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THE AUTHOR
The Hermetic Art
AN INTRODUCTION TO
THE ART OF ALCHEMY
The Text of the Hermetic Sermons, Entitled,
"The Greatest 111 Among Men Is Ignorance of
God," "That No One of Existing Things
Doth Perish," and the Sermon on Thought
and Sense, Together With the Esoteric
Commentary, Giving in Full, the
Esoteric Key to These Three Great
Sermons, The Official Interpre-
tation of the Hermetic Brother-
hood of Atlantis, and the
Official Text Book in the
H e r m e t i c A r t .
By
DR. A. S. RALEIGH
The
HERMETIC PUBLISHING COMPANY
3020 Lake Park Avenue, Chicago, 111.
1919
COPYRIGHT. 1919,
BY THE HERMETIC PUBLISHING CO.
Copyri^rhted and Registered at Stationers' Hail, London, England
(All Rights Reserved)
Typt Set by American Typesetting Corporation, Chicago
Printed and Bound by M. A. Donohue & Co., Chicago
/
DEDICATION
To that small but select body of students
of Alchemy scattered throughout the
world — who have ever devoted them-
selves to the Quest after the Absolute,
and have sought for the Philosopher's
Stone — this course of Lessons in the Her-
metic Art is lovingly dedicated, with the
hope that it may in some degree throw
light upon the subject of their search, and
may to some extent direct them in the way
of the real Transmutation.
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
Page
Introductory Note 7
The Greatest III Among Men Is Ignorance
OF God
Text 11
Lesson 1. The 111 of Ignorance... 13
PART TWO.
That No One of Existing Things Doth
Perish But Men in Error Speak of
Their Changes as Destructions
AND AS Deaths
Text 39
Lesson 2. The Limitation of the Body. . 29
Lesson 3. Soul and Body 43
Lesson 4. The Eternity of Matter 55
Lesson 5. The Life of Man 63
PART THREE.
On Thought and Sense
That the Beautiful and Good Is in Good and
Elsewhere Nowhere
Text 73
Lesson 6. Thought and Sense 79
Lesson 7. The Conception of Thought. . 91
Lesson 8. The Kosmic Course 107
Lesson 9. The Function of The Cosmos. 119
Lesson 10. The Sense-and-Thought of
God 129
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
In presenting this series of lessons on the Her-
metic Art we are continuing the series which
began in Philosophia Hermetica, w^hich continued
in Scientific Hermetica and culminated in the
Hermetic Art, this series of three books being
intended as an introduction to the study of
alchemy. In the Philosophia Hermetica we gave
an introduction to the Philosophy of Alchemy, in
Scientific Hermetica we gave an introduction to
the Science of Alchemy and in the Hermetic Art
w^e give an introduction to the Art of Alchemy.
All Hermetic matters group themselves under
those three heads. Hermetic Philosophy, which
deals with the speculative side of Hermeticism,
Hermetic Science which deals with the scientific
principles embodied in the Hermetic teaching and
the Hermetic Art which deals with the practical
application of the principles enunciated in the
Hermetic Philosophy and the Hermetic Science.
Physical alchemy is by the novice generally sup-
posed to be the summum bonum of Hermeticism,
while as a matter of fact it is a very unimportant
item in the general body of our teaching. The
basis of Hermeticism as we have it today is to be
found in the writing of Hermes Trismegistus. In
all those waitings there is not a single sermon
devoted to the discussion of practical alchemy, and
yet there are those so damnably ignorant as to
assume that Hermeticism is primarily concerned
w^ith the physical side of the Magnum Opus. To
those who hold this view we can only reply that
Hermeticism is a complete philosophy of life, it
represents absolute truth. It begins with religion,
it is essentially a system of theology, it has next its
metaphysical side, closely connected with the the-
ological element; it is philosophical, it is also
metaphysical, it has its peculiar psychology. It is
7
8
THE HERMETIC ART
related to the whole body of the Kosmos and all
that proceeds from it, which of course includes
Alchemy. But Alchemy is merely one of the sci-
ences which Hermes Trismegistus was very care-
ful to point out should not be confounded with
philosophy and Hermes announced himself to be a
teacher of philosophy primarily. His discussion
of the sciences was merely incidental to his work
of propounding philosophical religion. The
Metaphysics of Alchemy always precedes the
Physics of Alchemy even when we come to dis-
cuss the alchemical aspect of the Hermetic Art.
Therefore in the succeeding course of lessons
which will immediately follow these we propose
to discuss the Philosophy of Alchemy, this will be
followed by a course in the Science of Alchemy,
this in turn by one in the Speculative Art of
Alchemy and the seventh volume of the series will
be the first to deal with the Practical Art of
Alchemy.
It may be said that one cannot consummate
Practical Alchemy until one has first understood
Kosmical Alchemy, — that is to say the Alchemy
which is perpetually going on in Kosmos. After
this he must understand Mental Alchemy, or the
Alchemy operating within the mind through
which thoughts are generated and through which
thought is transmuted, then he must understand
the Alchemy of the soul and after these the
Alchemy of the physical body. Furthermore he
must have accomplished the Alchemy of his own
mind, soul and body before he can accomplish the
Physical Alchemy which is related to the trans-
mutation of metals; therefore it is necessary to
understand the Metaphysics of Alchemy before
one attempts to concentrate his attention on the
physical aspect of practical alchemy.
This work is not only to be viewed in the sense
of a treatise on the Hermetic Art and an intro-
THE HERMETIC ART
9
duction to the Philosophy of Alchemy, it is in fact
the official text book of the Hermetic Brotherhood
on that subject. There have been a great many
works on Alchemy written by those who knew
absolutely nothing of what they were talking
about, but in our Hermetic Art we are giving you
the official authorized text book of the Brother-
hood dealing with the Hermetic Art, and like-
wise their official authorized introduction to the
study of the Philosophy of Alchemy, but in addi-
tion to this the book will also be found to contain
the text of three of the sermons of Hermes Tris-
megistus together with the official commentary
unfolding their Esoteric meaning. These ser-
mons are the ones entitled, "The Greatest 111
Among Men Is Ignorance of God, That no one of
existing things doth perish but men in error speak
of their changes as destructions and as deaths, and
the sermon on Thought and Sense, That the beau-
tiful and the good is in God only and elsewhere
nowhere." Those who do not desire to study the
Hermetic Art or to enter into the study of Alchemy
will nevertheless find the lessons interesting as
they constitute the official and authoritative com-
mentary on these three sermons. One should not
attempt to read the future books on Alchemy with-
out thoroughly mastering the contents of Philo-
sophia Hermetica, Scientific Hermetica and the
Hermetic Art. We present this effort to our read-
ers and friends with the hope that it may interest
them to look more deeply into the rich mine of
occult, mystic and philosophical lore which is con-
tained in the writings of Thrice Greatest Hermes.
In giving forth this book we feel that we have dis-
charged an obligation which rested upon us to give
to the vv^orld the absolute truth in regard to the
three heads of Hermetic teaching, Philosophia
Hermetica, Scientific Hermetica and the Hermetic
Art. In doing this we have placed all without
10
THE HERMETIC ART
excuse, who fall for the mediocre unofficial pub-
lications that are put forth from time to time by
novices who know absolutely nothing of what
they are writing. By giving this official informa-
tion we have provided the world with the standard
text books of the three heads of Hermetic knowl-
edge. It is to be hoped that they will make good
use of them, at any rate they are provided with
accurate information in regard to the subject.
With the publication of this volume we will
have provided students with a complete introduc-
tion to all departments of the Hermetic Gnosis.
This was the work which we assigned ourselves in
the beginning and having accomplished the task
we have now equipped the reader with all the
preliminary instructions which he requires for
boldly entering into the study of alchemy. It is
to be trusted that those who have understood our
teaching will have the boldness to go into this field
of Creative work,
A. S. RALEIGH.
Columbus, Ohio, July 1, 1916.
The Hermetic Art
The Greatest El Among Men Is Ignorance of God
TEXT
Parthey (G.), Hermetic Trismegisti Poe-
mander (Berlin, 1854), 54-55.
Patrizzi (F.), Nova de Univerns Philoso-
phia (Venice, 1593), 18a.
Mead (G, R. S.), Thrice Greatest Hermes
(London, 1906), Corpus Hermeticum
VII (VIII).
1. Whither stumble ye, sots, who have
sopped up the wine of ignorance unmixed,
and can so far not carry it that ye already
even spew it forth?
Stay ye, be sober, gaze upwards with the
[true] eyes of the heart! And if ye cannot
all, yet ye at least who can!
For that the ill of ignorance doth pour o'er
all the earth and overwhelm the soul that's
battened down within the body, preventing
it from fetching port within Salvation's har-
bours.
2. Be then not carried off by the fierce
flood, but using the shore-current, ye who
can, make for Salvation's port, and, har-
bouring there, seek ye for one to take you by
the hand and lead you unto, Gnosis' gates.
n
12
THE HERMETIC ART
Where shines clear Light, of every dark-
ness clean; where not a single soul is drunk,
but sober all they gaze with their heart's
eyes on Him who willeth to be seen.
No ear can hear Him, nor can eye see
Him, nor tongue speak of Him, but [only]
mind and heart.
But first thou must tear off from thee the
cloak which thou dost wear, — the web of
ignorance, the ground of bad, corruption's
chain, the carapace of darkness, the living
death, sensation's corpse, the tomb thou car-
riest with thee, the robber in thy house, who
through the things he loveth, hateth thee,
and through the things he hateth, bears thee
malice.
3. Such is the hateful cloak thou wear-
est, — that throttles thee [and holds thee]
down to it, in order that thou may 'st not
gaze above, and, having seen the Beauty of
the Truth, and Good that dwells therein,
detest the bad of it; having found out the
plot that it hath schemed against thee, by
making void of sense those seeming things
which men think senses.
For that it hath with mass of matter
blocked them up and crammed them full of
loathsome lust, so that thou may'st not hear
about the things that thou should'st hear,
nor see the things that thou should'st see.
LESSON I
The 111 of Ignorance
1. Wither stumble ye, sots, who have
sopped up the wine of ignorance unmixed,
and can so far not carry it that ye already
even spew it forth?
Stay ye, be sober, gaze upwards with the
[true] eyes of the heart! And if ye cannot
all, yet ye at least who can !
For that the ill of ignorance doth pour
o'er all the earth and overwhelm the soul
that's battened down within the body, pre-
venting it from fetching port within Salva-
tion's harbors.
This sermon is in the nature of an impassioned
appeal to the people to refrain from the drunken-
ness of ignorance and turn their attention to the
truth. It is in the nature of a preaching an evan-
gelical preachment of the beauty of Gnosis ver-
sus the ugliness and degradation of the life of the
senses. In order to make the lesson the more
impressive he compares the people to sots who are
continually in a state of intoxication, who stumble
through life dependent entirely on the testimony
of their senses for guidance. It is very graphically
expressed. He begins by inquiring Whither stum-
ble ye? In other words, they are described as
stumbling through life in a state of intoxication.
He terms them sots, and asserts they have sopped
up the wine of ignorance unmixed. Ignorance is
here compared to a steady diet of wine, because
the effect of ignorance is to produce a state of
mental and spiritual intoxication very similar to
13
14
THE HERMETIC ART
the state of intoxication produced by over-indul-
gence in wine. Ignorance is thus viewed as a posi-
tive intoxicant; a poison having the effect of cloud-
ing the mind so that it is incapable of thinking
clearly. He states that this wine of ignorance is
unmixed. That is to say there is not a j)article of
truth in what they are imbibing. There being no
mixture of truth in the wine of ignorance their
souls are entirely dominated by the intoxication
growing out of this unmixed wine of ignorance.
He further says that they can so far not carry it,
that they already even spew it forth. In other
words the mind, saturated by the wine of ignorance
is incapable of retaining its own supply of ignor-
ance but spews it forth similar to the drunkard
spewing forth the overabundance of wine which
he has taken. By this he means that the ignorance
intoxicated man gives expression to no thought,
word or deed but what springs directly from
ignorance. In other words, no good, true or
logical statement can ever by any possibility
emanate from the consciousness of one intoxicated
by ignorance. His statements will all be untrue,
his deeds will all be evil, his thoughts will all be
irrational. He leads a life expressive of pure and
unadulterated ignorance, because all his thinking
has been inspired by ignorance. We must under-
stand this matter in its true light; that is to say,
we must get a true understanding of his usage of
the term ignorance.
Hermes, being a metaphysician and a tran-
scendentalist, takes the common position of all such
philosophers, that the senses always lead one
astray; that our facts are all of them absolutely
untrue; that the testimony of the senses is invari-
ably misleading; consequently any view that
springs from the testimony of the senses will be
in the very nature of things misleading. As long
as one's thinking is in terms of sense perception he
THE HERMETIC ART
15
will gain an erroneous view of the universe, of life,
of experience, of the whole cosmogony of being.
This false view of the nature of things is what he
terms ignorance. It is viewed as a fK>sitive force
because of the positive effect which it has upon the
soul. So long as one's thinking is in terms of the
senses, that is, so long as this ignorance or illusion
binds ones thinking, he will be in a state of intoxi-
cation, seeing that it will be utterly impossible for
him ever to think correctly, that is in accordance
with the truth; because this ignorance induced by
the senses, this false mental attitude, precludes the
possibility of logical, rational thinking and one is
intoxicated by it. His mind is deceived by the
false images which his senses present to it. So
that the mind, being clouded and befuddled in this
way, causes him to speak and act in a false and
illogical manner. Therefore the question is,
Whither stumble ye? In other words, in what
direction is your drunken stumbling leading you?
It is very much in the nature of a rebuke to a
drunkard when we put it in the form of a ques-
tion and ask him where this continual drunkenness
is going to lead him. It is as though to ask the
drunkard where he expected to get off at if he
kept it up. It is this form of interrogative rebuke
that is administered. The question is, what will
be the goal of anyone who continues in this state
of intoxication, being continually made drunk by
ignorance without receiving the light of truth.
Next he admonishes them to stay, to be sober,
to gaze upwards with the true eyes of the heart.
Having indicated the evil tendency of their drunk-
enness, which simply means a state of conscious-
ness induced by the testimony of the senses, he next
admonishes them to halt in this course of degen-
eracy, to stop and consider, to reckon w4th them-
selves. He admonishes them to be sober. Now as
drunkenness is a condition resulting from the sop-
16
THE HERMETIC ART
ping up of the wine of ignorance sobriety of course
can consist only in abstaining from imbibing the
wine of ignorance. The wine of ignorance being
the term used to indicate that state of mind grow-
ing out of the testimony of the senses, it follows
that sobriety can only mean the discarding or
rejection of the testimony of the senses and a state
of consciousness growing out of the exercise of the
Pure Reason independent of all sense perception.
This Pure Reason will therefore enlighten the
understanding, purging out the mind of ignor-
ance induced by the testimony of the senses, and
hence will develop a balanced rational state of
mind which he describes as sober. Next he admon-
ishes them to gaze upwards with the true eyes of
the heart. In other words, he is clearly enunciat-
ing the doctrine of the heart versus the doctrine of
the eyes. The heart is used here with reference to
the devotional side of ones being working in con-
junction with the Reason, the Gnostic heart in
other words. The eyes of the heart refer to the
soul sense, to that sense which is not discernible
through the physical senses but is rather a faculty
of the soul ; something closely united to intuition
but yet somewhat different. And then admonishes
them to gaze upward, that this soul sense can,
through this, come in contact with reality instead
of the illusion of the senses. This attitude of con-
tact with reality through the testimony of the Rea-
son, the eyes of the heart, produces the sober mind
rather than the intoxication of ignorance, and in
this way ignorance is purged out of the soul.
Realizing that it is impossible for all mankind to
heed his advice, that some souls are so undeveloped
that they can only feed upon ignorance, and in
fact that ignorance gives them an opportunity for
evolution which they would not otherwise have,
seeing that they can thrive on no other diet, he does
not try to persuade all to abstain from ignorance,
THE HERMETIC ART
17
and the drunkenness which it induces, but calls
upon all who have the capacity to do this, all who
are able to at least follow his advice and look
upwards. Hence it is to be observed that the
Hermetic message is not directed to the multitude
but rather to those scattered within the multitude
w^ho are capable of grasping a thought of the
higher life.
For that the ill of ignorance doth pour
o'er all the earth and overwhelm the soul
that's battened down within the body, pre-
venting it from fetching port within Salva-
tion's harbors.
The ill of ignorance relates to the consequences
or effects of ignorance, the evil growing out of it,
and also to ignorance itself as an ill. It is stated
that this pours o'er all the earth. In other words,
there is nothing in the sensible w^orld but what con-
tributes to the development of this ill of ignorance.
In other words, all objects of the senses engender
sensations which in turn produce ignorance in the
human mind. Therefore the earth is completely
covered wdth this ill of ignorance inasmuch as all
objects in the world directly induce ignorance in
the human consciousness. It overwhelms the soul
that's battened down within the body. That is to
say all souls resident in the body, all incarnate
souls, are influenced by this ill of ignorance because
their corporeal senses are controlled and domi-
nated by the objects of sense. These senses cause
distorted images of those objects to be reflected in
the mind in terms of corresponding mental impres-
sions. Therefore all souls resident w^ithin the body
are influenced by the testimony of the senses so that
the soul is ovenvhelmed by this force of ignorance,
is controlled by it, and is unable to express itself
against this force of the obvious. It is this over-
18
THE HERMETIC ART
whelming of the soul by ignorance that prevents
it from fetching port within Salvation^s harbors.
In other words, the soul is described as a vessel at
sea. Tossed about upon the waves of ignorance
Salvation is the harbor to which it is bound, but
it is unable to fetch port within the harbors of Sal-
vation because it is overwhelmed by ignorance
due to its residence in the body. He therefore
very clearly indicates what he means by salvation.
Inasmuch as ignorance induced by sense percep-
tion is that which keeps the soul from reaching sal-
vation, it follows that salvation is the state result-
ing from a repudiation of the testimony of the
senses. In other words, in order to reach Salvation
the soul must through Reason rise above the testi-
mony of the senses, must break away from the ideal
world of sense induced thought and reach a con-
sciousness of reality. In other words. Salvation is
the state of mind growing out of knowledge of the
truth rather than the facts indicated by the senses.
So long, therefore, as anyone takes the testimony
of his senses seriously, or gives credit to the
thoughts induced by the senses Salvation is impos-
sible. It therefore follows that Salvation is a state
of consciousness directly the reverse of the ordi-
nary human consciousness, the consciousness grow-
ing out of the testimony of the senses. It is an
ideal consciousness rather than a sensible con-
sciousness, or a sensuous consciousness, that is
termed Salvation. The whole preaching of our
sermon is an exhortation to strive to overcome the
testimony of the senses, though abiding within the
body, and reach the pure plane of truth.
2. Be then not carried off by the fierce
flood, but using the shore-current, ye who
can, make for Salvation's port, and, harbor-
ing there, seek ye for one to take you by the
hand and lead unto Gnosis' gates.
THE HERMETIC ART
19
Where shines clear light, of every dark-
ness clean ; where not a single soul is drunk,
but sober all they gaze with their heart's
eyes on Him who willeth to be seen.
Where no ear can hear him, nor can eye
see him, nor tongue speak of him, but [only]
mind and heart.
But first thou must tear off from thee the
cloak which thou dost wear, — the web of
ignorance, the ground of bad. Corruption's
chain, the carapace of darkness, the living
death, sensation's corpse, the tomb thou car-
riest with thee, the robber in thy house, who
through the things he loveth, hateth thee,
and through the things he hateth, bears thee
malice.
Be then not carried off by the fierce flood,
but using the shore-current, ye who can,
make for Salvation's port, and, harboring
there, seek ye for one to take you by the hand
and lead you into Gnosis' gates.
Here he describes the force of ignorance as a
fierce flood, that is as a swift flowing stream, the
main current of a stream, which carries one out to
sea, as it were, leading him entirely away from
the true reason and consciousness of things. A cur-
rent against which no one can pull. Nevertheless
he urges those to whom he appeals to not be car-
ried off by this fierce flood but overcome it, and
he assures them that it is possible to do this by
using the shore-current. That is to say, the back
or up-current which is caused by the swift flowing
of the current; the back current being induced,
and which tends to flow upstream near the shore.
20
THE HERMETIC ART
The advice therefore is to struggle to get out of
the swift current and bring one's bark within the
back or shore current, so that one may drift to
shore. In this way it is possible to make for Sal-
vation's port. The imagery here is very graphic,
and yet it does not appear to be so very difficult
to understand. He describes the life of sense
induced thought, that is the life naturally growing
out of one's mode of thinking, when that mode of
thinking is induced by the testimony of the senses.
This mode of life is likened to being adrift in the
current of a swift flowing stream. Nevertheless
from that there is a shore current which leads one
away from the testimony of the senses, and this
shore current is nothing more nor less than the
faculty of analytical reasoning. Using the shore
current means nothing more nor less than exercis-
ing ones faculty for analysis, — striving to get back
of appearances and come in contact with reality.
Salvation's port is the landing place from the river
of ignorance, hence it relates to that stage of one's
consciousness where a basis for clear thinking has
been realized, where one begins to develop a
philosophical concept entirely independent of the
testimony of the senses. In other words, Salva-
tion's port is the metaphysical concept. When one
has reached that stage where he thinks from the
metaphysical rather than from the sensory, or
obvious, or physical standpoint he has entered Sal-
vation's port.
The next instruction is to harbor there. By
entering the port and harboring there he means to
live temporarily in this metaphysical port, this
port of the metaphysical view of life. In other
words, to continue to study and contemplate life
from the metaphysical point of view. Next, seek
for one to take you by the hand and lead you into
Gnosis' gates. He takes the position that to change
one's views of life from that induced by the senses
THE HERMETIC ART
21
to the metaphysical, and to maintain that meta-
physical view of life, is about as far as one can go
by his own effort. In other words, Hermes was
not a believer in the idea that one could look within
and find the truth. He does not believe that it was
advisable for anyone to try to attain the Gnosis
by development dependent upon himself. He did
not consider that there was any inner voice that
could lead one to the consciousness of truth, but
rather held that the metaphysical view of things
was about as far as one could go without assistance.
