The Poimandres (Lecture 2)

Transcript (PDF)

Hermetic Tradition: From Egypt to America, From Osiris to Benjamin Franklin Presentation 6 of 52 The Poimandres, Part 2 Presented by Roger Weir Tuesday, February 11, 1986 Transcript: The date is February the 11th 1986. This is a sixth lecture in the series of lectures by Roger Weir on the Hermetic tradition from Egypt to America, Osiris to Franklin. This is The Poimandres part two. *inaudible question from the room* Poimandres means mind shepherd. Mind shepherd. The shepherd of mind. Jesus was a shepherd of men. Poimandres was the shepherd of mind. The shepherd of mind because man goes astray in his mind. The field of testing is the mind. We have to go back to The Poimandres. But before we do that I want to read you I think first...I have two short letters here. Or one letter. this is a very famous letter. It is in the volume of the Loeb Classical Library, Manetho. Manetho was a Egyptian Hermetic priest who lived about 300 B.C. And this is a letter to Ptolemy Philadelphus. Who was the second Ptolemy in Alexandria. Who is the one who actually made the Greco Egyptian civilization. Philadelphus was one of the great men of history. Whenever there's something that needs to be done, there needs to be someone who puts it together and makes it work. And Philadelphus was that. It is due to Philadelphus that the Old Testament was translated into Greek. The Septuagint. And that laid the foundation for Christianity eventually. Here is Manetho to Ptolemy Philadelphus. "It remains now to make brief extract concerning the dynasties of Egypt. In the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus Manetho styled high priest of the pagan temples of Egypt." And he was very much the high priest. "Wrote from inscriptions in the Seriattic(sp?) land traced, he says in sacred language. And holy character by Thoth the first Hermes and translated after the flood in hieroglyphic characters. When the work had been arranged in books by Agatha Diamond, son of the second Hermes and father of Tot, in the temple shrines of Egypt Manetho dedicated it to Ptolemy Philadelphus in his book of Sopdet using the following words." Sopdet is the star Sirius. "Manetho of Sebennytos to Ptolemy Philadelphus. To the great King Ptolemy Philadelphus reading to my Lord Ptolemy from beneath a high priest and scribe of the sacred shrines of Egypt. Born at Sebennytos and dwelling at Heliopolis. It is my duty almighty King to reflect upon all such matters as you may desire me to investigate. So as you are making researches concerning the future of the universe, in obedience to your command, I shall place before you the sacred books which I have studied. Written by your forefather Hermes Trismegistus. Farewell I pray my Lord King." So when the great man is looking at the future of the universe. and making a mid-course correction in the navigation of the human species. He consulted the books of Hermes Trismegistus. This was about 300 B.C. When we look at the descriptions of the Hermetic tradition we are carried away by contemporary or by Renaissance or by Hellenistic polemics. Some of them accurate. Some of them useful. Most of the misleading. Manetho occurs before the Hellenistic matrix was set. And the first month that we've spent here on the ancient Egyptian pyramid texts, which took us back to 3000 B.C. occurred before there was any kind of a matrix for the civilization that we are now in. We have here in a book called Thoth the Hermes of Egypt by Boylan. Patrick Boylan. In Appendix B some epithets of Thoth. And I think reading some of these epithets of Thoth from the Egyptian pyramid text, from the funerary texts, the Egyptian books of the Dead. These are the epithets. That is to say they are the phrases applied to Thoth. Who is that? Who is he? He is representative of Re or Ra. He is representative of Atun. Atun. Before there were Gods there was Atun. He is the ancient and great one for the Aeneid. The ninth. Remember what the ninth was? There are seven orders in the world. Seven planets. Seven spheres. Seven musical notes. Or seven levels. And as long as you were in those seven levels the best you can do is be in harmony in terms of those seven levels. That attempt to be in harmony with those seven levels is called destiny. In Greek, in the Homeric it was called moira. Which meant the personal destiny. You must achieve some kind of equilibrium and harmonium according to those seven levels. If you think that that's enough then you are unrefined. Then your untransformed human being. then your what is called common in the derisive sense. Because you are still subject to the rule of these seven levels. You're subject to the destiny that the stars give you. You're a prisoner. The object is to achieve that harmony and go beyond it to the eighth level. And the eighth level is the freeing of oneself from destiny. from the influence of the planets. From the dull round. That the harmonia becomes then a dull round because one sees the shape of the whole, the ogdoad. And from the ogdoad one perceives the Aeneid. Which is the silence beyond. So he is the ancient and great one for the Aeneid. He is identified. He who brings the izht eye to the owner. And this is an Egyptian word. And so we look up in The Egyptian Grammar by Gardiner. And we look up this word is Izht. I-z-h-t. And we find in here that this is actually referring to the fullness. Something full as in the flood of the