Egypt, a great center of learning and the birthplace of many arts and sciences, furnished an ideal

environment for transcendental experimentation. Here the black magicians of Atlantis continued to

exercise their superhuman powers until they had completely undermined and corrupted the morals of the

primitive Mysteries. By establishing a sacerdotal caste they usurped the position formerly occupied by

the initiates, and seized the reins of spiritual government. Thus black magic dictated the state religion

and paralyzed the intellectual and spiritual activities of the individual by demanding his complete and

unhesitating acquiescence in the dogma formulated by the priestcraft. The Pharaoh became a puppet in

the hands of the Scarlet Council–a committee of arch-sorcerers elevated to power by the priesthood.

hese sorcerers then began the systematic destruction of all keys to the ancient wisdom, so that none might have access to the knowledge necessary to reach adeptship without first becoming one of their order. They mutilated the rituals of the Mysteries while professing to preserve them, so that even though

the neophyte passed through the degrees he could not secure the knowledge to which he was entitled. Idolatry was introduced by encouraging the worship of the images which in the beginning the wise had erected solely as symbols for study and meditation. False interpretations were given to the emblems and figures of the Mysteries, and elaborate theologies were created to confuse the minds of their devotees. The masses, deprived of their birthright of understanding and groveling in ignorance, eventually became the abject slaves of the spiritual impostors. Superstition universally prevailed and the black magicians

completely dominated national affairs, with the result that humanity still suffers from the sophistries of the priestcrafts of Atlantis and Egypt.

The visible universe has an invisible counterpart, the higher planes of which are peopled by good

and beautiful spirits; the lower planes, dark and foreboding, are the habitation of evil spirits and demons

under the leadership of the Fallen Angel and his ten Princes.

The most dangerous form of black magic is the scientific perversion of occult power for the gratification

of personal desire. Its less complex and more universal form is human selfishness, for selfishness is the

fundamental cause of all worldly evil. A man will barter his eternal soul for temporal power, and down

through the ages a mysterious process has been evolved which actually enables him to make this

exchange.