Mystical

Astrology
Accordin to
Ibn 'Ara i
TITUS BURCKHARDT
Trnslated fom French by
BuLENT RAuF
FONS VITAE
Prlvinusly puhlishld as
l1111 |:/,:f'Sriritud/, J,. I ,'Astrologit MuSIImanl'
J'arn\s Mohyi-J-Jin Ibn imbi
Lls Editions laditionelles, Paris, 1950
and as
Cle Spirituelle de L'Astrologie Musulmane
d'apres Mohyiddin Ibn 1rabi
Arche, Milan,1974.
Fi rst English translation by
Beshara Publications, Abingdon, England, 1977
This new illustrated edition published by
Fons Vtae
49 Mockingird Valley Drive
Louisville, KY 40207
www.fonsvitae.com
2001
All rights reserved
including the right of reproduction
in whole or in part in any form.
Printed in China by Everbest Printing Co.,
through Four Color Imports, Ltd., Louisville, KY
ISBN: 1-887752-43-9
Librar o Congress Control Number: 2001 094850
T0reu0rJ
As the term astrology means the practical application of astron
omy to human use our respnse to it must necessarily hinge on
our understanding of what it means to b human.
What is that 'favourable moment' which the Buddha urge us
to grasp? Why does he congratulate those who ' have seized their
moment' and lament those ' for whom the moment is passed' ?1
Te explanation lies in the taditional view of time. Illumina
tion, or the goal of human existence, is instantaneous in relation
to the long cosmic journey of passing time. It is a comprehen
sion of Reality which comes 'in a fash' like lightning. This
favourable moment or paradoxical instant suspnds duration
and places the recipient into a timeles preent. Tis timeles
present is paradoxical in as much as it is qualitatively diferent
from that illusive 'profane' present tat barely exist bten
two non-ntities, the past and the future, and apparently ceas
with our death. Neither dos the ' profane' experience have any
baring on the prolongation, byond time, that the ' favourable
moment' brings, which can b likened to a glance 'outside' tme.
For those of us who have ben educated in the 'values' of
modern Western industrial culture the traditional view of time
is as difcult to grasp as is its unfoldment repreented by the
traditional symblism of astrology.
1
Kanatiti; Smyuta Nikaya, tv t1.
I Tradition in our preent usage means the animating principle of a normal
siety or the 'preiding idea' which underlie and inspires the whole life of
a people.
5
lor the serious investigator, who is determined to get to the
roots of tradi tional princi ples this small bok is a gold-mine. It
is specifcaly drawn from the prspective of the Islamic contem
plative tradition, committed to written form by Muhyiddin Ibn
'Arabi, and unfolds the timeless spectrum of the orders of bing
as they relate to ti me and space in ' our' world.
In this volume Titus Burckhardt has distilled the essential sym
bol ism underl ying spiritual astrology - as in contradistinction
IO divi natory astrology: ' . . . for the individual curiosity, all
"oracle" remains equivocal and may even reinforce . . . error . . . '
As, ' . . . man cannot remove the veil of his ignorance except by
or through something which transcends his individual will . ' In
doi ng so he pints with great clarity to the fundamental difer
ence between this traditional viewpint and the ' individualist'
and 'historicist' viewpint which contemporar Western opin
ion has inherited from te fod-tide of Aristotelianism, which
invaded te Middle Ages and has dominated its world feeling
ever si nce. S much so that few contemprary Western thinkers
would even know of, let alone take into consideration, the prin
ci ple, so fundamental to the tradition represented by Plato, 3
that of Perichoreis. Tis proces, or ' permeation of the divine
presence', arises from the ' platonic' teaching that states that the
world of materiality is unequivocally dependent for its bing
and existence on the principal frst cause, and as such is merely
its furthest refexion or exteriorised expression. As light bth
causes and permeates shadow, so the divine presence permeates,
through prichoresis, to the heart of all materiality. Aristo
tel ianism asserts that universals only have existence in so far as
they characterize individual concrete things - thereby implying
that universals only exist in the human mind that ' abstract'
them from ' things'. Tis inversion of the teaching of Plato's
academy (that Aristotle left) gave rise to the eventual divorce of
mind from matter and spirit from body and soul due to the ir
reconcilability of individual ' thingness' with the traditional doc-
6
trine of te toa
l
prmeabi
l
ity or efusion of the di vine presence
recognisable as the Universals.
It is no mere chance that Ibn 'Arabi was surnamed ' Son of
Plato' (Ibn Atlatun) bcause of this fundamental viewpint wit
in the revelation of Islam, that assert the depndence of te sens
ible world on the intelligible world, and the intelligible in return
on the ontological principle of Unity. To understand the start
ing pint of this prspctive of spiritual astrology one needs to
make a defitive efort of reorientation; for we 'moerns' are
almost unknowingly educated in the totalitarian philosophical
empircism of Atotelianism.
Te reward for te efort may not only opn some very valu
able dor onto the real signifcance of atology in the tradi
tonal snse but those same dors may well lead out of the prisn
of 'historicism' to that ' favourable moment' where, as an in
tegral prson, we neiter deny ourselve our own historic m<
ment, nor consent to b solely identifed with it.
K1M LY1L11O
7
I
THE WRITTEN work of the greatest Master' (ash-shaikh al
akbar) Suf, Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi, contains certain conidera
tions on astrology which prit one to prceive how ti
science, which arived in the modern occident only in a frag
mentary form and reduced only to some of it most contingent
applications, could b related to metaphysical principles, there
by relating to a knowledge self-sufcient in itelf. Astology, 8
it was spread trough the Middle Age within Chrstian and
Islamic civilizations and which still subsist in certain Arab
counties, owes its form to the Alexandrine hermeticism; it i
therefore neither Islamic nor Chritian in it essence; it could
not in any case fnd a place in the religious prspective of mono
theistic traditions, given that this perspective insist on the
respnsibility of the individual bfore it Creator and avoid,
by this fact, all tat could veil this relationship by considera
tions of intermediay causes. If, all the same, it were pssible to
integrate astrolog into the Christian and Moslem esotericism.
it is because it prpetuated, vehicled by hermeticism, certain
aspects of a very primordial symblism : the contemplative
pnetration of cosmic atmosphere, and the identifcation of
spontaneous apparances -constant and rhythmic -of the sen
sible world with the eternal prototypes corresponding in fact
to a mentality as yet primitive, in te proper and psitive sense
of this term. This implicit primordiality of the 3strological sym
bolism flares up in contact with spirituality, direct and univer-
9
sal, of a li ving eotericism, just like the scintillation of a preci
ous stone fares up when it i expsed U te rays of light. _
Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi encloses the fact of te hermetic ato
logy in the edifce of his cosmology, which he summa b
y
means of a schemata of concentic sphere by taking, a te
starting point and as terms of compason, te geocentc sys
tem of the planetary world as the Medieval world conceived it.
Te 'subjective' polarisation of this system - we mean by tat
te fact that the terrestrial psition of te human bing serng
as the fxed point to which will be related all te movement of
the stars - here symbolises te cental role of man in te cosmic
whole, of which man is like the goal and the cente of gavt.
Tis symblic perspective naturally doe not depend upn the
purely physical or spatial realit, the only one envisaged by
modern astronomy, of the world of te stars; the geocentic
system, bing in conformity with the reality 3 it presents itself
immediately to the human eyes, contains in itself all the logical
coherence requisite to a bdy of knowledge for constituting a
_
j
1 exact science discovery of the heliocentric system, which
correspnds to a development bth pssible and homogeneous
but very particular to the empirical knowledge of the sensible
world, obviously could not prove anything against the central
cognition of te human being in the cosmos; only, the possibil
ity of conceiving the planetary world as if one were contem
plating it from te non-human psition, and even as if one could
make abstraction of the existence of the human being -even
though its consciousness still remains the 'container' of all con
ceptons -had produced an intellectual dis-equilibrium which
shows clearly that the 'artifcial ' extension of the empirical
knowledge has in it something of te abnormal, and that it is,
intellectually, not only indiferent but even detrimental . 1
1 Te 'scientifc eror' due to a collective subjectivty - for example
tat of the human kind and the teretral beings in general seeing the sun
revolving around the earth - translate as tue symbolism, and consequently
UU`, which are obviously independent of te simple fact which carry
IO
The discovery of hel iocentricism has had efect resembling
certain vulgarisations of esotericism; we are here thinking abve
all of those inversions of point of view which are proper to
esoteric speculation;2 the confrontation of respective symb
lisms of geocentric and heliocentric systems shows very well
what such an inversion is : in fact, te fact that the sun, source
of the light of the planets is equally the pole which rules their
movement, contains, like all existent things, an evident sym
bolism and represent in realit, always from a syDblic and
them in an altogether provisional maner; the subjective experience, like the
one we have just mentione as an example, has obviously nothing of the
fortuitouJit is 'legitimate' for man to admit tat the earth i fat, because'
empirically it is; on the oter hand it is completely useles to know that it
:S round since this knowledge adds nothing to the symblism of appearances,
but destroys it uselessly and replace it by another whic could never ex
press the same reality, all the while posing the inconvenience of being con
trary to the immediate and general human experience. c knowledge of
facts for themselve do not have, outside the interested scientifc applications,
any value; in other words one is either situated in the absolute reality, and in
that case the facts are no longer anything, or one is situated m the domain of
facts, and then in any case in ignorance. Aside from that, one must say again
that the destruction of the natural and immediate symbolism of fact - such
as the fat form of the earth or the circular movement of the sun - brings
about serious inconvenience for the civilisation wherein they are produced,
bvhich is fully demonstrated by the example of the occidental civilization.'' ,
(Frithjof Schuon; 'Fatalite et Progres', m Etudes Traditionelles.)
2lhere are indice that allow one to suppose tat the Pythagoricians al
ready knew of the heliocentric system. It is not excluded that this knowledge
was always maintained, and tat the discovery of Copericus is in reality
nothing other than a simple vulgarisation, like so many other 'discoverie'
of the Renaissance.
