Yael R.

Dragwyla First North American rights

email: polaris93@aol.com 18,500 words
http://polaris93.livejournal.com/

NEW MAGICKS FOR A NEW AGE

Volume II: The Magickal Sky
Book 2: The Planets
Part 5: Mars
Chapter 1: General Discussion

Mars’s orbit around Sol lies just outside that of our world. At Mars’s Solar opposition, when He is at
perigee, He is closer to us than Venus is during much of Her orbit around the Sun. Of all other Planets, at
His brightest He is only outshone by Venus. His baleful, bloody light is appropriate to His position
among the Gods as Lord of War, Strife and Battle; that He sometimes comes closer to us even than
Venus surely is fitting, for we are a most contentious species, loving battle and strife at least as much as
peace and love, if not more!
Before the inception of the Space Age, many astronomers believed that Mars was a Planetary twin
to Earth, with an atmosphere similar to ours and polar ice-caps consisting primarily of water-ice. Over
the last two or three centuries, astronomers, science-fiction writers, and laymen alike speculated
endlessly about the possibilities of Martian life, and it was widely believed that if we ever reached the
Red Planet, we would find it teeming with life of some kind, however odd or alien it might seem to us.
Only with the launching of robot Martian fly-by space-probes and landers have we learned the true
condition of the Martian surface environment, arid, barren, subjected to extreme temperature ranges
dropping to well below the freezing-point of carbon dioxide during the Martian night, lacking open water
in any form, swept by vast, scouring dust-storms often lasting for months at a time. And even now, it
still isn’t certain whether living beings native to Mars dwell on His surface or, perhaps, just below it,
protected from the bone-freezing cold, the monster dust-storms, the desiccated, virtually airless
environment of the Martian surface by a thick layer of soil and dust.
Mars’s “year” is some 687 terrestrial days in length. He has an extremely eccentric orbit, as
previously mentioned; though He is 249 million kilometers from Sol at aphelion, at perihelion His
orbital distance from Sol is only 206 million km. His perigee – His closest approach to us – takes place
when He is simultaneously at perihelion and opposition (directly across the sky from Sol, as seen from
Earth*), so that we are then directly between Mars and Sol, on the line determined by Them. When this
occurred in September 1988, His distance from Earth was just 58,400,000 km, and His apparent diameter
was almost 24 arc-seconds wide. At that time, ground-based observations of Mars from Earth were
clearer than at almost any other time, since His perihelion doesn’t usually coincide with His opposition,
the best possible time to view Him via ground-based telescopes (otherwise, His disc is less than fully lit
by Sol, as seen from Earth).
*Mars, like the Planets beyond Him, appears to be in retrograde motion at this time, moving from East to
West across the sky from night to night as observed from Earth. This is because the Earth moves
faster along Her orbit than Mars does His, so at opposition, She first pulls even with Him, then
gradually passes and outdistances Him, like the way in which a racehorse on the inside of the race-
track pulls even with, then ahead of another horse moving at the same speed along the outside of the
track. When a Planet is retrograde, its esoteric influence is at a maximum, and its mundane
influence is weakened, debilitated; in horary charts, a retrograde significator is considered a very
inauspicious testimony for the outcome of the question. Why this is so isn’t clear, for the Planet in
question is then at perigee, and logically it would seem that the closer it is, the stronger its influence,
the reverse of the actual case. In any event, retrograde motion of a Planet occurs during its perigee,
while its direct motion occurs when it has moved away from its closest approach to us. Mercury and
Venus are at perigee when They are between us and Sol; Mars and the Planets beyond Him are at
perigee when we are between Them and Sol. In all cases, though, a Planet is retrograde when at
perigee or near it, and in direct motion when near or at apogee. Exactly what the geometry involved
implies in terms of astrological influence is still being researched and is frequently a matter of hot
debate among astrologers even today.

The inclination of His axis of rotation from the vertical is 23.98 degrees, almost identical to that of
Earth, which is 23.4 degrees. As a result, Mars experiences four Seasons during the Martian year, just as
Earth does, though of course His Seasons are almost twice the length of our world’s. The progression of
His Seasons is clearly observable from Earth. For example, during Spring in His Northern hemisphere,
His North polar cap shrinks, while the material on his surface in His more temperate latitudes appears to
darken in color, the patches of darkening seeming to spread as His Spring progresses into Summer.
Mars receives about 40% more Sunlight at perihelion than at aphelion. As a result, His Summer
hemisphere is much warmer at perihelion than at aphelion, while His Winter hemisphere is far colder at
aphelion than at perihelion.
Operating together, all these factors produce temperatures ranging between -125 degrees C and
+37° C (-193 to +99 degrees F). On the whole, Mars is extremely cold, far more so than our world. His
equatorial temperatures range from a high of +26° C (+78.8° F) to about -111° C (-167.8° F) just before
dawn. Around the Martian poles, temperatures rarely rise higher than -123° C (-189.4° F) at any time
during the year.
Mars’s rotational period, 24h37m22.6sm is just a little longer than that of our world. Mars is a
relatively small Planet, with an equatorial diameter of 6,794 km and a polar diameter of 6,759, giving
Him a very low ellipticity, only about .0052, just a little over half a percent. He masses only 6.42 x 10 23
kg, a mass just 11% that of the Earth. With a volume 15% that of Earth, this gives Him a density of 3.93
g/cm 3, 71% that of our world, the lowest of any of the terrestrial Planets, and only slightly greater than
Luna’s. As a result, His surface gravity is only 38% that of Earth, and His escape velocity is 5 km/s, less
than half that of the Earth, sufficient to retain an atmosphere so thin it barely qualifies as such.
We have only a limited understanding of the internal structure of Mars, based more on theoretical
models than upon direct evidence. We aren’t even sure whether or not He has a core. The first fly-by
space-probes to examine Him found a very weak magnetic field; but while Mariner 4 encountered a
bow shock, it was unable to determine whether this magnetic field was intrinsic to Mars or was rather
induced by the Solar wind. He is like Luna rather than Mercury in His apparent lack of an appreciable
magnetic field. If it does turn out that His internal structure resembles that of the Earth, after all,
including an iron-rich core, mantle, and relatively thin outer crust, the temperature of His core would
have to be much lower than that of our world to account for his virtually non-existent magnetic field.
The ancients believed that the heavens, the abode of the Gods, were absolutely perfect in every way.
With the advent of modern astronomy and the invention of the telescope, this literal-minded insistence on
a concrete, geometric manifestation of spiritual perfection, with all that it implies, has had to be
abandoned, piece by piece, and Western humanity has been dragged, kicking and screaming all the way,
into a modern understanding of the natural world and its relation to divinity by the findings of modern,
high-tech science. During the Middle Ages, it was generally believed that the orbital geometries of the
Planets were absolutely circular, since the Circle, being a perfect shape, mirrored the perfection of God.
But in 1609 e.v., Johannes Kepler discovered that this wasn’t so, that the Planetary orbits, rather than
being perfect circles, were instead ellipses. Medieval men properly believed that the surfaces of the
Lights, the Planets, and the Stars were absolutely without blemish; this notion was torpedoed in 1610
e.v. when Galileo Galilei, using the newly-invented telescope, discovered Sunspots. And whereas
medieval humanity believed that the Planets, reflecting God’s perfection and embodying the perfection of
His creation, were perfectly spherical in shape, since the time of Kepler and Galileo, astronomical
observations have continuously added to the evidence that this assumption likewise doesn’t reflect
reality.
The shape of Mars is no exception. Mars is by no means a perfect sphere. On the contrary, He has a
pronounced bulge, centered at 101 degrees West, 14 degrees South, in His Tharsis region, which rises to
some 10 km above mean datum.* His surface exhibits a tremendous variety of features, but it can be
divided into two fairly unequal hemispheres, North and South, their dividing line running obliquely
relative to His equator. Generally speaking, His Southern hemisphere is the older of the two, shown by
the tremendous number of craters in it, similar in number per unit area to that of the Lunar highlands.
This older surface is also between one and three km above the mean datum. Mars’s Northern
hemisphere, on the other hand, has a much lower average elevation, and is much less densely cratered.
The surface of that hemisphere contains an abundance of volcanic features, including the gigantic shield
volcanoes of Tharsis, one of which, Olympus Mons, is almost certainly the largest in the Solar System.
These volcanoes rise from the Tharsis “bulge” and from a smaller but similar raised area in Elysium to
the West of the Tharsis region.
East of Tharsis is an enormous canyon system, Valles Marineris. Radiating outward from it are large
arrays of tensional faults, or “graben.” Both of these features are probably related to the formation of
Tharsis itself. North of the canyons in this region are a wealth of outflow channels, which may have been
produced during a period of catastrophic flooding around 3.0-3.5 billion years ago. The ancient, cratered
terrain and the young, volcano plains overlap and interlace at the boundary between the two. The ancient
surface has apparently wasted away there, in places collapsing into “chaotic terrain,” across which a great
deal of the debris eroded from it.

*Mars, unlike Earth, has no oceans, so “sea-level” can’t serve as a standard reference for altitude on
Mars. Instead, a standard of atmospheric pressure is used, in this case, 6.1 millibars (mb).

The youngest exposed surfaces on Mars seem to be those around His poles. Well-laminated deposits
appear in the polar regions, cut by deep valleys which clearly expose the layering. Very few impact
craters are found here; though such craters must once have been present in this region, evidently they
have long since either been removed somehow or covered over by sedimentary detritus.
Mars’s early history isn’t well understood. But it is likely that resurfacing of His Northern
hemisphere took place very early in His evolution, perhaps 4 billion years ago. This may have been
connected in some way with the formation of His inner core.
After this resurfacing took place, Mars experienced a period of intense volcanic activity, which was
probably directly connected with the formation of the Tharsis bulge. The extensive fracturing of His
surface must certainly have been related to the rise of Tharsis, and probably the opening of Valles
Marineris, as well. It isn’t clear how long ago this volcanic activity went on; considerably more data is
needed before we can be sure.
The details of the surface topography of Mars are fascinating. For example, in addition to His many
volcanic craters, His surface also contains a vast number of meteoric impact craters, some of them more
than 200 km across, suggesting that He suffered the same period of intense meteoric bombardment that
characterized the early Solar System and scarred many of the other Planets and Moons, especially Luna
and Mercury.* Mysterious channels, resembling river-beds in appearance but arising from no recent
source of liquid water, also cross His surface, some of them many hundreds of kilometers long.** The
gigantic canyon systems of the Valles Marineris, their vast domain dwarfing the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado of the American Southwest, and the many vast, smooth plains of Western Chryse Planitia,
possibly the remnants of gigantic outflows of basaltic magma that welled out of Mars’s incandescent,
molten interior onto His surface when He was still young and tectonically active, further complicate His
surface.
*Called the “Noachian” period of Planetary formation. In this case, the flood was one of meteors and
comets, rather than rocks, and in each case it lasted millions or tens of millions of years, battering
the entire available surface of each Moon and Planet.

