Stairway to Heaven: Chinese Alchemists, Jewish Kabbalists, and the Art of Spiritual Transformation

by Peter Levenda

Stairway to Heaven is an incredibly broad ranging new study that stretches from ancient Egypt and Babylon to Jewish and Christian Kabbalists, Chinese Daoists, Hindu Tantra and Haitian Vodun and finally to 19th and 20th century European occult societies, uncovering a hitherto unrecognized common myth that has been employed the world over in roughly the same form since the earliest recorded texts. Beginning with the oldest form of Jewish mysticism and extending this search through the dead sea scrolls, Levenda reveals a consistent emphasis on the number seven and its association with heavenly themes, including those of a chariot, a Throne, a Temple and a divine Being. The author then examines the myths and rituals of egypt, sumer and Babylon to locate the origin of this myth and comes up with some surprising results in the ascent rituals of the middle east. Shifting to the far east, Levenda demonstrates how the mystical practices of China and India display important similarities to these rituals, most notably in the practices of the Chinese alchemists who used a map of seven stars as their ladder to heaven.

Reinforced by visits to the Buddhist shrine of Borobudur in indonesia, Levenda concludes that there was a myth common to peoples across the ancient world that an ascent to the heavens was possible using a ladder of seven stars, a process running parallel to the alchemical idea of the perfection of metals and the perfectibility of the soul.

This concept was enshrined in the rituals of the Western secret societies of the 19th and 20th centuries such as the golden dawn and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, and influenced the development of new age occultism. exhaustive in scope and revealing in its scholarship, Stairway to Heaven casts a fascinating new multidisciplinary perspective on the mystical practices of heavenly ascent.

Genres: Religion, History, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Occult, Magick

272 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2008

About the author

Author who focuses primarily on occult history. He is best known for his book Unholy Alliance, which is about Esoteric Hitlerism and Nazi occultism, and is believed to be the author of the Simon Necronomicon, albeit without much evidence.

He was the president of the international division of Ortronics, Inc., a telecommunications company based in Asia.

He appeared in the TNT documentary Faces of Evil as an expert on Nazi history with special regard to occult and esoteric practices. He has also appeared on the History Channel special Nazi Prophecies. Levenda lives in Miami, Florida.

Reviews

[Justin]

Too academic for me

[Steve Cran · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one awesome book. Peter Levenda writes great books about occult subject with great perspective. In this volume the author rights about the subject with passion and clarity. The core spiritual program of Babylonian religion, Egyptian religion, Kabballah, African religions and Western Esotericism are covered. The book starts out with an analysis of the Pharaohs ascent after his death up into the realm of the stars. In the "Egyptian Book of the Dead" when the Pharaoh passes on his body is washed and then his mouth is washed. Prayers are said to guide him from the physical realm unto the stars. The Pharaoh has to pass through seven level until he reaches his place in the North Pole Star. The seven level are based on the seven stars of the big dipper leading up to the North Pole star. This was first made available to the Pharaoh and then later on it was made available to the common people.

In Babylon and Sumeria is it was much the same. they even had a washing and opening of the mouth ceremony much like the Egyptians did for their statues and passed on leaders. The statue of the gods were placed atop of a seven leveled Zigguarat. During Holiday the statue would be brought down or the king would ascend to where the God or Goddess was and commune with the deity. Passing from level to level one had to know pass words and the names of various deities. This would translate into Jewish mysticism.

Hekhalot or Merkava mystism is where the practitioner could ascend to the throne of God during their life time. Ezekial is one of the first. He saw animals, angels and visions that resembled the Babylonian captivity. In Babylon deity statues were made and washed in a sacred garden that was meant only for initiates. then the deities were escorted to their high places. To break into a garden was it court danger. In Jewish mystics there are 4 sages who made the ascencion to the garden. One went mad, one an atheist, one dies and one came out ok.

The book then delves into the big dipper's impact on Indian, African and Chinese system. Finally there is a foray into the Golden Dawn and other Westen Magical groups. Very enlightening read.


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[George Ramos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peter Levenda surprises with a book that is a departure from his other magnificent works. I've never read anything quite like this: it's a comparative survey of "ascent" literature from around the world, throughout history.

"Ascent literature" refers to the category of sacred texts and religious writings that describe how a devotee can transcend ordinary life and achieve a higher state of being. The primary works surveyed include the Pyramid Texts from ancient Egypt, the merkabah writings of Kabbalah, and the writings of Crowley and the Golden Dawn. He's unexpectedly found the symbolism to be consistent if taken within the context of ascent being a literal transmission towards the pole star and the 7 stars of (what we call) the Big Dipper, the literal beliefs of ancient Egypt. The message and methods are refined from there, but the core imagery remains nearly unchanged from those ancient times. Like the author says, comparative study of ascent literature is frequently made by people without a knowledge of celestial mechanics (like the precession of the equinox, for example). That's the missing factor that may be able to tie it all together.

