ntly, were of a narcotic
nature, and it is not difficult to believe that almost any type of
hallucination may have occurred. Such, as we have seen, was ELIPHAS
LEVI'S view of ceremonial magic; and whatever may be said as concerns
his own experiment therein (for one would have thought that the
essential element of faith was lacking in this case), it is undoubtedly
the true view as concerns the ceremonial magic of the past. As this
author well says: "Witchcraft, properly so-called, that is ceremonial
operation with intent to bewitch, acts only on the operator, and serves
to fix and confirm his will, by formulating it with persistence and
labour, the two conditions which make volition efficacious."(1b)

(2) "MAGICAL AXIOM. In the circle of its action, every word creates that
which it affirms.

DIRECT CONSEQUENCE. He who affirms the devil, creates or makes the
devil.

"_Conditions of Success in Infernal Evocations_. 1, Invincible
obstinacy; 2, a conscience at once hardened to crime and most subject
to remorse and fear; 3, affected or natural ignorance; 4, blind faith
in all that is incredible, 5, a completely false idea of God. (ELIPHAS
LEVI: _Op. cit_., pp. 297 and 298.)

(1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: _Op. cit_., pp. 130 and 131.

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG in one place writes: "Magic is nothing but the
perversion of order; it is especially the abuse of correspondences."(2)
A study of the ceremonial magic of the Middle Ages and the following
century or two certainly justifies SWEDENBORG in writing of magic as
something evil. The distinction, rigid enough in theory, between white
and black, legitimate and illegitimate, magic, was, as I have indicated,
extremely indefinite in practice. As Mr A. E. WAITE justly remarks:
"Much that passed current in the west as White (_i.e_. permissible)
Magic was only a disguised goeticism, and many of the resplendent angels
invoked with divine rites reveal their cloven hoofs. It is not too much
to say that a large majority of past psychological experiments were
conducted to establish communication with demons, and that for unlawful
purposes. The popular conceptions concerning the diabolical spheres,
which have been all accredited by magic, may have been gross
exaggerations of fact concerning rudimentary and perverse intelligences,
but the wilful viciousness of the communicants is substantially
untouched thereby."(1b)

(2) EMANUEL SWEDENBORG: _Arcana Caelestia_, SE 6692.

(1b) ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE