Astrology, Medicine and Hermetism

Ever since ancient times, Hermetism, and especially its astrological part, has been applied to many fields of human endeavour, most significantly medicine. This section investigates what these originally were at their fullest and most elaborate extent. There is no doubt that medicine constitutes the largest part of applied Hermetism and very likely the reason that astrological techniques were kept alive for so many centuries.

In the middle ages, especially at the University of Bologna, education consisted of two stages or levels of learning that which was known as the seven liberal arts. The first and lower level was known as the Trivium, which were concerned with The Book of Man, whereby the advanced and upper level was called the Quadrivium, and regarded The Book of Nature.

The trivium, a word coined to imitate the name of the earlier formed quadrivium, set the pace for education by supplying the necessary basic knowledge of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Once mastered, a student could proceed to the quadrivium to study the advanced subjects mentioned in Plato's Republic as Arithmetic, Music, Geometry and Astronomy/Astrology. These subjects were all of a mathematical nature, with Arithmetic concerning numbers as abstract concepts, Music as numbers in time, Geometry as numbers in space, and Astronomy/Astrology as numbers in space and time.

As can be seen, medicine was not taught as part of the liberal arts and astrological medicine was a part of astrology, rather than astrology being a part of medicine, as is nowadays claimed.

A brief mention should be made about what happened to the Hermetic sciences and why they are no longer central to human endeavour. Firstly, the modern world which began in the cradle of modern science, was at the time struggling with religious ideas and fought their battle by declaring all mainstream ideas, which were intertwined with Hermetism, to be rooted in magic and superstition, and therefore bad.

Everything was then taken over into modern science by reduction or rationalisation into 'scientific' disciplines, renaming them along the way. As a result, magic became physics and alchemy became chemistry. Because astrological medicine was such a broad subject involving many varied fields, it was converted into biology, botany, diagnostics, surgery, pharmacy, medical theory and research as well as large scale agriculture of medicinal plants.

To make things somewhat clearer, when the term 'magic' is used here, it refers to the intentional manipulation of the physical world by often employing unseen agencies or forces. How this differs from alchemy, is that magic more often than not, goes beyond the boundaries of just physical matter, with the intention of also altering the course of events. Within the framework of medicine, alchemy usually produces medicines to be administered to the patient, whereas magic intends to alter the patient or sickness by supernatural intervention, using particular spells, amulets, incantations and so on. Much of this was developed in the Arab world which inherited its knowledge from the ancient Greeks and Romans and carried its learning into Europe.

What could be more magical or miraculous than a pharmaceutical drug and its invisible actions manifesting effects within and without a patient? The difference in the modern world is the naming of the phenomenon and not the phenomenon itself. The idea and method for modern drugs comes straight out of the »Hermetic Spagyrics of »Paracelsus (explained later) but he doesn't get the credit for being a scientist because he didn't use recent scientifically acceptable language. This is strange indeed but this type of hijacking of ideas is part of modern science.

Naturally enough, it stands to reason, that 'magic' as a Hermetic Science, probably doesn't work in the way it is claimed or described. Nevertheless it is intriguing that Hermetism has been around for thousands of years and as some say, there must be something to it, otherwise it would have disappeared like so many other things from the ancient world. The approach here, is to say what it was, and is, and leave it up to each individual to make personal judgements.

Astrological Medicine

As a Hermetic Science, Astrological Medicine encompasses a number of fields of human endeavour, including iatromathematika, melothesia, spagyric, rhizomatoi and (occult) botany especially in the form of herbalism. These fields of study have since been pushed into the realms of esoterics, occultism or superstition, mainly because their effects are regarded by self-styled authorities, erroneously, as 'beliefs' which don't belong to any recognised religion.

The intention of Astrological Medicine is to employ astrological techniques relating to patients and their ailments. This can reveal otherwise overlooked characteristics, rather than relying solely upon a predominant symptom and thereby, a recognisable disease. Some practitioners claim that sickness is a spiritual issue and because astrology is connected to cosmic forces, supernatural help can raise the patients spiritual level into a new state of well-being.

These concepts stem from ancient Gnosticism (literally meaning 'knowing'), which although is not a religion, has always threatened Christianity, at its core, as being its suppressed source of religious ideas. The central theme of Gnosticism is that the world and everything in it is purely evil and it is the duty of an enlightened person to break free from physical existence and ascend to the heavenly realm. Sickness, in this framework, is held to be caused by possession from evil demons, notably of a planetary nature. Nowadays, those demons are 'known' as diseases, and have medical names.

This idea is very different from that of Hermetic Philosophy which regards the Creation as Divine and Good (an idea which was partially absorbed into Christianity). Rather than blindly accepting one's lot, Hermetism concentrates on improving personal experiences in the current and real world by elevating spirituality towards the Divine in this life and not the next. Regrettably, this idea was shunned by Christianity in favour of encompassing the Gnostic salvation after death.

Unluckily for Hermetism, it was hijacked early in its career by scribes sympathetic to Gnosticism, well before the Common Era (that is, BC or BCE). They wittingly modified the Hermetic texts to align with their own version of Gnosticism, especially that of the world being evil. The result was that some later texts, which are now claimed to be Hermetic, describe an aim of ascending to heaven through the 'planetary spheres', thereby escaping the evil. This was added to both Gnosticism and Hermetism by embracing kabbalistic concepts for an already existing audience.

The following quote about the Hermetic Logos and Nous, from Andre-Jean Festugiere (15.03.1898-13.08.1982), a French Christian friar, historian and philologist, who also translated the Corpus Hermeticum, is an example of how Hermetism can be confused with Gnosticism :
And Elaine Pagels commented on the problem of "gnosis" or "knowing": (from Elaine Pagels, "The Origin of Satan", 1995)

---

Medical Astrologers, The Iatromathematicians

Medical astrologers or Iatromathematika (from Greek ἰατρική , "medical" and μαθηματικά, "mathematics", therefore meaning those who astrologically calculate medical issues), were doctors, physicians or medical practitioners who applied the astrological correspondences to the parts of the human body, called »"Melothesia", to investigate disease and discover remedies. Up until the advent of science, this was mainstream state of the art medicine. In English, Iatromathematika has its earliest usage in 1647, with the publication of Christian Astrology by the astrologer William Lilly. This work contains a lot of material about Medical Astrology, especially within the framework of Hermetic Philosophy.

