Religion History. Original publication Publisher Open Road Media. Related books All. Robert Masello The Spirit Wood. Robert Masello Private Demons. Robert Masello Black Horizon. Robert Masello Fallen Angels.
Sign in or Register. Who would call up infernal powers and then hope, once the demons were conjured, to be able to control them? If the history of black magic and the occult reveals anything at all, it reveals that the drive to marshal the unseen powers of the dark and bend them to a mortal will is as old as mankind itself.
Men and women have believed, in virtually every age and in every land, that there is another world—this one invisible, eternal, and essentially unknowable—coexistent with the one we inhabit every day. It is the world of spirits and souls, angels and demons, gods and monsters, and in it can be found the answers to all the great questions: What is life all about?
Does man decide his own fate? Is death truly an end? Is there a Heaven? And is there, perhaps more important, a Hell? Magic, the mystical precursor of religion, professed to have the answers. They made pacts with demons, promising their immortal souls in exchange for a lifetime of riches or a godlike glimpse of the cosmic order.
They pored over ancient and sacred texts, the Holy Scriptures, the Cabbala, the Egyptian Book of the Dead, searching through the cryptic words for clues and advice. Along the way, these occult pioneers often stumbled upon real and verifiable truths: the astrologers mapped the heavens and paved the way for the astronomers who followed; the alchemists, in their futile quest to make gold from lead, performed thousands of experiments which led to the discovery of everything from phosphorus, sodium sulfate, and benzoic acid to the manufacturing of steel.
Even the seers, who read palms and interpreted dreams, contributed to the vast catalog of human thought and deed, and anticipated in their own way such later practices as psychology and hypnosis. What made their efforts all the more surprising—in some cases, dare it be said, even inspiring—were the dangers, both real and imagined, that these explorers of the dark side faced.
First, there was the ever-present threat of ecclesiastical or royal condemnation. Dabbling in the occult could get you interrogated, excommunicated, tortured, mangled, hanged, burned at the stake. Or, as in the case of Father Grandier, who was accused of bewitching the nuns of Loudun, all of the above. In all the grimoires grammars of black magic, there were repeated warnings and explicit instructions about what to watch out for. When at long last it came time for Faust to make good on his deal with the devil, for instance, his body was found torn to pieces in an open field, and his soul—well, that was assumed, according to most accounts, to have been carried off to perdition.
Even so, the occult arts have never disappeared and have frequently flourished. Does man decide his own fate? Is there a Heaven? And is there, perhaps more importantly, a Hell? The alchemists, in their futile quest to make gold from lead, discovered everything from phosphorous to the manufacturing of steel.
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