Nature’s Book of Secrecy

Each time we touch the past, especially the philosophy and theology of the past, not to mention the mythology and legends of olden times, we inevitably come into contact with prejudices and misconceptions, as science calls it. This is a very common view of the pre-Francis Bacon era and his empirical method of knowing the external nature of the world, within which empiricism founded its tyranny of modern thinking - the Alpha and Omega of the human rational nature. But when we begin to look a little deeper, trying to discern through the mist of the ages the faint glimmer of which modern knowledge is a reflection, we begin to realise more and more the subtle interconnectedness and inseparable continuity that underlies all knowledge, including scientific knowledge.

This idea is perhaps most clearly seen in medieval literature. Let us take as an example one of Shakespeare's most famous plays - 'Hamlet' - written in the early 17th century. We will inevitably trace the historical relationship between Shakespeare's Hamlet, and the legend of Saxon Grammaticus' Amled, the story of which dates back to the ninth century AD, not to mention the literary interpretation of Amled by the French writer and translator François de Belleforest, which had a significant influence on the creation of Shakespeare's character. More importantly, we will come into contact not only with historical continuity, but also with those ideals of Christian virtue that originate long before the day when England became England and Britain became Great. Whether we refer to the religious theme that is touched upon in the work, when Hamlet chooses between vengeance and forgiveness, or the philosophical theme that permeates everything in the play, we cannot fail to note that these ideas were not created, but borrowed and conveyed with great art and skill that has made Shakespeare so famous throughout the ages.

But in the context of the topic under consideration, we are interested in something else - not so much in philosophy or religion, per se, but in those reflections of knowledge that have faded away in the centuries, which in the course of time become entirely artistic images in literature, even though it is thanks to them, sometimes entirely and exclusively, that the plot can acquire meaning and a point of support that gives impetus to all subsequent events. In Hamlet, for example, the ghost of the protagonist's father, killed by Claudius, serves as this fulcrum. At first glance, he is nothing more than a disembodied image, but this image reveals the truth and motivates Hamlet to action. His role is akin to the poetic spring that triggers the mechanism of the drama. However, the ghost itself, in the eyes of the modern materialist, is only an artistic image that has nothing to do with reality, or real life. In this sense, we could draw a parallel between the fate of Hamlet, whose murder of his father gives birth to the greatest dramatic image in history, and the fate of Bruce Wayne, whose murder of his parents gives birth to the Dark Knight. The only difference is that in the first case we have a ghost, which is considered a prejudice in the eyes of the modern world, and in the second case we have the fear inherent in every human being, which drives the character invented by Bob Kane and Bill Finger to action, thanks to which Batman is born. Both the ghost and the fear are a way of giving birth to both drama and a hero melancholic in nature and dark in his manifestations. Nevertheless, unlike the modern materialist who considers the ghost a mere literary image and Batman a dramatic but still fictional hero, the man of Shakespeare's age felt the world differently. For him, ghosts were more than just an artistic framing of a story - not just hallucinations generated by our brain, as scientists believe, or special effects created by modern artists to attract audiences to watch the next meaningless blockbuster with popcorn popping and Coke in their mouths. No. Rather, the ghosts were echoes of beliefs, tales, and myths, which were themselves echoes of knowledge greater than the atomic energy of our time. Knowledge behind which, in one way or another, was the truth.

When we begin to trace the thread of prejudice and seeming delusion, we inevitably come into contact with an antiquity so distant that modernity will be an echo, a barely perceptible rumour. This idea was wonderfully expressed by C.S. Lewis in his work 'The Discarded Image':

«In Nature’s infinite book of secrecy

A little I can read...»

'Antony & Cleopatra', William Shakespeare.

