Getting burnt by the stars, or by magic in general, is an inherent risk in working with magic.  That doesn’t mean nobody should do it; it’s risky like a gamble is risky, or construction is risky, or cooking is risky.  Magic is a profession, something one has to constantly apply themselves to and gain expertise in, making their work their Great Work.  It’s tricky, though, and there’s always more ground to cover; one’s life’s work lasts as long as their life does, after all, and no matter how thoroughly one may think they know something, there’s always something more.

One of the things I mentioned last time was that, once you have your foot in the gate of magic, you leave enough room for yourself to slip into the world of magic and for magic to slip into your own world.  Magic isn’t always a benevolent, cheerful, happy, peaceful thing; there are demons, malevolent forces, sociopathic trickster spirits, and powers inimical to the survival of humanity out there.  There are things that would love nothing more than to see everyone and everything you come in contact to burn, shrivel, rot, and crumble just for the hell of it.  That shit’s bad, and you need to watch yourself when you get anywhere near them or connected to them.  You need to erect defenses to keep that stuff out and keep yourself safe.  But even that’s not enough, because even the good forces out there can suck, too.  If only the universe were convenient enough to have such a plain dichotomy as to simply be “good stuff helps, bad stuff hurts” without any further nuance, then I wouldn’t be writing this post.  Then again, I’m writing this post, so there’s more to it. 

There’s this notion that anything terrestrial or chthonic is bad and anything celestial or heavenly is good.  Since this series of posts is about getting burnt by the stars, let’s focus on and refute the latter idea.  The more astral dirt you accrue by tracking it in from the higher spheres, or the more dust you bring in from inviting higher ups down into your house, the more confused and imbalanced things get down here and up there alike.  When you work in any plane higher (or lower) from our current one, we track in critters and particles of stardust that, frankly, don’t belong down here and cause more harm than help.  It’s like wandering around the world and returning home: the further out you go, the stranger dust you accrue back when you’re home again, the more potential you have to bring in bedbugs, unusual toxins or pollen, or contraband that could easily get you arrested.  These innocuous things, belonging properly to their home areas, don’t belong in your home.  You may get good use out of what you went abroad for, and may have learned a lot besides, but sometimes you don’t just leave tracks and take pictures.

In a similar manner, when you work among the stars, you’re working with the raw forces of creation itself, along with their attendant gods, angels, spirits, and armies.  While generally beneficial, their notion of celestial benefice is not often correlated with humane benefice.  They have their own concerns, cares, needs, and tasks to carry out that can just as easily correlate with human needs and concerns as it can cross them.  Going to those spheres, getting the forces you need, and learning about yourself from those spheres is good, but the more you work in a certain sphere or with a certain kind of spirit, the more like that sphere and the more like those spirits you and your own sphere become.  In moderation, as in everything else, this is a good thing, but no more.  And while you may think you know exactly what you’re taking, you may not exactly be careful with what you wish for, and get just a little more than you bargained for.  In small doses, the stardust and astral grime you accrue will wash off on its own, usually, but over time the dust accrues more and more and starts causing serious issues.

Say I want to work with the forces of Mercury more, so I do weekly invocations of the god Hermes, weekly conjurations of Raphael, wear orange, meditate on the symbols of Hod, and so forth.  Sure, I end up becoming more Mercurial, but there can be a point where it gets too much.  Sure, I think faster, but I end up thinking too much and become wrapped up in possibilities and what ifs more than practical considerations.  Sure, I’m more conversational with people, but I end up getting too inquisitive, talkative, and debate-oriented for people to comfortably deal with.  Sure, I can pick out more details and issues in things to better them, but I also become more hypercritical, micromanaging, and obnoxiously nearsighted with every plan I come across.  Sure, I can do more tricks of the hand and can start playing tricks on others, but I end up trying my hand at playful theft and get in major trouble for it at work.  Without a proper balance of forces, or without clearing out all the Mercurial dust that’s been accrued from overdoing the work, I end up becoming too Mercurial to a degree that I was never meant to be.

Another issue that comes from working amongst the stars is that they’re not always good.  There’s a notion in qabbalah of the qlippoth, the empty “shells” or “husks” of the sepiroth that show the negative polarities of their respective sepirah’s qualities, or conceal the true holiness of that sephirah as a distraction to lead people astray from their true paths.  It’s easy to flip from the Tree of Life to the Tree of Death, especially in Geburah (“Strength”) where strength without being tempered by mercy, justice, or magnanimity becomes mere destruction for its own sake.  Without balancing oneself on that fine ledge between too much of the good and falling over into the bad, one working amongst the stars will find themselves either burnt by falling into too much light or getting lost in the sphere without any light at all. 

Going back to the metaphor of working with the forces of Mercury, whose associated sephirah is Hod or “Splendor”, the qlippah or husk of Mercury is “Desolation”, as in fallen or failed creations in opposition to splendorous, complete ones.  Creations require complex, logical, and interdependent plans in order to succeed; plans that insist on independence from others, untested and bad theories, or without the proper planning or foresight are doomed to fail, no matter the amount of thinking that goes into it.  Splendor without effort becomes desolation, and the desolation of things that failed in the past hide the possibility of splendor of things as yet untried in the future.  Then again, dwelling too much in splendor keeps us at too high a level to deal with the day-to-day unsplendorous reality we actually live in.

Yet another cause of getting burnt by the stars is, well, they’re stars.  Stars are big, old, and powerful; they’re gods, or so close to gods that the distinction is superficial.  Stars and gods both are blindingly bright, scaldingly hot, and wholly dangerous.  Coming face-to-face with gods is a dangerous thing, because they don’t have or deal with human needs, frailty, or faults.  They’re gods, and they do what they want.  That said, they care for humanity, but being higher than us and immortal, they operate in completely different ways that, frankly, humanity doesn’t and can’t .  Bearing in mind that the whole point of the Great Work is to wholly rejoin the Divine as wholly divine ourselves, we’re still human with flesh and souls that can be burnt.  Coming face-to-face with a god is seen effectively as a death sentence, driving people mad in Lovecraftian stories or outright burning them up in the ancient Greek myths (cf. Zeus and Semele).  Gods revealing themselves in mundane form to mundane humans is okay, but when we go up to their level and see their true forms, we risk getting burnt due to the sheer power that we’re facing.  The more divine we become, the more of their real face we can stand to look at without burning, but until we reach that point, it’ll be a slow and gradual process of revelation.  Trying to skip ahead is deadly, like trying to bust into a mystery cult without going through the proper initiations.

Coming to know ourselves through magic, gnosis of the self, is our real goal here, but it turns out that the way to and through the stars is fraught with dangers.  There are four ways we can primarily get burnt: inadvertently tracking in excess effects from the star, intentionally overworking with a star, working misguidedly with a star, and coming too close to the star without the proper apotheosis.  Burning is essential to our growth, but it helps to learn how to triage the pain and deal with healing from it. How do we deal with these problems?  Respectively,

1. Banish and cleanse.  When you go to work for something intensive, you go home and take a shower to refresh and keep yourself clean.  Just so, when you work with the stars, keep up a regular banishing practice for yourself, your working area, and your home.  You don’t have to banish immediately after every ritual, depending on the force in question, but you want to make sure you have all the forces and power you need and know about and no more.
2. Moderate and ground.  Don’t overwork yourself, and don’t become addicted to any one force.  Throttle how much you work with a given force, and be sure to balance it out with other forces that work with it and direct that raw force elsewhere in your life.  Don’t forget to keep yourself grounded, because humans are meant to live in the sphere of Earth and not wholly in the sphere of something else.  Without grounding, we try to live like we’re part of another sphere down here, which hardly ever works well unless you really know how to handle the juice.
3. Reflect and practice.  Once you bring your lessons and newfound power back to earth, be sure to figure out the best use for the things you’ve gained.  Going crazy over something just because you have the ability to do it doesn’t mean you should; just because people own guns doesn’t mean they should be using them to solve sales disputes in stores.  Recall why you needed that power and teaching in the first place, figure out the best uses for it, the ethics behind using it and when it’s proper and improper to do so.  Practice using the lessons and power you gained to prepare yourself for more, making sure you’re capable and responsible enough to use them before you attempt anything more dangerous to yourself or others.
4. Pray and grow.  The only way to become divine enough to handle divinity in its pure, pristine, distilled form is to become divine ourselves.  That requires doing the entire rest of the Work, and aspiring to become divine ourselves through prayer, meditation, growing up as humans, and growing Up as gods.  Getting the help of the gods to bring us up to their level is something they’re often willing to do, but we need to have them allow us to do so first and go through the practice of actually building ourselves up first.

Working with the stars is a dangerous thing.  Still, it shouldn’t deter us from doing it, because the payoff is worth the risk.  The dangers inherent in working with the stars require a certain kind of fortitude, reflection, and maturity that grow with us over time, which help us deal with even more later on.  It’s often said that God doesn’t try us with what we can’t handle, but sometimes the price we pay for making a mistake is high just to teach us a lesson we won’t forget.  Being careful about what we step in, ensuring our steps are slow enough, watching our step in dangerous places, and being powerful enough to step up to Power Itself are things we need to be constantly vigilant of as magicians; messing up will result in getting burnt in one way or another, and triaging the burn afterwards is more painful than making sure we’re never burnt in the first place.  Magic is esoteric for a reason: it takes lots of practice to be competent enough to chat with the Divine Source itself, but it can be done.  It just takes Work, is all.

Recently, I noticed that Ocean Delano mentioned a prayer called “Prayer of the Design”, which he used prior to one of his workings.  He links back to Brother Ash’s blog, Crossroads of Sorcery, where he talks about it in one of his posts, describing it as a prayer that can be “used in isolation or as an adjuctive/declaration in other such ritual/meditative procedures”.  Apparently, it’s taken from a ritual called the “Rite of the Opposer” as given in a book called “Qutub: The Point” by Andrew D. Chumbley for XOANON Press.  I don’t like just taking a prayer or ritual out of context, so I had to do some digging to figure out more about this ritual and text.

“Qutub” is a poem written and set of illustrations drawn (or, rather, received) by Chumbley over the course of a year, a 72 verse occult work (in 74 stanzas?) saturated with symbolism and meaning that, as Brother Ash notes, “one could write volumes trying to interpret the message and all of the symbolism contained in the 72 verse poem”.  In some ways, it reminds me of a cross between Khayyam’s Rubaiyat and Moore’s Promethea.  The book isn’t very large, comprising only 90 pages in hard copy, completed with the author’s commentary on magic and the poem, the Rite of the Opposer, and a small glossary.  The work bears a lot of influence from Hermetic, Gnostic, Sufic, and folk witch craft and lore, and is overall fairly antinomian in tone.  The big players in the poem are few in number, but important:

• Khidir, the immortal wandering sage, the flash of enlightenment personified
• Lilith, the first wife of Adam, the Witch-Queen, the giver of spiritual fire and power
• Shaitan, or Satan, the Adversary, the modern name for the chaotic and oppositive Set
• Azra’il, or Azrael, the angel of Death, closely associated with Shaitan
• God, or more specifically the Demiurge ignorant of Creation beyond his sight

Despite the superficial darkness and evil implied by the personae dramatis, the text is supposed to be antinomian instead of antitheist.  Antinomianism, the breaking of established custom or law for higher ends, is a powerful tool when applied properly in spiritual endeavors, since it’s the founding of obscene or infamous acts that deal with the unclean, polluted, filthy, and plagued so as to surpass and conquer all mundane things.  It’s the basis for a good number of tantric practices in Hindu and Buddhist teachings, as well as Bacchic, Setian, and Luciferian traditions nowadays.  It involves the breaking of rules, the transgression of morality, and the usurping of ethics to surpass and rise above them all.  Done incorrectly, it drives one into darkness and vain profanity, but when done properly, it can be a fast-track to enlightenment and spiritual apotheosis.

This ties in nicely with Gnostic ideas of the cosmos: the God we know by names and images is just another idol, the Demiurge, but one that thinks he himself is the Highest.  He’s locked in by his own ignorance, and wants us to keep us ignorant and under his and the archons’ rule because that’s all he himself knows.  As prisoners, it’s humanity’s job to break through their ignorance and darkness and escape, becoming true powers of the cosmos and recalling our memory and birth beyond memory and darkness.  By breaking the established morality of the day, institutionalized by servants of the Demiurge, one will risk social and worldly normalcy and security for something much greater and higher, becoming an enlightened theurge on our own independent of the Demiurge and archons.  However, even being enlightened, one must still opt to choose truth over falsehood, which needs knowledge of both as one.

On a higher level, the title of the work, “Qutub”, literally means “Point”.  Points have no dimension, no size, no magnitude, no direction; they are without all these things, and as such have no comparison to anything else, and thus are infinite in all ways.  It is the Singularity, the Universal Center, the crossroads and hub of all things that exist.  It is the Monad, the thing and place where distinctions like “thing” or “place” cannot be made in the presence of divine simplicity, where there is no “Lover” or “Beloved” but only “Love”.  As such, it is the goal of the Adept and magician to attain and realize the Singularity, the Point, the Crown, the Qutub.  However, to attain this singular awareness of all things, one has to start with the perspective that there a multitude of things which one must oppose and begin to incorporate, including one’s entire self and selves.

This all brings me to the “Rite of the Opposer”.  It’s a simple two-part ritual, consisting of minimal equipment (a white candle) with few circumstantial requirements (to be done at twilight), and easily adaptable (changing the direction one faces, the direction of rotation, etc.).  The Prayer of the Design and the Formula of the Opposer, the two spoken parts, are both fairly short.  The only issue I had, after finding a copy of the text, is its stated purpose, or lack thereof:

The intent of this rite is solely that given unto it by its practitioner in reciprocation to the intent of the Current summoned through its practice.  The functions and applications of this rite are revealed solely through its practice and subsequent adaptation by the practitioner in accordance with such secret and unique directions as are revealed unto him.

How informative (nope).  One Geocities-esque outdated fluffy neopagan website has the ritual posted in full, describing it as a way to meet, confront, and banish one’s Shadow self.  While this ritual probably could be used for that, I have a feeling that’s not quite in harmony with the rest of the text.  However, without having performed it yet, I can’t say much more than that.

To say that “Qutub” is an interesting or beautiful work is doing it an injustice.  You might see me talk about it more in the future, especially as I meditate more on these verses and attempt the Rite of the Opposer myself, assuming I have the time and approval from my own forces and HGA to do so (I don’t want to try something this seemingly potent without some level of awareness).  I only have an e-book copy, since the actual book is exceedingly rare to come across and even more expensive than rare, but I eventually want a hard copy though it’s not necessary to start the interpretation and meditation on the poem.  Seeing how I have a large number of dark- and folk-craft worker friends, a few of whom actually work with the forces named above in contrast to my hitherto light- and ceremonial-craft work, this might not be a bad thing to try out and chat with them on.

I’m half considering starting a blog project devoted to Chumbley’s “Qutub”, interpreting the poem verse by verse and relating it to other aspects of occult craft, tradition, and symbolism, as well as detailing my experiences performing the Rite of the Opposer.  Whether or not this is suggested is another matter, of course; revealed things tend to like staying revealed instead of discussed publicly.  We’ll see.

Do you have any thoughts, dear reader, on Chumbley, his ”Qutub”, or the UK-based Sabbatic Craft tradition?  I know he’s written “Azoetia”, but it’s not a book I’ve come across.  Post below in the comments, because this is all fairly fresh and fascinating stuff for me.

Since one of my most favorite topics in occultism and magic is divination, specifically the divinatory art of geomancy, why not talk about that?  I know a lot about it, and not many do, so let’s go with it.  If nothing else, you’ll come away slightly more educated, and I’ll come away with something looking like productivity.  With that in mind, let’s continue this little series of posts on geomancy, “De Geomanteia” (On Geomancy).  This week, just to keep things exciting, let’s talk about technique instead of figures.  Specifically, let’s talk about the seemingly-simple difference between affirmation and fortunate in a geomantic chart.

And boy, is this ever going to be a talk, so get a soda and a snack.  I can wait.  You ready?  Good!

When a querent asks a query to a geomancer, they’re probably wondering about how something will go, whether something will happen in the future that is not here yet, whether something possible actually did happen in the past, or so on.  All these queries ask something along the same lines of “will my present reality and hypothetical reality X sync up?”  In other words, I want to know whether some event (from hypothetical reality X) will or has happened (in my present reality).  Asking whether one will end up in a relationship with a specific person, whether one will lose their job at their current workplace, or similar questions all follow this pattern, and they’re all perfect for geomantic divination because, like its internal structure, it delivers a binary answer: yes or no.  It’s the geomancer’s job to find out whether the querent’s reality and their quesited reality are going to merge.

In a geomantic chart, specifically the astrological or house chart, different factors in a situation relevant to the query are assigned to one of the twelve figures in the chart.  These special figures are called significators, figures that signify the querent (the person asking the query) and the quesited (the thing asked about in the query).  For instance, if a querent asks whether they and some other person will be married, the querent is assigned to the first house (the house showing the querent) and the quesited (the other person and being married to them) is assigned to the seventh house (the house showing relationships and marriage).  In a sense, these significators show the different realities the querent is asking about; the querent’s significator shows their reality, and the quesited’s significator shows the hypothetical reality.  More generally, the same figure can appear in more than one place; this contrasts with astrology, where a planet can be in only one place (house, degree, sign, etc.) at any given time.  When the same figure appears in more than one house, that figure is said to “pass” from one house to the other.  A figure may not pass at all, or can pass to every house of the chart (e.g. when all four Mother figures are Populus).  Houses that share the same figure as a significator often show that features and things related to the nature of that house are tied up with the nature of the significator and the circumstances of the query.

Astro-geomantic charts make finding out whether there’s a connection between these different realities simply by showing whether there’s a physical or symbolic connection between the two figures in the chart.  This method, called perfection, relies on the movement or passing of figures around the chart; if the two significators appear next to each other or have a similar physical link, then the different realities will link up and the chart affirms the question (i.e. the answer is “yes”); if the two significators have no such link, the different realities will remain split and the chart denies the question (i.e. the answer is “no”).  The concept of perfection was taken from horary astrology, which used the motion of the planets as significators to determine whether something was possible or not; the earliest reference to perfection in geomantic practice I know of comes from Pietro d’Abano’s “The Method of Judging Questions” written in the late 13^th or early 14^th centuries, but may have been incorporated earlier as geomancy was being blended with astrology.

There are four main methods of perfection, each giving a “yes” answer to the query asked but with different hints at how that “yes” will come to pass.

