by Eliphas Levi
Revelation is the duad; every word is double, and suposes two. The ethic which results from revelation is founded on antagonism, and this results from the duad. Spirit and form attract and repel one another, like sign and idea, fiction and truth. Supreme Reason necessitates dogma when communicating to finite intelligences, and dogma by its passage from the domain of ideas to that of forms, participates in two worlds and has inevitably two senses testifying in succession or simultaneously, that is, to the spirit and the flesh. So are there two forces in the moral region, one which attacks and one which restrains and expiates. They are represented in the mythos of Genesis by the typical personalities of Cain and Abel. Abel oppresses Cain by reason of his moral superiority; Cain to get free immortalizes his brother by slaying him and becomes the victim of his own crime. Cain could not suffer the life of Abel, and the blood of Abel suffers not the sleep of Cain.2 In the Gospel the type of Cain is replaced by that of the Prodigal Son, whom his father forgives freely because he returns after having endured much.
There is mercy and there is justice in God; to the just He dispenses justice and to sinners mercy. In the soul of the world, which is the Universal Agent, there is a current of love and a current of wrath. This ambient and all penetrating fluid; this ray loosened from the sun's splendour and fixed by the weight of the atmosphere and the power of central attraction; this body of the Holy Spirit, which we term the Universal Agent, while it was typified by the ancients under the symbol of a serpent devouring its tail; this electro-magnetic ether, this vital and luminous caloric, is depicted in achaic monuments by the girdle of Isis, twice-folded in a love-knot round two poles, as well as by the serpent devouring its own tail, emblematic of prudence and of Saturn.1 Motion and life consist in the extreme tension of two forces. “I would thou wert cold or hot,” said the Master. As a fact, a great sinner is more really alive than is a tepid, effeminate man, and the fulness of his return to virtue will be in proportion to the extent of his errors. She who is destined to crush the serpent's head is intelligence, which ever rises above the stream of blind forces. The Kabalists call her the virgin of the sea, whose dripping feet the infernal dragon crawls forward to lick with his fiery tongues, and they fall asleep in delight.
Hereof are the hieratic mysteries of the duad. But there is one, and the last of all, which must not be made known, the reason, according to Hermes Trismegistus, being the malcomprehension of the vulgar, who would ascribe to the necessities of science the immoral aspect of blind fatality. “By the fear of the unknown must the crowd be restrained,” he observes in another place; and Christ also said: “Cast not your pearls before swine, lest, trampling them under their feet, they turn and rend you.” The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, of which the fruits are death, is the type of this hieratic secret of the duad, which would be only misconstrued if divulged, and would lead commonly to the unholy denial of free will, though it is the principle of moral life.1 It is hence in the essence of things that the revelation of this secret means death, and it is not at the same time the Great Secret of Magic; but the arcanum of the duad leads up to that of the tetrad, or more correctly proceeds therefrom, and is resolved by the triad, which contains the word of that enigma propounded by the sphinx, the finding of which would have saved the life, atoned for the unconscious crime and established the kingdom of Oedipus.
In the hieroglyphic work of Hermes, being the Tarot or Book of Thoth, the duad is represented either by the horns of Isis, who has her head veiled and an open book concealed partially under her mantle, or otherwise by a sovereign lady, Juno, the Greek goddess, with one hand uplifted towards heaven and the other pointed to earth, as if formulating by this gesture the one and twofold dogma which is the foundation of Magic and begins the marvellous symbols of the “Emerald Table” of Hermes. In the Apocalypse of St John there is reference to two witnesses or martyrs on whom prophetic tradition confers the names of Elias and Enoch—-Elias, man of faith, enthusiasm, miracle; Enoch, one with him who is called Hermes by the Egyptians, honoured by the Phoenicians as Cadmus, author of the sacred alphabet and the universal key to the initiations of the Logos, father of the Kabalah, he who, according to sacred allegories, did not die like other men, but was translated to heaven, and will return at the end of time. Much the same parable is told of St John himself, who recovered and explained in his Apocalypse the symbolism of the word of Enoch. This resurrection of St John and Enoch, expected at the close of the ages of ignorance, will be the renovation of their doctrine by the comprehension of the kabalistic keys which unlock the temple of unity and of universal philosophy, too long occult and reserved solely for the elect, who perish at the hands of the world.
