17. The Writing Of The Starsb

It was included in the work of Montfaucon on the religions and superstitions of the world, and also in the treatise upon Magic published by the mystic Eckartshausen. Scholars, moreover, are not agreed upon the configuration of the letters of the primitive alphabet. The Italian Tarot, of which the lost Gothic originals are much to be regretted, connects by the disposition of its figures with the Hebrew alphabet in use after the captivity, and known as the Assyrian alphabet; but there are fragments of anterior Tarots where the disposition is different. There should be no conjecture in matters of research, and hence we suspend our judgement in the expectation of fresh and more conclusive discoveries. As to the alphabet of the stars, we believe it to be instinctive, like the configuration of clouds, which seem to assume any form that imagination lends them. Star-groups are like points in geomancy or the figures of cartomancy. They are a pretext for auto-magnetism, an instrument to fix and determine native intuition. Thus, a Kabalist, familiar with mystic hieroglyphics, will perceive signs in the stars which will not be discerned by a simple shepherd, but the shepherd, on his part, will observe combinations that will escape the Kabalist. Country people substitute a rake for the belt and sword of Orion, while a Kabalist recognizes in the same sign - considered as a whole - all the mysteries of Ezekiel, the Ten SEPHIROTH arranged in a triadic manner, a central triangle formed of four stars, then a line of three stars making the JOD, the two figures taken together expressing the mysteries of BERESHITH, and finally, four stars constituting the wheels of MERCAVAH, and completing the divine chariot. Looked at after another manner, and postulating other ideal lines, he will notice a well-formed GHIMEL placed above JOD, in a large DALETH, a symbol typifying the strife between good and evil, with the final triumph of good. As a fact, the GHIMEL superposed on the JOD is the triad produced by unity, the manifestation of the Divine Word, whilst the reversed DALETH is the triad composed of the evil duad multiplied by itself. Thus regarded, the figure of Orion would be identical with that of the angel Michael doing battle with the dragon, and the appearance of this sign, so understood, would be, for the Kabalist, a portent of victory and happiness. A long contemplation of the sky exalts imagination, and then the stars respond to our thoughts. The lines drawn mentally from one to another by primitive observers have given man his first notions of geometry. Accordingly as our soul is troubled or at rest, the stars seem burning with menace or sparkling with hope. The sky is thus the mirror of the human soul, and when we think that we are reading in the stars it is in ourselves we read. Gaffarel, applying the presages of celestial writing to the destinies of empires, says that not in vain did the ancients place all signs of evil augury in the northern region of the sky; calamities have been in all ages regarded as coming from the north to spread themselves over the earth by the invasion of the south. “For this reason,” he tells us, “the ancients represented in the northern parts of the heaven a serpent or dragon near two bears, since these animals are the true hieroglyphs of tyranny, pillage and all oppression. As a fact, glance at history, and you will see that all great devastations proceed from the north.