This document provides an introduction and overview of the book "Ancient Future" by Wayne B. Chandler. The book examines the Hermetic principles of the Egyptian god Tehuti/Thoth, known as the seven Hermetic laws of ancient Egypt. The introduction discusses how understanding these universal laws can provide insight into human history and events, and allow people to rise above social divisions. It aims to present these ancient teachings in a practical way and recreate a holistic view of life. The document provides background on the author and acknowledges those who helped make the book possible.
This document provides an introduction and overview of the book "Ancient Future" by Wayne B. Chandler. The book examines the Hermetic principles of the Egyptian god Tehuti/Thoth, known as the seven Hermetic laws of ancient Egypt. The introduction discusses how understanding these universal laws can provide insight into human history and events, and allow people to rise above social divisions. It aims to present these ancient teachings in a practical way and recreate a holistic view of life. The document provides background on the author and acknowledges those who helped make the book possible.
This document provides an introduction and overview of the book "Ancient Future" by Wayne B. Chandler. The book examines the Hermetic principles of the Egyptian god Tehuti/Thoth, known as the seven Hermetic laws of ancient Egypt. The introduction discusses how understanding these universal laws can provide insight into human history and events, and allow people to rise above social divisions. It aims to present these ancient teachings in a practical way and recreate a holistic view of life. The document provides background on the author and acknowledges those who helped make the book possible.
ANCIENT FUTURE The Teachings and Prophetic Wisdom of the Seven Hermetic Laws of Ancient Egypt
By
Wayne B. Chandler
Black Classic Press 1999
Ancient Future William B. Chandler First published 1999 Published by Black Classic Press, 1999, 2013 All Rights Reserved. Print ISBN: 978-1-57478-001-7 e-book ISBN: 978-1-57478-080-2 Black Classic Press specializes in publishing popular and academic works by and about people of African descent and is one of the oldestindependently owned Black publishers in operation in the United States. www.blackclassicbooks.com
Dedication I dedicate this book to my mother Helen R. Chandler and to my brother Brian E. Chandler. Their undying support, confidence, and love have allowed miraculous events to occur in my life. I also dedicate this book to my spirits on the wind, who watch over me and havetouched the deepest part of my soul.
Contact Information For more information or to contact the author directly about lectures and other programs, send e-mail to the following address: [email protected]
Preface Along the time line of human life, we find periods of light, characterized by great spiritual and technological achievement, considered by many to be golden ages. Just as prominent on the timeline are periods of the disintegration of civilization brought about by dissension,greed, war, and malice. These are frequently known as the dark ages. We find that it is during these times of dire disharmony that thegreatest of Earths heroes have walked among humans, leading people from the murky darkness into the light. Many of these beings individuals such as Buddha, Jesus, Isis, Ishtar, Muhammad, and Krishnaare considered saviors of humanity due to the magnitude ofinfluence and change they caused during their terms on Earth. These early heroes are often confused with gods. Though we live forward, we are forever looking backward; the present is viewed as ever intolerable, full of pangs and neuroses. I grew up hearing tomorrow will be better, like the good old days. From this chronic contradiction, the hero arises a model of the past bound tothe present to create the future. Such a hero is the entity historically identified as the Egyptian god Tehuti, known to ancient Greeks andcontemporary scholars as Thoth or Hermes. Ancient Future, though it briefly explores the man, is more concerned with the philosophical and scientific axioms engendered by Tehuti/ Hermes and their impact on the human race, both past and present. The written work of Tehuti has come to be known as the Hermeticphilosophy and is considered by many to be among the most important precepts expressed in the last five thousand years. Ancient Future comprehensively examines the Hermetic principles of Tehuti, creating a link between antiquity and the future. Winston Churchill was perhaps the most famous to state the truism, The farther back we look, the further forward well be able to see. It has been five thousand years since the great civilizations of China, India, Kush, Southern Arabia, Mesopotamia, Sumeria, and Egypt were eminent. Those laws found in the Hermetic philosophy comprised the scientific, spiritual, and moral fabric of these ancient empires,bequeathing to them a wisdom we have yet to discover in our current period. Though these axioms are still evident in fragmented form inmany of the historical texts left to us, the understanding that constituted the vision of our ancestors is long forgotten. Under the darkshadow cast over our current epoch, we have forgotten who we are, where we have been, and more importantly, where we are heading. Thus, Ancient Future is an overview of the Hermetic philosophy, a road map to reacquaint all members of the human race with its unremitting challenge. It is presented with the specific mission of reaching those who are the heirs of its principles and whose ancestorswere the guardians of time long before the darkness of our age. This book is not a story of contributions, but a testimony to the people ofthe first world order, who, research shows, were the inhabitants of Egypt and Kush in Africa, India in South Asia, Brigantia in Europe,Sumeria and Mesopotamia in West Asia, and China in East Asia. These were the people who laid the very foundation of Earths firstcivilizations. Modern people have fallen prey to a reductionist view of history. We have compromised our impetus to learn, to seek our own truth rather than being told by others what that truth is. We constrict our reality, thereby losing opportunities to learn and benefit from systemsof mental, moral, and spiritual resolution currently attributed to older, erudite cultures of the world cultures that lit the way for youngernations. Without a holistic view of life, we relinquish to others the fruits of the tree of knowledge. The greatest of these fruits are theseven principles of Tehuti/Hermes, which originated in ancient Egypt and were carried into all continents, and remain evident in those placesin forms as various as Taoism in China, Jainism in India, and Buddhism in Japan (by way of India). All civilizations have benefited, directlyor indirectly, from the knowledge that results from an understanding of the Hermetic philosophy. Our incessant attempts to intellectualize the accomplishments of our ancestors, without truly understanding them as spiritually dynamic beings, has created a dilemma for the descendants of these great cultures. Our exclusively intellectual methods of learning will never be ableto comprehend the kind of philosophy that incorporates both intellect and spirituality. The fact is that the great ancient race from whichTehuti/Hermes came was made up of beings very different from ourselves. They were giants, spiritually as well as intellectually. Theycreated wonders that cannot be duplicated by modern science, which has yet to fully comprehend them. Our cultural indoctrination allowsus to experience only that which is tangible and perceptible, which unfortunately comprises but one facet of our multidimensional reality.The seven axioms of Hermetic philosophy were innate in Tehutis contemporaries, molding and shaping their consciousness, and allowingthem insight into the fundamental reality that eludes most of humankind in this age. Thus the seven axioms are doorways through time into adistant past that, when understood and applied, can help prepare us for the future. Ancient Future represents two decades of collecting material on Hermetic thought. When I began my reading and research on this subject, I had no intention of publishing it; this information was for my edification and growth. I have been able to apply these axioms mentalism,correspondence, vibration, polarity, gender, rhythm, and causationto general and specific events in my own life, thereby experiencing thetransformative, constructive, and lucid force they have to offer. These axioms of ancient Egypt are a practical guide to obtaining clarity ofperception and of imparting this perception to every facet of life: social, political, psychological, spiritual, and metaphysical. The wonder ofthe Hermetic philosophy is that its message is not only eternal but transformative, regardless of the capacity in which it is being used.Therefore its principles may be applied to science, medicine, technology, or history and the results will be a clear, comprehensive vision ofthe dynamics inherent in the specific area of study. My goal in Ancient Future is to present these ancient laws to a contemporary readershipin a focused, practical, and comprehensive fashion. I study these laws not just for their intellectual value as an historical phenomenon; I have opened myself to witness their manifestation in my life, in contemporary world situations, and in the larger flows and cycles of history. I present them here not so that they can beclaimed by one set of people as their own, but so that they can be seen as the basic universal laws that guide all life. They are the axioms ofthe peculiar human journey. Awareness of these laws allows us the opportunity to recognize and rise above the mundane games of our lives,the divisions that have been constructed for us and those that we have created for ourselves that compartmentalize us by race, class, sex,theology, and a plethora of other categories and identities. In fact, knowledge of these laws makes apparent that in the universe, all things,people, and events are interrelated and interdependent. This interdependence becomes clear when we apply the Hermetic principles to
human history. In order to understand any one event in history, it is necessary to
back up and broaden our view to get a clear vision of howthat event fits into the larger scheme of human interaction. It soon becomes clear that events have repercussions even thousands of yearslater, and events on one continent have effects in seemingly distant places. Ancient Future celebrates the wisdom of those ancient civilizations that did not disassociate the philosophical, spiritual, and material realms of life. This book is an attempt to recreate this holistic experience in hopes that a synthesized view of life will become theperspective of the twenty- first century.
Acknowledgments In ones endeavor to achieve, no matter what the achievement, one must acknowledge the assistance given by those who helped bring to fruition their project, their truth, their dream. The development of this book has been no exception and I would like to thank those whoinvested time and energy, directly and indirectly, knowingly and unknowingly, to help this book become a reality. First, I would like to thank Kathryn Barrett-Gaines and the Duke University School of Cultural Anthropology for significant data used in this book. Barrett-Gaines assistance was invaluable in this undertaking. I would also like to thank Dr. Ivan Van Sertima of RutgersUniversity, who brought me on board with an elite group of scholars, which for ten years allowed me to research, write, and lecture,transforming my view of history into a more constructive and holistic perspective. His guidance and trust opened a doorway through whichI walked and never looked back. The influence of my friend and colleague, Runoko Rashidi, cannot go without mention. Partaking ofRashidis expertise in the area of ancient and contemporary Asian civilization and culture influenced my vision of history greatly. I wouldalso like to thank historian and author Dr. James Brunson, who stands alone in his research and contributions regarding the impact of theAfrican presence in Asian antiquity. I must also thank author James Granger for pertinent and valuable comments on the text. I would liketo extend my thanks and appreciation to graphic artist, David Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy supplied all of the geometric drawings for the firstchapter in part two of this book and those of the grid in chapter six. Without his assistance to create on paper what was in the cosmos andancient doctrines, there would have been countless individuals wondering what in the world I was trying to articulate. I also send a sincerethanks to David Oggie Ogburn, the photographer of the stars who humbled himself enough to help me develop most of the photos inthis book. Though it was quite an undertaking (developing pictures of statues, rocks, sculptures, and bas reliefs can be frustrating forsomeone used to developing Sade Adu, Cher, or Tina Turner), Oggie came through like a champion. I would also like to thank V. Hap Smith,my uncle, for providing me with much-needed sanctuary, solitude, and advice while I made revisions to the manuscript and my life. WhileIm on the subject of revisions, I must thank Michelle L. Watts of the Shaker Heights Ohio Public Library. I have been fortunate in having great artistic, philosophical, and spiritual minds in my life. These individuals have helped tremendously by providing me spiritual sustenance as food for thought, thus helping define my reality. I send a special thanks to my friend A. MatiKlarwein, probably the greatest artist on the Earth today. His artwork adorned the album covers of Santanas Abraxas and Miles DavisBitches Brew. Mati taught me that perfection does exist, but outside of time. I also extend thanks to Dick Gregory for his wisdom andassistance. I would also like to thank Swami Satchidananda, Sri Cliff Hardy, and my yoga instructor, John Schumacher for insights, trainingand dialogue on what constitutes a more meaningful expression of life. I must also thank Karl with a K Sawyer, who initiated me into therealm of spiritual revelation, Jane DeAngeli for her assistance and heart-felt wisdom, Dr. Michael Frost for insights and refinement of myregenerative practices, and Dr. Jennifer Ann Fletcher for reinitiating me in the path of natural healing. I would also like to thank the LIGHT WARRIORS, those children of tomorrows dawn, whom I have had the pleasure of knowing. I am grateful to my spiritual brothers James Pete Jackson, Nana Kwaku Sakyi and Michael, Silas Ashley, Greg White, and Waymond Scott.Also Rashida Tutashinda, Sharon Butcher, Deollo and Thadeus, Kilindi Iyi, Aswan Boudroux, Marie Bouman and Silas Smith, Karina Vogt,Tamara, Emmanuel Jennings, Joan Kelly, Denise LeCompte, Leigh Donlan, Judy Pradier, Russel, Carol Harshaw, Dr. Lynn Locklear, MimiVreeland, Akosua, Tony Matthews, Charles Bliss Tolbert, Hasib, Ana Paula, and numerous other great individuals, like my homie KarenDeVaughn, that I have encountered along the way whose names I have not forgotten but for whom space does not allow honorable mention.Finally, I would like to thank my friend and former business partner Mr. Gaynell Catherine, the picture takin man. We accomplished some great things and one day, maybe the next time around, well get it back together. Thank you all for your encouragement, support, andfriendship.
