concourseColor

Through the use of colour-coding, we arrive at a sort of speedier “short-cut” than applying a less
obvious method to the study of these concepts and number-base groups. For example, the
excrutiatingly difficult lecture on “the Tree of Life Projected In A Solid Sphere,” from whence the
first “Concourse of the Forces” diagram depicted here derives, the narrator’s verbose and erudite
adumbration on the method involved is laid bare here before our eyes through use of colours.
Here we see, quite obviously, that EARTH is most “attracted to” the sign of Taurus, and that FIRE
is, likewise, drawn most to the sign of Leo, etc. The elegance of Mathers’ system, as lost in the
breach in the written “Sphere” lection as it is, is nontheless obvious, particularly when we add
the element of colour.
Here we see four seasons governing the mean year. We see that EARTH is the elemental aspect most
“attracted” to the signs of the Zodiac that govern during the season of Spring, followed by the trait
of FIRE, followed by the aspect of WATER, and finally by that of AIR. As the mean year unfurls
from above to below along the left, likewise the elemental combination attributed per sign along
the right shifts the “Second in Order” into the position of “First in Order,” and, as the mean year
progresses, the previous “First in Order” slips down to the place “Fourth in Order” along the row.
All of this may still seem alien and mysterious at this point, however rest assured that by the
time you have completed reading this booklet it will already have begun to become second nature.
The process being described here is as simple and straight-forward as it may seem: each season of
the year has its own unique re-combination of the elements. At heart, that is all this system is: a
description of re-combinations of elemental attributes as they are re-sorted over time.
So, thus we have the first sign of the season, and it Mathers calls, “Common” or “Fluctuating.”
This is because of the inter-sorting nature of the re-distribution of the elements during the
seasons. Mathers described this oddity eloquently enough: he described the side closer to the
“First in Order” as being governed by the “Princesses” of the vulgar deck, while the side closer to
the “Fourth in Order” Mathers established as being closer to the 4 suit “Ace” cards of same. It is
then noted in the Golden Dawn material that... “the order of the Princesses [...] is formed from
right to left [...] while that of the Aces is formed from left to right, though their motion is from
right to left.” (Here the author would have been referring to the “top” of this given chart, read
downward with the mean year’s seasons, as “right,” and the “bottom” of this chart, read upwards
and opposite the mean year, as “left.”)
The best way to model the “Concourse of the Forces,” being elemental re-combinations during the
changeing seasons of the mean year, would be to attach the “Princesses” side of the elementals
column to the “Aces” side, and thus wrap the entire column of attributes up around a cylindrical
pillar. Also, ideally, one could then continue on to attach the “top” and “bottom” of this pillar to
complete the circular cycle of the Zodiac round. The result would be the shape of a ring, that is,
what geometres and chronologists call a “torus,” and the pattern of motion on its surface, implied
now more obviously through the application of colour to Mathers’ model, would form a spiral that
would revolve around, into, through, out of, around and into again the central hole of the ring-
shaped “tube-torus.”
Such is the seemingly myserious “Concourse of Forces,” based on a re-combination of the elements
given per season. This is a simple conclusion. However the method Mathers’ employed to craft this
simple model is actually magnificently masterful, both in its simplicity and its scale of scope.