Nile. That this is the part of the cycle of life where there's fullness. Where the fruitfulness has come to be. It's used in that sense. So that when we read an epithet of Thoth, Hermes. "Hermes is he who brings the izht eye to its owner." It's he who restores the wholeness of vision to the person. It is he who brings the widget eye. And when we look this up in Gardiner's Egyptian grammar. And we find in here. We locate it and it gives us a sense here that this is whole. Whole or sound. It's a sound. A sound or a whole eye. It's a prosperous. Which gives it somewhat of a, a business tone. But it's really, it means specifically it is the uninjured eye of Horus. The uninjured eye of Horus. "He who brings to Ra his eye. He who brings the eye that was far away. He who giveth life to men. He who according to whose word the Aenied acts. He who accomplishes truth. He who does what the Goddesses love. He is the universal benefactor. He who does what Ra praises in his chapel. He who makes slaughter among the foes of the woods at eye. He who has made eternity." So this is what Thoth is. This is what Hermes is. He is extraordinarily important for he conveys back to those who can understand the sound eye of Horus. The capacity for the season of fullness of life and of vision. Now we have a difficulty. A prejudice left over from past ages. A prejudice left over from past centuries. When we had second-rate persons in third hand fashion trying to deliver first quality wisdom. they did not understand. So I'm going to bring in a little admonishment about the nature of divinity from Cicero. This is De Natura Decorum. Cicero wrote this right at the end of his life. He knew he was going to be killed. He was sacrificed. Marc Anthony and Augustus and a few other powerful Romans got together in a villa. And they drew up a list of who gets what. And they submitted to death lists of who's got to go. And Cicero's name was at the top of the list for Marc Anthony. So he knew he was going to die. So he devoted the last few months of his life to writing some of these very important religious books. Very important because Cicero is one of the best sources we have for the full development of a stoic thought. And of nascent middle Platonism. And he writes here, of his master Posidonius. Who was the greatest mind in between Plato and Plotinus. Posidonius was the greatest mind of that whole era of about 800 years. All of Posidonius' books were destroyed by the church. He writes, "It is doubtful therefore truer to say as the good friend of us all. Posidonius argued in the fifth book of his on the nature of the Gods that Epicurus does not really believe in the Gods at all. And that he said what he did about the immortal Gods only for the sake of deprecating popular odium. Indeed, he could not have been so senseless as really to imagine God to be like a feeble human being. But resembling him only an outline and surface not in solid substance. And possessing all man's limbs but entirely incapable of using them. An emaciated and transparent being showing no kindness or beneficence to anybody. Caring for nothing and doing nothing at all." "In the first place of being of this nature is an absolute impossibility. And Epicurus was aware of this. And so actually abolishes the Gods. Although professedly retaining them. Secondly, even if God exists, yet is of such a nature that he feels no benevolence or affection towards men. Goodbye to him say I. Not God be gracious to me. Why should I say that? For he cannot be gracious to anybody since as you tell us all benevolence and affection is a mark of weakness in their eyes. Granting your view that God is the image in the likeness of man what is his dwelling place and local habitation? In what activities does he spend his life? What constitutes that happiness which you attribute to him? For a person who is to be happy must actively enjoy his blessings." "As for locality even the inanimate elements each have their own particular region. Earth occupies the lowest place. Water covers the earth. To air is assigned the upper realm. And the ethereal fires occupy the highest confines of all. About your deity therefore I want to know first where he dwells. Secondly what motive he has for moving in space that is if he ever does so move. Thirdly at being a special characteristic of animate beings to desire some end. That is appropriate to their nature. What is the thing God desires? Fourthly upon what subject does he employ his mental activity and reason. And lastly how happy is he? And how eternal? For whichever of these questions you raise you touch a tender spot. An argument based on such insecure premises can come to no valid conclusion. Your assertion that the form of the God is perceived by thought and not by the senses then it has no solidity nor numerical persistence. That our perception of it is such that it is seen owing to similarity and succession. A never ceasing stream of similar forms arriving continuously from infinite numbers of atoms. And that thus it results that our mind when its attention is fixed on these forms conceives the divine nature to be happy and eternal." "Now in the name of the very Gods about whom we are talking, what can possibly be the meaning of this? If the Gods only appeal to the faculty of thought. And have no solidity or definite outline. What difference does it make whether we think of a God or up a hippo centaur? Such mental pictures are