You make a good point here, as Shin is supposed to transform the God of the Old Testament into that of the New. Is there anything else in Lévi's writing that would support his seeing Christ in this way? It doesn't seem to fit with the rest of his discussion on Shin.
Does he talk about the inserting of Shin into the Tetragrammaton anywhere?
Dogma and Ritual of Transcendental Magic, P. II p.23:
"The triad, being the foundation of magical doctrine must be necessarily observed in evocations; for it is the symbolical number of realization and effect. The letter eShin is commonly traced upon kabalistic pantacles which have the fulfilment of a desire for their object. It is also the sign of the scapegoat in mystic Kabalah, and Saint-Martin observes that inserted in the Incommunicable Tetragram it forms the Name of the Redeemer. It is this which the mystagogues of the Middle Ages represented in their nocturnal assemblies by the exhibition of a symbolical goat, carrying a lighted torch between its two horns."
Re: His reference to Saint-Martin, he is quoted in the Martinist Operative and General Ritual on the name JHShHV:
"... when the Christ came, He made the pronunciation of this word still more central and interior, since the Great Name expressed by those four letters was the quaternary explosion, or the crucial sign of all life; whereas Jesus Christ, by exalting the Hebrew SHIN, or the letter 'S', united the holy ternary itself to the great quaternary name of which three is the principle. Now, if, in the ancient ordinations, the quaternary had to have its own source in us, with much greater reason should the name of Christ take from Himself alone its whole efficacy and light ..."
"... No doubt, a great virtue is attached to this true pronunciation whether central or oral, of that Great Name, and that of Jesus Christ, which is as its flower. The vibration of our elementary air is a very secondary thing in the process by which these names make sensible what was not so before. Their virtue is to do to-day, and at all times, what they did at the beginning, in creating all things; and, as they made all things before the air existed, no doubt they are still higher than the air when they perform the same functions now; and it is no more impossible for this divine word to make itself audible, even to one who is deaf and in a place the most deprived of air, than it is difficult for spiritual light to make itself visible to our physical eyes, even though we be blind, and shut up in the darkest dungeon..."
Kwaw
The full notes on the Divine Name from the Martinist ritual:
"INTRODUCTORY NOTES ON THE DIVINE NAME "IESHOUAH": IOD-HE-SHIN-VAU-HE.
The following notes concern a very ancient Divine Name called at times the Pentagrammic Name which was well known to the Kabbalists, especially Christian Kabbalists, as well as to the Doctors of the original Christian Church.
The letter SHIN : Hebrew Kabbalists knew this letter Shin as one of the three mother-letters (with Aleph and Mem) and that it signified the FIRE. St. Jerome in his "Mystic Interpretation of the Alphabet" defined this letter Shin as the symbol of the Vivifying WORD. Much later, Papus tells us that this letter Shin, inverted, in the Flamboyant Star (the Pentagram) with its point up, represents to the Rosicrucian Initiate the Incarnation of the Divine Word in the Human Nature.
Dr. R. Allandy, in his work on the symbolism of numbers, adds this to what Papus had already said: "... the addition of SHIN to the sacred Tetragram (I.H.V.H.) marks the passage of the Quaternary into the Quinary for the formation of the living Creature. Jesus, the Word made flesh, kabalistically represents all Creatures, but particularly MAN, as Man is the most evolved of all creatures ..."
Having been taught, and which is in accordance with the general Christian tradition, that the entire Nature had fallen with Adam as a result of his own Fall, we can easily understand how in effect this same Nature can evolve, with Man, back to its original state, starting with the Redemption of Man by the Word. Henry Cornelius Agrippa tells us in his famous
Occult Philosophy "... during the time of the Law, the Ineffable Name of God was composed of four letters : IOD-HEVAU-HE, in place of which and out of respect, the Hebrew simply read ADONAI (the Lord) and which is composed of ALEPH-DALETH-NUN-IOD. During the time of the Grace, the Name of God becomes the Effable Pentagram IOD-HE-SHIN-VAU-HE which, by a mystery which is no less great, is invoked also under the Name of Three Letters IOD-SHIN-VAU ..."
Let us note that the Name of Five Letters is IESHOUAH, while that of Three Letters is ISHOUH.
