Key of the Mysteries by Eliphas Levi

Key of the Mysteries by Eliphas Levi

Eliphas Le'vi was steeped in the Western occult tradition and a master of the Rosicrucian interpretation of the Qabalah, which forms the basis of magic as practiced in the West today. The Key of the Mysteries represents the culmination of Le'vi's thoughts and is written with subtle and delicate irony. It reveals the mysteries of religion and the secrets of the Qabalah, providing a sketch of the prophetic theology of numbers. The mysteries of nature, such as spiritualism and fluidic phantoms, are explored. Magical mysteries, the Theory of the Will with its 22 axioms are divulged. And finally it offers the great practical secrets.

The true greatness of this work, however, lies in its ability to place occult thought firmly in Western religious traditions. For Le'vi, the study of the occult was the study of a divine science, the mathematics of God.

Eliphas Levi, a pen name for Alphonse Louis Constant, was a master of the conventional Rosicrucian interpretation of the Kabbalah. He was born in France in 1810 and received his education for the church at SaintSulpice through the parish priest's office. Later, he was removed from seminary for teaching beliefs that were incompatible with those of the Roman Catholic Church. Levi began researching the occult sciences in 1824 and spent the following three decades writing on magic and the Kabbalah. Transcendental Magic, Secrets of the Qabalah, and The Book of Splendours are among his other works.