High Magic Formulary, Practice of Esoteric Teaching - Pierre Piobb

When this work appeared in 1907, a simple introduction seemed sufficient to establish a subject better known by its name than in its own essence. It only seemed useful then to distinguish between a High Magic, surrounded by generally serious and sometimes scholarly data in Antiquity, and a Low Magic plunged into a formless mass of superstitions and reveries in the Middle Ages. Researchers then found in this Formulary the main elements of the studies they pursued, without being obliged to resort to libraries. But, subsequently, it emerged as essential to specify, in these distinctions, the part of seriousness and knowledge that Antiquity shows in this case as well as that of superstition and reverie which, with the course of the centuries, had given rise to this rather bizarre ensemble called Witchcraft. Fortunately, our era, rich in minds freed from prejudice, has given birth to certain men who are not afraid to venture into this burning ground, the domain of the occult. This is how we see Astrology and Alchemy being reborn and Magic itself once again becoming the object of positive and in-depth studies. The departure is made between these three modes of ancient sciences which were formerly confused under the same term. Astrology deals with celestial bodies in their nature and in their movements: it is a science of the worlds. Alchemy deals with matter in its essence and in its evolution, it completes chemistry: it is a hyper-chemistry. Magic reserves for itself fluids, which are strictly speaking a manifestation of an energetic state of matter and which current science knows in part: it begins where physics stops, it is a hyperphysics…