At that time when this voice was heard (said I to him) I suppose that the world worshipped Pan and the Nymphs: and that these gentlemen, whose commerce you are preaching of to me, were the false gods of the heathen. ’Tis true, my son (replied he) the Sages have always been of that opinion, that the Devil never had the power to make himself worshipped. He is too unhappy, and too weak, ever to have had this pleasure, and this authority. But he has been able to persuade the elementary hosts to shew themselves to men, and make men erect temples to them; and by the natural dominion which every one has over the element which he inhabits, they trouble the air, and the sea, set the earth in combustion, and dispense the fire of heaven, according to their humour: insomuch that they had no great trouble to be taken for Deities, so long as the sovereign being dispensed the salvation of the world. But the devil never received all the advantage of his malice, which he hoped he should; for it has happened from thence, that Pan, the Nymphs, and the rest of the elementary people, having found the means of changing this commerce of worship, into a commerce of love; (for you may remember, that amongst the ancients, Pan was the king of those gods whom they called Incubuses, and who always earnestly sought the acquaintance of maids), many heathens have escaped the devil, and shall never burn in hell.
I do not well understand you, sir (said I) You have not minded me, to understand me (continued he, smiling, and in a jeering tone). Behold what you pass over! and likewise what your doctors pass over, who know not what these excellent Physicks mean! Behold the great mystery of all this part of philosophy, which concerns the elements, and which will take away (if you have but never so little love for yourself), this repugnance to philosophy, which you have witnessed to me this day! Know then, my son; and go not about to divulge this great Arcanum to any unworthy ignorant. Know, that as the Sylphs acquire an immortal soul, by the alliance which they contract with the men who are predestinated; so also, the men who have no right to eternal glory: those miserable wretches, whose immortality is but a lamentable advantage, for whom the Messias was sent—
Then, you gentlemen of the Cabal, are Jansenists likewise (interrupted I?) We know not what that is, my child (proceeded he, somewhat angrily) and we scorn to inform ourselves wherein consists the different sects and divers religions, with which the ignorant puzzle their heads. We keep to the ancient religion of our fathers, the Philosophers; wherein ’tis very necessary that I instruct you. But come again to the purpose: these men whose sad immortality is nothing but an eternal misfortune; the unhappy children, whom the Sovereign Father has neglected, have also this recourse, that they may become mortal, by contracting alliance with these elementary people. So that you see, the Sages hazard nothing for Eternity. If they are predestinated, they have the pleasure to carry with them to heaven (in quitting the prison of this body) the Sylphide or Nymph, which they have immortalised! and if they be not predestinated, the commerce of the Nymph renders their soul mortal, and delivers them from the horrors of the second death. So the Devil saw all the Pagans escape, who allied themselves to the Nymphs: and so the Sages, or friends of the Sages, when God inspires us to communicate to any one, the four elementary secrets (which I have now been teaching you), free themselves from the Peril of being damned.
Without lying, sir (cried I, not daring to put him again into an ill humour, and finding it requisite to defer the telling him plainly my opinion, till I should have discovered all the secrets of his Cabal, which I judged by this glimpse, must needs be very full of pleasure and divertisement): without lying, you advance wisdom to a great height! And you had reason to tell me, that this surpassed all our doctors; and I believe, that this likewise passes all our magistrates too; and that, if they could discover who those were that escaped the devil by this means (as ignorance is very unjust), they would engage in the devil’s interest, against these fugitives and make a strong party for him. Yes, it is for that (pursued the Count) that I have so strictly commanded you; to keep religiously this secret. Your judges are strange persons. They condemn a most innocent action as a dismal crime. What a barbarity was it, to burn those two priests which the Prince of Miranda says he knew of, who had each of them his Sylphide, for the space of forty years! What an inhuman thing was it to put Joan Hervilles to death, for having laboured six and forty years, to immortalise a Gnome! And, what a piece of ignorance was that of Bodin, to represent her as a witch; and that from thence he might take advantage to authorise popular errors, touching pretended Sorcerers; in a book as impertinent as his Commonwealth is reasonable.
