Tag Archives: energy

On Geomantic Energy Centers, and the Via Elementorum Exercise

August 27, 2018 By in geomancy, mathesis, occult Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

So, the last post on my system of epodes, or bīja/mantra-like intonations, for the elements and geomantic figures, wasn’t originally going to be a post of its own.  It was originally just a small thing that was going to fall within another post on a novel technique of mine, a kind of geomantic energy work, based on a notion of geomantically-derived energy centers in the body.  That topic was brought up earlier this summer in the context of how such a system of energy centers inspired by geomancy could be developed and explored, and I’ve been thinking about how to actually begin working with the subtle energy body in a geomantic way.  The idea is that, based on the Geomantic Adam diagram from MS Arabe 2631, we can posit that there are four main energy centers in the body, each associated with the four elements: a Head center for Fire, a Throat center for Air, a Belly center for Water, and a Groin center for Earth, based on the parts of the body associated with the figures Laetitia, Rubeus, Albus, and Tristitia, which each have only one element active in their (you guessed it) so-called head, neck, belly, and feet lines.

Of course, based on the Geomantic Adam diagram, it could totally be conceived that there are 16 such energy centers in the body, one for each geomantic figure, as indicated according to the diagram.  However, of these, the four primary ones would be those corresponding to the pure-element figures Laetitia, Rubeus, Albus, and Tristitia.  However, for the sake of fullness, here’s where I’d place all such energy centers:

Figure Body Part Energy Center
Laetitia Head Center of the head behind the eyes
Rubeus Throat and neck Center of the throat
Puella Left shoulder Upper left chest between shoulder and collarbone
Puer Right shoulder Upper right chest between shoulder and collarbone
Carcer Chest and breast Center of chest cavity by the heart
Amissio Left hand and arm Middle of the palm of the left hand
Acquisitio Right hand and arm Middle of the palm of the right hand
Albus Stomach, upper belly Solar plexus, just under the sternum
Coniunctio Ribcage Sternum
Populus Back Spine between kidneys
Via Intestines, lower belly Just below navel
Tristitia Crotch and genitals Perineum
Fortuna Maior Left hip and upper leg Crease between left buttock and thigh
Fortuna Minor Right hip and upper leg Crease between right buttock and hip
Cauda Draconis Left foot and lower leg Middle of the sole of the left foot
Caput Draconis Right foot and lower leg Middle of the sole of the right foot

Now, most of these are definitely secondary to the purpose of this post, which is to demonstrate a simple energy exercise to work with the primary four energy centers, and honestly, most of these secondary centers are simply conjectural with varying degrees of confidence.  For instance, I’m totally about the placement of the centers for Amissio and Acquisitio as well as Cauda and Caput Draconis and why they’re positioned where they are.  However, for ones like Coniunctio, Carcer, or Populus, I’m much less sure about these.  There’s also the possibility of extending these to other parts of the body, say the orifices of the head or to other major organs in the body, much as there are secondary chakras that connect to the primary seven chakras distributed throughout the body.  However, all these can be explored another time in another post; for the purposes of this exercise, we’ll limit ourselves to the centers for Laetitia, Rubeus, Albus, and Tristitia.

First, before we continue with describing the energy exercise, the practitioner will need to decide on one main thing for their implementation of the exercise.  The first is a set of elemental epodes, bīja-like intonable single-syllable “mantras”.  This is what I discussed in the last post, and what I had to break out of this one, because (as can be seen), it was too big to be just thrown into another topic and really deserved being fleshed out in its own post.  After all, when dealing with such innovations, it really helps to lay out a solid theoretical foundation and expand on the whys and hows and wheres so that, when we begin to involve these new elements of rite and ritual, we can have a good understanding from the get-go about what can be used where and for what purposes.  While I give a whole bevy of possible systems of elemental epodes, there are four I would recommend most to choose from:

  • Arabic system
    • Fire: bā (با)
    • Air: zā (زا)
    • Water: dā (دا)
    • Earth: ḥā (حا)
  • Simple Greek system
    • Fire: ba (ΒΑ)
    • Air: za (ΖΑ)
    • Water: da (ΔΑ)
    • Earth: ha (Ἁ)
  • Hybrid Greek system
    • Fire: bi (ΒΙ)
    • Air: zu (ΖΥ)
    • Water: dē (ΔΗ)
    • Earth: ha (Ἁ)
  • Exact Mathesis system
    • Fire: kho (ΧΟ)
    • Air: phu (ΦΥ)
    • Water: ksē (ΞΗ)
    • Earth: thō (ΘΩ)

Personally, because I have a hard time pronouncing the Arabic letter ḥāʾ and because I like using the planetary vowels to extend the system, I prefer to use the hybrid Greek set of, which I also plan on using in the future for the other geomantic figures besides the four pure elemental ones of Laetitia, Rubeus, Albus, and Tristitia.  However, for the purposes of this energy exercise, you can go with a simpler, more straightforward system if you so choose.

Beyond knowing your preferred set of elemental epodes, let’s also establish a few other things:

  • The gesture of Laetitia is a hand gesture made with the index finger pressed down into the palm and the thumb covering the index finger, with the other fingers extended.
  • The gesture of Rubeus is a hand gesture made with the middle finger pressed down into the palm and the thumb covering the index finger, with the other fingers extended.
  • The gesture of Albus is a hand gesture made with the ring finger pressed down into the palm and the thumb covering the index finger, with the other fingers extended.
  • The gesture of Tristitia is a hand gesture made with the little finger pressed down into the palm and the thumb covering the index finger, with the other fingers extended.
  • The six permutations of the Divine Name: “ΙΑΩ ΑΩΙ ΩΙΑ ΑΙΩ ΙΩΑ ΩΑΙ”.  These are just the six different ways the name ΙΑΩ (ee-ah-ough) can be spelled.  Those who prefer an Arabic flavor can pronounce these using only the three (long) vowels available in standard and classical Arabic: “ĪĀŪ ĀŪĪ ŪĪĀ ĀĪŪ ĪŪĀ ŪĀĪ” (ياو اوي ويا ايو يوا واي).
  • There’s a particular Arabic phrase that’s a famous palindrome in Islam: “RABBAKA FAKABBIR”, literally “glorify your Lord”, from the Qur’an 74:3, “‏رَبَّكَ فَكَبِّرْ‎” (you can see it in full vocalized Arabic and hear it cantillated here).  That it’s a palindrome here will work well for our purposes, as well as recalling the Arabic and Divine origins of geomancy.  Of course, if you wanted to Hellenicize it and make it a proper palindrome in a Greek script, I would recommend spelling it as “ΡΗΒΒΑΚΑ ΦΑΚΑΒΒΗΡ”, but this is just a small detail.

Alright!  At this point, we have a a rough set of four main energy centers in the body, a set of intonations, and a set of gestures to use.  With all those at our disposal, we’re now (FINALLY omg) able to describe the actual energetic exercise.  First, let’s try something simple, shall we?  Those who are familiar with the work of Strategic Sorcery’s Jason Miller will be familiar with his well-known primer on magic, The Sorcerer’s Secrets.  In that book, he describes a simple energy practice called the The Pillar and The Spheres, a quick, short, and easy method of getting the subtle energy body cleansed and primed for more powerful work.  I’m using that as my template for the really simple energy exercise that follows:

  1. Stand upright with good posture, with the feet shoulder-width apart.  If standing is not possible, sit in a straight-backed chair.  Relax the body, keeping good posture.  Clear the breath and empty the lungs.  If desired, perform a Pillar-like exercise at this point to clear out the central channel, such as that of Jason Miller or my own variant, the Pillar of Heaven and Earth (see this post for more information).
  2. Focus the attention on a spot in the middle of your head, behind the forehead, just somewhat above the spot between the ears and behind the eyes.  See an empty sphere at this spot.  Breathe in a hot, dry, upwards-motion, red-colored energy that fills this sphere.  Intone the epode of Fire, seeing the sphere burn brightly, exhaling all air from the lungs.
  3. Focus the attention on a spot in the middle of your throat.  See an empty sphere at this spot.  Breathe in a warm, moist, spinning, yellow-colored energy that fills this sphere.  Intone the epode of Air, seeing the sphere whip upon itself, exhaling all air from the lungs.
  4. Focus the attention on a spot at the solar plexus, in the soft spot just under the sternum of the upper abdomen.  See an empty sphere at this spot.  Breathe in a cool, wet, downwards-motion, blue-colored energy that fills this sphere.  Intone the epode of Water, seeing water fill and surround this sphere, exhaling all air from the lungs.
  5. Focus the attention on a spot at the perineum, at the base of the spine between the genitals and the anus.  See an empty sphere at this spot.  Breathe in a cold, dry, heavy and compressing, dark-colored energy that fills this sphere.  Intone the epode of Earth, seeing rock and soil crack and crystallize through this sphere, exhaling all air from the lungs.
  6. Spend a few moments relaxing, maintaining the visualization and manifestation of the four energy centers in the head, throat, belly, and perineum.

