SCHOOL OF OUR DIVINE
INFINITE BEING
Polytheistic Monism - Divine Theurgy - Oracle to the Gods
Ritual Theurgy and astrology for the serious aspirant
Even for those who only dabble in astrology — casually reading a horoscope, glancing at a birth chart, or catching a video about their zodiac sign — there is a spark of profound power at work. Astrology stirs curiosity, awakens the imagination, and reveals patterns that are surprising, intriguing, and deeply meaningful. When its symbols touch a person’s life, even in the smallest way, they often leave behind a positive, uplifting, and spiritual impression, opening subtle doorways of the soul. Whether discussing signs with friends at a dinner party, laughing about how strongly someone embodies their Gemini side, or playfully noticing a Taurus’s steady nature, these lighthearted exchanges still connect us to something greater. In this way, astrology remains one of humanity’s oldest and most powerful bridges to mystery and awe.
In a world where astrology is so often reduced to a curiosity — a sign, a chart, a personality snapshot — there exists a far more profound truth that deserves our deepest reverence. Engaging with astrology at a surface level offers the freedom to keep it lighthearted, perhaps to set it aside after an evening of intrigue with friends. Yet beneath that casual exploration lies a depth of experience that reaches profoundly into the destiny of every person on earth. Those who have recognized astrology as a deterministic system, who understand that its archetypes possess a vast and unavoidable agency, already stand upon a sacred threshold. You are the ones who sense that these forces are not abstractions but living, shaping realities: cosmic intelligences that weave the pattern of our destinies.
It is to you — the serious student of fate, the devoted reader of the heavens, the one who knows there is no “opting out” of these forces — that I speak. There is undeniable value in the popular layers of astrology, in knowing one’s sign or planetary placements, but the path I wish to illuminate goes far deeper. At first, astrology may appear to offer freedom — a playful glimpse of possibility — yet when you come to understand that these cosmic forces represent unstoppable, predetermined circumstances, it can feel as if they bind you. This realization can bring shock, resistance, even denial or outright dismissal.
But for the one who dares to face these forces directly, there awaits an infinite freedom beyond all measure — the freedom that comes from embracing and becoming one with the very rhythms of the cosmos. It is this path I wish to share with you: the path of astrological ritual theurgy. Throughout the rest of this writing, I will maintain a serious tone, speaking with clarity and honesty about what it means to engage the cosmic cycles woven into your birth.
Astrology maps a cosmic grammar of necessity, a script of archetypes whose energies will play out whether acknowledged or denied. But it is ritual theurgy — the active, reverent, initiatory practice of engaging these cosmic powers — that elevates the chart from a mechanism of unconscious repetition into a living theater of transformation. Ritual theurgy is the means by which we align the microcosm of the soul with the macrocosm of the heavens, becoming a conscious celebrant rather than a passive victim of fate.
At the School of our Divine Infinite Being, we take this work with utmost seriousness. We recognize many levels of engaging astrology, from psychological reflection to philosophical speculation to devotional practice — and we affirm them all as valid, each a rung upon the ladder of ascent. Yet the deeper you go, the more you discover that these planetary forces demand your active participation. They do not merely symbolize conditions; they are the conditions, and they will shape you with or without your consent. To engage them fully, consciously, and sacredly is the high art of theurgy.
This text is an invitation to those who wish to stand at the center of their own cosmic temple, to become priest or priestess of their chart, to work with the planets as daemonic powers in a living dialogue. Here, astrology is no longer a passive mirror but a dynamic, initiatory path — a process of becoming that reaches beyond even the boldest notions of psychological self-knowledge.
To those who feel this call, may these pages serve as a torch. May they light the way to your deeper initiation, your ritual mastery, and your conscious participation in the divine harmony of the stars.
For over three decades, I have walked the rich and varied paths of ritual theurgy and spiritual practice across multiple traditions. From the luminous architectures of Platonism, Neoplatonism, and Hebrew Kabbalah, to the powerful ceremonial rites of the Golden Dawn and Thelemic systems, and from the contemplative streams of Christian Hermeticism to the embodied mysteries of Tantra and Eastern spiritual lineages, I have sought the keys to transformation in many sacred houses. Across these disciplines, one truth continually revealed itself: astrology is never absent.
“Astrology is perhaps the most enduring cosmological system known to humanity, appearing in virtually every culture and religion from antiquity to modern times.”
Nicholas Campion, Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions
“Astrology represents one of the most ancient and persistent forms of thought, woven through the spiritual and philosophical traditions of virtually every civilization.”
Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche
“Astrology has been an element of virtually every religious, magical, and philosophical worldview for thousands of years.”
Liz Greene, The Astrological World of Jung’s Liber Novus
Whether subtly woven into correspondences, or explicitly structuring the timing and intention of rites, astrology has always been present as a powerful — though often secondary — integrating principle. It provided rhythm, mythic meaning, and spiritual timing, yet in many systems remained one of several complementary maps alongside the Tree of Life, the angelic hierarchies, or the mandalas of the subtle body.
