The history of magic

The Book of Enoch concerning the Fall of the Angels—Meaning of the Legend—The Book of the Penitence of Adam—The Personality of Enoch—The Apocalypse of St. Methodius—Children of...

The true and false Zoroaster—Doctrines of the true Zoroaster—Transcendental fire-philosophy—Electrical secrets of Numa—A transcript from Zoroaster on demons and sacrifices—Impor...

The Indians as descendants of Cain—India the mother of idolatry—Doctrine of the Gymnosophists—Indian origin of Gnosticism—Some wise fables of India—Black Magic of the _Oupnek’ha...

The Emerald Table—Other writings of Hermes—Magical interpretation of the geography of Ancient Egypt—Ministry of Joseph—Sacred alphabet—The Isiac Tablet of Cardinal Bembo—The Tar...

Fable of the Golden Fleece—Medea and Jason—The five magical epics—Aeschylus a profaner of the Mysteries—The Orpheus of legend—Orphic Mysteries—Göetia—The sorcerers of Thessaly—M...

Pythagoras an heir of the traditions of Numa—Identity of Pythagoras—His doctrine concerning God—A fine utterance against anarchy—Golden Verses—Symbols of Pythagoras—His chastity...

Origin of the Kabalah—The horror of idolatry in Kabalism—Kabalistic definition of God—Principles of the Kabalah—The Divine Names—Four forms of Tetragrammaton—The word which acco...

Allegory of the Earthly Paradise—The Edenic Pantacle—The Cherub—Folly of a great mind—Mysteries of Genesis—Children of Cain—Magical secrets of the Tower of Babel—Belphegor—The m...

Inviolability of magical science—Profane and mystic schools—The Bacchantes—Materialistic reformers and anarchic mystics—Imbecile visionaries—Their horror of sages—Tolerance of t...

The Great Work—The four aspects of the Sphinx and the Shield of Achilles—Allegories of Hercules and Œdipus—The Secret Doctrine of Plato—Of Plato as Kabalist—Difference between P...

Magnificence of the true Cultus—Orthodox traditions—Dissent of the profane—Their calumnies against initiates—An allegory concerning Bacchus—Tyresias and Calchas—The priesthood a...

Of Hellenism at Rome—Institution of Vestals—Traditional virtue of virgin blood—Symbolism of Sacred Fire—Religious aspect of the history of Lucretia—Honour among Roman women—Myst...

Their origin and persistence—Beautiful thought of the Roman pontiff, St. Gregory—Observation of numbers and of days—Abstinence of the magi—Opinions of Porphyry—Greek and Roman s...

The Seven Wonders of the world and the seven magical planets—The Pyramids—Thebes and its seven gates—The pantacle of the sun—The pantacle of the moon—The pantacle of the conjuga...

The beginning of the Gospel according to St. John and its profound meaning—Ezekiel a Kabalist—Special character of Christianity—Accusations of the Jews against the Saviour—The _...

Absolute existence of religion—Essential distinction between science and faith—Puerile objections—Christianity proved by charity—Condemnation of Magic by the Christian priesthoo...

The question considered in the light of faith and science—Satan and Lucifer—Wisdom of the Church—The devil according to the initiates of occult science—Of possessions in the gos...

The eternal miracle of God—Civilising influence of Christianity—Apollonius of Tyana—His allegorical legend—Julian the apostate—His evocations—Jamblichus and Maximus of Tyre—Birt...

The legend of St. Cyprian and St. Justin—Magical prayer of St. Cyprian—The Golden Legend—Apuleius and the Golden Ass—The fable of Psyche—Curious subtlety of St. Augustine—Philos...

Gnosticism and the primitive Church—Emblems of the catacombs—True and false Gnostics—Profanation of the Gnosis—Impure and sacrilegious Rites—Eucharistic sacrilege—The Arch-heret...

Ammonius Saccas—Plotinus—Porphyry—Hypatia—Incautious admissions of Synesius—Writings of this initiate—More especially his tract on Dreams—The commentary of Jerome Cardan thereon...

Rome conquered by the Cross—History of Philinnium and Machates—The Bride of Corinth—Philosophical considerations thereon—Germanic and Druidic theology—College of the Druids at A...