Copericus himself refers, in his preface - addressed to Pope Paul Ill - to
m fundamental book, On the Orbits of the Celesial Bodies, to Hicetas of
Syracuse and to certain citations of Plutarch. Hicetas was a Pythagorician;
and Aristotle, in his book, the Sky, says that c Italic philosophers, who
are called Pythagoricians, are of a contrary opinion to most other physicians,
because they afrm that the cente of te world is occupie by the fe,
whereas the earth, which is a star, moves in a circle around this centre, thus
causing day and night.'' Aristarcus of Samos, astronomer in Alexandria about
2O 8C, taught equally the heliocentric system; in the same way Al-BirQnt,
the famous Moslem compiler of Hindu taditons, recounts that certain In
dian sage hold that the earth turns around the sun.
I1
spiritual pint of view, a complementary pint of view to that
of te geocentric astronomy .
Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi englobs in a certain fashion the essen
tial reality of heliocentricism in his cosmological edifce : lie
Ptolemy and like those all trough the Middle Age he assig
to the sun, which he compares to te 'Pole' (qutb) and to te
' heart of the world' (qalb al-'alam), cental psiton in the hier
archy of te celestial spheres, and this by assigning equal num
brs of superior skies and inferior skie to the sky of the sun;
he amplifes nevertheless the system of Ptolemy by yet again
underl ining the symmetry of the spheres with respect to the
sun : according to his cosmological system, which he probably
holds from the Andalusian Suf Ibn Masarrah, the sun i not only
in the centre of the six known planets -Mars (al-mirik), Jupi
ter (al-mushtari) and Saturn (az-zuhal) bing furter away from
te Earth (al-ardh) than the Sun (ash-shams), and Venus (az
zuhrah), Mercury (al-utarid) and the Moon (al-qamar) bing
closer -but beyond the sky of Saturn is situated te vault of the
sky of te fxed stars (falak al-kawakib), tat of the sky wit
out stars (al-falak al-atlas), and the two supreme spheres of
the ' Divine Pedestal ' (al-kursi) and of te 'Divne Trone' (al
'arsh), concentric spheres to which symetically correspnd
the four sublunar spheres of ether (al-athir), of air (al-hawa), of
water (al-ma) and of eart (aJ-ard). Tu i apportioned seven
degrees to either side of the sphere of te sun, the Divine
(Throne) symblising te synteis of all te cosmos, and the
cente of te earth being thereof bth the inferor conclusion
and the centre of fxation.
Tat which renders ireconcilable the two system u obvouly not teir
'optic' side, but the thery on gavitaton related to the heliocentric system.
I2
It goes without saying, that among all the sphere of this
hierarchy, only the planetary spheres and those of the fxed
stars correspnd as such to the sensible experience, even though
they sould not b envsaged only within this relatonship; 3
to te sublunary sphere of ether - which do not signify here
the quintesence, but te cosmic cente in which te fe is re
absorbd-of ai and of water, one should rater see a teretical
hierarchy according to the degrees of density, rather than
spatial spheres. As for the supreme sphere of te ' Divne
Pedetal ' and te 'Trone' - te former containing te skie and
1
3
the c.uth, and the latter englobing all things' - teir spherical
form is purely symbolic, and they mark the pasage from asto
nomy to metaphysical and integral cosmology :5 the sky with
out Stas (al-falak al-atlas), which is a 'void', and which
bcause of tis fact is no more spatial, but rather mark the
'end' of space, also marks by that the discontinuity btween te
formal and informal; in fact this appars like a 'nothingnes'
from the formal point of view, whereas te princpia! appa
like a ' nothingness' from the pint of view of te manifeted.
One would have understood that this passing from the at
nomic pint of view to the cosmological and metaphysical pint
of view has in it nothing of the arbitrary: te distinction btween
the visible sky and a sky avoiding our view is real, even if it ap
plication is noting but symblic, and the 'invisible' here spon
taneously becomes the ' transcendent', in conformity with
Oriental symbolism; the spheres of informal manifestation -the
' Trone' and the 'Pedestal' -ae expressly called the 'inviible
worl d' ('clam al-gha"b), the word gha"b meaning all that is I
yond the reach of our vision, which shows this symblic corres
pndence bteen the ' invisible' and the 'tanscendent' .
Te 'Pedestal ' , on which are placed te 'feet' of the One who
is sitting on the ' Throne' , represent the frst ' pl arisation', or
distinctive determination with repct to formal manifestaton
-determination which compr a 'afmaton' and a 'nega
tion' to which corepnd, in te Reveale Book, the Com
mandment (al-amr) and the Prohibiton (a-nah1.
' As the Koran teache. Accordi to an expres ion of te Prophet te
world is contaied in the 'Divine Pedetal' and thi itelf is contained in the
'rone' like a ring in an earth mould.
5In certain sybolic schemata of Sheikh al-kbar, one fnds other spheres
larger tan that of the 'hrone', thi symbolism naturally being susceptible
of an extenion more or less great; meanwhile te hierarchy that we have
just enumerated repreents in itself a complete whole, because the 'Divine
Throne' englobs all manifestation. Tis i what Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi
teache, in conformity to the Koran, in the 'Revelations of Mecca' al-futuhat
al-makkyah); in other witings he will speak of a whole hierarchy of difer
ent 'Trones' which constitute the principal degrees of informal Existence.
'lbe sky witout stars (al-falak al-atlas) is also te sky of I
te twelve ' towers' (burlJ) or ' signs' of the zodiac; and these ae
not identical wit te I2 zodiacal constellations contained in
the sky of the fxed stars (falak al-kawdkib or falak al-madzil),
but represent ' virtual determinations' (maqddir) of the celetial
space and are not diferentiated except by their relatonship
to planetary ' stations' or ' mansions' (mandzil) projected on the
J
1 sky of te fxed stars. Here there i a ver important pint for
the understanding of Aab and occidental atology; we shall
return to it later on.
-
Te traditional cosmology doe not make an explicit difere
r
1
tiation between the planetar sies in their corpral and visible
reality, and that which correspond to them in the subtle order;
because the symbl is essentially identifed with the thing it
symbolises, and there is no reason for making a distinction b
tween the one and the other, except where this distinction can
b made practically, and fnally that the derived apect can b
taken separately for the whole, as happens when the corpral
form of a living bing is taken for the whole bing; where
as in the case of the planetary rhythms -because it is these
that constitute the diferent 'skies' -this distinction cannot b
made except by the theoretical application of mechanical con
ceptions which are foreign to the contemplative mentalit of
' traditional civilisations.'
.'
Te planetary spheres are therefore at the same time pat of
the corpral world, and degrees of te subtle world; the Sy
without stars, which is the exteme limit of the snsible world,
symblically envelops all human state including all the supr
ior 'prolongations' of this state; the Sheikh al-akbar in fact
situates the paradisiac states btween the sky of fxed stas
-
,Tus the Indian of N. Amerca who hold no teorie on electricty, ca
!
see in the lightning the pwer itelf of the 'Lightning Bird', which i te
Divine Spirit in macrocosmic manfestation: there are even cases where te
percussion of the lightning give spiritual pwers, which would not b g
sible for European who are in the habit of mentally separating sensible fors
from their 'supernatural' archetype.
1
5
and te sy witout stars - or te sky of te zoiacal 'Tower'
- te suprior paadise toucing so to spa upn te inforal
existence, tough remaining circumscrbd by te subte for
of te human bing. Te sy of te zodiacal 'towers' terefore,
wit repct to te integal human state, is te 'place' of te
archetyp.'
Tat which i situated byond the skies of the fxed stars, b
tween this latter and the skies without stars is maintained in
pure duraton, whereas that which is below the sky of te fxed
stas is subjected to generation and corruption. It may seem that
the sphere of the supreme sky, which is the primum mobile,
is identifed with the incorruptible world, whereas movement
evolves necessarily in time. But that which one must remembr
here is that the revolution of the most vast sky, bing itself te
fundamental measure of time according to which all other
movement is measured, cannot itself b susceptible to tempral
measure, which correspnds to the indiferentiation of pure
duration. Just as the concentric movement of the stars are dif
ferentiated within the order of their successive depndance, in
the same way the tempral condition becomes precise, or con
tracts in some way, according to the measure where it inter
feres with the spatial condition; and by analogy, the diferent
spheres of the planetary worlds- or more exactly the rhythms
of their revolutions - graduating starting with the indefnable
limits of this space until the terrestrial centre, can b considered
as so many successive degrees of the tempral 'contraction'.'
7 It has to do with the cosmological defnition of te paradisiac states, and
not with their implicit symblism which make it that tei descptions can
be transposed to the highet degree of existence and even to the pure Being,
since one speaks, in sufc language, of the 'paradise of the Esence' (djannat
adh-dhct).
e For this reason, the astrological hierarchy of the planetar sky situates
Mercury betwen Venus and the Earth since Mercu moves more rapidly
than Venus, and this in spite of the fact that Venus i closer to the Ear,
and Mercury closer to the Sun.
16
II
-
ASTROLOGICAL SYMBOLISM resides in 'pint of junction' !
of the fundamental conditions of te sensible world, and esp
cially in the junctions of time, space and number. We know
that the defnition of the regions or parts of the great sphere of
the sky without stars by means of reference pints that te fed
stars ofer coincide in astonomy, with the defnition of divi
sions of time. Now, the limit-sphere of the sky is not measurable
except by reason of the drections of the space; when one speaks
of parts of the sky one dos no other than defne the directions;
on the other hand, these are the expressions of the qualitative
nature of the space, so that the limits of the spatial indefnity are
reintegrated in some ways in the qualitative aspct in question,
the whole of the directions that radiate from one centre vir-
tually containing all the psible spatial determinations.