At the School of our Divine Infinite Being, we honor these venerable traditions while placing astrology at the very heart of our ritual praxis. Here, astrology is not simply an inclusive or supporting element but the central pillar upon which our entire theurgical path is constructed. We see the chart not as an accessory but as the master script of the soul’s unfoldment, the cosmic covenant in which every act of ritual power finds its rightful orientation.
Our ritual program is founded on two major predicates. First, to come into the full knowledge of our Infinite Being within — the immortal spark of the divine that is our deepest truth. This is not a philosophical abstraction but a living, initiatory realization, made real through disciplined ritual, where the mortal self and the immortal Self merge in conscious union. Through theurgy, this union is no longer an idea but a directly witnessed, felt, and known experience of our eternal nature.
Second — and equal in its sacred importance — we engage the evolutionary transformation of the soul through deliberate ritual alignment with the ever-unfolding predicates of our astrological chart. The chart is not frozen at birth but lives and breathes, through transits and progressions, as a pattern of divine providence continuously calling us to growth. In working ritually with these living patterns, we become co-creators with the cosmos, consciously harmonizing our soul’s journey with the planetary currents that shape it. In this way, ritual theurgy becomes the dynamic engine of spiritual evolution, giving us the means to transform fate into providence.
These two pillars — the experiential realization of our Infinite Being, and the ritual engagement with the astrological pattern as a living initiatory text — stand as the core mission of our school. From everything in our ritual praxis through to the engagement of the archetypes of the Greater Arcana Tarot, which is a living system of archetypes based on the astrological wheel, we place astrology in its rightful place of primacy, revealing it not merely as an optional framework among many, but as the very heart of a cosmic liturgy. In this, we fulfill the great promise of the mysteries: that the soul may rise to its fullest stature, a conscious participant in the divine harmony that sings through all things.
Every human being, from the beginning of time, has grappled with forces beyond their control. Each of us is born into a world that offers periods of fortune, times of hardship, waves of inspiration, and tides of despair. We find ourselves navigating patterns that seem to surge and recede with a logic all their own — the moments of joy that arrive as if fated, and the blows of tragedy that feel no less inevitable.
Throughout history, humanity has developed countless systems — maps, if you will — to orient ourselves within these shifting currents. Some rely on reason and logic, dissecting events and conditions through the measured tools of philosophy. Others build frameworks of religion, myth, or psychology, hoping to uncover principles that will guide them through life’s storms. Personality models, too, have emerged to help us navigate our own inner terrain: from the modern Big Five (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Enneagram, temperament theories, and even ancient approaches like the four humors. These typologies aim to chart the patterns of our behavior, our motivations, and our values, providing signposts to help us understand ourselves and one another more deeply. Many of these systems offer genuine insight and practical accuracy to those who engage them. Still, there are some who believe an invisible hand governs all things, and others who insist the universe is a realm of random, indifferent chance — yet across these competing worldviews, our quest to map meaning remains undiminished.
Among these many ways of making sense of existence, astrology stands apart. To those who study the stars — who read their own charts with sincerity and skill, and who gaze into the patterns of others — astrology reveals a precision and a depth unmatched by any other system. It describes not merely what happens, but why it happens, and how these events participate in a far vaster cosmic order. It shows the architecture of fate itself, written in the language of archetypes, woven through the geometry of the heavens.
Where other maps sketch possibilities, astrology engraves necessities. It draws the lines of the river you will sail, describing the rapids, the still pools, the whirlpools, and the open seas. An astrologer sees a language of forces that will act, no matter what, and recognizes the sacred responsibility of learning to engage these forces consciously.
In the pages that follow, you will encounter a bold argument: that astrology does not merely describe a deterministic track, but offers the individual an initiatory path to transform that track into conscious destiny. By delving deeply into astrology, you open the door to a powerful divinatory and revelatory capacity, one that strengthens your ability to perceive future events and greatly expands your psychic access to foreknowledge. As Iamblichus affirms,
“For the whole science of divination is an assimilation to the divine will and a true participation in divine foreknowledge.”
(De Mysteriis, 3.9)
Through this sacred science — philosophy, ritual theurgy, and spiritual practice — you can transmute fate into providence, entering the world of the diviner and ritual theurgist, one capable of profound relational experience with the Infinite Being. This awakening empowers the self to divinatory experiences far beyond your wildest dreams, granting you a power akin to that of the Delphic Oracle, to illuminate both your personal path and the paths of others.
In an age of technological addiction — of doom scrolling, engineered distraction, and restless craving — entering into a conscious relationship with the cosmos may be the very prescription needed to break free from these modern chains. By restoring a natural dialogue with the universe, you reclaim the rhythms, patterns, and sacred conversations that once harmonized the human soul with the greater whole.
Astrology provides a living pattern you can consciously enter, rather than suffer beneath in blindness. It offers the courage and clarity to become a co-creator of your mythic life. As Iamblichus reminds us:
“The whole of predictive art subsists in sympathy with the events which are divinely foreknown.”
(De Mysteriis 3.26)
This is a call to courage — to meet the planets not as distant abstractions, but as living teachers; to stand in the fire of their influences, to refine yourself through them, and to rise as a participant in the cosmic order rather than its victim.
May this work serve as your guide, your torch, and your invitation into the deeper mysteries that astrology, alone among all the maps of human meaning, can reveal.
