THE PLANETS

 

Planetary Poem

 

The Universal Soul separates a portion of Itself.

From the Starry Heavens the Soul hurtles Earthwards.

Gathering Grossness, It passes through the Spheres governed by the Gods.

 

First, Venerable Saturn gives the Soul Judgement and Justice.

Second, Great Jupiter bestows Fortune and Power.

Third, Mighty Mars gives Zeal and Courage.

Centre of the Seven, the Sun enlightens with Intelligence and Authority.

Fifth, Beautiful Venus bestows Desire and Joy.

Sixth, Swift Mercury gives Wisdom and Temperance.

Seventh, Everchanging Moon bestows Power of Physical Action.

 

The final plunge is to Earth, being born, a screaming protesting infant.

The infant grows and learns to use the benefits of the Gods in the Earthly realm.

Initiated at maturity, It will use the benefits of the Gods to Know Itself.

At death the Soul returns to Itself, passing upwards through the Spheres of the Gods.

 

First, to the Moon to answer for harmful actions in the physical world.

Second, Mercury inquires what unholy acts or rashness must be recounted.

Third, Venus asks the Soul to answer for evil desire or lust.

Fourth, the Sun requires an explanation for belief in phantasy or abuse of authority.

Fifth, Mars demands what conflict has been caused or cowardice shown.

Sixth, Jupiter requires an account for misuse of riches or power.

Seventh, Saturn examines all for falsehood before allowing the Soul to pass.

 

Purified, the Soul returns to the Soul.

Through the Starry Sphere of the Ogdoad the Soul Soars Heavenwards.

The Universal Soul Unites Itself to Itself.[1]

 

 

See the Notes for an analysis of the poem.

 

 

 

 

Mundi Thema, Geniture of the World

 

It is requisite to know, in the first place, that the God, who is the fabricator of man, produced his form, his condition, and his whole essence, in the image and similitude of the word, nature pointing the way. For He composed the body of man, as well as that of the world, from the mixture of the four elements, viz. of fire water, air, and earth, in order that the conjunction of all these, when they mingled in due proportion, might adorn as animal in the form of a divine imitation. And thus the Demiurgus exhibited man by an artifice of a divine fabrication, in such a way, that in a small body he might bestow the power and essence of all the elements, nature, for this purpose, bringing them together; and also, so that from the divine spirit, which descended from a celestial intellect, to the support of the mortal body, he might prepare an abode for man, which, though fragile, might be similar to the world. On this account, the five stars [planets], and also the sun and moon, sustain man by a fiery and eternal agitation, as if he were a minor world; so that the animal which was made in imitation of the world might be governed by an essence similarly divine.[2]

 

 

The Gifts of the Planets to Man

 

Our passions are given to us by the gods before birth through the planetary descent. The Hermetica describes this in a creation story. What is engendered at creation continues to be engendered in each individual.

 

And God said, “How long shall the world below be gloomy to look on? How long shall the things that have been made remain with none to praise them? Come now, summon to me forthwith all the gods in heaven.”

 

And when they had come in obedience to his command, “Look down,” said God, “on the earth and all things there below,.... And the gods quickly understood what their sovereign wished them to do; and when he spoke of the making of man, they agreed.

 

And God asked each of them in turn, “What can you provide for the men who are about to be made?”

 

Then the Sun said, “I will shine. (upon them in the day time)...”

 

The Moon promised to give light after the Sun had run his diurnal course; and she said also she had already given birth to Silence and Sleep.

 

Kronos (Saturn) announced that he had already become father to Penal Justice and Necessity.

 

Zeus (Jupiter) said, “In order that the tribe that is about to be may not be utterly destroyed by wars, I have already begotten Peace for them.”

 

Ares (Mars) said he was already father of Struggle, Anger, and Strife.

 

Aphrodite (Venus) delayed not, but said, “And I Master, will attach to them Love and Pleasure and Laughter.” And the father was glad, my son, at what Aphrodite said.

 

“And I,” said Hermes (Mercury), will make mankind intelligent; I will confer wisdom on them, and make known to them the Truth. I will never cease to benefit thereby the life of mortal men; and above all will I benefit each one of them, when the force of nature working in him is in accord with the movement of the stars above.”