When one had reached this stage Hermes advised
him to seek for an Initiate who understood the
higher teachings, who understood the nature of
things to a great extent, who would lead him into
the gates of Gnosis. Mind you, he does not say,
who w^ould give him Gnosis, for no teacher can
impart Gnosis to any human being. All the
teacher can do is to teach philosophy from the
standpoint of the Reason through analysis, to bring
one's soul to that stage of development where he
is able to reach the gates of Gnosis. Hence he
advised everyone who had entered Salvation's
port to remain in that state of mind, not striving
to go beyond it until he had found a Master who
was able through teaching to prepare him for
Gnosis.
Where shines clear Light, of every dark-
ness clean; where not a single soul is drunk,
but sober all they gaze with their heart's
eyes on Him who willeth to be seen.
In this paragraph we have a description of the
Gnosis. In the first place, there shines clear Light.
By this he does not mean physical light, nor yet
cosmic light, but rather does he mean that divine
ray of light from which mind proceeds. And this
clear Divine Light shines in the place of Gnosis.
22
THE HERMETIC ART
Within the gates of Gnosis. It is one of the condi-
tions precedent to the attainment of Gnosis. This
Light is clean of every darkness, for here in this
Light there is nothing but the pure undivided
Divine Light which shines into the soul of the
aspirant illuminating his consciousness with this
clear Divine Light. Where not a single soul is
drunk, for the simple reason that this Light dispels
all darkness, all ignorance, causing the light to
reflect the perfect truth and thus leaving no space
for ignorance. The soul being clearly illumined
by the Divine Light is not drunk but sober. All
souls bathed in this Light must be free of ignor-
ance, and therefore in a state of soberness result-
ing from the clear consciousness of truth. So that
all gaze with their heart's eyes; that is with the
perception of their souls, with their soul sense, on
Him who willeth to be seen, that is upon the Abso-
lute, unmanifest God. The soul sense of the
Gnosis is therefore able to give him a clear view
of the unmanifest God, the God beyond all name.
He it is who is the subject of their contemplation.
Where no ear can hear Him, nor can eye
see Him, nor tongue speak of Him, but
[only] mind and heart.
God cannot be approached through the medium
of the senses. He cannot be heard, neither can He
be seen, neither can He be described by words of
speech. God is therefore entirely removed from
the plane of the senses. He can only be seen, heard
and spoken of by mind and heart. That is to say,
only through intelligence and devotion is it pos-
sible for one to deal with God. Language cannot
describe Him, we can only think of Him, and the
heart's devotion can alone grasp His nature.
Therefore God must be worshiped in thought and
the devotion of the heart. Hence the Gnostic
THE HERMETIC ART
23
must be one whose mind is capable of thinking
independently of the testimony of the senses. It
must work entirely apart from the senses, dealing
in the problem from altogether a different angle.
In other words, it is a pure, metaphysical, mystical
contemplation of mind and heart directed unto
the consideration of the nature of God. The train-
ing one receives from the Master is in reality to
develop this faculty of which we are speaking, the
faculty for the independent operation of the mind
and heart when entirely divested of the testimony
of the senses.
But first thou must tear off from thee the
cloak which thou dost wear, — the web of
ignorance, the ground of bad, corruption's
chain, the carapace of darkness, the living
death, sensation's corpse, the tomb thou car-
riest with thee, the robber in thy house, who
through the things he loveth, hateth tliee,
and through the things he hateth, bears thee
malice.
In this paragraph he denounces the body, and
announces that before one can reach this gnostic
state he must tear off from him the cloak which
he wears. This cloak which is worn by the soul
is the body. First of all he denounces it as the
web of ignorance, because of the fact that it com-
municates nothing true to the soul, it lies about
everything — that is the physical senses misrepre-
sent things. Next, it is the ground of bad, for
nothing good can be expressed in the physical
body. It is the ground of bad. We do all things
because of the process of generation which goes
on in the production of the body, we do all things
because we have physical bodies. It is utterly
impossible for the good to grow out of the physical.
24
THE HERMETIC ART
Next, corruption's chain, that is to say the chain
of corruption by which we are bound. The con-
tinual process of corruption which goes on because
of the presence of the body. The carapace of
darkness, because the bodily senses shut out the
light, causing us to be guided by false testimony,
by false sensations. Thus the body shuts out the
light and binds us to darkness. The living death,
because the body going through the process of cor-
ruption, of transition, continually dies. Our life
is but a sequence of deaths. Sensation's corpse,
that is the corpse through which the senses oper-
ate, the corpse produced by sensation. Every man
is really dead so long as he is governed by the
senses. He only lives when they are overcome.
The tomb thou carriest with thee. The body is
described as the tomb in which the soul is buried.
The robber in thy house. The body and its
physical sensations rob one of the soul's life,
because so long as the corporeal and sensuous life
is led it is utterly impossible to lead the spiritual
life. Who through the things he loveth, hateth
thee. Remember the one addressed here is the
soul always, and the body, through the things it
loves, hates the soul, because it strives after phys-
ical gratification and thus prevents the spiritual
gratification of the soul. And through the things
he hateth, bears thee malice. In other words, all
the antipathies of the body are malicious because
of the attitude which they have upon the soul.
While this paragraph deals with the body as the
subject of its denunciation, the bodily life, yet there
is a secondary meaning. It is not merely the body
that is here used in its physical senses but we have
also a sort of mystical body of sensation that we
have to take into consideration, and that is perhaps
the more important of the two. Because he states
that first we must tear off the cloak which we wear
before we can enter the gates of Gnosis. Now if
THE HERMETIC ART
25
this related only to the physical body it would
mean that no one could attain Gnosis until he died,
but the whole tenor of Hermetic teaching is the
urging of people to attain Gnosis while they are
yet alive. Therefore this cannot refer so much to
the physical body as to a sort of mystical body of
sensation, which will really mean the cloak that
he speaks of here. In this sense the web of ignor-
ance would relate to a web woven by ignorant
thinking, which binds the mind as in a spider's
web, so to speak; a pall, a curtain, that incloses
the mind and soul, preventing them from seeing
beyond it. This must be torn off first,— the web
of ignorance — and we must destroy the web of
ignorance by destroying ignorance with knowl-
edge. The ground of bad, that is, the foundation
from which bad proceeds. As bad is the result of
genesis it will follow that to tear away the ground
of bad will mean to cause the fruit of ignorance
to be no longer borne. That is to prevent our
previous ignorant thinking from bringing forth
fruit, from generating offspring in the form of
consciousness and deed. Corruption's chain must
also be torn off, that is to say the sequence of cor-
ruption which is operating within our being, this
must be torn away by entirely separating in our
consciousness the soul life from the bodily life.
No one can escape the chain of corruption so long
as he looks upon the physical body as being him-
self. The self must be identified with the soul, and
when the soul has been identified as the self, the
body being no longer recognized as an integral
part of the self, corruption's chain will cease to
affect the soul. In other words, we must cease to
believe in corruption and death and assert our
immortality, and in this way corruption's chain is
torn off. We must tear off the carapace of dark-
ness. We must refuse to dwell in the dark. We
must open our souls to the shining of the light, thus
26
THE HERMETIC ART
escaping the shell of darkness induced by ignor-
ance and carnality of mind. The living death
must be torn away by consciously living not in
time but in eternity, by realizing the eternity of the
soul's nature. We must cease to function in sen-
sation's corpse by repudiating the testimony of the
senses; by thinking not in terms of sense percep-
tion or experience, but in terms of the Pure Rea-
son. No one can escape the corpse of sensation so
long as he believes in the testimony of his senses.
By repudiating the testimony of the senses, by
refusing to accept it as true, by thinking rather in
terms of eternal truth through the Pure Reason
of the soul, one is able to cast aside sensation's
corpse and live the spiritual life w^hile still in the
body.. The tomb thou carriest with thee, is noth-
ing more nor less than the life which one leads,
his consciousness being bounded by the testimony
of the senses. This leads to a belief in death and
the belief in death entombs the soul in mortality,
consequently the soul abiding in this mortal tomb,
is shut ofif from the true life. The robber in thy
house, is this belief in mortality induced by sensa-
tion, in other words, the mental attitude which
sensation induces — such mental attitude robs the
soul of its true life, in that it renders it impossible
for the soul to be conscious of its true attributes
seeing that the human consciousness is made up
entirely of dying things, of the changes and transi-
tions which the objects of sense indicate. This
robber in the house which we have thus indicated
hates the soul through the very things he loves.
That is to say, as long as the consciousness is made
up of the testimony of the senses, of ignorance, it
will be antagonistic to every aspect of the true soul
life, being entirely against the life of the soul, com-
pletely destroying whatever of the soul life tends
to manifest itself, and these antipathies, that is the
antipathies of the senses, befog the mind and are
THE HERMETIC ART
27
really antipathetic to the life of the soul. What-
ever the sense induced consciousness opposes is in
reality a true attribute of the soul life; therefore
we are able to see that the cloak here spoken of
is not only the physical body but is a sort of sub-
jective body growing out of the direct action of
the senses, a body of illusion, a body of ignorance,
which must be overcome by the mind freeing itself
from the illusions of the senses, and that until this
has been consummated it is utterly impossible for
the first gleam of Gnosis to enter the consciousness.
Hence to tear off this cloak while yet in the body
means that the soul must become entirely independ-
ent of all influences exercised by the body. The
soul must become the positive pole and the body
merely the expression on the physical plane of the
soul life. So long as the body is the vehicle for
the physical plane, it is the cloak of ignorance.
It only ceases to be this when it becomes the vehicle
for the soul operating upon the physical plane,
but is in no sense influenced by the physical plane.
Only in this way is one freed from the cloak of
ignorance and enabled to enter the gnostic path.
The path of true enlightenment. Such an one is
in fact a spirit rather than a body. He is just as
much a freed spirit as he is when he permanently
leaves the body.
LESSON II
The Limitations of the Body
3. Such is the hateful cloak thou wear-
est, — that throttles thee [and holds thee]
down to it, in order that thou mayst not
gaze above, and, having seen the Beauty of
the Truth, and Good, that dwells therein,
detest the bad of it; having found out the
plot that it has schemed against thee, by
making void of sense those seeming things
which men think senses.
For that it hath with mass of matter
blocked them up and crammed them full of
loathsome lust, so that thou mayst not hear
about the things that thou shouldst hear, nor
see the things that thou shouldst see.
In order to understand this it must be thor-
oughly borne in mind that the soul and body are
clearly differentiated the one from the other. The
soul, in the Hermetic writing, is always spoken of
as the personality, the body is something separate
and distinct that is made use of by the soul during
its incarnate life and at the same time greatly
hampers the life of the soul. Therefore the ''thou"
spoken of here does not include the body but repre-
sents the soul as separate and distinct from the
body. This soul, however, is not to be conceived of
as an impersonal ego but rather as the true per-
sonality; therefore he speaks of the body as the
hateful cloak thou v/earest. That is to say not
only the physical body but to a certain extent the
false personality induced by the body. The body
and everything springing from it are described as
29
30
THE HERMETIC ART
3. hateful cloak. This cloak, the body and its false
personality, throttle the soul and holds it down to
it, the body, thus preventing the soul from realiz-
ing its own true life, compelling it to function
physically, forcing it to realize a purely physical
life only, and thus preventing it from gazing above
and seeing the Beauty and Truth and Good that
dwells in the realm above, preventing the soul from
detesting the bad of the lower life and preventing
it from finding out the plot that the body has
schemed against the soul by making void of sense
those seeming things which men think sense so
that one is unable to rise above this limitation of
the body. This is the real crux of the situation;
the fact that the senses are in reality void of sense;
what the senses indicate in reality — containing the
true sense. To understand this doctrine one must
bear in mind the doctrine of Kosmic Sense as
enunciated by Hermes. This doctrine of Kosmic
Sense holds to the view that there is in nature, or
in Kosmos, a principle which is termed Kosmic
Sense, and which is really the depositary of all
things sensible; that in a certain sense Kosmos is
through certain senses made aware of the existence
of all things sensible, and in fact that the sensibles
are the direct product of the Kosmic sense. To
understand this more accurately we must bear in
mind that the sensibles are the product of a cre-
ative force. Now Hermes teaches that the Kosmos
is not only endowed with thought but also with
sense, and that it is the perceptive faculty of the
Kosmos that produces the sensibles. In other
words, Kosmic sense, far from being a Kosmic fac-
ulty for the perception of things already existent,
is rather that sense which enables Kosmic thought
to become visible to the Kosmos, a sort of imag-
ing or visualizing faculty with which Kosmos is
endowed ; this visualizing or imaging faculty
enabling Kosmos to give form to its thought, thus
THE HERMETIC ART
31
causing Kosmic thoughts to manifest correspond-
ing images, which in this way, through such imag-
ing or visualizing of Kosmis, become definite
forms. In this way are all things brought into
being through Kosmic sense. Thus all sensibles
are created by sense. Now the theory here taken
is, that it is only those things perceived into
existence by Kosmic sense that really are, and that
really possess sense. The things which men call
sense are in reality void of sense in this Kosmic
sense of the term. The reason is, this Kosmic sense
brings into manifestation the things that are, while
the senses of man give to him distorted images,
caricatures or pictures of those things, which
images or pictures are never accurate. What he
pleads for is that soul sense w^hich, when devel-
oped, will enable man to unite this sense of his
w^ith Kosmic sense and thereby sense the things as
they are instead of things as they seem. A sense
that will enable one to grasp noumena instead of
phenomena. His indictment against the body is,
in reality that the bodily senses by presenting dis-
torted images of things prevent one from seeing the
things as they are ; therefore by giving a man a
false sense they prevent him from attaining the
true sense. Therefore he accuses the body of schem-
ing a plot against man to deceive him, and we are
only able to discover this plot when through the
awakening of the true sense we have made void of
sense those seeming things which men think senses,
that is to say by discovering that the testimony of
the senses is in reality void of true sense. Our com-
mon sense is therefore seen to be utterly senseless,
because common sense is that attitude of mind
w^hich grows out of the testimony of the senses and
out of all the experiences which we derive through
them. This being the case it w^U follow that com-
mon sense w411 be as erroneous as the testimony of
the senses, through which it is derived. In other
32
THE HERMETIC ART
words, common sense is at all times absolutely
void of sense. In order therefore for one to see
the Beauty of the Truth and Good that dwells in
the realm of the soul, one must attain the true
sense, and this attainment of the true sense is the
all important problem with which we have to deal.
But it must be borne in mind that the body's senses
stand absolutely in the way, and he is indicating
here the great difficulty with which we have to
deal if we would attain true sense while living in
the body, because the body's senses are diametric-
ally opposed to the attainment of true sense.
For that it hath with mass of matter
blocked them up and crammed them full of
loathsome lust, so that thou may'st not hear
about the things that thou should'st hear,
nor see the things that thou should'st see.
We now" come to consider the cause back of the
irregularity and irresponsibility of the senses, and
it is stated that that is because the senses have been
blocked up with mass of matter and have been
crammed full of loathsome lust. The first state-
ment indicates the real cause, — they have been
blocked up with mass of matter. And of course
he is here aluding to the physical body and its mas-
sive material character. In order to understand
this we must bear in mind that all sensation and all
impressions of every description are due to vibra-
tion, and that vibration accomplishes its work by
reason of the resistance which is offered to it, but
at the same time, by reason of its ability to over-
come such resistance. The rate of vibration will
therefore determine the quality of such impres-
sions. All sensation is the result of such impression
growing out of vibration. Now it will follow
that the more gross the matter is through which
vibration moves the less rapid will be the rate of
THE HERMETIC ART
33
vibration which can possibly move through such
matter^ hence it will follow that the vibration
emanating from the body, or set in motion in the
ether by such body, will not be able to freely
express itself through any medium more gross in
its atomic and molecular structures than is the
ether itself. All vibratory waves, even of a phys-
ical nature, passing through the ether, will take on
the etheric vibration, consequently should they
contact a body more gross than the ether their
vibration will be lowered in accordance with the
degree of such grossness, therefore no vibration
that passes through the body as a medium, can
possibly represent in sensation a condition less
gross than the body. The result will be the images
which are indicated to consciousness through the
medium of sensation will be images distorted by
the grossness of the body. It at once becomes evi-
dent that the sensations which we can possibly
receive in the body must be very diflerent from
those objects which originally produced those
sensations. In order to get an understanding of
this difference, take into consideration the electric
light, which is produced by a current of electricity
passing through a filament of carbon, then imagine
this same current having to pass through an iron
bar an inch in diameter, and you can have some
faint idea of the difference that the body makes
between the original vibratory force and the sensa-
tion which we get from it. Therefore it will fol-
low that the mass of matter through which vibra-
tion has to pass in order to awaken physical sensa-
tion is such that those sensations will never be
reliable.
Next we have the statement that the body has
crammed the senses full of loathsome lust. This is
an outgrowth of the mass of matter that fills the
senses. The loathsome lust, or desires that the
senses are full of, is the result of this material ::ram-
34
THE HERMETIC ART
ming, because all vibration has to pass through this
gross massive matter, and its form is correspond-
ingly changed. It follows that these vibratory
attractions which result from vibration, must com-
pletely change their form. The gentle attraction
which would exist between rapidly moving forces
has become altogether different. The result is
our desires cease to be mere attractions growing
out of chemical affinity and become in every sense
of the term corporeal, being influenced by the
sensation of form, consequently sensation must
naturally express itself in the form of loathsome
lust. Lust is hence nothing more than the inevita-
ble consequence of vibratory attraction operating
through the gross physical body; hence we have
lust because we have bodies, and, ordinarily speak-
ing, the body is the antecedent of lust as lust is
the legitimate consequence of the body. We have
thus a false personality induced by those distorted
sensations and by the lust which they engender.
This false personality which is the avenue through
which the average man feeds his mind through
which all consciousness is evolved, being made up
of distorted sensations and loathsome lust, keeps
the soul in bond so that the soul can only grow as
it is fed by the body and by this false physical per-
sonality. The soul is therefore prevented from
living its true life and is compelled to get all its
impressions in this way. Thus it is held down by
the body, enchained, as it were.
The result of this condition is that one, that is
a soul, is not able to hear about the things that he
should hear, nor see the things that he should see.
In other words, sight and hearing are permanently
shut off from the true senses. Man sees not things
as they are but as they seem to this distorted per-
sonality, and he hears not true sounds, or true
words, but rather those distortions which the audi-
tory apparatus communicate to consciousness. As
THE HERMETIC ART
35
the body does not permit one to either see or hear
the true, it follows that he is shut off from reality
and is forced to live in that realm of psychic dis-
tortion. The soul ceases to act directly and in
fact lives only through the psychic reactions result-
ing from this impression of the senses. Thus it is
merely a psychical reaction growing out of the
distorted senses of the body. This life of psychical
reaction is in reality the cause of practically all the
ills with which we have to bear, and the direct
action of the soul becomes practically impossible,
as a result of this distorted life. From this we can
easily reach the conclusion that the first step in the
Hermetic Art must be the freeing of the soul from
dependence upon the body's senses. So long as the
soul depends upon the senses of the body it can
never escape this condition, which is the ground
of bad. (Dur Art, therefore, involves as its first
step the attainment of that state of unfoldment in
w^hich the direct action of the soul is possible.
This is accomplished through the awakening of the
soul sense. That sense w^hich enables the soul to
unite itself with Kosmic sense and thus to sense
the operations of Kosmic sense and hence see
things as they are and not as they seem. When the
soul's sense has been developed it must be united
w^ith intuition, which is that faculty of the soul
enabling it to become in a way cognizant of Kos-
mic thoughts. Next the faculty of pure reason
must be developed, which will enable the soul to
analyze and synthesize the process of the Kosmic
mind. In this way the soul becomes enabled to
function independent of the body. To function
in direct connection with the soul plane of the
Kosmos. Therefore w^e have developed the direct
action of the soul, thus freeing it from those psy-
chical reactions growing out of the operation of
physical sensation. When this has been accom-
plished the soul no longer depends upon the senses
36
THE HERMETIC ART
for its knowledge and its concept of the world. It
is now emancipated from the sway of sense
engendered consciousness, having the direct soul
consciousness. Thus in a sense it is free, emanci-
pated, dwelling on its own plane and there being
fully conscious.
After this has been attained we have then what
is really the Great Work of the Hermetic Art,
nam.ely, the bringing of the body into harmony
with the soul so that the soul acts directly upon
the body, acting from within outward unto the
end that the body's sense, instead of reacting under
the vibrations from without, responds to the vibra-
tions from within, vvith the result that the soul
sense reproduces itself through the medium of the
body sense. Thus the body's sense, instead of act-
ing in the usual manner, in reality dramatizes the
soul sense. Of course in order that this state may
be realized we have to first develop the body
through a process of transmutation or alchemical-
ization to the point where it will respond through
its material atoms and molecules to the vibration
of the soul. Of course this is never fully realized.
However, as this process of transmutation goes on
from day to day, it becomes more refined, more
etherealized, more spiritualized, more subtle, until
at last it reaches the point where it responds fairly
well to the vibration of the soul. Thus the
alchemy of the body is the next step in the Sacred
Art which must be begun subsequent to the free-
ing of the soul from dependence upon the body. It
will therefore be seen that the process is exactly
reversed from what it is in the ordinary mind.
The natural man is the one in whom the bodily
senses control the soul, feed and instruct the soul
from without, while the Artistic man is the one in
w^hom the soul controls and dominates the body
and its senses, causing them to reproduce in terms
of physical sensation the consciousness of the soul.
THE HERMETIC ART
37
All processes of bodily generation are therefore
reversed. In the Artistic man they are controlled
in all their operations by the generative activity
of the soul, hence they are regenerated from with-
in. Therefore the Artistic life is very often termed
the regenerate life while the natural life is the gen-
erate life. This is the true key to the Hermetic
Art as applied to the life of man.
