The meditations on the Zodiac are sometimes referred to by the ancient Greeks as the Labors, or Trials, of Hercules. This system of meditation has an interesting history that is encoded in popular myth. As is usually the case, this is a cover for another man’s esoteric experience.
Astrology has been a potent source of inspiration for millennia. The guidance provided is profound and has given countless practitioners information from the divine. What if I told you that you could harness this directly? Instead of using a talisman, or sacred symbol, you could be the talisman.
All of the Zodiac constellations have a three-part representation. They are related to their Zodiac proper, a planet and an element. This sounds a lot like some of the Kabbalistic letter meditations of Franz Bardon, no?
Well, that is because this is exactly what it is. The symbol of a given constellation provides a sigil. The planet provides a power. And the element generates a sensation. Combine the three and you get letter magic with direction.
Some older hard to find sources from the Greek era even posit that the Zodiac is ultimately beneficent and that the planets are ultimately maleficent. And in stacking these, the powers of the Zodiac temper the more negative nature of the planets.
As a practical matter this is fairly easy to understand and requires little in the way of philosophy let alone doctrine.
The constellations of the Zodiac are far removed from human existence. So far, in fact, that they exert an almost exclusively mental level of influence. In essence, they temper what happens below by directing the effects in a given direction. That is not to say that they cannot be engaged from a negative, or shadow, direction, but that doing so would take real effort. The fact that they are all made up of stars also reinforces their positive attributes.
The planets differ in that they have a very strong gravitational, and hence astral, level of influence. This astral, or energetic or sensation if you will, based part of their nature is where the trouble starts. By virtue of having a strong astral nature this leads not only to dualism, but also to the creation of, and support given to, egregores. Yes….once again the buildup of millennia of practice raises its head.
Finally, the elemental association ground the power into the physical via the raw sensation aspect.
To sum up, the Zodiac goes into your mental field, the planet into your astral field and the element into your etheric/vital field.
Now this is where it all gets interesting. Throughout the ancient world and well up into the Renaissance whole systems of Zodiac based medicine existed. All of the Zodiac constellations have direct associations with various parts of the body, as do the planets and the letters of Franz Bardon’s Kabbalah.
By learning to work with the Zodiac, you can also work with your body. For example, Gemini works with the arms, hands, and lungs.
The various properties of the individual constellations of the Zodiac are fairly well known and provide a good template for exploring the issue.
The real question is how to do this. As this is a meditation blog that is the primary approach this program will take. That said, the medium of astrology is a more traditional path with the use of charged talismans as a significant secondary method.
As a largely mental level phenomenon the effects of the Zodiac are most easily trained in a seated meditative posture. However, they don’t have to be trained that way.
The SixtySkills Master course provides a good comprehensive methodology, but depending upon the goals of a practitioner the whole skillset is not needed.
It can be reviewed here: Master Course (perseusarcaneacademy.com)
For example, if someone is primarily interested in information, then the visionary experiences attained from seated meditation work well. And this will be the primary method trained in the upcoming series of initiations.
If someone is interested in improving their control of astral level phenomena, then they can train the Zodiac using what is essentially chi gung/yogic energetic practices. This includes things like holding posture and pranayama. Conducting things like the walking and weightlifting exercises while channeling the energy of the Zodiac is another example of this. While the Zodiac is mostly mental in nature it will dribble down into the astral and generate effects there.
If someone is mostly interested in physical effects, then the rite of the Eucharist via charging, and subsequently, imbibing elixirs, and food, provides the most efficient way of doing this. Classically speaking, this was a major effort of the alchemists.
Astrologically, because people had to rely upon ambient energies, timing and the day of the year were very important. Ritual also fed back into this as well. This approach works well but can be time consuming and definitely limits the flexibility of the method.
The internal power method taught at SixtySkills allows for a practitioner to overcome this to varying degrees. To be sure, conducting a Virgo invocation will be much more effective if conducted in late August through mid-September. But it does not have to work this way when a practitioner uses their physical body to generate the force in question.
Using the body as the talisman, because it provides its own energy source, versus an inanimate object that has to leverage ambient forces allows for things to be done as needed. If attempting to influence a given situation or heal the body this is quite convenient. It also circumvents the need to build up an energetic charge for use that is quickly exhausted.
But it does come with the limitation that it is draining on the human being, or group if done in a lodge setting, in general.
If you want to learn about more pathways to practice: Pathways to Practice – SixtySkills
The course will be taught as a 13-week program. The twelve constellations of the Zodiac will be taught once a week. This will allow for participants to work with a given energy, recover and generate questions for the following week. The 13th week will be used to cover a fusion exercise of the individual constellations that permits a practitioner to funnel the combined powers of the Zodiac all at once.
Follow-on material is available, but what is taught next will largely be a result of student requests and audience involvement.
The whole series starts August 27th 2023 at 1pm (NYC time). I look forward to meeting everyone. Reservations can be made here: Meditations on the Zodiac: The Trials of Hercules Tickets, Multiple Dates | Eventbrite
