Theory of the Will

In The Key of the Mysteries, Eliphas Levi, who was a devout Catholic at least in his own mind, promises to harmonize reason with faith, and to

exhibit true religion with such characters, that no one, believer or unbeliever, can fail to recognize it; that will be the absolute religion.

Part of this involves training of the will because

Human life and its innumerable difficulties have for object, in the ordination of eternal wisdom, the education of the will of man.

These are the main points of the Theory of the Will, followed by our commentary.

1. The dignity of man consists in doing what he wills and in willing the good, in conformity with the knowledge of truth.
2. The good in conformity with the true, is the just.
3. Justice is the practice of reason.
4. Reason is the word of reality.
5. Reality is the science of truth.
6. Truth is idea identical with being.
7. Man arrives at the absolute idea of being by two roads, experience and hypothesis.
8. Experience is science and hypothesis is faith.

Commentary

1. Love means to will the good. So point (1) may be rephrased as “Do what you will and Love, in conformity with the knowledge of Truth.” So the dignity of man consists in loving and doing his true will. Corollary: Not every man has dignity.
2. In order to will the good, one must know what is the good, and that is the just. Justice is having and doing what is one’s own.
3. According to Levy, Justice is the criterion of the truth of the Absolute religion in ethics, hence the exercise of the practical reason.
4. Reason is the criterion of the truth of the Absolute religion in judgment. Reason is the word, or Logos, of reality. Reason is the ability to make judgments, the aim of which is the finding of justice.
5. Reality is the criterion of the truth of the Absolute religion in science. Science knows reality by experience, whose object is the phenomenal world. Reason needs to be in conformity with reality. “One has to know the extent of one’s knowledge and ignorance when one makes a judgment.” (Tomberg)
6. A fundamental metaphysical principle according to Guenon is that knowledge means the idea is identical with being, or, knowing equals being.
7. The absolute idea of being is Truth.
8. Science is Reason based on experience. The object of faith is Mystery.

Levy provides us with two definitions.

God

The supreme personification of law

Liberty

The right to do one’s duty

This quote, then, acts as summary.

As there is no liberty for man but in the order which results from the true and the good, one may say that the conquest of liberty is the great work of the human soul. Man, by freeing himself from his evil passions and their slavery, creates himself, as it were, a second time. Nature made him living and suffering; he makes himself happy and immortal; he thus becomes the representative of divinity upon earth. And (relatively) exercises its almighty power.

NOTE: This book was translated by Aleister Crowley, who regarded Levi as his spiritual predecessor in some sense.