The books of Hermes Trismegistus contain the exoteric meaning, still
veiled for all but the Occultist, of the Astrology and Astrolatry of the
Khaldi. The two subjects are closely connected. Astrolatry, or the
adoration of the heavenly host, is the natural result of only half‐
revealed Astrology, whose Adepts carefully concealed from the non‐
initiated masses its Occult principles and the wisdom imparted to them by
the Regents of the Planets—the “Angels.” Hence, divine Astrology for the
Initiates; superstitious Astrolatry for the profane. St. Justin asserts
it:
From the first invention of the hieroglyphics it was not the
vulgar, but the distinguished and select men who became initiated
in the secrecy of the temples into the science of every kind of
Astrology—even into its most abject kind: that Astrology which
later on found itself prostituted in the public thoroughfares.
There was a vast difference between the Sacred Science taught by Petosiris
and Necepso—the first Astrologers mentioned in the Egyptian manuscripts,
believed to have lived during the reign of Ramses II. (Sesostris)(622)—and
the miserable charlatanry of the quacks called Chaldæans, who degraded the
Divine Knowledge under the last Emperors of Rome. Indeed, one may fairly
describe the two as the “high ceremonial Astrology” and “astrological
Astrolatry.” The first depended on the knowledge by the Initiates of those
(to us) immaterial Forces or Spiritual Entities that affect matter and
guide it. Called by the ancient Philosophers the Archontes and the
Cosmocratores, they were the types or paradigms on the higher planes of
the lower and more material beings on the scale of evolution, whom we call
Elementals and Nature‐Spirits, to whom the Sabæans bowed and whom they
worshipped, without suspecting the essential difference. Hence the latter
kind when not a mere pretence, degenerated but too often into Black Magic.
It was the favourite form of popular or exoteric Astrology, entirely
ignorant of the apotelesmatic principles of the primitive Science, the
doctrines of which were imparted only at Initiation. Thus, while the real
Hierophants soared like Demi‐Gods to the very summit of spiritual
knowledge, the _hoi polloi_ among the Sabæans crouched, steeped in
superstition—ten millenniums back, as they do now—in the cold and lethal
shadow of the valleys of matter. Sidereal influence is dual. There is the
physical and physiological influence, that of exotericism; and the high
spiritual, intellectual, and moral influence, imparted by the knowledge of
the planetary Gods. Bailly, speaking with only an imperfect knowledge of
the former, called Astrology, so far back as the eighteenth century, “The
very foolish mother of a very wise daughter”—Astronomy. On the other hand,
Arago, a luminary of the nineteenth century, supports the reality of the
sidereal influence of the Sun, Moon and Planets. He asks:
Where do we find lunar influences refuted by arguments that
science would dare to avow?
But even Bailly, having, as he thought, put down Astrology as publicly
practised, dares not do the same with the real Astrology. He says:
Judiciary Astrology was at its origin the result of a profound
system, the work of an enlightened nation that would wander too
far into the mysteries of God and Nature.
A Scientist of a more recent date, a member of the Institute of France,
and a professor of History, Ph. Lebas, discovers (unconsciously to
himself) the very root of Astrology in his able article on the subject in
the _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de France_. He well understands, he tells
his readers, that the adhesion to that Science of such a number of highly
intellectual men should be in itself a sufficient motive for believing
that all Astrology is not folly:
While proclaiming in politics the sovereignty of the people and of
public opinion can we admit, as heretofore, that mankind allowed
itself to be radically deceived in this only: that an absolute and
gross absurdity reigned in the minds of whole nations for so many
centuries without being based on anything save—on one hand human
imbecility, and on the other charlatanry? How for fifty centuries
and more can most men have been either dupes or knaves? ... Even
though we may find it impossible to decide between and separate
the realities of Astrology from the elements of invention and
empty dreaming in it, ... let us, nevertheless, repeat with
Bossuet and all modern philosophers, that “nothing that has been
dominant could be absolutely false.” Is it not true, at all
events, that there is a physical reaction on one another among the
planets? Is it not again true, that the planets have an influence
on the atmosphere, and consequently at any rate a mediate action
on vegetation and animals? Has not modern science demonstrated now
these two points beyond any doubt?... Is it any less true that
human liberty of action is not absolute: that all is bound, that
all weighs, planets as the rest, on each individual will; that
Providence [_or Karma_] acts on us and directs men through those
relations that it has established between them and the visible
objects and the whole universe?... Astrolatry, in its essence, is
nothing but that; we are bound to recognise that an instinct
superior to the age they lived in guided the efforts of the
ancient Magi. As to the materialism and annihilation of human
moral freedom with which Bailly charges their theory (Astrology),
the reprobate has no sense whatever. All the great astrologers
admitted, without one single exception, that man could react
against the influence of the stars. This principle is established
in the Ptolemœian _Tetrabiblos_, the true astrological Scriptures,
in chapters ii. and iii. of book i.(623)
Thomas Aquinas had corroborated Lebas in anticipation; he says:
The celestial bodies are _the cause of all that happens in this
sublunary world_, they act indirectly on human actions; but not
all the effects produced by them are unavoidable.(624)
The Occultists and Theosophists are the first to confess that there is
white and black Astrology. Nevertheless, Astrology has to be studied in
both aspects by those who wish to become proficient in it; and the good or
bad results obtained do not depend upon the principles, which are the same
in both kinds, but in the Astrologer himself. Thus Pythagoras, who
established the whole Copernican system by the Books of Hermes 2,000 years
before Galileo’s predecessor was born, found and studied in them the whole
Science of divine Theogony, of the communication with, and the evocation
of, the world’s Rectors—the Princes of the “Principalities” of St.