Many people talk about getting back to nature,
— about the natural life, the natural man, etc., but
in our Art there is no such ideal. As a matter of
fact we are striving through Art to save man from
nature, to elevate him above the plane of what
nature will produce, and thus through the regen-
eration of the w^hole being by the generative action
of the soul to bring man into the higher estate; to
make the ideal life practical by having all the
emotions of his physical existence directly con-
trolled by the force of ideas and ideals. This is
the real process of Art. The Hermetic Artist is
the one who is doing it, who is actually trans-
muting the body in accordance with the direct
action of the soul. In a certain sense we have here
a substitute for civilization and culture. Civil-
ization and culture are an effort to change the
nature of man, to redeem him from nature, to
develop an artificial character in place of thef
natural character; but this is accomplished by
civilization and culture independent of a knowl-
edge of the soul life, independent of any concept
of the interior life. Therefore the Hermetic Art
produces something altogether different than does
the force of civilization and culture, seeing that
their efforts are from without to transform man
into something other than his particular nature,
w^hile by Art we have the soul redeeming the man
from nature; producing an artificial culture that is
purely in accordance with the spirit. This is the
real function of the Hermetic Art, v/hich has as
38
THE HERMETIC ART
its basic principle the transmutation of the body
unto the end that it may act as the vehicle for the
expression of the soul instead of the soul being the
internalization of the body.
The Hermetic Art
That No One of Existing Things Doth Perish,
But Men in Error Speak of Their Changes
as Destructions and as Deaths
TEXT
Parthey (G.), Hermetis Trismegisti Poe-
mander (Berlin, 1854), 56^59.
Patrizzi (F.), Nova de Universis Philo-
sophia (Venice, 1593), 48a, 48b.
Mead (G. R. S.), Thrice Greatest Hermes
(London, 1906), Corpus Hermeticum
VIII (IX).
1. l^Hermes^, Concerning Soul and
Body, son, we now must speak; in what way
Soul is deathless, and whence comes the
activity in composing and dissolving Body.
For there's no death for aught of things
[that are] ; the thought [this] word conveys,
is either void of fact, or [simply] by the
knocking off a syllable what is called
''death," doth stand for ''deathless."
For death is of destruction, and nothing
in the Cosmos is destroyed. For if Cosmos
is second God, a life that cannot die, it can-
not be that any part of this immortal life
should die. All things in Cosmos are parts
39
40
THE HERMETIC ART
of Cosmos, and most of all is man, the
rational animal.
2. For truly first of all, eternal and tran-
scending birth, is God the universals'
Maker. Second is he after His image, Cos-
mos, brought into being by Him, sustained
and fed by Him, made deathless, as by his
own Sire, living for aye, as ever free from
death.
Now that which ever-liveth, differs from
the Eternal ; for He hath not been brought
to being by another, and even if He hath
been brought to being. He hath not been
brought into being by Himself, but ever is
brought into being.
For the Eternal, in that It is Eternal, is
the all. The Father is Himself eternal of
Himself, but Cosmos hath become eternal
and immortal by the Father.
3. And of the matter stored beneath it,
the Father made of it a universal body, and
packing it together made it spherical —
wrapping it round the life — [a sphere]
which is immortal in itself, that doth make
materiality eternal.
But He, the Father, full-filled with His
ideas, did sow the lives into the sphere, and
shut them in as in a cave, willing to order
forth the life with every kind of living.
So He with deathlessness enclosed the uni-
versal body, that matter might not wish to
separate itself from body's composition, and
so dissolve into its own [original] unorder.
THE HERMETIC ART
41
For matter, son, when it was yet incorpo-
rate, was in unorder. And it doth still
retain down here this [nature of unorder]
envolving the rest of the small lives — that
increase-and-decrease which men call death.
4. It is round earthly lives that this
unorder doth exist. For that the bodies of
the heavenly ones preserve one order allotted
to them from the Father as their rule ; and it
is by the restoration of each one [of them]
this order is preserved indissolute.
The ''restoration" then of bodies on the
earth is [thus their] composition, whereas
their dissolution restores them to those
bodies which can never be dissolved, that is
to say, w^hich know no death. Privation,
thus, of sense is brought about, not loss of
bodies.
5. Now the third life — Man, after the
image of the Cosmos made, [and] having
mind, after the Father's will, beyond all
earthly lives — not only doth have feeling
with the second God, but also hath concep-
tion of the first; for of the one 'tis sensible
as of a body, while of the other it conceives
as bodieless and the Good Mind.
Tat. Doth then this life not perish?
Her, Hush, son! and understand what
God, what Cosmos [is], what is a life that
cannot die, and what a life subject to disso-
lution.
42
THE HERMETIC ART
Yea, understand the Cosmos is by God
and in God; but Man by Cosmos and in
Cosmos.
The source and limit and the constitution
of all things is God.
LESSON III
Soul and Body
1. {Hermes): Concerning Soul and
Body, son, we now must speak; in what way
Soul is deathless, and whence comes the
activity in composing and dissolving Body.
For there's no death for aught of things
[that are] ; the thought [this] word conveys,
is either void of Body, or [simply] by the
knocking off of a syllable what is called
[death], doth stand for [deathless].
For death is of destruction, and nothing
in the Cosmos is destroyed. For if Cosmos
is second God, a life that cannot die, it can-
not be that any part of this immortal life
should die. All things in Cosmos are parts
of Cosmos and most of all is man, the
rational animal.
{Hermes) : Concerning Soul and Body,
son, we now must speak; in what way Soul
is deathless, and whence comes the activity
in composing and dissolving Body.
The subject of this sermon is the relation of the
soul and the body. Both principles are introduced
into the discussion. The discussion relates itself
to the way in which the soul is deathless, or immor-
tal, and the sources of the activity composing and
dissolving the body. We therefore find that the
subject involved here is the immortal or deathless
nature of the soul taken in conjunction with the
mortality and transformations of the body. He
43
44
THE HERMETIC ART
indicates that there is an activity operating in the
body which both composes and dissolves the body.
Hence it follows that it is the same activity that
composes or constructs the body that also dissolves
it. We must therefore see in physical dissolution
or so-called death, the disintegration of the phys-
ical structure into the material elements of which
it is composed. Death is, therefore, the dissolving
of the body into the different elements that go to
construct it. In other words the body is organized
from previously existing elements, and death is the
dissolution of this organism into the elements
which previously constructed it. Hence it means
nothing more than that those elements which in
the body's life were organic become inorganic
through death. At the same time we are instructed
that this transformation does not touch the soul
life, the soul being in no sense influenced by such
disintegrating process.
For there's no death for aught of things
[that are] ; the thought [this] word conveys,
is either void of body, or [simply] by the
knocking off of a syllable w^hat is called
[death], doth stand for [deathless].
The contention made here is that there is no
death for any real thing, for any of the things that
are. This does not only relate to the human soul
but to everything else, to every organism. There
is no such thing as death. What has once been
produced must forever remain. Immortality in
this sense is therefore extended to all things. He
goes so far as to contend that death is synonymous
with the deathless, that it can have no other mean-
ing than deathless. He contends that as a matter
of fact nothing dies. He is not speaking here of any
transcendental ideas, he does not represent ideal-
ism when he says there is no death; he denies the
THE HERMETIC ART
45
fact of death ; stating plainly and emphatically that
nothing dies, as a matter of fact; therefore we
must not look upon this statement as being an
expression of any transcendental idealism, as being
spiritually understood, but he is stating as a mat-
ter of physical science that nothing dies.
For death is of destruction, and nothing
in the Cosmos is destroyed. For if Cosmos
is second God, a life that cannot die, it can-
not be that any part of this immortal life
should die. All things in Cosmos are parts
of Cosmos and most of all is man, the
rational animal.
In this paragraph he undertakes to explain why
it is that there can be no death. His reason is that
death partakes of destruction. All death, in the
true sense of the term, would be a destruction, and
he states that nothing in the Kosmos is ever
destroyed. From this we come to his argument,
and his position is that Kosmos is second God. He
therefore calls our attention to his doctrine of the
three Gods. That is to say, the Absolute God, and
the Kosmos as His manifestation and hence the
second God, — the image of God in another sense, —
and man as the third God. Now the Kosmos is
the second God in the sense that it is the direct
manifestation of the unmanifest God. In a cer-
tain sense it is the manifest God. Being the mani-
festation of God he holds that in order for the
Kosmos to die it would be necessary for the mani-
festation of God to cease, because the Kosmos in
the Hermetic view of the case, is not a permanent
thing in the sense of something once produced that
forever remains, but rather is a something perpet-
ually changing; a state of perpetual manifestation ;
the process of the ever-becoming manifest of the
46
THE HERMETIC ART
activities and attributes of the unmanifest God.
This being the case, Kosmos is nothing other than
the mirroring in Hyle of the activities of Ku, the
Motherhood of God; its divine essence in all its
activities becoming mirrored in substance that
constitutes Kosmos in the true sense of the w^ord.
Novs^ Kosmos must continue as long as the activities
of the unmanifest God continue to be mirrored in
substance. Those activities must continue to be so
mirrored as long as they subsist. In other words,
in order that Kosmos might cease it would be nec-
essary that the Absolute God should cease to make
or to express itself actively, and as the unmanifest
God exists or rather subsists only in the act of com-
ing into manifestation it follows that were it to cease
such activity it would die. Therefore the Absolute
God would have to become extinct before Kosmos
could ever become extinct. Kosmos is therefore
as eternal as is the life of God. For this reason he
says that Kosmos is a life that cannot die. It is a
life that cannot die because it is the continuation
on a lower plane of the life of God himself, there-
fore Kosmos cannot possibly cease to be. It ever
must be. This being the case Kosmos is an immor-
tal life, being but a reflection of the life of God, the
immortality of the Divinity is therefore contin-
ued in the immortality of the Kosmos. It cannot
therefore be that this immortal life should die see-
ing that it is immortal, as it is completely bound
up and inseparably merged in the immortality of
the Divine Life, because Kosmos is not distinct
from God. Kosmos is but the externalization and
manifestation of the life of the unmanifest God.
He further states that all things in Kosmos are
parts of Kosmos; and in this we have a distinctly
Hermetic doctrine. A great many schools of
philosophy have held that Kosmos was some sort
of a metaphysical thing, a substratum to things,
and that things were distinct from Kosmos. But
THE HERMETIC ART
47
this is not the Hermetic view. Hermes teaches
that Kosmos is nothing other than the sum total of
all things born. It must here be borne in mind
that he repudiates the idea of creation and replaces
it with the idea of birth. In other words, all things
are born out of Ku and as such are born of God, —
not created, — and being brought forth they are in
Kosmos and Kosmos is the sum total of all such
births. Kosmos is twofold; it is the act of being
born, the continuous sequence of being born, and
at the same time it includes the things born.
Hermes was far too scientific to make any distinc-
tion between the act of being born and the things
that are born, because it is evident that if there
was not an act of being born there would be noth-
ing born and that no act of bearing can fail to
result in a birth. Hence Kosmos is both the pro-
duction of things and the sum total of the things
produced. Were we to eliminate all the things in
Kosmos there would be nothing left of Kosmos.
Kosmos would cease to be. Inasmuch, therefore,
as Kosmos is the mirroring of the activity of God
in Hyle it follows that such mirroring can only
take place in the production of things as the formal
expression of the divine action. Hence the divine
life lives in the act of producing all things, and
likewise in all the things thus produced. There-
fore all things in Kosmos are parts of Kosmos and
Kosmos is nothing other than the sum total of all
things engendered. Now, inasmuch as Kosmos is
immortal life and that life consists in the perpetual
continuity of the process of engendering things, it
follows that the thing engendered by a deathless
process must in the nature of things be deathless.
Undoubtedly it may change its form from time to
time but it will never cease to be because its ulti-
mate origin is the divine thought. The divine
being deathless, eternal, immortal, all of its
thoughts must be deathless, eternal and immortal.
48
THE HERMETIC ART
As a deathless, eternal, immortal thought has set in
motion the activity that engenders a thing, it must
be that that activity w^ill be continuous, as contin-
uous as is the thought that set in motion such activ-
ity. This being true it w^ill follow^ that the activity
that engendered the thing being continuous, the
life of the thing resulting from such engendering
activity must likewise be continuous; hence the
immortality of all things engendered is clearly
demonstrated.
And most of all is man, the rational animal.
More than anything else is man the recipient of
this eternal life, for the reason that man is the
most complicated and the highest manifestation
of this creative process. Of all things engendered
man comes nearer to the divine prototype than
anything else, and the reason for this is clearly
shown, that he is a rational animal, he is the one
animal endowed with reason. Now reason here
must not be confused with what is ordinarily
termed reason, — that is the capacity to learn by
experience, to reach conclusions from data. That
is not the reason of which Hermes speaks. To him
reason is the pure, a priori reason, that has nothing
to do with data but reasons from Universals to
particulars. This is his concept of reason. Man is
the rational animal. That is to say, he is the one
and only animal endowed with this capacity to rea-
son from cause to effect. As this reason is that
which produces all things, is the creative wisdom
that has produced everything, it follows that in his
reason man is divine, he partakes of the nature of
God, he is endowed with the creative power and
for that reason, partaking more than any other of
the attributes of divinity, he therefore approaches
nearer to the divine life of God than anything else.
Hence he possesses a greater measure of divinity
and hence of immortality thanMoes anything else.
Therefore above all kosmic things is man death-
less, immortal, eternal.
THE HERMETIC ART
49
In this we have the suggestion of the Hermetic
Art. Man's reason is the creative power resident
within him. By the cultivation of that creative
power he is able to become a creator himself to
the extent that his Creative power has been awak-
ened. Therefore it is through the cultivation of
the reason that man is able to reach this exalted
state. The Hermetic Art is therefore attained
through the cultivation of the human reason. Such
rational awakening is therefore the way to the
attainment of the art of creation.
2. For truly first of all, eternal and
transcending birth, is God the Universals'
Maker. Second is he [after His image],
Cosmos, brought into being by Him, sus-
tained and fed by Him, made deathless, as
by his own Sire, living for aye, as ever free
from death.
Now that which ever liveth, differs from
the Eternal, for He hath not been brought
to being by another, and even if He have
been brought to being, He hath not been
brought into being by Himself, but ever is
brought into being.
For the Eternal, in that It is eternal, is the
all. The Father is Himself eternal of Him-
self, but Cosmos hath become eternal and
immortal by the Father.
For truly first of all, eternal and tran-
scending birth, is God the universalis Maker.
Second is he [after his image], Cosmos,
brought into being by Him, sustained and
50
THE HERMETIC ART
fed by Him, made deathless, as by his own
Sire, living for aye, as ever free from death.
The first and ultimate principle is God, the uni-
versal's Maker. By the universals he means those
verities which are everywhere the same and which
are interchangeable. The term is used in contra-
distinction to particulars. In this we have a funda-
mental principle of the ancient philosophy. The
two principles below God are universals and par-
ticulars. By particulars is meant things and the
processes engendering particular things. By the
universals they mean those processes which are not
in any sense particular, which relate to all things
without distinction. These universals are to a
certain extent identical with the Great Supernal
Gods, though not exactly. Now God is spoken of
as the maker of the universals. That is to say the
universals came into being through their having
been emanated from God. In other words, the
universals are the fundamental attributes of God
projected into manifestations through Kosmos.
Now this God, the universals' maker, is the first
of all, because all particulars come from universals
and all universals come from God. Therefore He
is first of all because all things proceed either di-
rectly or indirectly from Him. Eternal and trans-
cending birth, because all births emanate from
Him. As He is the bearer of all that is there is
nothing left to bear Him. He cannot be born
because all things are born by Him, therefore
He transcends birth. In this sense it would be
somewhat more correct to say She, because the
God alluded to here is Ku, the feminine divine
essence. After this God, we come to the second.
Second is He after His image. After His image, —
that is the Kosmos. Kosmos is after the image of
God, because, in the true sense of the word, it is
God's image, that is, it is God made manifest, and
THE HERMETIC ART
51
this comes forth out of God. It is brought into
being by God, is sustained and fed by Him. That
is to say, it has no source of existence, apart from
God, is absolutely dependent upon God for ali
things, and is not only brought into being, but is
continuously sustained and fed and nourished by
God. In other words, Kosmos has not been brought
into being by God, but is in continuous process of
being brought into being by Him. As God is
indeed and in truth the Father and Mother of Kos-
mos, it must be that Kosmos will partake of the
nature of his Father and Mother, consequently
Kosmos has been made deathless by his Sire. That
is made deathless in and through the very
process of having been brought into being by the
Father. Living for aye. as ever free from death,
because the kosmic life is continuous and uninter-
ruptedly sustained by the life of God.
Now that which ever-liveth, differs from
the Eternal; for He hath not been brought
to being by another, and even if He have
been brought to being, He hath not been
brought into being by Himself, but ever is
brought into being.
He draws some very fine distinctions here. For
instance, he draws the distinction between the ever-
living and the Eternal. The ever-living is not the
same as the Eternal, and he shows the distinction.
The Eternal hath not been brought into being by
another, and even if the Eternal has been brought
into being. He hath not been brought into being
by Himself. That is to say, the Eternal cannot
create Himself, and this self-creation would not
constitute eternity, but this of which he speaks
ever is brought into being. There is the process
of perpetual bringing into being and there is this
fine distinction vrhich must alwavs be borne in
52
THE HERMETIC ART
mind, eternity is beginningiess and endless, though
the ever-living may have a beginning, but it can
never have an end. But the Eternal is in perpetu-
ity to infinity, both backward and forw^ard; ever
is being brought into being, and yet this is not
something that has always been stable, it is some-
thing in perpetual process of coming into being
and yet the process is from infinity to infinity.
For the Eternal, in that It is eternal, is
the all. The Father is Himself eternal of
Himself, but Cosmos hath become eternal
and immortal by the Father.
This is the diflference, both the Father and
Mother on the one hand and Kosmos on the other
are eternal, Ionian. But there is a distinction, the
Eternal, in that it is eternal, that is in Its character
of eternity, is the all, there can be no particularity.
Being eternal, though the particular may be ever-
living, yet it can never be eternal. But the eternal
must in the very nature of things be limitless. The
Father-Mother, the Absolute God, is Himself
eternal of Himself. That is to say, His eternity is
engendered from Himself or of Himself. In other
v/ords. His nature or energy is eternal and there-
fore in no sense dependent upon anything else. In
a word, God is not subject to generation, is in no
sense generated by anything else. He is the ingen-
erate whose eternity subsists in His action. Being
in His action eternal. He is dependent upon
nothing apart from Himself. The Kosmos, how-
ever, has become eternal and immortal by the
Father. In other words, it is the reflection of the
immortality and eternity of the Father in substance
that constitutes the eternity and immortality of the
Kosmos. Kosmos is eternal and immortal because
it is the active manifestation of an eternal and
THE HERMETIC ART
53
immortal verity. It is this which makes Kosmos
eternal. Kosmos, in other words, is eternally gen-
erated, while the eternity of the Father is self-
subsistent and not subject to generation. In a word,
were all else to be blotted out God would still be
eternal, but were God to be blotted out Kosmos
would cease to be. The eternity of the Kosmos is
therefore conferred eternity. One that lives in
Kosmos is the result of another Eternity, but the
Eternity of God is absolute. At the same time,
the one is as eternal as the other. Kosmos cannot
disappear during the eternity of God. It is also
beginningless and endless. At the same time it is
an eternity that is perpetually being induced, but
this is Kosmos as a whole that possesses this
Eternity. The dififerent parts of Kosmos are ever-
living but not eternal.
LESSON IV
The Eternity of Matter
3. And of the matter stored beneath it,
the Father made of it a universal body, and
packing it together made it spherical —
wrapping it round the life — [a sphere]
which is immortal in itself, and that doth
make materiality eternal.
But He, the Father, full-filled with His
ideas, did sow the lives into the sphere, and
shut them in as in a cave, willing to order
forth the life with every kind of living.
So He with deathlessness enclosed the uni-
versal body, that matter might not wish to
separate itself from body's composition, and
so dissolve into its own [original] unorder.
For matter, son, when it was yet incorpo-
rate, was in unorder. And it doth still retain
down here this [nature of unorder] evolv-
ing the rest of the small lives — that increase-
and-decrease which men call death.
And of the matter stored beneath it, the
Father made of it a universal body, and
packing it together made it spherical^ —
wrapping it round the life — [a sphere]
which is immortal in itself, and that doth
make materiality eternal.
After speaking of the nature of Kosmos, Hermes
next comes to the consideration of the matter stored
beneath Kosmos. We must bear in mind that at
55
56
THE HERMETIC ART
the time of which he speaks, matter was in a state
of chaos, for there was neither form nor order
manifested in this sub-kosmic matter. We are in-
formed that of the matter stored beneath Kosmos,
the Father made a universal body. That is to say,
by the action of the divine power, working through
the instrumentality of the Kosmic Powers, the cha-
otic matter beneath the Kosmos was gathered
together into one body which was to constitute the
universe. This voluminous body of matter was
packed together and concentrated into a massive
body. It was given a spherical form. It was in
fact a universal Egg, which was to contain all
things of the universe within its depths and from
it they were each and all to be hatched forth into
individual life. It was given this spherical form
by wrapping the matter round the life which was
within its depths. The universe is therefore in the
form of a hollow sphere within the depths of which
is enclosed the life which therefore gives forth
life to all parts of the universal shell. Because the
universal life is enfolded within the universal form
this life is continually vitalizing the entire struc-
ture of the universe, and thus the universe becomes
a body that is immortal in itself. It does not derive
its immortality from without, but from the life
enclosed by itself. Because of the life which is
continually renewing and vitalizing the universal
body, both in whole and in part, materiality is
made eternal, and hence is organized matter in the
universe immortal by reason of the life which it
contains, this is the true cause of the eternity of
matter.
But He, the Father, full-filled with His
ideas, did sov^ the lives into the sphere, and
shut them in as in a cave, willing to order
forth the life with every kind of living.
THE HERMETIC ART
57
The Father being filled to the full with His
ideas; for the nature of the Father is to think, and
hence He lives in His ideas; His thinking tends at
all times to radiate His ideas, and in this way to
diffuse them through all space. This being the
case, the lives were sown within the universal
sphere. They were received within the sphere, and
were there enclosed so that they might not escape.
