(4) Lo, ghostly friend! hereby mayest thou see somewhat in part, that whoso knoweth not the powers of their own soul, and the manner of their working, may full lightly be deceived in understanding of words that be written to ghostly intent. And therefore mayest thou see somewhat the cause why that I durst not plainly bid thee shew thy desire unto God, but I bade thee childishly do that in thee is to hide it and cover it. And this I do for fear lest thou shouldest conceive bodily that that is meant ghostly.

(48) "'Wilt thou confirm thyself unto me at this time and henceforth reveal all things unto me that I shall desire to know, and teach me how I may increase in wisdom and knowledge and show unto me all the secrets of the Magic Art, and of all liberal sciences, that I may thereby set forth the glory of Almighty God?' [And the spirit shall answer:] 'Yes.'

(5) Tat: Now hast thou brought me, father, unto pure stupefaction. Arrested from the senses which I had before,... ; for [now] I see thy Greatness identical with thy distinctive form. Hermes: Even in this thou art untrue; the mortal form doth change with every day. 'Tis turned by time to growth and waning, as being an untrue thing.

(20) Behold what power, what swiftness, thou dost have! And canst thou do all of these things, and God not [do them]? Then, in this way know God; as having all things in Himself as thoughts, the whole Cosmos itself. If, then, thou dost not make thyself like unto God, thou canst not know Him. For like is knowable unto like [alone]. Make, [then,] thyself to grow to the same stature as the Greatness which transcends all measure; leap forth from every body; transcend all time; become Eternity ; and [thus] shalt thou know God. Conceiving nothing is impossible unto thyself, think thyself deathless and able to know all - all arts, all sciences, the way of every life. Become more lofty than all height, and lower than all depth. Collect into thyself all senses of [all] creatures - of fire, [and] water, dry and moist. Think that thou art at the same time in every place - in earth, in sea, in sky; not yet begotten, in the womb, young, old, [and] dead, in after-death conditions. And if thou knowest all these things at once - times, places, doings, qualities, and quantities; thou canst know God.

(5) Therefore ye would beguile mankind of happy life (upon earth) and of Immortality (beyond it), since the Evil Spirit (has ruled) you with his evil mind. Yea, he has ruled you, (ye) who are of the Demon-gods, and with an evil word unto action, as his ruler (governs) the wicked !

(2) When, therefore, does the deception mentioned by you “ of speakingly boastingly ” take place. For when a certain error happens in the theurgic art, and not such autoptic , or self-visible, images are seen as ought to occur, but others, instead of these, then inferior powers assume the form of the more venerable orders, and pretend to be those whose forms they assume; and hence arrogant words are uttered by them, and such as exceed the authority which they possess. For, as it appears to me, if any fraud germinates from the first principle, much falsehood is derived from the perversion, which it is necessary the priest should learn from the whole order in the phasmata, and by the proper observation of which they are able to confute and reject the fictitious pretext of these inferior powers, as by no means pertaining to true and good spirits. Nor is it proper to introduce errors in the true judgment of things; for neither in other sciences or arts do we judge of their works from the aberrations which may happen to take place in them. You should not, therefore, here characterize things which are scarcely performed with rectitude through ten thousand labours, from the errors which may, through ignorance, befall them; but rather assert something else of them.

(37) As I have mentioned above, the noble Tincture is now henceforth generated thus in a manly [or masculine] and womanly [or feminine] Kind [or Sex,] out of the Soul; the Tincture is so subtle and mighty powerful, that it [can go, or] goes into the Heart of another, into his Tincture; which the devilish bewitching Whores well know; yet they understand not the noble Art, but they use the [false] Tincture of the Devils, and 1 infect many in [their] Marrow and Bones, by their Incantation, for which they shall receive their Wages, with Lucifer, who would fain have raised his Tincture to be above God.

(6) Whence I: "Thou peradventure marvellest, O antique spirit, at the smile I gave; But I will have more wonder seize upon thee. This one, who guides on high these eyes of mine, Is that Virgilius, from whom thou didst learn To sing aloud of men and of the Gods. If other cause thou to my smile imputedst, Abandon it as false, and trust it was Those words which thou hast spoken concerning him." Already he was stooping to embrace My Teacher's feet; but he said to him: "Brother, Do not; for shade thou art, and shade beholdest." And he uprising: "Now canst thou the sum Of love which warms me to thee comprehend, When this our vanity I disremember, Treating a shadow as substantial thing."

