Transcendental Magic

by Eliphas Levi

  24. Influence of Jupiter.

  Birth of Japhet.

  25. Influence of Mercury.

  Tenth plague of Egypt.

  26. Influence of Mars.

  Deliverance of the Israelites and passage of the Red Sea.

  27. Influence of Diana, or Hecate.

  Splendid victory achieved by Judas Maccabeus.

  28. Influence of the Sun.

  Samson carries off the gates of Gaza. Day of strength and deliverance.

  29. The Fool of the Tarot.

  Day of failure and miscarriage in all things.

  We see from this rabbinical table, which John Belot and others borrowed from the Hebrew Kabalists,1 that these ancient masters concluded a posteriori from facts to presum able influences, which is completely within the logic of the occult sciences. We see also what diverse significations are included in the twenty-two Keys which form the universal alphabet of the Tarot, together with the truth of our affirmation, that all secrets of the Kabalah and Magic, all mysteries of the elder world, all science of the patriarchs, all historical traditions of primeval times, are enclosed in this hiero glyphic book of Thoth, Enoch or Cadmus.

  An exceedingly simple method of finding celestial horoscopes by onomancy is that which we are about to describe: it harmonizes Gaffarel with our own views, and its results are most astounding in their exactitude and depth. Take a black card; cut therein the name of the person for whom you wish to make the consultation; place this card at the end of a tube which must diminish towards the eye of the obser ver; then look through it alternately towards the four cardinal points, beginning at the east and finishing at the north. Take note of all the stars which you see through the letters; convert these letters into numbers, and, with the sum of the addition written down in the same manner, renew the operation; then compute the number of stars you have; next, adding this number to that of the name; cast up again and write the sum of the two numbers in Hebrew characters. Renew the operation; inscribe separately the stars which you have noticed; find the names of all the stars in the planisphere; classify them according to their size and brightness, choosing the most brilliant of all as the pole-star of your astrological operation; find lastly, in the Egyptian planisphere, the names and figures of the genii to which these stars belong. A good example of the planisphere will be found in the atlas to the great work of Dupuis. You will learn in this manner the fortunate and unfortunate signs which enter into the name of the person, and what is their influence; whether in childhood, which is the name traced at the east; in youth, which is the name traced at the south; in mature age, which is the name at the west; in decline, which is the name at the north; or finally, during the whole life, obtained from the stars which enter into the entire number formed by the addition of letters and stars. This astrological operation is simple, easy and calls for few calculations; it connects with the highest antiquity and belongs evidently to primitive patriarchal Magic, as will be seen by studying the works of Gaffarel and his master Rabbi Chomer. Onomantic astrology was practised by the old Hebrew Kabalists, as is proved from their observations preserved by Rabbi Chomer, Rabbi Kapol, Rabbi Abjudan and other masters in Kabalah. The menaces of the prophets uttered against various nations were based upon the characters of the stars found vertically over them in the permanent correspondence of the celestial and terrestrial spheres. Thus, by writing in the sky of Greece the Hebrew name of that country or , and translating in numbers,1 they obtained the word which signifies destroyed, desolated.

  Hence they inferred that after a cycle of twelve periods Greece would be destroyed and desolated. A short time before the sack of Jerusalem and its temple by Nebuchadnezzar, the Kabalists remarked eleven stars disposed in the following manner vertically above the temple:

  All these entered into the word written from south to west, the term signifying reprobation and abandonment without mercy. The sum of the number of the letters is 423, exactly the period of the duration of the temple. Destruction threatened the empires of Persia and Assyria, in the shape of four vertical stars which entered into the three letters , Roev, and the fatal period indicated was 208 years. So also four stars announced to the kabalistic rabbins of another epoch the fall and division of the empire of Alexander; they entered into the word , PARAD=to divide = 284, the number of this word, indicating the entire duration of the said empire, both as to root and branches. According to Rabbi Chomer, the destinies of the Ottoman power at Constantinople would be fixed and foretold by four stars, entering into the word , CAAH, signifying to be feeble, weak and drawing to its end. The stars being more brilliant in the letter , indicated a capital, and gave it the numerical value of a thousand. The three letters combined make 1025, which must be computed from the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II, a calculation which still promises several centuries of existence to the enfeebled empire of the sultans, sustained at present by all Europe combined. The MANE THECEL PHARES which Belshazzar, in his intoxication, saw written on the wall of his palace by the glare of torches, was an onomantic intuition similar to that of the rabbins. Initiated, no doubt, by his Hebrew diviners in the reading of the stars, Belshazzar went to work mechani cally and instinctively upon the lamps of his nocturnal feast, as he would upon the stars of heaven. The three words which he had formed in his imagination soon became indelible to his eyes and paled all the lights of his banquet. It was easy to predict an end like that of Sardanapalus to a king who abandoned himself to orgies in a besieged town.

