magnetized. Let us note, further, that the former is not, like the latter,
in a semi-disembodied state, but is in the normal exercise of his bodily
functions and faculties. He possesses, consequently, his normal ability to
originate ideas and to impart them: and whatever ideas he chooses to
impart to the magnetized person, the latter is fain passively and
implicitly to accept. And having so received them, they descend naturally
into the automatic mechanism of the body, and are by it mechanically
interpreted or enacted.

So far, the theory is good: but something seems amiss in the working. We
find that a certain process frequently issues in a certain effect: but we
do not yet know why this should be the case. Some fundamental link is
wanting; and this link is manifestly a knowledge of the true relations
between mind and matter: of the laws to which the mental or spiritual
world is subject: of what nature itself is: and of what Creation means.
Let us cast a glance at these fundamental subjects; for they are the key
without which the secrets of magic must remain locked and hidden.

In common speech we call the realm of the material universe, Creation; but
philosophy denies its claim to that title. Man alone is Creation:
everything else is appearance. The universe appears, because man exists:
he implies the universe, but is not implied by it. We may assist our
metaphysics, here, by a physical illustration. Take a glass prism and hold
in the sunlight before a white surface. Let the prism represent man: the
sun, man's Creator: and the seven-hued ray cast by the prism, nature, or
the material universe. Now, if we remove the light, the ray vanishes: it
vanishes, also, if we take away the prism: but so long as the sun and the
prism--God and man--remain in their mutual relation, so long must the
rainbow nature appear. Nature, in short, is not God; neither is it man;
but it is the inevitable concomitant or expression of the creative