THE HERMETIC SCIENCE

INTRODUCTION TO THE FRENCH EDITION

Giuliano Kremmerz, whose real name was Ciro

Formisano, was born at Portici near Naples on 8th
April 1861.

He studied for his doctorate in library studies at the

University of Naples and was named professor at
Alvito.

In 1896, he organised an Hermetic Fraternity called

the Magic and Therapeutic Brotherhood of Myriam,
with the initials "Fr. + T+M/di Myr.", charged with
propagating the "Isaiatic Magic" and practising
healing at a distance.

Kremmerz occupied himself particularly with difficult

medical cures and had much success. From 1896 to
1899, the fundamental work of the Master was
published in Naples in parts as "The Secret World -
Advice on the Science of Magic," which ran into
several editions. He was also the author of numerous
other important writings on Hermeticism, collected
together in the Italian edition of "The Complete
Works."
The Master stayed for a considerable time on the Cote
d'Azur and particularly at Beausoleil. He met his
followers again in Monaco. He had no need to work
because he won enough in the Casino every day to live
on.

He died in 1930. His corporeal body reposes in the

cemetery at Beausoleil.

Up till now, nothing serious has been published on the

Brotherhood of Myriam; in fact, this organisation has
never favoured exposure and has never sought contact
with the public. Its rituals, unlike those of the Golden
Dawn, which never had any association with Myriam,
have never been published. Those which have been
attributed to the Brotherhood in certain vulgar writings
are fanciful and stem from the mental aberration which
reigns in a world which only lives for sensations.

In reality, the external appeal of the Brotherhood of

Myriam is above all aid to the sick; the cures are
effected at a distance by an invocatory ritual. On the
other hand, the Brotherhood proposes to give to the
Brethren the means of initiatic realisation in the line of
the Hermetic Tradition.

The book "Introduction to the Hermetic Science,"

which we present to the public, is what we call "an
instruction manual," that is to say a collection of the
Master's writings edited by a group of aspirants who
continue his teachings. This volume, composed
primarily of extracts from "The Secret World," has
been finished after 60 years as an expression of the
work of synthesis accomplished by a group of students
2
from Rome, who worked in association with the
Universal Publishing House of Rome, which
published the first edition of "The Complete Works."

This book was prepared to supply a useful

introduction to the teachings of Kremmerz and
provides a practical working instrument for those
studying his work for the first time. This entirely
instructional aim explains its character. It has no
philological preoccupations, which would have
imposed the need to quote continually references from
the original texts.

It has been chosen as the first work by Kremmerz in

the French language, with the aim of furnishing an
outline of the author's ideas.

We hope also that it will be followed by a series, if

possible complete, of the writings of this great
hermeticist.

Jean-Pierre Guidelli de Cressac Bachelerie

President of the Giuliano Kremmerz Academy

[The French Section of the Brotherhood of Myriam].

3
 PREFACE

There exists, and always has existed, an initiatic secret

which can give man the key to his essence, rend the
veil of his occult Being and unveil to him the science
of True Evolution.

In possession of such a secret, man goes beyond the

natural limits of his existence and in relation to the
vulgar men of his own era [intellectual or not], he
can appear as a demigod.

This secret has always been jealously guarded by the

ancient Theosophers, above all because "it’s discovery
must flatter infinitely him who has made it and at the
same time convince him it was beyond doubt that
God, although not having conveyed this knowledge to
all men, did want it divulged. And when from time to
time it arrived in the profane and amorphous crowd, a
vast and wise spirit would gush forth. The priest
would then invite the possessor of that spirit into the
Temple and after having conducted him through his
initiation would retain him as a member of the proper
Sacred College."

One must recognise that the initiatic secret is implicit

in the practice also of the ascension, of which human
language is inadequate to convey the full meaning and
which, in wishing to avail oneself of a common
vocabulary, one ran the risk, in trying to translate its
importance, of betraying it. Moreover, the initiatic
4
secret resting on cases not completely verified by
accepted science, could be easily attacked by profane
logic and also open the door to verbal exercises in
casuistry, which discuss everything but do not consent
to submit to the sieve of practice, particularly if this
practice requires a profound commitment of
conscience and several years of patient apprenticeship.

They have some degree of reason, for today humanity

no longer has the time at its disposal to think for itself;
on the contrary, it is so forgetful of itself that, profiting
from such a forgetful insensitivity, some active and
predisposed men can conduct humanity towards its
end. And they conduct it with the resulting
catastrophes which everyone can see.

Yet the moment has arrived to restore humanity to

itself, by knowing its own strength, by using its own
enlightened free will and by opposing itself to the
invasive hegemony of evil, consciously or
unconsciously spread by men or by doctrines which,
from recent experience and from premonition of what
is yet to happen, appear to us pernicious for the future
individual and collective well-being of mankind.

Whom can one ask for a similar revision of values

uniquely directed, outside all mysticism and all
preconceptions, both religious and political, to restore
the dignity of the human race?

To the religions? No! For the cults have all been torn
apart in an opaque exotericism which renders the spirit
of men dead, all the more so because they are, by other
5
means, harassed and seduced by the necessities of life
which the religions had justly for their task to temper
and extinguish in the human spirit in order to institute
the universal brotherhood.

Today the faith, completely external and superficial,

no longer possesses the power to sustain the spirit of
men in the torment of their daily lives. And, on the
other hand, in contradiction to the same postulations of
the faith, the authorities, as much religious as political,
establish in the world the most disconcerting
equilibrium of consciences, rendered still more cruel
by the rapid and unceasing march of science towards
conquests, giving rise to more doubt rather than the
certitude of the truths preached by the diverse
churches.

To whom then? To mainstream science?

But it is uninterested in the masses who love to profit

from every modern comfort, from the electric light,
from gas supply, from rapid means of transport and
from all which can relieve them - for the greater profit
of the producers - from every narrowly materialistic
demand. And yet, if science makes available generally
free instruction in the elements of knowledge and the
elective principle, complete with the frightful means of
destruction and death, science does not explain and
has not explained up till now :-

"How one must act to free oneself from the heavy

chains of slavery to the passions, for this must be
done; and in what manner - upon achieving this
liberation again - one can use that freedom for the
6
benefit of those with less foresight and of the imperfect
masses as well as for the welfare and peace of human
society."

We could at this point continue for a long time to

demonstrate how the unique source of spiritual and
material freedom is initiation and, thus, magic.

The reader, however, should not be frightened of this

word; it is not about tricks or sleight of hand nor all the
"quackery" which is often understood by the term
"magic."

MAGIC IS THE SCIENCE OF SCIENCES

Magic is an integral human science, i.e. it completes

the total man, teaching him the technique and practice
to enable him to return to his ancestral origin and to
anticipate his final destination, in a manner which can
discern his real living unity, so that he can truly say "I
was - I am - I shall be" and can resolve the Riddle of
the Sphinx - "Know thyself" without which he exists
with a blindfold over his eyes. Moreover, if the blind
lead the blind, they will all fall into the ditch.

As humanity has already sometimes fallen into the

ditch and has suffered many ills in pulling itself out
again, it is well today to identify the wiser members of
mankind [and they are numerous] definitively and in a
dramatic manner, so that man will not fall back again.

To explain now the sense of the concepts unveiled in

the work of Kremmerz and to invite aspirants to
7
practise afterwards, with uncertain personal initiative,
in a field still obscure in experience and study would
be vain or very harmful to the point of discouraging
their efforts and would create inexpert people in place
of those who understand.

But those who strive to understand correctly the

thought of Kremmerz - the greatest of the masters who
have appeared on the scene to reveal and propagate
magic - those who are convinced of the possibility of
their regeneration through science and integral practice
and who strive to continue as far as the complete
knowledge of the theory and practice will only have to
address themselves to the same editor. They will then
be directed towards the source of the Arcane for the
redemption of their souls and for commitment to the
ceaseless practice of well-doing "for the public good."
LEHAHIAH

8
 INTRODUCTION

It was thought useful to precede with a few

introductory notes this organised collection of the
writings of Giuliano Kremmerz, compiled by a group
of seekers in the domain of Hermeticism, with the
object of affording the reader a synthesis of the vast
and complex teachings of the author.

In parallel with the increasing diffusion of scientific

knowledge, numerous popular publications contribute,
beyond scholastic teaching in the proper sense,
without mentioning the incidence, always greater than
they assume, in our life of the discoveries of the
technique which constitutes a consequence and a
direct application of the discoveries of science. We
assist, with a similar emphasis, in the diffusion of
interest in every form of strange and marvellous
knowledge, accessible only with difficulty, and one
word: occult.

The reasons which permit us to explain this apparent

contradiction can be diverse. From a more superficial
point of view, even if they contain only partial truth,
the occult publications or, as one says more often
today "esoteric", which are the object of an increased
interest, can be placed in the category, as is the case
with science fiction, of what is called escapist
literature, which is considered a great accomplishment
in our modern industrialised society - derivative of the

9
monotony which can flow from a chronometric
planification of existence. In this sense, it is not
indeed by chance that diverse periodicals deal in great
measure, to meet public favour, all the time with truly
occult subjects [ancient magical practices, mystical
phenomena, etc.] and of flying saucers, the famous
UFOs, which are, on the contrary, unquestionably in
the realm of science fiction.

If one examines the matter in greater depth, however,

one should understand that the interest of
contemporary man in such subjects seems often
dictated by the need for new faiths, to replace those of
former times which, for one reason or another, no
longer satisfy him. It is to this that one can attribute,
in all probability, the diffusion of cults and beliefs,
more or less institutionalised, of diverse value and
content, which range from the cult of the
extraterrestrials - magical paroxysm of what is called
ufology - to the diverse mystical temples, orientalised
or not, certain of which one must however recognise
as offering to their members, at least at the outset, a
method of arriving at a verification, by experience, of
the content of the diverse articles of faith.

The act of familiarising oneself with a clear

scientific approach has certainly led, in the long run,
the more mature and aware individuals to the
inescapable position of considering as sure and
acquired through direct experience, what was
previously only known in limpid fashion. This
experience, which was at first addressed solely to
the phenomena of the physical world, has often
ended by imposing itself on realities which are
10
generally considered to belong exclusively to
religion and which believers are asked to accept as
articles of faith.

One notable indication of the changing attitude to

supersensible realities is the birth of
Parapsychology, which sets out to observe, record
and interpret, by using a rigorously scientific
method, the diverse paranormal phenomena
[telepathy, telekinesis, etc.]. It is, however, only
from a limited point of view that Parapsychology
approaches the problem, as the seeker, in this
discipline, remains exterior to the phenomenon,
confining himself to observing what he can thus
discover about the paragnostic or sensible subject,
which is the object of the experience, thereby
deriving from the occurrence only an indirect or
mediate knowledge.

The principles and methods of Parapsychology

cannot therefore satisfy those more earnest seekers
who desire to arrive, by directly experimenting
themselves, and with an equal clarity to that which
applies to the verification of a chemical
phenomenon in the laboratory, at these supposedly
supersensible realities put forward as articles of faith
by the religions.

With regard to this matter, it must be stressed that if

one has understood this situation clearly, one has
also perceived that it leads to another, in the guise of
a corollary, flowing from the following simple
deduction: if the seeker, at the level of spiritual
11
development at which he finds himself, has no direct
perception of the realities which he wishes to know,
he needs to transform his spiritual state in a way
which will make possible that perception, which was
previously barred to him. This is like using a more
sensitive receiver to capture more sensitive
vibrations.

We thus see reappearing, by the application of

scientific logic, the old precept of purification or
catharsis, the indispensable instrument for arriving
at the knowledge of supersensible things.

The teaching of Giuliano Kremmerz responds to the

two requirements for conscious and committed
research: a system of doctrines and of intelligent
practices, which lead those who are qualified for
such studies to a direct experience of their contents.
Moreover, this assertion formulated here is
submitted within the framework of a similar
instruction for personal verification by the disciple.

Having arrived at this point, however, it is an

opportune moment to dispel some possible illusions
which could, if they are not destroyed, lead in time
to bitter disillusionment.

From the scientific character claimed by

hermeticism, one could be led to suppose that one is
speaking of a current discipline, able to be learnt by
the simple application normally required to master
any other branch of Knowledge. It must, however,
be realised that if the invisible world is governed by
precise laws, just like the physical world, it is run by
12
laws which are qualitatively different, which can be
assimilated to the physical laws only by virtue of a
comparable affinity. Such laws, however, can be
understood and applied only after an active cathartic
engagement which pledges the entire being of the
aspirant, which, moreover, must already be, at the
outset, endowed with a particularly clear and
penetrating intellect.

The reader himself, however, will establish, from the

opening pages, the truth of what we affirm, by
making contact with the difficult subject dealt with
by Kremmerz, in whom one must in any event
recognise merit in having accomplished the most
considerable task of clarifying and bringing the
subject to a wider audience than ever before
attempted in this sphere of knowledge.

Being formulated by Kremmerz, the master of this

high knowledge at the end of the last century, he
knew how to achieve, whilst serving the ideas and
concepts of his era, the translation, into modern and
discursive and didactic language as far as possible,
the synthetic and abstruse foundations of
hermeticism, this collection of intellectual ideas
which has its roots in the ancient cultures of the
eastern Mediterranean world and which reached the
author by direct instruction, never interrupted
through the course of the centuries.

Nevertheless, all effort to clarify and explain such

subjects, as well as that accomplished by the author,
reach a limit in depth, because these subjects open
13
one's mind broadly on to horizons which are truly
infinite in perspectives and do not lend themselves
to becoming the object of a closed and completed
verbal formulation. There are truths which the
aspirant must master for himself, in creating, as it
were, the necessary organs for their perception and,
in fact, the language which one uses to speak of
them must of necessity use symbols, by comparison
and allusion.

As an example of the intrinsic difficulty there is in

dealing with certain occult truths, it suffices to think
of what one would encounter if one tried to explain
the idea of colour to a man blind from birth. One
can be certain, however, that Kremmerz has
neglected nothing which one could express in
everyday language, in placing at the disposal of the
aspirant the profound depths of his knowledge and
in facilitating for him, to the maximum extent, the
intuition of hermetic truths necessary for his
evolution.

Naturally, the tastes, interest and the mentality itself

of the modern reader have changed from those of the
public addressed by Kremmerz, for the scientific
knowledge which we possess now is enormously
enriched and, due to this fact, certain aspects of
Kremmerz's language are from an epoch which is no
longer ours. But the shrewd reader, capable of
distinguishing what is essential from what is
peripheral, will easily perceive that, on the one hand,
none of his pronouncements is opposed to our
scientific discoveries whilst, on the other hand, his
work of clarification and explanation keep intact,
14
even today, its substantial value which makes it,
henceforth, a "classic" in its field, without in any
way barring the way to other concepts which may
eventually become possible.

Those who have compiled the present collection

hope that it will serve, even within the limits
necessarily inherent in a synthetic account, to
furnish to the reader a useful approach to many of
the essential themes from the vast learning of
Kremmerz of which the C.E.U.R. is the legitimate
holder, in both its theoretical and practical aspects.
If then the present collection serves as a useful
introduction for those, especially younger people,
who approach these difficult studies, leading them to
knowledge which (quite contrary to what unhappily
often occurs) neither constitutes a false promise nor
a fleeting mirage, then the objective has been
achieved.

15
THE CALL TO THOSE WHO ASPIRE
TO THE LIGHT (1)
Although experimental science, by gradual conquest
of the secrets of nature has made much progress in
the last 50 years, the knowledge of the divine
properties of the soul has, on the other hand, failed
to move forward.

Today as ever, in the light of the sun, there are,

according to the ordinary aspirants to the knowledge
of the mysteries of the future, only two types of
person: the mystics and the false teachers who
profess theories which are not within the reach of
every mind.

The mystics are legion: from the religious

exaggeration of those who speak to God, to the
Saints, to the Prophets and to the Archangels, one
descends to the evocation of the spirits of the dead.

The pseudo-teachers are in reality those who seek,

by the methods of ordinary experimental science, to
speak in a doctrinaire manner of that quality which
all possess but none can explain: the human soul,
rich in unfathomable properties and mysteries.

The mystics speak by psychic exaltation and fail

under the examination of sceptical psychoanalysts -
who are themselves mystics of an infantile science -
who classify them like the relevant subjects of the
16
psychiatric asylum and like the instruments of
experience destined for a public which does not
argue with the affirmations of those who pass for the
gurus of officially recognized science.

By their attempts to play with language, magnetism

has become for them hypnotism; the human spirit,
that is to say the thinking and volitional principle of
our being, has become the psyche and, under this
name, the official subject of medical experiments.
But how many of those, who have a clear
conscience, fail to confess, in this fight against the
conquest of the arcane knowledge, that they always
hope for, without ever arriving at, positive
conclusions? And yet the problem of the soul is
always that which excites the masses most eagerly.

Everyone wants knowledge and all desire ardently to

know what awaits man after his death.

The mystery of death is the limit at which the

investigations of human science are halted as one
conceives it in the clinics and universities, but it is
also the limit which hermeticists must take as the
starting point in order to determine, if possible, with
what fragility of material the thinking ego can be
extracted from the necessities of the corporeal
functions.

If the skeleton is still solid, if the flesh is still young,

the cells living, the tissues of veins elastic, what
need is there to pass by the tomb and its
"reconstitution."
17
Thou, O Death, art the solution of this spiritual
enigma in the living man and in the hidden depths of
his unknown soul.

The initiate must vanquish Death, rising above the

slavery of its inexorable law. The initiate is posed
the sole problem of how to continue his
consciousness, that it may rise above the river of
forgetfulness, the Lethe, so as to continue without
interrupting his dream of his integration with the
divine powers.

Experimental science has no answer to this problem

and, in the absence of proofs retained by it, is
content to deny all survival of the soul or the psychic
individuality of man.

It is that which drives one to open the door to

religion and mysticism. Since religion and
mysticism supply what the science of the
universities does not (the hope of a free survival,
between the concepts of superhuman justice and
ideal freedom) it is desirable that one word should
unveil the truth.

But the problem of the other world will only be

resolved by those who arrive at a knowledge of
themselves, that is to say the structure, anatomy and
"chemistry" of their own souls.

I do not intend to allude here to the investigations of

so many authors who, through their books and
18
papers, have produced volumes of long-winded
psychology in order to examine the instinct which
predominates in us, the moral virtues and the
manner in which they are acquired. These
investigations are only preliminary researches and
none of this host of writers truly pursues the goal of
envisaging the soul, by itself, but only examines it
by affinity with the society in which the writer lives,
and with the pretended morality of the society of the
living, considered as a condition of success in social
life.

The science of chemical astronomy has brought us

the great benefit of the repudiation of all the shabby
ideas of a Universal God, made in the image and
resemblance of man which statues, paintings and
symbols have rooted in popular tradition. The
infinite Universe, inaccessible even by means of
scientific investigation, cannot be represented, even
symbolically, as an immense human being, since
man is the product of Earth, and the Earth is only an
infinitesmal part of the infinite Universe.

The unique scientific concept of God is this: the law

which rules the Universe in the most perfect
equilibrium.

This law is infinite, it is constant and eternal,

everywhere on the earth, in intelligent thought,
outside the terrestrial orbit, in the gravitation of the
visible worlds, in the moral translation of the
regrouped souls in society.

19
This law is perfect since it permits no violation; thus
a miracle is impossible, if it violates that law, and it
is only possible in appearance if it is the product of
the law itself, for reasons from elsewhere ignored by
man.

This law is intelligent because it gives and takes

according to merit, concedes and suppresses with a
justice of which man is incapable.

For us, there only exists the Universe, with an

inexorable Law, with an Order from which nothing
can be subtracted. If you wish to represent this
intelligent and inexorable Law by a human figure, I
beg you not to create an idol as the Supreme Deity.

The Universe is too immense to be embraced by a

word and a human figure. When the ancient
patriarchs of the biblical fable spoke of the
inexorable figure of Jehovah, who verged on the
cruel and was ever capricious, they wished to refer
to this Universal Law which rules and creates all
that exists, whose spirit is the Being in its essence, to
know the unchanging first substance and the second
and variable form.

This immutable law is also understood as being the

appearance of the first intelligent universal
substance which created all forms of things visible
and invisible.

20
The ancient priests of the classical initiatory
religions never used definite forms to represent the
first principle or the intelligent substance but, on the
contrary, they always abounded in plastic forms
when they wished to define the different moments of
the creative act, or better still, the incarnation of the
Universal God.

The greatest concept that a zoologist, physiologist or

botanist can make concerning God is to
acknowledge Nature as an unique and sole divinity
which one can debate and study. Now, all the
symbols and hieroglyphs of the ancient sages tell us
only this:

Ea has two faces: one visible which represents its

manifestations in the world of the physical senses,
i.e. the Nature of our modern materialist
philosophers, and the other invisible, which
represents the spirit of Nature, i.e. the Intelligence,
the law of all manifestation of Nature, a Force, an
immense Spirit, which makes the tree flourish, the
water transparent, toughens metal and causes the sun
to shine.

The invisible God of the Universe, whose

manifestations are themselves only the positive
proofs of his existence, is the intelligence which
rules all the manifestations, the law which regulates
universal nature.

21
The conquest of the powers is only the right to
obtain them through this law.

An athlete who exercises himself every day by

lifting iron weights has a right of priority over every
lazy man. A chemist who labours intelligently to
examine the substance of nature has a right of
priority over those who, throughout their lives, have
never asked of what air is composed. You will not
succeed, despite a thousand efforts, in straightening
a sword but an expert blacksmith, with an energy
inferior to yours, will make the iron obey.

This is the right to the power.

A conquest within the universal law, not outside it.

He who does not understand that is only a madman,

because he conceives the power without the
conquest.

Is this strictly scientific and philosophical concept

truly a modern achievement?

No one has been profoundly consecrated to the study

of the very ancient priestly sciences otherwise than
by symbols and hieroglyphs which have transmitted
to us their profane secrets, and the Assyro-
Babylonian and Egyptian religions had no other
concept of God other than as the Law. The secret,
the great secret of the priests, was the knowledge of
the laws of the human soul, by which they managed
to acquire marvellous powers which seemed to be
fables but which, in fact, are not.
22
Telepathy, the experiences of levitation, the
accidental divination of things to come by means of
dreams, the premonitions of things which are about
to be produced, all that attracts the attention of
recognised science, but with incomplete results,
because the scientist studies the phenomenon when
it presents itself, just as primitive people know the
eclipses of the sun and the moon: one verifies the
obscuring of the sun or moon but one cannot explain
it. On the other hand, when one stirs the intelligent
human conscience, one must arrive at:

1> An explanation of the phenomena (mediumship,

telepathy, visions,

premonitions).

2> An ability to produce the phenomena at will.

In order that this knowledge of the soul becomes

truly and strictly scientific, one must study the laws
which govern and condition it to produce these
phenomena.

The subjective method of conscious investigation

into the very Ego (in such a way as to develop the
intensity and then gather the fruits) represents
always and constantly the preferable method for
those who ardently desire to know, to understand, to
progress.

23
The goal of integration, that is man himself.

Never lose sight of this.

Each of your experiences must be made on the man,

not on any man, but on you yourself; besides, it is
necessary to be conscious of each step forward and
to know exactly the most suitable means of
provoking an experienced state which is outside that
generally experienced.

II
There exists a Secret World which men see
imperfectly, of which they suspect the existence, of
which they detect the manifestations, but which they
cannot explain.

To study it, it is necessary:

1> To study individually the secret man who is

concealed within us;

2> To study the invisible world of the souls of the

dead, of divinities, and of beings who have never
formed part of the human race and who live a
different existence.

The Secret World will be a labour of gnosis,

reconstructing the mysterious science of the magi,
and will be dedicated to those who aspire to the
24
"light," that is to say to those who, well-balanced in
their passions, exempt from all desire to do harm,
strong in willpower and the desire to do good, apply
themselves to its study and observation in order to
succeed.

The elementary parts which serve to correct

erroneous or badly-founded ideas, will be written
and published in a manner accessible to all; as for
the remainder, I shall speak of them in a way which
reserves the knowledge only to that moral and
mental aristocracy which has the right to ascend
further.

I only promise that I will hide nothing, and the great

Arcane will be revealed to you, so that the
candidates for the great priesthood find there the
confirmation of their aspirations.

The long-winded philosophers and sages, with their

capacity for limited research, must make way for a
school of rational culture, which will point out the
road to the masses so that this school marks the limit
at which the philosopher must be united with the
sage and go forth to conquer truth pro salute populi.

To be plain, the programme of action consists of an

effort to improve ourselves, us and others, in the
knowledge of the individuality latent within us, to
apply these conquests to real life, for the benefit of
the less well-provided, combating evil under no
matter what form of ignorance and authoritarianism.

25
The initiatic priestly systems prepared and fashioned
the etheric human stones; the automatic formation of
human intelligence. The school attempts to do this
today. The integration of the powers is subordinated
to the state of consciousness which aspires to the
power of a real and profound understanding.

When the religions proclaim that such qualities and

supernatural powers proceed from a grace conceded
by an unknown God, the School studies
scientifically the laws which regulate such
phenomena, laws well known to certain particular
priests, the founders of religions. The school
encourages the virtuous forces of the living
organism in provoking, through traditional practices,
the individual access, by study of the psycho-
physical powers, for the development of the integral
individual and directing usefully the therapeutic
application to alleviate the sufferings of humanity.

In fact, it is a school of practical philosophy whose

converts have but one goal: to contribute to the
development of human civilisation as it is conceived
in material form, uniting among its factors for
progress, the elements of the potentiality of the soul
and spirit of every man.

Its hermetic mission must be accomplished in the

face of ignorance and superstition, for the benefit of
the masses who must be saved by human science:
whence comes an elevated altar to the battle of
human science against ignorance. One must work
26
humbly and obscurely for the good, to inculcate
publicly and gloriously everywhere that human
science will assure in time the setting in order of all
human material, will achieve peace among nations
and will combat fear and the pain of death.

To the atheists, you will say that man is the

sovereign of humanity and that the wisdom of man
is the queen of the universe.

To the believers, you will explain that God

manifests himself in his creatures, like a tree by its
fruits.

To all, you will teach that hermetic perfection is an

admirable medicine that the Gods and the high
Divinities bring from Olympus to earth, under
human appearances, among suffering and savage
men, in order to heal their bleeding wounds and
grant them tranquillity, that Mercury distils the
essence of full-blown roses for them, that Eros gives
it to mortals as Venus, shining, smiles.

Giuliano KREMMERZ

27
TO THE DISCIPLES OF THE GREAT
ART [1]
Nice, 1st June 1917

With a sense of profound bitterness, after nearly 20

years, I write a few words of introduction to the
reading of this edition of the Elements of natural
and divine magic which the editors, who are dear to
me, have thought good enough to present to the
friends and disciples of the Great Art.

Here in 1897, I commenced writing about these

neglected subjects, with which no one concerns
themselves, to an epoch in which it is so easy to
print a book which will not find readers and, here
again, I write, 20 years afterwards. The system of
an appointed Cassandra...with no hope of being
believed.

I have not published The Secret World so that I can

say: "I am a mage", for one renounces doing such a
thing for one's own advantage, when one preaches it
to the masses.

I desired then to inaugurate, in Italy, a new period

for the intellectual life of the best of those who read
my work, by extracting them from the vain
discourses of Christian or Buddhist mysticism which
have caused deadly results in the present era, by
disgusting them with spiritualist empiricism,

28
accompanied by this folly of conversing with the
dead. I want man to understand the occult or
mysterious powers, natural in all living beings,
unconscious cause of all mystical inventions which,
over the centuries, have afflicted the human race.

I wished to point out that between the scientific

materialism and the mysticism beyond the grave,
there is an unexplored domain which transforms the
character of the inflexible exclusiveness of these two
extreme poles, and also that the science of man finds
itself in the intermediate state between life and death
which is called mag, revealer of this ignored and
very powerful force within the human nature. I wish
to try, on a grand scale, an application of the forces
to the medicine understood as the art of healing or
the relief of suffering. I wish to go further - if God
will pardon me - to raise a monument to the ancient
Italian Pythagoreanism, the origin of subsequent
Templarism, and to commence a mental and moral
reform of the virtue in its practical essence, in social
life.

I have forgotten the calendar.....

I believe humanity has advanced a great deal over

the centuries and yet, in 20 years, I have only
achieved some essays and some attempts thereat.
Nothing concrete..., save perhaps the numerous
sufferings which I have created with my own hands.

29
Now, two words of pragmatic advice which reduce
themselves to this:

May the reader understand, when he reads my book,

that I wished to indicate to seekers not the only road
by which they can reach their goal, but a route to
discover the existence of a secret, a physical secret,
i.e. natural, that very few men have known, that a
very restricted number understand. Although it may
by nature render man more powerful than a
demigod, one can find no one who will sell it and it
does not apparently make happy he who possesses
it.

The intuition of the existence of this secret suffices

to make laughable the mystical inventions which
have enslaved man through pontiffs and divine
rights, thus creating a formal and false morality,
which is the cause of the great evils of the present
time.

One day, the old world liberated from the Jewish

and Buddhist heritage, and when the aspect and
substance of every conventional element shall have
disappeared, then man, not through the veil of
scientific materialism, nor through that of the
religions which destroy every sign of initiative, will
learn to conceive the hidden divinity of the universe,
as a benevolent law of liberty, in an equilibrium of
justice which no human code could ever fault.

30
Time will be the true factor in this progress by
which every enigma will be resolved.

Volta discovered electricity, but did not invent it:

this electricity existed, ignored and inaccessible,
with its uncomprehended phenomena, for thousands
of centuries.

He who shall discover this angelic arcane of the

living man will not create societies through his
actions and he will not commercialise his discovery;
it is the Christ-King who will bring peace to all men
of goodwill. But for this the time must be right, the
great factor in every miracle: in order for this ideal
to become reality and, before it does, the discoverer
shall not place on his head the legendary crown of
Solomon, as it is necessary that the masses submit to
the hard experience of the life of other centuries.

You cannot believe this Cassandra but you shall

believe him in the end.

Do not come to the conclusion that, after 20 years, I

live in a state of ambiguity; I will go further and say:
take the initiations for what they are. Two or three
societies of seekers, who are supposed to possess
this arcane knowledge, only give initiation to
neophytes.

To initiate means to begin.

Initium, commencement.

31
No one conveys the end.

The arcane knowledge is of such a nature that the

more one glimpses of it near at hand, the less one
can communicate it. One can confer it within the
limits of certain powers, but one can never pass it on
entirely. And for what good, moreover?

Would it be the arcane knowledge of happiness, if it

is the great arcane knowledge of a power which
brings fear to him who glimpses it?

But it will not be thus when Time, the great creator

of new realities, shall have fixed the hour at which
the discovery must be made with profit by a proved
humanity, and if this violates the law, although it be
fed by good, it will then be the end of an historical
era, through one of those cosmic revolutions from
which will arise the future humanity to expiate the
error by a new original sin....for then the earth will
burst into fragments, in space and in orbit, and the
souls, in embryonic dust, will be drawn towards new
lives in distant spheres. Does not every race,
whatever may be its colour, belong to human
civilisations which have lived and then ended their
cycle? Extinguished, for all we know, in a
collective suicide for having disobeyed the law of
equilibrium, on which rests, inexorable, the phallic
divinity of eternity!

I speak as a mystical St.John the Baptist at Herod's

feast, but these are only hypotheses without curses
and without the Jewish croaking about the
Apocalypse.
32
Drink of this water to avoid the intoxications of
mysticism. The service of the hidden faculties of the
human species engenders folly, pride and
intellectual egocentricity; consider that deceptions
will arise at every turn, before those who presume
by themselves, considering themselves as
exceptional beings, or as having the right to divinity.

Be modest, humble without baseness, Pythagoreans

in the spirit of investigation and in everyday life; I
invite you to the seductive study of the superlative.
To study is to meditate and work, to interpret and
test, it is not to dream. It is in the imagination where
the danger of phantasm resides, also of obsession
and bestiality.

Read the very rare classics of alchemy.

Meditate.

Alchemy and magic are two things which have fallen

into disrepute.

Those two words are despised and the matters of

which they recover the doctrine and the germs of
experience: the truths which one can acquire are
only very elevated problems, worthy of
preoccupying evolved spirits and totally freed from
the grammatical prejudices of the profane schools.

33
The alchemists have posed a problem which is still
not resolved by the official universities. The heads
of the school of alchemy wait in obscurity in order
that their desire to please with which they frequently
announce their mysterious preparations may
engender the superman who knows how to adapt the
enigma for the common good and reforms it into the
living being.

Read these books with patience, penetrate the

philological sense of certain words, in other words
perceive the assonances, in others the most simple
analogy, and do not forget that in the less salient
parts, among the examples derived from good souls,
some master of the art has presented to you a ready
made gem of knowledge. Remember that before the
Grand Arcane of the Magi there existed the little
natural arcane, which is the key to it, of which even
a lay brother could make use with ease.

The patient, humble and well-intentioned men will

find the way. In the end they will find the key.

In this task, this book, ignored by the great multitude

of graduates, will be a useful work as a step along
the way.

I wrote it with great enthusiasm, because I was

conscious of sowing a seed which will ultimately
bear fruit: I believed that would happen very soon,
but this will now be later, when another man, better
than I, shall succeed me. And I also wrote it because
I wished to test its immediate application to human
medicine.
34
By Medicine, I mean the art of caring, of healing, of
alleviating the sufferings of mankind. Medicine in
the sense of therapeutic. I have spent the last 20
years, between the first publication of this book and
this second edition in trying to get underway a
disinterested human organisation capable of trying a
collective experiment. I have not yet succeeded... I
imagine that it must succeed later. The aeroplane
had not been invented those twenty years ago. The
obstacles are immense. The education of the public
comes before everything. The mistrust from cause
to effect of those who pontificate, the sarcasm of the
high functionary of State who would like to
bureaucratise everything in a closed system, the bad
religious faith of the believers and practitioners, are
the stumbling-blocks which cannot be demolished in
a day.

It is for these reasons that most people pretend that

what they see is a miracle. But even if the miracle
were to occur right in front of their eyes, they would
not recognise it. And the reason for this is because
they wish to see it as they themselves and the
religious fables have conceived it, just like the
scenic effects in certain ballets. And in the
meantime, much has already been made, much ado
about little, about the enormity of the obstacles
placed in the way of new ideas and experiments
foreign to the ordinary concept of a peaceful life.

35
The sciences of the human spirit penetrate into the
confused subdivision of the numerous ramifications
of the science of the physical man.

Biology and physiology are the vanguard of it,

psychic experiences are the element of progress.
But the problem which it is proposed that magical
science and the enigma of alchemy should resolve,
is a secret reformer and transformer of a whole
civilisation or of a pretended historical civilisation,
which renders us actually slaves of the corollary of
long-winded philosophy. It is a revolutionary arcane
knowledge which from the time one approaches it,
frightens, because its applications and adaptations
will overthrow all these "perfect" ideas on which
modern society rests.

But the first, unique part, perhaps, for possible

experimentation, for application to modern society is
that of the occult therapeutics, towards which I have
engaged the diverse good friends who have followed
me.

There are possible experiments, at the gateway to

everything, to be performed by qualified doctors and
men who know the a.b.c. of the human anatomy;
they can, in studying the laws, whose elements I
have identified, attempt what I have tried.
36
To test, without speaking about it.

If you are not silent, you will be asked, like me, if

you sell imaginary power, since people who do not
reflect do not deny the occult powers of superior
therapeutic science, but in refusing the possibility to
the being, when they attribute them with an
admirable compunction to an image painted many
centuries ago on a decrepit wall, or to an unpleasant
statue sculpted from a sterile tree-trunk, without
seeing that the miracles of the images are the
miracles of the man or the masses who adore them!

The reply I so often receive is that this is Faith, the

great inheritance of the religious spirit, which can do
anything.

This is a prejudice.

Mysticism is a vicious heritage.

37
There exist numerous categories of it and it
multiplies like an evil weed. There is a mysticism in
all the manifestations of human life, even by the
family fireside.

The man who can pretend not to be trapped by the

quagmire is a god among the most perfect. Magic is
divine in the sense that it frees the adept from all
mysticism and makes him the centre of a magnetism
of love whose rays cause to disappear, to be
annihilated, drowned and dispersed all evil pain and
suffering.

When this centre of focalisation appears,

therapeutics are formed. It is the outpouring of love
which heals and it is a medicine which you will not
find for sale at any pharmacist, nor which any
industrial laboratory can manufacture or distil.

Do not deduce, however, that your music lives

forbidden in the confusion of all sorts of songs.
Human society will remain the same as far as the
coming of the Christ-King in the manner of
Solomon, when love will have statues and receive
homage as in the very ancient temples; for they will
be the first to arise after the catastrophes of the
epochs where those races live who have arrived at

38
their apogee and have been destroyed for having
violated their own knowledge.

I have thereafter wanted to try a therapeutic

experiment and I invite the disciples of the Art to
follow the example I have set, the modest example
independent of a mystical belief.

The new experience will still teach more than

thousands of books could ever do.

Do not propose to consult ten recognised savants,

nor to resuscitate a person dead for 3 days, stinking,
as a result of organic decomposition.

Do not prevent an illness by asking a qualified

doctor to take care of it, nor to dispense by way of
remedy the little which he has.

Commit yourself to taking care of he who has

recourse to you, without even desiring that he
should know of it, and still less that he accord you
any recognition for it. Love doing it and have the
39
knowledge of not wanting the impossible. Console
him with a word and call upon him, at the same time
as your Love, this power of compensation which, in
human nature, holds its place as the recreator of the
vital equilibrium.

The sickness which is met with outside the law of

matter in equilibrium, has factors not determinable
through ordinary chemistry. With any medicine
other than an imponderable magnetism which
emanates from us, the sickness can return (it is even
frequently obliged to do so) by the law of physical
and psychic compensations and to accomplish the
miracle by itself. You will verify it a thousand times
without pride or desire - that must suffice. Allow
the caring doctor to be thanked and the pharmacist
to sell his poisons. That will draw no attention to
you.

Continue to study, to meditate, without belief, that is

to say beyond the belief which everyone proclaims.

The Myriam of the Therapeutics is a loving

vagueness which emanates from a centre of pulses
of unknown nature, from a human being or from a
chain of souls. The allegory is of mystical
appearance, but it has a woman's name, who was the
first and the most sublime of female magicians, a
40
receptacle, a profound treasure of Love, because...
do not cry out at the scandal before the truth I
announce... because Love is matter, like heat,
magnetism, light, electricity or radioactivity. More
powerful than all these representatives of matter in
movement, the element of Love will constitute the
essential state of movement towards the enigma of
creation and of the destruction which the multitude
of mystics personalise stupidly as a spirit and depict
more foolishly as a man. The enigma is a law.

Have as a goal the knowledge of this law, ever do

good in all possible ways. Make goodwill become
love.

Love across the marvellous remoteness of the

spheres, beyond the vision of matter which becomes
corrupt and is transformed. From these far worlds,
invoke the souls and the generating influx of the
astral current, the Great Serpent of the Jewish
Qabbalists, chase from the beloved soul all cause of
corruption and try to transform it by the destruction
of all the negative elements.

Consider that all nature in equilibrium, every animal

organism, from the smallest to the most perfect,

41
tends to die because it is born with this instinct of
the eternal transformation by the law of Love.

Love and Death are the two factors of Life. In

loving, you remove the pain of Death, beyond which
the unloved soul proves the delight of regeneration
by Love.

Dante repeats this to you with mysterious

expressions here and there and Leopardi sang it with
an aura of excellence and desire.

The secret of the regenerating Myriam you will soon

understand, from the time you learn to love.

Only then can you tell me if this book of mine has

been inspired by the most noble affection regarding
him who reads it, without judging me in advance
and with greater recognition for him who, after
having read it, becomes good, generous, uniquely
devoted to the cause of good, which must in the
future make brothers of all men, people and nations
and create on earth abiding Love and Peace.

Giuliano KREMMERZ

42
43
PART ONE

INTRODUCTION TO
THE SCIENCE OF
THE OCCULT
44
45
SCIENCE BELONGS TO HIM WHO
MASTERS IT

Why is the occult necessary today?

Today, in the shadows, there lurk frightful

delinquency, falsehood and deceit.

All that is science does not hide in a temple and does

not say I fear the light. The knowledge of all new
truth is a small ripple which stirs the ocean of the
conquests of human civilisation.

Do you know something the others do not know?

Publish a book then and explain yourself.

I have therefore decided to write so that I can make

myself understood and to instruct so that I can make
them succeed.

46
I shall speak and write in a clear manner. As for you,
in order to understand me well, you need only to
execute with a scrupulous fidelity all that I write and
speak of it as little as possible. Do not discuss in
advance such phenomena and do not say like the
ignorant: The master is mad! Say on the contrary
only that you have not understood and try again.

Science is the bread of all. One democratises

science in the same way that one teaches chemistry
to children, but men of good sense understand that
up till now neither integral calculation nor the
infinitesimal has become popular. And since the
supreme reason for occult science is the algebra of
elementary philosophy, the sublime mathematics in
its application to the reality of existing matters, you
will not reproach me for being abstruse if brains not
prepared for such calculations do not grasp these
abstractions at once.

As for me, regarding the topics whose nature allows

me to do so, I shall express myself in a down to
earth manner so that those who are less expert can
understand me easily; but before also indicating the
road to those who can see further, to allow them to
understand more elevated matters, I ask you to
excuse me when I have recourse to arguments
inaccessible to those short-sighted eyes.

47
This book is written for the numerous people who
wish to prepare themselves and for the small number
who will assimilate it completely.

Science for everyone, but given entirely to him who

conquers it.

48
THE MAGIC, THE
MAGE AND THE
UNCOMMUNICABLE
SECRET

Do you have a clear idea of what is meant by the

terms magic and mage?

Magic is the absolute wisdom. That is to say it is the

synthesis of all that was, is and shall be. It is a word
which contains all the attributes of the divine
omnipotence, if by the name of God, you refer to the
excellence of the supreme intelligence which
creates, rules and maintains the Universe.

Magic, as far as it is an ideally perfect science, is

applicable and realisable:

1. In religion [Control of collective consciousness].

2. In politics [Control of national interests].

49
3. In the family [Ethical and moral foundation of
the State]

4. In man [The enigmatic sphinx of the vulgar

learned].

The mage is he who possesses the science of God, is

the living repository of it and uses it.

This science is so powerful that he who becomes

master of the divine secret loses all desire to speak
of it; even more, those who have experienced the
goal have made it possible for themselves only to
interpret the truth under a form quasi-intelligible
even for those who have had intuition of it.

It is known that the priests of Antiquity conferred

this science in a temple on those who rendered
themselves worthy to receive and practise it, only
after long and terrible trials and it was conferred
through various degrees, accompanied by rites and
ceremonies, which the Roman Catholic Church has
preserved in the sacred orders.

From these one can deduce that those who gave

instruction in this terrible science and who knew the
50
importance of it demanded qualities not possessed
by the common man.

