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The Great Art page 2

A TREATISE

The Great Art

A SYSTEM OF PHYSICS ACCORDING TO HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY

AND THEORY AND PRACTICE OF THE

MAGISTERIUM.

Dom ANTOINE-JOSEPH PERNETY,

Benedictine Monk of the Congregation of Saint-Maur, Abbot of Burgel in Thuringe,

Librarian of Frederick the Great, king of Prussia, etc.

EDITED BY

EDOUARD BLITZ, M. D.,

Doctor In Kabbalah, Doctor in Hermetic Sciences, Member of the “ASSOCIATION

ALCHIMIQUE DE FRANCE”: President of the Grand Council

of the MARTINIST ORDER, etc.

AGNZ

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The Great Art

The Great Art page 3

Preface.

UNDER the auspices of the " Université Libre des Hautes Etudes " of Paris, a Branch of which has

recently been established in America, we publish the first volume of a series of classical works whose

study constitutes the foundation of the teaching of the “ Faculté des Sciences Hermétiques .”

It is not without reason that we have chosen Pernety to inaugurate this series. Of the three thousand

volumes composing the bibliography of A LCHEMY , those of Dom Antoine-Joseph Pernety are the

only ones in which the theories of the Artificers are exposed with method: he is the first and only

writer who has endeavored to present a short, concise and complete system of the Magnum Opus .

Those valiant defenders of the mystic Faith, to whom we are indebted for the present universal

awakening of Idealism, have not failed to recognize the important rôle which Hermetic Philosophers

have played in the preservation and transmission of the sacred tradition regarding the rapports

existing between God, Man and Nature. Unhappily they have found themselves face to face with the

Sphinx, unable to solve the enigma; they have lost their way in the inextricable labyrinth of

apparently contradictory symbols and signs, and in the darkness of their ignorance, they have been

incapable of distinguishing Truth from the rubbish that surrounds it, or of separating pure physical

facts from mere mystical speculations. Having a vague intuition that Hermetism was not solely

concerned with the transmutation of metals, but also with the spiritual emancipation of Man, they

have profited by a few analogies which presented themselves, and have created a mystical Alchemy

in which the inner man is the exclusive subject. But while such interpretation may, in many instances,

be applied to alchemical symbolism, and while we may believe that in this we follow the traditions of

the Rosicrucians (who founded a system in which Alchemy and Kabbalah were indissolubly

blended), modern commentators, borrowing the jargon of the Alchemists - who are never more

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The Great Art page 4

obscure than when they appear to express themselves plainly 1 - have drawn analogies which a mere

acquaintance with the fundamental principles of Physical Alchemy would suffice to cause to be

rejected as utterly devoid of appropriateness.

Rosicrucians were indeed mystics, but their studies were above all of a purely physical and

experimental character; their association of mysticism and chemistry was founded upon analogies the

truth of which could be demonstrated in the laboratory and duly verified by the physical senses. No

metaphysical proposition was accepted by them which could not be fully confirmed by scientific

demonstrations, according to the practice of Roger Bacon, the father of the experimental method.

Alchemists acquired the knowledge of Divine operations by the study of human arts and the

observation of natural phenom ena. Hermetism begins with the study of the operations of Nature,

and ends with the knowledge of the Divine Principle. None, however, must hope to behold the

secret Sun of this Royal Art while he remains in darkness regarding the fundamental principles of

physical Hermetism, or Alchemy.

The Spagyric Art is a dead science; it has long since uttered its last word; nothing remains but a few

tracts, fragments of its outer vestment, and a multitude of worthless lucubrations by pseudo-adepts;

the secret is lost, for future generations to recover; but, in order to be freed from the trouble of

ransacking dusty old books and manuscripts, and of reconstituting, word after word, this science in its

integrity by patient research; in order to avoid the tedious work of deciphering the hieroglyphic

pentacles and of restoring the secret meaning of the mutilated tracts of the Masters which have

reached us through the centuries, one is not permitted to invent a new Hermetism, to enlarge it, or to

attribute to it a signification which, most probably, it never had. Hermetism is what it is, and we must

accept its teachings for what they are worth, without trying to reconcile them with the assertions of

modern science, or to give to them any signification that may suggest itself.

Hermetic Philosophy has long since been rejected by the School, and scientific means of

investigation are here of no practical use, even XIXth century chemistry offers no clue; for the ideas

of the Spagyric Art are absolutely the antithesis of those of official chemistry. The student must make

use of other means; but let him guard against preconceived ideas, against his ardent desire to verify,

in the obscure symbols of mediæval Artists, his own suppositions. Let him remember that Symbols

prove everything, and that the signs chosen to defend the affirmative of any proposition, may also be

used successfully in demonstrating the negative of the same proposition; symbols are the expression

of the Absolute which is neither positive or negative, but positive and negative, according to the point

of view from which one judges.