called by all other philosophers mere empty imaginations. But you say they are the arrival and entrance into our minds of certain images. Well then, when I seem to see Tiberius Gracchus in the middle of his speech in the capital producing the ballot box for the vote on Marcus Octavius I explained this as an empty imagination of the mind. But your explanation is that the images of Gracchus and Octavius have actually remained on the spot. So that when I come to the capital these images are borne to my mind. the same thing happens you say in the case of God whose appearance repeatedly impinges on men's minds. And so it gives rise to the belief and happy and eternal deities. Suppose that there are such images constantly impinge on our minds. But that is only the presentation of a certain form. Surely not also of a reason for supposing that this form is happy and eternal. But what is the nature of these images of yours? And whence do they arise? This extravagance it is true is borrowed from Democritus. But he has been widely criticized. nor can you find a satisfactory explanation. And the whole affair is a lame and impotent business. For what can be more improbable than that images of Homer, Archelaus, Romulus, Numa, Pythagoras, Plato should impinge on me at all. Much less than they should do so in the actual shape that those men really bore. How then do these images arise? And of whom are they images? Aristotle tells us that the poet Orpheus never existed. And the pythagoreans say that the Orphic poem which we possessed was the work of a certain Cecrops. Yet Orpheus that is, according to you, the image of him often comes into my mind. What of the fact that different images of the same person enter my mind and yours. Or that images come to us of things that never existed at all. And never can't have existed. For instance acsilla or any chamara of people and places and cities which we have never seen. what of the fact that I can call up an image instantaneously the very moment that I choose to do so. Or that they come to me unbidden even when I am asleep. The whole affair is humbug. Yet you stamp these images not only on your eyes but also on our minds. So irresponsibly do you babble." This is a sealed letter of integrity to anybody who can read. There is no way that you can tell the nature of reality by the mind. There is no mental conception of using the mind to distinguish in any way whatsoever the nature of reality. The arrogant persistence in that is the hubris that the classical tragedy speaks about. The principle once and for all for all time is that one quiets the mind so the dust settles. And in that purification one can experience truth. So the Hermetic literature, The Poimandres, the shepherd of mind, is a document meant to present to us the possibilities of entertaining the real by disciplining the mind. In The Poimandres we read that there is a first mind which is light and life. Light and life. This light and life when they come into manifestation produce mind and soul. But mind and soul in order to experience the real have to transform themselves back into light and life. The soul as a soul, the soul qua soul, is not life. The mind qua mind is not light. They have to be transformed. We talked last week about them being like an engraving. Like a William Blake engraving. The engraving is not real. It has to print out. It has to stamp out. It has to transform. And that which comes out of that light and life that is real. So the Shepherd of the mind tells Hermes. And the first mind that mind which is life in light, being bisexual. Bisexual. The roots of sexuality are not sociological. They are not physiological. Physiologically you can trace it down to the molecular level. It's not a psychological phenomenon. It is actually sub molecular. It is there in reality. Light and life. The bisexuality of life and light gave birth to another mind, a maker of things. And the second mind made out of fire and air. Light become fire life become air. And the mind and soul in that region creating. The Maker of things capital M. A Maker of things. This second Mind, capital M, made out of fire and air seven administrators who encompass with their orbits the world perceived by sense and their administration is called destiny, Moira. They're actually later in Greek development there are three facets of destiny. Each of them having a female name. But Moira in the hom...in the Homeric accuracy is all you need. What is that? That is the personal destiny. Only the person is subject to that destiny. The fulfillment of the person leads to the ogdoad, the shape of the whole and frees one from that. And then it can be said that nothing is written. The rules of the archons no longer corral. The horoscopes are no longer valid. One is free. For the ninth. "And forth with the Word of God left up from the downward tending elements of nature to the pure body which had been made. And was united with mind the maker. And for the word, the word, the logos. the logos was of one substance with that mind." This is one of the, this is one of the Hermetic horizons that cannot be lost sight of. That spirit and this are the unitas. Unitas. To make a distinction to say that matter is no damn good. And that spirit is transcendental is a mental conception that is the basis of arrogance. The very basis of arrogance. It's running rampant today if you think AIDS is a problem this is a really a problem. This