Transcendental Magic I: The Doctrine (Éliphas Lévi) · 81 of 96 · tr. A.E. Waite
17. Astrology-d
Hence I conclude that, for myself and for this year, experience confirms fully the precision of Cardan's astrological calculus, which connects furthermore with the climacteric years of ancient astrologers.
This term signifies arranged in scales or calculated on the degrees of a scale.
Johannes Trithemius in his book on Secondary Causes has computed the recurrence of fortunate or calamitous years for all empires of the world.
In the twenty-first chapter of our “Ritual” we shall give an exact analysis of this work, together with a continuation of the labour of Trithemius to our own days and the application of his magical scale to contemporary events, so as to deduce the most striking probabilities relative to the immediate future of France, Europe and the world.
According to all the grand masters in astrology, comets are the stars of exceptional heroes, and they visit earth only to signalize great changes; the planets preside over collective existences and modify the destinies of mankind in the aggregate; the fixed stars, more remote and more feeble in their action, attract individuals and determine their tendencies.
Sometimes a group of stars may combine to influence the destinies of a single man, while often a great number of souls are drawn by the distant rays of the same sun.
When we die, our interior light in departing follows the attraction of its star, and thus it is that we live in other universes, where the soul makes for itself a new garment, analogous to the development or diminution of its beauty; for our souls, when separated from our bodies, resemble revolving stars; they are globules of animated light which always seek their centre for the recovery of their equilibrium and their true movement.
Before all things, however, they must liberate themselves from the folds of the serpent, that is, the unpurified Astral Light which envelops and imprisons them, unless the strength of their will can lift them beyond its reach.
The immersion of the living star in the dead light is a frightful torment, comparable to that of Mezentius.
Therein the soul freezes and burns at the same time, and has no means of getting free except by re-entering the current of exterior forms and assuming a fleshly envelope, then energetically battling against instincts to strengthen that moral liberty which will permit it at the moment of its death to break the chains of earth and wing its flight in triumph towards the star of consolation which has smiled in light upon it.
Following this clue, we can understand the nature of the fire of hell, which is identical with the demon or old serpent; we can gather also wherein consists the salvation and reprobation of men, all called and all elected successively, but in small number, after having risked falling into the eternal fire through their own fault.
Such is the great and sublime revelation of the Magi, a revelation which is the mother of all symbols, of all dogmas, of all religions.
We can realize already how far Dupuis was mistaken in regarding astronomy as the source of every cultus.
It is astronomy, on the contrary, which has sprung from astrology, and primitive astrology is one of the branches of the holy Kabalah, the science of sciences and the religion of religions.
Hence upon the seventeenth page of the Tarot we find an admirable allegory - a naked woman, typifying Truth, Nature and Wisdom at one and the same time, turns two ewers towards earth, and pours out fire and water upon it.
Above her head glitters the septenary, starred about an eight-pointed star, that of Venus, symbol of peace and love; the plants of earth are flourishing around the woman, and on one of them the butterfly of Psyche has alighted.
This emblem of the soul is replaced in some copies of the sacred book by a bird, which is a more Egyptian and probably a more ancient symbol.
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.
Liberation requires freeing oneself from the 'unpurified Astral Light' and battling instincts to strengthen moral liberty. [Converted from ritual_purity reject to astral_light accept per operator decision 2026-07-15: chunk substantively expresses the Astral Light doctrine.]
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 passage explicitly links celestial bodies (stars, planets) to human destinies and collective existences, embodying the Hermetic principle of cosmic reflection.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The text describes how planets modify the destinies of mankind in the aggregate and stars influence individuals, defining the metaphysical basis for astrological influence.
The uncreated luminous quality of the divine, sometimes experienced directly in mystical states; illumination as revelation.
The text repeatedly references 'interior light', 'globules of animated light', and the 'star of consolation which has smiled in light' as central to the soul's nature.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
The passage states that souls live in 'other universes' after death.
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 text states that souls resemble revolving stars and that planets preside over collective existences while fixed stars attract individuals.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The soul is described as imprisoned by the unpurified Astral Light (serpent) and needing to liberate itself from the chains of earth.