Comte de Gabalis: Discourse IV
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"I have not yet quite made up my mind to this marriage, Sir," I replied.
"What deters you?" he inquired.
"To be frank with you, Sir," said I, "I cannot conquer my imagination, which always represents these pretended hosts of the Elements as so many imps of Satan." LXXVIII
"I have not looked into the matter," said I, "to ascertain whether the thing itself be impossible, whether a single Element can furnish blood, flesh and bones; whether temperament can exist without admixture, and action without opposing force; but assuming that God has been able thus to create, what sound proof is there that He has done so?"
"Let me convince you of it at once, without further temporising. I am going to summon the Sylphs of Cardan; and you shall hear from their own lips what they are, and what I have taught you about them."
"By no means, Sir," I exclaimed hastily. "Postpone such proof, I beg of you, until I am persuaded that these folk are not the enemies of God; for until
"Behold the ignorance and false piety of these unhappy times," interrupted the Comte wrathfully. "Why do they not expunge the greatest of the Anchorites LXXX from the Calendar of the Saints? Why do they not burn his statues? It is a thousand pities people do not insult his venerable ashes and cast them to the winds, as they would those of the poor wretches who are accused of having had dealings with devils! Did he bethink himself to exorcise the Sylphs? And did he not treat them as men? What have you to say to that, scrupulous Sir, you and all your miserable doctors? And is it your opinion that the Sylph who discoursed concerning his nature to this Patriarch was an imp of Satan? Did this incomparable man confer with a hobgoblin concerning the Gospel? And will you accuse him of having profaned the adorable Mysteries by conversing concerning them with a phantom enemy of God? In that case Athanasi.us and Jerome are most unworthy of the great name accorded them by your learned men, for they have written eloquent eulogies of a man who treated devils thus humanely." "If they had taken this Sylph for a devil they would either have concealed the adventure or have altered the sense of the sermon, or of that very pathetic apostrophe, which the Anchorite--more zealous and more credulous than you--made to the cify of Alexandria.
"It is true," said I, "that I should have thought best either to say nothing whatever about it or to tell more." LXXXI "Athanasius and Jerome," replied he, "were careful not to tell more, for that was all they knew, and even though they had known all, which is impossible if one is not of our number, they would not rashly have divulged the secrets of the Sages." "But why not? Did not the Sylph propose to St. Antony what you are to-day proposing to me? " "What?" said the Comte laughing, "Marriage?
"Probably the good man would not have accepted the offer," I ventured. "No, certainly not," said the Comte, "for it would have been tempting God to marry at that age and to ask Him for children." "What! " I exclaimed. "Do people marry Sylphs for the purpose of having children?" "Indeed! " said he, "Is it ever permissible to marry for any other purpose?" LXXXII "I did not imagine," said I, "that they aspired to I' the planting of family trees. I had supposed their sole object to be the immortalisation of the Sylphids." "Ah! you are mistaken," quoth he. "The charity of the Philosophers causes them to have as their ultimate aim the immortality of the Sylphids: but Nature makes them desire to see them fruitful. Whenever you wish you shall see these philosophic families in the Air. Happy world, if there had been no other families and if there had been no children of sin!" "What do you mean by children of sin?" I inquired. "They are, my Son," he explained, "all children who are born in the ordinary way, children conceived by the will of the flesh and not by the will of God, children of wrath and malediction; in a word, children. of man and woman. You are longing to interrupt me. I see exactly what you would like to say. Yes,
"Apparently, Sir," said I, "you believe Adam's crime to have been other than that of eating the apple." "Why, my Son," he replied, "are you one of those who are so simple-minded as to take the story of the apple literally? Ah! know that the Holy Language makes use of these innocent metaphors to prevent us from having improper ideas of an action which has caused all the misfortunes of the human race. Thus when Solomon said, 'I will go up unto the palm tree and gather the fruit thereof,' * he had another appetite than that for eating dates. This language consecrated by the Angels, and in which they chant hymns to the living God, has no terms to express what it implies figuratively by the words apple and date. But the
"Eh! What expedient had he," I asked, "for either of these marvellous generations?" "Obeying God," he replied, "and touching only the Nymphs, Gnomids, Sylphids or Salamanders: Thus there would have been none save heroes born, and the Universe would have been peopled with marvellous men filled with strength and wisdom. God has been pleased to enable us to conjecture the difference between that innocent world and the guilty one we behold to-day by now and then permitting us to see children born in the manner He designed." "Then, Sir, have these children of the Elements occasionally been seen? If so, a Master of Arts from the Sorbonne, who was citing St. Augustin, St. Jerome, and Gregory of Nazianzus the other day, was mistaken in believing that no issue can spring from the love
