BF 1611 VfliflEEiTQDD : SS3HDNOD JO AHVHflLR J o_ * * < «? ^ -©lira * ^ ^ oVJIak* -^ ^ • , . ^ - -^ 0° '^W. °o > •« lilf : *>** " *<* ^ Philosophia Hermetica A Course of Ten Lessons, Being An Intro- duction to "The Philosophy of Alchemy* 9 BY Dr. A. S. Raleigh (Hach Mactzin El Dorado Can.) Eierophant of the Mysteries of Isis, Publishers HERMETIC PUBLISHING COMPANY San Francisco, Calif. Distributors STERLING PUBLISHING COMPANY Chicago, U. S. A. 1916 *?i* COPYRIGHT. 1916 by A. S. RALEIGH Copyrighted and Registered at Stationers' Hall, London, England. (All Rights Reserved) COPYRIGHT IN ALL COUN- TRIES. SIGNATORIES TO THE BERNE CONVENTION the STERLING press MAY 29 1916 ©CU433188 $Iritrate lEirtttott of pjU00fljrffw ijtfrttwttra Jffor tty itaftttttiitrai Ha? of In evidence whereof it is strictly understood these Private Lessons must not be loaned as they come to you fully magnetised, and the magnetism must remain intact. &\$mb atti Btnteb tljtB . .iag of 101 . . / CONTENTS THOUGH UNMANIFEST GOD IS MOST MANIFEST. Text page 7 Lesson I. The God Beyond All Name 13 Lesson II. The Manifestation of God 27 Lesson III. The Manifest God 37 Lesson IV. The Unmanifest God 52 Lesson V. The Immanence of God 61 IN GOD ALONE IS GOOD AND ELSEWHERE NOWHERE. Text 75 Lesson VI. The Nature of the Good 79 Lesson VII. The Pleroma of the Bad 87 Lesson VIII. The Inherent Badness of Man 95 Lesson IX. The Beautiful and the Good 107 Lesson X. The Gnosis of the Good 115 DEDICATION To G. R. S. Mead, who through the publica- tion of his edition of the Sermons and Frag- ments of Hermes Trismegistos, under the title of Thrice Greatest Hermes; made it possible for the English Reading Public to gain access to the rich mine of Hermetic Wisdom contained therein; and in this way did a great deal in the great work of bringing the transcendental truths of Hermetic Philosophy to the knowl- edge of the Modern world ; who also through his work in reproducing the Gnosis through the medium of his writings on the Gnostic Fragments, but especially in his editing of the Gnostic Fragments ; thus aiding in the resto- ration of the Gnosis of the Mind, this series of Lessons on Hermetic Philosophy is lovingly dedicated. By the Author. PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA Though Unmanifest God Is Most Manifest. (Text: G. R. S. Mead. Thrice Greatest Her- mes; Corpus Hermeticum (VI); G. Par- they, Hermetis Trismegisti, 41-48; Pat- rizzi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 12b- 13b.) 1. I will recount to thee this sermon (logos) too, Tat, that thou mayest cease to be with- out the mysteries of the God beyond all name. And mark thou well how That which to the many seems unmanifest, will grow most mani- fest for thee. Now, were It manifest, It would not be. For all that is made manifest is subject to becom- ing, for it hath been made manifest. But the Unmanifest forever is, for It doth not desire to be made manifest. It ever is, and maketh manifest all other things. Being Himself unmanifest, as ever being and ever making-manifest, Himself is not made manifest. God is not made Himself; by thinking-manifest, He thinketh all things manifest. Now "thinking-manifest" deals with things made alone, for thinking-manifest is nothing else than making. 2. He, then, alone who is not made, 'tis clear, is both beyond all power of thinking- manifest, and is unmanifest. And as He thinketh all things manifest, He manifests through all things and in all, and most of all in whatsoever things He wills to manifest. 8 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A Do thou, then, Tat, my son, pray first unto our Lord and Father, the One-and-Only One, from whom the One doth come, to show His mercy unto thee, in order that thou mayest have the power to catch a thought of this so mighty God, one single beam of Him to shine into thy thinking. For thought alone "sees" the Unmanif est, in that it is itself unmanif est. If, then, thou hast the power, He will, Tat, manifest to thy mind's eyes. The Lord be- grudges not Himself to anything, but mani- fests Himself through the whole world. Thou hast the power of taking thought, of seeing it and grasping it in thy own "hands," and gazing face to face upon God's Image. But if what is within thee even is unmanif est to thee, how, then, shall He Himself who is within thy self be manifest for thee by means of [outer] eyes? 3. But if thou wouldst "see" Him, bethink thee of the sun, bethink thee of moon's course, bethink thee of the order of the stars. Who is the One who watcheth o'er that order? For every order hath its boundaries marked out by place and number. The sun's the greatest god of gods in heaven ; to whom all the heavenly gods give place as unto king and master. And he, this so-great one, he greater than the earth and sea, en- dures to have above him circling smaller stars than him. Out of respect to Whom, or out of fear of Whom, my son, [doth he do this] ? Nor like nor equal is the course each of these stars describes in heaven. Who [then] is He who marketh out the manner of their course and its extent? 4. The Bear up there that turneth round PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA itself, and carries round the whole cosmos with it — Who is the owner of this instru- ment? Who He who hath set round the sea its bounds? Who He who hath set on its seat the earth? For, Tat, there is someone who is the Maker and the Lord of all these things. It could not be that number, place and measure could be kept without someone to make them. No order whatsoever could be made by that which lacketh place and lacketh measure; nay; even this is not without a Lord, my son. For if the orderless lacks something, in that it is not lord of order's path, it also is beneath a lord — the one who hath not yet ordained it order. 5. Would it were possible for thee to get thee wings, and soar into the air, and, poised midway 'tween earth and heaven, behold the earth's solidity, the sea's fluidity (the flowing of its streams), the spaciousness of air, fire's swiftness, [and] the coursing of the stars, the swiftness of heaven's circuit round them [all] ! Most blessed sight were it, my son, to see all these beneath one sway — the motionless in motion, and the unmanifest made manifest; whereby is made this order of the cosmos and the cosmos which we see of order. 6. If thou would'st see Him too through things that suffer death, both on the earth and in the deep, think of a man's being fash- ioned in the womb, my son, and strictly scru- tinize the art of Him who fashions him, and learn who fashioneth this fair and godly image of the Man. Who [then] is He who traceth out the cir- 10 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA cles of the eyes; who He who boreth out the nostrils and the ears; who He who openeth [the portal of] the mouth ; who He who doth stretch out and tie the nerves; who He who channels out the veins; who He who hardeneth the bones ; who He who covereth the flesh with skin; who He who separates the fingers and the joints ; who He who widens out a treading for the feet; who He who diggeth out the ducts ; who He who spreadeth out the spleen ; who He who shapeth heart like to a pyramid ; who He who setteth ribs together; who He who wideneth the liver out; who He who mak- eth lungs like to a sponge ; who He who mak- eth belly stretch so much; who He who doth make prominent the parts most honorable, so that they may be seen, while hiding out of sight those of least honor? 7. Behold how many arts [employed] on one material, how many labors on one single sketch ; and all exceeding fair, and all in per- fect measure, yet all diversified ! Who made them all? what mother, or what sire, save God alone, unmanifest, who hath made all things by His Will? 8. And no one saith a statue or a picture comes to be without a sculptor or [without] a painter; doth [then] such workmanship as this exist without a Worker? What depth of blindness, what deep impiety, what depth of ignorance! See, then, thou ne'er, son Tat, deprivest works of Worker! Nay, rather is He greater than all names, so great is He, the Father of them all. For verily He is the Only One; and this His work, to be a father. 9. So, if thou f orcest me somewhat too bold, PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA 11 to speak, His being is conceiving of all things and making [them]. And as without its maker it is impossible that anything should be, so ever is He not un- less He ever makes all things, in heaven, in air, in earth, in deep, in all of cosmos, in every part that is and that is not of every- thing. For there is naught in all the world that is not He. He is Himself, both things that are and things that are not. The things that are He hath made manifest, He keepeth things that are not in Himself. He is the God beyond all name ; He the un- manifest, He the most manifest; He whom the mind [alone] can contemplate, He visible unto the eyes [as well] ; He is the one of no body, the one of many bodies, nay, rather He of every body. Naught is there which He is not. For all are He and He is all. And for this cause hath He all names, in that they are one Father's. And for this cause hath He Himself no name, in that He's Father of [them] all. Who, then, may sing Thee praise of Thee, or [praise] to Thee? Whither, again, am I to turn my eyes to sing Thy praise; above, below, within, without? There is no way, no place [is there] about Thee, nor any other thing of things that are. All [are] in Thee; all [are] from Thee; Thou who givest all takest naught, for Thou hast all and naught is there Thou hast not. 11. And when, Father, shall I hymn Thee? For none can seize Thy hour or time. For what, again, shall I sing hymn? For things that Thou hast made, or things Thou 12 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA hast not? For things Thou hast made mani- fest, or things Thou hast concealed? How, further, shall I hymn Thee? As being of myself? As having something of mine own? As being other? For that Thou art whatever I may be ; Thou art whatever I may do ; Thou art whatever I may speak. For Thou art all, and there is nothing else which Thou art not. Thou art all that which doth exist, and Thou art what doth not exist, — Mind when Thou thinkest, and Father when Thou makest, and God when Thou dost ener- gize, and Good and Maker of all things. (For that the subtler part of matter is the air, of air the soul, of soul the mind, and of mind God.) LESSON I The God Beyond All Name Text: 1. I will recount for thee this sermon (logos) too, Tat, that thou may'st cease to be without the mysteries of the God beyond all name. And mark thou well how That which to the many seems unmanifest, will grow most manifest for thee. Now, were It manifest, It would not be. For all that is made manifest is subject to becom- ing, for it hath been made, manifest. But the Unmanifest for ever is, for It doth not desire to be made manifest. It ever is, and maketh manifest all other things. Being Himself unmanifest, as ever being and ever making-manifest, Himself is not made manifest. God is not made Himself; by thinking-manifest, He thinketh all things manifest. Now "thinking-manif est" deals with things made alone, for thinking-manifest is nothing else than making. I will recount for thee this sermon (logos) too, Tat, that thou may'st cease to be with- out the mysteries of the God beyond all name. And mark thou well how that which to the many seems unmanifest, will grow most man- ifest for thee. 13 14 PHILOSOPHIA EEBMETICA The subject matter of this sermon is the mys- tery of the God beyond all name. To enable one to understand the nature of the God beyond all name is the purpose of this discourse, and this knowl- edge must ever be the basic principle in Hermetic Philosophy. Without this understanding we can- not advance in the study of our subject. All of our Philosophy is based upon this knowledge and therefore, our first step must be to understand this mystery. First of all, we must understand just what is meant by being beyond all name. Words are composed of determinate numbers of syllables, each syllable representing a determinate sound. In spoken language, a definate sound is the result of a determinate modification of the breath, in such a manner as to produce that specific sound. Words are therefore combinations of sounds, and hence, combinations of definite modifications of the breath. Breath is air in motion, hence it has become the symbol of all energy acting under the impulse of an inward and outward motion, in other words the periodicity of Centripetal and Centrif- ugal motion. A word then, will be the synthesis of two or more modifications of force, the result being a complex or synthetic modification of force. We are told that words are the signs of Ideas, which means that an Idea causes the modification of force essential to give dynamic expression to it, and hence words are in reality the names of Ideas, and are at all times the correspondents of the Ideas which they express. In other words, the Ideative Faculty creates an Idea, which acts upon the dynamic will force, in such a way as to give dynamic expression to it, which, acting upon the vocal organs, causes a modification of the breath in such a manner as to express that Idea through the medium of corresponding sound. Words then are the living expressions of corresponding Ideas. Man thinks not as he will, but as he must. The Ideative Faculty in man, is but the reflection of PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA 15 the Ideative Principle of the Kosmos, the Logos in fact. In other words, there is an absolute Law governing the formation of Ideas, and they can be formed in no other way. The Eacial Mind operates as a nnit, and Language is the expres- sion of this Eacial Mind. A Language is not an invention, but an Evolution, the Infallible coun- terpart of the evolving Psychology of the Eace. It is for this reason that every effort to form an International Language has proved a failure and always will fail. Language evolves in accordance with an absolute law, and no language can ever evolve in any manner different than it has. A word in any given language could not possibly be any thing except just what it is, and could not possibly have any other meaning. Where a false meaning has been given to a word, it is simply due to the fact that the people do not un- derstand their own language. Words change through usage because the Ideas of the people change, and of course the language, the mission of which is to express the Ideas of the people who use it, changes automatically with their Ideas. Of course there are technical words that have been arbitrarily given, but in the main this principle enunciated here will apply. Words are given to objects as distinguishing names, and in the main the word is given which corresponds to the attributes of the object so named. In other words, there is a perfect cor- respondence between the dynamic power of the word and the dynamic power of that to which it is applied. A name then can only be applied to something the attributes of which are in corre- spondence with the dynamic elements of the word which is used as the name for it. Names there- fore can only be given to things whose natures are to be determined by comparison or contrast with other things. We cannot give a name to the Absolute God, because that would in the very 16 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA nature of things bring Him into relation with other things, and by asserting that He was pos- sessed of certain attributes, deny to Him all other attributes. As all attributes emanate from Him, we cannot do this. We cannot even give to Him all names, because this would limit Him to the Pleroma of things, and He is much more than this, being Source of all, rather than the All of things. Hence is He the One beyond all name, or the Nameless One. This Nameless One, who is to the world un- manifest, seeing that It does not manifest Itself to their consciousness, owing to the fact that their consciousness is made up of the conscious- ness of things, will, however, become most mani- fest to the one who is able to get back of the mystery through Spiritual Abstraction. Now were It manifest, It would not be. For all that is made manifest is subject to becom- ing, for it hath been made manifest. But the Unmanifest forever is, for It doth not desire to be made manifest. It ever is, and maketh manifest all things. Manifestation is one condition, Beness is an- other. All manifestation is becoming. The manifestations are merely sequences of becom- ings, while permanency is true of the Unmani- fest alone. Manifestation subsists in the act of becoming. All becomings are related to other becomings, and hence all becomings are related to time. When any thing becomes, or comes into being, it is made manifest at the time of its be- coming. All such becomings, or manifestations, are in the nature of effects, related to corre- sponding causes. Hence they are the effects of causation. On the other hand, the Unmanifest is perpetually the same. It is not subject to PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETIGA 17 change, or alteration. It is not in the nature of an effect, but is the Causeless Cause of all ef- fects. All manifestations come from It, and yet It is never manifested at all. The reason why It can never become manifested is not hard to dis- cover. To be made manifest is to become. To become is to become something that was not pre- vious to such act of becoming. Nothing can be- come any thing without assuming a difference from its previous state. The Unmanifest can therefore never manifest itself, because to do so would mean that It must become something other than It is in Itself, hence when the manifestation has become, it would not be the same as It was previous to such manifestation. Therefore, while the Unmanifest is never manifested, It is the Manifestor of all things manifested. It is forever and unchangeably the same, and all the manifestations come forth from It and in this way come into being, becoming what they are. Being an unchangeable Essence, the Unmani- fest can never become any thing, but must ever remain unchangeably what It is, hence to It manifestation is out of the question. It must ever be the One Causeless Causation of all the causes operating in the manifestation. Being Himself unmanifest, as ever being and ever making-manifest, Himself is not made manifest. God is not made Himself; by thinking-manifest, He thinketh all things manifest. God is in Himself unmanifest as we have pre- viously indicated, for His nature is to ever be eternally the same and to perpetually make manifest. He Himself is not made manifest, but His true nature ever remains in the unmanifest state. God Himself is not made, He for ever is, unchangeably the same. He causes all things to \ 18 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA come into manifestation by thinking them into manifestation, for His thought must ever be- come manifest as the