These lives must not be confounded with the life
that was enclosed within the sphere in the begin-
ning. Neither must they be confused with the
small lives. They are rather the great lives, or the
material Gods. They are the Vital and the Etherial
Gods as well as the Terrene Gods. They are there-
fore enclosed within the sphere, so that it will not
be possible for them to separate themselves from
the universal sphere. They were enclosed in the
sphere that they might order forth, or send forth in
accordance with order, the enclosed life, causing it
to assume every form of living, that is, to differ-
entiate itself into the diverse lives that will give
life to all forms of living things. It is this life
as the germ that causes all species to come into
being in the earth. This is the true explanation of
the monadic origin of all the diverse forms of
terrene life, and this is the sense in which every
thing has come from a germ in the earth. It is
also to be borne in mind that while this is an
account of the creation of the universe, at the same
time all the spheres were formed in the same man-
ner, and all this applies to the earth as well as to
the entire universe. Thus it is true that it is the
ordering forth of the enclosed life, under the im-
pulse of the lives that causes all the forms of
living things to come into being on the earth. They
are literally born from within the depths of the
earth. The earth is in fact the Mother and the
fecund womb from which all forms of living
things are born, after they have been conceived and
58
THE HERMETIC ART
gestated within her maternal womb. Thus is the
earth literally the mother of all things earthly, and
not merely in a figurative sense.
So He with deathlessness enclosed the
universal body, that matter might not wish
to separate itself from body's composition,
and so dissolve into its own [original]
unorder.
Because the life was enclosed within the uni-
versal body, and because the great lives or the
lesser Gods were sown within the earth, and the
life became active, it followed that the universal
body was enclosed with deathlessness, seeing that
it was the vehicle for the manifestation of death-
less powers, it followed that the body itself was
made deathless. Matter is therefore eternally
united with the composition of universal body, and
can no more separate itself from it, hence, matter
can only exist in the composition of the universal
body. All matter must exist in the composition of
bodies, and can never exist in any other way. Thus,
organized matter can never be dissolved into the
state of unorder from which it has come into order,
but can only remain under the form of organized
bodies.
For matter, son, when it was yet incorpo-
rate, was in unorder. And it doth still retain
down here this [nature of unorder] envelop-
ing the rest of the small lives — that increase-
and-decrease which men call death.
Before matter was incorporated, it was in a state
of unorder. It was the incorporation of matter,
so that it became corporate, that is, a part of the
universal body, that brought it into the state of
THE HERMETIC ART
59
order. While down here, that is, on the physical;
plane, this nature of unorder, still persists in mat-
ter, for physical matter is not subject to the control
of the Kosmic Powers as is the matter of finer
grades. Because of this condition, the rest of the
small lives, that is the life principle of every living
thing springing from the life contained within the
earth, are enveloped in this matter in its state of
unorder, and for this reason are they all subject to
the process of increase-and-decrease which men
call death. Because the matter of the earth does
not freely respond to the transformative processes
of the higher powers, the changes in it may not be
spontaneous as they are above. This being true,
corporeal bodies in the earth experience are bound
to pass through periods of increase, after which
they must experience a process of decrease. This
is due to the fact that the two processes are not
permitted to go on simultaneously, and in equal
proportions, but there must be a period of increase,
follow^ed by a period of decrease. It is this which
leads to the throwing off of the outer shell, when it
has survived its usefulness, and this men in their
ignorance call death. This teaches us a very im-
portant lesson in the Hermetic Art. Death as it
is vulgarly called, is due to the fact that a body
is built up of such gross matter, and held together
in such rigidity that the forces cannot manifest
freely through it, and hence the transformations
are not permitted to go on within it as rapidly as
is its construction, hence, after a time, these life
forces, being unable to so transform it, as to mani-
fest through it as a vehicle, will become destructive,
and hence the dissolution of that form will result.
Death, simply means that life forces are not made
use of in their normal action, and hence being
permitted to accumulate through uselessness and
idleness, they become, in time, disintegrative. The
cure for death is therefore to preserve a perfect
60
THE HERMETIC ART
balance between the forces of growth and of disin-
tegration. So long as this is kept up, one will not
only not die, but he will grow no older. All the
energy within the body must at all times be made
use of. None of it must ever be permitted to
remain idle for a single moment. If it is utilized
at all times, it will in this way act constructively
at all times, and hence there will be no decrease, as
well as no increase, but at all times the perfect
equilibrium will be maintained, hence there will
be no death.
4. It is round earthly lives that this
unorder doth exist. For that the bodies of
the heavenly ones preserve one order allotted
to them from the Father as their rule ; and it
is by the restoration of each one [of them]
this order is preserved indissolute.
The ''restoration'' then of bodies on the
earth is [thus their] composition, whereas
their dissolution restores them to those
bodies which can never be dissolved, that is
to say, which know no death. Privation,
thus, of sense is brought about, not loss of
bodies.
It is round earthly lives that this unorder
doth exist. For that the bodies of the heav-
enly ones preserve one order allotted to
them from the Father as their rule ; and it is
by the restoration of each one [of them] this
order is preserved indissolute.
This state of unorder is confined to earthly lives,
for they only are encumbered with envelopes of
matter so gross that this order cannot manifest
THE HERMETIC ART 61
through them in all of their actions. The heavenly
ones, are those lives above the earth plane. They
preserve the order allotted to them from the
Father, in that they are all the time responsive to
the urge of that power which has descended from
the Father and which operates through them,
causing them to act in accordance w^ith that order.
Owning to the Cyclic Law^, all such heavenly bodies
are from time to time restored to their original
status, and hence this order w^hich governs them
is perpetually preserved and can never be dis-
solved. This will be true of any body that at all
times responds to the Cyclic Law^ This Law causes
all these bodies to return to their original condition
and thus to become renewed, and hence there is
no reason why the form of the body should ever
become changed. This is due to the fact that all
such renew^als take place within the body and
hence no cause is there for the discarding of body
in order that a change may take place by the ex-
changing of one body for another. This is true
of the heavenly bodies because of their subtle
nature, and of their receptivity to all the move-
ments of the heavenly order operating through
them. It would be the same in the case of earthly
bodies were they equally responsive to the move-
ments of the heavenly order.
The '"Restoration" then of bodies on the
earth is [thus their] composition, whereas
their dissolution restores them to those
bodies which can never be dissolved, that is
to say, which know no death. Privation,
thus, of sense is brought about, not loss of
bodies.
He here most distinctly teaches the doctrine of
the ^^restoration" or reincarnation, of all earthly
62
THE HERMETIC ART
bodies. The composition of a body is the restora-
tion to earthly embodiment, of a body which previ-
ously existed on the earth in the form of a cor-
poreal earthly body. This leads us to the conclu-
sion that the corporeal earthly body is not the only
body which earthly things possess. The dissolution
of the earthly body is the process which restores
the earthly embodied thing to a body which can
never be dissolved. This means that when the
earthly body is dissolved, the life which was em-
bodied in it enters and manifests through a body
that is subject to the heavenly order, the same as
are the heavenly bodies, hence, to a heavenly body.
Of course this indicates that all earth life is in
possession of heavenly bodies as well as of earthly
bodies. The latter is lost from time to time through
dissolution, to be again restored through ''restora-
tion" or reincarnation, but the heavenly body can
never be dissolved. Death is then confined to the
periodical deprivation of the earthly body, but
does not afifect the heavenly body. The earthly
body is of importance in that it is the vehicle
through which an earthly life is sensible of things
on the earth. When the life is deprived of this
earthly body, it is deprived of all sense of the
earthly realm for the reason that the heavenly body
is not sensible of earthly things. As it has no ve-
hicle of consciousness for the earthly environment,
it knows nothing through the medium of sense, of
the earth, hence the earthly sense is lost, but it is
not deprived of a body, seeing that the heavenly
body continues. Thus we see that nothing in this
universe can exist apart from a body, and the body
will be the kind fitted to serve in the mode of life
which any thing is manifesting at the time. But
nothing exists at all at any time, without existing in
a body of some order.
LESSON V
The Life of Man
Now the third life — Man, after the image
of the Cosmos made, [and] having mind,
after the Father's will, beyond all earthly
lives — not only doth have feeling with the
second God, but also hath conception of the
first; for of the one 'tis sensible as of a body,
while of the other it conceives as bodiless
and the Good Mind.
Tat. Doth then this life not perish?
Her, Hush, son! and understand what
God, what Cosmos [is], what is a life that
cannot die, and what a life subject to dissolu-
tion.
Yea, understand the Cosmos is by God
and in God; but Man by Cosmos and in
Cosmos.
The source and limit and constitution of
all things is God.
Now the third life — Man, after the image
of the Cosmos made, [and] having mind,
after the Father's will, beyond all earthly
lives — not only doth have feeling with the
second God, but also hath conception of the
first ; for of the one 'tis sensible as of a body,
while of the other it conceives as bodiless
and the Good Mind.
The three Hves spoken of here are the Hfe of
God, including the Kosmos viewed from a certain
63
64
THE HERMETIC ART
aspect, but more properly it relates to God alone;
the second life is the Kosmos and the things pro-
ceeding from it; the third life is Man. That is,
used in the sense of generic man, man as a species,
but also relating to the individual man. We are
informed that he is after the image of the Kosmos
made — that is to say the third life, man, is made
after the image of the Kosmos. We must always
guard against the error of assuming that man is
made after the image of God. This is not true.
The Man made after the image of God is the
Kosmos, and to a certain extent the Anthropos, but
the man that we know of through experience, the
human being, is made after the image of the Kos-
mos and not after the image of God. One special
characteristic of man is that he has mind after the
Father's will, beyond all earthly lives. That is to
say the human mind has been produced by the
Father's will. That is the Mind of the Father
expressing itself dynamically as will, that is as the
will of the Father is mind becoming active and
dynamic Will force which enters the Kosmos and
acts upon man through its kosmic manifestation
evolves mind in man. Man's mind, therefore, is
not of the earth earthly, not evolved from matter,
but is rather descended from the Father through
the Kosmos into man. While to a certain extent
■ mind, using intellect here as a department of mind,
is common to all earthly lives, yet man possesses
mind beyond all earthly lives; not only does he
possess a superior quantity of mind, but also a
superior and higher quality, a more spiritual
quality of mind, than what any of the animals
possess. This superior quality of mind is easily
distinguished from the quality of mind present in
the animal creation.
THE HERMETIC ART
65
The animal mind is characterized by the abil-
ity to learn by experience; all that the animal
knows he has acquired through experience and
observation. His reason is a posteriori in every
sense of the word. Man's mind transcends that
of the animal in that he is not dependent upon the
testimony of his physical senses and upon his
physical experiences for knowledge. Man's mind
becomes almost divine in that he is able to dis-
pense with sensation entirely, to dispense with the
concrete and enter the realm of pure abstraction.
The power of abstract thinking is truly what char-
acterizes the human mentality as human. The
ability to think in abstractions is a clear dem-
onstration of the divinity of the mind of man.
That is the divinity of the minds of such men as
are able to think in abstractions. Those who can-
not rise to abstraction of course still have the men-
talities of the animals. And as it is this human
mind that differentiates man from the animal
creation, it will logically follow that all men who
are capable of thinking in the concrete only are
animals, brute beasts and not yet human. It is for
this reason that the ancient philosophers became
so enthusiastic over mind, over the power of
thought, because they clearly realized that this
power of abstract thinking was something that
was not possessed by the animal, hence it was
something definitely characteristic of man as man.
For this reason they very strongly emphasized the
importance of the intellect.
Not only doth this man have feeling with the
second God, that is the Kosmos, but he also has
conception of the first. Notice this distinction
therefore. Man has feeling with the second God,
— that is to say the developed man has the same
sense that the Kosmos has, that is to say it is well
within the range of man's evolution to evolve
kosmic sense, not only the physical sense but the
kosmic sense, which will therefore give him the
same feeling that the Kosmos has. Also he is able
to have a mental conception of the first God, the
66
THE HERMETIC ART
Absolute. Man is able to conceive of God, the
One and only One, through his mind, but he can-
not be sensible of this first God, he has no sense
by which he can approach the first God, but
approaches Him only through the conception of
the mind. However, he can through sense feel the
second God, or the Kosmos. The second God, or
the Kosmos, is sensible as of a body, while the
other is conceivable as bodiless, as the Good Mind.
Therefore man is not required to merely think and
theorize of the Kosmos but through the evolution
of kosmic sense he is able to sense the Kosmos,
to make it sensible to him as though it was a body,
to feel its presence. By reason of this kosmic sense
it becomes, as it were, objective, so that the devel-
opment of this kosmic sense enables one to become
sensible, conscious of the Kosmos. This, however,
is not the case when we come to God. God is con-
ceived only as bodiless and the Good Mind. God,
therefore, can be conceived of only in our thought ;
we can think of God but we cannot sense Him.
We think of God first as being bodiless, as having
no form, no corporeality, as being a condition of
infinite and universal diffusion. Until one has con-
ceived of God in this sense, as energy, universally
present and more than universally present, he has
not conceived of God at all. Second, we must con-
ceive of God as the Good Mind, as Mind and Ku,
as that mind which engenders all things by its
thought, as Absolute Mind. And only can we
think of God under these two aspects, universally
diffused energy, formless, and as the Good Mind,
the Absolute Intelligence. And this is purely a
mental concept; therefore God can subsist to no
one other than as a concept of the mind.
Let this point be clearly borne in mind and we
will see the fallacy of most of the religions, for
most religions are predicated upon the theory that
man can approach God through sense; that he can
THE HERMETIC ART
67
sense or feel God ; that it is possible for us to feel
through the cultivation of our love nature, through
the development of our aflfectional nature, through
a yearning, a longing, a reaching out of the heart,
that one can find God. Such a view is utterly
fallacious, for God is not subject to sense; he can-
not be found through sensation ; the heart can never
find God. Man alone is capable of grasping God,
and it grasps Him through thought and in no
other way. It follow^s, therefore, that those people
who profess to have found God in some other way,
know absolutely nothing of the God beyond-all-
name. What they are really worshiping is the
second God, the Kosmos, which they have
found through sense. Their religion being
sensible and not intelligible, it follows that they
are w^orshiping the second God, the Kosmos, and
that there is no trace of a devotion to the first God,
the Good Mind, in all the conceptions which they
hold. This will show the reason why there are so
many difficulties in the way of inculcating the
religion of the mind. The religion of the senses
has taken such possession of the people that they
have no thought for the religion of the mind. The
real trouble is very few people know how to think
independent of sense. The all important thing,
therefore, is for man to develop this capacity for
supersensuous thinking. And that is the reason
why the Gnostic has always insisted upon the de-
velopment of this mind power; the subjection ©f
all religious questions to philosophical analysis.
Tat. Doth then this life not perish?
We have here the question introduced as t©
whether the life of man perishes or does not. This
of course is a very important question as the
immortality of everything is the burden of the ser-
mon, as the teaching is that no one of existing
things does perish. The question then is as to
68
THE HERMETIC ART
whether the life of man is an exception to this rule
or whether this rule applies in the life of man the
same as in everything else.
Her, Hush, son, and understand what
God, what Cosmos [is], what is a life that
cannot die, and what a life subject to dissolu-
tion.
Hermes orders Tat to hush, for it is very evident
that he has not grasped the meaning of the teach-
ing given in the entire sermon otherwise he would
not ask such a fool question. His remark shows
that Tat has not thought deeply on what he had to
say; that he has not paid the proper attention, has
not discriminated properly; for he admonishes
him to understand what God is, what the Kosmos
is and what a life is that cannot die and also the
nature of a life subject to dissolution. Had he
carefully discriminated on these points and gotten
a proper understanding of these four heads of the
subject, he vv^ould have been in no quandary what-
soever as to the rrieaning of his father. The first
head of the discourse is of the nature of God, the
second head is of the nature of the Kosmos, the
third head is the nature of a deathless life and the
fourth head is the nature of life subject to dissolu-
tion. All these have been thoroughly explained in
the preceding portions of the sermon, hence it is
evident that Tat has not paid proper heed to the
instructions of his father under those four heads,
else he would have had no difficulty in knowing
where to place man.
Yea, understand the Cosmos is by God
and in God; but Man is by Cosmos and in
Cosmos.
We are assured that Kosmos is by God and in
God; that is to say the Kosmos is perpetually in
THE HERMETIC ART
69
process of coming into being by reason of the life
of God. God's thought and will, all the motions
of his life, manifest as Kosmos, therefore the
source of Kosmos is the active life of God. The
word Kosmos means a picture, and it means this
because the thought and action of God takes form
as Kosmos, so that Kosmos is in reality a photo-
graph of God, a living photograph, but neverthe-
less a photograph of God. Thus it ever comes
into being by reason of the active life of God, and
it subsists in God because it is but the expression
in form of the divine thought and active life of
God. Therefore it must be completely permeated
and surrounded, enveloped as it were, by God's
spirit, and takes form there. Now if it is true that
the Kosmos is but the mirroring in form of the
thought and life of God, it must partake of the
nature of that divine thought and life and above
all inasmuch as the thought and life of God can
only manifest in terms of Kosmos and must mani-
fest in that form, it will follow that as long as God
thinks and makes he must make Kosmos. Further-
more we are assured by Hermes in other sermons
that God subsists solely and entirely in thinking
things and in making them, that is the very energy
of God, hence were God to cease to think and to
make he would cease to be. Now Kosmos is what
he makes, therefore were he to cease to make
Kosmos he would cease to be. Hence Kosmos is
as eternal as God. Therefore the nature of Kos-
mos must be deathless and imperishable.
Man is by Kosmos and in Kosmos. That is to
say, man exists w^ithin the Kosmos and as a result
of the activity of the Kosmos. Now it follows that
the Kosmos being the expression of God must
duplicate on a lower plane the act of God. Hence
it will follow that as God makes Kosmos as his
nature is to make and as the nature of Kosmos is
to duplicate the work of God, therefore it is in the
70
THE HERMETIC ART
nature of Kosmos to make. Man existing by
Kosmos means that man exists because of the
kosmic action, Kosmos being the reflection of the
generative power of God it must follow that
Kosmos likewise generates; if Kosmos generates
man exists by reason of the generative action of
Kosmos, hence man is the microcosm of the
macrosmic Kosmos. Therefore the nature of man
must be the exact duplicate of the nature of the
Kosmos, hence man will have the same nature as
has the Kosmos. As the Kosmos is eternal as God,
because it is the reflection of God, so is man as
eternal as the Kosmos because he is the work, the
effect, the mirroring in individual form of the
Kosmos itself. Hence life is imperishable, inde-
structible, immortal, eternal. He therefore dem-
onstrates the eternity of the life of man and hence
that it cannot perish. And this is true simply
because man is the expression of Kosmic life.
The source and limit and the constitution
of all things is in God.
The source of things abides in God, because
things come into existence, because they exist out
of God. They come into existence through God's
thinking things manifest, or thinking them into
manifestation. The particular thought of God
acting upon Ku, or the divine essence, must
engender that which corresponds to the thought,
and that entering into Kosmos exists through and
engenders that which corresponds to it, and so all
things in general and each thing in particular is
the direct result of the particular thought of God
which has engendered it, therefore is God the
source of all things. The limit of things is found
also in God because nothing can come into
existence which does not subsist in God. There
is no other source of generic life. In no other way
THE HERMETIC ART
71
can life come into being. Therefore the thinking
of God is the limit of all things ; nothing can ever
come into being unless God has thought of it;
hence there exists nothing which is not contained
in the thought of God, which God, therefore, has
not prepared. He being the one and only source
he is therefore the limit of everything for noth-
ing can come into being without having been
engendered by God. Thus we see that dualism, the
doctrine of a power independent of and separate
from the will of God is absolutely fallacious. All
religions based upon a dualistic concept must
therefore fall down because they assume a power
apart from God. But as there is no generative
power but what itself has been generated by God
and but w^hat has a generative power subject to the
control of the generative power of God, it follows
that there is nothing but what God has directly
or indirectly engendered. Therefore the limit of
all things is in God. The constitution of all things
is in God, because all things are constituted in
and through the divine thought and action of God.
Having constituted each and everything it follows
naturally that the constitution of each and every-
thing is in God and they have no constitution inde-
pendent of God. Therefore we are forced to the
conclusion that God is really all in all. There
exists and subsists nothing but God. His thought,
his generative action, and that which they have
engendered. So in the last analysis God is all
there is. We have but God and his infinite muta-
tions.
This truth is of the utmost importance in our
study of the Hermetic Art, because it teaches us
that the originating principle in all things is God,
and further that this originating principle which
we see as God, is thought; that the beginning of
everything is thought; and second, the energy
through which that can perfectly manifest itself.
72
THE HERMETIC ART
Thought operating through energy and substance
adapted to itself engenders by reason of such inter-
activity of thought, energy and substance, a
dynamic power, an active force, which being the
expression of that must absolutely correspond to
that thought, and this in turn makes manifest the
thing thought of, or rather the thought itself in
terms of form. This, then, is the creative prin-
ciple, this is the art of creation, and when we have
learned to make our thought operate through the
medium of energy and substance and operating
that way to engender dynamic action manifesting
in form, we have discovered the Art of Creation.
Creative thought is the real creative power, but
to be creative it must work in conjunction with
energy and substance. Man by the application of
this law can create himself anew, has within him
the power of his own regeneration, and regenera-
tion is to be accomplished in no other way. Man's
salvation is, therefore, in making his thought suf-
ficiently dynamic to perpetually recreate his body.
The regeneration of this is accomplished by mak-
ing thought energetic and substantial and causing
it to act upon them. Thought must be the genera-
tive force, but it must act through energy and sub-
stance otherwise it is barren. The same principle
which is here enunciated is also applicable to the
physical aspect of the Great Work. If you will
ponder carefully on what we say you will under-
stand how a chemical application of these prin-
ciples may be brought about, and that is the key to
physical alchemy. The wise will understand what
we say, the cheap organisms are not entitled to
know anyhow. However, bear in mind that the
alchemy of the soul is the first step, the alchemy of
the body is the second, social alchemy is the third,
while physical alchemy is the fourth and last step
which is to be taken in our quest for absolute
power.
The Hermetic Art
ON THOUGHT AND SENSE
That the Beautiful and Good Is in God Only and
Elsewhere Nowhere
TEXT
Parthey (G.), Hermetis Trismegisti Poe-
mander (Berlin, 1854), 60-67.
Patrizzi (F.), Nova de Universis Philos-
ophia (Venice, 1593), 14-15.
Mead (G. R. S.), Thrice Greatest Hermes
(London, 1906), Corpus Hermeticum
IX (X).
