The History of Magic - Softcover

Eliphas Levi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0877289298 ISBN 13: 9780877289296

Publisher: Weiser Books, 1999

Synopsis

First published in 1913, this classic text is an invaluable source book on the history and practice of magic and occultism. The contents include: Magic of the Magi, Magic in Ancient Greece, the Kabalah, Primitive Symbolism, Mysticism, Oracles, Magical Monuments, Magic and Christianity, Pagan Magic, Kabalistic Paintings and Sacred Emblems, Sorcerers, Magic and Freemasonry, the Illuminati, and more. Illustrated.

About this title

About the Author

Alphonse Louis Constant, better know by his pen name Eliphas Levi, was a master of the traditional Rosicrucian interpretation of the Kabbalah. He was born in France in 1810, and through the offices of the parish priest, was educated for the church at SaintSulpice. He was later expelled from seminary for teaching doctrines contrary to those of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1824 Levi began studying the occult sciences, and wrote about magic and the Kabbalah for the next three decades. His other books include Transcendental Magic, Mysteries of the Qabalah, and The Book of Splendours.

A.E. Waite (1857-1942) is one of the bestknown authors and translators of magic and the occult. He is the creator of the Rider-Waite tarot and is the author of several books including Book of Black Magic and Pictorial Keys to the Tarot.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The History of Magic

By Éliphas Lévi, A.E. WAITE

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

Copyright © 2001 Red Wheel/Weiser
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-87728-929-6

Contents

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION
INTRODUCTION
BOOK 1 THE DERIVATIONS OF MAGIC
CHAPTER I FABULOUS SOURCES
CHAPTER II MAGIC OF THE MAGI
CHAPTER III MAGIC IN INDIA
CHAPTER IV HERMETIC MAGIC
CHAPTER V MAGIC IN GREECE
CHAPTER VI MATHEMATICAL MAGIC OF PYTHAGORAS
CHAPTER VII THE HOLY KABALAH
BOOK II FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMAS
CHAPTER I PRIMITIVE SYMBOLISM OF HISTORY
CHAPTER II MYSTICISM
CHAPTER III INITIATIONS AND ORDEALS
CHAPTER IV THE MAGIC OF PUBLIC WORSHIP
CHAPTER V MYSTERIES OF VIRGINITY
CHAPTER VI SUPERSTITIONS
CHAPTER VII MAGICAL MONUMENTS
BOOK III DIVINE SYNTHESIS AND REALISATION OF MAGIA BY THE CHRISTIAN 
REVELATION
CHAPTER I CHRIST ACCUSED OF MAGIC BY THE JEWS
CHAPTER II THE WITNESS OF MAGIC TO CHRISTIANITY
CHAPTER III THE DEVIL
CHAPTER IV THE LAST PAGANS
CHAPTER V LEGENDS
CHAPTER VI SOME KABALISTIC PAINTINGS AND SACRED EMBLEMS
CHAPTER VII PHILOSOPHERS OF THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL
BOOK IV MAGIC AND CIVILISATION
CHAPTER I MAGIC AMONG BARBARIANS
CHAPTER II INFLUENCE OF WOMEN
CHAPTER III THE SALIC LAWS AGAINST SORCERERS
CHAPTER IV LEGENDS OF THE REIGN OF CHARLEMAGNE
CHAPTER V MAGICIANS
CHAPTER VI SOME FAMOUS PROSECUTIONS
CHAPTER VII SUPERSTITIONS RELATING TO THE DEVIL
BOOK V THE ADEPTS AND THE PRIESTHOOD
CHAPTER I PRIESTS AND POPES ACCUSED OF MAGIC
CHAPTER II APPEARANCE OF THE BOHEMIAN NOMADS
CHAPTER III LEGEND AND HISTORY OF RAYMUND LULLY
CHAPTER IV ON CERTAIN ALCHEMISTS
CHAPTER V SOME FAMOUS SORCERERS AND MAGICIANS
CHAPTER VI SOME MAGICAL PROSECUTIONS
CHAPTER VII THE MAGICAL ORIGIN OF FREEMASONRY
BOOK VI MAGIC AND THE REVOLUTION
CHAPTER I REMARKABLE AUTHORS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER II THAUMATURGIC PERSONALITIES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER III PROPHECIES OF CAZOTTE
CHAPTER IV THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
CHAPTER V PHENOMENA OF MEDIOMANIA
CHAPTER VI THE GERMAN ILLUMINATI
CHAPTER VII EMPIRE AND RESTORATION
BOOK VII MAGIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
CHAPTER 1 MAGNETIC MYSTICS AND MATERIALISTS
CHAPTER II HALLUCINATIONS
CHAPTER III MESMERISTS AND SOMNAMBULISTS
CHAPTER IV THE FANTASTIC SIDE OF MAGICAL LITERATURE
CHAPTER V SOME PRIVATE RECOLLECTIONS OF THE WRITER
CHAPTER VI THE OCCULT SCIENCES
CHAPTER VII SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
APPENDIX
INDEX

