Eliphas Levi and the Astral Light
Part 1 - Levi's Understanding of the Astral Light
Intro: "How Visions Take Place" and the Astral Light
All forms correspond to ideas, and there is no idea which does not have its proper and peculiar form.
The primordial light (which is the vehicle of all ideas) is the mother of all forms and transmits them from emanation to emanation (thus becoming diminished or altered according to the density of the medium).
Secondary forms are the reflections which return to the home (or hearth) of the emanated light. Forms of objects (being a modification of the light) remain in the light whereas the reflection expels them.
Thus the astral light, or the terrestrial fluid (which we call the great magical agent) is saturated with images or reflections of all types. Our soul can evoke and submit these images or reflections to its imagination (which is what the Kabbalists call the diaphane ).
These images are always present to us and are only erased by more powerful imprints of reality during waking hours, or by the preoccupation of the mind (which makes our imagination inattentive to the moveable panorama of the astral light).
When we sleep, this spectacle presents itself to us in and of itself, and this is how dreams are produced...
- Paraphrased from Ch. 5 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
Eliphas Levi's Divine and Human Ternaries
The supreme intelligence is necessarily reasonable. God, in philosophy, can only be a hypothesis, but it is a hypothesis imposed by good sense on human reason. To personify absolute reason is to determine the divine ideal.
Necessity, liberty and reason, here is the great and supreme triangle of the Kabbalists, who name reason Kether, necessity Chokmah, and liberty Binah, in their first divine ternary.
Fatality or Destiny [Fatalité ], will and power, such is the magical ternary which (in human things) corresponds to the divine triad.
Fatality (or Destiny) is the inevitable sequence of effects and causes in a given order.
Will is the directing faculty of the intelligent forces of nature and of the cosmos in order to reconcile the liberty of persons with the necessity of things.
Power is the wise application of the will which makes use of fatality itself in the accomplishment of the desires of the sage.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 6 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
Understanding the Laws of Occultism
When Moses struck the rock, he did not create the source of water, he simply revealed it to the people, because an occult science had revealed it to him by means of the divining rod.
It is thus with all the miracles of magic: a law exists, the vulgar ignore it, but the initiate makes use of it.
Occult laws are often diametrically opposed to common ideas. So, for example, the vulgar believe in the sympathy of things and in the battle of opposites; but it is the law of opposition which is the true law.
It used to be said that: "nature abhors the void"; what should have been said was that: "nature is in love with the void", if the void were not, in physics, the most absurd fiction.
The vulgar habitually take the shadow for reality in all things. They turn their backs to the light and gaze into the obscurity which they themselves project.
The forces of nature are at the disposal of whosoever knows how to resist them.
Are you master enough of yourself in order to never be intoxicated? Then you can make use of the terrible and fatal power of intoxication. If you want to make others intoxicated, give them the desire to drink, but do not drink.
A person who is able to make use of the love of others is one who is master of his or her own love.
Do you want to have [posséder]? Then do not give yourself.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 6 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
The Coagulation of the Primordial Light into the Astral Light
The world is magnetized by the light of the sun, and we are magnetized by the Astral Light of the world.
That which operates in the body of the planet, is repeated in us.
There are three analogical and hierarchic worlds within us, as there are in all of nature.
Man is the microcosm or little world and according to the dogma of analogies: everything that is in the big world is reproduced in the little world. There are therefore three centers of fluidic attraction and projection in us:
[1] the brain,
[2] the heart or epigastrum, and
[3] the genital organ.
Each of these organs is one and double, that is to say, we find the idea of the ternary therein. Each of these organs attracts in one way and repels in the other.
It is by means of these apparatuses that we place ourselves in communication with the universal fluid, transmitted in us through the nervous system.
It is also these three centers which are the seat of a triple magnetic operation, as we will explain elsewhere.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 6 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
The Astral Light, Magnetism and the Pentagram
The Astral Light has a direct action upon the nerves, which are its conductors in the animal economy of our physical organism, and which carry them to the brain. Thus, in a state of somnambulism [or strong drowsiness], one can see the nerves (even without the radiant light, since the astral fluid is a latent light, similar to how physics has recognized the existence of a latent heat).
Magnetism between two people is no doubt a marvelous discovery; but the magnetism of a single person makes the willpower lucid and allows one to direct oneself (which is the perfection of the magical art). The secret of this great work is not to be found: it was already known and practiced by a great number of initiates, and above all by the celebrated Apollonius of Tyana, who has left a theory about it, as we shall see in our Ritual of High Magic...