1
Te
l
-
-
extreme and indefnite expansion of tese directions is the vault
of the sky without stars and their centre is each living bing
which is on eart, witout the 'perspective' of the directions
changing from one individual to the oter, bcause our visual
axes coincide witout confusion when we fx our gaze on one
pint of te celestial vault - in which is expresed obviously
B coincidence of the microcosmic point of view with the macro
cosmic 'pint of view'.2 One must distinguish these 'objective'
1
cf. the capter on qualifed space in Le regne de Ia quantite et les signes
des temps of Ren6 Gu6non.
2 Tis coincidence of perspectives happens not only when one look at one
17
\ directions, tat is to say equal for all the terrestrial beings look
ing at the sky at the same temporal instant, and the directions
one can call 'subjective' bcause these are determined by the
individual zenith and the nadir; we will point out in passing
that it i precisely this comparison between these two orders
of the directions of the celestial space that is the basis of the
horoscop. Te indefnity of the directions of the space i in
itself undiferentiated, we mean to say that they have in them
virtually all the spatial relations possible without it being ps- 1
.. sible to defne them. But the qualities of these directions of the
'
celestial space are interdepndent; we mean that's son as one
r
drection of the celestial space - or point of te limit-sphere
which corresponds to it -is defned, the whole of the other direc
tions bcome diferentiated and polarised with respect to that
one. It is in this sense that the Master says that the divisions of
the sky without stars or the sky of the zodiacal 'towers' are 'vir
tual determinations which are not diferentiated except with re

pect to the sky of the 'stations' of the stars.

-
However, the fed
points of the sky of the 'stations' are above all the respective
poles of the diurnal revolution of the sky (or of the earth) and
of the annual cycle of the sun, and are consequently the points
' point of the sky-limit, but even when one fxes on a planet. It is expressed
in curent experience according to which each spectator who look at the
sun ring or setting on the other side of an expanse of water sees te 'paths'
Ol the rays refected in the water coming directly towards him; when the
spectator moves to another pint, this luminous path follows him. - Let us
note in passing that the North American Indians consider this luminous path,
refected on water by the rays of the setting sun, a path for the souls on their
retur to te world of their ancestors; in fact, one can see in this a 'horzon- i
'_tal' projetion of 'solar rays',
w
hich, according to the Hindu symblism,
represents the tie by which each particular individual is attached directly tp
his principal. We know that the sacred texts of Hinduism describe tis ray
as going from the 'crown' of the head to the sun. Te same symblim -
implying at the same time the idea of a direct tie and that of the 'Divine Way'
- can be found in this passage from the Sura of HOd : 'Tere does not exist a
living being whom He (Allah) does not hold by his forlock; in tuth my
Lord is on a straight path'. - Like the 'Divine Way', the direction which goes
from any one of the terrestral beings to a determined point of the celestial
vault is at the same time unique for each and the same for all.
18
tat te divergence of the ple determine on the ecliptic@
that is to say te two equinoxes, pints of intersection of the
solar orbit wit the equator, on te one hand, and the two
solstices, extreme pint of te two phases, acendant and de
scendant of the solar cycle, on the other hand. As soon as these
four points of the ecliptic are fed, the oter eight zodiacal
divisions respond to thee by virtue of the ternary and senar
partitions which are natually inherent to the circle, as is ex
pressed in the relatonship between the rays and the propor
tions of the hexagon inscribd in the circle. Ten it is as though
a spntaneus crystallisation of spatial relations is produced,
each point of the quaternary evokes two other points of a
trigon, which in their turn repeat the relation in 'square', SO
that the division of the circle by four is thus integated and
compnsated by a 'congenital' synthesis to the 'universal' nature
of the cycle, according to the formula
3
X 4 = 4 X 3 F 2.
If the two great circles, that of the celetial equator and tat
of the solar cycle, coincided, there would b no manifestation
of the seasons. Te divergence of te to great celestial cycles
evidently expresses therefore the rupture of the equilibrium
Generation of the Zodiacal duoenary
by the square and the trgon.
1
9
which engenders a certan order of manifestation, tat is to say
tat of contat and of complementae; and the four cardna
pint determined by tis divergence ae obvously te sign or
the marks of tis contat. Ibn 'Arabi identife te zoacal
quaternary with tat of te qualitie or fundamenta tenden
cie of the total or universal Nature (at-tabi'ah), which is te
rot of all te diferentiations. Lt us add, to prevent all p
sible misunderstanding, tat te Total Nature such as te Ma
ter envsages is not te Universal Substance as such, te ft
pasive principle tat the Hindu doctrine calls 'rakriti and tat
Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi designates either by te term of al-hab
('Substance'), or by al-'unsur al-a'ZaD ('Supreme Eement'), but
tat it is a direct determination envisaged more particularly
under its aspect of 'maternity' with regard to the creatures.
The Universal Nature, non-manifested in itelf, manifests itelf
by four qualities or fundamental tendencies which appear in
the sensible order as heat and cold, dryness and humidity. The
heat and cold are active qualities oppsed one to the other;
they manifest also as expansive forces and contractive forces;
they determine the pair of passive qualities, te dryness and
humidity. Taken to the four cardinal points of the zodiac, the
cold corresponds to the two solstices, which refect in some
ways te polar contraction, whereas the heat corresponds to
te two equinoxes which are situated on the equator, pitch of
the expansion of the celestial movement. Because of this fact,
the cardinal signs succeed each other by contrasts; but the pas
sive qualities of dryness and humidity tie together two pairs
of these. The four tendencies or qualities of Nature are joined
two by two in the nature of the four elements or foundation
of the sensible world, produced starting with the terrestial sub
stance : eart is cold and dry, water is cold and humid, air is
humid and hot, fre is hot and dry. If one attributes these ele
mentary qualities to the signs of the zodiac saying that Aries is
3 Te traditional medicine of te Moslem world reduces all te illnesses to
so m8ny manifetations of disequilibrium of these four tendencies.
20
of igneous nature, Cancer aqueous, Libra aerial and Capricorn
Jone must take account of te fact that the zodiac co
n

tains only te celestial models of the four elements and tat
tese models remain composed of four tendencies of the Total
(ature, just as Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi pints out.
Te quaterna of the fundamental tendencies of the Total
Nature should b multiplied, according to Muhyiddin Ibn
'Arabi, by the ternary whose cosmic congenitors are the three
movements or principia! orientations of the First Intellect or
Universal Spirit (al- 'aql), or even under another relationship, the
three worlds, that is to say, the present world, the future world
and the intermediary state of barzak.' The three movements or
orientations of the Spirit are: the descending movement, which
obviously recedes from the Principle and which measures the
depths (al-'umq) of the possible; the expansive movement,
which measures its amplitude or width (al-'urd); the movement
of return towards the origin, which is directive in the sense of
the exaltation or the height (at-tul). This ternary of the Spirit is
superior to the quaterary of the Nature; if it appears here in
the second place, this is because the diferentiations of the zodi
acal sky of the archetypes proceed from manifested contrasts to
arrive at their reintegration in the perfect synthesis. As a result
of this reintegration all multiplication, all points of the zodiac
which happen to b in relation to the trigon have the same
elementary nature but are distinguished by the qualities rele
vant to the ternary of the Spirit; and all the points which hap
pen to be in relation to the square have the same spiritual
quality but are diferentiated by the elementary contrasts. From
this one can already deduce the diferent characters of the 'as
pects' or reciprocal positions of the planets on the ecliptic : the
relation in right angles necessarily denotes contrast, in the same
way that opposition signifes opposition; the tigon is the ex
pression of a perfect synthesis, and the sextile, that is to say te
L the diferent signifcances of this word, see our article 'Du barzakh',
uEtudes Traditionelles Dec. ty]/.
21
position at an angle of 6o degrees, expreses an afnity. Applied
to the nature of the cycle, te tree principia! movement of
the Spirit can no more b compare to te tree dimension of
depth, amplitude and height, but they appear in accordance
with a refection conforming to this nature : the only tendency
which is directly manifested in te cyclic order is tat of te
expansion in amplitude, bcause the cycle is before anyting
else an image of the development of all the possibilities implied
in the amplitude of a degree of manifestation. In conformity
with this, the cardinal signs, critical regions of the solar cycle,
are called 'mobiles' (munqalib), that is to say dynamics or ex
pansives. As for the descendent movements of the Spirit, it is
translated in the cyclic order by fxation (sukun), and it is b
cause of this 'movement' that the world subsists as such. At
last, the spiritual movements of return towards the origin is
refected in the plane of the zodiacal cycle by the synthesis of
the two other orientations, and the signs co-ordinated wit
them are called 'doubles' or 'synthetics' (dhu ishtirlh). We
ought to point out in passing tat these ternary determinations
of the zodiac come from an altogether diferent perspective on
the symbolism of the two phases, ascendent and descendent, of
the solar cycle, a symbolism which can evidently be attached to
the two movements or opposed orientations of te Spirit; but
here it has to do with a dualism which is related to a cyclic
movement, whereas the ternar tat we have just describd i
attached to an 'existential' determination of the cycle. The
expression of 'movement' to indicate the orientations of te
Universal Spirit, should be taken in a purely symbolic sense.
As to the correspondences with the three worlds or degrees
of human existence, such as appear in the symbolism of the
angelic functions to which are related the twelve zodiacal signs,
a symbolism which we have extracted from the book 'The Tie
which Retains the Departng' ('uglat al-mustawfiz) of Muhyid
din Ibn 'Arabi, as to these correspondences, as we were saying,
they should be understood starting with the refections of te
22
intellectual terain in the nature of the cycle, and accordng U
te prspctve of the production of tee three world. Ti
explain why_
f
t is not te 'synthetc' sign attibuted to te
--
l
[
-
a
cendent orientation of Spirit, which regulate the relatvely
suprior world, that is to say the intempra dege of te
human state, but te 'fxed' sign; on te oter hand it i ev
dent that it i the 'mobile' signs which ae related to the
development of the state of this world. A to the syntetc
signs or 'double', they correspnd to te intermedia world
(te barakh of te Islaic teology, te Critan purgator
and te Tibetan bardo), or again, according to a slightly difer
ent perspctive, to te syntheis of the spiita immutabilit
and psychic expansivit in the corpral compsiton - in the
same manner 3 te producton of te alchemical salt by the
l
l
nion of sulphur and of mercur.
