Francis Warain,

picture frontispiece

in ‘La Théodicée de la Kabbale’,

Editions Véga, 1949.

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Today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA is an article by Francis Warrain, originally published in Pierre Piobb’s annual review of esoteric sciences, ‘L’Année Occultiste et Psychique‘, 2e Année (1908), published in Paris in 1909 by H. Daragon. The journal’s scope — spanning arithmology, astrology, alchemy, and psychism — reflects the interdisciplinary, scientifically framed esotericism of the era.

Here Piobb presents Warrain’s latest research and quotes material that the author sent him for publication. Warrain belonged to a small but influential circle of early twentieth-century French esotericists—including Charles Henry, Piobb, and others—who sought to reconcile mysticism with science.

Warrain’s work anticipates later developments in musical cosmology (e.g., Hans Kayser, Rudolf Steiner’s theory of tone), vibrational astrology (including modern forms of “astro-acoustics”), and esoteric mathematics (such as Gurdjieff’s “law of octaves”).

His contribution lies in a mathematically structured zodiac mapped onto the chromatic scale; a vibrational cosmology in which planetary motion induces waves in space; a successive rather than harmonic model, grounded in fifths rather than overtones; and a physics of consciousness that unifies motion, time, and energy. The result is a form of scientific esotericism—rigorous, non-superstitious, and profoundly symbolic.

Warrain—from 1867 to 1940, spanning the collapse of the old cosmologies into the new—deserves such careful attention. His is a modern hermeticism, rigorous and poetic at once.

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Considerations On The Zodiac &

The Cyclical Representation Of Musical Notes

The study of the zodiac is among those currently pursued with the greatest assiduity. The works undertaken on the circle itself and their various applications are gradually elucidating the astrological data of the Ancients.

One must consider the zodiac as a circle in itself, if one wishes to grasp its entire mechanism. One must especially separate it clearly from the constellations and regard it as generated by the Earth’s trajectory around the Sun. In practice, we reverse the real datum by the apparent one, and take the Sun’s trajectory around the Earth. Moreover, we neglect the eccentricity of this trajectory and study it as a perfect circle.

This is not to say that these two considerations should not also be taken into account. But, given the current state of science and for the convenience of reasoning, we are obliged to reason thus. Later, when we are in complete possession of this fundamental element — the circle — we may then concern ourselves with the elliptical form of the Earth’s orbit.

Mr. F. WARRAIN, continuing his work in higher mathematics, asked himself whether it might not be legitimately possible to represent the zodiac by the order of fifths or by some musical scale.

The condition, which seems indispensable for any representation by a musical cycle, is to realize differences of quality through a successive operation, such that the results depend on the succession itself. Here are the notes he sent me:

‘If the zodiac is assimilable to any musical scale, the scale of fifths will necessarily yield an approximation as to the value of the notes. Nevertheless, one may hesitate between modes of generation, for the same approximate notes are obtained through the generation of fifths, through that of harmonics, through that of thirds, tones, semitones, etc. But the generation of thirds, tones, and semitones is closely linked to that of fifths and derives from the same successive principle: to exceed the geometric mean, to realize the arithmetic mean.

The generation of harmonics, on the other hand, must be set aside. I have shown, following Mr. CHARLES-HENRY, that it is suited to the simultaneous: it is given by the instantaneous division of a vibrating string by the sequence of numbers; if one examines the zodiac from this point of view, one finds an indefinite development that has nothing cyclical about it. Indeed, harmony always interprets notes regardless of the octave in which they are placed, and often redistributes among several octaves what belongs to a single one.

The zodiac must be characterized by the successive. Now, in the successive, it is evidently the development of the fifth that is best suited, being founded on the unit of velocity properly so-called.”

Starting from this principle and always following a rigorously scientific reasoning, Mr. F. WARRAIN arrives at the following conclusion:

“It seems that each sign of the zodiac corresponds to a semitone, such that each triplicity is formed by major thirds; the interval of the fifth will comprise 210°, that of the fourth 150°‘.

We shall thus have the following correspondences:

‘But here, the notes matter little. Fa was taken as the base and Re as the center, so as to be equidistant from sharps and flats. Nevertheless, one should investigate whether the second is the natural unit of time, and then establish a correspondence of notes to zodiacal signs such that the first,

,the simplest whole number of vibrations per second. Only this coincidence would permit attributing a true meaning to the designations of the notes. For the moment, saying Fa, Sol, La, etc., is merely to say 1st, 2nd, 3rd… note in the order of tones‘.

Whatever the case, despite the embryonic state of this remarkable discovery, several important considerations arise:

1. The total circle of the zodiac forms only one octave;

2. The entry of the Sun or any planet into a sign may be considered as the setting into vibration of a string of a given determined length;

3. Each sign corresponds to a musical note evaluated according to the interval of the fifth, and corresponding, for each twelfth of the circumference, to the whole powers of the fifth reduced to the octave;

4. Abstracting from the physical medium and the fields of force encountered therein, one may say that the mere fact of circular displacement must produce vibrations corresponding to the powers of the absolute unit of velocity; thus, the cause of all vibration in space — energy — would consist in this fundamental relation of space to time as a function of an individual consciousness; this is the solution to the problem of motion, whose true cause would be energy itself.”

These four propositions, clearly established, supplement those derived from the theory of the solar world considered as an electromagnetic field, according to the works of Paul Flambart and E.-C.

One may then imagine the solar world as a sort of dynamo in which the planets and the Sun generate currents according to their respective natures.

These currents — or, to speak more accurately, these waves — are differentiated according to the zodiacal point where the inducing celestial body is located. The result is vibrations analogous to musical vibrations, which the Earth, playing the role of the induced, receives. And it is from the combined play of these various vibrations that the general determinism of all terrestrial phenomena proceeds.

Such is the fundamental and rational theory of astrology; it will likely constitute the basis of a new science, which, resuming the work of the Ancients with modern positivist methods, will have in common with astrology only its subject.

Pierre Vincenti Piobb reporting for

‘L’Année Occultiste et Psychique‘.

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Source

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Appendix:

A Visualization of Francis Warrain’s

Musical-Zodiacal Theory 

Warrain’s theory itself is elegantly austere (pure ratios generating cosmic order through motion), so the visualization honors intellectual clarity without Baroque excess.

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