FOOTNOTES:
[1] The word signifies reception, and in Rabbinical Hebrew it denotes doctrine so communicated—that is to say, by a tradition handed down or received from the past. John Reuchlin specifies it as symbolical reception, signifying that the doctrine is not comprised simply in its surface meaning. He says further that it is of Divine Revelation, and that it belongs primarily to the life-giving contemplation of God. This is in the universal sense, but it is concerned also with secret teaching respecting particular things, meaning things manifest—contemplatio formarum separatarum.
[2] The reference is to L’Origine de tous les Cultes, ou Religion Universelle, 12 vols. in 8vo, together with an atlas in 4to. Paris, 1794. The work endeavoured to shew the unity of dogma under the multiplicity of symbols and allegories. In other words, it explained religion by astronomy, the cultus in the light of the calendar, mysteries of grace by means of natural phenomena. An abridgment in a small volume appeared about 1821. The Table of Denderah or Dendra was a great zodiac sculptured on the ceiling of the portico belonging to the Temple at that place, which was the ancient Tentyrio.
[3] Sed omnia in mensura, et numero, et pondere disposuisti: “But Thou hast ordered all things in measure and number and weight.”—Wisdom, xi. 21.
[4] The conventional Hexagram presents in pictorial symbolism the root doctrine of the Hermetic Emerald Tablet: “That which is above is equal to that which is below.” It is the sign of the interpenetration of worlds.
[5] According to the Zohar, Pt. I., fol. 21a, 21b, it was with the guardian angel of Esau that Jacob wrestled at the place which he named Peniel. The angel could not prevail against Jacob because the latter derived his strength from the Supreme Light, Kether, and from Chokmah, which is the second hypostasis. He therefore smote Jacob on the right thigh, which signifies the seventh Sephira, or Netzach.
[6] The more usual argument of high orthodox theology in the Latin school is that a sin against the Infinite Being is one of infinite culpability. If it were suggested in rejoinder that it must be one of infinite inconsequence, so far as that Being is concerned, it might not be more reasonable than the argument, but it would do less outrage to logic.
[7] It is to be noted, however, that there was mockery of its kind in the middle ages, that Satan and his emissaries in folk-lore appear under ridiculous lights. There is the prototypical story of the devil who gave a course of lectures on Black Magic at the University of Salamanca and demanded, as a consideration, the soul of one of his hearers; but he was cheated with the student’s shadow.
[8] In his earlier work, The Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental Magic, Éliphas Lévi affirms (a) on the authority of a writer whom he does not name, that the devil is God, as understood by the wicked; (b) on another authority, that the devil is composed of God’s ruins; (c) that the devil is the Great Magical Agent employed for evil purposes by a perverse will; (d) that he is death masquerading in the cast-off garments of life; (e) that Satan, Beelzebub, Adramelek, &c., do not designate spiritual unities, but legions of impure spirits.
[9] In speaking of evil and a possible Prince of Darkness, it is necessary to proceed carefully, if we are confined, like Éliphas Lévi, within the measures of a theory of opposites. The definition of evil as the absence of rectitude is entirely insufficient to cover the facts of experience; it is that indeed, but it is also as much more as may be necessary to account for its positive and active side. The truth is that positive and negative are on both sides of the eternal balance of things postulated by the theory. So far as it goes, evil is the absence of rectitude, and, so far as it goes also, rectitude is the absence of evil; but the vital aspects of good and bad have slipped between the fingers of definition in both cases.
[10] Saint-Martin recognises the existence of an astral region, which is apparently that of sidereal rule. There is, in his view a certain science of this region, and of this the active branch is theurgic, while the passive engenders somnambulism. These divisions constitute the elementary science of the astral, but above these there is one which is more fatal and dangerous, of which he refuses to speak. There is no Martinistic doctrine concerning the Astral Light, understood as an universal medium. Éliphas Lévi seems to have used the term Martinism in a general sense, as if it included the school of Martines de Pasqually. Pasqually, however, has no doctrine concerning the Astral Light. Modern French Martinism has read it into Saint-Martin’s rather ridiculous “epico-magical poem” or allegory, called Le Crocodile, much as another school of experiment might find therein a veiled account of the Akasic records and the mode of their study. I refer to the story of Atlantis, which begins at Chant 64 and occupies a large part of the book. The account of the Chair of Silence is very curious in this connection.