Okay, easy enough!  With or without any other preliminary work, such as a Pillar activity or some other practice, this is simple and straightforward enough, and is what I would recommend for a first-attempt by those who would want to start working with a four-primary-center subtle body system within a geomantic contexts.  After getting used to this, we can elaborate on the process a bit and start incorporating other things that we’ve already discussed.  One of the inspirations for this method is something I’ve been doing a while, the Attunement portion of my old Q.D.Sh. Ritual, except here we’re using different intonations and making use of the geomantic gestures in addition to the basic exercise template given above.

  1. Stand upright with good posture, with the feet shoulder-width apart.  If standing is not possible, sit in a straight-backed chair.  Relax the body, keeping good posture.  Clear the breath and empty the lungs.
  2. Breathe in deeply.  As you draw in breath, visualize a clear beam of pure, cool light shooting down from the infinite heavens above through the crown of your head, through the center of your body, and out from your perineum downwards, clearing out your body of all darkness.  Intone the word “RABBAKA”, exhaling all air from the lungs, visualizing and feeling the beam of light continue shooting down through you.
  3. Breathe in deeply.  Visualize a clear beam of powerful, hot light shooting up from the infinite hells below through the perineum, through the center of your body, and out from the crown of your head, stabilizing your body with fortitude.  Intone the word “FAKABBIR”, exhaling all air from the lungs, visualizing and feeling the beam of light continue shooting up through you.
  4. Focus the attention on a spot in the middle of your head, behind the forehead, just somewhat above the spot between the ears and behind the eyes.  See an empty sphere at this spot.  Lower your left hand down and out to the side and raise your right hand up and out to the side, making the gesture of Laetitia with both hands.  Breathe in a hot, dry, upwards-motion, red-colored energy that fills this sphere.  Intone the epode of Fire, seeing the sphere burn brightly, exhaling all air from the lungs.
  5. Focus the attention on a spot in the middle of your throat.  See an empty sphere at this spot.  Raise both your hands up and out to the sides, making the gesture of Rubeus with both hands.  Breathe in a warm, moist, spinning, yellow-colored energy that fills this sphere.  Intone the epode of Air, seeing the sphere whip upon itself, exhaling all air from the lungs.
  6. Focus the attention on a spot at the solar plexus, in the soft spot just under the sternum of the upper abdomen.  Lower your right hand down and out to the side and raise your left hand up and out to the side, making the gesture of Albus with both hands.  See an empty sphere at this spot.  Breathe in a cool, wet, downwards-motion, blue-colored energy that fills this sphere.  Intone the epode of Water, seeing water fill and surround this sphere, exhaling all air from the lungs.
  7. Focus the attention on a spot at the perineum, at the base of the spine between the genitals and the anus.  See an empty sphere at this spot.  Lower both your hands down and out to the sides, making the gesture of Tristitia with both hands.  Breathe in a cold, dry, heavy and compressing, dark-colored energy that fills this sphere.  Intone the epode of Earth, seeing rock and soil crack and crystallize through this sphere, exhaling all air from the lungs.
  8. Inhale deeply.  Place both hands together at the lowest point they can reach without bending over, palms pressed together.  Slowly raise them outwards and up in a large circular motion separately so that they meet again high up above your head.  Intone the first half of the permutations of the Divine Name “ΙΑΩ ΑΩΙ ΩΙΑ” while doing this, exhaling all air from the lungs.  Visualize the four centers becoming connected along a single path of light upwards from the perineum center up to the head center.
  9. Inhale deeply.  Slowly lower the hands outward and down in a large circular motion separately so that they meet again at their lowest point.  Intone the second half of the permutations of the Divine Name “ΑΙΩ ΙΩΑ ΩΑΙ” while doing this, exhaling all air from the lungs.  Visualize the four centers becoming further connected along a single path of light downwards from the head center down to the perineum center.
  10. Again focus on the perineum center.  Lower both your hands down and out to the sides, making the gesture of Tristitia with both hands.  Breathe in more Earth energy into this sphere.  Intone the epode of Earth, seeing the energy of the sphere begin to travel up and down the central energy path of the body, exhaling all air from the lungs.
  11. Again focus on the solar plexus center.  Lower your right hand down and out to the side and raise your left hand up and out to the side, making the gesture of Albus with both hands.  Breathe in more Water energy into this sphere.  Intone the epode of Water, seeing the energy of the sphere begin to travel up and down the central energy path of the body, exhaling all air from the lungs.
  12. Again focus on the throat center.  Raise both your hands up and out to the sides, making the gesture of Rubeus with both hands.  Breathe in more Air energy into this sphere.  Intone the epode of Air, seeing the energy of the sphere begin to travel up and down the central energy path of the body, exhaling all air from the lungs.
  13. Again focus on the head center.  Lower your left hand down and out to the side and raise your right hand up and out to the side, making the gesture of Laetitia with both hands.  Breathe in more Fire energy into this sphere.  Intone the epode of Fire, seeing the energy of the sphere begin to travel up and down the central energy path of the body, exhaling all air from the lungs.
  14. Breathe in deeply.  As you draw in breath, visualize a clear beam of powerful, hot light shooting up from the infinite hells below through the perineum, through the center of your body, and out from the crown of your head, connecting your energy centers and their elements to all the heavens above and fortifying them with all the hells below.  Intone the word “RABBAKA”, exhaling all air from the lungs, visualizing and feeling the beam of light continue shooting up through you.
  15. Breathe in deeply.  As you draw in breath, visualize a clear beam of pure, cool light shooting down from the infinite heavens above through the crown of your head, through the center of your body, and out from your perineum downwards, connecting your energy centers and all their elements to all the hells below and sanctifying them with all the heavens above.  Intone the word “FAKABBIR”, exhaling all air from the lungs, visualizing and feeling the beam of light continue shooting down through you.
  16. Spend a few moments relaxing, maintaining the visualization and manifestation of the four energy centers in the head, throat, belly, and perineum, most powerfully located at their respective centers but able to facilitate and flow their respective elements in a balanced and gentle way through the main column of the body and radiating outwards from there, connecting to the cosmos both above and below.

And there you have it!  The only thing left is a fancy name, isn’t it?  How about the Via Elementorum, literally “The Way of the Elements”?  After all, we are essentially making a path for the four elemental powers to radiate from in the body, and the four energy centers, when all fully activated, resemble the four single points in the figure of Via, which means the Road; in a sense, though we’re working with the four elements individually as represented by Laetitia, Rubeus, Albus, and Tristitia, when all four are added, it’s the figure Via that results, the full sum of all elements active together at once.  I would make a corresponding Arabic name, but I don’t really know Arabic; it’d probably be something like Ṭarīq al-ʿAnāṣiri (طَرِيق الْعَنَاصِرِ).  Those who know Arabic are more than welcome to correct this or suggest a better name.

With a geomantic energy exercise like this, it can serve as a foundation for more profoundly exploring the geomantic figures and how they relate to the body, allowing the body a new way to interact with the elements and channeling the powers of the figures, giving us new avenues for exploring geomantic magic, and a whole slew of other things to consider and adapt.  Who knows, this might even get me back on a regular energy work exploration routine, figuring out exactly how far I can take this novel system!  Of course, it is experimental, and modifications and refinements will likely need to be made along the way.  Still, it’s something to start with, and it could be extraordinarily useful even on its own merits.

