THE
HERMETIC PHILOSOPHY
Tria sunt mirabilia. Deus et Homo. Mather
et Virgo. Trinus et Unus.
There is only one eternal truth and consequently only one divine wisdom.
If we wanted to trace the history of those in whom that wisdom became manifest
back to their origin, we would have to step out of time and space and enter
into eternity. We would have to go back to the first days of creation, when
"the spirit of God moved upon the waters," when the "first
initiator" instructed a race of semi-spiritual beings, constituted
very differently from the human beings as we now know them upon this planet.
The externally reasoning historian speaks of the wisdom-religion of the
ages, as if it were some system invented by man and evolved from the gradually
unfolding speculative power of the reasoning intellect; but the Occultist knows
that divine wisdom is eternal and always the same; all that differs is the form
of its manifestation, according to the capacity of the minds in which it seeks
for expression. A history of the doctrines of the Rosicrucians might,
therefore, begin with an exposition of the doctrine of the Vedas or the ancient
books of Egypt; but as these subjects have been extensively treated in H. P.
Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine"
and other books, we will merely see in what shape the hermetic philosophy
presented itself to the minds of the neo-platonic philosophers.
NEO-PLATONISTS
Ammonius
Saccas
Tilts philosopher, who lived about ago A.D., was the founder of the Neoplatonic School. He was the son of
Christian parents, and received a Christian education, but departed from this
system and became a "philosopher." He gained a living by carrying
burdens for pay, and yet he was one of the greatest philosophers of that age,
and well acquainted with the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. His disciples
were Erennios, Origenes, Plotinus, and Longinus.
Plotinus
Plotinus was born at Lykopolis
in Egypt in the year 205 A.D. He received his education at Alexandria.
He took part in the war of the Emperor Gordianus
in Persia, and went afterwards to Rome, where he established his school of
philosophy. Here he obtained great renown and was respected by all. It is said
that during the 26 years he lived in Rome he did not have a single enemy. Even
the Emperor Gallienus, one of
the greatest villains, respected and honored him.
Plotinus fell sick. As the physician Eustachius entered the room in which Plotinus was dying, the
latter exclaimed, joyfully, "I am now going to unite the God that lives
within myself with the God of the Universe."
The mind of Plotinus was continually directed towards the Divine genius
who accompanied him, — his own higher self. He cared little about his physical
body, and having been asked about the day when the latter was born, he refused
to tell it, saying that such a trifling matter was of too little importance to
waste any words about.
Phenomenal existence was to him an error, a mistake, a low and
undesirable condition, union with the Divine principle the highest aim of
existence. He ate very little, took no meat, and lived a life of chastity. Porphyry, another one of the
disciples of Saccas, having become envious of the renown of Plotinus, attempted
to use black magic against him, but without success; and finally said that the
soul of Plotinus was so strong that the most powerful Will directed against his
soul could not penetrate it, and rebounded upon the sender. Plotinus, however,
felt that magic influence, and expressed himself to that effect.
According to the philosophy of Plotinus, God is the foundation of all
things. There is only one Substance; Matter and Form are merely illusions, or
shadows of the Spirit. God is eternal and everywhere. He is pure light, a
Unity, the basis of all existence and thought. The Mind (νοῦς) is the image of this Unity; it is, so to say, the image created by the
Eternal by looking within itself. Thus the Mind is the product or creation of
God, and yet God itself, and receiving its power from the latter. The Mind is
the eternal activity of the Eternal. It is Light, primordial and
unchangeable. Thought and every thinkable object exists within the mind. The
world of Mind is the internal world; the external, sensual world is the
external expression of the former. Mind being a Unity, and all beings and
objects consisting of Mind substance, all are fundamentally identical, but they
differ in form.
The activity by which the inner world of Mind came into existence is an
interior power acting towards the centre. If an external world, corresponding
to the inner world, is to come into existence, there must be another activity
by which this internal activity is reversed, so as to be directed towards the
periphery. This centrifugal activity is the Soul, a product or reaction
of the centripetal activity of the Mind, in other words a product of Thought,
entering within itself.
There is a universal law according to which something real may produce
something approaching its own state of perfection, but not quite as perfect as
itself, and therefore the activity of the soul resembles the activity of the
mind, but is not as perfect as the latter.
The Soul, like the Mind, is living thought, but unlike the Mind, subject
to continual change. The soul, unlike the mind, does not see things within her
own self, but sees them in the mind. The activity of the soul is directed
outwardly, that of the mind inwardly; the perceptions of the soul are not so
clear as those of the mind. The soul, like the mind, is a kind of light; but
while the light of the mind is self-luminous, that of the soul is a reflection
of the former.
