NEW VID

https://youtu.be/esiijJs7UWE?si=yfONWUoBUbVkYM6t

Aquariums have two sides...

Original Post by Mat Ravignat
______

Éliphas Lévi’s Woman Adept-Teacher in London?

In 1854 after a rather acrimonious and expensive end of his relationship Lévi sought better fortunes and much needed rest in London. He had after all just finished his massive book ‘Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie’ (trans. as 'Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual', by A.E. Waite) and been through a really rough break-up.

Relying on Lévi’s letters, in my book 'The Rosicrucian Practices of Éliphas Lévi,' I pointed out that Lévi was already in contact with interested esoteric parties in London before leaving France and that he did not so much go there as a student but as a teacher. He had hoped teaching might help him financially and the fact that he went there as a teacher is also obvious when we keep the following facts in mind about his life:
--Esoteric themes are already evident in his works as early 1845, almost a decade before his trip and he was already a student of Wronski and other Polish R+C adepts for some time
--Lévi already had ‘disciples’, one of these was Adolphe Desbarolles the Count of d’Autencourt
--To write a book such as Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (over 700 pages in length) requires a vast knowledge of esoteric subjects and practices acquired over several years.
--That highly influential book was not actually published yet when he left for England and he was already being welcomed as an initiate there and being asked to demonstrate his magical skills, and this by English aristocrats. We may rightly ask, as does one of his Biographers, Arnaud de L’Estoile, why English aristocrats would welcome a failed clergyman and radical working-class socialist convict with little reputation to speak of into their circle, if he was not already a high initiate and had not something precious to teach or give them?
--Before leaving he says he already has contacts and a list of prominent aristocratic individuals, which include Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Dr. Ashburner.

Regarding the spiritual level of the esotericists he found in England he was quite disappointed as his letters show. It is clear by them that Lévi considers all he met in England as his inferiors or at best just friends. There is however one very important exception to this and it is a woman.

It is through Bulwer-Lytton, that Lévi was introduced to a High Degree Initiate. Here is what Lévi himself says in ‘Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magic’ about her :

""I saw a woman dressed all in black and which I recognized quickly and in a precise manner to be an initiate, not of the first order, but of an elevated high degree. We had a few very long conversations in which she always insisted on the need to engage in practice in order to compliment initiation.""

That Lévi was already able to recognize such a High-Level Initiate ‘in a precise manner’ is interesting. Might this be a blind for and exchange of tokens and words of recognition, it is interesting to speculate.

Incidentally, during the first meeting with this unidentified woman, Bulwer-Lytton is referred to as a mutual friend and not as Levi's teacher.

Though Lévi does not say specifically that this woman became his teacher, the fact that they are having long discussions and that she convinces him to attempt several practical experiences of evocation seems to indicate, at least regarding practice and when we place the mysoginy of the times aside, that there was a relationship of Master to Student.

How involved was this woman in the actual experiments he undertook after meeting her is hard to tell. At several places Lévi uses the singular when speaking of the spiritual preparations he needed to do for the operations but at other places he uses the plural (nous and notre) as regards to the actual performance of the evocations. In addition, Lévi did not go to London as a man of means, very much the contrary, as his trip had to financed by a wealthy patron and his Ex was literally selling his furniture and books to pay off debts clearly show.

So the vast amount of equipment he said was needed to do the experiments (including several concave mirrors and gilded objects) must have come from someone else.

In addition, we also know through his correspondence that Lévi’s address when he was in London was at 57 Gower Street. Gower street is a major thoroughfare, and it is obvious from the style of the building that in it were rather modest apartment like lodgings. But Lévi clearly says that a ‘cabinet in a tourelle' (meaning a place set adside in a turret) was used for the evocations. 57 Gower street does not include a turret and so this was likely part of a much wealthier building provided by someone else, perhaps a manor of some sort.

No matter, it is logical to think that the person who was encouraging him to do the practices in the first place would have provided a place and equipment for him to do so knowing he was unable to do so for himself as a poor visitor to London.

Because of these facts most biographers have concluded that the experiments were undertaken in a the aforementioned woman’s home and that she was involved somehow in them.

Who was this highly advanced and influential woman who is said to be a friend (not a relative) of Bulwer-Lytton? Sadly no one has been able to find her definitively.

Whether we find her true identity or not what is clear, despite Lévi’s later advice to avoid such evocations, that the work he did with or because of her was highly influential on his own spiritual development, as indicated in his own personal notes on the evocations:

""The preparations lasted 21 days and the first evocations were of the spirits of Joannès (John) and Jéhoshua (Jesus or Yeshua). The second was a vision of Apollonius which told him (Lévi) where to find his Nuctemeron by indicating to him the street and the place (in London).""

""In the third vision (during the first evocation), John explained his seals to him (to Lévi): Yeshua severely reprimanded him and revealed to him the future. He handed him the book of Rabbi Inaz, and taught him celestial magic, and gave him the key to miracles, and commanded him to honour the crown, the polar vestments, and the ceremonies of the Gallican Evangelical Church.""

In addition the visions of a talisman would teach him the truth of the Fililoquoe something he had been mulling over theologically for sometime:

""John brought him a pantacle of two sides, on one side a dove carrying an olive branch with the words: Pax hominibus Bonae Volontatis and a crown of twelve flowers and twelve pearls. On the reverse, the character M crowned with seven flames with the words: Unus spiritus sanctus qui ex Patre fililoque procedit. The word filioque can be found above in the middle of the legend (design). Above the monogram is written: Unus Pastor, and below: Unus Fides.""

He would be guided by these visions throughout his entire life as can be seen by the fact that he later would write a kabbalistic commentary on the 'Book of Revelations' and its seven seals and also translate and provide commentary on the 'Nuctemeron' all things which his visions had led him to.

Therefore through the later popularity of Lévis' writings this woman also had an influence on the practice of High Magic as we know it today.

Any guesses as to her identity?