Stairway to Heaven: Chinese Alchemists, Jewish Kabbalists, and the Art of Spiritual Transformation [Paperback]

Peter Levenda (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2008

Stairway to Heaven is an incredibly broad ranging new study that stretches from ancient Egypt and Babylon to Jewish and Christian Kabbalists, Chinese Daoists, Hindu Tantra and Haitian Vodun and finally to 19th and 20th century European occult societies, uncovering a hitherto unrecognized common myth that has been employed the world over in roughly the same form since the earliest recorded texts. Beginning with the oldest form of Jewish mysticism and extending this search through the dead sea scrolls, Levenda reveals a consistent emphasis on the number seven and its association with heavenly themes, including those of a chariot, a Throne, a Temple and a divine Being. The author then examines the myths and rituals of egypt, sumer and Babylon to locate the origin of this myth and comes up with some surprising results in the ascent rituals of the middle east. Shifting to the far east, Levenda demonstrates how the mystical practices of China and India display important similarities to these rituals, most notably in the practices of the Chinese alchemists who used a map of seven stars as their ladder to heaven.

Reinforced by visits to the Buddhist shrine of Borobudur in indonesia, Levenda concludes that there was a myth common to peoples across the ancient world that an ascent to the heavens was possible using a ladder of seven stars, a process running parallel to the alchemical idea of the perfection of metals and the perfectibility of the soul.

This concept was enshrined in the rituals of the Western secret societies of the 19^th and 20th centuries such as the golden dawn and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, and influenced the development of new age occultism. exhaustive in scope and revealing in its scholarship, Stairway to Heaven casts a fascinating new multidisciplinary perspective on the mystical practices of heavenly ascent.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Independent scholar Levenda (Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult) has been studying and writing about occult history for more than a decade. Here, he looks deeply into the astrological/astronomical roots of the occult tradition as well as at the related theme of an adept's celestial ascent through seven stages. Central to the narrative are the North Pole Star (Polaris) and those stars around the pole that never set, in particular, the seven stars of the Big Dipper. This study is recommended for academic libraries and public libraries with strong religion collections." -James F. DeRoche, Alexandria, VA Library Journal

(James F. DeRoche Library Journal )

'While a scholarly book this is also quite readable especially the latter sections which deal with 20th-century European occult societies.' Catholic Herald, March 2009

'One of the most intelligent and deep digging comparative studies on the art of spiritual transformation' Acta Comparanda XXI FVG, 2010

"Independent scholar Levenda (Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult) has been studying and writing about occult history for more than a decade. Here, he looks deeply into the astrological/astronomical roots of the occult tradition as well as at the related theme of an adept's celestial ascent through seven stages. Central to the narrative are the North Pole Star (Polaris) and those stars around the pole that never set, in particular, the seven stars of the Big Dipper.  This study is recommended for academic libraries and public libraries with strong religion collections." -James F. DeRoche, Alexandria, VA Library Journal

(, Library Journal )

About the Author

Peter Levenda is the author of The Secret Temple: Masons, Mysteries and the Founding of America (Continuum, 2009) and Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult (Continuum, 2002), which has appeared in 6 foreign-language editions.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (June 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826428509
• ISBN-13: 978-0826428509
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #180,717 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter Levenda was born in the Bronx and lived in New York, Indiana, Chicago, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island before going to Malaysia where he lived for seven years. He has an MA in Religious Studies and Asian Studies, and has worked as an IT executive in China, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Europe (he became involved in China trade in 1984). He is a member of the American Academy of Religion, the T.E. Lawrence Society, and is a charter member of the Norman Mailer Society.

Customer Reviews

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49 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seven Steps to Heaven, June 19, 2008

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This review is from: Stairway to Heaven: Chinese Alchemists, Jewish Kabbalists, and the Art of Spiritual Transformation (Paperback)

It is easy to look at the mysticism of the ancients and see nothing but unintelligible mumbo-jumbo. But while we are free to reject myth and mysticism as incorrect, we would be foolish to dismiss them as nonsense. There is simply too much articulation, sophistication, and structural rigor to these systems of practice and belief. Scientology they ain't.

But what were the ancients doing? Why did they devote so much time to the stars, the human body, and the connections they believed existed between them? The notion that myth encodes astronomical information was first advanced by Santillana and von Deschend in Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And Its Transmission Through Myth. Levenda takes their work a step further by identifying in the various seven-step spiritual traditions of the world's religions a reference to the seven stars of the Big Dipper.

We in the modern West just don't look at the night sky very often. But in our ancestors' "world lit only by fire," the sky was much more important to daily life. For bronze age people sitting around the campfire, the celestial procession must have been a lot like television. Certainly they gave the stars at least the same depth of narrative significance we today find in Lost, the Hills, and professional wrestling. But was there more going on?

If you live in the Northen Hemisphere, Polaris is the fixed point around which the night sky rotates - the crown of the "axis mundi." In a world changed by the weather, the seasons, and inexplicable catastrophes, the Pole Star was the only constant. For people who took the notion of "heaven" literally, the Pole Star was an obvious candidate for the seat of God (or gods, or whatever). Levenda argues that the ancients of all (or many) cultures understood the seven stars of the Big Dipper as the seven-step "stairway to heaven." And he finds in their seven-step rituals a means of transcending the world of impermanence, achieving immortality, and ascending to communion with the Supreme.

This is pretty groundbreaking stuff and Levenda makes his argument in a very precise and scholarly way. This is, however, not the Jerry Bruckheimer-style thrill ride that readers of Sinister Forces-The Nine: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft (Sinister Forces) may be anticipating. Like Hamlet's Mill, this is a fairly dry book about one seriously mind-opening idea. Unless you are interested in the details of archaic wisdom traditions and the "connective tissue" between them, you may find yourself skimming. But there's no flakiness here either. This is a book that will be read by serious people for some time to come.