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man knowledge of the adept.
The human head is formed upon the model of the celestial spheres; it attracts
and it radiates, and this it is which first forms and manifests in the conception of
a child. Hence the head is subject in an absolute manner to astral influence, and
evidences its several attractions by its diverse protuberances. The final word of
phrenology is to be found therefore in scientific and purified astrology, the prob-
lems of which we bequeath to the patience and good faith of scholars.
According to Ptolemy, the sun dries up and the moon moistens; according to
the Kabalists, the sun represents strict Justice, while the moon is in sympathy with
Mercy. It is the sun which produces storms, and, by a kind of gentle atmospheric
pressure, the moon occasions the ebb and flow, or, as it were, the respiration of the
sea. We read in the Zohar, one of the great sacred books of the Kabalah, that the
magical serpent, the son of the Sun, was about to devour the world, when the Sea,
daughter of the moon, set her foot upon his head and subdued him . For this rea-
son, among the ancients, Venus was the daughter of the Sea, as Diana was identi-
cal with the Moon. Hence also the name of Mary signifies star or salt of the sea. To
consecrate this kabalistic doctrine in the belief of the vulgar, it is said in prophetic
language: The woman shall crush the serpent's head.
Jerome Cardan, one of the boldest students, and beyond contradiction the most
skilful astrologer of his time Jerome Cardan, who was a martyr to his faith in
astrology, if we accept the legend of his death, has left a calculation by means of
which anyone can foresee the good or evil fortune attached to all years of his life.
His theory was based upon his own experiences, and he assures us that the calcu-
lation never deceived him. To ascertain the fortune of a given year, he sums up the
84 The Doctrine of Transcendental Magic
events of those which have preceded it by 4, 8, 12, 19 and 30; the number 4 is that
of realization; 8 is the number of Venus or natural things; 12 belongs to the cycle
of Jupiter and corresponds to successes; 19 has reference to the cycles of the Moon
and of Mars; the number 30 is that of Saturn or Fatality. Thus, for example, I
desire to ascertain what will befall me in this present year, 1855. I pass therefore in
review those decisive events in the order of life and progress which occurred four
years ago; the natural felicity or misfortune of eight years back; the successes or
failures belonging to twelve years since; the vicissitudes and miseries or diseases
which overtook me nineteen years from now, and my tragic or fatal experiences of
thirty years back. Then, taking into account irrevocably accomplished facts and
the advance of time, I calculate the chances analogous to those which I owe
already to the influence of the same planets, and I conclude that in 1851 I had
employment which was moderately but sufficiently remunerative, with some
embarrassment of position; in 1847 I was separated violently from my family, with
great attendant sufferings for mine and me; in 1843 I travelled as an apostle,
addressing the people, and suffering the persecution of illmeaning persons:
briefly, I was at once honoured and proscribed. Finally, in 1825 family life came to
an end for me, and I entered definitely on that fatal path which led me to science
and misfortune. I may suppose therefore that this year I shall experience toil, pov-
erty, vexation, heart exile, change of place, publicity and contradictions, with
some eventuality which will be decisive for the rest of my life: every indication in
the present leads me to endorse this forecast. Hence I conclude that, for myself
and for this year, experience confirms fully the precision of Cardan's astrological
calculus, which connects furthermore with the climacteric years of ancient astrol-
ogers. This term signifies arranged in scales or calculated on the degrees of a
scale. Johannes Trithemius in his book on Secondary Causes has computed the
recurrence of fortunate or calamitous years for all empires of the world. In the
twenty-first chapter of our Ritual we shall give an exact analysis of this work,
together with a continuation of the labour of Trithemius to our own days and the
application of his magical scale to contemporary events, so as to deduce the most
striking probabilities relative to the immediate future of France, Europe and the
world.
According to all the grand masters in astrology, comets are the stars of excep-
tional heroes, and they visit earth only to signalize great changes; the planets pre-
side over collective existences and modify the destinies of mankind in the
aggregate; the fixed stars, more remote and more feeble in their action, attract
individuals and determine their tendencies. Sometimes a group of stars may com-
bine to influence the destinies of a single man, while often a great number of souls
are drawn by the distant rays of the same sun. When we die, our interior light in
departing follows the attraction of its star, and thus it is that we live in other uni-
verses, where the soul makes for itself a new garment, analogous to the develop-
ASTROLOGY 85
ment or diminution of its beauty; for our souls, when separated from our bodies,
resemble revolving stars; they are globules of animated light which always seek
their centre for the recovery of their equilibrium and their true movement. Before
all things, however, they must liberate themselves from the folds of the serpent,
that is, the unpurified Astral Light which envelops and imprisons them, unless the
strength of their will can lift them beyond its reach. The immersion of the living
star in the dead light is a frightful torment, comparable to that of Mezentius.
Therein the soul freezes and burns at the same time, and has no means of getting
free except by re-entering the current of exterior forms and assuming a fleshly
envelope, then energetically battling against instincts to strengthen that moral lib-
erty which will permit it at the moment of its death to break the chains of earth
and wing its flight in triumph towards the star of consolation which has smiled in
light upon it. Following this clue, we can understand the nature of the fire of hell,
which is identical with the demon or old serpent; we can gather also wherein con-
sists the salvation and reprobation of men, all called and all elected successively,
but in small number, after having risked falling into the eternal fire through their
own fault.
Such is the great and sublime revelation of the Magi, a revelation which is the
mother of all symbols, of all dogmas, of all religions. We can realize already how
far Dupuis was mistaken in regarding astronomy as the source of every cultus. It
is astronomy, on the contrary, which has sprung from astrology, and primitive
astrology is one of the branches of the holy Kabalah, the science of sciences and
the religion of religions. Hence upon the seventeenth page of the Tarot we find an
admirable allegory a naked woman, typifying Truth, Nature and Wisdom at one
and the same time, turns two ewers towards earth, and pours out fire and water
upon it. Above her head glitters the septenary, starred about an eight-pointed star,
that of Venus, symbol of peace and love; the plants of earth are flourishing around
the woman, and on one of them the butterfly of Psyche has alighted. This emblem
of the soul is replaced in some copies of the sacred book by a bird, which is a more
Egyptian and probably a more ancient symbol. In the modern Tarot the plate is
entitled the Glittering Star; it is analogous to a number of Hermetic symbols, and
is also in correspondence with the Blazing Star of Masonic initiates, which
expresses most of the mysteries of Rosicrucian secret doctrine.
86 The Doctrine of Transcendental Magic
XVIII , S
CHARMS AND PHILTRES
JUSTITIA MYSTERIUM CANES
WE HAVE now to approach the most criminal abuse to which magical sciences can
be put, namely, venomous Magic, or rather sorcery. Let it be understood here that
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