Eliphas Levi - Transcendental Magic - Its Doctrine and Ritual

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This book is the first treatise on magic by Éliphas Lévi and one of his fundamental works. In this book, he criticizes magic as a collection of methods and rituals. Instead, he says magic is a universal power and attribute of a man, an eternal religion that existed before Christianity and other religions. According to his theory, proper magic as an attribute of a human is a combination of psychic force, will, and imagination. He calls the ordinary miracles attributed to unnecessary magic exaggerations. Yet, the access to the true magic is constricted only to a narrow circle of selected people, or Magi. Those who go through the initiation to Magi acquire force to alter human wills. His works became quickly popular, as their publication coincided with the interest in magic and occultism in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. It also greatly influenced the magic of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Also, in this text, Éliphas Lévi, for the first time, pointed out that a pentagram or five-pointed star with one point down and two points up represents evil, while a pentagram with one end up and two points down represent the good.

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Mercurius Trismegistus begins his admirable symbol known under the name of the “Emerald Table,” by this threefold affirmation: “It is true, it is certain without error, it is of all truth.” Thus, in physics, the true confirmed by experience; in philosophy, certitude purged from any alloy of error; in the domain of religion or the infinite, absolute truth indicated by analogy: such are the first necessities of true science, and Magic only can impart these to its adepts.

But you, before all things, who are you, thus taking this work in your hands and proposing to read it? On the pediment of a temple consecrated by antiquity to the God of Light was an inscription of two words: “Know thyself.” I impress the same counsel on every man when he seeks to approach science. Magic, which the men of old denominated the SANCTUM REGNUM, the Holy Kingdom, or Kingdom of God, REGNUM DEI, exists only for kings and for priests. Are you priests? Are you kings? The priesthood of Magic is not a vulgar priesthood, and its royalty enters not into competition with the princes of this world. The monarchs of science are the priests of truth, and their sovereignty is hidden from the multitude, like their prayers and sacrifices. The kings of science are men who know the truth and them the truth has made free, according to the specific promise given by the most mighty of all initiators.

The man who is enslaved by his passions or worldly prejudices can be initiated in no wise; he must reform or he will never attain; meanwhile he cannot be an adept, for this word signifies a person who has achieved by will and by work. The man who loves his own opinions and fears to part with them, who suspects new truths, who is unprepared to doubt everything rather than admit anything on chance, should close this book: for him it is useless and dangerous. He will fail to understand it, and it will trouble him, while if he should divine the meaning, there will be a still greater source of disquietude. If you hold by anything in the world more than by reason, truth and justice; if your will be uncertain and vacillating, either in good or evil; if logic alarm you, or the naked truth make you blush; if you are hurt when accepted errors are assailed; condemn this work straight away. Do not read it; let it cease to exist for you; but at the same time do not cry it down as dangerous. The secrets which it records will be understood by an elect few and will be reserved by those who understand them. Show light to the birds of the night-time, and you hide their light; it is the light which blinds them and for them is darker than darkness. It follows that I shall speak clearly and make known everything, with the firm conviction that initiates alone, or those who deserve initiation, will read all and understand in part.

There is a true and a false science a Divine and an Infernal Magic in other - фото 25

There is a true and a false science, a Divine and an Infernal Magic – in other words, one which is delusive and tenebrous. It is our task to reveal the one and to unveil the other, to distinguish the magician from the sorcerer and the adept from the charlatan. The magician avails himself of a force which he knows, the sorcerer seeks to misuse that which he does not understand. If it be possible in a scientific work to employ a term so vulgar and so discredited, then the devil gives himself to the magician and the sorcerer gives himself to the devil. The magician is the sovereign pontiff of Nature, the sorcerer is her profaner only. The sorcerer is in the same relation to the magician that a superstitious and fanatical person bears to a truly religious man.

Before proceeding further, let us define Magic in a sentence. Magic is the traditional science of the secrets of Nature which has been transmitted to us from the Magi.

