Section 8

82 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA

is She forever Good. If Ku was thus absolutely
self-sufficient, and everything of all that is, was
absolutely dependent upon Her for its very sub-
sistence, there would be no place for God, as She
would be entirely independent of Him and could
of Herself do all that God can do, verily She is
God.

For He stands not in need of anything, so
that desiring it He should be bad ; nor can a
single thing of things that are be lost to Him,
on losing which He should be pained; for pain
is part of bad.

Unfortunately, the masculine gender is used in
the text when speaking of the Good, which is in-
correct, seeing that the Good is nothing other than
the Divine Essence which is Ku, the Mother ; and
therefore, we will restore the feminine gender, as
is should be and whenever speaking of Ku we will
say She, but when speaking of the Mind we will
say He. She stands not in need of anything be-
cause everything that ever comes into being is
made by Her ; and as She can of Her own Essence
make all things unto Infinity, did She need any-
thing, she would spontaneously make it. In this
way, She can never stand in need of anything. She
can never desire anything ; because of the fact that
there is nothing that has not been made in Her,
and it ever remains in Her even after it has been
born forth into existence, it still subsists in Her;
therefore, there is never at any time, any thing of
all things that are that is not in Her. Therefore,
She can never desire anything because of the fact
that all things are in Her. Her infinite capacity to
make, means that there is not any possible thing
that She does not make; Her making being in-
finite, and hence, She can desire nothing. She
cannot be bad, because She lacketh nothing to

PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 83

make Her perfect and whole. All limitation is
bad, but as She is absolutely unlimited, She cannot
be bad; therefore is She the perfect and absolute
Good forever. A single thing of things that are
can never be lost to Her, because of the fact that
everything that has been born into existence, yet
subsists in Her; hence, nothing can ever be lost
to Her. Hence, She can never lose anything, be-
cause all things are perpetually present in Her.
Therefore, She can never suffer pain, by being
separated from anything that is Hers. Pain is
part of bad, but as She is in Herself perfectly and
completely self-sufficient, She can never suffer
pain from the absence of anything, seeing that
nothing can ever be absent from Her; therefore
is She without pain; and therefore is She Good,
being without the bad condition of pain.

Nor is there aught superior to Him, that
He should be subdued by it; nor any peer to
Him to do Him wrong, or [so that] he should
fall in love on its account; nor aught that
gives no ear to Him, whereat He should grow
angry; nor wiser aught, for Him to envy.

Inasmuch as all things are made by Her, and
continue to exist only because She continues to
sustain them, and there is nothing of all that is
but owes its existence completely to Her ; there can
be nothing having greater power than She ; hence,
nothing can ever subdue Her, or in the slightest
degree influence Her. She controlls all, but is
controlled by nothing; therefore is She Good;
for it is bad to be subject to anything apart from
oneself. As all power originates in Her, and re-
mains in Her; there being no power but Hers,
She can suffer no injury at all, and hence She can
never be wronged in the slightest degree. As all
power is Hers no one has any power apart from

84 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMET1CA

Her; hence, She has no peer. In this is She Good,
for it is bad, if any one is able to exercise any
power against you of which you have not at all
times perfect control. As She stands alone, and
all existence is due to Her, and in fact remains in
Her, She can see nothing apart from Herself, as
there is nothing apart from Herself for Her to
see ; therefore, there is nothing with which She can
ever fall in love. It is very bad to be in love ; for
the one in love, is no longer self-sufficient even in
his happiness, for it now depends upon the wishes
of his loved one ; and no one is fortunate who de-
pends upon any one or anything outside of himself
for his happiness. In this She is Good, because
there is nothing but Herself for Her to consider,
and in this She is Good. As all things that are are
the production of Herself and have been made by
Her, their nature and their will is the product of
Hers, and hence, there is nothing having the capac-
ity to will different from Her; hence, no one has
the power to disobey Her. All must express Her
will at all times. As no thing is able to do other
than as She wills, they cannot do other than please
Her; hence, it is impossible for Her to ever grow
angry. In fact, as there is no existence apart from
Her, there is nothing at which She may bcome
angry. All wisdom is engendered within Her, and
flows forth from Her, hence there is no wisdom in
all existence save Her wisdom; therefore, all the
wisdom that all things may have is possessed in
common with Her, and it is in fact, Her wisdom
and not theirs and as no one can know anything
that She does not know there is nothing in all the
universe for Her to envy. Therefore is She ab-
solutely Good, seeing that it would be impossible
for Her to ever become any better. This is the
essence of Goodness, that one cannot possibly be
any better than one is already. Ku is Good be-
cause She cannot possibly be any better than She
is already and also, because it would be impossible

PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 85

for Her to ever lose any of the goodness that She
has, and thus become worse. To be in no possible
danger of losing any portion of one's Goodness,
and to be so Good that the addition of any amount
of Goodness could not possibly add to the present
sum of one's Goodness is to be the Pleroma of the
perfect Good. To be this is to be Good indeed.
As Ku is all this to Infinity, She is absolutely
Good. Therefore, is She the Good. She is thus
the Moral aspect of the Divinity. She is the
Mother of all, and in this rests Her Goodness, that
She is the Infinite Mother of ail possible things,
thus is She the self-sufficient Mother the Good.
Attribute Goodness to no one save Mother Ku;
for if thou dost thou wilt be guilty of a very
grave impiety; for thou wilt have said that there
is another absolute. Mother save the One Absolute
Mother. This will necessitate comparison between
the two, and that will be equivalent to the denial
of the Absoluteness of the Mother. To deny Her
absoluteness, is to deny Her as the Mother of all,
and hence, as thy Mother; which is equivalent
to the destruction of the Mother ; and this would be
Matricide, and the Matricide of the Good Mother
Herself, of Immortal Ku, the Good. This will be
morally equivalent to the destruction of the Good,
and hence, to the banishing of Good from the
whole universe and that which is back of it. See
that thou be not guilty of this fearful crime;
therefore, call not anything Good but the Good.
There is no Good but the Good. There is no Good
but the Mother. There is no Good but Ku. There
is no Good but God. See that thou never separate
Good from God. They are one and never are they
twain. Good and God is One. Thus my son, do I
initiate thee into the Gnosis of the Good ; and the
Gnosis of the Good is the Gnosis of Ku; which is
the Wisdom of God; and this is the Intuition of
the Mother. This is also the Religion of the Mind.
See, therefore, that thou shalt never of this

86 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA

Holy Gnosis fail; for this is the Gnosis that will
lead thee, my son, directly to the Maternal Heart
of Heaven and to the Good Mother's love. All
Good is of Her; all Good is in Her, and in Her
only canst thou find the Good. Seek it not else-
where; for if so, thou wouldst impious and un-
dutiful be.

1

LESSON VII.
The Pleroma of the Bad.

2. Now as all these are non-existent in His
being, what is there left but Good alone?

For just as naught of bad is to be found in
such transcendent Being, so too in no one of
the rest will Good be found.

For in them all are all the other things —
both in the little and the great, both in each
severally and in this living one that's greater
than them all and mightiest [of them].

For things subject to birth abound in pas-
sions, birth in itself being passible. But
where there's passion, nowhere is there Good;
and where is Good, nowhere a single passion.
For where is day, nowhere is night; and
where is night, day is nowhere.

Wherefore in genesis the Good can never
he, but only be in the ingenerate.

But seeing that the sharing of all things
hath been bestowed on matter, so doth it share
in Good.

In this way is the Cosmos good, that, in so
far as it doth make all things, as far as mak-
ing goes it's Good, but in all other things it
is not Good. For it's both passible and sub-
ject unto motion, and maker of things pas-
sible.

Now as all these are non-existent in His
being, what is there left but Good alone?

All of the things which are of the nature of bad

87

88 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA

having been enumerated and all of them having
been seen to be absent from the being of God, it
follows that the sum-total of the bad having been
eliminated from Her, that which remains is of the
nature of the Good ; hence, there is in God or Ku
nothing but Good. If so, then She is the Pleroma
of the Good, but if so, the fullness of the Good
being in Her, there can be no part of Good left
for anything else; hence, all Good having been
contained within Her, nothing else but bad will be
left; therefore, all that has been born out from Her
must be bad. The entire realm below Her must,
therefore, be the Pleroma of the Bad as She is
the Pleroma of the Good. If the world without
Her is the Pleroma of the bad, then it contains
the fullness of the bad, and hence, there will not
be left a single bad thing which it does not con-
tain ; therefore, there can be no bad thing in Her ;
hence, She is absolutely Good.

•
For just as naught of bad is to be found in
such transcendent Being, so too in no one of
the rest will Good be found.

