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(p. i)
1. INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS AND PREFACE
The Hermetic
Books
THE Sacred Books of
Hermes, says Mrs. Child in her admirable compendium, (1)
containing the laws, science, and theology of Egypt, were declared by the
priests to have been composed during the reign of the Gods, preceding that of
their first king,
Menes. Allusions on very ancient monuments prove their
great antiquity. There were four of them, and the sub-divisions of the whole
make forty-two volumes. These numbers correspond exactly to those of the Vedas,
which the Puranas say were carried into
(p. ii.)
These
books were very famous, and later were much sought after for alchemical
purposes, especially for that of making gold. The Roman Emperor Severus collected all writings on the Mysteries and buried
them in the tomb of Alexander the Great; and Diocletian destroyed all their
books on alchemy lest
Thus much concerning the Hermetic Books generally.
The Fragments comprised in this reprint have been the subject of much
learned research. In the early centuries of Christianity – Dr. Louis Ménard tells us (1) – they enjoyed a high
repute as of undoubted genuineness, the Fathers invoking their testimony on
behalf of the Christian mysteries, while Lactantius
– the "Christian Cicero" – said of them, "Hermes, I know not how, has discovered
well-nigh the whole truth." He was regarded as an inspired
revealer, and the writings which bore his name passed for genuine
monuments of that ancient Egyptian theology in which Moses had been instructed.
And this opinion was accepted by Massilius Ficinus, Patricius, and other learned men of the Renaissance, who
regarded them as the source of the Orphic initiations and of the philosophy of
Pythagoras and Plato. Doubts, however, arose. They were ascribed, variously, on
the strength of internal evidence, to a Jew, a Christian, and a Gnostic. And the
conclusion come to by recent critics and accepted by Dr. Ménard, is that their place is among the latest productions
of Greek philosophy, but that amid the Alexandrian ideas, on which they are
based, there are some traces of the religious doctrine of ancient Egypt. It was, he says, from the conjunction of the
religious doctrines of
(p. iii)
Another comparison is that which he institutes between some of the
Hermetic writings and the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, especially the Book
of Genesis and the fourth Gospel, and the works of Philo and the Shepherd of Hermas. (1) "The advent of Christianity
presents at first sight the appearance of a radical revolution in the manners
and beliefs of the Western World. But history knows nothing of sudden changes
and unanticipated transformations. To comprehend the passage from one religion
to another, one should not contrast their two extreme terms – the Homeric
mythology and the Nicene symbology. It is necessary to
study their intermediate remains – the multiple products of an epoch of
transition, when the primitive Hellenism, under philosophical discussion,
changed more and more by admixture with the religions of the East, which were
then confused by advancing upon
"The multiplicity of the sects springing up in our days can give but a
slight notion of that astonishing intellectual chemistry which had established
its chief laboratory at
Our critic proceeds to distinguish in the books of Hermes Trismegistus between that which, in his view, belonged
respectively to
(p. iv)
strength of the belief of the Greeks themselves, to
exaggerate this influence, and especially to set back the date of it. It is only
after the foundation of
"Initiated into philosophy by
Dr. Ménard thus concludes: – "The
Hermetic books are the last monuments of paganism. They belong at once to the
Greek philosophy and the Egyptian religion, and in their mystic exaltation they
impinge already upon the Middle Age. Between a world which is ending and a world
which is commencing, they resemble those animals who by their undecided nature
serve as a
(p. v)
link between different orders of
organisations. These mixed creations are always inferior to each of the
groups which they connect together. Not to be compared either with the religion
of Homer or Christianity, the Books of Hermes enable us to comprehend the method
of the world's passage from one to the other. In them the
beliefs which were being born, and the beliefs which were dying, met and clasped
hands."
In contrast to, and also, as we hold, in correction of, the view thus
expressed concerning the relative philosophies of
"From our earliest childhood we have generally been taught to regard the
Hebrews as those to whom we owe all our knowledge of theology and religion; and
in a great measure even our knowledge of God Himself. We have been taught to
regard the Greeks as those from whom we have gained all our acquaintance with
the arts and sciences, philosophy, and, to a certain extent, all that is
comprised within the word wisdom. And in like manner it is upon the Romans we
have been told to look as upon those from whom we have gained all our notions of
discipline and law. As regards our relations to the Hebrews and Romans, the
definition is fairly accurate. Not so with the Greeks. There is, indeed, a
certain superficial accuracy about the statement. We do, of course, owe a good
deal of our knowledge and learning to the Greeks. But where the definition is
erroneous is in this: it leads us to imply from it that the Greeks were the
first people who cultivated the love of learning for its own sake; that they
gained their knowledge from no other nations, but were the authors of it
themselves. It might almost lead us to imply that they were the first people who
had ever attained any degree of civilisation.
"The slightest acquaintance with Egyptian or Hindoo
history is sufficient to make us detect such an obvious fallacy, and lead us
readily to discredit the assertion. The civilisation
of
(p. vi)
connection with the Egyptians; and in that case even
our first ideas of religion may be traced to an Egyptian source."
Mr. Plumptre goes on to shew that while the Hindoos and Egyptians had long been in possession of religio-philosophical systems of the highest intellectual
order, the Greeks were sunk in ignorance and superstition of the most irrational
kind, until the occurrence of an event which revolutionised,
or, rather, which gave the first impulse to Greek thought, so that in a short
time after it Greece sprang from a state of childish ignorance into one in which
she became, both commercially and philosophically, the leading power of the
world. This momentous event was the opening of the Egyptian ports by Psammetichus, B.C.
