(199) Vermelho

It was long held in ancient lore that a meadow of flowers symbolised the stars in the sky above. Hence when Jesus says, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these,” he refers to the eternal stars above. The contrast is Hermetic in that it encapsulates the principle “as above, so below”—as in the field lilies, so in the star field; and, indeed, there is a lily variety called “Stargazer”—the Stargazer Lily.

As noted passim, the primordial religion involved star-worship and the gods would manifest as stars (wise men would, in fact, apotheosise themselves into star-like entities that would manifest from time to time). This was so among the Bedouin before Islam, among the ancient Greeks (who held the heroes became stars), and, most notably, among the ancient Egyptians—they had a particular reverence for “the Dog Star” and the pyramid’s purpose was really to turn the pharaoh into a star. The sensibility was caught by Aleister Crowley, who received various revelations among the pyramids—“every man and woman a star” (not actually some milky liberal sentiment, but more to do with being a mummy).

Obviously, Jesus knew about the old allusion—hence the flowers are more wise than Solomon not only because as literal flowers they are humble but because, in addition, esoterically, they are the men who turned themselves into stars (the wise men of the Bedou—the Taoist sages in the folds of space-time, just like an oriental silken cloak). Somehow the “star tradition” became separated from formal religion—from Christianity and Islam—but subsisted beside it, as found in Boethius and Dante and Shakespeare; indeed, Dante’s Divine Comedy is the whole star story is esoteric form. Yet today it has almost vanished, with astrology very much degraded—and almost nobody thinks religion is about transformation into a star anymore.