ECLIPSES

In my appraisal of the rational basis for astrology, eclipses and planetary allignments have been identified as being particularly important events.

In the gravitational model, such allignments mark major turning points of influence. This is illustrated by the occurrence of a transition, from a decelerative to an accelerative influence upon the Earth's rotation period, being resultant upon an allignment between the Earth and the Sun with either a planet or the Moon.

In the electromagnetic model, as it applies to influence on individuals, the superimposition of two influences is either additive where the planets or lights are conjunct, or subtractive where an astrological opposition is concemed. I feel it is unsafe to assign 'benefic' or 'malefic' qualities to these events. In the rational schema a magnetic influence may simply be exerted on the subconscious neuro/synaptic matrix which is postulated to make up a significant component of each individuals personality.

Eclipses and planetary allignments have also been shown to be important in another respect in earlier papers in this series. Astronomers and physicists use them to import valuable information about system structure and control parameters operating in the cosmos. Newton's Laws were verified by observations made of a transit of Venus across the Sun in 1768; this was the primary purpose of Captain James Cook's first voyage to the South Pacific. Einstein's Theory of Relativity was found to have some basis in reality following observations made of a solar eclipse in 1919. I would therefore assert that eclipses can be demonstrated to have an abstract importance in terms of the advancement of human knowledge; and particularly in regard to system structure and control or 'cyber-morphic' information, to use a term coined in my paper 'Chaos and Gaia'. This class of information was shown to be particularly relevant in consideration of any sort of magical activity.

From that point, I would lead on to suggest that the moment of an eclipse or planetary allignment involving the Earth has some special importance in magical terms. On Mars or on the Moon, the same importance would attach to similar allignments observed from a viewpoint on the surface of those bodies.

This association of magic with eclipses is not at variance with classical tradition; although the attitude towards the events seems to have varied, depending on how familiar with the phenomenon a particular culture was. That in tum seems to have depended in part on how good their written records and chronology were.

The Babylonians appear to have had a reasonably positive attitude towards them. There is a record, for example, of a failure to observe a predicted eclipse of the Moon in 568 BC; modern calculations indicate that there would indeed have been an eclipse of the Moon at the correct time, but that it would not have been actually visible in Babylon. These Magi appear to have realised that eclipses of the Moon only took place when the Sun and Moon were in astrological opposition (Full Moon), and that eclipses of the Sun only took place when Sun and Moon were in astrological conjunction (New Moon); they made use of this wisdom in their formulation of a superbly accurate calendar.

There are occasional references to eclipses in Greek literature. On one celebrated occasion in 585 BC a solar eclipse occurred during a battle between the Lydians and the Medes, and the protagonists reacted by concluding an immediate peace under mediation by the mathematician Thales (pronounced Tha-lees), who had predicted the event. More than a century later, in 413 BC, a solar eclipse was followed at the next full moon by a lunar eclipse, and this happened to co-incide with the date when the Athenian fleet was due to set out to wreak mayhem on Syracuse. The soothsayers proclaimed it an ill omen and the departure was delayed for "thrice nine days"; whether or not the original eclipses were an ill omen, the delay certainly turned into one, because it lead directly to the whole Athenian fleet being destroyed and their army being captured by the Syracusans.

The Romans seem to have used these events to their advantage in military endeavours. In 168 BC, for example, a total eclipse of the Sun induced panic in Macedonian ranks, and the Roman legions used the opportunity to deliver a decisive battlefield drubbing.

In more recent times there are apocryphal tales of 'explorers' in the Rider Haggard idiom escaping from tribal cooking pots through the timely intervention of solar eclipses.

Overall, the prognosis seems to be that if your culture is aware of what is going on when an eclipse occurs, then you can use it to your advantage, but if superstition takes hold and the phenomenon is treated as an 'ill omen', then it probably will be just that! Either your army gets trashed or your dinner escapes.

This is entirely consistent with my rationalist hypothesis of the events presenting opportunities for cyber-morphic or magical activity. I despise the 'ill omen' point of view - if you see 'ill omens' then what you will get is self-fulfilling prophecies. That, in my view, is the way magic works and never more dramatically so than in the case of eclipses.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

In my paper "Dragons and Caves" (published in Chaos Intemational #9 as 'De Dracone et Spelunca'), I described a sequence of praeter-natural contact experiments with a Celtic Netherworld entity, Gwyn ap Nudd, the mythological King of Faerie from the Mabinogion. After the first presentation of that paper to "The Society" in The Plough, Museum Street, I was asked whether any generally useful material had emerged from that series of workings. The answer was "Yes, loads", but I declined to elaborate at the time.

