Egyptian Magic in Egyptian Magic by Florence Farr.

“The study of Magic, which has now fallen into disrepute was, among the Egyptians, regarded with a veneration hardly accorded to the highest Philosophy in modern times.” [via]

Consider also:

  1. “His early romances and much throughout his poetry show how strong a fascination the traditions of magic and of the magical philosophy had cast over his mind, and one can hardly suppose that he had not brooded over their doctrine of symbols or signatures, though I do not find anything to show that he gave it any deep study.”
  2. “Good and Evil, then, if they are to find a place at all in the Universe as regarded from the Buddhist point of view, must be regarded as particular modifications of the States of Consciousness”
  3. “William Blake was the first writer of modern times to preach the indissoluble marriage of all great art with symbol.”
  4. “Practise a thousand times, and it becomes difficult; a thousand thousand, and it becomes easy; a thousand thousand times a thousand thousand, and it is no longer Thou that doeth it, but It that doeth itself through thee. Not until then is that which is done well done.”
  5. “This philosophy kept him more simply a poet than any poet of his time, for it made him content to express every beautiful feeling that came into his head without troubling about its utility or chaining it to any utility.”