The doctrine of emanations makes the universe one vast harmonious whole, between whose various parts there is an exact analogy, correspondence, or sympathetic relation. "Nature" (the productive principle), says IAMBLICHOS (3rd-4th century), the Neo-Platonist, "in her peculiar way, makes a likeness of invisible principles through symbols in visible forms."(2) The belief that seemingly similar things sympathetically affect one another, and that a similar relation holds good between different things which have been intimately connected with one another as parts within a whole, is a very ancient one. Most primitive peoples are very careful to destroy all their nail-cuttings and hair-clippings, since they believe that a witch gaining possession of these might work them harm. For a similar reason they refuse to reveal their REAL names, which they regard as part of themselves, and adopt nicknames for common use. The belief that a witch can torment an enemy by making an image of his person in clay or wax, correctly naming it, and mutilating it with pins, or, in the case of a waxen image, melting it by fire, is a very ancient one, and was held throughout and beyond the Middle Ages. The Sympathetic Powder of Sir KENELM DIGBY we have already noticed, as well as other instances of the belief in "sympathy," and examples of similar superstitions might be multiplied almost indefinitely. Such are generally grouped under the term "sympathetic magic"; but inasmuch as all magical practices assume that by acting on part of a thing, or a symbolic representation of it, one acts magically on the whole, or on the thing symbolised, the expression may in its broadest sense be said to involve the whole of magic.
(2) IAMBLICHOS: Theurgia, or the Egyptian Mysteries (trans. by Dr ALEX. WILDER, New York, 1911), p. 239.
The names of the Divine Being, angels and devils, the planets of the solar system (including sun and moon) and the days of the week, birds and beasts, colours, herbs, and precious stones—all, according to old-time occult philosophy, are connected by the sympathetic relation believed to run through all creation, the knowledge of which was essential to the magician; as well, also, the chief portions of the human body, for man, as we have seen, was believed to be a microcosm—a universe in miniature. I have dealt with this matter and exhibited some of the supposed correspondences in "The Belief in Talismans". Some further particulars are shown in the annexed table, for which I am mainly indebted to AGRIPPA. But, as in the case of the zodiacal gems already dealt with, the old authorities by no means agree as to the majority of the planetary correspondences.
TABLE OF OCCULT CORRESPONDENCES
Arch- Part of Precious
angel. Angel. Planet. Human Animal. Bird. stone.
Body.
Raphael Michael Sun Heart Lion Swan Carbuncle
Gabriel Gabriel Moon Left foot Cat Owl Crystal
Camael Zamael Mars Right hand Wolf Vulture Diamond
Michael Raphael Mercury Left hand Ape Stork Agate
Zadikel Sachiel Jupiter Head Hart Eagle Sapphire
(=Lapis lazuli)
Haniel Anael Venus Generative Goat Dove Emerald
organs
Zaphhiel Cassiel Saturn Right foot Mole Hoopoe Onyx
The names of the angels are from Mr Mather's translation of Clavicula Salomonis; the other correspondences are from the second book of Agrippa's Occult Philosophy, chap. x.
In many cases these supposed correspondences are based, as will be obvious to the reader, upon purely trivial resemblances, and, in any case, whatever may be said—and I think a great deal may be said—in favour of the theory of symbology, there is little that may be adduced to support the old occultists' application of it.
So essential a part does the use of symbols play in all magical operations that we may, I think, modify the definition of "magic" adopted at the outset, and define "magic" as "an attempt to employ the powers of the spiritual world for the production of marvellous results, BY THE AID OF SYMBOLS." It has, on the other hand, been questioned whether the appeal to the spirit-world is an essential element in magic. But a close examination of magical practices always reveals at the root a belief in spiritual powers as the operating causes. The belief in talismans at first sight seems to have little to do with that in a supernatural realm; but, as we have seen, the talisman was always a silent invocation of the powers of some spiritual being with which it was symbolically connected, and whose sign was engraved thereon. And, as Dr T. WITTON DAVIES well remarks with regard to "sympathetic magic": "Even this could not, at the start, be anything other than a symbolic prayer to the spirit or spirits having authority in these matters. In so far as no spirit is thought of, it is a mere survival, and not magic at all...."(1)
(1) Dr T. WITTON DAVIES: Magic, Divination, and Demonology among the Hebrews and their Neighbours (1898), p. 17.
What I regard as the two essentials of magical practices, namely, the use of symbols and the appeal to the supernatural realm, are most obvious in what is called "ceremonial magic". Mediaeval ceremonial magic was subdivided into three chief branches—White Magic, Black Magic, and Necromancy. White magic was concerned with the evocations of angels, spiritual beings supposed to be essentially superior to mankind, concerning which I shall give some further details later—and the spirits of the elements,—which were, as I have mentioned in "Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," personifications of the primeval forces of Nature. As there were supposed to be four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, so there were supposed to be four classes of elementals or spirits of the elements, namely, Salamanders, Sylphs, Undines, and Gnomes, inhabiting these elements respectively, and deriving their characters therefrom. Concerning these curious beings, the inquisitive reader may gain some information from a quaint little book, by the Abbe de MONTFAUCON DE VILLARS, entitled The Count of Gabalis, or Conferences about Secret Sciences (1670), translated into English and published in 1680, which has recently been reprinted. The elementals, we learn therefrom, were, unlike other supernatural beings, thought to be mortal. They could, however, be rendered immortal by means of sexual intercourse with men or women, as the case might be; and it was, we are told, to the noble end of endowing them with this great gift, that the sages devoted themselves.