thing thought of. Now "thinking-manifest" deals with things made alone, for thinking-manifest is nothing else than making. Thinking-manifest, that is thinking into mani- festation is the very process of making, nothing is made in any other way. The process through which God makes all things is by thinking them, and causing the thought of them to take form. To understand this, we must bear in mind the Three Principles in God, Ku or the Divine Es- sence or more properly Esse, which is the La- tency of the Divine Principle, the Motherhood of God, Mind or the Intelligence or Fatherhood Principle, which acting upon the Ku causes the Centrifugal movement or Divine Energy which moves outward into manifestation. By thinking- manifest, the Thought of God, acting upon the Ku engenders movement which causes the en- gendering of a nucleus in this Ku substance, which becoming Centrifugal moves outward as an act of Divine "Will. In this way each and every thought of God is ensouled by Ku, and be- comes individually active, containing a will force of its own, becoming a sort of dynamic Thought Form. These in turn organize from the Prin- ciples with which they come in contact corre- sponding forms, so that as a matter of fact every thing in the manifestation is nothing more than the body engendered by the active thought of God. Thus all the thoughts of God spontaneously man- ifest themselves as things, but ever taking their individuality from the original thought. There- fore, thinking-manifest merely means, the mani- festation in form of each and every thought of God. This process operates spontaneously, having PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA 19 no element of design involved therein. The mani- festation is nothing other than the form assumed by the thought of God. As the mind of God is very active, there is a perpetual stream of thought perpetually coming into manifestation, . I and hence the manifestation is forever being re- newed by the perpetual stream of Divine Thought. God creates nothing, on the contrary, His Thought is forever becoming manifest. All things are therefore nothing other than the Thought of God made manifest. The Universe therefore could not possibly be other than' it is, seeing that it is the form assumed by the Thought of God. It is thus that all Noumena come into being. The Monad is nothing other than the original form assumed by the Thought of God. Because nothing can possibly come into being save through the engendering potency of a Thought of God, it follows that Will of God, that is the Centrifugal Action of the Divine Thought, is the cause of all things. Thus is Kis- met seen to be perfectly true, and this is the ul- timate principle of Fate or Eternal Necessity. Thus, by thinking-manifest, God thinks all things into manifestation, and there is no other possi- ble mode of creation save the thinking into mani- festation. This is the true secret of Divine Al- chemy, and he who has mastered our meaning here has become a master of the Art of Creation. 2. He, then, alone who is not made, 'tis clear, is both beyond all power of thinking- manifest, and is unmanif est. And as He thinketh all things manifest, He manifests through all things and in all, and most of all in whatsoever things He wills to manifest. Do thou, then, Tat, my son, pray first unto our Lord and Father, the One-and-Only One, 20 PHILOSOPHIA EERMETICA from whom the One doth come, to show His mercy unto thee, in order that thou rnayest have the power to catch a thought of this so mighty God, one single beam of Him to shine into thy thinking. For thought alone "sees" the Unmanif est, in that it is itself unmanif est. If, then, thou hast the power, He will, Tat, manifest to thy mind's eyes. The Lord be- grudgeth not Himself to anything, but mani- fests Himself through the whole world. Thou hast the power of taking thought, of and gazing face to face upon God's Image. But if what is within thee even is unmanif est to thee, how, then, shall He Himself who is within thy self be manifest for thee by means of [outer] eyes? He, then, alone who is not made, 'tis clear, is both beyond all power of thinking-manifest, and is unmanif est. The meaning of this is that the One-and-only One is not made at any time, but forever is, abides forever beyond all power of thinking Him- self into manifestation. While the thought which thinks into manifestation emanates from His mind, yet, when it comes into manifestation, it takes on the condition of the manifestation, and hence ceases to be what it was while it abode in the Mind, therefore He Himself can never be thought into manifestation, though all manifes- tations are thought out of that Mind. Hence, that Mind can never be manifested, though all manifestations come forth from It. And like- wise, Ku can never be manifested, though all manifestations come from It, yet when the mani- festation takes place, it ceases to be Ku, there- fore is Ku not manifested. Neither is the Mind PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA 21 of Ku manifested, though all manifestations are originated by the Mind and born of Ku, thus is not God made Manifest, though He manifests all things. And as He thinketh all things manifest, He manifests through all things and in all, and most of all in whatsoever things He wills to manifest. In as much as God thinks all things into mani- festation, He manifests through all things and in all. While the true nature of God is not made manifest in any thing, yet His fiat or image is reflected or mirrored in whatever He has thought into manifestation. Though God Himself is in nothing, yet His image is in every thing, and through every thing can we see his picture, thus affording a means by which we can reach an ap- prehension of God through the Analogy of Na- ture. However, His image is much clearer in those things which are the immediate manifesta- tions of His will, that is the purest forms of the Intelligent Kosmos, the true and perfect Image of God. It is here that we are able to see the clearest reflection of God Himself. They being in the nature of the First and the Direct Ema- nation. Do thou, then, Tat, my son, pray first unto our Lord and Father, the One-and-Only One, from whom the One doth come, to show His mercy unto thee, in order that thou mayest have the power to catch a thought of this so mighty God, one single beam of Him to shine into thy thinking. For thought alone "sees" the Unmanifest, in that it is itself unmanif est. The One-and-Only One is the Unmanifest God, Ku, Mind and Will, the thinker into manifest a- 22 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA tion. The One is the Manifestation, the purest aspect of the Image of God, which comes into being by being thought into manifestation through the spontaneous action of the Mind of God. The all important thing is that we should be able to catch a thought of that so mighty God, that is that we may catch within our own mind, one of His Thoughts, not that we may think of Him with our own mind, but that a Thought of His Mind may enter our own mind and enlighten it. This knowledge comes not through our own thinking, but through the action of His thought upon our own thinking and thus directing it along the upward way. Thought is unmanifest to the senses, and therefore it is able to unite with the thought of the Unmanifest and in that way bring into our mind a consciousness of the nature of the Unmanifest. Man can therefore see the Unmanifest God only in his thought; those claiming to have seen God in any other way, save as a mental concept, are liars if by God they mean the Unmanifest. He can be seen only through the Intelligence, and then only when the Divine Thought has penetrated the thought of the man, so that his thought is ele- vated to the Plane of the Unmanifest God and His Thought. This condition of exaltation is what we should seek above all other gifts. If, then, thou hast the power, He will, Tat, manifest to thy mind's eyes. The Lord be- grudgeth not Himself to anything, but mani- fests Himself through the whole world. God does not shut Himself off from anyone or anything, but on the contrary, He manifests Himself through the whole world, there being nothing that is not a manifestation of Him. We having the power through the spiritualization of our thought, to permit the Divine Thought to PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 23 unite itself with our thought, in such a manner as to permit God to manifest Himself to the mind's eyes, or for the perceptive power of our mind to attain an Apprehension of God the One- and-Only One. It is not His Unwillingness to be seen that keeps us from seeing Him, but the con- dition of our thought which prevents Him from manifesting Himself in our Mind. Thus the Perfect man must see God, it is the imperfection of the average man that prevents him from see- ing the Unmanif est. Thou hast the power of taking thought, of -seeing it and grasping it in thy own "hands," and gazing face to face upon God's Image. But if what is in thee even is unmanifest to thee, how, then, shall He Himself who is with- in thy self be manifest for thee by means of [outer] eyes? The mind of man is so constituted that it is quite capable of manipulating pure thought with the same facility that it does the impressions de- rived from objects through the senses. Before any one can attack the problem of the Unmani- fest, he must have mastered this art of Abstract Thinking, so that the most abstract thoughts can be visualized, and made real to him, so that he can handle them as though they were familiar objects. When he has reached this state of ab- straction where the purest thoughts and ideas are perfectly real to him, where they are actual- ly things in his consciousness and can be clas- sified as things, one is able through this process of abstract reasoning to see God's Image, the Intelligible Kosmos, face to face, to attain First- Hand Knowledge relative to it. In this way, our understanding of the Intelligible Kosmos will be equally as definite as our grasp of the Sensible 24 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A Kosmos. But while all this is possible to the master of his own mind, if one has not yet reached the point where he is conscious of the ul- timate workings of his own mind, if he cannot "see" the processes going on within himself, how can he, depending solely upon his outer senses for guidance, be able to grasp the work- ings of the Divine Mind, which is back of, and much more subtle and elusive than the thought of the human mind? It follows therefore, that no one can have this comprehension of God or even of the Image of God until he has mastered the difficult Art of Mental Introspection. The mind must be taught to react upon itself, and to indulge in self-analysis, until it has reached the utmost depths of its own possibilities, and when it has mastered all of its own mazes, will it be able to use its powers of abstraction to gaze forth upon God's Image, the Intelligible Kosmos. The difficulty then of inspecting this Image of God is not in the lack of the faculty, but in the fact that very few people know how to look at it. It is because of the fact that there are very few trained minds in the world. What is taken as training of the mind, relates to Concrete Thought, which is of no use in this field of re- search, and not to the capacity for Abstract thought which is all important. In other words, we are taught to observe things, but not Ideas which are the realities back of all things. Con- trary to the common opinion, this power of In- trospection, and mental Abstraction can be taught to any one with ordinary Intelligence, and with proper training it can be learned quite easily in a comparatively short time. The difficulty is that in the first place, there is but little import- ance attached to this department of research, and then again there are very few who know how to train a mind. But doubtless the principal diffi- PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA 25 culty is in the total ignorance of every one as to the existence of this great field of Abstract Idea- tion, within the mind of man. LESSON II The Manifestation of God. 3. But if thou wouldst "see" Him, bethink thee of the sun, bethink thee of moon's course, bethink thee of the order of the stars. Who is the One who watcheth o'er that order? For every order hath its boundaries marked out by place and number. The sun's the greatest god of gods in heaven; to whom all the heavenly gods give place, as unto king and master. And He, this so-great one, he greater than the earth and sea, endures to have above him circling small- er stars than him. Out of respect to Whom, or out of fear of Whom, my son [doth he do this] ? Nor like nor equal is the course each of these stars describes in heaven. Who then is He who marketh out the manner of their course and its extent? But if thou wouldst "see" Him, bethink thee of the sun, bethink thee of moon's course, bethink thee of the order of the stars. Who is the One who watcheth o'er that order? For every order hath its boundaries marked out by place and number. For the one who has not as yet reached that supreme height of mentality, where God's Image can be directly seen, but who must reason out the problem, and in that way attain an Intuition of God, the order of nature presents an ideal field of investigation. One is advised to consider the 27 28 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA course and circuit of the sun, with its relation to the heavens in general and to our solar system in particular. Let him also think of the course of the moon, and of the order of the stars, in other words, let him consider the science of Astronomy. If he makes the proper study of the heavens he will see that it is all arranged Mathematically, and that every body in the heavens has itself con- fined to some definite locality, though every one of them moves in its course, it can never deviate from that course, its boundaries are limited by a force that it can never overcome. As the uni- verse is ruled by numbers, it follows that all num- bers are in reality rhythmic groupings of forces, that are governed by strict mathematical law. The study of Astronomy therefore, clearly demon- strates that the heavenly bodies are not indi- vidually self- sufficient, but that they are each and all governed by some rhythmical arrangement of force, by a symphony of force in fact, and that that symphony of force is something exterior and also anterior to the heavenly bodies themselves. This harmony of force existed before there were any heavenly bodies in existence, otherwise it could not have obtained such perfect control of them. There would have been some discrepancy in the arrangement somewhere, if it had obtained control after they were created. It was that very harmony of force that engendered the heavenly bodies, and therefore, this arrangement could never have been fortuitous in its origin. Also, Mechanical Uniformitarianism cannot be true, for the simple reason that these movements are not uniform, it is a system of unity in diversity and diversity in unity that is presented to our un- derstanding. Everywhere we see perfect order, and as this order is intelligent, that is, it is just such an order as a perfect intelligence would have produced, which indicates that the force produc- ing this order operates intelligently, hence it is PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 29 the effect of an active intelligence. What then is that guiding intelligence I The sun's the greatest god of gods in heaven, to whom all the heavenly gods give place as unto king and master. And he, this so-great one, he greater than the earth and sea, endures to have above him circling small- er stars than he. Out of respect to Whom, or out of fear of Whom, my son [doth he do this] ? In this paragraph, we have the argument of the preceding one elaborated still further. The gods here spoken of are the heavenly bodies. Called gods, for the reason that Hermes was wiser than the later philosophers, in that he knew that all the heavenly bodies were living beings, self-conscious, having each a will of its own, each endowed with its own intelligence. He knew that they were not mechanical in their nature, but al- together different. This argument is in reality an anticipation of the Newtonian Theory of Uni- versal Gravitation, and a refutation of that ab- surd theory, for it shows that in accordance with the Newtonian Theory, the sun would be greater in its gravitative force than all the rest of the Universe combined for the reason that the great distance of the stars would so minimize their gravitative force that the sun would exercise such a gravitative force on the solar system as to make it independent of all the rest of the uni- verse. The question then is, why does not the Theory of Universal Gravitation make good in this instance! What is it that prevents the sun from doing exactly what it would do if Univer- sal Gravitation were true? There is then some other force that is superior to Gravitation, and that dispenses with the workings of Gravitation, 30 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA whenever it suits that force to do so, which would mean that Gravitation is merely an effect pro- duced by some great cause, that ever keeps it under control. Hence Gravitation is not the ab- solute power that science has assumed it to be, but is in fact an effect produced by some other cause, and it must be an intelligent cause to be able to realize such perfect results at all times. The question is what is the nature of that cause? Nor like nor equal is the course each of these stars describes in heaven. Who then is He who marketh out the manner of their course and its extent? Here we have our attention called to the great dissimilarity between the courses of all of the diverse stars, and yet we are reminded of the fact that each follows its own course, and yet, while each is absolutely individual in its move- ments, there is harmony preserved among all these movements. In this way is our attention again called to the utter fallacy of the Theory of Universal Gravitation as an explanation of Physical and Mathematical Astronomy. If every body in the heavens acted upon every other body, the result would be an averaging up of all the Grayitative forces, so that a uniformity of move- ment would be the result, but the facts are that in all the heavens there are not two bodies the course of which is either equal or similar. This means that the force which directs them in their movements, must act upon each star individual- ly and entirely independently of its action upon every other body in the heavens. This of course will mean that that force is directed in all of its operations by a discriminating intelligence, to which it responds at all times. It will also indi- cate that this Intelligence is Imminent in all the operations of this force. The question then is, PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 31 what is the nature of this force and of this guid- ing Intelligence! What is it that controls the universe? What is the Mind and Will back of, and expressing itself through every movement of the Universe? The argument from design is frightfully weak in comparison with this. We see here the clear demonstration of the perpetual operation of an immanent, intelligent, conscious, directing Will, expressing in action a very com- plicated, synthetic mentality, to which every por- tion of the universe, is individually and inces- santly responsive, and to which in spite of this individuality of its operations, the Universe as a whole, is at all times synthetically responsive. In other words, there is the perpetual activity of an intelligence capable at all times of guiding the universe as a whole and at the same time in each of its constituent parts, without ever a hitch occuring in its operations. Where can one look for such an Intelligence? It is undoubtedly not in the Material World, for it rules every portion of the material world, and the whole of it as well, hence it must be something of an Immaterial na- ture. Would not such an Intelligence and Will be quite Divine? and would it not in fact be the Manifest God? In this way does he prove the existence of the Manifest God without asserting it. He merely shows that without such a princi- ple, the Universe could not possibly be as it is, and thus there is left the mysterious X as its guiding principle. 