Tag Archives: saint

On Geomantic Holy Days, Redux

January 3, 2019 By in geomancy, occult Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Lately I’ve gotten it into my head to try my hand at coming up with some sort of devotional practice with geomancy again, and it’s been stuck there for several days now. This post, however, is having a hard time coming out in a way I like, so it’ll be a bit more of a ramble than usual, but maybe we can end up somewhere neat that we didn’t expect. Also I’m writing it as a way to relieve a headache so I can focus on doing these 2019 New Year readings (which you should totally get one while the offer’s good, if you haven’t yet!).

I mentioned a while back in my post on the notion of geomantic holy days to honor and recognize the mythological and spiritual founders of the art, the four Progenitors Daniel, Enoch, Hermes Trismegistus, and Adam, with the archangel Gabriel being their supernatural teacher and initiator into the art. Whenever we find an origin story for geomancy, whether in European or Arabic texts, we see the same deal: the angel Gabriel arrives to instruct the prophet in question in the art of geomancy. If we were to center a devotional practice around Abrahamic figures that geomancy centers on, we could easily use the feast days associated with them to come up with five major holy days:

  • Feast of Gabriel the Archangel: March 24
  • Feast of Daniel the Blessed Prophet: July 21
  • Feast of Enoch the Great Scribe: July 30
  • Feast of Hermes the Thrice Great: April 4 (entirely an innovation on my part, see the above post as to why)
  • Feast of Adam and Eve: December 24

But why stop there? We can expand this basic set of feast days into a slightly fuller set:

  • Feast of Michael the Archangel and All Angels: September 29
  • Feast of Uriel the Archangel: June 21
  • Feast of Raphael the Archangel: December 22
  • Feast of the Guardian Angel: October 2
  • Feast of Saint Agabus: February 13
  • Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi: October 4
  • Feast of Samuel the Prophet: August 20
  • All Saints’ Day: November 1
  • All Souls’ Day: November 2

Recognizing the feasts of the other three archangels makes a bit of sense to me; after all, with geomancy being heavily influenced by the number four (four elements, four Mothers, four Daughters, four Nieces, four Court figures, etc.), why not recognize the four archangels? Though we generally consider the archangel Michael to be prince of the bodiless hosts, Gabriel takes a more central importance to geomancy because he’s the one who taught the Progenitors the art. However, in my reckoning, the four Progenitors can each be associated with one of the four elements (Daniel with Fire, Enoch with Air, Hermes Trismegistus with Water, Adam with Earth), so we can also consider them each linked to one of the four archangels (Daniel with Michael, Enoch with Raphael, Hermes Trismegistus with Gabriel, Adam with Uriel). This makes a bit of mythological sense, too, considering Michael’s role in the biblical Book of Daniel and Uriel’s connection with the Garden of Eden and Adam. And, beyond that, why not recognize one’s own guardian angel as well? It’s under the tutelage, protection, and guidance of our individual guardian angels that we can all each of us learn to prosper, grow, and develop ourselves, so why not?

The inclusion of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day is, of course, a nod to our ancestors, both familial and spiritual, when it comes to any spiritual practice. This is definitely influenced by my other ancestor work, but why not recognize our ancestors in any practice? After all, if it weren’t for our ancestors, we literally could not live; their blood flows in our veins, their breath fills our lungs, and their bones provide the foundation for us to stand upon. That goes for our family as it does all the geomancers and occultists and other learned sages of the past, for such esteemed names like Christopher Cattan, Robert Fludd, Hugh of Santalla, Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad ibn ‘Uthman al-Zanati, and so forth; it’s because of them, their teachings, and their writings that we have geomancy passed down unto us today.

The other feast days I listed also make a bit of sense, or at least enough to not be inappropriate. Saint Agabus is an obscure one, admittedly, but he’s given the patronage over prophets and, by extension, diviners and seers and fortune-tellers in general. St. Francis of Assisi (yes, THAT St. Francis!) is one of the holiest and most devout exemplars of true faith in God that Christianity has probably ever produced, and his connections with the environment and stewardship of the world as a whole should be inspiration for us all. Plus, there’s an ATR connection there, too; St. Francis of Assisi is the usual syncretization with the Yoruba diviner-god Orunmilá, the orisha of wisdom and knowledge and divination, and the central deity in the Ifá cult, and Ifá is distantly related to geomancy (though I neither like nor want to conflate the two). I also threw in the feast of the Prophet Samuel into the list because he was the last of the biblical Judges and the one who anointed Saul the first King of Israel and Judah, not least because he’s my own namesake but because of his role in establishing the virtues of wisdom, priesthood, prophethood, and rulership—and gives an illustrative example to the moral and just uses of divination by means of the episode involving the Witch of Endor.

You’ll note that I’m basically using the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar of saints for all these feasts. I mean, that’s fair; it’s a straightforward system that’s been established for hundreds of years, the saints are almost universally known in Western culture and religion, and the use of the usual Gregorian calendar is easy. I fully recognize that not all geomancers are Christian (I mean, I’m not), but you can’t really ignore the importance Christianity (or Islam) in Western occulture generally, nor geomancy specifically. The current of faith, devotion, and power with the saints, and the mythological backing they provide to divination, is already there; why not tap into it, especially when it’s so easy to do so?

Well, let’s back up. Let’s say we don’t necessarily want to adopt a Catholic approach that uses the feast days as they are. What could we do instead? In the post about those geomantic holy days, I mentioned the possibility of coming up with a geomantic Wheel of the Year that’s based on the Sun’s ingresses and midpoints in the signs of the Zodiac at the usual places, namely the solstices and equinoxes. Why not go to something like that? Sure, except how do you map the Progenitors to those days?

Although the modern Catholic practice is to celebrate all the angels and archangels on the same day—Michaelmas, the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel and All Angels, on September 29—the four big archangels had their own feast days scattered across the year, roughly in line with the solstices and equinoxes: Gabriel’s feast day occurs roughly at the spring equinox, Uriel at the summer solstice, Michael at the autumn equinox, and Raphael at the winter solstice. (Yes, I write from a perspective in the northern hemisphere, but hear me out.) This arrangement makes sense at first blush, but that’s an odd order, indeed, isn’t it? The spring equinox is when the Sun enters Aries, a Fire sign, so the normal occultist would expect Michael to be honored then instead of Gabriel; likewise, for summer, it’d be Cancer and Water, so Gabriel instead of Uriel; for autumn, Libra and Air, so Raphael instead of Michael; and for winter, Capricorn and Earth, so Uriel instead of Raphael. A bit of a conflict, no?

Note the traditional order of the archangels being honored in this system, starting from the autumn equinox: Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel. Their corresponding elements are Fire, Air, Water, and Earth—the elemental order that’s used in geomancy. This contrasts with using a zodiacal order—Raphael, Uriel, Michael, and Gabriel, so Air, Earth, Fire, and Water—which isn’t used in geomancy. It also contrasts with Cornelius Agrippa’s reckoning in his Scale of Four (book II, chapter 7), where Michael is given to summer, Uriel to autumn, Gabriel to winter, and Raphael to spring—exactly the reverse of the usual elemental order. Since geomancy isn’t strictly an astrological art and since the strictly angelic order matches up best with the geomantic order, it could be argued well that this system would work best for a devotional geomantic calendar. This means we could start off organizing a geomantic devotional calendar by using the solstices and equinoxes for ascribing them to the four archangels:

  • Feast of Gabriel the Archangel: March 21 (spring equinox)
  • Feast of Uriel the Archangel: June 21 (summer solstice)
  • Feast of Michael the Archangel: September 21 (autumnal equinox)
  • Feast of Raphael the Archangel: December 21 (winter solstice)

(Yes, dates are approximate and can vary from year to year by a day or two in either direction. Bear with me.)

As noted above, just as there are four archangels, there are four Progenitors in this system I’m coming up with, and each of those Progenitors corresponds to one of the four elements, just as the four archangels do. While we could double up the feast days and celebrate the feasts of the Progenitors along with their corresponding archangels, I don’t like that method; for one, I try to avoid multiple simultaneous celebrations on the same day, and because Gabriel would need to be honored alongside each and every Progenitor (as he was the one who taught geomancy to them all), that means we’d really be celebrating Gabriel on each of the solstices and equinoxes, either alone (spring equinox) or along with another archangel (solstices and autumn equinox). So that’s a really messy and convoluted system.

