OT: Eliphas Levi and the 19th Century French Occult Revival
san_jose_guy
money was invented for handing to women, but buying dances is a chump's game
Reading:
https://www.amazon.com/Eliphas-Revival-W…
Most interesting, and more about it later.
Mentions one Hoene Wroński
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef…
Polish military officer, born 1778. When Russia took over, accepted commission in Czar's army. But then returned it and went off to France, to fight for Poland's independence.
Involved in mathematics, but to me it sounds more like occultism or hermeticism. Large influence on Eliphas Levi.
I find books by or about him:
https://www.amazon.com/Deleuzes-Philosop…
A tribute to Wronski
https://www.amazon.com/Algebraic-Cycles-…
and this 21 volume set
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Myth-Magic-Il…
https://www.amazon.com/Eliphas-Revival-W…
Most interesting, and more about it later.
Mentions one Hoene Wroński
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef…
Polish military officer, born 1778. When Russia took over, accepted commission in Czar's army. But then returned it and went off to France, to fight for Poland's independence.
Involved in mathematics, but to me it sounds more like occultism or hermeticism. Large influence on Eliphas Levi.
I find books by or about him:
https://www.amazon.com/Deleuzes-Philosop…
A tribute to Wronski
https://www.amazon.com/Algebraic-Cycles-…
and this 21 volume set
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Myth-Magic-Il…
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18 comments
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Lol!
SJG
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Eric Clapton
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David Bowie
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https://www.amazon.com/Eliphas-Revival-W…
So in particular I just want to record the names of the people this book talks about.
First we have the Martinism founders,
Martinez de Pasqually
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martinez_d…
Louis Claude de Saint Martin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Clau…
And this was all before the 1789 revolution. The freemasons did play a large role in that, but it was always open only to the bourgeoisies. Never the less, in its own governance it did give people a taste for electoral democracy and it did set people against the Church and the Aristocracy.
Then Napoleon took over in 1799. He restored the Church to its former prominence. So by the time Napoleon was gone, people had tired of the ideals of the revolution. But it was this time, the 19th Century, when popular occultism began.
Court de Gebelin, was the first to use the Tarot for occult purposes. Levi would build upon this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Co…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Fa…
Pierre Vintras
In London, Levi had substantial contact with his people and did some exteme evocations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bul…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societas_R…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9p…
French Rosicrucian and Martinist
Joséphin Péladan
The one who operated at the Black Cat and initiated Claude Debussy and Erik Satie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Chat_No…
And Peladan worked with
Stanislas de Guaita, in restarting French Rosicrucianism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislas_…
And then the above two worked with Papus on re-starting Martinism and Rosicrucianism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rar…
And H. Spencer Lewis in San Jose California would get authorizations from these people.
Much of this French occultism is operation at the periphery of the Catholic Church and its clergy. One of the more extreme things being circulated were these blood stained communion hosts. Blood would appear on them and make patterns or symbols on each side. And upon close inspection, it was coming from inside, not having been applied on the outside. So it was like stigmata.
The Goat of Mendes, known as Baphomet was first drawn by Levi, and he did not intend it to suggest Satanism.
https://www.amazon.com/Eliphas-Revival-W…
The idea of a naked woman on the altar probably came from J. K. Huysmans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joris-Karl…
In his La-Bas, 1891. And he was likely reporting on the sex rituals of actual Satanists.
http://www.huysmans.org/
Here us the full text of La-Bas in French
http://www.huysmans.org/labasf/labas1.ht…
This seems to be the full text in English
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14323?ms…
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14323/143…
"But," said Durtal, "in the Middle Ages the mass was celebrated in a different fashion. The altar then was the naked buttocks of a woman; in the seventeenth century it was the abdomen, and now?"
Some in France were saying that Albert Pike, leader of US Free Masonry and co-founder of the KKK, was running a Satanic group based in Charleston. Don't know about the veracity of this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Pik…
Eliphas Levi died in 1875. 6 months later Aleister Crowley was born, and he maintained that he was the re-incarnation of Levi, and he collected a great deal of material which suggests this.
