Note 257 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
Le Comte de Gabalis, ou Entretiens sur les Sciences Secrètes (Metz, an cinq. républicain), pp. 53-56.
The following passage is a sample of those high-sounding promises with which the pretenders to the Rosicrucian science allured the neophyte:—
‘You are about to learn (says the Count to the author) how to command all nature: God alone will be your master; the philosophers alone your equals. The highest intelligences will be ambitious to obey your desire; the demons will not dare to approach the place where you are; your voice will make them tremble in the depths of the abyss, and all the invisible populace of the four elements will deem themselves happy to minister to your pleasures.... Have you the courage and the ambition to serve God alone, and to be lord over all that is not God? Have you understood what it is to be a man? Are you not weary of serving as a slave,—you, who were born for dominion?‘—(p. 27.)