«Some time between 1160 and 1207 an English priest called LaƷamon wrote a poem called the Brut. In it (ll. 15,775 sq.) he tells us that the air is inhabited by a great many beings, some good and some bad, who will live there till the world ends. The content of this belief is not unlike things we might find in savagery. To people Nature, and especially the less accessible parts of her, with spirits both friendly and hostile, is characteristic of the savage response. But LaƷamon is not writing thus because he shares in any communal and spontaneous response made by the social group he lives in. The real history of the passage is quite different. He takes his account of the aerial daemons from the Norman poet Wace (c. 1155). Wace takes it from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae (before 1139). Geoffrey takes it from the second-century De Deo Socratis of Apuleius. Apuleius is reproducing the pneumatology of Plato. Plato was modifying, in the interests of ethics and monotheism, the mythology he had received from his ancestors. If you go back through many generations of those ancestors, then at last you may find, or at least conjecture, an age when that mythology was coming into existence in what we suppose to be the savage fashion. But the English poet knew nothing about that. It is further from him than he is from us. He believes in these daemons because he has read about them in a book; just as most of us believe in the Solar System or in the anthropologists’ accounts of early man. Savage beliefs tend to be dissipated by literacy and by contact with other cultures; these are the very things which have created LaƷamon’s belief…»

In this way, we come into contact not only with the links of one historical chain, but also, to a certain extent, with the original source, which is the basis of almost any prejudice that only seems to be such, conveyed by means of one or another artistic image, like the ghost of Hamlet's father - an echo of former beliefs and knowledge.

Behind any misconception or prejudice of the past, there is not always hidden one or another primitive and therefore a priori false notion, on which modern scientific thinking puts the stamp of ignorance. It is not so much about ghosts, demons or spirits, but more generally about that layer of knowledge which has become so distorted over time and so devoid of any meaning, except for the external, more like a kind of installation from Madame Tussauds, that only an inquisitive, truth-seeking mind, unencumbered by prejudices and materialistic scientific ideas, is able to discern it.

When we talk about astrology - which is what it really is - we inevitably come into contact with both prejudices and misconceptions and with genuine knowledge, not to mention numerous distortions. The difficulty lies in the fact that it is quite impossible for the common man to distinguish the former from the latter - to separate the grain from the chaff. In general, this is not his task. This is what astrologers should do, but alas, to a greater extent they themselves do not know, especially if they are followers of Leo, Rudhyar and Jung - the three ‘whales’ of modern astrology, thanks to whom the knowledge of the future has become distorted beyond recognition, becoming like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, only woven from psychology, karma and the supposed omnipotence of free will.

Clearly, the practical purpose of astrology is to unveil the veil of the unknown, most often about the future or the present, sometimes even the past. Whether the question of property valuation concerns the here and now, or is related to the desire to know whether someone will be promoted, it is all about lifting the veil of uncertainty and clarifying both the current situation and the one to come. This is perhaps the most pragmatic purpose of astrology as it relates to our daily live. For it, the destiny of a person is equal to the destiny of a state, a civilisation or the world. The great and the small converge at one point, which only becomes significant in our subjective perception. After all, the truth is that for someone the fate of a kitten that ran away from home, as well as the time of its return, is more important than the question of how and when the military conflict will end, which undoubtedly has a more significant impact on the fate of people and the world. This is a kind of Einstein's relativity, as applied to our life, which is fully embodied by astrology, giving answers to the most vital questions, as well as to the questions of global character. But we are interested in something else.

When we touch the real astrology, we inevitably encounter symbols of planets and stars, which reflect with their different, unique combinations - past, present and future. And in this seeming whirlwind of endless kaleidoscope of events, it is not always easy to find the very source, thanks to which the celestial symbols get their meaning. Rather, we will encounter the technical interpretation of celestial positions, to which modern astrologers, who have a scientific, very dry and superficial mind, are so fond of paying attention, but we will never touch the source and meaning. After all, the attempt to explain the equations of techniques, the mechanics of astronomical movements and the determinism based on them, is like explaining the structure of the physical body of man, but in no way an answer to the question of the soul, of which it is a derivative. The mechanism of fate is not the mechanics of physical processes in nature. The latter are only an external symbol of its internal realities. A symbol used by Providence to open the veil of the unknown to those who are able to read the signs on the veil of Isis - Nature - which conceals her naked Truth.