. (
I. MOBILE SIGNS
Aries i of hot and dry nature (igneu). It angel holds the
keys of the creation of qualities and of accidents.
Cancer is of cold and humid nature (aqueous). It angel holds
te keys of the creation of thi world.
Libra is of hot and humid nature (aerial). It angel holds the
keys of the creation of states (ephemeral) and of changes.
Capricorn is of cold and d nature (eathly). It angel holds
te keys of day and night.
II. FIXED SIGNS
Taurus is of cold and dry nature (earthly). It angel holds the
keys of the creation of paradise and of hell, and it is under the
terror of the Majesty (haybah).
Leo is of hot and dry nature (igneous). It angel is generous
(karim); he holds the keys of the creation of the future world.
Scorpio is of cold and humid nature (aqueous). Its angel holds
te keys of te creation of f (infernal).
23
Aquarius is of hot and humid nature (aerial). It angel i gen
erous, and is under te terror of te Majesty; he holds te keys
of te spirits.
III. SYNTHETIC SIGNS
Gemini are of hot and humid nature (aerial). Teir angel
rules the bdies in communion wit the rectors of te oter
double signs; he holds in partcular te key to the creation of
metals.
Virgo is of cold and d nature (terrestrial). Its angel rules, in
communion with the other double signs, the bodies, and in pa
ticular the human body.
Sagittarius is of hot and dry nature (igneous). Its angel is gen
erous; it rules the luminous bdies and the tenebrous bdies,
and it holds in particular the key to the creation of plants.
Pisces are of cold and humid nature (aqueous). Their angel
rules, in communion with the other angels of bodies, luminous
bodies and the tenebrous bodies and in particular it holds the
keys to the creation of animals.
We have now expsed, in general terms, the diferentiation
of the twelve regions of the zodiac of the sky-limit, beginning
with the fxed points of the solar cycle. We shall again point O\t
that tis way of conceiving the division of the zodiac justifes i
te manner currently employed in Arab and Occidental astro
logy of situating the twelve signs; this manner consist of count
ing twelve equal parts, beginning with the Spring Equinox, with
abstraction made of the situation of the constellations carrying
the same names as the signs; because, due to the precession of
the equinoxes, each of which makes the tour of the whole sky\
. about 26,00 years,( a discrepancy has resulted of nearly 3
whole 'sign' between-te situation of the constellations and te
parts of the zodiac having the same name; the constellation of
Aries, for example, is today to b found in the 'sign' of Taurus.
One could bring up te question of knowing whether te form
of these groupings of the fxed stars, which were at te orign
2
4
pint of reference for te determinaton of te twelve pat of
te solar cycle, i indiferent with repect to te meaning of
these; yet surely there is analogy btween the denominaton of
the zodiacal signs and these groupings of stars on the ecliptc :
te constellation of Gemini i characterised efectvely by a
couple of twin stars; that of Taurus contains a tiangle reem
bling the head of the animal, and the shapes of Scorpio and of
L can b recognised in the constellations of the same names,
even though other interpretations of tese groupings are equally
conceivable. On the other hand, it is quite likely that during te
fst fxation of the astrological symbls the resemblance were
more striking, bcause certain 'fxed' stars must surely have
moved since that very far distant time,
5
as Muhyiddin Ibn' Arabi
pint out by referring to certain stellar representations on
the monuments of ancient Egypt. Originally, the symbolic im
age attributed to the twelve parts of the solar cycle would have
presented a synthesis btween, on the one hand, te spiritual
signifcance of these determinations of celetial space, and on
the other hand, the possible interpretations of te groups of
stars of the twelve constellations, the former playing an essen
tial role, and the latent combinations of groups of stars - includ
ing their colours and their intensities - a ptential role; once te
fxation is done it would b imprinted in the collective memory
by virtue of its originality bth spiritual and imaginative; and
this is in fact a particularly adequate image of a certain order
of inspirations.
On the other hand, the precession of equinoxes, which consti
tt the major astronomical cycle, must necessarily play a role
in the atrological symblism, and the change of the place of te
zoiacal constellations ought to be a part of its signifcance, to
which matter we shall return later.
5 Te last coincdence of the zoiacal signs with the constellations of the
same signs tok place in the frst centur of te Critian era but it is prob
able tat the denomination of te twelve contellation dates from a preed.
ing coincidence. We shall come back to this matter.
III
THE HEAVEN of te fxed stas, which is contained in te
sphere of the 'towers' of the zodiac, is called te heaven of
the 'stations' (manuzil), because the movement of te planet
project themselves upn it. Te seven planet, which represent
the cosmic intermediaries btween the immutable world of te
archetypes and the earthly cente, actualise, by their combine
rhytms and the reciprocal positions which ensue, the spatial
relations virtually contained in the indefnite sphere of the sky
limit, the sphere bing no other than the totality of the direc
tions of the space and hence the image of the universe.1
The modern astrologers would like to have it that the planets
act on earth trough rays of force, and they mean this in te
material or quasi-material sense, bcause inevitably tis in
troduces into astrology something of the modern conceptions
of causality; and thence the residue of the science takes on the
aspect of a true superstition. The need for causality depends on
the general preoccupations of an era; it is true that it is always
logical in the essence, bcause that which gives causal linkage
it convincing character resides equally in the unity of the
tought and in the nature of the things; but at the same time,
the need for causality substantially depends on the mental level
which is mechanistic or imaginative, reasoning or intuitive. As
the mental horizon cannot englobe at a given time, except a cer-
1 Whence the etymological derivation of the term 'univere' from OIDis
universum.
26
tain order of realities, the causal argument of an era mentally
diferent, it appars insufcient or even defective. bcause one
can see the limit of its development only in the sense of an
ulterior invetigation; one forgets only to eaily that all causal
linkage within manifestation is essentially symbolic; and tat
the most vast and the most adequate conception of causalit is
precisely the one which is conscious of this symblism and
whic considers all things within the relationship of the 'Unit
of Existence' (wahdat-al-wujud). O the other hand, one must
tell oneself that the essential reality of an intellectual prspc
tive doe not hinder its mental expression from remaining sub
ject to the relativity of the exterior modes of knowledge; thus,
for instance, Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi afrms of the sun - :ihe
i 'heart of the world' - that it communicates light to all the other
stars, including the fxed stars, and that it itelf is illuminated
by the direct and incessant irradiation of a Divine Revelation!
Tis conception is essentially true, in the sense that all sen
sible light has its source in the intelligible light of which the
sun is the most evident symbl; it is also true in the sense that
the lights of the stars are of the same substance, as all modern
astonomers recognise; and fnally it is true that the sun com
municates its light to all the planets. A to the fxed stars, one
is today convinced that they represent sources of light indepn
dent of te sun, and on tis point the conception of Muhyiddin
Ibn 'Arabi may appear mistaken; however the functon of a
Master in Metaphysics dos not necessarily imply a distinctve
knowledge of all the domains of nature, and Ibn 'Arabi could
not have envisaged the symblism of astronomical knowledge
in any other way than it presented itself to him. Of course this
does not mean that his theory is no longer viable once one
; accepts that the fxed stars are autonomous lights in the sen-
2 Tat is to say, the 'secondar cause' are nothing but the refection of
the 'frst cause' and have no reality of thei own.
a It a signifcant fact tat the eye cannot lok at the sun - which
illuminates the whole world-without being daze.
27
sible order, bcause the distinction btween te totality of te
stars ruled by the sun and the multitude of te fxed stars ap
pears only like a diferentiation of the same symblism, in te
sense tat the sun represents the centre of radiation of te
Divine Light for a determined world, whereas the fxed stas
symblise the interferences of the light of a suprior world;
but even in this case one could say that the light which radate
from the sun is the same as that which illuminates all the cele-
tial bdies.

-
Tis diversion of diferent perspectives, according to which
one can envisage the cosmic causality, was necessary so as to
situate the role of the planet in astrology and to make clear
what one should understand by the infuence of their radiation.
Whatever may be the material or subtle efects of their rays, te
contemplative penetration of the 'physiognomy' of the cosmos
considers them more directly as modes of the Intellect in it
macrocosmic manifestation, modes which realise or measure
the possibilities contained in the indefnite sphere. Te celestial
space in which the planets describ their revolutions repreents
in some ways the extreme limit of the sensible world, and tese
limit are inversely analogous to the centre which is man him
self, just as we have already pointed out by considering the
'objective' character of the spatial directions radiating from
each human being towards the same point of the sky-limit;' b
cause of this inverse analogy, the modes of the Cosmic Intellect
represented by the stars are 'existential' instead of bing 'in
telligent', this last word to b taken in the sense of te active
intelligence manifesting in man; here we refer to the plarity
of 'existence' and 'intelligence' in the Being.5
' There will perhaps be objection that te diretion which we call
'objectve' only depnd upn the 'collective subjectivt'; but in te order
of direct and spontaneous sensr perception, on which tis symbolism in
question is based, this 'collective subjectivity' i the equivalent of 'objectivity'.
Se Frithjof Schuon on this matter in his article entitled Fatalite et Progrs:
the passage we have reprouced as a fotote earlier in t study.
5
cf. Frithjof Schuon's arcle: 'Transcendence et Univeralit6 de l'Esoterism'
ln the Etudes Trditionelles of Octobe to November tg.