"Lactantius has reasoned better," the Comte replied, "and cautious Thomas Aquinas has learnedly determined not only that these intimacies, may be fruitful, but also that the children thus born are of a far nobler and more heroic nature. In fact, when it pleases you, you shall read of the lofty deeds of those mighty and famous men LXXXIV whom Moses says were born in this manner. We have their records in our possession in the Book of the Wars of the Lord LXXXV, cited in the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Numbers. Meantime just think what the world would be if all its inhabitants were like Zoroaster." "What!" said I, "Zoroaster whom people say was the inventor of necromancy?" "The same of whom the ignorant have written that calumny," said the Comte. "He had the honour of being the son of the Salamander Oromasis and of Vesta, Noah's wife. He lived for twelve hundred years, the sagest monarch in the world, and then was carried away to the Region of the Salamanders by his father Oromasis." "I do not doubt that Zoroaster is with the Salamander Oromasis in the Region of Fire," said I, "but I should not like to put such an affront upon Noah as you have been guilty of." "The affront is not so great as you might think,"
"William Postel, least ignorant of all those who have studied the Cabala in ordinary books, was aware that Vesta was Noah's wife LXXXVIII, but he did not know that Egeria was Vesta's daughter, and not having read the secret books of the ancient Cabala, a copy of which the Prince de Mirande LXXXIX bought so dearly, he confused things and believed that Egeria was merely the good genius of Noah's wife." "In those books we learn that Egeria was conceived upon the waters when Noah was wandering upon
"This illustrious man, mourning over the frightful chastisement wherewith the Lord was punishing the crimes caused by Adam's love for Eve, and seeing that Adam had ruined his posterity by preferring her to the daughters of the Elements and by taking her from that Salamander or Sylph who would have gained her affection--Noah, I say, profited by the fatal example of Adam and was content that his wife Vesta should yield herself to the Salamander Oromasis, Prince of Fiery Beings; and persuaded his three sons likewise to surrender their three wives to the Princes of the three other Elements. The Universe was, in a short time, re-peopled with heroic men, so learned, so handsome, so admirable, that their posterity dazzled by their virtues has mistaken them for divinities. One of Noah's children, rebelling against his father's counsel, could not resist the attractions of his wife any more than Adam could withstand the charms of his Eve . But just as Adam's sin blackened the souls of all his descendants, so Ham's lack of complaisance for the Sylphs branded all his black posterity; whence comes the horrible complexion of the Ethiopians, say our Cabalists, and of all those hideous peoples who have been commanded to dwell in the torrid zone as punishment for the profane ardour of their father." "Of wonderful service," he rejoined gravely, "and without it Scripture, history, fable and Nature are obscure and unintelligible. You believe, for example, that the injury Ham did his father was what it seems literally to be; as a matter of fact, it was something quite different. Noah went forth from the Ark, and perceiving that his wife Vesta had but grown more beautiful through her love for Oromasis, fell passionately in love with her again. Ham fearing that his father was about to re-people the earth with progeny as black as his own Ethiopians, seized his 'opportunity one day when the old man was full of wine, and mercilessly maltreated him. You laugh?" "I laugh at Ham's indiscreet zeal," said I. "Rather," replied he, "admire the kindness of the Salamander Oromasis, whom jealousy did not prevent from taking pity upon the disgrace of his rival. He taught his son Zoroaster, otherwise known as Japhet, XCI the Name of Omnipotent God which expresses His eternal fecundity. Japhet pronounced the Redoubtable Name JABAMIAH XCII six times alternately with his brother Shem, walking backward towards the patriarch, and they completely restored the old man. This story, misunderstood, caused the Greeks to say that the oldest of the Gods was maltreated by one of his children;
"Ah Sir," I exclaimed, "this is quite enough to disgust me with these tender sweethearts." "I confess," he rejoined, "that their tenderness is apt to be somewhat violent. But if exasperated women have been known to murder their perjured lovers, we must not wonder that these beautiful and faithful mistresses fly into a passion when they are betrayed, and all the more so since they only require men to abstain from women whose imperfeaions they cannot tolerate, and give us leave to love as many of their number as we please. They prefer the interest and immortality of their companions to their personal satisfaction,
"But after all, Sir," I asked. "how does it happen that there are so few examples of all that you tell me?" "There are a great number, my child," he answered, "but they are neither heeded nor credited, in fact, they are not properly interpreted for lack of knowledge of our principles. People attribute to demons all that they should ascribe to the Elementary Peoples. A little Gnome was beloved by the celebrated Magdalen of the Cross XCV, Abbess of a Monastery at Cordova in Spain. Their alliance began when she was twelve years of age; and they continued their relationship for the space of thirty years. An ignorant confessor persuaded Magdalen that her lover was a hobgoblin, and compelled her to ask absolution of Pope Paul III. It could not possibly have been a demon, however, for all Europe knew, and Cassiodorus Renius XCVI was kind enough to transmit to posterity, the daily miracles wrought through the intercession of this holy maiden, and which obviously would never have come to pass if her relationship with the Gnome had been as diabolical as the venerable Dictator imagined. This same Doctor, if I mistake not, would impertinently have said that the Sylph who immortalised himself with the youthful Gertrude XCVII, nun of the Monastery of Nazareth in the diocese of Cologne, was some devil or other."
