by Eliphas Levi
We must not set out rashly along the path of the transcendental sciences, but, once started, we must reach the end or perish. To doubt is to lose one's reason; to pause is to fall; to recoil is to plunge into an abyss. You, therefore, who are undertaking the study of this book, if you persevere to the end and understand it, you will be either a monarch or madman. Do what you will with the volume, you will be unable to despise or to forget it. If you are pure, it will be your light; if strong, your arm; if holy, your religion; if wise, the rule of your wisdom. But if you are wicked, for you it will be an infernal torch; it will lacerate your breast like a poniard; it will rankle in your memory like a remorse; it will people your imagination with chimeras, and will drive you through folly to despair. You will endeavour to laugh at it, and will only gnash your teeth; it will be like the file in the fable which the serpent tried to bite, but it destroyed all his teeth.
Let us now enter on the series of initiations. I have said that revelation is the word. As a fact, the word, or speech, is the veil of being and the characteristic sign of life. Every form is the veil of a word, because the idea which is the mother of the word is the sole reason for the existence of forms. Every figure is a character, every character derives from and returns into a word. For this reason the ancient sages, of whom Trismegistus is the organ, formulated their sole dogma in these terms: “That which is above is like unto that which is below, and that which is below unto that which is above.” In other words, the form is proportional to the idea; the shadow is the measure of the body calculated in its relation to the luminous ray; the scabbard is as deep as the sword is long; the negation is in proportion to the contrary affirmation; production is equal to destruction in the movement which preserves life; and there is no point in infinite extension which may not be regarded as the centre of a circle having an expanding circumference receding indefinitely into space. Every individuality is therefore indefinitely perfectible, since the moral order is analogous to the physical, and since we cannot conceive any point as unable to dilate, increase and radiate in a philosophically unlimited circle. What can be affirmed of the soul in its totality may be affirmed of each faculty of the soul. The intelligence and will of man are instruments of incalculable power and capacity. But intelligence and will possess as their help-mate and instrument a faculty which is too imperfectly known, the omnipotence of which belongs exclusively to the domain of Magic. I speak of the imagination, which the Kabalists term the DIAPHANE or TRANSLUCID.1 Imagination, in effect, is like the soul's eye; therein forms are outlined and preserved; thereby we behold the reflections of the invisible world; it is the glass of visions and the apparatus of magical life. By its intervention we heal diseases, modify the seasons, warn off death from the living and raise the dead to life, because it is the imagination which exalts will and gives it power over the Universal Agent. Imagination determines the shape of the child in its mother's womb and decides the destiny of men; it lends wings to contagion and directs the arms of warfare. Are you exposed in battle? Believe yourself to be invulnerable like Achilles, and you will be so, says Paracelsus. Fear attracts bullets, but they are repelled by courage. It is well known that persons with amputated limbs feel pain in the vicinity of members which they possess no longer. Paracelsus operated upon living blood by medicating the product of a bleeding; he cured headache at a distance by treating hair cut from the patient. By the science of the theoretical unity and solidarity between all parts of the body, he anticipated and outstripped the theories, or rather experiences, of our most celebrated magnetists. Hence his cures were miraculous, and to his name of Philip Theophrastus Bombast, he deserved the addition of Aureolus Paracelsus, with the further epithet of divine!
Imagination is the instrument of THE ADAPTATION OF THE WORD. Imagination applied to reason is genius. Reason is one, as genius is one, in all the variety of its works. There is one principle, there is one truth, there is one reason, there is one absolute and universal philosophy. Whatsoever is subsists in unity, considered as beginning, and returns into unity, considered as end. One is in one; that is to say, all is in all. Unity is the principle of numbers; it is also the principle of motion and consequently of life.1 The entire human body is recapitulated in the unity of a single organ, which is the brain. All religions are summed up in the unity of a single dogma, which is the affirmation of being and its equality with itself, and this constitutes its mathematical value. There is only one dogma in Magic, and it is this: The visible is the manifestation of the invisible, or, in other terms, the perfect word, in things appreciable and visible, bears an exact proportion to the things which are inappreciable by our senses and unseen by our eyes. The Magus raises one hand towards heaven and points down with the other to earth, saying: “Above, immensity: Below immensity still! Immensity equals immensity.”—This is true in things seen, as in things unseen.
