Lux Esoterica (Nifiluz)

In the fifth century CE, as the Western Roman Empire began its final fragmentation, a Neoplatonic philosopher named Macrobius penned a commentary that would preserve the cosmological heart of antiquity for the medieval mind: Commentary on the Dream of Scipio . Based on the visionary narrative that concludes Cicero's Republic , Macrobius's work provides a rigorous and poetic roadmap for the Descent and Ascent of the Soul through the crystalline spheres of the heavens. To understand the Macrobian system is to view the universe as a series of nested, concentric levels of reality. The journey begins in the highest realm, the Empyrean , where the soul exists in a state of pure, unconditioned light. However, through a process of "vibrational thickening," the soul begins its descent toward the earth. As it passes through each of the seven planetary spheres—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon—it acquires a "planetary garment" ( Chiton ), ...