Transcendental Magic II: The Ritual (Éliphas Lévi) · 3 of 123 · tr. A.E. Waite
Introductionc
If I weary in my long travellings, if my beauty be less mild than thine own, and if my garments are not unspotted, yet am I a noble daughter of heaven, even as thou art.
Leave me the secret of my terrible destiny, leave me the dread which surrounds me, curse me even if thou canst not comprehend; I shall none the less accomplish my work, and continue my career under the impulse of the breath of God!
Happy are the stars which rest, which shine like youthful queens in the peaceful society of the universe!
I am the proscribed, the eternal wanderer, who has infinity for domain.
They accuse me of setting fire to the planets, the heat of which I renew; they accuse me of terrifying the stars which I enlighten; they chide me with breaking in upon universal harmony, because I do not revolve about their particular centres, though I join them one with another, directing my gaze towards the sole centre of all the suns.
Be reassured, therefore, O beauteous fixed star!
I shall not impoverish thy peaceful light; rather I shall expend in thy service my own life and heat.
I shall disappear from heaven when I shall have consumed myself, and my doom will have been glorious enough!
Know that various fires burn in the temple of God, and do all give Him glory: ye are the light of golden candelabra; I am the flame of sacrifice.
Let us each fulfil our destinies.” Having uttered these words, the comet tosses back her burning hair, uplifts her fiery shield and plunges into infinite space, seeming to be lost for ever.
Thus Satan appeared and disappeared in the allegorical narratives of the Bible.
“Now there was a day,” says the book of Job, “when the sons of God came to present them selves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
And the Lord said unto Satan: ‘Whence comest thou?’ Then Satan answered the Lord, and said: ‘From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.’” A Gnostic gospel, discovered in the East by a learned traveller of our acquaintance, explains the genesis of light to the profit of Lucifer, as follows: “Self-conscious truth is living thought.
Truth is thought as it is in itself, and formulated thought is speech.
When Eternal Thought desired a form, it said: ‘Let there be light.’ Now, this Thought which speaks is the Word, and the Word said: ‘Let there be light,’ because the Word itself is the light of minds.
The untreated light, which is the Divine Word, shines because it desires to be seen.
When it says: ‘Let there be light!’ it ordains that eyes shall open; it creates intelligences.
When God said: ‘Let there be light!’ Intelligence was made, and the light appeared.
Now, the Intelligence which God diffused by the breath of His mouth, like a star given off from the sun, took the form of a splendid angel, who was saluted by heaven under the name of Lucifer.
Intelligence awakened, and comprehended its nature completely by the understanding of that utterance of the Divine Word: ‘Let there be light!’ It felt itself to be free because God had called it into being, and, raising up its head, with both wings extended, it replied: ‘I will not be slavery.’ ‘Then shalt thou be suffering,’ said the Untreated Voice.
‘I will be liberty,’ replied the light.
‘Pride will seduce thee,’ said the Supreme Voice, ‘and thou wilt bring forth death.’ ‘I needs must strive with death to conquer life,’ again responded the created light.
Themes
◆Cosmogonycosmology
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.
The text provides a detailed narrative of the genesis of light and intelligence from Eternal Thought.
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.
A chain flows from Eternal Thought to the Word to Light to Intelligence/Lucifer.
The Gnostic myth of Wisdom's prolapse from the Pleroma — her unilateral desire or error producing the Demiurge and the entrapment of divine sparks in matter.
Lucifer's choice of liberty over slavery leading to suffering parallels the Gnostic fall myth.
Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.
The comet states she shall 'disappear from heaven when I shall have consumed myself'.
Bruno's eroici furori — a passionate, ennobling spiritual ardor that drives the soul toward divine wisdom; distinguished from base or animal passions by its orientation to infinite truth.
The comet embraces a 'terrible destiny' and 'glorious enough' doom with passion.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The comet is a 'proscribed, eternal wanderer' and Lucifer chooses separation from slavery.
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.
The utterance 'Let there be light' is described as the direct cause of intelligence and creation.