16. Bewitchments-d

But Paracelsus arrived at magnetism long before Mesmer and had carried to its final consequences this luminous discovery, or rather this initiation into the Magic of the ancients, who better than us understood the Great Magical Agent and did not regard the Astral Light, Azoth, the Universal Magnesia of the pages, as a special animal fluid emanating only from a few secular creatures. In his occult philosophy, Paracelsus opposes Ceremonial Magic, the terrible power of which he did not certainly ignore, but he sought to decry its practices so as to discredit Black Magic. He locates the omnipotence of the Magus in the interior and occult magnes, and the most skilful magnetizers of our own day could not express themselves better. At the same time he counselled the employment of magical symbols, talismans above all, in the cure of diseases. In our eighteenth chapter we shall have occasion to return to the talismans of Paracelsus, while following Gaffarel upon the great question of occult iconography and numismatics. Bewitchment may be cured also by substitution, when that is possible, and by the rupture or deflection of the astral current. The folk-traditions on all these points are admirable and undoubtedly of remote antiquity; they are remnants of the teaching of Druids, who were initiated in the Mysteries of Egypt and India by wandering hierophants. Now, it is well known in vulgar Magic that a bewitchment - that is, a determined will resolved on doing evil, invariably has its result, and cannot draw back without risk of death. The sorcerer who liberates anyone from a charm must have another object for his malevolence, or it is certain that he himself will be smitten and will perish as the victim of his own spells. The astral movement being circular, every azotic or magnetic emission which does not encounter its medium returns with force to its point of departure, thus explaining one of the strangest histories in a sacred book, that of the demons sent into the swine, which thereupon cast themselves into the sea. This act of high initiation was nothing else but the rupture of a magnetic current infected by evil wills. Our name is legion, for we are many, said the instinctive voice of the possessed sufferer. Possessions by the demon are bewitchments, and such cases are innumerable at the present day. A saintly monk who has devoted himself to the service of the insane, Brother Hilarion Tissot, has succeeded, after long experience and incessant practice, in curing a number of patients by unconsciously using the magnetism of Paracelsus. He attributes most of his cases either to disorder of the subjects' will or to the perverse influence of external wills; he regards all crimes as acts of madness and would treat the wicked as diseased, instead of exasperating and making them incurable, under the pretence of punishing them. What space of time must still elapse ere poor Brother Hilarion Tissot shall be hailed as a man of genius! And how many serious men, when they read this chapter, will say that Tissot and myself should treat one another according to our common ideas, but should refrain from publishing our theories, if we do not wish to be reckoned as physicians deserving the madhouse. It revolves, notwithstanding, said Galileo, stamping his foot upon the earth. Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free, said the Saviour of men. It might be added: Ye shall love justice, and justice shall make you whole men. A vice is a poison, even for the body; true virtue is a pledge of longevity.