Section 6

He is Himself, both things that are and
things that are not. The things that are He
hath made manifest, He keepeth things that
are not in Himself.

Things that are not are simply those things
in the process of making, but which are still con-
tained within the depths of Ku. While they are
still in the making, and are subsisting in Ku, they
are Unmanifest, and are not, in the sense that
they are as yet a part from Ku, not having as yet
come forth into being as things rather than as
Ku. When a thing has been made, when the
process of its making has been perfected, and it
has therefore been projected out from Ku, it is
made manifest in that way. It now is, for it has
attained being as a thing, and hence it begins its
existence apart from the pure Esse of Ku. In
that way does it become manifested. And yet
those existent and manifested things are still Ku
in the sense that they are made up of Ku, that
being the Substance entering into them and noth-

60 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A

ing else besides. They are at all times of the
nature of Ku, but at the same time they have an
individuality of their own. This, then, is the
secret of the manifestation of things. It is the
mystery of the individualization of Ku. Ku is
the Universal and the Unity of the Divine Essence.
When It has become particular, and differentiated,
it is born forth into manifestation as things.
These things are therefore the particularity of
Ku coming forth into individual manifestation as
things. Thus do we see the Unity of the Unmani-
fest and of each and all of Its manifestations.

LESSON V
The Immanence of God

10. He is the God beyond all name ; He the
unmanifest, He the most manifest; He whom
the mind [alone] can contemplate, He visible
unto the eyes [as well] ; He is the one of no
body, the one of many bodies, nay, rather He
of every body.

Naught is there which He is not. For all
are He and He is all. And for this cause hath
He all names, in that they are one Father's.
And for this cause hath He Himself no name,
in that He's Father of [them] all.

Who, then, may sing Thee praise of Thee, or
[praise] to Thee?

Whither, again, am I to turn my eyes to
sing Thy praise; above, below, within, with-
out?

There is no way, no place [is there] about
Thee, nor any other thing of things that are.

All [are] in Thee; all are from Thee, 0
Thou who givest all and takest naught, for
Thou hast all and naught is there Thou hast
not.

He is the God beyond all name ; He the un-
manifest, He the most manifest; He whom the
mind [alone] can contemplate, He visible unto
the eyes [as well] ; He is the one of no body,
the one of many bodies, nay, rather He of
every body.

62 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A

This Unmanifest God is the God beyond all
name ; for out of Ku have been born all the names,
of names that are. All the Powers, all the Forces in
kosmos have been particularized in Ku and have
been projected from Her Maternal Depths. All the
names, the Mystic Words, the Words of Power, the
God Words, each and all have been conceived and
made in the bosom of Ku, and hence, all names,
without a single exception, being made there, and
coming forth from there, no single name is left
after the total of names have been taken as hav-
ing come forth; hence no name is left for that
which hath made all names; therefore, no name
can be given to the Unmanifest God, seeing that
He-She is source of all names, both jointly and
severally; hence is He-She beyond all name. He
is the unmanifest as we have seen, the one whose
true Essence is never brought into manifestation,
and yet is He the most manifest of all things con-
ceivable, for, every single feature of the mani-
festation is nothing other than a manifestation of
that same Essence, which in itself ever remains
concealed. The true Essence of this God can only
be contemplated by the mind in the deepest of its
Abstractions, as He does not present His Essence
to the senses. He can in His Essence, only be con-
templated in this way, and yet, in His Manifesta-
tions, and the forms which they have assumed,
we can see Him with the eyes; we can inspect
Him through all the senses; and we can experi-
ment with His physical expressions. In His pure
Essence as Mind and Ku, He has no body what-
soever. In the Manifestation, He has assumed
many bodies, towit, those of all the Gods and the
Powers, while in the kosmos He is to be seen in
each and every body in existence, from the great-
est to the most infinitesimal. In a word, there is
nothing at all save God Unmanifest and this same
God Immanent in all the forms that have em-
anated from Him or rather Her. It is the Fern-

PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 63

inine or Mother aspect, Ku, that sends forth all
of these things into manifestation.

Naught is there which He is not. For all
are He and He is all And for this cause hath
He all names, in that they are one Father's.
And for this cause hath He Himself no name,
in that He's Father of [them] all.

