Behind
the veil of all the hieratic and mystical allegories of ancient
doctrines, behind the darkness and strange ordeals of all
initiations, under the seal of all sacred writings, in the ruins of
Nineveh or Thebes, on the crumbling stones of old temples and on
the
blackened visage of the Assyrian or Egyptian sphinx, in the
monstrous
or marvellous paintings which interpret to the faithful of India
the
inspired pages of the Vedas, in the cryptic emblems of our old
books
on alchemy, in the ceremonies practised at reception by all secret
societies, there are found indications of a doctrine which is
everywhere the same and everywhere carefully concealed. Occult
philosophy seems to have been the nurse or god-mother of all
intellectual forces, the key of all divine obscurities and the
absolute queen of society in those ages - when it was reserved
exclusively for the education of priests and of kings. It reigned
in
Persia with the Magi, who perished in the end, as perish all
masters
of the world, because they abused their power; it endowed India
with
the most wonderful traditions and with an incredible wealth of
poesy,
grace and terror in its emblems; it civilized Greece to the music
of
the lyre of Orpheus; it concealed the principles of all sciences,
all
progress of the human mind, in the daring calculations of
Pythagoras;
fable abounded in its miracles, and history, attempting to estimate
this unknown power, became confused with fable; it undermined or
consolidated empires by its oracles, caused tyrants to tremble on
their thrones and governed all minds, either by curiosity or by
fear.
For this science, said the crowd, there is nothing impossible, it
commands the elements, knows the language of the stars and directs
the planetary courses; when it speaks, the moon falls blood-red
from
heaven; the dead rise in their graves and mutter ominous words, as
the night wind blows through their skulls. Mistress of love or of
hate, occult science can dispense paradise or hell at its pleasure
to
human hearts; it disposes of all forms and confers beauty or
ugliness; with the wand of Circe it changes men into brutes and
animals alternately into men; it disposes even of life and death,
can
confer wealth on its adepts by the transmutation of metals and
immortality by its quintessence or elixir, compounded of gold and
light.Such
was Magic from Zoroaster to Manes, from Orpheus to Apollonius of
Tyana, when positive Christianity, victorious at length over the
brilliant dreams and titanic aspirations of the Alexandrian school,
dared to launch its anathemas publicly against this philosophy, and
thus forced it to become more occult and mysterious than ever.
Moreover, strange and alarming rumours began to circulate
concerning
initiates or adepts; they were surrounded every where by an ominous
influence, and they destroyed or distracted those who allowed
themselves to be beguiled by their honeyed eloquence or by the
sorcery of their learning. The women whom they loved became Stryges
and their children vanished at nocturnal meetings, while men
whispered shudderingly and in secret of bloodstained orgies and
abominable banquets. Bones had been found in the crypts of ancient
temples, shrieks had been heard in the night, harvests withered and
herds sickened when the magician passed by. Diseases which defied
medical skill appeared at times in the world, and always, it was
said, beneath the envenomed glance of the adepts. At length a
universal cry of execration went up against Magic, the mere name
became a crime and the common hatred was formulated in this
sentence:
"Magicians to the flames!" - as it was shouted some
centuries earlier: "To the lions with the Christians!" Now
the multitude never conspires except against real powers; it does
not
know what is true, but it has the instinct of what is strong. It
remained for the eighteenth century to deride both Christians and
Magic, while infatuated with the disquisitions of Rousseau and the
illusions of Cagliostro. Science, notwithstanding, is at the basis
of
Magic, as at the root of Christianity there is love, and in the
Gospel symbols we find the Word Incarnate adored in His cradle by
Three Magi, led thither by a star - the triad and the sign of the
microcosm - and receiving their gifts of gold, frankincense and
myrrh, a second mysterious triplicity, under which emblem the
highest
secrets of the Kabalah are allegorically contained. Christianity
owes
therefore no hatred to Magic, but human ignorance has ever stood in
fear of the unknown. The science was driven into hiding to escape
the
impassioned assaults of blind desire: it clothed itself with new
hieroglyphics, falsified its intentions, denied its hopes. Then it
was that the jargon of alchemy was created, an impenetrable
illusion
for the vulgar in their greed of gold, a living language only for
the
true disciple of Hermes.Extraordinary
fact! Among the sacred records of the Christians there are two
texts
which the infallible Church makes no claim to understand and has
never attempted to expound: these are the Prophecy of Ezekiel and
the
Apocalypse, two Kabalistic Keys reserved assuredly in heaven for
the
commentaries of Magian Kings, books sealed as with seven seals for
faithful believers, yet perfectly plain to an initiated infidel of
the occult sciences. There is also another work, but, although it
is
popular in a sense and may be found everywhere, this is of all most
occult and unknown, because it is the key of the rest. It is in
public evidence without being known to the public; no one suspects
its existence and no one dreams of seeking it where it actually is.