What about using the cross-quarter days? These are the four midpoint days between the solstices and equinoxes, and could be ideal. How would we arrange the four Progenitors across these? There are several options that come to mind:

  • Angel-based: give the cross-quarter day to the Progenitor that matches the element of the angel that immediately precedes it. Thus, if the spring equinox is given to Gabriel (Water), then the cross-quarter day that follows it (Beltane) should be given to the Progenitor of Water, Hermes Trismegistus.
  • Season-middle: give the cross-quarter day to the Progenitor that matches the element of the season it falls in, reckoning seasons to start at the solstices and equinoxes. Thus, if spring is reckoned to start at the spring equinox and we use Agrippa’s association of Spring with Air, then the season cross-quarter day (Beltane) should be given to the Progenitor of Air, Enoch.
  • Season-start: give the cross-quarter day to the Progenitor that matches the element of the season it starts, reckoning seasons to start at the cross-quarter days and not at the solstices and equinoxes (as is traditional in some parts of Europe). Thus, if summer is reckoned to start at the midpoint between the spring equinox and summer solstice, and summer is associated with Fire, then this cross-quarter day (Beltane) should be given to the Progenitor of Fire, Daniel.
  • Zodiac-based: give the cross-quarter day to the Progenitor that matches the element of the zodiac sign it falls in. Thus, the cross-quarter day between the spring equinox and summer solstice falls in the middle of Taurus, an Earth sign, so this day should be given to the Progenitor of Earth, Adam.
  • Chronological: give the cross-quarter day to the Progenitor in the chronological order they appear in the biblical and mythological record. Reckoning the year to start at the spring equinox, this would mean the four Progenitors would be celebrated in the order of Adam (the first man), Enoch (ancestor of Noah), Hermes Trismegistus (though not given a strong temporal presence, he’s sometimes considered a contemporary of Moses or of otherwise Egyptian time periods), and Daniel (living in the Babylonian Exile period).
Approximate
Solar Date		 Cross Quarter
Day		 Angel Season
Middle		 Season
Start		 Zodiac Chronological
May 6 Beltane Hermes Enoch Daniel Adam Adam
August 6 Beltane Adam Daniel Adam Daniel Enoch
November 5 Lammas Daniel Adam Hermes Hermes Hermes
February 3 Samhain Enoch Hermes Enoch Enoch Daniel

For the same reasons that I give the four archangels to the four quarter days in the order they’ve already got, I think the angel-based method makes the most sense. Understanding the angelic day to “come first”, just as Gabriel came first with the knowledge of geomancy to bring it to the Progenitors, the angel-based method where the Progenitors follow their corresponding elemental archangel makes the most sense to me—if we were to link the Progenitors strongly to the archangels based on elemental correspondence alone. However, because the other three angels don’t really have as much a presence in the geomantic mythos as Gabriel does, and because Gabriel is most important to them all, this connection is kinda weak.

Honestly, because of that reason, I’m most inclined to go with the chronological ordering, which also makes good sense: if we consider Gabriel to have come down and instructed the four Progenitors in the art of geomancy in successive revelation, and if we consider the spring equinox to be both the feast of Gabriel and the start of a new solar year (which is definitely a thing!), then it also makes sense to celebrate the four Progenitors in the order in which Gabriel taught them. This way, each year can be considered a retelling of a revelation of geomancy, and honoring the four Progenitors in turn would instill that same sense of revelation and continual, continuous discovery and learning in the art. Since I would consider the non-Gabriel archangel feasts to be of secondary importance, we would only need to be concerned with five primary feasts for a geomantic devotional practice on approximately the following Gregorian dates (with specific solar events that would mark them properly from year to year):

  • Feast of Gabriel the Holy Archangel, Teacher of the Progenitors: first sunrise after Sun ingress Aries Aquarius (approx. March 21)
  • Feast of Adam the First Man, Progenitor of Earth: first sunrise after Sun midpoint Taurus (approx. May 6)
  • Feast of Enoch the Great Scribe, Progenitor of Air: first sunrise after Sun midpoint Leo (approx. August 6)
  • Feast of Hermes the Thrice Great, Progenitor of Water: first sunrise after Sun midpoint Scorpio (approx. November 5)
  • Feast of Daniel the Blessed Prophet, Progenitor of Fire: first sunrise after Sun midpoint Aquarius (approx. February 3)

Why mark the feasts by the first sunrise after the specific solar event? Personally, I like to mark such holidays and special days by being the “first full day” with the full event, because for me in my practice, I mark days for spiritual practice starting from sunrise. So, if the Sun makes its ingress into Aries at 7pm my time, then that say still started when the Sun was still in the previous sign, so it makes more sense to me to celebrate the first full day with the Sun being in Aries on the first sunrise after that. If that solar event happened at the very moment of sunrise, all the better; it would count for my purposes.

Anyhow, now we have a cycle that’s tied less to Catholicism or purely zodiacal concerns, and one that’s grounded in the mythos of geomancy while still being tied to the natural cycles of seasons. A geomantic new year is celebrated at the spring equinox, which is specifically dedicated to the archangel Gabriel, the angelic patron of geomancy and geomancers and who teaches and reveals the art to all its students. The year progresses in turn being marked by the feasts for the four Progenitors, each of whom were taught by Gabriel to pass the art of geomancy down into the world. Celebrating the new year with the spring equinox dedicated to Gabriel also has a fun coincidental Islamic connection; in some sects of Islam, this date is reckoned to be the solar calendar equivalent (Persian Nowruz, based upon the earlier and still-practiced Zoroastrian New Year festival) to when the angel Gabriel appeared to the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ to give him the first revelation that started off the Qur’an (though that’s usually reckoned to take place during Laylat al-Qadr during Ramadan in the Islamic lunar calendar).

I actually feel pretty comfortable with this novel arrangement. Though there are five main feasts that would be celebrated, which would be an odd number for geomancy, it’s really more like four feasts of the Progenitors plus a special feast that they all center around. They could be balanced by adding in the other three feasts of the archangels to yield a constant and balanced eight feasts per year, sure, peppered with the other feasts throughout the year for the other saints and days taken from Catholic (or Orthodox) tradition. For me, though, it suffices to have these primary five (really, four plus one) feasts to act as holy days for a devotional geomantic practice. I can easily envision having lead-up days, such as one to four days of fasting immediately prior to the feasts of the Progenitors or four to sixteen days of fasting, studying, and praying leading up to the feast of Gabriel at the spring equinox, too, which would also work to deepen and focus devotional practices. Heck, we could give these fancy terms, too, like “Days of Cultivation” for the period leading up to the feast of Gabriel.

So, let’s give an example. For this year 2019 CE, the spring equinox happens at 5:58 PM Eastern US time on Wednesday, March 20. This means that we’d get the following dates to celebrate the above feasts:

  • Days of Cultivation: March 5 (starting at sunrise) through March 20, 2019 (ending at sunrise the following day)
  • Feast of Gabriel the Holy Archangel, Teacher of the Progenitors: March 21, 2019 (starting at sunrise)
  • Feast of Adam the First Man, Progenitor of Attainment: May 6, 2019 (starting at sunrise)
  • Feast of Enoch the Great Scribe, Progenitor of Dedication: August 8, 2019 (starting at sunrise)
  • Feast of Hermes the Thrice Great, Progenitor of Wisdom: November 8, 2019 (starting at sunrise)
  • Feast of Daniel the Blessed Prophet, Progenitor of Judgement: Feburary 5, 2020 (starting at sunrise)

And, just to complete the set, the feasts for the other three archangels:

  • Feast of Uriel the Holy Archangel: June 22, 2019 (starting at sunrise)
  • Feast of Michael the Holy Archangel: September 24, 2019 (starting at sunrise)
  • Feast of Raphael the Holy Archangel: December 22, 2019 (starting at sunrise)

What about one’s guardian angel? That one really doesn’t fit into any of the above systems, and that’s fine, because it’s such an intensely personal spirit to begin with. While you could give that one October 2 in general, just taking it directly from the Roman Catholic calendar, but there are two other opportunities that come to mind:

  • If you’ve already attained formal contact (e.g. K&CHGA) with your guardian angel, a la Abramelin or the Headless Rite or some other practice, use the anniversary on which you established contact as your own personal Feast of the Guardian Angel.
  • If you don’t yet have formal contact, use the day before your own birthday, being the day which you came into this world as an independent human being to celebrate your own personal Feast of the Guardian Angel. Using the day before avoids any conflicts, and allows you to honor your guardian angel as a preexisting force that gives you a foundation to live and grow.

