There are strange analogies in Nature, and the higher the spiritual, the lower the corresponding material process; so that we find in the history of magic—­perhaps the longest history in the world—­extremes ever meeting.  Abuse of spiritual powers, and the vilest physical processes, noxious, fantastic, and pestilential, are recorded in the pages of so-called magical literature, but such foul deeds are no more real Magic than are the horrors of religious fanaticism the outcome of true Mohammedanism or Christianity.  This is the abuse, the superstition, the degeneration of all that is good and true, rendered all the more vile because it pertains to denser planes of matter than even the physical.  It is a strange thing that the highest should pair with the lowest where man is concerned, but it ever remains true that the higher we climb the lower we may fall.

Man is much the same in nature at all times, and though the Art was practised in its purity by the great World-Teachers and their immediate followers, whether we call it by the name Magic or no, it ever fell into abuse and degeneracy owing to the ingrained ignorance and selfishness of man.  Thus the Deity and Gods or Daemons of one nation became the Devil and Demons of another; the names were changed, the facts remained the same.  For if we are to reject all such things as superstition, hallucination, and what not, the good must go with the bad.  But facts, whether good or bad, are still facts, and man is still man, no matter how he changes the fashion of his belief.  The followers of the World-Teachers cannot hold to the so-called “miracles” of their respective Masters and reject all others as false in fact, no matter from what source they may believe they emanate.  In nature there can be nothing supernatural, and as man stands mid-way between the divine and infernal, if we accept the energizing of the one side of his nature, we must also accept that of the other.  Both are founded on nature and science, both are under law and order.

The great Master of Christendom is reported to have told his disciples that if they had but faith they should do greater works than even he had done.  Either this was false or else the followers have been false to their Teacher.  There is no escape from the dilemma.  And such “works” are to be wrought by divine Magic alone, or if the term be disliked, by whatever name the great Science of the Soul and Divine things may be called.

For the last two hundred years or so it has been the fashion to deride all such matters, perhaps owing to a reaection against over-credulity on the part of those who held to the letter of the law and forgot its spirit; but to-day it is no longer possible to entirely set aside this all-important part of man’s nature, and it now calls for as strict a scientific treatment as the facts of the physical universe have been subjected to.

Hypnotism, Mesmerism, Spiritualism and Psychical Research, are the cloud no bigger than a man’s hand that is forcing the facts of Magic again on the attention of both the theological and scientific world.  Hypnotism and Psychical Research are already becoming respectable and attracting the attention of the generality of men of science and of our clergy.  Spiritualism and Mesmerism are still tabooed, but wait their turn for popular recognition, having already been recognized by pioneers distinguished in science and other professions.