Levi's Baphomet

[DragonsNectar69k]

Has anyone ever read Levi's Transcendental Magick before? Any thoughts or opinions?

 

 

http://hermetic.com/osiris/levibaphomet.htm

[三江源]

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Edited July 22, 2014 by cat

[Apech]

The first ritual magic I ever performed way from Eliphas Levi an invocation of the elementals ... to my amazement it worked.

[Cheshire Cat]

Baphomet... for Levi it was such an esoteric symbol, but today it's almost banal!

Edited July 5, 2013 by DAO rain TAO

[三江源]

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Edited July 22, 2014 by cat

[Apech]

can you tell us more?! please?

 

No.

[三江源]

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Edited July 22, 2014 by cat

[Apech]

Oh ok.

 

Isnt it funny how we do magic and then part of us is amazed it works. What % of is always incredulous, and what % knowing and au fait.

 

Think this is what affirmations are for. To assist the incredulous %.

 

Yes.

[三江源]

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Edited July 22, 2014 by cat

[Apech]

snatchified.

 

is that a proper word?

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I started reading it back in summer or fall of 1967. I found it so dull I never finished it. I read it because Crowley in Magick in Theory and Practice went on about it and about how he was Levi reincarnation. If that is so, then death certainly improved Levi. Though life did not improve little Eddie Alexander.

[三江源]

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Edited July 22, 2014 by cat

[Apech]

I started reading it back in summer or fall of 1967. I found it so dull I never finished it. I read it because Crowley in Magick in Theory and Practice went on about it and about how he was Levi reincarnation. If that is so, then death certainly improved Levi. Though life did not improve little Eddie Alexander.

 

 

I think I found it via Crowley as I certainly knew about the claim that he was Levi reincarnated. Not sure that book is dull ... but maybe ... but I would say it was my first introduction to something that seemed to actually work.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Dullness is in the droopy eyelids of the beholder. Little Eddie grew up to be a master prose stylist, even today almost fifty years after I first bought Magick in Theory and Practice, when I reread sections of it I still marvel at how well written it is, but for all that, Crowley remained a prisoner of his childhood. Stripped of its pretension to science and mysticism, Thelema's formal structure mirror's that of the evangelical Protestantism of Crowley's youth with a couple of strategic inversions thrown in for rebelliousness sake.

 

I am glad that Levi worked for you. I would read sections of it for years and thought about adapting it to practice, but my first experiences were derived from other sources and for the theory of Continental "Hermeticism", I much preferred Mouni Sadhu's The Tarot. It had more than enough coagula to solve (Rats! no grave accent, maybe it is undead.) to keep me entertained for some time.

[Apech]

Dullness is in the droopy eyelids of the beholder. Little Eddie grew up to be a master prose stylist, even today almost fifty years after I first bought Magick in Theory and Practice, when I reread sections of it I still marvel at how well written it is, but for all that, Crowley remained a prisoner of his childhood. Stripped of its pretension to science and mysticism, Thelema's formal structure mirror's that of the evangelical Protestantism of Crowley's youth with a couple of strategic inversions thrown in for rebelliousness sake.

 

I am glad that Levi worked for you. I would read sections of it for years and thought about adapting it to practice, but my first experiences were derived from other sources and for the theory of Continental "Hermeticism", I much preferred Mouni Sadhu's The Tarot. It had more than enough coagula to solve (Rats! no grave accent, maybe it is undead.) to keep me entertained for some time.

 

 

Mouni Sadhu ... now you're talking ... the very first and I mean absolutely the first when I was 15/6 book I read on meditation was his book called concentration ... he had an exercise of watching the second hand of a clock for ten minutes ... which was the first kind fo meditation I did. Boring as hell ...

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Mouni Sadhu ... now you're talking ... the very first and I mean absolutely the first when I was 15/6 book I read on meditation was his book called concentration ... he had an exercise of watching the second hand of a clock for ten minutes ... which was the first kind fo meditation I did. Boring as hell ...

 

Yes, but it is boring with a purpose. Though I must add that in comparison to Rudolf Steiner who was such a powerful soporific that a few minutes would get me ready for bed, Levi was really, really interesting!

[三江源]

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Edited July 22, 2014 by cat

[RiverSnake]

Supposedly this is a good book on the topic of Baphomet. Have yet to read it myself but he supposedly represents a kind of primal life-force. http://www.amazon.com/Book-Baphomet-Julian-Vayne/dp/1906958467/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373037014&sr=1-1&keywords=Baphomet

 

 

My 2 cents, Peace

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Its spectacularly obvious with Crowley that this was the case. Generally, for the rest of us the flags are less generous at waving themselves for all to see.

 

"Spectacularly obvious" to me and thee cat, but try telling that to a born again "Crowleyite"! For good or ill, and to my mind mostly ill, Crowley was the most influential author on magic of the last century, just ask the myriads who spell it with a final "k".

