Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi

p. 115invariably insisted upon the necessit}7 of practical experience to complete initiation. She shewed me a collection of magical vestments and instruments, lent me some rare books, which I needed ; in short, she determined me to attempt, at her house, the experiment of a complete evocation, for which I prepared during a period of twenty-one days, scrupulously observing the rules laid down in the thirteenth chapter of the Eitual.

The probation terminated on the 24th of July : it was proposed to evoke the phantom of the divine Apollonius, and to question it upon two secrets, one which concerned myself, and one which interested the lady. She had counted on taking part in the evocation with a trustworthy person, but this person proved nervous at the last moment, and, as the triad or unity is indispensable for magical rites, I was left to my own resources.

The cabinet prepared for the evocation was situated in a turret; it contained four concave mirrors, and a species of altar having a white marble top, encircled by a chain of magnetized iron. The sign of the pentagram, as given in the fifth chapter of this work, was carved and gilded on the white marble surface ; it was drawn also in various colours upon a new white lambskin stretched beneath the altar.

In the middle of the marble table there was a small copper chafing-dish, containing charcoal of alder and laurel wood; another chafing-dish was set before me on a tripod. I was clothed in a white garment, very similar to the vestments of our catholic priests, but longer and wider, and I wore upon my head a crown of vervain leaves, intertwined with a golden chain. I held a new sword in one hand, and in the other the Eitual.

I kindled two fires with the required and prepared substances, and I began reading the evocations of the Ritual in a voice at first low, but rising by degrees. The smoke spread, the flame caused the objects upon which it fell to waver, then it went out, the smoke still floating white and slow about the marble altar ; I seemed to feel a kind of quaking of the earth, my ears tingled, my heart beat quickly.

p. 116heaped more twigs and perfumes on the chafing-dishes, and as the flame again burst up, I beheld distinctly, before the altar, the figure of a man of more than normal size, which dissolved and vanished away. I recommenced the evocations, and placed myself within a circle which I had drawn previously between the tripod "and the altar.

Thereupon the mirror which was behind the altar seemed to brighten in its depth, a wan form was outlined therein, which increased, and seemed to approach by degrees. Three times, and with closed eyes, I invoked Apollonius.

When I again looked forth there was a man in front of me, wrapped from head to foot in a species of shroud, which seemed more grey than white ; he was lean, melancholy and beardless, and did not altogether correspond to my preconceived notion of Apollonius. I experienced an abnormally cold sensation, and when I endeavoured to question the phantom I could not articulate a syllable.

I therefore placed my hand upon the sign of the pentagram, and pointed the sword at the figure, commanding it mentally to obey and not alarm me, in virtue of the said sign. The form thereupon became vague, and suddenly disappeared. I directed it to return, and presently felt, as it were, a breath close by me, something touched my hand which was holding the sword, and the arm became immediately benumbed as far as the elbow.

I divined that the sword displeased the spirit, and I therefore placed its point downwards, close by me, within the circle. The human figure reappeared immediately, but I experienced such an intense weakness in all my limbs, and a swooning sensation came so quickly over me, that I made two steps to sit down, whereupon I fell into a profound lethargy, accompanied by dreams, of which I had only a confused recollection when I came again to myself.

For several subsequent days my arm remained benumbed and painful. The apparition olid not speak tome, but it seemed that the questions I had designed to ask answered themselves in my mind. To that of the lady an Anterior voice replied — Death ! — it was concerning a man

p. 11 7 of whom she desired information. As for myself, I sought to know whether reconciliation and forgiveness were possible between two persons who occupied my thoughts, and the same inexorable echo within me also answered — Dead ! I am stating facts as they occurred, but I would impose faith on no one. The consequence of this experience on myself was something inexplicable.

I was no longer the same man ; something of another world had passed into me ; I was no longer either sad or cheerful, but I felt a singular attraction towards death, unaccompanied, however, by any suicidal tendency.

I analysed my experience carefully, and, notwithstanding a lively nervous repugnance, I twice repeated the same experiment, allowing some days to elapse between each ; there was not, however, sufficient difference between the phenomena to warrant me in protracting a narrative which is perhaps already too long.

But the net result of these two additional evocations was for me the revelation of two Kabbalistic secrets which might change, in a short space of time, the foundations and laws of society at large, if they came to be known generally. Am I to conclude from all this that I really evoked, saw, and touched the great Apollonius of Tyana ? I am not so hallucinated as to affirm or so unserious as to believe it.

The effect of the probations, the perfumes, the mirrors, the pantacles, is an actual drunkenness of the imagination, which must act powerfully upon a person otherwise nervous and impressionable. I do not explain the physical laws by which I saw and touched; I affirm solely that I did see and that I did touch, that I saw clearly and distinctly, apart from dreaming, and this is sufficient to establish the real efficacy of magical ceremonies.

For the rest, I regard the practice as destructive and dangerous ; if it became habitual, neither moral nor physical health would be able to withstand it. The elderly lady whom I have mentioned, and of whom I subsequently had reason to complain, was a case in