 

And the Master was glad when he heard these words; and He gave the command that mankind should come into being.[3]

 

 

Pandora and the Gifts of the Gods

 

Hesiod, 8th century B.C.E., in the beginning of his Works and Days, gives us the story of Pandora’s ‘box’ and the origin of the evils and suffering of mankind. They were the “gifts” of the gods. Although Hesiod neglected to thank the gods for their gifts, he laid the blame for bringing them on a woman.

 

So said the father of men and gods, and laughed aloud. And he bade famous Hephaestus make haste and mix earth with water and to put in it the voice and strength of human kind, and fashion a sweet, lovely maiden-shape, like to the immortal goddesses in face; and Athene to teach her needlework and the weaving of the varied web; and golden Aphrodite to shed grace upon her head and cruel longing and cares that weary the limbs. And he charged Hermes the guide, the Slayer of Argus, to put in her a shameless mind and deceitful nature... And he called this woman Pandora, because all they who dwelt on Olympus each gave a gift,...[4]

 

I believe this is the earliest literary account of the planetary gods giving “gifts” to the soul before its birth on earth. The Hermetica contains just such a scene where the various gods and goddesses give “gifts” to the soul prior to its descent to the earth.[5] While only Athene, Aphrodite and Hermes are mentioned by Hesiod as giving gifts, it is also stated that “all” of the Olympian gods gave her a gift - hence Pan = all, and Dora = gift. Aphrodite and Hermes are the same as Venus and Mercury, while Athene was identified with the Moon. “What Apollo is to the Sun, that Athena is to the Moon;...”[6] So, we have the three inner planets, the Moon, Venus, and Mercury, representing “All” the rest of the gods.

 

We all know the story of how the evils and passions were released on earth by Pandora’s ‘box’ being opened. What I see in this is the belief that our planetary-given passions are what cause us grief and suffering. The Gnostics saw the planetary gods as being maleficent and dangerous to mankind. Perhaps the gift of Hope, which was left behind when the ‘box’ was opened, remains in heaven. The whole of their training and the end envisioned by the Gnostics was how to avoid or defeat these evils embodied by the planets. These evils were not confined to Pandora, they extend to all souls being engendered. The full planetary myth is abridged by Hesiod to fit into his story. As the full account belonged to the Mysteries, he was not at liberty to divulge it in its entirety in any event.[7]

 

 

Poimander

In the Hermetica there is an emphasis on rebirth through a return to the Creation. When man realigns his planetary influences in such an order that it mirrors that of the Creation then he is reborn anew in the world.

 

‘I know what you wish, for indeed I am with you everywhere; keep in mind all that you desire to learn, and I will teach you.’

 

When he had thus spoken, forthwith all changed in aspect before me, and were opened out in a moment. And I beheld a boundless view; All was changed into light; and I marvelled when I saw it. And in a little while, there had come to be in one part a downward-tending darkness, terrible and grim. And thereafter I saw the darkness changing into a watery substance, which was unspeakably tossed about, and gave forth smoke as from fire; and I heard it making an indescribable sound of lamentation; for there was sent forth from it an inarticulate cry. But from the light there came forth a Holy Word, which took its stand upon the watery substance; and I thought this Word was the voice of the Light.

 

I saw in my mind that the Light consisted of innumerable Powers, and had come to be an ordered world, but a world without bounds. This I perceived in thought, seeing it by reason of the word which Poimander had spoken to me. And when I was amazed he spoke again and said to me, ‘You have seen in your mind the archetypal form, which is prior to the beginning of things, and is limitless.’

 

But tell me, said I, whence did the elements of nature come into being? He answered, ‘They issued from God’s Purpose which beheld that intelligible beauteous world and copied it. The watery substance, having received the Word, was fashioned into an ordered world, the elements being separated out from it; and from the elements came the brood of living creatures. But earth and water remained in their own place mingled together so as not to be distinguished, but they were kept in motion, by reason of the breath-like Word which moved upon the face of the water And the first Mind - that Mind which is Life and Light - being bisexual gave birth to another Mind, a Maker of things; and this second Mind made out of fire and air seven Administrators, the planets, who encompass with their orbits the world perceived by sense; and their administration is called Destiny.

 

And Mind the Maker worked together with the word, and encompassing the orbits of the Administrators [the planets], and whirling them, around with a rushing movement set circling the bodies he had made and let them revolve travelling from no fixed starting point to no determined goal; for their revolution begins where it ends.

