Transcendental Magic

by Eliphas Levi

  The Great Initiator of Christianity, seeing that the Astral Light was overcharged with the impure reflections of Roman debauchery, sought to separate His disciples from the circumambient sphere of reflections and to concentrate them only on the interior light, so that, through the medium of a common faith and enthusiasm, they might communicate together by new magnetic chains, which He termed grace, and thus overcome the dissolute currents, to which He gave the names of the devil and Satan, signifying their putrefaction. To oppose current to current is to renew the power of fluidic life. The revealers have therefore done scarcely more than divine, by the accuracy of their calculations, the appropriate moment for moral reactions. The law of realization produces what we call magnetic breathing; places and objects become impregnated therewith, and this imparts to them an influence in conformity with our dominant desires, with those above all which are confirmed and realized by acts. As a fact, the Universal Agent, or latent Astral Light, ever seeks equilibrium; it fills the void and draws in the plenitude, which makes vice contagious, like certain physical maladies, and works powerfully in the proselytism of virtue. Hence it is that cohabitation with antipathetic beings is a torment; hence it is that relics, whether of saints or of great criminals, produce extraordinary results in sudden conversion and perversion; hence it is that sexual love is often awakened by a breath or a touch, and this not only by means of contact with the person himself, but with objects which he has unconsciously touched or magnetized.

  There is an outbreathing and inbreathing of the soul, exactly like that of the body. Whatsoever it regards as felicity, that it inhales, and it breathes forth ideas which result from its inner sensations. Diseased souls have an evil breath and vitiate their moral atmosphere—that is, they combine impure reflections with the Astral Light which permeates them and establish unwholesome currents therein. We are often assailed, to our astonishment, in society by evil thoughts which would have seemed antecedently impossible and are not aware that they are due to some morbid proximity. This secret is of high importance, for it leads to the unveiling of consciences, one of the most incontestible and terrible powers of Magical Art. Magnetic respiration produces about the soul a radiation of which it is the centre, and thus surrounds it with the reflection of its own works, creating for it a heaven or hell. There are no isolated acts, and it is impossible that there should be secret acts; whatsoever we will truly—that is, everything which we confirm by our acts—remains registered in the Astral Light, where our reflections are preserved. These reflections influence our thought continually by the mediation of the Diaphane, and it is in this sense that we become and remain the children of our works.

  The Astral Light, transformed at the moment of conception into human light, is the soul's first envelope, and, in combination with extremely subtle fluids, it forms the Ethereal Body or Sidereal Phantom, of which Paracelsus discourses in his philosophy of intuition—philosophia sagax. This sidereal body, being liberated at death, attracts and for a long time preserves, through the sympathy of things homogeneous, the reflections of the past life; if drawn into a special current by a will which is powerfully sympathetic, it manifests naturally, for there is nothing more natural than prodigies. It is thus apparitions are produced.1 But we shall develop this point more fully in a chapter devoted to Necromancy. The fluidic body, subject, like the mass of the Astral Light, to two contrary movements, attracting on the left and repelling on the right, or reciprocally, between the two sexes, begets various impulses within us, and contributes to solicitudes of conscience; it is influenced frequently by reflections of other minds, and thus temptations are produced on the one hand, and on the other profound and unexpected graces. The traditional doctrine of two angels who sustain and tempt us is explained in this manner. The two forces of the Astral Light may be represented by a balance wherein are weighed our good intentions for the triumph of justice and the emancipation of our liberty.

  The Astral Body is not always of the same sex as the terrestrial, that is, the proportions of the two forces, varying from right to left, seem frequently to belie the visible organization, producing seeming aberrations of human passion and explaining, while in no wise morally justifying, the amorous peculiarities of Anacreon or Sappho. A skilful magnetizer should take all these subtle distinctions into account, and we shall provide in our “Ritual” the rules for their recognition.

