The history of magic : $b including a clear and precise exposition of its procedure, its rites and its mysteriesLévi, Éliphas
Religion
The history of magic : $b including a clear and precise exposition of its procedure, its rites and its mysteries
Lévi, Éliphas
Magic -- History
“The Holy Apostolic Chair, unto which the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven
are given by those words that Christ Jesus addressed to St. Peter: I
give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and unto thee alone
the power of commanding the Prince of Darkness and his angels, who,
as slaves to their master, do owe him honour, glory and obedience,
by virtue of those other words of Christ Jesus, addressed to Satan
himself: Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou
serve—hence by the power of these Keys the Head of the Church has been
made the Lord of hell. But seeing that until this present the Sovereign
Pontiffs have alone had the charge of evoking and commanding Spirits,
His Holiness Honorius II, being moved by his pastoral care, has desired
benignly to communicate the science and power of evocations and of
empire over spirits to his venerable Brethren in Jesus Christ, with the
conjurations which must be used in such case; now therefore the whole
is contained in the Bull which here follows.”
Here in all truth is the pontificate of hell, that sacrilegious
priesthood of anti-popes which Dante seems to stigmatise in the
raucous cry uttered by one of his princes of perdition: _Pope Satan,
Pope Satan: Aleppe_. Let the legitimate pontiff continue as prince of
heaven; it is enough for the anti-pope Cadalus to be the sovereign of
hell. “Be He the God of good, for god of evil am I; we are divided, but
my power is equal.”
The Bull of the infernal pontiff follows,[231] and the mystery of
darksome evocations is expounded therein with a terrific knowledge
concealed under superstitious and sacrilegious forms. Fastings,
watchings, profanation of mysteries, allegorical ceremonies and bloody
sacrifices are combined with artful malice. The evocations are not
deficient in poetry or in enthusiasm, mingled with horror. For example,
the author ordains that an operator should rise at midnight on the
Thursday in the first week of evocations, should sprinkle his room with
holy water and light a taper of yellow wax—prepared on the previous
day and pierced in the form of a cross. By the uncertain light of this
candle, he must enter a church alone and read the Office of the Dead
in a low voice, substituting in place of the ninth lesson at Matins
the following rhythmic invocation which is here translated from the
Latin, preserving its strange form and its refrains, which recall the
monotonous incantations of old-world sorcerers.
O Lord, deliver me from the infernal terrors,
Exempt my spirit from sepulchral larvæ;
To seek them out I shall go down to their hell unaffrighted:
I shall impose my will for a law upon them.
I will call upon night and its darkness to bring forth splendour:
Rise up, O Sun; and, Moon, be thou white and brilliant;
To the shades of hell I will speak and confess no terror:
I shall impose my will for a law upon them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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