Thus, in order to distinguish the right way, “which leads to the Elysian Fields,” from that “which

borders Tartarus,” the assistance of a trusty guide is indispensable. Unfortunately such guides are

few, and if, perchance, one is found, the student, ninety-nine times in a hundred, far from being

willing to follow in silence, prefers to choose his own way. If the student depends upon his supposed

willingness to obey his Initiator, let him shut this book and renounce his plan of lifting the veil which

covers the arcana of Hermetic Philosophy, for unprepared as he surely is, he will either fall a victim

to impostors, or fail to acknowledge with gratitude the heavenly gift of a Mentor.

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1 The Thesaurus Philosophiœ testifies that the plain speaking of the philosophers is completely illusory, and that it is only

in their incomprehensible profundities that we must seek the light of Hermes. - Barrett’s Lives of the Alchemystical

Philosophers , edited by Arthur Edward Waite, London, 1888, Page 93.

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There is but one method whereby one may succeed without a Master in reconstituting, in its

completeness, the Lost Science, and this method which we take pleasure in revealing, as plainly as

possible, is infallible in its results. It constitutes the most potent operation of the Ars Magica : the

The Great Art page 5

E VOCATION . We shall describe it under its general aspect, referring the Reader to the special works

on Transcendental Magic for full details:

Evocation consists in causing departed spirits to manifest their presence before the Conjuror. But as

spirits can only appear immaterially - and as influences rather than individuals - it goes without

saying that these beings cannot manifest themselves in tangible form, (susceptible of being

photographed), unless appeal is made to our own semi-material, semi-spiritual principle, to our Astral

Body; this, however, constitutes the Great Operation to which it is neither necessary nor advisable to

have recourse, so much the more that the Evocation, such as we recommend, differs from the Great

Operation in that it is of longer duration, practically permanent; whilst the latter is dependent upon

the powers of the Conjuror; moreover the Great Operation is possible only for the Initiate in Theurgy,

whilst the simple Evocation, as here described, can be performed with success by any one who

possesses the pass-words of the First Degree of Initiation: P ATIENCE and W ILL -P OWER .

The Evocation, or Operation of the lesser Mysteries, consists in recreating the atmosphere in which

the departed lived while on earth. It is therefore important that the choice of an invisible Master be

made intelligently from the long list of Hermetic Philosophers. The Operator must know the

biography of that Master and obtain a correct impression of his exterior appearance; he must know

the history of the time in which that Master lived, the geography of the country in which he resided,

the topography of his city, the plan of his house, the disposition of his laboratory. Helping himself by

whatever informations books, monuments or tradition can furnish, the Neophyte will assemble and

classify every detail concerning the home-life, customs, daily vocations, etc., so as to reconstitute, in

the imaginative world, the life of the selected Guide. Place him amidst his disciples, either in his

laboratory or at the amphitheatre of the school where he taught; gather all the works most probably

known and studied by him, read and re-read them; write from memory the very works of that Master,

especially his most obscure passages, for the soul of a writer can always be found in his words, ready

to convey the true interpretation to the one eager to discover it. Collect objects contemporaneous to

that Master, especially books, instruments and works of art. All this constitutes the restoration of the

most material part of the atmosphere that will serve as the vehicle for the true magnetic force which

shall be the bond uniting the soul, or influence, of the invisible Master to that of the Conjuror. This

true magnetic fluid must be established between the mind of the Operator, which now is active, and

that of the Master, which is passive; when the rapports are at last established, the mind of the Guide

becomes the positive pole and that of the initiate the negative pole of this intellectual battery. To

generate the magnetic fluid the student must place his intellect on the same level as that of his chosen

Preceptor: he must learn to know and to ignore that which the Master knew and ignored; he must

believe that which the invisible believed, when on earth, whether modern science accepts or rejects

these beliefs; he must think over the same thoughts of the Master, speak his own words, use the same

expressions, recite the same prayers, practice the same religion, acquire the same habits, perform the

same acts of virtue, live the same life; in a word, he must place the heart and the mind in a thoroughly

sympathetic condition, in a perfect unison with the heart and mind of his Mentor, so as to attract the

latter into his own atmosphere again, of which he will become the intellectual center, as formerly; he

will incarnate himself in his disciple whose mind, now a plastic clay, will acquire in its highest

degree the faculty of receptivity , and will become susceptible of receiving the least impressions from

the outer world. The Influence of the being thus evoked, thus brought back into the world by an

irresistible magnetism, will then unite with the Operator and continue, through the latter's

instrumentality, the work which death interrupted. It is thus that Hans de Bülow, who lived among the

souvenirs, the works and the relics of Beethoven, consecrating his entire life to the study of this

Master, succeeded in giving that traditional expression established by the composer for the

interpretation of his Sonatas and Symphonies.

In order to really possess a Master and perform his works as the author himself imagined them, we

must prepare within ourselves a temple fit to receive him; we must place all our mental faculties

under his control, we must become a docile instrument into his hands. But, by the law of reaction,

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