-Words and
particular Signs for each of three categories, or otherwise for the
Apprentices, the Companions and the Masters. It came about that three
Companions coveted the rank of Master without having earned it by their
ability. They set an ambush at the three chief gates of the Temple, and
when Hiram was issuing from one of them, the first of these Companions
demanded the Master-Word, threatening the architect with his rule.
Hiram answered: “It is not thus that I received it.” Thereupon the
Companion in his fury struck him with the iron tool and gave him the
first wound. The builder fled to the second gate, where he met with
the second Companion, who made the same demand and received the same
answer. On this occasion Hiram was struck with a square or, as others
say, with a lever. At the third gate there stood the third assassin,
who completed the work with a mallet. The three companions concealed
the corpse under a heap of rubbish, planted on the improvised grave
a branch of acacia, and then took flight like Cain after the murder
of Abel. Solomon, however, finding that his architect did not return,
sent nine Masters to seek him, when the branch of acacia revealed the
corpse. They drew it from beneath the rubbish, and as it had laid long
therein, they uttered in so doing a word signifying that the flesh was
falling from the bones. The last offices were rendered duly to Hiram,
and twenty-seven Masters were despatched subsequently by Solomon in
search of the murderers. The first of these was taken by surprise in a
cavern; a lamp was burning near him, a stream flowed at his feet and a
dagger lay for his defence beside him. The Master who had been first
to enter recognised the assassin, seized the weapon and stabbed him
with the exclamation _Nekam_—a word signifying vengeance. The head was
carried to Solomon, who shuddered at the sight and said to the avenger:
“Unhappy being, did you not know that I reserved to myself the right
of punishment?” Then all the Masters fell on their knees before the
king and entreated pardon for him whose zeal had carried him away.
The second murderer was betrayed by one with whom he had found an
asylum. He was concealed in a rock near to a burning bush; a rainbow
shone above the rock, and a dog lay near him. Eluding the vigilance
of the dog, the Masters seized the criminal, bound and carried him to
Jerusalem, where he perished in the utmost tortures. The third assassin
was slain by a lion, and the beast had to be overcome before the body
could be secured. Other versions say that he defended himself with a
hatchet when the Masters fell upon him, but they succeeded in disarming
him and he was led to Solomon who caused him to expiate his crime.[295]
Such is the first legend and its explanation now follows. Solomon
personifies supreme science and wisdom. The Temple is the realisation
and emblem of the hierarchic reign of truth and reason on earth.
Hiram is the man who, by science and wisdom, has attained empire.
He governs by justice and order, rendering to each according to his
works. Each Degree is in correspondence with a word, which expresses
the sense thereof. For Hiram the word is one, but it is expressed
after three manners. One is for the Apprentices and can be uttered by
them; it signifies Nature and is explained by Work. Another is for the
Companions; in their case it signifies thought and is explained by
Study. The third is for Masters; in their mouth it signifies truth and
is explained by Wisdom. As to the word itself, it is used to designate
God, Whose true name is indicible and incommunicable. Thus there are
three degrees in the hierarchy and three entrances of the Temple; there
are three modes of light and there are three forces in Nature, which
forces are symbolised by the Rule that measures, the Lever which lifts
and the Mallet which consolidates. The rebellion of brutal instincts
against the hierarchic aristocracy of wisdom arms itself successfully
with these three forces and turns them from their proper uses.
There are three typical rebels—the rebel against Nature, the rebel
against Science and the rebel against Truth. They were represented
in the classical Hades by the three heads of Cerberus; in the Bible
by Koran, Dathan and Abiram; while in the Masonic legend they are
distinguished by names which vary in the different Rites. The first,
who is usually called Abiram, or the murderer of Hiram, is he who
strikes the Grand Master with the rule; this is the story of the just
man immolated by human passion under the pretence of law. The second,
named Mephibosheth, after a ridiculous and feeble pretender to the
throne of David, attacks Hiram with the lever or the square. So does
the popular square or lever of insensate equality become an instrument
of tyranny in the hands of the multitude, and assails, still more
grievously than the rule, the royalty of wisdom and virtue. The third
in fine despatches Hiram with a mallet: so act the brutal instincts
when they seek to establish order, in the name of violence and of fear,
by crushing intelligence.[296]
The branch of acacia over the tomb of Hiram is like the cross on our
altars; it is a sign of knowledge which outlives knowledge itself;
it is the green sprig which presages another spring. When men have
disturbed in this manner the order of Nature, Providence intervenes to
restore it, as Solomon to avenge the death of the Master-Builder. He
who has struck with the rule shall perish by the poignard. He who has
attacked with the lever or square shall make expiation under the axe of
the law: it is the eternal judgment on regicides. He who has slain with
the mallet shall be the victim of that power which he misused. He who
would slay with the rule is betrayed by the very lamp which lights him
and by the stream from which he drinks: it is the law of retaliation.
He who would destroy with the lever is surprised when his watchfulness
fails like a sleeping dog, and he is given up by his own accomplices,
for anarchy is the mother of treason. He who struck with the mallet
is devoured by the lion, which is a variant of the sphinx of Œdipus,
while he who can conquer the lion shall deserve to succeed Hiram.
The decaying body of the Builder indicates that forms may change but
the spirit remains. The spring of water in the vicinity of the first
murderer recalls that deluge which punished crimes against Nature. The
burning bush and rainbow which betray the second assassin typify life
and light denouncing outrage on thought. Finally, the vanquished lion
represents the triumph of mind over matter and the definite subjection
of force to intelligence. From the dawn of the intellectual travail by
which the Temple of unity is erected, Hiram has been slain often, but
ever he has risen from the dead. He is Adonis destroyed by the wild
boar, Osiris put to death by Typhon, Pythagoras in his proscription,
Orpheus torn to pieces by Bacchantes, Moses abandoned in the caverns
of Mount Nebo, Jesus crucified by Judas, Caiaphas and Pilate. Now
those are true Masons who seek persistently to rebuild the Temple in
accordance with the plan of Hiram.
Such is the great and the chief legend of Masonry; there are others
that are no less beautiful and no less profound; but we do not feel
justified in divulging their mysteries. Albeit we have received
initiation only from God and our researches,[297] we shall keep the
secrets of transcendental Freemasonry as we keep our own secrets.
Having attained by our efforts to a grade of knowledge which imposes
silence, we regard ourselves as pledged by our convictions even more
than by an oath. Science is a _noblesse qui oblige_ and we shall in
no wise fail to deserve the princely crown of the Rosy Cross. We also
believe in the resurrection of Hiram.
The Rites of Masonry are designed to transmit a memorial of the
legends of initiation and to preserve them among the Brethren. Now,
if Masonry is thus holy and thus sublime, we may be asked how it came
to be proscribed and condemned so often by the Church; but we have
already replied to this question when its divisions and profanations
were mentioned. Masonry is the Gnosis and the false Gnostics caused
the condemnation of the true. The latter were driven into concealment,
not through fear of the light, for the light is that which they
desire, that which they seek and adore; but they stood in dread of the
sacrilegious—that is to say, of false interpreters, calumniators, the
derision of the sceptic, the enemies of all belief and all morality.
Moreover, at the present day, there are many who think that they are
Masons and yet do not know the meaning of their Rites, having lost the
Key of the Mysteries. They misconstrue even their symbolical pictures
and those hieroglyphic signs which are emblazoned on the carpets of
their Lodges. These pictures and signs are the pages of a book of
absolute and universal science. They can be read by means of the
Kabalistic keys and hold nothing in concealment for the initiate who
already possesses those of Solomon.
Masonry has not merely been profaned but has served as the veil and
pretext of anarchic conspiracies depending from the secret influence
of the vindicators of Jacques de Molay, and of those who continued the
schismatic work of the Temple. In place of avenging the death of Hiram
they have avenged that of his assassins. The anarchists have resumed
the rule, square and mallet, writing upon them the words Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity—Liberty, that is to say, for all the lusts,
Equality in degradation and Fraternity in the work of destruction. Such
are the men whom the Church has condemned justly and will condemn for
ever.
BOOK VI
_MAGIC AND THE REVOLUTION_
ו—VAU
CHAPTER I
REMARKABLE AUTHORS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
China was practically unknown to the outside world until the end of
the seventeenth century, when its vast empire, explored in part by
our missionaries, began to be revealed by them and appeared like a
necropolis of all sciences in the past. The Chinese may be compared
to a race of mummies; nothing progresses with them, for they live in
the immobility of their traditions, from which the spirit and the life
have long since withdrawn. They know nothing any longer, but they
have a vague recollection of everything. The genius of China is the
dragon of the Hesperides—which defends the golden apples in the garden
of science. Their human type of divinity, instead of conquering the
dragon, like Cadmus, cowers fascinated and magnetised by the monster
who flashes before it a changing mirage of its scales. Mystery alone
is alive in China, science is in a state of lethargy, or at least
is in a deep sleep and speaks only in dream. We have said that the
Chinese Tarot is based on the same Kabalistic and absolute data as the
Hebrew _Sepher Yetzirah_; but China has also a hieroglyphical book
consisting exclusively of combinations of two figures; this is the
_Y-Kim_,[298] attributed to the emperor Fo-Hi, and M. de Maison, in
his _Letters on China_, states that it is utterly indecipherable. Its
difficulties however are not greater than those of the _Zohar_, of
which it appears to be a curious complement and is indeed a valuable
appendix thereto. The _Zohar_ explains the work of the Balance, or of
universal equilibrium, and the _Y-Kim_ is the hieroglyphic and ciphered
demonstration thereof. The key of the work is a pantacle known as the
Trigrams of Fo-Hi. According to a legend related in the _Vay-Ky_, a
collection of great authority in China, composed by Leon-Tao-Yuen,
under the dynasty of the Soms, some seven or eight hundred years ago,
the emperor Fo-Hi was meditating one day on the bank of a river about
the great secrets of Nature, when he saw a sphinx come out of the
water, meaning an allegorical animal, having the composite form of a
horse and a dragon. Its head was elongated like that of a horse, it
had four feet and ended in the tail of a serpent; the back was covered
with scales, on each of which there shone the symbol of the mysterious
Trigrams; they were smaller towards the extremities than those on the
breast and back, but were in perfect harmony throughout. The dragon was
reflected in the water but with all its characteristics inverted. This
serpentine horse, the inspirer or rather the bearer of inspirations,
like the Pegasus of Greek mythology, that symbol of universal light,
or like the serpent of Kronos, initiated Fo-Hi into universal science.
The Trigrams served as the introduction; he numbered the scales and
combined the Trigrams in such a manner that he conceived a synthesis of
the sciences compared and united with one another by the pre-existent
and necessary harmonies of Nature. The tables of the _Y-Kim_ were the
result of this marvellous combination. The numbers of Fo-Hi are the
same as those of the Kabalah, while his pantacle is analogous to
that of Solomon, as explained already in our _Doctrine and Ritual of
Transcendental Magic_.[299] His tables correspond to the thirty-two
Paths and the fifty Gates of Light; consequently the _Y-Kim_ cannot
be obscure for those who have the key of the _Sepher Yetzirah_ and
_Zohar_.[300]
The science of absolute philosophy has therefore existed in China;
the Kims are commentaries on this Absolute which is hidden from
the profane, and their relation to the _Y-Kim_ is like that of the
Pentateuch of Moses to the Revelations in the _Sepher Dzenioutha_,
which is the _Book of Mysteries_ and the key of the Hebrew
_Zohar_.[301] Kong-fu-tzee, or Confucius, was the revealer or veiler
of this Kabalah, the existence of which he might have denied, to turn
the researches of the profane into a wrong path, just as that learned
Talmudist Maimonides denied the realities of the Key of Solomon. After
Confucius came the materialistic Fo, who substituted the traditions of
Indian sorcery for the remnants of Egyptian Transcendental Magic. The
cultus of Fo paralysed the progress of the sciences in China, and the
abortive civilisation of this great people collapsed into routine and
stupor.
A philosopher of sagacity and admirable profundity, the learned
Leibnitz, who deserved most assuredly initiation into the supreme
truths of absolute science, thought that he could discern in the
_Y-Kim_ his own discovery of the differential calculus, while in the
straight and divided line he recognised the characters 1 0, employed
in his own calculations. He was on the threshold of the truth, but,
seeing it in only one of its details, he could not grasp it as a whole.
The most important discoveries on religious antiquities in China have
been the result of theological disputes.[302] This came about through
the question whether the Jesuits were justified in permitting the
worship of heaven and ancestral worship among the Chinese who were
converted to Christianity—in other words, whether the educated Chinese
regarded their heaven as God or simply as space and Nature. It was
reasonable to have recourse to the educated themselves and to public
good sense, but these do not constitute theological authorities.
There was therefore much debate, much writing and more intriguing;
the Jesuits were fundamentally right but were wrong in their mode of
procedure, with the result that fresh difficulties were created which
have not been yet overcome and which still continue in China to cost
the blood of our indefatigable martyrs.
[Illustration: THE GREAT HERMETIC ARCANUM]
Whilst the conquests of religion in Asia were thus disputed, a great
spirit of unrest was agitating Europe; the Christian faith seemed
on the point of being extinguished, though on every side there was
a rumour of new revelations and miracles. A man who had a definite
position in science and in the world otherwise, namely, Emmanuel
Swedenborg, was astonishing Sweden by his visions, and Germany was
swarming with new _illuminati_. Dissident mysticism conspired to
replace the mysteries of hierarchic religion by mysteries of anarchy; a
catastrophe was in preparation and was imminent. Swedenborg, the most
sincere and the mildest among the prophets of false illuminism, was
not for this less dangerous than the others. As a fact, the pretence
that all men are called to communicate immediately with heaven[303]
replaces regular religious instruction and progressive initiation by
every divagation of enthusiasm, by all excesses of imagination and of
dream. The intelligent _illuminati_ felt that religion was a great
need of humanity and hence must never be destroyed; not only religion
itself but the fanaticism which it carries along with it as a fatal
consequence of enthusiasm inspired by ignorance, were, however, to be
used as arms for the overthrow of hierarchic church authority, they
recognising that from the war of fanaticism there would issue a new
hierarchy, of which they hoped to be founders and chiefs. “You shall be
as gods, knowing all without having the trouble of learning anything;
you shall be as kings, possessing everything without the trouble of
acquiring anything.” Such, in a summary form, are the promises of
the revolutionary spirit to envious multitudes. The revolutionary
spirit is the spirit of death; it is the old serpent of Genesis, which
notwithstanding it is the father of movement and of progress, seeing
that generations are renewed only by death. It is for this reason that
the Indians worship Siva, the pitiless destroyer, whose symbolical form
was that of physical love and material generation.
The system of Swedenborg is no other than the Kabalah, _minus_ the
principle of hierarchy;[304] it is the temple without key-stone
and without base; it is a vast edifice, fortunately all airy and
phantastic, for had anyone attempted to realise it on this earth it
would collapse upon the head of the first child who sought, not indeed
to overthrow it, but merely to lean against one of its chief pillars.
To organise anarchy is the problem which the revolutionaries have
undertaken to solve, and it is with them for ever; it is the rock of
Sisyphus which will invariably fall back upon them. To exist for a
single moment they are and will ever be compelled fatally to improvise
a despotism having no other justification than necessity, and it is
one which is blind and violent like anarchy. Emancipation from the
harmonious monarchy of reason is attained only by passing under the
disorderly dictatorship of folly.
The means proposed indirectly by Swedenborg for communication with the
supernatural world constitute an intermediate state allied to dream,
ecstasy and catalepsy. The illuminated Swede affirmed the possibility
of such a state, without furnishing any intimation as to the practices
necessary for its attainment.[305] Perhaps his disciples, in order
to supply the omission, might have had recourse to Indian Ceremonial
Magic, when a genius came forward to complete the prophetic and
Kabalistic intuitions of Swedenborg by a natural thaumaturgy. This man
was a German physician named Mesmer. It was he who had the glory of
rediscovering, apart from initiation and apart from occult knowledge,
the universal agent of light and its prodigies. His _Aphorisms_, which
scholars of his time regarded as a bundle of paradoxes, will ultimately
form a basis for the physical synthesis.[306]
Mesmer postulated two modes in natural being; these are substance
and life, producing that fixity and movement which constitute the
equilibrium of things. He recognised further the existence of a first
matter, which is fluidic, universal, capable of fixity and motion; its
fixation determines the constitution of substances, while its continual
motion modifies and renews forms. This fluidic matter is active and
passive; as passive it indraws and as active it projects itself. In
virtue of this matter the world and those who dwell therein attract and
repel; it passes through all by a circulation comparable to that of the
blood. It maintains and renews the life of all beings, is the agent of
their force and may become the instrument of their will. Prodigies are
results of exceptional wills or energies. The phenomena of cohesion and
elasticity, of density or subtlety in bodies, are produced by various
combinations of these two properties in the universal fluid or first
matter. Disease, like all physical disorders, is owing to a derangement
in the normal equilibrium of the first matter in this or that organised
body. Organised bodies are sympathetic or antipathetic to one another,
by reason of their particular equilibrium. Sympathetic bodies may
cure each other, restoring their equilibrium mutually. This capacity
of bodies to equilibrate one another by the attraction or projection
of the first matter, was called magnetism by Mesmer, and as it varies
according to the forms in which it acts, he termed it animal magnetism
when he studied its phenomena in living beings.
Mesmer proved his theory by his experiments, which were crowned with
complete success. Having observed the analogy between the phenomena
of animal magnetism and those of electricity, he made use of metallic
conductors, connecting with a common reservoir containing earth and
water, so as to absorb and project the two forces. The complicated
apparatus of tubs has now been abandoned, as it can be replaced by a
living chain of hands superposed upon a circular non-conducting body
like a wooden table, or on silk or wool. He subsequently applied to
living organised beings the processes of metallic magnetisation and
attained certitude as to the reality and similitude of the phenomena
which followed. One step only was left for him to take, and it was to
affirm that the effects attributed in physics to the four imponderable
fluids are diverse manifestations of one and the same force
differentiated by its usages, and that this force—inseparable from the
first and universal matter which it sets in motion—now resplendent,
now igneous, now electric, now magnetic, has but one name, indicated
by Moses in Genesis, when he describes its manifestation by the _fiat_
of the Almighty before all substances and all forms: that Word is THE
LIGHT—הי אור.
Let us now have the courage to affirm one truth which will be
acknowledged hereafter. The great thing of the eighteenth century is
not the _Encyclopedia_, not the sneering and derisive philosophy of
Voltaire, not the negative metaphysics of Diderot and D’Alembert, not
the malignant philanthropy of Rousseau: it is the sympathetic and
miraculous physics of Mesmer. Mesmer is grand as Prometheus; he has
given men that fire from heaven which Franklin could only direct.
There was wanting to the genius of Mesmer neither the sanction of
hatred nor the consecration of persecution and insult; he was hunted
out of Germany, ridiculed in France, which, however, provided him
with a fortune, for his cures were evident, and the patients who went
to him paid him, though they may have stated afterwards that their
restoration was a matter of chance, so that they might not draw down
upon themselves the hostility of the learned. The authorised bodies did
not even so far honour the thaumaturge as to examine his discovery,
and the great man resigned himself perforce to pass for a skilful
impostor. It was only the really instructed who were not hostile to
mesmerism; sincerely religious persons were alarmed by the dangers of
the new discovery, while the superstitious cried out at the scandal and
the Magic. The wise foresaw abuses; the imbecile would not so much
as tolerate the exercise of this marvellous power. Some thought that
the miracles of the Saviour and his saints would be denied in the name
of magnetism; others wondered how it would fare with the power of the
devil. True religion, notwithstanding, has nothing to fear from the
discovery of truth; and further, in putting a limit to human power,
does not magnetism give a new sanction to divine miracles instead of
destroying them? It follows that the fools will ascribe fewer prodigies
to the devil, which will leave them the less opportunity to exercise
their hatred and their rage; but persons of real piety will not find
this a ground of complaint. The devil must lose ground when light
manifests and ignorance recedes; but the conquests of science and of
light extend, strengthen and increase more and more our love of the
empire and the glory of God.
CHAPTER II
THAUMATURGIC PERSONALITIES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The eighteenth century was credulous about nothing but Magic, and
the explanation is that vague beliefs are the religion of souls
devoid of true faith. The miracles of Jesus Christ were denied, while
resurrections were ascribed to the Comte de Saint-Germain. This
exceptional personality was a mysterious theosophist who was credited
with possessing the secrets of the Great Work, and the manufacture of
diamonds and of precious stones. For the rest, he was a man of the
world, agreeable in conversation and highly distinguished in manners.
Madame de Genlis, who saw him almost daily during his early years, says
that even his representations of gems in pictures had a natural fire
and gleam, the secret of which could not be divined by any chemist
or painter. None of his pictures are in evidence, and it can only be
speculated whether he had contrived to fix light on canvas or whether
he employed a preparation of mother-of-pearl, or some metallic coating.
The Comte de Saint-Germain professed the Catholic Religion and
conformed to its practices with great fidelity. This notwithstanding,
there were reports of suspicious evocations and strange apparitions; he
claimed also to have the secret of eternal youth. Was this mysticism
or was it madness? His family connections were unknown and to hear him
talk of past events suggested that he had lived for many centuries. Of
all that was in kinship with occult science he said but little, and
when the benefit of initiation was demanded at his hands he pretended
to know nothing on the subject. He chose his own disciples, required
passive obedience on their part and then talked of a royalty to which
they were called, being that of Melchisedek and Solomon, a royalty of
initiation, which is a priesthood at the same time. “Be the torch of
the world,” he said. “If your light is that only of a planet, you will
be as nothing in the sight of God. I reserve for you a splendour, of
which the solar glory is a shadow. You shall guide the course of stars
and those who rule empires shall be governed by you.”
These promises, the proper meaning of which is quite intelligible to
true adepts, are recorded substantially, if not in the words here
given, by the anonymous author of a _History of Secret Societies in
Germany_,[307] and they are evidence as to the school of initiation
with which the Comte de Saint-Germain was connected. The following
details have been so far unknown concerning him.
The Comte de Saint-Germain was born at Lentmeritz in Bohemia, at
the end of the seventeenth century. He was either the natural or an
adopted son of a Rosicrucian who called himself _Comes Cabalicus_—the
Companion Kabalist—ridiculed under the name of Comte de Gabalis by the
unfortunate Abbé de Villars.[308] Saint-Germain never spoke of his
father, but he mentions that he led a life of proscription and errantry
in a world of forest, having his mother as companion. This was at the
age of seven years, which, however, is to be understood symbolically
and is that of the initiate when he is advanced to the Grade of Master.
His mother was the science of the adepts, while the forest, in the same
kind of language, signifies empires devoid of the true civilisation and
light. The principles of Saint-Germain were those of the Rosy Cross,
and in his own country he established a society from which he separated
subsequently when anarchic doctrines became prevalent in fellowships
which incorporated new partisans of the Gnosis. Hence he was disowned
by his brethren, was charged even with treason, and some memorials on
illuminism seem to hint that he was immured in the dungeons of the
Castle of Ruel. On the other hand, Madame de Genlis tells us that he
died in the Duchy of Holstein, a prey to his own conscience and terrors
of the life beyond.[309] It is certain in any case that he vanished
suddenly from Paris, no one exactly knowing where, and that his
companions in illumination permitted the veil of silence and oblivion
to fall as far as possible upon his memory. The association which he
had formed under the title of Saint-Jakin—which has been turned into
Saint Joachim—continued till the Revolution, when it dissolved or was
transformed, like so many others. A story is told concerning it in a
pamphlet against illuminism; it is derived from a correspondence in
Vienna and, though it is worth reproducing, there is nothing that can
be termed certain or authentic therein.
“Owing to your introduction, I had a cordial welcome from M. N. Z.,
who had been informed already of my arrival. Of the harmonica he
approved highly. He spoke first of all about certain trials, but of
this I understood nothing; it is of late only that I have been able
to grasp the meaning. Yesterday, towards evening, I accompanied him to
his country house, the grounds of which are very beautiful. Temples,
grottos, cascades, labyrinths, caves form a long vista of enchantments;
but an exceedingly high wall which encompasses the whole pleasaunce was
extremely displeasing to me, for beyond this there is also a wonderful
prospect.... I had brought the harmonica with me, at the instance of
M. N. Z., with the idea of playing on it for a few minutes in a place
indicated, and on receiving an agreed signal.[310] The visit to the
garden over, he took me to a room in the front of the house and there
left me, somewhat quickly and under a trivial pretext. It was now very
late; he did not return; weariness and the wish to sleep began to come
over me, when I was interrupted by the arrival of several coaches. I
opened the window, but, being night, I could see nothing, and I was
much puzzled by the low and mysterious whispering of those who seemed
entering the house. Sleep now overcame me, and an hour must have passed
away, when I was awakened by a servant who was sent to conduct me and
also carry the instrument. He walked very quickly and far in advance
of myself, I following mechanically, when I heard the sound of horns,
which seemed to issue from the depths of a cave. At this moment I lost
sight of my guide and, proceeding in the direction from which the noise
seemed to be coming, I half descended a staircase leading to a vault,
from which, to my utter surprise, a funeral chant arose, and I saw
distinctly a corpse in an open coffin.
“On one side stood a man clothed in white, covered with blood; it
appeared to me that a vein had been opened in his right arm. With the
exception of those who were helping him, all present were shrouded in
long black mantles and were armed with drawn swords. So far as I could
judge in my state of terror, the entrance to the vault was strewn with
human bones, heaped one upon another. The only light which illuminated
the mournful spectacle was that of a flame, such as is produced by
spirits of wine.
“Uncertain whether I should be able to overtake my guide, I retreated
hurriedly and found him in search of myself a few paces away; there
was a haggard look in his eyes, and taking my hand in rather an uneasy
manner, he led me into a singular garden, where I began to think
that I must have been transported by magic. The brilliance produced
by a vast number of lamps, the murmur of falling waters, the singing
of mechanical nightingales and the perfume which seemed to exhale
everywhere exalted my imagination at the outset. I was hidden behind a
green arbour, the interior of which was richly decorated, and thither
they brought immediately a person in a fainting state, apparently the
one who had occupied the coffin in the vault. It was at this point that
I received the agreed signal to play my instrument. Disturbed very much
by the whole scene, there is no doubt that a good deal escaped me,[311]
but I could see that the swooning person came to himself as soon as I
touched the harmonica; he also began to ask questions with an accent of
astonishment, saying: ‘Where am I? What is this voice?’ Shouts of joy,
accompanied by trumpets and timbrels, were the only answer. Everyone
ran to arms and plunging into the depths of the garden were quickly out
of sight. I am still in agitation as I write these lines; and if I had
not taken the precaution to make my notes on the spot, I should regard
it to-day as a dream.”
The most inexplicable part of this scene is the presence of the
uninitiated person who tells the story. How the association could
thus risk the betrayal of its mysteries is a question that cannot be
answered, but the mysteries themselves can be explained easily.[312]
The successors of the old Rosicrucians, modifying little by little the
austere and hierarchic methods of their precursors in initiation, had
become a mystic sect and had embraced zealously the Templar magical
doctrines, as a result of which they regarded themselves as the sole
depositaries of the secrets intimated by the Gospel according to St.
John. They regarded the narratives of that Gospel as an allegorical
sequence of rites designed to complete initiation, and they believed
that the history of Christ must be realised in the person of each one
of the adepts. Furthermore, they recounted a Gnostic legend, according
to which the Saviour, instead of being buried in the new tomb of
Joseph of Arimathea, having been swathed and perfumed, was brought
back to life in the house of St. John. This was the pretended mystery
which they celebrated to the sound of horns and harmonica.[313] The
Candidate was invited to offer up his life and was actually subjected
to bleeding which caused him to swoon. This swoon was called death
and when he returned to himself, his resurrection was celebrated
amidst outbursts of joy and gladness. The varied emotions produced,
the scenes, by turns mournful and brilliant, must have permanently
impressed the candidate’s imagination, and rendered him either
fanatical or lucid. Many believed that a real resurrection took place
in themselves and felt convinced that they were no longer subject
to death. The heads of the society thus had at the service of their
concealed projects the most formidable of all instruments, namely,
madness, and secured on the part of their adepts that blind and
tireless devotion which unreason produces more often and more surely
than goodwill.
The sect of Saint-Jakin was therefore an order of Gnostics steeped in
the illusions of the Magic of Fascination; it drew from Rosicrucians
and Templars; and its particular name was one of the two names—_Jachin_
and _Boaz_—engraven on the chief pillars of Solomon’s Temple. In Hebrew
the initial letter of _Jachin_ is _Yod_, a sacred letter of the Hebrew
alphabet, and also the initial of Jehovah, which Divine Name was indeed
veiled from the profane under that of _Jachin_, whence the designation
Saint-Jakin. The members of this order were theosophists, unwisely
addicted to theurgic processes.[314]
All that is told of the mysterious Comte de Saint-Germain supports
the idea that he was a skilful physician and a distinguished chemist.
He is said to have known how to fuse diamonds so that there was no
trace of the operation; he could also purify precious stones, thus
making the most common and imperfect of high value. That imbecile and
anonymous author[315] whom we have already cited places the latter
claim to his credit but denies that he ever made gold, as if one
did not make gold in the making of precious stones. Saint-Germain
also invented, according to the same authority, and bequeathed to
the industrial sciences, the art of imparting greater brilliance and
ductility to copper—another invention sufficient to prove the fortune
of him who devised it. Performances of this kind make us forgive the
Comte de Saint-Germain for having been acquainted with Queen Cleopatra
and for chatting familiarly with the Queen of Sheba. He was otherwise
good-natured and gallant; he was one who loved children and amused
himself by providing them with delicious sweetmeats and marvellous
toys; he was dark and of small stature, dressed richly but with great
taste and cultivating all the refinements of luxury. He is said to have
been received familiarly by Louis XV, and was engrossed with him over
questions of diamonds and other precious stones. It is probable that
this monarch, entirely governed by courtesans and given up to pleasure,
was rather yielding to some caprice of feminine curiosity than to any
serious concern for science when he invited Saint-Germain to certain
private audiences. The Comte was the fashion for a moment, and as he
was an amiable and youthful Methuselah, who knew how to combine the
tattle of a roué with the ecstasies of a theosophist, he was the rage
in certain circles, though speedily replaced by other phantasiasts. So
goes the world.
It is said that Saint-Germain was no other than that mysterious
Althotas who was the Master in Magic of another adept with whom we are
about to be occupied and who took the Kabalistic name of Acharat. The
supposition has no foundation, as will be seen in due course.
Whilst the Comte de Saint-Germain was thus in request at Paris,
another mysterious adept was on his way through the world, recruiting
apostles for the philosophy of Hermes. He was an alchemist who called
himself Lascaris and gave out that he was an eastern archimandrite,
charged with collecting alms for a Greek convent. The distinction was
this, that instead of demanding money, Lascaris seemed occupied, so
to speak, in sowing his path with gold and leaving the trail of it
behind him wherever he went. His appearances were momentary only and
his guises many; here he was old and in the next place still a young
man. He did not make gold in public on his own part, but caused it
to be made by his disciples, with whom he left at parting a little
of the powder of projection. Nothing is better established than the
transmutations operated by these emissaries of Lascaris. M. Louis
Figuier, in his learned work on the alchemists, does not question
either their reality or their importance. Now, in physics above all,
there in nothing more inexorable than facts, and it must be therefore
concluded from these that the Philosophical Stone is not a matter of
reverie, if the vast tradition of occultism, the ancient mythologies
and the serious researches of great men in all ages are not otherwise
sufficient to establish its real existence.[316] A modern chemist, who
has not failed to publish his secret, has arrived at the extraction
of gold from silver by a ruinous process, for the silver sacrificed
by him does not produce in gold more than the tenth of its value, or
thereabouts. Agrippa, who never attained the universal dissolvent, was
notwithstanding more fortunate than our chemist, for he did obtain gold
which was equivalent in value to the silver employed in his process
and did not therefore lose his labour absolutely, if to employ it in
research after the grand secrets of Nature can be called loss.
To set men upon researches which might lead them to the absolute
philosophy by the attraction of gold, such would appear to have
been the end of the propaganda connected with the name of Lascaris;
reflection on Hermetic books would of necessity lead those who
studied to a knowledge of the Kabalah. As a fact, the initiates of
the eighteenth century thought that their time had come—some for
the foundation of a new hierarchy, others for the subversion of all
authority and for setting on the summits of the social order the level
of equality. The Secret Societies sent their scouts through the world
to sound opinion, and at need awaken it. After Saint-Germain and
Lascaris came Mesmer, and Mesmer was succeeded by Cagliostro. But they
were not all of the same school: Saint-Germain was the ambassador of
illuminated theosophists, while Lascaris represented the naturalists
attached to the tradition of Hermes. Cagliostro was the agent of the
Templars, and this is how he came to announce, in a circular addressed
to all Masons in London, that the time had come to build the Temple
of the Eternal. Like the Templars, Cagliostro was addicted to the
practices of Black Magic and to the fatal science of evocations. He
divined past and present, predicted things to come, wrought marvellous
cures and pretended to make gold. He introduced a new Rite under the
name of Egyptian Masonry and sought to restore the mysterious worship
of Isis. Wearing a _nemys_ like that of the Theban sphinx, he presided
in person over nocturnal assemblies, in chambers emblazoned with
hieroglyphics and lighted by torches. His priestesses were young girls,
whom he called doves, and he placed them in a condition of ecstasy
by means of hydromancy in order to obtain oracles, water being an
excellent conductor, a powerful reflector, and highly refracting medium
for the Astral Light, as proved by sea and cloud mirages.
It is obvious that Cagliostro was a successor of Mesmer and had the
key of mediumistic phenomena; he was himself a medium, meaning that he
was a man whose nervous organisation was exceptionally impressionable,
and to this he joined a fund of ingenuity and assurance, public
exaggeration and the imagination—especially of women—supplying the
rest. Cagliostro had an extravagant success; his bust was to be seen
everywhere—inscribed: “The divine Cagliostro.” A reaction equivalent
to the enthusiasm was of course to be foreseen; after having been a
god, he became an intriguer and impostor, the debaucher of his wife, a
scoundrel in fine, to whom the Roman Inquisition shewed grace by merely
condemning him to perpetual imprisonment. The fact that his wife sold
him lends colour to the idea that previously he had sold his wife.[317]
He was taken in a snare, his prosecution followed and his accusers
published as much of the process as they pleased. The revolution came
in the meantime, and everyone forgot Cagliostro.
This adept is, however, by no means without importance in the history
of Magic; his Seal is as significant as that of Solomon and attests his
initiation into the highest secrets of science. As explained by the
Kabalistic letters of the names Acharat and Althotas, it expresses
the chief characteristics of the Great Arcanum and the Great Work.
It is a serpent pierced by an arrow, thus representing the letter
_Aleph_, an image of the union between active and passive, spirit and
life, will and light. The arrow is that of the antique Apollo, while
the serpent is the python of fable, the green dragon of Hermetic
philosophy. The letter _Aleph_ represents equilibrated unity. This
pantacle is reproduced under various forms in the talismans of old
Magic, but occasionally the serpent is replaced by the peacock of Juno,
the peacock with the royal head and the tail of many colours. This
is an emblem of analysed light, that bird of the _Magnum Opus_, the
plumage of which is all sparkling with gold. At other times, instead
of the emblazoned peacock, there is a white lamb, the young solar
ram bearing the cross, as still seen in the armorial bearings of the
city of Rouen. The peacock, the ram and the serpent have the same
hieroglyphical meaning—that of the passive principle and the sceptre
of Juno. The cross and arrow signify the active principle, will,
magical action, the coagulation of the dissolvant, the fixation of the
volatile by projection and the penetration of earth by fire. The union
of the two is the universal balance, the Great Arcanum, the Great Work,
the equilibrium of _Jachin_ and _Boaz_. The initials L.P.D., which
accompany this figure, signify Liberty, Power, Duty, and also Light,
Proportion, Density; Law, Principle, and Right. The Freemasons have
changed the order of these initials, and in the form of L∴D∴P∴[318]
they render them as _Liberté de Penser_, Liberty of Thought, inscribing
these on a symbolical bridge, but for those who are not initiated they
substitute _Liberté de Passer_, Liberty of Passage. In the records of
the prosecution of Cagliostro it is said that his examination elicited
another meaning as follows: _Lilia destrue pedibus_: Trample the lilies
under foot; and in support of this version may be cited a masonic
medal of the 16th or 17th century, depicting a branch of lilies severed
by a sword, having these words on the exergue: _Talem dabit ultio
messem_—Revenge shall give this harvest.
The name Acharat, assumed by Cagliostro, is written Kabalistically
thus: אש, אר, את, and expresses the triple unity: אש, the unity of
principle and beginning; אד, the unity of life and perpetuity of
regenerating movement; and את, the unity of end in an absolute
synthesis.
The name Althotas, or that of Cagliostro’s master, is composed of
the word _Thot_, with the syllables _Al_ and _As_, which, if read
Kabalistically are _Sala_, meaning messenger or envoy. The name as a
whole therefore signifies: _Thot_, the messenger of the Egyptians, and
such in effect was he whom Cagliostro recognised as his master above
all others.[319]
Another title adopted by Cagliostro was that of the Grand Copht, and
his doctrine had the twofold object of moral and physical regeneration.
The precepts of moral regeneration according to the Grand Copht were
as follows: “You shall go up Mount Sinai with Moses; you shall ascend
Calvary; with Phaleg you shall climb Thabor, and shall stand on Carmel
with Elias. You shall build your tabernacle on the summit of the
mountain; it shall consist of three wings or divisions, but these shall
be joined together and that in the centre shall have three storeys.
The refectory shall be on the ground-floor. Above it there shall be a
circular chamber with twelve beds round the walls and one bed in the
centre: this shall be the place of sleep and dreams. The uppermost room
shall be square, having four windows in each of the four quarters; and
this shall be the room of light. There, and alone, you shall pray for
forty days and sleep for forty nights in the dormitory of the Twelve
Masters. Then shall you receive the signatures of the seven genii
and the pentagram traced on a sheet of virgin parchment. It is the
sign which no man knoweth, save he who receiveth it. It is the secret
character inscribed on the white stone mentioned in the prophecy of the
youngest of the Twelve Masters. Your spirit shall be illuminated by
divine fire and your body shall become as pure as that of a child. Your
penetration shall be without limits and great shall be also your power;
you shall enter into that perfect repose which is the beginning of
immortality; it shall be possible for you to say truly and apart from
all pride: I am he who is.”
This enigma signifies that in order to attain moral regeneration, the
transcendent Kabalah must be studied, understood and realised. The
three chambers are the alliance of physical life, religious aspirations
and philosophical light; the Twelve Masters are the great revealers,
whose symbols must be understood; the signatures of the seven spirits
mean the knowledge of the Great Arcanum. The whole is therefore
allegorical, and it is no more a question of building a house of three
storeys than a temple at Jerusalem in Masonry.
Let us now turn to the secret of physical regeneration, to attain
which—according to the occult prescription of the Grand Copht—a retreat
of forty days, after the manner of a jubilee, must be made once in
every fifty years, beginning during the full moon of May, in the
company of one faithful person only. It must be also a fast of forty
days, drinking May-dew—collected from sprouting corn with a cloth of
pure white linen—and eating new and tender herbs. The repast should
begin with a large glass of dew and end with a biscuit or crust of
bread. There should be slight bleeding on the seventeenth day. Balm
of Azoth[320] should then be taken morning and evening, beginning with
a dose of six drops and increasing by two drops daily till the end of
the thirty-second day. At the dawn which follows thereafter renew the
slight bleeding; then take to your bed and remain in it till the end of
the fortieth day.
On the first awakening after the bleeding, take the first grain
of Universal Medicine. A swoon of three hours will be followed by
convulsions, sweats and much purging, necessitating a change both
of bed and linen. At this stage a broth of lean beef must be taken,
seasoned with rice, sage, valerian, vervain and balm. On the day
following take the second grain of Universal Medicine, which is Astral
Mercury combined with Sulphur of Gold. On the next day have a warm
bath. On the thirty-sixth day drink a glass of Egyptian wine, and on
the thirty-seventh take the third and last grain of Universal Medicine.
A profound sleep will follow, during which the hair, teeth, nails and
skin will be renewed. The prescription for the thirty-eighth day is
another warm bath, steeping aromatic herbs in the water, of the same
kind as those specified for the broth. On the thirty-ninth day drink
ten drops of Elixir of Acharat in two spoonsful of red wine. The work
will be finished on the fortieth day, and the aged man will be renewed
in youth.[321]
By means of this jubilary regimen, Cagliostro claimed to have lived for
many centuries. It will be seen that it is a variation of the famous
Bath of Immortality in use among the Menandrian Gnostics.[322] The
question is whether Cagliostro believed in it seriously. However this
may be, before his judges he shewed much firmness and presence of mind,
professing that he was a catholic who honoured the pope as supreme
chief of the religious hierarchy. On matters relating to the occult
sciences he replied enigmatically and when accused of being absurd
and incomprehensible he told his examiners that they had no ground of
judgment, at which they were offended, and ordered him to enumerate
the seven deadly sins. Having recited lust, avarice, envy, gluttony
and sloth, they reminded him that he had omitted pride and anger. To
this the accused retorted: “Pardon me; I had not forgotten them, but
I did not include them out of respect for yourselves and for fear of
offending you further.”
He was condemned to death, which was afterwards commuted to perpetual
imprisonment. In his dungeon Cagliostro asked to make his confession
and himself designated the priest, who was a man of his own figure
and stature.[323] The confessor visited him and was seen to take his
departure at the end of a certain time. Some hours after the gaoler
entered the cell and found the body of a strangled man clothed in the
garments of Cagliostro, but the priest himself was never seen again.
Lovers of the marvellous declare that the Grand Copht is at this day in
America, being the supreme and invisible pontiff of the believers in
spirit-rapping.
