The Paradoxes of the Highest Science

The Paradoxes of the Highest Science is a book by Éliphas Lévi, first published in 1856. This English rendering — an anonymous translation — first appeared in 1883 under the imprint of the Theosophical Society and was re-issued in 1922 with extensive footnotes by an “Eminent Occultist” (E.O.).

Lévi’s short, aphoristic treatise offers a tightly argued set of seven paradoxes that probe the boundaries between reason and faith, science and mysticism, and the visible and invisible worlds. Written in the brisk, oft-epigrammatic style that made Lévi a landmark of nineteenth-century esotericism, the work functions as both a philosophical provocation and a practical summons to the serious student of occultism.

The book’s influence rests less on doctrinal originality than on its clarifying force: Lévi reframes familiar occult and Kabbalistic ideas as intellectual paradoxes, insisting that the task of “the highest science” is to hold opposites together rather than resolve them. For readers seeking an introduction to classic Western esotericism, this compact essay bridges the study of magic, metaphysics, and the symbolic language of the Kabbalah, while also explaining why nineteenth-century occultists argued for a reconciliation of scientific inquiry with spiritual truth.