Astral Magic: The Occult Religion of Modern Cosmology
How the Renaissance revival of ancient alchemy birthed the mythos of modern science
The European Renaissance was defined as a cultural rebirth, but what was it actually a rebirth of? This “rebirth” was a disastrous reintroduction of Hermeticism into European scholasticism, establishing the Hermetic tradition as a crucial factor in the development of modern science. Quite simply, the Renaissance was the rebirth of neoplatonic astral magic flooding into European culture.
This Hermetic dominance of modern scholastic thought can be quite obviously seen in its great impact on the Copernican revolution. With the entire Renaissance being funded by the Medici Italian banking family, their Laurentian library was the knowledge hub of Europe, housing countless occult manuscripts that ushered in the golden age of alchemy. As Erasmus of Rotterdam saw this alchemical obsession begin to unfold, he forewarned, "I have a fear and it is, that, with the study of ancient literature, ancient Paganism will reappear."
Copernicus worked out his heliocentric cosmological model under the mystical influence of Hermes Trismegistus, who is considered the founder of science, religion, mathematics, geometry, alchemy, philosophy, medicine, and magic. The notion that the sun is at the center of the cosmos and not the earth is a belief not found in the Bible but in the Heremetica of Hermes Trismegistus, a compilation of ancient esoteric texts believed to contain the wisdom of the ancient Egyptians. The author of the Arabic Hermetic text, the Pecatrix, wrote that Hermes built a temple to the sun, and in the Corpus Hermeticum V, it states that the sun is supreme among the gods of heaven. The Asclepius lists the sun as far greater than all the planets.
“The debt Copernicus owed to the Hermetica is demonstrated by the fact that the three revolutionary ideas he was to famously propose—the Earth's motion in space, its rotation on its own axis, and the orbiting of the Earth and other planets around the sun—all appeared in the Hermetica.”1 This Hermetic devotion of Copernicus is evidenced in his own writings, as he states in his seminal work on the heliocentric theory titled On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres:
“In the center of all rests the sun. For who would place this lamp of a very beautiful temple in another or better place than this, wherefrom it can illuminate everything at the same time? As a matter of fact, not unhappily do some call it the lantern; others, the mind and still others, the pilot of the world. [Hermes] Trismegistus calls it a "visible God".” (Revolutions, I, 10)
The planets themselves are named after Pagan deities, including the gods Helios and Sol used to describe Heliocentrism and Solar system. Frances Yates writes about a treatise by Hermes Trismegistus which describes instructions on how to create magical talismans based on the corresponding astrological signs and decans of the names of the planets, to draw down influence from the stars. The Asclepius refers to decans being worshipped, acting as intermediaries of the planets. St. Augustine attributed these decans to fallen angels and warned against the demon worship of the Asclepius. Interestingly, the only place where planets are even remotely mentioned in the Bible is found in the epistle of St. Jude, where he makes a poetic reference to the "wandering stars" as judgement of the fallen angels from the book of Enoch.
Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. —Jude 1:13
When God created the luminaries on the fourth day, only the sun, moon, and stars were accounted for as distinct categories of celestial bodies. While the concept of a solar system or planetary system is nowhere in the Bible, it is contrastingly very prominent in occult texts. For example, the Kabbalistic tree of life maps out 10 spheres that correspond to dimensions, chakras, planets, and the pantheon of Pagan deities. Similarly, the Zohar explains the earth as being a ball that rolls with some people above and some below, which is also a concept that is not found in the Scriptures.
There are hours of lectures by famous occult astrologer and philosopher Manly P. Hall regarding the secret planetary powers of unseen forces in relation to the ancient Pagan gods. The ultimate Luciferian goal of mankind is to achieve total enlightenment and ascend back to his original cosmic home in the stars. The Sefirot of the Kabbalah is a demonic mimicry of the Ladder of Divine Ascent, with man ascending the celestial spheres, guided by gnosis in place of spiritual struggle in Christ. It’s what Hermes’ Poimandres describes as the ascension of the soul through the heavenly spheres.
