Hermes to His Son (Lecture 1)
Presented on: Tuesday, March 11, 1986
Presented by: Roger Weir
Hermetic Tradition: From Egypt to America, From Osiris to Benjamin Franklin
Presentation 10 of 24
Hermes to His Son, Part 1
Presented by Roger Weir
Tuesday, March 11, 1986
Transcript:
This the tenth lecture in a series of lectures by Roger Weir in the Hermetic Tradition from Osiris to Franklin.
This is the tenth lecture and I will try to energize the material now in some concerted ways. So that over the next month you'll notice them you'll notice the transition. Even though we won't be moving forward in time so much. You'll be getting the sense that we're reaching a culmination.
Consciousness in its pure form is undifferentiate. And does not have a shape. It's the mind in its configurations that gives a shape. And the mind has filaments like of image basis. And when these filaments of image basis become loops, when they're brought into a folding shape. Much like proteins. Much like amino acid peptide chains that then become proteins and then they fold and then they become the basis of life. Well thought works that way with and image base. And when they fold, in nuclear physics they call this now super strings. Where the ultimate matter is not a point like a quark or something but is a loop. Where the inside is hollow and whatever energy there is, is a is a shape in a loop like. So, the image basis of the mind. Shape cut out shapes if you will. In this undifferentiate and present to us when a number of these image bases are arranged in juxtaposition. In order. They present a poignant focus which we experience as ideas. And ideas when they occur in this way have a luminescent quality because of the resonance. The focus of several or many image bases. Depending on how energized they are. How many there are. The more poignant the focus and the more powerful the resonance coming out of this. So that there are times when an individual has a tremendous realizations. Realizations are ideas that have more amperage than content. So that you experience the, the glow, the illumination, rather than just the content. Although there is usually content there.
But just as this occurs for individuals you must be able to see, or at least imagine, that because consciousness is undifferente, is actually, universal phenomenon. That this process not only happens with individuals but also happens with groups of persons. It happened a long, long, long time ago with hunting groups and so forth. Became possible some 10,000 years ago for large enough group so that there were the first cities. The first cities look like very compact condo units. The first cities in Highland Anatolia and Jericho and so forth. They, they all lived together much like the mast Kiva's or the apartments that we have today. Or what's this great city structure in the Southwest the, the Chaco Rincon Naldo. It's a sort of D shape. All the indications are that these are experiences of groups of people whose consciousness is honed together. They live together. They think together. They experience together. And there came moments in time when their collective consciousness registered a realization together. And over the thousands of years their capacity for these shared revelations of, if you will, built. In Abraham's time it was possible for one family. By the time of Moses, it was possible if you trained people for 40 years, by walking them out in the desert so, they would have nothing else to relate to except each other. You could build a population that would have the ability to realize together. It was nothing to go over to the to the Holy Land. But it was everything to build the people first before you took them there. And it took two generations to build the people in that case.
By the time that the Roman Empire came into being it was possible for millions of people to have a shared realization together. It was the largest shared realization in human history. But a shared realization always needs to have a focus. And there's only one focus.
Now we know in retrospect that Jesus was the focus. You don't even have to be a Christian to see that. you can see that all the magnetic lines, all the arrangements point to that time. To that location. To that individual. You can trace them. And so, you can see what a tremendous transformation there was at that point. But the peculiarity is, is that the exposure directly by personal contact was very small. And those individuals among that small population that could comprehend. I don't say understand. but whose mind, whose character, whose heartfeltness could comprehend more or less what had happened, were very, very few. Very few. Limited to I would say less than a dozen people.
