Transcendental Magic

by Eliphas Levi

  1 It should be understood that Éliphas Lévi is laying down a rule of his own manufacture. There is no general law of this kind in the procedure of Ceremonial Magic, though in particular cases there may be a preliminary purification extended over forty days.

  2 There is no authority for either of these figures, and it is obvious that—however calculated—the first in total numeration exceeds forty.

  1 “True religion is universal religion, and hence that which is called catholic alone bears the name which connotes truth. This religion, moreover, possesses and preserves the orthodoxy of dogma, the hierarchy of powers, the efficacity of worship and the true magic of ceremonial. It is therefore the typical and normal religion, whereunto the traditions of Moses and the antique oracles of Hermes belong rightfully. In sustaining this—if it must be—notwithstanding His Holiness, we shall be at need more catholic than the pope and more protestant than Luther.”—Le Grand Arcane, p. 32. Elsewhere Éliphas Lévi illustrated further his peculiar brand of protesting Catholicism by two other affirmations: (1) The truly universal Catholicism—hereof are reason and truth; (2) Exclusively Roman Catholicism—hereof are absurdity and falsehood.—Le Livre des Sages, p. 63. But the counterblast to this had appeared earlier, when it was affirmed categorically that “outside the Ship of Peter there is only the abyss”.—La Clef des Grands Mystères, p. 85

  CHAPTER II

  MAGICAL EQUILIBRIUM

  EQUILIBRIUM is the consequence of two forces. If two forces are absolutely and invariably equal, the equilibrium will be immobility and therefore the negation of life. Move ment is the result of an alternate preponderance. The impulsion given to one of the sides of a balance necessarily determines the motion of the other. Thus contraries act on one another, throughout all Nature, by correspondence and analogical connexion. All life is composed of an inspiration and a respiration; creation postulates a shadow to serve as a bound for light, of a void to serve as space for the plenitude, of a passive fructified principle to sustain and realize the power of the active generating principle. All Nature is bisexual, and the movement which produces the appearances of death and life is a continual generation. God loves the void, which He made in order to fill it; science loves the ignorance which it enlightens; strength loves the weakness which it supports; good loves the apparent evil which glorifies it; day is desirous of night, and pursues it unceasingly round the world; love is at once a thirst and a plenitude which must pour itself forth. He who gives receives, and he who receives gives; movement is a continual interchange. To know the law of this change, to be acquainted with the alternate or simultaneous proportion of these forces, is to possess the first principles of the Great Magical Arcanum, which constitutes true human divinity.1 Scientifically, we can appreciate the various manifestations of the universal movement through electric or magnetic phenomena. Electrical apparatuses above all reveal materially and positively the affinities and antipathies of certain substances. The marriage of copper with zinc, the action of all metals in the galvanic pile, are perpetual and unmistakable revelations. Let physicists seek and find out; ever will the Kabalist explain the discoveries of science!

  The human body is subject, like the earth, to a dual law, it attracts and it radiates; it is magnetized by an androgyne magnetism and reacts inversely on the two powers of the soul, the intellectual and sensitive, but in proportion to the alternating preponderances of the two sexes in their physical organism. The art of the magnetizer consists wholly in the knowledge and use of this law. To polarize action and impart to the agent a bisexual and alternate force is a method still unknown and sought vainly for directing the phenomena of magnetism at will. Highly trained judgement and great precision in the interior movements are required to prevent confusion between signs of magnetic inspiration and those of respiration. We must be perfectly acquainted, moreover, with occult anatomy and the special temperament of the persons on whom we are operating. Bad faith and bad will in subjects constitute the gravest hindrance to the direction of magnetism. Women above all—who are essentially and invariably actresses, who take pleasure in impressing others so that they may impress themselves, and are the first to be deceived when playing their neurotic melodramas—are the true Black Magic of magnetism. So is it for ever impossible that magnetizers who are uninitiated in the supreme secrets and unassisted by the lights of the Kabalah should govern this refractory and fugitive element. To be master of woman, we must distract and deceive her skilfully by allowing her to suppose that it is she who is deceiving us. This advice, which we offer chiefly to magnetic physicians, might find its place and application in conjugal polity.

