Eliphas Lévi : "Dogma and Ritual of High Magic" ("Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie")

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(My review is based on the French original)

Where to start?

Perhaps with how it was to digest this monster.

This book has been in my collection for many years. I even own it also in English, because everyone dabbling in magic kept recommending it to me. It is also held in very high esteem among the serious practitioners of the Golden Dawn-like organisations like the one that I am a part of.

Reading this book was hard. So hard, that I read - as I always do with difficult books - other books in between.

The most positive thing I can say about this book is that it's a great sleeping aid. Chapeau to everyone who, when tucked into bed at night, can read more than one or two pages before the urge to turn off the lights becomes overwhelming.

Having finished the book I can say that it has added nothing in the way of practical magic to my already existing knowledge and "how to".

But I wouldn't say that reading it was a total waste of time. And that not only because it's perhaps the foundational work of modern occultism and magic, but because it trains ones mind and, in between the anecdotes and hard to follow trains of thought, there are really great "bon mots" and philosophically interesting quotes to be found that can appeal to anyone interested in spiritual topics.

So, what's all that jazz with this book and with Levi?

For me, he is kind of the great-uncle of magic. A sort of armchair magician's version of Gandalf. Gandalf without a sword, without actual magic that has visible effects and definitely without all the fireworks. 

A sort of fairytale magicien. I can only imagine how it must have been knowing Levi while he was alive and living in Paris. I imagine him to be the perfect host for gatherings at his home, a home that was surely filled to the brim with books about spiritual, magical and alchemical knowledge from all the then available corners of the earth.

I can vividly imagine him. Well-natured, friendly, mystical and sharing his aphorisms and thoughts on "high" magic, Kabbalah and how to live and how to learn and perhaps even how to practice with a captivated but I expect often mildly disappointed audience of younger seekers.

I imagine his speech being filled with Latin, Greek and Hebrew quotes, and he would always know his sources.

He would make poignant references to public and political figures of his time. He would also demand strict ethics and often come across like a priest and a moral authority.

He would love to speak about the devil and demons, I am sure it is those parts his audience secretly craved the most, only to condemn them. For him, Jesus would be a magician, but one of the enlightened sort, directly connected to the source of all light and wisdom and creation in the universe.

He would make strong arguments for a strict divide between "high" and "low" magic and the high ethical standards that a true magician must adhere to at all times.

It's that part that I find hardest to swallow and that I have the biggest issue with.

Levi was of course a product of his time (who isn't?) and as such he was very outdated even only a couple of decades later. His influence on the founders of the Golden Dawn (uptight British snobs for the most part) is clear, and it is also clear and understandable why this approach to magic was unacceptable to Aleister Crowley and, later, the Chaos Magicians as well as Wicca.

I think he was successful once in a true evocation of an entity, and he was probably so perplexed that it actually worked that he didn't really know what to do next.

Today, thankfully, things are different and real ass kicking magicians like Alan Moore and authors treating the actual practice of magic without babbling and moralising allow us to get going fast and effectively.

So, in 2024, nearly 170 years after this book was first published, what is the interest in it for the modern magician?

I'd say two things.

For beginners I would strongly recommend not to touch this book. It will bore you. It will cost you time and energy. It might make you think that magic and the occult are for old people who collect stamps. If you are new to the field and want an approach focused on practice and results, I'd rather want you to read "Six Ways" from Aidan Wachter or the books of xxxx.

For the experienced ones, this is a must read though. It is part of the curriculum of any true magician to have read this book at least once.

Why?

Because he is our forefather. If magic was one organisation, he would be one of the founders. Along with Agrippa and others, Eliphas Lévi is one of the people we owe it to have that path.

Yes, he is old fashioned.

Yes, he is too moralising.

Yes, he is often long-winded and struggles to come to the point.

And despite the title "Ritual", the second Book rather talks about rites than actually giving them.

Also, his constant reiteration of correspondences between tarot cards and the Hebrew alphabet is tiring and of course fabricated.

Authentic, Jewish spiritual followers of the path of the Sepher Yetzirah despise the Christian Levi and his cultural appropriation and Christianisation of a Jewish spiritual tradition. And they have a point. One doesn't need to be into Kabbalah in order to practice magic. Today, other paths exist that are fully valid and don't need the burden of that particular heritage (even though the acolytes of the Golden Dawn and it's off-shoots will never accept that point of view).

To borrow an image from another fantasy world than middle-earth: one doesn't have to visit Hogwarts in order to be a wizard, but every wizard worth their salt should know about Dumbledore and what he had to say.

Just for completeness' sake and full transparency, this review is based on that edition of the book:

Rutger Bregman: "Im Grunde gut. Eine neue Geschichte der Menschheit" (englischer Titel: "Humankind. A Hopeful History.")

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Rutger Bregman: "Im Grunde gut. Eine neue Geschichte der Menschheit."

Ich habe zunächst etwas durchgeatmet, als mich dieses Buch als Geburtstagsgeschenk erreichte. Und als ich den Klappentext las, dachte ich noch: "Na supi, was für Naive, die sich die Welt schönreden wollen!".

Aber das Problem war, dass die Person, welche mir das Buch schenkte, einer der ganz wenigen Menschen ist, die ich rundum bewundere für ihre Klugheit, Resilienz und über allem hinaus Intelligenz.

Wenn mir also so ein Mensch dieses Buch schenkt - nun, dann fällt das sofort auf Platz Eins meiner imaginären "To Be Read"-Liste und alles andere muss warten.