The secret of magnetic lucidity and to the direction of the phenomena of magnetism is controlled by two things:
(1) the harmony of intelligences and
(2) the prefect union of their willpowers in a direction
which is possible and determined by the science;
this is for magnetism operated between multiple people.
Solitary magnetism demands those preparations that we have spoken about in our first chapter, where we have enumerated and shown in all their difficulty the qualities required in order to be a veritable adept.
In the following chapters we will further illuminate this important and fundamental point.
The empire of the willpower over the astral light (which is the physical soul of the four elements) is represented in magic by the pentagram.
The elementary spirits are also submissive to this sign when it is employed with intelligent understanding, and one can (by placing it in the circle or on the table of evocations) rendered them docile, which is called in magic to imprison them.
Let us explain in a few words this marvel:
All created beings communicate with one another by signs and all adhere to a certain number of truths expressed by certain determined forms.
The perfection of forms increases in proportion to the emancipation of spirits, and those who are not weighed-down by the chains of matter recognize from their first intuition if a sign is the expression of a real power or of a reckless willpower.
The intelligent understanding of the sage therefore gives value to his pentacle, as his science gives weight to his willpower, and the spirits immediately comprehend this power.
Thus, with the pentagram, one can force the spirits to appear in a vision, either in the waking state, or during the state of slumber, by bringing their own reflection before our diaphane [or imagination], which exists in the astral light, if they have lived, or a reflection analogous to their spiritual verb, if they have not lived on earth.
This explains all visions and certainly demonstrates why the dead always appear for the seers, either as they were upon earth, or such as they are in the grave, but never as they are in an existence which escapes the perceptions of our actual organism.
Pregnant women are influenced more than others by the astral light, which converges in the formation of the child, and which incessantly presents to them reminiscences of the forms which it is full of.
It is thus that the most virtuous women deceive by equivocal similarity the malignity of observers.
They often imprint upon the fruit of their marriage an image which has struck them in a vision, and it is thus that the same features are perpetuated from generation to generation.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 5 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
Part 2 - Levi's Requirements for a Magician
But, who are you?
But, before all things, who are you, you who is holding this book in your hands and who is proposing to read it? …
Above the door of a temple consecrated by antiquity to the God of light was an inscription of two words: "Know yourself." I have the same council to give to every person who wants to get closer to the science.
Magic, which the ancients called the sanctum regnum, meaning the holy kingdom or regnum Dei, meaning the kingdom of God, only exists for kings & queens and for priests & priestesses: are you priests & priestesses? are you kings & queens?
The priesthood of magic is not a vulgar priesthood, and its royalty has nothing to discuss with the princes of this world.
The monarchs of the science are the priests & priestesses of truth, and their reign remains hidden from the multitude, like their sacrifices and their prayers.
The monarchs of the science are the men & women who know the truth and whom the truth has made free, according to the specific promise given by the most powerful of all initiators.
The man who is enslaved by his passions or by his worldly prejudices can not be initiated; he will never succeed, so long as he doesn’t reform himself; he will never then know how to be an adept, since the word signifies someone who has succeeded through their willpower and through their works.
The man who loves his own ideas and is afraid to lose them, who dreads new truths and who is not prepared to doubt everything rather than admit something by chance; that man must close this book, which is useless and dangerous for him: he will badly comprehend it and it will trouble him, but he would be in even greater danger if by chance he understood it well.
If you hold onto something from this world more than you do to reason, truth and justice; if your willpower is uncertain and unsteady, either in good, or in evil; if logic frightens you, if the naked truth make you blush; if you are hurt by exposing errors which are accepted as truths by others; then first of all condemn this work, and, without reading it, act like it doesn’t exist for you, but do not denounce it as dangerous: the secrets that it reveals will be comprehended by a small number, and those who comprehend them will not reveal them.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 1 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
The Real vs the False Magician according to Levi
Show the light to the birds of the night, that is where they hide, because it blinds them and becomes it becomes for them more obscure than the darkness.
I will then speak clearly, I will say everything, and I will confide only in the initiates, or those who are worthy to be initiates, who will read everything and will comprehend something.
There is a true and a false science, a divine magic and an infernal magic, that is to say one which is deceitful and tenebrous : we have to reveal the one and to unveil the other; we have to distinguish the magician from the sorcerer, and the adept from the charlatan.
