Now, if these things do not differ specifically from the heads of the previous testimony, on the surface and in the letter thereof, it is no less certain that there is a marked distinction alike in general atmosphere and inward spirit. About this all can satisfy themselves who will compare the two texts, and I need not insist on it here. What, however, in the _Histoire de la Magie_, has befallen that practical side which, after all the dreamings, the high and decorative philosophy, the adornments—now golden, now meretricious—was the evidence, term and crown of the previous work? Those who are reading can again check me; but my answer is this: whether the subject of the moment is the art of evoking spirits, whether it is old cases of possession, whether it is witchcraft or necromancy, whether it is modern phenomena like direct-writing, table-rapping and the other occurrences of spiritism, as they were known to the writer and his period, they have one and all fallen under the ban of unreserved condemnation. It is not that they are imposture, for Éliphas Lévi does not dispute the facts and derides those who do, but they belong to the abyss of delusion and all who practise them are workers of madness and apostles of evil only. The advent of Christianity has put a decisive period to every activity of Magic and anathema has been pronounced thereon. It is from this point of view that Lévi takes the disciple through each century of the subject, sometimes indeed explaining things from the standpoint of a complete sceptic, sometimes as Joseph Ennemoser might himself have explained them, but never—no, not once—like the authorised exponent of practical Magic who has tried the admirable and terrifying experiments, who returns to say that they are true and real, which is the testimony of the _Doctrine and Ritual_, if these volumes can be held to signify anything. Necromancy as a science of the abyss; spiritism as the abyss giving up every form of delusion; sorcery, witchcraft, as rich indeed in testimony but to human perversity alone, apart from intervention of diabolism belonging to the other world—I testify with my whole heart to the truth of these accusations, though I do not believe that the unseen world is so utterly cut off from the world of things manifest as Éliphas Lévi considered in his own paradoxical moods. But once more—what has become of Magic? What has happened to the one science which is coeval with creation itself, to the key of all miracles and to almost omnipotent adeptship? They are reduced as follows: (_a_) to that which in its palmary respects is the “sympathetic and miraculous physics” of Mesmer, who is “grand as Prometheus” because of them; (_b_) to a general theory of hallucination, when hallucination has been carried, by self-induced delusion or otherwise, to its _ne plus ultra degree_; and (_c_) but I mention this under very grave reserves, because—for the life of me—I do not understand how or why it should remain—to the physical