Philosophy from Oracles

It is usually frowned upon to try to dig into occult philosophy using divination. (This is because, I think, symbolic divination exists at the imaginal level, and is therefore a sensible phenomenon; but one cannot use the sensible to apprehend the intelligible.) Nevertheless, I've had some successes with it; but I find those successes are primarily on the basis of contemplation, merely using divination as confirmatory of those things I have attempted to apprehend directly. I thought it might be fun to poke through an example which occurred recently.

Because of all the challenges my family faced last December, I now do a fair amount of natural magic utilizing the Orphic Hymns. I'm in the process of learning ancient Greek, and my angel suggested to me that my workings would be more efficacious if I recited those Hymns in their original language. It's hard to trust one's inner senses, though: while I've gotten more accurate with time, I'd still say only maybe 75–80% of the things I hear my angel say are true, while the rest are just my imagination. (This is at least much better than the 50–50 I started with!) As a result, I always check actionable things I hear from them with divination, and so I asked, "Would reciting the Orphic Hymns in ancient Greek possess greater potency than doing so in English?"

The chart perfects, affirming the question. This was very surprising to me, since my understanding is that I am calling to the angels of the relevant divinities, and angels don't communicate using language! In the chart, the querent is represented by Rubeus in the first house, indicating misdirection. The quesited is Conjunctio in the eighth house, indicating coming to understanding. Perfection is found through a mutation in the fourth and fifth houses, which indicates that resolution comes about in an unexpected manner. This is reinforced by the court, which says that I have too narrow a view (Cauda Draconis right witness), but that inspiration will come (Lætitia left witness) if I think about it (Conjunctio judge).

So, I spent a few days mulling it over. As I've said before, I like to spitball possibilities before I try to settle on any of them, and this was no different: I came up with four or five possibilities, ranging from the Hymns being a cunningly contrived spell themselves involving the specific sounds (which are, of course, lost in translation), to my experiences involving angels being idiosyncratic. Ultimately, though, the option that seemed to be most likely to me was that the language of the Hymn itself didn't matter, but rather that the effort of mastering it was. (Certainly, this was the solution I came up with that I felt directed towards.) So I asked whether this was the case:

And look, we have a winner! Perfection is brought about through a simple occupation of Tristitia—hard work—in the first and the ninth. Therefore it is simply the nature of making the sustained effort that brings the increased potency about. But I note something additionally interesting: Fortuna Major in the seventh (of the other party; in the case of a Hymn, the angel I'm invoking) and fifth (of pleasure), which indicates that not only does the extra effort itself matter, but that it brings satisfaction to those I'm working with.

It's going to be some months of work before I'm capable of making such use of the Hymns, but it seems the effort will be worthwhile.