CHAPTER 1

FABULOUS SOURCES

The apocryphal Book of Enoch says that there were angels who consented to fallfrom heaven that they might have intercourse with the daughters of earth. "Forin those days the sons of men having multiplied, there were born to themdaughters of great beauty. And when the angels, or sons of heaven, beheld them,they were filled with desire; wherefore they said to one another: 'Come, let uschoose wives from among the race of man, and let us beget children.' Theirleader, Samyasa, answered thereupon and said: 'Perchance you will be wanting inthe courage needed to fulfil this resolution, and then I alone shall beanswerable for your fall.' But they swore that they would in no wise repent andthat they would achieve their whole design. Now there were 200 who descended onMount Armon, and it was from this time that the mountain received itsdesignation, which signifies Mount of the Oath. Hereinafter follow the names ofthose angelic leaders who descended with this object: Samyasa, chief among all,Urakabarameel, Azibeel, Tamiel, Ramuel, Danel, Azkeel, Sarakuyal, Asael, Armers,Batraal, Anane, Zavebe, Samsaveel, Ertrael, Turel, Jomiael, Arazial. They tookwives, with whom they had intercourse, to whom also they taught Magic, the artof enchantment and the diverse properties of roots and trees. Amazarac gaveinstruction in all secrets of sorcerers; Barkaial was the master of those whostudy the stars; Akibeel manifested signs; and Azaradel taught the motions ofthe moon".

This legend of the Kabalistic Book of Enoch is a variant account of the sameprofanation of Mysteries which we meet with under another form of symbolism inthe history of the sin of Adam. Those angels, the sons of God, of whom Enochspeaks, were initiates of Magic, and it was this that they communicated toprofane men, using incautious women as their instruments. They split upon therock of sense-attraction, becoming enamoured of the female sex, and the secretsof royalty and priesthood were extracted from them unawares. Primitivecivilisation collapsed as a consequence, and the giants, who typified bruteforce and unbridled appetite, fought together for the world, which escaped onlyby immersion in the waters of the deluge, wherein all traces of the past wereeffaced. This deluge symbolised that universal confusion into which humanity isbrought of necessity when it ignores and does outrage to the harmonies ofNature. There is kinship between the fall of Samyasa and that of Adam; the lureof sense seduced both; both profaned the Tree of Knowledge; and both were drivenfar away from the Tree of Life. It is needless here to discuss the views, orrather the simplicity, of those who take everything literally and believe thatknowledge and life were once manifested under the form of trees; let us confessrather and only to the deep meaning of sacred symbols. The Tree of Knowledgedoes actually inflict death when its fruit is eaten; that fruit is the adornmentof this world; those golden apples are the glitter of earth.

In the Arsenal Library there is a very curious manuscript entitled The Book ofthe Penitence of Adam, and herein Kabalistic tradition is presented under theguise of legend to the following effect: "Adam had two sons—Cain, who signifiesbrute force, and Abel, the type of intelligence and mildness. Agreement wasimpossible between them; they perished at each other's hands; and theirinheritance passed to a third son, named Seth." Here is the conflict of twoopposing forces diverted to the advantage of a synthetic and united force. "NowSeth, who was just, was permitted to approach as far as the entrance of theEarthly Paradise, without being threatened by the Kerub and his flaming sword."In other words, Seth represented primeval initiation. "It came to pass in thismanner that Seth beheld the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, incorporatedtogether after such a manner that they formed but a single tree"—signifying theharmony of science and religion in the transcendental Kabalah. "And the angelgave him three seeds containing the vital power of the said tree." The referenceis here to the Kabalistic triad. "When Adam died, Seth, in obedience to thedirections of the angel, placed the three seeds in the mouth of his father, as atoken of eternal life. The saplings which sprang up from these, became theBurning Bush, in the midst of which God communicated to Moses his Eternal Name