28
Tis intellectual natue of te planet is expres ed - always
bau of tat same inverse aalog wit reference to te
active intelligence - in te relart and rhythmic contnuit
of teir movement. Teir luminous natre depnds on te
same symblism; on the oter hand, te propagaton of light
is so to sp 'gemetic' and correpnd to the actualiation
of te diretons and spatial relaton. It is necesary to under
stand well tat te symblism do not envisage the situaton
of te planets in the quanttatvely meaurable space; their
'apt' are determined by their projection on the zodiac, tat
is to say, by rean of the directions of te space, te cente
of whic is the terestial human bing. A to the direction
of the space, thei defnition is obviously not quanttative but
always relative to the indivisible unity of the indefnite sphere
of the exteme sky.
Of all the 'mobile' stars, only the movements of the Sun and
the Moon can be represente by regular circles on the sky of
te fxed stars, bcause the apparent orbit of the other planets
ae ruled at the same time by the solar centre and the t
!
rretia
cente, so that they revolve in combined movement. Tere is,
1 then, a simple interaction btwen the sola rhythmsnd those
of the mon; tis latter traverses the zodiac in 28 days and it is
asigned 28 stations or house which are spread in an unequal
but rhythmic fashion over the telve paths of the zodiac, and
which one counts bginning with the Spring Equinox. The
true bginning of te lunar cycle, which express itelf trough
the succession of lunations, does not always coincide wit the
pint of the equinox; because the two pint of interception
of the lunar orbit wit te solar cycle, whic are called te
'head' and the 'tail' of te dragon, describs in 18 years the
circle of all the 'sky of stations'. The fxing of the manions
of the mon, therefore, consists of a sort of symblic summary
of the real rhytm.
Te Hindu atolog coniders only 2/ luna maions, te couse of the
Moon around the sky not taking place in complete numbers of days, s tat
In the relationship bteen the lunar manions and te
zodiac is manifested an evident numerical symblism; we have
shown how_ te zodiacal duodenary presents itself a a product
'
of the multiplication of the quaternary by the terna; how
ever, multiplication symblises the mode of distincton pculia
to te world of archetypes, because these are not diferentiated
by mutual exclusion but in the manner of mirrors tat refect
each other and do not difer except by their reciprocal psition.
'
Te same numbrs
3
and 4 compse also the numbr of the seven
planet of atrology; and as the planet are the intermedi
aries btween the sky of te achetyps and the earth, their dis
tinction is that of a hierarchy and contains the principles of te
terary and of the quaternary according to the gradual order.
A to the number 28 of te houses of the mon, this is obtained
by the Pythagorician sum of numbrs from 1 to 7, with signife
that the lunar rhythm develops or expses, in a successive
mode, all te possibilities contained in the archetyps and tan
mitted, by the hierarchy of the intermediaries, to the sphee
which immediately surround the terrestrial centre.
.
-
Te relation btween the Sun and the Mon is analogous to
that which holds between the Pure Intellect and it refection
in the human form. This also fnd its most evident expresion
in the fact that the Moon refects the radiation of the Sun in
the manner of a miror, and that te cycle of the lunations is
like a 'discursive' development of this radiation. But the same
symblism appars also in the relationship of the movement
of the two astal bdies; we have already exposed abve thit
is the Sun which by it movement actualises or measures the
virtual determinations of the zodiacal sky of achetyps, b
the symblic summary of its cycle can either be taken up to 2b days or
reduced to 2/ days. On the other hand, te Hindu astologers do not situate
te bnn of the lunar cycle at te pint of the actual veal, but at
te pint of the sky of fxed stars, which coincided at te time of the
last coincidence between the zoiacal signs and the synonyous contella
tions, with the Spring Equinox. We shall come back on this diference of
points of view.
3
0
cause witout the fxed pint of the solar cycle the directons I
of the sky without stars would b undefnable. Te Sun meas
ures, therefore, the celestial space in an active fashion, in the
same way that the es ential act of the Intellect represent the
fiat lux which extracts the world of shadows from the pte
l-

lial indiferentiation; on the other hand, the Mon measure the

sky pasively by traversing the solar zodiac; she is subject at
the same time to the determinations of the directions of cele
tial space and to the directions of the solar rays, a double depn
dence which translates itelf in her luminous phases and in
the regular rhythm of the 1 8 years, according to which her
cycle is displaced in relation to that of te zodiac. We shall M
later on that te directions of space, whose infuence the Mon
sufers one by one, correspnd to so many qualities of the Bing.
Te fact that the Moon is the receptacle for all the infuences
that she collect to transmit to the Earth is also shown by the
degree which corresponds to the Moon in the hierarchy of the
prophetc functon; the Islamic esotericism, we know, 'situates'
these functions symblically in the diferent planetary skies.
According to this order of correpndences, which however can
not b understod except within their spiritual perspective and
in some way within the 'cyclic' of Islam,' Abraham (Se
y
id-na
Ibrahim) resides in the sky of Saturn, Moses (Seyid-na Musa) in
that of Jupiter, Aaron (Se
y
id-na Harn) in that of Mars, Enoch
(Se
y
id-na ldris) in that of the Sun, Joseph (Seyid-na Yusuf) in
that of Venus, Jesus (Se
y
id-na 'Isa) in that of Mercury and
Adam (Se
y
id-na Adam) in that of the Mon. There is in tis
hierarchy the same relationship btween Enoch and Adam as
exists btween the 'transcendent man' (shoen jen) and the 'true
man' (chen jen) in the Taoist doctrine : Enoch resides in the
7 From this one could conclude that the spiritual interpretation of asto
logy could not be transferred from one tadition to anoter. Not oniy do
this interpretation belong to an intelletual perpective propr to a tradi
tion, but even the validity of it divinatory applications depeds in a ce
tain measure on the homogeneity of the subtle atosphere ruled by the
spirtual influence of the envisaged tradition.
3 1
Sun bcause he represents the ' divine man' par excellence,
or te fst ' spiritual great' of the sons of Adam, and con
sequently the ' historic prototype' of ail men tat have rea
l ised God. As for Adam, he is the ' primordial man' or,
according to the expression of Ibn ' Arabi, te ' unique man'
(al-insan al-mufrad, as opposed to al-insan al-kcmil, te ' univer
sal man' ), that is to say he is the representative par excellence
of the cosmic quality which belongs to man alone, and which
expresses itself in the role of the mediator beteen ' earth' and
' Heaven' . Ibn ' Arabi compares the Moon to the heart of the
' unique man' , which receives te revelation (tajaili) of the
Divine Fsence (dhat); this heart changes form continually ac
cording to the di ferent ' essential tuths' (haqciq) which leave
successivel y therein their imprint. The fact that the Master
speaks of the heart indicates that here it has to do not with te
mental, a facul ty purely discursive, but on the contrary, with
the central organ of the soul ; the continual change of form
which this heart undergoes should not b confused with the
translation in discursive mode, operated by the mental, of a
spi ritual knowledge. even though the central and mediatorial
role of reason evidently relates to the same cosmic quality
which characterises the human being. From another pint of
view . \he description of this continual renewing of the heart, or
of its form, shows that it is not identical under all its as
pects to the transcendent pole of the being - the I ntellect - and
that it is as if it were circumscribed by the limits of the individ
ual substance, which, this latter, could not receive simultane
ously all the aspects implied in the inexhaustible actuality of the
' Esential Revelation' (tajalll dhati); because of this the subtle
form of the heart changes all the time, successively answering
all te directions or spiritual polarisations, and this change is at
! once comparable both to a pulsation and to phases of the Moo

' le incessant evol ution in the forms is like the exterior and in
versed image of the immutable i nterior orientation of te heart
of the ' unique man' , bcause, being always opn only to the
34
transcendent Unity, and bing always conscious of what It
alone reveals in all the qualities of te Intellectual Lght, te
heat could never remain closed or immobilised in one single
form; and it is precisely in this tat the double aspect of the role
of the mediator propr to the human heart consists.
/Now, it is to this faculty of mediation that relates the trans
:
1
formation of the primordial sound, which is the vehicle of te
spiritual revelation, in articulated language. It is for this reason
that Islamic esotericism establishes a correspondence between
the 28 mansions of the Moon and the 28 letters or sounds of
I
l the sacred languag

. \t is not like people think, ' - says Muhyid

din Ibn 'Arabi, - ' that the mansions of the Moon represent the
models of the letters; it is the 28 sound which determine the
lunar mansions. " Tese sounds represent in fact the micro
cosmic and human expression of the essential determinations
of te Divine Breath, which is itself the prime motivation of
comic cycles. Te Master counts the 28 sounds of the Arabic
alphabt from the frst lunar mansion, which follows the Spring
Equinox, in the successive order of their phonetic exteriorisa
tion, beginning with the hiatus (al-hamzah), and going on
through the gutteral consonants to the labials passing through
the palatals and the dentals. If one takes into account the fact
tat the initial hiatus is not properly speaking a sund, but only
a transitory instant btween silence and locution, the series of
sounds attributed to the lunar mansions begins with the ha and
ends wit the waw, thee two letters compsing te Divine
Name huwa, ' He' , symbl of te Esence one and identcal to
Itelf.
35
IV
THE MOST profound signifcance of atonomical cycles con
sists in the fact that they ofer an image logcally anaogous
to all successive development of pssibilitie ruled by the ple
of one and the same principle, so that tey symblise no mat
ter which order of manifestation, b it that that order is con
ditioned by time or b it that the succession it implies is of a
purely logical nature. Consequently it is pssible to conceive
of a whole hierarchy of cosmic ' cycle' analogous among
themselves, but situated at diferent levels of existence and each
refected simultaneously and in diferent relationships, in an
astronomical cycle such as the one traversed by the Sun or te
Mon on the sky of the fxed stars. In his book 'Te Revela
tions of Mecca' (al-futuhat al-makki
y
ah), Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi
cites a series of cosmological correspndences which allows te
tracing of a symblic diagram which will b found as an int
in this bok. Tis diagram is built upn the j uxtapiton of the
zodiac and the cycle of the lunar manion, bginning with te
Spring Equinox, and the diferent orders of analogie are indi
cated by concentric circles.
