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Well, shit. I think I finally figured it out.

It's well-known that the myth of Perseus is illustrated in the night sky:

There's Perseus holding Medousa's head (the demon star Algol from Arabic ra's al-ghul "head of the ogre"), rushing to save Andromeda, chained to a rock, from the sea monster Ketus (the ecliptic nicely acting as the surface of the sea), while Kepheus and Kassiopeia look on.

This is often said to be the only complete mytheme still illustrated in the constellations as we know them today, but I just realized that this is mistaken: there's another one, right next to it:

Nut is the sky. Geb is the earth, and his penis is the axis the earth turns around. Their children are the constellations, and Ra prevents her from giving birth because the Sun hides the constellations from view: we can only see them at night. Osiris is the one we call Orion, the great man in the sky, and the shape of Orion is, I presume, the reason why the Egyptians drew figures in their peculiar profile. The Nile is the Milky Way, of course, and there we see Isis in her boat, which we call by its Greek name, the Argo, still sailing the Nile searching for her husband. Osiris's penis is highlighted in the myth because it's the most notable feature of his constellation, though we call it Orion's sword. (Perhaps this is a euphemism, though; in Greek, the word for sword, ἄορ, literally means "hanging thing.") Next to Osiris, we see the Apis bull, though we call it by its Latin name, Taurus. The children of the constellations are, of course, the stars: Horos is Sirius, the brightest star of heaven, literally following in his father's footsteps; while Anoubis is Canopus, the second-brightest, attending to Isis in her boat.

Thus the theogony, as I said, is exoteric because everyone can look up at the sky and see the constellations; but the Mysteries are esoteric because only the initiated can look up at the sky and understand what the constellations mean.

I just noticed something interesting about Hesiod's ages of man.

So, Hesiod tells us mankind is descended from the gods, and there was a descent through five ages:

• In the Golden Age, Kronos was king and men lived joyous, carefree lives.
• In the Silver Age, Zeus took over and men lived foolishly, wronging each other and the gods.
• In the Bronze Age, men were violent and warred constantly.
• In the Heroic Age, men were noble and righteous.
• In the Iron Age, men lived short, painful lives of unending toil.

It is well-known that these relate to the astrological ages of Leo, Cancer, Gemini, Taurus, and Aries.

Well, Manetho in his History of Egypt tells us that the gods ruled Egypt before mortals did. (Diodorus Siculus puts a date to this, saying it mortals began to reign around 5000 BC, which was in the age of Taurus.) The gods who ruled Egypt were, in order: Hephaistos (Ptah), Helios (Ra), Sosis/Agathodaemon (Shu), Kronos (Geb), Osiris, Typhon (Seth), and Horos.

There's a nice connection, there. If we assume the gods refer to astrological ages, then righteous Horos was king during the similarly-righteous age of Taurus before handing off kingship to the pharaohs; before him, violent Seth was king during the similarly-violent age of Gemini; before him, benevolent Osiris (e.g. Zeus) was king during the age of Cancer (remember how Plutarch says the people were as beasts and Osiris taught them how to live civilized lives and honor the gods?); and before him, Geb (e.g. Kronos) was king during the age of Leo. It smells like Hesiod got his ages of man from Egypt—certainly, he got a lot of his other myths from there! (By the by, nobody knows the etymology of the Greek word ἥρως ("hero"). It certainly sounds a lot like heru ("Horos")... is the Heroic Age literally named after its king?)

Plato says that, according to the Egyptians, the fall of Atlantis was around 9000 years before his time, which corresponds to the end of the last glacial period and to the age of Leo. I would not be a bit surprised if the "golden age" is an echo of a memory of that once-great civilization; after it fell, a dark age ensued, after which the gods slowly reintroduced civilization to men... plausibly, in Egypt. (Certainly, Plato and Diodorus say that the Egyptians thought so.)

If that's so, then it suggests that the myth of Osiris could be a good deal older than the fifth dynasty (e.g. the Pyramid Texts, which are our first references to it). One wonders how much. Even predating the age of Aries would be an impressive accomplishment, but I've seen references (which I have not yet managed to track down) to myths very similar to Osiris's being found among South American cultures, on the other side of the Atlantic. Does it go back to Atlantis, itself?

Phaedrus. You never cross the border, do you, Socrates? In fact, it seems to me you never even leave the city walls!