4. The Bear up there that turneth round himself, and carries round the whole cosmos with it— Who is the owner of this instru- ment? Who He who hath set round the sea its bounds? Who He who hath set on its seat the earth? For, Tat, there is someone who is the Maker 32 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA and the Lord of all these things. It could not be that number, place and measure could be kept without some one to measure them. No order whatsoever could be made by that which lacketh place and lacketh measure ; nay, even this is not without a Lord, my son. For if the orderless lacks something, in that it is not lord of order's path, it also is beneath a lord — the one who hath not yet ordained it order. The Bear up there that turneth round itself, and carries round the whole cosmos with it — Who is the owner of this instrument? Who He who hath set round the sea its bounds? Who He who hath set on its seat the earth ? The prevalent Astronomical Theory is that each of the stars revolves around some other star, which draws it through gravitation, but this is not true of the Constellation of the Great Bear for instance. It turns round itself, that is, it revolves around its own center of gravity. Now there is no theory of Gravitation that will account for this. If we assume that the gravitative force of the other stars controls this, we have to at- tribute to them an alterative gravitation, for if their gravitative force was continuous they would hold the Bear perfectly stationary; but if their force of Gravity is alterative, then it is not the Gravitation of Science, but merely a gravitative effect, produced by some anterior cause, which is something altogether different. The fact of the matter is that the Constellation of the Bear moves by reason of its own force, and that its path has a certain measure of curvature, that causes it to follow the path that it does, owing to no force from without, but from the ec- centricity of its own will to move. So far from being the one controlled by Gravity, it is the body PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 33 that exercises the effect of Gravity upon all the rest of the kosmos, that is that portion of the Universe over which it exercises control, which is for us the whole kosmos. As the Bear is sub- ject to nothing in the heavens, what is the force that governs it, and that abiding in it, gives to all of its stars that common will to move in that spe- cific direction! It is without doubt a spiritual force that is immanent in the Bear and gives di- rection and purpose to all of its movements, what is its nature? Also the question is introduced as to the force that holds the sea and the earth in position. We are all familiar with the usual ans- wers that are given to these questions, but they do not go back far enough. We have already shown that Gravitation is merely an effect pro- duced by the workings of an intelligent cause, and hence we must find what principle it is that is back of Gravitation. What is the Law of Gravitation! That is the question to be settled. For, Tat, there is someone who is the Maker and the Lord of all these things. It could not be that number, place and measure could be kept without someone to make them. No order whatsoever could be made by that which lacketh place and lacketh measure ; nay, even this is not without a lord, my son. For if the orderless lacks something, in that it is not lord of order's path, it also is beneath a lord — the one who hath not yet ordained it order. All those things indicated above, have come into being at some point in time. While it is true that Matter, or Hyle is eternal, it is matter in its diffused or inorganic state. Organic Matter is not eternal, but has been organized at some point in time. The forces growing out of the organized state of a material object, are not sufiici- 34 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA ent to keep it going after its organization but they could not possibly organize the form, as they are the result of its organic operation. In other words, no body has ever been able to organize itself. As all organisms have been organized at some point in time it follows that previous to that time they did not exist. This being true, it follows that that which has organized an organ- ism, was something anterior to that organism, something different to the organism and something in its very nature inorganic. As all those things have come into being in time, they were made by something, and being made in a certain way, their making embodied certain forces that would continue to govern them, and therefore, they continue to be ruled by that which was placed in them by that which made them, therefore, that which made the organism at the time that it first came into being, forever con- tinues to rule it. Therefore, all material things have had their maker and they still have their Lord. Number, place and measure, the three in- gredients of all formation and action, are the products of something anterior to them. Measure is the course of a line of force, or a current of vibration, and it is impossible for a line of force to move anywhere without some anterior princi- ple to cause the line of force to move in the direc- tion that it does. Measure is therefore the ef- fect of an anterior cause. Place is the field in which vibration moves, and it exists not until vi- bration begins there, and hence place is the ef- fect of an anterior cause sending vibration into that field. Number is the rhythm in vibration caused by Intelligence, and hence number cannot exist except as the effect of an anterior intelli- gent causative principle producing it. Therefore, number, place and measure, must not only be originated by something, but they must be for- ever kept as they are by something apart from PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA 35 themselves. No order of any kind whatsoever can ever come into being, without a place for it to occupy, and without the measure of its opera- tions: hence, the creation of place and measure of the order are conditions precedent to the pro- duction of the order, whatever it may be. There- fore, a creative intelligence is a condition prece- dent to the coming into being of all things cre- ated. The orderless condition, is not to be taken as a merely negative state, on the contrary, it is just as positive as order itself. The lack of or- der, is the result of a force and an intelligent principle that prevents the manifestation of or- der. There being an ordering or synthesizing in- telligence in nature, it follows that this would bring order into all things were it not for the operation of an intelligence that was maintaining a state of disorder or chaos. This chaos engen- dering intelligence is therefore the cause of the lack of order wherever it may be found. Hence it becomes evident that this guiding intelligence that causes the introduction of order into the kosmos, is a discriminative intelligence which sometimes directs that order shall be introduced and at other times directs that disorder shall con- tinue. This makes the intelligent principle of the Universe more complicated than ever, and indi- cates the great importance of this mind, which is in reality the Manifest God ; in this way does na- ture reveal the Manifest God to man. LESSON III The Manifest God. 5. Would it were possible for thee to get thee wings, and soar into the air, and, poised midway 'tween earth and heaven, behold the earth's solidity, the sea's fluidity (the flowing of its streams), the spaciousness of air, fire's swiftness, [and] the coursing of the stars, the swiftness of heaven's circuit round them [all] ! Most blessed sight were it, my son, to see all these beneath one sway — the motionless in motion, and the unmanifest made manifest; whereby is made this order of the cosmos and the cosmos which we see of order. Would it were possible for thee to get thee wings, and soar into the air, and, poised mid- way 'tween earth and heaven, behold the earth's solidity, the sea's fluidity (the flowing of its streams), the spaciousness of air, fire's swiftness, [and] the coursing of the stars, the swiftness of heaven's circuit round them [all] ! Were man removed from the environment of the earth, so that he could see the kosmos not from the point of view of the earth, but from that of an outside observer, who was in no sense in- fluenced by the earthly conditions, he would be able to see in all the manifestations of kosmic and mundane life the Manifest God. Why is the earth solid? We know that all matter is mo- 37 38 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA lecular, and hence, any solid body is solid merely because of the fact that its molecules are held together in close affinity. Why is this the case? Why are the molecules composing the earth held in contact instead of being diffused? The common answer is that it is Gravitation that holds them thus. This, however, is merely evading the issue. What is Gravitation? We are told that it is the tendency for one body to attract another to it. In other words, as used in this case, Gravitation is the tendency of molecules to come into contact, and hence, to say that it is Gravitation that draws the molecules of the earth together so as to con- stitute its solidity, is equivalent to saying that the molecules are drawn into close affinity, be- cause they come into close affinity! Gravitation is supposed to be that force which causes all bodies to attract other bodies in proportion to their mass and decreasing this gravitative in- fluence with the square of the distance. But it is to be borne in mind that this earth was produced at some point in time, and hence there was a time when there was no solid earth, hence, when all of its present molecules were in a state of diffu- sion. At some point in time, these diffused mole- cules came together and in this way created the solid earth. The force that caused them to be drawn together, was of necessity a force operat- ing on the several molecules individually, and one operating anterior to the concentration of those molecules into the solid earth, seeing that it was this force which concentrated them into the solid earth. This force was therefore, not gravitation, as the term is understood by Science. Now, if a force other than the gravitation of science was capable of originating the solidity of the earth, why is it not capable of maintaining that solidity for an indefinite period of time — to-wit, so long as that solidity shall continue? If this is true, then no other force is needed PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 39 for the purpose of maintaining that solid- ity, hence gravitation has nothing to do with the problem. In fact, there is no such thing as a Force of Gravitation or a Law of Gravitation. Gravitation is merely a phenome- non produced by this force of molecular attrac- tion that we have to consider as the solidifying force of the earth. The force that causes the molecules to move in such a way as to form the solidity of the earth, can be nothing other than the force of molecular vibration, and it must be a Centripetal Force operating among those mole- cules, and a force acting upon each one of them separately and yet producing a unity of action on the part of them all. This can only be true in the case of a polarity of vibration in the case of the several molecules. Hence we must have a duality of force, acting in such a manner as to polarize the vibration of the several molecules to the end that they assume a Centripetal motion among themselves. Thus it is evident that this is the true cause of the solidity of the earth. Then the question at once comes into mind, what is the origin of such a force? It is of necessity a force, in no sense arising from organized matter, and in fact its origin is not in the molecules them- selves, but as it directs the movements of the molecules it must be a force anterior to the exis- tence of the molecules. It can only cause the molecules to vibrate in the way that they do by acting directly on their Atoms, hence it cannot be an atomic force, but must be something existing anterior to the existence of the Atom. Its polar- ity indicates that it is both Electrical and Mag- netic and hence the force itself must act through the instrumentality of Electrons, which indicates that as a force it was in existence anterior to the existence of the Electron. Its vibration must act upon the Ion in order to make it vibrate, and hence it must act anterior to the existence of the 40 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA Ion. It must therefore be an Active Force in the Astral Light, and this means that as a force it must exist anterior to the existence of the Astral Light; hence it must be a Manasic Force, and hence in a sense intelligent. In this way are we able to see this force which constitutes the solidity of the earth, as an expression of the Manifest God. Again, what constitutes the fluidity of the sea? We know that the union of two atoms of Hydro- gen with one atom of Oxygen forms a molecule of water. Why do Hydrogen and Oxygen unite in those proportions. Obviously it is due to the principle of polarity working in the two elements. But why in that exact proportion? Undoubtedly because of a modification in the polarity of the elements. Why do salt and certain other ele- ments join the water? Because of another modi- fication in the principle of polarity operating in this combination. Why is it that the molecules of water do not cohere with the same degree of force that the molecules of the earth do? Because the degree of affinity is not so close among them as it is among the molecules of earth. This will give us what appears to be the cause of the flu- idity of the seas; but why is it that all this is true of the water? The origin of the vibratory forces constructing the water can be seen to be quite similar to that of the vibratory forces con- structing the earth, but why is there this differ- ence ? It is clearly due to the fact that in the As- tral Light there is both an earthy and watery principle, that is reflected in earth and water of the physical world. There is no cause for this differentiation to be found in the Astral Light, we simply see that there is an earthy and a wa- tery Astral Light, and therefore the cause of the differentiation is to be sought anterior to the existence of the Astral Light. There is not even the process of differentiation there, we simply PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA 41 have Astral Earth and Astral Water. Therefore the cause of this must be sought anterior to the existence of the Astral Plane of nature. There must then be a differentiating principle some- where, in which there abides and out of which there comes forth, a Moist Nature. This is of course the Manifest God, and so the study of the fluidity of the sea gives to us a clear demonstra- tion of the existence of the Manifest God. Let us now look at the spaciousness of the air. What is it that gives to air its space filling power? Air is not solid, neither is it in the form of drops, the unit of construction in the airy space is the air globule. However, air may form drops and thus become a liquid by cooling it, and when the temperature is lowered still farther it will be- come a solid. As heat is a mode of motion, it follows that air becomes a liquid by the lowering of its vibration, and when the vibration is re- duced still farther it will become a solid. The spaciousness of air is therefore due to its rate of vibration. The constitution of air is due to presence of an overabundance of Nitrogen in its composition. But why is it that it has this par- ticular nature? We can trace its vibration back the same as we have the other elements, and we find that it is the result and the manifestation of an Airy Principle in the Astral Light. Air does not originate in the Astral Light; it simply con- tains Air in common with Earth and Water, and hence the origin of the air is to be sought in the Dry Nature anterior to the existence of the As- tral Light. This is not even to be sought in the Manas, for the simple reason that this Airy Prin- ciple is closely present in the Manas, in the very existence of the Manas, hence it must originate in Hyle. There is then but one place for the Dry Nature and hence the Air to originate, and that is in the Manifest God, hence the spacious- ness of the air, and in fact its every attribute goes 42 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A to prove beyond a doubt the existence of the Manifest God as the cause of Air as well as of Water and Earth. Thus we see still another proof of the Manifest God. Think again of the swiftness of the fire. How does it obtain its capacity for swiftness of move- ment? Obviously this can only be because of the intense vibration of the atoms going to compose it! Its heat is also the result of its intense vibra- tion; but whence came that intensity of vibra- tion! It is evident that it is because of the fact that its atoms are bound together in a yet looser degree of affinity, and that it has not even a glo- bule as its unit. In this way is it able to vibrate much more rapidly than any of the other ele- ments. And yet if we trace it back through all the Planes of Nature we find that on all of them Fire exists as Fire and as nothing else. We find that it permeats all the other elements. There is fire imprisoned in all solid matter, in every drop of water and in every globule of air, but fire is also free in