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
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