HERMES, OR ARISTOTLE?

279

bulwark our doctrines against the too strong attacks of modern Sectarianism, and more especially against those of our latter-day Materialism, very often miscalled Science, whereas, in reality, the words "Scientists and "Sciolists" ought alone to bear the responsibility for the many illogical theories offered to the world. In its great ignorance, the public, while blindly accepting everything that emanates from authorities," and feeling it to be its duty to regard every dictum coming from a man of Science as a proven fact - the public, we say, is taught to scoff at anything brought forward from "heathen" sources. Therefore, as materialistic Scientists can be fought solely with their own weapons those of controversy and argument - an Addendum is added to every Book contrasting our respective views and showing how even great authorities may often err. We believe that this can be done effectually by showing the weak points of our opponents, and by proving their too frequent sophisms - made to pass for scientific dicta to be incorrect. We hold to Hermes and his "Wisdom" - in its universal character; they to Aristotle as against intuition and the experience of the ages, fancying that Truth is the exclusive property of the Western world. Hence the disagreement. As Hermes says, Knowledge differs much from sense; for sense is of things that surmount it, but Knowledge (gyi) is the end of sense"-i. e., of the illusion of our physical brain and its intellect; thus emphasizing the contrast between the laboriously acquired knowledge of the senses and mind (manas), and the intuitive omniscience of the Spiritual divine Soul Buddhi.

66

Whatever may be the destiny of these actual writings in a remote future, we hope to have proven so far the following facts:

(1) The Secret Doctrine teaches no Atheism, except in the Hindû sense of the word nâstika, or the rejection of idols, including every anthropomorphic god. In this sense every Occultist is a Nâstika.

(2) It admits a Logos or a collective "Creator" of the Universe; a Demi-ourgos in the sense implied when one speaks of an "Architect " as the "Creator" of an edifice, whereas that Architect has never touched one stone of it, but, while furnishing the plan, left all the manual labor to the masons; in our case the plan was furnished by the Ideation of the Universe, and the constructive labor was left to the Hosts of intelligent Powers and Forces. But that Demiourgos is no

personal deity,-i. e., an imperfect extra-cosmic god, but only the aggregate of the Dhyân-Chohans and the other forces.

As to the latter

(3) They are dual in their character; being composed of (a) the irrational brute energy, inherent in matter, and (b) the intelligent soul or cosmic consciousness which directs and guides that energy, and which is the Dhyân-Chohanic thought reflecting the Ideation of the Universal Mind. This results in a perpetual series of physical manifestations and moral effects on Earth, during manvantaric periods, the whole being subservient to Karma. As that process is not always perfect; and since, however many proofs it may exhibit of a guiding intelligence behind the veil, it still shows gaps and flaws, and even results very often in evident failures - therefore, neither the collective Host (Demiourgos), nor any of the working powers individually, are proper subjects for divine honors or worship. All are entitled to the grateful reverence of Humanity, however, and man ought to be ever striving to help the divine evolution of Ideas, by becoming to the best of his ability a co-worker with nature in the cyclic task. The ever unknowable and incognizable Kârana alone, the Causeless Cause of all causes, should have its shrine and altar on the holy and ever untrodden ground of our heart-invisible, intangible, unmentioned, save through "the still small voice" of our spiritual consciousness. Those who worship before it, ought to do so in the silence and the sanctified solitude of their Souls; 336 making their spirit the sole mediator between them and the Universal Spirit, their good actions the only priests, and their sinful intentions the only visible and objective sacrificial victims to the Presence, 337

(4) Matter is Eternal. It is the Upâdhi (the physical basis) for the One infinite Universal Mind to build thereon its ideations. Therefore, the Esotericists maintain that there is no inorganic or dead matter in nature, the distinction between the two made by Science being as un

MATTER IS THE SHADOW OF SPIRIT

281

founded as it is arbitrary and devoid of reason. Whatever Science may think, however - and exact Science is a fickle dame, as we all know by experience - Occultism knows and teaches differently, from time immemorial from Manu and Hermes down to Paracelsus and his successors.

Thus, Hermes, the thrice great Trismegistos, says:

338

Oh, my son, matter becomes; formerly it was; for matter is the vehicle of becoming. Becoming is the mode of activity of the uncreate deity. Having been endowed with the germs of becoming, matter [objective] is brought into birth, for the creative force fashions it according to the ideal forms. Matter not yet engendered had no form; it becomes when it is put into operation.*

Everything is the product of one universal creative effort. . . . There is nothing dead in Nature. Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism."

340

(5) The Universe was evolved out of its ideal plan, upheld through Eternity in the unconsciousness of that which the Vedântins call Parabrahm. This is practically identical with the conclusions of the highest Western Philosophy-"the innate, eternal, and self-existing Ideas" of Plato, now reflected by Von Hartmann. The "unknowable" of Herbert Spencer bears only a faint resemblance to that transcendental Reality believed in by Occultists, often appearing merely a personification of a "force behind phenomena "- an infinite and eternal Energy

