Eliphas Levi
Overview
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
author and purported magician.
"Eliphas Lévi," the name under which he published his books, was his attempt to translate
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
or transliterate
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
his given names "Alphonse Louis" into Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
although he was not Jewish.
His second wife was French sculptress Marie-Noémi Cadiot
Marie-Noémi Cadiot
Marie-Noémi Cadiot was a French sculptor of the 19th century.-Biography:She was the second wife of Alphonse Louis Constant, most known as Eliphas Levi. They were civilly married at the city hall of the 10th arrondissement of Paris on 13 July 1846 and had a daughter, Mary, who died in 1854 at the...
.
Lévi was the son of a shoemaker in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
; he attended the seminary
Seminary
A seminary, theological college, or divinity school is an institution of secondary or post-secondary education for educating students in theology, generally to prepare them for ordination as clergy or for other ministry...
of Saint Sulpice and began to study to enter the Roman Catholic priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
hood.
Quotations
Happy in the time of Jesus were those who wept! Happy, now, are those who can laugh, because laughter is the attribute of man, as the great prophet of the Renaissance, Rabelais, said. Laughter is forbearance; laughter is philosophy. The heavens clear when they laugh, and the great secret of divine omnipotence resides in an eternal smile! 
Book Two: The Royal Mystery or the Art of Subduing the Powers, Chapter V: The Outer Darkness
'Father, forgive them,' said Jesus, 'for they know not what they do' -- People of good sense whoever you may be, I will add, do not listen to them, for they know not what they say.
Book Two: The Royal Mystery or the Art of Subduing the Powers, Chapter XII: The Terrible Secret