Te fst reason of all cycle of manifetation is the deploy
ment of the principia! pssibilitie of manifetation, symblid
by the series of Divine Names. On the other hand, te science
of the Name or the Divine Qualities - the former bing no
other than the logical determinations of te latter - conttte
the supreme conclusion of all sacred science, bcause universal
qualities are in some ways te distinctive content of the
Divine Esence, whereas the Divine Esence in Itself can never
b the object of a science, that is to say the object of a know
ledge which could yet again imply what so ever distinction.
Te qualities or te Divine Names are necessarily innumerable;
but due to the simplicity of this Being, which is one of the
apcts of Its Unity, they can be symblically summarised in
a determined group, which would all the same b more or less
numerically large, according to the principles of logical difer
entiation that one would like to apply. As there is no distinc
tion without implicit hierarchy, the series of Names would
always have the character of a logical chain, and it is by this
that it bcomes the model of all cyclic order.
I n te present case, the Master makes te 28 mansions of te
Moon correspond to as many Divine Names. On the other hand,
these, which all have an active or creative character, have as
complements or as direct objects the same number of cosmic
degrees, so tat teir connection forms a second analogous
cycle. The series of these cosmic degrees produced by the series
of the Divine Names go from the frst manifestation of the In
tellect down to the creation of man. In its hierarchy it also
comprises the cosmic degrees which correspond to the diferent
heavens, that is to say to te heavens of the zodiac, to the
heavens of the fxed stars, and to the seven planetary skies. But
these degrees which are here related to certain regions of the
zodiac, measured by lunar mansions, should in reality b con
ceived as a ' vertical ' succession in relation to the zodiacal cycle,
and one must understand well that there is, in this attributon
of a series of cosmic degrees to the lunar ' stations' and cone
quently to the zodiacal regions, something like a projecton of
a 'vertical ' hierarchy on a 'horizontal ' plane.
The Divine Names represent the determining es ences of
the corresponding cosmic domains. As to the production of
these domains, stating with ther prncipia} determinations,
it is te efects of the Divine Breath (an-nafas al-il8hi), which
3
7
depl oys al l the possibi l ities of manifetation implied in te prin
ci pi al dCtermi nations of the Names. According to a symblism
whi ch is at the same time verbal and fgurative, bfore the
creation of te world the Divine Names were in a state of divne
mnstriction (al-karb al-iJOh'), and then they ' demand' teir
created complCments, until the Divine Spiit ' relieved' (tanaf
fasa) them, by deployi ng all the amplitude of their conse
quences. In other words, as son as the Being conceives, in Its
first 3utodetermination (ta 'ayyun), te principal dtinctons
whi ch are Hi s Names or His Qualities, these require their logi
cal complement, the totality of which will constitute te
world. It is the Divine Breath which ' extends' this logical con
nection in an existential manner, and it identifes itself in tis
respect to te First Substance and to Universal Nature. It is thus
that we can summ3rise in a few words the theory of the Divine
Breath, 3 teory which takes into account the symbolic corres
pondence which ties together between themselves the cycle of
the Divine Names, that of the cosmic degees and that of the 28
sounds of the Arabic alphabet, the cosmic degrees being the
determinations of te Universal and Macrocosmic Breath and
the 28 sounds those of the human and microcosmic breath; the
sounds of the language are carried by the physical breath, j ust
as the cosmic degrees are ' carried' by the Divine ' expansion' .
We have explained above the reason for the analogy which re
l ates these 28 sounds to the lunar sphere.
The Master points out that the hierarchy of the cosmic de
grees that he enumerates according to the order of the lunar
mansions, should not be understood as a series of successive
productions, but as a defnite scale of degrees of existence; b
cause the order of production does not corespond to te def
itive hierarchy; it is inverse according to whether it is the de
grees of universal and informal existence, or te degrees inferior
to the sky of the fxed stars, that is to say the degrees of the
indivdual world, and this is easily understandable, seeing tat
the production of the superior states cannot be conceived ex-
cept in a purely logical fashion, in the sense of an esential
diferentiation bginning with the Unity of the Being; the pro
duction of te formal and individual worlds, on the other hand,
would necesarily be envisaged with respect to their substantial
reality, or even ' material ' , therefore like an opning up of forms
and state of existence, bginning wit the potentiality of an
undiferentiatd materia, which, because of its shadowy passiv
it, is situated at the lower degree of an ascending scale of
states of existence. Terefore the result of this is that the onto
logical level of te Prime Matter, or of te plastic substance
of the bdy of manifestations, can b conceived and repre
sented in diferent ways, according to whether one considers
it as the frst term of a seres of successive productions, or as the
bginning of the series because all the successive entities draw
their plastic substance from it, or again whether one assigns
to it the last level of a static hierarchy or whether it will play
a role in the inferior root or whether it is as the anchor thrown
into an abysmal depth.
This double hierarchical situation of the Prime Matter, or of
the passive substance, is expressed in the level tat it occupies
in the cosmological schemata which we will study, the princi
pal that Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi calls al-jawhar al-habai which
corresponds to the Prime Matter - or again al-hayOJa, the Arabic
term for 'hyJe' . The Master writes that this cosmic entity here
holds the fourth level bcause it is the necessary premise of the
following level, assigned to ' Universal Body', secondary sub
stance, which flls the intelligible ' space' as ether, or the akdsha
of the Hindu doctrine, flls the sensible space. It is in this res
pect, that is to say as the immediate origin of ' Universal Body',
tat cosmology generally conceives of the reality of the Prime
Matter. Nevertheless, according to its most profound meaning
which Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi exposes, te Prime Matter, con
ceived as te Universal Substance which is the supprt of all
te principia} determinations, should b repreented outide tis
hierarchical succession, bcause it is either superior or inferior
3
9
to all te oter degree; it place in te interior of te hierachy
is all te same j ustifed by the fact that it represents te lat
term of the fst quaternary which summaises in itelf alone
all Universal Existence : the Universal Soul (an-nals al-kulliyah),
which ocupies te scond degee, is in some way a reul t of te
action of the First Intellect (al-' aql) on the First Subtance (al
Haba); and Universal Nature (at-tab1 'ah), which is situated at
the tird level, appars like a modifcation of thi subtance.
On te other hand, the Prme Matter (al-jawhar al-habai) is
attributed to te Divine Name 'the Last' (al-akhir), which ex
preses the divine ' faculty' of bing ' Last' witout tempral
ulteriority, or being 'other' witout essential altereity, tis
meaning obviously correpnding to the function of te passive
subtance which is the indefnable root of all manifestaton.
Tis explanation of the hierarchical level of the Prime Mat
ter was necessary in order to indicate how one should envis
age the cosmic degree of succession. As to the other terms
of this same hierarchy, their explanation would take us byond
the framework of this study; we will limit ourselves terefore
to the indication of some general distinctions. One will notice
that te cycle of the Names of the cosmic degrees and the lunar
mansions can b divided into quarters, each of which comprises
seven mansions corresponding to a defite total of degres of
existence : te frst quarter symblises the world of principals or
the totality of Divine Degrees : this quarter is symblically ter
minated at the Summer Solstice, and at the degree of te
Divine 'Trone', which is the complement of the Divine Name
al-muit, 'He who englobs all', is the model of the letter qaf,
sign of the ple and name of the polar mountains that te
Hindus call Men; and, let us add, in there it is as if it were a
verbal image of the fact that the Divine 'Throne' is at the same
ti me te sphere which englobs all and the pole around which
\ revolves the circumambulation of the angels. The next two
quarters symbolise all the formal worlds, but in only one re-
pct, tat of te 'elementar' and direct existence of each of
teir degree; bcause it i the last quarter of the cycle which
reprent the hierarchy of the compsite bings, that is to
say bings whose forms draw from a syntesis of many de
grees of existence. Te to middle quaters constitute there
fore a single 'world'; but they can b divided with respct to
te centre of tis world, this centre bing te sphere of te Sun,
which i the 'heart of the world', and which is here placed in
analogical relation to te Autumn Equinox.
Te ' intermediary' world comprises te seven planetary skie,
and their attibution to an equal numbr of Divine Names indi
cates with precision te cosmic principles of which the planet
ary rhytms are an expression.
Te sky of Saturn is attribute to te Divine Name ar-Rabb,
' te Lrd' , te meaning of which implies a reciprocal relation
ship, bcause a bing has no qualit of lordhip except in rela
tion to a servant, and te servant is not thus a servant except
in relation to a lord. For te created bing, tis relationship ha
a necessary and unalterable character whereas te oter divine
qualities can in some ways var in colour according to the
individual . The sky of Jupiter is te complement of te Divne
Name aJ-anm, ' te Knower' or 'te Learned' . Mars correspnds
to the Divne Name al-qchir, ' the Conqueror' or ' the Tamer' ;
Jupiter reigns over te intellectual faculty and Mars te voli
tive faculty. Te Sun is analogous to the Divine Name an-nur,
' the Light', whereas te Moon correspnd to te Divine Name
al-mubin, 'te Apparent' or ' te Evident' . The Sun symblise
te principal of Intellect itelf, whereas te Moon represents
manifestation; tere is btween tese two names te same rela
tionship as that btween 'Trut' and ' Proof', or bteen ' Reve
lation' and ' Commentary' . Venus is attributed to te Divne
Name al-musawwir, He who forms, a word which equally signi
fes the painter and the sculptor, and te feminine form of
which signife the imaginative faculty. As for Mercury, it is the
analogy of the Divine Name al-muhsi, ' He who count' , te
the si gnifcance of whi ch is related to numbrs and to distnc
ti ve knowledge.
