To understand the use of this force, but never to be obsessed and never overcome thereby, is to trample on the serpent’s head, and it is this which we learn from the Magic of Light; in such secrets are contained all mysteries of magnetism, which name can indeed be applied to the whole practical part of antique Transcendental Magic. Magnetism is the wand of miracles, but it is this for initiates only; for rash and uninstructed people, who would sport with it or make it subserve their passions, it is as dangerous as that consuming glory which, according to the allegorical fable, destroyed the too ambitious Semele in the embraces of Jupiter. One of the great benefits of magnetism is that it demonstrates by incontestable facts the spirituality, unity and immortality of the soul; and these things once made certain, God is manifested to all intelligences and all hearts. Thereafter, from the belief in God and from the harmonies of creation, we are led to that great religious harmony which does not exist outside the miraculous and lawful hierarchy of the Catholic Church, for this alone has preserved all traditions of science and faith. [Illustration: THE GREAT SYMBOL OF SOLOMON] The primal tradition of the one and only revelation has been preserved under the name of Kabalah by the priesthood of Israel. Kabalistic doctrine, which is that of Transcendental Magic, is contained in the _Sepher Yetzirah_, the _Zohar_ and the _Talmud_.[14] According to this doctrine, the absolute is Being, and therein is the Word, which expresses the reason of Being and of life. The principle therefore is that Being is being, אהיה אשד אהיה. In the beginning the Word was, which means that it is, has been and shall be; and this is reason which speaks. In the beginning was the Word. The Word is the reason of belief, and therein also is the expression of that faith which gives life to science. The Word, or Logos, is the wellspring of logic. Jesus is the Incarnate Word. The concord of reason with faith, of science with belief, of authority with liberty, has become in these modern days the real enigma of the sphinx. Coincidentally with this great problem there has come forward that which concerns the respective rights of man and woman. This was inevitable, for between the several terms of a great and supreme question, there is a constant analogy, and the difficulties, like the correspondences, are invariably the same. The loosening of this Gordian knot of philosophy and modern politics is rendered apparently paradoxical, because in order to effect an agreement between the terms of the required equation, there is always a tendency to confuse the one with the other. If there is anything that deserves to be called supreme absurdity, it is to inquire how faith becomes a reason, reason a belief and liberty an authority; or reciprocally, how the woman becomes a man and the man a woman. The definitions themselves intervene against such confusion, and it is by