"I, the imperfect, adore my own Perfect," he says in his superb "Essay
on the Oversoul." Besides this psychological, or soul state, Theosophy
cultivated every branch of sciences and arts. It was thoroughly
familiar with what is now commonly known as mesmerism. Practical theurgy
or "ceremonial magic," so often resorted to in their exorcisms by the
Roman Catholic clergy, was discarded by the Theosophists. It is but
Jamblichus alone who, transcending the other Eclectics, added to
Theosophy the doctrine of Theurgy. When ignorant of the true meaning of
the esoteric divine symbols of Nature, man is apt to miscalculate the
powers of his soul, and, instead of communing spiritually and mentally
with the higher celestial beings, the good spirits (the gods of the
theurgists of the Platonic school), he will unconsciously call forth the
evil, dark powers which lurk around humanity, the undying, grim
creations of human crimes and vices, and thus fall from theurgia (white
magic) into goetia (or black magic, sorcery). Yet, neither white nor
black magic are what popular superstition understands by the terms.
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