Moses on Mount Sinai and the seven worlds paving the way to reintegration
Martines de Pasqually’s teachings on God’s Creation, the roles and functions of all created beings, and the generation of the material universe are summarised in the Universal Figure, which we have already presented over here (you may want to keep the figure at hand for a short while… You can download it from this page). A great portion of it, as drawn by Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, represents the 7 spheres of the celestial immensity, which are given the names of the planets of our solar system. The commonality of these names must not blind us to the fact that the names we give to the planets are those of ancient gods, a practice the Greeks, the Babylonians and of course the Romans followed. It is their archetypal character, the inherent symbolism of being luminaries travelling across the night’s sky, that gave the word planets, derived from the Greek πλανήται, wonderers.
Although the planets only occupy a very small proportion of Martines’ highly complex body of teachings, they are of central importance. Indeed, the celestial immensity, in Martines’ table, is shown as the intermediary between our universe—represented by the terrestrial immensity—and the Creator’s closest agents in the supercelestial immensity.
1. Three spirituous essences proceed from ternary spirits
We know now that the Earth and the entire Universe is ternary in form and in function. As we have shown, this is a coded manner of saying that the terrestrial immensity, which comprises the entire material universe, proceeds from the operation of ternary spirits that, according to Martines de Pasqually, were emancipated in order to impose limits and bounds on rebellious beings after the first fall.
"You know that every being of corporal form was born from the three spirituous essences, mercury, sulphur and salt, which the spirits of the axis have activated to co-operate in the formation of all bodies. They participated in that formation only by inserting within their different essences a vehicle of their fires and it is that vehicle which they activate continuously for the maintenance and the equilibrium of all forms. That is what we call passive life, to which all beings of form, be they celestial or terrestrial, are submitted." Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings, §110[1]
2. The seven planetary circles
On the other end of the ladder depicted by the Universal Figure, one finds the divine immensity: infinitely out of reach, neither material nor subjected to time. And between these two extreme immensities (terrestrial and divine), lies a continuum, the celestial and supercelestial immensities. The celestial immensity is bounded by the central fire axis, which represents the activity of those ternary beings. Let’s follow the description of this immensity that Martines’ puts in Moses’ Great Discourse, which elaborates on the events at Mount Sinai (Exod. 19,10 etc.):
“I will inform you, Israel, that, by the summit of the spiritual mountain, you must understand the type of the rational circle, which is the highest of the celestial circles. This rational circle is called circle of Saturn, or saturnary, 1. This superior planetary circle separates all the celestial planetary circles from the four supercelestial circles. The distance there was between the summit of the mountain where I was and the place where Joshua remained behind me represents the solar planetary circle that we call the visual circle, 2; and all the other inferior planetary circles are held in the immensity of the sensible circle, 3. These inferior circles are: Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and the Moon; and such is the order of these seven planetary celestial circles: Saturn, 1; the Sun, 2; Mercury, 3; Mars, 4; Jupiter, 5; Venus, 6 and the Moon, 7. This famous spiritual mountain thus teaches you the distance there is between the divine court and the celestial part, and between the celestial part and the terrestrial part. You see that we can divide this mountain in two ways, firstly in three parts, and secondly in seven other parts. The first division is one of three different circles where the minor spirits fulfil their pure and simple spiritual operations, according to the immutable order of the Creator, so as to reach their reconciliation and reintegration in the supercelestial.[…]” Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings, §217.
There we have it: the planetary circles are the steps of a spiritual ladder that will lead the minor (us) to his reintegration through operations aimed at his reconciliation. So what are these planetary circles and what do they do?
3. Planets as types of the celestial influences
The celestial immensity contains, as Martines teaches, “Beings of form”. Those are not the planets of our physical solar system (material planets are not beings), but true beings or spirits.