Socrates. I beg your pardon, my friend, but I love to learn and it is the people of the city that are my teachers: I learn nothing from the trees or open country.

(Plato, Phaedrus 230D)

If you watch the skies, what do you see? The Sun and Moon, of course, stand apart from all others; among the stars, Venus, Jupiter, and Sirius; but what else? Here I must take issue with Socrates, since I have, alas, been a city kid most of my life, and the city is where lovely Nut goes to die (in more ways than one). I remember the summer when I moved out to the country and could, for the first time in my life, really see the sky; and what amazed me the most was that mighty river, the Milky Way, meandering across Heaven. I stood outside for hours merely gazing at it, for nothing material, save the Moon Herself, can compete in beauty and wonder...

...but we'll get to that. Let me first say that our old friend Apuleius tells us (in the Golden Ass XI) that there were three sets mysteries of Isis and Osiris: the first is the mysteries of Isis, the second is the mysteries of Osiris, and the third is not named. He also tells us that the first two mysteries are more-or-less the same. Diodorus tells us (in the Library of History I xcvi) that the mysteries of Isis are identical to the mysteries of Eleusis (read Isis and Osiris §§12–20 followed by the Homeric Hymn to Demeter if you'd like to see this for yourself), that the mysteries of Osiris are identical to the mysteries of Dionysus, and of the third mystery he makes no reference whatsoever. (Very mysterious!) From this, I speculate that the vast bulk of this myth cycle—where Osiris is killed, Isis wanders, collects his pieces, and resurrects him—covers the pageant of both the mysteries of Isis and Osiris. The difference, I think, is that they're told from different perspectives: in the former, the initiate follows Isis in her wanderings; in the latter, the initiate follows Osiris in his death, dismemberment, reconstruction, and resurrection. The third mystery, then, I presume to be what remains: the initiate follows the contending between, and eventual triumph of, Horus over Set.

The myth cycle that forms the mysteries of Isis and Osiris is too lengthy to take in a single stretch, though, so I'm going to break it into pieces. Today, we'll start with the murder of Osiris.

[1–8, 16–17, 45. Heaven and Earth give birth to Osiris, Set, Isis, and Nephthys. Osiris and Isis give birth to the brothers Horus. Osiris and Nephthys give birth to Anubis.]

Stepping back for a moment, I have identified the inhabitants of Duat with the planets. But what relevance is this? Heaven and Earth are conjoined; the planets—the gods!—are not merely without you, they are also within: Osiris, Set, Isis, Nephthys, the brothers Horus, and Anubis all dance in both sky and soul. So while I have already identified these beings in macrocosm, it would be worthwhile to pause for a moment and identify them in microcosm, too, before we continue with the myth.

The second generation of gods are, I think, the inherent capacities of the soul: those capacities that the soul is inherently "born" with. Osiris and Isis, being bright, calm, and rising relatively high in the sky, are those higher capacities of the soul: in Platonic terms, they are the tendency towards the good, the serene intuition of the higher mind, the well-bred horse hitched to the chariot in the Phaedrus. Nephthys and Set, being dim, frenetic, and never rising far above the horizon, are those baser capacities of the soul: the tendencies towards the "sensible world," the relentless chatter of the lower mind, the wild horse hitched to the chariot. The morning stars are the beginning of these tendencies, while the evening stars are their end: so Osiris is the innocent, pristine tendency towards good, while Isis is the wise, experienced tendency towards good; Nephthys is innocent tendency away from good, while Set is the wilful tendency away from good. Hence, Osiris is generous and beautiful, but he is also trouble since he is foolish and trusting. Isis is wise, but harsh and severe. Nephthys isn't terrible, since she doesn't know better: enjoyment and appreciation of the material world isn't evil, it just isn't as good as it could be. Set, though, is something of a wanton rejection of the good, and this is why the myth considers him sterile: there is no future to be found there.

The third generation of gods are, then, the cultivated capacities of the soul: those capacities that develop as the soul "grows its wings." I'm sure you can guess as what these are by examining their parents' natures, but we'll investigate them more deeply when we get further in the myth.

These points correspond to Persephone (Osiris) being born of Zeus and Demeter (Heaven and Earth, though Demeter also takes on the role of Isis); and of Psyche (gentle Osiris in the first half of the myth, determined Isis in the second) and her sisters (Nephthys and Set) being born of "a king and queen" (also Heaven and Earth). Psyche's sisters running off to get married right away shows their rejection (either innocent or wilful) of the good; Psyche, however, lingers and so retains more of that memory of the Beauty to sustain her, slowing and limiting (but not, alas, preventing) her descent.

