The Book of Splendours: The Inner Mysteries of Qabalism

This edition published in 1984 by

Samuel Weiser, Inc.

Box 612

York Beach, Maine 03910-0612

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Copyright © 1973 Samuel Weiser, Inc. and The Aquarian Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, without permission in writing from Samuel Weiser, Inc. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

First published in English in 1973

First paperback edition, 1981

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 84-214089

ISBN 0-87728-614-0

BJ

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1984.

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

Part One: The Idra Suta or The Great Synod — Commentary on the Siphra Dzeniúta by Simeon Ben-Jochai

The Colloquy

The Mysteries of the White Beard

Mystery of the Black Beard

Details Concerning the Great White Beard

Part One

Part Two

The Other Parts

Conclusion Concerning the Allegorical Figure of the Macroprosopopeia

The Microprosopopeia

The Text of the Sohar Continued — Prologue Concerning the Microprosopopeia

The Kings of Edom

The Skull of the Microprosopopeia (Air, Fire, and Dew)

The Hair of the Microprosopopeia

The Forehead of the Microprosopopeia (The Eyes and Their Colour)

The Eyes

The Nose and the Beard — Analysis

The Microprosopopeia Considered as Androgynous

Commentary

Osiris is a Dark God

Continuation of the Text

Commentary

On Justice — Following the Text of Rabbi Simeon

Final Words — On the Supreme Man

Conclusion

Part Two: Christian Glory

The Legend of Krishna Selection from the Bhagavadam

CHAPTER I The Conception

CHAPTER II The Nativity

CHAPTER III The Massacre of the Innocents

CHAPTER IV Childhood Anecdotes Similar to Those of the Gospels

CHAPTER V The Baptism

CHAPTER VI The Song of Songs

CHAPTER VII The Transfiguration

CHAPTER VIII The Triumphal Entry

CHAPTER IX Krishna Triumphs Over All the Giants

CHAPTER X Words Before the Passion

CHAPTER XI The Death of Krishna

Part Three: The Flaming Star

Masonic Legends — Extracts from a Ritual Manuscript of the Eighth Century

First Legend

Second Legend

Third Legend

Fourth Legend

History of the Knight of the Lion

The Key to the Masonic Parables

The Story of Phaleg

The Crossing of the River Nabuzanai

Baphomet

Profession of Faith

Elements of the Qabalah in Ten Lessons — Letters of Eliphas Lévi

First Lesson — General Prolegomena

Second Lesson The Qabalah — Goal and Method

Third Lesson — Use of the Method

Fourth Lesson — The Qabalah I

Fifth Lesson — The Qabalah II

Sixth Lesson — The Qabalah III

Seventh Lesson — The Qabalah IV

Eighth Lesson — The Qabalah V

Ninth Lesson — The Qabalah VI

Tenth Lesson — The Qabalah VII

Appendix: The Doctrine of Eliphas Lévi by Papus

Introduction to the Study of the Doctrine of Eliphas Lévi

The Doctrine of Eliphas Lévi

1. General Make-up of Man

2. Analysis of Constituent Principles

The Flexible Mediator

Body

3. Evolution of Principles

4. The Universe

Astral Light

The Creation of Beings by Means of Light

Of Demons

Fluid Phantoms and Their Mysteries

Elemental Demons

5. God

On Religion

6. Realization of the Doctrine: Moral Conclusions — The Magic of Axioms

The Occult Sciences

Pride

Social Ideas

The Magic Realizations of Eliphas

The Axioms

7. Adaptation of the Doctrine — Symbolism

The Qabalistic Keys

Symbolism and its Applications

Symbolism

Applications of Qabalistic Symbolism

The Great Symbols, Synthesis of the Doctrine

The Sphinx — The Science of Fate

The Philosophical Credo

The Temple of the Future

Form

Eliphas Lévi Regarded by Stanislas de Guaita

The Contemporaries

The Traditional Centres of Initiation

Disciples and Continuators

Stanislas de Guaita

Joséphin Peladan

Emile Michelet

Alber Jhouney

René Caillié

Occult Philosophy

FOREWORD

In his Introduction to the English translation, Dr Abelson describes the Zohar as ‘the fundamental book of Jewish Cabbalism’ and as ‘the premier textbook of medieval Jewish mysticism’.¹ More than this, the Zohar is also, in the words of Denis Saurat, ‘a strange mixture of the wildest tales obviously of folklore origin, at times’ without any philosophical meaning whatever, of the most extraordinary superstitions, of the most imaginative myths, and at times of the profoundest metaphysical conceptions’.²

Such a description could apply equally to the magical works of Eliphas Lévi, and it seems almost inevitable that the Zohar should have fascinated the enigmatic mind of Lévi, who saw in it a hidden wisdom unique to his vision, which he drew out and expounded at length—to the fury of scholars who, lacking his inner sight, saw it in a very different light. So, is there truly a hidden wisdom in the Zohar, and is it of such a pattern as Eliphas Lévi presents in his Book of Splendours?

