Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) · 37 of 96 · tr. A.E. Waite
6. Magical Equilibrium-a
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.
Necessity, liberty and reason - these are the great and supreme triangle of the Kabalists, who name reason KETHER, necessity CHOKMAH, and liberty BINAH, in their first or Divine Triad.
Fatality, will and power, such is the magical triad, which corresponds in things human to the Divine Triad.
Fatality is the inevitable sequence of effects and causes in a determined order.
Will is the directing faculty of intelligent forces for the conciliation of the liberty of persons with the necessity of things.
Power is the wise application of will which enlists fatality itself in the accomplishment of the desires of the sage.
When Moses smote the rock, he did not create the spring of water; he revealed it to the people, because occult science had made it known to himself by means of the divining rod.
It is in like manner with all miracles of Magic; a law exists, which is ignored by the vulgar and made use of by the initiate.
Occult laws are often opposed diametrically to common ideas.
For example, the crowd believes in the sympathy of things which are alike and in the hostility of things contrary, but it is the opposite which is the true law.
It used to be affirmed that Nature abhors the void, but it should be said that Nature desires it, were the void not, in physics, the most irrational of fictions.
In all things the vulgar mind habitually takes shadow for reality, turns its back upon light and is reflected in the obscurity which it projects itself.
The forces of Nature are at the disposal of one who knows how to resist them.
Are you master sufficiently of yourself to be never intoxicated?
Then will you direct the terrible and fatal power of intoxication.
If you would make others drunk, possess them with the desire of drink, but do not partake of it yourself.
That man will dispose of the love of others who is master of his own.
If you would possess, do not give.
The world is magnetized by the light of the sun, and we are magnetized by the Astral Light of the world.
That which operates in the body of the planet repeats itself in us.
Within us there are three analogical and hierarchic worlds, as in all Nature.
Man is the Microcosm or little world, and, according to the doctrine of analogies, whatsoever is in the great world is reproduced in the small.
Hence we have three centres of fluidic attraction and projection - the brain, the heart, or epigastric region, and the genital organ.
Each of these instruments is one and twofold -in other words, we find the suggestion of the triad therein.
Each attracts on one side and repels on the other.
It is by means of such apparatus that we place ourselves in communication with the universal fluid supplied to us by the nervous system.
These three centres are, moreover, the seat of a triple magnetic operation, as we shall explain elsewhere.
When the Magus has attained lucidity, whether through the mediation of a pythoness or by his own development, he communicates and directs at will the magnetic vibrations in the whole mass of the Astral Light, the currents of which he divines by means of the Magic Wand, which is a perfected divining rod.
By the aid of these vibrations he influences the nervous system of persons made subject to his action, accelerates or suspends the currents of life, soothes or tortures, heals or hurts - in fine, slays or brings to life.
..
.Here, however, we pause in presence of the smile of incredulity.
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.
The text frequently references the 'Astral Light' and the 'light of the sun' as operative forces. [Converted from divine_light reject to astral_light accept per operator decision 2026-07-15: chunk substantively expresses the Astral Light doctrine.]
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.
The passage articulates the Hermetic axiom that 'whatsoever is in the great world is reproduced in the small.'
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The text describes how forces of Nature and the Astral Light connect the planet to the human being.
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.
The text states 'Man is the Microcosm or little world' and that the great world is reproduced in the small.
Iamblichean ritual practice that engages the gods directly through consecrated material symbols and actions, on the premise that divine power descends into properly prepared matter — distinct from philosophical contemplation alone.
The passage describes the Magus directing magnetic vibrations to influence life and death through occult laws.