Lévi, Éliphas (ps. of Alphonse Louis Constant), * 8 Feb 1810 (Paris), † 31 May 1875 (Paris)

The founder, and one of the most influential authors, of French occultism. The son of an artisan of the Saint-Sulpice quarter of Paris, and having lost his father at an early age, Constant was admitted to the seminary on a scholarship, his mother hoping to give him access to a good social position through the Catholic Church. His education at Saint-Sulpice deeply affected him, notably the teaching of the Abbé Frère-Colonna (1776-1858), a specialist of → animal magnetism and author of a synthetic h…