According to the eternal laws of order and harmony existing in the whole
organism of Nature, all souls become after a certain time separated from the
mind, or —to express it more correctly— the distance between the soul and the
centre of mind increases, and they assume a more material state. Moving away
from the Divine intelligence they enter the state of matter, they descend into
matter. At each step towards materialization their forms become more dense and
material, the souls in the air have an airy, those upon the earth an earthly
material form. The activity of the soul produces other and secondary
activities. Some of the latter have an upward tendency, others follow lower
attractions. The upward-tending activities are Faith, Aspiration, Veneration,
Sublimity, etc.; the downward tendencies produce reasoning, speculations,
sophistry, etc.; the lowest activity of the soul is the purely vegetative
power, sensation, assimilation, instinct, etc.
The ultimate aim of the activity of Nature is the attainment of
self-knowledge. Whatever Nature produces in a visible form, has also a
supersensual form, giving shape to gross matter, so that the form may become an
object for recognition. Nature is nothing but a living soul, she is the product
of a higher, interior activity, the Universal Mind. There is only one
fundamental living power in Nature, the power to imagine; there is only
one result of the activity of this power, formation, or perception of
form, and the same process which takes place in Nature, takes place in the
nature of man.
All formations of matter are produced by the soul residing therein. All
forms are filled with an interior life, even if not manifested outwardly. The
Earth is like the wood of a tree, wherein life exists; the stones resemble
twigs which have been cut off from the tree. In the stars, as well as in the
Earth, is Divine Life and Reason.
The sensual world and each existence therein has an interior soul, and
this soul is all that is lasting about those forms; the external appearance is
nothing more than an appearance.
The World of Intelligence, is an unchangeable living Unity
wherein there is no separation by space or change in time. In that world exists
everything that is, but there is neither production nor destruction, neither
past nor future. It is not in space, and requires no space. If we say the world
of intelligence is everywhere, we mean to express the idea that it is in its
own being, and, therefore, within itself.
The world of Intelligence is the world of Spirit. There is a supreme
Intelligence, wherein are germinally (potentially) contained all objects and
all intellects, and there are as many individual intellects as can possibly be
contained in that world of intelligence. The same may be said about the Soul.
There is a supreme Over-Soul, and as many individual souls as can be
contained therein; and the latter stand in the same relationship to the former
as a species to the one class to which it belongs.
There are different kinds of species in a class, yet all originate in
the latter. Each species has a character of its own. Likewise, in the
intellectual world there must be some certain qualities to produce souls of
various kinds, and the souls must be in possession of various degrees of
thought-power, else they would all be identical in every detail.
There is nothing absolutely without Reason in Nature, although the
manifestations of the principle differ vastly in the various forms. Even
animals, which seem to be unreasonable, possess a reason which guides their
instincts. Everything that exists has its origin in Reason, and there can be
nothing absolutely unreasonable in Nature; but there are innumerable modes in
which Reason becomes manifest, because these manifestations are modified by
external and internal conditions and circumstances. The inner, spiritual
man is far more reasonable than the external one. In the external world Reason
manifests itself as observation, logic and speculation; but in the world of intelligence
Reason is manifest in direct perception of the truth.
The aim of the internal action of reason is to produce an objective
form. As differentiation proceeds and the various powers unfold, they
continually lose some of their attributes, and the ultimate products are less
perfect than the original power; but the circumstances in which they are placed
give rise to the origin of new attributes, and thus a step is made towards
rising again into a higher state.
Thus the world of intelligence is a radiation from the fundamental
original centre, and the world which we perceive with our senses is a product
of the world of intelligence. The state of imperfection and mutability of all
things in the external world is caused by their remoteness from the great
centre. The Universe is a product of three fundamental principles of existence;
it is a great living being or organism, in which all its constituent
parts are intimately connected together, and no part in that universe can act
without causing a certain reaction in all other, even distant parts because
throughout the whole there is only one soul, whose activity, manifesting itself
in all parts, constitutes the organism of the whole.
All parts are connected together by that universal power which
constitutes the One Life in the universe. All souls lead, so to say,
amphibious existences. Sometimes they are attracted more to the sensual plane
and become interwoven with the latter; at other times they follow the
attraction of Reason, from whence they originated, and may become united with
it. The soul ultimately becomes divided, the higher elements rise to the
higher planes, the lower ones sink still lower when they are no more held up by
their connection with the higher ones. Whenever the incarnation of a human
being takes place, the soul furnishes the mortal body with some of her own
substance, but she does not, as a whole, belong to the body; and only that part
of the soul which has become thoroughly amalgamated with the body takes part in
the pains and pleasures of the latter.
