I
I believe in the practice and philosophy of what we have agreed to call
magic, in what I must call the evocation of spirits, though I do not know
what they are, in the power of creating magical illusions, in the visions
of truth in the depths of the mind when the eyes are closed; and I believe
in three doctrines, which have, as I think, been handed down from early
times, and been the foundations of nearly all magical practices. These
doctrines are--
(1) That the borders of our minds are ever shifting, and that many minds
can flow into one another, as it were, and create or reveal a single mind,
a single energy.
(2) That the borders of our memories are as shifting, and that our
memories are a part of one great memory, the memory of Nature herself.
(3) That this great mind and great memory can be evoked by symbols.
I often think I would put this belief in magic from me if I could, for I
have come to see or to imagine, in men and women, in houses, in
handicrafts, in nearly all sights and sounds, a certain evil, a certain
ugliness, that comes from the slow perishing through the centuries of a
quality of mind that made this belief and its evidences common over the
world.