The first letter in the alphabet of the sacred language, Aleph, , represents a man extending one hand towards heaven and the other to earth.1 It is an expression of the active principle in everything; it is creation in heaven corresponding to the omnipotence of the word below. This letter is a pantacle in itself—that is, a character expressing the universal science. It is supplementary to the sacred signs of the Macrocosm and Microcosm; it explains the Masonic double-triangle and five-pointed blazing star; for the word is one and revelation is one. By endowing man with reason, God gave him speech; and revelation, manifold in its forms but one in its principle, consists entirely in the universal word, the interpreter of absolute reason. This is the significance of that term so much misconstrued, CATHOLICITY, which, in modern hieratic language, means INFALLIBILITY. The universal in reason is the Absolute, and the Absolute is the infallible. If absolute reason impelled universal society to believe irresistibly the utterance of a child, that child would be infallible by the ordination of God and of all humanity. Faith is nothing else but reasonable confidence in this unity of reason and in this universality of the word. To believe is to place confidence in that which as yet we do not know when reason assures us beforehand of ultimately knowing or at least recognizing it. Absurd are the so-called philosophers who cry: “I will never believe in a thing which I do not know!” Shallow reasoners! If you knew, would you need to believe?
But must I believe on chance and apart from reason? Certainly not. Blind and haphazard belief is superstition and folly. We may have faith in causes which reason compels us to admit on the evidence of effects known and appreciated by science. Science! Great word and great problem! What is science? We shall answer in the second chapter of this book.
1 There are twenty-two Trumps Major in the sequence of Tarot cards, on which account Éliphas Lévi divides his Doctrine and Ritual into twenty-two chapters each. His account of the so-called Book of Hermes at the end of the work is a justification of this arrangement or a commentary thereupon. That which emerges, however, is its utter confusion. The Tarot Juggler or Magus does not correspond to the Candidate for initiation; there is no reason why the Empress should answer to the triad or the Emperor to the quaternary; man between Vice and Virtue has no true relation with the number six, nor does the Chariot of the Tarot offer any connexion with the septenary. A similar criticism obtains in other cases, notwithstanding the happy accidents by which Death is attached to the number thirteen and fifteen to the Devil. The inscriptions placed by Lévi at the head of the chapters into which he divides his Doctrine give rise to other difficulties. According to his scheme the Tarot Trumps are referable to the Hebrew letters and the chapters correspond to both. A Hebrew letter appears therefore at the head of each, which is a clear issue at its value; but a connexion is established also with the Roman alphabet, the result of which are stultifying, as if the letter I were equivalent to the Hebrew TETH, K to JOD, L to KAPH, R to PE, T to QUPH, etc. It is also implied fantastically that the Roman alphabet is related to Tarot cards, but whereas the Hebrew MEM answers to the card of Death the Roman M is referred to the Hanged Man, RESH to the Judgement card but R t
o the Blazing Star, etc. Sephirotic allocations constitute a further medley, while Latin words included among the inscriptions are complete puzzles, e.g. the attribution of ECCE to GEBURAH and the number five.
1 As an exponent of Sacramental Religion, I accept the consensus of Hermetic opinion on the importance of the “Emerald Table.” Quod superius est sicut quod inferius et quod inferius est sicut quod superius ad perpetranda miracula rei unius is a great and luminous dogma; but it should be understood that the attribution to the legendary and highly symbolic Hermes is a transparent fiction. The “Emerald Table” is extant only in a late Latin form, and there is not the least warrant for postulating a Greek original. It has been referred to the seventh century.
1 Compare La Clef des Grands Mystères, p. 143: “True Magic, that is to say the traditional science of the Magi, is the implacable enemy of enchanters. It prevents or puts an end to those false miracles which are opposed to the light and deceive only a few prepared or credulous witnesses.”
