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position, but it is regrettable that an institution possessing the sacramental system should
have disturbed itself about a direct communication of the kind attempted by Ceremonial
Magic. If it be said that the Church recognised the possibilities which, on certain sides, lie
behind the veil of vain observance, then it was not so acute as would seem, for behind
that veil there is no danger to the sacramental system. Those possibilities belong to the
life within, and the Church has its heritage therein.
9:1 The Ceremonial Magic of certain Græco-Egyptian papyri offers the closest analogies
with the processes of the Kabalistic school, but they are the channel and not the source.
We must look beyond history, certainly far beyond the documents of Leyden, for the
origin of Ceremonial Magic.
12:1 In this connection, I may perhaps be permitted to quote a general statement on the
subject which I once received from a correspondent who appeared to claim in his day
some connection of an unattached kind with the sources of secret knowledge. "Practical
Magic is the science of the economy of spiritual dynamics, and is concerned with those
Theurgic processes whereby he who has trained himself for the purpose can, by virtue of
powers inherent in man's spiritual constitution (but undeveloped in the majority of
mankind), enter into relations with the unseen intelligences to whom are assigned, in due
order, the control of what are called natural forces. 'Ceremonial Magic'" (presumably not
that of the Ceremonial Literature) "is Official Magic, in which the Magician, in
connection with one or more assistants, acts as the delegate of an occult Fraternity, who,
for some very important end, wish to communicate with beings of a higher order than
usual. For this purpose there is a recognised ceremonial, or rather there are two--the
'ceremonial of approach' and the 'ceremonial of the presence.' It is chiefly in the former
that lights, fumigations, symbolic figures and numbers, and incantations occur, all of
which have their use, either as credentials of authority or as weapons of attack and
defence in the intermediate hostile region between the material and spiritual universe." It
should be understood that I cite this testimony merely as an illustration of fantasy
presented in the guise of exactitude. I do not consider that the least credit should be
attached to the statement per se, as representing an actual claim made by any secret
fraternity, and the claim is without consequence, should it happen that it does.
§ 2. The Distinction between White and Black Magic 1
Having considered the possible standpoints from which the Rituals may be regarded, we
come now to the distinctions that are made between them, and, first and foremost, to that
which has been already mentioned and is artificially instituted between White and Black
Magic. The history of this distinction
p. 14
is exceedingly obscure, but there can be no question that in its main aspect it is modern-that
is to say, in so far as it depends upon a sharp contrast between Good and Evil Spirits.
In Egypt, in India and in Greece, there was no dealing with devils in the Christian sense
of the expression; Typhon, Juggernaut and Hecate were not less divine than the gods of