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THE AUTHOR 

The Hermetic Art 

AN INTRODUCTION TO 
THE ART OF ALCHEMY 

The Text of the Hermetic Sermons, Entitled, 
"The Greatest 111 Among Men Is Ignorance of 
God," "That No One of Existing Things 
Doth Perish," and the Sermon on Thought 
and Sense, Together With the Esoteric 
Commentary, Giving in Full, the 
Esoteric Key to These Three Great 
Sermons, The Official Interpre- 
tation of the Hermetic Brother- 
hood of Atlantis, and the 
Official Text Book in the 
H e r m e t i c A r t . 

By 

DR. A. S. RALEIGH 

The 

HERMETIC PUBLISHING COMPANY 

3020 Lake Park Avenue, Chicago, 111. 
1919 

COPYRIGHT. 1919, 
BY THE HERMETIC PUBLISHING CO. 
Copyri^rhted and Registered at Stationers' Hail, London, England 
(All Rights Reserved) 

Typt Set by American Typesetting Corporation, Chicago 

Printed and Bound by M. A. Donohue & Co., Chicago 

/ 

DEDICATION 

To that small but select body of students 
of Alchemy scattered throughout the 
world — who have ever devoted them- 
selves to the Quest after the Absolute, 
and have sought for the Philosopher's 
Stone — this course of Lessons in the Her- 
metic Art is lovingly dedicated, with the 
hope that it may in some degree throw 
light upon the subject of their search, and 
may to some extent direct them in the way 
of the real Transmutation. 

THE AUTHOR. 

CONTENTS. 

Page 

Introductory Note 7 

The Greatest III Among Men Is Ignorance 

OF God 

Text 11 

Lesson 1. The 111 of Ignorance... 13 

PART TWO. 

That No One of Existing Things Doth 

Perish But Men in Error Speak of 
Their Changes as Destructions 
AND AS Deaths 

Text 39 

Lesson 2. The Limitation of the Body. . 29 

Lesson 3. Soul and Body 43 

Lesson 4. The Eternity of Matter 55 

Lesson 5. The Life of Man 63 

PART THREE. 

On Thought and Sense 

That the Beautiful and Good Is in Good and 

Elsewhere Nowhere 

Text 73 

Lesson 6. Thought and Sense 79 

Lesson 7. The Conception of Thought. . 91 

Lesson 8. The Kosmic Course 107 

Lesson 9. The Function of The Cosmos. 119 
Lesson 10. The Sense-and-Thought of 

God 129 

INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

In presenting this series of lessons on the Her- 
metic Art we are continuing the series which 
began in Philosophia Hermetica, w^hich continued 
in Scientific Hermetica and culminated in the 
Hermetic Art, this series of three books being 
intended as an introduction to the study of 
alchemy. In the Philosophia Hermetica we gave 
an introduction to the Philosophy of Alchemy, in 
Scientific Hermetica we gave an introduction to 
the Science of Alchemy and in the Hermetic Art 
w^e give an introduction to the Art of Alchemy. 
All Hermetic matters group themselves under 
those three heads. Hermetic Philosophy, which 
deals with the speculative side of Hermeticism, 
Hermetic Science which deals with the scientific 
principles embodied in the Hermetic teaching and 
the Hermetic Art which deals with the practical 
application of the principles enunciated in the 
Hermetic Philosophy and the Hermetic Science. 
Physical alchemy is by the novice generally sup- 
posed to be the summum bonum of Hermeticism, 
while as a matter of fact it is a very unimportant 
item in the general body of our teaching. The 
basis of Hermeticism as we have it today is to be 
found in the writing of Hermes Trismegistus. In 
all those waitings there is not a single sermon 
devoted to the discussion of practical alchemy, and 
yet there are those so damnably ignorant as to 
assume that Hermeticism is primarily concerned 
w^ith the physical side of the Magnum Opus. To 
those who hold this view we can only reply that 
Hermeticism is a complete philosophy of life, it 
represents absolute truth. It begins with religion, 
it is essentially a system of theology, it has next its 
metaphysical side, closely connected with the the- 
ological element; it is philosophical, it is also 
metaphysical, it has its peculiar psychology. It is 

7 

8 

THE HERMETIC ART 

related to the whole body of the Kosmos and all 
that proceeds from it, which of course includes 
Alchemy. But Alchemy is merely one of the sci- 
ences which Hermes Trismegistus was very care- 
ful to point out should not be confounded with 
philosophy and Hermes announced himself to be a 
teacher of philosophy primarily. His discussion 
of the sciences was merely incidental to his work 
of propounding philosophical religion. The 
Metaphysics of Alchemy always precedes the 
Physics of Alchemy even when we come to dis- 
cuss the alchemical aspect of the Hermetic Art. 
Therefore in the succeeding course of lessons 
which will immediately follow these we propose 
to discuss the Philosophy of Alchemy, this will be 
followed by a course in the Science of Alchemy, 
this in turn by one in the Speculative Art of 
Alchemy and the seventh volume of the series will 
be the first to deal with the Practical Art of 
Alchemy. 

It may be said that one cannot consummate 
Practical Alchemy until one has first understood 
Kosmical Alchemy, — that is to say the Alchemy 
which is perpetually going on in Kosmos. After 
this he must understand Mental Alchemy, or the 
Alchemy operating within the mind through 
which thoughts are generated and through which 
thought is transmuted, then he must understand 
the Alchemy of the soul and after these the 
Alchemy of the physical body. Furthermore he 
must have accomplished the Alchemy of his own 
mind, soul and body before he can accomplish the 
Physical Alchemy which is related to the trans- 
mutation of metals; therefore it is necessary to 
understand the Metaphysics of Alchemy before 
one attempts to concentrate his attention on the 
physical aspect of practical alchemy. 

This work is not only to be viewed in the sense 
of a treatise on the Hermetic Art and an intro- 

THE HERMETIC ART 

9 

duction to the Philosophy of Alchemy, it is in fact 
the official text book of the Hermetic Brotherhood 
on that subject. There have been a great many 
works on Alchemy written by those who knew 
absolutely nothing of what they were talking 
about, but in our Hermetic Art we are giving you 
the official authorized text book of the Brother- 
hood dealing with the Hermetic Art, and like- 
wise their official authorized introduction to the 
study of the Philosophy of Alchemy, but in addi- 
tion to this the book will also be found to contain 
the text of three of the sermons of Hermes Tris- 
megistus together with the official commentary 
unfolding their Esoteric meaning. These ser- 
mons are the ones entitled, "The Greatest 111 
Among Men Is Ignorance of God, That no one of 
existing things doth perish but men in error speak 
of their changes as destructions and as deaths, and 
the sermon on Thought and Sense, That the beau- 
tiful and the good is in God only and elsewhere 
nowhere." Those who do not desire to study the 
Hermetic Art or to enter into the study of Alchemy 
will nevertheless find the lessons interesting as 
they constitute the official and authoritative com- 
mentary on these three sermons. One should not 
attempt to read the future books on Alchemy with- 
out thoroughly mastering the contents of Philo- 
sophia Hermetica, Scientific Hermetica and the 
Hermetic Art. We present this effort to our read- 
ers and friends with the hope that it may interest 
them to look more deeply into the rich mine of 
occult, mystic and philosophical lore which is con- 
tained in the writings of Thrice Greatest Hermes. 
In giving forth this book we feel that we have dis- 
charged an obligation which rested upon us to give 
to the vv^orld the absolute truth in regard to the 
three heads of Hermetic teaching, Philosophia 
Hermetica, Scientific Hermetica and the Hermetic 
Art. In doing this we have placed all without 

10 

THE HERMETIC ART 

excuse, who fall for the mediocre unofficial pub- 
lications that are put forth from time to time by 
novices who know absolutely nothing of what 
they are writing. By giving this official informa- 
tion we have provided the world with the standard 
text books of the three heads of Hermetic knowl- 
edge. It is to be hoped that they will make good 
use of them, at any rate they are provided with 
accurate information in regard to the subject. 

With the publication of this volume we will 
have provided students with a complete introduc- 
tion to all departments of the Hermetic Gnosis. 
This was the work which we assigned ourselves in 
the beginning and having accomplished the task 
we have now equipped the reader with all the 
preliminary instructions which he requires for 
boldly entering into the study of alchemy. It is 
to be trusted that those who have understood our 
teaching will have the boldness to go into this field 
of Creative work, 

A. S. RALEIGH. 

Columbus, Ohio, July 1, 1916. 

The Hermetic Art 

The Greatest El Among Men Is Ignorance of God 

TEXT 

Parthey (G.), Hermetic Trismegisti Poe- 

mander (Berlin, 1854), 54-55. 
Patrizzi (F.), Nova de Univerns Philoso- 

phia (Venice, 1593), 18a. 
Mead (G, R. S.), Thrice Greatest Hermes 

(London, 1906), Corpus Hermeticum 

VII (VIII). 

1. Whither stumble ye, sots, who have 
sopped up the wine of ignorance unmixed, 
and can so far not carry it that ye already 
even spew it forth? 

Stay ye, be sober, gaze upwards with the 
[true] eyes of the heart! And if ye cannot 
all, yet ye at least who can! 

For that the ill of ignorance doth pour o'er 
all the earth and overwhelm the soul that's 
battened down within the body, preventing 
it from fetching port within Salvation's har- 
bours. 

2. Be then not carried off by the fierce 
flood, but using the shore-current, ye who 
can, make for Salvation's port, and, har- 
bouring there, seek ye for one to take you by 
the hand and lead you unto, Gnosis' gates. 

n 

12 

THE HERMETIC ART 

Where shines clear Light, of every dark- 
ness clean; where not a single soul is drunk, 
but sober all they gaze with their heart's 
eyes on Him who willeth to be seen. 

No ear can hear Him, nor can eye see 
Him, nor tongue speak of Him, but [only] 
mind and heart. 

But first thou must tear off from thee the 
cloak which thou dost wear, — the web of 
ignorance, the ground of bad, corruption's 
chain, the carapace of darkness, the living 
death, sensation's corpse, the tomb thou car- 
riest with thee, the robber in thy house, who 
through the things he loveth, hateth thee, 
and through the things he hateth, bears thee 
malice. 

3. Such is the hateful cloak thou wear- 
est, — that throttles thee [and holds thee] 
down to it, in order that thou may 'st not 
gaze above, and, having seen the Beauty of 
the Truth, and Good that dwells therein, 
detest the bad of it; having found out the 
plot that it hath schemed against thee, by 
making void of sense those seeming things 
which men think senses. 

For that it hath with mass of matter 
blocked them up and crammed them full of 
loathsome lust, so that thou may'st not hear 
about the things that thou should'st hear, 
nor see the things that thou should'st see. 

LESSON I 

The 111 of Ignorance 

1. Wither stumble ye, sots, who have 
sopped up the wine of ignorance unmixed, 
and can so far not carry it that ye already 
even spew it forth? 

Stay ye, be sober, gaze upwards with the 
[true] eyes of the heart! And if ye cannot 
all, yet ye at least who can ! 

For that the ill of ignorance doth pour 
o'er all the earth and overwhelm the soul 
that's battened down within the body, pre- 
venting it from fetching port within Salva- 
tion's harbors. 

This sermon is in the nature of an impassioned 
appeal to the people to refrain from the drunken- 
ness of ignorance and turn their attention to the 
truth. It is in the nature of a preaching an evan- 
gelical preachment of the beauty of Gnosis ver- 
sus the ugliness and degradation of the life of the 
senses. In order to make the lesson the more 
impressive he compares the people to sots who are 
continually in a state of intoxication, who stumble 
through life dependent entirely on the testimony 
of their senses for guidance. It is very graphically 
expressed. He begins by inquiring Whither stum- 
ble ye? In other words, they are described as 
stumbling through life in a state of intoxication. 
He terms them sots, and asserts they have sopped 
up the wine of ignorance unmixed. Ignorance is 
here compared to a steady diet of wine, because 
the effect of ignorance is to produce a state of 
mental and spiritual intoxication very similar to 

13 

14 

THE HERMETIC ART 

the state of intoxication produced by over-indul- 
gence in wine. Ignorance is thus viewed as a posi- 
tive intoxicant; a poison having the effect of cloud- 
ing the mind so that it is incapable of thinking 
clearly. He states that this wine of ignorance is 
unmixed. That is to say there is not a j)article of 
truth in what they are imbibing. There being no 
mixture of truth in the wine of ignorance their 
souls are entirely dominated by the intoxication 
growing out of this unmixed wine of ignorance. 
He further says that they can so far not carry it, 
that they already even spew it forth. In other 
words the mind, saturated by the wine of ignorance 
is incapable of retaining its own supply of ignor- 
ance but spews it forth similar to the drunkard 
spewing forth the overabundance of wine which 
he has taken. By this he means that the ignorance 
intoxicated man gives expression to no thought, 
word or deed but what springs directly from 
ignorance. In other words, no good, true or 
logical statement can ever by any possibility 
emanate from the consciousness of one intoxicated 
by ignorance. His statements will all be untrue, 
his deeds will all be evil, his thoughts will all be 
irrational. He leads a life expressive of pure and 
unadulterated ignorance, because all his thinking 
has been inspired by ignorance. We must under- 
stand this matter in its true light; that is to say, 
we must get a true understanding of his usage of 
the term ignorance. 

Hermes, being a metaphysician and a tran- 
scendentalist, takes the common position of all such 
philosophers, that the senses always lead one 
astray; that our facts are all of them absolutely 
untrue; that the testimony of the senses is invari- 
ably misleading; consequently any view that 
springs from the testimony of the senses will be 
in the very nature of things misleading. As long 
as one's thinking is in terms of sense perception he 

THE HERMETIC ART 

15 

will gain an erroneous view of the universe, of life, 
of experience, of the whole cosmogony of being. 
This false view of the nature of things is what he 
terms ignorance. It is viewed as a fK>sitive force 
because of the positive effect which it has upon the 
soul. So long as one's thinking is in terms of the 
senses, that is, so long as this ignorance or illusion 
binds ones thinking, he will be in a state of intoxi- 
cation, seeing that it will be utterly impossible for 
him ever to think correctly, that is in accordance 
with the truth; because this ignorance induced by 
the senses, this false mental attitude, precludes the 
possibility of logical, rational thinking and one is 
intoxicated by it. His mind is deceived by the 
false images which his senses present to it. So 
that the mind, being clouded and befuddled in this 
way, causes him to speak and act in a false and 
illogical manner. Therefore the question is, 
Whither stumble ye? In other words, in what 
direction is your drunken stumbling leading you? 
It is very much in the nature of a rebuke to a 
drunkard when we put it in the form of a ques- 
tion and ask him where this continual drunkenness 
is going to lead him. It is as though to ask the 
drunkard where he expected to get off at if he 
kept it up. It is this form of interrogative rebuke 
that is administered. The question is, what will 
be the goal of anyone who continues in this state 
of intoxication, being continually made drunk by 
ignorance without receiving the light of truth. 

Next he admonishes them to stay, to be sober, 
to gaze upwards with the true eyes of the heart. 
Having indicated the evil tendency of their drunk- 
enness, which simply means a state of conscious- 
ness induced by the testimony of the senses, he next 
admonishes them to halt in this course of degen- 
eracy, to stop and consider, to reckon w4th them- 
selves. He admonishes them to be sober. Now as 
drunkenness is a condition resulting from the sop- 

16 

THE HERMETIC ART 

ping up of the wine of ignorance sobriety of course 
can consist only in abstaining from imbibing the 
wine of ignorance. The wine of ignorance being 
the term used to indicate that state of mind grow- 
ing out of the testimony of the senses, it follows 
that sobriety can only mean the discarding or 
rejection of the testimony of the senses and a state 
of consciousness growing out of the exercise of the 
Pure Reason independent of all sense perception. 
This Pure Reason will therefore enlighten the 
understanding, purging out the mind of ignor- 
ance induced by the testimony of the senses, and 
hence will develop a balanced rational state of 
mind which he describes as sober. Next he admon- 
ishes them to gaze upwards with the true eyes of 
the heart. In other words, he is clearly enunciat- 
ing the doctrine of the heart versus the doctrine of 
the eyes. The heart is used here with reference to 
the devotional side of ones being working in con- 
junction with the Reason, the Gnostic heart in 
other words. The eyes of the heart refer to the 
soul sense, to that sense which is not discernible 
through the physical senses but is rather a faculty 
of the soul ; something closely united to intuition 
but yet somewhat different. And then admonishes 
them to gaze upward, that this soul sense can, 
through this, come in contact with reality instead 
of the illusion of the senses. This attitude of con- 
tact with reality through the testimony of the Rea- 
son, the eyes of the heart, produces the sober mind 
rather than the intoxication of ignorance, and in 
this way ignorance is purged out of the soul. 
Realizing that it is impossible for all mankind to 
heed his advice, that some souls are so undeveloped 
that they can only feed upon ignorance, and in 
fact that ignorance gives them an opportunity for 
evolution which they would not otherwise have, 
seeing that they can thrive on no other diet, he does 
not try to persuade all to abstain from ignorance, 

THE HERMETIC ART 

17 

and the drunkenness which it induces, but calls 
upon all who have the capacity to do this, all who 
are able to at least follow his advice and look 
upwards. Hence it is to be observed that the 
Hermetic message is not directed to the multitude 
but rather to those scattered within the multitude 
w^ho are capable of grasping a thought of the 
higher life. 

For that the ill of ignorance doth pour 
o'er all the earth and overwhelm the soul 
that's battened down within the body, pre- 
venting it from fetching port within Salva- 
tion's harbors. 

The ill of ignorance relates to the consequences 
or effects of ignorance, the evil growing out of it, 
and also to ignorance itself as an ill. It is stated 
that this pours o'er all the earth. In other words, 
there is nothing in the sensible w^orld but what con- 
tributes to the development of this ill of ignorance. 
In other words, all objects of the senses engender 
sensations which in turn produce ignorance in the 
human mind. Therefore the earth is completely 
covered wdth this ill of ignorance inasmuch as all 
objects in the world directly induce ignorance in 
the human consciousness. It overwhelms the soul 
that's battened down within the body. That is to 
say all souls resident in the body, all incarnate 
souls, are influenced by this ill of ignorance because 
their corporeal senses are controlled and domi- 
nated by the objects of sense. These senses cause 
distorted images of those objects to be reflected in 
the mind in terms of corresponding mental impres- 
sions. Therefore all souls resident w^ithin the body 
are influenced by the testimony of the senses so that 
the soul is ovenvhelmed by this force of ignorance, 
is controlled by it, and is unable to express itself 
against this force of the obvious. It is this over- 

18 

THE HERMETIC ART 

whelming of the soul by ignorance that prevents 
it from fetching port within Salvation^s harbors. 
In other words, the soul is described as a vessel at 
sea. Tossed about upon the waves of ignorance 
Salvation is the harbor to which it is bound, but 
it is unable to fetch port within the harbors of Sal- 
vation because it is overwhelmed by ignorance 
due to its residence in the body. He therefore 
very clearly indicates what he means by salvation. 
Inasmuch as ignorance induced by sense percep- 
tion is that which keeps the soul from reaching sal- 
vation, it follows that salvation is the state result- 
ing from a repudiation of the testimony of the 
senses. In other words, in order to reach Salvation 
the soul must through Reason rise above the testi- 
mony of the senses, must break away from the ideal 
world of sense induced thought and reach a con- 
sciousness of reality. In other words. Salvation is 
the state of mind growing out of knowledge of the 
truth rather than the facts indicated by the senses. 
So long, therefore, as anyone takes the testimony 
of his senses seriously, or gives credit to the 
thoughts induced by the senses Salvation is impos- 
sible. It therefore follows that Salvation is a state 
of consciousness directly the reverse of the ordi- 
nary human consciousness, the consciousness grow- 
ing out of the testimony of the senses. It is an 
ideal consciousness rather than a sensible con- 
sciousness, or a sensuous consciousness, that is 
termed Salvation. The whole preaching of our 
sermon is an exhortation to strive to overcome the 
testimony of the senses, though abiding within the 
body, and reach the pure plane of truth. 

2. Be then not carried off by the fierce 
flood, but using the shore-current, ye who 
can, make for Salvation's port, and, harbor- 
ing there, seek ye for one to take you by the 
hand and lead unto Gnosis' gates. 

THE HERMETIC ART 

19 

Where shines clear light, of every dark- 
ness clean ; where not a single soul is drunk, 
but sober all they gaze with their heart's 
eyes on Him who willeth to be seen. 

Where no ear can hear him, nor can eye 
see him, nor tongue speak of him, but [only] 
mind and heart. 

But first thou must tear off from thee the 
cloak which thou dost wear, — the web of 
ignorance, the ground of bad. Corruption's 
chain, the carapace of darkness, the living 
death, sensation's corpse, the tomb thou car- 
riest with thee, the robber in thy house, who 
through the things he loveth, hateth thee, 
and through the things he hateth, bears thee 
malice. 

Be then not carried off by the fierce flood, 
but using the shore-current, ye who can, 
make for Salvation's port, and, harboring 
there, seek ye for one to take you by the hand 
and lead you into Gnosis' gates. 

Here he describes the force of ignorance as a 
fierce flood, that is as a swift flowing stream, the 
main current of a stream, which carries one out to 
sea, as it were, leading him entirely away from 
the true reason and consciousness of things. A cur- 
rent against which no one can pull. Nevertheless 
he urges those to whom he appeals to not be car- 
ried off by this fierce flood but overcome it, and 
he assures them that it is possible to do this by 
using the shore-current. That is to say, the back 
or up-current which is caused by the swift flowing 
of the current; the back current being induced, 
and which tends to flow upstream near the shore. 

20 

THE HERMETIC ART 

The advice therefore is to struggle to get out of 
the swift current and bring one's bark within the 
back or shore current, so that one may drift to 
shore. In this way it is possible to make for Sal- 
vation's port. The imagery here is very graphic, 
and yet it does not appear to be so very difficult 
to understand. He describes the life of sense 
induced thought, that is the life naturally growing 
out of one's mode of thinking, when that mode of 
thinking is induced by the testimony of the senses. 
This mode of life is likened to being adrift in the 
current of a swift flowing stream. Nevertheless 
from that there is a shore current which leads one 
away from the testimony of the senses, and this 
shore current is nothing more nor less than the 
faculty of analytical reasoning. Using the shore 
current means nothing more nor less than exercis- 
ing ones faculty for analysis, — striving to get back 
of appearances and come in contact with reality. 
Salvation's port is the landing place from the river 
of ignorance, hence it relates to that stage of one's 
consciousness where a basis for clear thinking has 
been realized, where one begins to develop a 
philosophical concept entirely independent of the 
testimony of the senses. In other words, Salva- 
tion's port is the metaphysical concept. When one 
has reached that stage where he thinks from the 
metaphysical rather than from the sensory, or 
obvious, or physical standpoint he has entered Sal- 
vation's port. 

The next instruction is to harbor there. By 
entering the port and harboring there he means to 
live temporarily in this metaphysical port, this 
port of the metaphysical view of life. In other 
words, to continue to study and contemplate life 
from the metaphysical point of view. Next, seek 
for one to take you by the hand and lead you into 
Gnosis' gates. He takes the position that to change 
one's views of life from that induced by the senses 

THE HERMETIC ART 

21 

to the metaphysical, and to maintain that meta- 
physical view of life, is about as far as one can go 
by his own effort. In other words, Hermes was 
not a believer in the idea that one could look within 
and find the truth. He does not believe that it was 
advisable for anyone to try to attain the Gnosis 
by development dependent upon himself. He did 
not consider that there was any inner voice that 
could lead one to the consciousness of truth, but 
rather held that the metaphysical view of things 
was about as far as one could go without assistance. 
When one had reached this stage Hermes advised 
him to seek for an Initiate who understood the 
higher teachings, who understood the nature of 
things to a great extent, who would lead him into 
the gates of Gnosis. Mind you, he does not say, 
who w^ould give him Gnosis, for no teacher can 
impart Gnosis to any human being. All the 
teacher can do is to teach philosophy from the 
standpoint of the Reason through analysis, to bring 
one's soul to that stage of development where he 
is able to reach the gates of Gnosis. Hence he 
advised everyone who had entered Salvation's 
port to remain in that state of mind, not striving 
to go beyond it until he had found a Master who 
was able through teaching to prepare him for 
Gnosis. 