Foreword Late one morning, fourteen years ago, I received a phone call from someone I had never met. He informed me that he had done research on the Olmec civilization and had discovered some startling photographs. Calls such as these are common in my life, and somewhat tiresomeat times because these anonymous callers rarely deliver on their promises. About a week later, I received in the mail a photographic contactsheet with images of giant Africoid stone heads from ancient America. Although most of these images were familiar to me, I found on thesheet an extraordinary photo of an indisputably African face with Ethiopian- style braids dangling from behind its head. I reached for my pento begin a letter to the sender, but before I could finish, the phone rang. The caller and the sender was Wayne Chandler. I invited him towrite for the Journal of African Civilizations, and throughout the next decade, Chandler submitted photographs that were like windows onforgotten and obscure periods of history. Much like his photos, Chandlers writing style has a dramatic quality rare in academia. His Journal essays fascinated us with the exploits of Hannibal and the invasion of southern Europe by the medieval Moors and the mysteries of Egypts Old Kingdom and itsstupendous pyramids. His information was well researched, ran counter to the views of the academic establishment, and was presented in astyle that made it fascinating to academic and lay audiences alike. In The Jewel in the Lotus: The Ethiopian Influence in the Indus Valley Civilization (1985), Chandlers talents as both a photographer and writer are showcased. Chandlers photography not only brings to vivid life the African faces of these ancient times, but his dramaticnarrative conveys a sense of the modernity of these cities, some of which blend both early Ethiopian and Asiatic influences. We learn of thecreation of a central sewage system bathrooms with drains that carry waste to the sewers under the main streets, every house with itsown private well, a great public bath with carefully made floors that empty into the underground sewers, the bath water changing at regularintervals. Chandler even evokes the dust of passing traffic on the thirty-foot wide streets. The Moors, according to Chandler, generated a resurgence of activity in the arts and sciences, influenced embryonic nations like Spain and France and even older nations like China and India, but who were they? I think Chandler has made a more serious attempt to deal withthis complex question than most other researchers The Moor: Light of Europes Dark Age (1986). The identity of the Moors is a matterof great importance; and while the African element is the major element, the Moors do not have a single-stranded identity. They are worththe most serious and balanced analysis since they were to make a major contribution to the European renaissance which lifted parts ofEurope from the Dark Ages. In Hannibal: Nemesis of Rome (1988), Chandler challenges the accepted myth that the great African general Hannibal was European. Hannibal was the scourge of Rome for fifteen years. His tactical feats awed the military strategists of many different lands and centuries. Hesingle handedly put his nation on the worlds historical map. Without his exploits, argues Chandler, Carthage would be unknown save to afew erudite scholars. But who was Hannibal? Chandler provides images of an ancient coin with an African head on one side and Surus, thefavorite elephant of Hannibal, on the other. Surus was among the last elephants to survive the march across the Alps. Hannibal mounted thiselephant and no other. Why would any artist laboriously carve out the head of an insignificant mahout (elephant rider) on the front of a cointhat commemorated the generals mount? It is difficult not to conclude that this is an image of the general himself, whose epic march acrossthe Alps was captured wonderfully in Chandlers narrative. In his study of the Pyramid Age of Egypt Of Gods and Men: Egypts Old Kingdom (1989), Chandler raises questions about the chronology of Egypt. He highlights the extraordinary accomplishments of the early Pharaohs and touched upon the moral code and characterof the Egyptian state, exploding myths about slaves as the mainstay of the working force. His approach has been important to students ofEgyptian history because it emphasizes that technical accomplishments, however impressive, do not in themselves constitute civilization.Chandler argues that, to the early Egyptian, civilization was the humanization of the human and that the building of an ethical code of humanconduct was just as important as the building of a pyramid. The law that ordered them to honor the dead and give bread to the hungry, waterto the thirsty, and clothing to the naked, reveals one of the finest qualities of old Egyptian character: pity towards the unfortunate. Ancient Egyptian science startles us even to this day. Scholars have expounded all sorts of improbable theories to explain how the early Egyptians built the pyramids. Chandler exposes the folly of these still generally accepted assumptions, pointing out how the Japaneseexperiment in 1979 has humbled and astounded us all. The Japanese eventually resorted to twentieth-century technology which still fellshort of the results achieved by the ancient Egyptians. The early Egyptian engineers aligned the stones within 1/1000 of an inch ofmathematical perfection, a perfection achieved today only by jewelers cutting gems under microscope. Chandlers introduction to thePyramid Age is accompanied by a remarkable gallery of African faces. He points to the progressive intermixture over the centuries betweenthe indigenous Africans and the other races that came into the Nile Valley, but he holds (and here his photographic evidence is the bestargument) that the dominant ruling figures of the age were indeed African. In most of his contributions to the Journal of African Civilizations, Chandler presents new and provocative information on subjects that were previously regarded as closed. I believe it is his broad immersion in several disciplines that allows him to approach history in anunorthodox manner. He embraces many elementsthe religious, philosophical, and scientific of these ancient empires. In Ancient Future,he has blended all his skills and interests to tell a remarkable and original story. Twelve years ago, I was introduced to a promising youngscholar who became part of a team working to revise the way African history is told and taught. I am proud to see him finding his ownunique voice in this work, a vision of hope born through an understanding of the need for unity and peace between the races of man on thebrink of a new millennium. Ivan Van Sertima, 1999
Contents PrefaceAcknowledgmentsForeword Part I: An Introduction to the Seven Hermetic Axioms of Tehuti The African Concept of Mythology, The History of Thoth/Hermes and his Philosophy, Poimandres: The Spiritual Vision ofHermes, The Significance of The Number Seven, The Seven Hermetic Axioms of Thoth Part II: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Seven Hermetic Axioms of Tehuti Chapter 1. The Principle of Mentalism and the Concept of the All or God The Divine in Western Civilization, The Ancient Religious Model, The Crusades and the Inquisition, The Western Concept ofGod, The African Concept of the Divine, The Hermetic Explanation of the All or God, The Definition of Spirit, The Divine MindThe Mental Universe, Time: Linear versus Cyclic Reality, Meditation, Sacred Geometry Chapter 2. The Principle of Correspondence The Star of David or the Egyptian Star of Creation, The Nature of Correspondence, The Three Great Planes of Correspondence,The Impact of Correspondence on Our Lives, The Establishment of Mind on All Planes of Existence, The Relation of the Mind toCorrespondence Chapter 3. The Principle of Vibration The Definition of Vibration, The History of Vibration in the West, Vibration and Its Manifestation on All Planes of Existence,Modern Scientific Views of Vibration, The Process of Mental Induction or Influence, Mental Vibration and Telepathy, ScientificResearch and Verification Chapter 4. The Principle of Polarity The African Concept of Duality, The West African Oracle of IFA, The Chinese Oracle of I-Ching; Liebniz, Hegel, Marx, and theI-Ching, The Genetic Code as it Relates to I-Ching, The West Asian Tablet of Destiny, The Influence of Elamite and AkkadianCulture on Chinas First Dynasties, The Contributions of Terrien de Lacouperie, Akkado/Sumerian Linguistics and Culture, AHermetic Analysis of the Fundamentals of Polarity Chapter 5. The Principle of Gender The African Perspective on Gender, The Difference in Western and Hermetic Perceptions of Gender, Yin & Yang, The Christianand Judeo Christian Concepts of Gender, Social and Mental Gender, The Divisions of the Mind: Male and Female GenderExpression, The Sociological Manifestation of Gender, The Passive and Active Mind, The I and Me Levels of the Mind Chapter 6. The Principle of Rhythm The Rhythm of Socio-political and Economic Patterns, Rhythmic Cycles and the East Indian Manvantara, The Four Great Agesof Humankind, Indo European Culture and Its Impact on Humanity: War, Racism, Patriarchy, and the Ecosystem; The Mythosand Prophecy of the Indus Civilization, Global Mythologies of the Great Flood, Pole Reversal and the Changing of EarthsElectromagnetic Field, The Planetary Grid, Cornerstone of Change and Evolution, The Egyptian Great Year, The Photon BeltTheoryMyth or Reality, The Transformation of Consciousness (or Coming of Christ) on a Global Scale Chapter 7. The Principle of Causation The Ancient Egyptian Concept of Causation, Causation as a Working Principle in Physics, The Global Influence of Causation,The Four Noble Truths of Buddha, Action and Reaction, Finding Balance ConclusionNotesBibliography
PART I:
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SEVEN
HERMETIC AXIOMS OF TEHUTI
Introduction The Principles of Truth are Seven; he who knows this, understandingly, possesses the Magic Key before whose touch all the doors of the Temple fly open.-Kybalion Before the dawn of the present era was a period known to the ancient historian as antediluvian, or world before the flood. Much of what the Western world knows of this period comes through biblical tradition. A passage from Genesis 6:4 there were giants in theearth in those days and also after that when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bear children to them, the samebecame mighty men which were of old, men of renown speaks of this era, which predated the great flood associated in the biblicaltradition with Noah. This and several other biblical phrases allude to the fact that the races of the Earth during this age were trulyomnipotent, or God-like in every way. Mythological tradition holds that during this antediluvian period was born the great Egyptian sageTehuti or Thoth. Tehuti, known to the Greeks as Hermes/Thoth, became the principle law-giver of Egypt, or in the tongue of the Africansof that land, Kmt (pronounced Kemet). His axioms provided humanity with a comprehensive analysis of the nature of creation and of theuniverse. Throughout the text of this book, the names Tehuti, Thoth, and Hermes are used interchangeably. Western civilization considers most accounts of what transpired during this period to be pure mythology. And because Western influence dominates the present, we have fallen prey to a superficial, linear approach to investigative research. This perspective on ancienthistory has left a substantial void in our vast ancestral cultural legacy, much of which is located in what we now call myth. The outset of the twenty-first century demands a redefinition of much of our present terminology. Such a redefinition will, in time, allow for a much broader historical perspective than is presently employed by traditional historians. The term myth as understood through aEurocentric perspective connotes fantasy and fable in the realm of the surreal; however, in antiquity, mythology was an ancient mode ofthinking. It was founded on natural facts, still verifiable phenomena, and was not then, nor is it now, a mechanism based on an irrationalperspective. Mythology is the repository of our most ancient science, and when myth is examined within the context of an ancient culturalbelief system, it becomes a dynamic vehicle for the transmission of truth: The importance of mythology is, of course, that it is a form of documentation which transcends the human record as much as it states truth rather than fact. Myth canbe considered a form of reasoning and record keeping by providing an implicit guide for bringing about the fulfillment of the truth it proclaims. It connects theinvisible order with the visible order ... thought reflected in myth is inseparable from the laws of nature.... As a reflection of the thought and experience of a people,the analytical value of myth is that it serves as a measure and/ or reflection of the human possibilities, PROBABILITIES, and potentialities of a people. 1 Thus, an examination of the origin, development, and contributions of an entity such as Tehuti from the African myth perspective makes the incomprehensible comprehensible, and allows a true understanding of what would have been lost as historic ephemera. Discussionon the historical reality of Tehuti is subject to the nature of the present state of the study of history. So regardless of fact, fiction,documentation, or myth, my particular examination of Tehuti consists of what little testimony exists on his actual life, his own account ofthe divine revelation of his seven basic axioms, and a study of these illuminated laws of the universe and the higher message therein. Tehuti is the personification of universal wisdom and truth. Egyptian tradition holds that he imparted this truth first to the old race, the Kushites, who would later be identified by the Greeks as the Ethiopians. The Greeks, who considered Tehuti or Thoth the Scribe of theGods, would also change his name to Hermes, or more accurately Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, which means the thrice-great, thegreat-great, the greatest-great, and master of masters. With the spread of Western influence, this appellation remained globally intactand Tehutis teachings have become known as the Hermetic philosophy. The writings of Tehuti/Hermes have been known to the West since the fifth century B.C.E. (Before the Current or Christian Era). Some of the more popular translations have been those of Hargrave Jennings (1884), a reprint of Everhards English version; the Greek text of C.Parthey Berolins (1854); a German edition by J. Scheible (1855); and the earliest Latin edition of Marsilius Ficinus (1471). It was longassumed that the earliest translation from the Egyptian text was done in Arabic during the conquest and occupation of Egypt by the Moorsin the ninth century C.E. (Current or Christian Era), but many fragments contained in the Liber Hermetis, a Latin translation of Greek origin,are traceable to the third or fourth century B.C.E. The West presently acknowledges Walter Scott and Andre- Jean Festugiere as thecontemporary experts on Hermetica: it was they who distinguished the popular occultist or secret writings attributed to Tehuti/Hermesfrom the so-called learned or philosophical treatises, the latter being more prominent in most modern translations of the Hermetica. Theproblem with these recent translations that have flooded the West is that they have been little more than an exercise in academia. Esteemedmore for the period in which they were originally written than for their content, the writings of Hermetic Philosophy gave way to the overtmundane skepticism that presently saturates the field of Western academia. It has always been in vogue for Western academicians to standon the periphery of what they examine, believing somehow that they may osmotically engender the experience without actual involvement.This has been the modus operandi from the outset of Greek civilization to our present period. It is interesting to note the acknowledgmentof this pattern regarding the Western mindset of the ancient Greeks by Imhotep (known to the Greeks as Asclepius), student ofTehuti/Hermes: For the Greeks have empty speeches . . . that are energetic only in what they demonstrate, and this is the philosophy ofthe Greeks, an inane foolosophy of speeches. We [the Egyptians], by contrast, use not speeches but sounds that are full of action. 2 This examination uses the conventional or philosophical writings as well as popular and rare nontraditional sources in Hermetic academia tounveil the truths therein. The Hermetic teachings are found in all lands among all religions, but are never identified with any particular creed or religious sect, thus rising above them all. These ancient mystery systems were imparted to India and Persia by their indigenous inhabitants but degeneratedwith the influx of the Aryans and Indo-Iranians. In time they were lost, a result of the merging of theology and philosophy when teachersbecame pagan priests who aspired for power amidst religious superstition, cults, and creeds. Extreme Greek interest in the Hermetic Philosophy led to the separation, and eventually the removal, of these axioms and perspectives from the larger body of Egyptian science and thought, and finally to their placement in the Greek philosophical tradition. So thorough wasthe transfiguration of Tehuti to Thoth/Hermes that many students and some scholars of Egyptian history are unaware that the HermeticPhilosophy is arguably the worlds oldest doctrine, originating not in Greece, but on the African continent.
In regard to Hermes, history has provided several suppositions, much legend, and many myths. Hermes has been associated with many of the early sages and prophets such as Cadmus and Enoch, the latter identified as the Second Messenger of God. Syrian philosopherIamblichus averred that Hermes was the author of 20,000 books; the Egyptian priest/historian Manetho increased that number to more than36,000. Because of the astounding number of books attributed to Hermes, some believe that he was an array of various personalities or anentire secret society dedicated to the evolution of the human race. According to records retained by Syncellus (a Byzantine monk of the ninth century C.E.), which he believed were written a thousand years earlier by Mer-en-Jehuti (Manetho), the Egyptian high priest of Sebynnetos, there were two gods named Hermes. The first wasTehuti/Thoth, whose legacy extends to the very dawn of African civilization. It was he who originally carved on stelae (pillars) inhieroglyphics what became the sacred writings for the Anu, the old race. The second Thoth, who became Hermes Trismegistus, was theson of Agathodaimon, who seems to have ruled during the time of Imhotep (called Asclepius by the Greeks), ca. 2700 B.C.E. Syncellus,quoting a portion of text written by Manetho and addressed to Ptolemy II Philadelphus (282-229 B.C.E.), stated, Manetho knew stelae in the land of Seiria. . . . inscribed in the sacred tongue in hieroglyphic letters by Thoth, the first Hermes, and translated after the flood from thesacred tongue into the Greek language . . . and set down in books by the son of Agathodaimon, the second Hermes, father of Tat, in the sanctuaries of the temples ofEgypt; [Manetho] dedicated [them] to . . . Ptolemy . . . writing thus: . . . since you seek to know what will come to be in the cosmos, I shall present to you thesacred books that I have learned about, written by our ancestor, Hermes Trismegistus..This is what he says about the translation of the books written by the secondHermes. 3 If indeed this information is historically accurate, it would explain much of what has become the dilemma of Tehuti/Hermes and his immense literary undertaking. There are other accounts that can be categorized as legend or myth that enunciate the ability of Tehuti/Hermes to survive such an ample accomplishment. It is the nature of legend that its many parts support one another, and so it is with thelegend of Hermes. Though he is given credit for an astounding number of published works, he is also reported to have lived 300 years, whichwould easily allow for such a prolific literary undertaking. Certainly most would find this life expectancy of three centuries totally incomprehensible. Biblical references to people living to advanced age are often interpreted as symbolic simply because they are considered impossible to achieve. In the book of Genesis, chapters2325, the Bible states that Abraham and Sarah had their son, Isaac, when they were both around a hundred years old, and after Sarahsdeath at 127 years, Abraham fathered six more sons before his own death at age 175. The question remains how could people have livedto such ages in antiquity but barely survive to a meager seventy years in the present time? While Tehuti still walked the Earth with humanbeings, he entrusted to his most esteemed disciples and chosen successors his sacred book. The Book of Tehuti/Hermes containedinformation that explained the process of biological regeneration, which allowed the various biochemical and physiological systems in thehuman body to undergo physical and mental restoration. This axiom was based on the premise that all of the soft tissue systems within thehuman body are subject to this process of revitalization every seven months, and the more fundamental or substantial tissue systems everyseven years. The secret to attaining this level of physical mastery was said to be the result of various breathing techniques. The work alsocontained the secret process by which the regeneration of humanity was to be accomplished. According to legend, the Book of Tehuti was kept in a golden box in the inner sanctuary of a temple dedicated to Tehuti. In order to protect it from the encroaching Christian traditions and the resulting decay of the mysteries, the highest initiate of what came to be knownas the Hermetic Arcanum took the Book of Tehuti to an undisclosed location in another land, and it was lost to the world. According toHermetic tradition, this book still exists and continues to lead Hermetic disciples of the present age into the presence of the immortals. Thetraditions of vital regeneration and other methods contained in the book are still practiced in India and China. Using the aforementioned concepts of biological regeneration, one doctor, Deepak Chopra, is revolutionizing the way science and the medical establishment perceive the aging process. South Asian by birth, Dr. Chopra taught at Tufts University and Boston UniversitySchools of Medicine before becoming chief of staff at New England Memorial Hospital. Seeing the shortcomings of Western medicine, Dr.Chopra has combined the ancient Indian tradition of Ayurvedic medicine with Western science, achieving remarkable results. Throughunfailing example, Chopra has begun to prove that within the human biological framework exists the possibility of immortality: The newparadigm tells us that life is a process of constant transformation, not decline, and therefore is full of potential for unlimited growth. 4 With the success of Dr. Chopras research, even staunch adherents to the old paradigm concur that automatic biological degeneration is notprogrammed into our bodies, and that human life is more resilient than previously imagined. Using genetics and pioneering new avenues in cytology, Dr. Chopra has asserted that humans have the capacity to think about being immortal. Information obtained from radioactive isotope studies demonstrates that ninety-eight percent of all the atoms in the body arereplaced in less than one year. Research shows that the liver has the potential to regenerate every six weeks, the skin renews once a month,the stomach lining changes every five days, and our skeleton can renew itself once every three months. Dr. Chopras findings indicate thatevery two years we replace our entire body, down to the last atom. 5 Deepak Chopras findings corroborate the ancient traditions of longevity recorded by Tehuti/Hermes in his many writings. Of the forty-two fragmentary writings believed to have come from the stylus of Hermes only two remain: The Emerald Tablet and The Divine Pymander. The loss of the balance of his works was a great tragedy to the philosophic world. In his Stromata, Clement of Alexandriamade repeated reference to these forty-two Hermetic works, which were housed in the magnificent Egyptian Library of Alexandria, sonamed after Alexander the Great. In the years following the inevitable demise of the once glorious Egyptian civilization, the Romans, andlater the Christians, engaged in an ongoing campaign to nullify the Egyptians as a cultural and philosophical force. The unwavering treacheryof the Romans and Christians culminated in one of the most diabolic and nefarious acts in all of history. Because the very hub of Egyptianculture was inextricably connected to these ancient doctrines of Tehuti, in the year 389 A.D., Emperor Theodosius, a Christian, gave theorder for the burning of the great Library of Alexandria, knowing that the only way to insure the collapse of a culture was the totalobliteration of its history. Tradition holds that the volumes of the Hermetic Philosophy that managed to escape the fire were buried in thedesert and their location was known only to a few initiates of the secret societies. Whatever the nature of the being that is known as
