Antoine Faivre’s Esoterology and the Techne of the Stars

by Shelley Jordan

Orphaned in the wake of the colossal epistemological crisis of the scientific revolution, astrology has long been adrift among the various disciplines of the modern era. In search of a reputable host epistémè to bolster its legitimacy and confidence, astrology has been subjected to tests and analysis, its alleged effects endlessly measured and quantified, all to no avail. Even the tantalizing promise of a 20th century scientific astrology, so thoroughly documented in Geoffrey Dean's meticulous Recent Advances in Natal Astrology, has apparently vanished under closer scrutiny as astrology continues to fail the initiatic rigors of the scientific mentality.

However, at the other end of the intellectual spectrum, in the spiritual arena of human endeavor, astrology readily finds a compatible resonance and a harmonious fit. It is in the rich flow of humanity's spiritual thoughtstreams that astrology has maintained its secured position. With its ancient conceptual roots firmly situated in the great currents of occidental esotericism, astrology has no need for an embarrassed self-justification - its practitioners need only to educate themselves about their discipline's dignified heritage and the metaphysical impetus which fostered its beginnings as one of the world's earliest systems of self-knowledge.

At the forefront of esoteric scholarship, the inestimable work of Antoine Faivre provides the seeker with some of the most rewarding jewels to be found in this emergent field. Faivre holds the chair of Modern Western Esoteric Currents at the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne. For the first time, this innovative discipline, so integral to the vast field of Religious Studies, is being examined as a legitimate area of our Western cultural heritage. With the majority of Faivre's intimidatingly voluminous oeuvre written in French, we are fortunate to have some of his efforts translated into English.

Faivre orients the reader in the vast landscape of esotericism by mapping out the three major rivers of thought which nourish this ensemble of discourses. These fertile rivers are the three traditional cosmological sciences: astrology, alchemy and magic (as in Renaissance magia). Faivre observes that these three great rivers, far from running dry, have flowed well into the present era, and should not be perceived as a reaction against today's dominant epistémè. On the contrary, he speculates that the esoteric quest might be a fervent expression of one of the two poles of the human spirit's efforts to actualize itself. These poles of thought, positioned at the extremes of the intellectual spectrum, are the mythic-poetic and the scientific-rational, the former category being the domain of the esoteric impulse.

While Faivre is not an historian of the astrological, and in fact, only minimally addresses astrology , his transdisciplinary work and ideas on esoteric thought provide a beautiful context and set of criteria for the practitioner of astrology hunting for an intellectual and cultural framework within which to place the techne of the stars. The esoteric is not a specific genre. Rather, it is a form of thought that directs the mind towards unrevealed, spiritual sources of knowledge by means of symbol or myth.

Esoteric insight tends to rely more on a deciphering process of interpretation, employing, through individual effort, an evolutionary elucidation of higher planes of knowledge and wisdom. Gnosis, the secret knowledge of these restricted realms of the sacred, is achieved by ascending the ladder of secret knowledge through successive stages of consciousness. Esoteric thought is an individual and introspective form of hermeneutics - a method of exploration of the interior territory covered in the spiritual quest. The value of this subjective and goal-oriented discourse lies as much in the process of ascent as in the final objectives, which are the acquisition of spiritual knowledge, and the personality's subsequent radical transmutation, which is the supreme goal and consequence of the quest. 


The four intrinsic Elements inherent in the Esoteric
Faivre outlines the four intrinsic elements essential to esotericism, which are illustrated below. "We shall regard the esotericism of the modern West as an identifiable form of spirituality because of the presence of fundamental characteristics distributed in varying degrees within its vast concrete historical context. Four of these characteristics are ‘intrinsic'... There are two others, which we call ‘relative' or non-intrinsic ..." (Antoine Faivre, Modern Esoteric Spirituality, p. xiv; Crossroad Publishing Co., N.Y. 1995). Later we will examine these characteristics as they pertain to a comprehension and definition of the specifically astrological mode of thinking.