And then Westcott and Mathers of the Golden Dawn drew much of their work from Levi.
SJG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23akblYx…
SJG
GabbyGonz
Woman who knows how to dress for the bedroom! Pretty close to a pussy wedgie
https://tuscl.net/photo.php?id=3569
https://tuscl.net/photo.php?id=9085
SJG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_et_R…
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magic
And originally this was two books Dogme (1854), and Rituel (1856), and then combined.
Lévi's Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie was translated into English by Arthur Edward Waite as Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual (1896).
Lévi, Éliphas, 1810-1875.
Dogme et rituel de la haute magie. English
Transcendental magic, its doctrine and ritual / [by] Éliphas Lévi. Translated, annotated, and introduced by Arthur Edward Waite.
So this edition has Levi's drawing:
https://www.amazon.com/Transcendental-Ma…
Now, where does the Baphomet idea come from and what does it represent? Today it is a preferred image for Satanists. But Levi was a very Catholic compatible occultist, not a Satanist.
Here we have the entire text online, 404 pages, in French.
https://archive.org/details/dogmeetritue…
Since 1856, the name Baphomet has been associated with the "Sabbatic Goat" image drawn by Éliphas Lévi, which contains binary elements representing the "symbolization of the equilibrium of opposites"[1] (e.g. half-human and half-animal, male and female, good and evil, etc.). On one hand, Lévi's intention was to symbolize his concept of balance that was essential to his magnetistic notion of the Astral Light;[1][2] on the other hand, the Baphomet represents a tradition that should result in a perfect social order.
Baphomet is also associated with the Knights Templar.
The image is similar to the Devil, card 15, in some Tarot decks.
Lévi called his image "The Goat of Mendes", possibly following Herodotus' account that the god of Mendes — the Greek name for Djedet, Egypt — was depicted with a goat's face and legs. Herodotus relates how all male goats were held in great reverence by the Mendesians, and how in his time a woman publicly copulated with a goat.
from Aliester Crowley, the connection to Pan, and hence to Dionysius.
“Many pleasures revered before the advent of Christianity were condemned by the new religion. It required little change-over to transform the horns and cloven hooves of Pan into a most convincing devil! Pan’s attributes could neatly be changed into charged-with-punishment sins, and so the metamorphosis was complete.”
SJG
The Qabalah : secret tradition of the West / Papus, 1865-1916
"And I believe in the Serpent and the Lion, Mystery of Mysteries, in His name BAPHOMET."
Levi said Baphomet was a synthesis of the 4 Cherubim.
SJG
Antoine Court, who named himself Antoine Court de Gébelin (Nîmes, January 25, 1725[1] – Paris, May 10, 1784), was a former Protestant pastor, born at Nîmes, who initiated the interpretation of the Tarot as an arcane repository of timeless esoteric wisdom in 1781.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Co…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AGoa…
None of this is factual. The confusion with the ram god of Mendes in Egypt was made by the occultist Eliphas Lévi in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855), which has given rise to a flood of fanciful but spurious eclectic connections, such as "The Goat of Mendes" by the black metal band Akercocke.
https://www.amazon.com/Baphomet-Lucifer-…
Only beginning to understand this.
SJG
SJG
SJG
What is the relationship between the two?
One of the issues is which came first, tarot cards or playing cards. They clearly are related. Remember the first time you ever saw playing cards, there is clearly some history and tradition to them. And then they usually give you two jokers, and these seem like the tarot fool.
18th and 19th century occultists took the view that tarot cards came first, and then the tarot deck was cut down to make playing cards. And along with this was the idea that it was all coming from ancient Egypt.
So I guess this Antoine Court de Gébelin, 18th century, decided to associate the 22 trumps with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. And then either he or Eliphas Levi decided that these 22 trumps should be put on the pathways of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
https://tuscl.net/photo.php?id=9111
And they were saying that the Tarot was the Book of Thoth.