1. I gave the Perfect Sermon {Logos)
yesterday, Asclepius; to-day I think it right,
as sequel thereunto, to go through point by
point the Sermon about Sense.
Now sense and thought do seem to differ,
in that the former has to do with matter, the
latter has to do with substance. But unto
me both seem to be at-one and not to differ
— in men I mean. In other lives sense is a
at-oned with nature, but in men thought.
Now mind doth differ just as much from
thought as God from divinity. For that
divinity by God doth come to be, and by
mind thought, the sister of the word (logos)
and instruments of one another. For neither
doth the word (logos) find utterance without
thought, nor is thought manifested without
word.
2. So sense and thought both flow to-
74
THE HERMETIC ART
gether into man, as though they were en-
twined with one another. For neither with-
out sensing can one think, nor without
thinking sense.
But it is possible [they say] to think a
thing apart from sense, as those who fancy
sights in dreams. But unto me it seems that
both of these activities occur in dream-
sight, and sense doth pass out of the sleeping
to the waking state.
For man is separated into soul and body,
and only when the two sides of his sense
agree together, does utterance of its thought
conceived by mind take place.
3. For it is mind that doth conceive all
thoughts — good thoughts when it receives
the thoughts from God, their contraries
when [it receiveth them] from one of the
daimonials ; no part of Cosmos being free of
daimon^ who stealthily doth creep into the
daimon who's illumined by God's Light,
and sow in him the seed of its own energy.
And mind conceives the seed thus sown,
adultery, murder, parricide, [and] sacrilege,
impiety, [and] strangling, casting down
precipices, and all such other deeds as are
the work of evil daimones.
4. The seeds of God, 'tis true, are few,
but vast and fair, and good-virtue and self-
control, devotion. Devotion is God-gnosis;
and he who knoweth God, being filled with
all good things, thinks Godly thoughts and
not thoughts like the many [think].
THE HERMETIC ART
75
For this cause they who Gnostic are,
please not the many, nor the many them.
They are thought mad and laughed at;
they're hated and despised, and sometimes
even put to death.
For we did say that bad must needs dwell
here on earth, where 'tis in its own place.
Its place is earth, and not Cosmos, as some
will sometimes say with impious tongue.
But he who is a devotee of God, will bear
with all — once he has sensed the Gnosis.
For such an one all things, e'en though they
be for others bad, are for him good; delib-
erately he doth refer them all unto the
Gnosis. And, thing most marvellous, 'tis
he alone who maketh bad things good.
5. But I return once more to the Dis-
course (Logos) on Sense. That sense doth
share with thought in man, doth constitute
him man. But 'tis not [every] man, as I
have said, who benefits by thought; for this
man is material, that other one substantial.
For the material man, as I have said, [con-
sorting] with the bad, doth have his seed of
thought from daimons ; while the substantial
men [consorting] with the Good, are saved
by God.
Now God is Maker of all things, and in
His making. He maketh all [at last] like to
Himself; but they, while they're becoming
good by exercise of their activity, are unpro-
ductive things.
It is the working of the Cosmic Course
76
THE HERMETIC ART
that maketh their becomings what they are,
befouling some of them with bad and others
of them making clean with good.
For Cosmos, too, Asclepius, possesseth
sense-and-thought peculiar to itself, not like
to that of man. It is not so manifold, but as
it were a better and a simpler one.
6. The single sense-and-thought of Cos-
mos is to make all things, and make them
back into itself again, as Organ of the Will
of God, so organized that it, receiving all
the seeds into itself from God, and keeping
them within itself, may make all manifest,
and then dissolving them, make them all new
again; and thus, like a Good Gardener of
Life, things that have been dissolved, it
taketh to itself, and giveth them renewal
once again.
There is no thing to which it gives not
life ; but taking them all unto itself it makes
them live, and is at the same time the Place
of Life and its Creator.
7. Now bodies matter [-made] are in
diversity. Some are of earth, of water some,
some are of air, and some of fire.
But they are all composed; some are more
[composite], and some are simpler. The
heavier ones are more [composed], the
lighter less so.
It is the speed of the Cosmos' Course that
works the manifoldness of the kinds of
births. For being a most swift Breath, it
doth bestow their qualities on bodies together
THE HERMETIC ART
11
with the One Pleroma — that of Life.
8. God, then, is Sire of Cosmos ; Cosmos,
of [all] in Cosmos. And Cosmos is God's
Son ; but things in Cosmos are by Cosmos.
And properly hath it been called Cosmos
[Order] ; for that it orders all with their
diversity of birth, with its not leaving aught
without its life, with the unweariedness of
its activity, the speed of its necessity, the
composition of its elements, and the order of
its creatures.
The same, then, of necessity and of pro-
priety should have the name of Order.
The sense-and-thought, then, of all lives
doth come into them from without, in-
breathed by what contains [them all] ;
whereas Cosmos receives them once for all
together with its coming into being, and
keeps them as a gift from God.
9. But God is not, as some suppose,
beyond the reach of sense-and-thought. It
is through superstition men thus impiously
speak.
For all the things that are, Asclepius, all
are in God, are brought by God to be, and
do depend upon Him — both things that act
through bodies, and things that through
soul-substance make [other things] to move,
and things that make things live by means
of spirit, and things that take unto them-
selves the things that are worn out.
And rightly so ; nay, I would rather say,
He doth not have these things ; but I speak
78
THE HERMETIC ART
forth the truth, He is them all Himself. He
doth not s^et them from without, but skives
them out [from Him].
This is God's sense-and-thought, ever to
move all things. And never time shall be
when e'en a whit of things that are shall
cease ; and when I say ''a whit of things that
are," I mean a whit of God. For things
that are, God hath; nor aught [is there]
without Him, nor is He without aught.
10. These things should seem to thee,
Asclepius, if thou dost understand them,
true ; but if thou dost not understand, things
not to be believed.
To understand is to believe, to not believe
is not to understand.
My word (logos) doth go before [thee]
to the truth. But mighty is the mind, and
when it hath been led by word up to a cer-
tain point, it hath the power to come before
[thee] to the truth.
And having thought o'er all these things,
and found them consonant with those which
have already been translated by the reason,
it hath [e'en now] believed, and found its
rest in that Fair Faith.
To those, then, who by God's [good aid]
do understand the things that have been
said [by us] above, they're credible; but
unto those who understand them not, incred-
ible.
Let so much, then, suffice on thought-and-
sense.
LESSON VI
Thought and Sense
1. I gave the Perfect Sermon (Logos)
yesterday, Asclepius ; to-day I think it right,
as sequel thereunto, to go through point by
point the Sermon about Sense.
Now sense and thought do seem to differ,
in that the former has to do with matter, the
latter has to do with substance. But unto
me both seem to be at-one and not to differ —
in men I mean. In other lives sense is at-
oned with nature, but in men thought.
Now mind doth differ just as much from
thought as God doth from divinity. For
that divinity by God doth come to be, and
by mind thought, the sister of the word
(Logos) and instruments of one another.
For neither doth the word (Logos) find
utterance without thought, nor is thought
manifested without word.
1. I gave the Perfect Sermon (Logos)
yesterday, Asclepius ; to-day I think it right,
as sequel thereunto, to go through point by
by point the Sermon about Sense.
The introductory paragraph indicates that this
sermon on sense is in the nature of a sequel to the
perfect sermon. As the perfect sermon is a dis-
course on initiations and goes into the whole mat-
ter touching initiations, it logically follows that
this sermon clears up certain points that are left out
79
80
THE HERMETIC ART
in the discourse on initiations, and which are in
the nature of supplemental matter and more
esoteric matter than what is contained in the per-
fect sermon. And we will find this to be true,
because in the perfect sermon a great deal is said
about sense, but the true nature of sense is not there
defined. This sermon is therefore a sequel to the
perfect sermon, in which he goes through point by
point the sermon or discourse on the nature of
sense. Therefore we have a right to expect Hermes
to cover every possible point dealing with the
subject of sense, and in this we are not disap-
pointed.
Now sense and thought do seem to differ,
in that the former has to do with matter, the
latter has to do with substance. But unto
me both seem to be at-one and not to differ —
in men I mean. In other lives sense is at-
oned with nature, but in men thought.
We are here assured that the difference between
thought and sense is simply this, that sense has to
do with matter, thought has to do with substance.
In other words, they are both actions of the soul
in which an awareness of the Kosmos is obtained.
We become aware of material things and condi-
tions through sense. We become aware of sub-
stantial things by thought. This will undoubtedly
dumfound a great many, for Hermes clearly indi-
cates that the man whose consciousness is purely
material, who knows nothing but the material,
never had a thought in his life; that all his knowl-
edge has come through sense. He has sensed
things but has never done any thinking. Doubt-
less Hermes would designate our friends the mate-
rialists as the mindless or at least as the thought-
less. The whole conception that he brings to our
THE HERMETIC ART
81
attention is that all conception of matter is sensed,
and our conceptions of substance are thought.
Now if you will study the terminology of most
people you will see that they agree with Hermes,
that they have not any thought, that they do not
know how to think, that they are absolutely mind-
less. They say, for instance, that there is no sense
in such and such a statement, thinking that they
mean that it is contrary to reason or to intelligence.
They say that someone has no sense, that people
are senseless, that such and such a statement is
nonsense. Now it is ordinarily assumed that they
mean by this to indicate absence of intelligence,
but they cannot get by with that proposition. If a
statement is nonsense it is contrary to sense not
contrary to thought; if a man has no sense it indi-
cates that his power of sense, his ability to sense
material things and conditions is defective. If a
statement has no sense in it, it is simply that it is
not a statement of the testimony of the senses, that
is to say it is contrary to material conditions.
Common sense is whatever concept the senses of
the people in general will give them of matter.
It is also a common error to imagine that one can
by thought ascertain material facts. Such a con-
ception is absolutely erroneous. Thought has
nothing to do with matter. All material concep-
tions come through sense, while all knowledge of
substance comes through thought. If one does not
believe that there is any such thing as immaterial
substance it simply proves that he has never
thought in his life; that his thinker has never been
active; that it has been out of commission; that he
has merely been sensing things. He further con-
tends, however, that thought and sense in man are
at-one and do not differ. By this he means that
they act simultaneously; that is to say that they do
not occupy separate fields or zones of consciousness
so that one goes without the other, but rather he
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holds that sense and thought are interactive, each
one having its influence upon the other. And this
is quite characteristic of the absolute monism
which is so common to Hermes; that is to say of
his unwillingness to separate or divide the uni-
verse. He prefers to look at it as a whole. There-
fore he does not conceive of substance as distinct
from matter, or of matter as distinct from sub-
stance. They are not in his mind two things but
rather give two phases of one verity. Therefore
he merges thought and sense so far as man is con-
cerned. In other lives, that is in the animals,
sense is at-oned with nature. That is to say nature
expresses itself through the sense of the animal.
The animal senses nature but in man nature
expresses itself through thought. In other words
he would hold that one gets an understanding of
things by the activity of his thought. Conse-
quently it is evident that Hermes would not con-
sider that there are very many men living today,
he would argue that there are a lot of animals
walking on their hind legs, but not many men.
Because only he who conceives a thing by thought
is in his concept human.
Now mind doth differ just as much from
thought as God doth from divinity. For
that divinity by God doth come to be, and
by mind thought, the sister of the word
{Logos) and instruments of one another.
For neither doth the word (Logos) find
utterance without thought, nor is thought
manifested without word.
Hermes here draws the distinction between mind
and thought. He illustrates the difference between
mind and thought by the difference between God
and divinity. He would argue that there would
THE HERMETIC ART
m
be no divinity if there was no God. God is what
produces divinity; divinity is in the nature of the
manifesting essence of God. God in action pro-
duces divinity. Divinity is therefore the activity
of God; the product of God's action within Him-
self; the product of this, the character of God in
a certain sense, is what we term divinity. Now in
the same way, just as divinity comes to be as the
result of the active life of God it follows that
thought comes into being because of mind. Mind
is therefore an active principle, a generative force,
w^hich becomes active in terms of thought.
Thought must also be distinguished from thoughts,
for thought is that process emanating from mind
w^hich tends to engender thoughts; thought there-
fore being the generative action of mind and
thoughts the things generated.
Thought is the sister of the logos or word. Now
the logos, the w^ord, in this sense must not be con-
founded w^ith the words which people speak that
is, with articulate speech. It is rather the ideal
form of the word. It is rather the tendency for
thoughts to take a psychic form which when
uttered becomes a word. The logos is therefore
the psychic prototype or archetype of a word. And
this is the sister of thought because thought
becomes logic; that is, as we think, our thought
naturally assumes the form of a psychic image,
which in turn expresses itself as the uttered word,
that is expresses itself through the medium of
sound. They are mutually instruments, the one of
the other. The logos or word does not find utter-
ance without thought; in fact there would be no
logos, no spirit of a word, were it not for thought
giving utterance to this word. And thought can
never be made manifest without the w^ord. In
other words, thought is in the unmanifest state until
the word has been found. The word is what makes
the thought manifest; words are therefore the
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means of concreting thought. We think, but can-
not clarify, express or utter our thought, until the
logos or the word is found through which such
utterance becomes possible. This will throw a
great deal of light upon the subject of the origin
of language. In other words, there exists no word
until after someone has believed the thing that
that word expresses. Until we accept as true v/hat
the w^ord expresses the word is not coined. Articu-
late speech is therefore the means of expressing the
logos. The logos therefore when conceived out of
thought causes someone to formulate an uttered
word which will express it. The faculty of lan-
guage is therefore the faculty for giving utterance
by means of articulate speech to the logos which
brings forth from our thought. The man who has
thoughts which he cannot find words to express,
whose thinking cannot be properly expressed, is an
illustration of the principle of which we are speak-
ing. This is the stage when thought has not
expressed itself by means of the logos. It is in the
shadow stage, — the man cannot definitely express
his thought. This is the relation between thought,
logos, and uttered speech, and this will give us a
fair conception of the nature of thought and its
relation to sense; always bearing in mind that
thought relates itself to substance and not to mat-
ter. Therefore thoughts are not of the material
but of the substantial. Therefore logoi, or words,
are forms of the reason and reason is therefore the
expression of mind, the vehicle of mind, just as
logoi are the vehicles of expressed thoughts.
2. So sense and thought both flow to-
gether into man, as though they were en-
twined with one another. For neither
without sensing can one think, nor without
thinking sense.
THE HERMETIC ART
But it is possible [they say] to think a
thing apart from sense, as those who fancy
sights in dreams. But unto me it seems that
both of these activities occur in dreamsight,
and sense doth pass out of the sleeping to
the waking state.
For man is separated into soul and body,
and only when the two sides of his sense
agree together, does utterance of its thought
conceived by mind take place.
So sense and thought both flow together
into man, as though they were entwined with
one another. For neither without sensing
can one think, nor without thinking sense.
Sense and thought do not act separately upon
man, but on the contrary, they are simultaneously
active, and in fact blend into one composite force.
They are mutually interactive at all times. An-
other point we must bear in mind is this, both sense
and thought flow into man. By this we are to
understand that both sense and thought are kos-
mical forces, existing independent of man, which
flow into him, from without, and entering him,
awaken sense and thought in him. He does not
hold that they are original with man, but rather
that man is the Organ through which, both sense
and thought are made manifest. Hence, man is
negative, while both sense and thought are positive
forces in their action through man. The sense
referred to here cannot therefore be confined to
physical sensation, but must refer to something a
great deal higher. Sensing is always accompanied
by thought, and likewise is thought ever accom-
panied by sensing, the two are merely two aspects
of the one process.
THE HERMETIC ART
But it is possible [they say] to think a
thing apart from sense, as those who fancy
Sight in dreams. But unto me it seems that
both of these activities occur in dream-sight,
and sense doth pass out of the sleeping to
the waking state.
¥/e are next lead into the question of thought
independent of sense. He takes the position that
there is no such thing. The error which he is
here refuting is due to the other error that sense is
confined to the physical sensations. This is wrong.
Sense is in reality that power which brings one
into contact with that which is exterior to him,
and in this way, through contact, awakens the
action of thought. Dream-sight is in reality more
sensing than thought, though both activities are
present. There is a continuity of the sense of the
sleeping state into that of the waking state. Sense
not being confined to the body, it transcends the
plane of physical matter.
For man is separated into soul and body,
and only v^hen the two sides of his sense
agree together, does utterance of its thought
conceived by mind take place.
As man is separated into soul and body, it fol-
lows that there is a corresponding separation of
sense, into soul sense and bodily sense. Thought
is the result of the union of the soul sense with the
sense of the body. In this way, is man's sensing
made to include the soul world and the physical
world. The physical and the Psychic are there-
fore both matters of sense. Through the dual
sense, there is deposited in man the germ of
thought, which is conceived in the mind, very
much after the manner of the conception of a child
THE HERMETIC ART
87
in the womb of the mother, so that the mind act-
ing as the matrix in which sense is deposited,
becomes in this way, fecundated by sense, and as
a result, thought is conceived within the mind,
from whence it is born into consciousness. This
will give to us a true conception of the nature of
sense and thought. The basis of all sensing is the
Kosmic Sense. This sense, being sensible of all
things in Kosmos, acts upon both soul and body,
with the result that it acts upon both the body and
soul in such a manner as to there deposit this sense,
causing us to become aware of that sense, though
as a feeling, and not as a mental conception. This
sensing acts upon the mind, so that, being acted
upon by the dynamic motion of sense, it moves in
such a manner as to conceive thought. Sense in
man, is therefore the process of Kosmic Sense
acting upon him in such a way as to make him
sensible of that which is held in Kosmic Sense.
This process, acting upon the mind, causes it to
conceive the thought, corresponding to that which
has been sensed, which is in that manner born into
consciousness. This will show that the conception
of thought is only possible in a mind fecundated by
sense, and that this fecundation by sense is the
result of the Kosmic Sense contacting the Soul as
well as the body. It will therefore follow that the
mind can conceive no thoughts which are not the
reflex of corresponding sensings. This leads us to
the conclusion that the first requisite is not so
much a matter of mental power as it is one of
sensing. Mentality therefore does not depend
upon brain capacity or intellectual culture half so
much as upon a soul and body, so sensitively
attuned that they will respond to the vibration of
Kosmic Sense. The first requisite is to be very
sensitive, so that we will respond to, and register
all possible aspects of Kosmic Sense. This ability
win definitely limit the extent of the mental opera-
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THE HERMETIC ART
tions, though of course the mental operations may
not come up to the full extent of the sensing
capacity. This will depend upon the possession
of a mind capable of acting under all the impulses
of sense, in such a manner as to conceive thought
under each one of them. This will depend upon
the sensitiveness and upon the responsiveness and
activity of the mind. Mind is therefore the
feminine womb into which sense deposits the
germs of thought. Sensing is the fecundating
action which fecundates the mind with the seeds
of future thoughts, while Kosmic Sense is the
fecundator of all minds. From this point of view
the nature of man, is essentially feminine.
We have here a very important lesson in the
Hermetic Art. The source of all things must be
found in nature, we can originate nothing, but must
merely duplicate the work of nature, though we
can improve upon this under certain limitations.
But we must derive the Seed from nature. The
first thing is, therefore, to prepare a suitable recep-
tacle in which the work is to be performed. After
this we must deposit in this receptacle a suitable
matter as the Matrix in which conception is to take
place. After this, we must have a transmissive ele-
ment through which motion can be imparted to
this plastic mass, and the last step is to have the
active principle of the universe brought into direct
contact with the transmissive agent. If all these
elements are properly prepared we will find that
the Seed will be deposited from the Kosmos into
our receptacle and in this way will be developed
into actuality after the manner of the conception
of thought in the mind. However, do not make
this mistake, do not imagine that you can make
either Gold, or Life. Life can never be created,
though we can direct the form of the evolution
through which it passes. Gold is never made, it is
born. We must learn to conceive it in the Vase of
THE HERMETIC ART
89
Art, exactly as thought is conceived in the mind of
man. Remember this, the Seed of Gold is in the
Kosmos, it must fecundate the First Matter and in
this way, conceive gold in the Vase of Art. This
is the Alchemist's Secret.
LESSON vn
The Conception of Thought
3. For it is mind that doth conceive of
thoughts— good thoughts when it receives
the seeds from God, their contraries when
[it receiveth them] from one of the daimo-
nials; no part of Cosmos being free of
daimons, who stealthily doth creep unto the
daimon who's illumined by God's Light,
and sow in him the seed of its own energy.
And mind conceives the seed thus sown ;
adultery, murder, parricide, [and] sacrilege,
impiety, [and] strangling, casting dowTi
precipices, and all such other deeds as are
the work of evil daimons.
For it is mind that doth conceive of
thoughts — good thoughts when it receives
the seeds from God, their contraries when
[it receiveth them] from one of the dai-
monials; no part of Cosmos being free of
daimons, w^ho stealthily doth creep into the
daimon who's illumined by God's Light,
and sow in him the seed of its own energy;
All thoughts are conceived in mind, conceived
from seed sown in the mind from some source
external to the mind itself. This must necessarily
be true because it is through sense that the seeds
are sown in mind. After being deposited in mind
these seeds go through a process of transformation,
— or rather they stimulate the mind to action
resulting in the conception of corresponding
91
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THE HERMETIC ART
thoughts. If the mind receives the seed of thought
from God it must conceive good thoughts, that
is corresponding in a measure to the nature of
God, because thought which is conceived as a
result of the seed must correspond to the seed
antecedent to the conception. While just the con-
trary is the result when the mind receives the seed
from one of the daimonials. Inasmuch as the
character of the daimonials is not good but the
reverse, it follows therefore that the seed emanat-
ing from the daimonial must be a daimonial seed,
that Is to say a seed partaking of the nature of the
daimons, and this daimonial seed has started into
operation by the specific action of the mind, it must
necessarily follow that the mind will conceive
daimonial thoughts; evil thoughts; thoughts par-
taking of the nature of the daimons. No part of
Kosmos is free of daimons; that is to say there is
no part of the Kosmos that is not occupied by
daimons, the daimonial hosts being so numerous,
so extensive, that every part of the Kosmos is in-
habited by them; hence there are always daimons
present to deposit the seeds of evil thought within
the mind of each and every one. These evil
thoughts must be conceived in the minds of all
unless the soul has reached such a degree of refine-
ment and spiritualization that it is positive to the
daimons and negative only to God. This is really
the only guarantee anyone has, — his spiritual
thought, which will establish the right degree of
polarity. Now we find here a very important
point brought out and at the same time one that
very few realize, and that is this, no man ever
thinks thoughts which are entirely dependent upon
his own mentality; all thoughts are conceived in
the mind from seed sown in the mind by beings
external to that mind. Either God or the daimons,
using God here in the sense not only of the One
and-only-one but also in the sense of the gods as
THE HERMETIC ART
93
well. Deity sows good seed in the mind, the
daimonials sow evil seed, and all our thinking is
the result of a mind fecundated by the seeds of
divinity or of the daimons. A mind unfecundated
by such seed is incapable of conceiving thought.