"Ah, my Son," pursued the Comte mirthfully, "If that were the case the Devil is not the least unfortunate if he has power to carry on an intrigue with a girl of thirteen, and to write her such billets doux as were found in her casket. Rest assured, my child, that. the Devil, in the region of death, has sadder employment and that more in keeping with the hatred which the God of Purity bears him; but thus do people wilfully close their eves to the truth. We find, for instance, in Titus Livy, that Romulus XCVIII was the son of Mars. The sceptics say that this is a fable, the theologians that he was the son of an incubus devil, the wags that Mademoiselle Sylvia had lost her gloves and sought to cover her confusion by saying that a god had stolen them from her." "Now we who are acquainted with Nature, and whom God has called out of darkness into His wonderful Light, know that this so-called Mars was a Salamander in whose sight the young Sylvia found favour, and who made her the mother of the great Romulus, that hero who, after having founded his superb city, was carried away by his father in a fiery chariot as Zoroaster was by Oromasis XCIX. Another Salamander was the father of Servius Tullius C. Titus Livy, deceived by c the resemblance, says that he was the God of Fire. And the ignorant have passed the same judgment upon him as upon the father of Romulus. The renowned Hercule CI
"Such was the divine Plato CIV, the most divine Apollonius of Tyana, Hercules, Achilles, Sarpedon, the pious Æneas, and the celebrated Melchizedek. For do you know who the father of Melchizedek was?" "No, indeed," said I, "St. Paul himself did not know." "Rather say that he did not tell," returned the Comte, "and that he was not permitted to reveal the Cabalistic Mysteries. He well knew that Melchizedek's father was a Sylph, and that the King of Salem was conceived in the Ark by the wife of Shem. That Pontiff's method of sacrificing was the same as that which his cousin Egeria taught King Numa, as well as the worship of a Supreme Deity without image or statue *, for which reason the Romans, becoming idolaters at a later period, burned the Holy Books of Numa which Egeria had dictated. The first God of the Romans was the true God, their sacrifice a true sacrifice. They offered up bread and wine to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe: but all that became perverted
"Sir," I interposed, "Pray let us drop Melchizedek, CV the Sylph that begat him, his cousin Egeria, and the sacrifice of bread and wine. These proofs seem to be rather remote. I should be greatly obliged if you would tell me some more recent news. For when someone asked a certain Doctor what had become of the companions of that species of Satyr which appeared to St. Antony and which you call a Sylph, I heard him say that all these folk are dead nowadays. So it may be that the Elementary Peoples have perished CVI since you own they are mortal and we hear no tidings of them." "I pray God," exclaimed the Comte with emotion, "I pray God, who is ignorant of nothing, to be pleased to ignore that ignoramus who decides so presumptously that of which he is ignorant. May God confound him and all his tribe! Where has he learned that the Elements are abandoned and that all those wonderful Peoples are annihilated? If he would take the trouble to read history a little, and not ascribe to the Devil, as the old wives do, everything which goes beyond the bounds of the chimerical theory which has been con-structed about Nature, he would find in all ages and in all places proofs of what I have told you."