  Man can produce two breathings at his pleasure, one warm and the other cold; he can project also either active or passive light at will; but he must acquire the conscious ness of this power by dwelling habitually thereon. The same manual gesture may assimilate and give forth alternately what we are accustomed to call the fluid, and the magnetizer will himself be warned of the result of his intention by an alternative sensation of warmth and cold in the hand, or in both hands when both are being used, which sensation the subject should experience at the same time, but in a contrary sense, that is, with a wholly opposite alternative.

  The Pentagram, or Sign of the Microcosmos, represents, among other magical mysteries, the double sympathy of the human extremities with each other and with the circulation of the Astral Light in the human body. Thus, when a man is represented in the star of the Pentagram, as may be seen in the Occult Philosophy of Agrippa, it should be observed that the head corresponds in masculine sympathy with the right foot and in feminine sympathy with the left foot; that the right hand corresponds in the same way with the left hand and left foot, and reciprocally of the other hand. This must be borne in mind when making magnetic passes, if we seek to govern the whole organism and bind all members by their proper chains of analogy and natural sympathy. Similar knowledge is required for the use of the Pentagram in the Conjuration of Spirits, and in the evoca tion of forms errant in the Astral Light, vulgarly called Necromancy, as we shall explain in the fifth chapter of this “Ritual”. But it is well to observe here that every action promotes a reaction, and that in magnetizing others, or influencing them magically, we establish between them and ourselves a current of contrary but analogous influence which may subject us to them instead of subjecting them to us, as happens frequently enough in those operations which have the sympathy of love for their object. Hence it is highly essential to be on our guard while we are attacking, so as not to inspire on the left while we respire on the right. The magical androgyne depicted in the frontispiece of the “Ritual” has SOLVE inscribed upon the right and COAGULA on the left arm, thus recalling the symbolical architects of the Second Temple, who bore the sword in one hand and their trowel in the other. While building they had also to defend their work and disperse their enemies. Nature her self does likewise, destroying and regenerating at the same time. Now, according to the allegory of Duchentau's Magical Calendar, man, that is to say, the initiate, is the ape of Nature, who confines himself by a chain but makes him act unceasingly, imitating the proceedings and works of his divine mistress and imperishable model.

  The alternate use of contrary forces, warmth after cold, mildness after severity, love after anger, etc., is the secret of perpetual motion and the permanence of power. Coquettes know this instinctively, and hence they make their admirers pass from hope to fear, from joy to despondency. To operate always on the same side and in the same manner is to overweight one basin of the balance, and complete destruction of equilibrium is a rapid result. Continual caressings beget satiety, disgust and antipathy, just as constant coldness and severity in the long run alienate and discourage affection. An unvarying and ardent fire in alchemy calcines the First Matter and not seldom explodes the Hermetic Vessel: the heat of lime and mineral manure must be substituted at regular intervals for the heat of flame. And so also in Magic: works of wrath or severity must be tempered by those of beneficence and love. If t
he will of the operator be ever at the same tension and directed along the same line, great weariness will ensue, together with a species of moral impotence.

  Thus, the Magus should not live altogether in his laboratory, among his Athanors, Elixirs and Pantacles. However riveting be the glance of that Circe who is called occult power, we must be able to confront her on occasion with the sword of Ulysses, and resolutely withdraw our lips for a time from the chalice which she offers us. A magical operation should be followed by a rest of equal length and a distraction analogous but contrary in its object. To strive continually against Nature in order to rule and conquer her is to risk reason and life. Paracelsus dared to do so, but even in the struggle itself he employed equilibrated forces and opposed the intoxication of wine to that of intelligence.1 So was Paracelsus a man of inspiration and miracles; yet his life was exhausted by this devouring activity, or rather its vestment was rapidly rent and worn out. But men like Paracelsus use and abuse fearlessly; they know that they can no more die than grow old here below.