**It is now believed that these river-channels are the result of enormous floods of liquid water that came
about in Mars’s youth as a result of the sudden collapse of huge ice-dams. He was still relatively
warm with the heat of formation, then, and while there had been time for deposit of water on his
surface from volcanic eruptions, released from minerals in which it had been trapped until then, there
had not been sufficient time for this water to sublimate away to space or become sequestered in
surface deposits of minerals as hydrates of those minerals. And because Mars still had a respectable
atmosphere – also the result of volcanic outgassing – and hadn’t entirely lost His heat of formation, a
good deal of that water was still in the form of liquid or slush. At times, areas on Mars where vast
lakes and slushpiles of water and water-ice had formed and become dammed by ice suddenly
warmed up for whatever reasons, and the ice-dams melted. The result was sudden, enormous floods
of water washing across the face of Mars, digging great river-systems in the process. The river-beds
left behind by these floods, now completely empty of water, still exist.
Data for this model for the formation of Mars’s river-channel systems came from the Scablands
area in the Eastern parts of my own home state, Washington. There, a vast system of empty river-
channels virtually identical to the Martian systems can be found. The formation of the Scablands
was long a mystery, one which was finally worked out in detail in the past decade or so [written in
1996 e.v.]. During one of the last Ice Ages, an enormous dam-lake covering much of the Western
portions of what is now the state of Montana and the Eastern border of what is now Washington was
created due to a gigantic ice-dam that formed as a glacier on the lake’s Western side. Then, as the
ice began to wane and the Earth warmed, the ice-dam became progressively less solid, more rotten,
until finally one day it burst all at once, spilling the entire contents of the lake into the Western
lowlands beyond. The flood that spilled out of Lake Missoula took the form of a wall of water
hundreds of feet high and hundreds of miles across, roaring across the land at sixty miles an hour or
more. As it went, it scoured out the land into a myriad river-channels essentially identical in form to
those on Mars.
So there was indeed once water on Mars. The evidence is scoured into its rugged, forbidding
landscape. And someday, when human beings make permanent homes on the Red Planet, there will
be surface-water there again – and Mars will be neither so forbidding nor rugged, for on His surface
will be golden, fruited plains beneath gracious blue skies, and verdant fields, and great forests, and
the homes of all Earth’s creatures.

And that surface is still evolving. Clearly, active erosion and transportation of erosion debris,
processes which have gone on for hundreds of millions of years, still continues on Mars even now. Many
of Mars’s volatile chemical compounds must still be locked within His surface, probably within the sub-
surface permafrost layer of ices. The melting of this ice during periods of intense volcanism may have
played a significant part in the formation of the outflow channels that cross so much of His surface. (But
see footnote to previous paragraph.)
The pressure of the atmosphere at His surface is less than 1% of what it is on Earth, about that which
would be found in the terrestrial atmosphere about thirty kilometers above sea-level. On His surface, at
such atmospheric pressures, in His frigid surface temperatures liquid water quickly becomes unstable and
freezes. Other effects of such a thin atmosphere include saltation, the transportation of material along the
surface, and the raising of fine material to form dust-clouds, both conspicuous characteristics of the
Martian landscape.
95% of the atmosphere of Mars is made up of COv2. Another 2% is nitrogen, and argon forms 1-
2%. The rest consists of trace amounts of water-vapor, carbon monoxide, oxygen, ozone, krypton, and
xenon; the abundance of atmospheric water, oxygen, and ozone varies according to the Season and the
geographical location. Like Earth’s atmosphere, that of Mars came into being as a result of volcanic out-
gassing, in this case mainly through the giant shield volcanoes of the Tharsis region.
During Summer in a given hemisphere of Mars, there is a small cap at the pole of the opposite
hemisphere. At the North pole, the cap is composed of water-ice, but the one at the South pole consists
of dry-ice (frozen carbon dioxide). The reason for this difference in chemical make-up of Mars’s two
polar caps isn’t yet known. Sublimation of water-ice at the North pole provides a supply of atmospheric
water-vapor in the North; the Southern hemisphere is generally deficient in this gas.
 There is ample evidence of weather on Mars. Clouds appear regularly in His atmosphere, which is to
be expected, since temperatures in His atmosphere are always close to those of the saturation point for
water vapor. Clouds of COv2 are also present; at high altitudes and in polar regions during Winter,
temperatures easily fall low enough for COv2 to condense, forming such clouds. In addition, from time
to time gigantic dust-storms cover vast areas of the Martian surface. These are believed to be fairly
frequent on Mars, and the pink sky photographed by the Viking lander suggests that dust from such
storms may be constantly present in His atmosphere.
Mars’s atmosphere was probably much thicker in the past than at the present time. He may also have
had a great deal of surface water then, including oceans hundreds of feet or more deep. There is a great
deal of evidence of the work of some liquid agent on his surface, such as numerous features that appear
to be ancient stream-beds and other terrain that has obviously been shaped by flowing water. There are
also channels that emerge at the heads of canyons below areas of collapsed terrain, which may have been
formed by underground water, or by the melting of sub-surface ice. This water may have had its origin in
some cataclysmic event, such as the impact of a comet or meteor, or volcanic eruptions. If a large
volume of water was suddenly added by some such process to Mars’s atmosphere, it could have stayed
there long enough to have rained out onto his surface, with resultant erosion of surface features by runoff
and weathering. If, as we now think, Mars’s atmosphere was much thicker in His youth than it is now, it
could have produced running water on his surface.
There is another factor that could have produced climatic changes on Mars on a vast scale. The
eccentricity of His orbit, 9.3%, is the third greatest in the Solar System, third after Mercury’s and Pluto’s.
This gives Mars a variable orbital speed, so that as a result His Seasons have different lengths. His North
pole is tilted away from Sol at perihelion, so that Autumn in His Northern hemisphere last for only 142
Martian days, while Winter in His Northern hemisphere lasts for 156 days, Spring in that hemisphere
lasts for 194 days, and Summer for 177. Summer in His Southern hemisphere is as long as His Northern
Winter, of course, and His other Southern Seasons are similarly reversed, since Northern Summer takes
place at the same time Southern Winter does, and so on. The obliquity or inclination of His axis varies
by about 10 degrees over a million years or so, an enormous variance in comparison to Earth’s obliquity.
As a result, Solar radiation receive at His surface over this period may vary by more than 100%. When
insolation is at a maximum, it may release more COv2 into His atmosphere, making the latter more
massive and, ultimately, warmer. Changes in obliquity will also affect the redistribution of water-vapor
and the generation of dust-storms. There could very well be wetter periods in the Martian future, giving
Him a much more hospitable climate.
But at the moment Mars is cold, dry, and, as far as we can tell at this point, without life. Nor is His
surface broken up into plates as a result of active tectonic processes in His interior.* The ruddiness of
His surface, which gives Him His characteristic color as seen from Earth, and is the reason for one of His
best-known names, the Red Planet,** is due to oxides of iron, which make up a great deal of the bulk of
His soil. Almost all His free oxygen, except for that which is found in the carbon dioxide and water-
vapor that makes up most of His tenuous atmosphere, was locked up in these iron compounds long ago.
From all appearances at the present time, organic life as we know it was still-born on Mars, or else was
never conceived there.

*The models of Planetary dynamics developed by James Lovelock et al. strongly suggest that at least on
Earth, the motion of Planetary plates and tectonic dynamism are the result of the activities of the life
on a world taking place over billions of years. If this is so, it is possible that Mars was a dynamic
world in His hot youth, but a barren one, so that He could not keep the tectonic dynamism of His
early days. If life were reintroduced to Mars through terrestrial colonization, would it eventually
give Him tectonic activity of a terrestrial sort? How one wishes for a time-machine, to look forward
into Mars’s future! :)
For more on this model, see James Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living
Earth (Bantam, 1990), esp. pp. 104-105.

**Mars has His esoteric dominion in Capricorn, the Sign-ruler of Russia. For many decades in this
century, “Red” and “Russian Communist” were virtual synonyms.

Nevertheless Mars lies well within the Life-Zone, that region around Sol that could support our sort
of life, all other things being equal. Certainly he could be made habitable for human occupation by the
liberation of the oxygen locked up in his soil to provide an atmosphere, together with employment of
other terraforming techniques to provide enough water for human use and soil for agriculture.
In this connection, it is of some interest that of the inner, terrestrial Planets, He shares with our world
the distinction of having one or more Moons. In the case of Mars, He has two small Moons, named
Phobos (Fear) and Deimos (Panic) after the chariot-drivers of Ares, the Greek God of War, of Whom
Mars is the Roman avatar. Both of these tiny Martian satellites were probably captured by Mars from the
near-by asteroid belt lying between Him and Jupiter.
Discovered in 1877 e.v. by Asaph Hall at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, DC,
these Moons are so small that almost nothing was known about Them, beyond the bare fact of their
existence, until Mariner 9 and the Viking landers made their surveys of Mars. From these probes we
have since learned a wealth of data about Mars’s Moons.
Both Moons are relatively close to their primary, something we did know from ground-based
observation well before the space-probes took place. The physical dimensions of Phobos, the inner
Moon, are 20 km x 23 km x 28 km, which makes Phobos the larger of the two Martian Moons. Phobos
moves in a nearly circular orbit about 9,300 km from the center of Mars, closer to its parent Planet than
any other known Moon. Phobos revolves rapidly about Mars, taking 7 hr 39 m 27 s to complete its orbit
around its primary, so that it completes one orbit around Mars in less than one Martian day. From the
surface of Mars, it would appear to move from West to East across the heavens in the course of a day.
Before the recent discovery of the smaller, inner satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, it was thought to be
unique in this respect among the Moons of the Solar System. Phobos’ orbital velocity is very slowly
increasing; it is possible that it will impact the Martian surface in about 100 million years, though this
isn’t certain.
The dimensions of Deimos are 10 km x 12 km x 16 km. This small chunk of rock orbits Mars at a
distance of 23,400 km from the Martian center. Its revolutionary period is 1 day 6 hr 21 m 16 s. Like
Phobos, Deimos has a nearly circular orbit. Both satellites lie within 2 degrees of the equatorial plane of
their primary, and have synchronous orbits with respect to Mars, i.e., always turn the same face toward
their primary, due to the braking effect of tidal friction upon their rotation.
To an observer on the surface of mars, Phobos, the closer of the two Martian Moons, would seem to
shed about as much light as Venus does on Earth, and cross the sky in only 4-1/2 hours, during which
time it would display more than half its cycle of phases. As previously mentioned, it would also travel in
a retrograde motion across the sky, from West to East. The interval between successive Phobos-rises
would be only a little over 11 hours. Total eclipses of Sol by Phobos would never occur. The little Moon
would never rise above the horizon at any Martian latitude higher than 69 degrees North or South; even
when above the horizon, it would frequently be hidden by Mars’s shadow.
Deimos, farther out from Mars than Phobos, would remain above the Martian horizon for 2-1/2
consecutive days, and would be visible above the horizon at any latitude lower than about 82 degrees
North or South. Without a telescope, its phases would be virtually unobservable, and it would be dimmer
than Sirius is from the Earth. Like Phobos, it would be swallowed up in Mars’s shadow fairly frequently,
at which times it would not be visible from the surface without extremely sensitive observational
equipment (of which the human eye is not, in this case, one).
Obviously, as parcels of cosmic real estate go, these two Moons are extremely small. Their barren,
regolithic surfaces and other unprepossessing characteristics don’t seem to endow them with much value,
as far as exploration and colonization of the Solar System goes. Nevertheless they have a great deal of
importance in this regard. In the first place, their composition and other physical characteristics will
have much to tell us about the evolution of the Solar System in general, and that of Mars and the asteroid
belt in particular. In the second place, they could serve very nicely as observational and logistical
staging platforms for manned explorations of Mars, or even His colonization by terrestrial life. Like
Mars Himself, these two tiny bits of celestial flotsam promise to hold a great deal of potential value – and
surprises. It will be of great interest to follow future probes and explorations of Mars, for in such probes
will come clues to Earthkind’s past, as well – not to mention to our future, in the Solar System at large
and beyond.53
Physically, Mars doesn’t really fit the picture of a battle-mad God of war. But His desolate, barren
surface and remnant atmosphere may be a warning of what our own world might look like if we continue
to waste and despoil it according to a “Looking Out for Number One” ethic which, unfortunately, doesn’t
include a thoroughly enlightened selfishness which would otherwise prevent such potentially suicidal
behavior. After all, Mars rules self-assertion. When His influence remains untempered by the altruism
of Venus and Jupiter, Saturn’s practical sensibilities, and Neptune’s wisdom, it becomes deadly. The
physical appearance which Mars now exhibits may be a much-needed caution against the pitfalls of such
an unbridled, unconscious, unloving greed, which only wants to take and take and take, and the hell with
everyone and everything else, even one’s own future needs. His frigid, dead surface, continuously swept
by monster dust-storms and endlessly keening thin winds, seems to proclaim: Beware! For as I am – so
you may soon be, o Earth!
As shown by the relationship between Uranus and Neptune, Whose Sephiroth are the respective
heads of the Left-Hand Pillar of Might and the Right-Hand Pillar of Love on the Tree of Life, Power and
Grace must co-exist in a balance. Otherwise, an oversupply of one above the other has ugly
consequences. The lesson of Venus’s toxic inferno of a surface environment is that Grace without Power
is either impotent or poisonously overprotective, the ultimate example of smother love. That of Mars, on
the other hand, is that Power without Grace is murderously deadly, and ultimately sterile.
In line with this, we should remember that mythologically speaking, Mars is not only the deadly God
of War; He is also the Protector. To the Greeks, He was Ares, the blood-thirsty monster Who forever
instigated bloodshed and strife among men in order to feed upon the resultant carnage. But to the
Egyptians He was Horus Who, like the Roman Mars, was Protector of the People, and of the civilization
necessary to sustain human well-being. His traditional dominion over Aries and Scorpio show His twin
nature: He oversees the birth of the individual in Aries, and its destruction and re-birth in Scorpio. Thus
He is the Destroyer of the outworn and outmoded, and a midwife at the birth of the new, the future. His
apparently lifeless, desolate surface also holds rich promise for colonies of terrestrial life, colonies which
could, with proper cherishing and sufficient investment of our resources, effort, vision, courage, and love,
give us all a beachhead on a future filled with unlimited treasures – not only material treasures, but also,
and more importantly, the eventual establishment of those most priceless treasures of all: interstellar
colonies which would ensure that the life of our world need not die when our Sun dies. Successful
Martian colonies would be the perfect manifest fulfillment of Mars’s function as the Protector, in this
case, the Protector of the greatest hopes and even the future of all Earth’s life. But this would require
that most or all Earth’s national and special-interest groups give up their ancient ways of war and strife,
their endless quarrels and bickering, as well as the petty pursuit of wealth and power for the few at the
expense of the many, and unite in concord and common vision, to bring about establishment of such
colonies and maintain them successfully until they are ready to stand on their own, self-sufficiency and
thriving. So Mars’s barren wastes also tell a story full of hope and promise for our world and all its life,
evidence of His nature as the Protector – but only if we choose to heed what His physical avatar has to
tell us, and take His lessons to heart.

