Читать книгу The Magic of Éliphas Lévi - Eliphas Levi - Страница 16

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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 sanctuary inviolable on the part of the profane and so also it cannot be seized by sectarians. For the same reason the glorious lights of divine revelation are diffused in accordance with supreme reason, because they come down in order and harmony. God does not enlighten the world by means of meteors and flashes, but He causes every planetary system to gravitate about its particular sun. It is this very harmony which vexes certain souls, who have grown impatient with duty, and it is thus that people come forward to pose as reformers of morals, having failed in coercing revelation to concur with their vices. Like Rousseau, they exclaim: “If God has spoken, why have I heard nothing?” And then presently they add: “He has spoken, but it is to me.” Such is their dream, and they end by believing it themselves. So do the makers of sects begin, and these are fomenters of religious anarchy: we would by no means condemn them to the flames, but it is certainly desirable to intern them as sufferers from contagious folly. It is precisely in this manner that those mystic schools were founded which brought about the profanation of science. We have seen how the Indian fakirs attained their so-called uncreated light—that is to say, by the help of erethism and cerebral congestion. Egypt had also its sorcerers and enchanters, while Thessaly, in the days of Greece, swarmed with conjurations and witchcraft. To enter into direct communication with deities is to suppress the priesthood and subvert the basis of the throne—a fact which is realised keenly by the anarchic instinct of pretended illuminism. It was by the allurement of licence that such conspirators looked to recruit disciples, giving absolution beforehand to every scandal in manners, on the condition of strictness in revolt and energy in protestation against sacerdotal legitimacy.1

The Bacchantes, who dismembered Orpheus, believed themselves inspired by a god, and they sacrificed the great hierophant to their deified drunkenness. The orgies of Bacchus were mystical tumults; the apostles of mania have always had recourse to disordered movements, frenetic agitations and horrible convulsions. From the effeminate priesthood of Bacchus to the Gnostics, from whirling dervishes to epileptics at the tomb of Paris the deacon, the characteristics of superstition and fanatic exaltation have been always the same. It has been invariably under the pretext of purifying doctrine and in the name of an exaggerated spiritualism that the mystics of all times have materialised the symbols of the cultus. It has been the same precisely with those who have profaned the science of the Magi, for transcendental Magic, as it is needful to remember, is the primeval priestly art. It condemns all that is done outside the lawful hierarchy, and it justifies the condemnation—though not the torture—of sectarians and sorcerers. The two classes are here connected intentionally, because all heretics have been evokers of spirits and phantoms, whom they have foisted upon the world as gods; all have arrogated to themselves the power of working miracles in support of their falsehoods. On these evidences they were all practisers of Göetic—that is to say, of Black Magic.

Anarchy being the point of departure and the palmary characteristic of dissident mysticism, religious concord is impossible between sectarians, and yet they are in astonishing unanimity upon a single point, being the hatred of hierarchic and lawful authority. This in reality is the whole root of their religion, as it is the sole bond which links them one to another. Is is ever the crime o'f Ham, contempt of the family principle and outrage offered to the father, whose nakedness and shame they expose with sacrilegious mirth. All the anarchic mystics confuse the Intellectual with the Astral Light; they worship the serpent instead of doing honour to that dutiful and pure wisdom which crushes its head. So are they intoxicated by vertigo and so fall inevitably into the abyss of folly.

All fools are visionaries, and may no doubt believe sincerely that they work wonders; indeed hallucination is contagious and things inexplicable occur, or seem to occur, frequently enough in their vicinity. Moreover, the phenomena of the Astral Light in the excess of its attraction or projection are themselves of a kind to confuse those who are half-educated. It is centralised in bodies and, as the result of violent molecular distention, it imparts to them so high a degree of elasticity that bones may be twisted and muscles stretched out of all measure. It forms whirlpools and waterspouts, so to speak, which levitate the heaviest bodies and can sustain them in the air for a length of time proportionate to the force of the projection. The sufferers feel on the point of bursting and cry for compression or percussion to relieve them. The most violent blows and the utmost constriction, being counterpoised by the fluidic tension, cause neither bruises nor wounds and relieve instead of crushing the patient.