Of that dozen people the most profound was Saint John. And Saint John lived a long time. He lived into the 90's A.D. And right at the end of his life he wrote his gospel. His gospel is written around 90 A.D. The first book in the Hermetic documents, The Corpus Hermeticum, The Poimandres, is written about 100 A.D. Or about 10 years later. That document is written in Alexandria. And it shows the tremendous collision of the introduction of the Gospel of Saint John into Alexandra in the 90's A.D. And when it hit the supercharged archetypal matrix of the rising mind shepherd archetype from ancient Egypt, that was coming into the collective consciousness of at least most of the population of Alexandria. Some two million people. It was like a laser beam of light that hit a crystal. And the diffraction of that took all of the 2nd century A.D., from 100 to 200 A.D. And out of that diffraction you get the Hermetic material, you get the Gnostic material, you get Christianity. You get tremendous revolutionary groups Millennia's groups. Unbelievable. Catastrophic mentalities.
When you look at The Book of Revelation, which is a attributed to Saint John. In a very real way, The Book of Revelation is in fact a one of the one of the explosive products of this laser beam of John's understanding of the Christ Focus. Introduced into this archetypal focus coming up in Egypt. In Alexandria especially. And we know now that it isn't particularly by him. That there are many sections in it. And one of the sections is an apocryphal throwback to a testimony of John the Baptist. And there's several John's in The Book of Revelation. There's a John the Baptist. And there's Saint John. And there is a a, an eternal John that's there too.
But the point is, is that for us we're trying to understand the tremendous explosion of consciousness. But in doing so we have to watch what we say, because it isn't an explosion of consciousness but if an irradiation of the avenues of focused consciousness out into human life. So that the tone of the Hermetic documents is always educational. And it's always educational on the, on the confidential level. One person telling one other person. Or maybe two others at the most.
Now the documents that we're looking at tonight. We've got four and maybe selections from some of the fragments that were preserved by a late classical author named John Strobais. Of these four books, they're all Hermes to his son Thoth. And in them Thoth says to Hermes
Try not to tell me riddles. Remember that I'm your son. Talk to me like a father. I need to know this. I need to know the truth of this. And you know. Tell me straight out. And Hermes speaking to him like his son, like a father would speak to a son, would say, I am trying to tell you. But there are moments when you must do the realization. And you must bend what I tell you around into a form. And let go of the form and plunge into the realization.
So that the first of the dialogues Hermes to Thoth that we're going to look at tonight is referred to in the Hermetic tradition as The Basin. The Basin. And it's the archetype of baptism. But remember now this is before there's any kind of sacrament of baptism in the doctrinaire Christian tradition. In Hermeticism there's almost no theurgy at all. There's no sacramentalism at all. Which is why it probably didn't really obtain for the crowds, for the people. Because the people have to have something they can live with and rightly so. The people have to insist that they have to they need something they can live with. But in the archetypal origins of all of this, in the Hermetic presentations. The Basin was a baptism by plunging one's experience into the mind. By taking oneself from the illusory world of images, bending those images around into a shape where one could see what the limitations of that shape were and then can go of the focus on the shape and going into the center. The nothingness. Which was pure mind. And it was in that baptism in the basin of the pure mind that one experienced the God transformation. The born-againness. And it's in this Hermetic series of Hermes to Thoth that being born again is first talked about in human history. It's not in Christianity. It's in the Hermetic literature.
I'm going to use the translations and Scott's Hermetica. They're available in paper bound again in four volumes. The first volume is the one that has most of the texts. Edited by Walter Scott, 1924 Oxford University Press. And reprinted two times since. The ancient Greek and Latin writings which contain religious or philosophical teachings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus. Edited and with English translations in three volumes of notes. And we'll refer to volumes four on the notes and volume two on the notes a little later on tonight.
So, let's go to...he labels them books in here. And he uses the Latin term Libellus. Book. So, book four A Discourse of Hermes to Thoth. Sub entitled The Basin. The tone of this, the central focus of this is that God is incorporeal. He is invisible. Therefore, the mind that is always trying to visualize is incapable of seeing him. So that we have to train ourselves to stop looking at the optical illusion of images and transform the visuality of the mind to seeing the spaces in between. So instead of picking out what we see, we pick out and see in between. And when we do that. When we're able to do that we realize that all the in-betweens that there are share the same realness. And it is there that God presents himself. Because he is undifferentiately, incorporeally real.