Imagine for a moment that your children asked you

for a loaded revolver, thinking it was an amusing
toy; would you place in their hands such a
dangerous object, without infringing the duties of a
father towards his children and of man towards
humanity? You will not place a weapon in the
hands of your children until the day you are sure that
they will use it to save their life, not to wound you
or themselves.

The Master directed the education of the profane

during his term of office and led the neophyte gently
to the priesthood. The great priest was the adept, i.e.
he who has acquired the supreme wisdom: the mage.

Christ summed up the whole of the magical

preparation by saying: “Love thy neighbour as
thyself" and "Do unto others what you would have
they would have they should do unto you."

He who observes these precepts steadfastly and

knows how to be silent is ready to begin.
51
A perfect and upright heart, a clear notion of good, a
total aversion to evil, a great love for your fellow
man, a conscience free of all stain, no other desire
other than the welfare of others, no fear of evil
which could prevent you striking it down and
making it become good: this is how the magus is
similar to the saint and is worthy of this great idea of
good, which is God.

Eliphas Levi [The Abbot Alphonse-Louis Constant]

writes:

"There exists a formidable secret, the revelation of

which has already destroyed a world, as the
religious traditions of Egypt attest, summarised
symbolically by Moses at the beginning of the Book
of Genesis. This secret constitutes the science of
good and evil and its result, if one divulged it, would
be death. Moses represents it in the aspect of a tree
situated in the centre of an Earthly paradise, near to
the tree of life and linked to it by its roots; the tree of
life which is defended by the flaming sword and by
the four forms of the Biblical sphinx, the Cherubim
of Ezekiel.

52
Yes, there exists an unique dogma, universal,
imperishable, powerful as the supreme reason,
simple as all that is great, intelligible like all which
is universal and absolutely true, and this dogma was
the father of all the others. Yes, there exists a
science which confers on man the prerogatives
which appear superhuman."

Now, if this terrible secret exists, is it not to a saint

to whom it must be confided?

53
THE UNIVERSE AND
MAN IN THE
OCCULT DOCTRINE

In order to understand properly and clearly all the

writings relating to the occult sciences, magic, etc.,
the basis of the theory and practice of magic must be
understood.

In magic, the concept of the universe, is the

synthesis of all that exists.

All that exists is one unity, synthesised from three

essential elements: matter, life and energy.

The great totality has a complete analogy in all its

parts.

If you were to go up a mountain where there were

no herbs and where there were no birds to hunt,
would you think yourself alone? You, the stones,
54
the air you breathe, the stars in the heavens, you are
at one with the entire Universe. Your human reason
is enlarged into the reason of the entire world and
you will sense the reason of the world. From this is
born astrology, which is the word or logos of the
stars.

Hermes, in the Emerald Table, says that everything

above is like that below and to know this fact
already suffices to accomplish a miracle.

Study man and you know the Universe; study the

Universe and you know man: from the Universe
descend to man and apply to him the Universal
Laws; from the man re-ascend to the Universe and
discover the Occult Laws. Man has one soul, one
thought, one tendency, one end: just like the
Universe. The Universe has one movement, one
respiration, one evolution, one cycle: just like man.
All is analogical and analogy is the magical process
par excellence. The sacred symbol which one tries
uselessly to explain by similarity is analogical;
analogical is the law of miracles and of magical
processes; study and analogy lead to the knowledge
of magic or the Wisdom of Solomon.

The vital current is unique.

55
The evolutionary and involutionary process of the
action of Universal Life is constant. This force or
vital current transforms itself by the means which
nourishes and animates it, and acquires a new form.

56
PAPUS in his METHODICAL TREATISE ON THE
OCCULT SCIENCES says:

"All is analogy; the law which rules worlds also

rules the life of the insect. To study the manner in
which cells regroup to form an organism is to study
the manner in which the Realms of Nature form the
Earth, the organism of our world; it is the method of
studying how human beings unite to form a family,
the organism of humanity."

To study the formation of a world by its organisms

is sufficient to teach the formation of a world by the
planets and of a nation by its families, or to learn at
last the constitution of the Universe from worlds and
of humanity from nations.

All is analogy: to know the secret of the cell is to

know the secret of God.

The absolute is for all. All is in all.

57
From all which precedes it, one sees that the
meaning of the term LIFE, which seems easy to
grasp at first sight, is much more general than is
normally thought.

For mankind, LIFE is the force driven by the blood

cells which go to regenerate the organs; but it is in
reality the human life and not the LIFE.

In fact, this force is only a modification of the air

which contains the life of all beings on the earth.

If one wishes, just like the majority of contemporary

savants, to see the origin of life in the terrestrial
atmosphere, one can stop there.

But the terrestrial atmosphere, like human blood,

draws its vivifying principles from a higher source,
from the Sun itself.

Thus we can ascend to the infinite; but as our

general scientific knowledge is limited to our world,
we do not go further, to discover that the power of
blood comes from the air, the strength of the air
58
from the earth, and the strength of the earth from the
Sun. Let us say that Life is the solar force
transformed.

From what I have revealed clearly arises the

analogical concept of all that is transformed into the
universal life.

Now consider man, who interests us particularly.

For some, man is matter; for others [the theologians]

he is matter and spirit. For the science of the magi,
he is the reflection of the universal life and doctrine
in his formation; the body, the plastic mediator or
astral body and the soul.

The astral body can distance itself consciously from

the physical body as in the case of the adepts or
perfect initiates; or again unconsciously and
therefore subjecting themselves to the accidental
influences of the moment [errant spirits], as is the
case with a medium of whatever kind.

59
When the physical body breaks asunder or is
shattered, the astral body takes its flight and one
dies.

If a man imposes his astral body on that of another,

he magnetises it.

Wishing to set down the basis of all that teaches

occultism through clear intelligence of all that I shall
choose to publish, I shall not enter here into the
analytical examination of the elements forming man
or in the constitution of the astral body.

SPIRITUALISM

In presenting to the public as a preliminary to what

we shall publish afterwards: new information,
definitions and opinions on the occult sciences, I did
not want to write a book of spiritualist propaganda,
but rather the contrary. I intend to present in its
synthesis all the encyclopaedia of mystical
knowledge which is composed in magic, the highest
signification of divine and human knowledge, the
key to the occult temple of nature, in which man

60
draws nearest to God in its conception and
realisation.

Modern history will commence when a new

chemistry analyses and opens up the elements of the
soul, which constitutes the universal man and will
mark the end of a long night in which man has been
ignorant of his true self.

The occult sciences understand spiritualism, as

including animal magnetism and theurgy, although
spiritualism is the sole and unique domain, after
animal magnetism which interests those who admit
neither wisdom nor truth, outside the limits of their
comprehension and authority.

A French Schoolmaster, Ripail, under the name of

Allan Kardec, was the first to develop strongly the
popularity of spiritualism, which he has spread, with
effective propaganda, wherever there are people
desirous of conversing with the soul of a deceased
person, or who take pleasure in seeing table turning.

One can say that magic, the terrible, dreadful name,

charged with suspicions, has been nearly forgotten
61
due to the progress of this phenomenon in a manner
which does not come into conflict with the timorous
consciences which are the mothers of all human
knowledge.

The luck and success of spiriualism stem from the

fact that it is more adapted to the common
intelligence and more in accord with the doctrine of
the militant Catholic Church, from the fact of its
idealistic concept of the soul, of the spirit of the
dead and of the guardian angel.

Spiritualism teaches that man is composed of three

very distinct parts:-

1> The material body

2> The spirit

3> The peri-spirit which marks the link between the

material body and the

spirit

This peri-spirit accompanies the human spirit after

the death of the material body.
62
The spirit, or human soul, tends to a ceaseless
process of perfection by continual reincarnations.

Between two successive incarnations, the souls are

situated in interplanetary space and can
communicate with the living. The medium or means
is he who serves as a means of communication
between the spirit of the dead, still not reincarnated,
and the living. Through mediums, the spirits can
produce permanent phenomena of all kind,
intellectual, sensible and material.

In essence, the medium is a being who, by his

privileged constitution, is chosen by the spirits for
their manifestations.

Those who practise the spiritualism of Allan Kardec

divide the mediums according to the nature and
quality of the manifestations.

Without discussing the theories of spiritualism, it

would be stupid of me not to bow before the

63
spiritual phenomena obtained through the practice of
spiritualism.

It is certain that even the best and most refractory of

the academics, when confronted with certain
tangible phenomena, has not been able to deny or
refute them totally.

Nevertheless, the fear of error, chicanery or bad faith

requires the information to be subjected to
rigorously scientific and irrefutable demonstrations.
Officially recognised science, as it progresses by
degrees in its knowledge, rejects the old names for
these forces and phenomena and baptises them with
new names.

The ectenic force of Professor Thury of Geneva

consists in a method of being and in understanding
the astral or fluid body of the occultists, just like the
psychic forces proposed by Cox.

I have therefore confined myself to speaking of

animal magnetism, after what has been said
previously, to call the attention of seekers to
hypnotism. The European savant, who makes and
unmakes fashionable science, did not want to accept
64
in the 18th century, the experiments of Mesmer and
discussed those of Potet, the puisegurs and the
others of the first half of this century, for at last,
having been triumphantly persuaded by Charcot and
his experiments with saltpetre, which gave to
militant medical science hypnotism, which is a
method of understanding animal magnetism.

The force [hypnotic, psychic, ectenic] is recognised

in man by official science, but it is not precise and
the idea has not been accepted that this force is
constantly set in motion by an intelligence residing
outside the active operating subject. In taking this
view, one recognises the potential of this force but
one excludes the mediumship. This means that one
does not accept the intervention of an intelligent
spirit or an intelligent entity which resides outside
the exclusively physical or natural forces of him
who attempts the experiment.

Let us begin by not misunderstanding occultism and

let us recognise the existence of a force within man
which is not apparent but is capable of augmenting
his potential and of passing from known experiences
to the application of laws which are far superior and
which belong to the domain of the traditional secret
science; secret for reasons unknown, but which
perhaps even those who stand out against this
terrible word would conserve if they understood
65
what enormous consequences this force can have, if
it is mastered by him who possesses the key.

Thus therefore the science of our universities, in

recognising the sole existence of a different force
from those which are known, can no longer place in
doubt this or that assertion of occultism.

To the critics of Balfour, Crookes responds that the

electro-biological force has fascinated him and his
friends but not the mechanical appliances which
recorded the phenomena.

Ah well, how can the savants swear that the force

which fascinates, and which animates the apparatus
of the experiments are not one and the same thing?
And if this were the case, would not the whole
edifice of the mechanical experimental method fall
to pieces? Would it not be worthless to implant in
these feeble brains a heinous doubt which, because it
forms part of a very high arcane of the secret
philosophy of the Magi, I would not risk formulating
for fear of doing irreparable harm.

Consider clinically the account of the facts and

experiments and judge calmly, with precision and
66
mathematical progression. Then tell me where the
experiments commenced by contemporary scientists
can lead.

All I have said so far is only a foretaste of the magic

of the fakirs [persons observing Brahmanism who
exert all their occult powers to produce phenomena.
The priests use them in the temples to make an
impression on the imagination of the faithful], the
gymnastics of the astral body, as far as body and
force are concerned, just as directing potentiality,
active by itself, can enable it to attain limits which
the majority of mankind cannot even imagine, for it
has been known for a long time by occultism that the
ancients had such knowledge and used it better than
us. The initiate schools were operational colleges;
there one achieves

more and speaks less.

We shall return, in the conclusion of this

introduction, to the theme of magic beyond the
forces in the domain of the intelligences.

* *
67
I should declare at the outset that the name chosen
by me for this work of instruction is the following:
"Introduction to the Science of the Magi," not only
because the word magic is the name more
appropriate to the synthetic science but also because
of the abuse which has been generated in the modern
world by such terms as occult, occultism and
theosophy.

I shall not discuss this abuse and I call your close

attention to the lecture on the value and importance
of Spiritualism.

True religion of souls of the dead, as far as moral

doctrine, is purely and ideally Christian, with the
exception of the concept of reincarnation; it
establishes the tripartite nature of man - a body, an
envelope or second fluidic body or peri-spirit and a
soul.

It determines the disappearance of the body at death

and the continuity of the fluidic [or astral] body
linked to the soul. It proclaims that a special
sensitivity can be developed within man, allowing to
the spirits of the dead the possibility of manifesting

68
themselves in one way or another; that is
mediumship.

That is, in a few words, the basic doctrine of the

spiritualists.

A table turns, a bell sounds, a pen materialises in the

medium's hand; these facts are indisputable.

But by what force does the table turn, the bell ring or
the pen materialise? Therein lies the enigma.

A profane observer will say: he stirs a psychic force,

a magnetic force or a radiating force or an electro-
biological force, an unconscious automatic reaction.

On the contrary, spiritualism believes that all is the

work of the spirits who wish to manifest themselves
to men.

69
The ancient occult science - the science of the Magi
- [of which one of the most terrifying parts is the
evocation of the dead, or necromancy, a domain
forbidden to neophytes] finds itself in tune with the
former against the latter. Not only can the
communication by a spirit to a living person not be
produced at will but because generally it does not
happen.

Consider yourself as a unity within the trinitary law,

just like the universe. An active mental faculty
[intelligence and spirit], and material form [the
body], an activity resulting from these factors,
proceeding from these two natures, the material and
the mental [peri-spirit]. That means as a
consequence that death does not separate the
physical body from an invisible intelligent body -
and therefore that there is not a spirit of the dead;
consequently the real evocation of the dead is not
possible, nor is their mental evocation in the sense in
which it is commonly heard.

The error of the actual propagandists of the occult

consists in their haste to deliver to the general public
the principles of the ancient sacred science,
forgetting that the science is the bread of all but that
it can only be delivered entirely to him who masters
it.

70
The masses have the religions.

Christianity, in its essence, is the religion par

excellence which the spiritualist doctrine cannot
rival [spiritualism is not so much a religion as a
heresy].

Then what does spiritualism achieve? Two things:

If it produces phenomena, it calls the attention of

profane observers to the forces latent in the human
organism, aids human progress and accomplishes its
mission in passing from the rooms of innocent
distraction to the profane universities.

If, on the contrary, it does not move chairs or ring

bells, it tends to obtain a conversation with an
invoked spirit which never gives proof of its identity.
Then it leads intelligent people to ask themselves if
there exists another means, less questionable, to
learn the truth and it thus prepares neophytes for the
science of the Magi.

71
The first mission is accomplished: without
spiritualism, one would not speak today of psychic
phenomena; but the second mission is not, for one
has difficulty in persuading someone who has taken
a fancy to conversing with the spirit of the Virgin
Mary that he is mad..

Magic, on the contrary, is the supreme science, the

highest reason for what exists and what is possible,
the law of the sublime and hidden mathematics of
the whole sentient universe and the Magus must, in
his purity as a human saint, adjust all the science and
clairvoyance of the thinking man.

On the other hand, even in the application of the

unitary doctrine, spiritualism is rudimentary.

The concept of the universe as a unity leads, in

magic, to the principle of united force and united
matter which certain intellectual superiors have
already encountered in their researches outside
magical instruction.

In this case, the Magic [which any progress of

vulgar science can never take into account without
proof] determines the numerous modes of existence
72
of the unique force, of the unique matter which
commences with metal and, from the liquid to the
gas, leads to infinite attenuations. [The basis of
Alchemy which the rare researchers think is a
rudimentary chemistry, whereas on the contrary it
acts on the philosophy of chemistry]

Spiritualism, however, admits there is an

indeterminate fluid beyond the inhabited worlds in
which move and progress numerous generations of
spirits enveloped in their peri-spirit which only
thinks of reincarnating itself.

This is not in accord with reason which is

science[Science is light and reason] nor with the
traditional dogma of the Magi, nor with religion;
therefore Spiritualism is anti-scientific, anti-
traditional and anti-religious.

Magic vulgarises on the contrary the unity of force

and matter in the vital or astral current, the great
serpent of the transformation, in which, as on an
ultra-sensitive photographic plate, the smallest
oscillation of a thought engenders a form. [Astral
light.]

73
There exists in nature a force more powerful than
the vapour. A man who masters it could change the
face of the world. This force was known to the
Ancients. It resides in a universal agent whose
supreme law is equilibrium. [Eliphas Levi]. This
agent, whose first manifestation is the magnetic
force, constitutes the prime material of the great
work of the initiates of the Middle Ages. It is the
protoplasm of the Universe, the Azoth of the
Alchemists, the universal pollen.

The peri-spirit, for the Spiritualists, accompanies the

soul of man after his death and continues to stay
with him, when for Magic, the principal divine
intelligence tends to progressive attenuation until it
identifies with God.

This is the Hindu Nirvana.

In space, where the spiritualists place the spirits of

the dead who are more or less perfect, Science puts
all fluid forms, all coagulations of fluid of the
universal life and therefore:

a> the spirits of the dead;

74
b> the astral bodies of the mediums and of errant
initiates;

c> the elemental spirits or spirits of the elements.

[The French occultists, of whom Doctor

Papus is the interpreter of doctrine, use the term
"elementary" to indicate the spirit of man after this
extreme passage and use on the contrary the word
"elementals" to indicate the instinctive beings and
mortals, who are intermediaries between the
physical and intellectual worlds; these are the spirits
or the souls of the elements capable of good and evil
according to the wish of him who directs and
dominates them.

"The astral light," Eliphas Levi tells us, "is

saturated with souls which it liberates in the
incessant generation of forms. These souls have
imperfect wills which can be dominated and used by
the more powerful wills: they form then the grand
invisible chains and can provoke great troubles in
the elements."

In the Latin forms employed by the

occultists in past centuries, as in the usage of our
initiatic instruction, in Italian, we do not use
"elementaries" to qualify the first and "elementals"
to indicate the second. An ancient and usual term is
75
the word "spirito" from the Latin spiritus, the breath
emanating from the Creator, the breath of life and
love.]

[d] the human conceptions

[e] the lemures, the larvae and all the impure and
incomplete creations.

It is a question of perfectibility or non-perfectibility

of form and force. On the contrary, the intelligent
principles which the ancient Qabbalah interprets,
continue the series of progressions of the
intelligences as far as Divine Unity.

Except that it does not suffice, and the spiritualists

wished to know how the Magus sees, how he
operates, as he enters into the astral. [Curious
lectures reveal that he who employs them is
entangled in a thousand inaccuracies of ideas, even
rudimentary ones, concerning magical practice].

Reason comes before everything. Reason is the

prime light which leads us to the truth. Then let
there be no illusions. Finally, we impose an

76
obligation of silence, without any pride and without
"casting pearls before swine."

77
IN CONCLUSION

They have a mouth and speak not

They have eyes and they see not

They have ears and hear not

They have feet and they walk not

Psalm 115

Very Dear Friends,

In this didactic introduction, I have reassembled in a

logical order the sum total of the definitions,
opinions and instructions which can best make
comprehensible all that I shall publish in this
anthology.

To recapitulate, I wished to distinguish clearly two

things which profane men confuse grossly:-

78
1> The material, pseudo intelligent phenomena
which the human organism

[soul and peri-spirit] can produce in the

conditions determined by the

nervous system; in other words, Spiritualism.

2.> The absolute universal knowledge which gives

the key to all that exists,

which tends to develop in man the divine

faculties and put him in harmony

with the divinities [which are not spirits of the

dead, nor abortions of the

terrestrial life, nor elements of the universal life,

i.e. Magic.

Following logic, Magic comprises Spiritualism,

Magnetism, Astrology, Alchemy and all the known
varieties of manifestation of the occult forces within
man and in matter. Moreover, Magic comprises,
moreover, as well, an exalted philosophy and
philosophical occult practice, leading those who
know how to understand and master it to abandon
the world of material phenomena and enter into the
world of the Divine Unity.
79
In this second part, Magic is the divine science and
knowledge and the mage who has acquired it no
longer belongs to this world of suffering and illusion
and as far as the supremely mysterious reasons allow
him to suppress the low condition of humanity.
Only his physical body belongs to the earth; his Ego,
his intelligent personality, lives in the heaven of
sublime truth, to which Dante and the Neoplatonists
of his time alluded in the symbolism of the Light,
preparing themselves, invoking and waiting to
become Gods.

80
PART TWO

ELEMENTS OF
DIVINE AND
NATURAL MAGIC

81
To the One, the most Powerful of All!

O Sun, radiant God, our Father, Thou who creates

forms and gives, by the darkness, relief to all visible
things in the stream of Thine Eternal Splendour,
illuminate with Divine Light which he, who, pure of
heart and spirit, will find in this book the laws and
practices to attain the power of the Gods; make what
he does sane and wholesome and, in relation to what
he misunderstands, give him the humility to
recognise his ignorance, so that he may have the
courage to liberate himself from the heavy
sensibility of this earthly life so that, if the voice of
the Beast does not enslave him, he will feel the
breath of Thy fertile Spirit.

O Sun, Thou who chases away the shadows of the

deepest night, of the phantoms of passion, of the
spectres of the most unbridled lust and the vain
creations of the human pride, enlighten the
ignorance of him who redeems himself from the
delights of the pleasures of temporal things, to seek
for eternal truths; make the Adorer of the Beast,
prisoner of his ignorant vanity, feel Thy divine ray
and prepare himself for the coming of Christ.

O Sun, dazzling God, pardon him who will read me

with malevolence, the intriguing or blind, priests or
82
the doctors of theology who cannot understand the
word of Thy Spirit, the intelligent worshippers of
carbolic acid, microbes and serums, the critics who
know nothing, the bigots who are afraid; may Thy
Messengers of Light, winged angels and horned
demons convert them to the intelligence of the truth
of invisible things.

But Thou, who dost hide Thy light from the blind, O
Sun, do not refuse Thy radiance and Thy providence
to him who, reading without the aid of the heart and
soul, does not wish to be converted to the truth
which alone can prove. But if this proof does not
suffice, if the tempter of the Gods stubbornly wishes
another proof without faith, be as merciful as Thou
art magnificent.

Pardon the fragility of the presumptuous. Do not

make Thy red demon burn the blood in their veins
and may their brain not boil with folly, before the
frightening and ephemeral images of the luxury of
non-existence.

Pardon, O Sun, and do not express your terrible

anger against the cunning sophists and charlatans of
human science.

83
Whilst they deny, the Cock crows and the dawn of
the light of the souls and intelligences declares itself
in the East above the compact chain of elevated
mountains which mask the City of God from the
human eye.

Whilst they turn in derision from what they do not

see, the sheep grow ready for shearing and the
turkeys grow fat for plucking. They seek money and
the paradise of suburbia; meanwhile the Cock
repeats its crowing, daybreak becomes the aurora of
the dawn, the world awakens to the light and lets the
owls, masters of the long night, devour in their lairs
the body of the great falsehood which they have
nourished in the night.

To he believes, to he who loves, to he who hopes, I

address the true meaning of my word, which is thy
law

84
PREPARATION

1.

If, after you have read the introduction in which I

have condensed to broad outlines all that has been
said and written on this problem of the incredible,
you have yourself decided to continue the lecture of
what I have promised, I now inform you that from
this moment I believe I have the right to consider
you as one of my disciples. And as a disciple, I
inform you also that, if you wish to enter into the
world to which others cannot find the door, you
must not listen to the illusions or prejudices of your
common conscience; and although the fine profane
pictures are seductive due to the variety of their
colours, prepare yourself to see around you the
illusions formed by habit vanish one by one and to
see there where the others only find dark shadows.

The aim of all the human intelligences is to arrive at

the secret of God, from where the proliferation of
the profane sciences, from astronomy to analytical
chemistry, from physics to microbiology, from
experimental physics to the physiology of the
nervous system and from the embryological sciences
85
to all the others, the infinite, which are born already
or to be born, seeming to be the last word in truth
but are only, however, gleams of light in the
blindness of the great mass of humanity which is
trying to scale Olympus.

Thus, since the world is the world, humanity is

divided into two great classes: he of the simple-
minded nature who, without knowing it, invokes the
realm prior to human malice and he of the men of
calculation who prefer the attitude of negation in
order not to be counted among the ranks of the
foolish. Faith accompanies the first; the fear of
being mistaken accompanies the second; they are the
extremes of which the due medium is represented by
the Illuminati, men who never fail in any country,
race or epoch to serve the flame in the obscurity of
the human passage, despite the idleness of beings
who, between vanity, convulsions and impotence,
will only prepare themselves to lay their bones in the
cemetery, where vanity erects memorials which
seem eternal but which, in the view of eternity, are
only a pale reflection of the light!

The seers, the illuminated ones, the initiates of every

age, have preached and still preach that if one
assents to the very sweet hope of faith like the mass
of imperfect humanity, one does not permit the
doctors who pretend to study the divine
manifestations by the same method that Galvani
86
used to treat frogs, to set themselves up as judges of
Christ. Now that which is written, for the enth time,
I inform these false sages [which the profane
doctrines have deformed], as one cannot imagine the
knowledge of Zeus as if it were a toy and an object
of human vanity.

Hermes, in his ancient magical aphorisms, the

inheritance of the perpetual and divine revelation,
teaches that in order to know the dog properly, one
must change into one. This is a mysterious
aphorism or dogma which one must interpret
literally; you will become a god, an angel, demon or
devil, if you ask the friendship of gods, angels or
devils; and to enter into communication with the
souls of the departed, you must live the life of the
dead.

In this are present all the practice and doctrine

necessary to enter into the invisible. He who does
not have the courage to abandon the illusions of the
world and to place his intellect above all the fleeting
and mistaken sensations of the material world, even
though he declares himself a strong man with a pure
heart, does not know how to master the pleasure and
the pain in human nature; the former will therefore
have to renounce the world in which the purest and
most perfect existences possess the intellect of truth.

87
The ancient priestly initiations, from the Chaldeans
to the Egyptians and up to the Templar initiations
and those of their heirs, did not accept the disciple
without him having to prove his courage and his
faith. One must read what has been written about
those who passed the ordeal of fire, resisted
sensuality and who remained firm when faced with
terrifying apparitions.

I am sure that one can succeed despite all that which

made the nightmare of the priests in former times.
There is a monster, however, which one must
conquer before knocking on the door of the occult:
this ogre which is called public opinion is
manifested in the 'cultivated' youth. One cannot fear
the monsters, the fire and the elements but because
of the social education of our era and its tendency to
corrupt, one can fear the gossip of the general
public, if one is surprised reading or practising
things considered by the ordinary man to be pure
folly.

This is the fatal moment. If one is insensible to the

fact of turned into an object of derision by the
masses, if one is strong enough to be separated from
the world, between the firm equilibrium of reason
and the raillery of the common man, then one
commences living one's own life; one begins holding
88
in check the quantitative superiority of illusion. And
one then sees that all changes, as one is touched by
one's genie and shown to the multitude as being
superior to the common nature; one sees the people
who, a short while before railed and mocked,
coming to seek advice or a recipe to avoid
catastrophe.

The unique control of the disciple's actions must be

the concern of liberty, the equilibrated judgment
which gives the intuition of the perfectibility of the
human spirit.

The brain of man is a sanctuary which reflects, in

absolute logic, all the splendour of the divine reason
when it is not disordered by the convulsions
provoked by human passions.

The Abbe Triteme gives in his "Steganography" the

prescription necessary to enter the world of the
occult: "To be adorned by the virtues, to have a
purified conscience, to desire the good for God, for
oneself and for others and not to be tempted by base
things nor to evil."

89
In the visible world, as in the invisible, the good
attracts the good. In the society of men, the
affinities of temperament, culture, education,
tendencies and passions resemble the individuals
concerned. In the invisible world, the law is
identical. At the level of intellectual synthesis, all
men are equal, as all flowers are flowers, but the
chrysanthemum is not the wild poppy and the white
lily is not a purple rose. Certain men are gods and
others are savage beasts; civilisation renders them
brothers, for the divine law wishes the redemption of
all inferior natures, which is an evolution of matter
and souls towards the Eternal Light.

Those who have the most love for their neighbour

do not approach people who are repugnant to them.

It is for this reason that all the priestly preparations,

in every age, prescribe the same recipe and that
Christianity helps the magic to work. Darmsteter in
his book "Ormazd and Ahriman" cites the Asha of
the Parsees: "The Asha so dear to Ormuzd,
characteristic, even, of the divine world. The Asha
for the Parsees is purity and comprehends three
things: good thoughts, good works and good words."

90
I call your attention to one question which must be
explained: what difference exists between religion
and magic between the Saint and the Magus?

Religion is the sum total of a sacred doctrine

adapted to the conceptions of the masses; if it has a
scientific origin, true and profound, it speaks to the
masses without the veil of divine precepts and
admonitions. It personifies divinity and expresses a
moral relative to the progress of the masses.

Magic, knowledge and doctrine of that which exists

synthesise the laws of all created things, first as the
process of creation in the order of truth and nature; it
is the key to all classic religions.

The religious man and the disciple of magic both

seek the knowledge of the divine world, the first
passively, putting into practice religious precepts,
the second actively, in trying to force the human
nature to enter into the invisible world, to discover
its laws and to make use of them as a master in order
to conquer the divine power.

The religious man can become holy.

91
The disciple in magic must become a mage or
disappear.

Holiness is a virtue of the initiate, it is not his aim.

The Magus has as his aim integration with the
divine and its superhuman virtues.

The Saint can obtain grace; the Magus must

accomplish the divine work.

The first has no need of science; the second cannot

exist without science.

A little pious brother, after a long life of privations

and prayers, is gratified to receive the stigmata
marks of the Crucified Christ; an intelligent man
must be able to explain what has caused the marks.

The little pious saint has no desires. He depends on

the grace of God and he makes himself the
instrument of it. It is this Grace which heals the

92
sick, which predicts joy and which repairs a disgrace
when it is expected to be the means of doing so.

The Mage, according to his means, must give and

accomplish, when he wills it and when he must use
his knowledge, his power and the forces at his
disposal.

Sainthood is obtained; magic is conquered.

Chargnet, in his study on Pythagorean philosophy,

expresses himself thus: "The whole rule of
Pythagorean life can be summarised in this great
maxim: to become first a man, then a God, be united
with God in a close relationship, follow and imitate
God." One does not, however, find, this solely in
Pythagoreanism. The neophyte in the primitive
Christian ritual was clothed in white as a symbol of
innocence ["candidus," from which is derived
"candidate," and the white habit has been retained
for the officiating priest; it is reduced to a surplice
for the minor orders, because the character of the
divine science is white like the lunar globe placed
under the feet of the Immaculate Virgin.

93
We do not, however, my dear disciple, read into this
symbol what the great men of today call an
indication of decadence and we return to where we
started; breaking with the commonplace, one knocks
on the door of the invisible.

Who invokes or evokes? A god, according to the

theosophers, a genie according to the Qabbalists, an
angel according to the Christian religion, or the soul
of the dead like a spirit?

The intelligent beings are divided into three

categories:-

 The Gods who are at the summit, so good

that the ordinary man can neither understand nor
perceive them.

 The messengers of these Gods, Daimons or

Angels, who are in contact with us.

 Mankind

94
"Have confidence and courage," said the
Pythagoreans, "for man belongs to the race of the
gods."

He is a king, not dispossessed but in exile, who

waits and prepares slowly his return to the throne.
He is a splendid bird, but his passion for pecking in
the dirt has caused the clay to stick to his wings.

The Pythagoreans teach:

"Purify your body and your soul. Let reason be the

sovereign and absolute guide and at the hour when
death liberates your soul from the prison of your
body, you will become a God."

In Genesis, Chapter 3, Verse 22, it is stated in

Hebrew: "Behold Adam as one who is made from us,
knowing good and evil" and Cardinal Martini
translates it, making God say: "Here is Adam who
has become one among us. He knows good and
evil." He then notes that the us refers to the divine

95
trinity, when the occult signification is that Adam
was created similar to the gods or the spirits of God.

That is why I desire that my disciple should be

capable of bringing out all his divine qualities, far
from the vermin who pontificate, incredulously and
slowly... that he should be insensible to the plaudits
or the catcalls of the scientific establishment. I want
him to be capable of perceiving the beauty of man-
divinity who aspires to a perfection, even then
because he is still a prisoner of his flesh and muscles
- perfection which is not refused to other men, but
which they refuse themselves, in order to be,
through vanity, the same as the others.

You, my disciple, by setting out from the human

flock, are approaching the gods; let the faithful
people pray in their churches, synagogues and
mosques; accept that innocent creatures excite their
imagination with tables which creak or rise of the
ground; be proud that curious and presumptuous
learned men give their advice on the physical effects
of mediumship; rejoice that they work for humanity
and its progress, for the phenomena taken together
lead to the process of materialism, sensualist and
gross, and to the creation of an altar to the spirit of
man.

96
Friendly reader, I do not allow you the liberty [for it
is my duty as master] of using your ordinary logic
for all that touches on your spirit [which is not
"ordinary"] and I tell you that the day on which you
trust yourself to the reasoning of a man, you will
renounce for ever your own, for you must on the
contrary model and perfect in the universal
reasoning, that which conforms to your divine
nature.

97
II

The second part of the preparation for magic aims to

make you understand in broad terms where to
commence in order to succeed, how to place
yourself outside all doctrinaire soliloquy and how to
see, touch and learn by your own experience and not
through the experience of others.

If, in satisfying the exigencies of the first part of the

preparation, you are courageous and good in the
broadest sense of these two terms, and if you
understand precisely that your spirit, in its envelope
of flesh, is susceptible to all kinds of improvement,
until it becomes like the divinities of Olympus, like
a major Divinity, you can apply yourself and enter
into contact with the natures which are more
elevated than the divinities of heaven.

What are these middle divinities, these creatures or

daimons or angels or messengers of God, with
whom you will enter into communication? Or more
correctly, of what nature are these intermediate gods
whom you most ardently desire to know?

98
The best treatises on occult science will tell you that,
outside human nature, in the Ether, or in the zone of
astral light, there exist the spirits of the dead, the
astral bodies of the mediums, the initiates, the
elementaries, the human conceptions, the lemures,
the ghosts and the other impure entities. I have
written this in the Introduction. Following,
however, the first precept of the preceding
preparation, you must think and reason for yourself.
The initiator tells you: "Believe," he says, "have the
experience."

You must now yourself have a real but general idea

of the intradivine natures or daimons in their
'plastic' form, as the ancients made them, without
seeking details more or less stupefying.

It suffices for the pupil to have a general idea of

what he will encounter and I am the ancient one who
precedes you.

It must be the same for you. Gods, Daimons and

men. Between them exists the same relationship as
between the three states of sensitive matter: those
who are thinkers, those who are of air and those who
are fleeting. The synthesis of nature presents three
states of matter: solid, liquid and gaseous. This
99
number 3 is repeated in the orders of visible nature;
this number 3 completes the series in the divine
progression: the man [the gross body which
imprisons an intelligence], the daimon [the body of
air, which communicates with the intelligence] and
the spirit [the fleeting body which does not take any
form, even ideal, and is symbolised by the light].

The philosophers state that the theology of the

ancients was symbolic, as the daimon or individual
genie represents the conscience, the feeling of the
reason for existence.

This is all very well, but it is only one aspect of the

question.

The sacred wisdom that the ancients manifested in

their esoteric accounts, had three aspects:-

a> one current, for the profane

b> another, which was symbolic and philosophical

c> a third, which was both secret and sacred,

reserved to those who had made

100
 progress in the temple.

What is this daimon or genie, defined as having a

changeable or 'plastic' form in pagan esotericism?

This current aspect of the sacred wisdom today only

succeeds in making men smile. The daimon of the
ancients and the tutelary genie of the Platonists are
the putative fathers of the guardian angels of the
Christian Faith and are poetic figures.

He who lays out the doctrines is content to regard

the daimon or genie, the soul of man, in his essence
of reason and conscience.

He who, on the other hand, has gone further in the

sacred language of the priest-philosophers and
possesses the key to the three aspects of the
mysterious ways of speaking, he who knows that the
third, the true and profound significance of the
daimon or genie corresponds to a ray of light from
whence he is. That is the first of the truths which
you must grasp, my disciple.

101
I propose to resolve a problem for you. For this you
must study and do some exercises on the scientific
theorems which magic teaches you or to which it has
made allusion. You will understand the essence of it
by study and practice. If you practise but do not
reflect on what you have done, you will become just
an ignorant experimenter.

The first thing which you must envisage in making

these experiments in the occult domain of the
spiritual nature is to try to know the spirit, daimon
or genie who represents the hierarchy immediately
superior to your human nature, even if you do so
somewhat imperfectly. The Christian angel is a
spirit of absolute purity and the messenger of God;
the daimon, on the contrary, is variable in tendency
and purification.

I shall use the name "genie" when setting out the

restrictions and definitions; when you have begun to
know your own genie, you will be able to define the
first... and when you know much more, you will
gain an approximate, but always very imperfect,
idea of the golden shell which commences with the
less pure and is ended with the most pure.

How do you go about getting to know your own

genie?
102
The ancients taught that to know it one must render
it propitious by the practice of justice and by the
innocence of our morals. It will help you then by its
providence in the things of which you are ignorant
and by its counsel in your moments of indecision; it
will come to your aid in time of danger and in
adversity it will not deprive you of its assistance;
sometimes in dreams, sometimes by visible signs
and sometimes by appearing to you.

It will deliver you from evil, it will procure good for

you, it will console you in your losses, it will sustain
you in difficult moments, it will remove the shadows
from your path, it will make good fortune last for
you and it will keep you from misfortune.

What does your master tell you in order to avoid

having recourse to Christian mystique or to the
veneration of the pagan cult? Only this: be a man,
be reasonable and disseminate, by the perpetual
mystery of your judgements, all the illusions of the
coarse material sciences of man; develop in yourself
the consciousness of being and, if you merit it or if
you force the exterior nature, Raphael or Astaroth,
the angel or the daimon will manifest themselves to
your consciousness. Your genie will certainly
appear and, like Dante, you will have found your
103
Virgil and, with him, the direct path to the refuge of
the alienated or to the divine wisdom.

Having arrived at this point, the disciple will

doubtless interrupt me with the following question:-

If these daimons are not visible [for their bodies are

refused to our gaze] what can I do to enter into
communication with them? I will not see them, I
will not hear them, I will not touch them here
below...

It is clear.

You must form for yourself an exact idea of what

the astral light really is, in its true significance.

The Greek grammatical word aster signifies aster or

star, In hieratic Greek, astron is composed of "a"
indicating the negative and "stereon," stability or
solidity: it therefore signifies: without stability and
errant. Thus the astral light, in the secret sense, is
an unstable light, errant, ethereal and fleeting.

104
*

* *

Close your eyes, form an image and look at it. In

the obscurity of your voluntary blindness, you will
see from one view which, although being common
to all men, is not the visual quality current in other
men.

In this way, in carrying out a very simple operation,

that all men can perform, you will begin gymnastics
which, if you do them to last, will give you the idea
of an ethereal light, very different from the light of
the ordinary outlook. When you sleep and dream,
the images which you see are luminous. And,
moreover, there is no sun, and this light is neither
solar light nor electric light: it is ethereal or astral.

Recently, it has been called the unconscious but in

the hermetic and magical language it is the astral
field, or obscure field, the source and the store of all
our consciousness, of which we are only sure by the
memory which we can draw on of it with the aid of
continual evocations and of the mechanism of
105
memory. The astral field, obscure and mysterious,
which is within us, that is within every human being,
is also within the immense synthesis of the universe.
In man resides the occult store from his past. In the
universe is found the register of all lives lived, of all
forms imagined and of all thoughts conceived. The
field, or universal astral current, contains in itself the
partial astral fields of all men. Therefore, from the
personal astral field, one can penetrate into the
universal astral field and this redescends into each of
the particular astral fields.

We have said more loudly than others that, as men,

we are concrete individuals in the material world,
living analogically in the universe, i.e. individuals in
analogical harmony with the great universe.

As it is with us as men, so must it be also with the

universe, if it is analogical with us, a form of
collective reserve which is invisible and unable to be
sensed, in which are recorded all the concrete ideas,
the passions, the deeds and the gestures of men,
nations and peoples.

This invisible part of the world which contains this

form of invisible matter, easily impressionable, is
what we term the astral zone.

106
When you say of a person you have just seen "If I
remember..." you search in your unconscious for the
image of the person seen whom you wish to evoke.

But when you say, for example, that you wish to

evoke the image of Dante walking through the
streets of Ravenna, you will perhaps have seen the
portrait of Dante, but your consciousness could not
deliver you the imagined form. You invoke then the
image of Dante Alighieri and if you believe in
spiritualism, you believe you can invoke the spirit of
Dante through the form in which he is clothed.
Your unconscious, on the other hand, if it is very
sensitive, must draw in the universal unconscious,
where the image of Dante Alighieri has left its
imprint.

Therefore, the astral world is an obscure zone which

is within us, and where is stored all that has been
thought or heard and all that which provides the
experience for our senses.

The astral force is synonymous with the force of the

subconscious which it will have on the unconscious.

107
From this interior zone which records each
perception, each thought and each sentiment,
emerges a change in the determined occasions, by
which the manifestation of a force is liberated and is
felt.

Everything which emanates from us and which

represents an effort or a profound impression, is
impressed at first on our individual unconscious and
afterwards, in its complex and synthetic phases, it is
impressed on the universal collectiveness.

Since there exists an astral force and zone, there

must also be an astral material.

You cannot conceive a force and an occult material,

since you do not have the material or sensorial proof
of this movement or of this material.

Thus when you hear true Magi [and not amateurs in

magic] speak of the astral current, do not believe
that it acts on the fluidic current which comes to us
from the stars, but from the vibration of the Ether of
the Orphic initiates, who know of the perpetual
108
vibrational movements which pagan theogony
deified in Mercury, eternal movement generator of
all the mysterious phenomena of the mental light.

Mercury has wings at his feet and at his temple, he

has his Caduceus in his hands, the staff with two
serpents which are making love, an active and
passive current around a projector of fluid. It is thus
that the Caduceus has become the symbol of
pharmacists for health, in occult medicine, is
represented by two currents of ethereal fluid in
equilibrium around an instrument of projection, the
organ being symbolised by a baton. You will
afterwards understand what the baton of the Magus
has become, for what it is used and the mystery
which it hides.

But from the time you have gained an approximate

idea of an integral light, you will be able to pass
from the known to the unknown without making too
many sophisticated arguments.

Three or four [or more] people should close their

external eyes in identical manner and open
themselves, by an intellectual vision, to the
perception of this world which one encounters first
and which one sees afterwards with a sixth sense
109
which is the synthesis of the five others; you will
then have established by a harmony the communion
of light which each of the observers experiences.

I pray you to understand thoroughly and re-read the

preceding passages, if you have not understood it
completely, because I cannot find more appropriate
words in human language to indicate a phenomenon,
which, although at the door of every man, cannot be
observed by him who does not concentrate nor
spiritualise in order to obtain it.

The harmony between the astral vibrations,

perceived by the observers, forms the astral current
which you must learn in order to master it any time
you wish.

But the silence, in the religious communities, tends

to diminish in the limits of the possible action of all
that can trouble the spirit and prevent its
development... in order that the corporeal arm of the
monk meets the arm of Christ.

