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CHAPTER II The Rituals of Transcendental Magic § 1. The Arbatel of Magic THE term transcendental must not be interpreted in any exalted or philosophical sense when it is used, informally and conventionally enough, in such a connection as the present. It has not been adopted because it is tolerably appropriate, but rather in the absence of a better word of definition in respect of the claim implied, and because also it has been previously admitted in the same connection. It is perhaps loosely equivalent to the Haute Magie of Eliphas Lévi, which I have rendered Transcendental Magic , not as a satisfactory equivalent but because there is no current or admitted expression which corresponds more closely. When due allowance has been made for the conceptions which may be presumed to underlie the subject, it must be said that in Ceremonial Magic there is as much and as little Transcendentalism as in the phenomena of modern mediumship. Whatever might be claimed for the intelligences with whom communication is sought to be established, they reveal themselves by their offices, which are either fantasic or frivolous. In such an association it should be understood that material interests are to be included in the second class; in the first would be comprised those which are outside realisation by reason of their extravagance, while at the same time they are unconnected with spiritual aspiration. Supposing that it were an exact science, there would be nothing in Practical Magic which interlinks, for example, with a true or with any Mystic Purpose. Hence, by Rituals of Transcendental Magic there must not be understood a collection of processes by which the Divine in Man is sought to be united with the Divine in the Universe. The works of St. John of the Cross, of Ruysbroeck, of Eckart, of Molinos, of Saint-Martin, even the Imitation of St. Thomas à Kempis--these contain the grand processes of true Transcendental Magic, were it other than desecration to apply a term which is worse than ridiculous to treasures which would be disparaged by the association. Here there must be understood simply those occult processes and that so-called Theurgic Ceremonial, in which there is at least no explicit connection with Black Magic, which not only contain no dealings with evil spirits for evil purposes, but appear to eschew all such communication, for what purpose soever. An exception--which, properly understood, is, however, an exception only on the surface--should be made in favour of the procedure adopted by the Church for the expulsion of diabolical powers from persons in the flesh, not because the phenomena of possession are necessarily other than pathological, even in those cases which would appear to be marked and obstinate, but because, on the terms of the ecclesiastical assumption, the Rite of Exorcism is a far more exalted Rite than anything which obtains in Transcendental Magic. In this matter, as in many other cases of much higher importance, no tolerable justice has been done to the position of the Catholic Church. It should be observed in addition, that while Ceremonial Magic is concerned with a variety of processes which may obviously tend to produce in unwary operators the phenomena which characterise possession, there is scarcely a single process in any one of the Rituals--White or Black, Composite or Transcendental--which makes any pretence of relieving persons so afflicted. There is, therefore, no reason to doubt on which side of hallucination the apparatus of the Rituals has been developed, and the sympathies of reasonable students will be with the honourable institution which condemned the practices and sought to liberate the victims, leaving possession itself as an open question, and in this sense as a side issue.