The medical astrologer employed a number of techniques starting with setting up charts for the client's time of birth and the time of the start of the sickness, called the decumbiture, usually when the patient first took to bed. The birth chart indicated the propensity for particular disorders, while the chart of the decumbiture encompassed the characteristics of the current ailments as well as possible treatments. Further charts could be implemented to determine transits, directions and progressions to anticipate the course of an illness.

---

Within the framework of regular allopathic "Galenic/Hippocratic" medicine inherited from ancient Greece and Rome, much attention was paid to the doctrine of the four humours of the human body. The word humour is a translation of Greek word chymos (χυμός", literally meaning 'juice' or 'sap', metaphorically 'flavor'). It is unclear as to whether Hermetic Medical Astrologers were equally enthusiastic about the idea.

It seems to have all started with Hippocrates (c.460–c.370 BCE), who in his work On the Nature of Man, describes the theory as follows: The Human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. This was picked up by Galen (129-216 CE) who developed it further and this remained in use for many centuries (until the mid-1850s). According to the theory, any imbalance in the humours, leading to an excess of one or a deficiency in another, was taken to be the cause of sickness.

The doctrine of the four humours led to a corresponding understanding of the four temperaments, also from Hippocrates, which affected human behaviour and personality. These types supposedly related to the outer appearance of a dominant or excessive humour. These in turn, being entrenched in astrology, were allied to the four elements and the four seasons:

Humour	Temperament	Element	Qualities	Season
Phlegm	Phlegmatic	Water	cold & wet	Winter
Blood	Sanguine	Air	hot & wet	Spring
Yellow Bile	Choleric	Fire	hot & dry	Summer
Black Bile	Melancholic	Earth	cold & dry	Autumn

All of this doesn't really relate to Hermetic philosophy. Indeed a number of Hermetic Astrologers at the time spoke out vehemently against the brutality of the treatments by mainstream allopathic medicine, in particular that of blood letting and purging. Paracelsus objected to excessive bloodletting as it disturbed the harmony of the system, and that blood could not be purified by lessening its quantity. The followers and devotees of Paracelsus, known as Paracelsians, in particular Jan Baptist van Helmont (12.01.1580–30.12.1644), were leading lights for those who chose the path of helping an ailing person, rather than increasing the suffering.

It was Paracelsus who said in 1538 that:

In Writing
Paracelsus himself, avoided the word astrology in his numerous writings, perhaps to distance his work from the mainstream astrological medicine. Instead, when he wrote about influences from the heavens, he used the term "Astral" and urged Practitioners to know everything about "Astronomey" for timing of events. This is undestandable as he was more of an alchemist than an astrologer. To historians, this has brought about some misunderstanding regarding Hermetic texts which are only considered to be astrological if a chart was drawn and predictions were made. The Paracelsians, as the followers of Paracelsus, continued to publish his works, including translations into other languages such as Dutch, German, French, Latin and English, as well as penning new works attributed to Paracelsus, likely in the same manner as was done with Hermes Trismegistus.

---

Melothesia

The word "Melothesia" (Greek: μελοθεσία) stems from the ancient assignment of astrological symbolism to the human body. It was extant in Greco-Roman astral science and based on the doctrine of sympathy between the cosmos as macrocosm, mirroring the human as microcosm. Body parts were assigned to zodiacal signs and the internal organs mostly to planets.

Zodiac Sign	Body Region	Body Parts / Organs
Aries	head	eyes, nose, ears, mouth, etc.
Taurus	neck	throat
Gemini	shoulder, armpits, arms	hands, fingers
Cancer	chest area	spleen, lungs, ribs
Leo	abdominal area	heart, back, sides
Virgo	stomach	intestines
Libra	navel, loins, buttocks	kidneys
Scorpio	pubic region	uterus, penis
Sagittarius	hips, thighs
Capricorn	knees	kneecaps
Aquarius	calves, shins
Pisces	feet	toes, soles, heels

Planet	Corresponding Body-Parts
Moon	sense of taste, stomach, abdomen, uterus, left side of the body
Mercury	speech and thought, tongue, gall, buttocks
Venus	sense of smell, liver, fleshy parts
Sun	sight, brain, heart, tendons, right side of the body
Mars	left ear, kidneys, veins, genitals
Jupiter	sense of touch, lungs, arteries, semen
Saturn	right ear, spleen, bladder, mucus, bones

---

The Doctrine of Signatures

As an extension of the concept of Melothesia concerning astrological correspondences to the human body, the doctrine of signatures relates things in Nature to each other.

Since this begins as a rather personal story, I will start to tell it in the first person.

When I was a young and naive student of astrology, I eagerly read through many lists of books available on the subject in an effort to gain more knowledge. One title in particular piqued my curiosity. It was listed as "Plants and Human Behaviour" and I couldn't wait to discover what the author could tell me about it. I quickly ordered it per post, but upon arrival I was quite puzzled to find out that a typo (typographical error) had crept into the book list. The title which landed on my doorstep was actually called "The Planets and Human Behaviour", by Jeff Mayo, naturally enough, being a book by an astrologer, on astrology.

Many years later I came across what was called The Doctrine of Signatures which, to my surprise picked up where my curiosity had left off. According to this doctrine, plants and humans share a common cosmological ancestor which imprinted a particular character upon them. It also said that plants can affect humans dramatically. Strangely, it also stated that the planets shared in that same cosmological origin.

