Introduction
This is one passage from Eliphas Levi is one that at least I
found myself understanding, rather than the perplexed feeling (going straight over
my head) I get when reading Eliphas Levi. I found it very illuminating actually
concerning the nature of pleasure.
The following excerpt comes from a book a very good friend
gave or lent me (have to ask him – maybe he only lent it to me) titled “The
Great Secret” by Eliphas Levi. The excerpt is the first four paragraphs of
chapter III.
Excerpt
“Pleasure is a foe which
is fated to become either our slave or our master. To possess it we must fight
it, and before we can enjoy pleasure it has to be conquered.
Pleasure makes a
charming slave but a cruel, pitiless and murderous master. It tires, exhausts
and kills everyone it owns; after cheating all their desires and betraying all
their hopes. Servitude to some pleasure is called a passion. Domination over
some pleasure is called a power.
Nature has partnered
pleasure with duty; if we divorce it from duty it festers and poisons us. If we
devote ourselves to duty, pleasure will no longer be divorced from duty but
will follow us and be our reward. Pleasure is inseparable from goodness. The
upright man may suffer, it is true, but a tremendous pleasure emerges for him
out of his sufferings. Job on his dunghill was visited by God who consoled and
relieved him; while Nebuchadnezzar on his throne fell beneath a fatal hand which
deprived him of his reason and transformed him into a beast. Jesus gave a shout
of triumph as He died on the cross, as if he could feel His imminent resurrection;
whereas Tiberius, in the midst of his criminal pleasures on Capri, laid bare
the agonies of his soul in a letter to the senate in which he wrote that he
felt he died every day!
Evil only gets a grip
on us through our vices and through the fear with which it inspires us. The
Devil hunts down those who are frightened of him, and flees from those who
resist him boldly. The art of chaining up demons is to do good and fear
nothing.”
Conclusion
The main point for me there is that the real happiness or
pleasure is joined by nature to duty.
End (805).
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