[11] If the word is of Greek origin it seems to connect with the idea of watchers rather than leaders. Cf. [Greek ho egrêgoros] = Vigil, in the Septuagint.
[12] The Kabalistic explanation is (a) that Egyptian Magic was real Magic; (b) that its wisdom was of the lowermost degree only; (c) that it was overcome by the superior degrees, by which the serpent above, or Metatron, dominates the serpent below, namely, Samael. See Zohar, Part II., fol. 28a.
[13] Elsewhere Éliphas Lévi suggests that Pharaoh’s magicians refused rather than failed and that the production of flies was beneath the dignity of their Magic.
[14] It should be mentioned that this enumeration is in the reverse order of chronology, and it is not, as it happens, even in accordance with what may be called traditional chronology. Legend says—and Éliphas Lévi himself mentions subsequently—that the Sepher Yetzirah was the work of Abraham and that the Zohar is in its root-matter a literal record of discourses delivered by R. Simeon Ben Jochai, after the fall of Jerusalem, A.D. 70. The Jerusalem and Babylon Talmuds are admittedly growths of some centuries.
[15] The meanings ascribed to the names and inscriptions on the two Pillars of the Temple will be of curious interest to members of the Masonic Fraternity, who will be reminded of variants with which they are themselves familiar. It must be said, however, that the explanation of Lévi corresponds neither to Masonic nor Kabalistic symbolism. According to the latter Boaz is the left-hand Pillar, being that of Severity in the scheme of the Sephirotic Tree; it answers to Hod, and the meaning attached to its name is Strength and Vigour. Jachin is on the right hand, answering to Netzach on the Tree; it signifies the state of becoming established. That which is made firm between Hod and Netzach is Malkuth, or the kingdom below. This is the late Kabalism of the tract entitled Garden of Pomegranates.
[16] This is the particular construction which is placed by Lévi on the texts with which he is assuming to deal, and it is not really justified by these. The Zohar has, however, a doctrine of the Unknown Darkness. The Infinite is neither light nor splendour, though all lights emanate therefrom. It is a Supreme Will, exceeding human comprehension, and more mysterious than all mysteries. See Zohar, Part I., fol. 239a.
[17] Éliphas Lévi does not seem always to have made the most of his opportunities as regards the texts of Kabalism and the literature thereto belonging which were available at his period in Latin and certain modern languages, including his own. He had otherwise little opportunity of learning the real message of the Zoharic cycle. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, his guesses were sometimes very shrewd, and here and there carry with them the suggestion of intuitions. The teaching of the Zohar on the subject of sex postulates, like so much of its doctrine, a secret tradition to which it never gives expression in fulness, though it is incessantly lifting now one and now another corner of the veil. It is, however, impossible to speak of it within the limit of a note.
[18] It was not a master-word but a mode of greeting; it was neither Masonic nor Kabalistic; it was a Rosicrucian formula. It may be added that: “Peace profound, my brethren”—was answered by: “Emanuel; God is with us.” It is a perfect and highly mystical mode of salutation.
[19] Perhaps the true explanation in respect of Henry Khunrath is that, seemingly, he was of the Lutheran persuasion as one of the accidents of his birth, but in the higher consciousness he was, as he could be only, catholic. As regards the resolute protestantism, Éliphas Lévi says in his Ritual of Transcendental Magic that Khunrath “affects Christianity in expressions and in signs, but it is easy to see that his Christ is the Abraxas, the luminous pentagram radiating on the astronomical cross, the incarnation in humanity of the sovereign sun celebrated by the Emperor Julian.” See my translation of the Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental Magic, p. 257.
[20] Éliphas Lévi has said previously (a) that the Church ignores Magic—for she must either ignore it or perish; (b) that Magic, as understood by him, is absolute religion as well as absolute science; (c) that it should regenerate all forms of worship.
[21] If it be worth while to say so the translation of this passage does not follow the text, which suggests that the act of conception—on the female side—involves suffering. The text reads: C’est le plaisir qui féconde, mais c’est la douleur qui conçoit et enfante.
[22] According to the Zohar, the letter Aleph is a sacrament of the unity which is in God, and it is thereby and therein that man obtains unity. Beth is the basis of the work of creation, and in a sense also its instrument. Gimel represents the charity and beneficence which are the help of poverty, designated by the letter Daleth. The letters He and Vau are part of the mystery which is contained in the Divine Name— יהוה. The letter Zain is likened to a sharp sword or dagger.