Cydonia and the Face on Mars

xx
 Chapter 2: The Astromythology and Psychospiritual Influence of Mars

Not only is Mars the last of the Personal Planets, in a sense He is also the first of the Social Planets.
He gives us the ability to express and assert ourselves, to externalize our inner natures and allow the
emergence of our potential into manifestation. Michael Meyer tells us that traditionally, He represents
the principles of “energy, force, will, desire, and passion,” and the “manifestation of initiative, assertion
and aggression,” and gives as His modern meanings

the centrifugal forces active within experience. All forms of outwardly directed
activity. How the person begins and maintains things. The desire to be effective and
successful as a social entity.

Meyer gives as His “cyclic meaning”

the emergence and germination of the seed and the development of an ‘ego center.’

For His retrograde motion, Meyer gives

an element of unconscious motivation and an urge to express oneself against the

normal direction of life.54

According to Robert Hand, Mars represents our drive to survive as individual organisms and, in line
with that, our emotional identification with everything we perceive as necessary to our individual
survival. 55 To that extent, Mars represents the ego, or rather the psychological defense mechanisms by
which the ego is maintained and reinforced. Hand says of Mars, in contrast to Venus, that

Mars and Venus signify two kinds of relationship between the experiencer and the
experienced.
Mars . . . [emphasizes] the experiencer, the ‘I.’ It defines the experiencer, gives the
experiencer a definite form and shape, and makes sure there is a separate entity to do
the experiencing. Venus emphasizes the relationship or the ‘thou.’ It strives to create
relationships among experiencers so that higher levels of being can arise out of the
interaction of individuals. . . .
A balance between Mars and Venus . . . is necessary for continued relationships
between subject and object. If either planet’s energy becomes excessive, relationship
ceases. If Mars gets the upper hand, the entity tries to destroy the realm of the object,
which the entity needs to give its own existence meaning. If Venus gets the upper
hand, the entity loses the ability to survive as a separate experiencing entity.56

For this reason, both Mars and Venus are involved in sexuality, since sexual interactions between
individuals express, for better or worse, the essence of relationship. But whereas Venus represents the
establishment of pair-bonding between sexual partners than can survive during intermissions between
episodes of or even in the absence of all sexual activity, and is thus a force for altruism and altruistic
behavior, Mars represents sexual desire as a primordial biological need, and the drive of that individual to
satisfy that need, often without any regard for the needs of the object of that drive. On the other hand, as
Venus is the archetype of the sexually mature female and her sexuality, Mars represents the sexually
mature male, male potency, and male sexuality.
In short, Mars represents the energy of the individual as expressed through active and self-assertive
behavior, just as He represents that part of the solar Being that is the manifest heat and light of the Sun.
Mars is not chi, the basic metabolic energy of the cell, or the font of Kundalini energy that erupts in
orgasm and fuels the Magickal Machine of the Spirit for Hermetic Workings, the energies of death and
conception. Nor is He the Solar Phoenix cycle that maintains the Sun’s energy through thermonuclear
reactions deep in the Sun’s heart. Those functions are represented by Pluto, Who co-rules the Signs of
Mars’s dominion. Instead, Mars represents the day-to-day behavior of individuals and their attempts to
assert themselves, survive, and meet their individual needs, as He also represents their ends as
individuals, and the dissolution of the discarded remnants of self so that the self may be returned again to
the well-springs of Life, there to be once more incorporated into Life through the action of Pluto.

Mars, the War-God and the Sword That Gives Life

Geburah, the neglected Sephirah – on the necessity of combat arts training for attainment of true
adeptship

“The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” lyrics by Julia Ward Howe, circa 1861, tune probably by
William Steffe, circa 1855. William Steffe, a Sunday School hymn composer, is believed to
have written the original melody that was eventually incorporated in “The Battle-Hymn of the
Republic.” In 1856 the melody was slowly gaining in popularity in the North, and after John
Brown’s unsuccessful attempt to incite a slave rebellion, the Webster Regiment adopted the
hymn’s tune in 1861 and set words to it commemorating him, “John Brown’s Body.” Julia
Ward Howe, who saw the Northern troops marching to battle singing “John Brown’s Body,”
wrote the present version of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loos’d the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

Chorus:
Glory, glory, hallelujah,
Glory, glory, hallelujah,
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps:
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

Chorus:

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnish’d rows of steel:

“As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal”;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.

Chorus

He has sounded forth the trumpet

That shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men
Before His judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him;
Be jubilant, my feet;
Our God is marching on.

Chorus

In the beauty of the lilies

Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom
That transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy,
 Let us die to make men free;
While God is marching on.

Chorus

Mars as Protector of the Defenseless, Defender of Justice, the Righteous Warrior: “Recessional”
(1897) by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

God of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine –
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;

The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law –
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust

In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word –
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!

“Courage,” by Amelia Earhart Putnam (1898-1937): As we will see further on, in “Horatius at the
Bridge,” one of the heraldic beasts of Mars is the wolf. But another is the eagle, above all the
American eagle, to whom is ascribed the motto, “Flies highest – sees farthest.” From this most
valiant of all American eagles, the aviatrix nonpareil Amelia Earhart, comes the following
poem, which expresses the very heart of Mars:

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.

The soul that knows it not, knows no release
From little things;
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.

10. “In the heart of Neptune is Mars.” Neptune rules sacrifice. Sometimes, the warrior is called
upon to risk everything – and, ultimately, to sacrifice it. The courage to accept that risk, and
 face the necessity or doom of such sacrifice with grace, are two of the highest of all the
attributes of Mars. In our own nation’s history, there have been many examples of men and
women who, incarnating these greatest of Martial virtues, paid the ultimate sacrifice – soldiers,
sailors, firemen, police, citizens in all walks and ranks of life, with one great thing in common:
the courage to sacrifice oneself – for the greater self that lives on through one’s community and
one’s world. One of the most famous of these was Nathan Hale (1755-1776), a young American
patriot who, captured by the British during the American Revolutionary War, was hanged as a
spy on September 22, 1776.. These are his last words:

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

11. 9 is a number of power and completion, one often associated with Mars. For the 9th and last
entry of this section of readings devoted to Mars, we offer “Horatius: A Lay Made About the
Year of the City CCLX,” by Thomas Babington Lord Macaulay.* This gorgeous oratorical
poem is an old bugbear of schoolboys attending the old-fashioned sort of prep school (the kind
where you really were taught the so-called basic skills, so well that today you seem to be a
wizard compared to the poor wights who had at best only a “modern American education”), one
that pupils had to memorize by heart, all 70 rolling stanzas of it. But it is worth memorizing,
and certainly worth reciting. For, though certainly in large part, at least, apocryphal, it is one of
the most stirring evocations of the essential spirit of Mars that has ever been written in the
English language. Macaulay, who translated it from the original Latin, says of it:

The following ballad is supposed to have been made about a hundred and twenty
years after the war which it celebrates, and just before the taking of [Old, pre-Christian]
Rome by the Gauls. The author seems to have been an honest citizen, proud of the
military glory of his country, sick of the disputes of factions, and much given to pining
after good old times which had never really existed. The allusion, however, to the
partial manner in which the public lands were allotted could proceed only from a
plebeian; and the allusion to the fraudulent sale of spoils marks the date of the poem,
and shows that the poet shared in the general discontent with which the proceedings of
Camillus, after the taking of Veii, were regarded.
The God of the Roman Republic, and later of the Old Roman Empire, was Mars,
the Shepherd-God, defender of the City of Rome and her people.** This poem is a
celebration of the best of the Martial spirit, and most appropriate for this last, ninth
entry of this section of readings devoted to Mars.

*From Lord Macaulay’s Essays and Lays of Ancient Rome (London: Longmans Green and Co., 1896),
pp. 833-852.

**Old Rome was also ruled by Gemini, due to its (apocryphal) founding by the brothers Romulus and
Remus. Oddly, the United States of America is, at least in astrological and Magickal terms, very
similar to ancient Rome, for our natal chart has Gemini on the Ascendant – and Mars in the First
House, in Gemini. (In addition, we also have Uranus in the First conjunct both the Ascendant and
the Fixed Star Aldebaran, which is a Martial Star. This strengthens the influence of Mars in our
chart, increasing our esoteric ties to Old Rome.)

I.
Lars Porsena of Clusium
By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
By the Nine Gods he swore it,
And named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and west and south and north,
To summon his army.

II.
East and west and south and north
The messengers ride fast,
And tower and town and cottage
Have heard the trumpet’s blast.
Shame on the false Etruscan
Who lingers in his home,
When Porsena of Clusium
Is on the march for Rome.

III.
The horsemen and the footmen
Are pouring in amain
From many a stately market-place;
From many a fruitful plain;
From many a lonely hamlet,
Which, hid by beech and pine,
Like an eagle’s nest, hangs on the crest
Of purple Appennine;

IV.
From lordly Volaterrae,
Where scowls the far-famed hold
Pile by the hands of giants
For godlike kings of old;
From seagirt Populonia,
Whose sentinels descry
Sardinia’s snowy mountain-tops
Fringing the southern sky;

V.
From the proud mart of Pisae,
Queen of the western waves,
Where ride Massilia’s triremes
Heavy with fair-haired slaves;
From where sweet Clanis wanders
Through corn and vines and flowers;
From where Cortona lifts to heaven
Her diadem of towers.

VI.
Tall are the oaks whose acorns
Drop in dark Auser’s rill;
Fat are the stags that champ the boughs
Of the Cominian hill;
Beyond all streams Clitumnus
Is to the herdsman dear;
Best of all pools the fowler loves
The great Volsinian mere.

VII.
But now no stroke of woodman
Is heard by Auser’s rill;
No hunter tracks the stag’s green path
Up the Ciminian hill;
Unwatched along Clitumnus
Graces the milk-white steer;
Unharmed the water fowl may dip
In the Volsinian mere.

