Reviews for Paradoxes of the Highest Science A New Translation

The average rating for Paradoxes of the Highest Science A New Translation based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-07-14 00:00:00 Erik Santos The last book which is available in English by Eliphas Levi, which appeared two years before his death. It reveals Levi at his most mature and beautiful. This is to say it testifies to the remarkable transformation which happened in Levi's soul - as described by Valentin Tomberg in his astounding Meditations on the Tarot. (My review of Meditations on the Tarot here: ) That remarkable transformation is also testified to in these words from Levi's pen: "The ancient rites have lost their effectiveness since Christianity appeared in the world. The Christian and Catholic religion, in fact, is the legitimate daughter of Jesus, king of the Mages. A simple scapular worn by a truly Christian person is a more invincible talisman than the ring and pentacle of Solomon. The Mass is the most prodigious of evocations. Necromancers evoke the dead, the sorcerer evokes the devil and he shakes, but the Catholic Priest does not tremble in evoking the living God. Catholics alone have Priests because they alone have the altar and the offering, i.e. the whole of religion. To practise high Magic is to compete with the Catholic Priesthood; it is to be a dissident Priest. Rome is the great Thebes of the new initiation ... It has crypts for its catacombs; for talismen, its rosaries and medallions; for a magic chain, its congregations; for magnetic fires, its convents; for centres of attraction, its confessionals; for means of expansion, its pulpits and the addresses of its Bishops; it has, lastly, its Pope, the Man-God rendered visible." Yes here is the penitent Eliphas Levi, whom no one has understood better, it seems to me, than the anonymous author of Meditations on the Tarot of which much more at the link above ...

Review # 2 was written on 2017-09-02 00:00:00 Cory Nelson Required reading for budding occultists The translator is HP Blavatsky. She knows EL's value, but she despises Catholicism (EL was a defrocked priest) but more importantly, was an enemy of Christianity. Her criticisms here are not invalid, but need to be taken with a large grain of salt. She was always in thrall to the Eastern occult schools which really had it out for the West. Nevertheless, a profoundly important book.