Concept
Éliphas Lévi
Overview
Éliphas Lévi Zahed, born Alphonse Louis Constant (8 February 1810 – 31 May 1875), was a French esotericist, occultist, 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.
The pen name "Éliphas Lévi" was an adaptation of his given names "Alphonse Louis" into Hebrew. Levi gained renown as an original thinker and writer, his works attracting attention in Paris and London among esotericists and artists of romantic or symbolist inspiration. He left the Grand Orient de France (the French Masonic organization that originated Continental Freemasonry) in the belief that the original meanings of its symbols and rituals had been lost. "I ceased being a freemason, at once, because the Freemasons, excommunicated by the Pope, did not believe in tolerating Catholicism ... [and] the essence of Freemasonry is the tolerance of all beliefs."
Many authors influenced Levi's political, occultic and literary development, such as the French monarchist Joseph de Maistre (whom he quotes in many parts of his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie), Paracelsus, Robert Fludd, Swedenborg, Fabre d'Olivet, the Rosicrucians, Plato, Raymond Lull, and other esotericists.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The one may talk loosely about the Gods and about sacrifices and oaths, and perhaps by laughing at other men he may make them like himself, if he be not punished. But the other who holds the same opinions and is called a clever man, is full of stratagem and deceit--men of this class deal in prophecy and jugglery of all kinds, and out of their ranks sometimes come tyrants and demagogues and generals and hierophants…
Plato, Laws
States what Éliphas Lévi is; the author is tied to Éliphas Lévi in the knowledge graph.
All these bodies became living creatures, and learnt their appointed tasks, and began to move, the nearer more swiftly, the remoter more slowly, according to the diagonal movement of the other. And since this was controlled by the movement of the same, the seven planets in their courses appeared to describe spirals; and that appeared fastest which was slowest, and that which overtook others appeared to be…
Plato, Timaeus
States what Éliphas Lévi is; the author is tied to Éliphas Lévi in the knowledge graph.
He adds that these same gods, even granting that on other points their utterances were true, were yet so ill-advised and unsatisfactory in their disclosures about blessedness, that they cannot be either gods or good demons, but are either that spirit who is called the deceiver, or mere fictions of the imagination.
of Hippo Augustine, The City of God, Volume I
States what Éliphas Lévi is.
Related ideas
- Freemasonry
- Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
- Robert Fludd
- Paracelsus
- Secret society
- Helena Blavatsky
- Kabbalah
- Pentagram
- Theosophical Society
- Joseph de Maistre
- Occult
- Plato
- Magic (supernatural)
- Western esotericism
- Rosicrucianism
- Alchemy
- Catholic Church
- Priesthood in the Catholic Church
- Saint-Simonianism
- A. E. Waite
- Carl Reichenbach
- Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński
Place in the tradition
Part of Western esotericism.