What about a day or feast to recognize the blessed dead, whether familial or spiritual, by blood-lineage or tradition-lineage? Again, you could use All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days for this, or other culturally-appropriate Day of the Dead-type holidays; for specific ancestors, you could use their birthdays or their deathdays. Though, given the above system, I think we could do one better. Those Days of Cultivation, the days of fasting and study and prayer leading up to the geomantic new year and the Feast of Gabriel? Why not make the day before that dedicated to the dead? After all, it’s because of them that all this we have can come to pass, and by “starting” the Days of Cultivation with them, we give them their proper due and respect as we would begin our own period of intensive study and prayer and preparation for the New Year. So, that means that the Feast of the Blessed Dead would be 17 days before the Feast of Gabriel:

  • Feast of the Blessed Dead: March 4, 2019 (starting at sunrise)

The other secondary feasts I gave up above don’t really matter as much, just being plucked from the Roman Catholic calendar for the sake of it; it wouldn’t be bad to recognize them, but it’s not needed, either. I think that with these five (or four plus one) primary feasts of Gabriel and the Progenitors, and the five (or three plus one plus one) secondary feasts of the other archangels, the guardian angel, and the blessed dead, plus at least one major period of fasting and praying, we end up with a good number of events for a devotional geomantic practice.

Now to actually give it a whirl and develop devotions and practices to go along with it! After all, it is still the beginning of the year, and I do still need to make my 2019 ritual calendar. I’ll get on that soon enough…once I get some of these readings done first!

You’re Probably Not Chosen, and That’s Okay

February 10, 2018 By in link, occult, philosophy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 11 Comments

Last night on Twitter, I found a tweet thread that I thoroughly agreed with pertaining to the notion of spirit animals and how it’s culturally appropriative to use the term, and outright disrespectful when people say “unicorns are my spirit animal” or “whiskey is my spirit animal”:

I’ll let you read the whole thread, written by an Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) person with actual claim and propriety to speak on the matter, because the thread is a little long and it deserves reading.

It’s a sensitive topic for many people, but she makes fine points all around, and I can’t really disagree with them in any reasonable sense.  There are good comparisons between how people in popular occulture and New Age scenes use the word “spirit animal” with the word “shaman”, which originally applied only to Central Asian steppe-based Mongolian or Turkic tribal religions; unless you’re practicing a form of Tengrism, technically speaking, you’re not a shaman or working a shamanic path.  However, the term was adopted and adapted by anthropologists (who, I might add, typically are from Western Europe and take on a subtly colonialist-universalist view of every culture that isn’t theirs) to be applied across the board to countless religions, traditions, and cultures far removed in time, space, and language from those Central Asian priests based on perceived or superficial similarities.  In general, the word “shaman” is used wherever “priest” would normally be used, except for cultures that were deemed more “primitive” or “undeveloped” as, say, something more established, formalized, structured, or civilized as in the West.  As Kalagni shared in a related discussion on my Facebook page,

When (white) people go on about how there are analogs in other cultures, and that “spirit animal” is generic, they really mess up their history. Yes, “spirit animal” is generic and in English, but the term was coined in English to refer to Native beliefs as part of their persecution and eradication. Also, as part of another side rant, if wypipo also want to harp on about how “we have culture”, then use the goddamn names from your our culture then and prove it.  Then again, white (North American) culture did steal a lot from Native folks…so it’s part of their culture in that way.

I’d say shaman is a better case, because it’s not an English word, so despite being applied to “shamanic” traditions everywhere now, you can point and say “This is the language and culture it came from.” People have trouble grokking that with spirit animal because it’s in English, so obviously it’s a white people thing.

And, of course, as is commonly joked-not-joked?

There’s so much that can be said about this topic, and how the line is hazy or non-existent between cultural appropriation and syncretism, what the best term to describe something is depending on circumstance and originating context, whether fylgjas or totems or tutelars or paredoi or other concepts are similar enough to be clustered together (typically they aren’t except by people who don’t understand them), and so on.  Honestly, while I thought about writing about this discussion, I really don’t have much to add at the present time besides “don’t do it, and understand what you’re actually describing before you open your mouth and why you should or shouldn’t say it a certain way”; that wouldn’t make for a very exciting blog post, though, would it?  Besides, I’ll let people from the actual originating cultures speak for themselves, and keep my own mouth shut.

But there is a related topic that I can speak about, and don’t think is spoken about enough in Western occulture, New Age, and pagan thought.  People (think they) have spirit animals because they feel that the animal has chosen them; some people have patrons or matrons/patronesses (I’m not sure why “matron” isn’t the default term here, but okay, whatever) in this pantheon or that system, and all around people claim that they are “chosen” by some big-name entity or to do some monumental task.

People go on about how they’ve been chosen by some thing for some thing to do some thing, and…in general?  I don’t buy it as much as others do, or as much as I did.

I suspend my disbelief out of politeness, and see how far it goes for the person in our conversations, but for the vast majority of people and the vast majority of cases, they’re not chosen. And that’s okay!  Not only is it the norm to not be chosen, but in many of these traditions, there’s no notion of “choosing” that the gods or spirits do for us.  Moreover, any such notion is generally a recent Western overlay, much how “shaman” is used for African, Native American, and Central Asian religions despite their differences in context and origin.

I would think that the notion of having a patron in general comes from Catholic influences, where people can have a patron saint, or where a certain profession, area, or trade is associated with a saint who’s related to the thing in some way.  By being involved in that profession or trade, you can petition that saint for special help above and beyond a general-purpose spirit, sure, but you can also do the same by having your own patron saint.  Sometimes this is found based on the day of the year of the calendar of saints you’re born on, sometimes this is based on where you’re born, and sometimes it’s simply something you choose (note that it’s you doing the choosing of the saint, not necessarily the other way around) at baptism or confirmation.  This saint helps intercede for you through their unceasing prayer, not as a mediator of prayer to God but to pray alongside you to better live a better life here and in the hereafter.  This is a pretty common practice in Catholic and close-to-Catholic traditions, and seeing how that undergirds much of the past thousand-ish years of Western European philosophy and religion…well, it’s a common notion, to say the least.

So now we have all these new or newly-reborn traditions and religions, some invented out of whole (old) cloth, some reconstructed from historical and religious research: Hellenism, Heathenry, Kemeticism, Religio Romana, Rodnovery, and so on.  There are also living traditions, such as Vajrayana Buddhism or Shinto, that never died out and are extant, vibrant, and practiced to this day in their own ways.  In each, there are often an abundance of deities, demigods, heroes, saints, spirits, and whatnot.  Okay, good, cool, excellent!  The more, the merrier.  Each has its own cultural background, historical context, linguistic reliances, and so on; sometimes those who are in the know of more than one tradition can syncretize parts of them, sometimes parts of different religions ought to stay separate and far from each other.  Something I can say, however, regarding many of these traditions?  The notion of a spirit “picking” or “choosing” you is…uncommon, if not absent entirely, without having been previously syncretized with Western Christian or modern neopagan (which has some Western Christian elements) ideas.

