No study of occult philosophy is possible without an acquaintance with symbolism, for if the words occultism and symbolism are correctly used, they mean almost one and the same thing. Symbolism cannot be learned as one learns to build bridges or speak a foreign language, and for the interpretation of symbols a special cast of mind is necessary; in addition …
Before concluding this short treatise, I will say a few words on the occult and Qabalistical signification of these wonderful Tarot Cards. It has been long known that the ordinary 52 card pack was susceptible of some peculiar numerical significations, e.g.: 52 Cards in the pack, suggest 52 weeks in the year. 13 Cards in each suit, suggest 13 lunar …
INTRODUCTION I. THE LEGEND OF THE GOD NEB-ER-TCHER, AND THE HISTORY OF CREATION. THE text of the remarkable Legend of the Creation which forms the first section of this volume is preserved in a well-written papyrus in the British Museum, where it bears the number 10,188. This papyrus was acquired by the late Mr. A. H. Rhind in 1861 or …
PART I HISTORICAL CHAPTER I BEGINNINGS OF ALCHEMY To most of us the word ‘alchemy’ calls up the picture of a medieval and slightly sinister laboratory in which an aged, black-robed wizard brooded over the crucibles and alembics that were to bring within his reach the Philosophers’ Stone, and with that discovery the formula for the elixir of life and …
Occultism dominated the development of thought during the Middle Ages of China not less than in Europe, and here again in the conception of the elements we find traces of a common origin in both the East and West. The Chinese speak of five elements: water, fire, wood, metal, and earth; while, according to the ancient sages of Hellas and …
For the purposes of the present, inquiry it will be convenient to consider the Rituals under the three heads of Transcendental, Composite and Black, subject, as regards the first, to some specific qualifications which will appear in the second chapter, and subject, in respect of all, to the perfect understanding that these three are one. So far as may be …
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 is exceedingly obscure, but there can be no question that in its …
PART I THE LITERATURE OF CEREMONIAL MAGIC THE SERPENT OF THE GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES. CHAPTER I The Antiquity of Magical Rituals The Importance of Ceremonial Magic THE ordinary fields of psychological inquiry, largely in possession of the pathologist, are fringed by a borderland of occult and dubious experiment into which pathologists may occasionally venture, but it is left for …
