En Giro Torte Sol Ciclos Et Rotor Igne – The Spiritual Sun has turned the Ages in a Circle and is their Mover with Fire – Such are the Words, such is the Greeting!
With these words do I greet you, dear reader, and inaugurate the first blog post here at the House of Adocentyn. What do these mysterious words mean? Where do they come from? How are they used in the Regenerative Mysteries of the Ogdoadic Tradition?
These eight words – EN GIRO TORTE SOL CICLOS ET ROTOR IGNE – are referred to in the Ogdoadic system of High Magick as the “Clavis Mystica.” Taken all together, they are a palindrome – reading the same forwards as they do backwards. The words are not easy to translate, being a mixture of medieval Greek and Latin, but we will return to that topic presently. The translation employed in our magical rituals is that which we have given: “The Spiritual Sun has turned the Ages in a Circle and is their Mover with Fire.” These words form the sacred heart of our mysteries and serve as a most perfect invocation of those Inner Plane powers – “the High Guardians, Hidden Adepti, Dwellers in Eternity” – who are the living and divine spirits which inspire the Ogdoadic Tradition.
The city of Florence, Italy in the 15th Century was home to some of the greatest minds of the Renaissance. Chief among these was Marsilio Ficino who history records as the leader of the Platonic Academy, a subset of of which the Ogdoadic Tradition holds practiced the arts of Orphic theurgy. A little less than 200 years prior, another group of philosophers in Florence – to whom we also trace our lineage – was inducting a young poet into their society of mystical love: Dante Alighieri. It should come as no surprise then, that these antecedents of the Astrum Sophia would have been quite familiar with this palindrome. They would have known these words from the beautiful marble inlay on the floor of the Baptistery of San Giovanni, where they encircle an image of the Sun. You can trace the footsteps of these and many other past initiates and still view this sight today inside the eight-sided Baptistery of Florence which is situated in the Piazza del Duomo.
- The Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence, Italy
- The Clavis Mystica on the floor of the Baptistery. Image from www.museumsinflorence.com.
- A rendering of the inlay from the Institute and Museum of the History of Science: www.museogalileo.it
This section of floor has long since been moved from its original location, but when Dante and Ficino were gazing on it they would have seen that it was constructed as a “gnomon”: every year at exactly midday on the Summer Solstice the rays of the sun would shine through a specially constructed oculus in the ceiling of the Baptistery and illuminate this inlay. Note that the Summer Solstice approximates the date of the Feast Day of Saint John, after whom the Baptistery is named and who figures prominently (at least in the recorded accusations and confessions) in the tradition of the Knights Templar, who we also hold to be antecedents of our regenerative mysteries. Legend holds that the whole work of art was designed and executed by the 11th century astronomer and poet, Strozzo Strozzi whose tomb was discovered beneath the floor over 400 years later.
Let us return to the question of translation. Over the ages, a few similar translations have been proposed: “Phoebus drives on oblique, his fiery car” (Starke 1828); “Behold, I the sun turn the orbits obliquely, and am turned by fire.” (Giusti 2000); “Behold, I the Sun turn and rotate the seasons with unequal amount of daylight” (MacCracken 2001); “With my fire I, the sun, make the circles move around and I move around too” (Florence Art Guide). It can be seen in each translation, as John Graham of the OAS House of Thoth has noted in his article on Florence, that this could easily be interpreted as a bold statement of the heretical idea of heliocentrism proclaimed openly in the heart of the most famous Baptistery almost half a millennium before Copernicus and Bruno came under fire for similar ideas. The translation employed in the Ogdoadic Tradition (“The Spiritual Sun has Turned the Ages in a Circle and is their Mover with Fire”) can be understood by interpreting CICLOS as derived from κύκλος (the transliteration of upsilons into iotas was common following the Greek vowel shift) in its attested usage as “the cycles of time”, “seasons,” Aeons, etc. Further, the addition of the adjective “spiritual” in our usage serves to distinguish that here we are discussing no mere astronomical observation, but a fundamental dynamic engendered by the Sun-behind-the-Sun (as in the Isha Upanishad, from which the Astrum Sophia’s solar adoration is derived).
But what does it mean to “turn the ages in a circle?” For an explanation of this we can turn to the Corpus Hermeticum, a body of work first translated into Latin by the aforementioned Florentine, Marsilio Ficino. The following quote, from book 11 verse 15 of the Corpus Hermeticum (transl. by Salaman & van Oyen) is brilliantly lucid in this regard (and indeed, it has been included for use in the ritual given at the end of this post):
Eternity is the image of God; the cosmos, of eternity; the sun, of the cosmos; and man, of the sun. People call transformation death, because the body is dissolved, but in fact life withdraws into the unmanifest. I shall tell you, as you are listening with such reverence, my beloved Hermes, that all these things that have been thus dissolved and indeed the cosmos, are transformed. Each day a part of the cosmos withdraws into the unmanifest, but the cosmos is never dissolved. This is what happens to the cosmos, these are its cycles and its mysteries. The cycles are a continual rotation and the mystery is the renewal.
The daily withdrawal of the cosmos is the principal concept here, symbolized to the ancients by the setting of the Sun – the well-known journey of Ra and other solar gods through the underworld. This is of course followed by the dawn: this is the Regeneration, the rebirth of the Adept after the sojourn of the darkness – the manifestation of the Octave. Thus is this palindrome (whose very orthographic structure symbolizes the cycles of “continual rotation” and renewal) truly a fitting Key of the Ogdoadic Mysteries.
