3-057-453 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Magic ceremony, 1825. A theurgist performing rituals to exercise divine powers on earth. A circle on the ground is inscribed with sacred names and symbols. Hideous devils and monsters stand outside the sacred circle, looking towards a tabernacle - a man kneels before it performing theurgistic rites. Left, an angel descends in a flood of light, presumably bringing from God the power to act on the physical world. 'Such were the mystic rites, ceremonies and incantations, used by the ancient Theurgists to burst asunder the bonds of natural order, and to obtain an awful intercourse with the World of Spirits'. 'Sic omnia' (thus are all things), Oratorium (place of prayer), 'Felix cui [Hebrew tetragram] a consilius' [consiliis] (happy is he who is advised by God??), 'IKHVNRW' (beginning of name of Heinrich Khunrath?), 'Ne loqueris de deo absque lumine' (do not speak of God without light), 'Hoc hoc agentibus nobis aderit ipsi [ipse] Deus' (To us when we do these things God himself shall be present); 'Disce bene mori' (learn to die well) above skull and hourglass. 'Admai - Saday - Eloy - Agla - Tetragramate'. From "The Astrologer of the Nineteenth Century", dealing with the occult aspects of astrology, especially the conjuring of spirits.