To tear away the veil of mystery in astrology, we must answer the seemingly simple questions: how are the symbols of the planets and stars born? and why are they endowed with the power to reflect events? and how does a symbol become a force with the power to influence the visible world? and how can it, at the same time, represent a physical correspondence, in this or that planet, which does not contain any other force than physical, being at the same time a reflection of other forces belonging to Providence and Destiny? For it is quite evident that the material planets, as well as the stars, do not exert any influence on our destinies, and yet they are the symbol of those forces which do.

We will try to grasp the thin silver thread that leads to the heavens - to those high reaches that are hidden by the veil of mystery. To penetrate into the sanctum sanctorum of astrology. To trace not so much the historical, but the celestial origin of the birth of the symbols of planets and stars. Will we succeed? We ourselves do not know, because these lines are written as in a thick fog, when it is possible to see only a little, at arm's length... unless the sun, hidden behind the clouds, will disperse the latter to illuminate the whole horizon.

First of all, we must determine astrology's place in the structure of the universe if we want to understand how and why. To do this, we must remember that astrology deals with life, or movement. It deals with the dynamics of the Cosmos, in all its manifestations, like human life or the life of a nation, state, empire or world, with its cycles of formation and development on Earth, as a symbol of the materialistic Cosmos. That is why astrology is based on the geo-centric structure of the Universe, in which the Earth is only a symbol of matter, nothing more, surrounded by seven creative forces symbolically personified in the planets:

We cannot imagine the world except as an infinite space. We do not know its boundaries, and even speculatively we cannot trace the boundary where one manifestation ends and something else begins. This infinity we can only express in the form of a symbol - 〇 - a circle, which, at the same time, will be the embodiment of both infinity and the entire Cosmos, in its unmanifested state. The potential, which is destined to manifest itself in time - to become being in becoming. For this reason, the circle has always been a symbol not only of Space, but also of the Cosmos, in its unmanifested state. Moreover, practically in all cultures of the ancient world. It is that Simplicity, which contains all the future complexity of manifestation. And it is this Simplicity - this symbol of the circle - that we will take as a basis for further consideration of our topic.

This symbolic circle is that last, most distant sphere from the Earth, which serves as the last facet in the geocentric picture of the world - the so-called Empireum, beyond which lies that which cannot be expressed by symbol or otherwise. In this sphere the world is contained, and from it comes forth. This is the Anima Mundi of antiquity - the Soul of the World, which creates everything visible and invisible. It is for this reason that the ancients represented the world in the form of spheres, successively residing in each other: from the most immaterial Trinity - Empireum, Primu Mobile and Cristallinum - to the first material manifestation of light, or fire, represented by the sphere of fixed stars, and the manifested Cosmos at the centre, created by the seven dynamic forces personified by the seven planets. The central Earth is nothing but the material Cosmos.

Astrologers rarely consider why it is that the fixed stars carry eternal truths, encapsulating the creation myths of the world, serving as their reflection. Eternity is indestructible, immovable, unchanging. And therefore - Perfect, in an abstract sense. The less variability and movement in the celestial form, the greater its correspondence to the truth. That is why the stars - whose movement is so slow that a human life would not be enough to notice how their position in the sky shifts by one degree of arc in 72 years - represent that reflection of eternity which we associate with the soul and God, and the ancients with the gods, mythology and cosmology. For everything changeable is subject to destruction and death, or permanent changes, which we observe in the sky watching the movement of the planets, and observing the processes in the Sublunar World - the world under the sphere of the Moon. And if we take into account the symbolism that the stars are closest to the invisible, or unseen, immaterial, then everything will fall into its rightful place in this World Picture.

But let us continue further consideration of the subject by looking at the given circle - represented by the spheres - in a slightly different way. If we imagine the world as a sphere with two poles, of which the North will be the most immaterial manifestation, or Spirit, and the South the most material manifestation, or Matter, then the forces which effect the transition from one pole - the pole of Spirit - to the other - the pole of Matter - will be what astrology studies, in an abstract sense:

The North Pole will represent that Reality which creates the manifested world, or the South Pole, or rather from which it emanates. Astrology, on the other hand, studies that space which stands in the middle, between the two Poles - the movement and embodiment of forces, in a general sense. In this analogy there is no difference with spherical world order - it is simply a vertical view of the problem. We go not from the external, the least material, to the internal, the most material, but from top to bottom, where the North Pole corresponds to the Empireum, while the South Pole corresponds to the Earth, or the material Cosmos.

Why is this important? Because when we speak of the world, we speak, first of all, of the material or earthly world, which is directly connected with the natural philosophical ideas of antiquity - the very ones Aristotle wrote about. When we go up to the Source, we come into contact with what Plato wrote about. Of course, this is not so much about Aristotle and Plato as it is about the knowledge they expressed. We could just as well take Eastern philosophers or sages, but we are dealing with a section of Western astrology, which is based on ideas about God and the world, in the key of the Western tradition in the first place, even if the roots of the latter are in the East or in another direction - that is not the subject of our topic. Aristotle expresses a natural philosophical view of the world, which is largely materialistic in nature, and therefore closer to the Pole that embodies Matter, created by the four Elements, which are themselves created by the combination of four original, immaterial qualities: heat, dryness, cold and moisture. Plato, on the other hand, is concerned primarily with the Reality from which Ideas emanate, framed by Symbols endowed with Power. Symbol is an active, creative form of Force and Idea, through which the manifested world becomes manifest. The symbol is the glyph of the incipient Force. It is the first form, which is still not so much material as speculative, and which, as it descends, takes on more and more complex material forms, finding its physical reflection at the bottom, thus linking the Top with the Bottom. What is above finds its reflection below, like the stars reflected on the calm surface of a night lake. The reflection is not the Symbol or Force itself, but only its physical, or material, correspondence, which is derivative, but not primary, and therefore an illusion rather than a reality in itself.

The process of the embodiment of the Idea expressed by the Symbol in the world, is similar to the process of descending down the ladder, only in relation to the celestial spheres - as if with each step the form of the Symbol-Idea becomes clearer and more manifest and, at the same time, more complex and material. And the lower the Idea descends into the material world, the more and more it moves away from the Source that gave it life. Its life-force is above, in the Soul of the World, or Anima Mundi. There it takes its first form as a Symbol, which, as the Idea is realised, finds its physical correspondence in the material world, becoming more complex as it descends. The correspondence itself is nothing more than the reflected symbol of the Symbol, or the idea of the Idea.

The movement of the Force or Idea, represented by this or that Symbol, into the material world is very conventional, because it is quite obvious that the top and bottom are components of the material world, but not of the Reality from which they come and in which they find their life. This analogy is traced in geocentric representations, in which the Earth is symbolically surrounded by seven spheres and is itself the Centre. We see that in purely materialistic ideas, the Earth is not the centre of the Universe, but a particle of our Solar System and it is not central and this is the truth of matter. The fact that the Earth, at the same time, is a planet inhabited by man-intelligent and - at the same time - a symbol of the material Cosmos, does not matter. For symbolism. Such is the difference, between astrological and astronomical reality, cosmology and cosmography, geo-centric and helio-centric, materialism and symbolism.

The Earth, at the same time, is a symbol of the material Cosmos, which is surrounded by seven invisible forces, symbolically represented by the seven visible planets of our Solar System. But even if there were three or twenty-three planets in our Solar System, the Earth, as a symbol of the material Cosmos, would still be surrounded by seven forces. No more, and no less. Just as the signs of the Zodiac will always be twelve, even if our ignorant colleagues continue to confuse the Zodiac with the zodiacal constellations, finding on the path of the ecliptic the thirteenth constellation of the Serpent, the fourteenth constellation of Insanity, or even the twentieth constellation of Insanity - the immaterial signs will always be twelve, for the simple reason that the Zodiac and the zodiacal constellations have similar names, but in essence are quite different things, reflecting eternity in itself, or Symbol, and eternity in becoming, or physical correspondence.

