Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi
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p. 364
3 The word, the triad, plenitude, fecundity, nature, generation in the three worlds. Symbol, THE EMPRESS, a woman, winged, crowned, seated, and uplifting a sceptre with the orb of the world at its end ; her sign is an eagle, image of the soul and of life. This woman is the Venus-Urania of the Greeks, and was represented by St John in his Apocalypse as the Woman clothed with the Sun, crowned with twelve stars, and with the moon beneath her feet. It is the mystical quintessence of the triad, spirituality, immortality, the queen of heaven. 1 The ports or government of the easterns, initiation, power, the tetragram, the quaternary, the cubic stone, or its base. Hieroglyph, THE EMPEROR, a sovereign whose body represents a right-angled triangle, and his legs a cross, the image of the Athanor of the philosophers.
n Indication, demonstration, instruction, law, symbolism, philosophy, religion. Hieroglyph, THE POPE, or grand hierophant. In more modern Tarots this sign is replaced by the image of Jupiter. The grand hierophant, seated between the two pillars of Hermes and of Solomon, makes the sign of esotericism, and leans upon a cross with three horizontals of triangular form. Two inferior ministers kneel before him. Having above him the capitals of the two pillars, and below him the two heads of the assistants, he is thus the centre of the quinary, and represents the divine pentagram, giving its complete meaning. As a fact, the pillars are necessity or law, the heads liberty or action. A line may be drawn from each pillar to each head, and two lines from each pillar to each of the two heads. Thus a square, divided by a cross into four triangles, is obtained, and in the middle of this cross is the grand hierophant, we might almost say like p. 366the garden spider in the centre of his web, were such a comparison becoming to the things of truth, glory, and light 1 Sequence, interlacement, lingam, entanglement, union, embrace, strife, antagonism, combination, equilibrium. Hieroglyph, man between Vice and Virtue. Above him shines the sun of truth, and in this sun is Love, bending his bow and threatening Vice with his shaft.
In the order of the ten Sephiroth, this symbol corresponds to TIPHERETH — that is, to idealism and beauty. The number six represents the antagonism of the two triads, that is, absolute negation and absolute affirmation. It is therefore the number of toil and liberty, and for this reason it connects also with moral beauty and glory. T Weapon, sword, cherub's sword of fire, the sacred septenary, triumph, royalty, priesthood.
Hieroglyph, a cubic chariot with four pillars and an azure and starry drapery. In the chariot, between the four pillars, a victor crowned with a circle adorned with three radiant golden pentagrams.
Upon his breast are three superposed squares, on his shoulders the urim and thummim of the sovereign sacrificer, represented by the two crescents of the moon in Gedulah and Geburah ; in his hand is a sceptre surmounted by a globe, square, and triangle ; his attitude is proud and tranquil.
A double sphinx or two sphinxes joined at the lower parts are harnessed to the chariot ; they are pulling in opposite directions, but one is turning his head so that they are looking in the same direction. The sphinx with head turned is black, the other is white. On the square which forms the fore part of the chariot is the Indian lingam surmounted by the flying sphere of the Egyptians.
This hieroglyph, which we reproduce exactly, is perhaps the most beautiful and complete of all those which are comprised in the clavicle of the Tarot.
p. 367n Balance, attraction and repulsion, life, terror, promise, and threat. Hieroglyph, JUSTICE with sword and balance.
B Good, horror of evil, morality, wisdom. Hieroglyph, a sage leaning on his staff, holding a lamp in front of him, and completely enveloped in his cloak. The inscription is THE HERMIT or CAPUCHIN, on account of the hood of his oriental cloak ; his true name, however, is PRUDENCE, and he thus completes the four cardinal virtues which seemed imperfect to Court de Gebelin and Etteilla. * Principle, manifestation, praise, manly honour, phallus, virile fecundity, paternal sceptre. Hieroglyph, THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE, that is to say, the cosmogonical wheel of Ezekiel, with a Hermanubis ascending on the right, a Typhon descending on the left, and a sphinx in equilibrium above, holding a sword between his lion's claws — an admirable symbol, disfigured by Etteilla, who replaced Typhon by a wolf, Hermanubis by a mouse, and the sphinx by an ape, an allegory characteristic of Etteilla's Kabbalah. 3 The hand in the act of grasping and holding. Hieroglyph, STRENGTH, a woman crowned with the vital oo closes, quietly and without effort, the jaws of a raging lion. ^ Example, instruction, public teaching. Symbol, a man hanging by one foot, with his hands bound behind his back, so that his body makes a triangle with apex downwards, and his legs a cross above the triangle. The gallows is in the form of a Hebrew Tau, and the two
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