CHAPTER III
PROPHECIES OF CAZOTTE
The school of unknown philosophers founded by Martines de Pasqually and
continued by L. C. de Saint-Martin seems to have incorporated the last
adepts of true initiation. Saint-Martin was acquainted with the ancient
key of the Tarot—the mystery, that is to say, of sacred alphabets and
hieratic hieroglyphics. He has left many very curious pantacles which
have never been engraved and of which we possess copies. One of them
is the traditional key of the Great Work and is called by Saint-Martin
the key of hell, because it is that of riches.[324] The Martinists were
the last Christians in the cohort of _illuminés_, and it was they who
initiated the famous Cazotte.
We have said that during the eighteenth century a schism took place in
illuminism: on the one hand, the wardens of the traditions concerning
Nature and science wished to restore the hierarchy; there were others,
on the contrary, who desired to level all things by disclosing the
Great Arcanum, thus rendering the royalty and priesthood alike
impossible in the world. Among the latter, some were ambitious and
unscrupulous, seeking to erect a throne for themselves over the ruins
of the world. Others were dupes and zanies. The true initiates beheld
with dismay the launching of society towards the abyss, and they
foresaw all the terrors of anarchy. That revolution which was destined
at a later period to manifest before the dying genius of Vergniaud
under the sombre figure of Saturn devouring his children had already
shewn itself fully armed in the prophetic dreams of Cazotte. On a
certain evening, when he was surrounded by blind instruments of the
Jacobinism to come, he predicted the doom of all—for the strongest and
weakest the scaffold, for the enthusiasts, suicide—and his prophecy,
which at the moment was rather like a sombre jest, was destined
to be realised amply.[325] As a fact, it was only the calculus of
probabilities, and it proved strictly correct because it dealt with
chances which had already become fatal consequences. La Harpe, who was
impressed by the prediction, amplified the details, to make it appear
more marvellous.[326] He mentioned, for example, the exact number of
times that a certain guest of the moment would draw the razor across
his throat. Poetic licence of this kind may be forgiven to the tellers
of unusual stories; such adornments are of the substance of style and
poetry rather than untruths.
The gift of absolute liberty to men who are unequal by Nature is an
organisation of social war; when those who should restrain the headlong
instincts of the crowd are so mad as to unloose them, it does not
need a great magician to foresee that they will be the first to be
devoured, since animal lusts are bound to prey upon one another until
the appearance of a bold and skilful huntsman who will end them by
shot and snare. Cazotte foresaw Marat, as Marat in his turn foresaw
reaction and a dictator. Cazotte made his first appearance in public
as the author of some literary trifles and it is said that he owed his
initiation to the romance of _Le Diable Amoureux_. There is no question
that it is full of magical intuitions, and love, that supreme ordeal
of life, is depicted in its pages under the true light of the doctrine
of adeptship. Passion in a state of delirium and folly invincible for
those who are slaves of imagination, physical love is but death in the
guise of allurement, seeking to renew its harvest by means of birth.
The physical Venus is death, painted and habited like a courtesan;
Cupid also is a destroyer, like his mother, for whom he recruits
victims. When the courtesan is satiated, death unmasks and calls in
turn for its prey. This is why the Church—which safeguards birth by
sanctifying marriage—lays bare in their true colours the debaucheries
which are mortal, by condemning without pity all the disorders of love.
If she who is beloved is not indeed an angel, earning immortality by
sacrifice to duty in the arms of him whom she loves, she is a _stryge_
who expends, exhausts and slays him, finally exposing herself before
him in all the hideousness of her animal egoism. Woe to the victims of
the _Le Diable Amoureux_, thrice woe to those who are beguiled by the
lascivious endearments of Biondetta. Speedily the gracious countenance
of the girl will change into that camel’s head which appears so
tragically at the end of the romance of Cazotte.
According to the Kabalists there are two queens of the _stryges_ in
_Sheol_—one is Lilith, the mother of abortions, and the other is
Nehamah, fatal and murderous in her beauty. When a man is false to
the spouse set apart for him by heaven, when he is abandoned to the
disorders of a sterile passion, God withdraws his legitimate bride
and delivers him to the embraces of Nehamah, who assumes at need all
charms of maidenhood and of love; she turns the hearts of fathers, and
at her instigation they abandon all the duties owing to their children;
she brings married men to widowhood; while those who are consecrated to
God she coerces into sacrilegious marriage. When she assumes the role
of a wife she is, however, unmasked easily, for on her marriage-day
she appears in a state of baldness, that hair which is the veil of
modesty for womanhood being forbidden her on this occasion. Later on
she assumes airs of despair and disgust with existence; she preaches
suicide, deserts him who cohabits with her, having first sealed him
between the eyes with an infernal star. The Kabalists say further that
Nehamah may become a mother but she never rears her children, as she
gives them to her fatal sister to devour.
These Kabalistic allegories, which are found in the Hebrew book
concerning the Revolution of Souls, included by Rosenroth in the
collection of the _Kabbala Denudata_, and otherwise met with in
Talmudic commentaries on the _Sota_ must have been either known or
divined by the author of _Le Diable Amoureux_.[327] Hence we are told
that after the publication of his novel, Cazotte had a visit from an
unknown person who was wrapped in a mantle, after the traditional
manner of emissaries of the Secret Tribunal. The visitor made signs to
Cazotte which he failed to understand and then asked whether indeed
he had not been initiated. On receiving a reply in the negative, the
stranger assumed a less sombre expression and then said: “I perceive
that you are not an unfaithful recipient of our secrets but rather
a vessel of election prepared for knowledge. Do you wish to rule
in reality over human passions and over impure spirits?” Cazotte
displayed his curiosity; a long talk followed; it was the preface
to other meetings; and the author of _Le Diable Amoureux_ was called
to initiation at the end. He became a devout supporter of order and
authority as a consequence and also a redoubtable enemy of anarchists.
We have seen that, according to the symbolism of Cagliostro, there
is a mountain into which those must go up who are on the quest of
regeneration; this mountain is white with light, like Tabor, or red
with fire and blood, like Sinai and Calvary. The _Zohar_ says that
there are two chromatic syntheses; one of them is white and is that
of peace and moral light; the other, which is red, is that of war and
material life. The Jacobins had plotted to unrol the standard of blood,
and their altar was erected on the red mountain. Cazotte was enrolled
under the banner of light, and his mystical tabernacle was established
on the white mountain. That which was stained with blood triumphed
for a moment, and Cazotte was proscribed. The heroic girl who was his
daughter saved him from the slaughter at the Abbey; it so happened that
the prefix denoting nobility was not attached to her name and she was
spared therefore that horrible toast of fraternity which immortalised
the filial piety of Mlle. de Sombreuil, who, to be vindicated from
the charge of aristocracy, drank the health of her father in the
blood-stained glass of cut-throats.
Cazotte was in a position to foretell his own death, because conscience
compelled him to fight against anarchy even to the last. He obeyed it,
was arrested for the second time and brought before the revolutionary
tribunal as one condemned already. The President who pronounced his
sentence added an allocution full of esteem and regret, pledging his
victim to be worthy of himself unto the end and to die nobly as he had
lived. Even in episodes of the tribunal, the revolution was a civil war
and the brethren exchanged salutations as they condemned one another to
death. The explanation is that there was the sincerity of conviction
on both sides and both were entitled to respect. Whosoever dies for
that which he thinks to be true is a hero even in his deception, and
the anarchists of the ensanguined mountain were not only intrepid when
despatching others to the scaffold, but ascended it themselves without
blanching. Let God and posterity be their judges.
CHAPTER IV
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
Once there was a man in the world who was soured on discovering that
his disposition was cowardly and vicious, and he visited his consequent
disgust on society at large. He was an ill-starred lover of Nature,
and Nature in her wrath armed him with eloquence as with a scourge.
He dared to plead the cause of ignorance in the face of science, of
savagery in the face of civilisation, of all low-life deeps in the face
of all social heights. Instinctively the populace pelted this maniac,
yet he was welcomed by the great and lionised by women. His success was
so signal that, by revulsion, his hatred of humanity increased, and he
ended in suicide as the final issue of his rage and disgust. After his
death the world was shaken in its attempts to realise the dreams of
Jean Jacques Rousseau, and that silent conspiracy which ever since the
murder of Jacques de Molay had sworn destruction to the social edifice,
inaugurated in Rue Platrière, and in the very house where Rousseau had
once lived, a Masonic Lodge, with the fanatic of Geneva as its patron
saint. This Lodge became the centre of the revolutionary propaganda,
and thither came a prince of the blood royal, vowing destruction to the
successors of Philip the Fair over the tomb of the Templar.
It was the nobility of the eighteenth century which corrupted the
people; the aristocracy of that period were seized with a mania for
equality, which took its rise in the orgies of the Regency; low company
was kept for the pleasure of it and the court obtained diversion in
talking the language of the slums. The archives of the Order of the
Temple[328] testify that the Regent was its Grand Master, that he
had as his successors the Duc de Maine, the princes of Bourbon-Condé
and Bourbon-Conti, and the Duc de Cossé-Brissac. Cagliostro drew
auxiliaries from the middle class to swell the membership of his
Egyptian Rite; everyone was eager to obey the secret and irresistible
impulse which drove decadent civilisation to its destruction. Events
did not tarry, but as if impelled by hands unseen, they were heaped one
upon another, after the manner foreseen by Cazotte. The unfortunate
Louis XVI was led by his worst enemies, who at once prearranged
and stultified the paltry project of evasion which brought about
the catastrophe of Varennes, just as they had done with the orgie
at Versailles and the massacre of August 10. On every side they
compromised the king; at every turn they saved him from the fury of the
people, to foment that fury and ensure the dire event which had been
in preparation for centuries. A scaffold was essential to complete the
revenge of the Templars.
Amidst the pressure of civil war, the National Assembly suspended the
powers of the king and assigned him the Luxembourg as his residence;
but another and more secret assembly had ruled otherwise. A prison
was to be the residence of the fallen monarch, and that prison was
none other than the old palace of the Templars, which had survived,
with keep and turrets, to await the royal victim doomed by inexorable
memories. There he was duly interned, while the flower of French
ecclesiasticism was either in exile or at the Abbey. Artillery
thundered on the Pont Neuf, menacing posters proclaimed that the
country was in danger, unknown personages organised successive
slaughters, while a hideous and gigantic being, covered with a long
beard, was to be seen wheresoever there were priests to murder.
“Behold,” he cried with a savage sneer, “this is for the Albigenses and
the Vaudois; this is for the Templars, this for St. Bartholomew and
this for the exiles of the Cevennes.” As one who was beside himself, he
smote unceasingly, now with the sabre and now with axe or club. Arms
broke and were replaced in his hands; from head to foot he was clothed
in blood, swearing with frightful blasphemies that in blood only he
would wash. It was this man who proposed the toast of the nation to
the angelical Mdlle. de Sombreuil. Meanwhile another angel prayed and
wept in the tower of the Temple, offering to God her own sufferings and
those of two children to obtain pardon for the royalty of France. All
the agonies and all the tears of that virgin martyr, the saintly Mme.
Elizabeth, were necessary for the expiation of the imbecile joys which
characterised courtesans like Mme. de Pompadour and Mme. du Barry.
Jacobinism had received its distinctive name before the old Church
of the Jacobins was chosen as the headquarters of conspiracy; it was
derived from the name Jacques—an ominous symbol and one which spelt
revolution. French iconoclasts have always been called Jacques; that
philosopher whose fatal celebrity prepared new Jacqueries and was a
peg on which to hang the sanguinary projects of Johannite schemers
bore the name of Jean Jacques, while those who were prime movers in
the French Revolution had sworn in secret the destruction of throne
and altar over the tomb of Jacques de Molay. At the very moment when
Louis XVI suffered under the axe of revolution, the man with a long
beard—that wandering Jew, significant of vengeance and murder—ascended
the scaffold and, confronting the appalled spectators, took the royal
blood in both hands, casting it over the heads of the people, and
crying with his terrible voice: “People of France, I baptise you in
the name of Jacques and of liberty.”[329] So ended half of the work,
and it was henceforth against the Pope that the army of the Temple
directed all its efforts. Spoliation of churches, profanation of sacred
things, mock processions, inauguration of the cultus of reason in the
metropolis of Paris—these were the signals in chief of the war in
its new phase. The Pope was burnt in effigy at the Palais Royal, and
presently the armies of the Republic prepared to march on Rome. Jacques
de Molay and his companions were martyrs possibly, but their avengers
dishonoured their memory. Royalty was regenerated on the scaffold of
Louis XVI; the Church triumphed in the captivity of Pius VI, when he
was taken a prisoner to Valence, perishing of fatigue and suffering.
But the unworthy successors of that old chivalry of the Temple perished
in their turn, overwhelmed by disastrous victory.
Signal abuses had characterised the ecclesiastical state and grave
scandals were entailed by the misfortune of great riches; but when the
riches melted away, the pre-eminent virtues returned. Such transitory
disasters and such a spiritual triumph were predicted in the Apocalypse
of St. Methodius, to which reference has been made already. We have
a black letter copy of the work mentioned, printed in 1527 and
embellished with amazing designs. Unworthy priests are shewn in the
act of casting the sacred elements to swine; the populace in a state
of rebellion are seen assassinating the priests and breaking their
sacramental vessels on their heads; the Pope appears as a prisoner
in the hands of soldiers; a crowned knight raises with one hand the
standard of France, and with the other draws his sword against Italy.
Finally, two eagles are depicted on either side of a cock, bearing a
crown on his head and a double _fleur de lys_ on his breast. One of the
eagles combines with griffins and unicorns to drive the vulture from
his eyrie; and there is a host of other marvels. This singular book may
be compared with an illustrated edition of the prophecies attributed
to Abbé Joachim, the Calabrian, wherein are exhibited portraits of
all the Popes to come, with the allegorical signs of their respective
pontificates, down to the coming of Anti-Christ. These are strange
chronicles of futurity, pictured as things of the past; they seem to
intimate a succession of worlds wherein events are repeated, so that
the prevision of things to come is the evocation of shadows already
lost in the past.
CHAPTER V
PHENOMENA OF MEDIOMANIA
In the year 1772, a certain parishioner of Saint-Mandé, named Loiseaut,
being at Church, believed that he saw an extraordinary person kneeling
close by him; this was a very swarthy man, whose only garment was a
pair of coarse worsted drawers. His beard was long, his hair woolly,
and about his neck there was a ruddy circular scar. He carried a book,
having the following inscription emblazoned in golden letters: _Ecce
Agnus Dei_.
Loiseaut observed with astonishment that no one but himself seemed
aware of this strange presence, but he finished his devotions and
returned home, where the same personage was awaiting him. He drew
nearer to ask who he was and what might his business be, when the
fantastic visitor vanished. Loiseaut retired to bed in a fever and
unable to sleep. The same night he found his room illuminated suddenly
by a ruddy glow; he sprang up in bed, believing that the place was
on fire; and then on a table in the very centre of the room he saw a
gold plate, wherein the head of his visitor was swimming in blood,
encompassed by a red nimbus. The eyes rolled terribly, the mouth
opened, a strange and hissing voice said: “I await the heads of kings,
the heads of the courtesans of kings; I await Herod and Herodias.” The
nimbus faded and the sick man saw no more.[330]
Some days after he had recovered sufficiently to resume his usual
occupations. As he was crossing the Place Louis XV, a beggar accosted
him and Loiseaut, without looking, threw a coin into his hat. “Thank
you,” said the recipient, “it is a king’s head; but here,” and he
pointed towards the middle place of the thoroughfare, “there will fall
another, and it is that for which I am waiting.” Loiseaut looked with
astonishment towards the speaker and uttered a cry when he recognised
the strange figure of his vision. “Be silent,” said the mendicant;
“they will take you for a fool, as no one but yourself can see me.
You have recognised me, I know, and to you I confess that I am John
Baptist, the Precursor. I am here to predict the punishment which will
befall the successors of Herod and the heirs of Caïaphas; you may
repeat all that I tell you.”
From this time forward Loiseaut believed that St. John was present
visibly at his side, almost from day to day. The vision spoke to him
long and frequently on the woes which would befall France and the
Church. Loiseaut related his vision to several persons, who were not
only impressed but became seers on their own part. They formed among
themselves a mystical society which met in great secrecy. It was their
custom to sit in a circle, holding hands and awaiting communications
in silence. This might continue for hours, and then the figure of the
Baptist would appear in the midst of them. They fell, concurrently or
successively, into the magnetic sleep and saw, passing before their
eyes, the future scenes of the revolution, with the restoration which
would come thereafter.
The spiritual director of this sect or circle was a monk named Dom
Gerle, who became also their leader on the death of Loiseaut in
1788.[331] At the epoch of the Revolution, however, having been won
over by republican enthusiasm, Dom Gerle was expelled by the other
members, acting on the inspirations of their chief somnambulist, who
was known as Sister Françoise André. He had a somnambulist of his
own, and in a Parisian garret he followed what was then the new craft
of a mesmerist. The seeress in question was an old and nearly blind
woman, named Catherine Théot; she prophesied, and her predictions were
realised; she cured many who were sick; and as her forecasts had a
political cast invariably, the police of the _Comité de salut public_
were not slow in taking up the matter.
One evening, Catherine Théot was in an ecstasy, surrounded by her
adepts. “Hearken,” she exclaimed, “I hear the sound of his footsteps;
he is the mysterious chosen one of Providence, the angel of revolution,
at once its saviour and victim, king of ruins and regeneration. Do you
see him? He draws nigh. He also has been encircled by the ruddy nimbus
of the Precursor; it is he who shall bear all crimes of those who are
about to immolate him. Great are thy destinies, O thou who shalt close
the abyss by casting thyself therein. Do you not behold him, adorned
as if for a festival, carrying flowers in his hands—garlands which are
crowns of his martyrdom.” Then sobbing and melting into tears: “How
cruel is thine ordeal, my son; and how many ingrates shall curse thy
memory through the ages. Rise up, and kneel down: he comes; the king
comes—he is the king of bloody sacrifices.”
At this moment the door opened quickly; a man entered enveloped in a
cloak and having his hat drawn over his eyes. Those who were present
rose up; Catherine Théot stretched forth her arms towards the new comer
and said as her hands trembled: “I knew that you must come, and I have
awaited your coming. He who is at my right side, but unseen by you,
shewed you to me yesterday, when an accusation was lodged against us.
We are accused of conspiring for the king, and of a king I have indeed
spoken; it is he whom the Precursor reveals to me at this present
moment, having a crown steeped in blood, and I know over whose head it
is placed—your own, Maximilian.”
At this name the unknown started, as if a red hot steel had entered his
breast. He cast a swift and anxious glance about him, after which his
expression became again impassible.
“What would you say? I fail to understand,” he murmured in a short and
abrupt manner.
“I would say,” replied Catherine Théot, “ that the sun will beam
brightly on that day when a man clothed in blue and bearing a sceptre
of flowers shall be for one moment the king and saviour of the world.
I would say that you shall be great as Moses and as Orpheus, when,
trampling on the head of that monster which is ready to devour you, you
shall testify to headsmen and to victims that God is. Cease from this
masking, Robespierre; shew us rather without paling that valiant head
which God is about to cast in the empty scale of his balance. The head
of Louis XVI is heavy and yours can only be its counterpoise.”
“Do you threaten?” asked Robespierre coldly, letting his cloak fall.
“Do you think by this juggling to startle my patriotism and influence
my conscience? Do you hope by fanatical measures and old wives’ fables
to surprise my resolves as you have played the spy on my proceedings?
You have looked for me, it would seem, and woe to you because you have
looked. Since you compel the curiosity-seeker, the anonymous visitor
and observer to be Maximilian Robespierre, representative of the
people, as such I denounce you to the committee of public weal, and I
shall proceed to have you arrested.”
Having said these words, Robespierre cast his cloak round his powdered
head and walked stiffly to the door. No one dared to detain and none to
address him. Catherine Théot clasped her hands and said: “Respect his
will, for he is king and pontiff of the new age. If he strike us, it is
that God wills to strike us; lay bare the throat before the knife of
Providence.”
The initiates of Catherine Théot waited expecting their arrest
through the whole night, but no one appeared. They separated on the
following day. Two or three further days and nights elapsed, during
which the members of the sect made no attempt at concealment. On the
fifth day, Catherine Théot and those who were called her accomplices
were denounced to the Jacobins by a secret enemy of Robespierre
who insinuated skilfully to his hearers certain doubts against the
tribune—a dictatorship had been mentioned, the very name of king
was pronounced. Robespierre knew, and how came he to tolerate it?
Robespierre shrugged his shoulders, but on the morrow Catherine Théot,
Dom Gerle and some others were arrested and consigned to those prisons
which, once entered, opened only to furnish his daily task to the
headsman.
The story of Robespierre’s interview with Catherine Théot had
transpired, one knows not how.[332] Already the counter-police of the
Thermidorians were watching the presumed dictator, whom they accused
of mysticism because he believed in God. Robespierre notwithstanding
was neither the friend nor enemy of the sect of New Johannites. He
went to Catherine Théot that he might take account of phenomena, and
dissatisfied at having been recognised he departed with threats which
he did not attempt to fulfil; those who converted the conventicle of
the old monk and ecstatic into a sect of conspiracy hoped to derive
from the proceeding a doubt or an opportunity for ridicule attaching
to the reputation of the incorruptible Maximilian. The prophecy of
Catherine Théot was fulfilled by the inauguration of the worship of the
Supreme Being and the swift reaction of Thermidor.
During this time the sect which had gathered about Sister André, whose
revelations were recorded by a Sieur Ducy, continued their visions and
miracles. The fixed notion which they cherished was to preserve the
legitimacy by the future reign of Louis XVII.[333] Times out of number
they saved in dream the poor little orphan of the Temple and believed
also that they had saved him literally. Old prophecies promised the
throne of the lilies to a young man who had been once a captive. So
Bridget, St. Hildegarde, Bernard Tollard, Lichtemberger—all foretold a
miraculous restoration after great disasters.[334] The Neo-Johannites
were the interpreters and multipliers of these forecasts; a Louis XVII
never failed them; they had seven or eight in succession, all perfectly
authentic and not less perfectly preserved. It is to the influence of
this sect that we owe at a later period the revelations of the peasant
Martin de Gallardon and the prodigies of Vintras.
In this magnetic circle, as in the assemblies of Quakers or Shakers of
Great Britain, enthusiasm proved contagious, and was propagated from
one to another. After the death of Sister André, second sight and the
gift of prophecy devolved upon a certain Legros, who was at Charenton
when Martin was incarcerated provisionally therein. He recognised a
brother in the Beauceron peasant whom he had never seen. All these
partisans, by force of willing Louis XVII created him in a certain
sense; that is to say, they worked such efficacious hallucinations that
mediums were made in the image and likeness of the magnetic type, and
believing themselves to be literally the royal child escaped from the
Temple, they attracted all the reflections of this gentle and frail
victim, so even that they remembered circumstances known only to the
family of Louis XVI. This phenomenon, however incredible it may appear,
is neither impossible nor unheard of. Paracelsus states that if, by
an extraordinary effort of will, one can picture oneself as another
person, one would know thereby and forthwith the inmost thought of
that person, and would attract his most secret memories. Often after a
conversation which has placed us in thought-affinity with a companion
in conversation, we dream reminiscences of his private life. Among the
simulators of Louis XVII we must therefore recognise some who were not
impostors, but hallucinated beings, and among these last is the Swiss
who is named Naündorff, a visionary like Swedenborg, one indeed so
contagious in his conviction that old servants of the royal family have
recognised him and cast themselves weeping at his feet. He bore the
particular signs and scars of Louis XVII; he recounted his infancy with
a startling appearance of truth and entered into minute details, which
are decisive for private remembrances. His very features would have
been those of the orphan of Louis XVI, had he really lived. One thing
only in fine was wanting for the pretender to have been Louis XVII
truly, and that is not to have been Naündorff.[335]
Such was the contagious magnetic power of this deluded person that
even his death did not undeceive any of the believers in his reign
to come. We have seen one of the most convinced, to whom we timidly
objected—when he spoke of the approaching restoration of what he
called the true legitimacy—that his Louis XVII was dead. “Is it then
more difficult for God to raise him from death than it was for those
who preceded us to save him from the Temple?” Such was the answer
given us—and this with a smile so triumphant that almost it seemed
disdainful. We had nothing to rejoin on our own part, but were rather
compelled to bow in the presence of such a conviction.
CHAPTER VI
THE GERMAN ILLUMINATI
Germany is the native land of metaphysical mysticism and phantoms. A
phantom itself of the old Roman empire, it seems always to invoke the
mighty shade of Hermann, consecrating in his honour the simulacrum
of the captive eagles of Varus. The patriotism of young Germany is
invariably that of the Germans in elder days. They have no thought of
invading the laughing land of Italy; they accept the situation, as it
stands, simply as a matter of revenge; but they would die a thousand
times in the defence of their hearths and homes. They love their old
castles, their old legends of the banks of the Rhine; they read with
the uttermost patience the darksome treatises of their philosophy;
they behold in the fogs of their sky and in the smoke of their pipes
a thousand things inexpressible, by which they are initiated into
the marvels of the other world. Long before there was any question
of mediums and their evocations in America and France, Prussia had
its _illuminati_ and seers, who had habitual communications with the
dead. At Berlin, a great noble built a house destined for evocations;
King Frederick William was very curious about all such mysteries and
was often immured in this house with an adept named Steinert. His
experiences were so signal that a state of exhaustion supervened and he
had to be restored with drops of some magical elixir analogous to that
of Cagliostro. There is a secret correspondence belonging to the reign
in question which is cited by the Marquis de Luchet in his work against
the _illuminati_, and it contains a description of the dark chamber
in which the evocations were performed. It was a square apartment,
divided by a transparent veil; the magical furnace or altar of perfumes
was erected in front of the veil and behind was a pedestal on which
the spirit manifested. In his German work upon Magic, Eckartshausen
describes the whole of the fantastic apparatus, being a system of
machines and operations by which imagination was helped to create the
phantoms desired, those who consulted the oracle being in a kind of
waking somnambulism, comparable to the nervous excitement produced by
opium or hasheesh. Those who are contented with the explanations given
by the author just mentioned will regard the apparitions as magic
lantern effects, but there is more in it assuredly than this, while
the magic lantern was only an accessory instrument in the business and
one in no sense necessary for the production of the phenomenon. The
images of persons once known on earth and now called up by thought do
not appear as reflections of coloured glass; the pictures painted by a
lantern do not speak, nor do they give answers to question on matters
of conscience. The king of Prussia, to whom the house belonged, was
well acquainted with all the apparatus and was not therefore duped by
jugglery, as the author of the secret correspondence pretends. The
natural means paved the way for the prodigy but did not perform the
latter; and the things which occurred were of a kind to surprise and
disturb the most inveterate sceptic.[336] Schroepfer, moreover made
use of no magic lantern and no veil, but those who came to him drank
a kind of punch which he prepared; the forms which then appeared by
his mediation were like those of the American Home, that is to say,
partially materialised, and they caused a curious sensation in persons
who sought to touch them. The experience was analogous to an electric
disturbance, making the flesh creep, and there would have been no such
sensation if people had moistened their hands before touching the
apparition. Schroepfer acted in good faith, as does also the American
Home; he believed in the reality of the spirits evoked by him, and he
killed himself when he began to doubt it.[337]
Lavater, who also died violently, was utterly given over to evocations;
he had two spirits at his command and belonged to a circle which
cultivated catalepsy by the help of a harmonica. A magical chain was
formed; a species of imbecile served as the spirit’s interpreter and
wrote under his control.[338] This spirit gave out that he was a
Jewish Kabalist who died before the birth of Jesus Christ, and the
things which the medium recorded under his influence were worthy of
Cahagnet’s somnambulists.[339] There was, for example, a revelation
on sufferings in the life beyond, the communicating spirit stating
that the soul of the emperor Francis was compelled to calculate the
number and exact condition of all the snail-shells which may exist
and have existed in the whole universe. He made known also that
the true names of the three Magi were not, as tradition tells us,
Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar, but on the contrary Vrasapharmion,
Melchisedek and Baleathrasaron; it is like reading the names written
by our modern process of table-turning. The spirit also testified that
he was himself doing penance for having threatened his father with
the magical sword and that he felt disposed to make his friends a
present of his portrait. Paper, paints and brushes were placed at his
request behind a screen; he was then seen to design on the screen the
outline of a small hand; a slight friction was audible on the paper;
when it ceased everyone pressed forward and found rudely painted the
likeness of an old Rabbi vested in black, with a white ruffle over the
shoulders and a black skull-cap, a costume altogether eccentric for
a personage who was anterior to Jesus Christ. The painting, for the
rest, was smudged and ill-drawn, resembling the work of a child amusing
himself by daubing with eyes shut.[340] The written instructions of
the medium under the inspiration of Gablidone vie in their obscurity
with the characteristics of German metaphysicians. “The attribute of
majesty must not be conferred lightly,” says this authority, “for
majesty is a derivation from Mage, seeing that the Magi were pontiffs
and kings; they were therefore the primeval majesties. It is against
the majesty of God that we offend when we sin mortally; we wound Him
as Father, casting death into the sources of life. The fountain of the
Father is light and life; that of the Son is blood and water; while
the splendour of the Holy Spirit is fire and gold. We sin against the
Father by falsehood, against the Son by hatred and against the Holy
Spirit by debauchery, which is the work of death and destruction.”
The good Lavater received these communications like oracles and when
he asked for some further illuminations, Gablidone proceeded as
follows: “The great revealer of mysteries shall come, and he will be
born in the next century. The religion of the patriarchs will then
be known on earth; it will explain to mankind the triad of _Agion_,
_Helion_, _Tetragrammaton_; and the Saviour whose body is girt with a
triangle shall be shewn on the fourth step of the altar; the apex of
the triangle will be red and the device of mystery thereon will be:
_Venite ad patres osphal_. One of the auditors demanded the meaning
of the last word, and the medium wrote as follows without other
explanations: _Alphos, M: Aphon, Eliphismatis_. Certain interpreters
have concluded that the magus whose advent was announced in the course
of the nineteenth century would be named Maphon and would be the son of
Eliphisma, but this reading may be somewhat speculative.
There is nothing more dangerous than mysticism, for the mania which it
begets baffles every combination of human wisdom. It is ever the fools
who upset the world and that which great statesmen never foresee is
the desperate work of a maniac. The architect of the temple of Diana
at Ephesus promised himself eternal glory, but he counted without
Erostratus. The Girondins did not foresee Marat. What is needed to
alter the equilibrium of the world? asked Pascal, on the subject of
Cromwell. The answer is, a speck of gravel formed by chance in the
entrails of a man. So do the great events come about through causes
which in themselves are nothing. When any temple of civilisation
crashes down, it is always the work of a blind man, like Samson, who
shakes the pillars thereof. Some wretched preacher, belonging to the
dregs of the people, is suffering from insomnia and believes himself
elected to deliver the world from anti-Christ. Accordingly he stabs
Henry IV and reveals to France in its consternation the name of
Ravaillac. The German thaumaturgists regarded Napoleon as the Apollyon
mentioned in the Apocalypse and one of their neophytes, named Stabs,
came forward to kill the military Atlas, who at the given moment was
carrying on his shoulders a world snatched from the chaos of anarchy.
But that magnetic influence which the Emperor called his star was
more potent than the fanatical impulse of the German occult circles.
Stabs could not or dared not strike; Napoleon himself questioned him;
he admired his resolution and courage; but, as he understood his own
greatness, he would not detract from the new Scevola by forgiving him;
he shewed his estimation indeed by taking him seriously and allowing
him to be shot.
Carl Sand, who killed Kotzebue, was also an unfortunate derelict child
of mysticism, misled by the secret societies, in which vengeance was
sworn upon daggers. Kotzebue may have deserved cudgelling, but the
weapon of Sand reinstated and made him a martyr. It is indeed grand to
perish as the enemy and victim of those who wreak vengeance by means
of ambuscades and assassinations. The secret societies of Germany
practised rites which were less or more comparable to those of Magic.
In the brotherhood of Mopses, for example, the mysteries of the Sabbath
and the secret reception of Templars were renewed in mitigated and
almost humorous forms. The Baphometic Goat was replaced by a dog, as
if Hermanubis were substituted for Pan, or science for Nature—the
latter being an equivalent change, since Nature is known solely by
the intermediation of science. The two sexes were admitted by the
Mopses, as was the case at the Sabbath; the reception was accompanied
by barkings and grimaces, and, as among the Templars, the Neophyte was
invited to take his choice between kissing the back parts of the devil,
the Grand Master or the Mopse, which was a small image of card-board,
covered with silk, and representing a dog, called _Mops_ in German.
The salutation in question was the condition of reception and recalls
that which was offered to the Goat of Mendes in the initiations of the
Sabbath. The Mopses took no pledges other than on their word of honour,
which is the most sacred of all oaths for self-respecting people. Their
meetings were occasions for dancing and festivity—again like those of
the Sabbath—except that the ladies were clothed, and did not hang live
cats from their girdles or eat little children: it was altogether a
civilised Sabbath.[341]
Magic had its epic in Germany and the Sabbath its great poet; the
epic was the colossal drama of _Faust_—that completed Babel of human
genius. Goethe was initiated into all mysteries of magical philosophy;
in his youth he had even practised the ceremonial part. The result
of his daring experiments was to produce in him, for the time being,
a profound disgust with life and a strong inclination towards death.
As a fact, he accomplished his suicide, not by a literal act but in
a book; he composed the romance of _Werther_, the fatal work which
preaches death and has had so many proselytes; then, victorious over
discouragement and disgust, and having entered the serene realms of
peace and truth, he wrote _Faust_. It is a magnificent commentary on
one of the most beautiful episodes in the Gospel—the parable of the
prodigal son. It is initiation into sin by rebellious science, into
suffering by sin, into expiation and harmonious science by suffering.
Human genius, represented by Faust, employs as its lackey the spirit of
evil, who aspires to become master; it exhausts quickly all the delight
that is attributed by imagination to unlawful love; it goes through
orgies of folly; then, drawn by the charm of sovereign beauty, it
rises from the abyss of disillusion to the heights of abstraction and
imperishable beauty. There Mephistopheles is at his ease no longer; the
implacable laughter turns sad; Voltaire gives place to Chateaubriand.
In proportion as the light manifests, the angel of Darkness writhes and
tosses; he is bound by celestial angels; he admires them against his
will; he loves, weeps and is conquered.
In the first part of the drama, we see Faust separated by violence from
Margaret; the heavenly voices cry that she is saved, even as she is
being led to execution. But can that Faust be lost who is always loved
by Margaret? Is not his heart already espoused to heaven? The great
work of redemption in virtue of solidarity moves on to its fulfilment.
How should the victim ever be consoled for her sufferings, did she
not convert her executioner? Is not forgiveness the revenge of the
children of heaven? The love which has first reached the empyrean draws
science after it by sympathy; Christianity uprises in its admirable
synthesis. The new Eve has washed the mark from the forehead of Cain
with the blood of Abel, and she weeps with joy over her two children,
who hold her in their joint embrace. To make room for the extension
of heaven, hell—which has become useless—ceases. The problem of evil
has found its definitive solution, and good—alone necessary and alone
triumphant—shall reign henceforth eternally.
Hereof is the glorious dream of the greatest of all poets, but the
philosopher, by misfortune, forgets the laws of equilibrium; he
would swallow up light in a shadowless splendour and motion in an
absolute repose, which would signify cessation of life. So long as
there is visible light, there will be shadow in proportion therewith.
Repose will never be happiness, unless equilibrated by an analogous
and contrary movement. So long as there shall be free benediction,
blasphemy will remain possible; so long as heaven remains, a hell there
will also be. It is the unchangeable law of Nature and the eternal will
of that justice whose other name is God.
CHAPTER VII
EMPIRE AND RESTORATION
Napoleon filled the world with wonders, and in that world was himself
the greatest wonder of all. The Empress Josephine, his wife, curious
and credulous as a creole, passed from enchantments to enchantments.
A glory of this kind had, as we are told, been promised her by an old
gipsy woman, and the folk of the countryside still believe that she
was herself the Emperor’s good genius. As a fact, she was a sweet
and modest counsellor who would have saved him from many perils, had
he always listened to her warnings, but he was impelled forward by
fatality, or rather by providence, and that which was to befall him
had been decreed beforehand. In a prophecy attributed to St. Césaire
but signed Jean de Vatiguerro, and found in the _Liber Mirabilis_, a
collection of predictions printed in 1524,[342] there are the following
astonishing sentences.
“The churches shall be defiled and profaned, and the public worship
suspended. The eagle shall take flight over the world and overcome many
nations. The greatest prince and most august sovereign in all the West
shall be put to rout after a supernatural defeat. A most noble prince
shall be sent into captivity by his enemies and shall mourn in thinking
of those who were devoted to him. Before peace is restored to France,
the same events shall be repeated again and again. The eagle shall be
crowned with a triple diadem, shall return victorious to his eyrie and
shall leave it only to ascend into heaven.”
After predicting the spoliation of churches and the murder of priests,
Nostradamus foretells the birth of an emperor in the vicinity of Italy
and says that his reign will cost France a great outpouring of blood,
while those who belong to him will betray him and charge him with the
spilling of blood.
“An Emperor shall be born near Italy,
Who shall cost dear to the Empire:
They shall say, With what people he keepeth company!
He shall be found less a prince than a butcher.
From a simple soldier he shall come to have the supreme command,
From a short gown he shall come to the long one;
Valiant in arms, no worse man in the Church,
He shall vex the priests, as water doth a sponge.”[343]
This is to say that at the moment when the church experiences the
greatest calamities, he will overwhelm the priests with benefits. In
a collection of prophecies published in 1820, and of which we possess
a copy, the following phrase occurs after a prediction concerning
Napoleon I: “And the nephew will accomplish that which the uncle failed
to do.” The celebrated Mlle. Lenormand had in her library a volume in
boards with a parchment back, containing the _Treatise of Olivarius on
Prophecies_, followed by ten manuscript pages, in which the reign of
Napoleon and his downfall were announced formally. The seeress imparted
the contents of this work to the Empress Josephine. Having mentioned
Mlle. Lenormand, a few further words may be added about this singular
woman; she was stout and extremely plain, emphatic in talk, ludicrous
in style, but a waking somnambulist of conspicuous lucidity. She was
the fashionable seeress under the First Empire and the Restoration.
There is nothing more wearisome than are her writings, but as a teller
of fortunes by cards she was most successful.
Cartomancy, as restored in France by Etteilla, is literally the
questioning of fate by signs agreed on beforehand. These in combination
with numbers suggest oracles to the medium, who is biologised by
staring at them. The signs are drawn by chance, after having shuffled
them slowly; they are arranged according to Kabalistic numbers,
and they respond invariably to the thoughts of those who question
them, seriously and in good faith, for all of us carry a world of
presentiments within us which any pretext will formulate. Susceptible
and sensitive natures receive from us a magnetic shock which conveys
to them the impression of our nervous state. The medium can then read
our fears and hopes in ripples of water, forms of clouds, counters cast
haphazard on the ground, in the marks made on a plate by the grouts of
coffee, in the lottery of a card-game, or in the Tarot symbols.
As an erudite Kabalistic book, all combinations of which reveal
the harmonies pre-existing between signs, letters and numbers, the
practical value of the Tarot is truly and above all marvellous. But we
cannot with impunity, by such means, extort from ourselves the secrets
of our intimate communication with the universal light. The questioning
of cards and Tarots is a literal evocation, which cannot be performed
apart from danger and crime. By evocations we compel our astral body to
appear before us; in divination we force it to speak. We provide a body
for our chimæras by so doing, and we make a proximate reality of that
future which will actually become ours when it is called up by power of
the word and is embraced by faith. To acquire the habit of divination
and of magnetic consultations is to make a compact with vertigo, and we
have established already that vertigo is hell.
Mlle. Lenormand was infatuated with herself and with her art;
she thought that the world could not go on without her and that
she was necessary to the equilibrium of Europe. At the Congress
of Aix-la-Chapelle, the seeress made her appearance with all her
properties, did business at all the customs, and pestered all the
authorities, so that they were compelled in a sense to concern
themselves with her; she was truly the fly on the wheel, and what a
fly! On her return she published her impressions with a frontispiece
representing herself surrounded by all the powers, who consulted her
and trembled in her presence.[344]
The great events which had just come to pass in the world turned all
minds towards mysticism; a religious reaction began and the royalties
constituting the Holy Alliance felt the need of attaching their
united sceptres to the cross. The Emperor Alexander in particular
believed that the hour was come for Holy Russia to convert the world
to universal orthodoxy. The intriguing and turbulent sect of the
Saviours of Louis XVII sought to profit by this tendency for the
foundation of a new priesthood, and it succeeded in introducing one of
its seeresses to the notice of the Russian Emperor. Madame Bouche was
the name of this new Catherine Théot, but she was called Sister Salome
by the sect.[345] She spent eighteen months at the Imperial Court and
had many secret conferences with Alexander, but he had more of pious
imagination than true enthusiasm; he delighted in the marvellous and
pretended that it amused him. It came about that his confidants in this
class of interests presented him with another prophetess, and Sister
Salome was forgotten. Her successor was Madame de Krudener, an amiable
coquette full of piety and virtue, who created but was not herself
Valérie.[346] It was, however, her ambition to pass as the heroine
of her own book, and when one of her intimate friends pressed her to
identify the hero, she mentioned an eminent personality of that period.
“Ah then,” said her friend, “the catastrophe of your book is not in
conformity with the facts, for the gentleman in question is not dead.”
But Madame de Krudener replied, “Oh, my dear, he is little better than
dead,” and the retort was her fortune. The influence of Madame de
Krudener on the somewhat weak mind of Alexander was strong enough to
concern his advisers; he was often shut up with her in prayer, but in
the end she was lost by excess of zeal. One day the Emperor was taking
leave of her when she threw herself before him, conjuring him not to go
out and explaining how God had made known to her that he was in great
danger, that there was a plot against his life, and that an assassin
was concealed in the palace. The Emperor was alarmed and summoned
the guards; a search followed, and some poor wretch was ultimately
discovered with a dagger. In confusion he finished by confessing that
he had been introduced by Madame de Krudener herself.[347] Was it true,
and had the lady played the part of Latude in the vicinity of Madame
de Pompadour? Was it false, and, secreted by the Emperor’s enemies, was
the man’s mission—in the event of the murder failing—to destroy Madame
de Krudener? Either way, the poor prophetess was lost, for the Emperor,
in his shame at being regarded as a dupe, sent her about her business
without hearing her, and she had reason to think herself fortunate in
escaping so easily.
