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Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie

Book by Éliphas Lévi on ritual magic

Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (English: "Dogma and Ritual of High Magic") is the title of Éliphas Lévi's first published treatise on ritual magic, which appeared in two volumes between 1854 (Dogme) and 1856 (Rituel). Each volume is structured into 22 chapters, which parallel the tarot.^[1]

Lévi's Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie was translated into English by Arthur Edward WaiteasTranscendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual (1896). Waite added a biographical preface and footnotes. A revised edition of this translation was published in 1923.

A second translation, The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic: A New Translation,byJohn Michael Greer and Mark Mikituk, was published in 2017 by TarcherPerigee.

The work has recently attracted the attention of scholars for its views on the study of magic, religion, natural science and alchemy.^[2] Lévi sees magic as occupying a place between science and religion and believes that it has the potential to act as a conciliatory or mediating function between the two views.^[3] Lévi rejects views, such as E. B. Taylor's, that magic or religion is inherently irrational and has been superseded by modern science. Instead he posits magic as an "esoteric science" and suggests that Hermeticism could be adapted to find the underlying truth behind all magical systems, calling for a "comparative magic." Levi thus posits a type of Perennialism buttressed by comparative theology and comparative religion, anticipating modern-day religious studies and paralleling contemporary comparative projects in anthropology and philology such as the work of Max Müller.^[4]

The book was also published in paperback and released on April 4, 2017. The edition, being a result of renewed translation of the original by Greer (an occult scholar) and Mikituk (an accomplished translator), is in modern English therefore more appropriate to the readers of today.^[5]

Apart from translating the original into the modern English, the translators also made sure to incorporate illustrations and symbols from the original to the translated version.

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2021)

• Josephson-Storm, Jason (2017). The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-40336-6.
• Waite, A. E. (2013). The Secret Tradition in Alchemy: Its Development and Records. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1136182921.

• Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie at the Internet Archive

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