On Fireballs and Pharmakeia

August 19, 2018 By in occult, philosophy, whining Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

So, as I sit here at my desk trying to ignore the urge to smoke more cigarettes and replace it with eating (way too many) Oreos, I’ve been trying to find simple things to occupy my time with.  Working on my book requires focus, and I’m still working up the courage and energy to go work out (which I need to get back on the ball with after three weeks of chaos and travel and religion, but I’ll get back on that this week all the same), so I’m just trying to find low-effort things to keep my mind and hands occupied.  One such thing is gaming, specifically playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, because why not?  It’s a pretty good game, after all, and though I know there’s huge replay value in it, I can never seem to muster up the tenacity to try out different builds on multiple playthroughs, keep characters limited to particular questlines, or whatnot.  It’s always satisfying, after all, especially with a few mods here and there to spice the game up (and, hopefully, refrain from breaking too many quests, which unfortunately keeps happening).

Of course, me being me, I always end up playing a mage-assassin, incinerating everything quietly and from afar.  I was never much fond of close-up fighting classes no matter the game, so of course I would lean towards the more mage-based classes.  Big surprise, I know.  Of course, if only magic worked in our world like it does in so many fantasy games!  To shoot fire and lighting and ice from one’s hands, to control wind and earth and water with a word, to heal and harm for weal or woe with a thought and a gesture miraculously, wondrously, and instantly would be satisfying, indeed.  Alas, fantasy is fantasy, and reality is reality, for the most part; there are still plenty of miraculous things one can do with thoughts, gestures, and words, and a good bit of my own practice is heavily informed by fantasy, as are a number of my friends’ and colleagues’.  Sometimes, the fantastical has very straightforward implementations in reality, with much the same ends and effects, though, perhaps, with fewer explosions.

In Skyrim, for those who are familiar with the game, I lean heavily towards the Destruction skill tree, which empowers the player-adventurer to wield a variety of elemental-based spells for causing mass…well, destruction.  Being Skyrim, one of the most effective elements to wield is that of fire, given the high number of highly-flammable undead, furry creatures, and elemental tree spirits, as well as because ice tends to be resisted more commonly than not, and lightning…eh, it’s cute.  Anyway, fire is awesome!  I think we can all agree on that, right?  Of course it is.  And, of course, the use of fireballs is incredibly well-known across so many fantasy games and settings, and the general practice for using them is something like this:

  1. Adventurer-mage spots a hopeless victim, or is otherwise accosted by a foolish victim.
  2. Adventurer-mage casts fireball on the victim.
  3. The fireball may or may not explode on contact with the victim to cause damage to nearby collateral damage.
  4. The fireball may or may not catch the victim(s) on actual fire.  However, the fireball will cause significant damage to the victim’s (or victims’) health, and if strong enough, will outright kill the victim(s).

Given how many fantasy games work, unless you’re playing a rather free-form one or a tabletop game that isn’t bound by game engines, such fireballs don’t often incinerate the victim(s) to literal piles of dust, and if they’re of the exploding kind, they don’t often actually explode the victim as if they were touched by a grenade or bomb.  In Skyrim, using the non-explosive Firebolt spell, what this usually looks like is:

 

Okay, straightforward enough to understand, and due to the limitations of video game engines, pretty simple: make ball of fire, shoot it at a target, it damages their health, and if their health drops below the minimum threshold, they die.  All fantasy, of course.  What bothers me most (at least within the context of Skyrim) is how, at higher levels or on weak-enough enemies, all the enemies do when being attacked with such a fireball is that they drop dead with a few fancy effects.  No incineration, no screams of prolonged pain, no gear-turned-to-ashes, no burn marks, no explosions, just “whoop-poof” and body-drop.  For being such a fantastical mainstay, such fireballs are…underwhelming.  Surely, a real fireball spell would cause more collateral damage, both to any nearby items or environmental factors!

So, that got my head-gears turning.  What exactly is going on here when the adventurer-mage is casting a fireball spell on such a victim?  The naïve answer is that the adventurer-mage is literally manifesting a ball of sufficiently-materialized fire energy, which is then directed forward away from the caster and towards a victim in a more-or-less ballistic fashion, which then explodes and releases its fire energy upon contact with any solid-enough object that it collides with that significantly interferes with its inertia.  In other words, we’re basically making a magical Molotov cocktail from etheric scratch with more-or-less physical behavior; after all, if it were just pure energy, we might expect it to not be as…well, flamey or explosive or bright, as well as having it pass through solid objects like how thought or astral bodies might.  I suppose fireballs might better be considered more of a Conjuration school technique than a Destruction one, but then, the Elder Scrolls view of magical schools has always been flexible, and calling it a Conjuration spell would only make sense after…what, five seconds of thought?  Clearly too much to put in for a casual not-actually-magical gamer, I would think.

Another viewpoint on this would be less creating a manifestation of a flammable grenade and more about tweaking the actual physical activity on a molecular level; instead of conjuration, this would by pyrokinesis.  In other words, by means of spiritual action, we’d be influencing the vibration of molecules and atoms such that they would increase dramatically within a localized area.  This wouldn’t really have the same ballistic effect the conjured-Molotov-cocktail approach would, as it’d be taking effect at a distance immediately, but it would have a similar effect: a sudden and dramatic increase in the molecular vibrations would increase the heat at that location, whether air or metal or fabric or any other substance, so long as it’s not an empty vacuum.  At high enough activities, even air would combust, and if sustained long enough, then a sufficiently hot “mass” of energy that could be sustained magically can be directed to travel through the air, combusting more air along the way, which then could catch other things on fire, which would indeed get us our fireball.  This wouldn’t be as extensible to other elements (how would you cast an ice spell, or a water spell?), but as far as fireballs go, this approach is just as viable as the earlier one, and just as fantastical.

Still, if we were to be conjuring Molotov cocktails between our hands or turning into living microwaves, we’d expect the whole burning-to-death process to actually follow suit, wouldn’t we?  In other words, in order to do any damage, we’d expect that things should actually catch fire first, then be on fire long enough to scald, scorch, burn, incinerate, and calcine so as to actually cause harm to living targets and general destruction to inanimate targets.  Instead, what we’re seeing is that once the fireball comes in contact with a target, that target immediately takes a hit to their health, if not immediately dies, so something else is going on here besides an overblown catch-on-fire spell.  This is what caught my attention after a few…dozen dozen enemies being killed, I guess, in a moment of reflection after having to unload a few hundred potatoes and apples unto my loyal follower in the middle of an ancient tomb filled with fresh produce and lit candles.  I do so love video game logic, after all, and Skyrim is…well, special.

Anyway.

So, if casting fireballs at people isn’t actually just setting them on fire, what’s actually going on from a magical perspective?  We’re obviously condensing a sufficiently harmful amount of energy attuned to Fire, which is then released in a directed way at a target to cause them harm, which may not actually be set on fire or exploded, yet still suffers as a result.  What’s going on?  This is where things get interesting to me as an actual mage, and which can perhaps lead into a less-than-fantastical implementation of casting fireballs as a kind of offensive magic in our world where magic works.

Consider the human body from a spiritual perspective.  The health of the human body is a fine balance between subtle forces, which historically in the Western world have been associated with the four elements and, in the body, the four humours: Fire manifests through choler (yellow bile), Air as blood, Water as phlegm, and Earth as melancholy (black bile).  It is only when these four humours are balanced—none in excess and none in deficiency—that the body enjoys health.  If there’s too much or too little of any one or more, you start getting health problems.  The balance of the humours could be affected by any number of things: the food and drink we consume, the music we listen to, the airs and climate that surround us, the physical and mental activities we engage in, and of course the spiritual influences on us from beyond our worldly realm and which do not necessarily have roots in the physical, manifest world we interact with.  This is why certain types of energy work can encourage health when done properly or damage health when done improperly, and why certain energetic practices are recommended for magicians to regulate the spiritual forces we interact with so that our bodies and health aren’t impacted in a negative way.

