Magnetism is a force analogous to that of the ordinary magnet, and permeates the whole of nature.
Its characteristics are: attraction, repulsion and a balanced polarization.
Science takes account of celestial and mineral magnetism. Animal magnetism is exhibited daily in facts which science is unable to deny; but it regards them with mistrust, and rightly waits to admit them whenever analysis can be supplemented by an incontrovertible synthesis.
It is well known that the magnetic state produced by animal magnetism brings about an unusual type of sleep during which the soul of the magnetized individual falls under the domination of the magnetizer, with this peculiarity that the sleeper seems to leave his own life unoccupied and shows only those phenomena which belong to the universal life. He reflects the thoughts of others, sees without using his eyes, visits all places without any recognition of space, perceives forms much better than colours, foreshortens or confuses periods of time, speaks of the future as if it were past and of the past as if it were still to come, tells the magnetizer the latter’s thoughts — even the secret voice of his conscience, summons into his memory the people of whom he is thinking and describes them in the greatest detail, even though the clairvoyant has never seen them, speaks the language of science like a scholar and that of the imagination like a poet, diagnoses diseases and finds the remedies for them, often imparts wise advice, suffers with those who suffer and sometimes cries bitterly beforehand when revealing the distress which has to come.
These strange but incontestable facts lead us to the necessary conclusion that there is a common life shared by all souls; or at least a common mirror for every imagination and every memory, in which it is possible for us to gaze at one another like a crowd of people standing before a glass. This reflector is the odic light of Baron Reichenbach, which we call the astral light, and is the great agency of life termed od, ob and aour by the Hebrews. The magnetism controlled by the will of the operator is Od; that of passive clairvoyance is Ob: the pythonesses of antiquity were clairvoyantes intoxicated with the passive astral light. This light is called the spirit of Python in our holy books, because in Greek mythology the serpent Python is its allegorical representative.
In its double action, it is also represented by the serpent of the caduceus: the right-hand serpent is Od, the one on the left is Ob and, in the middle, at the top of the hermetic staff, shines the golden globe which represents Aour, or light in equilibrium.
Eliphas Lévi – The Great Secret
We lay in ignorance, far from comprehending the natural laws, its causes and effects. What is not rationally understandable is often taken as hallucinations. How could we distinguish between the imaginary from the real senses?
All the forces of the matter that are made manifest have one common origin – the divine light, the breath of life. Through the understanding of its laws new faculties can be enable to our use – Magnetism is an example. The manipulation of these forces can perform any “miracle”, it is all perfectly possible for he who mastered the forms of matter.
“You must understand that the magnet is that spirit of life in man which the infected seeks, as both unite themselves with chaos from without. And thus the healthy are infected by the unhealthy through magnetic attraction.” Reichenbach
The power of magnetism is in the current society still little understood. Our bodies produce electricity (mesmerism) and it can be a powerful source of healing, as it is already used in Reiki, for example. I am sure that in a not so distant future our modern science will have discovered many advantages of Magnetism. Medicaments will be seem as primitive and unsafe, as magnets will be used to perform multiple treatments, in order to reestablish the equilibrium in a human body. It is marvellous the technologies that will be released with the broader understanding of this potent natural force. Electro-magnetism can cure any physical and mental disease! Thus it is a threat for the pharmacy industry as we know it.
Paracelsus, in his book Archidaxarum, describes the wonderful medicine extracted from the magnet, which he calls Magisterium Magnetis. He also says that in man lies a “sidereal force”, which is the same composition as the astral spirit, for all is formed by the same essence. The next point he presents is that humans (and animals) do not only nourish through what is put into the stomach, but also imperceptibly through the magnetic force, which resides in all nature. There are positive and negative electricities in every man or woman, and a mutual attraction and repulsion of everything in nature. “When two men approach each other, their magnetism is either passive or active. If the emanations which they send out are broken or thrown back, there it arises antipathy. But when the emanations pass through each other from both sides, then there is positive magnetism, for the rays proceed from the centre to the circumference. The magnetism or sympathy is found not only among animals but also in plants and minerals.” Robert Fludd.
The better understanding of this force could enable us wonders. Magnetic levitation, for example. And none of this is magic nor miracle, it is all absolutely in accordance with nature and can be used by anyone who understands its principles. But we still hold our disbelief towards all that seems extraordinary.
“There are two kinds of magnetization; the first is purely animal, the other transcendent, and depending on the will and knowledge of the mesmerizer, as well as on the degree of spirituality of the subject, and his capacity to receive the impressions of the astral light. But now it is next to ascertain that clairvoyance depends a great deal more on the former than on the latter. To the power of an adept, the most positive subject will have to submit. If his sight is ably directed by the mesmerizer, magician, or spirit, the light must yield up its most secret records to our scrutiny; for, if it is a book which is ever closed to those “who see and do not perceive,” on the other hand it is ever opened for one who wills to see it opened. It keeps an unmutilated record of all that was, that is, or ever will be. The minutest acts of our lives are imprinted on it, and even our thoughts rest photographed on its eternal tablets. It is the book which we see opened by the angel in the Revelation, ‘which is the Book of life, and out of which the dead are judged according to their works.'” (Helena Blavatsky – Isis Unveiled, chapter VI)
Modern scientists, with their skepticism, may neglect the study of it today, but might find itself forced to accept it tomorrow. We can find it on the oldest ancient traditions, however. There are sciences yet undiscovered during this present cycle. Our science still crawls. And yet its achievements are contested, specially by those who at times deny our planet’s motion and even Earth’s sphericity, something that was already clear for the Pythagoreans and even for the Platonists, much time before Galileo’s discovery.
True love, natural love, is the miracle of magnetism. It is the intertwining of the two serpents of the caduceus. Its generation looks fated, but it is brought into being by the supreme reason which produces it according to natural laws. It is fabled that Tiresias incurred the wrath of Venus for separating two serpents who were copulating, and became a hermaphrodite: which neutralized his sexual potency; then the angry goddess struck him again, blinding him, because he had claimed for the woman that which was mainly the right of the man. Tiresias was a soothsayer who prophesied by means of the dead light. His predictions, too, announced misfortunes, and always seemed to be caused by misfortunes. This allegory sums up the entire philosophy of magnetism which we have just revealed.
The Great Secret
or Occultism Unveiled
by Eliphas Lévi
Luftbahn 