Tehuti/Hermes, humanity unequivocally owes to him the very foundations of all
scientific and philosophical traditions, for his philosophieshave impacted upon every civilization. 6 An appropriate introduction to a discussion of the various axioms that constitute the present Hermetic Philosophy is an examination of the legend/myth of the vision that bequeathed to Tehuti/Hermes the mysteries of the universe and creation. The Divine Pymander ofHermes Mercurius Trismegistus is one of the earliest of the Hermetic writings extant. Though it is not in its original form, having beenrestructured during the first centuries of the Christian period and incorrectly translated several times since, this work still contains several ofthe original concepts of the Hermetic doctrine. The Divine Pymander consists of seventeen fragmentary writings, which were collected andput forth as one work. The second book of Pymander is known as Poimandres (the vision) and is the most famous of the Hermeticfragments because it has endured virtually unchanged through the ages. Poimandres: The Vision of Hermes W ithin each aspiration dwells the certainty of its own fulfillment - W .B.C. Hermes, in search for divine truth, found himself seeking solitude in a rocky and desolate place. He came to a place of rest and gave himself over to meditation. Following the secret instructions of the Temple, he gradually freed his higher consciousness from the bondage ofhis bodily senses; and, thus released, his divine nature revealed to him the mysteries of the transcendental spheres. As this process ofunfoldment began to climax, Hermes beheld a figure which seemed awe-inspiring and beyond approach. It was the Great Dragon, withwings stretching across the sky and light streaming in all directions from its body. The Great Dragon called Hermes by name, and askedhim why he thus meditated upon the World Mystery. Immensely humbled by this spectacle, Hermes prostrated himself before the Dragon,beseeching it to reveal its identity. The great creature answered that it was Poimandres, the Mind of the Universe, the Creative Intelligence,and the Absolute Emperor of all things. Hermes then besought Poimandres to disclose unto him the nature of the universe. The GreatDragon nodded its magnificent head and its form immediately changed. Where the Dragon had stood was now a glorious and pulsating radiance. Then Hermes heard the voice of Poimandres but his form wasnot revealed. I, thy God, am the Light and the Mind which were before substance was divided from spirit and darkness from Light. And theWord which appeared as a pillar of flame out of the darkness is the Son of God, born of the mystery of the Mind. The name of that Word isReason. Reason is the offspring of Thought and Reason shall divide the Light from the darkness and establish Truth in the midst of thewaters. Understand, O Hermes, and meditate deeply upon the mystery. So it is that Divine Light that dwells in the midst of mortal darkness,and ignorance cannot divide them. The union of the World and the Mind produces that mystery which is called life. . . . Learn deeply of theMind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality. The Dragon again revealed its form to Hermes, and for a long time the two looked steadfastly one upon the other, eye to eye, so that Hermes trembled before the gaze of Poimandres. At the Word of the Dragon, the heavens opened and the innumerable Light Powers wererevealed. . . . Hermes beheld the spirits of the stars, the celestials controlling the universe. . . . Hermes realized that the sight which he beheldwas revealed to him only because Poimandres had spoken a Word. The Word was Reason, and by the Reason of the Word invisible thingswere made manifest. The darkness below, receiving the hammer of the Word, was fashioned into an orderly universe. The elementsseparated into strata and each brought forth living creatures. The Supreme Being-the Mind-manifested male and female, and they broughtforth the Word; and the Word suspended between Light and darkness, was delivered of another Mind called the Workman, the Master-Builder, or the Maker of Things. In this manner it was accomplished, O Hermes: The Word moving like a breath through space calledforth the Fire by the friction of its motion. Therefore, the Fire is called the Son of Striving. The Son of Striving thus formed the SevenGovernors, the Spirits of the Planets, whose orbits bounded the world; and the Seven Governors controlled the world by the mysteriouspower called Destiny. Then the downward-turned and unreasoning elements brought forth creatures without Reason. Substance could notbestow Reason, for Reason had ascended out of it. The air produced flying things and the waters things that swam. The earth conceivedstrange four-footed and creeping beasts, dragons, composite demons, and grotesque monsters. Then the Father-the Supreme Mind-, beingLight and Life, fashioned a glorious Universal Man in its own image, not an earthly man but a heavenly Man dwelling in the Light of God.The Supreme Mind loved the Man it had fashioned and delivered to Him the control of the creations. Man, too, willed to make things, and hisFather gave permission. The Seven Governors [Planets], of whose powers He partook, rejoiced and each gave the Man a share of its ownnature. The Man longed to pierce the circumference of the circles and understand the mystery of Him who sat upon the Eternal Fire. Having already all power, He stooped down and peeped through the seven Harmonies and, breaking through the strength of the circles, madeHimself manifest to Nature stretched out below. The Man, looking into the depths, smiled, for he beheld a shadow upon the earth and alikeness mirrored in the waters, which shadow and likeness were a reflection of Himself. The Man fell in love with his own shadow anddesired to descend into it. Coincident with the desire, that divine or intelligent aspect of Man united itself with the unreasoning image orshape. Nature, beholding the descent, wrapped herself about the Man whom she loved, and the two were mingled. For this reason Man is acomposite. Within him is the Sky Man, immortal and beautiful; without is Nature, mortal and destructible. Thus suffering is the result of theImmortal Mans falling in love with his shadow and giving up Reality to dwell in the darkness of illusion; for being immortal, man has thepower of the Seven Governors-also the Life, the Light, and the Word-; but being mortal, he is controlled by the rings of the Governors-Fateor Destiny. Of the Immortal man it should be said that He is hermaphrodite, or male and female, and eternally watchful. He neither slumbers norsleeps, and is governed by a Father also both male and female, and ever watchful. Such is the mystery kept hidden to this day; for Nature,being mingled in marriage with the Sky Man, brought forth a wonder most wonderful - seven men, all bisexual, male and female, and uprightof stature, each one exemplifying the natures of the Seven Governors. These, O Hermes, are the seven races, species, and wheels. After thismanner were the seven men generated. Earth was the female element and water the male element, and from the fire and ether they receivedtheir spirits, and Nature produced bodies after the species and shapes of men. They reproduced themselves out of themselves, for each was
male and female. But at the end of the period the knot of Destiny was untied by the will of God and the bond of all things was loosened. Thenall living creatures, including man, which had been hermaphroditical, were separated, the males being set apart by themselves and thefemales likewise, according to the dictates of Reason. Then God spoke the Holy Word within the soul of all things saying: Increase and multiply in multitudes, all you, my creatures and workmanships. Let him that is endowed with Mind know himself to be immortal and that the cause of death is the love of the body; and lethim learn all things that are, for he who has recognized himself enters into the state of Good. And when God had said this, Providence, with the aid of the Seven Governors and Harmony, brought the sexes together . . . He, who through the error of attachment loves his body, abides wandering in darkness, sensible and suffering the things of death; but he who realizesthat the body is but the tomb of his soul, rises to immortality. Then Hermes desired to know why men should be deprived of immortality for the sin of ignorance alone. The Great Dragon answered: To the ignorant the body is supreme and they are incapable of realizing the immortality that is within them. Knowing only the body which issubject to death, they believe in death because they worship that substance which is the cause and reality of death. Hermes bowed his head in thankfulness to the Great Dragon who had taught him so much, and begged to hear more concerning the ultimate of the human soul. So Poimandres resumed: At death the material body of man is returned to the elements from which it came, andthe invisible divine man ascends to the source from whence he came, namely the Eight Spheres. The senses, feelings, desires, and bodypassions return to their source, namely the Seven Governors, whose natures in the lower man destroy but in the invisible spiritual man givelife. After the lower nature has returned to the brutishness, the higher struggles to regain its spiritual estate. It ascends the Seven Rings uponwhich sit the Seven Governors and returns to each their lower powers in this manner: Upon the first ring sits the Moon, and to it is returnedthe ability to increase and diminish. Upon the second ring sits Mercury, and to it are returned machinations, deceit, and craftiness. Upon thethird ring sits Venus, and to it are returned the lusts and passions. Upon the fourth ring sits the Sun, and to this Lord are returned ambitions.Upon the fifth ring sits Mars, and to it are returned rashness and profane boldness. Upon the sixth ring sits Jupiter, and to it are returned thesense of accumulation and riches. And upon the seventh ring sits Saturn, at the Gate of Chaos, and to it are returned falsehood and evilplotting. Then being naked of all the accumulations of the Seven Rings, the soul comes to the Eighth Sphere, namely, the ring of the fixedstars. Here, freed of all illusion, it dwells in the Light which only pure spirit may understand. The path to immortality is hard, and only a few find it. The rest await the Great Day when the wheels of the universe shall be stopped and the immortal sparks shall escape from the sheaths of substance. Woe unto those who wait, for they must return again, unconscious andunknowing. Blessed art thou, O Son of Light, to whom of all men, I Poimandres the Light of The World, have revealed myself. I order you togo forth, to become as a guide to those who wander in darkness, that they may be saved by my Mind in you. Establish my Mysteries and theyshall not fail from this earth. Hermes heard and replied, The sleep of the body is the sober watchfulness of the mind and the shutting of my eyes reveals the true light. My silence is filled with budding life and hope, and is full of good, for this is the faithful account of what I received from my true mind, that isPoimandres, The Great Dragon, The Lord of The Word, through whom I became inspired with the truth. 7 The Vision of Hermes is significant in several ways. Theologians will invariably discover that many Hermetic precepts appear in and obviously influenced the Christian Bible, which appeared several centuries later. Orientalists familiar with the symbolic iconography ofChina and India will discover the origin of the Dragon in Chinese mythology and culture, not to mention the philosophical profunditiesinherent in the Yogic, Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist traditions of South Asia. The Vision of Hermes, like so many of the Hermetic writings, is an allegorical exposition of great philosophic and mystic truths. The intention here is to unravel, or in the words of the ancients, to lift the Veil of Isis, to expose the practical and fundamental function of theaxioms therein. The great Hermetic principles or laws that have been left to us are seven in number. Seven is not an arbitrary figure, but a powerful and extremely significant symbol of divine or universal cohesiveness that permeates the core of our very existence. The following observationsillustrate this point: 1. There are Seven Days in a week and Fifty-two Weeks in a year (5 + 2 = 7). In the Christian Bible, the Earth was created in six days and on the Seventh Day Godrested.2. Some psychologists have stated that Age Seven is the Age of Reason; twice that, Fourteen, is Puberty; thrice that, Twenty-one, is Maturation.3. There are Seven Cardinal Colors in the solar spectrum violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red from which all other colors are derived.4. There are Seven Key Notes in the musical scale.5. There are Seven Continents, as there are Seven Seas. Originally, there were believed to be Seven Planets, called the Seven Governors by the ancients, alsoreferred to as the Seven Angels in Revelations in the Christian Bible.6. There are Seven Holes that lead into the human body ears, nostrils, mouth, anus, and vaginal or penile orifices. The human brain, heart, eye, and ear are eachdivided into Seven Parts. The skin has Seven Layers.7. There are Seven Virtues faith, hope, charity, strength, prudence, temperance, and justice and Seven Deadly Sins pride, avarice, luxury, wrath, idleness,gluttony, envy. It is not by chance that so many components of human life are connected to expressions of seven. The ancients held that seven was the most spiritually inclined of all the numbers, therefore it is befitting that there are seven Hermetic Axioms. The Hermetic Axioms of Tehuti/Hermes 1. The Principle of Mentalism The All is Mind; The Universe is Mental. 8 This principle embodies the truth that the All or God is Mind. It explains that the All is the substantial reality underlying all the visible
manifestations and appearances that we categorize as the material universe: matter,
energy, and all that is apparent to our material senses.This entity, the All, is pure spirit, which is unknowable and undefinable, but is regarded in the most ancient traditions as a universal,infinite, living mind. Human beings, in futile attempts to describe the All, attribute to it characteristics that fall within the realm of what iscomfortable and comprehensible. This is theology: the assigning of human qualities to the Supreme in order to comprehend theincomprehensible. Thus, the All is always depicted as a man God, the Father and is actually given a personality. In reality this axiomexplains that the universe is a mental creation of the All; that is to say, the All is everything and everything is the All. This principle alsoexplains the true nature of energy, power, and matter, and how these are subordinate to the mastery of the mind. 2. The Principle of Correspondence As above, so below; as below, so above. 9 This axiom explicates the constant correspondence that exists between the various planes of life, whether recognized or not. When we perceive our solar system, vast and mystifying, with the Sun at its center and the planets in orbit around the Sun, we may acknowledge thesame patterns on a much smaller scale: the atom, with the nucleus at its core, and the protons, electrons, and neutrons, which, like theplanets, orbit around the nucleus. The understanding of this law provides a key to unlocking the enigma of the multidimensional reality inwhich we exist mentally, materially, and spiritually. 3. The Principle of Vibration Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates. 10 This principle embodies the truth that everything is in constant motion. Whether this motion is perceivable is irrelevant, for this law affirms that everything vibrates, and that nothing is ever at rest. Modern science may now attest to this fact, but it should be kept in mindthat this fact was known thousands of years ago in ancient Kmt (Egypt) and India. The higher the vibration, the higher the form or entitythat exists within that particular frequency. Therefore, the vibrational connection between some of the grosser forms of matter, such as arock, and a human being, is very great. Spirit has the highest vibrational frequency, vibrating at such a phenomenal speed that it seems to beat rest, just as a rapidly moving wheel seems to be motionless. It is said that those practitioners of the Hermetic teachings who are able tograsp this principle will be able to, with the appropriate formulas, control their own mental vibrations as well as those of others. Or, asstated by one of the old masters, He who understands the Principle of Vibration, has grasped the scepter of power. 11 4. The Principle of Polarity Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled. 12 This law exemplifies the truth that for every extreme there is another equally as valid, and that the extremes thus opposed may have the effect of balancing each other. There are two sides to everything, and every truth may also be false. Humans experience this dualitythroughout life. For example, a woman who lives by a particular reality may find that a year later she has matured, grown, and herperspectives have changed, thus invalidating her prior truth or reality. Hermes stated that everything is divided into opposites; however,these opposites are identical in their nature, differing only in their degree. To illustrate, hot and cold are the same thing temperature. Theysimply occupy different places on the temperate scale. The same may be seen with short and tall, light and dark, or large and small, all ofwhich reflect opposite extremes of the same scale. One commonly experienced duality is love and hate. These are two mental states thatreflect opposing degrees of emotion, and often fade into and out of one another to such a degree that they are barely distinguishable. Themaxim there is a thin line between love and hate is a truism. Often, we move from love to hate and back again. Within this principle we canuncover the art of polarization, a kind of mental alchemy that allows people to change their individual psyches, from hate to love, or fromevil to good. 5. The Principle of Gender Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine Principles; Gender manifests on all planes. 13 This axiom embodies the truth that gender is manifested in everything; the masculine and feminine principles are always at work. This is not only true of the physical plane but of the mental and spiritual planes as well. This principle has an affinity with the polarity axiom. Onthe physical plane, the principle manifests as sex, but on higher planes it takes other forms. No creation, whether physical, mental, orspiritual, is possible without this principle. Within our own individual spheres of existence we know that every male has elements offeminine energy, and every female carries the components of the masculine. When this law is employed, we see the creation of planets, solarsystems, and animal life of all kinds. 6. The Principle of Rhythm Everything flows out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates. 14 The principle of rhythm explains the cycles of life, the truth that everything has a tide-like ebb and flow. Hermes stated that the ebb of the tide is equal to its flow and is set in motion and maintained by the rhythm of the universe. There can be no better example than that ofthe various races and their civilizations. Once there were opulent and great empires that were created, maintained, or influenced by the Blackrace. For thousands of years, these civilizations flourished as a pinnacle of cultural influence, holding sway even over those nations that theydid not touch directly. But just as the great swing of the pendulum brought about their ascension, so it brought about their demise. Withinevery great experience, whether related to race, culture, civilization, or individual magnanimity, the tide must eventually turn. This principleis eternally united with the concept of the great, awe-inspiring cycles or ages of humankind, as well as those of the Earth, which foreverdictate periods of upheaval and tranquility. There is always an action and a reaction, an advance and a retreat. This law manifests in thecreation and destruction of worlds, the rise and fall of nations, and ultimately in the mental states of humanity.
7. The Principle of Cause and Effect
Every cause has its Effect; every Effect has its cause; everything happens according to Law; Chance is but a name for Law not recognized; there are many planes of causation but nothing escapes the Law. 15 This principle purports that everything happens according to law that nothing merely happens. Chance and coincidence do not exist; these are terms human beings choose, or are forced to use because of an ignorance of the principle at work. The masses of the Earth aregoverned by a herd instinct: the many are lead aimlessly by the few, destined to be carried along, obedient to the wills and desires of othersstronger than themselves. Because they are basically unconscious, they are forever subject to the effect of environment, heredity, suggestion,and other outward forces moving them about like pawns on a chessboard. Once this principle is understood and practiced, one becomes amover as opposed to being moved, a player in the game of life, as opposed to being played by it.
