The Golden Star
VISION 4
Witchcraft
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“But it is also interesting to remember Luther’s story of the fish-pond, near a convent in Rome, in which over six thousand skulls of infants were found when it was cleared out one day. The church must not spill blood!
“And the Portuguese Jesuit, Macedo, discovered the origin of the Inquisition in terrestrial paradise; alleging that God was the first who began the functions of an inquisitor over Cain and the workmen of Babel.
“History abounds with examples of witchcraft practised for or by the powerful ones; and killings of idiots, hysterical women, or people whose property was worth confiscating after they had been ‘purified’ by the flames.
“In the writings of the Jesuit Anthony Escobar (Theologić Moralis) the secret instructions state that it is lawful to make use of sorcery, which is a science acquired through the assistance of the Devil, provided that the Devil’s actual help is not depended upon when this science is put into operation. As the sin by which this knowledge was acquired has passed away, the knowledge itself remains, and becomes virtue! It is further stated that divination, by astrology and palmistry for instance, may be devoid of all sin, for in both the stars and in man’s hand his proclivities may be read, and a forecast of his future made. At the same time the Church Fathers teach that the devil is the genius who deals in witchcraft and sorcery; which is a doctrine taken from the Jewish Pharisees, who made devils of the Pagan Gods, such as Mithras, Serapis and so on; and the Roman Catholic Church denounces the former worship as commerce with the powers of darkness; and the witches of the Middle Ages were thus but the votaries of the proscribed worship.
“The Albigenses, descendants of the Gnostics and Waldensians, as well as the whole of the Protestant world, came under the same imputation. The church does not distinguish between dissent, heresy, and witchcraft.
“Luther and Calvin were as intolerant as the Popes with regard to religious liberty, and what they were pleased to consider as witchcraft. Whole districts of Germany were in this way depopulated, and the statute books became encrimsoned with bloody legislation in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Great Britain, and the North American Continent. Whenever a man was found who was more liberal, or more intelligent than his fellows, he became at once liable to arrest and death. Young children were burned alive or whipped at the church-doors on Sabbath days, and there was no cruelty the vile imagination of the fanatic can invent that was not practised in the name of the Lord of Love and Mercy.”
“What is the principal ingredient in sorcery?” asked Ma-u.
“The principal ingredient is always blood,” replied Neteru-Hem, “for blood begets phantoms, and its emanations furnish certain spirits with the material required to fashion their temporary appearances.
“Éliphas Lévi rightly says that ‘blood is the first incarnation of the universal fluid; it is the materialized vital light. Its birth is the most marvellous of all nature’s marvels; it lives only by perpetually transforming itself, for it is the universal Proteus. The universal substance, with its double motion, is the great Arcanum of Being; blood is the great Arcanum of Life.’ ‘Blood,’ says the Hindu Ramatsariar, ‘contains all the mysterious secrets of existence no living being can exist without. It is profaning the great work of the Creator to eat blood.’
“Paracelsus says that with the fumes of blood one can call forth any spirit he wishes to see; for with the assistance of its emanations the spirit can build itself an appearance, a visible body. This is the kind of sorcery with which the Hierophants of Baal produced objective and tangible apparitions; and they made deep incisions all over their own bodies in order to obtain the necessary material. The same practices are followed today by a certain sect in Persia, when, after frantic dancing, they cut themselves until all their garments and the floor are soaked with blood. Before the end of the performance every dancer has a spectral companion, who whirls round with him.
“The Thessalian witches sometimes used the blood of a black lamb, or an infant, to evoke the shadows.
“The Yakuts of Siberia say that bloody sacrifices assist the gods to perform their work in a better manner.”
“Is the Word you mentioned just now really of such great importance in witchcraft?” asked Ma-u.
