‘Art magic’-1898 Chicago edition title page.

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With today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA, (as a immediate follow up to Henri Coton-Alvart’s study on the Zodiac just  published) we continue our discovery of Emma Hardinge Britten’s seminal works, here again from ‘Art Magic’ a sort of compendium of the occult-lore edited by her on the text of ‘a friend who wanted to remain anonymous‘ (Identified by some scholars as her late teacher, Chevalier Louis de B.)-but probably written mostly by her in 1876 and published privately after a successful fundraising campaign in New York up to the amount of +400 copies. Our copy is from the 1898 edition, by the Progressive Thinker Publishing House in Chicago. Excerpts are from part I, section IV. From page 42 to 53. We will publish soon, as God allows, some excerpts from her fascinating ‘Ghost Land’, which is a thrilling biography of her fore-mentioned mentor and friend. Last but not least, dear reader, keep in mind that this was written in 1876!

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THE MOST ANCIENT FORM OF WORSHIP-THE ASTRONOMICAL RELIGION, OR THE SUNBEAM SYSTEM-SOLAR AND ASTRAL GODS.

The shelves of any ordinary sized library could be entirely filled with fragments of literature concerning the worship of the ancients, and the peculiar character of those myths which have been preserved from the remotest days of antiquity, and now underlie all the present systems of theological belief.

It is a remarkable fact that, notwithstanding the vast collection of writings extant on this subject, there is no one compendious and accessible text-book from which the masses generally could derive reliable information and assimilate the knowledge thus widely diffused; and it is no less worthy of observation that, whilst the mythical character of early worship is stamped with unmistakable fidelity upon every form of modern theology, this damaging fact seems to make no difference in the idolatrous veneration with which the modern worshiper clings to the items of his faith; on the contrary, whilst the evidence accumulates around him, that the ideas to which he renders divine homage are paraphrases of ancient fictions, he all the more sturdily battles for his idol, and denounces every attempt to shake the authenticity of legends which he translates into divine revelations.

Perhaps it is for want of an authentic text-book; perhaps because the literature of the subject is too widely diffused and broken up into too many scattered fragments, that this apathy of idolatry prevails so universally, and that the common sense and intelligence of the nineteenth century is contented to bow down with purse and person before lifeless husks from which the spirit has departed; the husks which at best only contained in their original form the spirit of an impersonated myth.

It is not for the sake of converting one single idolator of the nineteenth century that we now write. It is not with the desire of proving to any sincere worshiper of the name of Christ that he is adoring the Sun-God of the ancients, that we now collect the torn fragments of the great Osiric body, and present a concrete, though necessarily microscopic view of the original structure. When the idolatries of fire-worship have done their work, their perversions will die the natural death which the divine order of the universe demands; until that time arrives, we write for the truth’s sake alone; let who will accept or reject us. Truth is “the Master’s Word,” which unlocks all mysteries, furnishes the clue to all religious beliefs, underlies the magical history of the race, and therefore its free enunciation is demanded in this work.

At what period the early man first commenced to worship the starry host of heaven, or in what nation the germ was first planted of that stupendous system which overlaid the earth with temples and survived all the wrecks of chance, change and time, none can say. We find the manifestation of its completeness only when humanity had acquired the art of recording its opinions in picture-writing, symbolical engravings, hieroglyphical and alphabetical Scriptures.

Traditions come wafted down the ages on the tongues of men with an impress as authoritative as graven Scriptures; for, ere (note: before) men had learned to record their thoughts, they depended on memory for their preservation; hence they cultivated and strengthened this faculty, held its integrity sacred, and hence the perpetuity and universality of oral traditions.

Tradition affirms that when the mind of man rose out of the lethargy of savagism to the dawn of reason, and became fired with all those anxious inquisitions into the nature of cause and effect, which reason prompts, he began to perceive that all the grand machinery of nature was coincident with the apparition and disappearance of the resplendent lights which spangled the canopy of the over-arching heavens. The God, whom his earliest perceptions recognized in the majestic Sun, was unquestionably the source of those climatic changes which formed the principal theme of his primal studies.

To cultivate the ground, feed and protect his flocks, and determine the best times to perform the simple duties of agriculturist and herdsman, it became necessary to study the succession of the seasons, and consider not only the familiar alternations of night and day, but the equally important order which marked the changes in tides and times, together with all the variations of climate, and their effects in heat and cold.