 

And Nature, even as Mind the Maker willed, brought forth from the downward tending elements animals devoid of reason; for she no longer had with her the Word. The air brought forth birds and the water fishes - earth and water had by this time been separated from one another,- and earth brought forth four-footed creatures and creeping things, beasts wild and tame. But Mind the father of all, He who is Life and Light gave birth to Man, a being like Himself. And He took delight in Man....[8]

 

 

Initiation Experience as Rebirth.

 

Hermes. Truth has come to us, and on it has followed the Good, with Life and Light. No longer has there come upon us any of the torments of darkness; they have flown away with rushing wings.

 

Thus, my son, has the intellectual being been made up in us; and by its coming to be, we have been made gods.[9] Whoever then has by God’s mercy attained to this divine birth, abandons bodily sense; he knows himself to be composed of Powers [the Planets] of God, and knowing this, is glad.

 

Tat. Father, God has made me a new being, and I perceive things now, not by bodily eyesight, but by the working of mind.

 

Hermes. Even so it is, my son, when a man is born again; it is no longer body of three dimensions that he perceives, but the incorporeal.

 

Tat. Father, now that I see in mind,

I see myself to be the All.

I am in heaven and earth, in water and air;

I am in beasts and plants;

I am a babe in the womb,

and one that is not yet conceived,

and one that has been born;

I am present everywhere.

 

Hermes. Now, my son you know what the Rebirth is.[10]... I rejoice, my son, that you are like to bring forth fruit. Out of the Truth will spring up in you the immortal brood of virtue; for by the working of mind you have come to Know Yourself and our Father.[11]

 

 

The Planetary Ascent to God

 

The number Seven is much used by Philosophers and Mystics. Its properties are mathematically unique and much speculation is centred on its symbolism. But it is its identification with the Planets, the only wanderers in the heavens, that is most common. The planets were in turn given certain attributes in line with their characteristics. The Moon is changeable, Venus is beautiful, Mercury quick, and so forth. These attributes were further identified with human traits and character: Mars has Zeal, Jupiter Greatness, and Saturn being the slowest, Judgement.

 

All the remaining body of the God is, according to Orpheus, mythologically considered as to composition pertaining to the soul, and is divided into seven parts. “All the parts into which they (Titans ) divided the boy (Bacchus) were seven,” says the theologist, speaking concerning the Titans; just in the same manner as Timaeus divides the soul into seven parts.[12]

 

Or, you may say that the Moon is the cause of nature to mortals, she being the self-conspicuous image of fontal nature. But the Sun is the demiurgus of everything sensible, since he is also the cause of seeing and being seen. Mercury is the cause of the motions of the phantasy; for the Sun gives subsistence to the phantastic essence. Venus is the cause of the appetites of desire; and Mars of all natural irascible motions. Jupiter is the common cause of all vital, and Saturn of all gnostic powers. For all the irrational form are divided into these and the causes of these are comprehended in the celestial spheres.[13]

 

So it evolved, in the earliest times, that the Planets symbolised truths in their Psychological rather than Astrological meanings. They importantly symbolised learning as well, the Trivium, and Quadrivium were the seven basic courses needed to become a complete Man. However, the Planets also symbolized the Mystical Ascent for the initiate or practicing mystic. To rise through the spheres of the Planets to union with God is one of the most common applications by the religious mystic. This, then, is the way they are used in this work, symbols of human ascent towards the Knowledge of God through the medium of His Grace. As symbols they are just that, not the thing symbolised, this is not ‘Astrology’ in any common sense. The beauty of the heavens will always attract those who love the workings of God, this attraction must always be centred on God and not the workings of the world.[14]

 

“If any man cannot feel the power of God when he looks at the stars, then I doubt whether he is capable of any feeling at all!”[15]

 

 

The Ascent of the Soul

 

“Full well have you taught me all, O Mind,” said I, “even as I wished. But tell me furthermore of the ascent by which men mount; tell me how I shall enter into Life.”

 

Poimander answered, “At the dissolution of your material body, you first yield up the body itself to be changed, and the visible form you bore is no longer seen. And your vital spirit you yield up to the atmosphere, so that it no longer works in you; and the bodily senses go back to their sources, becoming parts of the universe, and entering into fresh combinations to do other work. And thereupon the man mounts upward through the structure of the heavens.

