[35] There is no real analogy between the image attributed to Pascal and that of the Zoharic Book of Concealment. I have not verified the reference to Pascal, as the opportunity is not given by Lévi, but I have explained elsewhere that the idea was probably drawn from S. Bonaventura, who speaks of that sphæra intelligibilis, cujus centrum est ubique et circumferentia nusquam. See Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum. I have inferred that S. Bonaventura himself derived from a Hermetic book. As regards the symbolism of the Balance, the Book of Concealed Mystery says (a) that in creating the world, God weighed in the Balance what had not been weighed previously, (b) that the Balance was suspended in a region where before there was no Balance, (c) that it served for bodies as well as souls, for beings then in existence and for those who would exist subsequently. These are the only references to this subject found in the tract.
[36] As such it is old, and a monograph on the subject is included by Jacob Bryant in his Analysis of Antient Mythology, vol. ii. p. 38 et seq. Following the authorities of his period, and especially Huetius, he says that “they have supposed a Zoroaster, wherever there was a Zoroastrian: that is, wherever the religion of the Magi was adopted, or revived.” The two Zoroasters of Lévi represent two principles of religious philosophy.
[37] An English translation of the Chaldæan Oracles by Thomas Taylor, the Platonist, claims to have added fifty oracles and fragments not included in the collection of Fabricius. Mr. Mead says that the subject was never treated scientifically till the appearance of J. Kroll’s De Oraculis Chaldaicis at Breslau, in 1894.
[38] It must be understood that this summary or digest is an exceedingly free rendering, and it seems scarcely in accordance with the text on which Éliphas Lévi worked. Following the text of Kroll, Mr. Mead translates the first lines as follows: “Nature persuades us that the Daimones are pure, and things that grow from evil matter useful and good.” The last lines are rendered: “But when thou dost behold the very sacred Fire with dancing radiance flashing formless through the depths of the whole world, then hearken to the Voice of Fire.”
[39] See my Key to the Tarot, 1910, p. 32, and the cards which accompany this handbook. See also my Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1911, pp. 144-147.
[40] One of the Chaldæan Oracles has the following counsel: “Labour thou around the Strophalos of Hecate,” which Mr. G. R. S. Mead translates: “Be active (or operative) round the Hecatic spinning thing.” He adds by way of commentary that Strophalos may sometimes mean a top. “In the Mysteries tops were included among the playthings of the young Bacchus, or Iacchus. They represented ... the fixed stars (humming tops) and planets (whipping tops).”—The Chaldæan Oracles, vol. ii. pp. 17, 18.
[41] Accepting this definition of the term of occult research, we can discern after what manner it differs from the mystic term. The one, by this hypothesis, is lucidity obtained in artificial sleep which stills the senses, and the other is Divine Realisation in the spirit after the images of material things and of the mind-world have been cast out, so that the sanctified man is alone with God in the stillness.
[42] This was La Magie Dévoilée, which was circulated in great secrecy. Later on, and probably after the decease of the author, it appeared in the ordinary way, and in 1886 an English translation was announced under the editorship of Mr. J. S. Farmer, but I believe that it was never published.
[43] Éliphas Lévi adds in a note that, according to Suidas, Cedrenus and the Chronicle of Alexandria it was Zoroaster himself who, seated in his palace, disappeared suddenly and by his own will, with all his secrets and all his riches, in a great peal of thunder. He explains that every king who exercised divine power passed for an incarnation of Zoroaster, and that Sardanapalus converted his pyre into an apotheosis.
[44] The analysis of Éliphas Lévi requires to be checked at all points. He followed the Latin version of Anquetil Duperron, made from a Persian text, and this is so rare as to be almost unobtainable. I shall therefore deserve well of my readers by furnishing the following extract from Deussen’s Religion and Philosophy of India, regarding the Oupnek’hat: