The Tarot of the Bohemians (Papus) · 95 of 134 · tr. A.P. Morton
Chapter XVII (part 7)
Third hour of Apollonius: " The serpents, the dogs, and fire ." The first manifestation of force applied externally to inert matter for affecting transmutations; this is Alchemy.
The Neophyte having attained this step in practice must be ready morally to make a complete sacrifice of his personality; in the language of the alchemists, he must have destroyed his fixed nature by fire so as to, volatilize it.
ARCANUM XIII.: Death .
Fourth hour of Apollonius: " The Neophyte wanders in the sepulchres, and it will injure him; he will experience horror and fear of visions; he should devote himself to magic and to géotie ." This is Necromancy, the application of Force to the domination of inferior living beings: Elemental , or organisms ready to synthetize themselves, and Elementary , remains of the dead, on the way to disorganization.
Morally, the Neophyte should die to ordinary life, to enter the spiritual life; the celestial man will he born from the corpse of the terrestrial man.
The foundations of the Universe are now reached; the Neophyte touches the extremity of the terrestrial aura, the sublunar atmosphere which surrounds every planet, like the reservoir of the elements of its life; he has now reached a terrible moment, when he must lose the earth to launch out into the ocean of space; a formidable crisis, to which two periods are consecrated.
The first is transitory.
ARCANUM XIV.: The two Urns (the terrestrial and celestial fluids).
Fifth hour of Apollonius: " The waters above the heavens ." Here the Neophyte learns the flow of the astral currents in the planetary aura, just as in the second hour he acquired a preliminary knowledge of Force, before exposing himself to it in the following hour.
ARCANUM XV.: Typhon (the electric whirlwind).
Sixth hour of Apollonius: " Here one must remain quiet, immovable through fear ." Unprotected the Neophyte exposes himself to the double and formidable fluid-current of celestial space, by which the ignorant or imprudent is carried away without mercy, but which raises the strong man who has purified himself.
Silence, prudence, courage!
According to your deserts you will be enraptured like St.
Paul, or you will expose yourself either to madness, to the spiritualization of evil, or to sorcery.
This is the Sabbat or the Ecstasy!
The reader cannot pay too much attention to this solemn monument of practical occultism, so well described in Lytton's novel Zanoni under the name of the Dragon of the Threshold ; it is the formidable danger which necessitates so many secrets.
This threshold is reached by many artificial paths: the hachich, narcotics, hypnotics of every kind, the practices of spiritual mediums; but woe to him who attempts to pass it before he has triumphed in the long and laborious preliminary preparation!
His fate is foretold in the next arcanum.
ARCANUM XVI.: The Lightning-struck Tower .
Seventh hour of Apollonius: " Fire comforts every living creature, and if some priest, himself a pure man, purloin and use, it, if he blend it with holy oil, consecrate it, and then anoint some ailing limb, with it, the malady will be cured ." The irresistible current has touched the man who exposed himself to its vortex on the terrestrial heights; if he The impure be is threatened with disorganization more or less complete, according to his intellectual or moral unworthiness, and his energy (incoherent mysticism, folly, death, or complete disintegration, represented by the genius of evil, the Devil)!
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
The text opens by defining the first manifestation of force as Alchemy and describes the Neophyte destroying fixed nature by fire to volatilize it, centralizing the theme of spiritual transmutation.
The universal fluid or medium of occult philosophy — Lévi's Great Magical Agent — that transmits will, thought, and magical influence between minds and matter, and preserves the impress of all forms and actions as a book of consciences; cognate with akasha and the anima mundi. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (a doctrine of hidden affinity) in being a substantival medium that can be charged, directed, and abused.
The passage explicitly discusses 'astral currents in the planetary aura' and 'celestial space' fluids that the Neophyte must navigate, aligning with the definition of a universal fluid medium transmitting magical influence.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The text links terrestrial and celestial fluids and implies a connection between the Neophyte's internal state and external cosmic currents, reflecting Hermetic correspondence principles.
Ecstatic irrational rapture — Plato's mania, Bruno's furore — by which the soul transcends ordinary reason and attains direct contact with divine reality; madness reframed as higher knowledge.
The passage warns that the unprotected Neophyte may face madness or spiritualization of evil, while the purified are enraptured like St. Paul, framing ecstatic states as a threshold danger.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The passage refers to 'so many secrets' necessitated by the formidable danger of the threshold and describes a 'solemn monument of practical occultism' not for the unprepared.
The doctrine that human volition, cultivated by discipline and emancipated from passion and servitude, is the primary instrument of magical operation — will confirmed by persistent acts acquires causal power over self, others, and nature; distinct from faith and from mere desire.
The passage emphasizes the Neophyte's moral readiness, courage, and purity as prerequisites to withstand fluid currents, implying that cultivated volition determines success or madness.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The transformation of the 'terrestrial man' into the 'celestial man' within the Neophyte mirrors the cosmic transition from earth to space, suggesting a reflection of cosmic processes in the individual.
The Hermetic doctrine that apparent opposites are identical in nature but differ in degree — two extremes of the same scale (hot/cold, love/hate) — such that one pole can be shifted toward its opposite by a change of degree ('mental transmutation'). Distinct from opposites_transcended (a completion-state marking the path's end, not this doctrine's active technique) and magical_equilibrium (balance held BETWEEN two forces, not identity-by-degree of what looks like two forces).
The text contrasts terrestrial and celestial fluids, life and death, and purity versus impurity as opposing forces the Neophyte must navigate.
The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.
The text describes the Neophyte dying to ordinary life so the 'celestial man will be born from the corpse of the terrestrial man,' indicating a return to a higher spiritual origin.
The living practitioner's deliberate trance-journey into spirit, underworld, or upper realms — Lemminkainen's descent into Tuoni and Wainamoinen's entry into Wipunen's body in the Kalevala, the Siberian shaman's drum-mediated travel, Inuit angakkuq's submarine journey to Sedna, classical katabasis as ritual technique. The practitioner returns with knowledge, songs, lost-words, or a recovered soul. Distinct from psychopomp_journey (which guides the *dead* soul through afterlife realms) and from spiritual_ascent (which is the soul's *upward* return to source); shamanic_journey is the *living* practitioner crossing into ordinarily-inaccessible domains as a worked technique.
The Neophyte's passage through the 'Dragon of the Threshold' and into the 'ocean of space' resembles a trance-journey into inaccessible domains, though framed in Western occult terms.
A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.
The passage details a staged journey (Hours of Apollonius, Arcana XIII-XVI) where the Neophyte moves from terrestrial life through crisis to launch into the ocean of space, representing a clear upward progression.
The Hermetic doctrine that nothing rests — matter, energy, mind, and spirit are a single continuum differing only in rate of vibration, from the grossest matter to the least material spirit. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (affinity resonating BETWEEN separate things) in being a claim about what constitutes any one thing in the first place, and from magical_equilibrium (Lévi's operational balancing technique, which presupposes some vibration doctrine rather than stating this general principle).
References to 'fluid-currents' and the 'electric whirlwind' (Typhon) imply a dynamic, energetic universe where states change based on intensity or flow.