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    The Occult Sciences - A Compendium of Transcendental Doctrine and Experiment: Embracing an Account of Magical Practices; of Secret Sciences in Connection with Magic; of the Professors of Magical Arts; and of Modern Spiritualism, Mesmerism and Theosophy
    The Occult Sciences - A Compendium of Transcendental Doctrine and Experiment: Embracing an Account of Magical Practices; of Secret Sciences in Connection with Magic; of the Professors of Magical Arts; and of Modern Spiritualism, Mesmerism and Theosophy
    The Occult Sciences - A Compendium of Transcendental Doctrine and Experiment: Embracing an Account of Magical Practices; of Secret Sciences in Connection with Magic; of the Professors of Magical Arts; and of Modern Spiritualism, Mesmerism and Theosophy
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    The Occult Sciences - A Compendium of Transcendental Doctrine and Experiment: Embracing an Account of Magical Practices; of Secret Sciences in Connection with Magic; of the Professors of Magical Arts; and of Modern Spiritualism, Mesmerism and Theosophy

    By Arthur Edward Waite

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    About this ebook

    This extensive guide to all things occult deals with magical practices, spiritualism, mesmerism, theosophy, necromancy, and much more.

    First published in 1923, The Occult Sciences is written by scholarly mystic and poet, A. E. Waite. The prolific writer published many works on occult subjects and co-created the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. His vast knowledge of the occult is evident in this informative volume, and he touches on many topics including crystal-gazing and alchemy.

    This reference guide’s contents include:

      - Magic: Definitions
      - White Magic: The Evocation of Angels
      - White Magic: The Evocation of the Spirits of The Elements
      - Black Magic: The Evocation of Demons
      - Necromancy: The Evocation of the Souls of the Dead
      - Secret Sciences in Connection With Magic
      - Alchemy
      - The Elixir of Life
      - Crystallomancy
      - The Composition of Talisman
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherObscure Press
    Release dateJul 14, 2020
    ISBN9781528767941
    The Occult Sciences - A Compendium of Transcendental Doctrine and Experiment: Embracing an Account of Magical Practices; of Secret Sciences in Connection with Magic; of the Professors of Magical Arts; and of Modern Spiritualism, Mesmerism and Theosophy

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      The Occult Sciences - A Compendium of Transcendental Doctrine and Experiment - Arthur Edward Waite

      INTRODUCTION.

      THE claims of Hermetic philosophy to the consideration of serious thinkers in the nineteenth century are not to be confounded with those merely of an exalted intellectual system, or of a sublime and legitimate aspiration. These may, indeed, be urged in behalf of it with the force of unadulterated truthfulness, but not as the principal point. What the philosophy which is indiscriminately called transcendental, Hermetic, Rosicrucian, mystical, and esoteric or occult, submits in its revived form to the scrutator of life and her problems as a sufficing and rational cause for its resuscitation, and as an adequate ground for its recognition, is tersely this:—That it comprises an actual, positive, and realisable knowledge concerning the worlds which we denominate invisible, because they transcend the imperfect and rudimentary faculties of a partially developed humanity, and concerning the latent potentialities which constitute, by the fact of their latency, what is termed the interior man. In more strictly philosophical language, the Hermetic science is a method of transcending the phenomenal world, and attaining to the reality which is behind phenomena. At a time when many leaders of thought have substantially abandoned all belief in the existence of intelligence outside of the visible universe, it is almost superfluous to say that the mere claim of the mystics has an irresistible magnetic attraction for those who are conscious that deep down in the heart of every man there exists the hunger after the supernatural.

      The mode of transcending the phenomenal world, as taught by the mystics, consists, and to some extent exclusively, of a form of intellectual ascension or development, which is equivalent to a conscious application of selective evolutionary laws by man himself to man. Those latent faculties which are identified as Psychic Force pass, under this training, into objective life; they become the instruments of communication with the unseen world, and the modes of subsistence which are therein. In other words, the conscious evolution of the individual has germinated a new sense by which he is enabled to appreciate what is inappreciable by the grosser senses.

