Power! What magic effect it has in real life? We
have seen its influence upon the spirits, and who among the children of
men can resist it? To it I owe my greatest results, and hope to be still
further indebted. Even reluctant love must bow to it."

He gave a self-satisfied laugh, and continued: "As the pious worshiper
of the gods can move the heavenly ones by prayer and sacrifice, so--the
wondrous man declared--the magician can force them by means of his
secret lore to do his will. Therefore, he who knows and can call the
gods and spirits by the right name, him they must obey, as the slave
his master. The sages who served the Pharaohs in the gray dawn of
time succeeded in fathoming the mystery of these names given to the
everlasting ones at their birth, and their wisdom has come down to him
through the generations as a priceless secret. But it is not sufficient
to murmur the name to one's self, or be able to write it down. Every
syllable has its special meaning like every member of the human frame.
It depends, too, on how it is pronounced and where the emphasis lies;
and this true name, containing in itself the spiritual essence of the
immortals, and the outward sign of their presence, is different again
from the names by which they are known among men.

"Could I have any suspicion--and here Serapion addressed himself to
me--which god he forced to obey him when he uttered the words, 'Abar
Barbarie Eloce Sabaoth Pachnuphis,' and more like it! I have only
remembered the first few words. But, he continued, it was not enough to
be able to pronounce these words. The heavenly spirits would submit only
to those mortals who shared in some of their highest characteristics.
Before the Magian dared to call them, he must purify his soul from all
sensual taint, and sanctify his body by long and severe fasting. When
the Magian succeeded, as he had done in these days, in rendering himself
impervious to the allurements of the senses, and in making his soul, as
far as was humanly possible, independent of the body, only then had
he attained to that degree of godliness which entitled him to have
intercourse with the heavenly ones and the entire spirit-world as with
his equals, and to subdue them to his will.

"He exerted his power, and we saw with our bodily eyes that the spirits
came to his call. But we discovered that it was not done by words
alone. What a noble-looking man he is! And the mortifications that he
practices--these, too,