Nowhere in all the universe is there that which
we can speak of and say this is not God. There
could not possibly be anything but God. There is
no Intelligence that has not grown out of His
Thought, hence there is no mind in all the Uni-
verse save that which is the manifestation of His
Mind. Apart from Him there is no Substance
from which anything could have been made. All
substance of whatever grade is but a modification
of Her substance that is of Ku. There is nowhere
any Energy save that which has come out of the
Divine Energy through its diverse expressions
and differentiations. There is no life save that
which has come out of His life, no Intelligence
save that which has emanated from His Mind,
and no substance, save that which has come forth
from Her Essence. Therefore, there is, and can
never be anything in all the world save God and
His Appearances, His expressions. All are He,
and He is all. This soul-satisfying Pan-Theism
is absolute, nothing else could possibly be true,
it is the one true religion and philosophy for all
ages and all races. He hath all names, because
they have all come forth from Ku, having been
engendered within Her. Also, the things to which
we attach each and all of the names we use are in
reality God. There being nothing that is not God,
it follows that everything that exists is God, and
therefore, all the things for which we have names
are He, hence all names are names of Him. All

64 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA

naines have one Father-Mother, and as they are
given to that which is God, they are in reality the
names of this one Father-Mother; therefore, every
word that we can possibly use is a name of God.
All the names that we can possibly use are the
names of His differentiations and manifestations,
and hence the Pleroma of names is exhausted by
the Pleroma of the Manifestations of God; there-
fore no name is there left for the Perfect Essence
of the Father-Mother ; hence hath He Himself no
name. As He is the Absolute, and names are for
the relative distinctions, there can be no name for
the Unrelativity of His Absoluteness.

Who, then, may sing Thee praise of Thee,
or [praise] to Thee?

No one can ever praise this God beyond all
name, for the simple reason that no one can ever
in all eternity do justice to His Greatness. Noth-
ing that we may say of Him is anything but
slander. To attribute to Him certain attributes,
is to deny to Him those not indicated, and this is
to slander Him. To mention any of His charac-
teristics, is to give greater importance to them
than to the ones not mentioned, but all the char-
acteristics of God are of equal importance. To
say that He is all that is to slander Him, for it
will indicate that we mean to limit God to all that
there is, and that would be blasphemy. Words
will not express His Fullness, and therefore it is
impious to try to speak of Him. We cannot praise
Him, because the inadequacy of all praise will
render this very praise a slander. Naught but the
silence can express this so great God. Praise
Him not, but keep silence in His presence.

Whether, again, am I to turn my eyes to
sing Thy praise, above, below, within, with-
out?

PHILOSOPHIA EERMETICA 65

There is no way, no place is there about
Thee, nor any other thing of things that are.

The Bible says that God is in Heaven, bnt this
is a manifest impiety, for it implies that that is
the only place where He is to be found. Those
who say that God is in the heart of man, are
impious, for that localizes Him, and implies that
He is not outside of the heart of man. It is im-
pious to intimate that He is in any place or local-
ity any more than in another, and it is equally
impious to intimate that He is in all places and
localities combined any more than He is in no
locality at all. It was a grave impiety on the part
of the Jews to say that God' dwelt in Jerusalem.
It is a grave impiety on the part of the Moham-
medans to face Mecca while praying, and in this
way intimate that He is there more than at any
other place. It is impious in the Christians to
think that God is in the Churches in a sense that
He is not also in the Saloon as well. To say that
God is in the Altar in a different sense to that in
which He is in the couch of the prostitute is a
grave impiety, just as it is impious in the Catholio
to think that He is in the Sacred Host any more
than He is in the mortar of the mason. To God,
there is no way, for He is the source and sustainer
as well as the occupier of all ways. About Him
there is no place, for He is the source, the founda-
tion and the occupier of all places ; to Him there
is no place. Of God no thing of all the things
that are, is true. He is neither here nor there.
He is neither now nor then. He is neither this
nor that. He is neither existent nor non-existent.
He is neither subsistent nor non-subsistent. He
neither lives nor dies. He is neither mortal nor
immortal. He is at once everything and nothing,
and at the same time He is neither the one nor the
other. He is unnamable, inexpressible, unconceiv-
able, unthinkable. He is, He is not.

66 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA

All [are] in Thee; all are from Thee, 0
Tho\i who givest all and takest naught, for
Thou hast all and naught is there Thou hast
not.