We are informed that these daimons stealthily
creep into the daimon who is illumined by God's
Light. We must bear in mind that according to
Hermes the daimons are not only those kosmic
powers or beings, but he also terms the soul of
man a daimon. It is the daimon in man. Now we
must bear in mind that the daimons are an order
of beings subordinate to the gods, because of their
creative power the same term is applied to
the human soul, which is also creative. The
daimon in man is his soul ; the daimon illumined
by God's light means a higher order of soul than
w^hat we mean when we ordinarily speak of the
soul of man. It means the soul into which the
light of God has shined, and thus the soul being
illumined by a higher degree of enlightenment
than what is common to the grasp of the human
understanding. God's light must not be con-
founded with God himself. Light is one of the
rays emanating from God. Now this emanating
ray of the divine light has shone into the soul of
man and quickened his intelligence, so that it is
thereby illumined by this light. He is the daimon
that is illumined by God's light mentioned here.
Now^ we are informed that these daimons stealthily
creep into the daimon illumined by God's light
and sow in him the seed of their own energy. In
other words, although one has reached that stage
of development where his soul is illumined by
the light of God he is not yet safe from demonial
interference. He may be inspired, or illumined;
the light of God may shine into his soul and thus
give him an illuminated vision of eternal things,
nevertheless this does not prevent the daimons
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THE HERMETIC ART
from creeping in and sowing in the soul also the
seed of their own energy, so that the energy of the
daimons will cause the awakening of activity
which will in this way sow seed into the mind
causing daimonial thought to be there conceived
and manifested in act. Therefore we can see that
in reality man does little or nothing. The teaching
that man's life is in the hands of fate is really true,
because man cannot think of himself, he can only
conceive in the mind such thoughts as the seeds
sown in his mind by God, or the daimons, will
inspire, unless, of course, it be the thought that is
awakened by the senses and by experience and
observation, etc. But we are here speaking of the
higher thought. And this is the real key to dual
inspiration, — thought of the gods and thought of
the daimons. All daimonial inspiration will nec-
essarily lead to evil thought and evil deeds, while
the inspiriation on the part of the gods will like-
wise inevitably lead to good thoughts and good
deeds. Therefore the evil in man is really the
result of his responsiveness to daimonial impulses.
And mind conceives the seed thus sown ;
adultery, murder, parricide [and] sacrilege,
impiety, [and] strangling, casting down
precipices, and all such other deeds as are
the work of evil daimons.
The seeds of the demonial energy being sown
in the mind by acting upon the substance of the
mind causes it to conceive the seed thus sown; in
other words, thoughts corresponding to those seeds,
that is to say, daimonial thoughts, are conceived
and these thoughts breed emotions and the emo-
tions actions, and thus adultery, murder, parricide,
sacrilege, impiety and all such kindred evil deeds,
are the result of the seeds of daimons entering into
THE HERMETIC ART
95
the mind and there conceiving thought or causing
the mind to conceive thought which engenders
action. Thus sins are not due to the total depravity
of man; they are not due to inbred sin from gen-
eration to generation; such superstitions are with-
out foundation in fact. Sins are due to the fact
that the energy of the daimons enters into man's
mind and entering there deposits the seed which
conceives corresponding thought and ultimately
engenders evil deeds. Man is responsible only to
the extent that his mind is receptive to the seeds
of the demonial energy. To that extent he is re-
sponsible. In other words, he is responsible to the
extent that he is not perfectly divine, to the extent
that any influence other than the thought of God
can operate. We have here a very important doc-
trine; a doctrine which the cheap organisms seem
absolutely unable to grasp ; namely, that morality
is of very little importance; that the really im-
portant thing is the spiritual state of the soul; that
everything depends not upon specific deeds, but
upon the degree of refinement in spirituality of
the human soul. When we come to realize this w^e
will pay little attention to what a man says or does ;
we will be more interested in the scale of humanity
to which he belongs. Man is really to be classified
by the degree in which he has approached the di-
vine, the degree of fineness in the mind. In other
words, there are no such things as good men or
bad men, if you will look at it properly, but there
is such a thing as inferior and superior types of
man. Man must be graded that way, not in the
ordinary way that is common to the cheap organ-
isms. In other words, cheap organisms are incap-
able of anything but evil, while superior organisms
in proportion to the relative degree of their supe-
riority, evolve the capacity for good.
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THE HERMETIC ART
4. The seeds of God 'tis true, are few,
but vast and fair, and good— virtue and self-
control, devotion. Devotion is God-Gnosis ;
and he who knoweth God being filled with
all good things, thinks godly thoughts and
not thoughts like the many [think].
For this cause they who Gnostic are,
please not the many nor the many them.
They are thought mad and laughed at;
they're hated and despised, and sometimes
even put to death.
For we did say that bad must needs dwell
here on earth, where 'tis in its own place.
Its place is earth, and not Cosmos as some
will sometimes say with impious tongue.
But he who is a devotee of God, will bear
with all once he has sensed the Gnosis. For
such an one all things, e'en though they be
for others bad, are for him good; deliber-
ately he doth refer them all unto the Gnosis
and, thing most marvelous, 'tis he alone who
maketh bad things good.
The seeds of God 'tis true, are few, but
vast and fair, and good — virtue and self-con-
trol, devotion. Devotion is God-Gnosis;
and he who knoweth God, being filled with
all good things, thinks godly thoughts and
not thoughts like the many [think].
Having shown the nature of the seeds of the
daimons, their effect upon the thinking and life
of man, he next turns his attention to the seeds of
God. These seeds of God, that is the seeds which
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97
are able to emanate from God and entering the
mind of man conceive thoughts after their kind,
are few, but they are vast and fair, and good; be-
cause nothing could be vaster, nothing could be
fairer, nothing could be better than the seeds
emanating directly from God. We might say there
are three characteristics that are conceived in the
mind of man as a result of the divine seed and
they come only from the divine seed. These are
virtue, self-control and devotion. It must be borne
in mind that virtue was used in ancient times in
an entirely different sense to what it is used at the
present time. It was synonymous with virile man-
hood, with all those characteristics which, as the
fellow said, are characteristics of a '^shore-enough
man." It was not virtuous to do things which
would not be manly. A man might have no re-
ligious scruples about a thing, but he was too
virtuous to do it, that is, it would be beneath his
dignity as a ^'shore-enough man" to do anything
of the kind. Virtue, therefore, represents the manly
quality, the proud manly quality that scorns to do
that which is mean or low, that which is not char-
acteristic of the ideal man. And this virtue can
only operate in the mind of a man as the result
of his receiving divine seeds in his mind. This
seed of virtue emanating from divinity, that is
from the anthropos, the archetypal divine man,
w^hen that seed enters the human mind it conceives
virtuous thoughts, thoughts proper to a real man;
the manly thoughts, virtuous thoughts, and all
virtuous actions emanate from this virtuous think-
ing. Now bear this in mind, there is none of the
humble, worm-of-the-dust, poor cringing sinner, in
the virtuous man. A timid man, a meek man in
the ordinary sense of the word, can never have any
virtue. A virtuous man is always proud, he always
covers the ground he stands on, he is sure of him-
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THE HERMETIC ART
self, absolutely conscious of himself — of his worth.
He knows his greatness, therefore he must be
proud as the eagle if he expects to be virtuous.
The next divine seed is that of self-control. It
is this which gives man the self-contained, self-
mastering attitude. That is to say, man is not car-
ried away by his passions, by his impressions, by
his impulses; but he dominates them all, he con-
trols them; all the aspects of his manifest selfhood
are in leash, they are under perfect control. Such
a man can say truly I am the Yauwa; I am the
I-will-be-what-I-will-be. In other words, it is this
quality of self-control that makes the superman.
And this comes from its divine source. It is the
proud self-controlled, self-restrained impulses that
develop corresponding thought and that enable
man through reason to subjugate all his passions
and using them, but not allowing them to use him.
The self-controlled man is not a man without
passions; he is not an eastern acetic who subdues
or crushes out his passions; he is full of passion,
but it is always under the rigid control of his will
directed by his intelligence, so that he can make
use of those passions when he needs them in his
business, but never lets them interfere with him.
The other seed of God is devotion. This seed
that is implanted in the mind of man is the tend-
ency to draw his soul out to God. It, when
deposited in the mind, conceives thoughts which
naturally turn to God, which are drawn to God
as the steel to the magnet. The God power is the
magnetism which attracts such devotional thoughts
toward God, hence devotion is in reality a yearn-
ing after God, a taking hold upon God, and we
are informed that such devotion is God-Gnosis; in
other words, the Gnosis, or knowledge of God,
comes by reason of a mind that turns in the direc-
tion of God; in other words, a mind is never able
THE HERMETIC ART
99
to learn anything about God until it becomes inter-
ested in the subject; until God becomes a very
attractive subject for our mental contemplation we
can know nothing about God. Now devotion does
not mean mumbling prayers, it does not mean the
acts of devotion which fanatics think it means; it
means a mental interest in God, a yearning for the
knowledge of God, for an understanding of the
essence of God. It is this devotion, therefore, this
turning of the mind toward God, which is itself
the outgrowth of the seeds of God being planted
there, which gives man Gnosis of God. He who
knows God as a result of this God-Gnosis operating
in his mind is filled with all good things. That
is to say, the Gnosis of God in the mind renders
it negative to all the seeds emanating from on high,
all the non-demonial seeds, and thus they enter
into the mind and soul, hence the seeds of all things
good are there and the conception of those good
things begins. He thinks godly thoughts and not
thoughts like the many think. In other words, the
thinking of this one being conceived of seed ema-
nating from God, is godly, godlike, or similar to
the thinking of God the Mind, or of the lesser
divinities. It is thinking after the nature of God's
thought and hence, of course, it is not like the many
think at all, because the many have their thinking
conceived from daimonial seed. The result is the
Gnosis is in time entirely immune from the seed
emanating from the daimonial because he has a
mind completely filled with the seed of God; all
his thinking is controlled by them and conse-
quently there is no unoccupied area in his mind,
no part of the mind that might be acted upon by
the seed of daimons, hence no thought other than;
God thought can be conceived therein.
For this cause they who Gnostic are,
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THE HERMETIC ART
please not the many nor the many them.
They are thought mad and laughed at;
they're hated and despised and sometimes
even put to death.
In this paragraph Hermes explains to us the
antipathy between the Gnostic and the cheap or-
ganism. There is no greater fallacy than the idea
that a good man will win the love of a bad man, —
win the love of everybody; there is no greater
tommy-rot than this nonsensical proposition. The
cheap organism hates the enlightened soul beyond
anyone in all the world. There is the most intense
antipathy on the part of the rabble toward the
superior man. If one finds himself hated and
despised by the people, let him rest assured they
are paying him the highest compliment. They are
incapable of appreciating the attitude of the good,
the pure, the spiritual. It is not only a lack of
appreciation, it is an attitude of absolute antag-
' onism, absolute antipathy. And why? Because
the rabble thinks only such thoughts as are con-
ceived from seed entering their minds from the
daimons, while the Gnostic thinks only such
thoughts as are conceived by seed entering the mind
from God. The result is that the same antipathy
that exists between God and the daimons must
exist between the Gnostic and the cheap organism.
And this is not to be deplored altogether, because
they have separate and distinct functions. The
cheap organism is related to matter, the Gnostic,
on the other hand, is related to substance. The
cheap organism, the material man or the daimonial
man measuring everything by his own ignorance,
thinks the Gnostic is mad and laughs at him. Be-<
cause of the Gnostic's indifference to matter and
the cheap organism's indifference to substance, they
are hated and despised as weak, as inferior, and
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101
are sometimes even put to death because of their
superior knowledge. They can never please the
cheap organism, and the cheap organism can never
please them. Any man who talks about loving
everybody is either a deliberate liar or else he has
no spiritual realization. The Gnostic may tolerate
the cheap organism, in fact, he should, but to be
pleased with him is simply out of the question. It
is utterly impossible for the developed soul to take
pleasure in, to enjoy the society, of cheap organ-
isms. Because they are as far asunder as the poles,
they represent two separate and distinct extremes
of existence, and this accounts for the persecution
of the pure and holy by the cheap organisms. They
want to get rid of them^ because of this antipathy,
and in the last analysis, the real thing that is in-
volved, is the war of the daimons to keep the gods
from gaining influence on earth.
For we did say that bad must needs dv>ell
here on earth, where 'tis in its own place.
Its place is earth, and not Cosmos as some
will some times say with impious tongue.
Here we have the crux of the situation. The
earth is the realm of bad, bad must needs dwell
here on earth where it is in its own place. The
earth is therefore the place of bad; the space in
w^hich the bad is made manifest. The evolution
on the earth for the present time at least must be
through the bad. All terrene evolution is due to
the operation of bad principles. This is not true
of the Kosmos, but it is true of the earth. Now^
as the earth must evolve through the bad, therefore
it must evolve through the action of the daimons.
They are the ones who conduct the terrene evo-
lution. Hence this evolution depends upon the
proportion of bad that is manifested here, — that is
102
THE HERMETIC ART
the daimonial influence. Now in order that man
as a race may evolve, that the earth may go through
its terrene experience, speaking from the stand-
point of race, he must be a bad man, and therefore
he will express in his thought the seed of the
daimon. The result is the kosmic man, that is one
functioning in Kosmos as well as in the earth, a
substantial man, a good man, is a disruptive influ-
ence in the life of the earth. In other words, he
is a heavy charge of nitro-glycerine, lyddite and
gun cotton dropped into the social fabric. He is
always more or less of a disruptive influence. And
that is really his purpose. It is not intended in the
kosmic scheme that there should be very many good
men on the earth. It is after the manner of an
aerolite, a comet, or a meteor, descending from
heaven to knock the earth back into shape, or to
shake and disorganize its crystalized state, so that
it will go through an additional ferment as it were.
Naturally the daimons and the daimonial men do
not appreciate the value of such disturbing influ-
ences. This being the case, they show a considerable
measure of opposition to such visitations from the
heavenly world, and this is the real cause of the
antipathy which the daimonial man or the cheap
organism bears to the Gnostic, or the superman.
Kosmos is not the sphere of evil, of bad, as is the
earth, but is relatively good; hence the substantial
man is a relatively good man. Of course there is
no such thing as an absolutely good man ; but the
kosmic man is relatively good, and his goodness
makes him a menace to the stability of terrene
society.
But he who is a devotee of God, will bear
with all once he has sensed the Gnosis. For
such an one all things, e'en though they be
for others bad, are for him good; deliber-
THE HERMETIC ART
103
ately he doth refer them all unto the Gnosis,
and, thing most marvelous, 'tis he alone who
maketh bad things good.
The man in whom the God seed of devotion has
been sown, so that his thinking becomes devotional,
causing his w^hole mind to turn in the direction
of God, so that he becomes a devotee of God, one
devoted to God, one whose business or avocation
in life is service to God, this attitude will cause
him to bear with bad if he has once sensed the
Gnosis. Now notice, the Gnosis comes through
sense. That is to say. Gnosis is not acquired by
man's mental striving. Gnosis is sown in the mind
of man, which acts as a receptacle for its being
deposited there when that man has attained devo-
tion. Devotion brings him into that state of close
contact with God which illumines his mind with
the light of Gnosis, causing it to conceive thoughts
under the impulse of the divine light. Such an
one w^ill bear with all. For such an one all things,
even though for others bad, are for him good. He
deliberately refers them all unto the Gnosis. In
other words, the Gnostic is so wise that he realizes
every bad thing serves a good purpose. He realizes
that all evil is good in the making. That is to say
that good is bound to come out of bad, of evil ; that
the bad is absolutely necessary for the evolution
of matter; hence he knows that the cheap organ-
isms who are poking fun at him will be Gnostics
just like him in the course of about thirty thousand
years, and he knows that they would not be Gnos-
tics then if they were not bad men now. He knows
that this very bad principle is the principle of
terrene evolution, that matter can be evolved in
no other way; therefore he realizes that the bad
man is a man who can only evolve through being
bad, consequently he does not condemn the bad
104
THE HERMETIC ART
man, he does not hate him, he simply realizes
that the bad man by being bad and as
mean as he can be is doing the very best he
can under the circumstances, and that such
bad people are absolutely necessary for the work
in the world, for the material progress of the
world. That is another thing that we must bear
in mind. The principal function of man at the
present stage of evolution is the cultivation and
exploitation of the earth; the development of na-
ture; this is his principal function. But if he had
any sense he would not do it, he would not waste
his valuable time on such things. Consequently
it is very fortunate that the vast majority of the
human family is evil; because they are here to
subdue the earth, to harness the physical powers
of the earth ; yet such work will only be performed
by one who does not see into the substantial realm;
consequently all this bad serves a wonderfully good
purpose; it serves to transform all matter. So the
Gnostic deliberately refers them all unto the
Gnosis. That is to say, he looks at these processes
of bad, and these bad people from the standpoint
of the light, which the Gnosis throws upon the sub-
ject. He realizes that the man is a workman who
fs doing some particular work, and from the stand-
point of the Gnosis we are able to see the relation
which that particular work will bear to the fin-
ished product. The most marvelous thing of all
is that it is the Gnostic alone who makes all things
good. Here we have the subtle alchemy of the
Gnostic life, that mental alchemy which causes the
Gnostic to see the bad as good by seeing that it is
but the crude form of a good condition that is
going to be brought about by and by; by seeing
that it is a stage in the transaction and looking at
it as though it had accomplished that, seeing the
end from the beginning, as it were; looking at
everything not as a thing in itself, but as a part of
THE HERMETIC ART
105
the sequence, a stage in the course of development.
Therefore all things are good to him because they
are steps in the process which is bound to turn out
good in the end. Therefore to the Gnostic all is
good. And here we are able to see where the
Gnostic rises superior to all other men. He knows
that the end justifies the means, because the means
is always for the sake of the realization of the end,
that is all that things exist for. Consequently he
may do things which to others would be very bad
but to him they are perfectly good. Things that
would be criminal and sinful in the cheap organ-
ism, are quite virtuous and proper in a Gnostic,
because the Gnostic does all he does as a means of
realizing the good; therefore through the appli-
cation of his wisdom and understanding which he
has due to his superior unfoldment, he is able to
take all evil conditions and transmute them into
good influences, by using them as a means of realiz-
ing the good. Hence the Gnostic is above good
and evil, the categories of right and wrong have
no existence for him, seeing that he is the soldier
of truth and right in the absolute. Consequently
whatever he does is right. The Gnostic can do no
wrong. Therefore the world hates the Gnostic,
who is above their moral code. The one who
stands so high that nothing that he can do can fail
to be better than the best that is done by anyone
else is a menace to the liberty of the host of cheap
organisms because he stands above them in every
sense of the word. His alchemy is one of mind,
one of thought, of intelligent direction. He is able
through the power of his will to cause influences
which otherwise would work for evil, to attain to
the realization of the highest good. Thus the
Gnostic is the great alchemist of the mind and at
the same time is he the projectile that explodes
and disintegrates the shams of society, scattering
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THE HERMETIC ART
to the four winds the crystallized forms. Thus by
disrupting them he forces them to again find
adjustment. This is the true function of the Gnos-
tic, the alchemist of the mind.
LESSON VIII
The Kosmic Course
5. But I return once more to the Dis-
course {Logos) on Sense. That sense doth
share with thought in man, doth constitute
him man. But 'tis not [every] man, as I have
said, who benefits by thought; for this man
is material, that other one substantial.
For the material man, as I have said, [con-
sorting] with the bad, doth have his seed of
thought from daimons; while the substan-
tial men [consorting] with the Good, are
saved by God.
Now God is Maker of all things, and in
His making, He maketh all [at last] like to
Himself; but they, while they're becoming
good by exercise of their activity, are unpro-
ductive things.
It is the working of the Cosmic Course
that maketh their becomings what they are,
befouling some of them with bad and others
of them making clean with good.
For Cosmos, too, Asclepius, possesseth
sense-and-thought peculiar to itself, not like
to that of man ; 'tis not so manifold, but as
it were a better and a simpler one.
But I return once more to the Discourse
(Logos) on Sense. That sense doth share
Wixh thought in man, doth constitute him
man. But 'tis not [every] man, as I have
107
108
THE HERMETIC ART
said, who benefits by thought; for this man
is material, that other one substantial.
The sharing of sense and thought, that is the
mutual interrelation of sense and thought in the
conception of consciousness, is what constitutes the
human nature. Without this combination, man
would not be man, but merely one of the animal
creation. The distinction between the two is in
this, in the animals, sense causes the universe or
nature to impress itself directly upon the animal.
This direct impression of nature upon the animal
through sense, constitutes what we call instinct,
hence the actions of the animal are instinctive and
impulsive. In man, sense acts through the medium
of thought, awakening corresponding thoughts,
and these enter the consciousness, and hence, in-
stead of man having an instinctive sense of nature,
he forms an intelligent concept of nature. It is
this intelligent rather than instinctive action which
distinguishes man as man and not as animal. At
the same time we must bear in mind that all men
are not benefitted by thought. There are two dis-
tinct classes of men, material men and substantial
men. As thought is related to substance, it will
follow that the material man is unable to
do any real thinking. To grasp this, we must
understand the nature of the thinking process.