[23] The account which follows may be compared with that which is found, s.v. Apocryphes in Éliphas Lévi’s Dictionnaire de Littérature Chrétienne, mentioned in my preface to the present translation. It describes the legend concerning the fall of certain angels as une assez singulière histoire. He refers also to the various extant versions of the book, and to those in particular which differ from the “primitive” codex, being (a) that which he uses, and (b) “that which St. Jude cites in his catholic epistle as an authentic” work, actually composed by the prophet Enoch, to whom it is attributed.
[24] The Zohar says that the Ark of Noah was a symbol of the Ark of the Covenant, that his entrance therein saved the world, and that this mystery is in analogy with the Supreme Mystery. At this point there is a sex-implicit throughout the Kabalistic commentary, and the nature of the “unbridled appetite” which brought about the deluge is identified with that sin which caused the destruction of Judah’s second son, as told in Genesis c. xxxviii. See Zohar, Part I., section Toldoth Noah. It is intimated also that the souls of those who perished in the deluge were to be blotted out, like the remembrance of Amalek. Part I., fol. 25a. They will not even be included in the resurrection which shall go before the Last Judgment. Fol. 68b. At the same time the chastisement would have been suspended had Noah prayed to God like Moses, but the tradition supposes him to have asked only concerning himself. Zohar, Part III., fol. 14b. The Holy Land was not covered by the waters of the deluge. Part II., fol. 197a.
[25] It was the Rod of Aaron, not that of Moses, which, according to Heb. ix. 4, was placed in the Ark of the Covenant, together with the Tables of the Law and the Pot of Manna. It is said, however, most clearly in I Kings, viii. 9, that “there was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb.”
[26] Whatever the date to which the Book of the Penitence of Adam may be referable, it represents one form of a legend which was spread widely in the Middle Ages. The Gospel of Nicodemus seems to have instituted the first analogy between the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of the Cross. “All ye who have died through the wood which this man”—Adam—“hath touched: all of you I will make alive again by the wood of the cross.” The legend of the triple branch, under a strange transformation, reappears in that chronicle of the Holy Graal which has been ascribed to the authorship of Walter Map. There is no end to the stories which represent Christ dying upon a tree which was a cutting from the Tree of Knowledge. This is how the Tree of Knowledge becomes the Tree of Life in Christian legend.
[27] The Clavis Absconditorum à Constitutione Mundi, which is the chief work of Postel, outside his translation of the Sepher Yetzirah, affirms that Enoch was born at the time when Christ the Mediator would have been manifested in the flesh as the incarnation of perfect Virtue, supposing that man had remained in his first estate. There is no reference to a Genesis of Enoch.
[28] Hic intrat vivus foveam—he, being still alive, enters the tomb, says Adam of St. Victor in his third Sequence for Dec. 27.
[29] There were two canonised bishops bearing the name of Methodius at widely different periods, and as both were writers it is an open question to which of them the reference is intended. It is probably to Methodius of Olympus, who was martyred about 311. Methodius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, died in 846. There is not the least reason to suppose that the Apocalypse under the name of Bermechobus was the work of either.
[30] Compare Lopukhin’s Quelques Traits de l’Eglise Intérieure, where the sanctuary which was inaugurated by Adam is connected more especially with Abel, and was presumably maintained afterwards by Seth. In opposition thereto was the Church of Cain, which was anti-Christian from its beginning. See my introduction to Mr. Nicholson’s translation, pp. 6, 7, and the text, p. 59—Some Characteristics of the Interior Church, 1912.
[31] According to the Zohar, the intoxication of Noah contains a mystery of wisdom. He was really sounding the depths of that sin which was the downfall of the first man, and his object was to find a remedy. In this he failed, and “was drunken,” seeking to lay bare the divine essence, without the intellectual power to explore it. Section Toldoth Noah.
[32] The Sepher Ha Zohar affirms in several places that the Law was offered to the Gentiles, and was by them refused.
[33] The authority for this statement is wanting. The Zohar dwells on Genesis xxi. 9: “And Sarah saw the son of Hagar,” &c., implying that she did not acknowledge him as the son of Abraham, but of the Egyptian only. The Patriarch, however, regarded him as his own son. Sarah’s desire to expel them is justified on the ground that she had seen Ishmael worshipping the stars of heaven. See Zohar, Part I., fol. 118. There is no allusion to the alleged gifts of the father, the scripture making it evident abundantly that the bread and bottle of water are for once to be understood literally.