The reason for that reticence was because I do not feel, in these discerning times, that it is advisable to regurgitate and disseminate material derived from praeter-natural sources, unless that material can be shown to have some objective validity, or something approaching a rational basis. Collectively, we are, or at least we should be, past the point where someone can stand up and say "Here is wisdom" and produce a load of stuff deriving from some purported divine or demonic revelation, and expect anyone to accept it without question or analysis. In my view, no small measure of the world's problems can be traced back to unquestioned acceptance of such 'revealed' material in the past; be it through prophetic utterance, automatic writing, or, as in the case of much of this material, possessive manifestation. With that in mind, it might be argued that such revealed wisdom or folly is best kept 'sub figura' (under seal) or forgotten about altogether.

In the case of the stuff about eclipses deriving from the Gwyn workings in the 1970s, that policy has been followed for the past decade. The over-riding reason for the decision now to place the material in the public domain is that, with the evolution of Chaos Theory in the intervening years, some rational basis now exists to sustain key elements of the original revealed hypothesis concerning eclipses, as well as the ritual observances or celebrations associated with them.

That rational basis, dependent on nothing more or less than the Axioms of Mathematics and the Laws of Physics, has been presented in the course of this series of papers.

THE ORIGINS OF THE SYSTEM OF ECLIPSE OBSERVANCE

The original attempt at contact with Gwyn ap Nudd was made on the night of the Winter Solstice 1974, in Ogof Ffynnon Ddu; this is related in 'De Dracone et Spelunca', where there is also a description of the means by which a visual image or sigil was obtained. No immediate use was made of the device, but to celebrate the Spring Equinox on Friday 21st March 1975, I decided to make a first attempt at automatic writing. It seemed appropriate to employ the Gwyn sigil as a focus for this endeavour. The original short piece of script which resulted has been lost, but the text was approximately as follows:-

"Observe eclipses. Not just the Sun and Moon, but alligns with any planets. Ley Lines in the Cosmos nourish the Earth Current. The Yang line is struck at the instant, the circling Yin endures with the orbits."

The following week I bought a current Raphael's Ephemeris, and marked off those astrological conjunctions and oppositions which were separated by less than one degree in declination between the planets. My diary for that year shows that I first made a point of timing some magical activity to coincide with one of these events on the occasion of a transit of Mercury across the Sun on Friday 18th April 1975.

The concept was introduced to the Stoke Newington Sorcerors (SNS), a fore-runner group of the Illuminates of Thanateros (IOT), and was met with mixed enthusiasm; albeit, a few meetings, including the first invocation of Gwyn to possessive manifestation in Ogof Ffynnon Ddu, were scheduled to coincide with days on which eclipse events occurred. Although a promising magical group, SNS did not last much beyond the Summer of 1975. Key members were seduced away by a 'guru' purporting to present a gateway to the 'ultimate truth'; the meeting place was no longer available, and the remaining participants kept up only relatively informal contact. Nontheless, eclipse observations continued, and lists of times, dates and planetary allignments for both 1976 and 1977 were copied and distributed across a loose circle of friends with broad occult interests.

Procedures varied from simple meditation, to symbolic gestures, such as planting a single seed, to more complex attempts at telepathic communication between small groups or individuals in different locations. Experiments with possessive manifestation and, occasionally, tantric observance were also carried out through this period. In general, participants found the sense of simultaneous ritual, of whatever personal character, stimulating, and this persisted even where wide geographical separations existed between those involved.

During late 1976 and early 1977 some enthusiasm was generated for the formation of a Rock Band - to be billed as Vitriol - which would play gigs to coincide with eclipse events; some element of the vocal contribution would be carried out by a performer taking on a possessive manifestation of Gwyn or some other entity. This venture was organised in Speedwell House in Deptford (where else), in a flat almost adjacent to that in which another ex-SNS member was carrying out the research work later published as 'Liber Null', under the imprimateur of the Illuminates of Thanateros.

Vitriol rehearsals, complete with possessive manifestation, were carried out early in 1977, but the venture tumed sour after the sad and untimely death of the band's drummer, Nirrup Reddy, who was killed in a racially motivated attack after challenging a group of young men who were trying to break into a car belonging to a friend of his. With hindsight, no-one attributes that unfortunate event to Nirrup's involvement with Vitriol, but he was a close friend and it was difficult at the time to separate the circumstances. Other musicians in Vitriol went on to become members of The Rejects and The Realists, and one has even appeared on 'Top of the Pops' in recent months.

