Seções: Índice Geral Seção Atual: Índice Obra: Índice Anterior Seguinte: 7. Vários Fragmentos Herméticos (p. 141) 6. FRAGMENTS of the WRITINGS OF HERMES to AMMON PART I THAT which rules the
universe is
(p. 142) PART II ALL things are
produced by Nature and Destiny, nor is any place void
of
footnotes
(142:
1) I commend the above fragments to the careful
consideration of Hermetists. Many persons find it
difficult to reconcile belief in the "ruling of the stars" with
belief in free will. At first sight it appears unjust and arbitrary that
certain lines of life – even vicious ones – should be indicated by
the "rulers of nativities" as the only lines in which the
"native" will prosper; and they ask incredulously whether it can be
rationally supposed that the "accident" of the day and hour of birth
is, by Divine Providence, permitted to direct and dominate the whole career of
an intelligent and responsible being. But this objection is superficial, and
the result of incomplete knowledge. For the difficulties of astrological
science, if viewed in the light of Karmic Predestination or Fate, not only disappear,
but give place to the unfoldment of a most lucid and
admirable system of responsible causation. There is but one hypothesis capable
of solving the enigma of Fate, and that hypothesis is a doctrine common to all
the greater schools of thought – Vedic, Buddhist, Kabbalistic,
Hermetic, Platonic, – the hypothesis, to wit, of multiple existences, or
the doctrine of the Metempsychosis. Destiny in the view of these philosophies, is not arbitrary, but acquired. Every man
makes his own Fate; and nothing is truer than the saying that "Character is Destiny."
For that which in one existence is Will becomes in the next Fate. By the
hands of men themselves, then, are their natal lines cast, whether in pleasant
and virtuous, or in painful and vicious paths. For in what manner soever an ego conducts itself in one existence, by that
conduct, by that order of thought and habit it builds for itself its destiny in
a future existence. And the ego is enchained by these
pre-natal influences, and by them irresistibly compelled into a new nativity at
the time of such conjunction of planets and signs as oblige it into
certain courses, or incline it strongly thereto. Hence "Destiny," or
Karma, is said by Hermes to "determine the position of the stars."
And if the course so defined be evil, and the ruling
such as to favour chiefly vicious propensities, the
afflicted ego, even though assuredly reaping the just effects of its own
demerit, is not left without a remedy. For the ego may oppose its will to the
stellar ruling, and heroically adopt a course opposed to the direction of the
natal influences. Thereby, indeed, the ego may bring itself under a curse for
such period as those influences have power, for, as Hermes tells us, "no
man can escape from Destiny, nor preserve himself from the action of the
stars;" but at the same time, the will thus exerted will reverse the
planetary affinities acquired, and give a new "set" to the current of
the Karmic predestination, so that the ruling signs of the next nativity will
be favourable to virtue and to a loftier state. But
the "stars" and "stellar influences" which are thus the
"instruments of Destiny" are immediately microcosmic, and only mediately macrocosmic. (For the full exposition and
interpretation of this important subject, the reader is referred to "Astrology Theologized"
now about to be republished in the present series of Occult Reprints, by ROBT. H. FRYAR, (p. 143) PART
III THE soul is, then, an
incorporeal essence, and even when she is in a body she does not wholly lose
her manner of being. Her essence is that of perpetual movement, the spontaneous
movement of thought; yet is she not moved in any thing else, nor towards any
thing else, nor for any thing else. For she is a primordial
force, and that which is primal needs not that which is secondary. The
expression "in any thing" is applicable to place, to time, to (p. 144) nature; "towards any thing" is applicable to a
harmony, to a form, to a figure; "for any thing" is applicable to the
body, because time, place, nature, and form are related to the body. All these
terms are conjoined by reciprocal bonds. The body requires place, for it is not
possible to conceive of a body unless also of a place occupied by it; a body
changes its nature, such change is not possible unless in time, and by means of
movement in nature; nor can the component parts of a
body be united unless by harmony of form. Space exists on account of corporeity, it contains the changes thereof and suffers it
not to be annihilated in these changes. The body passes from one condition to
another, but in quitting its first condition it ceases not to be body, it takes
only another condition. It was body, it remains body, its state alone varies;
wherefore, that which changes in corporeity is quality and mode of being.
Place, time, and natural movement, themselves bodiless, have each their special
property. The property of space is to contain; the property of time is interval
and number; the property of nature is movement; the property of harmony is
affinity; the property of body is change; the property of soul is thought.
(p. 145) PART IV THE soul is then an
incorporeal essence; if she had a body she would be unable to preserve herself,
for every body has need of breath and of life which consists in order. Wherever
there is birth there is fluxion. To "become" presupposes magnitude, that is augmentation; augmentation involves
diminution, which, in turn, brings about destruction. That which receives the
form of life participates in being by means of the soul. In order to produce
existence, it is necessary to exist; existence I define to be a reasonable
becoming and participation in intelligent life. Life constitutes the creature,
intelligence renders it reasonable, the body makes it
mortal. The soul is then incorporeal, and possesses an immutable force. Can an
intelligent creature exist without a living essence? Can he be rational if an
intelligent essence does not maintain in him rational life? If intelligence
does not manifest itself in all creatures, it is on account of the constitution
of the body in regard to harmony. If heat dominates in the constitution
thereof, the creature is volatile and ardent; if cold dominates, it is heavy
and slow. Nature distributes the elements of the body according to a law of
harmony. This harmonic combination has three forms: – the hot, the cold,
and the temperate. Conjunction is established according to stellar influence.
