Eliphas Levi
Paradoxes of the Highest Science
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Table of contents
Preface To The 1922 Second Edition
Foreword To The 1922 Second Edition
Second Preface
Paradox 1. Religion Is Magic Sanctioned By Authority
Paradox 2. Liberty Is Obedience To The Law
Paradox 3. Love Is The Realisation Of The Impossible
Paradox 4. Knowledge Is The Ignorance Or Negation Of Evil
Paradox 5. Reason Is God
Paradox 6. The Imagination Realises What It Invents
Paradox 7. The Will Accomplishes Everything, Which It Does Not Desire
SYNTHETIC RECAPITULATION
Magic And Magism
The Great Secret
Notes
Preface To The 1922 Second Edition
MANY paths lead to the
mountain-top,
and many and diverse are the rifts in the Veil, through which
glimpses may be obtained of the secret things of the Universe.
The Abbé Louis Constant, better
known by his nom de plume of ÉLIPHAS LÉVI, was doubtless
a seer; but, though his studies were by no means confined to this,
he
saw only through the medium of the kabala, the perfect sense of
which
is, now-a-days, hidden from all mere kabalists, and his
visions were consequently always imperfect and often much distorted
and confused.
Moreover, he was for a
considerable
portion of his career a Roman Catholic priest, and as such had to
keep terms, to a certain extent, with his church, and even later,
when he was unfrocked, he hesitated to shock the prejudices of the
public, and never succeeded in even wholly freeing himself from
the bias of his early clerical training. Consequently he not only
erred at times in good faith, not only constantly wrote ambiguously
to avoid a direct collision with his ecclesiastical chiefs or
current
creeds, but he not unfrequently put forward Dogmas, which, taken in
their obvious straightforward meanings, he certainly did
not believe--nay, I may say, certainly knew to be false. It is
quite true that, in many of these latter cases, an undercurrent of
irony may be discerned by those who know the truth, and that in all
the enlightened can sufficiently read between the lines to avoid
misconceptions. But these defects, the ineradicable bias of his
early
training, the very narrow standpoint from which he regarded
occultism, and the limitations to free expression imposed on him by
his position and temperament, seriously detract from the value of
all
Éliphas Lévi's writings.
Still, he was an eloquent and
learned man, and sufficiently advanced in occultism to render all
he
wrote on this subject interesting and more or less valuable to
earnest students of the Mysteries; and I have, therefore, thought
that fellow-searchers for the Hidden Truth would be well pleased to
obtain access to some important and hitherto unpublished writings
of
this great kabalist.
Hence this translation, which,
although absolutely without pretensions to literary merit, yet
does,
I hope and believe, everywhere fully and faithfully reproduce
the obvious meanings of the author, leaving, in all cases,
where this is so in the original, an inner meaning discernible by
those who KNOW. If in many places the language appears constrained
and awkward, this has arisen from the necessity of preserving
intact
the exoteric and esoteric meanings, which our author so loved to
combine in his epigrammatic sentences.
An eminent occultist, E. O., had
added a few notes to the MSS. before it reached my hands, and
these,
which I have reproduced (though some of them will seem
scarcely relevant to the uninitiated), merit the most
careful attention. I too have here and there ventured a few
remarks,
which must be taken for what they are worth. I do not always agree
with E. O., and, though perfectly aware that my opinion is as
nothing
when opposed to his, I did not think it honest to reproduce
remarks,
which I could not concur in, without recording my dissent.
For the rest, any reader who,
interested in these Paradoxes, yet feels uncertain at their
conclusion that he has fully grasped the author's meaning and
desires
to know more of this, may with advantage study Éliphas Lévi's other
works, viz.--
DOGME ET RITUEL DE LA HAUTE
MAGIE.
HISTOIRE DE LA MAGIE.
LA CLEF DES GRANDS MYSTÈRES.
LA
SCIENCE DES ÉSPRITS.
LE SORCIER DE MEUDON.
FABLES ET SYMBOLES.
Each one of these amongst, it must
be admitted, a mass of irrelevant and I had almost
said trashy matter, redeemed only by a grace of style
necessarily lost in any translation, throws some light upon each
one
of the others; and no one with any natural capacity for occultism
can
study these carefully, along with what is now published, without
clearly apprehending our author's views. These, however limited and
imperfect, were yet, to a great extent and so far as they went,
correct, and were moreover, if nothing else, far in advance of most
existing and accepted exoteric cosmogonies, theogonies and
religions.
One word more: Occultism has its
Physics and Metaphysics, its practical and theoretical sides.