thought. "Mind the Maker worked together with the word. And encompassing the orbits of the administrators and whirling them round with a rushing movement, set circling the bodies he had made and let them revolve. Traveling from no fixed starting point to no determined goal. For the revolution begins where it ends." It's an eternal return. It's a cycle of nature which never ends. And never really has any kind of definite beginning. And something that has no definite beginning, no definite ending, has no nothing definite in the middle either. Except this kind of circular cyclic ruled hierarchy which have seen in the right way is exactly illusory. Because it is a equality of differentiation. Which one need not be in at all. Its illusory in that sense. Only from the ogdoad though is this true. If you're trapped in it then you are trapped in it. There's no doubt about that. "But mind, mind the father of all he who has life in light gave birth to man. A being like to himself." And this is very peculiar now because this is a, this is a writing a Hermetic writing. The Poimandres is roughly from about 90 A.D. The writing of The Poimandres coincides roughly with the end of Saint John's life. Saint John wrote his gospel late in his life around 90 A.D. So the Gospel of Saint John and The Poimandres are roughly contemporaneous. When, when the Gospel of Saint John was written in Ephesus. It was taken almost immediately to Alexandria. And I have tapes on this. We have lectures on this. The Gospel of Saint John is a workbook, a template of how to experience spirituality. It's a workbook. It's how to teach yourself how to do it. All you need is the Gospel of John. And the right teacher. Then you can open it up. It, it dwarfs all of these so-called courses in psychic development. You don't want to develop your psyche, you want to reveal your spirit. Developing your psyche is just smearing mayonnaise on top of the wood. Clear it out and see the grain. "So mind, the father of all he who is life in light gave birth to man. A being like to himself. And he took delight in man as being his own offspring." Man is not made by a second mind but made by life and light. His, he has a different quality. The true seeing of man is that he is actually surreal in nature. He is most natural when he has a a bright light of life that is unhindered by natural cycles. Then man is real. Other than that he's fictive. Fictive. What is the proof of that? Take any major work of fiction. Let's take Don Quixote. Don Quixote is as real to us as anybody who ever lived in 1600 in Spain. There's no difference whatsoever. That's a key. It's a key insight. The Poimandres says that God took delight in man. And this is one of the hallmarks of Hermeticism is spiritual delight. The exquisite elegant refinement of knowing and understanding and being able to participate. "For man was very goodly to look upon bearing the likeness of his father. With good reason then did God take delight in man for it was God's own form that God took delight in. And God delivered over to man all things that had been made." And you can see of course that there is a great affinity with the structure of Genesis. And in The Poimandres there's this whole Hermetic Genesis that is given. And i don't have time. we don't have time to go through. But here's what is said. "He was set over the regent of fire and he willed to make things for his own part also. And his father gave permission having in himself all the workings of the administrators. And the administrators took delight in him. Each of them gave him a share of his own nature. And having learnt to know the being of the administrators and received a share of their natures, he willed to break through the bounding circle of their orbits. And he looked down through the structure of the heavens. Having broken through the spheres. And showed to downward tending nature the beautiful form of God." Nature is a movement downward tending. And as it downward tends, the orbits are made. Seven planets. Seven administrators. Qualities. But man penetrates up through all of them and looks down from above and sees this structure. And his seeing of the structure, his capacity to do that presents to nature the form of God. Which otherwise there would be no recognition on the part of nature of God at all. Only through man does nature recognize God. And nature sees man as beautiful. This is how it reads. And in The Poimandres nature loves man because of this. It reads here, "And nature when she had got him with whom she was in love. Wrapped him in her class and they were mingled in one. For they were in love with one another. Because man also loves nature. And nature loves it man. Seeing the likeness of God." And so they are cooperate to combine man and nature. What of man. What would a man. Consciousness. Consciousness. And that is why man unlike all other living creatures upon earth is twofold. And this is unfortunate term because it doesn't mean twofold as in a duality. Or twofold as in a polarity. It means doubled back. Folded back. Like this bookmark. Or this bookmark here is a better example. The bookmark by itself has a certain quality to it. When it is folded back it has torque. It's a form. It's a shape. It, it has a shapedness. Man has a shape. Because he not only has nature he has consciousness. And the consciousness is a fold back through nature. So that man in his shapedness has the shape of wholeness. That's