Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) · 67 of 123 · tr. A.E. Waite
14. Transmutationsc
It should bear on the inner side the occult characters of the planets and on the outer their known signs, duplicated and in kabalistic opposition to each other; that is, five on the right and five on the left; the signs of the sun and moon resuming the four several intelligences of the seven planets.
Now, this configuration is no other than that of a Pantacle signifying all mysteries of magical doctrine, and here is the occult significance of the ring: to exercise omnipotence, of which ocular fascination is one of the most difficult demonstrations to give, we must possess all science and know how to make use of it.
Fascination is accomplished by magnetism.
The Magus inwardly forbids a whole assembly to see him, and it does not see him.
In this manner he passes through guarded gates and comes out of prison in the face of his petrified gaolers.
At such times a strange numbness is experienced, and they recall having seen the Magus as if in a dream, but never till after he has gone.
The whole secret of invisibility consists therefore in a power which is capable of definition - being that of distracting or paralysing attention, so that light reaches the visual organ without impressing the eye of the soul.
To exercise this power we must possess a Will accustomed to sudden and energetic actions, great presence of mind and skill no less great in causing diversions among the crowd.
Let a man, for example, who is being pursued by his intending murderers, dart into a side street, return immediately, and advance with perfect calmness towards his pursuers, or let him mix with them and seem intent on the chase, and he will certainly make himself invisible.
A priest who was being hunted in '93, with the intention of hanging him from a lamp-post, fled down a certain street, assumed a stooping gait, and leaned against a corner with an intensely preoccupied expression; the crowd of his enemies swept past; not one saw him, or rather, it never struck anyone to recognize him: it was so unlikely to be he!
The person who desires to be seen always makes himself observed, but he who would remain unnoticed effaces himself and disappears.
The true Ring of Gyges is the will; it is also the wand of transformations, and by its precise and strong formulation it creates the magical word.
The omnipotent terms of enchantments are those which express this creative power of forms.
The Tetragram, which is the supreme word of Magic, signifies: “It is that which it shall be,” and if we apply it to any transformation whatsoever with full intelligence, it will renew and modify all things, even in the teeth of evidence and common sense.
The hoc est of the Christian sacrifice is a translation and application of the Tetragram: hence this simple utterance operates the most complete, most invisible, most incredible and most clearly affirmed of all transformations.
A still stronger word than that of transformation has been judged necessary by councils to express the marvel - that of transubstantiation.
The Hebrew terms , have been considered by all Kaba-lists as the keys of magical transformation.
The Latin words, est, sit, esto, fiat, have the same force when pronounced with full understanding.
Montalembert relates seriously, in his legend of St.
Elizabeth of Hungary, how one day this saintly lady, surprised by her noble husband, from whom she sought to conceal her good works, in the act of carrying bread to the poor in her apron, told him that she was carrying roses, and it proved on investigation that she had spoken truly; the loaves had changed into roses.
This story is a most gracious magical apologue, and signifies that the truly wise man cannot lie, that the word of wisdom determines the form of things, or even their substance independently of their forms.
Why, for example, should not the noble spouse of St.
Themes
◆Logoscosmology
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The text states that the word of wisdom determines the form of things, echoing the creative power of the divine Word.
Form-mutability as a constitutional property of divine and preternatural beings — gods, heroes, spirits, and their human practitioners possessing inherent capacity to alter form across human, animal, plant, or elemental states. Loki and Odin's transformations in Norse, Math's pigs and Blodeuwedd's owl-shape and Pwyll's exchange with Arawn in the Mabinogion, the Greek Proteus, the Indian dasavatara, Vainamoinen's bird-flight in the Kalevala, Ovid's metamorphoses, the shamanic and witch's capacity for ritual form-change. Distinct from anthropomorphism (divine taking specific human form, single embodiment) in that anthropomorphism establishes a stable form whereas this concept establishes form's plurality and instability.
The passage explicitly discusses transmutations, invisibility, and the transformation of bread into roses as central magical capabilities.
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 text emphasizes that spoken words like the Tetragram or 'hoc est' possess the causal power to renew and modify reality directly.