The little church of Louis XVII did not conclude that it was beaten
by the disgrace of Madame Bouche, while in that of Madame de Krudener
it beheld a Divine punishment. The prophecies continued and were
reinforced, as required, by miracles. In the reign of Louis XVIII they
put forward a peasant of La Beauce, named Martin,[348] who declared
that he had seen an angel.
From the description which he gave the angel in question was in the
guise of a lackey belonging to some good family; he had a long surtout,
cut very close at the waist and of a yellow colour; he was pale and
thin, with a hat which was probably adorned with gold lace. The strange
thing is that the seer managed to be taken seriously and obtained an
interview with the king, furnishing one more instance of the resources
in persistence and boldness. It is said that the king was astonished
by revelations concerning his private life, in which there is nothing
that is impossible or even of an extraordinary nature, now that the
phenomena of magnetism are better authenticated and known. Moreover,
Louis XVIII was sufficiently sceptical to be credulous. Doubt in the
presence of existence and its harmonies, scepticism in the face of
the eternal mathematics and immutable laws of life, by which Divinity
is manifested everywhere—this assuredly is the most imbecile of
superstitions and the least excusable, as it is the most dangerous, of
all credulities.
BOOK VII
_MAGIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY_
ז—ZAIN
CHAPTER I
MAGNETIC MYSTICS AND MATERIALISTS
The denial of the fundamental doctrine of catholic religion, formulated
so magnificently in the poem of _Faust_, had borne its fruits in the
world. Morality deprived of its eternal sanction became doubtful
and unsettled. A materialistic mystic turned about the system of
Swedenborg to create on earth a paradise of attractions in proportion
to destinies. By the word attractions Fourier understood the sensuous
passions, and to these he promised an integral and absolute expansion.
God, who is the Supreme Reason, marks such condemned doctrines with a
terrible seal; the disciples of Fourier began by absurdity and ended in
madness.[349]
They believed seriously that the ocean would be presently transformed
into an immeasurable bowl of lemonade; they believed also in the future
creation of anti-lions and anti-serpents, in epistolary correspondence
to be established between the planets. We forbear speaking of the
famous tail, thirty-two feet in length, with which it is reported
that the human species was to be adorned, because it would appear
that they had the generosity to set this notion aside as, according
to their master, a purely hypothetical question. To such absurdities
does the denial of equilibrium lead. And at the bottom of all these
follies there is more logic than would be thought. The same reason
which necessitates suffering in humanity renders indispensable the
bitterness of sea-water; grant the integral expansion of instincts, and
you can no longer admit the existence of wild beasts; endow man with
the capacity of satisfying his appetites as the sum of all morality,
and he will still have something to envy in ourang-outangs and monkeys.
To deny hell is also to deny heaven, seeing that, according to the
most exalted interpretation of the Great Hermetic Dogma, hell is the
equilibrating reason of heaven, for harmony results from the analogy
of contraries. _Quod superius, sicut quod inferius._ Superiority
presupposes inferiority; the depth determines the height, and to fill
up the valleys is to efface mountains; so also to take away shadows
would be to destroy light, as this is only visible by the graduated
contrast of darkness and day; an universal obscurity would be produced
by all-dazzling brilliance. The very existence of colours in light
is due to the presence of shadow; it is the triple alliance of day
and night, the luminous image of dogma, the light made shadow, as the
Saviour is the Word made man. All this rests on the same law, which
is the first law of creation, the one absolute law of Nature, being
that of the distinction and harmonious balancing of opposing forces in
universal equilibrium.
[Illustration: GENERAL PLAN OF KABALISTIC DOCTRINE]
That which has revolted public conscience is not the dogma of hell
but its rash interpretation. Those barbarous dreams of the middle
ages, those atrocious and obscene tortures, sculptured on the porticos
of churches, that infamous cauldron for the cooking of human flesh
which lives for ever, so that it may for ever suffer, while the elect
are rejoiced by the smoke—all this is absurd and impious; but none
of it belongs to the sacred doctrine of the Church. The cruelty
attributed to God constitutes the most frightful of blasphemies, and
it is precisely for this reason that evil is for ever irremediable
while the will of man rejects the divine goodness. God inflicts the
tortures of reprobation on those who are damned only as He causes
the death of the suicide. “Work in order to possess, and you will be
happy”—so speaks the Supreme Justice to man.—“I would possess and enjoy
without labour.”—“You will then be a robber and will suffer.”—“I will
rebel.”—“You will be broken and will suffer further.”—“I will rebel for
ever.”—“Then shall you suffer eternally.” Such is the decree of the
Absolute Reason and the Sovereign Justice: what can be answered hereto
by human pride and folly?
Religion has no greater enemy than unbridled mysticism, which mistakes
its feverish visions for divine revelations. It is not the theologians
who have created the devil’s empire, but the false devotees and
sorcerers. To believe a vision of the brain rather than the authority
of public reason or piety has been ever the beginning of heresy in
religion and of folly in the order of human philosophy; a fool would
not be a fool if he believed in the reason of others. Visions have
never been wanting to piety in revolt, nor chimeras to reason which
excommunicates and banishes itself. From this point of view, magnetism
has its dangers assuredly, for the state which it induces leads to
hallucination as easily as to lucid intuition. We are dealing in this
chapter, on the one hand, with mystic magnetisers, with materialistic
magnetisers on the other hand, and we would warn them in the name of
science concerning the risks which they run. Divinations, magnetic
experiences and evocations belong to one and the same order of
phenomena, being those which cannot be misemployed without danger to
reason and life.
Some thirty or forty years ago a choirmaster of Notre Dame, who,
for the rest, was an exceedingly pious and estimable man, became
infatuated with mesmerism and gave himself up to its experiences; he
also devoted more time than was reasonable to the study of the mystics,
and above all the vertiginous Swedenborg. Mental exhaustion followed,
and as it was accompanied by sleeplessness, he used to rise and
continue his studies; if this failed to quiet the restlessness of his
brain, he took the key of the church, entered it by the _Porte Rouge_,
repaired to the choir which was lighted only by the feeble lamp of the
High Altar, took refuge in his stall and there remained till morning,
immersed in prayers and profound meditation.
There came a night when eternal damnation formed the subject of his
reflections, in connection with the menacing doctrine of the small
number of the elect. He was unable to reconcile such rigorous exclusion
of the majority with the infinite goodness of that God Who, according
to Holy Scripture, wills the salvation of all and their attainment of
truth. He thought also of those fiery torments which the most cruel
of earthly tyrants would not, were it possible, inflict for one day
only on his worst enemy. Doubt entered his heart by all its avenues,
and he had recourse to the conciliating explanations of theology. The
church does not define the fire of hell; according to the gospel it
is eternal, but it is nowhere written that the greater number of men
are destined to suffer eternally. Many of the condemned may undergo
only the privation of God; above all the church forbids absolutely the
assumption of individual damnation. Pagans can be saved by the baptism
of desire, scandalous sinners by sudden and perfect contrition, and in
fine we must hope for all, as we must pray also for all, save one only,
being he of whom the Saviour said that it would have been better for
him had that man never been born.
The last thought brought the choirmaster to a pause, and it came upon
him suddenly that a single man was thus carrying officially the burden
of condemnation for centuries, that Judas Iscariot, who is the subject
of reference in the passage of Scripture quoted, after so far repenting
his crime that he died because of it, had become the scapegoat of
humanity, the Atlas of hell, the Prometheus of damnation. Yet he it was
whom the Saviour on the threshold of death had termed his friend. The
choirmaster’s eyes filled with tears, redemption seemed ineffectual
if it failed to save Judas. “For him and for him only,” he exclaimed
in his exaltation, “would I have died a second time, had I been the
Saviour. Yet is not Jesus Christ a thousand times better than I am, and
what must He then be doing in heaven, if I am weeping on earth for His
hapless apostle?... What He is doing,” added the priest, his exaltation
increasing, “is to pity me and console me; I feel it. He is telling
my heart that the pariah of the gospel is saved and that he will
become, by the long malediction which still weighs upon his memory,
the redeemer of all pariahs.... Now, if it be so, a new gospel must
be proclaimed to the world, and it will be one of infinite, universal
mercy—in the name of the regenerated Judas.... But I am astray, I am a
heretic, a reprobate ... and yet, no—for I am sincere.” Then clasping
his hands fervently, the choirmaster added: “My God, vouchsafe me that
which Thou didst not refuse unto faith of old and which Thou dost not
refuse now—a miracle to convince and reassure me, a miracle as the
testimony of a new mission.”
The enthusiast then rose and in that silence of the night which is
so formidable at the foot of altars, in the vastness of the mute and
darksome church, he pronounced the following evocation in loud tones,
but slowly and solemnly: “Thou who hast been cursed for eighteen
centuries, thou for whom I weep, for thou dost seem to have taken
hell solely unto thyself, so that heaven may be left for us; thou,
unfortunate Judas, if it be true that the blood of thy Master has
purified thee, so that thou art saved indeed, come and lay thy hands
upon me, for the priesthood of mercy and love.”
While the echo of these words was still murmuring through the
affrighted arches, the choirmaster rose up, crossed the choir and knelt
under the lamp before the High Altar. He tells us, for the account is
related by himself, that he felt positively and really two warm and
living hands placed upon his head, as bishops impose them on the day of
ordination. He was not sleeping or swooning and he felt them; it was a
real contact which lasted for several minutes. He became certain that
God had heard him, that a miracle had been performed, new duties had
been imposed, and that a new life was for him begun; from to-morrow he
must be a new man. But on the morrow the unhappy choirmaster was mad.
The dream of a heaven without hell, the dream of Faust has made other
victims innumerable in this hapless century of doubt and egoism,
which has only succeeded on its own part in the realisation of a hell
without a heaven. God Himself has become of no effect in a system
where all is permissible, where all things count for good. Men who
have reached the point where they fear no longer a Supreme Judge,
find it easy to dispense with that God of simple folk, who is less
of a God in reality than the simple folk themselves. The fools, who
vaunt themselves as conquerors of the devil, end by making themselves
gods. Our age is above all that of these pseudo-divine mummers, and we
have known all grades of them. The god Ganneau, a good and too poetic
nature, who would have given his shirt to the poor, who reinstated
thieves, who admired Lacenaire, and who would not have hurt a fly; the
god Cheneau, a dealer in buttons in the rue Croix des Petits-Champs,
a visionary like Swedenborg, and recording his inspirations in the
style of Jeannot;[350] the god Tourreil, an excellent personage who
deified woman and decided that Adam had been extracted from Eve; the
god Auguste Comte, who preserved the Catholic religion intact with two
only exceptions, being the existence of God and the immortality of the
soul; the god Wronski, he being a true scholar, who had the glory and
the happiness to rediscover the first theorems of the Kabalah, and
who, having sold their communication for 150,000 francs to a wealthy
imbecile named Arson, has borne witness in one of his most serious
works that the said Arson, having refused to pay him in full, has
become actually and literally the beast of the _Apocalypse_. With a
view of enforcing payment, Wronski published a pamphlet entitled _Yes
or No—that is to say, have you or have you not, yes or no, purchased
from me for 150,000 francs my discovery of the absolute?_
Lest we should be accused of injustice towards one whose works have
proved useful to ourselves, and whose eulogium has been pronounced
in our former publications, we will give verbatim the passage in
Wronski’s _Reform of Philosophy_, p. 512, which calls the attention of
an indifferent universe to the pamphlet above mentioned. It will also
offer a curious specimen of the style adopted by this merchant in the
Absolute.
“This fact of the discovery of the Absolute, against which people have
appeared to rebel so strongly, has already been established undeniably
by means of a great scandal, that of the famous _Yes or No_, not less
decisive by the brilliant victory of truth which followed therefrom
than remarkable by the sudden manifestation of the symbolic being
foreshadowed in the _Apocalypse_, the monster of creation who bears
the name Mystery on his forehead, and who on this occasion, fearing
to be mortally wounded, can no longer hide his hideous contortions in
darkness, but comes through the medium of newspapers and by other modes
of publicity to expose in the open day his infernal rage and the height
of his imposture, &c.”
It is good to know that this unfortunate Arson, here accused, had
already expended on the hierophant some forty or fifty thousand francs.
We have attained after Wronski that Absolute which he sold so dearly,
and we have given it without price to our readers, for truth is due
to the world, and none has the right to appropriate or turn it into
trade and merchandise. May this one act of justice atone for the error
of a man who perished in a condition approaching want after having
worked so hard, though not indeed for science, but to enrich himself by
means of knowledge that he may have been unworthy to understand or to
possess.[351]
CHAPTER II
HALLUCINATIONS
A root of ambition or cupidity is found invariably beneath the
fanaticism of all the sects. Christ Jesus Himself reprimanded often and
severely those of His disciples who cleaved to Him, during the days of
His privations and exile in His own land, with the hope that they would
come into a kingdom wherein they would occupy the seats of the mighty.
The more egregious the expectations are, the more they inveigle some
imaginations; and people are then prepared to pay for the felicity of
hope with their whole purse and indeed their whole personality. It is
thus that the god Wronski ruined those imbeciles to whom he promised
the Absolute; it is thus that the god Auguste Comte drew an annuity
of 6000 francs at the expense of his worshippers, among whom he had
distributed fantastic dignities in advance, to become realisable when
his doctrine should have conquered the world. It is thus that certain
mediums draw money from innumerable dupes by promising them treasures
which the spirits always make away with. Some of these impostors really
believe in their promises, and it is these precisely who are the
most unwearying and the boldest in their intrigues. Money, miracles,
prophecies, none of these fail them, because theirs is that absolute of
will and action which really works wonders, so that they are magicians
without knowing it.
From this point of view, that sect which may be termed the Saviours of
Louis XVII belongs to the history of Magic. The mania of these people
is so contagious that it draws within the circle of their belief even
those who have come forward to combat them. They procure the most
important and rare documents, collect the most exceptional testimonies,
evoke forgotten memories, command the army of dreams, insure the
apparition of angels to Martin, of blood to Rose Tamissier, of an angel
in tatters to Eugène Vintras. The last history is curious on account or
its extraordinary consequences, and we shall therefore recite it.
In 1839, the Saviours of Louis XVII, who had filled the almanacs with
prophecies for 1840, seemed to have assumed that if the whole world
could be made to expect a revolution, that revolution would not fail to
be accomplished; but having no longer their prophet Martin, they set
about to secure another. Some of their most zealous agents were then in
Normandy, of which the pretended Louis XVII claimed to be Duke. They
cast their eyes on a devout labourer, with an excitable but weak brain,
and they planned the following device. They framed a letter addressed
to the prince, meaning the pretender, filled it with emphatic promises
concerning the reign to come, in combination with mystical expressions
calculated to influence a person of feeble mentality, and then arranged
that it should come into the hands of the peasant in question, who was
named Eugène Vintras, under circumstances as to which he may be left to
speak for himself.
“_August 6, 1839._
“Towards nine o’clock I was occupied in writing, when there was a
knock at the door of the room in which I sat, and supposing that it
was a workman who came on business, I said rather brusquely: ‘Come
in.’ Much to my astonishment, in place of the expected workman, I saw
an old man in rags. I asked merely what he wanted. He answered with
much tranquillity, ‘Don’t disturb yourself, Pierre Michel.’ Now, these
names are never used in addressing me, for I am known everywhere as
Eugène, and even in signing documents I do not make use of my first
names. I was conscious of a certain emotion at the old man’s answer,
and this increased when he said: ‘I am utterly tired, and wherever I
appear they treat me with disdain, or as a thief.’ The words alarmed
me considerably, though they were spoken in a saddened and even a
woeful tone. I arose and placed a ten sous piece in his hand, saying,
‘I do not take you for that, my good man,’ and while speaking, I made
him understand that I wished to see him out. He received it in silence
but turned his back with a pained air. No sooner had he set foot on
the last step than I shut the door and locked it. I did not hear him
go down, so I called a workman and told him to come up to my room.
Under some business pretext, I was wishing him to search with me all
the possible places which might conceal my old man, whom I had not
seen go out. The workman came accordingly. I left the room in his
company, again locking my door. I hunted through all the nooks and
corners, but saw nothing.
“I was about to enter the factory when I heard on a sudden the bell
ringing for mass and felt glad that, notwithstanding the disturbance,
I could assist at the sacred ceremony. I ran back to my room to obtain
a prayer book and, on the table where I had been writing, I found a
letter addressed to Mme. de Generès in London; it was written and
signed by M. Paul de Montfleury of Caen, and embodied a refutation
of heresy, together with a profession of orthodox faith. The address
notwithstanding, this letter was intended to place before the Duke of
Normandy the most important truths of our holy Catholic, Apostolic and
Roman religion. On the document was laid the ten sous piece which I
had given to the old man.”
In another communication, Pierre Michel admits that the face of his
visitor was not unknown to him, but that he was struck with strange
fear by his sudden appearance, that he barred and barricaded the door
when he went out and listened a long time, hoping to hear him go down.
As Vintras heard nothing, there is no doubt that the mendicant took off
his shoes so that he might descend, making no noise. Vintras ran to the
window but did not see him depart, the explanation being that he had
done so some time previously. Our witness, in the end, is upset, calls
for help, looks everywhere, finally coming across the letter which he
was meant to read, but it is for him evidently a letter fallen from
heaven. Behold Vintras, devoted henceforth to Louis XVII, behold him
also a visionary for the rest of his days, as the apparition of the old
mendicant never quits him henceforward. Then seeing that he addressed
Vintras as Pierre Michel, the latter regards him as the archangel
Michael, by an association of ideas which is analogous to that of
dreams.[352] The deluded supporters of Louis XVII had divined, with the
second sight of maniacs, the right moment for impressing the feeble
wits of Vintras so as to make him by a single experience at once an
_illuminé_ and a prophet.
The sect of Louis XVII consists more especially of persons belonging to
the service of the legitimate royalty, and when Vintras became their
medium, he was the faithful mirror of their imaginations filled with
romanesque memories and obsolete mysticism. In the visions of the new
prophet there were everywhere lilies steeped in blood,[353] angels
habited like knights, saints disguised as troubadours. Thereafter
came hosts affixed on blue silk. Vintras had bloody sweats, his blood
appeared on hosts, where it pictured hearts with inscriptions in the
handwriting and spelling of Vintras; empty chalices were filled
suddenly with wine, and where the wine fell the stains were like those
of blood. The initiates believed that they heard delightful music and
breathed unknown perfumes; priests, invited to witness the prodigies,
were carried away in the current of enthusiasm. One of them, from
the diocese of Tours, an old and venerable ecclesiastic, left his
cure to follow the prophet.[354] We have personally seen this priest;
he has narrated the marvels of Vintras with the most perfect accent
of conviction; he has shewn us hosts intincted with blood in a most
inexplicable manner; he has communicated to us copies of official
proceedings signed by more than fifty witnesses, all honorable persons,
occupying positions in the world—artists, physicians, lawyers, a
Chevalier de Razac and a Duchesse d’Armaillé. Doctors have analysed the
crimson fluid which flowed from the hosts and have certified that it
was human blood; the very enemies of Vintras, and he has cruel enemies,
do not dispute the miracles, but refer them to the devil. “Now,” said
the Abbé Chavoz, the priest of Touraine whom we have mentioned, “can
you tolerate the notion of the demon falsifying the blood of Christ
Jesus on hosts which have been regularly consecrated?” Abbé Chavoz is a
real priest, and the signs in question appeared in hosts which had been
hallowed by him. This notwithstanding, the sect of Vintras is anarchic
and absurd, and God would not therefore perform miracles in its favour.
There remains the natural explanation of such phenomena, and in the
course of the present work it has been indicated sufficiently to make
further development needless.
Vintras, whom his partisans represent as a new Christ, has also had his
Iscariots; two members of the sect, a certain Gozzoli and another named
Alexandre Geoffroi, published the most scandalous revelations against
him.[355] According to them, the devotees of Tilly-sur-Seules—which
was the place of their residence—were given over to the most obscene
practices; they celebrated in their private chapel, which they termed
the upper chamber, sacrilegious masses, at which the elect assisted
in a state of complete nudity. At a given moment all present fell
into a paroxysm, and with tears and cries of “Love, Love,” they cast
themselves into each other’s arms; the rest we may be permitted to
suppress. It was like the orgies of the old Gnostics, but without even
taking the precaution to extinguish the lights. Alexandre Geoffroi
testifies that Vintras initiated him into a kind of prayer which
consisted in the monstrous act of Onan, committed at the foot of the
altar, but here the accuser is too odious to be believed on his own
word. Abbé Chavoz, to whom we mentioned these infamous impeachments,
explained that they must be attributed to the hatred of two men who
had been expelled from the association for having been guilty on their
own part of the acts which they attributed to Vintras. However it may
be, moral disorders engender naturally those of a physical kind, and
abnormal excitements of the nervous system produce almost invariably
eccentric irregularities in morals: if therefore Vintras is innocent,
he might have been and may yet be guilty. His sect was condemned
formally by Gregory XVI in his brief, dated November 8, 1843.
We append a specimen of the style which this _illuminé_ adopted; he
is a man without education and his bombastic writings swarm with
grammatical errors.
“Sleep, sleep, ye indolent mortals; rest, and still rest on your soft
couches; smile at your dreams of festivals and grandeurs. The angel of
the covenant has come down on your mountains; he has written his name
even in the cups of your flowers; the rings on his feet have touched
the rivers which are your pride and hope; the oaks of your forests have
borrowed the tincture of a new morning from the radiance of his brow;
the sea has made answer to his glance with a yearning leap. She has
gone before him; prostrate yourselves upon the earth and be not alarmed
at the continuous sound heard in the graves beneath. Sleep, and still
sleep. He is engraving his name on the high hills; he is calling on
time to speed his ship, and I have seen the oldest of the old smile at
him. Sleep therefore and sleep; Elias, in the West, sets a cross at
the gate of the temple; he seals it with fire and with the steel of a
dagger.”
Still the temple, and still fire and dagger. It is strange assuredly
how the fools reflect one another; all fanaticisms interweave their
inspirations and the prophet of Louis XVII is here an echo of the
vengeance-cry of the Templars.
It is true that Vintras does not hold himself responsible for what
he writes; this is how he speaks on the subject. “If my mind counted
for anything in these condemned works, I should bow my head and fear
would possess my soul. But the work is not my work, and I have had no
concurrence therein, either by research or desire. Calm is within me;
my couch knows no vigils; watches have not wearied my eyes; my sleep is
pure, as when God first gave it; I can say to my God with a free heart:
_Custodi animam meum et erue me: non erubescam, quoniam speravi in te_.”
Another reputed reformer, he who posed as the Messiah of prisons and
the scaffold, namely, Lacenaire, with whom we do not assuredly seek
to compare Vintras, wrote thus in his prison: “As a chaste and pure
virgin, I wake and I sleep, ever in dreams of love. Who shall teach me
the meaning of remorse?” The argument of Vintras, in order to legalise
his inspiration, is not therefore conclusive, for it has also served
Lacenaire, to excuse and even legitimise not only reveries but crimes.
Condemned by the Pope, the sect of Tilly-sur-Seules condemned the
Pope in their turn, and Vintras, on his private warrant, constituted
himself sovereign pontiff. The shape of his priestly vestments was
revealed to him; he wears a golden diadem, having an Indian lingam
over the forehead; he is vested in a purple robe and carries a magical
sceptre terminated by a hand, the fingers of which are closed excepting
the thumb and little finger, being those consecrated to Venus and
Mercury, emblematic of the antique hermaphrodite, the emblem of the
old ceremonial orgies and the obscene pageants of the Sabbath. So
do the memories and reflections of Black Magic, transmitted by the
Astral Light, connect the mysteries of India and the profane worship
of Baphomet with the ecstasies of this contagious being, whose
infirmary is at London, and who continues there to make proselytes and
victims.[356]
The exaltation of the unfortunate prophet is by no means exempt from
terrors and remorse, whatever he may have alleged to the contrary, and
mournful confessions escape him from time to time. An example occurs
in a letter written to one of his most intimate friends. “I am always
expecting new torments. Tomorrow the Verger family will come, and I
shall behold in their faces the purity of their soul manifested in
their joy of spirit. It will recall my past happiness; names will be
mentioned which I pronounced lovingly myself in days not far away. That
which will be a delight for others will bring me new tortures. I shall
sit at the table, and whilst my heart is pierced with a sword, I shall
have to smile. O, if perchance those terrible words which I have heard
were not eternal, I might still embrace my cruel torment. Pardon, most
dear, I cannot live without loving God. Listen, if your human charity
permits you, as minister of the living God; I do not protest; he whom
your Master has spewed out of his mouth must be anathematised by you:
On the night of Monday, being May 17 or 18, a frightful dream struck
a mortal blow at soul and body alike. I was at Sainte-Paix, and there
was no one in the house, though the doors were open. I had ascended
hurriedly to the holy chapel and was about to open the door when I
saw emblazoned thereon in characters of fire: ‘Dare not to enter this
place, thou whom I have spewed from my mouth.’... I could not retreat;
I fell down overcome on the first step; and you can judge of my terror
when I saw on every side a vast and deep abyss, with hideous monsters
therein who hailed me as their brother. The thought came to me at that
moment that the holy archangel also once called me his brother. What a
difference. His salutation caused my soul to leap with the most intense
joy; and at theirs I writhed in convulsions similar to those which they
had experienced through the power with which God endowed my cross of
grace at their apparition on April 28 last.
“I tried to cling to something, so that I might not fall into the
bottomless gulf. I turned to the Mother of God, the divine Mary, and
called on her to help me. She was deaf to my voice. During all this
time I continued writhing, leaving strips of my skin on the rugged
points which bordered this terrible abyss. Suddenly whirlpools of flame
rose towards me from that depth wherein I was about to fall. I heard
yells of ferocious joy and could pray no longer, when a voice more
terrific than long echoes of thunder in a violent tempest filled my
ears, uttering these words: ‘You think to overcome me but it is you who
are conquered. I have taught you to be humble after my manner. Come,
taste of my sweetness; be numbered among my elect, and learn also to
know the tyrant of heaven; join with us in uttering blasphemies and
imprecations against him; all else is useless, so far as you are
concerned.’ Then after a scream of laughter the voice added: ‘Behold
Mary, her whom you called your shield against us; behold her gracious
smile and listen to her gentle voice.’
“Dear friend, I saw her above the abyss; her eyes of celestial blue
were filled with fire, her red lips were violet, her mild and divine
voice had become hard and terrible, and like thunderbolt she hurled
these words at me: ‘Writhe, proud one, in those fiery regions inhabited
by demons.’
“All my blood flowed back to my heart; it seemed that the hour had
struck wherein an earthly hell was to replace the hell that is eternal;
I could still utter a few words of the _Ave, Maria_. How the time
passed I knew not, but on returning the servant was asleep and said
that it was late. O, if only I revealed to the enemies of the Work of
Mercy that which passes within me, would they not cry victory? They
would say that here indeed was evidence of monomania. Would God that it
were so, for I should have less to lament. And yet fear nothing; if God
will not hear my voice when it pleads my own cause, I will pray Him to
double my sufferings, on condition that he hides them from my enemies.”
Here triumphant hallucination reaches the point of the sublime; Vintras
consents to be damned, provided he is not classed as a fool. It is
the last instinct of reason’s inestimable value, surviving reason
itself. The drunken man is afraid only of being regarded as drunk;
the monomaniac chooses death rather than admit his delirium. The
explanation is that, according to the beautiful sentence of Cebes,
already quoted, there is only one good desirable for man; it is that
wisdom which is the practice of reason: there is also one only true and
supreme misfortune to dread, which is madness.
CHAPTER III
MESMERISTS AND SOMNAMBULISTS
The Church in its great wisdom forbids us to consult oracles and to
violate by indiscreet curiosity the secrets of futurity. In our day
the voice of the Church is no longer heeded; the people go back to
diviners and pythonesses; the somnambulists have become prophets for
those who believe no longer in the gospel precepts. It is not realised
that preoccupation over a predicted event suppresses our freedom in
a sense and paralyses our means of defence; by consulting Magic, to
foresee future events, we give earnests to fatality. The somnambulists
are the sibyls of our epoch, as the sibyls were somnambulists of
antiquity; happy are those querents who do not place their credulity at
the service of immoral or senseless magnetists, for by the very fact of
their friendly consultations they place themselves in communion with
the immorality or folly of those who inspire the oracle; the business
of the mesmerist is easy and his dupes are manifold. Among those who
are devoted to magnetism it is therefore important to know who are in
earnest.
Among these, M. le Baron Du Potet must be placed in the front rank, and
his conscientious work has already done much to advance the science
of Mesmer. He has opened at Paris a practical school of magnetism,
to which the public is admitted for instruction in the processes and
verification of the phenomena obtained.
Baron Du Potet is of an exceptional and highly intuitive nature. Like
all our contemporaries, including the most instructed, he knows nothing
of the Kabalah and its mysteries, but magnetism has notwithstanding
revealed to him the science of Magic, and as it is still dread in his
eyes, he has concealed that which he has found, even while feeling
it necessary to reveal it. The book which he has written on the
subject is sold only to his adepts and then under the seal absolute
of secrecy.[357] We have entered into no bond with M. Du Potet,
but we shall reserve his secret out of respect for the convictions
of a hierophant. It is sufficient to say that his work is the most
remarkable of all products of pure intuition. We do not regard it as
dangerous, because the writer indicates forces without being precise
as to their use. He is aware that we can do good or evil, can destroy
or save by means of magnetic processes, but the nature of these is
not clearly and practically put forward, on which we offer him our
felicitations, for the right of life and death presupposes a divine
sovereignty, and we should regard its possessor as unworthy if he
consented to sell it—in what manner soever.
M. Du Potet establishes triumphantly the existence of that universal
light wherein lucids perceive all images and all reflections of
thought. He assists the vital projection of this light by means of an
absorbent apparatus which he calls the Magic Mirror; it is simply a
circle or square covered with powdered charcoal, finely sifted. In this
negative space, the combined light projected by the magnetic subject
and the operator soon tinges and realises the forms corresponding to
their nervous impressions. The somnambulist sees manifested therein all
dreams of opium and hasheesh, and if he were not distracted from the
spectacle convulsions would follow.
The phenomena are analogous to those of hydromancy as practised by
Cagliostro; the process of staring at water dazzles and troubles the
sight; the fatigue of the eye, in its turn, favours hallucinations
of the brain. Cagliostro sought to secure for his experiments
virgin subjects in a state of perfect innocence, so as to set
aside interference due to nervous divagations occasioned by erotic
reminiscences. Du Potet’s Magic Mirror is perhaps more fatiguing for
the nervous system as a whole, but the dazzlements of hydromancy would
have a more dangerous effect upon the brain.[358]
M. Du Potet is one of those deeply convinced men who suffer bravely the
disdain of science and the prejudgment of opinion, repeating beneath
his breath the profession of secret faith cherished by Galileo: _E
pur si muove_. It has been discovered quite recently that the tables
turn, as the earth itself turns, and that human magnetisation imparts
to portable articles, made subject to the influence of mediums, a
specific movement of rotation. Objects of extraordinary weight can be
lifted and transported through space by this force, for weight exists
only by reason of equilibrium between the two forces of the Astral
Light. Augment the action of one of them and the other will give way
immediately. Now, if the nervous apparatus indraws and expels this
light, rendering it positive or negative according to the personal
super-excitation of the subject, all inert bodies submitted to its
action and impregnated with its life will become lighter or heavier,
following the flux and reflux of the light which—in the new equilibrium
of its movement—draws porous bodies and non-conductors about a living
centre, as planets in space are drawn, balanced and gravitate about
their sun.
This excentric power of attraction or projection supposes invariably
a diseased condition in the person who is the subject thereof; the
mediums are all excentric and badly equilibrated beings; mediomania
supposes or occasions a sequence of other nervous manias, fixed
notions, deordinated appetites, disorderly erotomania, tendencies to
murder or suicide. Among persons so affected moral responsibility
seems to exist no more; they do evil with good as their motive; they
shed tears of emotion in a church and may be surprised at bacchanalian
orgies. They have a way of explaining everything—by the devil or the
spirits which obsess and carry them away. What would you have of them?
They live no more in themselves; some mysterious creature animates them
and acts in their place; this being is named “Legion.”
The reiterated efforts of a healthy person to develop mediumistic
faculties cause fatigue, disease and may even derange reason. It
is this which happened to Victor Hennequin, formerly an editor of
_La Démocratie Pacifique_ and, after 1848, a member of the National
Assembly. He was a young barrister, with a plentiful flow of eloquence,
wanting neither education nor talent, but he was infatuated with the
reveries of Fourier. Being banished as an after consequence of December
2, he took up table-turning during his enforced inactivity; he fell a
victim all too soon to mediomania and believed himself an instrument
for the revelations of the soul of the earth. He published a book
entitled: _Save the Human Race_; it was a medley of socialistic and
Christian reminiscences; a last gleam of reason flickered therein; but
the experiences continued and folly triumphed. In a final work, of
which only one volume was issued, Victor Hennequin represents God in
the guise of an immense polypus located at the centre of the earth,
having antennae and horns turned inwards like tendrils all over his
brain, as also over that of his wife Octavia. Soon afterwards it was
reported that Victor Hennequin had died from the consequences of a
maniacal paroxysm in a madhouse.[359]
We have also heard of a lady belonging to the aristocracy who gave
herself up to communications with pretended spirits in tables and who,
scandalised beyond measure at the unsuitable replies of her particular
piece of furniture, undertook a journey to Rome to submit the heretical
article to the chair of St. Peter. She carried it with her and had an
_auto-da-fé_ in the capital of the Christian world. Better to burn
her furniture than to court madness, and to say the truth it was an
imminent danger for the lady here in question. Let us not laugh at
the episode—for we are children of an age of reason in which men who
pass as serious, like the Comte de Mirville, ascribe to the devil
unexplained phenomena of Nature.
In a drama which is well known on the boulevards there is much to be
heard of a magician who, requiring a formidable auxiliary, created an
automaton, being a monster with the paws of a lion, a bull’s horns
and the scales of leviathan. To this hybrid sphinx he imparted life,
but took flight incontinently, being terrified at the work of his
hands. The monster followed in pursuit, appeared between him and his
betrothed, set fire to his house, burnt his father, carried off his
son, and continuing the chase to the sea, followed him on board a ship
which he caused to be engulphed, but finally made an end of himself
amidst thunder. This awful spectacle, rendered visible by fear, has
been realised in the history of humanity; poetry has personified the
phantom of evil and has endowed it with all forces of Nature. It has
sought to enlist the chimera as an aid to morality, and has then
gone in fear of the ugliness begotten by its own dreams. From this
time forward, the monster has pursued us through the ages; it makes
grimaces between us and the objects of our love; an impure nightmare,
it strangles our children in their sleep; it carries through creation,
that father’s house of humanity, the inextinguishable torch of hell;
it burns and tortures our parents everlastingly; it spreads black
wings to hide heaven from our eyes; it shrieks to us: “Hope no more.”
It mounts the crupper and gallops behind us like remorse; it plunges
into the ocean of despair the last rock of our hopes; it is the old
Persian Ahriman, the Egyptian Typhon, the darksome god confessed by the
heretics of Manes, the Comte de Mirville and the Black Magic of the
devil; it is the world’s horror and the idol of bad Christians. Men
have tried to laugh at it and have been afraid; they have caricatured
it and then trembled, for the cartoons have seemed to take life and
to mock at those who made them. All this notwithstanding, its reign
is over, though it will not perish overwhelmed by a bolt from heaven;
science has conquered the lightning and converted it into torches; the
monster will dissolve before the brightness of science and truth; the
genius of ignorance and darkness can only be blasted by the light.
CHAPTER IV
THE FANTASTIC SIDE OF MAGICAL LITERATURE
It is now twenty years since Alphonse Esquiros,[360] one of the
friends of our childhood, issued a work of high fantasy, entitled
the _Magician_. All that the romanticism of that period conceived to
be most bizarre was embodied in the story; the author provided his
magus with a seraglio of dead ladies, embalmed according to a process
which has since been discovered by Gannal. The characters included
an automaton of bronze who preached chastity, a hermaphrodite who
was in love with the moon and conducted a regular correspondence
with that satellite: there were other wonderful things which one has
forgotten at this day. Alphonse Esquiros may be said to have founded
a school of fantasiasts in Magic by the publication of this romance,
its most distinguished present representative being the young and
interesting Henri Delaage, who is a productive writer, an unrecognised
thaumaturgist and a gifted charmer. His style is not less astonishing
than were the notions of Alphonse Esquiros, his initiator and master.
Thus, in his book dealing with those who have risen from the dead, he
remarks as follows concerning some objection against Christianity: “I
take this objection by the throat and, when I loose my grasp, the earth
shall resound sullenly under the weight of its strangled corpse.” It
is true that his reply to the objection comes to very little; but what
would you, when an objection has been strangled and when the earth has
resounded sullenly under the weight of its body?
We have said that Henri Delaage is an unrecognised thaumaturgist. As a
fact he has informed a person of our acquaintance that during a winter
when influenza was prevalent, it was sufficient for him to enter a
room and every one who happened to be therein was cured immediately.
Unhappily he became himself a victim of the miracle, for he contracted
a slight hoarseness which has never left him. Many of our friends
declare that he has the gift of ubiquity; he is left at the office of
_La Patrie_ and is found again with his publisher Dantu; one retires in
dismay and goes home, there to find—Delaage awaiting one’s arrival. He
is a skilful charmer. A society lady who had been reading one of his
books testified that she knew nothing better written or more beautiful,
but it is not to his works alone that Delaage imparts beauty. We had
been reading an article signed Fiorentino which said that the physical
attractions of the young magician equalled or even surpassed those of
angels. We encountered Delaage and questioned him with curiosity on
this singular revelation. Delaage then put his hand in his waistcoat,
turned three parts round and looked smiling to heaven; it happened
fortunately that we were carrying the _Enchiridion_ of Leo III, which
is known to preserve from enchantments, so that the charmer’s angelical
beauty was hidden from our eyes. Let us offer on our part a more
serious eulogium to Henri Delaage than do those who admire his good
looks; he is sincere when he says that he is a catholic and when he
proclaims loudly his love and respect for religion. Now religion can
make you a saint, and this title is more estimable and glorious than
that of a sorcerer.[361]
It is owing to his rank as a publicist that we have placed this young
man in the first place among the Fantasiasts of Magic, but in all other
respects it belongs to the Comte D’Ourches, a man of venerable age who
has devoted his life and fortune to mesmeric experiments. Ladies in a
state of somnambulism, and any furniture at his house, give themselves
up to frenzied dances; the furniture becomes worn out and is broken,
but it is said that the ladies are all the better for their gyrations.
For a long time the Comte D’Ourches has been dominated by a fixed idea,
which is the fear of being buried alive, and he has written a number of
memorials on the need for verifying decease in a more certain way than
obtains usually. He has some justification for such a fear on his own
part because his temperament is plethoric, while his extreme nervous
susceptibility, continually superexcited by experiments with fair
somnambulists, may expose him to attacks of apoplexy. In magnetism he
is the pupil of Abbé Faria and in necromancy he belongs to the school
of Baron de Guldenstubbé. The latter has published a work entitled
_Practical Experimental Pneumatology, or the Reality of Spirits and the
Marvellous Phenomenon of their Direct Writing_. He gives an account
of his discovery as follows: “It was in the course of the year 1850,
or about three years prior to the epidemic of table-rapping, that
the author sought to introduce into France the circles of American
spiritualism, the mysterious Rochester knockings and the purely
automatic writing of mediums. Unfortunately he met with many obstacles
raised by other mesmerists. Those who were committed to the hypothesis
of a magnetic fluid, and even those who styled themselves Spiritual
Mesmerists, but who were really inferior inducers of somnambulism,
treated the mysterious knockings of American Spiritualism as visionary
follies. It was therefore only after more than six months that the
author was able to form his first circle on the American plan, and
then thanks to the zealous concurrence of M. Roustan, a former member
of the _Société des Magnétiseurs Spiritualistes_, a simple man who was
full of enthusiasm for the holy cause of spiritualism. We were joined
by a number of other persons, amongst whom was the Abbé Châtel,[362]
founder of the Église Française, who, despite his rationalistic
tendencies, ended by admitting the reality of objective and
supernatural revelation, as an indispensable condition of spiritualism
and all practical religions. Setting aside the moral conditions, which
are equally requisite, it is known that American circles are based on
the distinction of positive and electric or negative magnetic currents.
“The circles consist of twelve persons, representing in equal
proportions the positive and negative or sensitive elements. This
distinction does not follow the sex of the members, though generally
women are negative and sensitive, while men are positive and magnetic.
The mental and physical constitution of each individual must be studied
before forming the circles, for some delicate women have masculine
qualities, while some strong men are, morally speaking, women. A table
is placed in a clear and ventilated spot; the medium is seated at one
end and entirely isolated; by his calm and contemplative quietude he
serves as a conductor for the electricity, and it may be noted that a
good somnambulist is usually an excellent medium. The six electrical
or negative dispositions, which are generally recognised by their
emotional qualities and their sensibility, are placed at the right of
the medium, the most sensitive of all being next him. The same rule is
followed with the positive personalities, who are at the left of the
medium, with the most positive among them next to him. In order to form
a chain, the twelve persons each place their right hand on the table
and their left hand on that of their neighbour, thus making a circle
round the table. Observe that the medium or mediums, if there be more
than one, are entirely isolated from those who form the chain.
“After a number of séances, certain remarkable phenomena have been
obtained, such as simultaneous shocks, felt by all present at the
moment of mental evocation on the part of the most intelligent persons.