what's godlike about him because he's whole. Capable of being whole. He's capable of having the whole eye. The sound eye of Horus. That's what it says. it says, "He who brings the sound eye of Horus." That's Hermes. "He who makes slaughter among the foes of the sound eye of Horus. He who brings the fullness eye to its owner." This is the Hermetic tradition. Notice two qualities. There is no set scripture in the Hermetic tradition. Even though the tradition is the oldest one on earth. And has more scriptures than any other. There's no set scripture. Because it is a way of opening up and addressing any of the cycle. Any of those scriptures at any time. Or all of them if you wish. Once your sound eye is returned to you one then has, as we talked about last week pronoia, and you can look at anything and see the truth. You can see the truth that it's in it. Or the truth that is not in it. One is no longer deceived by anything at all. Nothing deceives. There's no dissembling whatsoever. You can look at a human being and you can see almost immediately what they are. And you can look at oneself. No set scriptures. and also no church. No organization. Because it is a universal quality that belongs to every single godlike being. Every human being. This was a falling out point between Christianity and the Hermetic traditions. Not right away. Because the Christian tradition took a lot of the Hermetic tradition. Took it over. In the third century, we'll see it. You know you'll see it. Step by step. Person by person. You'll see it happen. In Christianity the point will be that only Jesus was capable of doing this. And to the Hermetic tradition this is foolishness. Anyone, anyone can do this. It's not purely democratic but it's universal. which gives a different flavor to it then. So man is twofold. "He is mortal by reason of his body. He is immortal by reason of the man of eternal substance. He is immortal and has all things in his power yet he suffers the lot of immortal being subject to destiny. He is exalted above the structure of the heavens yet he is born a slave of destiny. He is bisexual as his father is bisexual. And sleepless as his father is sleepless. Yet he is mastered by carnal desire and by oblivion." Then Hermes speaks at this juncture. And is an extremely strategic juncture. He says, "Thereafter I said tell me the rest old Shepherd of mind. For I too and mastered by desire to hear your teaching." And Poimandres said in reply specifically to this, "This is the secret which has been kept hidden until this day." What is the secret? "Nature mingled in marriage with man brought forth a marvel most marvellous." Man in order to open up his wisdom has got to not be afraid to marry nature. He can't shirk her embraces. Who would shirk her embraces? The mind would. The mind still trapped in destiny. "Nature mingled in marriage with man brought forth a marvel most marvellous." It is a play in Greek on words. The superlative adjective form is the same as the noun. So it's like that which is has is-ness. The superlative incidentally is also thrice greatest Hermes. Good, better, best. The thrice is the superlative. This is Hermes who is superlative. Trismegistus. On the rosetta stone it occurs. One refers to him as Magus, Magus, Magas. Master, master, master. Master of masters. And master of those masters of masters. Superlative. "In as much as man had got from the structure of the heavens the character of the seven administrators who were made as I told you a fire and air. Nature tarried not but forthwith gave birth to seven men." And these are the quote men. Who are male and female. So that there are fourteen beings or fourteen types in a seven part typology. Certain men and women go together archetypally. Seven qualities of this. "But tell me this too, said I, God said let the man who has mind in him recognize himself. But have not all men mind? old man, said Poimandres to me, speak not so. I even mind come to those men who are holy and good and pure and merciful. And by coming as a suchar to them. And forthwith they recognize all things and when the father's grace by loving worship and give thanks to him. Praising in him. Hymning to him with hearts uplifted to him. And filial affection. And before they give up the body to the death which is proper to it they loathe the bodily senses knowing what manner of work the senses do. Nay rather I myself even mind will not suffer the workings of the body by which they are assail to take effect. I will keep guard at the gates and bar the entrance of the base and evil work of the senses. Cutting off all thoughts of them." Why is this so? Please turn your cassette. Mr. Weir will continue on the other side without a break in continuity. END OF SIDE 1 Why is this so? it's easy to go astray here. And many second-raters have gone astray here. This is an injunction against a sensate basis of decision. Because the mind works on a sensate basis of decision is not a condemnation of the physicality of the world. It is a condemnation of judging the world in terms of a sensate based mentality. It is different. It is different. Man must not be afraid to marry nature. In the Gospels of Philip, this is what Jesus taught. The mystery of the bridal chamber. But he must be conscious enough to realize that in marrying nature he cannot base his consciousness on a mind which has a sensate basis. That's the issue. Because a mind that has a sensate basis is ruled