Virgin of the World

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.He keeps fast the reins of it, even life, soul,spirit, immortality, and birth.He drives it before him, or, rather, with him.And after this manner he forms all things,dispensing to immortals eternal permanence.The light, which from[hisp.104his outer part streams towards heaven, nourishes the immortal spaces of the universe.The rest, encircling andilluminating the entirety of the waters, the earth, and the air, becomes the matrix wherein life germinates, whereinare initiated all births and metamorphoses, transforming creatures, as by a spiral motion, and causing them to passfrom one portion of the world to another, from one species to another, and from one appearance to another;maintaining the equilibrium of their mutual metamorphoses, as in the creation of greater entities.For thepermanence of bodies consists in transmutation.But immortal forms are indissoluble, and mortal bodies decompose;such is the difference between the immortal and the mortal.This creation of life by the sun is as continuous as his light; nothing arrests or limits it.Around him, like an army ofsatellites, are innumerable choirs of Genii.These dwell in the neighbourhood of the Immortals, and thence watchover human things.They fulfil the will of the Gods by means of storms, tempests, transitions of fire, andearthquakes; likewise by famines and wars, for the punishment of impiety.For the greatest crime of men is impietytowards the Gods.The nature of the Gods is to do good, the duty of men is to be pious, the function of the Genii is tochastise.The Gods do not hold men responsible for faults committed through mistake or boldness, by that necessitywhich belongs to fate, or by ignorance; only iniquity falls under the weight of their justice.It is the sun who preserves and nourishes all creatures; and even as the Ideal World which environs the sensibleworld fills this last with the plenitude and universal variety of forms, so also the sun enfolding[allp.105all in his light accomplishes everywhere the birth and development of creatures, and when they fall wearied in therace, gathers them again to his bosom.Under his orders is the choir of the Genii, or rather the choirs, for there aremany and diverse, and their number corresponds to that of the stars.Every star has its genii, good and evil by nature,or rather by their operation, for operation is the essence of the genii.I n some there is both good and evil operation.All.these Genii preside over mundane affairs, they shake and overthrow the constitution of States and ofindividuals; they imprint their likeness on our souls, they are present in our nerves, our marrow, our veins, ourarteries, and our very brain-substance, and in the recesses of our viscera.At the moment when each of us receiveslife and being, he is taken in charge by the genii who preside over births, and who are classed beneath the astralpowers.Perpetually they change, not always identical, but revolving in circles.They permeate by the body two partsof the soul, that it may receive from each the impress of his own energy.But the reasonable part of the soul is notsubject to the genii; it is designed for the reception of God, who enlightens it with a sunny ray.Those who are thusillumined are few in number, and from them the genii abstain; for neither genii nor gods have any power in thepresence of a single ray of God.But all other men, both soul and body, are directed by genii, to whom they cleave,and whose operations they affect.But reason is not like desire, which deceives and misleads.The genii, then, havethe control of mundane things, and our bodies[servep.106serve them as instruments.Now, it is this control which Hermes calls Destiny.1The Intelligible World is attached to God, the Sensible World to the Intelligible World, and through these twoworlds, the sun conducts the effluence of God, that is, the creative energy.Around him are the eight spheres whichare bound to him--the sphere of the fixed stars, the six spheres of the planets, and that which surrounds the earth.Tothese spheres the genii are bound, and to the genii, men; and thus are all beings bound to God, who is the universalFather.The sun is the creator; the world is the crucible of creation.The Intelligible Essence rules heaven, heavendirects the gods, under these are classed the genii, who guide mankind.Such is the divine hierarchy, and such is theoperation which God accomplishes by gods and genii for Himself.Everything is a part of God, thus God is all.Increating all, He perpetuates Himself without any intermission, for the energy of God has no past, and since God iswithout limits, His creation is without beginning or end.2[IfFootnotes101:1 This discourse, which usually concludes, not precedes, the "Fragments," is sometimes but erroneouslyattributed to Apuleius; see Hargrave Jennings' scholarly and exhaustive "Introductory Essay" to my AnnotatedEdition of "The Divine Pymander."Robt.H.FRYAR, Bath.106:1 Asclepios, throughout this discourse, preaches pure Hermetic doctrine, which discourages all traffic withelementals, astrals, and other d�monic influences, whether beneficent or the reverse, and instructs man rather toseek the grace of the Holy Spirit, by aspiring evermore inwards and upwards, and abiding in the reasonable anddivine part of his nature.A.K.106:2 Compare with this declaration the opening passage of Section III.in the Book of Hermes to Tatios, and mynote thereon.The Divine Olympos, or Mount of Energies, emits a continuous river of Generation, or "Becoming."And the equilibrium of Nature is continually maintained by a corresponding process of perpetual return from Matterto p.107 Essence; from Existence to Being.With the right hand ADONAI projects; with the left He indraws.The leading idea in the above fragment is the parallelism between Man and the Universe.The whole Solar Systemof the Macrocosm, with its hierarchy of gods and elemental powers, is resumed in the human system of theMicrocosm.A.K.PART II.IF thou reflectest, O King, thou wilt perceive that there are incorporeal corporealites.Which are they? says the King.Corporealites which appear in mirrors; are they not incorporeal?It is true, Tat, says the King; thou hast a marvellous fancy!There are yet other incorporealities; for instance, abstract forms, what say you to them? Are they not in themselvesincorporeal? yet they are manifest in animated and inanimated corporealities.True again, Tat.So then there is a reflexion of incorporealities upon corporealities, and of corporealities on incorporealities.In otherwords, the Sensible World and the Ideal World reflect each other.Adore, then, the sacred images, O King, for theyalso are reflective forms of the Sensible World.Then the King rose and said, Methinks, prophet, it is time to look after our guests; to-morrow, we can continue thistheological controversy.1[WhenFootnotes107:1 As I read the above fragment, it is written in a spirit of mirth.Tat is quibbling with the King, as the manner oftheir talk plainly shows.Nevertheless, an undercurrent of occult meaning runs through the speech of the son ofTrismegistos.When he names the sacred images, the allusion intended is to the cultus of the Mysteries.--A.K.PART III.WHEN a musician, desiring to conduct a melody, is hindered in his design by the want of accord in the instrumentsemployed, his efforts end in ridicule, and provoke the laughter of the auditors.In vain he expends the resources ofhis art, or accuses of falseness the instrument which reduces him to impotence.The great musician of Nature, the God who presides over the harmony of song, and who controls the resonance ofthe instruments according to the rhythm of the melody, is unwearying, for weariness reaches not the gods [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Linki