In the heaven of human conceptions,
                    it is humanity who created God,
                    and men think that God made them
                    in his image because they make him in his.
                                                  —Lévi¹

                    i. Lead

Never ask a man to understand
what before he simply believed, to understand
the enigmas of all sphinxes is
to increase unceasingly, faith is confidence,
belief enough in oneself not to
be unnerved by the sarcasms of miscreants, to
silence the oracles by this love
of ours which conspires against thrones and altars, love
of its own accord threatens vice when
it throws obscurities at the light, when its warmth
blackens the mirror, come walk with me
upon burning ground in a meadow where men are
growing, we are tears which have dried that
rise through the means of fire, loving you renders me
beautiful, a light without shadows,
a companion similar to myself on whose
love I can rest, miracles are the

                    ii. Tin

natural effects of exceptional causes,
because of you I exist, yes, your
incredible patience in facing with me my
forsaken existence makes it worth
living, god acts in heaven through angels, and on
earth through men, imparting to each his
divine intelligence, whereby angels and men
are made in his image, that is, not
physically but by ability; god has
the power to love and to hate, to
create and destroy, forgive and condemn, heal and
inflict, and so forth, ad nauseam,
as do those who are his reflection; what sets men
apart from god is intention, will
instinctive or initiated, burdened by
a name’s unsolicited fame or
its inherited grief, those who know are doctors

                    iii. Iron

for those who believe, ignorance of
wisdom is to die of an unknown malady
in a time of plague, this, my friend, is
the universal medicine, hide it from the
gaze of the profane: the direction
of intention we give to a remedy makes
it a cure, projection is thought which
accomplishes intention by intelligence,
ritual is the practice that makes
of religion magic, to fear something makes its
happening inevitable, if
we follow the two curves of a circle where will
we end up? do great violence to
destiny, sound the echo, creation obeys
all words, the stars respond to our thoughts,
monsters without descendants fall from the sky like
lightning, calamities come from the

                    iv. Gold

north, yes, ‘all the evils of the world are written
in the northern part of the sky’, which
is the last word of the prophecy and final
warning of the tribe of Lévi, those
living hieroglyphs of mountainous minds whose heights
hide behind threats made by prophets, we
who know well a wicked will is an
empire already conquered, fend off thieves, trample
those enemies lurking within, cleanse
your temple, heal the intelligence and you are
immunized against the anger of
the ignorant, your lies will control them, can you
hear what I say by reading my thoughts
without understanding the words? truth is the fire
of the philosophers, its search the
inexhaustible spark of their torch, this art which
I share to start in your heart what love

                    v. Copper

such as ours accomplishes, this work is a scroll
which nourishes, what book Enoch ate
before giving its craving to John who made with
its phrases the banquet of his tongue’s
Revelation, what Ezekiel’s lips tasted
after wasting no time taking down
heaven’s intoxicating dictation, of which
Genesis is the sole key to its
true interpretation, enchained by sympathies,
every ending returns to its
origin that serpent for whom swallowing tales
is a form of worship, that son of
two enemies, good and evil, playing a game
of apostolic lots with our thoughts,
opening us up to those parts of our Selves we
only begin to understand when
we bend to his twisting of our plots, knowing an

                    vi. Mercury

antagonism of colour never
regrets blending into another’s blood, that when
language was yet hieroglyphic and
universal, the power of light was then still
understood and lived, infiltrate the
enfilade and you, dear, will have walked farther through
history than the king whose palace
is the course of the sun, you can count on me, my
love, ten is unity and death in
one, if the devil has got an apartment in
Rome, then I am the last pope whose reign
showers our home in alchemical gold, your own
Danaë who knows better than Jove
that analysis turns to dust what synthesis
turns to stone, white is the dust with which
the moon powders her nose, white is the currency
in which lions trust, invisible

                    vii. Silver

to the blank faces of hunters who try once and
give up, their image of us is such
a farce so far removed from the source that even
our copies want what we lost when we
destroyed them all with original thoughts, and if
reason resides in the finite, why
would unreason hide in the infinite? embrace
the possibility, you took by
force a place in my memory, do not forget
to resist me, only devils can
seduce angels, baby, god did not create me
in order that I might be destroyed
again, god demands nothing of his creatures which
is against their nature, so embrace
your inner demon and demand of me what deep
secret sends all other men screaming,
this heart’s arcanum, my most cherished possession.

__________
¹Eliphas Lévi, “Chapter Twenty: Thaumaturgy” in “Part Two: The Ritual of High Magic” of The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic: Translated by Mark Anthony Mikituk: Introduction and Notes by John Michael Greer, published at New York by TarcherPerigee in 2017; page 370.