Where shines clear Light, of every dark- 
ness clean; where not a single soul is drunk, 
but sober all they gaze with their heart's 
eyes on Him who willeth to be seen. 

In this paragraph we have a description of the 
Gnosis. In the first place, there shines clear Light. 
By this he does not mean physical light, nor yet 
cosmic light, but rather does he mean that divine 
ray of light from which mind proceeds. And this 
clear Divine Light shines in the place of Gnosis. 

22 

THE HERMETIC ART 

Within the gates of Gnosis. It is one of the condi- 
tions precedent to the attainment of Gnosis. This 
Light is clean of every darkness, for here in this 
Light there is nothing but the pure undivided 
Divine Light which shines into the soul of the 
aspirant illuminating his consciousness with this 
clear Divine Light. Where not a single soul is 
drunk, for the simple reason that this Light dispels 
all darkness, all ignorance, causing the light to 
reflect the perfect truth and thus leaving no space 
for ignorance. The soul being clearly illumined 
by the Divine Light is not drunk but sober. All 
souls bathed in this Light must be free of ignor- 
ance, and therefore in a state of soberness result- 
ing from the clear consciousness of truth. So that 
all gaze with their heart's eyes; that is with the 
perception of their souls, with their soul sense, on 
Him who willeth to be seen, that is upon the Abso- 
lute, unmanifest God. The soul sense of the 
Gnosis is therefore able to give him a clear view 
of the unmanifest God, the God beyond all name. 
He it is who is the subject of their contemplation. 

Where no ear can hear Him, nor can eye 
see Him, nor tongue speak of Him, but 
[only] mind and heart. 

God cannot be approached through the medium 
of the senses. He cannot be heard, neither can He 
be seen, neither can He be described by words of 
speech. God is therefore entirely removed from 
the plane of the senses. He can only be seen, heard 
and spoken of by mind and heart. That is to say, 
only through intelligence and devotion is it pos- 
sible for one to deal with God. Language cannot 
describe Him, we can only think of Him, and the 
heart's devotion can alone grasp His nature. 
Therefore God must be worshiped in thought and 
the devotion of the heart. Hence the Gnostic 

THE HERMETIC ART 

23 

must be one whose mind is capable of thinking 
independently of the testimony of the senses. It 
must work entirely apart from the senses, dealing 
in the problem from altogether a different angle. 
In other words, it is a pure, metaphysical, mystical 
contemplation of mind and heart directed unto 
the consideration of the nature of God. The train- 
ing one receives from the Master is in reality to 
develop this faculty of which we are speaking, the 
faculty for the independent operation of the mind 
and heart when entirely divested of the testimony 
of the senses. 

But first thou must tear off from thee the 
cloak which thou dost wear, — the web of 
ignorance, the ground of bad, corruption's 
chain, the carapace of darkness, the living 
death, sensation's corpse, the tomb thou car- 
riest with thee, the robber in thy house, who 
through the things he loveth, hateth tliee, 
and through the things he hateth, bears thee 
malice. 

In this paragraph he denounces the body, and 
announces that before one can reach this gnostic 
state he must tear off from him the cloak which 
he wears. This cloak which is worn by the soul 
is the body. First of all he denounces it as the 
web of ignorance, because of the fact that it com- 
municates nothing true to the soul, it lies about 
everything — that is the physical senses misrepre- 
sent things. Next, it is the ground of bad, for 
nothing good can be expressed in the physical 
body. It is the ground of bad. We do all things 
because of the process of generation which goes 
on in the production of the body, we do all things 
because we have physical bodies. It is utterly 
impossible for the good to grow out of the physical. 

24 

THE HERMETIC ART 

Next, corruption's chain, that is to say the chain 
of corruption by which we are bound. The con- 
tinual process of corruption which goes on because 
of the presence of the body. The carapace of 
darkness, because the bodily senses shut out the 
light, causing us to be guided by false testimony, 
by false sensations. Thus the body shuts out the 
light and binds us to darkness. The living death, 
because the body going through the process of cor- 
ruption, of transition, continually dies. Our life 
is but a sequence of deaths. Sensation's corpse, 
that is the corpse through which the senses oper- 
ate, the corpse produced by sensation. Every man 
is really dead so long as he is governed by the 
senses. He only lives when they are overcome. 
The tomb thou carriest with thee. The body is 
described as the tomb in which the soul is buried. 
The robber in thy house. The body and its 
physical sensations rob one of the soul's life, 
because so long as the corporeal and sensuous life 
is led it is utterly impossible to lead the spiritual 
life. Who through the things he loveth, hateth 
thee. Remember the one addressed here is the 
soul always, and the body, through the things it 
loves, hates the soul, because it strives after phys- 
ical gratification and thus prevents the spiritual 
gratification of the soul. And through the things 
he hateth, bears thee malice. In other words, all 
the antipathies of the body are malicious because 
of the attitude which they have upon the soul. 

While this paragraph deals with the body as the 
subject of its denunciation, the bodily life, yet there 
is a secondary meaning. It is not merely the body 
that is here used in its physical senses but we have 
also a sort of mystical body of sensation that we 
have to take into consideration, and that is perhaps 
the more important of the two. Because he states 
that first we must tear off the cloak which we wear 
before we can enter the gates of Gnosis. Now if 

THE HERMETIC ART 

25 

this related only to the physical body it would 
mean that no one could attain Gnosis until he died, 
but the whole tenor of Hermetic teaching is the 
urging of people to attain Gnosis while they are 
yet alive. Therefore this cannot refer so much to 
the physical body as to a sort of mystical body of 
sensation, which will really mean the cloak that 
he speaks of here. In this sense the web of ignor- 
ance would relate to a web woven by ignorant 
thinking, which binds the mind as in a spider's 
web, so to speak; a pall, a curtain, that incloses 
the mind and soul, preventing them from seeing 
beyond it. This must be torn off first,— the web 
of ignorance — and we must destroy the web of 
ignorance by destroying ignorance with knowl- 
edge. The ground of bad, that is, the foundation 
from which bad proceeds. As bad is the result of 
genesis it will follow that to tear away the ground 
of bad will mean to cause the fruit of ignorance 
to be no longer borne. That is to prevent our 
previous ignorant thinking from bringing forth 
fruit, from generating offspring in the form of 
consciousness and deed. Corruption's chain must 
also be torn off, that is to say the sequence of cor- 
ruption which is operating within our being, this 
must be torn away by entirely separating in our 
consciousness the soul life from the bodily life. 
No one can escape the chain of corruption so long 
as he looks upon the physical body as being him- 
self. The self must be identified with the soul, and 
when the soul has been identified as the self, the 
body being no longer recognized as an integral 
part of the self, corruption's chain will cease to 
affect the soul. In other words, we must cease to 
believe in corruption and death and assert our 
immortality, and in this way corruption's chain is 
torn off. We must tear off the carapace of dark- 
ness. We must refuse to dwell in the dark. We 
must open our souls to the shining of the light, thus 

26 

THE HERMETIC ART 

escaping the shell of darkness induced by ignor- 
ance and carnality of mind. The living death 
must be torn away by consciously living not in 
time but in eternity, by realizing the eternity of the 
soul's nature. We must cease to function in sen- 
sation's corpse by repudiating the testimony of the 
senses; by thinking not in terms of sense percep- 
tion or experience, but in terms of the Pure Rea- 
son. No one can escape the corpse of sensation so 
long as he believes in the testimony of his senses. 
By repudiating the testimony of the senses, by 
refusing to accept it as true, by thinking rather in 
terms of eternal truth through the Pure Reason 
of the soul, one is able to cast aside sensation's 
corpse and live the spiritual life w^hile still in the 
body.. The tomb thou carriest with thee, is noth- 
ing more nor less than the life which one leads, 
his consciousness being bounded by the testimony 
of the senses. This leads to a belief in death and 
the belief in death entombs the soul in mortality, 
consequently the soul abiding in this mortal tomb, 
is shut ofif from the true life. The robber in thy 
house, is this belief in mortality induced by sensa- 
tion, in other words, the mental attitude which 
sensation induces — such mental attitude robs the 
soul of its true life, in that it renders it impossible 
for the soul to be conscious of its true attributes 
seeing that the human consciousness is made up 
entirely of dying things, of the changes and transi- 
tions which the objects of sense indicate. This 
robber in the house which we have thus indicated 
hates the soul through the very things he loves. 
That is to say, as long as the consciousness is made 
up of the testimony of the senses, of ignorance, it 
will be antagonistic to every aspect of the true soul 
life, being entirely against the life of the soul, com- 
pletely destroying whatever of the soul life tends 
to manifest itself, and these antipathies, that is the 
antipathies of the senses, befog the mind and are 

THE HERMETIC ART 

27 

really antipathetic to the life of the soul. What- 
ever the sense induced consciousness opposes is in 
reality a true attribute of the soul life; therefore 
we are able to see that the cloak here spoken of 
is not only the physical body but is a sort of sub- 
jective body growing out of the direct action of 
the senses, a body of illusion, a body of ignorance, 
which must be overcome by the mind freeing itself 
from the illusions of the senses, and that until this 
has been consummated it is utterly impossible for 
the first gleam of Gnosis to enter the consciousness. 
Hence to tear off this cloak while yet in the body 
means that the soul must become entirely independ- 
ent of all influences exercised by the body. The 
soul must become the positive pole and the body 
merely the expression on the physical plane of the 
soul life. So long as the body is the vehicle for 
the physical plane, it is the cloak of ignorance. 
It only ceases to be this when it becomes the vehicle 
for the soul operating upon the physical plane, 
but is in no sense influenced by the physical plane. 
Only in this way is one freed from the cloak of 
ignorance and enabled to enter the gnostic path. 
The path of true enlightenment. Such an one is 
in fact a spirit rather than a body. He is just as 
much a freed spirit as he is when he permanently 
leaves the body. 

LESSON II 

The Limitations of the Body 

3. Such is the hateful cloak thou wear- 
est, — that throttles thee [and holds thee] 
down to it, in order that thou mayst not 
gaze above, and, having seen the Beauty of 
the Truth, and Good, that dwells therein, 
detest the bad of it; having found out the 
plot that it has schemed against thee, by 
making void of sense those seeming things 
which men think senses. 

For that it hath with mass of matter 
blocked them up and crammed them full of 
loathsome lust, so that thou mayst not hear 
about the things that thou shouldst hear, nor 
see the things that thou shouldst see. 

In order to understand this it must be thor- 
oughly borne in mind that the soul and body are 
clearly differentiated the one from the other. The 
soul, in the Hermetic writing, is always spoken of 
as the personality, the body is something separate 
and distinct that is made use of by the soul during 
its incarnate life and at the same time greatly 
hampers the life of the soul. Therefore the ''thou" 
spoken of here does not include the body but repre- 
sents the soul as separate and distinct from the 
body. This soul, however, is not to be conceived of 
as an impersonal ego but rather as the true per- 
sonality; therefore he speaks of the body as the 
hateful cloak thou v/earest. That is to say not 
only the physical body but to a certain extent the 
false personality induced by the body. The body 
and everything springing from it are described as 

29 

30 

THE HERMETIC ART 

3. hateful cloak. This cloak, the body and its false 
personality, throttle the soul and holds it down to 
it, the body, thus preventing the soul from realiz- 
ing its own true life, compelling it to function 
physically, forcing it to realize a purely physical 
life only, and thus preventing it from gazing above 
and seeing the Beauty and Truth and Good that 
dwells in the realm above, preventing the soul from 
detesting the bad of the lower life and preventing 
it from finding out the plot that the body has 
schemed against the soul by making void of sense 
those seeming things which men think sense so 
that one is unable to rise above this limitation of 
the body. This is the real crux of the situation; 
the fact that the senses are in reality void of sense; 
what the senses indicate in reality — containing the 
true sense. To understand this doctrine one must 
bear in mind the doctrine of Kosmic Sense as 
enunciated by Hermes. This doctrine of Kosmic 
Sense holds to the view that there is in nature, or 
in Kosmos, a principle which is termed Kosmic 
Sense, and which is really the depositary of all 
things sensible; that in a certain sense Kosmos is 
through certain senses made aware of the existence 
of all things sensible, and in fact that the sensibles 
are the direct product of the Kosmic sense. To 
understand this more accurately we must bear in 
mind that the sensibles are the product of a cre- 
ative force. Now Hermes teaches that the Kosmos 
is not only endowed with thought but also with 
sense, and that it is the perceptive faculty of the 
Kosmos that produces the sensibles. In other 
words, Kosmic sense, far from being a Kosmic fac- 
ulty for the perception of things already existent, 
is rather that sense which enables Kosmic thought 
to become visible to the Kosmos, a sort of imag- 
ing or visualizing faculty with which Kosmos is 
endowed ; this visualizing or imaging faculty 
enabling Kosmos to give form to its thought, thus 

THE HERMETIC ART 

31 

causing Kosmic thoughts to manifest correspond- 
ing images, which in this way, through such imag- 
ing or visualizing of Kosmis, become definite 
forms. In this way are all things brought into 
being through Kosmic sense. Thus all sensibles 
are created by sense. Now the theory here taken 
is, that it is only those things perceived into 
existence by Kosmic sense that really are, and that 
really possess sense. The things which men call 
sense are in reality void of sense in this Kosmic 
sense of the term. The reason is, this Kosmic sense 
brings into manifestation the things that are, while 
the senses of man give to him distorted images, 
caricatures or pictures of those things, which 
images or pictures are never accurate. What he 
pleads for is that soul sense w^hich, when devel- 
oped, will enable man to unite this sense of his 
w^ith Kosmic sense and thereby sense the things as 
they are instead of things as they seem. A sense 
that will enable one to grasp noumena instead of 
phenomena. His indictment against the body is, 
in reality that the bodily senses by presenting dis- 
torted images of things prevent one from seeing the 
things as they are ; therefore by giving a man a 
false sense they prevent him from attaining the 
true sense. Therefore he accuses the body of schem- 
ing a plot against man to deceive him, and we are 
only able to discover this plot when through the 
awakening of the true sense we have made void of 
sense those seeming things which men think senses, 
that is to say by discovering that the testimony of 
the senses is in reality void of true sense. Our com- 
mon sense is therefore seen to be utterly senseless, 
because common sense is that attitude of mind 
w^hich grows out of the testimony of the senses and 
out of all the experiences which we derive through 
them. This being the case it w^U follow that com- 
mon sense w411 be as erroneous as the testimony of 
the senses, through which it is derived. In other 

32 

THE HERMETIC ART 

words, common sense is at all times absolutely 
void of sense. In order therefore for one to see 
the Beauty of the Truth and Good that dwells in 
the realm of the soul, one must attain the true 
sense, and this attainment of the true sense is the 
all important problem with which we have to deal. 
But it must be borne in mind that the body's senses 
stand absolutely in the way, and he is indicating 
here the great difficulty with which we have to 
deal if we would attain true sense while living in 
the body, because the body's senses are diametric- 
ally opposed to the attainment of true sense. 

For that it hath with mass of matter 
blocked them up and crammed them full of 
loathsome lust, so that thou may'st not hear 
about the things that thou should'st hear, 
nor see the things that thou should'st see. 

We now" come to consider the cause back of the 
irregularity and irresponsibility of the senses, and 
it is stated that that is because the senses have been 
blocked up with mass of matter and have been 
crammed full of loathsome lust. The first state- 
ment indicates the real cause, — they have been 
blocked up with mass of matter. And of course 
he is here aluding to the physical body and its mas- 
sive material character. In order to understand 
this we must bear in mind that all sensation and all 
impressions of every description are due to vibra- 
tion, and that vibration accomplishes its work by 
reason of the resistance which is offered to it, but 
at the same time, by reason of its ability to over- 
come such resistance. The rate of vibration will 
therefore determine the quality of such impres- 
sions. All sensation is the result of such impression 
growing out of vibration. Now it will follow 
that the more gross the matter is through which 
vibration moves the less rapid will be the rate of 

THE HERMETIC ART 

33 

vibration which can possibly move through such 
matter^ hence it will follow that the vibration 
emanating from the body, or set in motion in the 
ether by such body, will not be able to freely 
express itself through any medium more gross in 
its atomic and molecular structures than is the 
ether itself. All vibratory waves, even of a phys- 
ical nature, passing through the ether, will take on 
the etheric vibration, consequently should they 
contact a body more gross than the ether their 
vibration will be lowered in accordance with the 
degree of such grossness, therefore no vibration 
that passes through the body as a medium, can 
possibly represent in sensation a condition less 
gross than the body. The result will be the images 
which are indicated to consciousness through the 
medium of sensation will be images distorted by 
the grossness of the body. It at once becomes evi- 
dent that the sensations which we can possibly 
receive in the body must be very diflerent from 
those objects which originally produced those 
sensations. In order to get an understanding of 
this difference, take into consideration the electric 
light, which is produced by a current of electricity 
passing through a filament of carbon, then imagine 
this same current having to pass through an iron 
bar an inch in diameter, and you can have some 
faint idea of the difference that the body makes 
between the original vibratory force and the sensa- 
tion which we get from it. Therefore it will fol- 
low that the mass of matter through which vibra- 
tion has to pass in order to awaken physical sensa- 
tion is such that those sensations will never be 
reliable. 

Next we have the statement that the body has 
crammed the senses full of loathsome lust. This is 
an outgrowth of the mass of matter that fills the 
senses. The loathsome lust, or desires that the 
senses are full of, is the result of this material ::ram- 

34 

THE HERMETIC ART 

ming, because all vibration has to pass through this 
gross massive matter, and its form is correspond- 
ingly changed. It follows that these vibratory 
attractions which result from vibration, must com- 
pletely change their form. The gentle attraction 
which would exist between rapidly moving forces 
has become altogether different. The result is 
our desires cease to be mere attractions growing 
out of chemical affinity and become in every sense 
of the term corporeal, being influenced by the 
sensation of form, consequently sensation must 
naturally express itself in the form of loathsome 
lust. Lust is hence nothing more than the inevita- 
ble consequence of vibratory attraction operating 
through the gross physical body; hence we have 
lust because we have bodies, and, ordinarily speak- 
ing, the body is the antecedent of lust as lust is 
the legitimate consequence of the body. We have 
thus a false personality induced by those distorted 
sensations and by the lust which they engender. 
This false personality which is the avenue through 
which the average man feeds his mind through 
which all consciousness is evolved, being made up 
of distorted sensations and loathsome lust, keeps 
the soul in bond so that the soul can only grow as 
it is fed by the body and by this false physical per- 
sonality. The soul is therefore prevented from 
living its true life and is compelled to get all its 
impressions in this way. Thus it is held down by 
the body, enchained, as it were. 

The result of this condition is that one, that is 
a soul, is not able to hear about the things that he 
should hear, nor see the things that he should see. 
In other words, sight and hearing are permanently 
shut off from the true senses. Man sees not things 
as they are but as they seem to this distorted per- 
sonality, and he hears not true sounds, or true 
words, but rather those distortions which the audi- 
tory apparatus communicate to consciousness. As 

THE HERMETIC ART 

35 

the body does not permit one to either see or hear 
the true, it follows that he is shut off from reality 
and is forced to live in that realm of psychic dis- 
tortion. The soul ceases to act directly and in 
fact lives only through the psychic reactions result- 
ing from this impression of the senses. Thus it is 
merely a psychical reaction growing out of the 
distorted senses of the body. This life of psychical 
reaction is in reality the cause of practically all the 
ills with which we have to bear, and the direct 
action of the soul becomes practically impossible, 
as a result of this distorted life. From this we can 
easily reach the conclusion that the first step in the 
Hermetic Art must be the freeing of the soul from 
dependence upon the body's senses. So long as the 
soul depends upon the senses of the body it can 
never escape this condition, which is the ground 
of bad. (Dur Art, therefore, involves as its first 
step the attainment of that state of unfoldment in 
w^hich the direct action of the soul is possible. 
This is accomplished through the awakening of the 
soul sense. That sense w^hich enables the soul to 
unite itself with Kosmic sense and thus to sense 
the operations of Kosmic sense and hence see 
things as they are and not as they seem. When the 
soul's sense has been developed it must be united 
w^ith intuition, which is that faculty of the soul 
enabling it to become in a way cognizant of Kos- 
mic thoughts. Next the faculty of pure reason 
must be developed, which will enable the soul to 
analyze and synthesize the process of the Kosmic 
mind. In this way the soul becomes enabled to 
function independent of the body. To function 
in direct connection with the soul plane of the 
Kosmos. Therefore w^e have developed the direct 
action of the soul, thus freeing it from those psy- 
chical reactions growing out of the operation of 
physical sensation. When this has been accom- 
plished the soul no longer depends upon the senses 

36 

THE HERMETIC ART 

for its knowledge and its concept of the world. It 
is now emancipated from the sway of sense 
engendered consciousness, having the direct soul 
consciousness. Thus in a sense it is free, emanci- 
pated, dwelling on its own plane and there being 
fully conscious. 

After this has been attained we have then what 
is really the Great Work of the Hermetic Art, 
nam.ely, the bringing of the body into harmony 
with the soul so that the soul acts directly upon 
the body, acting from within outward unto the 
end that the body's sense, instead of reacting under 
the vibrations from without, responds to the vibra- 
tions from within, vvith the result that the soul 
sense reproduces itself through the medium of the 
body sense. Thus the body's sense, instead of act- 
ing in the usual manner, in reality dramatizes the 
soul sense. Of course in order that this state may 
be realized we have to first develop the body 
through a process of transmutation or alchemical- 
ization to the point where it will respond through 
its material atoms and molecules to the vibration 
of the soul. Of course this is never fully realized. 
However, as this process of transmutation goes on 
from day to day, it becomes more refined, more 
etherealized, more spiritualized, more subtle, until 
at last it reaches the point where it responds fairly 
well to the vibration of the soul. Thus the 
alchemy of the body is the next step in the Sacred 
Art which must be begun subsequent to the free- 
ing of the soul from dependence upon the body. It 
will therefore be seen that the process is exactly 
reversed from what it is in the ordinary mind. 
The natural man is the one in whom the bodily 
senses control the soul, feed and instruct the soul 
from without, while the Artistic man is the one in 
w^hom the soul controls and dominates the body 
and its senses, causing them to reproduce in terms 
of physical sensation the consciousness of the soul. 

THE HERMETIC ART 

37 

All processes of bodily generation are therefore 
reversed. In the Artistic man they are controlled 
in all their operations by the generative activity 
of the soul, hence they are regenerated from with- 
in. Therefore the Artistic life is very often termed 
the regenerate life while the natural life is the gen- 
erate life. This is the true key to the Hermetic 
Art as applied to the life of man. 