670. Previous to that time, the Egyptians had been shut out from all intercourse
with Europe and the Mediterranean by an exclusion more rigorous than that which
until lately was practised in
There is one respect in which this statement requires modification. The
Greek mythologies may indeed have been but irrational fables as popularly
received and without the key to their interpretation. But in reality they were
symbols denoting, while concealing, profound occult truths. And while their
presence in Greece at so early a period shows that colleges of the Sacred
Mysteries flourished there long before the rise of Greek philosophy, the
identity of the doctrines they symbolised with those
of Egypt and the East shows that there had been religious intercourse between
these countries long before there was any political, commercial, or
philosophical intercourse. Foreign missionary enterprise by no means originated
with Christianity. The Sacred Mysteries were continually migrating and planting
themselves in new ground in advance of secular civilisation.
The migration of Abraham and the flights of Bacchus and of Moses were doubtless
all of them events of this character.
(p.
vii)
Mr. Plumptre's conclusion that whatever there
was of coincidence between Greek and Egyptian philosophic thought was due to the
recognition and adoption of the latter by the Greeks, is one which it seems to
us impossible to escape. And we regard Dr. Ménard's
inferences to the contrary as due to his failure to combine with his classical
knowledge a knowledge of Hermetic and Kabbalistic methods and traditions. Comprising as do these the world's spiritual history, it is impossible apart
from them to form any sound judgment on the matters in question. Those who,
enamoured of conventional methods, are unable to recognise any organon
of knowledge except the superficial faculties, or any plane of knowledge
transcending the range of those faculties, are necessarily intolerant of the
idea that there has been in the world from the earliest times a system of
esoteric and positive doctrine concerning the most hidden mysteries of
Existence, of such a character, and so obtained as to fulfil all the conditions
requisite to constitute a divine revelation. Nevertheless, this is the
conclusion to which we have found ourselves compelled by sheer force of
evidence, at once exoteric and esoteric. It is in Hindostan
and Egypt that we find its earliest traces; and if, as assuredly is the case,
there are coincidences between the ancient doctrines of those lands, and those
of Greece, Judaea, and Christendom, it is because the
same truth has passed from people to people, everywhere finding recognition, and
undergoing re-formulation according to the genius of the time and place of its
sojourn. And this, we may add is a process which must inevitably continue until
man has become either so far degenerate as to lose all care for and perception
of truth; or so far regenerate as to attain to the full perception of it, and
fix it for evermore as his most precious possession.
But be this as it may, we have seen that even the most destructive
criticism is forced to make these three important admissions: –
(1) That the doctrine contained in the Hermetic books is in part, at
least, a survival from the times of ancient
(2) That there is a coincidence between the doctrine which has thus
survived and that of Christianity. And,
(p. viii)
(3) That this coincidence has been recognised
and welcomed by the Church, to the admission that Christianity, so far from
being something wholly new and unprecedented at the time of its inception,
represents a development from, or reformulation of, doctrine long pre-existent.
E. M.
footnotes
(i:1) "The Progress of Religious
Ideas."
(ii:1) “Hermès Trismegistus:
Traduction complète;
précédée d'une étude sur I'origine des livres Hermétiques”.
Par Dr. Louis Ménard, 2nd Ed.,
(iii:1) A title identical with
that of the Pymander, or Shepherd, of Hermes.
(v:1) Vol. I, B. II.
(p. ix)
The Hermetic
System and The
Significance of
its Present Revival
TO the philosophical
student of humanity the most significant and important feature of the present
remarkable epoch is, unquestionably, the revival of Occult Science and Mystical,
or Esoteric, Philosophy. The significance is due no less to the character of the
period of its occurrence, than to that of the subject itself. For the moment
chosen has been one wherein the human mind, as represented by the
recognised intellect of the age, had become, to all appearance,
irrevocably set in the opposite direction – that of materialism. Happily,
however, for humanity, such appearance has proved deceptive, as had already been
foreseen would be the case by those "watchers for the day," who, recognizing the
unity of nature, and vitalised on the higher planes of the consciousness, are
able to forecast the processes of the mental world by those of the physical.
That it is always when the sun is at its lowest point that the day and the year
are reborn, is no less true in the world spiritual than in the world material.
And while the prevalence of materialism meant the extinction of man's spiritual
consciousness, the revival of occult and mystical science means the restoration
of that consciousness. History, too, had its lessons of encouragement for them, by shewing that the passing
away of old forms of faith is wont to be the prognostic
(p. x)
and condition of new and higher manifestations. Hence they
had confidence that the Spirit of Humanity, being, as they well knew, real and
divine, would, in its own good time, make effectual protest against the
extinction threatened; and are able to recognise in
the present revival the form which that protest has taken.
The significance of this event is definitely enhanced by the facts,
first, that it has brought the Hermetic philosophy into a prominence which it
has not known for many centuries; and, secondly, that the revival of that
philosophy has been at once the condition and the result of every great
religious renaissance
the world has seen. For the system designated the Hermetic Gnosis – the earliest
formulation of which, for the western world, belongs to the pre-historic times
of ancient Egypt – has constituted the core of all the
religio-philosophical systems of both east and west,
Buddhism and Christianity, among others, being alike intended as vehicles for
and expressions of it, though the fact has been recognised
by only the initiated few. The great school of scholastic mysticism which was
the glory of the church of the Middle Ages, had, although
unavowedly, the same basis. This school represented a strenuous and
sustained endeavour to rescue religion from the exclusive domain of
the historical and the ceremonial, and the control of a sacerdotalism, grossly
materialistic and idolatrous, by restoring its proper intuitional and spiritual
character. That the endeavour failed to secure a
lasting success, and the church of the Middle Ages continued to sink deeper and
deeper into superstition, with its usual accompaniment of religious persecution,
was due to no fault of the system itself. This requires for its reception, that
the spiritual consciousness of the many should have attained a development
hitherto possessed only by the few. And the world was not then ripe for a
doctrine which represents reason in its highest mode. History thus shows that
the revival we are witnessing now, is but one of a
series of revivals, all having the same object; and it may be confidently
anticipated, that, under the altered conditions of society, the success attained
will far surpass any yet achieved. For, gloomy as is the present outlook in
every department of human activity, social, philosophical, moral, and religious
alike, there never was a time when the conditions were so favourable for a radical and widespread improvement; because
there never was a time when new ideas and knowledges found such facilities for
propagation, or when, through the intensity of their
(p. xi)
suffering and discontent, mankind were in so high a
stare of receptivity. Hence the system has now a chance of recognition
surpassing any hitherto enjoyed by it. Having always in the past found exclusive
favour with the most luminous minds and noblest natures, it can hardly
fail, with due formulation and presentation, to find acceptance with the mankind
of the incoming era. Already are there indications not to be mistaken, that the
still powerful aid of the church will not be wanting in this
behalf, and this no less for its own preservation than for that of
religious truth. The world has yet to discern the significance of the action of
Pope Leo XIII., in the reinstatement of the writings of Aquinas as the basis of
ecclesiastical education. But for the initiates of Hermes this is not doubtful,
but affords sure ground for the loftiest hopes. And similarly with that
extraordinary, if too often grotesque, phenomenon called modem spiritualism.