  In conclusion, we have said and we repeat that magnetic intuitions alone give value and reality to these kabalistic and astrological calculations, puerile possibly and completely arbitrary when made without inspiration, by frigid curiosity and in the absence of a powerful will.

  1 My introduction To Eckartshausen's Cloud upon the Sanctuary, 3rd edition 1909, gives some account of the life and writings of this interesting German mystic, one of whose posthumous works was called The Magic of Nature. His Cloud is the only memorial of his activities which is now of real consequence.

  1 See Jeremiah i, 14. The Authorized Version reads: “Out of the North an evil shall break forth.” The variant suggested by Lévi is mere fantasy.

  2 This passage was written before the Crimean War.—NOTE OF LÉVI.

  1 The meaning is that man was created on the third day of the moon, which itself came into existence on the fourth day, according to Genesis.

  1 It should be understood that Belot knew nothing of Tarot cards, and if we could establish the identity of the unnamed other writers the same statement would apply to them. Belot was concerned with divinatory arts, chiromaney, physiognomy and the Luilian art of memory. The latest and best edition of Les Ceuvres de Jean Belot appeared at Rouen in 1669.

  1 It is impossible to understand Lévi's equivalents for Hebrew numbers.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  PHILTRES AND MAGNETISM

  LET us now adventure in Thessaly, the country of enchant ments. Here was Apuleius beguiled, like the companions of Ulysses, and underwent a humiliating metamorphosis. Here all is magical—the birds that fly, the insects humming in the grass, even the trees and flowers. Here in the moonlight are brewed those potions which compel love; here spells are devised by stryges to render them young and lovely like Charites. O all ye youths, beware!

  The art of poisoning reason, otherwise the art of philtres, seems indeed, if traditions may be trusted, to have developed its venomous efflorescence more abundantly in Thessaly than elsewhere. There also magnetism played its most important part, for stimulating or narcotic plants, bewitched and harmful animal substances, derived all their power from enchantments—that is to say, from sacrifices accom plished and words pronounced by sorcerers when preparing philtres and beverages. Inflaming substances, and those in which phosphorus predominates, are naturally aphrodisiacal. Anything which acts strongly on the nervous system may induce impassioned exaltation, and when a skilful and persevering will know show to direct and influence these natural tendencies, it can use the
desires of others to the profit of its own, and will soon reduce the most independent personalities into instruments of its pleasures. From such influence it behoves us to seek protection, and to give arms to the weak is our purpose in writing this chapter. Here, in the first place, are the devices of the enemy. The man who seeks to compel love—we attribute such unlawful manoeuvres to men only, assuming that women can never have need of them—must in the first place make himself observed by the person whom he desires and must contrive to impress her imagination. He must inspire her with admiration, astonishment, terror, and even with horror, failing all other resources; but at any cost he must set himself apart in her eyes from the rank of ordinary men and, with or against her will, must make himself a place in her memory, her apprehensions, her dreams. The type of Lovelace is certainly not the admitted ideal of the type of Clarissa, but she thinks of him incessantly to condemn him, to execrate him, to compassionate his victims, to desire his conversion and repentance. Next she seeks his regeneration by devotion and forgiveness. Later on secret vanity whispers to her how grand it would be to fix the affections of a Lovelace, to love him and yet to withstand him. Behold, then, Clarissa surprised into loving Lovelace! She chides herself, blushes, renounces a thousand times and loves him a thousand more. Then, at the supreme moment, she forgets to resist him. Had angels been women, as represented by modern mysticism, Jehovah indeed would have acted as a wise and prudent Father by placing Satan at the gate of heaven. It is a serious imposition on the self-love of some amiable women to find that man fundamentally good and honourable who enamoured them when they thought him a scapegrace. The angel leaves him disdainfully, saying: “You are not the devil!” Play the devil as well as you can, if you wish to allure an angel. No licence is possible to a virtuous man. “For what does he take us?” say the women. “Does he think us less strict than he is?” But everything is forgiven in a rascal. “What else could you expect?” The part of a man with high principles and of rigid character can never be a power save with women whom no one wishes to fascinate: the rest, without exception, adore reprobates. It is quite the opposite with men, and this contrast has made modesty woman's dower, the first and most natural of her coquetries. One of the distinguished physicians and most amiable men of learning in London— Dr Ashburner—told me last year that a certain client, after leaving the house of a distinguished lady, observed to him: “I have just had a strange compliment from the Marchioness of———. Looking me straight in the face, she said: ‘Sir, you will not make me flinch before your terrible glance: you have the eyes of Satan.’” “Well,” answered the doctor, smiling, “you, of course, put your arms round her neck and embraced her?” “Not at all; I was overwhelmed by her sudden onslaught.” “Beware how you call on her again, then, my friend; you will have fallen deeply in her estimation!”

