Transcendental Magic
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Being armed at every point with such a rule of interpretation, he remained an occult philosopher for whom there was no occultism, save indeed a set of kabalistic theorems adapted to his metaphysical notions by a process of wresting and a set of symbolical picture-cards—called Tarot—into which he read that which he wanted. So also in respect of the Catholic and Roman Religion, and its corpus dogmaticum: he had pumped out all meaning from that, to shape it in his mind thereafter as a moral and aspirational symbology, which took duty in the absence of spiritual truth and offered some kind of consolation to a mind widowed of living faith. As he loved occult theorems apart from occult happenings, so he loved Roman forms; and as he venerated the golden chain of imagined adeptship, so he venerated the notion of hierarchic teaching and believed firmly that those should rule the world of human thought who understood Latin doctrine and practice according to his own considered private judgement. He never left intentionally the Church of his childhood, but he defended it on his own terms. He died in the end fortified by its last Rites, and—under the paradoxial denomination of occult philosophy— his memorials are with us as an attempted eirenicon between modern thought and Roman doctrine which has never deceived anyone but possibly him who devised it.
An annotated translation exceeded the scope of my original undertaking in 1896, but is offered in the present revised and enlarged edition. This notwithstanding, there is much in the text which follows that offers scope for detailed criticism, and there are points also where further elucidation would be useful. One of the most obvious defects, the result of mere carelessness or undue haste in writing, is the promise to explain or to prove given points later on, which are forgotten subsequently by the author. Instances have been noted in several places, concerning the method of determining the physiognomy of unborn children by means of the Pentagram; but there are yet others: concerning the rules for the recognition of sex in the astral body; concerning the notary art; concerning the magical side of the EXERCISES of St Ignatius; and concerning the alleged sorcery of Grandier and Girard. In some cases the promised elucidations appear in other places than those indicated, but they are mostly wanting altogether. There are further perplexities with which the reader must deal according to his judgement. I have indicated that the explanation of the quadrature of the circle is a childish folly and that the illustration of perpetual motion involves a mechanical absurdity; but the doctrine concerning the perpetuation of the same physiognomies from generation to generation is not less ridiculous heredity; the cause assigned to cholera and other ravaging epidemics, more especially the reference to bacteria, seems equally outrageous in physics. There is one other matter to which attention should be directed; the Hebrew quotations in the original—and the observation applies generally to all the works of Lévi—swarm with typographical and other errors, some of which it has proved impossible to correct. Lastly, after careful consideration, I have judged it the wiser course to leave out the preliminary essay which was prefixed to the second edition of the Doctrine and Ritual; its prophetic utterances upon the mission of Napoleon III have been stultified long since by subsequent events; it is devoid of any connexion with the work which it precedes, and, representing as it does the later views of Lévi, it would be a source of confusion to the reader. The present translation is based therefore on the first edition of the Dogmeet Rituel de la Haute Magie, omitting nothing but a few nnimportant citations from old French grimoires in an unnecessary appendix at the end. The portrait of Lévi is from a carte-de-visite formerly in the possession of Mr Edward Maitland, and was issued with his Life of Anna Kingsford a number of years ago.
1 “Writing to Baron spédalieri, his friend and pupil, in the month of January 1862, he stated that he was then fifty-two years of age.”—See The Mysteries of Magic, second edition, 1897.
2 According to one report, he fell under the infulence of Lamennais and his Paroles d'un Crayant.
1 Gérard Encausse, otherwise Papus, a more recent French occultist once asked scornfully, in an extended study of the “Doctrine of Eliphas Lévi”: “Who now remembers anything of Paul Augnez or Esquiros, journalists pretending to initiation, and posing as professors of the occult sciences in the salons they frequented?” No doubt they are forgotten, but Eliphas Lévi states, in the Histoire de la Magie, that, by the publication of his romance of The Magician, Esquiros founded a new school of Fantastic Magic and gives sufficient account of his work to show that it was in part excessively curious.
2 A women who was associated with his mission was, in like manner, supposed to have been Marie Antoinette.—See Histoire de la Magie, 1. vii, c..5
3 An alternative story is that the brochure was called La Voix de la Famine, that it apperaed in 1846 and entailed a year's imprisonment, as well as a fine of a thousand francs.
1 A vicious story, which had some publicity in Paris about 1905, charges Constant with spreading a repoprt of his death soon after his release from prison, assuming another name, imposing upon the Bishop of Evreux, and obtaining a licence to preach and administer the sacrament in that dicoses, thought he was not a priest. He is represented as drawing large congregations to the cathedral by his preaching, but at length the judge who had sentenced him unmasked the impostor, and the sacrilegious frace thus terminated dramatically.
