(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.

(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.

(527) And suppose we make astronomy the third—what do you say? I am strongly inclined to it, he said; the observation of the seasons and of months and years is as essential to the general as it is to the farmer or sailor. I am amused, I said, at your fear of the world, which makes you guard against the appearance of insisting upon useless studies; and I quite admit the difficulty of believing that in every man there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and dimmed, is by these purified and re-illumined; and is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen. Now there are two classes of persons: one class of those who will agree with you and will take your words as a revelation; another class to whom they will be utterly unmeaning, and who will naturally deem them to be idle tales, for they see no sort of profit which is to be obtained from them. And therefore you had better decide at once with which of the two you are proposing to argue. You will very likely say with neither, and that your chief aim in carrying on the argument is your own improvement; at the same time you do not grudge to others any benefit which they may receive. I think that I should prefer to carry on the argument mainly on my own behalf. Then take a step backward, for we have gone wrong in the order of the sciences. What was the mistake? he said. After plane geometry, I said, we proceeded at once to

(19) Without going deeply into the matter of the application of this particular Cosmic Principle, we may say that one of the fundamental facts of being discovered by the ancient occultists by the application of the said principle is this: That in every thing there is to be found (1) Substance, or Body; (2) Motion or Active Energy; and (3) Consciousness or Awareness. Therefore, when dealing with planes of being of which, at the time, they had but little knowledge, the ancient occultists always assumed the existence in everything on the unknown plane of these three great forms of manifestation. And all future esoteric investigation and discovery tended to disclose facts corroborating and sustaining the original assumption derived by analogy, and the discoveries of modern science have invariably tended in the same direction.

(17) After discovering the operation of certain principles in one thing we may safely reason by analogy based upon the assumption that these principles exist in other things on a higher plane, and thus discover the nature of the unknown " x ." Thus the occultist reasons that there is Law and Order manifest on every plane of being; that there is a Principle of Vibration manifest on every plane of being; that there is a Principle of Rhythm manifest on every plane of being; that there is a Principle of Cycles manifest on every plane of being; that there is a Principle of Polarity manifest on every plane of being; that there is a Principle of Sex manifest on every plane of being. And the further that human investigation is pushed into the Unknown, the greater is the proof of the existence of these Cosmic Principles reasoned out by the ancient occultists upon the fundamental basis of the Principle of Correspondence.

(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.

(5) But perhaps the explanation of every particular act or event is rather that they are determined by the spheric movement- the Phora- and by the changing position of the heavenly bodies as these stand at setting or rising or in mid-course and in various aspects with each other.

Augury, it is urged, is able from these indications to foretell what is to happen not merely to the universe as a whole, but even to individuals, and this not merely as regards external conditions of fortune but even as to the events of the mind. We observe, too, how growth or check in other orders of beings- animals and Plants- is determined by their sympathetic relations with the heavenly bodies and how widely they are influenced by them, how, for example, the various countries show a different produce according to their situation on the earth and especially their lie towards the sun. And the effect of place is not limited to plants and animals; it rules human beings too, determining their appearance, their height and colour, their mentality and their desires, their pursuits and their moral habit. Thus the universal circuit would seem to be the monarch of the All.

Now a first answer to this theory is that its advocates have merely devised another shift to immolate to the heavenly bodies all that is ours, our acts of will and our states, all the evil in us, our entire personality; nothing is allowed to us; we are left to be stones set rolling, not men, not beings whose nature implies a task.

But we must be allowed our own- with the understanding that to what is primarily ours, our personal holding, there is added some influx from the All- the distinction must be made between our individual act and what is thrust upon us: we are not to be immolated to the stars.

Place and climate, no doubt, produce constitutions warmer or colder; and the parents tell on the offspring, as is seen in the resemblance between them, very general in personal appearance and noted also in some of the unreflecting states of the mind.

None the less, in spite of physical resemblance and similar environment, we observe the greatest difference in temperament and in ideas: this side of the human being, then, derives from some quite other Principle . A further confirmation is found in the efforts we make to correct both bodily constitution and mental aspirations.

If the stars are held to be causing principles on the ground of the possibility of foretelling individual fate or fortune from observation of their positions, then the birds and all the other things which the soothsayer observes for divination must equally be taken as causing what they indicate.

Some further considerations will help to clarify this matter:

The heavens are observed at the moment of a birth and the individual fate is thence predicted in the idea that the stars are no mere indications, but active causes, of the future events. Sometimes the Astrologers tell of noble birth; "the child is born of highly placed parents"; yet how is it possible to make out the stars to be causes of a condition which existed in the father and mother previously to that star pattern on which the prediction is based?