“Not only is it of the greatest importance in witchcraft, but in all other branches of Occult Knowledge, my son. In White Magic the Word is also passed on. Moses ‘lays his hands’ upon his neophyte Joshua, in the solitudes of Nebo, and passes away forever. Aaron initiates Eleazer on Mount Hor, and dies. Buddha promises his mendicants before his death to live in him who shall deserve it, embraces his favourite disciple, whispers in his ear, and dies; and as John’s head lies upon the bosom of Jesus, he is told that he shall tarry until he shall come. Passing from Seer to Seer, the Word flashes out like lightning, and while carrying off the old initiate from human sight forever, brings the new initiate into view.”
“Behold!”
At this word a series of fires sprang up in the night, forming a circle in the midst of which was a cleared space in the centre of a forest. By the fires sat a throng of black people, who with staring eyes beheld a fearful scene.
A naked mulatto woman whirled around in mad frenzy, a number of garments which she had shed one by one lying around her, whilst several negroes, evidently priests of the black rites, chanted incantations, each having the finger of one hand raised stiffly upwards, and a number of native drummers beat out a weird and throbbing rhythm on their instruments. Faster and faster the dancer turned, foaming at the mouth and tearing madly at her skin with nails that dug deep furrows, from which the blood spurted in streams.
Now the priests sacrificed a white and a black fowl, by cutting off their heads and pressing out the blood from the writhing and fluttering bodies. A number of small green snakes crawled about the dancer and a huge serpent came towards her, and under the action of the drums rhythm began slowly to coil itself around the woman’s limbs, climbing higher and higher in spite of her contortions. Giving a loud scream she fell down in an epileptic fit, whilst the serpent slowly crushed her. With wild yells the whole assembly then rose to its feet, beating their breasts, and, each male grabbing a female, ran bellowing into the forest, whilst the rest of the scene slowly faded away.
“This is the picture of a form of voodoo rite, as practised by the black sorcerers of Cuba and Haiti,” said the Messenger. “It is the misapplication of arcane knowledge: and this is sorcery. When rightly used this knowledge is true magic, or Wisdom.
“All races of Man differ in spiritual gifts as well as in colour, or in other characteristics. Among some people we find natural seers, others have natural mediums, still others are addicted to sorcery such as you saw just now, and they transmit this knowledge from generation to generation, with a range of psychical phenomena more or less dire. The real thaumaturgist can cause himself to disappear by surrounding himself with a cloud, or he can seemingly take on any shape he wishes, or appear at long distances away from where his physical body really is, by making his astral form visible in projection. By skilful manipulation of the breath, the sorcerer can throw spells and enchantments and even kill people near or far. In 1611, a priest named Gaufridy was burned by the Parliament of Provence for seducing a penitent at the confessional, by breathing upon her, and thus throwing her into a delirium of sinful love for him. There is the famous case of Father Girard, a Jesuit, who, in 1731, was tried in France for the seduction of one of his parishioners by blowing upon her, so that she became instantly affected with a violent passion for him. She also had ecstatic visions of a religious character, stigmata, and hysterical convulsions, and this kept on for months, until at last she recovered her senses. The sorcerer is a public enemy of the worst kind and should be exterminated whenever his guilt is proved . . . or cured by experts.
“Sorcery, incantations, and the like are regarded as fables by the ignorant; yet from the Institutes of Justinian down to the laws against witchcraft of England and America—obsolete, but not repealed even today—such practices, even when only suspected, were punished as criminal. We can still read how the Emperor Constantine sentenced to death the philosopher Sopatrus for unchaining the winds, and in this manner preventing the grain ships from arriving in time to end a famine. Nor does this prevent Christian writers from advising prayer during storm and danger, and believing in the efficacy of such prayers.
“When the Atlantean giants and sorcerers were destroyed, the great Aryan mystics concealed the truth, astronomical, physical, and divine under various allegories, and ever since those days only the comparatively few Adepts have known what lies really hidden behind the phenomena known as witchcraft and sorcery. The Easter Island relics are the mysterious and astounding memorials of these giants and are true representations of the type and character attributed to the Fourth-Race Men. Together with the giant statues of the holy men found in central Asia, they present us today with a picture of the descendants of the Gods through the Rishis—Heaven’s first-born; the Easter Island Men being a brood of mighty wizards, the other Sons of God; mementoes of the eternal strife between good and evil.
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