Above, Below and In-Between
AUTHOR’S NOTE: “As above, so below” is a cornerstone of esoteric thought in the Hermetic tradition. According to this theory, life on Earth is a mirror or “microcosm” of the spiritual realm, or “macrocosm.” Humans could therefore be viewed as approximate (and perhaps distorted) replicas of the perfect beings who inhabit the more numinous levels of existence, a premise that underlies many orthodox religions (“original sin,” anyone?) as well as Qabalistic theology (to its credit, Buddhism assumes that we have nothing to atone for — we’re born innocent and can only become more corrupt if we don’t cleave to that purity through self-discipline).
But while thinking about it more critically I realized that there is actually a three-fold partition in this philosophical concept. Our experience of consciousness is only a “middle ground” in the cosmic scheme that is perched precariously above a yawning gulf of unseen forces; there is a great deal going on beneath the surface that has much to say about who we really are and who we might become if we can harness and ride those seminal currents. This is the twilight zone of the astral plane that is the portal to the Unconscious and the “world of dreams” but also the fertile ground of divination, the goal of which is to assist in making dreams come true (as well as fending off nightmares).
In occult cosmology it is the sphere of the Moon, which is usually seen as situated between the Earth and the Sun and thus as the true “middle ground” of our individuality, but I would argue that we can’t ascend without going inward, and that can involve some deep delving (although the proponents of unquestioning faith might consider this to be going away from the Light and consequently in the wrong direction). I should also mention before continuing that I’m not a fan of protracted navel-gazing except to the extent that it can help us “break on through to the other side.”
In practicing divination we may in fact only be probing the dark underbelly of our own waking reality, the private, personal and entirely subjective landscape of the subconscious mind that informs all “shadow work.” Modern mystics will cry “foul” in their certainty that the subconscious is actually a channel to a higher source of wisdom, in particular the Divine, and if we have the purest of intentions while divining we will automatically obtain unimpeachable foreknowledge. Personally, I’ve never been convinced of this because astral misapprehensions are always “lurking on the threshold,” although as a spiritual wanderer and part-time “hedge mystic” (I hang out on the fringes where the wild solipsists are) I allow the possibility.
As I see it, “subconscious induction” is the first stop on the soothsayer’s itinerary. In cartomancy, querents imprint the cards with their presentiment or latent awareness of the circumstances that will emerge in the narrative of a reading. Deep down, they “know” what’s coming even though they can’t consciously express it, and the act of shuffling the deck coaxes that insight into the arrangement of the cards. Where that prescience ultimately comes from is an open question, but it at least surfaces at the tactile interface between the mind and the hands.
In that sense I sometimes feel like a metaphysical quarry-man chipping away at a mother-lode of foresight concealed in the sitter’s psychological bedrock. While I don’t think cartomancy of any kind is especially proficient at mind-reading, in this case the querent is willingly executing a subconscious “brain dump” into the cards so I’m prepared to meet it half-way. My task is to correctly translate that subliminal sign-language into words that have relevance to the querent’s experience of forthcoming events. That, in a nutshell and in my personal opinion, is what divination is all about.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on September 17, 2023.