This book, which may be older than that of Enoch, actually has
never
been translated, but is still preserved unmutilated in primeval
characters, on detached leaves, like the tablets of the ancients.
The
fact has eluded notice, though a distinguished scholar has
revealed,
not indeed its secret, but its antiquity and singular preservation.
Another scholar, but of a mind more fantastic than judicious,
passed
years in the study of this masterpiece, and has merely suspected
its
plenary importance. It is, in truth, a monumental and extraordinary
work, strong and simple as the architecture of the pyramids, and
consequently enduring like those - a book which is the summary of
all
sciences, which can resolve all problems by its infinite
combinations, which speaks by evoking thought, is the inspirer and
moderator of all possible conceptions, and the masterpiece perhaps
of
the human mind. It is to be counted unquestionably among the very
great gifts bequeathed to us by antiquity; it is a universal key,
the
name of which has been explained and comprehended only by the
learned
William Postel; it is a unique test, whereof the initial characters
alone plunged into ecstasy the devout spirit of Saint-Martin, and
might have restored reason to the sublime and unfortunate
Swedenborg.
We shall recur to this book later on, for its mathematical and
precise explanation will be the complement and crown of our
conscientious undertaking.The
original alliance between Christianity and the Science of the Magi,
once demonstrated fully, will be a discovery of no second-rate
importance, and we do not doubt that the serious study of Magic and
the Kabalah will lead earnest minds to a reconciliation of science
and dogma, of reason and faith, heretofore regarded as impossible.
We
have said that the Church, whose special office is the custody of
the
Keys, does not pretend to possess those of the Apocalypse or of
Ezekiel. In the opinion of Christians the scientific and magical
Clavicles of Solomon are lost, which notwithstanding, it is certain
that, in the domain of intelligence, ruled by the Word nothing that
has been written can perish. Whatsoever men cease to understand
exists for them no longer, at least in the order of the Word, and
it
passes then into the domain of enigma and mystery. Furthermore, the
antipathy and even open war of the Official Church against all that
belongs to the realm of Magic, which is a kind of personal and
emancipated priesthood, is allied with necessary and even with
inherent causes in the social and hierarchic constitution of
Christian sacerdotalism. The Church ignores Magic - for she must
either ignore it or perish, as we shall prove later on; yet she
does
not recognize the less that her mysterious Founder was saluted in
His
cradle by Three Magi - that is to say, by the hieratic ambassadors
of
the three parts of the known world and the three analogical worlds
of
occult philosophy. In the School of Alexandria, Magic and
Christianity almost joined hands under the auspices of Ammonius
Saccas and of Plato; the doctrine of Hermes is found almost in its
entirety in the writings attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite;
Synesius outlined the plan of a treatise on dreams, which was
annotated subsequently by Cardan, and composed hymns that might
have
served for the liturgy of the Church of Swedenborg, could a church
of
the illuminated possess a liturgy. With this period of fiery
abstractions and impassioned warfare of words there must be
connected
also the philosophic reign of Julian, called the Apostate because
in
his youth he made unwilling profession of Christianity. Everyone is
aware that Julian had the misfortune to be a hero out of season of
Plutarch, and that he was, if one may say so, the Don Quixote of
roman Chivalry; but what most people do not know is that he was one
of the illuminated and an initiate of the first order: that he
believed in the unity of God and in the universal doctrine of the
Trinity; that, in a word, he regretted nothing of the old world but
its magnificent symbols and its too gracious images. Julian was not
a
pagan; he was a Gnostic allured by the allegories of Greek
polytheism, who had the misfortune to find the name of Jesus Christ
less sonorous than that of Orpheus. The Emperor paid in his person
for the academical tastes of the philosopher and rhetorician, and
after affording himself the spectacle and satisfaction of expiring
like Epaminondas with the periods of Cato, he had in public
opinion,
by this time fully Christianized, but anathemas for his funeral
oration and a scornful epithet for his ultimate memorial.Let
us pass over the petty minds and small matters of the Bas-Empire,
and
proceed to the Middle Ages . . . . Stay, take this book! Glance at
the seventh page, then seat yourself on the mantle which I am
spreading, and let each of us cover our eyes with one of its
corners
. . . . Your head swims, does it not, and the earth seems to fly
beneath your feet? Hold tightly, and do not look right or left . .