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signifying He Who is and is to come. Moses plucked a triple branch of the sacredbush and used it as his miraculous wand. Although separated from its root, thebranch continued to live and blossom, and it was subsequently preserved in theArk. King David planted the branch on Mount Zion, and Solomon took wood fromeach section of the triple trunk to make the two pillars, Jachin and Boaz, whichwere placed at the entrance of the Temple. They were covered with bronze, andthe third section was inserted at the threshold of the chief gate. It was atalisman which hindered things unclean from entering within. But certainnefarious Levites removed during the night this obstacle to their unholy freedomand cast it, loaded with stones, to the bottom of the Temple reservoir. Fromthis time forward an angel of God troubled the waters of the pool, imparting tothem a miraculous value, so that men might be distracted from seeking the treeof Solomon in its depths. In the days of Jesus Christ the pool was cleansed andthe Jews, finding the beam of wood, which in their eyes seemed useless, carriedthe latter outside the town and threw it across the brook Cedron. It was overthis bridge that our Saviour passed after his arrest at night in the Garden ofOlives. His executioners cast him from it into the water; and then in theirhaste to prepare the instrument-in-chief of His passion, they took the beam withthem, which was made of three kinds of wood, and formed the cross therewith."

This allegory embodies all the great traditions of the Kabalah and the secretChristian doctrine of St. John, which is now utterly unknown. It follows thatSeth, Moses, David, Solomon and Christ obtained from the same Kabalistic Treetheir royal sceptres and pontifical crooks. We can understand in this manner whythe Christ was adored in His manger by the Magi. Let us recur, however, to theBook of Enoch, as greater authority attaches to it than can be attributed to anunknown manuscript; the former is cited in the New Testament by the Apostle St.Jude. Tradition refers the invention of letters to Enoch, and it is to him thatwe must therefore trace back the teachings embodied in the Sepher Yetzirah,which is the elementary work of the Kabalah, its compiler—according to theRabbins—being the patriarch Abraham, as the heir of the secrets of Enoch and asthe father of initiation in Israel. Enoch would seem in this manner to beidentical with the Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus, while the famous Book of Enoch,written throughout in hieroglyphics and in numbers, would be that occult Bible,anterior to the book of Moses and full of mysteries, to which the initiatedWilliam Postel alludes so frequently throughout his works, under the title ofthe Genesis of Enoch.

The Bible says that Enoch did not die, but that God translated him from one lifeto another. He is to return and confound Anti-Christ at the end of time, when hewill be one of the last martyrs, or witnesses of truth, mentioned in theApocalypse of St. John. That which is said of Enoch in this respect has beensaid also of all the great initiators recorded in Kabalism. St. John himself,according to the primitive Christians, was saved from death, and it was longthought that he could be seen breathing in his tomb. The explanation is thatthe absolute science of life preserves against death, as the instinct of thepeople has always led them to divine. However this may be, the extant memorialsof Enoch are contained in two books, one of which is hieroglyphic and the otherof the nature of allegory. The first comprises the hieratic keys of initiation,while the second is the history of a great profanation which caused thedestruction of the world and the reign of chaos after that of the giants.

St. Methodius, a bishop in the early days of Christianity, whose writings arefound in the collection of the Fathers of the Church, has left a propheticApocalypse which unfolds the world's history in a series of visions. It is notincluded among the saint's acknowledged writings, but it was preserved by theGnostics and has been printed in the Liber Mirabilis under the assumed name ofBermechobus, which illiterate compositors have substituted in place of Bea-Methodius,an abbreviation of Beatus Methodius. This book corresponds inseveral respects with the allegorical treatise entitled The Penitence of Adam.It tells how Seth migrated eastward with his family and so reached a mountain inthe vicinity of the Earthly Paradise. This was the country of initiates, whilstthe posterity of Cain invented a spurious or debased Magic in India, the land offratricide, and put witchcraft into the hands of the reckless.

St. Methodius predicts in a later place the struggles and successivepredominance of the Ishmaelites, being the name given in his apocalypse to thosewho conquered the Romans; of the Franks, who overcame the Ishmaelites; and thenof a great race from the North whose invasion will precede the personal reign ofAnti-Christ. An universal kingdom will be founded thereafter and will fall intothe hands of a French prince, after which there will be the reign of justice fora long period of years. We are not concerned with prophecy in the present place,but it is desirable to note the distinction between good and evil Magic, betweenthe Sanctuary of the Sons of Seth and the profanation of science by thedescendants of Cain. Transcendental knowledge, as a fact, is reserved for thosewho are masters of their passions, and virgin Nature does not deliver the keysof her nuptial chamber to adulterers.

