Mage

“ Exquisite must be the Art in this wise; and balance in the Center be maintained, or else ye shall give unwonted Life unto thine own creations. Tread carefully this path of Working, Mage. A tool, by Will devised, makes an ill master.
"Now in the Mass, the Eagle must be fed upon what she has shared in making. By the same mouth that roars upon the mountain, is the word-act of No Difference given.
"And when Will declares, therein shall join the BEE to add the gold to red and white. The essence of Shaitan is Nectar here, the Temple is the Hive. ”

“ It is otherwise with the uncritical faculties and greedy apprehension of boyhood. For them there is no poetical revelation like the Faerie Queene, no pleasure equal to that of floating for the first time along that ever-buoyant stream of verse, by those shores and forests of enchantment, glades and wildernesses alive with glancing figures of knight and lady, oppressor and champion, mage and Saracen,—with masque and combat, pursuit and rescue, the chivalrous shapes and hazards of the woodland, and beauty triumphant or in distress. ”

“ Philo Judæus describes the magi to be diligent inquirers into nature, out of the love they bear to truth; and who, setting themselves apart from other things, contemplate the divine virtues the more clearly, and initiate others in the same mysteries. The magi, or magians, formed one of the two grand sects into which the idolatry of the world was divided between 500 and 600 years before Christ. These abominated all those images which were worshipped by the other sect, denominated Sabians, and paid their worship to the Deity under the emblem of fire. ”

“ When sufficiently condensed to be visible, they are as a vapour tinged by the reflection of an image; they have no personal life, but they mimic that of the magus who evokes them, as the shadow images the body. They collect above all about idiots and those immoral creatures [Pg 112] whose isolation abandons them to irregular habits. The cohesion of parts being very slight in their fantastic bodies, they fear the open air, a great fire and above all the point of a sword. ”

“ ADORATION OF THE MAGI.
043In the Adoration of the Magi we find the usual qualities of composition and feeling. One of the Kings has already rendered homage to the Redeemer, and is talking to St. Joseph, who thanks him with earnest devotion; and while the second falls prone before the divine Child, and kisses His feet with profound emotion, the third prepares himself to render the required homage. All around are elegant little figures of pages and servants, in life-like and natural attitudes. ”

“ The grand mission of the magus or sorcerer in all the occult lore of all antiquity, whether he appear as Buddha or any other man of men, is to conquer all enemies by tremendous power won by penance or by iron will. A favourite means of tormenting the enemy or fiend is to awaken the conscience of the magician, or, what is the same thing, to tempt him to sin, as Satan did Christ. ”

“ Sorcerers may charm and conquer,
Bury them within their dungeons,
Hide them spell-bound in their cabins.
Let the wizards charm each other,
And bewitch their magic offspring,
Bring their tribes to fell destruction. ”

“ In fact, they cannot even compel the devil or his imps to obey--they work entirely by his good-will as slaves. But in the old Italian lore the sorcerer or witch is all or nothing, and aims at limitless will or power.
Of the ancient belief in the virtues of a perforated stone I need not speak. But it is to be remarked that in the invocation the witch goes forth in the earliest morning to seek for verbena or vervain. The ancient Persian magi, or rather their daughters, worshipped the sun as it rose by waving freshly plucked verbena [2] , which was one of the seven most powerful plants in magic. ”

“ You have come here thinking to force me to give up the captives of King Gos and Queen Cor, and I wanted to convince you that my power is too mighty for anyone to oppose. I am told that you are a wizard, and depend upon magic to aid you; but you must know that the nomes are not mortals, and understand magic pretty well themselves, so if we are obliged to fight magic with magic the chances are that we are a hundred times more powerful than you can be. ”

“ And as the art of magic among Pagan nations was founded on their system of theology, and the magi who first exercised it were the priests of the gods, they pretended to derive these extraordinary powers from the assistance of the gods, which assistance they sought by a variety of rites and sacrifices, adapted to their respective natures, by the use of charms and superstitious words, and also by ceremonies and supplications: they pretended, likewise, in the proper use of their art, to a power of compelling the gods to execute their desires and commands. ”