“The planetary movements are not merely symbolic but archetypally potent, expressing a force of meaning that is woven into the fabric of the cosmos itself.”
— Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View
Astrology is not a gentle suggestion; it is a revelation of the great cosmic architecture that frames your life. It does not merely hint, or whisper, or politely advise. Astrology declares — and it declares with the force of cosmic law. The planetary movements, the intricate dance of their angles, their timeless rhythms of ingress and retrograde, do not request your permission. They impress themselves upon the field of human experience with an inevitability and power that brooks no denial.
Whether you stand in awe of the starry vault, or scoff at its symbolism, it is irrelevant to the planets. They do not bend their patterns to suit your preference, nor do they adapt their currents to fit the illusions of your personal worldview. These cosmic powers will enact their momentum, as unbending and unstoppable as the pull of the tides, as certain as the arc of sunrise and sunset. Astrology is the language of these unstoppable forces, the code of their timing and nature.
“Astrology describes patterns of fate which are inherent in the birth moment, patterns that manifest with a kind of relentless inevitability in life.”
— Liz Greene, The Astrology of Fate
One cannot simply evade Saturn’s stern lessons, for Saturn is the cosmic guardian of structure, of responsibility, of law. Where Saturn’s influence falls, it will test you — forcing you to account for your errors, to mature, to measure up. You cannot wish this testing away, nor ignore its hammer striking the brittle places of your psyche. Likewise, Mars will press you to act, to assert, to break through, to confront. If you shrink from its fiery surge, you will still feel its heat, perhaps turned inward into rage, or arriving from without in the form of conflict. Mars will manifest, because the archetype of willpower cannot simply be bypassed.
Nor will Neptune be denied. Where its subtle, oceanic presence transits, it will dissolve boundaries, blur illusions, erode false certainties. If you refuse to consciously participate in Neptune’s call for surrender or inspiration, you will find yourself lost in confusion, swept up in addictive patterns, or drowning in illusions. The archetype will do its work, with or without your conscious collaboration.
Astrology reveals this: the planets are the current. The chart is your river. To imagine you might step out of that river is to deny the force of gravity itself. The cosmos is not a matter of personal preference; it is the deep structure of being.
This is why the ancients described the planetary influences as daimones — spirits whose job is to execute necessity. They do not consult your fears or hopes before acting; they fulfill their purpose with precise inevitability. Your chart is a diagram of these necessities: the archetypal demands placed upon you for this lifetime. You may protest, you may delay, you may hide, but the pattern will remain, waiting. The planetary archetypes will continue to present themselves, again and again, until you learn to meet them.
Your birth chart is a living covenant with the cosmos, a pact etched in the moment of your incarnation. The planetary configurations mark out what will come, the angles of destiny, the repeating motifs of your story. They chart the weather systems of your soul, the atmospheric pressure zones of your character. And just like meteorological storms, they will arrive, whether you have prepared or not.
It is therefore an illusion to think of astrology as merely suggestive or symbolic. Astrology describes a field of influences that insist upon participation. You cannot abstain from Saturn’s harvest or Neptune’s tides. You cannot erase a Uranian revolution or Pluto’s underworld summons. They will manifest — as inner drives, as outer circumstances, as the ceaseless interplay of self and world.
To live is to be in relationship with these cosmic patterns. You cannot quit this relationship; you can only choose how you will engage it. Will you remain passive, and be thrown about by the current, dashed against its rocks? Or will you take up the oar, study the chart of your river, and learn to navigate its rapids, its deep pools, its whirlpools and waterfalls?
Understand this: astrology is the grammar of an unbreakable contract. The planets speak through you. They express through your mind, your relationships, your crises, your triumphs. They mold the texture of your days. Their patterns will press forward no matter your disbelief. To deny astrology is to deny the shape of your own unfolding.
There is no opt-out clause from the planetary patterning of the psyche and the world. The only freedom is in how you will meet them, how you will engage their forces, and how you will transform through their pressure. The river is here, flowing, inexorable, unstoppable.
You are in it, whether you like it or not.
“If the individual does not use the knowledge of astrology to transform his patterns into conscious acts of selfhood, then these patterns will rule him blindly, as compulsions, fates, and tragic circumstances.”
— Dane Rudhyar, The Astrology of Personality
There is a profound and terrible danger in failing to engage these cosmic currents: the danger of passive submission. When you do not consciously respond to the archetypal forces mapped in your birth chart, you become their unconscious vessel. You are lived by the planets rather than living through them. In that passivity, the planetary patterns unfold in their most literal, unrefined, and sometimes most destructive form.
Yet even without astrology, individuals inevitably encounter and engage these forces, though often without conscious awareness of their deeper workings. These archetypal energies are woven into the fabric of human existence, surfacing through instinct, reaction, moral striving, religious devotion, and countless other forms of personal effort. People naturally rise to meet them, wrestle with them, discover meaning, and often conquer their challenges through courage, wisdom, and virtue. Still, without the illuminating lens of astrology, these patterns can remain obscure, making the path harder to recognize. Astrology does not create these forces butreveals their shape and timing, allowing you to engage them with greater clarity, confidence, and skill.