But we have said that the reproduction of the monad by the duad leads of necessity to the conception and dogma of the triad, so we come now to this great number, which is the fulness and perfect word of unity.
1 The circular movement of four equal angles around the same point has nothing to do with the problem which baffles mathematics, being the exact area of the circle. Lévi is talking infantile nonsense.
1 “BETH is the hieroglyphical image of that Divine Mother whom the Kabalists call AIMA. . . . The binary is also the number of the Elohim or of those forces which constitute the equilibrium of universal balance.”—Correspondence with Baron Spédalieri, No. 30. “The highest expression of the binary in the Divine sense is the Mystery of the Incarnation, the identification without confusion and without intermixture of Divinity with humanity.”—Ibid., No. 35. See also La Clef des Grands Mystères, p. 18: “The duad is the number of woman, spouse of man and mother of society.”
1 “The Absolute is unity: the Absolute in philosophy is enlightened religion; in ideology it is the human word, rendered creative by its union with the Divine Word; the Absolute in science is unity in analogy with creative laws; while in politics it is the unity of the body-social ruled by one head. . . .”—La Clef des Grands Mystères, p. 271.
2 “Cain and Abel represent the flesh and the spirit, force and understanding, violence and harmony.”—La Clef des Grands Mystères, p. 33.
1 “The problem resolved by the Magic of Hermes is this: To accumulate and fix the latent caloric in an artificial body, so as to change the molecular polarization of natural bodies by their amalgamation with the official body. That of Practical Magic may be formulated thus: To reduce or exalt the principle of forms so as to change their appearances. According to this definition the prodigies of Fascinating Magic belong solely to the order of prestige. . . . To enjoy illusions, yet not to be their slave—such is the Great Secret of Magic.”—Fables et Symboles, pp. 335. 336.
1 Compare, however, a much later production of Lévi, Le Livre des Sages, p. 60. “The Tree of Knowledge is reason and the Tree of Life is love, which produces faith.” It is said elsewhere that so far as evil is real it is an affirmation of disorder and this is essentially transitory in the presence of eternal order.—Le Grand Arcane, p. 14.
III C
THE TRIANGLE OF SOLOMON
PLENITUDO VOCIS BINAH PHYSIS
THE perfect word is the triad, because it supposes an intelligent principle, a speaking principle and a principle spoken.1 The Absolute, revealed by speech, endows this speech with a sense equivalent to itself, and in the understanding thereof creates its third self. So also the sun manifests by its light and proves or makes this manifestation efficacious by heat.
The triad is delineated in space by the heavenly zenith, the infinite height, connected with East and West by two straight diverging lines. With this visible triangle reason compares another which is invisible, but is assumed to be equal in dimension; the abyss is its apex and its reversed base is parallel to the horizontal line stretching from East to West. These two triangles, combined in a single figure, which is the six-pointed star, form the sacred symbol of Solomon's Seal, the resplendent Star of the Macrocosm. The notion of the Infinite and the Absolute is expressed by this sign, which is the grand pantacle—that is to say, the most simpl
e and complete abridgement of the science of all things.
Grammar itself attributes three persons to the verb. The first is that which speaks, the second that which is spoken to, and the third the object. In creating, the Infinite Prince speaks to Himself of Himself. Such is the explanation of the triad and the origin of the dogma of the Trinity. The magical dogma is also one in three and three in one. That which is above is like or equal to that which is below. Thus, two things which resemble one another and the word which signifies their resemblance make three. The triad is the universal dogma. In Magic—principle, realization, ádaptation; in alchemy—azoth, incorporation, transmutation; in theology—God, incarnation, redemption; in the human soul —thought, love and action; in the family—father, mother and child. The triad is the end and supreme expression of love; we seek one another as two only to become three.