"How true it is that God loves to withdraw into His cloud-enveloped throne, and deepening the darkness which encompasses His Most Awful Majesty, He dwells in an inaccessible Light, and reveals His Truths only to the humble in heart. Learn to be humble, my Son, if you would penetrate that sacred night which environs Truth. Learn from the Sages to concede the devils no power in Nature since the fatal stone has shut them up in the depths of the abyss. Learn of the Philosophers to seek always for natural
"If you should be told, for example, that the divine Apollonius of Tyana CVIII was immaculately conceived, and that one of the noblest Salamanders descended to immortalise himself with his mother, you would.call that Salamander a demon and you would give the Devil, the glory of fathering one of the greatest men who ever sprang from our Philosophic marriages." "But, Sir," I remarked, "this same Apollonius is reputed amongst us to be a great sorcerer, and they have nothing better to say of him." "Behold," exclaimed the Comte, "one of the most wonderful effects of ignorance and bad education! Because one hears one's nurse tell stories about sorcerers, every extraordinary occurrence can have only the Devil for author. The greatest doctors may strive in vain, they are not believed unless they echo the nurses. Apollonius was not born of man; he understood the language of birds; he was seen on the same day in different parts of the world. He vanished in the presence of the Emperor Domitian who wished to do him harm; he raised a girl from the dead by means of Onomancy. He announced at Ephesus, in
"When you read that the celebrated Merlin was immaculately conceived by a nun, daughter of a king of Great Britain, and that he foretold the future more clearly than Tyresias CX, do not say with the masses that he was the son of an incubus devil, because there never have been any; nor that he prophesied through the assistance of devils, since according to the Holy Cabala devil is the most ignorant of all beings. Rather say with the Sages that the English Princess was consoled in her retirement by a Sylph who took pity on her, that he diverted her with his attentions, that he knew how to please her, and that Merlin CXI, their son, was brought up by the Sylph in all knowledge, and learned from him to perform the many wonders which English history relates of him." "No longer cast aspersion upon the Comtes de Cleves by saying that the Devil is their father, and have a better opinion of the Sylph who, so the story goes, came to Cleves in a miraculous boat drawn by
"Have you so little regard for the honour of the House of Lusignan as to give your Comtes de Poitiers a diabolical genealogy? What will you say of their celebrated mother?" "I verily believe, Sir," I declared, "that you are about to tell me the fairy tale of Melusina." "Ah!" he replied, "If you deny the story of Melusina CXII I am inclined to think you prejudiced. But in order to deny it you must burn the books of the great Paracelsus who affirms in five or six different places that nothing is more certain than the fact that this same Melusina was a Nymph. And you must give the lie to your historians who say that since her death or, to speak more accurately, since she disappeared from the sight of her husband, whenever her descendants are threatened with misfortune, or a King of France is to die in some extraordinary way, she never fails to appear in mourning upon the great tower of the Château of Lusignan which she had built. If you persist in maintaining that she was an evil spirit, you will pick a quarrel with all those who are descended from this Nymph, or who are related to her house."
"They would undoubtedly prefer to do so," he rejoined, "if they knew that which I am now teaching you, and they would consider these extraordinary births CXIII a great honour. If they had any Cabalistic Light they would know that such births are more conformable with the method whereby God, in the beginning, intended mankind to multiply. Children CXIV born in this way are happier, more valiant, wiser, more renowned and more blest of God. Is it not more glorious for these illustrious men to be descended from beings so perfect, wise and powerful than from some foul hobgoblin or infamous Asmodeus?" "Sir," said I, "our theologians are far from saying that the Devil is the father of all those men who are born without one's knowing who is responsible for them. They recognise the fact that the Devil is a spirit and therefore cannot engender." "Gregory of Nice," replied the Comte, "does not say that, for he holds that demons multiply among A themselves as men do." "We are not of his opinion," I answered, "but it happens, our doctors say, that------" "Ah!" the Comte interrupted, "do not tell me what they say or you will be talking very obscene and indecent foolishness as they do. What abominable evasion they have been guilty of! The way in which
