by Eliphas Levi
We have, therefore, to treat in this place of the grand and terrific question of magical works; we are concerned no longer with theories and abstractions; we approach realities, and we are about to place the wand of miracles in the hands of the adept, saying to him at the same time: “Be not satisfied with what we tell you: act for yourself.” We have to deal here with works of relative1 omnipotence, with the means of laying hold upon the greatest secrets of Nature and compelling them into the service of an enlightened and inflexible will.
Most known Magical Rituals are either mystifications or enigmas, and we are about to rend for the first time, after so many centuries, the veil of the occult sanctuary. To reveal the holiness of mysteries is to provide a remedy for their profanation. Such is the thought which sustains our courage and enables us to face all the perils of this enterprise, possibly the most dangerous which it has been permitted the human mind to conceive and carry out.
Magical operations are the exercise of a natural power, but one superior to the ordinary forces of Nature. They are the result of a science and a practice which exalt human will beyond its normal limits. The supernatural is only the natural in an extraordinary grade, or it is the exalted natural; a miracle is a phenomenon which impresses the multitude because it is unexpected; the astonishing is that which astonishes; miracles are effects which surprise those who are ignorant of their causes, or assign them causes which are not in proportion to effects. Miracles exist only for the ignorant, but as there is scarcely any absolute science among men, the supernatural can still obtain, and does so indeed for the whole world.1 Let us set out by saying that we believe in all miracles because we are convinced and certain, even from our own experience, of their entire possibility. There are some which we do not explain, though we regard them as no less explicable. From the greater to the lesser, from the lesser to the greater, the consequences are related iden tically and the proportions progressively rigorous. But in order to work miracles we must be outside the normal conditions of humanity; we must be either abstracted by wisdom or exalted by madness, either superior to ail passions or outside them through ecstasy or frenzy. Such is the first and most indispensable preparation of the operator. Hence, by a providential or fatal law, the magician can only exercise omnipotence in inverse proportion to his material interest; the alchemist makes so much the more gold as he is the more resigned to privations, and the more esteems that poverty which protects the secrets of the magnum opus. Only the adept whose heart is passionless will dispose of the love and hate of those whom he would make instruments of his science. The myth of Genesis is eternally true, and God permits the tree of knowledge to be approached only by those men who are sufficiently strong and self-denying not to covet its fruits. Ye therefore who seek in science a means to satisfy your passions, pause in this fatal way: you will find nothing but madness or death. This is the meaning of the vulgar tradition that the devil ends sooner or later by strangling sorcerers. The Magus must be impassible, sober and chaste, disinterested, impenetrable and inaccessible to any kind of prejudice or terror. He must be without bodily defects and proof against all contradictions and all difficulties. The first and most important of magical operations is the attainment of this rare pre-eminence.
We have said that impassioned ecstasy may produce the same results as absolute superiority, and this is true as to the issue but not as to the direction of magical operations. Passion projects the Astral Light forcibly and impresses unforeseen movements on the Universal Agent, but it cannot curb with the facility that it impels, and then its destiny resembles that of Hippolytus dragged by his own horses, or Phalaris victimized himself by the instrument of torture which he had invented for others. Human volition realized by action is like a cannon-ball and recedes before no obstacle. It either passes through it or is buried in it; but if it advance with patience and perseverance, it is never lost: it is like the wave which returns incessantly and wears away iron in the end.