      The powers of the interior man, and the possibility of communication with the unseen, are the subject of historical magic, which is filled with thaumaturgic accounts of experiments with these forces, and of the results of this communication. Whether these alleged occurrences are to be accepted as substantiated facts is not the question on which the enlightened mystic desires to insist. The evidence which supports them may be, and is, important; it may be, and is, overwhelming; but it is not upon the wonders of the Past only that the Hermetic claim is sought to be established, or demands recognition, in the Present. Whatever be the evidential value for the success of the psychic experiments conducted by the investigators of old, they may at least be said to constitute a sufficient ground for a new series of scientific inquiries on the part of those persons who are devoting their intelligence and their energy to the solution of the grand mysteries of existence. Otherwise, the transcendental philosophy would be simply the revival of an archaic faith, and would be wholly unadapted to the necessities of to-day. It should be remembered, however, when speaking of scientific inquiry, that the reference is not confined to the professed scientists of the period, but to all who are capable of exact observation, and can appreciate the momentous character of the issues involved.

      The standpoint indeed is this: the successful experiments of the past are capable of repetition in the present, and it is open to those who doubt it to be convinced by individual experience. In one of his most mystical utterances, Christ is recorded to have said that there are those who are eunuchs from their mother’s womb, and that there are those who become eunuchs in the interests of the Kingdom of God: so also there are natural magicians and magicians who are the product of art, yet, generally speaking, the magician, unlike the poet, is not born but made, for the same potentialities abide in the whole of humanity, and they can be ultimately developed in all. What is wanted, therefore, is not merely persons possessed of the gifts of clairvoyance, or even of lucidity, of prophetic foresight, or of the qualities called mediumistic, but those who by the nature of their aspirations, and by the help of a favourable environment, are able to apply the arcane laws of evolution to their own interior selves. But there is another and an indispensable condition, namely, the power to distinguish between Hermetic truth and the shameless frauds which have encompassed it from time immemorial. At present, the intellectual world is substantially divided into those who reject esoteric doctrine and practice as unmixedly fraudulent, and those whose credulity identifies its worst impostures and most puerile perversions with its highest forms of truth. Transcendentalism is concerned with the development and application of certain powerful forces resident in the interior man, and as these forces have been developed and applied in various directions, from many motives, and with a multiplicity of ends in view, historical mysticism is very diverse in its character, is often puerile, superstitious, dangerous, malevolent, and obscene, and from its very nature has been always peculiarly liable to the counterfeits of charlatans.

      Certain sections of modern mystics have expressed somewhat too freely their indignation against the Christian churches for the abuses and corruptions which they have generated during the undermining process of the ages. Now, the history of no doctrine and of no religion can compare in its abuses and corruptions with that of Magic; for every species of abomination, of unnatural love and more unnatural hate have been fostered under the tenebrous wings of the goetic part of mysticism. There, as in other matters, the height of aspiration finds its exact counterpoise in the abysses of spiritual degradation. It is the custom with many to shield occultism from the responsibility of these dishonourable histories by means of transliteral interpretations, just as it is the custom among the more credulous section of spiritualists to cloak every phase of fraud among mediums by accrediting the spirit world with the impostures of many of those who pose as the avenues of communication between the seen and the unseen. In the current periodical literature of our newest and most elaborated mysticism may be found attempts to erect Cagliostro, the Sicilian mesmerist, into an adept of divine magic, on the plea that a person accepting the notorious facts of his life and character as historical truth, would be adopting a shallow and puerile view. Even the most obvious and direct contradictions which are to be found in the French mystics have been qualified and excused by a separation of the conflicting statements into different planes of thought. In the same manner, at a number of private séances where the non-professional avenues of communication refused all remuneration, and where, as a consequence, the essential element of fraud might be safely deemed wanting, the most incessant and clumsy imposture has been explained by the hypothesis that the unbuyable avenues were completely entranced and unconscious, that they were utilised in this manner by the holy spirit world in order to economise psychic force, and form-manifestations were being witnessed.