This astral current is symbolised by the serpent in

the Bible and coils itself around the tree of Good and
Evil, which means that the two faces of the serpent
110
are the lower, terrestrial or dark part which
engenders the illusion, i.e. the lie, and the upper part
which is truth and light.

In mythology, Apollo pierced with an arrow the

serpent Python, born of the dust of the earth;
nevertheless the Pytheans [i.e. those in whom
resided the spirit of Python] gave verdicts and
prophesied. Joseph Balsamo, the famous Count
Cagliostro, whose name, for the foolish, evokes the
image of an impostor, but who was called in the
18th century the divine, had for his symbol a serpent
pierced by an arrow; it signified the astral current
transfixed by a powerful will and mastered. This
serpent was placed at the feet of the Immaculate
Virgin Mary, for virginity and purity condemn it to
immobility and dominate it completely. But if you
do not imitate the superhuman virtue of an
immaculate conception, the serpent will take you in
its coils, will dominate you and will kill you with its
fluid.

III

The preparation for magic consists of this:-

111
a> Possess limitless courage and cool reasoning;
stay calm, despite the fires of

illusion.

b> Possess in the highest degree the sense of

rectitude and morality, and fear

abuse of what one tries to take from the

unknown.

c> Desire that the light may come to console those

whose terrestrial

imperfections prevent from seeing.

d> Understand and make intelligible that man has

within him all that which is

necessary to develop the superhuman qualities

of his spirit.

e> Be persuaded that the right instincts, desiring

good, reasonably and

integrally, stripped of all hypocrisy and fear,

invite the genie presenting the

greatest affinities with the nature of the

individual to manifest itself.

112
f> That the current of ready made opinions and
phrases serves to distort,

transform and misinterpret the language which

the genie uses to our

conscious and we shut ourselves from the truth

in order to listen to lies.

g> That if one takes the genie as one's guide, one

dominates the astral serpent

which presents itself, one combats it and one

becomes a god; if instead of

understanding it one misunderstands it [i.e. if it

is the abominable which

draws us] then one falls into the power of the

serpent.

It is opportune to say here two words on the occult

and the mysterious, in connexion with the duty of
the aspirant Magus to be silent.

As fast as the investigations of the learned men

progress into the determination of the latent faculties
of human matter, they encounter properties which
are new and unsuspected in our organism and not
113
only discover unheard of marvels in the body of
man, but necessitate also radical changes in the
definitions or our physics and our chemistry, at
which the researchers of the next century will laugh,
as being very imperfect things.

The silence of society, for the spirit, is almost the

equivalent of abstinence from indigestion for the
stomach.

But it is still necessary to distinguish the sensations

of external origin from sensations through
repercussion; phenomena on which one could write
a mathematical treatise of the senses.

One of your neighbours speaks. His words awaken

in you an idea or a sensation. But if you pronounce
a word, the work is doubled, for you must conceive
the idea, translate it into words and project it into
the spirit of him who listens to you. The word that
you pronounce is a fluidic projection of your
conception. The proof of this intense work can be
obtained by any observer who, listening to an
opinion which does not correspond to an idea
already created in his mind, must automatically
concentrate to grasp the new fluidic conception
which accompanies the projected idea.

114
In magic, the word is an instrument of realisation
and silence on sacred matters of Truth is the means
of keeping them pure to give more life to the ideas
which must be projected, and also to prevent
repercussions of these ideas affecting the receptive
faculties of the Magus.

In order to depart from the mistaken ideas which

have been forcibly inculcated by profane education,
in order to be purified from all the living and impure
images with which we are impregnated in profane
life and to liberate our spirit from the accumulation
of impressions produced by human error, the pupil
in magic will have to make infinite effort and long
sacrifice. When purification has been obtained, the
intellectual perceptions manifest themselves. They
are indistinct glimpses. After these traces of fleeting
light, follow luminous ideas. If in the vice of human
speech, you try to imprison the ungraspable
glimpses of the first light, you will have lost your
opportunity; by making concrete and projecting by
word your perception, you will have lost your right
to the light.

With regard to the questions: Has magic truly a

terrible secret to keep and hide? Would the
revelation of this secret, the arcane of arcanes, be of
115
such a nature as to destroy a world? I would reply in
two ways:-

The philosopher encounters a truth which he does

not grasp, the secret of life, of death, of the reason
for existence and of the aim of man, nations, races
and species. This problem is symbolised by the
Sphinx. The disciple in magic must have in view to
arrive in the presence of the last monster who
announces the final problem and he must master it.

That is what Oedipus could not do. If the Magus

succeeds in riding the monster, instead of cutting off
its head, he will be able to wear the royal crown.
Otherwise, although being the son of Laius and born
a king, he will have killed his father and
incestuously violated his mother to end up blind and
in exile, far from his divine homeland.

I must give you precise instruction on two points:-

1> Does the manifestation of a being, of any

superhuman kind, lead to the

conquest of the astral serpent? No. For the

entity of him who is manifest is
116
 not always the same [but generally the genie of
the pig is a pig and the

genie of an illuminated philosopher is a God].

2> Does there exist a means for him who is alone,

with counsel and initiative,

to become involved a little on the path of occult

life? Yes. In the world,

many roads lead to Rome. He must desire

ardently and when he waits for

the means to achieve it, one of the gates of the

divine kingdom will open to

him who desires with courage.

He himself said it. The spirit which presides at the

occult initiation, leading to the truth of the heavens
is manifested in proportion to humanity's
improvement. When one waits for the means, the
genie of truth indicates a master, hidden behind a
man who desires or a woman who prays. If he is
acted upon by a true initiator and not a charlatan, he
who must be initiated perceives him, gives him his
hand, tries to blend with him in his soul and loves
him. The love is divine; the disciple must love his
117
master, for without unlimited love directed towards
good, the spirit of the first will not understand the
heart of the second.

I shall stop here. I am neither a mystic nor an

apostle. When one writes about celestial matters. it
seems to the profane that one is dreaming. And I
say to you before inviting you to research with a
barren heart:-

Dream of loving purely, poetically, a better world.

And in this pious dream of an infinite love, you will
become a poet: a poet in the Orphic sense; you will
have the intuition of the sacred science and you will
sing the truth.

GENERAL
PRINCIPLES

I divide Magic, or the Mysterious Knowledge, into

two great parts: Natural Magic and Divine Magic.

118
The first studies all the phenomena due to the occult
qualities of the human organism and the manner of
obtaining and reproducing them, within the limits of
the organism used as the means.

The second is dedicated to preparing the spiritual

ascent of the seeker, in a manner which permits man
to relate to the superior natures, invisible to the eye
of the ordinary man.

To determine where the first part ends and the

second part begins is very difficult, for human
nature is so made that in proportion to the degree to
which it acquires the liberty to work with its latent
virtues, it is perfected as far as perceiving, in the
same proportion, the harmonies which escape
current intelligences.

It therefore happens that the two forms of magic,

most often, progress towards equality and that,
whereas one happens to understand the advice of a
genie, which is perhaps beyond us, our spirit can
effect an amazing deed.

119
From the first part arise all the physical phenomena
which have an occult source, such as telepathy,
remote healing and the teleportation of objects.

From the second originate the phenomena which are

not based in the spirit of man and which follow
prophecy with temporal precision except for those
whom it is useless to approach, as they cannot
comprehend them.

Magic, as a whole, is entirely a series of

demonstrative theorems and experiences with
concrete effects; the magic truths, although abstract,
must find an evident demonstration in the
realisation just as every mathematical truth,
however abstract, finds its mechanical application.

It must nevertheless be borne in mind that the

investigations of man progress with time and, if very
numerous occult truths can be demonstrated and
regarded as true in considering their effects, for this
reasoning which is of an abstract nature and would
prove their existence is based on a subtle
philosophy, termed hermetic, comprised of the most
advanced human intelligences.

120
By experiments and scientific demonstrations, one
can commence studying, for example, telepathic
phenomena, as many modern initiated researchers
do in Europe and America; when other truths, such
as this: The shirt of the person of corrupt morals
also corrupts him who wears it, cannot be
demonstrated other than by the realisation of the
operator or by the diffusion of the law of contagion
of virtue or vice, which canalizes the outpourings.

I pray you, my disciple, do not be astonished by my

using certain words which seem strange and think I
do it by mistake or eccentricity. I do it in considered
fashion in their profound value. I have spoken of
outpourings of vice. I have not used a theoretical
figure; but, since our magic is synthetic, the
fundamentally synthetic principle of all laws is
mathematically the same in all the manifestations of
these self-same laws; the law of fluidic contagion is
constant in all the different realisations and therefore
as there exists an unhealthy outpouring, there also
exists an outpouring of the moral plan.

I have presented [perhaps I am the first to do it] all

the body of doctrines which are exactly
unchangeable and which belong to the domain of the
secret and sacred science, which up till now, no one
has unveiled to the public [which is not prepared for
it] and no one can reveal it to all in its entirety. That
121
is why the disciple must not allow himself to make
fun of the grammatical form of certain of my
phrases; what he must try to do is to assimilate the
hidden meaning which is essentially scientific.

The hermetic philosophy, i.e. the science which is

concerned with the investigations into the domain of
the uncontrolled powers of the living human being,
has a particular method of envisaging, and
experimenting with, the existing forces and the
hidden powers ignored by man.

Our mission is a mission to spread the principles of a

future science of the human spirit, of the human
essence of the living man.

Our College, from the experimental point of view, is

typically materialist, for the human being, body and
spirit, is only material organised or on the way to
being organised. The normal phenomena which we
study in him are the products of his organism and
therefore of the matter which constitutes it. The
thought is possible, under all the diverse forms
which it clothes us in proportion to which the
material organism is healthy.

122
The true disciple of our College must pose himself
problems and resolve them for himself, for
Hermeticism is not taught as a discipline of any
kind, through a treatise.

In the interior silence of the seeker burgeons the rich

speculation of a very subtle philosophy, which
creates and initiates the novice in magic and
determines a new vision of the universe, since the
disciple of hermeticism must arrive by himself at the
proof that our truth is the only good, by elevating
himself from the depths towards the heights, from
Saturn to the Moon and from the latter to Mercury.

The master of hermeticism exposes the elements of

our theories and practices; the disciple works them
and studies them in his remote laboratory and
elevates himself towards the reality of hermetic
practice and realisation.

And in order that the members of our College may

have a training-ground in which to exercise
themselves in the first rudiments of the forces
awakened in us, his own action in the effective and
practical domain of realisations, I have commenced
to found a Fraternity of Myriam, a union of people
studying psychic activities, influencing the sick who
123
come into contact with us and trying to heal them or
improve their condition, or alleviate their suffering
or spasms.

We are the forerunners of those engaged in the

consideration and examination of a new principle in
modern therapeutics: the personal action of the
doctor aspiring to the cure which modifies and gives
value and power to his prescriptions, infusing them
with a healing force which they do not normally
possess.

The hermetic medicine which is spirit, intention,

breath, image in distilled in the lunar body of the
sick person, under a ray of powerful love, received
through passion and faith; the cell of the tissues is
dissolved, reconstituted, becomes healthy again and
life continues. The brain no longer feels the sting of
pain, the smile returns, together with calmness and
health; the miracle of a single thing is accomplished,
like the miracle of love.

124
1. WHAT IS A
PERFECT MASTER?

All beings, as regards their nature, are equal.

This can be expressed that the relationship between

the creator and his work is constant. In fact, the law
of evolution and the reason for the existence of all
human beings render all men equal before the first
cause; this, however, is not the case in the physical
domain or in those of spirituality and morality.

In the absolute, beyond all consideration of time and

space, the truth of the right to equality is
indisputable; but all men do not have the same rights
over nature and within a determined time and space.

Physically, men differ in size and looks; spiritually,

they differ according to their level of intellectual
clairvoyance.

125
In human society, governed by the base instincts of
the flesh [gluttony, luxury, possessiveness] the
rulers are constituted by the preponderance of those
who are physically the strongest. The feeble, the
good or bad wills submit to the strong, whose great
physical perfection, applied through intellectual
necessity, gives the audacity to command and
renders them incapable of putting up with
subjection.

It is the same with the secret of the souls of living

beings. As in the manifested world, the qualities
and virtues of creatures are diverse; some have
spiritually developed natures and others do not.
Numbered among the first, one finds the shining
lighthouses and the luminaries and among the
second, the poor, melancholy and blind creatures
who instinctively play with evil.

Religions, sciences and governments are organised

in an hierarchical fashion, for in the three worlds -
physical, intellectual and spiritual - men differ in
their level of development and virtues.

The Master, in occult teaching, is he who is the most

advanced in relation to the neophytes.

126
Without the power of the Master, no spiritual
society can be sustained, for it is he who always sees
and understands the best instruction for those who
are less spiritually developed.

When a spiritual society is organised, the Master

becomes indispensable.

If the Master is worthy of this title, in the most

complete sense of the word, he will see and
understand clearly the synthetic laws in the three
worlds - physical, intellectual and spiritual - his
authority becomes absolute and his precepts or rules
are dogmatic.

It is wrong that the word dogma strikes terror into all

those who have not experienced it, for a significance
is attributed to this word which it does not really
have.

Dogma is thought [cogitatio] and clairvoyance,

from the Greek word dokeo, to see.

127
In magic, the word corresponds, as I said in the
sections on Preparation, to a work of fluid
projection, of which we shall study the laws; the
thought] [bene cogitata,] coagulated synthetically in
the psyche of a Master, concrete, harmonic, true,
expressed through a graphic or euphonic form of
some kind, is dogma, for it is true under all the
relativities of philosophy, morality and practical
realisation and it is unchangeable and infallible,
since it corresponds to an absolute virtue, also
infallible and unchangeable.

Darwin can dogmatise, in discovering and

formulating a general law of nature, or the good St.
Paul when he defined charity, or the Stoic Epictetus,
when he defined the nature of things.

When religions and sects which are illumined fall

into the hands and under the iron control of heads
who do not possess this virtue of seeing the unique
light, the source of all lasting wisdom, they become
temporal and decayed, their pontiffs or grand
masters dogmatise in the relativity of the time and
free reason rebels, for the dogma is ready then for
the discussion of free examination.

One cannot forbid a student in natural philosophy

from accepting or advocating freely the enunciation
128
of truth; the complete man reasons intellectually
before accepting or advocating; he sees if the dogma
has a true quality in the eternal absolute. But when a
philosopher concludes that reason has killed the
dogma, that signifies that he takes for dogma that
which does not have the necessary quality for it in
terms of the absolute; otherwise, the dogma, being
evidence of the truth can only be reasonable and it is
the contrary which is true: Dogma is the reason of
truth.

Magic possesses some fundamental or dogmatic

truths, which are the enunciations of the synthetic
laws on which all the other secondary laws depend.

The Perfect Master must not only have the power of

vision, but also enable his spiritual qualities to pass
to others.

Many see and work with a perfect clarity and

comprehension, but do not have the faculty of
giving, transferring and confirming.

129
An operator in magic of any kind must give
temporarily the qualities brought to things or men by
the processes which relate to elementary practice.

If, however, an operator of any kind can give, all

operators cannot transfer or confer on a permanent
basis their naturally acquired virtues.

The operators in magic must make use of the

equilibrium due to the level of their development, in
order to neutralise all the contrary forces and they
must therefore possess negative and positive virtues
in order to be regarded as Perfect Masters in the two
divisions of magic, in order to give and take, to
collect and disperse, all the psychic forces
concentrated around them and to concede their own
virtues temporarily to a worthy pupil or disciple, or
to invest him with them permanently.

It is generally believed that science is taught through

books. But, from the speculations of transcendental
philosophy to the laws of mechanics, the only way
to receive effective instruction is to realise or
practise. By reading, one gives oneself a more or
less exact idea of the matter; but it is only by
working under the direction of a perfect master that
psychic and physical qualities are developed which
enable the realisation of magic.
130
The initiation in practice is the total entirety of all
the operations which a Perfect Master can practise
on a disciple in order to concede to him, confer on
him and confirm on him the virtues hidden in his
organism of ordinary humanity and in order to
develop them in the disciple.

Here we are confronted with the problem of the

College and the mystery of formation in every age,
of the secret of secrets and of magical religions; let
us concentrate our attention on this point.

2 - THE DISCIPLE

In the literary period in which we live, where anyone

no matter how mediocre, in the name of liberty and
equality, can set down his thoughts on the occult
sciences, the word Initiate has acquired a very
varied meaning.

131
Let us understand it well before proceeding.

Wherever a master exists, there exist also disciples.

An invisible cord links the disciples with the master

and with each other, even if they do not know each
other.

Imagine a circle and place the master in the centre [ ]

with the disciples around the circumference [ ].
From this is derived the concept of the Mystic Rose,
consisting of numerous petals around a centre,
which is the soul, the spirit, the strength and the
intelligence.

One must therefore undestand that by the word

initiated one refers to the disciple who has set out
from the dead waters of the commonplace and has
entered the zone of irradiation in the centre; to be
more explicit, all one can state is that he who has the
potential in him has completely accomplished the
work of purification and preparation on a neophyte,
in a manner which has detached him completely
from the profane world, taken him away from all
that the vulgar can have which is sordid, and leading
him into the purer waters which are more elevated.
132
There, where the common man cannot reach due to
the law of natural heaviness, the inflexible and
inexorable law which condemns the plumb line to
sink and the leaf to float.

Proposition I - The fluidic modifications

transform the external habits of the

disciple.

In general, the conflict between the new life and the

former one, between the modified man and the
common man is enormous.

The fluidic modifications of the disciple act so well

on his exterior that they transform the exterior man
in such a way, that the common man [i.e. those who
are strangers to secret matters] generally treat with
extravagance the man or woman who is dedicated to
magic.

That is not only logical, but it is necessary that it

should be so. For, if a man is made like the great
mass of beings who inhabit the visible world, he
cannot approach the invisible world and its
133
creatures. The conflict between the visible and the
invisible worlds has as its root cause the passion for
temporal things and in the visible world one lives in
constant fear of not having or possessing; in the
invisible world, on the other hand, there is the
eternal certainty of taking when one wishes and has
need of it.

Let me explain this with examples:-

The common man loves a woman not only as the

male loves the female, but also from the unavoidable
propensity which exists in every animal, and in
every human family, which consists of affirming his
superiority over other males. It is the most natural
thing in the world that matter claims its moment of
superiority over the intellect and that the reasonable
man enjoys this momentary triumph of the flesh,
after a companion has been chosen not solely for the
perfection of her physical appearance but also for
her moral qualities of kindness, compatibility and
charm.

But the ordinary man does not confine himself to

what should be exclusively his point of anchorage.
He becomes flattering to all women capable of
gratifying his self-love and, like a butterfly, he flits
from flower to flower through masculine vanity,
134
perpetually playing the role of a Don Juan, a
continual threat to the virtue of women who do not
yield to his desires. Young men, adults, old men,
ordinary men, all have a mission to degrade human
nature [which is of divine origin], essentially
aristocratic, in the degradation of a bestiality which
always makes them slaves to sexual thoughts.

From the time that a man or a youth commences to

enter into the realm of mysteries and shadows, the
divine principle which is within him, that is the
spirit, acquires supremacy over his humanity and he
who does not see in himself that there is an
aristocratic heritage, considers it as the cockerels
consider the little capons in the hen-house.

The ordinary man loves money. The key to all arch

exponents of the vulgar, gold is a king which all the
sentiments of faint honesty, all the false moral forces
will bend. There is no need to cite examples: we all
know that money, for the common man, is the most
powerful of talismans, which procures calm in an
easy life, domestic peace, the satisfaction of every
whim, the sweetness of venal love. But the disciple
of the divine knowledge, aspiring only to a more
elevated ideal, dethrones this God and continues on
his path, with his staff, mantle and bag, like a Stoic,
contemptuous of this idol, before whom all bow, as
before a beautiful woman.
135
An ordinary woman only desires the satisfaction of
her vanity. Elegant in her manners, dress and
coiffure, she dreams always of enslaving all men
and making all his friends and acquaintances die
from chagrin. But the woman who is a petal of the
Mystic Rose, gradually enters into the sphere of a
master, imperceptibly but progressively, renouncing
her vanity and elevating her spirit to a higher plane.

Proposition II - The
ultimate test of the
disciple consists of his
capacity to detach
himself from his master.

The vulgar current, which is very powerful and a

generator of illusions, and the occult current, which
is true and incorruptible, both act on the disciple just
as two magnets, equal and of opposite polarities,
will act on a piece of iron placed at an equal distance
from the end of each. Except that the piece of iron
has no free will and, placed at an equal distance
from the two forces, it does not move. But the
136
disciple, on the contrary, has a free will which the
master can never take away from him, and this free
will pushes him a little towards the first or a little
towards the second so that the spirit of the disciple,
until his triumph or fall, knows a horrible torment,
torn between the belief in the promise of the light
and the attraction exerted by the demon of the vulgar
current.

Whilst the disciple is under the irradiation of the

master, he absorbs the latter's occult virtues and the
vulgar current has no hold over him, for the master's
influence destroys all.

But when the disciple detaches himself, he suffers

the reactions and the two principles combat each
other within him - the occult or divine, and the
temporal or terrestrial. This second principle is
nourished by the vulgar current, it becomes
irresistible and after the master has withdrawn his
influence, if the disciple does not stay firm, for his
own safety, the surge of the vulgar current will
submerge him and he will become mad or suicidal.

Let us recapitulate:-

137
[a] the disciple can consider himself as an initiate
after he leaves the ordinary

current.

[b] those who have been initiated in science and

occult practice end necessarily

by coming into collision with the opinions of the

profane public.

[c] the supreme test of the disciple takes place at the

moment when he detaches

himself from his master and, if he does not have

the strength to render

himself independent, he falls into the ordinary

current and is destroyed.

Proposition III - The

equilibrium of the fluidic
body is proportional to
the equilibrium of the
physical body.
138
He who studies and practises magic must be healthy
in body and spirit. The disciple, in presenting
himself at the threshold of the temple, must bring
with him all his baggage of vigour and equilibrium
and renounce spontaneously all the illusions which
he has entertained thus far.

The health of the body is indispensable. This is why

all the rules of magic teach us that when one does
not enjoy perfect health, one cannot operate, for the
state of equilibrium or disequilibrium of him who
operates is imprinted indelibly on the whole
operation. But as the deformity of the body can give
birth to a quasi permanent state of fluidic deviation,
so the temporary infirmities bring about a passing
state of disequilibrium in him who operates.

It is not only physical diseases which can prevent

the study of the practice of magic, but also the level
of one's self-control, in man as in woman.

In operative or natural magic, absolute chastity is

not necessary provided that the disciple can remain
chaste during the periods in which he operates. In
divine magic, chastity is a necessary condition,
without which all the elevated intelligences distance
themselves; from this fact, the conjugal state
139
between an initiate and any woman constitutes a
barrier to the development of divine magic.

Proposition IV - The
mode of life has a major
influence on the
nourishment and
development of the
fluidic entity.

Just like the sexual act, all other acts external and
common to other animals, have a great influence on
the disposition or the enlargement and the power of
the fluidic body of the disciple.

It is not absolutely necessary to create illusions

about the total power of the animated value, if the
soul [intelligence and conscience] is not truly carried
away by the domination of the physical body, which
it can modify in temperament.

140
The programme of preparation for magical power
and pure hermeticism can be expressed in a few
words: to render the integrative powers of the
human intellect [the will] absolute mistress of the
carnal envelope, in order to create a docile
executor, ready to obey the psycho-dynamic
authority which resides in us; to be liberated from
all obstacles to the free exercise of the intelligent
will on the body, a necessary instrument for human
life, to be liberated from every necessity.

The choice of foods must be made scientifically by

the master, in the corporal economy of the disciple,
after one has studied all his tendencies and the very
pronounced characters of the fluidic inclinations.

It is preferable to declare, once and for all, in order

to avoid repeating it on other occasions on which I
could publish the absolute principles of this
unknown science, which the entire application of all
the precepts is only possible for those who have
attained a very high level in natural and divine
magic and in doing this they do not absolutely
suffer, quite the contrary; it is if they do the opposite
that they would suffer.

141
But the disciples, especially the young ones, can
progress gradually to the realisation of the precepts
which we have set out, under the direction of a
master and also alone, progressively, by a short
transition from a regime of ordinary life to a
reasonable diet which does not produce momentarily
painful changes for the animal organism.

Sleep must not last very long, for the state of sleep
in the human organism greatly favours the grossness
of the animal organism; it makes gross the animal
coagulations and makes torpid the fluidic
potentialities.

For this, I advise experimenting with a camp bed,

hard with a light covering, in a spacious room or
chamber where, whilst the man sleeps, neither lamp
nor candle is alight. The man who sleeps mystically
must re-enter into the total darkness of the astral and
when the organism takes back its forces, he, the
intelligent man, must try to pass across the dark zone
and penetrate into the white astral light. This
operation, which is instinctive in all those whose
psychic development is advanced, even if they
belong to the vulgar, in such a way that prophetic
dreams or white light only indicate happy attempts
of the sleeper's psyche to enter into the world of
astral light, free from gross terrestrial influence.

142
It is necessary that the animal forces are regenerated
during sleep, for the fluidic organism of man,
drawing its vitality into his physical envelope, must
find him neither fatigued nor too well- nourished or
torpid. It suffices to examine the rules of all the
monastic religious orders, the founders of which
were the recognised revealers of ancient magical or
intellectual forms, which accounts for the
exclusively scientific and logical rules of magical
practice, not only coincidental with these rules of
monastic life but also with the precepts of absolute
and rigorous hygiene. He who is taught at the
present time in the schools of Europe can approach
these, in proportion to the progress he makes.

To air the bedroom, have a hard couch, a cover

neither too light nor too heavy, clean linen and
obtain an extreme cleanliness of body by bathing
night and morning. All this is not evidently in
opposition to the most precise rules of hygiene,
which one finds in books and which one cannot
observe easily.

I would advise you to give attention to the colour of

the walls and ceiling of the bedroom [when it is
possible or practical to concern oneself with it]. The
colours, through the bias of visual of physical
appearance, exert a direct action on the brain, on the
cerebellum and on the projector nerves as we shall
143
have the occasion to see in what follows. But, if
these colours provide mineral or vegetable materials,
which can act by diverse means on the cerebral
apparatus through smell or inhalation, one must
avoid using them, for there is nothing worse for the
organism.

Those who have the potential means and opportunity

should have a bedroom with walls and ceiling
whitened with lime or covered with pure rough
plaster; they should even avoid white, if it is
composed of lead or mixed with it [silver white],
when it is new. The colour white is the best for
producing psychic sensations of visual origin and
mystically it represents the image of purity;
similarly, one must notice that if it is white which
habitually represents purity or the virginal state, in
magic and in religion, one must create this precisely
for the development of magical truth, for the colour
confers its virtues according to the idea and quality
that one attributes to it.

The furniture, the thoroughly washed linen, the

fabrics, the coverings and the chairs preserve the
imprint, or even better the scent, of him who has
used them and engender a fluidic contagion by this
same general law that the experimenters have
attributed to contagions by micro-organisms. He
who can thus create a personal room reserved
exclusively for his fluidic life, in order to practise
144
magic, should be able to do in a new fashion the
most important things as far as the most insignificant
details of human life and refuse, as impure, all
interruption in this atmosphere of external fluid. I
make here an exception for the very advanced
masters in the art and when the masters do not carry
out impure operations, since, if a place is frequented
by a better person than yourself, you have
everything to gain and nothing to lose.

In this regard, I must speak of the substances used

for the purification of particular locations, well-
known from old books of ordinances and replaced
today other substances such as incense, aloes,
sulphur, benzoin, pitch, sandalwood, sweet-smelling
herbs, flowers, that the experimental method
believes can replace, on a scientific basis, through
carbolic acid and the products of the same kind
destroying the micro biological life.

The substances used in ancient times for the

disinfecting of specific locations have been known
from the most ancient periods of priesthood. The
magic of ancient Persia, and those whom ancient
tradition maintains knelt before the cradle of Christ,
used, as the magi of the Middle Ages and modern
practitioners, as in the Far East and in the no less
remote West, incense, myrrh, sandalwood, rubber
and precious gums, for the scientific concept on the
145
basis of which magi, ancient and modern, proceed is
unique. The fundamental axiom, on which reposes
the science of that which exists, is as follows: The
fluidic thought is a creation; all projection which is
realised finds its origin not only in the thought of
him who has created it, but also in the apparatus
which projects it.

I will explain myself by an example:

The will of an operator, conscious or unconscious,

provokes some kind of fluidic, imponderable trouble
in an area. Just as the thought is sustained by a
projectional apparatus of the human organism, the
reality, sooner or later, becomes a fact. This trouble
engenders a physical trouble until the suppression of
the animal life, which is death.

In an inverse sense, let us now try to neutralise the

first cause. To act on the will of he who operates, or
rather by influencing the structure which is to be
projected, or rather by isolating his own fluidic
irradiation in a manner which contrary projections
and murderers could not break

146
Perfumes, from the simplest to the most penetrating,
in acting directly on our organism and on the
organism of those who frequent a particular place,
possess the property of developing such a
preponderance of fluid in us that an attempt by the
fluidic contagion of others is in vain.

From this point of view, one must not hold in

derision the ancients who purified their houses with
incense and the use which the cults of the diverse
religions made of it is not illogical.

If we now return to what I said regarding the

purification of the place where the disciple must
base the source of his purity, one can advise
fumigations in methodical fashion, of which the sole
judge can only be the master or a brother more
advanced in the study and practice of magic, since,
as we shall illustrate in a special chapter, perfumes
and fumigations have a different action according to
who practises them, the epoch in which they are
practised, the place and the person who is
conducting the operation.

Thus, it should be understood clearly that the

aspirant magus, if he wishes to practise purification

147
in all the stages of his life, would be condemned to
the monastic existence.

But social life demands that a man does not retire

completely from the world, for numerous reasons
and necessities and, above all, as I have said in the
preparation because the saint has nothing in
common with the magus; if an ascetic researches
and favours a life of solitude, the magical life cannot
require perfect solitude, complete and perpetual due
to the nature of the art or magical practice. The
ascetic aims for individual perfection. It is passive.
It does not seek anyone on who to exert his intellect
and force. On the contrary, the magus, active in the
extreme, cannot act or develop his powers so surely
over men and animated things.

In order not to deduce from this, that the life of

isolation [which I advocate] must be a total
separation from the world, I shall say further:
whoever attains to the end has always the same
mission of using his victory, if not for the welfare of
nations and humanity, at least to the profit of his
neighbour for whom it must be a beneficial aid in all
the contingencies of life. The concept of human
solidarity is based on this fraternity; from this fact,
every aspirant to magical power, who hopes to
succeed in his ideal is changed into a little Messiah,
a bearer of peace and comfort.

148
He who aspires to be a mage, in order to be with the
world of causes, must isolate himself and, in order to
manifest and develop his powers, he must have
social contacts.

All which is matter and human fluid throws into

disorder he who wishes to live on a superior plane.
Like the light of the sun which illuminates the happy
hours of Spring, like the kiss of a woman who loves
him, in order to utilise his powers, he needs human
society!

The regime of his human life must be perpetually a

state of the most complete activity. To live by the
body and by the spirit is a drama, an action of
perpetual movement, until the reincarnation of
matter and in the triumph of the spirit over
everything; until his conscious liberation from the
ties with earth and until the evolution towards the
central divine principle, which is currently termed
God and which in magic is called Tetragrammaton,
that is: a word of four Hebrew letters, for this central
power does not have a name and, in Hebrew, it is
indicated as I have written it.

149
The morning care of the body, baths and isolation at
certain hours on certain days, purifies also the
purified man who finds himself momentarily soiled
by the gross effluxions of human society with which
he comes into contact in order to exert his powers
and fulfil his mission. The perfumes emanating
from the fire liberate the air which he breathes from
all fluid coagulation, since the vapours of the
perfume contain in themselves not only the virtues
of the essences, barks, woods and aromatic herbs but
also speak to our senses, like the fire, which, in
burning the wood, essences, barks and herbs
transmits to the dead waters of the coagulated
powers its purificatory movement from the origin of
all change, preventing a state of astral putrefaction.

Proposition V - The
nourishment of the fluid
is also proportional to the
nutrition of the animal
organism.

But if sexual restraint and the purification of the

local area in which the aspirant to magic practises
have a great importance in his fluidic life, and if the
150
perpetual activity of the body and spirit prepares him
to make progress in the field of non-current and
extra-human phenomena, nothing is more necessary
to the development of the life of the fluid than
ordinary food.

It is generally believed that the human body

nourishes itself through one route: that of the
oesophagus. And the ingested foods are believed to
transform themselves into blood and thus into
nervous or intelligent force. This, however, is not
the complete process of nutrition of the material
bodies [physical and fluid] which penetrate into the
human organism. Food adapted to the first is nearly
always avoided for the second and what we call the
sickness of the age or neurasthenia is the result of
myriads of nervous troubles and draws its origin not
only from the society in which we live, but also and
particularly from the erroneous nutrition of our
organism, to which one procures and attributes
needs that we do not have by nature.

The physical nutrition of the human body does not

only depend on the quality and quantity of what is
ingested but also on the evaporations which the body
absorbs during daily life. This power to absorb is
special to the fluidic body and its vampiric nutrition
and, whilst the material body elaborates and
transforms the masticated food into chyle [a white
151
fluid, mainly consisting of lymph], the fluidic body
takes life through inhalation and through nutrition of
the nervous system and the soft parts of the body
related to the nervous system.

I have said that the body is nourished in all ways

possible and that the digestive tract is not the sole
means of nutrition. I shall now indicate further how,
rather than the oesophagus, the stomach or the
intestines, the psychic apparatus or psychic
vampiric irradiation, is the first and most important
means of nutrition in the developed man. Examine
the habitual animal nutrition, in the shell of bipeds,
which are said to be endowed with reason; for the
idiot, cross all the chromatic shell as far as the
philosopher and ascetic and you will establish that in
those whom the base instincts [idiot] operate with
the voraciousness worthy of the wolf, the psyche [or
the intelligent apparatus of the evolved animal] is
atrophied or, at best, still undeveloped; and vice
versa, the contrary is equally true: to know that in
very developed beings and in those who are most
advanced [philosophers and thinkers] all that which
relates to the base animal level is in continual
degeneration.

In the same proportion as intellectuality progresses

in the man, the animal tendencies become more
feeble and, when the intelligent principle takes the

152
upper hand, his links with the gross body are relaxed
and whilst the one declines, the other is vitalised.

But it is not to that which he who aspires to magical

practice must arrive. Just as solitude and
companionship must be the two poles of the
existence of the mage in action, so must his physical
body be the most vigorous receptacle of his
spirituality; it is to this state of perfect equilibrium
between the two extremes which contend for
supremacy that the mage must aspire, to the perfect
health of his body and the most complete state of
realisation of this equilibrium, to the good health of
his psychic system. His nutrition must be in
harmony with his activity and his expenditure of
energy. Nothing is more scientific than this intense
and intuitive work, in the choice of food and drink
by a disciple hardly advanced in practice.

The advice which I can give to him who commences

is to be frugal. Desire simple, natural things not
those which are too elaborate. Prefer vegetables and
avoid as far as possible game and blood. Get drunk
from the odour of a bottle of wine, but in drinking
the least possible, refuse alcohol and alcoholic
drinks. Eat frugally always. Drink always with
great moderation, to satisfy your needs. Sleep as
you can and be active.

153
Abstain or profit from the things at your disposal, in
order to be master of your actions.

If you suffer, tell yourself that the cause is within

you and seek until you find it.

Correct yourself, redress your mistakes, extinguish

in yourself what is wrong.

Fasting is a symbolic rebirth of the body to the life

of light; it is material and moral regeneration. It is a
very powerful coefficient of the development and
liberty of the astral body.

3. INTELLIGENCES,
FORCES AND
CREATIONS

154
We have studied the Perfect Master; we have
underlined the principal conditions propitious for the
development of the disciple; we shall now study in
an elementary way the problem of the extra-human,
of what is beyond the human and of the occult
human.

The reader must recall that to which I have alluded

and which I did not develop concerning the invisible
world, in the preparation to the present survey, for
progress needs to be made gradually.

The spiritual education of the disciple pursues two

objectives:-

1> To ameliorate the psychophysical conditions of

the aspirant magus so that

he approaches to an ideal organic perfection.

2> To render him sensitive to all the influx of

physical and external irradiations

or external intelligences.

155
According to the constitution that the disciple has
received from nature, the results will be either very
important or minimal, but they cannot, nor could
they ever, be entirely worthless; but, to the extent
that the state of purification grows within a man, he
anticipates his spiritual life, except that, instead of
being completely born into the invisible world, he
participates at the same time in both human life and
ultra-human life.

Here is a first essential point on which the disciple

must fix his attention:

The law of progressive evolution governs all things

created and capable of being created. If the death of
a human represents his birth into the second life, as
the disappearance of the uterine envelope announces
the birth of man to earthly life, it signifies clearly
that the spirit of he who has triumphed over his
earthly state, if one compares him with a spirit living
human life, is a living man compared with the foetus
in the womb of a woman.

The fertilised egg in the period of incubation of the

mother hen represents in an analogous manner the
human spirit still prisoner of the material body of a
156
man. The radical difference is that neither the foetus
in the womb of the woman or the chicken inside the
egg can have, like the human spirit, communication
with the physical world external to the maternal
womb or protective shell; that which signifies, in the
strata of low animality, the spirituality which breaks
all the physical obstacles is embryonic.

Magical education aims to free the spirit imprisoned

in the body of a man, with the most solid links, in a
way so that he may freely anticipate his third
existence, or second intelligent life.

Magic, as far as instruction, practice and realisation,

has always sustained this; and numerous religious
myths have perpetuated it across the darkness of
elapsed time. The human represents the vase or
receptacle of the divinely intelligent principle which
is incarnated and has entered into the terrestrial
material in order to sublimate to it certain forces
directed towards a divine realisation.

But as this instruction does not belong to the

elements, but to high magical theurgy, I only call the
seeker's attention to the texture, structure and
nourishment of the human psyche.

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Break a fertilised hen's egg and you will find:-

1> The fertile coagulation

2> The yolk

3> The albumen

When the chick is born, through the alchemical

miracle of animation, whether maternal or artificial,
the three elements contained in the shell are
transformed into an animal [Who would have
believed this possible beforehand?], the animal
which is, strange to say, the germ having fertilised
the yolk of the egg and the albumen, to which, only
21 days before the miracle, one would not have
thought able to give life. But the birth of man into
his second life must absorb all the terrestrial
materiality in the same way that the chick is
nourished by the contents of the shell; the human
spirit is disincarnated, that is the created spirit,
when it has absorbed the materials which have
nourished it.

In fact, in all men, the natural process is as follows:

the human body is consumed [old age] and one is
158
born into the life of the spirit [death]. Natural magic
aims for a great realisation, stupefying, unlikely,
according to the times in which we live; it acts to
create the spiritual state in man, when his body is
not absorbed, [as the chick absorbs the contents of
the shell]. The body serves man, on the contrary, as
a receptacle for the material reserves [continually
renewed and always completely absorbed] insofar as
he requires it and for as much as he may need.

It is easy to understand how one does it and obtains

all this:

- by entering into contact with a man who has

attained such a stage of

development that he can communicate to you the

same properties or confirm

them in you.

- by possessing through grace the necessary

clairvoyance for the intuition of the

laws of this secret alchemy of the human spirit;

159
- or by working for many years, very many years,
and then by reaching it

through labour and perseverance, when one least

expects it.

The last two methods are the most current, for to

meet on his journey a perfect master who can and
will give you this principle of development, that also
is an act of grace, which has no equivalent in the
human world, because one cannot pay for this gift in
the silver of men; this man will give you immortality
and becomes your true father in spiritual eternity;
you must learn from him in order to live your own
life and grow vigorously.

But in fact, one sometimes encounters beings, male

or female, exceptional by virtue of their spiritual
state. Thus we have the states of natural
mediumship, of which the tendency to religious or
sexual asceticism, in certain beings, is a visible
proof. There where the development of the psycho-
fluidic organism is not in harmony with the physical
body, it is established that the animal life in the
individual is very abnormal and the nervous
sufferings and the thousand pathological phenomena
demonstrate to the ignorant that it is case of
disequilibrium; this is why certain cases of madness
were sacred in the ancient religions. For this reason
also, the illuminated religions prescribed that the
160
persons showing tendencies towards sacred things
were immediately admitted to the bosom of the
priestly family, to avoid the premature development
of their fluidic personality lest it become drowned in
a profane and impossible life; this is why many men
who have dedicated body and soul to combating the
devil, without rules, guidance or intellectually divine
and extra-human help, have been involved in
physical accidents which have made them the
subjects of observation in the dissecting rooms.

There is nothing more simple than the practice of the

spiritualism of Allan Kardec and, in the meantime, I
invite the researchers to observe well, in those who
know the greatest mediumistic development, all the
alterations to the physique of the medium as he
progresses and continues his mundane life. Certain
exhibit paleness, others experience cardiac troubles
or breathing difficulties and still others stomach
troubles or nervous problems; none of the very
advanced mediums can say: I am physically the
vigorous man that I used to be.

But is it really true that he who practises

spiritualism, if he wishes to develop a latent
mediumship, risks being driven to suicide or to
suffering some kind of nervous trouble?

161
Is it true in substance that he who indulges in the
practice of the occult sciences becomes physically
and intellectually sick? This is indisputably true if
the development of a man's spirit is not linked to a
new regime of human life.

Therefore magic, through the regime of life

gradually corrected, that it prescribes for its
disciples, pre-announces a state of the spirit in
harmony with the physical receptacle. Hence, a
perfect health of body, whilst the spirit is purified
and soars to the most elevated regions, means that
the forces of the fluidic body acquire an exceptional;
vigour. The sickness of the physical body always
represents the result of an error committed in the
domain of the fluidic body, inasmuch as the
development of the latter, in itself, is in close
relation with physical health.

We have now before us another problem. Once the

physique of the disciple is prepared to be sensitive to
any kind of sensation not felt by other men, what
does he see of the invisible world?

Above all, does another world really exist or is it the

invention of a sick brain?

162
Natural magic teaches, and experience shows, that
beyond the forces studied by the physicist and
applied by profane mechanics, there exist forces
over which the profane physicist and mechanic has
still not achieved mastery and these have
conventionally been termed hyper physical forces or
above physical forces. It is useless to demonstrate
the scientific error of a term which does not stand up
to our examination.

Physis, in Greek, means nature. In nature are

comprised all the forces, independent of the
intellectual principle which animates them [as the
usual physics studies only in imperfect fashion,
because it is limited to the study of the laws in their
experimental effects wheras in The Unity of
Movement, it ought to study the law which presides
at their creation]. Sound,

light, electricity, heat, therefore, are the

modifications or modes of being of the forces which
our animal organism liberates.

If, in researching indefinitely the common source of

all the manifestations of forces and physical
energies, one wishes to attain, I do not think that one
can imagine something more synthetic than the
magnetism of nature. It is always considered
magically as energy, force, heat, electricity, light,
163
space, dimension, movement and life: the expression
of all that results in the numerous diverse
manifestations of the intelligent, physical nature of
the physical world.