The soul appropriates the body destined to her, and causes it to live by the
operation of nature. Nature assimilates the harmony of bodies to the
disposition of the stars, and the combination of their elements to the harmony
of the stars; so that there may be reciprocal sympathy. For the purpose of
stellar harmony is to engender sympathies in agreement with Destiny.
(p. 146) PART
V THE soul is then, O Ammon, an essence having its end in itself, receiving from
the beginning the life prepared for her, and attracting to herself, as a material,
a certain reason endowed with passion and desire. Passion is a matter;
if it enters into accord with the intelligent part of the soul, it becomes
courage, and does not yield to fear. Desire also is a matter; in association
with the rational part of the soul, it becomes aspiration and yields not to
voluptuousness. For reason enlightens the blindness of desire. When the
faculties of the soul are thus co-ordinated under the
supremacy of reason, they produce justice. The government of the faculties of
the soul belongs to the Intellectual Principle which subsists in itself in its
provident reason, having for authority its own reason. It governs all like a
magistrate; its provident reason serves it as counsellor.
The reason of this Principle is the cognizance of the reasons which furnish the
image of rationality to the irrational; an image relatively obscure when
compared with reason, but rational when compared to the irrational, as an echo
compared to a voice, or the light of the moon compared to that of the sun.
Passion and desire are ordained according to a certain reason; they mutually
attract each other, and establish between them a circulatory current of
thought. Every soul is immortal, and always in movement. For we have seen that
movements proceed either from energies or from bodies. We have seen, also, that
the soul, being incorporeal, proceeds not from any matter, but from an essence
incorporeal (p. 147) itself. Everything that
is born is necessarily produced by some other thing. Two movements necessarily
accompany everything the generation of which involves decay; that of the soul
which moves it, and that of the body which augments, diminishes, and decomposes
it, in decomposing itself. It is thus that I define the movement of perishable
bodies. But the soul is perpetually in motion, without cessation she moves and
produces movement. Thus every soul is immortal and always in motion, moved by her own activity. There are three species in souls: divine,
human, and irrational. The divine soul abides in a divine form, it is therein
that she has her energy; therein she moves and acts. When this soul separates herself from mortal creatures, she forsakes her irrational
parts and enters into the divine form; and, as she is always in motion, she is
borne along in the universal movement. The human soul has also something
divine, but she is bound to irrational elements – desire and passion; these elements are
undying, because they are energies; but they are energies of mortal bodies,
therefore they are removed from the divine part of the soul, which inhabits the
divine form. When this divine part enters into a mortal body and meets therein
these irrational elements, -she becomes, by means of their presence, a human
soul. The soul of animals is composed of passion and desire,
therefore the animals are called brutes, because their soul is deprived of
reason. The fourth species in soul, that possessed by inanimate creatures, is
placed outside the bodies actuated. This soul moves in the divine form, and
impels it passively. (1) FOOTNOTES (147: 1) The above fragment appears to me extremely obscure and unsatisfactory.
I include it in the series of Hermetic writings because it is quoted as such by
Stobaeus, but it certainly needs much interpretation
and explanation, if it be indeed genuine. A. K. (p. 148) PART
VI THE soul is, then, an
eternal and intelligent essence; having for thought her own reason. She enters
into association with the concept of harmony. Separated from the physical body,
she endures in herself, she is independent in the
Ideal world. She controls her reason, and confers on the entity emerging into
life a movement analogous to her own thought, that is being; for the property
of the soul is to assimilate other things to her own character. There are two
kinds of vital movement: the one conformable to the essence of the soul, the
other to the nature of the body. The first is general, the second particular;
the first is independent, the second is subject to
necessity. For everything moved is subject to the necessary law of the mover.
But the motor movement is united by affinity to the intelligent principle. It behoves the soul to be incorporeal, and to be essentially
different from the physical body, for if she had a body she would have neither
reason nor thought. All bodies are unintelligent, but in receiving the spirit
they become animated and breathe. The breath belongs to the body, but reason
contemplates the beauty of the essential. The sensible spirit discerns
appearances. It is distributed into organic sensations; mental perception is a
part of it, as also is the acoustic, olfactive,
gustative, and tactile sense. This spirit, attracted by thought, discerns sensations, otherwise it creates only phantoms, for it
belongs to the body, and receives all things. The reason of the essential is
the judgment. To the reason belongs the cognizance of lofty things; but to the
sensible spirit, opinion. This last receives its energy from the external
world; but the former from within itself. [The foregoing fragments are from the "Physical Eclogues" of Stobaeus.] Seções: Índice Geral Seção Atual: Índice Obra: Índice Anterior Seguinte: 7. Vários Fragmentos Herméticos
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