Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi

p. 103matter. The most sublime utterance now passes unheeded if it goes forth without the guarantee of a name — that is to say, of a success which represents a material value. What is the worth of a manuscript ? That of the author's signature among the booksellers ?

That established reputation known as Alexander Dumas et Cie represents one of the literary guarantees of our time, but the house of Dumas is in repute only for the romances which are its exclusive productions. Let Dumas devise a magnificent Utopia, or discover a splendid solution of the religious problem, and no one will take them seriously, despite the European celebrity of the Panurge of modern literature.

We are in the age of acquired positions, where every one is appraised according to his social and commercial standing. Unlimited freedom of speech has produced such a strife of words that no one inquires what is said, but who has said it.

If it be Eothschild, his Holiness Pius the Ninth, or even Monseigneur Dupanloup, it is something ; but if it be Tartempion, it is nothing, were he even — which is possible, after all — an unrecognised prodigy of genius, knowledge, and good sense. Hence to those who would say to me : If you possess the secret of great successes, and of a force which can transform the world, why do you not make use of them ?

I would answer : This knowledge has come to me too late for myself, and I have spent over its acquisition the time and the resources which might have enabled me to apply it ; I offer it to those who are in a position to avail themselves of it.

Illustrious men, rich men, great ones of this world, who are dissatisfied with that which you have, who are conscious of a nobler and larger ambition, will you be fathers of a new world, kings of a rejuvenated civilisation ? A poor and obscure scholar has found the lever of Archimides, and he offers it to you for the good of humanity alone, asking nothing whatsoever in exchange.

The phenomena which have quite recently perturbed America and Europe, as regards table-turning and fluidic manifestations, are simply magnetic currents at the be2p. 104ginning of their formation, appeals on the part of nature inviting us, for the good of humanity, to re-establish the great sympathetic and religious chains. As a fact, stagnation in the astral light would mean death to the human race, and torpor in this secret agent has already been manifested by alarming symptoms of decomposition and death.

For example, cholera-morbus, the potato disease, and the blight of the grape, are traceable solely to this cause, as the two young shepherds of la Salette saw darkly and symbolically in their dream.

The unlooked-for credit which awaited their narrative, and the vast concourse of pilgrims attracted by a statement so singular and at the same time so vague as that of these two children without instruction and almost without morality, are proofs of the magnetic reality of the fact, and the fluidic tendency of the earth itself to operate the cure of its inhabitants.

Superstitions are instinctive, and all that is instinctive is founded in the very nature of things, to which fact the sceptics of all times have given insufficient attention. We attribute, then, all the strange phenomena of table-turning to the universal magnetic agent in search of a chain of enthusiasms with a view to the formation of fresh currents.

The force of itself is blind, but it can be directed by the will of man, and is influenced by prevailing opinions. This universal fluid — if we decide to regard it as a fluid — being the common medium of all nervous organisms, and the vehicle of all sensitive vibrations, establishes an actual physical solidarity between impressionable persons, and transmits from one to another the impressions of imagination and of thought.

The movement of the inert object, determined by the undulations of the universal agent, obeys the ruling impression, and reproduces in its revelations at one time all the lucidity of the most wonderful visions, and at another all the eccentricity and falsehood of the most vague and incoherent dreams. The blows resounding on furniture, the clattering of dishes, the self -playing of musical instruments, are illusions produced by the same cause. The 3p. 105miracles of the convulsionaries of Saint Medard were of the same order, and seemed frequently to suspend the laws of nature. On the one hand, exaggeration produced by fascination, which is the special quality of intoxication occasioned by congestions of the astral light; on the other, actual oscillations or movements impressed upon inert matter by the subtle and universal agent of motion and life.

Such is the sole foundation of these occurrences which look so marvellous, as we may easily demonstrate at will by reproducing, in accordance with rules laid down in the Ritual, the most astounding of these phenomena, establishing, as can be done quite simply, the absence of trickery, hallucination, or error.

It has frequently happened to me after experiments in the magic chain, performed with persons devoid of good intention or sympathy, that I have been awakened with a start in the night by truly alarming impressions and sensations.

On one such occasion I felt vividly the pressure of an unknown hand attempting to strangle me; I rose up, lighted my lamp, and set myself calmly to work, seeking to profit by my wakefulness and to drive away the phantoms of sleep. The books about me were moved with much noise, papers were disturbed and rubbed one against another, timber creaked as if on the point of splitting, and heavy blows resounded on the ceiling.

With curiosity but also with tranquillity I observed all these phenomena, which would not have been less wonderful had they been only the product of my imagination, so real did they seem. For the rest, I may state that I was in no sense frightened, and during this occurrence I was engaged upon something quite foreign to the occult sciences.

By the repetition of similar phenomena I was led to attempt the experience of evocation, assisted by the magical ceremonies of the ancients, when I obtained truly astounding results, which will be set forth in the thirteenth chapter of this work.