This is the iron law of unconscious fate: the square will still square, the opposition will still pull you in two, the trine will still offer ease that may rot into complacency — but without conscious collaboration, you have no choice but to react automatically, like a puppet whose strings are jerked by unseen hands. The archetypes will express themselves whether or not you wish to cooperate. In your unconsciousness, they will do so through accidents, compulsions, crises, and repetitions you cannot understand. Astrology provides the language to name and know these patterns, transforming blind reaction into skillful participation, and revealing paths through which these forces can be harmonized and consciously mastered.
“If we do not consciously participate in the patterns of our horoscope, then we are fated to enact them unconsciously, often in their most negative form.”
— Liz Greene, The Astrology of Fate
You become like a ship whose captain sleeps while storms rage. Saturn’s tests come, and you collapse, unprepared, feeling crushed by impossibly heavy burdens. Mars surges, and you lash out in destructive anger, or are assaulted by the aggression of others, never seeing how your own repressed fire attracts the flames. Neptune arrives, and you drift into addiction or confusion, drowning in illusion rather than embracing transcendence. Uranus jolts you from the blue, erupting chaos because you refused to welcome change on your own terms. Pluto roars from the deep, tearing away what you clung to, because you would not surrender and transform voluntarily.
These patterns, left unengaged, become chains of fate. You will live the same story on repeat, caught in loops of relationship drama, money disaster, creative block, fear of power, denial of responsibility. You may blame the world, or your parents, or bad luck, but the truth is that you have chosen unconsciousness. You have chosen to let the patterns run you rather than you running the patterns.
Here lies the true horror of passive submission: you forfeit the possibility of working consciously with these cosmic forces. You give away your sovereign capacity to direct the archetypal energies of your own existence. You become an automaton, performing patterns set in place before your birth, playing out old karmic scripts with no sense of agency or dignity. You are lived by fate, not living your fate.
The planets do not punish you for ignoring them, but they will push through your psyche and your circumstances with the same inevitability. Passive resistance does not save you from their influence; it guarantees you will suffer their most untempered and uncontrolled expressions. It guarantees you will be surprised, overwhelmed, confused, and wounded by the very forces you might have harnessed.
When you refuse to acknowledge the demands of your natal chart, those demands come crashing in from the outside. Saturn’s limits arrive as losses. Mars’ passion bursts out as rage. Neptune’s mystery becomes scandal and betrayal. Pluto’s power transforms into destruction and loss. Uranus’s shock explodes your life overnight. What you will not integrate becomes your oppressor. What you will not claim becomes your prison.
Therefore, to passively submit is to hand over your divine birthright. You allow the archetypes to operate upon you instead of through you. You refuse to dance with them and instead are trampled under their steps. The chart was given to you as a blueprint — not a chain — but if you do not build with it, the raw materials will collapse on your head.
You must see clearly: passive submission to your chart is spiritual sleep. It is the surest path to a life ruled by confusion, frustration, repetition, and regret. It is a denial of your own role as co-creator in this cosmic pattern.
There is nothing noble in ignoring these forces. There is nothing wise in denying the curriculum that the planets lay before you. To leave them unexamined is to let them become your silent tyrants, acting through your life without your conscious involvement.
Instead, you must meet these influences — learn their language, interpret their demands, align your will to their rhythms. That is how you transform the harsh chain of unconscious fate into the dignified path of purposeful destiny. That is how you rise from puppet to participant, from pawn to pilot of your own story.
Remember: in passive submission, the planetary forces will still shape you — but without your conscious participation, they shape you into a creature of accident rather than a master of intention. You must choose: will you sleep through your storms, or will you command your ship?
We are neither the passive victims of a deterministic cosmos, nor its absolute masters, but participants in a co-creative dialogue with an intelligent universe.”
- Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View
“In the theurgic vision the entire cosmos was a living, intelligent hierarchy of powers with whom the soul could consciously cooperate.”
- Gregory Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, the Neoplatonism of Iamblichus.
There is a luminous path, revealed by the great theurgist and philosopher Iamblichus, which shows how to transform deterministic fate into the very instrument of your freedom. Iamblichus taught that what we call fate — those binding conditions and inescapable necessities of our cosmic pattern — is not truly separate from providence, the benevolent ordering of the universe. The difference lies not in the stars, but in our manner of approach.
This paradox of freedom and determination finds a powerful echo in the Hindu philosopher and spiritual teacher Chaitanya Mahāprabhu’s doctrine of Achintya Bheda Abheda — inconceivable simultaneous oneness and difference — beautifully summarized by the PHD philosopher and scholar Timothy Desmond as “we are absolutely free and all at once absolutely determined.” Within this view, the individual soul (jīva) is both distinct from and yet inseparable from the Supreme (Krishna), participating in a dance of agency within divine will. So too, astrology shows us how the soul, though shaped by cosmic forces, still holds the power to choose its response, to embrace devotion or turn away, to move with the pattern or struggle against it.
Fate, in its blind compulsion, rules those who refuse to engage it. But providence, in its wise design, unfolds for those who actively enter relationship with their own chart, their own pattern. Iamblichus called upon the soul to rise up, to meet these cosmic powers not with fear or resignation, but with an attitude of reverent collaboration. In so doing, the very same forces that seemed to enslave you reveal themselves as your greatest allies in the forging of virtue and spiritual elevation.