nature. We can trace it back into Hyle as the Hot Nature that is one of the very first manifestations of the Creative Principle. It is a Primeval Element. This simply brings us to the point where we are forced to admit that it comes from the Manifesting God, as it has no origin external to Him. In fact it is evident that these four natures, the Hot, the Cold, the Wet and the Dry, exist in the very being of the Mani- fest God, and that they are merely externalized in such a way as to become Fire and Water, Earth and Air, which in turn becomes the con- stituents of the Universe. This shows that the Manifest God is in reality the Anama Mundi, or Soul of the World, that the kosmos is merely the Siderial Body of the Manifest God who is its soul. Thus it is indeed true that the whole kos- mos is nothing other than a Hylic Animal. The coursing of the stars, and the swiftness PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 43 of heaven's circuit round them will clearly prove the operation of the Manifest God, also if we could see things as they are, rather than as they seem, for then would we see that their motive force was not generated within the heavens, but existed in full force anterior to the existence of the heavens, and that it was this force that or- ganized the heavens, and that continues to direct their movements. This force is of a higher na- ture than that of the heavens, and therefore, it is the Manifest God Himself. Most blessed sight were it, my son, to see all these beneath one sway — the motionless in motion, and the unmanifest made manifest; whereby is made this order of the cosmos and the cosmos which we see of order. Were one able to see things as they are he would discover that the entire universe is but one system of perfect harmony. That it is all gov- erned by one principle, giving perfect unity ever present in motion. This is of course a rela- tive statement. In the last analysis there is noth- ing motionless, though there are expanses that do not move as such, though movement is ever transpiring within them. The Unmanifest is ever coming into manifestation. It is through the perpetual manifestation of the Unmanifest that this order of the kosmos is maintained. Not only is there an order of the kosmos, however, but the order which is preserved among all the diverse parts of this diverse system, presents in itself a perfect kosmos, that is, a reflection, or image of the Unmanifest God. 6. If thou wouldst see Him too through things which suffer death, both on the earth and in the deep, think of a man being fash- 44 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA ioned in the womb, my son, and strictly scru- tinize the art of Him who fashions him, and learn who fashions this fair and godly image of the Man. Who [then] is He who traceth out the cir- cles of the eyes; who He who boreth out the nostrils and the ears; who He who openeth [the portal of] the mouth ; who He who doth stretch out and tie the nerves; who He who channels out the veins; who He who hard- eneth the bones; who He who covereth the flesh with skin; who He who separates the fingers and the joints; who He who widens out a treading for the feet; who He who diggeth out the ducts ; who He who spreadeth out the spleen; who He who shapeth heart like to a pyramid; who He who setteth ribs together; who He who wideneth the liver out; who He who maketh lungs like to a sponge ; who He who maketh belly stretch so much; who He who doth make prominent the parts most honorable, so that they may be seen, while hiding out of sight those of least honor? God is also to be seen in the things that- suffer death, that is all those things that are in oppo- sition to the immortal world-order. It makes no difference whether they be beings of an Earthy or a watery nature. The most perfect illustration of this can be found, owing to the extremely com- plicated nature of his construction, in the fash- ioning of the human foetus in the womb. In the fashioning of this fair and godly image of the Man, we have the most intricate of all the work- ings of the art of God. The Man here is the Archetypal Divine, or Heavenly Man- Woman, PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 45 of which each human man or woman is an image. This being the case, it follows that the purpose of the human structure is to permit of the ex- pression of all the attributes of the Man- Woman. They must each and all function in and through the individual man, hence every separate part of him must be in the nature of an organ adapted to the functioning of some Function of that Man. This being the case, the Archetypal Man must be the pattern that is followed in all the man build- ing. Undoubtedly there will be differentiations due to the work of the human parents, and par- ticularly that of the mother, but even such work must conform to the common type. This means that the Man is active in the building of every human structure, so that it may conform in all essential features to the pattern of the Heavenly Man. The parents are therefore not the only or even the most important factors in the construc- tion of the organism, they can only build in ac- cordance with the diagram shown to them, their work must in every feature conform to that. Of course there are instances in which this guidance is interfered with, and then, we have a sub-nor- mal infant, and all cases in which the direction of the Man is interfered with result in these sub- normal children. A true human child can only be constructed by following to the letter the direc- tion of the Man. The construction of the body is in reality a process of building. First of all, the foetus has no definite form. It is merely the plastic mate- rial from which the future human organism is to be constructed. The entire process is one of gradual transformation. Each separate step is a distinct work of construction. This being the case, it follows that each such work is performed by the activity of a distinct force, that works in that particular direction and in no other way. In other words, the eyes are developed by the work 46 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A of a particular force, that builds them and nothing else. Their growth from the germ, or nucleus that is first started by this force, until they have become perfect eyes, is the result of that force in the Archetypal Man that corresponds to sight in the human species. As this function has con- structed the organ of the eye, it follows that it has constructed it as an organ through which it may continue to function throughout life. The same is true of the development of the nostrils and ears. They are developed through the func- tioning of the faculty of Odor and that of sound in the Archetypal Man, which develops them as the organs through which it is to function throughout life. The development of the mouth is also the work of that force in the Man which is ever to function through it as its organ. The nerves are not spontaneously developed, but on the contrary, it is a very slow process. A process purely vegetative in its nature. In other words it is the action upon the foetus of the vibration of the Man that is building them as the organs through which it may continue to function as the nerve force in the human organism. The forma- tion of the veins, arteries and capillaries is an- other gradual development which is accomplished by the action of the Watery Principle in the Man that it may use them as the organs through which it functions, having its seat of functioning in the blood of the man. The gradual transformation which develops the bones is the work of the Earthy Principle in the Heavenly Man that de- velops them so as to use them as organs for its activity. We do not realize the great importance of the bones. They are the organs of the Earthy Principle in the Heavenly Man, or rather of its human correspondence. The flesh is covered with skin, not so much for the protection of the flesh, as for the providing of an organ for the expres- sion of that attribute of the Heavenly Man which PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 47 corresponds to it. The skin is really that through which the Centrifugal and the Centripetal Forces operate, and which regulates the degree of their activities. It was built by this force to be used by it in this way. The fingers and the joints were developed from the original matter, by the opera- tion of those forces corresponding to them. They were developed to be the organs for the function- ing of those forces, and are ever used as such. The feet were constructed by the creative force which uses them as its organ of functioning. The ducts were also opened by the activity of those aspects of the Watery Principle which must ever function in and through them as their special or- gans. The spleen was also builded by that great force that ever functions in it as its organ of functioning. Little do the people guess the tran- scendent importance of the Heavenly Force, the mundane correspondence of which functions in the spleen! The heart was constructed by the Heavenly Water, in order that its mundane cor- respondent might ever function there, using the heart as its most important organ. Few save a few wise Yogis realize the importance of the heart. What does the getting of new Heart sig- nify, save and except this, the functioning of the Heavenly Water directly through it and not mere- ly its mundane correspondence! What else is the sprinkling of the Heart with Clean Water? The Word is nigh thee, in thine Heart! What is the Gluten of Von Eckerthausen but the direct entrance of the Heavenly Water into the Heart and thence into the blood? What else is the Bap- tism of Water, and the being Born of Water? The ribs were each constructed by those specific forces that were to function in them as their organs of functioning. Their principal function is not mere- ly to support the vital organs, they serve a far more noble purpose. Perhaps now, thou canst understand the meaning of the story about God 48 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA / taking a rib from the side of Adam to make Eve ? The Liver was also constructed by that principle which functions in it. The function of the liver seems to be the secretion of Bile ; but what is Bile ? It is the great Alkaline Principle, and this is one of the most important elements in Alchemy. The Bile is the physical fluid that acts as the vehicle for the manifestation of the Bilious or Alkaline Principle of the Heavenly Water. Thus it is that the liver is the organ for the manifestation of that Alchemy of the Heavenly Water, which can alone renew the body and make it young again. It is one of the springs of the Fountain of Youth. The lungs were constructed by the Airy Princi- ple so that it might function there, and that its mundane correspondence, the soul of atmosphere, might act through them. They serve a far more noble purpose than the mere respiration of at- mospheric air. The belly was also constructed by those forces that function there. The Umbili- cus was developed, and the forces that were in- tended to function there constituted the Tree of Life. Man was separated from the Tree of Life simply by a lower force functioning there. When that Heavenly Force functions directly through this organ, then will he have found the Tree of Life once more. The belly is also the seat of Sekhet, the Formative Mind. It was that which developed it, that it might function there. Well does the Chinaman look upon the belly as the seat of the Intelligence, and well does the Yogi con- centrate on the navel ! Whoso readeth let him un- derstand! I reveal to thee the last mystery of Divine Alchemy if thou hast the insight to see what I write! The entire arrangement of the body in all of its parts is the work of the diverse forces of the Heavenly Man. They are all simply organs through which those forces may function. More properly speaking it is not the forces them- selves, but their mundane correspondents that PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 49 function through them. The secret of Divine Al- chemy is simply this ; train those organs in such a way that gradually their functioning will be ele- vated to that point where the powers of the Heav- enly Man may directly function through them, so that thou wilt be no longer the image of the Man but wilt become the Living Vehicle in which he directly lives and works through all of his imme- diate functions. From this state, let the Manifest God directly function through these organs and in time let the Unmanifest God enter and func- tion through them. It is not enough that He should function through thy soul. He must also function directly through the organs of thy phys- « ical body. What else does it mean to make thy body the Temple of the Holy Ghost? Come down to the earth, stop thy star-gazing, and realize that thy body is the temple of God, that every part of it is a vessel of righteousness if thou wilt but consecrate it to Him, and thou hast solved the last element in the Great Work, this is our Sacred Art. Thus do we see the perfect revela- tion of the Manifest God. His highest mani- festation is man. He dwells within thee. The Sacred Chamber of the Temple is Veiled, and hence we will not enter there. LESSON IV The Unmanif est God 7. Behold how many arts [employed] on each material, how many labors on one single sketch ; and all exceeding fair, and all in per- fect measure, yet all diversified! Who made them all? What mother, or what sire, save God alone, unmanifest, who hath made all things by His Will? To get a clear conception of the greatness of the works of God, we must avoid the erroneous conception that things are spontaneously gen- erated, or that they are created by one creative effort. The facts in the case are there are hun- dreds of separate arts employed on the plastic material of the human foetus ere it has come to approach with any degree of nearness to the Image of the Man. This great number of arts is essential owing to the fact of the diversity of function that is required in the human individual. Each separate force that is to function in the new man must create for itself the organ through which it is to function, thus in a certain sense the creation of those separate organs are in them- selves acts of functioning on the part of the forces that are later to function through them. The Power that is to create must, therefore, differ- entiate itself into a number of diverse forces, each of which is to act separately in its creative operations, and yet the result must be a synthesis of organs corresponding to the synthesis of forces that has created them. All of these separate arts must be brought to bear upon the material in order that it may be transformed under this in- 51 52 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A fluence in such a way as to provide an instru- ment through which all of these forces may find perfect freedom of manifestation. Not only is it essential that each of these several arts should be employed upon the material, however; but it is also essential that each of these forces should work by stages. There is nothing in the nature of an immediate creation here. It is one labor after another, until the growth from the original vibratory impulse has passed on to the perfect consummation in the perfect organ. It is the gradual drawing of the outline, and then the fill- ing in of the sketch, one line after another, until all has been made perfect. Slowly the center is built up from the original conception to the per- fect realization of the pattern residing in the Divine Archetype. All is exceeding fair. Noth- ing is out of line. Truly is the construction of a human organism a work of art, the art of the Divine Artificer. The measurements are per- fect. All the lines must be of exactly the correct length, so that the forces will have exactly the correct play, and no more. There must be no short circuiting in this matter. Also there must be no open circuits, every circuit must be closed, and the current must be exactly so much, and no more. Also, there must be no duplicates. Each and every part must have its separate work to per- form. Not only this, but the body must provide organs for the potential forces as well as for those active at the time of its construction. It must have rudimentary organs capable of later development in case of the arousing of forces not yet active in man. The future evolution of the soul must be provided for, in case it should outstrip the type to which it belongs. Seeing that the human organ- ism is so perfectly constructed, who is capable of such a work as this, save the Unmanifest God alone? The intermediate Powers are merely act- ing as the channels through which He works, but PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 53 the real source of those creative powers that do this great work, is to be found in the Unmanifest God alone. He makes all things that are made, through the exercise of the spontaneous creative potency of His Will Force. Man is made in the image of God in the sense that it is the active expression of the attributes of God that engender the forces that act upon the matter of the foetus in such a way as to evolve it into the complex organism that it is. It is those powers expressed through form, and all of its functions are but the correspondents of those Divine Powers function- ing through the diverse parts of the body. We are the Will of God expressed in form, and could not be other than what we are. This, however, does not apply to man alone, but to everything in existence. They are all the forms spontaneously engendered by the activity of the dynamic Will Force of God. The difference in the complexity of the structure is merely the means of determin- ing the difference in the degree of consciousness which it is possible for the organism to manifest. Thus we can see the living demonstration of the Unmanifest God in all forms of life that we see about us. 8. And no one saith a statue or a picture comes to be without a sculptor or without a painter; doth then such workmanship as this exist without a Worker? What depth of blindness, what deep impiety, what depth of ignorance! See [then] thou ne'er, son, Tat, deprivest works of Worker! Nay, rather is He greater than all names, so great is He, the Father of them all. For verily He is the Only One ; and this His work, to be a father. The argument here introduced is that of causa- tion. Every effect must have a corresponding 54 PHILOSOPHIA EERMETIGA cause. We have shown that all things in the uni- verse are works, that there is nothing but what has been constructed by an operative force, that nothing has come into being of itself, but that all things have been constructed. Any work presup- poses a worker. A human organism is just as much a work of art as is a statue; hence until statues come into being independent of sculptures, it is illogical to assume that men will come into being independent of that which constructs