Eliphas Levi and Theosophy I

In some recent posts we covered the occult axiom, ‘’To know, to dare, to will, and to be silent’’ which Eliphas Levi uses in his Dogme et rituel de la haute magie and other works. Indeed the writings of Eliphas Levi have many instances of esoteric explanations similar to Theosophical doctrines, some of  which early theosophists have commented on. Below is an excerpt from an early example, the colored text being notes by H. P. Blavatsky. The series of three unpublished essays mentioned are in addition to another series of ten unpublished essays by Eliphas Levi published in The Theosophist that same year. Egregore is a Greek term meaning watcher. About half of Levi's text is presented below, although the full text is worth reading.

Essay Selections by Éliphas Lévi (translated from French) | Notes by H.P.B.

The three Essays—the first of which is now given—belong to the unpublished MSS. of the late French Occultist, a series of whose other Lectures on Secret Sciences is being published serially in the Journal of the Theosophical Society. These three papers were kindly copied and sent for this Magazine by our respected Brother, Baron Spedalieri, F.T.S., of Marseilles. We hope to give, in good time, the translation of every scrap ever written by this remarkable “Professor of High Transcendental Sciences and Occult Philosophy,” whose only mistake was to pander rather conspicuously to the dogmas of the established church—the church that unfrocked him.

Essay 1. The Eggregores.¹

1. The giants of Enoch.—Translator.

One Spirit fills Immensity. It is the Spirit of God that nothing limits, nothing divides, which is all in all and everywhere; which pervades every atom, and that nothing can shut out.²

2. In other words, it is the confession of Vedantic faith: “All this universe indeed is Brahm; from brahm does it proceed; into Brahm it is dissolved; in Brahm it breathes.”

Created Spirits³ could not live without envelopes suited to their surroundings, permitting action while limiting it, and preventing them from becoming absorbed into the infinity. . . .

3. The term “created” is a perfect misnomer when used by an Occultist, and always a blind in the works of Éliphas Lévi, who is quite aware of the fallacy implied in the word “Creation,” in the theistic sense, and shows this repeatedly in his writings. It is the last tribute, we hope, paid by our century to an unscientific dogma of the Past.

There can be no such things as spirits, formless or without an envelope.⁴

4. Again an incorrect term. A “spirit” is––spirit only so long as it is formless and arupa; and it loses its name as soon as it becomes entangled in matter or substance of any kind known to us. A “Spiritual Entity” would answer better.

Their forms correspond to the sphere they inhabit; and in our atmosphere, for example, no spirits can exist save those of men—with bodies as we see them here—and those of animals, of whose nature and destiny we are so far ignorant.⁵ . . .

5. So little was E. L. “ignorant” of the nature—and ultimate destiny—of animals that he devotes to this a number of pages in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie. No true Occultist can be in the dark upon this subject. The prudent author pandered, we are afraid, to public prejudice and superstition.

According to some ancient Hierophants matter is but the substratum of created spirits.⁶

6. Or the highest Dhyan Chohans of Occultism. At the beginning of Manvantara, the Fohat which they radiate awakens and differentiates Mahattattva, itself the radiation of Mulaprakriti.

Deity does not immediately create matter. Out of God emanate the powers, the Elohim, which constitute Heaven and Earth. According to this doctrine, the first sentence of Genesis ought to be interpreted in the following wise:—Bereshith, the head of first principle Bara, created (rather formed out of pre-existence material) the Elohim, the Powers⁷ Ath aschamain onath aoris, which are, or which (virtually) constitute heaven and earth. . . .

7. Among the Hindus Kasyapa (Brahma) begets the Adityas (Dhyan Chohans).

These Elohim or Powers are regarded as the great souls of worlds, whose forms would thus become the specified substances in their elementary virtues. In order to create a world, the Deity, it is said, had to bind together four genii, who in the act of resisting and wrestling first produced chaos; and who, forced to take rest after the struggle, thus formed the harmony of the Elements. . . . the great law of equilibrium or harmony—called the will of God—preventing the ever-going struggle from destroying the worlds, before the time allotted to them for their transfiguration.⁸ . . .

8. This is the doctrine of the Manvantaric and 1st Pralayic periods plainly taught in Esoteric Buddhism.

The worlds like the Elohim are bound together by magnetic chains which, in their everlasting mutiny, they try to break. Suns have other suns for rivals; planets other planets opposing the chains of attraction in equal energy of repulsion, to avoid being absorbed, and thus preserve each an individual existence.

These colossal powers have sometimes assumed a form and presented themselves under the appearance of giants: they are the Eggregores of the Book of Enoch:⁹ terrible creatures . ..

9. The “giants” of Genesis who loved the daughters of men: an allusion to the first prehuman (so to say) races of men evoluted, not born—the Alpha and the Omega of Humanity in this our “Round.”

The study of nature enables us to observe contradictions that amaze us. We are detecting everywhere signs of intelligence, but as often we stumble upon, and have to recognize entirely blind forces.¹⁰ Scourges denote perturbations . . . Plagues, inundations, earth-quakes, famines are not the work of God. To attribute them to the devil, i.e., to an angel damned, whose evil deeds are permitted by God, amounts to calling God a hypocrite hiding behind the back of a responsible but evil-famed manager. . . .

10. A “blind” action does not necessarily constitute an undeniable proof that the agent it emanates from is devoid of individual consciousness or “intelligence.” It may simply point out the superiority of one force over the other, domineering, and hence guiding forcibly the actions of the weakest. There are no “blind” forces in nature in the sense the author places on the adjective. Every atom of the universe is permeated with the Universal Intelligence, from the latent spark in the mineral up to the quasi-divine light in man’s brain. It is all as E. L. says “action and reaction,” attraction or repulsion, two forces of equal potentiality being often brought to a dead standstill only owing to a mutual neutralization of power.—Translator.

According to the doctrine the planets busy themselves but with their sympathies and antipathies. Your sun—whose spots you regard as a commencement of his cooling off¹¹—is slowly and fatally drawn toward the constellation of Hercules. One day he will become short of heat and light—for planets get old and have to die as well as men . . .

11. E. L. says “you regard”; for, he himself, as an Occultist, does not so regard them. The real occult doctrine upon solar physics is given out plainly enough in the September number of The Theosophist (1883), Art. Replies to an English F. T. S.

A new creation will emerge out of chaos, and we shall be reborn as a new species better fitted to struggle against the stupid bulk of the Eggregores. Such changes will take place up to the time when the great Adam will be entirely reconstituted¹²—Adam—that Spirit of spirits, that Form of forms, that collective giant who makes up the totality of creation . . .

12. The seventh and last race of the seventh Round.

(The Theosophist, March, 1884)