FALCON BOOK PUBLISHING
INTERVIEWS
Discussions on Hermetic & Esoteric Realms
with André Consciência.
Welcome, to today’s interview with André Consciência Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. Today we will be discussing aspects of André’s latest title, A Guide to the Elementals: A Magical Study Series Volume 1.
André is an accomplished writer, poet, playwright, and musician living in Moita, Portugal. He has been a dedicated practitioner of Hermetic and Esoteric systems, including Bardon, AMORC, and Thelemic Golden Dawn, for over two decades. André also teaches neo-shamanism and has his own active group of practitioners. He has authored several books and publications, including The Path to IPSOS Volumes I and II, and Through the Soul Mirror to the Sphere of the Sun. He is the founder of a theater company and has written plays, music, and articles for various magical orders. André is also involved in cultural associations and has worked as a content writer and ghostwriter for Fractal Mind Lda.
A series of questions relating to André's latest title: A Guide to the Elementals
Universal Language of Astral Light and the human brain
- Can you explain more about how the four sensors of the human brain (intellect, imagination, cognition, and memory) work together to perceive and process vibration or astral light?
André: The intellect rules the light, imagination rules the shape, cognition rules the form, and memory rules self-consciousness. The rulers are mental, the ruled elements are astral.
2. How does the power of image-making allow us to read the astral light or universal language?
André: The images function as archetypes, they function as forces to the substance that is the light. As such, they are as universal as the light, because they are light moving or may be understood only as light moving.
3. How does imagination differ from image-making in terms of creating structures for communication through astral light?
André: Imagination is the cause and image-making is the effect. Imagination is the dreamer, and image-making allows the dreamer to be in the dream. Let’s say that imagination allows for awareness and image-making for self-awareness, one connects to the Astral light and the other to ego-consciousness, to some sort of reference inside the endless light. They are necessary for communication as much as the plus and the minus poles are necessary for a circuit to take place.
4 Can you elaborate on how cognition works with abstractions extracted from perceived objects or images?
André: In simple words, cognition completes the abstractions as much as possible, making them objective, but only to the extent that they can keep completing themselves in the cognitive field.
5. How does memory fix the impressions it receives and how does this contribute to the evolution of our consciousness?
André: By the power of image-making, when the images create patterns, then evolution starts working and these patterns have no choice but to evolve due to the pressure of the Astral light. This pressure might be called intelligence, it means the images, connected, are trying to solve their own puzzle and return to the state of pure light. This means also the images learn the faculty of image-making themselves and for the period or duration of their life this is what distinguishes them from light in its original state, for in its original state the light is absolute and self-sufficient.
6. Can you explain more about the importance of creating a proper background when dealing with beings from different spheres or elemental kingdoms?
André: The common background puts the magician and the being in the same tunnel of evolution (in the same pattern). Without this taking place, there is no room for exchange. ‘cosmic beings’ perception and the use of backgrounds in communication with them:
7. Can you explain more about how the background is used when communicating with cosmic beings and elemental rulers?
André: The background should be of a cosmic expanse. They should be related to what we call, in philosophy, the universals. With cosmic beings, the light and color, with elemental rulers, the elements themselves, for instance, the sea contained in the sea, this is not any sea, but the sea of all water.
8. How do the backgrounds differ when communicating with elemental kings or local elementals?
André: Kings rule over kingdoms, and local elementals are attached to certain regions of a kingdom. So, the background for a local gnome can be a cave, his particular cave. But if the cave is in a mountain, his king should have the mountain as the background, roughly speaking.
9. Can you elaborate on how the mind puts together seemingly disjointed characteristics into a single image when communicating with these beings?
André: Between the patterns of evolution of the being and the patterns of evolution of the magician there is always a difference, a certain gap. The mind fills this gap creating a pattern between the two patterns. This is where learning takes place on both sides.
10. How can a magician create or explore entrances and paths to unite the different parts of an elemental king’s kingdom in their mind?
André: By first imagining them, then memorizing them. We should return to the previous question and answer about memory. We will find how memory is intimately connected to evolution and expansion and puzzle-solving. The image will evolve into both ends of the picture, the different parts of the kingdom.
11. Can you explain more about the importance of consciously and symbolically linking different backgrounds when communicating with these beings?
André: I think this question might lead some to error. What we need is a background that is both firmly stabilized and malleable or perfectly fluid. This means that the background of fixed form must be infused by the intelligence of the being, which we might call shape, and answer to it under the law of the being’s light or intellect. We can insert our own additional backgrounds, such as magical tools, they enforce terms and conditions, so to speak, into the whole living picture.
Understanding Imagination
Can you explain more about how imagination works in conjunction with signs and symbols to bring a being’s attributes to life?
André: Imagination fills in the gaps. It creates a pattern for the being to inhabit. The right signs and symbols make sure this pattern is close enough to the being to be influenced by the innermost pattern of the being itself.
- How does the mind solve the symbols of a being’s attributes into a living and more abstract expression?
André: By using the faculty of imagination. The abstraction then moves naturally towards objectivity in multiple directions and communication occurs.
2. Can you provide an example of how a sign can open a being’s world or domain?
André: I will give you the example of Balem, the 32nd head of the Sun Sphere. It could be said he represents cosmic harmony. He channels part of the light of the constellation of Hercules, Hercules being known to dress the coat of the lion Nemean, whose golden skin was impervious to attack. To cut the skin, Hercules had to use the lion’s own claw. This is left here as a tip that the wiser reader may use to his or her advantage regarding the unity of will with respect to cosmic harmony. The seal of Balem looks like an abnormally long spermatozoon, and an abnormally long sign of Leo, as if the sign of Leo (Lion) had been glued to a large serpent. Cosmic harmony is represented by a lion-serpent. The Ancient Egyptians knew this symbol as the royal seed (spermatozoon) of the pharaohs, where the pharaohs are Osiris (the continuity of consciousness throughout all dissolution). As a symbol, this solar figure, the Chnoubis (Soul of the World and ruler of the spirits) , was used for protection, banishing all hindrances to cosmic harmony and ensuring health and enlightenment throughout the cycles of life (skin impervious to attacks).
It must be understood, and the good decipherer will have noticed it by now, that the lion-serpent also unifies the figures of the lightning bolt of solar power hitting the rising serpent (think Hercules fighting Hydra). These are symbols in the seal of Etzybeth too, the 31st head of the Sun Sphere. In this intelligence, the serpent depicts the illusion that limited objects can have a life independent of the unlimited. The quantity in Etzybeth, however, is depicted by the lightning bolt of solar power that hits the serpent in the serpent’s rise. In Balem, the Lion symbolizes the Sun; in this case, it took over the serpent, becoming the head that commands it (think of the arrows of Hercules running with the poison of a defeated Hydra).
Wisdom deciphers the seal, and, as seals do, opens up the virtues of the being in question. The virtues shoot forth their powers. The powers inhabit the world. In their doing, they create a domain.
3. How does the mind use imagination to create a context and world for the being represented by a sign?
André: By the process of association.
4. Can you explain more about how a being comes to inhabit and speak through the animated images extracted from a sign by the magician?
André: The being does the same process as the magician. To find a seal the magician first taps into the intelligence of the being, if the being is close enough in nature to the magician (else the magician cannot even phantom the being’s existence). When the magician approaches the intelligence of the being, the being finds the magician close enough to tap into him or her in the same fashion.
Thank you Andre for taking the time to answer these questions
