Bosc de Vesey, in his "Small Synthetic Encyclopedia of the Occult Sciences," which is not very well organized and far from complete, writes that the ancient secret nomenclature divided magic into four sections:
1. Natural magic, capable of performing certain miracles by means of a deeper knowledge of Nature. It was defined by Father Kircher as the Knowledge of the Sympathy and Antipathy of Things. It was the magic of Hermes Trismegistus and Zoroaster; it was the High Kabbalah.
2. Mathematical magic, consisting in the knowledge of the laws of mechanics. This was the knowledge of Albert the Great, Boethius, etc.
3. Poison Magic, so named by Agrippa because it deals with love potions, mysterious mixtures, metamorphoses, etc. This was the magic of Medea and Circea.
4. Ceremonial magic, the most powerful and the most terrible, whether it was black magic or magic that provided communication with spirits
On the other hand Pierre Piobb in his "Vault of High Magic" says: "Magic, according to Charles du Prélle, is nothing but an unknown Natural Science. Formerly the three great sciences astrology, alchemy and magic proper were confused in expressing the same thing. Today they are thoroughly separated: astrology deals with cosmic bodies and their movements. It is the science of worlds. Alchemy deals with the essence and development of the world. It is hyperchemistry. Magic contains its own domain, which is a manifestation of the fourth state. It begins where physics ends. It is hyperphysics. But even from the point of view of magic, P. Piobb distinguishes between superstition on the one hand, quackery, which Levi calls "the sign which outlasts thought, the dead corpse of religious rites," and which is but a distorted rite, a caricature of higher science. On the other hand the latter is worthy of respect and study and survives in the use of the three states, magnetic, stellar and intrinsic, in its four forms:
(1) Man acting by himself or
(2) By the laws of the external world.
(3) An area acting according to the laws of the star or
The first two forms constitute microcosmic magic. The last two constitute macrocosmic magic. Each form operates in two ways, individual and ceremonial. Individual is performed without the aid of external rituals. The ceremonial one is performed with the aid of external ritual. That is, it is what is used by religions. Ceremonial magic, says F. Barlet, is the action by which man endeavors by means of the forces of nature to make the invisible power act according to his requirements. Hence magic figures, special condensers are conditions of time and place. It resembles industrial science, where human power is nothing compared to steam, electricity, explosives, etc., but where it becomes immense by being able to utilize these forces.
As for individual magic, it is also very effective when it manages to use two forces that are clear even to the layman: Love and the Word, whose power is a hundred times stronger for the initiated.
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