64

338. To this the late Mrs. (Dr.) Kingsford, the able translator and compiler of the Hermetic Fragments (see The Virgin of the World) remarks in a foot-note: Dr. Ménard observes that in Greek the same word signifies to be born and to become. The idea here is that the material of the world is in its essence eternal, but that before creation or becoming' it is in a passive and motionless condition. Thus it was' before being put into operation; now it becomes,' that is, it is mobile and progressive." And she adds the purely Vedantic doctrine of the Hermetic philosophy that Creation is thus the period of activity [Manvantara] of God, who, according to Hermetic thought [or which, according to the Vedantin] has two modes Activity or Existence, God evolved (Deus

explicitus); and Passivity of Being [Pralaya] God involved (Deus implicitus). Both modes are perfect and complete, as are the waking and sleeping states of man. Fichte, the German philosopher, distinguished Being (Seyn) as One, which we know only through existence (Daseyn) as the Manifold. This view is thoroughly Hermetic. The Ideal Forms' are the archetypal or formative ideas of the Neo-Platonists; the eternal and subjective concepts of things subsisting in the divine mind prior to 'becoming '" (p. 134).

339. The Definitions of Asklepios, p. 134, Virgin of the World.

340. Paracelsus, Philosophia ad Athenienses," F. Hartmann's translations, page

44.

from which all things proceed, while the author of the Philosophy of the Unconscious has come (in this respect only) as near to a solution of the great Mystery as mortal man can. Few were those, whether in ancient or medieval philosophy, who have dared to approach the subject or even hint at it. Paracelsus mentions it inferentially. His ideas are admirably synthesized by Dr. F. Hartmann, F. T. S., in his Life of Paracelsus.

All the Christian Kabalists understood well the Eastern root idea: The active Power, the "Perpetual motion of the great Breath" only awakens Kosmos at the dawn of every new Period, setting it into motion by means of the two contrary Forces,341 and thus causing it to become objective on the plane of Illusion. In other words, that dual motion transfers Kosmos from the plane of the Eternal Ideal into that of finite manifestation, or from the Noumenal to the phenomenal plane. Everything that is, was, and will be, eternally is, even the countless forms, which are finite and perishable only in their objective, not in their ideal Form. They existed as Ideas, in the Eternity,342 and, when they pass away, will exist as reflections. Neither the form of man, nor that of any animal, plant or stone has ever been created, and it is only on this plane of ours that it commenced "becoming," i. e., objectivizing into its present materiality, or expanding from within outwards, from the most sublimated and supersensuous essence into its grossest appearance. Therefore our human forms have existed in the Eternity as astral or ethereal prototypes; according to which models, the Spiritual Beings (or Gods) whose duty it was to bring them into objective being and terrestrial Life, evolved the protoplasmic forms of the future Egos from their own essence. After which when this human Upadhi, or basic mold was ready, the natural terrestrial Forces began to work on those supersensuous molds which contained, besides their own, the elements of all the past vegetable and future animal forms of this globe in them. Therefore, man's outward shell passed through every vegetable and animal body before it assumed the human shape.

341. The centripetal and the centrifugal forces, which are male and female, positive and negative, physical and spiritual, the two being the one Primordial Force.

342. Occultism teaches that no form can be given to anything, either by nature or by

man, whose ideal type does not already exist on the subjective plane. More than this; that no such form or shape can possibly enter man's consciousness, or evolve in his imagination, which does not exist in prototype, at least as an approximation.

PARACELSUS ANTICIPATED TYNDALL

283

As this will be fully described in Book II, with the Commentaries thereupon, there is no need to say more of it here.

According to the Hermetico-Kabalistic philosophy of Paracelsus, it is Yliaster the ancestor of the just-born Protyle, introduced by Mr. Crookes in chemistry or primordial protomateria that evolved out of itself the Kosmos.

When Evolution took place the Yliaster divided itself. . . melted and dissolved, developing from within itself the Ideos or Chaos, called respectively Mysterium magnum, Iliados, Limbus Major, or Primordial Matter. This Primordial essence is of a monistic nature, and manifests itself not only as vital activity, a spiritual force, an invisible, incomprehensible, and indescribable power, but also as vital matter of which the substance of living beings consists.

In this Ideos of primordial matter, or the proto-ilus — which is the matrix of all created things — is contained the substance from which everything is formed. It is the Chaos. . . out of which the Macrocosm, and, later on, by evolution and division in Mysteria Specialia,343 each separate being, came into existence.

All things and all elementary substances were contained in it in potentia but not in actu,

which makes the translator, Dr. F. Hartmann, justly observe that "it seems that Paracelsus anticipated the modern discovery of the 'potency of matter' three hundred years ago (p. 42).

This Magnus Limbus, then, or Yliaster of Paracelsus, is simply our old friend "Father-Mother," within, before it appeared in Space, of the second and other Stanzas. It is the universal matrix of Kosmos, personified in the dual character of Macro- and Microcosm (or the Universe and our Globe) 34 by Aditi-Prakriti, the Spiritual and the physical nature. For we find it explained in Paracelsus that

the Magnus Limbus is the nursery out of which all creatures have grown, in the same sense as a tree grows out of a small seed; with the difference, however,

343. This word is explained by Dr. Hartmann from the original texts of Paracelsus before him, as follows. According to this great Rosicrucian: "Mysterium is everything out of which something may be developed, which is only germinally contained in it. A seed is the Mysterium' of a

plant, an egg that of a living bird, etc." 344. It is only the medieval Kabalists who, following the Jewish and one or two NeoPlatonists, applied the term Microcosm to Ancient philosophy called the Earth the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, and man the outcome of the two.

man.