e kind; he affirms
most distinctly in his "History of Magic," that for any knowledge which
he possessed about the mysteries of the fraternity, he owed his
initiation only to God and to his individual studies. Secondly, the
practice of ceremonial magic, which is what the witnesses understand by
theurgy, is a practice condemned by Levi, except as an isolated
experiment to fortify intellectual conviction as to the truth of magical
theorems. He attempted it for this purpose in the spring of the year
1854, and having satisfied himself as to the fact, he did not renew it.
Thirdly, the philosophy of Eliphas Levi is in direct contrast to
Manichaean doctrine; it cannot be explained by dualism, but must be
explained by its opposite, namely, triplicity in unity. He shows that
"the unintelligent disciples of Zoroaster have divided the duad without
referring it to unity, thus separating the pillars of the temple, and
seeking to halve God" (_Dogme_, p. 129, 2nd edition). Is that a
Manichaean doctrine? Again: "If you conceive the Absolute as two, you
must immediately conceive it as three to recover the unity principle"
(_Ibid._). Once more: "Divinity, one in its essence, has two fundamental
conditions of being--necessity and liberty" (_Ibid._, p. 127). And yet
again: "If God were one only, He would never be Creator nor Father. If
He were two, there would be antagonism or division in the infinite, and
this would be severance or death for every possible existence; He is
therefore three for the creation by Himself, and in His image of the
infinite multitude of beings and numbers. Thus He is really one in
Himself and triple in our conception, by which we also behold Him triple
in Himself and one in our intelligence and in our love. This is a
mystery for the faithful and a logical necessity for the initiate of the
absolute and true sciences" (_Ibid._, p. 138). And the witnesses of
Lucifer have the effrontery to represent Levi as a dualist! I will not
discredit their understanding by supposing that they could misread so
plain a principle, nor dissemble my full conviction that they acted with
intentional bad faith. Fourthly, Eliphas Levi regarded Lucifer as a
conception of transcendental mythology, and the devil as an impossible
fiction, or an inverted and blasphemous conception of God--divinity _a
rebours_. He describes the Ophite heresy which offered adoration to the
serpent and the Cainite heresy which justified the revolt of the first
ang