  Nothing disposes us towards joy so effectually as sorrow; nothing is nearer to sorrow than joy. Hence the uninstructed operator is astounded by attaining the very opposite of his proposed results, because he does not know how to cross or alternate his action. He seeks to bewitch his enemy but himself becomes ill and miserable; he desires to make him self loved, and is consumed for women who deride him; he endeavours to produce gold, and he exhausts all his resources; his torture is that of Tantalus: ever does the water flow back when he stoops down to drink. The ancients in their symbols and magical operations multiplied the signs of the duad, so that its law of equilibrium might be remembered. In their evocations they constructed two altars and immolated two victims, one white and one black; the operator, whether male or female, holding a sword in one hand and a wand in the other, had one foot shod and the other bared.1 Moreover, either one or three persons were required for magical works, because the duad would mean immobility or death in the absence of an equilibrating motor; and when a man and a woman participated in the ceremony, the operator was always a virgin, a hermaphrodite, or a child. I shall be asked whether the eccentricity of these Rites is arbitrary, and whether its one end is the exercise of the will by the mere multiplication of difficulties in magical work? I answer that in Magic there is nothing arbitrary, because everything is ruled and predetermined by the one and universal dogma of Hermes, that of analogy in the three worlds. Each sign corresponds to an idea and to the special form of an idea; each act expresses a volition corre sponding to a thought, and formulates the analogies of that thought and will. The Rites are, therefore, prearranged by the science itself. An uninstructed person who is not acquainted with the threefold power is subject to its mysterious fascination; the sage understands it and makes it the instrument of his will. When the work is accomplished with exactitude and faith, it is never ineffectual.

  All magical instruments must be duplicated; there must be two swords, two wands, two cups, two chafing-dishes, two pantacles and two lamps; two vestments must be worn, one over the other, and they must be of contrasted colours, a rule still followed by Catholic priests; lastly, two metals must be worn at least, or otherwise none. The crown of laurel, rue, mugwort or vervain must be double, in like manner; one of them is used in evocations, while the other is burnt, the crackling which it makes and the curls of the smoke which it produces being observed as an augury. Nor is such observance vain, for in the magical work all instruments of art are magnetized by the operator; the air is charged with his perfumes, the fire which he has consecrated is subject to his will, the forces of Nature seem to hear and answer him: he reads in all forms the modifications and complements of his thought. He perceives the water agitated and, as it were, bubbling of itself, the fire blazing up or going out suddenly, the leaves of garlands rustling, the magical rod moving spontaneously and strange, unknown voices passing through the air. It was in such evocations that Julian beheld the beloved phantoms of his dethroned gods, and was appalled at their decrepitude and pallor.

  I am aware that Christianity has for ever suppressed Ceremonial Magic, and that it proscribes the evocations and sacrifices of the old world. It is not therefore our intention to furnish a new basis for their existence by revealing their antique mysteries after the lapse of so many centuries. Even in the order of facts, our experiments have been learned researches and nothing more. We have verified facts that we might appreciate causes, and it has not been our preten sion to restore Rites which are for ever destroyed. The orthodoxy of Israel, that religion which is so rational, so divine and so ill known, condemns no less than Christianity the mysteries of Ceremonial Magic. From the standpoint of the tribe of Lévi, the exercise of Transcendental Magic must be considered as a usurpation of the priesthood; and the same reason has caused the proscription of Operative Magic by every official cultus. To demonstrate the natural foundation of the marvellous and to produce it at will is to annihilate for the vulgar mind that convincing evidence from miracles which is claimed by each religion as its exclusive property and its final argument. Respect for established religions, but room also for science! We have passed, thank God, the days of inquisitions and pyres; unhappy men of learning are no longer murdered on the faith of a few distraught fanatics or hysterical girls. For the rest, let it be understood clearly that our undertaking is concerned with curious studies and not with an impossible propaganda. Those who may blame us for daring to term ourselves Magician have nothing to fear from the example, it being wholly improbable that they will ever become sorcerers.