There are two classes—freemen and slaves; man is born in the bondage of hispassions, but he can reach emancipation through intelligence. Between those whoare free already and those who as yet are not there is no equality possible. Thepart of reason is to rule and of instinct to obey. On the other hand, if youimpose on the blind the office of leading the blind, both will end in the abyss.We should never forget that liberty does not consist in the licence of passionemancipated from law, which licence would prove the most hideous of tyrannies;liberation consists in willing obedience to law; it is the right to do one'sduty, and only just men can be called free. Now, those who are in liberationshould govern those who are in bondage, and slaves are called to be released,not from the government of the free but from the yoke of brutal passions, as aconsequence of which they cannot exist without masters.

Confess with us now for a moment to the truth of the transcendental sciences.Suppose that there does actually exist a force which can be mastered and bywhich the miracles of Nature are made subservient to the will of man. Tell us,in such case, whether the secrets of wealth and the bonds of sympathy can beentrusted to brutal greed; the art of fascination to libertines; the supremacyover other wills to those who cannot attain the government of their properselves. It is terrifying to reflect upon the disorders which would follow fromsuch a profanation; some cataclysm is needed to efface the crimes of earth whenall are steeped in slime and blood. Now, it is this state of things that isindicated by the allegorical history of the fall of the angels, according to TheBook of Enoch; it is this which was the sin of Adam, and hereof are its fatalconsequences. Of such also was the Deluge and its wreckage; of such at a laterperiod the malediction of Canaan. The revelation of occult secrets is typifiedby the insolence of that son who exposes his father's nakedness. Theintoxication of Noah is a lesson for the priesthood of all ages. Woe to thosewho lay bare the secret of divine generation to the impure gaze of the crowd.Keep the sanctuary shut, all ye who would spare your sleeping father the mockeryof the imitators of Ham.

Such is the tradition of the children of Seth respecting the laws of the humanhierarchy; but the latter were not acknowledged by the family of Cain. TheCainites of India invented a genesis to consecrate the oppression of the strongand to perpetuate the ignorance of the weak. Initiation became an exclusiveprivilege of the high castes, and entire races of humanity were doomed tounending servitude on the pretence of inferior birth : they issued, as it wassaid, from the feet or knees of Brahma. Now, Nature engenders neither slaves norkings, but all men indifferently are born to labour. He who pretends that man isperfect at birth but is degraded and perverted by society is the wildest ofanarchists, though he may be the most poetic of maniacs. But in vain was JeanJacques a sentimentalist and dreamer; his deep implicit of misanthropy whenexplicated by the logic of fanatical partisans, bore fruits in hate anddestruction. The consistent architects of the Utopia imagined by the susceptiblephilosopher of Geneva were Robespierre and Marat.

Society is no abstract personality that can be rendered responsible separatelyfor the stubbornness of man; society is the association of men; it is defectiveby reason of their vices and sublime in respect of their virtues; but in itselfit is holy, like the religion which is bound up inseparably therewith. Is notreligion, as a fact, an association of the highest aspirations and the mostgenerous endeavours? After this manner does the blasphemy of anti-socialequality and of right in the teeth of duty give answer to the lie about castesprivileged by Nature; Christianity alone has solved the problem by assigningsupremacy to self-sacrifice and by proclaiming him as the greatest who offers uphis pride for society and his appetites for the sake of the law.

Though they were the depositaries of the tradition of Seth, the Jews did notpreserve it in all its purity, and were infected by the unjust ambitions of theposterity of Cain. Believing that they were a chosen people, they deemed thatGod had allotted them truth as a patrimony rather than as a security held intrust for humanity at large. Side by side with the sublime traditions of theSepher Yetzirah we meet with very curious revelations among the Talmudists. Forexample, they do not shrink from ascribing the idolatry of the Gentiles to thepatriarch Abraham himself; they say that to the Israelites he bequeathed hisinheritance, namely the knowledge of the true Divine Names; in a word, theKabalah was the lawful and hereditary property of Isaac; but the patriarch gave,as they tell us, certain presents to the children of his concubines; and by suchpresents they understand veiled dogmas and cryptic names, which becamematerialised speedily, and were transformed into idols. False religions andtheir absurd mysteries, oriental superstitions, with all their horriblesacrifices—what a gift from a father to his disowned family! Was it notsufficient to drive Hagar with her son into the desert? To their one loaf andtheir pitcher of water must he add the burden of falsehood, as a torment andpoison in their exile?

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The History of Magic by Éliphas Lévi, A.E. WAITE. Copyright © 2001 Red Wheel/Weiser. Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Weiser Books
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0877289298
• ISBN 13: 9780877289296
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384