THE MANTIC ARTS | TAROT
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THE MANTIC ARTS

The Mantic Arts are a way for us to draw near the Divine, and divination happens thanks to Divine Action... The Tarot, due to its enormous iconographical richness, goes much beyond, it takes us to the archetypal images that constitute the Anima Mundi, which is the Mother of all possible thought... In this itinerary I am evidently following Plotinus and not Jung...

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Divination does not need the postulation of a Reality beyond pure phenomenical flux, it does not need the premise of an Essence for the existing world, it does not need Kant's 'thing in itself'... It works very well without such concepts, and 'explains' itself better without them, which is an indication that Western philosophical tradition is inadequate to account for the only Real thing there is: Being, which is most open, clear, and evident, for it is this constant flux of phenomena...

As to the 'thing in itself', it is a typical mental dichotomy. Other mental dichotomies: action and agent, subject and object, body and mind, essence and existence, I and the other.

Divination, and actually any other thing or activity under the Sun, is Being itself, or better, is Becoming. It is better to think of pure Becoming for the idea of Being historically pressuposes something that is, something with some fixed essence. We should abandon these notions, for they affect thought in a manicheistic way.

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"How do I master the I Ching?"

You will understand and existentially integrate the I Ching by studying and practicing Taoism one whole life (or many...). The same applies to the other mantic arts, in the sense of the time and commitment involved. It is in fact a whole way of life and not some hobby, passtime or simple intelectual discipline. It is also necessary to have a living master that is willing to teach you directly, at least according to the traditional cosmovisions. The connotation implied by the verb 'to master' is not very appropriate for this kind of existential venture, for it suggests the idea of being the master of someone or something, to subjugate, to servilize... This recalls the VIIth Arcane of the Tarot, The Chariot, which is a temerary, imature and egocentred Arcane that often speeds towards disaster.

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The renaissance of Traditional Astrology was a long task that took the whole XXth century to be perfected. In XIXth century England, when Alan Leo reintroduced Astrology in the West, he did so in a popular, simplified and therefore impoverished way... It was thanks to the work of Adolf Weiss that we were able to restore the legacy of XVIIth century European Astrology. And it was also thanks to the efforts of Englishmen such as Geoffrey Cornelius and Olivia Barclay that we were able to restore the legacy of XVIIth century European Horary Astrology.

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Horary Astrology is the ancient astrological discipline that consists in the interpretation of the horoscope of the moment a question is formulated, as the answer is contained therein. Horary Astrology is the magical and mantic origin of contemporary Astrology... Astrology was for many centuries predominantly mantic and divinatory, and as time passed its genethliacal or judiciary variant appeared which consisted in the study of transits and progressions related to the natal chart, and in later techniques such as arabic parts, revolutions and Volguine's inbetweenity. This historical transition was very important as it raised this purely divinatory art to the status of an art/science imbued with a totalizing cosmovision.

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Traditional Geomancy is the ancient Arab and (later) European science of interpreting certain even or uneven combinations of stones or traces. The stones are thrown several times, and the resulting pattern will form a sophisticated system in the form of a coat of arms. This system disappeared from Europe in the second half of the XVIIth century but it continued to be practiced in the Muslim world... Some efforts are made nowadays to reintroduce this form of divination in the West...

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It would be better if we did not use so much the divinatory arts, as they end up being in many cases a sort of existential crutch that weakens both character and the necessary moral fiber needed to face life as it is. Life happens here and now, beyond happiness or sadness. But few are those capable of living as the old Stoics did, and perhaps we should be grateful to them, for without their mantic anxiety we would not have developed these rich symbolic systems, systems that go beyond us and that tap regions that transcend our human craft.

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- What is the Wisdom that one derives from Astrological knowledge?
- In the first place, one learns to know how one functions, the energetic structure of one's personality and its latent potentialities. This is obtained by the in-depth study of one's natal chart. In the second place, and just as important as this knowledge of oneself, is the attentive following-up of the transits (and progressions, and revolutions) that affect our chart as the years go by. The Wisdom that derives from this is the burgeoning of a certain neutrality, a certain detachment regarding the good and bad things that happen to us. Everything changes, constantly. Good and pleasurable things are temporary, evil and painful things too. With an attentive and curious mind, one then accepts what happens without excessive worry. Astrology therefore propitiates a Zen attitude towards life, and that seems to me very healthy.

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New
We hardly know the why of things, but we have some grip on the how. I'm talking of Spiritual Technologies. Using these spiritual energies, getting things done with them. What prehistoric Shamans did and their inheritors continue to do to this very day. Technologies such as Astrology, for instance.

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New
Ever thought of Ancient Gnosticism ? Basilides, Marcion ? Spiritually subversive ideas... coming from the Mediterranean... The evil Demiurge of this particular Solar System (who Descartes uses in his 1st Meditation) who has us in spiritual chains in the sublunar sphere... So the Gnostic has to learn the passwords that each Planetary Archon or Demon requires so to ascend to the Heavenly Realm (Fixed Spheres, Aristotelian Primum Mobile) where the Exiled God resides. Same imagery in the Corpus Hermeticum.

The Gnostics identified the Evil Demiurge with the Jewish Vengeful Deity Yahveh, and the Cosmic or Exiled One with Christ.

So Astrology is intimately related to the Gnostic's pursuit... Mythologically and also Ritually through Planetary Magick.

These are all mythological colourful discourses (like Sefer Bereshith or Genesis for example), but they exemplify how one can see spirituality in different ways. Speaking of S. Bereshith (or Genesis) we have a great Gnostic Jewish Qabalist who wrote magnificently on it, Carlo Suarès.

So Astrology is in fact central to the Spiritual pursuit. It is the Dance of the Seven Veils, where the initiate successively frees himself from the chains of Fate as expressed by the planets in his natal chart and their consequent transits. In this sense he reconnects with his Higher Self symbolized by the Christ, where the four Elements are balanced like the four gospel animals in a circle around him in traditional iconography, Christ as Cosmic Quintessence or Stellar Spirit. The same Spiritual Quintessence that is found freely dancing inside the Mandorla of the last Arcanum of the Tarot, namely The World or Universe. Universe as opposed to the chained Solar System of the Demiurge. As it’s the last trump of the Major Arcana, it hints that it’s the final result and aim of the Great Work. So, ironically, to know and practice Astrology is in a sense to “know your enemy”, namely the Demiurge and his Archons. And one does it Under the Black Rose, as Marsilio Ficino would whisper...

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