Paul—the nativity of each Planet and of the Universe itself, the formulæ
of incantations and the consecration of each portion of the human body to
the respective Zodiacal sign corresponding to it. All this cannot be
regarded as childish and absurd—still less “devilish”—save by those who
are, and wish to remain, tyros in the Philosophy of the Occult Sciences.
No true thinker—no one who recognises the presence of a common bond
between man and visible, as well as invisible, Nature—would see in the old
relics of Archaic Wisdom—such as the _Petemenoph Papyrus_, for
instance—“childish nonsense and absurdity,” as many Academicians and
Scientists have done. But upon finding in such ancient documents the
application of the Hermetic rules and laws, such as
The consecration of one’s hair to the celestial Nile; of the left
temple to the living Spirit in the sun, and in the right one to
the spirit of Ammon,
he will endeavour to study and comprehend better the “laws of
correspondences.” Nor will he disbelieve in the antiquity of Astrology on
the plea that some Orientalists have thought fit to declare that the
Zodiac was not very ancient, being only the invention of the Greeks of the
Macedonian period. For this statement, besides having been shown to be
entirely erroneous by a number of other reasons, may be entirely disproved
by facts relating to the latest discoveries in Egypt, and by the more
accurate readings of hieroglyphics and inscriptions of the earliest
dynasties. The published polemics on the contents of the so‐called “Magic”
Papyri of the Anastasi collection indicate the antiquity of the Zodiac. As
the _Lettres à Lettrone_ say: The papyri discourse at length upon the four
bases or
Foundations of the world, the identity of which it is impossible,
according to Champollion, to mistake, as one is forced to
recognise in them the Pillars of the World of St. Paul. It is they
who are invoked with the gods of all the celestial zones, quite
analogous, once more, to the _Spiritualia nequitiæ in cælestibus_
of the same Apostle.(625)
That invocation was made in the proper terms ... of the formula,
reproduced far too faithfully by Jamblichus for it to be possible
to refuse him any longer the merit of having transmitted to
posterity the ancient and primitive spirit of the Egyptian
Astrologers.(626)
As Letronne had tried to prove that all the genuine Egyptian Zodiacs had
been manufactured during the Roman period, the Sensaos mummy is brought
forward to show that:
All the Zodiacal monuments in Egypt were chiefly astronomical.
Royal tombs and funereal rituals are so many tables of
constellations and of their influences for all the hours of every
month.
Thus the genethliac tables themselves prove that they are far
older than the period assigned to their origin; all the Zodiacs of
the sarcophagi of later epochs being simple reminiscences of the
Zodiacs belonging to the mythological [archaic] period.
Primitive Astrology was as far above modern judiciary Astrology, so‐
called, as the guides (the Planets and Zodiacal signs) are above the lamp‐
posts. Berosus shows the sidereal sovereignty of Bel and Mylitta (Sun and
Moon), and only “the twelve lords of the Zodiacal Gods,” the “thirty‐six
Gods Counsellors” and the “twenty‐four Stars, judges of this world,” which
support and guide the Universe (our solar system), watch over mortals and
reveal to mankind its fate and their own decrees. Judiciary Astrology as
it is now known, is correctly denominated by the Latin Church the
Materialistic and pantheistic prophesying by the objective planet
itself, independently of its Rector [the Mlac of the Jews, the
ministers of the Eternal commissioned by him to announce his will
to mortals]; the ascension or conjunction of the planet at the
moment of the birth of an individual deciding his fortune and the
moment and mode of his death.(627)
Every student of Occultism knows that the heavenly bodies are closely
related during each Manvantara with the mankind of that special cycle; and
there are some who believe that each great character born during that
period has—as every other mortal has, only in a far stronger degree—his
destiny outlined within his proper constellation or star, traced as a
self‐prophecy, an anticipated autobiography, by the indwelling Spirit of
that particular star. The human Monad in its first beginning is that
Spirit, or the Soul of that star (Planet) itself. As our Sun radiates its
light and beams on every body in space within the boundaries of its
system, so the Regent of every Planet‐star, the Parent‐monad, shoots out
from itself the Monad of every “pilgrim” Soul born under its house within
its own group. The Regents are esoterically seven, whether in the
Sephiroth, the “Angels of the Presence,” the Rishis, or the Amshaspends.
“The One is no number” is said in all the esoteric works.