None could fail to observe that every change on the face of nature kept step with the succession of certain solar and astral phenomena.

From the early dawn of these perceptions, up to the maturity of the stupendous astronomical religion, man learned to read the fiery Scriptures of the skies, and the ever mobile face of nature, with a profound depth of understanding.

How many ages it required to outwork a complete theology from the book of nature and the starry heavens, man may never determine. Thought grows fast or slowly according to the amount of momentum that is imparted to it. The world is very old in relation to that succession of changes we call time.

Millions of years have been consumed in laying down the rocky walls that extend from the circumference to the interior of the earth’s crust. It occupied the world builders untold ages to develop a spear of moss or a tuft of lichen, from a mass of primary granite. Time is nothing in the issues of divine purposes; a second or a billion of years are but indices on the dial plates which mark the rounds of eternal progress, and since the first human worshiper veiled his adoring eyes in the passion of his soul’s communion with the Spirit who dwells in the orbs of primal light, up to the age when reverend scholarly men were set apart by the busy multitude to watch the order of marching worlds from the high towers of the early “episcopacy,” many successions of times, seasons, generations and ages had come and gone. The constellated heavens had been studied out; charts had been drawn; numerical Bibles written. The starry legions had been divided into geometrical proportions, and their motions calculated with mathematical proportions. Even the forward movement of the entire solar system around what science now asserts to be an undiscovered but inevitable centre, had been perceived, and the precession of the equinoxes was understood.

The whole grand scheme, involving the awful majesty of the Sun-God, the mild radiance of the moon, the glory of the fixed stars, the erratic motions of the wandering planets, the terrific apparition of fiery comets, flashing meteors, and the deep and unfathomable mystery of floating nebulae-all these, no less than their influence upon the fair, green earth, with its lofty mountains and shoreless seas, its sombre forests and quiet vales, its half-savage, half-divine inhabitants-all this realm of power and mystery, sublimity and littleness, solemn silence and restless eloquence, the ancient mind discovered, by thousands of years of patient and untiring study, to be all in motion-motion of one continuous and correspondential order-motion which swept “the heavens, and the earth, and all that in them is”, through regions of space, unknown and unknowable, but still defined to the piercing intelligence of the astronomical priesthood as one grand and interblended universe of Love, Wisdom and Power.

From the results of our forefathers’ sublime discoveries, from the mass of varied records they have left, and the fragmentary collections that we have gathered up of their wisdom, we give in the following pages a brief and most imperfect compendium of their religious belief. It is only necessary to consult the diagram of the heavens, as mapped out on any common almanac, school atlas or celestial globe, to perceive that the apparent path of the sun is laid down in an imaginary waving track called the Ecliptic. This path (assuming, as did the ancients, that the sun moves around the earth), crosses the equator or fanciful belt encircling the earth at two periods of time, which, by the relative positions of the sun towards the earth, divide up the solar year into winter and summer, and place the sun in the aspect of south and north towards the earth.

The path of the sun on the Ecliptic was defined by ancient astronomers between two lines, parallel to each other, sixteen degrees apart, the sun’s march being between them.

This space was, and still is, called the Zodiac. The Zodiacal circle was divided into three hundred and sixty degrees, these again into four right angles of ninety degrees each, and the whole into twelve signs, consisting each of thirty degrees. These signs were, with the ancients, arbitrary divisions of certain groups of stars called constellations. They were named chiefly in accordance with the climactic changes transpiring on the earth at the period when the sun was passing through them.

In January, now called the first month of the year, the sun passed through the constellation or group of stars called, from the season of storms and heavy rains that then prevail, Aquarius, the washer, or the Greek Baptizo.

In February he enters the sign of Pisces, or the Fishes, a time of famine, dearth, and distress, when the fruits and roots are consumed, and little is left to the primitive man but the spoil of the accumulating water.

In March the sun enters Aries the Lamb, significant of the young and tender products of the approaching Spring.

In April, when the energy of the agricultural season is to be typified, the constellated group through which the sun passes is called the Bull.

In May, when Summer and Winter are reconciled, and the sweet genial period of flowers and bloom seems to knit up the opposing seasons in fraternal harmony, the constellation then prevailing is called Gemini, or the ‘Twins.

