Initiation being the necessary consequence of that hierarchic principle which is the basis of realisation in Magic, it follows that the profane, after striving vainly to force the doors of the sanctuary, have been driven to raise altar against altar and to oppose ignorant disclosures of schism to the reticence of orthodoxy. Horrible histories were circulated concerning the Magi; sorcerers and vampires cast upon them the responsibility of their own crimes; they were represented as feasting on infants and drinking human blood. Such attacks of presumptuous ignorance against the prudence of science have invariably met with success sufficient to perpetuate their use. Has not some miserable creature set forth, in I know not what pamphlet, how he has heard with his own ears, and within the precincts of a club, the author of this book demanding the blood of the wealthy to make it into puddings for the nourishment of starving people? The more monstrous the calumny, the greater the impression that it produces in the minds of fools. Those who slandered the Magi committed themselves the enormities of which they accused them and were abandoned to all the excesses of shameless sorcery. There was everywhere the rumour of apparitions and prodigies, and the gods themselves came down in visible forms to authorise orgies. The maniacal circles of pretended _illuminati_ go back to the bacchantes who murdered Orpheus. Since the days of those fanatical and clandestine circles where promiscuity and assassination were combined with ecstasies and prayers, a luxurious and mystical pantheism increased continually. But the fatal destinies of this consuming and destroying dogma are recorded in one of the finest fables of Greek mythology. Certain pirates of Tyre surprised Bacchus in his sleep and carried him on board their vessel, thinking that the god of inspiration had so become their slave; but on a sudden, in the open sea, their ship was transfigured, the masts became vine-stocks, the rigging branches; satyrs were seen everywhere, dancing with lynxes and panthers; the crew were seized with frenzy, they felt themselves changed into goats and cast themselves into the sea. Bacchus subsequently landed in Bœotia and repaired to Thebes, the city of initiation, where he found that Pentheus had usurped the supreme power. The latter in his turn attempted to imprison the god, but the dungeon opened of itself and the captive came forth triumphant. Pentheus was enraged and the daughters of Cadmus, transformed into Bacchantes, tore him in pieces, thinking that they were immolating a young bull.[108]