To the first zone of heaven he gives up the force which works increase and that which works decrease;

To the second zone the machination of evil cunning;

To the third zone, the lust whereby men are deceived;

To the fourth zone, domineering arrogance;

To the fifth zone, unholy daring and rash audacity;

To the sixth zone, evil strivings after wealth;

And to the seventh zone, the falsehood which lies in wait to work harm.

And thereupon having been stripped of all that was wrought upon him by the structure of the heavens, he ascends to the substance of the eighth sphere, being now possessed of his own proper power; and he sings, together with those who dwell there, hymning the Father, and they that are there rejoice with him at his coming. And being made like to those with whom he dwells he hears the Powers, who are above the substance of the eighth sphere, singing praise to God with a voice that is theirs alone. And thereafter, each in his turn, they mount upward to the Father, they give themselves up to the Powers and becoming Powers themselves, they enter into God. This is the Good; this is the consummation, for those who have got Gnosis [Knowledge of God].”[16]

 

 

Jesus’ Planetary Descent and Ascent

 

“...the body of Jesus is explained to have been not of ordinary matter but itself, in whole or in part; psychic or spiritual. And here we get an interesting connection between the constitution of Jesus and the descent of the heavenly Christ. The Gnostics, in agreement with Hellenistic theology generally, thought of the earth as being separated from the upper world of light by a series of intermediate spheres. There are usually seven of these, as the conception is taken over, as a matter of fact, from the Babylonian star-lore, which attached especial importance to the sun, moon, and the five planets, and thought that each of these heavenly bodies was fixed upon a sphere of its own, whilst the spheres revolved around the earth.

 

It was these seven which determined, by their influences, all that happened within them; of this shut-in ‘kosmos’ (world) they were the ‘kosmokratores’ (world-rulers). Their influences had come to be felt as a crushing iron necessity, and here upon earth was the divine imprisoned spark, which belonged by right to the transcendent world beyond all the Seven Spheres, to the Eighth Region, the Ogdoad. The Seven Spheres thus appeared as barriers between the soul and its true home.

 

The heavenly Christ had not descended in order to die (that, for such a one, was impossible), but in order to reascend, and in his reascent to open the way for the imprisoned divinity in men.

 

Now, what strikes one in this Gnostic account of the descent and reascension of the Redeemer is that it is just a reduplication of the Hellenistic story of the soul. Already, whenever the divine spark burned in the souls of men, a heavenly thing had come down somehow through those intervening spheres into this place of darkness; the redemption consisted in its return.

 

But the parallel between the descent and return of the Christ and the descent and return of the soul is still closer in its details. For just as the Christ formed his body of elements taken from each sphere and gave those elements back at his reascension, so the soul, according to a doctrine which was current about the Christian era, took from the different spheres at its descent that sum of passions which constituted its bodily temperament, and discharged them on its upward way.

 

What functions can the Christ have in such a scheme? Well, in the first place, he may be the bringer of that Gnosis which enables the soul to rise.[17]

 

 

The Reascent of the Soul

 

For the reascent of the soul is not anything else than true being itself, nor is its conjunction with any other thing. But intellect is truly-existing being; so that the end is to live accordingly to intellect.

 

... it is necessary, if we intend to return to things which are truly our own, that we should divest ourselves of every thing of a mortal nature which we have assumed, together with an adhering affection towards it, and which is the cause of our descent [into this terrestrial region;] and that we should excite our recollection of that blessed and eternal essence,... earnestly endeavouring to accomplish two things; one, that we may cast aside every thing material and mortal; but the other, that we may properly return, and be again conversant with our true kindred, ascending to them in a way contrary to that in which we descended hither. For we were intellectual natures, and we still are essences purified from all sense and irrationality; but we are complicated with sensibles,...

 

31. So that, if we are desirous of returning to those natures with which we formally associated, we must endeavour to the utmost of our power to withdraw ourselves from sense and imagination, and the irrationality with which they are attended, and also from the passions which subsist about them, as far as the necessity of our condition in this life will permit.[18]

 

 

Prayer for Planetary Passages

 

Irenaeus supplies us with a Gnostic prayer invoked, by initiates to the mystery, to pass through the planetary spheres.

 

And they instruct them, on their reaching the principalities and powers, to make use of these words:

 

“I am a son of the Father - the Father who had a pre-existence, and a son in Him who is pre-existent. I have come to behold all things, both those which belong to myself and others, although, strictly speaking, they do not belong to others, but to Achamoth, who is female in nature, and made these things for herself. For I derive being from Him who is pre-existent, and I come again to my own place whence I went forth.”