More recently, it has come to my attention that all of these things have something else in common. They belong to Hermetism and its Cosmology. In there, it is stated that everything in existence was created from the same basic raw matter and upon their coming into being share commonalities. These recognisable similarities form the basis for the signatures, which are to be found within (and 'without') anything.

The key to understanding this is the concept of macrocosm and microcosm. The Hermetic Cosmos, above and beyond our Earth, is the macrocosm and parallels Nature on Earth as the microcosm, sometimes referred to as the sub-lunary realm. So a planet, in astrology which also stems from the same cosmic source, has a particular character. Likewise, in the doctrine of signatures, things in nature have a particular characters. So does an illness, which is where the doctrine has particularly been helpful for millennia.

This is all part of astrological medicine and tells the practitioner how to recognise plant remedies available in the world of nature which can provide a source for treatment. There have been many proponents of this idea, supposedly starting with the fathers of medicine, Dioscorides (c.40–90 CE) and Galen (129–216 CE). It was further widely spread and popularised by the writings of the Swiss physician Paracelsus (1493–1541), the Italian polymath, Giambattista della Porta (1535-1615) and the German philosopher and mystic, Jakob Böhme (1575–1624).

As with most Hermetic ideas, confusion has arisen. One critic complained that Paracelsus said, to discover signatures, all one had to do was to read nature like a book, but he didn't say how to perform the task. This has lead to a surprising array of claims that a plant signature is the same as its shape. Obviously this has tickled the fancies of many advocates and opponents ever since, who then go on to say, that is not only nonsense but dangerous.

As the philosopher, Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) once said:
Getting back to the doctrine of signatures, one of the most sensible reactions was from the inventor, or should we say, developer of Homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann (10.04.1755-02.07.1843) who said: This led him to the principle, "like cures like". To this end, Hahnemann sent out his voluntary assistents into the field to try a variety of substances, mostly of plant origin, and report back what sorts of symptoms were produced. This formed the basis of Hahnemann's main remedies.

---

Diagnosis and Prognosis

Medicine is based upon two stages. The first is discovering what is ailing the patient. This entails a diagnosis, looking at physical characteristics and whatever else that will aid in an assessment. The second stage is find an appropriate treatment and what to expect when considering the course of an illness such as the duration, action and outcome. This is known as the prognosis.

Not much has changed over the centuries as is revealed by the following excerpt
from the early medieval manuscript Monte Cassino MS. 97 (Latin, Italy):
from: Faith Wallis - Signs and Senses. Diagnosis and Prognosis in Early Medieval Pulse and Urine Texts,
in The Society for the Social History of Medicine, 2000, pp265-278

Where diagnosis becomes interesting, is by the inclusion of astrological techniques. Charts, signs, planets, aspects, transits and various other data reveal a wealth of information for the practitioner.

As an example, » Dr. Cornell's Encyclopedia of Medical Astrology introduces 3 lengthy sections (10 pages) about Mars:

---

Elements and the Matter of the Human Body

According to Hermetic philosophy, everything is made up of the four elements, fire, air, water and earth.

Modern science has "found" that:
The human body is almost completely consists of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon,
whereby these total 96%, by mass and 99%, by number of atoms.

If this is correlated to the four traditional elements:

traditional element	chemical element	by mass in human body	by atoms in human body	amount in atmosphere
fire	nitrogen	3%	1%	78%
air	oxygen	65%	24%	21%
water	hydrogen	10%	62%
earth	carbon	18%	12%
		= 96%	= 99%	= 99%

So the ancient Hermetic philosophers were not too far from the modern
understanding of the elemental composition of the human body, the microcosm.

---

---

Hermetic Medicines Involving Astrology

---

Spagyrics

The term Spagyric is taken to be from the Late Latin word, spagyricus from the Ancient Greek verbs, spán (σπᾶν, "to draw" or " to pull") and ageírein (ἀγείρειν, "to assemble"). In our case this means to draw together essential quintessences in a manner that enables the assembly of a medicine. It is often synonymous with alchemic or iatrochemical. Spagyric is in essence the Hermetically alchemical preparation of medicines. It was Paracelsus (c.1493–24.09.1541), who coined the term spagyric and also applied this healing method in practice. Spagyric is firmly entrenched in Hermetism, especially in the way that Paracelsus understood the Hermetic philosophical principles and how he applied them to his technical application.

The way that Spagyric works is to reproduce the mechanisms of Universal Generation through the first and second causes. Everything is comprised of matter and spirit and it is the spirit part that is locked up in the matter. Important for Spagyric to work, the spirit part needs to be extracted in such a manner as to ensure that it reaches its maximum virtue. Freeing the spirit from matter requires that it first be exalted, whereby it is matured and ripened, allowing it to evolve through an alchemical process called putrefaction. This acts in a similar manner to a seed breaking down in the ground providing nutrient necessary for germination and new growth.

In Hermetic herbalism or in the mineral kingdom, for this to be successful, it is essential for a practitioner to know the nature of both elemental and astral influences. It is also necessary to know what these influences produce and equally understand what causes could modify those influences. All of this happens within the framework of interaction between macrocosm and microcosm, so that also plays a large part in the overall process. Out of the process of the putrefaction of matter, the spirit is allowed to be purified by freeing it from its earthly prison.

The entire physical side of spagyric is concerned with this separation, or extraction, of the spirit, in order to produce intended quintessences. Since spagyric preparations are in accordance with the mechanisms of Universal Generation, the quintessences produced are readily assimilable by the human organism, thereby being more effective than allopathic medicines. The process is altogether simple, grand and subtle. It is simple in that it follows natural processes, grand as it represents the process of creation and subtle because it defies human comprehension.

---

Rhizomatoi, Herbaria, Taberna, Antidotaria and Unguentaria

The medicinal nature of plants has been known since ancient times. The addition of astrological observations and symbolism into the timing of collection, preparation and administering of herbs and herbal medicines is part of the technical Hermetica, namely Hermetical Astrological Medicine.

