In the “Ritual” it will be our task to estimate the sequence of truly magical ceremonies and evocations which constitute the great work of vocation u… - Eliphas Levi

Progress is a possibility for the animal: it can be broken in, tamed and trained; but it is not a possibility for the fool, because the fool thinks he has nothing to learn. It is his place to dictate to others and put them right, and so it is impossible to reason with him. He will laugh you to scorn in saying that what he does not understand is not a meaningful proposition. 'Why don't I understand it, then?', he asks you, with marvellous impudence. To tell him it is because he is a fool would only be taken as an insult, so there is nothing you can say in reply. Everybody else sees it quite clearly, but he will never realize it.<p>Here then, at the outset, is a potent secret which is inaccessible to the majority of people; a secret which they will never guess and which it would be useless to tell them: the secret of their own stupidity.

1. א All things proclaim an active, thinking cause.
2. ב The living unity heeds number's laws.
3. ג That which contains all is by nothing bound.
4. ד Before all else, He everywhere is found.
5. ה He, the sole Master—praise to Him alone! 6. ו To pure hearts His true doctrine He makes known.
7. ז Faith's works a single guide have, under heaven.
8. ח So one sole altar and one law are given.
9. ט What the Eternal founds, forever stays.
10. י From high, down to our time, He rules each phase.
11. כ Great is His mercy, and His wrath severe.
12. ל He sends a king unto His people dear.
13. מ The tomb but leads to new lands by and by, Life is immortal, death alone shall die.

He whom we behold perishing poor and abandoned is Cornelius Agrippa, less of a magician than any, though the vulgar persist in regarding him as a more potent sorcerer than all.