From these remarks on the circumstances under which the revival has
occurred, of which this series of reprints is at once a product, a token, and an
aid; we will proceed to give a slight general sketch of the nature of the
doctrine which has played so important a part in the past, and bids fair to do
as much, and even more, in the future.
It should be first stated, however, that the materials for our sketch are
not restricted to the so called Hermetic fragments themselves, which form the
subject of these reprints. Not only are they, as fragments, incomplete; they are
also interpolated and partially corrupt in text, though still replete with the
purest and loftiest teaching. Much, too, of that which is genuine is mystical
and allegorical, referring to a plane, and needing an interpretation, other than
are apparent. Hence, it is necessary for such a task, to utilise the labours of those
various exponents of the system who have either derived it from sources not now
extant, or who, by following the same method, have discerned it for themselves,
(1) giving it, in some instances, fresh .applications, not the
less Hermetic because representing a further development of the
(p.
xii)
doctrine. No learning or industry, however, can
compensate for the absence of that sympathetic insight which alone can detect
the characteristic ring of the true Hermetic metal; and which, if hearty
appreciation be any guarantee, will assuredly not be wholly wanting on this
occasion. At best, however, it is but a slight outline that can be given here.
Starting from the axiom that from nothing nothing
comes, and recognising Consciousness as the
indispensable condition
of existence, the Gnosis, with resistless logic, derives all things from pure
and absolute Being, itself unmanifest and
unconditioned, but in the infinity of its plenitude and energy, possessing and
exercising the potentiality of manifestation and
conditionment, and being, rather than having, life, substance,
and mind, comprised in one Divine Selfhood, of which the universe is the
manifestation.
Regarding all things as modes of consciousness, the Gnosis necessarily
regards consciousness as subsisting under many modes, and as being definable as
the property whereby whatever is,
affects, or is affected in, itself; or affects, or is affected by, another;
which is really to say, as constituting the things themselves. There is, thus, a
mechanical consciousness, a chemical consciousness, a magnetic, a mental, a psychic, consciousness, and so on up to the divine, or
absolute, consciousness. And whereas all proceed from this last, so all return
to this last, in that every entity possesses the potentiality of it. Herein lies
the secret of evolution, which is no other than the expression of the tendency
of things to revert, by ascension, to their original condition – a tendency, and
therefore an expression, which could have no being were the lowest, or material
mode of consciousness to be the original and normal mode.
By thus making matter itself a mode of consciousness, and therein of
spirit – spirit being absolute consciousness – the Gnosis escapes at once the
difficulties which stand in the way of the conception of an original Dualism,
consisting of principles inherently antagonistic; and also those which arise out
of the kindred conception of non-consciousness as having a positive existence.
All being modes of the One, no inherent antagonism, or essential difference, is
possible; but that which is regarded as unconsciousness is but a lower mode of
consciousness – consciousness reduced, so to speak, to a minimum, but still
consciousness so long as it is. Total unconsciousness
is thus not-being; and
(p. xiii)
bears to consciousness the relation of darkness to light,
the latter alone of the two being, however reduced, positive entity, and
darkness being non-entity.
However various the
manifestations of the universal consciousness, or being, whether as regards its
different planes, or its different modes on the same plane, they all are
according to one and the same law, which, by its uniformity, demonstrates the
unity of the informing spirit, or mind, which subsists eternally and
independently of any manifestation. For, as said in the "Divine
Pymander"
(B.V.): –
"He
needeth not to be manifested; for He subsisteth eternally.
"But in that He is One, He is not made nor
generated; but is unapparent and unmanifest.
"But by making all things appear, He appeareth
in all and by all; but especially
is He manifested to or in those wherein He willeth."
And again:
"The Essence of all is One."
From the oneness of original Being comes, as a corollary, the law of
correspondence between all planes, or spheres, of existence, in virtue of which
the macrocosm is as the microcosm, the universal as the individual, the world as
man, and man as God. "An earthly man," says "The Key," "is a mortal God, and the
heavenly God is immortal man." The same book, however, is careful to explain
that by man is
meant only those men who are possessed of the higher intelligence, or spiritual
consciousness, and that to lack this is to be not yet man, but only the
potentiality of man. It avoids also the error of anthropomorphism by defining
Divinity to be, itself, neither life, nor mind, nor substance; but the cause of
these.
Ignorance of God is pronounced to be the greatest evil, but God is not to
be discerned in phenomena, or with the outer eye. The quest must be made within
oneself. In order to know,
man must first be.
This is to say, he must have developed in himself the consciousness of all the
planes, or spheres, of his fourfold nature, and become thereby wholly man. It is to his
inmost and divine part, the spirit, that the mystery of
existence appertains, since that is Pure Being, of which existence is the
manifestation. And, as man can recognise
(p. xiv)
without him, that only which he has within him, it
is essential to his perception of spiritual things that he be himself spiritual.
