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THE RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENT MAGIC
comrades of Ulysses, transformed into swine by Circe. In transmutations and have vulgar opinion, metamorphoses Now, the crowd, always been the very essence of magic. being the echo of opinion, which is queen of the world, is never perfectly right nor entirely wrong. Magic really changes the nature of things, or, rather, modifies their appearances at pleasure, according to the strength of the operator's will
and the fascination
of ambitious adepts.
Speech creates
form, and when a person, held infallible, confers a name upon a given thing, he really transforms that thing into the substance signified by the name. The masterpiece of speech
its
and
of faith, in this order, is
the real transmutation of a
Had change in its appearances. a of and said offered wine to his Apollonius cup disciples, " to them This is my blood, of which ye shall drink hence" forth to perpetuate my life within you and had his without
substance
:
;
through centuries believed that they continued the transformation by repeating the same words ; had they disciples
taken the wine, despite its odour and taste, for the real, living blood of Apollonius, we should have to acknowledge this master in theurgy as the most accomplished
human, and
of enchanters and most potent of all the magi. It would remain for us then to adore him. Now, it is well known that mesmerists impart for their somnambulists any taste that they choose to plain water, and if we assume a magus having sufficient command over the astral fluid to magnetize at the same moment a whole
assembly of persons, otherwise prepared for magnetism by adequate over-excitement, we shall be in a position to explain readily, not indeed the Gospel miracle of Cana, but
works of the same class. Are not the fascinations of love, which result from the universal magic of nature, truly prodigious, and do they not actually transform persons and Love is a dream of enchantments that transfigures things ? the world all becomes music and fragrance, all intoxication and felicity. The beloved being is beautiful, is good, is sublime, is infallible, is radiant, beams with health and ;