Planets, the Interspace, and the Threshold

As we have repeatedly mentioned, the Hermetic myth considers the creative activities inherent in any system in the form of the so-called “secondary causes” or “planetary forces.”

Gnostics, Neoplatonists, and the Magi of the “classical” era distinguished in the world and in the mind seven kinds of creative impulses: three “coagulative” (fertilization, governance, and mastery), three “solvative” (castration, inducing sleep, and merging), and one — “androgynous” (adaptation).

In other words, they believed that “to create” movement can be ‘created’ in three ways: by enlivening, by governing, and by coercion; “to cancel” movement — by depriving it of its fertilizing capacity, by rendering it passive, or by absorbing; and “to transform” — by retuning or by adapting.

These kinds of “governing actions” were described as “planetary principles” and correlated with a broad range of beings and manifestations both in the macrocosm and in the psychocosm.

At the same time, out of the whole diversity of such manifestations, from the point of view of the goals and tasks of Magic, two deserve special attention — those involving boundary crossings between worlds and states. Some of them are the activities of transition from “virtuality” to “reality” and back, between the Interval and the worlds; the second is maintaining the balance between energy generation and consumption, between “sephirothic” and “qlippothic” states. As we have noted repeatedly, the first type of activity is carried out by the hierarchy of the Archons, the second — by the Gatekeepers and Epicletes.

It is important to understand that for each of these hierarchies, the “planetary” way of description is quite limited, since the activities of all “border” forces are very complex and diverse. Neither for the Gatekeepers nor, even more so, for the Rulers is this aspect of their nature the main one, although, of course, it helps to understand some characteristic features of their activities.

Nevertheless, the “planetary aspect” of the goetic Gatekeepers is quite clearly outlined, identified, and recorded in grimoires, and for describing the Archons, this characteristic often serves as the main one.

Thus, Origen, in his exposition of Ophite theology, also correlates the Rulers of the Interworld with the planets; so does the “Apocryphon of John” and other Gnostic sources; and in later times this aspect is examined in the grimoire “Arbatel,” which described the Heptad of the Archons as “Olympian Spirits.” Properly speaking, the “Magic of Arbatel” also calls these spirits “Rulers,” and the Arbatel Symbol has long been used as one of the “anchor signs” which, due to its synthetic nature, cannot be depicted in the Interworld and therefore makes it possible to destroy the illusions coming from there. It is precisely the “Arbatel” that in modern times could have served as the first guidebook to the Interval, and as we have already mentioned, the “pioneer” in the exploration of the Interworld — John Dee — wrote that he managed to evoke at least one Olympian spirit — the spirit of the Sun (Och).

A question arises — why does the “Arbatel” operate with Greco-Egyptian names of the Archons, while earlier Gnostic texts prefer Semitic epithets? For the Gnostics, what mattered first of all was the vortex nature of the Rulers as expressers of the creative principle, and this nature is better reflected by semantic structures built on a Chaldean basis, whereas for medieval Magi the power component of the energy of the Archons seemed more essential, which is more precisely conveyed by the “Sun-born” Egyptian semantics.

Thus, by calling the “Archon of Venus” Astaphaiem (עשטפי), we reveal his absorbing nature, whereas by addressing him by the name Hagith (Ηαγιθ) we speak more about purity and love.

In addition, we have also noted that while the Gatekeepers and epicletes have a serving nature, the Archons are free in their basis, and therefore if in the first case goetic approaches should be applied, then contact with the Rulers is closer to theurgy.

As with other areas of Interworld Magic, developing minimally traumatic approaches to contact with the Archons has become especially important lately, since the expansion of these beings into the worlds is becoming active and avalanche-like, which means that effective strategies of resistance to them must be developed as well.