There was some resistance to the eclipse ideas in the proto-TOT, due partly to an entrenched antipathy to astrology, which was felt to be little more than a "vague and imprecise" hangover from mediaeval superstition. My own view was that it would be advisable to come to some clearer understanding of what processes might be involved in producing some sort of rational causal explanation for both astrology and possessive manifestations of entities. As a result my own occult activities between late 1977 and 1986 were scaled down to a level where I was operating strictly as a "crisis magician", while pursuing further academic studies in Maths, Physics and Systems Theory.

I am pleased to be able to relate, however, that eclipse observation as a practice was not extinguished at that point. Some of the original participants had moved to the Shetland Islands, where they have kept the celebrations alive, and have now been performing them for some 15 years. One of the more intriguing correspondences that have been noted in that location is a degree of synchronicity with occurrences of the Aurora Borealis, or Northem Lights, which are relatively frequent at those latitudes. For me, this was one of the pointers towards some of the ideas incorporated into the rational hypothesis of astrology presented in the previous paper in this sequence, and a key factor in the decision that perhaps the time had come to resurrect some of the old ideas from the 70s relating to the system.

The main difference between now and then is that our understanding of the cosmos and its dynamics are significantly improved, by comparison with the situation in the late 70s, and interpretations in the light of modem Chaos Theory are now possible. In that respect, eclipse observation can be introduced as a system of magic(k) which anyone can apply with some level of confidence regarding the processes and forces which are being tapped.

THE TIMING OF ECLIPSES

The easiest way to work out an eclipse list is to use an astrologer's Ephemeris, or table of planetary positions. The main body of the tables list the planet's and light's positions relative to the fixed stars. Although it is as well to be aware of the difference between a planet's observable astronomical position and its listed position in the 'Tropical' system commonly used in the western tradition, this can be ignored where eclipses (always conjunctions or oppositions) are concerned because the positional offset applies equally to both bodies involved. The positions obtained from the main astrological tables are referred to as the Longtitude of the planet in question. For a conjunction the planets should be listed in the same zodiac sign with equal degree. For an opposition the planet's longtitudes are six signs apart, but again with the number of degrees equal. Although the planets orbit the Sun in a plane stretching out from the sun's equator (the ecliptic) the orbits of most of them swing a few degrees above and below that notional plane; in the case of Pluto the deviation is much more pronounced, with the orbital plane being of the order of 20 degrees oblique to the ecliptic.

For a conjunction or opposition to be designated an eclipse, the extent to which the planets are above or below the ecliptic with respect to the Earth, termed the declination, must also be such as to place them in a near exact straight line. For events involving the Sun and Moon this means that the declination difference must typically be less than one degree. For this reason Pluto does not feature in current eclipse lists as its position in orbit is well outside the ecliptic. The standard Raphael's Ephemeris is published each year and is available from almost all specialist occult bookstores. These slim booklets of planetary tables are particularly useful for compiling eclipse lists, because a listing entitled 'Distances apart of all Conjunctions and Oppositions in 19xx' is thoughtfully provided, which gives the distance apart of the planets in degrees of declination, and also the exact time at which the aspect is made. All the intrepid eclipse observer has to do is look down the list and pick out those conjunctions and oppositions which have less than one degree of separation. Many more long term Ephemerides do not provide this detailed tabulation.

Astrologer's tables use traditional symbols for the planets and lights, the zodiac signs, and the aspects (or angular relationships) between the planets. These are listed here for reference, and may usefully be committed to memory. The planetary symbols in particular can be used as sigils when devising ritual procedures either for eclipse workings or more generally.

Eclipse lists are issued free of copyright and these take the following form:

For a conjunction eclipse, such as a transit of Venus across the Sun

For an opposition eclipse, such as a total eclipse of the Moon

This mode of listing indicates whether the Earth is in the middle or at one end of an allignment, times are Greenwich Mean Time or local time as indicated on the list.

Because of the Chaotic nature of the solar system, which was discussed in the preceding paper in this series, there is a quasi-random distribution of the timing of eclipses. Sometimes more than one can occur on a given day; sometimes there are none for a fortnight. The average distribution seems to be around 10 events per month.

It soon becomes apparent that eclipses do not necessarily occur at times which are convenient - albeit that for each and every event, there will be some time zone somewhere on Earth where the occurrence happens in the middle of the evening, providing an excuse for a party. My own attitude is that unless one is following a programme of 'strict observance' as part of some regime of monasticism, it is quite acceptable to approximate the observances.

