Customer Reviews

The Great Secret: Or Occultism Unveiled

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Anyone coming to this book expecting a systematic presentation of occult doctrine will come away disappointed. What we have, instead, is Levi's simultaneous defense and critique of Roman Catholicism, with which Levi - a one-time seminarian - had a lifelong love-hate relationship.

In some ways, Levi is profoundly conservative, and his views will seem reactionary in the extreme. Catholicism, he says, is the only true religion, and its existence nullifies any prior legitimacy that other religions may have once had. To be sure, Levi advocates nothing like an Inquisition or forced conversions - he explicity and repeatedly condemns all such actions - but he states that at a doctrinal level, Catholicism is the only true religion.

But as an occultist, Levi has his own "take" on doctrine, and his interpretation of doctrine will not necessarily correspond to official church teaching. Moreover, Levi is profoundly anti-clerical, viewing the typical priest as ignorant, impotent, and superstitious. Like all occultists, Levi believes that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and that true religion must be capable of changing people for the better, in ways that are tangible and lasting.

Levi believes that the Catholic Church is the repository of true occultism and true magic, and that this renders suspect any occultism that is not in some way oriented to the truths of the Catholic Church. But - in my view - he never makes it clear whether there is any legitimate occultism apart from the sacraments of the Catholic Church. He SEEMS to criticize divination, evocation, and magic, yet tosses out hints that - under some vague circumstances - these may be legitimate activities if done with the proper intention and understanding. As another writer has pointed out, spellcraft is simply "prayer with props," and the Catholic Church - as its fundamentalist critics are well-aware - is replete with props: rosaries, candles, incense, scapulars, medals, holy water, and the Eucharist itself.

In summary, a pagan occultist will be disappointed or even offended by this book. Levi is often bombastic and pompous, alternately prone to broad generalizations and maddening ambiguity. On the other hand, Christians of an esoteric bent will find much to ponder here, even if Levi is often obtuse and indirect. One thing is certain - Levi is an accomplished stylist, and this book is sprinkled with aphorisms and observations that are truly moving, even when one wonders whether they are true.

Pay attention when he says that the dark path is a mirror image of the light and then he tells you a horror story. Flip it and you will see what others miss. This also works for all the rest of Levi, he seems to feel that the "unworthy" will respond emotionally and miss the "secret." Perhaps he is right. But the unworthy now-a-days will never read something as superstitious as this book.

Don't buy this. Buy "Paradoxes of the Highest Science" instead, if you're interested.

The content in this "book" is fine; the reason I feel genuinely ripped-off by this "book" is completely due to the publisher. When the "book" arrived in the mail, I was disappointed to find out that "This Article Was Extracted From the Book: Paradoxes of the Highest Science." Think maybe they could have mentioned that a little sooner, before I bought it? Apparently not, because they'd rather rip me off for twelve dollars.

Anyway, if you buy this, you get maybe fourteen pages of actual text - and it's big, vision-impaired-sized, cartoon-sized text. All fourteen pages of it.

And then there are about the same number of blank pages - literally, blank pages - in the back of the book included because, according to the publisher, "blank pages are for our book binding requirements and are blank on purpose" - so the publisher didn't have enough actual text to fill the smallest binding they had. Yet they apparently thought it was enough pages to sell it as a separate "book."

Based on all this, the publisher strikes me as basically dishonest. Their business is apparently re-printing old books that are in public domain, and don't invest or take risks on their own material. Evidently, they're about milking their customers as much as possible, if this is the kind of material they produce. I'd bet old Eliphas wouldn't be too happy.

Anyway, this "article" is included in "Paradoxes of the Highest Science," which also seems to be published by another (real) publishing company, and is less expensive. Buy that instead.

There are a lot of books in the occult scene that aren't worth the paper they're printed on (and in some cases, the electrons), but this book is not only a priceless addition to an occultist's library, but it is also destined to be recognized as one of the great books of human civilization... if it's read, that is. It is unfortunate that many of the world's greatest books get lost in obscurity. This book was written over a hundred years ago, but was only relatively recently translated to English from the original French.