It is the same with mysterious knockings and other strange sounds;
many people, including those least sensitive, have had simultaneous
visions, though remaining in the ordinary waking state. Sensitive
persons have acquired that most wonderful gift of mediumship, namely,
automatic writing as the result of an invisible attraction which uses
the non-intelligent instrument of a human arm to express its ideas.
For the rest, nonsensitive persons experience the mysterious influence
of an external wind, but the effect is not strong enough to put their
limbs in motion. All these phenomena, obtained according to the mode
of American spiritualism, have the defect of being more or less
indirect, because it is impossible in these experiences to dispense
with the mediation of a human being or medium. It is the same with the
table-turning which invaded Europe in the middle of the year 1853.
“The author has had many table experiences with his honourable friend,
the Comte d’Ourches, one of the most instructed persons in Magic and
the Occult Sciences. We attained by degrees the point when tables
moved apart from any contact whatever, while the Comte d’Ourches has
caused them to rise, also without contact. The author has made tables
rush across a room with great rapidity and not only without contact
but without the magnetic aid of a circle of sitters. The vibration of
piano-chords under similar circumstances took place on January 20,
1856, in the presence of the Comte de Szapary and Comte d’Ourches. Now
all such phenomena are proof positive of certain occult forces, but
they do not demonstrate adequately the real and substantial existence
of unseen intelligences, independent of our will and imagination,
though the limits of these have been vastly extended in respect
of their possibilities. Hence the reproach made against American
spiritualists, because their communications with the world of spirits
are so insignificant in character, being confined to mysterious
knockings and other sound vibrations. As a fact, there is no direct
phenomenon at once intelligent and material, independent of our will
and imagination, to compare with the direct writing of spirits, who
have neither been invoked nor evoked, and it is this only which offers
irrefutable proof as to the reality of the supernatural world.
“The author, being always in search of such proof, at once intelligent
and palpable, concerning the substantial reality of the supernatural
world, in order to demonstrate by certain facts the immortality of
the soul, has never wearied of addressing fervent prayers to the
Eternal, that He might vouchsafe to indicate an infallible means for
strengthening that faith in immortality which is the eternal basis of
religion. The Eternal, Whose mercy is infinite, has abundantly answered
this feeble prayer. On August 1st, 1856, the idea came to the author
of trying whether spirits could write directly, that is, apart from
the presence of a medium. Remembering the marvellous direct writing of
the Decalogue, communicated to Moses, and that other writing, equally
direct and mysterious, at the feast of Belshazzar, recorded by Daniel;
having further heard about those modern mysteries of Stratford in
America, where certain strange and illegible characters were found
upon slips of paper, apparently apart from mediumship, the author
sought to establish the actuality of such important phenomena, if
indeed within the limits of possibility.
“He therefore placed a sheet of blank letter paper and a sharply
pointed pencil in a box, which he then locked and carried the key about
him, imparting his design to no one. Twelve days he waited in vain, but
what was his astonishment on August 13, 1856, when he found certain
mysterious characters traced on the paper. He repeated the experiment
ten times on that day, placing a new sheet of paper each time in the
box, with the same result invariably. On the following day he made
twenty experiments but left the box open, without losing sight of it.
He witnessed the formation of characters and words in the Esthonian
language with no motion of the pencil. The latter being obviously
useless he decided to dispense with it and placed blank paper sometimes
on a table of his own, sometimes on the pedestals of old statues, on
sarcophagi, on urns, &c., in the Louvre, at St. Denis, at the church
of St. Étienne du Mont, &c. Similar experiments were made in different
cemeteries of Paris, but the author has no liking for cemeteries, while
most spirits prefer the localities where they have lived on earth to
those in which their mortal remains are laid to rest.”
We are far from disputing the singular phenomena observed by Baron de
Guldenstubbé, but would point out to him that the discovery had been
made previously by Lavater and that the water-colour portrait[363]
painted by the Kabalist Gablidone is of far greater importance than
the few lines of writing obtained on his part. Speaking next in the
name of science, we would tell him, not indeed for his benefit, seeing
that he will not believe us, but for serious observers of these strange
phenomena, that the writings obtained by him do not come from the
other world but have been made unconsciously by himself. We would say
to him that your experiments, so unduly multiplied, and the excessive
tension of your will, have destroyed the equilibrium of your fluidic
and astral body; you have compelled it to realise your dreams and it
has traced, in characters borrowed from your own remembrance, the
reflections of your imagination and of your thoughts. Had you been
placed in a perfectly lucid state of magnetic sleep, you would have
seen a luminous counterpart of your hand, lengthened out like a shadow
in the setting sun; you would have seen it trace on the paper prepared
by yourself or your friends those characters which have so much
surprised you. That corporeal light which emanates from the earth and
from you is contained by a fluidic envelope of extreme elasticity, and
that envelope is formed from the quintessence of your vital spirits
and your blood. This quintessence derives from the light a colour
determined by your secret will; it is made in the likeness of your
dream, and the characters are impressed on the paper as signs on the
bodies of unborn children are imprinted by the imagination of their
mothers. That which seems to you ink is your blackened and transfigured
blood. You are expending yourself in proportion as such writings
multiply. If you continue your experiments, your brain will be weakened
gradually and your memory will suffer. You will experience unspeakable
pains in the joints of the limbs and fingers, and you will finally die,
either struck down suddenly or after a prolonged agony, characterised
by hallucinations and madness. So much for Baron de Guldenstubbé.
To the Comte d’Ourches we would say: You will not be buried alive,
but you run the risk of dying by the very precautions which you
are taking against such a possibility. The awakening of those who
are so buried can only be rapid and brief, but they may live long
underground, conserved by the Astral Light in a complete state of lucid
somnambulism. Their souls are then bound to the sleeping body by an
invisible chain, and if those souls are greedy and criminal, they can
draw on the quintessence of the blood in persons who are naturally
asleep; they can transmit this sap to their interred bodies for their
longer preservation, in the vague hope that they may be restored
ultimately to life. It is this frightful phenomenon which is called
vampirism, and its reality has been established by many cases as well
attested as the most serious things in history. If you question the
possibility of this magnetic life of the human body under earth, read
the following account of an English officer, named Osborne, the good
faith of which was attested to Baron du Potet by General Ventura.
“On June 6, 1838,” says Mr. Osborne, “the monotony of our camp-life
was happily interrupted by the arrival of an individual who was famous
throughout the Punjaub. He was the subject of great veneration among
the Sikhs because of his power to remain buried underground for so
long a time as he pleased. Such extraordinary stories are told of this
man, and their authenticity has been guaranteed by so many reputable
persons, that we were most anxious to see him. He told us on his own
part that he had followed this business of interment for a number of
years in various parts of India. Among serious and creditable people
who have borne witness in his favour I may mention Captain Wade, the
political agent at Lodhran. This officer has told me most seriously
that he himself assisted at the resurrection of the said fakir after
a burial which took place several months previously, in the presence
of General Ventura, the Maharajah and the principal Sikh chiefs. The
details concerning the interment as given to Captain Wade, and those
which he added on his own authority respecting the exhumation are as
follows.
“After certain precautions which lasted for several days and the
details of which are distasteful, the fakir announced that he was ready
to undergo the trial. The Maharajah, Sikh chiefs and General Ventura
assembled round a grave of stone-work constructed for the express
purpose. In their presence the fakir sealed up with wax every opening
of his body by which air could enter, with the exception of the mouth;
he then cast off his garments, was enveloped in a linen bag and, by his
own wish, his tongue was turned back so that it obstructed the gullet.
He fell after this into a kind of lethargy. The bag which contained him
was closed up, and a seal was placed therein by the Maharajah. It was
then put into a sealed and padlocked chest, which was lowered into the
grave. A large quantity of earth was thrown on it; it was trodden down
and barley was sown therein. Finally, sentinels were stationed round
the spot, with orders to watch day and night.
“These precautions notwithstanding, the Maharajah still had doubts;
thrice during the period of ten months, during which the fakir was
to remain interred, he visited the grave and had it opened in his
presence, but the body was in the sack, just as it had been placed
therein, cold and inanimate to all appearance. When the ten months had
expired, the fakir was exhumed finally. General Ventura and Captain
Wade undid the padlocks, broke the seals and raised the chest from the
grave. The fakir was taken out, but there was no indication of life
either at heart or pulse. As a first means to reanimate him, one of the
spectators inserted his finger very gently in the mouth and restored
the tongue to its natural position. The top of the head was the sole
seat of any sensible heat. By pouring warm water slowly over the
body, some signs of life were obtained by degrees. After two hours of
attention, the fakir rose up and began to move about smiling.
“The extraordinary being declared that he had delicious dreams during
his entombment, but that the time of awaking was always exceedingly
painful and that he was in a state of vertigo before his return
to consciousness; his age is about thirty years, his countenance
is ill-favoured and his expression somewhat crafty. We had long
conversations with him, and he offered to be buried in our presence.
We took him at his word and appointed a meeting at Lahore, where we
promised that he would remain underground throughout our stay in that
city.”
Such was the story of Osborne. The question was whether the fakir would
really allow himself to be interred once more. The new experiment might
well be decisive. But that which happened was as follows.
“Fifteen days after the fakir’s visit to their camp, the English
officers arrived at Lahore. They chose a spot which seemed favourable
for the coming operation, had a mural tomb constructed, as well
as a very solid chest, and then awaited the fakir. He came on the
day following, expressing an ardent desire to prove that he was no
impostor. He stated further that he had made the necessary preparations
for an experiment, but his demeanour evidenced a certain disquiet
and despondency. He began to stipulate concerning his compensation,
which was fixed at fifteen hundred rupees down and two thousand rupees
annually, which the officers undertook to obtain from the king.
Satisfied on this point, he wished to be informed as to the precautions
that they were proposing to take. The officers shewed him the chest,
the keys belonging thereto, and warned him that sentinels chosen among
the English soldiers would watch round the place for a week. The
fakir cried out and gave vent to much abuse of the _Firinghees_ and
sceptics, who sought to rob him of his reputation. He expressed also
a fear that some attempt would be made on his life and, refusing to
trust himself entirely to the surveillance of Europeans, he demanded
that duplicate keys should be committed to one of his co-religionists,
further insisting—and this indeed above all—that the sentries should
not be enemies of his faith. The officers declined to entertain these
conditions; several interviews followed, leading to no result; and
finally the fakir intimated, through one of the Sikh chiefs, that the
Maharajah having menaced him with his anger if he did not fulfil his
engagement with the English, it was his wish to undertake the trial,
though he rested assured that the sole object of the officers was to
deprive him of life, and that he would never come forth from his tomb.
The officers admitted that, as to the last point, they all shared his
conviction, adding that as they did not wish to have his death as a
reproach against them, they relieved him of his promise.
“Are such hesitations and fears proof positive against the fakir? Does
it follow that all who have testified previously how they had beheld
with their own eyes the occurrences to which he owes his celebrity have
been guilty of deception themselves or were the victims of skilful
trickery? We confess that, having regard to the extent and quality
of the evidence, we cannot doubt that the fakir was frequently and
literally interred; and even admitting that after his burial he has on
each occasion continued to communicate with the world above ground, it
would still be inexplicable how he could be deprived of respiration
during the time which intervened between his burial and that moment
when his accomplices came to his aid. Mr. Osborne adds in a note a
quotation from the _Medical Topography of Lodhiana_, by Dr. MacGregor,
an English physician, who assisted at one of the exhumations, was
a witness of the fakir’s lethargy, of his gradual return to life,
and who tries seriously to explain it. Mr. Boileau, another English
officer, in a work published some years ago, recounts how he witnessed
another experience which reproduced all the facts in precisely the
same manner. Those who are anxious to satisfy their curiosity more
fully, those who discern in the narrative an indication of a curious
physiological fact, may refer with confidence to the sources which are
here indicated.”
A number of official records of the exhumation of vampires are
still extant. In each case the flesh was in a remarkable state of
preservation, but blood oozed from the body, the hair had grown in
an abnormal manner and protruded in tufts through the chinks of the
coffin. There was no sign of life in the respiratory apparatus, save in
the heart only, and this seemed to have become a vegetable rather than
an animal organ. To kill the vampire, a stake had to be driven through
the breast and then a frightful cry shewed that the somnambulist of
the grave had awakened with a start into a veritable death. To render
such death definitive, swords were driven point upward into the
vampire’s grave, for the phantoms of Astral Light are disintegrated by
the action of metallic points, which attract that light towards the
common reservoir and dissipate its coagulated clusters. To reassure
nervous people, it may be added that cases of vampirism are fortunately
exceedingly rare and that no one who is healthy in mind and body can be
personally victimised, unless he or she has been abandoned, body and
soul, to the creature in its lifetime by some criminal complicity or
irregular passion.
The following history of a vampire is related by Tournefort in his
_Voyage to the Levant_.[364]
“In the island of Mycona we witnessed a very singular scene, being
the alleged return of a deceased person after interment. In northern
Europe those who come back in this manner are called vampires, while
the Greeks designated them under the name of _Broucolaques_. The case
in question was that of a peasant of Mycona who was naturally gloomy
and quarrelsome. It is a circumstance worthy of note, on account of
parallel instances. He was killed in the countryside, no one knew why
or by whom. Two days after his burial in a church of the city, a report
went abroad that he was seen nightly wandering about at a great pace.
He also visited houses, turned over the furniture, put out the lights,
embraced people from behind and performed innumerable other tricks.
At first it was a laughing matter, but it took a serious turn when
reliable people began to complain. The priests themselves certified
to the fact, and no doubt they had their reasons. Recourse was had
to masses, said for the purpose, but the peasant continued the same
course with no sign of amendment. After several meetings of the chief
persons, priests and monks of the town, it was concluded to wait for
the expiration of nine days after the interment, following I know
not what ancient procedure. On the tenth day a mass was said in the
church wherein the body had been buried, for the purpose of expelling
the demon who was thought to have entered into it. The mass over, the
corpse was disinterred and the heart removed. It was necessary to burn
incense owing to the evil smell, but the combination made bad worse
and almost stifled those present. It was testified that a thick smoke
exhaled from the corpse, and we who were present at the operations did
not venture to suggest that it was really the smoke of the incense.
There were also those who affirmed that the blood of the unfortunate
person was abnormally scarlet, while yet others declared that the
flesh was still warm, whence it was concluded that the deceased person
was seriously wrong in not being properly dead, or rather in allowing
himself to be brought to life by the devil. This is precisely the
idea which obtains concerning the vampire, and that word began to be
repeated persistently. A crowd assembled, loudly protesting that the
body was obviously not rigid when it was carried to the church for
burial and that it was therefore a veritable vampire.
“Appeal being made to us, we expressed the opinion that the person was
undoubtedly dead, and as for the supposed scarlet blood, it was easy
to see that it was only bad smelling slime. For the rest, we attempted
to cure or at least not provoke further their excited imaginations
by explaining the fumes and warmth attributed to the corpse. Such
arguments notwithstanding, it was determined to burn the heart of the
deceased person, but after this had been done he was not more amenable
than formerly and indeed created greater stir. He was accused of
beating people at night, of breaking down doors and windows, tearing
garments and emptying pitchers and bottles. Altogether, the deceased
made himself highly objectionable. There is reason to believe that he
spared no house save that of the consul, in which we happened to be
lodging. Every imagination was overwrought, people of good sense being
affected as much as others. A disease of the brain seemed abroad, as
dangerous as that of madness; entire families abandoned their houses
and carried their pallets to the outskirts, there to pass the night.
Even then they complained of fresh insults, and the most sober retired
into the country. Citizens who were imbued with a sense of public
zeal decided that one essential detail had been missed, so far, in
the observance; from their point of view, the mass should have been
celebrated after and not before removing the heart from the body. With
this precaution it was pretended that the devil would have been taken
by surprise and would not have attempted to return; but unfortunately
they began with the mass, which gave him time to depart and he was able
to come back at his ease. These considerations left matters in their
original state of difficulty. There were meetings and still meetings,
both evening and morning; there were processions for three days and
three nights; fasts were imposed on the priests; houses were visited
by them, _aspergillus_ in hand; there was sprinkling with holy water
and doors were purified. Even the mouth of the miserable vampire was
filled with holy water.
“In the midst of such prepossessions, our course was to say nothing;
we should have been regarded as jesters and infidels. What however
was to be done to help the inhabitants? Every morning brought a fresh
scene in the comedy by the recital of new pranks of this nightbird,
who was even accused of committing the most abominable crimes. We
did, however, represent more than once to the governor of the town
that in our own country, under such circumstances, a watch would
not fail to be set, to take note of what passed. The precaution was
ultimately taken and led to the arrest of some vagabonds who were
undoubtedly at the bottom of the disorder. It was, of course, relaxed
too soon, and two days subsequently, to atone for the fast which the
said wastrels had undergone in prison, they betook themselves to
emptying the wine jars in some of the abandoned houses. After driving
in numberless drawn swords over the grave of the body, people now
returned to their prayers, combined with disinterring the corpse as
caprice led them, when an Albanian, who happened to be there, pointed
out in an authoritative tone that it was highly ridiculous, in a case
of the kind, to make use of the swords of Christians; these being
cross-handled effectually prevented the devil from leaving the body
and his recommendation was therefore to substitute Turkish sabres.
The advice of this expert came to nothing; the vampire was not more
tractable, and they knew not what saint to invoke, when all with one
voice, as if a word of command had been given, cried out through the
whole town that the vampire must be burned completely, after which they
might defy the devil, and that certainly it was better to have recourse
to this extremity rather than that the island should be deserted. As a
fact, certain families were preparing already for their departure.
“The vampire was therefore carried, by order of the governors, to
the extremity of the isle of St. George, where a great pyre had been
prepared with tar, lest even dry wood should not kindle quickly enough.
What remained of the miserable body was cast therein and speedily
consumed. This was on the first day of January, 1701. Henceforth there
were no complaints against the vampire; it was agreed that the devil
had that time been overreached and songs were made to deride him.”
It is to be observed in this account of Tournefort that he admits
the reality of the visions which paralysed the whole people. He
does not deny the flexibility or warmth of the corpse but seeks to
explain these with the praiseworthy object of reassuring those who
were concerned. He does not mention the decomposition of the body
but only its evil smell, which is not less characteristic of vampire
corpses than of venomous toadstools. Finally he allows that once the
body was burned, the wonders and visions ceased. But we have wandered
far from the subject of Fantasiasts in Magic; let us return to them
and, forgetting the problem of vampires, a word shall be said on
the cartomancist, Edmond. He is the pet sorcerer of ladies in the
Quartier de Notre Dame de Lorette and he occupies, in the Rue Fontaine
St. Georges, No. 30, a dainty little room, where the vestibule is
always full of clients, including those occasionally of the male sex.
Edmond is a man of tall stature, somewhat stout, of pale complexion,
open countenance and sympathetic voice. He appears to believe in
his own art and carries on conscientiously the methods of people
like Etteilla and Mdlle. Lenormand. We have questioned him as to his
processes, and he has answered frankly and civilly that he has been
passionately devoted to the occult sciences from childhood; that he
began divination early; that he is unacquainted with the philosophical
secrets of transcendental knowledge; and that the keys of the Kabalah
of Solomon are not in his possession. He states, however, that he is
highly sensitive and that the mere proximity of his clients impresses
him so keenly that in a way he feels their destiny. “I seem to hear
singular noises and clankings of chains about those who are doomed
to the scaffold, cries and moans round those who will die violently.
Supernatural odours assail and almost stifle me. One day, in the
presence of a veiled lady, clothed in black, I began to tremble at
an odour of straw and blood. ‘Madam,’ I cried, ‘pray leave here, for
you are surrounded by an atmosphere of murder and prison.’ ‘You say
truly,’ she answered, unveiling her pale face, ‘I have been accused of
infanticide and have just come out of prison. Since you have seen the
past, tell me also the future.’”
One of our friends and disciples in Kabalism, utterly unknown to
Edmond, went on a day to consult him and having paid in advance he
awaited the oracles, when Edmond, rising respectfully, begged him to
take back his money. “I have nothing to tell you,” he explained; “your
destiny is closed against me by the key of occultism; whatsoever I
might say you would know already as well as myself.” He shewed him out
with many bows.
Edmond is also occupied with judicial astrology; he erects horoscopes
and judges nativities at very moderate prices. In a word he deals
with everything belonging to his business, which is otherwise a
wearisome and disenchanting thing. With how many disordered brains and
diseased hearts must he be continually in relation, and the imbecile
requirements of some, the unjust reproaches of others, the tiring
confidences, the demands for philtres and spells, the obsessions of
fools, all combine in making him gain his income hardly. To sum up,
Edmond is a somnambulist like Alexis; he is self-magnetised by his
cards and by the diabolical figures which adorn them; he wears black
and gives his consultations in a black cabinet; in a word, he is the
prophet of mystery.
CHAPTER V
SOME PRIVATE RECOLLECTIONS OF THE WRITER
On a certain morning in 1839 the author of this book had a visit
from Alphonse Esquiros, who said: “Let us pay our respects to the
Mapah.”[365] The natural question arose: “But in any case, who or what
is the Mapah?” ... “He is a god,” was the answer.... “Many thanks,”
said the author, “but I pay my devotions only to gods unseen.”... “Come
notwithstanding; he is the most eloquent, most radiant and magnificent
fool in the visible order of things.... “My friend, I am in terror of
fools: their complaint is contagious.” ... “Granted, _dilectissime_,
and yet I am calling on you.”... “Admitted, and things being so, we
will pay our respects to the Mapah.”
In an appalling garret there was a bearded man of majestic demeanour
who invariably wore over his clothes the tattered cloak of a woman,
and had in consequence rather the air of a destitute dervish. He was
surrounded by several men, bearded and ecstatic like himself, and in
addition to these there was a woman with motionless features, who
seemed like an entranced somnambulist. The prophet’s manner was
abrupt and yet sympathetic; he had hallucinated eyes and an infectious
quality of eloquence. He spoke with emphasis, warmed to his subject
quickly, chafed and fumed till a white froth gathered on his lips.
Abbé Lamennais was once termed “old ninety-three fulfilling its
Easter duties.” The catch phrase is more suited to the Mapah and his
mysticism, as will be shewn by a fragment from one of his lyrical
enthusiasms.
“Transgression was inevitable for man: it was decreed by his destiny,
that he might be the instrument of his own reconstruction, that the
greatness and majesty of God might be manifested in the majesty and
greatness of human toil, passing through its successive phases of
light and darkness. But primitive unity was destroyed by the Fall;
suffering entered the world in the guise of the serpent, and the Tree
of Life became the Tree of Death. Things being at this pass, God said
to the woman: ‘In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children,’ yet added
afterwards: ‘Thou shalt crush the serpent’s head.’ And the first slave
was a woman; she accepted her divine mission, and the pains of travail
began. From the first hour of the Fall, the task of humanity has been,
for this reason, a great and terrible task of initiation. For this also
the terms of that initiation are all equally sacred in the eyes of God.
Their _Alpha_ is our common mother Eve, while the _Omega_ is Liberty,
who is our common mother also.
“I beheld a vast ship, having a gigantic mast with its crow’s nest
at the top; one of the ship’s extremities looked to the West, the
other to the East. On the western side it was poised upon the cloudy
summits of three mountains, their bases lost in a raging sea. On the
flank of each mountain was inscribed its ominous name. The first was
Golgotha, the second Mont St. Jean, but the third was St. Helena. In
the middle way of the mast, on the western side, there was erected a
five-armed cross,[366] on which a woman was expiring. The inscription
above her head was: FRANCE: JUNE 18, 1815: GOOD FRIDAY. The five arms
of the cross represented the five divisions of the globe; the woman’s
head rested on Europe and was encircled by a cloud. But at the end
of the ship to the East there was no darkness; and the keel paused
at the threshold of the city of God, by the summit of a triumphal
arch in the full rays of the sun. Here the woman reappeared, but this
time transfigured and glorious. She rolled away the stone from the
sepulchre, and on that stone was written: RESTORATION, days of the
tomb: July 29, 1830: EASTER.”
It will be seen that the Mapah was a successor of Catherine Théot and
Dom Gerle; and yet—such is the strange sympathy between follies—he
told us one day confidentially that he was Louis XVII returned to
earth for a work of regeneration, while the woman who shared his
life was Marie Antoinette of France. He explained further that his
revolutionary theories were the last word of the violent pretensions
of Cain, destined as such to insure, by a fatal reaction, the victory
of the just Abel. Now Esquiros and I visited the Mapah to enjoy his
extravagances, but our imaginations were overcome by his eloquence. We
were two college friends, like Louis Lambert and Balzac, and we had
nourished dreams in common concerning impossible renunciations and
unheard of heroisms. After visiting Ganneau, for this was the name of
the Mapah, we took it into our heads that it would be a great thing
to communicate the last word of revolution to the world and to seal
the abyss of anarchy, like Curtius, by casting ourselves therein. Our
students’ extravagance gave birth to the _Gospel of the People_ and the
_Bible of Liberty_, follies for which Esquiros and his ill-starred
friend paid but too dearly. Hereof is the danger of enthusiastic
manias; they are catching; one does not approach with impunity the edge
of the precipice of madness.
The incident which now follows is a different and more terrible
fatality. A nervous and delicate young man named Sobrier was numbered
among the Mapah’s disciples; he lost his head completely and believed
himself predestined to save the world by provoking the supreme
crisis of an universal revolution. The days of 1848 drew towards the
threshold. A commotion had led to some change in the ministry, but
the episode seemed closed. Paris had an air of contentment and the
boulevards were illuminated. Suddenly a young man appeared in the
populous streets of the Quartier Saint-Martin. He was preceded by two
street Arabs, one bearing a torch and the other beating to arms. A
large crowd gathered; the young man got upon a post and harangued the
people. His words were incoherent and incendiary, but the gist was to
proceed to the Boulevard des Capucines and acquaint the ministry with
the will of the people. The demoniac repeated the same harangue at
every corner of the streets and presently he was marching at the head
of a great concourse, a pistol in each hand, still heralded by torch
and tambour. The frequenters of the boulevards joined out of mere
curiosity, and subsequently it was a crowd no longer but the massed
populace surging through the Boulevard des Italiens. In the midst of
this the young man and his street Arabs disappeared, but before the
Hotel des Capucines a pistol-shot was fired upon the people. This shot
was the revolution, and it was fired by a fool.
Throughout that night two carts loaded with corpses perambulated the
streets by torchlight; on the morrow all Paris was barricaded, and
Sobrier was reported at home in a state of unconsciousness. It was he
who, without knowing what he did, had for a moment shaken the world.
Ganneau and Sobrier are dead and no harm is done them by reciting this
terrible instance of the magnetism of enthusiasts and the fatalities
which may be entailed by the nervous diseases of certain persons. The
story is drawn from a reliable source and its revelations may sooth
the conscience of that Belisarius of poetry who is the author of the
_History of the Girondins_.
The magnetic phenomena produced by Ganneau continued even after his
death. His widow, a woman of no education and little intelligence,
the daughter of an honest peasant of Auvergne, remained in the static
somnambulism in which she had been placed by her husband.[367] Like
the child which assumes the form of its mother’s imagination, she has
become a living image of Marie Antoinette, when a prisoner at the
Conciergerie. Her manners are those of a queen who is widowed and
desolate for ever; a complaint sometimes escapes her, as though she
were weary of her dream, but she is sovereignly indignant with any
who seek to awake her. For the rest, she has no symptom of mental
alienation; her outward conduct is reasonable, her life perfectly
honourable and regular. Nothing is more pathetic, to our thinking, than
this persistent obsession of a being fondly loved who lives again in
a conjugal hallucination. Had Artemis existed literally it would be
permissible to believe that Mausol was also a powerful mesmerist, and
that he had gained and fixed for ever the affections of an extremely
sensitive woman, outside all limits of free will and reason.
CHAPTER VI
THE OCCULT SCIENCES
The secret of the occult sciences is that of Nature herself; it is the
secret of the generation of angels and worlds; it is that of God’s
own omnipotence. “Ye shall be as the Elohim, knowing good and evil.”
So testified the serpent of Genesis, and so did the Tree of Knowledge
become the Tree of Death. For six thousand years the martyrs of science
have toiled and perished at the foot of this Tree, so that it may
become once more the Tree of Life.
That Absolute which is sought by the foolish and found only by
the wise is the truth, the reality and the reason of universal
equilibrium. Such equilibrium is the harmony which proceeds from the
analogy of opposites. Humanity has sought so far to balance itself as
if on one leg—now on one and now again on the other. Civilisations
have sprung up and have fallen, through the anarchic alienation of
despotism, or alternatively through the despotic anarchy of revolt.
Here superstitious enthusiasms and there the pitiful schemes of
materialistic instinct have misguided the nations; but at last it
is God Himself Who impels the world towards believing reason and
reasonable beliefs. We have had enough and to spare of the prophets
apart from philosophy and the philosophers destitute of religion. Blind
believers and sceptics are on a par with one another, and both are
equally remote from eternal salvation.
In the chaos of universal doubt, and amidst the conflict of science
and faith, the great men and the seers figure as sickly artists,
seeking the ideal beauty at the risk of their reason and their life.
Look at them now even—these sublime children. They are whimsical and
nervous, like women; a shadow maims them; reason injures; they are
unjust even to each other; and though assuredly on the quest of crowns,
in their fantastic excesses they are the first to be guilty of that
which Pythagoras forbids in one of his admirable symbols; they are the
first to revile crowns and to trample them under their feet. They are
fanatics of glory; but the good God has bound them by the chains of
opinion, so that they may not be openly dangerous.
Genius is judged by the tribunal of mediocrity, and this judgment
is without appeal, because, being the light of the world, genius is
accounted as a thing that is null and dead whenever it ceases to
enlighten. The ecstasy of the poet is controlled by the indifference of
the prosaic multitude, and every enthusiast who is rejected by general
good sense is a fool and not a genius. Do not count the great artists
as bondsmen of the ignorant crowd, for it is the crowd which imparts to
their talent the balance of reason.
Light is the equilibrium between shadow and brightness. Motion is the
equilibrium between inertia and activity. Authority is the equilibrium
between liberty and power. Wisdom is equilibrium in thought; virtue is
equilibrium in the affections; beauty is equilibrium in form. Outlines
that are lovely are true outlines, and the magnificence of Nature is an
algebra of graces and splendours. Whatsoever is true is beautiful; all
that is beautiful should be true. Heaven and hell are the equilibrium
of moral life; good and evil are the equilibrium of liberty.
The Great Work is the attainment of that middle point in which
equilibrating force abides. Furthermore, the reactions of equilibrated
force do everywhere conserve universal life by the perpetual motion
of birth and death. It is for this reason that the philosophers have
compared their gold to the sun. For the same reason that same gold
cures all diseases of the soul and communicates immortality. Those
who have found this middle point are true and wonder-working adepts
of science and reason. They are masters of the wealth of worlds,
confidants and friends of the princes of heaven itself, and Nature
obeys them because they will what is willed by the law which is the
motive power of Nature. It is this which the Saviour of the world spoke
of as the Kingdom of Heaven; this also is the _Sanctum Regnum_ of the
Holy Kabalah. It is the Crown and Ring of Solomon; it is the Sceptre of
Joseph which the stars obeyed in heaven and the harvests on earth.
We have discovered this secret of omnipotence; it is not for sale
in the market; but if God had commanded us to set a price thereon,
we question whether the whole fortune of the buyers would seem its
equivalent. Not for ourselves but for them, we should demand in
addition their undivided soul and their entire life.
[Illustration: APOCALYPTIC KEY]
CHAPTER VII
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
It remains for us to summarise and conclude. To summarise the history
of a science is to summarise the science itself, and we are therefore
to recapitulate the great principles of initiation, as preserved and
transmitted through all the ages. Magical science is the absolute
science of equilibrium. It is essentially religious; it presided at the
formation of dogmas in the antique world and has been thus the nursing
mother of all civilisations. O chaste and mysterious mother who, in
giving milk of poetry and inspiration to the dawning generations,
didst cover thy face and breast. Before all things she directs us
to believe in God and to adore without seeking to define Him, since
a God in definition is to some extent a finite God. And after Deity
she points to eternal mathematics and equilibrated forces as to the
sovereign principles of things. It is said in the Bible that God has
ordered all things according to weight, number and measure. _Omnia in
pondere et numero et mensura disposuit Deus._ Weight is equilibrium,
number is quantity, measure is proportion—these three, and these
are the eternal or divine basis of the science of Nature. Here now
is the formula of equilibrium: Harmony results from the analogy of
contraries. Number is the scale of analogies, the proportion of which
is measure. The entire occult philosophy of the _Zohar_ might be termed
the science of equilibrium.[368] The key of numbers is found in the
_Sepher Yetzirah_; their generation is analogous to the affiliation
of ideas and the production of forms. On this account the illuminated
hierophants of the Kabalah combined the hieroglyphic signs of numbers,
ideas and forms in their sacred alphabet. The combinations of this
alphabet give equations of ideas, and comprise by way of indication
all possible combinations in natural forms. According to Genesis, God
made man in His image, but as man is the living synthesis of creation,
it follows that creation itself is made in the likeness of God. There
are three things in the universe—the Spirit, the plastic mediator and
matter. The ancients assigned to spirit, as its immediate instrument,
that igneous fluid to which they gave the generic name of Sulphur; to
the plastic mediator, they assigned the name of Mercury, because of
the symbolism represented by the Caduceus; to matter, they gave the
name of Salt, because of the fixed salt which remains after combustion,
resisting the further action of fire. Sulphur was compared with the
Father on account of the generative action of fire; Mercury with the
Mother, because of its power of attraction and reproduction; and
Salt, in fine, was the Child, or that substance which is subjected to
education by Nature. For them also the creative substance was one, and
the name which they gave it was Light. Positive or igneous light was
volatile Sulphur; light in the negative state, or made visible by the
vibrations of fire, was the fluidic or ethereal Mercury; and light
neutralised, or shadow, the coagulated or fixed composite under the
form of earth, was termed Salt.
After such manner did Hermes Trismegistus formulate his symbol, which
is called the Emerald Tablet: “That which is above is like that which
is below, and that which is below is like that which is above, for the
operations of the wonders of the one thing.”[369] This means that the
universal movement is produced by the analogies of fixed and volatile,
the volatile tending to be fixed and the fixed to become volatile, thus
producing a continual exchange between the modes of the one substance
and, from the fact of the exchange, the combinations of universal form
in everlasting renewal.
The fire is Osiris, or the sun; the light is Isis, or the moon;
they are the father and mother of that grand Telesma which is the
universal substance—not that they are its creators but rather its
generating powers, the combined effort of which produces the fixed
or earth, whence Hermes says that this force has reached its plenary
manifestation when earth has been formed therefrom. Osiris is not
therefore God, even for the great hierophants of the Egyptian
sanctuary; he is the igneous or luminous shadow of the intellectual
principle of life, and hence in the supreme moment of initiation a
flying voice whispered in the ear of the adept that dubious revelation:
“Osiris is a black god.” Woe to the recipient whose understanding had
not been raised by faith above the purely physical symbols of Egyptian
revelation. Such words would become for him a formula of atheism, and
his mind would be struck with blindness. But for the believer, more
exalted in intelligence, those same words sounded like an earnest of
the most sublime hopes. It was as if the initiator said to him: “My
child, you mistake a lamp for the sun, but that lamp is only a star of
night. Still, the true sun exists; leave therefore the night and seek
the day.”
That which the ancients understood by the four elements in no wise
signified simple bodies, but rather the four elementary manifestations
of the one substance. These modes were represented by the sphinx,
its wings corresponding to air, the woman’s breasts to water, the
body of the bull to earth, and the lion’s claws to fire. The one
substance, thrice threefold in essential mode and tetradic in the form
of manifestation—such is the secret of the three pyramids, triangular
in respect of their elevation, square at the base and guarded by
the sphinx. In raising these monuments Egypt attempted to erect the
Herculean pillars of universal science. Sands have accumulated,
centuries have passed, but the pyramids in their eternal greatness
still propound to the nations that enigma of which the solution is
lost. As to the sphinx, it seems to have sunk in the dust of ages. The
great empires of Daniel have reigned by turn upon the earth and have
gone down into the tomb, overwhelmed by their own weight. Conquests on
the field of battle, monuments of labour, results of human passions—all
are engulphed with the symbolic body of the sphinx; now only the human
head rises over the desert sands as if looking for the universal empire
of thought.
Divine or die—such was the terrible dilemma proposed by the sphinx
to the Candidates for Theban royalty. The reason is that the secrets
of science are actually those of life; the alternatives are to reign
or to serve, to be or not to be. The natural forces will break us if
we do not put them to use for the conquest of the world. There is no
mean between the height of kinghood and the abyss of the victim state,
unless we are content to be counted among those who are nothing because
they ask not why or what they are.
The composite form of the sphinx also represents by hieroglyphical
analogy the four properties of the universal agent, that is to say,
the Astral Light—dissolving, coagulating, heating and cooling. These
four properties, directed by the will of man, can modify all phases of
Nature, producing life or death, health or disease, love or hatred,
wealth even or poverty, in accordance with the given impulsion.
They can place all the reflections of the light at the service of
imagination; they are the paradoxical solution of the wildest
questions which can be set for Transcendental Magic. Specimens of these
paradoxical questions shall here follow, together with the answers
thereto: (1) Is it possible to escape death? (2) Is there such a thing
as the Philosophical Stone, and what must be done to find it? (3) Is
it possible to be served by spirits? (4) What is meant by the Key,
Ring and Seal of Solomon? (5) Is it possible to predict the future by
reliable calculations? (6) Can good or evil be worked at will by means
of magical power? (7) What must be done to become a true magician? (8)
What are the precise forces put in operation by Black Magic?
We term these questions paradoxical because they are outside all that
is understood as science, while at the same time they seem negatived
by faith. If propounded by an uninitiated person, they are merely
foolhardy, while their complete solution, if given by an adept, would
seem like a sacrilege. God and Nature alike have closed the Sanctuary
of Transcendent Science and this in such a manner that, beyond a
certain limit, he who knows would speak to no purpose, because he
would not be understood. The revelation of the Great Magical Secret is
therefore happily impossible. The replies which we are about to give
will be the last possible expression of the word in Magic, and they
will be put in all clearness, but we do not guarantee to make them
comprehensible to our readers.
In respect of the first and second, it is possible to escape death
after two manners—in time and in eternity. We escape it in time by the
cure of diseases and by avoiding the infirmities of old age; we escape
it in respect of eternity by perpetuating in memory personal identity
amidst the transformations of existence. Let it be certified (1) that
the life resulting from motion can only be maintained by the succession
and the perfecting of forms; (2) that the science of perpetual motion
is the science of life; (3) that the purpose of this science is the
correct apprehension of equilibrated influences; (4) that all renewal
operates by destruction, each generation therefore involving a death
and each death a generation. Let us now further certify, with the
ancient sages, that the universal principle of life is a substantial
movement or a substance which is eternally and essentially moved and
mover, invisible and impalpable, in a volatile state and manifesting
materially when it becomes fixed by the phenomena of polarisation. This
substance is indefectible, incorruptible and consequently immortal;
but its manifestations in the world of form are subject to eternal
mutation by the perpetuity of movement. Thus all dies because all
lives, and if it were possible to make any form eternal, then motion
would be arrested and the only real death would be thus created. To
imprison a soul for ever in a mummified human body, such would be
the terrible solution of that magical paradox concerning pretended
immortality in the same body and on the same earth. All is regenerated
by the universal dissolvant of the first substance. The force of this
dissolvant is concentrated in the quintessence—that is to say, at the
equilibrating centre of a dual polarity. The four elements of the
ancients are the four forces of the universal magnet, represented by
the figure of a cross, which cross revolves indefinitely about its
own centre and so propounds the enigma respecting the quadrature of
the circle. The Creative Word speaks from the middle of the cross
and cries: “It is finished.” It is in the exact proportion of the
four elementary forms that we must seek the Universal Medicine of
bodies, even as the Medicine of the Soul is offered by religion in
Him Who gives Himself eternally on the cross for the salvation of the
world. The magnetic state and polarisation of the heavenly bodies
results from their equilibrated gravitation about suns, which are the
common reservoirs of their electro-magnetism. The vibration of the
quintessence about common reservoirs manifests by light, and the
polarisation of light is revealed by colours. White is the colour of
the quintessence; this colour condenses towards its negative pole
as blue and becomes fixed as black; while it condenses towards its
positive pole as yellow and becomes fixed as red. Thus centrifugal life
proceeds always from black to red, passing by white, and centripetal
life returns from red to black, following the same path. The four
intermediates or mixed hues produce with the three primary colours what
are called the seven colours of the prism and the solar spectrum. These
seven colours form seven atmospheres or seven luminous zones round each
sun, and the planet which is dominant in each zone is magnetised in a
manner analogous to the colour of its atmosphere. In the depths of the
earth, metals are formed like planets in the sky, by the particular
influences of a latent light which decomposes when traversing certain
regions. To take possession of a subject in which the metallic light
is latent, before it becomes specialised, and drive it to the extreme
positive pole, that is to say, to the live red, by the help of a fire
derived from the light itself—such is the secret in full of the Great
Work. It will be understood that this positive light at its extreme
degree of condensation is life itself in a fixed state, serving as a
universal dissolvant and as a medicine for all Kingdoms of Nature.
But to extract from marcassite, stibium and philosophical arsenic the
living and bisexual metallic sperm, we must have a prime dissolvant
which is a mineral saline menstruum, and there must be, moreover, the
concurrence of magnetism and electricity. The rest proceeds of itself
in a single vessel, being the athanor, and by the graduated fire of one
lamp. The adepts say that it is a work of women and children.
The heat, light, electricity and magnetism of modern chemists and
physicists were for the ancients elementary phenomenal manifestations
of one substance, called _Aour_, _Od_ and _Ob_—that is to say, אוכ
אוד אוד _Od_ is the active, _Ob_ the passive, and _Aour_ is the name
of the bisexual and equilibrated composite which is signified when
the Hermetic philosophers speak of gold. Vulgar gold is metalised
_Aour_ and philosophical gold is the same _Aour_ in the state of a
soluble gem. Theoretically, according to the transcendental science
of antiquity, the Philosophical Stone which heals all diseases
and accomplishes the transmutation of metals exists therefore
incontestably. Does it, however, or can it, exist in fact? If we answer
this in the affirmative, no one will believe, and the simple statement
shall stand as a paradoxical solution of the paradoxes expressed by
the two first questions, without dealing with the problem as to what
must be done in order to find the Philosophical Stone. M. de la Palisse
would reply in our place that in order to find one must of necessity
seek, unless indeed discovery is a matter of chance. Enough has been
said to direct and facilitate research.