VIII.
The harvests of Arretium,
This year, old men shall reap,
This year, young boys in Umbro
Shall plunge the struggling sheep;
And in the vats of Luna,
This year, the must shall foam
Round the white feet of laughing girls
Whose sires have marched to Rome.

IX.
There be thirty chosen prophets,
The wisest of the land,
Who always by Lars Porsena
Both morn and even stand:
Evening and morn the Thirty
Have turned the verses o’er,
Traced from the right on linen white
By might seers of yore.

X.
And with one voice the Thirty
Have their glad answer given:
’Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena,
Go forth, beloved of Heaven;
Go, and return in glory
To Clusium’s royal dome;
And hang round Nurscia’s altars
The golden shields of Rome.’

XI.
And now hath every city
Sent up her tale of men;
The foot are fourscore thousand,
The hors are thousands ten.
Before the gates of Sutrium
Is met the great array.
A proud man was Lars Porsena
Upon the trysting day.

XII.
For all the Etruscan armies
Were ranged beneath his eye,
And many a banished Roman,
And many a stout ally;
And with a mighty following
To join the muster came
The Tusculan Mamillius,
Prince of the Latine name.

XIII.
But by the yellow Tiber
Was tumult and affright:
From all the spacious champaign
To Rome men took their flight.
A mile around the city,
The throng stopped up the ways;
A fearful sight it was to see
Through two long nights and days.

XIV.
For aged folks on crutches,
And women great with child,
And mothers sobbing over babes
That clung to them and smiled,
And sick men borne in litters
High on the necks of slaves,
And troops of sun-burned husbandmen
With reaping-hooks and staves,

XV.
And droves of mules and asses
Laden with skins of wine,
And endless flocks of goats and sheep,
And endless herds of kine,
And endless trains of waggons
That creaked beneath the weight
Of corns sacks and of household goods,
Choked every roaring gate.

XVI.
Now, from the rock Tarpeian,
Could the wan burghers spy
The line of blazing villages
Red in the midnight sky.
The Fathers of the City,
They sat all night and day,
For every hour some horseman came
With tidings of dismay.

XVII.
To eastward and to westward
Have spread the Tuscan bands;
Nor house, nor fence, nor dovecote
In Crustumerium stands.
Verbenna down to Ostia
Hath wasted all the plain;
Astur hath stormed Janiculum,
And the stout guards are slain.

XVIII.
I wish, in all the Senate,
There was no heart so bold,
But sore it ached, and fast it beat,
When that ill news was told.
Forthwith up rose the Consul,
Up rose the fathers all;
In haste they girded up their gowns,
And hied them to the wall.

XIX.
They held a council standing
Before the River-Gate;
Short time was there, ye well may guess,
For musing or debate.
Out spake the Consul roundly:
’The bridge must straight go down;
For, since Janiculum is lost,
Nought else can save the town.’

XX.
Just then a scout came flying,
All wild with haste and fear:
’To arms! to arms! Sir Consul:
Lars Porsena is here.’
On the low hills westward
The Consul fixed his eye,
And saw the swarthy storm of dust
Rise fast along the sky.

XXI.
And nearer fast and nearer
Doth the red whirlwind come;
And louder still and still more loud,
From underneath that rolling cloud,
Is heard the trumpet’s war-note proud,
The trampling, and the hum.
And plainly and more plainly
Now through the gloom appears,
Far to left and far to right,
In broken gleams of dark-blue light,
The long array of helmets bright,
The long army of spears.

XXII.
And plainly and more plainly,
Above that glimmering line,
Now might ye see the banners
Of twelve fair cities shine;
But the banner of proud Clusium
Was highest of them all,
The terror of the Umbrian,
The terror of the Gaul.

XXIII.
And plainly and more plainly
Now might the burghers know,
By port and vest, by horse and crest,
Each warlike Lucumo.
There Cilnius of Arretium
On his fleet roan was seen;
And Astur of the four-fold shield
Girt with the brand none else may wield,
Telumnius with the belt of gold,
And dark Verbenna from the hold
By reedy Thrasymene.

XXIV.
Fast by the royal standard,
O’erlooking all the war,
Lars Porsena of Clusium
Sat in his ivory car.
By the right wheel rode Mamilius,
Prince of the Latine name;
And by the left false Sextus,
That wrought the deed of shame.

XXV.
But when the face of Sextus
Was seen among the foes,
A yell that rent the firmament
From all the town arose.
On the house-tops was no woman
But spat towards him and hissed,
No child but screamed out curses,
And shook its little fist.

XXVI.
But the Consul’s brow was sad,
And the Consul’s speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall,
And darkly at the foe.
’Their van will be upon us
Before the bridge goes down;
And if they once may win the bridge,
What hope to save the town?’

XXVII
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
’To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the altars of his Gods,

XXVIII.
’And for the tender mother
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens
Who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus
That wrought the deed of shame?

XXIX.
’Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul,
With all the speed ye may;
I, with two more to help me,
Will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand
May well be stopped by three.
Now who will stand on either hand
And keep the bridge with me?’

XXX.
Then out spake Spurius Lartius;
A Ramnian proud was he:
’Lo, I will stand at thy right hand,
And keep the bridge with thee.’
And out spake strong Herminius;
Of Titian blood was he:
’I will abide on thy left side,
And keep the bridge with thee.’

XXXI.
’Horatius,’ quoth the Consul,
’As thou sayest, so let it be.’
And straight against that great array
Forth went the dauntless Three.
For Roman’s in Rome’s quarrel
Spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son nor wife,
Nor limb nor life,
In the brave days of old.

XXXII.
Then none was for a party;
They all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor,
And the poor man loved the great:
Then lands were fairly portioned;
Then spoils were fairly sold:
The Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old.

XXXIII.
Now Roman is to Roman
More hateful than a foe,
And the Tribunes beard the high,
And the Fathers grind the low.
As we wax hot in faction,
In battle we wax cold;
Wherefore men fight not as they fought
In the brave days of old.

XXXIV.
Now while the Three were tightening
Their harness on their backs,
The Consul was the foremost man
To take in hand an axe:
And Fathers mixed with Commons
Seized hatchet, bar, and crow,
And smote upon the planks above,
And loosed the props below.

XXXV.
Meanwhile the Tuscan army,
Right glorious to behold
Came flashing back the noonday light,
Rank behind rank, like surges bright
Of a broad sea of gold.
Four hundred trumpets sounded
A peal of warlike glee,
As that great host, with measured tread,
And spears advanced, and ensigns spread,
Rolled slowly toward the bridge’s head,
Where stood the dauntless Three.

XXXVI.
The Three stood calm and silent,
And looked upon the foes,
And a great shout of laughter
From all the vanguard rose:
And forth three chiefs came spurring
Before that deep array;
To earth they sprang, their swords they drew,
And lifted high their shields, and flew
To win the narrow way;

XXXVII.
Aunus from green Tifernum,
Lord of the Hill of Vines;
And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves
Sicken in Ilva’s mines;
And Picus, long to Clusium
Vassal in peace and war,
Who led to fight his Umbrian powers
From that grey crag where, girt with towers,
The fortress of Nequinum lowers
O’er the pale waves of Nar.

XXXVIII.
Stout Lartius hurled down Aunus
Into the stream beneath:
Herminius struck at Seius,
And clove him to the teeth:
At Picus brave Horatius
Darted one fiery thrust;
And the proud Umbrian’s gilded arms
Clashed in the bloody dust.

XXXIX.
Then Ocnus of Falerii
Rushed on the Roman Three;
And Lausulus of Urgo,
The rover of the sea;
And Aruns of Volsiunium,
Who slew the great wild boar,
The great wild board that had his den
Among the reeds of Cosa’s fen,
And wasted fields, and slaughtered men,
Along Albinia’s shore.

XL.
Herminius smote down Aruns:
Lartius laid Ocnus low:
Right to the heart of Lausulus
Horatius sent a blow.
’Lie there,’ he cried, ’fell pirate!
No more, aghast and pale,
From Ostia’s walls the crowd shall mark
 The track of thy destroying bark.
No more Campania’s hinds shall fly
To woods and caverns when they spy
Thy thrice accursed sail.’

XLI.
But now no sound of laughter
Was heard among the foes.
A wild and wrathful clamour
From all the vanguard rose.
Six spears’ length from the entrance
Halted that deep array,
And for a space no man came forth
To win the narrow way.

XLII.
But hark! the cry is Astur:
And lo! the ranks divide;
And the great Lord of Luna
Comes with his stately stride.
Upon his ample shoulders
Clangs loud the four-fold shield,
And in his hand he shakes the brand
Which none but he can wield.

XLIII.
He smiled on those bold Romans
A smile serene and high;
He eyed the flinching Tuscans,
And scorn was in his eye.
Quoth he, ’The she-wolf’s litter*
Stand savagely at bay:
But will ye dare to follow,
If Astur clears the way?’

*I.e., the Romans, in particular Horatio, Spurius Lartius, and Herminius, who defended the “narrow way”
into the city of Rome. Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were supposedly abandoned at
birth and raised by a she-wolf, suckled right alongside her own cubs. The wolf, like the raven, is
traditionally associated with Mars.

XLIV.
Then, whirling up his broadsword
With both hands to the height,
He rushed against Horatius,
And smote with all his might.
With shield and blade Horatius
Right deftly turned the blow.
The blow, though turned, came yet too night;
It missed his helm, but gashed his thigh:
The Tuscans raised a fearful cry
To see the red blood flow.

XLV.
He reeled, and on Herminius
He leaned one breathing-space;
Then, like a wild cat mad with wounds,
Sprang right at Astur’s face.
Through teeth, and skull, and helmet
So fierce a thrust he sped,
the good sword stood a hand-breadth out
Behind the Tuscan’s head.

XLVI.
And the great Lord of Luna
Fell at that deadly stroke,
As falls on Mount Alvernus
A thunder-smitten oak.
Far o’er the crashing forest
The giant arms lie spread;
And the pale augurs, muttering low,
Gaze on the blasted head.

XLVII.
On Astur’s throat Horatius
Right firmly pressed his heel,
And thrice and four times tugged amain,
Ere he wrenched out the steel.
’And see,’ he cried, ’the welcome,
Fair guests, that waits you here!
What noble Lucumo comes next
To taste our Roman cheer?’

XLVIII.
But at his haughty challenge
A sullen murmur ran,
Mingled of wrath, and shame, and dread,
Along that glittering van.
There lacked not men of prowess,
Nor men of lordly race;
For all Etruria’s noblest
Were round the fatal place.

XLIX.
But all Etruria’s noblest
Felt their hearts sink to see
On the earth the bloody corpses
In the path the dauntless Three:
And, from the ghastly entrance
Where those bold Romans stood,
All shrank, like boys who unaware,
Ranging the woods to start a hare,
Come to the mouth of the dark lair
Where, growling low, a fierce old bear
Lies amidst bones and blood.

L.
Was none who would be foremost
To lead such dire attack:
But those behind cried ’Forward!’
And those before cried ’Back!’
And backward now and forward
Wavers the deep array;
And on the tossing sea of steel,
To and fro the standards reel;
And the victorious trumpet-peal
Dies fitfully away.

LI.
Yet one man for one moment
Stood out before the crowd;
Well known was he to all the Three,
And they gave him greeting loud.
’Now welcome, welcome, Sextus!
Now welcome to thy home!
Why dost thou stay, and turn away?
Here lies the road to Rome.’

LII.
Thrice looked he at the city;
Thrice looked he at the dead;
And thrice came on in fury,
And thrice turned back in dread:
And, white with fear and hatred,
Scowled at the narrow way
Where, wallowing in a pool of blood,
The bravest Tuscans lay.

LIII.
But meanwhile axe and lever
Have manfully been plied;
And now the bridge hangs tottering
Above the boiling tide.
’Come back, come back, Horatius!’
Loud cried the Fathers all.
’Back, Lartius! back, Herminius!
Back, ere the ruin fall!’