  The office of executioner is commonly said to go down from father to son. Do executioners really have children? Undoubtedly, as they never fail to get wives. Marat had a mistress who loved him tenderly—he, the loathsome leper; but still it was that terrible Marat who caused the world to tremble. Love, above all in a woman, may be termed a veritable hallucination; for want of a prudent motive, it will frequently select an absurd one. Deceive Joconde for a clown, how awful!—Ah! but supposing it is awful, why not perpetrate it? It must be pleasant to be occasionally guilty of a small abomination.

  Given this transcendental knowledge of woman, another device can be adopted to attract her notice—not to concern oneself with her, or to do so in a way which is humiliating to her self-love, treating her as a child and deriding all notion of paying court to her. The parts are then reversed; she will move heaven and earth to tempt you; she will initiate you into secrets which women keep back; she will vest and unvest before you, making such observations as: “Between women—among old friends -I have no fear about you—you are not a man for me.” etc. Then she will watch your expression; if she find it calm and indifferent, she will be indignant; she will approach you under some pretext, brush you with her tresses, permit her bodice to slip open. Women, in such cases, occasionally will risk a violence, not out of desire, but from curiosity, from impatience and irritation. A magician of any spirit will need no other philtres than these; he will also use flattering words, magnetic breathings, slight but voluptuous contacts, by a kind of hypocrisy and as if unconscious. Those who resort to potions are old, idiotic, ugly, impotent. Where, indeed, is the use of the philtre? Anyone who is truly a man has always at his disposal the means of making himself loved, providing that he does not seek to unsurp a place which is occupied. It would be a sovereign blunder to attempt the conquest of a young and affectionate bride during the first felicities of the honeymoon, or of a fortified Clarissa made miserable already by a Lovelace, or bitterly lamenting her love.

  We shall not discuss here the impurities of Black Magic on the subject of philtres: we have done with the coctions of Canidia. The epodes of Horace tell us after what manner this abominable Roman sorceress compounded her poisons, while for the sacrifices and enchantments of love, we may refer to the Eclogues of Virgil and Theocritus, where the ceremonials for this species of magical work are described minutely. Nor shall we need to reproduce the recipes of the Grimoires or of the LITTLE ALBERT, which anyone can consult for themselves. All these various practices connect with magnetism or poisonous magic and are either foolish or criminal. Potions which enfeeble mind and disturb reason establish the empire already acquired by an evil will, and it was thus that the empress Caesonia is said to have fixed the savage love of Caligula. Prussic acid is the most terrible agent in these envenomings of thought; hence we should beware of all extractions with an almond flavour, and never tolerate in bedchambers the presence of bay-cherry, Datura stramonium, almond-soaps or washes, and gener ally all perfumes in which this odour predominates, above all when its action on the brain is seconded by that of amber.