by all the archons of destiny. Cannot help but be ruled by all the archons of destiny. Cannot help that be subject to the rules of this. And so there can be no consciousness. There can only be response. There can only be reaction. There can only be a plotting and speculation in terms of the web. Nature itself is not the web. The mind on a sensate basis is the web. And this is different. This is different. And we'll see that when the Hermetic tradition goes underground and goes into alchemy this will be a religious basis for it. Look, it's absolutely child's level of understanding. The big neon sign process of alchemy is to transform matter into spirit. How can that be done? The only way that can be done is that they must have a complementary nature. If you pull matter inside out its spirit. If spirit is pulled inside out it becomes matter. it is not that nature is evil. It is that the mind on a sensate basis is illusory. That's the point. That's the issue. Many people have gone astray on this. So the shepherd of mind says, "I keep far aloof and give place to the avenging demon. That he brings to bear on such a man the fierce heat of fire and tortures him. Tossing him about in the tumult of the senses. And he equips the man more fully for his lawless deeds so that he may incur the greater punishment. And that man ceases not to struggle blindly. He gives way to boundless appetites. His desire being insatiable. And so by his own doing he makes the fire yet hotter for his torment." What is insatiable? It is not nature that is insatiable. It is the mind based on a sensate basis that is insatiable. Because the mind based on a sensate basis outstrips the capacity to, of nature to to satisfy. Or to provide. This is the basis of degeneracy. It's not enough just to have food to live, one has to have sumptuousness every minute of the day. You see it's a mental aberration. This is different. It's not that one should not partake of some of the food for life. It's what the royal used to call the **inaudible word** As The Poimandres goes on he talks about the man mounting up. "The man mounts upward through the structure of the heavens." Notice that the heavens have a structure. "The first zone of heaven he gives up the force which works increase and that which works decrease." The, the see-sawedness. "The second zone, the machinations of evil cunning." Conniving. Mental plotting. I'm going to do this and they'll do that. And then if they do that then I can do this. So I'll make them do this so I can do that with them. And like that. Mental cunning. Which is evil. "To the third zone, the lust zone whereby men are deceived." Lust is not desire for something lust is desire for, for more and more and more which could never be satisfied. It's not a simple thing. That one sees a food that one likes or a person that one likes. This, that, that's childish to think that that's it. Lust is really catastrophically hurricane evil. Because it's a, it's a mental insatiability. More, more, more, more. "To the fourth zone, domineering arrogance." Which just about has ruined this age. Domineering arrogance. "To the fifth zone unholy daring and rash audacity." And people who are usually caught in domineering arrogance suddenly have a breakthrough that by some audaciousness or by some rash act they're going to be non arrogant. And of course this is just as bad if not worse. "To the sixth zone evil strivings after wealth." After wealth. One should perhaps understand that this is not wealth and in terms of money but just as well as in terms of control. Power. It's like that. It's not just having hordes of money it's like controlling the very sources of how all this comes to be. "To the seventh zone, the falsehood which lies in wait to work harm." The falsehood which lies in wait to work harm. What is that? That's a kind of like a pride that well I've gotten through all these and now I'm in control. It's a falsehood. I've achieved the harmony. I've gone on all the spheres. And now I've got it together and boy look out for me. Know what John Bunyan called Vanity Fair in the pilgrims progress. It is a it is a bad scene. How bad is it? Dante reserved the hottest spot in hell for those who are indifferent in the time of moral crisis. And people who are in this are like that. Everything is alright, you can't be suffering for real. You're just imagining that you're suffering. That sort of thing. "And thereupon having been stripped of all that was wrought upon him by the structure of heavens." Stripped. Purified. Cleaned. Scraped. "He ascends to the substance of the eighth sphere." The ogdoad. "Being now possessed of his own proper power." So it comes into his own being in the eighth sphere. His wholesomeness. The true wholesomeness. And what do they do there? There he sings. He sings together with those who dwell there. Hymning the father. And what do they hymn? Do they, do they hymn in terms of song. In terms of notes. No. They hymn in terms of the interval between the notes. The holy silence in the ogdoad. "And they that are there rejoice with him at his coming. And being made like to those with whom he dwells, he hears the powers who are above the substance of the eighth sphere singing praises to God with a voice that is theirs alone." See it's Hermetically guarded. If there weren't anybody to teach you would read this and not know. It's Hermetically sealed against profanation. Only when we are praising and