Notes on the dark side of Selene symbolism, from Plutarch's "De facie in orbe lunae" to Renรฉ Guรฉnon and Stanislas de Guaita
di Renzo Giorgetti
originally published on Heliodromos
image: illustration from the โBook of Eclipsesโ, Germany, XNUMXth century
"... too much light will never spread to dissipate all the emanations from the" Dark Satellite ""
The enigmatic phrase with which Renรฉ Guรฉnon concludes the preface of hisย Erreur spirits it constitutes a clear example of symbolic language, an expressive modality that communicates in its conciseness a series of different but univocal meanings, all referring to the same theme, albeit on different levels and with different values. But having the ability to interpret that language, possessing its key so to speak, one will be able to understand all the more or less hidden meanings that that expression collects in itself, in its stratification and symbolic variety.
In the context of the work in question, the value of that expression is in fact important, as are the exact words used which, as we shall see, are by no means random, referring to precise references.
The activity of spiritism carries with it considerable risks, residing above all in passive contact with elements of the so-called intermediate world, consisting of residual parts of aggregates now in a state of dissolution, without any value for an authentic path of spiritual growth. The place, understood as the "state of being", from which these influences filter is its own the so-called "dark satellite", the "infernal moon", symbolized by the cone of shadow that the Earth projects into cosmic space in opposition to the rays of the Sun.
Before continuing, a brief reference to the lunar symbolism will be useful. The Moon, as we know, is the "first dead", the star that disappears and then reappears renewed; therefore its links with changes, vital rhythms, changes of state and form are known. The Moon presides over the formation of organisms, but also their decomposition [1]. On the one hand, it is the kingdom of the dead, a refuge for dissolving forms of life, but on the other, it is also a place of regeneration, in which new forms come to life, to perpetuate the perpetual circle of existence. This symbolism was well known from the earliest times, eventually finding in the De facie in orbe lunae di Plutarch its most accomplished expression.
The Moon, lady of life and death, is the place where souls find their - temporary - stay before continuing their journey to other destinations [2]:
ยซEvery soul, irrational or rational, once it has left the body is destined to wander in the space between the earth and the moon for a variable period. The unjust and unbridled souls pay the penalty for their sins; the virtuosos just need to spend in the mildest part of the air, the so-called meadows of Hades, a fixed time, suitable to cleanse and purify them from the miasmas that emanate from the body as from an unhealthy breath. "
The fate is different according to the value of the souls, their particular "specific weight". If the meadows of Hades are reserved for some, the abyss of Hecate belongs to others [3]:
"... as our land contains deep and extensive gulfs - on this side there is the one that penetrates us through the pillars of Heracles, on the outside are the Caspian and the recesses of the Red Sea, - so those features are the depth and concavity of the moon. The largest of these has a name "Withdrawal of Hecate" and it is the place where the souls pay and receive the penalty of what they suffered or committed after becoming demons; the two elongated ones are called "doors" and the souls pass through them now in the direction of the lunar face turned to the sky, now on the contrary directed to the one facing the earth. "
This abyss is a dark region where the soul suffers, cleansing itself of the residues of the past life, a stay of trial, of dissolution and liberation from waste. [4]:
ยซThat the moon measures the shadow of the earth with a few of its diameters does not depend on the small size of the shadow itself but on the ardent impetus with which it hastens its course to rapidly cross the dark region, in order to extract the souls of the good; and in the meantime these shout and pursue because in the shadows they are no longer able to feel the celestial harmony. At the same time, the souls of purgatives rise up along the shadow between groans and laments. "
A sort of Purgatory therefore, but also a real hell for those who are unable to free themselves, still tied to terrestrial desires or by now irretrievably misled.ย These themes taken up and abundantly developed by Stanislas de Guaita in his monumental La clef of the Magic Black, a work on which Guรฉnon will draw on several occasions for his Erreur spirits. The theme of posthumous fate of the subtle compounds of the human being and their relationship with the Earth's planetary environment. Traditional ideas find their development and a complete arrangement: the Plutarchic themes are linked to the modern themes of psychism and mediumship [5]:
"TheBrute soul, this low region of the human and cosmic psyche [โฆ] this orb, real and symbolic at the same time, which surrounds the planet and gravitates around us; the dark satellite (as the adepts of a wise Western fraternity call it): here is the common reserve of the souls of non-incarnate animals - and the magical receptacle of a pseudo-spirituality, more lethal to the soul than all the abject materialism of contemporary theophobic scholars. "
All the residual elements that are stationed in the shadow are therefore a real reservoir, an inorganic set of forces, currents and wills which, in various ways, interfering with the human world can lead to disorder and confusion of all kinds [6]:
"Other souls, in smaller numbers, do not react, but accept, without trying to get out of it, the miserable condition in which they are, and thus perpetuate their passing test aspiring to nothing but to feed on terrestrial exhalations [...] Such are the Elementary which sometimes manifest themselves during sรฉances [...] On the other hand, to manifest themselves on the objective level, the Elementaries need, like other lemurs, the psychic strength that they normally lack, so they drink as much as possible from the equivocal source and often muddy of mediumship. "
This "cosmic environment", in its underworld dimension, is therefore reserved for entities that fully manifest theirs infra-human nature in "trading their immortal inheritance for a fiefdom of iniquity in the realm of the" Dark Satellite ", and becoming the legionaries of the Shadow, the evil demons of the lower magnetic orb" [7]. The question, therefore, goes beyond the simple and contingent theme of spiritism, involving much more important elements even if not easy to identify, given their being and acting occult.
Given the difficulty in fully defining the scope of the emanations of the "Dark Satellite", it is however possible to make a fundamental distinction between them in two broad categories. First of all that of simple Strength, larval elements, "complex of the lower elements that the being has somehow left behind" [8] in search of objectification, of contacts with what was the reality to which they once belonged. Secondly, that of beings, intelligent and personal, of not necessarily human origin, who manipulate these forces for their purposes (vital or hegemonic) in their relations with the world of men [9].
And it is from this point of view that we can speak of counter-initiation, contact and bonding, through a "chain", of men with non-material realities, linked to the pseudo-spirituality of the most low cosmic psychism. As it reminds us de Guaita, are just the [10]:
"...bad daimones who become the masters and initiators of the black magicians down here, being able, thanks to their accomplices living on earth, to always obtain new supplies of available strength. "
Every terrestrial association reflects a similar one, in the Invisible, governed by the same forces. It is about circles operating, which act practically through procedures that can be defined as magical, mostly aimed at creating and spreading currents of ideas and images, thoughts that the multitudes will then believe their ownย (We can get an idea of โโhow these circles can operate with the scene described in canto LXXIV of the fantastic tale The Crocodile by Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin).
It is the famous creation of รฉtats d'espritย which Guรฉnon will treat in 1914 in a precise manner in his own reflections ร propos du "Power Occult ", considering it as a real infection, clearly psychic, which has nothing natural or spontaneous. Here is the second and most serious emanation of the "Dark Satellite", the one from which, especially today, we are completely unaware and defenseless.
Note:
[1] In this regard, see chapter IV of Treatise on the history of religions by Mircea Eliade, in particular ยงยง 53-54.
[2] Plutarch, The face of the moon, Milan, Adelphi, 1991, p. 109.
[3] Idem, P. 111.
[4] Idem, P. 111.
[5] S. de Guaita, La Clef de la Magice Noire, Paris, Carrรจ, 1897, p. 354. Our translation.
[6] Idem, pp. 611-612.
[7] Idem, P. 613.
[8] R. Guรฉnon, Error of spiritism, Milan-Trento, Luni, 1998, p. 60.
[9] In this regard, see also the writing by Arvo entitled On the "counter-initiation"in ย Introduction to magic, vol. 1, edited by the Ur Group, Rome, Mediterranee, 1987, pp. 257-266. See also M. Maculotti,ย Who is hiding behind the mask? Visits from Elsewhere and the paraphysical hypothesis, on AXIS mundi.
[10] S. de Guaita, Idem, P. 612.
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