  To weaken the activity of intelligence is to strengthen proportionally the forces of unreasoning passion. Love of that kind which the malefactors we are concerned with would inspire is a veritable stupefaction and the most shame ful of moral bondages. The more we enervate a slave, the more incapable we make him of freedom, and here lies the true secret of the sorceress in Apuleius and the potions of Circe. The use of tobacco, by smoking or otherwise, is a dangerous auxiliary of stupefying philtres and brain poisons. Nicotine, as we know, is not less deadly than prussic acid, and is present in tobacco in larger quantities than is this acid in almonds. The absorption of one will by another frequently changes a whole series of destinies, and not for ourselves only should we watch our relations, learning to distinguish pure from impure atmospheres, for the true philtres, and those most dangerous, are invisible. Such are the currents of vital radiating light, which, mingling and interchanging, produce attractions and sympathies, as magnetic experiments leave no room to doubt. The history of the Church tells us that an arch-heretic named Marcos infatuated all women by breathing on them; but his power was destroyed when a valiant Christian female forestalled him in breathing, and said to him: “May God judge thee!” The Cure Gaufridy, who was burnt as a sorcerer, pretended to enamour all women who came in contact with his breath. The notorious Father Girard, a Jesuit, was accused by his penitent, Mile Cardier, of destroying her self-control by breathing on her. Such a pretext was necessary to minimize the horrible and ridiculous nature of her accusations against this priest, whose guilt, moreover, has never been well established, though, consciously or unconsciously, he had certainly inspired an exceedingly shameful passion in the miserable girl.

  “Mile. Ranfaing, having become a widow in 16—,” says Dom Calmet in his Treatise on Apparitions, “was sought in marriage by a physician named Poirot. Failing to obtain a hearing, he thereupon gave her potions to induce love, and these caused extraordinary derangements in the health of the lady, increasing to such a degree that she was believed to be possessed, so that other physicians, baffled by her case, recommended her for the exorcisms of t
he Church. Thereupon, by command of M. de Porcelets, Bishop of Toul, the following were named as her exorcists: M. Viardin, doctor in theology, the state councillor of the Duke of Lorraine, a Jesuit and a capuchin. But in the long course of these ceremonies, almost all the clergy of Nancy, the aforesaid Lord Bishop, the Bishop of Tripoli, suffragan of Strasbourg, M. de Nancy, formerly ambassador of the most Christian King at Contantinople and then priest of the Oratory, Charles of Lorraine, Bishop of Verdun, two Sorbonne doctors specially deputed to assist, exorcised her frequently in Hebrew, in Greek and in Latin, and she invariably replied to them pertinently, though she herself could scarcely read even the last language. Mention is made of the certificate given by M. Nicholas de Harlay, learned in the Hebrew tongue, who recognized that Mile. Ranfaing was really possessed, that she had answered the mere motion of his lips without any uttered words, and given numerous other proofs. The sieur Gamier, doctor of the Sorbonne, having also adjured her several times in Hebrew, she replied lucidly, but in French, saying that the pact bound her to speak an ordinary tongue. The demon added: ‘Is it not sufficient for me to show that I understand what you say?’ The same doctor, addressing him in Greek, inadvertently used one case for another, whereupon the possesed woman, or rather the devil, said: ‘You have blundered.’ The doctor replied in Greek, ‘Point out my error.’ The devil answered, ‘Be satisfied that I mention the mistake: I shall tell you no more.’ The doctor bade him be silent in Greek, and he retorted, “You bid me hold my tongue, but for myself I decline to be silent.’

  “This remarkable example of hysterical affection carried into the region of ecstasy and demonomania, as the con sequence of a potion administered by a man who believed that he was a sorcerer, proves better than any argument the omnipotence of will and imagination reacting one upon another, and the strange lucidity of ecstatics or somnambu lists, who comprehend speech by reading it in thought, though they do not understand the words. I make no question as to the sincerity of the witnesses cited by Dom Calmet; I am merely astonished that men so serious failed to notice the pretended demon's difficulty over answering in a tongue foreign to the sufferer. Had their interlocutor been what they meant by a demon, he would have spoken as well as understood Greek: the one would have been as easy as the other to a spirit so acute and learned. Dom Calmet does not stop here with his history; he enumerates a long series of insidious questions and trivial injunctions on the part of the exorcisers, and a sequence of more or less congruous replies by the poor sufferer, still ecstatic and somnambulistic. It is needless to add that the excellent father draws precisely the luminous conclusions of the not less excellent M.- de Mirville.1 The phenomena being above the comprehension of the witnesses, they were all ascribed to perdition. Brilliant and instructed conclusion! The most serious part of the business is that the physician Poirot was arraigned as a magician, confessed like all others under torture, and was burnt. Had he, by any potion, really attempted the reason of the woman in question, he would have deserved punishment as a poisoner: this is the most that we can say.