From that which is occult in us, emanates the variety

of forces which are summarised by the word: life -
from the animal sensation to the thought, idea,
conceived image and the organically conserving
magnetism which transforms and creates.

Magnetism is thus the synthesis of energy and life

which constitute a human unity; it is indefinable like
life; the first, proceeding from a universal source,
the father and supreme centre of all the forces of
sentient nature; the second, procreated by the first,
evolves or ceases for indiscernible reasons.

That is why we all possess a magnetic power, but in

different proportions, according to our natural
constitution, a magnetic power which is externalised
without causing the consciousness of the particular
subject to be manifested.

164
The animal machine develops, in a way that is
sensed, sound, heat, magnetism and electricity and,
in a manner which is not sensed, light.

But, if these exclusively physical forces are reduced

in the human organism in the movement of blood
and of the motor-intelligent principle, there is the
mystery of vitality or life movement, which
represents in the abstract the unity of the mechanical
forces in visible nature.

The animal life [or more correctly the vital animal

impulsion] commences, transmitted by the father,
through fleeting ecstasy into a fertilised egg and
ceases when the last tear flows down the cheek of
the dead; but there is no reason not to believe that
the movement transmitted by the act of generation
does not continue, even after the death of the
materially sensitive body for all, in a third fluidic
body which succeeds it.

This movement [united movement] and all its

external manifestations, which are quite diverse,
[psychic, magnetic, hypnotic and nervous forces,
etc.] are not supernatural, but, on the contrary, are
resident in the physical nature.

165
They are therefore not hyper-physical but only
physical - but one can call them simply occult - for
their action is not indistinctly sensitive to all
organised beings.

But if one were being scientifically precise, even the

word occult should not be used; for all the forces not
yet studied by experimental science are not occult in
their effects, but only in their laws of production,
just as electricity was occult until Volta discovered
the electric battery.

But, all the forces which are in nature are measured,

studied and observed from their natural effects and
to deny that a world of forces exists in the raw state
that human intelligence can utilise and bend to his
will, would be evident if one believed only in the
effects of electricity, heat and light. Once observed,
all these phenomena of heat, light, magnetism and
sound, which are produced in this little world of the
individual man [the microcosm] are summarised in
the world of human vital forces.

Meanwhile, the significance of the question: "Does

another world exist?" is not related to the existence
of physical forces [for the physique does not lead
166
astray many fantasists] but to that of a world of
individuals having already conquered on the earth
or beings who have never existed in human form
and who at the same time possess reason and will.

The materialists pretend that this is not so, but the

Spiritualists say yes. The first assure us that all
which does not fall under the five senses of the
human animal is false. The second maintain on the
other hand that the five known senses in man
represent all that man has in common with the
animals of an inferior class and that he must
moreover take account of the human spirit or
intelligence which represents a sixth intuitive and
clairvoyant sense, appropriate to the evolved man,
who must give us the norm and the base for all
evaluation of existing things, not falling under the
five senses.

Let us distance ourselves a little from the

materialists and spiritualists and ask ourselves what
is the truth. The five human senses, the powerful
arm of the sensualists, deceive us readily.

Any kind of experiment with a sensible

impressionable subject, before he has been trained in
hypnotic sleep, suffices to produce the conviction
167
that the animal senses are, of all created things, the
most imperfect. The state of hypnosis, even
superficially, is liable to alter easily the normal
functions of the feelings in the sensitive subject. It
is clear that all hypnotic subjects do not succeed
easily in seeing with the point of the fingers, but all
hypnotists take pleasure in making a glass of water
tasted by the subject in the course of an experiment
seem to him to taste like castor oil and that a basket
of flowers can take for the subject all possible forms.

But experimental science has still not managed to

understand why and in what proportion the most
unexpected phenomena of hypnosis can exist in the
society of reasonable men or suggest a credible
method of defining the true normal level of natural
sensation, far from all external influence.

Physiology assigns to the brain all the central

functions linked to sensation, but, even the brain and
cerebellum or the spinal cord or properly the
sympathetic nervous system are the centre for
receiving all exterior impressions. It is certain that
the animal senses are a poor and miserable thing
which can easily deceive and that they belie the
truth. The external sensations affecting the sensitive
centre either happen or do not happen, according to
whether the sensitiveness of the nerves brings or
does not bring to the centre the impression sensed at
the periphery.
168
If we think, it is because we hear, touch, see taste,
sense or possess relative ideas and the spirit [Mens]
or intelligence in its human mechanism, which
cannot make the abstraction from the original
sensory apparatus. There is no thought which
directly or indirectly is not referred to the memory
of past sensations. Do not believe, o man, that you
are soul and body: consider yourself as a unity, just
as the universe is a unity.

I have said: distance yourself from the materialists

and spiritualists. Now, if we reason without having
the passion of a thesis to sustain or defend for the
honour of the argument, or one's professional
standing or school of thought, and we isolate
ourselves from all the hubbub around us, we make
ourselves one with men of letters, philosophers and
those who indulge in this type of experience and we
then ask ourselves if each nervous impression which
influences the centres of our sensations responds to a
truth, a whim or an illusion.

Where do we hope to find the truth? Above all the

sensations? In that case, the physical senses will not
have the control of what seems to be. In the
exclusive domain of the senses, free from all
external influence? In that case, there are the spirit
169
and the reason which speak in fact. Beneath all the
physical impressions? But who guarantees that we
do not mutilate the truth, in creating a sensation in
our sensitive centre which does not entirely come
from the periphery? And is it true that the route of
the sensations runs from the periphery to the
sensorial centres? And who assures us that the
opposite is not true, that from the sensitive centres,
these sensations pass to the periphery? Or in which
case is the first premise true and in which case the
second?

The happiest men are those who either do not think

or do not have the time to think. He who would
dispute with philosophy the doubtful aspects of what
is manifested to us, and which can be and which
cannot be, will end up in a lunatic asylum. The
occult philosophy, however, [I speak here of
elementary philosophy and not the very high
philosophy about which I have not written]
reascends to the origin of the action of the senses on
the creative and intellectual power and reduces the
fundamental truth to a formula:-

All sensation is an idea and all idea is sensation;

what is an idea of being is a being and the central
power of all that has been created and creatable in
the universe [macrocosm], or in man [the
microcosm] is the being, at the same time both

170
creator and created, creator and work, tree and
fruit.

Is a fundamental axiom like this one difficult, o

Reader? I do not invite you to discuss it, but to
meditate serenely upon it, at the times when your
spirit is calm, when the divine light will smile on
your intellect and when you will have to console
yourself with the fact that, from time immemorial
until today, the whole battle of human thought
against the unknowable reality has been the same in
all epochs and in all civilisations, because the secret
philosophy of the magi has not presented the prime
esoteric truth in the form of the Mystic Triangle,
common to all classical religions and all
philosophical and initiatic sects.

Intelligence
The Spirit - Cause

171
 Matter Form
The Plasma Form

Force Creation
Means Effect

Reduce these three philosophical factors to the

esoteric language of the dogmatic churches and the
Triangle is more evident.

The Father represents intelligence, the spirit, the first

cause, the spirit which gives form, the centre of the
sensations and these are all at the apex of the
triangle, of which the two other points represent the
Son [or material which fashions on the periphery]
and the Holy Spirit [vehicle of the creative human
force, originating from the active centre which is the
Father.]

Notice, O Reader, that I reduce the religious occult

symbols to an explanation of the form of Absolute
Truth under all possible aspects.

Now reverse the triangle:-

172
A B

and if you place on the apex C the central power

which receives the sensations from the periphery,
you then find in this reversed triangle all that which
corresponds to the form, thought and religious
concept of the catholic devil through this symbol of
absolute blindness, where the sensorial centres are
placed under the blind influence of the peripheral
points A and B; it is the matter which creates its God
without light.

Examine the words: the number 3, to which

corresponds the planetary sign, comprehends the
three points of the triangle in its normal position:
intelligence, force and creation; cause, means and
effect; hence the entire work of realisation in natural
and divine magic.

To create, explain the theologians, signifies to

extract from nothing. That, however, is not true, for
173
to conceive the universe or cosmos, is to make an
abstraction of all that has been and will be, including
the prime intelligence which animates all. The
creation, according to the sacred symbolism, is the
act of supreme potentiality of the Divine Intelligence
upon the matter which is not sublimated, the act
which produces a form and it is nothing other than
an indication of a will to reform. Even if one wished
to hold to the letter of the traditional sacred books,
Jehovah created man by mixing the clay of the earth
with His breath; this clay and this breath pre-existed
in man; they have reunited, kneaded together by the
will to create a more perfect form of animal which
could draw near again to the thought which gave it
form. And this created man through a supreme will
has transmitted to us the impulse of the divine will
which created it... and we have been created by our
fathers exactly as the first and most ancient of our
ancestors were created by the will of Jehovah. It is
in the same manner that we make a child, mixing
with the clay of the earth [through the act of animal
copulation] a certain spirit of life. The sensualists
will never understand that, for this spirit of life is
liberated at this psychological moment that
materialist philosophy examines by fascinating itself
with the senses, the spasms of love and libido. As
for the spiritualist doctrines, it is the spiritual ecstasy
which makes them excited, when it produces
entirely material effects after nine months, unless
before.....

174
Thus, to create is not to extract from nothing. It is
to give life and form, thought and will, spirit and
essence and exterior quality.

If men did not think only of enriching themselves

and enjoying in refined fashion the most delicate,
the most extreme and the most exaggeratedly
illusory sensations, they would not be distanced
from the source of absolute truth. The occult
philosophy, in fact, which is the true, unique and
unchangeable reason for all things, defines the two
attitudes thus:-

In current terms:-

[a] Pleasure in the life of the senses is the result of

all action of the exterior

environment on the inert intellectual centre.

[b] The creative act, which constitutes a true

imitation of Jehovah, the Premier

Intelligence, indicates, as opposed to all profane

pleasure, the preponderance

175
 of the intellectual centre [intelligent will] over
the other parts of the periphery,

in contact with the external environment.

Whence comes the difference between he who is

initiated and the ordinary man? The thinking centre
of the first [intelligence, force, will and act] fulfils
perfectly the conditions of paragraph [b]. It is no
longer the slave of the external environment and is
capable of producing the phenomenon of realisation
of its will. The second, on the other hand, is entirely
dominated by mental suggestions which draw it
towards the external sensations.

I counsel those of my readers who truly have the

desire to make progress to study attentively this
fundamental part of the mechanics of the
impressions and will. I have shown its philosophical
base, as it is communicated in the Qabbalah, the
book of absolute and relative philosophy.

I leave, however, a free path to him who would

study the Qabbalah in its different aspects. I retire
from it and vulgarise its precepts, in this
examination of the secret science of the magi, in
order that these applications may be very clear. And
also in order that I do not hear continually repeated
176
that the occult sciences constitute a veritable
imposture developed by people who profit from the
credulity of others. It is quite the contrary. I aim to
encourage the spirit of studious people, whom the
scepticism of our schools prepares us not to believe
in putting the fertile grain of an intelligent or
scientific theocracy. The latter must form, in the
future of nations, a state of merciful well-being in
every civil organisation.

But we must not digress from our intuitive

progression.

It is therefore not the senses which are deceivers, but

the sensations elaborated in the conscious centres of
a man through twisted judgement.

The physical senses in man are the unique means of

controlling reality. Nevertheless, the sensorial
impressions have their value according to the level
of consciousness and the psychic neutrality of the
sensitive subject. To grasp a true and thorough view
of these matters, it is necessary to be in a state of
perfect neutrality, which is obtained by a perfect
equilibrium in ourselves.

177
The principle that the human senses deceive the
passive sensorial centres poses the reply to the
following question: "Does another world exist or
not, where reasoning, invisible creatures live,
endowed with free will?"

This cannot be demonstrated, appreciated and

discussed by the corporeal senses. We must, on the
other hand, reascend the current of base sensations
by an indirect route [from the centre to the
periphery] in order to become conscious of
sensations different from the ordinary ones.

Periphery Centre
Intelligence

Centre Periphery
Matter
178
Sensation

Intoxication

Magnetise a sensitive subject. In charging him with

your fluid or in hypnotising him by mechanical
means, you isolate him from external sensations.
What matters is that you produce a temporary
phenomenon consisting of disengaging his
intelligent sensorial centre from external influences.
Liberated from these sensations of external origin,
the psychic centre of the subject is to the psychic
centre of a man what the spirit of a man with an
empty stomach is to the spirit of the same man
having copiously abused intoxicating liquor. One
obtains the phenomenon of lucidity, or clairvoyance,
to know the impression of a fluidic thought or the
179
image invoked of an existing thing. These are
immediately reflected on the sensitive intelligent
centre of the subject, which communicates, not with
the senses of his physical body, but with the spirit
[thought-force] of him who magnetises it and who
reflects the sensations or the images arising from it.

Total isolation, conscious or not, of the sensitive

central power, predisposes one for the manifestation
of the potential reflection of the surrounding images,
reflected by other men or other things.

The psychic power of a subject grows if it is exerted

just as muscles are developed by exercise.

The occult science, passed into the religious

esotericism of Christianity, gives us a simple
method. The faithful are told: meditate and you will
hear Christ speak.

The men of learning mock some practices of

Christianity. It is sadly true that many priests
neither believe in nor understand what they are
doing. When, however, the priest says at the altar:
Verbum caro factum est [The Word is made flesh],
he neither knows nor understands that he acts there
180
for the accomplishment of a magical operation. The
Word has become action and fact, through the
manifestation of Christ.

Pray, isolate yourself, meditate, says the Christian,

and you will cause the spirit of God to descend upon
you. This Holy Spirit of the Christians is an ancient
Telema and is the link between the invisible world
and the sensitive world. If, however, a spiritualist
sits at a small table, with a piece of paper in front of
him and a pen in his hand and he prays in these
terms [according to the formula of Allan Kardec]:

Omnipotent Lord, grant that my guardian angel may

respond to me... or that the spirit of such a one may
speak to me...the operation is then identical. The
liberty of the central intelligent power succeeds in
calming the physical sensitivity in man.

The explanation is the same for all the other

methods employed in divination of all kinds.

The vision in the water [known in more recent times

as the Mirror of Cagliostro], or the vision in
concave mirrors or brilliant surface, only use the
181
irradiations of the luminous rays reflected due to the
surface, shining for the physical eye of the Pupil
[Cagliostro called Pupil the young girl who gazed
into the bottle of water]. This is how to determine
the movement or action of the secret visual
apparatus in the human organisation.

Music, when harmonious or melodic, has the power

to act by being reflected on the psyche of the
listener. In fact, the ordinary auditory apparatus,
seized by the whirling of the succession of notes, or
deafened by the metallic noises of great vibrations,
can even produce a state of cataleptic hypnosis in
certain sensitive subjects.

Let us resume, so as to proceed further. In practice,

the means of obtaining intuition of the ultra-human
truth is reduced to one man only: he acts to reduce
to a state of inertia the corporeal senses in order to
give total freedom to the other sense, which is the
means of conduction between the ultra-human and
the human.

This is what must be separated: it is the enigma of

the magic of the great magi and it is also the only
absolute finality. To grasp the intellectual
phenomenon is impossible if one has not attained
detachment or separation... How inadequate
182
language is! I use two words which, in themselves,
are inappropriate and convey nothing. For they are
linked with the world of matter. In occult
philosophy [unitary], one cannot achieve
appropriate speech, detachment nor separation.

Nevertheless, in the material world as in the

spiritual, eternally mixed in a wonderful embrace,
there exist two polarities and therefore two
sensibilities, of which the finer proceeds from the
negative of the more rudimentary and vice versa.

In this conflict, one determines in the relativity of

life, the equilibrium of the middle way. This is
hermetic or integral magnetism which is the magical
instrument par excellence. It is in effect appropriate
to the comprehension of the sensitive forces, in their
integrality or separately, at the two extremes. That
is not possible for the sensualists, who are prisoners
of base materialism, nor for the spiritualists who
concentrate all their psychodynamic ability into the
most elevated intellect, towards the extreme pole of
the more subtle sensitivity.

I sense that this explanation will not suffice to

convey the idea of the hermetic initiation and this is
for two reasons: first, because we lack new words
183
which I cannot create, when even the idea of the
thing cannot be grasped by most people; then
because of the error committed by profane
philosophical education, which renders the reader
unable to analyse the dynamic causes of all action of
human intelligence, in relation to the lowest form of
creation.

This manner of speaking, apparently abstruse, will

remain for those who do not hear in order to
practise, but only to talk about it. To practise, by
which I understand the difficult training leading to
the perception of the sensitivity, which becomes
intellectual spirit and light, in the mysterious
obscurity of the origin of each of us.

To write and speak about magic does not necessarily

mean that you are a magus. A magus is formed and
created by a continual process of auto creation. It is
made at first by the determination of the deepest
analyses of sensuality and feeling, far from all
prejudice linked to asceticism and mechanical
materialism. Initiation into the arcane comes
afterwards.

Every man and woman, from the time that they enter
into this period of development of the interior sense
[or subtle perception], whatever may be the means
184
which they use, return to all that which is exterior
inertia, to the profit of their psychic development.

This world of beyond, this world of beings having

already lived or never having lived a terrestrial life,
can neither be appreciated nor judged by the
ordinary means of control of the corporeal senses. It
is useless to try to pretend that it exists to he who
has not developed this special property which is the
eye of the soul and which we have called the sixth
sense or subtle perception, or telema, or very
mercurial intelligence.

When one applies the sixth sense, if the method

followed in order to obtain the proof cannot be
controlled by ordinary men, one can always
physically obtain this proof or control. If a
gentleman receives you with many good manners
and you have intuition, you may feel by an acute
perception of the soul, that he is not sincere. Your
perception, the feeling which you read in the depths
of his soul, are not controllable in themselves. The
means of proving the correctness of this sentiment
will be for you a certainty, but will have for others
only a doubtful value. Furthermore, you would like
a proof which would prevent others from contesting
this sentiment of proved antipathy, experienced by
one's own watchfulness.

185
Let a few days pass. This man will show himself as
he is, on the first occasion on which he could have
been benevolent in your regard. Your preceding
intuition has therefore been thus confirmed by a
tangible control which proves it precisely.

It is the same with experimental problems of magic

occultism.

Faith is blind. I believe because I am incapable of

judging. The ignorant peasant, before a doctor, must
make an act of faith: I believe, doctor, in your
human knowledge. The intelligent man who cannot
measure and embrace the Central Creative Unity,
Movement and Life, and who is the All-Powerful
One is obliged to believe in God. But when one
speaks of authentic science, which the majority of
people baptise in the name of faith, it is only the
intuition of a truth obtained through the action of
the sixth sense, which waits to be confirmed, in
obvious form, by physical proof.

Without this perception, which has been wrongly

confused with the faith encountered in ordinary men,
Archimedes would have never discovered the law of
the weight of immersed bodies, Galileo would never
186
have cried out: "And yet it moves!" Christopher
Columbus would never have discovered America
and Darwin would not have pursued the monument
of modern scientific research which bears his name.

Read the history of the great alchemists. They spent

fifty, sometimes sixty, years or more blowing on the
furnaces and liquefying metals; chemical
combination succeeded chemical combination, but
they did not reach as far as animating metals, nor
change them into gold. Those who reached as far as
possessing the law allowing the transformation into
the protogenerative unity did not say: I believe and I
succeed, but rather: my intuition, the feeling which I
arrived at, made me keep going, despite the vain
sneers of others and I have finally reached my goal.

Now, of this other world, those who are very

psychically advanced, can and must prove the
certitude of the existence of this world where are
found intelligences, creatures and forces, through
material effects of which it is the origin.

In the hyper physical world, as in that of the

mechanical forces, all action produces a reaction.
Now in the forces, creatures and intelligences which
inhabit the invisible world, the action is the work of
187
he who has had an intuition, better still, of he who
has developed this sixth sense, by feeling the
presence and action of these forces and hyper
physical intelligences, of which the reaction has a
strong repercussion on the physical world.

Thus [a] the action of the extra-human forces and

intelligences of which a sensitive subject [S] has
intuition and the reaction [r] which belongs to the
physical world.

Astronomically, the situation is presented thus:-

Therefore to avoid all misunderstanding, we would

say that to perceive and evaluate the action of the

188
other world on the sensitive world, is reserved to he
alone who can perceive subtly the movement of
these intelligences and forces. As regards those who
remain in mediocrity, they have the right to have the
proofs of these intuitions, proceeding from the other
world by its sensitive reactions on the physical
world.

Proposition VI: The

conflict between religion
and science is determined
by the sophistication of
the definition of God and
of the spirit of God.

To understand properly what one must grasp

through intelligence, in Magic, it is necessary to
proceed to a brief examination of the forces in
nature. I anticipate those of my readers who wish to
believe that in this paragraph I wish to annihilate
the god of any religious faith.
189
On the contrary, I wish, as He merits it, to elevate a
temple of reason to this Unique Being who,
disfigured by all the religious and sectarian
polemics, becomes for the wise men and the
observant a person of operetta.

All the definitions are conventional, but the light, the

sound, the heat, are the forces or the manifestations
of a force: try to define the force....

What then is this force? Nothing other than the soul

of all production of phenomena. But the human
intellect is incapable of conceiving this unique force.
Wherever we direct our gaze, we discover the
existence of myriads of simple forces, in a
continually evolving manifestation of phenomena.

The Unique Force is the life of the universe. And

these are the active and varied forces of many of the
diverse manifestations which constitute the life of
matter, metals, vegetables, minerals, men and wild
beasts.

190
The Unique Force in continual exercise is
Movement: the simple forces are the modes of being
of movement or central movement.

This simple philosophy of matter is as old as the

world. Zoroaster prostrated himself before the sun,
just as Doctor Kremmerz by commencing the Secret
World in 1898. The vulgar masses say that
Zoroaster prostrated himself before the greatest Star
because he adored it as much as the visible God; but
if, on the contrary, one studies well the mythologies
of the whole sacred Orient, one will find again this
concept of Unique Force and of Movement in all the
religions which have the astronomical base of
Antiquity.

The sun , by its circular form, represents rapid

rotation and, by its apparent movement, the ever
interrupted Movement. Everywhere in religious
symbolism, - from Persians to Egyptians, from
pagans to Catholics -, where you see circles, wheels,
discs, say to yourself that it is the personification of
the central movement, or life of the universe, which
is recalled by the faithful.

The celestial planisphere of the Egyptians is similar

to the wheels of the chariot of the pagan Phoebus,
191
the round Host which the Catholics expose to the
adoration of the faithful, it is the sun of Zoroaster
and of Doctor Kremmerz, it is the same host that the
ecclesiastical conserves in a silver and gold case,
from which emanate the rays, like those of the sun,
and which the public venerates.

The manifestations of the Unique Force or

Movement are specific forces. All these forces are
physical or natural, and everywhere we have the
custom of distinguishing the physical forces of the
mechanical and chemical forces and the animal,
vegetable and vital forces.

Above all these varieties and sub-species, let us

place the thinking force and the will, the psyche or
“nous” of the Greeks, the neshamah of the Hebrew
Qabbalah, the mens of the Latins.

At this stage, the Force or Unique Movement, is

blended with a principle of Absolute Reason, which
represents the Reason of this unique force, namely
the thinking soul of this physical life or soul of the
universe.

192
In other words: if F represents the Unique Central
Force and F’, F’’, F’’’, F’’’’, etc., the specific forces
of different manifestations, the brutal mechanism of
these evolutions and deployments of F is conserved
hypothetically unchanged. In effect, when, in the
life of minerals, one is elevated as far as the life of
organised beings of a superior order, one notices that
all phenomenon of force and will are accompanied
by another inexplicable phenomenon which, under
the form of reason, of free will, of equilibrium, of
idea, of number, determines the application of it
more or less promptly, in one way or another.

This Unique Central Force [F], is in itself only

hypothetically blind. On the contrary, in reality, one
observes that it is constantly ruled by a law, which is
the expression of its reason and which determines its
functions. When this force F reaches the level of the
reasonable and evolved man, the psyche of the latter,
his will, his reason or his free will, can modify it or
even provoke it, for good or bad, to adapt it, in
certain proportions, to his vital needs, to deviate it to
the detriment of the same, or even augment it.

But, in the phenomena of manifestations of F, in the

general, constant or evolutionary order of nature, as
the spirit of one or several men and incapable of
directing it, one supposes necessarily or rightly that
this unique force F is capable of being organised and
193
of thinking for itself, or rightly that there exists a
spirit in the enth power of the human spirit. This
intuitive shell exalts the spirit creator, and when one
reads that God created man, in reality, it is man who
is created a God according to the image formed in
his spirit and the progression of this spirit, so as to
spread it over all things which emanate from the
circle of his power.

That is why he is miserable, poor and ignorant, the

God of the ignorant. That is why the Great God of
the evolved and refined spirits is magnificent. In
proportion to the extent to which the creature
evolves, the horizon becomes vaster; the more one
approaches the indefinable infinite, the more one
acquires the marvellous intuition of this Unknown
which withdraws and becomes greater and greater as
humanity progresses.

The religions which do not evolve in the same

rhythm as the intellectual progress of the people are
condemned to die or to be transformed. Also the
Christian religion is called “catholic” or “universal”
because it could not be permitted to be behind the
times over the intellectual novelties concerning the
“scientific” progress of the faithful: from where the
ferocious conflict between a church which defends
maladroitly its dogmas and the people, avid to know
and mistaking the stagnation which, in its soul, is

194
negation of the central Movement and therefore
synonymous with death and decomposition!

But let us follow an elementary argument: the God

who created us, it is a means of attaining the limit of
our spirit to a degree much superior to that of all
human power. Meanwhile, when the creation of a
sovereign spirit has attained his accomplishment in
us, then we must ourselves undertake the last march
of the visible perfection.

Man

Spirit or God Animal

Sensitive Nature

Vegetables

Minerals

But let us go further.

195
From the minerals one passes to the vegetables,
from those to the animals, from them to man...... but
from man to the Unique Spirit, it is far, from where
all theologies are born. If the force F were brute, the
universe would not have order and reason in the
constant unfolding natural phenomena. If the force
were “reasonable” in itself, then by separating even
the least of its particles, it could not be subdued by
man or by his spirit.

Thus, by dividing:

F[Unique Force or Movement]

by M[Universal Spirit
Regulator]

one obtains = D[Conception of

God] = M+F

Since M expresses the regulatory expression, F must

be the resistance. Thus:

196
M + F [F’, F’’, F’’’, F’’’’, etc.] = Realisation means
that that which is total phenomenon, whatever may
be its nature and species, high and low, in the
material as in the spirit, in the visible as in the
invisible, is produced by a regulatory impulsion [M]
and by the unique force or life of the universe.

In the supra-human phenomena, “M” represents the

universal spirit; in all the purely human phenomena
“M” represents the spirit of man.

Let us now examine the conflict between religion

and science.

The religious doctrine pretends to define God, i.e. to

define the indefinable, or to make concrete that
which by its nature cannot be made so, to know the
Life of the Universe or Force, as well as the Spirit
which rules its functions.

And against this, the science and reason of the

"reasonable beast" revolt.

197
The Qabbalists, i.e., those who know how to read in
the Qabbala its hidden and mysterious meaning, do
not even pretend to be able to conceive the idea of
God: they admire him as the unknown and
inconceivable author of all phenomena. The
manifestation of the Spirit and the Force is made by
the production of phenomena.

That is why the magicians of the fire, of Isaac and

Abraham, lit a pile of wood and, whilst the tongues
of flame rose up towards the heavens and the logs
crackled, they adored him who manifests his power
by this fire which reduces everything to ashes. That
is why an obstetrician who hears the first cry of a
new-born baby can adore the Force and the Spirit
which perpetuates the animal and human life of
beings created in our image.

Also, when a dying man exhales his last breath, the

most sceptical of materialists must bare his head
before the body and salute the Life of the Universe
and the Spirit which abandon the human remains to
the worms of the sepulchre. That is again why one
should bow before the physical beauty of women, a
constant testimony to the eternal harmony of Nature.

198
Proposition VII
Intelligence is the most
exact expression of the
intuition
of the being.

What I shall now deal with briefly is the Gordian

Knot of the conception of the Unique God in Magic.
I also recommend the researcher in occult
philosophy not to go further if he has not first
understood the method of investigation of the human
spirit to know the Cause of All Causes.

The Force being intuitive, the Movement being

indefinable, human language cannot reach the
heights of giving a precise outline of a thing which
every person feels in themselves and which we, in
the Latin language, have called “Mens” = Spirit.

In current grammar, the vestige of the ideal

grammar [the primitive grammar of absolute ideas]
199
the verb or word par excellence is the substantive to
be. The Latin Ens is Being; the Mens of the Latin
language is composed of Ens [a consonant of
possession - nearly a syncope of Meus] which
precedes the substantive participle indicating the
Ens, i.e. the Being, he who exists, who is.

Let us therefore pause at the profound meaning of

these words. The Being is the absolute idea of the
Universal spirit of God and the Spirit expresses the
relative idea of the Universal spirit, incarnate and
defined in the human body.

The Qabbalists express this name of the Great God

by four Hebrew letters:

JOD - HE - VAU - HE

which in the magical formulae do not form a name

but correspond to the Tetragrammaton, that is the
word of four letters which conceals the name of the
Universal God. That is why we also term him also
Ineffable, i.e. That which cannot be expressed in
words. But if you wish to determine the divine spirit
incarnate, you must use 5 letters or better the magic
Pentagram, a figure composed thus:-
200
This pentagram, as one can easily verify, is the
projection of man, with his arms and legs apart. It
corresponds to the star with five branches which the
Magi going to worship Christ saw resplendent in the
heavens; that is why the magicians in their works
attach so much to this talismanic sign, traced with
the appropriate rites and at the most favourable
moment, which has indisputable virtues.

ENTE [Being]
MENTE [Spirit]

4 letters
5 letters

Intelligence is the effort of the Spirit to conceive, by

absorbing the virtues, the Being from which it
originates: intelligo, virtually in te lego, of which
intellectuals of the Neoplatonists made great use in
201
the harmonious Italian language [in Dante, one finds
this word used correctly in this sense.]

Therefore we learn:-

a] God cannot be defined

b] The graphical expression of God, Qabbalistically,

is a Tetragrammaton,

consisting of a Jod, a He, a Vau and a second He.

JOD = The active principle of all things, fertilising.

HE = The receptive passive principle [guttural]

VAU = Active fertilisation and generation

HE = The receptive passive principle

As for the Hebrew Jehovah, who is mocked by the

ignorant know-alls who ignore the sacred
philosophy, he was not defined to any great extent
by the Jewish priesthood. He was on the contrary
the Great and True God who contains in himself all

202
the principles of Force, Spirit and Realisation, as we
have explained in Proposition VI. The four letters
express an eternal law.

A peasant who makes with a dibble a hole in the

ground throws a seed into it and, after a season picks
the fruit, performs the four operations expressed in
the Hebrew Tetragrammaton:

JOD = The active principle, peasant who makes the

hole.

HE = The earth or passive element, in which the

hole has been made.

VAU= The seed which bears fruit.

HE = The reality of gathering the fruit.

This simple operation by the peasant is similar to

that which man performs in order to reproduce
himself, in all the realms of nature.

But it is the only formative conception of the truth of

the Hebrew Tetragrammaton and if you elevate
203
yourself in the domain of the most exalted ideal
philosophy, you will find the same immutable law.

This sacred Qabbalistic Name, perfect in the

expression of the eternal law of creation, can have
Intelligence adapted to the psychic development of
all those who think about this Unity of Spirit and
Force. From this are derived the angelic names, the
superior intelligences or Archangels, which are only
the rays of the central power. Thus, in the Catholic
religion the names Michael, Raphael and Gabriel
have been used, which are the different aspects of
the perpetual luminous centre, or at best, the sublime
manifestations of the Universal Power of Jehovah,
the Great God.

Inscribe these names in Hebrew letters; if you study

the Qabbalah well, you will see that each name is a
general law or divine principle.

The concept of these powers or intelligences is not

the same in all men, and the knowledgeable observer
and philosopher, who would consider them as
winged and curly-headed angels, is constrained to
say that the Qabbalists are impostors. But do not
disparage things and men which you have never
known.

204
*

* *

Now we pose the same question again: Does there

exist another world of intelligences, of spirits of the
dead and of invisible creatures?

The answer cannot be in doubt after what I have said

previously. This other world, to which we allude
with a fearful curiosity, exists:-

1] Because there exists a Spirit of which the

manifestation is the law of nature.

2] Because to create is to form and being born, the

negation of a Being, is

inconceivable and non-existent;

3] Because the human Spirit, the image of the

Universal Spirit, following the law of all that exists
in nature, is liberated from material elements and
evolves through research into the contact with the
Universal Spirit. It would be exceptional if its unity,
contrary to these laws, were to be disaggregated and
dispersed by the death of the physical body.
205
But in occultism, or better still in Magic, the work of
the magus is twofold:-

1] To enter by all these means - graphic signs,

vision, hearing, intuition - into

contact with the above.

2] To stir actively in himself in order to obtain

reactions in effects, in the real,

current life.

Everything is not achieved by sleeping in a

physiological hypnotic or magnetic slumber. It is
accomplished in a state of extra-normal exaltation,
which does not correspond to any of the three states
mentioned previously; indeed, on the contrary, one's
sensitivity is super-excited.

In the mediumistic manifestations, the medium is

passive. In magical operations, the magus has his
special method of working and of exalting himself,
but this does not involve sleeping.

206
He acts neither through hypnotism nor religious
ecstasy: the word capable of describing this state is
lacking in modern languages. The operator is
plunged into a state of special ecstasy in which he
does not simply submit to manifestations, but directs
them by giving them force.

Man must try with all his forces to integrate the

powers and virtues of his latent personality which
has been swamped and forgotten by the new
personality which has been imposed on him by the
society in which he lives.

Thus, by evolving slowly, at the same time

guarding his mystical being from an excess of
animal spirituality by the preponderance of the
grossest part of his constituent elements, he enters
into the field of Mag, a state of being which can only
be understood by he who experiences it.

Mag is the power of active trance. I do not know the

best way of explaining this state, which few people
understand: it is the state of automatic, volitional
trance and shadow in all its manifestations and
realisations.

207
 Magic considers its great all in the synthesis of an
immense unity which is the Universe. This, being an
immeasurable unity is equal through its functions or
through analogy, to every organised unity of an
inferior order; the human body is an example of this.

In the human, considered as a synthesis, there is an

organic unity of which the parts are members, the
viscera, the appendices of all races; like each
member, each viscera and appendix, taken as a
unity, is composed in its turn of muscles, blood
cells, etc. Any movement of a muscle or member
has a relation to the organic unity of the human
body. Put a man in a vertical position and make him
raise one foot and he will no longer prefer to apply
one more than the other: the whole organic unity of
the body feels the effort and effect of it. This is the
same for every movement or sensation.

Let us consider as a comparison the Universal Unity.

The members, the viscera and the appendices of this
giant, unfathomable in its synthesis, are the stars,
planets, sun, moon, etc.

No matter what movement of these parts of

humanity is in relation to all that is visible or
sensitive to us, the members of the human body are
comparable to those in the physical body. No one in
the world will deny that the sun rising in the East
makes its beneficial effect felt on the whole earth
208
which it illuminates, or that the appearance of
certain groups of stars, in the apparent orbit of the
sun, determine the seasons, just as certain signs of
the Zodiac bring rain or fine weather.

One can object that in the man-unity, the human will

is not subject to any direction of the movement of
parts, whilst the Universe obeys the mathematical
laws which govern the movement of all its planets to
such an extent that even the orbits of the most
distant of our comets are located and measured by
our astronomers.

This, however, is false because in the human body

[the microcosm] we notice an identical analogy
between the fixed laws of pre-established
mathematics and the accidental movements of the
whole of nature.

Example.

The fixed laws:-

209
- In man: the circulation of the blood, nutrition
through the digestive tract, the

renewal of organic material.

In the Universe: the movement of the planets, the

rotation of our planet, the

movement of the stars towards the

greater centres and the

accidental movements of satellites.

Accidental Movements:

- In man: any movement of an organ, voluntary or

involuntary.

- In the Universe: the thermal variations, the

atmospheric changes, meteors.

The astronomers can try researching into meteors to

establish approximations and probabilities, but up

210
till now no one has discovered or determined the
constant law which rules the birth and cause of
cyclones, tempests, hurricanes, rises and falls in
temperature, irregular winds, etc.

Now, in setting in relation to each other the two

unities, the macrocosm and the microcosm, the
Universe and man, it is logical and strictly scientific,
even if it is not always sensible, that every
movement of one part of the world influences the
other and modifies the conditions.

Living on the earth, we do not need to travel back to

the star Sirius or to the movement of the satellites of
Jupiter in order to feel and prove the most
spectacular effects. The movement of evolution and
revolution of the earth, the solar ecliptic and the
lunar movements suffice for us to determine the
alterations which impinge most apparently upon us.
These elements thus suffice to prove that the
planetary influences of the ancient astrologers
correspond indisputably to the beneficial or
malevolent influence of planets on our terrestrial
nature. One must therefore study the ancient
teachings and research the truths in their most
simple expression.

211
The Sun in Capricorn has a Malevolent Influence

I maintain that, unless you are a cretin, there is

nothing laughable in this affirmation. The Sun in
Capricorn is the sign of a desolate, icy and cold
month of December; the Yule log among the icicles,
the starving wolf setting out from his lair in the
mountains to seek out victims. Winter, the enemy of
the poor, advances in cold, frost and northern winds;
the sun becomes a child again, very small, on the
ecliptic of the year and the Catholic Church makes
25th December the birthdate of the infant Jesus. An
infant Jesus who, like the sun, returns to the heavens
in the sign of Aries, at Easter, when the sun makes
spring burst forth over terrestrial nature!

More than one would normally think, in the same

way that the seasons change visibly in the
astronomical year, the influence of the apparent
movement of the sun and the waxing and waning of
the moon have a positive and real effect, be it
exaggerated or feeble, on the three realms of nature.
And I would remind you that the relationship
between the waxing and the waning of the lunar
quarters have an equally apparent effect on crabs,
oysters and the reproduction of marine fishes and
molluscs, just as in the countryside one considers
certain lunar quarters as unlucky for the pruning of
certain trees; that, according to ancient beliefs,
certain fevers in the septenary period follow exactly
212
the characteristics of the phases of the moon; and
also the relationships controlled by the experimental
method of Palmieti and his assistants, between the
periods of volcanic eruption and the lunar phases.

Moreover, if a genius could reveal to the world the

laws which govern the relationships between the
movements of the moon and the nervous centres of
the human body it would stimulate a great revolution
in experimental science and the cause of certain
nervous epidemics, normally attributed to the
weather, would be discovered and also the cause of
so much unknown in the treatment of current
illnesses, of benign or malignant tendency which
appear in a certain planetary period and disappear in
another.

According to these simple instructions, I counsel the

neophyte to choose well the time to commence to
operate.

I advise the periods in which the moon waxes and

particularly the lunar phases of November and
December, or better still, the two constellations of
Scorpio and Capricorn, to attempt the first
operations in Aries [April] and the more complex

213
ones in the Sun and in Virgo in order to be
equilibrated in balance.

[Note: You know well, my son, that you are the son of
the Virgin and if you violate a Virgin, you destroy the
seed of your people, you become a parricide and
incestuous and thus your brain burns. But if you
know how to attract Mercury with the Glorious Virgin
by placing under her feet the reversed moon, you, in
your turn will become the father of demigods.

For, if, in the water of Orion, you unite with the

thread of the ancient Ariadne, the white Mercury of
the Moon of the Virgin and if you know how to keep
the Mars at a distance, your eyes will see what they
have never seen before and you will be able to
perform the miracle with the crescent moon turned
towards the earth.

Also, if you recognise me as your father, know how to

extract the secret by lifting the reed of your inhalation
from the rod of Moses and Aaron, which is my rod,
and remain coagulated, if you do not wish, through
generosity, that I dissolve you.

214
Recognise here the secret of Saturn, who is the Lord
of life and death, of love and of generation of riches
and do not forget that in Virgo you will prepare, by
the methods of art, the Rod, as your master teaches
you, without knots and with one dry precise cut, with
the false in the form of a crescent, consecrated;
without the Rod of the Virgin you will not become a
magus. And do not understand me in the wrong way,
for you sow in the sand your Mercury and do not
pretend that I write more clearly: you will ask for an
explanation of it your guide - Extract from
Kremmerz’s book “Concerning Stars and Suns.”]

The spirit being serene, let us direct our aspirations

towards higher things:-

1] Cultivate your own spirit, so that it can, after

being elevated, perceive at

first, and know afterwards, the laws of our own

physical and spiritual

Nature.

2] Perfect yourself, so that the lower nature can be

vanquished from our life by

the supremacy of the spirit.

215
3] Enter into a relationship with the invisible beings
who surround us, dominate

the wicked and inferior ones and follow the

instructions of the more perfect

beings in order to approach to the supreme truth.

4] Penetrate the sense of the laws which govern all

terrestrial realisation and let

us use them to fly to the help of our fellow men,

whenever one can and it is

right to do so.

5] Prepare the spiritual progress of humanity with all

our faculties, for

civilisation advances at the same rate as the

spirituality of men, since

civilisation signifies realisation of the spirit of the

masses.

6] Strengthen the ties of fraternity between all men

and, by resolving the

problem of their souls, solve the social problem of

nations.

216
All this, which is the scientific and humanitarian
banner of occultism, is not realisable in one sole
human lifetime, centuries of work will be required.

It is the programme of the priesthood and of science.

A modest man of goodwill, being a minute wheel of
the great chariot of humanity, lives a humble routine
life; he undertakes the realisation of part of the great
ideal, when he considers it as being the most adapted
to his inner self.

* *

Each fluidic organism and spirit living in a man

made flesh, cartilage and bone knows the limit of his
development; all like each body, studied physically,
see its limited action in the sensitive world.

Here is an example: all men sanely constituted can

live the human life; one, however, is made to
become an athlete as vigorous as Milon of Crotona
and another, in spite of all his wishing, cannot lift an
iron bar weighing fifty pounds. This proves that the
individual, physically and intellectually studied,
comes to the physical world with separate
217
coefficients for the individual which it incarnates,
constituting all that one terms the destiny of a man.

I recommend the cultivated reader to study this

problem well and to grasp a precise idea of it, for
nothing is a better antidote to the illusions which
affect the physically and intellectually true man.

As for man, as he acts in the human comedy, he

must distinguish all the factors which have formed
him:

a] Physical heredity, which is one of the conquests

of modern science but which

the ancients knew and studied also, the conquest

of truth which, precisely

because it is a truth, no longer undergoes any

modification.

b] Astrological and climatic accidents: official

science does not recognise any

influence of the period of birth on the evolution

of the physical life of the
218
 individual, but it will always be quick to perceive
that it must recognise the

influence of the epoch upon the man, just as

zoological philosophy has had to

recognise the influence of climates on the races as

necessary;

c] Human education: the education of the child and

of the adolescent is a continual process of
suggestion which commences in the most tender
years and is accomplished when the young man, ripe
for life, has become an unconscious machine as a
consequence of the education received.

