Eliphas Levi

Regarding my study of the Mysteries of the Universe, I will be posting a few notes every now and then from selected websites to share what I am currently reading. Here’s the first from Wikipedia.

Eliphas Levi:
Definition of Magic
Levi's works are filled with various definitions for "Magic" and the "Magician":

Magic
• "To practice magic is to be a quack; to know magic is to be a sage."-from The Threshold of Magical Science
• "Magic is the divinity of man achieved in union with faith..."-TMS
Magician
• "He looks on the wicked as invalids whom one must pity and cure; the world, with its errors and vices, is to him God's hospital, and he wishes to serve in it."-KoM
• "They are without fears and without desires, dominated by no falsehood, sharing no error, loving without illusion, suffering without impatience, reposing in the quietude of eternal thought..... a Magus cannot be ignorant, for magic implies superiority, mastership, majority, and majority signifies emancipation by knowledge. The Magus welcomes pleasure, accepts wealth, deserves honour, but is never the slave of one of them; he knows how to be poor, to abstain, and to suffer; he endures oblivion willingly because he is lord of his own happiness, and expects or fears nothing from the caprice of fortune. He can love without being beloved; he can create imperishable treasures, and exalt himself above the level of honours or the prizes of the lottery. He possesses that which he seeks, namely, profound peace. He regrets nothing which must end, but remembers with satisfaction that he has met with good in all. His hope is a certitude, for he knows that good is eternal and evil transitory. He enjoys solitude, but does not fly the society of man; he is a child with children, joyous with the young, staid with the old, patient with the foolish, happy with the wise. He smiles with all who smile, and mourns with all who weep; applauding strength, he is yet indulgent to weakness; offending no one, he has himself no need to pardon, for he never thinks himself offended; he pities those who misconcieve him, and seeks an opportunity to serve them; by the force of kindness only does he avenge himself on the ungrateful..."-TMS
• "Judge not; speak hardly at all; love and act."-KoM

Theory of magic
Levi identified three fundamental principles of magic:[3]
1. That the material universe is only a small part of total reality, which includes many other planes and modes of consciousness. Full knowledge and full power in the universe are only attainable through awareness of these other aspects of reality. One of the most important of these levels or aspects of reality is the "astral light", a cosmic fluid which may be molded by will into physical forms.
o "One can only define the unknown by its supposed and supposable relations with the known."-from The Key of the Mysteries
o "The divine ideal of the ancient world made the civilization which came to an end, and one must not despair of seeing the god of our barbarous fathers become the devil of our more enlightened children."-KoM
2. That human willpower is a real force, capable of achieving absolutely anything, from the mundane to the miraculous.
o AXIOM 1:"Nothing can resist the will of man when he knows what is true and wills what is good."
o AXIOM 9:"The will of a just man is the Will of God Himself and the Law of Nature."
o AXIOM 20:"A chain of iron is less difficult to break than a chain of flowers."
o AXIOM 21:"Succeed in not fearing the lion, and the lion will fear YOU. Say to suffering, 'I will that you shall become a pleasure,' and it will prove to be such-- and even more than a pleasure, it will be a blessing."
3. That the human being is a microcosm, a miniature of the macrocosmic universe, and the two are fundamentally linked. Causes set in motion on one level may equally have effects on another.
o "Man is the God of the world, and God is the man of Heaven."-KoM