LIV.
Back darted Spurius Lartius;
Herminius darted back:
And, as they passed, beneath their feet
They felt the timbers crack.
But when they turned their faces,
And on the farther shore
Saw brave Horatius stand alone,
They would have crossed once more.

LV.
But with a crash like thunder
Fell every loosened beam,
And, like a dam, the mighty wreck
Lay right athwart the stream:
And a long shout of triumph
Rose from the walls of Rome,
As to the highest turret-tops
Was splashed the yellow foam.

LVI.
And, like a horse unbroken
When first he feels the rein,
The furious river struggled hard,
And tossed his tawny mane,
And burst the curb, and bounded,
Rejoicing to be free,
And whirling down, in fierce career,
Battlement, and plank, and pier,
Rushed headlong to the sea.

LVII.
Alone stood brave Horatius,
But constant still in mind;
Thrice thirty thousand foes before,
And the broad flood behind.
’Down with him!’ cried false Sextus,
With a smile on his pale face.
’Now yield thee,’ cried Lars Porsena,
’Now yield thee to our grace.’

LVIII.
Round turned he, as not deigning
Those craven ranks to see;
Nought spake he to Lars Porsena,
To Sextus nought spake he;
But he saw on Palatinus
The white porch of his home;
And he spake to the noble river
That rolls by the towers of Rome.

LIX.
’Oh, Tiber! father Tiber!
To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman’s life, a Roman’s arms,
Take thou in charge this day!’
So he spake, and speaking sheathed
The good sword by his side,
And with his harness on his back,
Plunged headlong in the tide.

LX.
No sound of joy or sorrow
Was heard from either bank;
But friends and foes in dumb surprise,
With parted lips and straining eyes,
Stood gazing where he sank;
And when above the surges
They saw his crest appear,
all Rome sent forth a rapturous cry,
And even the ranks of Tuscany
Could scarce forbear to cheer.

LXI.
But fiercely ran the current,
Swollen high by months of rain:
And fast his blood was flowing;
And he was sore in pain,
And heavy with his armour,
And spent with changing blows:
And oft they thought him sinking,
But still again he rose.
LXII.
Never, I ween, did swimmer,
In such an evil case,
Struggle through such a raging flood
Safe to the landing place:
But his limbs were born up bravely
By the brave heart within,
And our good father Tiber
Bore bravely up his chin.

LXIII.
’Curse on him!’ quoth false Sextus;
’Will not the villain drown?
But for this stay, ere close of day
We should have sacked the town!’
’Heaven help him!’ quoth Lars Porsena,
’And bring him safe to shore;
For such a gallant feat of arms
Was never seen before.’

LXIV.
And now he feels the bottom;
Now on dry earth he stands;
Now round him throng the Fathers
To press his gory hands;
And now, with shouts and clapping,
And noise of weeping loud,
He enters through the River-Gate,
Borne by the joyous crowd.

LXV.
They gave him of the corn-land,
That was of public right,
As much as two strong oxen
Could plough from morn till night;
And they made a molten image,
And set it up on high,
And there it stands unto this day
To witness if I lie.

LXVI.
It stands in the Comitium,
Plain for all folk to see;
Horatius in his harness,
Halting upon one knee:
And underneath is written,
In letters all of gold,
How valiantly he kept the bridge
In the brave days of old.

LXVII.
And still his name sounds stirring
Unto the men of Rome,
As the trumpet-blast the cries to them
To charge the Volscian home;
And wives still pray to Juno
For boys with hearts as bold
 As his who kept the bridge so well
In the brave days of old.

LXVIII.
And in the nights of winter,
When the cold north winds blow,
And the long howling of the wolves
Is heard amidst the snow;
When round the lowly cottage
Roars loud the tempest’s din,
And the good logs of Algidus
Roar louder yet within;

LXIX.
When the oldest cask is opened,
And the largest lamp is lit;
When the chestnuts glow in the embers,
And the kid turns on the spit;
When young and old in circle
Around the firebrands close;
When the girls are weaving baskets,
And the lads are shaping bows;

LXX.
When the goodman mends his armour,
And trims his helmet’s plume;
When the goodwife’s shuttle merrily
Goes flashing through the loom;
With weeping and with laughter
Still is the story told,
How well Horatius kept the bridge
In the brave days of old.

“In the heart of Neptune is Mars.” Neptune rules sacrifice. Sometimes, the warrior is called upon to
risk everything – and, ultimately, to sacrifice it. The courage to accept that risk, and face the
necessity or doom of such sacrifice with grace, are two of the highest of all the attributes of
Mars. In our own nation’s history, there have been many examples of men and women who,
incarnating these greatest of Martial virtues, paid the ultimate sacrifice – soldiers, sailors,
firemen, police, citizens in all walks and ranks of life, with one great thing in common: the
courage to sacrifice oneself – for the greater self that lives on through one’s community and
one’s world. One of the most famous of these was Nathan Hale (1755-1776), a young American
patriot who, captured by the British during the American Revolutionary War, was hanged as a
spy on September 22, 1776.. These are his last words:

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country

. “The United States Marine Corps Hymn” (copyright 1921 by the United States Marines), the verses
of which were written by Col. H. C. Davis, USMC, at Camp Meyer in 1911, is the official song
of the United States Marine Corps. The first two lines refer to the U. S. war with Mexico (1846-
1848) and their expedition against the Barbary Pirates. Beyond that, said Col. Davis, “I have
never been able to trace the original song beyond the words of the first two lines . . . which were
inscribed on the corps colors many years ago. The two following verses I wrote at Camp Meyer
in 1911 when on an expedition.” Their motto, “Semper fidelis,” and their record in war says it
all: “No greater sacrifice, no greater devotion.” According to Aleister Crowley, “The heart of
Neptune is Mars.” The United States Marines are a living testimony of that truth. It is therefore
entirely appropriate that their Hymn be used in invocations of Poseidon. (To give the Qlippoth
of Neptune their due, Neptune also rules certain classes of psychoses; as one friend of mine, a
 rather thoroughgoingly ex-Marine, once said to me, “Anybody who signs up for that outfit has
got to be crazy!”)

From the Halls of Montezuma

To the shores of Tripoli,
We fight our country’s battles
On the land and on the sea.
First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean;
We are proud to claim the title
Of United States Marines.

Our flag’s unfurled to ev’ry breeze

From dawn to setting sun;
We have fought in ev’ry clime and place
Where we could take a gun.
In the snow of far off Northern lands
And in sunny tropic scenes;
You will find us always on the job,
The United States Marines.

Here’s health to you and to our Corps

Which we are proud to serve;
In many a strife we’ve fought for life
And never lost our nerve.
If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven’s scenes,
They will find the streets are guarded
By United States Marines.

5. “Marching Thro’ Georgia,” words and music by Henry C. Work, was written in 1865 by the
Abolitionist Henry Clay Work, from Connecticut. This song was a reminder of General
Sherman’s famous march from Atlanta to the sea. So universally well-known did it become that
the British Army sang it during the first World War, and even the Japanese are said to have
played it when entering Port Arthur.

Bring the good old bugle, boys, we’ll sing another song.
Sing it with a spirit that will start the world along.
Sing it as we used to sing it, fifty thousand strong,
While we were marching thro’ Georgia.

Chorus:
“Hurrah! Hurrah! we bring the jubilee!
Hurrah! Hurrah! the flag that makes you free!”
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea,
While we were marching thro’ Georgia.

How the darkeys shouted when they heard the joyful sound!
How the turkeys gobbled which our commissary found!
How the sweet potatoes even started from the ground,
While we were marching thro’ Georgia.

Chorus:

Yes, and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears,
When they saw the honor’d flag they had not seen for years;
 Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers,
While we were marching thro’ Georgia.

Chorus:

“Sherman’s dashing Yankee boys will never reach the coast!”

So the saucy rebels said, and ’twas a handsome boast,
Had they not forgot, alas! to reckon with the host,
While we were marching thro’ Georgia.

Chorus:

So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom and her train,

Sixty miles in latitude – three hundred to the main;
Treason fled before us, for resistance ’twas in vain,
While we were marching thro’ Georgia.

6. “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching,” words and music by George F. Root, circa
1861: The enormous losses of the Northern army spurred him to write this prisoner’s lament of
the American Civil War. With varying lyrics, it has been a marching song for American troops
in every campaign and war since the Civil War. No song better expresses the esoteric principle,
“At the heart of Neptune is Mars.”

In the prison cell I sat, thinking, Mother dear, of you,

And our bright and happy some so far away;
And the tears they fill my eyes, spite of all that I can do,
Tho’ I try to cheer my comrades and be gay.

Chorus:
Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the boys are marching,
Cheer up, comrades, they will come,
And beneath the starry flag,
We shall breathe the air again,
Of the freedom in our own beloved home.

In the battle front we stood, when the fiercest charge they made,
And they swept us off a hundred men and more;
But before we reached their lines they were beaten back, dismayed,
And we heard the cry of vict’ry o’er and o’er.

Chorus:

So within the prison cell, we are waiting for the day,

That shall come to open wide the iron door.
And the hollow eye grows bright, and the poor heart almost gay,
As we sing of seeing home and friends once more.

7. At His best, Mars is that valour that gives its all in the service of Life. In a note left by
Commander Robert F. Scott (1868-1912) before he died on his ill-fated 1912 expedition to the
South Pole, he wrote the following, which perfectly expresses the valiant heart of Mars:

I do not regret this journey. We took risks; we knew we took them. Things have
come out against us. Therefore we have no call for complaint.

xxx
 A Modern Mythology of Mars:
A Science-Fiction Odyssey from Barsoom to Free Mars and Beyond
Xx

Along the Grand Canal*

As Time and Space come bending back to shape this star-specked scene,
The tranquil tears of tragic joy still spread their silver sheen;
Along the Grand Canal still soar the fragile Towers of Truth;
Their fairy grace defends this place of Beauty, calm and couth.

Bone-tired the race that raised the Towers, forgotten are their lores;
Long gone the gods who shed the tears that lap these crystal shores.
Slow beats the time-worn heart of Mars beneath this icy sky;
The thin air whispers voicelessly that all who live must die –

Yet still the lacy spires of Truth sing Beauty’s madrigal

And she herself will ever dwell along the Grand Canal!”

*“Along the Grand Canal,’“ by Robert A. Heinlein. From his “The Green Hills of Earth,” copyright
1947 by The Curtis Publishing Co., included in his The Past Through Tomorrow (New York:
Berkley Books, 1967), p. 366
 Chapter 3: Correspondences

Gods:

Egyptian: Horus, Nephthys, Menthu.

Greek: Eris, Ares, Pallas Athena.
Roman: Mars, Minerva, Venus Victrix.
Scandinavian: Thor, Tulsco, Tiu.
Russian:
Hungarian:
Polynesian:
Native Australian:
Hindu: Vishnu, Varuna-Avatar, Kali, Mangala, Lohita, Kartikeya.
Szekeli (Romany Gypsy):
Chinese:
Japanese:
Babylonian:
Sumerian:
The French Enlightenment:
SubGenius: “Bob,” Nhee-Ghee, the Fightin’ Jesus.
Discordianism: Elmer Fudd; Marvin the Martian
Africa:
Southeast Asia:
Celtic:
Voudon: Ogun, Oshagun.
American Indian:
Eskimo:
Central American:
American folklore: Sergeant York; the Unknown Soldier, Crispin Attucks
Christianity:
Judaism:
Islam:
The Land of Oz:
Lovecraft:
Stephen King:
LaVeyan Satanism:

God-Name in Hebrew:

ELoHIM GiBOR

World religions:

The Fightin’ Jesus cult of SubGenius; ninpo taijutsu; tai chi; state religion of Old Rome; Zen
Buddhism (in its warrior aspects)

Archangel:

Michael

Angelic Choir:

Seraphim

Angel:

Zamael
Angels given by Barrett, et al.:

Olympic Planetary Spirit:

Phaleg

Intelligence:

Graphiel

Spirit:

Bartzabel

Spirits given by Bardon, Barrett, et al.:

Name of Planet in Hebrew:

MaDIM

Commandment (from Exodus 20:3-17):

Thou shalt not murder.