The magician applies a force that he or she knows, the sorcerer tries their best to abuse that which they ignore.
The devil, if in a book of science it is permitted to use this vulgar and disparaging word, 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 only her profaner.
The sorcerer is to the magician what a superstitious and fanatical person is to a truly religious man.
Before going any further, let us clearly define magic. Magic is the traditional science of the secrets of nature, which comes to us from the magi.
By means of this science, the adept is found invested with a kind of relative omnipotence and can act superhumanly, that is to say in a manner which surpasses the normal scope of men.
To attain the sanctum regnum, that is to say, the science and power of the magi, four things are indispensable:
[1] an intelligent understanding illuminated by study,
[2] an audacity which nothing can stop,
[3] a will which cannot be broken, and
[4] a discretion which nothing can corrupt nor intoxicate.
TO KNOW, TO DARE, TO WILL, TO KEEP QUIET, [SAVOIR, OSER, VOULOIR, SE TAIRE] here are the four verbs of the magus, inscribed upon the four symbolic forms of the sphinx.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 1 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
The Magician and the Knowledge of Self
On the first page of the book of Hermes, the adept is represented covered by a huge hat, which, if turned down, could hide his whole head.
He has one hand raised towards heaven, which he seems to command with his wand, and the other hand upon his chest; he has in front of him the principle symbols or instruments of the science, and he hides others in an illusionist’s satchel.
His body and arms form the letter Aleph [ א ], the first of the alphabet, which the Hebrews borrowed from the Egyptians; but we will come back to this symbol later on.
The magus is truly that which the hebrew kabalists call the microprosopus, that is to say the creator of the little world.
The first magical science is the knowledge of oneself, the first also of all of the works of science (that which encloses all the others and which is the principle of the great work) is the creation of oneself: this term needs to be explained.
Supreme reason is the only unchanging principle, and it is consequently imperishable, since change is that which we call death, thus intelligent understanding (which in some manner adheres strongly to and identifies itself with this principle) renders itself with the same unchanging principle, and consequently renders itself immortal.
One should comprehend that, to always adhere to reason, one must be rendered independent of all those forces which produce (by their fatal and necessary movement) the alternatives of life and death.
To know how to suffer, to how to abstain and to how to die, such are the first secrets which place us above pain, above sensual longings and above the fear of nothingness.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 1 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
And you wish to be Initated?
Man only becomes king of the animals by subduing and taming them or by charming them, otherwise he will be their victim or their slave.
Animals are the form of our passions; they are the instinctive forces of nature.
The world is a battlefield where liberty fights with the force of inertia by opposing the active force.
Physical laws are millstones by which you will be the grain if you don’t know how to be the miller.
You are called to be the king or queen of the air, of the water, of the earth and of fire; but to reign over these four animals of symbolism, one must conquer them and bind them.
Whosoever aspires to be a sage and to know the great enigma of nature must be the inheritor and exploiter of the sphinx; one must have
• the human head in order to possess speech,
• the eagle's wings in order to conquer the heights,
• the bull's flanks in order to till the depths and
• the lion's claws in order to place himself on the right and the left, forwards and backwards.
You therefore who wish to be initiated, are you as learned as Faust? Are you immovable like Job?
No, is it not yet so? But you can be like Job if you wish [si tu veux].
Have you overcome the vortices of vague thoughts? Are you without indecision and without capriciousness?
Do you accept pleasure only when you will it, and do you will it only when you should?
No, is it not yet so? it is not always so? But it can be so, it can be like this if you will it [si tu le veux].
Not only does the sphinx have a man's head, it also has a woman’s breasts; do you know how to resist feminine charms?
No, is it not yet so? and you laugh while replying, and you brag of your moral weakness in order to glorify the vital and physical force in yourself.
Very well then, I permit you to render this homage to the donkey of Sterne or of Apuleius; may the donkey have its merit, I do not disagree, it was consecrated to Priapus as was the goat to the god of Mendes.
But let’s take it for what it is worth, and know simply if it is your master or if you can be its master.
The one who can truly possess the pleasure of love is the only one who has conquered the love of pleasure. To be able to use it and to abstain is to be twice able.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 1 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
Part 3 - Working with the Astral Light
Directing the Currents of the Astral Light
When the magician has attained lucidity, either through the intermediary of a pythoness, or through his own efforts, then he communicates and directs at will the magnetic vibrations in the whole mass of the Astral Light, from which he divines the currents with the help of the magic wand, which is a perfected divining rod.
