Monday, August 24, 2009

Snake Oil Medicine 5: The Great Arcanum

Eliphas Levi shows it very truly - "a force in Nature," by means of which "a single man who can master it...might throw the world into confusion and transform its face"; for it is the great arcanum of transcendent Magic."

"This ambient and all penetrating fluid, this ray detached from the (Central or 'Spiritual') Sun's splendour...fixed by the weight of the atmosphere (?!) and the power of central attraction...the Astral Light, this electromagnetic ether, this vital and luminous caloric, is represented on ancient monuments by the girdle of Isis which twines around two poles...and in ancient theogonies by the serpent devouring its own tail, emblem of prudence and of Saturn - emblem of infinity, immortality, and Kronos - "Time" - It is the winged dragon of Medea, the double serpent of the caduceus, and the tempter of Genesis; but it is also the brazen snake of Moses encircling the Tau...lastly it is the devil of exoteric dogmatism, and is really the blind force which souls must conquer in order to detach themselves from the chains of the earth - for if they should not, they will be absorbed by the same power which first produced them and will return to the central and eternal fire.

The great arcanum is now discovered by and only for one...

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