If nineteenth-century occultism has an acknowledged father, it is Eliphas Lévi. Through his books, written in Paris in the middle of the century, magic ceased to be merely an object of learned curiosity or religious condemnation and became a "science" with its own doctrine, language and practice. Almost every later occultist movement, from the Golden Dawn to Theosophy, owes him something.
From seminary to revolution
Eliphas Lévi is the pseudonym, obtained by rendering his own name in Hebrew form, of Alphonse-Louis Constant, born in Paris in 1810 to a family of modest means, the son of a shoemaker. Thanks to his abilities he entered the seminary of Saint-Sulpice and set out on an ecclesiastical career, but abandoned it before ordination to the priesthood.
In the following years Constant was a writer, illustrator and activist for socialist and utopian ideas. In 1841 he published La Bible de la liberté, a work of social criticism that earned him a conviction and several months in prison. He took part in the ferment that led to the revolution of 1848. During these years he moved in circles where socialism mingled with mysticism, prophecy and a radical Christianity.
The turn to magic
After the collapse of the political hopes of 1848, Constant devoted himself to the study of the occult. An important role was played by his meeting with the Polish mathematician and philosopher Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński, author of a mystical-mathematical system meant to reform all knowledge.
Lévi read closely the Renaissance authors, such as Agrippa and Paracelsus, the Kabbalah in the Latin version of Christian Knorr von Rosenroth's Kabbala denudata, and the Hermetic tradition. On these foundations he built a personal synthesis.
Dogma and Ritual of High Magic
The work that made him famous was Dogme et rituel de la haute magie, published in two volumes between 1854 and 1856. The first volume sets out the doctrine, the second the practice. Each is divided into twenty-two chapters, a number Lévi linked to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
Among the book's central ideas:
- magic is an ancient science, preserved in sanctuaries and initiatory traditions, not a superstition;
- there exists a universal agent, the astral light, a kind of subtle fluid filling space through which will and imagination act;
- the magus is one who has learned to master himself and direct his will;
- all the great religions contain, beneath the veil of symbols, the same secret doctrine.
Lévi also proposed a correspondence between the twenty-two major cards of the tarot and the Hebrew letters, which would enjoy great success in later occultism.
The London evocation
In 1854 Lévi went to London, where he frequented circles interested in the occult, including the writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton. In Dogma and Ritual he recounts performing there an evocation of Apollonius of Tyana, after long days of preparation, fasting and concentration. He describes the experience honestly as ambiguous and exhausting, and urges the reader not to give too much weight to phenomena of this kind. It is a significant page, because it shows his more cautious attitude toward ceremonial practice.
His other works
In the following years Lévi published other important books:
- Histoire de la magie (1860), a history of magic from antiquity to his own time;
- La Clef des grands mystères (1861), on the relations between religion, philosophy and magic;
- minor works and an extensive correspondence with pupils, including the Italian Baron Spedalieri, which reveals his private teaching.
In his writings Lévi sought to reconcile magic with Catholicism, which he never entirely renounced. He regarded the Church as the guardian, often unaware, of extremely ancient symbols.
An image destined to last
Dogma and Ritual contains the famous drawing of a goat-headed figure with wings, horns and a torch between the horns, which Lévi called Baphomet, the name tied to the accusations against the Templars. For Lévi it was a symbol of the balance of opposites and of the astral light, not a demonic figure. The fact that the image was later read in a completely different way shows how easily symbols can be misunderstood once separated from their context.
The legacy
Lévi died in Paris in 1875. His influence was immense. In France he inspired the generation of Papus (Gérard Encausse), Stanislas de Guaita and Joséphin Péladan, who at the end of the century founded occultist orders and journals. In England the founders of the Golden Dawn read him closely, and Aleister Crowley, who translated some of his works, came to regard himself as his reincarnation, having been born in the year of his death.
For Studio Esoterico Cornelio, Lévi's most important lesson is his insistence on the discipline of the will and on balance: for him, magic began with self-knowledge.
In short
- Eliphas Lévi is the pseudonym of Alphonse-Louis Constant (1810-1875), a former seminarian and socialist activist.
- After 1848 he turned to the occult, influenced by Wroński, Renaissance magic and Kabbalah.
- Dogma and Ritual of High Magic (1854-1856) presented magic as a science of the will and the astral light.
- His works inspired Papus, the Golden Dawn and much of modern occultism.