"If I dared to break in upon your declamation, Sir," said I, "I would own, in order to pacify you, that it were .greatly to be desired that our doctors had hit upon some solution less offensive to such pure ears as yours. Indeed, they have been obliged altogether to deny the facts upon which the question is founded." "A rare expedient! " he rejoined. "How is it possible to deny manifest truths? Put yourself in the place of an ermine-furred theologian and suppose the blessed Danhuzerus comes to you as the Oracle of his religion------'' At this point a lackey came to say that a certain young nobleman had come to visit me. "I do not care to have him see me" remarked the "It is not worth while," said he, "I am about to make myself invisible." "Ah! Sir," I exclaimed. "A truce to deviltry, I beg 115:LXXVIII 115:1 Ephesians, iv., 6; 115:2 RABBI MOSES MAIMONIDES, "GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED." EXTRACTS PART III., CHAPTER XX71., PAGES 298-299. 2ND EDITION OF TRANSLATION BY M. FRIEDLANDER, PH.D. 117:LXXIX PLATO ON THE PEOPLE OF THE ELEMENTS.--"There are also many other animals and men upon it (the earth), some dwelling in mid-earth, others about the air, as we do about the sea, and others in islands which the air flows round, and which are near the continent: and in one word, what water and the sea are to us for our necessities, the air is to them; and what air is to us, that ether is to them. But their seasons are of such a temperament that they are free from disease, and live for a much longer time than those here, and surpass us in sight, hearing, and smelling, and everything of this kind, as much as air excels water, and ether air, in purity." SOCRATES SPEAKING. PLATO, THE PHAEDO." PAGE 195, EVERYMAN EDITION. SYLPHS OF CARDAN. NOTE D, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 119:LXXX ST. ANTONY AND THE ELEMENTARY BEING.-- "Antony was amazed, and thinking over what he had seen went on his way. Before long in a small rocky valley shut in on all sides he sees a mannikin with hooked snout, horned forehead, and extremities like goats' feet. When he saw this, Antony like a good soldier seized the shield of faith and the helmet of hope: the creature none the less began to offer him the fruit of the palm-trees to support him on his journey and as it were pledges of peace. Antony perceiving this stopped and asked who he was. The answer he received from him was this: I am a mortal being and one of those inhabitants of the desert whom the Gentiles deluded by various forms of error worship under the names of Fauns, Satyrs, and Incubi. I am sent to represent my tribe. We pray you in our behalf to entreat the favour of your Lord and ours, who, we have learnt, came once to save the world, and 'whose sound has gone forth into all the earth.' As he uttered such words as these, the aged traveller's cheeks streamed with tears, the marks of his deep feeling, which he shed in the fulness of his joy. He rejoiced over the Glory of Christ and the destruction of Satan, and marvelling all the while that he could understand the Satyr's language,
Incident to which the Abbé refers. TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTONY.--"But the devil, who hates and envies what is good, could not endure to see such a resolution in a youth, but endeavoured to carry out against him what he had been wont to effect against others. In a word he raised in his mind a great dust of debate, wishing to debar him from his settled purpose. But when the enemy saw himself to be too weak for Antony's determination, and that he rather was conquered by the other's firmness, overthrown ATHANASIUS' "LIFE OF ANTONY," CHAPTER V. 121:* COMPARE BEHEMOTH AND LEVIATHAN. NOTE FF, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 123:LXXXII "DIVORCE should warn the age of some fundamental error in the marriage state." MARY BAKER EDDY. 125:* Song of Solomon, Chapter vii:, verse 8. The curse of the Lord upon the serpent, "upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:" makes reference to the fact that, during a certain period of human evolution, man shall remain in ignorance of the Law governing the serpent (Solar Force) which shall manifest in man's lower or earthly vehicles misgoverned by the human mind. "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman,
"And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: "Here the tree of life symbolises the upward play of the Solar Force for the creation of the deathless or Solar body. Hence the meaning is lest man should learn the Law governing Solar Force and, directing it upward, become immortal. "So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." Various interpretations of this passage . are possible. Cosmically speaking, the garden of Eden symbolises those realms -of higher spiritual attainment, at the gates of which, from the time of man's descent into the lower cycles of evolution, God placed Heavenly Beings charged with the duty of preventing that nature in man correspondent to their own from receiving stimulation during man's progress through 125:† "GABRIEL, ONE. OF THE HOLY ANGELS, WHO IS OVER PARADISE AND THE SERPENTS AND THE CHERUBIM." BOOK OF ENOCH, CHAPTER XX., 7. 