In the second installment of this circumambulation around the seven planets of the ancient astrological system –reflection of the 7 creative powers or of the seven aspects of the soul, the eternal heptad in all things– we will explore the meaning of Mercury, the planet of communication, the messenger of the gods. Mercury traditionally rules reason, eloquence, travel, transportation, roads, it is the planet of writers, hackers, and thieves.
Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and the fastest after the Moon — we must remember that the orbits of the planets are perceived from the perspective of the Earth, the center of the cosmic theater. Being closer to the Sun, to the King, gives him the power of the Logos, the spirit of reason and illumination of the world (he is the messenger of the throne). At the same time, in alchemy, it is the agent of all transformation, perhaps symbolically the metal mercury absorbs some qualities of the planet and due to its proximity to the Sun (gold), it is essential in the transformation of metals to reach the spiritual purity of philosophical gold, it is as if it were always close to entering the solar atanor (perpetual Cazimi) and accomplishing the great work.
The astrologer John Frawley maintains that Mercury is the planet of articulation, the ductile linking agent of the different principles. It takes a bit of mercury to glue anything on the immaterial plane. In the traditional system, the Moon and Mercury are considered planets that usually take on the qualities of the others, serving as amplifiers of the planetary rays. Venus and Jupiter are the planets known as the celestial graces; lucky and benevolent; Mars and Saturn, the malefics; the Sun is sometimes considered part of the graces, but with the important caveat that being too close to the Sun burns and scorches, its light blinds and mobs (unless you are in the heart of the sun or at a gentler angle). .
Mercury is in its dignity in the signs of Gemini and Virgo, which it rules. Gemini is the airy, volatile, positive aspect of Mercury; Geminis, terrestrial, calculating and negative. Mercury is to its detriment in Pisces and Sagittarius, signs in which the mercurial principle feels uncomfortable and has difficulty expressing itself. Mercury finds joy from him in the first house. John Frawley explains that Mercury’s own «is the discursive reason that articulates through time.» Mercury is also the symbol of man and in alchemy sometimes of the human soul. Like man in Creation, Mercury is «the articulation of the potential in the form that is carried out by the Crown of Creation. Mercury is then a reflection, on a lower plane, of the Word, through which everything was Created. In the first house, the house of the body, we have the word made flesh which is Creation».
Mercury, of course, is linked with Hermes and in turn with Thoth (and also with Metatron, the angel of the throne, the angel of information, the angel who records everything that happens in the universe).
According to Paul Friedrich in his book The Meaning of AphroditeHermes has the following qualities:
1. It moves at night, in the time of love, dreams and theft.
2. He is the master of cunning and deceit, the marginality of illusions and tricks.
3. It has magical powers on the border between the natural and the supernatural.
4. He is the patron of all professions that involve the margins or involve mediation: the merchants, the thieves, the shepherds, the heralds.
5. His mobility makes him a liminal creature, between one thing and another.
6. His marginality is indicated by the location of his phallic statues built between roads, crossroads and forests.
7. Even her eroticism is not fertility oriented but aphroditic, furtive, deceitful, amoral, a love won by usurpation without moral concern for the consequences.
8. Hermes is the guide to cross borders, including the border between earth and Hades, that is, life and death.
We remember here that Hermes is not only the messenger of the gods, he is also the psychopomp, the guide of the soul in its descent into the underworld. Hermes rescues Persephone from the underworld and helps Orpheus find Eurydice. Aaron Cheak notes: “Hermes Chthonios is perfectly in tune with the ‘Mercury retrograde’ aspect as he descends into the invisible worlds just as the planet descends below the horizon, becoming invisible to the naked eye, and only resurfacing again when the retrograde is complete.»
The Egyptian Mercury, Toth, is the scribe of the gods and in charge of delivering the knowledge of science to man (it is said that all the books were written by him). Hermes-Toth is for this reason always the link with the Logos, the universal reason that leads the human being to penetrate the mysteries and to observe the science and correspondence of creation. Marsilio Ficino says that Mercury (the Latin Hermes) «is always full of Apollo», the god of light, music, medicine, prophetic mania, etc. Something that is also understood by the proximity of Mercury to the Sun. In the Homeric hymns it is said that the child Hermes stole Apollo’s cattle, for which the latter taught him music, thus giving structure to the precocious spirit of the god of the thieves and the occult arts. Ficino, the great translator of the hermetic texts in the Renaissance under the auspices of the Medici, writes in one of his letters:
Mercury is credited with the lucky gift of reminiscence… when it stimulates the perception of animus, one is released to speak. But when reason provokes, one interprets. When memory excites, reminiscences rise… When Mercury [el hermeneuta por antonomasia] cannot explain, Apollo can present by prophesying and Jupiter can actually perform.
taking from De vita coelitus comparanda, of Marsilio Ficino, Thomas Moore says:
The great advantage of the mercurial intelligence is its power to keep the soul in motion, in a downward spiral towards a vortex of meaning. Mercury keeps the interpretive carousel moving, feeding us wonder and curiosity without granting the stupor of final conquest.
Ficino points out that Mercury can, with a movement of its caduceus, «put souls to sleep or wake them up… it can calm or agitate, strengthen or weaken», it is the great transformer of states and levels of consciousness. Continuing with this symbolic relationship, for alchemists, mercury, the metal, was the great intermediary between matter and spirit, the primordial agent of change. Aaron Cheak says about metal:
Mercury is the precise point of transition between the Sun and the Moon, man and woman, day and night. In the metallic kingdoms, this role unfolds as a mediator between the “red” metals and the “white” metals: gold, copper and iron on the one hand; silver, brass and lead from the other.
Ficino urges us to use herbs, talismans, music, food and other elements that sympathetically capture the mercurial ray when we seek to gain the qualities of this planet. These same elements are enhanced if we make them or take them at a time when Mercury has dignity in the sky. (As I write this article the ascendant is Virgo, although we must consider other factors, initially this is favorable to capture the fast lightning of Mercury).
The British doctor and astrologer Nicolas Culpeper tells us that one of the herbs governed by mercury is lavender, also valerian, parsley, fennel, among others. In general, Mercury herbs serve to regulate the energy of the nervous system , sometimes to control excesses of mental energy, as well as to modulate digestion, under the temperance aspect of Virgo (a sign also linked to healing). Since they rule opposite signs on the zodiac disc, Culpeper used Mercury herbs to cure Jupiterian ailments (there is a vein of cosmic poetry in medicine!)
In the version of Edouard Schure’s Poimandres, it is said that the soul, when incarnating in this world, is in the second sphere with Mercury, who «shows the way to the descending or ascending souls, with his caduceus that contains science». And when the soul seeks to escape from the system of the seven planets, back to the heaven of the fixed stars, with the angels, in the divine return, then «In the second ring is Mercury, and to him the machinations return, the trickery and cunning [los poderes de la mente racional]». So in Mercury we find that double facet of the mind, which delivers reason and is the most powerful tool to find the truth, but which is itself also a labyrinth, a trap, the maia of thought that gets entangled in its devices. and falls in love with its artifices. Mercury, like the mind, is only a means. By identifying ourselves with the mind we act like one who confuses the means with the end (which is, of course, the origin). In the end, the human being who seeks climbing the 7-step ladder to eternity must go beyond the mind –since it is the condition of the mind that it can never know its own origin.
Read the first part: Saturn
Author’s Twitter: @alepholo