"...The magnetic trance affords, nay, is itself, when justly and perseveringly ordered for that end, the meta-physical CONDITION, pre-eminently perfect. It removes the sensible obscuration, and presents a clearer glass before the mind than it can ever regard in the natural state. The patient is no sooner lightly entranced, than he begins to feel an internality never before known to him, and which may be increased with more or less effect according as the intention is fixed, and the calibre of the minds and circumstantial conditions are favourable or otherwise; though under the simple ordinary operation of one agent and patient, the work will hardly become universal.

"That the Pythagoreans, Platonists, and all the intellect of that time, had recourse to this mode of vision is now very evident from their writings; and however much their systems may appear to vary in particulars, they had one esoteric root, in which they all by co-knowledge agreed, and by means of which they gained higher elevation in science, with more melody of thought and eloquence for its expression than we, with all our labours and enlightenment, have ever dreamed of, or had capacity to appreciate. For these could compel the Muses' inspiration, and move the spheres to give it birth; for them the Olympic gods assumed their deity, and all the heroes their mighty labours. In their Hand was the power of all experience, the including firmament of every space, the nucleus of all things to be unfolded in time.

"'In truth,' observes Fenelon, my reason is in myself, for it is necessary that I should continually turn inward upon myself in order to find it; but the higher reason which corrects me when I need it, and which I consult, is not my own, it does not make specially a part of myself. Thus, that which may seem most our own, and to be the foundation of our being, I mean our reason, is that which we are to believe most borrowed. We receive at every moment a reason superior to our own, just as we breathe an air which is not ourselves. There is an internal school, where man receives what he can neither acquire outwardly for himself nor learn of other men who live by alms like himself.' Thus is the supreme reason found to rule in all things universally; as in man made manifest, beyond the control or modifying energy of his personal will, fixed, fontal, and everlasting. . .

"The German metaphysicians, Schelling more especially, pressed by the difficulties which thus disable the personal consciousness and prevent it from transcending the limits of rational inference, despised its trammels, and relinquishing it and them together, asserted the existence of a higher faculty in man, by which he is enabled to surpass all conscious thought, and come at once into identified relationship with essential being; a state in which all difference of subject and object becoming merged, the Unconditioned is known absolutely in itself. This sublime capacity of mind, moving one with the Infinite, they have named the Intellectual Intuition. . .

"Thus is it in every way obvious that the true knowledge does not super vene 'under the apparent relativeness and sub¬ jectivity of the principles of thought. . .'

"If the Absolute is, as itself, to be known independently, and before its manifestation, it is plain to every thinking mind, that it must be by the experience of co-essence in union, not by reason or any reflective act: in short, as has been before said, by the becoming It. 'Nec sentire Deum nisi qui pars ipse Dei est'

"The idea, here briefly suggested, of the universalised consciousness being attainable by man in ecstatic relationship and collapsed personality, serve in some degree to clear the imagination and present to any mind, a less objectionable image than that which the Uncon¬ scious Intuition, or Conditioned Intelligence may have afforded, it is all that is aspired to or at present desired. Increased belief may be obtained through contemplation, in that free perspicacity of thought, which reflects the original in every intelligence. . .

"'Increase thyself into an immense greatness, leaping beyond every body, and transcending Time, become Eternity, and thou shalt understand God. If thou art able to believe in thyself, that nothing is impossible, but accountest thyself immortal, and that thou canst understand all things, every art, every science, and the manner and custom of every living thing. Become higher than all Height, lower than all Depth, comprehend in thyself, the qualities of all the creatures, of the fire, the water, the dry and the moist, and conceive likewise that thou canst at once be every where, in the sea and in the earth. Thou shalt at once understand thyself not yet begotten, in the womb, young, old, to be dead and the things after death, and all these together; as also all time places, deeds, quantities, qualities, or else thou canst not yet understand God. But if thou shut up thy soul in the body, and abuse it, and say, I understand nothing, I can do nothing, I am afraid of the sea, I cannot climb up into heaven, I know not who I am, I cannot tell what I shall be; what hast thou to do with God? For thou canst understand none of these fair and good things ; be then a lover of the body and evil.

"For it is the greatest evil not to know God : but to be able to know, and to will, and to hope, is the straight way, and the divine way proper to the Good: and it will every where meet thee, every where be seen of thee, plain and easy, when thou dost not expect or look for it. For there is nothing which is not the image of God. And yet thou sayest, God is invisible, but be advised--for who is more manifest than He? For, therefore, hath he made all things, that by all things, thou mayest see Him. This is the good of God, this is his virtue, to appear; there is nothing invisible, no not of such things as are incorporeal.

"For the sleep of the senses is the sober watchfulness of the Mind, and the shutting of the eyes, the true Sight. Let these things, thus far forth, be made manifest unto thee.

"Understand in like manner all other things by Thyself, and thou shalt not be deceived."

Corpus Hermeticum

'We awaken, from the Intellectual Intuition,' says Schelling, 'as from a state of death and we awaken by reflection into that created personality, wherein, it is impossible any longer to know Him. The vision, graven in hallowed memory, is all that remains to us; for the object of human reason is the limit of its power; and the pure zero of all relative conception waits before the throne of God.'

"The subsequent pages are addressed to those who, not only having seen, are already believers in Magnetism, but especially to those believers who experiencing the wonders of the trance, and with minds starting as it were from slumber at that morning light, have been awakened and aroused from the long lethargy of ages: from darkness, and from dreams, and from delusions; to wonder and to pause, and meditate: to stir new energies within them, to hail a new existence, to see all glorious day brightening before them, to beat well without the expansive fields of eastern lore, to trace the modern speculations, to read, hear, and see, and to shut every sense and look within.

"And having raised the mind by deep soliloquy and meditation high into the intellectual spheres, and (if worthy) catching holy light, with new born awe and reverence have bowed, and from mercy drawn the inspiration, worshipping that shrine of which belike they had scant knowledge heretofore. Some such (many may they be!) there are, and on them now we strike the deep responding chords.

"My wish and hope are to awaken the public mind up to a higher faith, a holier view of Magnetism, to approach it reverentially as the wise and good of old; with pure hearts and supplicating hands, 'Not my will, O Lord! but thine be doneto feel that there we leave the worldly dust and mire to tread on holier ground.'

"Thus has the indistinct small light, first in modern times discerned, and first announced by Mesmer, with healing in its train, been gradually nearing and brightening in its course, and has in the intel¬ lectual horizon already caught the gaze ofmany ; but verily the many little wot of that on which they gaze. . .

"From this spreading tree of knowledge already has sprung up a new and mighty branch, the towering limb of Phreno-magnetism in the wide watery waste of metaphysics.