  1 Compare Le Grand Arcane, p. 66, according to which “the Supreme Secret is that of unfettered rule over equilibrated movement”.

  1 Miss Stoddart's Life of Paracelsus—drawing from German apologists—accounts for the alleged excesses of the Sage of Hohenheim as slanders invented by his enemies.

  1 There seems no authority in the records of magical practice for these duplications, those of the instruments included.

  CHAPTER III

  THE TRIANGLE OF PANTACLES

  THE Abbot Trithemius, who in Magic was the master of Cornelius Agrippa, explains, in his Steganography, the secret of Conjurations and Evocations after a very natural and philosophical manner, though possibly, for that very reason, too simply and too easily.1 He tells us that to evoke a spirit is to enter into the dominant thought of that spirit, and if we raise ourselves morally higher along the same line, we shall draw the spirit away with us, and it will serve us. To conjure is to oppose the resistance of a current and a chain to an isolated spirit—cum jurare, to swear together, that is, to make a common act of faith. The greater the strength and enthusiasm of this faith, the more efficacious is the conjuration. This is why new-born Christianity silenced the oracles; it alone possessed inspiration, it only force. Later on, when St Peter grew old, that is, when the world believed that it had a legal case against the Papacy, the spirit of prophecy came to replace the oracles. Savonarola, Joachim of Flores, John Huss and so many others influenced by turns the minds of men and interpreted, by lamentations and menaces, the secret anxieties and protestations of all hearts.

  We may act individually when evoking a spirit, but to conjure we must speak in the name of a circle or an association: this is the significance of the hieroglyphical circle inscribed about the Magus who is operating, and out of which he must not pass unless he wishes at the same moment to be stripped of all his power. Let us deal at this point with the vital and palmary question, whether the real evocation and real conjuration of spirits are things possible, and whether such possibility can be demonstrated scientifically. To the first part of the question it may be replied out of hand that everything which is not an evident impossibility can and must be admitted provisionally.1 As to the second part, we affirm that in virtue of the Great Magical Dogma of the hierarchy and of universal analogy, the kabalistic possibility of real evocations can be demonstrated; concerning the phenomenal reality consequent upon magical operations accomplished with since
rity, this is a matter of experience. As already narrated, we have established it in our own persons, and by means of this “Ritual” we shall place our readers in a position to renew and confirm our experiences.

  Nothing perishes in Nature; whatsoever has lived goes on living, always under new forms; but even the anterior forms are not destroyed, since they remain in our memory. Do we not still see in imagination the child whom we once knew, though now he is an old man? The very traces which we believe to be effaced from our memory are not in reality blotted out, for a fortuitous circumstance may evoke and recall them. But after what manner do we see them? As we have already said, it is in the Astral Light, which transmits them to our brain by the mechanism of the nervous system. On the other hand, all forms are proportional and analogical to the idea which has determined them; they are the natural character, the signature of that idea, as the Magi term it, and so soon as the idea is evoked actively the form is realized and bodied forth. Schroepffer, the famous illumine of Leipzig, terrified all Germany with his evocations, and his audacity in magical experiments was so great that his reputation became an insupportable burden. He allowed himself to be carried away by the immense current of hallucinations which he had produced; the visions of the other world disgusted him with this, and he killed himself. His story should be a warning to those who are fascinated by Ceremonial Magic. Nature is not outraged with impunity, and no one can play safely with unknown and incalculable forces. It is this consideration which has led and will ever lead us to deny the vain curiosity of those who would see in order that they may believe, and we reply to them in the same words as we replied to an eminent Englishman who threatened us with his scepticism: “You are perfectly within your right in refusing to believe: for our own part, it will not make us more discouraged or less convinced.” To those who may assure us that they have scrupulously and boldly fulfilled all the Rites and that there has been no result, we would recommend that they should stay their hand, as it is possibly a warning of Nature, who will not lend herself to them for these anomalous works; but if they persist in their curiosity, they have only to start afresh.