As fools hold physicians in horror, so the hallucinated mystics detest wise men; they flee them in the first place and afterwards persecute them blindly, as if against their own will. In so far as they are mild and indulgent, it is in respect of vices; towards reason in submission to authority they are implacable; the most tolerant of heretics in appearance will be seized with fury and hatred if conformity and the hierarchy are mentioned. Hence heresies have led to disturbances invariably. The false prophet must slay if he cannot pervert. He clamours for tolerance towards himself but takes good care in what sense it shall be extended to others. Protestants were loud in their outcries against the faggots and pyres of Rome at the very time that John Calvin, on the warrant of his private judgment, condemned Servetus to be burnt. The crimes of the Donatists, Circumcisionists, and others too many for enumeration, drove Catholic rulers into excess and caused the Church to abandon those who were guilty to the secular arm. Would it not be thought that Vaudois, Albigensians and Hussites were lambs if one gave heed to the groans of irréligion? Where was the innocence of those darksome Puritans of Scotland and England who brandished the dagger in one hand and their Bible in the other, while preaching the extermination of Catholics? One only Church in the midst of so many reprisals and horrors has always postulated and in principle at least has maintained its hatred of blood: this is the hierarchic and legitimate Church.2

Egyptian Symbols of Typhon

Now, in admitting the possibility and actuality of diabolical miracles, that Church recognises the existence of a natural force which can be applied for good or evil; and hence it has decided in its great wisdom that although sanctity of doctrine can legalise miracle, the latter of itself can never authorise novelties in religious teaching. To say that God, Whose laws are perfect and never falsify themselves, makes use of a natural instrument to produce effects which to us seem supernatural—this is to affirm the supreme reason and immutable power of God; it is to exalt our notion of His providence; and sincere Catholics should realise that such view by no means challenges His intervention in those marvels which operate in favour of truth. The false miracles caused by astral congestions have invariably an anarchic and immoral tendency, because disorder invokes disorder. So also the gods and familiars of heretics are athirst for blood and commonly extend their protection at the price of murder. The idolaters of Syria and Judea drew oracles from the heads of children torn from the bodies of the poor little victims. They dried these heads, and, having placed beneath the tongues a golden lamen bearing unknown characters, they fixed them in the hollows of walls, built up a kind of body beneath them composed of magical plants secured by bands, lighted a lamp at the foot of the frightful idols, burnt incense before them and proceeded to their religious consultation. They believed that the heads spoke, and the anguish of the last cries had doubtless distracted their imaginations; moreover, as said already, blood attracts larvœ. The ancients, in their infernal sacrifices, were accustomed to dig a pit, which they filled with warm and smoking blood; then from all the deep places of the night they beheld feeble and pallid shadows ascending, descending, creeping and swarming about the cavity. With a sword's point steeped in the same blood, they traced the circle of evocation and kindled fire of laurel, alder and cypress wood, on altars crowned with asphodel and vervain. The night seemed to grow colder and still more dark; the moon was hidden behind clouds; and they heard the feeble rustling of phantoms crowding about the circle, while dogs howled piteously over the countryside.

All must be dared in order to achieve all—such was the axiom of enchantments and their associated horrors. The false magicians were banded together by crime and believed that they could intimidate others when they had contrived to terrify themselves. The rites of Black Magic have remained revolting like the impious worships it produced; this was the case indifferently in the association of criminals who conspired against the old civilisations and among the barbaric races. There was always the same passion for darkness; there were the same profanations, the same sanguinary processes. Anarchic Magic is the cultus of death. The sorcerer devotes himself to fatality, abjures reason, renounces the hope of immortality, and then sacrifices children. He forswears marriage and is given over to barren debauch. On such conditions he enjoys the plenitude of his mania, is made drunk with iniquity till he believes that evil is omnipotent and, converting his hallucinations into reality, he thinks that his mastery has power to evoke at pleasure all death and Hades.