Man's evil desires come only from that part of his soul, which is thus
mixed with the body, and, therefore, the evil consequences of man's evil
actions befall merely the animal man —that is to say, his living animal
principle— but not the real man or the spirit, connected with the higher
elements of the soul. The more the soul is attracted to the vulgar and low, the
more grossly material will the organism with which she clothes herself become.
After death the gross substances must be purified or destroyed, while the pure
elements rise up to the source from whence they came, until the time for a new
incarnation in a form of flesh has arrived.
This process is repeated until the soul has attained sufficient
knowledge to become inaccessible to the attraction of that which is low. In
this sense man's terrestrial existence may well be looked upon as being a
punishment for harboring evil desires and inclinations. Intellectual labor is
an activity belonging to a lower state of existence, and is necessary because
the original faculty of the soul of directly perceiving the truth has been
lost. If the soul desires to obtain this faculty again, she must free herself
from all intellectual conceptions, and penetrate into the formless.
If she desires to reach up to the original inconceivable fountain of
all, she must leave her own conceptions behind, she must become free from all
sensual perceptions and intellectual speculations, free of thought and speech,
and live in a state of spiritual contemplation. That which is beyond
intellectual conception can be seen, but can neither be conceived nor described
in words. Seeing is better than believing, knowledge is better than logis;
spiritual knowledge is one, but human science is a multiplicity, and has
nothing to do with the eternal Unity, from which all things take their origin.
It is of the utmost importance that men should be instructed about their
own nature, their origin, and their ultimate destiny; because an intellectual
person is not inclined to undertake a labor, unless he is convinced about its
usefulness. Spiritual perception is a power, which cannot be imparted, but
which must be gained by effort.
If a person does not know that such a power exists, or if he cannot
realize its usefulness, he will make no efforts to attain that state, his mind
will remain without illumination, and he will not be able to see the truth. He
may feel the existence of the truth, like a man may feel love for an unknown
ideal, of which he does not know whether or not it exists; but he whose mind is
illumined sees the object of his love, the light which illumines the world.
This light is present everywhere. But it exists relatively only for
those who are able to see, perceive, feel, and embrace it, by reason of their
own similarity to it. To make the matter still more comprehensible, let us say
that if the soul throws off her impediments and enters that state again in
which she originated from the Eternal, then will she be able to see and fed the
Eternal. If, after having received these instructions, a person is too indolent
to follow them, he will have no one to blame but himself if he remains in
darkness. Let all, therefore, try to tear themselves loose from that which is
low and sensual, and become united with the supreme power of God.
If you desire to find the Supreme, you must free your thoughts of all
impressions coming from the external world, purify your mind of all figures,
forms, and shapes.
God is present in all, even in those who do not recognize Him; but men
flee from God, they step out of Him, or, to speak more correctly, out of
themselves. They cannot grasp Him before whom they are thus fleeing, and,
having lost themselves, they hunts after other gods. But if the soul progresses
on the road to perfection, begins to realize her own higher state of existence,
to know that the fountain of eternal life is within herself, and that she,
therefore, has no need to hunt after external things, but can find all that is
desirable in the divine element within herself; if she begins to understand
that in that God within is her whole life and being, and that she must flee
from the realm of illusions to live and exist in Him, then will the time come
when she will be able to see Him, and to see herself as an ethereal being,
illumined by a super-terrestrial light. She will see herself even as the pure
Divine Light itself, as a God, radiant in beauty, but becoming dark again as
her light is rendered heavy if it approaches the shadows of the material plane.
Why does not the soul remain in that
state of light?
Merely because she has not yet freed herself fully from the attractions
of matter. If she has become entirely free of these attractions, she will
remain in that light, and know that she is one with it. In this state there is
no perceiver and no object of perception, there is merely perception, and the
soul is that which she perceives. She is, for the time being, identified with
the object of her perception, and, therefore, this state is something beyond
the intellectual comprehension of man.
Having been united and identical with it, the soul carries its image
within herself when she returns to herself. She then knows that during the time
of her union with the Eternal she was the Eternal itself, and there was no
difference between herself and the former. In herself there was no motion, no
sensation, no desire after anything else, neither was there thought nor conception.
She was exalted and resting in her own being, she was, so to say, rest itself,
in a state surpassing all conceptions of beauty or virtue. A soul entering into
this sublime state, in which there is no form and no image, cannot be supposed
to enter anything illusive. A soul which sinks into illusions degrades herself,
and enters the region of evil and darkness; but the exalted soul enters into
herself; she is then neither in a state of being nor of non-being, but in one
which is inconceivable and above all being.
