The history of magic

by Éliphas Lévi

The heat, light, electricity and magnetism of modern chemists and physicists were for the ancients elementary phenomenal manifestations of one substance, called Aour, Od and Ob—that is to say, אוכ אוד אוד Od is the active, Ob the passive, and Aour is the name of the bisexual and equilibrated composite which is signified when the Hermetic philosophers speak of gold. Vulgar gold is metalised Aour and philosophical gold is the same Aour in the state of a soluble gem. Theoretically, according to the transcendental science of antiquity, the Philosophical Stone which heals all diseases and accomplishes the transmutation of metals exists therefore incontestably. Does it, however, or can it, exist in fact? If we answer this in the affirmative, no one will believe, and the simple statement shall stand as a paradoxical solution of the paradoxes expressed by the two first questions, without dealing with the problem as to what must be done in order to find the Philosophical Stone. M. de la Palisse would reply in our place that in order to find one must of necessity seek, unless indeed discovery is a matter of chance. Enough has been said to direct and facilitate research.

The third and fourth questions concern the ministry of spirits and the Key, Seal and Ring of Solomon. When the Saviour of the world, at His temptation in the desert, overcame the three lusts which keep the soul in bondage—that is to say, the lust of the appetites, lust of ambition and lust of greed—it is written that the angels came down to serve Him. The explanation is that spirits are subject to the sovereign spirit, and he is the sovereign spirit who binds the rebellious turbulence and unlawful propensities of the flesh. It should be noted at the same time that to reverse the natural order of communication subsisting between things which are, is opposed to the law of Providence. We do not find that the Saviour of the world and his Apostles evoked the souls of the dead. The immortality of the soul, being one of the most consoling dogmas of religion, is reserved for the aspirations of faith and will never be proved by facts accessible to the criticism of science. Loss of reason, or its distraction at the very least, is hence and will be always the penalty of those who dare to pry into the other life with the eyes of this world only. Hence also magical traditions always represent the spirits of the dead as responding to evocations with sad and angry countenances. They complain of being troubled in their repose and they proffer only reproaches and menaces. The Keys of Solomon are religious and rational forces expressed by signs, and their use is not so much in the evocation of spirits as to shield us from aberration in experiences relative to the occult sciences. The Seal is the synthesis of the Keys and the Ring indicates its use. The Ring of Solomon is at once round and square, and it represents the mystery of the quadrature of the circle. It is composed of seven squares so arranged that they form a circle. Their bezels are round and square, one being of gold and the other of silver. The Ring should be a filagree of the seven metals. In the silver setting a white stone is placed and in the gold one there is a red stone. The white stone bears the sign of the Macrocosm, while the Microcosm is on the red stone. When the Ring is worn upon the finger, one of the stones should be turned inward and the other outward, accordingly as it is desired to command spirits of light or darkness. The plenary powers of this Ring can be accounted for in a few words. The will is omnipotent when armed with the living forces of Nature. Thought is idle and dead until it manifests by word or sign; it can therefore neither spur nor direct will. The sign, being the indispensable form of thought, is the necessary instrument of will. The more perfect the sign the more powerfully is the thought formulated, and the will is consequently directed with more force. Blind faith moves mountains, and what therefore would be possible to faith if enlightened by complete and indubitable science? If the soul could concentrate its plenary understanding and energy in the utterance of a single word, would not that word be all-powerful? The Ring of Solomon, with its double seal, typifies all science and faith of the Magi expressed by one sign. It symbolises the powers of heaven and earth and the sacred laws which rule them, whether in the celestial Macrocosm or in the Microcosm of man. It is the talisman of talismans and the pantacle which is above pantacles. As a sign of life it is omnipotent, but it is without efficacy as a dead sign: intelligence and faith, the intelligence of Nature and faith in its eternally Active Cause—of such is the life of signs.

The profound study of natural mysteries may alienate the casual observer from God because mental fatigue paralyses the aspirations of the heart. It is in this sense that the occult sciences may be dangerous and even fatal for certain personalities. Mathematical exactitude, the absolute rigour of natural laws, their harmony and simplicity, suggest to many an inevitable, eternal, inexorable mechanism, and for such as these Providence recedes behind the iron wheels of a clock in perpetual motion. They fail to reflect on the indubitable fact of freedom and autocracy in thinking beings. A man disposes at his will of creatures organised like himself; he can snare birds in the air, fish in the water and wild beasts in the forest; he can cut down or burn entire forests; he can mine and blast rocks, or even mountains; he can modify all forms about him; and yet, notwithstanding the supreme analogies of Nature, he refuses to believe that other intelligent beings might at their will disintegrate and consume worlds, extinguish suns by a breath or reduce them to starry dust—beings so great that they are too much for our faculty of sight, even as we, in our turn, are probably inappreciable to the eye of the mite or worm. And if such beings exist without the universe being destroyed a thousand times over, must we not admit that they are under obedience to a supreme will, a wise and omnipotent force, which forbids them to annihilate worlds, even as it forbids us to destroy the swallow’s nest and the chrysalis of the butterfly? For the Magus who is conscious of this power in the deep places of his nature and who discerns in universal law the instruments of eternal justice, the Seal of Solomon, his Keys and his Ring are tokens of supreme royalty.

