Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi

36 THE DOCTEINE OF TKANSCENDENT MAGIC immensity still ! Immensity equals immensity." — This is true in things seen as in things unseen. The first letter in the alphabet of the sacred language, Aleph, «, represents a man extending one hand towards heaven and the other to earth. It is an expression of the active principle in everything; it is creation in heaven corresponding to the omnipotence of the word below.

This letter is a pantacle in itself, that is, a character expressing the universal science. It is supplementary to the sacred signs of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm ; it explains the masonic double-triangle and the five-pointed blazing star ; for the word is one and revelation is one.

By endowing man with reason, God gave him speech ; and revelation, manifold in its forms but one in its principle, consists entirely in the universal word, the interpreter of the absolute reason. This is the significance of that term so much misconstrued, catholicity, which, in modern hieratic language, means infallibility. The universal in reason is the absolute, and the absolute is the infallible.

If absolute reason impelled universal society to believe irresistibly the utterance of a child, that child would be infallible by the ordination of God and of all humanity. Faith is nothing else but reasonable confidence in this unity of reason and in this universality of the word. To believe is to place confidence in that which we as yet do not know when reason assures us beforehand of ultimately knowing or at least recognising it.

Absurd are the so-called philosophers who cry, " I will never believe in a thing which I do not know ! " Shallow reasoners ! If you knew, would you need to believe ? But must I believe on chance, and apart from reason ? Certainly not. Blind and haphazard belief is superstition and folly. We may believe in causes which reason compels us to admit on the evidence of effects known and appreciated by science. Science ! Great word and great problem ! What is science ? We shall answer in the second chapter of this book.

p. 37

THE PILLAKS OF THE TEMPLE

CHOCHMAH DOMUS GNOSIS SCIENCE is the absolute and complete possession of truth. Hence have the sages of all the centuries trembled before such an absolute and terrible word ; they have hesitated to arrogate to themselves the first privilege of divinity by assuming the possession of science, and have been contented, instead of the verb to know, with that which expresses cognisance, while, instead of the word science, they have adopted that of gnosis, which represents simply the notion of learning by intuition. What, in fact, does man know ? Nothing, and at the same time he is allowed to ignore nothing. Devoid of knowledge, he is called upon to know all. Now, knowledge supposes the duad — a being who knows and an object known. The duad is the generator of society and of law ; it is also the number of the gnosis. The duad is unity multiplying itself in order to create, and hence in sacred symbolism Eve issues from the inmost bosom of Adam. Adam is the human tetragram, summed up in the mysterious Jod, type of the Kabbalistic phallus. By adding to this Jod the triadic name of Eve, the name of Jehova is formed, which is eminently the Kabbalistic and magical word, mrr, which the high-priest in the temple pronounced Jodcheva. So unity complete in the fruitfulness of the triad forms therewith the tetrad, which is the key of all numbers, of all movements, and of all forms. By a revolution about its own centre, the square produces a circle equal to itself, and this is the quadrature of the circle, the circular movement of four equal angles around the same point.

p. 38" That which is above equals that which is below," says Hermes. Here then is the duad serving as the measure of unity, and the relation of equality between above and below forms with these the triad. The created principle is the ideal phallus ; the created principle is the formal cteis. The insertion of the vertical phallus into the horizontal cteis forms the stauros of the Gnostics, or the philosophical cross of masons. Thus, the intersection of two produces four, which, by its movement, defines the circle with all degrees thereof. K is man ; 3 is woman ; I is the principle ; 2 is the word ; A is the active ; B is the passive ; the monad is Bohas ; the duad is Jakin. In the trigrams of Fohi, unity is the yang and the duad is the yin.

yang yin Bohas and Jakin are the names of the two symbolical pillars without the chief door of Solomon's Kabbalistic temple. In the Kabbalah these pillars explain all mysteries of antagonism, whether natural, political, or religious, and they explain also the procreative struggle between the man and the woman, for, according to the law of nature, the woman must resist the man, and he must entice or overcome her. The active principle seeks the passive principle, the plenum desires the void, the serpent's jaw attracts the serpent's tail, and in turning upon himself, he, at the same time, flies and pursues himself. Woman is the creation of man, and universal creation is the bride of the First Principle. When the Supreme Being became a creator, he erected a jod or a phallus, and to provide a place in the fulness of the uncreated light, it was necessary to hollow out a ctei's or