In his recapitulating table, 'The Ladder of the Quinary', this famous occultist shows us that IESHOUAH is a synonym of ELOHIM - (ALEPH-LAMED-HE-IOD-MEM), and also of ELION (AYIN-LAMED-IOD-VAU-NUN), and that these two Divine Names deal with the Archetypal World.
Shortly after Agrippa, Heinrich Khunrath in his famous work "Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom" (Hanau, 1609), placed the Divine Name of Five Letters-IESHOUAH - in the centre of the fifth plate representing Christ on the Cross, and on the twelfth and the last plate called the Pentacle of Khunrath (see page 6 of this issue for its drawing). Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin expresses very precisely his thoughts on this Name in one of his letters:
"... when the Christ came, He made the pronunciation of this word still more central and interior, since the Great Name expressed by those four letters was the quaternary explosion, or the crucial sign of all life; whereas Jesus Christ, by exalting the Hebrew SHIN, or the letter 'S', united the holy ternary itself to the great quaternary name of which three is the principle. Now, if, in the ancient ordinations, the quaternion had to have its own source in us, with much greater reason should the name of Christ take from Himself alone its whole efficacy and light ..."
"... No doubt, a great virtue is attached to this true pronunciation whether central or oral, of that Great Name, and that of Jesus Christ, which is as its flower. The vibration of our elementary air is a very secondary thing in the process by which these names make sensible what was not so before. Their virtue is to do to-day, and at all times, what they did at the beginning, in creating all things; and, as they made all things before the air existed, no doubt they are still higher than the air when they perform the same functions now; and it is no more impossible for this divine word to make itself audible, even to one who is deaf and in a place the most deprived of air, than it is difficult for spiritual light to make itself visible to our physical eyes, even though we be blind, and shut up in the darkest dungeon..."
It is noticeable that all great names of the Kabbala of the 16-th, 17-th and 19-th centuries knew the profound value of the Pentagrammic Name. Sedir, in his "History and Doctrines of the Rose-Croix", quotes a disciple of the Rose-Croix, Wilhelm Menens of Antwerp, who:
"... says in his Aureum Vellus about the great force which is hidden in the Name I.H.S.V.H. ..." which is, evidently, IOD-HE-SHIN-VAU-HE.
It should be noted that IESHOUAH (Jesus in Hebrew), has the same phonetic
pronunciation as IESHOUAH (Joshua in Hebrew), although the latter is spelled IOD-
SHIN-VAU-AYIN. Moreover, an identical word but spelled IOD-SHIN-VAU-AYIN - HE, signifies in Hebrew welfare, help, assistance, deliverance, salvation, victory. (Ex.14.15, Job30.15, Is.26.l).
All this points to the fact that all Christian Kabbalists have known and utilised the profound mystery enclosed in the Divine Name IESHOUAH. It is by the virtue of all this that MARTINISM of TRADITION made from it its mysterious "WORD", and it imprints Martinist prayers with a true esoteric character and with an indelible possibility. To know that the Kabbalists of the calibre of Pic de Mirandola and Reuchlin worked on the mystery of the Pentagrammic Name, is enough to dismiss some malicious and/or curious and misinformed critics. Finding among students of the Mystery of Divine Name - names like A. Kircher with his 'Oedipus Aegyptiacus' (Rome, 1655), or that of Archangelo de Borgonovo, we see that Martinists of Tradition using the Divine Name - IESHOUAH - are in very good company.
To use a metaphor, just like the Angel separated the Israelites from the Egyptians at the time of the symbolic crossing of the Red Sea, so also the letter SHIN separates, into two parts, the four letters of the initial Tetragram I.H.V.H., expressing the Living God, God of the World, the Manifested God; the two numerical values thus obtained are very significant.
Yet, how more significant is this insertion of SHIN, the mother-letter designating the FIRE, into the centre of the Tetragram, when one recalls the words from the Gospel:
"I am the Bread and I am the Life ...
I came to put the Fire into the bosom of things ..."
Lastly, it is undeniable that this Divine Name unites all Martinists dispersed all over the world, regardless of their religious or philosophical beliefs, and as such, it is thus a factor of unity.