Many people talk about getting back to nature, 
— about the natural life, the natural man, etc., but 
in our Art there is no such ideal. As a matter of 
fact we are striving through Art to save man from 
nature, to elevate him above the plane of what 
nature will produce, and thus through the regen- 
eration of the w^hole being by the generative action 
of the soul to bring man into the higher estate; to 
make the ideal life practical by having all the 
emotions of his physical existence directly con- 
trolled by the force of ideas and ideals. This is 
the real process of Art. The Hermetic Artist is 
the one who is doing it, who is actually trans- 
muting the body in accordance with the direct 
action of the soul. In a certain sense we have here 
a substitute for civilization and culture. Civil- 
ization and culture are an effort to change the 
nature of man, to redeem him from nature, to 
develop an artificial character in place of thef 
natural character; but this is accomplished by 
civilization and culture independent of a knowl- 
edge of the soul life, independent of any concept 
of the interior life. Therefore the Hermetic Art 
produces something altogether different than does 
the force of civilization and culture, seeing that 
their efforts are from without to transform man 
into something other than his particular nature, 
w^hile by Art we have the soul redeeming the man 
from nature; producing an artificial culture that is 
purely in accordance with the spirit. This is the 
real function of the Hermetic Art, v/hich has as 

38 

THE HERMETIC ART 

its basic principle the transmutation of the body 
unto the end that it may act as the vehicle for the 
expression of the soul instead of the soul being the 
internalization of the body. 

The Hermetic Art 

That No One of Existing Things Doth Perish, 
But Men in Error Speak of Their Changes 
as Destructions and as Deaths 

TEXT 

Parthey (G.), Hermetis Trismegisti Poe- 

mander (Berlin, 1854), 56^59. 
Patrizzi (F.), Nova de Universis Philo- 

sophia (Venice, 1593), 48a, 48b. 
Mead (G. R. S.), Thrice Greatest Hermes 

(London, 1906), Corpus Hermeticum 

VIII (IX). 

1. l^Hermes^, Concerning Soul and 
Body, son, we now must speak; in what way 
Soul is deathless, and whence comes the 
activity in composing and dissolving Body. 

For there's no death for aught of things 
[that are] ; the thought [this] word conveys, 
is either void of fact, or [simply] by the 
knocking off a syllable what is called 
''death," doth stand for ''deathless." 

For death is of destruction, and nothing 
in the Cosmos is destroyed. For if Cosmos 
is second God, a life that cannot die, it can- 
not be that any part of this immortal life 
should die. All things in Cosmos are parts 

39 

40 

THE HERMETIC ART 

of Cosmos, and most of all is man, the 
rational animal. 

2. For truly first of all, eternal and tran- 
scending birth, is God the universals' 
Maker. Second is he after His image, Cos- 
mos, brought into being by Him, sustained 
and fed by Him, made deathless, as by his 
own Sire, living for aye, as ever free from 
death. 

Now that which ever-liveth, differs from 
the Eternal ; for He hath not been brought 
to being by another, and even if He hath 
been brought to being. He hath not been 
brought into being by Himself, but ever is 
brought into being. 

For the Eternal, in that It is Eternal, is 
the all. The Father is Himself eternal of 
Himself, but Cosmos hath become eternal 
and immortal by the Father. 

3. And of the matter stored beneath it, 
the Father made of it a universal body, and 
packing it together made it spherical — 
wrapping it round the life — [a sphere] 
which is immortal in itself, that doth make 
materiality eternal. 

But He, the Father, full-filled with His 
ideas, did sow the lives into the sphere, and 
shut them in as in a cave, willing to order 
forth the life with every kind of living. 

So He with deathlessness enclosed the uni- 
versal body, that matter might not wish to 
separate itself from body's composition, and 
so dissolve into its own [original] unorder. 

THE HERMETIC ART 

41 

For matter, son, when it was yet incorpo- 
rate, was in unorder. And it doth still 
retain down here this [nature of unorder] 
envolving the rest of the small lives — that 
increase-and-decrease which men call death. 

4. It is round earthly lives that this 
unorder doth exist. For that the bodies of 
the heavenly ones preserve one order allotted 
to them from the Father as their rule ; and it 
is by the restoration of each one [of them] 
this order is preserved indissolute. 

The ''restoration" then of bodies on the 
earth is [thus their] composition, whereas 
their dissolution restores them to those 
bodies which can never be dissolved, that is 
to say, w^hich know no death. Privation, 
thus, of sense is brought about, not loss of 
bodies. 

5. Now the third life — Man, after the 
image of the Cosmos made, [and] having 
mind, after the Father's will, beyond all 
earthly lives — not only doth have feeling 
with the second God, but also hath concep- 
tion of the first; for of the one 'tis sensible 
as of a body, while of the other it conceives 
as bodieless and the Good Mind. 

Tat. Doth then this life not perish? 

Her, Hush, son! and understand what 
God, what Cosmos [is], what is a life that 
cannot die, and what a life subject to disso- 
lution. 

42 

THE HERMETIC ART 

Yea, understand the Cosmos is by God 
and in God; but Man by Cosmos and in 
Cosmos. 

The source and limit and the constitution 
of all things is God. 

LESSON III 

Soul and Body 

1. {Hermes): Concerning Soul and 
Body, son, we now must speak; in what way 
Soul is deathless, and whence comes the 
activity in composing and dissolving Body. 

For there's no death for aught of things 
[that are] ; the thought [this] word conveys, 
is either void of Body, or [simply] by the 
knocking off of a syllable what is called 
[death], doth stand for [deathless]. 

For death is of destruction, and nothing 
in the Cosmos is destroyed. For if Cosmos 
is second God, a life that cannot die, it can- 
not be that any part of this immortal life 
should die. All things in Cosmos are parts 
of Cosmos and most of all is man, the 
rational animal. 

{Hermes) : Concerning Soul and Body, 
son, we now must speak; in what way Soul 
is deathless, and whence comes the activity 
in composing and dissolving Body. 

The subject of this sermon is the relation of the 
soul and the body. Both principles are introduced 
into the discussion. The discussion relates itself 
to the way in which the soul is deathless, or immor- 
tal, and the sources of the activity composing and 
dissolving the body. We therefore find that the 
subject involved here is the immortal or deathless 
nature of the soul taken in conjunction with the 
mortality and transformations of the body. He 

43 

44 

THE HERMETIC ART 

indicates that there is an activity operating in the 
body which both composes and dissolves the body. 
Hence it follows that it is the same activity that 
composes or constructs the body that also dissolves 
it. We must therefore see in physical dissolution 
or so-called death, the disintegration of the phys- 
ical structure into the material elements of which 
it is composed. Death is, therefore, the dissolving 
of the body into the different elements that go to 
construct it. In other words the body is organized 
from previously existing elements, and death is the 
dissolution of this organism into the elements 
which previously constructed it. Hence it means 
nothing more than that those elements which in 
the body's life were organic become inorganic 
through death. At the same time we are instructed 
that this transformation does not touch the soul 
life, the soul being in no sense influenced by such 
disintegrating process. 

For there's no death for aught of things 
[that are] ; the thought [this] word conveys, 
is either void of body, or [simply] by the 
knocking off of a syllable w^hat is called 
[death], doth stand for [deathless]. 

The contention made here is that there is no 
death for any real thing, for any of the things that 
are. This does not only relate to the human soul 
but to everything else, to every organism. There 
is no such thing as death. What has once been 
produced must forever remain. Immortality in 
this sense is therefore extended to all things. He 
goes so far as to contend that death is synonymous 
with the deathless, that it can have no other mean- 
ing than deathless. He contends that as a matter 
of fact nothing dies. He is not speaking here of any 
transcendental ideas, he does not represent ideal- 
ism when he says there is no death; he denies the 

THE HERMETIC ART 

45 

fact of death ; stating plainly and emphatically that 
nothing dies, as a matter of fact; therefore we 
must not look upon this statement as being an 
expression of any transcendental idealism, as being 
spiritually understood, but he is stating as a mat- 
ter of physical science that nothing dies. 

For death is of destruction, and nothing 
in the Cosmos is destroyed. For if Cosmos 
is second God, a life that cannot die, it can- 
not be that any part of this immortal life 
should die. All things in Cosmos are parts 
of Cosmos and most of all is man, the 
rational animal. 

In this paragraph he undertakes to explain why 
it is that there can be no death. His reason is that 
death partakes of destruction. All death, in the 
true sense of the term, would be a destruction, and 
he states that nothing in the Kosmos is ever 
destroyed. From this we come to his argument, 
and his position is that Kosmos is second God. He 
therefore calls our attention to his doctrine of the 
three Gods. That is to say, the Absolute God, and 
the Kosmos as His manifestation and hence the 
second God, — the image of God in another sense, — 
and man as the third God. Now the Kosmos is 
the second God in the sense that it is the direct 
manifestation of the unmanifest God. In a cer- 
tain sense it is the manifest God. Being the mani- 
festation of God he holds that in order for the 
Kosmos to die it would be necessary for the mani- 
festation of God to cease, because the Kosmos in 
the Hermetic view of the case, is not a permanent 
thing in the sense of something once produced that 
forever remains, but rather is a something perpet- 
ually changing; a state of perpetual manifestation ; 
the process of the ever-becoming manifest of the 

46 

THE HERMETIC ART 

activities and attributes of the unmanifest God. 
This being the case, Kosmos is nothing other than 
the mirroring in Hyle of the activities of Ku, the 
Motherhood of God; its divine essence in all its 
activities becoming mirrored in substance that 
constitutes Kosmos in the true sense of the w^ord. 
Novs^ Kosmos must continue as long as the activities 
of the unmanifest God continue to be mirrored in 
substance. Those activities must continue to be so 
mirrored as long as they subsist. In other words, 
in order that Kosmos might cease it would be nec- 
essary that the Absolute God should cease to make 
or to express itself actively, and as the unmanifest 
God exists or rather subsists only in the act of com- 
ing into manifestation it follows that were it to cease 
such activity it would die. Therefore the Absolute 
God would have to become extinct before Kosmos 
could ever become extinct. Kosmos is therefore 
as eternal as is the life of God. For this reason he 
says that Kosmos is a life that cannot die. It is a 
life that cannot die because it is the continuation 
on a lower plane of the life of God himself, there- 
fore Kosmos cannot possibly cease to be. It ever 
must be. This being the case Kosmos is an immor- 
tal life, being but a reflection of the life of God, the 
immortality of the Divinity is therefore contin- 
ued in the immortality of the Kosmos. It cannot 
therefore be that this immortal life should die see- 
ing that it is immortal, as it is completely bound 
up and inseparably merged in the immortality of 
the Divine Life, because Kosmos is not distinct 
from God. Kosmos is but the externalization and 
manifestation of the life of the unmanifest God. 

He further states that all things in Kosmos are 
parts of Kosmos; and in this we have a distinctly 
Hermetic doctrine. A great many schools of 
philosophy have held that Kosmos was some sort 
of a metaphysical thing, a substratum to things, 
and that things were distinct from Kosmos. But 

THE HERMETIC ART 

47 

this is not the Hermetic view. Hermes teaches 
that Kosmos is nothing other than the sum total of 
all things born. It must here be borne in mind 
that he repudiates the idea of creation and replaces 
it with the idea of birth. In other words, all things 
are born out of Ku and as such are born of God, — 
not created, — and being brought forth they are in 
Kosmos and Kosmos is the sum total of all such 
births. Kosmos is twofold; it is the act of being 
born, the continuous sequence of being born, and 
at the same time it includes the things born. 
Hermes was far too scientific to make any distinc- 
tion between the act of being born and the things 
that are born, because it is evident that if there 
was not an act of being born there would be noth- 
ing born and that no act of bearing can fail to 
result in a birth. Hence Kosmos is both the pro- 
duction of things and the sum total of the things 
produced. Were we to eliminate all the things in 
Kosmos there would be nothing left of Kosmos. 
Kosmos would cease to be. Inasmuch, therefore, 
as Kosmos is the mirroring of the activity of God 
in Hyle it follows that such mirroring can only 
take place in the production of things as the formal 
expression of the divine action. Hence the divine 
life lives in the act of producing all things, and 
likewise in all the things thus produced. There- 
fore all things in Kosmos are parts of Kosmos and 
Kosmos is nothing other than the sum total of all 
things engendered. Now, inasmuch as Kosmos is 
immortal life and that life consists in the perpetual 
continuity of the process of engendering things, it 
follows that the thing engendered by a deathless 
process must in the nature of things be deathless. 
Undoubtedly it may change its form from time to 
time but it will never cease to be because its ulti- 
mate origin is the divine thought. The divine 
being deathless, eternal, immortal, all of its 
thoughts must be deathless, eternal and immortal. 

48 

THE HERMETIC ART 

As a deathless, eternal, immortal thought has set in 
motion the activity that engenders a thing, it must 
be that that activity w^ill be continuous, as contin- 
uous as is the thought that set in motion such activ- 
ity. This being true it w^ill follow^ that the activity 
that engendered the thing being continuous, the 
life of the thing resulting from such engendering 
activity must likewise be continuous; hence the 
immortality of all things engendered is clearly 
demonstrated. 

And most of all is man, the rational animal. 
More than anything else is man the recipient of 
this eternal life, for the reason that man is the 
most complicated and the highest manifestation 
of this creative process. Of all things engendered 
man comes nearer to the divine prototype than 
anything else, and the reason for this is clearly 
shown, that he is a rational animal, he is the one 
animal endowed with reason. Now reason here 
must not be confused with what is ordinarily 
termed reason, — that is the capacity to learn by 
experience, to reach conclusions from data. That 
is not the reason of which Hermes speaks. To him 
reason is the pure, a priori reason, that has nothing 
to do with data but reasons from Universals to 
particulars. This is his concept of reason. Man is 
the rational animal. That is to say, he is the one 
and only animal endowed with this capacity to rea- 
son from cause to effect. As this reason is that 
which produces all things, is the creative wisdom 
that has produced everything, it follows that in his 
reason man is divine, he partakes of the nature of 
God, he is endowed with the creative power and 
for that reason, partaking more than any other of 
the attributes of divinity, he therefore approaches 
nearer to the divine life of God than anything else. 
Hence he possesses a greater measure of divinity 
and hence of immortality thanMoes anything else. 
Therefore above all kosmic things is man death- 
less, immortal, eternal. 

THE HERMETIC ART 

49 

In this we have the suggestion of the Hermetic 
Art. Man's reason is the creative power resident 
within him. By the cultivation of that creative 
power he is able to become a creator himself to 
the extent that his Creative power has been awak- 
ened. Therefore it is through the cultivation of 
the reason that man is able to reach this exalted 
state. The Hermetic Art is therefore attained 
through the cultivation of the human reason. Such 
rational awakening is therefore the way to the 
attainment of the art of creation. 

2. For truly first of all, eternal and 
transcending birth, is God the Universals' 
Maker. Second is he [after His image], 
Cosmos, brought into being by Him, sus- 
tained and fed by Him, made deathless, as 
by his own Sire, living for aye, as ever free 
from death. 

Now that which ever liveth, differs from 
the Eternal, for He hath not been brought 
to being by another, and even if He have 
been brought to being, He hath not been 
brought into being by Himself, but ever is 
brought into being. 

For the Eternal, in that It is eternal, is the 
all. The Father is Himself eternal of Him- 
self, but Cosmos hath become eternal and 
immortal by the Father. 

For truly first of all, eternal and tran- 
scending birth, is God the universalis Maker. 
Second is he [after his image], Cosmos, 
brought into being by Him, sustained and 

50 

THE HERMETIC ART 

fed by Him, made deathless, as by his own 
Sire, living for aye, as ever free from death. 

The first and ultimate principle is God, the uni- 
versal's Maker. By the universals he means those 
verities which are everywhere the same and which 
are interchangeable. The term is used in contra- 
distinction to particulars. In this we have a funda- 
mental principle of the ancient philosophy. The 
two principles below God are universals and par- 
ticulars. By particulars is meant things and the 
processes engendering particular things. By the 
universals they mean those processes which are not 
in any sense particular, which relate to all things 
without distinction. These universals are to a 
certain extent identical with the Great Supernal 
Gods, though not exactly. Now God is spoken of 
as the maker of the universals. That is to say the 
universals came into being through their having 
been emanated from God. In other words, the 
universals are the fundamental attributes of God 
projected into manifestations through Kosmos. 
Now this God, the universals' maker, is the first 
of all, because all particulars come from universals 
and all universals come from God. Therefore He 
is first of all because all things proceed either di- 
rectly or indirectly from Him. Eternal and trans- 
cending birth, because all births emanate from 
Him. As He is the bearer of all that is there is 
nothing left to bear Him. He cannot be born 
because all things are born by Him, therefore 
He transcends birth. In this sense it would be 
somewhat more correct to say She, because the 
God alluded to here is Ku, the feminine divine 
essence. After this God, we come to the second. 
Second is He after His image. After His image, — 
that is the Kosmos. Kosmos is after the image of 
God, because, in the true sense of the word, it is 
God's image, that is, it is God made manifest, and 

THE HERMETIC ART 

51 

this comes forth out of God. It is brought into 
being by God, is sustained and fed by Him. That 
is to say, it has no source of existence, apart from 
God, is absolutely dependent upon God for ali 
things, and is not only brought into being, but is 
continuously sustained and fed and nourished by 
God. In other words, Kosmos has not been brought 
into being by God, but is in continuous process of 
being brought into being by Him. As God is 
indeed and in truth the Father and Mother of Kos- 
mos, it must be that Kosmos will partake of the 
nature of his Father and Mother, consequently 
Kosmos has been made deathless by his Sire. That 
is made deathless in and through the very 
process of having been brought into being by the 
Father. Living for aye. as ever free from death, 
because the kosmic life is continuous and uninter- 
ruptedly sustained by the life of God. 

Now that which ever-liveth, differs from 
the Eternal; for He hath not been brought 
to being by another, and even if He have 
been brought to being, He hath not been 
brought into being by Himself, but ever is 
brought into being. 

He draws some very fine distinctions here. For 
instance, he draws the distinction between the ever- 
living and the Eternal. The ever-living is not the 
same as the Eternal, and he shows the distinction. 
The Eternal hath not been brought into being by 
another, and even if the Eternal has been brought 
into being. He hath not been brought into being 
by Himself. That is to say, the Eternal cannot 
create Himself, and this self-creation would not 
constitute eternity, but this of which he speaks 
ever is brought into being. There is the process 
of perpetual bringing into being and there is this 
fine distinction vrhich must alwavs be borne in 

52 

THE HERMETIC ART 

mind, eternity is beginningiess and endless, though 
the ever-living may have a beginning, but it can 
never have an end. But the Eternal is in perpetu- 
ity to infinity, both backward and forw^ard; ever 
is being brought into being, and yet this is not 
something that has always been stable, it is some- 
thing in perpetual process of coming into being 
and yet the process is from infinity to infinity. 

For the Eternal, in that It is eternal, is 
the all. The Father is Himself eternal of 
Himself, but Cosmos hath become eternal 
and immortal by the Father. 

This is the diflference, both the Father and 
Mother on the one hand and Kosmos on the other 
are eternal, Ionian. But there is a distinction, the 
Eternal, in that it is eternal, that is in Its character 
of eternity, is the all, there can be no particularity. 
Being eternal, though the particular may be ever- 
living, yet it can never be eternal. But the eternal 
must in the very nature of things be limitless. The 
Father-Mother, the Absolute God, is Himself 
eternal of Himself. That is to say, His eternity is 
engendered from Himself or of Himself. In other 
v/ords. His nature or energy is eternal and there- 
fore in no sense dependent upon anything else. In 
a word, God is not subject to generation, is in no 
sense generated by anything else. He is the ingen- 
erate whose eternity subsists in His action. Being 
in His action eternal. He is dependent upon 
nothing apart from Himself. The Kosmos, how- 
ever, has become eternal and immortal by the 
Father. In other words, it is the reflection of the 
immortality and eternity of the Father in substance 
that constitutes the eternity and immortality of the 
Kosmos. Kosmos is eternal and immortal because 
it is the active manifestation of an eternal and 

THE HERMETIC ART 

53 

immortal verity. It is this which makes Kosmos 
eternal. Kosmos, in other words, is eternally gen- 
erated, while the eternity of the Father is self- 
subsistent and not subject to generation. In a word, 
were all else to be blotted out God would still be 
eternal, but were God to be blotted out Kosmos 
would cease to be. The eternity of the Kosmos is 
therefore conferred eternity. One that lives in 
Kosmos is the result of another Eternity, but the 
Eternity of God is absolute. At the same time, 
the one is as eternal as the other. Kosmos cannot 
disappear during the eternity of God. It is also 
beginningless and endless. At the same time it is 
an eternity that is perpetually being induced, but 
this is Kosmos as a whole that possesses this 
Eternity. The dififerent parts of Kosmos are ever- 
living but not eternal. 

LESSON IV 

The Eternity of Matter 

3. And of the matter stored beneath it, 
the Father made of it a universal body, and 
packing it together made it spherical — 
wrapping it round the life — [a sphere] 
which is immortal in itself, and that doth 
make materiality eternal. 

But He, the Father, full-filled with His 
ideas, did sow the lives into the sphere, and 
shut them in as in a cave, willing to order 
forth the life with every kind of living. 

So He with deathlessness enclosed the uni- 
versal body, that matter might not wish to 
separate itself from body's composition, and 
so dissolve into its own [original] unorder. 

For matter, son, when it was yet incorpo- 
rate, was in unorder. And it doth still retain 
down here this [nature of unorder] evolv- 
ing the rest of the small lives — that increase- 
and-decrease which men call death. 

And of the matter stored beneath it, the 
Father made of it a universal body, and 
packing it together made it spherical^ — 
wrapping it round the life — [a sphere] 
which is immortal in itself, and that doth 
make materiality eternal. 

After speaking of the nature of Kosmos, Hermes 
next comes to the consideration of the matter stored 
beneath Kosmos. We must bear in mind that at 

55 

56 

THE HERMETIC ART 

the time of which he speaks, matter was in a state 
of chaos, for there was neither form nor order 
manifested in this sub-kosmic matter. We are in- 
formed that of the matter stored beneath Kosmos, 
the Father made a universal body. That is to say, 
by the action of the divine power, working through 
the instrumentality of the Kosmic Powers, the cha- 
otic matter beneath the Kosmos was gathered 
together into one body which was to constitute the 
universe. This voluminous body of matter was 
packed together and concentrated into a massive 
body. It was given a spherical form. It was in 
fact a universal Egg, which was to contain all 
things of the universe within its depths and from 
it they were each and all to be hatched forth into 
individual life. It was given this spherical form 
by wrapping the matter round the life which was 
within its depths. The universe is therefore in the 
form of a hollow sphere within the depths of which 
is enclosed the life which therefore gives forth 
life to all parts of the universal shell. Because the 
universal life is enfolded within the universal form 
this life is continually vitalizing the entire struc- 
ture of the universe, and thus the universe becomes 
a body that is immortal in itself. It does not derive 
its immortality from without, but from the life 
enclosed by itself. Because of the life which is 
continually renewing and vitalizing the universal 
body, both in whole and in part, materiality is 
made eternal, and hence is organized matter in the 
universe immortal by reason of the life which it 
contains, this is the true cause of the eternity of 
matter. 

But He, the Father, full-filled with His 
ideas, did sov^ the lives into the sphere, and 
shut them in as in a cave, willing to order 
forth the life with every kind of living. 