The Earth, in the examples above, represents the South Pole and the central element of the World Picture, Matter. Empireum, in whose ring the Universe is enclosed, represents the North Pole, or Spirit, and the far outer limit of the World Picture that we associate with it. And this is critically important to understand, because everything is contained within Reality, not separated from it by an invisible wall in the form of the Demiurge, who is outside his Creation, but at the same time, determines the fate of all living things without touching them. Where is the logic in this?

More precisely, we would have to associate the North Pole not so much with the Spirit as with the Soul of the World - Anima Mundi. But in our analogy, the latter is rather the whole circle and its space, while the former is its creative potential. What we might call the Divine, or God, is not in the anthropomorphic god. It encapsulates all of the above, transcends it and at the same time is outside and within it all. How can this be expressed in symbols or terms? The East rightly gives it the name Tho, believing that no amount of reasoning can ever bring us closer to the realisation of this Source, and prudently considering that even naming, let alone symbolising, would inevitably introduce a limitation. Therefore, we can only speak of the dynamics of manifestation, and comprehend the Soul of the World, but not the Source from which it itself proceeds and of which it is the expression. Thus, what we call Spirit is nothing more than a convention to denote that which is opposite to the manifested world, or the material Cosmos. And for convenience, we call it Spirit, Reality, but more accurately the Soul of the World, which in the East is called Mulaprakriti, or the Root of Matter. The space that gives birth to the world in eternity.

But how is this process of self accomplished? Certainly, it has no beginning or end, except the endless cycles of manifestation and extinction, and therefore speculation on the root causes of the birth of the Cosmos is pointless, for the simple reason that we do not yet have the proper instrument in our consciousness to realise it - not by reason, that is for sure. Nevertheless, we can trace the very process of the birth of the Symbol, in the material world.

The Reality begins its manifestation with the First Movement - Primu Mobile - which is not a movement in the material sense, and not even a certain vibration or emanation, as some ‘experts’ of esoteric sciences like to say. We cannot give this process any name that will accurately reflect the process itself. Primu Mobile, or the First Movement, is that Word which gave birth to the manifested Cosmos, eons of time later. It is the eternal Idea underlying all manifestation - the Movement in Itself, within The Reality, which, reaching the Crystal Sphere, or Nonu Coelum Cristallinum, takes its first form in the form of a Symbol, containing all future manifestation. A simple Form containing the entire futureness of material complexity. In an abstract sense, it is the Point within the Circle - ⨀. The root within Space. The beginning of life, if you will, physically symbolised and reflected by the Sun in the material world. From the Point inside the circle begins Genesis, or Becoming. Evolution, both in relation to each separate cycle of development and in general, in an abstract sense. The Point gives rise to the Line within the Circle - ⊖ - the same in turn gives rise to the Cross within the Circle - ⊕ - and further, through symbols, the world takes its physical form. Each Symbol thus represents the stages of development when the Force, through this or that Symbol, begins to manifest itself in Space. And the more and more there is, if we may say so, a condensation of the Force, or, in the language of the material mind, a descent of the Idea downwards into the material Space, which does not accurately reflect this process, the more and more the abstract - essentially abstract - Symbols take on their more concrete and complex forms, as they move from the original Simplicity, containing within their unity the being, into the material complexity of separation. Thus each symbol becomes a peculiar glyph of the Force - a symbol of the stage of development and the centre, the form through which the Force manifests itself. To a certain extent, having properly mastered this knowledge, we become capable of using the symbols, in accordance with their nature, for this or that material consequence. And this is the subject of traditional astrological magic, about which both the author of the ‘Occult Philosophy’ and the author of the treatise ‘De Imaginibus’ wrote, leaving aside the most significant work on astrological magic - ‘Picatrix’.