Éliphas
Lévi was a theorist and, if we may judge from the nonsense given in
great detail in his RITUEL DE LA HAUTE MAGIE, profoundly ignorant
of
its practice. Of the Physics of Occultism nothing of any great
value
can be gathered by the uninitiated from his pages, though
reproducing, apparently without by any means fully comprehending
them, phrases and ideas from the older Hermetic works; secrets,
even
pertaining to this branch, lie buried, like mutilated
torsos, in his writings. But where the Metaphysics of Occultism are
concerned his works are often encrusted with real jewels that would
shine out far more clearly into the soul of the uninitiated but for
his persistent habit of laying on everywhere coats of Roman
Catholic
and orthodox whitewash, partly in his earlier days to avert the
antagonism of the church, partly to avoid shocking the religious
prejudices of his readers, and partly I suspect, because to the
last
some flavour of those prejudices clung even to his own mind.
To those then who desire to
acquire
proficiency in Practical Occultism, who crave long life, gifts and
powers, and a knowledge of the hidden things and laws of the
universe, a study of Éliphas Lévi's books would be almost time
wasted. Let them seek elsewhere for what they want, and if they
seek in earnest they will surely find it.
But by those who, careless of such
things, desire only to grapple with and assimilate the highest and
ultimate TRUTHS of Occultism more may perhaps be gleaned from his
pages by thoughtful study, than from those of any writer, past or
present, whose works are readily accessible to the world.
To such seekers I say, study
Éliphas
Lévi's works as a whole and ponder over them. Doubtless they are
encumbered by a mass of what, but for the elegance of the diction,
would deserve to be set down as twaddle. Doubtless our Abbé was a
true Frenchman, often aiming more at felicity of expression and
neatness of antithesis than at the simple truth, and ever ready to
jump from the sublimest spiritual truth to some cynical mundane
jest
by no means always in the best possible taste. Doubtless too he
perpetually wastes time (for most modern readers) in slaying over
again the already defunct bugbears, bogies and monsters of the
Roman
Catholic Church.
But none the less had he much real
occult learning, and this, though in a purposely bewildering,
inconsecutive and incoherent form, he put piecemeal on record in
his
various works.
Truly, though wrapped by his
eloquence in cloth of gold, not an inviting heap! Yet, despite the
mass of shells and sand and ancient fishy odours, the pearls are
there for those who truly seek. A hint in one work, a bantering
falsehood in one passage, will explain veiled truths in others; to
those who strive hard to grasp them his real meanings will become
clear; and though the labour be considerable and the results, even
when obtained, imperfect and requiring to be supplemented
elsewhere,
the trouble will not have been wasted; and those who have advanced
thus far will assuredly find unexpected help in completing their
task.
THE TRANSLATOR
Foreword To The 1922 Second Edition
THERE appear, in the early volumes
of The Theosophist, several fragments called "Unpublished
Writings of Éliphas Lévi." "Éliphas Lévi" was the
French Abbé Louis Constant, a priest who left the Roman Catholic
Church to devote himself to Kabbalistic Mysticism. One of these
"unpublished writings"--which however was not printed
in The Theosophist, but separately as a pamphlet, in the series
"Theosophical Miscellanies"--was commented upon in
footnotes by "E. O.", "Eminent Occultist."
Éliphas Lévi's essay, together with E. O.'s footnotes, was then
published, and the present publication is a reprint of this
"Theosophical Miscellany" printed in Calcutta in 1883.
There would be no point in
reprinting this old "propaganda literature" of the early
days of the Theosophical Society, but for the fact that "Eminent
Occultist" is the Master of the Wisdom now well known among
Theosophists under the initials "K. H." It is in a footnote
of the Master, in 1883, that first appears in Theosophical
literature
the assertion that Jesus Christ lived a century B. C. Surely
nothing
could be more beautiful about woman's rôle in life than what He
says
in the last of His footnotes.
Reading these notes of the Master
has inspired me and given me an insight into His mind. I have urged
their republication, hoping that others may receive from them what
I
have received.
C.J.
Second Preface
The history of western magic started about 4000
years ago. And since then it has been adding something to western
magic. Originally, the Latin word magus nominated the followers of
the spiritualist-priest class, and later originated to elect
‘clairvoyant, sorcerer’ and in a judgmental sense also ‘magician,
trickster’. Thus, the initial meaning of the word ‘magic’ was the
wisdoms of the Magi, that is the abilities of attaining
supernatural powers and energy, while later it became practical
critically to deceitful wizardry. The etymological descriptions
specify three significant features in the expansion of the notion
‘magic’:
1) Magic as a discipline of celestial natural forces and in
the course of formation
2) Magic as the exercise of such facts in divinations, visions and
illusion
3) Fraudulent witchery. The latter belief played a significant part
in the Christian demonization process.
