HISTORY OF MAGIC.

diabolical miracles? How would the reprobate spirit, the wandering spirit, the misguided spirit, have more strength in certain cases and in a certain way than the just man, so powerful in his simplicity and his wisdom, if one does not suppose an instrument that all can use, according to certain conditions, some for the greatest good, others for the greatest evil?

The magicians of Pharaoh first performed the same prodigies as Moses. The instrument they used was therefore the same, only the inspiration was different; and when they declared themselves defeated, they proclaimed that in their view human forces were at an end, and that Moses must have something superhuman in him. Now this happened in that Egypt, the mother of magical initiations, in that land where everything was occult science and hierarchical and sacred teaching. Was it more difficult, however, to make flies appear than frogs? No, certainly; but the magicians knew that the fluidic projection by which one fascinates the eyes could not extend beyond certain limits, and for them those limits were already exceeded by Moses.

When the brain becomes congested or overloaded with astral light, a particular phenomenon occurs. The eyes, instead of seeing outside, see inside; night falls on the exterior in the real world and the fantastic clarity radiates alone in the world of dreams. The eye then seems turned around and often, in fact, it convulses slightly and seems to roll back under the eyelid. The soul then perceives through images the reflection of its impressions and its thoughts, that is to say

INTRODUCTION.

that the analogy which exists between such an idea and such a form attracts in the astral light the representative reflection of that form; for the essence of living light is to be figurative; it is the universal imagination of which each of us appropriates a greater or lesser part, according to our degree of sensitivity and memory. There is the source of all apparitions, of all extraordinary visions and of all intuitive phenomena that are proper to madness or ecstasy.

The phenomenon of appropriation and assimilation of light by the seeing sensitivity is one of the greatest that it is given to science to study. One will perhaps find one day that to see is already to speak, and that the consciousness of light is the twilight of eternal life in being; the word of God, which creates light, seems to be uttered by every intelligence that can recognize forms and that wants to look. — Let there be light! Light, in effect, only exists in a state of splendor for the eyes that look at it, and the soul in love with the spectacle of universal beauties, and applying its attention to this luminous writing of the infinite book that we call visible things, seems to cry, like God at the dawn of the first day, that sublime and creative word: FIAT LUX Let there be light!

All eyes do not see the same, and creation is not for all those who look at it of the same form and the same color. Our brain is a book printed inside and outside, and however little the attention is exalted, the writings become confused. This is what constantly happens in intoxication and in madness. The dream then triumphs over real life and plunges