1
The two mddle quarters of te cycle, symblised by te
zodiacal hemicycle situated btween te Summer and Winter
Solstices, englobs all the hierarchy of te celestial sphere,
starting in an ascending order with the Divine ' Trone' ; and
this hemicycle efectively correspnds to the descendent phae
of the solar trajectory. Te last mansion bfore the Winter
Solstice is attributed to the element earth; the pint itelf
of the Solstice symbolises therefore the centre of gravity,
lowest point which would b the level of te pasive mater
of the human world - not of the Prime Matter of all te uni
verse - bcause this centre of gravity is not the lowest pint
except wit respct to the world of men. From this pint on,
the meaning of the hierarchical order changes and bcomes
ascending, going from te elementary towards syntess. First
comes the three kingdoms of minerals (or metals, because te
pure mineral is always reduced to metal), of plants, and of ani
mals, and after that the degrees of angels, genii, and men. It
would seem strange that the angels should precede the genii
(jinn); since the genii belong only to the psychic world, wherea
the angels belong to the informal world and tereby should sur
pass them in knowledge and in pwer; but the order of succes
sion goes from that which is more simple towards tat which is
more composite, from tat which is less individualised toward
individuation. Because of this, man represents the last syn
thesis in tis world, because te cyclic degree which follows
and which terminates all te hierarchy is no more, to b pre
cise, a degree of existence; it symblise the reintegration of
all the preceding degrees in te First Intellect. Terefore te
Master says of this l ast mansion of the cycle tat it corepnds
to the ' determination of all the degrees' , that is to say to teir
1
This refers to a perspective other than the one which envisages the
prophetic functions in their corespondences wit the seven planet.
intellectual hierarchisation, ' but not to thei manifestation' .
Tis hierarchisation identifes itelf on the other hand to te
' Universa Man (al-insan al-k8mil), whose existence i s purely
vrtual wit repct to te domain of distinctve manifestation,
bing a it were the ideal model of the return of man to the
Principle.
From another pint of view, one should not lose sight of
the fact that this cosmological hierarchy, projected into a cycle,
is at the same time determined by the encatonation of macro
cosmic degrees and by the human prspective : this is perfectly
licit, given that the human bing occupie a central psition
in te cosmic atmosphere which surround him, and that he
has a right to consider this position, since he is obliged to make
of it a starting pint for his spiritual realisation, as he is situated
on the axis itelf which unites the ples of the universe, passing
from the lowest centre of ' material' graYity up to the supreme
centre of 'First Intellect'.
Te system of correspndences that Muhyiddin I bn ' Arabi
give us prmits us to relate each manion of the Moon to a Div
ine Quality; on the other hand, these mansions are superm
psed on the twelve zodiacal regions, according to an unequal
but rhythmic superimpsition, and in a manner where each
zodiacal sign comprises seven-third of lunar mansions. We
still have to consider the following modes according to which
the cosmic and intellectual qualitie of thee mansions are com
bined, $ 3 to give the qualities inherent to the zodiacal regions.
43
v
THE DI RECTIONS of thi space are paculaly adequate sym
bls for the nature of te Divine Qualite. Like tee Qualite,
which are the frst determinations of te Bing, the directions of
this space are i an inexaustble multtude; one canot, how
ever, conceive of them a a multitude, bcause each direction
is in itelf prfectly deterined, it sole reaon of extence
bing precisely the singulaity of it determinaton.
Likewise for the Divine Qualities, the totality of directions of
the space cannot be defned, and the unlimited sphere, the log
ical form of teir extreme radiation, is no other than a symbl
which is imposed on the mind without one knowing how to
prove it. Wheter it is the Divine Qualities or the directions of
the space, as soon as one among them is ' named' , the others can
then b defned by their relationship to this, which is an aspct
of the Unicity of Etence.
When one gives an image to the Divne Qualities, the
centre of their radiaton must b identfed wit te uncondi
tional Principle. As for the directions of the celestial space, thei
centre is the human being - or each human bing existing on
earth - without this implying a plurality of centes, a we have
already explained. Tere is therefore an inverse analogy b
tween the logical image of the Divine Qualite and the direc
tions of the celestil space.
In principal it is the Spirit present in man which is bt te
Divine centre from which radiates the qualities of te space,
and the limit-spee which synteis tee; but in fact, te
human spirit is subjected to te convergent rays of te cele
tal vault; bcaue man, not actually bing identfed wit his
increated cente, i submitted to te totality of the Spit a
reality or a a detny exterior to himself. It is in ti way tat
te sky rect' upn te relative eccentcity of the individual
nature, eccentcity which i symblically expresd by te
situaton of te 'subjective' directions of space at the moment
of birth.
A sheaf of directions or of qualitie can always b replaced
by a single one which is in some way te reultant; meanwhile
tis reultant i not presented a a sum or a mixture of diec
tions or qualities that is summarise, bcause though tis is a
synteis of all te others, it is als a unique ting in itlf,
since te singulaty of the determination constitute the esn
tial chaacter of each direction; it implie terefore a new qual
ity which te sum of the preceding qualitie cannot expres.
Tis law, which is full of cosmological conquence, should
also b applie to the combination of sveral nature of the
lunar mansion in one zodiacal sign. Ech lunar manion repre
sent a sheaf of directions of celetial space, te synthei of
which symblically corepnd to one Divine Quality. Te
sheaves fall unequally on te twelve regions of the zoiac, in
such a way tat each zodiacal sign compri either to com
plete mansion ad a third of a manion, or only one complet
mansion wit on eiter side of it to tird of a mansion. Te
sign of the ft category ae called 'pure' signs, and to of
te scond, 'mixed'. Now, according to Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi,
the qualitie of te fracted manion are combined on te one
hand wit te complementa fracton of te oter manion
contained in te sae sig, contitutng togeter wit te,
new reultant, and tey concur, tan to their original quali
tie well t tei new reultnt, with the contitton of
the syntei which exprC te qualitative natre of te
zoiacal sig in question.
4
5
' I bis synthesis, says Muhyiddin Ibn 'Aabi, is the cosmic
model of all logical deduction, this always having the form of
two premises founded on two couples of terms : a = b and b
= c, of which the mean term b constitute the link through
which operate, te synthesis : a = c.
Te qualities of te lunar mansions, he explain, confer upn
each zodiacal sign seven aspcts, to which is added tree a
pect inherent in this sign - and deployed elsewhere in it tgon
- which makes ten aspect to b multiplied by teir tiple rela
tionship with the three principal degrees of existence.
1
Te world, says te Master, consist of the Unity of te
United (ahadiyad-al-majmu), whereas the Divine Indepndence
resides in te Unity of te Unique (ahadiyad-aJ-wahid. But
Unicity is refected in the interior of the unifed multiple,
i n te singularity of each resultant, exactly as we have seen
in the case of the synthesis of te directions of the space;
thus a child represents the synthesis of the natures of his
father and mother, but he is at the same time a unique and new
being, and it is his unicity which is his real reason for exis
tence. In general each singular paI of the cosmos has in it at
the same time a relative aspect according to which it is shown
as a combination of several pre-xistent elements, and a unique
aspct which is in a way its face turned towards its Eternal
Principle, and which correspond, in it most real sense, to
that which this thing or this bing is in the Divine Science!
Each element of a cosmic whole is other by what it repreent
in itelf, and other bcause it is related to a syntheis. Further,
each resultant of a synthesis is not only determined by its com
pnent parts, but in its turn determines the latter, by reason of
what it contains of the unique. Bcause of this, each cosmic
1 From these multiplications result ]O aspects for each sign, which add up
to O for all the zoiac, te number of te curent divsion of te cicle in
degrees.
3 On te diference between the esential aspet and the substantal apet
of a being, see also the article by Ren Gunon: 'Ltre et le milieu' in Le
VO/cL'$s, Dec. Iy].
domain is comparable to a tissue of relationship where each
interseting line i at the same tme a centre and a part of te
whole.
It follow for astology 3 an art, that these procedures have
on the one hand the character of an exact deduction or of a
calculation, and that they suppse on the other hand an in
tuition ' from above' from which ensues the unique quality of
each newly nascent form of combinations. Whereas the deduc
tion or the combination is superstantial or 'horizontal ', the
recognition of the uniqueness of each resultant is essential or
' vertical ' . In each work of a taditional art like astrology there
intervenes therefore, an inspiration more or less direct and
which generally depends on participation in a spiritual in
fuence. In fact there is no real ' exact' science without such a
' vertical ' intervention, and this bcause of te double aspct of
each existent form, as we have just explained. On the other
hand, the deductive combinations of a cosmological science
such as astrology produce a mass of symblic ptentialities
which are susceptible of attracting ' inspirations' of very difer
ent natures; this is especially the case for all that relates to the
divinatory art, which can always, to the - degree in which it is
interested, attract insidious interferences. In other words, man
cannot remove the veil of his ignorance except by or through
someting which transcends his individual will; for the indivd
ual curiosity, all ' oracle' remains equivocal and may even rein
force te error which constitutes the fatal trap of such destinyo
Dealing with the super-position of the part of the zodiac
upon the lunar mansions, Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi pints out that
one zodiacal ' tower' must necessarily unite in itelf bth a com
plete numbr and a fraction of a numbr of mansions, ' without
which the development and the diminution cannot appar in
the world of bcoming' . Tis remark contains an allusion to a
law which is afrmed in the mutual relations btween all te
3 Te geometric line of oramentaton of Arab ar can all be considered
89 symbls of this 'unicity' of the cosmos.
4
7
comic cycles, and espcially in te relation btween te ccle
of te Sun and of the Mon; bcause, not only te lunar man
sions are not contined entirely in the par of te zodiac, but
also te yearly course of te sun do not coincide wit an
entire numbr of lunar cycle; a it i said in te Koran (srat
Ya Sn) : ' I t i not allowed for te Sun U reach te Mon, no
is it to te night to overtke the day, but each move in a
spcial sphere' - if the Sun reached the Mon, tat i U say,
if a complete rhytm of lunar revolutions could b containe
in one slar cycle, so that the evolutions of teir reciproal
relationships return to the strting pint, teir common ccle
would b achieved; teir manifetation would b re-abrbd
in non-manifestation : 'Te night would overtake the day' .
