Friday, September 6, 2013

Metabolism VIII - Physiomancy, Endocrinomancy

In response to Patrick Dunn's competition for most interesting kind of divination I decided to post details of how to use the system of physiognomy I have been exploring on this blog as a system of divination.

http://pomomagic.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/a-contest/

One message that I constantly keep reiterating is that the world we experience is our own consciousness of the world and not the world directly.  I know this seems obvious but it is very easy to slip back into the idea that the world that you experience is 'physical' rather than 'mental', that you look through your eyes rather than ''at them'' (or rather the 'visual cortex') from somewhere else inside your mind.  With this idea of your consciousness saturating your experience, your perceptual 'sphere' can effectively become a crystal ball and the events and people you encounter within that crystal ball can be read as omens and portents.

Normally I use this concept as the basis for my pathwalking which occurs in the 'physical world' rather than in astral meditation.  I call the symbol(s) ''down'' and then walk a 'real path' in the 'physical world' and read the symbols off the path.  Perhaps I am looking to explore the path of Gimel (the rich man who runs to the poor and correctly attributed to Jupiter) I will open a 'gate' in the shape of the letter, step through it and then walk the path that opens.  Two things then happen - one, my consciousness applies a kind of Gimel filter over my experiences of that path so that events, people, symbols on the path that pertain to Gimel stand out for my contemplation and two, people or events are 'summoned' to the path and my interaction with them allows me to practice using the letter, in the case of Gimel this may appear as ways in which I can use my wealth and power charitably and philanthropically (random giving of charity achieves little to nothing, charity is a skill and must be learned to be used strategically - this was a lesson of the Gimel path).

Instead of the more focused approach of pathwalking one can effectively use the same basic idea to open up the 'perceptual sphere' to any symbols in the same way that one would read tarot cards, one reads the symbols that occur in the perceptual as they randomly walk a path.

There are all kinds of natural symbols that one can experience from the mythical black cat crossing your path, to some genuine dispersing ravens as opposed to those seen in meditation/visualisation and any occultist worth his salt has a large library of symbolism to interpret messages from the anima mundi.  Since physiognomy is my own area of relative expertise I want to focus on the interpretation of the people one encounters, in the act of divination, in the percpetual sphere.

As stated earlier in this blog the people you meet in your life have two aspects to them, one that they are an individual experiencing the world from the centre of their own 'sphere of sensation' and two that they are a messenger present in your sphere.  You could look at it like this - an Arien is a spirt of Aries, a Martial spirit by default but also composed of various spiritual forces as assigned to that person in their horoscope - if they showed up randomly in a 'reading' drawn from the natural world, one could interpret them like one would interpret 'The Emperor'.  Or for instance, if one suddenly encounters a Taurean along the path, then this individual could be 'read' in the same way one would read the Heirophant card.  Many advanced astrologers can tell simply by looking at a person the underlying mixture of their horoscopes.

My own system of physiognomy is based on a rather advanced understanding of endocrinology but is very similar to the alchemical system of humours.  Looking at an individual I can tell from the quality and type of their skin, the way fat is distributed around the body, their bone structure, etc what the 'dominant' hormonal genetic influences are or the genetic 'pathways' that are particularly pronounced.  This reading effectively turns that individual into a symbol/representative of one (or two) of the physiognomical characters I have outlined earlier on this blog and as such is read in much the same way as a ''card would be read'''.  At a deeper level one can then ''commune with these spirits'' and interpret what they say at the sod (kabbalistic ''secrecy'') level as opposed to the literal meaning of what they say.

http://hermeticlessons.blogspot.cz/2013/06/strategic-drama-v-masks-and-metabolism.html

http://hermeticlessons.blogspot.cz/2013/06/strategic-drama-v-masks-and-metabolism.html