Transcendental Magic

by Eliphas Levi

  This Hebrew text, which we transcribe in proof of the authentiticy and reality of our discovery, is derived from the rabbinical Jew Abraham, the master of Nicholas Flamel, and it is found in his occult commentary on the Sepher Yetzirah, the sacred book of the Kabalah.1 This commentary is extremely rare, but the sympathetic potencies of our chain led us to the discovery of a copy which has been preserved since the year 1643 in the Protestant church at Rouen. On its first page there is written: Ex dono, then an illegible name, followed by Dei magni.

  The creation of gold in the Great Work takes place by transmutation and multiplication. Raymund Lully states that in order to make gold we must have gold and mercury, while in order to make silver we must have silver and mercury. Then he adds: “By Mercury, I understand that mineral spirit which is so refined and purified that it gilds the seed of gold and silvers the seed of silver.” Doubtless he is here speaking of OD, or Astral Light. Salt and Sulphur are serviceable in the work only for the preparation of Mercury: it is with Mercury above all that the Magnetic Agent must be assimilated and as if incorporated. Para celsus, Raymund Lully and Nicholas Flamel seem alone to have understood this mystery perfectly. Basil Valentine and Trevisan indicate it after an incomplete manner, which might be capable of another interpretation. But the most curious things which we have found on this subject are indicated by the mystical figures and magical legends in a book of Henry Khunrath, entitled Amphitheatrum Sapientae Aeternae. Khunrath represents and resumes the most learned Gnostic schools, and connects in symbology with the mysticism of Synesius. He affects Christianity in expressions and in signs, but it is easy to see that his Christ is the ABRAXAS, the Luminous Pentagram radiating on the Astronomical Cross, the incarnation in humanity of the sovereign sun celebrated by the Emperor Julian;1 it is the luminous and living manifestation of that RUACH-ELOHIM which, according to Moses, brooded and worked upon the bosom of the waters at the birth of the world; it is the man-sun, the monarch of light, the supreme magus, the master and conqueror of the serpent, and in the fourfold legend of the evangelists, Khunrath finds the allegorical key of the Great Work. One of the Pantacles of his magical book represents the Philosophical Stone erected in the middle of a fortress surrounded by a wall in which there are twenty imprac ticable gates. One alone conducts to the sanctuary of the Great Work. Above the Stone there is a triangle placed upon a winged dragon, and on the Stone is graven the name of Christ, qualified as the symbolical image of all Nature. “It is by Him alone,” he adds, “that thou canst obtain the Universal Medicine for men, animals, vegetables and minerals.” The Winged Dragon, dominated by the triangle, represents therefore the Christ of Khunrath—that is, the Sovereign Intelligence of Light and Life. It is the secret of the Pentagram; it is the highest dogmatic and practical mystery of Traditional Magic. Thence unto the grand and ever-incommunicable maxim there is only one step.

  The kabalistic figures of Abraham the Jew,2 which imparted to Flamel the first desire for knowledge, are no other than the twenty-two Keys of the Tarot, imitated and resumed elsewhere in the twelve Keys of Basil Valentine. There the sun and moon reappear under the figures of Emperor and Empress; Mercury is the Juggler; the Great Hierophant is the adept or abstractor of the quintessence; Death, Judgement, Love, the Dragon or Devil, the Hermit or Lame Elder and finally all the remaining symbols are to be found with their chief attributes, almost in the same order. It could have been scarcely otherwise, since the Tarot is the primeval book and the keystone of the occult sciences: it must be Hermetic, because it is kabalistic, magical and theosophical. So also we find by combining its twelfth and twenty-second Keys, superposed one upon the other, the hieroglyphic revelation of the solution of the Grand Work and its mysteries. The twelfth Key represents a man hanging by one foot from a gibbet composed of three trees or posts, forming the Hebrew letter ; the man's arms and head constitute a triangle, and his entire hieroglyphical shape is that of a reversed triangle surmounted by a cross, an alchemical symbol known to all adepts and representing the accomplishment of the Great Work.1 The twenty-second Key, which bears the number twenty-one because the fool which precedes it carries no numeral, represents a youthful female divinity, veiled slightly and running in a flowering circle, supported at four corners by the four beasts of the Kabalah. In the Italian Tarot this divinity has a rod in either hand; in the Besancon Tarot, the two wands are in one hand while the other is placed upon her thigh, both equally remarkable symbols of magnetic action, either alternate in its polarization or simultaneous by opposition and transmission.