"The natural man," says the apostle Paul, following at once the
Hermetists and the Kabbalists, who are at one
in both doctrine and method, and differ only in form, "receiveth not the things of the Spirit, neither can he know
them, for they are spiritually discerned," that is, by the spiritual part in
man. In such degree as man developes this
consciousness he becomes an organon of knowledge, capable of obtaining
certitude of truth, even the highest; and from being "agnostic" and incapable of
knowledge, he becomes "Gnostic," or has the Gnosis, which consists in the
knowledge of himself and of God, and of the substantial identity of the two.
From this it is obvious that what is demonstrated by the agnosticism of
the present age, is simply the immaturity of its
professors. This is to say, the philosophy of the day represents the conclusions
of men, who, how developed soever
intellectually, are still rudimentary in respect of the spiritual consciousness,
and fall short, therefore, of their spiritual and true manhood – the manhood
which belongs to the highest plane. Being to such extent not human but subhuman,
and ignorant of the meaning and potentialities of man, they confound form with
substance, and mistake the exterior and phenomenal part of man for man himself,
and imagine accordingly that to gratify this part is necessarily to benefit the
man, no matter how subversive of the real humanity the practices to which they
have recourse. Out of this condition of spiritual darkness the Gnosis lifts man,
and, giving him the supreme desideratum – which it is the object of all divine
revelation to supply – a definition of
himself, demonstrates to him, with scientific certainty, the
supremacy of the moral law, and the impossibility either of getting good by
doing evil, or of escaping the penalty of the latter. The attempt to get good by
evil doing only puts him back, making his fate worse. The doctrine of Karma is no less Hermetic
than Hindû, the equivalent term in the former being
Adrasté, a goddess to whom is committed the administration of
justice. In the Greek pantheon she appears as
Nemesis and Hecate. They all
represent that inexorable law of cause and effect in things moral, in virtue of
which man's nature and conditions in the future are the result of the tendencies
voluntarily encouraged by him in the past and present.
(p. xv)
The Hermetic method to the attainment of perfection, on whatever plane –
physical, intellectual, moral, or spiritual – is purity. Not merely having,
but being,
consciousness, man is man, and is percipient, according to the measure in which
he is pure; perfect purity implying full perception, even to the seeing of God,
as the gospels have it. In the same proportion he has also power. The fully
initiated Hermetist is a magian, or man of
power, and can work what to the world seem miracles, and those on all planes –
physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual – by force of his own will. But his
only secret of power is purity, as his only motive is love. For the power with which he operates is spirit, and spirit is keen
and mighty in proportion as it is pure. Absolutely pure spirit is God. Hence the miracles
of the magian, as distinguished from the magician, are
really worked by God – the God in and of the man.
A word on the organon of Hermetic knowledge. This is
emphatically the mode of the mind termed the intuition. Following this in its
centripetal course, man comes into such relations with his own essential and
permanent self – the soul – as to be able to receive from her the knowledges she
has acquired of divine things in the long ages of her past. But this implies no
disparagement to the mind's other and centrifugal mode – the intellect. This
also must be developed and trained to the utmost, as the complement, supplement,
and indispensable mate of the intuition – the man to its woman. Perfecting and
combining these two, and only thus, man knows all things and perpetuates
himself. For he knows God, and to know God is to have, and to be, God, and
"the gift of God is eternal life."
A foremost Hermetic doctrine is that of the soul's multiple re-births
into a physical body. Only when the process of regeneration – an Hermetic term –
is sufficiently advanced to enable the spiritual entity, which constitutes the
true individual, to dispense with further association with the body, is he
finally freed from the necessity of a return into materiality. The doctrine of
correspondence here finds one of its most striking illustrations, but one which
nevertheless was wholly missed by the chief modern restorer and exponent of that
doctrine, Emmanuel Swedenborg. This is the
correspondence in virtue of which, just as the body uses up and sheds many times
its external covering of integument, plumage, shell, or hair, to say
(p. xvi)
nothing of its artificial clothing, so the soul
wears out and sheds many bodies. The law of gravitation, moreover, pervades all
planes, the spiritual as well as the physical; and it is according to his
spiritual density that the plane of the individual is determined, and his
condition depends. The tendency which brings a soul once into the body must be
exhausted before the soul is able to dispense with the body. The death of the
body is no indication that the tendency has been overcome, so that the soul will
not be again attracted to earth. But it is only the soul that thus returns; not
the magnetic or "astral" body which constitutes the external personality.
Such is the rationale
of the orthodox doctrine of transmigration, according alike to the Hermetic,
the Kabbalistic, and the Hindû systems. It permeates, occultly,
the whole of the Bible, and is implied in the teaching of Jesus to Nicodemus,
the whole of which, as is also the entire Christian presentation, is, in its
interior sense, Hermetic. Not that the new birth insisted on by Jesus is other
than purely spiritual; but it involves a multiplicity of physical re-births as
necessary to afford the requisite space and experiences for the accomplishment
of the spiritual process declared to be essential to salvation. Seeing that
regeneration must – as admitted by Swedenborg
– have its commencement while in the body, and must also be carried on to a
certain advanced stage before the individual can dispense with the body, and
also that it denotes a degree of spiritual maturity far beyond the possibility
of attainment in a single, or an early, incarnation; it is obvious that without
a multiplicity of re-births to render regeneration possible, the gospel message
would be one, not of salvation, but of perdition, to the race at large. What is
theologically termed the "forgiveness of sins" is dependent upon the
accomplishment in the individual of the process of regeneration, of which man,
as Hermetically expressed, has the seed, or
potentiality, in himself, and in the development of which he must co-operate.
Doing this, he becomes "a new creature," in that he is re-born, not of
corruptible matter, but of "water and the spirit," namely, his own soul and
spirit purified and become divine. Thus re-constituted on the interior and
higher plane of the spirit, he is said to be born of the "Virgin Mary" and "the
Holy Ghost."
