Section 9

The Kosmos is Good in so far as it makes all
things. It is Good in its capacity as the Maker,
but in so far as it is made it is bad. The Kosmos

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is made by Ku, and therefore, is it the creature
of genesis, and of passion and in that is it bad.
At the same time, the Kosmos as the living one,
generates the things which it contains, and in this
respect it is Good. In other words, anything is
Good in what it generates, inasmuch as it has
power over it, but it is bad in so far as it is subject
to generation, and hence, to the power of the one
who generates it. Inasmuch as it is passible and
subject unto motion, and therefore, the creature
and subject of what is above it, it is bad, but in-
asmuch as it is capable of making other things pas-
sible and subjecting them unto its motions is it
Good. All situations in which it is the Creator
render it Good, but in all cases where it is created
by Ku, it is bad. This gives us a perfect criterion
by which we can determine the Good and the bad
that may be in anything. All things are Good
in so far as they engender something else as their
creatures, but they are bad in so far as they are
engendered by something else. Therefore, bad-
ness consists in being subject to, and dependent
upon something outside itself, while Goodness con-
sists in having something subject to it and de-
pendent upon it for its existence. To illustrate,
women are Good in so far as they give birth to
children, but they are all bad in so far as they
have been born of woman, and therefore, owe their
life to their having been born. Goodness then is
nothing other than the measure of one's power,
while badness is nothing other than the measure of
the foreign power to which one may be subject.
The Kosmos then is a mixture of Good and bad ;
Good in so far as it is the generator of things, and
bad in so far as it is being generated ; Good in so
far as things are subject unto it, but bad in so far
as it is itself subject unto the Will of God and unto
the generative potency of Ku. On the other hand,

PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 93

Ku is absolutely Good, because while being gener-
ated by nothing and owing Her existence or rather
being, to nothing at all, She is the Generatrix and
the Maker of all, even the Kosmos itself.

LESSON VIII.
The Inherent Badness of Man.

3. Whereas in man by greater or less of
bad is good determined. For what is not too
bad down here, is good ; and good down here
is the least part of bad.

It cannot therefore, be that good down here
should be quite clean of bad, for down here
good is fouled with bad, and being fouled,
it stays no longer good, and staying not it
changes into bad.

In God alone, is, therefore, Good, or rather
Good is God Himself.

So then, Asclepios, the name alone of Good
is found in men, the thing itself nowhere [in
them], for this can never be.

For no material body doth contain It, — a
thing bound on all sides by bad, by labors,
pains, desires and passions, by error and by
foolish thoughts.

And greatest ill of all, Asclepios, is that
each of these things that have been said
above, is thought down here to be the great-
est good.

And what is still an even greater ill, is
belly-lust, the error that doth lead the band
of all the other ills — the thing that makes us
turn down here from Good.

Whereas in man by greater or by less of
bad is good determined. For what is not too
bad down here, is good ; and good down here
is the least part of bad.

95

96 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA

In man there is no such thing as Absolute Good,
or as the Pure Good, as is the case in God. Mian is
at all times made up of a blending of Good and
bad. The goodness or the badness of a man is
merely a matter of the percentage of each that is
present in his makeup. In him, goodness is merely
relative. If the good is greater in percentage than
the bad, he is called a good man, while if the per-
centage of badness is greater than that of goodness
he is called a bad man. There are no absolutely
good men, or absolutely bad men. The good man
is relatively good, while the bad man is relatively
bad. We speak only in relative terms when we
speak of the Good that is down here. "We can
never attribute absolute Good to anything save
God alone.

It cannot, therefore, be that good down
here should be quite clean of bad, for down
here -good is fouled with bad, and being fouled,
it stays no longer good, and staying not it
changes into bad.

Down here, in the material world and in the
kosmos generally, good can never be quite clean
of bad. The Good that is in the world does not
remain pure, but blends with the bad. The two do
not remain separate but unite, for the purpose of
kosmic evolution, so that those aspects of the
kosmos that are in themselves good, become
through their action in conjunction with bad, of the
nature of bad themselves. This union of the bad
with the good, tends to foul the good so that it
stays no longer good, but through the manifesta-
tion of the elements of the bad, things good, be-
come bad in time. This will be readily understood
when we realize that the only function of kosmos
is its making of things, and as all the things which
it makes are bad things ; the making of those bad

PHILOSOPHIA HERMETIC A 97

things, will in course of time transform the making
process so that it will also become bad. In this
way is it that the good in kosmos becomes thor-
oughly bad, so far as all practical purposes are
concerned.

