cosmology

Astral Light

The universal fluid or medium of occult philosophy — Lévi's Great Magical Agent — that transmits will, thought, and magical influence between minds and matter, and preserves the impress of all forms and actions as a book of consciences; cognate with akasha and the anima mundi. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (a doctrine of hidden affinity) in being a substantival medium that can be charged, directed, and abused.

51 passages · 1 traditions

western_esoteric51

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Ancient Mysteries and Secret Societies Which Have Influenced Modern Masonic Symbolismd

“THE DRUIDIC MYSTERIES OF BRITAIN AND GAUL "The original and primitive inhabitants of Britain, at some remote period, revived and reformed their national institutes. Their priest, or instructor, had hitherto been simply named Gwydd, but it…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Isis, the Virgin of the Worldg

“At one of her ears was the moon and at the other the sun, to indicate that these two were the agent and patient, or father and mother principles of all natural objects; and that Isis, or Nature, makes use of these two luminaries to communic…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Life and Philosophy of Pythagorash

“This fifth element, or ether, was called by the Hindus akasa . It was closely correlated with the hypothetical ether of modern science, and was the interpenetrative substance permeating all of the other elements and acting as a common solv…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Pythagorean Mathematicsk

“The tetrad--4--was esteemed by the Pythagoreans as the primogenial number, the root of all things, the fountain of Nature and the most perfect number. All tetrads are intellectual; they have an emergent order and encircle the world as the…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Human Body in Symbolisma

“THE oldest, the most profound, the most universal of all symbols is the human body. The Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, and Hindus considered a philosophical analysis of man's triune nature to be an indispensable part of ethical and religious…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Hiramic Legendc

“Upon CHiram's refusal to reveal the Master's Word , the ruffian struck him on the throat with the rule, and the wounded Master then hastened to the west gate, where Jubelo, armed with a square, awaited him and made a similar demand. Again…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Hiramic Legendd

“Among the manuscripts of Dr. Sigismund Bastrom, the initiated Rosicrucian, appears the following extract from von Welling concerning the true philosophic nature of the Masonic CHiram: "The original word חירם, CHiram, is a radical word cons…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Hiramic Legendf

“The arrant enemies of universal democracy have ever been the crown, the tiara, and the torch. Thus CHiram symbolizes that ideal state of spiritual, intellectual, and physical emancipation which has ever been sacrificed upon the altar of hu…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Hiramic Legendg

“In the human brain there is a tiny gland called the pineal body, which is the sacred eye of the ancients, and corresponds to the third eye of the Cyclops. Little is known concerning the function of the pineal body, which Descartes suggeste…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Fishes, Insects, Animals, Reptiles and Birdsg

“In his Chaldean Account of the Genesis , George Smith, copying from the cuneiform cylinders, in describing the wanderings of the hero Izdubar (Nimrod), throws some light on the scorpion god who guards the sun. The tablet which he translate…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Fishes, Insects, Animals, Reptiles and Birdsj

“This, say the explanations, was the Spirit of God moving on the chaos until its breath had incubated cosmic matter and made it assume the annular shape of a serpent with its tail in its month--emblem of eternity in its spiritual and of our…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Stones, Metals and Gemsk

“Woe to that benighted mortal who accepts literally the stories circulated concerning them! He will discover--often at the cost of sanity and health--that sorcery and philosophy, while often confused, have nothing in common. The Persian Ma…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Ceremonial Magic and Sorceryb

“Man, incapable of controlling his own appetites, is not equal to the task of governing the fiery and tempestuous elemental spirits. Many a magician has lost his life as the result of opening a way whereby submundane creatures could become…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Hermetic Pharmacology, Chemistry, and Therapeuticsc

“The seven-pointed star of the sacred metals is arranged that one black point is downward, thus symbolizing Saturn, the Destroyer. Beginning in the space immediately to the left of the black point, reading clockwise discloses the cryptic wo…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Hermetic Pharmacology, Chemistry, and Therapeuticsd

“de la Violette, one of the best Chymists that our Age hath produced; who affirmes, that himselfe saw an Excellent Polich Physician of Cracovia, who kept, in Glasses, the Ashes of almost all the Hearbs that are knowne: so that, when any one,…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | An Analysis of Tarot Cardsi