By means of these vibrations, the magician influences the nervous system of persons subject to their action, precipitates or suspends the currents of life, calms or torments, heals or renders sick, and finally kills or resurrects..... But here we must stop ourselves in front of the smile of incredulity. Let us allow them to enjoy the easy triumph of denying that which they do not know.
We shall demonstrate later on that death is always preceded by a lethargic slumber and only operates in degrees; that resurrection is possible in certain cases, that lethargy is a real (but incomplete) death, and that many dead people achieve death after their burial. But this is not the subject of this chapter.
We say therefore that a lucid willpower can act upon the mass of the Astral Light, and (with help of other willpowers, which it absorbs and encourages) can establish great and irresistible currents.
Let us also say that the Astral Light condenses or dwindles, according to how the currents accumulate more or less in certain centers. When it lacks sufficient energy for the nourishment of life, then illnesses of sudden decomposition follow, which are the despair of medicine.
There is no other cause, for example, in the case of cholera-morbus [diarrhea of unknown origin], and the columns of animalculae [microscopic insects] (observed or supposed by some scholars) may be the effect rather than the cause. Cholera should be treated therefore by insufflation, if (in the same treatment) the operator does not expose himself to the patient with a very tremendous exchange for himself.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 6 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
Fluid, Vibrations, the Astral Light and Dead Light
Every intelligent effort of the will is a projection of the human fluid or Light, and here it is important to distinguish the Human Light from the Astral Light, and animal magnetism from universal magnetism.
In making use of the word 'fluid', we employ an accepted expression, and we seek to make ourselves understood by these means; but we are far from deciding that the latent light is a fluid. Everything prompts us, on the contrary, to prefer the system of vibrations in the explanation of this phenomenal existence.
Whatever it may be, this Light (being the instrument of life) is naturally fixed to all living centers;
• it attaches itself to the nucleus of planets just as it does to the heart of man (and by the heart we understand, in magic, the grand sympathetic nervous system),
• but it identifies itself with the life itself of the being which it animates, and it is through this quality of sympathetic assimilation that it divides itself without confusion.
Thus it is terrestrial in its affinity with the sphere of the earth, and exclusively human in its affinity with people.
It is for this reason that the electricity, caloric, light and magnetism, produced through ordinary physical means not only do not produce animal magnetism, but tend, on the contrary, to neutralize the effects of animal magnetism.
The Astral Light, subordinated to a blind mechanism and proceeding from centers which tend towards self-service, is a dead Light and operates mathematically according to given impulses or according to fatal laws.
The human Light, on the contrary, is only fatal in the ignorant, who randomly make attempts to work with it. In the seer it is subjected to intelligent understanding, submitted to the imagination and dependent upon the will.
It is this Light, ceaselessly projected by our will, that forms what Swedenborg calls the personal atmospheres.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 6 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
How the Astral Light and one’s “Personal Atmosphere” Interact
The body absorbs what surrounds it and continuously radiates by projecting its miasmas [poisonous vapors] and its invisible molecules.
It is the same with the mind [l'esprit], in such a way that this phenomenon (named by some mystics respiration) really has the influence (both physically and morally) which is attributed to it.
It is really contagious to breathe the same air as sick people, and to find oneself in the circle of attraction & expansion of the wicked.
• When the magnetic atmosphere of two people is so equilibrated that the attractiveness of one absorbs the expansiveness of the other,
• this produces an attraction which is named sympathy;
• and then the imagination evokes in it all the rays or all the reflections analogous to that which it experiences, making a poem of the desires which captivate the will,
• and, if the persons are of different sexes, then it produces in them or more often in the weaker of the two, a complete intoxication of their Astral Light, which is properly named passion or love.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 6 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
Passion, Love, the Agent and the Magician
Love is one of the great instruments of magical power; but it is formally forbidden to the magician, at least as an intoxication or as passion.
Woe to the Samson of the Kabbalah, if he allows himself to be put to sleep by Delilah! The Hercules of the science who exchanges his royal scepter for the staff of Omphale because he will soon feel the vengeance of Dejanira, and the only thing left for him will be the pyre of mount Oeta, in order to escape the devouring grip of the tunic of Nessus.
