by Eliphas Levi
This signifies, according to the version of Fabre d'Olivet: “Now, original attraction (cupidity) was the entraining passion of all elementary life (the interior activity of Nature), the work of Jhôah, the Being of beings.” But herein Fabre d'Olivet is beside the true interpretation, because he was unacquainted with the grand keys of the Kabalah. The it word Nahash, explained by the symbolical letters of the Tarot signifies rigorously:
Thus, the word employed by Moses, read kabalistically, gives the description and definition of that magical Universal Agent, represented in all theogonies by the serpent; to this Agent the Hebrews applied the name of OD when it manifested its active force, of OB when it exhibited its passive force, and of Aour when it revealed itself wholly in its equilibrated power, as producer of light in heaven and gold among metals.1 It is therefore that old serpent which encircles the world and places its devouring head beneath the foot of a Virgin, the type of initiation—that virgin who presents a little new-born child to the adoration of three Magi and receives from them, in exchange for this favour, gold, myrrh and frankincense. So does doctrine serve in all hieratic religions to veil the secret of natural forces which the initiate has at his disposal. Religious formulae are the summaries of those words full of mystery and power which make the gods descend from heaven and become subject to the will of men. Judea borrowed its secrets from Egypt; Greece sent her hierophants and later her theosophists to the school of the great prophets; the Rome of the Caesars, mined by the initiation of the catacombs, collapsed one day into the Church, and a symbolism was reconstructed with the remnants of all worships which had been absorbed by the queen of the world. According to the Gospel narrative, the inscription which set forth the spiritual royalty of Christ was written in Hebrew, in Greek and in Latin: it was the expression of a universal synthesis. Hellenism, in fact, that grand and beauteous religion of form, announced the coming of the Saviour no less than the prophets of Judaism. The fable of Psyche is an ultra-Christian abstraction, and the cultus of the Pantheons, by rehabilitating Socrates, prepared altars for that unity of God, of which Israel had been the mysterious preserver. But the synagogue denied its Messiah, and the Hebrew letters were effaced, at least for the blinded eyes of the Jews. The Roman persecutors dishonoured Hellenism, and it could not be restored by the false moderation of the philosopher Julian, surnamed perhaps unjustly the Apostate, since his Christianity was never sincere. The ignorance of the Middle Ages followed, opposing saints and virgins to gods, goddesses and nymphs; the deep sense of the Hellenic mysteries was less understood than ever; Greece herself did not only lose the traditions of her ancient cultus but separated from the Latin Church; and thus, for Latin eyes, the Greek letters were blotted out, as the Latin letters disappeared for Greek eyes. So the inscription on the Cross of the Saviour vanished entirely, and nothing except mysterious initials remained. But when science and philosophy, reconciled with faith, shall unite all the various symbols, then shall the magnificences of the antique worships be restored to the memory of men, pro claiming the progress of the human mind in the intuition of the light of God. But of all forms of progress the greatest will be that which, restoring the keys of Nature to the hands of science, shall enchain for ever the hideous spectre of Satan, and, explaining all abnormal phenomena, shall destroy the empire of superstition and imbecile credulity. To the accomplishment of this work we have consecrated our life, and do still devote it in the most toilsome and difficult researches. We would emancipate altars by over throwing idols; we desire the man of intelligence to become once more the priest and king of Nature, and we would preserve by explanation all images of the universal sanctuary.