In a sense, modern Copernican cosmology is a materialistic preservation of the same Pagan cosmological mythology of the ancient Hermetics. You can hear this gnostic rhetoric explained quite plainly in the language used by Neal DeGrasse Tyson and the like when they explain how we are all just composed of “star stuff”, for example. It also manifests in the humanistic obsession with space exploration as mankind conquering the solar system one planet at a time, each being the next great frontier. This is why transhumanists such as Elon Musk find space exploration to be an essential ritual in advancing humanity toward becoming god-like, based on a god made in man’s image.
Copernicus was certainly not the only Renaissance astronomer to draw from the ancient occultists. Isaac Newton’s scientific endeavors were greatly influenced by his study of alchemy, a field in which he was both a scholar and practitioner. His Hermetic obsession is evident in his contributions to the laws of motion, the theory of gravity, the advancements in optics, and the invention of calculus. Newton famously translated the Emerald Tablet into English, which is the Hermetic text that gave birth to the infamous phrase "as above, so below." This phrase was popularized by the Satanist pioneers Blavatsky and Crowley, and it is also depicted in the image of Baphomet.
Additionally, the content of the Emerald Tablet is also focused on the mechanics of the sun, as explained by Hermes Trismegestus. It is no coincidence that Trismegestus's description shares a strong similarity to Newton's theory. As stated in Hermes' Emerald Tablet; “The sun's force is the greatest force of all, as it overcomes everything subtle and penetrates everything solid.” 2 The Emerald Tablet is the manuscript that contains the secrets of the philosopher’s stone, also known as the elixir of immortality, which is an alchemical potion that is believed to provide its consumer with immortality. This alchemical fixation on attaining eternal life by means of a gnostic pursuit of ultimate enlightenment is the same religious aspiration the transhumanists of today are striving towards.
The German astronomer Johannes Kepler was known for developing the laws of planetary motion and the idea that the tides are caused by the moon’s gravity. Kepler was also dedicated to the Hermetic tradition, which was made known in his 1619 book "Harmonocies Mundi" (The Harmony of the World) where he stated:
... very few days after the pure Sun of that most wonderful study began to shine, nothing restrains me, it is my pleasure to yield to the inspired frenzy, it is my pleasure to taunt mortal men with the candid acknowledgment that I am stealing the golden vessels of the Egyptians to build a tabernacle to my God from them, far, far away from the boundaries of Egypt...I cast the die, and I write the book.3
Centuries prior to its revival through the Renaissance, Hermeticism quietly made its way into the Vatican as early as 1267 when Franciscan friar Roger Bacon brought his Opus Majus to Pope Clement IV in Rome upon the pope's request. According to Bacon, it was knowledge of alchemy and experimental science that was first required before a proper understanding of the other sciences in the Opus Majus such as optics and mathematics could be reached.4 This shows that Bacon’s Opus Majus was, more or less, his explanation of the inseparable integration of spirituality and science. As a Hermeticist himself, “Bacon believed that Christianity could be “restored” to its intended state, so to speak, by including knowledge of alchemy in the Christian learning curriculum”.5
A more complete depiction of the Copernican cosmological model was explained in the Hermetic text Poimandres. Notice how Hermes even describes the idea of an infinitely expanding universe, a fundamental principle of the Big Bang Theory:
Then Hermes saw a wonderful sight. The starry heavens, stretching through infinite space, enveloped him with seven luminous spheres. In one glance, Hermes saw the seven heavens stretching above his head, tier upon tier, like seven transparent and concentric globes, the sidereal center of which he now occupied. The milky way formed the girdle of the last. In each sphere there rolled a planet accompanied by a genius of different form, sign and light.