In ancient times medicines were prepared from plant, mineral and animal sources, yet by far the majority were from plants, having been known since the time of Hippocrates (c.460–c.370 BC). Those used for internal use consisted of the most common remedies such as powders, pills, decoctions, infusions, herbal teas, compound wines, vegetable juices and medicated oils, while those for external use were represented by ointments (unguents), salves (pomades), balms (balsams), waxes and lotions.

The raw materials for these preparations were usually fetched by professionals, in the field, so to speak. Necessarily, these experts needed to know their way around plants and be able to identify those which were sought after as well as knowing which was the best time to pick them according to the most favourable condition. More often than not this was determined astrologically, for instance by the position or phase of the moon. This practice is still maintained, by some, today.

Earlier, medical practitioners, no matter how illustrious, went out into the fields and woods to collect their own medicinal plants. As demand grew and complexities in medications followed, specialists set themselves up in business. There was the Herbarium for herbs and herbal preparations, the Rhizomatoi dedicated to the sale of medicinal plant roots, and Tabernae as laboratories to prepare any sort of drug with their necessary equipment.

The Rhizomatoi were specialist "root-gatherers" who were the fore-runners of today's herbalists but with a magical twist. They collected all sorts of plant parts which were regarded as healing substances with the ultimate aim of selling them themselves or supplying apothecaries who could prepare them as drugs to dispense them for later administration. There was a huge resurgence of this art in Italy in the middle ages.

Since the majority of raw materials for the making of medicines came from plants, the term "Plantae Officinalis" was employed to state which particular plants were for medicinal use. The term "Officinalis" in this sense originally referred to the medical plant store of a monastery and was later used as an adjunct to the name of a plant to denote that it was a medicine or food. The term was adopted by Carl Linnaeus (23.05.1707–10.01.1778), for his "Latin Names" (binomial nomenclature) to refer to medical or culinary plants as opposed to "Vulgarus", meaning "common", especially for plants ocurring in the wild.

Further along the line, such was the spread of medications in the ancient Roman world, Unguent Taverns (Unguentaria Tabernae) were set up to specialise in the preparation of ointments. The preparatory pharmacists were called Ointment Dispensaries (Unguentarii). As well as that, there were Herbal Taverns (Taberna herbaria) for the sale of medicines, compresses, poultices, decoctions and herbal teas. These all served as part of the folk medicine, which set itself apart from the doctors.

Eventually, these places were all controlled by laws in order to protect the new scientific approach to medicines. The Taberna changed into an apothecary (modern "Apotheke" in German). The herbalist turned into a pharmacist. The root-gatherer became the druggist (the word drug coming from the Middle Low German word droge "trocken", referring to dried roots and herbs).

---

Magical Hermetic Healing with Azoth, Alkahest and Philosopher's Stone

Many paths of medicine, especially in the middle ages were influenced by Arabic magic and alchemy. As such, the sideline of Alchemical cures were intermingled with miracles and magic. The ultimate aim was often to create a panacea, a cure-all substance which could be used as a pathway to health or immortality. These substances were more often than not, referred to in Alchemy as Universal Solvents. The recipes for preparing these were, naturally enough, top-secret.

Philosopher's Stone
The Philosopher's Stone is undoubtedly the most famous of the magical substances. It has become the stuff of legends and myths, such as the immortality of the alchemist, Nicholas Flamel, which has since been proven to be untrue. The stone is regarded as having the power to transform lead into gold or mercury into silver, act as a universal elixir bringing about rejuvination or eternal life. Its creation is the most treasured aim of the alchemist.

Azoth
The word azoth can be traced back to the medieval Latin word azoc from the Arabic al-za'buq (الزئبق), meaning 'the mercury.' Azoth was mentioned in many ancient alchemical texts as the animating spirit in all matter. Once extracted, it could be used to gain access to the essence of other substances. Within the context of magic throughout the Renaissance, it was related to spiritual enlightenment, purification of the soul and elevated states of consciousness. This in turn influenced Hermetic and esoteric schools of thought. There is a great likelihood that Paracelsus modelled his philosophical Mercury of the Tria prima on azoth.

Alkahest
Alkahest, a word of uncertain origin, is another of the alchemical recipes for a panacea. Paracelsus had his own recipe for alkahest consisting of alcohol, caustic lime, and carbonate of potash, although the result of the recipe was not intended to be a "universal solvent". Instead he claimed it helped with liver failure by being a substitute for its functions.

Dissolve and Bind
The alchemical maxim from Maria Prophetissa which dates back to antiquity expresses the importance of a solvent:

---

The Rod of Asclepius and The Cadeceus

To talk about Hermetic medicine would not be complete without a mention of the Egyptian, Greek and Roman gods. Although similar, there were two gods of medicine, Asclepius and Hermes who carried with them magic wands entwined by snakes, but having different myths and legends surrounding them.

Asclepius, the ancient Greek god of healing and medicine, was depicted as holding a staff or rod, which itself came to symbolise healing. Asclepius is also the name of one of the Philosophical Hermetic treatises, as well as being the name of a prominent character in Hermetic dialogues. To make things even more complicated, Hermes Trismegistus is often attributed with being the inventor of Hermetic Medicine. He in turn, or as the Greek god Hermes or the Roman god Mercury, was depicted as carrying a similar item to that of the Rod of Asclepius, called the Cadaceus.

The Cadeceus was the original symbol for Mercury and the modern astrological sigil is based upon it. According to legend, the Cadeceus, had magical powers. "The wand of Mercury was endowed with such virtues that whoever it touched, if asleep, would start up into life and alacrity, and, if awake, would immediately fall into a profound sleep. When it touched the dying, their souls gently parted from their mortal frame ; and, when it was applied to the dead, the dead returned to life." (William Godwin, "Lives of the Necromancers" 1876, p37).

---

---

Important Astrological Techniques

---

The Chart of the Decumbiture

In astrology a decumbiture chart is an inception chart that is cast for the moment that a person lays down or takes to their bed as a result of becoming ill. The decumbiture chart is essentially an inception or commencement chart for the illness itself, and it is used in medical astrology in order to determine information about the nature and course of the illness.