Sexual love is always an illusion, because it is the result of an imaginary mirage [or mirror image].
The Astral Light is the universal seducer symbolized by the serpent of Genesis.
• This subtle Agent, is always active, always luxurious in its sap, is always flowering with seductive dreams and sweet images;
• this force, which is blind in itself and subordinate to every will, whether for good or for evil;
• this always renewing circulus [circular structure] of an unbridled life, which gives vertigo to the imprudent;
• this corporeal spirit, this fiery body, this impalpable and ever-present ether;
• this immense seduction of nature,
• how to define it completely and how to qualify its action?
Indifferent to some extent in itself
• it lends itself to good as well as to evil;
• it carries light and propagates darkness;
• it can equally be called Lucifer and Lucifuge: it is a serpent, but it is also a halo;
• it is a fire, but it can also belong to the torments of hell which offers the promised incense to heaven.
To seize it, one must (just like the predestined woman) put one’s foot upon its head.That which corresponds to the woman kabbalistically, in the elementary world, is the element water, and that which corresponds to the serpent, is the element fire.
• To subdue and tame the serpent,
that is to say, to dominate the circle of the Astral Light,
• one must place oneself outside of its currents,
that is to say one must isolate oneself.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 6 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
Hermetic Isolation, the Diaphane or Translucence and the Astral Light
It is for this reason that Apollonius of Tyana completely enveloped himself in a mantle [or cloak] of fine wool upon which he placed his feet, and drew it over his head; then he bent his vertebral column into a semi-circle, and closed his eyes after having accomplished certain rites which probably were magnetic passes and sacramental words having as their goal to fix the imagination and to determine the action of his will.
The woolen mantle is of great use in magic, and it is ordinarily the vehicle of sorcerers who go to the Sabbath, which proves that the sorcerers do not really go to the Sabbath, but that the Sabbath came to find the sorcerers isolated in their mantle and brought images analogous to their magical preoccupations into their translucence [or their imagination], mingled with the reflections of all similar types of acts which have been previously accomplished in the world.
This torrent of universal life is also symbolized in the religious dogmas by the expiatory fire of hell.
• It is the instrument of initiation,
• it is the monster to be subdued and tamed,
• it is the enemy to be vanquished;
• it is what sends so many larvae and phantoms to our evocations and to the conjurations of goetia [or black magic];
in it are preserved all forms whose fantastic and accidental assembly populate our nightmares with such abominable monsters.
• To allow ourselves to be dragged down and deviated by this swirling stream
is to fall into the abysses of madness, more frightful than those of death;
• to hunt the shadows of this chaos and to make it give perfect forms to our thoughts
is to be a man or woman of genius, it is to create, it is to be triumphant over hell!
The astral light
• directs the instincts of animals and
• battles the intelligence or intelligent understanding of man
• and tends to pervert it through the richness of its reflections
and through the lies of its images;
• which become a fatal and necessary action
that is directed and rendered still more terrible
▪ by elemental spirits and
▪ by suffering souls, whose restless wills
◌ seek out sympathies in our weaknesses, and
◌ tempt us not so much to destroy us as to make friends for themselves.
This 'book of consciences' (which, according to christian dogma, must be manifest on the last day) is none other than the Astral Light in which the impressions are preserved of all the verbs (that is to say of all the actions and of all the forms).
Our acts modify our magnetic breathing in such a way that a seer can say, when approaching a person for the first time, if that person is innocent or guilty, and what his virtues or his crimes are.
This faculty, which belongs to divination, was called 'the discernment of spirits' by the christian mystics of the primitive Church.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 6 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
Part 4 - The Magician, Willpower and Equilibrium
Reason, the Will and the Astral Light
Those who
• renounce the empire of reason
• and who enjoy misdirecting their willpower towards the pursuit of the reflections of the Astral Light
are subject to the alternations of rage and depression which have originated all the marvels of demonic possession;
it is true that impure spirits can act upon such souls through these reflections, making use of them like docile instruments and even habitually torment their organism, within which they come to reside by obsession, or by embryonation.
These Kabbalistic terms are explained in the Hebrew book of the Revolution of Souls, of which our 13th Chapter will contain a succinct analysis.
It is therefore extremely dangerous to play with the mysteries of magic; it is above all excessively reckless to practice its rites just for curiosity, or just to try and in order to appeal to the superior powers.