“We have distinguished planetary bodies into superior, major and inferior so that we can extract more easily the knowledge of their virtues and their powers. The star in the centre is the superior planetary being. It is that star that governs the major and inferior planetary bodies, and it is called superior because it is on it that the solar influence will pour immediately. That superior star then communicates what it has received to the major planetary stars that adorn its circle. The major communicate them to an infinity of small stars that are in junction with them, that we call signs, or inferior planetary bodies, and those inferior signs, after having received the influetic action of the superior and major, pour it with an exact precision on the coarse terrestrial bodies.” Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings, §110
Let us compare this passage to one by Giordano Bruno, in “On Magic”.[2]
“Let us now come to more precise questions. The magi have an axiom that one must, in all works, keep in mind, which is that God influences the gods; the gods, the celestial bodies or stars, that are corporal deities; the stars, the daemons who are the guardians and inhabitants of the stars - one of which is Earth; the daemons [influence] the elements; the elements, the composite bodies; the composite bodies, the senses; the senses, the animus [3]; and the animus, the whole living being: thus one descends the ladder. Then the living being ascends from the animus to the senses, from the senses to the composite bodies, from the composite bodies to the elements, through those to the daemons, from the daemons to the stars, from the stars to the incorporeal gods of ethereal substance or body, by these to the world’s soul or the spirit of the universe, and from the later to the contemplation of the One, Most-Simple, Most-Good, Most-Great, incorporeal, absolute, self sufficient.”
It may be worth noting in this passage some of the themes we have already touched upon: infinite progression, and contemplation; and that there are a few semantic shifts between Martines’ and Bruno’s texts, especially concerning gods, daemons and the world’s soul—different names, same agents.
4. Celestial influences proceed from celestial beings
According to Martines de Pasqually, each planetary body, which is a being, is inhabited by a great number of beings, just as our Earth (and maybe Universe) is inhabited by many live organisms.
“That is a little table of the composition of a planetary circle and its inhabitants, that one can consider as being an infinite number, given the multitude of different animal beings, spiritual, minor and pure spirits and simple divine that inhabit these planetary circles, and it is there that we find the impassive spiritual life. It wouldn’t amount to anything for man and for all forms, general as well as particular, if the planetary circles were inhabited only by the beings of which I spoke, but they can also be inhabited by malign spiritual beings, that oppose and fight the powers and faculties of good influetic actions, that the good planetary spiritual beings are in charge of pouring onto the entire world, according to their innate laws of order for the support and conservation of the universe.” Treatise on the Reintegration of Beings, §110
Therefore, we can see that because of the mixed influences — benign or malign — of the planetary circles, the road to reconciliation is arduous. If one remembers that within each planetary circle there is a “great multitude” of spiritual beings, one may see that each circle is no less complex than our terrestrial immensity, which I repeat contains our entire material universe, and that because there can be no reintegration before all things are ready to be reintegrated, a daunting conclusion can be drawn: that we have a long, long way to go! In other words, the Last Judgement is not happening anytime soon… Martines teaches that it is in the hands of Man to put all the prevaricators, including himself, on the path of reconciliation.
[1] I always refer to the edition established by Robert Amadou: Martines de Pasqually, Traité sur la réintégration des êtres dans leur première propriété, vertu et puissance spirituelle divine, Diffusion Rosicrucienne, 1995
[2] Ut autem ad particularia modo deveniamus, habent magi pro axiomate, in omni opere ante oculos habendum, influere Deum in Deos, Deos in (corpora caelestia seu) astra, quae sunt corporea numina, astra in daemonas, qui sunt cultores et incolae astrorum, quorum unum est tellus, daemones in elementa, elementa in mixta, mixta in sensus, sensus in animum, animum in totum animal, et hic est descensus scalae; mox ascendit animal per animum ad sensus, per sensus in mixta, per mixta in elementa, per haec in daemones, per hos [in elementa, per haec] in astra, per ipsa in Deos incorporeos seu aethereae substantiae seu corporeitatis, per hos in animam mundi seu spiritum universi, per hunc in contemplationem unius simplicissimi optimi maximi incorporei, absoluti, sibi sufficientis.
[3] animus is the masculine of anima, which is the soul. The animus, in Bruno’s treatise, is an active spiritual principle that informs in the sense of giving them form. This is somewhat reminiscent of Martines de Pasqually’s animal soul in its ‘informative’ operation on the ternary spirits.