(9) Before this looking-glass I will now invite all lovers of the holy and highlytobeesteemed arts of philosophy, astrology, and theology, wherein I will lay open the root and ground of them.

(1) THE learned and highly experienced masters of astrology, or the starry art, are come so high and deep in their understanding, that they know the course and effects of the stars, what their conjunction, influence, and breaking through of their powers and virtues denoteth and produceth; and how thereby wind, rain, snow, and heat are caused; also good and evil, prosperity and adversity, life and death, and all the drivings and agitations in this world.

(34) There are two distinct systems of astrological philosophy. One of them, the Ptolemaic, is geocentric: the earth is considered the center of the solar system, around which the sun, moon, and planets revolve. Astronomically, the geocentric system is incorrect; but for thousands of years it has proved its accuracy when applied to the material nature of earthly things. A careful consideration of the writings of the great occultists and a study of their diagrams reveal the fact that many of them were acquainted with another method of arranging the heavenly bodies.

(35) The other system of astrological philosophy is called the heliocentric. This posits the sun in the center of the solar system, where it naturally belongs, with the planets and their moons revolving about it. The great difficulty, however, with the heliocentric system is that, being comparatively new, there has not been sufficient time to experiment successfully and catalogue the effects of its various aspects and relationships. Geocentric astrology, as its name implies, is confined to the earthy side of nature, while heliocentric astrology may be used to analyze the higher intellectual and spiritual faculties of man.

(3) If some one, however, dismissing primordial causes, should refer divination to secondary offices, such as the motions of bodies, or the mutations of passions, or certain other motions, or the energies of human life, or animal or physical reasons, and should think that in so doing he asserts something manifest; or if, considering the symmetries of these with reference to each other, as causes, he should apprehend that he can assign something accurate concerning divination, he wholly deviates from the truth. But the one right boundary, and the one principle of all these particulars, is by no means to produce without a cause the foreknowledge of futurity, from things which have no prescience in themselves, but to survey from the Gods who contain in themselves the terminations of all the knowledge of beings, divination distributed about the whole world, and about all the natures that are separately contained in it. For such a cause as this is primordial, and is especially most common, containing in itself primarily those things which it gives to its participants, and particularly imparting truth, of which divination is in want; and antecedently comprehending the essence and cause of future events, from which foreknowledge necessarily and incessantly proceeds. Let such a principle as this, therefore, be the origin in common of all divination, from which it is possible to discover scientifically all the species of it; which we shall now unfold, conformably to the questions proposed by you.

(46) Dear Reader, I understand the astrologers' meanings and sayings full well, and I have perused their writings also, and taken notice how they describe the course of the sun and stars, neither do I despise it, but, for the most part, hold that to be good and right.

(7) But, if the stars announce the future- as we hold of many other things also- what explanation of the cause have we to offer? What explains the purposeful arrangement thus implied? Obviously, unless the particular is included under some general principle of order, there can be no signification.

We may think of the stars as letters perpetually being inscribed on the heavens or inscribed once for all and yet moving as they pursue the other tasks allotted to them: upon these main tasks will follow the quality of signifying, just as the one principle underlying any living unit enables us to reason from member to member, so that for example we may judge of character and even of perils and safeguards by indications in the eyes or in some other part of the body. If these parts of us are members of a whole, so are we: in different ways the one law applies.

All teems with symbol; the wise man is the man who in any one thing can read another, a process familiar to all of us in not a few examples of everyday experience.

But what is the comprehensive principle of co-ordination? Establish this and we have a reasonable basis for the divination, not only by stars but also by birds and other animals, from which we derive guidance in our varied concerns.

All things must be enchained; and the sympathy and correspondence obtaining in any one closely knit organism must exist, first, and most intensely, in the All. There must be one principle constituting this unit of many forms of life and enclosing the several members within the unity, while at the same time, precisely as in each thing of detail the parts too have each a definite function, so in the All each several member must have its own task- but more markedly so since in this case the parts are not merely members but themselves Alls, members of the loftier Kind.

Thus each entity takes its origin from one Principle and, therefore, while executing its own function, works in with every other member of that All from which its distinct task has by no means cut it off: each performs its act, each receives something from the others, every one at its own moment bringing its touch of sweet or bitter. And there is nothing undesigned, nothing of chance, in all the process: all is one scheme of differentiation, starting from the Firsts and working itself out in a continuous progression of Kinds.

(12) I know also very well, that it is not fit for the disciple to fight against his Master. And I know that the high experienced masters of astrology do far exceed me in their way. But I labour in my calling, and they in theirs, lest I should be found a lazy idle servant to my Lord, at his coming, when he will demand the talent he has entrusted me withal; but that I may present it to him with usury or profit and gain.