And consider still further:

They are really announcing the fortunes of parents from the birth of children; the character and career of children are included in the predictions as to the parents- they predict for the yet unborn!- in the lot of one brother they are foretelling the death of another; a girl's fate includes that of a future husband, a boy's that of a wife.

Now, can we think that the star-grouping over any particular birth can be the cause of what stands already announced in the facts about the parents? Either the previous star-groupings were the determinants of the child's future career or, if they were not, then neither is the immediate grouping. And notice further that physical likeness to the parents- the Astrologers hold- is of purely domestic origin: this implies that ugliness and beauty are so caused and not by astral movements.

Again, there must at one and the same time be a widespread coming to birth- men, and the most varied forms of animal life at the same moment- and these should all be under the one destiny since the one pattern rules at the moment; how explain that identical star-groupings give here the human form, there the animal?

(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.

(66) This opinion or supposition is not right, but the earth rolleth itself about; and runneth with the other planets, as in a wheel, round about the sun. The earth does not remain staying in one place, but in a year runneth round once about the sun, as the other planets next the sun, but Saturn and Jupiter, as also Mars, by reason of their great orb, circumference, and great height, cannot do it [in a year], because they stand so high above, and far distant from the SUN. Now it may be asked, What is the SUN, and what are the other PLANETS? Or how are they come to be?

(48) I have not my knowledge by study; indeed I have read the order and position of the seven planets in the books of astrologers, and find them to be very right; but the root, how the planets came to be, and from what they are proceeded, I cannot learn from any man; for they know it not, neither was I present when God created the planets.

(15) The same holds also of astronomy. For treating of the description of the celestial objects, about the form of the universe, and the revolution of the heavens, and the motion of the stars, leading the soul nearer to the creative power, it teaches to quickness in perceiving the seasons of the year, the changes of the air, and the appearance of the stars; since also navigation and husbandry derive from this much benefit, as architecture and building from geometry. This branch of learning, too, makes the soul in the highest degree observant, capable of perceiving the true and detecting the false, of discovering correspondences and proportions, so as to hunt out for similarity in things dissimilar; and conducts us to the discovery of length without breadth, and superficial extent without thickness, and an indivisible point, and transports to intellectual objects from those of sense.

(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.

(2) Moreover, the lations of the stars approximate to the eternal circulations of the heavens, not only locally, but also in powers, and the irradiations of light. But these are moved conformably to the mandates of the celestial Gods. For the most pure, agile, and supreme part of the air, is adapted to be enkindled [ i. e. is most inflammable], so that when the Gods assent, it is immediately set on fire. And if some one thinks that certain effluxions of the celestial bodies are imparted to the air, his opinion will not be discordant with what is frequently effected by the divine art. The union, also, and sympathy of the universe, and the simultaneous motion of the most remote parts, as if they were near, and belonged to one animal, cause these signs to be sent from the Gods to men in the most luminous manner, primarily, indeed, through the heavens, but afterwards through the air.

(65) The SUN has its own royal place to itself, and does not go away from that place where it came to be at the first. Some suppose that it runneth round about the globe of the earth in a day and a night; and some of the astrologers also write so; and some have undertaken to measure how far its orb and circumference of its supposed motion is.

(529) nothing of that sort is matter of science; his soul is looking downwards, not upwards, whether his way to knowledge is by water or by land, whether he floats, or only lies on his back. I acknowledge, he said, the justice of your rebuke. Still, I should like to ascertain how astronomy can be learned in any manner more conducive to that knowledge of which we are speaking? I will tell you, I said: The starry heaven which we behold is wrought upon a visible ground, and therefore, although the fairest and most perfect of visible things, must necessarily be deemed inferior far to the true motions of absolute swiftness and absolute slowness, which are relative to each other, and carry with them that which is contained in them, in the true number and in every true figure. Now, these are to be apprehended by reason and intelligence, but not by sight. True, he replied. The spangled heavens should be used as a pattern and with a view to that higher knowledge; their beauty is like the beauty of figures or pictures excellently wrought by the hand of Daedalus, or some other great artist, which we may chance to behold; any geometrician who saw them would appreciate the exquisiteness of their workmanship, but he would never dream of thinking that in them he could find the true equal or the true double, or the truth of any