Tere must als b, in a certin meaure, a reptition; in te
1 8year intervals, the reciprocal pitions of the Sun and te
Mon in fact travel te same cycles; but thes are woven
in the whole of te planet world, and are situated accord
ing U te new proprtions wit repct to te oter strs.
What is expresd in tis supr-pition of te rhytm i,
on the one hand, that all cycle of manifetation contin a
relative reptition, bcaus it is made up of image of te
same ' plar' archetyp, image which are necesarily analogous
among themlve; but on the oter hand, it dos not contin
any efective reptition, since te creative esnce of te arche
typ can never b exausted by tes image or symbls.
- Analogy i te trace of te Unity, and te inexhaustible char
actr is te refection of the infnity of te Prnciple.
Te same law of non-reptition, which require that not any
one comic cycle clos upn itlf, i als expres d in sme
way at te extreme limit of te snible world, in te prece
sion of equinoxes which makes it s tat te intersction pint
of te slar cycle wit te celetial equatr ef ectuate, in
relation to the 'sky of the fxed stars', one complete reoluton
in one prio of abut 26,00 years; from where reult te
actual dislocation btwen the sign or te divion of te ziac
4
8
and te twelve conllation which cary te same name. -We
have already shon tat te qualitatve cl eentaton of te
region or celetial direcon which ae epes in te dv
sion of te ziac poe from te four contant U of
te slar cycle, te equinoxe and te slstice, and tat it i
not right to say - a sme moe atologers d - tat te
Spring Equinox move from te sign of Aie to te sign of
Aquariu, since the sign are countd invariably bginning from
te veral pint. O te oter hand, one could say tat te con
stellation of Arie i move twad te sign of Tauru or that
te veral pint, that i t say te Spring Euinox, ha moved
from te contllation of Aie to tat of Pie; and one ougt
U supp that te change of te relationhip bten the
two supreme skie, tat of the ziacal 'towers' and tat of te
fed sts, ha moifd in a cerin way tat which one could
call 'te infuence of te sky' . All the same, we have not any
spatial meaure for dCining te contnt of ti geat ex
treme cycle which i tap in te precesion of te equi
noxe, bcaus we know neiter their bginning nor their end,
and if we make abtaction of the constnt term of the slar
cycle, te qualitie of the celetial region bcome completely
undnable.
' We must aner the objetion that could raied from the fact that
the Hindu atrolO, which M go te se org u te
Heetic atrolog, do no refe, for dU 0 p1
pition, to the actual diviion of the ziac bnning with the Sp
Euinox (te veal pint), but te twelve contellaton m the sphee
of the mN st. It would er oe to conclude from ti tt, ac
ing one traditionl pint m view, div of the 2 W0
indepndent m te cal pinM m the slar cycle; te Hindu uoJe
simply refer, in their div of the celetial reln, R a cein cclic dt
which H mKN by the coince of the twelve contellation wit the
twelve synonymou zicl l, and they oat in ti in an aJo
manne W tt which relat all te plan movement MmU dur
ing te cours of an Indivdual life, te inital piton m the sy at te
moment m m. the ote B, te pint of te ve 0 Hindu
utroiO corep well R te 'mytholoical' tendey of MH
civliaton whe the Aab uJ H OMM b M deucve
spt; we want R sy that the Mw have sntneouly the ty
4
In fact, the principle of distinction which meaue te cele
tial space is esentially slar; it is by the revolution of the Sun
that the qualitative dferentations of the directions, whic
radiate invariably from te terestrial and human cente and
which defe the regions of the vault of the limit-sy,
are oprated. Te solar cycle is therefore the direct expresion
of the Divine Act which puts te chaos in order. On the oter
hand, te sphere of the fe stars - the innumerable multtde
of which is like an image of so many luminous source iolat
in the shadows, and susceptible to entering into mutual relaton
ships not yet manifested -symblises, in relation to te zodiaca
sphere, the cosmic potentiality which could never b exhausted
and which avoids all intelligible defnitions. -Tus we cannot dis
tinguish the particular qualitie of the sphere of the fed stars,
of which we nevertheles see trace, whereas we do know the
qualities of the sphere without stars, which we do not see. In
tis there is a profound signifcance : we can in fact know te
devolution of the world in principle, but we do not know all the
' material ' ptentialities that this devolution will wear out .

Te extreme cycle which is manifested by the precession of te
equinoxes, but of which we cannot determine the phases,
should infuence the totality of the sky by a successive predom
inance of certain cosmic or Divine Qualities. And since this
major cycle is like the model of all the other cycles which are
subrdinated to it, one can attribute to it, by symblic tans
position, the contents or partitons analogous to those of an
inferior cycle. Tus the Sheikh al-akbar attributes to the major
cosmic cycle the determinations which he deignate by te
name of zodiacal signs and which follow each other in the
to 'divide' phenomena, so as to disolve them in the consent of the Infnite,
whereas the spirit of Islam which deterines the Aab astolog deduces all
from the idea of the Divine Unity. A for the date of the coincidence of
the two zoiac, which is situated at abut q A.D. it necesarily has to
corespnd to a 'renaissance' of astrological symbolism itself.
s
o
order of te annual movement of te Sun; which shows very
well tat it ha noting at all U do wth te dsplacement of
the vernal pint in te constllaton, a dplacement which
move inverly to the solar movement. On the other hand, the
Master asigns to the 'reigns' of these major 'sign', durations
succesively decreasing: Aies reig for 1 2,00 years, Taurus
for 1 1 ,00 years, Gemini for 10,00 years, and their durations
decrease thus until the sig of Pisces whose reign numbrs only
1 ,00years. Tis decreasing also proves that it cannot b caused
by spatial determinations like those which divide the zodiac,
but that the zodiacal divisions are here tansp, due to a
spiritual analogy, to determinations purely tempral, of a cycle
te subdivision of which escapes from te spatial mea
ure; in fact all spatial cycle is symmetically divided, wherea a
purely tempral cycle is divided in consequence of the progre
sive contraction of time.5
A to te efective duration of the diferent 'reigns' of tee
major 'signs' , perhaps one should not see in the numbers of
years indicated by Ibn 'Arabi anything other than purely sym
bolic numbrs. All the same, the sum of all thee ' reigns' is equal
to the duration of tree complete precessions of the equinoxe;
- one should always take into account the fact tat we can
measure the complete duration of a precesion (given that we
can determine its sped), without being able to f it terms in
space. - If one refers to the Hindu theory of the cosmic cycle
and if one counts for the frst
y
uga of te actual man van tara the
duration of one complete precesion, the manvantara, bing
compsed of four decreasing
y
ugas according to the proprtion
4
:
3
: 2 : 1 , ought to contain 65,00 year, which difers by a half
precession from the sum of 78,00 years which is deduced from
the symblism indicated by Ibn 'Arabi. We must add that the
Sheikh al-akbar incidentally notes tat the frst ' sign' which
reigned on the world was Libra, and that this was again domin-
cf. Te chapter `L temps change en epace" in : L rgne de Ia quantite
et les sgnes des temps of Rene Guenon.
5
1
ating in the era of te prophet Mohamme.' - We will willingly
leave to others te tak of conciliating tee diferent factors.
By te consideration of te precesion of the equinoxe we ae
necessarily touching upn the limit of the cosmic whole whic
are characterised by the coincidence of the tempral and spatal
determinations in the movement of the stars. Tis whole can
not b a closed system, and as son as we consider it limit, we
are short of meaure, bcause time i measured by movement in
space. The visible world is like a perfectly coherent fgure,
woven on a sliding base which ecaps our hold.
Finally, we shall recall a formula of Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi
that we have already cited incidentally during the course of
our expsition, the cosmological and metaphysical imprtance
of which is altogeter fundamental : 'Te world consist of te
Unity of te Unifed, whereas the Divine Indepndence resides
i n the Unit of the Unique' .
We must pit out tat te s of L0ta d not c m te mot
8mOt reprtton of te zc. te ote bam, the acet Oine
use to gve the nme Lbta to the pla plou.
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The ons Vi tae Ti tus Burckhardt Seri es
1ons Vi t a t i s dt di carcd to preservi ng i n pri nt for future generati ons the
x t raor,linarily i mportant and timeless work of Titus Burckhardt, who devoted
I us l i f i to tlw txposi ri on of Universal Truth, that wisdom "uncreate" in the realm
of nwtaphysics, rosmology and sacred art. In addition to Burckhardt's Alchemy:
.', rl'lhl'

f tht \:osmos. Science o the Soul, Letters ofa Suf Master and Moorish Culture in
"l' ' ' ill , I ;ons Vitae is honored to add to the series Sacred Art in East and \st, Mirror
1t l., l r td/,cr, and Mystical Astrolog According to Ibn 1rabi.
An t mi ncnt Swiss metaphysician and scholar of oriental languages Titus
Burckhardt ( 1 908- 1984) devoted his life to the timeless and universal wisdom
pnst nt i n Sufsm, Vedanta, Taoism, Platonism, and the other great esoteric and
sapi cmial traditions. Though an art historian like his great uncle the renowned
Jamb Burckhardt, his main interest was the spiritual use and meaning to be found
i n Eastern and Western art and architecture, and the expression of the sacred in
rhc lives of saints.
hms Vtae is gratefl to the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin for permission to
i ndude illutrations &om the 16th century Persian manuscript Suwar al-Kawakib

{ ai-Suf or Te Shape of the Stars. Written by the Persian astronomer, Abd ai

Rahman al-Suf, in about AD 960, this astronomical treatise is based ultimately
on an ancient Greek source, Ptolemy's Almagest. A masterpiece of observational
astronomy, its illustrations of the constellations are Muslim reinterpretations of
the original Greek models.