While it is true that it is the action of sense upon
the mind that causes the conception of thought,
but at the same time it will never do to assume
that a thought is merely a picture of an object
photographed upon the mind by sense. The
thought is conceived in the mind, and is therefore
composed of the substance of the mind itself. The
thought is therefore, in the order of a substantial
correspondent of the thing sensed, and hence it is
related to the substantial operation back of the
THE HERMETIC ART
109
thing sensed, it is hence much more accurate than
is sense. The function of sense then, is to get at
the forms of things, while the function of thought
is to get at their essences. Now, if man is sub-
stantial, his most active part is the soul, which
being substantial and not material, will give ample
opportunity for the conception of thought, while
if one is material, his body being the most im-
portant and active portion of his being, there will
be little opportunity for the conception of thought,
and this being the case, in the material man
thought does little more than to perpetuate the
images presented through sense. Thus the material
man has not the benefit of the mental quintessence
of sense, which constitutes true thought, and which
is the principle characteristic of the substantial
man. Even when thought is in a measure present
in the material man, it does not elevate him as it
does the substantial man, for his thought being
material and not substantial, he has no conception
of the substance of things.
For the material man, as I have said, [con-
sorting] with the bad, doth have his seed of
thought from daimons; while the substan-
tial men [consorting] with the Good, are
saved by God.
The material man can have no thought of any-
thing other than the earth life and experience. To
him the material is the all. To him, facts are all
that there are, hence his consciousness is filled up
with material facts. As these relate to the bad
alone, he has no concept of the substantial or the
good, and thus, thinking only of the bad, that is,
of the material, the mind is polarized entirely with
the daimons. A mind which recognizes only the
m.aterial, soon leads to a character that is com-
110
THE HERMETIC ART
pletely material even in its aspirations. Such an
one, failing to realize that there is any thing other
than the material, naturally comes to the point
where he seeks for the material as the one thing
needful. This causes such an one to choose the
material realm, which is under the control of the
daimons, and of course subjects him to them. This
being the case, all the seed of his thought is from
the daimons, and thus, his thought is purely
daimonial in as much as the seed which conceives
all his thoughts are of daimonial origin. On the
other hand, the substantial man, functioning in the
soul, sees the substantial rather than the material.
This leads him to a metaphysical view of nature,
which causes him to live in a world of ideas rather
than in one of facts. This enables him to function
in the higher regions of Kosmos, leading a life in
which the consciousness is largely substantial. As
a result, he becomes largely indifferent to material
things, iand in proportion the substantial becomes
more and more important. In the course of time,
he comes to see in the ideal the one thing needful.
Having become indifferent to the material, the
bad, he of course becomes the more attached to the
substantial and hence to the Good. This leads
him into a state of polarity with the Good, with
the result that his mind being closed to the seed
of the daimons, it is now open to the seed of God,
hence all his seed of thought is derived from God.
This causes him to think in the divine manner, and
hence he is saved by God, that is, the seed of God,
conceives in the mind, kindred thoughts, so that
his mind is completely closed to the seed of the
daimons. He is thus saved from the influence of
the daimons, by having his mind under the con-
trol of God.
Now God is Maker of all things, and in
THE HERMETIC ART
111
His making, He maketh all [at last] like to
Himself; but they, while they're becoming
good by exercise of their activity, are unpro-
ductive things.
God is the maker of everything. Nothing comes
into being, save that which He has made. As all
things are the result of the Ideas of God, it follows
that their real being is in the divine idea that origi-
nated them. They subsist in the divine mind at
a time anterior to that during which they exist
out of it. Living in the Divine Idea at first they
are divine, and, while they are degraded through
their course of mutation in Kosmos, they are never-
theless destined in the end to attain that Ideal
Divinity which was theirs in the beginning. Be-
fore they can reach that state, they must pass
through a period of evolution in Kosmos, during
which time they will purge out the bad from their
composition, and ultimately attain the status of
the good. It is through the exercise of their
activity that all bad things become good. Good-
ness is therefore, merely the result of growth in
the bad things. During this time, however, they
can produce nothing. The production of any-
thing will mean their ceasing to become good for
the time being at least. They are merely evolving
themselves into the good state.
It is the working of the Cosmic Course
that maketh their becomings what they are,
befouling some of them with bad and others
of them making clean with good.
The working of the Kosmic Course has for its
purpose the perfecting and evolution of the
Kosmos as a whole. It is not concerned with the
effect of its evolutions upon any thing in particu-
112
THE HERMETIC ART
lar, save as they effect the evolution of the Kosmos
as a whole. To this end, some things relatively
good, that is, substantial, are degraded into ma-
terial forms, and in that v^ay befouled with bad,
in a word, manifesting the bad quality of matter.
At the same time, other things which are bad,
owing to the fact that they are in material form,
are purged of their materiality, and hence of their
badness, and are made clean and good. In this
way, we are able to see the process of transmuta-
tion which is ever going on, the bad being trans-
muted into good, and in like manner the good
being ever transmuted into bad. It must be borne
in mind that the purpose of the Kosmic Course
is the perfection of all things as an unit, and hence
the fate of a particular thing is of no moment,
except as its fate effects the work of the Kosmic
Course. As the bad, that is the material, is trans-
muted into the good, that is the substantial, it tends
to effect the status of matter in general, causing it
to be gradually transformed until it approaches
nearer and nearer to the substantial state. In like
manner, when the good, or substantial is driven
into the bad or material state, it carries with it
a considerable measure of the energy of the sub-
stantial condition, which being imprisoned in mat-
ter, seeks to return to the substantial condition.
This energy, in its efforts to escape from the bond
of matter, acts upon the matter holding it, in such
a manner as to gradually transform it, and thus
matter is in process of transmutation in the direc-
tion of the substantial condition. The result is,
the working of the Kosmic Course, while it is det-
rimental to the well being of the things themselves
as they are befouled with bad, nevertheless, it tends
to the substantialization of matter and the trans-
mutation of the bad into the condition of the good.
The Kosmic Course is therefore, nothing other
THE HERMETIC ART
113
than the course of the Alchemicalization of mat-
ter, and all things, have their place in that process
of transmutation. Kosmos is the great Alchemist,
and the status of every thing is but the temporary
condition resulting from the process of Kosmic
Transmutation. Thus, while all things are good
in the beginning, and will be good in the end, each
thing passes through a process of becoming bad,
abides in a state of badness, and passes through a
process of becoming good again, as a result of the
effect which the Kosmic Course has upon it. Bad-
ness is therefore a state of development which
every thing must go through. The purpose of
which is the spiritualization of matter and the final
elimination of bad from existence. All things, no
matter how bad are therefore, doing their part in
the deliverance of the universe from the rule of
bad. We may draw from this a practical lesson,
man should above all things avoid being too good.
That is to say, one should avoid becoming so good
that he is good for nothing. Remember, your
function is to spiritualize the material world, not
to be a pure spirit. This being the case, avoid
becoming so spiritual that you can have no pos-
sible influence upon matter. If you do this, you
w^ll be of no earthly use, and the sooner you die
and go to heaven, where you belong, the better.
We have no use for Saints in this world, what we
require is real live, red blooded men and women.
Men and women who are not too spiritual to fight,
to struggle and to do their part in the spiritualiza-
tion of matter and hence in the regeneration of the
universe. The saints all belong in heaven, what
we want on earth is men. In other words, every
one must be a Alchemist in his own proper field,
small as it may be. This is the true function of
all life, Alchemicalization, and above all, is it the
work of man to transmute matter, and bring it a
little closer to the spiritual status. In other words,
114
THE HERMETIC ART
the type of men that are most needed in the world
are Hermetic Artists. Your work is not to pre-
pare for heaven but to stay on the earth, and trans-
mute it into the heavenly state, and stay on the job
until it is done.
For Cosmos, too, Asclepius, possesseth
sense-and-thought peculiar to itself, not like
to that of man, 'tis not so manifold, but as
it were a better and a simpler one.
Sense-and-thought are not confined to man, but
are common to the Kosmos as well, the sense-and-
thought of the Kosmos is one peculiar to the Kos-
mos, we do not find the like of it anywhere else.
It is this sense-and-thought of the Kosmos that
directs all the Kosmic operations. It is not so
manifold as in the case of man, seeing that its func-
tions are not so numerous, it is a simpler sense-and-
thought and at the same time, a more powerful
one, and one that operates on a more efficient plan.
This sense-and-thought of the Kosmos is the prin-
ciple that causes Kosmos to evolve in its own way,
and by reason of its own power, and quite inde-
pendent of any direction whatsoever. For this
cause, Kosmos is alive, surcharged with its own
sense, made intelligent by reason of its own
thought, and animated by its own life.
6. The single sense-and-thought of Cos-
mos is to make all things, and make them
back into itself again, as Organ of the Will
of God, so organized that it, receiving all
the seeds into itself from God, and keeping
them within itself, may make all manifest,
and [then] dissolving them, make them all
new again ; and thus, like a Good Gardener
THE HERMETIC ART
115
of Life, things that have been dissolved, it
taketh to itself, and giveth them renewal
once again.
There is no thing to which it gives not
life ; but taking all unto itself it makes them
live, and is at the same time the Place of
Life and its Creator.
Kosmos is Organ of the Will of God. It is the
vast space and substance into which the Will of
God, that is, the Dynamic Energy of the Ultimate
Deity enters, and moves therein. All the opera-
tions of the Will of God are through the medium
of this Kosmic Substance, which therefore becomes
the Substantial Organ through which the Divine
Will Force functions. This Kosmos is so organ-
ized that all the seeds from God, that is all the
Divine Ideas and the Monads engendered by them
in the Matrix of Ku, are driven forth into Kosmos
and are there deposited. They are all received
into Kosmos, after the manner of seeds being de-
posited in the earth in planting. They are retained
there by Kosmos. The single sense-and-thought of
Kosmos is to receive these seeds from God, which
it does by reason of its negative contact with God.
These seeds of God, when deposited in .Kosmos,
cause it to conceive after their likeness, so that for
every seed coming from. God, there is something
corresponding to it, conceived in Kosmos. In this
way it is the sense-and-thought of Kosmos to make
all things. It also makes all things back into itself
again, for nothing made by Kosmos is of perma-
ment form, seeing that all its making is with refer-
ence to itself. Ai the same time the tendency
engendered by the seed of God is permanent, and
hence this process is repeated unto infinity, and
this is the true basis of the Law of Karma. It
116
THE HERMETIC ART
makes all things manifest, and then, when they
have become completely manifested, they are dis-
solved into Kosmos once more, and are again made
new again. Thus we have the perpetual reincar-
nation of every thing that is ever manifested in
Kosmos. It is through the endless sequence of
manifestations in form, and dissolutions of form
that the life contained in the form may manifest
yet again, that the things made in Kosmos are
going through an endless sequence of improve-
ment. Thus as the Gardener of Life, all things
that have been dissolved, are taken to Kosmos and
in the course of time made new again. Kosmos is
then, at once the Garden and the Gardener of Life
in all of its manifold forms. This direction of
this Process is the true nature of Kosmic Sense and
Kosmic Thought working as one process. Kosmic
Sense draws all the seeds of God into itself, and
likewise, draws jnto itself all things manifested,
dissolving them into its own substance. Kosmic
Thought directs the manifestation of all the seeds
of God, and likewise the renewal again of all
things dissolved. This is the single sense-and-
thought of Kosmos.
There is no thing to which it gives not
life, but taking all unto itself it makes them
live, and is at the same time the Place of Life
and its Creator.
All living things derive their life from Kosmos,
there is no life from any other source. It takes
every thing unto itself, and taking them unto itself,
it gives them life and makes them live. Death
merely means that a thing which has exhausted its
life force, is indrawn into Kosmos that it may be
given another lease of life. It is at the same time
the Place of Life and its Creator. It is the Place
of Life because it is the space in which all life
THE HERMETIC ART
117
is made manifest^ and in which all things are given
their life. All the seeds of life are deposited in
this space, and there are given the forms through
which they may manifest their life. AH forms are
indrawn into it, that they may again be made to
live. It is likewise the Creator of Life, because
it is through the operation of Kosmos under the
inspiration of the power of Kosmic Thought that
Life is difYerentiated into its diverse aspects and
manifestations. All life, that is all individual fife
is Created in Kosmos, and by Kosmos, and it is
there that all life is made manifest. It is there-
fore the source and the manifestation of Life.
Kosmos is able to do this, because all seeds that
are drawn into it, are made through it to conceive
form, and all forms are being indrawn into it and
there renewed. This is through the dual operation
of the processes of creation and dissolution, and
these two are made to act as one harmonious oper-
ation. But remember this, its creation is through
conception. When you have mastered this secret,
that is, the secret of Kosmos, you have mastered
the secret of the Great Work. The mystery is that
of conception working in conjunction with disso-
lution, joined with the ability to draw within all
that is to be either conceived or dissolved. Kosmos
is the great Alchemist, and when any one has
mastered her secret he has himself mastered the
secret of transmutation. When this has been
mastered, the practical work of Alchemy is mere
woman's work and boy's play.
LESSON IX
The Function of the Cosmos
7. Now bodies matter [-made] are in
diversity. Some are of the earth, of water
some, some are of air, and some of fire.
But they are all composed, some are more
[composite], and some are simpler. The
heavier ones are more [composed], the
lighter less so.
It is the speed of Cosmos' Course that
works the manifoldness of the kinds of
births. For being a most swift Breath, it
doth bestow their qualities on bodies to-
gether with the One Pleroma — that of Life.
Now bodies matter [-made] are in divers-
ity. Some are of the earth, of water some,
some are of air, and some of fire.
All bodies made from matter may be divided
into four classes. They are either formed of earth,
of water, of air, or of fire. Thus we have the four
groups of bodies, earthy, watery, airy, and fiery
bodies. This may be taken as being true in three
different senses. In the first place we have the
literal application of the classification. At the
same time there is the sense in which these terms
are used with reference to the four elemental gases,
or, rather to the four ethers, that stand back of
those gases and manifest through them. Then there
is the symbolic sense, in which the four elements
are used with reference to their corresponding
principles in nature. However, in the main, fire
stands for the Hot Principle, air for the Dry Prin-
119
120
THE HERMETIC ART
ciple, Water for the Moist Nature, and earth for
the Cold Nature, no matter in what Principle of
nature they may be found. All matter manifests
under those four classifications, and all bodies
made from matter are to be grouped accordingly,
as being fiery, or hot, airy, or dry, watery, or moist,
and earthy, or cold.
But they are all composed ; some are more
[composite], and some are simpler. The
heavier ones are more [composed], the
lighter less so.
However, w^e must not make the mistake of
assuming that there are simple bodies, that is,
bodies formed of a single element. All bodies are
composed of two or more elements. Whichever
element is in the major position in the degree of
composition will determine the element to which
the body belongs. There are in the composition
of these bodies all possible degrees of composition,
from the most composite to the simplest. The
weight of a body depends upon the degree of its
composition, the more it is composed of the dif-
ferent elements, the heavier it becomes, while the
greater the degree of preponderance of a single
element in its composition, the lighter it will be.
This is due to the fact that as the elements are
brought into a closer degree of equilibrium in its
composition, there mutual attraction is increased,
so that the degree of chemical affinity is relatively
increased, and in this way is there an increase in
the attraction which the earth has upon such a
body. Thus it is that the weight of all bodies is
increased in proportion to the degree of their com-
position. It takes the union of the elements to
form any material body, no matter how small.
Bodies are formed by reason of the combination
of the four elements. Yet the preponderating ele-
THE HERMETIC ART
121
ment determines the nature of the body, that is the
element which gives to it its nature. Thus we are
able to see how all bodies are formed. The elements
of chemistry are all composed of these four ele-
ments of Alchemy and derive their nature from
the proportion in which the four elements unite
in their composition. The Molecule is in reality
a material body composed of the four elements in
diverse proportions, and the same is true of the
Atoms of Chemistry. Each one, which is in the
nature of the unit of the particular element under
consideration, is a material body composed of the
four elements. The proportion in which these ele-
ments are united in its composition, determines the
chemical element to which it will belong. We do
not here refer to the atoms of the four elementaries,
Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen and Carbon, but to
the eighty-six elements of chemistry. Now, when
we bear in mind that all the elements of chemistry
are composed of atoms, each of which is composed
of the atoms of the four elements of Alchemy,
united in a definite proportion, and this in accord-
ance with a perfect mathematical scale, we see the
key to the transmutation of these elements the one
into the other. All that is necessary is to break up
this composition, restoring the chemical element,
back into the four elements of Alchemy, and break-
ing up this order of composition, in such a manner
as to change the mathematical proportion of these
four elements, until it becomes identical with that
of the element to which you wish to change it.
Then when you have arranged the proportion
exactly right, compose your chemical atom in this
way and you have the chemical element which you
desire. Unite these atoms into molecules, and you
have the physical element which you desire. That
is the entire Science and Art of Practical Alchemy.
There is nothing to prevent any competent Elec-
tro-chemist who has an understanding of the tech-
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THE HERMETIC ART
nical side of Analytical Chemistry from trans-
muting one element into another. We have
indicated every problem that is at all involved in
the undertaking.
It is the speed of Cosmos' Course that
works the manifoldness of the kinds of
births. For being a most swift Breath, it doth
bestow their qualities on bodies together
with the One Pleroma — that of Life.
The Course of Kosmos is in the nature of a most
swift Breath, It is a force following an inbreath-
ing and an outbreathing movement; that is, we
have the alteration of a Centripetal and a Centri-
fugal force, and this in perpetuity of action. This
movement, not only characterizes, and gives its
nature to the one Life, as a simple principle, but
it also causes an infinite differentiation in the
rapidity of movement in the diverse portion of the
four elements. In this way are the diverse qual-
ities engendered. Thus are bodies organized in
which are being manifested all of these diverse
qualities. In this way are diverse bodies born, in
which all the diverse qualities engendered by the
course of Kosmic movement, may become incar-
nate. The One Life which is the Pleroma of all
the manifestations of Kosmos, being engendered
and made what it is by the movements of the Kos-
mic Breath, manifests itself through the medium
of all the diverse bodies engendered by the swift-
ness of the Kosmic Breath. In this way, are all
bodies made to live, by reason of the Life mani-
festing through them. Thus in Kosmic motion
have we the origin of all modes as well as of Life,
and livingness.
8. God, then, is Sire of Cosmos ; Cosmos,
of [all] in Cosmos. And Cosmos is God's
THE HERMETIC ART
123
Son ; but things in Cosmos are by Cosmos.
And properly hath it been called Cosmos
[Order] ; for that it orders all with their
diversity of birth, with its not leaving aught
without its life, with its unweariedness of
activity, the speed of its necessity, the com-
position of its elements, and order of its
ceatures.
The same, then, of necessity and propriety
should have the name of Order.
The sense-and-thought, then, of all lives
doth come into them from without, in-
breathed by what contains [them all] ;
whereas Cosmos receives them once for all
together with its coming into being, and
keeps them as a gift from God.
God, then, is Sire of Cosmos ; Cosmos, of
[all] in Cosmos. And Cosmos is God's Son ;
but things in Cosmos are by Cosmos.
God is the Sire and source of Kosmos, while all
the things in Cosmos are the products of Kosmos.
It would therefore be wrong to say that God is the
direct creator of anything else save Kosmos.
Kosmos is the manifestation of God, while all
things in Kosmos are engendered by reason of the
life of Kosmos, and hence their being is derived
from Kosmos, and they continue to be as a result
of the action of Kosmos. They are not of divine
origin then, but of kosmic origin. This distinction
must at all times be borne in mind, otherwise our
thinking w^ill become confused. Kosmos is the
womb, projected forth from God, into which all
the kosmic seed are deposited and in this way is
the kosmic womb fecundated and, as a result it
124
THE HERMETIC ART
gives birth to all the things in Kosmos. Kosmos
is, therefore, in the nature of a self-fecundating
womb, which of its own self, fecundates its own
self, and out of itself gives birth to all things. It
is in the highest sense the Vase of Art, and the
fecund womb of existence.
And properly hath it been called Cosmos
[Order] ; for that it orders all with their
diversity of birth, with its not leaving aught
without its life, with the unweariedness of
its activity, the speed of its necessity, the
composition of its elements, and order of its
creatures.
Kosmos is in the nature of a vast expanse of
energy and substance, every part of its space being
equally occupied by both energy and substance.
To be a little more explicit we might say that it
is a vast space, completely filled with substance,
and this substance being completely permeated
by dynamic energy. The unweariedness of this
activity keeps every particle of this kosmic sub-
stance in a state of perpetual motion, thus tending
to engender form. This activity engenders a tre-
mendous rate of speed, which, owing to its intense
rapidity, manifests a state of necessity, which
governs all the other manifestations of Kosmos.
All its actions must conform to this necessity. This
operation of its necessity results in the composition
of all the kosmic elements. A composition, the
direct result of the course of kosmic necessity. This
course of kosmic necessity, acting upon the kosmic
elements, organizes out of them, the diverse forms,
and in this way does it order forth the diversity
of births of all things in Kosmos. It also infuses
the proper quality of life in each thing born, and
orders all of its creatures in the true course of
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125
evolution through which they are destined to pass
in the manifestation of their life. For these reasons
is this realm of action, formation, vitalization,
composition, necessity, and ordering, termed Kos-
mos, or Order, for it is the ordering sphere of all
things, the-that-which gives order in all things,
and having no other source of Order apart from
itself.
The same, then, of necessity and of pro-
priety should have the name of Order.
Because it is the action of Kosmos that orders
forth all things, and assigns to them, the order in
which they are made to manifest, it is both neces-
sary and proper that we should give it the name
of Order, that which is the cause of the order in
which every thing manifests, there being no ele-
ment of ordering which is not in it, must of
necessity be the true foundation of Order, and
hence is properly called Order. In other words,
it is the principle of Order, and hence is termed
Order in the sense of its being the essence of Order,
or Order as a Universal Principle.
The sense-and-thought, then, of all lives
doth come into them from without, in-
breathed by what contains [them all] ;
whereas Cosmos receives them once for all
together with its coming into being, and
keeps them as a gift from God.
Sense-and-thought are inherent in no living
thing. In all living things sense-and-thought comes
into them from without. It is not in any sense of
the word a product of any living thing, but ema-
nates from without them all. As it is not in any
living thing, it must be inbreathed into them by
126
THE HERMETIC ART
some force which is not a thing, and this will have
to be a principle containing within itself all living
things. This can be nothing other than the Kosmos
which we have investigated above. Hence it fol-
lows that both sense and thought are inherently and
universally present in Kosmos. In a word, in addi-
tion to forming the body, and infusing it with life
so as to make it live, Kosmos also breathes into it
both sense and thought, which makes it instinctive
and intelligent. This is all the work of Kosmos.
