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1ELIPHAS LEVl'S TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC iics Hyatt. TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC ITS DOCTRINE AND RITUAL BY tiLIPHAS LfiVI A COMPLETE TRANSLATION OF "DOGME ET RITUEL DE LA HAUTE MAGIE " WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE BY ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE AUTHOR OF "DEVIL WORSHIP IN FRANCE," ETC. ETC. INCLUDING ALL THE ORIGINAL ENGRAVINGS AND A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR LONDON GEORGE REDWAY 1896 »&& 0*
2BIOGRAPHICAL PEEFACE ELIPHAS LEVI ZAHED is a pseudonym which was adopted in his occult writings by Alphonse Louis Constant, and it is said to be the Hebrew equivalent of that name. The author of the Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie was born in humble circumstances about the year 1810, being the son of a shoemaker. Giving evidence of unusual intelligence at an early age, the priest of his parish conceived a kindly interest for the obscure boy, and got him on the foundation of Saint Sulpice, where he was educated without charge, and with a view to the priesthood. He seems to have passed through the course of study at that seminary in a way which did not disappoint the expectations raised concerning him. In addition to Greek and Latin, he is believed to have acquired considerable knowledge of Hebrew, though it would be an error to suppose that any of his published works exhibit special linguistic attainments. He entered on his clerical novitiate, took minor orders, and in due course became a deacon, being thus bound by a vow of perpetual celibacy. Shortly after this step, he was suddenly expelled from Saint Sulpice for holding opinions contrary to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The existing accounts of this expulsion are hazy, and incorporate unlikely elements, as, for example, that he was sent by his ecclesiastical superiors to take duty in country places, where he preached with great eloquence what, however, was doctrinally unsound ; but I believe that there is n<r precedent for the preaching of deacons in the Latin Church. Pending the appearance of the biography which has been for some years promised in France, we have few available materials for a life of the "Abbe"" Constant. In any case, he was cast back upon the world, with the limitations of priestly engagements, while the priestly career
3Vi BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE was closed to him — and what he did, or how he contrived to support himself, is unknown. By the year 1839 he had made some literary friendships, including that of Alphonse Esquiros, the forgotten author of a fantastic romance, entitled " The Magician";* and Esquiros introduced him to Ganneau, a distracted prophet of the period, who had adopted the dress of a woman, abode in a garret, and there preached a species of political illuminism, which was apparently concerned with the restoration of la vraie UgitimiU. He was, in fact, a second incarnation of Louis XVII. — " come back to earth for the fulfilment of a work of regeneration." t Constant and Esquiros, who had visited him for the purpose of scoffing, were carried away by his eloquence, and became his disciples. Some element of socialism must have combined with the illuminism of the visionary, and this appears to have borne fruit in the brain of Constant, taking shape ultimately in a book or pamphlet, entitled " The Gospel of Liberty," to which a transient importance was attached, foolishly enough, by the imprisonment of the author for a term of six months. There is some reason to suppose that Esquiros had a hand in the production, and also in the penalty. His incarceration over, Constant came forth undaunted, still cleaving to his prophet, and undertook a kind of apostolic mission into the provinces, addressing the country people, and suffering, as he himself tells us, persecution from the ill-disposed. I But the prophet ceased * M. Papus, a contemporary French occultist, in an extended study of the "Doctrine of Eliphas Levi," asks scornfully: " Who now remembers anything of Paul Augnez or Esquiros, journalists pretending to initiation, and posing as professors of the occult sciences in the salons they frequented ? " No doubt they are forgotten, but Eliphas Levi states, in the Histoire de la Magie, that, by the publication of his romance of " The Magician," Esquiros founded a new school of fantastic magic, and gives sufficient account of his work to show that it was in parts excessively curious. t A woman who was associated with his mission, was, in like manner, supposed to have been Marie Antoinette. — See Histoire de la Magie, 1. 7., c. 5. J A vicious story, which has received recently some publicity in Paris, charges Constant with spreading a report of his death soon after his release from prison, assuming another name, imposing upon the Bishop of Eveux,
