<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article relies too much on references to primary sources . Please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources . (February 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> The term Great Work (magnum opus) is a term used in Hermeticism and in certain occult traditions and religions such as Thelema . </P> <P> Eliphas Levi (1810--1875), one of the first modern ceremonial magicians and inspiration for the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, discussed the Great Work at length, expanding it from the purely alchemical towards the more spiritual: </P> <P> Furthermore, there exists in nature a force which is immeasurably more powerful than steam, and by means of which a single man, who knows how to adapt and direct it, might upset and alter the face of the world . This force was known to the ancients; it consists in a universal agent having equilibrium for its supreme law, while its direction is concerned immediately with the great arcanum of transcendental magic...This agent...is precisely that which the adepts of the middle ages denominated the first matter of the Great Work . The Gnostics represented it as the fiery body of the Holy Spirit; it was the object of adoration in the secret rites of the Sabbath and the Temple, under the hieroglyphic figure of Baphomet or the Androgyne of Mendes . </P>

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