Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi

p. 185power at mid- day, and goes wearied to rest in the evening. Nevertheless, it is earth which revolves while the sun is motionless.

Having faith, therefore, in human progress, and in the stability of God, the free man respects religion in its past forms, and no more blasphemes Jupiter than Jehovah ; he still salutes lovingly the radiant image of the Pythian Apollo, and discovers its fraternal resemblance to the glorified countenance of the risen Kedeemer.

He believes in the great mission of the Catholic hierarchy, and finds satisfaction in observing the popes of the middle ages who opposed religion as a check upon the absolute power of kings ; but he protests with the revolutionary centuries against the servitude of conscience which would enchain the pontifical keys ; he is more protestant than Luther, since he does not even believe in the infallibility of the Augsbourg Confession, and more catholic than the Pope, for he has no fear that religious unity will be broken by the ill-will of the courts.

He trusts in God rather than Roman policy for the salvation of the unity idea ; he respects the old age of the Church, but he has no fear that she will die ; he knows that her apparent death will be a transfiguration and a glorious assumption. The author of this book makes a fresh appeal to the eastern magi to come forward and recognise once again that divine Master whose cradle they saluted, the great initiator of all the ages.

All His enemies have fallen ; all those who condemned Him are dead ; those who persecuted Him have passed into sleep for ever ; He is for ever alive.

The envious have combined against Him, agreeing on a single point ; the sectaries have united to destroy Him ; they have crowned themselves kings and proscribed Him ; they have become hypocrites and accused Him ; they have constituted themselves judges and pronounced His sentence of death ; they have turned headsmen and executed Him ; they have forced Him to drink hemlock, they have crucified Him, they have stoned Him, they have burned Him and cast His ashes to the wind ; then they have turned scarlet with terror, for He still

186 THE KITUAL OF TEANSCENDENT MAGIC stood erect before them, impeaching them by His wounds and overwhelming them by the brightness of His scars. They believed that they had slain Him in His cradle at Bethlehem, but He is alive in Egypt !

They carry Him to the summit of the mountain to cast Him down ; the mob of His murderers encircles Him, and already triumphs in His certain destruction ; a cry is heard ; is not that He who is shattered on the rocks of the abyss ? They whiten and look at one another ; but He, calm and smiling with pity, passes through the midst of them and disappears. Behold another mountain which they have just dyed with His blood !

Behold a cross, a sepulchre, and soldiers guarding His tomb ! Madmen ! The tomb is empty, and He whom they regard as dead is walking peaceably between two travellers, on the road to Emmaus. Where is He ? Whither does He go ? Warn the masters of the world ! Tell the Csesars that their power is threatened ! By whom ? By a pauper who has 110 stone on which to lay His head, by a man of the people condemned to the death of slaves.

What insult or what madness ! It matters not. The Caesars marshal all their power ; sanguinary edicts proscribe the fugitive, everywhere scaffolds rise up, circuses open arrayed with lions and gladiators, pyres are lighted, torrents of blood flow, and the Caesars, believing themselves victorious, dare add another name to those they rehearse on their trophies ; then they die, and their own apotheosis dishonours the gods whom they defended.

The hatred of the world confounds Jupiter and Nero in a common contempt. Temples transformed into tombs are cast down over the proscribed ashes, and above the debris of idols, above the ruins of empires, He only, He whom the Caesars proscribed, whom so many satellites pursued, whom so many executioners tortured, He only lives, alone reigns, alone triumphs !

Notwithstanding, His own disciples speedily misuse His name ; pride enters the sanctuary ; those who should proclaim His resurrection seek to immortalise His death, that they may feed, like the ravens, on His ever-renewing flesh.

INTKODUCTION 187 In place of imitating Him by His sacrifice and shedding their blood for their children in the faith, they chain Him in the Vatican as upon another Caucasus, and become the vultures of this divine Prometheus. But what signifies their evil dream ?

They can only imprison His image ; He Himself is free and erect, proceeding from exile to exile and from conquest to conquest ; it is possible to bind a man, but not to make captive the Word of God ; speech is free, and nothing can repress it ; this living speech is the condemnation of the wicked, and hence they seek to destroy it, but it is they only who die, and the word of truth remains to judge their memory !

Orpheus may have been rent by bacchantes, Socrates may have quaffed the poisoned cup, Jesus and His apostles have perished in the utmost tortures, John Hus, Jerome of Prague, and innumerable others, have been burned ; St Bartholomew and the massacres of September may have had in turn their victims ; cossacks, knouts, and Siberian deserts are still at the disposal of the Eussian Emperor, but the spirit of Orpheus, of Socrates, of Jesus, and of all martyrs will live for ever in the midst of their dead persecutors, will stand erect amidst failing institutions and collapsing empires.

It is this divine spirit, the spirit of the only Son of God, which St John represents in his apocalypse, standing between golden candlesticks, because He is the centre of all lights ; having seven stars in His hand, like the seed of a new heaven ; and sending down His speech upon the earth under the symbol of a two-edged sword. When the wise in their discouragement sleep through the night of doubt, the spirit of Christ is erect and vigilant.

When the nations, weary of the labour which emancipates them, lie down and dream over their chains, the spirit of Christ is erect and protesting. When the blind partisans of sterilised religions cast themselves in the dust of old temples, the spirit of Christ is erect and praying. When the strong become weak, when virtues are corrupted, when all things bend and sink down in search of a shameful pasture, the spirit