THE HERMETIC ART 

57 

The Father being filled to the full with His 
ideas; for the nature of the Father is to think, and 
hence He lives in His ideas; His thinking tends at 
all times to radiate His ideas, and in this way to 
diffuse them through all space. This being the 
case, the lives were sown within the universal 
sphere. They were received within the sphere, and 
were there enclosed so that they might not escape. 
These lives must not be confounded with the life 
that was enclosed within the sphere in the begin- 
ning. Neither must they be confused with the 
small lives. They are rather the great lives, or the 
material Gods. They are the Vital and the Etherial 
Gods as well as the Terrene Gods. They are there- 
fore enclosed within the sphere, so that it will not 
be possible for them to separate themselves from 
the universal sphere. They were enclosed in the 
sphere that they might order forth, or send forth in 
accordance with order, the enclosed life, causing it 
to assume every form of living, that is, to differ- 
entiate itself into the diverse lives that will give 
life to all forms of living things. It is this life 
as the germ that causes all species to come into 
being in the earth. This is the true explanation of 
the monadic origin of all the diverse forms of 
terrene life, and this is the sense in which every 
thing has come from a germ in the earth. It is 
also to be borne in mind that while this is an 
account of the creation of the universe, at the same 
time all the spheres were formed in the same man- 
ner, and all this applies to the earth as well as to 
the entire universe. Thus it is true that it is the 
ordering forth of the enclosed life, under the im- 
pulse of the lives that causes all the forms of 
living things to come into being on the earth. They 
are literally born from within the depths of the 
earth. The earth is in fact the Mother and the 
fecund womb from which all forms of living 
things are born, after they have been conceived and 

58 

THE HERMETIC ART 

gestated within her maternal womb. Thus is the 
earth literally the mother of all things earthly, and 
not merely in a figurative sense. 

So He with deathlessness enclosed the 
universal body, that matter might not wish 
to separate itself from body's composition, 
and so dissolve into its own [original] 
unorder. 

Because the life was enclosed within the uni- 
versal body, and because the great lives or the 
lesser Gods were sown within the earth, and the 
life became active, it followed that the universal 
body was enclosed with deathlessness, seeing that 
it was the vehicle for the manifestation of death- 
less powers, it followed that the body itself was 
made deathless. Matter is therefore eternally 
united with the composition of universal body, and 
can no more separate itself from it, hence, matter 
can only exist in the composition of the universal 
body. All matter must exist in the composition of 
bodies, and can never exist in any other way. Thus, 
organized matter can never be dissolved into the 
state of unorder from which it has come into order, 
but can only remain under the form of organized 
bodies. 

For matter, son, when it was yet incorpo- 
rate, was in unorder. And it doth still retain 
down here this [nature of unorder] envelop- 
ing the rest of the small lives — that increase- 
and-decrease which men call death. 

Before matter was incorporated, it was in a state 
of unorder. It was the incorporation of matter, 
so that it became corporate, that is, a part of the 
universal body, that brought it into the state of 

THE HERMETIC ART 

59 

order. While down here, that is, on the physical; 
plane, this nature of unorder, still persists in mat- 
ter, for physical matter is not subject to the control 
of the Kosmic Powers as is the matter of finer 
grades. Because of this condition, the rest of the 
small lives, that is the life principle of every living 
thing springing from the life contained within the 
earth, are enveloped in this matter in its state of 
unorder, and for this reason are they all subject to 
the process of increase-and-decrease which men 
call death. Because the matter of the earth does 
not freely respond to the transformative processes 
of the higher powers, the changes in it may not be 
spontaneous as they are above. This being true, 
corporeal bodies in the earth experience are bound 
to pass through periods of increase, after which 
they must experience a process of decrease. This 
is due to the fact that the two processes are not 
permitted to go on simultaneously, and in equal 
proportions, but there must be a period of increase, 
follow^ed by a period of decrease. It is this which 
leads to the throwing off of the outer shell, when it 
has survived its usefulness, and this men in their 
ignorance call death. This teaches us a very im- 
portant lesson in the Hermetic Art. Death as it 
is vulgarly called, is due to the fact that a body 
is built up of such gross matter, and held together 
in such rigidity that the forces cannot manifest 
freely through it, and hence the transformations 
are not permitted to go on within it as rapidly as 
is its construction, hence, after a time, these life 
forces, being unable to so transform it, as to mani- 
fest through it as a vehicle, will become destructive, 
and hence the dissolution of that form will result. 
Death, simply means that life forces are not made 
use of in their normal action, and hence being 
permitted to accumulate through uselessness and 
idleness, they become, in time, disintegrative. The 
cure for death is therefore to preserve a perfect 

60 

THE HERMETIC ART 

balance between the forces of growth and of disin- 
tegration. So long as this is kept up, one will not 
only not die, but he will grow no older. All the 
energy within the body must at all times be made 
use of. None of it must ever be permitted to 
remain idle for a single moment. If it is utilized 
at all times, it will in this way act constructively 
at all times, and hence there will be no decrease, as 
well as no increase, but at all times the perfect 
equilibrium will be maintained, hence there will 
be no death. 

4. It is round earthly lives that this 
unorder doth exist. For that the bodies of 
the heavenly ones preserve one order allotted 
to them from the Father as their rule ; and it 
is by the restoration of each one [of them] 
this order is preserved indissolute. 

The ''restoration'' then of bodies on the 
earth is [thus their] composition, whereas 
their dissolution restores them to those 
bodies which can never be dissolved, that is 
to say, which know no death. Privation, 
thus, of sense is brought about, not loss of 
bodies. 

It is round earthly lives that this unorder 
doth exist. For that the bodies of the heav- 
enly ones preserve one order allotted to 
them from the Father as their rule ; and it is 
by the restoration of each one [of them] this 
order is preserved indissolute. 

This state of unorder is confined to earthly lives, 
for they only are encumbered with envelopes of 
matter so gross that this order cannot manifest 

THE HERMETIC ART 61 

through them in all of their actions. The heavenly 
ones, are those lives above the earth plane. They 
preserve the order allotted to them from the 
Father, in that they are all the time responsive to 
the urge of that power which has descended from 
the Father and which operates through them, 
causing them to act in accordance w^ith that order. 
Owning to the Cyclic Law^, all such heavenly bodies 
are from time to time restored to their original 
status, and hence this order w^hich governs them 
is perpetually preserved and can never be dis- 
solved. This will be true of any body that at all 
times responds to the Cyclic Law^ This Law causes 
all these bodies to return to their original condition 
and thus to become renewed, and hence there is 
no reason why the form of the body should ever 
become changed. This is due to the fact that all 
such renew^als take place within the body and 
hence no cause is there for the discarding of body 
in order that a change may take place by the ex- 
changing of one body for another. This is true 
of the heavenly bodies because of their subtle 
nature, and of their receptivity to all the move- 
ments of the heavenly order operating through 
them. It would be the same in the case of earthly 
bodies were they equally responsive to the move- 
ments of the heavenly order. 

The '"Restoration" then of bodies on the 
earth is [thus their] composition, whereas 
their dissolution restores them to those 
bodies which can never be dissolved, that is 
to say, which know no death. Privation, 
thus, of sense is brought about, not loss of 
bodies. 

He here most distinctly teaches the doctrine of 
the ^^restoration" or reincarnation, of all earthly 

62 

THE HERMETIC ART 

bodies. The composition of a body is the restora- 
tion to earthly embodiment, of a body which previ- 
ously existed on the earth in the form of a cor- 
poreal earthly body. This leads us to the conclu- 
sion that the corporeal earthly body is not the only 
body which earthly things possess. The dissolution 
of the earthly body is the process which restores 
the earthly embodied thing to a body which can 
never be dissolved. This means that when the 
earthly body is dissolved, the life which was em- 
bodied in it enters and manifests through a body 
that is subject to the heavenly order, the same as 
are the heavenly bodies, hence, to a heavenly body. 
Of course this indicates that all earth life is in 
possession of heavenly bodies as well as of earthly 
bodies. The latter is lost from time to time through 
dissolution, to be again restored through ''restora- 
tion" or reincarnation, but the heavenly body can 
never be dissolved. Death is then confined to the 
periodical deprivation of the earthly body, but 
does not afifect the heavenly body. The earthly 
body is of importance in that it is the vehicle 
through which an earthly life is sensible of things 
on the earth. When the life is deprived of this 
earthly body, it is deprived of all sense of the 
earthly realm for the reason that the heavenly body 
is not sensible of earthly things. As it has no ve- 
hicle of consciousness for the earthly environment, 
it knows nothing through the medium of sense, of 
the earth, hence the earthly sense is lost, but it is 
not deprived of a body, seeing that the heavenly 
body continues. Thus we see that nothing in this 
universe can exist apart from a body, and the body 
will be the kind fitted to serve in the mode of life 
which any thing is manifesting at the time. But 
nothing exists at all at any time, without existing in 
a body of some order. 

LESSON V 

The Life of Man 

Now the third life — Man, after the image 
of the Cosmos made, [and] having mind, 
after the Father's will, beyond all earthly 
lives — not only doth have feeling with the 
second God, but also hath conception of the 
first; for of the one 'tis sensible as of a body, 
while of the other it conceives as bodiless 
and the Good Mind. 

Tat. Doth then this life not perish? 

Her, Hush, son! and understand what 
God, what Cosmos [is], what is a life that 
cannot die, and what a life subject to dissolu- 
tion. 

Yea, understand the Cosmos is by God 
and in God; but Man by Cosmos and in 
Cosmos. 

The source and limit and constitution of 
all things is God. 

Now the third life — Man, after the image 
of the Cosmos made, [and] having mind, 
after the Father's will, beyond all earthly 
lives — not only doth have feeling with the 
second God, but also hath conception of the 
first ; for of the one 'tis sensible as of a body, 
while of the other it conceives as bodiless 
and the Good Mind. 

The three Hves spoken of here are the Hfe of 
God, including the Kosmos viewed from a certain 

63 

64 

THE HERMETIC ART 

aspect, but more properly it relates to God alone; 
the second life is the Kosmos and the things pro- 
ceeding from it; the third life is Man. That is, 
used in the sense of generic man, man as a species, 
but also relating to the individual man. We are 
informed that he is after the image of the Kosmos 
made — that is to say the third life, man, is made 
after the image of the Kosmos. We must always 
guard against the error of assuming that man is 
made after the image of God. This is not true. 
The Man made after the image of God is the 
Kosmos, and to a certain extent the Anthropos, but 
the man that we know of through experience, the 
human being, is made after the image of the Kos- 
mos and not after the image of God. One special 
characteristic of man is that he has mind after the 
Father's will, beyond all earthly lives. That is to 
say the human mind has been produced by the 
Father's will. That is the Mind of the Father 
expressing itself dynamically as will, that is as the 
will of the Father is mind becoming active and 
dynamic Will force which enters the Kosmos and 
acts upon man through its kosmic manifestation 
evolves mind in man. Man's mind, therefore, is 
not of the earth earthly, not evolved from matter, 
but is rather descended from the Father through 
the Kosmos into man. While to a certain extent 
■ mind, using intellect here as a department of mind, 
is common to all earthly lives, yet man possesses 
mind beyond all earthly lives; not only does he 
possess a superior quantity of mind, but also a 
superior and higher quality, a more spiritual 
quality of mind, than what any of the animals 
possess. This superior quality of mind is easily 
distinguished from the quality of mind present in 
the animal creation. 

THE HERMETIC ART 

65 

The animal mind is characterized by the abil- 
ity to learn by experience; all that the animal 
knows he has acquired through experience and 
observation. His reason is a posteriori in every 
sense of the word. Man's mind transcends that 
of the animal in that he is not dependent upon the 
testimony of his physical senses and upon his 
physical experiences for knowledge. Man's mind 
becomes almost divine in that he is able to dis- 
pense with sensation entirely, to dispense with the 
concrete and enter the realm of pure abstraction. 
The power of abstract thinking is truly what char- 
acterizes the human mentality as human. The 
ability to think in abstractions is a clear dem- 
onstration of the divinity of the mind of man. 
That is the divinity of the minds of such men as 
are able to think in abstractions. Those who can- 
not rise to abstraction of course still have the men- 
talities of the animals. And as it is this human 
mind that differentiates man from the animal 
creation, it will logically follow that all men who 
are capable of thinking in the concrete only are 
animals, brute beasts and not yet human. It is for 
this reason that the ancient philosophers became 
so enthusiastic over mind, over the power of 
thought, because they clearly realized that this 
power of abstract thinking was something that 
was not possessed by the animal, hence it was 
something definitely characteristic of man as man. 
For this reason they very strongly emphasized the 
importance of the intellect. 

Not only doth this man have feeling with the 
second God, that is the Kosmos, but he also has 
conception of the first. Notice this distinction 
therefore. Man has feeling with the second God, 
— that is to say the developed man has the same 
sense that the Kosmos has, that is to say it is well 
within the range of man's evolution to evolve 
kosmic sense, not only the physical sense but the 
kosmic sense, which will therefore give him the 
same feeling that the Kosmos has. Also he is able 
to have a mental conception of the first God, the 

66 

THE HERMETIC ART 

Absolute. Man is able to conceive of God, the 
One and only One, through his mind, but he can- 
not be sensible of this first God, he has no sense 
by which he can approach the first God, but 
approaches Him only through the conception of 
the mind. However, he can through sense feel the 
second God, or the Kosmos. The second God, or 
the Kosmos, is sensible as of a body, while the 
other is conceivable as bodiless, as the Good Mind. 
Therefore man is not required to merely think and 
theorize of the Kosmos but through the evolution 
of kosmic sense he is able to sense the Kosmos, 
to make it sensible to him as though it was a body, 
to feel its presence. By reason of this kosmic sense 
it becomes, as it were, objective, so that the devel- 
opment of this kosmic sense enables one to become 
sensible, conscious of the Kosmos. This, however, 
is not the case when we come to God. God is con- 
ceived only as bodiless and the Good Mind. God, 
therefore, can be conceived of only in our thought ; 
we can think of God but we cannot sense Him. 
We think of God first as being bodiless, as having 
no form, no corporeality, as being a condition of 
infinite and universal diffusion. Until one has con- 
ceived of God in this sense, as energy, universally 
present and more than universally present, he has 
not conceived of God at all. Second, we must con- 
ceive of God as the Good Mind, as Mind and Ku, 
as that mind which engenders all things by its 
thought, as Absolute Mind. And only can we 
think of God under these two aspects, universally 
diffused energy, formless, and as the Good Mind, 
the Absolute Intelligence. And this is purely a 
mental concept; therefore God can subsist to no 
one other than as a concept of the mind. 

Let this point be clearly borne in mind and we 
will see the fallacy of most of the religions, for 
most religions are predicated upon the theory that 
man can approach God through sense; that he can 

THE HERMETIC ART 

67 

sense or feel God ; that it is possible for us to feel 
through the cultivation of our love nature, through 
the development of our aflfectional nature, through 
a yearning, a longing, a reaching out of the heart, 
that one can find God. Such a view is utterly 
fallacious, for God is not subject to sense; he can- 
not be found through sensation ; the heart can never 
find God. Man alone is capable of grasping God, 
and it grasps Him through thought and in no 
other way. It follow^s, therefore, that those people 
who profess to have found God in some other way, 
know absolutely nothing of the God beyond-all- 
name. What they are really worshiping is the 
second God, the Kosmos, which they have 
found through sense. Their religion being 
sensible and not intelligible, it follows that they 
are w^orshiping the second God, the Kosmos, and 
that there is no trace of a devotion to the first God, 
the Good Mind, in all the conceptions which they 
hold. This will show the reason why there are so 
many difficulties in the way of inculcating the 
religion of the mind. The religion of the senses 
has taken such possession of the people that they 
have no thought for the religion of the mind. The 
real trouble is very few people know how to think 
independent of sense. The all important thing, 
therefore, is for man to develop this capacity for 
supersensuous thinking. And that is the reason 
why the Gnostic has always insisted upon the de- 
velopment of this mind power; the subjection ©f 
all religious questions to philosophical analysis. 

Tat. Doth then this life not perish? 

We have here the question introduced as t© 
whether the life of man perishes or does not. This 
of course is a very important question as the 
immortality of everything is the burden of the ser- 
mon, as the teaching is that no one of existing 
things does perish. The question then is as to 

68 

THE HERMETIC ART 

whether the life of man is an exception to this rule 
or whether this rule applies in the life of man the 
same as in everything else. 

Her, Hush, son, and understand what 
God, what Cosmos [is], what is a life that 
cannot die, and what a life subject to dissolu- 
tion. 

Hermes orders Tat to hush, for it is very evident 
that he has not grasped the meaning of the teach- 
ing given in the entire sermon otherwise he would 
not ask such a fool question. His remark shows 
that Tat has not thought deeply on what he had to 
say; that he has not paid the proper attention, has 
not discriminated properly; for he admonishes 
him to understand what God is, what the Kosmos 
is and what a life is that cannot die and also the 
nature of a life subject to dissolution. Had he 
carefully discriminated on these points and gotten 
a proper understanding of these four heads of the 
subject, he vv^ould have been in no quandary what- 
soever as to the rrieaning of his father. The first 
head of the discourse is of the nature of God, the 
second head is of the nature of the Kosmos, the 
third head is the nature of a deathless life and the 
fourth head is the nature of life subject to dissolu- 
tion. All these have been thoroughly explained in 
the preceding portions of the sermon, hence it is 
evident that Tat has not paid proper heed to the 
instructions of his father under those four heads, 
else he would have had no difficulty in knowing 
where to place man. 

Yea, understand the Cosmos is by God 
and in God; but Man is by Cosmos and in 
Cosmos. 

We are assured that Kosmos is by God and in 
God; that is to say the Kosmos is perpetually in 

THE HERMETIC ART 

69 

process of coming into being by reason of the life 
of God. God's thought and will, all the motions 
of his life, manifest as Kosmos, therefore the 
source of Kosmos is the active life of God. The 
word Kosmos means a picture, and it means this 
because the thought and action of God takes form 
as Kosmos, so that Kosmos is in reality a photo- 
graph of God, a living photograph, but neverthe- 
less a photograph of God. Thus it ever comes 
into being by reason of the active life of God, and 
it subsists in God because it is but the expression 
in form of the divine thought and active life of 
God. Therefore it must be completely permeated 
and surrounded, enveloped as it were, by God's 
spirit, and takes form there. Now if it is true that 
the Kosmos is but the mirroring in form of the 
thought and life of God, it must partake of the 
nature of that divine thought and life and above 
all inasmuch as the thought and life of God can 
only manifest in terms of Kosmos and must mani- 
fest in that form, it will follow that as long as God 
thinks and makes he must make Kosmos. Further- 
more we are assured by Hermes in other sermons 
that God subsists solely and entirely in thinking 
things and in making them, that is the very energy 
of God, hence were God to cease to think and to 
make he would cease to be. Now Kosmos is what 
he makes, therefore were he to cease to make 
Kosmos he would cease to be. Hence Kosmos is 
as eternal as God. Therefore the nature of Kos- 
mos must be deathless and imperishable. 

Man is by Kosmos and in Kosmos. That is to 
say, man exists w^ithin the Kosmos and as a result 
of the activity of the Kosmos. Now it follows that 
the Kosmos being the expression of God must 
duplicate on a lower plane the act of God. Hence 
it will follow that as God makes Kosmos as his 
nature is to make and as the nature of Kosmos is 
to duplicate the work of God, therefore it is in the 

70 

THE HERMETIC ART 

nature of Kosmos to make. Man existing by 
Kosmos means that man exists because of the 
kosmic action, Kosmos being the reflection of the 
generative power of God it must follow that 
Kosmos likewise generates; if Kosmos generates 
man exists by reason of the generative action of 
Kosmos, hence man is the microcosm of the 
macrosmic Kosmos. Therefore the nature of man 
must be the exact duplicate of the nature of the 
Kosmos, hence man will have the same nature as 
has the Kosmos. As the Kosmos is eternal as God, 
because it is the reflection of God, so is man as 
eternal as the Kosmos because he is the work, the 
effect, the mirroring in individual form of the 
Kosmos itself. Hence life is imperishable, inde- 
structible, immortal, eternal. He therefore dem- 
onstrates the eternity of the life of man and hence 
that it cannot perish. And this is true simply 
because man is the expression of Kosmic life. 

The source and limit and the constitution 
of all things is in God. 

The source of things abides in God, because 
things come into existence, because they exist out 
of God. They come into existence through God's 
thinking things manifest, or thinking them into 
manifestation. The particular thought of God 
acting upon Ku, or the divine essence, must 
engender that which corresponds to the thought, 
and that entering into Kosmos exists through and 
engenders that which corresponds to it, and so all 
things in general and each thing in particular is 
the direct result of the particular thought of God 
which has engendered it, therefore is God the 
source of all things. The limit of things is found 
also in God because nothing can come into 
existence which does not subsist in God. There 
is no other source of generic life. In no other way 

THE HERMETIC ART 

71 

can life come into being. Therefore the thinking 
of God is the limit of all things ; nothing can ever 
come into being unless God has thought of it; 
hence there exists nothing which is not contained 
in the thought of God, which God, therefore, has 
not prepared. He being the one and only source 
he is therefore the limit of everything for noth- 
ing can come into being without having been 
engendered by God. Thus we see that dualism, the 
doctrine of a power independent of and separate 
from the will of God is absolutely fallacious. All 
religions based upon a dualistic concept must 
therefore fall down because they assume a power 
apart from God. But as there is no generative 
power but what itself has been generated by God 
and but w^hat has a generative power subject to the 
control of the generative power of God, it follows 
that there is nothing but what God has directly 
or indirectly engendered. Therefore the limit of 
all things is in God. The constitution of all things 
is in God, because all things are constituted in 
and through the divine thought and action of God. 
Having constituted each and everything it follows 
naturally that the constitution of each and every- 
thing is in God and they have no constitution inde- 
pendent of God. Therefore we are forced to the 
conclusion that God is really all in all. There 
exists and subsists nothing but God. His thought, 
his generative action, and that which they have 
engendered. So in the last analysis God is all 
there is. We have but God and his infinite muta- 
tions. 

This truth is of the utmost importance in our 
study of the Hermetic Art, because it teaches us 
that the originating principle in all things is God, 
and further that this originating principle which 
we see as God, is thought; that the beginning of 
everything is thought; and second, the energy 
through which that can perfectly manifest itself. 

72 

THE HERMETIC ART 

Thought operating through energy and substance 
adapted to itself engenders by reason of such inter- 
activity of thought, energy and substance, a 
dynamic power, an active force, which being the 
expression of that must absolutely correspond to 
that thought, and this in turn makes manifest the 
thing thought of, or rather the thought itself in 
terms of form. This, then, is the creative prin- 
ciple, this is the art of creation, and when we have 
learned to make our thought operate through the 
medium of energy and substance and operating 
that way to engender dynamic action manifesting 
in form, we have discovered the Art of Creation. 
Creative thought is the real creative power, but 
to be creative it must work in conjunction with 
energy and substance. Man by the application of 
this law can create himself anew, has within him 
the power of his own regeneration, and regenera- 
tion is to be accomplished in no other way. Man's 
salvation is, therefore, in making his thought suf- 
ficiently dynamic to perpetually recreate his body. 
The regeneration of this is accomplished by mak- 
ing thought energetic and substantial and causing 
it to act upon them. Thought must be the genera- 
tive force, but it must act through energy and sub- 
stance otherwise it is barren. The same principle 
which is here enunciated is also applicable to the 
physical aspect of the Great Work. If you will 
ponder carefully on what we say you will under- 
stand how a chemical application of these prin- 
ciples may be brought about, and that is the key to 
physical alchemy. The wise will understand what 
we say, the cheap organisms are not entitled to 
know anyhow. However, bear in mind that the 
alchemy of the soul is the first step, the alchemy of 
the body is the second, social alchemy is the third, 
while physical alchemy is the fourth and last step 
which is to be taken in our quest for absolute 
power. 

The Hermetic Art 

ON THOUGHT AND SENSE 

That the Beautiful and Good Is in God Only and 
Elsewhere Nowhere 

TEXT 

Parthey (G.), Hermetis Trismegisti Poe- 

mander (Berlin, 1854), 60-67. 
Patrizzi (F.), Nova de Universis Philos- 

ophia (Venice, 1593), 14-15. 
Mead (G. R. S.), Thrice Greatest Hermes 

(London, 1906), Corpus Hermeticum 

IX (X). 