1 “Apollonius is sober, like Jesus chaste and like Him also is dedicated to a wandering and austere life. The essential distinction between them is that Apollonius favours superstitions while Jesus destroys them—that Apollonius incites to bloodshed and Jesus condemns the work of the sword. A town is stricken by plague; Apollonius arrives; the people, who regard him as a thaumaturge, press round and conjure him to stay the scourge. ‘Behold that which afflicts you,’ cries the false prophet, indicating an aged beggar. . . . The mendicant was buried quickly under a pile of stones, and when these were cleared away subsequently, Philostratus tells us that the corpse of a huge black dog was discovered in place of a human body. The absurd at this point fails to justify the atrocious. Jesus caused no one to be stoned, not even the woman taken in adultery. . . . Apollonius appears as a miserable sorcerer and Jesus as Son of God. . . . With Apollonius of Tyana the old world seems to have uttered its last message.”— La Science des Esprits, pp. 233, 234.
2 See the Tarot cards.—NOTE OF ÉLIPHAS LÉVI.
1 It must be said that the Kabalists in question do not emerge. The visions of Moses were seen through the clear and shining glass of TIPHERETH, and he saw exactly. Others look through the clouded glass of MALKUTH, and they prophesy in enigmas and parables.
1 It is said elsewhere that unity connects with the idea of God and of man, as also with the alliance of reason and faith.—La Clef des Grand Mystères, p. 13.
1 “There are two Alephs, respectively white and black, the second being the shadow of the first, and the first the light of the second. Spirit is reflected in matter and matter is manifested only to reveal spirit. Matter is the letter of the spirit; spirit is the thought of matter.”—Correspondence with Baron Spédalieri, No. 13. The last statement reverses the whole thesis; but Lévi is intending to affirm that spirit is thought in matter.
II B
THE PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE
CHOKMAH DOMUS GNOSIS
SCIENCE is the absolute and complete possession of truth. Hence have the sages of all the centuries trembled before such an absolute and terrible word; they have hesitated in arrogating to themselves the first privilege of Divinity by assuming the possession of science, and have been contented, instead of the verb to know, with that which expresses learning, while, in place of the word Science, they have adopted that of Gnosis, which represents simply the notion of learning by intuition. What, in fact, does man know? Nothing, and at the same time he is allowed to ignore nothing. Devoid of knowledge, he is called upon to know all. Now, knowledge supposes the duad—a being who knows and an object known. The duad is the generator of society and of law: it is also the number of the GNOSIS. The duad is unity multiplying itself in order to create, and hence in sacred symbolism Eve issues from the inmost bosom of Adam. Adam is the human tetragram, summed up in the mysterious Jod, type of the kabalistic phallus. By adding to this JOD the triadic name of Eve, the name of Jehova is formed, the Divine Tetragram, which is eminently the kabalistic and magical word, , being that which the high-priest in the temple pronounced JODCHEVA. So unity, complete in the fruitfulness of the triad, forms therewith the tetrad, which is the key of all numbers, of all movements and of all forms. By a revolution about its own centre, the square produces a circle equal to itself, and this is the quadrature of the circle, the circular movement of four equal angles around the same point.1
“That which is above equals that which is below,” says Hermes. Here then is the duad serving as the measure of unity, and the relation of equality between above and below forms with these the triad. The creative principle is the ideal phallus; the created principle is the formal cteis. The insertion of the vertical phallus into the horizontal cteis forms the stauros of the Ghostics, or the philosophical cross of Masons. Thus, the intersection of two produces four, which, by its movement, defines the circle with all degrees thereof.
is man; is woman; 1 is the principle; 2 is the word; A is the active; B is the passive; the monad is BOAZ; the duad is JAKIN.1 In the trigrams of Fohi, unity is the Yang and the duad is the YIN. BOAZ and JAKIN are the names of the two symbolical Pillars before the principal entrance of Solomon's Kabalistic Temple. In the Kabalah these Pillars explain all mysteries of antagonism, whether natural, political or religious. They elucidate also the procreative struggle between man and woman, for, according to the law of Nature, the woman must resist the man, and he must entice or overcome her. The active principle seeks the passive principle, the plenum desires the void, the serpent's jaw attracts the serpent's tail, and in turning about upon himself, he, at the same time, flies and pursues himself. Woman is the creation of man, and universal creation is the bride of the First Principle.
