The history of magic

by Éliphas Lévi

When Joseph de Maistre assures us that one of these days we shall speak in terms of wonder about our actual stupidity, he is referring, no doubt, to those people of pretended strong mind who daily inform us that they will believe in the truth of a dogma when it has been proved scientifically. This is equivalent to saying that they will believe when nothing is left for believing, when dogma as such is destroyed, having become a scientific theorem. It is another way of suggesting that we shall confess to the infinite when it has been explained, determined, circumscribed, defined, or, in a word, changed into the finite. We will believe in the infinite when we are quite certain that it does not exist; we will admit the immensity of the ocean when we see it put into bottles. But then, my friends, that which has been proved to you and brought within your comprehension is henceforth a matter of knowledge and not of faith. On the other hand, if you are informed that the Pope has decided that two and two are not four and that the square of the hypotenuse is not equal to the squares drawn on the two other sides of a right-angled triangle, you would be justified in replying that the Pope has not so decided because he has no title; these things do not concern him and he may not meddle therein. Here a disciple of Rousseau will exclaim that this is all very well, but the Church does require us to believe in things which are in formal opposition to mathematics. All mathematical science tells us that the whole is greater than the part; this notwithstanding, when Jesus Christ communicates with his disciples, He must hold His entire body in His hand and put His head in His own mouth. The miserable pleasantry in question occurs textually in Rousseau. It is easy to answer that the sophist is confounding science with faith and the natural order with that which is supernatural or divine. Were it claimed by religion that in the communication of the Eucharist our Saviour had two natural bodies of the same form and size, and that one was eaten by the other, science would be entitled to protest. But religion lays down that the body of the Master is divinely and sacramentally contained under the natural sign or appearance of a fragment of bread. Once more, it is a question of believing or not believing: whosoever reasons thereon, and discusses the thing scientifically, deserves to be classed as a fool.[119]

Truth in science is proved by exact demonstrations; truth in religion is proved by unanimity of faith and holiness of works. We have authority in the Gospel to recognise that he who could say to the paralytic: “Take up thy bed and walk,” had the right to forgive sins. Religion is true if it is the realisation of perfect morality. Works are the proof of faith. It is permissible to ask science whether Christianity has constituted a vast association of men for whom the hierarchy is a principle, obedience the rule and charity a law. If science answers, on the basis of historical documents, that this is the case but that the association of Christians has failed in the matter of charity, then I take it at its own word, which admits the existence of charity, since it recognises that there can be deficiency therein. Charity is at once a great word and a great thing; it is a word which did not exist prior to Christianity and that which it stands for is the sum total of religion. Is not the spirit of charity the Divine Spirit made visible on earth? Has not this Spirit manifested its sensible existence by acts, institutions, monuments and by immortal works? To be brief, we do not understand how a sceptic, who is a man of good faith, can see a daughter of St. Vincent de Paul without wishing to kneel and pray. The spirit of charity—this indeed is God; it is immortality in the soul; it is the hierarchy, obedience, the forgiveness of injuries, the simplicity and integrity of faith.

