re thou art,
whether it be thy will to do so or otherwise. And I curse thee with the
curse wherewith the Lord hath cursed thee."] and are able to set up a
connection between inanimate material objects and organic beings. [He
instances the wasting of an enemy by melting a representation of him
fashioned in wax.] But such magic, even when malevolent, need not be
greatly feared by Christian men living in grace: its physical or
psychical influence can be counteracted by corresponding physical acts:
such things as the sign of the cross, the use of sacramentals, the
avoidance of notoriously injurious follies such as beginning work on
Friday, the observance of such matters as wearing Principium Evangelii
secundum Joannem on the person, and the paying of ocular deference to
Saint Christopher on rising--these precautions and others like them are
usually a sufficient safeguard. [I am afraid it is impossible to clear
Sir John wholly of the charge of superstition. The "Beginning of the
Gospel according to John" was the fourteen verses read as the last
Gospel after mass. A copy of this passage was often carried, sewn into
the clothes, to protect from various ills. The image of St. Christopher
usually stood near the door of the church to ensure against violent
death all who looked on it in the morning.]

But all this is a very different matter from the high mysticism of
contemplatives, ascetics, and Satanic adepts.

These are persons endowed with extraordinary dispositions, who have
resolved to deal with invisible things through the highest faculty of
their nature. The Satanic adepts are greatly to be feared, even in
matters pertaining to salvation, for, although their power has been
vastly restricted by the union of the divine and human natures in the
Incarnation of the Son of God, yet they are capable by the exercise of
their power, of obscuring spiritual faculties, and bringing to bear
grievous temptations, as well as of afflicting by sickness, misfortune
and death.

These select souls are the great mages of all time; and their leader,
since the year of redemption, Simon Magus himself, could be dealt with
by none other than the Vicar of Christ and prince of apostles.

It is not every man, even with the worst will in the world, who is
capable of rising to this sinister position: for it is not enough to
renounce the faith, to make a league with Satan, to insult the cross and
to commit other enormities: there must also be residen