(2) The earthly body of alchemy is chemistry, for chemists do not realize that half of The Book of Torah is forever concealed behind the veil of Isis (see the Tarot), and that so long as they study only material elements they can at best discover but half of the mystery. Astrology has crystallized into astronomy, whose votaries ridicule the dreams of ancient seers and sages, deriding their symbols as meaningless products of superstition. Nevertheless, the intelligentsia of the modern world can never pass behind the veil which divides the seen from the unseen except in the way appointed--the Mysteries.

(4) Though the spirit will indeed go against the current of some astrologers, that is no great matter to me, for I am bound to obey God rather than men; men are blind in or concerning the spirit, and if they will not see, then they may remain blind still. Now observe:

(124) But if thou art thus, then raise up thy spirit and see: through thy astrological art, thy deep sense and thy measuring of circles thou canst not apprehend it; it must be born IN THEE, else thou gettest neither grace nor art.

(56) A more profound interpretation is found in the correspondences between the twelve figures in the upper panel and the twelve in the lower. This furnishes a key to one of the most arcane of ancient secrets--the relationship existing between the two great zodiacs the fixed and the movable. The fixed zodiac is described as an immense dodecahedron, its twelve surfaces representing the outermost walls of abstract space. From each surface of this dodecahedron a great spiritual power, radiating inward, becomes embodied as one of the hierarchies of the movable zodiac, which is a band of circumambulating so-called fixed stars. Within this movable zodiac are posited the various planetary and elemental bodies. The relation of these two zodiacs to the subzodiacal spheres has a correlation in the respiratory system of the human body. The great fixed zodiac may be said to represent the atmosphere, the movable zodiac the lungs, and the subzodiacal worlds the body. The spiritual atmosphere containing the vivifying energies of the twelve divine powers of the great fixed zodiac is inhaled by the cosmic lungs--the movable zodiac--and distributed by them through the constitution of the twelve holy animals which are the parts and members of the material universe. The functional cycle is completed when the poisonous effluvia of the lower worlds collected by the movable zodiac are exhaled into the great fixed zodiac, there to be purified by being passed through the divine natures of its twelve eternal hierarchies.

(30) TABLE XII, Figures 12-19. Figure 12 is called A Mirror of Astrological Aspects. Below it is an astrologer's wheel. Figure 13 is similar to Figure 12. Figure 14 is a secret alchemical formula. The words around the circle read: Out of one in all is all. Figure 15 is an unsatisfactory attempt to show the comparative sizes of the suns and planets and their distances from each other. Figure 16 is the solar system with its internal and spiritual heavens. A B is the solar system; C is the sphere of fixed stars; D, E, F, G are the systems of the spiritual worlds; H is the throne of the living God; J, K, L, M, and N are the Great Beyond, unmeasurable.

(1) These things, therefore, having been accurately discussed, the solution of the doubts which you have met with in certain books will be manifest. For the books which are circulated under the name of Hermes contain Hermaic opinions, though they frequently employ the language of the philosophers: for they were translated from the Egyptian tongue by men who were not unskilled in philosophy. But Chæremon, and any others who have at all discussed the first causes of mundane natures, have unfolded the last rulers of these. And such as have written concerning the planets, the zodiac, the decans, horoscopes, and what are called powerful and leading planets, these have unfolded the partible distributions of the rulers. The particulars, also, contained in the Calendars comprehend a certain very small part of the Hermaic arrangements. And the causes of such things as pertain to the phases or occultations of the stars, or to the increments and decrements of the moon, are assigned by the Egyptians the last of all.

(41) The antiquity of the zodiac is much in dispute. To contend that it originated but a mere few thousand years before the Christian Era is a colossal mistake on the part of those who have sought to compile data, concerning its origin. The zodiac necessarily must be ancient enough to go backward to that period when its signs and symbols coincided exactly with the positions of the constellations whose various creatures in their natural functions exemplified the outstanding features of the sun's activity during each of the twelve months. One author, after many years of deep study on the subject, believed man's concept of the zodiac to be at least five million years old. In all probability it is one of the many things for which the modem world is indebted to the Atlantean or the Lemurian civilizations. About ten thousand years before the Christian Era there was a period of many ages when knowledge of every kind was suppressed, tablets destroyed, monuments torn down, and every vestige of available material concerning previous civilizations completely obliterated. Only a few copper knives, some arrowheads, and crude carvings on the walls of caves bear mute witness of those civilizations which preceded this age of destruction. Here and there a few gigantic structures have remained which, like the strange monoliths on Easter Island, are evidence of lost arts and sciences and lost races. The human race is exceedingly old. Modern science counts its age in tens of thousands of years; occultism, in tens of millions. There is an old saying that "Mother Earth has shaken many civilizations from her back," and it is not beyond reason that the principles of astrology and astronomy were evolved millions of years before the first white man appeared.