  The Great Work of Hermes is therefore an essentially magical operation and the highest of all, for it supposes the absolute in science and volition. There is light in gold, gold in light and light in all things. The intelligent will, which assimilates the light, directs in this manner the operations of substantial form, and uses chemistry solely as a secondary instrument. The influence of human will and intelligence upon the operations of Nature, dependent in part on its labour, is otherwise a fact so real that all serious alchemists have succeeded in proportion to their knowledge and their faith, and have reproduced their thought in the phenomena of the fusion, salification and recomposition of metals. Agrippa, who was a man of immense erudition and fine genius, but pure philosopher and sceptic, could not transcend the limits of metallic analysis and synthesis. Etteilla, a confused, obscure, fantastic but persevering Kabalist, reproduced in alchemy the eccentricities of his misconstrued and mutilated Tarot; metals in his crucibles assumed extraordinary forms, which excited the curiosity of all Paris, with no greater profit to the operator than the fees which were paid by his visitors. An obscure bellows- blower of our own time, who died mad, poor Louis Cambriel, really cured his neighbours, and, by the evidence of all his parish, brought back to life a smith who was his friend. For him the metallic work took the most incon ceivable and apparently illogical forms. One day he beheld the figure of God Himself in his crucible, incandescent like the sun, transparent as crystal, his body composed of triangular conglomerations, which Cambriel naively com pared to quantities of tiny pears.

  One of our friends, who is a learned Kabalist but belongs to an initiation which we regard as erroneous, performed recently the chemical operations of the Great Work and succeeded in impairing his sight through the excessive brilliance of the Athanor. He created a new metal which resembles gold but is not gold, and hence has no value. Raymond Lully, Nicholas Flamel and most probably Henry Khunrath made true gold, nor did they take away their secret with them, for it is enshrined in their symbols, and they have indicated, moreover, the sources from which they drew for its discovery and for the realization of its effects, It is this same secret which we ourselves make public now.

  1 In another place Éliphas Lévi formulates four characters of the Absolute in the following terms: The Absolute is truth, reality, reason, justice: truth is the identity of being with the idea formed concerning it; reality is the identity of being with knowledge thereof; reason is the identity of being with the word which gives it expression; justice is the identity of being with action. See La Science des Esprits, p. 335. The essence of the Absolute escapes in these definitions.

  1 Compare La Clef des Grands Mystères, p. 121: “This light”—meaning the Astral Light—“called , AOUR, in Hebrew, is the fluid and live gold of Hermetic Philosophy. Philosopical Sulphur is its positive principle, Philosophical Mercury its negative, while its equilibrated principles form what is termed Philosophical Salt.” See also Correspondence with Baron Spédalieri, No. 17.

  1 Éliphas Lévi recurred later to this alleged proof of authenticity, making it abundantly evident (1) that he had discovered no Great Hermetic Arcanum, and (2) that in reality he had demonstrated nothing. I give this putative elucidation in full as follows: “Let us pass now to the Secret of the Great Work, which appears in the RITUAL OF TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC only in unpointed Hebrew. Here is the whole text in Latin, as it occurs at p. 144 of the Sepher Yetzirah, with the commentary of the alchemist Abraham—Amster
dam, 1642:— see over

  SEMITA XXXI

  VOCATUR INTELLIGENTIA PERPETUA; ET QUARE VOCATUR ITA? EO QUOD DUCIT MOTUM SOLIS ET LUNAE JUXTA CONSTITUTIONEM EORUM; UTRUMQUE IN ORUE SIBI CONVENIENTE.

  RABBI ABRAHAM FD

  DICIT:

  SEMITA TRIGESIMA PRIMA INTELLIGENTIA PERPETUA; ET 1LLA DUCIT SOLEM ET LUNAM ET RELIQUAS STELLAS ET FIGURAS, UNUMQUODQUE IN ORBE SUO, ET IMPERTIT OMNIBUS CREATIS JUXTA DISPOSITIONEM AD SIGNA ET FIGURAS.