      But nevertheless the transcendental philosophy is the one hope of an age which is sick unto death of its own unprofitable speculations. It asks no faith; it offers a. positive knowledge. But it is well that we should recognise the existence and proximity of its darker side. It is well also for all who approach the subject, and desire to preserve the even balance of an unbiassed and well-regulated mind, to discount much of the gorgeous claim put forward by modern mystics concerning the antique masters. Hierophants who are supposed by their admirers to have achieved all heights, ought surely to have enjoyed an immunity from the cosmogonical ignorance of their age, whereas their writings reveal them as by no means advanced students of physical science. Those who are believed to have stood on the threshold of Deity might have enunciated theological, views of a broader character; nevertheless, we find that in most questions of religion they appear to have adhered to the doctrines which were current at their particular epochs. These facts suggest limitations which will, we fear, be conclusive proof to a large number of thinkers that the achievements of adepts in the past are of a somewhat imaginary nature. However, a comparison of their claims with the known facts of modern psychology will establish the general truth of their statements; and the higher and unexplored possibilities which to-day are indicated by psychic science, and which are known to advanced experimentalists, will be found, on comparison, to be precisely in the direction of the more exalted claims of the mystics. But in spite of the attainments of some brilliant exceptions, there is little reason to suppose that the turba philosophorum, as a whole, did much more than extend our actual psychic experiments—mesmeric, hypnotic, and spiritual—for a marked but a measurable distance beyond ourselves, and that the grand altitudes of occultism, of which we write and dream, were the Promised Land of their own aspirations, and not attained in their lives.*

      This being the case, it is better for the present to confine our attention in the main to the repeatable experiments of the mystics. To serious students it is possibly permissible, with excessive discrimination and caution, to extend the circle of investigation to some of the branches of Black Magic (such as the control of evil spirits), knowledge and not gain being the only end in view. The alleged dangers in connection with magical practices are insignificant in comparison with the ends which are to be achieved, and the existing secret brotherhoods, more especially Masonry, which is founded on esoteric doctrine, could be utilised by the mystics in subservience to these ends.

      The common presumptions established by modern science against the spiritual nature of man and the existence of spiritual intelligences outside the visible universe, are based on a sharp distinction between the substances respectively denominated material and spiritual, which offers a singular instance of the verbal tyrannies to which we subject our minds. No more abundant source of intellectual misconception and blunder can well be adduced than is comprised in the two words SPIRIT and MATTER. Believers and sceptics alike have exhausted the methods of philosophy in their attempt to establish the two conceptions at antipodean poles of thought. It is now universally admitted that we are exclusively limited to an acquaintance with the appearances of this world which we term material; of matter in its ultimate nature we know nothing whatever. No scientific analysis can throw light upon its eternally inscrutable problem. It is also admitted that, in the intellectual order, man realises that he is a conscious being by a reflex and not a direct act, and the ultimate nature of the ego is a book permanently sealed. Once more, we are familiar alone with certain modes of manifestation; ever the reality escapes us. It is therefore impossible rationally to establish fundamental distinctions between substances about which we are fundamentally ignorant, and as, for all practical purposes, mind is identical with the vague concept which we denominate spirit, we may enunciate the following axiom with complete truth:—The distinction between matter and spirit is philosophically futile and frivolous. A direct consequence follows; those who affirm the existence of matter and deny spirit may be unconsciously contradicting themselves. Though identified in the common darkness which involves them, it is philosophically impossible, of course, to affirm their substantial identity; therefore reservation of judgment is the only prudent course. This reservation must be, moreover, extended in another and important direction. Seeing that the phenomena called thaumaturgic, magical and spiritual may be simply uninvestigated modes of manifestation in one force infinitely differentiated in the universe, it is unreasonable to deny their possibility on à priori grounds, for the possible modes of manifestation in an ultimately unknown substance cannot be theoretically limited. As a fact, we are unconsciously landed in pure Spinozism, for it is one of the tenets of this grand and singular thinker that matter and mind are but two finite manifestations of one infinite substance, which may be capable of an infinite number of other finite manifestations of which we can and do know nothing. It is outside the present order of inquiry, but these considerations lead us to touch briefly on a still more important subject. The existence of a creative mind exterior to the visible universe, and standing in relation thereto as its almighty author and architect, has been debated for long ages without the possibility having occurred to dialecticians on either side that the efficient cause of matter and mind may be something so totally transcending them both, and equally in nature and substance, that it cannot be identified with either. If the pantheistic identification of deity with the titanic forces of the Cosmos be a narrow and inadequate solution of the mystery of God, the anthropomorphic identification with mind is liable to the same objection.

