The History of Magic by Eliphas Levi

Author:Eliphas Levi
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser Conari

CHAPTER V

MAGICIANS

THAT fundamental dogma of transcendental science which consecrates the eternal law of equilibrium attained its plenary realisation in the constitution of the Christian world. Two living pillars—the Pope and Emperor—supported the structure of civilisation. But the empire suffered partition when it slipped from the feeble hands of Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald. The temporal power, abandoned to the chances of conquests or intrigue, lost the providential unity which kept it in harmony with Rome. The Pope had often to intervene as grand justiciary and, at his proper risk and peril, he restrained the ambitions and audacity of many competitive sovereigns.

Excommunication was at that time a terrible penalty, for it was sanctioned by universal belief, and it produced phenomena which awed the crowd, being mysterious effects of the magnetic current of condemnation. There is the example of Robert the Pious, who, having incurred this terrible penalty by an unlawful marriage, became the father of a monstrous child, similar to those effigies of demons which mediaeval art represented in such ridiculous aspects of deformity. The melancholy fruit of a forbidden union bore witness at least to the tortured conscience and frightful dreams by which the mother was possessed. Robert accepted the event as a proof of the wrath of God and submitted to the papal judgment. Renouncing a marriage which the Church declared incestuous, he repudiated Bertha to espouse Constance of Provence, and it remained for him to recognise in the questionable morals and arrogant character of his new bride a second chastisement of heaven.

The makers of chronicles at the period were enamoured of diabolical legends, but their records exhibit more of credulity than of good taste. Every monkish malady, every unhealthy nightmare of nuns, is looked upon as a case of veridic apparition. The result is repellent phantasmagoria, stupid allocutions, impossible transfigurations, to which the artistic spirit of Cyrano de Bergerac is the one thing wanting to render them entertaining creations. From the reign of Robert to that of St. Louis there is nothing, however, which seems to deserve recounting.1

The famous Rabbi Jechiel, great Kabalist and truly remarkable physician, lived in the*reign of St. Louis. All that is told of his lamp and magical nail goes to prove that he had discovered electricity, or was at least acquainted with its most important uses.1 Ancient as that of Magic, the knowledge of this force was transmitted as one of the keys of the greater initiation. When the night came a radiant star appeared in the lodging of Jechiel, the light being so brilliant that no eye could gaze thereon without being dazzled, while the beam that it darted was tinted with rainbow colours. It was never known to fail and it was never replenished with oil or other combustible substance extant at that time. When importunity or ill-intentioned curiosity sought to intrude on Jechiel by knocking persistently at his door, the Rabbi struck a nail fixed in his cabinet, producing simultaneously a blue spark on the head of the nail and the door-knocker.

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