• Occupation: the same figure appears as both significators.  This is the strongest method of perfection, and shows a complete agreement and natural harmony between the querent and quesited from the initial mindset down to the physical approach to the situation.
• Conjunction: one of the significators passes to a house neighboring the other significator.  This is the next strongest method of perfection, and shows that one party is going to work more for the end result than the other.  There are two kinds of perfection by conjunction:
  • Conjunction from the querent to the quesited: The querent’s figure passes to the house just before or just after the quesited’s house.  The querent will be the primary force in bringing about the situation, putting in the most work.
  • Conjunction from the quesited to the querent: The quesited’s figure passes to the house just before or after the querent’s house (i.e. the second or twelfth houses).  The querent won’t have to do much to bring about the “yes” situation, since the quesited’s side will work more for it.

  Besides noting what figure passes into conjunction with the other, the house the passing significator passes into also is important:

  • Significator passes into the house before the other: Work will be done behind the other’s back, in secrecy, or without the other party’s knowing.
  • Significator passes into the house after the other:  Work will be done in clear sight of the other, in open knowledge, or with acceptance and agreement between the two.

  Note that if the significator of the quesited is the one right before or after the significator of the querent (e.g. house 2 or house 12, considering that the house of the querent is in house 1), then the rules for conjunction change a little because of the close proximity of the significators.  If we look at houses 1 and 2, perfection by conjunction can only occur if the significator in the first house passes to the third (into conjunction after the significator of the quesited) or if the significator in the second house passes to the twelfth (into conjunction before the significator of the querent).  Same goes for any other pair of neighboring houses.

• Mutation: both significators appear next to each other but not in their own houses.  This shows a random or casual happenstance situation where the two parties end up in the right place at the right time to bring about the situation; neither of them are in their proper or usual places, but are present elsewhere in unexpected or unusual ones.  This random happening of fate will then bring about the situation asked about.  The specific houses the figures pass to will give a clue as to how this might be brought about.  Because both figures pass elsewhere in the chart, it can be thought of as a conjunction where both parties need to put in work or need to be out of their own comfort zones in order to bring something about.Mutation can also occur as part of a conjunction.  If we’re looking at houses 1 and 7 for a particular query, if the significator in house 1 passes to house 6, this is a conjunction from the querent to before the quesited; if the significator in house 7 passes to house 5, this along with house 6 forms a mutation, because both figures are still found next to each other but outside their own houses.  Same goes for other mixtures of conjunction and mutation for different houses.
• Translation: a third figure neighbors both significators in their own houses.    In this case, neither the querent nor quesited will have an active role in bringing about the inquired situation, but a third party will step in to bridge the gap between the parties/realities.  In a sense, translation is like conjunction, only with a third party taking up all the work instead of the querent or quesited.  As with conjunction, the houses that the translating figure passes between has potential implications:
  • Before the house of the querent and before the house of the quesited: The third party operates in relative secrecy or behind both parties backs.
  • Before the house of the querent and after the house of the quesited: The third party is working closer or in tighter or explicit alliance with the quesited than with the querent, behind whom the third party works in secrecy or without their knowing.
  • After the house of the querent and before the house of the quesited: The third party is working closer or in tighter or explicit alliance with the querent than with the quesited, behind whom the third party works in secrecy or without their knowing.
  • After the house of the querent and after the house of the quesited: The third party operates with the open, explicit, and willing agreement of both the querent and quesited, or with their full knowledge and acceptance of doing so.

It is possible that a geomantic chart may have more than one method of perfection, showing that the situation inquired about will come around in several ways or with the possibility of happening in several ways, depending on the course of action the querent can take.  For instance, it can happen that there’s both a translation and mutation between the querent’s and quesited’s significators, showing that a third party is instrumental in achieving the situation asked about and that the querent and quesited will need to be out of their own comfort zones or will randomly achieve things together; adding these, we might infer that the third party will help the querent and quesited meet up, facilitating their fortunate meeting without their direct involvement in setting things up.

So long as at least one method of perfection is present in the chart, the chart perfects and affirms the query with a “yes”.  If the chart has none of the above methods of perfection, then it’s said to lack perfection entirely, also called denial.  In this case, the chart denies the query, giving a “no” answer.

Consider Jane Doe asking the query “will I marry John Smith next year”.  Let’s look at the different ways perfection might answer this question, taking the first house to represent Jane and the seventh to represent John and the possibility of marriage to him:

• Occupation: The same figure appears in houses 1 and 7.  Both Jane and John want to marry each other and will both naturally head towards that situation, working equally and probably effortlessly in bringing it about.
• Conjunction from the querent to before the quesited: The querent’s figure in house 1 passes to house 6, before the quesited.  Jane is the real pusher in this situation, and sets things up behind John’s back to get all the paperwork, social contacts, and financial situations on board before getting him to agree with it.  She’s using more of her resources and skills than his, because she’s still trying to operate behind his back.
• Conjunction from the querent to after the quesited: The querent’s figure in house 1 passes to house 8, after the quesited.  Again, Jane is the primary force in getting married with John, but she’s operating with John’s full knowledge and maybe a bit of his help, and probably making use of his resources, as well.
• Conjunction from the quesited to before the querent: The quesited’s figure in house 7 passes to house 12, before the querent.  Similar as conjunction from the querent to before the quesited, but this time it’s John working for marriage instead of Jane.
• Conjunction from the quesited to after the querent: The quesited’s figure in house 7 passes to house 2, after the querent.  Similar as conjunction from the querent to after the quesited, but this time it’s John working for marriage instead of Jane.
• Mutation: The querent’s figure in house 1 passes to house 10 and the quesited’s figure in house 7 passes to house 11.  Neither John or Jane really expect or have a clue as to how the marriage might be brought about, but by random or fortuitous happenstance, they end up married all the same.  Since Jane’s figure passes to the tenth house (house of career, public life, government, social standing) and John’s to the eleventh house (house of social contacts, colleagues, friends, patrons), they might bump into each other frequently in the public eye, in the workplace, or amongst colleagues and friends.  (Note that I’m only using houses 10 and 11 here as an example, mutation might occur elsewhere as well, with the interpretation changing depending on the houses in question.)
• Combination mutation and conjunction: The querent’s figure in house 1 passes to house 6, before the quesited, and the quesited’s figure in house 1 passes to house 5.  Although Jane is the real pusher in this situation, and sets things up behind John’s back, John finds himself wound up with Jane through random happenstance and works with her through an easy-going or sexual means to accomplish the marriage.
• Translation before the querent and before the quesited: The figure in house 12 before the querent appears in house 6 before the quesited.  A third party, perhaps some of their friends, will set things up between Jane and John so that they’ll be married, though both Jane and John aren’t necessarily aware of it.
• Translation before the querent and after the quesited: The figure in house 12 before the querent appears in house 8 after the quesited.  A third party, probably in league with John or one of his friends, will set things up between him and Jane so that they’ll be married.
• Translation after the querent and before the quesited: The figure in house 2 after the querent appears in house 6 before the quesited.  A third party, probably in league with Jane or one of her friends, will set things up between her and John so that they’ll be married.
• Translation after the querent and after the quesited: The figure in house 2 after the querent appears in house 8 after the quesited.  A third party, perhaps some of their friends, will set things up between Jane and John so that they’ll be married, perhaps both of their friends working together closely and in alliance with each other and with Jane and John together.
• Denial: There’s no occupation, conjunction, mutation, or translation in the chart.  Jane and John will not be married in the next year.

Now, here’s the big thing: in a binary (yes/no) query, perfection does not determine whether something is good or bad, helpful or harmful, fortunate or unfortunate.  Perfection only affirms or denies whether an inquired situation will come to pass, whether something is possible or impossible, either “yes, X will happen” or “no, X will not happen”.  This is one of the biggest misunderstandings to novice geomancers, and I can’t emphasize it enough that perfection affirms or denies a query, not whether it makes it positive or negative in its influence.  To determine how fortunate a chart is, the geomancer must look at the figures in the houses themselves and how they relate to the query (along with other things like aspect, joy, the elements, and the like).  When not interpreting a binary query (e.g. “when” queries or forecasts), perfection indicates a connection or link between significators, and can be fortunate or unfortunate depending on whether the link is desired or not.

• Perfection with favorable significators of the querent and quesited: The situation will come to pass and will be good for both the querent and quesited.
• Perfection with a favorable querent’s significator and an unfavorable quesited’s significator: The situation will come to pass and will be better for the querent than the quesited.
• Perfection with an unfavorable querent’s significator and a favorable quesited’s significator:  The situation will come to pass and will be worse for the querent than the quesited.
• Perfection with unfavorable significators of the querent and quesited:  The situation will come to pass and will suck for both the querent and quesited.
• Denial with favorable significators of the querent and quesited: The situation will not come to pass but will be good for both the querent and quesited.
• Denial with a favorable querent’s significator and an unfavorable quesited’s significator: The situation will not come to pass but will be better for the querent than the quesited.
• Denial with an unfavorable querent’s significator and a favorable quesited’s significator: The situation will not come to pass but will be worse for the querent than the quesited.
• Denial with unfavorable significators of the querent and quesited: The situation will not come to pass and will suck for both the querent and the quesited.

For instance, in Jane Doe’s query above, let’s say that Puer is found in house 1 (her significator) and Tristitia is found in house 7 (John Doe’s significator).  Puer is favorable in matters of love and war, and shows that she’s highly intent and set on marrying John.  Tristitia is unfavorable in matters of love, and intimates that John is not in the mood or mindset for marriage.  If the chart perfects, then Jane will ger way though John may not feel too sanguine about the marriage; if the chart denies perfection, then they won’t marry and Jane may just be set on being his boyfriend or unmarried partner or some such.  On the other hand, if Jane is represented by Amissio and John by Fortuna Major, then both of these figures are fortunate given the query (Amissio, ruled by Venus, is favorable in matters of love); if the chart perfects, then John is married to a woman who loves him dearly and Jane is married to a successful and constant husband; if the chart denies perfection, then Jane will likely pine away for a bit before regaining her senses, while John will go on his own and resume life independently, weathering out this emotional storm.

Again, perfection only says “yes” or “no”, while the figures themselves say “good” or “bad” and for whom.  This is probably one of the most important differences to keep in mind when evaluating an astrological geomantic chart that involves these kinds of queries.  When a query doesn’t involve a “yes” or “no” answer, such as in a location reading or a geomantic forecast, perfection isn’t as much help but is still useful in showing what’s directly affecting or being affected by other factors in the chart, or where one’s sphere of influence is strongest in affecting other parts of reality.

The same rules above go for when there are multiple significators beyond just the querent and quesited.  Just to show how complex a geomantic reading can get with a few simple rules, consider a query relating to a disease and potential treatment for it.  In such a medical chart, several houses come into play: the first house refers to the querent, the sixth to the disease or condition, the seventh to the doctor, and the tenth to the regimen or treatment.  If there are favorable figures for the querent and doctor and unfavorable figures for the disease and regimen, with perfection between the querent/doctor, doctor/disease, querent/disease, querent/regimen, and doctor/regimen, I could say that the querent and doctor are getting along well and amicably and the querent understands the nature of the regimen the doctor is able and willing to provide the querent; however, the regimen is nasty and distasteful, and won’t have an effect on the disease in question, which is known to the querent and doctor but is painful or awful to deal with.

Some geomancers (John Michael Greer, notably) like using aspect to indicate perfection or denial thereof; if one significator passes into trine (four houses away, e.g. houses 1 and 5) or sextile (two houses away, e.g. houses 1 and 3), this means affirmation, while a square (three houses away, e.g. houses 1 and 4) or opposition (six houses away, e.g. houses 1 and 7) indicate denial.  I haven’t found this to be helpful in determining perfection or affirmation of a chart in my own practice.  At best, sextiles and trines indicate opportunity or ease in accomplishing something, but fall short of a “yes” answer on their own; squares and opposition indicate difficulty or rivalry in accomplishing something, but fall short of a “no” answer on their own.  I keep aspects in the category of techniques that indicate fortunateness and favorability, and separate from perfection proper.  In a pinch, I’ll take a favorable aspect to indicate a very qualified “yes” or a potential for a “yes” and an unfavorable aspect to indicate a very qualified “no” or a potential for a “no” answer, assuming a favorable influence is what the querent is looking for, but this is without any other kind of perfection going on to give me something more certain to go by.

I understand that this can get a little complex, though with a little guidance and practice, the rules of perfection will be pretty easy to understand.  If you have any questions or examples you’d like me to help sort out what’s perfection and what’s not, please feel free to post them in the comments.  (The same goes for any post I write, but just making this explicit here.)

Magic burns.  We’ve gone over that enough by now, I think; magic is difficult to do, and even more difficult to do properly.  There are lots of steps one can take (and should take and take and retake again regularly) to help manage the burn, you’re still going to get burnt.  And that’s okay, though it may not seem like it.  Besides, even though one can get burned pretty bad by making mistakes that are, in retrospect, pretty easy to avoid, there’s still going to be burning involved.  One might contrast these two kinds of burning as burning down and burning up, the difference between them being whether one is burning one’s resources for more burnable resources, or burning one’s resources for more rarefied, adamantine treasures.  I keep saying that doing magic and being burnt is worth it, but given the risks associated with it and how one can easily be burned down as one can be burned up, people might not be able to understand why doing magic is worth it.

In the Hermetic view of things, mankind was made in the image of God.  Quoth Hermes Trismegistus from the Divine Poemander:

But the Father of all things, the Mind being Life and Light, brought forth Man like unto himself, whom he loved as his proper Birth; for he was all beauteous, having the image of his Father.  For indeed God was exceedingly enamoured of his own form or shape, and delivered unto it all his own Workmanships. But he, seeing and understanding the Creation of the Workman in the whole, would needs also himself fall to work, and so was separated from the Father, being in the sphere of Generation or Operation.  Having all Power, he considered the Operations or Workmanships of the Seven; but they loved him, and everyone made him partaker of his own order.  And he learning diligently, and understanding their Essence, and partaking their Nature, resolved to pierce and break through the Circumference of the Circles, and to understand the power of him that sits upon the Fire.

This is the big guy up in the highest of all heavens, the Nous, the Great Mind, the Infinite and Almighty Divine Source of All Things, the One Thing, the First Father, but “God” is a convenient word to describe the dude.  In the beginning, God made mankind in his own image and form, which means that we took on pretty much all the qualities of our Father: we were created by the One who creates, so it’s literally in our blood and spirit to create as well.  Creation, then, is a holy and divine act, and when we create our children, our materials, our homes, our lives, our realities, we are ultimately performing a holy act, which can just as easily and conveniently be called “magic”.  Magic is, after all, causing a change in reality to conform to our will, and to cause something to happen is to create the event.

Anyway, so we have the ability to do magic from our divine source, and our license to do it is our birthright.  Once created, we left the nest from whence we were made to go create our own, and in the process encountered the Seven Spheres, other neighborhoods in our divine heavenly hometown; in exploring them, we found the seven planetary governors who happened to be real good friends with our father.  Since they like our father (being, you know, made and employed by him as well), they saw us as their little sibling and really worthy of pretty much everything they had, so they helped us learn how to operate in their own respective spheres and how to work with the things they work with.  Once we learned what we could from them, we said our goodbyes and headed onto the next stop, and so on and so on, and in the process kept learning more about ourselves as we learned more about the Source who created all this.  After all, if the Divine Almighty created all these spheres, then he’s a part of them too, which means we’re a part of them, which means we can work in and with them.

But then, we came across another neighborhood in the hometown:

And having already all power of mortal things, of the Living, and of the unreasonable creatures of the World, stooped down and peeped through the Harmony, and breaking through the strength of the Circles, so showed and made manifest the downward-born Nature, the fair and beautiful Shape or Form of God.  Which, when he saw, having in itself the unsatiable Beauty, and all the operations of the Seven Governors, and the Form or Shape of God, he smiled for love, as if he had seen the shape or likeness in the Water, or the shadow upon the Earth, of the fairest Human form.  And seeing in the Water a Shape, a Shape like unto himself, in himself he loved it, and would cohabit with it, and immediately upon the resolution ensued the operation, and brought forth the unreasonable Image or Shape.  Nature presently laying hold of what it so much loved, did wholly wrap herself about it, and they were mingled, for they loved one another.  And from this cause Man above all things that live upon earth is double: Mortal, because of his body, and Immortal, because of the substantial Man. For being immortal, and having power of all things, he yet suffers mortal things, and such as are subject to Fate or Destiny.  And therefore being above all Harmony, he is made and become a servant to Harmony, he is Hermaphrodite, or Male and Female, and watchful, he is governed by and subjected to a Father, that is both Male and Female, and watchful.

We ended up in the Sphere of the Earth, Malkuth, the Kingdom, the densest and most intriguing stop we’ve made so far in our celestial travels.  We finally saw a form of ourselves in our reflections here, and we thought it looked so cool that we ended up making a body for ourselves in this place which combines the essence of all the other places and spheres we’ve been to so far, and then some.   We ended up making our own body and started willfully inhabiting it, and since our body was made in our form and our form was made in the image of God, our body was also made in the image of God (though a little further removed).  Since everybody loves God, just as God loves everything, just so Nature herself (the power and force of the sphere of the Earth) fell in love with our bodies.  Nature then overwhelmed us in rapture, and we found ourselves in a beautiful love affair with Nature.  The thing is that, just like someone playing hooky from work to fool around all day at home, we ended up getting distracted and forgot about our duties, origins, and purpose in the cosmos.  We became so enamored by Earth that we became earthly instead of heavenly.

This itself isn’t a bad thing, but it does make things weird for us.  We ended up sticking around in our earthly bodies a little too long and forgot where we came from, what we’re capable of, and what we’re supposed to do.  We kept focusing and specializing with earthly, mundane things for so long that we forgot we knew anything else.  We lost sight of our childhood hopes and dreams and settled down in a place we shouldn’t settle down in at a time too early to settle down.  We became more animal than human.  And that’s not good for us.  However, we’ve been used to being here for so long that we’ve gotten comfortable being mundane and strictly material, when we’re really supposed to be more than that and, even if we choose to partake in mundane stuff, we’re not supposed to be utterly reliant on it.  And that’s where the pain of burning up comes in: in order to be heavenly, we have to get used to being heavenly again.  Since what lives up in the heavens are stars, we have to get used to being stars ourselves again.  Since stars are illustrious, powerful, and magnificent because of their burning, so too do we have to burn in order to shine like and outshine the stars themselves.

And that’s why getting burnt by the stars is a good thing, when done properly.  It’s like breaking an addiction: yes, we’re going to have to go through withdrawal, and yes, we may need an intervention or two along the way to make sure we’re on the right track and don’t relapse.  It’s going to suck, but the payoff is worth it, because it brings us back to our senses, it reminds us of who we are, and it helps us see what we can really do and accomplish.  It empowers us to do more spiritually with less materially, and in the process able to do more both spiritually and materially.  As creatures of the Creator, and as creators ourselves, it’s our job to create things that are better for us and the cosmos; this includes the creation of a more perfect, more splendid, and more kick-ass awesome physical reality, but it requires a knowledge of our heavenly, spiritual selves to do that.  In order to shine, we need to strip off the layers of dust and cruft that’ve accumulated long since before we were born; even though the initial polishing might be abrasive, the burnishing and blindingly bright effect will truly be a sight to behold.

