Part 6

"That the universe is a triple harmony, as the Godhead is a Trinity, you are aware. We live in the elemental world; over our head the celestial space, with its various spheres, revolves; and above this, finally, God is enthroned in the purely spiritual world of ideas. The unhappy scientists of your century have in their narrow prejudice separated these worlds from one another (but by crowding together the celestial and the elementary). Your so-called students of nature investigate only the elementary world, and your so-called philosophers only the ideal; but the former with all their delving in the various forms of matter, never reach the realm of the spiritual, but are rather led to disavow its existence; and the latter can never from the dim world of ideas summon up the concrete wealth of nature. In vain your students of nature imagine that in physiology, or your philosophers that in anthropology, they shall find the transition from one world to the other. We magicians, on the contrary, study these worlds as a unit. We find them combined by two mighty bonds: those of correspondence and causality. All things in the elementary world have their antitype in the celestial, and all celestial things have their corresponding ideas. These correspondences are strung from above downwards as strings on the harp of the universe, and on that harp the causalities move up and down like the fingers of a player. While your students of nature seek the chains of causality in only one direction, the horizontal, that which runs through things on the same level, that which connects things in one and the same elementary world; we, the students of magic, search with still greater diligence those perpendicular chains of causality which run through and combine corresponding objects in the three worlds. Our manner of investigating this perpendicular series resembles your method of examining the horizontal but slightly, if at all. What unnecessary trouble your induction causes you! You wish to investigate the nature of some manifestation of force, for instance; you analyze it with great painstaking into different factors, you strive to isolate each of these factors and to cause them to act each its own part, to find out what each has contributed to the common expression of force. We meet with no such hindrances. A secret tradition has presented to us our perpendicular lines of causality almost entire, and we are able to fill up the lacunæ of this tradition by an investigation which is not impeded with any great difficulties. This investigation relies on the resemblances of things, for this similarity is derived from a correspondence, and causality is interwoven with correspondence. Thus, for instance, we judge from the resemblance between the splendor of gold and that of the sun that gold has its celestial correspondence in that luminary, and sustains to it a causal relation. Another example: the two-horned beetle bears a causal relation to the moon, which at its increase and wane is also two-horned; and if there were any doubt of this intimate relation between them, it must vanish when we learn that the beetle hides its eggs in the earth for the space of twenty-eight days, or just so long time as is required for the moon to pass through the Zodiac, but digs them up again on the twenty-ninth, when the moon is in conjunction with the Sun.[31] Do not smile at this method of investigation! Beware of repeating the mistake which 'common sense' is so prone to make in seeing absurdities in truths which happen to be beyond its horizon? Our method is founded on the idea that there is nothing casual in nature. To be sure we accept a divine arbitrament, but by no means a natural fortuity. Not even the slightest similarity between existing objects is a meaningless accident! Not even the slightest stroke in the figures by which we fix our words and thoughts in writing is without deep significance. Every thing in the work of nature and of man has its cause and its effect. We can not make a gesture, nor say a word, without imparting vibrations to the whole universe, upward and downward,--vibrations which may be strong or feeble, perceptible or imperceptible. This principle runs through the whole of our cosmical system, and this thought must be true even for you analyzers.

"Before explaining more fully the magical use of our series of correspondence and causality, I wish to show you a couple of them. I shall choose the simplest, but at the same time the most important. I commence with

THE SCALE OF THE HOLY TETRAD. (Table I.)