The next questions concern the prediction of things to come by means of reliable calculations and the working of good or evil by magical influence. The answers are in this wise. Two chess players of equal skill being seated at a table and having opened the game, which of them will win? Assuredly the more watchful of the two. If I knew the preoccupations of both, I could foresee certainly the result of their match. To foresee is to win at chess, and it is the same in the game of life. In life nothing comes by chance; chance is the unforeseen, but that which the ignorant fail to perceive in advance has been accounted for already by the sage. All events, like all forms, result either from a conflict or from a balancing of forces, which forces can be represented by numbers. The future may thus be determined in advance by calculation. Every extreme action is counterpoised by an equivalent reaction. So laughter presages tears, and for this reason our Saviour said: “Blessed are those who mourn.” He said also, and again for the same reason: “He that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” To-day Nebuchadnezzar is a god, to-morrow he will be changed into a beast. To-day Alexander makes his triumphal entry into Babylon and has incense offered to him on all the altars; but to-morrow he will die in a state of degraded drunkenness. The future is in the past, and the past is also in the future. When genius foresees, it remembers. Effects are linked together so inevitably and so exactly to their causes, and become on their own part the causes for further effects in such conformity with the first as regards their manner of production, that a single fact may reveal to a seer an entire succession of mysteries. The coming of Christ makes that of Anti-Christ a certainty; but the advent of Anti-Christ will precede the triumph of the Holy Spirit. The money-seeking epoch in which we now live is the precursor of more lavish charities and of greater good works than the world has yet known.

But it must be understood that the will of man modifies blind causes and that a single impetus started by him may change the equilibrium of an entire world. If such is man’s power in the world under his dominion, what must be that of the intelligences which rule the suns? The least of the Egregores, with a breath, and by dilating suddenly the latent caloric of our earth, might shatter and reduce it into a cloud of dust. Man also can dissipate by a breath all the happiness of one of his kind. Human beings are magnetised like worlds; like suns, they irradiate their particular light; some are more absorbent, some give forth more freely. No one is isolated in this world; each is a fatality or a providence. Augustus and Cinna encounter; both are proud and implacable; and hereof is fatality. That fatality makes Cinna seek to slay Augustus, who is impelled as fatally to punish him; but he elects to forgive. Here fatality is changed into providence, and the epoch of Augustus, inaugurated by this sublime beneficence, was worthy to witness the birth of Him Who said: “Forgive your enemies.” By extending his mercy to Cinna, Augustus atoned for all the revenge of Octavius. So long as man is subject to the dictates of fatality, he is profane—that is to say, a man who must be excluded from the sanctuary of knowledge, because in his hands knowledge would become a terrible instrument of destruction. On the contrary, the man who is free, who governs by understanding the blind instincts of life, is essentially a preserver and repairer, for Nature is the domain of his power and the temple of his immortality. When the uninitiated seeks to do good the result is evil. On the other hand, the true initiate can never will to do evil; if he strikes it is to chastise and to cure. The breath of the uninitiated is deadly, that of the initiate is life-giving. He who is profane suffers that others may suffer also, but the initiate endures in order that others may be spared. He who is profane steeps his arrows in his own blood and poisons them; he who is initiated cures the most cruel wounds by a single drop of his blood.