.
. The vertigo ceases: we are here. Stand up and open your eyes, but
take care before all things to make no Christian sign and to
pronounce no Christian words. We are in a landscape of Salvator
Rosa,
a troubled wilderness which seems resting after a storm. There is
no
moon in the sky, but you can distinguish little stars gleaming in
the
brushwood, and may hear about you the slow flight of great birds,
which seem to whisper strange oracles as they pass. Let us approach
silently that crossroad among the rocks. A harsh, funereal trumpet
winds suddenly, and black torches flare up on every side. A
tumultuous throng is surging round a vacant throne: all watch and
wait. Suddenly they cast themselves on the ground. A goat-headed
prince bounds forward among them; he ascends the throne, turns, and
assuming a stooping posture, presents to the assembly a human face,
which everyone comes forward to salute and to kiss, their black
taper
in their hands. With a hoarse laugh he recovers an upright
position,
and then distributes gold, secret instructions, occult medicines
and
poisons to his faithful bondsmen. Meanwhile, fires are lighted of
fern and alder, piled up with human bones and the fat of executed
criminals. Druidesses, crowned with wild parsley and vervain,
immolate unbaptized children with golden knives and prepare
horrible
love-feasts. Tables are spread, masked men seat themselves by
half-nude females, and a Bacchanalian orgy begins; there is nothing
wanting but salt, the symbol of wisdom and immortality. Wine flows
in
streams, leaving stains like blood; obscene advances and abandoned
caresses begin. A little while, and the whole assembly is beside
itself with drink and wantonness, with crimes and singing. They
rise,
a disordered throng, and form infernal dances . . . . Then come all
legendary monsters, all phantoms of nightmare; enormous toads play
inverted flutes and thump with paws on flanks; limping scarabaei
mingle in the dance; crabs play the castanets; crocodiles beat time
on their scales; elephants and mammoths appear habited like Cupids
and foot it in the ring: finally, the giddy circles break up and
scatter on all sides . . . . Every yelling dancer drags away a
dishevelled female . . . . Lamps and candles formed of human fat go
out smoking in the darkness . . . . Cries are heard here and there,
mingled with peals of laughter, blasphemies and rattlings in the
throat. Come, rouse yourself: do not make the sign of the cross!
See,
I have brought you home. You are in your bed, not a little worn
out,
possibly a trifle shattered, by your night's journey and its orgy;
but you have beheld that of which everyone talks without knowledge;
you have been initiated into secrets no less terrible than the
grotto
of Triphonius; you have been present at the Sabbath. It remains for
you now to preserve your wits, to have a wholesome dread of the
law,
and to keep at a respectful distance from the Church and her
faggots.Would
you care, as a change, to behold something less fantastic, more
real
and also more truly terrible? You shall assist at the execution of
Jacques de Molay and his accomplices or his brethren in martyrdom .
.
. . Be not misled, however; confuse not the guilty and the
innocent!
Did the Templars really adore Baphomet? Did they offer a shameful
salutation to the buttocks of the goat of Mendes? What was actually
this secret and potent association which imperilled Church and
State,
and was thus destroyed unheard? Judge nothing lightly; they are
guilty of a great crime; they have exposed to profane eyes the
sanctuary of antique initiation. They have gathered again and have
shared the fruits of the tree of knowledge, so that they might
become
masters of the world. The judgement pronounced against them is
higher
and far older than the tribunal of pope or king: "On the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," said God
Himself, as we read in the Book of Genesis.What
then is taking place in the world, and why do priests and
potentates
tremble? What secret power threatens tiaras and crowns? A few
bedlamites are roaming from land to land, concealing, as they say,
the Philosophical Stone under their ragged vesture. They can change
earth into gold, and they are without food or lodging! Their brows
are encircled by an aureole of glory and by a shadow of ignominy!
One
has discovered the universal science and goes vainly seeking death
to
escape the agonies of his triumph: he is the Majorcan Raymond
Lully.
Another heals imaginary diseases by fantastic remedies, belying
beforehand that proverb which enforces the futility of a cautery on
a
wooden leg: he is the marvellous Paracelsus, always drunk and
always
lucid, like the heroes of Rabelais. Here is William Postel writing
naively to the fathers of the Council of Trent, proclaiming that he
has discovered the absolute doctrine, hidden from the foundation of
the world, and is longing to share it with them. The Council heeds
not the maniac, does not vouchsafe to condemn him, but proceeds to
examine the grave questions of efficacious grace and sufficing
grace.
He whom we behold perishing poor and abandoned is Cornelius
Agrippa,
less of a magician than any, though the vulgar persist in regarding
him as a more potent sorcerer than all because he was sometimes a
cynic and mystifier. What secret do these men bear with them to
their
tomb? Why are they wondered at without being understood? Why are
they
condemned unheard? Why are they initiates of those terrific secret
sciences of which the Church and society are afraid? Why are they
acquainted with things of which others know nothing? Why do they
conceal what all men burn to know? Why are they invested with a
dread
and unknown power? The occult sciences! Magic! These words will
reveal all and give food for further thought! De omni re scribili
et
quibusdum aliis.But
what, as a fact, was this Magic? What was the power of these men
who
were at once so proud and so persecuted? If they were really
strong,
why did they not overcome their enemies? But if they were impotent
and foolish, why did people honour them by fearing them? Does Magic
exist? Is there an occult knowledge which is in truth a power and
works wonders comparable to the miracles of authorized religions?
To
these two palmary questions we make answer by an affirmation and a
book. The book shall justify the affirmation, and the affirmation
is
this: There was and there still is a potent and real Magic; all
that
is said of it in legend is true after a certain manner, yet -
contrary to the common course of popular exaggeration - it falls
below the truth. There is indeed a formidable secret, the
revelation
of which has once already transformed the world, as testified in
Egyptian religious tradition, summarized symbolically by Moses at
the
beginning of Genesis. This secret constitutes the fatal Science of
Good and Evil, and the consequence of its revelation is death.
Moses
depicts it under the figure of a Tree which stands in the midst of
the Terrestrial Paradise, is in proximity to the Tree of Life and
is
joined at the root thereto. At the foot of this tree is the source
of
the four mysterious rivers; it is guarded by the sword of fire and
by
the four symbolical forms of the Biblical sphinx, the Cherubim of
Ezekiel . . . . Here I must pause, and I fear that already I have
said too much. I testify in fine that there is one sole, universal
and imperishable dogma, strong as supreme reason; simple, like all
that is great; intelligible, like all that is universally and
absolutely true; and this dogma is the parent of all others. There
is
also a science which confers on man powers apparently superhuman.
They are enumerated thus in a Hebrew manuscript of the sixteenth
century:
"Hereinafter
follow the powers and privileges of him who holds in his right hand
the Clavicles of Solomon, and in his left the Branch of the
Blossoming Almond. ALEPH.
– He beholds God face to face, without dying. and converses
familiarly with the seven genii who command the entire celestial
army. BETH.
– He is above all griefs and all fears. GHIMEL.
– He reigns with all heaven and is served by all hell. DALETH.
– He rules his own health and life and can influence equally those
of others. HE.
– He can neither be surprised by misfortune nor overwhelmed by
disasters, nor can he be conquered by his enemies. VAU.
– He knows the reason of the past, present and future. ZAIN.
– He possesses the secret of the resurrection of the dead and the
key of immortality.
Such
are the seven chief privileges, and those which rank next are
these:CHETH.
– To find the Philosophical Stone. TETH.
– To possess the Universal Medicine. IOD.
– To know the laws of perpetual motion and to prove the quadrature
of the circle. CAPH.
– To change into gold not only all metals but also the earth
itself, and even the refuse of the earth.LAMED.
– To subdue the most ferocious animals and have power to pronounce
those words which paralyse and charm serpents. MEM.
– To have the ARS NOTORIA which gives the Universal Science.
NUN.
– To speak learnedly on all subjects, without preparation and
without study.
These,
finally, are the seven least powers of the Magus: SAMECH.
– To know at a glance the deep things of the souls of men and the
mysteries of the hearts of women. AYIN.
– To force Nature to make him free at his pleasure. PE.
– To foresee all future events which do not depend on a superior
free will, or on an undiscernible cause. TSADE.
– To give at once and to all the most efficacious consolations and
the most wholesome counsels. KOPH.
– To triumph over adversities. RESH.
– To conquer love and hate. SHIN.
– To have the secret of wealth, to be always its master and never
its slave. To enjoy even poverty and never become abject or
miserable. TAU.
– Let us add to these three septenaries that the wise man rules the
elements, stills tempests, cures the diseased by his touch and
raises
the dead!
