At the same time, the general question has many aspects of interest for that large class which would demur to be termed transcendental, but confesses to being curious.
The earliest rumour which I have been able to recall in England concerning existing occult practices to which a questionable purpose might be attributed, appeared in a well-known psychological journal some few years since, and was derived from a continental source, being an account of a certain society then existing in Paris, which was devoted to magical practices and in possession of a secret ritual for the evocation of planetary angels; it was an association of well-placed persons, denying any connection with spiritualism, and pretending to an acquaintance with more effectual thaumaturgic processes than those which obtain at seances.

The account passed unchallenged, for in the absence of more explicit information, it seemed scarcely worth while to draw attention to the true character of the claim.

The secret ritual in question could not have been unknown to specialists in magical literature, and was certainly to myself among these; as a fact, it was one of those numerous clavicles of the goetic art which used to circulate surreptitiously in manuscript some two centuries ago.

There is no doubt that the planetary spirits with which the document was concerned were devils in the intention of its author, and must have been evoked as such, supposing that the process was practised.

The French association was not therefore in possession of a secret source of knowledge, but as impositions of this kind are to be _a priori_ expected in such cases by transcendentalists of any experience, I for one refrained from entering any protest at the time.
Much about the same period it became evident that a marked change had passed over certain aspects of thought in "the most enlightened city of the world," and that among the _jeunesse doree_, in particular, there was a strong revulsion against paramount material philosophy; an epoch of transcendental and mystic feeling was, in fact, beginning.