Anyone who has actually watched an eclipse of the Sun or Moon will know that these events have a duration of some two hours or more from start to finish, which is determined by the rate of movement of the Moon. That body exhibits the most rapid movement in astrological as well as astronomical terms, and, in the case of other planetary bodies, the influence may be considered to have an even greater duration.

It is of course desirable that a schema should be available by which an eclipse observance can be carried out without he need for total disruption of ones normal day to day lifestyle. In the 70s various techniques of 'battlefield celebration' evolved. For example, in the case of an eclipse occurrence during the night, say at four o'clock in the morning, this might be used as an opportunity to experiment with some dream control technique; a mental note, or some meditation might be conducted before retiring, and a diary record made of any dream experience immediately after waking the following morning.

Where an eclipse occurs during working hours, it may not be desirable to drop everything for performance of some ritual procedure. One technique which has been adopted is the designation of a cup of coffee or tea as a libation - this is charged simply by treating a convenient spoon or screwdriver as a ritual weapon and being aware, as the 'libation' is stirred, that there is a ritual purpose being enacted. There is no reason why anyone should be aware that anything is taking place other than consumption of a perfectly ordinary cup of beverage.

During 1976 there was significant discourse on the subject of eclipse celebration with Gwyn ap Nudd in manifestation through various operators. One of the issues which frequently arose in the discourse was that there was some relationship between cosmic influences associated with the eclipse events and a vitality phenomenon associated with our planet, sometimes termed the 'Telluric Current'. Gwyn characterised this in terms of some sort of energy which was associated with allignments of ancient monuments, such as is recognised by Chinese tradition in lines of 'Feng Shui' or dragon power - the assertion being that at moments of allignment of bodies in the cosmos, some resonance was established with whatever influence was associated with allignments of natural features and sacred sites on the surface of the planet.

In rational terms, it has been shown that minor variations of magnetic fields are associated with groundwater phenomena which can be detected by dowsers. It has also been shown that dowsers can be sensitive to allignments of terrestrial sites and features. In the preceding paper on Astrology I argued that eclipse events might represent episodes when the influence of other bodies in the solar system upon the Earth's magnetosphere would be at its greatest. This is corroborated by the experience of the Shetland eclipse observers who have noted correlations between those events and the incidence of aurora manifestations. These occurrences of the Northern Lights represent episodes when conditions in the Earth's magnetosphere boundary occur such as to allow a surge of charged particles from the solar wind to penetrate the atmosphere. The charged particles plunge to Earth, steered by the magnetic field lines, and produce the fractal wonders of the Aurora as they ionise gas molecules in the atmosphere.

There is, therefore, an interpretation by which it could be argued that tuning one's sensitivities to eclipse events can enhance the abilities associated with all these phenomena, and, in cyber-morphic terms, it can perhaps be appreciated that eclipse events are good times to carry out any meditative or magical activity which may be appropriate. In discourse Gwyn habitually extended these concepts to insist that eclipse observance not only enhanced an individuals faculties, but that the practice of ritual celebration with music, dance and tantric activity actually "amplified the Telluric Current" and in some fashion enhanced the fertility and recuperative powers of the planet; or, in the context of Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis, that it assisted Gaia's abilities for self-regulation of the environment. I cannot at present propose any rational basis to support this strong assertion, but in context it seems less improbable than it might at first inspection.

One procedure for personal observance which emerged from a discourse with Gwyn, in manifestation through an operator, was the planting of a single seed in the ground at the eclipse moment. This was said to be particularly efficaceous as a magical gesture to assist the agricultural fertility of the land. Periods of meditation, pathworking or the reading or recitation of some appropriate ritual text have also been found to be subjectively pleasing when performed to co-incide with an eclipse. The focus of the working(s) may usefully be selected to correspond with the traditional planetary influences associated with the bodies involved in the eclipse allignment.

No formal ceremonial for group working was ever devised in the 1970s, emphasis was instead placed on trying to develop a music oriented ritual process. It could well be that elements of Crowley's Rites of Eleusis, which contain rituals for the seven planets known to the ancients, could be adapted into a composite procedure. Rituals for Uranus and Neptune have recently been published in Chaos Intemational #9 and Thanateros #2, respectively, and would be suitable for use in celebration of eclipses involving those planets.