Heck, one can even use simple energy work to remedy simple physical problems.  I recall one winter night when I was getting a tattoo with a magical friend of mine, and I had to run down the block and across the road to the nearby shopping center for some cash from the ATM.  Being young, courageous, stupid, and enjoying of winter, I decided to do so without my jacket or coat.  Admittedly, I did enjoy the brisk dash outside in roughly freezing temperatures, but it’s only once back inside the warmth of the tattoo shop that I had to deal with warming myself back up.  To encourage my body to get on with it, I had the idea to use my personal geomantic mudra of Fire (Laetitia, which is geomantically pure Fire), conjuring up some Fire-based energy within me and circulating it through my body.  Even though I had never done such a thing before, it worked; the cold more-or-less instantly dissipated as I began to circulate it, and I was back to comfortable levels in no time.  It even caught my friend off-guard, who picked up on the energetic shift I put on myself and noticed the change in temperature from across the room.  Instant results and immediate external confirmation—what more could I ask for as a magician trying something new out?

Energy work, well, works.  Thing is, you have to be careful with it; as the Renaissance magician-pharmacist Paracelsus once said, “Alle Dinge sind Gift, und nichts ist ohne Gift, allein die Dosis macht dass ein Ding kein Gift ist”, or “all things are poison, and nothing is without poison, the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison”.  The only thing that really transforms any given drug into medicine or poison is how much you use; I was able to work enough Fire energy into my system as I needed, and no more, to fix my problem of there being too much cold.  If I had overdone it, I could easily have introduced health problems into my system, such as rashes, flushing, ulcers, headaches, fevers, heartburn, heart problems, and the like.  Heck, if I were otherwise normal and focused too much Fire energy into a part of the body that didn’t need it, I could cause localized problems, or it could dissolve into the rest of my body raising my overall Fire levels, which again could cause systemic issues.  Sola dosis facit venenum; the dosage alone makes the poison.

Though it’s not usually discussed, any beneficial, health-encouraging practice can be twisted to be harmful and malicious; just as one can use reiki to resolve blockages, one can also use it to introduce them, and just as one can modify the body’s humours to encourage health, one can also modify them to wreck it.  In a sense, you can energetically heal someone by using energetic medicine, or you can energetically harm them by using energetic poison.  This is essentially bringing modern spiritual medicine back in line with the ancient traditions of pharmakeía. Although this word literally refers to the administration of drugs, it’s far more famously used in the Bible to refer to magic and sorcery.  It’s not an either-or thing here; it was quite common back in the day, as it is in ours, to administer magic through the use of ingested or applied substances.  Consider how we might use certain herbs and plant parts in magical drinks, adding a few drops of this oil or that powder in someone’s meal to influence them, or rubbing this salve or that ointment on our skin for protection, flying, or simply fixing a health problem.  I mean, consider: without an understanding of modern pharmacology, how could it not be seen as magic to take some sort of occult virtue of a plant, boil it in some oil, then using the oil on my head to cure a headache when eating the plant or using the oil alone would otherwise have no effect?

To influence and modify the state of the body through spiritual means, then, could be considered pharmakeia, and since spiritual factors influence physical forms without necessarily requiring physical means, purely-spiritual pharmakeia would be an option just as much as physically-administered pharmakeia.  This means that energy work and other energy-based forms of magic would fall under pharmakeia for both healing and harming, and this is where we can tie pharmakeia into fireballs.  Recall my little Fire experiment from above; one might consider that applying Fire energy to resolve a physical problem, so what would stop me (besides my scruples) to apply Fire energy to cause physical problems?  After all, poisoning someone with Fire energy is essentially what’s going on in Skyrim and other such fantasy games when outright Molotov cocktail-like behavior isn’t seen: you’re overloading the victim with too much Fire energy, which causes them to suffer and die, sometimes dramatically so.  That’s what a real implementation of a fireball would do: energetically poison a victim with an overload of too much Fire energy/ether/etc.  Likewise, an Ice attack could be conceived of as not only depleting a victim’s Fire energy but also encouraging too much Water and Earth energies, fixing both to induce an overabundance of cold with no Fire to ameliorate or defend against it.

In this sense, such an approach seems a lot less fantastical and way more effective to be taken.  I mean, none of this is particularly surprising; I know I’ve done similar things in the past, and it’s just another way to encourage someone to act or adopt a new set of behaviors and patterns of health.  But, when viewed in a fantastical light as “casting fireballs or ice spikes”, this sort of phrasing of how magical acts afflict the delicate balance of the body’s health makes a lot more sense.  I dimly recall some Hermetic author or other having written an article online about a ceremonial magic implementation of basically casting fireball, but I wasn’t able to find it on my own, since I had read it years ago and it was already old by the time I got to it.  Happily, my friend John Umbras of Cross the Dark helped me out and reminded me that it was called the “Chaos Bolt” ritual.  Though it doesn’t exist on its original source of ChaosMatrix anymore, it’s since been replicated across the internet in a variety of files and PDFs.  One such PDF on Combat Magick, including the Chaos Bolt ritual, is available here, courtesy of the chaos magic and left hand path blog Arauto do Chaos.  Even though it’s not exactly being constructed as a Fire-based ritual, the Fire elements (heh) are absolutely there, and it’s not hard to see how, much less how to make it even more fiery.  I recommend reading it to get a glimpse of what such an implementation of energetic attacking could be like, and then interpret it as taking effect through energetic poisoning of a victim’s body instead of just fucking with their circumstances or life generally.  Beyond that, I’m sure you can figure out how to design and direct such elemental offensive spells on your own, dear reader.  After all, we don’t call them “elemental weapons” for nothing.

Who would have thought that getting bored during a video game could be so productive for analyzing new ways to view old magic tricks?

The Physical and Subtle Human Body According to Geomancy

July 26, 2018 By in geomancy, occult Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Every year, towards the end of summer leading through the middle of autumn, is my Hell Season.  Not that it’s a particularly chthonic or calamitous time of year or anything, but it’s just super busy.  Between my and my husband’s birthdays and our wedding anniversary, thirteen saint feast days, eight religious anniversaries, and a few other events and tasks every year take place during this time, and it always gets almost overwhelming at times.  We got a big start on that this year by taking a road trip to Maine this past weekend…all of fourteen hours up and fourteen hours down, with my husband and my sister and I in my tiny two-door coupe.  Plus, there’s a few more things happening later this week that will keep me out of contact for a few more days, so this year’s Hell Season is really getting to a strong start.  (If I’m slow with getting to your messages or requests, I gratefully appreciate your patience!)

Over this past weekend, I was apparently summoned in a Facebook thread; someone was contemplating the elemental arrangement of the geomantic figures, such that the topmost line is given to Fire, the next one down to Air, the next one after that to Water, and the bottommost line to Earth.  Given such an arrangement, they were interested in seeing how the elements given in such an order could overlap with the elements given to particular energy centers in the body (the resource they were using was some neopagan/Wiccan-derivative text that involves another rehash of the seven Vedic-system chakras with a novel Western elemental approach).  There are obvious issues in straightforwardly trying to map the elemental rows of the geomantic figures to a system of chakrasa, not least because they’re different systems with different bases of logic, but also because Western occult systems haven’t historically had a notion of “chakras” or bodily energy systems before the advent of Theosophy and the influx of “Oriental” traditions.  This isn’t to say that there are no energy practices in Western occulture historically, but nothing like what we’d commonly think of as having discrete energy centers or “chakras” in the body connected by meridians.

Still, it was an interesting idea; conceiving of a subtle energy body that uses the structure of the geomantic figures as a basis could be useful.  After all, I find the notion of energy centers in the body to be a useful one in many contexts, so why not conceive of the human body itself as structured geomantically?  From the reply I made on that Facebook thread:

…the system of how the elements are arranged as rows within a geomantic figure is based on their elemental density as well as their natural motion: Fire is the most subtle and burns outwards and upwards, Air is slightly more dense than Fire and moves sideways, Water is even more dense than Air and moves downward, and Earth is densest of all and compresses and condenses unto itself into a stable, unmoving form. This order (Fire, Air, Water, Earth) is different than that used in the Zodiac (Fire, Earth, Air, Water) due to a different logic, however, due to a different logic of how these two systems are built (I don’t have my notes on the latter zodiacal order at the moment and forget that system’s particular logic here).