When the Supreme Being became a Creator, He erected a Jod or a phallus, and to provide a place in the fulness of the uncreated light, it was necessary to hollow out a ctei's or trench of shadow equivalent to the dimension determined by his creative desire, and attributed by him to the ideal Jod of the radiating light. Such is the mysterious language of the Kabalists in the Talmud, and on account of vulgar ignorance and malignity, it is impossible for us to explain or simplify it further. What then is creation? It is the house of the creative Word. What is the cteiis? It is the house of the phallus. What is the nature of the active principle? To diffuse. What is that of the passive? To gather in and to fructify. What is man? He who initiates, who toils, who furrows, who sows. What is woman? She who forms, unites, irrigates and harvests. Man wages war, woman brings peace about; man destroys to create, woman builds up to preserve; man is revolution, woman is conciliation; man is the father of Cain, woman the mother of Abel. What also is wisdom? It is the agreement and union of two principles, the mild ness of Abel directing the activity of Cain, man guided by the sweet inspirations of woman, debauchery conquered by lawful marriage, revolutionary energy softened and subdued by the gentleness of order and peace, pride subjugated by love, science acknowledging the inspirations of faith. It is then that science becomes wise and submits to the infallibility of universal reason, instructed by love or universal charity. Then it can assume the name of GNOSIS, because it knows at least that as yet it cannot boast of knowing perfectly.
The monad can manifest only by the duad; unity itself and the notion of unity at once constitute two. The unity of the Macrocosm reveals itself by the two opposite points of two triangles. Human unity fulfils itself to right and left. Primitive man is androgynous. All organs of the human body are disposed in pairs, excepting the nose, the tongue, the umbilicus and the kabalistic JOD. Divinity, one in its essence, has two essential conditions as the fundamental grounds of its being—necessity and liberty. The laws of supreme reason necessitate and rule liberty in God, Who is of necessity wise and reasonable.
To make light visible God had only to postulate shadow. To manifest the truth He permitted the possibility of doubt. The shadow bodies forth the light, and the possibility of error is essential for the temporal manifestation of truth. If the buckler of Satan did not intercept the spear of Mich
ael, the might of the angel would be lost in the void or manifested by infinite destruction launched below from above. Did not the heel of Michael restrain Satan in his ascent, Satan would dethrone God, or rather he would lose himself in the abysses of the altitude. Hence Satan is needful to Michael as the pedestal to the statue, and Michael is necessary to Satan as the brake to the locomotive. In analogical and universal dynamics one leans only on that which resists. Furthermore, the universe is balanced by two forces which maintain it in equilibrium, being the force which attracts and that which repels. They exist alike in physics, in philosophy and in religion; in physics they produce equilibrium, in philosophy criticism, in religion progressive revelation. The ancients represented this mys tery by the conflict between Eros and Anteros, the struggle between Jacob and the angel, and by the equilibrium of the golden mountain, which gods on the one side and demons on the other encircle with the symbolic serpent of India. It is typified also by the caduceus of Hermanubis, by the two cherubim of the ark, by the twofold sphinx of the chariot of Osiris and by the two seraphim—respectively black and white. Its scientific reality is demonstrated by the phenomena of polarity, as also by the universal law of sympathies and antipathies.
The undiscerning disciples of Zoroaster divided the duad without referring it to unity, thus separating the Pillars of the Temple and endeavouring to halve God. Conceive the Absolute as two, and you must immediately conceive it as three to recover the unity principle.1 For this reason, the material elements, analogous to the divine elements, are understood firstly as four, explained as two and exist ultimately as three.