“ It has been the same precisely with those who have profaned the science of the Magi, for transcendental Magic, as it is needful to remember, is the primeval priestly art. It condemns all that is done outside the lawful hierarchy, and it justifies the condemnation—though not the torture—of sectarians and sorcerers. The two classes are here connected intentionally, because all heretics have been evokers of spirits and phantoms, whom they have foisted upon the world as gods; all have arrogated to themselves the power of working miracles in support of their falsehoods. ”

“ The second feature in the savage intellectual condition which we promised to investigate was the belief in magic and sorcery. The world and all the things in it being conceived of vaguely as sensible and rational, are supposed to obey the commands of certain members of each tribe, such as chiefs, jugglers, or conjurors. These conjurors, like Zeus or Indra, can affect the weather, work miracles, assume what shapes, animal, vegetable, or inorganic, they please, and can metamorphose other persons into similar shapes. ”

“ Aye, to this hour, when I write this for you, O my son Sylvest, to the end that from this truthful and detailed account, in which I recite to you one by one the torments and the indignities heaped upon our country and our race, you may contract a hate implacable for the Romans, while awaiting the day of vengeance and deliverance;—aye, to this hour the mysteries of that horrid day of sale are still impenetrable to me, unless they be explained by the sorceries of the "horse-dealer," many of his people being given to magic. But our venerable druids affirm that magic does not exist. ”

“ While we waited, I prepared by the magician’s direction frankincense and coriander-seed, and a chafing-dish with live charcoal. Meanwhile, he wrote forms of invocation on six strips of paper. When the boy arrived, the sorcerer threw incense and one of the paper strips into the chafing-dish, then took the boy’s right hand and drew a square and certain mystical marks on the palm. In the centre of the square he poured a little ink. This formed the magic mirror. He desired the boy to look steadily into it without raising his head. The fumes of the incense filled the room with smoke. ”

“ Magic is the science of the ancient magi; and the Christian religion, which silenced the counterfeit oracles and put a stop to the illusions of false gods, does, this notwithstanding, revere those mystic kings who came from the East, led by a star, to adore the Saviour of the world in His cradle. They are elevated by tradition to the rank of kings, because magical initiation constitutes a true royalty; because also the great art of the magi is characterised by all adepts as the Royal Art, as the Holy Kingdom—Sanctum Regnum. ”

“ But this profession of magician, which sprang from priesthood, has largely promoted superstition in medicine, and was particularly instrumental in bringing it into extraordinary repute. It is our intention to concern ourselves a little more minutely with magicians and magic.
§2. The Spread of the Word “Magic.”—How and when magic was transplanted from its Oriental home to the Occident can not be determined with certainty; for the Greeks, as well as all antique peoples, probably all nations, had a belief in ghosts and demons, in fortune-telling, and in sorcery. ”

“ And whatever they might practise of real magic, the notion of mankind concerning them, receiv’d strength from the name magi, which they might bring with them from the east. Magus there originally signifies no more than a priest, or person who officiates in sacreds. The word comes from maaghim meditabundi, people of a contemplative, retir’d life; whom more commonly in the west, they call’d Druids. I am not dubious in thinking the times we are talking of, when this temple of Abury was built, are of the extremest antiquity, near that of Abraham. ”

“ Brief allusion is further made to Moses and Pharaoh’s magicians, to the invocation of Samuel by the witch of Endor, to Circe and the comrades of Ulysses, and to several other passages in classical literature anent magic.
Definition of magic.
Next comes a formal definition of the Magi. They are “those who are popularly called malefici or sorcerers on account of the magnitude (a characteristic bit of derivation) of their crimes. They agitate the elements, disturb men’s minds, and slay merely by force of incantation without any poisoned draught. ”