The occultist will answer Yes, for with Lévi he will see the Zohar as a ‘Masterpiece of the Occult Sciences’, containing the lost knowledge of the ancient world. The scholar, however, lives in the real world and must judge the book by the more prosaic standards of the historian and literary critic.

Viewed objectively, the Zohar is a series of mystical commentaries on the Pentateuch, set in the form of discourses between Simeon ben Jochai, the Second Century Qabalistic Rabbi, and his disciples. It first appeared in written form in the late thirteenth century when it was transcribed by the Spanish Qabalist, Moses de Leon, who claimed that he had copied it from earlier manuscripts and that it was indeed the work of Simeon ben Jochai. The manuscript versions were followed by printed editions in Hebrew, first published at Mantua in Italy in 1558 and later throughout Europe, while translations have appeared in Latin, German, French and English. Until recent years it was considered that Moses de Leon had collected earlier material, both Jewish and non-Jewish, from oral sources and acted only as editor, but in his book Major trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941), Gershom Scholem showed convincingly and conclusively that Moses de Leon was the true author — and the sole author — of the Zohar. Simeon ben Jochai and high antiquity are alike displaced, which is, of course, anathema to the occultist.

But a false ascription of authorship need not condemn the content of a book: the Zohar is unquestionably among the greatest mystical works of all time, and has exercised a powerful influence on later mystics, both Jewish and Christian. It stresses above all the spirituality of man, the importance of the human soul and—the distinctive contribution of Qabalism to mystical thought—the manner in which the transcendent God becomes immanent through the emanation of the ten Sephiroth. It is this doctrine of the Sephiroth, with all its strange ramifications, that has appealed most to the occultist— and not least to Eliphas Lévi, who absorbed it in his soul and used it to work a strange transmutation on his own writings that has given them a lasting fascination.

And what of Eliphas Lévi — that ‘Incarnated Paradox’ as Madame Blavatsky called him?³ What sort of man was it who could exert such an enormous influence not only in France but also upon all the major figures of the ‘Occult Revival’: on H.P. Blavatsky as well as on Anna Kingsford, on both Aleister Crowley and A. E. Waite?

Alphonse Louis Constant, to give him his real name, was born in Paris in 1810, the son of a poor shoemaker. As a boy both his aptitude for learning and his religious fervour were apparent, so that he was considered an ideal candidate for the priesthood and at the age of fifteen commenced a ten-year seminary education during which he first began to develop his unorthodox ideas. In 1835 he was ordained Deacon, but he had realized that he could not accept the condition of celibacy and abandoned his calling before he was made a priest. Even so, the priesthood retained its hold upon him, and his ambivalent attitude to the Catholic Church seems to indicate a yearning for his lost vocation.

For some time after leaving the seminary Constant made a living by teaching and writing, but both occupations brought their problems: his teaching led him into a series of doubtful liaisons with female pupils, culminating in 1846 with his disastrous marriage to Noémi Cadiot (who left him seven years later), while his writing earned for him eight months in prison for his extreme brand of Christian Socialism as expressed in La Bible de la Liberté (1841). After that episode his writing was interrupted by a brief but vain attempt to return to his work in the Church, and resumed in even more inflammatory style until the Revolution in 1848 burned out his radical zeal and gave birth to the Magician.

Shortly after his seminary days, Constant's occult leanings had been awakened by his involvement with the self-styled prophet and pseudo-Messiah, Ganneau, and in 1852 he met an even more remarkable prophet, the émigré and Polish mystic, Hoene Wronski (1778-1853). Under Wronski's influence Constant began his first major work, Dogme et Rituel de h Haute Magie, which was published in 1856 under the pseudonym he was to use for the rest of his life: Eliphas Lévi.⁴ This amazing book was followed by the equally remarkable Histoire de la Magie (1861)⁵ and by a dozen others, most of which were not published until after Lévi's death in 1875.

During the twenty years of his occult career Lévi's fame spread and his disciples multiplied, attracted both by the man and by his teachings, which were at once profound, original and infuriating, for assuredly Magic had never been so overwhelmed by its own glamour as in its history and doctrines according to Eliphas Lévi. And yet, despite their eccentricities and distortions, his works survive and still fascinate. Why?

Here we come to the heart of the problem and the heart of the man. Lévi was no armchair occultist, but a living Magus who believed in his work and in himself; and the centre of his work was the Qabalah—altered, to be sure, and moulded into a quasi-Christian framework, but still the Qabalah. So Lévi produced his Livre des Splendeurs, for what is at the heart of the Qabalah save the Zohar? Admittedly, the text is mislabelled (for he was translating the Idra Rabba, not the Idra Zuta as he claimed), arbitrarily abridged and outrageously explained; but it remains a delight, for he crystallized in it not the true meaning of the Qabalah but the essence of the occultist's interpretation of it.