Although the Big Bang was first theorized in 1927 by Georges Lemaître, a Belgian Jesuit priest and theoretical physicist, it had also been conceptualized in alchemical texts centuries prior to the Renaissance. Big Bang derives from the Kaballah, which functions as the underlying mystical philosophy behind the field of theoretical physics, admittedly by many leading theoretical physicists themselves. Eduard Shyfrin demonstrated this in his book From Infinity to Man: The Fundamental Ideas of Kabbalah Within the Framework of Information Theory and Quantum Physics. In his book, Shyfrin uses concepts such as information theory to recast kabbalistic insights in scientific terminology. “I tried to prove if we dig deep into Kabbalah, we can find similarities and ideas of the physics of the 20th century,” he said in a 2009 interview.6
According to Jewish mysticism, all of existence started with an explosion from one point that is continually multiplying. Thus, Wolfson sees a distinct relationship between the contemporary Big Bang theory and the Kabbalistic notion that the universe burst forth from a single point, which in mystical terms is the limitless light of the divine, or infinite, known as the “Ein Sof” meaning, "no end".7
For those who may think that one could simply reject the Big Bang Theory while still holding to this gnostic Copernican cosmology, it’s important to note that planetary motion itself can only be explained as a result of Big Bang Theory, otherwise there is no scientific reason for motion to occur. The force of the Big Bang is what put the earth in orbit around the sun, pulled the moon into earth’s gravitational field and set the sun in motion through the galaxy. If one rejects the Big Bang Theory, there is no scientific reason for the heliocentric model to be true. As a Christian, one would need to provide a non-scientific explanation for why God placed the planets in motion with the sun at the center, which contradicts Biblical cosmology and has not been empirically verified.8
"One can say, either that the intense emphasis on the sun in this new worldview was the emotional driving force that induced Copernicus to undertake his mathematical calculations on the hypothesis that the sun is indeed at the center of the planetary system, or that he wished to make his discovery acceptable by presenting it within the framework of this new attitude," Frances Yates explains. Perhaps both explanations would be true, or some of each."9
So this sun-centered Hermetic philosophy became the uncompromising scientific principle upon which all proceeding cosmological theories would depend upon. If the scientific method produced results inconsistent with the Copernican model, theories would be modified accordingly instead of abandoning the ideological model to reflect the scientific conclusions. This is exactly the case with Einstein’s theory of special relativity
Einstein arrived on the scene as a messiah of Copernican cosmology. Despite the Michelson-Morley experiment's failure to prove the earth's motion, his theory of special relativity was an ad-hoc rescue as he continually operated with the unchanging presupposition of heliocentrism. According to physicist and science historian Abrahaim Pais, to many people, Einstein appeared as “a new Moses come down from the mountain to bring the law and a new Joshua controlling the motion of the heavenly bodies.” He was the “divine man” of the 20th century.10 Perhaps not so coincidentally, Hermes Trismegistus was widely regarded as a contemporary Moses in the 15th century, many even believed him to be Moses himself.
The Large Hadron Collider plays with Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc² to transform matter into energy, then back into different forms of matter. It is the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator and is located at CERN, where a Nataraj statue known as the “CERN Shiva” is displayed. “The artwork is an artistic metaphor for CERN’s study of the “cosmic dance” of subatomic particles. In Hinduism, Nataraja is a depiction of the god Shiva as the cosmic dancer. The god, who danced the universe into existence, preserves it, and will one day destroy it, is a symbol of shakti, or life force.”11 The CERN Shiva symbolizes the Pagan sorcery revealed as the underlying religion that comprises the modern gnostic cosmology of Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Einstein, and their successors.
In the Indian (as in Kabbalistic) cosmology, this infinite spiritual principle is identified with "nothingness," a "no-thingness" which mystically coincides with the "life energy" (prana) of the cosmos. Each of the Hindu gods and goddesses, are understood, to be just another aspect or manifestation of this single unitary principle in Brahman, much as, for the Kabbalists the Sefirot and Partzufim are understood as aspects of Ein-Sof.12
Modern cosmology is esoteric Pagan mysticism disguised as science and its profane advocates are so entranced by its spell that they are blinded to its absurdly cartoonish depiction. Heliocentrism even mocks its proponents with its occult numerology, displaying the classic signatures of deceit. For example, the Earth's orbital speed around the sun is 66,600mph according to the heliocentric model, and the Arctic and Antarctic Circles are both 66.6° north and south, to name a few total coincidences.