The third and fourth questions concern the ministry of spirits and the
Key, Seal and Ring of Solomon. When the Saviour of the world, at His
temptation in the desert, overcame the three lusts which keep the soul
in bondage—that is to say, the lust of the appetites, lust of ambition
and lust of greed—it is written that the angels came down to serve Him.
The explanation is that spirits are subject to the sovereign spirit,
and he is the sovereign spirit who binds the rebellious turbulence and
unlawful propensities of the flesh. It should be noted at the same time
that to reverse the natural order of communication subsisting between
things which are, is opposed to the law of Providence. We do not find
that the Saviour of the world and his Apostles evoked the souls of the
dead. The immortality of the soul, being one of the most consoling
dogmas of religion, is reserved for the aspirations of faith and will
never be proved by facts accessible to the criticism of science. Loss
of reason, or its distraction at the very least, is hence and will
be always the penalty of those who dare to pry into the other life
with the eyes of this world only. Hence also magical traditions always
represent the spirits of the dead as responding to evocations with sad
and angry countenances. They complain of being troubled in their repose
and they proffer only reproaches and menaces. The Keys of Solomon are
religious and rational forces expressed by signs, and their use is not
so much in the evocation of spirits as to shield us from aberration in
experiences relative to the occult sciences. The Seal is the synthesis
of the Keys and the Ring indicates its use. The Ring of Solomon is at
once round and square, and it represents the mystery of the quadrature
of the circle. It is composed of seven squares so arranged that they
form a circle. Their bezels are round and square, one being of gold and
the other of silver. The Ring should be a filagree of the seven metals.
In the silver setting a white stone is placed and in the gold one
there is a red stone. The white stone bears the sign of the Macrocosm,
while the Microcosm is on the red stone. When the Ring is worn upon
the finger, one of the stones should be turned inward and the other
outward, accordingly as it is desired to command spirits of light or
darkness. The plenary powers of this Ring can be accounted for in a
few words. The will is omnipotent when armed with the living forces of
Nature. Thought is idle and dead until it manifests by word or sign;
it can therefore neither spur nor direct will. The sign, being the
indispensable form of thought, is the necessary instrument of will. The
more perfect the sign the more powerfully is the thought formulated,
and the will is consequently directed with more force. Blind faith
moves mountains, and what therefore would be possible to faith if
enlightened by complete and indubitable science? If the soul could
concentrate its plenary understanding and energy in the utterance of a
single word, would not that word be all-powerful? The Ring of Solomon,
with its double seal, typifies all science and faith of the Magi
expressed by one sign. It symbolises the powers of heaven and earth and
the sacred laws which rule them, whether in the celestial Macrocosm
or in the Microcosm of man. It is the talisman of talismans and the
pantacle which is above pantacles. As a sign of life it is omnipotent,
but it is without efficacy as a dead sign: intelligence and faith, the
intelligence of Nature and faith in its eternally Active Cause—of such
is the life of signs.
The profound study of natural mysteries may alienate the casual
observer from God because mental fatigue paralyses the aspirations
of the heart. It is in this sense that the occult sciences may be
dangerous and even fatal for certain personalities. Mathematical
exactitude, the absolute rigour of natural laws, their harmony and
simplicity, suggest to many an inevitable, eternal, inexorable
mechanism, and for such as these Providence recedes behind the iron
wheels of a clock in perpetual motion. They fail to reflect on the
indubitable fact of freedom and autocracy in thinking beings. A man
disposes at his will of creatures organised like himself; he can
snare birds in the air, fish in the water and wild beasts in the
forest; he can cut down or burn entire forests; he can mine and blast
rocks, or even mountains; he can modify all forms about him; and yet,
notwithstanding the supreme analogies of Nature, he refuses to believe
that other intelligent beings might at their will disintegrate and
consume worlds, extinguish suns by a breath or reduce them to starry
dust—beings so great that they are too much for our faculty of sight,
even as we, in our turn, are probably inappreciable to the eye of the
mite or worm. And if such beings exist without the universe being
destroyed a thousand times over, must we not admit that they are
under obedience to a supreme will, a wise and omnipotent force, which
forbids them to annihilate worlds, even as it forbids us to destroy the
swallow’s nest and the chrysalis of the butterfly? For the Magus who
is conscious of this power in the deep places of his nature and who
discerns in universal law the instruments of eternal justice, the Seal
of Solomon, his Keys and his Ring are tokens of supreme royalty.
The next questions concern the prediction of things to come by means
of reliable calculations and the working of good or evil by magical
influence. The answers are in this wise. Two chess players of equal
skill being seated at a table and having opened the game, which of
them will win? Assuredly the more watchful of the two. If I knew the
preoccupations of both, I could foresee certainly the result of their
match. To foresee is to win at chess, and it is the same in the game
of life. In life nothing comes by chance; chance is the unforeseen,
but that which the ignorant fail to perceive in advance has been
accounted for already by the sage. All events, like all forms, result
either from a conflict or from a balancing of forces, which forces
can be represented by numbers. The future may thus be determined in
advance by calculation. Every extreme action is counterpoised by an
equivalent reaction. So laughter presages tears, and for this reason
our Saviour said: “Blessed are those who mourn.” He said also, and
again for the same reason: “He that exalteth himself shall be abased,
and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” To-day Nebuchadnezzar
is a god, to-morrow he will be changed into a beast. To-day Alexander
makes his triumphal entry into Babylon and has incense offered to him
on all the altars; but to-morrow he will die in a state of degraded
drunkenness. The future is in the past, and the past is also in the
future. When genius foresees, it remembers. Effects are linked together
so inevitably and so exactly to their causes, and become on their own
part the causes for further effects in such conformity with the first
as regards their manner of production, that a single fact may reveal
to a seer an entire succession of mysteries. The coming of Christ
makes that of Anti-Christ a certainty; but the advent of Anti-Christ
will precede the triumph of the Holy Spirit. The money-seeking epoch
in which we now live is the precursor of more lavish charities and of
greater good works than the world has yet known.
But it must be understood that the will of man modifies blind causes
and that a single impetus started by him may change the equilibrium
of an entire world. If such is man’s power in the world under his
dominion, what must be that of the intelligences which rule the suns?
The least of the _Egregores_, with a breath, and by dilating suddenly
the latent caloric of our earth, might shatter and reduce it into a
cloud of dust. Man also can dissipate by a breath all the happiness of
one of his kind. Human beings are magnetised like worlds; like suns,
they irradiate their particular light; some are more absorbent, some
give forth more freely. No one is isolated in this world; each is a
fatality or a providence. Augustus and Cinna encounter; both are proud
and implacable; and hereof is fatality. That fatality makes Cinna
seek to slay Augustus, who is impelled as fatally to punish him; but
he elects to forgive. Here fatality is changed into providence, and
the epoch of Augustus, inaugurated by this sublime beneficence, was
worthy to witness the birth of Him Who said: “Forgive your enemies.” By
extending his mercy to Cinna, Augustus atoned for all the revenge of
Octavius. So long as man is subject to the dictates of fatality, he is
profane—that is to say, a man who must be excluded from the sanctuary
of knowledge, because in his hands knowledge would become a terrible
instrument of destruction. On the contrary, the man who is free, who
governs by understanding the blind instincts of life, is essentially a
preserver and repairer, for Nature is the domain of his power and the
temple of his immortality. When the uninitiated seeks to do good the
result is evil. On the other hand, the true initiate can never will to
do evil; if he strikes it is to chastise and to cure. The breath of the
uninitiated is deadly, that of the initiate is life-giving. He who is
profane suffers that others may suffer also, but the initiate endures
in order that others may be spared. He who is profane steeps his arrows
in his own blood and poisons them; he who is initiated cures the most
cruel wounds by a single drop of his blood.
The last questions are what must be done to become a true magician and
in what precisely do the powers of Black Magic consist? Now, he who
disposes of the secret forces of Nature and yet does not risk being
crushed by them—he is a true magician. He is known by his works and
by his end, which is always a great sacrifice. Zoroaster created the
primitive doctrines and civilisations of the East, after which he
vanished in a tempest like Œdipus. Orpheus gave poetry to Greece and
with that poetry the beauty of all high things; he then perished in an
orgie in which he refused to join. All his virtues notwithstanding,
Julian was only an initiate of Black Magic; his death was that of a
victim and not of a martyr; it was an annihilation and a defeat: he
failed to understand his epoch. Though acquainted with the Doctrine of
Transcendental Magic, he misapplied the Ritual. Apollonius of Tyana and
Synesius were simply wonderful philosophers; they cultivated the true
science but did nothing for posterity. At their period the Magi of the
Gospel reigned in the three parts of the known world, and the oracles
were silenced by the cries of the babe of Bethlehem. The King of Kings,
the Magus of all Magi, had come into the world and the ritual-worships,
the laws, the empires, all were changed. There is a void in the world
of marvels between Jesus Christ and Napoleon. That incarnate word
of battle, that armed Messiah who was the bearer of the last name,
came blindly and unconsciously to complete the Christian message.
This revelation had so far taught us how to die, but the Napoleonic
civilisation has shewn us how to conquer. The two messages—sacrifice
and victory, how to suffer, to die, to strive and to overcome—contrary
as they are in appearance—comprise in their union the great secret of
honour. Cross of the Saviour and cross of valour, you are incomplete
when apart from one another, for he only knows how to conquer who has
learned self-devotion, even to death, and how can this be attained
except by belief in eternal life? Though he died in appearance,
Napoleon is destined to return in the person of one who will realise
his spirit. Solomon and Charlemagne will return also in the person of
a single monarch; and then St. John the Evangelist, who according to
tradition shall be reborn at the end of time, will appear as sovereign
pontiff, the apostle of understanding and of love. The combination of
these two rulers, announced by all the prophets, will bring about the
wonder of the world’s regeneration. The science of the true magician
will be then at its zenith, for so far our workers of miracles have
been for the most part sorcerers and bondsmen—that is to say, the blind
instruments of chance. Now, the masters whom fatality casts upon the
world are soon overthrown thereby, and those who conquer in the name of
their passions shall fall the prey of those passions. When Prometheus
in his jealousy of Jupiter stole the thunderbolts of the god, he sought
to create an immortal eagle, but what he made and immortalised was
a vulture. We hear in another fable of that impious king Ixion, who
would have ravished the queen of heaven, but that which he received
in his arms was a faithless cloud, and he was bound by fiery serpents
to the inexorable wheel of destiny. These profound allegories are a
warning to false adepts, profaners of Magic Science and partisans of
Black Magic. The power of Black Magic is a contagion of vertigo and an
epidemic of unreason. The fatality of passion is like a fiery serpent
which twists and writhes about the world devouring the souls therein.
But intelligence—peaceable, smiling and full of love—represented by the
Mother of God, sets her foot upon its head. Fatality consumes itself
and is that old serpent of Kronos eternally devouring its tail. Rather
there are two hostile serpents striving one with another, until such
time as harmony intervenes to enchant them and make them interlace
peaceably around the caduceus of Hermes.
CONCLUSION
The most intemperate and absurd of all faiths is to believe that there
is no universal and absolute intelligent principle. It is a faith,
since it involves the negation of the indefinite and indefinable; it is
intemperate, for it is isolating and desolating; it is absurd, because
it supposes complete nothing in place of most complete perfection.
In Nature all is preserved by equilibrium and renewed by activity.
Equilibrium in order and activity signifies progress. The science of
equilibrium and movement is the absolute science of Nature. Man by its
aid can produce and direct natural phenomena as he rises ever towards
intelligence that is higher and more perfect than his own. Moral
equilibrium is the concurrence of science and faith, distinct in their
forces but joined in their action to endow the spirit and heart of man
with that rule which is reason. The science which denies faith is not
less unreasonable than the faith which denies science.
The object of faith cannot be defined and still less denied by science;
science, on the contrary, is itself called to substantiate the
rational basis of the hypotheses of faith. An isolated belief does not
constitute faith, because it lacks authority and hence moral guarantee;
it tends to fanaticism and superstition. Faith is the confidence which
is imparted by religion—that is to say, by the communion of belief.
True religion is constituted by universal suffrage. It is therefore
ever and essentially catholic—that is to say, universal. It is an
ideal dictatorship proclaimed generally in the revolutionary domain of
the unknown. When the law of equilibrium is understood more adequately
it will put an end to all the wars and revolutions of the old world.
There has been conflict between powers as between moral forces. The
papacy is blamed because it clings to temporal power, but what is
forgotten is the protestant tendency towards usurpation of spiritual
power. So long as the royalties put forward a pretension to be popes,
so long will the popes be driven, by the same law of equilibrium, to
the pretension of being kings. The whole world continues to dream of
unity in political power, but it does not understand the power resident
in equilibrated dualism. Confronted by the royal usurpers of spiritual
power, if the Pope were king no longer, he would be no longer anything.
In the temporal order he is subject, like others, to the prejudgments
of his time; he dare not therefore abdicate his temporal power, if
such abdication would be a scandal for a considerable part of the
world. When the sovereign opinion of the universe shall have proclaimed
publicly that a temporal prince cannot be Pope; when the Czar of all
the Russias and the King of Great Britain shall have renounced their
derisive priesthood; the Pope will know that which remains to be done
on his own part. Till then he must struggle, and if needs be must die,
to maintain the integrity of St. Peter’s patrimony.
The science of moral equilibrium will put an end to religious disputes
and philosophical blasphemies. Men of understanding will be also men of
religion when it comes to be recognised that religion does not impeach
the freedom of conscience, and when those who are truly religious shall
respect that science which recognises on its own part the existence
and necessity of an universal religion. Such science will flood the
philosophy of history with new light, and will furnish a synthetic
plan of all the natural sciences. The law of equilibrated forces
and of organic compensations will reveal a new chemistry and a new
physics. So from discovery to discovery we shall work back to Hermetic
philosophy, and shall be astonished at those prodigies of simplicity
and brilliance which have been for so long and long forgotten.
Philosophy in that day will be exact like mathematics, for true
ideas—being those which are identical with the living order and so
constituting the science of reality—shall combine with reason and
justice to furnish exact proportions and equations as rigorous as
numbers. Error thenceforth will be possible to ignorance alone, and
true knowledge will be free from self-deception. Aestheticism will be
subordinated no longer to caprices of taste which change as fashions
change. If the beautiful is the splendour of the true, we shall be
able to calculate without error the radiation of a light of which the
source shall be certainly known and determined with exact precision.
Poetry will abound no longer with foolish and subversive tendencies,
nor will poets be those dangerous enchanters whom Plato crowned with
flowers and banished from his republic; they will be rather magicians
of reason and gracious mathematicians of harmony. Does this mean that
the earth will become an Eldorado? No, for so long as humanity exists,
there will be children, meaning those who are weak, small, ignorant
and poor. But society will be governed by its true masters, and there
will be no irremediable evil in human life. It will be understood that
the divine miracles are those of eternal order, and the phantoms of
imagination will be worshipped no longer on the faith of unexplained
wonders. The abnormal character of certain phenomena is only a proof of
our ignorance in the presence of the laws of Nature. When God designs
to communicate the knowledge of Himself He enlightens our reason and
does not seek to confound or surprise it. In that day we shall know the
utmost limit of the power of man who is created in the image of God;
we shall realise that he also is a creator in his own sphere and that
his goodness, directed by Eternal Reason, is a lower providence for
beings which are placed by Nature under his influence and domination.
Religion will then and for evermore have nothing to fear from progress,
and will follow in the course thereof. The Blessed Vincent de Lerins, a
doctor justly venerated in the golden chain of catholicism, expresses
admirably this accord between progress and conservative authority.
According to him, true faith is worthy of our confidence only on
account of that invariable authority which safeguards its dogmas from
the caprices of human ignorance. “This notwithstanding,” adds Vincent
de Lerins, “such immobility is not death; on the contrary, it preserves
a germ of life for the future. That which we believe to-day without
understanding will be understood by the future, which will rejoice
in the knowledge thereof. _Posteritas intellectum gratuletur, quod
ante vetustas non intellectum venerabatur._ If therefore we are asked
whether all progress is excluded from the religion of Christ Jesus,
the answer is no, assuredly, for great is the progress expected. Who
indeed would be so jealous of humanity and at such enmity with God as
to wish to hinder progress? But the condition is that it should be
progress in reality, and not change of belief. Progress is the growth
and development of each thing according to its class and its nature.
Disorder is confusion and the medley of things and their nature. There
must be undoubtedly a difference in the degrees of intelligence,
science and wisdom, as much for men in general as for each man in
particular, according to the natural succession of epochs in the
Church, but so only that all be conserved and that dogma shall ever
cherish the same spirit and maintain the same definition. Religion
should develop souls successively, as life develops bodies which remain
the same through all the stages of their growth. How great is the
difference between the infantile flower of early years and the maturity
of age. The old notwithstanding are the same in respect of personality
as they were in boyhood; it is the exterior and the appearances which
have changed. The limbs of an infant in the cradle are exceedingly
frail, yet are they the same organs, having the same root principles,
as those of the man; and this must be so, for otherwise there is
deformity or death.
“The analogy obtains in the religion of Jesus Christ, for progress
therein is fulfilled according to the same conditions and following
similar laws. It grows with the years, with the years it increases
in strength, but nothing is added to the sum total of its being.
It was born complete and perfect in respect of proportions, and it
grows and extends without changing. Our fathers sowed the wheat, and
our nephews ought not to reap tares. The intermediate crops change
nothing in the nature of the grain; we leave it perforce as we take it.
Catholicism planted roses, and is it for us to substitute brambles? No,
unquestionably; otherwise, woe to us. The balm and cinnamon of this
spiritual paradise must not change in our hands to aconite and poison.
All whatsoever which in the Church, that lovely land of God, has been
sown by the fathers must be cultivated and nourished by the sons. This
only must grow, and this alone blossom; but it may increase, and it
should develop. As a fact, God permits that the dogmas of his heavenly
philosophy shall be studied, developed, polished in a certain sense;
but that which is forbidden is to change them, and that which is a
crime is to prune them or to mutilate. May new light come down on them
and the wise distinctions multiply, but let them ever preserve their
fulness, their integrity and their native quality.”
Let us therefore take it for granted that all conquests of science in
the past have been achieved for the profit of the universal Church,
and, with Vincent de Lerins, let us allocate thereto the undivided
heritage of all progress to come. Unto her be the great aspirations
of Zoroaster and all discoveries of Hermes; hers be the Key of the
Holy Arch and the Ring of Solomon, for she represents the holy and
immutable hierarchy. She is stronger by reason of her struggles and
is grounded by her apparent falls in still greater stability. She
suffers in order that she may reign; she is cast down that she may be
exalted in her rising; and she dies that she may rise again. “We must
be prepared,” says Comte Joseph de Maistre, “for a great event in the
divine order; we are moving towards it at an accelerated pace, which
must be manifest to all observers, while striking oracles announce
that the hour is at hand. Many prophecies in the _Apocalypse_ have
reference to these modern times. One writer has gone so far as to
say that the event is already inaugurated and that the French nation
is destined to become the great instrument of the most mighty of all
revolutions. There is perhaps no truly religious man in all Europe—I
speak of the educated classes—who is not in expectation of something
extraordinary at this present moment. Does a general presentiment of
the kind count for nothing? Go back through past ages, even to the
birth of our Saviour. At that period a high and mysterious voice,
beginning in the eastern realms, proclaimed that the East was about
to triumph, that a conqueror would come out of Judea, that a divine
infant was given us, that he would descend from highest heaven and
restore the golden age upon the earth. Such ideas were spread abroad
everywhere, and as they lent themselves to poetry above all things,
they were taken over by the greatest of Latin poets and emblazoned
with brilliant hues in his _Pollio_. To-day, as in the time of Virgil,
the universe is in expectation, and how on our part shall we despise
such strong persuasion, or by what right condemn those who are devoted
to sacred researches on the indications of divine signs? If you seek
proof of what is in store, look at the sciences themselves; consider
the progress of chemistry, of astronomy also, and you will see where
they are leading. Would you think, for example, that Newton takes
us back to Pythagoras and that it will be proved presently that the
heavenly bodies are set in motion, like human bodies, by intelligences
joined thereto? We know not how, but this is what is on the point of
being verified beyond all dispute. Such doctrine may seem paradoxical
and even ridiculous, because current opinion imposes this view; but
let us wait till the natural affinity of religion and science marry
both in the mind of a single man of genius. His advent cannot be far
off, and then the opinions which now seem bizarre or irrational will
become axioms which no one will question, while people will talk of our
present stupidity as they now speak of mediæval superstition.”[370]
According to St. Thomas, and it is a beautiful utterance: “All that
God wills is just, but that which is just should not be so designated
only because God wills it”—_Non ex hoc dicitur justum quod Deus illud
vult_. The moral doctrine of the future is contained herein, and from
its fruitful principle one deduction follows immediately: not only is
it good from the standpoint of faith to do what is ordained by God, but
even from the standpoint of reason it is excellent and rational to obey
Him. Man can therefore say: I do good not only because God wills it but
because I also will. The will of humanity may be thus at once free and
in conformity, for reason—demonstrating in an irrecusable fashion the
wisdom of the prescriptions of faith—will act on its proper impulse by
following the divine law, of which reason thus becomes, as it were, the
human sanction. From that time forward superstition and impiety will be
no longer possible, while from these considerations it follows that in
religion and in practical—that is to say, in moral—philosophy, there
will be an absolute authority, and moral dogmas will alone be revealed
and established. Till then we shall have the pain and consternation
of seeing daily the most simple and universal questions of right and
duty challenged, while if blasphemies are reduced to silence, it is one
thing to impose such silence but another to persuade and convert.
So long as Transcendent Magic was profaned by the wickedness of men,
the Church of necessity proscribed it. False Gnostics have discredited
that name of Gnosticism which was once so pure; sorcerers have outraged
the children of the Magi; but religion, that friend of tradition and
guardian of the treasures of antiquity, can no longer reject a doctrine
anterior to the Bible and in perfect accord with traditional respect
for the past, as well as with our most vital hopes for progress in the
future. The common people are initiated by toil and by faith into the
right of property and knowledge. There will be always such a people,
as there will be children always; but when the aristocracy, endowed
with wisdom, shall become a mother to the people, the path of personal,
successive, gradual emancipation will be open to all, and he that is
called will thereby be enabled through his own efforts to attain the
rank of the elect. This is that mystery of the future which antique
initiation concealed in its dark recesses. The miracles of Nature made
subject to the will of man are reserved for the elect to come. The
crook of the priesthood shall become the rod of miracles; it was so in
the time of Moses and of Hermes; it will be so again. The sceptre of
the Magus will be that of the world’s king or emperor; and that person
will by right be first among men who shall have shewn himself greatest
of all in knowledge and in virtue. Magic, at that time, will be no
longer an occult science except for the ignorant; it will be one that
is incontestable for all. Then shall universal revelation resolder one
to another all links of its golden chain; the human epic will close
and even the efforts of Titans will have served only to restore the
altar of the true God. All forms which have clothed the divine thought
successively will be reborn immortal and perfect. All those features
sketched by the successive art of nations will be united to form the
perfect image of God. Having been purified and brought out of chaos,
dogma will give birth naturally to an infallible ethic, and the social
order will be constituted on this basis. Systems which are now in
warfare are dreams of the twilight; let them pass. The sun shines and
the earth follows its course; distracted is he who doubts that the day
is coming. Distracted also are those who say that catholicism is only a
dead trunk and that we must put the axe thereto. They do not see that
beneath its dry bark the living tree is renewed unceasingly. Truth has
no past and no future; it is eternal; it is not that which ends; it is
our dream only. Hammer and hatchet, which destroy in the sight of man,
are in God’s hand as the knife of a pruner, and the dead branches—being
superstitions and heresies in religion, science and politics—can alone
be lopped from the tree of everlasting convictions and beliefs.
It has been the purpose of this History of Magic to demonstrate, that,
at the beginning, the symbols of religion were those also of science,
which was then in concealment. May religion and science, reunited in
the future, give help and shew love to one another, like two sisters,
for theirs has been one cradle.
Here ends the History of Magic
APPENDIX
AUTHOR’S PREFACE PREFIXED TO THE FIRST EDITION[371]
The works of Éliphas Lévi on the science of the ancient magi are
intended to form a complete course, divided into three parts. The first
part contains the Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental Magic; the
second is The History of Magic; and the third will be published later
under the title of The Key to the Great Mysteries. Taken separately,
each of these parts gives a complete instruction and seems to contain
the whole science; but in order to a full understanding of one it is
indispensable to study the two others carefully.
The triadic division of our undertaking has been imposed by the science
itself, because our discovery of its great mysteries rests entirely
upon the significance which the old hierophants attached to numbers.
THREE was for them the generating number, and in the exposition of
every doctrine they had regard to (_a_) the theory on which it was
based, (_b_) its realisation and (_c_) its application to all possible
uses. Whether philosophical or religious, thus were dogmas formed; and
thus the dogmatic synthesis of that Christianity which was heir of the
magi imposes on our faith the recognition of Three Persons in one God
and three mysteries in universal religion.
We have followed in the arrangement of the two works already
published, and shall follow in the third work, the plan indicated by
the Kabalah—that is to say, by the purest tradition of occultism.
Our Doctrine and Ritual are each divided into twenty-two chapters
distinguished by the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. We
have set at the head of each chapter the letter thereto belonging and
the Latin words which, according to the best writers, represent its
hieroglyphical meaning. For example, at the head of the first chapter
will be found:—
1 א A
THE RECIPIENT
Disciplina
Ensoph
Kether
The explanation is that the letter _Aleph_-equivalent to A in Latin,
and having the number 1 as its numerical value—signifies the Recipient,
the man who is called to initiation, the qualified personality,
corresponding to the Bachelor of the Tarot. It signifies also
_disciplina_, or dogmatic syllepsis; _Ensoph_, or being in its general
and primary conception; and finally, _Kether_, or the Crown, which,
in Kabalistic theology, is the first and obscure idea of Divinity.
The chapter in question is the development of the title and the title
contains hieroglyphically the whole chapter.
The History of Magic, which follows, narrates and explains, according
to the general theory of the science furnished in the Doctrine and
Ritual, the realisation of that science through the ages. As the
introduction explains, it is constituted in harmony with the number
seven—the septenary being the number of the creative week and of Divine
Realisation.
The Key to the Great Mysteries will be established on the number
four—which is that of the enigmatic forms of the sphinx and of
elementary manifestations. It is also the number of the square and
of force. In the book referred to, certitude will be established on
irremovable bases. The enigma of the sphinx will have its complete
solution and our readers will be provided with that Key of things kept
secret from the foundation of the world which the learned Postel only
dared to depict enigmatically in one of his most obscure books, giving
no satisfactory explanation.
The History of Magic explains the affirmations found in the Doctrine
and Ritual; the Key of the Great Mysteries will complete and explain
the History of Magic. In this manner, for the attentive reader at
least, we trust that nothing will be found wanting in our revelation
of the secrets of Jewish Kabalism and of Supreme Magic—whether that of
Zoroaster or of Hermes.
The writer of these books gives lessons willingly to serious and
interested persons in search of these; but once and for all he desires
to forewarn his readers that he tells no fortunes, does not teach
divination, makes no predictions, composes no philtres and lends
himself to no sorcery and no evocation. He is a man of science, not a
man of deception. He condemns energetically whatsoever is condemned by
religion, and hence he must not be confounded with persons who can be
approached without hesitation on a question of applying their knowledge
to a dangerous or illicit use. For the rest he welcomes honest
criticism, but he fails to understand certain hostilities. Serious
study and conscientious labour are superior to all attacks; and the
first blessings which they procure, for those who can appreciate them,
are profound peace and universal benevolence.
ÉLIPHAS LÉVI.
_September 1st, 1859._
INDEX
Abel, 21, 117
Abiram, 386
Abraham, 3, 48, 64, 101, 108, 146, 180, 219
Abraham the Jew, 331, 351, 353
Absolute, 2, 459, 500
_Acharat_, 410, 412, 414
Achilles, 133, 150
Adam, 11, 40, 41, 42, 46, 111, 188, 243, 244, 259, 301, 459
Adam, Book of the Penitence of, 41-43
_Adam Kadmon_, 51
_Adhi-Nari_, 64
Adolphus of Schleswig, 253
_Adonai_, 103, 229, 248, 249
Aeschylus, 86
Agamemnon, 150
Agde, Council of, 241
Agesilaus, 121
_Agla_, 103, 104, 248
Agrippa, H. Cornelius, 90, 335
_Ahih_, 103, 301
Ahriman, 9, 16, 25
_Al_, 300
Albertus Magnus, 89, 258, 261
Albigenses, 128, 424
Alchemy, 85, 143, 195-197, 259, 262, 263, 279, 327, 331-334, 355, 357,
411, 509, 510
Alcides, 86
Alcmene, 121
_Aleph_, 33, 34, 411
Alexandria, School of, 74, 110, 215-219
Alfarabius, 262
Alphabet, Hebrew, 78, 103, 104, 152, 211
Alphonso XI, 316
_Althotas_, 410, 412
Amasis, King, 92
Ammonius, 165, 215
Amphion, 82
Analogy, 20, 22, 176, 521
André, Françoise, 429, 432
Antichrist, 53
Apis, 80
Apocalypse, 44, 49, 101, 173, 174, 383, 522
Apocrypha, 174
Apollonius, of Tyana, 193-198, 515
Apuleius, 204-207
_Ararita_, 301
Arcanum, Great. _See_ Great Secret
Archedemus, 137
Aristeus, 262, 263, 377
Aristotle, 53, 123, 124, 261, 329
Arius, 213
Ark of the Covenant, 42
Aroux, Eugène, 346, 351
Art, Royal, 1, 77, 120
Art, Sacerdotal, 120, 121, 122
Artephius, 262
Asclepios, 115
Astarte, 61
Astrology, 88
Athanor, 196
Augury, 162
Augustine, St., 7, 207
Aupetit, Pierre, 363
Babel, 117, 118
Bacchantes, 126, 148, 161
Bacchus, 148, 152
Baldwin II, 265
Ballanche, 88
Balmes, James, 178
_Balneum Mariæ_, 196
Baphomet, 269
Bartolocci, 257
Beausoleil, Baron de, 357
Bel, 229
Belphegor, 119
Belshazzar, 157
Belus, 59, 62
Benjamin, Tribe of, 159
Bermechobus, 44
Bernard of Sienna, St., 316
Bernard of Saxe-Weimar, Prince, 415
_Berthe au Grand Pied_, 233
Berthelot, 74
_Beth_, 33
_Binah_, 116
Blaquerne, Hermit, 329
_Boaz_, 21, 42, 179, 411
Bodinus, 349, 362, 363
Boguet, Henri, 363
Bohani, 64
Böhme, Jacob, 138, 357
Boismont, Brierre de, 131, 132, 191, 241
Bonaventura, St., 50
Boniface, Bishop of Mayence, 242
_Book of Ceremonial Magic_, 130, 214, 250, 298, 299
Bossuet, 6, 30
Bouche, Madame, 446
Brahma, 47
Brahmans, 198
Brennus, 228
Bryant, Jacob, 53, 136
Buddha, 66
Cadmus, 82, 83, 148, 149
Caduceus, 149, 517
Cagliostro, Count, 409-415, 417, 473
Cahagnet, 437
Cain, 21, 45, 47, 48, 64, 72, 85, 117, 139
Calchas, 150
Calf, Golden, 80
Calvin, John, 128
Camul, 229
Canaan, 46, 119
Cardan, Jerome, 217
Cartomancy, 151, 445. _See_ Tarot
Cazotte, Jacques, 416-421
Cebes, Table of, 142, 360, 470
Cedron, 42
Certon, Salomon, 162
Chamos, 119
Charistia, 158, 159
Charity, 178, 179
Charlemagne, 245, 246-251, 252, 254, 516
Charles Martel, 242
Charles the Bald, 256
Charles VI, 316
Charles VI, of Austria, 441
Charles VII, 271
Charles IX, 349
Charvoz, Abbé, 465
Chastity, 153, 154
Chateaubriand, 200, 232
Chilperic, 235, 236
_Chokmah_, 7, 116
Christ, 1, 11, 20, 29, 42, 43, 145, 157, 171, 173, 264, 266, 405, 454,
508, 515
Christian, P., 417
Church, Catholic, 13, 20, 35, 115, 145, 171, 287, 454, 455
Circe, 90
Clairvoyance, 18, 58, 70
Clavel, 441
Clement, St., 208
Clement V, Pope, 265
Cleopatra, 262
Clothilde, St., 234, 235
Clovis, 235, 236
Cocytus, 141
_Cœlum Sephiroticum_, 137
Comte, Auguste, 459, 461
Confucius, 3, 393
Constance of Provence, 256, 257
Cooper-Oakley, Isabel, 401
Corinth, Bride of, 223 _et seq._
Cornuphis, 121
Cosmopolite, _i.e._ Alexander Seton, 357
Cremer, John, 326
Crollius, Oswald, 356, 357
Cross of Eden, 208
Cuvier, 227
Cyprian, Prayer of St., 203
Daath, 116
Dacier, 176
_Daleth_, 33, 34
Damis, 195, 197
Daniel, 52, 92
Dante, 34, 142, 345 _et seq._, 347, 351
Darboy, Monsignor, 218
Davies, 136
_Dea, Bona_, 155
De Cauzons, P., 257
De Cossé Brissac, Duc, 423
De Gabalis, Comte, 245
De Genlis, Madame, 402
Dejanira, 133, 134
Delaage, Henri, 477, 478
Delancre, 362, 363
De Lerins, Blessed Vincent, 520, 521
Deleuze, 404, 417
De Luchet, Marquis, 403, 405, 438, 483
Delrio, 362
Deluge, 40, 46, 117
De Maistre, Comte Joseph, 5, 28, 106, 177, 240, 522
De Marnier, Duc, 423
De Médicis, Catharine, 349
De Mirville, Comte, 241, 285, 335, 475, 476
Democritus, 120
De Paul, St. Vincent, 179
Desbillons, 338, 339
Desmousseux, G., 375
D’Espagnet, 357
De Sombreuil, Mdlle., 420, 424
Deussen, 67
De Vatiguerro, Jean, 443
De Villanova, Arnaldus, 327
De Villars, Abbé, 109, 110, 401
Devil, 12, 13, 14, 15, 187 _et seq._, 281 _et seq._
Diana, 161
Dionysius, 217, 218, 219
Dionysius the Younger, 137
Diseases, Astral, 159
_Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental Magic_, 13, 29, 116, 172, 230,
393
Dodona, Oaks of, 84
Dominic, St., 262, 292
Donatists, 128
D’Ourches, Comte, 479, 481, 482, 484
Dositheus, 180
Dreams, 163
Druids, 229-231, 232, 251
Duchesne, 257
Du Fresnoy, Lenglet, 327
Du Perron, Anquetil, 67
Du Potet, Baron, 57, 60, 71, 130, 471, 472, 473, 485
Dupuis, 3, 4
_Dzenioutha Sepher_, 393
Eckartshausen, Karl von, 436
Ecstasy, 71, 109, 132
Eden and Earthly Paradise, 41, 45, 115, 244
Edmond, 493, 494
Egeria, 152
Elementary Spirits, 111, 244
Eleusis, 134, 161, 345
Elizabeth, Mme., 424
_Elohim, Elohim Tzabaoth_, 135, 247, 283
_Empusæ_, 90
_Enchiridion_, 214, 247-250, 478
Enoch, 344
_Enoch, Book of_, 39, 40, 43, 44, 46
_Ensoph_, 44, 137
Equilibrium, 149, 165, 501, 503, 517, 518, 519
Erdan, A., 453, 472, 495, 499
Eros and Anteros, 179
Esquiros, Alphonse, 477, 495, 497
Etteilla, 77, 316, 445
Eucharist, 177, 178, 210
Eudoxus, 53
Euripides, 161
Eurydice, 87
Eve, 17, 117, 244, 301, 459
Evil, 13, 14
Ezekiel, 92, 265, 381
Faber, Rev. G. S., 136
Fabré-Palaprat, 423
Faith and Science, 10, 27, 178, 517, 518
Figuier, Louis, 74, 327, 409
Fire, Secret, 196
Flamel, Nicholas, 331-334, 347, 351, 353
Fludd, Robert, 357
Fo-Hi, 392
Fontenelle, 156
Fourier, 117, 286, 453
_Four Sons of Aymon_, 246
Franck, Adolphe, 49
Fredegonde, 235, 236, 237, 238
Frederick William, King, 435
Freemasonry, Freemasons, 4, 9, 21, 29, 54, 266, 382-388
French Revolution, 190
Gaffarel, 280
Ganneau, 458, 495, 497, 499
Garden of Olives, 42
_Garden of Pomegranates_, 21
Garinet, Jules, 235, 243, 245, 252, 258, 371
Gaufridi, Louis, 364-366
Geber, 262
Genebrard, 329
Geoffrey de St. Omer, 265
Geomancy, 151
Gerle, Dom, 428-431, 497
Gilles de Laval, 272-280, 282, 361
_Gimel_, 34
Gipsies, 306-318
Girard, 373
Glauber, Richard, 357
Gnosis, Gnosticism, Gnostics, 4, 54, 65, 184, 198, 208, 209, 211, 264,
269, 291, 345, 388, 406, 415, 524
Goethe and the _Faust_, 200, 305, 320, 441, 442, 453, 458
_Göetia_, 64, 67, 89, 110, 153, 174
_Golden Ass_, 205, 206
Golden Fleece, 83, 84, 85
_Golden Legend_, 200, 204
Graces, Three, 159
Grandier, Urbain, 367-372
Gregory, St., 158
Gregory of Tours, 237, 242
Gregory XVI, Pope, 466
Grimoires, Various, 130, 279, 293, 297-305
Gringonneur, Jacques, 79
Guldenstubbé, Baron de, 286, 480, 483, 484
Gymnosophists, 66
Hagar, 48
Ham, 48, 85, 117, 118, 127
_He_, 74
Hecate, 161
Helena, 183
Helmont, J. B. van, 357
Hennequin, Victor, 474
Henry III, 349, 350
Heraclitus, 120
Hercules, 84, 123, 133
Hermanubis, 80
Hermes, 53, 73, 74, 75, 134, 260
Hiram, 383-387
Hierarchy, Descending, 191
Hierophants, 156
_Hod_, 21
Homer, 83, 133, 437
Honorius II, 298, 299
Honorius III, 292
Hugh de Payens, 265, 266, 268, 270
Hussites, 128
Hypatia, 215
Hyphasis, 194
Iao, 140
Iliad, 85
Illuminati, 4, 54, 148, 284, 435 _et seq._
Immortality, 99
Irminsul, 228
Isaac de Loria, 419
Isaiah, 11
Isis, 25, 80, 138, 233, 505
Ixion, 142
Iynx, 77, 78
Jachin, 21, 42, 179, 411
Jacob, 7, 8, 159
Jason, 84, 85
Jean d’Arras, 234
Jean de Meung, 346, 347
Jean Hachette, 230
Jechiel, Rabbi, 239, 240, 257, 258
Jehovah, 80, 103, 104, 105, 248, 249, 301, 304
Joachim, Abbé, 426
Joan, Pope, 28
Joan of Arc, 230, 234, 271, 272
Johannite Doctrine, 174, 266, 267, 268, 269, 345, 382, 424, 431
John, St., 29, 43, 44, 49, 101, 138, 208, 214, 264, 268, 328, 344,
405, 516
Jonah, 208
Joseph, 76
Josephine, Empress, 443, 444
Jude, St., 39
Julian the Apostate, 193, 198, 515
Juno, 83
Jupiter, 7, 86, 111, 152, 161;
Jupiter and Semele, 19
Justina, Legend of, 200-202
Juvenal, 154
Kabalah, 3, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 33, 34, 41, 43, 48, 49, 65, 77,
101-112, 136, 138, 143, 146, 171, 174, 192, 213, 229, 263, 265,
327, 330, 335, 354, 393, 395, 409, 413, 418, 419. _See_ Zohar
_Kether_, 7
Keturah, 64
Khnoubis, 140
Khunrath, Heinrich, 29, 263, 353-356
Kircher, Athanasius, 77, 156
Klodswinthe, 235
Kölmer, 412
Koran, 241
Kotzebue, 440
Koung-Tseu, 146
Krishna, 66
Krudener, Madame de, 446-448
Labarum, 250
Lacenaire, 467
Lactantius, 141
La Harpe, 417
Lamech, 72
_Lamiæ_, 90
Lamennais, Abbé, 496
Land, Promised, 159
_Larvæ_, 111, 112, 128, 141
Lascaris, 408, 409
Lavater, 437, 483
Laysis, 93
Leibnitz, 393, 394
_Lemures_, 141
Lenormand, 444, 445, 446, 493
Leo III, Pope, 214, 248
Leon-Tao-Yuan, 392
Lethe, 99, 141
L’Étoile, 350
_Liber Mirabilis_, 44
Light, Astral, 13, 16, 18, 19, 57, 59, 61, 71, 73, 98, 104, 109, 110,
127, 131, 157, 164, 175, 181, 185, 188, 189, 190, 195, 213, 279,
332, 342, 410, 468, 506
Lilith, 418
_Little Albert_, 160, 261
Loiseaut, 427
Lopukhin, 45
Louis, St., 239, 257
Louis the Pious, 245, 256
Louis XVI, 423, 424, 425, 433
Louis XVII, 433, 434, 446, 448, 461, 462, 467, 497
Louis XVIII, 448
Lucifer, 11, 12, 14, 187, 188, 192
Lucretia, 154
Lully, Raymund, 319-330
Luther, Martin, 28, 347-349
Macrocosm, 511, 512
Magi, 1, 55, 59, 62, 67, 147, 160, 180, 186, 228, 515
Magi, the Three, 1, 66, 146, 147
Magic: as the science of the ancient Magi, 1;
as certitude in philosophy and religion, 2;
its profanation, 4;
as the science of the devil, 9;
its Great Secret, 17;
opens the Temple of Nature, 30;
does not explain the mysteries of religion, 30;
its chief attraction, 31;
distinction between good and evil, 45;
spurious Magic of India, 45;
term of, 58;
its perfect doctrine in Egypt, 73;
its summary in the Emerald Tablet, 74;
miracles of Moses not referable to Magic, 79;
Magic of Light, 180;
Magic of the old sanctuaries, 193;
Magic of works, 262;
why Magic is proscribed by the Church, 524;
the future of Magic, 524, 525
Magic, Black, 17, 64, 71, 89, 90, 118, 126, 129, 130, 138, 190, 209,
223, 255, 260, 273, 291, 350, 361, 468, 476, 507, 515
Magnetism, 19, 20
Mahomet, 28, 241
Maia, 157
Maier, Michael, 357
Maimonides, 393
_Malkuth_, 21
Manes, 54, 144
Manicheans, 16, 198
_Mapah._ _See_ Ganneau
Marat, 47, 418, 439
Marcellinus, 198
Marcos, 210, 212
Mars, 85
Martin de Gallardon, 432, 462
Martinists, 16
Mary the Virgin, 10, 23, 24, 88, 149, 155, 157, 175, 176, 255, 517
Matter Jacques, 210, 269
Mead, G. R. S., 56, 57, 58, 77
Medea, 84, 85, 91
Medicine, Universal, 133, 414, 508
Mediums, 164, 427 _et seq._, 475, 479-483
Melchisedek, 180, 401
Melusine, 233, 234
Memphis, 121, 134
Menander, 186, 415
Mercury, 74, 104, 196, 332, 333, 358, 504;
Hymn of Mercury, 162;
Astral Mercury, 414
Mesmer, Anton, 57, 396-399
Methodius, St., 44, 45, 425
Mèves, Aug., 433
Microcosm, 263, 511, 512
Minerva, 83, 150
Minos, 161
Mithraic Mysteries, 117
Molay, Jacques de, 271, 422, 424
Moloch, 119
Montanists, 211
Mopses, Order of, 440, 441
Morien, 262
Moses, 8, 18, 42, 76, 77, 79, 80, 101, 115, 135, 145, 283, 331, 524;
Wand of, 8, 42, 79, 80, 115
Muller, Philip, 357
Musæus, 86
Mustapha, Benjamin, 357
Mysteries, Greek, 135
Mysteries, Ancient, 8
Napoleon, 417, 443, 444
Naudé, Gabriel, 295, 358, 433, 434
Necromancy, 144
Nehamah, 418
Nero, 184, 185
_Netzach_, 7, 21
Nicholas IV, Pope, 328
Nicodemus, Gospel of, 43
Nicæa, Council of, 213
Nimrod, 59
Ninus, 61, 63
Noah, 40, 46
Norton, Thomas, 357
Nostradamus, Michael, 444
Numa, 55, 60, 92, 152, 155
Oberon, 246
Odyssey, 85
Œdipus, 86, 134, 515
Olivarius, 444
_Om_, 69
Omphale, 134
Oracles, 174, 175
Orléans, Council of, 241
Orpheus, 3, 82, 85, 87, 88, 126, 134, 148, 149, 152, 515
Ortelius, 357
Osiris, 25, 80, 208, 505
Ostanes, 262
_Oupnek’hat_, 67-72
Pan, 174
Pantacle of Mars, 167
Pantacle of Mercury, 167
Pantacle of Saturn, 167
Pantacle of Venus, 166
Pantacle of the Moon, 166
Pantacle of the Sun, 166
Pantacle of Jupiter, 167
Pantarba, 197
Pantheism, 66
Pantheus, 146, 152
Paracelsus, 111, 231, 263, 340, 341, 342, 344
Paradise, Earthly, 41, 115, 141
Paris the Deacon, 185
Parmenides, 155
Pascal, 50, 51, 439
Pasqually, Martines de, 17, 89, 416
Paths, Thirty-two, 78
Patricius, Franciscus, 54, 56, 57
Paul, St., 11
Penelope, 150
Pentagram, 2
Pentheus, 148
Pepin the Short, 242
Pernety, A. J., 85
Peter, St., 182, 183, 185, 214
Peter Lombard, 261
Peter the Venerable, 261
Petronius, 185
Pharamond, 238
Pharaoh and his Magicians, 17, 18, 79, 80
Philalethes, 357
Philip, St., 182
Philip the Fair, 265, 270, 422
Philostratus, 193, 194
Photius, 265
Physiognomy, 97
Picus de Mirandula, 109
Pignorius, L., 77
Pillars, 140
Pison, Lucius, 55
Pistorius, 78
Planis Campe, David, 357
Platina, 293, 296
Plato, 56, 86, 121, 122, 124, 135, 136, 138, 142, 143, 167, 214, 215,
519
Pliny, 55
Plotinus, 165, 215
Polonus, Martinus, 294
Polycrates, 92
Porphyry, 160, 161, 165, 215
Postel, William, 43, 335-340
Pot of Manna, 42
Poterius, 357
Prometheus, 85, 86, 111, 207, 260, 261
Proserpine, 152, 161
Protestantism, 145, 146, 179
_Protoplastes_, 110
Psyche, 205
Punishment, Eternal, 7
Puritans, 128
Pyramids, 173
Pyrrhos, 120
Pythagoras, 88, 92-100, 135, 140, 155, 523
Ragon, J. M., 70, 382
_Regnum Sanctum_, 1, 502
_Reichstheater_ of Müller, 254
Reincarnation, 99, 100
Reuchlin, John, 3
Richard Cœur de Lion, 270
Richemont, Baron de, 433
Robert the Pious, 256
Robespierre, 47, 430, 431, 432
Roland, 246, 247
_Romance of the Rose_, 115, 351
Romarius, 262
Rose-nobles, 326
Rosenroth, Baron Knorr von, 49, 419
Rosicrucians, 4, 29, 100, 116, 249, 346, 352, 353, 358, 359, 382, 401,
402, 405, 406
Rossetti, Gabriele, 346
Rousseau, 47, 125, 177, 422
Rulandus, Martinus, 74, 414
Saint-Foix, 229
Saint-Germain, Comte de, 234, 400, 406, 407, 408, 409
Saint-Martin, L. C. de, 16, 17, 416
Saint-Médard, 374
Saint-Simon, 26
Saint-Victor, Adam de, 44
Salic Laws, 238-241
Salmanas, 262
Salt, 45, 104, 196, 504
Samaria, 182, 204
Sand, Carl, 440
Sardanapalus, 62, 63
Satan, 12, 14, 15, 16, 139, 157, 192
Schroepfer, 436
Schuré, Edouard, 92
Second Birth, 133
Secret, Great, 2, 23, 143, 199, 411;
Great Magical Secret, 507
Secret Societies, 33
_Secret Tradition in Freemasonry_, 265, 437
Semiramis, 59, 61
_Sephiroth_, 7, 21, 65, 103, 116, 137, 249
Sergius IV, Pope, 296
Seth, 41, 45, 46, 48, 101
Shelley, P. B., 162
Sibyls, 150, 151
Simon Magus, 180-186, 209, 415
Sisyphus, 142
Sixtus IV, 296
Sobrier, 498
Socrates, 64, 120
Solomon, 145, 384, 385, 386, 401, 516;
Keys of, 105, 393, 507, 510-513;
Ring of, 502, 507, 510, 511, 513;
Seal of, 507, 510, 511, 513;
Star of, 75, 249;
Pillars of, 21, 27;
Temple of, 145, 146, 167, 179, 265, 383, 384, 385, 387
Sphinx, 475, 506
Spirits, Return of, 106, 107, 108
Sprenger, 362
Star, Blazing, 1
Steinert, 435
Stone, Corner, 173;
Stone of the Philosophers, 196, 197;
Philosophical Stone, 262, 510
_Stryges_, 90, 144
Sulphur, 104, 196, 504
Superstition, 158
Swedenborg, Emmanuel, 51, 394-396, 433, 453, 456
Sword of the Cherubim, 117
Sylvester II, Pope, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296
Synesius, 208, 215, 216, 217, 515
Table of Bembo, 77;
Table of Emerald, 73, 74;
Table of Denderah, 4;
Tables of the Law, 42
Tabor, 420
Talleyrand, 297
_Talmud_, 20, 172, 239, 240
Tantalus, 142
Taranis, 228
Tarchon, 92
_Tarot_, 57, 58, 78, 79, 105, 151, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 416,
445;
Chinese, 391-393
Tavernier, 342
Telesma, 73, 74, 505
Templar, Knights, 8, 265-271, 291, 328, 406, 422, 423, 424, 425, 467
Temple, Second, 266
Temporal Power, 517, 518
Tenarus, 142
Teresa, St., 9
Tertullian, 10, 204, 211
Tetrad, 93, 95
Teutas, 228, 229
Thales, 140
Thebes, 3, 82, 83
Theoclet, 268
Theosophy, 138
Théot, Catherine, 429-432, 446, 497
Thomas Aquinas, St., 6, 259, 261, 523
Thoth, 229;
Book of, 43, 121. _See_ Tarot
Tieck, Ludwig, 361
Tigellinus, 185
Tiresias, 149, 150
Tissot, Hilarion, 189, 283, 360
_Toldoth Jeshu, Sepher_, 172, 268
Torneburg, John, 357
Torreblanca, F., 90, 190, 362
Tournefort, 489, 493
Tree of Knowledge, 41, 115, 116, 323
Tree of Life, 41
Trent, Council of, 336, 340
Trevisan, Bernard, 334
Tribunal, Secret, 250-254
Trigonum, 392
Trimalcyon, 184
Trithemius, Abbot, 334, 335, 352
Trois-Échelles, 349
Trophonius, 139
Tullus Hostilius, 55
Typhon, 25
Vaillant, 311, 313, 314, 315, 316
Valentine, Basil, 210, 334
Vampires, 112, 144, 147, 489-493
_Vau_, 34
Vaudois, 128, 424
Vedas, 65
Velleda, 232
Venus, 61, 82, 157, 159
Vienna, Council of, 328
Vintras, Eugène, 212, 462-470
Virgil, 86
Vishnu, 64, 65, 66
Voltaire, 3, 106, 116, 155, 373, 374
Westcott, W. Wynn, 78
William of Brunswick, 253
William of Loris, 346, 351
William of Malmesbury, 295
Williams, Eleazar, 433
Woman, 22, 25, 232-237
Wonders, Seven, 166-168
Word, Sacred, &c., 3, 20, 76, 89, 124, 135, 137, 167, 171, 172, 173,
213, 283, 286, 337, 454, 508
Work, Great, 84, 85, 133, 195, 197, 259, 351, 355, 416, 501, 509
Wronski, Hoene, 459, 460, 461
Yetzirah, Sepher, 20, 43, 48, 49, 52, 77, 78, 173, 219, 331, 336, 355,
391, 504
_Y-Kim_, 392-394
Zain, 34
Zedekias, 243
Zerubbabel, 266, 383
_Zohar_, Sepher Ha, 20, 25, 27, 34, 40, 41, 46, 48, 50, 51, 52, 82,
98, 99, 109, 117, 137, 141, 146, 147, 173, 197, 207, 211, 249, 259,
336, 358, 383, 393, 420, 503
Zoroaster, 3, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 60, 63, 66, 75, 76, 84, 180, 515,
522
THE END
_Printed wholly in England for the_ MUSTON COMPANY.