The prophets spoke in parables and images, because abstract language was wanting to them, and because prophetic perception, being the sentiment of harmony or of universal analogies, translates naturally into images. Taken literally by the vulgar, these images become idols or impene trable mysteries. The sum and succession of such images and mysteries constitute what is called symbolism. Sym bolism comes therefore from God, though it may be formulated by men. Revelation has accompanied humanity in all ages, has been transfigured with human genius but has ever expressed the same truth. True religion is one; its dogmas are simple and within the reach of all. At the same time, the multiplicity of symbols has been a book of poesy indispensable to the education of human genius. The har mony of outward beauties and the poetry of form must reveal God to the infancy of man; but soon Venus had Psyche for her rival and Psyche enchanted Love. It came about therefore that the cultus of form yielded perforce to those ambitious dreams which adorned already the eloquent wisdom of Plato. Thus was the advent of Christ prepared and was therefore also expected; it arrived because the world awaited it; and to become popular, philosophy transformed into belief. Emancipated by belief itself, the human mind protested speedily against the school which sought to materialize its signs and the work of Roman Catholicism was solely an undesigned provision for the emancipation of consciences and the establishment of the bases of universal association. All these things were the regular and normal development of divine life in humanity; for God is the great Soul of all souls, that immovable Centre about which gravitate all intelligences like a cloud of stars.1
Human understanding has had its morning; its noon shall come, and the waning follow; but God will be ever the same. It seems, however, to dwellers on earth that the sun rises youthful and timid in the morning, shines with all its power at midday and goes wearied to rest in the evening. Nevertheless, it is earth which revolves, while the sun is motionless. Having faith therefore in human progress, and in the stability of God, the free man respects religion in its past forms, and no more blasphemes Jupiter than Jehovah. He still salutes lovingly the radiant image of the Pythian Apollo and discovers its fraternal resemblance to the glorified countenance of the risen Redeemer. He believes in the great mission of the Catholic hierarchy, and finds satisfaction in observing the popes of the Middle Ages who opposed religion as a check upon the absolute power of kings; but he protests with the revolutionary centuries against the servitude of conscience which the pontifical keys would enchain. He is more protestant than Luther, since he does not even believe in the infallibility of the Augsbourg Confession, and more Catholic than the Pope, for he has no fear that religious unity will be broken by the malevolence of courts. He trusts in God rather than Roman policy for the salvation of the unity idea; he respects the old age of the Church, but he has no fear that she will die; he knows that her apparent death will be a transfiguration and a glorious assumption.
The author of this book calls upon the eastern Magi to come forward and recognize once again that Divine Master Whose cradle they saluted, the Great Initiator of all the ages. All His enemies have fallen; all those who condemned Him are dead, those who persecuted Him have passed into sleep for ever; but He is for ever alive.1 The envious have combined against Him, agreeing on a single point; the sectaries have united to destroy Him; they have crowned themselves kings and proscribed Him; they have become hypocrites and accused Him; they have constituted them selves judges and pronounced His sentence of death; they have turned murderers and executed Him; they have forced Him to drink hemlock, they have crucified Him, they have stoned Him, they have burned Him and cast His ashes to the wind; then have they turned scarlet with terror, for He stands erect before them, impeaching them by His wounds and overwhelming them by the radiance of His scars. They believed that they had slain Him in His cradle at Bethlehem, but He is alive in Egypt. They carry Him to the summit of the mountain to cast Him down; the mob of His destroyers encircles Him and triumphs already in His certain destruction. A cry is heard: is not that He who is shattered on the rocks of the abyss? They whiten and look at one another; but He, calm and smiling with pity, passes through the midst of them and disappears. Behold another mountain which they have just dyed with His blood! Behold a Cross, a sepulchre and soldiers guarding His tomb! Madmen! The tomb is empty, and He whom they regard as dead is walking peaceably betw