  “Here also is the translation in French of the Hebrew text as transcribed in our RITUAL: The thirty-first Path is called the Perpetual Intelligence, and it rules the sun and moon, and the other stars and figures, each in its respective orb. And it distributes that which is suitable to all created things according to their disposition in respect of the signs and figures.”

  “It will be seen,” said Éliphas Lévi, “that this text is still perfectly obscure for those who do not know the characteristic value of each of the thirty-two paths. The thirty-two Paths are the ten numerations and twenty-two hieroglyphical letters of the Kabalah. The thirty-first refers to the letter SHIN, which represents the magical lamp or light between the horns of Baphomet. It is the kabalistic sign of Od, otherwise the Astral Light, with its two poles, and its equilibrated centre We know that in alchemical language the Sun signifies gold, the Moon silver and that the other stars or planets are referable to the other metals. It is possible now to comprehend the thought of Abraham the Jew. The secret fire of the Masters in Alchemy was therefore electricity, and this is a full half of their Great Secret; but they knew how to equilibrate its force by a magnetic influence which they concentrated in their Athanor. It is this which emerges from the obscure dogmas of Basil Valentine, Bernard Trevisan and Heinrich Khunrath, who all claimed to have performed transmutation, like Raymond Lully, Arnold de Villanova and Nicholas Flamel.”—La Clef des Grands Mystères, pp. 233-5.

  1 Khunrath was a Christian theosophist of his period, which was the second half of the sixteenth century, and his Christ was God incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth.

  2 We have seen previously that, according to Éliphas Lévi, Flamel's Book of Abraham the Jew was the Aesk Mezareph, a collection of Latin paragraphs apart from “figures” of any kind and neither approximately nor remotely connected with Tarot Keys.

  1 “Alchemy derived all its signs from the Kabalah, and its operations were based on the law of analogies resulting from the harmony of opposites. Moreover, the kabalistic parables of antiquity veiled an immense physical secret, which secret we have been enabled to decipher, and we surrender the letter of it to the investigations of makers of gold as follows: (1) The four imponderable fluids are but diverse manipulations of a single Universal Agent, which is light. (2) Light is the fire which is employed in the Great Work under the form of electricity. (3) Human will directs the vital light by means of the nervous apparatus, an operation which is termed magnetizing at the present day. (4) The secret agent of the Great Work, or AZOTH of sages, the living and vivifying gold of philosophers, the metallic universal producing agent is MAGNETIZED ELECTRICITY. . . . Therefore to all who demand what is the greatest agent of prodigies, we reply: It is the First Matter of the Great Work; it is Magnetized Electricity.”—La Clef des Grands Mystères, pp. 207-213. It must be said that “magnetized electricity” is a proposition from the world of nonsense.

  CHAPTER XIII

  NECROMANCY

  WE have declared boldly our opinion, or rather our con viction, as to the possibility of resurrection in certain cases: it remains for us now to complete the revelation of this arcanum and to expose its practice. Death is a phantom of ignorance; it does not exist; everything in Nature is living, and it is because it is alive that everything is in motion and undergoes incessant change of form. Old age is the beginning of regeneration; it is the labour of renewing life; and the ancients represented the mystery we term death by the Fountain of Youth, which was entered in decrepitude and left in new childhood. The body is a garment of the soul. When this garment is worn out completely, or seriously and irreparably rent, it is abandoned and never rejoined. But when it is removed by some accident without being worn out or destroyed, it can, in certain cases, be reassumed, either by our own efforts or by the assistance of a stronger and more active will than ours. Death is neither the end of life nor the beginning of immortality: it is the continuation and transformation of life.1 Now a transformation being always a progress, few of those who are apparently dead will consent to return to life, that is, to take up the vestment which they have left behind. It is this which makes resurrection one of the hardest works of the highest initiation, and hence its success is never infallible, but must be regarded almost invariably as accidental and unexpected. To raise up a dead person we must rivet suddenly and energetically the most powerful chains of attraction which connect it with the body that it has just quitted. It is, therefore, necessary to be acquainted previously with this chain, then to seize thereon, finally to project an effort of will sufficiently powerful to link it up instantaneously and irresistibly. All this, as we say, is extremely difficult, but is in no sense absolutely impossible. The prejudices of materialistic science exclude resurrection at present from the natural order of things, and hence there is a disposition to explain all phenomena of this class by lethargies, more or less complicated with signs of death and more or less long in duration. If Lazarus rose again before our doctors, they would record in their memorials to official academies a strange case of lethargy, accompanied by an apparent beginning of putrefaction and a strong corpse-like odour: the exceptional occurrence would be labelled with a suitable name, and the matter would be at an end. We have no wish to alarm anyone, and if, out of respect for men with diplomas who represent orthodox science, it is requisite to term our theories concerning resurrection the art of curing exceptional and aggravated trances, nothing, I hope, will hinder us from making such a concession. But if ever a resurrection has taken place in the world, it is incontestable that resurrection is possible. Now, the bodies corporate protect religion, and religion asserts positively the fact of resurrections; therefore resurrections are possible. From this escape is difficult.1 To say that such things are possible outside the laws of Nature, and by an influence contrary to universal harmony, is to affirm that the spirit of disorder, darkness and death can be sovereign arbiter of life. Let us not dispute with worshippers of the devil, but pass on.