(5) Grant to me that change of existence which hath issued from thy mouth on my behalf, that I may see thine own attributes and survey thy Powers

(117) "I have uttered thy spell, in the assembly of the gods I have raised thee to power

(101) "'I have uttered thy spell, in the assembly of the gods I have raised thee to power

(31) And out of other earth madest the father of mankind, Thy business is changing things and bestowing favors, Change my mistakes and forgetfulness to knowledge; I am altogether vile, make me temperate and meek. O Thou that convertest salt earth into bread, And bread again into the life of men; Thou who madest the erring soul a guide to men, And him that erred from the way a prophet; Thou makest some earth-born men as heaven, And muitipliest heaven-born saints on earth!

(2) "Marvel thou not," she said to me, "because I smile at this thy puerile conceit, Since on the truth it trusts not yet its foot, But turns thee, as 'tis wont, on emptiness. True substances are these which thou beholdest, Here relegate for breaking of some vow. Therefore speak with them, listen and believe; For the true light, which giveth peace to them, Permits them not to turn from it their feet." And I unto the shade that seemed most wishful To speak directed me, and I began, As one whom too great eagerness bewilders: "O well-created spirit, who in the rays Of life eternal dost the sweetness taste Which being untasted ne'er is comprehended, Grateful 'twill be to me, if thou content me Both with thy name and with your destiny." Whereat she promptly and with laughing eyes: "Our charity doth never shut the doors Against a just desire, except as one Who wills that all her court be like herself. I was a virgin sister in the world; And if thy mind doth contemplate me well, The being more fair will not conceal me from thee,

(29) Diomedes saith: Thou hast spoken already, O Moses”, in an ungrudging manner, as became thee; I will also confirm thy words, passing over the hardness of the elements which the wise desire to remove, this disposition being most precious in their eyes. Know, O ye seekers after this doctrine, that man does not proceed except from aman; that only which is like unto themselves is begotten from brute animals; and so also with flying creatures.

I have treated these matters in compendious fashion, exalting you towards the truth, who yourselves omit prolixity, for Nature is truly not improved by Nature, save with her own nature, seeing that thou: thyself art not improved except in thy son, that is to say, man in man.* See, therefore, that ye do not neglect the precepts concerning her, but make use of venerable Nature, for out of her Art cometh, and out of no other. Know also that unless you seize hold of this Nature and rule it, ye will obtain nothing. Join, therefore, that male, who is son to the red slave,* in marriage with his fragrant wife, which having been done, Art is produced between them; add no foreign matter unto these things, neither powder nor anything else; that conception is sufficient for us, for it is near, yet the son is nearer still.t How exceeding precious is the nature of that red slave, without which the regimen cannot endure! Bacsen sazth: O Diomedes, thou hast publicly revealed this disposition!

He answereth: I will even shed more light upon it. Woe unto you who fear not God, for He may deprive you of this art! Why, therefore, are you envious towards your brethren? They answer: We do not flee except from fools; tell us, therefore, what is thy will? And he: Place Citrine with his wife after the conjunction into the bath; do not kindle the bath excessively, lest they be deprived of sense and motion; cause them to remain in the bath until their body, and the colour thereof, shall become a certain unity, whereupon restore unto it the sweat thereof; again suffer it to die; then give it rest, and beware lest ye evaporate them by burning them in too strong a fire. Venerate the king and his wife,* and do not burn them, since you know not when you may have need of these things, which improve the king and his wife. Cook them, therefore, until they become black, then white, afterwards red, and finally until a tingeing venom is produced. O seekers after this Science, happy are ye, if ye understand, but if not, I have still performed my duty, and that briefly, so that if ye remain ignorant, it is God who hath concealed the truth from you! Blame not, therefore, the Wise, but yourselves, for if God knew that ye possessed a faithful mind, most certainly he would reveal unto you the truth. Behold, I have established you therein, and have extricated you from error!