I. Correspondence. This method of thought is based on an elucidating form of analogical thinking which sees symbolic and/or real correspondences and meaningful connections between all aspects of the visible and invisible universe. The cosmos itself is perceived as an animated and integrated reticulum teeming with information that is waiting to be interpreted and decoded. Our hieroglyphically encoded universe is heavily laden with meaningful content, at once concealing and revealing its own mysteries. The ancient idea of the microcosm and macrocosm is fundamental to this view of nature-cosmos existing as an organic totality, unified through subtly interconnected symbolic links.

II. Living Nature. The cosmos is alive - an intricate, plural and hierarchical unicity. Nature, which is multi-layered and vitally essential to cosmic unity, is rich in potential spiritual revelation, waiting to be interpreted and read as one reads a book. The universe is an integrated living, breathing network of sympathies which bind and unify Nature. A palpitating fire circulates throughout Nature, permeating it with a pulsating life force. This fiery quality animates Nature, which in itself is an expression and incarnation of the throbbing energetic power of a conscious cosmos. Therefore, Nature, saturated with meaning and spiritual content, participates in the esoteric quest for salvation, providing a mystical path for soteriological gnosis.

III. Imagination and mediation. Imagination (related to magnet, magia and imago) is that crucial faculty which enables symbols, myths and images to be used as intermediaries for gnostic ends. Imagination itself is an "organ of the soul" through which mankind can access a richly inhabited inner world, or mesocosm. By means of this "interiorism," one can achieve entry into the deeper layers of the self, by which process the psyche can aspire and ascend toward spiritual knowledge. Symbols, myths and "signatures" of the world operate as mediators which allow the various levels of reality - from the visible to the invisible - to be linked. Here imagination takes on an ontological dignity, and is distinguished from mere fantasy, which is the lower expression of this faculty. Understood in this sense, imagination becomes a vehicle for spiritual practices and inner knowledge.
According to Paracelsus, God created the universe by imagining it; man, in his turn, created in God's own image, has analogically similar creative powers at his disposal. Through the sacred creative potency innate to the imagination, the human mind can visualize and access the meaningful content inherent in nature's endless hieroglyphs. For Paracelsus, the imagination is the intermediary which lies between thinking and being. (Antoine Faivre, Theosophy, Imagination and Tradition, pp. 102-103, State University of New York, Albany, 2000).
By establishing a rapport with the mundus imaginalis, that vivid inner world which connects the personality to the secret spiritual knowledge concealed in mediating symbols and images, the personality advances to ever higher levels of awareness. Imagination is then a vehicle which facilitates gnostic illumination of the self, the world and of myth. It pierces the surface world of appearances, heightening perception of those secreted invisible connections that unify the cosmos, suffusing it with meaning.

IV. The experience of transmutation. Without the potential outcome of transmutation, Faivre states, all the threads of the esoteric would spin out as mere speculative spirituality. There must be some purpose served by the pursuit of that illuminated knowledge which leads to gnosis and a "second birth". The concept of transformation is inadequate to describe this process of moving from one plane of reality to higher levels of being.
More accurately, spiritual gnosis leads to a process of metamorphic transfiguration reminiscent of (I would say) Richard Wagner's conception of "Verklärung" - a redemptive rebirth following the dissolution and cleansing of old forms. The specific goal and function of the esoteric process lies in this regeneration, which is often described in alchemical symbolic terms: nigredo (death, decapitation); albedo (whitening); rubedo (reddening, philosopher's stone). Faivre notes the similarity here to the three stages of the traditional mystical path: purgation, illumination, unification. 


Astrology as an Esoteric Technology
In this section, I will apply some of Faivre's criteria for the esoteric as they relate directly to a spiritual application of astrology. In addition, I will add my own opinions and commentaries.
Correspondence lies at the very heart of astrological thinking. The foundation of this system of thought is the analogical perspective, which postulates the strong internal cohesion of the cosmos. This organic integrity relies on an intimate association between the spiritual and the material planes of existence. Planets, states of consciousness, and the world of material objects are analogically linked because of their shared symbolic and meaningful content within the unifying network of universal sympathies.

