Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi
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p. 162The essence of divination, that is to say, the Great Magical Arcanum, is represented by all symbols of the science, and is intimately connected with the one and primeval doctrine of Hermes.
In philosophy, it gives absolute certitude ; in religion, the universal secret of faith ; in physics, the composition, decomposition, recomposition, realisation, and adaptation of philosophical Mercury, called Azoth by the alchemists ; in dynamics it multiplies our forces by those of perpetual motion; it is at once mystical, metaphysical, and material, with correspondent effects in the three worlds ; it procures charity in God, truth in science, and gold in riches, for metallic transmutation is at once an allegory and reality, as all the adepts of true science are perfectly well aware.
Yes, gold can really and materially be made by means of the stone of the sages, which is an amalgam of salt, sulphur, and mercury, thrice combined in Azoth by a triple sublimation and a triple fixation. Yes, the operation is often easy, and may be accomplished in a day, an instant ; at other times it requires months and years.
But to succeed in the great work, one must be divinus — a diviner, in the kabbalistic sense of the term — and it is indispensable that one should have renounced, in respect of personal interest, the advantage of wealth, so as to become its dispenser. Eaymund Lully enriched sovereigns, planted Europe with institutions, and remained poor.
Nicholas Flamel, who, in spite of his legend, is really dead, only attained the great work when asceticism had completely detached him from riches. He was initiated by a suddenly imparted understanding of the book Asck Mezareph, written in Hebrew by the kabbalist Abraham, possibly the compiler of the Sepher Jetzirah.
Now, this understanding was, for Flamel, an intuition deserved, or, rather, rendered possible, by the personal preparations of the adept. I believe I have spoken sufficiently. Divination is, therefore, an intuition, and the key of this intuition is the universal and magical doctrine of
DIVINATION 163 analogies. By means of these analogies, the magus interprets visions, as did the patriarch Joseph in Egypt, according to Biblical history. The analogies in the reflections of the astral light are as exact as the shades of colour in the solar spectrum, and can be calculated and explained with great exactitude.
It is, however, indispensable to know the dreamer's degree of intellectual life, which, indeed, he will himself completely reveal by his own dreams in a manner that will profoundly astonish himself.
Somnambulism, presentiments, and second sight are simply an accidental or induced disposition to dream in a voluntary or awakened sleep — that is, to perceive the analogous reflections of the astral light, as we shall explain to demonstration in our Ritual, wihen providing the long -sought method of regularly prdducing and directing magnetic phenomena.
As to divinatory instruments, they are simply a means of communication between diviner and consulter, serving merely to fix the two wills upon the same sign. Vague, complex, shifting figures help to focus the reflections of the astral fluid, and it is thus that lucidity is procured by coffee-grouts, mists, the white of egg, &c., which evoke fatidic forms, existing only in the translucid — that is, in the imagination of the operators.
Vision in water is worked by the dazzlement and tiring of the optic nerve, which then resigns its functions to the translucid, and produces a brain illusion in which the reflections of the astral light are taken for real images. Hence nervous persons, of weak sight and lively imagination, are most fitted for this species of divination, which, indeed, is most successful when performed by children.
Let us not here misinterpret the function which we attribute to imagination in divinatory arts. It is by imagination assuredly that we see, and this is the natural aspect of the miracle, but we see true things, and in this consists the marvellous aspect of the natural work. We appeal to the experience of all veritable adepts. The author of this book has tested all kinds of divination, and has invariably obtained results in p. 164proportion to the exactitude of his scientific operations and the good faith of his consulters. The Tarot, that miraculous work which inspired all the sacred books of antiquity, is, by reason of the analogical precision of its figures and numbers, the most perfect instrument of divination, and can be employed with complete confidence.
Its oracles are always rigorously true, at least in a certain sense, and even when it predicts nothing it reveals secret things and gives the most wise counsel to its consulters.
Alliette, who, in the last century, from a hairdresser became a kabbalist, and kabbalistically called himself Etteilla, reading his name backwards after the manner of Hebrew, Alliette, I say, after thirty years of meditation over the Tarot, came very near to recovering everything that is concealed in this extraordinary work ; however, he ended only by misplacing the keys, through want of their proper understanding, and inverted the order and character of the figures without, at the same time, entirely destroying their analogies, so great are the sympathy and correspondence which exist between them.
The writings of Etteilla, now very rare, are obscure, wearisome, and in style barbarous ; they have not all been printed, and some manuscripts of this father of modern cartomancers are in the hands of a Paris bookseller who has been good enough to shew them us.
Their most remarkable points are the obstinate opinions and incontestible good faith of the author, who all his life perceived the grandeur of the occult sciences, but was destined to die at the gate of the sanctuary without ever penetrating behind the veil.
He had little esteem for Agrippa, made much of Jean Belot, and knew nothing of the philosophy of Paracelsus, but he possessed a highly-trained intuition, a volition most persevering, though his fancy exceeded his judgment. His endowments were insufficient for a magus and more than were needed for a skilful and accredited diviner of the vulgar order.
Hence Etteilla had a fashionable success which a more accomplished magician would perhaps have been wrong to waive, but would certainly not have claimed.
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