14. Transmutationsb

The life of beings is a progressive transformation, and its forms can be deter-mined, renewed, prolonged further, or destroyed sooner. If the doctrine of metempsychosis were true, might one not say that the debauch represented by Circe really and materially changes men into swine, seeing that, on this hypothesis, the retribution of vices would be a relapse into animal forms corresponding thereunto? Now, metempsychosis, which has been misinterpreted frequently, has a perfectly true side; for animal forms communicate their sympathetic impressions to the astral body of man, which reacts speedily on his lineaments according to the force of his habits. A man of intelligent and passive mildness assumes the inert physiognomy and ways of a sheep, but in somnambulism it is a sheep that is seen, and not a man with a sheepish countenance, as the ecstatic and learned Swedenborg experienced a thousand times. In the kabalistic book of Daniel the seer, this mystery is represented by the legend of Nebuchadnezzar changed into a beast, which, after the common fate of magical allegories, has been mistaken for an actual history. In this way, we can really transform men into animals and animals into men; we can metamorphose plants and alter their virtue; we can endow minerals with ideal properties: it is all a question of willing. We can equally render ourselves visible or invisible at will, and this enables us to explain the mysteries of the Ring of Gyges. In the first place, let us remove from the mind of our readers all supposition of the absurd - that is, of an effect devoid of cause or contradicting its cause. To become invisible one of three things is necessary - the interposition of some opaque medium between the light and our body, or between our body and the eyes of the spectators, or the fascination of the eyes of the spectators in such a manner that they cannot make use of their sight. Of these methods, the third only is magical. Have we not all of us observed that under the government of a strong preoccupation we look without seeing and collide with objects in front of us? “So do, that seeing they may not see,” said the Great Initiator, and the history of this Grand Master tells us that one day, finding Himself on the point of being stoned in the Temple, He became invisible and went out. There is no, need to reproduce the mystifications of popular Grimoires about the ring of invisibility. Some specify that it shall be composed of fixed mercury, enriched by a small stone which is indispensable to find in a pewit's nest, and kept in a box of the same metal. The author of the Little Albert ordains that this ring should be composed of hairs torn from the head of a raging hyena, which recalls the history of the bell of Rodilard. The only writers who have discoursed seriously of the Ring of Gyges are Jamblichus, Porphyry and Peter of Apono. What they say is evidently allegorical, and the representation which they give, or that which can be drawn from their description, proves that they are speaking in reality of nothing but the Great Magical Arcanum. One of the figures depicts the universal movement, harmonic and equilibrated in imperishable being; another, which should be formed from an amalgam of the seven metals, calls for a description in detail. It has a double collet and two precious stones - a topaz constellated under the sign of the sun and an emerald under the sign of the moon.