them. We have already shown how illogical it is to assume that the child is constructed by its parents, seeing that all the creative functions work along intelligent lines, and that every part of the body is perfectly adapted to the functioning of some force, and that it would be incomplete without each and every part. Now, one of two things must be true, either those functions are directed by the intelligence of the parents, or else the organs of the parents are made use of by a force exterior *to them, and hence the directing intelli- gence is outside of the parents. It cannot be the former, because there is not a man or woman upon the earth at the present time who knows the functions of all of the diverse parts of the body. This being the case, how can the human intelli- gence construct an organ adapted to the function- ing of some force, the function of which is abso- lutely unknown to the man or woman? The intel- ligence that directs the construction of a human organism is an intelligence superior to that of any man or woman who has ever lived, seeing that not yet has the human intelligence been able to master the mystery of human function. It will not do to say that this guiding intelligence is that of the soul about to reincarnate, for the simple reason that the intelligence of the soul previous to reincarnation is the same intelligence that it has posterior to such reincarnation. As the soul brings its intelligence into reincarnation, it would PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA 55 follow that if it had an intelligence capable of directing the formation of snch a body, it would know the mystery of perfect human functioning and would therefore be the master of the Art of Creation while living in the world, and there are no such beings, and never have been. If the intelli- gence directing the creation of the organism is not present in the father, the mother, or the soul preparing to reincarnate, it cannot be that this construction is wrought other than through the sexual organs of the father and mother, acting mechanically under the force of some super- human energy that is acting through them. All of our reasoning indicates that this force is in the last analysis, the energy of the Will Force of the TJnmanif est God, and hence His is the Intelligence guiding it in all of its operations. As this work of creation is a divine work, it follows of necessity that there must be a Divine Worker to perform this work, otherwise there would be an exception to the rule that there can never be a work per- formed without the operation of a worker adapted to the performing of that specific work. We must at all times realize that there can be no work without its proper Worker, and God, the One and Only One, is the worker in the final analysis of all works of whatever kind they may be. This God is the Father of all names, in that they have all come forth from Him. All the names have been generated within Ku and born from her, and hence God being the Father-Mother of all names is greater than them all, on the prin- ciple that the cause must ever be greater than the sum-total of all its effects. That which brings forth is greater than all that is brought forth of it. God is the Only One because there is naught else save that which has come forth from Him. That which has come forth from Him subsisted in Him before it came forth, and therefore, is there naught apart from Him which is not in Him; 56 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA therefore, that which was in Him, and came forth, is still in Him, hence it is still a part of Him; hence there is naught at all but Him ; hence is He the Only One. His work is to be a Father, in the sense that all of the motions of the Divine Essence are motions of creation and generation. In fact, the Essence of God is Pure Generation. No single Thought of the Mind can possibly fail to generate its counterpart, and hence all the Thoughts of the Mind are Generative. Other beings generate off- spring from time to time, but He is spontane- ously, simultaneously and incessantly generative throughout Eternity, and throughout the im- mensity of His Essence. His essence is that of absolute generation. His perpetual generation is that which perpetuates the Universe. Therefore, Fatherhood is not simply one of His attributes; it is His absolute Essence. God is therefore the Absolute Father-Mother of all that ever was, that is now or that will ever be; from beginnings boundless unto an endless end. The time never was when He failed to bring forth, and the time will never be when He will for an instant cease to bring forth. He is the All Father- All Mother through time and Eternity. 9. So, if thou f orcest me somewhat too bold, to speak, His being is conceiving of all things and making [them]. And without its maker it is impossible that anything should be, so ever is He not unless He ever makes all things, in heaven, in air, in earth, in deep, in all of cosmos, in every part that is and that is not of everything. For there is naught in all the world that is not He. He is Himself, both things that are and things that are not. The things that are He hath made manifest, He keepeth things that are not in Himself. PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 57 So, if thou forcest me somewhat too bold, to speak, His being is conceiving of all things and making [them]. The absolute being of God consists of a dual function; in the conceiving of everything, and in the making of that which has been conceived. This dual function is the result of His dual nature, Male-Female. These two natures are in the Mind, the masculine principle, which is incessantly en- gendering Thoughts, each one of which must con- ceive its active expression, and in Ku, the Divine Essence, Feminine. Thought acts upon Ku in such a way as to impart to Her an Intelligent Im- pulse, which is the act of conception, which is the only direct effect possible for a Divine Thought. Simultaneously with this conception or impulse of Ku engendered by the Thought of the Mind, the Divine Essence, or Ku responds to this im- pulse, and proceeds to make of Her own Essence that which corresponds to the Thought which has impregnated her with this Mental Germ of Life. When the Thought Conceived thing has been made in Ku it is expelled through the Centrifugal action of the Will Force, and thus being born into the Manifestation through the making func- tion of Ku the Mother, being, as it were, born out of the womb of Ku, it in a certain sense impreg- nates the Manifest God, and through the operation of Sekhet, the Formative Mind upon Isis, the Formative Hyle, it is given its highest form. Thus we have three steps in the process — Crea- tion, which is the Conception by the thought of tlie Mind; Making, which is the gestation and birth from Ku, and Formation, which is the mak- ing manifest through the formative action of Sekhet and Isis. In this way are all things made manifest. It is this dual being, as the universal Conceiver, masculine, Mind, and the universal Maker, feminine, Ku, which in reality constitutes 58 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A the Unmanifest God. He is nothing apart from this. This is He the Eternal Father-Mother. And as without its maker it is impossible that anything should be, so ever is He not un- less He ever makes all things, in heaven, in air, in earth, in deep, in all cosmos, in every part that is and that is not of everything. For there is naught in all the world that is not He. The being of God consists absolutely in the making of things. Divinity has absolutely no other functions. The Esse of the Mind is in the act of thinking. Were the Mind to cease to think, no matter for how short a period of time, the Mind would cease to be, for the Mind is nothing other than the perpetual sequence of Thought. The being of a Thought consists in its simultane- ous contact with Ku, and in the Impulse which It gives *to Her. It lives in that impulse, and would immediately become extinct were it not for that impulse in Ku in which it lives. The Esse of Ku is in Her response to the impulse of Thought, and in the simultaneous movement to make. In other words, Ku subsists in the act of making, and should She cease to make for the most infinitesimal period of time She would sim- ply become extinct. The Unmanifest God is, therefore, nothing other than the perpetual sequence of conceiving and making. That and that alone is the very Esse of the Unmanifest God. Everything, no matter on what Plane it may be, is in reality made in Ku. Things are made there and after being so made are projected or born into the Manifestation. Their being made manifest is in fact nothing other than their being born out of Ku. The manifest God is nothing other than the perpetual stream of such things being born out of Ku, before they have descended PHILOSOPHIA EEBMETICA 59 into kosmos. The Manifestation is the Zone of Formation. When formed in the Manifestation they pass out into the kosmos. All that is, and that is not, is made in Ku. Both the existent and the non-existent She makes in the depths of Her Maternal Essence. Hence there is naught in all the world that is not the Unmanifest God. The Manifest God is nothing other than the manifesta- tion of the Unmanifest God, and the kosmos is nothing other than the synthesis of the forms assumed by this same Divine Ku. Hence the world is not. It is the Unmanifest God made manifest and visible. He-She is the Energy, the Substance and the Form of the Universe and apart from God the One-and-Only One there is naught. He is Himself, both things that are and things that are not. The things that are He hath made manifest, He keepeth things that are not in Himself. Things that are not are simply those things in the process of making, but which are still con- tained within the depths of Ku. While they are still in the making, and are subsisting in Ku, they are Unmanifest, and are not, in the sense that they are as yet a part from Ku, not having as yet come forth into being as things rather than as Ku. When a thing has been made, when the process of its making has been perfected, and it has therefore been projected out from Ku, it is made manifest in that way. It now is, for it has attained being as a thing, and hence it begins its existence apart from the pure Esse of Ku. In that way does it become manifested. And yet those existent and manifested things are still Ku in the sense that they are made up of Ku, that being the Substance entering into them and noth- 60 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A ing else besides. They are at all times of the nature of Ku, but at the same time they have an individuality of their own. This, then, is the secret of the manifestation of things. It is the mystery of the individualization of Ku. Ku is the Universal and the Unity of the Divine Essence. When It has become particular, and differentiated, it is born forth into manifestation as things. These things are therefore the particularity of Ku coming forth into individual manifestation as things. Thus do we see the Unity of the Unmani- fest and of each and all of Its manifestations. LESSON V The Immanence of God 10. He is the God beyond all name ; He the unmanifest, He the most manifest; He whom the mind [alone] can contemplate, He visible unto the eyes [as well] ; He is the one of no body, the one of many bodies, nay, rather He of every body. Naught is there which He is not. For all are He and He is all. And for this cause hath He all names, in that they are one Father's. And for this cause hath He Himself no name, in that He's Father of [them] all. Who, then, may sing Thee praise of Thee, or [praise] to Thee? Whither, again, am I to turn my eyes to sing Thy praise; above, below, within, with- out? There is no way, no place [is there] about Thee, nor any other thing of things that are. All [are] in Thee; all are from Thee, Thou who givest all and takest naught, for Thou hast all and naught is there Thou hast not. He is the God beyond all name ; He the un- manifest, He the most manifest; He whom the mind [alone] can contemplate, He visible unto the eyes [as well] ; He is the one of no body, the one of many bodies, nay, rather He of every body. 62 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A This Unmanifest God is the God beyond all name ; for out of Ku have been born all the names, of names that are. All the Powers, all the Forces in kosmos have been particularized in Ku and have been projected from Her Maternal Depths. All the names, the Mystic Words, the Words of Power, the God Words, each and all have been conceived and made in the bosom of Ku, and hence, all names, without a single exception, being made there, and coming forth from there, no single name is left after the total of names have been taken as hav- ing come forth; hence no name is left for that which hath made all names; therefore, no name can be given to the Unmanifest God, seeing that He-She is source of all names, both jointly and severally; hence is He-She beyond all name. He is the unmanifest as we have seen, the one whose true Essence is never brought into manifestation, and yet is He the most manifest of all things con- ceivable, for, every single feature of the mani- festation is nothing other than a manifestation of that same Essence, which in itself ever remains concealed. The true Essence of this God can only be contemplated by the mind in the deepest of its Abstractions, as He does not present His Essence to the senses. He can in His Essence, only be con- templated in this way, and yet, in His Manifesta- tions, and the forms which they have assumed, we can see Him with the eyes; we can inspect Him through all the senses; and we can experi- ment with His physical expressions. In His pure Essence as Mind and Ku, He has no body what- soever. In the Manifestation, He has assumed many bodies, towit, those of all the Gods and the Powers, while in the kosmos He is to be seen in each and every body in existence, from the great- est to the most infinitesimal. In a word, there is nothing at all save God Unmanifest and this same God Immanent in all the forms that have em- anated from Him or rather Her. It is the Fern- PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 63 inine or Mother aspect, Ku, that sends forth all of these things into manifestation. Naught is there which He is not. For all are He and He is all And for this cause hath He all names, in that they are one Father's. And for this cause hath He Himself no name, in that He's Father of [them] all. Nowhere in all the universe is there that which we can speak of and say this is not God. There could not possibly be anything but God. There is no Intelligence that has not grown out of His Thought, hence there is no mind in all the Uni- verse save that which is the manifestation of His Mind. Apart from Him there is no Substance from which anything could have been made. All substance of whatever grade is but a modification of Her substance that is of Ku. There is nowhere any Energy save that which has come out of the Divine Energy through its diverse expressions and differentiations. There is no life save that which has come out of His life, no Intelligence save that which has emanated from His Mind, and no substance, save that which has come forth from Her Essence. Therefore, there is, and can never be anything in all the world save God and His Appearances, His expressions. All are He, and He is all. This soul-satisfying Pan-Theism is absolute, nothing else could possibly be true, it is the one true religion and philosophy for all ages and all races. He hath all names, because they have all come forth from Ku, having been engendered within Her. Also, the things to which we attach each and all of the names we use are in reality God. There being nothing that is not God, it follows that everything that exists is God, and therefore, all the things for which we have names are He, hence all names are names of Him. All 64 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA naines have one Father-Mother, and as they are given to that which is God, they are in reality the names of this one Father-Mother; therefore, every word that we can possibly use is a name of God. All the names that we can possibly use are the names of His differentiations and manifestations, and hence the Pleroma of names is exhausted by the Pleroma of the Manifestations of God; there- fore no name is there left for the Perfect Essence of the Father-Mother ; hence hath He Himself no name. As He is the Absolute, and names are for the relative distinctions, there can be no name for the Unrelativity of His Absoluteness. Who, then, may sing Thee praise of Thee, or [praise] to Thee? No one can ever praise this God beyond all name, for the simple reason that no one can ever in all eternity do justice to His Greatness. Noth- ing that we may say of Him is anything but slander. To attribute to Him certain attributes, is to deny to Him those not indicated, and this is to slander Him. To mention any of His charac- teristics, is to give greater importance to them than to the ones not mentioned, but all the char- acteristics of God are of equal importance. To say that He is all that is to slander Him, for it will indicate that we mean to limit God to all that there is, and that would be blasphemy. Words will not express His Fullness, and therefore it is impious to try to speak of Him. We cannot praise Him, because the inadequacy of all praise will render this very praise a slander. Naught but the silence can express this so great God. Praise Him not, but keep silence in His presence. Whether, again, am I to turn my eyes to sing Thy praise, above, below, within, with- out? PHILOSOPHIA EERMETICA 65 There is no way, no place is there about Thee, nor any other thing of things that are. The Bible says that God is in Heaven, bnt this is a manifest impiety, for it implies that that is the only place where He is to be found. Those who say that God is in the heart of man, are impious, for that localizes Him, and implies that He is not outside of the heart of man. It is im- pious to intimate that He is in any place or local- ity any more than in another, and it is equally impious to intimate that He is in all places and localities combined any more than He is in no locality at all. It was a grave impiety on the part of the Jews to say that God' dwelt in Jerusalem. It is a grave impiety on the part of the Moham- medans to face Mecca while praying, and in this way intimate that He is there more than at any other place. It is impious in the Christians to think that God is in the Churches in a sense that He is not also in the Saloon as well. To say that God is in the Altar in a different sense to that in which He is in the couch of the prostitute is a grave impiety, just as it is impious in the Catholio to think that He is in the Sacred Host any more than He is in the mortar of the mason. To God, there is no way, for He is the source and sustainer as well