An Abyss Separates the Teachings of Eliphas Levi from Those of Eastern Occultism

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Blavatsky Speaks Series · 20 pages

Twenty pages of close criticism aimed at the writer this library elsewhere translates and reprints with respect — which is what makes it worth reading. The general charge is that the knowledge Western occultists possess of the esoteric philosophy, and their range of perception of Eastern occultism, is very superficial. The particular charges are technical, and she works through them one at a time.

Levi's statement that above the dark abyss were the Waters is said to lead the student off the track, because it changes the essential character of the cosmogony and brings it down to the level of exoteric Genesis — perhaps, she adds, with an eye to that result. To illustrate the phrase above the Breath appeared the Light he supplies a figure that any Eastern occultist would pronounce a left-hand magic figure, and the document reproduces it reversed on the following page so the reader can see the difference. Her own formulation is given against his: at the dawn of a new Manvantara perpetual Motion becomes Breath, from Breath comes primordial Light, which brings out the Thought concealed in Darkness, and this becomes the Word. The explanation she offers for the whole tendency is biographical — that the learned Abbe had set himself the task of reconciling Jewish magic with Roman ecclesiasticism, and could say nothing else.

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