In June, when the sun appears to undergo a retrograde motion significantly explained in astronomy, the sign in the ascendant is termed Cancer, or the Crab.

In July, the raging heat of the burning Summer suggests for the ascendant sign the significant title of the Lion, whilst the Virgin of August, the Scales of September, the Scorpion or Great Dragon of October, the Archer of November, and the Goat of December, are supposed to have somewhat more direct reference to fancied resemblances in the shapes of the constellations, than for the physical correspondence between their names and the climatic conditions of the earth.

Besides these subdivisions of the Zodiacal path, there were two other methods of marking the astronomical year. The first was the division of the whole twelve months into four seasons, each of which contained ninety degrees, and were symbolized by a special emblem, as-an Ox, a Lion, an Eagle, and a Man. The Ox denoted the agricultural pursuits of the Spring, the Lion the fierce heat of the Summer, the Eagle was adopted for certain symbolical reasons as a substitute for the Scorpion of Autumn, and the Man was still retained as the Winter emblem of Aquarius, or the water-bearer.

Added to this quaternal division of the year, were the two primal and opposing conditions of Summer and Winter, always held significant by the ancients of good and evil principles.

The most solemn and important periods of the astronomical year were when the Sun descended from the North at the close of Summer to cross the plane of the autumnal equinox, and that when he ascended from the South in the Spring to cross the vernal equinox. The first motion heralded death to the great light- bringer, famine and desolation to the earth; the second inaugurated the rejuvenating power of his triumph and glory in the promise of Spring, and the fulfillment of Summer. Slight as seems this foundation for a theology, it is on this only, that the superstructure of every theological system of the earth has been upreared.

Besides the general titles assigned to the twelve Zodiacal constellations, each separate star visible in the heavens, had its name, and was supposed to exert an influence peculiar to itself for good or evil upon mankind. Thus, all the stars through the plane of, or near which the sun passed in Summer were deemed to be beneficent and in harmony with the celestial traveller of the skies, favorable also to the inhabitants of earth to whom they aided in dispensing seed-time and harvest, fruits, flowers, and all manner of blessings. On the other hand, the stars of Winter were assumed to exert a malignant influence not only on the mighty Sun-God, whom they opposed, but also upon man and his planet, causing storms, tempests, pestilence, and famine. By these malignant astral influences, the gracious Sun was shorn of his heat-dispensing powers, and the hours of his illumination upon earth were shortened.

The majesty of Day was so obscured by the hosts of malignant Spirits, supposed to inhabit the wintry stars, that he vainly strove to contend against them. On the opposing spiritual forces inhabiting the Summer and Winter constellations, was founded the apocalyptic legend of “the war in heaven,” and endless flights of visionary astronomical myths.

In this celestial scheme every star became a symbol of some good or evil genius; every constellation was a realm, peopled by innumerable legions of beneficent or malignant angels, and the entire field of the sidereal heavens was made the battle-ground of infinite squadrons of opposing angelic influences.

On the earth the solar year was mapped out into grand subdivisions of time, in which the impersonated stars and their rival influences enacted a mighty drama with the Sun-God for its hero, the inhabitants of earth for an adoring audience, and a royal astronomical priesthood for its historians.

These ancient priests, called from their custom of studying the face of the heavens from high watch-towers, Episcopacy became in ages of practice familiar with every phase of the sublime epic they wrote. They occupied centuries in correcting their calendars and amending their Zodiacal charts. They invented thousands and tens of thousands of allegorical fables descriptive of the scenes, incidents and angelic personages of the celestial drama. They varied names, images and symbols to suit the progress of ideas in revolving ages, and invested their astral Gods with all the attributes which fervent Oriental fancy could suggest.

As an example of the leading ideas which prevailed throughout this stupendous system, it is proper to recite some of the main features which clustered around the supposititious history of the magnificent Sun-God. When this light-bringing luminary entered the sign of Aries, or the Lamb, in March, he was assumed to have crossed the vernal equinox and become the Redeemer of the world from the sufferings and privations of Winter. Then the earth and its inhabitants rejoiced greatly. The young Savior had entered upon his divine mission, bringing the earth out of darkness into light; miraculously healing the sick; feeding starving multitudes, and filling the world with blessing.