The practice is apparently very old, dating back to the early Hellenistic tradition. It was especially used in late Medieval and Renaissance Europe when most doctors were trained in astrology, in order to help diagnose and treat patients.

The term is derived from the Latin "dēcumbo" or "decumbere", meaning "to lie down" or "to fall down". The use of this term by Latin authors was probably in imitation of the use of the word kataklisis (κατάκλισης) to refer to the same concept in Greek astrological texts. Kataklisis also means "to lie down" or "take to one’s bed".

Here are some aphorisms by Andrea Argoli regarding the decumbiture,
from De diebus criticis et aegrorum decubitu libri duo, 1651-1652.
Translation from Latin by Margherita Fiorello, revised by Lucia Bellizia
(with a little more help from the current author, Rod Schneider)

---

Planetary Rulers of the Signs

Each of the twelve signs is associated with a ruling planet, known appropriately as its ruler. Once again this is not arbitrary and the ancients thought out a scheme of allocation. Since the Sun and Moon, known together as the luminaries or the lights, are extremely important in any chart the rulerships start with them. The sign with most affinity to the Sun is Leo and that for the Moon is Cancer. This effectively divides the signs into two groups sometimes referred to as the solar and lunar sections. Around the circle the polarities change from positive (outgoing, expressive) to negative (receptive, creative).

Counting around the circle in the natural order of the signs and in Chaldean planetary order we get

---

Planetary Rulers of the Weekdays

That there are seven days to the week and seven planets is no coincidence. The planets are associated using a particular pattern, once again based on the Hermetic Chaldean Order. As is seen in the diagram to the left, that order, starting with the Moon at the top, runs clockwise through the Chaldean Order, finishing with Saturn. Starting at the Moon and Monday, its namesake, and following the arrows, the weekdays are encountered in the correctly known order.

Whether or not it was the earliest, a seven day week was decreed by King Sargon I of Akkad, sometime around 2300 BCE. Sargon managed to form the very first known empire in Mesopotamia, known as the Akkadian Empire, uniting Sumerian and Akkadian speaking peoples.

The ancient mathematicians who observed the celestial objects for their timekeeping were also aware of the fact that a lunation takes 28 days and that four weeks of seven days each fit neatly into the scheme of things. Those four weeks align nicely with the four well known phases of the Moon, namly new, first quarter, full and last quarter.

---

Planetary Hours

When the rulers of the weekdays were allocated, something else was noticed by the ancients. When considering planetary hours, the daytime from sunrise to sunset is divided into twelve equal segments. The night time from sunset to the next sunrise. is also divided by twelve. When the daylight is longer than the darkness, the day hours will be longer than regular clock hours, the night hours being shorter,

The day begins at sunrise, as was the case in ancient times and still is for some modern time keeping, a day's ruling planet is also allocated to the first hour of the new day. The subsequent 24 hours are then ruled by the planets in a reversed Chaldean Order, from Saturn to Moon. The 25th hour just happens to be the same planet as the ruler of the next day. As an example, take any Saturday, with its ruler as Saturn. Starting at sunrise, the first hour is also ruled by Saturn. The next by Jupiter, then by Mars and so forth. The 25th hour, which is the first hour of the next day, Sunday, will happen to be ruled by the Sun, automatically.


In the example of a planetary hour clock shown on the left, the grey area represents night time, the white part day time. The black line running through the middle of day and night runs from the Nadir, lowest point of the sun, at mid-night, to the Zenith, the highest point of the Sun, at mid-day. The red line is like a clock hand which says that the current hour is ruled by the Moon.

This particular clock starts at the lowest point marked as 0 for midnight. The upper left edge of the grey area shows the end of the previous night and therefore the sunrise of the current day, just before 6 o'clock, with Saturn ruling the first hour, so it is a Saturday. The day continues until the last planetary hour, ruled by Venus, up to just past 9 o'oclock in the evening. The clock display ends at the 0, for midnight of this particular day.

---

---

Some Prominent Figures

---

Hermes Trismegistus

Most importantly for our story is undoubtedly Hermes Trismegistus, an amalgam of the Egyptian God Thoth, and the Greek God Hermes known in Ancient Greek as "Hermē̂s ho Trismégistos" (Greek: Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος), "Hermes, the Thrice Greatest". According to legend, he was the inventor of Astrology, Alchemy and Magic and authored many books on those subjects. He was also a significant figure in the Arab Islamic world which had conquered the Alexandrian Empire and acquired all its assets.

The oldest recorded mention of Hermes Trismegistus was by the Egyptian Priest, Manetho (lived between c.285 and c.222 BCE) when he wrote to King Ptolomaios II: He is mentioned in Islamic Medical Manuscripts at the National Library of Medicine: The Library of Congress has an Arabic manuscript purportedly by Hermes Trismegistus:

---

The Arab World

Mashallah ibn Athari (c. 740 – 815) Persian Jewish astrologer

Abu Ali al-Khayyat / Albohali (c. 770 – c. 835) Arab astrologer, student of Mashallah ibn Athari

Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (10.08.787 – 09.03.886) Persian Muslim Astrologer

Al-Khwarizmi (c. 780 – c. 850) Persian

Al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) Persian

Haly Abenragel (10th c.- after 1037) court astrologer to the Tunisian prince al-Mu'izz ibn Bâdis

Abraham ibn Ezra (1089/1092 – 27.01.1164/23.01.1167) Jewish astrologer

---

Michael Scot

The Scottish astrologer, Michael Scot, Latin: Michael Scotus (1175 – c. 1232) was court astrologer to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, mathematician, alchemist, scholar and reputedly, magician. He was not only the stuff of legends, he was mostly considered in his day to be the greatest public intellectual. Well versed in Latin, Greek, Arabic and Hebrew, he translated many works, including Aristotle and Averroes, for his patron, the Emperor.