This is the essence of initiatory action: you do not flee from the planetary patterns, you engage them fully. You do not tremble before Saturn’s harsh tests; you look them squarely in the face, commit to responsibility, and embrace mature structures, thus transforming Saturn’s iron into a golden backbone. You do not hide from Mars’ burning drive; you discipline it, giving it a worthy quest so that it becomes courage rather than conflict. You do not drift helpless before Neptune’s mists; you practice lucid devotion, creative inspiration, and spiritual surrender, thereby elevating Neptune’s dream into divine communion.
Iamblichus calls you to become a participant in your own initiation. The forces arrayed upon your chart are the very tools by which you may ascend. The squares and oppositions are the furnaces of refinement, hammering away impurities until only what is essential remains. The trines and sextiles are harmonies you must skillfully orchestrate, lest their gifts lull you into complacency. You do not get to bypass any of these; you must learn their melodies, their dissonances, and play them well.
This is no idle exercise. Iamblichus insisted that failing to actively engage the cosmic powers left the soul trapped in the blind wheel of necessity, spinning through endless compulsions, subject to every storm. But through ritual, through philosophical nderstanding, through conscious choice, the soul could attune itself to the same planetary currents and direct their energies toward its own higher flourishing. You become, as it were, a conscious vessel of providence rather than a passive victim of fate.
It is a powerful prescription: you must not just read your chart as a curiosity or an abstract system of symbols. You must live it, breathe it, wrestle with it, and sanctify it. That is the art of active engagement. If your chart shows a Mars square Moon, do not fear it; explore its roots, challenge its instincts, master its energy so that passion serves love instead of wounding it. If Pluto crosses your angles, do not cling to what is dying, but enter the underworld willingly, and discover the treasures of rebirth buried there. If Uranus electrifies your personal planets, do not let chaos overwhelm you, but ride its lightning toward creative revolution.
“The gods, being themselves the makers of fate, are not subject to it, but rather use it for the accomplishment of providence.”
- Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 1.10
Iamblichus would say this is your sacred duty: to transform heimarmene, the binding hand of fate, into pronoia, the guiding wisdom of divine providence. The same planetary forces, approached consciously, reveal their hidden gifts. There is no difference in the pattern — only in your relationship to it. The pattern, after all, is the pattern. Your agency, your will, your courage to engage — these are what turn a burden into a blessing, a challenge into a triumph, a chain into a key.
Think of your birth chart not as a fixed prison but as an initiatory map, written in the glyphs of the heavens. Every harsh angle is a trial, every harmonious flow an opportunity, every planetary dignity or debility a field of practice. Like the initiates of the ancient mysteries, you are summoned to undergo the tests of the gods, to die and be reborn within the pattern of your own cosmic story.
You are not a bystander to this drama — you are the protagonist, the ritual celebrant, the co-creator. Iamblichus invites you to see yourself as a participant in the cosmic ritual, an active partner in aligning your microcosm with the macrocosm. In this path of reverent engagement, you redeem the deterministic track not by escaping it but by inhabiting it fully, making of its iron laws a temple in which your spirit may shine.
Therefore, when you look upon your chart, do not ask whether you can change its decree. Ask rather: how will I transform myself through its necessity? How will I make of these planetary patterns a ladder to the divine? This is the only true liberation: not to dissolve your pattern, but to perfect it, and by perfecting it, to perfect yourself.
“The natal chart symbolizes the karmic patterns carried into this life, but it also reveals the path toward their transformation through conscious growth.”
- Stephen Arroyo, Astrology, Karma, and Transformation
Astrology, long misread as a fatalistic script of punishment, is in truth a luminous path of spiritual initiation, precisely as Iamblichus envisioned fate: a wise, benevolent necessity woven into the divine order of the cosmos. The Western tropical astrological chart, once married to the Vedic perspectives of karma and dharma, reveals not a mechanical determinism, but a providential unfolding that guides the soul’s perfection. The planetary patterns mapped in our charts are not arbitrary afflictions; they are the curriculum of our becoming, the encoded invitations to participate in the divine choreography of our liberation.
Iamblichus calls us to transfigure heimarmene — the seemingly binding hand of fate — into pronoia, the intelligent, compassionate guidance of providence. This is mirrored in the Vedic view of karma as the subtle current of cause and effect, the echoes of past actions that return to us not as punishment but as precise opportunities for reconciliation and integration. Dharma, then, is the heroic engagement with those opportunities: an active, reverent participation in fulfilling the soul’s role in the cosmic order. To refuse karma is to sink deeper into its compulsions; to embrace dharma is to transform karma into wisdom, just as Iamblichus teaches that fate transforms into providence only through active, initiatory participation.
Every opposition, every square, every flowing trine or sextile within the natal chart becomes, under this vision, a ritual trial or a sacred harmonization. As Iamblichus argued, it is not the pattern itself that binds us but our unskillful approach to it. Likewise, the Vedic path sees karma as a raw inheritance, waiting for the soul’s courageous commitment to dharma to redeem it. Dharma is no evasion of karma, but the path that completes and sanctifies it. This is identical to Iamblichus’s insistence that the soul must not tremble before its conditions but rise to meet them, transforming their lead into gold through philosophy, ritual, and conscious alignment with the gods.