This triumphant career culminated to its fullest glory between the months of July and August, which, in the figurative language of the astronomical religion, was sometimes called the betrothal of the Virgin, sometimes the marriage feast of the Lion, of July, and the Virgin, of August. This was the season of the grape harvest, the time when the Sun converted, by its radiant heat, the waters which had desolated the earth in winter into the luscious wine of the vintage. When it was, as the ancient astronomers proclaimed, that the great miracle of the solar year was performed, and the Sun manifested forth his most triumphant glory.

From thence the constellation of the Scales, or the Balances, seemed for a time to maintain the celestial hero in a just and even path; his miraculous power and life-giving presence was hailed with feasts and rejoicings, which lasted until the fatal period when the Great Dragon of the Skies, the mighty Scorpio, of October, appears in the ascendant. Then sorrow and lamentation possessed the earth. The Savior of men must cross the autumnal equinox and from thence descend into the South-the Hades, Acheron, Sheol, Hell, Pit, of many ancient nations.

To announce the dire calamity at hand, the Dragon, of October, is preceded by a bright and glorious star called in the Spring Vesper, or the evening star; in autumn, Lucifer, or “the son of the morning.” In the sweet vernal season this splendid luminary is the herald of Summer, the brightest and most beautiful of all the heavenly host. When it appears high in the heavens, and occupies what is significantly called the seat of pride. Appearing in the boding season of Autumn, low on the edge of the horizon, and shining only in the early dawn, its name is changed with its station-it is now the fallen Angel; the mighty rebel, who seduced by pride and vaulting ambition, has been dethroned und cast down to the ominous depths of the lowest hell. Transformed into Lucifer, “Son of the Morning,” this star becomes the herald of the darkest ill that can beset the path of the celestial Savior. As it appears in advance of the great constellation of the Dragon, it is assumed to be the rebel Angel that incited “a third of the host of heaven to disobedience”; hence it is often confounded with the Dragon, of which, however, it is only the proto-type.

The constellation of the great Dragon is the most powerful of the entire Zodiac. From its peculiar form, and the immense group of shining stars that extend in the convolutions of its resplendent train, it has been called the Starry Serpent of the Skies. Its attendant luminaries are assumed to be that third of the host of heaven seduced by the rebel Angel from their allegiance, and its position as the inaugural constellation of the much- dreaded wintry season impresses upon it the ominous name of Satan, or the adversary. And thus, from the position of a group of stars, and their apparition in the season deemed fatal to the prosperity of earth and its inhabitants, has arisen that stupendous myth, that legend of world-wide fear, the supposititious existence. of an incarnate spirit of evil, the Satan of the Persians, the Typhon of Egypt, the Pluto of the Greeks, the old Serpent of the Jews, and the most popular of all objects of alternate fear and worship, the Devil of the enlightened Christians.

Following up the astronomical legend, we find the great Dragon of October waging its annual war against the Sun-God. By the influence of its leader, Lucifer, the celestial Sun-God has already been put to death in his crossifiction of the autumnal equinox; from thence he is cast down into the power of the two evil months-November and December-who are crucified with him on the autumnal equinox.

It is just at midwinter when Capricorn, the Goat-signifying in ancient mythical language the renewer of life-is in the ascendant, that the Sun-God reappears as a new-born babe.

In the fanciful imaginings of the astronomical historians, the cluster of stars which appear in the midwinter sky bear a resemblance to a manger or stable, whilst the fertile minds of the “episcopacy” discover the reappearance of the Virgin of Summer, with her companion, Bootes, or the constellation called Joseppe, or Joseph. For three days at midwinter the feeble radiance of the Sun appears to remain stationary, yet so greatly obscured, that the legend declares he descends to the nethermost parts of the universe and is lost to sight.

In the Greek theology this ‘three days of solar obscuration’ is accounted for by the descent of Orpheus into the realms of Pluto, where, by the magic of his sweet music, he is supposed to rescue lost souls from the very jaws of Hades. In the astronomical legend the vanished God is represented as going on a mission of mercy, to illuminate with his radiance the darkened souls who have been held captive in the realms of perdition. At length, on the 25th day of December, he reappears, and amidst the figurative paraphernalia of constellated stars then in the ascendant, he is declared to have been born in a manger through the maternity of the Zodiacal Virgin.

