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Intensely suggestive, he is at the same time without much depth; splendid in generalisation, he is without accuracy in detail. It would be difficult to cite a worse guide over mere matters of fact. Had Lévi been left to himself, he would not have got far in occult science because his Gallic vivacity would have been blunted too quickly by the horrors of studious research. But he did somehow fell within a circle of initiation which curtailed the necessity for such research, and put him in the right path. Lévi was scarcely a transcendentalist, not even a mystic. Instinctively a materialist, he approached perilously towards atheism as when he stated that God is a hypothesis which is “very probably necessary.” His prophetic utterances upon the mission of Napoleon III have been stultified by subsequent events. Éliphas Lévi reflected a high idealism and an inner revolt against the injustices of the times. To Madame Blavatsky he was “undoubtedly a great occultist,” but “being a charming and witty writer,” has “more mystified than taught in his many volumes on magic.” Under no circumstances did she look upon him as an Initiate or a practical occultist. His style is poetical and quite charming. But what has he really taught us? Nothing, absolutely nothing — except, perhaps, the exuberance of the French language and his quaint wit. Not one single aspirant has become an Occultist by following the teaching of the French magus simply because, though Lévi evidently got his secrets from an Initiate, he never received the right to initiate others, says Blavatsky.
Long kalpas of mental sleep, during which humanity was permitted to think only by proxy, preceded today’s self-consciousness alternating between wakefulness and sleep. When asleep, the ordinary man has no experience of any state of consciousness other than those emerging from his brain and the ever-deceiving physical senses. In deep sleep, ideation ceases on the physical plane, and memory is in abeyance because the organ, through which the Ego manifests ideation and memory on the material plane, has temporarily ceased to function. Spiritual Consciousness never sleeps because she is always in the Light of Reality and acts independently of the sleeping man. Impressions projected upon the brain may survive as “conscience.” But the Occultist, who knows that his Divine Self never sleeps, and lives in the Light of the One Reality — the same Light that illuminates every man in the world of being — says that during the state of sleep his mind (seat of the physical and personal intelligence) may get glimpses of that Light revealed by the Divine Thought, which was hidden from it during his waking hours. The spiritual perceptions of the Higher Ego are beyond space and time. Space and time are the illusory perceptions of his worldly shadow, whether wakeful or asleep. To see in Nirvana annihilation amounts to saying of a man plunged in a sound dreamless sleep — one that leaves no impression on the physical memory and brain, because the sleeper’s Higher Self is in its original state of absolute consciousness during those hours — that he, too, is annihilated. Alas! the human mind, unable to transcend the limitations of its individualised consciousness, totters here on earth on the brink of incomprehensible Absoluteness and Eternity. What, then, is the process of going to sleep? As a man exhausted by one state of the life fluid seeks another — e.g., when exhausted by hot air he refreshes himself with cool water — so sleep is the shady nook in the sunlit valley of life. Somnolence is a compelling sign that waking life has become too strong for the physical organism, and that the force of the life current must be broken by changing the waking for the sleeping state. Pernicious is the influence of the moon. Only one with remarkably strong nerves can sit or sleep under the moonlight without injury to his health. Shall we sleep with the head towards the north, south, east, or west?
Anger is one of three self-destructing states of mind; the other two are worldly love and delusion. Bhagavan Das posits Anger in the mid-point of the not-Self continuum: Hate towards Equals gives rise to Anger; towards Superiors, to Fear; towards Inferiors, to Scorn. Anger is the passion of fools; it becometh not a wise man. Socrates defines Anger as raging and seething of the soul. Aristotle, as boiling of the blood around the heart. Plato suggests that though pain, fear, anger, and other feelings are given to men by necessity, “if they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they were conquered by them, unrighteously.” In order to help men, the Gods protected the heart by surrounding it with the soft and cool thicket of lungs to chill out the heat of anger. “Dig not fire with a sword but by governing the tongue and being quiet, friendship is produced from strife, the fire of anger being extinguished, and you yourself will not appear to be destitute of intellect,” advises Pythagoras. If Love is the fever of the species, Anger is the self-consuming fire. Indeed it is life atoms that a man in a blind passion throws off, unconsciously, and he does it quite as effectively as a mesmeriser who transfers them from himself to any object consciously and under the guidance of his will. Anger is an insurmountable obstacle between reality and illusion. That is why abstinence from Anger is one of Duty’s ten virtues. “Act then, all ye who fail and suffer, act like him; and from the stronghold of your Soul, chase all your foes away — ambition, anger, hatred, e’en to the shadow of desire — when even you have failed” says the Voice of the Silence. To take the Kingdom of God by violence is Kabbalistic parlance for reaching Nirvana by artificially-induced conditions. To Dare, to Will, to Achieve, and to keep Silent, is the motto of the true Occultist. “The science of the gods is mastered by violence; it must be conquered, and does not give itself.” One key is the sacrifice of Prometheus who, by allowing men to proceed consciously on the path of spiritual evolution, transformed the most perfect of animals on earth into a potential god, making him free to “take the kingdom of heaven by violence.” We cannot attain Adeptship and Nirvana, Bliss and the “Kingdom of Heaven,” unless we link ourselves indissolubly with our Rex Lucis, the Lord of Splendour and of Light, our immortal God within us.