(530) other proportion. No, he replied, such an idea would be ridiculous. And will not a true astronomer have the same feeling when he looks at the movements of the stars? Will he not think that heaven and the things in heaven are framed by the Creator of them in the most perfect manner? But he will never imagine that the proportions of night and day, or of both to the month, or of the month to the year, or of the stars to these and to one another, and any other things that are material and visible can also be eternal and subject to no deviation—that would be absurd; and it is equally absurd to take so much pains in investigating their exact truth. I quite agree, though I never thought of this before. Then, I said, in astronomy, as in geometry, we should employ problems, and let the heavens alone if we would approach the subject in the right way and so make the natural gift of reason to be of any real use. That, he said, is a work infinitely beyond our present astronomers. Yes, I said; and there are many other things which must also have a similar extension given to them, if our legislation is to be of any value. But can you tell me of any other suitable study? No, he said, not without thinking. Motion, I said, has many forms, and not one only; two of

(16) I. The Principle of Correspondence The Principle of Correspondence manifests in a certain correspondence or analogy or agreement between manifestations of the various planes of activity in the Cosmos. It is indicated by the old Hermetic aphorism: "As above, so below; as below, so above," and by the Arcane axiom: "Ex Uno disce Omnes," or "From One know All." The Rosicrucians, and other ancient occultists, hold that the laws governing the nature and activity of the amoeba, likewise govern the nature and activity of man and beings higher than man. What is true of matter is true of energy and of mind. The occultists make a practical application of this universal principle, in the direction of studying the unknown by means of the known, with the knowledge that the same laws govern each. Thus, just as the solar system may be known by means of studying the atoms and molecules, so may the higher planes of being be studied by an examination of the lower planes in manifestation before us.

(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.

(5) When they tell us that a certain cold star is more benevolent to us in proportion as it is further away, they clearly make its harmful influence depend upon the coldness of its nature; and yet it ought to be beneficent to us when it is in the opposed Zodiacal figures.

When the cold planet, we are told, is in opposition to the cold, both become meanacing: but the natural effect would be a compromise.

And we are asked to believe that one of them is happy by day and grows kindly under the warmth, while another, of a fiery nature, is most cheerful by night- as if it were not always day to them, light to them, and as if the first one could be darkened by night at that great distance above the earth's shadow.

Then there is the notion that the moon, in conjunction with a certain star, is softened at her full but is malignant in the same conjunction when her light has waned; yet, if anything of this order could be admitted, the very opposite would be the case. For when she is full to us she must be dark on the further hemisphere, that is to that star which stands above her; and when dark to us she is full to that other star, upon which only then, on the contrary, does she look with her light. To the moon itself, in fact, it can make no difference in what aspect she stands, for she is always lit on the upper or on the under half: to the other star, the warmth from the moon, of which they speak, might make a difference; but that warmth would reach it precisely when the moon is without light to us; at its darkest to us it is full to that other, and therefore beneficent. The darkness of the moon to us is of moment to the earth, but brings no trouble to the planet above. That planet, it is alleged, can give no help on account of its remoteness and therefore seems less well disposed; but the moon at its full suffices to the lower realm so that the distance of the other is of no importance. When the moon, though dark to us, is in aspect with the Fiery Star she is held to be favourable: the reason alleged is that the force of Mars is all-sufficient since it contains more fire than it needs.

The truth is that while the material emanations from the living beings of the heavenly system are of various degrees of warmth- planet differing from planet in this respect- no cold comes from them: the nature of the space in which they have their being is voucher for that.

The star known as Jupiter includes a due measure of fire , in this resembling the Morning-star and therefore seeming to be in alliance with it. In aspect with what is known as the Fiery Star, Jupiter is beneficent by virtue of the mixing of influences: in aspect with Saturn unfriendly by dint of distance. Mercury, it would seem, is indifferent whatever stars it be in aspect with; for it adopts any and every character.

But all the stars are serviceable to the Universe, and therefore can stand to each other only as the service of the Universe demands, in a harmony like that observed in the members of any one animal form. They exist essentially for the purpose of the Universe, just as the gall exists for the purposes of the body as a whole not less than for its own immediate function: it is to be the inciter of the animal spirits but without allowing the entire organism and its own especial region to run riot. Some such balance of function was indispensable in the All- bitter with sweet. There must be differentiation- eyes and so forth- but all the members will be in sympathy with the entire animal frame to which they belong. Only so can there be a unity and a total harmony.

And in such a total, analogy will make every part a Sign.