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The Mysteries of Magic

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The Mysteries of Magic , THE fl-'f &°F§f?/if MYSTERIES ODF MAGIC - 4 A DIGEST OF THE WRITINGS OF ' ELIPHAS LE£ KI WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL ESSAY BY ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE _ " Mon livre sen sans portée pour mon siécle .... mais que m`imponeT }'ai voué mg vie A ln vérité, ct je Ie din pour qui voudra et saurx Veutendre. Sl cs N`ss'r us mms un joun, u. sum mms Us AN, SI cz N'us~r ns mms un Ames sun mms un sxkcu. Mus ' js suis TIANQUILLB CAR ja s/us Q|:`o ' v||sNu|u."-Ln Scinuce dr: Es):-its, p. l3» ' L O N D O N GEORGE REDWAY, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN 1886 /' 5/-'/4,/2 C74 !|UiH|VWW}|I|I>|H|lHHHH|MUNI 32101 006495343 C O N T E N T S. PAAE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF ALPHONSE LOUIS CONSTANT . xi CRITICAL ESSAY ON HIS WRITINGS . xvii lN'1`RODUC'I`ION ....... I INITIATORY EXERCISES AND PREPARATIONS . _ zz RELIGIOUS AND PHII.OsOI>I~IICAI, PROBLEMS AND HvI=O~ TI-IEsEs-- TI-IE HERMETIC AxIOM _ 33 I-*AITI-I. _ __ 34 THE TRUE GOD . 38 THE CHRIST OI-' GOD _ 42 MYSTERIES OF THE LOGOS 48 THE TRUE RELIGION .... _ . _ 52 THE REASON OF PRODIGIES, OR THE DEVIL EEI-'ORE SCIENCE ...... 6O SCIENTIFIC AND MAGICAL THEOREMS-- ON NUMBERS AND THEIR vIR'rUEs 66 THEORY OF WILL-POWER . 70 THE TRANSLUCID ........ 73 THE GREAT MAGIC AGENT, OR THE MYSTERIES OF THE ' ASTRAL LIGHT ........ 74 MAGICAI. EQUILIERIUM . 79 THE MAGIC CHAIN . _ 83 THE GREAT MAGIC ARCANUM . 89 VIII CONTENTS. THE Doc'rR1NE OF SPIRITUAL ESSENCES, on KABBALISTIC PNEUMATICS; wr'r1~1 T1-11: MYSTERIES or EVOCATION, N1~:cRoMANcv, AND BLACK MAGIC- INTRODUCTION ..... 94 IMMORTALITY . 96 THE ASTRAL BODY .... 97 UNITY AND SOLIDARITY OF SPIRITS . ~. I O0 THE GREAT ARCANUM OF DEATH, OR SPIRITUAL TRAN- - SITION . ....... 1o2 HIERARCHY AND CLASSIFICATION OF SPIRITS 109 FLUIDIC PHANTOMS AND THEIR MYSTERIES . _ . 113 ELEMENTARY SPIRITS AND THE RITUAL OF THEIR CON- JURATION ......... 118 NECROMANCY ......... 128 MYSTERIES OF THE PENTAGRAM AND OTHER PANTACLES 136 MAGICAL CEREMONIAL AND CONSECRATION OF TALIS- MANS ........ 143 BLACK MAGIC, AND THE SECRETS OF 'l`HE WITCHES' SABBATH . ....... 154 WITCHCRAFT AND SPELLS 164 THE KEY OF MESMERISM 177 MODERN SPIRITISM . ..... _ . 181 THE GREAT PRACTICAL SECRETS, OR REALISATIONS OF MAGICAL SCIENCE- INTRODUCTION . 194 THE MAGNI/M OPUS . 196 THE UNIVERSAL MEDICINE . 206 . 211 RENEWED YOUTH . TRANSFORMATIONS . 214 DIVINATION . 222 ASTROLOGY ........ 226 THE TAROT, THE BOOK OF HERMES, OR OF THOTH . 242 ETERNAL LIFE, OR PROFOUND PEACE . 265 CONTENTS. IX EPILOGUE- 1. THE v1s1oN or Tm; WANDERING Jzzlv 271 2. 'rms 1-Am~:v1~:u. 'ro CALVARY _ _ 274 3. THE REIGN or THE massmx-1 _ 277 4. THE FINAL VISION 279 SUPPLELQENT- _ :ms KABBALAH _ _ .' _ . 283 THAUMATURGICAL EXPERIENCES OF PSLIPHAS LEVI- EVOCATION ox# APOLLONl`US OF TYANA . _ . 309 GHOOTS IN PARIS-THE MAGICIAN AND 'rim MEDIUM-ELYPHAS Ll§Vl AND 'rx-IE SECT on-' EUGENE v1N°rRAs ...... 313 THE MAGxcIAN AND THE soxcsman-sscmaf ms- rokv or THE ASSASSINATION OF THE ARCH- BISHOP OF PARIS . , . 326 NOTES 342 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL ESSAY. DESPITE the wide reputation in his own country and the growing European celebrity of the great French Kabbalist and occultist, who, in the third quarter of this century, published his immortal elucidations of the Mysteries of Magic for the instruction of France and the world, under the Hebraistic pseudonym of Iiliphas Lévi Zahed, the materials for a biography of Alphonse Louis Constant are meagre and unsatisfactory in the extreme. He was born in an obscure street of Paris, and was the son of a shoe~ maker in a small way of business, and apparently in the poorest circumstances. The exact date of his birth I am unable to state, but it was at the beginning of the century, and probably at or about the year 1809. He was delicate in his childhood,* and received no regular education, "but his ,aptitude for learning, and his avidity for picking up stray bits of knowledge were so great that at last the " neighbours used to talk of him as 'the clever lad." *I* This precocity introduced him to the notice of the Cure of his parish, who obtained him a gratuitous education at the Seminary of Saint Sulpice, where he entered on his studies for the priesthood, and in addition to pronciency in the two languages of classical antiquity which would be expected of an ordinary ecclesiastic, he became "a first-rate Hebrew scholar." Thus in this probationary period, he laid the foundations of that Kabbalistic knowledge which eventually led him through the darkest paths of esoterism to his recon- ciliation of religion and science. Grave doubts on matters of doctrinal belief presented themselves at an early period to his mind, but they were probably the result of an acquaintance with Voltairian free-thought, which is the basis of his occult philosophy, rather than of a juvenile initiation into the mysteries of magical art. His friend and disciple, the famous chiromancist Desbarrolles, speaks of his religious i ' þÿD¢Sb3HOll ¬S-M]$l@f£Idc Ia Alain. 