Also, there’s a bunch more talk going on around the blogosphere this week about what the Great Work is and why we’re supposed to do it, which you might want to check out from Inominandum, Frater Rufus Opus (who keeps saying things), and Frater MC.  What I put above is my view, which is still in formation and is pretty by-the-book Hermeticism, but it ties in well with what I’m going through and what I’ve experienced, seen, heard, and read.

What is piety?

• According to etymology, piety comes from Latin pietas, the noun from of pius, meaning “good” or “devout”.
• According to the dictionary, piety means “reverence for God or devout fulfillment of religious obligations”.

Simple enough.  Time to end this post, let’s all get drunk.  Not.

Back in ancient Greece, Plato once wrote a dialogue wherein his then-dead teacher, Socrates, was talking to someone outside the courts.  Socrates was on his fated and fatal trial charging him with impiety and the introduction of new gods to Athens, and he encounters Euthyphro, a prosecutor for another case (against his father for murder) which also involves piety and doing what is just in the eyes of the gods.  Chatting idly before the courts, they engage in a bit of discussion about their upcoming trials, which eventually settles on the nature of piety.  After all, if piety weren’t an issue, Socrates couldn’t be charged with corrupting the youth of Athens because of his impiety, and if piety weren’t demanded of Euthyphro, he wouldn’t be testifying and placing a charge against his own father.

The problem is that neither of them can give an explanation for what piety actually is.  Through their dialogue, Socrates gets the following answers out of Euthyrphro for what piety is, but notices a problem with each of them.

1. Piety is what Euthyphro is doing right then, viz. prosecuting someone of a crime, just as Zeus restrained and punished his father, who restrained and punished his father before him, which were acts of justice.  Socrates points out that, while this act may be pious indeed, there are other acts which are considered pious; this is an example of piety, not an explanation or definition of it.  Rejected.
2. Piety is what is dear to the gods, and impiety is what is not dear to the gods.  Socrates points out that the gods disgree amongst themselves, and that some disagreements may be on points where there is no factual or objective measure to agree by, such as what is just and what is unjust.  So, though the gods may hold what is dear to them to be what is pious, what is dear to one god may be repulsive to another, so the same action may be both pious and impious at once, which is a contradiction.  Rejected.
3. Piety is what is dear to all the gods, and impiety is what is all the gods hold not dear.  This is something they both agree on, but then Socrates asks a crucial question: is what is pious pious because the gods love it, or do the gods love it because it’s pious?  In other words, is it pious because the gods say so, or is it pious because of something intrinsic to itself?  It can’t be both, because then that would lead to a vicious circle, and further, just the fact that the gods love something doesn’t mean that it is intrinsically pious because of that fact.  Their loving it is a recognition of it being pious is thus an attribute of piety, but is not a definition for piety.  Rejected.
4. Piety is a type of justice.  In other words, Socrates supposes that, since all things that are pious are just, piety is based on what is just.  However, because there are things that are just that are not necessarily pious, we can’t just assign the qualities of justice to piety and be finished there.  It’s a superclass/subclass or genus/species issue of definition; we may have some qualities of piety, but not all of them, without which we can’t yet have a definition of piety.  If piety is only a part of justice, which part is it?  Neither Socrates nor Euthyphro can answer.  Rejected.
5. Piety is an action that is just that attends to the gods.  In this instance, attendance to something is done to improve, benefit, and guide them.  However, Socrates then states that pious acts are done to improve the gods, which they both quickly agree is a dangerous statement of hubris.  Instead, Euthyphro restates the definition of attendance to be something more like ministration or service to a god to deliver things that please them.  This then defines piety as giving the gods what pleases them, which then devolves into the definition of what is dear to the gods.  Rejected.
6. Piety is the art of sacrifice and prayerto the gods, learning how to please the gods in word and deed.  Sacrifice is defined as the act of giving to the gods, and prayer as asking or receiving from the gods; piety, then, is an art and science of giving and asking, which is a kind of business or transaction.  However, the gods want from us things that please them, which is essentially gives piety the same definition as above.  Rejected.

After this point, Euthyphro has to leave to get to his trial on time, leaving Socrates just as confused as ever as he prepares to combat a charge about a quality he hasn’t found any explanation or definition for.  Kinda sucks, really, but we end up with the notion that piety is intricately bound up with what divinity approves of.  So we have a bit of a dilemma on our hands: is something pious because it has an innate nature called “piety” that is only recognized and approved of by an outside source, or is it pious because it is explicitly liked by divinity for no other reason than it pleases them?

• If what is pious is instrinsically pious, then that implies that there is a rule or order of things outside of divine order.  If so, then divinity has no power over it to change it, divinity is itself holy based on things that are pious and so aren’t worthy of worship in and of themselves but only to the degree that they support piety, and piety would still exist even if there were no gods to approve of them.
• If what is pious is just what is pious to the gods because they like it, then that implies that pious things amount to no more than “because I said so”.  If so, then anything could be possible, allowed, legal, or demanded just because divinity wants it: if he said it pleased him to kill unborn babies, or for triangles to have more than three angles.  Morality could not exist without divinity already existing, morality could not be eternal laws due to the potential for divinity to change its mind about a command, and removes any reason to praise God.

In Hebrew thought, the similar quality of tzedeq (same triliteral root that gives Jupiter and its angel their names) doesn’t have the same dilemma, since it’s considered an action or event that can be seen and recognized.  The only way to describe the totality of things that are tzedeq is a list of all things that fall under that category.  In other words, it can only be enumerated specifically, not formulated generally.

From the point of view of a Hermetic philosopher, this is where a slightly different notion of divinity come into play.  In my case, good is not separate from divinity; divinity is not separate from what is good, or anything else for that matter.  Being good is being godly, and the only thing that is purely and only good is God (or, rather, the Divine Source).  Being good in a godly way (not in the common, mundane, or humane way) is, then, what piety could very well be.  This permits bad things to happen, in the sense that bad is what is not good, but only from a humane or mundane perspective.  This agrees with the earlier definition Euthyphro kept getting stuck on, because God likes and constantly contemplates Itself Mindfully, at one point speaking the Word to act and interact with itself; thus, being Good (capital-g “good in a godly way”) is being what God likes, i.e. pious and piety.

How do we know what being Good is?  By being Godly.  In being Godly, we learn the mind of the Nous, the word of the Logos, and the wisdom of Sophia, which help us collectively in knowing ourselves.  By knowing ourselves, we learn what we really want to do and what we really need to do; from a teleological or Godly point of view, the two are ultimately the same.  This is knowing our True Will, knowing the true course of our lives and how to act in accordance with our nature and Nature/God itself.  “Do what thou wilt” isn’t just a license to fuck around and fuck up as fancy would drive one to do, but is really an injunction to do what you need, are suited, and are destined to do.  In doing this, we do what is Good, and in doing what is Good we become pious.

However, this type of Good defies definition beyond “what is Godly”.  It’s entirely above and beyond mechanical, natural, logical, or spiritual revelation, coming from the superclass and source of all these things.  The only way to learn what one should do is to…well, you tell me.

Since one of my most favorite topics in occultism and magic is divination, specifically the divinatory art of geomancy, why not talk about that? I know a lot about it, and not many do, so let’s go with it. If nothing else, you’ll come away slightly more educated, and I’ll come away with something looking like productivity. With that in mind, let’s continue this little series of posts on geomancy, “De Geomanteia” (On Geomancy). This week, let’s talk about this figure:

Rubeus

This is the figure Rubeus.  In Latin, its name means “Red”, which is pretty common in lots of other traditions, but can also be named as “burning” or “danger”.  If you (quite literally) connect the dots, you might come up with a figure that looks like an overturned goblet.

First, the technical details of this figure.  It’s associated with Mars in retrograde motion and the astrological signs of Scorpio or Gemini, depending on whom you ask (though the connections with Scorpio are much stronger no matter what); due to its Martian qualities, it’s also associated with the sephirah Geburah.  It has only the air line active with all others passive, and thus is corresponded as a whole to the element of Air.  It is an odd figure with seven points, relating more to internal states of the subjective mind than external states of objective reality.  It is a mobile and exiting figure, showing things to be dynamic, fast-moving, and fleeting in influence.  In the body, it signifies the sexual and reproductive organs, as well as the excretory systems of the body. Its inverse figure (everything this figure is not on an external level) is Puella, the Girl, showing that this figure is not patient, not harmonious, not accommodating.  Its reverse figure (the same qualities of this figure taken to its opposite, internal extreme) is Albus, White, showing that this figure is not introspective, not fore-thinking, not balanced.  Its converse figure (the same qualities of this figure expressed in a similar manner) is Puer, the Boy, showing that it is similarly highly eager, easily excitable, and quick to action.  Rubeus is a difficult figure to deal with, very fast-moving and hectic to the point of confusion and flailing.  It’s all about being impassioned at a superficial level, leading to excess, indulgence, intoxication, and violence.  Because of this, it’s generally unfavorable except for the situations where these things are good or desired.

Picture in your mind’s eye, dear reader, that you’re at another of the swanky social parties at the house of some noble in Renaissance Italy, perhaps at some palace of the Medicis or Albizzis.  They happen tolerably often, and the host and his lovely wife are chatting with different groups, wandering from clique to clique, livery and leggings and gold in abundance.  The clinking of goblets, the soft chatter of the partiers, the soft tunes of viols and lutes fill the air and abruptly comes to a disgraceful crash when all attention goes to the wife of the host.  Apparently, some poor sap made a social misstep, which the paranoid hostess took as a gross insult; despite the lavish and high-class people around her, her face goes from a pretty pale to a dark, raging blush.  The dude made no more than a light jest at someone across the room, but the hostess took it as a slight against her own noble self, and she starts going crazy at him for having maltreated her so: threatening him with the multitude of daggers she has hidden in her bodice, spitting invective, even going so far as to throw her glass of dark wine in her victim’s face.  Just as soon as it began, it ends, and she walks off fulfilled, getting another glass of wine to sip while she resumes flitting from clique to clique.  The rest of the guests try to continue their evening as normal, as ever normal can be around her, and the host just shakes his head and lets it go.

If you were to describe the common negative traits of the astrological sign of Scorpio—its craziness, its excess, its passion, and its danger—you’d also basically describe the geomantic figure Rubeus.  The name itself, “red”, is one that has stuck from ancient Islamic and African traditions of geomancy up to its late European cousins lineages.  Red is the color of life itself, the color of red earth, red meat, red fruit, or red blood, but it’s only when life is in danger or needs to be really brought to the surface does the redness of it all really come to play.  Times when we get angry, we get passionately involved in something, when we’re hunting or being hunted, or when we’re injured: these are the times when the redness of life sets off a red light as a warning, when we see red for some reason or another.  Rubeus as a figure is connected with the indulgent, abusive, and exploitative nature of Scorpio and Mars, taking advantage of anything at its disposal just because it can.  That includes drugs, alcohol, sex, violence, arguing, and anything else that can give a superficial rush of life without any deeper meaning or need.

Rubeus is a figure that represents passionate involvement in something, but only as long as it stays involved.  It thrives on the here and now, on getting the most out of everything and more besides, but without any lasting committment or treatment or method in order to keep things that way.  It’s like a tornado: quick to arise, quick to dissipate, but while it lasts it gets into and wrecks everything, sucking everything in and tossing it out just as fast.  This befits its elemental structure of having only Air active, and Rubeus being an airy figure.  Without Water to keep it connected to anything else, without Earth to ground it out and contain it, and without Fire to direct it or illuminate it, Rubeus is basically the “monkey mind”, the mind thinking for thinking’s own sake, but on a massive scale.  Internally, this leads to confusion and a lack of depth in the mind, with thoughts being thought and then distracted immediately onto the next thought.  Externally, this leads to one flitting around from group to group, activity to activity, situation to situation, drug to drug, cock to cock (or vaj to vaj, or either to either depending on your tastes); whatever’s here and now is most important to Rubeus, and it doesn’t care how far it goes so long as it’s there to partake in it.

Contrast Rubeus, then, with the detached-but-thoughtful Albus: while Rubeus is only Air, Albus is only Water.  Albus is reflective, thoughtful, meditative, and pensive, but at the expense of being communicative, active, outgoing, and connective to others.  Albus reflects upon itself, since there’s nothing else for it to involve itself with.  Rubeus is only empty communication, vain activity, and outward going without the ability to connect on a deeper, more lasting, or profound level.  Also contrast Rubeus with Puella, its elemental inverse: while Puella is the ideal hostess, calm and abiding and harmonic with all her guests, whose only goal is to entertain and enliven the partiers, Rubeus is the bitchy crazy hostess who lives for only the parties.  Puella sees past appearances and works accordingly, but appearances are all that Rubeus sees without a realization of subtlety or deeper need.  While Rubeus might be crazy whirlwind undirected passion, Puer (the other Martian figure and the converse of Rubeus) is directed passion, focused on a single topic and objective.  Puer actually accomplishes something by plunging right into the heart of it, either with his cock or his sword (the same thing, really, but for different ends), but Rubeus flits around grazing only the surface of something and everything around it.

One medical association of the four elements connects them with the four humours, the idea that the regulation of the body and its functions are governed by four fluids in the body: yellow bile (choler, Fire), black bile (melancholy, Earth), phlegm (Water), and blood (Air).  Rubeus, the only geomantic figure with only Air, is representative of the nature of the sanguine humour, and both share one important characteristic: they’re both red.  They both live on circulation, going hither and thither, doing one thing then another then another, never sticking around long enough to do anything else.  When blood, thoughts, and actions are kept superficial and light on the touch as they should be, things go well: organs get just the oxygen they need and the blood goes on to recirculate, thoughts can easily look at a broad situation to get a first-glance point of view, and people open themselves up to new experiences at the drop of a hat.  When they get stuck for too long in one place, though, things often go poorly: blood can clot and cause strokes or other issues, thoughts can keep getting distracted when they should be focused on something or can dwell for too long on something that isn’t any deeper than it actually is, or people can indulge in too much too soon without much of a need at all.

In geomantic readings, Rubeus is usually a negative figure, if only because it indicates superficiality and excess when we least want them; one good keyword to go by for this figure is “hectic”.  It’s often found to be favorable when excess, indulgence in experiences like drink or drugs or sex, or being quick-to-come and quick-to-go is a good thing, and this often is.  It’s also a symbol of secrecy and trickery, often of confusion or compulsion rather than earnest deceit.  Beyond this, though, Rubeus is all about being a whirlwind of energy and activity that usually bodes poorly for something, since it also indicates violence, abuse, or utter confusion as a result from not being able to contain those energies.  At a high level, Rubeus is only fortunate for matters involving indulgence in sexuality, intoxicants, and violence, and little else besides.  Be careful when it appears in the sixth house, since it might indicate STDs and other reproductive or excretory issues, though it could just as easily indicate hypochondria.   Magically, Rubeus is associated with malefic Mars and dark Scorpio, and can be good for wrapping someone up in a confusion of their own thoughts, tipping something over into excess, or giving a good blast of energy and activity from nowhere in particular all at once.

Doing this conjuration cycle of mine keeps me busy, but it also keeps me constantly refreshed with the forces I interact with constantly.  While the major focus of the cycle is to keep me progressing through the spheres of the planets, which is one of my major focuses these days, I don’t often talk about the elements anymore like how I did in the past.  It’s not because I’m not working with them anymore, because I surely am, and it’s not because I’ve mastered them, because I surely haven’t.  But…well, they’re elements.  They’re the basic building blocks of our sphere down here, the things I was first introduced to in magic.  Simply put, they’re elementary.  As a result, my conjurations and chats with the four archangelic kings of the elements have gotten shorter and shorter; there’s less and less to talk about, since these forces are pretty reliably integrated into my own sphere, as far as I can tell.

That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to learn from them still, though.

Recently, I was talking with the angel Michael of Fire.  Taking a look at my own sphere, it was heartily and healthily ablaze with Fire, that wonderful hot and dry element that creates light and inspires one to go higher.  My own self within my sphere, though, was much darker and moister, but even within that there was still a small flame glowing brightly on its own.  I realized that this was suboptimal—what goes on within my own self should be reflected in my entire sphere, and an imbalance of without versus within indicates a lack of connection—so Michael and I worked together to forge a link between the Fire outside myself and the Fire within myself.  It was just the beginning, and much more will likely need doing, but this was still an improvement over before, when there was little Fire to speak of in my sphere at all, much less my own self within my sphere.

Michael and I discussed what we did, both elementally and symbolically (really the same thing here).  That tiny flame represents the beginning of my gnosis, my self-knowledge, the knowledge and awareness of my Will, the flame that really powers me and drives me to go on.  It’s small, but it’s beginning to grow; so long as I “keep myself hot”, quoth Michael, I’ll continue to keep that flame alive and burning more and more.  It’s going to be a long process, but the fact that I’ve gotten to this point after only this long is impressive to me.  Coming to know our Will, the thing we really need to do according to our set, setting, context, and destiny, is kinda big in a lot of occult systems nowadays, probably like how it’s always been.  And according to the progress reports and checkups I’m getting from the forces I work with, I’m on the right track.

Sure, I’m no master of fire, no more than I’ve completed the Great Work itself.  But I’ve certainly gotten the force of Fire, the force of my own Will, integrated into my own sphere, and starting to learn and know more about it.  By this process, I’ve been able to work with my Will more and more, which is a result of doing my Will, my True Will, as I should be.  By carrying out our True Wills, we follow a path that’s effectively been laid out for us, whether by accident or design; this path can be arduous at times, painful at others, and easy at yet others, but it’s this path that allows us to grow, grow stronger, grow up, and grow into ourselves.  By this process, things tend to go more and more our way, as if the path becomes straighter or more known no matter how crooked or errant it may get.

When we follow and carry out our True Wills, things generally go easier for us, since they’re increasingly tied into the things we’re doing.  We encounter fewer and fewer difficulties, since we’re effectively carrying out our roles to play in the cosmos, and “if God is for us, who can be against us”?  Sure, we might still attract haters (who will, after all, continue to hate on ‘choo), but when we work our Will on the cosmos, people who would interfere with us are either brought over to our side and begin helping us instead, or are drowned out, burned up, or otherwise silenced and made powerless to counteract or contradict us.  Plus, the more we work our True Will, the more we begin to find and associate with those who are also carrying out their Will, and since they’re doing what they must for the cosmos, it’ll naturally fall in line and correlate with what we must do for the cosmos, as two players on opposite sides of an orchestra play harmoniously in the whole.

It’s only when someone else messes up their part and trashes their Will so badly that it ends up careening into yours that can cause problems, like a planet that suddenly shifts out of orbit and collides into other planets, or a player in an orchestra that decides to start playing a march when everyone else is playing a waltz just to confuse others.  Sometimes this is out of earnest confusion and spiritual flailing, sometimes this is out of deliberate spite and (mis- or ab-)use of their power and Will.  This can certainly cause issues, and can even put a cold damper or shut down the flame of one who’s actually working their Will as they should.  All it needs is a bit of correction on both our part and the parts of others to get everything singing harmoniously again, and then we’ll all be aweseome again as we should.