9. [§13] While Isis watches over Set, Osiris leaves Heaven and teaches the Egyptians the arts of civilization.

Macrocosmically, Venus heliacally rises in the east. Presumably, Mercury will heliacally rise and set several times while Venus remains in the east, and at some point Osiris will unwittingly sleep with Nephthys (e.g. Venus and Mercury go conjunct as morning stars).

One of the things I think I misunderstood in my original perusal of Plotinus and the myths is that souls do not merely descend from Heaven once, but twice! The soul must fall from Heaven to Duat, and again from Duat to Earth. (Being born twice, one must also die twice, which is why Plutarch speaks of the first death and the second death. Perhaps this is why initiates are called "twice-born:" the initiation awakens them to this fact.) Persephone being kidnapped by Hades is her first birth, and eating the pomegranate is her second birth. Psyche being carried by Zephyr into the beautiful valley is her first birth, and throwing herself into the river is her second. In both cases, there is no harm done in the first birth: Persephone can go home whenever she likes, and Psyche is comfortably married and carrying a divinity in her womb; it is only after the second that their trials and travails begin. In the same way, Osiris/Set/Isis/Nephthys being born is their first birth, and in the same way, there is no harm done yet; they are no longer in their pristine state, but neither are they degraded in the material world. So I do not think Osiris merely coming to Egypt is his "fall:" Egypt must be representative something else.

As I've mentioned, I think Heaven is the macrocosm, and Earth is the microcosm. The planets wandering in Heaven is the macrocosmic Duat, and so I think Osiris ruling in Egypt, here, is the microcosmic Duat. Osiris coming to Egypt is not the morning star falling to Earth, it is the reflection of Osiris rising in the morning sky within you. And consider, to the Egyptians, Egypt was "home:" it is the good place that they wish to be. We will soon see other Earthly locations, each with their Heavenly analogues: foreign lands (Byblos in this myth, Eleusis in the Demeter myth, etc.) are equivalent to a star being beneath the horizon in the sky and of the soul being "in exile," as Empedocles says:

τῶν καὶ ἐγὼ νῦν εἰμι, φυγὰς θεόθεν καὶ ἀλήτης,
νείκει μαινομένῳ πίσυνος.

I too am now one of these, an exile from the gods and a wanderer,
trusting in mad strife.

There is also the Nile itself (or, in Hesiod, the Styx), which is the Milky Way in the sky, and the bridge by which souls descend from their higher state to their lower one (cf. Plato, Republic X; Porphyry on the Cave of the Nymphs; Sallustius on the Gods and the World IV; Macrobius on the Dream of Scipio I xii), which we shall see shortly. The Milky Way intersects the ecliptic in two places, representing the places where Earth and Duat meet: Tanis in the east, where Osiris leaves Egypt, is the intersection by which souls descend (which Porphyry calls "the gate of gods"), while Buto in the west, where Osiris returns to Egypt, is the intersection by which souls ascend (which Porphyry calls "the gate of men").

What of Osiris teaching the Egyptians the arts of civilization? This is saying that Osiris—as I have said, the upward tendency of the soul, that vague recollection of the good—is what separates us from the beasts, who only possess the Nephthys/Set or "base" capacities of the soul.

10. Upon his return, Set secretly measures him and constructs a beautifully-ornamented box sized to fit him exactly.

Macrocosmically, Mercury heliacally rises in the west while Venus remains in the east.

The box is, of course, the physical body that the soul "fits into." The soul is said to be enticed by sensual pleasure to descend into the material world, so the box is said to be beautifully ornamented so that simple, starry-eyed Osiris is lured into it.

This corresponds to Hades offering pomegranate seeds to Persephone, and to Psyche's wicked sisters filling her with doubt.

11. On 17 Hathor, Set invites Osiris, Queen Aso of Ethiopia, and seventy-two conspirators to a party.

12. Set and the conspirators trick Osiris into the box, nail it shut, seal it with molten lead, and push it into the Nile, after which it floats downriver, reaching the sea near Tanis.

