The Cult of Tara

WORSHIP 93
Hermes or the Egyptian Thoth; earlier known versions of this expression
of alchemical dogma are in Arabic, says Holmyard, and it
has been well known since the early Middle Ages in a Latin rendering.
Here we read: "True it is, without falsehood, certain and most
true: that which is above is like to that which is below, and that
which is below is like to that which is above, to accomplish the
miracles of one thing." 146
By manipulating events below, the magician
can control the course of events above. Francis Yates tells of
one ritual based on this axiom: 147
We know that Campanella actually practised this magic at Rome
in 1628 for Pope Urban VIII who was afraid of some eclipses
which his enemies . . . had prophesied would cause his death.
Campanella did magic with him to ward off the evil. They sealed
a room against the outside air, hung it with white cloths, and
burned certain herbs in it. Two lamps (luminaria) and five
torches were lit, representing the planets, and the signs of the
zodiac were imitated in some way "for this is a philosophical
procedure, not superstitious as the vulgar think." There was
Jovial and Venereal music; stones, plants, colours belonging to the
good planets were used, and they drank astrologically distilled
liquors.
Campanella tells us that his lights imitate the planets not only in
their number but also in their substance, "for both of them are
fiery." Again, Daniel Walker gives Campanella's directions for
dealing with dangerous comets: "You will not only simulate, within
the room, the heavens, with the planets and signs of the zodiac, but
you will also add a simulacrum of the comet, made out of aerial,
medicated material, so that this will usefully shine for you." 148
This then is the magical axiom upon which the Tantras are
founded, a corollary of their metaphysical axiom. The "effigies"
and the "substitutes" of the Tibetan protective rituals are magical
simulacra, and the vivid appearance of the visualized image is a
simulacrum for both public reality and for the deity himself: to
control the image is to control the object. In Tantric soteriology
the divine body is a simulacrum for the cosmos; mind, breath, and
semen are homologized to one another and to the forces that create
and destroy the universe. This is the reason for the lengthy "tables
of correspondences" in the Tantric writings: just as a Western astrologer
mediates the influence of the planets through manipulation of
their corresponding colors, minerals, and plants, the Tantric seeks
in the world and in himself as many interconnections as he can find,