to
activity by means of a suitable symbol_.

(1) ELIHU RICH: _The Occult Sciences_, p. 346.

(2) I may refer the reader to my _A Mathematical Theory of Spirit_
(1912), chap. i., for a more adequate statement.

(1b) ELIPHAS LEVI: _Transcendental Magic: its Doctrine and Ritual_
(trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1896), p. 234.

VII. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

THE word "magic," if one may be permitted to say so, is itself almost
magical--magical in its power to conjure up visions in the human mind.
For some these are of bloody rites, pacts with the powers of darkness,
and the lascivious orgies of the Saturnalia or Witches' Sabbath; in
other minds it has pleasanter associations, serving to transport them
from the world of fact to the fairyland of fancy, where the purse of
FORTUNATUS, the lamp and ring of ALADDIN, fairies, gnomes, jinn, and
innumerable other strange beings flit across the scene in a marvellous
kaleidoscope of ever-changing wonders. To the study of the magical
beliefs of the past cannot be denied the interest and fascination which
the marvellous and wonderful ever has for so many minds, many of whom,
perhaps, cannot resist the temptation of thinking that there may be some
element of truth in these wonderful stories. But the study has a
greater claim to our attention; for, as I have intimated already, magic
represents a phase in the development of human thought, and the magic
of the past was the womb from which sprang the science of the present,
unlike its parent though it be.

What then is magic? According to the dictionary definition--and this
will serve us for the present--it is the (pretended) art of producing
marvellous results by the aid of spiritual beings or arcane spiritual
forces. Magic, therefore, is the practical complement of animism.
Wherever man has really believed in the existence of a spiritual world,
there do we find attempts to enter into communication with that world's
inhabitants and to utilise its forces.Professor LEUBA(1) and others
distinguish between propitiative behaviour towards the beings of
the spiritual world, as marking the religious attitude, and coercive
behaviour towards these beings as characteristic of the magical
attitude; but one form of behaviour merges by insensible degrees into
the other, and the distinction (though a useful one) may, for our
present purpose, be neglected.

(1) JAMES H. LEUBA: _The Psychological Origin and the Nature of
Religion_ (