The Phoenix. An illustrated review of occultism and philosophy

of the three 'Brains' 526, 133

An anatomical and cosmological engraving from Robert Fludd's "Collection of Works" original: "Collectio Operum" illustrates the relationship between the human body and the celestial spheres. A human head is at the top, labeled with "Mind" original: "Mens", "Intellect" original: "Intellectus", and "Reason" original: "Ratio". It is surrounded by circles representing the Empyrean Heaven and the Ray of God, also called the Sphere of Light or Sphere of Spirit. Below, the torso shows internal organs labeled A through D, which match a key. The body is contained within concentric spheres representing Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and the Ethereal Heaven.

KEY PLATE OF CORRESPONDENCES

ring sits Jupiter and to it are returned the sense of accumulation and riches. And upon the seventh ring sits Saturn, at the Gate of Chaos, and to it are returned falsehood and evil plotting."

Pythagoras believed that the empire of Pluto began downward from the Milky Way because souls, falling from thence, appeared to have already receded from the gods and to have entered into an impermanent state. Macrobius in his Commentary on Scipio's Dream gives a somewhat incomplete picture of the processes of generation as conceived by the philosophers: "The soul, therefore, falling with this first weight from the zodiac and milky way into each of the subject spheres, is not only clothed with the accession of a luminous body, but produces the particular motions which it is to exercise in the respective orbs. Thus in Saturn, it energizes according to a ratiocinative and intellective power; in the sphere of Jove, according to a practic power; in the orb of the"

Sun, according to a sensitive and imaginative nature; but according to the motion of desire in the planet Venus; of pronouncing and interpreting what it receives in the orb of Mercury; and according to a plantal or vegetable nature, and a power of acting on body, when it enters into the lunar globe. And this sphere, as it is the last among the divine orders, so it is the first in our terrene earthly situation. For this body, as it is the dregs of divine natures, so it is the first animal substance."

From the sidereal starry world with its seven spheres, the generating soul next descends into the elemental complex, which was divided by the ancients into four the 4th part of a circle parts and represented by a quartered circle. The use of the cross as the symbol of matter unquestionably gave rise to the ancient belief that the world had "corners," these "corners" being simply the extremities of this elemental cross. In the Tibetan system four demon kings guard these angles of the world, and by their ferocious mien as wardens of matter seek to intimidate those who would escape from the sublunary below the moon state.

As the world is the body or vehicle of the Supreme Agent, so the elements are called by the Cabalists the Mercavah the Chariot or quadruple throne of God, as described in Ezekiel's vision. This throne is supported by four beasts: the fixed signs of the zodiac, which were employed by the Chaldeans as symbols of earth, water, fire, and air, the four general divisions of physical matter. In his Rosicrucian Anatomy, Robert Fludd shows the entire concatenation of worlds upon the head and torso of a human body. The three states of the empyrean the highest heaven of pure fire or light were assigned to the divisions of the head; the seven planetary spheres to the thoracic cavity and its contents; and the four elemental parts to the abdominal cavity. According to this system, which is truly Cabalistic, the Ocean of Eternity, or first division of the world, fills the highest part of the skull of Arikh Anpin the Great Face or Universal Man; and the element, earth (not the planet) corresponds to the phallus of Macroprosophus the Vast Countenance.

Considering the empyrean as one plane or state, and adding to it the seven planetary spheres and

9 fold division.

• the empyrean.
• the 7 planetary factors.
• the earth.
  9 months of pre-natal life
  9 days of Eleusinian preliminary ceremonies
  9 lesser mysteries of the Gnostics
  Arabian reports of 7 chambers in the Great Pyramid

finally the elemental sphere (likewise regarded as a unity), a ninefold division of the universe is obtained. This corresponds exactly with the most secret teachings of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which divided the periods of the descent of the soul to correspond with the nine months of the prenatal epoch, declaring that during his fœtal period man recapitulates in the elemental substances the whole drama of incarnation. The second birth, or acceptance into the adytum inner sanctuary of the temple, was consummated after a nine-day ceremonial, during which the priests graphically portrayed the passage of the soul through the nine states of consciousness. The ceremonial of the eighth day set forth the state of the soul while in the lunar sphere, when it hung suspended in humidity. Thus immersed, the rational principle was declared at this point to drink of the waters of Lethe Forgetfulness, the moon's vapors of forgetfulness, so that thereafter it retained no memory of its supernal heavenly state but entered hopelessly into the consciousness of mortality. The moon was the ancient symbol of death because its emanations intoxicated the reason, which is the probable origin of the word lunacy. Consequently, every individual who has forgotten that he is essentially a divine creature is a lunatic, or one made mad by the moon. As the eighth month of the period of gestation is under the power of the moon, it was asserted that no child born in the eighth month could live. A child born in the seventh month, however, may be born and survive. Because such a one has not passed through the moon's mist, it was presumed to possess some clear or extraordinary vision. Hence, the number 7 was regarded as fortunate, because it was less than the delirium of the moon (the number 8).