  There are two kinds of realization, the true and the fantastic. The first is the exclusive secret of magicians, the other belongs to enchanters and sorcerers. Mythologies are fantastic realizations of religious dogma; superstitions are the sorcery of mistaken piety; but even mythologies and superstitions are more efficacious on human will than a purely speculative philosophy apart from any practice. Hence St Paul opposes the conquests of the folly of the Cross to the inertness of human wisdom. Religion realizes philosophy by adapting it to the weaknesses of the vulgar;1 such is for Kabalists the secret reason and occult explanation of the doctrines of incarnation and redemption.

  Thoughts untranslated into speech are thoughts lost for humanity; words unconfirmed by acts are idle words, and the idle word is not far removed from falsehood. Thought formulated by speech and confirmed by acts constitutes a good work or a crime. Hence, whether in vice or virtue, there is no utterance for which we are not responsible; above all, there are no indifferenct acts. Curses and blessings produce their consequence invariably, and every action, whatsoever its nature, whether inspired by love or hate, has effects analogous to its motive, its extent and its direction. When that emperor whose images had been mutilated, raising his hand to his face, exclaimed, “I do not feel that I am injured,” he was mistaken in his valuation and detracted thereby from the merit of his clemency. What man of honour could behold undisturbed an insult offered to his portrait? And did such insults, inflicted even unknown to ourselves, react on us by a fatal influence, were the effects of bewitchment actual, as indeed an adept cannot doubt, how much more imprudent and ill-advised would seem this utterance of the good emperor!

  There are persons whom we can never offend with impunity, and if the injury we have done them is mortal, we begin forthwith to die. There are those also whom we never meet in vain, whose mere glance alters the direction of our life. The basilisk who slays by a look is no fable; it is a magical allegory. Generally speaking, it is bad for health to have enemies, and we can never brave with impunity the reprobation of anyone. Before opposing ourselves to a given force or current, we must be well assured that we possess the contrary force, or are with the stream of the contrary current; otherwise, we shall be crushed or struck down, and many sudden deaths have no other cause than this. The terrible visitations of Nadab and Abihu, of Osa, of Ananias and Sapphira, were occasioned by electric currents of out raged convictions; the sufferings of the Ursulines of Loudun, the nuns of Louviers and the convulsionaries of Jansenism, were identical in principle and are explicable by the same occult natural laws. Had not Urban ‘Grandier been immolated, one of two things would have occurred: either the possessed nuns would have died in frightful convulsions or the phenomena of diabolical frenzy would have so gained in strength and influence, epidemically, that Grandier, not withstanding his knowledge and his reason, would also have become hallucinated, and to such a degree that he would have denounced himself, like the unhappy Gaufridy, or would otherwise have perished suddenly, with all the appalling characteristics of poisoning or of divine vengeance. In the eighteenth century the unfortunate poet Gilbert fell a victim to his audacity in braving the current of opinion and even of philosophical fanaticism which characterized his epoch. Guilty of philosophical treason, he died raving mad, possessed by the most incredible terrors, as if God Himself had punished him for defending His cause out of season. As a fact, he perished by reason of a law of Nature of which assuredly he knew nothing; he set himself against an electric current and was struck down as by lightning.1 Had Marat not been assassinated by Charlotte Corday, he would have been destroyed infallibly by a reaction of public
feeling. It was the execration of decent people which afflicted him with leprosy, and he would have had to succumb thereto. The reprobation excited by the massacre of St Bartholomew was the sole cause of the atrocious disease and death of Charles IX, while, had not Henry IV been sustained by an immense popularity, which he owed to the projecting power of sympathetic force of his astral life, he would scarcely have outlived his conversion, but would have perished under the contempt of Protestants, combined with the suspicion and ill-will of Catholics. Unpopularity may be a proof of integrity and courage, but never of policy or prudence: the wounds inflicted by opinion are mortal for statesmen. We may recall the premature and violent end of many illustrious persons whom it would be inexpedient to mention here. The brandings of public opinion may be often great injustices, but none the less they condemn their victims to failure and are often a death-sentence. On the other hand, acts of injustice done to a single individual can and should, if unatoned, cause the ruin of an entire nation or of a whole society: this is what is called the cry of blood, for at the root of every injustice there is the germ of homicide. By reason of these terrible laws of solidarity, Christianity recommends so strongly the forgiveness of injuries and reconciliation. He who dies unforgiving casts himself dagger-armed into eternity and condemns himself to the horrors of an eternal murder. The efficacy of paternal or maternal blessings or curses is an invincible popular tradition and belief. As a fact, the closer the bonds which unite two persons, the more terrible are the consequences of hatred between them. The brand of Althaea consuming the life of Meleager is the mythological symbol of this terrible power. Let parents be ever on their guard, for no one can kindle hell in his own blood, or devote his own issue to misfortune, without being himself burnt and made wretched. To pardon is never a crime, but to curse is always a danger and an evil action.