The very principle of Good can only be found
in Ku. As we have shown, the Good is absolutely
dependent upon those conditions which cannot pos-
sibly subsist in anything other than in the Ab-
solute Divine Essence, and were those conditions
which are essential to the very constitution of the
Good present in anything else, they would of
necessity constitute it the Pleroma of the at-
tributes of the Divine Essence, and hence, it would
be the Divine Essence. This would mean that
there were two Absolute Divine Essences ; but if
so, there would be no Absolute Divine Essence,
seeing that there can be but one Absolute any-
thing. Thus the Divine Essence itself would be
destroyed. However, we have shown that nothing

PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 89

can exist, except it be made in the Divine Essence ;
therefore, this Divine Essence is; hence, nowhere
else can Good be found.

For in them all are all the other things —
both in the little and the great, both in each
severally and in this living one that's greater
than them all and mightiest [of them].

In ail the Manifestation and the Kosmos below
it, are to be found all the things not Good, all the
things that are lacking in or absent from Ku. As
those things being absent is what constitutes Ku
Good, it follows that their presence in the Mani-
festation and in the Kosmos constitutes it bad,
seeing that it is filled with innumerable bad things.
This is true both of the greatest and of the small-
est parts of it, and of all the intermediary stages
between these two extremes. This is true of them
all each taken severally and also in the living one,
the hylic animal, the Kosmos as a single life or a
living creature, in other words, the Kosmos as a
whole, as a unit, and also every separate part of it,
is bad in all of its attributes. Great and mighty
as is the Kosmos, it is essentially bad, because of
the fact that the forces that animate it and that
cause its diverse transformations are each and all
of the nature of bad, and not one of them, par-
takes of the nature of the Good.

For things subject to birth abound in pas-
sions, birth in itself being passible. But
where there's passion, nowhere is there Good,
and where is Good, nowhere a single pas-
sion. For where is day, nowhere is night,
and where is night, day is nowhere.

All things that are subject to birth abound
in passion, birth in itself being through pas-

90 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA

sion. All genesis being through passion. All
things generated being generated through pas-
sion. For this reason, nothing generated can
possibly be Good, seeing that it is passion
that has generated them. All things that have
been generated through the action of passion,
have embodied the passions that have generated
them and thus partake of those passions. Where
there is passion there can be no such thing as
Good. All bad things are the result of passion.
Passion can never lead to the Good. Passion and
the Good are as far asunder as are the poles as
distinct as the opposition of day and night. Not
one Good thing ever came through passion. In
fact, the Good can never be generated. This is
of course, true seeing that the Good is self-exist
ent; hence, the Good having to be self -existent to
be Good, it cannot be generated by something else,
seeing that if it was, it would lose its character of
self-existence, and hence, would no longer be
Good, out would be bad. Thus because being gen-
erated, the fruitage of generation, badness would
inhere in it. In this way it is to be seen that all
things that have come into being through genesis
that is everything that has been generated by
something else, which means the entire Kosmos
and everything that is in it, will be bad per se.

Wherefore, in genesis the Good can never
be, but only be in the ingenerate.

The Good can never be generated, it must at all
times be in that which has never been generated;
hence, in the ingenerate. The Good can never
come into being, seeing that to do so, it will de-
pend upon that which brought it into being and
the very Esse of the Good is to be dependent
upon nothing but itself. God cannot make any-
thing Good, He can only be the Good. As the
Good must be sufficient unto Itself, and needing

PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 91

nothing from anything except Itself, It can depend
npon nothing for anything and still be Good. Thus
it is to be seen at once that only the ingenerate,
that is that which enjoys endless and beginningless
duration within itself and of its own power, can
ever be Good. Thus God alone is Good. The
Kosmos, both in itself and in each and all of its
parts is bad, seeing that it has an engendered
existence, and that it came into being, not of
itself and through the exercise of its own power,
but through the power of God. Being the work of
God and not of itself, it is bad. God can do no
Good deed, He can only be Good in Himself. The
Good can never be engendered.

But seeing that the sharing in all things
hath been bestowed on matter, so doth it
share in Good.

While God alone is the One in whom Absolute
Good is to be found, yet has God constituted mat-
ter so that it will mirror and reflect all of His
attributes. In this way, is the Goodness of God
reflected and mirrored in matter. It has a re-
flected Good, but not a positive Good as has Ku.
Matter has a portion of Good, an element of Good
reflected in it, but its true nature is bad and this
reflected Good is dominated by the inherent bad.
While the Good is but mirrored in matter, the bad
is inherently present in it.

In this way is the Cosmos Good ; that, in so
far as it doth make all things, as far as mak-
ing goes it's Good, but in all other things it
is not Good. For it's both passible and sub-
ject unto motion, and maker of things pas-
sible.