– Exodus 20:13

The Ten Plagues of Egypt:

The Plague of Boils (Exodus 9:8-11)

Verses from Creation Story in Genesis:

And God said, ‘Let the waters under the heavens be gathered
together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it
was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that
were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that
it was good. And God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation,
plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their
seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth.’ And it was
so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding
seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit
in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God
saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was
morning, a third day.

Genesis 1:9-13

Orders of Qlippoth:

GOLaChaB, Flaming Ones

Qlipphotic Spirit (from Kenneth Grant):

Parfaxitas – his name is be vibrated on a deep and imperious note of command in the key of C (lower
register), and the sound should be reminiscent of thunder. His number is 450. His sigil is drawn in a
bright red pigment on an emerald square.

Cantos from the Inferno of Dante Alighieri :

 Cantos VII-VIII

Cantos from the Purgatorio of Dante Alighieri :

Cantos XV-XVII

Cantos from the Paradiso of Dante Alighieri :

Cantos XIV-XVIII

Article of Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America):

Amendment V

Provisions concerning prosecution. Trial and punishment – private

property not to be taken for public use without compensation.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless
as a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or
naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger;
nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of
life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against
himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor
shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

General astrological classification:

Barren, malefic, hot, diurnal, dry, electric, masculine.

General Qaballistic classification:

The Sephirah of Mars is 5, Geburah, located at the junction of the Left Pillar of Power and the Third
Plane of the Tree of Life. He is associated with Key 27 and the Hebrew letter Peh, which connects
Sephirah 7, Netzach, with Sephirah 8, Hod.

General attributions of the Tarot:

His Trump is XVI, The Tower, associated with the Key 27 and the letter Peh. His Sephirah,
Geburah, is associated with the four Fives of the Lower Arcana of the Tarot.

Title of Tarot Trump:

“The Lord of the Hosts of the Mighty”

Correct design of Tarot Trump (Golden Dawn):

A tower struck by forked lightning

Titles and Attributes of Court Cards:

There are no Court Cards associated with Mars.

Title & Attributions of Numbered Cards of the Tarot:

5 of Wands: Saturn in Leo, “Strife”

5 of Cups: Mars in Scorpio, “Loss in Pleasure”
5 of Swords: Venus in Aquarius, “Defeat”
 5 of Coins: Mercury in Taurus, “Material Trouble”

Alchemical and Pythagorean Associations

The metal iron; the Element Fire; the blacksmith, the alchemist

Attributions from the I Ching and other aspects of Taoist cosmology:

Mars is associated with the Element Fire (Yang expression), burning wood (Yin expression), the
lamp-flame, realgar, the South, Summer, brilliance, heat, bitterness, the color red, and iron . He controls
the heart and the small intestines. His symbol is the Vermilion Bird (the Phoenix). His trigram is Li
(Fire):

–––-
– –
–––-

Due to His associations with Fire and iron, He is thus the God of Alchemists and blacksmiths.

Attributions from Ninpo (Way of the Ninja, Way of Wisdom) and Shinto (Way of the Kami or Gods):

The Element Fire

Ninjutsu combat arts comprise five basic styles of combat, each having its own Element: Fire,
Water, Air, Earth, Void (or Sky).* In his classic work on strategy, A Book of Five Rings, Miyamoto
Musashi, the legendary swordsman of feudal Japan (1584-1645 e.v.), describes these styles in detail.**
In terms of application, Jack Hoban defines and discusses these five styles as they are used in ninjutsu
combat arts in his Ninpo: Living and Thinking as a Warrior (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1988).
These styles are based on ancient Taoist Alchemical ideas (the philosophy behind tai chi also has its
origins in Taoist alchemy). In Taoism, each Element is born out of another, and each is destroyed by
another, as follows:†

WOOD/AIR produces FIRE METAL destroys WOOD/AIR

FIRE produces EARTH (ashes) WOOD/AIR destroys EARTH
EARTH produces METAL EARTH destroys WATER
METAL produces WATER WATER destroys FIRE
WATER produces WOOD FIRE destroys METAL

Here, the Element Wood/Air corresponds to the energy and manifestations of the natural world, living
organisms such as plants, animals, and so on; Metal corresponds to those of made things, tools and other
artifacts deliberately produced from material not in their own bodies by living beings, such as the fruits
of human technology, beaver dams, grass-blades used by house-cats to “fish” for gophers (lures to draw
them out of their holes where the cat can nail them) (I’ve personally observed several such instances),
sticks used by chimpanzees to dig for termites (which they regard as a tasty treat), matches (the sort you
scratch on some hard surface to light them up) appropriated by crows to fire up a pile of trash so they can
“ant” with its sparks (they actually do this! Research papers on file now, still trying to get the citations –
check American Journal of Ornithologists et al.), etc. Since technological ideas are originally born out
of the well of Void (the Unconscious), Metal corresponds to Void.
All behavior can be classified as falling into one of these styles, including the behavior of an
opponent. So if an opponent approaches you in, e.g., a Fiery mode or style, the appropriate response to
his or her attack would be a Watery style, since Water destroys Fire. Or, if you wish to provoke, e.g. an
Airy (Woody) behavior from someone, one should approach him or her in a Watery mode, since Water
produces Wood/Air. And so on. A whole philosophy of combat arts can be built from this – and has
been. From Sun T’zu’s classic work on military strategy, The Art of War, to modern ninjutsu and Wushu
arts, the theory of opposing one Elemental style of combat with that of the Element that destroys the first,
or producing peace by eliciting desired behaviors from others by presenting them with a mode of
behavior of the Element producing the sort of Elemental response one wants from them, has been
fruitfully developed to produce some of the most effective combat and martial arts schools in the world.
*In the West, this element corresponds to some extent to Chaos, just as the Chinese Element chi, Earth,
corresponds to the Quintessence (because it is made of all things). Even more, Void corresponds to
our Western idea of the Unconscious, as the original well of creativity out of which all things are
born and to which all things, when they end and decompose, return. From Void comes Yin and Yang,
which combine to form all the other Elements, which combine to form chi; chi decomposes into the
Elements, which decompose into Yin and Yang, which decompose into the Void, and it all begins all
over again.

**See, e.g., English translations of this work by Victor Harris (A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide
to Strategy [Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1982]) and Hanshi Steve Kaufman (The Martial
Artist’s Book of Five Rings: The Definitive Interpretation of Miyamoto Musashi’s Classic Book of
Strategy [Boston: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1994]).

†Taken from J. C. Cooper’s Chinese Alchemy: The Taoist Quest for Immortality (New York: Sterling
Publishing Co., Inc., 1990), p. 92.

Other Magickal Correspondences, according to Barrett, et al.:

Day of the Week ruled by Mars:

Geocentric: Tuesday

Heliocentric: The daylight hours of the third day of the week

Hours of the Day ruled by Mars:

Geocentric: The first, eighth, fifteenth . . . sixty-minute periods after the most moment of dawn and
the third, tenth, seventeenth . . . sixty-minute periods after the first moment of sunset on
Tuesday, the third day of the week; any hour immediately preceding one ruled by Sol and
immediately following one ruled by Jupiter on any day of the week

Heliocentric: The first, eighth, fifteenth . . . sixty-minute periods after the most moment of dawn and
the third, tenth, seventeenth . . . sixty-minute periods after the first moment of sunset on the third
day of the week; any hour immediately preceding one ruled by Sol and immediately following
one ruled by Jupiter on any day of the week during hours of daylight (Mars’s higher octave,
Persephone, rules the third, tenth, etc. hours after sundown on the third day of the week as well
as any hour immediately preceding one ruled by Pluto and following one ruled by Hera on any
night of the week)

Grades of the Temple:

6th° = 5th Grade: Adeptus Major (2nd Rank of 2nd Order)

Colors:

Liber 777 gives the following. King Scale: orange (Key 5); scarlet (Key 27). Queen Scale:
scarlet-red (Key 5); red (Key 27). Emperor Scale: bright scarlet (Key 5); venetian red (Key 27).
Empress Scale: red, flecked black (Key 5); bright red, rayed azure or emerald (Key 27).
Generally, those colors that suggest war, the carnage that accompanies it, and the desolation that is
its fruit are all associated with Mars, particularly fiery or bloody reds. Additionally, some authorities
attribute the colors magenta, claret, or drab shades of brown and green to Him.

Patterns:
Forms, shapes, lineal figures, geomantic figures, figures related to pure number, and numerological
associations:

For forms, Liber 777 gives the tesseract, the emblematic Rose, and the Pentagram. De Vore adds
sharp angles and barbs, and fine, straight lines.57 The Fylfot Cross and Swastika are also associated with
Mars.
The 5 x 5 Magick Square is associated with Mars. This square takes the form:

11 24 7 20 3
4 12 25 8 16
17 5 13 21 9
10 18 1 14 22
23 6 19 2 15

By means of it, the talismanic Sigils of Mars, His Intelligence, and His Spirit are constructed.

Seal of Mars:

Seal of Intelligence of Mars, GRAPhIEL:

Seal of Spirit of Mars, BARTZABEL:

Numerologically, Mars is associated with the numbers 5 and (3) 3 = 27., because these are His Key
numbers. His Path, the Hebrew letter Peh, has the value 80 = 5 x (2)4; the sum of the values which spell
out the name of this Hebrew letter, Peh-Heh, is 80 + 5 = 85 = 5 x 17. The Mystic Numbers of the
Sephiroth associated with Him are 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 = 15 = 3 x 5 and 1 + 2 + . . . + 27 = 378 = 14 x 27 =
2 x 7 x (3)3. Clearly the numbers 3 and 5 are strongly associated with Him. But 7, 9, 14, and 16, factors
of integers associated with Him, also have strong connections with Him. 3 and 9 are numbers of Luna,
while 7, 14, and 16 are associated with Venus, the divine sister-twin of Mars. In addition, 3 is also
associated with Saturn and Uranus Who, like Mars, are astrological Malefics. Mars is strongly associated
with the symbolism of Tarot Trump VII, The Chariot, which itself is associated with the astrological Sign
Cancer, whose traditional ruler is Luna, another Lunar connection. The nature and influence of Mars is
also defined in terms of Venus, since He is, as it were, Her mirror-image. Finally, Mars has many
characteristics in common with Saturn and Uranus, His fellow Malefics. Appropriately, these
connections are clearly reflected in His numerology, as well.

Stones, gems, and metals:

Liber 777 gives the ruby as the stone of Mars, and also says that any red stone may be associated
with Him, because of His traditional associations with blood and fire. It gives iron for His metal, a
traditional attribution.
 De Vore adds the bloodstone, flint, malachite, and red hematite as stones of Mars, and steel as one of
His metals. 58
Oken adds jasper and lodestone to these. Lodestone is particularly fitting for Mars, since it is
magnetized iron. 59
Kunz adds sardonyx, beryl, topaz, jacinth, amethyst, carbuncle, agate, crystal, “magnet” (lodestone
or magnetite?), halcyon, and carnelian. 60 (His inclusion of amethyst in this list reflects Crowley’s dictum
that “the heart of Neptune is Mars.”)

Herbs and Trees:

Liber 777 gives the oak, hickory, nux vomica, nettle, absinthe, and rue.
In general, Mars rules plants with thorns or prickles, since these represent weapons and means of
defense, appropriate to His influence in war and battle, and in protection of the community and its
individuals. Such plants include, e.g., barberry, briars, cacti, hawthorn, the aforementioned nettle,
thistles, and all thorny trees.
Mars also rules plants with a strong acrid of fiery taste, or a pungent odor, such as capers, coriander,
garlic, gentian, ginger, hops, horseradish, mustard, onion, peppers, radish, tobacco, and wormwood.
In addition, Mars rules the following, generally because of their effects upon parts of the body or
physiological processes ruled by Him, or because they exhibit some of His traditional traits of thorniness,
heat, or pungency: all-heal, aloes, anemone, arsmart, basil, box tree, broom, butcher’s broom, catmint
(catnip), crow-foot, flax-weed, furze-bush, garden cress, honeysuckle, hops, horsetongue, hyssop,
leadwort, leeks, madder, masterwort, mousetail, plantain, sarsparilla, savin, tarragon, and wake-robin.

