He was trying to reconcile Reason and Faith, like a lot of thinkers going back to the Middle Ages. How he transformed from passionate priest-candidate to violent socialist revolutionary to the High Magus of France is an interesting track with a number of blackout periods. But he was, at points, a hard "believer" in a number of things that got him in hot water.
At the very least, for him, magic meant mastering symbolism for the sake of utility, be it personal or social. He always hints at something more, and leaves paradoxes in his wake, which IMO were on purpose (mostly).
Curiously, at his final residence before his death, he had grouped on his wall pictures of Voltaire and Rousseau - I think with Jesus also.
I've always found it an interesting meditation to draw a chain of ideas out linking his "Travail, Realization, Adaptation" to the later formulation, "The Method of Science and the Aim of Religion."