      If there be any philosophic accuracy in this method of reasoning, it follows that by virtue of our absolute and irretrievable ignorance concerning the fundamentals of matter and mind, mere speculations on the problems of life, on the possibility of intellectual subsistence devoid of a physical organism—in other words, on the existence of disembodied humanities, and of hierarchies of spiritual beings above or below humanity—can never ultimate in any solid knowledge; they will ever be speculations only, devoid of conviction and satisfaction. It follows, also, that there is no possible refuge from permanent agnosticism except by a formal act of faith in some system of alleged revelation, or by experimental researches, if possible, into the nature and powers of the mind. But faith is no longer what it was in the days of St Paul, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen; it is not a source of scientific conviction; it is aspiration formulated as creed; and by its nature it is unable to provide a true intellectual certainty.

      It is at this point that the transcendental philosophy appears, and in the name of a thousand histories, and of ten thousand times ten thousand traditions and legends, declares it is possible to know by experimental research that disembodied humanities can and do subsist, that there are hierarchies of intelligence above and below humanity, that in this life., and with this environment, the potentialities of the interior man may be so developed as to put him in communication with forms of intellectual subsistence which transcend his normal mode; that the positive knowledge which is the result of such research can be attained now as it was attained in the past, and that a scientific solution of the problems of life is actually within the limits of every earnest man.

      Such are the claims of the Hermetic philosophy, and such is the scientific basis of mysticism. On these claims the spiritual future of the world may be reasonably considered to depend. On this basis, if on any, must the religion of the future be built, if by religion we are to understand the establishment of a vital and vivifying correspondence between that which is highest in man and that which is supreme in the universe. The choice lies between agnosticism and the science of the mystics. If mysticism be a true science, grand and illimitable is the prospect which awaits the psychic man. If it be grounded in superstition and imposture, even from agnosticism itself we may devise a chilly consolation, for so insoluble is the mystery of the universe that no aspiration can be extinguished as wholly impossible of fulfilment; even in the insoluble mystery there is room for a forlorn hope.

      * There is, however, an alternative view which it is only just to cite. It is advanced that the hierophants of the past were forced of necessity to speak the cosmological language of their day. When transcendental doctrine was rendered in the language of the current philosophy, the mystic could not seem much above the errors of the day. Otherwise, his over-science would have been additionally incomprehensible. On the transcendental plane, he probably knew all, but in physical science he may have been limited by the knowledge of the period. In either case, the translation of the secret wisdom for the public use could only be accomplished by writing down theologically as well as philosophically to the public level.

      PART I.

      DEFINITIONS.

      EVERY branch of the occult or secret sciences may be included under the word MAGIC, with the sole exception of astrology, which, important and interesting as it is, can hardly be termed a branch of arcane wisdom, as it depends solely on abstruse astro nomical calculations, and on the appreciation of the value of those influences which are supposed to be diffused by the planets and the starry heavens over the lives of nations and individuals. But the doctrines concerning the nature and power of angels, ghosts, and spirits; the methods of evoking and controlling the shades of the dead, elementary spirits, and demons; the composition of talismans; the manufacture of gold by alchemy; all forms of divination, including clairvoyance in the crystal, and all the mysterious calculations which make up kabbalistic science, are all parts of magic. It is necessary to make this statement at the outset to prevent misconception, because in an elementary hand-book it would be clearly a source of confusion to include subjects so apparently distinct under a single generic title; and we have therefore determined to make a few introductory remarks upon magic viewed as a whole, and then to treat each of its branches under special titles which will be readily intelligible to those who are seeking for the first time an acquaintance with the mysteries of the esoteric sciences.

      The popular significance attached to the term magic diverges widely from the interpretations which are offered by its students. By the term magic, according to the common opinion, there is generally implied one of two things—either that it is the art of producing effects by the operation of causes which are apparently inadequate to their production, and are therefore in apparent defiance of the known order of nature; or that it is the art of evoking spirits,* and of forcing them to perform the bidding of the operator. The second alternative may be practically resolved into the first, for the invocation of invisible intelligences is inseparably connected in the minds of the vulgar with a certain hocus-pocus of preposterous rites and formulæ, including the utterance of barbarous and, to them, meaningless words, which certainly appear to be inadequate to produce so stupendous an effect as a direct manifestation from a hidden side of Nature. Now, to establish communication with worlds which are normally beyond our reach is undoubtedly included in the great claims of the magus; and the art of evoking spirits, taken in its true and its highest sense, is the head and crown of Magic; but it is not in fact a violation of immutable natural laws, and the causes which are set in operation by its qualified initiates are really adequate to the effects which are produced, wonderful and incredible as they may appear. The popular conception of Magic, even when it is not identified with the trickeries of imposture and the pranks of the mountebank, is entirely absurd and gross.