_From which is found the Correspondences to the Four Elements._

| | God's name | [Hebrew] |(Jehovah) in | |four letters. |------------------------------------------------------------ THE |Seraphim,|Dominions,|Principali- |Saints, |The four WORLD |Cherubim,| Powers, | ties, | Martyrs, |triplicities OF | Thrones | Empires | Archangels,| Confessors|of the ARCHETYPES | | | Angels | |celestial AND | | | | |hierarchy. BLISS |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- |Michael |Raphael |Gabriel |Uriel |Four angels, | | | | |guardians of | | | | |the four card. | | | | |points. |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- |Seraph |Cherub |Tharsis |Ariel |Angels | | | | |presiding over | | | | |the elements. ======================================================================== |Aries, |Gemini, |Cancer, |Taurus, |The four | Leo, | Libra, | Scorpio, | Virgo, |triplicities | Sagit- | Aquarius | Pisces | Capra |of the Zodiac. THE | tarius | | | | CELESTIAL |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- WORLD |Mars, |Jupiter, |Saturn, |Fixed |The stars and | Sun | Venus | Mercury | Stars, |planets as | | | | Moon |related to the | | | | |elements. |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- |Light |Transpar- |Activity |Firmness |Four qualities | | ency | | |of the | | | | |celestial | | | | |elements. ======================================================================== |Fire |Air |Water |Earth |The four | | | | |elements. |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- |Warmth |Humidity |Coldness |Aridity |The four | | | | |qualities of | | | | |the elements. |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- |Summer |Spring |Winter |Autumn |The four | | | | |seasons. |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- |East |West |North |South |The four card. | | | | |points. THE |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- ELEMENTARY |Animals |Herbs |Metals |Stones |Four kinds of | | | | |mixed bodies. WORLD |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- |Walking |Flying |Swimming |Crawling |Four kinds of | | | | |animals. |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- |Germ |Flower |Leaves |Root |The parts of | | | | |the plants as | | | | |related to the | | | | |elements. |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- |Gold, |Copper, |Quicksilver |Lead, |Metals | Iron | Tin | | Silver |corresponding | | | | |to the | | | | |elements. |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- |Shining |Light and |Clear and |Heavy and |Stones | and | Trans- | Hard | Opaque |corresponding |Burning | parent | | |to the | | | | |elements. ======================================================================== |Faith |Science |Opinion |Experience |Four | | | | |principles of MICROCOSMOS| | | | |judging. |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- |Choleric |Sanguinic |Phlegmatic |Melancholic|Temperaments. ======================================================================== |Samael |Azazael |Azael |Mehazael |Princes of the | | | | |evil spirits | | | | |raging in the | | | | |elements. HELL |---------+----------+------------+-----------+-------------- |Oriens |Paymon |Egyn |Amaimon |The demons | | | | |presiding over | | | | |the four card. | | | | |points.

"Here you see one of the nets which magic has stretched from the Empyrean down into the abyss. For each of the sacred numbers there is a separate scale of the same kind: 'The universe,' says Pythagoras, 'is founded upon numbers,' and Boethius asserts that 'Every thing created in the beginning of time was formed according to the relations of certain numbers, which were lying as types in the mind of the Creator.' It is consequently a settled fact with us that numbers contain greater and more effective forces than material things; for the former are not a mixture of substances, but may, as purely formal entities, stand in immediate connection with the ideas of divine reason. This is recognized also by the fathers: by Hieronymus, Augustine, Ambrosius, Athanasius, Bede, and others, and underlies these words in the book of Revelation: 'Let him who hath understanding count the number of the beast.' Those varied and relatively discordant objects which form a unity in the same world, are arranged side by side in the scale; whereas those things which in different groups or different worlds correspond to one another, form the ascending and descending series.

"Do not forget that correspondence also implies reciprocal activity! Thus, for instance, the letter [Hebrew] in the holy name of God indicates a power which is infused into the successive orders of Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones, and which is imparted through them to the constellations Leo and Sagittarius, and to the two wandering luminaries Mars and the Sun. These angels and stars all pour down into the elementary world the abundance of their power, which produces there fire and heat, and the germs of animal organisms, and kindles in man reason and faith, in order to meet finally in the lowest region, its opposites: cold, destruction, irrationality, unbelief, represented by the names of fallen angel-princes. I will now show you another table which is an introduction to the study of Astrology and treats more in detail of certain parts of the preceding, showing how things in the elementary world and microcosm are subject to the planets. In showing this to you I will remind you of the verse:

'_Astra regunt hominem; sed regit astra Deus._' (_The stars guide man; but God guides the stars._)

(TABLE II.)

