Born Alphonse Louis Constant, trained as a priest and ordained as a deacon, Eliphas Levi was thrown out of the Catholic Church because of his sympathy to left-wing causes and his interest in the occult. The word "occult," in fact, is said to have been coined by him.
Three Fundamental Laws of Magic
Levi believed in magic, but his reputation stems not from his application of it, but from his extensive research and the books he wrote regarding different aspects of the craft. His work is viewed as a cannon for students of the occult. His books include Transcendental Magic, It's Doctrine and Ritual, which was translated from the French by Arthur Edward Waite, a founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and creator of the famous Rider-Waite Tarot.
In his book Islands of the Dawn, Robert Elwood states that Levi identified three fundamental laws of magic:
- The material universe is a small part of total reality, which includes other planes and modes of consciousness. Full knowledge and full power are only attainable through awareness of these other aspects.
- Human willpower is capable of achieving anything;
- The human being is a microcosm of the macrocosmic universe.
New World Order Transformed by Feminine Archetypal Energy
In his book La Mere de Dieu, or The Mother of God, Levi recounts a vision he experienced on Easter Eve 1841 in which he saw the collapse of the old order of strife, disharmony and warfare and a new society replacing it. He believed that this dawning of a new day would usher in the view that anti-social behavior is a form of mental illness and treat it as such, all branches of learning would be seen as different science of God, and tolerance of religion would be the cornerstone of the "analysis and synthesis of love in all forms."
In his vision, he was guided by a young girl. In La Mere de Dieu, he clearly uses a notion of archetypes, preceding Jung by almost 100 years. He states that Mary and Eve are found in all aspects of existence. According to him, the transformation of society will occur through the love of Mary which will allow for "the exchange of the old Adam for the new Christ." Strife in society is to be transformed through a series of destructive years, opening the way for the Holy Spirit, which he considers feminine, to bring a new peaceful order to the world.
Associating Tarot Major Arcana to Hebrew Alphabet
Levi's most significant contribution to the Kabbalah and the study of the Tree of Life was connecting the 22 major trump cards of the tarot to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which have been associated with the different aspects of God for generations of Jewish Mystics. However, his view of the tarot was not a historic rendition. He synthesized a new vision about its import and by doing so gave new meaning to the tarot by making it more accessible to modern minds.
Levi died in 1865, the year Aleistar Crowely, another founder of the Order of the Golden Dawn, who claimed to be Levi's reincarnation.
Sources:
Levi, Eliphas, La Mere de Dieu,1844
Levi, Eliphas, Transidental Magic: It's Doctrine and Rituals, 1855.
CORNERSTONEPUBLISHERS, Levi. Retrieved June 10, 2010.
METARELIGIONS, Elphias Levi, Retrieved June 10, 2010.
Soror A.L., Archetypes on the Tree: Teachings of the Paul Foster Case Tarot, The Raphael Group, Berkeley, 2009.
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