A more thorough consideration of the four instruments begins.

The crown has two levels, two planes. Magic is crowned – her task, the sublimation of Nature, indicated by the shield.

Magic - the art of sublimation of human nature. Peladan’s works praised – he bore the emblem of magic. "To throw the eagles of one’s desires to the wind", . . . "the sole triumph of this world". Papus - same emblem in mind.

Magic – The application of the strengthened human will to accelerate the evolution of the living forces of Nature. Magic is the science of love, the means by which the aim of magic is attained.

1. Is it morally legitimate to aspire to a power conferring us with dominion over our fellow beings?
2. Is such an aspiration not due to vaingloriousness and thus incompatible with the role of divine grace?
3. Is such an aspiration wholesome and in harmony with human nature given the limits to which one can go with impunity towards the invisible?

These doubts and objections well founded. Is there a legitimate magic?

Quotation from Acts of the Apostles - Peter finds Aeneas at Lydda.

A legitimate spiritual act of healing when viewed morally, religiously, and medically.

Was it a miracle, an act of God alone?

If so was Peter there for nothing?

Peter’s presence and his voice were necessary for healing to take place.

The central mystery of the Christian faith, the Incarnation: why must the Logos become God-Man to accomplish the superior work of divine magic – the work of the Redemption?

The Logos became God-Man to humble himself? He was humility itself. The Logos became God-Man to participate in human destiny? Being love he always participates in human destiny. The words taught as a miraculous cure in monasteries in the Near East – "Glory to your long-suffering, Lord!"

The work of Redemption requires the perfect union in love of two wills.

Miracles not manifestations of an all-powerful will ordaining, but a new power born from the unity of divine and human will. This is what we mean by sacred magic.

Magic in a case of miracle? Peter was a human magus. Thus "magic" justified as the power of the invisible and spiritual over the visible and material.

An act of "divine magic" not "personal magic" for Peter was fully conscious of the unity of his will with the divine will. Peter was doubly happy.

The meaning of the two-layered crown – to be doubly happy is to serve that which is above and that which is below. The Crown – the power of service – legitimates sacred magic.

The magus in sacred magic – the last link in the chain descending from above. The magus – the point of contact and concentration

Reserved for the priesthood alone?

Is the love of God and one’s neighbour reserved for the priesthood? The case of Monsieur Philip of Lyons.

Priesthood includes numerous thaumaturgists. Their primary responsibility – the administration of the sacraments – these universal operations of sacred magic. Natural that those entrusted with universal operations of sacred magic and living in their atmosphere are called to the work of individual operations "decided above".

This affirmed in the life and work of the holy priest of Ars.

The life and work of Monsieur Philip of Lyons affirms the splendour of individual sacred magic, without the universal sacraments, manifested in a layman.

Love is active where ever it exists. It is everyone’s vocation; it is no-one’s prerogative.

Personal magic follows the reverse order. Quotations from Papus.

"Arbitrary magic" does not include anything higher than man, who is the sole master. [See 4c for contrast]

Quotations from Papus on the nature of personal magic: the human will, natural fluid, the undertaken operation. Ceremonial magic and naturalism condemned.

Agrippa, Levi and Papus, and all who have had direct or indirect experience of personal magic affirm its "formidable dangers".

By contrast, those called to the work of sacred magic may discover that it is inoperative, they merely make an error. Distress without danger.

An elaboration of Jean Herbert repeated, placing the reader on guard against the temptation of trying to practice the tantric method and evoke the serpent power, raising it to the crown centre. A quotation describing the physical and psychical conditions that can arise in those who take such a risk.

Returning to sacred magic.

But this is the Holy Grail, the mystical Eucharist!

The power of sacred magic resides with the Holy Grail, the mystical Eucharist. Twofold sincerity united in the human word or action; sincerity and the vital essence of blood. How the Mystery of the God-Man is repeated.

These things are not combined intellectually but are founded in the author’s own unsettling experience that revealed the mystery of the Holy Blood and the source of the power of sacred magic - the Chapel of the Holy Blood at Bruges. The soul rejuvenated and even elevated in the sense of the healing of Aeneas effected by St. Peter.