Thus, the symbol of generating life, represented by the Point in the Circle, is reflected in the symbol of the Sun generating physical life - the first light in the material world, in a general sense. The first material manifestation of light, or life, is fire. And whether it is the fire of our Sun or of some other Sun, its symbol is - ⨀. Therefore, although each Sun, as well as each star, we can find its individual glyph of the Force or its individual symbol - in a general sense, the Sun, as a symbol of Life, will always be a reflection of that original Force, the Root of Matter, which gave birth to Life, nothing more, enclosing in itself the universal Symbol - ⨀. In the same way we give the name ‘Man’ to the intelligent beginning of life, even though the individual manifestations of this beginning are innumerable, and each has its own name and form, being only a reflection of the very idea of Man.

For example, names are also a form of the Force, similar to a Symbol. More specifically, names are related to the individual soul. Every celestial body has a name that is related to the primary Symbol. Like the Sun is a reflection of Life, its original Idea. But also, individual names can be divided into smaller components, hierarchies of smaller forces belonging to this or that celestial daimon - the individual soul of any particular planet or star, which we see with our eyes in the manifested Cosmos. Thus, the name of the daimon of the Sun of our Solar System, which encloses the names of the other - lesser powers that are under its control - is Beydeluz (Arabic: Bandalus). And it includes the names of the sides of the world connected with it (top, bottom, right, left, front, back), as well as the name connected with its movement through the signs of the Zodiac: Dehymez, Eydulez, Deheyfuz, Azuhafez, Mahabeyuz, Hadyz and Letahaymeriz. Each of these names is like a smaller individual soul, a part of the entire soul of the daimon of our Sun. Seven names emanating from the main individual Name. And so it is for each of the seven planets of the material Cosmos. Each name has its own special symbol, which is comparable to the human body, in which the soul of the daimon of the planet is embodied, without knowing which, an ordinary utterance will yield nothing but empty sound. Moreover, when dealing with the material reflection, appropriate conditions must be observed, such as the proper day and planetary hour, certain colours, stones and incense associated with the daimon, and certain other astrological conditions, fortunately beyond the reach of modern astro-psychologists, who will never be allowed nearer than a cannon shot to this knowledge. And this is but little that could be said of the celestial daimon of the Sun, for there are other names associated with it, for other purposes, which are administered by its seven lesser daimons.

Why have we given this example? Only to show how an abstract Idea carries within itself the original Symbol, which becomes individualised as it incarnates in the material Cosmos, taking on a unique form and Name, while continuing to serve as a reflection of the original Symbol of Life - ⨀ - which gave birth to the material world. In this way Reality encounters matter and finds in it its material form of reflection, its individual Name and its own unique Symbol, different from the universal one.

But let us return to the process of the embodiment of the Symbol, or Idea, in matter. When this process reaches the manifestation of the material Cosmos, the world begins to manifest, in combination, the Elements, which are formed by more subtle qualities, about which Aristotle wrote, among others: heat, cold, dryness and moisture. They form four Elements: Fire, through the combination of heat and dryness; Air, through the combination of heat and moisture; Water, through the combination of cold and moisture; and Earth, through the combination of cold and dryness. Thus, heat and cold are the primary qualities, while dryness and moisture are secondary. Of these Elements the whole manifested world is composed, but, as Cornelius Agrippa wrote quite accurately about it, these are not the Elements in their pure form, which are unknowable, but only mixtures of them. For although the same Water, as an Element, is cold and moist, it may be in the manifested world - warm or cold, dissolved or crystallised, or some other kind. In other words, the so-called manifested Elements, like the fire of a fire, the water of a river, the soil of the earth, and the air we breathe, are not the Elements themselves, but their various combinations and mixtures. The Elements in their pure form do not exist in matter. They are not material Elements - that is the point. And this is the basis of natural philosophy, understanding which we are approaching, both to understanding of the world order, and to understanding of those subtle interrelations which bind together the manifested and not manifested.

The Elements, as the ancients believed, themselves come from the Ether, which, in its turn, is one of the coarsest forms of matter, compared to that which generates it. The same Elements form man, and are represented in him by four humours, as well as temperaments, directly related to the latter. Thus the Earth humour, associated with melancholy and black choler in the body, is responsible for all that is solid in the body - like the skeleton, bones and teeth - and for all that has to do with holding anything in the body, as well as slowing down processes, which is the essence of the Earth Element. The combination of the Elements in the human body, as an excess of one or another humour, is reflected both in the body and temperament, and in the diseases to which a person is prone. And this is the basis of traditional medicine in astrology, which deals with about the same thing as Ayurveda - restoration of the lost balance in the body, through herbs, minerals, diet and lifestyle changes.