When it was finally published, in 1894, the Livre des Splendeurs had become more of an anthology of Lévi's work, for it contains, in addition to the Zoharic extract, the essence of his Qabalistic ideas (in the Qabalistic Lessons), his selfrevealing Profession of Faith and the careful analysis of his doctrines by his disciple and spiritual heir, Papus (Gérard Encausse, 1865-1916). This analysis is especially important as it comprises the only reasoned, contemporary opinion of Lévi's work that is readily accessible, for Waite's critical introduction to The Mysteries of Magic has long been virtually unobtainable.⁶

Recent opinions of Eliphas Lévi have been as ambivalent as were those of his own day and reflect the perplexing nature of this enigmatic man. Even Waite, who studied him more closely than did any self-styled occultist before or since, was baffled by Lévi but gave him a fitting epitaph: ‘He is the most brilliant, the most original, the most fascinating interpreter of occult philosophy in the West.⁷ And so he remains, for in the century since his death no-one has emerged to claim his mantle.

R. A. Gilbert Bristol, June 1981

NOTES

¹. The Zohar, translated by Harry Sperling and Maurice Simon (Soncino Press, 1931–1934), Vol. 1, p.ix.

². Denis Saurat, Blake and Modern Thought (Constable, 1929), p.99.

³. H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (T.P.H., 1893), Vol. 2, p.617.

⁴. Eliphas Lévi Zahed is the supposed Hebraic form of Alphonse Louis Constant.

⁵. Translated as The History of Magic (Rider, 1913) by A. E. Waite, who also translated the Dogme et Rituel, Transcendental Magic (Rider, 1923).

⁶. The best modern study of Lévi's life and work is Christopher Mcintosh's Eliphas Lévi and the French Occult Revival (Rider, 1972).

⁷. The Mysteries of Magic. A Digest of the writings of Eliphas Lévi. With a biographical and critical Essay by Arthur Edward Waite (Kegan Paul, 1897), p.xiii.

PREFACE

Judaism is the oldest, the most rational and the truest of religions.

Jesus, who set himself the task of reforming Judaism, never advised his disciples to abandon it. The reform of Jesus, unacceptable to the heads of the synagogue whose legitimate authority was never contested by the Christian master, has become a heresy which has invaded the entire world.

At first mistreated by the Jews, the Christians, once the power was theirs, outlawed and persecuted the Jews with the most shameful and cowardly assiduity. Their books were burned instead of being studied, and the precious philosophy of the Hebrews was lost to the Christian world.

The apostles, however, were correct in their feeling that the Gentile ministry would last only so long and that the new faith would one day weaken. Then, they said, salvation will come again to us from Israel, and the great religious revolution that will reunite us with our fathers will be as a passage from death to life.

The Hebrews are in possession of a science whose existence St Paul suspected and which St John, initiated by Jesus, both hid and revealed within the immense hieroglyphs of the Apocalypse, borrowing for the most part from the prophecy of Ezekiel. There exists a shadowy and wonderous book entitled the Sohar or Splendour. This huge book, larger than the Talmud, is however nothing more than the development of a theogony in several pages, called the Siphra Dzeniúta.

On this book, brought back to us from the Orient by Guillaume Postel, we give the magnificent Commentary of Rabbi Simeon Ben-Jochai, to which we will also add the principal legends of Masonic tradition, borrowed in their entirety from the Qabalah of the Hebrews.

Solomon's temple was, to be sure, a wholly symbolical edifice. Its plan, its construction, its ornaments, its vessels, all represented a synthesis of all sciences. It was the universe, it was philosophy, it was the heavens. Solomon laid down the plans. Hiram executed them with perfect understanding, the directors of work were well-versed in the science of detail, the workers followed closely the plans of the masters. This hierarchy, so rational and just, is taken in Freemasonry to represent the model of a perfect society. Freemasonry is eclectic, independent Judaism. The Freemasons wish to rebuild the temple, in other words, to re-establish a primitive society based on this meaningful hierarchy and on progressive initiation, without the obstacles of priests and kings; it is for this reason they call themselves Freemasons, free builders.

The publication of this work will make known the implacable hate borne by priests of Catholicism towards Freemasonry, which is Judaism reformed according to the thought of Jesus and his beloved apostle, John, whose Qabalistic revelation has always been the gospel of occult Christianity and the schools of unprofaned Gnosticism. Associated with these schools are the Johannites, the non-idolatrous Templars and the advanced initiates of occult Masonry. It is there that the keys of the future are to be found, for there are preserved the secrets of the single, universal revelation whose doctrines Judaism, first and perhaps singly among religions, has preached to the world.

One God, one people, one science, one law, one faith, one king. This is the view of Judaism which still awaits its temple and its Messiah.

‘When will the Messiah come?’ asked Rabbi Simeon of the prophet Elijah who often came down from heaven to speak with the master of the Sohar. ‘This very day,’ answered the prophet. ‘Go to the gate of Rome and you will see.’ Rabbi Simeon went to the gate of Rome, remained there all day, then came away, having seen nothing more than a number of beggars covered with sores and a stranger, poor in appearance, who consoled them and ministered to their wounds. Once home, he found Elijah