2. Magical Equilibrium-a

EQUILIBRIUM is the consequence of two forces. If two forces are absolutely and invariably equal, the equilibrium will be immobility and therefore the negation of life. Movement is the result of an alternate preponderance. The impulsion given to one of the sides of a balance necessarily determines the motion of the other. Thus contraries act on one another, throughout all Nature, by correspondence and analogical connexion. All life is composed of an inspiration and a respiration; creation postulates a shadow to serve as a bound for light, of a void to serve as space for the plenitude, of a passive fructified principle to sustain and realize the power of the active generating principle. All Nature is bisexual, and the movement which produces the appearances of death and life is a continual generation. God loves the void, which He made in order to fill it; science loves the ignorance which it enlightens; strength loves the weakness which it supports; good loves the apparent evil which glorifies it; day is desirous of night, and pursues it unceasingly round the world; love is at once a thirst and a plenitude which must pour itself forth. He who gives receives, and he who receives gives; movement is a continual interchange. To know the law of this change, to be acquainted with the alternate or simultaneous proportion of these forces, is to possess the first principles of the Great Magical Arcanum, which constitutes true human divinity. Scientifically, we can appreciate the various manifestations of the universal movement through electric or magnetic phenomena. Electrical apparatuses above all reveal materially and positively the affinities and antipathies of certain substances. The marriage of copper with zinc, the action of all metals in the galvanic pile, are perpetual and unmistakable revelations. Let physicists seek and find out; ever will the Kabalist explain the discoveries of science! The human body is subject, like the earth, to a dual law; it attracts and it radiates; it is magnetized by an androgyne magnetism and reacts inversely on the two powers of the soul, the intellectual and sensitive, but in proportion to the alternating preponderances of the two sexes in their physical organism. The art of the magnetizer consists wholly in the knowledge and use of this law. To polarize action and impart to the agent a bisexual and alternate force is a method still unknown and sought vainly for directing the phenomena of magnetism at will. Highly trained judgement and great precision in the interior movements are required to prevent confusion between signs of magnetic inspiration and those of respiration. We must be perfectly acquainted, moreover, with occult anatomy and the special temperament of the persons on whom we are operating. Bad faith and bad will in subjects constitute the gravest hindrance to the direction of magnetism. Women above all - who are essentially and invariably actresses, who take pleasure in impressing others so that they may impress themselves, and are the first to be deceived when playing their neurotic melodramas - are the true Black Magic of magnetism. So is it for ever impossible that magnetizers who are uninitiated in the supreme secrets and unassisted by the lights of the Kabalah should govern this refractory and fugitive element. To be master of woman, we must distract and deceive her skilfully by allowing her to suppose that it is she who is deceiving us. This advice, which we offer chiefly to magnetic physicians, might find its place and application in conjugal polity. Man can produce two breathings at his pleasure, one warm and the other cold; he can project also either active or passive light at will; but he must acquire the consciousness of this power by dwelling habitually thereon.