So, The Basin is the classic presentation of this. Probably that in somewhere around close to 170 to 190 A.D. written in Egypt. Almost certainly written in Alexandria. "For the incorporeal is not a thing perceptible by touch or site. Cannot be measured. It is not extended in space. It is like nothing else. God is not fire nor water nor air nor breath." Now notice here that the classic elements are given in the negative. Not these elements. and later and we'll have one of the Hermes to Thoth dialogues where it will make a point out of saying that if you want to understand God the fundamental elements are no longer earth air water and fire. But the final elements are destiny, necessity, providence and nature. And that of those fundamental elements one can build a kind of a second world. An incorporeal invisible world of the mind. And when one inhabits that world, that inscape, then one is able to make the journey to the divine in terms of that.
Why is he not these? Because all these things have been made by him. So, the notion now of creation comes in. God is a is a creator. He is a creator. "But Hermes taking Thoth aside says, you must understand then that God is pre-existent and ever existent." These are presented together. why are they presented together? Because if you present just pre-existent it connotates a linearity, a time sequence. But pre-existent and ever existent changes the quantification of existent. To say that God is the Alpha and the Omega begs the issue. It's not the right way to talk at all. I know that that's the way it's come down through history. That's a second-rate way of talking. Pre-existent and ever existent. It's like William Blake when he's speaking spiritually accurate. He would say that there is an eternal gospel which was there at the beginning. And that's the way to talk. That's the Hermetic way to talk. Because the mind in order to encompass pre-existent and ever existent, eternal and before the beginning together wraps the whole image base of temporality into a conundrum. Where it cannot deal with it anymore. And lets it go and then one experiences that, well it must be now then. If it's preexistent than ever existent, then there can't ever be a condition where it isn't. And that's the realization to come to.
And when the creator had made the ordered universe, he willed to set in order the earth also. And so, he sent down man. A mortal creature made in the image of an immortal being, to be an embellishment of the divine body.
What is the divine body? The cosmos. The cosmos is the divine body. The whole cosmos. A single living divine body. So that man has a very peculiar function. Man is the consciousness of the cosmos. So, he has a very royal destiny. an extraordinary royal destiny. He is the contemplative center of the reality of the cosmos. And if he doesn't do that the cosmos is drunk and full of illusion. But when he does that it's whole and real. And the divine body is sound. this is what will be coming out.
"For it is man's function to contemplate the works of God." The cosmos. "And for this purpose, was he made. That he might view the universe with wondering awe." With wondering awe. Philosophy begins in that kind of wonder. It's a, a...by entertaining the pre-existent one is filled with wonder. And by entertaining the ever existent one is filled with awe. They never point this out, but these go in tandem also. the awesome splendor, the awesome wonder. It goes together.
So, man is made for the purpose to contemplate the cosmos. That he might view the universe with wondering awe and thus come to know its maker. That the maker is a presence which occurs in the pristine clarity of the wondering and odd character of consciousness coming and honing to the realization that this actually is happening all the time, never not happening. And that yet um happens with that poignancy throughout the entire cosmos as far as it spreads. And it's this quality of actuality that man alone is capable of doing. That the Gods are not capable of doing this. Man is capable of doing this. Because only man has to work up to this. The Gods already are on a level where it doesn't occur to them. That they have some task to do. Where for a man he has a task that he has to learn to do. And in learning to do it he brings up the lowest levels of the cosmos to this honed presence. So, if there's a savior or if there is a form of God that is a savior it's as a man only. Man is the savior of the cosmos. When he saves himself everything else is saved. Everything. It's all saved.
But in the Hermetic material there's no notion of a single savior. But there's always, always the emphasis that every human being who has this presence of mind is a savior in the making. And must be cared for and respected in this way. He is as precious as, as anything in the universe. And the way to care for such a person is to educate them. To help them to unfold their capacities. And that this must be done with wonder and awe. "The cosmos. But man has this advantage over all other living beings that he possesses speech and mind together." Speech and mind. Again, a tandem. They go together. They will say many animals have voices and even many men have voices. But to have speech, which is refined. Which is intelligible. Which is capable of self-reflective consciousness. This is speech. And when speech is raised to the level of self-reflective consciousness it harmonizes with mind. It's like subject and object agreeing then. And in that resonance of speech and mind agreeing together there's like the two hands brought together. And one then has real capacity for prayer. Real capacity for, for contemplation.