The Christ of Nazareth said: "Do not strike a child

for, just like a flower, the

blow makes a deep furrow in the tender and

incarnated spirit." The child is

compared to a piece of land in which the good

herb as well as the bad can be

planted and bear fruit;

219
d] The will or volitional power: which is an
emanation of the intellectual power of the
individual, modified by human society in which the
individual evolves and acts;

e] The resistance of society to the volitional activity

of the individual: which, in society, always exists as
a factor of energy over which the individual
triumphs by the law of adaptability.

f] The perseverance of the volitional activity: which

consists in a modification of the society by the
energetic and tenacious willpower of the individual
acting;

g] The intelligence or spirit of intellectual light:

which, in life, is always combated or modified in its
factors by the action of the six preceding elements.

To educate and reconstruct his own conscience,

stripping it of all influences to which it is the slave -
historical superstition, society, habits, false vision,
servile imitation of known models - is necessary.

220
The key to the vault of the educational concept of
our personality rightly lies in this purification of the
conscience of the vagueness of human conventions.
It is then only that the hermetic novice will
commence to bear his fruits, when the conscience
will be free to evaluate a double current:

1] The sensorial or sensitive current, which reaches

us from the periphery;

2] The instinctive current, which commences to strip

away the tendencies of the

former man in us.

The “nosce te ipsum” is justly the initiation to the

light, the purification of all that is artificial and of
“sub-creation,” grafted on to us by ignorant human
society. Man has in him an unexplored depth where
[according to materialist reasoning] are registered,
since his birth, all the impressions, forms and ideas,
which our conscience forgets.

One part of us is ancient and another very recent.

The ancient or historic man is the marrow, the centre
221
of visible man exteriorly, reasoning, with a
conscience formed by sensations and through
adaptation of his mentality to where he performs his
activities.

The unconscious, the subconscious and the

subliminally belong to this astral field which is in us
[astral = black, without light] from where burst forth
from time to time numerous disorders, all the most
inconceivable marvels, the spark of genius and the
paroxysm of folly.

Characterise as a nucleus, entity and person this

field and you will find there an historic unity of your
spirit, across all past existences. The scientific word
to represent this historic individual, our solar spirit
enveloped in a thick black cloud, has still not been
invented, for the historic personality in us is not only
soul or spirit, our pure breath, but a completely
special activity, which surges into the consciousness
of the living being who stagnates, like a prompter
for the actors in a comedy, at the most critical
moments of forgetfulness and helplessness.

In the linear symbology of the Qabbalists, the

triangle with the apex pointing upwards [A],
represents the exterior life, conscious, visible and
sensitive, the man who lives in its full consciousness
222
of exterior reason, the man with his eyes looking
towards the heavens, above the level of the sun [A’].

If the triangle is reversed [B], such a point lost in the

depths of the earth, inferior at level A”. It is the
occult life, mysterious, in the unfathomable
obscurity of the death of man, the man vital in his
unconscious, the obscure astral, sombre, profound,
who no longer belongs to the visible, exterior life.

A”

A B
C A”

A'

The double triangle, the interpenetration of the first

two [C], in such a way that the level A” is placed at
the median intersection of the sides, represents the
type of the magus, a man integrated between the
apparent exterior consciousness [Triangle A] and the
part of his consciousness [triangle B] which
occupies the place of the occult God, with the full
array of his powers.
223
It is by spontaneous acts, escaping from the
conscious control of the will, that the unconscious
and its intentions are manifested. Freud uses the two
words “interference” and “intentions”: thus, to this
interior zone which is revealed by lapses and
surprises, he attributes the intentions which are
volitional acts and he gives to the unconscious [the
astral] not only the power to retain images and
impressions but also an eonic power, which is a
personality capable of conceiving the same acts as
our conscious personality.

This is not Freud’s conclusion but ours; from our

point of view of magic philosophy, it is the
examination of the impressive powers of a second
complete personality. This point, moreover,
constitutes the stumbling block of all the
philosophies.

The interior man is the father [who is, was and will
be], the conscious man, the inhibitor; through
education, the ideas inculcated by the society in
which he lives, by respect for the moral, civil, penal
and religious laws, he represses all manifestation of
the historic personality, since it does not have a life
which conforms to the reaction of the exterior and
conscious personality.

224
This censorial obstacle, pre-existent or recent, is an
enormous bridge which distances the ordinary man
from experiencing magic, since the obstacle is not
only spiritual in the current sense of the term, but
exerts a power on the whole physical and mental
life, influences success in practical life as an
inhibitor of power, founded on “reason,” sometimes
instinctive, but often imprinted with sentimentality;
it has a hundred diverse faces and is of imitative and
gregarious origin.

I only appreciate this theory of Freud, in relation to

the psychology of researchers in magic and the
practitioners of Isaic Orders or Brotherhoods. I
must distinguish the psychoanalytical concepts and
other elements of our practice, always recognising
that psychoanalysis invades the field of our
philosophy and transports elements of this into the
scientific domain.

“I was, I am, I shall be”:

If, prostrating yourself above the deep abyss of the

astral you ask who is your God, the Voice will reply
to you:
225
“I am he who was, who is and who eternally will be.
Death has not changed me any more than the
dispersed remains of my body of yesterday have
discontinued the power of being.”

An ancient initiate, in the voice which revealed to

him the truth, asked: “Who art Thou?”

And the latter responded by an instruction in

Pythagorean arithmetic, which can be translated
thus: “I am in you and for you. I am not you [i.e. I
am not your spirit]. You have prayed and, in the
form of a prayer, you have impregnated the loving
invisible. A fruit of your act, I am the voice with
which I speak to you and the Mercury of your
intellect.”

Osiris acted upon Isis and Horus was born, from

which the “3” [the ternary], Mercury results, who is
the fruit and the result of the first binary.

The first problem which presents itself to him who

commences the initiation into this integral science
consists in asking of his hermetic light, of which no
226
one knows the source; who are you who manifests
yourself to me by bringing me the truth?

- One says: it is I, my genius [ingenious = the genius

in me.]

- Another says: it is an angel [angelus = messenger.]

- Another says: it is a demon or a god.

If he does not understand the law expressed with

such simplicity by the Qabbalah, he will never
understand it; as the mystics inspired the religious
forms of every kind...

The voice, essentially hermetic by nature, should

reply:

“I am not you, but I am not a stranger to you. I am

not a thing which is strange to you. I am in you and
for you but I am not you.”

227
Here is the unknown master, the knowledgeable one,
who approaches.

Hermes is the Greek name for the Latin Mercury.

Nebo, Hermes, Mercury, Lucifer and Holy Spirit are
all synonyms of the same essence of the human
intelligence, of which the secret laws are still
unknown to men.

It is the intelligence which, by light converts itself

into force and succeeds in the forms of magic with
an objective tendency, in magnetism leading to
projections of psychic forces and to diverse forms of
mediumship, across the range of phenomena in
which awaken an unfathomable intelligence which
some consider as being the spirit of the dead and
others a demon or yet others as an angel.

Since it is most important that Hermes manifests

himself, the Light of Hermes will bring you to
integration; for you will begin to see the exterior and
interior worlds, with a different feeling from that
which you have felt previously.

228
Hermes must make us conceive mental movement
independent of every place, every surface and every
point.

Man can, in analysing his mental state or movement

of the spirit in its space without dimensions, unite
himself closely with the universal spirit-movement,
which must have the same scope and extract from it
ideas and knowledge.

If one conceives the space of mental movement

without dimensions and the movement outside all
limitation of place and time, in the operations of the
spirit, does not exist.

The human spirit [if you penetrate this function

hermetically] is totally mixed up with the universal
spirit beyond time. It removes from it a divine
virtue which is changed into miraculous powers,
although it only performs miracles to the eyes of the
common man, who ignores the universal law.

* *
229
The current examination of the elements which
constitute man produces a ternary: Intelligence;
Physical Body; Sidereal or Astral Body or Peri-
Spirit. This examination is synthetic. But it must be
deepened, for even those who are the disciples of an
elementary spiritualism can grasp the idea, by the
simple light of reason, that the three terms:

- spirit }

- peri-spirit } are harmonically related to each

other.

- physical body }

Harmony is the correct degree of relativity between

the trinitary elements constituting this synthesis,
which is man; in fact, just as the circumference is
proportional to the radius, and just as contents are
proportional to the container, so the peri-spirit is not
relative to the physical body and the spirit, is in
harmony with them. For between the physical body,
the astral body and the spirit there exists only a
harmony, in constant proportion, but change in the
reciprocity of its terms. It is the same position in
music in which harmony and auditory effect are
obtained by the variable action of sounds, each of
which is dominant or inaudible in turn. Music is the
230
most precise expression of the harmony of the
harmony of the three elements constituting man.
The harmony of sounds is the expression, achieved
through the rules, of their reciprocity.

One observes in practice that the necessity for man

to adapt himself to the environment in which he
lives develops to a greater or lesser extent his spirit,
his peri-spirit and his physical body. In a society of
gladiators, it is the physical which dominates; in a
society of intellectuals, it is the spirit. The sidereal
body represents the thread of union between one and
the other and, in its development, follows in certain
aspects the law of compression of feeble bodies
which soften the clash between two contrary forces.
From one point of view, this sidereal body acquires
the properties of tension of the elastic bodies.
Those, although they permit the separation between
two extreme factors [spirit and matter], conserve the
power of reuniting them when they fall again into a
state of inertia.

The analysis of the functions of the sidereal or astral

body or peri-spirit is long and difficult. In order to
understand its whole essence, one must be very
advanced in the production of the phenomena of
natural magic and in the development of astrality. I
will cite the case of materialisations. Even the
people who have pursued special studies into the
231
materialisations obtained by mediums generally
repeat a commonplace of spiritual philosophy, to
know that all manifestation is an exteriorisation of
the astral body. In fact, this is not precise: for there
is no materialisation without the double contribution
of the spirit and the physical body and this is the
only projection towards the exterior which belongs
to the peri-spirit.

I know that such a statement upsets the whole idea

of a multitude of spirits; if it were not the case, the
materialised apparitions would not remove the
weight and the force from mediums in a cataleptic
trance. They would no longer engender, on
reawakening, the fatigue provoked by the exhaustion
of the physical body, which feels the need to
replenish the lost forces. In the spells of black
magic [bewitching, curses, acts of sorcery], one does
not expel from the body a little of the peri-spirit
which would attach itself to objects but one
materialises the sentiment of love or hate by
exteriorising and fixing magnetism in the physical
body, by the action exerted by the spirit on the
sidereal body. This, in the magus, under the male
action of the intellect which inspires, works as the
female element in the realisation of the active
concept and by the plastic nutrition of the concrete
fact. It is for this reason that the ancient schools
made use of the word androgyne, in magic, to
establish that in all magical operations there exists a
true process of generative incubation. One can gain
an intuition of this mechanism through practice. In
232
this third part, however, we shall spend time
studying this amply, when we come to examine the
doctrines of polarity of fluidifications, as known up
to the present day.

Returning to our process of analysing man, we must

state every day that the instinctive or fatal finality of
man finds itself corrected by necessity. [Just as a
projectile shot from a gun is deviated or stopped in
its trajectory by an obstacle.

The man who can act freely develops himself

according to primitive intelligent action which has
placed him among the living; the necessity which is
opposed to him is the physical and moral
environment in which he spends his human life.
Thus the necessity of adapting oneself to the
environment, or means of existence, cause the
faculties of one of the three factors to develop more
than the other two.

It is thus necessary to take the greatest account of

this environmental resistance to the activity of the
virgin individual, according to its nature. For this,
we will divide it into one of the factors acting
indistinctly on its trinitarian constitution.

233
We shall refer to them thus:-

A = The Spirit

B = The Peri-Spirit

C = The Material Body

We can thus establish the following equation:-

A +B+C = a+b+c+d+e+f = Man.

Now, since the absolute constitution of the

individual is A+B+C, in its practical exercise, his
power of realisation is relative to all the factors
a+b+c+d+e+f, which we have studied as being the
coefficients of the power of life.

Consider two men born of the same father and

mother [factor a] in the same month and country
[factor b] different in education [factor c]; the first

234
can develop strongly his physique, the other his
intelligence; one can have an atrophied will in an
eternally hostile environment, whilst the other can
be so resistant and powerful that he will model the
environment according to his wishes [factors d,e,f];
one deploys his intelligent activity in one way, the
other acts differently.

* *

Now, a larval element acts on the spirit of every

person and this is the fantastic dream of each; it acts
on one's nature in a similar way to fantastic pride;
the vain who desire ardently the greatest honours,
the libidinous the subjugation of all beautiful women
to their all-powerful male pride, the avaricious as
much money as they could ever wish for. Only the
illuminated man seeks truth, alone which is above
all women, honours or riches.

Use the laws and you will obtain everything; but do

not desire everything through using these laws or by
interpreting them according to the objective which
235
you seek for yourself. Otherwise, not only will you
not attain that end, but you will create the most
tumultuous of hells, if you desire the things which
the gods can justly only refuse you.

Divine magic considers that the truth is one, that the

light is one, that God is one, that matter is one, that
the universe is one and that the force is one.

The method of seeing this Unique Intelligent Force

must be the same for every initiate. It is unique in
its synthetic essence, in the being, who himself is
unique through his perception. When a man, who
must be initiated, progresses and studies in Naples,
he must see and feel the unity of truth and its laws,
in the same way as another who studies and
progresses in Copenhagen, Melbourne or Lima.

This unity of view of the occult God and his laws

constitutes the universal fraternity of initiates and
the unity of all the classical religions, from the
oldest to the most recent. This unity of all the truths
into the unique truth, leads profane science fatally to
discover the true nature of things and to constitute
the theocracy of science.

236
The initiates throughout the world are brothers, for
all perceive the truth in the same manner and
through the same laws. If two of them meet, they
recognise each other, for they understand this truth.
It is neither the same for the mediums linked to
spiritualism or for the clairvoyants of the schismatic
religious movements. Each of them sees and feels
this particular spirit of things, which is not the
Universal Spirit of God.

Apollo spoke in the same manner through all his

oracles. The Greek fable of Apollo, as victor over
the serpent Python, is a magic legend, for the 
centre of

light [or Apollo] dominates the spirit of the celestial

mire which is the Astral Serpent of magic and which
corresponds to the serpent which in Catholic statues
is placed at the foot of the Immaculate Mary, joining
the points of the moon.

For the mages, the Serpent Python is he who finds it

necessary to dominate. For the spirits, on the other
hand, it is he who must listen. If you abandon
yourself to its coils, you will become a soothsayers
of the astral. A prey to all the illusions of the
psyche, you would be taken into the turbulent gulf of
all the impressions and images forming the film of
the soul of the earth.
237
In this turbulence and this base terrestrial breath, all
is mixed in the bowl. Spiritualism revels in it. The
communications which it delivers to us are only the
breath and the aura of the time in which the spirits
write or are manifested. It has even been possible to
contact discarnate spirits who use a scientific
language, with such words as Saltpetre, in speaking
of truth and absolute science.

The Magic of the mages, as in the personal badge of

Cagliostro - a serpent pierced by an arrow, looking
towards the sun  passing above the dragon, of this
monstrous dragon which is the terrible guardian of
the Real Truth. The legends of Jason, Bellerophon,
Perseus and Theseus are concerned with different
fabulous forms of a similar conquest of the truth.
The fantastic combats, in Nordic mythology,
between knights and dragons, between generous and
brave soldiers of the truth and monsters breathing
fire and swallowing up nations, thus only constitute
identical artificial representations of this truth.

You will never become an initiate if you continue to

plat with your astral serpent. It is terrestrial in all its
manifestations, even in its language, which reveals
in all the spiritual communications, human
grammatical form, empty and academic, which
express the relative ideas of the earth and her sons.
238
*

* *

We touch here, my dear reader, on one of the points

of divine philosophy, on the subject of which he who
knows about it cannot tell all and he who does not
know and who reflects, stays perplexed. Is the
language of truth human? Is it rapidly translatable
into human language?

If, on the other, it acts through the psychic

translation made by the medium, is it a faithful
translation and constant in its ideas of the spirits?

In magic, the language of causes is a domain

reserved to the masters.

The divine ideography is the key to all religious

symbolism and also the secret of talismans, sacred
hieroglyphics and occult books. This key has
239
conquered over the invisible, through a persistent
communication of our inner self with the world of
causes, after the terrible serpent dies, pierced
through by the initiate's own efforts of will.

This key, which will be given to you by the apostle

Peter, is on the threshold of the mystical paradise, if
you are a Christian. Perhaps it will be Isis who
enables you to contact it, by stretching forth to you
his white and slender hand, if you prefer to enter
into the Egyptian garden. In any case, it is only after
you possess the science of signs and the power of
characters in divine and natural magic. You will
recognise in it usages and correspondences, if your
virtue renders you worthy to perceive them.

For the moment, these few words suffice to say to

the mediums that they will never hear the language
of God, even if they continue to listen hour after
hour, day after day or moment after moment. All
they hear is the agreeable song of the creatures of
the serpent and they will never free themselves from
the limits of the unknown land.

I declare to you: Do not listen to any spiritual

communication; you could only interpret some clear
dreams, but never in a precise way.

240
Regarding this, I think I have said clearly that the
serpent never speaks the language of the man of
God, nor of God himself.

Magical operations are of two kinds: the first imply

a communication with the soul of the Universe; the
second determines the domination of the astral
serpent or the soul of the Earth.

The operations in the first category are used to put

man [he who works, initiates himself] in contact
with the Universal Spirit. He who begins, like all
men and things, is imbued with the terrestrial aura
and impregnated by it. [For he does not know
anything of a material nature] how to express his
will to cross the turbulence and penetrate the world
of causes. The first operations procure him two
things: the drive and impetus necessary to research
the new ether and the force of affirming it for
himself.

When the operation presents this magic rule and

ideal, it no longer acts in accordance with religious
practices, for, even if the novices execute it simply

241
because they have faith, it is nothing in fact other
than a calculation of transcendental philosophy.

It is therefore essentially scientific and not unworthy

of a scholar.

He who begins well is not delayed in receiving the

glimmerings of the divine light, not because the
angels will descend from the heavens, but because
the spirit of God which is within him is stripped
little by little of all its earthly coverings, until he
becomes what he is seeing. As he progresses and
elevates himself, he enters into communication with
the spirit of the Master. The latter, beyond the
barrier of the Dragon awaits those who arrive and
enter into a direct relationship with their spirit.

Those who consider themselves serious enough to

make this attempt, must not and cannot consider an
ideal as great included in a scientific practice, as a
vile thing.

This practice is therefore scientific and not blindly

superstitious.

242
The prayer is an act of concrete fluidification of the
will. To formulate the idea and to desire the
realisation of it, is a prayer. Since my readers have
no need of books of devotion, I inform them that
they must make their ideas clearly concrete for
spiritual elevation. They will not delay in feeling the
effects, for the ideas thus realised cross the other
astral of the earth and are gathered together by an
acolyte at the foot of the throne of the Sun. At the
beginning of this book, I addressed a prayer to him,
who says:-

"O Sun, thou who chasest the shadows from the

great night of the passionate phantoms, of the
spectre of the most frantic lust, of the vain creations
of human pride, shine on the ignorance of him who,
freed from the shivers of the voluptuous pleasure of
temporal things, has a thirst for eternal truths; make
the Adorer of the Beast, the prisoner of his ignorant
vanity, feel thy divine ray and prepare itself for the
coming of the Christ."

This Sun, to which I then addressed myself, is the

Sun which must be addressed by all those who work,
which you call the Sun and which you also call God,
Universe, Unique Force, First Principle,
Tetragrammaton, Universal Kingdom. It is the
realm of the Light which you invoke and towards
which you direct yourself.
243
The Holy Spirit, the messenger dove of the light, is
the ray of the sun which shines in your soul. The
latter, if it changes itself into a dove, could go to
rejoin its spouse beyond the limits of known action.

I advise inconstant men and women to amuse

themselves always and as much as they can with the
spiritual rules, but I counsel them also never to
attempt the concrete operations in magic, for the risk
which they run in this domain is great.

I shall explain this danger in theoretical fashion: the

initiation into magic is a hand to hand fight with the
Dragon of the astral current. As in all combats, one
can either conquer or succumb; but, in this combat,
either one conquers or one dies.

Insofar as you live the ordinary life, the Serpent

protects you and sleeps. But as soon as you attempt
to pass beyond the limits of his domain, he awakens
and breathes strongly. He coils around you and
oppresses you. The men of constancy and the
women of faith arrive at the victory; the mad who
provoke him after they are devoid of force will end
by being devoured by him, for in all magic, every
operation interrupted before being achieved
244
produces a terrible reaction, an effect perfectly
opposed to that which the operator intends to
achieve.

All magical operations recognise two periods: the

one of reaction and the other of action, the first
being negative and the second positive. It happens
nearly always that the novice, seeing the arrival of
the contrary effect, stops, filled with fear, and the
check is then complete. On the other hand, if he
resists, if he insists, exerting pressure and constraint,
the positive effect comes to crown his efforts. The
death of every ideal is inconstancy and I have seen
some terrible and frightening examples of it.

Do not try to commence initiation light-heartedly,

with all the stupid futility and what is called
common sense: in magic, one must trace one's route
assiduously and never stop halfway through. He
who falls, even if he finds his master again, will only
regain the right road by starting everything again.
If, however, he can no longer find his master again,
the only thing to do is to ask pardon of God for
having allowed yourself to be blinded by your
passions, by the evil logic of fear, by distrust and by
not having understood whom he should choose for
company - error or truth, the latter being less
seductive. The only thing to do, therefore, is to

245
reach the goal, even if the path seems the most harsh
and repugnant.

If you have a profound desire to arrive, be always

vigilant, constant and active.

The active spirit of Universal Nature will not be

delivered to you, but you will be allowed to attract
by active subjects. I have already said that the
intelligences or spirits or fluid natures are present
with us with the rapidity of lightning. Ah well, the
only immense and powerful level of the human
spirit, which links us with God, despite the serpent
of earthly will, is this diligence, zeal or activity
appropriate to the spirits of Mercury. It is for this
reason that Dante commences the seventh song of
Paradise with this inexplicable tercet, through the
profane science of the grammarian:-

Osanna sanctus Deus Sabaoth

Superillustrans claritate tua

Felices ignes horum malachoth!

246
The activity, the only intelligent activity, can
engender the greatest of conquests to which a man
of genius can aspire: the Truth of Causes, which is
above the stagnant inertia [of which lack of belief is
the vulgar symptom], in order to attain an ideal
which is the most poetic of follies for the mass of
ordinary people, who remain in a puerile state of
development.

* *

Initium is translated in the dictionaries of the Latin

language as commencement; on the other hand, if
one reads it in conformity with the analytical rules, it
signifies the grain which produces, the active
principle of nature [of the spirit and of matter] and it
belonged more particularly to the mysteries of
Ceres, the natural nature of the Christian
theologians St. Thomas Aquinas at Bellarmino.

Commencement and initiation, in the language of the

temple, signified admission to the temple in which
the priests of the sciences were reunited. What one
247
should understand by the word initiation has nothing
to do with mystery. It is a materialisation of another
kind because it forms, constructed by educating
them, the practitioners, the celebrant priests with
pure hands and with the word of a right tone.

We are a school of rationalism which deals with the

spiritual problem and we are not mystics. Our credo
is an exposure of concrete ideas responding to a
generally effective method.

The neophyte is the aspirant.

In the Mosaic religion of the Hebrews and in

Essenism, he was called a Levite. In the monastic
orders he is called a novice.

This neophyte, before entering the temple and before

crossing the threshold to attempt the conquest of the
incommunicable mysteries, had to submit to terrible
trials, of which the reader could find a description in
all the books which speak of initiation. In other
words, the guardian of the portals of the temple only
opened the two doors of the mysterious doorway to
the neophyte worthy of trust, in the context of a

248
spiritual elevation, by reason of his virtues and his
constancy.

In the Egyptian lodges, the neophyte enters by

pushing on the door of the Sanhedrin, in which the
masters of the first degree are seated in a circle
around a fire with roaring flames, clothed in red,
masked, with their heads encircled by the sacerdotal
headband. When the neophyte opens the door, all
the masters run to meet him, surround him and place
a dagger at his throat, treating him as a traitor and
accusing him of violating the unrevealable secret of
nature. They then consult together on how he is to
be put to death, in order to sacrifice his spirit to the
divinities who are the guardians of the order. They
set up a tribunal and condemn him to death by
cremation. He then enters into a vast enclosure in
which a log fire is burning. Two of the masters
disrobe the traitor and throw one of his vestments on
to the fire. This proceeds up to the point where the
flames burn the flesh of the condemned man. The
Hierophant, or Grand Master, who then appears,
suspends the execution and holds a discourse with
the neophyte, who is naked in front of the flaming
log fire, more or less in these terms:

You have had the audacity to violate the portal

which hides from the vulgar the mysteries of truth
and this proves that you are, either a brave man or a
249
reckless fool. I can judge you, for I read into your
soul. I think that your boldness originates from your
folly as an inconsistent man. You knew in effect that
you would go to meet the death which awaits those
who profane our sanctuary. I suspend your
execution; I defer it, but I am not saving you
altogether. If you wish to save yourself, you must
vanquish the fire which will otherwise devour you.

.....and the water which drowns you, replies the dean

of the masters,

.....and the wind which carries the breath of earth,

adds a second,

.....and the earth which engulfs souls, says a third.

The Hierophant then resumes:

If you conquer these four powerful phantoms of the

negation of the spirit, you will sit in the bosom of
our family and you will be safe. If you do not, your
death is deferred until the day when you will be
vanquished by fear.

And no one can liberate you, for the proof of your

betrayal rests on the fact that you have profaned the

250
temple, by penetrating into it, although you did not
deserve it.

A master designated by the Hierophant then

approaches the neophyte. He reclothes him in a
white alb. The neophyte swears to keep silent
concerning all that he has seen and heard, and either
to triumph over the trials or to die.

The priesthood, organised into castes, accomplished

all this by means of a ritual in code which served to
preserve the order from all infractions or violations.
In the clubs of the modern era, certain people, who
are considered unworthy, are not permitted to soil
the others by their presence. One sees the
precedents for this in ancient times, where one put to
the test all promises made by anyone desirous of
penetrating into a secret place.

When the neophyte was ready, the priest, his master,

advanced him, welcomed him and initiated him and
thus sowed in him a grain destined to bring forth
fruit.

251
From this idea of sowing in the individual a grain
which produces a fruit, is derives the following
expression, in the sacred language: "in interhumum,"
which means sown or created for the second time. It
is for this reason that the master of the Esseno-
Christian initiation is called father, for the master
who initiates is the father of the spirit of the pupil,
from which the current syncope of the initiate
comes, by analogical assonance and consonance. In
the Catholic church, the name father is given to the
confessor.

Now, there is a great abuse of the word Initiation

and everyone thinks that one should understand by
this term the start of something. Initiamenta,
initiator, initium are pagan words conveying a
double aspect: the one current, the other sacerdotal.
A double aspect which belongs to the origin of the
mysterious Ceres alone.

In-itio [itio, itionis means generator or principle]

represented in the sacred language of Antiquity, the
breath of which it is said in the Hebrew Book of
Genesis, that God made use to communicate his
divine spirit to Adam, the man created from the mud
of earth.

252
Ceres, the fertilising and fertilisable goddess, could
make it understood through her mysteries that it
related to the sacerdotal power of sowing in him who
was to be initiated the grain permitting the initiate to
penetrate the meaning of secret matters.

After you obtain this redemption, which constitutes

an indispensable work of preparation, the law tells
you:-

1] Maintain a very pure morality, by leading an

austere life.

2] Do not engage in vain display, nor desire to be

known, but simply

exist.

3] Always do Good and work for good; have the

principle of the purest

justice.

4] Consider as enemies the pleasures of eating and

drinking to excess,

voluptuousness and the influence of the profane

world.

253
5] Avoid accomplishing any harmful act and, before
acting, reflect.

6] Do not say what you believe to be true and of

which you can verify the

truth; do not give what you do not yet possess and

do not desire what your

impurity prevents you from obtaining.

7] Jealously keep your word; do not cast pearls

before swine and beware of

lying to yourself.

8] Be a constant example of morality and justice

and, before violating the Law

laid down by others, you must think that you

would not like others to break

yours.

9] Purify your word by silence and your body by

fasting. Remember that good

words, good thoughts and good actions open the

gates of the occult realm;

where one thinks and creates, where one is silent

and learns.

254
But to return to what I said at the outset, the temple
was not opened to the neophyte until after he had
undergone great trials. Initiation was the act which
consisted of penetrating the temple, by receiving
from an experienced priest the grain which must
come to fruition. That is why, even in modern
language, the initiate is he who has entered into a
knowledge of the mysteries and an adept is he who
has succeeded in realising them.

It would be useless to remark here that initiation into

the absolute science is not always obtained in the
same way; it is no longer always given in the same
manner.

There exist:-

a] Initiations by rites.

b] Initiations by transmission.

c] Direct initiations.

255
1] The initiation by rites is that which I have chosen
for the foundation of a school of magic in Italy.
The master who confess it must be capable of
ensuring that his disciple has entered into the zone
of purification, know where he is located, put
himself into a close relationship with the initiate, at
pre-determined moments or to design for him a
substitute in the extra-human zone.

2] Initiation by attribution; this is the method used

by societies having a visible constitution. Thus,
there is a hierarchy of grades and power of initiation
conferred by a master on particular members of this
society.

3] Direct initiation, on the other hand, is the gift

which a master makes from himself, directly, to a
disciple or youngest child. In this case, the master is
consecrated entirely to his disciple. What happens
only in the case of an extra-human mandate, no
master can give.

* *

256
To obtain realisation, magic uses all the exterior
means which a man may use.

The pomp of sacred services, rich priestly vestments

and Templar ceremonies characterises the magical
spirit of all religions. It is also the same in the sects.
If, however, the pomp is magical in the religion, the
magic of the mages, considered in isolation in its
essence, has no need to produce miracles, but needs
one thing only: the will.

In the great ceremonial acts of the Catholic religion,

the requiem mass, the celebration of the Te Deum
Laudamus are truly great collective operations. The
clergy, presided over by an aged priest, execute
together an analogical rite, chant and pronounce
words which have as much value as he who chants
and pronounces them in himself and, according to
the faith of the public who assist and participate in
the ceremony.

“For Faith is the substance of things hoped for

The Evidence of things unseen.”

257
Dante tells us in Chapter XXV of his Allegory, but
this sign of things which are not visible, is born in
the soul of the ordinary man [who attaches much
meaning to external forms] by the pompous forms of
the priestly rites.

Even the soul which is less directed towards the

ideal which may be touched and caught up in the
general movement of sentient souls through what is
in their atavistic memory and by fear of the
unknown.

Recently, much has been printed in books about the

psychology of the masses. But a philosophical
investigation which disregards the psychic force and
its contagion would never be more than a mixture
just about valid for small children, with its
psychology and paradoxes.

In the churches, processions, revolutions and civil

ceremonies, the explanatory key to general emotion
resides in the psyche in the birth of the sentiment
which dominates the chain of the psyche of all the
unities composing the public. In a valorous army,
even he who has the soul of a miserable rabbit
accomplishes feats of arms. It suffices to visit the
258
Church of the Madonna at Lourdes or that of the
Valley of Pompeii to notice how even the most well-
balanced soul feels himself moved and conquered by
these moments in which is expressed, in their
soaring heights, the faith of the masses.

I could say profound things concerning these matters

which are simple, expressing in fiery truths, capable
of shaking not only the order constituted by the
religions, but also that which constituted by the
religions, but also that which constitutes states. I
could make it, in principle, fuel political passions
and the ambitions of the evil, using the secret
permitting one to be master of the soul of crowds
influenced by philosophical reasoning and easily
intoxicated by lies, masses which are baptised today
with the pompous name of Sovereignty of the
People!

It remains, however, proved that in ceremonial

magic contained in religious pomp, faith [if the germ
is present in it] invades all the masses and is seized
as a whirlwind.

It does not happen in the same way in natural and

divine magic, if it is exercised by a mage who
knows what to do and has the ability; in the superb
259
ritual, rich in cult objects, sacred religious vestments
and ornaments, the mage only substitutes his
spiritualisation through intelligence and his
fluidification by realisation of what he wishes.

He thinks or is inspired. He finds analogies and,

through his art, he realises.

Certain philosophers, who would like to explain

everything in terms of hypnosis, say that in fakirism
and in magic, all depends on a state of auto hypnosis
in him who operates. They also say that the signs,
ciphers and magical instruments are used for
nothing other than to place the mage in the
condition of exaltation susceptible for producing the
phenomenon.

Others explain, on the other hand, that the objects

used in operative magic are charged with magnetic
human fluid in conditions permitting the operator to
work with the magnetism with which they are
charged.

The first, like the second, are directed towards

laboratory experiments and have obtained partial
success, but each of them is naturally convinced that
260
his axiom is the right one. The hypnotisers attribute
to the exteriorisation or to the liberty of the
intelligence or spirit of the mage, the power to
produce phenomena. They therefore place a subject
in a state of somnambulism and order him to
produce a given physical phenomenon.

They either half succeed or do not succeed at all, but

they have certainly proved, apparently, that the
subjective phenomena are all realised.

The doctor who puts a sensitive subject to sleep and

offers him a glass of water saying to him that it is
poisonous and who obliges him to drink it, will have
poisoned someone with drinking water. It is thus
according to the hypnotisers, for all subjective
phenomena emanating from an individual who
hypnotises himself at will, like the fakirs.

They cannot, however, so explain objective

phenomena. The magnetisers then enter the scene
and say, with Baron Potet at their head [the author of
“Magic Unveiled”] that one can transmit to things
the magnetic fluid emanating from a good emissary
and give them a determined quality. It is thus,
according to them, that one renders magic
potentially objective. They explain in this way the
261
power of talismans, as one of the filters which he
who operates puts into action. They also explain in
the same way the powerful effect of all vestments
put on by the operator.

The first, like the second, are in error, for the secret
of operative magic consists neither in the auto-
hypnosis of the mage nor in the magnetising of the
objects used by the operator.

Let us therefore examine the weak points of these

two explanatory theories: Auto hypnotism would
provoke an exaggeration of subjectivity.

In self-hypnosis, a man could think that he sees an

eagle when there is only a pigeon before him. If a
man did that, he would only succeed in destroying
himself to some extent both in his faculty and in his
spirit. Instead of becoming a mage, he would
become a man at whom sensible people would only
laugh.

Magnetism, inasmuch as the determination of the

will is a very incomplete force to be able to be used
on its own by an operator. It can only project on
things and fortify them with intention, but with
262
intelligence. The mage makes use of magnetism,
using it in transcendental fashion. He joins with it
the powerful secret of vitalisation of things, which
is an art above magnetism, for it associates with the
magnetic fluidification an intelligent soul by its
power.

The word vitalisation is inappropriate but there is no

other to indicate the powerful magical means which
adds to inanimate things not only a force, but a
living intelligence which distinguishes from itself
the contingencies in action.

The experience of a river in a room, attempted by

Baron Potet could be one example.

A powerful and energetic magnetiser takes a piece

of carbon and traces with it on the floor; in an
intentionally magnetic form, two parallel lines:

A_________________________________________
______________

263
 RIVER

B_________________________________________
______________

He must understand that the two lines represent the

two banks of a river. One then hypnotises a medium
and says to him:

- “Walk forward.”

The sonambulist walks. Having arrived at Line A,

he will stop.

Tell him:

“Walk on.”

- “I cannot,” replies the medium.

- “Why not?”

- “Because there is a river.”

264
If you hypnotise a second or third subject, the result
is the same.

Now take the case of a magnetiser who would have

a very strong projection of fluid and who would
trace these same two lines in the middle of a room,
without hypnotising any medium; it will happen that
any sensitive person in contact with these two lines
will experience a sense of uneasiness similar to what
one would experience before a dangerous current of
water. Very sensitive subjects will stop for their
own good and will obtain a reproduction of the
thought of him who traced the lines [telepathic
correspondence].

The magnetisers draw the following conclusion from

this: here is the secret of talismans, signs and
magical operations.

This, however, is not a secret of magic and is simply

a magnetic operation. In effect the mage, if he
traces the two parallel lines brings about a pre-
determined attitude in the subject and gives him
unlike any other person who has not been pre-
programmed beforehand, the idea of the sensation
which creates the sensitivity in the subject.

265
The mage does not take the carbon, but any object
which does not leave traces and he draws a line CD.

C_________________________________________
_________D

He decrees that this will be an insurmountable object

for Monsieur Mevius who is to arrive. Now this line
is only an obstacle for Mevius. Does it act from
magnetism, fluid or intelligence?

Let us go further.

The person whom one has qualified with the name

of Mevius and who must not pass the obstacle,
receives intuitively the warning that he must not
pass this place, before he approaches it. Perhaps in
him, as a reasonable desire, it is the idea that it is
preferable to avoid going in this direction and this
determines his path.

266
A hand holds him back, whilst a spirit speaks to him
to justify by a lie the fact that he is abstaining from
approaching this zone.

Magnetism is here associated with something which

is the secret of operators in magic and this has
nothing to do with known and recognised forces.
The words to vitalise are imperfect, for the
vitalisation can be magnetic but not intelligent; it
cannot therefore be capable of discernment and
judgement.

It must above all possess the will, because the mage

tries to finish his career as he commences it.

The point I wish to make is that he must abolish all

the means and make use only of his wand as a
sceptre.

The sceptre of kings today is only the corruption of

the magic wand of the King Mages, in the ancient
priestly Theocracy. It is true that our
contemporaries would rather have the sceptre of a
living king than the wand of the mages which he
cannot see. But the difference lies in this: the wand
267
of the invisible mages causes the kings of the Earth
to sing, with their sceptres, the symbolic batons
which are atrophied if he who grasps them has not
given to it the breath of the intelligence of Solomon.

Human societies attach much importance to the

name received at baptism, the illustrious houses and
to genealogy. Without these names, all vanity
would have disappeared. The superb among these
who wish to dominate their fellow man, either by
their origin or through pompous academic titles,
would be wounded by death.

But all those who write for the masses or who speak
to them in the name of Science or Absolute Ideas,
are restricting themselves to being humble soldiers
and apostles and note the authors of the ideas which
they preach.

Who is the author of the Bible? Is it Moses? Who

are those who built the second Temple?

Who is the author of Christianity? Is it Jesus of

Nazareth?

268
Who is the author of the dialogues of Plato? Is it
Plato?

And the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey? Is it

Homer?

Who is the author of the Romance of the Rose?

And who of the truth contained in the Divine

Comedy?

Those who see and know are the artists of divine

manifestations.

The author of Truth is Absolute Wisdom, or the

Eternal Truth, whose profane name is defined as
God.

In the course of history, the authors of great

renewals, redemptions or of humanitarian
revolutions are nothing other than the symbols of
269
ideas. They are the personifications of absolute
truths in relation to a particular society or given
epoch.

In each name, the masses salute the author of

successful political reforms in Greece, America, the
North, England and Italy. But a sane philosophy, in
relation to each, can only see in all of them a spirit
of justice which the world of causes makes incarnate
itself in a man charged with accomplishing the
divine will on earth.

The idea of the liberty of the people, as well as the

rights of man and the emancipation of women and
the abolition of slavery.......... all these have no
authors.

The apostles of these ideas neither are nor will be

their authors. They are or will be good or bad
interpreters of the universal laws.

Through them, it is always the spirit of the

collectivity which is expressed.

270
God gives it form and blesses it, if it the spirit of
truth and justice. And there is nothing to be said
against this, in principle, unless the incarnate spirit
charged with accomplishing a mission betrays it and
is found guilty of prevarication. This is the case, for
example, with Napoleon, and one can cite others
more recent or contemporary, all of whom can learn
to judge from history.

271
PART III

272
THE MYSTERIES OF
THAUMATURGY

273
274
My dear Disciple

Now that the general principles of the two forms of

Magic have been set out in clear fashion, we must
now confront the scientific problem of miracles and
prodigies in the natural order of the unchangeable
laws.

This second part will seem not very clear in places

to him who has studied and practised what I have set
out in the first part, regarding natural and divine
magic and this is because philosophical speculation
addresses itself to general principles.

I warn you, o Seeker of the occult properties of the

nature of things and of the human spirit that in this
second part I commence to touch on certain terrible
subjects, which one cannot by a divine law confide
in their entirety to uncultivated men who are without
strong moral character, because the ancient priestly
sciences have always been veiled from the popular
masses. And Roman Catholicism, drawing its origin
from precisely these religions and cults, inasmuch as
"reveal" = to reveal well-hidden truth little by little
in the rites] but at the time in which I write for the
European masses the Catholic Pontificate has lost
the keys to the miracles and remains a prisoner of
275
the popular society of the rights of the people, just as
the human soul is a prisoner of the bestiality of the
body in humans who lose the light of the spirit and
derive all their satisfaction in the corporeal and
material senses.

As for the young philosophy of the occult forces of

nature, in the twentieth century, it waits patiently for
the Pope Magus to return to the Chair of St. Peter,
the fisher of men. I therefore sow the seed in the
prepared ground in order to receive it and nourish it,
so that the plant of occult knowledge finds that it
will perpetuate the truth, and not he who will abuse
and violate human nature to the detriment of his
fellow man: because the opposition is alive and man
must never make use of the science of the Mages to
do evil. The Christ, from the height of the Cross,
said: "Forgive them, O Father, who know not what
they do. But would this pardon have been invoked
by the Christ in the same way if his torturers had
known what they were doing? Therefore, to violate
the laws of the divine world through ignorance is not
an offence, but it is an unforgivable sacrilege to
violate them whilst knowing what you are doing.

This is one of the great reasons for the hierarchy in

the initiatic occult societies so criticised by the
partisans at the average level of intelligence, which
brings in life the procession of errors and of misery,

276
which finish by unleashing the divine curses on
human society.

My dear reader, at the start of the first book, I told

you that the person who is simply curious has no
right to the superhuman science; now it is time for
to form a precise idea of the mission of the superior
man in the bosom of humanity, and which you
discern clearly as the sin of modern zoological
philosophy, materialist and positive, and also the sin
of the ignorant clergy; consider them as the two
most terrible curses of this epoch lit materially by
the electric light and darkened morally by the
egocentric doctrine of sensualist pleasure.

On a day of popular celebration and public holiday,

observe from your window the human wave which
fills the streets.

Imagine, by closing your eyes for a moment, that a

hundred years have passed: reopen your eyes and in
the deserted street before you, imagine that these
thousands and thousands of people, swarming a
moment before in this same street, are dead and
become dust.

277
If you do this while you are living, you will have
learnt that the life of man just like the life of the
masses in the turbulence of the material senses is the
mistaken voluptuous pleasure of nothingness; as
men and generations pass like the lights which we
call centuries, and vanish like bubbles of soap or
better still become phosphate of lime and squalid
scraps in the cemeteries!