This book is in fact parts two and three from the trilogy, part one having been published as "The Book of Splendours". The whole trilogy stands as Eliphas Levi's last testament to his closest disciples, though in my opinion, parts two and three stand on their own as the greater part of the work.

It seems that the version published by Kessinger Publishing is in fact a different book. Their web site lists it as a chapter out of "Paradoxes of the Highest Science". This review is for the one from Weiser Books.

I was disappointed that this book was only one chapter removed from a Parent book, Eliphas Levi's Paradoxes of the Highest Sciences. It seemed to take the chapter out of context. Without the chapters leading up to it, or the chapter that would follow.

Interesting but confusing book. He rambles on quite a lot, very assured he is correct, but without providing sufficient proof or even clearly stating what he is trying to get across. I've read a lot of occult stuff in my time and began looking into older works such as Agrippa and Levi only after studying fairly thoroughly the basics of Western Mystery Tradition with BOTA and studying plenty of Dion Fortune, Israel Regardie, Aleister Crowley, Lon Milo DuQuette and others. After joining BOTA for a few years, I finally gave up on this WMT business when I began to seriously study Tibetan Buddhism. Rather than chasing my tail like Ouroboros, suddenly, I was reading texts that made a lot of sense and didn't resort to hidden symbolism. In fact, concepts are analyzed and discovered to be inherently empty, dependently arisen like all "things."

After watching the abysmal "Crowley" movie the other day by Bruce Dickinson in 1987, I got to thinking about Qabala and Thelema again and of course Crowley claimed Eliphas Levi was a past incarnation of his, so it reminded me of this book

I came here to ask if anyone was able to determine what "the great secret" was from this book. Iif you would explain, I would be thankful. I seem to remember thinking that the Great Secret was that the devil doesn't exist, but I can't recall exactly. I just remember it was very difficult reading which left me fairly confused and always groggy. Like many WMT occult books, I put it down thinking, "well, that's clear as mud."

"Alphonse Louis Constant, better known by his pen name Eliphas Levi, was a master of the traditional Rosicrucian interpretation of the Kabbalah. Levi was born in France in 1810, and through the offices of the parish priest, was educated for the church at Saint-Sulpice. He was later expelled from the seminary for teaching doctrines contrary to the Catholic Church." Pg 189 "His esoteric doctrines he reserved for his growing circle of disciples...La Grand Arcane (The Great Secret) was written, in 1868, specifically, for those disciples. Originally it comprised the last two parts of a trilogy, of which `The Book of Splendours' formed the first part." Pg 1

Essentially, Eliphas Levi sees the Catholic Church as the one and only true religion, it is the possessor of the great secret, true magic and occultism. Eliphas is aware of the contradictions and inconsistencies of the Catholic Church, but will not divorce himself from it. Eliphas places one foot in the Catholic Church and another in all manner of occultism, esotericism and other religions or religious philosophies. To this I give praise towards a man who sought after God in an age when doing so was thwart with many dangers.

There are no real insights into the many topics that Eliphas mentions in passing, topics such as the Kabbalah, of which Eliphas gives such praise. Once again, too much jumbled bits of information (and then some) for my liking; all of which pointing to morality, right conduct and faith, virtue etc as the essential undercurrent as being the `Great secret'. There are many glowing tidbits of information, all perhaps adding to the `Great Secret'; in essence though, this `Great secret' is a return, one from which all good Catholics should adhere to anyhow, but of which for one who has searched deeper, as Eliphas has done, a return to the simple but profound truths of Christendom. To this `Great secret' I would agree with Eliphas Levi, but I disagree that this is the totality of the `Great secret'; Eliphas, in my opinion, did not delve deep enough.

This is the third book that I have read of Eliphas Levi. I preferred reading `Book of Splendours' over `Key of the mysteries' and `The great secret'. I have also written reviews for these other books. A lot of what I said regarding the `Key of the mysteries', I would have to repeat here, inclusive of the Church being deeply troubled by the new found science of this era. All in all, not a bad book, more recommended to someone new to the virtues and religion.

Eliphas brags about Catholicism being a true religion. While this book does provide a view of some of his ideas on magick, the information is rather limited and thus not very useful. His other work "Transcendental Magic" is a much more informative book.