Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi
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p. 230We have already said that the devil is not a person. It is a misdirected force, as its name indicates.
An odic or magnetic current, formed by a chain of perverse wills, constitutes this evil spirit, which the Gospel calls legion, and this it is which precipitated the swine into the sea — another allegory of the attraction exercised on beings of inferior instincts by the blind forces that can be put in operation by error and evil will. This symbol may be compared with that of the comrades of Ulysses transformed into swine by the sorceress Circe.
Eemark what was done by Ulysses to preserve himself and deliver his associates : he refused the cup of the enchantress, and commanded her with the sword. Circe is nature, with all her delights and allurements — to enjoy her we must overcome her. Such is the significance of the Homeric fable, for the poems of Homer, the true sacred books of ancient Hellas, contain all the mysteries of high oriental initiation.
The natural medium is, therefore, the serpent, ever active and ever seducing, of idle wills, which we must continually withstand by their subjugation. Amorous, gluttonous, passionate, or idle magicians are impossible monstrosities. The magus thinks and wills ; he loves nothing with desire ; he rejects nothing in rage. The word passion signifies a passive state, and the magus is invariably active, invariably victorious.
The attainment of this realisation is the crucial difficulty of the transcendent sciences ; so when the magus accomplishes his own creation, the great work is fulfilled, at least as concerns cause and instrument. The great agent or natural mediator of human omnipotence cannot be overcome or directed save by an extra-natural mediator, which is an emancipated will. Archimedes postulated a fulcrum outside the world in order to raise the world.
The fulcrum of the magus is the intellectual cubic stone, the philosophical stone of AZOTH — that is, the doctrine of absolute reason and universal harmonies by the sympathy of contraries. One of our most fertile writers, and one of those who are the least fixed in their ideas, M. Eugene Sue, has founded a p. 231vast romance-epic upon an individuality whom he strives to render odious, who becomes interesting against the will of the novelist, so abundantly does he gift him with patience, audacity, intelligence, and genius. We are in the presence of a kind of Sixtus V. — poor, temperate, passionless, holding the entire world entangled in the web of his skilful combinations.
This man excites at will the passions of his enemies, destroys them by means of one another, invariably reaches the point he has kept in view, and this without noise, without ostentation, and without imposture.
His object is to free the world of a society which the author of the book believes to be dangerous and malignant, and to attain it no cost is too great ; he is ill lodged, ill clothed, nourished like the refuse of humanity, but ever fixed upon his work. Consistently with his intention, the author depicts him as wretched, filthy, hideous, repulsive to the touch, and horrible to the sight.
But supposing this very exterior is a means of disguising the enterprise, and so of more surely attaining it, is it not proof positive of sublime courage ? When Eodin becomes pope, do you think that he will still be ill clothed and dirty ? Hence M. Eugene Sue has missed his point ; his object was to deride superstition and fanaticism, but what he attacks is intelligence, strength, genius, the most signal human virtues.
Were there many Eodins among the Jesuits, were there one even, I would not give much for the success of the opposite party, in spite of the brilliant and maladroit special pleadings of its illustrious advocates.
To will well, to will long, to will always, but never to lust after anything, such is the secret of power, and this is the magical arcanum which Tasso brings forward in the persons of the two knights who come to deliver Einaldo and to destroy the enchantments of Armida. They withstand equally the most charming nymphs and the most terrible wild beasts. They remain without desires and without fear, and hence they attain their end. Does it follow from this that a true magician inspires more fear than love ? I do not deny it, and while p. 232abundantly recognising how sweet are the allurements of life, while doing full justice to the gracious genius of Anacreon, and to all the youthful efflorescence of the poetry of love, I seriously invite the estimable votaries of pleasure to regard the transcendental sciences merely as a matter of curiosity, and never to approach the magical tripod; the great works of science are deadly for pleasure.
The man who has escaped from the chain of instincts will first of all realise his omnipotence by the submissiveness of animals. The history of Daniel in the lions' den is no fable, and more than once, during the persecutions of infant Christianity this phenomenon recurred in the presence of the whole Eoman people. A man seldom has anything to fear from an animal of which he is not afraid.
The bullets of Jules Gerard, the lion-killer, are magical and intelligent. Once only did he run a real danger ; he allowed a timid companion to accompany him, and, looking upon this imprudent person as lost beforehand, he also was afraid, not for himself but for his comrade. Many persons will say that it is difficult and even impossible to attain such resolution, that strength in volition and energy in character are natural gifts.
I do not dispute it, but I would point out also that habit can reform nature ; volition can be perfected by education, and, as I have before said, all magical, like all religious, ceremonial has no other end but thus to test, exercise, and habituate the will by perseverance and by force. The more difficult and laborious the exercises, the greater their effect, as we have now advanced far enough to see.
If it have been hitherto impossible to direct the phenomena of magnetism, it is because an initiated and truly emancipated operator has not yet appeared. Who can boast that he is such ? Have we not ever new self-conquest? to make ? At the same time, it is certain that natu will obey the sign and the word of one who feels L self strong enough to be convinced of it.
I say tl nature will obey ; I do not say that she will bely hers* or disturb the order of her possibilities. The healing
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