When you read your chart, do not ask whether the decree can be erased; ask instead how you will actively engage its cosmic pattern. Each planetary signature is a glyph of your personal initiation. Mars square Moon? Here is the forge of courage and discipline. Pluto crossing your angles? Here is the underworld gate of rebirth. Neptune’s illusions? A test of lucid devotion and creative surrender. These are not chains but keys, if you dare to wield them. In the same way, karma sets the stage, but dharma directs the performance — provided you stand forth as the actor, not a passive spectator.
Thus, karma and dharma, understood through the lens of Iamblichus, are nothing less than the twin instruments of divine providence: karma the shaping law of causes, dharma the conscious practice that perfects them. Fate, approached ignorantly, enslaves; providence, approached reverently, liberates. The difference is never in the pattern, but in your relationship to it. Astrology is the initiatory map of that relationship, inviting you into a cosmic ritual where the microcosm and macrocosm dance in synchrony.
Therefore, embrace your chart as the mythic field of your own spiritual trial. See every harsh aspect as a hammer of refinement, every grace as an opportunity to orchestrate harmony. Like the initiates of the mysteries, accept the pattern not as a prison, but as a sacred temple, demanding your courageous, creative, intelligent devotion. In this union of Iamblichus with the Vedic tradition, karma and dharma emerge as the living hands of divine providence, calling you to perfection through the very necessities you once feared.
In this way, your tropical chart, enriched with these timeless principles, becomes neither a prison nor a sentence, but a profound invitation. Each planetary struggle, each repeating theme is the stage direction of providence, asking:
Where have you left your lessons unfinished?
What qualities long for cultivation in your soul?
What mythic journey must you consciously walk this time, to raise the pattern into its noblest expression?
For example, a Saturn in harsh aspect may mark lifetimes of fear, restriction, or alienation — the karmic seed. Dharma calls you to become a builder of structures, a teacher of endurance, a steward of wisdom, transmuting Saturn’s burden into a blessing of resilience and mastery.
Or perhaps Venus appears afflicted: relationships have been marked by betrayal, heartbreak, or self-worth collapses across lifetimes. That is the karmic pattern. The dharmic response is to embody sacred love, to develop healthy boundaries, to learn to love from fullness rather than hunger — transforming Venus’s pain into Venus’s grace.
A powerful Uranus might speak of karmic chaos, rebellion, and sudden loss. Dharma shows you how to channel this lightning force into creative innovation and authentic freedom, becoming an agent of high change without being consumed by destruction.
Each of these signatures is more than a fated wound. They are the invitations of providence itself, asking you to remember who you are and what you can become. This is the very insight of Iamblichus, that fate is not the blind crushing of a soul, but the wise design of its journey toward the Good. So too in tropical astrology, when imbued with the Vedic concepts of karma and dharma, the chart becomes a living script for your heroic fulfillment — a testament to the universe’s intricate care for your evolution.
Here is your path, then:
Identify the repeating patterns, the obstacles, the inherited conflicts woven through your chart.
Name the deeper story within them — the archetypal myth they carry, the universal struggle they echo.
Choose to live them consciously, with courage and clarity, fulfilling the lessons they hold.
Practice this engagement until these karmic patterns are transmuted into dharmic offerings of service, wisdom, and growth.
The chart is not here to enslave you. It is here to awaken you. Like the ancient initiatory mysteries, it points to the sacred drama you must perform, with excellence and with heart. Each pattern is the field in which your soul can blossom, if you accept its challenge with courage and integrity. Karma provides the lines of the play; dharma teaches you how to deliver them with brilliance, improvisation, and compassion, transforming mechanical repetition into conscious art.
Look deeply, then, at your chart:
Which wounds still cry out for healing?
Which stories repeat through time, asking to be completed?
Which virtues wait to be claimed, to transform what seems heavy into the shining gold of service and fulfillment?
Stand up. Step forward. Live your chart. Not as a slave to karma, but as a conscious steward of dharma, participating in the vast, intelligent unfolding of your destiny. What seems to be fate is, in truth, the voice of providence — a design so perfect it contains both the challenge and the path to transcend it. The universe awaits your performance, and through that performance, your soul fulfills the very reason it was born.
“Iamblichus taught that through rituals the soul could become attuned to the rhythms of the cosmos and thus transform its own condition.”
- Gregory Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus
“The gods do not disdain the ritual procedures through which we approach them, but rather rejoice in being invoked with reverent acts, and they reveal their true powers to those who are purified.”
- Iamblichus, De Mysteriis, 2.11
In the cosmic order, the planets do not merely shine as distant lights. They are living archetypal intelligences — daimones in the classical sense — actively weaving the circumstances, patterns, and rhythms of your earthly life. Astrology reveals the blueprint of their impact, showing how these celestial intelligences converge in your natal pattern, and how they continue to move, challenge, and awaken you through transits and progressions.