127:* The Holy Language described by Emmanuel Swedenborg. Note gg, Commentary Continued. 129:LXXXIV MIGHTY AND FAMOUS MEN.--"There were giants in the earth in those, days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." Genesis vi., 4. Since the Book of Genesis is attributed to Moses, this verse is authority for the Comte's statement. MOSES AN INITIATE. NOTE HH, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 129:LXXXV BOOK OF THE WARS OF THE LORD. NOTE ii, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 131:LXXXVI 131:LXXXVII SACRED FIRE. NOTE JJ, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 131:LXXXVIII NOAH, VESTA AND EGERIA. NOTE KK, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 131:LXXXIX PRINCE DE MIRANDE AND THE CABALA. NOTE LL, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 131:XC NUMA.--When those Higher Intelligences which guide the evolution of mankind have determined upon that fixed ideal or principle which shall hold together in concord the minds of a race for a certain epoch of time, in order that a definite range of experience may 135:XCII JABAMIAH.--"Therefore Divine Plato in Cratylus and in Philebus commandeth to reverence the names of God more than the Images or statues of the gods: for there is a more express Image and power of God, reserved in the faculty of the mind, especially if it be inspired from above, than in the works of mens hands; Therefore sacred words have not their power in Magi-call operations, from themselves, as they are words, but from the occult Divine powers working by them in the minds of those who by faith adhere to them; by which words the secret power of God as it were through Conduite pipes, is transmitted into them, who have ears purged by faith, and by most pure conversation and invocation of the divine names are made the habitation of God, and capable of these divine influences; whosoever therefore useth rightly these words or names of God with that purity of mind, in that manner and order, as they were delivered, shall both obtain and do many wonderfull things." THREE BOOKS OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY, WRITTEN BY HENRY CORNELIUS AGRIPPA OF NETTESHEIM, COUNSELLER TO CHARLES THE FIFTH, EMPEROR OF GERMANY: AND JUDGE OF THE PREROGATIVE COURT. TRANSLATED OUT OF THE LATIN INTO THE ENGLISH TONGUE, BY J. F. LONDON 1651. BOOK III., CHAPTER xi. OF THE DIVINE NAMES, AND THEIR POWER AND VERTUE. 137:XCIII
137:XCIV NYMPH OF STAUFFENBERG. NOTE NN, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 139:XCV NOTE OO, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 139:XCVI CASSIODORUS RENIUS. NOTE PP, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 139:XCVII GERTRUDE, NUN OF THE MONASTERY OF NAZARETH. NOTE QQ, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 141:XCVIII NOTE RR, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 141:XCIX OROMASIS.--Plutarch, in his treatise on Isis and Osiris, says that it was the opinion of the most ancient Sages that "Oromasis was born of the purest light--and being thrice increased withdrew from the Sun to as great a distance as there is from the Sun to the earth, and adorned the heaven with planets and stars, among which he established one as guardian and guide to the others, the Dog Star." ISIS AND OSIRIS, CHAPTER 47. This statement identifies Oromasis with Osiris (page 88), and with the God of the Hebrew, Christian, and Muhammedan religions (page 26). 141:C SERVIUS TULLIUS. NOTE SS, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 141:CI HERCULES. NOTE TT, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 143:* Roman worship. Note vv, Commentary Continued. 143:CII 143:CIII GREATEST OF THE SYLPHS.--The word Sylph] I4at times used'in these Discourses with the meaning, of Master or Spiritual Teacher. MASTER DEFINED. NOTE UU, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 143:CIV PLATO, A SON OF THESUN.--Elearchus the Sophist, Amaxilides in the second book of his Philosophy, and Plato's nephew Speusippus, his sister's son, who
145:* De Allegoriis Legum, iii., 26. 145:† Symbolic of the lower nature and passions. 145:CVI RECENT TIDINGS OF THE ELEMENTARY PEOPLES? NOTE WW, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 147:CVII THE MAN WHO THINKS, WILLS TO KNOW.--The Abbe recounts these stories as a means of pointing out the folly of accepting and affirming without reflectior the opinion of others. Man sinks into oblivion and indifference of though and allows himself to be governed by the minds am opinions of others. It has therefore been possible to keep him in ignorance of his true estate and to retard his spiritual progres for centuries. The man who does not think cannot know, and he becomes the slave and property of other minds. The man who thinks, wills to know, and tends to become the expression of the God within. 149:CVIII ST. JEROME ON APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.