But what does this give us, in astrology? How can we put it into practice? On the one hand, understanding the humoral nature of the planets - their relationship to heat, cold, moisture and dryness, and to the corresponding Elements formed by these qualities - allows us to draw analogies, both in the relevant processes of earthly life and in human life. It is quite obvious that excess of heat in the body gives rise to corresponding diseases, because heat, trying to find its way out of the body, forms rashes, pimples, ulcers, redness, high temperature, fever and so on; psychologically - anger and aggression; in the body of earth - volcanic eruptions, fires and similar processes; while in earthly events - wars and conflicts. And this is only a small part of what we can designate by drawing an analogy between the quality of heat, and the material effects in which it manifests itself.

But heat also has its own special Symbol, which is connected with one of the seven Forces in which it embodies itself - ♂. The original principle of heat finds its reflection in combination with dryness, in the element of Fire, which, in turn, finds its reflection in the planetary symbol of Mars - ♂ - which is the reflection of universal Heat among the seven dynamic forces of the Cosmos, nothing more, and which takes its material form in the form of a planet with the same name. At the same time, it is not the planet Mars that brings heat into the material Cosmos, or even to the Earth. The principle of Heat is diffused within the material universe, otherwise it could not be brought in from outside physically, from anywhere else. It is only through likeness that it becomes possible.

Mars is considered the hottest and driest planet of all. But this has more to do with the meaning of the Force it expresses. Mars itself, as a planet, is cold, but as a symbol it is hot. And this shows the difference that exists between the physical image (planet) and the Symbol, and hence the Force it embodies. The Moon is also a symbol of Water, or the Moisture of the universe, but it is not, physically, moist in nature. It is only a physical embodiment of the Symbol, but not the Force itself or anything like it. Moisture, like Heat, is spread everywhere in the Cosmos, and does not depend on where exactly in the universe Mars or the Moon are located. The point is that physical forms are a reflection of Reality and of the Force behind them that uses them for its expression. We may even say, and this would be true to a certain extent, that our material world is nothing more than a reflection of the eternal Symbol, and therefore an illusion, since it is derived from Anima Mundi. Of course, as long as our mind is centred in matter, we do not perceive this, because matter is the only reality for us. And so, in order to avoid unnecessary polemics, it is better to leave this subject to philosophers, in the true meaning of the word - those who grasp the truth by direct experience, and not by mental conclusions and intellectual reflections. Back to our ... symbols.

Mars is not only the symbol of Heat, but also the image of Force, as a force personified in mythology by Ares, the god of war. Who else could personify the god of war but the Force, which has the hottest nature? Even the common human analogy allows us to understand the process in action. What happens to us when we begin to ‘boil’ at someone else's words? Excess heat rises up in our head, and... we think you know what actions can follow such a ‘boil’. The acquisition, to some extent, of a humanised symbol, or rather an image close to a person, is also part of the process we have written about above - when the original Idea acquires an abstract form in the form of a Symbol, and then materialises itself, or rather crystallises itself, in the form of more concrete Symbols and Forces - the closer to Matter, the more earthly these symbols and their meaning become.

The Four Qualities form with the Three Principles - the Twelve Potentialities and the Seven Forces, and those, in turn, begin to embody the whole diversity of the material Cosmos. Heat is a non-material principle, which becomes material as soon as we have the appropriate Force for its embodiment. And this Force becomes the one to which we give the name Mars. But Mars itself, as a planet, is not this Force, but only its reflected image. If you like, it is the same as C.S. Lewis wrote about, only in relation to universal processes, when we, starting from the material process, gradually pass to its origin in heaven.