While purely mystical and spiritual, as opposed to historical and
ceremonial, the Hermetic system is distinguished from other
(p. xvii)
schools
of mysticism by its freedom from their gloomy and churlish manner of regarding
nature, and .their contempt and loathing for the body and its functions as
inherently impure and vile; (1) and so far from repudiating the
relations of the sexes, it exalts them as symbolising
the loftiest divine mysteries, and enjoins their exercise as a duty, the fulfilment of which, in some at least of his incarnations,
is essential to the full perfectionment and initiation of the individual. It is
thus pervaded by an appreciation of beauty and joyousness of tone which at once
assimilates it to the Greek, and distinguishes it from the Oriental conception
of existence, and so redeems mysticism from the reproach – too often deserved –
of pessimism. The Hermetist, like the prophet who
found God in the sea's depths and the whale's belly, recognises divinity in every region and department of
nature. And seeing in "ignorance of God the greatest of all evils," (2)
he seeks to perfect himself, not simply in order the sooner to escape from
existence as a thing inherently evil, but to make himself an instrument of
perception capable of "seeing God" in every region of existence in which he may
turn his gaze. The pessimism ascribed to some Hermetic utterances, especially in
the "Divine Pymander," is but apparent,
not real, and implies only the
comparative
imperfection of existence as contrasted with pure and divine being.
It is to this end that the renunciation of flesh as food is insisted on,
as in the "Asclepios."
Belonging neither by his physical nor his moral constitution to the order of
the carnivora, man can be the best that he has it
in him to be only when his system is cleansed and built up anew of the pure
materials derived from the vegetable kingdom, and indicated by his structure as
his natural diet. The
organon
of the beatific vision is the intuition. And not only is the system, when
flesh-fed, repressive of this faculty, but the very failure of the individual to
recoil from violence and slaughter as a means of sustenance or gratification, is
an indication of his lack of this faculty.
In no respect does the Hermetic system shew its unapproachable
superiority to the pseudo-mystical systems than in its
equal recognition of the sexes. True it is that the story of the Fall
(p. xviii)
is of
Hermetic origin; but it is no less true that this is an allegory, having a
significance wholly removed from the literal, and in no way implying blame or
inferiority, either to an individual or to a sex. Representing an eternal verity
of divine import, this allegory has been made the justification for doctrines
and practices in regard to women, which are altogether false, unjust, cruel, and
monstrous, and such as could have proceeded only from elementary and sub-human
sources.
In conclusion. All history shews
that it is to the restoration of the Hermetic system in both doctrine and
practice that the world must look for the final solution of the various problems
concerning the nature and conduct of existence, which now – more than at any
previous time – exercise the human mind. For it represents that to which all
enquiry – if only it be free enquiry, unlimited by incapacity, and undistorted
by prejudice – must ultimately lead; inasmuch as it represents the sure, because
experimental, knowledges, concerning the nature of things which, in whatever
age, the soul of man discloses whenever he has attained full intuition.
Representing the triumph of free-thought – a thought, that is, which has dared
to probe the consciousness in all directions, outwards and downwards to matter
and phenomena, and inwards and upwards to spirit and reality; it represents also
the triumph of religious faith, in that it sees in God the All and in All of
Being; in Nature, the vehicle for the manifestation of God; and in the Soul –
educated and perfected through the processes of Nature – the
individualisation
of God.
E. M.
footnotes
(xi:1) For, as we have subsequently ascertained,
"The Perfect Way" is not a singular instance of the
recovery of the Hermetic system, by unwittingly following the same method to
which it was originally due, namely, intuitional perception and recollection,
and altogether independently of extraneous source of information.
(xvii:1) The term "corrupt,"
which in the translation of the "Divine Pymander" is applied to
things earthly, means simply perishable.
(xvii:2) The title of one
of the books in the "Divine Pymander."
(p. xiv)
An Introduction
to the Virgin of the World
THE mystic title of
the celebrated Hermetic fragment with which this volume commences, "Koré Kosmou" – that
is, the "Kosmic Virgin," is in itself a revelation of
the wonderful identity subsisting between the ancient wisdom-religion of the old
world, and the creed of catholic Christendom. Koré is the name
by winch, in the Eleusinian Mysteries, Persephone the
Daughter, or Maiden, was saluted;
and it is also – perhaps only by coincidence – the Greek word for the pupil or
apple of the eye. When, however, we find Isis, the Moon-goddess and Initiatrix,
in her discourse with Horos, mystically identifying
the eye with the soul, and comparing the tunics of the physical organ of vision
with the envelopes of the soul; when, moreover, we reflect that precisely as the
eye, by means of its pupil, is the enlightener and precipient
of the body, so is the soul the illuminating and seeing principle of man, we can
hardly regard this analogy of names as wholly unintentional and
uninstructive. For Koré, or
Persephone, the Maiden, is the personified soul, whose "apostasy," or "descent,"
from the heavenly sphere into earthly generation, is the theme of the following
Hermetic parable. (1) The Greek mysteries dealt
(p. xx)
only with two subjects, the first being the drama of the
"rape" and restoration of Persephone; the second, that of the incarnation,
martyrdom, and resuscitation of Dionysos-Zagreus. By
Persephone was intended the Soul; and by Dionysos, the
Spirit. Hermetic doctrine taught a fourfold nature both of the Kosmos and of Man; and of this fourfold nature two elements
were deemed immortal and permanent, and two mortal and transient. The former
were the spirit and the soul; the latter, the lower mind – or sense-body – and
the physical organism. The spirit and soul, respectively male and female,
remained throughout all the changes of metempsychosis the same, indissoluble and
incorrupt, but the body and lower intellect were new in each rebirth, and
therefore changeful and dissoluble. The spirit, or Dionysos, was regarded as of a specially
divine genesis, being the Son of Zeus by the immaculate Maiden – Koré-Persephoneia, herself the daughter of Demeter, or the
parent and super-mundane Intelligence, addressed in the Mysteries as the
"Mother." (1) But Koré, although thus of heavenly
origin, participates more closely than her Son in an earthly and terrestrial
nature. "Hence," says Proclos, "according to the
theologians who delivered to us the most holy Mysteries, Persephone abides on
high in those dwellings of the Mother which she prepared for her in inaccessible
places, exempt from the sensible world. But she likewise dwells beneath with
Pluto, administering terrestrial concerns, governing the recesses of the earth,
and supplying life to the extremities of the Kosmos."