Mr. Levenda makes a compelling case, tracing the consistent imagery from it's earliest Egyptian sources down through the ages. The book is surprisingly sober and clear headed, and makes no assumptions regarding the validity or even the possibility of "ascent". Instead, Mr. Levenda takes us on a tour of this most fascinating and typically occult subject, with a gentle enthusiasm that I found both charming and effective. If this subject interests you, I can heartily recommend the book to you.

[Grant Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Levenda is fun to read — whether its his conspiracy theory writings or his occult ones (I’ve read The Dark Lord and his American Grimoire series). I think it’s the case with me especially because he has an interesting style of mixing genres: pop occult and the always more serious academic work. Instead of putting these two wildly different market groups into conflict with each other he cleverly almost always lands in agreement with the more rigorously methodical crowd of the latter while also making the case for reasonable doubt in defense of the former. Which is important because if you’ve read any popular conspiracy-theory/occult lit it is required that you have at least some (lots) strain of doubt about the “official story” given by science/academia. It’s the only way to engage with that stuff in any enjoyable way, otherwise why bother? And this is why Levenda is cool, because while he’s definitely in the pop occult crowd he makes a point to cite reputable scholars (in this book it’s Ioan Culianu and Gershom Scholem). This makes great follow-up reading material to get a more grounded knowledge of the subjects (whereas other pop occult stuff tends to just reference other works of pop occult stuff).

He also points you in the direction of more obscure, though equally sketchy conspiracists/occultists (here it’s Jacob Frank and Kenneth Grant). If you’re like me and you like to keep one foot firmly planted in the science camp while dipping your toe in the para/weird and just learn about shit that doesn’t matter but’s enjoyable — then check it out.

[Jönathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting.

[Lissa Notreallywolf · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a sprawling piece of fascinating and infuriating scholarship. It is admittedly inspired by a survey course taught at Florida International University, but it would have benefited from a more stringent editing. The author introduces fascinating ascent technologies in a cross cultural study of humans attempting to gain enlightenment by visualizing structures to ascend to the stars. His particular fascination is the Pole star, and he was obvious inspired by the Sirius Connection (?) which I haven't read. His stated emphasis is Jewish chariot mysticism. I will not use the Hebrew term he routinely employs because I am suspicious of it's rendering in the book and have no idea as to the accurate transliteration. My suggestion is that one should read Gershom Scholem before reading this volume, because it is often questionable, and Scholem has an unimpeachable reputation even with his critics. The additional theory, about the Big Dipper might better be evaluated. But since this reader is at the survey level of sophistication the book did it's job at introducing chariot ascent mysticism. I very much enjoyed the section on the Dogon of Mali, but less on Caribbean voudon. here he fails to mention that most of the indigenous people died from the discoverers diseases and slavery, which is why the Africans were imported. Other cultures were influential that escaped notice-Asians and Jews. I know very little about the Asian influence except that it is there, and the Jewish influence, I mostly know through diffuse sources. But I understand that many of the original colonists ships were manned by Marranos, who jumped ship and headed for the hills. The Messianic nature of many Caribbean religions belongs to their influence. But that is scholarship outside the purview of this book. Additionally there was a strong Quaker influence in the Caribbean, and theirs is also a purification ascension religious perspective. But I am inspired to read more about the Dogon, and regret that he did not explore other social units that contributed to the slave population, or even those which did not. It's a brief but fascinating drive by. His section on Chinese alchemy was also a quick overview, but informative if only for his collection of references. He makes no attempt to place the conflict of Daoism and Confucianism into his book, and the devasting effect it had on alchemy. There is no analysis of East West cross pollination, always a disappointment. He's not interested in tracking cultural diffusion, although he devotes quite a bit of time to it in the 18th and 19th century secret societies. He also does not mention how the Florentine Academy acquired the texts they translated that were used by successive generations of occultists. As the book progressed it gre more and more lurching it its development, by part four I had to reread a chapter because I was completely lost by the backtracking, and diffusion of paragraph topics. That isn't a usual experience for me. I found the "tell them three times" school of writing infuriating, and would have preferred if he'd used a chronological organizational scheme. By the time we reached western alchemy, my area of academic proficiency I was distrustful of the author. Yet there were occasional succinct passages of insight that I very much enjoyed. My advice to any reader is to read warily, and to keep a notebook noting the dates of the adepts, their organizations and the discoveries of documents. This is particularly evident when he discusses the Frankist offshoots and the establishment of the Romantic era esoteric societies. But it is a tendency foreshadowed in his discussions of the effects of documentary discoveries on the prior publication of Scholem.

[Ilib4kids]

204.2 LEV