Dogma and Ritual of High Magic Part I - Eliphas Levi 1896

The Stone of The Philosophers — Elagabalus

VOCATIO SOL AURUM

The ancients adored the Sun under the figure of a black stone, which they named Elagabalus, or Heliogabalus. What did this stone signify, and how came it to be the image of the most brilliant of luminaries? The disciples of Hermes, before promising their adepts the elixir of long life or the powder of projection, counselled them to seek for the Philosophical Stone. What is this Stone, and why is it so called? The Great Initiator of the Christians invites His believers to build on the stone or rock, if they do not wish their structures to be demolished. He terms Himself the cornerstone, and says to the most faithful of His Apostles, "Thou art Peter (petrus), and upon this rock (petram) I will build My church." This Stone, say the masters in Alchemy, is the true Salt of the Philosophers, which is the third ingredient in the composition of AzOTH. Now, we know already that AzOTH is the name of the great Hermetic and true Philosophical Agent; furthermore, their Salt is represented under the figure of a cubic stone, as may be seen in the TWELVE KEYS of Basil Valentine, or in the allegories of Trevisan. Once more, what is this Stone actually? It is the foundation of absolute philosophy, it is supreme and immovable reason. Before even dreaming of the metallic work, we must be fixed for ever upon the absolute principles of wisdom; we must possess that reason which is the touchstone of truth. Never will a man of prejudices become the king of Nature and the master of transmutations. The Philosophical Stone is hence before all things necessary; but how is it to be found? Hermes informs us in his "Emerald Table". We must separate the subtle from the fixed with great care and assiduous attention. Thus, we must separate our certitudes from our beliefs, and distinguish sharply the respective domains of science and faith, realizing that we do not know things which we believe, and that we cease immediately to believe anything which we come actually to know. It follows that the essence of the things of faith is the unknown and the indefinite, while it is quite the reverse with the things of science. It must be inferred from this that science rests on reason and experience, whilst the basis of faith is sentiment and reason. In other words, the Philosophical Stone is the true certitude which human prudence assures to conscientious researches and modest doubt, whilst religious enthusiasm ascribes it exclusively to faith. Now, it belongs neither to reason without aspirations nor to aspirations without reason; true certitude is the reciprocal acquiescence of the reason which knows in the sentiment which believes and of the sentiment which believes in the reason which knows. The permanent alliance of reason and faith will result not from their absolute distinction and separation, but from their mutual control arid their fraternal concurrence. Such is the significance of the two Pillars of Solomon's Porch, one named JAKIN and the other BOAZ, one white and the other black. They are distinct and separate, they are even contrary in appearance, but if blind force sought to join them by bringing them close to one another, the roof of the temple would collapse. Separately, their power is one; joined, they are two powers which destroy one another. For precisely the same reason the spiritual power is weakened whensoever it attempts to usurp the temporal, while the temporal power becomes the victim of its encroachments on the spiritual. Gregory VII ruined the Papacy; the schismatic kings have lost and will lose the monarchy. Human equilibrium requires two feet; the worlds gravitate by means of two forces; generation needs two sexes. Such is the meaning of the arcanum of Solomon, represented by the two Pillars of the Temple, JAKIN and Boaz.

The Sun and Moon of the alchemists correspond to the same symbol and concur in the perfection and stability of the Philosophical Stone. The Sun is the hieroglyphic sign of truth, because it is the visible source of light, and the rough stone is the symbol of stability. This is why the ancient Magi regarded the stone Elagabalus as the actual type of the sun, and for this reason the mediaeval alchemists pointed to the Philosophical Stone as the first means of making philosophical gold, that is to say, of transforming the vital forces represented by the six metals into Sol, otherwise into truth and light, the first and indispensable operation of the Great Work, leading to the secondary adaptations and discovering, by the analogies of Nature, the natural and grosser gold to the possessors of the spiritual and living gold, of the true Salt, the true Mercury and the true Sulphur of the philosophers. To find the Philosophical Stone is then to have discovered the Absolute, as the masters say otherwise. Now, the Absolute is that which admits of no errors; it is the fixation of the volatile,; it is the rule of the imagination; it is the very necessity of being; it is the immutable law of reason and truth. The Absolute is that which is. Now that which is in some sense precedes he who is. God Himself cannot be in the absence of a ground of being and can exist only in virtue of a supreme and inevitable reason. It is this reason which is the Absolute; it is this in which we must believe if we desire a rational and solid foundation for our faith. It may be said in these days that God is merely a hypothesis, but the Absolute Reason is not: it is essential to being.

St. Thomas once said: "A thing is not just because God wills it, but God wills it because it is just." Had St. Thomas deduced all the consequences of this beautiful thought, he would have found the Philosophical Stone, and besides being the angel of the schools, he would have been their reformer. To believe in the reason of God and in the God of reason is to render atheism impossible. When Voltaire said: "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him," he felt rather than understood the reason which is in God. Does God really exist? There is no knowing, but we desire it to be so, and hence we believe it. Faith thus formulated is reasonable faith, for it admits the doubt of science, and, as a fact, we believe only in things which seem to us probable, though we do not know them. To think otherwise is delirium; to speak otherwise is to talk like illuminati or fanatics. Now, it is not to such persons that the Philosophical Stone is promised. The ignoramuses who have turned primitive Christianity from its path by substituting faith for science, dream for experience, the fantastic for the real - inquisitors who, during so many ages, have waged a war of extermination against Magic - have succeeded in enveloping with darkness the ancient discoveries of the human mind, so that we are now groping for a key to the phenomena of Nature. Now, all natural phenomena depend upon a single and immutable law, represented by the Philosophical Stone and especially by its cubic form. This law, expressed by the tetrad in the Kabalah, equipped the Hebrews with all the mysteries of their divine Tetragram. It may be said therefore that the Philosophical Stone is square in every sense, like the heavenly Jerusalem of St. John; that one of its sides is inscribed with the name ShLMH and the other with that of GOD; that one of its facets bears the name of ADAM, a second that of HEVA, and the two others those of AZOT and INRI. At the beginning of the French translation of a book by the Sieur de Nuisement on the Philosophical Salt, the spirit of the earth is represented standing on a cube over which tongues of flame are passing; the phallus is replaced by a caduceus; the sun and moon figure on the right and left breast; the figure is bearded, crowned and holds a sceptre in his hand. This is the AzOTH of the sages on its pedestal of Salt and Sulphur. The symbolic head of the goat of Mendes is occasionally given to this figure, and it is then the Baphomet of the Templars and the Word of the Gnostics, bizarre images which became scarecrows for the vulgar after affording food for reflection to sages - innocent hieroglyphs of thought and faith which have been a pretext for the rage of persecutions. How pitiable are men in their ignorance, but how they would despise themselves if only they came to know!