Simple, trusting Osiris is tricked into sensual desire and thus descends into corporeality, leaving Egypt and going into exile. We see the microcosmic form in the myth directly; in the macrocosmic form, this is Venus going conjunct the Sun while, at the same time, the Sun is going conjunct the Milky Way; at heliacal rising, this looks like Venus "falling into" the Milky Way and then disappearing. This presently happens around the winter solstice, but it varies slowly over time due to the precession of the equinoxes; it would have occurred around 17 Hathor (in late Autumn) during the Hellenistic era.

These points correspond to Persephone eating the pomegranate seeds and no longer being allowed to return home; and to Psyche gazing upon Cupid, Cupid fleeing, and Psyche trying to drown herself in a river.

13. [§14] Pan and the satyrs learn of Osiris's death and tell Isis.

14. Isis grieves and wanders in search of Osiris.

Macrocosmically, Venus is no longer conjunct the Sun and begins to rise in the west, seemingly "stepping out" of the Milky Way.

Porphyry tells us in his Sentences [VIII] that "what Nature has bound, Nature must unbind, and what the soul has bound, the soul must unbind." Osiris falling for the box is representative of the second of these. But Pan and his satyrs represent Nature and its subordinate generative powers; their notifying Isis therefore represents Nature binding the soul to itself. That is, the soul is now subject to Nature's law: which we may call Ma'at, Necessity, or karma.

These points correspond to Hekate and Helios hearing Persephone's scream, telling Demeter what happened and trying to comfort her, her quitting Olympus in a rage, and her wandering in search of Persephone; and to Psyche coming to shore near Pan, Pan comforting her, and her wandering in search of Cupid. It is noteworthy that Helios/Pan counsel Demeter/Psyche to accept the situation and behave piously: they are telling the soul how to unbind itself. This is the easy part; the problem is that the soul reels in shock from its descent, and it will take a long time—many lives—before it can finally pull itself together enough to follow their advice. By the time this finally occurs, the soul has racked up so much karma that it must now pay it back before Nature, too, will unbind it.

Apuleius tells us (in the Apology §§53–56) that initiates were given talismans from the mysteries in which they were initiated, which were kept in linen and placed on their home altar to pray and meditate over. These are not, as far as I know, identified anywhere, but I wonder if the talisman of the mystery of Isis was an icon of the tyet, or "knot of Isis," representing the binding of the soul to the law of Nature:

𓎬

As always, in pondering the myth I find myself wondering about many adjacent things:

• The title of this post is, of course, from Holly Golightly's song in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's. I couldn't help myself: while thinking of the Milky Way, it occurred to me that the song can easily describe the incarnate soul finally coming to acceptance of Necessity in its desire to return to Duat:

  Moon River, wider than a mile,
  I'm crossing you in style some day.
  Oh, dream-maker, you heart-breaker,
  Wherever you're going, I'm going your way!

  Two drifters, off to see the world—
  There's such a lot of world to see!
  We're after the same rainbow's end
  Waiting 'round the bend:
  My huckleberry friend,
  Moon River, and me.

  The Milky Way is no longer a curse, but a teacher and guide. Psyche ceases her wandering and submits herself to Venus.

• Empedocles is well-known for his four elements, but I wonder if we've been misinterpreting him all these many centuries. What he actually said was,

  τέσσαρα γὰρ πάντων ῥιζώματα πρῶτον ἄκουε·
  Ζεὺς ἀργὴς Ἥρη τε φερέσβιος ἠδ' Ἀιδωνεύς,
  Νῆστις θ' ἣ δακρύοις τέγγει κρούνωμα βρότειον.
  
  First, hear of the four roots of all things:
  gleaming Zeus and life-bringing Hera and Aidoneus
  and Nestis, who moistens with tears the springs of mortals.

  I'm of half a mind to see these four, not as elemental forces in the Aristotelian sense, but as literally referring to Osiris (that brightest star of Heaven), Isis (the mother of the gods and resurrector of Osiris), Set, and Nephthys (who grieves with Isis). Come to think of it, "Nestis" and "Nephthys" sound suspiciously similar: νῆστις ["fasting, hungry"] is universally assumed to be an epithet, but what if it is a (punning) transliteration?

• Despite much effort, nobody has managed to figure out what creature the "Set animal" depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphics and art represents:

  𓃩
  ...woof woof?