--"Apollonius too was a traveller--the one I mean who is called the sorcerer by' ordinary people and the philosopher by such as follow Pythagoras. Everywhere he found something to learn, and as he was always going to new places, he became constantly wiser and better." EXTRACTS FROM ST. JEROME'S LETTER TO PAULINUS ON THE STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. §1. 151:CIX JUSTIN MARTYR ON APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.--HOW is it that the talismans of Apollonius have power over certain parts of creation? For, as we see, they arrest the fury of the waves and the violence of the winds and the attacks of wild beasts. And while the miracles wrought by our Lord are preserved by tradition alone, those of Apollonius are most numerous and manifested to us in the very moment of their occurence: why, then, should they not lead astray all beholders? QUESTION xxiv. Apollonius was a man well skilled in the powers of Nature and the mutual attra&ions and repulsions inherent in them, and by virtue of this skill produced the effects he did. EXTRACT FROM ANSWER xxiv. TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK, JUSTIN MARTYRIS OPERA, 1593, PAGE 316. 151:CX TYRESIAS. NOTE XX, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 151:CXI MERLIN was born during the fifth century of the present era at the town now called Caermarthen, Wales, and was a professed Christian. When King Vortigern asked Merlin's mother, daughter of King Demetius, to tell him the name of her son's father, she answered " that she never had the society of any one mortal or human, only a spirit assuming the shape of a beautiful young man, had many times appeared unto her,
MERLINS PROPHECY OF THE CONQUEST OF THE AIR AND OF AERIAL AND SUBMARINE WARFARE. NOTE YY, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. MERLINS PROPHECY OF WORLD PEACE. NOTE vii, COMMENTARY CONCLUDED. 153:CXII MELUSINA A NYMPH.--"Let us speak a little of Melusina. The subject should not be treated with shallowness or levity. She was not what theologians suppose, but a Nymph." LIBER DE NYMPHIS, SYLPHIS, PYGMAEIS ET SALAMANDRIS, TRACTATUS IV. TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN EDITION OF THE WORKS OF PARACELSUS. PUBLISHED AT GENEVA IN 1658. VOL. II., PAGE 396. 155:CXIII NOTE ZZ, COMMENTARY CONTINUED. 155:CXIV CHILDREN OF THE PHILOSOPHERS.--The Philosophers hold that to engender children is the most sacred and filial duty of man. Both man and woman are taught by them that the aim and aspiration of union is to enter into a conscious relationship with the incoming ego or soul. Their disciples seek so to prepare and govern themselves that they may be worthy to bring a soul manifesting in the loftiest and purest levels of consciousness into incarnation on earth, thereby giving life to a more highly evolved being than it is possible for unthinking minds, impure hearts and unprepared bodies to attract. The Philosopher, being in conscious relationship with the incoming ego, affords it great assistance as it passes through the denser states of matter, and encourages and stimulates it to incarnate or enter the physical body prior to birth: for then for a space of time it cringes from assuming its dense physical vesture since, as it were, it dies to the world from which it came. Through knowledge of Nature's Law and obedience to it the Philosopher has power? to attract frôm the Heavenly World those perfected beings who come as messengers to the race. Purity of body, mind and soul, and the worship of God through the being beloved, ever bring into life on earth a soul beautified by its own Divine Source.
of you, I am not prepared to jest about it."
"What ignorance," said the Comte,
smiling and shrugging his shoulders,
"not to know that to become invisible
one has only to place before
oneself the opposite of the
light! " He went into my
closet and the young
nobleman entered
at almost the
same moment. I now
ask his pardon for
not speaking to
him of my
adventure
.
Footnotes
LLEGORY OF EVE AND THE SERPENT.--The primordial elericity or Solar Force, semi-latent within the aura of every human being, was known to the Greeks as the Speirêma, the serpent-coil; and in the Upanishads, the sacred writings of India, it is said to lie coiled up like a slumbering serpent. In the third chapter of the Book of Genesis it is symbolised as the serpent, "more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." Eve, when this force stirred within her, was tempted to its misapplication. Directed downward through the lower physical centres for generation, unhallowed by a consciousness of responsibility to God and the incoming soul, the Serpent Force or Fire brought knowledge of evil; directed upward toward the brain for regeneration, the formation of the deathless Solar Body, it brought knowledge of good. Hence the dual operation of the Solar Force is symbolised as the tree of the knowlege of good and evil.
When stretch'd beneath the lofty oaks you view
Saturn, with honey by the bees produc’d,
Sunk in ebriety, fast bind the God.
