The Magical Ritual of The Sanctum Regnum
Eliphas Levi
XIV. Temperance - La Temperance
If you desire long life and health avoid all excesses, carry nothing to extremes. Once more preserve the equilibrium; you must neither abandon yourself to the benignities of Chesed, nor restrict yourself to the rigours of Geburah.
So when you have passed beyond the mortal sphere by the allurements of ecstasy, return to yourself, seek repose and enjoy the pleasures which life supplies for the wise, but do not indulge too freely.
If you feel fatigued by the tempting fascination of a prolonged fast, then take food and drink; but if you have loss of appetite from generous diet, then fast by all means. If you are feeling the seductiveness of womankind, seek relief from women.
You must learn to overcome all passions, and conquer all tendencies to folly. But let there be no misunderstanding. To vanquish an enemy there must be no running away: true victory can only follow meeting him face to face, joining in a struggle, and so showing your command over him.
It is related of Paracelsus that he became intoxicated daily, and sobered himself by violent exercise; thus he was found strong as a man with sangfroid, and yet possessing all the animation of alcoholic stimulation.
You should repose for as long a period as is expended in the preparations for and in the actual operations of magic; spend the hours of rest upon the bosom of Mother Nature, and in the chaste embrace of Nature's sweet restorer, Sleep.
Pass alternately from the triangle to the circle, and from the circle to the triangle.
Temperate the wine with wter, and rectify the water with wine. Wine is the emblem of Truth; yet it is not well to pour out either, in pure form, to ordinary men and women; some dilution with water is very desirable.
Know that the Luminous Septenary has as its enemies, and as obstacles, but acting also in some ways as auxiliaries, a Dark Septenary of averse forces.
If a man abuses the high forces of the Septenary of Powers, his errors form the Seven Capital Sins.
Give but little wine to the one who easily gets intoxicated; and, in like manner, give but little occult instruction to those who make light of it, who abuse instead of use, and so change truth into error.
Notes
The Fourteenth Tarot Trump, named Temperance, shows the Angel of Occult Wisdom and Power holding a goblet in each hand, and pouring from one into the other the two essences whose union form the Elixer of Life.
Levi in his Rituel assigns to this card the meanings of the heaven of the Sun, temperatures, seasons, motions, and the chances and changes of life.
P. Christian remarks that the figure represents the genius of the Sun; in the Divine World, the perpetual alterations of life; in the Intellectual World, the creation of ideas which constitute the moral life; and the Physical World, the combinations of natural forces.