  1 “Eight is the number of reaction and of equilibrating justice.”—La Clef des Grandes Mystères, p. 39.

  2 “Occult philosophy is founded on realism and positivism of the most absolute kind. It has no faith in dreams but believes in the reality of hypotheses which are shewn to be necessary by the knowledge of things as they are.”—Fables et Symboles, p. 312.

  1 “Our fluidic bodies attract and repel each other, following laws conformable to those of electricity. Instinctive sympathies and antipathies are produced in this manner. Moreover, they equilibrate each other, accounting for contagious hallucinations. Abnormal projections divert the light-currents; the perturbation centred in one subject of this kind is communicated to the most sensitive in his vicinity, till a circle of illusions is established and a whole crowd is entrained thereby. Hereof is the history of strange apparitions and popular prodigies.”—La Clef des Grand Mystères, pp. 123, 124. Éliphas Lévi proceeds to explain on this basis the “miracles of American mediums” and compares the “vertigo” of table-turners to the ecstasies of whirling dervishes.

  1 “Religion is the magical creation of a fantastic world rendered sensible by faith. It is the apparent realization of ultra-rational hypotheses, the satisfaction of a craving after wonders which is shared in common by women, children and all who resemble them. If the Catholic religion is in sickness on any account, it is on account of the concessions which it made to the rationalism of the eighteenth century.”—La Clef des Grands Mystères, pp. 340, 341.

  1 The reference is to Nicolas Joseph Laurent Gilbert, a French poet, who was born in 1751 and died in 1780 as the result of an accident. His end does not seem to justify the extravagant statements of Lévi. He was an eminent satirist, who made enemies by attacking the philosophy and personalities of the eighteenth century, including Voltaire and Diderot.

  IX I1

  INITIATION

  JESOD BONUM

  THE initiate is he who possesses the lamp of Trismegistus, the mantle of Apollonius, and the staff of the patriarchs. The lamp of Trismegistus is reason illuminated by science; the mantle of Apollonius is full and complete self-possession, which isolates the sage from blind tendencies; and the staff of the patriarchs is the help of the secret and everlasting forces of Nature. The lamp of Trismegistus enlightens present, past and future, lays bare the conscience of men and manifests the inmost recesses of the female heart. The lamp burns with a triple flame, the mantle is thrice-folded and the staff is divided into three parts.

  The number nine is that of divine reflections; it expresses the divine idea in all its abstract power, but it signifies also extravagance in belief, and hence superstition and idolatry. For this reason Hermes made it the number of initiation, because the initiate reigns over superstition and by supersti tion: he alone can advance through the darkness, leaning on his staff, enveloped in his mantle and lighted by his lamp. Reason has been given to all men, but all do not know how to make use of it: it is a science to be acquired. Liberty is offered to all, but not all can be free: it is a right that must be earned.2 Force is for all, but all do not know how to rest upon it: it is a power that must be won. We attain nothing without more than one effort. The destiny of man is to be enriched by his own earning and afterwards to have, like God, the glory and pleasure of dispensing it.

