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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:
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