THE EQUINOX
alternate currents, receives and transmits the imprints of the
force of imagination which is in men the image and the
semblance of the creative word, and thus produces presenti-
ments and determines dreams. The science of miracles is
then the knowledge of this marvellous force, and the art of
doing miracles is simply the art of magnetizing or ¢duminat-
ing beings, according to the invariable laws of magnetism
or astral light.
We prefer the word “light” to the word ‘ magnetism,”
because it is more traditional in occultism, and expresses in a
more complete and perfect manner the nature of the secret
agent. There is, in truth, the liquid and drinkable gold of
the masters in alchemy; the word ‘‘or” (the French word for
“gold”) comes from the Hebrew “aour” which signifies
“light.” “What do you wish?” they asked the candidate in
every initiation: ‘To see the light,” should be their answer.
The name of illuminati which one ordinarily gives to adepts,
has then been generally very badly interpreted by giving to it
a mystical sense, as if it signified men whose intelligence
believes itself to be lighted by a miraculous day. ‘ Illuminati’
means simply, knowers and possessors of the light, either by
the knowledge of the great magical agent, or by the rational
and ontological notion of the absolute.
The universal agent is a force tractable and subordinate
to intelligence. Abandonedto itself, it, like Moloch, devours
rapidly all that to which it gives birth, and changes the super-
abundance of life into immense destruction. It is, then,
the infernal serpent of the ancient myths, the Typhon of the
Egyptians, and the Moloch of Phcenicia; but if Wisdom,
mother of the Elohim, puts her foot upon his head, she outwears
202