If you do this and if you reflect on it assiduously,

you can become either a saint or a criminal.

You will become a criminal if you think that

morality is vain, as both the body and the senses are
vain; you will feel yourself sanctified if you think
that the daily sacrifices of so many different human
bodies feed the spirit of the earth, over which hovers
the genie of the races and the soul of the purified
man, become, as Dante says: Intelligence, separated
from matter and whose home is far away from the
lying logic of the senses.

But each bubble of soap is a soul: the child who

breathes across a bubble kit into soapy water, could
not make bubbles if he did not blow; therefore each
bubble contains a breath and a spirit, a soul, a
thought and an ideal.

278
If you burst the bubble of soap, then do the breath,
the spirit, the soul contained in it vanish and die for
nothing? Or better, after the body returns to the
earth in the heavy form which awaits its dissolution,
is the spirit mixed with the universal breath and does
it not return to the chaos of the spirit of the world?
Or better does it not stay breath or thought on the
path of evolution?

It is the problem of the Sphinx, of Isis veiled, of the

Cross, of the Star with 5 branches, of the mysterious
Word which expresses the name of Jehovah. It is
the incommunicable secret of the ancient schools of
Magic, capable of realising all miracles and
prodigies.

But the secret corresponding to this absolute truth is

not a vain dissertation originating from academic
circles. Magic is a useless thing if it remains
theoretical, but if it is actualised by practice, it
becomes the most powerful lever of the four currents
of the Edenic Cross:-

1. Religion which governs the soul of the masses.

279
2. Human society [The State].

3. Popular science.

4. Art.

Magic or the Absolute Science is placed in conflict

with religion when the priests of the latter have lost
the key to it; with human society, when it proceeds
in darkness, illuminating thought by the senses; with
profane science, when the finite faculty of imperfect
reason wants to know and judge the invisible
infinite; with art, when this eternal manifestation of
the most elevated ideal is caught in the toils of
mannerism outside the two poles constituted by
changing reality and poetic creation.

The impious, the Titans of profane science, like

those who erected the Tower of Babel, try to ascend
to the skies by material means and the eternal
Satanic battle of the rebel spirit against God is made
eternal in this forced march of the philosophy of the
senses against the absolute, the great and simple
soul, which governs both spirit and matter in the
created worlds.

In this way, human societies, thanks to materialised

reason, fall into the abyss of matter; the Providence
280
of the divine world is thus denied; and as one thinks,
one writes, one instructs, one preaches and one
evangelises, saying that Spirit is matter and that
human thought is the only providential road for the
masses, in order to comprehend the infinite aspects
of the history of social and terrestrial upheavals.

What lies!

And yet this history ought to serve us as a lesson is

there; not the anecdotal and miserable history of
society’s evolution but the monuments of races and
nations which attest among the myriads of soapy
bubbles, the presence of elevated souls incarnations
of evolved spirits sent here below to fulfil the heroic
mission of confronting the serpent of error and
cutting off its head. But the fight still goes on
between the materialised soul of the masses and the
fertile spirit of Jehovah; the rebel angels are
incarnate in the philosophy of the state, in the
doctrinaire egotism of states; in the investigation by
materialist tendency of the spirit of thinks, in the
mental trouble determining revolutions without
wisdom, after which the envoys from above, to the
times of crisis, put things back in place and depart
again.

281
Seek their names in the history of religions,
philosophy, science and the liberty of peoples and
you will perceive continually the divine light, veiled
by human pride.

To be approached thus by Magic and by the study of

its practice and theory, some shores of the Great
Ocean of Real Truth signify; to be transformed into
an angel or demon, or die a victim of one’s own
reason and audacity, without even being justified
before human society and its history.

* *

The mysteries of first causes commence therefore, O

Disciple, by guiding you across the hell of human
knowledge, to the research by reason into miracles
and prodigies; but your quest, your tiring mission,
will be a very vain work if you do not practise [only
by practising in our sciences can you gain the right
to arrive.] Nevertheless, the key to all practice is
subordinated to the holiness of the disciple: without
holiness or successive purification of your spirit, you
will never accomplish a divine work and, if you
282
succeeding something without holiness, you will
perform diabolical work.

To become a saint?

There is a paradox for the reader in the current of

scientific studies and modern methods. But one
must not understand holiness as the popular masses
understand devotion and bigotry; the saint is he who
identifies his reason as a man with the fatal reason
of things and spirits; the saint is the altruist who
considers himself here below as a traveller in an
hotel, in a pause during his journey towards the
infinite, ultimate evolution of all created things; the
saint is he who possesses the wisdom of not deluding
himself about visible reasons and who is made
worthy of the science of God.

Thus you can only find sanctification in the love of

your fellow man, and in this way you will become
the infant Jesus, the Nazarene. You will sacrifice
yourself voluntarily in loving your neighbour, in
holding your hand out to your brother to save him
and to lead him to the spiritual light. And Magic, in
your hands, will reproduce the ancient legendary
prodigies; your baton will blossom and, around you,
you will radiate good. Whilst one part of humanity
283
will think and illuminate the other part with electric
lamps, you will be a soldier of this spiritual light and
a pharos for souls in this journey on the earth. For
no longer renew it or renew it at will.

* *

One studies philosophy, discusses ideas, and

explains symbols, but, to learn the magical art after
having learnt the philosophy of magic, one must
possess three things:-

1. Will without desire.

2. Force to act without being stopped.

3. Practice in order not to be mistaken.

He who desires cannot wish.

284
Desire is an appetite of illusion which paralyses the
will, the mechanism of which attains perfection in
the absence of all desire. The man who desires a
woman becomes her slave; if, on the other hand, he
wants her, he makes her his slave. The man who
desires money is a miserable beggar of fortune. He
who wants money, dominates it. The mage who
desires is not a mage and cannot accomplish
miracles. But where does desire finish and will
begin? This no one can define exactly: only your
philosophy can explain it to you.

The second thing necessary is force. Do you know

why a grain pushed into the sand on the seashore
stays sterile whereas, once placed in a furrow in the
kitchen garden, it bears fruit? Because the sand
impregnated with salt produces nothing, whilst the
earth of the garden has the force to give life
continually. This is why the Mage must possess the
force to transform himself into the diverse forces of
nature, in order to produce, like nature itself, all its
miracles and prodigies: he must have the force to
nourish the grain like the earth of the garden, or to
destroy it, like the salt in the sand. The force to
continue ceaselessly thus resides in the immutable
constancy of nature and it is required in the same
way of him who would accomplish miracles.

285
The third gift or quality is practice. The child
without experience who gathers roses scratches his
fingers and sees them bleed; but the gardener picks
many of them without pricking himself. In the
magical art, he who knows how to produce and does
not produce is similar to the manufacturer of swords
who makes arms for war but never fights.

The Mage becomes an artist, after having been a

philosopher, by the development of his faculties and
the virtue of his spirit. This spirit of the mage,
placed and nourished in the human body, possesses
two great prerogatives which the discarnate spirits
do not have, to know the power of transforming
itself into force and the liberty to materialise itself.

As soon as the mage acts by himself, his changeable

soul becomes the flame of life which ascends and
descends as the ancient hermeticists inform us. This
means that his spirit lives on the earth and in space
and it is only when the spirit of the man living in
bone and flesh has acquired the power to ascend, or
gain the surface of the astral current, that he is
capable of subjecting to his power all the creatures
of the current or tide which forms the aura of the
earth.

286
In annotating a small book of the Esoteric Library, I
have given the interpretation of Icthys or fish, the
symbol of Christ used by the early Christians
[Kremmerz refers here to “Christ, Magic and the
Devil” by Eliphas Levi, with explanatory notes by
Kremmerz.] The symbol of the fish representing
Christ, however, belongs to Essenism, the sect from
which Jesus of Nazareth came forth, which had
imprinted in Egyptian graphics, the figurative
symbology which belonged to the Egyptian priests;
afterwards the pure Hebrew rites did not use figures
but made use of the lettered signs of the Qabbalah,
which have value as ideas, things and numbers, in
the same way as the Pythagorean system expresses,
solely by numbers, absolute ideas and by
combinations of numbers, in multiples and sub-
multiples, relative ideas.

The thaumaturgic Hebrew ciphers are straight and

curved lines; their appearance is geometric. But the
Egyptian ciphers are figurative and
anthropomorphic, whilst the Pythagorean ciphers are
numerals.

The Christ therefore, or the soul of the man who

ascends to the heavens or descends into the abysses
at his will, was represented by the image of the fish,
which, by using its fins and its swim bladders,

287
ascends to the surface of the water or descends at
will into the deep grottoes of the ocean.

The human soul conducts itself, in the astral light, in

the same way as the fish in water. It is therefore
only when the soul of man has acquired the power to
ascend and descend, like the fish, that it can work in
accordance with the ultra-astral powers, because,
before attaining this state, the ordinary man is
symbolised by the tortoise and the slug which
represent the astral body in its heavy covering of
carnal material.

This is why natural magic, the easier of the two

forms of magic, only uses forces appropriate to the
human incarnated spirit and to the inferior animals
of the astral zone; for this reason; it is capable of
good and evil, useful or deadly works and uses
materialised fluids and horrible animals emanating
from the astral.

* *

288
As I have explained in my first pages, my treatise on
natural and divine magic must be a clear exposition,
not of what others have said, but of what is true; also
I ask those of my readers who wish to be effective to
form a precise idea of what we are.

Take a very large crystal vase, fill it with water and

place inside it some freshwater fish, some eels and
some freshwater beetles. Observing the water and
the fish through the glass, you are, as human beings,
in the same relationship to the animals in the water
as an intelligence of a superior order [purified spirit
or archangel] is in relation to us who are immersed
in the astral current. Afterwards, the three aquatic
species immersed [beetle, eel and fish] represent
three different degrees of the human spirit in its
development.

I say human spirit because in man the spirit is not

separated from the matter. It is therefore implied
that the spirit of man carries within it this quality of
purified matter [diaphaneity, astral body, peri-spirit]
which is inherent in its development. The heavier
the burden, the more weighty is the material which
envelops it and the less sensitive is the intelligent
spirit.

289
Now, let us pass from the image of the vase
containing the fish to a similar observation of the
life of the ocean. Form for yourself a concept, even
approximate, of all that is in the ocean, of the life of
the phosphorescent protozoans in the contortions of
seaweed, of the vesicular spasms of the protoplasmic
molluscs, to the prawn, sea bream, dolphin, shark,
whale....., and you will have traced analogically a
picture of the animal life in the astral ocean, animal
life which commences with the life of the stone,
proceeds as far as the life of the planet and, from the
latter, succeeds with the intelligence-instinct of the
microbe in climbing every animal scale as far as
man.

Darwin was the most clairvoyant illustrator of the

linking of relationships in the zoological sphere, but
this hierarchy itself is intellectual. From the dog to
the elephant, from the monkey to the man, the
intellectual process and its hierarchy are graded
intellectually until it reaches the species of Homo
Sapiens; but in this human species always exists the
hierarchical link which intellectually binds together
men of all races. There are men who are not much
more intelligent than a very intelligent dog, just as
there are others who attain by becoming pure,
evolved spirits and who no longer live a truly human
life.

290
He who wishes to understand the language of the
Gods must penetrate the language of primitive
syntheses, crossing beyond the abyss of human
languages.

The Sacred Qabbalah, the secret philosophy of the

absolute, has the power to render eternal the
synthetic language of divine ideas. Compared to the
scientific processes of profane knowledge, it is the
torch which recalls the civilisations marked with the
seal of the priestly knowledge.

The Qabbalah is the philosophy of the absolute laws

and the unchangeable elements of physical,
intelligent and mental nature, of nature in its
concrete expression.

The numerical Qabbalah, or the occult Pythagorean

tradition, is, from the act of substituting numbers for
words, even more difficult to comprehend, without
the aid of an eloquent master.

The Arabs had and still have angels with two or

several eyes. The eyes of the body represent its
humanisation, whilst those others which are
291
indicated refer to the divinity of the beings. Thus,
we can see with human eyes the physical sun and
with the mental eyes the sun of the archetypal world.
I state this clearly: the master speaks only when the
convex and the conclave of the celestial world
[according to the expression used by the old rabbis]
shines with incandescence in the vision of the
mental eye.

To study the Qabbalah without the will to

understand its syntheses is to waste one’s time.

Moses received it as a gift from Jehovah, the God

whose name is expressed in four letters, the fifty
gates of the divine intelligence, and Moses gave
them to us as our heritage. In order to understand
thoroughly the method through which we have
received it, one must remember that the word Moses
has a number of meanings: certain occult meanings
are not able to be communicated, others are
manifest: one of the more widely known is that
Moses is he who was called by God, or who had
been saved from the waters. Of what waters are
they talking? Of those of the Nile? But were the
Nile and its waters not on the other hand the astral
current which inundated the whole profane and
carnal kingdom of Egypt, the land of the Pharaohs,
the kings of matter?

292
The mental eye must go further and deeper than the
human eye, when one studies the sacred books and
truths.

The synthetic, ideological and Qabbalistic language

has a measure of imprecision which can be
attributed to false and profane interpretations, as
well as divine ones. To know profoundly the
Qabbalah permits the clairvoyance of the forms
which manifest the concrete order of the immutable
nature. The intellectual light penetrates deeply into
all the manifestations which the eye of the profane is
incapable of seeing.

The nature, the matter, the spirit, the invisible and

the visible only make one unity. The unity is God.
All fatal events are the will of God. Life, death,
sickness and joy are forms and moments of the
physical universal life. Jehovah is the “I am who I
am,” and in him reside all truths; the semoth of the
Qabbalists [mystical science] and the Sophisath
[science of numbers]: in him and through him are all
the manifestations of living and intelligent nature.

Prophecy does not reside only in him: High Magic

consists in the interpretation of all nature in the
language of the Unique, All-Powerful and
293
Immutable One. The clairvoyance consists in the
synthesis of the sentiment of the universal nature.

What one calls superstitions is only the language of

the invisible life, but at an inferior level.

Dreams only represent a life and a great truth for he

who knows how to interpret them in their true,
profound and analogical sense.

The word is the materialisation of an idea. It is the

act engendered by the idea. The men who study
philology in the ordinary schools are not competent
in the domain of the magnetic and magical technique
of the word. One estimates as opportune the
Pythagorean silence in order to efface the impurities
linked to the auditives or graphics of human thought
or of the absolute world of unshakeable truths. Soul,
life, thought are words, sounds and signs; these are
the effects and works; these are the calculations and
monuments; these the sensations and this
is...nothingness.

Sensation exists, but is not efficient for determining

the truth of existences. The two factors would have
to be the memory and the will: conscience is only
294
the sentiment which results from all the technique of
the three factors:

- Sensibility;

- Persistent memory, irrefutable proofs, conscience;

- Will.

The sensibility is illusory; the memory can equally

be so; the will can be dominated by a superior will
in dynamism. Then, the proof of the truth must
come from a more subtle sense, more intimate, more
elevated, than the simple animal or sensual
conscience.

The conscience is a sensation to the extent to which

it is the result of the complex action of exterior
events on the human body: the animal nature of
man, of man equilibrated according to the criteria of
zoosophs, cannot have a conscience above the
sentiment of the memories and actions which are
unfolded.

295
But the psychically evolved man has a second
conscience which is not the result of material actions
and which contains a certain luminous, inexpressible
sense, which detaches and separates the two arrows
resulting from the equation of the individualised and
free power, of the ether of Hippocrates and the
external current.

One example will enable you to understand clearly:

When you are thirsty, place yourself in front of a

bottle of alcoholic wine. Drink. In the same
proportion as the wine enters into your stomach,
drunkenness increases. You are conscious of the
action of the liquid on your brain. Until you are
completely drunk, you are always exactly aware of
your level of drunkenness, dominating your actions.
This intimate sentiment, which places you above the
physical effects of the action of the wine, was
presented by certain philosophical sects as the
dynamic intelligent double of the animated
conscience. This is graphically expressed as
follows:

- The wine - its action}

- Intoxication }Animal conscience

Material soul
296
- Drunkenness }

- Delirium }

The intellectual sense }Intellectual conscience

Intelligent soul

judging the morbid state }

But this is not sufficient: at the moment of this

suprasensible conscience, there the principle which
judges, the interior word, the free animist and
rational principle, the judge of the two consciences.

* *

To him who asked me one day why the occultists

did not express their ideas clearly, I replied that the
why is to be found in the imperfect nature of the
disciples, in whom the involutionary act represented
by the original sin [and which the Catholic baptism
297
would efface] pushes all beings to the complete and
effective materialisation of the most sublime and
high concepts which are neither human nor
humanisable; if it were different from this, they
would be finished and would belong to the hell or
inferior world of error.

The Qabbalah of the old rabbis is the Immaculate

Conception beyond all soiling by human
prevarication. The word is the expression and the
bad interpretation of the ideas conceived. The great
mystery resides in the silence of the senses to allow
the washing or purification of the materialised spirit.

Remember, o my disciple, that the human doctrines,

or those which do not have their foundation in the
purification of the human spirit and in its evolution
for the reconquest of the first liberty, were called
diabolical, satanic and infernal due to the sole fact
that they tried to erect a counter-altar to the
evolution of the spirit. The attempt to conquer the
heavens, in violating them by the concretisation of
sublime ideas, is titanesque. But the Titans are the
spirits who are most engulfed in the mud, because
they tend to envelop every abstract and pure idea, in
sublimating the mud.

298
The dogma of the all-powerfulness of the God-
Entity [Tetragrammaton] contains the union of two
active elements on the passive element itself. But if
the Universe or Macrocosm contains this absolute
power, the Microcosm or man [God-Man] contains
by analogy the same elements.

The modern world does not explain why the scholars

had a passion for many centuries to define the
fundamental ideas of the religions. The
positiveness, however, of the theological discussion
knowledgeably conducted, escapes our
contemporary world just like the significance of
abstract formulae, on which the apparently verbose
discussions had their base. The most abstruse and
silly dispositions to the eyes of modern man, which
are not preoccupied with penetrating the foundation
of the religious reason, all concealed a strong
tendency towards realisation: from the Manichaeans
to the Catholic heresies of the most recent centuries,
the arch heretics, those who were worthy of the
name, all had at the base of their intellects, a
particular idea concerning the manifestation and
disintegration of truth. In the nascent Christianity
which found itself in doctrinal conflict with all the
philosophical system of the pagan Latins, the first
centuries of Christian Rome saw a fierce fight
between these philosophical systems, because then,
even the revealed doctrine of the Neo-Christians
was conceived as a system of philosophical
doctrines. The different methods of conceiving and
299
defining the Creative Unity and its manifestations
give birth to three great streams of applied
knowledge:

1] Finality and method of human life;

2] Morality and social tendency;

3] Reason, history and political realisation.

From the concrete ideal of the human Spirit as

reflected by the universal power, a different moral
tendency is projected over the social milieus; and
when the modern philosophers come to develop the
thesis of the 18th century on the non-existence of a
absolute morality, it proves that the work of the
great religions, from Buddhism to Christianity, has
passed under their eyes as an imperfect and fleeting
image because they have only understood that the
social factor which prepares the great revolutions
and historical periods, it is the religious idea, from
which is derived the morality and the good of
nations. [The divine science can only be confided to
pure men, personally disinterested and therefore
independent of all need and devoid of all ambition;
to be attacked by the secret science of the mages for
a disinterestedness which is only apparent is a work
of the sorcerer. Egotism establishes the means of
control. Egotism is the touchstone of every initiate.
The theocratic governments of ancient times, instead
300
of being founded on the industry of religion, as one
normally believes when young, only allowed the
memory of the trust to be confided to the
illuminated, on account of their disinterestedness.]

Know that in this moment, I address myself to the

readers who occupy themselves truly and intensely
with sociology, by indicating to them, without any
bigotry and above all religions, a new point of view
from which one can observe the beneficial action of
religious activity in all modern civilised peoples, and
I would depart from the subject if you wish to
develop my considerations in this domain; I restrict
myself to recalling that Magic, the perfect science,
must not only be considered as the manifestation of
the occult powers of man on man or things, but of
the human spirit inasmuch as the manifestation of
the divine harmony over all the historic milieu, in
the course of long epochs. The ordinary life of man,
of much less than 100 years proves nothing, in the
practical reality of life. The Christ of Nazareth [if
the symbolism of its history corresponds to reality]
only succeeded in his life in undergoing torments.

But by these torments on the Cross, to which he was

nailed, by the consummatum est, he accomplished
the greatest act of social magic: he prepared the new
times, gave birth to the idea of equilibrium which,
twenty centuries later, is still not fully realised and
301
living. But if the master had conquered twenty
centuries and if the human memory was so powerful
to embrace in a tableau of marvellous splendour all
the path travelled, one could exclaim, like Napoleon
at the Pyramids, that forty centuries will admire the
glorious work of the most glorious of ideal masters,
and the human magic of a sectarian and of a Jewish
sect become, by religion, philosophy, wisdom,
science, progress, light and social perfection.

Take the head of a man and split it. Describe the

organs which it contains. If it is in the bleeding brain
that you seek man, if it is in its weight that you wish
to discover the idea, you are obliged to draw two
great consequences from it: the absolute materiality
of the life in the sensualist orgy as an unique social
end. One draws from it the moral evidence... From
this, the great errors of the satanic rites in those
who, while studying theology simply, invert it with
the determined objective of obtaining an immediate
success. In magic, the only pure conception or
impure conception defines the application or the
tendency of these grandiose rites, by their ideality or
by their disastrous effects. It is just the same in
religion and politics.

302
* *

I have said that the head of man or the summit of the

magical pentagon [Eliphas Levi advises with reason
that one should never trace it, because one can never
do so with impunity] corresponds to the signs of the
total magisterial power or microcosmic divine 
+ , nevertheless, in order to philosophise on this
principle of the binary residing in the human spirit
or incarnated spirit, it is necessary to dispose the two
signs differently:

The superior lunar crescent, positive in the ideality,

and the decreasing quarter, passive.

In the positive, one has the key of Isis, or the

Immaculate Conception.

303
In the passive, one has the formula of the corruption
of purity or Proserpina.

The  intelligence is found between the two factors.

The free human arbiter resides precisely in this
choice, but in operative magic, once the choice is
made, it is necessary to undergo the consequences of
it.

God is unique. In Psalm 139, the Catholic Church

causes verse 8 to be sung thus:

If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there:

If I make my bed in Hell, Thou art there.

The word Thou refers to the Lord who understands

those in his image and recognises their places:
therefore the Lord is on high and below. [This
Unity-God cannot be well understood by the public
which studies the Qabbalah, other than by a
blasphemy: God is the Devil. Nevertheless to
formulate thus the law is an absurdity, because it
would be then the negation of the binary. Ask a
304
professor of theology if God in the house of the devil
is or is not God. The persons who do not understand
this problem do not reflect much on these words;
otherwise they could stay in the Inferno without
finding God there.]

Here, I pray my reader not to delude himself and

reflect well on what I say, because he who can grasp
the true sense of my words will arrive to see the
truth face to face, like Jacob who fought hand to
hand with the mystical angel and remained lame.

Since the truth, which so many sacred emblems, so

many evocational formulae veil, which so many
sublime actions or infamies symbolise or seek, is not
the word which manifests the secret of God, but the
attempt to transmit it without pronouncing it, and
thereby violating it, to posterity, so that he who is
worthy of it learns it and hears it repeated in his ear,
as the greatest conquest of the absolute wisdom.
[Regarding this, one must read and re-read the first
part. The secret of the incommunicable word can be
given by a master who knows it or be unveiled to
him by a close acquaintance if the master is not far
away, provided that he sees the danger of this
devotion. It must not be forgotten that the disciple is
a veritable “sponge” of the master, when the disciple
succeeds, and if, vice versa, he is absorbed by the

305
master, when he becomes an insignificant link in his
chain.

Amon said to his disciple: “In order to succeed in

magic, it is not sufficient to find a master, yet he
cannot lose him and cannot allow him to escape.”]

The reflections of this truth are prismatic. A wave

exists of seven colours of the light of truth that men
grasp and admire according to their greater or lesser
spiritual perfection. The whole luminous spectrum
is the truth of the great masters. One alone of these
colours represents the more or less miraculous
power of the aspirants to the final adeptship.

The hour of the final conquest, for which the Master

is trained, is an hour of rebirth. From the worm is
born the mysterious butterfly of Dante Alighieri and
then, prostrated before the dazzling whiteness of the
truth, one regards the ocean of human impurities as
one does from an aeroplane, above the black depths
of the sea of bitumen of the ancient visionaries.

The reign of the Beatitude of the Buddha and the

Assumption of the Virgin Mary of the Catholics are
identical, as states of perfectibility desired by the
306
initiates. To penetrate into the limbs of the superior

purity + , is the path to reach; to fall

into the - is the magic of involutionary

forms.

To the first, belongs clairvoyance in all domains, as

well as the highest perfection of the greatest
incarnate priests; to the second, all the illusions of
the astral zone, all the imperfections and the
volubility of the current of the souls in regression.

Under this double aspect of the efforts of the

initiates to reach the state of conquest, is hidden the
terrible secret of the life and death of human souls.
[In order that the reader may not believe in an
erroneous impression, I emphasise: life and death of
the human spirit.]

I speak in order to tell you the truth, and it must not

be thought that the author of the Divine Comedy
studied philosophy and history without having an
inspiration and a vision of truth. The man who has
passed the Pillars of Hercules of sensualism is
caught in a dilemma: either with Christ or with
307
Satan. The Christ represents in the current doctrines
the world of the perfection of souls, whereas Satan
represents the world of matter and of the senses.

 If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there:

If I make my bed in Hell, Thou art there. -

Psalm 139

Do not believe, for love of intelligence, as the false

Gnostics of the first centuries did, as above so
below, it is one totality, and that all is duality; one
must not believe that the psalmist had mixed the
total power with the transformation of the divine
person into the king of Hell, in the infernal spheres,
but reflect on this: when Pythagoras wished to speak
of a man, he called him one and multiple, and the
origin or God, he called One.

In Catholic symbolism, the Immaculate Mary

represents the very pure conception, above the active
zone of pagan intellectuality [Minerva] and, in
treading on the feet of the waning moon of which I
have spoken above, it finds itself free of all
terrestrial effluvia: it is to this state of purification
which religiously passive people aspire. The
litanies of the Madonna must be read and studied in
each of their appellations, from which one can
308
deduce the scale of all the qualities attributed to
purity.

This symbolism of the Pure Conception is derived

from hundreds of centuries before Christianity. The
veiled Isis of Egypt and the feminine or lunar
divinities of the Assyro-Babylonian monarchs were
the witnesses of it. It is the most elevated cult,
magically and philosophically speaking, but this cult
is susceptible to being debased in the rites and
sacrilegious ceremonies, as soon as one soils the
spotless purity of this sublime ideal of mental
exaltation through the combination of acts and
imprecations all made coarse. In this case, as
frequently, this very pure ideality is confused with a
spiritual decadence of the effigy, magnetised and
enchanted, in order to produce some pre-determined
effects: thus, to each image corresponds a title, and
each title corresponds to the desire for thanks or for
the satisfaction of personal needs.

I have referred at length to the symbolism of Mary

and the Christian Conception in order to make it
well understood to those who pretend to be strong
Spirits, that in the above theosophy, Mary and the
Conception are only states of mental light, just like
the Mystical Rose of the Rose-Croix. The truth,
which places beneath it all the changing elements
which have influence on the terrestrial world [the
309
Moon], is surrounded by twelve stars: they are the
astral signs which do not change and shine
unceasingly and with the same light, around the
smiling Wisdom.

But the cult of statues and images and the visions of

the race of those of Lourdes and the other madonnas
are interior to the pure, very elevated symbolism of
the Mother of God. The numerous persons who
have seen the Madonna are still found in the astral
visions where the spirit of humanity speaks by
symbols to the intelligence of the seer. On the other
hand, it is not given to everyone to understand the
“Very Pure” among the Virgins of the ideal field,
and the images, the statues and the tableaux, are true
evocations of the ideal. May all those who suffer go
towards it, may they be consoled, may every illness
be blessed and healed: if he who prays is not capable
of being elevated as far as the summit of purity; may
it evoke and invoke its astral image and then even
the shadow of this light will become a light which
consoles. Here is the month of flowers.

The mystical rose is placed on the cross of universal

equilibrium, in the name of which the master salutes
his brethren, dispersed over the universe, and who
await the New Sun.

310
In the rites of sorcery, Astarte, like Proserpina in the
Orphic rites, instead of holding the moon imprisoned
under her feet, allows it to appear with the two
points touching her hair.

The crescent, with its points turned upwards, is

placed on her head. The flexible body, like that of a
serpent, monstrous in its libido, is an enchantress in
its form: it is the Parthenopian siren of the ancient
navigators. The siren bewitches deliciously he who
journeys by research into truth. How will you
overcome it, if your heart trembles and if your flesh
strains to hear her voluptuous song? Ulysses
declared: "Fill your ears with wax..., but the fable of
Ulysses is known and I must neither retell it nor
comment upon it here.

The master who starts his disciple upon the conquest

of truth must prove him and then throw him into the
river where the siren seeks her lovers and her
victims. If he then falls, so much the worse for him!
If he saves himself, so much the better for him.

I recapitulate: All thaumaturgy has its base in the

Light. The Light par excellence is God or the Devil:
if my reader has thoroughly understood the verse of
Psalm 139 quoted in the previous chapter, before he
has felt himself penetrated by wisdom through the
force of the arguments, may he learn thus to ask as a
311
child with the eye of an old man. If he must address
himself to receive the light to the "Lighter of
Lamps" on High or he of the unknown Hell of the
living, above all let him not start with the
preconceived ideas which the false and profane
education of so many centuries has engraved in the
psyche of contemporary races.

The "Fiat Lux" is known in theory; algebraically, all

imagine that an All-Powerful Spirit can have created
the Light, but, if one reflects on the first problems of
occult philosophy which I have had the honour to
expose to my disciple at the start of the first part of
"The Secret World," the frightening dilemma of
finding the trace of God living in us, it is not a
heterodoxical action, since all Christian churches
inform their faithful that man is made in the image
of God. If God, before the Creation, had the power
of the creative act, then after creation, or once
incarnated and individualised in man, he must
conserve the possibility of his eventual creative
power.

O Reader, open wide the ears of your spirit and the

eyes of your intelligence for, if you do not know the
aphoristic sense of this first arcane which I unveil to
you, you will rack your brains uselessly to
communicate to yourself the science of the
accomplished miracle.

312
The exponents of the sects in the first centuries of
Christianity said that the double Divinity, the
emanator of the true and living light, was both Light
and Serpent. The Ophites believed that the serpent
as in the ensign of St. Alphonse-Marie of Liguria,
and external humanity, among so many of these
numerous sects and dangerous revolutionaries in the
incubation period of Christianity, turned in derision
away from these sages and their symbolism.

Theodore, in his long diatribes against the

Pythagoreans, through his vulgar eloquence, made it
known on certain points, that the Gentiles and the
people who existed before the introduction of
Essenism into Europe had never intended to
symbolise by divinified persons the hidden
mysteries of the secret spiritual nature. Antiquity, or
the ancient world, was, in matters of the spiritual
sciences, more advanced than the polemics of the
18th century and the dialectic discussions of the end
of the 19th century; the only point which divides the
epochs historically is the vulgarisation of the
number or the enlarging of the first circle restricted
in wisdom as far as the high sacerdotal manifestation
is concerned.

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Magic must be rendered mistress of the whole
exterior of the Eternal Religion, of which Buddhism,
Brahmanism [or Hinduism], Egyptian Chaldeism,
Paganism and Christianity are only the appearance
of the truth in that time. Magic is the science.

The times are makers of morality. Morality, the key

to the science of religious forms, is expressed in
moral standards. Mores sunt tempora; the famous
"O tempora, o mores" is a phrase which has an
unique sense. Spiritual gradation [through its great
reflection on humanity] indicates the route of
elevation in human society.

The external manifestation of the Gods is vulgar or

profane, according to the example of the current
times. But did the secret face of these gods conform
to the understanding of the profane?

Did the two faces of Janus teach nothing to the

pretended philosophies of the ancient mythologies?

I advise the study of mythology in its essence, as

containing the initiation of the powers of our
organism; it is research into a rare science, the
possibility of discovering a fundamental arcane.
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The man initiated into the magic of the priesthood
must not consider the simple external image of the
divinities which inspire him, but contemplate the
hidden aspects, for, if one does not know God in his
secret face, it is useless to believe oneself a
philosopher and doctor in the hieratic and orthodox
sciences.

To ask the Master for a book which would teach the

miracles by the same method as is used to instruct
sightseers, is a very vile lie of the vulgar spirit. One
must ask for and obtain the light before the Master
speaks, otherwise his words are mere pearls before
swine.

In order to open your eyes to the most profound, to

contemplate the occult truths, one can evoke two
forms: the one subjective, the other objective; the
reflection or spectre and the Fire or Mastery:

The first of these routes is the easier and also the

longer. The religious orders give the instruction. A
slow and in depth reading of "The Initiation" by
Thomas a Kempis, or a methodical rule of a
religious order, even one originating from the Far
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East, prepare one for this living evocation of the
Christ. The active magical orders prepare by the
second route.

The Creative Fire, outside all creative activity, of all

personalities and personifications, represents the
dilemma of the victory or destruction of the active
spirit, which loves research. One cannot appreciate,
because of its sheer monstrosity, the audacity of the
evocations of pyromagic, not even as a hypothesis
for a novelist. After the victory arising from this
great act, the depths of the eyes are open and one
becomes able to understand the Master.

He commences the thaumaturgic work of the adept.

Without the rash attempt to destroy oneself atom by

atom, in order to look fully into the face of him of
whom it is written than no one can see his true
visage and of whom only Moses, saved from the
waters, heard his voice, he whom Christ called
Father, without this attempt, you cannot produce a
miracle.

He who wishes to begin by obtaining the miracle, in

order to decide for himself afterwards, accomplishes
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the work of a madman in the domain of the science
of the secret truth, which is Magic.

The first aspect of the ray of God, known through

the Qabbalah under the name of Ariel, arises from
the thaumaturgic power or force which accomplishes
the miracles; the latter are not, as the profane and the
ignorant believe, infractions of the natural laws nor,
as rational pseudo-intelligentsia would have us
believe, phenomena due in great measure to the
ignorance of the faithful but, on the contrary,
miracles are for the secret sciences, authentic acts of
creation deriving from the same creative laws
through which Jehovah accomplished the great
miracle of the creation of the universe.

The laws and concepts of the miracle are the basis of

the second meaning of the Qabbalah; and the
Intelligence of theosophy is represented by the
quinary of which we have spoken. Ariel is an angel
or manifestation of the force expressed through the
divine intelligence. It is therefore both force and
intelligence. It is instinctively strong and intelligent.
It is capable.

In the profane mystique, all that arises from the

material life of all things, all that arises includes the
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double act of evaluation and capacity for
deliberation, is Ariel; it is therefore the evocation or
manifestation of Jehovah.

In the life of matter, there is very slow movement; in

the life of thought, there is movement by rapid
rotation; one must discern and separate the
intellectuality of the materialisation.

This is why, in the practice of magic, the names of

the divine entities must be understood and heard as
having a triple application:

1] Intelligence or projection of the central divine

will.

2] Spirit or manifestation of a tendency.

3] Genie or Demon in their real manifestation.

Each of these forms presents a different phenomenal

manifestation.

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Ariel, in divine magic, is the absolute intelligence of
the divine creative force. Intelligence means
comprehension, penetration and subtle intuition of
the value of the power of creation.

In its second phase of adaptation, it is the spirit or

the angel who acts on the astral current. Then, in its
third aspect, it is the act of materialised force or
incarnation of intelligence.

Before going further, the disciple must understand

this difference effectively, otherwise he cannot gain
a precise idea of magic, the science of the "very
perfect." Whereas on the contrary, because of the
rapid and deceiving effects of a little too precise
interpretation which offer certain forms as
Experimental Spiritualism and the psychic activities
which try to form a body of non-concrete,
incomplete and false doctrines, it appears to him
falsely that these erroneous forms are very deep and
very concrete, because they emanate from physical
sensitivity and objectivity to attain the culminating
point of return to..... the source of the sensitivity
itself.

To study Magic and apply Theurgy does not mean

studying the phenomena which assail the physical
senses, but to study the occult laws and produce
evident phenomena; and, like all sciences, Magic
319
must be studied with care, first in its doctrinal past
and then in its application; moreover, before
understanding what may be relevant to the science,
one must understand the value of the words one
uses.

The words Angel, Demon, Spirit do not have

scientifically the value which the public has
attributed to them and a researcher in modern
sciences in the current of all the studies of the
lecture-hall, anatomy and the bacteriological
laboratories finds very erroneous in relation to his
scientific knowledge, these three denominations
which express ridiculous concepts, according to him.
Perhaps I shall bee the last and the first to
rehabilitate the classic old "ideologies" of the occult
science in order to mark the link serving to unite the
old and new forms of human knowledge tending to
the apotheosis of the divine synthetic knowledge:
but in future, those who come after me will only be
my complete transformation into modernity and the
world will hail as very modern the discoveries of
things which are in fact ancient knowledge of the
priesthood of theurgic science. But this appears
very curious and strange as a professor of chemistry
of the modern universities invokes, in front of the
incredulous students, before trying to produce a
phenomenon, the angel of the transformation of
Mercury or the Demon of mutation of the Moon;
however, the titanesque castle of cultivated
humanity rises by layers and superimposing of
theories, and by insufflations of ideas which can be
320
termed scientific, in order to graft on to the
numerous generations the seed of novelty in the
consciousness of the true things of the visible
world.

A day will come, and it is not very distant, when it

will be understood what human life is, and then, no
matter what they say the “socialists” and the
“humanists” of the contemporary epoch, those who
will discover this great truth, which represents the
secret of the tree of good and evil, will understand
that the unique plank of safety is for us to erect in a
scientific theocracy. The two great discoveries of
the end of the 19th century , x-rays and the wireless
telegraph, although marvellous were little things, if
they are compared with the problem of human life
resolved scientifically. The supreme initiation today
gives the secret to the adepts: but how many are
those who reach it?

My task at this moment consists of gathering

together the few elects, in whom the leading lights
of this science will find a fertile terrain in order to
make of them masters of the next generation and to
depose in them the seed of the eternal truth, beyond
all the artifices of proud human knowledge. I
address myself to them in order that they understand
before operating; and as they do not work
empirically, like charlatans, in order to fall into
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thinking they study magic, in the discouraging and
fruitless circle of vulgar spiritualism and Mesmerian
somnambulism, the basis of a doctrine without head
or tail.

One does not perform Magic like a job learned

through human will: it is an exercise of active
virtues.. It cannot exist and does not exist for he who
practises it with the blind and incoherent theory of
the habitual and well-known methods. He who
performs Magic with this sad and imperfect habit to
produce immediate phenomena, performs mistaken
spiritualism, but he who wishes to produce some
magical effects and without the knowledge of what
he does, sows in the sand and the most horrible
catastrophes follow these states of folly, which do
not produce only the death of the physical body, but
often the second death, to know the complete
dissolution of the psychic entity. That is the
warning before which all imprudent work must be
stopped.

To comprehend well before working, he must have

an exact idea of all the theories and analogies, and of
the words used in the Great Art or Ars Magna, as
well as the deployment of the very high Divine
Science.

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All, in practical Magic proceeds through love. Love
is Divine Intelligence or a state of
comprehensiveness, the intuition of a divine
embrace between the finished matter and the infinite
world.

Every evocation or invocation is an effort of

comprehensiveness.

This effort has as its goal the inferior finalities or

through the finished body of a determined evolution
and is an involution of the being itself in the
subterranean life [Hell, diabolism, sorcery].

If, on the contrary, he tends towards God, the

principle of Infinite Omnipotence, this is evolution.
[Paradise, Divine Magic].

He who works can, with the same name, invoke or

evoke.

The key to all practice is the Immaculate

Conception.
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In the same way as you think, you evoke; as you
conceive, so you create. Know, however, that the
magical act of Conception is not, and cannot be, the
effect of meditations or long vigils.

In Magic, Conception is a flash of lightning, a

lightning operation of our psyche, to which two
great factors contribute:

1] a very perfect education of the physical body and

the intellect.

2] The will of good and evil.

I will indicate as principal points:

- that in an integrated conscience free from all

influence due to its environment, superstition

or passion, the volitional power manifests itself

spontaneously, without effort, solely

through the imaginative act.

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- that the imagination is the instrument of creation in
integrated consciences.

- that the creation of a form conceived in such

interior conditions is sufficient for

this form to be realised.

- that such a success is not the result of an effort, but

of a manner of independent

and interior existence which knows no obstacles.

- that realisation, on hign as well as below, is an act

of love.

- that it is the same for both good and evil, in the

forms or realities at the base of

usefulness and pleasure, as in all those who cause

sadness and pain.

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Man has the great responsibility of his acts in the
regard of the society in which he lives. One rewards
and punishes it through Human Justice. However,
the famous Tribunal of God of which the Catholics
speak, truly exists, because every conscious act of a
human being is the cause of life or death, and the
incorruptible justice of the Divine Equilibrium
rewards or punishes, gives or takes, in the lives
which follow the human life, just as in human
society.

The sins or faults are expiated and the debts are

paid. He who was a thief will pay the man from
whom he has stolen. He who lives by the sword will
die by the sword. The chalice of Christ must be
drained to the bottom. Thus one must understand
the phrase "a tooth for a tooth" in the sacred
volumes. The pardon is expiation.

The fatal law is inexorable. Jehovah is the just and

omnipotent God and also the fatal God: inexorable.

You act and you obtain.

If you struggle in the dark, the dark will be to you

the spectre of justice.
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Thus Essenism, the mixture of Hebrew, Chaldean
and Egyptian science, passed into Catholic
Christianity and did not know how to define the
pardon without invoking the sacrament of penitence.

Penitence is expiation. It is a washing away. It is a

baptism of old faults. It is man who creates his own
happiness and misfortune.

Karma is the fruit of all our acts: the inexorable law

which none can infringe and to which all beings are
subject.

The effacement of Karma in Buddhism is produced

by fasts and abstinences, in Christianity through a
purification, which have as their objective the
disappearance of this Karma in a magical
autocreation.

Karma is our work, our merit or demerit in the moral

sense since a rigid and immutable justice reigns in
all animate and inanimate nature.

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Every good or evil act necaessarily brings its fruits;
no grace of a personal God can free an evildoer from
the consequences of his evil action.

Karma is not a force acting outside like a God, but

an inferior force acting continually upon us. To
deny this would be to deny the cause of the law
producing its effect.

But in magic, to admit this would be to deny the

creative action of human thought in a state of pure
“mag” on an impure man. If every act is a creation,
a form, a different disposition of the molecules of
things existing in themselves a pure spirit can purge
through a creative act, a base spirit, to destroy the
Karma in it and dissipate its larvae.

