Levi, Eliphas
An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1920)
Alphonse Louis Constant, better known by his pen-name of Eliphas Levi, was a French occultist of the nineteenth century, who has been called "the last of the magi." He was born about 1810, the son of a shoemaker, and through the good offices of the parish priest was educated for the church at St. Sulpice. In due course he became a deacon, taking a vow of celibacy. Shortly after this he was expelled from St. Sulpice for teaching doctrines contrary to those of the Church. How he lived during the ensuing years is not known, but about 1839 under the influence of a political and socialistic prophet named Ganneau, he wrote a pamphlet entitled The Gospel of Liberty, for which he received six months imprisonment. In Paris, notwithstanding his vow of celibacy, he married a beautiful girl of sixteen, who afterwards had the marriage annulled. It was probably not until Madame Constant had left him that he studied the occult sciences. At all events his writings previous to this show little trace of occult influence. In 1855 he published his Doctrine of Transcendental Magic, followed in 1856 by the Ritual of Transcendental Magic; in 1860 was issued his History of Magic; in 1861 The Key of the Grand Mysteries ; Fables and Symbols in 1864; Le Sorcier de Mendon and La Science des Esprits in 1865. Most of his works have been translated by Mr. A. E. Waite. He died in 1875. Levi's knowledge of the occult sciences was much more imaginative than circumstantial, and in perusing his works the reader requires to be on his guard against the adoption of hasty generalisations and hypotheses.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The biographical outline given by the Encyclopaedia of Occultism in 1920 still holds, though the birth date it gives as "about 1810" is now fixed precisely: Alphonse Louis Constant was born in Paris on 8 February 1810 and died there on 31 May 1875. What has moved is his standing. Spence's warning that Lévi's occult knowledge was "more imaginative than circumstantial" is fair, but it undersells his afterlife: his pairing of the twenty-two tarot trumps with the letters of the Hebrew alphabet became the backbone of nearly all modern esoteric tarot, and the horned, winged Baphomet he drew for the 1856 Ritual is now the single most reproduced image of the Devil in Western popular culture. Aleister Crowley, born the year Lévi died, claimed to be his reincarnation; the A. E. Waite translations mentioned above remain in print, and since the 1970s Lévi has become a standard subject of academic work on the nineteenth-century French occult revival rather than a curiosity for believers only.
Written for this edition, 2026.