The curious who, without being adepts, mix themselves up in evocations or occult magnetism, resemble children who play with fire near a barrel of gunpowder: sooner or later they will be victims of some terrible explosion.
It is not enough to envelop oneself in woolen fabric in order
to isolated oneself from the Astral Light, one must also, and above all,
• have imposed absolute tranquility upon one’s mind and one’s heart,
• as well as to have left the domain of the passions behind
• and to be assured of perseverance in the spontaneous operations of an inflexible will.
One must also frequently reiterate the acts of this will, since, as we shall see in the Introduction to Ritual of High Magic, the willpower only becomes confident in itself through acts, just as religions only have influence and last through their ceremonies and their rites.
There exist intoxicating substances, which, by stimulating the nervous sensibility, augment the power of the representation, and consequently augment the power of the astral seductions; through the same means, but pursuing a different direction, one can terrify and unsettle the minds.
These substances, which are magnetic by themselves and are magnetized further by the practitioners, are what people term love potions or enchanted beverages.
But we shall not enter here upon this dangerous application of magic, which Cornelius Agrippa himself terms poisonous magic.
It is true that there no longer exist pyres for sorcerers, but there still are and will always be penalties carried out upon evil-doers.
Let us limit ourselves therefore to stating, on this occasion, the reality of this power.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 6 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
The Duality of the Astral Light and Magical Equilibrium
To arrange the Astral Light one must also
• understand its double vibration, and
• know the balance of forces
▪ which are called magical equilibrium, and
▪ which are expressed in the Kabbalah by the Senary [or the number 6].
This equilibrium, considered in its first cause, is the will of God;
in man it is liberty;
and in matter it is mathematical equilibrium.
Equilibrium produces stability and duration.
Liberty engenders the immortality of man,
and the willpower of God puts the laws of eternal reason to work.
Equilibrium
• in ideas is wisdom,
• in forces is power.
Equilibrium is rigorous.
Equilibrium exists when one observes the law; when one violates it, no matter how slightly, it is no more.
It is for this reason that nothing is useless nor lost.
Every utterance and every movement is for or against equilibrium, for or against truth:
• since equilibrium represents truth, which is composed of both things which are for and against reconciliation, or at least equilibration together.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 6 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
Liberty and Magical Equilibrium
We shall state in the Introduction to Ritual of High Magic how magical equilibrium must be produced, and why it is necessary to the success of all operations.
The all-powerful is the most absolute liberty. But absolute liberty could not exist without perfect equilibrium.
Magical equilibrium is then one of the first conditions for success in the operations of the science, and one must seek it even in occult chemistry, in learning to combine opposites without neutralizing one by another.
It is through magical equilibrium that one can explain the great and ancient mystery of the existence and relative necessity of evil.
This relative necessity gives, in black magic, the measure of the power of demons or impure spirits, to whom virtues which are practiced upon the earth give increased rage, and apparently even increased strength.
During the epochs when the saints and the angels openly work miracles, sorcerers and devils work in their turn marvels and prodigies of their own.
It is rivalry itself which often makes their success: one always leans upon that which resists.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 6 of Dogma of High Magic (1854) by Eliphas Levi
Part 5 - Symbols for Understanding the Magic of Three
Eliphas Levi and Christian Kabbalah
Let us remark, in passing, that the author of Revelations (that clavicle [or key] of the christian kabbalah) has composed the number of the beast, that is to say, of idolatry, by adding a 6 to the double senary [or 12] ... kabbalistically gives 18, the number assigned in the Tarot to the hieroglyphic sign of the night and of the profane, the moon together with the towers, the dog, the wolf and the crab; a mysterious and obscure number, the kabbalistic key of which is 9, the number of initiation.
The sacred kabbalist says expressly on this subject:"May whosoever that has intelligent understanding (that is to say the key of kabbalistic numbers) calculate the number of the beast, since it is the number of man, and this number is 666." [see Revelation 13:18]This is, in fact, the decade of Pythagoras multiplied by itself and added to the sum of the triangular Pentacle of Abracadabra; it is then the summary of all the magic of the ancient world, the entire program of human genius, which the divine genie of the Gospel wanted to absorb or transplant.
These hieroglyphical combinations of letters and of numbers belong to the practical part of the kabbalah, which (from this point of view) is subdivided into gematria and into temurah.