But
certain things have been sealed by Solomon with his triple seal. It
is enough that the initiates know; as for others, whether they
deride, doubt or believe, whether they threaten or fear, what
matters
it to science or to us?"Such
actually are the issues of occult philosophy, and we are in a
position to meet the charge of insanity or the suspicion of
imposture
when we affirm that these privileges are real. To demonstrate this
is
the sole end of our work on occult philosophy. The Philosophical
Stone, the Universal Medicine, the transmutation of metals, the
quadrature of the circle and the secret of perpetual motion are
neither mystifications of science nor dreams of delusion. They are
terms which must be understood in their proper sense; they
formulate
the varied applications of one and the same secret, the several
aspects of a single operation, which is defined in a more
comprehensive manner under the name of the Great Work. Furthermore,
there exists in Nature a force which is immeasurably more powerful
than steam, and a single man, who is able to adapt and direct it,
might change thereby the face of the whole world. This force was
known to the ancients; it consists in a Universal Agent having
equilibrium for its supreme law, while its direction is concerned
immediately with the Great Arcanum of Transcendental Magic. By the
direction of this agent it is possible to modify the very order of
the seasons; to produce at night the phenomena of day; to
correspond
instantaneously between one extremity of the earth and the other;
to
see, like Apollonius, what is taking place on the other side of the
world; to heal or injure at a distance; to give speech a universal
success and reverberation. This agent, which barely manifests under
the uncertain methods of Mesmer's followers, is precisely that
which
the adepts of the Middle Ages denominated the First Matter of the
Great Work. The Gnostics represented it as the fiery body of the
Holy
Spirit; it was the object of adoration in the Secret Rites of the
Sabbath and the Temple, under the hieroglyphic figure of Bap-homet
or
the Androgyne of Mendes. All this will be proved.Here
then are the secrets of occult philosophy, and such is Magic in
history. Let us glance at it now as it appears in its books and its
acts, in its Initiations and its Rites. The key of all magical
allegories is found in the tablets which we have mentioned, and
these
tablets we regard as the work of Hermes. About this book, which may
be called the keystone of the whole edifice of occult science, are
grouped innumerable legends that are either its partial translation
or its commentary reproduced perpetually, under a thousand varied
forms. Sometimes the ingenious fables combine harmoniously into a
great epic which characterizes an epoch, though how or why is not
clear to the uninitiated. Thus, the fabulous history of the Golden
Fleece resumes and also veils the Hermetic and magical doctrines of
Orpheus; and if we recur only to the mysterious poetry of Greece,
it
is because the sanctuaries of Egypt and India to some extent dismay
us by their resources, leaving our choice embarrassed in the midst
of
such abundant wealth. We are eager, moreover, to reach the Thebaid
at
once, that dread synthesis of all doctrine, past, present and
future;
that - so to speak - infinite fable, which reaches, like the Deity
of
Orpheus, to either end of the cycle of human life. Extraordinary
fact! The seven gates of Thebes, attacked and defended by seven
chiefs who have sworn upon the blood of victims, possess the same
significance as the seven seals of the Sacred Book interpreted by
seven genii and assailed by a monster with seven heads, after being
opened by a Lamb which liveth and was dead, in the allegorical work
of St. John. The mysterious origin of Oedipus, found hanging on the
tree of Cithaeron like a bleeding fruit, recalls the symbols of
Moses
and the narratives of Genesis. He makes war upon his father, whom
he
slays without knowing - tremendous prophecy of the blind
emancipation
of reason apart from science. Thereafter he meets with the sphinx,
that symbol of symbols, the eternal enigma of the vulgar, the
granite
pedestal of the sciences of the sages, the voracious and silent
monster whose unchanging form expresses the one dogma of the Great
Universal Mystery. How is the tetrad changed into the duad and
explained by the triad? In more common but more emblematic terms,
what is that animal which in the morning has four feet, two at
noon,
and three in the evening?Philosophically
speaking, how does the doctrine of elementary forces produce the
dualism of Zoroaster, while it is summarized by the triad of
Pythagoras and Plato? What is the ultimate reason of allegories and
numbers, the final message of all symbolisms? Oedipus replies with
a
simple and terrible word which destroys the sphinx and makes the
diviner King of Thebes: the answer to the enigma is Man! . . .
Unfortunate! He has seen too much, and yet through a clouded glass.