2 Inculding Black Magic and pacts with Lucifer, according to the silly calumines of his enemies.
3 This also is doubtful. I have searched Pontificale Romanum and all its Rites of Ordination in vain for any trace of a vow of celibacy imposed on secular priests.
1 A very large number of obscure and ephemeral publication are attributed to constant in the catalogues of French booksellers. There is reason for believing that he was the compiler of Le Liver Rouge, 1841, under the pseudonym of Hortensius Flamel. It is described in the sun-title as a summary of magism, the occult science and Hermetic philiosophy. In this case he was responsible also for Le Liver d'Or, 1842, being “revelations of human destiny by means of chiromancy”, under the same name. Setting aside various anonymous writings which may be attributed in error, he is credited as Abbé Constant with (1) Des Moeurs etdes Doctrines do Rationalisme en France, 1839; (2) Du Mystére de la Veirge—on the office of woman in creation 1840; (3) La Bible de la Liberté, 1841, said to have been siezed and condemened; (4) Doctrines Religieuses et Sociales, 1841; (5) La Mére de Dieu, 1844, a religious and humanitarian epic; (6) Le Livre des Larmes ou le Christ Consolateur, 1845, presented as an eirenion between the Catholic Church and modern philosophy; (7) Le Testament de la Liberté, 1848. Among other publications about which there seems no question are (1) L'Évangile du Peuple, 1840; (2) La Voix de la Famine, 1846; (3) La Derniére Incarantion, 1846; (4) Les Trois Malfaiteurs, 1841; (5) La ou le Christ Consolateur, 1845, presented as an eirenicon between the Catholic Church and modern philiosophy; (7) Le Testament de la Liberté, 1848. Among other publications about which there seems no questin are (1) L'Évangile du Peuple, 1840; (2) La Voix de la Famine, 1846; (4) Les Trois Malfaiteurs, 1847. They are enumerated separately, as it would seem that some of them were anonymous.
2 I must not be understood as definitely as definitely attaching blame to Madame Constant for the course she adopted. Her husband was most probably approaching middle life when he withdrew her form her legal protectors, and the runaway marriage which began under such circumstances was little better than a seduction thinly legalized, and it was afterwards not improperly dissolved.
1 See the Critical Essay perfixed to The Mysteries of Magic: A Digest of the Writings of Éliphas Lévi. 1886 and 1896.
2 In the authencticity of this alleged MS. it must be said that I do not believe. It is to the manner born of Lévi himself in a grandiose mood of affirmation and carries no suggestion whatever of the sixteenth century. Alternatively, if there is any document on which it is based, this has been so worked over that it has passed out of all recognition.
THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC
THE GREAT SYMBOL OF SOLOMON
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sp; INTRODUCTION
BEHIND the veil of all the hieratic and mystical allegories of ancient doctrines, behind the darkness and strange ordeals of all initiations, under the seal of all sacred writings, in the ruins of Nineveh or Thebes, on the crumbling stones of old temples and on the blackened visage of the Assyrian or Egyptian sphinx, in the monstrous or marvellous paintings which interpret to the faithful of India the inspired pages of the Vedas, in the cryptic emblems of our old books on alchemy, in the ceremonies practised at reception by all secret societies, there are found indications of a doctrine which is everywhere the same and everywhere carefully concealed. Occult philosophy seems to have been the nurse or god-mother of all intellectual forces, the key of all divine obscurities and the absolute queen of society in those ages when it was reserved exclusively for the education of priests and of kings. It reigned in Persia with the Magi, who perished in the end, as perish all masters of the world, because they abused their power; it endowed India with the most wonderful traditions and with an incredible wealth of poesy, grace and terror in its emblems; it civilized Greece to the music of the lyre of Orpheus; it concealed the principles of all sciences, all progress of the human mind, in the daring calculations of Pythagoras; fable abounded in its miracles, and history, attempting to estimate this unknown power, became confused with fable; it undermined or consolidated empires by its oracles, caused tyrants to tremble on their thrones and governed all minds, either by curiosity or by fear. For this science, said the crowd, there is nothing impossible, it commands the elements, knows the language of the stars and directs the planetary courses; when it speaks, the moon falls blood-red from heaven; the dead rise in their graves and mutter ominous words, as the night wind blows through their skulls. Mistress of love or of hate, occult science can dispense paradise or hell at its pleasure to human hearts; it disposes of all forms and confers beauty or ugliness; with the wand of Circe it changes men into brutes and animals alternately into men; it disposes even of life and death, can confer wealth on its adepts by the transmutation of metals and immortality by its quintessence or elixir, compounded of gold and light.