In a way, the idea of True Will is starting to sound a lot like Grace to me: just as Grace is not a reward, neither is True Will, but they’re both the state and result of being doing the highest Good, of becoming properly Godly, and coming to truly know yourself, your origins, and your duty.

What’s that I hear?  I do believe I just heard you say that you’re interested in doing magic or something occult, but you just don’t have the time to do it.  Or maybe it wasn’t you.  I could’ve sworn it was.  My apologies, dear reader, but I hear and read and see this far too often among people in occulture.  For one reason or another, there are lots of people who study magic and ritual and the supernatural and the occult with all the fanaticism and interest in the world, but when it comes to doing it, they just…don’t.  Either they don’t have the time, the resources, or the know-how to do all this interesting stuff which works, they’re sure.  Some of them find practical magic in all but the most dire of situations abhorrent, but that’s a volatile topic for another day.

Bullshit they don’t have the time, resources, or knowledge.  Magic is little more than (a) getting to know your proper place in the universe and coming into your birthright as a God-damned God-blessed human being and/or (b) according to good old Crowley, “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will”.  With those definitions in mind, I daresay that magic is at once of the most necessary, easy, natural things that we can do.  So what’s your problem?  Get off your ass and do something magical, I implore you.

Here’s a short list of a few things you might do tonight, this week or weekend, or anytime at all that you might do to get started.  (Am I now one of those people who make lists of faintly interesting shit on the internet?  Apparently, yes!)  They’re all really easy to do, require only the most basic of common sense and supplies (if anything at all), and are not intensive in either the time or effort they take.

• Learn divination.
  Not all divination systems are as complex as Tarot or horary astrology.  Divination’s a useful skill, and can help in making any number of decisions, forecasts, or predictions from the mundane and simple to the spiritual and meaningful.  Pick up a guide on the I Ching or Geomancy (not feng shui) at a bookstore, or check the Internet for simple divination systems (such as bwa bwei).  Make a set of runes from card stock or wood chips, or get a deck of playing cards and learn how to do divination with them (an older method than Tarot).  If you’re more of a visual type, use some incense, a fire pit, or candle to practice your scrying skills.
• Make friends with your household or local spirits.
  Get some bread, wine, fruit, cheese, milk, or whatever you feel is appropriate for an offering to the spirits of your home or property.  Set out a plate by the hearth, back door, or entertainment center with a candle.  Light the candle and call out to the spirits, gods, genii, Lares and Penates, or whatever of the home (if you know the name of your home’s spirit, use that).  Declare that you’re giving the offerings to the spirit(s) freely and joyfully and hope that the spirit(s) will take it for however and whatever purposes that they will, and that you hope you and the spirit(s) will live happily, peacefully, and prosperously together.  Once you build up a rapport, make small requests like helping you to find the remote or keeping pet smells to a minimum before you have the chance to clean it up.  It’s like living with roommates you’re on really good terms with, except invisible.
• Chat it up with God or some deity.
  “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10).  Take fifteen minutes to sit down and pray to divinity in whatever form it takes for you.  Really, sit down and commune.  Divinity, in whatever form or by whatever name you know it, wants to know you.  Divinity would absolutely love for you to spend some time with it and just chew the rug with it (respectfully, of course).  Get yourself into the proper mindset: thank them for their roles and boons and blessings in your life, extol and remember their story and travails and myths (if any), praise the deity’s virtues and powers.  You’ll get into a kind of headspace where seeing, talking, and just being with the deity just happens spontaneously.  It’s so simple and easy, it can almost be taken for granted were it not for the fact that you’re talking to one of the real higher-ups of the cosmos and all.  The amount you can learn and benefit from this sort of thing can’t be described.
• Enchant some everyday object you use a lot.
  Pick something you use a lot: a ring you wear all the time, a favorite pen, your keyboard, a particular spatula for cooking.  Enchant it to increase your productivity, improve the quality of things you make with it, or to generally make things easier on yourself.  How do you go about doing this?  If you want to use the traditional seven planets of astrology and magic, pick a planet or planets related to your objective and say their Orphic Hymns or Picatrix Invocations in their proper planetary day and hour, maybe lighting a candle or suffumigating it in the planet’s proper incense.  Alternatively, conjure the planet’s related angel to do the work for you, or conjure the genius or spirit of the object itself and ask it to help you accomplish what you want.  You could also soak, suffumigate, or anoint the object with materials, herbs, and oils that have a “natural virtue” associated with what you want (such as rose and sandalwood oils for beauty).
• Write down ten ideas for rituals, sigils, materia projects, or magical goals.
  Make a short list of things you want to cast a spell, perform a ritual, weave a sigil, pray, enchant, or whatever for.  It can be grandiose and overarching, or it can be simple and mundane.  Tenants upstairs walk like elephants?  ”Vacate the apartment above me.”  Allergy problems?  ”Effective management of allergies.”  Need some cash?  ”Profitable side-project ideas.”  Better understanding of your self and nature?  ”Contact HGA.”  You get the point.  Once you get a few ideas jotted down, you’ve taken the first step to accomplishing them.
• Clean and cleanse your home, physically and spiritually.
  Yes, get out the broom, vacuum, rags, mop, and pail.   Clean your floors, your counters, your dishes, your floorboards, your toilet and tub.  Do your laundry, change your sheets, organize your desk.  Put on some gay thump-thump club music if you’re into that, or something to really get into scrubbing your house down.  Once you’re done physically making stuff spotless, turn to the metaphysical side: sprinkle holy water in every room, on your bed, on your doors and windows, and do a general banishing of your house to clear it of all the spiritual gunk that’s accumulated.  Use an aspergillium if you feel like being traditional, or use a spray bottle and spritz down your house.  Don’t have holy water?  Buy it at a local botanica or get it from a church.  Not on good terms with your priest?  Make it yourself.  Don’t forget to use a bit on yourself, either directly or in a bath.

Do you find any of the above still too hard?  Or maybe you’re scared at all of doing anything really magical or mystical, since you feel that it’s stupid or sinful or demonic or frightening somehow (and yet you find yourself reading my blog with such rapt and undivided attention).  In that case, try some of these equally-magical-but-less-overtly-mystical things.  They’re less glitzy, sure, but they’re no less helpful in anyone’s work or Work.

• Start doing periodic reality checks.
  Every so often, catch yourself in the midst of your daily routine.  Whether it’s walking from the train station, sitting at your desk, gardening in your backyard, or even while hooking up at a party (try to be a little more subtle there), check that you’re in the hard, physical, material world.  Look at your hands, pinch yourself, check the clock, feel and be aware of your body and self in the world.  Knowing where you are and how you are in the cosmos is important so that you don’t lose track of yourself.  For people good at dreams, this will help you realize when you’re dreaming and when you’re awake, which might help with lucid dreaming or better dream recall.  If nothing else, be aware of where, what, and who you are.
• Practice throat singing, vibrating, intoning, or just general public speaking and enunciation.
  The spoken word has incredible power; just look at any number of lists of dictators, rulers, and influential people throughout history, and chances are a good number of them were even better orators.  Communicating clearly is important for both spiritual and mundane work, so why not practice this as well?  Learn how to intone or vibrate things so you can channel them and really imbue your body and mind with particular names or words; practice clear and steady speech so that people will be more willing to hear you and, once having heard, be affected or influenced by you.  If you want to be really awesome, learn and practice throat singing like Tibetan monks do.  (That last one can be tricky, but if you can do it, SO MANY people will be amazed that they’ll do anything for you just due to the cool factor.)  Heck, try just singing in the car to practice and strengthen your voice.  Nobody can hear you, unless they’re riding with you, of course.
• Meditate.
  Get a chair, stool, or cushion.  Sit.  Breathe.   That’s all you need to do.  Do it.  The benefits of meditation are myriad and manifold, and is required for any and every serious spiritual, occult, or metaphysical discipline or tradition.  Yes, it’ll take practice.  You’ll get it.  Just keep doing meditation every day, a little bit per day and build up slightly longer every week.  You may not become a master (though it can happen), but you don’t need to.  Even a moderate meditation practitioner, from five to ten minutes a day, can reap a jaw-dropping amount of benefits without even beginning to touch the spiritual aspects of the practice.
• Get drunk.
  Crack open a few bottles of wine, take a few shots of cheap whiskey, or savor a glass of some good scotch.  Get a few six-packs of beer or down a few bottles of sangria (my favorite is Yago Sant’Gria, being both delicious and bottom-shelf cheap).  Hell, if some other intoxicating drug’s more your thing, get gone on that (but be responsible and discreet).  Sure, it may be a bit antinomian and decadent, but it’s an easy way to slip into an altered state of awareness.  Being with gods and spirits requires a different state of mind than we’re normally in; finding ways to shake us out of that mindset (literally, a fixing and settling of the mind) helps us get used to being crazy later on in a more controlled, pointed way.  There are very good reasons a lot of mystery and shamanic paths use entheogens, after all.
• Read a fantasy story.
  Broaden your horizons.  The creative among us went through the time, trouble, and effort to open up new avenues of thought, build wholly undiscovered areas of the imagination from whole cloth, and give us motive after plot after character after exposition to toy with in our minds.  Without seeing and being introduced to the wild and fantastic, how can anyone interested in magic ever build up the mental strength, stamina, and fortitude to do the same in their very own waking life?
• Take a road trip.
  Similar to reading a fantasy story, broaden your horizons.  Show your mind places it’s never been before and give it more food for thought.  Introduce yourself to strangers so you can see more people (you can only dream of faces you’ve already seen, for one).  Learn real-life stories and places that you’d never have thought of on your own, but can truly physically and materially experience in the flesh.
• Write down ten goals for the next six months.
  Jot down ten things you want to get done or see accomplished in the next sixth months.  They can be mundane, they can be spiritual, they can be financial, whatever.  They don’t even have to be serious goals; in fact, a good way to get ahead in life (and by “ahead” I mean “unduly and undeservedly rewarded for random opportunities that happened to be there”) is to say “fuck it” to the most absurd things.  Be aware of what you want to get done and give a little thought to how.  Once you plant those seeds, you’ve got the first step down to manifesting those goals, even if you don’t take much action on them right away.  But it will help you with figuring out good short-term plans that you can get done and feel accomplished from.  Protip: cross them off with a big, bold Sharpie when you accomplish any one of them.  The feeling of satisfaction there is hard to match.

What’re you waiting for?  Go on, now.  Get to Work.  Got any other ideas?  Post them down in the comments; who know, you might just be setting a goal for someone else by doing so.

Since one of my most favorite topics in occultism and magic is divination, specifically the divinatory art of geomancy, why not talk about that? I know a lot about it, and not many do, so let’s go with it. If nothing else, you’ll come away slightly more educated, and I’ll come away with something looking like productivity. With that in mind, let’s continue this little series of posts on geomancy, “De Geomanteia” (On Geomancy). This week, let’s talk about this figure:

Puer

This is the figure Puer.  In Latin, its name means “Boy”, but is also named “the Beardless One” in some Islamic traditions, as well as “sword” or “fighter”.  If you (quite literally) connect the dots, you might come up with a figure that looks like a sword, a phallus, or a man with exaggerated testicles.  (Hey, I don’t make the images up.  Geomancy is a sexy, sexy art.)

First, the technical details of this figure.  It’s associated with Mars in direct motion and the astrological signs of Aries; due to its Martian qualities, it’s also associated with the sephirah Geburah.  It has the earth, air, and fire lines active with only the water line passive; overall, it’s associated with the element of Air.  It is an odd figure with five points, relating to subjective, inner states of the soul and experienced reality rather than objective, independent, or external situations.  It is a mobile and exiting figure, showing things to be dynamic, fast-moving, and fleeting in influence.  In the body, it signifies the head and its associated organs. Its inverse figure (everything this figure is not on an external level) is Albus, White, showing that this figure is not introspective, not fore-thinking, not balanced.  Its reverse figure (the same qualities of this figure taken to its opposite, internal extreme) is Puella, the Girl, showing that this figure is not patient, not harmonious, not accommodating.  Its converse figure (the same qualities of this figure expressed in a similar manner) is Rubeus, Red, showing that it is similarly highly eager, easily excitable, and quick to action.  Puer is a fun but active figure to work with, being very eager, excitable, and ready for action; it’s favorable for anything involving a lot of strength, muscle, activity, and directed passion (namely, war and love), but due to its rashness and overeagerness, tends to be unfavorable for most everything else.

The young man dressed in rags and armor, riding his horse, drops his armor’s visor, raises his sword, and plunges into the fight.  All he’s in it for is to fight, and the fight is real, especially if he’s the one to start it (he usually is).  If he’s on the right side in the fight, he’ll lay his enemies bare and clear the field to pave the way for future foundations; if not, he’ll live to fight for a hopeless and regretful day later.  But that doesn’t matter to him, anyway; he lives for the fight, the struggle, the excitement, the passion, the heat, and the war that never ends for him.  His visor limits his vision, cutting out peripheral vision entirely and causing him to focus on what’s right ahead of him; just so does he only care for the current day and the current battle.  He’s young and without experience of victory, or even finesse in battle, his rashness and recklessness giving him all the flailing speed and power he needs, but he’s fighting not just to fight but also for that experience he lacks.  And, after all, he’s fighting because there’s one thing he’s missing: someone to really fight for.  Don’t expect him to be your ally when you call, but expect him to call on you or pull you into the fight.

Welcome to the fiery, flustered, fighting world of Puer.  Like a few of the other figures, Puer is tightly connected and identified with its astrological counterpart, Mars and Aries, or even Mars in Aries.  Pure energy, pure eagerness, pure activity and eagerness are what define Puer, and thus tag along the corresponding rashness, recklessness, and abandon that comes with them.  Puer is the young adventurer setting off on his quest just after his first victorious battle: excited that he can start conquering, unaware that he can’t yet conquer everything.  He rides that ego boost like his horse, not caring about the difficulty ahead, but up to the challenge, no matter what it is.  His inexperience is dangerous, but he’s adventuring to fix that, as well, in addition to his ultimate objective to fulfill (whatever it is).  It’s the young warrior off to find the Holy Grail, Luke right off of Tatooine ready to fight the Empire, the college graduate ready to reform the world the way he thinks it should be.

It’s that idea of fulfilling an objective that’s central to the image of Puer.  Elementally, Puer has fire, air, and earth active: he has the drive and the will to fight, the mind and plan to get out and explore, and the shield and resources to keep himself going.  His courage and curiosity lead him to keep moving on and around, acting on and interacting with the world, give him the overall nature of Air.  The only thing he lacks is the ability to emotionally, empathically connect to others, and as a fighter, he’s focused on fighting against rather than living with others; Puer lacks water in every sense, he lacks a heart.  This is contrasted to Puella, the Girl, who only abides and waits for others to come to her, taking them in and giving them purpose, but not acting on her own; she has fire, earth, and water active, but no air, no actual interaction.  Cliché though it might sound, Puer and Puella make a pair: the Boy seeks the Girl for union and companionship, the Sword to be plunged into the Chalice for the Great Rite.  In other words, Puer is horny for results.  (This is another one of those figures that give away an old gender binary sexism, but at least the symbolism is consistent.)

Yes, extend this metaphor as far as you want, just like Puer extends his, er, erect sword.  Direct, straight, and to the point, Puer is easily understood, though its associations with Air might be cloudy.  Puer is a figure of Mars, which is also associated with Rubeus.  Rubeus, however, is dark, feminine Martian energy, while Puer is bright and masculine.  Both of these figures are ruled by Air, which is not normally associated with Mars (Fire is much more Martian in temperament and quality).  However, consider that it doesn’t make any sense to be Martian except when there are others around to be Martian with: while some of the other planets are capable of existing on their own, Mars (like the other planets associated with the negative Pillar of Boaz on the Qabbalah) requires something to enforce or force on others.  While Rubeus is just pure passion and energy thrown in any direction at all like a crazy lady or a tornado, Puer represents passion and drive thrust into a single direction.  Anything not related to the thing that Puer is focused on will either be ignored outright or be the victim of collateral damage.

When Puer appears in a reading, get ready for action!  Puer brings a lot of energy directed at a single objective, whatever it may be.  Because of this, arguments and actual physical violence can happen as a result.  Puer is favorable whenever energy, enthusiasm, eagerness, speed, courage, and the possibility of change are good things, though it can also bring recklessness, rashness, and volatility as well.  It’s unfavorable whenever slowness, thinking before acting, planning carefully, stability, and discretion are good things, since Puer doesn’t do these very well.  Anything that requires finesse will suffer, but anything that can tolerate or make use of vitality and eagerness that can make up for a lack of tact or skill will likely do better than otherwise.  Things or events that require violence, fighting, or fighting for something, including love and war, are especially suitable for this young rash figure’s energies.  Magically, Puer can be used to empower someone by setting a fire under their ass and getting them active again, but can also give a testy, volatile atmosphere to a place or person.

A while back, I was flipping through one of my books on symbols (Symbols: Encyclopedia of Western Signs and Ideograms by Carl G. Liungman, an essential reference for anyone who works with or has work involving symbols and signs).  Though it spans all kinds of graphical symbols, it has a pretty large index of alchemical and occult symbols, which pleases me to no end.  Towards the back, I found this rather interesting symbol:

This is called the Catena Aurea Homeri, or the Golden Chain of Homer.  It comes from a Renaissance alchemical text of the same name, edited by Anton Josef Kirchweger.  The text is a simple, almost modern introduction to the processes of alchemy (the first part can be found online), the intent of which is to produce the Quintessence:

From the sky it comes,
To the sky it rises,
and down to Earth it must come again,
eternally changing.

