"Four letters make the Name that rules all names."
Éliphas Lévi Zahed, born Alphonse Louis Constant, was a French esotericist, poet, and writer. Initially pursuing an ecclesiastical career in the Catholic Church, he abandoned the priesthood in his mid-twenties and became a ceremonial magician. At the age of 40, he began professing knowledge of the occult. He wrote over 20 books on magic, Kabbalah, alchemical studies, and occultism.
"It can have no analogy in fact with the descriptions of those who know nothing of the subject; furthermore, it is not to be represented as this or that by any person whomsoever: it is that which it is, drawing from itself only, even as mathematics do, for it is the exact and absolute science of Nature and her laws."
Eliphas Levi"The conventional Hexagram presents in pictorial symbolism the root doctrine of the Hermetic Emerald Tablet: "That which is above is equal to that which is below." It is the sign of the interpenetration of worlds."
Eliphas Levi"The Great Work is the attainment of that middle point in which equilibrating force abides. Furthermore, the reactions of equilibrated force do everywhere conserve universal life by the perpetual motion of birth and death. It is for this reason that the philosophers have compared their gold to the sun. For the same reason that same gold cures all diseases of the soul and communicates immortality."
Eliphas Levi"Father, forgive them," said Jesus, "for they know not what they do." – People of good sense, whoever you may be, I will add, do not listen to them, for they know not what they say."
Eliphas Levi"1. All things proclaim an active, thinking cause. 2. The living unity heeds numbers laws. 3. That which contains all is by nothing bound. 4. Before all else, He everywhere is found. 5. He, the sole Master—praise to Him alone! 6. To pure hearts His true doctrine He makes known. 7. Faiths works a single guide have, under heaven. 8. So one sole altar and one law are given. 9. What the Eternal founds, forever stays. 10. From high, down to our time, He rules each phase. 11. Great is His mercy, and His wrath severe. 12. He sends a king unto His people dear. 13. The tomb but leads to new lands by and by, Life is immortal, death alone shall die."
Eliphas Levi"Magic has been confounded too long with the jugglery of mountebanks, the hallucinations of disordered minds and the crimes of certain unusual malefactors. There are otherwise many who would promptly explain Magic as the art of producing effects in the absence of causes; and on the strength of such a definition it will be said by ordinary people — with the good sense which characterises the ordinary, in the midst of much injustice — that Magic is an absurdity."
Eliphas Levi