Eliphas Levi Quotes & Sayings

That great Kabbilistical association known in Europe under the name of Masonry appeared suddenly in the world when the revolt against the Church had just succeeded in dismembering Christian unity. — Eliphas Levi

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. — Eliphas Levi

It must be pleasant to be occasionally guilty of a small abomination. — Eliphas Levi

There is nothing more to controlling demons than to do good and fear nothing. — Eliphas Levi

Everything is possible to him who wills only what is true! Rest in Nature, study, know, then dare; dare to will, dare to act and be silent! — Eliphas Levi

Occult Medicine is essentially sympathetic. Reciprocal affection, or at least real goodwill, must exist between doctor and patient. Syrups and juleps have very little inherent virtue; they are what they become through the mutual opinion of operator and subject; hence homoeopathic medicine dispenses with them and no serious inconvenience follows. — Eliphas Levi

It is possible to die through the love of certain people, even as by their hate. There are absorbing passions, under the breath of which we feel ourselves depleted like the spouses of vampires. Not only do the wicked torment the good, but unconsciously the good torture the wicked. The gentleness of Abel was a long and painful bewitchment for the ferocity of Cain. Among evil men, the hatred of good originates in the very instinct of self-preservation; moreover, they deny that what torments them is good and are driven to deify and justify evil for their own peace. In the sight of Cain, Abel was a hypocrite and coward, who abused the pride of humanity by his scandalous submissions. to — Eliphas Levi

In olden times gold was manufactured by science; nowadays science must be renewed by gold. We have fixed the volatile and we must now volatilize the fixed - in other words, we have materialized spirit, and we must now spiritualize matter. — Eliphas Levi

EVERY intention which does not assert itself by deeds is a vain intention, and the speech which expresses it is idle speech. It is action which proves life and establishes will — Eliphas Levi

A chain of iron is less difficult to break than a chain of flowers. — Eliphas Levi

To be sucked down by this whirling stream is to fall into abysses of madness, more frightful than those of death; to expel the shades of this chaos and compel it to give perfect forms to our thoughts - this is to be a man of genius; it is to create, it is to be victorious over hell! The — Eliphas Levi

What is more absurd and more impious than to attribute the name of Lucifer to the devil, that is, to personified evil. The intellectual Lucifer is the spirit of intelligence and love; it is the paraclete, it is the Holy Spirit, while the physical Lucifer is the great agent of universal magnetism. — Eliphas Levi

Order is never observed; it is disorder that attracts attention because it is awkward and intrusive. — Eliphas Levi

To practice magic is to be a quack; to know magic is to be a sage. — Eliphas Levi

It is undoubtedly contagious to breathe the same air as diseased persons, and to be within the circle of attraction and expansion which surrounds the wicked. — Eliphas Levi

Passing beauties are only the fugitive reflections of the eternal. All beauty alters and all life melts away; in short, everything passes with marvelous rapidity; beautiful Helen of Troy has become a toothless skull, then a handful of dust, then nothing. — Eliphas Levi

Doubt is really a groping ignorance. — Eliphas Levi

Hermeticism is the science of nature hidden in the hieroglyphics and symbols of the ancient world. It is the search for the principle of life, along with the dream (for those who have not yet achieved it) of accomplishing the great work, that is the reproduction by man of the divine, natural fire which creates and recreates beings. — Eliphas Levi

One can only define the unknown by its supposed and supposable relations with the known. — Eliphas Levi

All the power of the occult healer lies in his conscious will, and all his art consists in producing faith in the patient. — Eliphas Levi

Nothing can resist the will of man when he knows what is true and wills what is good. — Eliphas Levi

Father, forgive them,' said Jesus, 'for they know not what they do'
People of good sense whoever you may be, I will add, do not listen to them, for they know not what they say. — Eliphas Levi

Up to one's last breath, one may retain the simple joys of childhood, the poetic ecstasies of the young person, the enthusiasms of maturity. Right to the end, one may intoxicate one's spirit with flowers, with beauty and with smiles. — Eliphas Levi

It is necessary to DARE what must be attempted. — Eliphas Levi

Renounce to the desire of possessing worldly things: this is the first step in the path of perfection; by mean of this absolute untie is how the passions can be fought. — Eliphas Levi

Magic is the divinity of man achieved in union with faith ... — Eliphas Levi

Fear is nothing but idleness of the will ... — Eliphas Levi

All miracles are promised to faith, and what is faith except the audacity of will which does not hesitate in the darkness, but advances towards the light in spite of all ordeals, and surmounting all obstacles? — Eliphas Levi

If you wish to seduce an angel, you must play the part of a devil. — Eliphas Levi

The Placer is an enemy who must necessarily become our lord or our slave; one doesn't enjoy if it's not defeated. — Eliphas Levi

Everything lives by movement, everything is maintained by equilibrium, and harmony results from the analogy of contraries; this law is the form of forms. — Eliphas Levi

Man's greatest wisdom is to choose his obsession well. — Eliphas Levi

When one creates phantoms for oneself, one puts vampires into the world, and one must nourish these children of a voluntary nightmare with one's blood, one's life, one's intellegence, and one's reason, without ever satisfying them. — Eliphas Levi

Like all magical mysteries, the secrets of the Great Work have a triple meaning: they are religious, philosophical and natural. Philosophical gold in religion is the Absolute and Supreme Reason; in philosophy, it is truth; in visible nature, it is the sun: in the subterranean and mineral world, it is the purest and most perfect gold. Hence the search after the Great Work is called the Search for the Absolute, and this work itself is termed the operation of the sun. — Eliphas Levi

When Christianity proscribed the public exercise of the ancient worships, the partisans of the latter were compelled to meet in secret for the celebration of their mysteries. Initiates presided over these assemblies and soon established a kind of orthodoxy among the varieties of persecuted worships, this being facilitated by the aid of magical truth and by the fact that proscription unites wills and forges bonds of brotherhood between men. — Eliphas Levi

There exists in nature a force which is immeasurably more powerful than steam, and by means of which a single man, who knows how to adapt and direct it, might upset and alter the face of the world. — Eliphas Levi

Weakness ever sympathizes with vice, because vice is a weakness which assumes the mask of strength. Madness holds reason in horror, and on all subjects it delights in the exaggerations of falsehood. The cause of all bewitchments, the poison of all philtres, the power of all sorcerers are there. — Eliphas Levi

The Great Work is, before all things, the creation of man by himself, that is to say, the full and entire conquest of his faculties and his future; it is especially the perfect emancipation of his will. — Eliphas Levi

Religion realizes philosophy by adapting it to the weaknesses of the vulgar.... — Eliphas Levi

love is nothing but a desire and an enjoyment,it is mortal. — Eliphas Levi

Mistress of love or of hate, occult science can dispense paradise or hell at its pleasure to human hearts; it disposes of all forms and confers beauty or ugliness; with the wand of Circe it changes men into brutes and animals alternately into men. — Eliphas Levi

When we love, we see the infinite in the finite. We find the Creator in the creation. — Eliphas Levi

To be rich is to give; to give nothing is to be poor; to live is to love; to love nothing is to be dead; to be happy is to devote oneself; to exist only for oneself is to damn oneself, and to exile oneself to hell. — Eliphas Levi

Judge not; speak hardly at all; love and act. — Eliphas Levi

A good teacher must be able to put himself in the place of those who find learning hard. — Eliphas Levi

Weak people talk and do not act, strong people act and keep quiet. — Eliphas Levi