Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi

p. 92senting a horrible and deformed elder, who is vulgarly termed the devil. Hence an initiate has been bold enough to say : " The devil is God, as understood by the wicked " ; while another has added, in words more bizarre, but no less energetic : " The devil is composed of God's ruins.

"We may sum up and explain these strikingly novel definitions by remarking that in symbolism itself the demon is an angel cast out of heaven for having sought to usurp divinity. This belongs to the allegorical language of prophets and makers of legends. Philosophically speaking, the devil is a human idea of divinity, which has been surpassed and dispossessed of heaven by the progress of science and reason.

Among primitive Oriental peoples, Moloch, Adramelek, Baal, were personifications of the one God, dishonoured by barbarous attributes.

The god of the Jansenists, creating hell for the majority of human beings, and delighting in the eternal tortures of those he was unwilling to save, is a conception even more barbarous than that of Moloch ; hence the god of the Jansenists is already a veritable Satan, fallen from heaven, in the sight of every wise and enlightened Christian.

In the multiplication of the divine names the kabbalists have connected them all, either with the unity of the tetragram, the figure of the triad, or the sephirotic scale of the decad. They arrange the scale of the divine names and numbers in a triangle, which may be presented in Eoman characters as follows : — J JA SDI JEHV ELOIM SABAOT ARARITA ELVEDAAT ELIM GIBOR ELIM SABAOT

p. 93The sum of all these divine names formed from the one tetragram is a basis of the Hebrew Kitual, and constitutes the occult force which the kabbalistic rabbins invoke under the title of Semhamphoras. We have now to concern ourselves with the Tarot from the kabbalistic point of view, and have already indicated the occult source of the name.

This hieroglyphic book is composed of a kabbalistic alphabet, and of a wheel or circle of four decades, distinguished by four symbolical and typical figures, each having for its radius a scale of four progressive figures, which represent Humanity : man, woman, youth, child — master, mistress, knight, esquire.

The twenty-two figures of the alphabet represent, in the first place, the thirteen dogmas, and secondly, the nine beliefs authorised by that Jewish religion which is so strong and so firmly established in the highest reason. Here follows the religious and kabbalistic key of The Tarot, formulated in technical verses after the mode of the ancient lawgivers : — 1 X A conscious, active cause in all we see. 2 l And number proves the living unity.

3 a No bound hath He who doth the whole contain. 4 T But, all preceding, fills life's vast domain. 5 n Sole worthy worship, He, the only Lord, 6 1 Doth his true doctrine to clean hearts accord. 7 T But since faith's works a single pontiff need, 8 pj One law have we, and at one altar plead ; 9 to Eternal God for aye their base upholds. 10 t Heaven and man's days alike his rule enfolds.

11 3 In mercy rich, in retribution strong, 12 () His people's King he will upraise ere long. 13 D The tomb gives entrance to the promised land, Death only ends ; life's vistas still expand. These doctrines sacred, pure, and stedfast shine ; And thus we^close our number's scale divine. 14 3 Good angels all things temper and assuage, 15 D While evil spirits burst with wrath and rage. 16 y God doth the lightning rule, the flame subdue.

p. 9417 a His word controls both Vesper and her dew. 18 V He makes the moon our watchman through the night. 19 p And by his sun renews the world in light. 20 i When dust to dust returns, his breath can call or v{5> Life from the tomb which is the fate of all. » 81 or Vn His crown illuminates the mercy seat, 22 And glorifies the cherubs at his feet.

1 Vn Hi J