Let me offer my own experience with something personal to me.  In La Regla de Ocha Lukumí (or Santería, as is commonly known, the Yoruba diasporic religion as it developed in Cuba with Catholic influences), there is a notion that everyone has a patron saint of sorts, an orisha that claims the head of everyone.  You don’t really get a say in who owns your head; that comes out in a special divination reading where humans don’t get to choose, but the orisha themselves choose.  In my case, it came out (surprisingly to me, at the time) that Ogun owns my head; that is a case where I was, in fact, chosen to have that connection with him in a way that other people don’t necessarily have, even if they work with Ogun or have other connections or relationships with him.  Then there’s also the fact that some people are told that, yes, they are meant to initiate as a priest in Santería, that it is indeed an already done deal where they don’t really have much of a say in the matter if they want to continue living their destiny as it was written for them.  For me, I took the plunge and made the decision to initiate; I entered willingly into that relationship with Ogun, and I had Ogun put on my head.  The fact that I have Ogun on my head doesn’t preclude me from working with other orisha; I still have vows and pacts made with my courts of orisha, and I can and do work with them in ways that others can’t or don’t.  Even then, however, Ogun may have been my patron saint all along in that system, but it was I who made that relationship real and tangible by my own volition and sacrifice.

Now, let me compare the similarities of that to my work with Hermes.  There are lots of things in my life that I do or that I have going on that do, in fact, relate well to Hermes’ domain: linguistics, languages, mathematics, programming, astrology, divination, conjuration, magic, trickery, trade, and on and on.  I work in a building that used to be one of the grandest post offices in the United States, and is designed with caducei and paeans to Hermes-Mercury on the pediments.  For all this, it makes sense for me to work with Hermes, because the things of his influence are already around me.  However, that does not mean I’m chosen by him to work with him, any more than a person who grew up in a family of chefs and bakers is chosen to be a culinarian themselves.  Rather, I chose to establish a shrine to him and offer sacrifices and honor in his name; I chose to have his emblem tattooed on my mortal flesh; I chose to work with him.  He did not chose me, not only because the notion of having a patron deity is unfamiliar and foreign to Hellenism, but because he…well, didn’t.  All these things in my life that are under his influence are things I chose to have in my life; he didn’t send them in my way to lure me to him, but I chose them.  Just so did I choose him, and I continue to choose him.

Another example I can offer is my own connection to what I may have called my “spirit animal” in an earlier time.  (Forgive me for declining to say what it is, but those who know me will already know what it is.)  This is an animal that I indeed feel a connection to, and which seems right and proper for me to work with.  But, that said, I’ll be honest with you: I went out of my way to find this animal, and I formed a connection with it of my own volition.  I can’t say that it’s my totem (because that’s more of a clan/lineage/family thing) or my spirit animal, because I don’t belong to the tradition that came up with the idea or that uses those terms; I rather say that it’s my tutelary animal or that I simply work with that animal spirit, because that’s more accurate and descriptive of what I do.  Moreover, this is a connection that allows for other connections to be formed with other animals as the case may be, sometimes as strongly as my primary tutelar, sometimes not so much, sometimes stronger as the case may be; I work with the spirit on my own connection, and listen to it if it needs something, but this is a spirit that ultimately I chose.  I may have encountered it in a strong way, but it was I who chose to stay with it and not pass over it.

I see that distinction a lot like how an astrological magician might view their own horoscope.  For instance, it was not a matter of my choosing when I was born; I am a Libra by virtue of my birth, and so could be said to have been “chosen” to be born under that sign.  It does not necessarily mean that Venus is my ruling planet, nor does it mean that I have to work with Venus or any of the deities associated with that planetary sphere except by my own volition.  Nor, for that matter, does it mean that I can’t work with other planets, or that I have some past-life connection with Venus, or that I am specifically chosen to do Venerial things in the world above and beyond other people, especially other Venus-ruled people (whether or not they’re Libras, Tauruses, Pisces, or another sign entirely).  I know of some people who live lives that would seem to run directly counter to their zodiac sign or almuten, often to great effect and purpose, but that’s because they often chose that path in life and worked for it.

Some people have certain entities that they work with closely and intimately, sometimes to enhance their own works; a photographer, for instance, could petition Saint Veronica because she holds special significance for photography and photographers generally.  Other times, they work with a certain entity because it enhances their own personal development, like a mask they can adopt to adapt themselves to the traits and characteristics of that entity that, over time, they can better facilitate and embody, like someone working with the spirit of the Wolf to be stronger, more cunning, braver, or more ruthless.  We can easily and properly say that we work with these spirits or entities because we’re already involved in their sphere, but that’s not because they came to us and made us work in their sphere.  Consider: at a banquet where you’re presented with multiple dishes, you don’t say that the first dish that was presented with you is what “chose” you, or that whatever dish you most like “chose” you.  You choose what you want to eat or pass over, and you choose what you want to take home and try to recreate in your own kitchen to make your life tastier.

In some cases, yes, someone is, in fact, chosen by some entity to do some sort of work.  The more I see, however, someone being chosen like this is actually kinda uncommon; more people who claim that they’re chosen aren’t, and are rather describing something they chose of their own volition as being out of their hands.  I consider this a kind of false modesty, ascribing one’s own choices in something to the work of the gods, and I…it twangs my sensibilities.  Some people might ascribe such choices to fate or predestination, which is not only a kind of false modesty but also handwaving away their own choices to something that can’t be proved.  Rather, people may feel a draw to some practice or divinity, but be honest: is that because they’re actually being lured to it by the divinity, or are they acting on an impulse and drive that they themselves have and want to explore because it’s actually something that clicks with them?  Are they told that they need to work with some deity or entity, or are they doing so because the person has their own needs given the themes and motifs in their lives that that particular entity can help with more than others?  Are they chosen to work with that deity, or do they chose to work with that deity?

There is no harm in saying that you chose a connection, relationship, or patronage with some spiritual entity.  While it may be an honor to have been chosen, it is also exceedingly honorable to willingly make that choice yourself, if not even more honorable, because it’s you who’s forming the connection, doing the work, making the sacrifices, and going above and beyond the normal level of devotion one might have into something truly special, rare, and powerful.  To do something of one’s own free will and unbidden by the gods that pleases them is almost always a sweeter sacrifice than any fumigation or libation or festival than they demand.  There’s no shame in saying that you chose this animal, this saint, this deity as your patron; if you’re earnest about it, and actually dedicate (literally giving over) yourself, I would say that you’re doing both you, the spirit themselves, and the world an honor by it.

So be honest with yourself.  Did the spirit you claim chose you actually choose you, or did you choose the spirit and choose to form that relationship with them?

I know this can press some people’s buttons, and this can easily lead to a topic of debate that borders on insult and aggravation.  Plus, there are definitely problems of destiny, fate, free will, and the subtle machinations of spirits that can influence what we “choose”, but in our limited human consciousness, we have to take responsibility as much as we can for our actions.  By all means, dear reader, share your thoughts and experiences in the comments, but please be respectful towards others if you do so.

On Geomantic Holy Days

December 20, 2017 By in geomancy, link, occult Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

One of the things I subtly introduced in my 2018 ritual calendar post was the inclusion of a lot more feast days of saints and holy men in the Abrahamic/Judeo-Christian tradition.  Some of them make sense for me as a magician (like Epiphany for the Three Magi, or Saint Cyprian of Antioch), while I recognize others for their use in scheduling feast days or ceremonies for orisha worship and work by means of the saints syncretized with the orisha (like Saint Barbara for Ṣàngó).  Others are more personal, like the feast of the Prophet Samuel for my namesake and reminding myself from whence I come and the virtues I need to remind myself to live up to.  Then there are a handful of others, where there’s no immediate connection.  I mean, what’s the deal with the Feast of Adam and Eve, or that of Daniel or Enoch?  Yeah, they’re all important characters in the Grand Story of the World, but…admittedly, it’s weird.

Not too long ago, I was experimenting with coming up with a prayer for geomantic practice.  It’s something I’ve long tried to do, time and time again, but with little success in finding something right for my practice and needs.  Heck, when floundering around for inspiration, I even put out a post on Twitter and Facebook asking whether everyone else who divines has their own diviner’s prayer, and if so, what it might be.  (If you replied to that post, you have my unending thanks, and my deep appreciation for your practices, prayer or no!) Eventually, however, I finally came up with something that fit in well with my needs and in a pleasant, organized, comprehensive way.  As part of the prayer, I recognize my ancestors, not just of my kin but also of my practice.  In this case, I recognize my blood ancestors as well as my geomantic ancestors, and what better ones to recognize than the Forebears of the Art?