Malchus
Porphyrius
(Porfirio)
This philosopher was a disciple of Plotinus, and was born in Batanea,
in Syria, in the year 233 A.D. He died at Rome in the year 304 A.D. He says
that only one single time during his life did he succeed in obtaining his union
with God, while his teacher Plotinus, was four times blessed in this manner.
Porphyry says, in regard to the Soul: — The embodied soul is like a
traveler who has lived a long time among foreign nations, and has, therefore,
not only forgotten the costumes of his own country, but also adopted those of
the foreigners. When such a traveler returns from his voyage, and desires to be
welcomed by his friends and relatives, he attempts to lay off his foreign
manners, and to return again to his former way of acting and thinking.
Likewise the soul, while banished from her celestial home, and being
forced to inhabit a physical form, acquires certain habits from the latter, and
if she desires to return to her former state, she must lay aside all she has
adopted from her terrestrial form. She must try to put off not merely the gross
physical mask in which she is dressed, but also her more interior envelopes, so
that she may enter, so to say, in a state of nudity into the realm of bliss.
There are two poisonous sources from which man drinks oblivion of his
former condition, and which cause him to become forgetful of his future
destiny, namely sensual pain and sensual pleasure. By the action of these two,
but especially by the action of the latter, desires and passions are created,
and these attract the soul to matter and become the cause of her
corporification. Thus the soul is, so to say nailed to the body, and the
ethereal vehicle of the soul is rendered heavy and dense.
We should avoid everything which may excite sensuality, because wherever
sensuality is active, reason and pure intelligence cease their activity. We
should, therefore, never eat for the mere pleasure of eating, but only eat as
much as is necessary to nourish the body. Superfluous, and especially animal
food, strengthens the bonds which bind the soul to matter, and withdraw her
from the Divinity and from divine things. The wise, being a priest of God,
should seek to remain free of all impurities while he is in the temple of
Nature, and he should never so far forget his dignity as to approach the Source
of all Life while he himself constitutes a grave for the dead bodies of
animals. He should select for his nutriment only the pure gifts of his
terrestrial mother. If we could avoid all kind of food, we should become still
more spiritual.
In regard to the difference existing between corporeal and incorporeal
things, Porphyry says: — "The Incorporeal governs the Corporeal, and is,
therefore, present everywhere, although not as space, but in power. The
corporeal existence of things cannot hinder the Incorporeal from being present
to such things as it desires to enter into relation with. The Soul has
therefore the power to extend her activity to any locality she may desire. She
is a power which has no limits, and each part of her, being independent of
special conditions, can be present everywhere, provided she is pure and
unadulterated with matter.
Things do not act upon each other merely by the contact of their
corporeal forms, but also at a distance, provided they have a soul, because the
higher elements of the soul are everywhere, and cannot be enclosed in a body,
like an animal in a cage, or a liquid in a bottle. The universal soul, being
essentially one and identical with the infinite supreme Spirit, may, by the infinite
power of the latter, discover or produce everything, and an individual soul may
do the same thing if she is purified and free from the body."
"The realm of the soul, being semi-material, has its inhabitants
possessing semi-material (astral) forms. Some of them are good, others evil;
some are kindly disposed towards man, others are malicious. Both classes have
ethereal but changeable bodies; the good ones are masters of their bodies and
desires, the evil ones are governed by the desires of their bodies.
They are all powers for good or for evil, divine, animal, or diabolic
invisible influences creating, by their interior activity, passions, desires,
vices, and virtues in the souls of beings. The more evil they are, the more do
their forms approach the corporeal state. They then live on the exhalations of
matter; they induce men to murder and to kill animals, they enjoy the vapors
arising from the victims, and grow fat by absorbing the ethereal substances of
the dying. They are, therefore, always ready to incite men to wars and crimes,
and they collect in great crowds in places where men or animals are
killed."
Porphyry ridicules the idea that gods, being wiser, more powerful, and
superior to man, could be coaxed, persuaded or forced to do the will of man or
conform to his desires. He repudiates the theory that clairvoyance, prophecy,
etc., were the results of the inspiration by external gods, but says that they
are a function of the Divine Spirit within man; and that the exercise of this
function becomes possible when the soul is put into that condition which is
necessary to exercise it.
"The consciousness of man may be centred within or beyond his
physical form; and according to conditions a man may be, so to say, out of
himself or within himself, or in a state in which he is neither wholly without
nor within, but enjoys both states at once."