hymning in silence do we hear that silence of the Aeneid. Which in a mystical way accepts our silence as part of its massive vast silenceness. And in this way we join the the ninth realm and come face to face with the divine. No intermediary whatsoever. None whatsoever. And The Poimandres says, "And thereafter each in his turned they mount upward to the Father. They give themselves up to the powers and becoming powers themselves enter into God." This is the good. This is the consummation for those who have got gnosis. "And now why do you delay? Seeing that you have received all, why do you not make yourself a guide to those who are worthy of the bone? So that mankind may through you be saved by God." And here's the, here's the Hermetic foldedness, shapedness of consciousness. The only way that you can do this is to help others to do this you. Cannot do it for yourself. There is no way in this universe that you can do that for yourself. Someone else has to do that for you. And the only way they can do that for you is if you are doing that for someone else. And if you are doing that for someone else, you're open enough then to receive the gift from someone else doing that for you. This is called the spiritual brotherhood of the universe. And it's totally different from some kind of UFO fraternity. They're not even in the ballpark. So The Poimandres raised around 90 A.D. is laying it on the line. The Poimandres was accepted almost as scripture by the early Christian church. And it wasn't until the great councils of the 4th century A.D. that they even looked at it and said well it's not really Christian. It's not really for the, for the Incarnation and the baptism and the crucifixion and the resurrection. See it isn't really, it isn't really ours. Because it took about 300 years before the Christian Church could have enough mental decay that they didn't recognize the truth which was the very foundation of the whole movement of Christianity in the first place. Because there's almost no difference between the gospel of Saint John and The Poimandres. The understanding of life and light and spirit and the divine is the only real difference is the quality being symbolized and presented as Jesus. And in The Poimandres the amplifying that in a holy spirit way for everyone. Do, do as he did. Follow him. Everyone will do what I do. That sort of thing. "And so when The Poimandres had thus spoken to me he mingled with the powers." and so The Poimandres having given this instruction then shows the disciples before his eyes, before his experience, of he is mingling with the powers and his of leaving all the realms. It's like proof of the pudding. The teacher shows after having explained how it's done, then he does it before the initiate and shows him this is how it is done. And says no more of then and does it. At this point The Poimandries comes to it's apocalyptic close. Because it's a Hermetic apocalypse. It comes to it's apocalyptic close with a series of statements that runs like this. "And I inscribed in my memory the benefaction of Poimandres. And I was exceedingly glad for I was fed full with that for which I craved. My bodily sleep had come to be sober wakefulness of soul. And the closing of my eyes, true vision. And my silence pregnant with good, with God. And my Baroness of speech a brood of wholesomeness. And this befell me and that I received from Poimandres, that is from the mind of the sovereignity the teaching of the divine. Where by becoming God inspired I attained to the boat of truth. Therefore with all my soul and with all my strength did I give praise to God the Father saying holy is God the father of all who was before the first beginning. Holy is God whose purpose is accomplished by his several powers. Holy is God who wills to be known and is known by them that are his own. Holy art thou who by thy word has constructed all that is. Holy art thou whose brightness nature has not darkened. Holy art thou of whom all nature is an image. Holy art thou who art stronger than all domination. Holy art thou who art greater than all preeminence. Holy art thou who surpasses all praises. Accept pure offerings of speech from a soul and heart uplifted to thee. Thou of whom no words can tell. No tongue can speak. Whom silence only can declare. I pray that I may never fall away from that knowledge of the which matches with our being. Grant thou this my prayer. And power put into me that so having obtained this bone I may enlighten those others who are in ignorance. My brothers and thy sons." So we come to the close of our first Hermetic doc...document. And you can see now the tremendous jump in comprehension. How refined the Pyramid Texts are and were for 3,000 years. and how in the 1st century A.D. towards the close of it a tremendous asymptotic jump in comprehension. Because the emphasis went from instruction for the dead to instruction for the living who will not die. It's no longer for the dead who are going to be able to come back to life, but for the living who will never die. And this was different. Next week we're going to look at another Hermetic document in here. And it's called the Kore Kosmou. Kore is...you know Persephone sometimes it's called in Greek the kore. It's the, it's the, the feminine basic universal nature. And that kosmou, the Greek and the Kosmou too. And we're going to see that. And I think that you'd be quite surprised at that. Thank you. END OF RECORDING