een two travellers on the road to Emmaus. Where is He? Whither does He go? Warn the masters of the world! Tell the Caesars that their power is threatened! By whom? By a pauper who has no stone on which to lay His head, by a Man of the People condemned to the death of slaves. What insult or what madness! It matters not. The Caesars marshal all their power; sanguinary edicts proscribe the fugitive; everywhere scaffolds rise up; amphitheatres open, crowded with lions and gladiators; pyres are lighted; torrents of blood flow; and the Caesars, believing themselves victorious, dare add another name to those they rehearse on their trophies. Then they die, and their own apotheosis dis honours the gods whom they defended. The hatred of the world confounds Jupiter and Nero in a common contempt. Temples transformed into tombs are cast down over proscribed ashes, and above the debris of idols, above ruins of empires. He only, lie whom the Caesars indicted, whom so many satellites pursued, whom so many executioners tortured, He only lives, alone reigns, alone triumphs!1
Notwithstanding, His own disciples speedily misuse His name; pride enters the sanctuary; those who should proclaim His resurrection seek to immortalize His death, that they may feed, like ravens, on His ever-renewing flesh. In place of imitating Him in His sacrifice and shedding their blood for their children in the faith, they chain Him in the Vatican, as upon another Caucasus, and become the vultures of this divine Prometheus. But what signifies their evil dream? They can only imprison His image; He Himself is free and erect, proceeding from exile to exile and from conquest to conquest. It is possible to bind a man but not to make captive the Word of God; speech is free, and nothing can repress it. This living speech is the condemnation of the wicked, and hence they seek to destroy it; but it is they only who die, and the Word of Truth remains to judge their memory!1 Orpheus may have been rent by bacchantes; Socrates may have quaffed the poisoned cup; Jesus and His apostles have perished in the utmost tortures; John Hus, Jerome of Prague, and innumerable others, have been burned; St Bartholomew and the massacres of September may have had in turn their victims; cossacks, knouts and Siberian deserts are still at the disposal of the Russian Emperor; but the spirit of Orpheus, of Socrates, of Jesus and of all martyrs will live for ever in the midst of their dead persecutors, will stand erect amidst decaying institutions and collapsing empires. It is this Divine Spirit, the Spirit of the only Son of God, which St John represents in his Apocalypse, standing between golden candlesticks, because He is the centre of all lights; having seven stars in His hand, like the seed of a new heaven; and sending down His speech upon the earth under the symbol of a two-edged sword. When the wise in their discouragement sleep through the night of doubt, the Spirit of Christ is erect and vigilant. When the nations, weary of the labour which emancipates them, lie down and dream over their chains, the Spirit of Christ is erect and protesting. When the blind partisans of sterilized religions cast themselves in the dust of old temples, the Spirit of Christ is erect and praying. When the strong become weak, when virtues are corrupted, when all things bend and sink down in search of a shameful pasture, the Spirit of Christ is erect, gazing up to heaven and awaiting the hour of His Father.
Christ signifies priest and king by excellence. The Christinitiator of modern times came to form new priests and new kings by science and, above all, by charity. The ancient Magi were priests and kings, and the Saviour's advent was proclaimed to them by a star.1 This star was the magical Pentagram, having a sacred letter at each point. It is the symbol of intelligence which rules by unity of force over the four elementary potencies; it is the Pentagram of the Magi, the Blazing Star of the Children of Hiram, the prototype of equilibrated light. Towards each of its points a beam of light ascends, and from each a beam goes forth; it represents the Grand and Supreme Athanor of Nature, which is the body of man. The magnetic influence issues in two rays from the head, from either hand and either foot. The positive ray is balanced by the negative. The head corresponds with the two feet, each hand with a hand and foot, each of the two feet with the head and one hand. This ruling sign of equilibrated light represents the spirit of order and harmony; it is the sign of the omnipotence of the Magus, and hence, when broken or incorrectly drawn, it represents astral intoxication, abnormal and ill-regulated projections of Astral Light and therefore bewitchments, perversity, madness—all that, in a word, which the Magi term the Signature of Lucifer. There is another signature which also symbolizes the Mysteries of Light, namely, the Sign of Solomon, whose talismans bear on one side the impression of his seal which we have given in our “Doctrine,” and on the other the following signature which is the hieroglyphic theory of the composition of magnets and represents the circulatory law of the lightning.
Rebellious spirits are enchained by the exhibition of the five-pointed Blazing Star or the Seal of Solomon, because each gives them proof of their folly and threatens them with a sovereign power capable of tormenting them by their recall to order. Nothing tortures the wicked so much as goodness. Nothing is more odious to madness than reason. But if an ignorant operator should make use of these signs without knowing them, he is like a blind man who discourses of light to the blind, an ass who would teach children to read.
“If the blind lead the blind,” said the Great and Divine Hierophant, “both fall into the pot.”
