(26) Now thus say the three Elements (Fire, Water, and Air,) to the Spirit; Fetch us Children of the Earth, that they may dwell in our Courts, we will eat of their Essences, and make thee strong. Here the Spirit of the Soul (like a Captive) must be obedient, and must reach with his Essences, and fetch them forth. And then comes the Fiat, and says, No: Thou tmightest [so] out-run me; and [the Fiat] created the Reaching forth, and there came forth from thence, Hands, and all other Essences and Forms, as it is before our Eyes, and the Astronomicus [Astronomer] knows it well, yet he knows not the Secrecy of it, although he can explain the Signs according to the Constellation and Elements, which qualify [and mingle] together in the Essences of the Spirit of the Soul.

(1) In the next place, here also you appear to me to have cut off only a certain small part of the discussion concerning the peculiar dæmon. For since it is usual with those who artificially operate about nature to invoke this dæmon in an orderly manner from the decans, from the dispensators of influxes, from the signs of the zodiac, the stars, the sun and moon, from the greater and lesser bear, from the whole elements, and from the world, this being the case, you do not act rightly in assuming one, and that the smallest part of all these, viz. the lord of the geniture, and making your inquiries about this alone.

(2) Since, therefore, these differ so greatly, I shall not use any other indications, in order to distinguish them, than those which are adduced by you. For when you say, “ some standing on characters ,” you seem to signify nothing else than the cause of all the evils pertaining to these things. For there are some who, neglecting the whole business of the telesiurgic theory, both concerning the invoking [priest] and the inspector ( εποπτης ), and also despising the order of religion, and the most holy endurance of labours for a long time, and rejecting the sacred laws and ordinances, and other religious ceremonies, think that the standing on characters is alone sufficient, and that by doing this for one hour, they can cause a certain spirit to enter; though how is it possible that any thing beautiful or perfect can be effected by these? Or how, by ephemeral works, can a contact he produced with the eternal and true essence of the Gods in sacred deeds? Through these things, therefore, it appears that such like rash men entirely err, and that they do not deserve to be ranked among diviners.

(10) Second, from the Spirit he made Air and formed for speech twenty-two letters, three of which are mothers, A, M, SH, seven are double, B, G, D, K, P, R, T, and twelve are single, E, V, Z, CH, H, I, L, N, S, O, Tz, Q, but the spirit is first among these. Third, Primitive Water. He also formed and designed from his Spirit, and from the void and formless made earth, even as a rampart, or standing wall, and varied its surface even as the crossing of beams. Fourth, from the Water, He designed Fire, and from it formed for himself a throne of honor, with Auphanim, Seraphim, Holy Animals, and ministering Angels, and with these he formed his dwelling, as is written in the text "Who maketh his angels spirits and his ministers a flaming fire." (Psalm civ. 4.)

(40) But magic spells; how can their efficacy be explained?

By the reigning sympathy and by the fact in Nature that there is an agreement of like forces and an opposition of unlike, and by the diversity of those multitudinous powers which converge in the one living universe.

There is much drawing and spell-binding dependent on no interfering machination; the true magic is internal to the All, its attractions and, not less, its repulsions. Here is the primal mage and sorcerer- discovered by men who thenceforth turn those same ensorcellations and magic arts upon one another.

Love is given in Nature; the qualities inducing love induce mutual approach: hence there has arisen an art of magic love-drawing whose practitioners, by the force of contact implant in others a new temperament, one favouring union as being informed with love; they knit soul to soul as they might train two separate trees towards each other. The magician too draws on these patterns of power, and by ranging himself also into the pattern is able tranquilly to possess himself of these forces with whose nature and purpose he has become identified. Supposing the mage to stand outside the All, his evocations and invocations would no longer avail to draw up or to call down; but as things are he operates from no outside standground, he pulls knowing the pull of everything towards any other thing in the living system.

The tune of an incantation, a significant cry, the mien of the operator, these too have a natural leading power over the soul upon which they are directed, drawing it with the force of mournful patterns or tragic sounds- for it is the reasonless soul, not the will or wisdom, that is beguiled by music, a form of sorcery which raises no question, whose enchantment, indeed, is welcomed, exacted, from the performers. Similarly with regard to prayers; there is no question of a will that grants; the powers that answer to incantations do not act by will; a human being fascinated by a snake has neither perception nor sensation of what is happening; he knows only after he has been caught, and his highest mind is never caught. In other words, some influence falls from the being addressed upon the petitioner- or upon someone else- but that being itself, sun or star, perceives nothing of it all.

(4) "The rulers of the great Fate of the æons hand these over to the counterfeiting spirit; and the rulers summon the servitors of their æons, to the number of three-hundred-and-sixty-and-five, and give them the soul and the counterfeiting spirit, which are bound to one another. The counterfeiting spirit is the without of the soul, and the compound of the power is the within of the soul, being within both of them, in order that they may be able to stand, for it is the power which keepeth the two up-right. And the rulers give commandment to the servitors, saying unto them: This is the type which ye are to put into the body of the matter of the world.' They say unto them indeed: 'Put the compound of the power, the within of the soul, within them all, that they may be able to stand, for it is their up-rightness, and after the soul put the counterfeiting spirit.'