1. I gave the Perfect Sermon {Logos) 
yesterday, Asclepius; to-day I think it right, 
as sequel thereunto, to go through point by 
point the Sermon about Sense. 

Now sense and thought do seem to differ, 
in that the former has to do with matter, the 
latter has to do with substance. But unto 
me both seem to be at-one and not to differ 
— in men I mean. In other lives sense is a 
at-oned with nature, but in men thought. 

Now mind doth differ just as much from 
thought as God from divinity. For that 
divinity by God doth come to be, and by 
mind thought, the sister of the word (logos) 
and instruments of one another. For neither 
doth the word (logos) find utterance without 
thought, nor is thought manifested without 
word. 

2. So sense and thought both flow to- 

74 

THE HERMETIC ART 

gether into man, as though they were en- 
twined with one another. For neither with- 
out sensing can one think, nor without 
thinking sense. 

But it is possible [they say] to think a 
thing apart from sense, as those who fancy 
sights in dreams. But unto me it seems that 
both of these activities occur in dream- 
sight, and sense doth pass out of the sleeping 
to the waking state. 

For man is separated into soul and body, 
and only when the two sides of his sense 
agree together, does utterance of its thought 
conceived by mind take place. 

3. For it is mind that doth conceive all 
thoughts — good thoughts when it receives 
the thoughts from God, their contraries 
when [it receiveth them] from one of the 
daimonials ; no part of Cosmos being free of 
daimon^ who stealthily doth creep into the 
daimon who's illumined by God's Light, 
and sow in him the seed of its own energy. 

And mind conceives the seed thus sown, 
adultery, murder, parricide, [and] sacrilege, 
impiety, [and] strangling, casting down 
precipices, and all such other deeds as are 
the work of evil daimones. 

4. The seeds of God, 'tis true, are few, 
but vast and fair, and good-virtue and self- 
control, devotion. Devotion is God-gnosis; 
and he who knoweth God, being filled with 
all good things, thinks Godly thoughts and 
not thoughts like the many [think]. 

THE HERMETIC ART 

75 

For this cause they who Gnostic are, 
please not the many, nor the many them. 
They are thought mad and laughed at; 
they're hated and despised, and sometimes 
even put to death. 

For we did say that bad must needs dwell 
here on earth, where 'tis in its own place. 
Its place is earth, and not Cosmos, as some 
will sometimes say with impious tongue. 

But he who is a devotee of God, will bear 
with all — once he has sensed the Gnosis. 
For such an one all things, e'en though they 
be for others bad, are for him good; delib- 
erately he doth refer them all unto the 
Gnosis. And, thing most marvellous, 'tis 
he alone who maketh bad things good. 

5. But I return once more to the Dis- 
course (Logos) on Sense. That sense doth 
share with thought in man, doth constitute 
him man. But 'tis not [every] man, as I 
have said, who benefits by thought; for this 
man is material, that other one substantial. 

For the material man, as I have said, [con- 
sorting] with the bad, doth have his seed of 
thought from daimons ; while the substantial 
men [consorting] with the Good, are saved 
by God. 

Now God is Maker of all things, and in 
His making. He maketh all [at last] like to 
Himself; but they, while they're becoming 
good by exercise of their activity, are unpro- 
ductive things. 

It is the working of the Cosmic Course 

76 

THE HERMETIC ART 

that maketh their becomings what they are, 
befouling some of them with bad and others 
of them making clean with good. 

For Cosmos, too, Asclepius, possesseth 
sense-and-thought peculiar to itself, not like 
to that of man. It is not so manifold, but as 
it were a better and a simpler one. 

6. The single sense-and-thought of Cos- 
mos is to make all things, and make them 
back into itself again, as Organ of the Will 
of God, so organized that it, receiving all 
the seeds into itself from God, and keeping 
them within itself, may make all manifest, 
and then dissolving them, make them all new 
again; and thus, like a Good Gardener of 
Life, things that have been dissolved, it 
taketh to itself, and giveth them renewal 
once again. 

There is no thing to which it gives not 
life ; but taking them all unto itself it makes 
them live, and is at the same time the Place 
of Life and its Creator. 

7. Now bodies matter [-made] are in 
diversity. Some are of earth, of water some, 
some are of air, and some of fire. 

But they are all composed; some are more 
[composite], and some are simpler. The 
heavier ones are more [composed], the 
lighter less so. 

It is the speed of the Cosmos' Course that 
works the manifoldness of the kinds of 
births. For being a most swift Breath, it 
doth bestow their qualities on bodies together 

THE HERMETIC ART 

11 

with the One Pleroma — that of Life. 

8. God, then, is Sire of Cosmos ; Cosmos, 
of [all] in Cosmos. And Cosmos is God's 
Son ; but things in Cosmos are by Cosmos. 

And properly hath it been called Cosmos 
[Order] ; for that it orders all with their 
diversity of birth, with its not leaving aught 
without its life, with the unweariedness of 
its activity, the speed of its necessity, the 
composition of its elements, and the order of 
its creatures. 

The same, then, of necessity and of pro- 
priety should have the name of Order. 

The sense-and-thought, then, of all lives 
doth come into them from without, in- 
breathed by what contains [them all] ; 
whereas Cosmos receives them once for all 
together with its coming into being, and 
keeps them as a gift from God. 

9. But God is not, as some suppose, 
beyond the reach of sense-and-thought. It 
is through superstition men thus impiously 
speak. 

For all the things that are, Asclepius, all 
are in God, are brought by God to be, and 
do depend upon Him — both things that act 
through bodies, and things that through 
soul-substance make [other things] to move, 
and things that make things live by means 
of spirit, and things that take unto them- 
selves the things that are worn out. 

And rightly so ; nay, I would rather say, 
He doth not have these things ; but I speak 

78 

THE HERMETIC ART 

forth the truth, He is them all Himself. He 
doth not s^et them from without, but skives 
them out [from Him]. 

This is God's sense-and-thought, ever to 
move all things. And never time shall be 
when e'en a whit of things that are shall 
cease ; and when I say ''a whit of things that 
are," I mean a whit of God. For things 
that are, God hath; nor aught [is there] 
without Him, nor is He without aught. 

10. These things should seem to thee, 
Asclepius, if thou dost understand them, 
true ; but if thou dost not understand, things 
not to be believed. 

To understand is to believe, to not believe 
is not to understand. 

My word (logos) doth go before [thee] 
to the truth. But mighty is the mind, and 
when it hath been led by word up to a cer- 
tain point, it hath the power to come before 
[thee] to the truth. 

And having thought o'er all these things, 
and found them consonant with those which 
have already been translated by the reason, 
it hath [e'en now] believed, and found its 
rest in that Fair Faith. 

To those, then, who by God's [good aid] 
do understand the things that have been 
said [by us] above, they're credible; but 
unto those who understand them not, incred- 
ible. 

Let so much, then, suffice on thought-and- 
sense. 

LESSON VI 

Thought and Sense 

1. I gave the Perfect Sermon (Logos) 
yesterday, Asclepius ; to-day I think it right, 
as sequel thereunto, to go through point by 
point the Sermon about Sense. 

Now sense and thought do seem to differ, 
in that the former has to do with matter, the 
latter has to do with substance. But unto 
me both seem to be at-one and not to differ — 
in men I mean. In other lives sense is at- 
oned with nature, but in men thought. 

Now mind doth differ just as much from 
thought as God doth from divinity. For 
that divinity by God doth come to be, and 
by mind thought, the sister of the word 
(Logos) and instruments of one another. 
For neither doth the word (Logos) find 
utterance without thought, nor is thought 
manifested without word. 

1. I gave the Perfect Sermon (Logos) 
yesterday, Asclepius ; to-day I think it right, 
as sequel thereunto, to go through point by 
by point the Sermon about Sense. 

The introductory paragraph indicates that this 
sermon on sense is in the nature of a sequel to the 
perfect sermon. As the perfect sermon is a dis- 
course on initiations and goes into the whole mat- 
ter touching initiations, it logically follows that 
this sermon clears up certain points that are left out 

79 

80 

THE HERMETIC ART 

in the discourse on initiations, and which are in 
the nature of supplemental matter and more 
esoteric matter than what is contained in the per- 
fect sermon. And we will find this to be true, 
because in the perfect sermon a great deal is said 
about sense, but the true nature of sense is not there 
defined. This sermon is therefore a sequel to the 
perfect sermon, in which he goes through point by 
point the sermon or discourse on the nature of 
sense. Therefore we have a right to expect Hermes 
to cover every possible point dealing with the 
subject of sense, and in this we are not disap- 
pointed. 

Now sense and thought do seem to differ, 
in that the former has to do with matter, the 
latter has to do with substance. But unto 
me both seem to be at-one and not to differ — 
in men I mean. In other lives sense is at- 
oned with nature, but in men thought. 

We are here assured that the difference between 
thought and sense is simply this, that sense has to 
do with matter, thought has to do with substance. 
In other words, they are both actions of the soul 
in which an awareness of the Kosmos is obtained. 
We become aware of material things and condi- 
tions through sense. We become aware of sub- 
stantial things by thought. This will undoubtedly 
dumfound a great many, for Hermes clearly indi- 
cates that the man whose consciousness is purely 
material, who knows nothing but the material, 
never had a thought in his life; that all his knowl- 
edge has come through sense. He has sensed 
things but has never done any thinking. Doubt- 
less Hermes would designate our friends the mate- 
rialists as the mindless or at least as the thought- 
less. The whole conception that he brings to our 

THE HERMETIC ART 

81 

attention is that all conception of matter is sensed, 
and our conceptions of substance are thought. 
Now if you will study the terminology of most 
people you will see that they agree with Hermes, 
that they have not any thought, that they do not 
know how to think, that they are absolutely mind- 
less. They say, for instance, that there is no sense 
in such and such a statement, thinking that they 
mean that it is contrary to reason or to intelligence. 
They say that someone has no sense, that people 
are senseless, that such and such a statement is 
nonsense. Now it is ordinarily assumed that they 
mean by this to indicate absence of intelligence, 
but they cannot get by with that proposition. If a 
statement is nonsense it is contrary to sense not 
contrary to thought; if a man has no sense it indi- 
cates that his power of sense, his ability to sense 
material things and conditions is defective. If a 
statement has no sense in it, it is simply that it is 
not a statement of the testimony of the senses, that 
is to say it is contrary to material conditions. 
Common sense is whatever concept the senses of 
the people in general will give them of matter. 
It is also a common error to imagine that one can 
by thought ascertain material facts. Such a con- 
ception is absolutely erroneous. Thought has 
nothing to do with matter. All material concep- 
tions come through sense, while all knowledge of 
substance comes through thought. If one does not 
believe that there is any such thing as immaterial 
substance it simply proves that he has never 
thought in his life; that his thinker has never been 
active; that it has been out of commission; that he 
has merely been sensing things. He further con- 
tends, however, that thought and sense in man are 
at-one and do not differ. By this he means that 
they act simultaneously; that is to say that they do 
not occupy separate fields or zones of consciousness 
so that one goes without the other, but rather he 

82 

THE HERMETIC ART 

holds that sense and thought are interactive, each 
one having its influence upon the other. And this 
is quite characteristic of the absolute monism 
which is so common to Hermes; that is to say of 
his unwillingness to separate or divide the uni- 
verse. He prefers to look at it as a whole. There- 
fore he does not conceive of substance as distinct 
from matter, or of matter as distinct from sub- 
stance. They are not in his mind two things but 
rather give two phases of one verity. Therefore 
he merges thought and sense so far as man is con- 
cerned. In other lives, that is in the animals, 
sense is at-oned with nature. That is to say nature 
expresses itself through the sense of the animal. 
The animal senses nature but in man nature 
expresses itself through thought. In other words 
he would hold that one gets an understanding of 
things by the activity of his thought. Conse- 
quently it is evident that Hermes would not con- 
sider that there are very many men living today, 
he would argue that there are a lot of animals 
walking on their hind legs, but not many men. 
Because only he who conceives a thing by thought 
is in his concept human. 

Now mind doth differ just as much from 
thought as God doth from divinity. For 
that divinity by God doth come to be, and 
by mind thought, the sister of the word 
{Logos) and instruments of one another. 
For neither doth the word (Logos) find 
utterance without thought, nor is thought 
manifested without word. 

Hermes here draws the distinction between mind 
and thought. He illustrates the difference between 
mind and thought by the difference between God 
and divinity. He would argue that there would 

THE HERMETIC ART 

m 

be no divinity if there was no God. God is what 
produces divinity; divinity is in the nature of the 
manifesting essence of God. God in action pro- 
duces divinity. Divinity is therefore the activity 
of God; the product of God's action within Him- 
self; the product of this, the character of God in 
a certain sense, is what we term divinity. Now in 
the same way, just as divinity comes to be as the 
result of the active life of God it follows that 
thought comes into being because of mind. Mind 
is therefore an active principle, a generative force, 
w^hich becomes active in terms of thought. 
Thought must also be distinguished from thoughts, 
for thought is that process emanating from mind 
w^hich tends to engender thoughts; thought there- 
fore being the generative action of mind and 
thoughts the things generated. 

Thought is the sister of the logos or word. Now 
the logos, the w^ord, in this sense must not be con- 
founded w^ith the words which people speak that 
is, with articulate speech. It is rather the ideal 
form of the word. It is rather the tendency for 
thoughts to take a psychic form which when 
uttered becomes a word. The logos is therefore 
the psychic prototype or archetype of a word. And 
this is the sister of thought because thought 
becomes logic; that is, as we think, our thought 
naturally assumes the form of a psychic image, 
which in turn expresses itself as the uttered word, 
that is expresses itself through the medium of 
sound. They are mutually instruments, the one of 
the other. The logos or word does not find utter- 
ance without thought; in fact there would be no 
logos, no spirit of a word, were it not for thought 
giving utterance to this word. And thought can 
never be made manifest without the w^ord. In 
other words, thought is in the unmanifest state until 
the word has been found. The word is what makes 
the thought manifest; words are therefore the 

84 

THE HERMETIC ART 

means of concreting thought. We think, but can- 
not clarify, express or utter our thought, until the 
logos or the word is found through which such 
utterance becomes possible. This will throw a 
great deal of light upon the subject of the origin 
of language. In other words, there exists no word 
until after someone has believed the thing that 
that word expresses. Until we accept as true v/hat 
the w^ord expresses the word is not coined. Articu- 
late speech is therefore the means of expressing the 
logos. The logos therefore when conceived out of 
thought causes someone to formulate an uttered 
word which will express it. The faculty of lan- 
guage is therefore the faculty for giving utterance 
by means of articulate speech to the logos which 
brings forth from our thought. The man who has 
thoughts which he cannot find words to express, 
whose thinking cannot be properly expressed, is an 
illustration of the principle of which we are speak- 
ing. This is the stage when thought has not 
expressed itself by means of the logos. It is in the 
shadow stage, — the man cannot definitely express 
his thought. This is the relation between thought, 
logos, and uttered speech, and this will give us a 
fair conception of the nature of thought and its 
relation to sense; always bearing in mind that 
thought relates itself to substance and not to mat- 
ter. Therefore thoughts are not of the material 
but of the substantial. Therefore logoi, or words, 
are forms of the reason and reason is therefore the 
expression of mind, the vehicle of mind, just as 
logoi are the vehicles of expressed thoughts. 

2. So sense and thought both flow to- 
gether into man, as though they were en- 
twined with one another. For neither 
without sensing can one think, nor without 
thinking sense. 

THE HERMETIC ART 

But it is possible [they say] to think a 
thing apart from sense, as those who fancy 
sights in dreams. But unto me it seems that 
both of these activities occur in dreamsight, 
and sense doth pass out of the sleeping to 
the waking state. 

For man is separated into soul and body, 
and only when the two sides of his sense 
agree together, does utterance of its thought 
conceived by mind take place. 

So sense and thought both flow together 
into man, as though they were entwined with 
one another. For neither without sensing 
can one think, nor without thinking sense. 

Sense and thought do not act separately upon 
man, but on the contrary, they are simultaneously 
active, and in fact blend into one composite force. 
They are mutually interactive at all times. An- 
other point we must bear in mind is this, both sense 
and thought flow into man. By this we are to 
understand that both sense and thought are kos- 
mical forces, existing independent of man, which 
flow into him, from without, and entering him, 
awaken sense and thought in him. He does not 
hold that they are original with man, but rather 
that man is the Organ through which, both sense 
and thought are made manifest. Hence, man is 
negative, while both sense and thought are positive 
forces in their action through man. The sense 
referred to here cannot therefore be confined to 
physical sensation, but must refer to something a 
great deal higher. Sensing is always accompanied 
by thought, and likewise is thought ever accom- 
panied by sensing, the two are merely two aspects 
of the one process. 

THE HERMETIC ART 

But it is possible [they say] to think a 
thing apart from sense, as those who fancy 
Sight in dreams. But unto me it seems that 
both of these activities occur in dream-sight, 
and sense doth pass out of the sleeping to 
the waking state. 

¥/e are next lead into the question of thought 
independent of sense. He takes the position that 
there is no such thing. The error which he is 
here refuting is due to the other error that sense is 
confined to the physical sensations. This is wrong. 
Sense is in reality that power which brings one 
into contact with that which is exterior to him, 
and in this way, through contact, awakens the 
action of thought. Dream-sight is in reality more 
sensing than thought, though both activities are 
present. There is a continuity of the sense of the 
sleeping state into that of the waking state. Sense 
not being confined to the body, it transcends the 
plane of physical matter. 

For man is separated into soul and body, 
and only v^hen the two sides of his sense 
agree together, does utterance of its thought 
conceived by mind take place. 

As man is separated into soul and body, it fol- 
lows that there is a corresponding separation of 
sense, into soul sense and bodily sense. Thought 
is the result of the union of the soul sense with the 
sense of the body. In this way, is man's sensing 
made to include the soul world and the physical 
world. The physical and the Psychic are there- 
fore both matters of sense. Through the dual 
sense, there is deposited in man the germ of 
thought, which is conceived in the mind, very 
much after the manner of the conception of a child 

THE HERMETIC ART 

87 

in the womb of the mother, so that the mind act- 
ing as the matrix in which sense is deposited, 
becomes in this way, fecundated by sense, and as 
a result, thought is conceived within the mind, 
from whence it is born into consciousness. This 
will give to us a true conception of the nature of 
sense and thought. The basis of all sensing is the 
Kosmic Sense. This sense, being sensible of all 
things in Kosmos, acts upon both soul and body, 
with the result that it acts upon both the body and 
soul in such a manner as to there deposit this sense, 
causing us to become aware of that sense, though 
as a feeling, and not as a mental conception. This 
sensing acts upon the mind, so that, being acted 
upon by the dynamic motion of sense, it moves in 
such a manner as to conceive thought. Sense in 
man, is therefore the process of Kosmic Sense 
acting upon him in such a way as to make him 
sensible of that which is held in Kosmic Sense. 
This process, acting upon the mind, causes it to 
conceive the thought, corresponding to that which 
has been sensed, which is in that manner born into 
consciousness. This will show that the conception 
of thought is only possible in a mind fecundated by 
sense, and that this fecundation by sense is the 
result of the Kosmic Sense contacting the Soul as 
well as the body. It will therefore follow that the 
mind can conceive no thoughts which are not the 
reflex of corresponding sensings. This leads us to 
the conclusion that the first requisite is not so 
much a matter of mental power as it is one of 
sensing. Mentality therefore does not depend 
upon brain capacity or intellectual culture half so 
much as upon a soul and body, so sensitively 
attuned that they will respond to the vibration of 
Kosmic Sense. The first requisite is to be very 
sensitive, so that we will respond to, and register 
all possible aspects of Kosmic Sense. This ability 
win definitely limit the extent of the mental opera- 

88 

THE HERMETIC ART 

tions, though of course the mental operations may 
not come up to the full extent of the sensing 
capacity. This will depend upon the possession 
of a mind capable of acting under all the impulses 
of sense, in such a manner as to conceive thought 
under each one of them. This will depend upon 
the sensitiveness and upon the responsiveness and 
activity of the mind. Mind is therefore the 
feminine womb into which sense deposits the 
germs of thought. Sensing is the fecundating 
action which fecundates the mind with the seeds 
of future thoughts, while Kosmic Sense is the 
fecundator of all minds. From this point of view 
the nature of man, is essentially feminine. 

We have here a very important lesson in the 
Hermetic Art. The source of all things must be 
found in nature, we can originate nothing, but must 
merely duplicate the work of nature, though we 
can improve upon this under certain limitations. 
But we must derive the Seed from nature. The 
first thing is, therefore, to prepare a suitable recep- 
tacle in which the work is to be performed. After 
this we must deposit in this receptacle a suitable 
matter as the Matrix in which conception is to take 
place. After this, we must have a transmissive ele- 
ment through which motion can be imparted to 
this plastic mass, and the last step is to have the 
active principle of the universe brought into direct 
contact with the transmissive agent. If all these 
elements are properly prepared we will find that 
the Seed will be deposited from the Kosmos into 
our receptacle and in this way will be developed 
into actuality after the manner of the conception 
of thought in the mind. However, do not make 
this mistake, do not imagine that you can make 
either Gold, or Life. Life can never be created, 
though we can direct the form of the evolution 
through which it passes. Gold is never made, it is 
born. We must learn to conceive it in the Vase of 

THE HERMETIC ART 

89 

Art, exactly as thought is conceived in the mind of 
man. Remember this, the Seed of Gold is in the 
Kosmos, it must fecundate the First Matter and in 
this way, conceive gold in the Vase of Art. This 
is the Alchemist's Secret. 

LESSON vn 

The Conception of Thought 

3. For it is mind that doth conceive of 
thoughts— good thoughts when it receives 
the seeds from God, their contraries when 
[it receiveth them] from one of the daimo- 
nials; no part of Cosmos being free of 
daimons, who stealthily doth creep unto the 
daimon who's illumined by God's Light, 
and sow in him the seed of its own energy. 

And mind conceives the seed thus sown ; 
adultery, murder, parricide, [and] sacrilege, 
impiety, [and] strangling, casting dowTi 
precipices, and all such other deeds as are 
the work of evil daimons. 

For it is mind that doth conceive of 
thoughts — good thoughts when it receives 
the seeds from God, their contraries when 
[it receiveth them] from one of the dai- 
monials; no part of Cosmos being free of 
daimons, w^ho stealthily doth creep into the 
daimon who's illumined by God's Light, 
and sow in him the seed of its own energy; 

All thoughts are conceived in mind, conceived 
from seed sown in the mind from some source 
external to the mind itself. This must necessarily 
be true because it is through sense that the seeds 
are sown in mind. After being deposited in mind 
these seeds go through a process of transformation, 
— or rather they stimulate the mind to action 
resulting in the conception of corresponding 

91 

92 

THE HERMETIC ART 

thoughts. If the mind receives the seed of thought 
from God it must conceive good thoughts, that 
is corresponding in a measure to the nature of 
God, because thought which is conceived as a 
result of the seed must correspond to the seed 
antecedent to the conception. While just the con- 
trary is the result when the mind receives the seed 
from one of the daimonials. Inasmuch as the 
character of the daimonials is not good but the 
reverse, it follows therefore that the seed emanat- 
ing from the daimonial must be a daimonial seed, 
that Is to say a seed partaking of the nature of the 
daimons, and this daimonial seed has started into 
operation by the specific action of the mind, it must 
necessarily follow that the mind will conceive 
daimonial thoughts; evil thoughts; thoughts par- 
taking of the nature of the daimons. No part of 
Kosmos is free of daimons; that is to say there is 
no part of the Kosmos that is not occupied by 
daimons, the daimonial hosts being so numerous, 
so extensive, that every part of the Kosmos is in- 
habited by them; hence there are always daimons 
present to deposit the seeds of evil thought within 
the mind of each and every one. These evil 
thoughts must be conceived in the minds of all 
unless the soul has reached such a degree of refine- 
ment and spiritualization that it is positive to the 
daimons and negative only to God. This is really 
the only guarantee anyone has, — his spiritual 
thought, which will establish the right degree of 
polarity. Now we find here a very important 
point brought out and at the same time one that 
very few realize, and that is this, no man ever 
thinks thoughts which are entirely dependent upon 
his own mentality; all thoughts are conceived in 
the mind from seed sown in the mind by beings 
external to that mind. Either God or the daimons, 
using God here in the sense not only of the One 
and-only-one but also in the sense of the gods as 

THE HERMETIC ART 

93 

well. Deity sows good seed in the mind, the 
daimonials sow evil seed, and all our thinking is 
the result of a mind fecundated by the seeds of 
divinity or of the daimons. A mind unfecundated 
by such seed is incapable of conceiving thought. 

