Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) · 24 of 96 · tr. A.E. Waite
3. The Triangle Of Solomon-a
PLENITUDO VOCIS BINAH PHYSIS The perfect word is the triad, because it supposes an intelligent principle, a speaking principle and a principle spoken.
The Absolute, revealed by speech, endows this speech with a sense equivalent to itself, and in the understanding thereof creates its third self.
So also the sun manifests by its light and proves or makes this manifestation efficacious by heat.
The triad is delineated in space by the heavenly zenith, the infinite height, connected with East and West by two straight diverging lines.
With this visible triangle reason compares another which is invisible, but is assumed to be equal in dimension; the abyss is its apex and its reversed base is parallel to the horizontal line stretching from East to West.
These two triangles, combined in a single figure, which is the six-pointed star, form the sacred symbol of Solomon's Seal, the resplendent Star of the Macrocosm.
The notion of the Infinite and the Absolute is expressed by this sign, which is the grand pantacle - that is to say, the most simple and complete abridgement of the science of all things.
Grammar itself attributes three persons to the verb.
The first is that which speaks, the second that which is spoken to, and the third the object.
In creating, the Infinite Prince speaks to Himself of Himself.
Such is the explanation of the triad and the origin of the dogma of the Trinity.
The magical dogma is also one in three and three in one.
That which is above is like or equal to that which is below.
Thus, two things which resemble one another and the word which signifies their resemblance make three.
The triad is the universal dogma.
In Magic - principle, realization, adaptation; in alchemy - azoth, incorporation, transmutation; in theology - God, incarnation, redemption; in the human soul - thought, love and action; in the family - father, mother and child.
The triad is the end and supreme expression of love; we seek one another as two only to become three.
There are three intelligible worlds which correspond one with another by hierarchic analogy; the natural or physical, the spiritual or metaphysical, and the divine or religious worlds.
From this principle follows the hierarchy of spirits, divided into three orders, and again subdivided by the triad in each of these.
All these revelations are logical deductions from the first mathematical notions of being and number.
Unity must multiply itself in order to become active.
An indivisible, motionless and sterile principle would be unity dead and incomprehensible.
Were God only one He would never be Creator or Father.
Were He two there would be antagonism or division in the infinite, which would mean the division also or death of all possible things.
He is therefore three for the creation by Himself and in His image of the infinite multitude of beings and numbers.
So is He truly one in Himself and triple in our conception, which also leads us to behold Him as triple in Himself and one in our intelligence and our love.
This is a mystery for the faithful and a logical necessity for the initiate into absolute and real sciences.
The Word manifested by life is realization or incarnation.
The life of the Word accomplishing its cyclic movement is adaptation or redemption.
This triple dogma was known in all sanctuaries illuminated by the tradition of the sages.
Do you wish to ascertain which is the true religion?
Seek that which realizes most in the Divine Order, which humanizes God and makes man divine, which preserves the triadic dogma intact, which clothes the Word with flesh by making God manifest to the hands and eyes of the most ignorant, which in fine appeals to all in its doctrine and can adapt itself to all - the religion which is hierarchic and cyclic, having allegories and images for children, an exalted philosophy for grown men, sublime hopes and sweet consolations for the old.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
Explicitly states 'That which is above is like or equal to that which is below' as a foundational principle.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
Explains creation through the Infinite Prince speaking to Himself of Himself.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
Describes a hierarchy of spirits divided into three orders and the multiplication of Unity to become active.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
Compares the human soul's triad (thought, love, action) to the divine and cosmic structures.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
Explicitly seeks a religion that 'humanizes God and makes man divine' through the triadic dogma.
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
Describes speech as endowing sense equivalent to the Absolute and creating a third self through utterance.