The aim of sacred magic is liberating action, the restoration of freedom to those who have lost it; the significance of the eagle in flight. Lk vii. 21-22

Sacred magic aims at the restoration of freedom beyond simple healing - to give freedom to those imprisoned by doubt, fear, hate, apathy and despair. Temptation – the only weapon of the evil spirits; possession - one engenders and then is enslaved by an elemental being. The devil observes the law -which protects human freedom. Fear the perverse tendencies in oneself!

Man – more dangerous than the devil and his angels. Man can engender arbitrarily malicious forces whose nature and action are beyond the framework of the law. Egregores – engendered by collective perversity.

The back of the Empress’ throne – two petrified and immobilised wings, once genuine wings that may become so again?

The liberating mission of sacred magic – to give movement to the petrified wings?

The way saints practice sacred magic – taking from the sick that which is unhealthy in them, the example of St. Lidvina of Schiedam.

The intention in advancing the above list of contraries – that which differentiates sacred magic from these practices. Sacred magic can do nothing else than to serve the good.

There are grimoires of sacred magic – formulae, gestures and figures reproduced by the gestures, not to be chosen arbitrarily but according to profound knowledge or direct revelation.

Magical formulae to be found in the Holy Scripture, in the liturgical ritual of the Church, the written or oral tradition leading back to the saints and great mystics, the text of the Emerald Table.

The "silent" part of sacred magic – must be confirmed by revelation or indicated by it. They consist of the ritual gestures employed by the traditional Church.

These formulae and gestures are not secret but should not be betrayed. They are betrayed when uprooted from their sacred context, and when brought down to a lower plane. Context and niveau of the operation and the legitimacy of the celebrant enables their operation.

Is this the tree of the Sephiroth, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, or the Tree of Life?

John xiv. 6

Sacred Magic is the Tree of Life. How it is manifested. Ecce servus Domini faciam secundum verbum tuum. Sacred magic manifests itself in human history by the miracle of supra-biological life. The miraculous exists. How "miracle" is understood.

The comprehensibility of miracles, the example of Teresa Neumann.

Conscious participation with the Tree of Life is the "great work" of sacred magic.

In order to understand the idea of the "great work" compare it with the idea of power, the ideal of exact modern science. Reducing the multiplicity of phenomena. By calculating the world, instead of understanding it, intellectual technical power is attained.

The practical aspect of the scientific ideal revealed in the progress of modern science. These are discoveries based on the principle of the destruction of matter or death.

A call to imagine efforts and discoveries in the opposite direction, a constructive atom bomb -–the ideal of the great work. A tree is a living synthesis of celestial light and elements of the earth, above and below.

Hermeticism aspires to conscious participation with the constructive forces of the world. The philosophy of sacred magic seeks the purified, illumined and changed will and nature of man brought into harmony with the creative principle of Nature and thus able to receive its willingly bestowed revelation. This is the fruit of the Tree of Life.

Whereas science wants to compel Nature to obedience to the will of man such as it is.

The Tree of Life is defended but the defence is not absolute and general; it is specific. Genesis iii, 24 It is defended against putting forth the hand and taking from the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life is the synthesis of consciousness, force and matter, the unity of mysticism, gnosis and magic. Three The Empress as symbol of sacred magic contains within itself gnosis and mysticism. Comprehensible only when taken together.

Personal magic is the result of separating magic from mysticism and gnosis, serving man not God. Technological and industrial science is the continuation of the ceremonial magic of the humanists without the occult element.

Quotations from the works of Papus that accord with this understanding

Contemporary profane art is a continuance of gnosis and magic which have become separated from mysticism.

The ancient mysteries were only sacred art. The origins of "creative art" accounted for.

The living organ of the unity of the Tetragrammaton is the substance and sap of life from which art springs. Richard Wagner understood this.

Josephin Peladan endeavoured to do the same in France. Silence is the indispensable climate for all revelation.

The religious life is not exempt from decadence when it ceases to be grounded in mysticism, gnosis and sacred magic. Theological and moral legalism remain.