As through an act of sincere and penetrating love,

one can change the Karma by penetration.

From this is derived the necessity in magic of

automatic washing which every disciple must attain
through the purification of his own spirit.

328
Remember, O Disciple, that in the ordinary life of
man every act, word and sigh has a reaction in the
hyperphysical world; in the magical life of initiates,
even a fleeting thought is a creation. That is why
initiation is only conferred completely on men of
very high morality for the danger of prevarication is
less.

The responsibility of man before the invisible of

organic life is great. But the responsibility of
initiates is even greater: the masters are dependent
on their disciples when the latter stray, and are
responsible for their evil actions if they do not inflict
chastisement upon them - which in this case would
be turned against them - he who must be beaten as
with a flail to emphasise the inexorability of Jehovah
upon prevaricating disciples.

In magic, the disciple and the master are contracting

parties: in solidum say the lawyers, and the
responsibility of the master is great when he initiates
a profane into the higher secrets, who could, through
innocence, violate the mandate or betray it. Also,
direct initiation is always something painful and the
masters avoid it.

329
The pardon of Christ to him who sought it is a very
great and glorious act of charity: there where the
offence does not carry with it a lightning vengeance
by the offended party, divine justice is more
clement. But the outrage to morality, this monstrous
act which certain insensitive people substitute for
the pure ideal of the magical concept in their
obscene operations, represents a scourge which will
have repercussions in the invisible, without hope of
pardon or remission.

He, however, who does not know how to assume the

entire responsibility for his acts is like a pupil and
cannot be initiated. He who can assume this
responsibility while thinking and doing evil is a
monster of folly.

The complete man, who aspires to the divine rule by

universality, is Buddha; the man who sacrifices
himself for the universality, in order to rejoin God,
is Christ. Peace and sacrifice, love and virtue, ideal
and good, truth and light .... this is the magical work
of which I hasten the realisation.

To convert this love into determinations of time,

place and individuals is a diabolical operation and
black magic.

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Do not commence any magical operation if it does
not start from God. Do not operate without the
virtue of purity. Thus, since you are pure and full of
good intention, the operation of Magic will be
realised.

Ariel comes, intelligence, spirit, demon, if you are

pure, strong, vigorous, powerful, courageous and
full of vitality. The emanation from the high
conception with which you are animated descends to
be incarnated in you, your arm is in his arm, your
spirit is his spirit, your heart is his heart. You
command and it is he who commands. You think
and he thinks. You create and it is he who creates.

Invert the action.

Do not wish Ariel - life, creation, victory, thought -

to descend and come for an evil action. Is it your
desire to dominate and to wish the hour of tyranny to
strike triumphantly? Invoke it when you like. Ariel
will not come. But it is the spirit of lies which then
arrives. It is the larvae of your torment, which you
animate in the delirium of your passion.

331
Operative Magic is, according to the infinite
intelligence of very pure spirits, resistant to
passionate states of the human heart in its disastrous
acts of egotism, division and vengeance.

All the spirits who speak to the evil mages are only
larvae produced by their passions. All the spirits,
who mimic the Eternal Father in the written
communications of the mediums and who incite to
error, division and hate are only larvae. When the
larvae become giants, Asmael, the angel of
chastisement arises, breaks, shatters, destroys... One
falls then into the dust and one pays by folly or by a
premature death for having violated the astral
current.

Let us now come on to practice.

In Natural Magic, Ariel dominates the elements as in

Divine Magic; he is intelligence and force.

All the operations accomplished by men on the

inferior earth belong to natural magic, in this world
which the blind humans believe to be inanimate and
irrational. It is natural, as it acts upon natural or
created things but it is divine, or acting on the divine
332
world, when it operates on the “mundus naturabilis”
and when it creates.

One succeeds generally in creating great confusion

if one confuses the two parts of the Secret
Knowledge or Wisdom of the Arch, and one
supposes from habit that the Mage can indifferently
act on the distinct Universe [Universe, Uni-versus,
scan and read the letters] by the same means.

In applying to man all I have already said in the

explanation of the quinary and in its astrological
relation, the action of command or of prayer
according to which he calls towards him created
things or invokes the divine powers to create. From
there come the two very powerful forces of the two
categories of operation in magic:

- to evoke, or to call from oneself with the voice.

- to invoke, or to call in oneself with the voice.

One must not commence any act of magic with

invocation and the disciple must not commence his
true initiation without invoking the superior
333
principle or the Christ within himself. His physical
invocation must be in harmony with his mental
invocation. May his invocation in the form of a
prayer by the sign of his elevation and the hope of
his accession.

Under the influence of Ariel being the centre from

which emanate force and capacity; he is, in magical
language, the angel who guards and guides.

Now that you have arrived at this point, I think it

will be useful for the disciple, after so much theory,
to commence truly to try for himself if he has the
desire to do so; and to rule his life as a blind profane
with the twelve magical aphorisms of Iriz-ben-Assir,
one of the greatest priests of the Beroso period.
These aphorisms of elementary magic have never
been printed in the West and form part of the
Egyptian Rite. One gives to the neophytes of this
order the twelve aphorisms without commentaries
and advises them to learn them literally by heart.
For my part, in setting out these twelve aphorisms
and in translating them from the original sacerdotal
Syriac, is to start from the ideograms of the period in
which they were left to posterity to the college of
oriental priests. I adapt them to the intelligence of
modern man and I will follow them with clear
commentaries, as far as it is possible for me to do
so. In studying and practising the laws of these
magical aphorisms, condensed from the practice
necessary to proceed from the noviciate to the

334
priesthood, the disciple who has read this far will
commence his individual education.

FIRST APHORISM

The world is one, man is one and the egg is one.

The world, man and the egg equal three. In each
one, you see the three; in the world, in man and in
the egg you find three times three.

If you wish to earn the secret of the egg, go back to

three.

If you wish to learn the mystery of man, go back to

six.

If you wish to discover the great arcane of the world,

ascend to nine.

Inhale and exhale three times to know the secret of

the egg.
335
Six times for the mystery of man, nine times for the
arcane of the world.

Thus Ea [Jehovah] created first the world, then man

and then the egg and gave the latter the secret of
man and of the world.

That is why, my son, the first aphorism of sacred

and hidden things is in the number of 369.

Without light, noise or thoughts of any kind which

may not be aspiration of Ea, bury yourself alive,
with your ears blocked with beeswax and lambswool
in the cavities so the light of the world cannot enter
and there exhale and inhale 369 times, until you see
the world in the egg of Ea.

SECOND APHORISM

336
When he created the world, Ea considered two
things: white and black, heat and cold and his breath
became cold and hot and he gave his warm breath to
man and his cold breath to woman, for the first
should light and heat, after which the second should
take and conserve: thus, you, my son, as soon as you
have seen the World of Ea, you have learned what
was Life and how Life was breathed from the World
of Ea on the world of the egg and you will then
discover that the Life of the masculine elements is
not that of the feminine elements and that only on
the elements of double nature has Ea breathed twice.

Also the second aphorism which you must

remember consists of being unable to perform divine
work without the knowledge of life-nature in the
egg, in man and in the world of Ea.

THIRD APHORISM

When you have learned to aspire and respire, to

know the masculine and feminine life-nature in the
world of Ea, you must learn to breathe as Ea has
done into the world on the egg of things which have
still not been created. Then return into your living
sepulchre, re-block your ears and, instead of
inhaling and exhaling, you must blow 369 times on
337
the things which you feel and which you can see. In
blowing, you must inflate the cheeks but not the
stomach or else the breath will return whence it
came and you will die. My son, if you practise this
rule, you will find how by blowing into the sky, you
will light the fire [pyr] there.

FOURTH APHORISM

When you have learned to know the world of Ea the

life of the double breath, and how to light by
blowing [in sufflando] the fire into the sky, you will
then go on to the highest mountain of your own
country, you will sit on the bare ground, planting a
fruit tree on your right and a grain on your left.

If you blow on the tree, it will shrivel up, broken by

the wind of the Schen [the desert] and if you blow
on the grain you will revive the tree. Then you will
see a serpent with two heads arise from the earth,
which in two voices [one voice from each of he
heads] will say to you: 1st] I am the grain 2nd] I am
the tree. Then you will understand that, just like the
two heads which have only one body, the grain and
the tree are only one; then you will make the new
tree shrivel up and the new grain and you will ask
for the instruction of Ea. Light the fire with your

338
breath and Ea will speak to you from the middle of
the flames.

FIFTH APHORISM

As soon as Ea has spoken to you, your spirit, the

giant Egs [Arie] will make the winds arise around
you. These winds are the source of your power, of
your force and of your light, but guard yourself
against abandoning yourself totally to them, for Ea
and his spirit Egs are stronger than you and would
die by having risen alive to where man cannot live.

SIXTH APHORISM

Construct an ark [we are here at the deluge]

provided with a veil which the wind of Egs cannot
enter and as soon as you see the wind blow over the
waters and the water climbing towards the sky, enter
into the ark and say to Egs: carry me to where the
water will not reach. Then the veil will be ruffled by
seven spirits of Egs. [In the ideogram, the spirit is
represented by a dove, from which derives the Holy
Spirit or Dove of the Catholic Church.]

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Fou .................................... pushes Mo
............................. hears and speaks

Xi ....................................... redresses Ra
.......................................... sees

Mne .................................... sustains

Ag ...................................... conducts

Mor .................................... retains

On the fourth day, you will feel that the Ark touches
the ground.

Mo will say: The water descends.

Ra will say: The summit of a

triangular mountain.

As for you then, in order to know the truth, change

yourself into a bird, fly away and you will find the
corpses and the carrion which enchain you. Return

340
to your barque in spirit, make yourself a dove and
thank Ea, then Egs continuing his circular flight, you
will make yourself ascend and kiss the waters as you
please and you will know the second spirit, Ise.

My prose which appears obscure [but I cannot

render it more explicit] will serve as a guide to the
mysterious life of the practitioner who will soon
understand how and when he can find himself in the
conditions of which I speak.

* *

I shall speak first of certain things which belong

more to our present era, and I will follow the
commentaries of Bne Agar [who was perhaps a
priest who would have lived in the period of Beroso
and, or even more exactly, the name of a school or a
sect.]

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I believe I already hear you say: O Master
Kremmerz, you wish to teach us the practice with
only six of the nine aphorisms set out, but however
easy you find it to comment on them, we are quite
sure that the key to these doctrines, as we would
wish to have it, you will not give to us, and you will
always put us on the path of philosophical
reflections and not surely on that of the practices
which we desire to grasp in order to see the miracles
in action.

I will reply to this by repeating in a few words all

which I have written and repeated several times in
these pages which are destined to be a public
instruction of occult truths.

I say and I repeat to my disciple: If you believe that,

by reading books of occult philosophy, you can
grasp the Secretum Secretorum of Universal Magic,
disabuse yourself; do not waste your time, work and
money.

For you, the books of Magic will become a book of

indefinable poetry, full of blue-tinted horizons and
illusions. You will not enter in any way the house of
truth if through imprecise thought, you do not
become active.

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Thought is faith and is religious.

Action is magic and is scientific.

Do not believe in anything which you have only

heard told to you; do not believe in traditions which
reach you ancient and deformed through human
language; do not believe in what men speak much
about; and do not believe more easily because you
have before your eyes the testimony of a wise man;
do not add faith to a thing because only certain
probabilities speak to you in its favour or because
from old-established habit you believe it to be true;
do not believe in the sole authority of your master
and your priest. Seek the truth and only see
according to it, but only if your research and
experience prove to you that it corresponds with
your health, your welfare and that of your fellow
man.

I estimate that the hieratic science was, and still is,

considered by most mortals to be an illusion, to be
like a faith. As for the initiate, he must never cease
to be aware. Faith is for the people; it is blind and
belongs to the religions for the profane. Whilst if
343
faith is the outcome of personal researches, after
these researches have proved the truth, it is then
hieratic science and sacerdotal awareness.

Never say “Magister dixit,” for then you will

believe in his science but you will not have
awareness and your duty to become an initiate is to
have and to conquer this awareness by working
actively under the direction of the initiator.

The man who thinks aspires, like the Christian

believer who recites the Lord’s Prayer, for whom the
reign of the Father arrives. The man who acts
accomplishes, like the Father, a work of a king.

If the reader now wishes to undertake the study of

magic, he must commence practising - to act; before
acting, he must be educated; before being educated,
he must understand.

To Understand: Do not consider in the exposition of

the sacred arcanes, the words, but the intention or
spirit which speaks. Christ, in the evangelical
parables, is similar to the history of the Jews, full of
struggles and precepts in which each name of a man
symbolises a spirit of action and each word of
344
combat constitutes a suggestion between the spirit
and the profane form. The angels are silent but
active: they are mean with words but eloquent
through their acts. The acts themselves are the work
of God; the language of the spirits of God is their
works. The words, discourse and exposures of the
spoken word relate to the vulgar and reduce men to
the level of animals, who need their voices to
express their needs. That is why the grammarians,
the polishers of the word and human discourse, were
greatly mistaken about the philosophers of ancient
times who distinguished themselves in the Orphic
and Pythagorean schools consecrated to truth.

The act of not speaking, or the subjective silence,

places the individual outside all artificial states of
arbitrary creation.

The words which we pronounce are confirmation of

the same ideas constructed by means of words
repeated several times.

Men who speak much obscure even what they have

been able to assimilate.

345
He who does not believe and speaks, ends by
believing what he says.

Forcing oneself to realise the interior and individual

silence is a very important psychic preparation for
the separation of the physical body from the three
superior elements.

There is no initiation which does not commence by

silence: neither speak of what you know or what you
will see; you will not remain silent through the
mouth, the organ of thought transmission. The
education in silence, by a mechanical irradiation,
addresses itself to the lunar sensitivity of the soul
and this learns to be silent as a closed mouth is
silent.

All must be silent around he who is directed towards

his own reintegration, as the solar intelligence
manifests itself in him: to be silent subjectively and
objectively, through the mouth, one’s acts, and one’s
thoughts, sleeping or waking, because he who
speaks creates and all creation is displacement of
forms and thus dissimulation of the amorphous
primitive truth or spirit of light. The disciple must
know how to be silent and to live in the middle of
the crowd, which always tries to influence, but
which does not influence the wise man. His soul
346
must remain insensitive to all the voices, noises and
habits which make up the great human influence.
And this is still not enough: his soul must also be
silent and he must impose silence even on the spirits
who speak to this soul.

If the disciple knows how to be silent through the

soul and the mouth and lives isolated in the middle
of the world, in the most complete solitude amongst
the crowd which commits and preaches error, he
will hear the voice of the Master in his spirit and not
the simple sound of this voice.

The first aphorism says: The world is one, man is

one and the egg is one. The world, man and the egg
make three.

If one is the world, man and the egg are in the word.
The logos, or word of the absolute idea, is unique in
the world, in man and in the egg.

Thus, the same language of acts and phenomena

which represent the evolutionary series of the
universal spirit One, comprehends the language of

347
acts and phenomena of the two unities of the inferior
category.

One = the world

One = man

One = the egg

But this does suffice. The explanatory laws of the

first Unity are analagous to others: the egg is the
spirit because it is a seed, as man is a creature
because he is the product of the seed of the laws of
universal Unity, and the world is God, because it is
the language of the Universal Spirit.

He who wishes to understand and enter into

possession of the first keys of the occult treasure of
the sciences which form the patrimony of the
Mages, must abandon all the baggage of profane
ideas in order to penetrate the world of causes,
through a synthetic and non-analytical process
which is the true and great enigma of the sacred
sciences.

348
One is the law, one the existence of everything, one
is the mastery of all sensitive form. Outside this
unique truth, there is only the argumentative folly
which has found that imperfect man must always
wait for grace and that the eternal life of spirits
unfolds beyond the power of the material which is
the unique law, the unique essence, the unique
mastery of what is, what was, and what will be
eternally on the earth and on all the stars of the
firmament.

For he who commences his initiation: One is life;

the quartz, the rose, a beautiful woman, or a very
ugly man are only the product of the same seed of
the life of the universe.

Has the universe a soul? It is the same soul which

now compacts the atoms of the quartz, which
colours and makes the petals of a rose wither, which
grips a woman with a feeling of desire and which
makes a man repugnant.

Has the universe a spirit? It is the same spirit which

manifests itself in different intelligent gradations in
the mineral in the vegetable and in the animal.

349
Does it exist for the vulgar profane, who is a
stranger to the intuition of the hermetic unity?
Nothing, other than the word.

Does it exist for the researcher into occultism? One

sole thing: the unity in the most vast expression of
the phenomena of nature.

The first aphorism states that this law is a

fundamental axiom. It is the key to all analogy in
the science of the spirit and in the religions. If the
disciple does not understand this, he will never
understand astrology for the mages and he will say
what is a superstition, [i.e. an inspirational ignorance
of faith, as Bonaventura Cappucino wrote in the
Rivolus Sapientiae:] he will not understand the spirit
of alchemy nor that of the evocations and not even
that of universal love and the ideal of the unity
aspiring to God as a return and an end.

But in order to understand, you hasten in vain, O

Reader and Friend, if you wish to find, expressed in
a vulgar grammar, the clear intention which
animates the exposed magical doctrines written by
men who have the power to transmit and conserve
the secret of action, the Golden Fleece of the
expeditions of Jason, the Troy of the Greek Wars

350
and the building of Rome of the Latenda Saturnia.....
!

In magic, to understand is to conquer. Usually men

who have the power to perceive the occult truths
written in the scientific articles on Magic [veritable
poems in the classical acceptance of the word,] feel
themselves pushed to make a try through one of
these badly defined lights of the vulgar profane,
which, according to the epochs, took the form of
gods, heroes, angels or spirits of the dead; and this
Light speaks to the spirit of the disciple and says to
him: try, see, touch, you will arrive. But if this Light
espouses the pride of man, it is distorted and she
enters into the labyrinth of the Minotaur, a path with
no end, long and tortuous, at the end of which there
is folly, death and dissolution.

How many are those who start well and finish in a

horrible manner while studying the science of the
mages? Why? Because they think they understand
and, in fact, they have not grasped it: the invisible
world speaks to them through the immutable
language of unities which they do not understand;
they mix with it their pride and are precipitated into
Gehenna [obscurissimi locidiaboli domum,] wrote
Bonaventura Capuccino] from where they only
remain destroyed.

351
The orientalists and the theosophists, the seekers of
methods and formulae established by the religions,
have affirmed little by little that the original
principle on which the magical ascension is founded
is pride; but if one thinks that all the religious and
monastic orders of all the religions of the World are,
as in visible nature, founded on hierarchy and
obedience, and that the elevated spirits capable of
realising a complete ascension have appeared and
continue to appear in all the different religious
orders, moreover, in hierarchy and obedience, the
independent Unities are formed in equilibrium. It
thus stands out clearly from all else in Magic that he
is mistaken who thinks he can detach brother from
brother, companion from companion, or disciple
from master, in order to create a satanic synagogue
of discord and division, engendering unpleasant
sentiments of hate, which prevent the progress of the
spirit in this sublime zone of truth.

Read the parable of the prodigal son.

It happens, as I know from experience, between

master and disciple. The son takes the substance of
the father and distances himself in order to waste it
in debauchery; he is deluding himself by thinking he
will find everywhere what he has received from the
father. One fine morning, at the moment in which
352
the improved sage would least expect it, the prodigal
must recognise that he is less than nothing, that his
small patrimony has been destroyed and that all is
collapsed around him.

The Light, or a light, appears to the soul of the

disciple and says to him: study, understand, act,
love. By study, understanding, action and love, he
must embrace in one sole embrace all the visible and
invisible world.

Impulsively, this Light pushes him towards a source

from which he will be able to quench his thirst for
truth. He walks full of fear, tastes, and says, like
God in the Bible after the creation of the water: et
vidit hoc bonum esse [and he saw that it was good].
Then the Light comforts him and he is shown
himself in the blue waters of the lake. There then
enters on to the scene the pride of man, the spirit of
the earth which the Bible represents in the form of a
serpent and which the Jewish Qabbalists represent
under the traits of Samiel and Astaroth and which
murmur to the man with insistence: You will
navigate in the deep waters and you will not drown,
and seduce him.

353
What forms the mental Unity of the Logos in him
who is initiated? The Divine Light or the spirit of
the earth? Obedience to pride? The Spirit of the
Universe or the panting of the beast.

That is why, in the actual state of the different

peoples called civilised, the truly advanced men are
rare except in the most austere societies of the
different religions. In social and profane life, man
does not resist the test of the serpent of the earth and
falls into its jaws: the serpent has the face of a
woman or of a handsome young man who enchants
if he speaks, who sends to sleep if he breathes, who
engages if he sighs, but who kills inexorably when a
man abandons himself totally to its power
continuously and unconditionally.

If the spirit of earth is predominant in he who

commences his understanding is false. It is the spirit
of obedience and love which is essentially divine. If
one reflects on all the transformations, by games or
by sophisms, that the spirit of individual pride can
make one undergo in this exposition of obedience
and love, one will understand what catastrophe
awaits him who interprets in this manner.

And in order for us to understand it thoroughly, I

would like the patient reader to understand, now and
354
for ever, the spirit of these things which I am in the
process of unveiling to him, so that he eats the roses
and sees Isis, the dazzling and immortal beauty.

* *

To be educated oneself and practise: How do you

educate yourself? How do you practise?

The education of the disciple in magic, when it is

not achieved or directed by a master, must be
formed according to his comprehension of the
writings, symbols and science exposed. If his
comprehension is false, his magical education will
also be false. The education must be adapted to the
unitary tendencies of the pupil, according to the
synthesis of his aspirations and potential.

How do you practise? There lies the problem.

355
To commence through egg or seed to ascend to the
world or from the world to descend to the seed?

Start from the spiritual seed and set yourself a

specific unchangeable goal; think of this goal,
whatever it may be, and you must attain it, provided
that it is honest and moral.

In order to study well the following process for the

education of the will, do not change the goal.
Before choosing it, think how much you desire it;
after having chosen it, do not turn aside from your
objective.

If you have thoroughly understood the first

aphorism, study the seed: teach yourself to seek in
the unknown depths of your spirit the breath which
must accomplish the transformation: and the Light
will appear to you.

The error of those who commence is the wish to see

the effects of the operations attempted, even in the
most banal form today or tomorrow: do not deceive
yourself. Often the effects of the realisation are
manifested after an interminable series of painful
years.
356
To my disciples in Magic, I teach an unchangeable
truth in every age and in every place, the truth above
all words: do not have any illusions, the words
change like the moods of men, kneel only before the
truth whatever may be its name the truth is one.
Jesus Christ, the philosophical conscience, the
superior Word, the Buddha are only the divine
principle in ourselves. [Personally, I do not think the
western practitioners need recourse to all the sacred
logology and Indian and Brahmin theologies to
determine the forces, an intelligence and some
divinities, which in Graeco-Latin paganism and in
Egyptian antiquity, we find clothed and interpreted
by symbols which are more poetic and in harmony
with Europeans.

[If Europeans wished to remain rooted to earth in

atavism, it would suffice for them to examine,
investigate in detail, explain and reveal Catholic
symbolism, a study worthy of every disciple in
magic.]

Talk to yourself, discourse with Jesus Christ, as

Thomas a Kempis sought to do, seek the angel
deeply confined in your own body, as the mystics
tell us; for you, all comes back to the same place, for
it is not the name which constitutes the truth. On the
357
contrary, truth is betrayed by the words of men who,
after having betrayed it, do not even know how to
call it by the same name!

Re-read the first aphorism.

The world is one, man is one, the egg is one. The

world, man and the egg make three.

Thus the mage must see in himself the three

elements composing his individuality.

The world corresponds to all the human sensitivity

which is in contact with external or profane society.

Thomas a Kempis says: “Ista est summa par

contemptum mundi tendere ad regna coelestia.”
What he means is : “Despise the World and you will
arrive in Heaven.”

What is this world one must despise?

358
The senses: vanity of vanities, vanitas vanitatum,
says the officiating priest.

The world is material, the sensations of the material,

the illusion of the outflow of matter, human society
spiritually unredeemed, pride, ambition, the act of
following the desires of the flesh. This world of the
Egyptian priesthood, the Middle Ages called it the
sublunary world, is variable or changing like the
moon; he cannot have in it the Immaculate
Conception himself without placing the sublunary
world or the moon under his feet. Thus the world is
in us: it is the part of ourselves which shows the
most effects of terrestrial influence; it is the most
terrestrial part, the most socially coarse of homo
sapiens.

Man corresponds to the sensitivity of the second

degree in the thinking individual. After the physical
sensitivity of developed individuals who are termed
civilised, a hyperphysical sensitivity is born in man.
In each thinking individual, the man is only
manifested in the human or efficient mentality in the
society.

359
Thomas a Kempis says: Force yourself to detach
your heart from visible things in order to turn all
your attention towards those which are invisible.
Man is not manifested in the human or efficient
mentality has evolved or when the base sensitivity
has disappeared. Those whom contemporary society
recognises as its geniuses and its “lights” are only
men who are thinking or evolved.

Intellect has its human explanation in the bosom of

the society in which it lives corporeally; the society
which is called humanitas; from humus, earth,
mother of man. The second term of the first magical
aphorism is composed of three terms, of which the
most elevated, which seems divine to mortals, does
not cease to be humans, or terrestrial.

The three elements of the mentality are:-

{reason

- Man = {will

{inspiration

360
Inspiration which is usually considered as the
beginning of divine manifestation of the human
mind is like in appearance to what I have told you;
one could say aspiration as a return of the spirit into
itself and, still more than the term “divine” in human
incarnation, it represents the ultimate evolution of
the mind.

This human inspiration in magic is placed in lunar

symbolism for, attributing to the moon the power to
reflect on the earth the rays of the male Osiris and
governing this world by this reflection, all human
inspiration is like the irradiant reflection of the
divine.

He who, in studying philosophically this secret of

the source of human imagination, can attract to him
a very subtle application of luminous rays reflected
from a mirror on to us, has found the true meaning
of lunar potential.

What effect produces the reflection of a ray of

sunlight on a crystalline surface? This last sends
back the same weakened, vague, uncertain ray, in a
different direction, to illuminate, with its enfeebled,
vague or uncertain light, invisible objects.

361
The same goes for the moon, which raises human
inspiration which is the terrestrial vision of things
with a light which appears divine, but which is
human.

In relation to man, woman is lunar; in relation to the

absolute truth, all relative truth is lunar; in relation to
the master, the disciple is lunar.

The egg or seed must be considered as the most

profound root of the soul known to man; in other
words, he is the Jesus Christ of Thomas a Kempis,
or the most elevated principle, truly divine, existing
in the individual man.

There exist two means and many voices.

The ascetic, religious or passive life is the easiest

and the longest.

The initiatic, magical or active life is the shortest.

362
But in nature, all is evolution and all proceeds by
degrees, rapidity does not mean the suppression of
the intermediary stages but condensing the periods.
From a rapid approach come extreme suffering, the
most cruel tearing apart, the bloodiest wounds and
crowns of the most terribly pointed pine needles.

The theologians teach Catholics that the son of man

suffer torments of the flesh, but that the son of God
could not submit to either suffering or torment. But,
it is for the resurrection of the son of God that the
son of man ended in the agonies of Calvary.

It is for the Easter of the Resurrection that we are

reminded of symbols still more ancient than those of
the Bible, such as eggs which, just like the Lamb,
are a patient and innocent martyr of an
evolutionarily profound mystery, from which those
who ignore the sacred mysteries have still drawn
neither truth nor intelligence!

One cannot reach the seed if one has not

accomplished voluntarily the sacrifice of love of the
soul [man] to the divine principle. Once this
principle is admitted, one will equally easily
363
understand the reason for the sacrament of
Communion according to the Christian rituals,
Catholic and Orthodox. The faithful should arrive at
the knowledge of Christ: it should, according to the
original principal, be in contact with the Divine
Word common inasmuch as Truth and Light are to
all men who believe in Christ. [I am the Way, the
Truth and the Life.]

But in practice, my dear disciple, only very rare men

are in contact with the Divine Word or Jesus Christ
and they are superior to all human priests, because
they are already near to the Nirvana which frightens
the individualists so much; this why the cult
included the practical magic of the communion with
the unleavened bread and the consecrated host in
order to make it the Christ himself [of which the host
or the bread represent the realisation,] consecrated
in a symbol, and that it may bring together the
faithful who, in reality, are still very far from the
true Christ.

* *

364
To summarise, the trinitary form is the dogmatic
foundation of the Christian religion in its symbolico-
magical expression of Catholicism: all of it is magic,
like doctrine and practice.

Catholicism divides man into three elements:

1] The body.

2] The soul.

3] The divine spirit or Christ.

The body is the world. It is represented by the devil

or the government of the senses and of the passions,
or hell.

The soul is the mentality. It is represented by the

gradual purification of the thinking being up to his
maximum development, which corresponds to
purgatory.

365
The spirit or Christ, which is the Divine Ego or the
son of God made man, whose vision is paradise.

From this, it follows that Hell, Purgatory and

Paradise are in us and that we are eternal in matter
as in the human spirit and also in the realm of Christ.

The spirits call thus these three coefficients of the

individual gifted with reason:

1] Body

2] Peri-spirit or soul

3] The pure Spirit

But magic, in its theosophy, always responds to the

education in occult truth in man, and establishes that
each of the parts of man can prevail with a different
foundation.

Magic says this: The world or the material body

corresponding to the less developed individual is

366
instinctive; when he is more advanced, he discerns
the good from the bad by the impact of its sensual
consequences; when he is more advanced still, he is
endowed with reason.

All modern studies on criminality should be the field

of experience of the most material elements in the
body of the individual who abandons himself to
brutal sensuality. The seven sins which the Catholic
Church calls mortal determine the different
instinctive forms of coarseness of the human body.

Sexual union only becomes possible insofar as it is a

sacrament or as sanctification of the infernal act
which has, as its excuse, the union between two
souls. Note, however, that it does not act through
the union between two spirits because, for
Christians, the spirit of God is one, i.e. the Holy
Spirit; and the incarnation of the Holy Spirit is
Christ. The communion of two souls in one,
cemented by love, is real in an inspiration and a
common pleasure of Paradise.

Now:

367
I. - The world { 1. - Instinct

{ 2. - Judgement

{ 3. - Sensed reason

368
II. - The man or the soul { 4. Pure reason

{ 5. Will

{ 6. Inspiration

III. - The egg or Christ { 7. The logos, the word

incarnate

{ 8. Universal Spirit

{ 9. God Man

In this brief synthetic exposition, one can see

expressed the three numbers of the first magical
aphorism and each will understand these nine levels
of the path by which man becomes a god, a process
which is not accomplished by a nine year course at a
college or university, but in a long series of years
passing beyond the world and humanity.

* *

369
Let us recapitulate again: numerous spiritualist
mediums, who are believed to be in communication
with the spirits of disincarnated persons, are quite
often only in contact even at best with the
inspiration of the animist state and very often also,
they only express their desire acting unconsciously
on the inspiration.

In dreams: all ordinary dreams of sensorial origin

belong to the lunar zone or zone of inspiration and
they must be interpreted correctly because they tell
the truth.

It is only to superior initiates and to certain saints

[and not to all] that it is given to be able to speak the
language of truth with the superior principle of the
divine Ego and to know what it is.

Moreover, in dreams, certain men who have not yet

reached a very high level of development, can
receive, by true grace or by active virtue of the
divine will, the revelation of the truth without
symbols; but these dreams are such that these men
are rare and prophetic in their essence.

370
*

* *

Let us recapitulate again: in order to practise the

magical life, place before your eyes a pre-
determined object. Tell yourself: I desire the
science, or better, I desire the truth, or better still, I
desire riches and try to relate your ideal to one of
the three magical elements of the first aphorism.

The science belongs to the divine principle. Virtue

belongs to the mind. Riches belong to the world.

You will obtain the science by evolving towards

your most elevated divine principle, virtue by
practising it and riches by dominating them. I open
here a parenthesis.

Many wish to study magic to acquire riches. In

effect, of all the secrets, the easiest is the one which
permits one to become rich.

371
Riches are a reserve which exceeds individual
needs: between the philosopher who is nourished
with a piece of bread and lives in a barrel and a
millionaire who works and robs his neighbour in
order to augment his own resources, the richest is
the philosopher.

Before desiring riches, one must have a very clear

idea of what one wants. Do you consider them as a
means of satisfying the needs of life? They are only
refused to those who must expiate errors and faults
still not effaced. Providence is a truth which all just,
patient and faithful men have experienced.

The Lord governs his children through the

intermediary of two angels: one carries bread, the
other honey. The just man who stays without bread
in a field in which those who live well and have
abundant riches must never utter this blasphemy:
God has forgotten me. Let him pray and he will
receive. If he is longing to do it, there is a
providential reason which makes him prove the
torments of hunger. God does not forget, for the
spirit of God in us is only deaf if we bury it under
our lies.

The disciple in magic must not pray by desiring, for

desire is contrary to all magical realisation. Thus,
372
the false adepts of magic disappear, despairing, with
grace and virtue, for they would have desire without
obtaining grace.

The disciple in magic exposes to God his need and

implores him to grant it, if it is just for him to obtain
it. If you have no bread, if you have no home,
perhaps this is because according to the Principle of
absolute justice you must suffer hunger in order to
make amends.

At the beginning of The Secret World, I said that

one must not confuse passive religion with active
magic. “Magism” [ or magical science] is the
scientific activity of the religious theory which is the
nourishment of the masses: in magic, there must
only be admitted through virtue [vir = man or
active] beings capable of dominating the mounting
tide of passivity which, in symbolism, is justly
determined by the moon.

Magism, as I have often repeated, is made for

aristocratically positive natures or for supremely
inflexible wills or again for people who wish and
sense the possibility of reaching, not by praying to
God, something which everyone does that is

373
identified with the active divine nature and to found
it with his own will illuminated by justice.

All beings do not have the perseverance necessary

for this second creation of oneself in one sole
terrestrial life, by means of practising scholars of
magic: on the contrary, they are very rare who
work, without relaxing, in our art all through their
existence guided by the instinct for research into the
transformation in order to prepare not only spiritual
elevation, but the continuity of their own existence.

The occult forces which reside in us, are integrated

into the powers which arise essentially from our
animal nature and, like the muscles of our body,
these forces become atrophied if they are not
developed by exercise to keep them supple.

The will which directs these forces is a reflection of

this divine spark which is our intellect.

Between magic and religion, the difference is

enormous.

374
I address myself to men, young, intelligent and
studious people who will not cry out "scandal" or
"paradox" if I say to them frankly that magic is the
art and the science of making an active man a god
and of avoiding the events of the inconstant tide of
the religious moon.

Those who hear me should not be astonished: these

words, which seem audacious in this century, will
make much of the path and the ideas sown here
below will germinate when the hour of flowering is
announced.

The Secret World will be able to finish, Doctor

Kremmerz cease to write and return to his Celestial
Empire, but not a syllable of this truth will be
effaced.

And the forty centuries which separate us from the

sanctuaries of Ur, Babylon, Assyria and Ninevah,
prepare in the shadows the resurrection of the dead
who judge the truth preached by the political priests
when the masses could not not yet aspire, because of
the imperfection of their psyche and faults of their
evolution, to know with what the priests occupied
themselves with at the base of their sacred
laboratories.
375
There is nothing new under the sun, but the new
element in the mystery of this truth which cannot be
given as nourishment to imperfect beings, in this
epoch which prepares for the better centuries for the
humanity which is transformed, it is the divulging of
a dogma which is truth; the novelty consists in the
fact that men of different natures and origins, with
different history and antecedents, characters and
disparate thoughts, commence to preserve this truth.

We are on the verge of the great scientific revolution

which the incredulous and the savants who research
into bacteria do not await. We are at a psychic
moment of humanity in which, in the consciousness
of the masses, is awakening the memory of so many
centuries which have slept in the sepulchre of
forgetfulness. We putting to our lips the trumpet
which must sound the apocalyptic call of the elect in
the memory of the consciousness of those who have
preceded us, the sun will shine resplendently on the
nature-soul of the psychic cycle and the reign of
Christ will be an historical event.

Marry together the serpents: the invisible which

expresses the sense of Hermes in its integration,
with the visible which proceeds from the profane
research of the conquest of human knowledge; it is a

376
formidable work which takes the nebulous and
vague aspect Utopia.

I do not reveal an ancient secret. I expose a

programme of researches by dissipating the clouds
which hide the simplicity of the formula.

The Messiah who must arrive at the threshold of the

20th Century is the treaty of union which unites
faith and science and gives to science the direction
of the faith of the masses.

I cannot entirely modernise the terms which have

been demythified and deprived of their magical
value. Others will do so after me. I have proposed
to make known that the Magic of the Mages
comprises all the absolute laws, which are the
characteristics of the existing material and spiritual
order and that its practice created the Sage or Mage.

To do this, I cannot proceed without illustrating the

ancient formulae and using them myself. I make
one step forward: I try to gather, around this science,
researchers who do not have an obsession to deny a
priori.
377
Once the School is founded [and not the sect, since
the Science is not a conjuration] St. John the
Evangelist will come, but he will have to say: We
are children of Mages and Magic was the
Knowledge of the Arch; thus truth is one; we return
to the ancient with new forms.

I can say no more for, if I did, I would unveil to my

readers the secret sources of my knowledge which
must only be known to those initiated into the occult
truth of the scientific sanctuaries of contemporary
humanity.

Moreover, all that I have affirmed up till now, and

all that I have explained, must be understood to the
reader as another matter which miserable
spiritualism, which reveals to errant poetic souls in
limbo, waiting for a medium or a seer who guides
them into a dialogue with surviving parents, hides
itself under the scientific veil of strange worms.

To continue to complete the commentaries on the

aphorisms of Iriz-ben-Assir, it is necessary to
understand that, as is said in the first of them, the
creator is Ea, and the disciple in sacerdotal science
only finds and completes his purely magical and
378
active education from the number 3, or that of the
egg.

This egg, as I have said, corresponds to the Christ,

of the religious Catholics. Moreover, the research
into Christ is not research into a state of the spirit
taught by the Buddhist propagators of insufficiently
deep doctrines, but is a collection of relationships
linked to the manifestation of the third state of the
incarnate being.

This third state can be acquired or conquered but

where this intense work become titanic is in the
ascent from the number 7 to the number 9 of the
mirror of truth which I have presented earlier. The
neophyte, without fear, trembling or dread with the
very firm resolve to reach it by passing across the
endless cemetery of human passion and pain arrive
at the gates of the complex Logos [No. 7] and
believes himself a god, although he is only on the
threshold of divinity.

A very beautiful Eastern saga recounts that Etana

[The orientalists read our hierograms badly - Eat,
the final T of the hierographic name is Ea dead or
deprived] made a pact with the Eagle of the Sun God
to be borne into the sky of Anna [The woman who
379
has no menstrual periods, like St. Anne who
nevertheless bore the Virgin Mary, mother in his
turn without sexual intercourse.]

It happens that, having grasped the royal bird, he

climbed into space and they arrived at the heaven of
Anna. Etana resisted; the earth appeared to him a
point in space and the sea a little stream. But the
eagle proposed to him that they continue to ascend
in order to visit the Star of the Morning [the goddess
Venus] and he resumed his flight. As he was
arriving, Etana gazed below and said to the Eagle:
“Stop, for I can go no further.” The bird descended
at once but Etana collapsed into the abyss because
his human force had made him defective.

And, moreover, the neophyte is only a mage at the

feet of Isis, when he has eaten the roses by which the
ancient Apuleus caused his donkey to become
human.

But, in the first aphorism, it is said that Ea created

first the world, then man and finally the egg; this
hides, not the system of creation, but the phase of
development of the divine intelligence in the animal
body. Aspire and respire three times, says the first
aphorism, in order to know the secret of the egg.
This “aspiration” means to draw the spirit into
380
oneself; “respiration” means to exhale it; a
completely oriental form to express the impulsive
and repulsive act of the generation of the intelligent
principle.

But the second aphorism cites and develops the

method which creates magical power.

Ea, at the creation of the world, considered two

things [according to Iriz-ben-Assis]: the white and
the black, the cold and the hot and his breath
became cold and hot and he gave the warm breath
to man and the cold breath to woman, etc.

1] Is there an essential difference between active life

[male] and passive life

[female]?

2] Once having admitted and thoroughly considered

the fact that the two

lives are different, can a woman become a

magician?

381
I respond briefly, but all cannot understand the true
significance and its application to the practice of
which I speak and I refer to what I have expressed in
the first part.

1. The vital current one is divided and realised as

divided.

2. Man and woman become equally magicians and

powerful operators if the

first awakens in himself the feminine qualities

and the second her

masculine qualities.

Let us consider the words to breathe in life,

employed in the second aphorism: the breath, here,
is taken as the symbol of emanation. Happy are
those on whom Ea has breathed twice. The two
souls in the same individual are embraced in love,
like the serpents of Mercury’s caduceus, and sing of
the divine fertility.

From this can be understood the significance of the

words of the priests initiated in antiquity, when they
said to their disciple: bury yourself alive, the ears
blocked with beeswax and lambswool in the cavities
382
so that the light of the world cannot enter and, in that
state, aspire and respire until you obtain the vision of
the world of Ea. In this very powerful exercise,
which consists of attracting and repelling the spirit
of the world, are awakened the silent and sleeping
virtues of the accumulated forces and these are
reproduced in the universal life.

Isolated and morally perfected, awaken your hidden

and secret nature: here is the literal and current
interpretation of the sacerdotal doctrine.

* *

The scientifically perfect man is neither entirely

body nor entirely spirit, but the integration of the
powers of the spirit into the body which nourishes it
and which uses in its manifestations a constant
equilibrium, so as to protect its unity against all
prevarication of the two factors which compose it.

383
In plain terms: a man who lives in a state of
animated exuberance is imperfect, just as he is
imperfect who vegetates while submerging in the
flesh the rights of the soul.

Here, it is necessary to understand the constitution

of man.

Man must be considered as a Being who contains

within himself the four elements which constitute
the Universe:-

1] A sensitive and material body [flesh, bone,

horned tissue];

2] A more subtle emanation, arising from the first

and consolidating its more

heavy sensitivity [nerves, central nervous system,

brain];

3] A more complete individuality, emanating from

the two preceding

elements and constituting its mentality, or mental

man.

384
4] A luminous intellectual principle, participating
from the universal life and

thus an inexhaustible source of vitality, as much

spiritual as corporeal.

The names which Magic gives to these four

constituent elements, is imprinted on them by
mythology:

1] The Saturnine body, which eats, devours, renews

and reproduces itself.

2] The Lunar body, which lives from the source of

the first, as the moon lives

from the light of the sun.

3] The Mercurial body or the individuality which

results from it, also called

the mental man, with wings at his head and feet.

4] The Solar body, the divine individuality which

only manifests itself in man

by means of the Mercurial body, which, in its

turn, is manifested to the

385
 Lunar and the latter Saturnine.

The disciple must understand that this division is

uniquely made in order to be expressed in concrete
form, for these four bodies interpenetrate in such a
way that each cell and atom of the human physique
contains the three others, rudimentarily and
atomically speaking.