The best approach is for anyone considering some ritual to celebrate an eclipse to design something of their own, or to make some adaptation of material available from published sources, modified to taste. As a suggestion for how such a procedure might be structured I would commend the following key elements:

1. Invocation of an entity or quality to represent the Earth. From the Celtic Pantheon, Gwyn or Ceridwen would be suitable; from Greek tradition, Hades, Demeter, or Gaia herself; from Egyptian sources, Osiris or Isis. A participant takes on the role, or a manifestation, of the entity or god-form.
2. Invocations of each of the other two bodies (planets or lights) involved in the eclipse in question. One participant takes on each of the roles.
3. A gesture of symbolic union is enacted at the moment of the allignment occurring in the solar system. This might take the form of a simultaneous charging of some libation; this does not have to be intoxicating liquor, but wine is often used - spring water, draught Guinness, Felinfoel's Double Dragon or mushroom soup will serve equally well. A libation can be charged in a vessel by introduction of some ritual implement, a paper knife for example, or by a ritual gesture. The libation should be consumed by those participating, though some part may appropriately be poured onto the ground if the ritual is being performed in a suitable location.
4. A ritual of this type may be dedicated to some specific purpose with a statement of intent, or may be used as a preliminary to a longer session of magical work.
5. Banishings should be performed before and after workings of this type to clear any stray influences from the working area at the commencement, and to leave the place as you would wish to find it afterwards. Standard procedures from any tradition you feel comfortable with should be suitable, for example the Lesser Pentagram Ritual used by the Order the Golden Dawn, or the Gnostic Banishing Ritual published in Chaos Intemational #1 which is preferred by many magical groups. If the invocations of the natures of the Earth and planets have been particularly intense or effective, it may be advisable to conclude that phase of the working with a formal 'Licence to Depart'.

The essential point is that the celebration or observance can be as simple or as complicated as you wish to make it. If you wish to do so, it may be interesting to attempt some telepathic experiment with other groups carrying out a simultaneous exercise.

CONCLUSION

In concluding this series of papers, I would like briefly to recap on the ground which has been covered, drawing together some of the key elements of this attempt at a synthesis of modern mathematics and science with elements of occult tradition.

In the first paper 'So-called Magic(k) or Fraud or Bullshit' I gave some anecdotal examples of the sort of procedures, phenomena and effects which I class in the domain of magic(k), and there were also some cautionary tales.

The subject of the second paper was 'Paganism and Heresy' and there, by reference to Godel's Theorem, I proposed the philosophical axiom that "There can be no Ultimate Truth"; I then developed the thesis that no significant advance can be made in any field of knowledge unless some heretical thinking is taking place, tending to challenge orthodox convention. The point was made that this applies in mathematics and physics as well as in philosophy and magic.

Next in the series was 'The History and Development of Secret Societies' which sought to trace the roots of some ritual, structural and organisational traditions which are common in the practices of secret and secretive societies today. Much of the corpus of magical technique which is available in the public domain today has been developed and preserved in such societies, which came into existence in many cases as a result of some persecution or philosophical suppression.

'Pythagoras and the Mathesis of Chaos' was the fourth paper. This established some links between ancient perceptions of a number dominated universe and the present day mathematical structures of Chaos Theory which are being shown to provide a cohesive basis by which many natural phenomena can be modelled.

This theme was elaborated, with some technical detail in the two papers which followed: 'Chaos and Gaia' and 'Chaos and Cosmos'. In the first of these, the concept of cyber-morphic information was introduced and developed, and a schema was proposed by which the Mandlebrot Set, a central feature of Chaos mathematics, could be interpreted as a model for the universe in general, and cyber-morphs and life-forms in particular.

In 'Chaos and Cosmos', the role of a chaotic process as a model for understanding the origin and development of the universe was explored, in the context of an historical overview of scientific progress.

Some of the most recent developments in astronomy, plasma physics, sensory biology, and analysis of terrestrial magnetism were explored in the seventh paper, 'Astrology - a Rational Chao/dynamic Appraisal'. It was established that the class of astrological event which has the greatest chance of being proved to have some direct effect on terrestrial events is a direct allignment of planets or lights with the Earth - i.e. an eclipse or occultation.

This paper has drawn those various threads together to present a comprehensive magical system which can be used by anyone within any tradition.

Does it work? Yes, if given the chance.

Is it Black or White magic? Neither - it is a system, like an electrical power transmission system. One does not talk of Black or White electricity.

What are the future possibilities? They appear to be unbounded - with an understanding of Chaos, the potentiality exists to comprehend and even manipulate the processes of the planet and the cosmos. I would assert that there is no need to wait in fear of some apocalyptic doom, but rather a lot of work to be done, and some fun to be had doing it.

REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED FURTHER READING