The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES its reabsorption into the abysses of universal spirit. It is thus that death preserves and reproduces life, it is thus that life is betrothed to death. . . . Do you understand now what Lucifer is? Js 2t not the very genius of ancient Prometheus, that force which sets in motion the world, life, even movement, and which regulates the course of successive forms? This force, by its resistance, equilibrated the creative principle. It is thus that the Elohim gave birth to the earth. When, sub- sequently, men were placed upon the earth by the Lord, as intermediate spirits, in their enthusiasm, which led them to search Nature in its depths, they gave themselves over to the influence of that proud and powerful genius, and when they were softly ravished away over the precipice of death to find life, there it was that they began to exist in a real and natural manner, as is fit for all creatures.” This page needs no commentary, and explains sufficiently the tendencies of what one calls spiritualism, or spevdtism. It is already a long time since this doctrine, or, rather, this antidoctrine, began to work upon the world, to plunge it into universal anarchy. But the law of equilibrium will save us, and already the great movement of reaction has begun. We continue the recital of the phenomena. One day a workman paid a visit to Eliphas Levi. He was a tall man of some fifty years old, of frank appearance, and speaking in a very reasonable manner. Questioned as to the motive of his visit, he replied: “You ought to know it well enough ; I am come to beg and pray you to return to me what I have lost.” We must say, to be frank, that Eliphas knew nothing of 153