Encyclopedia of Occult Scienses vol.VI Second Part (The Magical Sciences) Low Magic

SECOND PART

THE MAGICAL SCIENCES

Magic, Hermetic Philosophy are rational, positive, for they proclaim the constancy of natural laws ; but they teach that the field of operation of these laws is infinite and that most of them are still unknown to men. Hence the miraculous, supernatural appearance, the extraordinary aspect of some phenomena which in reality are very simple.

F. Jollivet-Castelot.

Chapter I

PRELIMINARY

IN principle Magic should stand at the beginning of an Encyclopaedia of Occult Sciences, for it is in fact the first scientific, religious, moral and political doctrine of Humanity. It is the traditional science of the secrets of Nature, and in the beginning it contained them all.

It is the collection of the knowledge which its owners did not wish to reveal to the common herd incapable of understanding it and in whom it might engender a fatal pride. Magic is the old name of Occultism, the science of the philosophers of India, of Chaldea, of Persia, of Egypt, who were called Magi[1].  Magic formulae are found in the Vedas, in the Egyptian ritual, in the Chaldean books, in the Hebrew Kabbala.

Magic, writes Jollivet-Castelot, " is by no means, as most outsiders imagine, the negation of Science. Quite on the contrary Magic is Science, but Science with syntheses, almost integral Science, its horizons being the Absolute, the Infinite in Unity.

" Magic therefore dominates the narrow, childish, earth-bound Science of to-day, with the whole of its greatness and unique splendour. It is not, in truth, Science which will ever explain Magic to the people, but it is Magic which will progressively cause to be understood the doctrines of science which to-day are still in their infancy; it is Magic which will develop in their true sense the apparent mysteries of Nature, the present attempts at methods, at systems and at theories.

In truth Magic is the knowledge of the action and the combination of the forces of the Universe (there are none other in reality, as nothing can exist outside Nature which makes up everything in the three cosmic dimensions) the study of their conduct, their involution, their evolution.

From India, where it seems to have had its birth, Magic passed to Chaldea, where, according to Diodorus of Sicily, a sacred tribe was entirely occupied with occult sciences. Thence it conquered the world of antiquity. It is found amongst the Cabiri and the Etruscans, in Greece in Homeric times, in short everywhere. But for a long time already it had constituted a special part of Occultism and was differentiated from the other sciences. It is probable that from the first days of Christianity various sects were formed which preserved what they took to be the true Faith in God. They were called Gnostics. Gnosis flourished in the third century, in the Alexan- drian Schools under Plotinus, Porphiry, Jamblichus who seems to have joined Theurgy to Magic so as to prevent its deviation. Theurgy, or White Magic, intercourse with the celestial spirits, would thus be the pendant and the opposition to Black Magic or Goetia, intercourse with the infernal spirits. As will be seen, Magic at that time already had a fairly precise meaning.

Amongst the famous Magi (of whom the three Kings who, led by the Star, came to the Crib to bring to the newborn Jesus their gifts and their worship, formed part) we must mention Moses and Solomon, those admirable and powerful leaders of men, Hermes Trismegistes, Appolonius of Thyana, the Emperor Julian, the Sorcerer Merlin, Raymond, Lullius, Albert the Great, Paracelsus, names which some- times seem legendary, names of strange deep minds who also practised alchemy and other occult sciences and in our own days men like Eliphas Levi, Stanislas de Guai'ta, Sar Peladan, Papus. Truly Magic becomes modernised like every other intellectual activity, as we shall see presently.[2]

Naturally the Church waged war on the Magi, or rather on the Magicians (for the word Magi is better confined to the Wise Men of old and a few modern ones, and Magicians used for those who specialised in Magic). It purposely confounded them with the Sorcerers (who in fact also often practised Magic), fearing their power and their authority. Hence, in order to escape from its persecutions, the Magicians, alchemists and other custodians of the occult tradition, concealed their knowledge in bizarre formulae or under the veil of secret writing.

Even this secret writing, or cryptography, was not originated by them. It was practised in antiquity. The Celts had one made of small sticks; the Egyptians had their hieroglyphics,[3]  the Greeks their scytalus (for secret correspondence). Cryptography was revealed to us by two works of Abbe Tritheme (his Polygraphy and his Stenography) and others published since dealing with this question.

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Bosc de Veze in his Little Synthetic Encyclopaedia of Occult Sciences, which is not very well arranged and very far from complete, writes that the ancient occult nomenclature divided Magic into four sections :

1. Natural Magic, being the possibility of performing certain miraculous deeds by a deeper knowledge of the phenomena of Nature. This was defined by Father Kircher as the Knowledge of the Sympathy and the Antipathy of things. It was the Magic of Hermes Trismegistes and of Zoroaster; it was the High Kabbala.

2. Mathematical Magic, of the thorough knowledge of the laws of Mechanics. It was the knowledge of Albert the Great, of Boetius, etc.

3. Poisonous Magic, thus called by Agrippa, because it deals with philters, with mysterious potions, with metamorphoses, etc. It was the Magic of Medea, of Circe.

4. Ceremonial Magic, the most powerful, the most terrible, whether Black Magic or Theurgy, which supplied the means of communicating with the spirits.

Another classification is given by J. E. Bourgeat, that is to say, for all Magic Sciences two kinds of teaching—the exoteric method, taught in public, and the esoteric method, reserved to the initiates.

Exoterism comprised the legends, the pictures, the symbols, the remains of which are the Bible, the Arabian Tales, the Fairy Tales, the Pentacles and other representative designs. Esoterism, oral teaching transmitted from generation to generation was the share of the very intelligent only who proved their courage and their strength, and were worthy to know the keys of the exoteric language.

Mr. Bourgeat gives two apt illustrations in support of his theory. Let us take with him the episode of the Temptation in the Earthly Paradise. We read it in the Bible ; it is known to all children who learn their Biblical History:—Adam, Eve, the seducing Serpent, dialogue between Eve and the Demon-Reptile, the sin, innocence lost, the departure before the flaming sword of the Cherubim guarding the road which leads to the Tree of Life. . . . That is the Exoteric Tale.

But now Esoterism intervenes and says :—Adam is none other than the representation of the active human element, intellect; Eve personifies the passive, love. Now the active succumbs to the sense attraction of the passive, thus abdicating his intellect. Man then evolves towards animalism (God in fact covers Adam with the skin of beasts before driving him out). He must leave Eden, that is to say the Circle of Life, and he shall not re-enter it until he has vanquished the Cherub (the soul of the Earth, the secret science, represented by the Cherubim) whose flaming sword sends out flashes of truth which blind the ordinary man instead of enlightening him.

Another instance : the Egyptian Sphinx, for the non-initiated, was a fabulous animal, with a human head, a woman’s breast, the loins of a bull, the claws of a lion, the wings of an eagle.1 To I In- initiated this human head represented intelligence and knowledge ; the claws daring and action ; the loins will-power, perseverance mu I labour; the folded wings silence. Hence the quaternary of the Magi: — Know, dare, will, keep silent. The initiate also finds in the Sphinx the four elements, fire (the lion’s claws), water (the woman’s breasts), earth (the loins of the bull), air (the wings of the eagle). And thus the Sphinx represent n the light of the stars and its properties.

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On the other hand Pierre Piobb in his Formulary of High Magic says :—Magic after all, according to Karl du Prel, is nothing but unknown Natural Science. Formerly the three great sciences of Astrology, Alchemy and Magic proper were confounded in the same expression. To-day they are carefully divided :—

Astrology celestial deals with the bodies an regards their nature and their movements. It is the science of words.

Alchemy deals with matter as regards its essence and its