Simon was certainly not an initiate of Transcendental Magic, which would have told him that wisdom and sanctity are needful for those who would direct the secret forces of Nature without being broken thereby; that to play with such terrible weapons without understanding them was the act of a fool; and that swift and terrible death awaits those who profane the Sanctuary of Nature. Simon was consumed by an unquenchable thirst, like that of a drunkard; the suspension of his ecstasy was the loss of all his happiness, and made ill by past excesses, he thought to regain health in renewed intoxication. One does not willingly come back to the state of a simple mortal after posing as a god. To recover that which he had lost Simon submitted therefore to all the rigours of apostolic austerity; he watched, he prayed, he fasted, but the wonders did not return. Then he reflected that between Jews it might be possible to reach an understanding, and he offered money to St. Peter. The chief of the apostles drove him indignantly away; and he who received so willingly the contributions of his disciples was now at the end of his resources; he abandoned forthwith the society of men who had shewn such disinterestedness, and with the money which St. Peter disdained he purchased a female slave named Helena.[122] Mystical vagaries are always akin to debauch. Simon became passionately enamoured of his servant; that passion, at once weakening and exalting, restored his cataleptic states and the morbid phenomena which he termed his gift of wonders. A mythology full of magical reminiscences, combined with erotic dreams, issued fully armed from his brain; he undertook pilgrimages like the apostles, carrying Helena with him, dogmatising and shewing himself to those who were willing to worship and doubtless also to pay him.