No Man’s Land: Thoughts on the Astral Plane
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve been reading about the work of Chalcidius, the 4th-Century CE Christian translator and commentator on Plato’s Timaeus who, along with his 12th-Century interpreter, French theologian Alain de Lille (Alanus ab Insulis), subscribed to Plato’s “Principle of the Triad” in concluding that God does not engage directly with Man, but solely through invisible intermediaries who occupy the aerial and (by some accounts, aetheric) realms above the Earth, the first being sublunar and the second translunar.
As C.S. Lewis noted in The Discarded Image, the Platonists believed that every inch of sublunar space is inhabited by sentient beings (Greek daemons, later replaced by Christian angels), so there is no room for the existence of a vacant zone or “no-man’s-land” across which deity and humanity might privately face one another, da uomo a dio (at least not since Moses, but even he had to talk to a hijacked burning bush). The supernal regions are crowded with an on-call cadre of minor celestial functionaries ready to deliver the Divine decree, although this concept of a numinous “Department of Spiritual Services” full of supernatural bureaucrats may be a little too unorthodox for modern Christians
Alanus proposed that the supreme architect and overlord resides at the heart of a great city, while the daemonic/angelic emissaries form an executive council that gathers on the fringes, from which ambit they sally forth into the phenomenal world, intent on their mission. Denied access, corporeal humans are camped outside the walls, awaiting favor; Lewis likened us to “anthropoperipheral suburbanites,” and “creatures of the Margin.” This is eerily akin to the status of those diviners who try to “pierce the Veil” with their intuitive prognostication. Lacking a key and a map of the city, they have imagined a host of entities whom they trust to coach them in finding the way, variously identified as spirit guides, angels, ascended wayshowers or lightworkers, friendly faeries, avatars, ancestors and archetypes (nobody dares use the perfectly legitimate word daemon).
As a one-time student and practitioner of the more rarefied forms of esoterica, I’ve had occasion to explore the Astral Plane via the acts of “scrying in the spirit vision” and assuming the “Body of Light” or astral vehicle for out-of-body forays. Even though I was never too comfortable going full-tilt with my mystical excursions because I could rarely summon the required “suspension of disbelief” (and therefore wasn’t very good at either one), I knew what I was dealing with.
What I learned is that — unless we are accomplished masters adept at “rising on the planes” — we won’t attain the higher reaches of spiritual consciousness without first entering and passing through the Lower Astral domain of the Moon by way of “portals.” This middle region is the home of countless sub-aetheric entities of various persuasions and it is the customary field of operation for those supposedly sympathetic allies we strive to enlist in our cause.
I’ve always felt that this is an inhospitable (and occasionally inimical) place, most assuredly not the enchanted Otherworld of Celtic myth and Victorian fairy-tales, so it’s difficult to envision “God’s warriors” (Alanus’ name for the agents we know as helpful spirits) establishing their “forward command post” within its borders. Maybe we have to get past the gatekeepers of the entry level and advance into the Upper Astral before we meet them. But I’m not sure how many tarot readers who rely on psychic inspiration from spiritual sources are even aware that there are tiers of increasing subtlety, so they just accept at face value the tidings they receive on first encounter with whomever (or whatever) approaches them.
This is why I cringe inwardly when someone begins a tarot conversation with “My guides told me . . . “ It’s conceivable that, like Terry Pratchett’s literary personification of DEATH (always mentioned in caps), the heavy-hitters are on vacation or have returned home for a conference with the Boss when we call on them, and their perverse granddaughter is staffing the help desk (having banished DEATH’s sensible granddaughter, Susan): “Hello, I’m Wednesday Addam’s, and I’m here to assist you with your inquiry! This is my trusty sidekick, Beetlejuice.”
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on December 1, 2024.