The separated sects are death-struck at the root because in separating they were wanting in charity, while in trying to reason on faith they were wanting in simple good sense. It is in the sects that dogma is absurd because it is pseudo-reasonable. As such it must be a scientific theorem or nothing. Now, in religion we know that the letter kills and that the spirit alone gives life; but what is the spirit in question unless it be that of charity? The faith which moves mountains and withstands martyrdom, the generosity which gives all, the eloquence which speaks with the tongue of men and angels—all this, says St. Paul, is nothing without charity. He adds that knowledge may vanish away and prophecy may cease, but charity is eternal. Charity and its works—hereof is the reality in religion: now true reason never denies reality, for it is the demonstration of that being which is truth. It is in this manner that philosophy extends a hand to religion, but without ever wishing to usurp its domain, and, on this condition, religion blesses, encourages and enlightens philosophy by its loving splendours. Charity is the mysterious bond which, according to the dream of Greek initiates, must reconcile Eros and Anteros. It is that coping of the door of Solomon’s Temple which unites the two pillars Jachin and Boaz; it is the common guarantee between rights and duties, between authority and liberty, between the strong and weak, between the people and the government, man also and woman. It is the divine sentiment which is requisite for life in human science; it is the absolute of good, as the triple principle Being-Reality-Reason is the absolute of the true. These elucidations have been necessary for the proper interpretation of that beautiful symbol of the Magi adoring the Saviour in the manger. The kings are three—one white, one tawny and one black; they offer gold, frankincense and myrrh. The reconciliation of opposites is expressed by this double triad, and it is precisely that which we have just been seeking to explain. Christianity, as expected by the Magi, was in effect the consequence of their secret doctrine; but this Benjamin of ancient Israel caused, by the fact of its birth, the death of its mother. The Magic of Light, that of the true Zoroaster, of Melchisedek and Abraham came to an end with the advent of the Great Fulfiller. Henceforth, in a world of miracles, mere prodigies could be nothing more than a scandal and magical orthodoxy was transfigured into the orthodoxy of religion. Those who dissented could be only illuminati and sorcerers; the very name of Magic could be interpreted only according to its evil sense, and it is under this inhibition that we shall follow hereafter its manifestations through the centuries.

The first arch-heretic mentioned in the traditions of the Church was Simon the Magician; his legend embodies a multitude of marvels; it is an integral part of our subject and we shall endeavour to separate its basis from the cloud of fables by which it is surrounded. Simon was by nationality a Jew and is believed to have been born in the Samaritan town of Gitton.[120] His master in Magic was a sectarian named Dositheus, who gave out that he was sent by God and was the Messiah foretold by the prophets.[121] Under his tuition, Simon not only acquired the illusory arts but also certain natural secrets which belong really to the tradition of the Magi. He possessed the science of the Astral Fire and could attract great currents thereof, making himself seem impassible and incombustible. He had also the power to rise and remain in the air. Feats of this kind have been performed frequently, in the absence of science and, so to speak, accidentally, by enthusiasts intoxicated with Astral Light, as for example the convulsionaries of St. Médard; and the phenomena recur at the present day in the mediumistic state. Simon magnetised at a distance those who believed in him and appeared to them under various figures. He produced images and visible reflections—e.g., everyone, on a certain occasion, thinking that they could see fantastic trees in a bare country. Moreover, objects which are normally inanimate were moved in his vicinity, as furniture is now moved within the atmosphere of Home, the American; and, finally, when he intended to enter or leave a house the doors creaked, shook and ended by opening of their own accord.

Simon performed these wonders before the chief people of Samaria, and as his actual achievements were in due course exaggerated, the thaumaturgist passed for a divine being. It came about also that as he owed his power to states of excitement by which reason is disturbed, so he came to regard himself as such an exceptional being that he did not hesitate to claim divine honours and dreamed modestly of usurping the worship of the whole world. His crises or ecstasies produced extraordinary physical results. Sometimes he appeared pale, withered, broken, like an old man at the point of death; sometimes the luminous fluid revitalised his blood, so that his eyes shone, his skin became smooth and soft, and he appeared regenerated and renewed suddenly. The easterns have great capacity for the amplification of wonders; they claimed to have seen Simon passing from childhood to decrepitude and again at his will returning from decrepitude into childhood. His miracles were noised abroad everywhere, till he became not only the idol of Jewish Samaria but also of the neighbouring countries.

However, the worshippers of marvels are generally hungry for new emotions and they did not fail to get weary of that which at first had astonished them. The Apostle St. Philip having reached Samaria, to preach the gospel therein, a new current of enthusiasm was thus started, with the result that Simon lost all his prestige. He was conscious, moreover, that his abnormal states had ceased, as he thought through loss of power; he believed that he was surpassed by magicians more learned than himself, and the course which he took was to attach himself to the apostles in the hope of studying, discovering or buying their secret.