And in the great Hermetic dialogue on rebirth, which we'll get to at the end of tonight, The Rebirth Dialogue. When the realization of what this is occurs Hermes will give out a payon. A payon is a hymn of praise to the divine. Will give out a royal payon to the divine. And the son Thoth will then give out his little payon. And of the dialogue will close with this tandem of teacher and student both being able to give the payon. Of course, the teachers payon, this luxuriously elegant and spiritually wild in its accuracy. And Thoth's is very manly like somebody who would be a brilliant 23 years old could do. But it's, it's not anywhere dear you know they they'll master who for whom language and mind are the familiar intelligence. But we'll get to that and we'll see that.
Man has this advantage of all other living beings that he possesses speech and mind. now speech my son got imparted to all men. But mind he did not impart to all. Not that he grudged it to any. For the grudging temper does not start from heaven above but comes into being here below in the souls of those men who are devoid of mind.
There's a dullness of living in the mud. That when you get used to living in the mud one becomes very pig like. You know in the book of Job when the day comes for every living creature to present themselves before the divine and thus Satan comes in., he is given the neutral in the Hebrew. The Satan. It's not a he or a she at all. It's a it. And the first thing God says is where do you come from. And the Satan. The Satan always just all from roving to and fro in the earth. As if that were some place to come from. And then God always takes up the issues. And says ahh is that so. Well you must know my servant Job then who is the prize star of the earth. You know that sort of thing. And the Satan says him. What about me? Evil's like that. It has a grudging this to it.
Thoth then asks his first question. "Tell me then father why did not God impart mind to all men? And Hermes, it was his will my son. That mind should be placed in the midst as a prize that human souls may win." It has to be won. It has to be won. It's like the song says, liberty is a prize that is won. And only a place which is the home of the free and place of the brave can one living there win the prize of spiritual liberty.
And Thoth says, well where did he place it? Hermes, he filled a great basin with mind and sent it down to earth. And he appointed a held and bade him make proclamation to the hearts of men. Hearken each human heart. Dip yourself in this basin if you can. Recognizing for what purpose you have been made and believing you shall ascend to him who sent the basin down.
Notice that the harking is not to the mind but to the heart. It is the heart that dips itself in the basin. So that when we talk about mind here, we're not talking about mind quite in the way that 20th century language philosophy would talk about the mind. The mind is a comprehensive spirit. An intelligent spirit. Which we are. But because that intelligent spirit really partakes of the undifferentiate, the moving part of us, the quality of us, the character of us that needs to make that heroic quest. Needs to find the center is our heart. Heartfulness. Our character. Our human character.
So that it is the heart that must plunge itself into this basement basin. And almost basin because there is a fearfulness. Because the heart, being the center of our character, believes that it is formed upon earthly things. That it has come to be from these earthly things. And that this is where it's at home. And it's very fearful of letting go of all this. Very fearful. What's gonna happen to me? What will become of me? Those kinds of thoughts. So that the heart has to be encouraged by a herald. By, by someone who calls out and says follow me or something like that. And one has to just trust that that is so. So that the spiritual courage is the forerunner, it's the shockwave of the actual motion of mind coming into its own. And without that shockwave sent out ahead of time it wouldn't happen. So that the heart has to initiate it. This is why the, the kindly heart is always in tandem with wisdom. The kindly heart always goes before wisdom. A symbol of it is the in the tarot card of the of the Hermit. The Hermit has the little light and in the light is the, the star. The Hermetic star. Well that's the human heartedness. Or you see sometimes.