_By_ LOWE & BRYDONE, PRINTERS, LTD., PARK STREET, CAMDEN TOWN, LONDON,
N.W.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The word signifies reception, and in Rabbinical Hebrew it denotes
doctrine so communicated—that is to say, by a tradition handed down
or received from the past. John Reuchlin specifies it as symbolical
reception, signifying that the doctrine is not comprised simply in
its surface meaning. He says further that it is of Divine Revelation,
and that it belongs primarily to the life-giving contemplation
of God. This is in the universal sense, but it is concerned also
with secret teaching respecting particular things, meaning things
manifest—_contemplatio formarum separatarum_.
[2] The reference is to _L’Origine de tous les Cultes, ou Religion
Universelle_, 12 vols. in 8vo, together with an atlas in 4to. Paris,
1794. The work endeavoured to shew the unity of dogma under the
multiplicity of symbols and allegories. In other words, it explained
religion by astronomy, the cultus in the light of the calendar,
mysteries of grace by means of natural phenomena. An abridgment in a
small volume appeared about 1821. The Table of Denderah or Dendra was a
great zodiac sculptured on the ceiling of the portico belonging to the
Temple at that place, which was the ancient Tentyrio.
[3] _Sed omnia in mensura, et numero, et pondere disposuisti_: “But
Thou hast ordered all things in measure and number and weight.”—WISDOM,
xi. 21.
[4] The conventional Hexagram presents in pictorial symbolism the root
doctrine of the Hermetic Emerald Tablet: “That which is above is equal
to that which is below.” It is the sign of the interpenetration of
worlds.
[5] According to the _Zohar_, Pt. I., fol. 21_a_, 21_b_, it was with
the guardian angel of Esau that Jacob wrestled at the place which he
named Peniel. The angel could not prevail against Jacob because the
latter derived his strength from the Supreme Light, _Kether_, and from
_Chokmah_, which is the second hypostasis. He therefore smote Jacob on
the right thigh, which signifies the seventh _Sephira_, or _Netzach_.
[6] The more usual argument of high orthodox theology in the Latin
school is that a sin against the Infinite Being is one of infinite
culpability. If it were suggested in rejoinder that it must be one of
infinite inconsequence, so far as that Being is concerned, it might not
be more reasonable than the argument, but it would do less outrage to
logic.
[7] It is to be noted, however, that there was mockery of its kind in
the middle ages, that Satan and his emissaries in folk-lore appear
under ridiculous lights. There is the prototypical story of the devil
who gave a course of lectures on Black Magic at the University of
Salamanca and demanded, as a consideration, the soul of one of his
hearers; but he was cheated with the student’s shadow.
[8] In his earlier work, _The Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental
Magic_, Éliphas Lévi affirms (_a_) on the authority of a writer whom
he does not name, that the devil is God, as understood by the wicked;
(_b_) on another authority, that the devil is composed of God’s ruins;
(_c_) that the devil is the Great Magical Agent employed for evil
purposes by a perverse will; (_d_) that he is death masquerading in the
cast-off garments of life; (_e_) that Satan, Beelzebub, Adramelek, &c.,
do not designate spiritual unities, but legions of impure spirits.
[9] In speaking of evil and a possible Prince of Darkness, it is
necessary to proceed carefully, if we are confined, like Éliphas Lévi,
within the measures of a theory of opposites. The definition of evil as
the absence of rectitude is entirely insufficient to cover the facts
of experience; it is that indeed, but it is also as much more as may
be necessary to account for its positive and active side. The truth is
that positive and negative are on both sides of the eternal balance of
things postulated by the theory. So far as it goes, evil is the absence
of rectitude, and, so far as it goes also, rectitude is the absence of
evil; but the vital aspects of good and bad have slipped between the
fingers of definition in both cases.
[10] Saint-Martin recognises the existence of an astral region, which
is apparently that of sidereal rule. There is, in his view a certain
science of this region, and of this the active branch is theurgic,
while the passive engenders somnambulism. These divisions constitute
the elementary science of the astral, but above these there is one
which is more fatal and dangerous, of which he refuses to speak. There
is no Martinistic doctrine concerning the Astral Light, understood
as an universal medium. Éliphas Lévi seems to have used the term
Martinism in a general sense, as if it included the school of Martines
de Pasqually. Pasqually, however, has no doctrine concerning the Astral
Light. Modern French Martinism has read it into Saint-Martin’s rather
ridiculous “epico-magical poem” or allegory, called _Le Crocodile_,
much as another school of experiment might find therein a veiled
account of the Akasic records and the mode of their study. I refer to
the story of Atlantis, which begins at _Chant 64_ and occupies a large
part of the book. The account of the Chair of Silence is very curious
in this connection.
[11] If the word is of Greek origin it seems to connect with the idea
of watchers rather than leaders. Cf. [Greek ho egrêgoros] = Vigil, in
the Septuagint.
[12] The Kabalistic explanation is (_a_) that Egyptian Magic was real
Magic; (_b_) that its wisdom was of the lowermost degree only; (_c_)
that it was overcome by the superior degrees, by which the serpent
above, or Metatron, dominates the serpent below, namely, Samael. See
_Zohar_, Part II., fol. 28_a_.
[13] Elsewhere Éliphas Lévi suggests that Pharaoh’s magicians refused
rather than failed and that the production of flies was beneath the
dignity of their Magic.
[14] It should be mentioned that this enumeration is in the reverse
order of chronology, and it is not, as it happens, even in accordance
with what may be called traditional chronology. Legend says—and Éliphas
Lévi himself mentions subsequently—that the _Sepher Yetzirah_ was the
work of Abraham and that the _Zohar_ is in its root-matter a literal
record of discourses delivered by R. Simeon Ben Jochai, after the fall
of Jerusalem, A.D. 70. The Jerusalem and Babylon Talmuds are admittedly
growths of some centuries.
[15] The meanings ascribed to the names and inscriptions on the two
Pillars of the Temple will be of curious interest to members of the
Masonic Fraternity, who will be reminded of variants with which they
are themselves familiar. It must be said, however, that the explanation
of Lévi corresponds neither to Masonic nor Kabalistic symbolism.
According to the latter _Boaz_ is the left-hand Pillar, being that of
Severity in the scheme of the Sephirotic Tree; it answers to _Hod_, and
the meaning attached to its name is Strength and Vigour. _Jachin_ is on
the right hand, answering to _Netzach_ on the Tree; it signifies the
state of becoming established. That which is made firm between _Hod_
and _Netzach_ is _Malkuth_, or the kingdom below. This is the late
Kabalism of the tract entitled _Garden of Pomegranates_.
[16] This is the particular construction which is placed by Lévi on the
texts with which he is assuming to deal, and it is not really justified
by these. The _Zohar_ has, however, a doctrine of the Unknown Darkness.
The Infinite is neither light nor splendour, though all lights emanate
therefrom. It is a Supreme Will, exceeding human comprehension, and
more mysterious than all mysteries. See _Zohar_, Part I., fol. 239_a_.
[17] Éliphas Lévi does not seem always to have made the most of his
opportunities as regards the texts of Kabalism and the literature
thereto belonging which were available at his period in Latin and
certain modern languages, including his own. He had otherwise little
opportunity of learning the real message of the Zoharic cycle. Taking
all the circumstances into consideration, his guesses were sometimes
very shrewd, and here and there carry with them the suggestion
of intuitions. The teaching of the _Zohar_ on the subject of sex
postulates, like so much of its doctrine, a secret tradition to which
it never gives expression in fulness, though it is incessantly lifting
now one and now another corner of the veil. It is, however, impossible
to speak of it within the limit of a note.
[18] It was not a master-word but a mode of greeting; it was neither
Masonic nor Kabalistic; it was a Rosicrucian formula. It may be added
that: “Peace profound, my brethren”—was answered by: “Emanuel; God is
with us.” It is a perfect and highly mystical mode of salutation.
[19] Perhaps the true explanation in respect of Henry Khunrath is that,
seemingly, he was of the Lutheran persuasion as one of the accidents
of his birth, but in the higher consciousness he was, as he could be
only, catholic. As regards the resolute protestantism, Éliphas Lévi
says in his _Ritual of Transcendental Magic_ that Khunrath “affects
Christianity in expressions and in signs, but it is easy to see that
his Christ is the Abraxas, the luminous pentagram radiating on the
astronomical cross, the incarnation in humanity of the sovereign sun
celebrated by the Emperor Julian.” See my translation of the _Doctrine
and Ritual of Transcendental Magic_, p. 257.
[20] Éliphas Lévi has said previously (_a_) that the Church ignores
Magic—for she must either ignore it or perish; (_b_) that Magic, as
understood by him, is absolute religion as well as absolute science;
(_c_) that it should regenerate all forms of worship.
[21] If it be worth while to say so the translation of this passage
does not follow the text, which suggests that the act of conception—on
the female side—involves suffering. The text reads: _C’est le plaisir
qui féconde, mais c’est la douleur qui conçoit et enfante_.
[22] According to the _Zohar_, the letter _Aleph_ is a sacrament of the
unity which is in God, and it is thereby and therein that man obtains
unity. _Beth_ is the basis of the work of creation, and in a sense also
its instrument. _Gimel_ represents the charity and beneficence which
are the help of poverty, designated by the letter _Daleth_. The letters
_He_ and _Vau_ are part of the mystery which is contained in the Divine
Name— יהוה. The letter _Zain_ is likened to a sharp sword or dagger.
[23] The account which follows may be compared with that which
is found, _s.v._ _Apocryphes_ in Éliphas Lévi’s _Dictionnaire de
Littérature Chrétienne_, mentioned in my preface to the present
translation. It describes the legend concerning the fall of certain
angels as _une assez singulière histoire_. He refers also to the
various extant versions of the book, and to those in particular which
differ from the “primitive” codex, being (_a_) that which he uses,
and (_b_) “that which St. Jude cites in his catholic epistle as an
authentic” work, actually composed by the prophet Enoch, to whom it is
attributed.
[24] The _Zohar_ says that the Ark of Noah was a symbol of the Ark of
the Covenant, that his entrance therein saved the world, and that this
mystery is in analogy with the Supreme Mystery. At this point there is
a sex-implicit throughout the Kabalistic commentary, and the nature of
the “unbridled appetite” which brought about the deluge is identified
with that sin which caused the destruction of Judah’s second son, as
told in Genesis c. xxxviii. See _Zohar_, Part I., section _Toldoth
Noah_. It is intimated also that the souls of those who perished in the
deluge were to be blotted out, like the remembrance of Amalek. Part
I., fol. 25_a_. They will not even be included in the resurrection
which shall go before the Last Judgment. Fol. 68_b_. At the same time
the chastisement would have been suspended had Noah prayed to God like
Moses, but the tradition supposes him to have asked only concerning
himself. _Zohar_, Part III., fol. 14_b_. The Holy Land was not covered
by the waters of the deluge. Part II., fol. 197_a_.
[25] It was the Rod of Aaron, not that of Moses, which, according to
Heb. ix. 4, was placed in the Ark of the Covenant, together with the
Tables of the Law and the Pot of Manna. It is said, however, most
clearly in I Kings, viii. 9, that “there was nothing in the ark save
the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb.”
[26] Whatever the date to which the _Book of the Penitence of Adam_
may be referable, it represents one form of a legend which was spread
widely in the Middle Ages. _The Gospel of Nicodemus_ seems to have
instituted the first analogy between the Tree of Knowledge and the
Tree of the Cross. “All ye who have died through the wood which this
man”—Adam—“hath touched: all of you I will make alive again by the
wood of the cross.” The legend of the triple branch, under a strange
transformation, reappears in that chronicle of the Holy Graal which has
been ascribed to the authorship of Walter Map. There is no end to the
stories which represent Christ dying upon a tree which was a cutting
from the Tree of Knowledge. This is how the Tree of Knowledge becomes
the Tree of Life in Christian legend.
[27] The _Clavis Absconditorum à Constitutione Mundi_, which is the
chief work of Postel, outside his translation of the _Sepher Yetzirah_,
affirms that Enoch was born at the time when Christ the Mediator would
have been manifested in the flesh as the incarnation of perfect Virtue,
supposing that man had remained in his first estate. There is no
reference to a _Genesis of Enoch_.
[28] _Hic intrat vivus foveam_—he, being still alive, enters the tomb,
says Adam of St. Victor in his third Sequence for Dec. 27.
[29] There were two canonised bishops bearing the name of Methodius
at widely different periods, and as both were writers it is an open
question to which of them the reference is intended. It is probably
to Methodius of Olympus, who was martyred about 311. Methodius, the
Patriarch of Constantinople, died in 846. There is not the least reason
to suppose that the Apocalypse under the name of Bermechobus was the
work of either.
[30] Compare Lopukhin’s _Quelques Traits de l’Eglise Intérieure_,
where the sanctuary which was inaugurated by Adam is connected more
especially with Abel, and was presumably maintained afterwards by Seth.
In opposition thereto was the Church of Cain, which was anti-Christian
from its beginning. See my introduction to Mr. Nicholson’s translation,
pp. 6, 7, and the text, p. 59—_Some Characteristics of the Interior
Church_, 1912.
[31] According to the _Zohar_, the intoxication of Noah contains a
mystery of wisdom. He was really sounding the depths of that sin which
was the downfall of the first man, and his object was to find a remedy.
In this he failed, and “was drunken,” seeking to lay bare the divine
essence, without the intellectual power to explore it. _Section Toldoth
Noah._
[32] The _Sepher Ha Zohar_ affirms in several places that the Law was
offered to the Gentiles, and was by them refused.
[33] The authority for this statement is wanting. The _Zohar_ dwells
on Genesis xxi. 9: “And Sarah saw the son of Hagar,” &c., implying
that she did not acknowledge him as the son of Abraham, but of the
Egyptian only. The Patriarch, however, regarded him as his own son.
Sarah’s desire to expel them is justified on the ground that she had
seen Ishmael worshipping the stars of heaven. See _Zohar_, Part I.,
fol. 118. There is no allusion to the alleged gifts of the father, the
scripture making it evident abundantly that the bread and bottle of
water are for once to be understood literally.
[34] Even at the period of Éliphas Lévi, it did not require a
rabbinical scholar or a knowledge of Aramaic to prevent any fairly
informed person from suggesting that the _Book of Concealed Mystery_,
being the text here referred to, is the beginning of the _Zohar_.
It follows the _Commentary on Exodus_, about midway in the whole
collection, which covers the entire Pentateuch. It so happens that the
little tract in question is the first of three sections rendered into
Latin by Rosenroth, and this must have deceived Lévi, as a consequence
of utterly careless reading. There was plenty of opportunity for
correction in the _Kabbala Denudata_, and so also in _La Kabbale_—an
interesting but very imperfect study by Adolphe Franck, which appeared
in 1843.
[35] There is no real analogy between the image attributed to Pascal
and that of the Zoharic _Book of Concealment_. I have not verified
the reference to Pascal, as the opportunity is not given by Lévi, but
I have explained elsewhere that the idea was probably drawn from S.
Bonaventura, who speaks of that _sphæra intelligibilis, cujus centrum
est ubique et circumferentia nusquam_. See _Itinerarium Mentis ad
Deum_. I have inferred that S. Bonaventura himself derived from a
Hermetic book. As regards the symbolism of the Balance, the _Book of
Concealed Mystery_ says (_a_) that in creating the world, God weighed
in the Balance what had not been weighed previously, (_b_) that the
Balance was suspended in a region where before there was no Balance,
(_c_) that it served for bodies as well as souls, for beings then in
existence and for those who would exist subsequently. These are the
only references to this subject found in the tract.
[36] As such it is old, and a monograph on the subject is included by
Jacob Bryant in his _Analysis of Antient Mythology_, vol. ii. p. 38 _et
seq._ Following the authorities of his period, and especially Huetius,
he says that “they have supposed a Zoroaster, wherever there was a
Zoroastrian: that is, wherever the religion of the Magi was adopted,
or revived.” The two Zoroasters of Lévi represent two principles of
religious philosophy.
[37] An English translation of the Chaldæan Oracles by Thomas Taylor,
the Platonist, claims to have added fifty oracles and fragments not
included in the collection of Fabricius. Mr. Mead says that the subject
was never treated scientifically till the appearance of J. Kroll’s _De
Oraculis Chaldaicis_ at Breslau, in 1894.
[38] It must be understood that this summary or digest is an
exceedingly free rendering, and it seems scarcely in accordance with
the text on which Éliphas Lévi worked. Following the text of Kroll, Mr.
Mead translates the first lines as follows: “Nature persuades us that
the Daimones are pure, and things that grow from evil matter useful and
good.” The last lines are rendered: “But when thou dost behold the very
sacred Fire with dancing radiance flashing formless through the depths
of the whole world, then hearken to the Voice of Fire.”
[39] See my _Key to the Tarot_, 1910, p. 32, and the cards which
accompany this handbook. See also my _Pictorial Key to the Tarot_,
1911, pp. 144-147.
[40] One of the Chaldæan Oracles has the following counsel: “Labour
thou around the _Strophalos_ of Hecate,” which Mr. G. R. S. Mead
translates: “Be active (or operative) round the Hecatic spinning
thing.” He adds by way of commentary that _Strophalos_ may sometimes
mean a top. “In the Mysteries tops were included among the playthings
of the young Bacchus, or Iacchus. They represented ... the fixed stars
(humming tops) and planets (whipping tops).”—_The Chaldæan Oracles_,
vol. ii. pp. 17, 18.
[41] Accepting this definition of the term of occult research, we can
discern after what manner it differs from the mystic term. The one, by
this hypothesis, is lucidity obtained in artificial sleep which stills
the senses, and the other is Divine Realisation in the spirit after the
images of material things and of the mind-world have been cast out, so
that the sanctified man is alone with God in the stillness.
[42] This was _La Magie Dévoilée_, which was circulated in great
secrecy. Later on, and probably after the decease of the author, it
appeared in the ordinary way, and in 1886 an English translation was
announced under the editorship of Mr. J. S. Farmer, but I believe that
it was never published.
[43] Éliphas Lévi adds in a note that, according to Suidas, Cedrenus
and the _Chronicle of Alexandria_ it was Zoroaster himself who, seated
in his palace, disappeared suddenly and by his own will, with all his
secrets and all his riches, in a great peal of thunder. He explains
that every king who exercised divine power passed for an incarnation of
Zoroaster, and that Sardanapalus converted his pyre into an apotheosis.
[44] The analysis of Éliphas Lévi requires to be checked at all
points. He followed the Latin version of Anquetil Duperron, made from
a Persian text, and this is so rare as to be almost unobtainable. I
shall therefore deserve well of my readers by furnishing the following
extract from Deussen’s _Religion and Philosophy of India_, regarding
the _Oupnek’hat_:
“A position apart from the 52 and the 108 Upanishads is occupied by
that collection of 50 Upanishads which, under the name of _Oupnek’hat_,
was translated from the Sanskrit into the Persian in the year 1656 at
the instance of the Sultan Mohammed Dara Shakoh, and from the Persian
into the Latin in 1801-2 by Anquetil Duperron. The _Oupnek’hat_
professes to be a general collection of Upanishads. It contains under
twelve divisions the Upanishads of the three older Vedas, and with
them 26 Atharva Upanishads that are known from other sources. It
further comprises eight treatises peculiar to itself, five of which
have not up to the present time been proved to exist elsewhere, and
of which therefore a rendering from the Persian-Latin of Anquetil
is alone possible. Finally the _Oupnek’hat_ contains four treatises
from the Vaj. Samh. 16, 31, 32, 34, of which the first is met with
in a shorter form in other collections also, as in the Nilarudra
Upanishad, while the three last have nowhere else found admission. The
reception of these treatises from the Samhita into the body of the
Upanishads, as though there were danger of their falling otherwise
into oblivion, makes us infer a comparatively later date for the
_Oupnek’hat_ collection itself, although as early as 1656 the Persian
translators made no claim to be the original compilers, but took the
collection over already complete. Owing to the excessive literality
with which Anquetil Duperron rendered these Upanishads word by word
from the Persian into Latin, while preserving the syntax of the former
language—a literality that stands in striking contrast to the freedom
with which the Persian translators treated the Sanskrit text—the
_Oupnek’hat_ is a very difficult book to read; and an insight as keen
as that of Schopenhauer was required in order to discover within this
repellant husk a kernel of invaluable philosophical significance,
and to turn it to account for his own system. An examination of
the material placed at our disposal in the _Oupnek’hat_ was first
undertaken by A. Weber, Ind. Stud. I, II, ix., on the basis of the
Sanskrit text. Meanwhile the original texts were published in the
_Bibliotheca Indica_ in part with elaborate commentaries, and again
in the Anandas’rama series. The two longest, and some of the shorter
treatises have appeared in a literal German rendering by O. Bohtlingk.
Max Müller translated the twelve oldest Upanishads in _Sacred Books
of the East_, vol. i. 15. And my own translation of the 60 Upanishads
contains complete texts of this character which, upon the strength
of their regular occurrence in the Indian collections and lists of
the Upanishads, may lay claim to a certain canonicity. The prefixed
introductions and the notes treat exhaustively of the matter and
composition of the several treatises.”
[45] This forms the second book of the collection entitled _Orthodoxie
Maçonnique_, which was published in 1853. The account of magical discs
and the planets corresponding to them will be found on pp. 498-501.
Ragon pretended that there was a system of Occult Masonry in three
Degrees.
[46] The legend concerning the Emerald Tablet is that it was found by
Alexander the Great in the tomb of Hermes, which was hidden by the
priests of Egypt in the depths of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh. It was
supposed to have been written by Hermes on a large plate of emerald by
means of a pointed diamond. I believe that there is no Greek version
extant, and it is referred by Louis Figuier to the seventh century of
the Christian era, or thereabouts. See _L’Alchimie et les Alchimistes_,
p. 42.
[47] In his _Lexicon Alchemiæ_ Rulandus reminds us that “the old
astronomers dedicated the Emerald to Mercury,” and Berthelot says that
this was in conformity with Egyptian ideas, which classed the Emerald
and Sapphire in their list of metals. See _Collection des Anciens
Alchimistes Grecs, première livraison_, p. 269. The planet Mercury
was the planet Hermes and it may be that some mystical connection was
supposed between quicksilver and the precious stone. This would have
been in Græco-Alexandrian times, if ever, as ancient Egypt does not
seem to have been acquainted with quicksilver.
[48] The text says: _le triple binaire ou le mirage du triangle_, but
it is obvious that the reflected triad cannot be termed binary. The
expression is confused, but the meaning is that the first triangle
equals unity, or the number 1; the second triad corresponds to the
duad, or number 2; the third triad to the number 3, and so onward.
[49] The reference is to Athanasius Kircher’s _Œdipus Ægyptiacus_, 3
vols. in folio, bound usually in four, published at Rome, 1652-1654.
The _Mensa Isiaca_, being the Bembine Tablet, so called because its
discovery is connected with the name of Cardinal Bembo, is in the
third volume—a folding plate beautifully produced. The original is
exceedingly late and is roughly termed a forgery. In 1669 the Tablet
was reproduced on a larger scale by means of a number of folding
plates in the _Mensa Isiaca_ of Laurentius Pignorius. Both works are
exceedingly rare. I suppose that these are the only records of the
Tablet now extant, with the exception of a large copy in my possession
made from the above sources.
[50] Mr. G. R. S. Mead tells us that _Iynx_ in its root-meaning,
according to Proclus, signifies the “power of transmission” which is
said in the Chaldæan Oracles “to sustain the fountains.” Mr. Mead
thinks that the _Iyinges_ were reproduced (_a_) as Living Spheres and
(_b_) as Winged Globes. He thinks, also, that (_a_) the Mind on the
plane of reality put forth (_b_) the one _Iyinx_, (_c_) after this
three _Iyinges_, called paternal and ineffable, and finally (_d_)
there may have been hosts of subordinate _Iyinges_. They were “free
intelligences.” It seems to follow that the _Iynx_ was not “an emblem
of universal being,” but a product of the Eternal Mind.
[51] It may be mentioned that the Hebrew alphabet was divided into
(_a_) Three Mother Letters, namely, _Aleph_, _Mem_ and _Shin_; (_b_)
Seven Double Letters, being _Beth_, _Gimel_, _Daleth_, _Kaph_, _Pe_,
_Resh_, _Tau_; and (_c_) Twelve Simple Letters, or _He_, _Vau_, _Zain_,
_Heth_, _Teth_, _Yod_, _Lamed_, _Nun_, _Samech_, _Ayin_, _Tsade_,
_Quoph_.
[52] The _Sepher Yetzirah_ was first made known to Latin reading
Europe by William Postel. Publication took place at Bâle in 1547. It
is said to have been reissued at Amsterdam in 1646. The collection
of Pistorius, entitled _Artis Cabalisticæ Scriptores_, belongs to
1587. Later and modern editions of the _Book of Formation_ are fairly
numerous. It was translated into French, together with the Arabic
commentary of R. Saadya Gaon, by Mayor Lambert, in 1891. An English
version by Dr. W. Wynn Westcott will serve the purpose of the general
reader.
[53] The Tarots of this period belong to the year 1393, and it has
been suggested recently in France that the artist Charles Gringonneur
was really their inventor. It is useful to note this opinion, but I do
not think that any importance attaches to it. The extant Gringonneur
examples in the _Bibliothèque Nationale_ have also been said to be
of Italian origin and not therefore his work. The Venetian Tarots
have been sometimes regarded as the oldest known form. The historical
question is obscure beyond all extrication at present.
[54] In face of existing evidence, the description of the Tarot Trumps
Major as a Kabalistic alphabet has as much and as little to support it
as the claim that they constitute an Egyptian _Book of Thoth_. It has
been reported to me, however, that there is an unknown Jewish Tarot,
and it may interest students of the subject to know that before long
I hope to be able to give some account at first hand concerning it.
There is little reason to suppose that it will prove (_a_) ancient or
(_b_) Kabalistic; but as one never knows what is at one’s threshold,
I put the fact on record for whatever it may be worth in the future.
Meanwhile, it is quite idle to say that our popular fortune-telling
Tarots are of Jewish origin.
[55] The interpretation of Lévi seems to hesitate between several
fields of symbolism, and what follows at this point suggests that the
Golden Fleece is an allegory of metallic transmutation by means of
alchemy. It was so regarded by many of the later disciples of this
art. According to Antoine Joseph Pernety, the Golden Fleece is the
symbol of the matter of the Great Work; the labours of Jason are an
allegory concerning the operations therein and of the signs of progress
towards perfection. The attainment of this Fleece signifies that of
the Powder of Projection and the Universal Medicine. See _Dictionnaire
Mytho-Hermétique_ and _Les Fables Egyptiennes et Grecques_, both by
Pernety, and in particular vol. i. of the latter work, pp. 437-494.
[56] Among several bearers of this name, I suppose that the reference
is to him who, by tradition, was either the disciple or son of
Orpheus, commemorated by Virgil. None of his poems are extant,
so that the argument seems to fail. The antiquity of the Orphic
poems—_Argonautica_, Hymns, etc.—is another question, and the
conclusions of criticism on the subject are well known.
[57] Almost any of the demonologists will serve at need. The
Jesuit Martinus Delrio, who wrote _Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri
Sex_ has plenty to say about _Lamiæ_ and _Stryges_. There is also
Joannes Wierus, the pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, whose famous work
on the Illusions and Impostures of Sorcery—_Histoires, Disputes et
Discours_—was rendered from Latin into French, in 1885.
[58] I do not know how this fable originated and the question is
not worth the pains which would be necessary to elucidate it. It is
narrated by Éliphas Lévi as matter of historical fact; but there is
no question that M. Edouard Schuré, who owes so much to the occultist
who preceded him, would have been glad to include it in his romantic
biography of Pythagoras, if it had not been too mythical even for his
purpose. He is content as it is to suggest that the sage of Samos had
studied Jewish monotheism during a stay of twelve years at Babylon.
[59] The authorship of the _Golden Verses_ is of course a debated
point; and it is an old suggestion that their real writer was Lysis,
the preceptor of Epaminondas and an exponent of Pythagorean philosophy
about 388 B.C., his master being referred to the beginning of the sixth
century B.C. I should add that Éliphas Lévi has presented the Verses in
a metrical form of his own, which reflects the originals at a very far
distance. I have not followed this rendering but have had recourse to
that of Mr. G. R. S. Mead.
[60] Among the appendices to the second part of the _Zohar_ there is
a short section on physiognomy, and it embodies some very curious
materials. We learn, for example, that if a man who has certain
specified characteristics of colour and feature should turn to God, a
white blemish will form on the pupil of his right eye. He who has three
semi-circular wrinkles on his forehead and whose eyes are shining will
behold the downfall of his enemies. A man who has committed an adultery
and has not repented is recognisable by a growth beneath the navel, and
thereon will be found two hairs. Should he do penance, the hairs will
disappear but the swelling will remain. A man who has a beauty-spot on
his ear will be a great master of the Law and will die young. Two long
hairs between the shoulders indicate a person who is given to swearing
incessantly in an objectless manner. It will be seen that these details
belong to a neglected part of the science, and I am a little at a loss
to know how Éliphas Lévi would have pressed them into his service, if
he had been fully acquainted with the work which he quotes so often.
[61] It happens that the hypothesis of reincarnation was personally
unwelcome to Éliphas Lévi, and he did not know enough of Zoharic
Kabalism to realise that it is of some importance therein. The
traditions concerning the teaching of Pythagoras must be taken at their
proper value, but there is no question that, according to these, he
was an important champion of what used to be called the doctrine of
metempsychosis, understood as the soul’s transmigration into successive
bodies. He himself had been (_a_) Æthalides, a son of Mercury; (_b_)
Euphorbus, son of Panthus, who perished at the hands of Menelaus in the
Trojan war; (_c_) Hermotimus, a prophet of Clazomenæ, a city of Ionia;
(_d_) a humble fisherman, and finally (_e_) the philosopher of Samos.
[62] _In memoria æterna erit justus._
[63] Éliphas Lévi has forgotten that the word “ineffable” means
something which cannot be expressed; he intended to say that, according
to the Kabalists, the efficacious name was hidden.
