MAGIC AND SORCERY 143 



human mind being in harmony with it, and without which 

 nothing useful can be accomplished. True magic power 

 consists in true faith, but true faith rests in spiritual 

 knowledge, and without that kind of knowledge there 

 can be no faith. If I know that divine wisdom can 

 accomplish a certain thing through me, I have the true 

 holy faith ; but if I merely fancy or suppose that a 

 thing might be possible, or if I attempt to persuade 

 myself that I believe in its possibility, such a belief is 

 no knowledge, and confers no faith. No one can have 

 a true faith in a thing which is not true, because such 

 a * faith ' would be merely a belief or opinion based 

 upon ignorance of the truth." 



Nothing can be accomplished without the power of 

 faith. If a loaf of bread were laid on a table before 

 a hungry man, and the man did not believe that he 

 could break a piece of it, he would starve to death in 

 spite of the loaf. " It is the faith which gives us power, 

 and through the power of faith we become spirits our- 

 selves, and able to use spiritual power. Faith renders 

 the spirit strong; doubt is the destroyer. All that is 

 accomplished over and beyond our terrestrial nature is 

 accomplished by us through the power of faith. That 

 in which we have faith requires no proofs. He who 

 asks for proofs departs from the faith. If God speaks 

 in us, we require no proofs of the truth of what He 

 says ; for we recognise it in the power of truth. This 

 power is taken from nobody, unless he throws it him- 

 self away. The good as well as the evil-disposed ones 

 can only be strong through faith. There is only one 

 power of faith, but its application may be for good or 

 for evil " (Morb. Invis.)."^ 



1 Faith is not based upon any intellectual comprehension, but it is the 

 true spiritual understanding. It is not a belief in some external aid, 

 but the inner consciousness of the possession of power. If Joshua David- 

 son broke his leg by jumping from a two-story window for the purpose 

 of proving his faith to himself, it was because he auperstitiously believed 

 thiit some external power would protect him in his fall, and he knew 