      Magic, or, more accurately, Magism, says Christian in his Histoire de la Magie, if anyone would condescend to return to its antique origin, could be no longer confounded with the superstitions which calumniate its memory. Its name is derived to us from the Greek words MAGOS, a Magician, and MAGEIA, Magic, which are merely permutations of the terms MOG, MEGH, MAGH, which in Pehlvi and in Zend, both languages of the eldest East, signify ‘priest,’ ‘wise,’ and ‘excellent.’ It was thence also that, in a period anterior to historic Greece, there originated the Chaldæan name Maghdim, which is equivalent to ‘supreme wisdom,’ or sacred philosophy. Thus, mere etymology indicates that Magic was the synthesis of those sciences once possessed by the Magi or philosophers of India, of Persia, of Chaldæa, and of Egypt, who were the priests of nature, the patriarchs of knowledge, and the founders of those vast civilisations whose ruins still maintain, without tottering, the burden of sixty centuries.

      Ennemoser, in his History of Magic (as translated by Howitt), says: Among the Parsees, the Medes, and the Egyptians, a higher knowledge of nature was understood by the term Magic, with which religion, and particularly astronomy, were associated. The initiated and their disciples were called Magicians—that is, the Wise —which was also the case among the Greeks. . . . Plato understood by Wisdom nothing less than a worship of the Divinity, and Apuleius says that Magus means, in the Persian language, a priest. . . . India, Persia, Chaldea, and Egypt, were the cradles of the oldest Magic. Zoroaster, Ostanes, the Brahmins, the Chaldean sages, and the Egyptian priests, were the primitive possessors of its secrets. The priestly and sacrificial functions, the healing of the sick, and the preservation of the Secret Wisdom, were the objects of their life. They were either princes themselves, or surrounded princes as their counsellors. Justice, truth, and the power of self-sacrifice, were the great qualities with which each one of these must be endowed; and the neglect of any one of these virtues was punished in the most cruel manner.

      A theosophical writer who is said to belong to the most advanced school, Dr Franz Hartmann, who is said to be a practical as well as theoretical student, who also lays claim to the successful performance of recondite alchemical experiments by the application of spiritual forces to material things, and who, therefore, should at any rate be competent to provide us with a tolerable definition of his art, has the following assertion at the beginning of one of his books:—"Whatever misinterpretation ancient or modern ignorance may have given to the word Magic, its only true significance is The Highest Science, or Wisdom, based upon knowledge and practical experience." This definition reads an absolute value into a term which it does not historically possess, for though Magic be undoubtedly derived from a word which signifies Wisdom, it is Wisdom as conceived by the Magi to which it is alone equivalent, and so far as philosophy is concerned, magian Wisdom either may or may not be identical with the absolute and eternal Wisdom.

      Magic, says Eliphas Lévi, is the traditional science of the secrets of Nature which has come down to us from the Magi, a definition devoid of nonsense, and narrowly escaping perfection, the limitation of the source of esoteric knowledge to the Persian hierarchs being, we think, its sole defect.

      By these definitions it is plain that Magic is not merely the art of invoking spirits, and that it is not merely concerned with establishing a communication with other forms of intelligent subsistence in the innumerable spheres of the transcendental. If such invocation be possible, if such communication can be truly established, it is evidently by the intervention of certain occult forces resident in the communicating individual, man. Now, it is reasonable to suppose that the same forces can be applied in other directions, and the synthesis of the methods and processes by which these forces are utilized in the several fields of experiment, combined with a further synthesis of methods and processes by which the latent potentialities of a variety of physical substances are developed into manifest activity, constitutes Magic in the full, perfect, and comprehensive sense of that much abused term.