Scot once said:
The mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci (c. 1170 – c. 1240–50) wrote to Scot;

---

Albertus Magnus

Albert the Great (c.1193-15.11.1280) was a scientist, philosopher, astrologer, theologian, spiritual writer, ecumenist, diplomat and saint. Under the auspices of Humbert of Romans, Albert molded the curriculum of studies for all Dominican students, introduced Aristotle to the classroom and probed the work of Neoplatonists, such as Plotinus.

Albertus and his student Thomas Aquinas were resposible for bringing back the teachings of Aristotle into the western world. This effectively ended the Dark Ages from the time of the fall of the Roman Empire. Since that time, it was the Arab world which had inherited the great learning from the ancient world, especially the Greek, having translated and developed it further according to their own understanding. This "new" learning for the west also included advanced versions of alchemy, astrology, medicine, magic, mantic and philosophy, all of which were of great interest to Albertus.

In his treatise, "The Mirror of Astronomy" ("Speculum Astronomiae"), Albertus expressed that astrology explained the connections between the heavenly and earthly things by the fact that Natural Philosophy describes the material world, in a simiar way to how metaphysics treats the Divine World. He argued that because the Material World is so obedient to the Celestial World that it made the primacy of God obvious.

He also made 125 references to Hermes or Hermes Thrice Great, most of which were derived from the "Asclepius". He mentioned other Hermetic works such as "On Alchemy", "On Spells", "On Talismans", "On the Power of Stones", "The Secret of Ultimate Secrets", "On Universal Virtue" and "The Secrets of Aristotle".

Albertus Magnus was canonized as a saint in 1931, 650 years after his death.

---

Paracelsus

The Hermeticist, Physician, Alchemist, Astrologer, Philosopher, Medical Pioneer and Lay Theologian known as Paracelsus (c.1493–24.09.1541) was born in Egg an der Sihl, Switzerland as Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim. Just by looking at the sheer number of pioneering insights and practical implementations that turned into the science of modern medicine, it is ironic that a Hermeticist actually invented the very thing whose practitioners that denies the methods of his achievements.

At the age of 16, Paracelsus started studying medicine at the University of Basel, later moving to Vienna. By 1516, he gained his medical doctorate from the University of Ferrara. Between 1517 and 1524, he embarked on a series of extensive travels around Europe. His wanderings led him from Italy to France, England, Holland, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Russia, Hungary, Croatia, Rhodes, Constantinople, and possibly even Egypt.

Paracelsus had an engaging presence. He was criticised by his opponents (and he had many) for not making an immediate diagnosis. He answered by saying that he needed time to assess all the factors before making his diagnosis while although they were able to jump to an immediate decision, they later needed to resort to lies to compensate for their error.
He once said "The richest of questions is half the medicine."
("Das reichte Fragen ist die halbe Medizin.)"

Among his many achievements, he is credited with being the "father of toxicology". He advocated cleanliness and protection from dirt and "external enemies" with regulation of diet, trusting to nature to effect the cure. "Every wound heals itself if it is only kept clean." He attributed disease to natural causes rather than to the mystical influence of devils or spirits. Paracelsus also maintained that every disease must have its remedy. He theorised that materials which are poisonous in large doses may be curative in small doses (a precursor to homeopathy). He also believed that fasting helped enable the body to heal itself. 'Fasting is the greatest remedy, the physician within.' and held that the body functioned like an alchemical lab.

Furthermore, he brought chemistry to a higher level, making it useful to medicine, and teaching the use of a great number of mineral substances such as iron, lead, copper, antimony, mercury, as well as teaching how injurious the could also be. He pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine and was likely gave the element zinc its modern name. To Paracelsus, the purpose of science is not only to learn more about the world around us, but also to search for divine signs and potentially understand the nature of God. As a result of this Hermetical idea of harmony, the universe's macrocosm was represented in every person as a microcosm. An example of this correspondence was his doctrine of signatures used to identify curative powers of plants. As well as that, in contrast to Galen he said that like cures like. These ideas are also both precursors to homeopathy.

From studying the elements, Paracelsus developed the idea of a philosophical tria prima ('three primes') consisting of combustible sulphur, fluid and changeable mercury, and the solid and permanent salt. This was first mentioned in his work "Opus paramirum", about 1530. Paracelsus believed that the principles sulphur, mercury, and salt contained the poisons contributing to all diseases and also defined the human identity. Salt represented the body, mercury represented the spirit (imagination, moral judgement, and higher mental faculties), while sulphur represented the soul (the emotions and desires).

Paracelsus held that organs in the body operated on the basis of separating pure substances from impure ones. Humans eat to survive and they consume both pure and impure things. It is the function of organs to separate the impure from the pure. The pure substances will be absorbed by the body while the impure will exit the body as excrement. He extended his idea that diseases locate in a specific organ was to include a target of organ toxicity, meaning that a specific site in the body is where a chemical exerts its greatest effect.

Much more can be said about Paracelsus such as he gave birth to clinical diagnosis and the administration of highly specific medicines. This was uncommon for a period heavily exposed to cure-all remedies. For instance, he recommended the use of iron for "poor blood" and is credited with the creation of the terms "chemistry," "gas," and "alcohol". He also proposed that diseases were entities in themselves, rather than states of being. His "Astronomia magna", completed in 1537, remained unpublished until 1571. Being a treatise on Hermeticism, astrology, divination, theology, and demonology it laid the basis for Paracelsus's later fame as a prophet.

---

John Dee

The English polymath, mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, alchemist, philosopher, occultist, magician, antiquarian, bibliophile, map-maker, apothecary, courtier, scholar and teacher, John Dee (13.10.1527–1608/1609) was, among other things, Court Astronomer for Queen Elizabeth I. In his position of political advisor, he advocated the foundation of English colonies in the New World to form a "British Empire", a term he is credited with coining.