Female influence in early France—Velleda slandered by Chateaubriand—_Berthe au grand pied_—The fairy Melusine—Saint Clothilde—The sorceress Fredegonde—The story of Klodswinthe—F...

Laws attributed to Pharamond—Explanation of a Talmudic passage by Rabbi Jechiel—Belief in the immortality of the soul among the Jews—An ecclesiastical council on sorcery—The ris...

Charlemagne a prince of faerie—Charlemagne and Roland—The enchanted sword and magic horn—The _Enchiridion_ of Leo III—The tradition therein—The pantacles—The Sabbath—The Free Ju...

The pope and empire—The penalty of excommunication—Further concerning Rabbi Jechiel—The automaton of Albertus Magnus—Albertus and St. Thomas Aquinas—The legend of the automaton...

The great religious orders and their power—The Knights Templar—Their origin—Their secret design—The Christian sect of Johannites—Their profanation of the history of Christ—Ponti...

Apparitions of Satan—Possessions—A philosophy of superstitions—The crime of Black Magic—Pathological states—The soul of the world—Modern phenomena—Fourier and M. de Mirville—Bar...

Inviolable sanctity of the priesthood—Accusations of false adepts—Groundless charges against Pope Sylvester II—Scandalous story of Polonus reproduced by Platina—The legend of Po...

Their entrance into Europe early in the fifteenth century—Their name of Bohemians or Egyptians—An account of their encampment near Paris, drawn from an ancient chronicle—A citat...

Story of the _Doctor Illuminatus_ on its mythical side—Raymond Lully and the Lady Ambrosia—His immortality and liberation therefrom—The historical personage—Lully as an alchemis...

Nicholas Flamel and the book of Abraham the Jew—Mysterious figures of the work—A tradition concerning Flamel—Bernard Trevisan—Basil Valentine—John Trithemius—Cornelius Agrippa—T...

_The Divine Comedy_ of Dante and its Kabalistic analysis—_The Romance of the Rose_—Luther and anarchical theology—His disputes with the devil—His sacrilegious marriage—Sorcerers...

Introductory remarks—Real crime of sorcerers—Some deplorable condemnations—The case of Louis Gaufridi—The case of Urbain Grandier—The nuns of Louviers and some other processes—I...

Important discoveries in China—The _Y-Kim_ of Fo-hi—Legend of its origin—Connection with the Zohar—An example of absolute philosophy—Opinion of Leibnitz—Emmanuel Swedenborg—His...

The Comte de Saint-Germain—Unpublished particulars of his life—The report of Madame de Genlis—The Order of Saint Jakin—A pretended initiation—Further concerning the Rosicrucians...

The school of Martinists—The supper of Cazotte—The romance of _Le Diable Amoureux_—Its interpretation according to the Kabalah—Lilith and Nehamah—Initiation of Cazotte—The Mysti...

The reveries of Rousseau and their fatal consequences—The tomb of Jacques de Molay—The Lodge in Rue Platrière—The doom of Louis XVI—A genius of massacre—Mademoiselle de Sombreui...

An obscure sect of Johannite mystics—Visions of Loiseaut—Dom Gerle and Catherine Théot—A visit from Robespierre—The prophecy of Catherine—Her fate and that of Dom Gerle—The Savi...

The adept Steinert—An account of Eckartshausen—Schroepfer and Lavater—The spirit Gablidone—His prophecies—Stabs and Napoleon—Carl Sand and Kotzebue—The Mopses and their mysterie...

Predictions relative to Napoleon—Mademoiselle Lenormand—Etteilla and cartomancy—Madame Bouche and the Czar Alexander—Madame de Krudener—Further concerning the Saviours of Louis...

Infectious follies of Fourier—The dogma of hell—An evocation in the Church of Notre Dame—Lesser prophets and divinities—Ganneau, Auguste Comte and Wronski—Sale of the Absolute 453

Yet again concerning the Saviours of Louis XVII—Singular hallucination of Eugène Vintras—His prophecies and pretended miracles—The sect of Vintras—Its condemnation by Gregory XV...