      The maltreatment and odium of centuries has eliminated from the word Magic its original and sublime significance. Once, in the dead language of starry Chaldea, the solemn sanctuary, the cradle, if not the birthplace, of the sciences called transcendental, it was the equivalent of supreme wisdom; once its professors were the priests, the wise, the excellent: but the science is confounded with the impostures which have encompassed its history, and the initiates are identified with the rabble of rogues and charlatans. So it would almost seem as if the term Magic had become a word whose accepted meaning is a libel on the science which it signifies, and a slur on the memory of its grand masters. Fortunately, however, it is not the only term by which that science is described; esoteric wisdom, occult knowledge, the transcendental philosophy and practice are inter-convertible terms which all signify Magic, and are used indiscriminately throughout this volume, less to avoid tautology than to minimise the depreciatory effect of a now debased word by connecting it with the equivalents of its first and true significance.

      We have already explained in the Introduction to this work what we conceive to be the objects of the present revival of mysticism, and the exact nature of its claims on the consideration of the nineteenth century. The origin and destiny of Man are the absorbing and vital problems which, in the present age, demand more urgently than ever a complete and satisfactory solution. Such a solution is offered, it is claimed, by Magic. Latent energies, undeveloped faculties, generally unknown possibilities, are affirmed by that science to be actually resident in man. By their effectual evolution it is said that the horizon of his energies and his perceptions can be so enlarged as to extend over a new range of existence. It is demonstrated that his physical envelope is not his real self, that he can transcend it without destroying, while he can establish a direct connection with numberless forms of intelligence who are dissevered from their perishable bodies, and with others of every rank who have never been joined with flesh. The desire of the long ages is promised a complete fulfilment in this sublime programme of an abandoned knowledge.

      The psychological experiments of the past masters of mysticism are alleged to have brought them into communication with various classes of intelligences, such as angels, elementary spirits, demons, and the disembodied souls of men. The fundamental principle of this communication was in the exercise of a certain occult force resident in the Magus and strenuously exerted for the establishment of such a correspondence between two planes of Nature as would effect his desired end. This exertion was termed the evocation, conjuration, or calling of the spirit, but that which in reality was raised was the energy of the inner man; tremendously developed and exalted by combined will and aspiration, this energy germinated by sheer force a new intellectual faculty of sensible psychological perception, and enabled the prepared mystic to see into a new world, and communicate with its several populations. To assist and to stimulate this energy into the most powerful possible operation, artificial means were almost invariably used. The ordinary faculties and senses were worked upon, and frequently the narrow line which intervenes between exaltation and frenzy was overstepped in the temerity of the process. The appeal to the senses by a gorgeous and overwhelming ritual, which has been attended with grand success in the hierarchic religions of Christianity, was made also by the hierarchic magic of the past. The synthesis of these methods and processes was called Ceremonial Magic, which in effect was a tremendous forcing-house of the latent faculties of man’s spiritual nature. Undoubtedly the end was occasionally accomplished by violent and unnatural means, for intellectual exaltation can be achieved by laudanum and haschisch as much as by divine grace applied to the soul; but the ethical value of the end cannot be impeached by the use of discreditable methods, though the operator may be personally discredited and permanently maimed thereby.

      The gospel according to the mystics has, it will be seen, its darker side. As the known forces of modern material science can be used to preserve or destroy, so can the arcane potencies developed by magic be directed to a good or an evil end. In the suggestive language of the alchemists, coals may be turned into gold, but also it is possible to convert the precious metal into coal. We can rise into communion with the exalted understanding of the angels; we can sink into correspondence with the psychic deformities of the devils; we can compose the Universal Medicine and the arcane poison of the second death.

      There is white and there is black magic. The lawful application of the arcane forces which are known to esoteric science constitutes White Magic; the lawless and vicious application of the same forces is the Black or infernal Art.

      The seat of the law abides in the intention and will of the operator. That which is well meant must eventually work well. Actions must be appraised by their intention and not their effect alone, as the significance of words is extended, contracted, or changed by a reference to their philological origin. Black Magic has two preponderating elements—the diabolical, and the superstitious or absurd. The use of the term diabolical is not to be interpreted in an absolutely theological sense.

      The contrast obtained by the epithets white and

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