(1) You say then, in your epistle, “ that the discovery of the lord or lords of the geniture, if there are more than one in a nativity, can scarcely be obtained, and by astrologers themselves is confessed to be unattainable; and yet they say that the peculiar dæmon is from thence to be known .” But how can astrologers confess that the knowledge of the lord of the geniture is not to be obtained by them, when they deliver clear methods for the discovery of it, and teach us rules by which we may discover the doubts; some, indeed, giving us five, others more and others less than five rules? Omitting this, however, let us direct our attention to a thing of greater consequence, viz. the accidents pertaining to both these. For if it is possible to discover the lord of the geniture, the dæmon imparted by him will be known; but if this knowledge is unattainable, we shall be ignorant of the lord of the geniture according to this hypothesis, and yet, nevertheless, he will have an existence, and also the dæmon imparted by him. What therefore hinders, but that the discovery of him may be difficult through prediction from the nativity, and yet through sacred divination, or theurgy, there may be a great abundance of scientific knowledge on this subject? In short, the dæmon is not alone imparted by the lord of the geniture, but there are many other principles of it more universal than this. And farther still, a method of this kind introduces a certain artificial and human disquisition concerning the peculiar dæmon. Hence, in these doubts of yours there is nothing sane.

(3) Possibly, however, they act not by choice but under stress of their several positions and collective figures?

But if position and figure determined their action each several one would necessarily cause identical effects with every other on entering any given place or pattern.

And that raises the question what effect for good or bad can be produced upon any one of them by its transit in the parallel of this or that section of the Zodiac circle- for they are not in the Zodiacal figure itself but considerably beneath it especially since, whatever point they touch, they are always in the heavens.

It is absurd to think that the particular grouping under which a star passes can modify either its character or its earthward influences. And can we imagine it altered by its own progression as it rises, stands at centre, declines? Exultant when at centre; dejected or enfeebled in declension; some raging as they rise and growing benignant as they set, while declension brings out the best in one among them; surely this cannot be?

We must not forget that invariably every star, considered in itself, is at centre with regard to some one given group and in decline with regard to another and vice versa; and, very certainly, it is not at once happy and sad, angry and kindly. There is no reasonable escape in representing some of them as glad in their setting, others in their rising: they would still be grieving and glad at one and the same time.

Further, why should any distress of theirs work harm to us?

No: we cannot think of them as grieving at all or as being cheerful upon occasions: they must be continuously serene, happy in the good they enjoy and the Vision before them. Each lives its own free life; each finds its Good in its own Act; and this Act is not directed towards us.

Like the birds of augury, the living beings of the heavens, having no lot or part with us, may serve incidentally to foreshow the future, but they have absolutely no main function in our regard.

(2) The greatest remedy, therefore, for all such doubts is this, to know the principle of divination, that it neither originates from bodies, nor from the passions about bodies, nor from a certain nature, and the powers about nature, nor from any human apparatus, or the habits pertaining to it. But neither does it originate from a certain art, externally acquired, about a certain part of such things as are subservient to life. For the whole authority of it pertains to the Gods, and is imparted by them; it is also effected by divine works, or signs; and it possesses divine spectacles, and scientific theorems. All other things, however, are subjected as instruments to the gift of foreknowledge transmitted from the Gods; viz. such things as pertain to our soul and body, and such as are in the nature of the universe, or are inexistent in particular natures. But some things are previously subjacent, as in the order of matter, such as places, or certain other things of the like kind.

(2) For time always proceeding the divine mode of knowledge becomes evanescent, through being frequently mingled and contaminated with much of what is mortal. This divine mode is indeed [in astrology also], and a certain clear indication of truth, though it is but small, is at the same time preserved in it. For it places before our eyes manifest signs of the mensuration of the divine periods, when it predicts the eclipses of the sun and moon, and the concursions of the moon with the fixed stars, and when the experience of the sight is seen to accord with the prediction. Moreover, the observations of the celestial bodies through the whole of time, both by the Chaldeans and by us, testify that this science is true. Indications, also, more known than these might be adduced, if the present discussion was precedaneously about these particulars. But as they are superfluous, and do not pertain to the knowledge of the peculiar dæmon, I shall, as it is fit so to do, omit them, and pass on to things more appropriate than these.

(2) Nor, if there are certain other false and deceitful resemblances, which are still more remote from reality, is it fit to adduce these in forming a judgment of it. But the divine form or species of divination is to be apprehended according to one intelligible and immutable truth; and the mutation which subsists differently at different times is to be rejected as unstable and unadapted to the Gods. If, therefore, that which is truly divination is a thing of this kind, i. e. is a divine work, who would not blush to ascribe it to nature, which produces its effects without reason and intellect, as if nature elaborated in us a certain prophetic apparatus, and inserted this aptitude in some things in a greater but in others in a less degree? For in those things in which men receive auxiliaries from nature in the attainment of their proper perfection, in these, also, certain aptitudes of nature precede; but in things in which no human work is proposed [to be effected], in these neither does the end pertain to us.