Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi

p. 124We operate by our imagination on the imagination of others, by our sidereal body on theirs, by our organs on their organs, in such a way that, by sympathy, whether of inclination or obsession, we reciprocally possess one another, and identify ourselves with those upon whom we wish to act. Reactions against such dominations frequently cause the most pronounced antipathy to succeed the keenest sympathy.

Love has a tendency to unify beings; in thus identifying, it frequently renders them rivals, and, consequently, enemies, if in the depth of the two natures there is an unsociable disposition, like pride. To permeate two united souls in an equal degree with pride is to disjoin them by making them rivals. Antagonism is the necessary consequence of a plurality of gods.

When we dream of a living person, either their sidereal body presents itself to ours in the astral light, or at least the reflection thereof, and our impressions at the meeting often make known the secret dispositions of the\ person in our regard. For example, love fashions the sidereal body of the one in the image and likeness of the other, so that the psychal medium of the woman is like a man, and that of the man like a woman.

It was this transfer which the Kabbalists sought to express in an occult manner when they said, in explanation of an obscure term of Genesis : — " God created love by placing a rib of Adam in the breast of the woman, and a portion of the flesh of Eve in the breast of the man, so that at the bottom of woman's heart there is the bone of man, while at the bottom of man's heart there is the flesh of woman," — an allegory which is certainly not devoid of depth and beauty.

We have referred, in the previous chapter, to what the masters in Kabbalah call the embryonic condition of souls. This state, completed after the death of the person who thereby possesses another, is often commenced in life, whether by obsession or by love. I knew a young woman, whose parents inspired her with a great terror, who took suddenly to inflicting upon an inoffensive person the very 2p. 125acts she dreaded in them. I knew another who, after participating in an evocation concerned with a guilty woman suffering in the next world for certain eccentric acts, began to imitate, without any reason, the actions of the dead person.

To this occult power must be attributed the terrible influence resident in parental malediction, which is feared by all nations on earth, as also the imminent danger of magical operations when anyone has not reached the isolation of true adepts. This virtue of sidereal transmutation, which really exists in love, explains the allegorical marvels of the wand of Circe.

Apuleius speaks of a Thessalian woman who changed herself into a bird ; he won the affections of her servant to discover the secrets of the mistress, and succeeded only in transforming himself into an ass. This allegory contains the most concealed secrets of love.

Again, the Kabbalists say that when a man falls in love with a female elementary — undine, sylphide, or gnomide, as the case may be — she becomes immortal with him, or otherwise he dies with her. We have already seen that elementaries are imperfect and as yet mortal men.

The revelation we have mentioned, which has been regarded merely as a fable, is therefore the dogma of moral solidarity in love, which is itself the foundation of love, and alone explains all its sanctity and all its power. 10, then, is this Circe, that changes her worshippers into swine, while, so soon as she is subjected to the bond of love, her enchantments are destroyed ? She is the ancient courtesan, the marble woman of all the ages.

A woman who is without love absorbs and degrades all who come near her ; she who loves, on the other hand, diffuses enthusiasm, nobility, and life. There was much talk in the last century about an adept accused of charlatanism, who was termed in his lifetime the divine Cagliostro.

It is known that he practised evocations, and that in this art he was surpassed only by the illuminated Schroepffer.* It is said also that he boasted of his power * See, in the Ritual, Schrcepffer's secrets and formulas for evocation.