  If, as I suggest, Nephthys/Set represent the "bestial" capacity of the soul, one wonders if it's not supposed to represent any actual animal at all, but rather some sort of "generic" or "idealized" beast? Perhaps a composite of a Nephthys dog body (she is the mother of Anubis, after all) and a Set (...aardvark?) head?

• One of the highlighted arts that Osiris teaches the Egyptians is to refrain from cannibalism. The Egyptian priests were said to be vegetarian, as were Pythagoras (who learned from them) and Empedocles (who learned from Pythagoras and specifically links meat-eating to cannibalism and the descent of souls). Porphyry wrote a lengthy treatise (On Abstinence from Eating Animals) in defense of vegetarianism for those who aspire to philosophy, and Apuleius tells us that prospective initiates were required to fast from meat prior to their initiations. All this suggests to me that the myth is referencing the karmic implications of meat-eating.

• I skipped over Queen Aso, above. Trying to figure out what she represents led me down quite a bit of a rabbit-hole.

  In the Perseus myth (cf. Pseudo-Apollonius, the Library II iv), Cassiopeia is the Queen of Ethiopia. I am unable to find an etymology for Cassiopeia anywhere, though it bears at least slight resemblence to Aso ("k-ASO-peia"). The constellation bearing her name straddles the Milky Way and is not far from "the gate of the gods," so presumably she is something of an onlooker to Osiris's fall.

  But that's not all. Cassiopeia is the mother of Andromeda, who is chained to a rock in the same way that Isis is bound to Nature, and whose name (Ἀνδρομέδα=ἀνδρός-μέδω "I protect my husband") is closely related to the role of Isis in our myth. Is Perseus Osiris? Nobody knows the etymology of Perseus, but it is interesting to note that the names Osiris and Perseus (and, indeed, Orpheus) are all pretty similar...

  I hadn't considered the Perseus myth to be yet-another-derivative of the Osiris myth, but at first glance, there seems to be a relationship. I haven't thought deeply about it yet, but it's another myth I'll need to spend more time on. Worse, this makes me realize that the myth of Jason and Medea is related, too: the "Meda" of Andromeda is closely related to "Medea," and of course Isis and Medea are both sorceresses who use magic to rescue their husbands, both are exiled from their homelands, both have a relationship with somebody who is cut into many pieces and strewn about, both murder two young brothers, etc. etc., so toss yet another myth on the pile.

  All this is to say that I apologize for not having a nice, tidy answer to the question of Queen Aso and the 72 conspirators handy: if I chased the rabbit down that rabbit-hole, I would be as lost and mad as poor Alice. I will have to tackle it some other time, when I am better-prepared.

• It is interesting that Pan features at the exact same point in the exact same capacity in both Isis and Osiris and Cupid and Psyche. To my mind, this is too exact a parallel to be a coincidence, and an argument that Apuleius (who invented the Cupid and Psyche myth) was either an initiate of Isis himself, or an initiate of Demeter and an avid reader of Plutarch, or both.

• I had somehow missed it my first few times through Hesiod, but ll. 775–806 of the Theogony describe exactly the same phenomenon that the poem of Empedocles (and, of course, this myth) does: if any god commits perjury, then that god is forced to traverse the Styx (that is, descend into the material world), sleeping as if in a heavy trance for a year, and then forced to exile and hard labor for nine years, only after each of these being able to rejoin the gods. Indeed, this is why the gods swear by the Styx in the Iliad, Odyssey, and Homeric Hymns: for fear of being forced into exile themselves.

• Tanis was situated on the Tanitic branch of the Nile, while Buto was situated between the Sebennytic and Bolbitine branches of the Nile. The Tanitic branch and the Sebennytic branches silted up sometime between AD 150 (cf. Ptolemy, Geography) and AD 600 (cf. George of Cyprus, Description of the Roman World), but the Bolbitine branch still exists (now called the Rosetta). If we treat the world as symbolic of spiritual truths, as Sallustius bids us, and if Tanis and Buto have the meanings I've ascribed to them above, then the silting-up of Tanis seems to say that the old truths are closed and that no new revelations are coming into the world that way; while the half-silting-up of Buto seems to suggest that, while the mysteries are no longer a major avenue of return, the way back up through them is not yet completely closed to us...

