Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie Part II by Eliphas Levi

Author:Eliphas Levi [Levi, Eliphas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Global Grey ebooks
Published: 2019-04-16T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14. Transmutations

St. Augustus speculates, as we have said, whether Apuleius could have been changed into an ass and then have resumed his human shape. The same doctor might have concerned himself equally with the adventure of the comrades of Ulysses, transformed into swine by Circe.

In vulgar opinion, transmutations and metamorphoses have always been the very essence of Magic. Now, the crowd, being the echo of opinion, which is queen of the world, is never perfectly right or entirely wrong. Magic does change 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.

The spoken word creates its form, and when a person held infallible confers a name upon a given thing, the latter is really transformed into the substance signified by the name. The masterpiece of speech and of faith in this order is the real transmutation of a substance without change in its externals. Had Apollonius offered a cup of wine to his disciples, and said to them:

“This is my blood, of which ye shall drink hence-forth to perpetuate my life within you”; and had his disciples through centuries believed that they effected transformation by repeating the same words; had they taken the wine, despite its odor and taste, for the real, human and living blood of Apollonius, we should have to acknowledge this master in theurgy as the most accomplished of enchanters and most potent of all the Magi. It would remain for us then to adore him.

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