Section 7

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
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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.
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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-
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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].
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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