Wherefore, considered as the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, Koré is immaculate
and celestial in character: considered as the captive and consort of Hades, she
belongs to the lower world and to the region of lamentation and dissolution.
And, indeed, the Soul possesses the dual nature thus ascribed to her, for she is
in her interior and proper quality, incorrupt and inviolable – ever virgin –
while in her apparent and relative quality, she is defiled and fallen. In
Hermetic fable the constant emblem of the Soul is Water, or the Sea –
Maria; and one salient reason for this comparison is that water,
however seemingly contaminated, yet
(p. xxi)
remains, in its essence, always pure. For the
defilement of so-called foul water really consists in sediments held by it in
solution, and thereby causing it to appear turbid, but this defilement cannot
enter into its integral constitution. So that if the foulest
or muddiest water be distilled it will leave behind in the
cucurbite
all its earthy impurities, and present itself, without loss, clear and lucent in
the recipient alembic. Not, therefore, without cause is the Soul
designated "ever virgin," because in her essential selfhood she is absolutely
immaculate and without taint of sin. And the whole history of the world, from
end to end, is the history of the generation, lapse, sorrows, and final
assumption of this Kosmic virgin.
For the soul has two modes or conditions of being – centrifugal and centripetal.
The first is the condition of her outgoing, her immergence in Matter, or her
"fall," and the grief and subjection which she thereby brings upon herself. This
phase is, in the Jewish Kabbala, represented by Eve.
The second condition is that of her incoming, her emergence from Matter,
her restitution, or glorification in "heaven." This phase is
presented to us in the Christian evangel and Apocalypse under the name of, Mary.
Hence the Catholic saying that the "Ave" of Mary reverses the curse of Eva.
In perfect accord with Kabbalistic doctrine, the
allegory of the "Koré Kosmou" thus
clearly indicates the nature of the Soul's original apostacy;
"she receded from the prescribed limits; not willing to remain in the same
abode, she moved ceaselessly, and repose seemed death." (1)
In this phrase we have the parallel to the scene represented in the
Mysteries, where Persephone, wilfully straying from
the mansions of heaven, falls under the power of the Hadean God. This, perhaps
the most occult part of the whole allegory, is but lightly touched in the
fragmentary discourse of Isis, and we cannot, therefore, do better than to
reproduce here the eloquent exposition of Thomas Taylor on the subject.
"Here, then," he says, "we see the first cause of the Soul's descent, namely,
the abandoning of a life wholly according to the
(p. xxii)
Higher Intellect, which is occultly signified
by the separation of Proserpina from Ceres.
Afterward, we are told that Jupiter instructs Venus to go to her abode, and
betray Proserpina from her retirement, that Pluto may
be enabled to carry her away; and to prevent any suspicion in the virgin's mind,
he commands Diana and Pallas to go in company. The three Goddesses arriving, find Proserpina at work
on a scarf for her mother; in which she had embroidered the primitive chaos and
the formation of the world. Now, by Venus, in this part of the narration, we
must understand desire,
which, even in the celestial regions (for such is the residence of
Proserpina
till she is ravished by Pluto), begins silently and stealthily to creep into the
recesses of the Soul. By Minerva we must conceive the rational power of the
Soul, and by Diana, Nature. And, lastly, the web in which
Proserpina
had displayed all the fair variety of the material world,
beautifully represents the commencement of the illusive operations through which
the Soul becomes ensnared with the fascination of imaginative forms. After this,
Proserpina, forgetful of the Mother's commands, is represented as
venturing from her retreat, through the treacherous persuasions of Venus. Then
we behold her issuing on to the plain with Minerva and Diana, and attended by a
beauteous train of nymphs, who are evident symbols of the world of generation,
and are, therefore, the proper companions of the Soul about to fall into its
fluctuating realms. Moreover, the design of Proserpina, in venturing from her retreat, is beautifully
significant of her approaching descent; for she rambles from home for the
purpose of gathering flowers, and this in a lawn
replete with the most enchanting variety, and exhaling the most delicious odours. This is a manifest image of the Soul operating
principally according to the natural and external life, and so becoming ensnared
by the delusive attractions of sensible form. Immediately, Pluto, forcing his
passage through the earth, seizes on Proserpina
and carries her away with him. Well may the Soul, in such a situation,
pathetically exclaim with Proserpina:
'O male
dilecti
flores, despectaque Matris Consilia;
O Veneris
deprensae serius artes!' (1)
Pluto hurries Proserpina into the infernal
regions: in other words, the Soul is sunk into the profound depth and darkness
of a
(p. xxiii)
material nature. A description of her marriage next
succeeds, her union with the dark tenement of the body."
To this eloquent exposition of
"We were plucking the pleasant flowers, the beautiful crocus, the iris,
the hyacinth, and the narcissus, which, like the crocus, the wide earth
produced. With joy I was plucking them, when the earth yawned beneath, and out
leaped the strong King, the Many-Receiver, and went bearing me, deeply
sorrowing, under the earth in his golden chariot, and I cried aloud."
Compare with this Hermetic allegory of the lapse of Persephone and the
manner of it, the Kabbalistic story of the "fall" of
Eve.
"And she saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and
delightful to behold; and she took of the fruit thereof and did eat. (...) And
to the woman He said: I will multiply thy sorrows and thy conceptions: in sorrow
shalt thou bring forth, and thou shalt be under thy husband's power, and he shall have
dominion over thee."