[34] Even at the period of Éliphas Lévi, it did not require a rabbinical scholar or a knowledge of Aramaic to prevent any fairly informed person from suggesting that the Book of Concealed Mystery, being the text here referred to, is the beginning of the Zohar. It follows the Commentary on Exodus, about midway in the whole collection, which covers the entire Pentateuch. It so happens that the little tract in question is the first of three sections rendered into Latin by Rosenroth, and this must have deceived Lévi, as a consequence of utterly careless reading. There was plenty of opportunity for correction in the Kabbala Denudata, and so also in La Kabbale—an interesting but very imperfect study by Adolphe Franck, which appeared in 1843.
[35] There is no real analogy between the image attributed to Pascal and that of the Zoharic Book of Concealment. I have not verified the reference to Pascal, as the opportunity is not given by Lévi, but I have explained elsewhere that the idea was probably drawn from S. Bonaventura, who speaks of that sphæra intelligibilis, cujus centrum est ubique et circumferentia nusquam. See Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum. I have inferred that S. Bonaventura himself derived from a Hermetic book. As regards the symbolism of the Balance, the Book of Concealed Mystery says (a) that in creating the world, God weighed in the Balance what had not been weighed previously, (b) that the Balance was suspended in a region where before there was no Balance, (c) that it served for bodies as well as souls, for beings then in existence and for those who would exist subsequently. These are the only references to this subject found in the tract.
[36] As such it is old, and a monograph on the subject is included by Jacob Bryant in his Analysis of Antient Mythology, vol. ii. p. 38 et seq. Following the authorities of his period, and especially Huetius, he says that “they have supposed a Zoroaster, wherever there was a Zoroastrian: that is, wherever the religion of the Magi was adopted, or revived.” The two Zoroasters of Lévi represent two principles of religious philosophy.
[37] An English translation of the Chaldæan Oracles by Thomas Taylor, the Platonist, claims to have added fifty oracles and fragments not included in the collection of Fabricius. Mr. Mead says that the subject was never treated scientifically till the appearance of J. Kroll’s De Oraculis Chaldaicis at Breslau, in 1894.
[38] It must be understood that this summary or digest is an exceedingly free rendering, and it seems scarcely in accordance with the text on which Éliphas Lévi worked. Following the text of Kroll, Mr. Mead translates the first lines as follows: “Nature persuades us that the Daimones are pure, and things that grow from evil matter useful and good.” The last lines are rendered: “But when thou dost behold the very sacred Fire with dancing radiance flashing formless through the depths of the whole world, then hearken to the Voice of Fire.”
[39] See my Key to the Tarot, 1910, p. 32, and the cards which accompany this handbook. See also my Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1911, pp. 144-147.
[40] One of the Chaldæan Oracles has the following counsel: “Labour thou around the Strophalos of Hecate,” which Mr. G. R. S. Mead translates: “Be active (or operative) round the Hecatic spinning thing.” He adds by way of commentary that Strophalos may sometimes mean a top. “In the Mysteries tops were included among the playthings of the young Bacchus, or Iacchus. They represented ... the fixed stars (humming tops) and planets (whipping tops).”—The Chaldæan Oracles, vol. ii. pp. 17, 18.
[41] Accepting this definition of the term of occult research, we can discern after what manner it differs from the mystic term. The one, by this hypothesis, is lucidity obtained in artificial sleep which stills the senses, and the other is Divine Realisation in the spirit after the images of material things and of the mind-world have been cast out, so that the sanctified man is alone with God in the stillness.
[42] This was La Magie Dévoilée, which was circulated in great secrecy. Later on, and probably after the decease of the author, it appeared in the ordinary way, and in 1886 an English translation was announced under the editorship of Mr. J. S. Farmer, but I believe that it was never published.
[43] Éliphas Lévi adds in a note that, according to Suidas, Cedrenus and the Chronicle of Alexandria it was Zoroaster himself who, seated in his palace, disappeared suddenly and by his own will, with all his secrets and all his riches, in a great peal of thunder. He explains that every king who exercised divine power passed for an incarnation of Zoroaster, and that Sardanapalus converted his pyre into an apotheosis.