“ Then the magic sword was delivered, and the Demons submitted. Sun returned to the cave, fetched his Master out, swept the cave clean of all evil spirits, and they then started again on their westward journey. On the road they met a blind man, who addressed them saying: “Whither away, Buddhist Priest? I am the Ancient of Days. Give me back my magic treasures. In the gourd I keep the pills of immortality. In the vase I keep the water of life. The sword I use to subdue demons. With the fan I stir up enthusiasm. ”

“ A professor of magic, by some mistake in his ceremonies, excites the wrath of the infernal demons. They pursue him. He gets off his horse and lets it go home by itself, while he hides among the sheaves in a rice-field by the way. The demons follow the tracks of the horse's feet, and the magician escapes, having learnt from the conversation of his pursuers as they pass his hiding-place how to circumvent them when they renew their attack upon him.
A professor of magic goes to perform a ceremony of purification from evil influences. ”

“ Another print—a companion to the foregoing—represents the still more complete discomfiture of the magus. The saint here occupies the right-hand side of the picture, and is raising his hand higher, with apparently a greater show of authority. The demons have all turned against their master the magician, whom they are beating and hurling headlong from his chair. They seem to be proclaiming their joy at his fall by all sorts of playful attitudes. ”

“ Therefore I can do any of the magic that's inside me, but nothing else. You, however, are a wizard, and a wizard should be able to do anything."
"Your Majesty forgets that my tools of magic have been stolen," said the Wizard sadly, "and a wizard without tools is as helpless as a carpenter without a hammer or saw." ”

“ There is no slight reason for concluding that the latter is either an imitation of the former, or that both are one and the same device.—Like the Chaldean Astrologers, 107the Persian Magi, from whom our word Magic is derived, belongs to the priesthood. But the worship of the gods, was not their chief occupation; they were great proficients in the arts of which we are now treating. At first they were distinguished for their ardour in the pursuit of knowledge; they endeavoured to penetrate the secrets of nature by the only way in which those secrets can be discovered—experiment and reason. ”

“ Wizards discover thieves and murderers, or sell a fetich by whose power an evil-doer walks invisible, if he takes care not to be seen. They administer the ordeal and have in their power the life of every one who undergoes it. They interpret dreams, and prophesy by the flight of birds, the fall of dice, the making of shoulder-blades and the aspect of the stars.
The sorcerer communicates with the ghosts of the dead or with the spirits of nature and, by their aid, accomplishes [259] whatever can be done by Magic. ”

“ True, the hero of saga and poetry also employs magical agencies. The means of magic which he controls, however, have been bestowed upon him by some strange demoniacal being, either by one of those demons which, in the form of a man, an animal, or a fantastic monster, are recognized even by the early mythical tales as magical beings, or by a god, who, as such, combines the highest qualities of the hero with those of the demon. The conception of an anthropomorphic god, therefore, results from a fusion of hero with demon. ”

“ THE MAGI, OR WISE MEN OF THE EAST. The Magi, or Wise Men of the East, extended their ramifications over Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, India, and probably, though with a different name, over China, and indeed the whole known world. Their profession was of a mysterious nature. They laid claim to a familiar intercourse with the Gods. They placed themselves as mediators between heaven and earth, assumed the prerogative of revealing the will of beings of a nature superior to man, and pretended to show wonders and prodigies that surpassed any power which was merely human. ”

“ Hundreds of spells, incantations, and omen-inscriptions have been recovered, and these not only enlighten us regarding the class of priests who practised magic, but they tell us of the several varieties of demons, ghosts, and evil spirits; they minutely describe the Babylonian witch and wizard, and they picture for us many magical ceremonies, besides informing us of the names of scores of plants and flowers possessing magical properties, of [Pg 259] magical substances, jewels, amulets, and the like. ”

“ Their magic lay chiefly in clairvoyance and powers of observation developed to a pitch that was almost superhuman, and the best of their weapons was poison in infinite variety, whereof the guild alone understood the properties and preparation. ”