Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) · 52 of 123 · tr. A.E. Waite
11. The Triple Chain-a
The Great Work in Practical Magic, after the education of the will and the personal creation of the Magus, is the formation of the magnetic chain, and this secret is truly that of priesthood and of royalty.
To form the magnetic chain is to originate a current of ideas which produces faith and draws a large number of wills in a given circle of active manifestation.
a well-formed chain is like a whirlpool which sucks down and absorbs all.
The chain may be established in three ways - by signs, by speech and by contact.
The first is by inducing opinion to adopt some sign as the representation of a force.
Thus, all Christians communicate by the Sign of the Cross, Masons by that of the square beneath the sun, the Magi by that of the Microcosm, made by extending the five fingers, etc.
Once accepted and propagated, signs acquire force of themselves.
In the early centuries of our era, the sight and making of the Sign of the Cross was enough to bring proselytes to Christianity.
What is called the miraculous medal continues in our own days to effect a great number of conversions by the same magnetic law.
The vision and illumination of the young Israelite, Alphonse de Ratisbonne, is the most remarkable fact of this kind.
Imagination is creative not only within us but without us by means of our fluidic projections, and undoubtedly the phenomena of the Labarum of Constantine and the Cross of Migne should be attributed to no other cause.
The magic chain of speech was typified among the ancients by chains of gold, which issued from the mouth of Hermes.
Nothing equals the electricity of eloquence.
Speech creates the highest intelligence in the most grossly constituted masses.
Even those who are too remote for actual hearing understand by sympathy and are carried away with the crowd.
Peter the Hermit convulsed Europe by his cry of “God wills it!” A single word of the Emperor electrified his army and made France invincible.
Proudhon destroyed socialism by his celebrated paradox: “Property is robbery.” A current saying is sufficient on occasion to demolish a reigning power.
Voltaire knew this well - he who shook the world by sarcasms.
So, also, he who feared neither pope nor king, neither parliament nor Bastille, was afraid of a pun.
We are on the verge of fulfilling the intentions of that man whose sayings we repeat.
The third method of establishing the magic chain is by contact.
Between persons who meet frequently, the head of the current soon manifests, and the strongest will is not slow to absorb the others.
The direct and positive grasp of hand by hand completes the harmony of dispositions, and it is for this reason a mark of sympathy and intimacy.
Children, who are guided instinctively by Nature, form the magic chain by playing at base or rounds: then gaiety spreads, then laughter rings.
Circular tables are more favourable to convivial meetings than those of any other shape.
The great circular dance of the Sabbath, which concluded the mysterious assemblies of adepts in the Middle Ages, was a magic chain: it joined all in the same intentions and the same acts.
It was formed by standing back to back and linking hands, the face outside the circle, in imitation of those antique sacred dances, representations of which are still found on the sculptures of old temples.
The electric furs of the lynx, panther and even domestic cat, were stitched to garments, in imitation of the ancient bacchanalia.
Hence comes the tradition that the Sabbath miscreants each wore a cat hung from the girdle, and that they danced in this guise.
The phenomena of tilting and talking tables have been fortuitous exhibitions of fluidic communication by means of the circular chain.
§ Ask Guru about this passage →Themes
Cosmic Sympathycosmology
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The passage describes how those remote from hearing 'understand by sympathy' and how a chain joins all in the same intentions through hidden affinities.
All passages →Mechanical Humanityanthropology
Gurdjieff and Ouspensky's claim that ordinary human beings live in a state of waking sleep, reacting mechanically without unified will or consciousness, and that the spiritual path begins with recognising this condition.
The masses are described as 'grossly constituted' and requiring the electricity of eloquence to create intelligence, implying a normally passive state.
All passages →Word Power Incantationpraxis
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
The passage centrally argues that speech possesses causal-magical force, stating 'Nothing equals the electricity of eloquence' and citing examples where words electrified armies or demolished powers.
All passages →Related passages · 10 parallels
neoplatonism|Iamblichus: On the Mysteries|Chapter XVIII-b
“A certain thing of this kind also may take 71 place in the harmony and crasis of the universe: for the same things may be the salvation of the whole, through the perfection of the things inherent and the recipients; but may be noxious to th…”
Shared concept: Cosmic Sympathy — The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination. (derived)
neoplatonism|Select Works of Plotinus|Select Works, Section 365 (part 1)
“Section 45 45.
From this discussion it becomes perfectly clear that the individual member of the All contributes to that All in the degree of its kind and condition; thus it acts and is acted upon.
In any particular animal each of the lim…”
Shared concept: Cosmic Sympathy — The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination. (derived)
neoplatonism|Iamblichus: On the Mysteries|Chapter III
“Since, however, every part of the heavens, every sign of the zodiac, all the motion of the heavens, every period of time according to which the world is moved, and all things contained in the wholes of the universe, receive the powers which…”
Shared concept: Cosmic Sympathy — The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination. (derived)
renaissance_hermeticism|The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori)|First Dialogue-j
“So that the continual movement of one part supposes and carries with it the movement of the whole, in such a way that the attraction of the posterior parts is consequent upon the repulsion of the anterior parts; thus the movement of the sup…”
Shared concept: Cosmic Sympathy — The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination. (derived)
christian_mysticism|Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names|Chapter 4, Section 1h
“Hence comes the bare existence of all things, and hence their unions, 277 277 ἑνώσεις, διακρίσεις, ταὐτότητες, ἑτερότητες.
their differentiations, their identities, their differences, 278 278 Hence parts are united into wholes and wholes a…”
Shared concept: Cosmic Sympathy — The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination. (derived)
theosophy|The Secret Doctrine|Page 39 (part 1)
“The Secret Doctrine by H.
P.
Blavatsky -- Vol.
1 [[Vol.
1, Page]] 529 MYSTERIOUS SUN FLUID.
VIII.
LIFE, FORCE, OR GRAVITY.
T HE imponderable fluids have had their day; "mechanical Forces" are less talked about; Science has put on a n…”
Shared concept: Cosmic Sympathy — The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination. (derived)
neoplatonism|Select Works of Plotinus|Select Works, Section 362
“Section 42 42. It follows that, for the purposes which have induced this discussion, the stars have no need of memory or of any sense of petitions addressed to them; they give no such voluntary attention to prayers as some have thought: it…”
Shared concept: Cosmic Sympathy — The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination. (derived)
hermeticism|Corpus Hermeticum 12: The Prayer|Section 1e
“Observe this too, my son; that each one of the other lives inhabiteth one portion of the Cosmos - aquatic creatures water, terrene earth, and aery creatures air; while man doth use all these - earth, water air [and] fire; he seeth Heaven, t…”
Shared concept: Cosmic Sympathy — The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination. (derived)
christian_mysticism|The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme|Chapter 7 (part 13)
“154:1 This is the difference between life in the terrestrial and life in the celestial states of nature, that the former is differentiated into forms, each of which loves to live in the consciousness of its own illusive self— i.e.
, in a s…”
Shared concept: Mechanical Humanity — Gurdjieff and Ouspensky's claim that ordinary human beings live in a state of waking sleep, reacting mechanically without unified will or consciousness, and that the spiritual path begins with recognising this condition. (derived)
renaissance_hermeticism|Agrippa: The Philosophy of Natural Magic, Chapter LXXI — Of Many Words Joined Together, as in Sentences and Verses; and of the Virtues and Astrictions of Charms|Chapter LXXI, Section 1a
“CHAPTER LXXI.
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Besides the virtues of words and names, there is also a greater virtue found in sentences, from the truth contained in…”
Shared concept: Word Power Incantation — The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. (derived)