Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi

p. 83prodigies. It is thus apparitions are produced. But we shall develop this point more fully in the chapter devoted to Necromancy.

This fluidic body, subject, like the mass of the astral light, to two contrary movements, attracting on the left and repelling on the right, or reciprocally, between the two sexes, begets various impulses within us, and contributes to solicitudes of conscience; it is frequently influenced by reflections of other minds, and thus are produced, on the one hand, temptations, and, on the other, profound and unexpected graces.

This is also the explanation of the traditional doctrine of two angels who strengthen and tempt us. The two forces of the astral light may be represented by a balance wherein are weighed our good intentions for the triumph of justice and the emancipation of our liberty.

The astral body is not always of the same sex as the terrestial, that is, the proportions of the two forces, varying from right to left, frequently seem to gainsay the visible organisation, producing the seeming vagaries of human passions, and explaining, without in any sense morally justifying, the amorous peculiarities of Anacreon or Sappho.

A skilful magnetiser should take all these subtle distinctions into account, and we shall provide in our Ritual the rules for their recognition. There are two kinds of realisation, the true and the fantastic. The first is the exclusive secret of magicians, the other belongs to enchanters and sorcerers.

Mythologies are fantastic realisations of religious dogma ; superstitions are the sorcery of mistaken piety; but even mythologies and superstitions are more efficacious with human will than a purely speculative philosophy apart from any practice. Hence St Paul opposes the conquests of the folly of the Cross to the inertness of human wisdom.

Eeligion realises philosophy by adapting it to the weaknesses of the vulgar ; such is for Kabbalists the secret reason and occult explanation of the doctrines of incarnation and redemption. Thoughts untranslated into speech are thoughts lost for 2p. 84humanity ; words unconfirmed by acts are idle words, and the idle word is not far removed from falsehood. Thought formulated by speech and confirmed by acts constitutes a good work or a crime. Hence, whether in vice or virtue, there is no speech for which we are not responsible ; above all, there are no indifferent acts.

Curses and blessings invariably produce their consequence, and every action, whatsoever its nature, whether inspired by love or hate, has effects analogous to its motive, its extent, and its direction. When that emperor whose images had been mutilated, raising his hand to his face, exclaimed, " I do not feel that I am injured," he was mistaken in his valuation, and thereby detracted from the merit of his clemency.

What man of honour could behold undisturbed an insult offered to his portrait ? And did such insults, inflicted even unknown to ourselves, react on us by a fatal influence, were the effects of bewitchment actual, as indeed an adept cannot doubt, how much more imprudent and ill-advised would seem this utterance of the good emperor !

There are persons whom we can never offend with impunity, and if the injury we have done them is mortal, we forthwith begin to die. There are those also whom we never meet in vain, whose mere glance alters the direction of our life. The basilisk who slays by a look is no fable ; it is a magical allegory. Generally speaking, it is bad for health to have enemies, and we can never brave with impunity the reprobation of anyone.

Before opposing ourselves to a given force or current, we must be well assured that we possess the contrary force, or are with the stream of the contrary current ; otherwise, we shall be crushed or struck down, and many sudden deaths have no other cause than this.

The terrible visitations of Nadab and Abiu, of Osa, of Ananias and Saphira, were occasioned by electric currents of outraged convictions ; the sufferings of the Ursulines of Londun, of the nuns of Louviers, and of the convulsionaries of Jansenism, were identical in principle, and are explicable by the same occult natural laws. Had 3p. 85not Urban Grandier been immolated, one of two things would have occurred — either the possessed nuns would have died in frightful convulsions, or the phenomena of diabolical frenzy would have so gained in strength and in influence, epidemically, that Grandier, notwithstanding his knowledge and his reason, would himself have become hallucinated, and to such a degree that he would have slandered himself, like the unhappy Gaufridy, or would otherwise have perished suddenly, with all the appalling characteristics of poisoning or of divine vengeance.

In the eighteenth century the unfortunate poet Gilbert fell a victim to his audacity in braving the current of opinion and actual philosophical fanaticism which characterised his epoch. Guilty of philosophical treason, he died raving mad, possessed by the most incredible terrors, as if God himself had punished him for defending his cause out of season.

As a fact, he perished by reason of a law of nature of which he could know nothing ; he set himself against an electric current, and was struck down as by lightning. Had Marat not been assassinated by Charlotte Corday, he would have been destroyed infallibly by a reaction of public opinion. It was the execration of the honest which afflicted him with leprosy, and he would have had to succumb thereto.

The reprobation excited by the massacre of St Bartholomew was the sole cause of the atrocious disease and death of Charles IX., while, had not Henry IV. been sustained by an immense popularity, which he owed to the projecting power or sympathetic force of his astral life, he would scarcely have outlived his conversion, but would have perished under the contempt of Protestants, combined with the suspicion and ill-will of Catholics.

Unpopularity may be a proof of integrity and courage, but never of policy or prudence ; the wounds inflicted by opinion are mortal for statesmen. We may recall the premature and violent end of many illustrious persons whom it would be inexpedient to mention here. Disgraces in public opinion may often be great injustices, but none the less they are invariably occasions of