There are three intelligible worlds which correspond one with another by hierarchic analogy; the natural or physical, the spiritual or metaphysical, and the divine or religious worlds. From this principle follows the hierarchy of spirits, divided into three orders, and again subdivided by the triad in each of these.
All these revelations are logical deductions from the first mathematical notions of being and number. Unity must multiply itself in order to become active. An indivisible, motionless and sterile principle would be unity dead and incomprehensible. Were God only one He would never be Creator or Father. Were He two there would be antagonism or division in the infinite, which would mean the division also or death of all possible things. He is therefore three for the creation by Himself and in His image of the infinite multitude of beings and numbers. So is He truly one in Himself and triple in our conception, which also leads us to behold Him as triple in Himself and one in our intelligence and our love.1 This is a mystery for the faithful and a logical necessity for the initiate into absolute and real sciences.
The Word manifested by life is realization or incarnation. The life of the Word accomplishing its cyclic movement is adaptation or redemption. This triple dogma was known in all sanctuaries illuminated by the tradition of the sages. Do you wish to ascertain which is the true religion? Seek that which realizes most in the Divine Order, which humanizes God and makes man divine, which preserves the triadic dogma intact, which clothes the Word with flesh by making God manifest to the hands and eyes of the most ignorant, which in fine appeals to all in its doctrine and can adapt itself to all—the religion which is hierarchic and cyclic, having allegories and images for children, an exalted philosophy for grown men, sublime hopes and sweet consolations for the old.
The primeval sages, when seeking the First of Causes, behold good and evil in the world. They considered shadow and light; they compared winter with spring, age with youth, life with death, and their conclusion was this: The First Cause is beneficent and severe; It gives and takes away life. Then are there two contrary principles, the one good and the other evil, exclaimed the disciples of Manes. No, the two principles of universal equilibrium are not contrary, although contrasted in appearance, for a singular wisdom opposes one to another. Good is on the right, evil on the left; but the supreme excellence is above both, applying evil to the victory of good and good to the amendment of evil.
The principle of harmony is in unity, and it is this which imparts such power to the uneven number in Magic. Now, the most perfect of the odd numbers is three, because it is the trilogy of unity. In the trigrams of Fohi, the superior triad is composed of three Yang, or masculine figures, because nothing passive can be admitted into the idea of God, considered as the principle of production in the three worlds. For the same reason, the Christian Trinity by no means permits the personification of the mother, who is shown forth implicitly in that of the Son. For the same reason, also, it is contrary to the laws of hieratic and orthodox symbology to personify the Holy Ghost under the form of a woman. Woman comes forth from man as I^ature comes forth from God; so Christ Himself ascends to heaven and assumes the Virgin Mother: we speak of the ascension of the Saviour, and the assumption of the Mother of God. God, considered as Father, has Nature for His daughter; as Son, He has the Virgin for His mother and the Church for His bride; as Holy Spirit, He regenerates and fructifies humanity. Hence, in the trigrams of Fohi, the three inferior Yin correspond to the three superior Yang, for these trigrams constitute a pantacle like that of the two triangles of Solomon, but with a triadic interpretation of the six points of the blazing star.
Dogma is only divine inasmuch as it is truly human—that is to say, in so far as it sums up the highest reason of humanity. So also the Master, Whom we term the Man God, called Himself the Son of Man. Revelation is the expression of belief accepted and formulated by universal reason in the human word, on which account it is said that the divinity is human and the humanity divine in the Man God.1 We affirm all this philosophically, not theologically, without infringing in any way on the teaching of the Church, which condemns and must always condemn Magic. Paracelsus and Agrippa1 did not set up altar against altar but bowed to the ruling religion of their time: to the elect of science, the things of science; to the faithful, the things of faith.
