Церемониальная магия - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Артур Эдвард Уэйт (ч. notes)

Примечания

1

Numerous experiments of the alchemists are concerned with congealing and fixing quicksilver, but there are also "cabalistic" processes by which this substance was prepared expressly for the construction of talismans, and these must not be confused with the more sober — if not more successful — recipes of Hermetic Art. On this point see Les Secrets du Petit Albert. Lyons edition, 1775, pp. 63–65.

2

Catholic theologians who have concerned themselves with the question of the pact have so extended the sphere of its operation that it includes the mere process of communicating with spirits. In his Theological Dictionary Bergier defines the pact as an express or tacit agreement made with the demon in the hope of accomplishing things which transcend the powers of Nature. It is express and formal when the operator himself invokes and demands the help of the demon, whether that personage really appears in response, or the sorcerer believes that he beholds him, that is to say, is hallucinated. It is also express and formal when the demon is invoked by the mediation of some one supposed to be in relation with him; in other words, the consultation of a sorcerer is equivalent to a compact with Satan. The performance of any act with the expectation of a result from the demon is another compact of this kind. The pact is tacit or equivalent when an act is performed with a view to some effect which cannot naturally follow, while the intervention of God is not to be expected. There remains only the fiend. For example, should any one cure a disease by uttering certain words, this could only take place by the operation of the Infernal Spirit, because the words do not themselves possess. the required virtue, and God is not likely to infuse it. Hence all theologians conclude that not only every species of Magic, but every kind of superstition involves at least a tacit and equivalent compact with the demon. St. Augustine and St. Thomas are said to have taken this view. It is by precisely such judgments as these that the theology of the Middle Ages brought itself to a by-word, and it is also for this reason that sorcery most flourished when such doctrines ruled, because a power which condemns everything to the same penalty condemns nothing effectually, and that which is over-judged is always vindicated in the eyes of the people. We have come to see that horse-stealing is not murder, and we no longer avenge it by the gallows; so also, with due respect to the masters of Theology, the follies of a village maiden who believes in a p. 255 soothsaying gipsy, and the trickeries of a quack-doctor who is absurd enough to take Abracadabra seriously, are not the crime of Faust. But the learned Bishop of Hippo and the Angel of the Schools produced Goethe as their ultimate antithesis; when the girl who draws lots for her lover is given over to Satan, the apotheosis of Faust is certain. Behind the manifest exaggerations of such definitions there lies, however, a hidden pearl of truth, which concerns the temerity of opening the door to evil, and in this sense even the heedless act or the act of folly carries all its consequences and all to which it may lead like an implicit within it.

3

But Lucifer, in ordinary cases, is contented with a cat, though it may be suggested that it is held only as a kind of hostage.

4

A process was also provided against fascination and deception by means of the ring of invisibility. It consists in the composition of a ring similarly shaped, made of refined lead, and enchased with the eye of a female ferret which has had only one litter. The words Apparuit Dominus Simoni should be engraved about the circumference. It should be composed on a Saturday when Saturn is in opposition with Mercury, perfumed three times with the perfume of Saturday, wrapped in a piece of a winding-sheet, next buried for nine days in a churchyard, perfumed, when disinterred, as before, and it is then ready for use.

5

That is, in a voice audible to the clairvoyant boy, the process being obviously intended for those who are not themselves seers. It recalls the vast seering experiments of Dr. Dee.