Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi

p. 204So was Paracelsus a man of inspiration and miracles ; yet his life was exhausted by this devouring activity, or rather its vestment was rapidly rent and worn out ; but men like Paracelsus can use and abuse fearlessly ; they well know that they can no more die than grow old here below. Nothing induces us towards joy so effectually as sorrow ; nothing is nearer to sorrow than joy.

Hence the uninstructed operator is astounded by attaining the very opposite of his proposed results, because he does not know how to cross or alternate his action ; he seeks to bewitch his enemy, and himself becomes ill and miserable ; he desires to make himself loved, and he consumes himself for women who deride him ; he endeavours to make gold, and he exhausts all his resources ; his torture is that of Tantalus eternally ; ever does the water flow back when he stoops down to drink.

The ancients in their symbols and magical operations multiplied the signs of the duad, so that its law of equilibrium might be remembered. In their evocations they invariably constructed two altars, and immolated two victims, one white and one black ; the operator, whether male or female, holding a sword in one hand and a wand in the other, had one foot shod and the other bared.

At the same time, either one or three persons were required for magical works, because the duad would be immobility or death in the absence of the equilibrating motor ; and when a man and a woman participated in the ceremony, the operator was either a virgin, a hermaphrodite, or a child.

I shall be asked whether the eccentricity of these rites is arbitrary, and whether its one end is the exercise of the will by the mere multiplication of difficulties in magical work ? I answer that in magic there is nothing arbitrary, because everything is ruled and predetermined by the one and universal dogma of Hermes, that of analogy in the three worlds.

Each sign corresponds to an idea, and to the special form of an idea ; each act expresses a volition corresponding to a thought, and formulates the analogies of that thought and that will. The rites are, therefore, pre2p. 205arranged by the science itself. The uninstructed person who is not acquainted with the three powers is subject to their mysterious fascination ; the sage understands those powers, and makes them the instrument of his will, but when they are accomplished with exactitude and faith, they are never ineffectual.

All magical instruments must be duplicated ; there must be two swords, two wands, two cups, two chafing-dishes, two pantacles, and two lamps ; two vestments must be worn, one over the other, and they must be of contrary colours, a rule still followed by Catholic priests ; and either no metal, or two at the least, must be worn.

The crowns of laurel, rue, mugwort, or vervain must, in like manner, be double ; one of them is used in evocations, while the other is burnt, the crackling which it makes and the curls of the smoke which it produces being observed like an augury.

Nor is the observance vain, for in the magical work all the instruments of art are magnetised by the operator ; the air is charged with his perfumes, the fire which he has consecrated is subject to his will, the forces of nature seem to hear and answer him ; he reads in all forms the modifications and complements of his thought.

He perceives the water agitated, and, as it were, bubbling of itself, the fire blazing up or extinguishing suddenly, the leaves of the garlands rustling, the magical rod moving spontaneously, and strange, unknown voices passing through the air. It was in such evocations that Julian beheld the beloved phantoms of his dethroned gods, and was appalled at their decrepitude and pallor.

I am aware that Christianity has for ever suppressed ceremonial magic, and that it severely proscribes the evocations and sacrifices of the old world. It is not, therefore, our intention to give a new ground for their existence by revealing the antique mysteries after the lapse of so many centuries. Even in this very order of phenomena, our experiences have been scholarly researches and nothing more. We have confirmed facts that we might appreciate causes, and it has 3p. 206never been our pretension to restore rites which are for ever destroyed. The orthodoxy of Israel, that religion which is so rational, so divine, and so ill known, condemns, no less than Christianity, the mysteries of ceremonial magic. From the standpoint of the tribe of Levi, the exercise of transcendent magic must be considered as an usurpation of the priesthood ; and the same reason has caused the proscription of operative magic by every official cultus. To demonstrate the natural foundation of the marvellous, and to produce it at will, is to annihilate for the vulgar mind that conclusive evidence from miracles which is claimed by each religion as its exclusive property and its final argument. Respect for established religions, but room also for science ! We have passed, thank God, the days of inquisitions and pyres ; unhappy men of learning are no longer murdered on the faith of a few distraught fanatics or hysterical girls. For the rest, let it be clearly understood that our undertaking is concerned with studies of the curious, and not with an impossible propaganda. Those who may blame us for daring to term ourselves magician have nothing to fear from the example, it being wholly improbable that they will ever become sorcerers.

CHAPTER III THE TRIANGLE OF PANTACLES THE Abbot Trithemius, who in magic was the master of Cornelius Agrippa, explains, in his " Steganography," the secret of conjurations and evocations after a very natural and philosophical manner, though possibly, for that very reason, too simply and too easily. He tells us that to evoke a spirit is to enter into the dominant thought of that spirit, and if we raise ourselves morally higher along the same line,