The last questions are what must be done to become a true magician and in what precisely do the powers of Black Magic consist? Now, he who disposes of the secret forces of Nature and yet does not risk being crushed by them—he is a true magician. He is known by his works and by his end, which is always a great sacrifice. Zoroaster created the primitive doctrines and civilisations of the East, after which he vanished in a tempest like Œdipus. Orpheus gave poetry to Greece and with that poetry the beauty of all high things; he then perished in an orgie in which he refused to join. All his virtues notwithstanding, Julian was only an initiate of Black Magic; his death was that of a victim and not of a martyr; it was an annihilation and a defeat: he failed to understand his epoch. Though acquainted with the Doctrine of Transcendental Magic, he misapplied the Ritual. Apollonius of Tyana and Synesius were simply wonderful philosophers; they cultivated the true science but did nothing for posterity. At their period the Magi of the Gospel reigned in the three parts of the known world, and the oracles were silenced by the cries of the babe of Bethlehem. The King of Kings, the Magus of all Magi, had come into the world and the ritual-worships, the laws, the empires, all were changed. There is a void in the world of marvels between Jesus Christ and Napoleon. That incarnate word of battle, that armed Messiah who was the bearer of the last name, came blindly and unconsciously to complete the Christian message. This revelation had so far taught us how to die, but the Napoleonic civilisation has shewn us how to conquer. The two messages—sacrifice and victory, how to suffer, to die, to strive and to overcome—contrary as they are in appearance—comprise in their union the great secret of honour. Cross of the Saviour and cross of valour, you are incomplete when apart from one another, for he only knows how to conquer who has learned self-devotion, even to death, and how can this be attained except by belief in eternal life? Though he died in appearance, Napoleon is destined to return in the person of one who will realise his spirit. Solomon and Charlemagne will return also in the person of a single monarch; and then St. John the Evangelist, who according to tradition shall be reborn at the end of time, will appear as sovereign pontiff, the apostle of understanding and of love. The combination of these two rulers, announced by all the prophets, will bring about the wonder of the world’s regeneration. The science of the true magician will be then at its zenith, for so far our workers of miracles have been for the most part sorcerers and bondsmen—that is to say, the blind instruments of chance. Now, the masters whom fatality casts upon the world are soon overthrown thereby, and those who conquer in the name of their passions shall fall the prey of those passions. When Prometheus in his jealousy of Jupiter stole the thunderbolts of the god, he sought to create an immortal eagle, but what he made and immortalised was a vulture. We hear in another fable of that impious king Ixion, who would have ravished the queen of heaven, but that which he received in his arms was a faithless cloud, and he was bound by fiery serpents to the inexorable wheel of destiny. These profound allegories are a warning to false adepts, profaners of Magic Science and partisans of Black Magic. The power of Black Magic is a contagion of vertigo and an epidemic of unreason. The fatality of passion is like a fiery serpent which twists and writhes about the world devouring the souls therein. But intelligence—peaceable, smiling and full of love—represented by the Mother of God, sets her foot upon its head. Fatality consumes itself and is that old serpent of Kronos eternally devouring its tail. Rather there are two hostile serpents striving one with another, until such time as harmony intervenes to enchant them and make them interlace peaceably around the caduceus of Hermes.

Conclusion

The most intemperate and absurd of all faiths is to believe that there is no universal and absolute intelligent principle. It is a faith, since it involves the negation of the indefinite and indefinable; it is intemperate, for it is isolating and desolating; it is absurd, because it supposes complete nothing in place of most complete perfection. In Nature all is preserved by equilibrium and renewed by activity. Equilibrium in order and activity signifies progress. The science of equilibrium and movement is the absolute science of Nature. Man by its aid can produce and direct natural phenomena as he rises ever towards intelligence that is higher and more perfect than his own. Moral equilibrium is the concurrence of science and faith, distinct in their forces but joined in their action to endow the spirit and heart of man with that rule which is reason. The science which denies faith is not less unreasonable than the faith which denies science.

The object of faith cannot be defined and still less denied by science; science, on the contrary, is itself called to substantiate the rational basis of the hypotheses of faith. An isolated belief does not constitute faith, because it lacks authority and hence moral guarantee; it tends to fanaticism and superstition. Faith is the confidence which is imparted by religion—that is to say, by the communion of belief. True religion is constituted by universal suffrage. It is therefore ever and essentially catholic—that is to say, universal. It is an ideal dictatorship proclaimed generally in the revolutionary domain of the unknown. When the law of equilibrium is understood more adequately it will put an end to all the wars and revolutions of the old world. There has been conflict between powers as between moral forces. The papacy is blamed because it clings to temporal power, but what is forgotten is the protestant tendency towards usurpation of spiritual power. So long as the royalties put forward a pretension to be popes, so long will the popes be driven, by the same law of equilibrium, to the pretension of being kings. The whole world continues to dream of unity in political power, but it does not understand the power resident in equilibrated dualism. Confronted by the royal usurpers of spiritual power, if the Pope were king no longer, he would be no longer anything. In the temporal order he is subject, like others, to the prejudgments of his time; he dare not therefore abdicate his temporal power, if such abdication would be a scandal for a considerable part of the world. When the sovereign opinion of the universe shall have proclaimed publicly that a temporal prince cannot be Pope; when the Czar of all the Russias and the King of Great Britain shall have renounced their derisive priesthood; the Pope will know that which remains to be done on his own part. Till then he must struggle, and if needs be must die, to maintain the integrity of St. Peter’s patrimony.

The science of moral equilibrium will put an end to religious disputes and philosophical blasphemies. Men of understanding will be also men of religion when it comes to be recognised that religion does not impeach the freedom of conscience, and when those who are truly religious shall respect that science which recognises on its own part the existence and necessity of an universal religion. Such science will flood the philosophy of history with new light, and will furnish a synthetic plan of all the natural sciences. The law of equilibrated forces and of organic compensations will reveal a new chemistry and a new physics. So from discovery to discovery we shall work back to Hermetic philosophy, and shall be astonished at those prodigies of simplicity and brilliance which have been for so long and long forgotten.