PART II:
COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF THE SEVEN HERMETIC AXIOMS OF TEHUTI
1. This woman represents the Bonda, one of the oldest known cultures in India today. Called adavasi, meaning former inhabitants, the Bonda are only 800 in number. Speakingtheir own language, distinct from the Dravidian and other national tongues of India, the Bonda with the exception of the Adamanese are the closest descendants in physicalfeature to the ancient Harappans. The various tribes of South Asia constitute forty-five million of the present population.
CHAPTER 1
The Principle of Mentalism and the Concept of God or the All
That which is the Fundamental Truth the Substantial Reality is beyond true naming, but the wise men call it The All. Kybalion The idea of God in the functional and absolute sense has been elusive in Western civilization. The factors of this dilemma are worthy of examination in order to grasp fully the greater spiritual or religious dynamic that is being espoused by todays major religions. Acomprehensive examination of the present state of Western religion must begin with the first Indo-European hordes, who stormed off theUkrainian steppes circa 40002500 B.C.E., bringing new and different perspectives of culture, race, civilization, and religion. Traces of thepolytheism, violence, and subjugation overwhelmingly inherent in their religious rites are still entrenched in the soul of India, where theIndo-Europeans made one of their earliest appearances. By the time the Indo-Europeans reached South Asia, they had given themselves theappellation Aryan, meaning noble one. They traveled with a host (from Latin, meaning enemy or hostile) of deities, the greatest or mostsupreme of which was Pater or Phater, the source of the term father. The Pater archetype was a crude and distorted model of what wouldlater become the Aryan personification of God. It was crude in the sense that when one compares the Aryan religious beliefs with thecultures the Aryans would eventually conquer Egypt, Sumeria, India, and Mesopotamia Aryan beliefs seem to be based on the mostrudimentary spiritual formulas and conceptual foundations. Pater had a chameleon quality: upon contact with other cultures, it wouldassume and subsume the position and identity of the local indigenous supreme deity. After the Aryan invasion of India, Pater becameBrahma, usurping the religious beliefs (those that were comprehensible to them) of the indigenous population. The Aryans then enshroudedthe entity of Brahma with their own pagan doctrine, creating a complex belief system that retained elements of the higher spiritual axiomsevident in the conquered culture.
2. European Crusaders pillaging Jerusalem.
Aboriginal inhabitants, called the Harrapans, formed and maintained the sociocultural complex of the Indus Valley civilization from 3500 to 1500 B.C.E. They had an extremely well integrated belief system that functioned on the universal principles of the cosmos. Theydid not believe that the universe was created, maintained, and destroyed by an array of anthropomorphic deities, but rather that theseprocesses were the result of an established cosmic order of laws, which maintained the natural balance of life on its many levels. They werestrictly monotheistic, believing in an all-encompassing divine force that permeated all forms of existence from the smallest particle to themost advanced life forms. Upon contact with the Aryan warlords and their priests, the religious codex of Indias inhabitants became warped and perverted. The introduction of Aryan polytheism into India created a model that in time would produce a theological paradigm that would not only
influence India, but would eventually indoctrinate the world: Brahminism gave birth to the Hindu faith, complete with religiously sanctionedracism and sexism. The Aryan mindset was never able to grasp, much less initiate, the more lofty philosophies of the spiritual aspirants whom they would inevitably trample underfoot. Later, this same socioreligious ignorance would allow such diabolical undertakings as the Crusades, in whichmilitary mercenaries set out across southern Europe killing, torturing, pillaging, and looting, all in the name of God. One crusading army,commanded by Godfrey de Bouillon, massacred the entire population of Jerusalem in 1098 C.E. According to one historical account, theCrusaders rode into the fallen holy city on horses wading knee-deep in the blood of the disbelievers. 16 In 1204, Mephistophelian hordes descended upon Constantinople and ravaged what was once the very sanctum of Western Christendom. The siege ended at the Church of St.Sophia in a bloody, sacrilegious, and iniquitous orgy of monumental proportions: The knights slaughtered a great multitude of people ofevery age, old men and women, maidens, children and mothers with infants, by way of a solemn sacrifice to Jesus. 17 Historians estimate that Europe was Christianized at a cost of eight to ten million lives. Unfortunately, this religious treachery did not expire with the Crusades.Until the advent of Hitlers Nazis in modern Germany, neither Europe nor the world knew of a system of organized terrorism that couldrival the five-hundred-year reign of the Inquisition. Historian Henry Charles Lea, a leading expert on medieval Europe, called the Inquisitiona standing mockery of justice perhaps the most iniquitous that the arbitrary cruelty of man has ever devised. . . . Fanatic zeal, arbitrarycruelty and insatiable cupidity [avarice] rivaled each other in building up a system unspeakably atrocious. It was a system which might wellseem the invention of demons. 18 The Inquisition was created primarily to force various so-called pagan populations to accept a church and a god they did not want. Bulgarian writers recorded that the Roman Catholic priests were given to drunkenness and robbery, behavior thatwas not only condoned by the church, but encouraged. Peter von Pilichdorf wrote in the early fourteenth century, the worst man, if he be apriest, is more worthy than the holiest layman. 19 In the twelfth century, several monasteries were converted into wine shops and gambling houses, while nunneries became private whorehouses for the Christian clergy. Nicholas de Clamanges, rector of the University of Paris,declared that the popes were ravishers not pastors of their flocks; 20 and the Fraticelli, a powerful order of Franciscan monks, lamented that the Pope and all of his successors were tainted with sin, then proceeded to label him an Antichrist. Immediately after that comment, PopeMartin V dissolved the order and destroyed its religious center, the town of Magnalata, which was razed to the ground. Every resident wasslain. 21
3. Knights do battle while the inhabitants flee the city with the women Economic greed also figured very prominently in the motives of the founding Christian fathers. Grim humor of the time speculated that
the Church had not ten commandments, but only one: Bring hither the money. Saint Bernard lamented the churchs greed: Whom canyou show me among the prelates who does not seek rather to empty the pockets of his flock than to subdue their vices? 22 In 1325, Pope John issued the Cum inter nonnullos, a religious decree that deemed heresy any statement to the effect that Jesus and his apostles owned noproperty. Inquisitors were ordered to prosecute those who believed Jesus was a poor man. The spiritual Franciscans scoffed the Popesorder, thereby forcing his hand: he had 114 of their members burned alive. 23 This perverse pecuniary attitude within the Church became religiously consecrated with the advent of Calvinism. Calvinists believed inpredestination God would save a chosen few, regardless of their worldly behavior. But, they felt, individual economic success would bean indication, perhaps the only indication, of Gods favor. Thus, the more money one accumulated, the more likely that one would be amongthe saved. 24 During the Middle Ages, the European populace began to question Christian interpretations of the Bible. This skepticism was prompted by the influence of Gnostic philosophies from the East, which debunked certain myths of the Church such as the Garden of Eden, the fallfrom grace (the original sin), heaven and hell, the meaning of salvation, and the historicity of the personality known as Jesus Christ. Becauseof the growing number of religious discrepancies, the Catholic Church began to lose its stronghold in Europe; it was at this time that thepapacy lost all of Bohemia to the formation of the Moravian Church. 25 Two characteristics of Western religion are dramatized by these historical events: its corrupt and perverse foundations, and its lack of the spiritual sublimity (outstanding spiritual, intellectual, and moral worth) ideally intrinsic in any true religion. These ideals have not beenrepresented in the biblical interpretation that has been so pervasive in the Western hemisphere, and thus morality has become more of atenuous apparition with each passing moment. With a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other, missionaries still coerce the populations ofso-called Third World countries to submit to their ideas of faith. Catholics wage war with Protestants in Northern Ireland and with Moslemsin Bosnia, while Moslems and Jews have been massacring each other in the Middle East for millennia; Hindus are slaughtering Sikhs andMoslems in South Asia; and the rest of us seem to be sitting idly by, awaiting the second coming of whomever will end the moral deficit thatis plaguing humankind. Thus, it seems that of the major world religions, the only God-inspired groups that are not killing or venting hostilityon others or themselves, are the Yogis, Buddhists, and Taoists, who also happen to be the oldest and maybe the most illuminated of themany faces of religion. Furthermore, it should be stated that yoga and Taoism are not religions per se, but philosophies based on a scientificmethod for transformation. One inescapable conclusion is apparent: Western culture and Western-influenced civilizations possess a fundamental misunderstanding of the constitution of God and religion. As the philosophies and religious practices of the indigenous Harrapans of ancient India becameAryanized, the quintessence that had been passed from the ritual to the practitioner, and which allowed the true transformation ofconsciousness, was lost. In time, true religion was lost and then redefined in the West, along with the concept of God. Although religion isderived from the Latin religare, to bind together, it is used to divide and conquer. Religion, in the perception of the ancient Harappans,was an intuitional realization of the existence of God, or the All, and their relationship to it. The West, consummate in its cerebral, positivistapproach to life (only that which is tangible is real), was not capable of such a spectral experience, and replaced religion with theology the human attempt to ascribe personality and character to God. Theology is the human theory regarding Gods affairs, will, plans, desires,and projections for the human race. Inferences made about Him take on a purely anthropomorphic quality, which is no more than areligious aberration. Sigmund Freud, whose controversial theories have been greatly contested, identified the warped perspective in the Western view of God: The ordinary man cannot imagine this Providence [divine guidance] in any other form but that of a greatly exalted father, for only such a one could understand theneeds of his sons . . . or be softened by their prayers and placated by the signs of their remorse. The whole thing is patently infantile, so incongruous with reality . . .it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life. 26 The obsession with infusing God with human qualities stems primarily from the Aryan attempt at comprehending what was, for them, incomprehensible. Aryan projections of God are obviously anthropomorphic in the earliest portrayals of Brahma, complete with head,arms, legs, feet, and in the initial biblical interpretation of God made man in his own image, which was understood and applied literally. As late as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, eminent European philosophers were still grappling with the concept of God. The work of German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646- 1716) created a gauge by which this ever-growingconcern in Europes metaphysical and religious community could be measured. Though this work remained in a formative stage, hiscomments are worthy of reconsideration: God is an absolutely perfect being . . . there are many different kinds of perfection, all of which God possesses, consequently power and knowledge do admit ofperfection and in so far as they pertain to God they have no limits. There are many who think that God might have made things better than he has. No more am I ableto approve of the opinion of certain modern writers who boldly maintain that which God has made he might have done better. It seems to me that the consequencesof such an opinion are wholly inconsistent with the glory of God. These modern thinkers insist upon certain hardly tenable subtleties, for they imagine thatnothing is so perfect that there might not have been something more perfect. This is an error. 27 Leibniz deplored his colleagues superficial and materialistic approach to God. And though he himself struggled with the idea of the divine, he knew that there was a greater substantial reality to whatever it was that his five material senses could not reveal. Another spiritual revolutionary of Western civilization was Mary Baker Eddy, who wrote at the turn of the century. Eddy was instrumental in introducing to Europe and America the concept of Christian Science. Born Mary Baker Glover, she was Pastor Emeritus ofThe First Church of Christ in Boston and president of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. Her first domestic publication appeared in1870, and before her death she had published seventeen highly acclaimed books on religion. Of her interest in the subject, she explained,when quite young I was impressed that the Bible was not properly interpreted by the preachers, for I could not conceive of a God ofwrath who was unjust enough to allow His little ones to suffer pain, misery, and death. I had hope, however, that some day the truth wouldbe revealed. . . . 28 Mary Baker Eddy dedicated her life to the acquisition of religious truth, committed to the veracity of the words of the
Apostle John Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free and the words of William Shakespeare There is nothingeither good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Her insights into an elusive component of religion that has managed to escape many, if notmost of our current theologians, are notable for their qualitative correspondence to the ideas of the Hermetists of ancient Egypt. Eddysideas on the constitution of God represented both a departure from Western religious thought and a gateway to new and progressiveconcepts and practices in America: God is not corporeal, but incorporeal that is, bodiless. As the words person and personal are ignorantly employed, they often lead, when applied to Deity, toconfused and erroneous conceptions of divinity and its distinction from humanity. [God is an infinite Mind], and an infinite Mind in a finite form is an absoluteimpossibility. 29 God is Spirit; therefore the language of Spirit must be, and is spiritual. Christian Science attaches no physical nature and significance to the Supreme Being or Hismanifestation; mortals alone do this. Human theories are inadequate to interpret the divine. . . . Evidence drawn from the five physical senses relates solely tohuman reason. 30 Soul, or Spirit, is God, unchangeable and eternal; and man coexists with and reflects Soul, God, for man is Gods image. . . . Mortals have a very imperfect sense ofthe spiritual man and of the infinite range of his thought. To God belongs eternal life. Never born and never dying. . . . The infinite has no beginning. 31 Eddys speculations on the constitution of God seem to, in retrospect, respond to the criticisms of the ancient Hermetists, who regard[ed] all the theories, guesses and speculations of the theologians and metaphysicians regarding the nature of the All, as but the childishefforts of mortal minds to grasp the secret of the infinite. Such efforts have always failed and will always fail. 32 They referred to this entity as the All, a concept which once constituted the very foundation of African religious thought, and can be identified in the cultures thatwould be born from the continents soil. It is this concept that we will now explore, beginning with a statement by Tehuti/Hermes which pertains to this entity: I cannot hope to name the maker of all majesty, the master of everything, with a single name, even a name composed of many names; it is nameless orrather it is all named since it is one and all, so that one must call all things by its name or by the names of every thing, the only and the all,completely full of the fertility of both sexes and ever pregnant with its own will Under, and back of the universe of time, space and change, isever to be found the substantial reality the fundamental, the All. 33 Substance here denotes that which underlies all perceptible or visible manifestations, as in the essence, or the essential reality. The term substantial as used in this context, means actually existing, being the essential elements, and being real. Reality means that which is true,enduring, valid, or permanent. The Hermetic Principle of the All, therefore, represents the universal law that dictates that under and behindall outward appearances, there is a substantial reality. The Hermetists of ancient Kmt (Egypt) stated that the All, that which we call God, is truly unknowable, for only the All itself can comprehend its own nature and being. The question then is, how does one identify the unidentifiable? The key to this question ishumankinds unconditional acceptance of the unknowability of the All. Though the essential nature of the All is unknowable, there arecertain truths arrived at through reason, with which humans must be content: 1. The All must be All that really is. There can be nothing existing outside of the All, else the All would not be the All.2. The All must be infinite, for there is nothing else to define, confine, bound, limit, or restrict the All. It must be infinite in time, or eternal it must have alwayscontinuously existed, for there is nothing else to have ever created it, and something can never evolve from nothing. It must exist forever, for there is nothing todestroy it, and it can never not be, even for a moment.3. The All must be immutable, or consistent, in its real nature to never change, for there is nothing to work changes upon it; nothing into which it could change,nor from which it could have changed. This the ancients held as the supreme truth, and that everything else is subject to changes, especially things on Earth. 34 Hermes was quoted as saying, Truth alone is eternal and immutable; truth is the first of blessings; but truth is not and cannot be on Earth; everything has matter on it, clothed with a corporeal form subject to change, to alteration, to corruption, and to new combinations. . .the things of Earth are but appearances and imitations of truth; they are what the picture is to reality. 35 The axiom of Mentalism speaks to the All as being infinite, absolute, eternal, and above all unchangeable. If the three truths stated previously acknowledge the various characteristics of the All, then perhaps reason can provide a guideline by which the All can be identified in its most transcendental form. Is the All purely matter? The answer would have to be no; for nothing riseshigher than its own source, and it has just been established that matter is subject to constant change, reflecting rampant inconsistency andinstability. Physical science testifies that matter is no more than an illusion it is merely energy, power, or force combined at variousvibrational frequencies. But defining the All as pure power, force, or energy would not be totally accurate either. Energy or force as it relates to the All reflects only a residual component of its totality because energy and force are perpetually in a position of random flux in that they are alwayscontrolled by an outside influence, even when they appear to be moving of their own volition. Thus, there is no intrinsic intelligence in pureforce or the power that guides or directs it. This is not the case with the All. What is perceived as energy and force in nature is but anoutward manifestation, or projection, of the mind of the All. This is the feature that allows the definition of the All as Infinite Living Mind.Now, the term spirit is used as a means of general identification of the mind. Most modern images of God are based on the line from the Book of Genesis, which reports that God created man in his own image. Ironically, people have looked at themselves and projected their own image onto God, rather than allowing Gods image to be primary.Instead of assuming that Genesis refers to God as a physically anthropomorphic being, we could instead assume that the human, or thatwhich constitutes the essence of human, is a spiritual being: imperishable, infinite, and constant, like God. Thus, if spirit is living mind, thenhumans, like the All, have the ability to create and endure through the power of mind, only on a more minute plane of existence. This is theworlds best-kept secret. This was the religious reality of antiquity, which today is unknown by most, forgotten by many, and practiced byfew. What exactly is spirit? As previously indicated, spirit, which means real essence in the Hermetic context, is simply a title that humans have given to the living mind. Because spirit transcends our understanding, in our present state of consciousness, human beings must accept