If you look through the older geomantic literature, you’ll sometimes find an educational narrative about how the art of geomancy came to be.  I’ve even written one myself, a bit more prose-filled and fleshed-out than what you might find in medieval manuscripts, but the idea is the same: at one point, a wise man was meditating and an angel came to him and taught him the art of geomancy, with which the man became even wiser and learned the secrets of the cosmos and of God.  Interestingly, the choices for which wise man are limited: it’s almost always Adam, Enoch, Daniel, Hermes Trismegistus, or Idris ﷺ.  Further, when the angel is given a name, it’s usually Gabriel, which brings in his associations with being the messenger for the Virgin Mary,  a protector and guide of Daniel, and the revelator who narrated the Qur’an to the prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

The Forebears of the Art make decent enough sense, if you think about it:

  • Adam was the first man created, and thus the origin of humanity with his wife and co-creation, Eve.  From him do we have all language and, thus, the original medium for us to have and process knowledge.  Plus, his name literally means “earth”, for it is from dust and clay that we were all created, by which we live and eat, and to which we all one day return.
  • Enoch was considered to be among the greatest scribes to have ever lived, and lived 365 years before walking with God and entering Heaven alive.  Enoch was seven generations descended from Adam and several before Noah, and is credited with writing the Book of Enoch, but also with a huge number of books on all subjects, which provided the foundation for all civilization, science, technology, and art.  Once assumed into Heaven, it is said that he assumes the role of the Metatron, attendant to the Throne, guardian to all celestial treasures and secrets, and communicator of the presence of God.  For this and other reasons, the meaning of Enoch’s name means “dedicated” or “educated”.
  • Daniel, whose name means “God is my Judge” or “judgment of God”, isn’t considered a prophet (the divine art of which ended with his immediate forefathers before the Babylonian Exile), but was considered the foremost righteous and pious of the Jews in the diaspora.  It is because of this that he was blessed with divine protection, understanding, visions, and knowledge of mysterious signs, dreams, and omens, to say nothing of his otherwise astute sharpness, observation, and knowledge.
  • Hermes Trismegistus is…well, Hermes Trismegistus, another prophetical figure, mentor to his son Asclepius and student Tat, who was revealed the true nature of things by Poemander, the Shepherd of Men, and who is credited with the Corpus Hermeticum, the Discourse on the Eighth and the Ninth, the Perfect Sermon, the Emerald Tablet, and many other Hermetic texts.  It is from Hermes Trismegistus, the Thrice-Great One, that we get the name for our style of magic, and many works, books, texts, arts, sciences, and discoveries are attributed to him.  That geomancy was one of them is of no great surprise.  In many ways, he can be considered another aspect of the Greek god Hermes, messenger and diviner and trickster and wayfarer, and especially so when combined with the Egyptian god Thoth, scribe, knowledge-seeker, order-keeper, magic-teacher, and ultimate president of fate.
  • Idris ﷺ is one of the lesser-known prophets in the Western world, but in Islam, he’s huge.  He came before the prophet Muhammad ﷺ, but still preached monotheism, purity, chastity, wisdom, honesty, patience, and all the other good virtues common to the prophets who came after him.  The name of this prophet has connections with the concepts of interpretation and instruction.  Many aspects of his life, from all the original civilizing works on sciences and arts, being the first to have the knowledge of writing, living for 365 years, and so forth have overwhelming parallels with Enoch, and the two are often considered identical in Qur’anic and biblical studies.  In other cases, especially by the more mystic interpreters of the texts, he’s associated with Hermes Trismegistus for many of the same reasons.  For the purposes of my studies and understanding, I equate Idris ﷺ more with Enoch than Hermes Trismegistus, but both associations are equally valid.

So, with that understood and clarified, I consider there to be four Forebears of the Art: Adam, Enoch, Hermes Trismegistus, and Daniel.  They are all equally the progenitors of the art of geomancy, each instructed according by the angel Gabriel to know, practice, and (in some cases) teach the art to their descendants, either children by blood or students by mind.  Given that there are four such Forebears, why not go one step further and associate them to the four elements themselves, and different blessings upon a diviner that grants them skill and success in the art?

  • Daniel, for his illumined understanding of visions and dreams and the judicious power of of the highest levels of mind, is given to the element of Fire, and models the blessing of Judgment to the diviner.
  • Enoch, for his education, skill in writing, and holding the secrets of the airs and the heavens in his possession, is given to the element of Air, and models the blessing of Dedication to the diviner.
  • Hermes Trismegistus, for his spiritual understanding and meditation upon the deepest of mysteries, initiation into new living and life, and mediation between all peoples and cultures, and so is given to the element of Water, and models the blessing of Wisdom to the diviner.
  • Adam, being born directly of the Earth and giving the first names to all things that are, bringing them into full materialization and actualization within the newly-made World of Man, is given to the element of Earth, and models the blessing of Attainment to the diviner.

Given that, if one were to consider honoring these progenitors, why not use their feast days, as normally reckoned according to the various Christian churches out there?

  • Feast of Gabriel the Archangel: March 24
  • Feast of All Angels: September 29
  • Feast of Daniel the Prophet: July 21
  • Feast of Enoch the Great Scribe: July 30
  • Feast of Adam and Eve: December 24

Note that, technically, Gabriel can be celebrated on two days: March 24 is his general feast day in the West, and was even recognized by the Roman Catholic Church before 1969.  After, the Church prefers to celebrate all the angels on Michaelmas, September 29, which includes Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel.

The only feast day I don’t have listed above for is Hermes Trismegistus who…well, doesn’t really have one.  It’s a little weird, now that I think about it, but I never really considered a specific day to give to Hermes Trismegistus. While he was sometimes recognized as a gentile prophet by some fathers of the Church, much as how Idris ﷺ was recognized as a virtuous pre-Islamic prophet before the Qur’an, Hermes Trismegistus is not formally recognized as either saint or prophet, and so has no feast day of his own in the Churchs’ systems.  So, my ideas on a possible feast day for Hermes Trismegistus:

  • I can’t really seem to find any practice or consensus of a feast day for Hermes Trismegistus besides a very modern and unexplained May 24, which doesn’t seem well-grounded to me.  The only source for this I can find is in Dennis William Hauck’s book on the Emerald Tablet, something-something pan-pagan Triple Goddess feast day, mumble-mumble alchemical processes describing the enlightenment/death of the Buddha Śākyamuni on the full moon of May.  I’m unconvinced of the associations, personally.
  • Previously I’d’ve used the Hermaia, but that’s more properly for the Hellenic Hermes, and is also based on the Hellenic lunisolar calendar (fourth day of the tenth lunar month, reckoned from the summer solstice).   This typically occurs in March at some point.
  • Rather than the Hellenic festival, the Roman one of Mercuralia on May 15 could suffice.  However, the focus on this was really the god of the marketplace and commerce (as Mercury always was, only later adopting more of Hermes’ traits and, even later than that, Hermes Trismegistus’).
  • We could just assign him a day of a new invention with an appropriate number.  The fourth day of the fourth month for us would be April 4, which might just be simple enough to work, even if it is unfounded in anything else.  This day does happen to be the feast day for Saint Isidore of Seville, the famous composer of the Etymologiae, the patron saint of the internet, computers, programmers, and students generally, so this might actually work reasonably well.
  • I suppose one could argue for an astrological alignment, such as when the planet Mercury is at 15° Virgo (or between that point and the start of Libra) between sunrise and noon as described in the Discourse on the Eighth and the Ninth, but that’s incredibly variable and not tied to the Gregorian calendar, which can also involve nasty retrograde periods, which might be ill-fitting for honor.   Plus, there’s debate about whether this is just an astrological election for talismans, a set of one-time instructions for the mythic engraving of the Discourse, or a reoccurring celestial marker to actually remember him by.  Plus, now that I look at it, there isn’t clarity as to whether the text really means the planet Mercury or the Moon, because Hermes Trismegistus was associated with Hermes in the Hellenic system and Thoth in the Egyptian one; Hermes is given the planet Mercury, but Thoth the Moon.
  • Instead of thinking of a purely Christian system, why not look at Hermes Trismegistus’ older Egyptian one?  Thoth was primarily celebrated on the third day of the Wag Festival, held from the 17th through 19th of First Akhet, the first month after the heliacal rising of Sirius.  The heliacal rising of Sirius isn’t something I would like to use, as the Egyptian calendar was timed by this observation but dependent upon the precession of the stars and latitude of observation; some modern Kemeticists do the right thing and calculate when the new year would be for their own area, but just as many (so it seems) just use an old date and work from there.  I often see August 6 as a date to celebrate Thoth and, thus, Hermes Trismegistus, but again, this is using a date that’s long since been out of sync with any historical use.
  • The ancient Egyptian calendar is still technically in use by their modern descendants, the Copts.  The Coptic calendar is still used by Coptic Christians today, and is largely regularized though it still drifts ever so slowly, since it’s effectively a kind of Julian calendar and not Gregorian.  Still, it’s better than nothing!  The first day of the year in that calendar, 1 Thout, is September 11 in our calendar (or September 12 in Gregorian leap years) for the rest of this century, due to the Julian-Gregorian drift of leap days (shhhh); skipping ahead to the 19th day of this month gets us to September 29, which would be the modern date of the Wag and Thoth Festival.  Oh, would you look at that, September 29 is also Michaelmas.  Cute.  So, we can slide Hermes Trismegistus on into there as well, and use that (or knock it back one day later, during leap years or until 2100 CE) as our feast day for the prophet.
  • Another Egyptian calendar, the Cairo Calendar, gives an explanation of the usefulness and auspiciousness of each day in the Egyptian year, along with an ongoing mythic account of what happens in the divine realm on that day.  The events have been associated and linked to certain celestial events involving certain stars, as well, with Thoth especially linked to Alphecca (α Coronae Borealis) in its heliacal rising on October 12 for the “going forth of Thoth in order to judge in the presence of Ra” or its culmination at dawn on January 24 for “the coming of Thoth”.