Das Fazit zuerst: ich habe es nicht nur "nicht bereut", ich hatte dieses Buch bitter nötig. Denn auch ich bin ein viel zu "saugfähiger Schwamm" wenn es um Nachrichten, Weltgeschehen, social media und den Zustand der Menschheit insgesamt geht. Und jeder, der nicht die letzten Jahre unter einem Stein lebte wird mir zustimmen: so schlimm wie aktuell war es wahrscheinlich noch nie, und auch noch nie so aussichtslos.

In comes... Rutger Bregmans überhaupt nicht naive Behauptung: "Der Mensch ist von Natur aus gut!"

Was? Rousseau, much? Move on, you're on the wrong planet, dude!"

Nur... nein, Rutger Bregman ist nicht auf dem falschen Planeten, aber das Bild, welches die meisten Menschen über die eigene Spezies haben ist falsch.

Und es liegt eben nunmal nicht an unserer "biologischen Natur", dass die Dinge falsch laufen. Denn eines kann man dem Autor gewiss nicht vorwerfen: schönfärberei. Er will seinen Lesern auch gar nicht einreden, so "self-help-book"mässig, dass sie "nur" ihre Perspektive ändern müssten, und dann sei alles irgendwie erträglich.

Aber ja, er hat Belege, Studien und quasi Beweise zusammen getragen die bezeugen: vieles ist wesentlich besser, wenn man die echte Realität anschaut und nicht die medial verfärbte. Und ganz, ganz viel, dass tatsächlich falsch läuft, liegt nunmal nicht am grundschlechten, egoistischen Menschen, sondern von dem uns allen seit einigen Jahrhunderten einindoktrinierten schlechten Menschenbild.

Einiges, was er in seinem Buch aufführt, kannte ich schon. Und ich war nicht überrascht zu lernen, dass die Probleme, mit denen wir heute immer noch kämpfen, erst existieren seitdem wir uns mehrheitlich niedergelassen haben. In Jäger und Sammlerkulturen herrscht ein anderes Menschenbild und es ist die Hierarchie der seßhaften Kulturen, welche zur ungesunden Umdefinierung von Machtverhältnissen führte. Was sich dann auch in den religiösen Strukturen wiederspiegelte.

Vor allem aber: das Lesen dieses Buches hat mir Mut gemacht. Mut, einmal über den Tellerrand der Schlagzeilen zu blicken und zu sehen: so schlecht, wie man es uns immer weiß machen will, ist der Mensch gar nicht. Nur: gutherzigkeit und "Normalität" macht halt keine Schlagzeile und bringt keine Impressionen im Netz.

Ich habe nach der Lektüre des Buches neuen Mut gefasst. Mut, offen zu sein, auch Unbekannten Vertrauen zu schenken und meinen Glauben an das Gute im Menschen nicht zu verlieren.

Klingt naiv, ist aber die weitaus realistischere Einstellung.

Noch Zweifel? Dann: Lesen!

Phil Hine: Wheels within wheels. Chakras and Western Esotericism

Phil Hine: "Wheels within Wheels. Chakras and Western Esotericism"

People don't have Chakras. You don't have chakras. Your pets don't have chakras.

Well, probably not.

Surprised?

The idea that there are 7 (or better: 6 + 1) Chakras in the human body, as well as their placement, is relatively recent (19th century) and only developed because Colonialists (especiall Theosophists) and Indians eager to prove that their culture and tradition had a long history of "medicinal relevance" took those hidden, tantric concepts (the earlist mention of something like "Chakras" goes back to the 5th/6th century) and transformed thim into something.... else.

Renowned occultist and magician Phil Hine, known for fundamental works about Chaos Magick (especially 'Condensed Chaos' springs to mind) has taken the plunge into those tantric texts mentioning different chakra models. In the early texts, number and placement of those "wheels" differed from what later became he conveniently aligned 7 chakra model everyone uses (and assumes to be stone age old) today.

In his book he examines the "history" of Chakras in ancient Indian tantric texts, their role within that context and how "the West" made first contact with the concept of Chakras and how the shape and shadow of the religious and spiritual traditions of those Westerners warped the original concepts out of their cultural context until they became what they are today: ever present concepts used for self-development and even part of Jungian inspired corporate leadership coaching programs used in big companies.

Chapter by chapter, we travel from the first encounter with Chakras by Westerners in the 19th century and then finish kind of 1950ish, when Jung and others had adopted the current model and re-formulated the meaning and nature of what chakras actually "are" into what we think about them today.

The fun part? It's all made up!

Besides the fact that science said so all the time, it's all made up for the more spiritually inclined folks out there. It literally is made up... and the Indians went along, as they were struggling to re-disocer, define and defend their own cultural and religious identity during the times of becomind independent from the British.

It is more than likely that in what we have left from the "real" ancient teachings, the concept of chakras was something that those who got initiated into the tantric side of Hinduism used during meditations - and that those "energy wheels" were not a starting point, but either support for better concentration and focus exercise work or actually the result of secret tantric work on the energy body: only those initiated ones who successfully accomplished certain secret practices were actually developing chakra centers in their energy bodies. The rest of us was blissfully unaware of them and didn't have them to begin with!

Either way - all things are concepts anyways - but before you splash out thousands of money for your next "chakra energy healing course", you migh wanna give this book a read and make a more informed decision! 

Just saying! ;-)