Animals and Other Organisms:

Liber 777 gives the basilisk, because of its flaming breath; the horse, traditionally attributed to Mars
because of its spirited nature (the war-horse is especially Martial in nature)*; the bear, for Alchemical
reasons, and because of its great strength; and the wolf, especially sacred to Mars because a she-wolf
suckled Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, whose patron deities were Mars and His sister
Venus.

*The horse is traditionally associated with the Sign Pisces and its two Lords, Jupiter and Neptune.
Today, Neptune is the primary ruler of Pisces, Jupiter the secondary. Again, an echo of Crowley’s
dictum that “the heart of Neptune is Mars.”

Goldstein-Jacobson adds to these the scorpion, stinging insects, vermin, predators in general, and the
raptorial birds, such as the eagle, falcon, and hawk.61
The eagle, which was the symbol of the might of the Old Roman Empire, is especially appropriate to
Mars, as are stinging or biting animals in general. In addition, the following animals are associated with
Mars: the wolverine, which is rather emphatic about establishing and maintaining its territorial
prerogatives; bull-dogs, especially the pit-bull, because of their general temperament; the swordfish,
because of its sword, a symbol of war; the great sharks with their vast, toothy maws, principally because
of the somewhat irrational terror they inspire among human beings, including those who never go
anywhere near the ocean;* and army-ants, because of their general behavior.**

*As a number of naturalists and marine biologists have noted, the shark is a very naughty animal – when
attacked, he defends himself.

**In fact, many species of ants, carry out both internecine and interspecies battles, raid the nests of other
ants for booty, and exhibit a number of other traits commonly associated with the warrior, the bandit,
and all other clients of the God of War, Strife, and Violence. This suggests that ants in general are
ruled by Mars. But if so, this further supports the idea that Mars, the outermost of the Personal
Planets, is also the innermost of the Social Planets. And of course He is – for, like all other forms of
one-on-one relationship, battle, dissension, and all other forms of violent confrontation, all of which
 are ruled by Mars, require the presence of more than one individual, or more than one group of
individuals. The old saying, “It takes two to quarrel,” says it all. The sensuality of Venus, and even
Her altruism, only require one individual; after all, beauty can be appreciated alone, as can pleasure,
while altruism can have oneself as well as anyone or anything else as its object. But aggression,
anger, and fear always require the Other as their object, as does the drive to protect from harm, also
one of Mars’s archetypal aspects.
In fact, those animals most closely associated with Mars – those with terrible natural weapons
such as lethal claws, dagger-like teeth, deadly talons, powerful venom, etc. – tend to display the
greatest display of restraint in dealing with the younger, weaker members of their own species, and
to have the most elaborate instinctive rituals for ensuring that internecine strife among them won’t be
likely to critically wound or kill any of the individuals concerned. The throat-baring of wolves and
dogs, the presentation behavior of cats, and the usual reactions of the winner to such displays are
typical of such animals. Honeybees, whose venom is chemically identical to that of black-widow
spiders, are perfect models of social animals; the female black-widow spider herself, once she has
laid her eggs, dies and leaves her body to be eaten by her newborn spiderlings – the ultimate in
mother-love, which just incidentally permanently removes her from their environment as one more
source of danger to her newly-hatched offspring.
As far as dealings with their own kind go, hawks are the real doves – actual flesh-and-blood
doves, traditionally associated with Venus, like their cousins the pigeons and numerous other
herbivorous animals, exhibit almost no ceiling (or perhaps “floor” might be a better word for it) on
the possibilities of intraspecies strife. Attempts by experimenters to condition or force hawks,
eagles, or many other types of carnivores to turn upon and do real physical harm to their own kind
generally end by driving the subject into nervous breakdown and death, without getting it to attack
one of its own. But it almost ludicrously easy to get doves, pigeons, deer, and many other herbivores
to turn on other members of their own species in attacks that can easily become lethal. Pigeons, the
darling of B. F. Skinner’s conditioning experiments, for example, can be induced to peck one another
to death with so little effort on the part of the experimenter that many behavioral scientists are still
stunned by this finding.
Ultimately, the clients of Mars prove to have an altruistic restraint toward others of their own
kind that those of Venus frequently lack. The reason for this is probably due to the general lack – up
until the invention of modern psychologists, anyway – of situations that would put a significant
number of the members of such herbivores at risk of serious injury or death from members of their
own species. In the wild, herbivores, who lack the talons, fangs, venom, etc. of the carnivores that
prey on them, are usually too busy avoiding predators, finding food, and protecting and raising their
young to have much time for the sort of intraspecies dust-ups that can lead to the death of one or
more participants. So there is generally little selective pressure on them that would eliminate most
or all potential for the sort of intraspecies aggression that could put the participants at serious risk of
injury or death. Carnivores, on the other hand, generally have more leisure time and opportunity for
sociocultural interactions with others of their own kind, and regularly encounter such pressures.
Expectably, such pressures seem to have given strong tendencies toward restraint in intraspecies
battles, especially when younger members of their species are involved, a strong evolutionary edge
over lack of such inhibitions.
Of the two, then, it is bloody-handed, murderous, puritanical Mars rather than gentle, fruitful,
sensual Venus Who is essentially social in nature, however negative that nature may at times appear
to be. It is Mars Who gives the strong evolutionary tendency toward culturally and even genetically
built-in restraints against violence against one’s own kind; the clients of Venus generally lack the
need for such restraints in their dealings with one another. So Mars is really the first of the Social
Planets. In the words of an American general of the Army: “When the battle has begun, we have
failed in our jobs.” It is Mars’s true task to prevent war – and as many a bar-battle will testify, it is,
all too often, Venus’s task to start it. Just ask the participants in and victims of the Trojan War . . .

Crows, ravens, and other corvines are ruled by Mars. Traditionally, this is because they are
scavengers, haunting battlefields, scenes of carnage due to violent death, and areas where deadly plagues
have killed many.* But in addition, they are all highly social animals, with elaborate cultural and
genetically hard-wired protections against escalation of intraspecific aggression to the point where it
would become dangerous to them. They cooperate with one another in various endeavors, typical of the
warrior-band. Also, crows “ant” with fire – that is, they like to catch sparks from braziers and barbecues
in their wing-pits, which apparently gives them the same rush that they and similar birds, e.g., jays, get
from using red or fire-ants for the same purpose, God alone knows why. Such birds can learn to strike a
match and start their own fires – where this may lead, we are not sure, but the trend seems ominous . . . :)

* Also, Mars is the traditional ruler of Scorpio, which rules death, and crows are harbingers of death.

In general, carnivores that are social, hunt in packs, and take good care of their young are ruled or
co-ruled by Mars. Tyrannosaurus rex and Allosaurus spp. of the Mesozoic Era of Earth’s history would
have been ruled by Mars, for example, as are today’s wolves, wild dogs, and so forth.

Ecological domain or process:

Predation; territoriality; the sociobiological mechanisms that contain intraspecies aggression at a

level such that it doesn’t destroy that species. Speciation. Evolutionary boundaries, that is,
topographical and other features that isolate populations and so encourage speciation – mountains,
oceans, etc. Selective pressures, i.e., those that eliminate genes from the gene-pool, and so help define
species as well as create them.

Legendary orders of being:

Furies, Chimerae, wild boars (as in the Caledonian Board), Harpies

Foods, drugs, and perfumes:

For mineral drugs, Liber 777 gives iron and sulfur. For vegetable drugs, it gives nux vomica, nettle,
cocaine, and atropine, because of their stimulant effects.
Methedrine can be considered to be a martial drug, since, like cocaine, in long-term users it produces
the sort of viciously irrational violence for which the Greek War-God Ares was infamous.
Goldstein-Jacobson adds coffee and liquor to these. Since their long-term use often produces
behavior and mental states similar to those associated with addictions to “uppers,” e.g., cocaine,
methedrine, coffee and alcoholic potables could be considered to be Martial. However, the primary ruler
of coffee is Mercury, and that of liquor is Neptune.62
Liber 777 gives tobacco, pepper, dragon’s blood (the herb), and all hot, pungent odors as perfumes of
Mars, because of their pungency, color, or other traits. Tobacco stimulates the production of adrenaline,
which is ruled by Mars, so this makes it especially appropriate.
Others include homeopathic tinctures of any mineral or gem ruled by Mars, such as iron or
bloodstone; any hot, pungent food, such as chili or curry dishes; spices such as curry, chili, and any
others not previously mentioned which lend to foods a fiery heat; peppery tinctures and tonics taken for
health; steroid hormones of the sort used by athletes and weight-lifters to increase muscle weight; any
drug that increases tendencies to combativeness and aggression; and food or drug that increases muscle
weight, such as nutritional supplements for athletes that contain megadoses of certain amino acids; any
drug that increases male libido and/or causes or maintains an erection in the male; all sharp, astringent-
tasting foods or drinks; all acidic tastes; all pungent, sharp odors, e.g., that of cordite and other waste-
gases produced by the use of firearms and cannon; etc.

Clothing, Magickal Weapons, and other things, objects, and processes:

Liber 777 gives the Sword, Spear, Scourge, or Chain for the Magickal Weapons of Mars. For His
Magickal Powers, it gives the Vision of Power, and Works of Wrath and Vision. For His Virtue, it gives
energy [ambition, eagerness]; for His vice, it gives cruelty or wrathfulness.

Anatomy and physiology:

 Traditionally, Mars rules the muscles and their functions, and the ligaments that anchor the muscles
to each other and to the bones. He also rules the sweat-glands and the sweat they produce as a result of
muscular exertion; the adrenal cortex, its products, such as adrenaline, and its functions, the
endocrinological underpinnings of all Martial activity and emotion; the head, in particular the face and
the nose; the motor cortex of the brain, and the efferent nerves that connect it with the result of the body;
the amygladae, organs within the temporal lobes of the brain involved in anger, territoriality, and
socialization connected with appropriate social expressions of anger; the sympathetic portion of the
autonomic nervous system, especially the Reticular Activating System in the brain-stem, involved in
arousal, excitement, alertness, etc.; the organs of excretion; the external genitalia of the male, including
the testicles and the lingam; and red blood-cells, in particular the iron-bearing hemoglobin molecule
that gives them the ability to transport oxygen through the body. By extrapolation, Mars rules anything
involved in assertive, protective or aggressive behavior, or strong or sustained physical effort; sex as a
biological drive; the striving to fulfill any appetite; and the roots of anger, rage, terror, fear and other
fight-flight behavior patterns.

Psychology:

Mars, along with Sol and Pluto, rules the Will. Sol rules the Will as expressed in one’s lifework or
career; Pluto expresses those aspects of the Will that constitute a raw, primordial biological force; Mars
basically manifests as self-assertion and the striving to maintain the self in existence, essentially
unchanged, as an ego. Mars knows exactly what He wants and goes about securing it in the most
efficient, effective possible way, all other considerations secondary to fulfilling His own desires. He
therefore rules such traits as combativeness, territoriality, desire, enthusiasm, passion, courage, haste,
anger, intolerance and fretfulness. He is seldom discouraged and not easily rebuffed, a center of power
and energy, for better or worse. The Martial temperament includes an acute, penetrating mind, and is
largely concerned with physical accomplishment through direct action, with an emphasis on tactics as
opposed to strategy, and means as opposed to ends. He is self-assured, dominant, or even domineering.
He brooks no interference, and may be ruthlessly uncaring about the well-being of others. He tends to be
fearless and unhesitating when it comes to danger of any kind, and is well-suited for hazardous
occupations, such as those of policemen and firemen. He loves His family and clan, and patriotism is
one of the most important foundation-stone of His personality. He is ever-ready to protect His own,
including family, friends or anyone and anything else with which He identifies Himself. He may have a
strong sense of kinship with all humanity, but when it comes to individuals He is often self-centered and
uncaring of others. He is forceful, active, inflammatory, generally careless and destructive, expert at His
callings, and extremely high-spirited. He is associated with force, activity, ambition, endurance, desire,
strife, and pluck. When thwarted, He becomes cruel, egotistical, sarcastic, quarrelsome, coarse, and
vulgar.