Man can be modified by habit, which becomes, according to the proverb, his second nature. By means of persevering and graduated athletics, the powers and activity of the body can be developed to an astonishing extent. It is the same with the powers of the soul. Would you reign over yourselves and others? Learn hbw to will.1 How can one learn to will? This is the first arcanum of magical initiation, and that it might be realized fundamentally the ancient custodians of sacerdotal art surrounded the approaches of the sanctuary with so many terrors and illusions. They recognized no will until it had produced its proofs, and they were right. Power is justified by attainment. Indolence and forgetfulness are enemies of will, and for this reason all religions have multiplied their observances and made their worship minute and difficult. The more we deny ourselves for an idea, the greater is the strength we acquire within the scope of that idea. Are not mothers more partial to the children who have caused them most suffering and cost them most anxieties? So does the power of religions reside exclusively in the inflexible will of those who practise them. So long as there is one faithful person to believe in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, there will be a priest to celebrate it for him; and so long as there is a priest who daily recites his Breviary, there will be a pope in the world. Observances, apparently most insignificant and most foreign in themselves to the proposed end, lead notwithstanding to that end by education and exercise of will. If a peasant rose up every morning at two or three o'clock and went a long distance from home to gather a sprig of the same herb before the rising of the sun, he would be able to perform a great number of prodigies by merely carrying this herb upon his person, for it would be the sign of his will, and in virtue thereof would be all that he required it to become in the interest of his desires.1 In order to accomplish a thing we must believe in our possibility of doing it, and this faith must be translated at once into acts. When a child says: “I cannot,” his mother answers: “Try.” Faith does not even try; it begins with the certitude of finishing, and it proceeds calmly, as if omnipotence were at its disposal and eternity before it. What seek you therefore from the science of the Magi? Dare to formulate your desire, then set to work at once, and do not cease acting after the same manner and for the same end. That which you will shall come to pass, and for you and by you it has indeed already begun. Sixtus V said, while watching his flocks: “I desire to be pope.” You are a beggar and you desire to make gold: set to work and never leave off. I promise you in the name of science all the treasures of Flamel and Raymund Lully. “What is the first thing to be done?” Believe in your power, then act. “But how act?” Rise daily at the same hour, and that early; bathe at a spring before daybreak, and in all seasons; never wear soiled clothes: wash them yourself at need; practise voluntary privations, that you may be better able to bear those which come without seeking: then silence every desire which is foreign to the fulfilment of the Great Work.
“What! By bathing daily in a spring, I shall make gold?” You will work in order to make it. “It is a mockery!” No, it is an arcanum. “How can I make use of an arcanum which I fail to understand?” Believe and act; you will understand later.
One day a person said to me: “I would that I might be a fervent Catholic, but I am a Voltairean. What would I not give to have faith!” I replied: “Say ‘I would’ no longer; say ‘I will’, and I promise you that you will believe. You tell me that you are a Voltairean, and of all the various presentations of faith that of the Jesuits is most repugnant to you, but at the same time seems the strongest and most desirable. Perform the exercises of St Ignatius again and again, without allowing yourself to be discouraged, and you will attain the faith of a Jesuit. The result is infallible, and should you then have the simplicity to ascribe it to a miracle, you deceive yourself now in thinking that you are a Voltairean.”
An idle man will never become a magician. Magic is an exercise of all hours and all moments. The operator of great works must be absolute master of himself; he must know how to repress the allurements of pleasure, appetite and sleep; he must be insens
ible to success and to indignity. His life must be that of a will directed by one thought1 and served by entire Nature, which he will have made subject to mind in his own organs, and by sympathy in all the universal forces which are their correspondents. All faculties and all senses should share in the work; nothing in the priest of Hermes has the right to remain idle; intelligence must be formulated by signs and summarized by characters or pantacles; will must be determined by words and must fulfil words by deeds. The magical idea must be turned into light for the eyes, harmony for the ears, perfumes for the sense of smell, savours for the palate, objects for the touch. The operator, in a word, must realize in his whole life that which he wishes to realize in the world without him; he must become a magnet to attract the desired thing; and when he shall be sufficiently magnetic, let him be assured that the thing will come of itself, and without thinking of it.
It is important for the Magus to be acquainted with the secrets of science, but he may know them by intuition, and without formal learning. Solitaries living in the habitual contemplation of Nature, frequently divine her harmonies and are more instructed in their simple good sense than doctors, whose natural discernment is falsified by the fophistries of the schools. True practical magicians are sound almost invariably in the country, and are frequently uninstructed persons and simple shepherds. Furthermore, certain physical organizations are better adapted than others for the revelations of the occult world. There are sensitive and sympathetic natures, with whom intuition in the Astral Light is, so to speak, inborn; certain afflictions and certain complaints react upon the nervous system and, indepen dently of the concurrence of the will, may convert it into a divinatory apparatus of less or more perfection. But these phenomena are exceptional, and generally magical power should and can be acquired by perseverance and labour. There are also some substances which produce ecstasy and dispose towards the magnetic sleep; there are some which place at the service of imagination all the most lively and highly coloured reflections of the elementary light; but the use of such things is dangerous, for they tend to occasion stupefaction and intoxication. They are used notwith standing, but in carefully calculated quantities and under wholly exceptional circumstances.