that it cannot be explained or defined. One theory is that God or the All is the universe, but this is pure conjecture and holds no basis in fact.The theory probably arises from the fact that the universe is the largest tangible reality that humankind may mentally grasp and physicallyexplore, but it is still matter that is subject to perpetual transformation. The universe seems all-pervasive in its nature or essence; it isconnecting, binding, multidimensional with its neutron stars, black holes and quasars, but it is not the All. The mere fact that humans mayunderstand and explore the physical universe disqualifies it as the character of the All, which cannot be perceived nor remotely grasped byhumankind. The conclusion is obvious: the universe is a creation of the All. Spiritualists, metaphysicians, and philosophers theorize that the All created the universe from its own substance, but this is also inaccurate because according to the ancient Hermetists, the All cannot be subtracted from nor divided. Furthermore, if it were so, would noteach particle in the universe be aware of its being the All? Would not we, as spiritual entities, be born with an innate awareness of ouruniversal connectedness or oneness with all life and with the All itself? Some theologians and religious aspirants who acknowledge the fact that spirit or living mind dwells within every human being, setting us apart from other animal life forms, proclaim that I am [or we are] God. But this, too, is an erroneous assumption, comparable to a tinyhuman corpuscle claiming I am the body. The process by which the All creates is very simple, and its comprehension can be facilitated by the second Hermetic axiom, that of Correspondence as above, so below that is based on the belief that there is a working correspondence existing among the manyplanes of the universe. According to the Law of Correspondence, an examination of the human process of creation will illuminate that of theAll. Humans create in many ways. We create by utilizing materials from outside of our beings, such as metal, wood, clay, or combinations ofmaterials. This type of creation does not apply to the All, for there is nothing outside of the All. Human beings also create from inside,biologically, by the transformation of genetic substance into new beings. Once again, this is not possible for the All, which can neithertransfer nor subtract, reproduce nor multiply itself. The manner of human creation that corresponds to that of the All is the human ability to create mentally, to imagine. As we create mentally, we use no outside materials, nor do we reproduce ourselves; yet the spirit of thought, or living mind, pervades our mentalcreations. Thus, according to the Law of Correspondence, we can assume that the All creates mentally. This is the key to the Hermeticriddle: The All is Mind; The Universe is Mental. Just as the reader may create a mental universe of her own, so the All creates universes in its mentality. The major difference between the two processes is that the human universe is the mental creation of a finite mind, whereas that of the All is the creation of an infinitemind. Therefore, that which is accepted to be the universe is just one mental creation of the All: The All creates in its Infinite Mindcountless Universes, which exist for eons of time and yet, to the All, the creation, development, decline and death of a million Universesis as the time of the twinkling of an eye. 36 Creation does not take place within time; rather, time is an effect of creation. This conception of time would, to Western culture, be considered a spatiotemporal impossibility. But the ancient Hermetists held that time is a mere illusion, subject to spatial manipulation by the wise who understood its inconstancy. But in order to grasp the dynamicmechanism within which the All creates, it is imperative to explore the concept of time and how it manifests itself in Western civilization.The misunderstanding of time as linear is directly related to the inability to understand the divine. Dr. Kamau Johnson, a Howard Universitypsychologist who has done extensive research into human perceptions of time, points out, To the surprise of many, the sense of linear time presently experienced in the Euro-Americas has not always been the reigning orientation of time. According toEgyptian mythology, Thoth [Hermes ] . . . was the divider and measurer of time . . . by observing successive patterns in nature, the Egyptians came to perceive timeas cyclic. The sun, moon, and seasons returned with unfailing patterns and periodicity. As did their observations of the planets. So the concept of a cyclicworldview reflected the reliance on natural cycles . . . clever devices were designed to measure cyclic time. Sundials and other such devices, reflected that a cyclictime was intrinsic to nature. 37 Johnson identifies a pivotal shift in the perception of time analysis when, [in] the mid-1600s, a Dutch scientist Christian Huygens, invented the pendulum clock, providing . . . its own recurring cycles independent of nature. This orientation was embraced by the westernworld . . . [and] became firmly ingrained in Euro-American culture. Reference to time became more rooted in concepts of hours, minutes, andseconds. . . . Today, it is assumed that time flows rigidly from past, present to future. Languages such as English are designed to describe alinear world . . . the tenses of English verbs indicate a rigid linear worldview. It is thus difficult to express non-linear . . . notions in oureveryday language. 38 Language, specifically descriptive or discursive language, is linear and consecutive. Descriptive or discursive languages cannot begin to capture or expound the simplest experience without depriving it of the essence that gives it life. Therefore, to try and use such a lineardevice to understand the All is nothing short of impossible. Considerations of the Western perception of time as linear reinforce the inadequacy of Eurocentric thought and language to comprehend the cyclic nature of the divine. The cyclic nature of all natural elements on Earth corresponds to the nature of the All and constitutes thevery hub of a universal dynamic, which connects the various planes of existence, whether seen or unseen. All things within the naturalscheme of life move in cycles or continuous spirals. The double helix of DNA, the molecular basis of heredity in organic life, spirals up andout; blood spirals through living veins. Even the follicles of human hair, especially those of Blacks, spiral up and out of the head, creating theindividual spiraling strands of helical, spring-like shafts so characteristic of that race. But the growth pattern of the hair in all human beingsis cyclic in that it spirals from the lower top of the crania in a whorl pattern, no matter what the race. Seashells such as the nautilus arecomposed of a spiraling chain of chambers, the planets spin as they spiral in their orbits around the sun, and tornados and hurricanes alsospiral as they move across the landscape. According to the Law of Correspondence, we may surmise that all of these natural phenomena arethe mental creation of the All. In fact, the words spiral and spiritual originate from the Latin spirare, to coil. According to ancient belief, the All living mind or spirit creates by projecting an incalculable number of mental images that seem very real to us as humans, but are as illusive as the mental images in our own minds. The birth and demise of stellar systems take place
within a fraction of a millisecond in the mind of the All, but are eons in time to mortals. The All creates these images through a process akin to our understanding of meditation. In the beginning of Poimandres (the Vision of Hermes), prior to his contact with the great Dragon, Hermes, in search for divine truth, found himself seeking solitude. . . . He came to aplace of rest and gave himself over to meditation. Meditation seems to induce the experience of an altered and higher state of consciousness,and through the study and use of it, human beings can create and achieve on a level much closer to that of the divine. The Western meditative process differs greatly from the understanding and practice of meditation in the East, specifically South Asia or India. In the West, meditation means no more than to ponder or reflect, to contemplate or focus on a specific thought. Even transcendentalmeditation is simply an advanced technique of concentration in preparation for the meditative experience. In the East, meditation is regardedas a manner by which individuals encounter the nature of the divine within themselves, a procedure based on a scientific method to liberatethe mind through serene reticence. After nearly a decades worth of research on the biophysical advantages of meditation, UCLAphysiologist R. Keith Wallace proved that, besides its nebulous spiritual implications, meditation has profound effects on the human bodyand mind. He showed that sitting in meditation induces the nervous system to enter a state of what he terms restful alertness: the mindremains lucid and awake, but the body goes into a state of deep relaxation. Dr. Deepak Chopra remarked that in a state of meditation, one undergoes definite shifts toward more efficient [biological] functioning such as lowered respiration, reduced oxygen consumption anddecreased metabolic rate. The most fascinating aspect of this research . . . is that the biological process of aging itself does not have to be manipulated; the desiredresults can be achieved through awareness alone. In other words, meditation alters the frame of reference that gives the person his experience of time . . . simply bytaking the mind to a reality where time does not have such a powerful hold. 39
4A. Spiral galaxy displaying the basic spiraling formula that permeates every aspect of the creative process, which is based on cyclic or circular movement.
4B. Double helix of DNA showing spiral or coiling pattern. The word helix, from the Greek, means anything that coils or spirals. Dr. Chopras observations suggest the possibility of the cessation of biological decay, or premature aging. They also tantalize us with the prospect that we have happened upon one of the many secrets contained in The Book of Tehuti, which is reputed to have harbored thesecret of regeneration. Dr. June DEstelle, a psychologist who has done extensive research on meditation, concludes the following: Throughyour thoughts, you create. With the gift of creative thinking, you are able to mold your life and to determine your destiny. 40 Scientific studies like these bring us closer to the realization that humankind most assuredly reflects the divine nature of the All. Carl Jung aided Western civilization in its understanding of mentalism by his studies of the subconscious and superconscious parts of the human mind. The subconscious mind is the abode of the emotions, memories, habits, and instinct. Also called the instinctive mind, it
establishes the order and assures that the incredible complexity of bodily processes will continue without conscious effort. Thesuperconscious mind is that level of mind that few of us ever encounter. Here is where the divinity resides along with the soul, the spirit, thebeing of light that spiritual teachers regard as the true self, all-knowing and all-loving. Through this self, love is expressed and enlightenmentis achieved. 41 Here, within the realm of the high self or divine mind, we may encounter, as Hermes did, Poimandres, the Great Dragon and emissary of the All. And it is here, through meditation, that human beings can receive the key to true biological, mental, and spiritualtransformation. The ancient Egyptians acknowledged the Alls creative procedure as being manifested in two parts. This dual creative expression with respect to the All also helps one to identify the unidentifiable. The first part was the outward projection of infinite mind or spirit. Thesecond, as a result of this projection, was the creation of the mental universe of which we are a part. The ancient Hermetists affirmed that atthe base of this process lies a universal dynamic that serves as a common denominator with which all substance is brought into generation inthe mental universe. This common denominator was form, and the form utilized was known to the Egyptians as sacred geometry. Geometryis one of the three principle branches of mathematics, the other two being algebra and analysis.
5. Young sadhu of India sitting in meditation. Many of Indias spiritual aspirants
become sadhus. Most wear their hair in jata what are known in the West as dreadlocks.They also cover themselves in a blue or white ash leaving only the feet and hands exposed. Regarded in India as some of the most dedicated aspirants, the sadhus wander freelythroughout the subcontinent enlightenment or the understanding of the All their only quest. Photo Credit: Dolph Hartsuiker.
6. Stone carving of Indian sadhu. Dated thirteenth century C.E.
Historians of all ages (Pythagoras, Euclid, Descartes) have acknowledged and written profusely on what seemed to be an apparent geometric nonverbal language at the dawn of civilization. We find these forms in the guise of symbols deified and divinized in every humanculture. The preponderance of these images, most of them identical from culture to culture, tell us of a mode of vocabulary entirelycomposed of geometric form. Rene Descartes (1596-1650), credited with the invention of analytic geometry, believed that all form was theobject of various geometric patterns. He theorized that one may translate any geometric situation into an algebraic situation whereby thedominant system of algebra becomes accessible as a means of geometric investigation. Though Descartes wavered back and forth in hisdeliberations of the divine, some of his comments regarding his meditations on geometry and corporeal matter are worth noting. Descartesstated, It also occurs to me that whenever we ask whether the works of God are perfect, we should examine the whole universe together and not just one creature inisolation from the rest . . . And thus I plainly see that the certainty and truth of every science depends upon the knowledge of the true God . . . Therefore the verypossibility of the existence of material things, in so far as they constitute the object of pure mathematics depends on the power of God . . . It remains for me toexamine whether material things exist. Indeed, I now know that they can exist, at least insofar as they are the object of pure mathematics . . . For no doubt God iscapable of bringing about everything that I am capable of perceiving. 42 Scientists acknowledge that as infants we thought in images before we learned how to speak in words. This preverbal language is the most vital instrument we have for understanding the universe around us, remaining throughout our lives as the language of dreams andunconscious perception. Out of the several hundred images known, there are 125 common to all civilizations of the ancient world. Theirmeanings are analogous and they originate at such an early prehistoric epoch that their source is shrouded in mystery. Thus, the ancientHermetists state that form, as expressed in geometric imagery, was the formula those of the ancient world used to comprehend the divineand its method of creating the material universe around us. Sacred geometry, therefore, is a creative learning experience as complex as thelearning of language itself. In Egypt (Kmt), the concepts of sacred geometry are intimately connected with what is known as The Right Eyeof Horus, which is a system of initiation based on left brain discipline. Hermetists inform us that the left hemisphere of the brain is male-dominated and functions on a must-know basis. It is the logical side and yearns to grasp how everything was created by spirit. TheHermetists of ancient Egypt professed the nature of sacred geometry to be absolutely flawless. Inextricably linked to the very genesis of theAlls creative process, sacred geometry continued to unfold until the universe, in its entirety, was created. This was the grand design that theancients so fully revered. Sacred geometry creates the web by which all things are bound in the material universe every single part isentwined with everything else, creating the order to which the universe adheres. Sacred geometry is the morphogenic structure behind all reality. The majority of physicists and mathematicians perceive numbers as
being the prime language of reality, but the Hermetists declare that this is a misconception, that it is actually shape that generates all thelaws of mathematics as well as physics, language, and biology, which includes the human species. It is imperative to understand that sacredgeometry is not just lines on a page, but rather the sacred geometric motions of spirit in the void and in nature. Stan Tenen, a California physicist, has after almost thirty years of research substantiated the presence of this divine maxim. Tenen, in his composition Geometric Metaphors of Life, has been able to identify several key geometric patterns and formulas that seem prominentin the Alls creative method. Out of these, he has distinguished one group of patterns whose position is preeminent in the formation of allothers. The first figure identified by Tenen is what is known as a tube torus. This image is acquired by rotating a circular pattern until asmall hole appears in the center. The faster the rotation, the smaller the hole becomes. The tube torus is the primal shape of the universe. Itis unusual in that it moves in on itself; there is no other shape that can accomplish this. Tenen traced the spiral of a tube torus from themiddle of its circular pattern then removed it out of the middle. He then placed it inside a three- dimensional tetrahedron. Tenen found thatby shining a light through it so that its shadow appeared on a two-dimensional surface he could generate all the letters of the Hebrewalphabet, exactly in the shape and order that they are written. Tenen also found that by changing the shape inside the tetrahedron todifferent positions, he could project all the Greek and Arabic letters as well. From this example, we may see the influence geometry has onlanguage. Stan Tenen went on to equate geometric form to the first seven days of creation as espoused in the Biblical tradition withastounding revelations, all supported by science. 43 Another major image in sacred geometry and central to the theme of generation is the vesica pisces. The vesica pisces is simply a circle next to another circle exactly the same size so that the edge of one circle passes throughthe center of the other. The common area created by this intersection is the vesica pisces, which means vessel of the fish. In ancientsymbolism it stood for the feminine creative force or mother-spirit that gave birth to worlds and to the gods that maintained them. Thevesica pisces in prepatriarchal history is found in India, where it is referred to as the Jagad Yoni meaning womb of the world. Twopyrmordial equilateral triangles fit inside this image.
6A. This symbol denotes the Hermetic geometric concept of spirit being projected through the void in six directions, initiating what, in time, would become the foundation of thecreative process. In many cultures, the number six symbolizes creation.
6B. The next procedure in the geometric order of creation, according to the Hermetists, was the rotation of spirit on an axis, creating a sphere. The circle creates the parameters bywhich spirit begins to operate and create within. The Hermetists believe that straight lines are masculine, and curved lines are feminine. But in order to create any and all things,curved lines must be brought into generation.
6C. With the circle or sphere now in place, inception of the seven laws, which will create the basis of universal order, takes place. This procedure is accomplished by connectingthe various lines and angles, which creates a specific geometric pattern indicative of one of the seven Hermetic axioms. Each geometric symbol shown here equates to an axiom.Not shown is the projection of spirit in the six directions, the hub of this dynamic from which all others emerge.
6D. Vesica Pisces. The vesica pisces is the symbol for the creative feminine force that brought the material universe into being. It represents the fundamental energy which lies atthe basis of all creation, and without it nothing could be. To remove its energy from all form and matter would bring about immediate disintegration of the universe.
6E. This symbol, known in sacred geometry as the flower of life, is held by Hermetists as the penultimate of all geometric symbolism. This symbol is comprised of numerousvesica pisces, overlapping one another at their respective centers. The ancient Hermetists state that everything in existence whether past, present, or future is containedwithin this structure. It contains all of our laws of biology and physics, as well as all languages current and obsolete. Enclosed within the geometric expression of the flower oflife is all of creation.
6F. The following diagrams show the role geometry plays in the genesis of human life. Science acknowledges that prior to conception the ovum is a sphere a sphere that alsocontains the female pronucleus, which contains half of the chromosomes for creating a human being, twenty-two plus one. When the male sperm reaches and penetrates the ovum,conception commences. The events which lead up to this event are extremely noteworthy in dramatizing this concept. When that one chosen sperm penetrates the ovum, its tailbreaks off, and its head forms a sphere the same size as the female pronucleus. These two merge, forming a perfect vesica pisces, which contains the blueprint for all universalknowledge. The sperm and ovum pass through one another creating the first cell identified as the human zygote, containing forty-four plus two chromosomes. Next in the processis mitosis where opposite or polar bodies are created that travel to opposite ends of the cell nodes, forming northern and southern polarities. The next phase is the formation of atube splitting the sphere and the chromosomes half going right and half going left.
