The history of magic

by Éliphas Lévi

To restore sufferers of this kind the Greek priests resorted to a species of homœopathy; they terrified the patients by exaggerating the disease itself, and for this purpose they put them to sleep in the cave of Trophonius.[103] The preparation for this experience was by fastings, lustrations and vigils; the patients were then taken down into the vault and shut up in total darkness. Intoxicating gases, like those in the Grotto of the Dog near Naples, filled the cavern, and the visionary was overcome speedily. Incipient asphyxia induced frightful dreams, from which the victim was rescued in time and carried forth palpitating all over, pale and with hair on end. In this condition he or she was seated on a tripod and prophetic utterances preceded complete awakening. Experiences of this sort so distracted the nervous system that their subjects never recalled them without trembling and in future did not dare to mention evocations or phantoms. Some of them never smiled again or felt the impulse of gaiety; the general impression was so melancholy that it passed into a proverb, and it was said of anyone who did not unbend: “He has slept in the cave of Trophonius.”[104]

For the remanents of science and the recovery of its mysteries we must have recourse to the religious symbolism of antiquity rather than to the works of its philosophers. The priests of Egypt were better acquainted than ourselves with the laws of motion and of life. They could temper or promote action by reaction, and they foresaw without difficulty the realisation of effects the cause of which they had postulated. The pillars of Seth, Hermes, Solomon, Hercules symbolised in magical traditions this universal law of equilibrium, while the science of equilibrium led the initiates to that of universal gravitation about centres of life, heat and light. So in the Egyptian sacred calendars, where it is known that each month was placed under the protection of three decani or genii of ten days, the first decanate in the sign of Leo is represented by a human head with seven rays; the body has a scorpio-tail and the sign of Sagittarius is under the chin. Beneath the head is the name of Iao, and the figure was called Khnoubis, an Egyptian word which signifies gold and light. Thales and Pythagoras learned in the Egyptian sanctuaries that the earth gravitated round the sun, but they did not seek to publish the fact generally because it would have involved the revelation of a great templesecret, being the dual law of attraction and radiation, of fixity and movement, which is the principle of creation and the unfailing cause of life.[105] So also the Christian writer Lactantius, who had heard of this magical tradition, but as an effect in the absence of a cause, scoffed loudly at theurgical dreamers who believed in the motion of the earth and in antipodes, the result of which would be the fact that we walked on our heads with the feet upward, though our heads appeared to be erect. Furthermore, as he added, with the logic of children, in such case we should infallibly fall head downwards through the heaven below us. So philosophers reasoned, while priests, without answering or even smiling at their blunders, continued to write in creative hieroglyphics concerning all dogmas, all forms of poetry and all secrets of truth.

In their allegorical description of Hades, the Greek hierophants concealed the palmary secrets of Magic. We find four rivers therein, even as in the Earthly Paradise, plus a fifth, which wound seven times round the others. There was a river of sorrows and silence, called Cocytus; there was a river of forgetfulness, or Lethe; and then there was a swift and irresistible river which carried all before it, flowing in an opposite course to yet another river of fire. The two last were named Acheron and Phlegethon, one being the negative and one the positive fluid, flowing eternally each in each. The black and icy waters of Acheron smoked with the warmth of Phlegethon, while the liquid flames of the latter were covered with thick vapours by the former. Larvæ and lemures, shadowy images of bodies which have lived and of those which have yet to come, issued from these vapours by myriads; but whether they drank or not from the flood of sorrows, all desired the waters of oblivion, to bring them youth and peace. The wise alone do not seek to forget, for memory is their reward already; so also they only are truly deathless, since they only are conscious of their immortality. The tortures of Tenarus are truly divine pictures of the vices and their eternal chastisement. The greed of Tantalus, the ambition of Sisyphus, will never be expiated, since they can never be satisfied. Tantalus is athirst in the water, Sisyphus rolls a stone towards the top of a mountain, hoping to take his seat thereon, but it falls back continually and drags him down into the abyss. Ixion, unbridled in licence, would have violated the queen of heaven and was scourged by infernal furies. He did not consummate his crime, for he embraced only a phantom. The phantom may have condescended in appearance to his love and may have ministered to his passion, but when he disowned duty, when his satisfaction was at the price of sacrilege, that which he thought was love proved hatred in a mask of flowers.

