Eliphas Levi Quotes
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.
Lévi, Éliphas. Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual. Translated by Arthur Edward Waite, George Redway, 1896.
In the ensuing few years hundreds of “witches” were burned at the stake and suffered death in other horrible ways.
Éliphas Lévi Zahed, born Alphonse Louis Constant, was a French esotericist, poet, and author of more than twenty books about magic, Cabbalah, alchemical studies, and occultism. Considered the most influential occultist of the nineteenth century, he pursued an ecclesiastical career in the Catholic Church until, after great personal struggle, at the age of 26, he abandoned the Roman Catholic priesthood. At the age of 40 he started to profess a knowledge of the occult, also becoming a reputed ceremonial magician.