In spite of several centuries of failed efforts to ‘scientize' astrology, it remains consistently and comfortably congruent with this kind of spiritual language and impulse, a viable alternative modality of comprehending the cosmic reality. While the degradation of its tradition and obfuscation of its nobility of character and impulse cannot be denied, astrology is, at its heart, a cosmological philosophy of another order, one which addresses a primordial and divine essence buried in the depths of mankind's being.

When Nature is seen as a manifestation of the sacred, the solar system itself becomes a hierophany. The tropical zodiac, an information-rich energy fabric, is generated by the cyclical processes of Nature. The planets, as part of our living cosmos, are inhabitants of our expanded natural world. Extending the Gaia hypothesis, which poetically views the Earth as an animate organism imbued with consciousness, planets take on a functional vitality and an inherent life-force, which, in their interactions with the living, vibrating milieu of the zodiac create a generative cosmic placenta, spiritually and energetically nourishing to all life forms. (Nasr traces the idea of Earth as a living organism back to Plato, who, in the Timaeus spoke of Earth as a "great animal", which tradition was repeated by "numerous medieval philosophers and scientists in the Islamic world as well as among Jews and Christians.", Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Knowledge and the Sacred, p. 117, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1989).

Seen from this vantage point, astrology becomes a spiritual philosophy of nature. The value of astrology lies in its potential aptitude for expressing the language of the interior experiential subjective realms. In this capacity it acts as a mediating vehicle for introspection, encouraging that inner enlightenment which is brought about by an encounter with the authentic Self as it unites with the sacred groundwater of its own being.

Sensitive and prudent interpretation of astrological symbols can stimulate and exercise the higher, intuitive faculties of the mind, leading to insight and the singular phenomenon which is essential to the esoteric experience - that particular revelation of the sacred essence within consciousness which leads to transfiguration. The rewards of such spiritual awakening are wisdom, a sense of meaning in one's life and place in the universe, and ultimately, liberation. "He who knows himself knows everything" (Hermetic Definitions, 9.4)

Here we are addressing an astrology which is far removed from the divinatory, the scientistic or the psycho-pathological, all of which are current trends in modern astrology. An incorrect use and abuse of astrology can actually exacerbate anxiety, superstition and a form of spiritual bigotry which is a remnant of its ancient biases, still present in today's astrological world. (see my "Repression of the Feminine in Astrology", http://cura.free.fr/decem/08jordan.html) This indulgence in the almost morbid side of a fatalistic astrology only serves to increase the neurotic alienation and helplessness already symptomatic of this modern era.

The delusional idea of ‘good' and ‘evil' rays emanating from the heavens is untrue, counterproductive, and is, like its divinatory claims, an unhealthy, tenaciously adhering artifact of an early, misdirected astrological theory. Fabrications such as these harbor primitive fears of the demonic. These infantile remnants corrupt the truth of astrology as well as discourage many individuals from exploring its possibilities. It is easy to dismiss a fraudulent predictive and paranoid philosophy of fate. A spirituality void of evil offers a healthier viability, and an exploratory environment free of fear.

The merit of what can be gained from the astrological experience is measured almost exclusively by its subjective rewards - the benefits of a personal and spiritual disclosure, which, in its most successful achievement, leads ultimately to a radical transfiguration of self. We are not speaking here of a common, mundane astrologia vulgaris used for betting on horse races. This is an entirely different matter, a corrupt hallucination of the masses, relegated to the philosophically empty world of a bankrupt materialism irrelevant to the spiritual path. By the time astrological symbols reach the level of pop culture, they experience a decay of meaning, and a loss of their spiritual currency.

As the seeker of inner wisdom exercises the symbolic, inspired language of a purified astrology for the sake of exploring one's personal inner geography, the initiatic power of the imagination (in the sense in which it is described by Faivre) is activated during the translation and interpretative process. The astrological realm is that mundus imaginalis in which occurs a philosophical contemplation of spiritual symbols rich in meaningful content. The dynamic process of symbolic deliberation stimulates the associative, interpretive penetration of the mythic layers of consciousness.