Honestly?  I’m inclined to just use April 4 for its regularity and convenient timing, so as to not overlap or bunch up with other things going on that time of year, and consider Saint Isidore of Seville to be a “mask” lent to Hermes Trismegistus for this purpose.  No heliacal or stellar observations, no Julian calendrics, no lunation weirdness; it’s easy, it’s regular, it’s Gregorian, the number matches well with Hermes and Hermes Trismegistus and geomancy, it matches the pattern of the other feast days, and the saint mask here is perfect.  Boom, April 4, done.

So much for feast days of the saints of geomancy.  The usual invocations and offerings can be made to them: candles in appropriate colors, traditional meals or drinks, flowers, and so forth.  Gabriel is, of course, among the most well-known of Christian entities, and chaplets, novenas, and other prayers to him are readily found aplenty.  (Heck, I even wrote an ebook compiling prayers to the seven Christian archangels, including more than a few for Gabriel.)  In the absence of any particularly specific prayers for some of the older biblical figures, I like using the Orthodox kontakion and troparion prayer-songs for Daniel and Adam and Eve, but I’m having trouble finding other such prayers for Enoch; I’ll likely need to do more digging or some writing for those, or appropriate/innovate from the Islamic tradition with his equivalent there.  Prayers for Hermes Trismegistus are old hat and abundant in Hermetic literature, but devising new ones might always be appreciated.

What about giving days to the figures themselves, for like a Feast of Albus or a Feast of Fortuna Minor?  This is getting dangerously close to setting up a “geomantic zodiac”, which weirds me out and is getting into very experimental territory; I’ve spoken before on setting up geomantic cycles of time, which can get kinda hairy.  Still, talking with the good Dr Al Cummins, I decided “eh, screw it” and went to work drafting an idea for a geomantic calendar of sorts.  The idea is very loosely based off the pagan Wheel of the Year, which divides up the solar year into eight parts.  Eight is just half of 16, so if we can divide the year up into eight, why not one more division down?  The fundamental idea behind these 16 “geomantic districts of the ecliptic” lies in the primary and secondary elemental rulers of the elements, so brush up on those if you’re unfamiliar with how I structurally figure those out.

The idea of this calendar goes like this:

  • Each season has a ruling element, based on the cardinal zodiac sign associated with the solstice/equinox that starts it.  Thus, Spring starts at the spring equinox, which is 0° Aries; because Aries is a Fire sign, Spring is ruled by Fire.
  • Divide each season up into four districts of 23 or 22 days.  As a guide, the quarter days (i.e. solstices and equinoxes) start the first district, and the cross-quarter days, reckoned by the Sun midpoint that season’s fixed sign (e.g. 15° Taurus in Spring) will start the third district.
  • The third district is given to the figure whose primary and secondary elemental ruler is the same as that season’s element.  Thus, for Spring, Laetitia (Fire/Fire) is given to the third district.
  • The second district is given to the figure whose primary ruler is the element of the season, and whose secondary ruler is its complementary element.  Fire complements Air and vice versa; Water complements Earth and vice versa.  In other words, use the element where the heat matches but not the moisture.
  • The first district is given to the figure whose primary ruler is the element of the season, and whose secondary ruler matches the element of the preceding season.  In the case of Spring and Autumn, the secondary element will be oblique to the primary one, agreeing in moisture but not heat; in the case of Summer and Winter, the secondary element will oppose the primary one, agreeing in neither heat nor moisture.
  • The fourth district is given to the figure whose primary ruler is the element of the season, and whose secondary ruler matches the element of the succeeding season.  In the case of Summer and Winter, the secondary element will be oblique to the primary one, agreeing in moisture but not heat; in the case of Spring and Autumn, the secondary element will oppose the primary one, agreeing in neither heat nor moisture.

With that, here’s a table showing an approximate yearly calendar matching the four seasons, the date divisions of the geomantic districts and their ecliptic degree boundaries, the associated pagan Wheel of the Year celebration (if any), the primary/major and secondary/minor elements of the district, and the figure ruling the district itself.  Note that the dates here are rough approximates, and will shift from year to year according to the exact placement of the Sun along the ecliptic.

Season Solar
Ecliptic
Degree		 Rough
Date		 Pagan
Name		 Element Figure
Major Minor
Spring 0° Ari Mar 21 Ostara Fire Earth Cauda Draconis
22°30′ Ari Apr 13 Air Fortuna Minor
15° Tau May 6 Beltane Fire Laetitia
7°30′ Gem May 29 Water Amissio
Summer 0° Can Jun 21 Litha Water Fire Puella
22°30′ Can Jul 14 Earth Populus
15° Leo Aug 6 Lammas Water Albus
7°30′ Vir Aug 29 Air Via
Autumn 0° Lib Sep 21 Mabon Air Water Coniunctio
22°30′ Lib Oct 13 Fire Puer
15° Sco Nov 5 Samhain Air Rubeus
7°30′ Sag Nov 27 Earth Acquisitio
Winter 0° Cap Dec 21 Yule Earth Air Caput Draconis
22°30′ Cap Jan 12 Water Fortuna Maior
15° Aqu Feb 3 Imbolc Earth Tristitia
7°30′ Pis Feb 26 Fire Carcer

As for the use of the neopagan names of the quarter/cross-quarter days, I should point out that I don’t really do anything with the cross-quarter days themselves, nor can I even really remember their names on a frequent basis.  However, they are a useful set of names for those eight days, which is why I’m using them here.  Besides, just because I don’t really do anything with them doesn’t mean nobody else does, and they’re pretty common knowledge for other people, so I figured I’d have them here anyway.

(that said, don’t @ me about the exact dates of the cross-quarter days in pagan/neopagan/tradcraft practice, I know that it’s common to give them to the first day of May, August, November, and February, I don’t care because it doesn’t mesh with a system based on the exact placement of the Sun in the ecliptic as described above. shhhhh.)

Presented in a more pleasant and graphical format, I present to you a prototype Geomantic Wheel of the Year. Read the figures from the outside in, aligned with the date text in each district.