Historically, the lines of the geomantic figures were already given to parts of the body:

Fire line: head
Air line: throat or arms
Water line: belly
Earth line: feet or legs

In this sense, we can see a sort of match between the metaphorical “geomantic” body parts and the elements of the rows they correspond to: the head with Fire due to the intelligent Divine Spark given to us as well as with sight and perceiving light or Light, the throat or arms with Air as means of communication and breathing, the belly with Water due to it being the seat of health and the humours of the body, and the legs or feet with Earth because they are what support us on the Earth. Such a system doesn’t match with one based on chakras, however, because there wasn’t historically a “chakra system” of the West, though there are other types and notions of energetic or subtle bodies (though not necessarily in those terms). Using Agrippa’s Scale of Four, for instance, we can consider a multipart “human” composed of Mind, Spirit, Soul, and Body, which are given to the elements of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, respectively, each with the faculties of Knowing, Thinking, Emotion, and Physicality, but these are more like interconnecting “layers” (think of the Egyptian notion of the multipart soul, with the physical body, spiritual body, identity, personality, shadow, heart, double, intelligence, power, and so forth).

Perhaps, if you were to shoehorn a variant of chakra systems onto the geomantic “body”, you could reinterpret it so that the third eye or crown chakra was given to Fire (giving it Will or Divinity) and the throat to Air. Such a “geomantic energy center” system could work, and might be useful to experiment with: the Fire center in the head, the Air center in the hollow of the throat, the Water center in the belly, and the Earth center either in the feet or at the perineum (where the legs meet the rest of the body). Could be interesting to experiment with!

The idea of using a geomantic template of thinking about energy centers in the body does seem interesting to me, but before we go onto that, how are the geomantic figures associated with the body in the extant literature we have available to us?  Given that the planets and signs of the Zodiac are associated with different parts of the body as well as the different organs and systems of the body, it also makes sense that the geomantic figures themselves would also be associated with them, too.  So, let’s start simple, shall we?  John Case in book III, chapter 9 of his 1697 work The Angelical Guide gives the following list of figures associated with parts of the body:

Figure Body Part
Puer Head or face
Coniunctio Belly
Puella Spine and lower back
Rubeus Arms
Carcer Feet
Via Breast or stomach
Albus Belly
Fortuna Maior Legs
Populus Knees
Cauda Draconis Thighs
Caput Draconis Belly
Acquisitio Head
Laetitia Throat
Amissio Navel
Tristitia Genitals and groin
Fortuna Minor Face and cheeks

However, it’s important to note that these associations may be limited in scope.  Case brings this list up in a discussion of queries related to house I, which is also the house that should be inspected to make sure the chart is authenticated: not necessarily valid, but useful and accurate as well as valid.  Specifically, Case says that “the Figure [chart] is verified also by certain moles, marks, or scars”, with the figure in house I indicating the part of the body where the mark may be found.  It’s important to note that the parts of the body are associated with the figures by means of their zodiacal correspondences, though it’s not made explicit in the list above; thus, because Case gives Populus to Capricorn (using the traditional associations of the figures to the Zodiac that I also use), and because Populus rules over the knees (and also bones, skin, etc.), Populus gets all the body associations that Capricorn has.

So much for Case’s simple scheme.  Then there’s the extraordinarily complex method of John Heydon in the Theomagia, where he gives a table of how the figures relate to the parts of the body based on what sign they fall in (book I, chapter 26).  (I understand the table is probably gonna be too wide for the usual width on my website, but just bear with me and accept that Heydon did not like to be concise.)

Sign Saturn Jupiter Mars Sun Venus Mercury Moon
Aries Breast
Arms
Shoulders		 Heart
Stomach		 Head
Belly		 Head
Thighs		 Feet
Lower back		 Legs
Genitals		 Head
Knees
Taurus Heart
Breast		 Shoulders
Arms
Upper spine
Belly		 Neck
Throat
Lower back		 Knees Head
Genitals		 Thighs
Feet		 Throat
Legs
Gemini Stomach
Heart
Navel		 Breast
Lights
Lower back
Loins		 Arms
Shoulders
Genitals		 Legs
Ankles		 Neck
Throat
Thighs		 Head
Knees		 Arms
Shoulders
Feet
Cancer Lower back
Belly
Genitals		 Stomach
Heart
Genitals
Bladder		 Breast
Lights
Thighs		 Feet Arms
Shoulders
Knees		 Neck
Throat
Legs		 Head
Breast
Stomach
Lights
Leo Genitals
Lower back		 Belly
Hips
Thighs		 Heart
Back
Knees		 Head
Eyes		 Breast
Heart
Legs		 Arms
Shoulders
Feet		 Neck
Throat
Heart
Back
Virgo Thighs
Genitals
Feet		 Lower back
Loins
Knees		 Belly
Legs		 Neck
Throat		 Stomach
Liver
Heart
Feet		 Head
Breast
Lights		 Shoulders
Arms
Belly
Libra Thighs
Knees		 Legs
Genitals		 Lower back
Genitals
Feet		 Shoulders
Arms		 Head
Belly
Hips		 Neck
Throat
Heart
Stomach		 Breast
Lights
Lower back
Loins
Scorpio Knees
Legs		 Thighs
Feet		 Head
Eyes
Genitals
Bladder		 Breast
Stomach
Heart		 Neck
Throat
Lower back
Loins		 Shoulders
Arms
Belly		 Stomach
Heart
Liver
Genitals
Sagittarius Legs
Feet		 Head
Eyes
Knees		 Neck
Throat
Thighs		 Heart
Belly
Back		 Shoulders
Arms
Genitals		 Breast
Lower back
Loins
Lights		 Bowels
Thighs
Capricorn Head
Feet		 Neck
Throat
Legs		 Arms
Shoulders
Knees		 Belly
Hips		 Breast
Lights
Thighs		 Stomach
Liver
Heart
Genitals		 Reins
Loins
Knees
Aquarius Head
Neck		 Arms
Shoulders
Feet		 Breast
Lights
Heart
Legs		 Lower back
Loins
Thighs		 Stomach
Liver
Heart
Back
Knees		 Belly
Thighs		 Genitals
Legs
Hips
Pisces Neck
Arms
Shoulders		 Head
Eyes
Breast
Heart		 Heart
Stomach
Liver
Feet		 Genitals Hips
Belly
Legs		 Lower back
Loins
Knees		 Thighs
Feet

It’s important to note that, in this case, Heydon uses the usual planetary association of the figures, but only gives Cauda Draconis to Saturn and Caput Draconis to Jupiter.  Later on, in book III, chapter 7, Heydon talks about moles, marks, and scars as well:

Having projected your Figure, consider the Figure in the first House and the Idea and Ruler that governs it, and what part of member in mans body they govern: for the Querent hath a Mole, Mark or Scar in that part of his body.  Example: if Puer be in the first House, it is a cut in the head or face, or burn, or red Mole: If Coniunctio, it is on the belly, viz. a Mole, Mark or Scar: if Puella be in the first, it is on the Reins, viz. a Mark, &c. If Rubeus, the Secrets.

Consider if the first Figure go into any other House out of the first, the Querent hath a Mole in that part also: Consider Populus, and wheresoever she is, that House and Figure tells you in what part the Querent hath another.

What Figure is in the sixth House, notes usually a Mark, Mole, or Scar in the Member it signifieth, as you may read in the 26 Chapter of the first book: if Carcer or Tristitia signifie the Mar, &c. it is generally an excrescence of a dark obscure or black colour.

If Acquisitio or Lætitia, it is usually a purple or blewish Mole: If Puer or Rubeus, it is commonly some Scar, Slash or Cut, chiefly in a House governed by a fiery Idea [i.e. ruled over by a fire sign]; and sometimes a reddish Mole or spots of Gunpowder: If Fortuna Major, or Fortuna Minor, generally of an olive or chestnut colour: if Amissio or Puella, of a hony-color.

