translation of _Clavicula
Salomonis_; the other correspondences are from the second book of
Agrippa's _Occult Philosophy_, chap. x.

In many cases these supposed correspondences are based, as will be
obvious to the reader, upon purely trivial resemblances, and, in any
case, whatever may be said--and I think a great deal may be said--in
favour of the theory of symbology, there is little that may be adduced
to support the old occultists' application of it.

So essential a part does the use of symbols play in all magical
operations that we may, I think, modify the definition of "magic"
adopted at the outset, and define "magic" as "an attempt to employ the
powers of the spiritual world for the production of marvellous results,
BY THE AID OF SYMBOLS." It has, on the other hand, been questioned
whether the appeal to the spirit-world is an essential element in magic.
But a close examination of magical practices always reveals at the root
a belief in spiritual powers as the operating causes. The belief in
talismans at first sight seems to have little to do with that in a
supernatural realm; but, as we have seen, the talisman was always a
silent invocation of the powers of some spiritual being with which it
was symbolically connected, and whose sign was engraved thereon. And,
as Dr T. WITTON DAVIES well remarks with regard to "sympathetic magic":
"Even this could not, at the start, be anything other than a symbolic
prayer to the spirit or spirits having authority in these matters. In so
far as no spirit is thought of, it is a mere survival, and not magic at
all...."(1)

(1) Dr T. WITTON DAVIES: _Magic, Divination, and Demonology among the
Hebrews and their Neighbours_ (1898), p. 17.

What I regard as the two essentials of magical practices, namely,
the use of symbols and the appeal to the supernatural realm, are most
obvious in what is called "ceremonial magic". Mediaeval ceremonial magic
was subdivided into three chief branches--White Magic, Black Magic, and
Necromancy. White magic was concerned with the evocations of angels,
spiritual beings supposed to be essentially superior to mankind,
concerning which I shall give some further details later--and the
spirits of the elements,--which were, as I have mentioned in "Some
Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," personifications of the primeval
forces of Nature. As there were supposed to be four elements, fire,
air, water, and earth, so there were supposed to be four cla