as the occupier of all ways. About Him there is no place, for He is the source, the founda- tion and the occupier of all places ; to Him there is no place. Of God no thing of all the things that are, is true. He is neither here nor there. He is neither now nor then. He is neither this nor that. He is neither existent nor non-existent. He is neither subsistent nor non-subsistent. He neither lives nor dies. He is neither mortal nor immortal. He is at once everything and nothing, and at the same time He is neither the one nor the other. He is unnamable, inexpressible, unconceiv- able, unthinkable. He is, He is not. 66 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA All [are] in Thee; all are from Thee, Tho\i who givest all and takest naught, for Thou hast all and naught is there Thou hast not. Everything subsists in God, there is nothing that is not forever in Him. At the same time everything exists from God. Everything has come forth out of Him by emanation. He is at once the container and the source of all. He gives all, because everything that is, must originate in Him and must be born forth from Him. As there is nothing but what has originated in Him, there is nothing that He has not given, and as He is at all times generating all things unto infinity, there is nothing that He requires of all those things which He has engendered. Therefore, it is stated that He has all, and there is nothing that He has not. All idea of worship in the sense of doing something for God is therefore manifestly impious, assuming as it does that man may do something for God, and hence by implication that there is something that God needs from man. As all is in God, He has all, and there is nothing that He has not al- ready, therefore, there is nothing that man can offer to Him. This leads to the conclusion that sacrifices are in reality an offense unto Him, see- ing that in the very nature of things, they indicate that man assumes that God has need of something that man can give to Him. This reminds one of the statement in the Old Testament, "Thy Offer- ings, thy Meat Offerings and thy Drink Offerings are an abomination unto Me, if I was hungry I would not ask thee, for the cattle on a thousand hills are mine." It is quite evident that the re- ligion taught here by the Prophet is quite different from that taught by Moses. The conclusion is un- avoidable, that the original Jewish religion was that of devotion to one of the lesser gods, and that PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 67 the Prophet was here undertaking to transform the religion into the worship of the God beyond all name. In other words, it marked the introduc- tion of Hermeticism into the fabric of Judaism. Wherever we see Eitualism discounted in favor of a spiritual life, we see the influence of this Be- ligion of the Mind. All is His, therefore, we can give Him nothing, as it is already His. We can- not praise Him, seeing that all possible praise is totally inadequate to do Him justice. The only possible service that we can render Him is to manifest His perfection in our life, hence, a godly life is the only service that can possibly be ren- dered to Him. 11. And when, Father, shall I hymn Thee ? For none can seize Thy hour or time. For what, again, shall I sing hymn? For things that Thou hast made, or things Thou hast not? For things Thou hast made mani- fest, or things Thou hast concealed? How, further, shall I hymn Thee? As be- ing of myself? As having something of mine own? As being other? For that Thou art whatever I may be ; Thou art whatever I may do ; Thou art whatever I may speak. For Thou art all, and there is nothing else which Thou art not. Thou art all that which doth exist, and Thou art what doth not exist, — Mind when Thou thinkest, the Father when Thou makest, and God when Thou dost ener- gize, and Good and Maker of all things. And when, Father shall I hymn Thee? For none can seize Thy hour or time. Here we have the principle laid down that there is no set time in which devotion is to be paid to the 68 PHILOSOPHIA EEBMETICA Father. He functions not in time. All times are the resuft of the manifestation, and hence do not apply to Him. Also, all times have been engendered from Him, hence they originate from Him ; and subsist in Him ; therefore, they are all alike His. For Him there can be no Holy Days, no Sacred Times, no hour of prayer, no Sabbath Days. All days and hours are alike Plis and alike to Him. There can be no time more appropriate than another to pay adoration to Him. All such distinctions apply to the lesser gods, but not to the Father. It follows therefore, that the sacredness of all times and seasons is a part of the service of the gods, and perfectly proper in their service, but that it does not apply to the worship of the Father-Mother. As He is alike in all times, being beginningless and endless, it follows that His service must be also without beginning and without end. Doubtless this was the meaning of the statement of our Brother Saul, that we should pray without ceas- ing, meaning that our devotion must be one con- tinual adoration of the All Father-Mother. For what, again, shall I sing hymn? For things that Thou hast made, or things Thou hast not? For things Thou hast made mani- fest, or things Thou hast concealed? What are we to praise Him for? We can only praise Him relatively, that is, for something in contradistinction to something else. Which is the most important, those things He has made, or the things that are latent in Him, and that have not as yet assumed individuality? For which should we be most grateful, those things that have come forth into the manifestation, or those things that abide within the unmanifest side of His Being? In the first place, we do not know, and in the second place it would be a manifest impiety for us PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 69 to assume that one aspect of the Absolute God is of more importance than another. He is One, not many, and to discriminate between the diverse as- pects of His Divinity is to destroy His Unity, which is equivalent to His destruction. Such a deed would be equivalent to Theoside, or the mur- der of God ! Such discrimination is therefore, the blackest blasphemy possible. Therefore, do not praise Him for anything. He is, and that is all that we can say ! How, further, shall I hymn Thee? As be- ing of myself? As having something of mine own? As being other? How are we to sing His praises ? As being like unto us, or as being different from us ? Are we to praise Him because of the human attributes which He has, or is it to be because of His non-human attributes? All of our attributes are in Him and have come out from Him, and from Him did we obtain them; hence, to praise Him for being like unto us, is merely to praise Him for being Him- self ! Also, the non-human attributes are in Him and have been born from Him, and therefore, if we praise Him for being unlike us we praise Him for merely being like unto Himself. At the same time, if we praise Him for being unlike us, we praise Him for being unlike Himself, but how can any one be unlike himself? If we praise Him for being like unto us, we set up His likeness unto us, as in contrast to His unlikeness to us, and this makes Him inconsistent with Himself, which means to destroy His perfection as well as His Unity, which would be a grave impiety. There- fore, there is no way in which we can praise Him without being guilty of a grave impiety; there- fore, hearken to this eleventh commandment, "Thou shalt not praise the Lord thy God, for in 70 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA the day that thou doest this thou shalt be guilty of blasphemy against the Most High." For that Thou art whatever I may be ; Thou art whatever I may do ; Thou art whatever I may speak. The being of man can never be anything other than the individualization of certain attributes of God. He is nothing apart from this ; hence God is all that any of us are, and therefore, we have no existence apart from Him. In ourselves we are absolutely nothing. The recognition of this truth is the true self-abnegation. Self-denial is nothing other than the affirmation of God. Man in himself does nothing. All his actions are in reality the mode of God's attributes expressing themselves under the terms of motion and rest. All of our acts are acts of God. Apart from Him, and in ourselves we do nothing. This was the message of the Great Master Jesus. We do nothing, God works in us. This is the true doctrine of non- action. All words come forth from Him, are en- gendered within Him and are brought forth into manifestation. We can never speak a word that has not previously been spoken by Him ; therefore, we speak no word, His words speak through us; hence, it is God who speaks and not us. No word was ever spoken by anyone save God alone, as it is Him speaking in all. The recognition of this truth is the true secret of Quietism, and the Vow of Silence. For Thou art all, and there is nothing else Thou art not. Thou art all that which doth exist, and Thou art what doth not exist, — Mind when Thou thinkest, and Father when Thou makest, and God when Thou dost ener- gize, and Good and Maker of all things. PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 71 God is all, and there is nothing of all the things that are, that ever have been, or that will ever be, that He is not. Every single thing that has ever been, or that is, or that will ever be, has been engendered and made within Him, is but a partial individualization of Him, and in it He continues to abide so long as it exists. There is not one thing which is not He. Hence there is noth- ing of which we may not truly say, this is God. He is all that exists, for the reason that all exist- ing things have been conceived and made within Him, and have been born forth from Her, and thus begin their period of existence. He is all that does not exist, because those things that do not as yet exist, have been conceived and made within the Divine Depths, and having not as yet been born forth into existence continue to subsist in Her, or else they are in process of conception and making; hence, is He both that which exists and that which' does not exist, but subsists within Him. In His thinking He is the Mind; for all Thoughts origi- nate in this Mind; it being the true source of all intelligence. In His making, He is the Father and the Mother of all; for all that ever comes into being is conceived of the Mind and made in Ku; hence, is He the Father-Mother in His capacity of the maker of all things, and no one thing comes into being apart from this making by the Father- Mother. He is God in His capacity as the ener gizer of all that is made. All Life, all Energy, all "Will Force is His ; it is in fact, the action of His Will Force entering into all the things that are made that in them becomes in them, Life, Energy and Will. The life of anything is His Life func- tioning in it. The energy of anything is His energy functioning in it. The Will of anything, is His Will Force functioning in it. In the act of energizing all things, is He God. As the energizer and at the same time the energy of the universe both universally and particularly, He is God. He 72 PEILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A is Good, for there is nothing Good save He-She alone\ and is the Maker of all things, because all things are made in Ku; hence, there is nothing which this so Great God hath not made. What is there that He is not? In reality it is a mistake to say that He has created anything. This term is misleading. He-She is the Father-Mother of all things ; and all things of whatever kind and degree are His-Her children, conceived of the Father and born of the Mother. How then can we serve this so great God? Only with the mind. We can but contemplate His Greatness, and seek to compre- hend Him as clearly as possible. Through this contemplative study of the Divine Principle, and in the adoration of His perfections, we may serve Him. Also, by doing all in our power to in- dividualize His attributes, and thus ensoul His Nature. Service of Him must be in our becoming like unto Him. Therefore, there is but one way to serve GooJ; by treading the Old, Old Path of De- votion joined with Gnosis. (For that the subtler part of matter is the air, of air the soul, of soul the mind, and of mind, God.) Here we have the relationship between the di- verse aspects of the unity of the whole. God is the ultimate Divine Essence. It abides within the Mind, which it uses as a Vehicle through which it manifests itself in its action on all beneath it. Mind dwells within Soul, permeating it through and through, and manifesting through it. In this way is mind permitted to act through the medium of soul upon the air. Subtle air dwells within matter, which it permeates and makes use of as its Vehicle and thereby is able to manifest in action on matter and all material forms. We might say that the objective world is the Gross PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 73 Body of the One. The Matter is its Etheric Count- erpart. Air is the connecting principles between this and the soul. Soul is the soul, and Mind is the Spirit, while God is the Self or Ego hidden within the Spirit. Thus there is but one Being in which all that is, presents itself as some essential part of the one great whole. This sublime truth was vaguely hinted at in the statement in the poem, "All things are one harmonious whole, whose body nature is, and God the soul." While the poem states the truth rather crudely, and Hermes gives it with all of the grandiose force of our Sacred Philosophy, yet in essence the mean- ing is the same. This is the true Pan-Theism, or Omni-Theism more correctly speaking. PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA In God Alone Is Good and Elsewhere Nowhere. (Text: G. R. S. Mead; Thrice Greatest Her- mes; Corpus Hermeticum (VII) ; G. Par- they, Hermetis Trismegisti, 48-53; Pat- rizzi, Nova de Universis Philosophia, 14a- 15a.) 1. Good,0 Asclepios,is in none else save God alone ; nay, rather, Good is God Himself eter- nally. If it be so, [Good] must be essence, from every kind of motion and becoming free (though naught is free from It), possessed of stable energy around Itself, never too little, nor too much, an ever-full supply. [Though] one, yet [is It] source of all; for what sup- plieth all is Good. When I, moreover, say [supplieth] altogether [all], it is for ever Good. But this belongs to no one else save God alone. For He stands not in need of anything, so that desiring it He should be bad; nor can a single thing. of things that are be lost to Him, on losing which He should be pained, for pain is part of bad. Nor is there aught superior to Him, that He should be subdued by it; nor any peer to Him to do Him wrong, or [so that] He should fall in love on its account; nor aught that gives no ear to Him, whereat He should grow angry; nor wiser aught, for Him to envy. 76 PHILOSOPHIA EERMETICA 2. Now as all these are non-existent in His beings what is there left but Good alone? For just as naught of bad is to be found in such transcendent Being, so too in no one of the rest will Good be found. For in them all are all the other things — both in the little and the great, both in each severally and in this living one that's greater than them all and mightiest [of them]. For things subject to birth abound in pas- sions, birth in itself being passible. But where there's passion, nowhere is there Good; and where is Good, nowhere a single passion. For where is day, nowhere is night; and where is night, day is nowhere. Wherefore, in genesis the Good can never he, but only be in the ingenerate. But seeing that the sharing in all things hath been bestowed on matter, so doth it share in Good. In this way is the Cosmos good ; that, in so far as it doth make all things, as far as mak- ing goes it's Good, but in all other things it is not Good. For it's both passible and sub- ject unto motion, and maker of things pas- sible. 3. Whereas in man by greater or by less of bad is good determined. For what is not too bad down here, is good ; and good down here is the least part of bad. It cannot, therefore, be that good down here should be quite clean of bad, for down here good is fouled with bad; and being fouled, it stays no longer good, and staying not it changes into bad. In God alone, is, therefore, Good, or rather Good is God Himself. PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 11 So, then, Asclepios, the name alone of Good is found in men, the thing itself nowhere [in them], for this can never be. For no material body doth contain It, — a thing bound on all sides by bad, by labors, pains, desires and passions, by error and by foolish thoughts. And greatest ill of all, Asclepios, is that each of these things that have been said above, is thought down here to be the greatest good. And what is still an even greater ill, is belly-lust, the error that doth lead the band of all the other ills — the thing that makes us turn down here from Good. 4. And I, for my own part, give thanks to God, that He hath cast it in my mind about the Gnosis of the Good, that it can never be, It should be in the world. For that the world is "fullness" of the bad, but God of Good, and Good of God. The excellencies of the Beautiful are round the very essence [of the Good] ; nay, they do seem too pure, too unalloyed; perchance 'tis they that are themselves Its essence. For one may dare to say, Asclepios, — if es- sence, sooth, He have — God's essence is the Beautiful ; the Beautiful is further also Good. There is no Good that can be got from ob- jects in the world. For all the things that fall beneath the eye are image-things and pictures as it were ; while those that do not meet [the eye are the realities], especially the [essence] of the Beautiful and Good. Just as the eye cannot see God, so can it not behold the Beautiful and Good. For that they are integral parts of God, wedded to Him 78 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A alone, inseparate familiars, most beloved, with -whom God is Himself in love, or they with God. 5. If thou canst God conceive, thou shalt conceive the Beautiful and Good, transcend- ing Light, made lighter than the Light by God. That Beauty is beyond compare, inimi- tate that Good, e'en as God is Himself. As, then, thou dost conceive of God, con- ceive the Beautiful and Good. For they can- not be joined with aught of other things that live, since they can never be divorced from God. Seek'st thou for God, thou seekest for the Beautiful. One is the Path that leadeth unto It — Devotion joined with Gnosis. 