Book of Ceremonial Magic: Chapter I: The antiquity of Magical Rituals: Section 1. The Importance of Ceremonial Magic

PART I

THE LITERATURE OF CEREMONIAL MAGIC

CHAPTER I

The antiquity of Magical Rituals

§ 1. The Importance of Ceremonial Magic

THE ordinary fields of psychological inquiry, largely in possession of the pathologist, are fringed by a borderland of occult and dubious experiment into which pathologists may occasionally venture, but it is left for the most part to unchartered explorers. Beyond these fields and this borderland there lies the legendary wonder-world of Theurgy, so called, of Magic and Sorcery, a world of fascination or terror, as the mind which regards it is tempered, but in either case the antithesis of admitted possibility. There all paradoxes seem to obtain actually, contradictions coexist logically, the effect is greater than the cause and the shadow more than the substance. Therein the visible melts into the unseen, the invisible is manifested openly, motion from place to place is accomplished without traversing the intervening distance, matter passes through matter. There two straight lines may enclose a space; space has a fourth dimension, and untrodden fields beyond it; without metaphor and without evasion, the circle is mathematically squared. There life is prolonged, youth renewed, physical immortality secured. There earth becomes gold, and gold earth. There words and wishes possess creative power, thoughts are things, desire realises its object. There, also, the dead live and the hierarchies of extra-mundane intelligence are within easy communication, and become ministers or

1 It had, moreover, the palmary recommendation that it was a conventional art, working by definite formulæ; above all, it was a process in words.

It was the fascination of this process which brought men and women-all sorts and conditions of both--to the Black Sabbath and to the White Sabbath, 2 and blinded

1

The importance of Ceremonial Magic, and of the literature which embodies it, to the history of the occult sciences being admitted, there is no need to argue that this history is a legitimate and reasonable study; in such a case, knowledge is its own end, and there can be certainly no question as to the distinguished influence which has been exercised by the belief in Magic throughout the ages. In order, however, to understand the literature of Magic, it is necessary to obtain first of all a clear principle of regarding it. It will be superfluous to say that we must surrender the legends, as such, to those who work in legends, and dispute about their essential value. We need not debate whether Magic, for example, can really square the

1 It is doubtful whether the presence of these elements can be accounted for on the principle that mankind in all ages works unconsciously for the accomplishment

1

The opinions of professed occultists on any subject whatsoever are of no importance to myself, and are named only to

Footnotes

7:1 Thus, the abstruse processes of astrology might, on the hypothesis, be dispensed with altogether in favour of the evocation of one of those numerous spirits whose office it was to give instruction in astrology and an instantaneous knowledge thereof. It is otherwise obvious that the least occult of the esoteric sciences was exploded by an art which provided familiar spirits who could discern the past, present and future. In like manner, Alchemy was superfluous for a magician who could cause treasures to be transported from the depths of the sea or the bowels of the earth, and even from the royal exchequer, in the more convenient shape of current coin.

7:2 There is much the same ground for this distinction as for that made between the Black and White Magic of the Rituals. Such meetings were abominable or fantastic according to, the disposition of those who frequented them. As a whole, they have probably been much exaggerated. Jules Garinet, in his Histoire de la Magie en France, depuis le commencement de la Monarchie jusqu'à nos jours (1818), speculates that the monks, who abused public credulity for the sake of diversion amidst their idleness, may have assumed ridiculous disguises, and may themselves have committed the extravagances which they attributed to devils. The same author affirms, as certain and incontestable, that in all the criminal trials of sorcerers and sorceresses the scene of the Sabbath was invariably in the neighbourhood of a monastery. "Since the destruction of the monastic orders," he concludes triumphantly, "no more is heard of such assemblies, even in places where the fear of the devil still exists." Add to this that seventy-five years later, Papus, the French occultist, would persuade his readers that all the Grimoires of Black Magic were the work of priests, and the case is almost as complete as French reasoning can make it. It is cited here to show that, outside the demonologists, the Sabbath has been viewed rather as a moonlight mummery, where the presiding genius was not the fallen star Wormwood, but Venus, and, even on the monkish hypothesis, the mysteries were those of Priapus rather than Pluto. The records of trials for sorcery rest under the gravest suspicion, firstly, because there is no guarantee that they have not been garbled, and, secondly, because information extracted by torture is, in the ultimate, always of the nature which it was intended to extract; but they are also, or at least largely, records of sexual mania.

8:1 That is to say, the Church communicates the supernatural world by a sacramental system, and the direct communication which Magic pretends to establish must, if established, tend to supersede the Church, in the mind of occultism at least. It is not surprising that a sacerdotalism so acute, especially along the lines of its own interests, as that of the Roman Church should discern that the rival claim assailed its fundamental position, but it is regrettable that an institution possessing the sacramental system should have disturbed itself about a direct communication of the kind attempted by Ceremonial Magic. If it be said that the Church recognised the possibilities which, on certain sides, lie behind the veil of vain observance, then it was not so acute as would seem, for behind that veil there is no danger to the sacramental system. Those possibilities belong to the life within, and the Church has its heritage therein.

9:1 The Ceremonial Magic of certain Græco-Egyptian papyri offers the closest analogies with the processes of the Kabalistic school, but they are the channel and not the source. We must look beyond history, certainly far beyond the documents of Leyden, for the origin of Ceremonial Magic.

12:1 In this connection, I may perhaps be permitted to quote a general statement on the subject which I once received from a correspondent who appeared to claim in his day some connection of an unattached kind with the sources of secret knowledge. "Practical Magic is the science of the economy of spiritual dynamics, and is concerned with those Theurgic processes whereby he who has trained himself for the purpose can, by virtue of powers inherent in man's spiritual constitution (but undeveloped in the majority of mankind), enter into relations with the unseen intelligences to whom are assigned, in due order, the control of what are called natural forces. 'Ceremonial Magic'" (presumably not that of the Ceremonial Literature) "is Official Magic, in which the Magician, in connection with one or more assistants, acts as the delegate of an occult Fraternity, who, for some very important end, wish to communicate with beings of a higher order than usual. For this purpose there is a recognised ceremonial, or rather there are two--the 'ceremonial of approach' and the 'ceremonial of the presence.' It is chiefly in the former that lights, fumigations, symbolic figures and numbers, and incantations occur, all of which have their use, either as credentials of authority or as weapons of attack and defence in the intermediate hostile region between the material and spiritual universe." It should be understood that I cite this testimony merely as an illustration of fantasy presented in the guise of exactitude. I do not consider that the least credit should be attached to the statement per se, as representing an actual claim made by any secret fraternity, and the claim is without consequence, should it happen that it does.