ing existing occult practices to which a questionable purpose
might be attributed, appeared in a well-known psychological journal some
few years since, and was derived from a continental source, being an
account of a certain society then existing in Paris, which was devoted
to magical practices and in possession of a secret ritual for the
evocation of planetary angels; it was an association of well-placed
persons, denying any connection with spiritualism, and pretending to an
acquaintance with more effectual thaumaturgic processes than those
which obtain at seances. The account passed unchallenged, for in the
absence of more explicit information, it seemed scarcely worth while to
draw attention to the true character of the claim. The secret ritual in
question could not have been unknown to specialists in magical
literature, and was certainly to myself among these; as a fact, it was
one of those numerous clavicles of the goetic art which used to
circulate surreptitiously in manuscript some two centuries ago. There is
no doubt that the planetary spirits with which the document was
concerned were devils in the intention of its author, and must have been
evoked as such, supposing that the process was practised. The French
association was not therefore in possession of a secret source of
knowledge, but as impositions of this kind are to be _a priori_ expected
in such cases by transcendentalists of any experience, I for one
refrained from entering any protest at the time.

Much about the same period it became evident that a marked change had
passed over certain aspects of thought in "the most enlightened city of
the world," and that among the _jeunesse doree_, in particular, there
was a strong revulsion against paramount material philosophy; an epoch
of transcendental and mystic feeling was, in fact, beginning. Old
associations, having transcendental objects, were in course of revival,
or were coming into renewed prominence. Martinists, Gnostics,
Kabbalists, and a score of orders or fraternities of which we vaguely
hear about the period of the French Revolution, began to manifest great
activity; periodicals of a mystical tendency--not spiritualistic, not
neo-theosophical, but Hermetic, Kabbalistic, and theurgic--were
established, and met with success; books which had grievously weighted
the shelves of their publishers for something like a quarter of a
century were suddenly in demand, and students of distinction on this
side o