With the emergence of mythology, which is connected with the origin of the Cosmos - cosmology - we inevitably come into contact with various aspects of myth in relation to this or that Force, which we use in a practical sense, when we consider certain questions, in astrology. But first of all, we must remember that there are only Seven Forces - not ten, fifteen or twenty. Each Force may be divided into seven constituents, and those also into seven, and thus we have what we might call a kind of hierarchy of forces, though this is rather a subject of occultism on the one hand, and astrological magic on the other. Here we have touched lightly on this point only to show that it is sufficient for us to use the Seven Forces, personified by the seven planets, to consider any question in astrology, applying all other factors - like the stars and trans-saturn planets - in the aspect of their myths, only if they affect one of the seven planets, and if it is important in the context of the question.

For example, the cosmogonic myth of Uranus, which represents Chaos and Heaven, the symbolic Spirit, castrated by Saturn, which is the symbol of Matter, Order and Limitations, from the standpoint of Creation, is nothing but the Cosmos taking shape, or materialisation. But in practical astrology, Uranus will never appear as a ‘sky’ or ‘spirit,’ but only as a factor of chaos and limitation (like Saturn, which is also a symbol of limitation), because of the simple fact that it has been castrated by Saturn. And so, in the question of whether someone is going to be successful in their business endeavours, if we saw the planet of business conjunct Uranus, we would say unequivocally - no, that business is not going to grow, it is too limited. And this is a practical application of mythology, in predictive astrology.

Let us take another example - Ampelos and Dionysius. The myth is about a beautiful young man, Ampelos, the lover of Dionysius, who prematurely tried to pluck a vine, and crashed to death, for which he was placed by Dionysius in the sky in the form of a star, in the constellation of Virgo. The same star Vindemiatrix, which in conjunction with the querent planet can speak of an overestimation of one's own strength and imminent downfall, afterwards. In the same example about a business start-up, if the planet of the business was conjunct it, we would say the same - no, business failure will be imminent. And that's just one aspect of the myth, in the key of predictive astrology.

But myths, like planets, contain different aspects and their application depends on the context of the question we consider. In one case, Vindemiatrix will only mean tears and sadness, reflecting the situation itself (e.g., the querent is on the verge of divorce), and in another it will be an unequivocal no, in the matter of the future, or the collapse of all hopes and plans. In the third, it will be a warning, if we are looking at someone's natal chart, that the person should never make hasty decisions, and always try to do things at the right time, unless he/she wants to share the fate of Ampelos, of course.

So it all depends on which aspect of the myth we turn to, depending on the issue at hand. We cannot change something against our wishes. We will have one answer, when considering the horary question - very precise and definite - and another, when considering the life perspective, in the context of considering the natal chart, because we can give the right advice, which the person may or may not take advantage of. It is in the will of the person whether or not to follow that advice, but not to change the consequences as stated in the symbolism of the myth.

As you can see, the Symbol, at the same time, can express completely different aspects, depending on what exactly we are dealing with. It can carry a cosmological meaning, revealing to us the secrets of the world order; magical, revealing to us the way of interaction with various forces of the manifested Cosmos; prognostic, being only a reflection of the future, present or past. But it can be a Symbol in itself, containing in its original simplicity all of the above, and embodying it as it descends into matter, until the bottom becomes connected with the top, through physical reflection, in this or that planet, star, person or something else. The essence lies precisely in the fact that the original Force and Idea is contained in the primary Symbol, not in its derivatives - the latter are only smaller facets of the former, themselves being its reflection in the material Cosmos. Thanks to astrology we are able to see these symbolic reflections and similarities, because it is a kind of mediator of knowledge, connecting the different poles of life - the Top and the Bottom. And the study of the method, as well as of the structure of the Universe, constitutes one of the most important tasks of astrology.

This is all that we can say on this subject, having gathered together a peculiar squeeze of knowledge, accumulated by us for years of study, and leaving aside some details and explanations, but keeping the essence. In the next article we will certainly write something more practical and earthly, concrete, if you like, because any knowledge becomes knowledge only through practice and experience, first of all, and not through study and reflection alone.

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