If Albus or Conjunctio, whitish or lead-color: if Populus or Via, white, and of the color the Figures signifie that behold them: Caput Draconis, white; Cauda Draconis, black or read: If the figure be Masculine that represents the Mole, Mark, &c. it is on the right side of the Body; if Feminine, judge the contrary.

If the Significator of the Mole, &c. be in the first, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth of any question; it is then visible to the eye, and other forepart of the Body: but the other Houses signifie the Mole is to to be seen, but it is on the back-part of the Body.

If ill Figures be in the first, the Querent is usually blemished: for the Face is signified by the first, let what figure soever be in it.

Note that, in general, the table Heydon gives above is related mostly to specific inquiries about house VI, while the figures themselves as described here typically are simply given the usual zodiacal correspondence to the body.  Heydon, I should note, uses the planetary-zodiacal associations common to later geomancers and which is in use by the Golden Dawn and John Michael Greer and not the older system that I and other geomancers historically used.  Heydon’s information above, however, is useful in determining not just the specific location of marks on the body, but also their type and coloration, too, which is information not otherwise commonly seen in the geomantic literature available to us.

So much for the scant Western resources we have on associating the geomantic figures with the parts of the body: the rule appears to be to link the figures to the parts of the body by means of their shared zodiacal correspondences. I can’t recall there being other sets of explicit associations of the figures with the body in Fludd, Pietro d’Abano, or other European authors, though I don’t doubt they exist; however, I do doubt that they’d do much more than retranslate existing sets of correspondences that exist for parts of the body using their shared zodiacal or planetary associations.

However, that’s not the only such correspondence available; there are others that directly link the figures to the body without a zodiacal or other correspondence go-between.  One Arabic treatise on geomancy, MS Arabe 2631 from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, gives the following diagram on folio 64v detailing a correspondence between the sixteen geomantic figures and the different parts of the body:

 

In this system, the parts of the body are given to the following figures:

Figure Body Part
Laetitia Head
Rubeus Throat and neck
Puella Left shoulder
Puer Right shoulder
Carcer Chest and breast
Amissio Left hand and arm
Acquisitio Right hand and arm
Albus Upper belly, stomach, solar plexus
Coniunctio Left torso and ribcage  Ribcage
Populus Right torso and ribcage (?)  Back
Via Navel, lower belly, and intestines
Tristitia Crotch and genitals
Fortuna Maior Left hip, thigh, and upper leg
Fortuna Minor Right hip, thigh and upper leg
Cauda Draconis Left foot and lower leg
Caput Draconis Right foot and lower leg

Stephen Skinner in his Geomancy in Theory and Practice gives a translation of these, but some of them are incorrect; he says that “the figure…faces outwards from the page, so left and right have been designated from the point of view of the figure rather than the manuscript page”, so he gives e.g. Puer to the left shoulder, although Puer in the diagram is clearly designated as “al-kutuf al-ayman”, or right shoulder.  I retranslated from the diagram in the manuscript as best I could.  The only figure in the list that was truly mysterious was Via, which was not given a label; Albus is designated as “belly”, so I interpreted that as the upper belly and stomach, and Via as the lower belly and intestines, though it could also refer to the back and spine (which, physically speaking, would resemble the shape of Via).  Similarly, I couldn’t make out what word is given to Populus, but given the symmetry here, I’m assuming it’s referring to the right side of the torso in general, though there is a chance that it refers to the inner viscera of the upper torso and Coniunctio refers to the outer flesh and the ribcage on both sides of the torso in general.  However, I can’t be certain as yet; those who can read this kind of older, book-script Arabic are welcome to comment.

EDIT: Thanks to a few people from the Geomantic Study-Group on Facebook, I’ve amended some of the translations further.  Populus is given to the back and Coniunctio to the ribs.  Via, though unlabeled, can be interpreted as the navel, which still ties into the lower belly and intestines.  There still is some ambiguity in the diagram, but this is still far better off than we were before.  My thanks go out to Masood and B.A.!

Personally, I like the layout of the “Geomantic Adam” design above and how the figures are clearly arranged on the body, though I also like the use of planetary and zodiacal associations.  I suppose a blended approach could work: use the geomantic arrangement for general body areas, and the organs and physical systems associated with the planets and elements to fill in the gaps.  So, for instance, since Laetitia rules the head in the Arabic design, one could say that Laetitia would also rule over the brain; however, since Mercury rules over the nervous system as a whole, this could be given to Albus or Coniunctio, and given Albus’ location closer to the solar plexus, I’d wager that Albus could rule both the belly as a general physical area as well as the nervous system.  Further clarification on expanding the Arabic system would be good, I’d think, in one sense or another.

Anyway, back to the diagram.  Even with the parts of the body that are clearly labeled, we can see something fascinating: the figures with only one element active are associated clearly with the parts of the body that we’d call those corresponding elemental rows: Laetitia, with only the Fire/Head line active, is given to the head; Rubeus, with only the Air/Throat line active, is given to the throat; Albus, with only the Water/Belly line active, is given to the belly; and Tristitia, with only the Earth/Feet line active, is given to the privates and groin, which is the lowest part of the torso to which the feet and legs are connected.  Though the manuscript dates only to the 18th century, it’s likely that it has much earlier origins or carries on an older Arabic tradition of geomancy from whence the body-names of the rows of the figures comes.  This, along with a clear use of geomantic relationships between parts of the body that match each other (right hand and left hand, right shoulder and left shoulder, etc.) is greatly indicative that the body-correspondences given in MS Arabe 2631 are strictly geomantic in nature rather than using planetary or zodiacal go-betweens.

This reinforces the idea behind the notion of naming the four rows of a geomantic figure after their corresponding body parts (head, throat, belly, feet) and can be a key to coming up with a geomantic system of energy centers in the body:

  • The Fire Center would be found in the head, likely just under the crown of the skull directly above the top of the spinal column.
  • The Air Center would be found in the throat, in the middle of the neck though perhaps slightly closer to the spine than the front.
  • The Water Center would be found in the belly, closer to the stomach just under the ribcage near the solar plexus.
  • The Earth Center would be found in the groin, near the perineum at the base of the spine.

To offer a conjectural way to work with these energy centers, I’d feel that an intonation of some sort would be appropriate.  My usual power words for the four elements are based in Greek stoicheia, where each of the Greek letters has an occult signification, so I’d normally use ΧΙΑΩΧ for Fire (Khi is the Greek letter associated with this element combined with the divine name ΙΑΩ), ΦΙΑΩΦ for Air, ΞΙΑΩΞ for Water, and ΘΙΑΩΘ for Earth.  However, we can do better than that, especially given even what little we know about Arabic geomantic practices and how they tie into the elements.  One interesting technique comes to mind that crops up in some early European sources with a clearly Arabic origin: the use of the word BZDA.  From my translation of the 15th century work Lectura Geomantiae:

By the Greek word “b z d a” we can find the house of the figures, which is to say in which house the figures are strongest, wherefore when the first point starting from the upper part of the beginning figure is odd, the second house is strong; when the second point is odd, the seventh house is strong; when the third point is odd, the fourth house is strong; when the fourth and last point is odd, the eighth house is strong. Thus we will find by this number the proper houses of the figures; by “b” we understand 2, by “z” 7, by “d” 4, by “a” 8, as in this example: “b z d a”.

This may not make a lot of sense on its own, but compare what Felix Klein-Franke says in his article “The Geomancy of Aḥmad b. `Alī Zunbul: A Study of the Arabic Corpus Hermeticum” (AMBIX, March 1973, vol. XX):

The best taskīn is that of az-Zanātī; it bears the key-word bzdḥ: according to the principle of Gematria, the transposition of letters of a word into numbers, in place of bzdḥ there result the numbers 2748. Thus the Mansions of the taskīn are indicated; each spot denotes one of the four elements; in the 2nd Mansion there is only the element Fire (Laetitia, ḥayyān), in the 7th Mansion only Air (Rubeus, ḥumra), in the 4th Mansion only Water (Albus, bayāḍ), and in the 8th Mansion only Earth (Cauda Draconis, rakīza ẖāriǧa).