– These calculations (which now seem to us arbitrary or lacking interest) belonged then to the philosophical symbolism of the East, and had the greatest importance in the teaching of holy things emanating from the occult sciences.
The absolute kabbalistic alphabet, which connected primitive ideas to allegories, allegories to letters, and letters to numbers, was what was then called "the keys of Solomon".
We have already seen that these keys (preserved until our present day, but completely unrecognized) are none other than the game of the Tarot, who’s antique allegories were remarked and appreciated for the first time, in our present day, by the learned archaeologist, Court de Gebelin.The double triangle of Solomon is explained by saint John in a remarkable manner.
"There are", he says "three witnesses in heaven: the Father, the Logos and the Holy Spirit, and three witnesses on earth: the breath, the water and the blood."Thus, saint John agrees with the masters of hermetic philosophy, who give to their sulphur the name of ether, to their mercury the name of philosophical water, and to their salt the qualification of dragon’s blood or menstruum of the earth: the blood or salt corresponds by opposition to the Father, the azotic or mercurial water to the Verb or Logos, and the breath to the Holy Spirit.
But the things of high symbolism can only be rightly understood by the true children of the science.
The triple repetition of names (with different intonations) were united to triangular combinations in magical ceremonies.
The magic wand was often topped by a small magnetized fork, which Paracelsus replaced with the trident who’s figure we give here:
The trident of Paracelsus is a pentacle expressing the summary of the ternary in the unity, thus completing the sacred quaternary.
He attributed to this figure all the virtues that the kabbalistic hebrews attributed to the name of Jehovah [ יהוה ] and the thaumaturgic properties of the Abracadabra of the hierophants of Alexandria.
Let us recognize here that it is a pentacle and consequently a concrete and an absolute sign of an entire doctrine, which has been that of an immense magnetic circle, not only for the ancient philosophers but also for the adepts of the middle ages.
By giving it, nowadays, its original value through the intelligent understanding of its mysteries, might one not also restore all its miraculous virtue and all its power against human diseases?
- Paraphrased from Ch. 3 of Ritual of High Magic (1856) by Eliphas Levi
Eliphas Levi: The Trident of Paracelsus I
This trident, figure of the ternary, is formed from three pyramidic teeth superimposed upon a Greek or Latin tau [ T ].
Upon one of its teeth one sees a yod [ י ] crossing a crescent on one part, and on the other part an intersecting line, a figure which hieroglyphically reminds us of the zodical sign of the crab [].
Upon the opposite tooth is a mixed sign reminding us of that of the twins [] and that of the lion [
].
Between the claws of the crab one sees the sun [], and next to the lion one sees the astronomic cross [ + or X ].
Upon the teeth of the middle is hieroglyphically traced the figure of the celestial serpent, having the sign of Jupiter [] for its head.
On the side of the crab one reads the word OBITO, meaning "go away, back up"; and on the side of the lion one reads IMO, meaning "come on, persist".
In the center, and near the symbolic serpent, one reads AP DO SEL, which is a word composed of an abbreviation, a word composed kabbalistically and hebraically, and finally a word of a complete and vulgar root: AP, which must be read AR, because they are the two first greek letters of the word ARCHEUS; DO, which must be read OD [ וד ] and SEL [a French word meaning: SALT].
They are the three primary substances, and the occult names of Archeus and Od [ וד ] express the same as the sulfur and the mercury of the philosophers.
Upon the rod of iron, which must serve as the trident’s handle, one sees three times the letter P. P. P. (which is a phalloid and lingamic hieroglyph); then the words VLI DOX FATO, which must be read by taking the first letter as the number of the pentagram in roman numerals [V = 5], and completing it thus PENTAGRAMMATICA LIBERTATE DOXA FATO, a character which is equivalent to the three letters of Cagliostro’s L.P.D. : Liberty, Power, Duty.
This admirable magical summary by Paracelsus can serve as a key to the obscure works of the kabbalist Wronski, a remarkable scholar who has been led (more than once) away from his ABSOLUTE REASON by the mysticism of his nation and by the shameful financial speculations of a very distinguished thinker.
Every time, we render him the honor and glory of having discovered, before us, the secret of the trident of Paracelsus.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 3 of Ritual of High Magic (1856) by Eliphas Levi
Eliphas Levi: The Trident of Paracelsus II
Thus Paracelsus represents the passive with the crab [
then he equilibrates the forces
• by giving the fecundity of the active figure to the passive with the sun [
• by giving space and night [ie, the moon] to the active
• in order to be conquered, and to be illuminated under the symbol of the cross [ + ].