+-------------------------------------------------------------- | MOON. | MERCURY. | VENUS. | SUN. | MARS. | ---------+------------+------------+----------+------------+-----------+ ELEMENTS.|Earth, |Water. |Air, |Fire. |Fire. | | Water. | | Water. | | | ---------+------------+------------+----------+------------+-----------+ MICRO- |White |Mixed |Slimy |Blood and |Acid | COSMOS. | juices. | juices. | juices. | vital | juices. | | | | | power. | | ---------+------------+------------+----------+------------+-----------+ ANIMALS. |Sociable |Cunning |Beautiful |Bold and |Beasts of | | and | and | with | courageous.| prey. | | changeable.| rapid. | strong | | | | | | sexual | | | | | | instinct.| | | ---------+------------+------------+----------+------------+-----------+ PLANTS. |Selenotrope,|Little |Spices and|Pine, |Burning, | | Palm, | short | fruit- | Laurel, | poisonous,| | Hyssop, | leaves and | trees. | Vine, | and | | Rosemary, | many | | Heliotrope,| stinging. | | etc. | colored | | Lotus, etc.| | | | flowers. | | | | ---------+------------+------------+----------+------------+-----------+ METALS. |Silver. |Quicksilver,|Silver. |Gold. |Iron and | | | Tin, | | | sulphuric | | | Bismuth. | | | metals. | ---------+------------+------------+----------+------------+-----------+ STONES. |All white |Many |Carnelian,|Topaz, Ruby,|Diamond, | | stones | colored. | Lazuli, | Carbuncle, | Jasper, | | and pearls.| | etc. | etc. | Amethyst, | | | | | | Magnet. |

| JUPITER. | SATURN. +----------+----------- |Air. |Earth, | | Water. +----------+----------- |Vegetative|Gall. | juices. | | | +----------+----------- |Sagacious |Crawling | and | and | gentle. | nocturnal. | | | | +----------+----------- |Oak, |Cypress and | Beech, | those of a | Poplar, | gloomy | Cereals, | aspect or | etc. | foul odor. | | +----------+----------- |Gold, |Lead. | Silver, | | Tin. | +----------+----------- |Green and |Onyx and | air- | all brown | colored. | clays. | |

"The value of these, as of many other tables, will be clear to you when I now pronounce the first practical principle of magic:--

"_As the Creator of the universe diffuses upon us, by angels, stars, elements, animals, plants, metals and stones, the powers of his omnipotence, so also the magician, by collecting those objects in the elemental world which bear a relation of mutual activity to the same entity (an angel or a planet) in the higher worlds, and by combining their powers according to scientific rules, and intensifying them by means of sacred and religious ceremonies, is able to influence this higher being and attract to himself its powers._

"This principle sufficiently explains why I have collected around me all the strange things you here see. Here, for instance, is a plate of lead on which is engraved the symbol of a planet; and beside it a leaden flask containing gall. If I now take a piece of fine onyx marked with the same planet-symbol, and this dried cypress-branch, and add to them the skin of a snake and the feather of an owl, you will need but to look into one of the tables given you to find that I have only collected various things in the elementary world which bear a relation of mutual activity to Saturn; and, if rightly combined, can attract both the powers of that planet, and of the angels with which it is connected.

"The greatest effect of magic--at the same time its triumph, and the criterion of its truth--is a successful incantation. Shall we perform one? If we go through all the necessary preparations, we shall have a bird's-eye view of the whole secret science. Only certain alchemists have a still greater end in view; they aspire to produce in the retort man himself,--nay, the whole world. You men of the nineteenth century know only by reputation of our attempts to produce an _homunculus_, and _a perpetuum mobile naturæ_. Could you only count the drops of perspiration these efforts have wrung from us! There is something enchanting, something overpowering, in alchemy. It is gigantic in its aims, and in its depths dwells a thought which is terrible, because it threatens to crush that very cosmic philosophy on which our faith is founded. We occupy ourselves with the elements, until the idea steals upon us that every thing is dependent on them; that every thing, Creator and created, is included in them; that every thing arises by necessity and passes away by necessity. If you can only collect in the crucible those elements and life-germs which were stirring in chaos, then you can also produce, in the crucible, the six days of creation, and find the spirit which formed the universe. I have abandoned alchemy only to escape this thought; but a parchment will, sealed with seven seals, and hidden in the most secret corner of my vaults, contains the remarkable experiences I have had when experimenting for the _perpetuum mobile_ and _homunculus_.[32]