(16) Or dost thou suppose that we are mad? If we did not see thee, we would be silent. Thou boastest now (by the Flatterers) of a golden Time; but they are most of them Wolves of Babel; when the Day breaks, then they will be known. Or should I not tell thee this, thou proud Whore? Behold, when thou with Adam and Eve wentest out of Paradise into the Spirit of this World, then thou wast as a God in the Spirit of this World; thou Slightest seek all Mysteries, and use them for thy Ornament. If thou hadst always gone cloathed in Silk and Purple, [or Scarlet,] yet thou hadst not [thereby] offended God; but thou hadst gone [in them] to the Honour of the great God in his Deeds of Wonder. Why hast thou forsaken the Love, and art become a Murderer? Was not Covetousness thy Sin, in that thou affordest not thy Members so much as thyself? Thou desirest to be only fine thyself alone. Thy Way only i should be holy. Wherefore was the Fratricide between Abel and Cain? The self-honouring Pride brought it about, so that Cain envied Abel's Uprightness, for the Sake of which he was so much beloved of God. Why was not Cain also humble and pious?

(76) But that thy Predecessors after their Death have a appeared in Deeds of Wonder, upon which thou buildest, that was caused by the Faith of the Living, and their Imaging in [or Impression upon] their Tincture, which is so strong that it can remove Mountains. An evil Faith also (if it be strong) can (in the first Principle) stir up Wonders, as may be seen by Incantation, and by the wicked Showers of Signs before Pharaoh: a As they believed, so it was done.

(43) And the Proficient , how does he stand with regard to magic and philtre-spells?

In the soul he is immune from magic; his reasoning part cannot be touched by it, he cannot be perverted. But there is in him the unreasoning element which comes from the All, and in this he can be affected, or rather this can be affected in him. Philtre-Love, however, he will not know, for that would require the consent of the higher soul to the trouble stiffed in the lower. And, just as the unreasoning element responds to the call of incantation, so the adept himself will dissolve those horrible powers by counter-incantations. Death, disease, any experience within the material sphere, these may result, yes; for anything that has membership in the All may be affected by another member, or by the universe of members; but the essential man is beyond harm.

That the effects of magic should be not instantaneous but developed is only in accord with Nature's way.

Even the Celestials, the Daimones, are not on their unreasoning side immune: there is nothing against ascribing acts of memory and experiences of sense to them, in supposing them to accept the traction of methods laid up in the natural order, and to give hearing to petitioners; this is especially true of those of them that are closest to this sphere, and in the degree of their concern about it.

For everything that looks to another is under spell to that: what we look to, draws us magically. Only the self-intent go free of magic. Hence every action has magic as its source, and the entire life of the practical man is a bewitchment: we move to that only which has wrought a fascination upon us. This is indicated where we read "for the burgher of greathearted Erechtheus has a pleasant face ." For what conceivably turns a man to the external? He is drawn, drawn by the arts not of magicians but of the natural order which administers the deceiving draught and links this to that, not in local contact but in the fellowship of the philtre.

(7) Now that which was behind thee is before thee; But that thou know that I with thee am pleased, With a corollary will I mantle thee. Evermore nature, if it fortune find Discordant to it, like each other seed Out of its region, maketh evil thrift; And if the world below would fix its mind On the foundation which is laid by nature, Pursuing that, 'twould have the people good. But you unto religion wrench aside Him who was born to gird him with the sword, And make a king of him who is for sermons; Therefore your footsteps wander from the road."

(1) Let us now, therefore, to the utmost of our power, endeavour to discuss the manifold doubt concerning the peculiar dæmon, and which also is subject to various objections. Since, however, to speak summarily, the consideration of the peculiar dæmon is twofold, the one being theurgic, but the other artificial; and the one drawing this dæmon down from supernal causes, but the other from the visible periods in generation; and the one making no use whatever of the calculation of nativities, but the other meddling with methods of this kind; and the one worshiping this dæmon in a way more universal and supernatural, but the other partibly conformable to nature; this being the case, you appear to me to have absurdly transferred a more perfect sacred operation to one that is human, and in this to have exercised your inquiries.

(7) As, then, if a man should, similarly to those drugged by Circe, become a beast; so he, who has spurned the ecclesiastical tradition, and darted off to the opinions of heretical men, has ceased to be a man of God and to remain faithful to the Lord. But he who has returned from this deception, on hearing the Scriptures, and turned his life to the truth, is, as it were, from being a man made a god.