Of course, the usual caveats apply: this is entirely theoretical and hypothetical, and is thus in need of actual experimentation.  There are some oddities that would need to be explored here, like starting off the solar year with…Cauda Draconis, of all figures.  Then again, consider that Caput Draconis starts off the winter; these are the two figures of the eclipses, the spots that turn the luminaries dark, and here they bound the darkest time of the year, and fruther, one could argue that one needs to firmly close and end the old year at the boundary before truly starting anew.  Alternatively, we might consider the geomantic year to start at the winter solstice with Caput Draconis, the district starting off the season of Earth, rather than with the spring equinox of Fire.  It’s an idea.

The important thing with this is the use of the exact days when the Sun enters the degree of the district, though I suppose it could be argued that if the geomantic figure actually resonates well with those particular degrees, it could hold over into the district as a whole.  And, of course, other such arrangements could exist, such as by expanding and refitting the lunar mansions associations of the figures into 22°30′ chunks, or reconfiguring the elemental assignments (swapping the rules for the first and fourth districts, for instance, or using different elemental rulers).

While I’m okay with the idea of ecliptic districts for the figures, the idea of particular days for the figures still strikes me as odd.  It’s like saying “this is the annual day to celebrate the Moon” or “this is the festival of the planet Jupiter”.  It’s fine when we talk about saints or gods, but when you’re talking about a celestial force apart and away from those, it seems a bit…weird.  Like, with the geomantic figures, yes they can be associated with spirits or saints or prophets or gods, but they’re still essentially forces that are constantly at work at all times in all places in the cosmos, universe, and world.  To single out a particular day seems more like a convention than something that actually arises harmonically and naturally, but then, considering how I’m linking the elemental flow of the seasons of the year to the elemental rulerships of the figures, I guess it could work.  I would fain try to apply the geomantic districts to any sort of astrological interpretation, but it is a useful model to organize a geomantic calendar, I suppose.

If you wanted to go one level further than just districts of the ecliptic, you could give the middle 16 days of each district to one figure (which means you’d have three to four days on either side of this set, or six to seven days altogether unallocated).  In that way, you could focus on pairs of the figures: first the figure of the current district, then the figure of the day within the district as its partner.  In this way, you could meditate on each of the 256 pairs of the figures throughout the course of a year in a regular, timed way.  How would the sixteen figures be allocated to the days within a district?  Good question, and one I do not propose an answer to (yet).  Maybe eventually, if the Geomantic Year ever takes off for me or others.

So now we have days for the geomantic saints, our noble Forebears of the Art, as well as an experimental system for special days for the sixteen figures themselves.  What about geomancy as a whole?  I mean, New Year’s Day, the turn of the seasons (or midseasons), one’s own birthday or nameday, or other important anniversaries can be done and made personal to one’s geomantic practice to perform divination for the coming season or year, as well as to honor the geomancers who went before you and the powers of the cosmos that are at work.  If you want to take a nature-centric approach to the art, there’s always Earth Day on April 22 each year.

But, if you’re asking me whether there’s one single day I might associate with the art?  I mean…that’s like asking for an “astrology day” or “tarot day” or “alchemy day”.  What I would say is this: no day must, any day can, and probably most days should be such a day to study and practice our art.

On the Nine Offices of Saint Cyprian

August 12, 2015 By in occult Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Recently, as part of my effort to get off my fat, lazy ass and get myself into gear again, I started off with a novena to Saint Cyprian of Antioch, the patron saint of magoi and sorcerers and necromancers and all kinds of occultists.  I pretty much winged it, and I wasn’t going off any particular novena rubric; I would say a few of his prayers I commonly use followed by his chaplet, but I did make it a contemplative novena.  To explain how I did it, it would help to back up and explain one of the short invocations I make for Saint Cyprian of Antioch, which goes like this:

Holy Saint Cyprian of Antioch!  Mage, martyr, and mystic; theurge, thaumaturge, and theophoros; saint, sorcerer, and sage!  Pray for us, now and at the hour of our death.  Amen.

It’s a short prayer, but it encapsulates a lot of Saint Cyprian’s presence and symbolism.  Besides, as one of the sacred symbols of Saint Cyprian is the number nine, I figured it would be a decent structure to use nine “offices” or “aspects” for the good saint, hence the threefold division of three offices, one for each letter.  Plus, with nine offices, I figured it would be good to meditate and contemplate on the mysteries of Saint Cyprian of Antioch by focusing on each one of his offices each day of the novena.

Well, on day five of the novena (halfway through), an annoying thing happened.  I wear a bracelet made of bone and precious stones dedicated to Saint Cyprian to keep his influence around me, and I took it off to take a shower in the evening before doing my novena (a little later than I had planned on doing because I was tired and engaged in conversation with other people).  The bracelet snapped and scattered beads all over my bedroom, and I had the hunch that it wasn’t a mere accident.  During my novena prayers that night, I did a bit of confirmation divination with the saint, and yes, it wasn’t just an accident; Saint Cyprian was miffed at me for being tardy with my prayers, and made the point that not only was I to shape up and act right in the future, but the bracelet could not be remade until an offering was made and the beads cleaned off.  Moreover, as part of my “punishment” (or education, same diff really), he instructed me to keep better track of what I had been meditating on and what he had been teaching me.

Hence this blog post.  I wanted to discuss some of my thoughts, in an abbreviated, short way, on the nine offices of Saint Cyprian of Antioch that make up his invocation I use.  These were some of the thoughts and conclusions, sometimes spontaneously said aloud or sometimes silently passed on, that I think would be good to keep for records as well as for others to learn from.  Yes, I’m aware that much of this is quite explicitly Christian or Gnostic in many aspects, but that makes sense, as Saint Cyprian is, well, a Christian bishop and hieromartyr.  Dear reader, if you don’t much care for that kind of talk, you have been warned ahead of time.

Mage
The word “magician” comes from Greek μαγος, from the ancient Persian astrologer-priests, who managed the celestial forces as they achieved contact with the Earth as well as our own powers and prayers that rose to the heavens.  A mage is an intermediary, in many ways, between the spiritual and physical, the celestial and terrestrial, the terrestrial and subterranean, the personal and impersonal, the internal and external.  However, just as the magoi were seen as “foreign” the Greeks compared to their own goes, or goetic sorcerers or “shamans” as some people make them out to be, mages are always “foreign” to wherever they may be found.  In some way, they do not fit: they are on the fringe, the outside, the external, always looking in and playing with things in a system that does not completely accept them.  Magicians, by definition, are in the world without being of the world, for some definition of “world”.  It is this stark differentness that is ostensibly a curse, but also its own blessing, when recognized for what it is: we must link being in the world without becoming part of it, and in doing so link what is with what is not.

Martyr
The word “matryr” is Greek for “witness”.  The good Rev. Dn. Strojan had this to say to me about the word:

…primarily is concerned with living in a manner consistent with Gospel teaching and nurturing a relationship with God. Martyrs are said to be witnesses of the faith by the fact that they are presumably killed for their beliefs.

The word is used based on what Paul said in Acts 22:15, that “you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard [of Christ]”.  Indeed, Cyprian the Mage had no idea what he was up against when he tried to seduce, enslave, and eventually slay the virtuous maiden Justina, who defeated every single thing that Cyprian threw at her.  Indeed, Cyprian saw firsthand the power of Christ and, even without being baptized or believing in Christ, made the sign of the Cross and drove back the Devil.  Cyprian, as a mage, knows power when he sees it, and he had never seen any power like Christ before; Cyprian truly witnessed the power, grace, and saving strength of Christ.  And, add to it, where there is such power, there is indomitable truth, and Cyprian could profess nothing but the truth he had seen, and he could never deny it, either, even in the face of certain death.  That is where the word “martyr” comes in: martyrs are those who witnessed the power of Christ and professed it, even when they knew it would lead to their death.  Cyprian would never budge from his position because of the true power he knew.  What would it take for me, I wonder, to do the same?  I am far weaker, and would naturally prefer to save my own neck than repeating truth, yet…truth is greater than I am, and Christ is greater than death.  It’s not that Cyprian gave everything up for Christ, but quite the opposite; in Christ, Cyprian had everything, so death could not take anything away from him.  A side effect of martyrdom: it truly is a crowning in its own holy way, a gifting of all power, that one may never be diminished after suffering the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of Truth.