The Golden Chain of Homer is a symbolic representation of the process to make Quintessnce, also called the Philsopher’s Stone, or the completion of the Great Work (alchemical, theurgical, or otherwise, it’s all the same in the end).  In other words, it provides a From the top of the Chain to the bottom,

1. A cross over a circle combined, set over a circle with a point in it.  The cross over a circle is the traditional symbol for Earth (as is the quartered circle), representing the precedence of matter (cross) over spirit (circle).  This is placed over the symbol for the Sun, the source of all light and Light, the representative of God in the planets.  Matter takes place over God, a confusion of process and manifestation.  Chaos.
2. A circle with a line connecting its top vertex to its center.  The line represents the active, divine spirit descending from God into matter, but the process is incomplete.  Vital essence without a basis, pure Mercury.  Spiritual form needing though yet without body.
3. A circle with a line passing through its vertical diameter.  The process of spirit has completed penetrating matter.  This is also the alchemical symbol for niter, also called nitrogen in modern chemistry, an essential vital substance that descends in the air from spirit.  This is spirit that has a body.  The masculine essence, light, the Logos, the active agent, also called Sulfur.
4. A circle with a line passing through its horizontal diameter.  Spirit, having fully penetrated matter, now starts to become penetrated by matter. This symbol is also the alchemical symbol for salt, the essence of stability and solidity, the pure matter used in alchemical processes.  The female essence, darkness, the Anima Mundi, the passive agent.
5. A quartered circle, also called the Sun Cross or Sun Wheel.  Matter has become totally permeated by spirit, and spirit by matter.  Niter and salt united.  Life in its totality and the union of material and spiritual forces.  Mankind.  The primary substance of all things that are manifested.  The prime material that can be worked in any direction for any purpose, the basis for Azoth.
6. A circle with a line passing through its horizontal diameter and a line from its top vertex to its center.  Life, having become the complete union of matter and spirit, of salt and niter, now begins retracting itself from matter in its entirety.  The animal world that mankind separates himself from and rises above.  Volatile forces.
7. A circle with a line passing through its horizontal diameter and a vertical line passing through the horizontal line not connected to the outer circle.  The rise of mankind to higher states of spirituality, not grounded by matter though still a part of it.  The plant world that mankind separates himself though makes use of.
8. A circle with a line passing through its horizontal diameter and a line from its bottom vertex to its center.  The attainment of the Great Work, or of eternal life, by mankind, allowing himself to abide within the world of matter though not being a part of it anymore.  Freedom from material darkness.  The mineral world that mankind separates himself though rests upon.
9. A circle with a line from its bottom vertex to its center.  Mankind begins the process of returning to his primordial state and reunion with God, retracting himself from the world of matter entirely, leaving behind the spheres of manifestation to return to the divine Source.  Pure spiritual essence, broken down into its most basic state, extracted from chaos.  Spiritual form without need for a body.
10. A circle with a point in it, set over a cross under a circle combined.  This represents God (Sun, circle with central point) set over matter (circle and cross, but inverted to show Venus); matter has become completely at peace and subject to the rule of spirit, a state of divine love between Above and Below.  The return of mankind to God, the conjunction and reunion with the divine Source, the goal of the wise, the Quintessence, the Stone of the Philosophers.

Why am I talking about this out of nowhere?  Besides being an interesting alternative explanation of the Great Work from an alchemical perspective, almost like a chemical version of the Tree of Life, well…

Okay, what they say about getting tattoos, “you can’t get just one”, is kinda true.  I started off with my caduceus and asclepian, and then due to timing I figured I may as well get this symbol engraved on my mortal coil.  My method of getting tattoos is that, as befits my Libran nature, I need to have balance: asymmetry here won’t cut it, so if I get a tattoo, it either needs to be centered (on the body’s midline) or balanced with something on the other side (caduceus on the left arm, asclepian on the right arm).  So, getting a large spine tattoo works pretty well for me.  That said, it hurt like a bitch; spine tattoos are notorious for being among the most painful, and the lower the tattoo went, the more painful it got.  It was actually more painful just off to the side of the spine than on the spine directly, but all the same, ouch.  (I don’t know why anyone would ever get a tramp stamp.)  Still, the tattoo was charged enough given my concentration and pain-focusing on it, which turned out really nicely.

Speaking of magic, I actually had a bit of help from the spirits for this.  The artist at Wild Style who tattooed the caduceus and asclepian on my arms had left, so I got a much more experienced tattoo artist with better machinery.  He had traced on the design from a stencil, and while I was lying on the bed waiting for him to finish preparing, I make a call out to my elemental and planetary allies to help me out with the impending pain and ordeal.  Out of nowhere, I get really anxious, uncommonly strong even for me, and just before he starts to turn on the tattoo gun, I get up and take a close look at the trace of the design on my back.  Turns out they had accidentally used the bottom half of the Chain for the top half (so that the chain went in stages 10-9-8-7-6-5-5-6-7-8-9-10 instead of the proper 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10), which I immediately pointed out and had them retrace it.  It was an honest mistake on their part, and they didn’t catch that the chain wasn’t just a reflection.  But at least it was caught, and I wasn’t nearly as anxious after that.  Props to my spirit friends for making me check the design out again before it was made permanent; I burned a tableful of candles the next day to all the spheres and spirits I work with as thanks.

Still, the tattoo hurt.  Even though I was in experienced hands (Tony Scientific, awesome dude) with a new tattoo gun that was both faster and less painful than older guns, it was still two hours in one sitting.  I think this will be my last tattoo for a while, once it finishes healing and gets touched up next month.  All told, though, the design turned out pretty damn good, and I’m very pleased with it.  As a dedication of myself to the Great Work and to the completion of the cosmos that I’m working towards, I don’t think this could get much better.  (Also enjoy one of the few nearly-naked vanity shots I’ll ever willfully post on the Interwebs.)

Being what I am and growing up the way I did, politically speaking, I’m pretty liberal.  I don’t often like to talk about politics, mostly because it’s become to polarized as of late to the point where it’s pretty pointless, but it doesn’t stop me from getting on Reddit (/r/politics/) or Wonkette to read up on current and political events and periodically getting incensed by some of the BS I keep reading, political or otherwise.  It’s gotten so bad that I, horrible at remembering who’s who amongst the talking heads, can pick out a number of politicians or other political speakers by face and name.  For someone who almost takes a perverse pride in not keeping up on pop culture, this is kinda embarrassing.

I’m gay.  I think the government should collect taxes to provide for the people in whatever ways the people agree to.  I think people should benefit each other though a centralized collection agency to distribute funds and resources appropriately for all people to benefit equally from the system.  I think the government should protect one’s ability to choose (birth control, religion, speech, gun control, marriage, etc.) instead of enforcing one of many choices (often from a particular religious standpoint).  These are only a few of the positions I take on current events and issues, and I’m not bringing this up to discuss them here.  I understand that a lot of these positions make a lot of people angry, often irrationally so, and some of these traits (namely the one that drives me to date, love, and fuck whom I will) will also incite violent or murderous tendencies against me, which is really a shame.  And I know many politicians or popular leaders, both in my country and in many others, who claim that I’m an abomination and deserve death for my oh-so-sinful ways because I’m just so icky.

And I look at pictures of these political and public leaders claiming for my death or incarceration, or the politicians trying to legislate that all people follow the tenets of a particular line of a particular sect of a particular religion no matter how draconian they may be, or those who insist on taxing lower-income people at higher rates than higher-income people across the board.  I see them next to the headlines of the awful, bigoted things they say, which makes me angry at their faces and pictures.  I don’t do emotion very well, but anger and I get along nicely, and I indulge myself in that kind of fiery feeling when it comes to policy and politics.  Sometimes, I want to turn their heated rhetoric right back on them.

But then I realize that if I took away the headlines and just had the pictures…well, I’d just see pictures of people.  Older men and women in suits.  Sometimes younger people leading other people.  People who are human, just like me.  People who had a mother and a father with their own problems.  People with their own hopes, dreams, aspirations, worries, and fears.  People who were born and who will eventually die.  People who have illnesses and day-to-day concerns about their health and livelihoods, no matter how fortunate or unfortunate.  People who had an upbringing with experience that taught them the things they know.  People who laugh and cry and get angry and get sad and fall in love and fall down heartbroken.  People who sometimes work and who sometimes relax, who sometimes like getting mired in the world and who sometimes need to escape.  People who have their own set of circumstances, context, and setting to deal with and who gave them the head start or handicap they have.  People who breathe, who bleed, who get sick, who get injured.  People who are human, just like me.

I realize that I and some of the politicians and leaders may have differences of opinion or philosophy, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re still people.  Even though our thoughts on the world shape it for ourselves, it doesn’t change the fact that they still have to live and work with other humans.  If I were to swap the names and political views of two politicians, one whom I liked and one whom I disliked, it wouldn’t change their nature from essentially human, with all the dignity and damnation that humanity accords. 

In astrology, the planets aren’t constant in their power.  Depending on where a planet can be found, how fast a planet’s going, or what other astrological factors combine with the planet, its strength or ability to exert force on the world can wax or wane.  This strength is called dignity, which can either be accidental (based on non-locational astrological factors) or essential (related to the zodiac and the planet’s location in it).  Different planets are strong or weak in different places in the zodiac.  However, humans aren’t planets, and humans are greater than the sum of all the planets and elements and all the other forces in the cosmos.  Humans, unlike planets, never wax or wane in their essential dignity.  Humans always have dignity, no matter which human.

I just wish more people could realize the essential dignity of others as well as their own.  I’m not calling for some utopian brotherhood of man for us all to awaken to (though that’d be nice), but it hurts to see other people denigrating others as being less than human.  When you lay invective against the “Other”, making them seem animal or feral or viral or subhuman, you make it easy to mistreat them, even if you don’t believe the invective yourself.  When you forget that other people are still people, you forget that they have a stake in the world just as much as you do.  When you neglect another’s essential dignity, you make it easy for others to neglect your own dignity, perpetuating a cycle of hate and denigration.  And when you forsake the dignity of another, you prepare yourself for committing acts that are themselves inhuman and unfit for humanity.

Please, guys.  If you find yourself making a joke, or a snide comment, or even an unspoken thought that makes some “Other” inferior to yourself, that denigrates them, or that neglects their own personal, human concerns, catch yourself.  I don’t know how many of my readers do this, or whether this little rant of mine will at all affect the greater world, but come on, guys.  Part of the Great Work is to reclaim our race and heritage, which is both divine and human.  If all things are divine, then all things at one point or another are One, and thus we are all equals in the cosmic scheme of things.  Maintain that equality, remember that we all have the same essential dignity.  Treat others accordingly.

I brought up my political views above to make a point about polarization and differences of views not being a difference in essential humanity, not to discuss them with my readers.  That’s not the focus of this blog or this post, and any comments trying to discuss them or incite a debate on these topics will be deleted.

Since one of my most favorite topics in occultism and magic is divination, specifically the divinatory art of geomancy, why not talk about that? I know a lot about it, and not many do, so let’s go with it. If nothing else, you’ll come away slightly more educated, and I’ll come away with something looking like productivity. With that in mind, let’s continue this little series of posts on geomancy, “De Geomanteia” (On Geomancy). This week, let’s talk about this figure:

Via

This is the figure Via.  In Latin, its name means “Road”, which is pretty common in lots of other traditions, but can also be named as “journey” or “candle”.  If you (quite literally) connect the dots, you might come up with a figure that looks like a straight road leading off into the distance, a walking-stick, or a single solitary person.

First, the technical details of this figure.  It’s associated with the Moon waning and the astrological signs of Cancer or Leo, depending on whom you ask; due to its lunar qualities, it’s associated with the sephirah Yesod.  It has all elements active, and no elements passive, being the most dynamic, changing, and forceful geomantic figure of them all; due to its extremely changeable nature, it’s given as a whole to the element Water.  It’s an even figure with four points, the fewest possible number, relating to objective situations rather than internal or felt events.  It is a mobile and exiting figure, showing things to be dynamic, fast-moving, and fleeting in influence.  In the body, it signifies the stomach and digestive organs of the body.  Its inverse figure (everything this figure is not on an external level) is Populus, the People, showing that this figure is not stable, not plural, not motionless.  Its reverse figure (the same qualities of this figure taken to its opposite, internal extreme) is the same, Via itself, showing that this figure is the same from all points of view.  Its converse figure (the same qualities of this figure expressed in a similar manner) is also Populus, indicating that it is cyclical, internally whole, and representative of whole systems.  Via is the most dynamic figure in all of geomancy, and changes everything around it, from bad to good and good to bad, mobile to stable and stable to mobile.  It’s complete and utter change, represented by journeys and travels that do the same thing to those who wander them, and is fortunate whenever change, speed, travel, and journeys metaphorical or literal are desired.  Via is unfortunate when one desires stability, maintaining the status quo, keeping in one spot, and resting in known comforts.

Via is the ultimate symbol of change: from light into darkness, from brilliance into gloom, from joy to sadness, from freedom to despair, from truth to falsehood, from contentedness to terror, and all back again.  Via is our infinite reminder that nothing is without opposites or opposition, that everything that exists has two sides, two faces.  Imagine a road that goes on into the vanishing-point distance at infinity, with day on one side and night on the left, clear skies on one and storms on the other, fertile grasslands on one and barren rocks on the other.  The road is but a thin line that divides both, teetering on either side, partaking of both and being of neither.  All forces are in balance, constantly shifting, constantly taking from each other, constantly taking over at the expense of others; it is a complete and stably dynamic system, where change is the only constant.

Via was historically considered to be the most powerful and significant of all the geomantic figures, especially in Arabic systems of geomancy, because Via is the only figure with all the elements: there is no passivity in Via, no receptivity, no motionlessness.  Via represents the combination of all forces, complete in itself, and is the most active and mobile of all the figures.  The pure force contained within Via creates a type of controlled chaos, a self-contained microcosm containing all forces constantly at work with and against each other, taking from the others while giving back to them.  Via is pure dynamic dynamos, power and upheaval in all ways.

Keep in mind that when two figures are added, the active element in one flips the activity or passivity in the other element, much as the XOR (exclusive or) function in logical systems.  Via, being entirely active, transforms entire figures into their logical opposites, or as I’ve been calling this whole time, their inverse.  Via plus Puer, the Boy, transforms him into Albus, the Old Man; Via plus Fortuna Maior, the Greater Fortune, transforms it into Fortuna Minor, the Lesser Fortune.  Via is the figure of complete change, and because of this, has been noted to be good with bad figures and bad with good figures.  After all, if you like or are used to how something is, you probably aren’t going to like its opposite.  It’s not a terrible figure, though, especially when such complete change is needed or desired.  Because of this power to completely change any figure (or state of the universe) into its diametric opposite, Via is seen as a powerful figure indeed.

The fluidity and dynamic motion that Via provides associates it closest with the element of Water.  Despite that Via has all elements active, its nature is complete change and transformation.  Fire burns up, Air flows outward, and Earth contracts inward, but only Water flows down and through itself (when it moves at all).  The constant change and motion that Via represents associates it with the water of rivers, historically used as major transportation routes and called “roads” themselves.  After all, when using such transportation, one can quickly change everything from one’s surroundings, states of being, plans, and emotional senses of self in short time.  Even the river itself changes; quoth Heraclitus, “you could not step twice into the same river, for other waters are ever flowing on to you”.

That said, the way and courses that roads lead to never change.  Although all roads lead to Rome, that’s all all they ever do: lead.  It’s the traveler and itinerants themselves that must go on the roads and change themselves, taking the suggestions from Via to transport and alter themselves along the road.  It’s up to the traveler to decide when, how, and where they change, living the change themselves.  What roads they take, which exits or forks they choose, when they travel, which people they travel with, which things they carry with them or leave behind, these are all choices travelers take when embarking on their journey, all of which will have repercussions on their journey, their surroundings, their destinations, and themselves.  In this case, it’s similar to the Moon, the planet that rules over Via: although the Moon is always the same and her course around the heavens, her shape continuously changes based on her state in her travels.  It’s a cyclic, controlled change, but it’s never the same, never stable, and never constant.

Via in a reading indicates change, often a reversal from what has normally been the case, a complete upheaval from the status quo of a situation.  Via often indicates traveling to obtain or carry something out or obtain something, especially if it also appears in the third house (local travel or commutes) or ninth house (distant travel, out of state or abroad).  Whenever change or journeying, in any sense, is desired, Via is fantastic; it’s a poor figure to find when keeping things the same or stable is desired, including one’s own position physically.  Via is good with bad figures and bad with good figures, but also indicates that things are unclear or are in the process of change so much that no clear or confident answer can be given.  Magically, Via can be used to induce chaos or change into a system, and is a good figure to make use of when traveling around and want to ensure that a trip can actually be made, though perhaps not with a fixed destination in mind.

Cornelius Agrippa in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy (book I, chapter 8; book II, chapter 7) relates the four elements to the celestial objects, namely the planets, mostly because magicians like to figure out what can stand in for what in different contexts.  According to Agrippa, Earth is the element that basically allows all of Creation to be created (book I, chapter 5):

Now the Basis, and foundation of all the Elements, is the Earth, for that is the object, subject, and receptacle of all Celestiall rayes, and influencies; in it are contained the seeds, and Seminall vertues of all things; and therefore it is said to be Animall, Vegetable, and Minerall. It being made fruitfull by the other Elements, and the Heavens, brings forth all things of it self; It receives the abundance of all things, and is, as it were the first fountain, from whence all things spring, it is the Center, foundation, and mother of all things…It is the first matter of our Creation, and the truest Medicine that can restore, and preserve us.

Agrippa makes a connection between Earth and the Moon and the fixed stars, indicating how the element of Earth can be reflected in the skies.  I mentioned this briefly before, focusing mostly on the connection between elemental Earth and planetary Moon:

…the heaven of the Moon is the closest to Earth, making it the most dense of the seven planets.  As the most dense planet, it’s the last stop for an Idea coming from the sphere of the Prime Mover through the stars and the other planets to finally come into form; this is the sphere where something actually takes a materialized shape, even if it’s only illusory and ephemeral.  This is also shown since, as the fastest moving planet and the lowest rung on the ladder, it collects the rays and forces of all the other planets and influences above it, focusing them like a lens onto the Earth…Like the element of Earth, which takes form and receives the influences of the other elements, the Moon takes form and receives the influences of the other planets.

The connection between the terrestrial sphere of Earth and the celestial sphere of the fixed stars is a little more difficult for me to rationalize.  I suppose I’ve been going on the notion that, just as Earth is the most stable and immovable of the elements, so too are the fixed stars the most stable and immovable of the celestial objects referenced in magic.  After all, they don’t really move much (at an extremely slow rate, not counting the negligible effect the motion of the fixed stars have to each other), especially compared to the otherwise rapid motion of the wandering stars (a.k.a. planets).  Beyond that, I never really thought about it much.  I’ve got some other work before I get up and running with the sphere of the fixed stars, so I haven’t actually gone up to call Iophiel (or Raziel, depending on the text).

Recently, I was chatting with Auriel, the archangelic king of the sphere of Earth, and after the usual friendly chat, catching up over a glass of wine in a circle, and empowerment of myself and my sphere with the element of Earth, we sat down and started talking about what Earth is really like at length and in depth.  As usual, “as above so below” is a good rule to go by, and Auriel instructed me to take a look at the Tree of Life a little more closely, especially between the sephiroth of Malkuth and Kether.  For one, everything in the sphere of the Earth, the sephirah of Malkuth, has at least a little Earth in it; that’s why the elemental colors of Malkuth are “dim” or murky, to show that they’re not the pure elements in their ideal form.  Malkuth is the physical, material universe, the one that modern atheistic scientism holds is the only thing that exists.  On the other hand, Kether is unmanifest infinity, divinely simple in that everything that is, was, will be, isn’t, was never, can never, and may be is all One Thing.