On laughter and sobs, smiles and tears. Laughter is the physical manifestation of a sudden and excessive recognition of one’s own superiority. What the orgasm of Laughter is to pleasure, that of Sobs is to pain. As Laughter is the abrupt expansion of body and mind, so Sobbing is the sudden and spasmodic contraction of the same. The ego-feeling takes shape as self-Complacence in Laughter, and as self-Pity in Sobbing. Laughter is egoistic, always, but the young have a right, almost a duty, to be egoistic, otherwise they would not grow, and growing is always at the expense of someone else. Human beings smile for joy and smile sadly; they weep in gladness and they weep in pain. Loud laughter and talk should be shunned. There are more grounds for sorrow than for laughter in our present world. The great teachers laugh seldom but smile often, in tenderness and sadness; sad to see another’s pain, tender to relieve it. The violent physical laugh is the laugh of the coarse sense of moreness of the egocentric man, while the quiet, tender smile is the smile of the subtle sense of moreness of the unselfish man. Mockery is the fume of little hearts, noble manners are the blossoms of the noble heart. Golden silence is the only antidote to self-assertion. Bhagavan Das’ annotations on Henri Bergson’s analysis of Laughter. There is nothing benevolent in laughter, its purpose is to return evil for evil and to intimidate by humiliating. Because laughter is self-assertive, conceited, presumptuous, and impertinent, even when it is merely playful, its fruit turns to ashes in the mouth of the philosopher who, being aware of the underlying egotism, is appalled by its pettiness and paltriness. It doesn’t take long for the puffed up self-esteem to break out in laughter. Let us pray to be spared from low buffoonery and mocking laughs. Vex not thou the poet’s mind with thy shallow wit.
As the reptile upon casting his coat becomes freed from a casing of gross matter and resumes its existence with renewed activity, so man, by casting off the gross material body, enters upon the next stage of his existence with enlarged powers and quickened vitality.
Dreams are images of hopes and fears. Somnambulism, premonitions, and second sight are a disposition, energised by the power of the imagination, to perceive and guess by intuition reflections from the Astral Light. In sense dreams the mind is always asleep. The sensual tendencies of the dreamer are readily impressed by pictures from the Astral Light, and thus the direction of such dreams is always towards the animal plane. We should therefore train ourselves to wake up when a sense dream occurs; and the instantaneous rejection of impure thoughts during the period of waking consciousness will tend to set up a habit of rejection, which will act automatically in sleep. There is no simple answer to the question “what is it that dreams?” for it depends entirely on each individual, what principle will be the chief motor in dreams, and whether they will be remembered or forgotten. When the material man dreams, all he sees with his eyes shut, and in or through his mind, is of course subjective. But the Inner Man, who is the silent spectator of the life of the dreamer, all he sees is as objective as he is himself to himself. The dream state is common not only to all men, but also to all animals, from the highest mammalia to the smallest birds, and even insects. Every being endowed with a physical brain, or organs approximating thereto, must dream. Human dreams do not differ much from those of the animals. But that which is entirely terra incognita for science is the real dreams and experiences of the immortal Ego overshadowing mortal man, which thinks and acts independently of the physical body. What we often regard as dreams or idle fancies may be stray pages torn out from the life and experiences of the Inner Man, the dim recollection of which at the moment of awakening becomes more or less distorted by our physical memory. Every night, when the Inner Man is freed from the trammels of matter, he lives a separate life within his prison of clay. But the outer man cannot be conscious of the Inner Man, for his brain and thinking apparatus are paralyzed more or less completely. Ordinary dreams are caused by sensuously desirous consciousness awakened into chaotic activity by the slumbering reminiscences of the lower mind. The combined action of desires and animal soul is purely mechanical. It is instinct, not reason, which is active in them. But, as a rule, our memory registers only the fugitive and distorted impressions which the brain