ALCHEMY AND ASTROLOGY 261 



and alchemy. If we desire to make use of the influences 

 of the planets for any purpose whatever, it is necessary 

 to know what qualities these influences possess — how 

 they act, and at what time certain planetary influences 

 will be on the increase or on the wane. The quality of 

 the planetary influences will be known to a man who 

 knows his own constitution, because he will then be able 

 to recognise in himself the planetary influences corre- 

 sponding to those that rule in the sky ; the action of 

 such influences will be known if we know the qualities 

 of the bodies upon which they act, because each body 

 attracts those influences that are in harmony with it, 

 and repels the others ; the time when certain planetary 

 influences rule may be found out by astronomical calcu- 

 lations, or by tables that have been prepared from such 

 for that purpose ; but the spiritually developed seer will 

 require no books and no tables, but will recognise the 

 conditions of the interior world by the states existing 

 in his own mind. 



Paracelsus was not — what is called to-day — a profes- 

 fessional astrologer. He did not calculate nativities or 

 make horoscopes, but he knew the higher aspect of 

 astrology, by which the mutual relations of the Macro- 

 cosm and the Microcosm are known. He rejected the 

 errors of popular astrology as he did those of other 

 popular religions or scientific superstitions ; and his 

 system of astrology, if rightly understood, appears of a 

 sublime character and full of the grandest conceptions. 

 He says : " No one needs to care for the course of 

 Saturn ; it neither shortens nor lengthens the life of 

 anybody. If Mars is ferocious, it does not follow that 

 Nero was his child ; and although Mars and Nero may 

 both have had the same qualities, they did not take them 

 from each other. It is an old saying that * a wise man 

 may rule the stars,' and I believe in that saying — not 

 in the sense in which you take it, but in my own. The 

 stars force nothing into us that we are not willing to 