And then with the minor arcana, they were interpreting the 4 suits as representing the 4 worlds on the tree of life. And then the ten numbered cards corresponded to the 10 sephiroth.
One of the most enigmatic differences between playing cards and tarot cards is that while playing cards have 3 court cards per suit, tarot cards have 4. Why? Is this also related to the 4 worlds on the tree of life?
They say Kabbalah comes from the Book of Ezekiel. There everything revolves around the number 4. That is everything except for the very end mention of the number of fish species.
But Kabbalah seems to primarily require the number 10, so it must be coming from Exodus, and really the entire Bible revolves around Exodus.
One of the most adamant defenders of the idea that playing cards were made by cutting down tarot decks, was Paul Foster Case.
Decades ago I talked at a little shop to one professional fortune teller. She used playing cards, and she charged extra if you wanted her to use tarot cards.
Today many are challenging this idea that it all came from ancient Egypt, and that playing cards were derived by cutting down a tarot deck.
The Chaos Protocols: Magical Techniques for Navigating the New Economic Reality
by Gordon White
https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Protocols-T…
The very idea of having a deck of cards, as opposed to a book of pictures, is that you can handle the cards face down without revealing their identity. So the cards have to be made by a printer, so that the back sides will be identical.
White hunted down the oldest printing companies in Europe and they insist that playing cards came first, and they came from the Near East.
And these cards were used for divination and fortune telling. The fact that they are also sometimes used to gamble for money, makes them all the more compelling when used for divination and fortune telling.
So it was later that playing card decks were expanded to make tarot decks.
I look in the Spanish language newspaper and they have picture ads for these fortune tellers. They use tarot cards, and they use them for real basic gut level stuff, like sickness and health, love, and money.
So why did they add the forth court card, and were they really thinking that all of this would be interpreted through the kabbalistic tree of life diagram?
The Ace of Spades is commonly known as the Death Card. I don't think this comes from interpreting the minor arcana on the Kabalistic Tree of Life.
Well, we don't really know where any of this comes from really, kabbalah either. We don't know how any of it relates to Hermeticism, or to Kabbalah, or how any of these relate to ancient Egypt.
I have never seen anything in print to support this, but I feel that the tarot major trumps could have come from the Egyption Book of the Dead. I was moved by a particularly inspired translation of the Papyrus of Ani, made by Normandi Ellis. She calls one section "21 Women".
There the petitioner must move through the Great Hall of Osiris. And this is rather like the Tibetan Bardo. He must get past 21 pylons, and each is guarded by a fearsome female. I feel that these, along with the petitioner, could be the source for the 22 major arcana.
https://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Osiris-…
But who really knows.
SJG
https://unsplash.com/s/photos/tarot
https://pixabay.com/images/search/tarot/
https://www.pinterest.ie/pin/85920243514…
https://spells8.com/printable-tarot-card…
https://spells8.com/wp-content/uploads/2…
https://www.bennionkearny.com/free-tarot…
https://www.bennionkearny.com/wp-content…
This seems to be the best site, and can get card by card images for all 78. Good text too.
https://www.tarotcardmeanings.net/tarotc…
celtic cross
https://www.tarotcardmeanings.net/tarot-…
https://www.tarotcardmeanings.net/tarotc…
SJG
https://www.davidwells.co.uk/
This mostly follows Dion Fortune's The Mystical Qabalah, and Wells says so openly.
SJG
https://tuscl.net/photo.php?id=4946
https://tuscl.net/photo.php?id=4484
https://www.davidwells.co.uk/
He has his own cards, and they aren't really tarot cards.
These first ones have the symbols of the 4 elements on them.
https://www.davidwells.co.uk/qabalah-mag…
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5…
Looks like some of the others have the names of the sephirot on them.
His blog
https://www.davidwells.co.uk/blog-the-q
https://www.davidwells.co.uk/blog-the-q/…
SJG
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SJG