The women who have wept for Tammuz, the Syrian Sun-God, the mourners who have lamented with Isis for the Egyptian Osiris, the Greeks who have wandered with Ceres in search of the lost Proserpina., the devotees who have wailed for the slain Chrishna, one of the Sun-Gods of the Hindus, and the Marys who weep at the sepulcher for the Christ of the Jews, all the nations of antiquity throughout the Orient-each of whom, under many names and in many forms, have adored the Sun-God, and believed in his annual birth, life, miracles, death and resurrection-all have united to celebrate the new birth of their idol on the 25th of December, the period at which the solar orb actually passes through the constellation of the Zodiacal sign Capricorn, or “the renewer of life.” After the 25th of December, the legend again loses sight of its new-born Savior.

In all Eastern theogonies Egypt is represented as the land of darkness and the symbol of obscurity. During the prevalence of the two constellations of January and February, it is supposed that antagonistic influences threaten the young child’s life. The royal power of Winter, with its storms and tempests, is in the ascendant, hence the world’s Redeemer is in danger from a mighty King. To avert the evil, the young child is carried by stealth to the land of Egypt; there in concealment he remains until the season of danger has passed, when he recrosses the equator at the vernal equinox, ascending from the southern depth of Egypt into the light and glory of an acknowledged worker of miracles. Again, the earth rejoices in the presence of the young Lamb of Spring, who “taketh away the sins of the world,” and redeems it from the famine, desolation and evils of the past Winter. From this time forth the Sun-God proclaims “peace on earth, and good will to men,” and fulfills his promise in miracles of healing, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and bringing life and plenty to all.

On taking a retrospective glance at this famous myth, it will be seen that the Sun-Goo is its central figure, and his passage through the constellated stars of the Zodiac, together with the peculiar changes of atmosphere, climate, and natural productions effected on earth by solar and astral configurations, form the connected woof of the celestial drama.

Next in importance in the mythical history is the impersonation of the Virgin Mother of the Sun-God. This constellated figure is assumed to hold in her hand a sprig, Hewer, or fruit, which she extends in the attitude of invitation to a minor constellation, named Bootes, Joseppe or Joseph, who from its proximity to the Virgin of Summer, is sometimes impersonated as her betrothed, sometimes as the Father of men, Adam, yielding to the seductions of Eve, tempting him by the extended fruit she holds in her hand. The next, and not least important figure in the legend is the impersonation of the evening star of Spring transformed from an angel of light into Lucifer, the leader of the rebel hosts and the morning star of Autumn.

This evil star is followed by another important actor in the Astral Drama, namely, the great Dragon, the antagonistic power of all systems, by whom the beneficent Sun-God is put to death on the cross of the autumnal equinox; crucified between the two evil wintry constellations prevailing in November and December. According to an ancient Sabean tradition, one of these evil angels, symbolized by the Goat of December, repented him of the wrong done to the sinless God who was crucified with him, hence he becomes at first the hoary sign of Winter, the Goat, who participates in the death of the beloved Sun, and then the friend of the dying God, sheltering him in his manger, and protecting the fruitful Virgin in her hour of parturition. This phase of the legend. like thousands of others, is doubtless an attempt to reconcile the antagonistic characteristics of the wintry sign, during which the Sun is lost, with the favorable aspect of the same constellation in the last part of his month of power, when he is represented as ushering the new-born God into being, under the title of the renewer of life.

Endless are the fantasies of this kind interwoven with the Zodiacal legend. The discoveries of each succeeding age afforded to the astronomical priesthood a boundless field for the exercise of their favorite method of symbolical expression, thus, whilst we always find the main ideas of the scheme preserved intact, the divergent branches of ideality which spring forth from the parent root are in truth a realization of the parable of the mustard seed of the Jewish Scriptures. In the paraphrase of the Christian history of the Sun-God, the writers represent one of the thieves crucified with the Savior of mankind as becoming penitent at the last dread hour of death-Jesus, in allusion to his approaching new birth, answers him, “to-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise:’ This is a highly ingenious and creditable mode of disposing of the difficulty which ancient astronomers experienced in representing the constellation of December at once antagonistic and favorable to the dying God. The Capricorn of Winter shares the Sun-God’s evil fate, but becomes favorable to him in the hour of his new birth in “Paradise.” We have now brought the legend up to that point when it is to recommence with the renewal of the Zodiacal history.