This form of spiritual revelation must by necessity be accomplished through a special intellectual intuition accessed by seeing through the opened "eye of the heart". (Scientia sacra is the phrase used by Nasr to describe that "intellectual intuition which involves the illumination of the heart and the mind of man ... the sapience which the Islamic tradition refers to as ‘presential knowledge'..." It is through this intellectual intuition that certain individuals are capable of direct contact with the spiritual. Knowledge and the Sacred, p.130).

The initiatic strengthening of the imagination through the active use of sacred symbols, within which images of psyche and cosmos are mirrored, paves neuro-associative pathways to that spiritual center of wisdom which is the ultimate object of this reflective, mythopoeic process. Jñana, the Sanskrit term for wisdom, is etymologically related to gnosis and knowing, all referring to that special kind of numinous awareness which is the gift of the spiritual path.

The degree to which astrology is successful as a mediating gnostic technology of the sacred is relative to the innate affinities and predisposition for such processes within the individual seeker/astrologer. If only the rational faculties are readily available within a given psyche, the consequential results probably won't be of much benefit. For the average reader of the popular, mass-market cookbook, this rarified astrological exploration of the spiritual is likely to be completely alien. The astrological path of gnosis is not for everyone.....

Imagine for a moment the value to be gained by the musically uneducated in viewing the highly intricate musical score of Don Giovanni. Even listening to a full-length recording of that work - exquisitely performed by a virtuosic ensemble - would not do much for an ear unaccustomed to that kind of musical experience. Likewise, perusing astrological symbols without some degree of aptitude and well-informed experience in their interpretation would be a hollow exercise. To take this example one step further, a performance of Mozart's masterwork by a third-rate group of musicians would also never yield the transcendent beauties inherent in that opera. In a similar fashion, many well-intended writings by today's typical astrophile, however pure their motivation, provide an inadequate view of the dormant powers lying latent in astrology's symbolic discourse.

In its highest manifestation, the process of exercising the symbol-interpreting faculties of an educated receptive mind by means of astrological images and ciphers, provides a link-forming pathway to inner knowledge. The continual practice and internalization of this type of symbolic thinking strengthens and empowers the psyche's potential for self-revelation.

As the various facets of self are realized and integrated, the wholeness of the microcosmic psyche can begin the process of transcendence and union with the greater whole - the macrocosmic universal. A path towards the oneness of existence is begun with the realization and integration of the fragmented self - a conscious assessment and fusion of the disparate facets of the psyche represented by the factors in the birth chart.

Astrology, in its most elevated form, is a sacred technology which can lead to gnostic illumination of the soul and its unique relation to the cosmic environs. The use of astrological analogy provides a means of metaphysical seeing, a way of grasping the inner meaning of spiritual existence beyond the body and the physical world. One key to the supernal ordering principle lies in the symbolic discourse of astrology.

Employed in this way, and not as a mere form of philosophically empty divination, astrology becomes an esoteric vehicle for spiritual insight and unfolding - a form of spiritual self-therapy. As such, it might be seen as a gnostic alternative to science or religion, which are the doctrines which dominate today's thought systems. While astrology seems to fall short in its efforts at dealing with the physical world of material causes, in its most serious application, it is an esoteric device with which one can speculate on the ‘book of nature' within the human psyche - a gnosis-oriented technology of the sacred. ("The Quran often calls Nature a book which is the macrocosmic counterpart of the Quran itself and which must be read and understood before it can be put away.", Seyyed Hossein Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines, p. 2, footnote 2, Shambala Publications, Boulder, Co. 1978).

Increasingly, the scholarly world is awakening to the third unrecognized pillar of western tradition. It has long been acknowledged that religion and rational science are the two primary supports of western civilization. The currents of the esoteric thought system are now being recognized as a third major contributing source to our cultural heritage. (See van den Broeck and Hanegraff, eds., Gnosis and Hermeticism, p. vii, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1998).

The desacralizing rationality of a secular science has not only banished the spiritual from the modern world, but as an intellectual instrument itself is incapable of comprehending it. Science's reign of cultural sovereignty and its unjustified claim that it is "the" only authentic knowledge persecute a degenerate astrology, still enmeshed with palmistry, tarot and the like. This decayed and tired astrology today has barely the strength and resources to justify itself, so crippled is it in thought and language by its own obsolete dogma. (See Nasr's discussion of René Guénon , whose "greatest criticism of modern science was its lack of metaphysical principles and its pretension or rather, the pretension of those who claim to speak from the ‘scientific point of view' to be the science or the way of knowing, whereas it is a science or a way of knowing concerned with a very limited domain of reality", in Knowledge and the Sacred, pp. 101-110).

