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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
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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-
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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-
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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,