A
little while and he will expiate his ominous and imperfect
clairvoyance by a voluntary blindness, and then vanish in the midst
of a storm, like all civilizations which - each in its own day -
shall divine an answer to the riddle of the sphinx without grasping
its whole import and mystery. Everything is symbolical and
transcendental in this titanic epic of human destinies. The two
antagonistic brothers formulate the second part of the Grand
Mystery,
completed divinely by the sacrifice of Antigone. There follows the
last war; the brethren slay one another; Capaneus is destroyed by
the
lightning which he defies; Amphiaraus is swallowed by the earth;
and
all these are so many allegories which, by their truth and their
grandeur, astonish those who can penetrate their triple hieratic
sense. Aeschylus, annotated by Ballanche, gives only a weak notion
concerning them, whatever the primeval sublimities of the Greek
poet
or the ingenuities of the French critic.The
secret book of antique initiation was not unknown to Homer, who
outlines its plan and chief figures on the shield of Achilles, with
minute precision. But the gracious Homeric fictions replaced too
soon
in popular memory the simple and abstract truths of primeval
revelation. Humanity clung to the form and allowed the idea to be
forgotten; signs lost power in their multiplication; Magic became
corrupted also at this period, and degenerated with the sorcerers
of
Thessaly into the most profane enchantments. The crime of Oedipus
brought forth its deadly fruits, and the science of good and evil
erected evil into a sacrilegious divinity. Men, weary of the light,
took refuge in the shadow of bodily substance; the dream of that
void
which is filled by God seemed in their eyes to be greater than God
Himself, and thus hell was created. When, in the course of this
work,
we make use of the consecrated terms God, Heaven and Hell, let it
be
understood, once and for all, that our meaning is as far removed
from
that which the profane attach to them as initiation is remote from
vulgar thought. God, for us, is the AZOT of the sages, the
efficient
and final principle of the Great Work.Returning
to the fable of Oedipus, the crime of the King of Thebes was that
he
failed to understand the sphinx; that he destroyed the scourge of
Thebes without being pure enough to complete the expiation in the
name of his people. The plague, in consequence, avenged speedily
the
death of the monster, and the King of Thebes, forced to abdicate,
sacrificed himself to the terrible manes of the sphinx, more alive
and voracious than ever when it had passed from the domain of form
into that of idea. Oedipus divined what was man and he put out his
own eyes because he did not see what was God. He divulged half of
the
Great Arcanum, and, to save his people, it was necessary for him to
bear the remaining half of the terrible secret into exile and the
grave.After
the colossal fable of Oedipus we find the gracious poem of Psyche,
which was certainly not invented by Apuleius. The Great Magical
Arcanum reappears here under the figure of a mysterious union
between
a god and a weak mortal, abandoned alone and naked on a rock.
Psyche
must remain in ignorance of the secret of her ideal royalty, and if
she behold her husband she must lose him. Here Apuleius commentates
and interprets Moses; but did not the Elohim of Israel and the gods
of Apuleius both issue from the sanctuaries of Memphis and Thebes?
Psyche is the sister of Eve, or rather she is Eve spiritualized.
Both
desire to know and lose innocence for the honour of the ordeal.
Both
deserve to go down into hell, one to bring back the antique box of
Pandora, the other to find and to crush the head of the old
serpent,
who is the symbol of time and of evil. Both are guilty of the crime
which must be expiated by the Prometheus of ancient days and the
Lucifer of the Christian legend, the one delivered by Hercules and
the other overcome by the Saviour. The Great Magical Secret is
therefore the lamp and dagger of Psyche, the apple of Eve, the
sacred
fire of Prometheus, the burning sceptre of Lucifer, but it is also
the Holy Cross of the Redeemer. To be acquainted with it
sufficiently
for its abuse or divulgation is to deserve all sufferings; to know
as
one should alone know it, namely, to make use of and conceal it, is
to be master of the Absolute.A
single word comprehends all things, and this word consists of four
letters: it is the Tetragram of the Hebrews, the Azot of the
alchemists, the Thot of the Bohemians, or the Taro of the
Kabalists.
This word, expressed after so many manners, means God for the
profane, man for the philosophers, and imparts to the adepts the
final term of human sciences and the key of divine power; but he
only
can use it who understands the necessity of never revealing it. Had
Oedipus, instead of killing the sphinx, overcome it, harnessed it
to
his chariot and thus entered Thebes, he would have been king
without
incest, without misfortunes and without exile. Had Psyche, by
meekness and affection, persuaded Love to reveal himself, she would
never have lost Love. Now, Love is one of the mythological images
of
the Great Secret and the Great Agent, because it postulates at once
an action and a passion, a void and a plenitude, a shaft and a
wound.
The initiates will understand me, and on account of the profane I
must not speak more clearly.