By Christian Chensvold
Let’s skip—for a moment—whether or not the gods exist. That is, whether the seven “planetary governors” known to the ancients (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn), and the 12 “fixed stars” (the wheel in the sky, or zodiac), have supernatural powers—as in “a higher kind of natural”—that human beings can invoke and channel.
Let’s skip for now, in other words, the scenario in which you’re cornered by ruffians and have no choice but to fight for survival. You invoke the planet Mars, the god of war, which happens to be perfectly placed in Aries in your natal chart. Your whole being instantly changes, you go into “rage mode” as if in a video game, and fight off three bad guys.
Let’s also skip the seduction scene you’ve planned of your new infatuation, who’s coming over on Friday night, the day of the week named for Venus. You prepare your home with flowers and fragrance, music and wine, and pray to Venus for a night of passion leading to an everlasting love, and sure enough it actually happens.
Yes, to placate followers of modern science, we will not try to prove that in these scenarios actual divine intervention has occurred simply because of the invocation and the positive outcome, foregoing all claims to objectivity and simply looking at what happens to the person who dares invoke the gods.
At the commencement of my awakening five years ago, I found myself staring at the Atlantic Ocean on a desolate stretch of beach. The sun was setting, the wind was picking up and the water was cold. I stood for ages trying to come up with a reason why I should enter the sea. Then my mind’s eye began to see images of ancient Greece drawn from a lifetime of movie-watching, and strange energies began coursing through me.
Suddenly, I shouted, “Alright Poseidon, show me what you’ve got!” I leapt into the brisk waters, swam as hard as I could, dove under waves, pulled up shells from the bottom and created a spontaneous ocean adventure, never for a moment letting go of the invocation I’d made. I exited the water in a state of exhilaration, and here I am years later writing about it.
Today it’s clear what happened. In summoning “the gods,” I made profane life suddenly sacred, magically conferring metaphysical meaning to otherwise meaningless action. The medium through which this took place was the imagination, which is not a faculty for envisioning material things that don’t really exist, but for connecting with immaterial things that actually do.