 

And they affirm that, by saying these things, he escapes from their powers. He then advances to the companions of the Demiurge, and thus address them:

 

“I am a vessel more precious that the female who formed you. If your mother is ignorant of her own descent, I know myself, and am aware whence I am, and I can call upon the incorruptible Sophia, who is in the Father, and is the mother of your mother, who has no father, nor any male consort;..[19]

 

 

The Earth as Hades

 

What are these prayers and supplications for, if not to be released from the prison of the body which holds the soul in Hades here on earth?

 

This Orphic mystery religion is a complete reversal of the true Greek view of life, according to which the corporeal man is the real man and the soul merely a sort of strengthless shadowy image. In the Orphic philosophy on the other hand the eternal and indestructible is the soul, while the body is transient, unclean, and contemptible. To the Greek, life on earth is the true life, and the other world is merely a gloomy imitation of it; the Orphic life here on earth is a sort of hell, an imprisonment, a punishment. It is only in the other world, after the liberation of the soul from the prison of the body, that the true divine existence awaits us. Euripides felt this so strongly, that he puts the following words into the mouth of a character in a lost Tragedy;

 

            “Who knows whether life is not death,

            And what we call death, in the underworld called life?”[20]

 

Cicero also makes the point of our imprisonment and possible salvation through contemplating the celestial order.

 

Really I do not see why I should not tell you what I, myself, think of death; for it seems I apprehend it better as I draw near to it... For while we are shut up within these frames of flesh we perform a sort of a task imposed upon us by necessity and endure grievous labour; for the soul is celestial, brought down from its exalted home and buried, as it were, in earth, a place uncongenial to its divine and eternal nature. But I believe that the immortal gods implanted souls in human bodies so as to have beings who would care for the earth and who, contemplating the celestial order, would imitate it in the moderation and consistency of their lives.[21]

 

Reading this world as Hades, how much greater is the realm of pure Mystical Knowledge? Are we the Shades, twittering like bats and understanding nothing in Odyssey XXIV?

 

Thomas Taylor here translates the commentaries on Plato by Porphyry and Olympiodorus on the subject of the Earth as Hades:

 

The passage in the Gorgias of Plato, to which Porphyry here alludes, is as follows:

 

“Socrates. But, indeed, as you also say, life is a grievous thing. For I should not wonder if Euripides spoke the truth when he says; ‘Who knows whether to live is not to die, and to die is not to live?’ And we, perhaps, are in reality dead. For I have heard from one of the wise, that we are now dead, and that the body is our sepulchre,...

 

What is said here by Plato is beautifully unfolded by Olympiodorus, in his MS. Commentary of the Gorgias, as follows:

 

Euripides [in Phryxo] says that to live is to die and to die to live. For the soul coming hither, as she imparts life to the body, so partakes of a certain privation of life; but this is not an evil. When separated, therefore, from the body, she lives in reality; for she dies here, through participating a privation of life...

 

But the meaning of the Pythagoric fable, which is here introduced by Plato, is this:... The sepulchre which we carry about with us is the body. But Hades is unapparent, because we are situated in obscurity, the soul being in a state of servitude to the body...

 

For the rational soul is called a circle, because it seeks itself, and is itself sought, finds itself, and is itself found.[22]

 

 

 

“But My Race is of Heaven Alone”

 

The Orphics, however, insisted that the soul was immortal and its term on earth temporary. The dead were provided with reminders of their heavenly origin and eventual return. This one is the Petelia Scroll, a golden burial scroll found in Petelia, Italy, dating from the fourth century B.C.E.

 

You will find a spring on the left of the halls of Hades,

And beside it a white cypress growing.

Do not even go near this spring.

And you will find another,

From the Lake of Memory,

Flowing forth with cold water.

In front of are guards.

You must say:

 

“I am a child of Earth and Starry Heaven.

But my race is of heaven alone;*

This you yourselves know.

I am dry with thirst and am perishing.

Come, give me at once cold water,

Flowing forth from the Lake of Memory.”

 

And they themselves will give you to drink from the divine spring,

And then thereafter you shall reign with the other heroes.[23]

 

*Freeman left this portion, But my race is of heaven alone, out of her translation for some unknown reason. However, it is plainly written on the scroll and is translated fully by others, such as Jane Harrison and Gilbert Murray.[24]