And now a final word to recapitulate this entire intro duction. If you be blind like Samson when you cast down the pillars of the temple, its ruins will crush you. To command Nature we must be above Nature, by resistance of her attractions. If your mind be perfectly free from all prejudice, superstition and incredulity, you will rule spirits. If you do not obey blind forces, they will obey you. If you be wise like Solomon, you will perform the works of Solomon; if you be holy like Christ, you will accomplish the works of Christ. To direct the currents of the inconstant light, we must be established in the constant light. To command the elements, we must have overcome their hurricanes, their lightnings, their abysses, their tempests. In order to DARE we must KNOW; in order to WILL, we must DARE; we must WILL to possess empire and to reign we must BE SILENT.
1 In the text of Éliphas Lévi, owing to his confused arrangement, it is impossible to say where this alleged quotation ends. The point at which I have closed it is quite speculative.
1 Compare on this subject the following extracts from Le Grand Arcane, pp. 8, 9 of the second edition: “The Astral Light or Great Agent of Life was called OD, OB and AOUR by the Hebrews. Magnetism directed by the will of the operator is OD, passive somnambulism is OB. This dual action is represented by the serpents of the Caduceus. The serpent on the right is OD, that on the left is OB, and in the centre, at the summit of the Hermetic Wand, there shines the golden globe which represents AOUR, or equilibrated Light. OD represents life in its free direction and OB fatal life. The whole secret of magnetism consists in ruling the fatality of OB by the intelligence and power of OD, in order to create the perfect equilibrium of AOUR.”
1 “God is the necessary hypothesis with which all certitudes are bound up.”—La Science des Esprits, p. 5.
1 “Christ is Priest and King by intelligence and love. He has received Holy Unction, Unction of genius, Unction of faith, Unction of virtue—which is force. He comes when the priesthood is exhausted, when the old symbols have lost their virtue, when the realm of intelligence is extinct. He comes calling back Israel to life, and if He cannot revivify Israel, killed by Pharisees, He resuscitates the world abandoned to the dead worship of idols. Christ is the right of duty.”—La Clef des Grands Mystères, p. 36. And again: “Christ is living duty protesting eternally against imaginary right; He is the liberation of the spirit bursting the bonds of flesh; He is self-devotion in revolt against egoism.”—Ibid., p. 37.
1 “There are so-called wise men who tell you that Christianity is in its death-throes and that the world of Jesus Christ is becoming rapidly a thing of the past. It is the old world which is expiring; it is idolatry that is passing away. The Gospel has been merely published: it has not reigned on earth. Catholicity, or the universality o
f a single religion, is still a principle only and is regarded as an Utopia by many. But principles are not Utopia; they are stronger than nations and kings, more durable than empires, more stable than worlds.”—La Science des Esprits, p. 221.
1 “Logic or Reason, the Logos of Supreme Power, is God. This Reason, this universal Logic enlightens all reasonable souls; it shines in the obscurities of doubt; it pierces, penetrates, rends the darkness of ignorance, and the darkness cannot apprehend, lay hold of or imprison it. This Reason speaks by the mouth of sages and has been summed up in One who is called therefore the LOGOS made flesh, or the great incarnate Reason.”—La Science des Esprits, p. 13. Compare ibid., p. 51; “The perfect Word is Divine Unity, expressed in human life.”
1 Compare La Science des Esprits, pp. 120, 121: “It has been said by Alfred de Vigny that legend is frequently truer than history, because it is concerned with the genius of great men and nations, not with their acts, which are often incomplete and abortive. This fine thought applies above all to the Gospel, because it is no mere recital of what was, it is the sublime revelation of what is and shall always be. Ever will the Saviour of the world be adored by kings of intelligence, represented by the Magi; ever will He multiply Eucharistic Bread to nourish and comfort souls; ever, when we call upon Him in night and storm, will He corne to us walking upon the water; ever will He strengthen our weakness and restore light to our eyes; ever will He appear to His faithful, luminous and transfigured upon Tabor, explaining the Law of Moses and moderating the zeal of Elias.”
CHAPTER I
PREPARATIONS
EVERY intention which does not assert itself by deeds is a vain intention, and the speech which expresses it is idle speech. It is action which proves life and establishes will. Hence it is said in the sacred and symbolical books that men will be judged, not according to their thoughts and their ideas, but according to their works. We must do in order to be.