[64] All later Kabalists agree that _Tetragrammaton_ is the root and
foundation of the Divine Names. In the Sephirotic system one of the
allocations makes _Chokmah_, or Supernal Wisdom, to correspond with the
_Yod_ of Tetragrammaton. _Kether_, which is the Crown, is said to have
no letter attributed thereto, because the mystery of _Ain Soph_, the
hidden abyss of the Godhead, is implied therein. However, the apex of
_Yod_ does in a sense intimate concerning _Kether_. _He_ is the second
letter in the Divine Tetrad, and it is ascribed to _Binah_, or Supernal
Understanding, wherein is all life comprehended. This is the abode of
the _Shekinah_ in transcendence. The third letter is _Vau_, and it
is said to contain the six _Sephiroth_ from _Chesed_ to _Yesod_. The
second _He_ is the fourth and last letter; it corresponds to _Malkuth_,
or the Kingdom, wherein is the mystery of the unity of God. This is the
abode of the _Shekinah_ in manifestation. Thus, _Yod_, _He_, _Vau_,
_He_, which we render Jehovah, contains all the ten _Sephiroth_. There
are, however, other allocations.
[65] Éliphas Lévi must have meant to say seven letters, but the point
does not signify. According to Rosenroth, the Tetragrammaton with
vowel-points is the eighth Divine Name— יֱהֹוִה. The points are those of
_Elohim_ and it is read as that Name. This signifies the concealment of
the “Ineffable” Name, on account of the exile of Israel.
[66] This is the Divine Name which is most in proximity to created
things. See the excursus thereon in _Kabbala Denudata_, vol. i. pp.
32-41.
[67] Cf. the _Zohar_, Part i. folio 15a, on Exodus iii. 14: “And God
said unto Moses: I am that I am”— אהיה אשר אהיה
[68] According to the Rabbinical Lexicon of Buxtorf, _Agla_ is
formed from the initial letters of the sentence אתה גבור לעולם אדני
= _Tu potens es in sæculum, Domine_. There seems to be no Kabalistic
authority for its explanation by Lévi, and the word occurs very seldom
in the _Zohar_.
[69] According to Petrus Galatinus, in _De Arcanis Catholicæ Veritatis_,
the word _Agla_ expresses the infinite power of the Divine Trinity.
Like Éliphas Lévi, he gives us the separate significance of each letter
and, like Buxtorf, he makes them the initials of the sentence already
quoted, his rendering being: _Tu potens in æternum Dominus_. He terms
_Agla Nomen Dei_, for which there seems to be as much and as little
authority as there is for the suggestion that the _Divina potentia_ is
that of the Trinity.
[70] A very full exposition of this Name will be found in
the section entitled _De Cabale Hebræorum_, forming part of Kircher’s
_magnum opus_, the _Œdipus Ægyptiacus_. It is curious that a tract
so important as this, within its own measures, and written with the
uttermost simplicity, does not appear to have been translated, even
into the French language.
[71] I must admit that this reference escapes me. The Tarot
consists of four suits of 14 cards each and there are 22 Trumps Major,
making 78 cards in all.
[72] The axiom has rather a convincing air, but the analogy
is wrong, and the word “return” is a blunder of popular speech. The
possibility of communication with those who have left this life is
a question of the interpenetration of worlds. To say that the human
spirit departs or comes back is a symbolic expression, like the
statement that heaven is above us.
[73] The analogy is again wrong and the creation of a
materialistic mind. The return of the soul to God is not annihilation
but life for evermore, and it is union with all life.
[74] The soul sheds one envelope, in which it has prepared
another.
[75] This expression may tend to confusion. The consciousness
and activity of the soul are manifested by means of that vehicle in
which it happens to reside. It is not they that belong to the vehicle,
but it is the vehicle that is used by them.
[76] There is no Kabalistic authority for the sun as the abode
of souls.
[77] Kabalism is silent on the question of communication
with those who have left this life, though tacitly it must admit the
possibility on the evidence of the case of Samuel. The axiom that the
spirit clothes itself to come down and unclothes itself to go up is one
of the so-called _conclusiones Kabbalisticæ_ of Picus de Mirandula, but
it is found substantially in the _Zohar_, and as regards the descent,
this is just what occurs _ex hypothesi_ in the phenomena of spiritistic
materialisations. As regards the parable of the rich man, it has
nothing to do with the question of so-called spirit-return; those who
were in the bosom of Abraham had as much left this life as those who
were in Sheol.
[78] It depends on those who have left us. What of the earthly
and the evil? Why should the bond between them and us—supposing that
there is a bond—be that of our highest feelings?
[79] The fact is that he was assassinated, the inference
is that it was by or at the instance of those whose secrets he was
supposed to have betrayed. The murderers, also by inference, were
said to be Brethren of the Rosy Cross. It may be mentioned that the
_Comte de Gabalis_ contains the theory of communication with elementary
spirits, being those of earth, air, fire and water; but the mode
of treatment suggests that it is a _jeu d’esprit_. The _Nouveaux
Entretiens sur les Sciences Secrètes_, _Génies Assistants_ and _Le
Gnome Irréconcilable_, which are supposed sequels, are forgeries, of
later periods.
[80] Elsewhere in his works Éliphas Lévi says that the Astral
Light is (_a_) the _Od_ of the Hebrews, (_b_) an electro-magnetic
ether, (_c_) a vital and luminous caloric, (_d_) the instrument of
life, (_e_) the instrument of the omnipotence of Adam, (_f_) the
universal glass of visions. It follows the law of magnetic currents, is
subject to fixation by a supreme projection of will-power, is the first
envelope of the soul, and the mirror of imagination. He terms it also
magnetised electricity. It would seem that his contemporary disciples
in France have abandoned the theory of their master, or perhaps I
should say rather its doctrinal part. On the other hand, it has perhaps
reappeared, under theosophical auspices, as the reservoir of the akasic
records.
[81] There are also references to Lilith, a demon-wife of
Adam, in the _Zohar_; she is called the instigator of chastisements
and was really the wife of Samael, the evil angel. It may be added
that, according to Paracelsus, the elementaries _non sunt progeniti ex
Adamo_. See _Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmæis et Salamandris, Tract.
I, cap. 1._.
[82] In respect of male celibates, the physiological
particulars referred to are the blind yearning of Nature after the
nuptial state and, with a tentative reserve in respect of the life of
sanctity, it is shame to those who neglect the warning or turn it to
the account of sin.
[83] This is one construction of the symbol and is a little
tinctured by Éliphas Lévi’s sincere admiration for the understanding
which lay behind the _Romance of the Rose_. The text of Genesis says
that a river rose to water the Garden “and from thence it was parted
and became into four heads,” or four sources of rivers. These rivers
did not water the Garden but the world without, and their names are
familiar in the geography of the ancient world. The mystic pantacle
of Eden shews therefore an enclosure constituted by a ring or circle
of water, an island like that of Avalon, which is another Garden of
Apples, and the waters flow out therefrom towards the four points of
heaven: they form therefore a cross, and in the centre of that cross is
the Paradise. If the reader will bear in mind that, according to the
secret tradition, Adam was set to grow roses in the Garden of Eden, he
will understand at what place of the world the symbolism of the Rosy
Cross takes its origin.
[84] This is true, but it is only the science of this world
in the sense that the greater includes the lesser. It is really the
supernal knowledge which is called _Daath_ in Kabalism, arising from
the union of _Chokmah_ and _Binah_, or Wisdom and Understanding.
[85] The commentary of the _Zohar_ on Genesis, vi. 2—“the
sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair”—affirms that
the angels were cast out of heaven as soon as they had conceived the
desire therein suggested. Aza and Azael were the chiefs of these fallen
spirits. Subsequently they taught Magic to men.
[86] The design of the builders, according to the _Zohar_,
Part I, Fol. 75^a, was to abandon the celestial domain for that of
Satan. They desired to rebuild heaven, apparently in the likeness of
their own evil desires. They were the same quality of souls as the
“giants in the earth in those days” and “the mighty men which were of
old, men of renown.” See Genesis, c. vi. v. 4 and _Zohar_, Part I, Fol.
25^b.
[87] Zoharic Kabalism was dissatisfied with the visitation
of the offence of Ham on his apparently innocent son, Canaan, and it
accounted for the malediction pronounced upon the latter by the fact
that he had removed the _testes_ from the person of his grandfather
Noah. On the surface this is a ridiculous enormity, but it is a
concealed intimation that the whole Noetic myths is, like Paradise
itself, a mystery of sex shadowed forth in symbolism.
[88] It should be needless to say that this is a mere
presumption and is not even founded on any legend concerning the
travels of Plato. He is said to have been in Egypt for a period which
has been estimated at thirteen years.
[89] He was a disciple of Plato who is supposed not only to
have been illustrious for his knowledge of geometry but to have paid
the usual pilgrim’s visit to Egypt and to have returned an adept in
astronomy.
[90] We have, unhappily, to remember that Éliphas Lévi himself
wrote a great deal, and assuredly to little purpose, on the subject
of squaring the circle and on perpetual motion. Elsewhere he tells us
that the revolution of a square about its centre describes a circle,
and thus the circle is squared. He also invented, in imagination, a
clock which wound itself up in the process of running itself down, and
this was perpetual motion—presumably, unless the mechanism happened to
stop working or to wear itself out. The reader may settle for himself
whether in these phantasies he was in hiding like an adept or pursuing
like a fool.
[91] The only remark which is requisite on this chapter is
that it involves throughout an abuse of the word Mysticism, which has
nothing to do with religious anarchy, sects or magic. See, however, my
preface to the present translation.
[92] The history of persecution may be left to speak for
itself on the validity of this plea and the postulated principle
mentioned by Éliphas Lévi may even be thought to have concealed a stab
from behind in the dark. In any case, the alleged horror of blood is
best illustrated by the method of pyre and faggot.
[93] “Change not the barbarous names of evocation,” says
one of the oracles attributed to Zoroaster, as we have seen, and the
reason given is because of their “ineffable power.” This was the true
Zoroaster of Éliphas Lévi, and he was not, _ex hypothesi_, an exponent
of Black Magic. “Barbarian words and signs unknown” are not less in
favour with the so-called white variety.
[94] See my _Book of Ceremonial Magic_, pp. 100-102, for a
study of this Grimoire.
[95] The reference is to a work entitled _Des Hallucinations,
ou Histoire raisonnée des Apparitions, des Visions, des Songes, de
l’Extase, du Magnétisme et du Somnambulisme_. It was first published
about 1850 and was of authority at its period. Its large array of
materials will be always valuable. I believe that it was translated
into English.
[96] There is no need to say that the Second Birth, to which
allusion is made by Christ, is not comprehended by any notion of a
moral change, though such change is involved. Morality is the gate of
spiritual life but is not its sanctuary.
[97] The point which escapes in this synopsis of Egyptian
initiation is that which distinguishes the official mysteries—like
Masonry—from vital initiation, and I mention it here because there are
memorials of Egyptian mysteries which suggest that they were no mere
symbolical pageants but did communicate—to those who could receive—the
life which is behind such symbolism.
[98] The analogy here instituted assumes in respect of the
Greek mysteries that which has been implied previously regarding
those of Egypt. The laws and by-laws of the schools of philosophy,
whatever they exacted from pupils, were not imitations of the grades
of initiation and advancement communicated in priestly sanctuaries,
if there was mystic life in those sanctuaries. Even if they were
merely pageants, the comparison does not obtain; for it is obvious
that Pythagoras and Plato did not confer degrees by way of ritual.
Matriculation and “the little go” are not ceremonial observances in the
path of symbolism.
[99] The truth is that in so far as the Jewish Kabalah
contains a _Logos_ philosophy, so far it embodies confused
reminiscences of Alexandrian schools of thought. Éliphas Lévi reminds
one of Jacob Bryant, Davies and the respectable Mr. Faber, who
explained the whole universe of history by the help of Shem, Ham and
Japhet, the deluge and the Ark of Noah. He saw the Kabalah everywhere;
had he spoken of a secret tradition subsisting in all times, of which
Kabalism is a part in reflection, he would have been less confused and
confusing; but he applied to the whole a term which is peculiar to a
part. It is said in the _Zohar_ that the Word which discovers unto us
the supreme mysteries is generated by the union of light and darkness.
Part I, Fol. 32a. It is said also that the Word dwells in the superior
heavens, Fol. 33b. And there are other references.
[100] Dacier was a translator in the latter part of the
eighteenth century, and his study on the _Doctrine of Plato_ appeared
in the third volume of a collection entitled _Bibliothèque des Anciens
Philosophes_, which began publication in 1771.
[101] Those who may wish to be acquainted with the sources from which
Lévi drew some of his materials may consult _Cœlum Sephiroticum_, by J.
C. Steebius, an old folio which appeared in 1679, as well as Reuchlin
and Rosenroth. They will see how things change in his hands. According
to the _Zohar_, _Ain Soph_ reflects immediately into _Kether_ on the
path of manifestation. It is not correct to say that the king is _Ain
Soph_ in Kabalism and the letter of Plato is devoid of sephirotic
analogies.
[102] It must be said that the Greek word θεοσοφια did not pass into
Latin in classical times and was unknown throughout the middle ages.
As an illustration of its occult prevalence, I cannot trace that it
was used by Paracelsus. In so far as it can be said to have become
prevalent, it was in a mystic sense only, as in the proper use of words
it could alone be. It was made familiar by Jacob Böhme.
[103] The classical authorities for the visitation of the cave of
Trophonius include Pausanias of Cæsarea, who wrote the history of
Greece, Cicero, Pliny and Philostratus, not to mention the allusion
found in the _Clouds_ of Aristophanes. The account of Éliphas Lévi
must be taken with certain reservations, but it is not a matter in
which accuracy or its opposite is of any consequence outside scholarly
research. There were various sacrifices and other ceremonies prior to
the visitation, and the candidate for the experience usually descended
alone. It is not, I think, on record that the effect of the visit was
lasting.
[104] The actual formula seems to have been: “He has consulted the
oracle of Trophonius.”
[105] There is no question that, according to the _Zohar_, the sun is
the centre of the planetary system, of which planets the earth is one.
[106] There is extraordinary confusion, at the least by way of
expression, in this paragraph, which will inevitably create in the
reader a notion that the work of Cebes was a picture. As a fact, it is
a description of human life contained in a dialogue, to which the title
of _Tabula_ was given. It has been printed several times, and once, I
believe, at Glasgow, in 1747.
[107] I have intimated elsewhere that the _Zohar_ is in several
respects a work of high entertainment, and that its reading is much
more diverting than Arabian or Ambrosial Nights. But Éliphas Lévi is
right in saying that it calls for some preliminary training. He does
not quite mean, however, what I mean in making the suggestion. On the
serious side the _Zohar_ is assuredly a work of initiation and one of
the great books of the world, though Sir John Lubbock and others of
kindred enterprise did not happen to know of it. Lévi is substantially
right also in saying that it requires a key, though his meaning is
not expressed rightly. The explanation is that it is not a methodical
system and presupposes throughout, on the part of its readers, an
acquaintance with the tradition which it embodies in allusive form.
[108] It is difficult to say what authority was followed in producing
this account. Pentheus was the second King of Thebes, succeeding
Cadmus, who built the city. Bacchus was the son of Semele, the
daughter of Cadmus, by Jupiter, but he was never a candidate for the
Theban throne. The offence of Pentheus was not one of usurpation but
of refusal to recognise the divinity of Bacchus. He was not torn to
pieces by the daughters of Cadmus, but by a crowd of Bacchanals, among
whom was his own mother. It is impossible to turn this story into an
allegory of pantheism, as Lévi proceeds to do.
[109] The classical story is the very contrary of this. The effect of
his experiments with the serpents was like that of passing through
the foot of the rainbow; Tiresias was changed into a girl. He married
in this form; but having met a second time with some other interlaced
serpents, he again smote them and recovered his original sex. So far
from being unable to consummate marriage in either case, he became
an authority with the gods on the comparative extent of satisfaction
attained by the two sexes in the act of sex.
[110] The term geometrical scarcely applies to the figures of geomancy.
[111] The Bacchus who was depicted with horns was the son of Jupiter
and Proserpine. As regards the androgynous nature of Iacchos, I do
not know Lévi’s authority, but such a characteristic was ascribed to
several deities, though sometimes against general likelihood. It was
even said of Jupiter that he was a man but also an immortal maid.
[112] Lévi affirms elsewhere that the satisfaction of all the calls of
sense is required for the work of philosophy. In the present place he
confuses the issue by implying that chastity means either celibacy or
the virgin state. Yet he did not fail to understand that the nuptial
life is also a life of chastity; he speaks eloquently of the home and
its sanctity, and he alludes elsewhere to the chaste and conjugal Venus.
[113] There were two pagan festivals which have a certain likeness
between them: (_a_) _Charisia_, which was in honour of Aglaia, Thalia
and Euphrosyne, the _Charites_ or Graces. It was celebrated by dances
at night, and the person who maintained the exercise longest was
presented with a cake, (_b_) _Charistia_, a Roman festival, for the
reconciliation of relations and friends, at which food was eaten. It
could be wished for the perpetuity and catholicity of the sacraments
that there were traces of an Eucharist in the Christian sense prior to
Christian times.
[114] It may be mentioned that 13 is also the number of resurrection,
or birth into new life.
[115] The Grimoire mentioned under the name of _Little Albert_ is
called in the Latin edition _Alberti Parvi Lucii Libellus_, and is “a
treasure of marvellous secrets.” The original intention was to father
it on _Albertus Magnus_, and in fact there is another collection which
is known as the _Great Albert_. It is of similar value.
[116] I have suffered these lines to stand as they are given by Éliphas
Lévi, following the French translation of Salomon Certon. Shelley, who
rendered Homer’s _Hymn to Mercury_ into verse which is unworthy of his
name, represented the Greek original by asterisks at this point, and I
have taken a lesson from the counsel. Lévi gives some further lines—I
scarcely know why, but they stand as follows in Shelley’s version:
“Phœbus on the grass
Him threw, and whilst all that he had designed
He did perform—eager although to pass,
Apollo darted from his mighty mind
Towards the subtle babe the following scoff:—
‘Do not imagine this will get you off,
“‘You little swaddled child of Jove and May!’
And seized him: ‘By this omen I shall trace
My noble herds, and you shall lead the way.’”
[117] We shall meet with this sect accordingly, and it will be found
that the present remark is either (_a_) not intended to justify the
alleged traditional interpretation or (_b_) that the initial reference
has to be qualified by its subsequent extension. Johannite Christianity
has been the subject of much romancing among the exponents of
High-Grade Masonry. Woodford’s _Cyclopædia of Freemasonry_ identifies
its followers with Nazarenes and Nasarites, and adds that they regarded
St. John the Baptist as “the only true prophet.” One order of Templar
Masonry, which is now extinct, seems to have claimed connection with
the Johannite sect.
[118] I have quoted elsewhere the previous remark of the author on the
same subject as a curious example of how things are apt to strike a
French exponent of occultism at different periods of time and in other
states of emotion. “St. Paul burnt the books of Trismegistus”—not
Göetic texts or works of necromancy; “Omar burned the disciples of
Trismegistus (?) and St. Paul. O persecutors! O incendiaries! O
coffers! When will you finish your work of darkness and destruction!”
This is from the _Rituel de la Haute Magie_, p. 327.
[119] In his _Fundamental Philosophy_, James Balmes seeks to shew
that the Eucharistic Mystery, understood in the literal sense of
transubstantiation, is not absurd in itself, that is to say, is
not intrinsically contradictory. To establish that it is, one
must demonstrate: (_a_) that to abstract passive sensibility from
matter is to destroy the principle of contradiction; (_b_) that the
correspondences between our sense organs and objects are intrinsically
immutable; (_c_) that it is absolutely necessary for impressions to be
transmitted to the sensitive faculties of the soul by those organs and
that they can never be transmitted otherwise. See Book III, _Extension
and Space_, c. 33, _Triumph of Religion_. I make this citation because
it seems to me that Éliphas Lévi acted incautiously in debating the
observation of Rousseau.
[120] The place of his birth is uncertain; Cyprus is one of the
alternatives.
[121] This is Dositheus of Samaria, who was contemporary with Christ.
There is an account of him by St. Epiphanius and he is also mentioned
by Photius.
[122] It is, I believe, one of the Christian apologists who mentions
that Helen was found by Simon in a house of ill-fame at Tyre. It is
said otherwise that she was Helen of Troy in a previous incarnation.
[123] Because they were both favourites of Nero, or because the
reference to a feast reminded Éliphas Lévi of the celebrated Banquet in
the _Satyricon_ of Petronius Arbiter. Sophronius Tigellinus was one of
Nero’s ministers.
[124] The dispute between St. Peter and Simon the Magician is not a
matter of popular rumour; it is a methodical account contained in
one of the forged _Recognitions_ ascribed to St. Clement. It will be
understood that the version presented by Éliphas Lévi is decorated by
his own imagination. It seems generally regarded as certain that Simon
visited Rome to enrol disciples, and there is the authority of Eusebius
for some kind of meeting with St. Peter.
[125] It might be more accurate to say that there were many successors,
of whom Menander was the chief. So also there were many Simonian sects,
including the school which followed Dositheus, described by Lévi and
others as the master of Simon. Menander claimed to be the envoy of the
Supreme Power of God.
[126] They were not included at the period—about 1865—in _La France
Mystique_ of Erdan, though it contained _choses inouies_; and
they are not found among _les petites religions de Paris_ at the
present day, though it contains a Gnostic church confessing to a
hierarchic government and, I believe, with an authorised branch at San
Francisco—perhaps less _in partibus infidelium_ than is the sect in its
own country.
[127] I have given Lévi’s version literally without pretending to
account for it. In the authorised version the passage reads: “If thou
doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his
desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” Genesis, iv. 7.
[128] I suppose that reference is intended to _Epitome Delictorum, sive
de Magia, in qua aperta vel occulta invocatio Dæmonum_, &c., 4to. I
have no record of the first edition, but it was reprinted at Leyden in
1679.
[129] It has to be observed that the Hyphasis was a certain river of
India which is assigned by tradition as the boundary of Alexander’s
conquests. Had Éliphas Lévi been acquainted with this fact he might
have allegorised with success thereon.
[130] It is noticeable that the alchemists of past centuries, who were
so apt to see the Hermetic Mystery at large in all literature, and
who fathered many mythical treatises on the great and the holy men
of old, are silent regarding Apollonius. I am far from admitting the
interpretation of Éliphas Lévi, as Philostratus belongs to the dawn
of the third century, when alchemy may be said to have been unborn;
but I am sure that if the early expositors had known the life of
Apollonius, they might almost have suspected something. Even the Abbé
Pernety missed the obvious opportunity in his discourse on the Hermetic
significance of the Greek and Egyptian fables.
[131] It must be remembered that the Stone in symbolism is far older
than the particular symbol which is called the Philosophical Stone, or
Stone of Alchemy.
[132] The last statement obtains in respect of the Mystic Stone, as
understood, for example, by Zoharic writers.
[133] The introduction to the _Dogme de la Haute Magie_ says: (_a_)
That Julian was one of the illuminated and an initiate of the first
order; (_b_) That he was a Gnostic allured by the allegories of Greek
polytheism; (_c_) That he had the satisfaction of expiring like
Epaminondas with the periods of Cato.
[134] The _Golden Legend_ was compiled about 1275 by Jacobus de
Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa. His authorities were (_a_) Eusebius,
(_b_) St. Jerome, (_c_) legendary matter. I am sure that Kabalistic
mysteries and Johannite initiation must look elsewhere for their
records. The suggestion, however, is not worth debating.
[135] In the _Golden Legend_ the story is entitled “Of St. Justina,”
whose festival is on September 26. St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, is
entirely distinct from the Cyprian of legend.
[136] This pictorial sign appears in an old Grimoire.
[137] With this reverie of Éliphas Lévi on the subject of the
mystic ass let us compare another which is of an entirely different
order, though it belongs to the same category, (1) It is recorded by
Josephus that a certain Jew named Onias obtained leave from Ptolemy
Philometor to build a temple in honour of God at a certain place in
Arabia which was subsequently called Onium, after the founder. (2)
This Onium was not Heliopolis, as supposed commonly. (3) The Temple
at Onium, on account of a similitude of sound, was connected with
the Greek word ονος, signifying Ass. (4) The Greeks in consequence
believed themselves to have discovered the secret object of Jewish
worship, being the animal in question. (5) It was asserted that there
was an ass’s head in the vestibule of every Jewish temple. (6) As the
Greeks did not closely distinguish between Jews and Christians, the
ass came also to be called the god of the Christians.—Jacob Bryant:
_Analysis of Antient Mythology_, 3rd edition, vol. vi. pp. 82 _et seq._
[138] The commentary of the _Zohar_ on Genesis ii. 22, says that
the words—“which the Lord God had taken from man”—signify that the
Tradition has issued from the Written Doctrine. The words “and brought
him to man” indicate that the Traditional Law must not remain isolated:
it can only exist in union with the Written Law. Part I, Fol. 48^b. It
follows, and is made plain elsewhere, that man is the Written Law and
woman the Secret Doctrine.
[139] In one of the pictorial symbols of Alchemy the head of the winged
solar man is represented rising from a chest. It is a recurring image.
[140] It is obvious that Éliphas Lévi pictures only the dark side of
Gnosticism; he says nothing and perhaps knew nothing of the higher
aspects. His stricture on the copulation of Eons reads strangely for a
defender of Kabalism, seeing that the _Zohar_ abounds in similar images.
[141] This statement requires to be checked by a French authority of
the period, with whom Éliphas Lévi could not fail to be acquainted. I
refer to Jacques Matter and his _Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme_, a
second and enlarged edition of which was published in 1843. According
to the testimony of this writer: (_a_) Some Gnostics rejected the
Eucharist entirely; (_b_) Those who preserved it never taught the real
communication of man in the flesh and blood of the Saviour; (_c_) for
them it was an emblem of their mystic union with a being belonging
to the Pleroma; (_d_) The wonder-working Eucharist was particular to
Marcos, but according to St. Irenæus it was the result of trickery;
(_e_) He filled chalices with wine and water, pronounced over them a
formula of his own, and caused these liquids to appear purple and ruby
in colour. _Op. cit._, vol. ii. pp. 344-346.
[142] This assertion is merely a matter of inference.
[143] The materials here embodied come direct from Matter, and the
last sentence is almost in his own words. The earlier writer says
that he caused women to bless the chalice. Nothing is said as to the
intervention of men, other than Marcos, in the celebration.
[144] The dream ascribed to Marcos and his followers is that, however,
of the _Zohar_, the opening section of which describes the letters of
the Hebrew alphabet as coming before God in succession, praying to
be used in the work of creation which was about to begin. They were
set aside in their turn for the reason applying to each, with the
exception of _Beth_, which was taken as the basis of the work, while
_Aleph_ was installed as the first of all the letters, the Master of
the Universe affirming that His own Divine Unity was in virtue of this
letter. The meaning was that _Aleph_ corresponds to the No. 1. This,
says the _Zohar_, with ingenuous subtlety, is why the two first words
of Scripture have _Beth_ as their initial and the two next words have
_Aleph_.—_Zohar_, Part I, Fols. 2b-3b.
[145] It will be seen in a later section that this charge against
Vintras rests upon the evidence of persons expelled from the sect which
he founded, and, so far as I am aware, it has not been put forward
seriously.
[146] The question, however, stood over until the appearance of _La
Clef des Grands Mystères_, a considerable part of which is embodied
in the digest of Lévi’s writings which I published long since as _The
Mysteries of Magic_. The Astral Light is explained as “magnetised
electricity “—as already quoted.
[147] In my _Book of Ceremonial Magic_ I have given full opportunities
for the judgment of this so-called occult ritual, which should
certainly have been kept in concealment, or better still allowed to
perish, not on account of its secrets but because it is in all respects
worthless, and its ascription to Leo III an insult to that pontiff.
[148] It is laid down in the work of Synesius (_a_) that chastity and
temperance are indispensable for the knowledge of divination by dreams;
(_b_) that these being granted, divination by dreams is both valuable
and simple; (_c_) that all things past, present and future convey their
images to us; (_d_) that there is no general rule of interpretation;
(_e_) that each should make his divinatory science for himself, by
noting his dreams. The philosopher gives some account of the profit
which he had derived personally from a study of the images of sleep.
Divination also preserved him from the ambushes laid by certain
magicians, so that he suffered no harm at their hands.
[149] Éliphas Lévi’s knowledge of the works attributed to Dionysius is
doubtless derived from the translation of Monsignor Darboy, Archbishop
of Paris, which appeared in 1845. There is an elaborate introduction
designed to establish the authenticity of the texts and this is
excellent, at least for its period, as a piece of special pleading.
The reader who refers to the treatise on Divine Names need not be
distressed when he finds that it embodies no mysteries of rabbinical
theology. To many of us at the present day the most important of the
Dionysian writings is that on Mystical Theology, which is omitted
in the enumeration of Lévi and not perhaps unnaturally, as it is a
_pelagus divinitatis_ over which he would not have ventured to sail.
[150] Goethe.
[151] This explanation is not in accordance with the recorded facts for
which Phlegon and Proclus are the authorities. The works of Phlegon
were published at Leyden in 1620, under the editorship of Meursius
and again in 1775 at Halle, by Franzius; they contain the story of
Philinnion—as the name is spelt by Phlegon. Machates was a foreign
friend of Demostratus from Pella, not an innkeeper. Philinnion appeared
to him after her death in the house of his parents and declared her
love. Her intercourse with Machates was discovered accidentally by a
servant, and the _denouement_ is much as it is given in the present
place. Philinnion said, however, that she acted with the consent of
the gods. Éliphas Lévi accounts for his discrepancies by an appeal to
the narratives of French demonographers, but he makes no references by
which we can check him. He states, however, that they are answerable
for the alleged fact that Machates was the keeper of a tavern. The date
of the actual occurrence is the reign of Philip II of Macedon, and the
“Emperor” referred to should be King Philip. Lévi confuses the date of
Phlegon (Hadrian’s reign) with the date of the incident. Phlegon was
merely a collector of curious stories, and could not, of course, have
witnessed an incident which took place 500 years before his birth!
[152] It will be understood at the present day that this is reverie
and only serves to remind us that Aristotle ascribed the philosophy
of Greece to a source in Gaul, while it is affirmed by Clement of
Alexandria that Pythagoras derived therefrom. It is thought now, on
the other hand, that Druidism in its later developments may have been
influenced not only by Greek but also by Phœnician ideas.
[153] In Druidic mythology, Belen, otherwise Heol, was the sun-god;
Camael was god of war. The highest divinity is believed to have been
that Esus who is mentioned by Lucan. He is represented by the circle,
as a sign of infinity, and all fate was beneath him. The most important
goddess was Keridwen, who presided over wisdom. The conclusion of
Lévi’s enumeration is like the beginning—a dream.
[154] A note by Éliphas Lévi says that a Druidic statue was found at
Chartres, having the inscription: VIRGINI PARITURÆ. It is curious that
Druidic inscriptions should be in the Latin tongue.
[155] It was supposed to increase the species by preventing sterility,
and it was dignified by other ascribed virtues; it was the ethereal
tree and the growth of the high summit. It was included among the
ingredients of the mystical cauldron of Keridwen, in which genius,
inspiration and serenity were said to dwell.
[156] The same occult importance attaches to this statement as to
another in the _Dogme et Rituel_, where Éliphas Lévi, explaining the
superstitions of the past, affirms for those who can suffer it that the
toad is not poisonous but is a sponge for poisons. I suppose, however,
it is obvious that if “popular confidence” can render mistletoe
magnetic, popular distrust may instil poison into toads.
[157] The floating traditions and _chansons_ concerning Melusine were
collected by Jean d’Arras into a beautiful romance of chivalry, at the
close of the fourteenth century.
[158] Whether this hypothesis of antiquity is warranted or not, the
fact that it is adopted should have prevented Éliphas Lévi from
characterising the romance of Melusine as an imitation pf the fable of
Psyche: it is obviously the reverse side. The allegory in the latter
case is that of the assumption of the soul by the Divine Spirit, so
that all which is capable of redemption in our human nature, its
emotion, its desire and its love, may enter into the glorious estate
of the mystic marriage. The allegory in the former case is that of the
union instituted between the psychic part and all that is of earth in
our nature; but this earth is not capable of true marriage, and whereas
the other experiment ends in the world of unity, this terminates, as it
can only, in that of separation.
[159] See Jules Garinet: _Histoire de la Magie en France_, 1818, pp.
11, 12.
[160] The story of Fredegonde and her connection with sorcery is told
by Gregory of Tours, but Éliphas Lévi derived it from Jules Garinet,
already cited. The particulars concerning Klodswinthe appear to be his
own invention, of which her imputed discourse bears all the marks.
[161] See Garinet, _Histoire de la Magie en France_, pp. 14-16, and
Th. de Cauzons, _La Magie et la Sorcellerie en France_, vol. ii. p.
100. The original authority is again Gregory of Tours: _Histoire des
Francs_, Book VI, c. 35. The account of Lévi is rather incorrect,
for after unheard-of tortures, the life of Mummol was spared, but he
died on the way to Bordeaux. It does not appear that he defied his
executioners and the renewed torture was ordained by Chilperic.
[162] The work in question is called _Acta Disputationis cum quodam
Nicolai_.
[163] A story of the days of St. Louis is obviously not Talmudic and
the antiquity of the idea of immortality among the Jews fortunately
rests on a better foundation than this. The criticism exposes the
carelessness of Lévi if he is regarded as a man of learning. Some will
think that he traded on the ignorance of his readers.
[164] What was actually intended by the expression _amatores diaboli_
should have been perfectly well understood by Éliphas Lévi. It
corresponds to the legends concerning _incubi_ and _succubi_. For a
specific example see Brierre de Boismont, _Des Hallucinations_, p. 151
_et seq._
[165] The story comes from Gregory of Tours.
[166] The account of Zedekias and the atmospheric marvels is taken from
Garinet, pp. 34 _et seq._
[167] See pp. 34-37 of his History. But the account in Garinet is
derived from the _Cinquième Entretien_ in the romance entitled _Le
Comte de Gabalis_.
[168] It is not in reality an occult tradition; it is simply the
unauthorised claim of the grimoire.
[169] It should be mentioned that this enumeration of assumptions
expressed or implied in the claims of occult tradition, by the
hypothesis of its present exponent, has nothing to do with the
_Enchiridion_, which makes only two claims, and these are particular
to itself. They are (_a_) that it was sent to Charlemagne by Pope
Leo and (_b_) that certain prayers, which rank as its chief feature,
possess mysterious power. The suggestion of Lévi’s next paragraph
notwithstanding, there is no other point of view from which the book
can be regarded.
[170] It is said elsewhere by Éliphas Lévi that the _Enchiridion_ has
never been published with its true figures, and one is led to suppose
that a more important MS. copy may have been in his possession. The
plates which he describes belong to a printed edition, but there are no
particulars concerning it. Most of the symbols are perfectly well known
otherwise, and I have given them in the _Book of Ceremonial Magic_,
where they were taken from examples with which I am acquainted. Some of
them correspond to the description of Lévi.
[171] _Adonai_ according to the _Zohar_ is one of the titles of
_Shekinah_.
[172] He has said elsewhere (_a_) that to pronounce the word _Agla_
Kabalistically is to undergo all the trials of initiation and fulfil
all its works; (_b_) that the occult forces which comprise the empire
of Hermes are obedient to him who can pronounce, according to science,
the incommunicable name of _Agla_; _(c_) and that its letters represent
(1) unity, (2) fecundity, (3) the perfect cycle, and (4) the expression
of the synthesis.
[173] He means that it symbolises the Creative Intelligence rising
over the waters of creation. It is not, strictly speaking, Zoharic
symbolism, but it corresponds to his own construction of one of the
sections, namely, the _Book of Concealment_.
[174] It is more especially a Rosicrucian number, and its importance in
Kabalism arises from its frequent recurrence in the scriptures of the
Old Testament. When the days of the greater exile draw to their close,
and judgment is coming upon all the peoples and all the kings of the
world who have oppressed Israel, it is said that a pillar of fire shall
be raised from earth to heaven and shall be visible to everyone for a
period of forty days. The King Messiah will leave that place which is
called the Bird’s Nest in the Garden of Eden and will manifest in the
land of Galilee. At the end of the forty days a splendid star of all
colours will appear in the East, &c. _Zohar_, Part II., fol. 7b.
[175] A reference to Plate III in the _Book of Ceremonial Magic_ will
shew that the emblem in question is not the Labarum. For a design which
is intended to represent the latter, see Plate IV, Fig. 2. There is
really no connection between the Sigils of the _Enchiridion_ and the
text of the work.
[176] Éliphas Lévi wrote and published much after the _History of
Magic_, but the intention here expressed did not pass into realisation.
[177] At the period in question Westphalia comprehended the region
between the Rhine and the Weser. Its southern boundary was the
mountains of Hesse; its northern the district of Friesland, which at
that time extended from Holland to Schleswig.
[178] No secret mission in the sense intended by Éliphas Lévi was ever
entrusted by Charlemagne. He had overcome the Saxons of Westphalia
after a thirty years’ war, had enforced the religion of the conqueror
upon them, and had established a Frankish system of government therein.
[179] The origin of the Secret Tribunal is clouded, like all the
history of its period, but it is quite certain that it is referable
to the middle of the thirteenth century. It should be added that
Éliphas Lévi was by no means author of the Charlemagne hypothesis,
which had been advanced many years previously. The competitive views
are numerous. It will be seen directly that a document of the Tribunal
claims that it originated in the days of Charlemagne, supposing that it
has been quoted correctly. Jules Garinet supported the claim without
shewing any knowledge on the subject.
[180] The meetings of the Tribunal were frequently held in the
town-house and the castle, sometimes in the market-place, and on rare
occasions in churchyards. There is only one record concerning a session
underground. The general place was under trees in the open air.
[181] An accused person had the right to conduct his own defence, or he
could bring an advocate with him. There were also certain circumstances
under which there was the right of appeal.
[182] The evidence is wanting for this extraordinary statement. Éliphas
Lévi seems to have been under the impression that the Tribunal was
like a Masonic Grand Lodge, with one mode and place of meeting. It was
naturally composed of many tribunals and met, as we have seen, in all
kinds of places.
[183] That this statement is amply justified may be seen by a reference
to _La Magie et la Sorcellerie en France_, by T. De Cauzons, a work of
considerable research published within the last few years in 4 vols.
The section entitled _La Magie sous les premiers Capétiens_ is a record
of trivialities concerning diabolical manifestations and can have been
included only for the sake of chronological completeness.
[184] The story of Rabbi Jechiel’s device of self-protection is told
by Bartolocci, _s.v._ R. Jechiel de Parisio, in the _Magna Bibliotheca
Rabbinica_, vol. iii. pp. 834, 835. It is on the authority of R.
Ghedalia ben David Iacchia. But although Jechiel is supposed to have
been a magician there was neither electricity nor magic in his process,
only a kind of trap at his own door step or threshold.
[185] It so happens that he went to see him and fell into the trap of
the Jew. Garinet is the authority for the imaginary visit to the court
of St. Louis. He follows Sauval.
[186] This paragraph is adapted from Garinet, _Hist. de la Magie en
France_, p. 76.
[187] Many treatises on alchemy have been fathered on Albertus Magnus,
including _Libellus de Alchymia_ and _Concordantia Philosophorum_.
[188] According to the _Zohar_, Adam was formed of earth brought from
the four quarters, and this is really an allusion to the symbolic
correspondence between the parts of his personality and the four
elements of ancient physics.
[189] The universal secret which was sought by mystic Alchemy was more
truly that of the life of life; it was the quest of transmutation in
God.
[190] The thesis of physical Alchemy was that Nature always intended
to produce gold but was thwarted by the impurity of the _media_ amidst
which she worked under the earth. The inferior metals resulted. The end
of Hermetic art was to complete the design of Nature and raise what is
base to perfection.
[191] St. Thomas Aquinas wrote eight treatises on alchemy, if the
ascriptions of the literature could be trusted. They are of the same
authenticity as those of Albertus Magnus.
[192] The study in question was enjoined in a particular manner by Leo
XIII.
[193] I do not know or have forgotten how this legend originated, but
in any case no works on transmutation have been imputed to St. Dominic,
which leads me to think that the story of his adeptship did not attain
any considerable currency.
[194] A fragment of Ostanes is included in the Byzantine collection
of ancient alchemists. Romarius should read Comarius, whose tract in
the same collection is supposed to be addressed to Cleopatra. Salmanas
wrote on the fabrication of artificial pearls and was supposed to be an
Arab. A treatise on weights and measures is attributed to Cleopatra and
there are also some Latin forgeries. The other names are well known in
the literature of Alchemy.
[195] This must be understood in the general sense of the Secret
Tradition perpetuated in various forms through Christian times. The
Templars had no concern in the secret schools of Jewry. On the basis of
the official process which resulted in their condemnation, they have
been accused of Black Magic, Sorcery and of entering into a league with
the Order of Assassins.
[196] I have dealt with the claims of this speculation in my _Secret
Tradition in Freemasonry_, vol. i. p. 300 _et seq._
[197] The reference is really to the fourth chapter of the apocryphal
_Book of Nehemiah_, which is the _Second Book of Esdras_, and to the
Masons of Nehemiah, not of Zerubbabel. The latter was concerned with
the building of the Second Temple and the former with that of the walls
about Jerusalem. Half of the young men did the work of restoring the
fortifications and half stood in readiness to fight. The builders also
were girded with a sword about the reins. The sword in one hand and
trowel in another is a symbolical expression.
[198] It is obvious that the arrangement of four triangular blades
in a cruciform pattern would constitute an ordinary Maltese cross
or cross of the Knights of St. John. This was an Assyrian emblem in
pre-Christian times.
[199] The blasphemous fiction is well known and its root is in the
_Sepher Toldos Jeshu_; it is inaccurate to call it a tradition; more
properly it is a lying invention. I have failed to discover a source
for the Theoclet story, but it is barely possible that it may have
risen up within the circle of Fabré Palaprat’s _Ordre du Temple_.
[200] In the year 1844 Jacques Matter made a special study of the
accusations against Knights Templar in his _Histoire Critique du
Gnosticisme_, vol. iii. p. 315 _et seq._ He states that the alleged
preference of the Templars for St. John’s Gospel is nowhere attested
by the history of the Order. They were not therefore tinctured by
remanents of Paulician Gnosticism, as it is not likely that they would
be.