6G. The zygote splits into four cells and forms a tetrahedron inside a sphere, an expression of sacred geometry in one of its most universally primordial dramatizations.
6H. The next division creates eight cells and a star tetrahedron, with the eighth cell lying directly under the center cell and star tetrahedron. This affirms conclusively thatcreation, from the formation of star systems to the development of human beings, is a geometric process. The location of these eight cells are at the base of the spine or perineum,where the powerful kundalini force, spoken of in the yoga traditions of India, resides. Hermetists hold that the energy fields which emanate from the human body originate hereat the perineum. These cells divide into eight more cells forming a cube within a cube. At this point, development begins to become asymmetrical. The embryo hollows, returningto the form of the sphere. The north pole enters the hollow ball, descends, and connects with the south pole, forming a hollow tube in the middle. One end becomes the mouth andthe other the anus. Such is the miracle of life.
6I. The five perfect or platonic solids.
6J. The mystical tree of life represented geometrically.
The five- and six-pointed stars, the golden mean rectangle, as well as the spiral, are basic geometric shapes that aid in the generation of all others. The ancient Hermetists include five other configurations that are also paramount to stellar generation. These are the hexahedron orcube, composed of six square faces, eight corners, and twelve edges; the tetrahedron, made up of four triangular faces, four corners, and sixedges; the octahedron, which has six triangular faces, six corners, and twelve edges; the dodecahedron, formed of twelve pentagonal faces,twenty corners, and thirty edges; and last, is the icosahedron, which has twenty triangular faces, twelve corners, and thirty edges. Thoughthese forms were an integral part of Egyptian mathematics and Hermetic alchemy, they have come to be known as the Platonic solids;though they were named after Plato, we know they were introduced to the West at least two hundred years earlier by Pythagoras, whocalled them the perfect solids because all their edges were equal, they had only one surface and one angle, and their points all fit on thesurface of a sphere. These are the only five shapes known that fit these criteria. The cube, whose two-dimensional form is the square or quadrangle, was emblematic of a solid foundation and the four corners of the Earth. Three Russian scientists have gained important insights with respect to the perfect solids; Nikolai Goncharov, Vyacheslav Morozov,and Valery Makarov discovered that the Earth projects from within itself to its surface a dual geometrically regularized grid. The first part ofthis grid formed twelve pentagonal slabs, which the scientists said indicated the original shape of our planet a dodecahedron. The secondor remaining portion of the grid formed a geometrically perfect icosahedron. Their research and revelations are explored in-depth in theensuing chapter on Rhythm. It becomes obvious that what the Egyptians identified as sacred geometry comprises an overwhelminglyintegral part of the Alls creative process, extending to the very formation of our globe. This alludes to a greater substantial reality thatsacred geometry is the universal template that generates all form in the material universe. (See chapter 6 for further discussion.) Through examination of the previous concept, that form is geometric and is intimately related to function, human beings may arrive at a deeper understanding of this universal dynamic. The idea of sacred geometry as an all-pervading axiom is worthy of much consideration. Arewe to assume that it is merely by chance that the ancient Egyptians chose the upper half of a perfect octahedron in which to fashion theirpyramids? The octahedron or double pyramid is the most dense geometric form. It occupies the smallest percentage of the volume thatencloses it, and the sphere or circle occupies the greatest. The ancient Egyptians held the octahedron to be the imprisoned fire of the seed,the materialized aspect of the sphere, which is the symbol for spirit having no beginning and no end. We in the West like to identifyourselves as visionaries, but the truth is that our vision does not exceed beyond the globe in which we exist. The Hermetic philosophers of old remarked that human beings should never make the mistake of supposing that the world around us the Earth, a mere grain of dust in the universe is the universe itself. There are countless millions of such worlds, stellar systems, anduniverses that exist within the infinite mind of the All. The Hermetists assert that, even within our own little solar system, there are regionsthat harbor forms of life far higher than ours and illuminated beings who view us as we view the one-celled life-forms that dwell on theoceans floor: There are beings with powers and attributes higher than Man has ever dreamed of the gods possessing. And yet these beingswere once as you, and still lower and you will be even as they, and still higher 44 To embrace such an ideal as reality gives a radical perspective on life. Much of the senseless futility of daily life takes on a new and divergent quality. Events and situations that seem hopeless and finite are but lessons to be encountered on an infinite journey. Death is notreal, even in the relative sense; it is but birth to a new life: The Universe is your home, and you shall explore its farthest recesses before the end of time and space. And at the end of the Grand Cycle of Eons, when theAll shall draw back into itself all of its creations, you will go gladly, for you will then be able to know the whole truth of being at one with the All. Such is the
report of the illumined, those who have advanced well along the path. 45
CHAPTER 2
The Principle of Correspondence
As above, so below; as below, so above. Kybalion The second Hermetic axiom is based on the belief that there is a working unison, consistency, or correspondence between the many planes or levels of the universe. Stated plainly, as above, so below addresses the reflecting or mirroring relationship between themacrocosmic and the microcosmic reality. The ancient Hermetists based this law on the truth that all within the universe emanates from thesame source, and this source the All instills its formula in each and every aspect of creation. In acknowledging the presence of thisformula or maxim in the natural scheme of universal procedure, one may understand the higher planes of life by studying the lower, andknow the lower planes through examination of the higher. Many people, if not most, have seen the symbol that represents this axiom; it is now referred to as the Star of David or Solomons Seal, the hexagram of Judaism. Its origin and meaning are far more auspicious than that of an emblem used to categorize a particular creed or groupof human beings. What is ironic is that this symbol has been regarded as officially Jewish only for about a century. The hexagram reachedJudaism via the eastern Tantric influences on medieval Jewish cabalists, who chose to elaborate on the union of God and his femalecounterpart, Shekina 46 Historically, at the time the biblical stories were being spun about David and Solomon, this star had nothing to do with the Jewish people, but had been previously employed in cultures such as India and Egypt for more than 2,000 years. In India, its earliest appearance was discovered in the Indus Valley civilization (3000 B.C.E.), and soon after was regarded as a Jain philosophical symbol. It would later be utilized by the Buddhists and Tantrikas of India to symbolize divine sexual energy and the union ofthe male and female elements in creation. The linguistic origins of the word sex is rooted in mathematics, as in the biblical reference to sixdays of creation. Sex in Sanskrit means six. Currently, in India the six-pointed star is called the Star of Vishnu, reflecting the cosmic unionbetween Kali and Shiva, the male and female forces in the universe. These references attributed to the hexagram are incomplete. It is in ancient Egypt where the six-pointed star resided in full splendor. Heralded as the Star of Creation by the Egyptians, it represented the union of male and female energy in nature and on all planes ofexistence; but it was also held to be the symbol that reflected the Hermetic law of Correspondence. The upward pointing trianglerepresented the macrocosm and the downward triangle represented the microcosm; two identical forms interlocked yet independent, eachone a part reflecting the whole. There are many examples of Correspondence, such as the previously discussed models of the atom and solar systems of the universe. Upon examining existence at the atomic level and its relationship to solar symmetry, it becomes quite clear that there is a radical, pervasiveunity bonding the ultimate essence of each part of nature. From galaxy to star, and from star to atom, everything in the universe followsanalogously. In an atom there is the nucleus, which is its hub or core, and there are the various particles that spin and orbit around this nucleus neutrons, protons, and electrons each charged positively, negatively, or neutrally. When astronomers observe our stellar system, they seea model much like that of the atom, with the Sun at its center, and the many planets that, like protons and electrons, spin on their axes asthey orbit the Sun. Another example of this correlation is our own bodies. The human organism contains all of the agents, elements, and compounds that we identify in the world around us. In fact, our physical bodies are but a composite of the multitudinous components found on, in, and aroundthe Earth. If we examine the periodic table of the elements, we will discover that most if not all of these elements are found within thehuman body from carbon and arsenic to hydrogen and boron, from solid to fluidic to gaseous matter. Thus, the biblical statement, thenthe Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, finds basis in fact. When we stand inawe of the streams of electrical current that bolt through the heavens during an electrical storm, we should know that these same electricalcurrents run through our own bodies, creating what the ancient metaphysicians called the electrical body.
7. Egyptian Star of Creation now known as the Star of David.
For the purpose of instruction and convenience, the ancient Hermetists taught that the universe could be divided into three strata calledthe Great Planes of Correspondence. Though these planes, or divisions, are more or less artificial and arbitrary, they serve as an invaluabledevice for comprehending the Correspondence axiom. The planes are the Great Physical Plane, the Great Mental Plane, and the GreatSpiritual Plane. 47 The planes in this order symbolize humankinds ascension from matter to spirit. Each plane has seven subplanes, which shade into one another in a gradual process of development. Thus, no distinct line of demarcation exists between the higher phenomena ofthe Physical Plane and the lower of the Mental Plane. This pattern saturates every aspect of the creative method, leaving no vacuums. Thoth/Hermes once stated, There is no such thing as a void, nor can there have been, nor will there ever be. For all members of the world are completely full so that the world itself is complete and filled with bodies diverse . . . some are larger, some smaller, and they differ in density and rarity. The rarer are very difficult or altogetherimpossible to see. . . . Hence, many believe that these are not bodies and that they are empty places which is impossible. 48 By reversing the order in which humankind scales the various planes of life, we can establish the procedure of divine providence by which the All manifests creation, from the Great Spiritual Plane to the Great Mental Plane to the Great Physical Plane. Poimandres, in hisdiscourse on universal genesis, thus instructed Hermes, Hear how it is with God and the universe . . . God, eternity, cosmos, time, becoming. God makes eternity; eternity makes the cosmos; the cosmos makes time;time makes becoming . . . the energy of God is mind and soul; the energy of eternity is permanence and immortality; of the cosmos, recurrence and counter-recurrence; of time, increase and decrease; of becoming, quality and quantity. The source of all things is God; eternity is their essence; the cosmos is theirmatter. 49 By employing the Principle of Correspondence, we can understand fully the Great Planes of Correspondence. It is important to remember when dealing with an atom, with force and power, or with the human mind, that these are but varying degrees on one scale, andtherefore are fundamentally the same in their essence. They may shade into or occupy higher aspects of a mutual plane, or one may existtotally within a different strata or frequency, but they all are manifestations of the All. Before proceeding further, an explanation of the term plane is in order, for its definition by the Hermetists differs somewhat from that held by Western science. In the West, the term plane relates to consciousness, a level of existence or intellectual development, a condition ora state. It also denotes a place having dimensions. Hermetists believe that a plane encompasses all of these characteristics and more. It isconsidered a state or condition, and yet this state or condition is in itself a degree of dimension on a scale subject to calculation andmeasurement. The mechanism used to gauge the various planes of existence is vibration. The higher the rate of vibration, the higher theplane; the higher the plane, the higher the manifestation of life that occupies that plane. 50 As previously stated, there are seven subplanes within the three Great Planes of the universe. Each subplane not only vibrates at an ever-increasing frequency within its own category (ascending degrees of matter on the physical plane from, for instance, gross rock torarefied matter such as fire or electricity), but continuously enhances its rate of vibration as it merges into higher planes, from the physicalto the mental. The Great Physical Plane and its seven minor planes comprise the physical universe, and all that relates to physics force, power, and
things that tangibly manifest on the physical plane, seen or unseen. It includes all of what we call matter and energy from solids, liquids,and gases to heat, light, electricity, gravitation, cohesion, and chemical affinity. The Hermetists maintain that there are planes within thiscategory that produce higher forms of energy not yet discovered by science. These planes create the higher vibratory frequencies thatconnect the Great Physical Plane to the Great Mental Plane. The Great Mental Plane and its seven subdivisions contain various living forms. Many of these are known to science, but there are forms, according to the Hermetists, of which we are not aware because of our limited and underdeveloped perceptive abilities. Thesubdivisions of this plane span from what is called mineral mind to human mind. The Hermetists profess that minerals too are endowedwith intelligence or mind, not in the way we perceive it perhaps, but mind nonetheless. This concept was substantiated in 1977 by Johann Gradsky, a physicist at Berkeley and later at Cleveland State University. During the 1970s, Gradsky was one of the worlds few theoretical physicists, part of a movement exploring new, unproven, and controversial conceptsin the field of physics. Gradsky pioneered a radical branch of this field, establishing the unknown as known and the uncommon as common.Using an electron gun, he demonstrated to the global scientific community that mind is inherent on the atomic level. In an atomicallyimpenetrable wall within a fission chamber, Gradsky made two incisions, a right and left, and fired an electron from the gun at the leftincision. It went through. Gradsky then replaced the wall with one that had only one incision in it, on the right. He refired the same electronin the direction where the left incision had been, and a remarkable event occurred: When the electron reached the wall and found that the holewas gone, it stopped, hesitated, and went to and through the incision on the right. This led Gradsky to believe that not only do atomicparticles have a degree of intelligence (recognition that the hole was no longer there), but they have the ability to make decisions (entering thealternate incision). What are the implications of this discovery? All matter, including minerals, rocks, and other solid compounds, is composed of atomic and subatomic particles. Therefore, to establish mind on an atomic level is to acknowledge mind in these many aspects of matter. Another subplane of the Great Mental Plane is that of plant mind. The provocative and popular book The Secret Life of Plants by Peter Tomkins is the culmination of years of research that prove, conclusively, not only that plants have mind, but that in many respects theirextrasensory mechanisms are much more developed, functional, and detectable than those of humans! To stand under or beside a giantsequoia or redwood in the woods of California is to be overcome by an eerie feeling of actually hearing the stories of these ancientwonders. 51 The remaining subplanes in the Great Mental Plane are animal mind, elemental mind, and human mind, which is composed of the many stages of human development in both its splendor and its decadence. 52 When observing the animal mind, many factors abound. Contained within this category are our ever-present and ongoing relationships with domestic animals that have become our guardians, emotional cushions, and companions. From birds such as parrots, which havespeaking capabilities, to dogs and cats, from the exotic to the ordinary, one experience that animal owners often share is the ability tocommunicate with their pets. Few, if any, can deny the profound levels of comprehension consistently seen in animals, wild or domestic,that allows animals to understand our tones, words, needs, and desires. As humans we deem ourselves the superior species, but upon closerexamination, this may not be the case. Animals seem extremely capable of understanding us and being instructed or taught by us. Thoughhumans may feign a position of superiority, many animals seem to reflect a more responsive and evolved degree of sensory perception. Many cultures in South America, India, and Africa, profess with respect to evolutionary status, that humankind is only fourth in an evolutionary line preceded by whales, dolphins, and elephants. They regard these animals as totally conscious beings, utilizing their braincapacity far in excess of human beings. These cultures maintain that these animals are the guardians of our planet and the mercilessslaughtering of them is one of humankinds greatest atrocities. The Dogon of Africa, who live near Timbuktu, retain in their ancient mythological traditions the belief that they were imparted the knowledge that constellations Sirius A and B exist by dolphin-like beings more than 700 years ago. The Dogon and their astronomicalcomprehension of Sirius is one of the greatest mysteries of modern science. In studying the dolphin, scientists have found that their speciesis approximately 35 million years old. They also believe that dolphins were once land dwellers, but eventually returned to the sea. Closeexamination of their frontal fins reveals human-like hands inside of them. But the most astounding find concerning dolphin research is theirbrain capacity. Both hemispheres of a dolphins brain function at 100 percent, indicating a fully conscious entity. When dolphins are at rest,they suspend usage of one hemisphere in the brain, thereby conserving power. Human beings have only half of their brain working at anytime leaving the other half nonfunctional and dormant. Of that half of the human brain that is operational, we use on an average only 5 to 10percent. So from a dolphins vantage point, we are not only consciously dormant, we are also mentally unconscious beings. This verity isevidenced daily in our struggle to survive. The last of the Great Planes of Correspondence is the Great Spiritual Plane. Hermetists deem this planes entities to be incomprehensible to humans at our present level of understanding; thus, the task of explaining them is an impossibility. How can color andlight be described to a man born blind? How can the taste of honey be explained to a woman who does not know sweet, or harmony to oneborn deaf? These are questions the Hermetists would ask rhetorically in their attempt to describe the unfathomable. We can, though, usingthe principle of correspondence, see the unfathomable in tangible examples. On the lowest strata of the spiritual plane dwell the adepts, arahants, sages, and masters. These are divine angels who walk the Earth with humankind constantly assisting in the evolution of the human race. The term adept implies one who has mastered organic alchemy, thatis, one who has mastered all seven bodily senses and, like the caterpillar that has transformed into a butterfly, has become that which cantruly be considered a human being. An arahant is one who has totally extinguished all worldly desires, thereby putting an end to herlifetimes or reincarnations. Sages carry qualities of both the adept and arahant, in that they have mastered the body through various spiritualausterities, but have chosen to remain in contact with the human race, to aid and assist it. Sages are known as tirthankaras in South Asia,
and are said to have been given the responsibility of preserving the divine word or ultimate truth, which guides and directs those humanbeings who have chosen the path to spiritual realization. Bearing the titles adept and arahant are individuals such as Tehuti/ Hermes, the Buddha, Krishna, Osiris, Isis, Jehoshua or Jesus Christ, and the Jain saviors Mahavira and Parsava. There have been many sages who have walked the Earth, and they too are recognizable: Imhotep,the multitalented master of Kmts Old Kingdom; Sui Nu, the Dark Girl, who imparted the knowledge of all things to Hwuang-Ti; Chinasgreatest emperor, Lao-tzu; Quetzalcoatl of Meso- America; Moses; Mohammed; and Abu Bakari, among many. These are the great souls sooften referred to as avatars, adepts, or masters. They appear upon Earth in its darkest periods to illuminate humankind and to renew hope.They are the sentries of what the Bible calls Heaven the gateway to the Great Spiritual Plane of Correspondence. As above, so below is a principle that manifests on all planes and is an integral component of the axioms to follow. Further analysis of the laws will actually illustrate how these dynamic principles are at work in our daily lives, as well as their impact on times past.