  It is not religion alone which attests the facts of resurrection: we have collected a number of cases. An occurrence which impressed the imagination of Greuze the painter has been reproduced by him in one of his most remarkable pictures. An unworthy son, present at his father's deathbed, seizes and destroys a will unfavourable to himself; the father rallies, leaps up, curses his son and then drops back dead a second time. An analogous and more recent fact has been certified to ourselves by ocular witnesses: a friend, betraying the confidence of one who had just died, tore up a trust-deed he had signed, whereupon the dead person rose up and lived to defend the rights of his chosen heirs, which this false friend sought to set aside; the guilty person went mad, and the risen man compassionately allowed him a pension. When the Saviour raised up the daughter of Jairus, He was alone with three faithful and favoured disciples: He dismissed the noisy mourners, saying: “The girl is not dead but sleeping.” Then, in the presence only of the father, mother and the three disciples, that is to say, in a perfect circle of confidence and desire, He took the child's hand, drew her suddenly up and cried to her: “Young girl, I say to thee, arise!” The undecided soul, doubtless in the immediate vicinity of the body, and possibly regretting its extreme youth and beauty, was surprised by the accents of that voice which was heard by her father and mother, trembling with hope and on their knees; it returned into the body; the maiden opened her eyes, rose up and the Master commanded immediately that food should be given her, so that the functions of life might begin a new cycle of absorption and regeneration. The history of Eliseus raising up the daughter of the Shunamit
e, and of St Paul raising Eutychus are facts of the same order; the resurrection of Dorcas by St Peter, narrated so simply in the Acts of the Apostles, is also a history the truth of which it is difficult to dispute with reason. Apollonius of Tyana seems to have accomplished similar miracles, while we ourselves have been the witness of facts which are not wanting in analogy with these; but the spirit of the century in which we live imposes in this respect the most careful reserve upon us, the thaumaturge being liable to a very indifferent reception at the hands of a discerning public— all which does not hinder the earth from revolving or Galileo from having been a great man.

  The resurrection of a dead person is the masterpiece of magnetism, because it needs for its accomplishment the exercise of a kind of sympathetic omnipotence. It is possible in the case of death by congestion, by suffocation, by exhaustion or by hysteria. Eutychus, who was resuscitated by St Paul after falling from a third storey, had doubtless suffered no serious internal injuries, but had succumbed to asphyxia, occasioned by the rush of air during his fall, or alternatively to violent shock and terror. In a parallel case, he who feels conscious of the power and faith necessary for such an achievement must, like the apostle, practise insuffla tion, mouth to mouth, combined with contact of the extremities for restoration of warmth. Were it simply a matter of what the ignorant call miracle, Elias and St Paul, who made use of the same procedure, would have spoken in the name of Jehovah or of Christ. It is enough sometimes to take the person by the hand and raise them quickly, summoning them in a loud voice. This procedure, which succeeds frequently in swoons, may even have effect upon the dead, when the magnetizer who exercises it is endowed with powerfully sympathetic speech and possesses what may be called eloquence of tone. He must be also tenderly loved or greatly respected by the person on whom he would operate, and he must perform the work with a great burst of faith and will, which we do not always find ourselves to possess in the first shock of a great sorrow.