He who decides to devote himself seriously to magical works, after fortifying his mind against all danger of hallu cination and fright, must purify himself without and within for forty days.1 The number forty is sacred, and its very figure is magical. In Arabic numerals it consists of the circle, which is a type of the infinite, and of the 4, which sums the triad by unity. In Roman numerals, arranged after the following manner, it represents the sign of the fundamental doctrine of Hermes and the character of the Seal of Solomons2
The purification of the Magus consists in the renunciation of coarse enjoyments, in a temperate and vegetarian diet, in abstinence from intoxicating drink, and in regulating the hours of sleep. This preparation has been imposed and represented in all forms of worship by a period of penitence and trials preceding the symbolical feasts of life-renewal.
As already stated, the most scrupulous external cleanliness must be observed: the poorest person can find spring water. All clothes, furniture and vessels made use of must be also washed carefully, whether by ourselves or others. All dirt is evidence of negligence, and negligence is deadly in Magic. The atmosphere must be purified at rising and retiring with a perfume composed of the juice of laurels, salt, camphor, white resin and sulphur, repeating at the same time the four Sacred Words, while turning successively towards the four cardinal points. We must divulge to no one the works that we accomplish, for, as specified in our “Doctrine”, mystery is the exact and essential condition of all operations of science. The inquisitive must be misled by the pretence of other occupations and other researches, such as chemical experiments for industrial purposes, hygienic prescriptions, the investigation of some natural secrets, and so on; but the forbidden name of Magic must never be pronounced.
The Magus must be isolated at the beginning and difficult to approach, so that he may concentrate his power and select his points of contact; but in proportion as he is austere and inaccessible at first, so will he be popular and sought after when he shall have magnetized his chain and chosen his place in a current of ideas and of light. A laborious and poor existence is so favourable to practical initiation that the greatest masters have preferred it, even when the wealth of the world was at their disposal. Then it is that Satan, otherwise the spirit of ignorance, who scorns, suspects and detests science because at heart he fears it, comes to tempt the future master of the world by saying to him: “If thou art the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” Then it is that mercenary men seek to humiliate the prince of knowledge by perplexing, depreciating, or sordidly exploiting his labour, the slice of bread that he deigns to need is broken into ten fragments, so that he may stretch forth his hand ten times. But the Magus does not even smile at the absurdity, and calmly pursues his work.
So far as may be possible, we must avoid the sight of hideous objects and uncomely persons, must decline eating with those whom we do not esteem, and must live in the most uniform and studied manner. We should hold our selves in the highest respect and consider that we are dethroned sovereigns who consent to existence in order to reconquer our crowns. We must be mild and considerate to all, but in social relations must never permit ourselves to be absorbed, and must withdraw from circles in which we cannot acquire some initiative. Finally, we may and should fulfil the duties and practise the rites of the cultus to which we belong. Now, of all forms of worship the most magical is that which most realizes the miraculous, which bases the most inconceivable mysteries upon the highest reasons, which has lights equivalent to its shadows, which popularizes miracles, and incarnates God in all mankind by faith. This religion has existed always in the world, and under many names has been ever the one and ruling religion. It has now among the nations of the earth three apparently hostile forms, which are destined, however, to unite before long for the constitution of a universal Church. I refer to the Greek orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and a final trans figuration of the religion of Buddha.1
Hereunto therefore we have made it plain, as we believe, rhat our Magic is opposed to the goëtic and necromantic kinds. It is at once an absolute science and religion, which should not indeed destroy and absorb all opinions and all forms of worship, but should regenerate and direct them by reconstituting the circle of initiates, and thus providing the blind masses with wise and clear-seeing leaders.