He says to the passive: "Obey the impulse of the active, and walk with it through equilibrium even with resistance."
He says to the active: "Resist the immobility of the obstacle; persist and advance."
Then he explains these alternating forces with the great central ternary: LIBERTY, NECESSITY, REASON.
REASON in the center; LIBERTY AND NECESSITY as counter-weights.
Here is the strength/force of the trident: within it is the shank and the base; this is the universal law of nature; this is the essence itself of the verb, realized and demonstrated by the ternary of human life, the archeus or spirit, the 'od' [ וד ] or the plastic mediator, and the salt or visible matter.
We have wanted to give something outside of just the explanation of this figure, because it is of the highest importance, and gives the measure of the highest genius to the occult sciences.
One must comprehend after this explanation why, in the flow of our work, we have always inclined ourselves, with traditional veneration for the true adepts, before the divine Paracelsus.”
- Paraphrased from Ch. 3 of Ritual of High Magic (1856) by Eliphas Levi
The Trident Explained
Based on Levi's explanation, we can understand the Trident of Paracelsus as follows:
The Power of Three
The ancient sorceresses, when they spent the night at the intersection of three cross-roads, yelled three times in honor of the triple Hekate.
All these figures, and all these acts which are analogous to the figures, all these dispositions of numbers and of characters, are (as we have already said) only instruments for the education of the willpower, whereby they fix and determine its habits .
They serve, furthermore, to attach together all powers of the human soul in action, and to augment the creative strength/force of the imagination.
This is the gymnastics of thought which exercise it for its realization: also the effect of these practices is an infallibility, like nature, when they are done with an absolute confidence and an steadfast perseverance."With faith", the great Master said, "one could transplant trees into the sea and one could move mountains."A practice, even if it is superstitious, even if it is sensorial, is effective, because it is a realization of the willpower.
It is for this reason that a prayer is more powerful if one goes to do it at the church than if it is recited at home, and that it will obtain miracles if, in order to do it in a legitimate sanctuary (that is to say magnetized with the great current through the out pouring of its visitors), one does a hundred or two hundred leagues with bare feet and while also asking for alms along the way.
Some laugh at the simple woman who deprives herself of some change for milk in the morning, and who will instead carry candle to burn on the magic triangle in the chapel.
Those who laugh are ignorant, and the simple woman does not pay too much for what she thereby purchases by resignation and by courage.
Great 'minds' [grands esprits ] are very proud to pass by shrugging their shoulders, they revolt against superstition with a noise which shakes the world: and what is the result?
The houses of great 'minds' collapse, and their remains are resold to the providers and purchasers of little candles, who are let it be proclaimed everywhere that their reign is for ever ended, provided that they always rule.
The great religions have never had to fear more than one serious rival, and that rival is magic.
Magic has produced the occult associations which brought about the revolution termed the "Renaissance"; but the time has arrived for the human spirit (blinded by insane loves [folles amours]) to realize, in any case, the allegorical history of the hebrew Hercules: by shaking the columns of the temple, wherein it has buried itself under its ruins.
The masonic associations, nowadays, do not know more of the high purpose of their symbols than the rabbins of the Sepher Yetzirah and the Zohar concerning the ascending ladder of the three degrees, with the transverse progression from right to left and from left to right of the kabbalistic septenary.The compass of the G∴ A∴ and the square of Solomon have become the gross and material level of unintelligent Jacobinism [famous for its push to eliminate existing religions in favor of one run by the state (which was the 'cult of Reason and the Supreme Being')], realized through a steel triangle: here we have the symbols for heaven and for earth.
The profain adepts to whom the illuminated Cazotte predicted a bloody death have, nowadays, surpassed the sin of Adam: having recklessly plucked the fruits of the tree of the science, of which they did not know how to nourish themselves, and they have thrown them to the animals and to the reptiles of the earth.
Also the reign of superstition has thereby been inaugurated, and must endure until the time when the true religion shall be constituted upon the eternal foundations of the hierarchy by three degrees and by the triple power that the ternary fatally or providentially exercises in the three worlds.
- Paraphrased from Ch. 3 of Ritual of High Magic (1856) by Eliphas Levi
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Hermetic Masonry – Combination of Arcana 4 (Supplement - the Astral Light)
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