“In the pseudo-Egyptian Tarot the hanged man is suspended between two palm trees and signifies the Sun God who dies perennially for his world. The thirteenth numbered major trump is called La Mort , Death, and portrays a reaping skeleton wi…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Fifteen Rosicrucian and Qabbalistic Diagramsa

“IN his well-known work, The Rosicrucians, Their Rites and Mysteries , Hargrave Jennings reproduces five Qabbalistic charts which he declares to be genuine Rosicrucian drawings. He gives no information concerning their origin nor does he at…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Theory and Practice of Alchemyf

“But as the seed is within all these things, a diamond may be grown out of any other substance in the universe. In some substances, however, it is easier to perform this miracle because in them these germs have already been long fertilized…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | The Theory and Practice of Alchemyn

“The knowledge of Nature's secret operations constitutes the principal sense of all these ancient writings, but ignorance framed out of it that external or veiled mythology and the lower class of people turned it into idolatry. THE KEY TO A…”

◆The Secret Teachings of All Ages (Manly P. Hall) | Freemasonic Symbolisme

“Thus in one chamber the voice of the priest was amplified until his words caused the very room to vibrate, while in another the voice was diminished and softened to such a degree that it sounded like the distant tinkling of silver bells. A…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 5. The Pentagramb

“Here let us state distinctly that this work is being performed continually in the world by some of the flower of mankind; that there is hence a permanent revelation by intuition; and that there is no insuperable barrier which separates soul…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 6. Magical Equilibriuma

“TIPHERETH UNCUS SUPREME intelligence is necessarily reasonable. God, in philosophy, may be only a hypothesis, but He is a hypothesis imposed by good sense on human reason. To personify the Absolute Reason is to determine the Divine Ideal.…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 6. Magical Equilibriumb

“Let us permit it to enjoy the easy triumph of denying what it does not know. We shall demonstrate later on that death is preceded always by a lethargic sleep, and hence takes place gradually; that resurrection is possible in certain cases;…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 6. Magical Equilibriumc

“Love is one of the great instruments of magical power, but it is categorically forbidden to the Magus, at least as an intoxication or passion. Woe to the Samson of the Kabalah if he permit himself to be put asleep by Delilah! The Hercules…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 6. Magical Equilibriumd

“It is a fatal and inevitable operation, directed and made still more calamitous by elementary spirits and suffering souls, whose restless wills seek out sympathies in our weakness and tempt us, but not so much to destroy us as to win friend…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 8. Realizationa

“HOD VIVENS CAUSES manifest by effects, and effects are proportioned to causes. The Divine Word, the One Word, the Tetragram, is self-affirmed by tetradic creation. Human fecundity proves divine fecundity; the JOD of the Divine Name is the…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 8. Realizationb

“The revealers have therefore done scarcely more than divine, by the accuracy of their calculations, the appropriate moment for moral reactions. The law of realization produces what we call magnetic breathing; places and objects become impr…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 11. The Magic Chaina

“MANUS FORCE THE GREAT Magical Agent, by us termed the Astral Light, by others the soul of the earth, and designated by old chemists under the names of Azoth and MAGNESIA, this occult, unique and indubitable force, is the key of all empire,…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 13. Necromancya

“EX IPSIS MORS We HAVE said that the images of persons and things are preserved in the Astral Light. Therein also can be evoked the forms of those who are in our world no longer, and by this means are accomplished those mysteries of Necroma…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 13. Necromancyb

“We enter into communion with larvae, with dead or perishing substances, by this operation. The beings in question, for the most part, cannot speak except by a ringing in our ears produced by the nervous shock to which I have referred, and…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 14. Transmutationsa

“SPHERA LUNAE SEMPITERNUM AUXILIUM St. AUGUSTINE questioned seriously whether Apuleius could have been changed into an ass by a Thessalian sorceress, and theologians have long debated about the transformation of Nebuchadnezzar into a wild b…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 14. Transmutationsb

“Many persons will believe that they are dreaming when they read such things as these, and may ask whether we are really awake ourselves; but we need only request men of science to reflect upon the phenomena of gestation and upon the influen…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 15. Black Magic

“SAMAEL AUXILIATOR We APPROACH the mystery of Black Magic. We are about to confront, even in his own sanctuary, the black god of the Sabbath, the formidable goat of Mendes. At this point those who are liable to fear should close the book; ev…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 17. Astrologyd