Stephen Skinner clarifies this even further in his works on geomancy.  From his 1980 book “Terrestrial Astrology: Divination by Geomancy”:

Further specialized configurations or taskins are outlined together with mnemonics for remembering their order. Gematria, or the art of interpreting words in terms of the total of’ the numerical equivalents of each of their letters, is introduced at this point. Using the mnemonic of a particular taskin such as Bzdh, Zunbul explains that the letters represent the four Elements, in descending order of grossness. Each letter also represents a number in Arabic, thus:

b – 2 – Fire
z – 7 – Air
d – 4 – Water
h – 8 – Earth

This mnemonic therefore indicates House number 2 for Fire, House number 7 (Air), House number 4 (Water), and House number 8 (Earth). For each of the Houses indicated in this taskin, we see that the second is most compatible with Fire, the seventh with Air, and so on. Therefore, if the geomantic figure Laetitia (or in Arabic Hayyan), which is solely Fire, occurs in the second House, this would be. an extremely favourable omen. Likewise, the occurrence of Rubeus (or Humra), which is solely Air, in the seventh House would also be extremely auspicious. Further chapters are devoted to even more complicated combinations of the basic figures, and to labyrinthine rules for everything from marriage to medicine. Diagnosis by raml even became a lay rival of the latter, and tables were educed of the relationship between specific parts of the body and the geomantic figures.

In other words, based on these letters, we could intone a particular sound that starts with the letter “b” for Fire, “z” for Air, “d” for Earth, and “ḥ” (think of the guttural “ch” of German, but further back in the throat).  To vocalize them, since the Arabic alphabet doesn’t have vowels, I’d probably borrow Greek vowels which I know have similar-enough elemental qualities to what I’m looking for.  Thus:

  • Fire: bi
  • Air: zu
  • Water: de
  • Earth: ḥa

Those who might want to use a more Greek or Western approach could use the Greek letters and the natural vowels associated with them, which is simple given that they all have the same vowel Ēta:

  • Fire: bē
  • Air: zē
  • Water: dē
  • Earth: hē

Instead of using these, one might also use the Arabic terms for the elements instead for intonation purposes.  These are just the standard terms for the four elements, but Skinner gives them according to Aḥmad b. `Alī Zunbul as:

  • Fire: nar (pronounced “nahr”)
  • Air: hawa’ (pronounced “HAH-wa” with a sharp stop in the throat)
  • Water: ma’ (pronounced “ma” with a sharp stop in the throat)
  • Earth: turab (pronounced “tuh-RAHB”)

Of course, this is all highly hypothetical and experimental stuff we’re getting into, but then, that’s never stopped me before.  I would venture to say that this sort of geomantic energy center work could easily and happily be paired with my system of geomantic gestures or “mudras”, such that when working with the Fire Center in the head, one would make the gesture for Laetitia while intoning bi or bē or nar.  With enough experimentation, I suppose a full (or at least fuller) system of energy work with a geomantic subtle body could be developed for other magical work, or used instead of Vedic- or Chinese-based systems that are commonly found in later Hermetic or Western magical systems.  This is definitely something I want to (slowly) explore, but if you’re interested and willing to give it a shot, why not try experimenting with this system as a base for your own work?  If you do, I’d love to hear what you’d think of such a practice!

A Mathetic Understanding of Energy

October 12, 2014 By in mathesis, occult, philosophy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

To go along with our daily practices of meditation on the Tetractys, meditation on the letter of the day, daily divination, honoring the gods, and the like, I’ve considered also adding in a daily energy work ritual specifically tuned to mathesis.  I mean, it makes sense for mathetic work to round one out in many ways, especially as one prepares oneself to make the leap from Hypognostes to Gnostes, from simple magician getting acquainted with the forces of the world to a theurgist becoming powerful within and above the world.  I currently use a mish-mash of energy works put together, involving a form of the Qabbalistic Cross, the AL-KT banishing ritual, some PGM stuff, this and that; it’d be nice to have something more coherent that could fit nicer with mathesis, but that got me to thinking: how do we explain energy in mathetic terms, and moreover, what even is spiritual energy?

Energy in its basic scientific definition means a property of objects that can be transferred between them, such as motion, heat, electromagnetic radiation, and the like, but when we start talking about spiritual energy…well, I’ve never really seen a good definition of spiritual energy.  Everyone seems to vaguely know what it is, even though it wasn’t a word we used before two hundred years or so ago; the energy model of magic is a relative infant compared to the spiritual model, and we wouldn’t “charge” a talisman (like a cell phone) so much as we’d “ensoul” it (with a spirit or blessing of a spirit).  We might call those blessings or presence of a spirit a type of energy, but that doesn’t really account for other forms like qi/ki/chi or prana, nor does it reflect the energies of the elements or planets (unless you revert back to the spirit model of magic and consider the energies to be manifestations of the presence of the spirits of those elements and planets).  It gets real confusing real fast.

So, as we often like to do around these parts when we come across definition confusion, let’s go back to our etymological roots.  Energy comes from the Greek ενεργεια, “activity, action, operation”, ultimately from εν+εργον, or “at-work”.  The term was coined by Aristotle, and used in contrast to δυναμις, dynamis.  Dynamis has a variety of meanings, but Aristotle used it to refer to potentiality or power.  Dynamis here refers to the innate ability or tendency of something to change or act, something that is not yet real or accomplished but what could be real or accomplished.  Energeia, on the other hand, is the actual change or work something does when it pulls upon its dynamis; dynamis is anything that can happen, energeia is anything that is currently happening at a given point in time.  Energeia is the process of actualization of dynamis into something that exists, but it is not something that exists on its own.  As energeia emerges from or pulls upon dynamis, we develop what Aristotle called εντεληχια, or “being-at-an-end”, a continuous energeia that completely realizes the complete dynamis to result in a complete being.

So we have three terms we should inspect for a better understanding of energy from its older, original senses:

  • Dynamis, the potency or potential something has to accomplish something
  • Energeia, the realization of something’s potential
  • Entelechia, the full realization of something’s potential which makes something what it is and which is the end result or perfection of something by its realization

One common example Aristotle and others gives is when Aristotle talks about motion, κινησις or kinesis, which is defined as the entelechia of dynamis of something as that something.  Consider a pile of building materials; they all have different potentials, different dynames, and one of those is that they can be built with; that which is buildable is present in the building materials as a dynamis.  The action of building is a kinesis or motion that had been potential or inherent within the building materials, so the energeia of the building materials is putting them into use to build as building materials.  Once the kinesis of building is complete, we have (say) a house, which was inherent in the original building materials as dynamis and is the persistent energeia of the building materials having been actualized into something built.

I think.

Anyway, so how does this all relate to spiritual energy?  Well, I’m not a big fan of the energetic model of magic, where things are accomplished spiritually by means of directing and manipulating subtle energies from one form to another or from one entity to another.  However, I do use a little bit of that idea in my spirit model that forms the basis of much of my understanding and magical theory; the action of a spirit or entity and how it works as an agent is what generally I mean by accomplishing spiritual work.  So, for example, when I consecrate a planetary talisman, I don’t charge it with the energy (in a modern sense) of that planet, as if the planet is some nuclear reactor emanating cosmic radiation that can be harnessed by a wand and some crazy words, which can then be directed like a flashlight or hose to change the energy or motion of other things.  Rather, I call upon the spirit of the planet to take residence within the talisman so that, by using the talisman, I have the spirit within it accomplish work for me.  When I want to make use of the element of Fire for, say, warming myself up, then my model gets a little hazy; I use a certain word and I focus on the element of Fire, and either the power of fire inherent within me comes up as spiritual energy manifesting “hot”, or I call upon the primal spirit of Fire to be present and, by its presence and activity, warm myself.  Ultimately, the end result is the same but the explanatory theory behind it differs in a few ways; whether we call magic the activity of spirits or manipulation of energy doesn’t matter so long as the Work gets done.