I have this vague idea that every civilization, unless it is somehow terminated early (by war or famine or whatever), develops to the same level of sophistication in understanding the universe before it fails. For example, the Egyptians somehow knew how to measure the distances to stars (the Nabta Playa complex allegedly does so to great accuracy) and, of course, were capable of engineering feats that leave us in awe even today; while Greeks knew about such things as special relativity and chaos theory (Plotinus discusses both); but neither got much further than that before they failed. Obviously, I suspect our fate will be similar.

But what is especially interesting to me is that each civilization uses different tools to do so, and it seems that all the other things we think of as central to that culture stem from this. The Egyptians may have well used magic, the Greeks used dialectic, and we use science. By this I assume that the Egyptians had a Saturnine angel; the Greeks, a Solar angel; and we, of course, have a Mercurial angel. But consider the ramifications: the Egyptians took a very long time to get there, but had tremendous cultural longevity (and their solid-as-a-rock monuments persist even today); the Greeks got there very efficiently, needing little resources to do it (and produced remarkable beauty which is still imitated today); we have produced little cultural value of our own, rather favoring to steal from others (and have needed a massive population, massive industrial base, and massive communication and travel in order to accomplish what we have).

Thus, I do not think that the destruction of the environment and the ransacking of the world's peoples is an accident: it is the necessary byproduct of the designs of the Western cultural angel. One must suppose that there is a good (and a Good) reason for it, and trust in Providence.

I've had a few books fall into my lap recently which spend a lot of time on cosmological theory from various perspectives. I spent some time tracing the history of these for my own interest and figured I'd put the notes here in case it's useful to anyone else. (This list isn't meant to be comprehensive, but I'm not presently aware of other systems. Furthermore, please note that I'm only really familiar with some of these, and so the others are largely based on second-hand references which I have not yet dug through in depth, and so errors or inconsistencies may be present.)

Planetary: Consisting of nine or ten levels of reality (depending on the source) stacked on top of each other: [the Empyrean], the fixed stars, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury, Luna, Earth. The soul originates in the sphere of fixed stars, becomes wedded to desire, falls to the sphere of Earth, and must climb back out, level by level, with the aid of some set of teachings or initiations. Apparently originated in Sumer (see Inana's Descent to the Underworld), with likely paths of transmission to posterity through Pythagoras, Plato (see Republic X "The Myth of Er"), Cicero (see Republic VI "The Dream of Scipio"), the Corpus Hermeticum, Macrobius (see Commentary on the Dream of Scipio), and Robert Fludd (see History of the Two Worlds). Apparently mostly common amongst Neoplatonists/theurgists in modern times.

Tree of Life: Consisting of ten "spheres", representing worlds of various natures, interconnected by various paths. Reality itself follows a path similar to the planetary sequence, from highest to lowest, but souls may traverse other paths between spheres in exploratory fashion. Apparently a derivative of the Sumerian planetary model, but when or by who is disputed: obvious candidates are the Neo-Assyrians (see Simo Parpola, The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and Greek Philosophy, 1993), the Neo-Pythagoreans and/or Neo-Platonists (see Porphyry, Isagoge, and subsequent developments of the Porphyrian Tree; and Pseudo-Iamblichus, The Theology of Arithmetic), and the Jewish Cabalists (see The Bahir and The Zohar). Apparently near-universal in modern Western occult philosophy.

Plotinian: Consisting of four worlds characterized by increasing diversity and separation. Souls only exist in the third world but may experience other worlds by proxy. Developed by Plotinus (see The Enneads) based on his reading of Plato, but possibly also derived from or at least related to the teachings of Orpheus (see The Sacred Discourse in Twenty-Four Rhapsodies) and/or the Chaldean Oracles. Enormously influential as a general framework, but is so coarse-grained that other systems (usually planetary or the Tree of Life) are favored for most purposes.

Zodiacal: Consisting of an upward gate to heaven and a downward gate to earth (corresponding either to the intersections of the ecliptic plane and the galactic plane, or to the tropics), and twelve intermediary gates in between arranged in some fashion (corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac). Souls originate in the galactic plane, pass through one half of the ecliptic to enter into incarnation, and leave incarnation through the other half, only able to do so when the lessons of each gate have been mastered. Apparently originated in many places and times (see Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, Hamlet's Mill; and William Sullivan, The Secret of the Incas), but for purposes of Western transmission, originated in Egypt (see the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, and Papyrus of Ani, but note parallels with the contemporaneous Epic of Gilgamesh, below) and transmitted to posterity through Plato (see Republic X "The Myth of Er"), Numenius of Apameia and Porphyry (see On the Cave of the Nymphs), and the Mithras Liturgy. Obviously related somehow to the myths of Gilgamesh (the "marriage" of a god-man and a beast-man, the pursuit of immortality, the Bull of Heaven (Taurus) and the scorpion-men (Scorpio) which bookend the two halves of Gilgamesh's journey, etc.), of Heracles (leaving heaven through the Milky Way, the twelve labors representing the twelve gates, ultimate return to the fixed stars and immortality), and of Odysseus (twelve trials before he returns home, etc.), but surviving versions of the myths are incomplete and/or garbled. Apparently largely neglected in modern Western occult philosophy.