Yet to know this pattern intellectually is not enough. One must participate in it. One must engage these planetary intelligences in conscious, sacred dialogue. For this reason, the practice of ritual theurgy stands as the royal road to astrological mastery: it provides the precise means by which the individual microcosm aligns, purifies, and attunes itself to the macrocosmic harmony.
Iamblichus, the master of theurgy, taught that the gods do not move through mechanical laws alone. They are luminous intelligences who respond to our reverent invocation and disciplined ritual. Through theurgical acts — rituals consciously designed to contact, commune, and align with the cosmic hierarchy — the soul becomes equal to the divine influence, rather than passively subject to it. This is the exact mechanism by which fate is transformed into providence.
“Purifications open the way to the presence of the gods, removing whatever impedes their gifts."
- Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 2.11
Banishing is the first act of this engagement. Before you can embody the planetary currents, you must cleanse the vessel. Just as an alchemist purifies the base metals before fusion, the ritual banishing clears out the psychic dross, the obsessive thoughts, the stale karma, the reactive patterns that distort planetary influence. Banishing is not an escape from the planet’s force; it is a clarifying of your field so that you may receive that force consciously. For example, if Saturn’s weight breeds depressive fixations, you ritually banish those false forms of Saturn — fear, shame, inertia — so you can then invoke Saturn’s true aspect: discipline, wisdom, structure.
Invoking follows: once the soul is purified, you call upon the planetary archetype consciously. You do not simply wait for Mars to erupt in conflict; you ritually invoke Mars as the guardian of courage, channeling its heat into right action. You do not merely endure Neptune’s confusion; you invoke Neptune as a portal of transcendence, consciously communing with its mysteries through prayer, visualization, or symbol. The act of invocation places you in deliberate harmony with the planetary archetype, forging a link of sympathetic resonance that empowers you to co-create with its force rather than be tossed about by it.
Purification is the continuous cycle that sustains this relationship. You do not purify once and then rest; the planetary influences continue to flow, shift, and challenge you as the heavens move. Your ritual practice must include regular purifications to prevent the planetary archetypes from degenerating into their shadow forms — for every archetype has a higher and a lower octave. Through repeated ritual purification, you ensure that your relationship with these forces remains luminous, healthy, and consciously chosen.
In this way, theurgical ritual is not a superstitious remnant of an ancient world; it is the operational technology of soul refinement. You are not a bystander to your chart — you are its priest, its celebrant, its transformer. By ritually engaging the planetary forces as they aspect in your life, you literally become a microcosm of the macrocosm. Your personal field is harmonized to the greater celestial order. Your psyche becomes a temple that hosts the planets as living gods, in their highest, most purified, most initiatory expressions.
Let it be stated without hesitation: no amount of passive self-help astrology will grant this level of participation. Without ritual, the planetary forces remain largely unconscious, their initiations arriving in chaos, confusion, and crisis. But through ritual theurgy — properly structured, rooted in banishing the false, invoking the true, and purifying the vessel — you claim your rightful role as a divine collaborator.
In this sense, your birth chart is your ritual syllabus. Every square is a signal: what must be purified? Every trine is an invitation: what may be invoked? Every opposition is a polarity to be ritually harmonized. The theurgical path is the only path that allows you to work these patterns with the full force of your will, imagination, and spiritual authority.
Where astrology shows you the pattern, theurgy allows you to step inside that pattern, reanimate it, refine it, and elevate it. You do not merely live your chart: you ritually master your chart, becoming the conductor of its orchestra, rather than a helpless instrument.
Banishing clears the stage. Invoking calls the planetary gods to the throne of your heart. Purification ensures that you remain worthy to hold them, to steward their power without corruption.
In this way, you are made into the living axis mundi — the meeting place of the celestial spheres and the individual human soul. The microcosm shines with the macrocosm’s fire, no longer separate, no longer victim, but a conscious participant in the highest cosmic drama.
This is why ritual is not optional. It is the act by which you seal your covenant with the gods, honor their presence, and prove yourself ready to wield their forces with wisdom, discipline, and sacred devotion. Through theurgical ritual, you claim your cosmic birthright: to become, as the ancients declared, a divine infinite being in harmony with the stars.
At the School of Our Divine Infinite Being, initiates are welcomed into a 15-month inner mystery curriculum — a disciplined and reverent program of astrological theurgy. During this sacred period, the aspirant systematically engages the zodiacal forces through a precise ritual framework found within our central ritual praxis, the Theurgic Ritual of the Pentagram. The first three months of this curriculum are dedicated to deeply learning and internalizing the Theurgic Ritual of the Pentagram itself, which serves as an initiatory practice that establishes a living relationship with the Divine. Through this ritual, the aspirant is guided to identify with their immortal, non-dual relationship to the Infinite, and the elemental forces of nature, thereby preparing their mind and spirit for the subsequent invocation and alignment with the archetypal planetary and zodiacal forces.