It is helpful to understand how the Clavis Mystica is used in the context of Ogdoadic ritual work. As mentioned, the palindrome is seen by itself as an invocation of the Inner Plane contacts of the Ogdoadic Tradition; but it also forms a part of a specific invocation of these Hidden Adepti as part of a longer invocation known as the “Ogdoadic Catena” (or “Ogdoadic Chain”). Similarly, the Clavis Mystica features prominently in the Order’s Consecration of the Mystical Tessera, which can be found in Mysteria Magica by Denning and Phillips. The Tessera is a special tile of wood which holds a central place upon our bomos (“altar”) and which signifies the Bond of Holy Light in which all initiates of the Ogdoadic Mysteries share. Likewise, the Formula of the Grail (ibid.) culminates in the utterance of this sacred phrase, acknowledging the central importance of the Grail to the Regeneration of the Adept in the Rite of Elevation (also known as the Rite of Palingenesis: the initiation ritual of the Third Hall of the OAS, conferring the grade of Adeptus Minor). Accordingly, the Clavis Mystica and the Ogdoadic Catena invoke a very distinct and very lofty level of forces into a working; the Clavis is thus not present, for instance, in works of evocation, consecration of lesser implements, or the foundational rites of Warding and the Calyx.
The following exercise is simple in its construction but profound in its depth (indeed, a more elaborate formulation of similar structures forms a vital Inner Order working within the OAS). It is a method for direct exploration of the Clavis Mystica through ritual work and can also serve as a nice introduction to the Ogdoadic current for anyone desiring to tune in to the energies of the Tradition. As it is written, it assumes some familiarity with the Ogdoadic material but this is not essential for anyone wishing to experiment. To briefly cover some of the points which may be obscure: the magical ring is the key implement for the Ogdoadic magician and when wearing it he or she fully assumes their Magical Personality, which is a constructed persona adopted strictly for the duration of the rite and then removed; and the lamp may be an actual oil lamp or a simple candle upon the bomos/altar.
A Meditation on the Clavis Mystica
Begin the rhythmic breath. Assume the Wand posture. Don your Ring and, simultaneously, your Magical Personality.
Perform the Setting of the Wards of Power, or another preparatory rite.
Take a lit taper candle, and light the Lamp upon the Bomos by tracing the letter Psi (Ψ) thusly: first, in silence, trace the “cup”; then, while exhaling “HA” trace the descending vertical and simultaneously light the wick of the Lamp. Reflect upon the symbolism of the Lamp: situated within the center of your circle, it is Tiphareth, the Sun sphere and the Heart of the Worlds. Its source of power is the Ruach Elohim – the Divine Spirit – of which it is the manifestation.
Now carry the taper to the eastern limit of your circle, raise it aloft, and vibrate EN.
Carry the taper back to the eastern side of the Bomos and touch its flame to the flame of the lamp. Continuing clockwise, carry the taper to the southeast of the circle, raise it on high and vibrate GIRO.
Return to the southeast of the Bomos and again join the flames. Repeat this through all the quarters and cross quarters:
South: TORTE
Southwest: SOL
West: CICLOS
Northwest: ET
North: ROTOR
Northeast: IGNE
Upon returning to the northeast of the Bomos and touching the flame of the taper to the flame of the lamp, move once again to the East side of the Bomos, face east, and raise the taper in salute, vibrating the complete Clavis Mystica: EN GIRO TORTE SOL CICLOS ET ROTOR IGNE. (Note: the magician may also at this point desire to trace the lines of the interlaced octagram in a vertical plane in conjunction with the palindrome, as described in The Consecration of the Mystical Tessera in Mysteria Magica by Denning and Phillips.)
Turning clockwise, proceed to the west of the Bomos, facing east. Extinguish the candle and replace it on the Bomos.
Read aloud the full Ogdoadic Catena, holding within your heart your true aspiration to invoke thereby the Living Powers of the Ogdoadic Tradition, that you may be filled with divine inspiration and abundance of light and life.
Be seated and assume the God-form posture. Read aloud, slowly and with attention given to the meaning of the text, one or all of the following passages from the Corpus Hermeticum (translations given are from Salaman, et al. in The Way of Hermes):
Nous, the Creator, together with the Word, encompassing the spheres and spinning them round with a rushing motion, caused those things he had made to revolve and he allowed them to revolve from no fixed beginning to an end without limit, for it begins where it ends.
O that you could grow wings and fly up into the air, and that, poised between earth and heaven, you might see the firmness of earth, the liquidity of the sea, the course of the rivers and the free flow of the air, the piercing fire, the revolution of the stars, the swiftness of the heavenly movement encircling all these things. What most blessed vision, O son, to behold all that in one moment; the unmoving being moved, the unmanifest being made manifest through what it creates! This is the very order of the universe and this is the beauty of the order.
Eternity is the image of God; the cosmos, of eternity; the sun, of the cosmos; and man, of the sun. People call transformation death, because the body is dissolved, but in fact life withdraws into the unmanifest. I shall tell you, as you are listening with such reverence, my beloved Hermes, that all these things that have been thus dissolved and indeed the cosmos, are transformed. Each day a part of the cosmos withdraws into the unmanifest, but the cosmos is never dissolved. This is what happens to the cosmos, these are its cycles and its mysteries. The cycles are a continual rotation and the mystery is the renewal.
Now, affirm your Magical Personality, and direct your attention to the Rhythmic Breath. Meditate on that which you have done, and said, and felt. After a sufficient amount of time, conclude the working with the standard closing battery of 3-5-3 (either upon a bell, or simply as knocks upon the Bomos). Record your thoughts and impressions in your magical journal.