Thus man, in his unity and synthesis, is the result of

two extremes: the physical Saturnine body, which is
nourished by the earth and typically physical
sensations with which it is in contact: education,
environment, the most immediate sensations and the
solar body, the opposite pole which participates
from the highest life, not only of the earth but of the
immense universe composed by the infinite number
of worlds constituting the planetary systems known
and unknown to astronomers.

Human or terrestrial ideas [humus = earth] pass from

the physical senses to the reserve of the nervous
centres, through the nerves which are the vehicles of
Saturnine sensitivity.

386
The divine ideas and knowledge [God or Zeus, the
lightning], the ideas of the great and vast unknowns
of the Saturnine body, come to us from the highest
and most solar individuality, by means of the spirit,
or the mental or Mercurial mechanism.

If base sensations are preponderant, one bars the

way to elevated perceptions and, vice versa, by
oppressing the Solar principle, or divine spirit the
Saturnine body is insufficient to conserve the
functions of physical life.

Equilibrium between the four elements is

represented as a true and real personality
participating in the terrestrial and universal life, who
corresponds to the Christ of the Catholics, to the
Hermes of the Greeks and to the Mercury of the
philosophers.

Thus, human integration commences to appear and

progress in the same proportion as Hermes appears
and progresses in man.

387
Hermes is, from this fact, a divine entity if one
conceives him as the supremely perfect model of
equilibrium between two binomials:

Saturnine
Mercurial

---------------- Hermes
-----------------

Lunar
Solar

as one can understand it through the state of

equilibrated blessed light which predisposes us to
the knowledge of the secrets of all that exists.

The mythical priesthood said that Mercury or

Hermes was born of Maia, daughter of Atlantis [he
who wished to discover the secret of Olympus] and
of Jupiter, king of the heavens, in order to indicate
the participation of the hermetic spirit in the two
extremes. The supreme universal God gave him
wings at his head and feet so that he executed God's
wishes very rapidly in heaven and on earth.

388
This state of lucid mental equilibrium [hermetic and
Mercurial] is of divine and terrestrial origin, but it
acts in the divinity incomprehensible to the masses
and in the practical life of the earth. The disciple
must thus consider Hermes as the source of the pure
integrational and infallible science, for He sees into
the relatively finite and into the absolute infinite.

Do not be confused: I have not said four parts, but

four bodies, each of them being the sublimation of
the lower, to know Saturn, father of the world and of
matter.

Our Hermetic School, in its analysis, proceeds from

low to high, from the material to the light, which is
matter in a state of vibration; from the material to
magnetism, which is the scientific potential of his
atomisation; from the material to the trance which
corresponds to the passive state of the conscience for
the liberation of its Divinity, which is an
intensification of the Light.

That is why organism has no parts, beyond its

anatomical divisions. Its components are the bodies
of elementary and complex nature, in such a way
that each atom, molecule and cell understands
specifically these bodies which are Saturnine in
389
origin; then, in a state of transformation, Lunar and
Mercurial bodies, evolving and refining it to arrive
at the body in the vibration of Light, which is Solar
[Note of Hajah, extracted from the Collective Works
of Giuliano Kremmerz, Volume III [“The Science of
the Mages”], Edizioni Mediterranee, Rome].

The Lunar body, conceived as a fluid personality,

made from lighter matter and containing the two
other more elevated principles [Mercurial and Solar
Bodies], if it could be separated from the physical
body, would give them the spectacle of a man-angel
[angelus means envoy or messenger] being able to
move without the sustenance of the physical body.

The Lunar body is the most elevated part of the

material body and the lowest of the mental and
spiritual faculties of man.

In its relationships with animal life, this body serves

to receive the impressions of the exterior animal
envelope and, to use a known term, it is formed from
the less sensitive part of the intelligent nature and
from the most delicate part of the material body: it is
the nervous flow or the flow of the very sensitive
force of every animal organism. It is plastic or
changeable an d thus is capable of taking all possible

390
forms. It is very sensitive and, as a result, it can be
influenced by the lightest oscillations of the will.

Its plasticity, united with its high level of sensitivity,

renders it changeable and susceptible to becoming
the receptacle of all that which acts sensitively on it;
it is on it that are recorded and logged all the
sensorial impressions.

All the impressions of sensorial origin pass through

the Saturnine body and are reflected constantly and
continually on the sidereal body, all called Christ
[water-fish] and the divine Lamb because of its
control over man, for like the Lamb of the sidereal
body, one does all that it wishes.

Its plasticity and its impressionability are millions of

times more delicate than very sensitive photographic
plates.

One can thus explain and can, without fear of being

mistaken, subscribe to all that asceticism attributes
to it: “It is in you, it sees all, it hears all, it
remembers all, it conserves all until the day when

391
you will have to be judged, according to your merits
and good or perverse actions.”

The sidereal body reunites all the impressions of the

senses, separates them, dissolves them and
reconstitutes them at will, exactly as photographic
negatives give examples and copies of diverse sizes.
“It is the feminine element of the material body and
it receives from the physical body, through the
sensations, the images of the material world. It
holds them, fixes them, nourishes them and restores
them in an occult childhood, to the material body,
which forgets that it is responsible for them, accepts
them and becomes their minister.

The nervous system of the human organism [the

lunar matter] is the delicate intermediary between
the intelligence [mercurial matter] and the external
world, by means of which the verbal manifestations,
spoken, written or designed, are possible. All the
essential part of man is found there, in the sensitivity
of this lunar and pre-mercurial matter, which
constitutes our being. It is a filter of the influence of
the energies of nature. It is a subtle riddle which, in
choosing the impression of the external forces,
carries them to the brain by modifying them.

392
The magical or hermetic purity,[and not religious
purity, is the conscious and unalterable neutrality
which we conserve in the consideration of our
fellow men. The man who, at the peak of his
perceptive power can be neutral and who can
consequently conserve a serene conscience, intact
and disengaged from the sensation but ready to
judge impartially, raises himself above the level of
the mass of humanity.

In the ordinary man, the pure intellectual principle

[Sun] is confined within the mercurial body, which
is in its turn confined in a lunar belt more corporeal
and sensitive to the volitional actions of one’s own
physical body. It acts on an ordinary man, who, not
having developed his pure intelligence, is inclined to
become a god and a stranger to himself before the
voice, sound and movement which the body takes
from the exterior and not from within itself.

In profane society, two gods are followed: that of the

individual instinct or base animality, and he who
speaks through the mouth of others, to know public
opinion. [Scientific, religious, moral, etc.] What is
not manifest in living man in society is precisely the
solar god, seeing that the pact of alliance was
broken, he has hidden his face.

393
The ordinary man is more or less sensitive to the
impressions of the external senses and he is
therefore more or less awakened according to his
constitution. The same man, on the same day,
knows of the different states of physical
consciousness. A state of personal mastery of his
own being is not constant in the same individual,
whoever he may be. Notably desire and lust break
the pure normality of consciousness and cause it to
doze and go to sleep.

To strip off the modernity of his being is something

much too difficult for cultivated people than for
others, for these last do not possess these fascinating
sentiments of blinding seduction and in them the
ancient current predominates more easily. The
sacerdotal purification imposed on the neophyte was
precisely this cleaning of the consciousness aspiring
to the light of all suggestion attached to the vulgar.

It is only to a pure conscience that freedom is

accorded above the limits of the relativity of time
and space and my actual commentary aims to
counsel as an unique preparation, this state of
purified consciousness which is the key to the
Hermetic Door.

394
The prayer, chastity and fasts of which we have
spoken, to strip them of all mystical significance,
contribute to the gradual freeing of the lunar body,
the seat of the astral of the Mages, providing
sensorial impressions of the saturnine. And this is
so, not because the sensorial impressions are not
registered on their arrival through the lunar body,
but by the fact that in their reception, no troubling,
affective and emotive resonance responds.

By the conquest of such a state of liberty, our

purified lunar body [ the “Mary” of the Catholics]
will no longer be the eternal battlefield between
actions and reactions, and then only will it become
possible to begin to hear the “interior voice” which
speaks today to each of us without being heard.

The rites of purification find their reason for

existence in their effects. Initiation really
commences and not only by words, as soon as
within vulgar man there has resonated the internal
voice, the Christ, the Nebo, the angel, the genie.

395
* *

From now on, the chapter of Ariel nears its end and I
know best how to recapitulate all that I have said
and that to which I have alluded concerning the
occult Ariel, as by recapitulating the necessary laws
to come into the possession of the force in magic,
and recognise laws which can be applied to the
magical education of the disciple.

CATECHISM OF
PRIMARY MAGIC

He who wishes to reach the goal must be silent, but

in being silent, he must work.

To work is to act.

One acts on apparently inanimate things and on

visible and invisible animated beings by means of
three factors:
396
1] The will

2] Science

3] Equilibrium

I - THE RITES AND

THE WILL

The rites are, for the disciple, like magical

instruments, the key to all magic which is
developed; thus the rites against which all the
ignorant rebel, are only the most powerful supports
to educate the will and direct it, in order to replace
the science in those who do not possess it, in order
to engender equilibrium in men who are subject to
their passions.

Some entirely religious fables are perpetuated by the

learned rites of which often, very often, the priests
have lost the explanatory key. Abolish these rites at
this level of priestly consciousness and you will
have destroyed religion.

397
The rite and the ritual formula do not obey
magically the conscious exterior personality of him
who conducts the operation, but to the intimate
consciousness of the individual or the occult
conscience of the integral individual.

If between the occult consciousness and the normal

consciousness, there is no homogeneity, the effect of
the rite, although constituting a certain contribution
in the chain of the Schola, is then very often in
perfect contradiction to the desires expressed by the
practitioner.

In magic, the practice of a rite is itself an arcane,

because he who accomplishes it must exercise his
will; and, always in magic, the hermetic significance
of the word will is not that which one hears in
ordinary human speech. Consequently, there are
many equivocal statements, much despair and very
many errors. The human exercise of the will is
placed under the specific domination of the
impulsive passion which often takes the form of
reasonable logic; it seems as if when we wish in a
human way something, it is we entirely who wish it,
although it is only the relative and lowest
consciousness which is carried away.

398
The will has truly a potential magical value either
when it is a preponderant expression of the occult
consciousness in us or when the exterior personality
is in accord with the occult individual which is
within us.

He who acts magically arrives at the same thing as

the mediums when they are in a state of trance,
when it is profound, and they display evidence of an
occult personality in perfect contradiction to the
visible personality.

The integration of man commences when the

conscious personality is in perfect accord with the
occult and historic consciousness of man.

He who does not understand this must not undertake

operations in magic for they are destined to fail.

A magical practice differs from religious prayer

precisely in that the first must be based one
volitional power over the intimate will and the
nourishment of the imagination [imago = in-
mago]whereas the second part of the exterior

399
consciousness thinks about that which is exalted and
which it cannot see.

To educate the will is to direct it, to replace the

science is to engender it: one does not obtain active
equilibrium without the magical method.

Regnum regnare docet [reigning teaches one to

rule]: to work is to know by acting. One goes to
war as a conscript and then as a veteran; but when
one is a veteran, one can show the wounds received
when one was a conscript.

II - WILL AND
DESIRE

In order to be initiated into the practice of magic,

one must determine the will, in the objective which
one is pursuing.

To wish and to know how to wish is a great secret.

400
He who wishes and does not know how to wish is
not a mage and will never become one.

To wish is not to desire.

Desire kills the will: to desire without will is

sufficient to destroy all work of magic.

III - WILL AND

INVOCATION

The angel of the will is Ariel, the force or will, for

the most powerful force is the will of the man who
knows what he wants.

Without repeating myself, I say to my disciple: if

you wish to attract the force to you, invoke and
evoke Ariel, and the angel will bring it to you.

401
To invoke is to call within oneself.

To evoke is to call to oneself.

Everything called arrives. Orpheus moves

mountains by playing his lyre.

One must become a little Orpheus in order to attract

to oneself the invisible atoms of the generative
force, which is the Universal Life.

IV - ARIEL IS THE
WILL-SOUL

This life of the Universe is composed of sensitive

materials and ether.

402
But the ether also is material and thus life is
material.

The vibrational action of this material is the

intelligence in movement or active will which, like
the material in vibration, is material-soul.

Ariel, like all the angels, like all the spirits, like all
that exists, must be considered under every
perceptible aspect, even in the ultra-normal
intuitions of the human mentality. Invoke Ariel if
you wish to become strong.

Ariel comes at the call of the feeble in order to aid in

all just work. David finds himself facing the giant
Goliath. Jehovah sent to him Ariel. The stone kills
the giant. But the cause was just in the integral
concept of Israeli history, otherwise Ariel would
have turned a deaf ear, feigning not having heard
this appeal, or it would be changed into a demon and
it would have deceived the audacious child.

All this signifies that Ariel only gives its force to

just men. He only aids just causes. Thus, in order to

403
invoke the god of force, it must be in harmony with
divine justice or better still be identified with it.

Thus, I desire to address a warning to those who

think they are able to dispose of the visible or
invisible spirits only in order to satisfy their
unworldly cupidity. In order to attract the angels
one must have the justice of God, otherwise called
the winged beings, like the eagle, do not come. I
have said this several times.

V - THE WILL AND

THE WORDS

In order to invoke effectively there exist rites and

conjurations. The Latins called them carmina, the
Hebrew psalms, the Italians incanti.

The vibrations which set in motion the ether in the

world of every subtle material, are rhythmic in their
nature.

404
The sublime mathematics contains the keys of the
series and relationship between the vibrations
engendered by the will and the repercussion of the
wilful act of the ether upon the sensitive and visible
world.

Words are articulations of musical notes emitted by

the mouth, which is a kind of trumpet through which
the sound can be modulated at will. Each note,
corresponding to a syllable or letter, has a vibratory
value on the ether. Orational art, dramatic art and
song are founded on the theory of sounds, on the
auditory apparatus of sensitive people.

But there is more.

Certain sounds, emitted in a special way, act

powerfully on the human psyche like a magnet on
iron. The experiences of sounds made upon
somnambulists who fall into catalepsy were known
in antiquity. In the theatre, enormous crowds of
spectators feel themselves transported by a note
emitted by a powerful and sweet voice. In the army,
before a battle, some words pronounced by the
commander can decide the issue.

405
Thus, the word or rhythmic sound has an energetic
and sensitive action on living things. The song of its
grandmother causes the baby to fall asleep in its
cradle, the infant in whom the ancestral ideas
bequeathed by its preceding existence have still not
been revealed and on which the song acts
mechanically.

Therefore the word is a force.

Ariel is, or can be, invoked by powerful words.

VI - THE WILL AND

THE METHODS OF
CONJURATION OF
THE SAME KIND

These powerful words are the songs and emissions

articulated by the will.

406
Animated or not by concrete ideas, these words are
much more powerful when they have been
magnetised by other operators, and when they
respond with sounds to the ideas which one wishes
to awaken.

The psalms of the Hebrews are magical. But in

Hebrew they are more effective than the Latin
psalms and one must possess the key in order to
utilise them. But the imprecations, exorcisms and
spells of Egyptian and Chaldeo-Syrian magic are
more powerful than the psalms because as one
pronounces or chants them, one awakens not only
the ideas of those who have preceded us in the astral
zone, but one also awakens, in order to revitalise
them, the aged spirits of more than 50 centuries of
practitioners who have repeated these ideas
mechanically.

Also these spells are only delivered to those who

know how to deserve them, for they constitute
forces already actively vitalised by themselves, to
such a point that the effects of them are rapid and
precise, which is different to the prayers already
included in the Catholic liturgy [the Psalms] which
have a relative value according to the different
manner in which they have been used.

407
If a mage tells you that by a single word he has put
thieves to flight, believe him, because it is possible.
If a practitioner in diabolical magic tells you that he
has possessed a woman by nothing more than
speaking to her for the first time, believe him,
because it is possible.

Certain words, which must not be repeated in vain,

are the inheritance of very rare men who lose the
faculty if they abuse it, because they have learnt
these words directly from the heaven of Ea and each
of these words contains in synthesis the seed of an
act of creation. Misfortune to those who do not
pronounce the words at the right time and in the
right manner to abort the vital seed of creation!

The poems of the usual rituals and the grimoires are

very small things. Charms do not pronounce when
the people hear them through the ears of the physical
body, but perceives them like arrows coming from
near or far, on to the mental body of the things or
beings one invokes.

In magic, not to speak signifies as also refraining

from pronouncing useless words.

408
The mage, when he speaks, must work.

By speaking, one heals, consoles, saves or kills.

The mystery of words and sounds, in magic, is

profound.

VII - THE WILL AND

THE GRAPHIC SIGNS

One must consider moreover that each word is more

than a sound, a graphic expression of the sound if
one repercusses the vibratory waves of sound on the
delicate apparatus which serves those who receive
them. I have cited moreover this example of the
sensitive phonograph where the sound is engraved
spontaneously. In considering that the nature of the
human psyche is a thousand times more sensitive
than a phonograph, one can understand that the
translation of each sound can be executed by graphic
signs. Thus Ariel resides in the expression of the
signs: when the signs are graphic and generators of
409
force, it is sufficient to trace certain ones in order
that the angel will arrive.

To explain myself more clearly: the disciple in

magic must not only study profoundly the value of
the words articulated at the right time to engender
sensations, but he must also interpret them
graphically by means of the sphygmic act or the act
of pulsation or beating, of which the general laws
and those which are more particular are found in the
well of truth which is the Bible of the Hebrews,
written in Hebrew letters without punctuation and,
for he who does not know Hebrew, in Plato,
Aristotle and Avicenne. For he who knows only the
vulgar tongue, one can discover certain very rare
traces in the balladeers preceding Dante Alighieri, in
Dante himself and even in Petrarch.

Between the ripened thought and the sign which

represents it there is always one law of evocation
and reproduction of the work one has accomplished
in order to engender it.

Ciphers, characters and sacred words have a value,

not related to the will of he who uses them for the
first time but, through the sum total of all the wills
which have used them, to the knowledge of the
millions of energetic wills, serene and effective.
410
The talismans represent creations of the initial will
or of the will-evoked: something like a psychic
means which influence the psyche or soul,
imprinting, as through a seal on the virgin wax of
the spirit, the subtle properties evoked by the signs,
ciphers, etc.

Their power is relative to the perfection and force of

he who traces and looks after them; their effects are
slower or more rapid, more or less energetic,
according to the signs, characters, analogies and
magic value of he who traces them.

They are analogical manifestations of the will and

not of desire. They are manifestations reflecting the
will on to the human soul, the instruments of small
and brief miracles of time, force or expansion
limited to the effects wished, according to the
intensity of the force which has created them.

VIII - SCIENCE AND

WILL
411
Ariel-force is the principle and consequence of
science. Science is the intense and concrete
application of the force in magic. The mage must
possess a perfect knowledge of the action of the
psychic and hyperphysical forces in order to obtain
the realisation of Ariel.

Thus one demonstrates that in magic there is no

application, exercise or adaptation of the will,
without anticipated knowledge of the manner in
which it acts. He who acts impulsively through the
revelation of this sensitive unconsciousness which
forms the substratum of the mediums and hysterics,
is not a mage but a good subject in the hands of a
person who knows what he is doing and how he
does it. On the contrary, he who works consciously,
even in only deploying an infinitesimal part of his
will-force, can be called a mage or sage.

I open here a very brief parenthesis on the reason

why therapy classes doctors as the most
presumptuous among the empiricists. All the
savants to which I have made allusion earlier,
including the doctors diagnosing the known
illnesses, are infallibly of this type if they do not
move away from the immutable laws of nature in the

412
material, in the order of creation, in the spirit and in
the natural and inferior elements.

Here the doctor appears, emerging from the dark

spaces of empirical medicine of early ages. He
studies very actively the human body as far as he
can describe the lesser details invisible to the naked
eye. Look at the history anatomy until the discovery
of the perfected microscope, and you will consider
that man has wished to discover what constitutes the
human body and to know the exact reason for it. He
has succeeded in doing so. There exists no cell
which would not glorify he who has illustrated it.
There is not a single pore which has not given rise to
a specialised book. But when man wished to bring
health to his sick body, his knowledge has
disappeared and the tombs have been dug and are
being dug today, as in the time of Imerio and his
school of Salerno.

The pathogen elements which the contemporary

doctors seek to discover in bacteria in order to
explain the diffusion of illnesses will go out of
fashion more quickly than one can believe. The
future doctor will find them in an imponderable
element of which the actual researches cannot take
account: in the spirit of man in contact with the spirit
of things, or in opposition to him. He will then
produce a profound revolution in human knowledge
413
and the world will end... for what will the world of
diplomaed ignorance achieve which throws
lightning and excommunications against he who
contradicts it. The shadows will be dispersed and a
new period will commence during the course of
which the human sciences will be the sciences of the
human spirit. Then the social condition of the
peoples will change because the spirit of Christ will
be incarnate; human justice will be an exact
imitation, conscious and constant, of the divine
justice which today, seen by imperfect men, appears
to them often as divine injustice. This is because
men having in all things relative conceptions, can
neither imagine nor understand a justice which is
absolute.

To study the principle of life in us, to separate it if it

is separable, to integrate it if it is integrable, to bring
it to the summit of its potential, to render it capable
of being enriched by a very great energy, emanating
from the source of the universal principle-life at the
point of being able to dispose of it and to be
nourished by it, and to nourish the organisms which
are lacking in it: there is hermetic education, leading
to the notion of an hermetic doctor. Hermeticism
finds an aid, which all the modern doctors forget to
consider, in the spirit or profound intelligent vitality
of the caring doctor, or he who aids the sick to
conquer illness.

414
The arcane of the revival of the forces is conceivable
in its mechanics of auto-nutrition because it explains
the revivification of the human forces after even a
very brief and light slumber, but one cannot prove it
by the usual methods of scientific demonstration.

Any vitalist theory is never approached by the

synthetic vitality of a man, vitality linked to a central
magnetic cell or nodule constituting the being,
being nourished from a magnetic terrestrial centre
which in its turn is linked back to the magnetic
centre of the planetary and stellar worlds and of the
entire universe.

An unique centre of energy, an unique magnetism.

It acts not by a unity of force, but from the unique

central force of life, of which all the expressions are
only states of being.

Sleep is the indispensable condition in order to

recuperate the wasted energies. All dispersions of
our energies are accumulated currents of vital
magnetism which are exteriorised in order to enter
into the visible and invisible terrestrial and universal
415
vibrations and in order to climb back to the universal
centre of life.

If the integration of the human powers can lead to

the formation of the mage, the living reserve of the
forces drawn from richer sources of energy, a simple
progression of the magnetic riches accumulated in
us by a release of acts and an attraction of non-
human entities and can render us useful to all
suffering beings who have recourse to us.

To know that we are from the centres of irradiant

life, empowering the intelligent and sensitive vitality
of the inexhaustible centre of the World-Universe,
permits us to conceive the value of the Lord of the
causes as being the most generous, noble and
immeasurable dispenser that religious or mystical
imagination could ever conceive. In illnesses, every
crisis which heals takes place during sleep; a pain
only disappears in sleep; the state of coma is a state
of sleep during which the nuclear magnetic centres
fight to obtain a recuperation which does not survive
and when the means constituting the human
organism inasmuch as the centre of magnetism
becomes incontinent, the dissolution is ready to be
accomplished.

416
Let us return to our object: as in profane knowledge,
empiricism is excluded and cursed, for one only
thinks wise the application that one knows. In the
high sciences of the spirit, he is called a mage who
uses consciously the spiritual laws, cum scientia et
ratione [with science and reason] as the scholars
say.

Wherever the science is, Ariel is found, to know the

divine and magical force appropriate to accomplish
miracles for, just as the invisible world is known to
the profane, so the invisible world must be known
by the initiate. Who are you, who, following your
inspiration without having the science of inspiration
itself, obtain an accidental phenomenon? Are you a
mage? Or are you the toy of the manifestation of the
unknown and invisible?

IX - HOW THE
FORCES ARE
COMMUNICATED

417
When you have a visible master, know that his
science is a candle which will not abandon you, but
just as fire lights the burning coals through
communion with Ariel, the elemental one of the fire,
he will light in your soul the fire of the science and
by the science he will communicate to you the force.
One cannot sustain the method desired by the
profane, which consists of exposing the laws of
known matters to the disciple, because it is not
compatible with instruction in magic.

To direct you, if you are prepared to be ascetic, the

master makes an appeal to your developed reason
and makes you enter into his school in order for you
to find easily the first path. Like a master in an
ordinary school, he gives to his disciples what he
thinks it is useful to give them.

But, say the sceptics, what can convert us, if it is not

an impressive phenomenon? You, who present
yourself as Master, if you wish to convert me,
produce this phenomenon.

But what does it matter to the Master, the fact that

you do not wish to be converted to spirituality?

418
This question resembles that of a child who visits
the church of St. Peter and who says: Papa, why do
you not buy me a dome like that of St. Peter to put
on our house?

The father responds to his son, smiling: Dear child,

our home is not made for this dome; one must first
prepare the house and then we put the dome upon it.

But do you think, you who have a sane intellect, that

the organism of spiritually evolved man, capable of
giving you the proofs of transcendental phenomena,
could be the dome for any modest house?

I will tell you simply this: permit me to give you the

certitude of an occult power, human and extra-
human, through a progressive initiation. This
practice will be to refine the psychic organism given
to the neophyte, by according to him the possibility
of acceding to the phenomena of a superior order. It
is the key of all, a philosophical edifice which will
have a great influence on the creation of a school
facilitating individual researches and the progress of
those who will be encouraged by their success to
continue their researches.

419
Just like the world, the intelligent superior only
manifests himself to the inferior by symbols,
analogies and assonant words and instruction in
magic is only carried out through analogical acts that
the master practises on the disciple.

The science of the masters of the fire is only

communicated by contact, although the masters of
the light only communicate in silence. The Church
says: in reading the sacred books, consider the spirit
which finds itself confined in them; but in reading
the books on magic, do not stop either at the words
nor at the spirit of the words: above what one says
and demonstrates is found the master who, while
indicating an end to attain and sharpening the
appetite of lust, teaches without saying it clearly the
manner of returning to the goal: thus to learn is to
understand and to understand is to unveil the force
which no one can give you: thus, in you, the beast is
killed and the angel is born.

Magic is an aristocratic science, allergic to the

masses, which must have the intuition of this divine
science but cannot possess it: moreover, he who,
having issued from the masses, harvests the grain
and conquers the science and the force, will reign
over all.

420
Know how to understand and you will learn.

X - SCIENCE, WILL
AND FORCE

Uniting science and will you will find the solution of

the problem of force, but not how to adapt the force
and make it focus on the things which must be
changed. But, if the science is in union with the
transformed will, all miracles are possible.

Observe theses rules to adapt the force:-

1] Wish without desiring.

2] Wish without fear.

3] Wish without regret.

Desire, fear and regret kill the will: before working

in the things which are difficult or uncertain of
outcome, commence by distancing yourself from
these three sins of the mage.
421
If you desire, fear and regret, the poems do not
produce the charm and all force diminishes.

In Paragraph II, I have said that to wish is not to

desire; I say now that fear or regret neutralise every
act of the will. In order not to desire, fear or regret,
one must feel divinely just without human
prejudgments of “justice,” based on egotism.

XI - EQUILIBRIUM
AND FORCE

To be inspired with absolute justice, is to be in

equilibrium. It is to be just.

That is why will, science and equilibrium are the

three essential conditions of the Ariel or mage of the
force.

422
XII - JUSTICE AND
THE FORCE

Will without science and science without

equilibrium are the negation of all magic.

A mage must not do all he wishes, but only what it

is just to do; otherwise, his action would be a
culpable act of violence against all power and nature
inferior to his own.

Do you wish to possess the divine force? Be just,

like a god!

Do you wish to possess the diabolical force? Be

unjust, like Satan!

The force in magic is a providential action which is

fertile and beneficial, when it is in harmony with the
providential principle, but it does not happen in the

423
same way when, by reaction, it attracts to itself all
the counterblows of perfect justice.

Reason is order, order is God, because order is

justice.

Folly is disorder, disorder is Satan, because disorder

is injustice.

XIII - PURITY AND

THE FORCE

One dominates the magic of the passions by

invoking the very pure Ariel.

One commands the passions by purity.

The pure force is without passion.

424
The impure force is rich with all the torments of
passion.

Magical and hermetic purity, and not religious

purity.

Our purity, heard in its integrality, is the conscious

and immutable neutrality which we keep for the
regard of our fellows.

To strip oneself of the outer skin which education

has placed over us, to remove the baby’s blankets in
which the kindness of our more recent education has
enveloped us and we present ourselves naked for
baptism, sicut erat in principio, in provoking the
revelation of the sleeping being, that is all, it is the
evocation in value of the natural powers of the soul
in its simplicity.

All hate, all love, I would say all interest, of he who

woks in the hermetic domain for the success of a
desired thing renders useless and void and destroys
the expected result.
425
That is why I have said that the sentiment of justice
is the unique factor of all our progress towards
reintegration.

There exists an obstacle which bars to us the route

each time that our being tends towards evil.

Why does the Hermetic Medicine easily obtain

miraculous results? Because one cannot come to the
help of the sick with hate, because one cannot come
to the help, or have the will to help a sick person to
whom one would wish evil; this would be in
contradiction with the goal of the action.

XIV - THE PASSIONS

AND THE FORCE

Can the passions serve as exciters of the organism to

produce and invoke the armed Ariel? He means:
Can for certain creatures the stimulant, serving to
free the occult forms, be sin or vice?
426
Yes, but this is the mistaken method of the sects of
cacomages. The divine magic only finds a
stimulation in virtue.

The virtue is Ariel, the virtue is force, the virtue is

purification. The pure source of the divine magic
resides in the Love for one’s fellow creatures, in the
sacrifice of what belongs to us for the redemption of
the rest.

The love for our fellow beings must be Christian -

very pure and chaste and without any desire for
recompense.

The sacrifice that is the pain.

In this profound poetry of love without hope of

retribution and in this pain without hope of relief,
pure magic finds the lever of every great miracle:
faith in glory without end from above and the joy of
approaching Ea through the sacrifice of oneself.

427
XV - THE PURITY OF
ARIEL

The good and evil in Magic depend on the purity

and justice of he who works, more even than the
means they use.

Good and evil must be found in the vestibule and not

in the temple; in the peristyle, therefore, where the
crowd of vendors press together, whom Jesus chased
with a scourge; but, in the occult domain, there
exists only the inexorable law of progress in nature
and in the generation, one can only have there the
absolute good, or justice, or Jehovah, the invisible
God who manifests himself through his fated,
intransigent bounty, in the act of creation.

XVI - ARIEL THE

CREATOR

428
The man who wishes to join the power to act with
the force, justice and purity of Ariel must not, in the
action which engenders creations, resemble men nor
be inspired by their passions. It is in this which
resides his absolute resemblance to God and the
complete success of his elevation whatever may be
his history, means or systems of creation and
realisation. Diabolical and angelic magic, black and
white magic, are vague and vain words, before
which there is only one fact: the possibility for the
Mage to imitate the divine nature of things, what one
can create and which can be created.

My disciple must know that, in order to divest

himself of all human passions, in order to liberate
himself from all the heavy and weighty chains which
surround the body of the incarnate angel, it is
sufficient to cultivate two divine virtues: the love of
man and forgiveness; these two virtues are contained
in the ideal of charity.

Man is made from charity in the image of God, a

curious image, and he then clothes it with ambition,
vanity, ignorance, human providence and
philanthropy. As the judicious reader observes well
the civil institutions, and he sees how and to what
extent they are distant from the distant from the
divine charity of which the Buddha and Christ
speak. There is a sign of the state of barbarism in
429
our times, where social egotism brings it all into the
sovereign acts of states, in opposition to the interests
of those they govern. All the theories which appear
today arise from the Utopia found in their realisation
by the transformation of human nature into the sense
of doing good, by the divine regeneration of the man
deprived of his celestial rights. Moreover, the law
which governs spirits and things in the
transformations is unique: there is a series of laws,
geometric or arithmetical according to the value of
the progressions, one law of regeneration through
suffering, according to the degree of convulsion of
the social organism. But charity is still very far
from the modern ideal of the mercantile charity, in
politics, in religious societies and in families, where
gold, which for the people represents the synthesis
of total well-being is only used to spread the
prejudice that good is in pleasure and evil is in pain.
[By following this reasoning, Mary, Mother of
Sorrows, would become “Mary the Bad.”] The
human institutions have replaced the word charity
with that of philanthropy, but it is only when the
philanthropy becomes charity again, that one will
have progressed to another echelon of the sacerdotal
perfection.

Every disciple working in magic must love and

know how to forgive. A love without egotism is
divine, even if all women can only conceive that one
could be loved intentionally and ideally, without any
trace of jealousy, the latter being condensed from
egotism into love. Love is the most fascinating
430
characteristic of the instinct: its decadence is the
prostitution of all the noble, divine and divinised
sentiments in man. Love is the most precious
complement of sociability. It is the very pure key of
Isis which opens the fertile treasures of the divinity
in the deprived human creatures. The mysteries of
Venus were nothing other than the celebrations of
the cult of this comprehensive love which unites the
two poles of creation in the creation of vital and
intelligent Mercury. The Mystical Rose is the Rose
of Love. The Roman de la Rose and the Courses of
Love of the Middle Ages, the songs of the minstrels
and troubadours, the poems like those of Dante
Alighieri and the minor works of Brunetto Latini
and others, are only the romances of Charity in love,
and romance is love through charity. No one was a
poet without love; poetry is depicted as being love;
but in love there is truth, which is the seed of
charity. From this also are derived the Satanic
rituals, exalting the glory of generation in impure
love and abortion in prostitution and in life with
love, uniquely sensual and libertine.

Forgiveness is an aspect of pure love for others who

are imperfect. To know how to love is to know how
to forgive. A father and a mother forgive their son,
who is the object of their love. Between all the
mistaken loves, the least false is maternal love, for it
is less egotistical. Moreover, even this maternal
love is not authentic, except in the unconscious
forgiveness; the mother, deploring the suffering
431
which regenerates her son, is egotistical, like many
mothers.

Know how to forgive and you will become gods on

earth. Do not let the offence reach you, be
indifferent to the insult and consider he who offends
you as an innocent child who will spit in your face.
Magical education, divine and divinising, is to be
educated in forgiveness.

If it were otherwise, magic would become a

formidable instrument directed against all the
passions of one’s fellow man.

Love and forgiveness, which are united in charity,

differ from the fact of the divine character of the
first and the human character of the second. Charity
is powerful as a sacrifice of the relative being to the
absolute being; philanthropy is a passion of
zoophiles who seek to protect the animals, to relieve
their torments, but not to make them sit at their own
table, nor to pull to their place heavy chariots.

Charity is the reaction of the material world on the

world of spirit; charity is the world of flesh
spiritualised.

432
Christianity experiences charity in the respect for
one’s fellow man, for he incarnates and undergoes
the same physical suffering and he feels pain just as
others feel it, a completely different thing from
philanthropy, the pure and simple feeling of
friendship for suffering man.

Charity is the property of the mother who feels her

entrails doubled up with pain if her son cries
because he is hungry. Philanthropy is, on the other
hand, the virtue of a brain which would not like to
be afflicted with the spectacle of the evils of others.

If every man evoked in himself the Christ who

sacrifices himself by immolating himself for the
good of humanity, the society of actual thieves
would be transformed into a terrestrial paradise.

That is why one can say, and I affirm it in my turn,

that all character traits contrary to solidarity are a
social evil and that all good originates from human
solidarity.

433
XVII - ARIEL
DOMINANT

He who comes to dominate by loving his enemies

dominates them inexorably. The triumph of love
resides in the act of force in justice and is invincible
in its powerful affirmation.

Ariel, the force and attractive spirit of love, is

prodigious in his forgiveness.

The virtues and vices of souls are communicated by

direct reason of their reciprocal love, and by inverse
reason to their hate.

The more two people love each other, the more they
both grow together, exchanging in their love their
respective virtues.

This explains why one does not dominate the person

whom one hates, whilst what one loves, one possess.

434
Such is the law communicating the virtue of all real
things; and the visible and invisible societies are
united and repulsed following the same law.

Bismarck has said that right than that of force. In

the absolute, this is reasonable. This force, it is right
itself, for the god who is not just is not strong.

One knows the fable of the little dog who goes to

attack the lion. The lion, after having been bitten,
stated that the teeth of the little animal had not even
deranged a hair. He then said to his enemy: “You
see, I could kill you by eating you; I spare you
because you are small.” The little dog then tried
again, with the same result. The lion let him do it
and forgave him again. The force of the lion
rendered him generous, but if he had not been
strong, he would not have had the clemency of the
strong.

EPILOGUE

435
O Ariel, ray and power of the force of Jupiter, after
having known you, man, the microscopic parcel in
the immensity of the worlds has seen, relit in
himself, the divine spark in its first splendour.

Where are you? Will he who invokes you, see you?

What is your face, o martial spirit dazzling with light
and fire?

In the oriental civilisations, you gave splendour and

magnificence to Ninevah, Babylon and Memphis; in
Thrace, Orpheus enchanted you; in Greece, Jason
wished to conquer you; Hercules wished to captivate
you; in the Latin world, you became the eagle of
wisdom and of the domination of Rome; in the
Christian world, you spoke of the truth on the Cross.

In the world, all invoke you, all adore you. Because

of you, one only sees the face of Amon, horned and
generous; one does not know that you become
providence by charity and that you are beneficent in
the glory of justice.

Be generous when you give to my disciples who call

to you in the long hours and depths of the night, in
their rooms of study where are stacked on the
436
shelves of libraries the volumes of human
knowledge. Appear to them in the form of a gnome
or flamboyant Elf or as ethereal, seat yourself on the
edge of an old table and speak to the neophyte who
wishes to act and know: tell him the truth, the naked
truth; then you will smile at him and let him have
the time to reflect.

In addition to all you will say to him, do not forget

to approach him thus: there is no wisdom without
silence; there is no power without charity; there is
no force without justice. I am the virtue, he who
transforms and he who makes miracles.

I only link myself to you through a pact of alliance.

You will tell me: I am yours, now and for ever; you
will write it for me in your blood, you will put in
these drops your imperfect soul and will wait. As
for me, before accepting, I will see if you have tried
to sell me false stories as sapphires; if the truth is in
you, if your hope is your love, and..... if all is true, I
will come to you, I will give you the force in justice,
love and charity, light in the Science. When you
seek me, I will be near you; when you sleep, I will
watch over you; when you combat evil, I will be
your ally.

437
May the spirit of the age not remove his piercing
vision from the intelligent disciple, who is a
neophyte in magic. The guardian of the threshold
flourishes his magic sword, throws light from his
power eyes; but the disciple will pass, if he knows
how to be silent, to wish and to love.

Science is force; it is justice; it is charity. Science is

not delirium, it is not fever and not passion, pride,
ambition or lies. The lightning is an inexorable law,
just like the force in justice and charity.

It is in this science that, at the point of death, the

martyrs of the great ideals found their smile, and
which the sacerdotal empires found were the
happinesses of the world.

Remember, my disciple, to be wise and to know

how to read me, because I have finished and it has
protected me from telling you of it, for I have
already said too much about it. Above all, if you
have not believed that I have revealed to you the
arcane of the great magicians according to my
promise.

438
The true initiate is he who, after assiduous work and
effective practice of the doctrine, perfects, evolves
and passes the most elevated degrees of the vulgar
visible world and enters into the world of causes,
renouncing to him its effects. It is he who passes the
immense flood of exterior sensations and feels
developed in himself the interior man, or the Christ
who speaks.

It is he who has split up and separated his “elevated

body,” its first trinity, of the body and spirit of our
epoch, entering thus into the phase of evolution from
which one cannot return and speaking the double
language of the spirit and man.

Since in every man must consider a double being,

the old man, a synthesis of preceding lives, and the
new man, actual. The initiatic process must be
understood as a return by the exterior man to the
mysterious or secret man.

To confer initiation, commence by an intensive

actively which the master make the disciple undergo
in order that the former man is manifested in his
integrity.

439
The religions consist in spiritual education
enveloping the new being and the old being in the
same mantle of ideas nourished by faith; initiation,
on the other hand, forbids the formation of new
layers around the occult and secret being and
denudes it.

The action continues which consists of stripping

away the artificial, to put naked, in its integrity, the
old spirit, is a continual death of the artificial self,
without the comfort of a moral aid or any
encouragement.

The novice must only be instructed in this science

and aspire in the silence to the manifestation of God
in him, without allowing himself to be seduced by
appearances.

Jehovah must be directly and immediately

manifested in the disciple.

In developing his intuitions and in freeing himself

from all artifice, the disciple progresses. He must
deprive himself of all will to live, nor of the worry
of temporal things, but aspire:

440
1] to the absolute mastery of life, like the creator of
life itself.

2] to the possession of the state of holiness

[according to the creative will which resides in him
the form of his more elevated solar principle, which
is the first Virtue itself of all the real Universe], in
order that he disposes of the material things,
sensitive and hypersensitive, considering them as his
own production and not like goods which rain down
from strange hands, and in order to dispose of them
according to the principle of absolute justice of
which is the balance of Michael.

3] to the possession of the state of mobility [Ibi], in

order that all the low things may be dominated.

4] to the reconquest of the luminous state, in order

that all the paths, all the dominations may be
illuminated by truth; he must be always present in
himself, the active denominator, creator and
recreator of things.

441
Magic, with its operations, only awaits a single
phenomenon, a great phenomenon; as the Sun
appears, so to the East of the sleeping psyche of the
disciple appears the great God of mental light and so
the day makes itself felt in the soul of he who
invokes it.

Now, those who wish to study and practise Magic

must not forget that the knowledge of the Interior
Self forms the first part of the intelligent and
conscious manifestation of the disciple; after which,
one enters consciously into relation with the world
of causes but through the effect of a blind faith.

In magic, as soon as one has knowledge of

theoretical rudiments, one must work; to discuss it,
is time lost. The disciple must work, pray and
practise.

The practices of Magic, taught by a master,

continually present this form: to produce, to deliver
oneself from evil, to try and to take account at
present of intense psychic or animist activity, which
he who operates, does not explain, precisely because
he does not see immediately what his operations
produce; but the friendly hand which he has invoked
will commence in latent fashion to dissipate the
shadows and, invisible, insensitive, this intense
442
activity of reintegration in the light which blesses,
will not be interrupted until this day of the complete
triumph in him of the intellect of truth.

You must await only one phenomenon of our

doctrine, to know the reintegration of your
intelligent self, which your spirit lights and finds the
Light and, in the Light: the Master.

Once arrived at this great and unique phenomenon,

all the others are childish games; one knows that
they are of worth and this will not be the pain of
trying to become intoxicated with it.

With this, I have finished; I believe I have written

sufficiently what is useful and necessary for men of
goodwill to succeed.

I salute you, O Disciple. I salute you, remember the

clama ne cesses of Isaiah.

The times are propitious.

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