Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi
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PHILTRES AND MAGNETISM 327 From such influence it behoves us to seek protection, and to give arms to the weak is our purpose in writing this chapter. These, in the first place, are the devices of the enemy.
The man who seeks to compel love — we attribute such unlawful manoauvres to men only, assuming that women can never have need of them — must in the first place make himself observed by the person whom he desires, and must contrive to impress her imagination.
He must inspire her with admiration, astonishment, terror, even with horror, failing all other resources ; but at any cost he must set himself apart in her eyes from the rank of ordinary men, and, with or against her will, must make himself a place in her memory, her apprehensions, her dreams.
The type of Lovelace is certainly not the admitted ideal of the type of Clarissa, but she thinks of him incessantly to condemn him, to execrate him, to compassionate his victims, to desire his conversion and repentance ; next she seeks his regeneration by devotion and forgiveness ; later on secret vanity whispers to her how grand it would be to fix the affections of a Lovelace, to love him, and yet to withstand him.
Behold, then, Clarissa surprised into loving Lovelace ! She chides herself, blushes, renounces a thousand times, and loves him a thousand more ; then, at the supreme moment, she forgets to resist him. Had angels been women, as represented by modern mysticism, Jehovah, indeed, would have acted as a wise and prudent father by placing Satan at the gate of heaven.
It is a serious imposition on the self-love of some amiable women to find that man fundamentally good and honourable who enamoured them when they thought him a scapegrace. The angel leaves him disdainfully, saying : " You are not the devil ! " Play the devil as well as you can, if you wish to allure an angel. No licence is possible to a virtuous man. " For what does he take us ? " say the women. " Does he think us less strict than he is ?
" But everything is forgiven in a rascal. " What else could you expect ? " The part of a man with high principles and of rigid character can never be a power p. 328save with women whom no one wishes to fascinate ; the rest, without exception, adore the reprobates. It is quite the opposite with men, and this contrast has made modesty woman's dower, the first and most natural of her coquetries.
One of the distinguished physicians and most amiable men of learning in London told me last year that one of his clients, when leaving the house of a distinguished lady, observed to him : " I have just had a strange compliment from the Marchioness of . Looking me straight in the face, she said : * Sir, you will not make me flinch before your terrible glance ; you have the eyes of Satan.
" " Well," answered the doctor, smiling, " you, of course, put your arms round her neck and embraced her ? " " Not at all ; I was overwhelmed by her sudden onslaught. " Beware how you call on her again, then, my friend, you will have fallen deeply in her estimation! The office of executioner is commonly said to go down from father to son. Do executioners really have children ? Undoubtedly, as they never fail to get wives.
Marat had a mistress who loved him tenderly, he, the loathsome leper ; but still it was that terrible Marat, who caused the world to tremble. Love, above all in a woman, may be termed a veritable hallucination; for want of a prudent motive, it will frequently select an absurd one. Deceive Joconde for a baboon, what horror ! — Ah ! but supposing it is a horror, why not perpetrate it ?
It must be pleasant to be occasionally guilty of a small abomination ! Given this transcendental knowledge of the woman, another device can be adopted to attract her notice — not to concern oneself with her, or to do so in a way which is humiliating to her self-love, treating her as a child and deriding all notion of paying court to her.
The parts are then reversed ; she will move heaven and earth to tempt you ; she will initiate you into secrets which women keep back; she will vest and unvest before you, making such observations as : " Between women — among old friends — I have no fear about you — you are not a man for me," &c.
PHILTRES AND MAGNETISM 329 Then she will watch your expression ; if she find it calm and indifferent, she will be indignant ; she will approach you under some pretext, brush you with her tresses, permit her bodice to slip open. Women, in such cases, occasionally will risk a violence, not out of desire, but from curiosity, from impatience, and from provocation.
A magician of any spirit will need no other philtres than these ; he will also use flattering words, magnetic breathings, slight but voluptuous contacts, by a kind of hypocrisy, and as if unconscious. Those who resort to potions are old, idiotic, ugly, impotent. Where, indeed, is the use of the philtre ?
Any one who is truly a man has always at his disposal the means of making himself loved, providing he does not seek to usurp a place which is occupied. It would be a sovereign blunder to attempt the conquest of a young and affectionate bride during the first felicities of the honeymoon, or of a fortified Clarissa already made miserable by a Lovelace, or bitterly lamenting her love.
We shall not discuss here the impurities of black magic on the subject of philtres ; we have done with the coctions of Canidia. The epodes of Horace tell us after what manner this abominable Roman sorceress compounded her poisons, while for the sacrifices and enchantments of love, we may refer to the Eclogues of Virgil and Theocritus, where the ceremonials for this species of magical work are minutely described.
Nor shall we need to reproduce the recipes of the Grimoires or of the Little Albert, which any one can consult for themselves. All these various practices connect with magnetism or poisonous magic, and are either foolish or criminal. Potions which enfeeble mind and disturb reason assure the empire already conquered by an evil will, and it was thus that the empress Casonia is said to have fixed the savage love of Caligula.
Prussic acid is the most terrible agent in these envenomings of thought, and hence we should all beware of extractions with an almond flavour, and never tolerate in bedchambers the presence of laurel-almond, datura stramonium, almond
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