Although personal zodiacal and astrological alignments represent a dynamic interplay that evolves uniquely for each individual, during this 15-month engagement the theurgist consciously steps away from their personal nativity in order to engage the zodiac directly. Beginning at either a solstice or an equinox, the aspirant follows the ROTA — the Astrological Wheel of the Tarot — wherein the planetary spheres are mapped across the zodiac to connect the 36 decans. This system of three decans per sign originated in the Egyptian zodiac and was later adopted and refined during the Hellenistic era, long before being integrated into Western esoteric practice. It was Samuel MacGregor Mathers of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn who brilliantly aligned these decans with the seven traditional planetary spheres, creating a cohesive and powerful structure for ritual engagement.
“It is through theurgic rites that we ourselves are joined to the gods and receive their beneficent power. …For the theurgic operation imitates the divine activity, and establishes a sympathy with the gods. …The daimones do not act on their own authority, but are ministers of the gods, and they gladly assist the sacred invocations.”
- Iamblichus, De Mysteriis 2.4/2.6
Within this framework, each decan is assigned a planetary ruler, and the sequence of these planetary rulers is arranged across the zodiac to form pentagram patterns — each planet appearing five times, thereby tracing a pentagram through its sequence of decanal placements. These placements reflect the mundane energies of the planets as well as the specific attributions of our school concerning the daemonic spirits. While Mathers first established a foundational structure, and Aleister Crowley further developed its esoteric applications, it was the School of Our Divine Infinite Being that advanced this system by precisely associating the Greek daemonic spirits to each decan, identifying exact and harmonious correspondences that fully embody the vast agency of their underlying energies and functions.
In the ROTA system, the Greater Arcana of the Tarot — which represent the planetary and zodiacal forces in a more descriptive and archetypal form — intermix with the Minor Arcana, which portray the 36 decans of the zodiac. Through this interplay, the Minor Arcana reflect the interrelational activities of the Greater Arcana, thereby expressing how these forces interact through human experience within the sacred structure of the zodiac and planetary spheres.
From within this pentagram-based foundation, the aspirant works sign by sign, decan by decan, in a deliberate sequence that is formally detached from their personal natal chart or current transits. In this way, the student does not become entangled in subjective readings of fate but approaches the zodiac as an initiatory wheel of cosmic archetypes in their universal form. It is a practice of cosmic objectivity — engaging each sign as its own sacred mystery, not merely a personalized pattern.
In this formalized mystery school progression, the practitioner begins with ritual banishing, cleansing the personal field of distortions and residual influences. Once purified, they proceed to invocation — calling forth the planetary power governing each decan in its highest and most luminous octave, integrated within the very personality of the sun and its associated zodiacal sign. This is accomplished through ritual theurgy, prayer, visualization, aligned with the elemental gates of the pentagram. Working in this manner, the practitioner moves systematically through the 36 decans, honoring their cosmic intelligences in an orderly sequence that does not depend on personal transits, but instead follows the archetypal current of the zodiac itself as a temple of universal forces.
Having completed the formal 15-month curriculum of archetypal zodiacal invocation, the initiate stands transformed, prepared to enter the true heart of astrological theurgy: the dynamic, ever-shifting conversation with the living heavens as they move across one’s personal chart. From this moment onward, the priest or priestess of their own cosmic temple begins to engage the planetary currents not as a fixed syllabus, but as an unfolding, living drama in continuous ritual dialogue.
Here, the natal chart becomes a consecrated landscape — the soul’s primal covenant with the cosmos, etched in the moment of incarnation. No longer a static diagram, it now breathes as a sacred field of archetypal demand and opportunity. The practitioner approaches each natal placement as a living altar: their Mars as a forge of holy will, their Venus as the living hearth of sacred union, their Saturn as a towering pillar of discipline and wise law. Each aspect, each house, each dignity or debility is ritually acknowledged, purified through the banishing forms, and then invoked in its highest octave through the pentagram’s elemental pathways. In this way, the priest transforms every feature of the natal pattern into a sacred alliance, consciously invited into partnership rather than passively suffered.
Here, the practitioner’s role is elevated: no longer a mere student or interpreter, but the conscious celebrant of the living chart, the steward of its ongoing evolution. The natal pattern is kept continually clear through ritual banishing and regularly reconsecrated through invocation. The transits are met with proactive, artful ritual responses, woven into the tapestry of daily and seasonal practice. This is astrology lived as theurgy — a priestly path where cosmic forces are not only observed but directly integrated into one’s actions, relationships, and states of mind.
Beyond this exalted threshold, the School of Our Divine Infinite Being has meticulously developed a complete ritual dialogue to accompany every transit, every retrograde, and every astrological aspect that may emerge in the practitioner’s natal chart throughout their lifetime. These ritual responses have been carefully designed to serve as sacred interfaces, offering the theurgist a living language of invocation, propitiation, and harmonization to engage each astrological movement in its highest possible form.
Through our Backoffice portal, these rites are made accessible in real time, dynamically presented to the practitioner as planetary influences arise in their chart. In this way, the practitioner is never left without a framework for conscious response, but is continually supported with an evolving ritual vocabulary that honors both the cosmic unfolding and the personal mystery of their incarnation. Whether confronting the intensifying tension of a square, the unexpected revelations of a retrograde, or the harmonious flow of a trine, the ritual theurgist is guided to meet each moment in reverent dialogue, transforming what might otherwise be unconscious fate into purposeful, sacred participation.
