18. Charms And Philtresd

When he said: “Do not look at yourself by torchlight in a mirror,” was he not teaching ingeniously that true self-knowledge which is incompatible with factitious lights and the prejudgments of systems? It is the same with the other precepts of Pythagoras, who is well known to have been followed literally by a swarm of unintelligent disciples; and indeed amongst our provincial superstitious observances there are many which belong indubitably to the primitive misconception of Pythagorean symbols. Superstition is derived from a Latin word which signifies survival. It is the sign surviving the thought; it is the dead body of a Religious Rite. Superstition is to initiation what the notion of the devil is to that of God. This is the sense in which the worship of images is forbidden, and in this sense also a doctrine most holy in its original conception may become superstitious and impious when it has lost its spirit and its inspiration. Then does religion, ever one, like the Supreme Reason, exchange its vestures and abandon old Rites to the cupidity and roguery of fallen priests, transformed by their wickedness and ignorance into jugglers and charlatans. We may include among superstitions those magical emblems and characters, of which the meaning is understood no longer, which are engraved by chance on amulets and talismans. The magical images of the ancients were pantacles, i.e. kabalistic syntheses. Thus the wheel of Pythagoras is a pantacle analogous to the wheels of Ezekiel; the two emblems contain the same secrets and belong to the same philosophy; they constitute the key of all pantacles, and we have made mention previously of both. The four living creatures - or rather the four-headed sphinx - of the same prophet are identical with the admirable Indian symbol of ADDA-NARI, given on the next page, as having reference to the Great Arcanum. In his Apocalypse St. John followed and elaborated Ezekiel; indeed the monstrous figures of his wonderful book are so many magical pantacles, the key of which is easily discoverable by Kabalists. On the other hand, Christians, rejecting science in their anxiety to extend faith, sought later on to conceal the origin of their dogmas and condemned all kabalistic and magical books to the flames. To destroy originals gives a kind of originality to copies, as was doubtless in the mind of St. Paul when, prompted beyond question by the most laudable intention, he accomplished his scientific auto-da-fe at Ephesus. In the same way, six centuries later, the true believer Omar sacrificed the Library of Alexandria to the originality of the Koran, and who knows whether in the time to come a future Apostle will not set fire to our literary museums and confiscate the printing-press in the interest of some fresh religious infatuation, some newly accredited legend? The study of talismans and pantacles is one of the most curious branches of Magic and connects with historical numismatics. There are Indian, Egyptian and Greek talismans, kabalistic medals coming from ancient and modern Jews, Gnostic abraxas, occult tokens in use among members of Secret Societies and sometimes called counters of the Sabbath. So also there are Templar medals and jewels of Freemasonry. In his “'Ireatise on the Wonders of Nature”, Coglenius describes the talismans of Solomon and those of Rabbi Chael. Designs of many others that are most ancient will be found in the Magical Calendars of Tycho Brahe and Duchentau, and should have a place in M. Ragon's archives on initiation, a vast and scholarly undertaking, to which we refer our readers.'