We are living at a period when nothing remains to destroy and everything to remake. “Remake what? The past?” No one can remake the past. “What, then, shall we reconstruct? Temples and thrones?” To what purpose, since the former ones have been cast down? “You might as well say: my house has collapsed from age, of what use is it to build another?” But will the house that you contemplate erecting be like that which has fallen? No, for the one was old and the other will be new. “Notwithstanding, it will be always a house.” What else can you expect?
1 The full significance of the qualifying word can be realized only by reference to the later writings of Éliphas Lévi, some eloquent extracts from which are given in these annotations. It is these in reality which rend the veil of the so-called “occult sanctuary” to exhibit its secrets as those of auto-hallucination and hetero-hallucination, when they do not deserve to be characterized by harder terms.
1 “Apparent disorder in the laws of Nature is an illusion and not therefore a marvel. The one true marvel and sole prodigy manifest before the eyes of all is the perpetual harmony between effects and causes, the splendours of eternal order.”—La Clef des Grands Mystères, p. 143. “Miracle is madness attributed to Nature, which cannot violate the least of its laws without falling into complete dementia.”—Le Livre des Sages, p. 38.
1 “The will is essentially that which realizes: we can accomplish actually all that we reasonably believe ourselves capable of doing. Within his own sphere of action, man disposes of Div
ine Omnipotence: his to create and his also to transform.”—Le Grand Arcane, p. 41. It is obvious that the essence of truth escapes in these affirmations and that literally they are little better than a play upon words. Had Lévi said that we can do all things with God which God has placed within our measures of activity, he would have expressed a great mystical truth.
1 This speculation on the occult power of perseverance calls to be checked by Lévi's alternative thesis that the great works of adeptship presuppose personal detachment and complete absence of self-interest. In the present place he is making presumably a concession to the minima of occult practice.
1 A general theory of will was formulated elsewhere by Éliphas Lévi in a series of acute axioms as follows: (1) In the order of eternal wisdom, the education of will in man is the end of human life. (2) The dignity of man resides in accomplishing that which he wills and in willing that which is good, conformably to science of the true. (3) Good in conformity with truth is justice; justice is the practice of reason; reason is the word of reality; reality is the science of truth; truth is the identity of idea and being. (4) Nothing can resist the will of man when he knows what is true and wills what is good. (5) To will evil is to will death: a perverse will is the beginning of suicide. (6) To will what is good with violence is to will evil, for violence produces disorder and disorder produces ill. (7) We can and should accept evil as a means of good, but we must never will or practise it: otherwise we should destroy with one hand that which we build with the other. (8) A good intention never justifies bad means; when it submits to them, it corrects them, and condemns them while it makes use of them. (9) To earn the right of possessing permanently we must will long and patiently. (10) To pass life in willing that which is impossible is to abdicate life and accept the eternity of death. (11) The more numerous those obstacles which are overcome by will, the stronger will becomes: hence Christ exalted poverty and suffering. (12) When the will is devoted to absurdity it is reprimanded by Eternal Reason. (13) The will of the just man is the will of God and the law of Nature. (14) Intelligence sees through the medium of the will: if the will be healthy, the sight is accurate. (15) To affirm and will that which ought to be is to create; to affirm and will that which ought not to be is to destroy. (16) Light is an electric fire which is placed by Nature at the disposition of will: it illuminates those who know how to use it and burns those who abuse it. (17) Great minds with wills badly equilibrated are like comets. (18) The voluntary death of self-devotion is not a suicide: it is the apotheosis of free will. (19) Fear is indolence of will and hence public opinion brands the coward. (20) An iron chain is less difficult to break than a chain of flowers. (21) Say unto suffering, I will thee to become a pleasure, and it will prove more even than pleasure, for it will be a benediction. (22) Before deciding that a man is happy or unfortunate, seek to know the bent of his will: Tiberius died daily at Caprea, while Jesus proved His immortality and His divinity, even upon Calvary and the cross—La Clef des Grands Mystères, pp. 252-7.