Simon was certainly not an initiate of Transcendental Magic, which would have told him that wisdom and sanctity are needful for those who would direct the secret forces of Nature without being broken thereby; that to play with such terrible weapons without understanding them was the act of a fool; and that swift and terrible death awaits those who profane the Sanctuary of Nature. Simon was consumed by an unquenchable thirst, like that of a drunkard; the suspension of his ecstasy was the loss of all his happiness, and made ill by past excesses, he thought to regain health in renewed intoxication. One does not willingly come back to the state of a simple mortal after posing as a god. To recover that which he had lost Simon submitted therefore to all the rigours of apostolic austerity; he watched, he prayed, he fasted, but the wonders did not return. Then he reflected that between Jews it might be possible to reach an understanding, and he offered money to St. Peter. The chief of the apostles drove him indignantly away; and he who received so willingly the contributions of his disciples was now at the end of his resources; he abandoned forthwith the society of men who had shewn such disinterestedness, and with the money which St. Peter disdained he purchased a female slave named Helena.[122]

Mystical vagaries are always akin to debauch. Simon became passionately enamoured of his servant; that passion, at once weakening and exalting, restored his cataleptic states and the morbid phenomena which he termed his gift of wonders. A mythology full of magical reminiscences, combined with erotic dreams, issued fully armed from his brain; he undertook pilgrimages like the apostles, carrying Helena with him, dogmatising and shewing himself to those who were willing to worship and doubtless also to pay him.

According to Simon, the first manifestation of God was by means of a perfect splendour which produced its reflection immediately. He was himself this sun of souls and the reflection was Helena, whom he affected to call Selene, being the name of the moon in Greek. Now the moon of Simon came down at the beginning of the ages on that earth which the magus had mapped out in his perpetual dreams. There she became a mother, impregnated by the thought of his sun, and she brought into the world angels, whom she reared by herself without speaking of them to their father. The angels rebelled against her and imprisoned her in a mortal body. It was then that the splendour of God was compelled to descend in its turn that it might redeem Helena, and so the Jew Simon was manifested on earth. There he had to overcome death and carry his Helena through the air, followed by the triumphant choir of the elect, while the rest of mankind was abandoned on earth to the eternal tyranny of the angels. Thus the arch-heretic, imitating Christianity but in the reverse sense, affirmed the eternal reign of revolt and evil, represented the world as created or at least completed by demons, destroyed the order and the hierarchy, to pose alone with his concubine as the way, the truth and the life. Here was the doctrine of Antichrist, and it was not to perish with Simon, for it has been perpetuated to our own days. Indeed prophetic traditions of Christianity speak of his transitory reign and triumph to come as heralding the most terrible calamities. Simon claimed the title of saint and, by a curious coincidence, the chief of a modern Gnostic sect which recalls all the sensuous mysticism of the first arch-heretic—the inventor of the “free woman”—is also named Saint-Simon. Cainism is the name which might be given to all the false revelations issued from this impure source. They are dogmas of malediction and of hatred against universal harmony and social order; they are disordered passions affirming license in the place of duty, sensual love instead of chaste and devoted love, the prostitute in place of the mother, and Helena, concubine of Simon, in place of Mary, the mother of the Saviour.

Simon became a notoriety and repaired to Rome, where the emperor, attracted by all extraordinary spectacles, was disposed to welcome him: this emperor was Nero. The illuminated Jew astonished the crowned fool by a trick which is common in jugglery. He was decapitated, but afterwards saluted the emperor, his head being restored to his shoulders. He caused furniture to move and doors to open; in a word, he acted as a veritable medium and became sorcerer in ordinary at the orgies of Nero and the banquets of Trimalcyon. According to the legend makers, it was to rescue the Jews of Rome from the doctrine of Simon that St. Peter himself visited that capital of the world. Nero, by means of his inferior spies, was informed speedily that a new worker of Israelitish wonders had arrived to make war on his own enchanter, and he resolved to bring them together for his amusement. Petronius and Tigellinus were perhaps at this feast.[123]