Such was Magic from Zoroaster to Manes, from Orpheus to Apollonius of Tyana, when positive Christianity, victorious at length over the brilliant dreams and titanic aspirations of the Alexandrian school, dared to launch its anathemas publicly against this philosophy, and thus forced it to become more occult and mysterious than ever. Moreover, strange and alarming rumours began to circulate concerning initiates or adepts; they were surrounded every where by an ominous influence, and they destroyed or distracted those who allowed themselves to be beguiled by their honeyed eloquence or by the sorcery of their learning. The women whom they loved became Stryges and their children vanished at nocturnal meetings, while men whispered shudderingly and in secret of blood-stained orgies and abominable banquets. Bones had been found in the crypts of ancient temples, shrieks had been heard in the night, harvests withered and herds sickened when the magician passed by. Diseases which defied medical skill appeared at times in the world, and always, it was said, beneath the envenomed glance of the adepts. At length a universal cry of execration went up against Magic, the mere name became a crime and the common hatred was formulated in this sentence: “Magicians to the flames!”—as it was shouted some centuries earlier: “To the lions with the Christians!” Now the multitude never conspires except against real powers; it does not know what is true, but it has the instinct of what is strong. It remained for the eighteenth century to deride both Christians and Magic, while infatuated with the disquisitions of Rousseau and the illusions of Cagliostro.
Science, notwithstanding, is at the basis of Magic, as at the root of Christianity there is love, and in the Gospel symbols we find the Word Incarnate adored in His cradle by Three Magi, led thither by a star—the triad and the sign of the microcosm—and receiving their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, a second mysterious triplicity, under which emblem the highest secrets of the Kabalah are allegorically contained. Christianity owes therefore no hatred to Magic, but human ignorance has ever stood in fear of the unknown. The science was driven into hiding to escape the impassioned assaults of blind desire: it clothed itself with new hieroglyphics, falsified its intentions, denied its hopes. Then it was that the jargon of alchemy was created, an impenetrable illusion for the vulgar in their greed of gold, a living language only for the true disciple of Hermes.
Extraordinary fact! Among the sacred records of the Christians there are two texts which the infallible Church makes no claim to understand and has never attempted to expound: these are the Prophecy of Ezekiel and the Apocalypse, two Kabalistic Keys reserved assuredly in heaven for the commentaries of Magian Kings, books sealed as with seven seals for faithful believers, yet perfectly plain to an initiated infidel of the occult sciences.1 There is also another work, but, although it is popular in a sense and may be found everywhere, this is of all most occult and unknown, because it is the key of the rest. It is in public evidence without being known to the public; no one suspects its existence and no one dreams of seeking it where it actually is. This book, which may be older than that of Enoch, has never been translated, but is still preserved unmutilated in primeval characters, on detached leaves, like the tablets of the ancients. The fact has eluded notice, though a distinguished scholar has revealed, not indeed its secret, but its antiquity and singular preservation. Another scholar, but of a mind more fantastic than judicious, passed thirty years in the study of this masterpiece, and has merely suspected its plenary importance. It is, in truth, a monumental and extraordinary work, strong and simple as the architecture of the pyramids, and consequently enduringlike those—a book which is the summary of all sciences, which can resolve all problems by its infinite combinations, which speaks by evoking thought, is the inspirer and moderator of all possible conceptions, and the masterpiece perhaps of the human mind.1 It is to be counted unquestionably among the very great gifts bequeathed to us by antiquity; it is a universal key, the name of which has been explained and comprehended only by the learned William Postel; it is a unique test, whereof the initial characters alone plunged into ecstasy the devout spirit of SaintMartin,2 and might have restored reason to the sublime and unfortunate Swedenborg. We shall recur to this book later on, for its mathematical and precise explanation will be the complement and crown of our conscientious undertaking.
The original alliance between Christianity and the Science of the Magi, once demonstrated fully, will be a discovery of no second-rate importance, and we do not doubt that the serious study of Magic and the Kabalah will lead earnest minds to a reconciliation of science and dogma, of reason and faith, heretofore regarded as impossible.
