Truly says Jeremiah,[806] quoting the “Word of the Lord”:
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee,
for Jeremiah stands here for Man when he was yet an Æon, or Divine Man, both with Simon Magus and Eastern Philosophy. The first three chapters of Genesis are as Occult as that which is given in Paper I. For the terrestrial Paradise is the Womb, says Simon,[807] Eden the region surrounding it. The river which went out of Eden to water the garden is the Umbilical Cord; this cord is divided into four Heads, the streams that flowed out of it, the four canals which serve to carry nutrition to the Fœtus, i.e., the two arteries and the two veins which are the channels for the blood and convey the breathing air, the unborn child, according to Simon, being entirely enveloped by the Amnion, fed through the Umbilical Cord and given vital air through the Aorta.[808]
The above is given for the elucidation of that which is to follow. The disciples of Simon Magus were numerous, and were instructed by him in Magic. They made use of so-called “exorcisms” (as in the New Testament), incantations, philtres; believed in dreams and visions, and produced them at will; and finally forced the lower orders of spirits to obey them. Simon Magus was called “the Great Power of God,” literally “the Potency of the Deity which is called Great.” That which was then termed Magic we now call Theosophia, or Divine Wisdom, Power and Knowledge.
His direct disciple, Menander, was also a great Magician. Says Irenæus, among other writers:
The successor of Simon was Menander, a Samaritan by birth, who reached the highest summits in the Science of Magic.
Thus both master and pupil are shown as having attained the highest powers in the art of enchantments, powers which can be obtained only through “the help of the Devil,” as Christians claim; and yet their “works” were identical with those spoken of in the New Testament, wherein such phenomenal results are called divine miracles, and are, therefore, believed in and accepted as coming from and through God. But the question is, have these so-called “miracles” of the “Christ” and the Apostles ever been explained any more than the magical achievements of so-called Sorcerers and Magicians? I say, never. We Occultists do not believe in supernatural phenomena, and the Masters laugh at the word “miracle.” Let us see, then, what is really the sense of the word Magic.
The source and basis of it lie in Spirit and Thought, whether on the purely divine or the terrestrial plane. Those who know the history of Simon have the two versions before them, that of White and of Black Magic, at their option, in the much talked of union of Simon with Helena, whom he called his Epinoia (Thought). Those who, like the Christians, had to discredit a dangerous rival, talk of Helena as being a beautiful and actual woman, whom Simon had met in a house of ill-fame at Tyre, and who was, according to those who wrote his life, the reincarnation of Helen of Troy. How, then, was she “Divine Thought”? The lower angels, Simon is made to say in Philosophumena, or the third Æons, being so material, had more badness in them than all the others. Poor man, created or emanated from them, had the vice of his origin. What was it? Only this: when the third Æons possessed themselves, in their turn, of the Divine Thought through [pg 472] the transmission into them of Fire, instead of making of man a complete being, according to the universal plan, they at first detained from him that Divine Spark (Thought, on Earth Manas); and that was the cause and origin of senseless man's committing the original sin as the angels had committed it æons before by refusing to create.[809] Finally, after detaining Epinoia prisoner amongst them and having subjected the Divine Thought to every kind of insult and desecration, they ended by shutting it into the already defiled body of man. After this, as interpreted by the enemies of Simon, she passed from one female body into another through ages and races, until Simon found and recognized her in the form of Helena, the “prostitute,” the “lost sheep” of the parable. Simon is made to represent himself as the Saviour descended on Earth to rescue this “lamb” and those men in whom Epinoia is still under the dominion of the lower angels. The greatest magical feats are thus attributed to Simon through his sexual union with Helena, hence Black Magic. Indeed, the chief rites of this kind of Magic are based on such disgusting literal interpretation of noble myths, one of the noblest of which was thus invented by Simon as a symbolical mark of his own teaching. Those who understood it correctly knew what was meant by “Helena.” It was the marriage of Nous (Âtmâ-Buddhi) with Manas, the union through which Will and Thought become one and are endowed with divine powers. For Âtman in man, being of an unalloyed essence, the primordial Divine Fire (or the eternal and universal “that which has stood, stands and will stand”), is of all the planes; and Buddhi is its vehicle or Thought, generated by and generating the “Father” in her turn, and also Will. She is “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” thus becoming, in conjunction with Manas, male-female, in this sphere only. Hence, when Simon spoke of himself as the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and of Helena as his Epinoia, Divine Thought, he meant the marriage of his Buddhi with Manas. Helena was the Shakti of the inner man, the female potency.
Now, what says Menander? The lower angels, he taught, were the emanations of Ennoia (Designing Thought). It was Ennoia who taught the Science of Magic and imparted it to him, together with the art of conquering the creative angels of the lower world. The latter stand for the passions of our lower nature. His pupils, after receiving [pg 473] baptism from him (i.e., after Initiation), were said to “resurrect from the dead” and, “growing no older,” became “immortal.”[810] This “resurrection” promised by Menander meant, of course, simply the passage from the darkness of ignorance into the light of truth, the awakening of man's immortal Spirit to inner and eternal life. This is the Science of the Râja Yogîs—Magic.
Every person who has read Neo-Platonic Philosophy knows how its chief Adepts, such as Plotinus, and especially Porphyry, fought against phenomenal Theurgy. But, beyond all of them, Jamblichus, the author of the De Mysteriis, lifts high the veil from the real term Theurgy, and shows us therein the true Divine Science of Râja Yoga.