And now, as the immense weight of science attempts to crush the life out of it, astrology faces the necessity of undergoing a purification and transmutation all its own. This vajrayana path of cleansing and rebirth can only occur if astrology willfully and vigilantly examines itself, with an eye towards eradicating the moribund baggage of the centuries of superstitions which thwart its advancement to its next level of purpose.


The Birth Chart of Antoine Faivre
My sincere thanks to Professor Faivre, who kindly shared his birth chart with me. I was curious to see if his chart revealed any affinities with his area of work. 


The predominant themes in Professor Faivre's chart are Mercurial and Neptunian. His Sun is in Gemini, his Moon in Pisces. Mercury and Neptune, which are in sextile, are the planets closest to the angles of his chart. Mercury is in Neptune's house (the 12th), conjunct the Ascendant and aspecting Neptune, which is in Mercury's sign and house (in Virgo in the 3rd) . Neptune also aspects his Sun - both Neptune and the Sun are in signs ruled by Mercury.

The ruler of this historian's Cancer Ascendant is his Pisces Moon in his 10th house of authority and career. He has Neptune, the ruler of his MC in Virgo - the sign associated with work, detail and the analytical function - in the 3rd house of the intellect and communication, amplified by its conjunction to his IC. Mercury, the ruler of his 4th and of his Gemini Sun, is in the 12th house, the imaginative realm of dreams, images and symbols.

Professor Faivre's sensitive and sublime discussions of the imagination (Mercury-Neptune) are a splendid fit for understanding the Neptunian function in the human psyche. Neptune represents the faculties of imagination, dreaming, and inner spirituality, as well as the capacities for inspiration and ecstatic experiences of beauty. Neptune is often seen in prominent positions in the charts of highly gifted individuals, and there is no doubt that Professor Faivre is one of the most gifted scholars I have ever come across. This Neptunian facility, when combined with high intelligence, describes a kind of immense conceptual melting pot, capable of internalizing and processing huge amounts of information and of managing numerous strands of thought.
Gemini is also well-represented in the chart, certainly illustrating Faivre's intellectual curiosity, flexibility, and literary talents. The Pisces-Gemini, Mercury-Neptune themes focus on his attraction to intellectual topics that have symbolic, mystical, artistic and philosophical content. This mutability explains his predisposition to the highly diversified study of esoterology, a complex field which is at the "crossroad of various fields."

In Faivre's own words, Mercurius "is the god who stands at the crossroads, who bridges the gaps; he is the interpreter par excellence - the interpreter of signs, of texts, and he is therefore instrumental in enabling Man to pass through various levels of Reality." (Gnosis and Hermeticism, pp 109-110).
While Professor Antoine Faivre has no "theological, metaphysical, esoteric (or in one word, crypto-religionist) agenda whatsoever," nor do his works "aim at spreading, fostering or encouraging esoteric worldviews, whichever they might be" (personal correspondence), he nonetheless has a remarkable and atypical aptitude for contributing to a better understanding of particular long-neglected ideas from our western cultural heritage. As only "like can know like", we can appreciate that a Neptunian spirit such as Faivre's would rediscover, comprehend and translate the traditions of the sacred for us.
"Since only the like can know the like, the secularized reason which became the sole instrument of knowing in modern times could not but leave its mark and effect upon everything that it studied. All subjects studied by a secularized instrument of knowledge came out to be depleted and devoid of the quality of the sacred. The profane point of view could only observe a profane world in which the sacred did not play a role. The quest of the typically modern man has been in fact to "kill the gods" wherever he has been able to find them and to banish the sacred from a world which has been rapidly woven into a new pattern drawn from the strands issuing from a secularized mentality." (Nasr, Knowledge and the Sacred, pp. 43-44) 


See the Bibliography of Antoine Faivre's Works in DOC format.