It will be perfectly correct if we say that we live
in Kosmos at all times, completely immersed in it,
and completely bathed in the Kosmic sea. We are
breathing in, life, sense, and thought from Kosmos
as well as air from the Atmosphere. But more
properly will it be to say that these are being
breathed into us by Kosmos, for we are the Nega-
tive side and not the Positive side of this relation-
ship. Kosmos, in its coming into being, receives
sense-and-thought as an integral part of its being.
They remain inseparably united with its being,
for were it not for Kosmic Sense and Kosmic
Thought, Kosmos would not be Kosmos. This will
at once appear, when we bear in mind that the
nature of Kosmos is the Ultimate Order. Now,
this Order is maintained through the operation of
sense-and-thought, and hence, Kosmos depends
upon the perpetual presence of this kosmic sense-
and-thought, Man senses that which already is,
and through his sensing, he comes in contact with
it, but Kosmos senses that which does not exist,
and through such sensing of the non-existent, it is
brought into existence through the action of the
kosmic sense. The action of sense-and-thought are
exactly the reverse in the case of man, and of Kos-
mos. Man senses that which is exterior to himself
and this sensing of the object causes him to think
of it, so that thought springs out of his sensing. In
the case of Kosmos, however, thought precedes
THE HERMETIC ART
127
sense. Through sense, the thing thought of is
brought into existence. Through Kosmic sense, the
kosmic thoughts are made sensible, and in this way
they begin to exist. Kosmic sense is therefore the
kosmic faculty of rendering the subjective thought
side of Kosmos, objective. When man has trans-
formed this human sense into kosmic sense, he has
acquired the power of making his subjective
thought objective, that is of objectifying his
thought images, and thus of creating that which
he thinks in his mind. This is the true secret of
creation. When one has mastered this secret he is
the master of the Art of Creation, and thus has he
attained creative thought through the mastering
of kosmic sense. Kosmic sense-and-thought are the
reflection in kosmic substance of the sense-and-
thought of God. It is in this sense that the sense-
and-thought of Kosmos is a gift from God, it is
the sense-and-thought of God m^ifesting through
Kosmic Substance, The sense-and-thought of man
are in turn, the manifestation of the kosmic sense-
and-thought through the medium of the human
organism. For this reason we might truly sa}^, the
sense-and-thought of man is a gift from Kosmos.
It is this connection which enables man to rise
from the status of the human man to that of the
kosmic man, through the incarnation in himself,
of kosmic sense and kosmic thought. Such trans-
position of himself and of his powxrs to the kosmic
status is the true secret as well as the true goal of
the Alchemist, and this is the Ultama thule of the
Hermetic Art. This is the great distinction
between the Natural and the Artistic Man. The
great problem is to open up oneself to the activities
of the Kosmos, and permit them a freer degree of
manifestation through our diverse principles. To
ensoul as far as we are able, Kosmos, is the
Magnum Opus in all of its completeness.
LESSON X
The Sense-and-Thought of God
9. But God is not, as some suppose,
beyond the reach of sense-and-thought. It
is through superstition men thus impiously
speak.
For all the things that are, Asclepius, all
are in God, are brought by God to be, and
do depend on Him — both things that act
through bodies, and things that through
soul-substance make [other things] to move,
and things that make things live by means of
spirit, and things that take unto themselves
the things that are worn out.
And rightly so ; nay, I would rather say,
He doth not have these things ; but I speak
forth the truth. He is them all Himself. He
doth not get them from without, but gives
them out [from Himself].
This is God's sense-and-thought, even to
move all things. And never time shall be
when e'en a whit of things that are shall
cease ; and when I say ''a whit of things that
are," I mean a whit of God. For things that
are, God hath; nor aught [is there] without
Him, nor [is] He without aught.
But God is not, as some suppose, beyond
the reach of sense-and-thought. It is through
superstition men thus impiously speak.
129
130
THE HERMETIC ART
Those who assume that God is absolutely
transcendent and cannot be approached, are the
ignorant and the superstitious. The whole theory
of the transcendence of God is entirely due to a
misunderstanding of the nature of God. The prin-
ciple reason for such contention is that it renders
it impossible for man to know God and His Will,
and this renders a Revelation of God necessary.
Thus we have the belief that we can only reach a
knowledge of God through revelation, and of
course this is a very convenient doctrine for the
clergy, as it makes them the sole custodians of the
Will of God. I might say that this idea of a
transcendent God, the knowledge of Whom comes
only by revelation, is the deliberate invention of
the priesthood, and it is one of the most useful of
all inventions, for it is of course at all times essen-
tial that we should befuddle the cheap organisms,
and in this way it will be the easier f ot us to exploit
them. It is impious for anyone to say that God
cannot be reached through sense-and-thought. As
a matter of fact, the sense-and-thought of man is
quite capable of at-oneing itself with God, so that
simply through his sense-and-thought man may
know God definitely and with complete satisfac-
tion. This of course is not the privilege of cheap
organisms, only gentlemen have any business to
know God!
For all the things that are, Asclepius, all
are in God, are brought by God to be, and
do depend on Him — both things that act
through bodies, and things that through
soul-substance make [other things] to move,
and things that make things live by means of
spirit, and things that take unto themselves
the things that are worn out.
THE HERMETIC ART
131
Nothing ever comes into being unless it was
previously in God. That is, things come into
existence because they have previously subsisted
in God. Not only is this true, but they continue
to subsist in Him after they have been born into
existence. In fact, the only cause for the existence
of anything is the abiding idea of it in God. They
are in God, they are brought by Him into being,
and their continued existence depends upon Him.
They can exist only so long as He is conscious of
them as being in Him. This will mean that they
can exist only because they subsist in His con-
sciousness. They have no other substratum than
God. He does not create them, He externalizes
them from the depths of Himself alone. In a
word, ail things are generated in Ku, are born
forth out of Ku, and at the same time ever continue
to abide in Ku. This is true of everything that
lives and acts through the instrumentality of a
body, that is, all embodied life. In a word, every
single body that exists, subsists in God, has been
born forth out of God, and depends for its con-
tinued existence upon the continued presence in
God of its arche-typal idea. But this is not only
true of all embodied things, but it is true as well
of those motive forces that manifest through soul-
substance and in this way move other things. In
a word, every form of dynamic energy subsists in
God, has been emanated from God and depends
for its continued activity upon the fact that it is
still in God. Also, all those things that are the
causes of the infusing of spirit into other things,
and in this way make them to live, are likewise in
God, they have been manifested out from God, and
at the same time they continue to subsist in God.
Likewise, those things that devour or absorb the
things that have lived out their period of life, and
are hence worn out, are also subsistent in God, are
existent from God and continue to depend upon
132
THE HERMETIC ART
God for their being. In a word, every single thing
in the Kosmos, in the Universe, in the earth, and
everywhere else, has subsisted in God, it has been
born forth from God into existence, and it con-
tinues to abide in God as to its ideal form. There-
fore, we see that God is all-in-all. That all things
are but aspects of His being, made active, and in
this way made manifest. Hence there is nothing
apart from Him. Not only have all things been
brought into being through the act of God, but
likewise, they continue to exist only because of the
continual sustenance of God to them, they are His
perpetual manifestations.
And rightly so; nay, I would rather say,
He doth not have these things ; but I speak
forth the truth. He is them all Himself. He
doth not get them from without, but gives
them out [from Him].
God has not created these things. They are not
His creatures, neither does He have them as
possessions. In no sense are they to be separated
from Him. They are not to be thought of as His
works, neither should we in truth speak of them
as emanations from Him. In reality, God is all
these things Himself. He does not get these things
from some other source. They are not derived from
another, neither do they come from outside of God.
On the other hand, God gives them all out from
Himself. In a word, all things are born forth
from God. Now, if they are born of Him, they
must have b^en formed previously to the time of
such birth, and if they are born of God, they can
be formed of nothing apart from Him, hence they
must have been formed in God. If they are formed
in Him, they can be formed of nothing which is
not present in Him at a time previous to such
forming, hence, they will of necessity have to be
THE HERMETIC ART
133
formed of the substance of God Himself. In a
word, they will have to be formed of Ku and in
Ku. As all the divine formations take place in Ku
and as a result of thought, it will follow that God
must first think of the thing to be formed; that is,
he must think the thought corresponding to the
thing that is going to be formed, for, bear in mind
God does not intend to form this or that, His
thought, on the contrary, engenders that which
corresponds to it. The Divine Thought impreg-
nates Ku, and as a result that which corresponds
to the thought is formed in the womb of Ku. From
this it will follow that it must be formed of the
substance of Ku and energized by Her energy,
thus it will be quite divine. All things are there-
fore the thoughts of God, manifesting through the
substance and energy of God. There is no other
thought, no other substance, and no other energy
save that of God, hence, all things are of this
thought, substance and energy of God and have
nothing else, hence, they are all of them, God.
Therefore, God is each and every thing of all
things that are. He is not only all things, but He
is each particular thing. To be a little more
explicit, no thing has any objective existence. They
all have an existence purely subjective, subsisting
in the consciousness of God, but do not exist as
objects. It is illusion that causes us to see them
as objective; they are in fact thoughts of God,
existing merely as states of His sense. In no other
sense do they exist. Hence, they are to all intents
and purposes God Himself.
This is God's sense-and-thought, ever to
move all things. And never time shall be
when e'en a whit of things that are shall
cease; and when I say ''a whit of things that
are/' I mean a whit of God. For things that
134
THE HERMETIC ART
are, God hath, nor aught [is there] without
Him, nor [is] He without aught.
The sense-and-thought of God is the power that
moves all things. They are engendered by His
thought, and after they have been engendered, that
thought abides in them, thus becoming their intel-
ligence, and in this way, directing from within, all
their movements. The sense of God is that which
causes them to have form, for they are in form,
because they are in the sense of God, and for no
other reason. Were they to cease to be sensible to
Him they would cease to be. Energy they have
because of the sense of God, for His energy is His
sense. Therefore, all things are brought into being
and are made to move, through the sense of God.
It is in fact the sense of God abiding in all things
that causes them to move by reason of the move-
ment which is within them, this is true because all
things are ensouled by the sense of God. The time
can never come when a whit of things that are shall
cease to be, because, all such things have merely a
subjective existence in the thought and sense of
God, hence they can never cease to be, so long as
God is sensible of them. Until such time as God
shall become insensible of His own thought-and-
sense, nothing existing in His thought-and-sense
can ever cease to be. As His thought-and-sense
are His Being, it follows that the very being of
God must change before any thing can ever cease
to be, and owing to the immutability of His
Essence this is impossible. All things are there-
fore so many parts of God, and as no part of God
can be destroyed, seeing that He is not composed,
but is the Absolute Unity, the dissolution of any
part of Him would be the extinction of His unity,
it follows that nothing that has come into being,
can ever cease to be. There is nothing without
God, hence nothing has existence save as God.
THE HERMETIC ART
135
This being the case, God does not subsist, save as
the totality of the all, hence God cannot survive
if any single thing is lost. This soul-satisfying
Omni-Theism solves all the problems of existence
and subsistence. We can see that there are no
things, but on the contrary, there is the Absolute
One whose relativity appears to be diverse.
10. These things should seem to thee,
Asclepius, if thou dost understand them,
true ; but if thou dost not understand, things
not to be believed.
To understand is to believe, to not believe
is not to understand.
My word (logos) doth go before [thee]
to the truth. But mighty is the mind, and
when it hath been led by w^ord up to a certain
point, it hath the power to come before thee
to the truth.
And having thought o'er all these things,
and found them consonant with those which
have already been translated by the reason,
it hath [e'en] now believed, and found its
rest in that Fair Faith.
To those, then, who by God ['s good aid]
do understand the things that have been said
[by us] above, they're credible; but unto
those who understand them not, incredible.
Let so much, then, suffice on thought-and-
sense.
These things should seem to thee, Ascle-
pius, if thou dost understand them, true ; but
if thou dost not undrestand, things not to be
believed.
136
THE HERMETIC ART
The teaching that we have been giving here on
the subject of thought-and-sense, will at once
appear to be the truth, if one understands the true
meaning of what has been said. If one is able to
comprehend our interpretation, he will at once see
that it could not possibly have been any other way.
To one who understands our meaning, the truth
of what we have said will be self-evident. If this
is not the case, it will simply prove that the unbe-
liever has simply no comprehension whatsoever of
what we are talking about. In a word, it will go
to show, that he is not capable of forming an
opinion on such subjects, in a word, it will expose
him as a cheap organism. The beauty of the
Hermetic position is in the fact that once it has
been understood, an intelligent person cannot pos-
sibly see how it would be possible for it to be any
other way.
To understand is to believe, to not believe
is not to understand.
Here we have a definition of belief that may
strike many as being unusual. Belief, is in reality
that action of the mind by which a statement is
accepted as being true. There is no connection
between true belief and credulity. It is impossible
for any one to believe that which he does not un-
derstand, and likewise, it is impossible for one to
avoid belief in that which he understands. The
function of the understanding is to trace out the
relationship between a statement and the synthesis
of truth of which one is conscious. To understand
a statement is therefore, to trace out the relation-
ship which that statement bears to the truth of
which one is aware. When the mind has indicated
this relationship, and has shown that there is no
point at which the relationship is not perfect, one
has understood the statement. Belief is that action
THE HERMETIC ART
of the mind, by which, when a statement is under-
stood, it is registered as being true. In a word,
that which we believe we accept as being real,
while up to the point of belief, it was merely
apparent. It might be true, or it might not. How-
ever, belief is the act of mind by which that which
is understood becomes certain. We are sure of
what we believe. One never believes any thing on
the testimony of another. The testimony of others
may establish a presumption in favor of a state-
ment of fact, but it is not sufficient to establish a
belief. We do not believe a thing until the under-
standing has indicated why it is true. In a word,
to believe is to accept the connection between the
fact and the Law of Nature that is operative in
the establishing of that fact. We will go a step
farther, it is not at all easy to believe any thing
that is not true. Belief as we have indicated is
a condition of mind resulting from an understand-
ing of the thing to be believed, and is in all cases,
a condition subsequent to the understanding of the
proposition. To accept a statement on the author-
ity of another, is not to believe it, but to admit that
the other has a mind superior to your own, and
therefore, what he says must be true, but you can
never realize that it is true, and that is what you
have to do if you are to believe it. This certitude
of belief is the result of the understanding of the
statement.
My word (logos) doth go before [thee]
to the truth. But mighty is the mind, and
when it hath been led by word up to a certain
point, it hath the power to come before
[thee] to the truth.
When the truth is taught in the form of words,
it will give a statem.ent of the truth, which one
138
THE HERMETIC ART
cannot at the moment accept as the truth. In other
words, one can have stated to him in the form of
words, a truth which he does not as yet under-
stand as sucli. The purpose of such teaching is
to set the mind at work, and directing it along a
certain line of thought, cause it, through this
process, to formulate the concept, in terms of
thought ere we are conscious of the fact that we
have accepted it as being true. In a word, man
never bel'ieves a statement because he wishes to
believe it, he believes it because the belief is made
manifest in his mind. In other words, we are deal-
ing with a form of chemical action, and the act of
listening to the teaching has the effect of confining
the action of the mind to the topic under discus-
sion, with the result that the understanding works
it out, and the result is, the germination in the
mind of a definite belief in that which has been
brought to its attention. This is in fact pure
alchemy. It is also true that we reach such belief
at a time anterior to our becoming conscious of
the fact that we have accepted it as being true. We
must at ail times bear in mind that all mental oper-
ations are in the nature of achievements in
Alchem}^ For this reason, the purpose of instruc-
tion is nothing more than the discipline of the
mind, to the end that its operations may be con-
fined to a certain line of thought, and in this way
belief may be born within it. You can prove noth-
ing to any one, you can merely lead his mind in
the right direction, so that it may of its own power,
create within itself the belief of the thing which
you wish to impress upon it.
And having thought o'er all these things,
and found them consonant with those which
have already been translated by the reason,
it hath [e'en now] believed, and found its
rest in that Fair Faith.
THE HERMETIC ART
139
The function of the reason is to translate all
things into the form of belief. It is closely con-
nected with the understanding, and yet there is a
distinction. The great work of reason is to analyze
all statements and reducing them to their most
ultimate aspect, to detect errors. It is in fact the
critical faculty. By it w^e are able to detect any
defects that may be present in its presentation. It
is in fact, the Dweller on the Threshold which
every statement must pass before it can approach
the understanding. Through the exercise of the
reason, all statements of views, are analyzed and
are at last reduced to such form as will accommo-
date them to the body of truth. They are then,
being translated into this form, given to the under-
standing, which assimulates them in such way that
we have an understanding of them, when they take
the form of belief. It is therefore the reason that
translates all things into the form of belief. When
all these things which we are here discussing have
been carefully thought over, and as a result of such
thinking, have been found to be consonant w^ith
those which have already been translated by the
reason, in other words, thinking on them, so that
the reason has prepared them for assimilation into
the understanding, so that they may become a part
of what has been accepted as belief, the mind be-
lieves in them. This will simply mean that the
mind has made of them a portion of its own belief.
They will have taken their abode in the mind, so
that from this time forth, all one's thinking will
be conditioned by these things. This is an oper-
ation of pure Alchemy which transpires in the
mind. Words have been transmuted into beliefs.
It is thus that one believes the Gnosis. Thus
through such belief of the teaching, one takes his
rest in the Fair Faith of Gnosis. The Fair Faith
is in no sense to be confused with what is com-
140
THE HERMETIC ART
monly called blind faith. To find rest in the Fair
Faith means that through thinking upon the
Gnostic Teaching, the reason is to translate it in
terms of one's individual understanding, and thus
it is to engender belief of the Gnosis. This belief
in the Gnostic Teaching will so transform the
mind that in all of its future thinking, it will oper-
ate in that direction and in accordance with those
principles, and that transformed state of mind is
Gnosis, or it is the Fair Faith. This then is not in
the nature of a belief, but rather in the nature of
a state of mind, that will transform into its like-
ness all the things that are offered to the mind.
This is in fact the Golden Mind which will trans-
form into its own Pure Gold all the baser thoughts
that are born within it. Gnosis is therefore the
Philosopher's Stone, that is to transform into
Gnosis all the thoughts of the mind. After one
has taken his rest in this Fair Faith, it is utterly
impossible for him to ever err, for the reason that
his Faith will make all his thinking after its image.
To those, then, who by God ['s good aid]
do understand the things that have been said
[by us] above, they're credible; but unto
those who understand them not, incredible.
If one has understood this teaching, it means that
his reason has translated it into terms of his think-
ing, and that his understanding has united it with
his previous knowledge, so that it has through the
action of his mind become a belief, and hence a
part of his thinking. This being true, it will fol-
low that they are real to him, being part and parcel
of his mental organization and hence of his think-
ing. This being the case, it is quite impossible for
him to doubt them any longer. On the other hand,
if one has not understood them, they are no part of
THE HERMETIC ART
141
his mind, and as he does not think them, of course
he cannot believe them, seeing that no such belief
has been born within his mind. One repudiates
these things, simply because of the fact that no such
belief has been born within the mind, and in the
absence of such a belief, it is futile for us to expect
one to accept them. One who accepts the Gnosis
is merely one who has consummated the Great
Work in his mind, while one who has not consum-
mated it will of course be unable to accept a belief
which can only exist as a result of such consumma-
tion of the Great Work in the mind. Faith in
Gnosis is born within the mind, and it comes in no
other way. Unless this has been born in the mind,
it is useless to hope for one to see the truth in our
sublime teaching. This bearing of the Fair Faith
in the mind is the true purpose of the Hermetic
Art. All Hermetic Disciplines lead unto this end.
Let so much, then, suffice on thought-and-
sense.
What we have said in the above instructions will
clearly indicate the exact nature of thought-and-
sense, divine, kosmic and human. Those who will
not understand our interpretation are cheap organ-
isms that would not understand were we to write
ten thousand volumes on the subject, and to those
capable of understanding, wx have given ample
instruction for their guidance in the working of
the Hermetic Art and the consummation of the
Great Work in their own minds. This is the
Master Key to the transmutation of the mind and
the generation of thought, belief and Faith. We
have indicated the one and only way in which one
ever attains Gnosis. Remember this, you can never
learn Gnosis, it is useless to study it. Gnosis must
be born within you, and it can be born only in the
142
THE HERMETIC ART
mind, and that in the way that we have here indi-
cated. The attainment of Gnosis is the Magnum
Opus of the mind.
With these words, we close our treatise on The
Hermetic Art. Those who have understood us,
will have no difficulty in going into the study of
the Art of Alchemy.
(The End)
Below find complete list of the Hermetic works, by
Dr. A. S. Raleigh, already published in book form and
which will be sent postpaid at prices listed :
WOMAN AND SUPER-WOMAN $ 1.50
SHEPHERD OF MEN 2.00
STANZAS OF DJYN (THEOGENESIS) . . . . 2.50
PHILOSOPHY HERMETICA 10.00
SCIENTIFICA HERMETICA 10.00
HERMETIC ART 10.00
All the above books are printed on the same beauti-
ful paper as the Hermetic Art and similarly bound and
stamped in gold.
The books named below will soon be in book form
and ready to market on uniform paper and binding as
above :
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ALCHEMY $10.00
SCIENCE OF ALCHEMY 10.00
SPECULATIVE ALCHEMY 10.00
Send for large, handsome circular, giving contents
fully outlined of each of the above books. The circular
gives such a complete analysis of each book and contains
so much valuable information that it will be preserved
by all Mystics and Occultists. It will be sent free of
cost.
The $10.00 books are the private lessons written by
Dr. A. S. Raleigh for the Hermetic Brotherhood.
In addition to the above books a few sets of the
following lessons may be secured at prices named below :
MOTION AND NUMBER, 12 Lessons $10.00
PSYCHOLOGY, 12 Lessons 10.00
MAGIC, 12 Lessons 10.00
PHRENOGARTEN COURSE, 12 Lessons.... 10.00
META-PHYSICAL HEALING, 12 Lessons.. 10.00
HERMETIC PUBLISHING CO.
3020 Lake Park Avenue
Chicago, IlL
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