receives at the moment of awakening. Among the vast number of meaningless dreams there are some in which presages are given of coming events. When such dreams come true, they may be termed prophetic. In the case of individuals who have truly prophetic dreams, it is because their physical brains and memory are in closer relation and sympathy with their Higher Ego than in the generality of men. The Adept, however, does not dream, he just paralyzes his lower self during sleep, and becomes perfectly free. Dreams are illusions and the Adept is beyond illusion. Imagination is the best guide of our blind senses. We see through our imagination, and that is the natural aspect of the miracle. But we also see actual and true things, and it is in this that lies the marvel of the natural phenomenon. Those of a nervous temperament, whose sight is weak and imagination vivid, are the fittest persons for this kind of divination. The stronger the spirituality of the dreamer, the easier it will be for the Higher Ego to impress on the brain a vivid picture of the dream. In the materialistic man, in one whose proclivities and passions have severed his astral soul from her spiritual counterpart and master, in him whose labour has so worn out the body as to render him temporarily insensible to the voice of his soul — such persons rarely, if ever, will have any dreams at all. On the other hand, highly spiritual people will see visions and dreams when asleep, and even in their hours of wakefulness. Messages sent by one soul to another are perceived as premonitions, dreams, and visions. Facts are generally inverted in dreams, and this can be explained by the law of introverted mental vision. The Higher Ego does not think as its evanescent personality does. Its thoughts are vivid pictures and visions of past and future scenes, of wonderful living acts and heroic deeds, which are all present in the eternal now — even as they were when speech expressed in sounds did not exist, when thoughts were things, and men did not need to express them in speeches, for they instantly realised themselves in action by the power of Kriyashakti, that mysterious power which transforms instantaneously ideas into visible forms. In persons of a very materialistic mind, because the Ego is so trammelled by matter, it can hardly give all its attention to one’s actions, even though the latter may commit sins for which that Ego will have to suffer conjointly in future. True dreams, being actions of the Higher Ego, they produce effects which are recorded on their own plane. Ordinary dreams, by and large, are the waking and hazy recollections of such actions. Between the inner man and the physical brain there is a kind of conscious telegraphic communication going on incessantly, day and night. When the brain is asleep, the physical memory and imagination are also asleep, and all cognitive functions are at rest. Our mundane life is a “dream” to the Higher Ego, while the inner life, or what we call the “dream plane,” is the real life for it. The will of the common man is dormant in dreams and therefore inactive. A sick person, especially just before death, is very likely to see in dream, or vision, those whom he loves and is continually thinking of; and so also is a person awake, but intensely thinking of a person who is asleep at the time. In cases of consumption, or other emaciating diseases, dreams become pleasant because the astral soul of the patient has begun detaching from the physical body, and therefore becomes more clairvoyant in proportion. As death approaches, the body wastes away and ceases to be an impediment or barrier between the brain of the ailing man and his Higher Ego. In Black Magic it is no rare thing to evoke the “spirit” of a sleeping person. Thus the sorcerer may learn from the apparition any secret he chooses, while the sleeper remains ignorant of what is going on. A nightmare arises from oppression and difficulty in breathing; and the latter will always create a feeling of oppression and a sensation of impending calamity. By cultivating the power of dreaming, clairvoyance is developed. But only one’s clairvoyant faculty, aided by spiritual intuition, can interpret one’s dreams. The only one who profits from a dream book is its author. If you could remember your dreams in deep sleep, when the spiritual consciousness is active, you would be able to remember all your past incarnations. That exalted state of remembrance is the “Memory of the Heart”; and the capacity to impress itself on the brain, so that it becomes part of its consciousness, marks the opening of the Third Eye.