We are informed that these daimons stealthily 
creep into the daimon who is illumined by God's 
Light. We must bear in mind that according to 
Hermes the daimons are not only those kosmic 
powers or beings, but he also terms the soul of 
man a daimon. It is the daimon in man. Now we 
must bear in mind that the daimons are an order 
of beings subordinate to the gods, because of their 
creative power the same term is applied to 
the human soul, which is also creative. The 
daimon in man is his soul ; the daimon illumined 
by God's light means a higher order of soul than 
w^hat we mean when we ordinarily speak of the 
soul of man. It means the soul into which the 
light of God has shined, and thus the soul being 
illumined by a higher degree of enlightenment 
than what is common to the grasp of the human 
understanding. God's light must not be con- 
founded with God himself. Light is one of the 
rays emanating from God. Now this emanating 
ray of the divine light has shone into the soul of 
man and quickened his intelligence, so that it is 
thereby illumined by this light. He is the daimon 
that is illumined by God's light mentioned here. 
Now^ we are informed that these daimons stealthily 
creep into the daimon illumined by God's light 
and sow in him the seed of their own energy. In 
other words, although one has reached that stage 
of development where his soul is illumined by 
the light of God he is not yet safe from demonial 
interference. He may be inspired, or illumined; 
the light of God may shine into his soul and thus 
give him an illuminated vision of eternal things, 
nevertheless this does not prevent the daimons 

94 

THE HERMETIC ART 

from creeping in and sowing in the soul also the 
seed of their own energy, so that the energy of the 
daimons will cause the awakening of activity 
which will in this way sow seed into the mind 
causing daimonial thought to be there conceived 
and manifested in act. Therefore we can see that 
in reality man does little or nothing. The teaching 
that man's life is in the hands of fate is really true, 
because man cannot think of himself, he can only 
conceive in the mind such thoughts as the seeds 
sown in his mind by God, or the daimons, will 
inspire, unless, of course, it be the thought that is 
awakened by the senses and by experience and 
observation, etc. But we are here speaking of the 
higher thought. And this is the real key to dual 
inspiration, — thought of the gods and thought of 
the daimons. All daimonial inspiration will nec- 
essarily lead to evil thought and evil deeds, while 
the inspiriation on the part of the gods will like- 
wise inevitably lead to good thoughts and good 
deeds. Therefore the evil in man is really the 
result of his responsiveness to daimonial impulses. 

And mind conceives the seed thus sown ; 
adultery, murder, parricide [and] sacrilege, 
impiety, [and] strangling, casting down 
precipices, and all such other deeds as are 
the work of evil daimons. 

The seeds of the demonial energy being sown 
in the mind by acting upon the substance of the 
mind causes it to conceive the seed thus sown; in 
other words, thoughts corresponding to those seeds, 
that is to say, daimonial thoughts, are conceived 
and these thoughts breed emotions and the emo- 
tions actions, and thus adultery, murder, parricide, 
sacrilege, impiety and all such kindred evil deeds, 
are the result of the seeds of daimons entering into 

THE HERMETIC ART 

95 

the mind and there conceiving thought or causing 
the mind to conceive thought which engenders 
action. Thus sins are not due to the total depravity 
of man; they are not due to inbred sin from gen- 
eration to generation; such superstitions are with- 
out foundation in fact. Sins are due to the fact 
that the energy of the daimons enters into man's 
mind and entering there deposits the seed which 
conceives corresponding thought and ultimately 
engenders evil deeds. Man is responsible only to 
the extent that his mind is receptive to the seeds 
of the demonial energy. To that extent he is re- 
sponsible. In other words, he is responsible to the 
extent that he is not perfectly divine, to the extent 
that any influence other than the thought of God 
can operate. We have here a very important doc- 
trine; a doctrine which the cheap organisms seem 
absolutely unable to grasp ; namely, that morality 
is of very little importance; that the really im- 
portant thing is the spiritual state of the soul; that 
everything depends not upon specific deeds, but 
upon the degree of refinement in spirituality of 
the human soul. When we come to realize this w^e 
will pay little attention to what a man says or does ; 
we will be more interested in the scale of humanity 
to which he belongs. Man is really to be classified 
by the degree in which he has approached the di- 
vine, the degree of fineness in the mind. In other 
words, there are no such things as good men or 
bad men, if you will look at it properly, but there 
is such a thing as inferior and superior types of 
man. Man must be graded that way, not in the 
ordinary way that is common to the cheap organ- 
isms. In other words, cheap organisms are incap- 
able of anything but evil, while superior organisms 
in proportion to the relative degree of their supe- 
riority, evolve the capacity for good. 

96 

THE HERMETIC ART 

4. The seeds of God 'tis true, are few, 
but vast and fair, and good— virtue and self- 
control, devotion. Devotion is God-Gnosis ; 
and he who knoweth God being filled with 
all good things, thinks godly thoughts and 
not thoughts like the many [think]. 

For this cause they who Gnostic are, 
please not the many nor the many them. 
They are thought mad and laughed at; 
they're hated and despised, and sometimes 
even put to death. 

For we did say that bad must needs dwell 
here on earth, where 'tis in its own place. 
Its place is earth, and not Cosmos as some 
will sometimes say with impious tongue. 

But he who is a devotee of God, will bear 
with all once he has sensed the Gnosis. For 
such an one all things, e'en though they be 
for others bad, are for him good; deliber- 
ately he doth refer them all unto the Gnosis 
and, thing most marvelous, 'tis he alone who 
maketh bad things good. 

The seeds of God 'tis true, are few, but 
vast and fair, and good — virtue and self-con- 
trol, devotion. Devotion is God-Gnosis; 
and he who knoweth God, being filled with 
all good things, thinks godly thoughts and 
not thoughts like the many [think]. 

Having shown the nature of the seeds of the 
daimons, their effect upon the thinking and life 
of man, he next turns his attention to the seeds of 
God. These seeds of God, that is the seeds which 

THE HERMETIC ART 

97 

are able to emanate from God and entering the 
mind of man conceive thoughts after their kind, 
are few, but they are vast and fair, and good; be- 
cause nothing could be vaster, nothing could be 
fairer, nothing could be better than the seeds 
emanating directly from God. We might say there 
are three characteristics that are conceived in the 
mind of man as a result of the divine seed and 
they come only from the divine seed. These are 
virtue, self-control and devotion. It must be borne 
in mind that virtue was used in ancient times in 
an entirely different sense to what it is used at the 
present time. It was synonymous with virile man- 
hood, with all those characteristics which, as the 
fellow said, are characteristics of a '^shore-enough 
man." It was not virtuous to do things which 
would not be manly. A man might have no re- 
ligious scruples about a thing, but he was too 
virtuous to do it, that is, it would be beneath his 
dignity as a ^'shore-enough man" to do anything 
of the kind. Virtue, therefore, represents the manly 
quality, the proud manly quality that scorns to do 
that which is mean or low, that which is not char- 
acteristic of the ideal man. And this virtue can 
only operate in the mind of a man as the result 
of his receiving divine seeds in his mind. This 
seed of virtue emanating from divinity, that is 
from the anthropos, the archetypal divine man, 
w^hen that seed enters the human mind it conceives 
virtuous thoughts, thoughts proper to a real man; 
the manly thoughts, virtuous thoughts, and all 
virtuous actions emanate from this virtuous think- 
ing. Now bear this in mind, there is none of the 
humble, worm-of-the-dust, poor cringing sinner, in 
the virtuous man. A timid man, a meek man in 
the ordinary sense of the word, can never have any 
virtue. A virtuous man is always proud, he always 
covers the ground he stands on, he is sure of him- 

98 

THE HERMETIC ART 

self, absolutely conscious of himself — of his worth. 
He knows his greatness, therefore he must be 
proud as the eagle if he expects to be virtuous. 

The next divine seed is that of self-control. It 
is this which gives man the self-contained, self- 
mastering attitude. That is to say, man is not car- 
ried away by his passions, by his impressions, by 
his impulses; but he dominates them all, he con- 
trols them; all the aspects of his manifest selfhood 
are in leash, they are under perfect control. Such 
a man can say truly I am the Yauwa; I am the 
I-will-be-what-I-will-be. In other words, it is this 
quality of self-control that makes the superman. 
And this comes from its divine source. It is the 
proud self-controlled, self-restrained impulses that 
develop corresponding thought and that enable 
man through reason to subjugate all his passions 
and using them, but not allowing them to use him. 
The self-controlled man is not a man without 
passions; he is not an eastern acetic who subdues 
or crushes out his passions; he is full of passion, 
but it is always under the rigid control of his will 
directed by his intelligence, so that he can make 
use of those passions when he needs them in his 
business, but never lets them interfere with him. 

The other seed of God is devotion. This seed 
that is implanted in the mind of man is the tend- 
ency to draw his soul out to God. It, when 
deposited in the mind, conceives thoughts which 
naturally turn to God, which are drawn to God 
as the steel to the magnet. The God power is the 
magnetism which attracts such devotional thoughts 
toward God, hence devotion is in reality a yearn- 
ing after God, a taking hold upon God, and we 
are informed that such devotion is God-Gnosis; in 
other words, the Gnosis, or knowledge of God, 
comes by reason of a mind that turns in the direc- 
tion of God; in other words, a mind is never able 

THE HERMETIC ART 

99 

to learn anything about God until it becomes inter- 
ested in the subject; until God becomes a very 
attractive subject for our mental contemplation we 
can know nothing about God. Now devotion does 
not mean mumbling prayers, it does not mean the 
acts of devotion which fanatics think it means; it 
means a mental interest in God, a yearning for the 
knowledge of God, for an understanding of the 
essence of God. It is this devotion, therefore, this 
turning of the mind toward God, which is itself 
the outgrowth of the seeds of God being planted 
there, which gives man Gnosis of God. He who 
knows God as a result of this God-Gnosis operating 
in his mind is filled with all good things. That 
is to say, the Gnosis of God in the mind renders 
it negative to all the seeds emanating from on high, 
all the non-demonial seeds, and thus they enter 
into the mind and soul, hence the seeds of all things 
good are there and the conception of those good 
things begins. He thinks godly thoughts and not 
thoughts like the many think. In other words, the 
thinking of this one being conceived of seed ema- 
nating from God, is godly, godlike, or similar to 
the thinking of God the Mind, or of the lesser 
divinities. It is thinking after the nature of God's 
thought and hence, of course, it is not like the many 
think at all, because the many have their thinking 
conceived from daimonial seed. The result is the 
Gnosis is in time entirely immune from the seed 
emanating from the daimonial because he has a 
mind completely filled with the seed of God; all 
his thinking is controlled by them and conse- 
quently there is no unoccupied area in his mind, 
no part of the mind that might be acted upon by 
the seed of daimons, hence no thought other than; 
God thought can be conceived therein. 

For this cause they who Gnostic are, 

100 

THE HERMETIC ART 

please not the many nor the many them. 
They are thought mad and laughed at; 
they're hated and despised and sometimes 
even put to death. 

In this paragraph Hermes explains to us the 
antipathy between the Gnostic and the cheap or- 
ganism. There is no greater fallacy than the idea 
that a good man will win the love of a bad man, — 
win the love of everybody; there is no greater 
tommy-rot than this nonsensical proposition. The 
cheap organism hates the enlightened soul beyond 
anyone in all the world. There is the most intense 
antipathy on the part of the rabble toward the 
superior man. If one finds himself hated and 
despised by the people, let him rest assured they 
are paying him the highest compliment. They are 
incapable of appreciating the attitude of the good, 
the pure, the spiritual. It is not only a lack of 
appreciation, it is an attitude of absolute antag- 
' onism, absolute antipathy. And why? Because 
the rabble thinks only such thoughts as are con- 
ceived from seed entering their minds from the 
daimons, while the Gnostic thinks only such 
thoughts as are conceived by seed entering the mind 
from God. The result is that the same antipathy 
that exists between God and the daimons must 
exist between the Gnostic and the cheap organism. 
And this is not to be deplored altogether, because 
they have separate and distinct functions. The 
cheap organism is related to matter, the Gnostic, 
on the other hand, is related to substance. The 
cheap organism, the material man or the daimonial 
man measuring everything by his own ignorance, 
thinks the Gnostic is mad and laughs at him. Be-< 
cause of the Gnostic's indifference to matter and 
the cheap organism's indifference to substance, they 
are hated and despised as weak, as inferior, and 

THE HERMETIC ART 

101 

are sometimes even put to death because of their 
superior knowledge. They can never please the 
cheap organism, and the cheap organism can never 
please them. Any man who talks about loving 
everybody is either a deliberate liar or else he has 
no spiritual realization. The Gnostic may tolerate 
the cheap organism, in fact, he should, but to be 
pleased with him is simply out of the question. It 
is utterly impossible for the developed soul to take 
pleasure in, to enjoy the society, of cheap organ- 
isms. Because they are as far asunder as the poles, 
they represent two separate and distinct extremes 
of existence, and this accounts for the persecution 
of the pure and holy by the cheap organisms. They 
want to get rid of them^ because of this antipathy, 
and in the last analysis, the real thing that is in- 
volved, is the war of the daimons to keep the gods 
from gaining influence on earth. 

For we did say that bad must needs dv>ell 
here on earth, where 'tis in its own place. 
Its place is earth, and not Cosmos as some 
will some times say with impious tongue. 

Here we have the crux of the situation. The 
earth is the realm of bad, bad must needs dwell 
here on earth where it is in its own place. The 
earth is therefore the place of bad; the space in 
w^hich the bad is made manifest. The evolution 
on the earth for the present time at least must be 
through the bad. All terrene evolution is due to 
the operation of bad principles. This is not true 
of the Kosmos, but it is true of the earth. Now^ 
as the earth must evolve through the bad, therefore 
it must evolve through the action of the daimons. 
They are the ones who conduct the terrene evo- 
lution. Hence this evolution depends upon the 
proportion of bad that is manifested here, — that is 

102 

THE HERMETIC ART 

the daimonial influence. Now in order that man 
as a race may evolve, that the earth may go through 
its terrene experience, speaking from the stand- 
point of race, he must be a bad man, and therefore 
he will express in his thought the seed of the 
daimon. The result is the kosmic man, that is one 
functioning in Kosmos as well as in the earth, a 
substantial man, a good man, is a disruptive influ- 
ence in the life of the earth. In other words, he 
is a heavy charge of nitro-glycerine, lyddite and 
gun cotton dropped into the social fabric. He is 
always more or less of a disruptive influence. And 
that is really his purpose. It is not intended in the 
kosmic scheme that there should be very many good 
men on the earth. It is after the manner of an 
aerolite, a comet, or a meteor, descending from 
heaven to knock the earth back into shape, or to 
shake and disorganize its crystalized state, so that 
it will go through an additional ferment as it were. 
Naturally the daimons and the daimonial men do 
not appreciate the value of such disturbing influ- 
ences. This being the case, they show a considerable 
measure of opposition to such visitations from the 
heavenly world, and this is the real cause of the 
antipathy which the daimonial man or the cheap 
organism bears to the Gnostic, or the superman. 
Kosmos is not the sphere of evil, of bad, as is the 
earth, but is relatively good; hence the substantial 
man is a relatively good man. Of course there is 
no such thing as an absolutely good man ; but the 
kosmic man is relatively good, and his goodness 
makes him a menace to the stability of terrene 
society. 

But he who is a devotee of God, will bear 
with all once he has sensed the Gnosis. For 
such an one all things, e'en though they be 
for others bad, are for him good; deliber- 

THE HERMETIC ART 

103 

ately he doth refer them all unto the Gnosis, 
and, thing most marvelous, 'tis he alone who 
maketh bad things good. 

The man in whom the God seed of devotion has 
been sown, so that his thinking becomes devotional, 
causing his w^hole mind to turn in the direction 
of God, so that he becomes a devotee of God, one 
devoted to God, one whose business or avocation 
in life is service to God, this attitude will cause 
him to bear with bad if he has once sensed the 
Gnosis. Now notice, the Gnosis comes through 
sense. That is to say. Gnosis is not acquired by 
man's mental striving. Gnosis is sown in the mind 
of man, which acts as a receptacle for its being 
deposited there when that man has attained devo- 
tion. Devotion brings him into that state of close 
contact with God which illumines his mind with 
the light of Gnosis, causing it to conceive thoughts 
under the impulse of the divine light. Such an 
one w^ill bear with all. For such an one all things, 
even though for others bad, are for him good. He 
deliberately refers them all unto the Gnosis. In 
other words, the Gnostic is so wise that he realizes 
every bad thing serves a good purpose. He realizes 
that all evil is good in the making. That is to say 
that good is bound to come out of bad, of evil ; that 
the bad is absolutely necessary for the evolution 
of matter; hence he knows that the cheap organ- 
isms who are poking fun at him will be Gnostics 
just like him in the course of about thirty thousand 
years, and he knows that they would not be Gnos- 
tics then if they were not bad men now. He knows 
that this very bad principle is the principle of 
terrene evolution, that matter can be evolved in 
no other way; therefore he realizes that the bad 
man is a man who can only evolve through being 
bad, consequently he does not condemn the bad 

104 

THE HERMETIC ART 

man, he does not hate him, he simply realizes 
that the bad man by being bad and as 
mean as he can be is doing the very best he 
can under the circumstances, and that such 
bad people are absolutely necessary for the work 
in the world, for the material progress of the 
world. That is another thing that we must bear 
in mind. The principal function of man at the 
present stage of evolution is the cultivation and 
exploitation of the earth; the development of na- 
ture; this is his principal function. But if he had 
any sense he would not do it, he would not waste 
his valuable time on such things. Consequently 
it is very fortunate that the vast majority of the 
human family is evil; because they are here to 
subdue the earth, to harness the physical powers 
of the earth ; yet such work will only be performed 
by one who does not see into the substantial realm; 
consequently all this bad serves a wonderfully good 
purpose; it serves to transform all matter. So the 
Gnostic deliberately refers them all unto the 
Gnosis. That is to say, he looks at these processes 
of bad, and these bad people from the standpoint 
of the light, which the Gnosis throws upon the sub- 
ject. He realizes that the man is a workman who 
fs doing some particular work, and from the stand- 
point of the Gnosis we are able to see the relation 
which that particular work will bear to the fin- 
ished product. The most marvelous thing of all 
is that it is the Gnostic alone who makes all things 
good. Here we have the subtle alchemy of the 
Gnostic life, that mental alchemy which causes the 
Gnostic to see the bad as good by seeing that it is 
but the crude form of a good condition that is 
going to be brought about by and by; by seeing 
that it is a stage in the transaction and looking at 
it as though it had accomplished that, seeing the 
end from the beginning, as it were; looking at 
everything not as a thing in itself, but as a part of 

THE HERMETIC ART 

105 

the sequence, a stage in the course of development. 
Therefore all things are good to him because they 
are steps in the process which is bound to turn out 
good in the end. Therefore to the Gnostic all is 
good. And here we are able to see where the 
Gnostic rises superior to all other men. He knows 
that the end justifies the means, because the means 
is always for the sake of the realization of the end, 
that is all that things exist for. Consequently he 
may do things which to others would be very bad 
but to him they are perfectly good. Things that 
would be criminal and sinful in the cheap organ- 
ism, are quite virtuous and proper in a Gnostic, 
because the Gnostic does all he does as a means of 
realizing the good; therefore through the appli- 
cation of his wisdom and understanding which he 
has due to his superior unfoldment, he is able to 
take all evil conditions and transmute them into 
good influences, by using them as a means of realiz- 
ing the good. Hence the Gnostic is above good 
and evil, the categories of right and wrong have 
no existence for him, seeing that he is the soldier 
of truth and right in the absolute. Consequently 
whatever he does is right. The Gnostic can do no 
wrong. Therefore the world hates the Gnostic, 
who is above their moral code. The one who 
stands so high that nothing that he can do can fail 
to be better than the best that is done by anyone 
else is a menace to the liberty of the host of cheap 
organisms because he stands above them in every 
sense of the word. His alchemy is one of mind, 
one of thought, of intelligent direction. He is able 
through the power of his will to cause influences 
which otherwise would work for evil, to attain to 
the realization of the highest good. Thus the 
Gnostic is the great alchemist of the mind and at 
the same time is he the projectile that explodes 
and disintegrates the shams of society, scattering 

106 

THE HERMETIC ART 

to the four winds the crystallized forms. Thus by 
disrupting them he forces them to again find 
adjustment. This is the true function of the Gnos- 
tic, the alchemist of the mind. 

LESSON VIII 

The Kosmic Course 

5. But I return once more to the Dis- 
course {Logos) on Sense. That sense doth 
share with thought in man, doth constitute 
him man. But 'tis not [every] man, as I have 
said, who benefits by thought; for this man 
is material, that other one substantial. 

For the material man, as I have said, [con- 
sorting] with the bad, doth have his seed of 
thought from daimons; while the substan- 
tial men [consorting] with the Good, are 
saved by God. 

Now God is Maker of all things, and in 
His making, He maketh all [at last] like to 
Himself; but they, while they're becoming 
good by exercise of their activity, are unpro- 
ductive things. 

It is the working of the Cosmic Course 
that maketh their becomings what they are, 
befouling some of them with bad and others 
of them making clean with good. 

For Cosmos, too, Asclepius, possesseth 
sense-and-thought peculiar to itself, not like 
to that of man ; 'tis not so manifold, but as 
it were a better and a simpler one. 

But I return once more to the Discourse 
(Logos) on Sense. That sense doth share 
Wixh thought in man, doth constitute him 
man. But 'tis not [every] man, as I have 

107 

108 

THE HERMETIC ART 

said, who benefits by thought; for this man 
is material, that other one substantial. 