“Hence I conclude that, for myself and for this year, experience confirms fully the precision of Cardan's astrological calculus, which connects furthermore with the climacteric years of ancient astrologers. This term signifies arranged in s…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 21. Divinationa

“DENTES FURCA AMENS THE AUTHOR of this book has dared many things in his life, and never has fear retained his thought a prisoner. It is not at the same time without legitimate dread that he approaches the end of the magical doctrine. It i…”

◆Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) | 22. Summary And General Key Of The Four Secret Sciencesb

“Let the wise man seek it not, since he has already found it; let the profane seek for ever: they will never find. Metallic transmutation takes place spiritually and materially by the positive key of analogies. Occult medicine is simply th…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 1. Preparationsb

“We have said that impassioned ecstasy may produce the same results as absolute superiority, and this is true as to the issue but not as to the direction of magical operations. Passion projects the Astral Light forcibly and impresses unfore…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 1. Preparationsc

““But how act?” Rise daily at the same hour, and that early; bathe at a spring before daybreak, and in all seasons; never wear soiled clothes: wash them yourself at need; practise voluntary privations, that you may be better able to bear tho…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 2. Magical Equilibriumb

“The same manual gesture may assimilate and give forth alternately what we are accustomed to call the fluid, and the magnetizer will himself be warned of the result of his intention by an alternative sensation of warmth and cold in the hand,…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 3. The Triangle Of Pantaclesa

“THE Abbot Trithemius, who in Magic was the master of Cornelius Agrippa, explains, in his Steganography, the secret of Conjurations and Evocations after a very natural and philosophical manner, though possibly, for that very reason, too simp…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 4. The Conjuration Of The Fourf

“But we live in a century when no one has the courage to confess the wonders that he has witnessed, and did anyone say: “I have myself beheld or performed the things which I am describing,” he would be answered: “You are diverting yourself a…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 6. The Medium And Mediatora

“TWO things, as we have shown, are necessary for the acquisition of magical power - the emancipation of will from servitude and its instruction in the art of domination. The sovereign will is represented in our symbols by the Woman who crus…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 12. The Great Worka

“TO be ever rich, to be always young and to die never: such, from all time, has been the dream of alchemists. To change lead, mercury, and the other metals into gold, to possess the Universal Medicine and the Elixir of Life - such is the pr…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 12. The Great Workb

“Here then is the great Hermetic Arcanum, and we reveal it for the first time clearly and devoid of mystical figures: that which the adepts term dead substances are bodies as found in Nature; living substances are those which have been assim…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 13. Necromancyc

“There are two kinds of Necromancy, that of light and that of darkness - the evocation by Prayer, Pantacle and Perfumes, and the evocation by blood, imprecations and sacrilege. We have practised only the first, and advise no one to devote t…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 15. The Sabbath Of The Sorcerersb

“All the Kabalah and all Magic, as a fact, are divided between the cultus of the immolated and that of the emissary goat. We must recognize therefore a Magic of the Sanctuary and that of the wilderness, the White and the Black Church, the p…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 16. Witchcraft And Spellsa

“WHAT sorcerers and necromancers sought above all in their evocations of the impure spirit was that magnetic power which is the possession of the true adept, but was desired by them only that they might abuse it shamefully. The folly of sor…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 19. The Mastery Of The Sunb

“Hermetic Science, like all real sciences, is mathematically demonstrable. Even its material results are as exact as a well-worked equation. Hermetic gold is not only a true doctrine, a shadowless light, truth unalloyed with falsehood; it…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 20. The Thaumaturgec

“Insufflation is one of the most important practices of occult medicine, because it is a perfect sign of the transmission of life. To inspire, as a fact, means to breathe upon some person or thing, and we know already, by the one doctrine o…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 21. The Science Of The Prophetsb

“The soul, scrutinizing by means of the whole nervous system the circle of the Astral Light, which influences a man and from him receives an influence; the soul of the diviner, we repeat, can comprehend by a single intuition all the loves an…”

◆Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) | 22. The Book Of Hermeso

“Then comes the victory, and the wounded on both sides, now brothers in suffering and before humanity, will meet in the ambulances of the conquerors. Such are the consequences of the philosophical dogma of Hermes; such has been from all tim…”

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