In a note appended to
"The allegory of the Chariot and Winged Steeds, in Plato's Phaedrus,
represents the lower or inferior part of man's nature (Adam or the body) as
dragging the Soul down to the earth, and subjecting it to the slavery of
corporeal conditions. Out of these conditions arise numerous evils that disorder
the mind and becloud the reason, for evil is inherent to the condition of finite
and multiform existence into which we have fallen. The earthly life is a fall.
The soul is now dwelling in the grave which we call the body. (...) We resemble
those 'captives chained in a subterraneous cave,' so poetically described in the
seventh book of ‘The Republic’; their backs turned to the light, so that they
see but the shadows of the objects which pass behind them, and 'to these shadows
they attribute a perfect reality.' Their sojourn upon earth is thus a dark
imprisonment in the body, a dreamy exile from their proper home."
Similarly we read, in the "Koré Kosmou," that the souls on
(p. xxiv)
learning
that they were about to be imprisoned in material bodies, sighed and lamented,
lifting to heaven glances of sorrow, and crying piteously, "O woe and
heart-rending grief to quit these vast splendors, this, sacred sphere, and all
the glories of the blessed republic of the Gods to be precipitated into these
vile and miserable abodes! No longer shall we behold the divine and luminous
heavens!"
Who, in reading this, is not reminded of the pathetic lament of Eve on
quitting the fair "ambrosial bowers" of
From the sad and woful state into which the
Virgin thus falls, she is finally rescued and restored to the supernal abodes.
But not until the coming of the Saviour, represented
in the allegory before us under the name of Osiris
– the Man Regenerate. This Redeemer, himself of divine origin, is in other
allegories represented under other names, but the idea is always luminously
defined, and the intention obvious. Osiris
is the lesous of our Christian doctrine, the supreme
Initiate or "Captain of Salvation." He is represented, together with his Spouse,
as in all things "instructed" and directed by HERMES, famed as the celestial conductor of souls
from the "dark abodes;" the wise and ubiquitous God in whom the initiate
recognises the Genius of the Understanding or Divine Reason – the nous of Platonic doctrine, and the mystic
"Spirit of Christ." Therefore, as the understanding of holy things and the
faculty of their interpretation are the gift of HERMES, the name of this God is given to all science and
revelation of an occult and divine nature. A "Divine" is, in fact, one who knows
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; hence S. John the seer, or the "divine,"
is especially the "beloved" of Christ. HERMES was regarded as the Messenger or Angel of
the Gods, descending alike to the depths of the Hadean world, to bring up souls
from thence, and ascending up beyond all heavens that he might fill all things.
For the Understanding must search alike the deeps and the heights; there can be
nothing hidden from it, nor can it attain the fulness
of supernal and secret knowledge unless it first explore the phenomenal and
terrestrial. "For that he ascended, what is it but because be also descended first into the lower parts
of the earth?"
With the splendid joyousness and light-hearted humour
which characterised the Greeks,
mingling laughter and mirth even with the mysteries of Religion, and making
their sacred allegories
(p. xxv)
human and musical as no others of any nation or time, HERMES, the Diviner and Revealer, was also
playfully styled a Thief, and the patron of thieves. But thereby was secretly
indicated the power and skill of the Understanding in making everything
intellectually its own. Wherefore, in charging HERMES with filching the girdle of Venus, the tongs of Vulcan, and the thunder
of Jove, as well as with stealing and driving off the cattle of Apollo, it was
signified that all good and noble gifts, even the attributes of the high Gods
themselves, are accessible to the Understanding, and that nothing is withheld
from man's intelligence, if only man have the skill to seek aright.
As the immediate companion of the sun,
HERMES is the opener of the gates of the highest
heaven, the revealer of spiritual light and life, the Mediator between the inner
and outer spheres of existence, and the Initiator into those sacred mysteries,
the knowledge of which is life eternal.
The panoply with which Greek art invests HERMES, is
symbolical of the functions of the Understanding. He has four implements – the
rod, the wings, the sword, and the cap, denoting respectively the science of the
magian, the courage of the adventurer, the will of the hero, and the
discretion of the adept. The initiates of HERMES acknowledge no authority but the
Understanding; they call no man king or master upon earth; they are true
Free-Thinkers and Republicans. "For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is
liberty." (1) Hence Lactantius, in his "Divine Institutions,"
says: – "Hermes affirms that those who know God are safe from the attacks of the
demon, and that they are not even subjected to Fate." Now, the powers of Fate
reside in the stars – that is, in the astral sphere, whether Kosmic
or micro-Kosmic. And the astral power was, in Greek
fable, typified by
(p. xxvi)
The
spheres of delusion, dominated by the sevenfold astral Powers, lie between the
Soul and God. Beyond these spheres are the celestial "Nine Abodes," wherein, say
the Mysteries, Demeter vainly sought the lost Persephone. For from these abodes
she had lapsed into a mundane and material state, and thereby had fallen under
the power of the planetary rulers; that is, of Fate, personified by
Hekate. On the tenth day, therefore, the divine Drama shows Demeter
meeting the Goddess of Doom and Retribution, the terrible Hekate Triformis – personification
of Karma – by whom the
"Mother" is told of Persephone's abduction and detention in the Hadean world.