8. The study of wave patterns is known as cymatics. It illustrates the
relationship between frequency and form. What this implies is that specific materials subjected to specificvibrations assume specific geometric forms;
CHAPTER 3
The Principle of Vibration
Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates. Kybalion This principle embodies the fact that motion is manifest in everything in the universe. Whether we acknowledge or perceive the motion, nothing is at rest; everything is moving, constantly vibrating. As human beings, we use vibratory metaphor constantly, for example, beingin tune with the times or out of tune with one another. How often have we all heard the expression, being on the same wavelength?The Gospel of St. John begins, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In the EgyptianBook of Coming Forth by Day, now referred to as The Book of the Dead, the oldest written text in the world parallels the biblical passagewith, I am the Eternal, I am Ra . . . I am that which created The Word . . . I am the Word. The Word, or any word for that matter, isscientifically a vibrational complex of sound. These expressions speak to an unconscious and metaphoric understanding of vibratoryinfluence. Even colors are vibrations that resonate at specific frequencies. Sodium lights are yellow because sodium atoms vibrate with thosefrequencies that your brain perceives as yellow. Mercury atoms vibrate with a bluish light, and neon atoms send out vibrations that reachthe brain as red. The most profound minds of ancient Greece Thales of Miletus, Xenophanes of Colophon, Socrates, Plato of Athens, Pythagoras of Samo, among many others were aware of and taught this principle. Besides being Greek, they share one other common experience: theyall studied in Egypt and were intimately acquainted with the Hermetic teachings. With the inevitable demise of Greek civilization, and later (1492 C.E.) the brutal destruction of the Moors and Moorish influence in Europe, the principle of vibration and others were lost to the West. In the nineteenth century, it was rediscovered by Western pioneers inphysical science, and since that period tremendous progress has verified the presence of vibration in the overall fabric of universal substance. Scientists agree that what appears to be stable matter in our universe is fashioned from indivisible particles of vibrating energy known as quanta, which in themselves are elusive because quanta will melt when they are probed in attempts to see how they are made, as surely assnowflakes in the palm of your hand. But matter has wave properties, and therefore frequencies. Each particle wave, for that matter, has aspecific frequency, and that frequency corresponds to a specific energy. Energy equals mass according to Einsteins theorem, E = mc 2 . So in a fundamental sense, the way matter vibrates determines its form. Since modern science has proven that all matter and energy are no morethan modes of vibratory motion, the focus here will be the different perspectives on vibration held by conventional Western science and bytraditional Hermetists. What is essential in Hermetic thought is not the obvious fact that everything vibrates or is in constant motion (the focus of popular Western science), but that there are different rates or frequencies of vibration, and the higher the vibration the more advanced the life form.The ancient Hermetists maintained that the All retains a constant vibration of such an infinite degree of intensity and rapidity that it may beconsidered at rest. The teachings of Tehuti describe the scope of vibration as having spirit at one pole and gross matter at the other. Betweenare countless varying rates of vibratory modes, each representing a specific station in the spectrum of cosmic order. Note the differences in consideration of these principles by modern science and by Hermetic science. Modern science recognizes three characteristics of matter: cohesion (now defined as a principle of molecular attraction), chemical affinity (the principle of atomic attraction),and gravitation (the principle of attraction, by which every particle or mass of matter is bound to every other particle or mass). Hermetistsbelieve these principles to be manifestations of some form of vibratory energy. Universal ether is regarded by conventional scientists to be a rarefied element that fills and permeates all space, and transmits transversewaves to which light and radio waves adhere. The Hermetists call this ether the ethereal substance. They view it as a web of extreme tenuityand elasticity pervading the cosmos, serving as a conduit or medium for several forms of vibratory energy waves: heat, light, electricity, andmagnetism. This ether, according to the Hermetists, manifests a degree of vibration entirely its own in rate and mode. 53 One of the most intriguing aspects of vibration taught by the Hermetists is its relationship to thought patterns. Hermetists teach that allaspects of thought emotion, reason, will, and desire are accompanied by vibrations, a portion of which are projected and then receivedby individuals in close proximity: The teachings of all lands and ages, as also those of modern Mental Science, are to the effect that theMind, in its manifestation of Thought in the brain, generates a form of energy of intensely high Vibration, which energy may be, and isprojected in vibratory waves from the brain of the thinker, and which affects the brains of other persons within its field of influence. 54 The Hermetists teach that by understanding the principle of vibration, when applied to mental phenomena, individuals may polarize the mind atany degree, thus gaining absolute control over their various mental states. This process of mental transmission is called induction, or mindover mind. Many of us are aware of our mental/emotional influences on others, subtle though they may be. Adolf Hitler was reputed tohave had exceptional inductive abilities that were akin to mesmerism, and he used this faculty of mind to control multitudes in earlytwentieth-century Germany. Within the last sixty years, another form of mind influence, mental telepathy, has been under close scrutiny in and around scientific laboratories: Experiments have shown that the temperature of the brain is increased in accordance with the intensity of feeling and thought,and that there is undoubtedly a generation of energy which bears a very close resemblance to the process of the generation of electricalenergy. 55 As early as the 1920s, Western science was exploring the possibility of thought induction. The eminent French scientist Camille Flammarion, who was doing extensive research on the subject during this period, concluded, one mind can act at a distance upon another,without the habitual medium of words, or any other visible means of communication. It appears to us altogether unreasonable to reject thisconclusion if we accept the facts. The action of one human mind upon another, from a distance, is a scientific fact. 56 Because of this phenomenon and others like it, the 1970s would see the birth of a new branch of psychology, known as parapsychology. In this field,research in the area of mental influence, namely telepathy, is ongoing. India, one of the oldest cultures in the world, has a tradition of telepathy that extends into very remote antiquity. The science of
induction is practiced extensively by South Asias Yogic community, and for
centuries has been a point of fascination for the West.Ironically, this ability is one of the more rudimentary qualities that Yogis possess as they aspire to achieve greater states of mental clarity orconsciousness. This is substantiated by the many anthropologists, philosophers, and psychologists who have journeyed to the area toresearch this culture: Simplest of the Yogis psychic abilities is that known as telepathy. This phenomenon consists of the conscious projection and reception of the vibratory thoughtwaves emanating from the minds of persons performing the processes of thought. The Yogis hold that there is always more or less unconscious telepathy inoperation among people. Everyone is constantly emanating thought waves, and everyone is constantly receiving such; but the performance is chiefly alongunconscious lines. The conscious projection and the conscious reception of these thought vibrations constitutes the psychic phenomena of telepathy. The Yogishold mastery of the skill as elemental. 57 Physician Rudolph Ballentine and psychiatrist Allan Wein-stock performed extensive clinical research into this phenomenon to gather evidence that would explain to the Western world the functional mechanics of induction or telepathy and how it is applied: Telepathy . . . is inexplicable in terms of the egos notion of reality. The boundaries of I-ness are temporarily interrupted to allow contact with something outsidethe I which cannot be encompassed by it. When the ordinary waking consciousness is stopped, the usual filtering of sensory data ceases. When input is no longer censored to maintain a predetermined reality, mind is open to a much greater range of information. At this level there is access to information beyond the fieldof the egos consciousness. This is the merging of differentiated consciousness . . . that allows extrasensory perception. 58 We learn from this principle that there are experiences that surround and involve us, of which we can be totally unaware. The principle of vibration gives us insight into unconventional, yet scientifically proven, ideas about the material world around us and the inner universe ofour own minds.
CHAPTER 4
The Principle of Polarity
Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled. Kybalion According to Foundations of African Thought, The ancient Africans . . . believed the world to be founded upon contradictions . . . and this belief was expressed in the form of the Principle or Doctrine of Opposites. 59 This principle probably the most visible, most employed, and most widely known of the seven continues as the basis of many African societies, including the Dogon of Mali, the Fonof Dahomey, the Bambara of eastern Guinea, and the ancient Ife of West Africa. The Ife employ this law today in the form of an oracleknown as Ifa. They profess the genesis of the Ifa system of divination to be 20,000 B.C.E. and speak to its pervasive influence in thedissemination of the concept of polarity in various cultures and lands outside of Africa (see notes 60 and 61). Ancient and contemporary African cultures hold polarity paramount in the formation and maintenance of creation and universal order. Nigerian-born Dr. C. Kamalu defined life itself as with the duality of being and becoming . . . the product of being and becoming is the LifeForce, that which gives rise to change and motion. . . . The Life Force is also the organizing power bringing order to the primeval chaos. Thisorganizing power, this force of life and motion, is sometimes described as the first created [thing]. 60 Here in the West, the notion of an ever-present cosmological duality is slowly being accepted. Influenced by the metaphysical iconography of the Far East, the Western hemisphere has been inundated with the two primary symbols on which Chinese philosophicaltradition was conceived: yin/yang and the oracle of the I-Ching. The concept of yin/yang essentially translates into the positive and negativeduality that permeates the material universe; it is the absolute or ultimate reality of all existence, which existed from the beginning.Introduced into China during the Xia dynasty by the cultural hero Hwang- Ti (26972597 B.C.E.), it soon became the hereditary symbol ofTaoist philosophy. The I-Ching or Yih King entered China at an earlier period (28522738 B.C.E.) and is reported to have been theinvention of a man the Chinese called Fu-Hi. Based on an arrangement of eight trigram figures, the I-Ching oracle was reputed to hold thekey to creation. Though these two systems of divination are considered synonymous with Chinese thought, ironically, their origins may notbe Chinese.
9. Ifa oracle, which like the I-Ching is based on the binary principle. Each column is headed by an Odu, which corresponds to a specific Orisha or deity.
10. The symbol of yin and yang encased within the oracle of the I-Ching.
11. Tieguai, one of the nine immortals of Taoism who lived during Chinas Golden Age. It was Tieguai who aided in disseminating the I-Ching and the Tao throughout China.An accomplished martial artist, Tieguai was known as the Iron-Staff Immortal, whose staff when let loose into the air turned into a waterfall. Hand painted on silk, early YuanDynasty thirteenth century C.E. In his book Chinese Thought, Paul Cams discussed a Babylonian tablet found in the Library of Ashurbanipal (700 B.C.E.) called theTablet of Destiny, said to contain the Mystery of Heaven and Earth. Carus speculates that not only are the I-Ching and the Tablet ofDestiny one and the same; but since the tablet predates the I- Ching by several centuries, the latter may have evolved from the former. Atranslation of a fragmented text from the Library of Ashurbanipal, identified as the Text of Enmeduranki, stated: Enmeduranki, king ofSippar, is the seventh of the aboriginal kings, and he declares that he received the divine tablet from Anu. 61 Sippar is located in the region
of Mesopotamia known now as Iraq and is one of the most ancient cities in that area, which prior to the Indo-European incursions, wascontrolled and culturally dominated by some of the oldest populations of West Asia. Carus went on to say, Chinese sages have their owninterpretation of the phrase the mystery of heaven and earth. They would at once associate the words heaven and earth with the twoopposing principles yang and yin. . . . It seems not to be impossible that the Chinese tablet in the hands of Fuh-Hi is the same as the Tabletof Destinyof the [Mesopotamians]. 62 One of the most outstanding contributors to the history and origins of the Chinese people and their philosophies was Professor Albert Etienne Terrien de Lacouperie. Lacouperies work in this area of investigative study has never been rivaled, let alone surpassed. Lacouperieheld appointments as professor of Indo-Chinese philology at the University of London, president of Council of the Royal Asiatic Societyand Philological Society, and board member of the Peking Oriental Society. He authored twenty-five books, among them the provocativelytitled The Languages of China Before the Chinese, West Asian Origins of Chinese Civilization, The Black-Heads of Babylonia and AncientChina, and The YH- King and Its Authors. It is this last volume that documents those who introduced to the Chinese people the concept ofduality (yin/yang) and the oracle of the I-Ching.
12. West Asian population known as the Elamites whom Lacouperie identifies as the Bak. Limestone relief ca. 900B.C.E.
13. Akkadian ruler, thought to be the great Naram-Sin, grandson of Sargon. Naram- Sin ruled virtually all of West Asia for thirty-seven years (22702233 B.C.E.). Sin is depictedhere with the false beard and crown of West Asian kingship. An accomplished philologist, Lacouperie used language and various historical documents to launch what seems to be an impenetrable defense for a West Asian origin of Chinas I-Ching. Lacouperie began by identifying a group of families known as the Bak, who immigratedinto China carrying with them the beginnings of civilization: a well-defined sociopolitical structure, writing, philosophy, and economicfortification. Culturally, this group was intimately related to the Meso-Sumerians of West Asia. Racially and ethnically, the Bak weredescended from the Akkadians and Elamites of Mesopotamia: The language of the Bak families, which under the leadership of Yu Nai Hwang-ti (HuNak-Kunte) arrived about 2282 B.C. on the banks of the Loh River in Shensi,
[and] was deeply connected with that of the Akkado-Sumerians of Elam-Babylonia.