Without Earth, nothing can have a material basis; it’s the only element that can’t combine on its own with itself, but can combine with itself through the use of other elements that it’s blended with.  Earth, for instance, can offer a basis for Fire to burn, a course for Air to flow over, or a container for Water to fill, but Earth cannot do anything with Earth on its own.  Because of this, it’s more than just convenience that everything on Earth is at least partially made of Earth, both sharing the same name.  Earth is the most malleable of elements, and takes the influence from everything above it.  Earth is the key to manifestation; without it, much like in the geomantic figure Cauda Draconis, everything passes away from and nothing can be brought into material reality.  Without Earth, the bottom drops out quite literally.

The highest sephirah is Kether, the Crown, which is basically the starting point for infinity from finite existence, the place where finite reality stops having an end and starts having no end and no limit at all.  Though it has the qabbalistic path number of one, and though I don’t have much experience to talk about it, I feel like this is somewhat misleading.  Although one is computationally the root of all numbers, Kether includes all things that exist as well as all things that don’t exist.  In that sense, Kether might be better termed i or something.  Things don’t really start to begin the process of manifestation until an Idea from the Infinite Mind, a Ray from the Infinite Light passes through the second sephirah called Chokmah, the sphere of the fixed stars.  There, something finally makes the jump from “possibility of manifestation” to “manifesting”, where things actually start to legitimately make the claim of existing.  The fall from grace, the first step of the Fool is just the first step in the Chain of Manifestation, but it’s still progress all the same.

The sphere of the fixed stars allows only rays of light that come from the sphere of the Prime Mover; these rays pass through the darkness of the Fool’s cliff and are filtered through the stars in constellations or particular regions of the sky, and appear to us down on Earth as starlight.  Without that filter to provide form, infinite possibility could never be whittled down to probable possibility.  It is this pure Light, filtered through the eighth sphere, that can take on shape or form or purpose later on based on its Idea above.  The fixed stars take on the influence and nature of the Light above it and pass it down into the world as the beginning of Creation.

The similarities between Kether and Chokmah, or the spheres of the Prime Mover and the fixed stars, with Yesod and Malkuth, or the spheres of the Moon and the Earth, now become apparent.  The Moon and Infinite Light both provide an imagined substance to be manifested in the realm beneath it; the Earth supplies a concrete, manifested form based on the imaged and astral form from the Moon, while the fixed stars supply a viable, manifesting Idea based on the unbound and divine Idea from the Source.  The difference between King and Kingdom lies in where and how things come to be.  Just as the fixed stars provide realization for an idea to manifest something at the beginning, Earth provides substance for form to manifest something at the end.  It’s this ability to turn undefined, vague things into clear(er), specific things that relates the fixed stars to the Earth.

At least, that’s my opinion for now.  Though much can be said of the stars and planets and elements in writing, especially in terms of theory and cosmology, working with magic is still a mystery: it requires working with and experience to really grok the whole shebang.  But I’ll go with Auriel’s guidance for now.

Having finally ran out of my Amazon-bought Florida water, I finally decided to make my own.  Florida water’s some good stuff; it’s originally a kind of citrusy perfume or toilet water, but it found its way into American-style magic as a good spiritual cleansing agent and offering to the dead.  It’s pretty Light-based, so dark-workers may not find the stuff particularly useful, but I love the stuff.  I got the basis of the following recipe from a friend, but I customized it and charged it differently than how they did it, so let me share my process with you guys.

Ingredients used:

• A handle (750mL) of dustbunny-shelf cheap-ass paint thinner vodka (90 proof or above is suggested)
• A lemon
• A lime
• Six cloves, crushed
• A heaping tablespoon each of dried: vervain, bergamot, lavender, rose petals, hyssop

Process:

1. On a Sunday in an hour of the Sun while the Moon is waxing, get all your crap together.
2. Zest the lemon and lime.  Thoroughly juice the lemon and lime.  Slice up the remainder of the flesh and rinds finely.  Put all into a clean 1gal container with an airtight, fitted lid.
3. Put all the dried ingredients in the container.
4. Pour the vodka into the container.  You should have plenty of leftover space.
5. Cap and seal the container.  Give it a good shake.
6. For each day over the next complete lunation until the Moon returns to its phase when you began, shake the container (preferably in hours of the Sun) thoroughly while charging the mixture with Light and prayers.  (I use my Blessing of Light, the Trisagion six times, and the Song of the Serpent six times).
7. When complete, separate out all the solid ingredients, strain out all possible liquid from them, and save the Florida water in appropriate bottles.

While the Florida water was stewing, it had about the right scent, but also smelled obnoxiously like salad dressing or dill-based vinaigrette.  It was a little annoying, but the smell went away once the plant matter was strained out well enough and once I added another half liter of distilled water (may as well dilute it ahead of time and get rid of some of the alcoholic kick).  It came out a light, murky brown-green, but for how it capital-L Looks ethereally, it’s pretty bright and solar for what I want.  Overall, a success!  I’m eager to use it, especially since it’s a whole handle of the stuff.

I like to use Florida water in cleansing mixtures (a spray bottle of holy water, 7-11 Holy Oil, and Florida water to cleanse all my magical tools, for instance), as well as putting a bit in my aftershave astringent.  I’ll also put a splash into liquid offerings I make to the local dead or nature spirits, since apparently a lot of things enjoy this stuff, though it might be kept away from dark or deathy entities or workers.

UPDATE (2/18/2013): After Andrew’s comment below, I went through and filtered the Florida water.  I had already used a fine-mesh strainer to get most of the gunk out, but after filtering it through cheesecloth and coffee filters, the color changed into a bright and smooth amber.  Very nice improvement.

Since one of my most favorite topics in occultism and magic is divination, specifically the divinatory art of geomancy, why not talk about that? I know a lot about it, and not many do, so let’s go with it. If nothing else, you’ll come away slightly more educated, and I’ll come away with something looking like productivity. With that in mind, let’s continue this little series of posts on geomancy, “De Geomanteia” (On Geomancy). This week, let’s talk about this figure:

Populus

This is the figure Populus.  In Latin, its name means “People”, which is pretty common in lots of other traditions, often in other forms such as “congregation”, “assembly”, or “group”.  If you (quite literally) connect the dots, you might come up with a figure that looks like a crowd of people, or a meeting-house for people to discuss matters within.

First, the technical details of this figure.  It’s associated with the Moon waxing and the astrological signs of Cancer or Capricorn, depending on whom you ask; due to its lunar qualities, it’s associated with the sephirah Yesod.  It has all elements passive, and no elements active, being the most stable, slow, and status-preserving geomantic figure of them all; however, its placid and reflective nature closely associates it to the element Water.  It’s an even figure with eight points, the highest possible number, relating to objective situations rather than internal or felt events.  It is a stable and entering, showing it to be slow-moving and long-lasting where it appears.  In the body, it signifies the breast and midriff.  Its inverse figure (everything this figure is not on an external level) is Via, the Road, showing that this figure is not dynamic, not changing, not swift.  Its reverse figure (the same qualities of this figure taken to its opposite, internal extreme) is the same, Populus itself, showing that this figure is the same from all points of view.  Its converse figure (the same qualities of this figure expressed in a similar manner) is also Via, indicating that it is cyclical, internally whole, and representative of whole systems.  Populus is the most stable figure in all of geomancy and preserves everything around it.  It is entirely reflective and takes in whatever is around it and pushes it on, absorbing the influences of its neighbors.  It is good with good figures and bad with bad figures, especially favorable for reflection and meditation on matters already known as well as preserving the status quo of things.  It is unfavorable when change of any kind is a good thing, or when being alone is desired.

Picture a small little town, not large at all.  You know, one of those rural towns with a couple hundred people in it, maybe a few gas stations, a stop light if you’re being generous.  It’s a town where everybody knows everybody, and everybody’s family has been there for generations.  It’s an old town with little activity: life goes on as normally as ever.  Gossip from within cycles around and settles down on its own, the town taking care of itself, with the most activity being perhaps a yearly event that’s as old as the town hall itself.  The town’s had its history, and the people have had their knowledge and wisdom built up since their founding,  knowing what they know and keeping it known amongst themselves.  They’re not particularly fond of new people, but are friendly and cheerful all the same to welcome visitors and new settlers amongst them all the same.  A new resident of the town quickly finds out he can’t just deal with one person in the town; just as gossip spreads, he ends up dealing with everyone all at once even through one person.  Every influence around the town, stable as it is, affects the town in some way or another; the town reflects its surroundings and occasionally gets caught up in outside turmoil, all the while keeping its deep identity the same.

Unlike the other lunar figure, Via, which can be likened to a rapidly flowing river, Populus is much more like a calm lake.  While Via is fast-moving, Populus is still; Via is dynamic, Populus is stable; Via is outwardly powerful, Populus is inwardly-reflective.  Via goes out into the world and changes everything around it, but Populus stays where it is and lets others change it.  Via takes any figure it’s faced with and transforms it into its complete opposite; Populus sustains and copies it.  Via is the result of opposites attracting, while Populus is the result of similarities resonating.  The difference between inverse geomantic figures is starkest between Via, pure activity, and Populus, pure passivity.

Populus is the only figure in geomancy without any active elements.  There’s nothing going on within it, which gives it the unique ability to reflect whatever’s put into it.  Populus plus any other figure yields that other figure; it reflects what it’s given.  It’s like a large crowd of people which has no leader, and when given any impetus or stimulus, the crowd of people goes in that direction.  When a leaderless crowd of people encounters someone with the energy and direction to lead, they become followers and take on the energy and direction of the leader.  Similarly, when two identical figures encounter each other, the combined figure they yield is Populus, showing either a smooth transition from one to the other to preserve the status quo, or a larger group sharing the same goals, ideas, directions, and hopes.  In this sense, Populus can represent the townsfolk having banded together as a single, unified group.  It can It’s a figure of both similarity and multiplicity, of alliance and preserving the status quo.  As far as wisdom and thought go, Populus can represent common sense, the combined learning of a community, but can also represent mob mentality, depending on the situation.  Even here, Populus indicates a confluence of thought, reason, and information that has its basis on consensus and agreement.

Because of this ability to repeat figures or combine a repetition of figures, Populus is the one figure that is mathematically implicit in all geomantic charts.  Although a full geomantic chart has sixteen figures, no geomantic chart can ever have all sixteen figures of geomancy present; the presence of Populus would imply the presence of repeated figures to generate it, or would repeat another figure it’s combined with.  This ability to carry on and sustain figures in all charts, despite Populus having no elements active within its elemental structure, associate it to the element of Water.  Figures are assigned to different elements in part due to their elemental structure: with the exception of Populus, every figure’s ruling element is active within that figure (Albus, for instance, has only Water present, and is thus associated with Water).  Water can just as easily be fast-flowing and turbulent or cloudy (as Via) as it can be smooth, calm, reflective, and clear (as Populus).  Water, as a fluid, takes the shape of whatever container it’s put into; unlike gaseous Air which expands throughout containers, energetic Fire which consumes them, or solid Earth that forms the container itself, liquid Water is malleable enough to take on the form of whatever it’s faced with, while being solid enough to hold the shape of it.

Astrologically, Populus is given to the waxing Moon, which makes sense; it represents the slow growth and stability of something, much as a town slowly waxes in its population and resources.  This part of the lunar cycle that grows and increases in light also increases security and assurance in one’s self and beliefs, which is reflected socially by an increase of people agreeing and banding together with you.  Reflection, too, is important to both Populus and the Moon; just as the Moon begins and increases the amount of light reflected from the Sun, so too does Populus reflect the influences shining upon itself.  The zodiac signs associated with Populus are Cancer (through its connection with the Moon) and Capricorn (Gerard of Cremona’s association); both are cardinal, powerful signs of the Zodiac, but also diametrically opposed to each other.  Still, the association works for both: Cancer and Capricorn both represent stability and security, one through internal means and the home, the other through external means and the public.  Both offer assurance and preservation of the status quo (one informal through the use of social cues, the other formal through the use of established law), and so are both fitting for Populus, representing both the family at home and the family of the town.

In geomancy readings, Populus indicates stability and security in numbers.  When appearing as the Judge or as the combination of two figures, Populus often indicates that there’s no change between the past or present, or that there’s a complete unity of identification without difference between two parties or influences on a situation.  Populus can also indicate a plurality or multitude of things, or that something is waiting and able to take in input from any source.  It represents stability ready for change to occur, the blank paper ready for the pen.  Other people may be involved with a particular matter, or perhaps there’s nothing exciting to talk about, since whatever’s been the case will continue to be the case.  As opposed to Via, which can indicate that something is too much in flux to get a clear answer, Populus indicates that there’s no real answer to give since nothing is changing.  Magically, Populus is good for augmenting something with extra power, especially given its connections to the waxing Moon; it’s good for helping harmony and unity of thought and desire, as well as settling something down into a stable state.

Although I’ve made light of people who have asked for suggested reading for an introduction to the occult, I’ve had the idea to compile a basic library and resource set for anyone interested in the stuff I do.  While your path is probably going to veer from or cross through mine any number of times, there are some resources I wouldn’t be caught dead without for reference, assistance, and general help, especially in the traditions of magic I practice.  Besides, if I one day take on an apprentice, I may as well have a list of books ready for them to have for themselves.  That is, if I don’t already have my own personal collection and reference ready for them, but more information will always be nice.

Books for reference:

• Agrippa’s Three Books and Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy.  This is the mother of all reference books on magic, spirituality, religion, and the occult, and is pretty much the basis of all Western magic today, Hermetic or otherwise.  A lot of stuff is pulled or morphed from his collection of information, which itself is pulled from older sources.
• Betz’s translation of the Greek Magical Papyri.  It’s helpful to see how magic was done in the source and origin of the Hermetic tradition, as well as to take a hint about how different traditions of magic can be syncretized and folded into each other.
• Stephen Skinner’s Complete Magician’s Tables.  Correspondence tables are awesome and help link different aspects of the occult and open worlds together.  Agrippa covers some of this, but these books (I prefer Skinner’s book over Crowley’s 777) are invaluable.
• Robert Hand’s Horoscope Symbols.  This is one of the best books on astrological symbolism I’ve found, and despite the modernity of it, Hand is an expert I trust and who I know knows his shit.
• John Michael Greer’s Art and Practice of Geomancy.  I think geomancy is extraordinarily useful to the occult, despite its relative disappearance from occulture, and any apprentice of mine is going to learn the technique, art, and skill of geomancy and how to apply it in magic and spirituality.
• Eileen Connolly’s Tarot: A New Handbook for the Apprentice.  I’m not big into tarot, but I do use it every so often, especially for scrying and meditation.  This is one of the better books I’d recommend for someone as a reference of the cards.
• Wheelock’s Latin, because face it, a lot of this stuff is still in Latin and a working knowledge of it is going to help.  Greek and Hebrew will as well, but Latin especially so.  A good Latin dictionary helps loads, too.
• Carl Liungman’s Symbols: Encyclopedia of Western Signs and Ideograms.  This is a massive and awesome reference for all kinds of written symbols, ideograms, and other characters that have been used across the Western world from prehistoric times to the modern era.  It’s a good reference for alchemical, planetary, and a variety of other magical signs as well.
• Melody’s Love is In the Earth: A Kaleidoscope of Crystals.  Even though this is fluffy and light-hearted as hell, it’s also one of the best and most complete references on the different types of crystals, metals, and stones in magical use.
• Picatrix.  This is the classical grimoire, the archetypal spellbook from old medieval European types and based on Arabic star magic.  The spells and works are still as powerful as ever, and it helps to know where a lot of modern magic is derived or based from.
• Draja Mickaharic’s Spiritual Cleansing.  Even considering that Draja is one of the most underrated and undermentioned occult authors out there, the dude’s ancient and has the wisdom and experience to match.  His magic works, and this is one of the classic books on spiritual cleansing, protection, and safekeeping.
• Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Vergil’s Aeneid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Sophocles’ Oedipus Cycle.  A rock-solid knowledge of Greek and Roman mythology cannot be underestimated in its help for understanding and working with the gods and spirits and forces of the world.
• The Bible (New American Version or similar modern critical edition, King James Version for art and style) and Jack Mile’s God: A Biography and Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God.  As above, but for Judaic and Christian mythos is wonderful for the Western magician.  Plus, this is one of the most well-used, well-known, and well-loved spellbooks of all time.
• Brian Copenhaver’s version of the Hermetica.  As above, but for Hermetic and Gnostic mythos.
• Benson Bobrick’s The Fated Sky: Astrology in History for a good overview of the path of astrology in science, mysticism, and human life from ancient times to modern.
• Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos.  This is the foundational text on Western astrology, written by the man Ptolemy himself.  May as well get the most solid background we have.
• Richard Garfinkle’s Celestial Matters.  A modern alt-reality fiction showing what the world might be like if it were ruled by Aristotelian geocentric physics, different geopolitical and socioreligious sets of problem than we have, and how one really has to start from scratch to learn new systems of thought.  The depiction of how gods actually interact with mortals in a world where people still work with them is priceless alone; this is a book for any Hermetic or Neoplatonist to read and enjoy.
• Rex Bills’ The Rulership Book, containing a huge list of what planets and signs in astrology rule over which objects, places, professions, foods, people, and the like.  Uses a lot of modern associations with the outer planets, but still invaluable in figuring out what force goes with what thing.
• The Clavicula Solomonis, or the Greater Key of Solomon the King.  I like the Mathers’ version due to the pretty and redrawn seals, but the text as a whole is a fantastic resource to prayer, ritual setup, and tool consecration.
• Scott Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs.  Normally I’d stay away from Llewellyn and this author due to his fluff content, but credit where it’s due, he knows his stuff, and this is one of the best manuals on herbs and plants commonly available.  I may not agree with all the associations, but it’s certainly helpful.

Links and resources on the Internet (many of these are on the sidebar to the right, but it’s not like you ever click on them):

• Twilight Grotto: Esoteric Archives for a valuable cache of Renaissance Hermetic and occult texts, enough to go from beginner to magus, and contains a good number of the above books
• Internet Sacred Text Archive for any number of other holy, magical, or esoteric texts from a huge number of traditions
• Internet Classics Archive for various classical Mediterranean literature
• Whitaker’s Words for an excellent online Latin dictionary
• Hermetic Library, containing much early modern and recent Hermetic texts smattered with some ancient stuff as well
• ChaosMatrix, with much general magical tech focusing on Chaos, Lovecraftian, and some Enochian magic
• Aaron Leitch’s homepage, being a classic example of 1990s web design as well as a resource for tons on this
• Rufus Opus’ web page, because he’s my instructor and should be yours as well
• Renaissance Astrology, because Chris Warnock is likely the foremost traditional astrologer and astrological magician in the world

I think the above would cover all the bases for me to start teaching someone, with plenty of other supplementary or secondary material, including other grimoires, modern texts on magic, blogs and essays, and various references and stories.  I like to use a lot of reference material from a Renaissance Solomonic or classical Hermetic background, but that’s not to discount the value of other styles, traditions, or sources of magic.  What books, texts, and sources might you suggest, if you were to take on an apprentice?  Do you think there’s anything else I should consider to tack onto the list?

