Tag: philosophy

Knowing the gruesome details of a black magic ritual, one can notice without a doubt that the operator materializes his evil and repulsive will beforehand. From this, to say that the magic works is an understatement. All the difficulty of the preparation, the effort involved, the need for continuous reaffirmation of the vow, the mental focus and stimulation in favor of the malevolent objective… all this before the consummation of the terrible ritual, the voluntary act with no possible return. The conscience of the one who operates such a monstrosity dies forever; psychologically, it is a road with no return, a road that can only lead to more and more darkness, if not to madness or suicide. It is unbelievable to see how deep human nature is capable of descending, how unlimited is its potential for evil… the impulse is to spit in its face and curse endlessly at this cursed species.

There have been two hundred pages of this “Papus” and I confess to having no idea what was in them. From the very beginning, the endless analogies, the creative mathematics, the subliminal semantics, the pantacles, the tables that follow tables and tables, and I put myself to size up the boredom of the god who planned all this for an investigator like “Papus” to unravel his creation. If this is so, it is certain that this god must have exploded with joy at this “Papus” who, by putting the puzzle together, has freed him from loneliness. It is as if he had found a companion to play with. However, with the impartiality of a psychologist, I would diagnose that this god is one step away from suicide.

I start in Helena Blavatsky,—again, thanks to Pessoa,—I follow on Éliphas Lévi, Max Heindel, A.P. Sinnet, and I arrive now in Gérard Encausse, that “Papus”. What can I say? It is amazing how resistant I am. My enthusiasm for so-called modern occultism has lasted only a few pages. And yet I continue to give credit to the authors, pretending not to be fed up with this vocabulary full of “mysteries,” “keys,” “secrets,” incredibly tedious analogies—not to say stupid… I read them and feel the physical presence of Voltaire, instigating me to sneer at the revelators who hide their own name. No, my friend, I will not… It is interesting to remember that I said recently that I have never experienced the sensation of being in front of the revelation of a truth. Of a lie, however… calm down, very calm down, because we would be committing the injustice of mixing them all in the same bag.

Immersing oneself in problems, there comes a time when it seems necessary to sketch answers. To do otherwise is to give up or, at least, to stop moving forward. Much can be said about the answers that, for example, Dostoevsky’s work culminated in; what cannot be said is that it did not embody a complete cycle. In it, multiple problems are represented in various manifestations, and for all of them, Dostoevsky points to the solution—whether it is accepted or not. There is no escape: although it is possible to postpone the ultimate confrontation, this veiled need always seems to lurk asking, “So what?”—and it seems a matter of honor to present a conclusion to it.