The sharing of sense and thought, that is the 
mutual interrelation of sense and thought in the 
conception of consciousness, is what constitutes the 
human nature. Without this combination, man 
would not be man, but merely one of the animal 
creation. The distinction between the two is in 
this, in the animals, sense causes the universe or 
nature to impress itself directly upon the animal. 
This direct impression of nature upon the animal 
through sense, constitutes what we call instinct, 
hence the actions of the animal are instinctive and 
impulsive. In man, sense acts through the medium 
of thought, awakening corresponding thoughts, 
and these enter the consciousness, and hence, in- 
stead of man having an instinctive sense of nature, 
he forms an intelligent concept of nature. It is 
this intelligent rather than instinctive action which 
distinguishes man as man and not as animal. At 
the same time we must bear in mind that all men 
are not benefitted by thought. There are two dis- 
tinct classes of men, material men and substantial 
men. As thought is related to substance, it will 
follow that the material man is unable to 
do any real thinking. To grasp this, we must 
understand the nature of the thinking process. 
While it is true that it is the action of sense upon 
the mind that causes the conception of thought, 
but at the same time it will never do to assume 
that a thought is merely a picture of an object 
photographed upon the mind by sense. The 
thought is conceived in the mind, and is therefore 
composed of the substance of the mind itself. The 
thought is therefore, in the order of a substantial 
correspondent of the thing sensed, and hence it is 
related to the substantial operation back of the 

THE HERMETIC ART 

109 

thing sensed, it is hence much more accurate than 
is sense. The function of sense then, is to get at 
the forms of things, while the function of thought 
is to get at their essences. Now, if man is sub- 
stantial, his most active part is the soul, which 
being substantial and not material, will give ample 
opportunity for the conception of thought, while 
if one is material, his body being the most im- 
portant and active portion of his being, there will 
be little opportunity for the conception of thought, 
and this being the case, in the material man 
thought does little more than to perpetuate the 
images presented through sense. Thus the material 
man has not the benefit of the mental quintessence 
of sense, which constitutes true thought, and which 
is the principle characteristic of the substantial 
man. Even when thought is in a measure present 
in the material man, it does not elevate him as it 
does the substantial man, for his thought being 
material and not substantial, he has no conception 
of the substance of things. 

For the material man, as I have said, [con- 
sorting] with the bad, doth have his seed of 
thought from daimons; while the substan- 
tial men [consorting] with the Good, are 
saved by God. 

The material man can have no thought of any- 
thing other than the earth life and experience. To 
him the material is the all. To him, facts are all 
that there are, hence his consciousness is filled up 
with material facts. As these relate to the bad 
alone, he has no concept of the substantial or the 
good, and thus, thinking only of the bad, that is, 
of the material, the mind is polarized entirely with 
the daimons. A mind which recognizes only the 
m.aterial, soon leads to a character that is com- 

110 

THE HERMETIC ART 

pletely material even in its aspirations. Such an 
one, failing to realize that there is any thing other 
than the material, naturally comes to the point 
where he seeks for the material as the one thing 
needful. This causes such an one to choose the 
material realm, which is under the control of the 
daimons, and of course subjects him to them. This 
being the case, all the seed of his thought is from 
the daimons, and thus, his thought is purely 
daimonial in as much as the seed which conceives 
all his thoughts are of daimonial origin. On the 
other hand, the substantial man, functioning in the 
soul, sees the substantial rather than the material. 
This leads him to a metaphysical view of nature, 
which causes him to live in a world of ideas rather 
than in one of facts. This enables him to function 
in the higher regions of Kosmos, leading a life in 
which the consciousness is largely substantial. As 
a result, he becomes largely indifferent to material 
things, iand in proportion the substantial becomes 
more and more important. In the course of time, 
he comes to see in the ideal the one thing needful. 
Having become indifferent to the material, the 
bad, he of course becomes the more attached to the 
substantial and hence to the Good. This leads 
him into a state of polarity with the Good, with 
the result that his mind being closed to the seed 
of the daimons, it is now open to the seed of God, 
hence all his seed of thought is derived from God. 
This causes him to think in the divine manner, and 
hence he is saved by God, that is, the seed of God, 
conceives in the mind, kindred thoughts, so that 
his mind is completely closed to the seed of the 
daimons. He is thus saved from the influence of 
the daimons, by having his mind under the con- 
trol of God. 

Now God is Maker of all things, and in 

THE HERMETIC ART 

111 

His making, He maketh all [at last] like to 
Himself; but they, while they're becoming 
good by exercise of their activity, are unpro- 
ductive things. 

God is the maker of everything. Nothing comes 
into being, save that which He has made. As all 
things are the result of the Ideas of God, it follows 
that their real being is in the divine idea that origi- 
nated them. They subsist in the divine mind at 
a time anterior to that during which they exist 
out of it. Living in the Divine Idea at first they 
are divine, and, while they are degraded through 
their course of mutation in Kosmos, they are never- 
theless destined in the end to attain that Ideal 
Divinity which was theirs in the beginning. Be- 
fore they can reach that state, they must pass 
through a period of evolution in Kosmos, during 
which time they will purge out the bad from their 
composition, and ultimately attain the status of 
the good. It is through the exercise of their 
activity that all bad things become good. Good- 
ness is therefore, merely the result of growth in 
the bad things. During this time, however, they 
can produce nothing. The production of any- 
thing will mean their ceasing to become good for 
the time being at least. They are merely evolving 
themselves into the good state. 

It is the working of the Cosmic Course 
that maketh their becomings what they are, 
befouling some of them with bad and others 
of them making clean with good. 

The working of the Kosmic Course has for its 
purpose the perfecting and evolution of the 
Kosmos as a whole. It is not concerned with the 
effect of its evolutions upon any thing in particu- 

112 

THE HERMETIC ART 

lar, save as they effect the evolution of the Kosmos 
as a whole. To this end, some things relatively 
good, that is, substantial, are degraded into ma- 
terial forms, and in that v^ay befouled with bad, 
in a word, manifesting the bad quality of matter. 
At the same time, other things which are bad, 
owing to the fact that they are in material form, 
are purged of their materiality, and hence of their 
badness, and are made clean and good. In this 
way, we are able to see the process of transmuta- 
tion which is ever going on, the bad being trans- 
muted into good, and in like manner the good 
being ever transmuted into bad. It must be borne 
in mind that the purpose of the Kosmic Course 
is the perfection of all things as an unit, and hence 
the fate of a particular thing is of no moment, 
except as its fate effects the work of the Kosmic 
Course. As the bad, that is the material, is trans- 
muted into the good, that is the substantial, it tends 
to effect the status of matter in general, causing it 
to be gradually transformed until it approaches 
nearer and nearer to the substantial state. In like 
manner, when the good, or substantial is driven 
into the bad or material state, it carries with it 
a considerable measure of the energy of the sub- 
stantial condition, which being imprisoned in mat- 
ter, seeks to return to the substantial condition. 
This energy, in its efforts to escape from the bond 
of matter, acts upon the matter holding it, in such 
a manner as to gradually transform it, and thus 
matter is in process of transmutation in the direc- 
tion of the substantial condition. The result is, 
the working of the Kosmic Course, while it is det- 
rimental to the well being of the things themselves 
as they are befouled with bad, nevertheless, it tends 
to the substantialization of matter and the trans- 
mutation of the bad into the condition of the good. 
The Kosmic Course is therefore, nothing other 

THE HERMETIC ART 

113 

than the course of the Alchemicalization of mat- 
ter, and all things, have their place in that process 
of transmutation. Kosmos is the great Alchemist, 
and the status of every thing is but the temporary 
condition resulting from the process of Kosmic 
Transmutation. Thus, while all things are good 
in the beginning, and will be good in the end, each 
thing passes through a process of becoming bad, 
abides in a state of badness, and passes through a 
process of becoming good again, as a result of the 
effect which the Kosmic Course has upon it. Bad- 
ness is therefore a state of development which 
every thing must go through. The purpose of 
which is the spiritualization of matter and the final 
elimination of bad from existence. All things, no 
matter how bad are therefore, doing their part in 
the deliverance of the universe from the rule of 
bad. We may draw from this a practical lesson, 
man should above all things avoid being too good. 
That is to say, one should avoid becoming so good 
that he is good for nothing. Remember, your 
function is to spiritualize the material world, not 
to be a pure spirit. This being the case, avoid 
becoming so spiritual that you can have no pos- 
sible influence upon matter. If you do this, you 
w^ll be of no earthly use, and the sooner you die 
and go to heaven, where you belong, the better. 
We have no use for Saints in this world, what we 
require is real live, red blooded men and women. 
Men and women who are not too spiritual to fight, 
to struggle and to do their part in the spiritualiza- 
tion of matter and hence in the regeneration of the 
universe. The saints all belong in heaven, what 
we want on earth is men. In other words, every 
one must be a Alchemist in his own proper field, 
small as it may be. This is the true function of 
all life, Alchemicalization, and above all, is it the 
work of man to transmute matter, and bring it a 
little closer to the spiritual status. In other words, 

114 

THE HERMETIC ART 

the type of men that are most needed in the world 
are Hermetic Artists. Your work is not to pre- 
pare for heaven but to stay on the earth, and trans- 
mute it into the heavenly state, and stay on the job 
until it is done. 

For Cosmos, too, Asclepius, possesseth 
sense-and-thought peculiar to itself, not like 
to that of man, 'tis not so manifold, but as 
it were a better and a simpler one. 

Sense-and-thought are not confined to man, but 
are common to the Kosmos as well, the sense-and- 
thought of the Kosmos is one peculiar to the Kos- 
mos, we do not find the like of it anywhere else. 
It is this sense-and-thought of the Kosmos that 
directs all the Kosmic operations. It is not so 
manifold as in the case of man, seeing that its func- 
tions are not so numerous, it is a simpler sense-and- 
thought and at the same time, a more powerful 
one, and one that operates on a more efficient plan. 
This sense-and-thought of the Kosmos is the prin- 
ciple that causes Kosmos to evolve in its own way, 
and by reason of its own power, and quite inde- 
pendent of any direction whatsoever. For this 
cause, Kosmos is alive, surcharged with its own 
sense, made intelligent by reason of its own 
thought, and animated by its own life. 

6. The single sense-and-thought of Cos- 
mos is to make all things, and make them 
back into itself again, as Organ of the Will 
of God, so organized that it, receiving all 
the seeds into itself from God, and keeping 
them within itself, may make all manifest, 
and [then] dissolving them, make them all 
new again ; and thus, like a Good Gardener 

THE HERMETIC ART 

115 

of Life, things that have been dissolved, it 
taketh to itself, and giveth them renewal 
once again. 

There is no thing to which it gives not 
life ; but taking all unto itself it makes them 
live, and is at the same time the Place of 
Life and its Creator. 

Kosmos is Organ of the Will of God. It is the 
vast space and substance into which the Will of 
God, that is, the Dynamic Energy of the Ultimate 
Deity enters, and moves therein. All the opera- 
tions of the Will of God are through the medium 
of this Kosmic Substance, which therefore becomes 
the Substantial Organ through which the Divine 
Will Force functions. This Kosmos is so organ- 
ized that all the seeds from God, that is all the 
Divine Ideas and the Monads engendered by them 
in the Matrix of Ku, are driven forth into Kosmos 
and are there deposited. They are all received 
into Kosmos, after the manner of seeds being de- 
posited in the earth in planting. They are retained 
there by Kosmos. The single sense-and-thought of 
Kosmos is to receive these seeds from God, which 
it does by reason of its negative contact with God. 
These seeds of God, when deposited in .Kosmos, 
cause it to conceive after their likeness, so that for 
every seed coming from. God, there is something 
corresponding to it, conceived in Kosmos. In this 
way it is the sense-and-thought of Kosmos to make 
all things. It also makes all things back into itself 
again, for nothing made by Kosmos is of perma- 
ment form, seeing that all its making is with refer- 
ence to itself. Ai the same time the tendency 
engendered by the seed of God is permanent, and 
hence this process is repeated unto infinity, and 
this is the true basis of the Law of Karma. It 

116 

THE HERMETIC ART 

makes all things manifest, and then, when they 
have become completely manifested, they are dis- 
solved into Kosmos once more, and are again made 
new again. Thus we have the perpetual reincar- 
nation of every thing that is ever manifested in 
Kosmos. It is through the endless sequence of 
manifestations in form, and dissolutions of form 
that the life contained in the form may manifest 
yet again, that the things made in Kosmos are 
going through an endless sequence of improve- 
ment. Thus as the Gardener of Life, all things 
that have been dissolved, are taken to Kosmos and 
in the course of time made new again. Kosmos is 
then, at once the Garden and the Gardener of Life 
in all of its manifold forms. This direction of 
this Process is the true nature of Kosmic Sense and 
Kosmic Thought working as one process. Kosmic 
Sense draws all the seeds of God into itself, and 
likewise, draws jnto itself all things manifested, 
dissolving them into its own substance. Kosmic 
Thought directs the manifestation of all the seeds 
of God, and likewise the renewal again of all 
things dissolved. This is the single sense-and- 
thought of Kosmos. 

There is no thing to which it gives not 
life, but taking all unto itself it makes them 
live, and is at the same time the Place of Life 
and its Creator. 

All living things derive their life from Kosmos, 
there is no life from any other source. It takes 
every thing unto itself, and taking them unto itself, 
it gives them life and makes them live. Death 
merely means that a thing which has exhausted its 
life force, is indrawn into Kosmos that it may be 
given another lease of life. It is at the same time 
the Place of Life and its Creator. It is the Place 
of Life because it is the space in which all life 

THE HERMETIC ART 

117 

is made manifest^ and in which all things are given 
their life. All the seeds of life are deposited in 
this space, and there are given the forms through 
which they may manifest their life. AH forms are 
indrawn into it, that they may again be made to 
live. It is likewise the Creator of Life, because 
it is through the operation of Kosmos under the 
inspiration of the power of Kosmic Thought that 
Life is difYerentiated into its diverse aspects and 
manifestations. All life, that is all individual fife 
is Created in Kosmos, and by Kosmos, and it is 
there that all life is made manifest. It is there- 
fore the source and the manifestation of Life. 
Kosmos is able to do this, because all seeds that 
are drawn into it, are made through it to conceive 
form, and all forms are being indrawn into it and 
there renewed. This is through the dual operation 
of the processes of creation and dissolution, and 
these two are made to act as one harmonious oper- 
ation. But remember this, its creation is through 
conception. When you have mastered this secret, 
that is, the secret of Kosmos, you have mastered 
the secret of the Great Work. The mystery is that 
of conception working in conjunction with disso- 
lution, joined with the ability to draw within all 
that is to be either conceived or dissolved. Kosmos 
is the great Alchemist, and when any one has 
mastered her secret he has himself mastered the 
secret of transmutation. When this has been 
mastered, the practical work of Alchemy is mere 
woman's work and boy's play. 

LESSON IX 

The Function of the Cosmos 

7. Now bodies matter [-made] are in 
diversity. Some are of the earth, of water 
some, some are of air, and some of fire. 

But they are all composed, some are more 
[composite], and some are simpler. The 
heavier ones are more [composed], the 
lighter less so. 

It is the speed of Cosmos' Course that 
works the manifoldness of the kinds of 
births. For being a most swift Breath, it 
doth bestow their qualities on bodies to- 
gether with the One Pleroma — that of Life. 

Now bodies matter [-made] are in divers- 
ity. Some are of the earth, of water some, 
some are of air, and some of fire. 

All bodies made from matter may be divided 
into four classes. They are either formed of earth, 
of water, of air, or of fire. Thus we have the four 
groups of bodies, earthy, watery, airy, and fiery 
bodies. This may be taken as being true in three 
different senses. In the first place we have the 
literal application of the classification. At the 
same time there is the sense in which these terms 
are used with reference to the four elemental gases, 
or, rather to the four ethers, that stand back of 
those gases and manifest through them. Then there 
is the symbolic sense, in which the four elements 
are used with reference to their corresponding 
principles in nature. However, in the main, fire 
stands for the Hot Principle, air for the Dry Prin- 

119 

120 

THE HERMETIC ART 

ciple, Water for the Moist Nature, and earth for 
the Cold Nature, no matter in what Principle of 
nature they may be found. All matter manifests 
under those four classifications, and all bodies 
made from matter are to be grouped accordingly, 
as being fiery, or hot, airy, or dry, watery, or moist, 
and earthy, or cold. 

But they are all composed ; some are more 
[composite], and some are simpler. The 
heavier ones are more [composed], the 
lighter less so. 

However, w^e must not make the mistake of 
assuming that there are simple bodies, that is, 
bodies formed of a single element. All bodies are 
composed of two or more elements. Whichever 
element is in the major position in the degree of 
composition will determine the element to which 
the body belongs. There are in the composition 
of these bodies all possible degrees of composition, 
from the most composite to the simplest. The 
weight of a body depends upon the degree of its 
composition, the more it is composed of the dif- 
ferent elements, the heavier it becomes, while the 
greater the degree of preponderance of a single 
element in its composition, the lighter it will be. 
This is due to the fact that as the elements are 
brought into a closer degree of equilibrium in its 
composition, there mutual attraction is increased, 
so that the degree of chemical affinity is relatively 
increased, and in this way is there an increase in 
the attraction which the earth has upon such a 
body. Thus it is that the weight of all bodies is 
increased in proportion to the degree of their com- 
position. It takes the union of the elements to 
form any material body, no matter how small. 
Bodies are formed by reason of the combination 
of the four elements. Yet the preponderating ele- 

THE HERMETIC ART 

121 

ment determines the nature of the body, that is the 
element which gives to it its nature. Thus we are 
able to see how all bodies are formed. The elements 
of chemistry are all composed of these four ele- 
ments of Alchemy and derive their nature from 
the proportion in which the four elements unite 
in their composition. The Molecule is in reality 
a material body composed of the four elements in 
diverse proportions, and the same is true of the 
Atoms of Chemistry. Each one, which is in the 
nature of the unit of the particular element under 
consideration, is a material body composed of the 
four elements. The proportion in which these ele- 
ments are united in its composition, determines the 
chemical element to which it will belong. We do 
not here refer to the atoms of the four elementaries, 
Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nitrogen and Carbon, but to 
the eighty-six elements of chemistry. Now, when 
we bear in mind that all the elements of chemistry 
are composed of atoms, each of which is composed 
of the atoms of the four elements of Alchemy, 
united in a definite proportion, and this in accord- 
ance with a perfect mathematical scale, we see the 
key to the transmutation of these elements the one 
into the other. All that is necessary is to break up 
this composition, restoring the chemical element, 
back into the four elements of Alchemy, and break- 
ing up this order of composition, in such a manner 
as to change the mathematical proportion of these 
four elements, until it becomes identical with that 
of the element to which you wish to change it. 
Then when you have arranged the proportion 
exactly right, compose your chemical atom in this 
way and you have the chemical element which you 
desire. Unite these atoms into molecules, and you 
have the physical element which you desire. That 
is the entire Science and Art of Practical Alchemy. 
There is nothing to prevent any competent Elec- 
tro-chemist who has an understanding of the tech- 

122 

THE HERMETIC ART 

nical side of Analytical Chemistry from trans- 
muting one element into another. We have 
indicated every problem that is at all involved in 
the undertaking. 

It is the speed of Cosmos' Course that 
works the manifoldness of the kinds of 
births. For being a most swift Breath, it doth 
bestow their qualities on bodies together 
with the One Pleroma — that of Life. 

The Course of Kosmos is in the nature of a most 
swift Breath, It is a force following an inbreath- 
ing and an outbreathing movement; that is, we 
have the alteration of a Centripetal and a Centri- 
fugal force, and this in perpetuity of action. This 
movement, not only characterizes, and gives its 
nature to the one Life, as a simple principle, but 
it also causes an infinite differentiation in the 
rapidity of movement in the diverse portion of the 
four elements. In this way are the diverse qual- 
ities engendered. Thus are bodies organized in 
which are being manifested all of these diverse 
qualities. In this way are diverse bodies born, in 
which all the diverse qualities engendered by the 
course of Kosmic movement, may become incar- 
nate. The One Life which is the Pleroma of all 
the manifestations of Kosmos, being engendered 
and made what it is by the movements of the Kos- 
mic Breath, manifests itself through the medium 
of all the diverse bodies engendered by the swift- 
ness of the Kosmic Breath. In this way, are all 
bodies made to live, by reason of the Life mani- 
festing through them. Thus in Kosmic motion 
have we the origin of all modes as well as of Life, 
and livingness. 

8. God, then, is Sire of Cosmos ; Cosmos, 
of [all] in Cosmos. And Cosmos is God's 

THE HERMETIC ART 

123 

Son ; but things in Cosmos are by Cosmos. 

And properly hath it been called Cosmos 
[Order] ; for that it orders all with their 
diversity of birth, with its not leaving aught 
without its life, with its unweariedness of 
activity, the speed of its necessity, the com- 
position of its elements, and order of its 
ceatures. 

The same, then, of necessity and propriety 
should have the name of Order. 

The sense-and-thought, then, of all lives 
doth come into them from without, in- 
breathed by what contains [them all] ; 
whereas Cosmos receives them once for all 
together with its coming into being, and 
keeps them as a gift from God. 

God, then, is Sire of Cosmos ; Cosmos, of 
[all] in Cosmos. And Cosmos is God's Son ; 
but things in Cosmos are by Cosmos. 

God is the Sire and source of Kosmos, while all 
the things in Cosmos are the products of Kosmos. 
It would therefore be wrong to say that God is the 
direct creator of anything else save Kosmos. 
Kosmos is the manifestation of God, while all 
things in Kosmos are engendered by reason of the 
life of Kosmos, and hence their being is derived 
from Kosmos, and they continue to be as a result 
of the action of Kosmos. They are not of divine 
origin then, but of kosmic origin. This distinction 
must at all times be borne in mind, otherwise our 
thinking w^ill become confused. Kosmos is the 
womb, projected forth from God, into which all 
the kosmic seed are deposited and in this way is 
the kosmic womb fecundated and, as a result it 

124 

THE HERMETIC ART 

gives birth to all the things in Kosmos. Kosmos 
is, therefore, in the nature of a self-fecundating 
womb, which of its own self, fecundates its own 
self, and out of itself gives birth to all things. It 
is in the highest sense the Vase of Art, and the 
fecund womb of existence. 

And properly hath it been called Cosmos 
[Order] ; for that it orders all with their 
diversity of birth, with its not leaving aught 
without its life, with the unweariedness of 
its activity, the speed of its necessity, the 
composition of its elements, and order of its 
creatures. 

Kosmos is in the nature of a vast expanse of 
energy and substance, every part of its space being 
equally occupied by both energy and substance. 
To be a little more explicit we might say that it 
is a vast space, completely filled with substance, 
and this substance being completely permeated 
by dynamic energy. The unweariedness of this 
activity keeps every particle of this kosmic sub- 
stance in a state of perpetual motion, thus tending 
to engender form. This activity engenders a tre- 
mendous rate of speed, which, owing to its intense 
rapidity, manifests a state of necessity, which 
governs all the other manifestations of Kosmos. 
All its actions must conform to this necessity. This 
operation of its necessity results in the composition 
of all the kosmic elements. A composition, the 
direct result of the course of kosmic necessity. This 
course of kosmic necessity, acting upon the kosmic 
elements, organizes out of them, the diverse forms, 
and in this way does it order forth the diversity 
of births of all things in Kosmos. It also infuses 
the proper quality of life in each thing born, and 
orders all of its creatures in the true course of 

THE HERMETIC ART 

125 

evolution through which they are destined to pass 
in the manifestation of their life. For these reasons 
is this realm of action, formation, vitalization, 
composition, necessity, and ordering, termed Kos- 
mos, or Order, for it is the ordering sphere of all 
things, the-that-which gives order in all things, 
and having no other source of Order apart from 
itself. 

The same, then, of necessity and of pro- 
priety should have the name of Order. 

Because it is the action of Kosmos that orders 
forth all things, and assigns to them, the order in 
which they are made to manifest, it is both neces- 
sary and proper that we should give it the name 
of Order, that which is the cause of the order in 
which every thing manifests, there being no ele- 
ment of ordering which is not in it, must of 
necessity be the true foundation of Order, and 
hence is properly called Order. In other words, 
it is the principle of Order, and hence is termed 
Order in the sense of its being the essence of Order, 
or Order as a Universal Principle. 