Since one of my most favorite topics in occultism and magic is divination, specifically the divinatory art of geomancy, why not talk about that?  I know a lot about it, and not many do, so let’s go with it.  If nothing else, you’ll come away slightly more educated, and I’ll come away with something looking like productivity.  With that in mind, let’s continue this little series of posts on geomancy, “De Geomanteia” (On Geomancy).  This week, just to keep things exciting, let’s talk about technique instead of figures.  Specifically, let’s talk about geomantic methods of calculating time and when a queried event will happen.

Just like last time, this is gonna be another doozy of a post, so you might want to grab something to sip and something to munch.  Ready?  Good!

All arts of divination exist to do one thing: answer questions.  In theory, they can answer any kind of question, and any method divination can answer any other question that any other method of divination can.  However, a comparison of divination methods with computer programming languages can be helpful: any programming language that is Turing-complete can program anything that any other Turing-complete programming language can (long story short).  However, as any programmer will know, there are huge differences between any given pair of languages: C, LISP, FORTRAN, ML, Ada, Brainfuck, Malebolge, and even lambda calculus are all Turing-complete languages, and any one can theoretically program the same thing, but the methods they represent the program, its data, and its output can differ radically.  Just so do divination methods differ: while any method of divination can answer the same question, the method of doing so and the type of answer received may differ.  Geomancy, as a divination system, can answer anything that horary astrology, Tarot, runes, or the like can answer; however, the methods it uses will not be the same, and the method of asking can be different in order to get a comparatively-the-same answer.

Built on binary mathematics, geomancy is well-suited to answering binary queries, especially those of the “will event X happen given condition set Y?” variety.  Instead of asking “when will event X happen?”, geomancy is often better suited to asking “will event X happen by date Y?” or “will event X happen within timeframe Z?”, which are both binary questions that give a yes-or-no answer.  In that case, one just has to rephrase a “when” query into a “will” query with an appropriate time condition, and look at the normal methods of perfection and determining a yes-or-no answer.  This can be done multiple times to whittle down and refine the timeframe inspected: if we know something won’t happen until time period A but will happen by time period B, we can set a midpoint between A and B and see whether it’ll happen before or after then.  This is by far my most preferred method of answering time questions, and the one I find to be the most reliable and direct.  However, this can only really work when the querent is willing to guess at the timeframe or time boundary, which they may not always be willing or able to do.

When the querent insists on asking a geomancer a “when” query, all hope is not lost; there have been many methods of finding out how soon or how far off an event will happen or has happened using geomancy.  One old method of calculating time is by assigning general timeframes to the figures.  When one is asked a “when” query, check out the significator of the quesited.  The figure there determines the rough span of time it’ll take for it to occur:

• Hours: Coniunctio
• Days: Amissio
• Weeks: Cauda Draconis
• Months: Puella, Fortuna Minor, Populus, Via, Puer, Rubeus
• Years: Fortuna Maior, Acquisitio, Tristitia, Carcer, Laetitia, Albus, Caput Draconis

Probably the most common method of calculating time is to assign a set of numbers to the figures, much as any other correspondence or association they’d have.  Assuming one has a specific unit of time in mind (e.g. hours, days, weeks, months, years), look at the figure in the house of the quesited for a “when” chart.  If the figure and chart is favorable to the querent (a favorable Judge, aspects figures make to the significators, the chart perfects or denies according to the querent’s wishes, etc.), use the more favorable number; if unfavorable, use the more unfavorable number.  For instance, if the querent wants something to happen quickly, but the quesited’s significator is unfavorable to the querent and the situation, use the larger number.

A note on perfection here: the last post on technique stated that perfection is not a factor in favorability, which is true, but only in terms of “yes/no” or “will/won’t happen” types of queries.  “When” queries are distinct from that, when perfection itself doesn’t answer the query (“when” can’t be answered with “yes” or “no”), but is instead treated as another favorable or unfavorable influence in the chart, according to the querent’s wishes.  For instance, if the querent doesn’t want something to happen, but the chart perfects (implying that it will), then this is considered an unfavorable influence, even if the figures themselves are favorable, and especially if the figures themselves are unfavorable.

A similar method to the above comes from the English occultist Robert Fludd, who uses three sets of numbers to determine lifespans or other similarly long timeframes.  In this case, it goes more by planet, with Caput Draconis taking on the values for Venus or Jupiter and Caput Draconis taking on the values for Mars and Saturn.  When looking at someone’s life chart, or for the longevity of something for a certain unit of time (normally years, but can be used for days, weeks, etc.), look at the house representing the thing asked about (the first house for someone’s lifespan, or another house for another kind of long-term timeframe):

• If the house of the significator is cardinal (houses one, four, seven, or ten) and doesn’t pass elsewhere, or if the significator passes to a cardinal house, use the maximum number.
• If the house of the significator is succedent (houses two, five, eight, or eleven) and doesn’t pass elsewhere, or if the significator passes to a succedent house, use the medium number.
• If the house of the significator is cadent (houses three, six, nine, or twelve) and doesn’t pass elsewhere, or if the significator passes to a cadent house, use the minimum number.

Fludd occasionally gave two numbers for a given value, and no method to choose between them, so one might do well to average them or use them both as equally good estimates.

The use of figuring out whether a figure passes to a cardinal, succedent, or cadent house is also applicable to the other two methods above by splitting the individual timeframes into thirds.  If the figure passes to a cardinal house or is naturally found in a cardinal house without passing, it’s in the first third of the timeframe; if succedent, the second third; if cadent, the last third.  Alternatively, it could represent something happening extraordinarily fast if cadent, middling or on schedule if succedent, or slow or delayed if cadent.

The issue with the above numerical methods is that I can’t find any basis for assigning the figures the numbers they have.  They’re certainly not found in the old texts, and I can only start to find them in the late Renaissance period onward; though the planets in astrology have some numerical attributions similar to this, I haven’t had much experience working with them.  Fludd and other geomancers may have found them out through sheer experimentation and noting down things in their experiments and readings, but I can’t find any rhyme or reason why the figures have these numerical associations and not others (like, say, numbers based on their binary structure).  Moreover, the numbers they have are limited to denote extremely large periods of time. and though that can be tweaked slightly to allow more flexibility (more on that later), they’re still drastically limited.  To that end, I don’t like using these numerical methods of finding out when questions, and though I’ve heard of other geomancers getting decent results with them, I haven’t had much luck getting them to work in my own practice.

Instead, when doing “when” queries, I prefer to use the tried-and-true astrological associations of the figures to figure out times of events.  Like the method above, the querent should select a different “unit” of time, such as a zodiac sign, weekday, or planetary hour.  By asking “in what zodiac sign/weekday/moon sign/planetary hour will event X happen?” the geomancer would inspect the house of the quesited and give an answer based on the astrological associations of that figure.  Since there are two figures for every planet, each with a direct/retrograde or increasing/decreasing association, we can fine-tune the planetary hour association with each figure’s planet by assigning it to a diurnal hour or nocturnal hour of the day.  Keep in mind that there are two major zodiacal attribution systems to the geomantic figures, one given by Cornelius Agrippa and one given by Gerard of Cremona.  I prefer the latter, but so long as you stick to one system, you’re good to go.

Speaking of planetary hours, there exists a derivative of them specifically for geomantic figures, the geomantic hours.  As far as I can tell, this was a fairly late innovation in geomancy, and the only Renaissance literature I can find this in is John Heydon’s “Theomagia”, though it’s been said that it can be found in at least one other geomantic work of the time.  Generally, one assigns each planetary hour to a figure that planet is associated with, with the Dragon’s Head and Tail being thrown in here and there, but either it uses a very obscure method to assign which figures to which hours that I can’t discern, or it actually is as haphazard as it looks.  It’s helpful as a geomancy-specific refinement, though I prefer the simpler and more regular planetary hours that work just as well for me.

Another method of finding out when something will happen within a day’s time is to use the zodiacal attributions of the figures and look at the figure in the first house, the house of the ascendant.  One can use this method to determine the sign on the ascendant  of when the event will actually come to pass.  Again, be sure to pick one system of zodiac attributions and stick to it.

To recap, there are a number of ways to determine when something can happen using geomancy.  Say a querent wants to know when she and her fiancée will marry (a query for the seventh house).  Lots of methods abound:

1. Rephrase the “when” query into a binary query.  The querent might ask instead “Will I and my fiancée be married within the next year?” or “Will I and my fiancée be married by the end of 2016?”.  Follow the rules of perfection, favorability, and the like as normal to get a yes-or-no answer; repeat until satisfied, refining the timeframe or time boundary as desired.  If we use the latter question, and the chart perfects between the first and seventh houses, we can say that the two of them will be married by the end of 2016.
2. Use the lesser or greater number of the figure with a unit of time, depending on how favorable the chart is to the querent.  The chart perfects (a favorable sign) with a favorable court and the figure Laetitia appears in the seventh house.  Since she’d like to marry her partner sooner rather than later, look at the lesser number of the figure; in this case, assuming the querent phrased the query in terms of months, we might say that they’ll be married in 11 months’ time.
3. Use the maximum, medium, or minimum number of the figure with a unit of time, depending on whether the figure is found in or passes to a certain kind of house.  Use the maximum number if the significator passes to a cardinal house or is naturally in a cardinal house without passing, the medium number if succedent, and the minimum number if cadent.  The figure in the seventh house, Laetitia, passes to the ninth house, which is cadent.  Assuming the querent phrased the query in terms of months, we might say that they’ll be married in about 12 months’ time.
4. Use the astrological correspondences of the figure to determine the planetary events going on (Sun sign, Moon sign, ascendant, planetary/geomantic hour, etc.).  We might have to draw several charts to figure this out, perhaps in conjunction with the binary query conversion method above.  The figure in the seventh house, Laetitia, is associated with Pisces or Taurus, either late winter or mid-spring (I’d go with the late-spring, since I prefer Gerard of Cremona’s attributions, but your mileage may vary).  The first house contains the figure Via, which is associated with either Cancer or Leo (I’d go with Leo), so we can say that the sign on the ascendant will be one of those, leading to an answer of about midday (when Leo would be rising, implying Taurus would be near the midheaven, middayish).

However, there’s one caveat I need to let you know, dear reader: before every “when” query, do a preliminary query asking whether or not the event or situation asked about will happen at all.  It doesn’t make sense to do a reading for a “when” query if the thing asked about won’t actually happen, and most of the above methods of answering “when” queries don’t take that into account!  All the work you do to get the most exact timing possible might be for naught if you neglect to figure out whether or not something is feasible, possible, or liable to happen.  A lot of querents and clients ask about when something is going to happen, taking that it’ll happen for granted; geomancers and diviners of all kinds would do well to examine all assumptions lying in such queries first before answering the query itself.  So, should a querent ask whether or not they’ll marry their partner in a year’s time, first do a reading to figure out whether they’ll get married at all; answer the “when” query if and only if the chart affirms the “will” query.

There’s one last trick about determining time can be used for all charts, regardless of the type of query asked.  This first comes from Pietro d’Abano’s work on geomancy, and involves the “sum of the chart”, the total number of points found in the sixteen figures of the shield chart (four Mothers, four Daughters, four Nieces, four Court figures).  If you take the number of points from the sixteen standard geomantic figures, you end up with a total of 96 points; by comparing the number of points found in a shield chart to this standard number, we can determine whether or not something will happen faster or slower than expected, than it usually does, or as it’s planned to occur.

• If the sum is less than 96, the situation will resolve faster than expected: things will complete ahead of schedule or will already be done when asked, etc.
• If the sum is more than 96, the situation will resolve slower than expected: things will be delayed, pushed back, forgotten about, or never done at all, etc.
• If the sum is exactly 96, then things will happen on schedule, as expected, in due time, etc.
• The magnitude of the difference determines the magnitude of the speed or slowness.

For instance, if the sum of a chart resolves to 95, which is only a little less than 96, we can say that things will be proceed about as fast as they would normally, if not a little faster.  If it’s closer to 118, we might say that things will go extremely slow, and things might need doing, redoing, or reminding to do them in order to get anywhere at all.  One time, a querent had asked me whether or not her family would find her lost cat; I got strong indications that they would, with the sum of the chart being in the mid-80s (about the minimum a chart sum can get).  Unbeknownst to her, her family had already found their cat, but hadn’t had the time to tell her just yet.  In this case, the low chart sum and strong answer indicated that the matter had already been resolved!

In addition to using this technique on its own, it can also be used to fine-tune the results given from the methods above that rely on numerical attributions of the figures.  In this case, divide the sum of the chart by 96 to get a ratio, and multiply it by the number obtained from one of the methods above.  Say a person does a query and wants to know how many weeks it’ll be before they start dating someone they really like, and we get Acquisitio in the seventh house (house of relationships and romance).  The chart is overall favorable to the querent, so we look at the smaller number of Acquisitio (say the person’s been single for a while and really wants a relationship badly).  Acquisitio’s lesser number is 13.  The sum of the chart is 104; 104 divided by 96 is 1.083, and 1.083 multipled by 13 is 14.083.  So, we can say that they’ll start dating in a little over 14 weeks from the reading.

After lots of talks with the angels and figuring out how exactly to accomplish something magically, I think I’ve finally settled into a pattern for a manifestation ritual using my magician’s altar, properly called a Table of Manifestation.  Because, you know, it manifests shit.  Fr. Rufus Opus has described the magician’s altar as their terminal to access the cosmos and put in requests or commands to it to magically alter it.  He put up his now well-known Altar Glyph to describe the schematics of such an altar:

For background on why the altar is set up the way it is, I suggest reading up Cornelius Agrippa’s Scale of Four (book II, chapter 7).  The altar layout, representing our perception and vantage point outwards from the whole cosmos, is primarily designed according to the elements, the building blocks of the world we happen to find ourselves in.  Thus, the things that are fiery are placed in the East, airy in the West, watery in the North, and earthy in the South.  From the inside outwards, we have things under our direct control, things we choose to let loose or bind in the cosmos (this is represented by the four demon princes of the elements, which I hide wrapped up in black silk under my altar and left alone; the surface of the altar uses the central point as the ritual focus space).  Outside that we have the four archangelic kings and the legions of forces/forces themselves that the magician will call upon to bring something into manifestation.  Beyond that we have the four elemental tools, our means to work with both the terrestrial elements and the celestial planets, which allow us to work throughout the cosmos.  Beyond those we have representations of the seven planetary forces, each aligned according to their element, which act as pumps or sources for those forces to pull from.  Beyond that we have…well, really, anything else.  A consecrated candle or lamp is helpful to have, positioned to the East to represent the Infinite Light and Source of All.

This picture illustrates my altar layout, set up for consecrating my magic ring of Solomon a while back.  In the middle is the ritual focus, which is here the ring to be consecrated put atop a Kamea of the Sun as given by Agrippa (book II, chapter 22).  Closest to the focus are four amethyst crystals, each a different Platonic solid, which I use as representations of the four archangelic kings and their forces (tetrahedron/d4 for Michael, octahedron/d8 for Raphael, icosahedron/d20 for Gabriel, cube/d6 for Auriel), each aligned to their proper elemental direction.  Just beyond those I have my four elemental weapons: the Wand of Fire in the East, the Sword of Air in the West, the Cup of Water in the North, and the Disc of Earth in the South.  Outside those I have the seven planetary talismans, again each aligned according to their elemental direction: Mars and the Sun in the East, Jupiter and Venus in the West, Saturn and Mercury in the North, and the Moon in the South.  At the edge of the altar I have my consecrated candle (set in the East) and incense burner, and nearby I have other tools and supplies as needed.

So, I had all these fancy tools lying around on this table I got from Ikea a while back, but…well, never really used them.  Sure, it serves as a display and storehouse for all the energy and forces I work with where I can use or draw on them as necessary, but mostly it sits there gathering dust.  Sure, I use it as a focus to charge stuff I consecrate, but I never really used it in ritual.  It took a lot of figuring out for me about what to use the elemental weapons for; perhaps it’s because of my lack of modern neopagan training or because the old grimoires never really used this set of tools, but I never really got into the habit of using them.  It’s only through continued talks with the angels who have instructed me in their symbolism as well as their ritual use that I got into the habit of using them in ritual, and I’ve finally pieced together how to use them all coherently in a ritual for manifestation.

I feel like this is about as basic and introductory a topic I can get to, but honestly, it (embarrassingly) took me a while to get to this point to even write about this much.  To help prevent other magicians and newbies to magic from getting stuck on how to use that fancy altar with all them tools, here’s a framework I ended up using to manifest or alter something using the magician’s altar.  Influences from this come mostly from the Trithemius ritual of conjuration, as well as elements from the Clavicula Solomonis and other rituals here and there.  Essentially, the ritual framework describes a kind of shortened conjuration but without a crystal, concentrating the force of some sphere or other onto a ritual focus to effect change instead of just a mere chat with an angel or other spirit.

Before even getting anything together, make sure you have an actual intent, goal, and method to accomplish something you want to change.  It’s all well and good to ask the angels for good shit, but it’s better to state clearly what exactly you want from the cosmos, for what purpose you want it, and in what way you plan to obtain or otherwise accomplish what you want.  As always in magic, the more specific you make your request, the more exact and refined your result will be.  It helps to do some prior divination or chatting with the angels or spirits you’ll be working with to make sure your magical plan of attack is solid, as well as making sure any physical activity or material means you want to back up with magic are going to work as well.  When you have that done, figure out the time in which to perform the ritual.  Figuring out the planetary hour and day best associated with the intent and goal is awesome, as is finding a suitable election, or you might just use the phase of the Moon (waxing or waning, full or new) or the direction in which the clock hands move (both up, both down, etc.).  Once you have the basics done, you’ve got a plan.

As with any ritual, start with preparation.  Make sure your altar’s in good order with all the supplies you need at hand (charcoal, lighter, holy water, incense, etc.).  Put on your magical garments and talismans, along with the requisite prayers if needed, as well as prepare yourself with aspersion or ablution with holy water.  You might also consider energetically linking the tools on the table to the central focus, a la Jarandhel’s notion of a crystal grid, to tie everything more closely in practice.  Do whatever energy work, quarter-calling, sevenths-calling, banishing and balancing ritual, or whatever you like to do to get yourself in the proper mindset.  Most importantly, pray.  Pray for guidance, pray for holiness, pray for strength, pray for protection, pray for wisdom, but pray.  You might also call on the help of your HGA, patron gods, supernatural assistants, or similar to empower yourself and make more effective the ritual you’re about to perform.  I generally do all the preparation just before the ritual begins, in the closing minutes of the planetary hour prior to when I want to do my ritual.  As for the actual intent or thing to manifest, the use of a sigil, talisman, figurine, or other stand-in is often helpful; I typically create a sigil with my desire or will and use that.