The Sun of righteousness is now to be re-born in the stable of the Goat, through the maternity of the immaculate Virgin, and thus the light of the world, the Lamb of Spring, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the good master of the twelve Zodiacal Apostles, is ever sacrificed, that he may take away the sins of the world, and ever restored to life, that all may have hope of immortality in his resurrection, etc., etc., etc.

It would indeed be “vanity and vexation of spirit” to attempt to discover the exact order in which the antique mind first clothed the starry heavens with these fantastic symbolisms, and yet we must not suppose that the exoteric meaning of which we have given a brief sketch, is the all of this ancient and most wonderful faith.

Later on in this volume we shall see that every symbol has a correspondential spiritual meaning, and that the esoteric philosophy veiled under this mass of symbolism is the real heart of its religious significance. These explanations, however, we must reserve for the present.

How the ancients ultimately evolved an exoteric scheme from the external face of nature and its correspondential relations to the spangled heavens, can be no marvel to those who will consider their wisest and best minds as devoted, during the course of thousands of years, to this one grand field of observation.

The origin, growth and perfection of such a system is far less problematical than is the conduct of modern theologians in reference to it. So long as the famous astronomical religion was practiced and taught amongst those nations whom Christians contemptuously denominate “the heathen,” it was denounced by them as the vilest of idolatries, but at the point where they attempt to build up a theology of their own, they first begin by stealing the astronomical myth, then transpose its origin to a far later date, rechristen its personages, locate them in fresh birth-places, declare them to be genuine personalities, invest them with the most sacred names and attributes, fall down and worship them, and then call upon the name of the Most High God as a witness to the credibility of their audacious fictions.

In consideration of the vast and cumulative mass of testimony which the discoveries of archaeology and philology supply us with, concerning the foundation of all theological systems, the idolatry of the nineteenth century puts to shame the devotion of humanity’s infancy to myth and mysticism.

The antique man would blush for the mendacity of the modern Priesthood, who not only steal the images of their forefathers’ creation, but, reclothing them with the tinsel and varnish of ecclesiastical trumpery, set them up in shrines to worship as the legitimate offspring of divine inspiration.

With those who have dared to dispute the authenticity of these monstrous fabrications, the Christian world has offered no other arguments than fire and sword, torture and denunciation; and as the culminating point of the monstrous wrong which modern Priestcraft has perpetrated on the people, by foisting on them the myths of antiquity as genuine subjects for worship, it hesitates not to affix the awful name of that God who is a spirit, not only, as above stated, in witness of their blasphemous plagiarisms, but as an actual participator in a Drama, which, if removed from the realm of myth to actuality, would subvert every law of reason, decency, justice, or morality, that has ever been promulgated since time began.

We commenced this section by affirming that if all the fragments that have been written on the history of the Sun-God and the order of the astronomical religion were gathered together, they would fill a library. Our only regret is, that the present hour does not furnish us with the opportunity to give to the world a thorough but compendious aggregation of these severed fragments in one concrete body of testimony. We can only glance at them now; but we may not altogether omit to notice them, for, ere we can describe the origin, progress and development of the spiritual idea of which Art Magic is, in part, the external form, we must give the outlines of that religious system in which the human spirit took shape, as in a matrix; in which its conceptions were first unfolded, and from which its aspirations radiated forth in the insatiate demand for spiritual bread.

At this present writing, we only feel justified in raising the veil sufficiently to show the first point of contact between God and Man, the Creator and the Creature, Religion-the Body and Spiritualism-the Soul of the Universe; but we reserve to ourselves the duty (God inspiring and mortal span of life permitting) of inscribing a volume in the future, wherein shall he shown, in its completeness, how the seraphim of the ancients were fashioned, and how the moderns have stolen and worshiped them: when, and in what mode, ideas descended to man in the past from the starry heavens, and in what absurd perversions the Priesthood of the present endeavor to plant those ideas in divine soil, until the abomination of desolation sits in the holy places of human thought, and scientific, reasoning men, and pious, pure-minded women, worship a God whose example, if imitated, would fill the earth with monsters of injustice, impurity and wickedness.

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