From the Kasdim and Gazzim (Astrologers) the noble primitive science
passed to the Khartumim Asaphim (or Theologians) and the Hakamim (or
scientists, the Magicians of the lower class), and from these to the Jews
during their captivity. The Books of Moses had been buried in oblivion for
centuries, and when re‐discovered by Hilkiah had lost their true sense for
the people of Israel. Primitive Occult Astrology was on the decline when
Daniel, the last of the Jewish Initiates of the old school, became the
chief of the Magi and Astrologers of Chaldæa. In those days even Egypt,
who had her wisdom from the same source as Babylon, had degenerated from
her former grandeur, and her glory had begun to fade out. Still, the
science of old had left her eternal imprint on the world, and the seven
great Primitive Gods reigned for ever in the Astrology and in the division
of time of every nation upon the face of the earth. The names of the days
of our (Christian) week are those of the Gods of the Chaldæans, who
translated them from those of the Âryans; the uniformity of these
antediluvian names in every nation, from the Goths back to the Indians,
would remain inexplicable, as Sir W. Jones thought, had not the riddle
been explained to us by the invitation made by the Chaldæan oracles,
recorded by Porphyry and quoted by Eusebius:
To carry those names first to the Egyptian and Phœnician colonies,
then to the Greeks, with the express recommendation that each God
should be invoked only on that day that had been called by his
name....
Thus Apollo says in those oracles: “I must be invoked on the day
of the _sun_; Mercury after his directions, then Chronos [Saturn],
then Venus, and do not fail to call seven times each of those
gods.”(628)
This is slightly erroneous. Greece did not get her astrological
instruction from Egypt or from Chaldæa, but direct from Orpheus, as Lucian
tells us.(629) It was Orpheus, as he says, who imparted the Indian
Sciences to nearly all the great monarchs of antiquity; and it was they,
the ancient kings favoured by the Planetary Gods, who recorded the
principles of Astrology—as did Ptolemus, for instance. Thus Lucian writes:
The Bœotian Tiresias acquired the greatest reputation in the art
of predicting futurity.... In those days divination was not as
slightly treated as it is now; and nothing was ever undertaken
without previous consultation with diviners, whose oracles were
all directed by astrology.... At Delphos the virgin commissioned
to announce futurity was the symbol of the Heavenly Virgin, ...
and Our Lady.
On the sarcophagus of an Egyptian Pharaoh, Neith, mother of Ra, the heifer
that brings forth the Sun, her body spangled with stars, and wearing the
solar and lunar discs, is equally referred to as the “Heavenly Virgin” and
“Our Lady of the Starry Vault.”
Modern judiciary Astrology in its present form began only during the time
of Diodorus, as he apprises the world.(630) But Chaldæan Astrology was
believed in by most of the great men in History, such as Cæsar, Pliny,
Cicero—whose best friends, Nigidius Figulus and Lucius Tarrutius, were
themselves Astrologers, the former being famous as a prophet. Marcus
Antonius never travelled without an Astrologer recommended to him by
Cleopatra. Augustus, when ascending the throne, had his horoscope drawn by
Theagenes. Tiberius discovered pretenders to his throne by means of
Astrology and divination. Vitellius dared not exile the Chaldæans, as they
had announced the day of their banishment as that of his death. Vespasian
consulted them daily; Domitian would not move without being advised by the
prophets; Adrian was a learned Astrologer himself; and all of them, ending
with Julian (called the _Apostate_ because he would not become one),
believed in, and addressed their prayers to, the Planetary “Gods.” The
Emperor Adrian, moreover, “predicted from the January calends up to
December 31st, every event that happened to him daily.” Under the wisest
emperors Rome had a School of Astrology, wherein were secretly taught the
occult influences of the Sun, Moon, and Saturn.(631) Judiciary Astrology
is used to this day by the Kabalists; and Éliphas Lévi, the modern French
Magus, teaches its rudiments in his _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_.
But the key to ceremonial or ritualistic Astrology, with the teraphim and
the urim and thummim of Magic, is lost to Europe. Hence our century of
Materialism shrugs its shoulders and sees in Astrology—a pretender.
Not all scientists scoff at it, however, and one may rejoice in reading in
the _Musée des Sciences_(632) the suggestive and fair remarks made by Le
Couturier, a man of science of no mean reputation. He thinks it curious to
notice that while the bold speculations of Democritus are found vindicated
by Dalton,
The reveries of the alchemists are also on their way to a certain
rehabilitation. They receive renewed life from the minute
investigations of their successors, the chemists; a very
remarkable thing indeed is to see how much modern discoveries have
served to vindicate, of late, the theories of the Middle Ages from
the charge of absurdity laid at their door. Thus, if, as
demonstrated by Col. Sabine, the direction of a piece of steel,
hung a few feet above the soil, may be influenced by the position
of the moon, whose body is at a distance of 240,000 miles from our
planet, who then could accuse of extravagance the belief of the
ancient astrologers [or the modern, either] in the influence of
the stars on human destiny.(633)