The growth of the western notion ‘magic’ directed to extensive
assumptions in the demonological and astrophysical argument of the
Neoplatonists. Their tactic was grounded on the philosophy of a
hierarchically ordered outer space, where conferring to Plotinus
(C205–C270 AD) a noetic ingredient was shaped as the outcome of
eternal and countless radiation built on the ultimate opinion; this
in its chance contributed to the rise of psychic constituent, which
formed the basis of the factual world.
Furthermore, these diverse phases of release came to be measured as
convinced forces, which underneath the impact of innocent and evil
views during late ancient times were embodied as humans. The
hierarchical cosmos of Iamblichus simply demonstrates the
legitimacy of this process. In his work, the Neoplatonic cosmology
has initiated a channel through the syncretism distinctive of the
late antiquity and in the essence of Greco-Oriental dualism.
Superior productions are taken closer to inferior ones by various
midway creatures. The higher the site of the mediators, the further
they bear a resemblance to gods and whizzes; the minor they are,
the nearer they stand to the psychic-spiritual part. The
aforementioned group of intermediaries has been settled in order of
series on the origin of cosmic gravity.
Proclus (c410–485 AD) has described the system of magic origin
conversed above in better aspect: in the hierarchical shackles of
cosmic rudiments the power and nature of a firm star god disturbs
everything mediocre, and with growing distance the impact slowly
becomes weaker. The Humanists approached the Platonic notions from
the outlook of the bequest of late antiquity, and were thus first
familiarized to the Neoplatonic form of the doctrine.
And since Ficino’s work has been inscribed in the spirit of
emanation theory, and the author has been persuaded of the
existence of the higher and lower spheres of magic and powers
defined in Picatrix, he claims that planets and cosmic movements
have much to do with power and magic spirit.
Today’s occult marketplace also offers, in addition to books,
multifarious paraphernalia for practicing magic: amulets,
talismans, pendulums and magic rods. Though added with modern
essentials and pseudoscientific advices to give some weight to the
fundamentals, they are nothing but the leftovers of the western
ethnicities of magic.
Paradox 1. Religion Is Magic Sanctioned By Authority
MAGIC is the divinity of man
conquered by science in union with faith; the true Magi are
Men-Gods,
in virtue of their intimate union with the divine principle. They
are
without fear and without desires; they are dominated by no
falsehood;
they share no error; they love without illusion and suffer without
impatience, for they leave all to happen as it may, and repose in
the
quietude of the eternal thought. They lean upon religion, but
religion does not weigh on them; religion is the Sphynx which
obeys,
but never devours them. They know what religion is,
and they feel that it is necessary and eternal.
For debased souls religion is a
yoke
imposed, through self-interest, by the poltrooneries of fear and
the
follies of hope. For exalted souls religion is a force, springing
from an intensified reliance in the love of humanity.
Religion is the collective poesy
of
great souls. Her fictions are more true than Truth itself; vaster
than Infinity; more lasting than Eternity; in other words, they are
essentially paradoxical.
They are the dream of the Infinite
in the Unknown, of the Possible in the Impossible, of the Definite
in
the Indefinable, of Progress in the Immutable, of Absolute Being in
the Non-existent.
They are the ultimate rationale of
the Absurdity, which affirms itself, to deny doubt; they are the
science of foolishness, the embrace of Folly and Knowledge. They
are
the cries of the eagle mounting above the clouds, the roar of the
lion of the Apocalypse, that takes to itself wings and flies away;
the bellowing of the bull beneath the sacrificial knife, and the
never ending moan of mankind before the portals of the tomb.
For man, God is, and can only be,
the ideal of man. In himself, he is the unknown, but in his
revelation, at once divine and human, he is paradoxical man, the
substantial without substance, the personal without definition, the
immutable which transforms itself but has no form, the omnipotent
ever struggling with the weakness of man, the serenity which
thunders, the mercy which damns, the infinite goodness which
tortures, the eternity which perishes; an infinite contradiction;
the
abyss of the human heart, serving as a world for an insatiable and
terrifying idol; the cruelty of Nero, the policy of Tiberius
drinking
the blood of Jesus Christ,
1
a pope emperor, or an emperor
antipope, the king of kings, the pontiff of pontiffs, the
executioner
of executioners, the physician of physicians, the liberator of the
free, the inflexible master of slaves.
God is everywhere the ideal of
those
who ignorantly adore him; ferocious amongst savages, instinct with
human passions amidst the Greeks, an Oriental despot for the Jews,
jealous and merciless for the Ultramontanes as a celibate priest.
One
and all create a personage whom they endow in an infinite degree
with
their own characteristics and their own defects.
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!