Temperament and Bardon's Soul Mirrors

One particularly useful application of the calculation of temperament for the aspiring Hermeticist is as an aid and a guide to the creation of the Soul Mirrors described in Franz Bardon's Initiation into Hermetics.

If you are not familiar with the author, the basic idea is that one spends some time in exacting introspection to identify and describe the largely unconscious characteristics that make up our personality. Bardon has one begin with the Black Soul Mirror which is a description of all of our negative characteristics. Bardon leaves it up to the student to determine what negative means to him, but these are, broadly speaking, qualities that hinder rather than help us. He tells us that “... you have to be pitiless and very strict with yourself when it comes to your shortcomings, failings, habits, passions, urges and many other negative character traits.”

It may seem like a horribly self-destructive and depressing task to label all the ways in which you are an awful human being, but the ability to look at yourself with an objective perspective is a necessary part of spiritual growth and achieving what Bardon calls the “magical equilibrium”, a state of being in which one is able to act intentionally without being influenced by one's subconscious programming. If you are following Bardon's program of study, it's a necessity, without which you risk serious imbalance when you start working with the elements directly.

This done, Bardon has the student assign each of these characteristics to an element; and then the whole process is repeated with one's positive characteristics to create the White Soul Mirror. By the end of this exercise, you have a basic idea of the balance of the four elements as they exist within your personality.

The calculation of your temperament does the same thing in a more general sense. By considering the significators of one's temperament, one can learn the natural elemental balance as determined by the factors of one's birth as described in the nativity. This is one's innate elemental makeup. It may be altered slightly perhaps by one's environment and training, but it's there in the background controlling most of our actions and reactions.

I find the temperament a good guide to what the Soul Mirrors will look like once completed , e.g., if you are predominantly choleric, you should have the largest proportion of characteristics listed under the Fire element. It is also an indication of the exercises and elements you may have most difficulty with and those you and those you will take to (forgive the pun) like a duck to water.