The following passages are taken from L’homme de désir (The Man of Desire) by Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin.
[87]
Happy is he who is filled with courage and confidence, and whose past sorrows and iniquities do not retard him in his work!
You ask how to pray. Does a sick man ask what how he must express his pains? Always command evil to go away, as if you were being regenerated in your powers.
Always call upon the good, as if the highest favors had not abandoned you. No longer consider if you are impure and if you are weak. No longer look backwards, and no longer prescribe for yourself any other plan but that of perseverance.
You can, by your obstinacy, recover what the divine goodness has granted you by your nature.
Say then without ceasing: I command iniquity to flea far from me; I command all natural and spiritual aids to gather around me.
I beg all the pure elect to lead and protect me. I bow down before the one who alone can reestablish all my relations.
Each one of his words give birth to a world: each one of his words can place the legions of living beings around me: because he does not speak without giving birth to life and to spread it in the souls who seek it.
Alas! We can anoint the Lord with our prayer, like that holy woman who anoints him with perfumes in front of his tomb! We can make it so that the stay in the tomb is less bitter to him.
[120]
Do you want to know your superiority over nature? See how much you extend or strengthen the faculties of the animals as you wish. You perfect, if you want, all substances; you are a king, you are an angel of light, or at least you should be.
Do you know why the more elevated are the objects of your studies, the easier it is for you to make discoveries in them? It is because, like your spirit, they are closest to the truth. Hesitate no more. The sciences of the spirit are much more certain than those of matter.
That is why all the sacred authors say the same thing; whereas the scientists of the lower order are all fighting amongst each other.
Look even around yourself and at the simplest laws of the physical world. The astronomers predict the eclipses and revolutions of the heavens several centuries in advance; and they could hardly predict whether the weather tomorrow will be clear or cloudy.
Man, be filled with trust in your nature and in the one who gave you thought. Let that faith not be a vague and sterile belief in vain doctrines. It is necessary for it to be active and swift like a torrent; but it is necessary that that torrent be inflamed, so that it can illuminate itself in your heart.
The reason man carries his head in the skies is because he does not find here anywhere to rest his head. And why would he look here to rest his head? Doesn’t he cling to unity? And can unity find its rest in the order of mixed things?
Soul of man, know the repose that is made for you. It is that which is characteristic of unity itself: it is to feel that you are separated from that which is disorder and corruption; it is to feel that you swim in freedom in the imperishable ocean of the light of order and life.
I must be interpreting this incorrectly because I don’t know of anyone who can “command illness to stay away” or do any of the other things that Saint-Martin describe here.
This raises a bigger question for me as to what can Sacred Magic accomplish? Is it strictly limited to spiritual integration? Or does it manifest on the temporal plane as well?
Michael, “mal” in French can mean evil or illness, etc., so I changed the text to “evil” as it makes more sense in the context. The text is about how to pray, not how to overcome physical illness. The analogy, it seems to be, is that a sick man would not have any question or doubt in his mind. He would wish the illness to depart, he would call for health. Similarly, the praying man is in the same condition: he would want a spiritual healing, and LC de SM is pointing that out. I think if you read the section in that context, it would make more sense.
Upon reading it again, it makes complete sense. Kind of surprised I missed the whole point. Thanks for the clarification.