It is not from beyond the tomb, it is rather in life itself that we must seek the mysteries of death. Salvation or condemnation begin here below, and this earth has also its heaven and hell. Virtue is ever rewarded, vice is ever punished; if the wealth of the wicked incline us at times to think that they enjoy impunity, that instrument of good and evil seeming to be given them by chance, there is woe notwithstanding to the unjust; they may possess the key of gold, but for them it opens only the gate of the tomb and hell.

All true initiates have recognised the immense value of toil and suffering. A German poet tells us that sorrow is the dog of that unknown shepherd which leads the flock of humanity. Learn how to suffer and learn also to die—such are the gymnastics of eternity and such is the immortal novitiate. This is the moral lesson of Dante’s Divine Comedy, and it was outlined in the allegorical Table of Cebes, which belongs to the time of Plato. An account of it has been preserved and many painters of the middle ages reconstructed the picture therefrom. It is at once a philosophical and magical monument, a perfect moral synthesis, and moreover the most audacious demonstration ever attempted of that Great Arcanum or Secret, the revelation of which must subvert heaven and earth. Our readers will unquestionably expect us to furnish its explanation, but he who has solved this enigma knows that it is inexplicable by its nature and is a sentence of death to those who take it by surprise, even as to those who reveal it.[106]

This secret is the royalty of the sage and the crown of that initiate who is represented coming down as a victor from the mount of ordeal in the beautiful allegory of Cebes. The Great Arcanum has made him master of gold and light, which fundamentally are one thing; he has solved the quadrature of the circle; he directs perpetual motion; and he possesses the Philosophical Stone. Those who are adepts will understand me. There is neither interruption in the process of Nature nor a blank space in its work. The harmonies of heaven are in correspondence with those of earth, and eternal life fulfils its evolutions in accordance with the same laws which rule in the life of a day. The Bible says that God disposes all things according to weight, number and measure, and this luminous doctrine was also that of Plato. In the Phædon he represents Socrates as discoursing on the destinies of the soul in a manner which is quite in conformity with Kabalistical traditions. Spirits purified by trial are emancipated from the laws of weight, and they soar above the atmosphere of tears; others grovel in darkness and are those who manifest to the weak or criminal. All who are liberated from the miseries of material life come back no more to contemplate its crimes or share its errors: once is truly enough.

The care taken by the ancients over the burial of the dead protested strongly against necromancy, and those who disturbed the sleep of the grave were always regarded as impious. To call back the dead would condemn them to a second death, and the dread of earnest people, belonging to old religions, lest they should remain without burial after death, was in view of the possibility that the corpse might be profaned by stryges and used in witchcraft. After death the soul belongs to God and the body to the common mother, which is earth. Woe to those who dare to invade these asylums. When the sanctuary of the tomb was disturbed, the ancients offered sacrifices to the angry manes and a holy thought lay at the root of this practice. As a fact, were it permitted anyone to attract, by means of conjurations, the souls floating in darkness but aspiring towards the light, such a person would be begetting retrograde and posthumous children, whom he must nourish with his own blood and with his own soul. Necromancers are makers of vampires, and they deserve no pity if they die devoured by the dead.

CHAPTER IV
THE MAGIC OF PUBLIC WORSHIP

Forms are the product of ideas, and they in their turn reflect and reproduce ideas. So far as sentiments are concerned, these are multiplied by association in the union of those who share them, so that all are charged with the enthusiasm common to all. It comes about in this manner that if one or another individual be deceived easily on questions of the just and the beautiful, the people at large will, this notwithstanding, continue to exalt in their minds whatsoever things are sublime, and they will do it with a longing which is itself sublime. These two great laws of Nature were known to the ancient Magi and led them to see the necessity of a public worship which should be one in its nature, imposed on all, hierarchic and symbolic in character, like all religion, splendid as truth, rich and varied as Nature, starry as heaven, odoriferous as earth—a worship in fact of the kind established afterwards by Moses, realised in all its glory by Solomon, and, once again transfigured, centralised to-day in the great metropolis of St. Peter at Rome.

Humanity as a fact has never known more than one religion and one worship. This universal light has had its uncertain reflections and its shadows, but ever after the dark night of error we behold it emerge, one and pure like the sun.