6. And thus it is that they who do not know and do not tread Devotion's Path, do dare to call man beautiful and good, though he have ne'er e'en in his visions seen a whit that's Good, but is enwrapped with every kind of bad, and thinks the bad is good, and thus doth make unceasing use of it, and even feareth that it should be ta'en from him, so straining every nerve not only to preserve but even to increase it. Such are the things that men call good and beautiful, Asclepios, — things which we cannot flee or hate; for hardest thing of all is that we've need of them and cannot live without them. LESSON VI. The Nature of the Good. 1. Good, Asclepios, is in none else save God alone; nay, rather, Good is God Himself eternally. If it be so, [Good] must be essence, from every kind of motion and becoming free (though naught is free from It), possessed of stable energy around Itself, never too little, nor too much, an ever-full supply. [Though] one, yet [is it] source of all; for what sup- plieth all is Good. When I, moreover, say [supplieth] altogether [all], it is for ever Good. But this belongs to no one else save God alone. For He stands not in need of anything, so that desiring it He should be bad; nor can a single thing of things that are be lost to Him, on losing which He should be pained ; for pain is part of bad. Nor is there aught superior to Him, that He should be subdued by it; nor any peer to Him to do Him wrong, or [so that] He should fall in love on its account; nor aught that gives no ear to Him, whereat he should grow angry; nor wiser aught, for Him to envy. Good, Asclepios, is none else save God alone, nay, rather, Good is God Himself eter- nally. There is no such distinction as Good and God, they are svnonyrnous terms. Good is the nature 79 80 PHILOSOPHIA EEBMETICA of the essence of God, and it exists nowhere else save in God alone. Goodness is simply another name~f or Divinity or Godness. Therefore, when we speak of Good we should understand that we are merely saying God. Good being identical with God Himself, an understanding of the nature of God will give us an understanding of the nature of the Good. At the same time it is to be understood that the Good is merely one aspect of the nature of God. God is the Mind, He is the Father, and He is also God and then He is Good. Good is in a certain sense the Moral side of the Mother aspect of God. However, this Moral aspect of the Motherhood of God, must be understood in a much more comprehensive sense than that which we apply to morality in the accepted sense of the term. We have already seen the nature of God as the Mind, the Father and as God. His nature as the Good is yet to be explained. We must now see the nature of our Good Mother ; therefore, lend thine «ear and open thy heart that I may expound to this the holy mystery of the Goodness of the Mother ! If it be so, [Good] must be essence, from every kind of motion and becoming free (though naught is free from It), possessed of stable energy round itself, never too little, nor too much, an ever-full supply. [Though] one, yet [is it] source of all; for what sup- plieth all is Good. When I, moreover, say [supplieth] altogether [all], it is for ever Good. But this belongs to no one else save God alone. Good will have to be an essence, seeing that it is an aspect of the Unmanifest God. The Divine Essence is Ku; and hence, the mystery of the Good, is none other than the mystery of Ku. Ku PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 81 is the Feminine and Maternal Essence of the Divine Principle. This essence is perfectly free within itself. Every possible motion transpires within its depths, and yet it is controlled by none of those motions; for the reason that when the cycle of each motion has been completed, the es- sence returns into the passive state once again. After each cycle of motion, it returns to the state of rest. Yet, while it has the power to become free from all of its motions, nothing can ever be free from the absolute control of this Essence, seeing that all things are made by it, and that nothing can ever come into being apart from its operations. This Ku is possessed of stable energy which completely surrounds It, so that all of Its motions are confined within this wall of energy. Its motions take place within Its depths, not on Its outer rim; hence, all the actions of Ku are con- cealed, and can never be approached. The mystery of the Womb of Ku can never be violated by either gods or men, even the Father respects its sacred seclusion. This zone of stable energy is at all times exactly sufficient to confine the sphere of activity and motion and rest, and also feed it so that substance will at all times be provided for making of all things. This Ku is an absolute Unity. It is not composed of elements but is in Itself one Simple Element absolutely indivisible in its nature. It is this Essence that supplies sub- stance and energy to all things that ever come into being. In this way is It the one and only source of everything. Because It is the source that makes all, and that supplies to all, the completion of its substance and energy, is It termed Good, seeing that all comes from It. As It derives assistance from nothing else, but is absolutely self-sufficient in Itself, is It of the nature of Good, lacking noth- ing. Because It supplieth altogether all, the time can never be that anything should ever be sup- plied by anything apart for this Ku; and hence, 82 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA is She forever Good. If Ku was thus absolutely self-sufficient, and everything of all that is, was absolutely dependent upon Her for its very sub- sistence, there would be no place for God, as She would be entirely independent of Him and could of Herself do all that God can do, verily She is God. For He stands not in need of anything, so that desiring it He should be bad ; nor can a single thing of things that are be lost to Him, on losing which He should be pained; for pain is part of bad. Unfortunately, the masculine gender is used in the text when speaking of the Good, which is in- correct, seeing that the Good is nothing other than the Divine Essence which is Ku, the Mother ; and therefore, we will restore the feminine gender, as is should be and whenever speaking of Ku we will say She, but when speaking of the Mind we will say He. She stands not in need of anything be- cause everything that ever comes into being is made by Her ; and as She can of Her own Essence make all things unto Infinity, did She need any- thing, she would spontaneously make it. In this way, She can never stand in need of anything. She can never desire anything ; because of the fact that there is nothing that has not been made in Her, and it ever remains in Her even after it has been born forth into existence, it still subsists in Her; therefore, there is never at any time, any thing of all things that are that is not in Her. Therefore, She can never desire anything because of the fact that all things are in Her. Her infinite capacity to make, means that there is not any possible thing that She does not make; Her making being in- finite, and hence, She can desire nothing. She cannot be bad, because She lacketh nothing to PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 83 make Her perfect and whole. All limitation is bad, but as She is absolutely unlimited, She cannot be bad; therefore is She the perfect and absolute Good forever. A single thing of things that are can never be lost to Her, because of the fact that everything that has been born into existence, yet subsists in Her; hence, nothing can ever be lost to Her. Hence, She can never lose anything, be- cause all things are perpetually present in Her. Therefore, She can never suffer pain, by being separated from anything that is Hers. Pain is part of bad, but as She is in Herself perfectly and completely self-sufficient, She can never suffer pain from the absence of anything, seeing that nothing can ever be absent from Her; therefore is She without pain; and therefore is She Good, being without the bad condition of pain. Nor is there aught superior to Him, that He should be subdued by it; nor any peer to Him to do Him wrong, or [so that] he should fall in love on its account; nor aught that gives no ear to Him, whereat He should grow angry; nor wiser aught, for Him to envy. Inasmuch as all things are made by Her, and continue to exist only because She continues to sustain them, and there is nothing of all that is but owes its existence completely to Her ; there can be nothing having greater power than She ; hence, nothing can ever subdue Her, or in the slightest degree influence Her. She controlls all, but is controlled by nothing; therefore is She Good; for it is bad to be subject to anything apart from oneself. As all power originates in Her, and re- mains in Her; there being no power but Hers, She can suffer no injury at all, and hence She can never be wronged in the slightest degree. As all power is Hers no one has any power apart from 84 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMET1CA Her; hence, She has no peer. In this is She Good, for it is bad, if any one is able to exercise any power against you of which you have not at all times perfect control. As She stands alone, and all existence is due to Her, and in fact remains in Her, She can see nothing apart from Herself, as there is nothing apart from Herself for Her to see ; therefore, there is nothing with which She can ever fall in love. It is very bad to be in love ; for the one in love, is no longer self-sufficient even in his happiness, for it now depends upon the wishes of his loved one ; and no one is fortunate who de- pends upon any one or anything outside of himself for his happiness. In this She is Good, because there is nothing but Herself for Her to consider, and in this She is Good. As all things that are are the production of Herself and have been made by Her, their nature and their will is the product of Hers, and hence, there is nothing having the capac- ity to will different from Her; hence, no one has the power to disobey Her. All must express Her will at all times. As no thing is able to do other than as She wills, they cannot do other than please Her; hence, it is impossible for Her to ever grow angry. In fact, as there is no existence apart from Her, there is nothing at which She may bcome angry. All wisdom is engendered within Her, and flows forth from Her, hence there is no wisdom in all existence save Her wisdom; therefore, all the wisdom that all things may have is possessed in common with Her, and it is in fact, Her wisdom and not theirs and as no one can know anything that She does not know there is nothing in all the universe for Her to envy. Therefore is She ab- solutely Good, seeing that it would be impossible for Her to ever become any better. This is the essence of Goodness, that one cannot possibly be any better than one is already. Ku is Good be- cause She cannot possibly be any better than She is already and also, because it would be impossible PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 85 for Her to ever lose any of the goodness that She has, and thus become worse. To be in no possible danger of losing any portion of one's Goodness, and to be so Good that the addition of any amount of Goodness could not possibly add to the present sum of one's Goodness is to be the Pleroma of the perfect Good. To be this is to be Good indeed. As Ku is all this to Infinity, She is absolutely Good. Therefore, is She the Good. She is thus the Moral aspect of the Divinity. She is the Mother of all, and in this rests Her Goodness, that She is the Infinite Mother of ail possible things, thus is She the self-sufficient Mother the Good. Attribute Goodness to no one save Mother Ku; for if thou dost thou wilt be guilty of a very grave impiety; for thou wilt have said that there is another absolute. Mother save the One Absolute Mother. This will necessitate comparison between the two, and that will be equivalent to the denial of the Absoluteness of the Mother. To deny Her absoluteness, is to deny Her as the Mother of all, and hence, as thy Mother; which is equivalent to the destruction of the Mother ; and this would be Matricide, and the Matricide of the Good Mother Herself, of Immortal Ku, the Good. This will be morally equivalent to the destruction of the Good, and hence, to the banishing of Good from the whole universe and that which is back of it. See that thou be not guilty of this fearful crime; therefore, call not anything Good but the Good. There is no Good but the Good. There is no Good but the Mother. There is no Good but Ku. There is no Good but God. See that thou never separate Good from God. They are one and never are they twain. Good and God is One. Thus my son, do I initiate thee into the Gnosis of the Good ; and the Gnosis of the Good is the Gnosis of Ku; which is the Wisdom of God; and this is the Intuition of the Mother. This is also the Religion of the Mind. See, therefore, that thou shalt never of this 86 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA Holy Gnosis fail; for this is the Gnosis that will lead thee, my son, directly to the Maternal Heart of Heaven and to the Good Mother's love. All Good is of Her; all Good is in Her, and in Her only canst thou find the Good. Seek it not else- where; for if so, thou wouldst impious and un- dutiful be. 1 LESSON VII. The Pleroma of the Bad. 2. Now as all these are non-existent in His being, what is there left but Good alone? For just as naught of bad is to be found in such transcendent Being, so too in no one of the rest will Good be found. For in them all are all the other things — both in the little and the great, both in each severally and in this living one that's greater than them all and mightiest [of them]. For things subject to birth abound in pas- sions, birth in itself being passible. But where there's passion, nowhere is there Good; and where is Good, nowhere a single passion. For where is day, nowhere is night; and where is night, day is nowhere. Wherefore in genesis the Good can never he, but only be in the ingenerate. But seeing that the sharing of all things hath been bestowed on matter, so doth it share in Good. In this way is the Cosmos good, that, in so far as it doth make all things, as far as mak- ing goes it's Good, but in all other things it is not Good. For it's both passible and sub- ject unto motion, and maker of things pas- sible. Now as all these are non-existent in His being, what is there left but Good alone? All of the things which are of the nature of bad 87 88 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA having been enumerated and all of them having been seen to be absent from the being of God, it follows that the sum-total of the bad having been eliminated from Her, that which remains is of the nature of the Good ; hence, there is in God or Ku nothing but Good. If so, then She is the Pleroma of the Good, but if so, the fullness of the Good being in Her, there can be no part of Good left for anything else; hence, all Good having been contained within Her, nothing else but bad will be left; therefore, all that has been born out from Her must be bad. The entire realm below Her must, therefore, be the Pleroma of the Bad as She is the Pleroma of the Good. If the world without Her is the Pleroma of the bad, then it contains the fullness of the bad, and hence, there will not be left a single bad thing which it does not con- tain ; therefore, there can be no bad thing in Her ; hence, She is absolutely Good. • For just as naught of bad is to be found in such transcendent Being, so too in no one of the rest will Good be found. The very principle of Good can only be found in Ku. As we have shown, the Good is absolutely dependent upon those conditions which cannot pos- sibly subsist in anything other than in the Ab- solute Divine Essence, and were those conditions which are essential to the very constitution of the Good present in anything else, they would of necessity constitute it the Pleroma of the at- tributes of the Divine Essence, and hence, it would be the Divine Essence. This would mean that there were two Absolute Divine Essences ; but if so, there would be no Absolute Divine Essence, seeing that there can be but one Absolute any- thing. Thus the Divine Essence itself would be destroyed. However, we have shown that nothing PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 89 can exist, except it be made in the Divine Essence ; therefore, this Divine Essence is; hence, nowhere else can Good be found. For in them all are all the other things — both in the little and the great, both in each severally and in this living one that's greater than them all and mightiest [of them]. In ail the Manifestation and the Kosmos below it, are to be found all the things not Good, all the things that are lacking in or absent from Ku. As those things being absent is what constitutes Ku Good, it follows that their presence in the Mani- festation and in the Kosmos constitutes it bad, seeing that it is filled with innumerable bad things. This is true both of the greatest and of the small- est parts of it, and of all the intermediary stages between these two extremes. This is true of them all each taken severally and also in the living one, the hylic animal, the Kosmos as a single life or a living creature, in other words, the Kosmos as a whole, as a unit, and also every separate part of it, is bad in all of its attributes. Great and mighty as is the Kosmos, it is essentially bad, because of the fact that the forces that animate it and that cause its diverse transformations are each and all of the nature of bad, and not one of them, par- takes of the nature of the Good. For things subject to birth abound in pas- sions, birth in itself being passible. But where there's passion, nowhere is there Good, and where is Good, nowhere a single pas- sion. For where is day, nowhere is night, and where is night, day is nowhere. All things that are subject to birth abound in passion, birth in itself being through pas- 90 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA sion. All genesis being through passion. All things generated being generated through pas- sion. For this reason, nothing generated can possibly be Good, seeing that it is passion that has generated them. All things that have been generated through the action of passion, have embodied the passions that have generated them and thus partake of those passions. Where there is passion there can be no such thing as Good. All bad things are the result of passion. Passion can never lead to the Good. Passion and the Good are as far asunder as are the poles as distinct as the opposition of day and night. Not one Good thing ever came through passion. In fact, the Good can never be generated. This is of course, true seeing that the Good is self-exist ent; hence, the Good having to be self -existent to be Good, it cannot be generated by something else, seeing that if it was, it would lose its character of self-existence, and hence, would no longer be Good, out would be bad. Thus because being gen- erated, the fruitage of generation, badness would inhere in it. In this way it is to be seen that all things that have come into being through genesis that is everything that has been generated by something else, which