At this the Duke looked significantly at the magister, who immediately advanced, and began to explain the opus magicum et theurgicum to the maiden, as follows:—
"You know, fair young virgin, that our Saviour saith of the innocent children, 'Their angels always see the face of My Father which is in heaven' (Matt xviii.). Item/, St. Paul (Heb. i.): 'Are not the angels ministering spirits, sent forth for the service of those who are heirs of salvation?' This is no new doctrine, but one as old as the world. For you know, further, that Adam, Noah, the holy patriarchs, the prophets, &c., talked with angels, because their faith was great. Item, you know that, even in the New Testament, angels were stated to have appeared and talked with men; but later still, during the papal times even, the angels of God appeared to divers persons, as was well known, and of their own free will. For they did not always appear of free will; and therefore, from the beginning, conjurations were employed to compel/ them, and fragments of these have come down to us ex traditione, as we magistri say, from the time of Shem, the son of Noah, who revealed them to his son Misraim; and so, from son to son, they have reached to our day, and are still powerful."
"But," spake Diliana, "is it then possible for man to compel angels?"
Ille.-"Yes, by three different modes; first, through the word, or the intellectual vinculum; secondly, through the heavenly bodies, or the astral vinculum; lastly, through the earthly creatures, or the elementary vinculum.
"Respecting first the word, you know that all things were made by it, and without it was nothing made that is made. With God the Lord, therefore, word and thing are one and the same; for when He speaks it is done; He commands, and it stands there. Also, with our father, Adam, was the word all-powerful; for he ruled over all beasts of the field, and birds, and creeping things by the name which he gave unto them, that is, by the word (Gen. ii.). This power, too, the word of Noah possessed, and by it he drew the beasts into the ark (Gen. vii.); for we do not read that he drave them, which would be necessary now, but they went into the ark after him, two and two, i.e., compelled by the power of his word. " Next follows the astral vinculum, i.e., the sympathy between us and those heavenly bodies or stars wherein the angels dwell or rule. We must know their divers aspects, configurations, risings, settings, and the like, also the precise time, hour, and minute in which they exercise an influence over angel, man, and lower creatures, according as the ancients, and particularly the Chaldeans have taught us; for spirit cannot influence spirit at every moment, but only at particular times and under particular circumstances.
"Lastly comes the elementary vinculum, or the sympathy which binds all earthly creatures together—men, animals, plants, stones, vapours and exhalations, &c., but above all, this cementing sympathy is strongest in pure virgins, as you, much-praised Diliana——"
Hereupon she spake surprised: "How can all this be? Is it not folly to suppose that the blessed angels could be compelled by influences from plants and stones?"
"It is no folly, dear maiden, but a great and profound truth, which I will demonstrate to you briefly. Everything throughout the universe is effected by two opposing forces, attraction or sympathy, repulsion or antipathy. All things in heaven as well as upon earth act on each other by means of these two forces."
"And as all within, above, beneath, in the heaven and on the earth, are types insensibly repeated of one grand archetype, so we find that the sun himself is a magnet, and by his different poles repels or attracts the planets, and amongst them our earth; in winter he repels her, and she moves darkly and mournfully along; in spring he begins to draw her towards him, and she comes joyfully, amidst songs of the holy angels, out of night and darkness, like a bride into the arms of her beloved. And though no ear upon earth can mark this song, yet the sympathies of each creature are attracted and excited thereby, and man, beast, bird, fish, tree, flower, grass, stones, all exhale forth their subtlest, most spiritual, sweetest life to blend with the holy singers.
"O maiden, maiden, this is no folly! Truly might we say that each thing feels, for each thing loves and hates—the animate as the inanimate, the earthly as the heavenly, the visible as the invisible. For what is love but attraction or sympathy towards some object, whereby we desire to blend with it? And what is hate but repulsion or antipathy, whereby we are forced to fly or recoil from it?