Alphonse Esquiros invents a romanesque Magic—Henri Delaage continues the work—His gifts of enchantment—His orthodoxy—Le Comte D’Ourches—Baron de Guldenstubbé—His miraculous writ...

The author is presented by the magician Alphonse Esquiros to the divinity Ganneau—Eccentric doctrines of the _Mapah_—Another Louis XVII—A fatal result of this visit—Secret cause...

The enigma of the sphinx and its solution—Paradoxical questions and their answers—Knowledge and faith—The communion of faith—The temporal power of the pope—The science of moral...

The apocryphal _Book of Enoch_ says that there were angels who consented to fall from heaven that they might have intercourse with the daughters of earth.[23] “For in those days...

It is within probability that Zoroaster is a symbolical name, like that of Thoth or Hermes. According to Eudoxus and Aristotle, he flourished 6000 years before the birth of Plat...

We are told by Kabalistic tradition that India was peopled by the descendants of Cain, and thither at a later period migrated the descendants of Abraham and Keturah; in any case...

It is in Egypt that Magic attains the grade of completion as an universal science and is formulated as a perfect doctrine. As a summary of all the dogmas which obtained in the a...

We pass now to the period when the exact sciences of Magic assumed their natural external form, being that of beauty. We have seen in the _Zohar_ how the human prototype rose in...

He who initiated Numa, and of whose proficiency in Magic something has been said already, was a personage known as Tarchon, himself the disciple of a Chaldean named Tages. Scien...

Let us now have recourse to the origin of true science by recurring to the Holy Kabalah, or tradition of the children of Seth, taken from Chaldea by Abraham, communicated by Jos...

To explain Holy Scripture from the religious and dogmatic standpoint forms no part of our warrant. Subject above all things to the hierarchic order, we surrender theology to the...

The legitimacy of Divine Right is so rooted in the priesthood that true priesthood does not exist apart from it. Initiation and consecration are a veritable heritage. So is the...

That which adepts have distinguished as the Great Work is not only the transmutation of metals but also and above all the Universal Medicine—that is to say, the remedy for all i...

Forms are the product of ideas, and they in their turn reflect and reproduce ideas. So far as sentiments are concerned, these are multiplied by association in the union of those...

The Roman Empire was but the Greek in transfiguration. Italy was a Greater Greece, and when Hellenism had perfected its dogmas and mysteries, the education of the children of th...

Superstitions are religious forms surviving the loss of ideas. Some truth no longer known or a truth which has changed its aspect is the origin and explanation of all. Their nam...

We have said that Egypt of old was itself a pantacle, and as much might be affirmed concerning the elder world at large. In proportion as the great hierophants were at pains to...

At the beginning of the Gospel according to St. John there is one sentence which is never uttered by the Catholic Church except in the bending of the knees; that sentence is: “T...

Magic, being the science of universal equilibrium and having the truth, reality and reason of being for its absolute principle, accounts for all the antinomies and reconciles al...

By its clear formulation of concepts respecting the Divine, Christianity leads us to the understanding of God as the most absolute and the most purest love, while it defines, no...

The eternal miracle of God is the unchangeable order of His providence in the harmonies of Nature; prodigies are derangements and are attributable only to degeneration in the cr...

The strange narratives embodied in the _Golden Legend_, how fabulous soever they may be, are referable notwithstanding to the highest Christian antiquity. They are parables rath...

In obedience to the Saviour’s formal precept, the primitive Church did not expose its Most Holy Mysteries to the chance of profanation by the crowd. Admission to Baptism and the...

On the eve of its extinction the school of Plato diffused a great light at Alexandria; but, victorious after three centuries of warfare, Christianity had assimilated all that wa...

Black Magic retreated before the light of Christianity, Rome was conquered by the cross, and prodigies took refuge in that dark circle with which the barbarous provinces enringe...

In imposing upon woman the severe and tender duties of motherhood Providence has entitled her to the protection and respect of man. Made subject by Nature itself to the conseque...

Under the rule of the first French kings, the crime of Magic did not entail death save for those of exalted position, while there were some who were proud to die for an offence...