I think classically the best presentation is the frontispiece William Blake's Jerusalem. Before the title page there's a page where there's a 9 arched vault door going into the sepulcher of who-knows-what. And it reads over the thing abandon all hope ye who enter here. And there's the pilgrim with his hat, stalwart but kind of you know facing the unknown. And he's carrying a lantern and in Blake's Jerusalem the lantern has all the shimmering spheres. Real Hermetic star. And he's going in.
So, a great basin filled with mind and sent down to earth. So that it is um not just cosmic but it's divine. And along with that basin is a herald, is sent to hearken and awaken the heart then to come in. "Hearken each human heart. Dip yourself in this basin if you can. Recognizing for what purpose you have been made. And believing that you shall ascend to Him who sent the basin down. Now those who gave heed to the proclamation and dipped themselves in the bath of mind." The baptism of...what is the baptism of mind? It is Gnosis. That's what it is in Greek. Gnosis. The gnosis was not knowledge so much that you come to and thinking something through. But the gnosis was the baptism of mind by committing the heart to its holy unknown destiny. And in doing that it wakens. It wakens. it wakens to its own nature. And what is its own nature? Its own nature is that it belongs in the universe. It belongs in the cosmos. It can't not be at home wherever it is.
So, the Hermetic Hermes to Thoth then discloses this very, very carefully and very precisely. "Now those who gave heed to the proclamation and dipped themselves in the bath of mind, these men got a share of gnosis." And we talked about how Gnosis is one of the, the great developments of this collision of the poignancy of John's gospel with a Hermetic archetype from ancient Egyptian times. And the whole emphasis after that. Gnosis becomes the primal first experience of the divine.
They received mind. those who got their share of gnosis. They received mind and so became complete men. But those who fail to heed the proclamation, these are they who possess speech indeed but have not received mind also. And they in as much as they know not for what purpose they have been made. Nor by whom they have been made. Are held under constraint by anger and incontinence. They admire the things that are not worth looking at. They give heed only to the bodily pleasures and desires. And believe that man has been made for such things as these. But as many as have partaken of the gift with God's sent. These my son in comparison with the others are as immortal Gods to mortal men. They embrace in their own mind all things that are. The things on earth and the things in Heaven. And even what is above heaven. If there is aught above heaven. And raising themselves to that height they see the good.
Now the good here is the Platonic good. What is the platonic good? The good is the form of all forms. The idea of ideas. Is, is the good. Why is it the good? Because it is the ultimate welcome by which reality is expressible. The idea of the idea is the quintessence of what is expressible. And thus, it is called the good.
It will be picked up in about two generations from this by Plotinus. And held in his brilliant excellence and given its final form. Because it can be taken one or two steps further in its refinement from this. And he will do that.
Where do they see the good? What do they see the idea of all ideas? Where do they see the comprehensive pattern from this height? And one part of the dialogues which we won't get to tonight, Hermes says now Thoth, if you could take yourself and raise yourself that you are midway between the Stars and the earth. If you could be there and you could survey the movement of all. You would see the beautiful coordinated harmony of how all life in the cosmos lives in the same way. It's choreographed in the same scenario. And thus, one can understand that it is a unity. And that your participation in it is a contemplative quintessence of that unity. And that that is your true nature. That is who you are. That that is your function. That is your purpose. That is your character.
Thoth says, I to father would wish to be dipped in that basin. And Hermes says, if you do not first hate your body my son you cannot love yourself. But if you love yourself you will have mind. And having mind you will partake of gnosis. Thoth says, what mean you father? Hermes says, it is not possible my son to attach yourself both to things mortal and to things Divine.
It's a splitting of the ways. A definite splitting of the ways.
"There are two sorts of things. The corporeal and the incorporeal. That which is mortal as of one sort that which is divine is of the other sort. He who willed to make his choice is left free to choose one or the other. It is not possible to take both." What happens when you try to take both? Neurosis, paranoia, schizophrenia. That general malaise.