After birth, which is the beginning of separative existence in the generative sphere, life moves along, ascending, as it were, the rungs of the ladder and passing through the terrestrial aspects of the sidereal forces. These aspects are what Shakespeare refers to as the seven ages of man and are completed by the infirmity of the Saturnian state, which is the last and most crystallized condition of the body before dispersion of its parts into the empyrean state. These accidental ages of man, however, do not bring him liberation from terrestrial limitations, for only from the Mystery Schools does he receive the disciplines necessary for his release from material illusions. The Gnostics celebrated nine lesser Mysteries, through the perfection of which the rational part gained complete control over generation, becoming capable of building bodies by will power, as practiced by the first race, called the Sons of Will or Yoga, who precipitated their shapes by meditation.

These nine initiations represent the development of specific states of consciousness whereby, through the perfection of virtue and integrity, the ego escapes from the karmic action and consequence forces emanating from the starry guardians; for, as Hermes also notes, the Great Spirits seated upon the thrones of the stars control the world through destiny, a collective term for the three departments of karma. The sidereal forces hold man because of their likenesses within him and when, through the mastery of his appetites and emotions, he subdues or transmutes the planetary qualities, the

regents of the world lose dominion over him. He then escapes from their clutches to the heavenly spheres.

Arabian writers on the subject of the Great Pyramid are now accused of indulging in a long flight of fancy when they declared that it contained seven chambers, each of which was dedicated to one of the seven planets; so that the building taken together was an accurate figure of the world. These same authors then go on to explain (interpreting Egyptian metaphysics with the keys of Islamic mysticism) that the soul of the dead in leaving the mummified body was forced to pass through each of these seven chambers, finally reaching liberation at the apex of the pyramid. Here the spheres of the planets have several interpretations not heretofore generally noted. For instance, they become the races through which the egoic evolution of man takes place. They are also the continents supporting these races and which, in the Hindu system, are arranged like the points of a hexagram to surround the central dot, or first and indestructible land. Here also are the seven senses which are, so to speak, the facets of the soul, by which the light of the Logos Divine Word or Reason is reflected into the sensory state.

The Spiritual Soul or Celestial Daemon Guiding Spirit, Vehicle of the virtues.

The Animal Soul, or Dweller on the Threshold, Embodiment of excesses

Plato distinguished two aspects of the soul, one divine and the other animal. The animal soul was inseparable from the body and must remain as the anima animating life principle, or animating principle. The divine soul was not bound but, motivated by the impulses of enlightened reason, could achieve liberation from the mortality of the flesh without the lower personality even being aware of this fact. Thus the ancients, including the Chinese, record circumstances where a pious man, passing out of life, meets upon one of the higher planes of the invisible worlds his own soul which had preceded his body into a state of enlightenment. This higher, or spiritual, soul is the embodiment of virtues even as the lower, or animal, soul is the embodiment of excesses. The latter becomes the Guardian of the Threshold (and called the "Dweller" in Bulwer-Lytton's Zanoni), while the former is the celestial dæmon spirit guide.

It is destined that every individual shall wander in a relapsed state until he has mastered the eight powers of the soul, even as the universe must endure in its present condition until the souls of the seven planets are united in the Messianic soul of the world. When theology ceased to teach the rationale of salvation, substituting for metaphysical truths the blanket dogma of redemption through grace alone, not only the purpose of life itself but the method of its completion was hopelessly obscured. Men forgot that the ladder of the worlds was the very framework of religious philosophy, that its understanding was the beginning of metaphysical realization. When we have come to see clearly, as the ancients saw, the spirits ascending and descending the ladder, we shall then understand those premises which underlie what is now called divine revelation. Such documents as the Genesis of Enoch, the Apocalypse, and the Vision of Hermes are meaningless until the mind can envision the nine royal arches built by Methuselah as the first temple. This temple, patterned after the Macrocosm the Great World or Universe, was devised in order that men might worship their Creator by recapitulating the very processes by which cosmos was engendered.