Diseases and Pathologies:

He rules acute diseases, particularly those that are inflammatory or associated with high fever, e.g.,
appendicitis; fevers and inflammations of all kinds; high blood pressure; internal hemorrhages;
apoplexy; sharp pain; infectious, contagious, eruptive or virulent diseases; eruptions; wounds, bites and
stings; cuts, sprains, strains, breaks, lacerations, concussions, and all other injuries due to sudden
pressure beyond the breaking-strain of the tissue; bursitis, rheumatism and other damage to or disease of
the muscles or ligaments; all violent injuries; adrenal exhaustion; burns and scalds of all kinds; the
critical stage or crisis of any disease; abscesses, pustules, and other eruptions coming to a head; certain
aspects of megalomania, which is primarily ruled by Sol; violent acting-out of any kind; predatory
sociopsychopathology; seizures or fits brought on by high temperatures; tantrums and fits of temper;
pathologies involving compulsive-obsessive attacks of rage, chronic rage, or any inappropriate outburst
of violence; and any pathologies of the functions, tissues, organs or organ-systems ruled by Mars. Also,
since Mars rules courage and competition, pathologies involving cowardice, excessive or inappropriate
timidity, insecurities, and similar problems, including bullying and tantrums stemming from any of these,
are ruled by Mars.
Insofar as treatments and remedies of medical pathologies go, Mars rules surgical operations of all
types; vaccinations, injections, acupuncture, and any other procedure involving puncturing of tissues with
a sharply pointed instrument; cauterization, moxybustion, or other use of heat to close or sterilize
wounds or treat illness; and so on.

Occupations and ecological niches:

Mars rules police, firemen, warriors, engineers, and athletes; and all those engaged in any
competitive profession or enterprise. He rules military leaders, tacticians and military professions in
general; surgeons; agitators, incendiaries, and violent criminals; blacksmiths; Alchemists (originally,
blacksmiths and Alchemists were the same); butchers; barbers; all those whose line of work involves the
use of cutlery or sharp instruments; workers in iron and steel; those who make weapons and implements
of war; dentists (these are co-ruled by Saturn); and all those involved in manufacturing, engineering and
the building industry, such as construction workers, engineers, carpenters,* etc.

*Traditionally, the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, who was a carpenter by profession, is taken to be
December 25. This takes place during the Solar month of Capricorn. It is of interest in this regard
that Mars is the diurnal esoteric ruler of Capricorn. Also, the ancients assigned the traditional
exaltation of Mars to that Sign.

Ecologically speaking, Mars rules all organisms exhibiting a high degree of territoriality; organisms
that tend to be loners; all meat-eating organisms (Venus rules all plants, but She shares with Mars
dominion over carnivorous ones such as the Venus’s fly-trap); all predators; and all war-making
organisms, including ants and primates. He rules all organisms displaying both great potential for terrible
and bloody battles, and rigid systems of dominance and caste, such that group-leaders experience little
trouble having their orders carried out, and internal strife, which could otherwise quickly become lethal,
is minimized, as is true among many species of primates. He also rules all planetological processes
involved in creating clear, distinct boundaries between regions, and in maintaining genetic
differentiations within a species which, once in existence, are likely to evolve into one or more sub-
species and, eventually, true, new species in their own right.

Places, nations, and peoples:

Mars rules places of action, such as arenas in which combat takes place; forges and kilns; machine-
shops; slaughterhouses, operating rooms, and morgues; burned ground and devastated areas, such as
battlefields and sites where massacres have occurred; sacred places where holocausts (burnt offerings)
are offered to the Gods.
Mars rules all castes of warriors, as well as warrior-peoples, e.g., ninjas.

Planetary Age of Man:

Mars rules the Fifth Age, the time when the individual, now established in his or her chosen field,
tries to expand his or her sphere of influence and realize his or her growing ambitions. By the reckoning
that respectively assigns the decades of one’s life to the Planets in ascending order of Their orbital
distances from Sol, Mars rules ages 41-50.

Matters of the horoscope:

Accidents, especially those that result in bleeding or burns; acupuncture, amputation, dentistry,
surgery, vaccinations, and any other medical procedure involving cutting, cauterization, puncturing or
other acute invasion of the tissues, as well as massage, which involves manipulation of the muscles;
aggression, battles, war; ammunition, guns, gunshots, knives, swords, and weapons and their action in
general, especially weapons which are carried in the hand, and which inflict cuts or wounds; anger,
arguments, dissension, strife; arson; assassinations, assaults, and attacks of all kinds; athletes and
athletics (Mars is the secondary ruler of these, because of their competitive aspects and the muscular
involvement inevitably associated with them); contests, especially those involving athletics, and warlike
games, such as chess; death, carnage, massacres; elimination as a process, especially by death or
violence, but also in the form of excretion of urine, feces or any other maximally entropized resource;
energy, hence engines and all types of machines that produce energy, and by extension, machinery,
mechanical items, mechanisms of all kinds, and mechanics, as a branch of physics; explosions; fire;
hunters; initiative; leaders and pioneers of all kinds; men (Mars is the secondary ruler; Sol is the
primary one); sexual desire; sterilization, i.e., sexual neutering; sheep, lambs, those who raise and herd
them, and the places associated with these (because Mars rules Aries, Sign of the Ram, a time of the year
when lambs are usually born); terrorists (Mars is the secondary and Pluto the primary ruler); torture,
inquisition, those who carry these out, and the places associated with them; violence; virility (Mars is
the secondary and Sol the primary ruler); and young men.

Music:

The works of Steely Dan; “Mars, the Bringer of War,” from Gustav Holst’s The Planets; all
marches, especially those directly concerned with war and battle, such as “The U.S. Marine Corps
Hymn”; Tchaikovski, The 1812 Overture

Poetry:

Rudyard Kipling, “Recessional,” “Danny Deever”

Books and other literary productions:

Euripides, The Trojan Women, Hecuba; Aeschylus, The Seven Against Thebes, The Persians;
Homer, The Iliad; Hart Crane, The Red Badge of Courage; the Berserker science-fiction novels and
stories by Fred Saberhagen, e.g., his collections Berkserker (Ace, 1967) and The Ultimate Enemy (Ace,
1979); Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead; John Von Neumann, On Games; Karl von
Clausewitz, On War; Richard Preston, The Hot Zone (Random House, 1994); B. S. Liddell-Hart,
Strategy; Sun Tzu, The Art of War; Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings; Jack Hoban, Ninpo:
Living and Thinking as a Warrior (Contemporary Books, 1988); Massad Ayoob, The Truth About Self-
Protection (Bantam Books, 1983), and In the Gravest Extreme: The Role of the Firearm in Personal
Protection (Police Bookshelf, 1980); Randolph M. Nesse, M.D. and George C. Williams, Ph.D., Why
We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine (Times Books/Random House, 1994); Dalton
Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun; Stephen K. Hayes, Ninjutsu: The Art of the Invisible Warrior
(Contemporary Books, 1984); Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards! (London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1989),
Jingo 1997), and Reaper Man (ROC Books, 1992); Frederick F. Cartwright and Michael D. Biddiss,
Disease and History (Dorset Press, 1972); Anthony B. Herbert, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.),
Military Manual of Self Defense: A Complete Guide to Hand-to-Hand Combat (Hippocrene Books,
1991; Wilhelm Pelikan, The Secrets of Metals (translated from the German by Charlotte Lebensart. New
York: Anthroposophic Press, Inc., 1973); William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (History Book
Club, 1976); J. C. Cooper. Chinese Alchemy: The Taoist Quest for Immortality (Sterling Publishing,
Inc., 1990); Yang Jwing-Ming, Yang-Style Tai Chi Chuan (Unique Publications, 1982); Dr. Masaaki
Hatsumi, 34th Grandmaster of the Togakure Ryu, Ninjutsu: History and Tradition (Unique Publications,
1981); Frater Albertus, Alchemist’s Handbook (Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1974); Alan M. Gottlieb and David
B. Kopel, Things You Can Do to Defend Your Gun Rights (Bellevue, WA: Merrill Press, 1993); Robert
A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), Red Planet 1949); C. L. Moore, Shambleau (1932);
Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars; H. G. Wells, War of the Worlds (1898); Kim Stanley
Robinson, Red Mars (1993), Green Mars (1994); C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (1938); Ray
Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles (1950); Arthur C. Clarke, The Sands of Mars 91952); David Drake,
Birds of Prey (1984), Hammer’s Slammers (1979), Vettius and His Friends (1989), Ranks of Bronze
(1986); Harry Turtledove, The Guns of the South (1994), How Few Remain: A Novel of the Second War
Between the States (1997, The Great War: American Front (1998), WorldWar: In the Balance (1994),
Worldwar: Tilting the Balance (1995), Worldwar: Upsetting the Balance (1996), Worldwar: Striking
the Balance (1997); Thomas P. Lowry, M.D., The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell: Sex in the Civil War
(1994); Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars (1993), Green Mars (1994), Blue Mars (1996);

Visual arts:
 Pablo Picasso, Guernica; Salvador Dali, Atavism of Twilight (1933-34), The Face of War (1940),
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate, a Second before Waking Up (1944)

Performing Arts:

Sculpture:

Architecture:

The pentagon, Washington, DC

Saints and exemplars:

Joshua bar Nun; the Maccabees, brothers who brought about the liberation of Judea from Antiochan
rule; the legendary Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645 e.v.), the kensei (“sword-saint”) of medieval Japan,
author of A Book of Five Rings; Moishe Dayan (1915-1981 e.v.), Israeli soldier, statesman, poet, and
farmer; General George S. Patton, widely considered to be a “soldier’s soldier,” and a startlingly adept
astrologer; St. George, the patron saint of warriors, policeman and firemen; Paul Morphy (19th century),
American Grand-Master of chess; Bobby Fischer (mid-20th century), U.S. chess champion and
egotistical nut; “Serpico,” the policeman who blew the whistle on corruption among his colleagues on the
NYC police force; King David of Israel, who was a shepherd as a young man; Red Adair, the legendary,
archetypal fire-fighter, famous for combating oil-well fires and similar disastrous conflagrations (he
would also be co-ruled by Pluto, Who rules primordial Fire, co-rules oil with Neptune, and so forth);
Galileo Galilei, who developed mechanics as a branch of physics; Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor;
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the muscle-bound body-builder, also known for his roles as a professional actor
in which he plays men of action, warriors, etc.; Ted Bundy, the serial killer, representing a dangerous
Martial pathology; the biblical Abel, a shepherd (ironically murdered by his brother Cain, an
agriculturist, ruled by Venus); Dr. Masaaki Hatsumi, 34th Grandmaster of the Togakure Ryu school of
combat arts; Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé Indians (1840-1904 e.v.); Tecumseh (1768-1813 e.v.),
Shawnee Indian warrior-chief; Red Cloud (1822-1909 e.v.), Oglala Sioux Indian warrior-chief; Tu-
sunko-witko (trans.: “They Fear His Horses”), or “Crazy Horse” (1849?-1877 e.v.) Oglala Sioux Indian
warrior-chief; Miss Manners (real name: Judith Martin), syndicated columnist and expert on civilized
behavior (the sort the prevents wars on a personal level as well as any other); Emily Post; Joe Louis, the
boxer; Muhammad Ali, the boxer; John-Henry, the Steel-Drivin’ Man; Joseph Stalin; Superman (the
fictional character), Man of Steel

American emblems, sigils, symbols, folklore, and urban legend:

Sergeant York
America’s war memorials, legends, etc.
Prizefighter Muhammad Ali
 Endnotes

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