  Magic was called formerly the Sacerdotal Art and the Royal Art, because initiation gave empire over souls to the sage and the capacity for ruling wills.1 Divination is also one of the privileges of the initiate; now, divination is simply the knowledge of effects contained in causes and science applied to the facts of the universal dogma of analogy. Human acts are not written in the Astral Light alone; their traces are left upon the face, they modify mien and carriage, they change the tone of the voice. Thus every man bears about him the history of his life, which is legible for the initiate. Now, the future is ever the consequence of the past, and unexpected circumstances do not appreciably alter results reasonably calculated. The destiny of each man can be therefore foretold him. An entire existence may be judged by a single movement; a single oddity or weakness may be the presage of a long chain of misfortunes. Caesar was assassinated because he was ashamed of being bald; Napoleon ended his days at St Helena because he admired the poems of Ossian; Louis Philippe abdicated the throne as he did because he carried an umbrella. These are paradoxes for the vulgar, who cannot grasp the occult relations of things, but they are causes for the adept, who understands all and is surprised at nothing.2

  Initiation is a preservative against the false lights of mysticism; it equips human reason with its relative value and proportional infallibility, connecting it with supreme reason by the chain of analogies. Hence the initiate knows no doubtful hopes, no absurd fears, because he has no irrational beliefs; he is acquainted with the extent of his power, and he can be bold without danger. For him, therefore, to dare is to be able. Here, then, is a new interpretation of his attributes: his lamp represents learning; the mantle which enwraps him, his discretion; while his staff is the emblem of his strength and boldness. He knows, he dares and is silent. He knows the secrets of the future, he dares in the present, and he is silent on the past. He knows the failings of the human heart; he dares make use of them to achieve his work; and he is silent as to his purposes. He knows the significance of all symbolisms and of all religions; he dares to practise or abstain from them without hypocrisy and without impiety; and he is silent upon the one dogma of supreme initiation. He knows the existence and nature of the Great Magical Agent; he dares perform the acts and give utterance to the words which make it subject to human will, and he is silent upon the mysteries of the Great Arcanum.

  So may you find him often melancholy, never dejected or despairing; often poor, never abject or miserable; persecuted often, never disheartened or conquered. He remembers the bereavement and murder of Orpheus, the exile and lonely death of Moses, the martyrdom of the prophets, the tortures of Apollonius, the Cross of the Saviour. He knows the desolation in which Agrippa died, whose memory is even now slandered; he knows what labours overcame the great Paracelsus, and all that Raymond Lully was condemned to undergo that he might finish by a violen
t death. He remembers Swedenborg simulating madness and even losing reason in order to excuse his science; Saint-Martin and his hidden life; Cagliostro, who perished forsaken in the cells of the Inquisition; Cazotte, who ascended the scaffold. Inheritor of so many victims, he does not dare the less, but he understands better the necessity for silence. Let us follow his example; let us learn diligently; when we know, let us have courage, and let us be silent.

  1 “The number nine is that of initiates and prophets.”—La Clef des Grand Mystères, p. 41.

  2 Compare La Clef des Grands Mystères, pp. 239, 240: “Liberty, which is the life of the soul, is preserved only within the order of Nature. It is wounded by every voluntary disorder and destroyed by prolonged excess. Instead of being guided and sustained by reason, one is abandoned then to the fatalities of the flux and reflux of the Magnetic Light. Now, this devours unceasingly, because it is ever creating, and it must absorb without ceasing in order to create continually. Hence homicidal mania and hence the tendency to suicide. Hence also that spirit of perversity which Poe has described so truly and in a way so startling, which also M. de Mirville is right in calling the devil. The devil is the vertigo of intelligence dazed by the waverings of the heart, the monomania of the void, the allurement of the gulf.” Lévi adds that this is without prejudice to the findings of catholic, apostolic and Roman faith, on which it would be temerity to touch.