The Magical Ritual of The Sanctum Regnum
Eliphas Levi
Planetary Conjuration
- In the name of Michael, whom Jehovah decrees to command Satan!
- In the name of Gabriel, whom Adonai decrees to command Beelzebub!
- In the name of Raphael obey Elohim, thou Sachabiel.
- By Samael Tzabaoth, and by the name of Elohim Gibur, lay down thy weapons, thou Adramelek.
- By Zachariel and Sachiel Melek, submit to the power of Eloah, thou Samgabiel.
- In the divine and human name of Shadai, and by the power of Anael, of Adam and of Chavah, thou Lilith retire, leave us in peace, thou Nahemah.
- By the holy Elohim, and by the power of Orifiel, in the names of the spirits Cassiel, Schaltiel, Aphiel, and Zarahiel, turn back, thou Moloch, there are no children here for thee to devour.
You must then trace in the air and upon the earth, with the Magical Wand, the famous and powerful Hexagram, the Seal of Solomon.
The Conjuration of the Three is performed with the Tetragrammaton, pronouncing three times in a deep sonorous voice the Three letters of the Great Name; tracing in the air and upon the earth the signs of the four radii of the Wheel of Ezekiel's Vision, with the words Yod, Heh, Vau, Heh, and then make the sign of the Cross.
You should well understand that the names Satan, Beelzebub, and others like them, do not mean spiritual personalities, but rather legions of impure spirits.
My name is Legion, said the Spirit of darkness, because we are numberless; in hell, the kingdom of anarchy, it is number which makes law, and progress is inverse; for there the most degraded are the least intelligent and most weak. Thus the law of fatality compels the demons to descend when they believe and wish to rise; and so those whom I call the Chiefs are the most powerless and the most contemptible of them all.
Those evil spirits which form the crowd, tremble before a Chief who is unknown, impacable, and deaf, never speaking, and whose arm is always raised to strike. To this phantom are given the names of Lucifer, Adramelek, and Belial; but this phantom is but the shadow of God disfigured by their perversity, and remains among them to torment and terrify them for ever.
Be guarded in the words you speak. Speak not of God, unless you are illuminated. All the images which you create, whether of God or of other ideals, remain imprinted on that luminous medium - the Astral Light of the soul, and of the world; and there is that Book of the Conscience which shall be opened and its records revealed in the Last Day.
Know that the Human Brain, although it receives, does not make any visible record of impressions; otherwise they woud be engraved upon the grey matter of the Brain and anatomists would see them there.
The nerve substance does not perceive and collect, by reason of this essence (the Astral Light), the living and ineffaceable pictures of the spiritual atmosphere which you evoke. You may even by sympathy, present or past, with the desires, evoke the impressions of other persons; and thus it is that you can communicate with those who are dead and even perceive the bodily form they have thrown aside, and which they must retake when the grand Consummation arrives and the world is transfigured.
To such as ask you where Paradise and Hell are situated, you should answer: Paradise exists whereever you speak the truth, and do the right; Hell is present wherever you speak that which is false, or do that which is evil.
Paradise and Hell are not localities, they are states, and the contrasted states will remain to eternity; even as good must ever remain in opposition to evil; as the essential of a personality is opposed to that of Intelligent Existence, which is Liberty.
The plastic universal medium, the unsubstantial substance, which is light, motion, and life, this androgyne magnetic force, receives, preserves, and communicates all the forms and images which are the impressions of the Word: this it is which gives form and colour to plants; it is this which stamps upon the fruit of a mother's womb the impress of her thoughts and desires.
It is this which produces apparitions and the sensible visions of exaltation and ecstasy when Superior Spiritual Powers communicate to us by the correspondences of the Word, or when Inferior spirits seek to mount to our plane by sympathy with our grosser passions.
There is no real isolation in this world, there is no point of form and no variety of thought which has not its correspondence, item by item, through analogy, with that which is above, as well as that which is below, in the infinite and finite worlds. This is the true ideal of the mystical Ladder of Jacob whose rungs are bound together by the two Pillars of Light, and which provide for the unbroken circulation of Intelligence and Love through the vast areas of the Universe.
Nothing entirely new happens under the Sun; causes lead to new causes and effects precede these. Prophetic intuitions are but the result of a consideration of the analogies between the past and the future, read in that luminous volume composed of such mobile yet incorruptible characters as are the waves of the sea.
Hence it follows, that to divine - is to see.
Each man bears his earthly future in his natural character, and he has his character imprinted on his face and in his hands, in his natural movements, in his glances and his voice.
Each personal will has at its disposal three modes of force - -moral power, instinctive power, and physical energy. Moral power is that solidarity which exists between all truly spiritual souls; instinctive power is the solidarity subsisting between the impulses and resistances of material substances. To each of these forces there is a corresponding form of life.
The middle or Instinctive force acts upon us without our active participation when our Moral force is in abeyance, and when one desires to give it free play one must slumber, or at least sleep more or less.
There is a voluntary slumber, as there is an involuntary or physiological sleep. Voluntary slumber is somewhat lucid, because it does not absolutely break away from reminiscence.
Prophecy and Thaumaturgy are Natural faculties.