He also states that there are many invisible beings, which may take all
possible forms and appear as gods, as men, or as demons, that they are fond of
lying and masquerading, and of pretending to be the souls of departed men.
It is said that Porphyry was several times during his prayers levitated
into the air, even to the height of ten yards or more, and that on such
occasions his body appeared to be surrounded by a golden light.
"The gods are everywhere, and he whose soul is filled with such a
divine influence to the exclusion of lower influences is, for the time being,
the god which that influence represents, possessing his attributes and ideas.
The nature of the union of the soul with God cannot be intellectually conceived
or expressed in words; he who accomplishes it is identical with God, he is
Divinity itself, and there is no difference between him and the latter. The
gods are not called down to us by our prayers; but we rise up to them by our
own holy aspirations and efforts; we are connected with them by the
all-embracing power of love."
Jamblichus
This philosopher was a disciple of Porphyry, and died about 333 A.D. He
says:
"If the soul rises up to the gods, she becomes god-like and able to
know the above and the below; she then obtains the power to heal
diseases, to make useful inventions, to institute wise laws. Man has no
intuitive power of his own; his intuition is the result of the connection
existing between his soul and the Divine Spirit; the stronger this union grows,
the greater will be his intuition, spiritual knowledge.
Not all the perceptions of the soul are of a divine character; there are
also many images which are the products of the lower activity of the soul in
her mixture with material elements. Divine Nature, being the eternal fountain
of Life, produces no deceptive images; but if her activity is perverted, such
deceptive images may appear. If the mind of man is illumined by the Divine
Light, the ethereal vehicle of his soul becomes filled with light and
shining."
Proclus
Proclus lived at Byzany,
412-485. He was a hermetic philosopher and mystic, having often prophetical
visions and dreams. It is said that he had the spiritual power of producing
rain by his "prayer" and of preventing earthquakes. He was very pious
and self-denying, and on some occasions his head seemed to be surrounded by a
glory of light.
He says that the soul of man consists of many coats; some more dense,
and others of a more ethereal character, each one being a fundamental
principle, changeable only in regard to its form.
"The soul can only return to her divine state after having been
purified of her earthly desires. Her reason and free will must take part in the
sufferings belonging to the material state, until she attains knowledge and
becomes free from desires. For this purpose she clothes herself at certain
periods in a physical form (reincarnates as a human being), until she has laid
off her desires. The more the soul frees herself from her gross external coats
(principles) the higher can she rise."
Hierocles
This philosopher says: — "The intelligent soul-substance received
from the Demiurgos (Logos) an inseparable immaterial body, and entered
thus into being. She is, therefore, neither corporeal nor incorporeal, but
comparable to the sun and the stars, which are the product of an immaterial
substance. This soul-body, which human beings as well as "spirits"
possess, is of a shining nature. The vehicle of the soul is contained within
the material body of man; it breathes Life into the lifeless and soulless
physical organism, and contains the harmony of the latter.
The Life Principle of man is the inner being which produces the
activity of Life in the organism. The inner man consists of an intelligent
substance and an immaterial (transcendentally material) body. The visible
material form is the production and image of the interior man. The external
form consists of the animal, unintellectual, gross-material and ethereal
bodies, a separation of living substance and dead matter is effected, and thus
man may render himself capable of having intercourse with pure spirits.
The last Neoplatonists
During the year 529, the imperial bigot Justinian closed the schools of Philosophy at Athens, and
their last representatives, Isodorus, Damascius, and Simplicius went to
Persia. They expected to find in the East freedom of thought, tolerance, and
wisdom. It was said that Chosroes,
the King of Persia, was a philosopher, and they hoped to obtain his protection.
But they soon found that the philosophy of that King was very superficial, and
that he was a cruel, passionate, and ignorant tyrant, varnished over with some
superficial learning. Disappointed, they returned to Greece.
This was the experience of the last of the Neoplatonic philosophers,
such as were publicly known, and a long obscuration of the sun of wisdom took
place, until a ray of light broke again through the clouds during the 15th
century.
(In the Pronaos of the
Temple of Wisdom, chapter 2)
Cid's observation
Theosophical instructors explained
that the Neoplatonists transmitted the teachings of the Transhimalayan masters
during ancient times, and I think that statement must be true because the
teachings of the Neoplatonists are very similar to what theosophy teaches,
although unfortunately the Neoplatonists misrepresented the original doctrines
to a greater or lesser extent, and it is for this reason that although they are
very interesting to study, they are not the instructors that I prefer to focus
on the most.
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