By means of this science the adept is invested with a species of relative omnipotence and can operate superhumanly, that is, after a manner which transcends the normal possibility of men. Thereby many illustrious hierophants, such as Mercurius Trismegistus, Osiris, Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana, and others whom it might be dangerous or unwise to name, came after their death to be adored and invoked as gods. Thereby others also – according to that ebb-and-flow of opinion which is responsible for the caprices of success – became emissaries of infernus or suspected adventurers, like the Emperor Julian, Apuleius, the enchanter Merlin and that arch sorcerer, as he was termed in his day, the illustrious and unfortunate Cornelius Agrippa.

To attain the SANCTUM REGNUM, in other words, the knowledge and power of the Magi, there are four indispensable conditions – an intelligence illuminated by study, an intrepidity which nothing can check, a will which cannot be broken, and a prudence which nothing can corrupt and nothing intoxicate. TO KNOW, TO DARE, TO WILL, TO KEEP SILENCE – such are the four words of the Magus, inscribed upon the four symbolical forms of the sphinx. These maxims can be combined after four manners and explained four times by one another.

On the first page of the Book of Hermes the adept is depicted with a large hat, which, if turned down, would conceal his entire head. One hand is raised towards heaven, which he seems to command with his wand, while the other is placed upon his breast; before him are the chief symbols or instruments of science, and he has others hidden in a juggler's wallet. His body and arms form the letter ALEPH, the first of that alphabet which the Jews borrowed from the Egyptians: to this symbol we shall have occasion to recur later on.

The Magus is truly that which the Hebrew Kabalists term Microprosopus – otherwise, the creator of the little world. The first of all magical sciences being the knowledge of one's self, so is one's own creation first of all works of science; it comprehends the others and is the beginning of the Great Work. The expression, however, requires explanation. Supreme Reason being the sole invariable and consequently imperishable principle – and death, as we call it, being change – it follows that the intelligence which cleaves closely to this principle and in a manner identifies itself therewith, does hereby make itself unchangeable and as a result immortal. To cleave invariably to reason it will be understood that it is necessary to attain independence of all those forces which by their fatal and inevitable operation produce the alternatives of life and death. To know how to suffer, to forbear and to die – such are the first secrets which place us beyond reach of affliction, the desires of the flesh and the fear of annihilation. The man who seeks and finds a glorious death has faith in immortality and universal humanity believes in it with him and for him, raising altars and statues to his memory in token of eternal life.

Man becomes king of the brutes only by subduing or taming them: otherwise he will be their victim or slave. Brutes are the type of our passions; they are the instinctive forces of Nature. The world is a field of battle, where liberty struggles with inertia by the opposition of active force. Physical laws are millstones; if you cannot be the miller you must be the grain. You are called to be king of air, water, earth and fire; but to reign over these four living creatures of symbolism, it is necessary to conquer and enchain them. He who aspires to be a sage and to know the Great Enigma of Nature must be the heir and despoiler of the sphinx: his the human head, in order to possess speech; his the eagle's wings, in order to scale the heights; his the bull's flanks, in order to furrow the depths; his the lion's talons, to make a way on the right and the left, before and behind.

You therefore who seek initiation, are you learned as Faust? Are you insensible as Job? No, is it not so? But you may become like unto both if you choose. Have you overcome the vortices of vague thoughts? Are you without indecision or capriciousness? Do you consent to pleasure only when you will, and do you wish for it only when you should? No, is it not so? Not at least invariably, but this may come to pass if you choose. The sphinx has not only a man's head, it has woman's breasts; do you know how to resist feminine charms? No, is it not so? And you laugh outright in replying, parading your moral weakness for the glorification of your physical and vital force. Be it so: I allow you to render this homage to the ass of Sterne or Apuleius. The ass has its merit, I agree; it was consecrated to Priapus as was the goat to the god of Mendes. But take it for what it is worth, and decide whether ass or man shall be master. He alone can possess truly the pleasure of love who has conquered the love of pleasure. To be able and to forbear is to be twice able. Woman enchains you by your desires; master your desires and you will enchain her. The greatest injury that can be inflicted on a man is to call him a coward. Now, what is a cowardly person? One who neglects his moral dignity in order to obey blindly the instincts of Nature. As a fact, in the presence of danger it is natural to be afraid and seek flight: why, then, is it shameful? Because honour has erected it into a law that we must prefer our duty to our inclinations or fears.

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