[44] The analysis of Éliphas Lévi requires to be checked at all points. He followed the Latin version of Anquetil Duperron, made from a Persian text, and this is so rare as to be almost unobtainable. I shall therefore deserve well of my readers by furnishing the following extract from Deussen’s Religion and Philosophy of India, regarding the Oupnek’hat:
“A position apart from the 52 and the 108 Upanishads is occupied by that collection of 50 Upanishads which, under the name of Oupnek’hat, was translated from the Sanskrit into the Persian in the year 1656 at the instance of the Sultan Mohammed Dara Shakoh, and from the Persian into the Latin in 1801-2 by Anquetil Duperron. The Oupnek’hat professes to be a general collection of Upanishads. It contains under twelve divisions the Upanishads of the three older Vedas, and with them 26 Atharva Upanishads that are known from other sources. It further comprises eight treatises peculiar to itself, five of which have not up to the present time been proved to exist elsewhere, and of which therefore a rendering from the Persian-Latin of Anquetil is alone possible. Finally the Oupnek’hat contains four treatises from the Vaj. Samh. 16, 31, 32, 34, of which the first is met with in a shorter form in other collections also, as in the Nilarudra Upanishad, while the three last have nowhere else found admission. The reception of these treatises from the Samhita into the body of the Upanishads, as though there were danger of their falling otherwise into oblivion, makes us infer a comparatively later date for the Oupnek’hat collection itself, although as early as 1656 the Persian translators made no claim to be the original compilers, but took the collection over already complete. Owing to the excessive literality with which Anquetil Duperron rendered these Upanishads word by word from the Persian into Latin, while preserving the syntax of the former language—a literality that stands in striking contrast to the freedom with which the Persian translators treated the Sanskrit text—the Oupnek’hat is a very difficult book to read; and an insight as keen as that of Schopenhauer was required in order to discover within this repellant husk a kernel of invaluable philosophical significance, and to turn it to account for his own system. An examination of the material placed at our disposal in the Oupnek’hat was first undertaken by A. Weber, Ind. Stud. I, II, ix., on the basis of the Sanskrit text. Meanwhile the original texts were published in the Bibliotheca Indica in part with elaborate commentaries, and again in the Anandas’rama series. The two longest, and some of the shorter treatises have appeared in a literal German rendering by O. Bohtlingk. Max Müller translated the twelve oldest Upanishads in Sacred Books of the East, vol. i. 15. And my own translation of the 60 Upanishads contains complete texts of this character which, upon the strength of their regular occurrence in the Indian collections and lists of the Upanishads, may lay claim to a certain canonicity. The prefixed introductions and the notes treat exhaustively of the matter and composition of the several treatises.”
[45] This forms the second book of the collection entitled Orthodoxie Maçonnique, which was published in 1853. The account of magical discs and the planets corresponding to them will be found on pp. 498-501. Ragon pretended that there was a system of Occult Masonry in three Degrees.
[46] The legend concerning the Emerald Tablet is that it was found by Alexander the Great in the tomb of Hermes, which was hidden by the priests of Egypt in the depths of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh. It was supposed to have been written by Hermes on a large plate of emerald by means of a pointed diamond. I believe that there is no Greek version extant, and it is referred by Louis Figuier to the seventh century of the Christian era, or thereabouts. See L’Alchimie et les Alchimistes, p. 42.
[47] In his Lexicon Alchemiæ Rulandus reminds us that “the old astronomers dedicated the Emerald to Mercury,” and Berthelot says that this was in conformity with Egyptian ideas, which classed the Emerald and Sapphire in their list of metals. See Collection des Anciens Alchimistes Grecs, première livraison, p. 269. The planet Mercury was the planet Hermes and it may be that some mystical connection was supposed between quicksilver and the precious stone. This would have been in Græco-Alexandrian times, if ever, as ancient Egypt does not seem to have been acquainted with quicksilver.
[48] The text says: le triple binaire ou le mirage du triangle, but it is obvious that the reflected triad cannot be termed binary. The expression is confused, but the meaning is that the first triangle equals unity, or the number 1; the second triad corresponds to the duad, or number 2; the third triad to the number 3, and so onward.