means the entire Kosmos and everything that is in it, will be bad per se. Wherefore, in genesis the Good can never be, but only be in the ingenerate. The Good can never be generated, it must at all times be in that which has never been generated; hence, in the ingenerate. The Good can never come into being, seeing that to do so, it will de- pend upon that which brought it into being and the very Esse of the Good is to be dependent upon nothing but itself. God cannot make any- thing Good, He can only be the Good. As the Good must be sufficient unto Itself, and needing PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 91 nothing from anything except Itself, It can depend npon nothing for anything and still be Good. Thus it is to be seen at once that only the ingenerate, that is that which enjoys endless and beginningless duration within itself and of its own power, can ever be Good. Thus God alone is Good. The Kosmos, both in itself and in each and all of its parts is bad, seeing that it has an engendered existence, and that it came into being, not of itself and through the exercise of its own power, but through the power of God. Being the work of God and not of itself, it is bad. God can do no Good deed, He can only be Good in Himself. The Good can never be engendered. But seeing that the sharing in all things hath been bestowed on matter, so doth it share in Good. While God alone is the One in whom Absolute Good is to be found, yet has God constituted mat- ter so that it will mirror and reflect all of His attributes. In this way, is the Goodness of God reflected and mirrored in matter. It has a re- flected Good, but not a positive Good as has Ku. Matter has a portion of Good, an element of Good reflected in it, but its true nature is bad and this reflected Good is dominated by the inherent bad. While the Good is but mirrored in matter, the bad is inherently present in it. In this way is the Cosmos Good ; that, in so far as it doth make all things, as far as mak- ing goes it's Good, but in all other things it is not Good. For it's both passible and sub- ject unto motion, and maker of things pas- sible. The Kosmos is Good in so far as it makes all things. It is Good in its capacity as the Maker, but in so far as it is made it is bad. The Kosmos 92 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA is made by Ku, and therefore, is it the creature of genesis, and of passion and in that is it bad. At the same time, the Kosmos as the living one, generates the things which it contains, and in this respect it is Good. In other words, anything is Good in what it generates, inasmuch as it has power over it, but it is bad in so far as it is subject to generation, and hence, to the power of the one who generates it. Inasmuch as it is passible and subject unto motion, and therefore, the creature and subject of what is above it, it is bad, but in- asmuch as it is capable of making other things pas- sible and subjecting them unto its motions is it Good. All situations in which it is the Creator render it Good, but in all cases where it is created by Ku, it is bad. This gives us a perfect criterion by which we can determine the Good and the bad that may be in anything. All things are Good in so far as they engender something else as their creatures, but they are bad in so far as they are engendered by something else. Therefore, bad- ness consists in being subject to, and dependent upon something outside itself, while Goodness con- sists in having something subject to it and de- pendent upon it for its existence. To illustrate, women are Good in so far as they give birth to children, but they are all bad in so far as they have been born of woman, and therefore, owe their life to their having been born. Goodness then is nothing other than the measure of one's power, while badness is nothing other than the measure of the foreign power to which one may be subject. The Kosmos then is a mixture of Good and bad ; Good in so far as it is the generator of things, and bad in so far as it is being generated ; Good in so far as things are subject unto it, but bad in so far as it is itself subject unto the Will of God and unto the generative potency of Ku. On the other hand, PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 93 Ku is absolutely Good, because while being gener- ated by nothing and owing Her existence or rather being, to nothing at all, She is the Generatrix and the Maker of all, even the Kosmos itself. LESSON VIII. The Inherent Badness of Man. 3. Whereas in man by greater or less of bad is good determined. For what is not too bad down here, is good ; and good down here is the least part of bad. It cannot therefore, be that good down here should be quite clean of bad, for down here good is fouled with bad, and being fouled, it stays no longer good, and staying not it changes into bad. In God alone, is, therefore, Good, or rather Good is God Himself. So then, Asclepios, the name alone of Good is found in men, the thing itself nowhere [in them], for this can never be. For no material body doth contain It, — a thing bound on all sides by bad, by labors, pains, desires and passions, by error and by foolish thoughts. And greatest ill of all, Asclepios, is that each of these things that have been said above, is thought down here to be the great- est good. And what is still an even greater ill, is belly-lust, the error that doth lead the band of all the other ills — the thing that makes us turn down here from Good. Whereas in man by greater or by less of bad is good determined. For what is not too bad down here, is good ; and good down here is the least part of bad. 95 96 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA In man there is no such thing as Absolute Good, or as the Pure Good, as is the case in God. Mian is at all times made up of a blending of Good and bad. The goodness or the badness of a man is merely a matter of the percentage of each that is present in his makeup. In him, goodness is merely relative. If the good is greater in percentage than the bad, he is called a good man, while if the per- centage of badness is greater than that of goodness he is called a bad man. There are no absolutely good men, or absolutely bad men. The good man is relatively good, while the bad man is relatively bad. We speak only in relative terms when we speak of the Good that is down here. "We can never attribute absolute Good to anything save God alone. It cannot, therefore, be that good down here should be quite clean of bad, for down here -good is fouled with bad, and being fouled, it stays no longer good, and staying not it changes into bad. Down here, in the material world and in the kosmos generally, good can never be quite clean of bad. The Good that is in the world does not remain pure, but blends with the bad. The two do not remain separate but unite, for the purpose of kosmic evolution, so that those aspects of the kosmos that are in themselves good, become through their action in conjunction with bad, of the nature of bad themselves. This union of the bad with the good, tends to foul the good so that it stays no longer good, but through the manifesta- tion of the elements of the bad, things good, be- come bad in time. This will be readily understood when we realize that the only function of kosmos is its making of things, and as all the things which it makes are bad things ; the making of those bad PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 97 things, will in course of time transform the making process so that it will also become bad. In this way is it that the good in kosmos becomes thor- oughly bad, so far as all practical purposes are concerned. In God alone, is, therefore, Good, or rather Good is God Himself. Look not for the Good in anything save only God alone. There only is the making uninfluenced by the thing made. There only is the making free from all other influences. Good is the nature of God, and hence, nothing which is not God can pos- sibly be Good. Also bear in mind that it is only in God Unmanifest that Good is to be found. It abides not in the Manifest God even. So then, Asclepios, the name alone of Good is found in men, the thing itself nowhere [in them], for this can never be. Man speaks the name of Good, because he ever holds the ideal of Good. Were it not for this ideal, man would go to pieces in no time. It is this ideal of Good that molds the human race along moral lines. Were this ideal to become lost, man would sink into animalism at once. All the forces of an uplifting nature in human society are the expressions of that longing after the perfect Good that are ever present in the human heart. At the same time, we must bear in mind that this ideal for the Good is one utterly unattainable on the part of man. His work is to seek after the Good, but never to find it. It is the quest for the Good that elevates him, though he never finds it, he purges out a certain amount of the bad which ever en- cumbers his nature. At the same time it must be borne in mind, that no one ever lives a good life. 98 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA He can never practice the good, lie can only love it, and admire it as the most desirable of all things conceivable, but to actually realize it, is utterly impossible. But while the realization of the Good can never be, yet the seeking after it, is the means of all the uplift of soul that is possible here below. For no material body doth contain it, — a thing bound on all sides by bad, by labors, pains, desires and passions, by error and by foolish thoughts. The Good can never be contained within a ma- terial body. It is foolish to think that any religion or philosophy will enable any one while living in a material body to attain the Good. It is impossible for any one to do good, or live a good life, so long as he lives in a material body. The material en- vironment, which the body provides, and which is essential to the very life within the body is es- sentially bad. The body is bound on all sides by bad. One of the greatest of these ills is labour. By what possible process of reasoning man ever enabled himself to reach the insane opinion that labour was a blessing, I am bound to confess I cannot understand. It is a great evil that man has to work for a living. Think of what it means to have to devote hours of time every day to the mere drudgery of providing for the body, in order that it may continue to exist. The farmer spends at least half of his lifetime in the needless task of keeping alive. He spends at least twelve hours out of the twenty-four providing food and shelter for his body. Eight more hours must be spent in sleep in order that his useless carcass may be re- stored for the work of the next day. At the very least, he spends another hour feeding his body to keep it alive. This leaves him three hours out of the twenty-four, or one-eighth of the time in which PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 99 he may do something else besides keep the body going. However, he is so tired by this time that he can do little with this time save rest his tired body. He has bnt one-eighth of his time left to himself, and he cannot make more than one-third use of that, so that we might say, twenty-three twenty-fourths of his time is taken up by his body, and only one twenty-fourth part of it can he use for any purpose of his own. Take the case of his wife, and it is even worse. No wonder that the wives of farmers never have any intelligence! When do they ever have the time to devote to their higher nature? The state of the business man is about as bad, and the skilled worker, who is in the best position of all of them, has to devote eight hours to labor and eight to sleep, besides another hour to go to and from his work, and at least an hour to feeding his body. This leaves to the most fortunate of all, a maximum of six hours, or one- fourth of his time, to be devoted to anything else than the mere keeping of the body alive. How can people be expected to evolve in a condition in which they have to devote the major portion of their time and energies to the mere work of keep- ing alive? Where do they find either time or energy to devote to the cultivation of the soul? And yet, we have to work this way, simply be- cause we have a material body to keep alive. Truly, living is a great inconvenience! It is a great ill, that this body of ours keeps us chained to labours at a time when we would much rather de- vote our time to study, meditation and the quest for truth. But as though it were not enough that we should labor all our lives for the bare neces- sities of life, simply in order to live, we are called upon to suffer pains innumerable. And there are those so hateful as to assure us that it is good for us to suffer pain! It may be good for us, but I tell you it is darned disagreeable ! But, as though this was not enough, we are called upon to be all 100 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA our lives, the victims of desires that we can never gratify^. We may try to fool ourselves by saying that it is not desires that we feel, that it is ambi- tions and aspirations ! Be that as it may, are those ambitions and aspirations realized? They are the whips to drive us on to greater exertions, after a will o' the wisp that will never be realized. We are also the victims of innumerable passions, which shake us to pieces, and render that philosophic calm so essential to the life of the soul, an utter impossibility. Our purest and highest impulses, and our greatest virtues, drive us into unrequited desires and destructive passions. We may dignify our passions by calling them love and devotion, but these have the same effect and are in truth passions. Our best effort is full of labor and sor- row. What could be greater ill than this ? But our senses make a playground of our mind,- and lead- ing us astray, breed errors and foolish thoughts which gender mental clarity an utter impossibility. In other words, our entire life in the body is a direct conspiracy in restraint of all soul life. The life of the soul cannot flourish in the body. But as though this were not enough, we are not freed from this inconvenience by death. The limitations and inconveniences of this life have caused us to accumulate a mass of Karma that must be worked out in the after-death state, and the moment these labours are completed, and we are in a position where the soul can lead its own life, we have to incarnate in another body and do the same darned thing over again! Truly is misery inseparable from all sentient existence ! And yet there are such colossal liars in the world that they are able to convince themselves that life is a blessing, and to actually take an optimistic view of this ill of all the ills conceivable! And greatest ill of all, Asclepios, is that PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 101 each of these things that have been said above is thought down here to be the greatest good. Man in his stupidity thinks that it is good to labour all his life through in order that he may continue to live ! Think of the folly of it, we have to consume all of the powers of our being in order that we may continue to live and labour, and yet we think that it is good that we have to do this ! And after all we are without exception playing a losing game. With all of our efforts to keep alive, we cannot do it ! The average span of life is only thirty-eight years ! Seventy years has been fixed as the limit and the very strong may live to be eighty, and now and then one may reach the age of ninety, but as a general rule, he is absolutely good for nothing by that time and is a burden to others, who must keep him alive as well as them- selves. 4 Whenever any one dies, it is simply be- cause he has failed in this struggle to keep alive. And men think that this hopeless struggle to keep alive is the greatest good ! What fools! A great portion of the time we are racked with pain, and yet we will endure these pains for years rather than get rid of them by ceasing to live ! We actu- ally think that a life of pain is a good thing ! The endless struggles for the realization of desires that are never realized, and that each of us know will never be realized, is also thought to be good. Hav- ing the soul torn by passion, is also thought to be a good thing ! And furthermore, we think that it is good to have our understanding marred by error and foolish thinking. We actually think that it is better to be fools that it would be to be wise. This insanity is expressed in the desire that we may never lose our illusions, and in the saying that " where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." We actually think that it is better for us to live in ignorance and error than it would be to come into a knowledge of the truth! This life of the body 102 PUILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A such as it is, is the highest dream of the majority. There are those in the Christian Religion, who can see nothing more desirable than that they should spend an eternity in this same condition, with this material body rendered immortal. They actually pray for this condition to come soon. They can- not even dream of any relief in the realm of heaven. Their heaven is the endless duration of this very condition that the wise must deplore, though submitting to it for the reason that they have no way of helping themselves. What depths of ignorance, what depth of impiety, to accuse the Good God of such an outrage, as to perpetuate this curse of physical existence throughout eternity ! And what is still an even greater ill, is belly-lust, the error that doth lead the band of all the other ills — the thing that makes us turn down here from God. An even greater ill than all those that we have mentioned, is this belly-lust, or the craving for food and for whatever will gratify the physical ap- petites. These appetites make us think that their gratification is the all important end of life, and besides this we have no desire for the Good. Many very high sounding terms have been used for this belly-lust, such as Economic Determinism, The Materialist Conception of History, Self-Preserva* tion, Physical Necessity, etc., but the true name is belly-lust. This is the correct name because it in- dicates that it is a purely animal condition, and that we are animals and are thus giving way to this beastly nature of ours whenever we are guided by this lust. As if it were not pnough that we should have to eat continually in order to keep this miser- able body alive, we are continually devising new dainties that will tickle the palate, and render our eating more and more of a gratification of belly- :z:i - : :-z:^ ziimr. ::' i~:.2-::z_z.^ -f nzir i z:*^ - siCI^ «. «> ^ *" . 9 V - < • c°V **«< » -^ ^ ^v/V ° WWW * a\^*^ - ^ o, ^ c • o ^ *• " ♦ O & 4. fc *^fiB^,* "^ a** ••* ;* ^ ^ »vj$W* aV ^ . +*# Hi - ^ ^ & .**%?/£* +,. .^ Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 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