7. The Septenary Of Talismanse

Crosses of honour and other kindred decorations are veritable talismans which increase personal value and merit; they are consecrated by solemn investiture, and public opinion can impart to them a prodigious power. Sufficient attention has not been paid to the reciprocal influence of signs on ideas and of ideas on signs; it is not less true that the revolutionary work of modern times, for example, has been resumed symbolically in its entirety by the Napoleonic substitution of the Star of Honour for the Cross of St. Louis. It is the Pentagram in place of the Labarum; it is the reconstitution of the symbol of light; it is the Masonic resurrection of Adonhiram. They say that Napoleon believed in his star, and could he have been persuaded to explain what he meant thereby, it would have proved to be his genius; he was right therefore in adopting the Pentagram as his sign, because it is the symbol of human sovereignty acquired by intelligent initiative. The mighty soldier of the Revolution knew little, but he divined almost everything; so was he the greatest instinctive and practical magician of modern times; the world is still full of his miracles, and the country people will never believe that he is dead. Blessed and indulgenced objects, touched by holy images or venerable persons; chaplets from Palestine; the Agnus Dei, composed of the wax of the Paschal candle and the annual remnants of holy chrism; scapulas and medals, are all true talismans. One such medal has become popular in our own day, and even those who are devoid of religion suspend it from the necks of their children. Moreover, its figures are so perfectly kabalistic that it is truly a marvellous double Pantacle. On the one side is the great initiatrix, the heavenly mother of the Zohar, the Isis of Egypt, the Venus-Urania of the Platonists, the Mary of Christianity, throned upon the world and setting one foot upon the head of the magical serpent. She extends her two hands in such a manner as to form a triangle, of which her head is the apex; her hands are open and radiant, thus making a double triangle, with all its rays directed towards the earth, evidently representing the emancipation of intelligence by labour. On the other side is the double TAU of the hierophants, the Lin-gam with the double Cteis or triple Phallus, supported, with interlacement and repeated insertion, by the kabalistic and masonic M, representing the square between the two Pillars JAKIN and BOAZ. Below are placed, upon the same level, two loving and suffering hearts, encircled by twelve Pentagrams. Everyone will tell you that the wearers of this medal do not attach such significance to it, but on this account it is only more absolutely magical, having a dual sense and consequently a double virtue. The ecstatic on the authority of whose revelations this talisman was engraved, had already beheld it existing perfectly in the Astral Light, which demonstrates once more the intimate connexion of ideas and signs, giving a new sanction to the symbolism of Universal Magic. The greater the importance and solemnity brought to bear on the execution and consecration of talismans and Pantacles, the more virtue they acquire, as will be under stood upon the evidence of the principles which we have established. Such consecration should take place on the days that we have indicated, with the apparatus which we have given in detail. Talismans are consecrated by the four exorcised elements, after conjuring the spirits of darkness by the CONJURATION Of THE Four.