Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi

p. 384to aspirations. Science is a celestial trigonometry : one of the sides of the absolute triangle is the nature which is submitted to our investigations; the second is our soul, which embraces and reflects nature ; the third is the absolute, in which our soul enlarges. No more atheism possible henceforward, for we no longer pretend to define God.

God is for us the most perfect and best of intelligent beings, and the ascending hierarchy of beings sufficiently demonstrates his existence. Do not let us ask for more, but, tobe ever understanding him better, let us grow perfect by ascending towards him. No more ideology ; being is being, and cannot perfectionise save according to the real laws of being.

Observe, and do not prejudge ; exercise our faculties, do not falsify them ; enlarge the domain of life in life ; behold truth in truth ! Everything is possible to him who wills only what is true ! Rest in nature, study, know, then dare ; dare to will, dare to act, and be silent ! No more hatred of anyone. Everyone reaps what he sows. The consequence of works is fatal, and to judge and chastise the wicked is for the supreme reason.

He who enters intoa blind alley must retrace his steps or be broken. Warn him gently, if he can still hear you, but human liberty must take its course. We are not the judges of one another. Life is a battle-field. Do not pause in the fighting on account of those who fall, but avoid trampling them.

Then conies the victory, and the wounded on both sides, become brothers by suffering and before humanity, will meet in the ambulances of the conquerors.

Such are the consequences of the philosophical dogma of Hermes ; such has been from all time the ethic of true adepts ; such is the philosophy of the Rosicrucian inheritors of all the ancient wisdoms ; such is the secret doctrine of those associations that are treated as subversive of the public order, and have ever been accused of conspiring against thrones and altars.

The true adept, far from disturbing the public order, is its firmest supporter. He has too great a respect for liberty to desire anarchy ; child of 2p. 385the light, he loves harmony, and knows that darkness begets confusion. He accepts everything that is, and denies only what is not. He wills true religion, practical, universal, full of faith, palpable, realised in all life ; he wills it to have a wise and powerful priesthood, surrounded by all the virtues and all the prestige of faith.

He wills the universal orthodoxy, the absolute, hierarchic, apostolic, sacramental, incontestable, and uncontested catholicity. He wills an experimental philosophy, real, mathematical, modest in its conclusions, untiring in its researches, scientific in its progress. Who, therefore, can be against us if God and reason are with us ? Does it matter if man prejudge and slander us ? Our entire justification is in our thoughts and our works.

We come not, like (Edipus, to destroy the sphinx of symbolism ; we seek, on the contrary, to resuscitate it. The sphinx devours only blind interpreters ; and he who slays it has not known how to divine it properly ; it must be subdued, enchained, and compelled to follow us.

The sphinx is the living palladium of humanity, it is the conquest of the King of Thebes ; it would have been the salvation of (Edipus, had (Edipus completely divined its enigma ! In the positive and material order, what must be concluded from this work ? Is magic a force which science may abandon to the boldest and wickedest ? Is it a cheat and falsehood of those who are skilled in fascinating the ignorant and feeble ?

Is the philosophical mercury the exploitation of credulity by address ? Those who have understood us know already how to answer these questions. In these days, magic can be no longer the art of fascinations and illusions ; those only who wish to be deceived can be deceived now. But the narrow and rash incredulity of the last century is denied in totality by nature herself.

We are environed with prophecies and miracles ; doubt once unwisely denied them ; now, science explains them. No, Monsieur le Comte de Mirville, a destroyed spirit is not allowed to disturb the empire of God ! No, things unknown 2B 3p. 386cannot be explained by things impossible ! No, invisible beings are not permitted to deceive, torment, seduce, and even kill the living creatures of God, men, already so ignorant, and scarce able to combat their own delusions ! Those who told you all this in your childhood, Monsieur le Comte, have deceived you, and if you were child enough once to listen to them, be man enough now to disbelieve them.

Man is himself the creator of his heaven and hell, and there are no demons except our own follies. Minds chastised by truth are corrected by the chastisement, and dream no more of disturbing the world. If Satan exist, he can be only the most unfortunate, most ignorant, most humiliated, and most impotent of beings. The existence of a universal agent of life, of a living fire, of an astral light, is demonstrated by facts.

Magnetism enables us to understand to-day the miracles of old magic ; the facts of second sight, aspirations, sudden cures, thought-reading, are now admitted and familiar things, even among our children. But the tradition of the ancients has been lost, discoveries have been regarded as new, the last word is sought about observed phenomena, minds grow excited over meaningless manifestations, fascinations are experienced without being understood.

We say, therefore, to table- turners : These prodigies are not novel; you can perform even greater wonders if you study the laws of nature. And what will follow a new acquaintance with these powers ?

A new career opened to the activity and intelligence of man, the battle of life reorganised with arms more perfect, and the possibility restored to the flower of intelligence of once more becoming the masters of all destinies, by providing true priests and great kings for the world to come !