Real Magic or Theurgy: Purpose and Pitfalls

Plato, Proclus, H.P. Blavatsky · Buddhas and Initiates Series · 35 pages

The longest of the studies gathered here on magic, opening with quick definitions and then giving Proclus at length on the alliance and sympathy that underpins all the kingdoms of life. Mastery of the universal magnetic sympathy existing between men, animals, plants and minerals selects and directs powers by sympathy and expels unwanted ones by antipathy; as love of physical beauty grows into an appreciation of divine beauty, so the old priests, investigating the kinship between the manifested world and the occult powers governing it, fathomed the relationship between concealed potentiality and infinite potencies at every level.

The order of nature is described as a beautiful descent from highest to lowest, in which stones and plants honour the sun and receive the bounty of divine love according to their ruling divinities, and inferior ranks of the same order venerate their superiors — which is why, in the old example repeated here, the cock is feared and revered by the lion. Blavatsky's contribution is that magic is based on the affinities between organic and inorganic bodies, the visible productions of the four kingdoms and the invisible powers of the universe. Insight into phenomena, the argument runs, allowed the old priests to understand the power of noumena; combining various odours into one, they demonstrated the unity of the divine essence, since division weakens each part while unity restores the idea of their exemplar. The pitfalls of the title occupy the later pages.

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