The Magical Ritual of The Sanctum Regnum
Eliphas Levi
Note by the Editor
The very curious manuscript volume, from which the preceding pages have been translated, concludes with a passage which appears to retract the whole of the foregoing instruction. It is a very notable illustration of the second mind of its author. Mr. Waite, who published an English translation of much that Levi has written, has in his Preface called especial attention to the evidence that Levi was drawn in a most mysterious fashion in two different directions by opposing forces. From his early training he tended to be a devout Catholic; from his Hebrew studies he became a Kabalist and a Magician. So even in this short occult treatise we find him, after carefully giving magical instruction through twenty-two chapters, making at its end a solemn recantation, and pointing out that the duty of a Christian is to the Church of Christ, which is the best and highest aim to which a man can attain.