In 1555, Dee was arrested and charged with the crime of "calculating", because he had cast horoscopes of Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth. Three years later when Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, Dee became her Astrological and Political Advisor. From the 1550s to the 1570s, he served as an her advisor for England's voyages of discovery.

In 1564, Dee wrote his Hermetic work Monas Hieroglyphica. Though not having studied or qualified to become a physician, Dee was fascinated by the subject and received an honorary doctorate in medicine from the University of Prague in 1584 or 1585. Dee owned many books on medical topics and was particularly interested in the physician, botanist and alchemist Paracelsus. Many books in Dee’s vast library were concerned over the accordance between medicine and astrology. Dee’s diaries record his own and his family’s health, and the treatments he administered.

In the autumn of 1578 Dee undertook a dangerous journey across Germany, travelling as far as the city of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder where he consulted the physician Leonhard Thurneisser (1530?–1596) to seek medical advice for the queen, whereby he wrote:

---

Leonardo Fioravanti

The alchemist, doctor, physician, surgeon, Leonardo Fioravanti (10.05.1517-1588). More infamous than famous, he was variously called a Charlatan, Poisoner, Reformer, Knight, Prophet, Miracle-Worker, Saviour, Alchemist, and Fraud. To top that, he even publihed a recipe for the otherwise mythical, Philosopher's Stone, with which he was accused of killing some of patients or clients, by administering it as a cure-all.

As a man who could make as many enemies as friends, he was not only deeply admired and revered by his patients, he was reviled and abhored by mainstream medicos. Fioravanti turned his back on their university medicine which he claimed was destroying and hiding the real and effective cures, and took to the countryside. Here he claimed, at least in his autobiography, to discover folk remedies which he believed to be ancient and still intact, having remained in use by the simple folk, who were insulated from modern techniques of treatment. His opponents, he said, were only envious.

He remarked on a case in Messina:
Fioravanti started his professional life in Spain, where he was doctor to King Phillip II, who in turn elevated him into the nobility. After that he continued to work in Spanish ruled Sicily and Naples, and then onto Rome and Venice. In Palermo, he performed the first recorded splenectomy on Italian soil.

The thriving printing culture of Venice appealed to Fioravanti: Through the newly found possibilities of the printing press, Fioravanti worked at making himself "popular" by offering his audience his collections of folk recipes for treatments and cures. By writing in the vernacular rather than in Latin, and placing the knowledge in the mouths of simple folk such as herb women and midwives, he appealed to a new level of readers. As well as that he repackaged it all as country cures for urban readers who were now enjoying greater reading pleasure, and managed to broaden his audience even further. He wanted everyone to have access to knowledge: Note: For much of this information, the author is indebted to the brilliant research by the Brazilian historian, Dr. Julia Martins and her U.K. Living History site and channel.

---

Doctor Reveverend Sir Richard Napier

The prominent English astrologer and medical practitioner, The Reverend Richard Napier (04.05.1559–01.04.1634), who was also known as Dr. Richard Sandy, had studied under the astrologer Dr. Simon Forman (1552-1611), therewith inheriting his manuscripts. Napier's many papers were in turn inherited by the antiquarian and astrologer, Elias Ashmole (23.05.1617–18.05.1692) and are now in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The famous Bodleian library was created by Ashmole to house his large collection which he donated.

Napier's family descended directly from the Scottish Napiers, Lairds of Merchiston, his father being the elder son, by a third wife, of Sir Archibald Napier (d. 1522), fourth laird of Merchiston. Richard's sister was married to Sir Thomas Myddelton of Chirk Castle, the son of Sir Thomas Myddelton, Lord Mayor of London (who was also one of Napier's patients).

Having enjoyed a good education at Exeter, where Napier matriculated at the age of 18. He then continued at Oxford where he studied theology and earned his BA in 1584 and his MA in 1586. In 1590, he left Oxford, became ordained and was installed as rector of Great Linford in north Buckinghamshire, where he was to live and work for the next forty-four years until his death. Napier was a lifelong devout Anglican, claiming to have conversed regularly with the archangel Raphael, and is reputed to have prayed so much that he had callouses on his knees and even died while praying.

From an early age, Napier was, in his spare time, studying astrology and other mystical and occult subjects, probably having been influenced by his cousin, John Napier, who was into the occult, especially alchemy, magic and necromancy. John was known as the "Marvellous Merchiston", and had famously named and popularised the mathematical concept of logarithms.

As a strange twist of fate, Napier met up with Simon Forman, a self-taught medical astrologer from a poor background and with a foreground bordering on notoriety. Both Forman and Napier personally knew John Dee and were heavily influenced by him. It was around 1597 that Napier began practicing as an astrological doctor, with his many patients (tens of thousands) not only being locals from Linford but also from far and wide.

Napier's extensive medical notes reveal that he administered a mixture of orthodox medicinal remedies, religio-moral counsel, and astrological, quasi-magical intervention from blood-letting and purgation, to mutual prayer, horoscope casting, the provision of amulets and charms, and ritual exorcism. Astrology informed Napier's entire practice, from the content and style of consultation and diagnosis to record-keeping and the timing and nature of treatments. He reportedly regularly called on the archangel Raphael for help in assisting the trickier cases of his patients.

Napier was knighted in 1611 and died in 1634, aged 74, passing his estate on to his nephew (the son of his brother Robert), who was also called Sir Richard Napier. Richard, the younger, had become his uncle's pupil and as part of the estate had inherited all of his uncle's books and papers. He lived in the old medieval manor house located in the grounds of Great Linford Manor Park.

---

William Lilly

The Astrologer William Lilly (01.05.1602-09.06.1681) is undoubtedly the most famous English astrologer. His greatest claims to fame were that he predicted the great fire of London, fourteen years earlier and he authored the first astrological textbook, written purely in English, entitled "Christian Astrology". Being a contemporary of Nicholas Culpeper, the two indeed not only knew each other, they also wrote together.