Barbarian words and signs unknown, or even utterly unmeaning, are the best in Black Magic.3 Hallucination is insured more readily by ridiculous practices and imbecile evocations than by rites or formulœ which keep intelligence in a waking state. Du Potet says that he has tested the power of certain signs on ecstatics, and those which are published in his occult book, with precaution and mystery, are in analogy, if not absolutely identical, with pretended diabolical signatures found in old editions of the Grand Grimoire.4 The same causes always produce the same effects, and there is nothing that is new beneath the moon of sorcerers, any more than under the sun of sages.

The state of permanent hallucination is death or abdication of consciousness, and one is then surrendered to all the chances comprised by the fatality of dreams. Every remembrance begets its own reflection, every evil desire creates an image, every remorse breeds a nightmare. Life becomes that of an animal, but of a peevish and tormented animal; the sense of morality and of time is alike absent; realities exist no longer; it is a general dance in the whirlpool of insensate forms. Sometimes an hour seems protracted over centuries, and again years may fly with an hour's swiftness.

Rendered phosphorescent by the Astral Light, our brains swarm with innumerable reflections and images. We close our eyes, and it may happen that some brilliant, sombre or terrific panorama will unroll beneath our eyelids. He who is sick of a fever will scarcely close them through the night without being dazzled by an intolerable brightness. Our nervous system—which is a perfect electrical apparatus—concentrates the light in the brain, being the negative pole of that apparatus, or projects it by the extremities which are points designed for the circulation of our vital fluid. When the brain attracts powerfully some series of images analogous to any passion which has disturbed the equilibrium of the machine, the interchange of light stops, astral respiration ceases and the misdirected light coagulates, so to speak, in the brain. It comes about for this reason that the sensations of hallucinated persons are of the most false and perverse order. Some find enjoyment in lacerating the skin with thongs and in roasting their flesh slowly; others eat and relish things unfit for sustenance. Doctor Brierre de Boismont has collected a great series of instances, and many of them are extremely curious.5 All excesses in life—whether through the misconstruction of good or through the non-resistance of evil—may overstimulate the brain and occasion the stagnation of light therein. Overweening ambition, proud pretence of sanctity, a continence full of scruples and desires, the indulgence of shameful passions notwithstanding repeated warnings of remorse—all these lead to syncope of reason, to morbid ecstasy, hysteria, vision, madness. The learned doctor goes on to observe that a man is not mad because he is subject to visions but because he believes in his visions rather than in ordinary sense. Hence it is obedience and authority that alone can save the mystics; if they have obstinate self-confidence there is no cure; they are excommunicated already by reason and by faith; they are the aliens of universal charity. They think themselves wiser than society; they dream of founding a religion, but they stand alone; they believe that they have secured for their private use the secret keys of life, but their intelligence is plunged already in death.

1 The only remark which is requisite on this chapter is that it involves throughout an abuse of the word Mysticism, which has nothing to do with religious anarchy, sects or magic. See, however, my preface to the present translation.

2 The history of persecution may be left to speak for itself on the validity of this plea, and the postulated principle mentioned by Éliphas Lévi may even be thought to have concealed a stab from behind in the dark. In any case, the alleged horror of blood is best illustrated by the method of pyre and faggot.

3 “Change not the barbarous names of evocation,” says one of the oracles attributed to Zoroaster, as we have seen, and the reason given is because of their “ineffable power”. This was the true Zoroaster of Éliphas Lévi, and he was not, ex hypothesi, an exponent of Black Magic. “Barbarian words and signs unknown” are not less in favour with the so-called white variety.

4 See my Book of Ceremonial Magic, pp. 100-102, for a study of this Grimoire.

5 The reference is to a work entitled Des Hallucinations, ou Histoire raisonnéedes Apparitions, des Visions, des Songes, de l'Extase, du Magnétisme et du Somnambulisme. It was first published about 1850 and was of authority at its period. Its large array of materials will be always valuable. I believe that it was translated into English.