In God alone, is, therefore, Good, or rather
Good is God Himself.

Look not for the Good in anything save only God
alone. There only is the making uninfluenced by
the thing made. There only is the making free
from all other influences. Good is the nature of
God, and hence, nothing which is not God can pos-
sibly be Good. Also bear in mind that it is only
in God Unmanifest that Good is to be found. It
abides not in the Manifest God even.

So then, Asclepios, the name alone of Good
is found in men, the thing itself nowhere [in
them], for this can never be.

Man speaks the name of Good, because he ever
holds the ideal of Good. Were it not for this ideal,
man would go to pieces in no time. It is this
ideal of Good that molds the human race along
moral lines. Were this ideal to become lost, man
would sink into animalism at once. All the forces
of an uplifting nature in human society are the
expressions of that longing after the perfect Good
that are ever present in the human heart. At the
same time, we must bear in mind that this ideal
for the Good is one utterly unattainable on the part
of man. His work is to seek after the Good, but
never to find it. It is the quest for the Good that
elevates him, though he never finds it, he purges
out a certain amount of the bad which ever en-
cumbers his nature. At the same time it must be
borne in mind, that no one ever lives a good life.

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He can never practice the good, lie can only love it,
and admire it as the most desirable of all things
conceivable, but to actually realize it, is utterly
impossible. But while the realization of the Good
can never be, yet the seeking after it, is the means
of all the uplift of soul that is possible here below.

For no material body doth contain it, — a
thing bound on all sides by bad, by labors,
pains, desires and passions, by error and by
foolish thoughts.

The Good can never be contained within a ma-
terial body. It is foolish to think that any religion
or philosophy will enable any one while living in a
material body to attain the Good. It is impossible
for any one to do good, or live a good life, so long
as he lives in a material body. The material en-
vironment, which the body provides, and which is
essential to the very life within the body is es-
sentially bad. The body is bound on all sides by
bad. One of the greatest of these ills is labour.
By what possible process of reasoning man ever
enabled himself to reach the insane opinion that
labour was a blessing, I am bound to confess I
cannot understand. It is a great evil that man has
to work for a living. Think of what it means to
have to devote hours of time every day to the mere
drudgery of providing for the body, in order that
it may continue to exist. The farmer spends at
least half of his lifetime in the needless task of
keeping alive. He spends at least twelve hours out
of the twenty-four providing food and shelter for
his body. Eight more hours must be spent in
sleep in order that his useless carcass may be re-
stored for the work of the next day. At the very
least, he spends another hour feeding his body to
keep it alive. This leaves him three hours out of
the twenty-four, or one-eighth of the time in which

PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 99

he may do something else besides keep the body
going. However, he is so tired by this time that
he can do little with this time save rest his tired
body. He has bnt one-eighth of his time left to
himself, and he cannot make more than one-third
use of that, so that we might say, twenty-three
twenty-fourths of his time is taken up by his body,
and only one twenty-fourth part of it can he use
for any purpose of his own. Take the case of his
wife, and it is even worse. No wonder that the
wives of farmers never have any intelligence!
When do they ever have the time to devote to their
higher nature? The state of the business man is
about as bad, and the skilled worker, who is in the
best position of all of them, has to devote eight
hours to labor and eight to sleep, besides another
hour to go to and from his work, and at least an
hour to feeding his body. This leaves to the most
fortunate of all, a maximum of six hours, or one-
fourth of his time, to be devoted to anything else
than the mere keeping of the body alive. How can
people be expected to evolve in a condition in
which they have to devote the major portion of
their time and energies to the mere work of keep-
ing alive? Where do they find either time or
energy to devote to the cultivation of the soul?
And yet, we have to work this way, simply be-
cause we have a material body to keep alive.
Truly, living is a great inconvenience! It is a
great ill, that this body of ours keeps us chained to
labours at a time when we would much rather de-
vote our time to study, meditation and the quest
for truth. But as though it were not enough that
we should labor all our lives for the bare neces-
sities of life, simply in order to live, we are called
upon to suffer pains innumerable. And there are
those so hateful as to assure us that it is good for
us to suffer pain! It may be good for us, but I
tell you it is darned disagreeable ! But, as though
this was not enough, we are called upon to be all