I'm going to skip over here to book four in The Corpus Hermeticum. That was all from book four. This is book five. And they will just go through this very briefly. The essential point in this fragment. And it's really not very long. It's just a fragment of about four or five pages in Greek. Is that God is always hidden from sight yet is most manifest. That our quality of experiencing manifestation when it's limited to corporeality is very narrow. Is very specific. For those have been coming to the Saturday classes, you understand nature has to be specific. And so, you can, you can find that everything is specific. The red of this book is certain angstroms of light down to the last digit. And if it changes just a little bit then you have yellow. And all of this is electromagnetic energy and that's about it. But this level of manifestation is paltry compared to the manifestation as a divine. The manifestation of the divine is incomparable. And thus, is hidden because of the incomparable the unity of the divine.
So, this little discourse. "This doctrine also Thoth I will expound to you that you may not remain uninitiated in the mysteries of him who is too mighty to be named God." This is the beginning of the style of the unknown God. The unknown. It's unknown. "Grasp the meaning of my words. So, if you grasp it that which seems to the meaning to be hidden will become most manifest to you." Most manifest in the Greek it's the superlative. Good, better, best. With this it's the superlative. The most manifest. "For all that is manifests has been brought into being for it has been manifested. But that which is hidden is ever existent for has it no need to be manifested." And we resolve almost the quotation marks because this cup is a quality of manifestation that is actually a surrogate. This book is a quality of manifestation that's a surrogate. real manifestation is in the art incorporeal. That's where it is. Only the manifestation in the incorporeal is a unity. It is only one. It is only the divine. Always and before everything else.
"For God is ever existent and he makes manifest all else but he himself is hidden." So, he has ever existence. his pre-existence and his ever existence give us a quality of manifestation. that if we attune ourselves to that, the corporeal world loses its valuation. Loses its valuation.
Book 12, A Discourse of Hermes Trismegistus to Thoth Concerning Mind in Men. "Hermes says mind my son Thoth is the very substance of God. Indeed, there is a substance of God. And of what nature that substance is God alone knows precisely." Why would God alone know precisely? Because it is a unity of all. That is precisely. And only God is that.
"Mind then is not severed from the substantiality of God but is so to speak spread abroad from that source as the light of the Sun is spread abroad. In men this mind is the product of divinity. Hence some men are divine, and the humanity of such men is near to deity. For the Agathis daimon." D-a-i-m-o-n. Agathis diamon is the first Hermes. This is Hermes Trismegistus. And the second Hermes was Thoth. But the first term is was Agathis diamond.
Please turn your cassette said now and will commence playing again on the other side after a brief pause.
END OF SIDE 1
D-i-a-m-o-n. Agathis Diamon is the first Hermes. This is Hermes Trismegistus. And the second Hermes was Thoth. But the first tourneys was Agathis Diamon. He was the one back at the dawn of history. Who didn't write anything down but who started the teaching process. See the Hermetic process is very much like a, it's very much like a lineage where the sacred writing comes in in the middle of the act. The teaching has already been going on for a long, long time. And just because it started to be written down 5,000 years ago one can see that the first writing, like the Pyramid of Unas texts that we went through. Written about 3000 B.C. are already sophisticated spiritually. Already gone through thousands of years of sophistication. So, the Agathis Diamon is the, diamon is the, the primordial wisdom teacher.
Agathis Diamons said
Gods are immortal men and men are mortal gods. But in the irrational animals there is instinct in place of mind. Wherever there is life there is soul. But in the irrational animals the soul is devoid of mind. Mind is a benefactor to the souls of men. It produces good for them. In the case of the irrational animal's mind cooperates with a special form of instinct which belongs to each several kind of beast. But in men mind works against the natural instincts.
And this is one of the most difficult things to understand. It's that consciousness is not a natural cycle. There is no way that consciousness, as we would understand it, there is a natural cycle.
Natural cycles always go in recognizable pattern. Always. Consciousness moves in a symbolic crisscross. A myth always unfolds like a flower coming out of a stem. A fairy tale always has a sudden reversal. Cutting across the circle of unfoldment. Making a sudden change. A sudden metanoia. A sudden point that you didn't, it, you didn't think it was possible. This is the hero of the story of consciousness. It's that when everything seems lost that's when victory comes. when everything seems incredibly impossible that's when the triumph comes. When the world seems darkest and that everything is lost, the world is saved the very next instant. That kind of a quality.