The sense-and-thought, then, of all lives 
doth come into them from without, in- 
breathed by what contains [them all] ; 
whereas Cosmos receives them once for all 
together with its coming into being, and 
keeps them as a gift from God. 

Sense-and-thought are inherent in no living 
thing. In all living things sense-and-thought comes 
into them from without. It is not in any sense of 
the word a product of any living thing, but ema- 
nates from without them all. As it is not in any 
living thing, it must be inbreathed into them by 

126 

THE HERMETIC ART 

some force which is not a thing, and this will have 
to be a principle containing within itself all living 
things. This can be nothing other than the Kosmos 
which we have investigated above. Hence it fol- 
lows that both sense and thought are inherently and 
universally present in Kosmos. In a word, in addi- 
tion to forming the body, and infusing it with life 
so as to make it live, Kosmos also breathes into it 
both sense and thought, which makes it instinctive 
and intelligent. This is all the work of Kosmos. 
It will be perfectly correct if we say that we live 
in Kosmos at all times, completely immersed in it, 
and completely bathed in the Kosmic sea. We are 
breathing in, life, sense, and thought from Kosmos 
as well as air from the Atmosphere. But more 
properly will it be to say that these are being 
breathed into us by Kosmos, for we are the Nega- 
tive side and not the Positive side of this relation- 
ship. Kosmos, in its coming into being, receives 
sense-and-thought as an integral part of its being. 
They remain inseparably united with its being, 
for were it not for Kosmic Sense and Kosmic 
Thought, Kosmos would not be Kosmos. This will 
at once appear, when we bear in mind that the 
nature of Kosmos is the Ultimate Order. Now, 
this Order is maintained through the operation of 
sense-and-thought, and hence, Kosmos depends 
upon the perpetual presence of this kosmic sense- 
and-thought, Man senses that which already is, 
and through his sensing, he comes in contact with 
it, but Kosmos senses that which does not exist, 
and through such sensing of the non-existent, it is 
brought into existence through the action of the 
kosmic sense. The action of sense-and-thought are 
exactly the reverse in the case of man, and of Kos- 
mos. Man senses that which is exterior to himself 
and this sensing of the object causes him to think 
of it, so that thought springs out of his sensing. In 
the case of Kosmos, however, thought precedes 

THE HERMETIC ART 

127 

sense. Through sense, the thing thought of is 
brought into existence. Through Kosmic sense, the 
kosmic thoughts are made sensible, and in this way 
they begin to exist. Kosmic sense is therefore the 
kosmic faculty of rendering the subjective thought 
side of Kosmos, objective. When man has trans- 
formed this human sense into kosmic sense, he has 
acquired the power of making his subjective 
thought objective, that is of objectifying his 
thought images, and thus of creating that which 
he thinks in his mind. This is the true secret of 
creation. When one has mastered this secret he is 
the master of the Art of Creation, and thus has he 
attained creative thought through the mastering 
of kosmic sense. Kosmic sense-and-thought are the 
reflection in kosmic substance of the sense-and- 
thought of God. It is in this sense that the sense- 
and-thought of Kosmos is a gift from God, it is 
the sense-and-thought of God m^ifesting through 
Kosmic Substance, The sense-and-thought of man 
are in turn, the manifestation of the kosmic sense- 
and-thought through the medium of the human 
organism. For this reason we might truly sa}^, the 
sense-and-thought of man is a gift from Kosmos. 
It is this connection which enables man to rise 
from the status of the human man to that of the 
kosmic man, through the incarnation in himself, 
of kosmic sense and kosmic thought. Such trans- 
position of himself and of his powxrs to the kosmic 
status is the true secret as well as the true goal of 
the Alchemist, and this is the Ultama thule of the 
Hermetic Art. This is the great distinction 
between the Natural and the Artistic Man. The 
great problem is to open up oneself to the activities 
of the Kosmos, and permit them a freer degree of 
manifestation through our diverse principles. To 
ensoul as far as we are able, Kosmos, is the 
Magnum Opus in all of its completeness. 

LESSON X 

The Sense-and-Thought of God 

9. But God is not, as some suppose, 
beyond the reach of sense-and-thought. It 
is through superstition men thus impiously 
speak. 

For all the things that are, Asclepius, all 
are in God, are brought by God to be, and 
do depend on Him — both things that act 
through bodies, and things that through 
soul-substance make [other things] to move, 
and things that make things live by means of 
spirit, and things that take unto themselves 
the things that are worn out. 

And rightly so ; nay, I would rather say, 
He doth not have these things ; but I speak 
forth the truth. He is them all Himself. He 
doth not get them from without, but gives 
them out [from Himself]. 

This is God's sense-and-thought, even to 
move all things. And never time shall be 
when e'en a whit of things that are shall 
cease ; and when I say ''a whit of things that 
are," I mean a whit of God. For things that 
are, God hath; nor aught [is there] without 
Him, nor [is] He without aught. 

But God is not, as some suppose, beyond 
the reach of sense-and-thought. It is through 
superstition men thus impiously speak. 

129 

130 

THE HERMETIC ART 

Those who assume that God is absolutely 
transcendent and cannot be approached, are the 
ignorant and the superstitious. The whole theory 
of the transcendence of God is entirely due to a 
misunderstanding of the nature of God. The prin- 
ciple reason for such contention is that it renders 
it impossible for man to know God and His Will, 
and this renders a Revelation of God necessary. 
Thus we have the belief that we can only reach a 
knowledge of God through revelation, and of 
course this is a very convenient doctrine for the 
clergy, as it makes them the sole custodians of the 
Will of God. I might say that this idea of a 
transcendent God, the knowledge of Whom comes 
only by revelation, is the deliberate invention of 
the priesthood, and it is one of the most useful of 
all inventions, for it is of course at all times essen- 
tial that we should befuddle the cheap organisms, 
and in this way it will be the easier f ot us to exploit 
them. It is impious for anyone to say that God 
cannot be reached through sense-and-thought. As 
a matter of fact, the sense-and-thought of man is 
quite capable of at-oneing itself with God, so that 
simply through his sense-and-thought man may 
know God definitely and with complete satisfac- 
tion. This of course is not the privilege of cheap 
organisms, only gentlemen have any business to 
know God! 

For all the things that are, Asclepius, all 
are in God, are brought by God to be, and 
do depend on Him — both things that act 
through bodies, and things that through 
soul-substance make [other things] to move, 
and things that make things live by means of 
spirit, and things that take unto themselves 
the things that are worn out. 

THE HERMETIC ART 

131 

Nothing ever comes into being unless it was 
previously in God. That is, things come into 
existence because they have previously subsisted 
in God. Not only is this true, but they continue 
to subsist in Him after they have been born into 
existence. In fact, the only cause for the existence 
of anything is the abiding idea of it in God. They 
are in God, they are brought by Him into being, 
and their continued existence depends upon Him. 
They can exist only so long as He is conscious of 
them as being in Him. This will mean that they 
can exist only because they subsist in His con- 
sciousness. They have no other substratum than 
God. He does not create them, He externalizes 
them from the depths of Himself alone. In a 
word, ail things are generated in Ku, are born 
forth out of Ku, and at the same time ever continue 
to abide in Ku. This is true of everything that 
lives and acts through the instrumentality of a 
body, that is, all embodied life. In a word, every 
single body that exists, subsists in God, has been 
born forth out of God, and depends for its con- 
tinued existence upon the continued presence in 
God of its arche-typal idea. But this is not only 
true of all embodied things, but it is true as well 
of those motive forces that manifest through soul- 
substance and in this way move other things. In 
a word, every form of dynamic energy subsists in 
God, has been emanated from God and depends 
for its continued activity upon the fact that it is 
still in God. Also, all those things that are the 
causes of the infusing of spirit into other things, 
and in this way make them to live, are likewise in 
God, they have been manifested out from God, and 
at the same time they continue to subsist in God. 
Likewise, those things that devour or absorb the 
things that have lived out their period of life, and 
are hence worn out, are also subsistent in God, are 
existent from God and continue to depend upon 

132 

THE HERMETIC ART 

God for their being. In a word, every single thing 
in the Kosmos, in the Universe, in the earth, and 
everywhere else, has subsisted in God, it has been 
born forth from God into existence, and it con- 
tinues to abide in God as to its ideal form. There- 
fore, we see that God is all-in-all. That all things 
are but aspects of His being, made active, and in 
this way made manifest. Hence there is nothing 
apart from Him. Not only have all things been 
brought into being through the act of God, but 
likewise, they continue to exist only because of the 
continual sustenance of God to them, they are His 
perpetual manifestations. 

And rightly so; nay, I would rather say, 
He doth not have these things ; but I speak 
forth the truth. He is them all Himself. He 
doth not get them from without, but gives 
them out [from Him]. 

God has not created these things. They are not 
His creatures, neither does He have them as 
possessions. In no sense are they to be separated 
from Him. They are not to be thought of as His 
works, neither should we in truth speak of them 
as emanations from Him. In reality, God is all 
these things Himself. He does not get these things 
from some other source. They are not derived from 
another, neither do they come from outside of God. 
On the other hand, God gives them all out from 
Himself. In a word, all things are born forth 
from God. Now, if they are born of Him, they 
must have b^en formed previously to the time of 
such birth, and if they are born of God, they can 
be formed of nothing apart from Him, hence they 
must have been formed in God. If they are formed 
in Him, they can be formed of nothing which is 
not present in Him at a time previous to such 
forming, hence, they will of necessity have to be 

THE HERMETIC ART 

133 

formed of the substance of God Himself. In a 
word, they will have to be formed of Ku and in 
Ku. As all the divine formations take place in Ku 
and as a result of thought, it will follow that God 
must first think of the thing to be formed; that is, 
he must think the thought corresponding to the 
thing that is going to be formed, for, bear in mind 
God does not intend to form this or that, His 
thought, on the contrary, engenders that which 
corresponds to it. The Divine Thought impreg- 
nates Ku, and as a result that which corresponds 
to the thought is formed in the womb of Ku. From 
this it will follow that it must be formed of the 
substance of Ku and energized by Her energy, 
thus it will be quite divine. All things are there- 
fore the thoughts of God, manifesting through the 
substance and energy of God. There is no other 
thought, no other substance, and no other energy 
save that of God, hence, all things are of this 
thought, substance and energy of God and have 
nothing else, hence, they are all of them, God. 
Therefore, God is each and every thing of all 
things that are. He is not only all things, but He 
is each particular thing. To be a little more 
explicit, no thing has any objective existence. They 
all have an existence purely subjective, subsisting 
in the consciousness of God, but do not exist as 
objects. It is illusion that causes us to see them 
as objective; they are in fact thoughts of God, 
existing merely as states of His sense. In no other 
sense do they exist. Hence, they are to all intents 
and purposes God Himself. 

This is God's sense-and-thought, ever to 
move all things. And never time shall be 
when e'en a whit of things that are shall 
cease; and when I say ''a whit of things that 
are/' I mean a whit of God. For things that 

134 

THE HERMETIC ART 

are, God hath, nor aught [is there] without 
Him, nor [is] He without aught. 

The sense-and-thought of God is the power that 
moves all things. They are engendered by His 
thought, and after they have been engendered, that 
thought abides in them, thus becoming their intel- 
ligence, and in this way, directing from within, all 
their movements. The sense of God is that which 
causes them to have form, for they are in form, 
because they are in the sense of God, and for no 
other reason. Were they to cease to be sensible to 
Him they would cease to be. Energy they have 
because of the sense of God, for His energy is His 
sense. Therefore, all things are brought into being 
and are made to move, through the sense of God. 
It is in fact the sense of God abiding in all things 
that causes them to move by reason of the move- 
ment which is within them, this is true because all 
things are ensouled by the sense of God. The time 
can never come when a whit of things that are shall 
cease to be, because, all such things have merely a 
subjective existence in the thought and sense of 
God, hence they can never cease to be, so long as 
God is sensible of them. Until such time as God 
shall become insensible of His own thought-and- 
sense, nothing existing in His thought-and-sense 
can ever cease to be. As His thought-and-sense 
are His Being, it follows that the very being of 
God must change before any thing can ever cease 
to be, and owing to the immutability of His 
Essence this is impossible. All things are there- 
fore so many parts of God, and as no part of God 
can be destroyed, seeing that He is not composed, 
but is the Absolute Unity, the dissolution of any 
part of Him would be the extinction of His unity, 
it follows that nothing that has come into being, 
can ever cease to be. There is nothing without 
God, hence nothing has existence save as God. 

THE HERMETIC ART 

135 

This being the case, God does not subsist, save as 
the totality of the all, hence God cannot survive 
if any single thing is lost. This soul-satisfying 
Omni-Theism solves all the problems of existence 
and subsistence. We can see that there are no 
things, but on the contrary, there is the Absolute 
One whose relativity appears to be diverse. 

10. These things should seem to thee, 
Asclepius, if thou dost understand them, 
true ; but if thou dost not understand, things 
not to be believed. 

To understand is to believe, to not believe 
is not to understand. 

My word (logos) doth go before [thee] 
to the truth. But mighty is the mind, and 
when it hath been led by w^ord up to a certain 
point, it hath the power to come before thee 
to the truth. 

And having thought o'er all these things, 
and found them consonant with those which 
have already been translated by the reason, 
it hath [e'en] now believed, and found its 
rest in that Fair Faith. 

To those, then, who by God ['s good aid] 
do understand the things that have been said 
[by us] above, they're credible; but unto 
those who understand them not, incredible. 

Let so much, then, suffice on thought-and- 
sense. 

These things should seem to thee, Ascle- 
pius, if thou dost understand them, true ; but 
if thou dost not undrestand, things not to be 
believed. 

136 

THE HERMETIC ART 

The teaching that we have been giving here on 
the subject of thought-and-sense, will at once 
appear to be the truth, if one understands the true 
meaning of what has been said. If one is able to 
comprehend our interpretation, he will at once see 
that it could not possibly have been any other way. 
To one who understands our meaning, the truth 
of what we have said will be self-evident. If this 
is not the case, it will simply prove that the unbe- 
liever has simply no comprehension whatsoever of 
what we are talking about. In a word, it will go 
to show, that he is not capable of forming an 
opinion on such subjects, in a word, it will expose 
him as a cheap organism. The beauty of the 
Hermetic position is in the fact that once it has 
been understood, an intelligent person cannot pos- 
sibly see how it would be possible for it to be any 
other way. 

To understand is to believe, to not believe 
is not to understand. 

Here we have a definition of belief that may 
strike many as being unusual. Belief, is in reality 
that action of the mind by which a statement is 
accepted as being true. There is no connection 
between true belief and credulity. It is impossible 
for any one to believe that which he does not un- 
derstand, and likewise, it is impossible for one to 
avoid belief in that which he understands. The 
function of the understanding is to trace out the 
relationship between a statement and the synthesis 
of truth of which one is conscious. To understand 
a statement is therefore, to trace out the relation- 
ship which that statement bears to the truth of 
which one is aware. When the mind has indicated 
this relationship, and has shown that there is no 
point at which the relationship is not perfect, one 
has understood the statement. Belief is that action 

THE HERMETIC ART 

of the mind, by which, when a statement is under- 
stood, it is registered as being true. In a word, 
that which we believe we accept as being real, 
while up to the point of belief, it was merely 
apparent. It might be true, or it might not. How- 
ever, belief is the act of mind by which that which 
is understood becomes certain. We are sure of 
what we believe. One never believes any thing on 
the testimony of another. The testimony of others 
may establish a presumption in favor of a state- 
ment of fact, but it is not sufficient to establish a 
belief. We do not believe a thing until the under- 
standing has indicated why it is true. In a word, 
to believe is to accept the connection between the 
fact and the Law of Nature that is operative in 
the establishing of that fact. We will go a step 
farther, it is not at all easy to believe any thing 
that is not true. Belief as we have indicated is 
a condition of mind resulting from an understand- 
ing of the thing to be believed, and is in all cases, 
a condition subsequent to the understanding of the 
proposition. To accept a statement on the author- 
ity of another, is not to believe it, but to admit that 
the other has a mind superior to your own, and 
therefore, what he says must be true, but you can 
never realize that it is true, and that is what you 
have to do if you are to believe it. This certitude 
of belief is the result of the understanding of the 
statement. 

My word (logos) doth go before [thee] 
to the truth. But mighty is the mind, and 
when it hath been led by word up to a certain 
point, it hath the power to come before 
[thee] to the truth. 

When the truth is taught in the form of words, 
it will give a statem.ent of the truth, which one 

138 

THE HERMETIC ART 

cannot at the moment accept as the truth. In other 
words, one can have stated to him in the form of 
words, a truth which he does not as yet under- 
stand as sucli. The purpose of such teaching is 
to set the mind at work, and directing it along a 
certain line of thought, cause it, through this 
process, to formulate the concept, in terms of 
thought ere we are conscious of the fact that we 
have accepted it as being true. In a word, man 
never bel'ieves a statement because he wishes to 
believe it, he believes it because the belief is made 
manifest in his mind. In other words, we are deal- 
ing with a form of chemical action, and the act of 
listening to the teaching has the effect of confining 
the action of the mind to the topic under discus- 
sion, with the result that the understanding works 
it out, and the result is, the germination in the 
mind of a definite belief in that which has been 
brought to its attention. This is in fact pure 
alchemy. It is also true that we reach such belief 
at a time anterior to our becoming conscious of 
the fact that we have accepted it as being true. We 
must at ail times bear in mind that all mental oper- 
ations are in the nature of achievements in 
Alchem}^ For this reason, the purpose of instruc- 
tion is nothing more than the discipline of the 
mind, to the end that its operations may be con- 
fined to a certain line of thought, and in this way 
belief may be born within it. You can prove noth- 
ing to any one, you can merely lead his mind in 
the right direction, so that it may of its own power, 
create within itself the belief of the thing which 
you wish to impress upon it. 

And having thought o'er all these things, 
and found them consonant with those which 
have already been translated by the reason, 
it hath [e'en now] believed, and found its 
rest in that Fair Faith. 

THE HERMETIC ART 

139 

The function of the reason is to translate all 
things into the form of belief. It is closely con- 
nected with the understanding, and yet there is a 
distinction. The great work of reason is to analyze 
all statements and reducing them to their most 
ultimate aspect, to detect errors. It is in fact the 
critical faculty. By it w^e are able to detect any 
defects that may be present in its presentation. It 
is in fact, the Dweller on the Threshold which 
every statement must pass before it can approach 
the understanding. Through the exercise of the 
reason, all statements of views, are analyzed and 
are at last reduced to such form as will accommo- 
date them to the body of truth. They are then, 
being translated into this form, given to the under- 
standing, which assimulates them in such way that 
we have an understanding of them, when they take 
the form of belief. It is therefore the reason that 
translates all things into the form of belief. When 
all these things which we are here discussing have 
been carefully thought over, and as a result of such 
thinking, have been found to be consonant w^ith 
those which have already been translated by the 
reason, in other words, thinking on them, so that 
the reason has prepared them for assimilation into 
the understanding, so that they may become a part 
of what has been accepted as belief, the mind be- 
lieves in them. This will simply mean that the 
mind has made of them a portion of its own belief. 
They will have taken their abode in the mind, so 
that from this time forth, all one's thinking will 
be conditioned by these things. This is an oper- 
ation of pure Alchemy which transpires in the 
mind. Words have been transmuted into beliefs. 
It is thus that one believes the Gnosis. Thus 
through such belief of the teaching, one takes his 
rest in the Fair Faith of Gnosis. The Fair Faith 
is in no sense to be confused with what is com- 

140 

THE HERMETIC ART 

monly called blind faith. To find rest in the Fair 
Faith means that through thinking upon the 
Gnostic Teaching, the reason is to translate it in 
terms of one's individual understanding, and thus 
it is to engender belief of the Gnosis. This belief 
in the Gnostic Teaching will so transform the 
mind that in all of its future thinking, it will oper- 
ate in that direction and in accordance with those 
principles, and that transformed state of mind is 
Gnosis, or it is the Fair Faith. This then is not in 
the nature of a belief, but rather in the nature of 
a state of mind, that will transform into its like- 
ness all the things that are offered to the mind. 
This is in fact the Golden Mind which will trans- 
form into its own Pure Gold all the baser thoughts 
that are born within it. Gnosis is therefore the 
Philosopher's Stone, that is to transform into 
Gnosis all the thoughts of the mind. After one 
has taken his rest in this Fair Faith, it is utterly 
impossible for him to ever err, for the reason that 
his Faith will make all his thinking after its image. 

To those, then, who by God ['s good aid] 
do understand the things that have been said 
[by us] above, they're credible; but unto 
those who understand them not, incredible. 

If one has understood this teaching, it means that 
his reason has translated it into terms of his think- 
ing, and that his understanding has united it with 
his previous knowledge, so that it has through the 
action of his mind become a belief, and hence a 
part of his thinking. This being true, it will fol- 
low that they are real to him, being part and parcel 
of his mental organization and hence of his think- 
ing. This being the case, it is quite impossible for 
him to doubt them any longer. On the other hand, 
if one has not understood them, they are no part of 

THE HERMETIC ART 

141 

his mind, and as he does not think them, of course 
he cannot believe them, seeing that no such belief 
has been born within his mind. One repudiates 
these things, simply because of the fact that no such 
belief has been born within the mind, and in the 
absence of such a belief, it is futile for us to expect 
one to accept them. One who accepts the Gnosis 
is merely one who has consummated the Great 
Work in his mind, while one who has not consum- 
mated it will of course be unable to accept a belief 
which can only exist as a result of such consumma- 
tion of the Great Work in the mind. Faith in 
Gnosis is born within the mind, and it comes in no 
other way. Unless this has been born in the mind, 
it is useless to hope for one to see the truth in our 
sublime teaching. This bearing of the Fair Faith 
in the mind is the true purpose of the Hermetic 
Art. All Hermetic Disciplines lead unto this end. 

Let so much, then, suffice on thought-and- 
sense. 

What we have said in the above instructions will 
clearly indicate the exact nature of thought-and- 
sense, divine, kosmic and human. Those who will 
not understand our interpretation are cheap organ- 
isms that would not understand were we to write 
ten thousand volumes on the subject, and to those 
capable of understanding, wx have given ample 
instruction for their guidance in the working of 
the Hermetic Art and the consummation of the 
Great Work in their own minds. This is the 
Master Key to the transmutation of the mind and 
the generation of thought, belief and Faith. We 
have indicated the one and only way in which one 
ever attains Gnosis. Remember this, you can never 
learn Gnosis, it is useless to study it. Gnosis must 
be born within you, and it can be born only in the 

142 

THE HERMETIC ART 

mind, and that in the way that we have here indi- 
cated. The attainment of Gnosis is the Magnum 
Opus of the mind. 

With these words, we close our treatise on The 
Hermetic Art. Those who have understood us, 
will have no difficulty in going into the study of 
the Art of Alchemy. 

(The End) 

Below find complete list of the Hermetic works, by 
Dr. A. S. Raleigh, already published in book form and 

which will be sent postpaid at prices listed : 

WOMAN AND SUPER-WOMAN $ 1.50 

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HERMETIC ART 10.00 

All the above books are printed on the same beauti- 
ful paper as the Hermetic Art and similarly bound and 
stamped in gold. 

The books named below will soon be in book form 
and ready to market on uniform paper and binding as 

above : 

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Send for large, handsome circular, giving contents 
fully outlined of each of the above books. The circular 
gives such a complete analysis of each book and contains 
so much valuable information that it will be preserved 
by all Mystics and Occultists. It will be sent free of 
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The $10.00 books are the private lessons written by 
Dr. A. S. Raleigh for the Hermetic Brotherhood. 

In addition to the above books a few sets of the 
following lessons may be secured at prices named below : 

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