So where does that leave us?  Let’s take a high-level look at the Tetractys, first:

Planetary Alchemical Tetractys

At the top, the Source of All, is the Monad, where nothing is actualized, only potential; the Monad is dynamis in its basest, rawest, most vague state, the dynamis of existence itself.  Nothing yet exists; there is neither Creator nor Creature (which is the Dyad), nor is there anything yet to exist.  This is the level before even the Unmoved Mover, because a Mover (energeia) can only exist if there’s something to move.  Thus, energeia is not a property of the Monad; it is a property of the Dyad and, by extension, all the other numbers.  Energeia is that which combines two Monads (individual potentialities) into a Dyad; just as building materials have the buildable as a dynamis but only realize the buildable by the energeia building, individual Monads have greater numbers as a dynamis but only realize them by the energeia of the connection between them.  The other numbers (Dyad, Triad, etc.) may be both energeiai and dynames in their own rights, but only the Monad is pure dynamis.  The other numbers are both potentials in their own right (since any number can be combined with another number as dynames by means of energeia to make a larger number) as well as energies (since they realize the power of the lesser numbers combined).

When we consider the Tetractys as sphairai with odoi between them, we can simplistically consider each sphaira to be a dynamis, and each odos linking the sphairai to be an energeia.  The dynamis, in this instance, is the possibility of the substance of the sphaira becoming something else (a number becoming another by means of addition or subtraction), and the odos the realization of the substance of the sphaira becoming something else (the process of addition or subtraction as applied to the number).  Each sphaira, however, with the exception of the Monad, is already a realization of the other numbers, and so contains within itself an energeia, but when viewed from the outside, each sphaira is “just” a dynamis.  While we are present within a particular sphaira, we explore what the dynamis is of that sphaira, but it’s on the odos that we actually realize the changes between the sphaira and the changes that we ourselves must go through to understand how those dynames can be effected.  The odoi cannot exist on their own; they can only exist as relationships, as processes, between the sphairai.  The Monad is pure dynamis, and the other sphairai may be both dynamis and energeia, but the odoi are pure energeiai.

alchemical_planetary_tetractys_paths

While that’s all well and good for a theurgic and theoretical understanding of the framework of mathesis, how can this all be applied?  Well, like I said, this is where the difference between magical models becomes moot: whether you consider spiritual work to be accomplished from the activity of spiritual entities or the manipulation of spiritual substance doesn’t matter so long as the work gets done all the same.  However, we know that the Tetractys is the “root and the source of all eternal and eternally flowing creation”, that which “enforms gods and men”; all dynames and all energeiai are present within all of us, as they are within all other things.  However, how we effect the dynames within us as we live our lives is important; some of us never pull upon all our potentials.  That’s the distinction between the Gnosis and Agnosis schemata: by working and living on the Gnosis Schema, we are able to pull upon all our potentials and achieve what we might call our real entelechiai through the energeia of the zodiac, but most of us reside on the Agnosis Schema, where we’re limited to only a subset of the things we do and the things we can do.  It is only by exploring all our potentials that we obtain gnosis and, if we so choose, escape from domination by the forces in the cosmos.

In mathesis, we make use of the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet, each of which is associated with a particular force: the 12 zodiac signs, seven planets, four elements, and the quintessence of spirit.  Each of these letters is associated with an odos on the Tetractys that links two sphairai together.  Thus, each force is an energeia, a process that transforms or realizes a dynamis within ourselves.  By carefully selecting different energeia, we activate and realize different dynames within us, but in order to choose certain energeia, we have to be able to enact those processes, and without having been initiated into the Gnosis Schema (mathetically or otherwise), we simply don’t know how.  We normally live under the powers of the seven planets, four elements, and spirit; these are the forces we’re caught up in and which we are most familiar because they’re closest to us and have the most bearing on our lives.  It’s the forces of the zodiac, however, that really guide to our entelechiai, but they’re so distant and occluded by the other forces that we aren’t as familiar with them.  In order to access those zodiacal forces, we must first work our way through the elemental and planetary forces, understanding not only how they work but why, so that we can build upon them and ascend to the sphere of the fixed stars and, thus, to the energeia that link all ten of the sphairai of the Tetracts rather than those that link only six.

alchemical_planetary_tetractys_gnosis_paths

Contemplation of the letters, say by our means of daily meditation on the day of the letter, is one way by which we become accustomed to and aligned with the energeia of the letters and the force they represent; by contemplating and harmonizing with the letter and its force, we understand more and more the energeia it represents and what sorts of dynames it pulls upon.  When done regularly and cyclically, one may not need an energy ritual to align oneself with the forces because they’re already doing that by contemplation alone; the process may be made more mystical, such as by the use of chanting or vocalization to make the contemplation more like an invocation, but the result is the same.  However, this is done on a letter-by-letter, force-by-force, energeia-by-energeia basis, and for more complete ritual where one may wish to achieve a balance of forces, we need something more.

If I were to write a mathetic energy work ritual for regular practice, I’d write it so that it could be done in several stages, with different types of letters involved in the process.  If we tie this back into our distinction of Hypognostes/Gnostes practices, then we know that it’s the role of the Hypognostes to study and integrate the forces of the elements and planets to build upward to the zodiac, while it’s the role of the Gnostes to study and integrate the forces of the zodiac based on their footing with the elements and zodiac.  Assuming one keeps up their daily contemplation of the letters of the day, by the time one reaches the status of Gnostes and is initiated into the Gnosis Schema, they’ll have the understanding and ability (though not yet proficiency) in working with all the zodiacal forces, even if they have not yet made the theurgic exploration of those forces on the odoi of the Tetractys.  Thus, the Hypognostic energy work would focus on a maximum of 12 forces (elements and planets), but more likely four (4 elements), five (4 elements + 1 spirit), seven (7 planets), eight (7 + 1), or eleven (4 + 7) up to the maximum of twelve (4 + 7 + 1).  On the other hand, the Gnostic energy work all 24 (elements, planets, spirit, and zodiac).  As the mathetes successively works with more and more forces, they slowly introduce new forces while strengthening the ones the mathetes is already familiar with.

So while all this has been a lovely(?) discourse on my thoughts on what spiritual energy is and how we could/should use it theoretically, I haven’t really touched upon how that might be accomplished in a practical manner.  Like I said, I prefer to think of energy as the action or presence of spiritual entities, so rather than thinking of an energy ritual as channeling or directing specific forces in one’s sphere, it might be preferable to think of it as the invocation of spiritual entities to effect change within one’s sphere or the invocation of spiritual entities already present to induce motion within one’s sphere.  That latter interpretation is interesting, since it aligns with late Neoplatonic theories that the soul (ψυχη) is an energeia within the body that causes motion as it actualizes its own dynamis based on the perception of the body, the reason of the spirit, and the divine contemplation of the mind.  In that light, the notion of energy work takes on a different meaning and purpose in mathesis.  Instead of energy work simply empowering the body or stabilizing it in the forces we work with, mathetic energy work has the goal of familiarizing ourselves with the processes we need to take to obtain gnosis.  It’s a work of spiritual alchemy, preparing ourselves for purification and spiritual development by means of the forces of the cosmos, exercising our soul so that, when faced with the energeia we need to effect, we’ll be prepared to make the changes we need both internally (soul acting within itself) and externally (soul acting within the body).  It’s not about being able to channel certain forces into the world, but to practice the changes and processes those forces present to us.  Some of those forces we already use/effect on a day-to-day basis, perhaps unknowingly, but energy work brings them to the forefront of the mind so that we’re consciously aware of the changes those energeiai make so that, should we need to, we can undergo those processes again at the drop of a hat.

While we moderns are perhaps best accustomed to thinking of spiritual energy as we’d consider electrical current, flowing along certain conduits from an empowering source to charge an appliance, this isn’t perhaps the best way to think of it, especially in terms of theurgy.  Rather, consider that energy is a process of change that allows an inherent potential power within something to be effected and perfected, literally acted-upon and completely-done, so that we refine something into what it should be rather than what it is.  It’s not you simply channeling some vague force from source A to target B and then using B to do work for you; it’s you undergoing the work as well as being at work that transforms something into something better.  That is the goal of energy work; remember, it’s still Work.  In that light, we should consider what ways mathesis can apply Work to effect energy qua ενεργεια.