This is the symbolic form of consciousness. Which is different from those cycles of nature. And so, mind in men works against the natural instincts. Not in a contradictory way. There would be I think misleading to think that it works in a contradictory way, in the opposition way. Mind or consciousness works in a reverse way. So that if nature moves the round clockwise consciousness moves around counterclockwise. And so, it has to be agile. It has to be mercurial. to be able to weave itself back through the complex pattern of nature back to their origin. And what is the origin? The pre-existent. And what is the pre-existent? The ever existent. and when it establishes that weave back through the whole cycles of nature, then there in the presence of that pause the holy ghost steers the star chorus home. That's the way it used to be said.
Okay book 12, A Discourse of Hermes to Thoth. And this is where the elements now are transformed. No longer earth, air, fire and water. Those four elements are going to be transformed into destiny, necessity, providence, and nature. "Destiny and necessity, providence and nature are instruments by means of which the cosmos is governed. And by means of which matter is set in order." So, if you want to understand the cosmos if you have to understand earth air fire and water. But if you want to understand how its governed then one has to understand destiny, necessity, providence, nature.
The cosmos in its naturality can be understood by the four elements but in its consciousness can only be understood in terms of destiny, necessity, providence and nature. These are called the intelligibles. Each of the intelligibles is one and sameness is their essence. But each of the bodies contained in the universe is many. And matter is one. For the end composite bodies cleaved to sameness. And though they change into one another they maintain their sameness unimpaired forever.
It's a little difficult to understand I know. Coming out of the freeways of LA. But good image of that is from Plato in The Timaeus. When he's struggling to express this, he says...well Timaeus will say think of it this way, that time is the moving image of eternity. So that gives us a are kind of an image base to, to put these incommensurates seemingly together.
"So, matter is one. For the in composite bodies cleave to sameness. And though they change into one another they maintain their sameness unimpaired forever." This is profound because this will become when it when it's put into the technae of the Hermetic Sciences it will become the basis of alchemy. Very workable. We'll see. We're not too far from that. We're only about 150 years from the beginnings of real powerful alchemy. We'll get there. We'll see it happen.
The Hermetic tradition becomes extraordinarily capable. When it has to go underground. When they realized that the spiritual civilization is going to be suffocated for who knows how long they develop incredible techniques, incredible capacities, to keep it alive and ensure that wisdom will not die. And the way to do this is to prepare people to survive by ones or twos for who knows how long. Until the light of civilization can come back in. So, they put together all of the great intelligence of timeless wisdom. And they will make and educate individuals who will be capable by themselves to find a student to pass on the whole tradition. And be able to do that for hundreds of years. in fact, it was over a thousand years before it could come back out into the open again. And we'll see. So, they become extraordinarily what we would call practical. It actually happened.
"But in every composite body there is number. For there cannot be combination or composition unless there is number." So that the ordering, the structure in destiny, in necessity, in providence, in nature. The structuring is according to number. so that it is intelligible. So, there's a geometry of meaning which can be understood. The very form of logical reasoning is exactly a mathematical pattern of deriving precision in the context of the axiomatic basis in which the mind is working.
Thoth says, is it not true then father that the living creatures in the cosmos die. And are they not part...parts of the cosmos? And Hermes says, say not so my son. This is a long way to speak. You are misled by the terms that men apply to that which takes place. Men talk foolishly. They think that they are describing what is happening. They think they're understanding what is happening. They don't understand. So, don't listen to their words. The living creatures do not die my son but are composite bodies and as such they undergo dissolution. Dissolution is not death. It is only the separation of things which were combined. And they undergo dissolution not to perish but to be made new.
Then in the book twelve.