And – we learn – Hekate
becomes thereafter the constant attendant of Persephone. All this is, of course,
pregnant with the deepest significance. Until the Soul falls into Matter, she
has no Fate, or Karma. Fate is the appanage
and result of Time and of Manifestation. In the sevenfold astral spheres the Moon is representative of Fate, and presents two
aspects, the benign and the malignant. Under the benign aspect the Moon is
Artemis, reflecting to the Soul the divine light of Phoebos;
under the malignant aspect she is Hekate the Avenger,
dark of countenance; and three-headed, being swift as a horse, sure as a dog,
and as a lion implacable. She it is who, fleet, sagacious, and pitiless, hunts
guilty souls from birth to birth, and outwits death itself with unerring
justice. To the innocent and chaste soul, therefore, the lunar power is
favorable. Artemis is the patron and protectress of
virgins – that is, of souls undefiled with the traffic of Matter. In this aspect
the Moon is the Initiatrix, Isis the Enlightener, because through a beneficent
Karma, or fate, the soul receives interior illumination, and the dark recesses
of her chamber are lit up by sacred reminiscences. Hence, in subsequent births,
such a soul becomes prophetic and "divine." But to the corrupt and the
evil-hearted the influence of the Moon is malignant, for to such she assumes the
aspect of Hekate, smiting by night, and terrifying
with ghostly omens of misfortune. These souls fear the lunar power, and in this
instinctive dread may be discerned their secret recognition of the evil fate
which they are preparing for themselves in existences to come. The Tree of Good
and Evil, says the Kabbala, has its root in
Malchuth – the Moon.
It has been sometime asserted that the doctrine of Karma is peculiar to
Hindu theology. On the contrary, it is dearly exhibited alike in the Hebrew,
Hellenic, and Christian Mysteries. The Greeks called it Fate; the Christians
know it
(p. xxvii)
as Original Sin. With
which sin all mortal men come into the world, and on account of which all pass
under condemnation. Only the "Mother of God" is exempt from it, the "virgin
immaculate," through whose Seed the world shall be redeemed.
"As the lily among the thorns," sings the Church in the "Office of the
Immaculate Conception," "so is the Beloved among the Daughters of Adam. Thou art
all fair, O Beloved, and the original stain is not in thee! Thy name, O Mary, is
as oil poured out; therefore, the virgins love thee exceedingly."
If, then, by Persephone or Koré, the "Virgin of
the World," we are thus plainly taught to understand the Soul, we are no less
plainly taught to see in Isis, the Initiatrix or Enlightener. Herself, equally
with Koré, virgin and mother, the Egyptian Isis is, in
her philosophical aspect, identical with the Ephesian
Artemis, the Greek personification of the fructifying and all-nourishing power
of Nature. She was regarded as the "inviolable and perpetual Maid of heaven;
"her priests were eunuchs, and her image in the magnificent
(p. xxviii)
Diana,
are the occult powers which hunt down and pursue the soul from birth to birth;
the inevitable, implacable forces of Nature which, following evermore on the
steps of every ego, compel it into the conditions successively engendered by its
actions, as effect by cause. Hence Actaeon, presuming
upon Fate, and oblivious of the sanctity and inviolability of this unchanging
law of Karmic Destiny, is torn in pieces by his own dogs, to wit, his own deeds,
which by the decree of the implacable Goddess, turn upon and rend him. So also,
in accordance with this philosophical idea, those who were initiated into the
mysteries of
(p. xxix)
of the
following passages in Apuleius, the first of
which is in the beginning of the eleventh book of his Metamorphoses, wherein the divinity of the moon is
represented as addressing him in this sublime manner: – 'Behold,
Lucius, moved with thy supplications, I am present; I, who am Nature, the
parent of things, mistress of all the elements, initial progeny of the ages, the
highest of the divinities, queen of departed spirits, the first of the
celestials, of Gods and Goddesses the sole likeness of all; who rule by my nod
the luminous heights of the heavens, the salubrious breezes of the sea, and the woful silences of the infernal regions, and whose divinity,
in itself but one, is venerated by all the earth, in many characters, various
rites, and different appellations. (…) Those who are enlightened by the emerging
rays of the rising sun, the AEthiopians
and Aryans, and likewise the Egyptians, powerful in ancient learning, who
reverence my divinity with ceremonies perfectly appropriate, call me by my true
appellation Queen Isis.' And again, in another place of the same book, he says
of the moon: – 'The supernal Gods reverence thee, and those in the realms
beneath do homage to thy divinity. Thou dost make the world to revolve, and the
sun to illumine, thou rulest the universe and treadest on Tartarus. To thee the
stars respond, the deities rejoice, time returns by thee, the elements give thee
service.' For all this easily follows if we consider it as spoken of the
fountain-deity of Nature subsisting in the Demiurgus,
and which is the exemplar of that nature which flourishes in the lunar orb and
throughout the material world."
Thus enlightened as to the office and functions of
(p. xxx)
within the jurisdiction
of Nature and Time; Demeter, the Divine Intelligence, represents the heavenly
fountain or super-mundane source, whence the soul originally draws her being,
and as such, is concerned directly, not with her exile and wanderings in
material conditions, but with her final recovery from generation and return to
the celestial abodes. Consistently with this idea,
A. K.
footnotes
(xix:1) Dr. Wilder, in his Introduction to the
work of Mr. Thomas Taylor, the Platonist, entitled "Dissertation on the Eleusinian
Mysteries," asserts that the name Koré is also Sanscrit, and that
the Hindu goddess Parasu-pani, also called Gorée, is identical with the
Koré-Persephoneia
of Hellenic worship.
(xx:1) The Spirit, under the name off Atman, is the chief
topic of Hindu esoteric philosophy, the Upanishads being exclusively devoted to
it. They ascribe to Atman the qualities of
self-subsistence, unity, universality immutability and incorruptibility. It is
independent of Karma,
or acquired character and destiny, and the full knowledge of it "redeems
from Karma the personality informed of it". Atman
is also the all seeing: and, as the Mantras say, He who
recognises the universe in his own Atman,
and his own Atman in the universe, knows no hatred.
(xxi:1) I substitute the singular from the plural
number, but this alters nothing in the sense.
(xxiii:1) "O flowers fatally dear, and the Mother's
counsels despised! O cruel arts of crafty Venus!”
(xxiv:1)
(xxv:1) "Follow no man," said John Inglesant's adviser – "there is nothing in the world of
any value but the Divine Light – follow it."
(xxvii:1) The many-breasted figure which forms
the frontispiece of this volume, represents
(xxviii:1) Aεναω στρόφλιγγι Θοόν ρύμα ξινεύονσα.
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