Everything subsists in God, there is nothing
that is not forever in Him. At the same time
everything exists from God. Everything has
come forth out of Him by emanation. He is at
once the container and the source of all. He gives
all, because everything that is, must originate in
Him and must be born forth from Him. As there
is nothing but what has originated in Him, there is
nothing that He has not given, and as He is at all
times generating all things unto infinity, there is
nothing that He requires of all those things which
He has engendered. Therefore, it is stated that He
has all, and there is nothing that He has not. All
idea of worship in the sense of doing something
for God is therefore manifestly impious, assuming
as it does that man may do something for God,
and hence by implication that there is something
that God needs from man. As all is in God, He
has all, and there is nothing that He has not al-
ready, therefore, there is nothing that man can
offer to Him. This leads to the conclusion that
sacrifices are in reality an offense unto Him, see-
ing that in the very nature of things, they indicate
that man assumes that God has need of something
that man can give to Him. This reminds one of
the statement in the Old Testament, "Thy Offer-
ings, thy Meat Offerings and thy Drink Offerings
are an abomination unto Me, if I was hungry I
would not ask thee, for the cattle on a thousand
hills are mine." It is quite evident that the re-
ligion taught here by the Prophet is quite different
from that taught by Moses. The conclusion is un-
avoidable, that the original Jewish religion was
that of devotion to one of the lesser gods, and that

PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 67

the Prophet was here undertaking to transform
the religion into the worship of the God beyond
all name. In other words, it marked the introduc-
tion of Hermeticism into the fabric of Judaism.
Wherever we see Eitualism discounted in favor of
a spiritual life, we see the influence of this Be-
ligion of the Mind. All is His, therefore, we can
give Him nothing, as it is already His. We can-
not praise Him, seeing that all possible praise is
totally inadequate to do Him justice. The only
possible service that we can render Him is to
manifest His perfection in our life, hence, a godly
life is the only service that can possibly be ren-
dered to Him.

11. And when, 0 Father, shall I hymn
Thee ? For none can seize Thy hour or time.

For what, again, shall I sing hymn? For
things that Thou hast made, or things Thou
hast not? For things Thou hast made mani-
fest, or things Thou hast concealed?

How, further, shall I hymn Thee? As be-
ing of myself? As having something of mine
own? As being other?

For that Thou art whatever I may be ; Thou
art whatever I may do ; Thou art whatever I
may speak.

For Thou art all, and there is nothing else
which Thou art not. Thou art all that which
doth exist, and Thou art what doth not exist,
— Mind when Thou thinkest, the Father when
Thou makest, and God when Thou dost ener-
gize, and Good and Maker of all things.

And when, 0 Father shall I hymn Thee?
For none can seize Thy hour or time.

Here we have the principle laid down that there
is no set time in which devotion is to be paid to the

68 PHILOSOPHIA EEBMETICA

Father. He functions not in time. All times are the
resuft of the manifestation, and hence do not apply
to Him. Also, all times have been engendered from
Him, hence they originate from Him ; and subsist
in Him ; therefore, they are all alike His. For Him
there can be no Holy Days, no Sacred Times, no
hour of prayer, no Sabbath Days. All days and
hours are alike Plis and alike to Him. There can
be no time more appropriate than another to pay
adoration to Him. All such distinctions apply to
the lesser gods, but not to the Father. It follows
therefore, that the sacredness of all times and
seasons is a part of the service of the gods, and
perfectly proper in their service, but that it does
not apply to the worship of the Father-Mother. As
He is alike in all times, being beginningless and
endless, it follows that His service must be also
without beginning and without end. Doubtless
this was the meaning of the statement of our
Brother Saul, that we should pray without ceas-
ing, meaning that our devotion must be one con-
tinual adoration of the All Father-Mother.

For what, again, shall I sing hymn? For
things that Thou hast made, or things Thou
hast not? For things Thou hast made mani-
fest, or things Thou hast concealed?

What are we to praise Him for? We can only
praise Him relatively, that is, for something in
contradistinction to something else. Which is the
most important, those things He has made, or the
things that are latent in Him, and that have not
as yet assumed individuality? For which should
we be most grateful, those things that have come
forth into the manifestation, or those things that
abide within the unmanifest side of His Being?
In the first place, we do not know, and in the
second place it would be a manifest impiety for us

PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 69

to assume that one aspect of the Absolute God is
of more importance than another. He is One, not
many, and to discriminate between the diverse as-
pects of His Divinity is to destroy His Unity,
which is equivalent to His destruction. Such a
deed would be equivalent to Theoside, or the mur-
der of God ! Such discrimination is therefore, the
blackest blasphemy possible. Therefore, do not
praise Him for anything. He is, and that is all
that we can say !

How, further, shall I hymn Thee? As be-
ing of myself? As having something of mine
own? As being other?