[49] The reference is to Athanasius Kircher’s Œdipus Ægyptiacus, 3 vols. in folio, bound usually in four, published at Rome, 1652-1654. The Mensa Isiaca, being the Bembine Tablet, so called because its discovery is connected with the name of Cardinal Bembo, is in the third volume—a folding plate beautifully produced. The original is exceedingly late and is roughly termed a forgery. In 1669 the Tablet was reproduced on a larger scale by means of a number of folding plates in the Mensa Isiaca of Laurentius Pignorius. Both works are exceedingly rare. I suppose that these are the only records of the Tablet now extant, with the exception of a large copy in my possession made from the above sources.
[50] Mr. G. R. S. Mead tells us that Iynx in its root-meaning, according to Proclus, signifies the “power of transmission” which is said in the Chaldæan Oracles “to sustain the fountains.” Mr. Mead thinks that the Iyinges were reproduced (a) as Living Spheres and (b) as Winged Globes. He thinks, also, that (a) the Mind on the plane of reality put forth (b) the one Iyinx, (c) after this three Iyinges, called paternal and ineffable, and finally (d) there may have been hosts of subordinate Iyinges. They were “free intelligences.” It seems to follow that the Iynx was not “an emblem of universal being,” but a product of the Eternal Mind.
[51] It may be mentioned that the Hebrew alphabet was divided into (a) Three Mother Letters, namely, Aleph, Mem and Shin; (b) Seven Double Letters, being Beth, Gimel, Daleth, Kaph, Pe, Resh, Tau; and (c) Twelve Simple Letters, or He, Vau, Zain, Heth, Teth, Yod, Lamed, Nun, Samech, Ayin, Tsade, Quoph.
[52] The Sepher Yetzirah was first made known to Latin reading Europe by William Postel. Publication took place at Bâle in 1547. It is said to have been reissued at Amsterdam in 1646. The collection of Pistorius, entitled Artis Cabalisticæ Scriptores, belongs to 1587. Later and modern editions of the Book of Formation are fairly numerous. It was translated into French, together with the Arabic commentary of R. Saadya Gaon, by Mayor Lambert, in 1891. An English version by Dr. W. Wynn Westcott will serve the purpose of the general reader.
[53] The Tarots of this period belong to the year 1393, and it has been suggested recently in France that the artist Charles Gringonneur was really their inventor. It is useful to note this opinion, but I do not think that any importance attaches to it. The extant Gringonneur examples in the Bibliothèque Nationale have also been said to be of Italian origin and not therefore his work. The Venetian Tarots have been sometimes regarded as the oldest known form. The historical question is obscure beyond all extrication at present.
[54] In face of existing evidence, the description of the Tarot Trumps Major as a Kabalistic alphabet has as much and as little to support it as the claim that they constitute an Egyptian Book of Thoth. It has been reported to me, however, that there is an unknown Jewish Tarot, and it may interest students of the subject to know that before long I hope to be able to give some account at first hand concerning it. There is little reason to suppose that it will prove (a) ancient or (b) Kabalistic; but as one never knows what is at one’s threshold, I put the fact on record for whatever it may be worth in the future. Meanwhile, it is quite idle to say that our popular fortune-telling Tarots are of Jewish origin.
[55] The interpretation of Lévi seems to hesitate between several fields of symbolism, and what follows at this point suggests that the Golden Fleece is an allegory of metallic transmutation by means of alchemy. It was so regarded by many of the later disciples of this art. According to Antoine Joseph Pernety, the Golden Fleece is the symbol of the matter of the Great Work; the labours of Jason are an allegory concerning the operations therein and of the signs of progress towards perfection. The attainment of this Fleece signifies that of the Powder of Projection and the Universal Medicine. See Dictionnaire Mytho-Hermétique and Les Fables Egyptiennes et Grecques, both by Pernety, and in particular vol. i. of the latter work, pp. 437-494.
[56] Among several bearers of this name, I suppose that the reference is to him who, by tradition, was either the disciple or son of Orpheus, commemorated by Virgil. None of his poems are extant, so that the argument seems to fail. The antiquity of the Orphic poems—Argonautica, Hymns, etc.—is another question, and the conclusions of criticism on the subject are well known.
[57] Almost any of the demonologists will serve at need. The Jesuit Martinus Delrio, who wrote Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri Sex has plenty to say about Lamiæ and Stryges. There is also Joannes Wierus, the pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, whose famous work on the Illusions and Impostures of Sorcery—Histoires, Disputes et Discours—was rendered from Latin into French, in 1885.
