Vol 4 Page 290

FOOTNOTES TO “GLEANINGS FROM ÉLIPHAS LÉVI”

[The Theosophist, Vol. IV, No. 4, January, 1883, pp. 84-85]

[H. P. B. appends the following footnotes to a translation from the original French of Chapter XIX of Éliphas Lévi’s Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie.]
[“. . . the Philosopher’s stone . . . analysed it is a powder, the so-called powder of projection of the alchemists. Prior to analysis, and after synthesis, it is a stone.”]
“Prior to analysis” or “after synthesis”—the STONE is no stone at all, but the “rock”—foundation of absolute knowledge—our seventh principle.
[Projection.]

In connection with the “projection,” we would advise our readers to turn to the “Elixir of Life” in the March and April (1882) numbers of The Theosophist. The “interior Magnes” of Paracelsus has a dual meaning.

Page 291

[“As we have already said, there exist in Nature two primary laws, two essential laws, which produce in counterbalancing each other the universal equilibrium of things; that is fixity and movement. . . .”]
This is incorrectly stated, and apt to mislead the beginner. Éliphas Lévi ought, without risking to divulge more than permitted, to have said: “There exists in Nature one universal Law with two primary manifesting laws as its attributes—Motion and Duration. There is but one eternal infinite uncreated Law—the ‘One Life’ of the Buddhist Arhats, or the Parabrahm of the Vedantins—Advaitas.”

[“. . . the Essence of God himself.”]

While the vulgar hoi polloi call, “God,” and we—“Eternal Principle.”

[Speaking of the Philosopher’s Stone, Eliphas Lévi says that “the sage prefers to keep it in its natural envelopes, assured that he can extract it by a single effort of his will and a single application of the universal agent to the envelopes, which the Cabalists call its shells.”]

He who studies the septenary nature of man and reads “The Elixir of Life” knows what this means. The seventh principle, or rather the seventh and sixth or the Spiritual Monad in one, is too sacred to be projected or used by the adept for the satisfaction and curiosity of the vulgar. The sage (the adept) keeps it in its shells (the five other principles) and knowing he can always “extract it by a single effort of his will,” by the power of his knowledge, will never expose this “stone” to the evil magnetic influences of the crowd. The author uses the cautious phraseology of the Mediaeval Alchemists, and no one having ever explained to the uninitiated public that the “Word” is no word, and the “Stone” no stone, the occult sciences are suffering thereby under the opprobrium of mockery and ignorance.