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Eliphas Levi Biography & Facts

Éliphas Lévi Zahed, born Alphonse Louis Constant (8 February 1810 – 31 May 1875), was a French esotericist, poet, and writer. Initially pursuing an ecclesiastical career in the Catholic Church, he abandoned the priesthood in his mid-twenties and became a ceremonial magician. At the age of 40, he began professing knowledge of the occult. He wrote over 20 books on magic, Kabbalah, alchemical studies, and occultism. The pen name "Éliphas Lévi", was an anagram of his given names "Alphonse Louis" into Hebrew. Levi gained renown as an original thinker and writer, his works attracting attention in Paris and London among esotericists and artists of romantic or symbolist inspiration. He left the Grand Orient de France (the French Masonic organization that originated Continental Freemasonry) in the belief that the original meanings of its symbols and rituals had been lost. "I ceased being a freemason, at once, because the Freemasons, excommunicated by the Pope, did not believe in tolerating Catholicism ... [and] the essence of Freemasonry is the tolerance of all beliefs." Many authors influenced Levi's political, occultic and literary development, such as the French monarchist Joseph de Maistre, whom he quotes in many parts of his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, Paracelsus, Robert Fludd, Swedenborg, Fabre d'Olivet, the Rosicrucians, Plato, Raymond Lull, and other esotericists. Life Early period Born Alphonse Louis Constant, he was the son of a shoemaker in Paris. In 1832 he entered the seminary of Saint Sulpice to study to enter the Roman Catholic priesthood, as a sub-deacon he was responsible for catechism, later he was ordained a deacon, remaining a cleric for the rest of his life. One week before being ordained to the priesthood, he decided to leave the priestly path, however the spirit of charity and the life he had in the seminary stayed with him through the rest of his life, later he wrote that he had acquired an understanding of faith and science without conflicts. In 1836, on leaving the priestly path, he provoked his superiors' anger. He had committed to permanent vows of chastity and obedience as a sub-deacon and deacon, so returning to civil life was particularly painful for him; he continued to wear the clerical clothes, the cassocks, until 1844. The possible reasons that saw Levi's departure from the Saint-Sulpice seminary, in 1836, are expressed in the following quote, by A. E. Waite: "He [Levi] seems, however, to have conceived strange views on doctrinal subjects, though no particulars are forthcoming, and, being deficient in gifts of silence, the displeasure of authority was marked by various checks, ending finally in his expulsion from the Seminary. Such is one story at least, but an alternative says more simply that he relinquished the sacerdotal career in consequence of doubts and scruples." He had to obviate extreme poverty by working as a tutor in Paris. Around 1838, he met and was influenced by the views of the mystic Simon Ganneau, and it may have been through Ganneau's meetings that he also met Flora Tristan. In 1839 he entered the monastic life in the Abbey of Solesmes, but he could not maintain the discipline so he quit the monastery. Upon returning to Paris, he wrote, La Bible de la liberté (The Bible of Liberty), which resulted in his imprisonment in August 1841. The Eliphas Levi Circle ("(Association law 1901) was set up on April 1 1975") gives the following summary of Levi's marriage and paternity: "At the age of 32 he met two young girls who were friends, Eugénie C and Noémie Cadiot. Despite his preference for Eugenie he also fell under the spell of Noémie whom he was obliged to marry in 1846 in order to avoid a confrontation with the girl’s father. Seven years later Noémie ran away from the marital home to join the marquis of Montferriet and in 1865 the marriage was annulled. Several children issued from this marriage, in particular twins who died shortly after birth. None of these children reached adult age, little Marie for example, who died when she was seven. Lévi had an illegitimate son with Eugénie C, born 29 September 1846, but the child never bore Lévi’s name. However he did know his father, who saw that he was educated. We know from reliable sources that the descendants of this son are living among us in France today." Writing at the beginning of the 20th century, A. E. Waite depicts Levi's marriage, perished offspring, and (possible) violation of the Saint Sulpice seminary rule, as follows: I have failed to ascertain at what period he married Mlle. Noemy, a girl of sixteen, who became afterwards of some repute as a sculptor, but it was a runaway match and in the end she left him. It is even said that she succeeded in a nullity suit—not on the usual grounds, for she had borne him two children, who died in their early years if not during infancy, but on the plea that she was a minor, while he had taken irrevocable vows. Saint-Sulpice is, however, a seminary for secular priests who are not pledged to celibacy, though the rule of the Latin Church forbids them to enter the married state. Unexpectedly, in 1850, at the age of 40, Levi succumbed to a period of heightened financial and spiritual crisis, leading him, more profoundly, to find refuge in the milieu of mid-19th-century esotericism and the occult. Later period In December 1851, Napoleon III organized a coup that would end the Second Republic and give rise to the Second Empire. Lévi saw the emperor as the defender of the people and the restorer of public order. In the Moniteur parisien of 1852, Lévi praised the new government's actions, but he soon became disillusioned with the rigid dictatorship and was eventually imprisoned in 1855 for publishing a polemical chanson against the Emperor. What had changed, however, was Lévi's attitude towards "the people." As early as in La Fête-Dieu and Le livre des larmes from 1845, he had been skeptical of the uneducated people's ability to emancipate themselves. Similar to the Saint-Simonians, he had adopted the theocratic ideas of Joseph de Maistre in order to call for the establishment of a "spiritual authority" led by an élite class of priests. After the disaster of 1849, he was completely convinced that the "masses" were not able to establish a harmonious order and needed instruction. Lévi's activities reflect the struggle to come to terms, both with the failure of 1848 and the tough repressions by the new government. He participated on the Revue philosophique et religieuse, founded by his old friend Fauvety, wherein he propagated his "Kabbalistic" ideas, for the first time in public, in 1855-1856 (notably using his civil name). Lévi began to write Histoire de la magie in 1860. The following year, in 1861, he published a sequel to Dogme et rituel, La clef des grands mystères ("The Key to the Great Mysteries"). In 1861 Lévi revisited London. Further magical works by Lévi include Fables et symboles ("Stories and Images"), 1862.... 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