Enochian: Consisting of a series of 30 layered spiritual realms guarded by 91 governors, which souls traverse upwards from dense to subtle. A modern system, apparently constructed and/or revealed to John Dee and Edward Kelley (see The Five Books of Mystery and Liber Logaeth), and expanded and adapted by the Golden Dawn and it's offshoots. Apparently usually treated as a (risky?) source of additional potency to be layered atop another system, particularly the Tree of Life.

My grandfather[, the "father of water-colour painting" John Varley,] was living at the time in Conduit Street, Regent Street. He had purchased or taken a lease of an hotel, which he used partly as a dwelling-house for his large family, and partly as a studio and gallery for his pictures.

He was, so I have been told, in the habit of consulting his own horoscope each morning, and bringing up directions, etc., to date. On one particular morning (I am sorry that I never took notes of these conversations, and I forget the dates, if indeed they were mentioned) my father related, he was evidently ill at ease and disturbed in mind, and though he had an appointment he did not go out, and about eleven in the forenoon he gave his watch to my father telling him to take it to a watchmaker in Regent Street and have it set to Greenwich time. When he returned with the watch my grandfather was still walking up and down the studio, a proceeding that impressed my father as most unusual, for my grandfather grudged actually every minute that he was away from his easel. At last he remarked, "What is it to be?" and explained that there were some evil aspects in his horoscope which would come into operation a few minutes to twelve on that day. He was so certain as to the evil effects, that he would not go out, fearing some street accident. He said, "I might be run over, or a slate might fall on my head;" that he was uncertain whether his life or his property was menaced, but he saw in the figure that it would be sudden. The difficulty arose from the fact that the effects of the planet Uranus were not yet understood by astrologers, and his agitation increased as the time approached. He asked if my father was sure that his watch was put to Greenwich time, and complained that he could not go on with his work. Sitting down he said two or three times, "I feel quite well—there is nothing the matter with me. I am not going to have a fit or anything of the sort." Then rising from his seat he came towards my father saying: "What is it to be? The time is past. Could I have made some mistake in my calculations?" He took some paper and a pencil to go through the figures again—just then there was a cry of fire from the street. He rapidly made a note in his astrological book as to the effects of Uranus. The house was burned down, all his property was destroyed, and unfortunately he was uninsured. It is a curious fact that on three occasions his property was destroyed by fire, and three times in his life he was tossed by bulls, and whatever warning he may have had from the stars, he was unable to prevent their effects.

(John Varley, Some Astrological Predictions of the Late John Varley, in the Occult Review XXIV i)

I started reading Greer's Twilight Last Gleaming the other day—no points for guessing why—and I was surprised to discover that it takes place in 2029–30.

See, Evangeline Adams famously predicted (in a talk in 1931) the US entry into World War 2 on the basis of a simple observation: every Uranus cycle heralds a war in which the country, and its identity in the world, is transformed. In particular, the United States was formed—as an idea and ideal, if not legally—when the Declaration of Independence was signed, on 4 July 1776. On this date, Uranus was at 9° Gemini, and, of course, the the Revolutionary War was raging. This began the period of an independent, albeit fractured, American identity.

84 years and one Uranus cycle later, on 24 Dec 1860—when Uranus was again at 9° Gemini—South Carolina formally seceded from the United States, sparking the Civil War. This heralded a period of power centralization, of the idea of a unified American identity, and of America becoming an industrial powerhouse.

84 years and one Uranus cycle later, on 5 Jun 1944—when Uranus was again at 9° Gemini—America put boots on the ground during the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War 2. This quite literally began the period of American meddling in, and dominance of, European affairs, ultimately with America taking over custody of Europe and what remained of her colonial empires. (Adams actually was much more precise than this, stating that the US would enter a major war at the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1942—as indeed it did—using mundane astrology techniques to refine the rough estimate that the Uranus transit provides by checking transits against the United States' natal chart.)