We have said that the Church, whose special office is the custody of the Keys, does not pretend to possess those of the Apocalypse or of Ezekiel. In the opinion of Christians the scientific and magical Clavicles of Solomon are lost, which notwithstanding, it is certain that, in the domain of intelligence, ruled by the Word,3 nothing that has been written can perish. Whatsoever men cease to understand exists for them no longer, at least in the order of the Word, and it passes then into the domain of enigma and mystery. Furthermore, the antipathy and even open war of the Official Church against all that belongs to the realm of Magic, which is a kind of personal and emancipated priesthood, is allied with necessary and even with inherent causes in the social and hierarchic constitution of Christian sacerdotalism. The Church ignores Magic—for she must either ignore it or perish, as we shall prove later on; yet she does not recognize the less that her mysterious Founder was saluted in His cradle by Three Magi—that is to say, by the hieratic ambassadors of the three parts of the known world and the three analogical worlds of occult philosophy. In the School of Alexandria, Magic and Christianity almost joined hands under the auspices of Ammonius Saccas and of Plato: the doctrine of Hermes is found almost in its entirety in the writings attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite; Synesius outlined the plan of a treatise on dreams, which was
annotated subsequently by Cardan, and composed hymns that might have served for the liturgy of the Church of Swedenborg, could a church of the illuminated possess a liturgy. With this period of fiery abstractions and impassioned warfare of words there must be connected also the philosophic reign of Julian, called the Apostate because in his youth he made unwilling profession of Christianity.1 Everyone is aware that Julian had the misfortune to be a hero out of season of Plutarch, and that he was, if one may say so, the Don Quixote of roman Chivalry; but what most people do not know is that he was one of the illuminated and an initiate of the first order; that he believed in the unity of God and in the universal doctrine of the Trinity; that, in a word, he regretted nothing of the old world but its magnificent symbols and its too gracious images. Julian was not a pagan; he was a Gnostic allured by the allegories of Greek polytheism, who had the misfortune to find the name of Jesus Christ less sonorous than that of Orpheus. The Emperor paid in his person for the academical tastes of the philosopher and rhetorician, and alter affording himself the spectacle and satisfaction of expiring like Epaminondas with the periods of Cato, he had in public opinion, by this time fully Christianized, but anathemas for his funeral oration and a scornful epithet for his ultimate memorial.
Let us pass over the petty minds and small matters of the Bas-Empire, and proceed to the Middle Ages. . . . Stay, take this book! Glance at the seventh page, then seat yourself on the mantle which I am spreading, and let each of us cover our eyes with one of its corners. . . . Your head swims, does it not, and the earth seems to fly beneath your feet? Hold tightly, and do not look right or left. . . . The vertigo ceases: we are here. Stand up and open your eyes, but take care before all things to make no Christian sign and to pronounce no Christian words. We are in a landscape of Salvator Rosa, a troubled wilderness which seems resting after a storm. There is no moon in the sky, but you can distinguish little stars gleaming in the brushwood, and may hear about you the slow flight of great birds, which seem to whisper strange oracles as they pass. Let us approach silently that cross-road among the rocks. A harsh, funereal trumpet winds suddenly, and black torches flare up on every side. A tumultuous throng is surging round a vacant throne: all watch and wait. Suddenly they cast themselves on the ground. A goat-headed prince bounds forward among them; he ascends the throne, turns, and assuming a stooping posture, presents to the assembly a human face, which everyone comes forward to salute and to kiss, their black taper in their hands. With a hoarse laugh he recovers an upright position, and then distributes gold, secret instructions, occult medicines and poisons to his faithful bondsmen. Meanwhile, fires are lighted of fern and alder, piled up with human bones and the fat of executed criminals. Druidesses,crowned with wild parsley and vervain, immolate unbaptized children with golden knives and prepare horrible love-feasts. Tables are spread, masked men seat themselves by half-nude females, and a Bacchanalian orgy begins; there is nothing wanting but salt, the symbol of wisdom and immortality. Wine flows in streams, leaving stains like blood; obscene advances and abandoned caresses begin. A little while, and the whole assembly is beside itself with drink and wantonness, with crimes and singing. They rise, a disordered throng, and form infernal dances. . . . Then come all legendary monsters, all phantoms of nightmare; enormous toads play inverted flutes and thump with paws on flanks; limping scarabaei mingle in the dance; crabs play the castanets; crocodiles beat time on their scales; elephants and mammoths appear habited like Cupids and foot it in the ring: finally, the giddy circles break up and scatter on all sides. . . . Every yelling dancer drags away a dishevelled female. . . . Lamps and candles formed of human fat go out smoking in the darkness. . . . Cries are heard here and there, mingled with peals of laughter, blasphemies and rattlings in the throat. Come, rouse yourself: do not make the sign of the cross! See, I have brought you home. You are in your bed, not a little worn out, possibly a trifle shattered, by your night's journey and its orgy; but you have beheld that of which everyone talks without knowledge; you have been initiated into secrets no less terrible than the grotto of Triphonius; you have been present at the Sabbath. It remains for you now to preserve your wits, to have a wholesome dread of the law, and to keep at a respectful distance from the Church and her faggots.