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Difference between revisions of "Éliphas Lévi"
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==Theory of magic== | ==Theory of magic== | ||
The three chief components of Levi's magical thesis were: Astral Light, the Will and the Imagination. Levi did not originate any of these as occult concepts. | The three chief components of Levi's magical thesis were: Astral Light, the Will and the Imagination. Levi did not originate any of these as [[occult]] concepts. | ||
Concerning the "Astral Light", Waite noted: "the Astral Light, which is neither more nor less than the odylic force of Baron Carl Reichenbach, as the French writer [Levi] himself admits substantially, [...]" and: "This force he [Levi] usually terms the Astral Light, a name which is borrowed from Saint-Martin and the French mystics of the eighteenth century." | Concerning the "Astral Light", Waite noted: "the Astral Light, which is neither more nor less than the odylic force of Baron Carl Reichenbach, as the French writer [Levi] himself admits substantially, [...]" and: "This force he [Levi] usually terms the Astral Light, a name which is borrowed from Saint-Martin and the French mystics of the eighteenth century." | ||
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"Astral Light" was also indebted to the ideas of 18th-century proto-hypnotist, [[Franz Mesmer]]: "[Mesmer] evolved the theory of “ animal magnetism.” This he held to be a fluid which pervades the universe, but is most active in the human nervous organization, and enables one man, charged with the fluid, to exert a powerful influence over another." | "Astral Light" was also indebted to the ideas of 18th-century proto-hypnotist, [[Franz Mesmer]]: "[Mesmer] evolved the theory of “ animal magnetism.” This he held to be a fluid which pervades the universe, but is most active in the human nervous organization, and enables one man, charged with the fluid, to exert a powerful influence over another." | ||
Astral is an adjective meaning: "Connected to, consisting of, stars." Levi used the term "Astral" | Astral is an adjective meaning: "Connected to, consisting of, stars." Levi used the term "Astral," not only as a synonym for "psychic force," but because he believed in the ancient and medieval superstition of [[astrology]]. As Levi wrote himself: "Nothing is indifferent in Nature, a pebble more or less upon a road may crush or profoundly alter the fortunes of the greatest men and even of the greatest empires, much more then the position of a particular star can not be indifferent to the destinies of the child who is being, and who enters by the fact of his birth into the universal harmony of the sidereal astrological world." | ||