1' Thevrnphirl, jan. 1886. xii BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL EssAY. exaltations, and of those doubts and scruples which led him to relinquish the sacerdotal career when on the point of engaging himself definitely and irrevocably therein. On this point we are indebted to Madame Gebhard for the following curious story:- " Before his last vows were taken he was sent as a punish- ment to an old out-of-the-way monastery, it having been discovered that he had on several occasions, while preaching in some country villages, given expression to opinions which were not considered consistent with the Catholic faith. He was kept a prisoner in this monastery for some months. His food was very scanty, consisting of little more than bread and water. He had a large room allotted to him on the ground Hoor; the roof was vaulted, bare cold stones formed the floo,r, and the furniture consisted of a pallet bed, one chair, and a table. " This part of the monastery was said to be haunted, and he once related a very curious anecdote in connection with it. One night being in the dark (for he was not allowed a light), he heard sounds as if an immense number of people were marching across the end of the room ; they seemed to come in at one door and go out at another, though in the day~time he had never found any second mode of ingress or egress. "After passing many agitated and unpleasant hours, he slept, and on awakening towards dawn saw the figure of a monk sitting by his side. He was startled, thinking it was ' a ghost, when the apparition said to him, Do not fear; I am not a denizen of the other world, but a real living man.' This monk proved a good friend to him, for from that day he was better treated, received sufficient food, was given a smaller and more comfortable room, and had even books lent to him, and writing materials placed at his disposal." Whatever may be otherwise thought of this story, the imprisonment of Louis Constant was not of a very rigor- ous kind; the description of his original cell corresponds, except in the matter of size, to those which are in daily use among many monks of unblemished orthodoxy, and it is difficult to see how a young cleric who had not taken final vovs, and could have been only in minor orders, vas permitted to perambulate the country preaching indepen- dently, in defiance of all the law and order so scrupulously observed in these matters by the whole of the Latin Church. BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL ESSAY. xiii Even the preaching of deacons who have taken irrevo- cable vows, is a wholly exceptional thing. Nevertheless, as a friend and a pupil of Iiliphas Lévi in the advancing years of his life, Madame Gebhard had good opportunities to ascertain the facts of the case, and, of course, her autho- rity is very high. That delightful little pastoral story, Le Sorczkr de Mmdon, * which liliphas describes as "d pm prés notre éiograp/zz2'," apparently gives us an idealised picture of the writer's monastic experiences. The Frére Lubin of that story is the young Alphonse Louis Constant. Maitre Francois Rabelais, " Ze Frére M'¢"decin," personifies the occult sciences, and surely it is a device of no ordinary genius to embody the sublime wisdom of the Magi, which supplies to all " the most efficacious consolations and the most salutary coun- sels," in "la persomze sacrée du jbyeux cure' de Meudon," " that supreme magician of the gay science in a century of furious fanaticism and insane extravagance." * Eliphas Lévi at length retumed to the world; as in so many candidates for the Catholic priesthood, it was pro- bably the scruples to which Desbarrolles refers as much as the doubts which interfered with his vocation. It does not appear that he was on bad terms in after life with his ecclesiastical superiors, for in the year 1850 I find him con- tributing to that noble and marvellous series of cheap theological encyclopxdias projected by the Abbé Migne, his voluminous and interesting " Dictionary of Christian Literature," which is a perfectly orthodox work, though it avoids dangerous and debateable subjects. His renuncia- tion of the sacerdotal career was followed by a runaway " marriage with a beautiful young girl of sixteen," who " was the exquisitely-sketched Madeline, la gentille et blonde " " petitejouwncelle of the Sorcier de Meudon." The parents of the young lady, who had originally refused their consent, became afterwards reconciled to the match in spite of this escapade, but "the union," says Madame Gebhard, "was unfortunately not a happy one; they lost their two children at an early age, and one morning Eliphas woke up to find that his wife had left him for ever.
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