In his hymn to the royal Sun, the Emperor Julian gives a theory of the triad which is almost identical with that of the illuminated Swedenborg. The sun of the divine world is the infinite, spiritual and uncreated light, which is verbalized, so to speak, in the philosophical world, and becomes the fountain of souls and of truth; then it incorporates and becomes visible light in the sun of the third world, the central sun of our suns, of which the fixed stars are the ever-living sparks. The Kabalists compare the spirit to a substance which remains fluid in the divine medium and under the influence of the essential light, its exterior, however, becoming solidified, like wax when exposed to air, in the colder realms of reasoning or of visible forms. These shells, envelopes petrified or carnified, were such an expression possible, are the source of errors or of evil, which connects with the heaviness and hardness of animal envelopes. In the book Zohar, and in that of the Revolution of Souls, perverse spirits or evil demons are never called otherwise than shells—cortices. The cortices of the world of spirits are transparent, while those of the material world are opaque. Bodies are only temporary shells, whence souls have to be liberated; but those who in this life obey the flesh build up an interior body or fluidic shell, which, after death, becomes their prison-house and torment, until the time arrives when they succeed in dissolving it in the warmth of the divine light, towards which, however, the burden of their grossness hinders them from ascending. Indeed, they can do so only after infinite struggles, and by the mediation of the just, who stretch forth their hands towards them. During the whole period of the process they are devoured by the interior activity of the captive spirit, as in a burning furnace. Those who attain the pyre of expiation burn themselves thereon, like Hercules upon Mount Oeta, and so are delivered from their sufferings; but the courage of the majority fails before this ordeal, which seems to them a second death more appalling than the first, and so they remain in hell, which is rightly and actually eternal; but souls are never precipitated nor even retained despite themselves therein.1
The three worlds correspond together by means of the thirty-two paths of light, which are as steps of a sacred ladder. Every true thought corresponds to a Divine Grace in heaven and a good work on earth; every Grace of God manifests a truth, and produces one or many acts; reciprocally, every act affects a truth or falsehood in the heavens, a grace or a punishment. When a man pronounces the Tetragram—say the Kabalists—the nine celestial realms sustain a shock, and then all spirits cry out one upon another: “Who is it thus disturbing the kingdom of heaven?” Then does the earth communicate unto the first sphere the sins of that rash being who takes the Eternal Name in vain, and the accusing word is transmitted from circle to circle, from star to star, and from hierarchy to hierarchy.
Every utterance possesses three senses, every act has a triple range, every form a triple idea, for the Absolu
te corresponds from world to world by its forms. Every determination of human will modifies Nature, concerns philosophy and is written in heaven. There are consequently two fatalities, one resulting from the Uncreated Will in harmony with its proper wisdom, the other from created wills in accordance with the necessity of secondary causes in their correspondence with the First Cause. There is hence nothing indifferent in life, and our seeming most simple resolutions do often determine an incalculable series of benefits or evils, above all in the affinities of our Diaphane with the Great Magical Agent, as we shall explain elsewhere.
The triad, being the fundamental principle of the whole Kabalah, or Sacred Tradition of our fathers, was necessarily the fundamental dogma of Christianity, the apparent dualism of which it explains by the intervention of a harmonious and all-powerful unity. Christ did not put His teaching into writing, and only revealed it in secret to His favoured disciple, the one Kabalist, and he a great Kabalist, among the apostles. So is the Apocalypse the book of the Gnosis or Secret Doctrine of the first Christians, and the key of this doctrine is indicated by an occult versicle of the Lord's Prayer, which the Vulgate leaves untranslated, while in the Greek Rite, which preserves the traditions of St John, the priests only are permitted to pronounce it. This versicle, completely kabalistic, is found in the Greek text of the Gospel according to St Matthew, and in several Hebrew copies, as follows:
The sacred word MALKUTH substituted for KETHER, which is its kabalistic correspondent, and the equipoise of GEBURAH and CHESED, repeating itself in the circles of heavens called eons by the Gnostics, provided the keystone of the whole Christian Temple in this occult versicle. It has been retained by Protestants in their New Testament, but they have failed to discern its lofty and wonderful meaning, which would have unveiled to them all the Mysteries of the Apocalypse. There is, however, a tradition in the Church that the manifestation of these mysteries is reserved till the last times.