The Celestial Bodies

When we contemplate the night sky, do we see only distant heavenly bodies, or do these lights also have a spiritual meaning?

Since Antiquity, people have observed the stars and the planets.

They have studied their movements, built calendars and sought to understand the relationships between the sky and the Earth.

But certain religious and gnostic traditions attribute to the celestial bodies a meaning that goes beyond their physical reality.

In the eighth Door of The Goal of the Wise, Abdullah Hashem Aba Al-Sadiq (From Him is Peace) presents an interpretation according to which the stars are linked to the souls and the deeds of human beings.

1. The sky in ancient traditions

The observation of the stars has played a major role in the history of civilizations.

The movements of the sun and the moon made it possible to organize the seasons, calendars and certain religious practices.

The constellations have also inspired many mythological stories.

The book recalls that the ancients attached great importance to the correspondences between earthly events and celestial movements.

However, it proposes to go further.

It invites us to consider the celestial bodies as possible manifestations of a spiritual reality.

2. The stars as luminous bodies of the believers

One of the major texts cited in this Door is Al-Haft Al-Shareef.

The work reports a teaching attributed to Imam Jaafar Al-Sadiq, transmitted to Al-Mufaddal ibn Omar.

In this account, the luminous bodies of the sky are associated with the believers and their deeds.

The stars are therefore no longer considered solely as astronomical objects.

They become the signs of a reality linked to the soul.

It is important to distinguish this religious interpretation from modern scientific knowledge: astronomy describes the stars as physical objects, whereas the chapter attributes a metaphysical meaning to them.

3. Does every human being have a star?

The book also relies on the Gospel of Judas, an ancient text belonging to gnostic Christian literature.

Several passages of this writing associate human figures and generations with stars.

The author interprets these references as the indication of a particular link between each soul and a celestial body.

From this perspective, the stars could represent spiritual identities or invisible realities linked to human destiny.

This idea transforms the way of considering the sky.

In the book’s reading, the sky becomes a space of correspondences between beings and the spiritual world.

4. Judas and his star

The Gospel of Judas occupies an important place in the chapter’s reflection.

In the passages studied, Jesus addresses Judas, speaking of his star and his going astray.

The book interprets this relationship as proof that the stars can be associated with a person’s spiritual condition.

The account thus establishes a link between human choices, spiritual influences and destiny.

It raises a question: does the human being act solely on the basis of his conscious will, or are there other dimensions to his existence?

The work proposes a metaphysical answer to this question.

5. Idris, the prophets and the knowledge of the stars

The eighth Door also examines traditions that attribute to the prophets a particular knowledge of the celestial bodies.

It mentions in particular Idris, who is also associated with Enoch in certain traditions.

According to the accounts cited, the study of the heavenly bodies is said to have given access to knowledge concerning the events of human life.

The chapter thus establishes a relationship between prophetic knowledge, ancient astronomy and astrology.

These traditions belong to the history of religious beliefs. They do not constitute a scientific validation of the ability of astrology to predict individual events.

6. Astrology and its limits

The book also reports traditions indicating that astrological knowledge may have been disrupted by certain extraordinary events.

It mentions in particular accounts linked to Joshua son of Nun and to Ali ibn Abi Talib.

In the logic of the chapter, these episodes show that celestial phenomena should not be regarded as mechanisms entirely independent of the divine will.

The author thus distinguishes true knowledge from the imperfect interpretations of people.

This distinction makes it possible to understand why the work gives a central place to revealed knowledge.

7. Another way of understanding the soul

The eighth Door prepares the following chapters.

If the stars are associated with souls, then human identity is no longer limited to the visible body.

The human being would be connected to a vaster reality.

This idea opens up several questions: what becomes of the soul after death? Can it return to the world? Can it be associated with different bodies in the course of its existence?

The following Doors will develop precisely these questions.

Conclusion — Looking at the sky differently

The Celestial Bodies proposes a spiritual interpretation of the universe in which the stars, souls and human deeds would be deeply linked.

The chapter brings together traditions attributed to the Imams, gnostic texts and ancient accounts to build this vision.

What if contemplating the sky were also an invitation to reflect on our own spiritual identity?

This question leads us to the ninth Door: Reincarnation.