100 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA

our lives, the victims of desires that we can never
gratify^. We may try to fool ourselves by saying
that it is not desires that we feel, that it is ambi-
tions and aspirations ! Be that as it may, are those
ambitions and aspirations realized? They are the
whips to drive us on to greater exertions, after a
will o' the wisp that will never be realized. We
are also the victims of innumerable passions, which
shake us to pieces, and render that philosophic
calm so essential to the life of the soul, an utter
impossibility. Our purest and highest impulses,
and our greatest virtues, drive us into unrequited
desires and destructive passions. We may dignify
our passions by calling them love and devotion,
but these have the same effect and are in truth
passions. Our best effort is full of labor and sor-
row. What could be greater ill than this ? But our
senses make a playground of our mind,- and lead-
ing us astray, breed errors and foolish thoughts
which gender mental clarity an utter impossibility.
In other words, our entire life in the body is a
direct conspiracy in restraint of all soul life. The
life of the soul cannot flourish in the body. But
as though this were not enough, we are not freed
from this inconvenience by death. The limitations
and inconveniences of this life have caused us to
accumulate a mass of Karma that must be worked
out in the after-death state, and the moment these
labours are completed, and we are in a position
where the soul can lead its own life, we have to
incarnate in another body and do the same darned
thing over again! Truly is misery inseparable
from all sentient existence ! And yet there are
such colossal liars in the world that they are able
to convince themselves that life is a blessing, and
to actually take an optimistic view of this ill of
all the ills conceivable!

And greatest ill of all, Asclepios, is that

PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 101

each of these things that have been said above
is thought down here to be the greatest good.

Man in his stupidity thinks that it is good to
labour all his life through in order that he may
continue to live ! Think of the folly of it, we have
to consume all of the powers of our being in order
that we may continue to live and labour, and yet
we think that it is good that we have to do this !
And after all we are without exception playing a
losing game. With all of our efforts to keep alive,
we cannot do it ! The average span of life is only
thirty-eight years ! Seventy years has been fixed
as the limit and the very strong may live to be
eighty, and now and then one may reach the age
of ninety, but as a general rule, he is absolutely
good for nothing by that time and is a burden to
others, who must keep him alive as well as them-
selves. 4 Whenever any one dies, it is simply be-
cause he has failed in this struggle to keep alive.
And men think that this hopeless struggle to keep
alive is the greatest good ! What fools! A great
portion of the time we are racked with pain, and
yet we will endure these pains for years rather
than get rid of them by ceasing to live ! We actu-
ally think that a life of pain is a good thing ! The
endless struggles for the realization of desires that
are never realized, and that each of us know will
never be realized, is also thought to be good. Hav-
ing the soul torn by passion, is also thought to be
a good thing ! And furthermore, we think that it
is good to have our understanding marred by error
and foolish thinking. We actually think that it is
better to be fools that it would be to be wise. This
insanity is expressed in the desire that we may
never lose our illusions, and in the saying that
" where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."
We actually think that it is better for us to live in
ignorance and error than it would be to come into
a knowledge of the truth! This life of the body

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such as it is, is the highest dream of the majority.
There are those in the Christian Religion, who can
see nothing more desirable than that they should
spend an eternity in this same condition, with this
material body rendered immortal. They actually
pray for this condition to come soon. They can-
not even dream of any relief in the realm of
heaven. Their heaven is the endless duration of
this very condition that the wise must deplore,
though submitting to it for the reason that they
have no way of helping themselves. What depths
of ignorance, what depth of impiety, to accuse the
Good God of such an outrage, as to perpetuate this
curse of physical existence throughout eternity !

And what is still an even greater ill, is
belly-lust, the error that doth lead the band
of all the other ills — the thing that makes us
turn down here from God.

An even greater ill than all those that we have
mentioned, is this belly-lust, or the craving for
food and for whatever will gratify the physical ap-
petites. These appetites make us think that their
gratification is the all important end of life, and
besides this we have no desire for the Good. Many
very high sounding terms have been used for this
belly-lust, such as Economic Determinism, The
Materialist Conception of History, Self-Preserva*
tion, Physical Necessity, etc., but the true name is
belly-lust. This is the correct name because it in-
dicates that it is a purely animal condition, and
that we are animals and are thus giving way to this
beastly nature of ours whenever we are guided by
this lust. As if it were not pnough that we should
have to eat continually in order to keep this miser-
able body alive, we are continually devising new
dainties that will tickle the palate, and render our
eating more and more of a gratification of belly-