Transcendental Magic — Éliphas Lévi

p. 182This signifies, according to the version of Fabre d'Olivet : " Now, original attraction (cupidity) was the entraining passion of all elementary life (the interior active power) of nature, the work of Jhoah, the Being of beings. But herein Fabre d'Olivet is beside the true interpretation, because he was unacquainted with the grand keys of the Kabbalah.

The word Nahasch, explained by the symbolical letters of the Tarot rigorously signifies : 14 3 Nun. — The power which produces combinations. 5 n He. — The recipient and passive producer of forms. 21 W Schin. — The natural and central fire equilibrated by double polarisation.

Thus, the word employed by Moses, read kabbalistically, gives the description and definition of that magical universal agent, represented in all theogonies by the serpent ; to this agent the Hebrews applied the name of OD when it manifested its active force, of OB when it exhibited its passive force, and of AOUR when it wholly revealed itself in its equilibrated power, producer of light in heaven and gold among metals.

It is therefore that old serpent which encircles the world, and places his devouring head beneath the foot of a Virgin, the type of initiation — that virgin who presents a little new-born child to the adoration of three magi, and receives from' them, in exchange for this favour, gold, myrrh, and frankincense.

So does doctrine serve in all hieratic religions to veil the secret of those forces of nature which the initiate has at his disposal ; religious formulae are the summaries of those words full of mystery and power which make the gods descend from heaven and yield themselves to the will of men.

Judea borrowed its secrets from Egypt ; there Greece sent her hierophants, and later her theosophists, to the school of the great prophets ; the Eome of the Caesars, mined by the initiation of the catacombs, collapsed one day into the Church, and a symbolism was reconstructed with the remnants of all the worships which had been absorbed by the queen of the world. According to the Gospel narrative, the inscription 2p. 183which set forth the spiritual royalty of Christ was written in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin ; it was the expression of the universal synthesis.

Hellenism, in fact, that grand and beauteous religion of form, announced the coming of the Saviour no less than the prophets of Judaism ; the fable of Psyche was an ultra-Christian abstraction, and the cultus of the Pantheons, by rehabilitating Socrates, prepared the altars for that unity of God, of which Israel had been the mysterious preserver.

But the synagogue denied its Messiah, and the Hebrew letters were effaced, at least in the blinded eyes of the Jews. The Roman persecutors dishonoured Hellenism, and it could not be restored by the false moderation of the philosopher Julian, surnanied perhaps unjustly the Apostate, since his Christianity was never sincere.

The ignorance of the middle ages followed, opposing saints and virgins to gods, goddesses, and nymphs ; the deep sense of the Hellenic mysteries became less understood than ever; Greece herself did not only lose the traditions of her ancient cultus, but separated from the Latin Church ; and thus, for Latin eyes, the Greek letters were blotted out, as the Latin letters disappeared for Greek eyes.

So the inscription on the Cross of the Saviour vanished entirely, and nothing except mysterious initials remained. But when science and philosophy, reconciliated with faith, shall unite all the various symbols, then shall all the magnificences of the antique worships again blossom in the memory of men, proclaiming the progress of the human mind in the intuition of the light of God.

But of all forms of progress the greatest will be that which, restoring the keys of nature to the hands of science, shall enchain for ever the hideous spectre of Satan, and, explaining all exceptional phenomena of nature, shall destroy the empire of superstition and idiotic credulity. To the accomplishment of this work we have consecrated our life, and do still devote it, to the most toilsome and difficult researches.

We would emancipate altars by overthrowing idols ; we desire the man of intelligence to become once more the priest and king of nature, 3p. 184and we would preserve by explanation all images of the universal sanctuary. The prophets spoke in parables and images, because abstract language was wanting to them, and because prophetic perception, being the sentiment of harmony or of universal analogies, translates naturally by images. Taken literally by the vulgar, these images become idols or impenetrable mysteries.

The sum and succession of these images and mysteries constitute what is called symbolism. Symbolism, therefore, comes from God, though it may be formulated by men. Eevelation has accompanied humanity in all ages, has transfigured with human genius, but has ever expressed the same truth. True religion is one ; its dogmas are simple, and within the reach of all.

At the same time, the multiplicity of symbols has been a book of poesy indispensable to the education of human genuis. The harmony of outward beauties and the poetry of form had to be revealed by God to the infancy of man ; but soon Venus had Psyche for her rival, and Psyche enchanted Love. Thus the cultus of the form perforce yielded to those ambitious dreams which already adorned the eloquent wisdom of Plato.

The advent of Christ was prepared, and for this reason was expected ; it came because the world awaited it, and to become popular philosophy transformed into belief.

Emancipated by this belief itself, the human mind speedily protested against the school which sought to materialise its signs, and the work of Eoman Catholicism was solely the unconscious preparation for the emancipation of consciences and the establishment of the bases of universal association.

All these things were the regular and normal development of divine life in humanity ; for God is the great soul of all souls, the immovable centre about which gravitate all intelligences like a cloud of stars. Human intelligence has had its morning ; its noon will come, and the decline follow, but God will ever be the same. It seems, however, to the dwellers on the earth that the sun rises youthful and timid in the morning, shines with all its