Andrew Marcec » Eliphas Levi

Eliphas Levi

Jun 23, 2009 | 1 Comment | @andrewmarcec

Eliphas Levi has been mentioned in the past few posts, so this week lets take and in depth look at who he was, and why he was such a huge influence on the occult.

Born in 1810 as Alphonse Louis Constant, he was a French occult author and magician. The name that he published his books under was Eliphas Levi. It was his attempt to directly translate Alphonse Louis into Hebrew. His father was a shoemaker in Paris, and sent Eliphas to study at the seminary so that he could enter into the Roman Catholic priesthood. However, Eliphas fell in love while at the seminary and left before he was ordained.

Fascinated by one of the teachings on the Devil while in the seminary, he began to study and learn as much as he could on the darker side of spiritualism. Early in the 1830′s Eliphas met an old couple who referred to themselves as “Ganneau” and were heavily into witchcraft. He believed himself not only to be a phrophet, but also the reincarnation of Louis the XVII, and his wife the reincarnation of Marie Antionette.

Eliphas traveled to England in 1854 where, after a meeting with Edward Bulwer-Lytton, they devised of a plan to write a treatise on magic. The book’s title is Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual. He later followed that up with a sequel in 1861 with The Key to the Great Mysteries, among many other novels on this subject. His works grew more notable popular after his death in 1875.

By that time spiritualism and the occult had spread to both sides of the Atlantic, and it was through Eliphas Tarot cards have become a staple of Western magic. Eliphas is also known for those he inspired, occult organizations like The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and occultist Aleister Crowley. Aliester went so far as to claim that he was the reincarnation of Eliphas Levi. Aliester stated that he was in the womb when Eliphas died, and that reincarnation happens during gestation not at the moment of conception. This made his statement incredibly hard to detest.

Levi’s teachings of magic were comprised of three priciples…

That the material universe is only a small part of total reality, which includes many other planes and modes of consciousness. Full knowledge and full power in the universe are only attainable through awareness of these other aspects of reality. One of the most important of these levels or aspects of reality is the “astral light” , a cosmic fluid which may be molded by will into physical forms.

That human willpower is a real force, capable of achieving absolutely anything, from the mundane to the miraculous.

That the human being is a microcosm, a miniature of the macrocosmic universe, and the two are fundamentally linked. Causes set in motion on one level may equally have effects on another.

Levi is most notably known for his interperetation of Baphomet, and also the pentagram.

Sources:

Wikipedia

Eliphas Levi