The Re-animation of the Dead in the case of certain men and under certain circumstances is not a thing naturally impossible. At the moment of death the soul finds itself free from, yet near, the earthy tenement it has just left, and if the really vital organs have not been destroyed, it can be recalled by one whose will has tremendous force. Death is only absolute when the vital organs have lost their integrity.
Examples of re-animation are not infrequent, but when they occur the occurance of death is denied, and the facts observed are explained by saying that the person was only in a trance or lethargy.
To deny that death has occured in these cases may be permissible, but public opinion should have the courage of its convictions and should always deny it.
O thou who art now wise, thou hast been an infant; what has become of the infant? it has passed away, but you still live.
You have been a youth, he has passed away, but you are still with us. You were once a young man; what has become of that young man? you still live. You are now a man of full years, or perhaps even an old man; what will become of you, old man? You will die, but you will exist for ever. Yet each of your stages of development has left its corpse, only you do not happen to have seen it. Only believe then that your last corpse will not be appreciable by you, and so you may rest in a peaceful immortality.
You have but to undergo one more transformation before you remount to that source of life from which you once sprang.
Transformation results from eternal motion, which is the essential law of vitality; check this and enforce a stability at any stage of evolution, and you create a real death.
Behold thyself then, by natural law, immortal.
Would you then be for ever the slave of secondary causes, or will you become their controller?
Will you submit to them, or will you choose the high alternative of directing them?
If you will become a Master, set free your spirit by relying on the Hermetic Stone, and exercise your Will Power through the Word transmuted into action. Join to an Intelligence, really set free, an all-powerful Will, and you will find yourself Master of the powers of the Elements. L.P.D.
Liberty, Power, Despotism. Power is correct equilibrium between Despotism and Liberty. This is the solution of the Enigma of three letters which Cagliostro the Initiate formulated to represent the Kabalah of political and social stability.
- Liberty is Chokmah.
- Despotism is Binah.
- Power beneficent is Kether.
- Liberty is Gedulah.
- Despotism is Geburah.
- Power beneficent is Tiphereth.
- Liberty is Netzach.
- Despotism is Hod.
- Power beneficent is in Yesod.
In the essence of the First Cause, Liberty has Necessity as a counterpoise; this Necessity is the despotism of Supreme Reason, and resulting from this equilibrium is a Wise and Absolute Power.
If you seek to be absolute, be first wise; and if you are wise, be then absolute. To be a Master you must be free; to be free you must have attained the mastery of yourself.
- Liberty is Jakin.
- Despotism is Boaz.
Power is represented by the Temple Gate which was between them.
Four phrases constitute and include all that is required for the possession of High Magical Power.
- To know.
- To dare.
- To will.
- To keep silence.
- Knowledge is represented by the Human head of the Sphynx.
- Courage, by its Eagle's wings.
- Will, by the Lion's claws, and the loins of the Bull.
- Secrecy, by its stony silence and by the hidden answer to its enigma.
When the pupil has grasped the meaning of, and can carry into practice, these four requirements, he may then receive permission to Love.
Every force corresponds to all forces, and may become all powerful in the hands of one who knows how to direct and use it.
Each form of weakness has a similarity to all weaknesses, and may become a slave to one who is strong and knows how to avail himself of it. Through the knowledge of this secret, the Magus commands the forces alike of heaven and hell, and they can but be submissive to his Will.
Realise clearly that an intelligence which is Free is of necessity both just and wise. Nero and Caligula were possessed of despotic will, but their intelligence was not free; intoxicated with absolute power, they were attacked by vertigo. Absolute will power unguided by a right Reason is the quintessence of the Devil; and here is the explanation of the secrets of Black Magic, which leads to madness of mind and poisoning of body.
Hence the sorcerer is said to give himself to the Devil, and in the end the Devil will wring his neck.
You will now need to learn the last secret of magical force and the final grade of human will power.
It is Resistance to the Universal Attraction; this is the conquest of nature, it is the Royal Authority of Soul over Body - it is Continence. To have the power and opportunity to do what give pleasure, yet to abstain because one wills it; this shows the Royal power of Soul over body.
Happy is the man who can be so placed, and yet so act: thus it is that the most sublime use of liberty is absolute obedience. Without obedience no society can continue to exist. This is why the Magi worshipped the Christ in the stable at Bethlehem. Christ, that son of God, greatest of initiates, and the last initiator.
But Christ had, as all great teachers have had, one teaching for the people and also an esoteric doctrine.
To John, the beloved disciple, he confided the deepest mysteries of the Holy Kabalah; and John in after years revealed or reveiled them in his Apocalypse, which is indeed a synthesis of all earlier magical, prophetic, and Kabalistic works.
The Apocalypse requires as its key or Clavicula the Wheel of Ezekiel, which is itself explained by the hieroglyphs of the Tarot.
Notes
This final card, numbered 21 in the actual Tarot Trumps, and called Le Monde, represents an angelic or human figure floating in the air, almost nude, and holding a short wand in each hand. The figure is more female than male. Around her is an oval garland of leaves, and outside of this, at the four corners, are placed the Kerubic emblems of a man, lion, eagle, and bull. This figure, says Levi, is Truth, and the mystical meaning is the Microcosm, or the resume of all in all.
Christian draws the garland circular, and as formed of roses; the Kerubim are placed at the four cardinal points, and not at the angles of the design; he says its meaning is the Eternal Reward of a life well spent.