But it is late; and I do not consider, that you have not yet dined. ’Tis yourself, that you mean, sir (said I), for as for my part, I could listen to you till to-morrow, without inconvenience. For me! Alas! (replied he, laughing, and walking towards the gate), ’tis easily seen that you understand but little what philosophy is. The Sages eat but for their pleasure, and never for necessity. I had a quite contrary idea of Wisdom (answered I), I had thought that you wise men should never eat but to satisfy nature. You are abused (said the Count). How long think you, that our Sages can subsist without eating? How can I tell? (answered I), Moses and Elias, you know, fasted forty days: you Sages, I make no doubt, may do it, some days less. What a great piece of business would that be (replied he), the most wise men that ever was, the Divine, the almost adorable Paracelsus, affirms, that he has seen many of the Sages fast twenty years, without eating anything whatsoever. He himself, before he attained to the monarchy of wisdom, whereof we have justly presented him the sceptre, he, I say, would undertake to live many years without eating, by taking but half a scruple of his Solar Quintescence. And if you would have the pleasure to make any one live without victuals, you need do no more, but prepare the earth, as I told you it must be prepared, for the Society of the Gnomes: this earth applied to the navle, and renewed when it is dry, will cause any one to live without eating or drinking, and that without any trouble.
And the use of this Catholic-Cabalistical Medicine, frees us much better from all the importunate necessities, to which nature makes the ignorant subject; we eat not, but when it pleases us; and all the superfluity of food passing away by an insensible Transpiration, we are never ashamed to be men. There he held his peace.
In succeeding interviews the Count de Gabalis further explains to his interlocutor the nature and pursuits of the elementary spirits; asserts that it was they only, and not the vile gods of the Greeks and Romans, that delivered the oracles of old; that they continually kept watch over man to do him service, and to warn him of approaching evil. It was they who sent omens and furnished him with the understanding to interpret them, and who filled his mind with presentiments when some great calamity was impending over him, that he might perchance avoid it. They also sent him dreams for the regulation of his fate. But “alas,” continues the Count, “men ignorantly misunderstand and reject their kindness. A poor Sylph hardly dares to shew himself lest he should be mistaken for an imp of evil; an Undine cannot endeavour to acquire an immortal soul, by loving a man, without running the risk of being considered a vile, impure phantom; and a Salamander, if he shews himself in his glory, is taken for a devil, and the pure light which surrounds him considered the fire of hell. It is in vain that, to dispel these unworthy suspicions, they make the sign of the cross when they appear, and bend their knees when the Divine name is uttered. All their efforts are useless. Obstinate man persists in considering them enemies of that God whom they know, and whom they adore more religiously than men do. The prayer which you will find preserved by Porphyne, and which was offered up in the Temple of Delphos for the enlightenment of the Pagans, was the prayer of a Salamander.” In short without continuing to quote the words of the Count de Gabalis, he asserted that all the supernatural appearances with which the history of every age and nation was full, were to be, and could only be, explained by the agency of these elemental sprites; that the deeds attributed to devils, imps and witches, were the creations of a false and degrading superstition, unworthy to be believed by philosophers. There were no fiends with
“——’aery tongues that syllable mens’ names
On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.”
but beneficent spirits, the friends of man. The peris of eastern romance, the fées, the fatas, and the fairies of European legends, were names which, in their ignorance, the people of different countries had given to the Sylphs. Vulcan, Bacchus, and Pan, though the Greeks did not know it, were Gnomes; Neptune and Venus, and all the Naiads and Nereids, were but the Undines of the Rosicrucians; Apollo was a Salamander, and Mercury a Sylph; and not one of the personages of the multifarious mythology of the Greeks and Romans, but could be ranged under one or other of these classes.