Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi
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THE PENTAGRAM 65 appearing to seers, either such as they were upon earth, or such as they are in the grave, never as they subsist in a condition which escapes the perceptions of our actual organism. Pregnant women are influenced more than others by the astral light, which concurs in the formation of the child, and perpetually offers them reminiscences of the forms which abound therein.
This explains how it is that women of the highest virtue deceive the malignity of observers by equivocal resemblances. On the fruit of their marriage they impress frequently an image which has struck them in dream, and it is thus that the same physiognomies are perpetuated from generation to generation.
The Kabbalistic usage of the pentagram can therefore determine the appearance of unborn children, and an initiated woman might endow her son with the characteristics of Nero or Achilles as much as with those of Louis XIV. or Napoleon. We shall indicate the method in our Ritual.
The pentagram is called in Kabbalah the sign of the microcosm, that sign so exalted by Goethe in the beautiful monologue of Faust : " Ah, how do all my senses leap at this sight ! I feel the young and sacred pleasure of life bubbling in my nerves and veins. Was it a God who traced this sign which stills the vertigo of my soul, fills my poor heart with joy, and, in a mysterious rapture, unveils the forces of nature around me. Am I myself a God !
All is so clear to me ; I behold in these simple lines the revelation of active nature to my soul. I realise for the first time the truth of the wise man's words : The world of spirits is not closed ! Thy sense is obtuse, thy heart is dead ! Arise ! Bathe, 0 adept of science, thy breast, still enveloped by an earthly veil, in the splendours of the dawning day ! " (Faust, Part i. sc. 1).
On the 24th of July in the year 1854, the author of this book, filiphas Levi, made experiments of evocation with the pentagram, after due preparation by all the ceremonies which are indicated in the thirteenth chapter of the Kitual.
p. 66The success of this experiment, details of which, as regards its principles, will be found in the corresponding chapter of this our doctrinal part, establishes a new pathological fact, which men of true science will admit without difficulty. The repeated experience, in all three times, gave results truly extraordinary, but positive and unmixed with hallucination. We invite sceptics to make a conscientious and intelligent attempt before shrugging their shoulders and smiling. The figure of the pentagram, perfected in accordance with science, and used by the author in his experiment, is that which is found at the head of this chapter, and it is more perfect than any in the keys of Solomon, or in the magical calendars of Tycho Brahe and Duchentau. We must, however, remark that the use of the pentagram is most dangerous for operators who are not in possession of its complete and perfect understanding. The direction of the points of the star is in no sense arbitrary, and may change the entire character of the operation, as we shall explain in the Eitual. Paracelsus, that innovator in magic, who surpassed all other initiates in his unaided practical success, affirms that every magical figure and every kabbalistic sign of the pantacles which compel spirits, may be reduced to two, which are the synthesis of all the others ; these are the sign of the the t tion p. 67m or the seal of Solomon, the form of which we given, and now reproduce here, and that of the ^rjn, more potent even than the first — that is to say, , 1CrCieiroram' °f which he provides a most minute descriptis occult philosophy. If it be asked how a sign so much power over spirits, we inquire in can % riy the whole Christian world bows down before the retunyt]le cross ? rpne sjgn jg nothing by itself, and has no S18n ipart from the doctrine of which it is the summary logos. Now, a sign which sums, by their exon, all the occult forces of nature, a sign which has Pres exhibited to elementary spirits and others a power everr than their own, naturally fills them with respect and §rea!nd enforces their obedience by the empire of science fear,f w^j over jgnorance and weakness. By the pentaan(* also is measured the exact proportions of the great §ranQique athanor necessary to the confection of the philoanc* al stone and the accomplishment of the great work. SOP* lost perfect alembic in which the quintessence can be is conformable to this figure, and the quintessence represented by the sign of the pentagram. itself
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E intelligence is necessarily reasonable. God, in , may be only a hypothesis, but he is a hypoaposed by good sense on human reason. To personify ie Reason is to determine the divine ideal. y, liberty, and reason — these are the great and C13 triangle of the Kabbalists, who name reason suPrf necessity Chochmah, and liberty Binah, in their first Keti the
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