[58] I do not know how this fable originated and the question is not worth the pains which would be necessary to elucidate it. It is narrated by Éliphas Lévi as matter of historical fact; but there is no question that M. Edouard Schuré, who owes so much to the occultist who preceded him, would have been glad to include it in his romantic biography of Pythagoras, if it had not been too mythical even for his purpose. He is content as it is to suggest that the sage of Samos had studied Jewish monotheism during a stay of twelve years at Babylon.
[59] The authorship of the Golden Verses is of course a debated point; and it is an old suggestion that their real writer was Lysis, the preceptor of Epaminondas and an exponent of Pythagorean philosophy about 388 B.C., his master being referred to the beginning of the sixth century B.C. I should add that Éliphas Lévi has presented the Verses in a metrical form of his own, which reflects the originals at a very far distance. I have not followed this rendering but have had recourse to that of Mr. G. R. S. Mead.
[60] Among the appendices to the second part of the Zohar there is a short section on physiognomy, and it embodies some very curious materials. We learn, for example, that if a man who has certain specified characteristics of colour and feature should turn to God, a white blemish will form on the pupil of his right eye. He who has three semi-circular wrinkles on his forehead and whose eyes are shining will behold the downfall of his enemies. A man who has committed an adultery and has not repented is recognisable by a growth beneath the navel, and thereon will be found two hairs. Should he do penance, the hairs will disappear but the swelling will remain. A man who has a beauty-spot on his ear will be a great master of the Law and will die young. Two long hairs between the shoulders indicate a person who is given to swearing incessantly in an objectless manner. It will be seen that these details belong to a neglected part of the science, and I am a little at a loss to know how Éliphas Lévi would have pressed them into his service, if he had been fully acquainted with the work which he quotes so often.
[61] It happens that the hypothesis of reincarnation was personally unwelcome to Éliphas Lévi, and he did not know enough of Zoharic Kabalism to realise that it is of some importance therein. The traditions concerning the teaching of Pythagoras must be taken at their proper value, but there is no question that, according to these, he was an important champion of what used to be called the doctrine of metempsychosis, understood as the soul’s transmigration into successive bodies. He himself had been (a) Æthalides, a son of Mercury; (b) Euphorbus, son of Panthus, who perished at the hands of Menelaus in the Trojan war; (c) Hermotimus, a prophet of Clazomenæ, a city of Ionia; (d) a humble fisherman, and finally (e) the philosopher of Samos.
[62] In memoria æterna erit justus.
[63] Éliphas Lévi has forgotten that the word “ineffable” means something which cannot be expressed; he intended to say that, according to the Kabalists, the efficacious name was hidden.
[64] All later Kabalists agree that Tetragrammaton is the root and foundation of the Divine Names. In the Sephirotic system one of the allocations makes Chokmah, or Supernal Wisdom, to correspond with the Yod of Tetragrammaton. Kether, which is the Crown, is said to have no letter attributed thereto, because the mystery of Ain Soph, the hidden abyss of the Godhead, is implied therein. However, the apex of Yod does in a sense intimate concerning Kether. He is the second letter in the Divine Tetrad, and it is ascribed to Binah, or Supernal Understanding, wherein is all life comprehended. This is the abode of the Shekinah in transcendence. The third letter is Vau, and it is said to contain the six Sephiroth from Chesed to Yesod. The second He is the fourth and last letter; it corresponds to Malkuth, or the Kingdom, wherein is the mystery of the unity of God. This is the abode of the Shekinah in manifestation. Thus, Yod, He, Vau, He, which we render Jehovah, contains all the ten Sephiroth. There are, however, other allocations.
[65] Éliphas Lévi must have meant to say seven letters, but the point does not signify. According to Rosenroth, the Tetragrammaton with vowel-points is the eighth Divine Name— יֱהֹוִה. The points are those of Elohim and it is read as that Name. This signifies the concealment of the “Ineffable” Name, on account of the exile of Israel.
[66] This is the Divine Name which is most in proximity to created things. See the excursus thereon in Kabbala Denudata, vol. i. pp. 32-41.
[67] Cf. the Zohar, Part i. folio 15a, on Exodus iii. 14: “And God said unto Moses: I am that I am”— אהיה אשר אהיה
[68] According to the Rabbinical Lexicon of Buxtorf, Agla is formed from the initial letters of the sentence אדני לצלם נכור אהה = Tu potens es in sæculum, Domine. There seems to be no Kabalistic authority for its explanation by Lévi, and the word occurs very seldom in the Zohar.