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1ELIPHAS LEVl'S TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC iics Hyatt. TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC ITS DOCTRINE AND RITUAL BY tiLIPHAS LfiVI A COMPLETE TRANSLATION OF "DOGME ET RITUEL DE LA HAUTE MAGIE " WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE BY ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE AUTHOR OF "DEVIL WORSHIP IN FRANCE," ETC. ETC. INCLUDING ALL THE ORIGINAL ENGRAVINGS AND A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR LONDON GEORGE REDWAY 1896 »&& 0*
2BIOGRAPHICAL PEEFACE ELIPHAS LEVI ZAHED is a pseudonym which was adopted in his occult writings by Alphonse Louis Constant, and it is said to be the Hebrew equivalent of that name. The author of the Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie was born in humble circumstances about the year 1810, being the son of a shoemaker. Giving evidence of unusual intelligence at an early age, the priest of his parish conceived a kindly interest for the obscure boy, and got him on the foundation of Saint Sulpice, where he was educated without charge, and with a view to the priesthood. He seems to have passed through the course of study at that seminary in a way which did not disappoint the expectations raised concerning him. In addition to Greek and Latin, he is believed to have acquired considerable knowledge of Hebrew, though it would be an error to suppose that any of his published works exhibit special linguistic attainments. He entered on his clerical novitiate, took minor orders, and in due course became a deacon, being thus bound by a vow of perpetual celibacy. Shortly after this step, he was suddenly expelled from Saint Sulpice for holding opinions contrary to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The existing accounts of this expulsion are hazy, and incorporate unlikely elements, as, for example, that he was sent by his ecclesiastical superiors to take duty in country places, where he preached with great eloquence what, however, was doctrinally unsound ; but I believe that there is n<r precedent for the preaching of deacons in the Latin Church. Pending the appearance of the biography which has been for some years promised in France, we have few available materials for a life of the "Abbe"" Constant. In any case, he was cast back upon the world, with the limitations of priestly engagements, while the priestly career
3Vi BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE was closed to him — and what he did, or how he contrived to support himself, is unknown. By the year 1839 he had made some literary friendships, including that of Alphonse Esquiros, the forgotten author of a fantastic romance, entitled " The Magician";* and Esquiros introduced him to Ganneau, a distracted prophet of the period, who had adopted the dress of a woman, abode in a garret, and there preached a species of political illuminism, which was apparently concerned with the restoration of la vraie UgitimiU. He was, in fact, a second incarnation of Louis XVII. — " come back to earth for the fulfilment of a work of regeneration." t Constant and Esquiros, who had visited him for the purpose of scoffing, were carried away by his eloquence, and became his disciples. Some element of socialism must have combined with the illuminism of the visionary, and this appears to have borne fruit in the brain of Constant, taking shape ultimately in a book or pamphlet, entitled " The Gospel of Liberty," to which a transient importance was attached, foolishly enough, by the imprisonment of the author for a term of six months. There is some reason to suppose that Esquiros had a hand in the production, and also in the penalty. His incarceration over, Constant came forth undaunted, still cleaving to his prophet, and undertook a kind of apostolic mission into the provinces, addressing the country people, and suffering, as he himself tells us, persecution from the ill-disposed. I But the prophet ceased * M. Papus, a contemporary French occultist, in an extended study of the "Doctrine of Eliphas Levi," asks scornfully: " Who now remembers anything of Paul Augnez or Esquiros, journalists pretending to initiation, and posing as professors of the occult sciences in the salons they frequented ? " No doubt they are forgotten, but Eliphas Levi states, in the Histoire de la Magie, that, by the publication of his romance of " The Magician," Esquiros founded a new school of fantastic magic, and gives sufficient account of his work to show that it was in parts excessively curious. t A woman who was associated with his mission, was, in like manner, supposed to have been Marie Antoinette. — See Histoire de la Magie, 1. 7., c. 5. J A vicious story, which has received recently some publicity in Paris, charges Constant with spreading a report of his death soon after his release from prison, assuming another name, imposing upon the Bishop of Eveux,
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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