While this is all just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the occult origins of modern cosmology, it should be clear that this understanding of the cosmos is backed by hundreds of pages of Hermetic, Kabbalistic and other occult texts while its far from what the Bible and Church Fathers taught. When the underlying principles of any science are those of magic and mysticism, it cannot be considered science at all, but rather an academic religion and doctrine of demons. These heroes of modern cosmology are venerated in academia as secular saints, saving the world from the religious oppression of the Church, only to enchant the world with Hermetic sorcery and Pagan mysticism. Yates refers to it as a “cult without temples or liturgy, followed in the mind alone, a religious philosophy or philosophical religion containing a gnosis.”13
Picknett, L. and Prince, C. (2016) The Forbidden Universe: The Occult Origins of Science and the Search for the Mind of God. Russell Square, London: Constable.
Emerald Tablet of Hermes. Available at: https://www.sacred-texts.com/alc/emerald.htm (Accessed: March 23, 2023).
Kepler, J. (1997) The Harmony of the World. Translated by E.J. Aiton. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society. p. 391.
Tobes, Victoria (2019) Roger Bacon: The Christian, the Alchemist, the Enigma. History Honors Program. p. 4. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/history_honors/12 (Accessed: March 19, 2023).
Ibid, p. 6
Rocker, S. (2019) The link between Kabbalah and Quantum physics, The JC. Available at: https://www.thejc.com/judaism/features/the-creative-link-between-kabbalah-and-quantum-physics-1.481174 (Accessed: March 21, 2023).
Livni, E. (2018) Jewish mysticism offers a poetic explanation of the big bang and Black Holes, Quartz. Available at: https://qz.com/1375015/jewish-mysticism-offers-a-poetic-explanation-of-the-big-bang-and-black-holes (Accessed: March 21, 2023).
Heliosorcery (2022) | Exposing the Occult Origins of Heliocentrism | Full Documentary. YouTube. Earthen Vessels. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crasHY5HCdI (Accessed: March 19, 2023).
Yates, F.A. (2002) Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition. London: Routledge. p.54
Pais, Abraham. “Knowledge and Belief: The Impact of Einstein’s Relativity Theory.” American Scientist, vol. 76, no. 2, 1988, pp. 154–58. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27855069. Accessed 24 Mar. 2023.
Aayush (2020) The scientific symbolism of the statue of Shiva nataraja at CERN, Switzerland, Detechter. Available at: https://detechter.com/the-scientific-symbolism-of-the-statue-of-shiva-nataraja-at-cern-switzerland/ (Accessed: March 22, 2023).
Kabbalah and Indian philosophy. Available at: http://www.newkabbalah.com/Indian.html (Accessed: March 22, 2023).
Yates, F.A. (2002) Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition. London: Routledge.
I think is a very strange position to take. Maybe you are right about your broader point around Renaissance occultism. But we entered a period of secular materialism largely as a result of religious wars that left a bad taste in Europeans' mouths that we now know as the era of Enlightenment. Were there esoteric undercurrents at work in this period? Of course. But the larger push was towards the Cartesian view, which is the real origin of modern science.
By the time we entered the 20th century, there was a reaction against this materialism among groups of thinkers as well. You get it in all the writings of all prominent Fascist writers for example, and then the New Agers.
The reason why Christianity didn't step up to reclaim its place on the throne was because of how sterile and anti-mystical it was. Blind dogmatic faith had more in common with secular materialism than occult thinking had with the Enlightenment.
We are entering a period of turbulence and collapse, so it only makes sense that now many people are returning to more apocalyptic versions of faith traditions like the strain found in Christianity. However, there is also a growth of interest in mysticism at the same time. Father Seraphim Rose spoke at length about this during his time.
It is a fascinating topic to discuss.
Another excellent piece. I appreciate all your hard work.