[201] Elsewhere Éliphas Lévi says: (_a_) That the hypothetical idol
Baphomet was a symbolical figure representing the First Matter of the
_Magnum Opus_, which is the Astral Light; (_b_) That it signified
further the god Pan, which may be identified with “the Christ of
dissident sacerdotalism”; (_c_) That the Baphometic head is “a
beautiful allegory which attributes to thought alone the first and
creative cause”; and finally, (_d_) That it is “nothing more than an
innocent and even a pious hieroglyph.”
[202] The suggestion is that they were summoned by Jacques de Molay
to appear before the Divine Tribunal within a year and a day, there
to answer for their injustice, and that they died within the time
mentioned, which does not happen to be true.
[203] The revision of the process which condemned the Maid of Orléans
was begun by Charles VII himself in 1449. In 1552 twelve articles
were drawn up, designed to exhibit its illegality and injustice. For
political reasons, meaning the relations between France and England,
the mother and brothers of Joan were made plaintiffs at Rome, and Pope
Callixtus V appointed a commission. In 1456 the commission pronounced
its judgment, reversing and annulling the first process on the ground
of roguery, calumny, injustice, contradictions and manifest error in
fact and law.—_La Magie et la Sorcellerie en France_, vol. ii. pp.
514-518.
[204] It has been suggested that the charge of sorcery covered a
political conspiracy for his destruction and was of the same value as
the same charge in respect of the Knights Templar.
[205] Francesco Prelati seems to have been a magician by profession and
as regards Gilles de Sillé, it is said otherwise that he was a priest
of St. Malo.
[206] This was Catherine de Thouars, and it was to her that the bulk of
his fortune was due. He is said to have been one of the richest nobles
in Europe.
[207] It will be understood that what follows is merely romantic
narrative. See _Gilles de Rais, dit Barbe Bleue_, by Bossard et Maulde.
[208] The account at this point represents the admixture of the
Blue-Beard or folk-element and may be read in conjunction with Perrault.
[209] It does not appear that Francesco Prélati and Gilles de Sillé
were brought to account subsequently.
[210] He was really cited to appear before Jean de Malestroit, Bishop
of Nantes and Chancellor of Brittany. He obeyed this summons.
[211] The records say that he was insolent at the beginning but soon
changed his methods, and the confession which he made involved two of
his servants, named Henri and Poitou.
[212] It was the servants of Gilles de Rais who accused him under
torture.
[213] This explanation is absolutely supposititious, there being no
tittle of evidence for the existence of such a process in the records
of Black Magic. It is of course possible that some readers may ascribe
secret sources of information to Éliphas Lévi. Speaking generally,
Black Magic and the synonymous white variety were concerned little
enough in alchemical processes, good or bad. Their amateurs and adepts
sought enrichment by the discovery of buried treasures with the
assistance of demons; they sought also to communicate with evil spirits
who could bring gold and precious stones from the mines, or who could
themselves accomplish transmutation.
[214] It is just to say that Gaffarel wrote in defence of the Jews and
to clear them of many accusations besides those made by Philo. His
thesis was that many things were falsely imposed upon them.
[215] His fate was shared by the servants already mentioned, who are
said to have been his accomplices.
[216] The Marquis Eudes de Mirville wrote _Des Esprits et de leurs
Manifestations Fluidiques devant la Science Moderne_, 1858, and other
large books, which were highly recommended by ecclesiastical authority
of the day. He saw the intervention of Satanism everywhere in psychic
and occult phenomena. Remove the personality of Satan and Éliphas Lévi
says exactly the same thing.
[217] The reference is to _La Réalité des Esprits et le Phénomène
Merveilleux de leur Écriture Directe_. It appeared in 1857 and is a
very curious collection of materials. Long after, or in 1875, the same
writer published _La Morale Universelle_, which seems to be a plea for
secular education.
[218] The reader should understand that Éliphas Lévi is only giving
expression to a point of view; it must not be supposed that there were
adepts—either true or false—who said or thought the things which are
here set down at the period in question, or indeed at any other period.
[219] See Gabriel Naudé: _Apologie pour les Grands Hommes faussement
accusés de la Magie_.
[220] Bartholemæus Platina was assistant-librarian of the Vatican, and
his _Opus in Vitas Summorum Pontificum_ appeared at Venice in 1479, two
years before his death.
[221] “Let the popes see to it,” he remarks, according to a Note of
Lévi; “it is they who are concerned in the question.”
[222] Éliphas Lévi, in his defence of the Catholic Religion, by
which he means that of Rome, reminds one of Talleyrand proceeding to
consecrate and entreating his familiars about him not to make him
laugh: in the symbolic language of the man in the street, his tongue
is so evidently in his cheek. An open enemy of Rome would think twice
before saying that the pope who authorised the instruments which were
used in the execrable massacres of Albigensians and Vaudois was “so
eminently catholic.”
[223] I refer the readers of this section to my _Book of Ceremonial
Magic_, where the content and history of this Grimoire are considered
with special reference to the criticism of Éliphas Lévi.
[224] I have mentioned in the _Book of Ceremonial Magic_ that the first
edition of the _Grimoire of Honorius_ is referred to 1629, being about
900 years after the death of its alleged author. I have also referred
it to its proper source in the _Sworn Book of Honorius_, which belongs
to the fourteenth century. The Honorius here in question was the
spokesman of magicians assembled at a mythical place. He is described
as the son of Euclid and Master of the Thebans.
[225] This is another way of stating that it is precisely of the same
character as the _Key of Solomon the King_, the _Keys of Rabbi Solomon_
and the _Magical Elements of Peter de Abano_, which correspond to the
description given.
[226] The Grimoire is, on the contrary, a Ritual for the evocation of
evil spirits and, granting only the legality of this operation, it is
conformable in all respects to the doctrine of the Latin Church. Now,
it is idle to say that this Church substitutes the passive for the
active principle, the cultus of the Blessed Virgin notwithstanding.
[227] I am not acquainted with this frontispiece, but I have seen a
copy having a design on the title-page representing the sun within an
inverted triangle.
[228] This exegesis is personal to Éliphas Lévi and has no authority in
Kabalism, as there is no need to say, seeing that the Secret Tradition
in Jewry did not maintain the hierarchy of the Latin Church. In the
_Zohar_, Adonai is a title of _Shekinah_, as already stated.
[229] On the assumption of course that the letter _Aleph_ stands for
_Adam_, while _Cheth_ and _Vau_ are the first letters in the name of
_Eve_. The interpretation throughout is of the same value and Éliphas
Lévi was not more serious in expressing it than I am in translating it.
The _Grimoire of Honorius_ is no such abyss of decorative philosophical
iniquity.
[230] I have used the translation made from the Grimoire itself,
published in my _Book of Ceremonial Magic_, p. 107.
[231] It affirms that the power to command demons is resident in
the Seat of Peter and then proceeds to communicate that power by
dispensation to “venerable brethren and dear sons in Jesus Christ,”
being those comprised in the ranks of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
[232] It must be explained that the oration in the Grimoire is not
rhythmic, but the “when I shall impose my will upon them” recurs
several times, literally or in substance. In this manner Éliphas Lévi
gets the refrain of his verses: _Je leur imposerai ma volonté pour
loi_. His metrical rendering is well conceived and executed.
[233] I have rendered in prose that which is given by Lévi in
verse, which is anything but in the words of the Ritual. Compare my
translation of the prayer taken from the Grimoire in the _Book of
Ceremonial Magic_, pp. 280-282.
[234] The Ritual proceeds to the conjuration of the Kings presiding in
the four quarters of heaven and the evil angels who rule over the days
of the week.
[235] The presence of the gipsies in Europe can be traced prior to the
fifteenth century.
[236] The authority of George Borrow is quoted for this statement.
[237] Long before Vaillant, this Chinese inscription was described by
Court de Gebelin, who also believed that it was a form of the Tarot.
[238] If certain beautiful Tarot cards preserved in the Bibliothèque du
Roi and at the Musée Carrer are the work of Jacques Gringonneur, which
is disputed, as we have seen, then the Tarot is first heard of in 1393
and as it was in 1423 that St. Bernardin of Sienna preached against
playing cards, which were no doubt Tarots, it is probable that they
were put to the same use at the earlier date that they were put to at
the later.
[239] The romantic history of Raymund Lully on which Éliphas Lévi
worked was written by Jean Marie de Vernon.
[240] What is certain historically is as follows: (_a_) That the story
of Ambrosia di Castello, so far as regards its root-matter, concerns
the original and only Raymund Lully, who was the author of the _Ars
Magna_; (_b_) That it is in all probability fictitious; (_c_) That it
has been decorated and dramatised by Éliphas Lévi, who has done his
work admirably; (_d_) That concerning the father of the illuminated
doctor we know only that he was a great soldier; (_e_) That the author
of the alchemical treatises was not the author of the _Ars Magna_;
(_f_) That the alchemical writer is said to have been (1) another
Raymund Lully, which, I think, means only that he assumed the name in
order to father his works upon a celebrated person, and (2) a proselyte
of the gate, being a person who becomes a Jew, but this is manifestly
contradicted by the evidence of the alchemical texts; (_g_) That when
the works of Raymund Lully were collected, at the end of the eighteenth
century, into eight enormous folio volumes, we find, as I have said
elsewhere, a third Raymund Lully, who was a mystic; but as to his real
identity we know nothing.
[241] Rose Nobles were replaced by Angels in 1465, _temp._ Edward IV.
[242] Louis Figuier wrote occult romances under the guise of history,
and did not know what he was talking about in respect of the _Ars
Magna_. There is no reason to suppose that it had even passed through
his hands. It was otherwise as regards the little alchemical texts; and
there is no reason to question what he says concerning them.
[243] The story of a transmutation performed by some one called Raymund
Lully in England depends from the alchemical texts mentioned, and is
therefore no evidence, and from a forged Testament of John Cremer, who
called himself Abbot of Westminster, but no person of this name filled
the office in question, either at the supposed period or any other.
[244] The tracts extant under the name of the alchemical Raymund
Lully are enumerated by Lenglet du Fresnoy in connection with those
attributed to the author of the _Ars Magna_. Mangetus printed sixteen
in his _Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa_, 1702. The _Codicillus_, _Vade
Mecum_, or _Cantilena_ is a considerable work, divided into 74 chapters.
[245] The reader may consult at this point my study of the life and
writings of Raymund Lully in the _Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers_,
pp. 68-88.
[246] There is no reference to a title in the original text.
[247] It is stated once only in the Apocalypse that “there was silence
in heaven about the space of half an hour.” See Chapter VIII, verse 1.
[248] The _Book of Nicholas Flamel_ describes the symbols as follows:
(1) A Wand and serpents devouring one another; (2) a Cross, on which
a serpent was crucified; (3) Deserts, in the midst of which were many
fair fountains, whence issued a number of serpents that glided here and
there.
[249] Mercury and Saturn—as Flamel supposed them to be—were depicted
on the obverse side of this leaf and the symbolic flower was on the
reverse side. It is not said to be a rose, but simply a fair flower.
The rose-tree was on the obverse side of the fifth leaf.
[250] The original has no reference to solidified air.
[251] Otherwise, Arisleus, who figures prominently in the discourses of
the _Turba Philosophorum_.
[252] There is an old story that he translated the _Sepher Ha Zohar_
into Latin, but the manuscript has never been found.
[253] It was first published at Basel and afterwards at Amsterdam in
1646. In 1899 the second edition was rendered into French. It deserves
and will repay careful reading from the mystic point of view.
[254] This promise represents another unfulfilled intention of Éliphas
Lévi.
[255] See _Les Six Voyages de Jean Baptiste Tavernier, en Turquie, en
Perse et aux Indes_, Paris, 1676. There were five French editions, and
the work was also translated into English.
[256] This is really the title of a particular treatise, but as it is
exceedingly long and may be said to be _de omnibus rebus_, it may not
be taken unjustly to represent his philosophy at large.
[257] The latest and most successful apologist of Paracelsus says that
the charge of intemperance was invented by his enemies. See the _Life
of Paracelsus_, by Miss Anna M. Stoddart, 1911.
[258] Éliphas Lévi, who rather misquotes Dante, held that he had
performed the same kind of mental pilgrimage, and had escaped in the
same manner—by reversing dogma. He says elsewhere: “It was after he had
descended from gulf to gulf and from horror to horror to the bottom of
the seventh circle of the abyss ... that Dante ... rose consoled and
victorious to the light. We have performed the same journey, and we
present ourselves before the world with tranquillity on our countenance
and peace in our heart ... to assure mankind that hell and the devil
... and all the rest of the dismal phantasmagoria are a nightmare of
madness.”
[259] The interpretation of the _Divine Comedy_ as embodying an act
of war against the papacy was begun by Gabriele Rossetti, about 1830,
in his _Disquisitions on the Anti-Papal Spirit which produced the
Reformation_. For the obscure and dubious tenets to which Éliphas
Lévi gives the name of Johannite, he substitutes the doctrines of
Albigenses and Waldenses. The same thesis, taken over from its Italian
deviser, was maintained in the same interest by Eugène Aroux, firstly
in _Les Mystêres de la Chevalerie_, and afterwards in the great body
of annotation attached to his translation of Dante. The latter work
appeared in 1856. The interpretation of Lévi is a variant of that of
Aroux. The disquisitions of the French writer are a fountain of joy for
criticism. He produced yet another monument, being _Dante, Hérétique,
Revolutionnaire et Socialiste_, 1854. He was a devoted member of the
Latin Church, though I think that there would have been joy among the
faithful had his books been burnt at Rome.
[260] The authority is the demonographer Bodin. Trois-Échelles
confessed to the King that he had given himself over to a spirit who
enabled him to perform prodigies. He was forgiven on condition that he
denounced others who were guilty of sorcery. It is supposed that his
subsequent condemnation was the consequence of new operations on his
own part.
[261] That is, Pierre de l’Étoile. See _Véritable Fatalité de Saint
Cloud_, art. 8.
[262] This account is drawn from Garinet, who cites two pamphlets
of the period: (A) _Les Sorcelleries de Henri de Valois, et les
Oblations qu’il faisait au Diable dans le Bois de Vincennes_, 1589; (B)
_Remonstrances à Henri de Valois sur les choses horribles envoyées par
un enfant de Paris_, 1589.
[263] Compare Aroux: _La Comédie de Dante_, vol. ii., p. 33 of his
_Clef de la Comédie_. The Rose is “the Albigensian Church and its
doctrines ... transformed into a mystic flower.” Hence the immense
vogue of the romance of William of Lorris, despite the anathemas of
Gerson.
[264] The words of Flamel are as follows: “On the fifth leaf was a fair
rose-tree, flowered, in the midst of a garden, growing up against a
hollow oak, at the foot whereof bubbled forth a fountain of pure white
water, which ran headlong down into the depths below. Yet it passed
through the hands of a great number of people who digged in the earth,
seeking after it, but, by reason of their blindness, none of them knew
it, except a very few, who considered its weight.” _Le Livre de Nicolas
Flamel._
[265] It will be seen that this is the counter-thesis to the
explanation of the spiritual world by means of natural law; it is the
explanation of the natural world by means of spiritual law. So also
Éliphas Lévi is right when he goes on to affirm in substance that the
religion of supernatural grace is the font of natural religion. It is
in the light of the instituted sacraments that we find the hidden grace
of those in Nature.
[266] “We do now securely call the Pope Antichrist, which was formerly
a capital offence.... We do hereby condemn the East and the West,
meaning the Pope and Mahomet.... He (the Pope) shall be torn in pieces
with nails, and a final groan shall end his ass’s braying.... The
judgment due to the Roman impostor who now poureth his blasphemies
with open mouth against Christ.... The mouth of this viper shall be
stopped.” See _Confessio Fraternitatis_, R.C., 1616.
[267] The Masonic title of Sovereign Princes Rose-Croix ascribed in
France to the members of the Eighteenth Degree, under the obedience of
the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, has been changed in England to
Excellent and Perfect Princes. The old Rosicrucian title was that of
_Frater_, and the head of the Order was termed _Imperator_.
[268] I have let this date stand, as it is difficult to say what
Éliphas Lévi is driving at. Khunrath was born in 1559 or 1560, and he
died early in the seventeenth century.
[269] This is a mistake. The _Amphitheatrum_ appeared in 1609, the
licence having been obtained previously.
[270] The work contains (_a_) 365 versicles drawn from _Proverbs_ and
the apocryphal _Book of Wisdom_, the Latin Vulgate being printed side
by side with a new translation by Khunrath. These versicles are divided
into seven grades. (_b_) An interpretation at length of each versicle.
(_c_) An introduction to the first engraved plate; (_d_) to the second;
(_e_) to the third; (_f_) to the fourth; and (_g_) an epilogue or
conclusion to the whole work.
[271] Éliphas Lévi has misplaced most of the plates, and it is
difficult to follow his descriptions. No. 1 is the laboratory and
oratory of the adept. No. 2 is apparently that which he calls the Path
of Wisdom. No. 3 is the Philosophical Stone. No. 4 is that which Lévi
describes as the Dogma of Hermes, because the sentences of the Emerald
Tablet are inscribed on a Rock of Ages or Mountain of Initiation. No. 5
is the Gate of the Sanctuary, but it is enlightened by three rays. No.
6 is that which Lévi terms a Rose of Light, but it is really the sun
with Christ in the centre. Nos. 7 and 9 correspond to the descriptions
given; but No. 8 is scarcely a doctrine of equilibrium: it is the
doctrine of regeneration through Christ, in Whom the law is fulfilled.
[272] The _Basilica Chymica_ was translated into French by J. Marcel
de Boulene and published at Lyons in 1624. It was reprinted at Paris
in 1633. The third part is the _Book of Signatures_. The Latin edition
appeared at Frankfort in 1608.
[273] Some of these names are exceedingly obscure, and no importance
attaches to their literary remains. Philip Muller wrote _Miracula
et Mysteria Medico-Chymica_, 1614. It was printed eight times at
various places. Of John Torneburg I have no record. Ortelius was a
commentator on Sendivogius; Michael Poterius or Potier was the author
of ten alchemical tracts, but I have never heard that they were in
estimation among lovers of the art. The Baron de Beausoleil was still
more voluminous and is better known. The works of David de Planis Campe
were collected into a folio in 1646; he is regarded as an alchemical
dreamer. Duchesne was _Sieur de la Violette_, and his writings are in
six volumes. Benjamin Mustapha, or rather Mussaphia, wrote on potable
gold. The other names are known to science, as Lévi would express it,
and are famous therein.
[274] The sum of this intimation is a little obscure. See my _Real
History of the Rosicrucians_, pp. 388-390, for various versions of the
proclamation.
[275] I have been unable to find the authority for this discourse, as a
whole, but some fragments of it are cited by Gabriel Naudé.
[276] There does not appear to be a story with this title either in
_The Phantasus_ or elsewhere in the works of Tieck.
[277] See Pierre De Lancre: _Tableau de l’Inconstance des Démons_, Book
VI., Discourse 4. But Éliphas Lévi seems to have followed the summary
account of Garinet.
[278] The account is in Bodin and in the record of Henri Boguet. Her
physical peculiarity is described as _un trou qu’elle avait au dessous
de sa parti gorrière_. The work of Boguet is entitled _Discours
Exécrables des Sorciers_, 1602. It is exceedingly rare.
[279] The prosecution and execution of secular priests and monks recur
frequently throughout the annals of sorcery.
[280] The names appear to have been Madeleine de Mandol, daughter of
the Seigneur de la Palud and Louise Capel.
[281] The actual charges were (_a_) that Madeleine was seduced by
Gaufridi when she was nine years old, (_b_) that he had taken her to
the Sabbath, (_c_) that he had sent her 666 devils. To Louise he had
sent four only.
[282] See _L’Histoire Admirable de la Possession et de la Conversion
d’une Pénitente séduite par un Magicien_, by the Inquisitor Michaëlis,
1612.
[283] He was a priest of Marseilles and curé of Accoules.
[284] The confession included: (1) Visions of Lucifer, (2) compact
with him, (3) obtaining the love of women by breathing upon them, (4)
visiting the Black Sabbath, (5) celebration of Black Masses, &c.
[285] Louise is heard of no further in the history of the period.
Madeleine was cast out by her family and lived on alms at Avignon, till
in 1653 the Parliament of Aix condemned her to perpetual seclusion.
[286] The historical facts are that Grandier insisted on one occasion
in taking precedence of Richelieu, then Bishop of Luçon and in disgrace
at Coussay. It is not even quite clear that the priest appealed to the
King, but he was involved in much litigation on charges of immorality.
It is just, however, to add that, according to Garinet, Grandier went
to Paris and pleaded his cause before the King.
[287] The first victim of the phenomena appears to have been the Lady
Superior.
[288] The director of the convent was named Mignon, and he called to
his assistance not only certain Carmelites but a secular priest of the
district, who was a great believer in diabolical interventions.
[289] This letter is quoted by Garinet, pp. 218, 219.
[290] Notwithstanding the application of what was called the ordinary
and extraordinary torture, no confession of guilt in respect of the
charges was ever extracted from Grandier, who indeed refused to reply.
Éliphas Lévi’s picture of his deportment is throughout accurate as well
as admirably told.
[291] This took place as stated and, moreover, the inhabitants of the
town, after a meeting in the town hall, wrote to the King complaining
of the pretence, absurdity and vexation of the process. See Garinet,
_Pièces Justificatives_, No. XVI.
[292] This remark, in which I concur unreservedly, may be noted by
students of Masonic history as an offset against the pretentious
nonsense which has been talked on the subject by French makers of fable
and especially by J. M. Ragon, the dullest and most imbecile of all.
[293] This opinion is showing signs of recrudescence at the present
day, and it is well to say that there is no evidence to support it.
[294] It may be mentioned that Masonry, wheresoever established, is
elective and not hierarchical.
[295] The Legend of Hiram has been told after several manners. English
Masons will see that the present version is utterly incorrect, and it
may be added further that it incorporates reveries borrowed from old
High Grades.
[296] The names ascribed to the three assassins are High Grade
inventions, and so also is all that follows concerning them.
[297] It is understood that Éliphas Lévi entered Masonry in the
ordinary way, but it is quite true that vital integration therein and
real understanding thereof are consequences of personal work.
[298] It has been called the most ancient of all the Chinese books,
being ascribed to the year 3468 B.C. It consists of 10 chapters.
[299] See my translation of this work: _Transcendental Magic: Its
Doctrine and Ritual_, 1896.
[300] It will be observed and appreciated at its proper value that
Éliphas Lévi does not attempt to elucidate the Chinese puzzle of which
he claims to possess the key, and the explanation is that if he had
known his subject critically he would not have attempted to create
Zoharic analogies which in the nature of things are non-existent.
[301] The _Book of Concealed Mystery_ is not a key to the _Zohar_; it
is one of the tracts inserted therein and its influence on the text at
large is almost _nil_.
[302] It will be noticed that this remark is not borne out by the
instance which is supposed to illustrate it and that the lucubration
on China is a curious preamble to a study of remarkable authors of the
eighteenth century, who had nothing to do with China.
[303] Emmanuel Swedenborg never gave expression to this view, and in
respect of the criticism as a whole, it must be remarked that the
communications which came to him came unawares, his psychic states not
being self-induced.
[304] The Kabalah has no principle of the hierarchy; its one counsel is
the study of the Doctrine and that study continually brought forward
new developments of the deep meanings which lay behind (_a_) the Law,
(_b_) the prophets and (_c_) the historical books of the Old Testament.
The _Zohar_ presupposes throughout a widely diffused knowledge of its
Secret Doctrine, as already intimated.
[305] He was the recipient of a revelation and was not concerned with
assisting those whom he addressed to attain the interior states into
which he entered himself. He was bent only on delivering the message
which he had received.
[306] Éliphas Lévi refers to a work entitled: _Mesmer—Mémoires et
Aphorismes Suivis des Procédés d’Eslon_, 1846. The Aphorisms of Anton
Mesmer have been frequently reprinted.
[307] The reference is probably to a French work, which in the absence
of date and fuller description cannot be identified with certainty.
[308] The writer in question certifies (_a_) that the Comte de Gabalis
was a German, (_b_) that he was a great nobleman and a great Kabalist,
(_c_) that his lands were on the frontiers of Poland, (_d_) that he
was a man of good presence who spoke French with a foreign accent.
Saint-Germain testified on his own part to Prince Karl of Hesse that
he was the son of Prince Ragoczy of Transylvania. Perhaps the latter
place will be regarded as sufficiently in proximity to Poland to make
the story of Éliphas Lévi a little less unlikely than it appears on
the surface. But the prince in question was Franz-Leopold Ragoczy,
who spent his life in conspiracies against the Austrian Empire, “with
the object of regaining his independent power” and the freedom of his
principality. No more unlikely person can be thought of as the original
of the ridiculous Comte de Gabalis, and the Comte de Saint-Germain
never intimated that he belonged to a line of Kabalists, least of all
such a Kabalist and occultist as is depicted by the Abbé de Villars.
See Mrs. Cooper Oakley’s _Monograph on the Comte de St. Germain_,
Milan, 1912.
[309] See Madame la Comtesse de Genlis: _Mémoires Inédites pour servir
à l’Histoire des XVIII^{me} et XIX^{me} Siècles_.
[310] See the _Essai sur la Secte des Illuminés_, which appeared
anonymously in 1789, the author being the Marquis de Luchet. The
story here reproduced is given in Note XV to the essay in question.
It affirms that the Order of Initiated Knights and Brethren of Asia
became the Order of St. Joachim about 1786. There is no mention of
Saint-Germain in this Note.
[311] Éliphas Lévi explains in a note that the neophyte whose
experience is related, and who was mistaken for a corpse, was in
a state of somnambulism induced by magnetism. In respect of the
green arbour, and the effects produced by the harmonica, he refers
to Deleuze: _Histoire Critique du Magnétisme Animal_, 2nd edition,
1829. It contains curious accounts of the magnetic chain and trough,
magnetised trees, music, the voice of the mesmerist and the instruments
employed by him. Lévi adds that the author was a partisan of mesmerism
which does not leave his opinions open to suspicion. I do not know what
this is intended to convey, but the work of Deleuze was of authority in
its own day and is still worth reading.
[312] It will be observed that Éliphas Lévi is taking the story more
seriously than he proposed to do at the beginning. If therefore I may
on my own part take the Marquis de Luchet for a moment in the same
manner and assume that he was right in saying that the Order of Saint
Joachim was a transformation of the Knights and Brethren of Asia, it
seems certain that the latter did not owe their origin to Saint-Germain
and that their connection with Rosicrucianism was of the Masonic kind
only, members of the fifth degree being called True Brothers Rose
Croix, otherwise Masters of the Sages, Royal Priests, and Brothers of
the Grade of Melchisedek.
[313] Compare the ribaldries of the Marquis de Luchet respecting the
Harmonica and his supplementary account of its use in the evocations of
Lavater.
[314] _Jachin_ is connected in Kabalism with the _Sephira Netzach_,
because it is the right hand pillar, and on account of _Netzach_,
_Jachin_ is in correspondence with צבאוה ידוד and צבאוה. The Divine
Name _Tetragrammaton_ cannot be said on Kabalistical authority to
be veiled in _Netzach_. It was really veiled in Adonai because of
_Shekinah_, and the cohabiting glory between the cherubim was the
manifestation, vestment and concealment of Jehovah.
[315] There is no secret as to the authorship of the tract on
Illuminism, and Lévi could have been enlightened on the subject by his
friend, J. M. Ragon. So far from being imbecile, the monograph of the
Marquis de Luchet is entertaining if it is not brilliant. As to the
transmutations of Saint-Germain, it is meant that there is no evidence
of gold being produced by his methods, but it is otherwise in respect
of precious stones. For the exoneration of De Luchet it does not
signify that the evidence is bad.
[316] See _L’Alchimie et les Alchimistes_, by Louis Figuier, pp. 320
_et seq._ I have intimated that it is very difficult to trust this
writer in matters of historical fact, but he represents Lascaris as
appearing in Germany at the end of the seventeenth century, being then
about fifty years old, and in any case it is a mistake to say that he
was in evidence when the Comte de Saint-Germain was making a sensation
in Paris. Lascaris had long since vanished from the theatre of Hermetic
events.
[317] It was in the presence of the rack that the testimony of his wife
was extracted, and I suppose that there is no one at this day who will
count it as infidelity on her part.
[318] This device is inscribed on the symbolic bridge which is
mentioned in the Grade of Knight of the East, or of the Sword.
[319] According to the account of himself which Cagliostro gave at the
famous trial arising out of the Diamond Necklace affair, Acharat was
the name which he bore in the years of childhood which he spent at
Medina. His “governor” was Althotas, who has been sometimes identified
with Kölmer, the instructor of Weishaupt in Magic.
[320] In his _Lexicon Alchimiae_, 1612, Martinus Rulandus explains
that, according to the system of Paracelsus, Azoth was the Universal
Medicine, though for others it is one of the names ascribed to
the Philosophical Stone. It was evidently neither in the process
of Cagliostro, but—if questioned—he might have identified it with
Philosophical Mercury, a substance which can be extracted from any
metallic body.
[321] It is interesting to note that Mr. W. R. H. Trowbridge, who
has made the latest attempt to exonerate Cagliostro, has omitted all
reference to the regeneration processes and the alleged attempt to
renew thereby the youth of Cardinal de Rohan.
[322] As seen already, Menander was the successor of Simon Magus, and
the baptism which he performed was claimed to confer immortality.
[323] This story has been altered from the original narrative to make
it appear that Cagliostro escaped. He did nothing of the sort, for the
monk proved the stronger of the two. Prince Bernard of Saxe-Weimar is
the authority for the account, and he is said to have guaranteed its
accuracy.
[324] Saint-Martin did not continue the school of theurgic Masonry
founded by Martines de Pasqually. He abandoned the school and all
active connection with Rites and Lodges. The evidence for his
acquaintance with the Tarot rests on the fact that his _Tableau Natural
des Rapports qui existent entre Dieu, l’Homme et l’Univers_ happens
to be divided into 22 sections, and there are 22 Tarot Trumps Major.
On the same evidence the same assertion is made in respect of the
Apocalypse. That which seemed adequate for Éliphas Lévi continues to be
found sufficient for the school of Martinism to-day and for its Grand
Master, Papus.
[325] See Deleuze: _Mémoires sur la Faculté de la Prévision_, 1836.
[326] The reader who is in search of romances may also consult P.
Christian: _Histoire de la Magie_, published about 1871. It pretends
that Court de Gebelin left an account in MS. of the interrogation of
Count Cagliostro in the presence of many Masonic dignitaries, including
Cazotte, at the Masonic Convention of Paris. The date was May 10, 1785.
Cagliostro on that occasion predicted the chief events of the French
Revolution, and, at the suggestion of Cazotte, gave the name, then
unknown, of the Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte.
[327] _The Tractatus de Revolutionibus Animarum_ was the work of R.
Isaac de Loria, a German Kabalist. It is contained in the second volume
of _Kabbala Denudata_. It is not allegorical and it has no Talmudic
or Zoharic authority. As it was translated into French in 1905, most
people can judge for themselves on the subject.
[328] The reference is here to the latest development of Templary under
the ægis of Fabré-Palaprat. It came into public knowledge about 1805,
and its invention is not much earlier. Its documents were fictitious,
like its claims.
[329] Éliphas Lévi mentions in a note that he quotes these words as
they were given to him by an old man who heard them. They are cited
differently in the _Journal_ of Prudhomme.
[330] I have failed to trace this story to its source, but Éliphas Lévi
was curiously instructed in the byways of French occult history, and
though he could seldom resist the decoration and improvement of his
narratives, they had always a basis in fact.
[331] Christian Antoine Gerle was born in 1740 and died in 1805. He
was a Carthusian, who came into some prominence under the Constituent
Assembly. On April 10, 1790, Dom Gerle proposed a decree that “the
Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church was and should remain always
the religion of the nation, and that its worship should be alone
authorised.” See Albert Sorel: _L’Europe et la Révolution Française_,
vol. ii. p. 121. He was imprisoned at the Conciergerie but was
liberated, and during the reign of Napoleon he was appointed to an
office in the Home Department.
[332] She is said to have been imprisoned in the Bastille, but
this seems to be an error, for it is certain that she died in the
Conciergerie at the age of 70. She called herself the mother of God,
prophesied the speedy advent of a Messiah and promised that eternal
life would then begin for the elect.
[333] See my _Studies in Mysticism_, pp. 99-111, for a summary account
of the Saviours of Louis XVII.
[334] St. Hildegarde died in 1179 at the age of 81. She wrote three
books of Revelations, which were approved by the Council of Trèves, and
Latin authorities have termed her one of the most illustrious mystics
of Germany. In the fifteenth century the Council of Basle approved the
Revelations of St. Bridget, who was born about 1307 and she died on
July 23, 1373. A translation in full of her memorial was published at
Avignon in four small volumes, dated 1850.
[335] Out of a great body of claimants, computed by one writer to have
been forty, and by another two hundred in number, there are four who
may rank as competitors at least one with another for recognition as
the escaped Dauphin: they are the Baron de Richemont, Augustus Mèves,
Eleazar Williams and Naündorff.
[336] The work of De Luchet is quite worthless from the evidential
standpoint, but the so-called correspondence is cited in a Note on
pp. 182-186 of the essay. It appears that the House Magical had been
sold to King Frederick William, but the person who assisted at the
evocations is called _un grand Seigneur_, which may or may not veil
the royal identity. Moreover, Steinert was the adept who compounded
the “magical elixir,” and was pensioned on this account; but it is not
stated that he was the magus of the ceremonial proceedings. I have been
unable to check the recital of Eckartshausen, which is very difficult
to meet with in England.
[337] In the _Secret Tradition in Freemasonry_ I have indicated that
Schroepfer is, on the whole, rather likely to have possessed some
psychic powers, which notwithstanding his story ran the usual course of
imposture. As he practised evocation perpetually, his suicide can be
accounted for owing to the conditions which supervened on this account.
There seems no real reason to suppose that he killed himself because he
doubted his powers; however, the question does not signify.
[338] It is just to say that another side of Lavater is shewn in
his _Secret Journal of a Self-Observer_, which is a very curious
memorial—or human document, as it would be termed in our modern
language of inexactitude. It contains no suggestion of evocations and
dealings with Jewish Kabalists, in or out of the flesh.
[339] Cahagnet is the author of the following works: _Arcanes de la
Vie Future_, 3 vols., 1848-1854; _Lumière des Morts_, 1851; _Magie
Magnétique_, 2nd Edition, 1858; _Sanctuaire du Spiritualisme_, 1850;
_Révélations d’outre Tombe_, 1856.
[340] This account is taken from Note XV. appended to the _Essai
sur la Secte des Illuminés_, but the Marquis de Luchet depended on
another writer, the latter drawing from Lavater’s _Spiritus Familiaris
Gablidone_, published at Frankfort and Leipsic in 1787.
[341] It is suggested by Clavel that when Charles VI suppressed
Masonry in Austria, owing to a Bull of Pope Clement XII, the brethren
of certain lodges instituted the Order of Mopses to fill the gap. See
_Histoire Pittoresque de la Francmaçonnerie_, 3rd edition, 1844, p.
154. Ragon reproduces the opinion in his _Manuel de l’Initié_, 1861, p.
88.
[342] _Liber Mirabilis: qui Prophetias: Revelationesque: nec non res
mirandas: preteritas: presentes: et futuras aperte demonstrat_, 1522.
The work is in two parts, of which the first is in Latin and the second
in French.
[343] I have used the seventeenth century English translation. The
original says: _En l’Eglise au plus pire, traiter les prêtres comme
l’eau fait l’éponge_. I do not quite see how Lévi’s explanation
follows, but the point is not worth discussing.
[344] _Les Dernières Prophéties de Mlle. Lenormand_ appeared in 1843
and are joyful reading. She was born at Alençon in 1772 and died on
June 25, 1843.
[345] I have failed to verify the statement that this person had access
to the Emperor Alexander.
[346] It should be understood that _Valérie_ appeared at Paris in
1803, when the writer was thirty-nine years old. Her acquaintance with
the Russian Emperor was eleven years later, and it was during the
intervening period that her spiritual development took place. She was
no longer an amiable coquette, though the description may once have
applied to her. There is no question that the portrait of _Valérie_
was, and was intended to be, her own portrait. As to the identity of
her hero, he was her husband’s secretary and there was no intimacy
between them in the evil sense of the term, though she was not of
unblemished reputation in other respects.
[347] It was the Empress Elizabeth, wife of Alexander, who first
brought Madame de Krudener to the notice of her husband. She shewed him
some of her letters to draw him under religious influence. The King and
mystic met, under singular circumstances, on June 4, 1815. Madame de
Krudener was 13 years older than the Emperor, with pale, emaciated and
drawn features. The story repeated by Éliphas Lévi, whencesoever it may
come, is an execrable calumny. The acquaintance began at Würtemberg and
continued during the Emperor’s residence in Paris, or till September
28, 1815. Those were the days which ended in the proclamation of the
Holy Alliance, and Madame de Krudener’s part in that work is a matter
of history.
[348] Thomas Ignatius Martin is said to have foretold the revolution
of 1830, but the fact is dubious. In his interview with Louis XVIII he
is said also to have told the French King that he was not the rightful
occupant of the French throne, but this is more than dubious. The
particular legitimacy which he supported was that of Naündorff.
[349] See _La France Mystique_, by Alexandre Erdan, vol. ii. p. 135 _et
seq._ for notices of four chief disciples of Fourier, the maddest being
Victor Hennequin.
[350] He was the prophet of a third and final alliance between God and
man.
[351] It is said that after the rupture of his relations with Wronski,
M. Arson instituted a kind of humanitarian religion on his own account,
and combined it with some aspect of metempsychosis speculations.
[352] The discourses of St. Michael with Vintras are said to have
concerned (_a_) the destinies of France, (_b_) the future of religion,
(_c_) the reform of the clergy. The Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph and
Christ Himself also visited the seer, according to his own testimony.
[353] _L’Œuvre de la Miséricorde prit une teinte fleur-de-lys très
prononcée._—Alexandre Erdan.
[354] See my _Mysteries of Magic: a Digest of the Writings of Éliphas
Lévi_.
[355] The charges are contained in a pamphlet entitled _Le Prophète
Vintras_, published by Gozzoli in 1851. I do not think that Geoffroi
wrote anything.
[356] Vintras was arrested at Tilly-sur-Seules in 1842 on a charge
of roguery; he was tried at Caen and condemned to five years’
imprisonment. After his release in 1848, he found an asylum in England.
[357] See _La France Mystique_, vol. i. p. 36 _et seq._ for a
contemporary account of Du Potet and of the periodical magnetic
_séances_ which took place _au dessus du restaurant des Frères
Provençaux, au Perron du Palais-Royal_.
[358] According to another account, the Magic Mirror was an ordinary
circle of evocation drawn with charcoal. Wandering spirits were
supposed to be conjured therein.
[359] His madness is said otherwise to have been partial, or
characterised by many lucid intervals. His second work was _Religion_,
and it preached the doctrine of reincarnation, with periodical changes
of sex. It described the Deity as an infinite substance in which
circulated myriads of soul-entities.
[360] His other works include the _Gospel of the People_, 1840, to
which Éliphas Lévi refers subsequently. For this he was imprisoned.
In 1847 he published a _Histoire des Montagnards_. At the end of 1851
he was compelled to leave France, and seems to have lived in England.
Henri Alphonse Esquiros was born in 1814.
[361] Henri Delaage seems to have taken the question of physical
beauty rather seriously to heart. In 1850, under the title of
_Perfectionnement physique de la Race Humaine_, he made a collection of
processes and methods for acquiring beauty, drawn—as he claimed—from
Chaldean Magi and Hermetic Philosophers.
[362] The Église Française was forcibly closed about 1840, but in 1848
an attempt was made to reopen it in a small room. A particular kind
of Mass was celebrated in the French language, and it appears that
the church had fixed festivals of its own. In doctrinal matters, Abbé
Châtel regarded the relation between God and the universe as comparable
to that between the soul and body, “but in an infinitely more excellent
manner.” Paradise, Purgatory and Hell were alike abolished, and in
their place two states were substituted, one of glory and felicity, the
other of reparation.
[363] See the appendix to _Essai sur le Secte des Illuminés_, by the
Marquis de Luchet, already quoted.
[364] Joseph Pitton de Tournefort: _Relation d’un Voyage du Levant_,
1717, 2 vols. It was translated into English and published in 3 vols.,
1741.
[365] I wish that it were possible to quote the moving panegyric on
Ganneau in a letter addressed by Éliphas Lévi to Alexandre Erdan and
printed by him in _La France Mystique_, vol. ii. p. 184-188. He is
described as one of the _élite_ of intelligence, an artist, a poet of
original and inexhaustible eloquence. He was sometimes bizarre but
never absurd or wearisome. He was, finally, one of those hearts under
the inspiration of which the zealous will crucify themselves with joy
for the ungrateful. Erdan once saw Ganneau addressing a crowd in the
Place de la Concorde, “uplifting his great arms and raising to heaven
his beautiful Christ-like head.”
[366] I suppose that this would be a St. Andrew’s cross with the
addition of a vertical branch, on which would rest the head of the
crucified person.
[367] There was a son of this marriage, and in 1855 M. Alexandre Erdan
was inquiring what had become of him.
[368] To suggest that the _Zohar_ exists to propound and interpret a
thesis of equilibrium is like saying that the vast text is written
about the legend of the Edomite Kings or that it is a violent attack on
Christianity, because there is a reference to each of these subjects.
The symbolism of the Balance is practically confined to a single tract
imbedded in the _Zohar_.
[369] “God stretched forth His right hand and created the world above,
and He stretched forth His left hand and created the world below....
God created the world below on the model of the world above, for the
image is found beneath of all that abides on high.”—_Zohar_, Part II.,
fol. 20a.
[370] Joseph de Maistre: _Soirées de St. Pétersbourg_, 1821, p. 308.
[371] For the sake of completeness, I have included this preface,
though from some points of view it might have been reasonably omitted
altogether.
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