Once you’re sufficiently prepared and once the appointed time has come, light the candle and consecrate the flame to officially begin the ritual.  Take up the wand, sword, or whatever other tool of intent you prefer up to and including your dominant hand and trace out a circle around your working area, blessing and consecrating the area for the work.  This could be around the altar if it’s free-standing or around a Circle of Art if you’re working within one, with the tool pointed downward at the ground, or around the perimeter of the room if the altar’s not free-standing or if you’d like to use more space than allowed in a Circle, with the tool pointed upward towards the conjunction of the ceiling and walls.  Light the incense and consecrate it, waiting a few seconds to let the incense smoke rise up and fill the space a bit.  I generally wait until I can distinctly smell it for a few seconds before continuing unless I’m in a huge rush.

Now it’s time to call the spirits you’ll be working with.  If you have something specific to consecrate under a particular force, call up the spirits associated with that force; e.g., for solar spirits, you might choose Michael, Nakhiel, and Sorath, along with the aid or blessing of any solar patron deities, familiars, or allies you might have.  If you want to effect some significant change in the cosmos, you might do well to call up all seven planets and all four elements.  Agrippa lists several types of spirits for both the planets and elements and don’t appear to match up immediately, but after talking with both kinds of angels and with Rufus Opus a bit, here’s what I’ve figured out:

1. Divine force, or the force in the qabbalistic world Atziluth, also associated with the divine Intellect or the element of Fire.  Among the planets, this is the aspect or emanation of God as represented by the godnames of the sephiroth.  Among the elements, however, which are all in the sephirah Malkuth, they’re all kinda lumped together; due to their distant, material nature, the four elements are part of the same divine force.
2. Mental force, or the force in the qabbalistic world Briah, also associated with the mental abstractions and ideals and the element of Air.  Among the planets, these are the planetary angels.  There is no corollary between this and the elements, since the elements are too low in manifestation to reach this high up in the cosmos.
3. Guiding force, or the force in the qabbalistic world Yetzirah, also associated with production, feeling, and desire and the element of Water.   These forces indicate how things should be directed and manifested in the world, the design that fulfills the requirements given to the mental force above.  Among the planets, these are the planetary intelligences; among the elements, they are the elemental archangelic kings.
4. Active force, or the force in the qabbalistic world Assiah, also associated with the concrete force as controlled and effective as well as the element of Earth.  These are like the personified or belegioned forces themselves as opposed to the directing rules or guides; it’s like the charge in a battery instead of the wires that connect it to a radio, which indicate how that charge should flow.  Among the planets, these are the planetary spirits, and among the elements they are the elemental rulers.  Any familiar spirits, elemental or planetary allies, or angels from the forces’ respective choirs are also members of the active force.
5. Manifesting force, or the force that actually pops up and does stuff in the material world.  These are spirits that actually do and create stuff on this plane with the four elements, the building blocks of this world that the other forces have to manifest through; because of this, there are no planetary forces that fulfill this role, since they’re too abstract and unformed to manifest directly in Malkuth.  Instead, these spirits are strictly elemental, specifically the elemental princes (Oriens, Paymon, etc.), who are close to goetic demons, but are so close to manifested reality that they can directly manifest things on behalf of the higher forces that guide them.  The demonic princes (Samael, Mahazael, etc.) do this too, but in ways that are shitfully terribad (ergo, don’t call on them).

Once you call up the relevant spirits for the forces you want to work with, thank them for their presence, since it always pays to be polite.  Once you get everyone together, the process is fairly straightforward:

1. Declare your charge to the cosmos and to the spirits present.  Clearly, authoritatively, meaningfully, and wholeheartedly proclaim what you want the spirits gathered to help you achieve and attain in the cosmos, what needs changing or removing or adding to the cosmos, and how you want the manifested thing to take form and effect in your life and reality.  If you have an object, sigil, or figure that represents your intent, display it to the four corners, to the heavens, and to the earth, then place it in the focus of the altar.
2. With the Wand, call on the divine forces present to turn your Will into cosmic Law.  Proclaim your intent and desired goal, establish your will as something the cosmos, universe, and world shall fulfill, and call on the blessing of the divine force and the assistance of the guiding forces to assist you.  Take up the Wand, point at the ritual focus, and have the Infinite Light begin to manifest around the focus and intent-object (if any).
3. With the Sword, call on the mental forces present to turn your Reason into cosmic Design.  Straighten the path between divine intent and manifest reality, cut out all obstacles or impediments to manifestation, sharpen your stated will into implementable method, and call on the assistance of the mental force to reverberate the cosmos with your desire and plan.  Take up the Sword, cut the area around the ritual focus, and penetrate into the ritual focus area with the point to let the Light begin to fill the focus.
4. With the Cup, call on the guiding forces present to turn your Emotion into cosmic Direction.  Pour out your need, fill the world with your desire, and guide the flow of forces you call upon to fill up and take form within the cosmos, calling on the assistance of the guiding forces to direct, guide, and flow the force called upon into manifested reality.  Take up the Cup, make a pouring gesture with it around in a clockwise pattern closing in on the ritual focus, filling the focus with the force you desire and taking form in the manner you desire.
5. With the Disc, call on the active and manifesting forces present to turn your Reality into cosmic Manifestation.  Actualize your desire, manifest your goal, and have what you desire and will be made concrete, real, physical, material, and effective in all the stated ways, calling on the assistance of the active and manifesting forces to bring the desired goal into manifestation.  Take up the Disc and lower it down onto the ritual focus, pressing the form into concrete, hard shape and seeing it as real as the Disc itself.
6. Finalize your charge to the cosmos and to the spirits present.  Reiterate your will, intent, desire, and goal to the spirits, proclaim it sealed and finished, and declare your work finished by the authority, power, strength, wisdom, and Light within you and within your manifested intent.  Charge the intent-object by suffumigating it in the incense while repeating any prayers, intoning any mantras or sacred sounds, or visualizing force flowing in and strengthening the intent and manifestation as you find necessary.  Focus the Light from the candle and the Light within yourself onto the ritual focus, supercharging it as bright as the Infinite Light itself, and sending it off as a discrete entity into the cosmos.  Declare the work done using a Great Amen, “So Mote It Be”, “Thus have I spoken/thus are the words”, or similar closing, final statement.

After this, you’re pretty much done.  Ask for any follow-up advice or directions, thank the spirits for their presence and aid, bid them farewell, and give them leave to depart.  Afterward, make any thanksgiving prayers to the Infinite Source, to your patrons or HGA or supernatural assistants, and to any spirits of the cosmos you may find helpful or meaningful.  Put out the candle, remove the ring and ritual garb, and clean up.  You’re done.  Let the intent-object stay in the altar focus for however long you desire, or keep it in a place that can be easily accessed or viewed until the intent is manifested according to your desire.

This is a framework for a ritual, not a ritual itself, since the ritual specification can change depending on what exactly needs to happen; e.g., for consecration of an object under a planetary force, you might do away with calling on the elemental spirits and the use of the Disc entirely, or any of the elemental tools, perhaps using the planetary talisman instead as your tool to channel the force of the planet desired.  The prayers and calls needed for the ritual can also change drastically, but the links I’ve provided above give good grimoire examples of what you might use.  All told, for manifesting things in the cosmos, the above framework is pretty solid, if I do say so myself.

The studious or observant magician will notice that, although I’ve included the forces of the elements and the planets, I haven’t mentioned the sphere of the fixed stars and their forces.  This isn’t because I don’t think they’re worthless, but it’s because I don’t have experience of working with them yet.  In the future, I may begin doing just that, perhaps including the angels of the zodiac signs or the lunar mansions as the guiding forces and Raziel/Iophiel (depending on which text you’re reading) as the mental force, but I haven’t gotten there yet.  Still, the use of the fixed stars isn’t absolutely necessary, though I’m sure it helps; calling on the aid of the planets or elements is quite enough, and enough pagans and more simple magicians than me get by fine with just the four elements, so YMMV.

I do divination readings for fun and profit at the local new age store, which is pretty awesome.  Divination, specifically the method of geomancy (which I may have brought up a few times), is my specialty, and is really what I consider to be my strongest occult skill.  I’ve been studying divination longer than and more than magic or conjuration, and find it an incredibly helpful skill in both my magical and mundane lives.  Besides, being able to do it at a store with actual people gives me opportunity to practice and get better at it, which is always appreciated.  Some of the insights I get, both in the method of geomancy and in how people work or ask queries, can be fascinating.

Recently, one lady came in and was really excited about getting a reading, and ended up having five readings done in a row (I usually get one or two readings per customer max, so this was new).  She was familiar with the basics of Tarot, but this was new to her and she was excited to get readings done.  In fact, she was so excited that she kept wanting to ask questions even though she didn’t have anything to ask, even after she asked me what other people tend to ask.  At this point, I kindly told her to cool it and take a break, to not ask questions if she has none to ask, since…well, it’s like ordering a meal at a restaurant when one isn’t hungry.  The storekeeper, Gwen, told me that some people are addicted to divination or the social interaction it provides, which to me is unfamiliar and weird.  Thinking about it and the role of divination in different cultures, I came up with two terms to describe different client-side divination-related disorders: divinaddiction and divinaversion.

Divinaddiction is the addiction or overdependence on the use or experience of divination.  This can manifest as a simple behavioral addiction, where one feels compelled to divine or seek divination for some reason or another.  This could be to the spiritual or esoteric rush one gets from having answers revealed by the gods or spirits, since the use of divination is often claimed to be an exchange of spiritual energy or force into one’s life.  However, it’s probably more likely to be caused by obsessing over some matter or other, or wanting everything to be perfectly timed and ordained by Divinity.  Though some cultures insist on everything being well-omened or well-timed according to divination, including such things as when to perform basic personal hygiene, in most cases this is an obsession with propriety when such a concept may not exist.  Some people just want to know thoroughly and completely how something will go, or want a “second opinion” as if that actually matters in divination.

Divinaversion, on the other hand, is much more like a phobia or anxiety about divination, where one is completely opposed or fearful of foreknowledge.  This is much like the opposite of divinaddiction; while divinaddiction is an unhealthy desire or use of divination, divinaversion is an unhealthy phobia or repugnance of divination.  This does not include religion-based aversion, such as precepts or injunctions against the use of divination, but is rather the fear of knowing what is going to happen.  Normally this is related to the whole “what if” fear, but with the added kick of having it confirmed through at least one method.  Such a fear can be caused by emotional involvement in a situation, a vague notion of wanting to keep things in life a surprise, or simply feeling that the knowledge gained through divination will be dangerous somehow.  Such divinaversion, when not racially- or religiously-motivated, is often found to be a cause of persecution for Gypsies/Roma, witches, or other minorities known for occult practices, since some people conflate “looking into the future” with “making things in the future be a certain way”, and negative or dangerous readings were conflated with curses or other maleficia.

Though I’ve phrased and described divinaddiction and divinaversion in terms of the client or querent to divination, the person approaching the diviner or seer, it can just as easily be the case that the seer himself has either.  While it’s extraordinarily rare for me, there are things I simply will not ask about due to their emotional context or importance (divinaversion).  Sometimes I might be too emotionally invested in something to do a divination myself, but I’ll get someone else to do a reading for me; this is a kind of weak divinaversion, a healthy kind where one shouldn’t do divination if one is (emotionally, spiritually, etc.) unfit to do so.  I haven’t had a case where I insist on doing divination again and again on a particular outcome (divinaddiction), but I know some people can get obsessive about things like that.  There are also cases like in working with a set of spirits where one has to do divination over and over and over again to get coherent answers from them; this is an expected and necessary part of the work, and isn’t divinaddiction because it attempts to cover all the bases thoroughly without being paranoid.

In either case, divinaddiction or divinaversion indicates an unhealthy perception on divination.  Divination is a tool to be used in planning or in determining how acceptable something is to other people or spirits.  Using divination too much indicates an obsession, preoccupation, or addiction to figuring something out that can’t be helped by repeated inquiries; it’s like refreshing the 7-day weather forecast you get every ten minutes.  Fearing divination indicates an irrational or wrong view of divination or one’s inability to use divination properly.  In the former case, the whole point of divination as a planning skill is misunderstood; in the latter, one’s investment or preconceived notions on a matter precludes any new information from helping out.

Don’t slip into either camp, guys, without a damn good reason.  Both divinaddiction and divinaversion involve getting hung up on what-ifs to unhealthy degrees, the former by trying to hash out all the possibilities and the latter by trying to keep them as far away as possible.  Although divinaversion is bad, being an example of willful ignorance and an unwillingness to take into account potentially negative situations, divinaddiction can be worse.  It’s like trying to live out the future without it already arriving or even having the chance of viability; in a sense, to live in dreams is to die in reality.  One has to live one’s life in the only place and time we have (here and now), and though divination can help us figure out what’s ahead or what we may have missed, it’s no substitute for life itself.

Since one of my most favorite topics in occultism and magic is divination, specifically the divinatory art of geomancy, why not talk about that? I know a lot about it, and not many do, so let’s go with it. If nothing else, you’ll come away slightly more educated, and I’ll come away with something looking like productivity. With that in mind, let’s continue this little series of posts on geomancy, “De Geomanteia” (On Geomancy). This week, let’s talk about this figure:

Laetitia

This is the figure Laetitia.  In Latin, its name means “Joy”, which is pretty common in lots of other traditions, but can also be named as “healthy”, “upward motion”, or “bearded”.  If you (quite literally) connect the dots, you might come up with a figure that looks like an arch, tower, or rainbow.

First, the technical details of this figure.  It’s associated with Jupiter in retrograde motion and the astrological signs of Pisces or Taurus, depending on whom you ask; due to its Jovial qualities, it’s also associated with the sephirah Chesed.  It has only the fire line active with all others passive, and thus is corresponded as a whole to the element of Fire.  It is an odd figure with seven points, relating more to internal states of the subjective mind than external states of objective reality.  It is a mobile and exiting figure, showing things to be dynamic, fast-moving, and fleeting in influence.  In the body, it signifies the feet and fat of the body. Its inverse figure (everything this figure is not on an external level) is Caput Draconis, the Dragon’s Head, showing that this figure is not lasting, not prepared, not focused on the physical.  Its reverse figure (the same qualities of this figure taken to its opposite, internal extreme) is Tristitia, Sorrow, showing that this figure is not sorrowful, not stuck, not self-limiting.  Its converse figure (the same qualities of this figure expressed in a similar manner) is Cauda Draconis, the Dragon’s Tail, showing that it is similarly fast-moving, intent-driven, and has the capacity for change in radically new directions.  Laetitia, true to its name, represents joy, happiness, and elation in all its forms.  It’s an emotional state, and a fleeting one at that, but it’s readily apparent for all to see and quite uplifting and contagious to everyone involved.  It represents upward motion (lifted spirits, promotions, looking upwards), and so isn’t great for keeping secrets, keeping things tied down, or making things stable; otherwise, it’s fortunate and cheerful, though fast-moving.

A band of settlers, weary from the long roads and tired of being alone and separated from their town of origin, finally find a new place to settle down.  At first blush, the land is clear and clean, with easy access to green grass, nearby forests, and local streams, and so they at long last decide to hitch their wagons down and claim the land as their own.  They immediately start celebrating, most of the settlers focused on ending their journey, looking forward to their new-yet-unplanned home, and celebrating.  With the exception of a handful of elders and engineers, the whole group is more focused on having fun and relaxing rather than being productive or actually setting stuff up for later.  Children run around playing, freer than they have been in months; the adults start tapping the best of their ales and roasting their fattest hogs to celebrate the choosing of the site for their new town.  Nothing is built yet, but that doesn’t matter: things are good, and they’re going to enjoy that goodness for today with lots of partying, drinking, looking forward, and joy.

Much like Amissio, whose name (Loss) describes the figure pretty well, Laetitia’s name of “Joy” is pretty straightforward.  It’s about happiness, it’s about joy, it’s about having fun, it’s about looking up and keeping your chin up.  It represents the emotion of happiness in every way, from passing and ephemeral giddiness to the deepest states of spiritual enlightenment.  In any context, it represents good times, though not necessarily long-lasting ones.  It’s definitely one of the more favorable figures of geomancy, and it’s not hard to see why: everyone likes happiness and people who are happy, who make them happy themselves.  It’s pretty simple when it comes to that.

Laetitia has only the fire line active, with all other forces in the figure passive.  As a result, Laetitia is associated with the element of Fire, indicating the drive, the will, and the mind to actually do something.  It’s been said that happiness isn’t found as the goal or result of an action, but found in the process of doing something; when we start to work our wills on the cosmos, we start doing what’s right for us, which has one effect of making us happy.  Will is the force associated with the element of Fire, and reflects that Laetitia is an expression of happiness through action, actually doing stuff in the world.  However, as a mobile and exiting figure, Laetitia’s effects are not long-lasting at all, which also tie in well with its fiery nature.  Events and actions are processes that last for only moments at a time, changing their state from moment to instantaneous moment, and without anything actually produced to cement that action in the material world, without any other party involved to work with to continue the action, and without any emotional involvement to contextualize and understand it, the passing elation and activity of Laetitia will remain for only a short while and burn up in itself.  After all, fire needs some kind of fuel to burn in order to keep going.

Despite its fiery nature, Laetitia is also assigned to the beneficent Jupiter and Pisces astrologically, which are more airy and watery than Laetitia would imply.  Pisces, to me, speaks of nebulousness and mistiness, able to accept and reflect while clouding and uplifting.  Pisces, being the final sign in the zodiac, leads one to wander out of one cycle and into the next, being a figure of transition and change that is neither ending nor beginning; it’s a figure of the imagination, being associated with the traveling feet of the body, as well as of illusion, being too caught up in its own dreaminess and clouds.  However, it’s this lack of clarity and ability to dream, and thus to plan and will things into existence, that gives one an ability to feel joy and optimism.  People often find happiness in the what-ifs and plans just being made, though enacting these plans might be difficult later on when the harsh realities of the world come into play.  However, the luck and grace of Jupiter, though turned retrograde and nocturnal for Laetitia, help keep spirits and minds buoyant at the world, come what may.

Laetitia is a pretty awesome figure, though its benefit is limited.  The shape of Laetitia resembles an upwards-pointing arrow, often like a tower or an arch, and from this derives its secondary meaning of “uplifting” or “upwards motion”.   Whether it’s a promotion (going up at work), better health (lifted vitality), or just general happiness (high spirits), Laetitia signifies going up.  It signifies any high place, especially any well-lit or cheerful place, often in view of all people due to its raised stature.  Because of that, Laetitia is not good when one wants to keep things hidden or secret, since something is in the view of everyone, and because gossip spreads like wildfire.  Due to its fiery and flighty nature, Laetitia isn’t good for long-term involvement or stability, especially anything that involves actual hard work and sorting out details.  Magically, Laetitia helps increase or improve the mood or general good feeling of anything, and can help with giving someone hope or opportunity, but also to uncover secrets and keep things active enough to keep moving.