Charlemagne is the real prince of enchantments and the world of faerie; his reign is like a solemn and brilliant pause between barbarism and the middle ages; while he himself is...

That fundamental dogma of transcendental science which consecrates the eternal law of equilibrium attained its plenary realisation in the constitution of the Christian world. Tw...

The societies of the elder world perished through the materialistic egoism of castes, becoming petrified on their own part, isolating the common people in a hopeless reprobation...

We have borne witness to the sobriety of decisions pronounced by the Church respecting the genius of evil; she has recommended her children not to be in fear concerning him, not...

We have explained that owing to the profanations and impieties of Gnostics the Church proscribed Magic. The condemnation of the Knights Templar completed the rupture, and from t...

At the beginning of the fifteenth century hordes of unknown swarthy wanderers began to spread through Europe.[235] Sometimes denominated Bohemians, because they claimed to come...

We have explained that the Church proscribed initiation because it was indignant at the profanations of the Gnosis. When Mohammed armed eastern fanaticism against faith he oppos...

Nicholas Flamel belongs to alchemy exclusively, and he enters only into our consideration because of the hieroglyphical book of Abraham the Jew, in which the scrivener of the ru...

Amidst a great multiplicity of commentaries and studies on the work of Dante, no one, that we are aware, has signalised its characteristic in chief. The masterpiece of the glori...

The Greek author of the allegorical Tablet of Cebes gives expression to this admirable conclusion: “There is one only real good to be desired, and this is wisdom; there is but o...

“You have not offended me and are obliged to fulfil the duties committed to your charge.” They had promised to strangle him before the burning, but when the executioner sought t...

That great Kabalistical association known in Europe under the name of Masonry appeared suddenly in the world when revolt against the Church had just succeeded in dismembering Ch...

China was practically unknown to the outside world until the end of the seventeenth century, when its vast empire, explored in part by our missionaries, began to be revealed by...

The eighteenth century was credulous about nothing but Magic, and the explanation is that vague beliefs are the religion of souls devoid of true faith. The miracles of Jesus Chr...

The school of unknown philosophers founded by Martines de Pasqually and continued by L. C. de Saint-Martin seems to have incorporated the last adepts of true initiation. Saint-M...

Once there was a man in the world who was soured on discovering that his disposition was cowardly and vicious, and he visited his consequent disgust on society at large. He was...

In the year 1772, a certain parishioner of Saint-Mandé, named Loiseaut, being at Church, believed that he saw an extraordinary person kneeling close by him; this was a very swar...

Germany is the native land of metaphysical mysticism and phantoms. A phantom itself of the old Roman empire, it seems always to invoke the mighty shade of Hermann, consecrating...

Napoleon filled the world with wonders, and in that world was himself the greatest wonder of all. The Empress Josephine, his wife, curious and credulous as a creole, passed from...

The denial of the fundamental doctrine of catholic religion, formulated so magnificently in the poem of _Faust_, had borne its fruits in the world. Morality deprived of its eter...

A root of ambition or cupidity is found invariably beneath the fanaticism of all the sects. Christ Jesus Himself reprimanded often and severely those of His disciples who cleave...

The Church in its great wisdom forbids us to consult oracles and to violate by indiscreet curiosity the secrets of futurity. In our day the voice of the Church is no longer heed...

It is now twenty years since Alphonse Esquiros,[360] one of the friends of our childhood, issued a work of high fantasy, entitled the _Magician_. All that the romanticism of tha...

On a certain morning in 1839 the author of this book had a visit from Alphonse Esquiros, who said: “Let us pay our respects to the Mapah.”[365] The natural question arose: “But...

The secret of the occult sciences is that of Nature herself; it is the secret of the generation of angels and worlds; it is that of God’s own omnipotence. “Ye shall be as the El...

It remains for us to summarise and conclude. To summarise the history of a science is to summarise the science itself, and we are therefore to recapitulate the great principles...

Satan. They desired to rebuild heaven, apparently in the likeness of their own evil desires. They were the same quality of souls as the “giants in the earth in those days” and “...

[100] Dacier was a translator in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and his study on the _Doctrine of Plato_ appeared in the third volume of a collection entitled _Bibli...