I bring this up because 84 years and one Uranus cycle later will occur in May of 2028, four and a half years from now. (Lucky us, an election year.) One might wonder if the US will again participate in a major war around that time, resulting in a transformation of how the country perceives itself and relates to the world. (Indeed, given current events, one might better wonder how we might not participate in a major war around that time.)

If all that's so, I think that Greer's book takes place a couple years too late.

I get a lot of criticism of how I assign the elements. "But air is intellect! How can you be so intellectual if you have no air?" That kind of thing. I get frustrated with this: in my experience, the popular assignment of elements—fire is action, air is intellect, water is emotion, earth is structure—works in neither the forms of astrology I've studied nor in geomancy. As an example, my natal chart is mostly water, and so occult-type people tend assume I'm very emotional; but in fact it's the opposite, and most people who know me tend to consider me "cold" or "robotic."

Instead, the assessment of the elements that I've found to work is this:

• Fire is creative. A purely fiery person might be an artist, a musician, a designer.

• Air is social. A purely airy person might be a partier, a socialite, someone who likes to communicate.

• Water is reflective. A purely watery person might be a hermit, a contemplative.

• Earth is practical. A purely earthy person might be a manual laborer, a farmer, somebody who does handicrafts, a salt-of-the-earth kind of person.

From this, you can see that there are two sorts of axes being defined:

• Fire and air are masculine, they express; while water and earth are feminine and receive.

• Fire and water are "inner," they're abstract, impractical; while air and earth are "outer," they're grounded in the physical world and actually make changes to it.

In my opinion, all of them have an intellectual capacity of a sort: fire generates ideas, air communicates ideas, water refines ideas, and earth carries out ideas. Each, however, is very limited and has severe disadvantages on its own—for example, far from being an "intellectual," I would normally consider an airy person to be a dilettante, someone who goes broad but not deep.

Normally one needs multiple elements to balance out, though some of these balance better than others. For example, besides water, my only other halfway solid element is fire: this helps keep me from being fixated on constantly retreading the same ground (since instead of just reflecting on the same things over and over, I have an inner wellspring of new things to reflect on), but on the other hand it does nothing whatsoever to help me be practical (since fire and water are both "inner" elements).

[Socrates is in prison, awaiting his imminent execution in the company of several of his closest friends. One of these said to him,] "Evenus, the poet, wanted to know why you, who never before wrote a line of poetry, now that you are in prison are turning Æsop’s fables into verse." [...]

[Socrates replied,] "In the course of my life I have often had intimations in dreams 'that I should compose music.' [...] And hitherto I had imagined that this was only intended to exhort and encourage me in the study of philosophy, which has been the pursuit of my life, and is the noblest and best of music. [...] But I was not certain of this; for the dream might have meant music in the popular sense of the word, and being under sentence of death, and the festival giving me a respite, I thought that it would be safer for me to satisfy the scruple, and, in obedience to the dream, to compose a few verses before I departed. And first I made a hymn in honor of the god of the festival, and then considering that a poet, if he is really to be a poet, should not only put together words, but should invent stories."

(Plato, Phædo, as translated by Benjamin Jowett)

Maybe it's a trifle, but I found it fun that in his last month that Socrates should turn from philosophizing to storytelling. Of the higher deities, both of these are the domain of Apollo; but of the lower, I should think that this is a shift from the Sun to the Moon. The Sun, after all, shines plainly, and philosophy is—at least ostensibly, and certainly to Socrates—the direct means of attempting to apprehend and communicate knowledge. But the Moon is a luminary as well: She shines, but with reflected light. And so storytelling is also a means, but an indirect one, of apprehending and communicating knowledge.

A Socrates would begin with a "wise" man and make him a "fool" using truths, so that his now-unclouded eyes could see clearly in the light. But a Scheherazade would begin with a fool and make him wise using lies, so that his now-beguiled eyes could navigate in the darkness.

Different means, but the same goal. I wondered that Socrates' friends thought such a thing so odd; but I suppose they all went and lamented his death even after he spent three hours telling them not to, so...

Fun fact: not only was Thomas Taylor born under Halley's Comet, but he died under it as well.