And it is not difficult my son to contemplate God in thought. Or even if you will to see him. Look at the order of the cosmos. Look at the necessity which governs all that is presented to our sight. And the providence shown in things that have been and in things that come back. Look at matter filled to the full with life and see this great God in movement with all things that are contained in him. And Thoth says, but these, father are nothing but forces at work. And Hermes says, if they are forces at work my son who is it that works them then? Is it not God? Do you not know that just as heaven and earth and water and air are parts of the cosmos, even so destiny and necessity and providence and nature are parts of God. And there is nothing that comes to be or has come to be in which God is not. Thoth says, is God in matter then father? Hermes, why what is matter apart from God my son that you should assign a place to it? What else but an inert mass do you suppose matter would be where it not worked upon. I have told you that the forces at work are parts of God. Who is it then that puts life into all living creatures? Who is it that gives immortal beings their immortality? Who is it that works change and things subject to change?
Now these are all manifestations of God's working. So that the whole notion of movement here, of life and movement, becomes poignant. This becomes very formative for Western philosophy. And the classic formulation scholastically will be that God must be an unmoved mover mover. which shows the flaw. Which shows the, the materialistic flaw in the scholastic mind. It is not that God is an unmoved mover but is the incorporeal matrix within which all movement happens in a choreographed unity. That's better. But that kind of mentality then you can...
So hence there is neither magnitude, nor place, nor quality nor shape, nor time in God. For God is all and the all permeates all things. And has to do with all things. This God my son. I bid you worship and adore. And there is but one way to worship God. And that is to be devoid of evil.
So, we come then to the great dialogue concerning rebirth. And because of time I'm just going to give you the paon at the end. And then next week we'll start, and I'll give you the rest of the dialogue. So that we don't miss it. but I want you to hear the beautiful language. I'll just give you Hermes paon. and we'll close with that tonight. And we'll come back next week, and we'll go through the whole rebirth dialogue and the rest of the fragments of Hermes to Thoth. No one else is going to teach this. So, we might as well do it right.
"Be still then my son and listen to the hymn of praise which is appropriate to the rebirth. I had not meant to make it known to you so readily." Why is this? Because this is a secret language. It should be in tone in the daytime facing south. And at dawn facing east. "Let every bar of the universe be flung open to me." bar here is the better translated I think as recess. Let every hidden recess be now open. What happens if every hidden recess is open? The whole universe is aired out. Spring cleaning of the spirit.
Let all nature receive the sound of my hymn. But it resonates through every, everything. Be thou silent oh earth. and you trees wave not your boughs. I'm about to sing the praise of him who is both the all and the one. Be silent ye heavens. And thee winds you still. Let the immortal sphere of heaven receive my utterance.
That is the whole shape of heaven now will echo with the divine speech of man in control of his mind. When man is in control of his mind and speaks rightly, he is The Poimandres. He is the shepherd then of the universe. Then he is the son of God.
For I am about to sing the praise of him who created all things. Who fixed the earth and hung heaven above. Who made the sweet water flow from ocean into the lands wherein men dwell. That it might serve for the sustenance of all mankind and all being. And give command that fire should come for us to be used by Gods and men and all their works. Let us all with one accord give praise to him. Who seated high upon the heavens. Creator of all that is. Who he that is the eye of my mind. May he accept the praise sung by my powers. Powers that are within me. Praise you all the one and all. Sing in accord with my will and all you powers that are within me. Holding gnosis by thee and I illumined. And through the do I sing praise to the invisible light. I rejoice joy of mind. Rejoice with me all powers. sing praises. Oh, good god that is in me praise the good of life and light. From you comes the song of praise to you it goes forth. I give thanks to thee your father who works the powers. I give thanks to thee o Gods. Thus, crying powers that are in the accomplished by well praising the all. Fulfill thy purpose. It is thy word, thy logos, that through me sings thy praise. For the old mind is my speech shepherded. Through me accept from all an offering of this speech. From the all is from thee and to thee returns thee all. Oh, light illumined, thou the mind that in us is and life keep this soul alive. Thus, thy man cries to thee by means of the things that has made from all eternity. The praises I utter so. by thee thus am I born again.
About 1,800 years ago.
We'll take it up next week some more.
END OF RECORDING.