Mystic
A mystic is an initiate in the mysteries, and Saint Cyprian was initiated into them all, first to the god Apollo, then to the cult on Olympus, then the cabals in Argos, then the covens in Tauropolis, then the clans in Sparta, and on and on until he became a master of all gods, religions, and practices in his day, including ultimately the mysteries of Christ, greatest of them all.  But what is a mystery?  It is a truth, something true and mythic that lives on in the world outside us as well as the world inside us.  In all mysteries, there must also be a mystagogue, a “leader into the mystery”, and Saint Cyprian is both mystic and mystagogue.  He leads in a way not unlike Hermes, and in doing so, helps shine truth upon us; this was evident both when he was Cyprian the Mage as well as Cyprian the Saint.  I sought his aid in leading me into his mysteries, as well as to those in which I am fit and made for.

Theurge
The origin of the word “theurge” is from Greek, literally meaning “god-worker”.  Yes, work is part of this word, but it’s a special kind of work, as this is a special kind of magic.  Theurgy is magic that goes upwards, and I kept seeing an image of a double-sided Cyprian, one side facing me in his normal guise of old man in rags, but the other ennobled and enrobed facing away from me with arms outstretched towards the cosmos and all its stars and planets and lights.  A theurge is no normal magician, but a “priest to the gods”, as in one who acts not in service to the gods but who acts on behalf of and ministers to the gods.  In only approaching the gods as equals (God became man in Christ that man might become God in Christ), we help the gods and help ennoble and empower the gods above even their own rank, that all might approach the holy glory of the One.  However, this is difficult as mankind, because we’re so trapped down here that we cannot see the cosmos in all its infinite glory.  The body, especially, is something that is a tool, yet hinder us since we usually cannot use it well.  We treat the body too well, or too lazily, or too softly, and in effect the body traps us.  Yet, we cannot destroy the body, as it is our only tool in this world, and so we must treat it well enough that it lives well yet not so well that it becomes an obsession for us.  This is much akin to the Buddhist notion of the Middle Way, which to an outsider would seem incredibly ascetic yet from its own system makes perfect sense as moderation; it just goes to show how far obscenely extreme we are in our indulgences that the Middle Way seems extreme in and of itself!  In treating the body right, we can then, slowly, turn away and up from this world and engage in the right practice of the gods.

Thaumaturge
NB: this was the night that my bracelet broke, and I first asked Saint Cyprian about it.  I had been lying on the couch, delaying going to my temple room for my novena, and chatting with friends before deciding a shower would be nice before making my prayers, and then my bracelet broke.  Saint Cyprian firmly reminded me of our chat the previous night, about not overly treating the body well, which is exactly what I had been doing.  Thus, a bit of a wonder had to happen in order to catch my attention, and this is where the role of thaumaturge comes in, literally “wonder-worker”.  Little meditation was done tonight, instead to be replaced by an injunction to make my own wonders happen in the world.  Cyprian showed me an image of his cauldron, and taking power out of it to cast death on this person, healing on that person, wealth on this person, poverty on that person, and so on.  What is my cauldron?  What is inside it?  What is its fire?  What is my hook?  What is my spoon?

Theophoros
The office of “theophoros” was originally chosen on a whim, but it turns out to have been highly appropriate.  Coming from Greek meaning “bearer of God”, the word “theophoros” was originally applied to Ignatius, student of John the Apostle and the third Bishop of Antioch (!).  Saint Cyprian was not originally Christian, but born to pagan parents, dedicated to the god Apollo as a child, and initiated into countless mysteries before finally coming to Christ.  In all these things, God was still present, and Cyprian took on more and more paths of God, taking a very roundabout way to his eventual ultimate initiation.  In every work, every ritual, every spell, every tool, every initiation, and every step, Cyprian the Mage carried God around with him, though he did not know it; it was only during the climax of the Mage’s life and conversion into the Christian that Cyprian dug through all the detritus, muddled darkness, and clutter of practices that he found God at the center of each and every thing he had ever done.  When he cleared all that away, Cyprian no longer had any burdens to bear, as God was, crucially, weightless; indeed, instead of bearing God, once the Mage became the Christian, God bore Cyprian, turning him from the Bearer of God into the Borne of God.  God is in everything we do, from the smallest to the greatest, from the most mundane to the most spiritual, but we may have difficulty seeing him; that difficulty, that blind distance and rejection of grace, is our burden to bear.  It is meant for us to bear, and it is eventually meant for us to one day put down our burden, cut to the heart of it all, and not only find that we have little to truly carry, but also to become carried by that which once we carried.

Saint
A saint, according to Catholic doctrine, is anyone who has holiness and grace enough to be granted access to Heaven, whether in life or in death.  Saint Cyprian, obviously, is such a person, but it’s amazing that he could do so, given that almost for his entire life he was raised counter to everything in Christianity.  He was part of every pagan path, every mystery religion, every magical order of his day; he worked with, worshipped, and worked upon countless gods and all but fought God himself.  Yet, despite of and because of the spiritual darkness he lived in, he had grace and holiness enough to become a saint in his own, unpredictably magical way.  Yet, moreover, he was human, like you or me.  All of humanity possesses the ability to become saints, showing us that this is not something reserved for the elect or the blessed few, but that sainthood is open to all of us, each and every one of us.  How do we become saints?  It’s not that we stop sinning, for we can never really do that; even Saint Cyprian repented and shit and ate, although certainly his magical training gave him discipline enough to keep his sins at bay more than most.  We become saints by enjoying grace, and grace…really isn’t that hard a concept to grasp.  All we have to do is to keep looking at God and not look away.  Much how Cyprian had everything when he converted to Christ and thus couldn’t lose anything, we don’t become blind to other things if all we look at and look for is God, because God is all and all are in God.  It’s when we look at other things for their own sake that we lose sight of God, and that is when we turn our back on grace, but if we can just keep that Light in our eyes, it illuminates everything.

Sorcerer
The word “sorcerer” is largely interchangeable with the word “mage” or “magician”, though it’s usually had something more of a sinister connotation.  It ultimately comes from Latin sors meaning “lots” or “fates”, like the throws of a die or pulling of pieces of paper from a hat, by means of Medieval Latin sortarius “teller of fortunes by lot”.  In a sense, it could be seen that mages work with the forces of the cosmos at their disposal to attain particular fates, while sorcerers manipulate the fate of the cosmos itself.  This is kind of true, but also kind of not true; all sorcerers are magicians, but not all magicians are sorcerers.  In some sense, sorcery is more difficult, yet also more popular, than magic meant in its stricter senses.  While I thought that sorcery could be thought of as magic with a heavy bent on divination, given the emphasis on lots, it’s more that mages are the processors and implementors of the cosmos, while sorcerers are the engineers of the cosmos; we hack the systems at work themselves to change how they work, as opposed to putting them to work as they are.  As for fate, well, if you consider destiny a destination after a long road, while magicians can make certain parts of the road easier or more difficult, it’s when you change the path itself or even the ultimate destination that sorcery is involved.  Sorcery is the deception of the nature of reality itself.

Sage
Saint Cyprian showed me a vast city full of different types of buildings: some modern, some classically Greek, some Chinese, some simple mud-brick huts.  This is the City of God, he said, and he asked “who built it?” It is the work of not God, but man; mankind brought each brick about, and each brick was inscribed with Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”.  Respect of God, who gives life, who gives grace, who gives guidance, is the key to wisdom, as it is by respecting the the Creator that we respect and know Creation.  In recognizing our true power above, not a temporal or mundane power above us but a being that is actually greater than us in every way, we recognize the structure and harmony of the cosmos, and by respecting God, we inherently align ourselves with our purpose and plan in life.  The world is meant to be lived in and manipulated to our good ends, not for our selfish or mundane ends, since it is by harmony with the created universe around us and all its creatures that we show God in ourselves as creators, yes, but also as maintainers and stewards and caretakers and inhabitants of it all.  Why do we seek wisdom?  We all have that flame of Sophia in our hearts, after all, but why do we let it burn, why do we want it to burn greater?  There is no speakable answer; the only correct answer is by God, and it is by respecting God that we come to know God, and it is by knowing God that we come to knowledge of all.