 

"Generally, for the rest of us the flags are less generous at waving themselves for all to see." What is generally true has its exceptions. Crowley himself implied he was exceptional and all of his followers would agree, that is why it is important to make it plain that he is not. Indeed the wreckage that is Aleister Crowley is one of the great reminders of why self-knowledge is essential and to my mind the most important type knowledge is about what one believes and why. The key to this is to ask and ask again until you have gone back to its beginning, "What do I believe and why do I believe it?" Just about everything else is personal trivia.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

Supposedly this is a good book on the topic of Baphomet. Have yet to read it myself but he supposedly represents a kind of primal life-force. http://www.amazon.com/Book-Baphomet-Julian-Vayne/dp/1906958467/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373037014&sr=1-1&keywords=Baphomet

 

 

My 2 cents, Peace

From the description of the book on Amazon:

You hold in your hands the material result of many years' hard craft. This Book contains some of the secrets of Life itself; or rather, the occult deity of Life on Earth, Baphomet. Horned, vital, beautiful, awe full, our aeons old Chaos Magick idol finds a name from the Knights' Templar, then goes incognito through the Enlightenment (when flourished those great natural philosophers beloved of science historians), before emerging via devil worship and witchcraft into this era of Deep Ecology. Darwin could have used a picture of Baphomet as his frontispiece, to demonstrate the one flesh from which all species originate. Contacting this Great Spirit, the anima mundi, allows access to a new way of ordering the world, with fresh visions of how and why we could Live. Here the authors weave strands from their lives into a rich tapestry of images, which might give you a pointer or two towards your own self-realisation, whilst amusing, entertaining, and instructing along the way. Revolution, evolution, leap beyond the apocalypse to the Now!

On a historical level I don't trust these people to either research accurately or think clearly. Levi's Baphoment probably owes more to the Seventeenth Century Jesuit Kircher's images of Typhon and Pan then it does to "devil worship and witchcraft":

 

 

 

Generally speaking people don't realize how much the Roman Church assimilated and preserved pagan knowledge and symbolism. I tried to emphasize that in my posts on Gods and Demons:

In the fifth post I refer the reader to "For Hermes Trismegisus and the ancient Theologians; see Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, especially the first part.

For the assimilation of the Pagan Gods; see Jean Seznec The Survival of the Pagan Gods and John Block Friedman, Orpheus in the Middle Ages." for more information/confirmation about what I am saying about the early Church and its attitudes about Paganism.

This tendency became stronger in the Renaissance, but was destroyed by the Reformation and Counter Reformation as the Roman Church became more defensive about the Pagan aspects of its claim to be universal, i.e., Catholic Church. Kircher's work was well known and used by "occultists" from the 17th Century onward. These figures are referenced in the Golden Dawn "Portal" Ritual which is the bridge from the outer grades to the Adeptus Minor Rite in the sections related to the Death and Devil cards.

 

While trying to find the above images I came across this PDF file which is interesting, I have only skimmed it, but covers some material which can be of interest here:

 

http://www.hermetics.org/pdf/Continental.pdf

 

I'm not sure I agree with everything she says, but she does mention Kircher and also the work that Joscelyn Godwin is doing in this area. I have not looked at tarot history for some time and so I am not familiar with the details of Godwin's work, but in general I have lot of respect for him.

[stefos]

No.

 

I'm not one to do this ever, but I will starting now.

 

Apech, I've shared personal things about myself here openly.

I don't care what people think! I know what I "saw."

No am I vainglorious in sharing what I shared. Perhaps it might help someone!

 

Are you bound by oaths or secrecy to not reveal this?

 

Just asking because I can.

Stefos

Edited July 10, 2013 by stefos

[RiverSnake]

 

I'm not one to do this ever, but I will starting now.

 

Apech, I've shared personal things about myself here openly.

I don't care what people think! I know what I "saw."

No am I vainglorious in sharing what I shared. Perhaps it might help someone!

 

Are you bound by oaths or secrecy to not reveal this?

 

Just asking because I can.

Stefos

It is a principle of magic to keep silent about what you do, magically speaking. This I because people's thoughts can effect the outcome of your work if they know about it, people could do this consciously or unconsciously. However, after a period of time in which you have "finished" a working I don't think there is anything wrong with talking about your experiences....thus Grimoires....though its probably best to wait for the inner cue that you can talk about.

 

My 2 cents, Peace

[Apech]

I'm not one to do this ever, but I will starting now.

 

Apech, I've shared personal things about myself here openly.

I don't care what people think! I know what I "saw."

No am I vainglorious in sharing what I shared. Perhaps it might help someone!

 

Are you bound by oaths or secrecy to not reveal this?

 

Just asking because I can.

Stefos

 

Well as I said it was the first ritual magic I ever practiced and it was an invocation of elementals and it worked. I was quite surprised because although I had done some meditation up till then ... nothing much ... I went on to do some work with the Egyptian gods Anubis and Set and that worked too ... I am not bound by oaths of secrecy but I don't want to discuss what happened on an open forum.

[Apech]

It is a principle of magic to keep silent about what you do, magically speaking. This I because people's thoughts can effect the outcome of your work if they know about it, people could do this consciously or unconsciously. However, after a period of time in which you have "finished" a working I don't think there is anything wrong with talking about your experiences....thus Grimoires....though its probably best to wait for the inner cue that you can talk about.

 

My 2 cents, Peace

 

I am willing to talk in a general way about the path and what certain things mean and so on ... but not about profound personal experiences. To dare, to know, to will, to keep silent.

[三江源]

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Edited July 25, 2014 by cat