The books of Mercurius Trismegistus most attracted his attention.[63] He is also warm in his praise of Hystaspes (or Gushtasp), of the Sibylline books, and even of the right Astrology.
There have been in all ages use and abuse of Magic, as there are use and abuse of Mesmerism or Hypnotism in our own. The ancient world had its Apollonii and its Pherecydæ, and intellectual people could discriminate then, as they can now. While no classical or pagan writer has ever found one word of blame for Apollonius of Tyana, for instance, it is not so with regard to Pherecydes. Hesychius of Miletia, [pg 041] Philo of Byblos and Eusthathius charge the latter unstintingly with having built his Philosophy and Science on demoniacal traditions—i.e., on Sorcery. Cicero declares that Pherecydes is, potius divinus quam medicus, “rather a soothsayer than a physician,” and Diogenes Laërtius gives a vast number of stories relating to his predictions. One day Pherecydes prophesies the shipwreck of a vessel hundreds of miles away from him; another time he predicts the capture of the Lacedæmonians by the Arcadians; finally, he foresees his own wretched end.[64]
Bearing in mind the objections that will be made to the teachings of the Esoteric Doctrine as herein propounded, the writer is forced to meet some of them beforehand.
Such imputations as those brought by Clemens against the “heathen” Adepts, only prove the presence of clairvoyant powers and prevision in every age, but are no evidence in favour of a Devil. They are, therefore, of no value except to the Christians, for whom Satan is one of the chief pillars of the faith. Baronius and De Mirville, for instance, find an unanswerable proof of Demonology in the belief in the co-eternity of Matter with Spirit!
De Mirville writes that Pherecydes
Postulates in principle the primordiality of Zeus or Ether, and then, on the same plane, a principle, coëternal and coäctive, which he calls the fifth element, or Ogenos.[65]
He then points out that the meaning of Ogenos is given as that which shuts up, which holds captive, and that is Hades, “or in a word, hell.”
The synonyms are known to every schoolboy without the Marquis going to the trouble of explaining them to the Academy; as to the deduction, every Occultist will of course deny it and only smile at its folly. And now we come to the theological conclusion.
The résumé of the views of the Latin Church—as given by authors of the same character as the Marquis de Mirville—amounts to this: that the Hermetic Books, their wisdom—fully admitted in Rome—notwithstanding, are “the heirloom left by Cain, the accursed, to mankind.” It is “generally admitted,” says that modern memorialist of Satan in History:
That immediately after the Flood Cham and his descendants had propagated anew the ancient teachings of the Cainites and of the submerged Race.[66]