Both of these men had a mixed bag of fortunes due to their outspoken political persuasions. When on the right side politically, that being with the Catholics, they did well, but naturally enough ran into trouble when the tables turned, and the Protestants ruled. Both men also used astrologer in the judgement and treatment of diseases.

While Culpeper concentrated on medicine, Lilly on the other hand made his bread and butter mostly from horary astrology, answering questions from his clients. Although closely related to medical astrology, it wasn't solely concentrating on the health issues that had befallen Culpeper's clientele.

Nevertheless, in his writing, Lilly describes in great detail how to draw up and interpret astrological charts related to sickness, namely the chart for the decumbiture, the time when the sick person took to bed. For example, regarding the chart shown here on the right, for "a sick doctor", here's what Lilly said:

---

Nicholas Culpeper

The English herbalist, botanist, physician and astrologer, Nicholas Culpeper (18.10.1616–10.01.1654) authored the well known popular books The English Physitian (1652, later renamed Complete Herbal, 1653), Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick (1655) and many others. These books were not only in print for many years, some are still available in recent editions.

Nicholas Culpeper was the son of Nicholas Culpeper (senior) who died shortly before his son's birth. As a result, his mother moved, with him, to her father's residence in Isfield, Sussex. Culpeper was greatly influenced by his upbringing there, especially by his grandfather's political and religious beliefs and being taught by him both Latin and Greek. Alongside that, his grandmother familiarised him with medicinal plants and herbs in the countryside, which became his lifelong pursuit.

At 16 he took up study at Cambridge University, and afterwards an apprenticeship to the apothecary, Daniel White of Temple Bar in London. When he was 24 he married Alice Field, the 15 year old heiress of a wealthy grain merchant, which provided him with the opportunity to set up his own pharmacy in Spitalfields in London. He thereby obtained his supplies from the countryside and provided his services free of charge as a reaction to the exorbitant charges by the physicians in London. By combining this with his knowledge of astrology he was able to treat up to 40 patients a day.

Holding the attitude that medicine was a public asset rather than a commercial secret, he felt that the hefty prices charged by physicians were way beyond the cost of the natural supply of plants used for treatment. He also saw that the use of Latin and consequently high fees of doctors, lawyers and priests deprived the public of their freedom and power, whereby he declared: Culpeper aimed at reforming the medicine of his day by educating his clientele in the use of herbs as treatment as well as developing a system of herbal correspondences for their application to treat illnesses. By pairing plants and planetary influences, combined with remedial care and Galenic humoral theory, his workable system became a popular and widely read source for medical treatment. Culpeper's use of herbals became a major key in the development of modern pharmaceuticals, most of which being of herbal orig‘Solve et coagula, et habebis magister- ium!’ (Dissolve and bind, and you will have mastered the process/obtained the miraculous masterpiece)in.

In August of 1643, Culpeper had joined the Parliamentarians who requested that he would be field surgeon at the Battle of Newbury. Consequently, he carried out surgery at the battle field until receiving a shot in the chest causing a serious wound, upon which he returned to London. After 11 years of suffering, having not fully recovered from his injuries caused by the musket-shot wound to his chest, Culpeper died from Tuberculosis at the age of just 37 in Spitalfields. Two years later, his wife Alice, married the astrologer John Heydon.

Some Publications by Nicholas Culpeper:
1649	A Physical Directory, or a Translation of the London Director (translation of the Pharmacopoeia Londonesis of the Royal College of Physicians)
1651	Directory for Midwives or A Guide for Women in their Conception, Bearing, and Suckling their Children
1651	Semeiotica Uranica, or An Astrological Judgement of Diseases
1652	Catastrophe Magnatum or The Fall of Monarchy
1652	The English Physitian or An Astrologo-Physical Discourse of the Vulgar Herbs of this Nation (later, Complete Herbal)
1655	Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick
1655	An ephemeris for the year 1655, being the third after leap-year together with astrological predictions, and monthly observations
1685	Culpeper's last legacy left and bequeathed to his dearest wife for the publick good: being the choicest and most profitable of those secrets which while he lived were locked up in his breast and resolved never to be published till after his death

---

Dr. Howard Leslie Cornell

Howard Leslie Cornell, M.D., (23.07.1872-1938) was a naturopathic physician with practices in the U.S. and India. In 1918 he set about compiling all the medical references in his many astrology books. It became a momentous task and the work eventually came to comprise two enormous volumes entitled Encyclopedia Of Medical Astrology. The result of 15 years' work is this one-of-a-kind text, which was first published in 1933. It has been widely sought-after ever since and remains the one indispensable medical astrology book in existence.

In this work, Dr. Cornell vastly expanded on the astrological medical correspondences providing the reader all the benefits of his years' long research and application of medical astrology included in his own medical practice. Not only are further anatomical references made but also those of ailments and diseases plus much more.

The encyclopedia stands alone as the best, most thorough text on medical astrology ever written. The product of nearly two decades of careful study and experimentation, the Encyclopaedia of Medical Astrology is the only book ever to comprehensively compile the research carried out by generations of doctors, healers, occultists, and astrologers.

Expertly prepared by the brilliant and esteemed Dr. Howard Leslie Cornell, the book explains how to use natal charts and horoscopes to pinpoint the underlying medical conditions that give rise to any symptoms presenting in a patient. A diagnostic tool of unparalleled depth and precision, the Encyclopaedia of Medical Astrology excels at linking symptoms to their astrological sources. His book is the key to unlocking the secrets and immense wisdom of medieval medicine. The library of any healer or astrologer would be woefully incomplete without this remarkable text.

---

---

---

About

Hi, my name is Rod Schneider and I have created this website to illustrate how, with the help of astrology, that negativity can be converted into something more positive. The astrology being shown here is rooted in the most ancient inceptions derived from Hermetism. It is technical but in the hands of a practitioner already familiar with astrology has great potential to be helpful. There is also much help for non-astrologers to use astrology in a different manner, namely with cycles and phases.

Comments and contributions are always welcome.

Contact:  rodschneider35@gmail.com