This alone might be sufficient to show that previously [sic] to their migrationto the East and the Flowery Land [China] they were settled in the vicinity of these populations and, therefore, in proximity of Chaldean civilization, with whichwe have shown them to have been well-acquainted. The relationship of their language with that of the Akkado-Sumerians was pointed out and exemplified by me in1880 . . . an extensive comparison has shown me that the Akkado-Sumerian words in Chinese belong [to] the Bak families from the Elamo-Babylonian civilizationin which they were current terms. 63 These statements by Lacouperie are extremely significant for three reasons. First, the identification of Yu Nai Hwang-ti as a family of languages removes the shroud of ambiguity from Chinas first Emperor Hwang-ti. We know that the name does not refer to an individual butto a group or entire population. Second, the transliteration of Yu Nai Hwang-ti into Hu Nak-Kunte is very revealing. The fact that Kunte is acommon clan name among West African Mande speakers and that their linguistic presence in 2282 B.C.E. was prominent in East Africacould suggest a link between the linguistic patterns of the two geographically distinct regions. Finally, the mention made by Lacouperie tothe Akkado-Sumerians indicates that the Akkadians play a very significant role in the transmission of culture from West Asia to the FarEast. Their influence is acknowledged more than once by Lacouperie. Shedding more light on the Bak culture, he remarked, The language ofthe . . . invading Bak tribes was entirely distinct from that of the Aborigines of China . . .. The result of this advance was for a time anintermingling of the language of the conquerors with that of the previous inhabitants. 64 What is evident among the Bak tribes is that though they spoke a language derived from a common source, there were various dialectical branches that included syntaxes, syllabaries, andpolyphonies of a different origin. Lacouperie documents that the Yh-King appears in early texts of the Xia dynasty (2000 B.C.E.), whose writing and language correspond to linguistic features peculiar to the Mon and Ta-galo-Malayan languages, and cannot be mistaken. 65 This language group was and to some extent is still found on various islands throughout Melanesia and Southeast Asia, which are presently inhabited by the ethnicgroups who originally spoke the languages. Currently these dialects fall within the category of the Austronesian family of languages. Focusing more specifically on the origin of the I-Ching, Lacouperie wrote, before their emigration to the Far East, the Bak families had borrowed the pre-cuneiform writing . . . from South-Western Asia. A most interesting feature of the literature embodied in the cuneiformcharacters is the numerous vocabularies of several kinds giving the different meanings, [and] various sounds, . . . [they are] Sumerian,Akkadian, and the Akkadian descriptive names of the characters, single and compound. 66 Lacouperie went on to say, the Yh-King is theoldest of the Chinese books . . . some of the Yh-Kings chapters, would suggest that some of the Yh-Kings vocabularies are imitated fromold pre-Cuneiform ones . . . what is pretty sure is that the Chinese vocabularies have been framed in obedience to the same principles, withthe same materials, and undoubtedly according to the [same] tradition of the old syllabaries of Southwestern Asia. 67 Through writing and language, Lacouperie skillfully unraveled the important roots of a system whose originators are not only forgotten, but have become strangers in their own land. Lacouperies evidence both supports and is corroborated by the words of world-renownedhistorian and theosophist Helena Petrova Blavatsky: One of the oldest known Chinese books is the Yih King, or Book of Changes. It is reported to have been written 2850 B.C., in the dialect of the Accadian blackraces of Mesopotamia. It is a most abstruse system of Mental and Moral Philosophy, with a scheme of universal relation and divination. Thus a circle representsYIH, the Great Supreme; a line is referred to YANG, the Masculine Active Potency; two half lines are YIN, the Feminine Passive Potency . . . . 68 Though he meticulously dissected the I-Ching, daringly blazing his linguistic trail, Lacouperie was never able to perceive the I-Ching as anything more than a codex that recorded historical events. Lacouperie believed that its functions as an oracle were unfounded, and thereforedismissed them. This is unfortunate. To the Akkado/Elamite families of West Asia, the I-Ching was a scepter of power that contained thesecrets of the solar cosmology as well as the biopsy chic unfolding of the human race, all of which was contained within its principle ofduality its yin and yang. 69 The I-Ching, like Ifa, reflects the fundamental reality in the material universe based on the primordial binaryelements of positive and negative, dark and light, yin and yang. The term binary simply indicates something that consists of two parts. Inrespect to numerics, binary signifies any mathematical system that has two at its base, and so it is with the I-Ching or Book of Changes.Yes/no, on/off, positive/negative are all encounters of a binary nature. Several examples will dramatize the power of polarity as it isrepresented in the I-Ching. At the base of the individual lines of the eight binary triplet figures are the units of duality expressed as and , or yang and yin respectively (See Photo 16). These two lines are then arranged in three-line structures, enclosed in a circle, and readfrom the bottom up. The binary trigram configurations in the upper hemisphere of the circle correspond to the energy that emanates fromthe Earths electromagnetic field, while those at the bottom of the circle pertain to the Earth or the gravitational field rotating in time. Whenthe two are combined, they produce the sixty-four permutations, or hexagrams. These sixty-four six-line structures comprise the changesand correspond to the biopsychic field energy which surrounds every human being. In 1675, German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Von Leibniz was given credit for the discovery of differential and integral calculus. According to research reported by Dr. Jose Arguelles in Earth Ascending: The Law Governing Whole Systems, Leibniz had begunwork on a theory involving the concept of binary mathematics, but encountered great difficulty finding evidence to prove his theory.Through a Jesuit priest who had traveled extensively throughout the Far East, Leibniz was introduced to the I-Ching. After close study ofthis oracle, he was able to confirm his system of binary mathematics, which has become the basis of present-day computer science.
14. The eight linear binary hexagrams which comprise the I-Ching, the oracle said to unravel the mystery of Heaven and Earth. The upper portion of this oracle corresponds toHeaven and the electromagnetic field, while the lower relates to Earth and the biopsychic field which envelops each individual human being. The blending of the varioushexagrams can result in sixty-four combinations and no more. This correlates to the sixty-four combinations found within the genetic code.
15. This Mayan grid (the Tzolkin), the sacred calendar of ancient Mesoamerica, demonstrates (like the I-Ching and DNA) that there are fundamental patterns represented in nature,perceived but not created by humans. Less than two hundred years ago, another German philosopher and historian, George Hegel, acquainted himself with the binary system of Leibniz. Hegel would go on to construct the dialectical theory of history, which equates the rational with the real and uses dialectic tocomprehend an absolute idea. This theory of dialectical history had a profound impact on the great social philosopher Karl Marx, who usedthis binary concept as the foundation for his theory of dialectical materialism. 70 Thus, in the course of several centuries, three men who would radically effect the philosophical direction of Western civilization inherited from their predecessors and accepted as fact thefundamental reality of binary law as postulated and espoused by the I-Ching. Carl Jung was attracted to the I-Ching for what he perceived as its psychological applications. Jung believed that it confirmed many suspicions concerning the archetypes of human consciousness as well as the notion of synchronicity, the idea that events gain significancefrom their simultaneous occurrence. So impressed was Jung with the I-Ching that he would eventually write the forward to the mostauthentic translation of the book in the Western hemisphere, the 1949 Wilhelm/Baynes edition. Though the validity of the I-Ching had been confirmed and embraced by four of the most influential minds of this era, the most stunning revelation was yet to come. In 1953, two scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick, announced to the world their discovery of the geneticcode, consisting of sixty-four binary triplet figures called DNA codons, which correspond directly to the sixty-four binary triplet hexagramsof the I-Ching oracle. The genetic code is written with four nucleic acid letters, each one represented by the two basic linear units of binarylanguage ( , ), yin and yang. Like the hexagram of I- Ching, there are sixty-four codons, and only sixty-four such structures possible.From these codons, the twenty amino acids are derived, which make possible every biochemical and physiological action in the humanorganism. Thus, we are able to say that the I-Ching contains the key to unlocking the very mystery of life itself. Whether identified as TheBook of Changes, The Tablet of Destiny, or the I- Ching, one thing is certain: the power of this oracle has been used consciously at times tomold or influence specific periods of human history. That the I-Ching derives its power from the principle of duality or polarity is theradical but undeniable lesson here. Ironically, what the West has gained from this axiom is far less than what it has to offer. Though manyhave acknowledged the reality of opposites, there is a tendency to overlook or neglect the countless levels between the two extremes.
16. Map showing the relevance of the I-Ching to terrestrial and stellar phenomena. It also demonstrates the two different arrangements of the oracle. Fu-Hs, the originalarrangement utilized by the Xia and Shang dynasties, pertains to Heaven while King Wens of the Zhou, relates to Earth. In the far right, we find the chart (Letter C) thatcorresponds to the code of genetic dialect.
17. A bronze mask depicting the visage of the inhabitants of the Chinese Shang Dynasty (17661000 B.C.E.). The Shang were the successors of the great Xia dynasty and carriedon their traditions until they were overthrown by the Zhou. Historians agree that it was during the Shang dynasty that writing was developed as well as the cultivation of thesilkworm, the silk industry, sophisticated bronze work, and sculpture in jade. These contributions, along with the philosophical concepts imparted via the Xia, literally laid thefoundation for Chinese culture and civilization. The Hermetists of ancient Egypt had a thorough understanding of the functional dynamics of the Law of Polarity. This, the fourth greataxiom from the Hermetic perspective, embodies the truth that all things manifested in the mental universe have two sides, two aspects, twopoles, and a pair of opposites with multiphasic degrees between them. Thus, everything has inherent duality or poles, which manifest themultitudes of opposites that we encounter on a daily basis. Batteries have an anode and a cathode, or positive and negative aspects that,when properly connected, will generate power or electrical force. Electrical current is a flow of actually two currents, AC (alternatingcurrent) in which the poles reverse and DC (direct current) where the poles are constant. The expression AC-DC is also English slang todescribe someone who is bisexual, or who alternates between their sexual poles. Manic depressives, who exhibit wide mood swings from thedepressive pole to the manic pole, are called bipolar. Love and hate, hot and cold, good and bad, not to mention male and female, are allmanifestations of universal opposites that consistently prove to us, regardless of our acknowledgment, that everything in creation has itsopposite. All of these opposites may at any time be transmuted, provided the practitioner understands the law. Things belonging to differentclasses cannot be transmuted into one another, but elements of the same class may have their positions reversed. For example, love cannever become east or west, but it may become hate; hard things may be rendered soft, hot things may become cold, and sharp things maybecome dull. The principle of polarity states that like and unlike are the same, that opposites are identical in their nature and different onlyin their degree. This can be easily substantiated. Hermetists proclaim that spirit and matter are but two poles of the same element, theintermediate planes are various degrees of vibration. Infinite mind and finite mind are the same in their nature (that nature being mind), andare different only in that the two are among the many planes of correspondence comprising multiple vibratory frequencies. Heat and cold areidentical in nature and are different only in degree. A thermometer registers many degrees of temperature, the lowest point or pole being
cold, and the highest hot. Between these two points are many variances of the two and in the absolute sense there is no place on thethermometer where heat ceases and cold begins. The same is true of short and tall or high, and low (height); large and small (size); wide andnarrow (breadth); and day and night, which in a twenty- four-hour period exhibit many degrees that gradually shade into one another. What is imperative to understand is the relativity of all of these varying degrees. We are compelled to use these terms in a descriptive context so that others may understand us, but they are relative from person to person, let alone in the absolute sense. If you travel aroundthe world in an eastward direction, you will eventually arrive in the west. If you go far enough south you will find yourself in the north.That which we deem good and bad are not absolutely so. The expression the lesser of two evils refers to something that is less good thanthe next higher in the scale; but what is less good in turn is better or more good than what is below. Love and hate are emotions humans categorize as diametrically opposed, or irreconcilable. But according to the principal of polarity, there is no such thing as absolute love or absolute hate. Envision a polar scale that measures these two emotional extremes. At any point onthe scale, there will be more love and less hate, or vice versa. As we ascend the scale we encounter less hate and more love, but if we descendthe scale we find just the opposite. These intermediate areas are the jurisdiction of like, dislike, disdain, fondness, amiability. Therefore,there are no absolutes that introduce the next subcategory. The proclamation of the axiom, all truths are but half truths (and all paradoxes may be reconciled), echoes many ancient philosophical aphorisms: everything is and is not at the same time, and there are two sides to everything. The reality is that all truths are but half truths,simply because there are no definitive absolutes, although humans are forever trying to create them. Though much of the principle of polarity has been discussed, the best way to understand what remains of this principle is through personal experience. In the human promenade through life, there is a continuous parade of new lessons that inevitably create perspectives,convictions, and directions in and about life. These personal realities become our truths, and we live and relive them daily. As we grow andmature, many, if not most, of our notions about our realities change, and what we once held to be hallowed is modified, sometimes radically,demonstrating that our truths and realities are in a constant state of flux. Those who are too rigid to see change on their paths eventuallysuccumb to a fixed view of the world, making themselves and those around them miserable. All experiences, events, items, and emotions can be classified as positive or negative. For example, love is positive, and hate is negative.The positive pole is considered a higher degree of vibration than the negative pole and is therefore dominant. The ancient Hermetists statedthat the tendency of nature is to move in the direction of the positive pole, which is forever increasing its vibration. Here we see that theLaws of Vibration and Correspondence work intimately with the Law of Polarity. By understanding this relationship, the transmutativeabilities of polarity become clear. When properly applied, the Law of Polarity leads to a greater sense of self-awareness and clarity.
CHAPTER 5
The Principle of Gender
Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine Principles; Gender manifests on all planes. Kybalion It has been said that The union of man and woman is like the mating of Heaven and Earth. It is because of their correct mating that Heaven and Earth last forever. Humans have lost this secret and have, therefore, become mortal. By knowing it, the Path to Immortality isopened. 71 This axiom embodies the truth that within all things is ever-present the reality of the masculine and feminine principles, which are constantly exerting their influence on each plane of life. I feel it is important to clarify my usage of terms in explicating this law. My use ofthe terms masculine and feminine do not correspond one-to-one with the terms man and woman since, by the Law of Polarity, masculineand feminine are not necessarily opposites, but are simply the two shades of gender. And, since by the Law of Gender all things aremasculine and feminine, it follows that all people embody all shades of gender. If gender is conceptualized as a scale, the poles of which arepure maleness and pure femaleness, then we can see how we have come to label people male or female. Those who are psychologically andphysically closer to the male pole are called men, while those who are closer to the female pole are called women. Though many of us chooseto view this scale as fixed or steadfast, our present social, cultural, as well as psychological, circumstances dictate a broader reality,informing us of the potentiality of more than two types of sexes. It is gender, operating within the parameters of polarity, that makes this apossibility. Currently in American discourse, gender is associated with sex, which we inadequately explain by equating the terms male and female with the words man and woman. The word gender is derived from the Latin root genre or gener, meaning to beget, to procreate, or togenerate. The sexual union of male and female is merely one manifestation of gender on the Physical Plane of Correspondence. Gender, apartfrom its modern association with sex, is the process of begetting, generating, creating, and producing on all planes of creation. In theparameters of the human experience, this phenomena is symbolically expressed in the spherical icon of yin and yang, expressed in the colorsblack and white. Within each aspect of the divided circle is a portion of the other. Thus, in the black half denoting yin is the white dot ofyang and within the white yang is found the black dot of yin. Within each man is a portion of woman, and within every woman is an aspectof man. This symbol, when applied universally, encompasses the generative principle in all of its fundamental features from the creation ofatoms to the birth of solar systems and galaxies. Positive and negative as applied to gender are never antagonistic to one another but workmutually in continuous harmony. One is dependent upon the other in the process of being and becoming; they are compliments, notopposites.
18. The symbol of yin and yang, which characterizes gender in all its many aspects of creation. Each part contains an aspect of the other, the phenomena which lends itself toperpetual generation.
19. This photo exemplifies one of the great phenomena in the material Universe. Science recognizes that most galaxies belong to groups bound together gravitationally resistingthe over-all tendency to fly apart. But there are periods when two galaxies will merge without sustaining damage to one another creating a new galaxy. The HermeticPhilosophy would dictate that these galaxies are charged with either positive or negative forces or yin and yang energy. Therefore, we see in this example, creation throughgender, in one of its most abstract, yet dynamic, manifestations. In a dialogue with Thoth/Hermes, Asclepius (Imhotep) asked Hermes, Do you say that God is of both sexes, Trismegistus? Taking but a second to ponder, Hermes replied, Not only God, Asclepius, but all things ensouled and soulless, for it is impossible for any of thethings that are to be infertile. Take away fertility from all things that now exist, and it will be impossible for them to be forever . . . . 72 This postulate is dramatized in the East Indian creation myth. The universe is created by the Supreme Yogi Shiva, the exalted male principle, and his consort Shakti, the active creative energy of femininity, who is called Parvati in her benign aspect and Kali in her awesomeaspect: The whole universe is created out of the union of Shiva and Shakti. Shiva and Shaktis love play transforms the universe. Thesexual activity of Shiva and Shakti makes the moon wax and wane. 73 Examples such as these that allegorically reflect the Law of Gender are globally evident in the doctrines of the ancient world as well as present-day societies. In ancient Kmt, there were Nu and Nut, male andfemale counterparts of the primeval spirit. The Bambara of eastern Guinea see this as Pemba and Faro, or Heaven and Earth, whoseinteraction brings about conservation and change. The Dogon identify Amma and Nummo while the Fon of Dahomey identify their principleof duality as mawu-lisa. 74 Interestingly, this principle of duality is absent in Western culture, most probably due to the entrenched patriarchal customs and mores of a male-dominated culture and society. The Judeo-Christian tradition attributes the genesis of all creation to a lone male deity, God. In theChristian tradition there is the Trinity of God three persons in one God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (or Ghost), all ofwhom are masculine. The absurdity of the Western notion of creation as an exclusively male activity can be traced in part to events thattook place almost 5000 years ago: the Indo-European-ruled nations of the historic periods, explain the creation of the universe by the maledeity or the institution of kingship, when none had existed previously. . . . 75 This forced exclusion of the feminine aspect of creation has wreaked havoc on virtually every individual psyche in all Western and Western-influenced cultures and civilizations. Jungian psychologist Marion Woodman has asserted that because of the dominant influence ofpatriarchy, our present culture has substituted mater, the word from which we derive the term mother, for matter, the menial expression ofour current sociocultural condition, which has created our blind and destructive indulgence into overt materialism. Thus, with respect tomental gender, the feminine or mother aspect has been replaced by a masculine expression indicative of a left-brain, mundane materialexistence. It is noteworthy that the word matter, though a corruption, is also derived from the term mater. As human beings engage oneanother with this unhealthy and sometimes perverse perspective of social and mental gender, a myriad of problems are created. What are social and mental gender? Social gender is simply the way men and women are conditioned and expected to act in the social environment. Social gender is built into the very norms and mores of the culture; and because of the severity of early indoctrination, it isimpossible to eradicate these behavioral patterns completely. Mental gender is the state or condition of mind that allows social gender to bea reality. The conventional wisdom, as a man thinketh, so is that man, is surely applicable in this instance. Men are so fervent in theirquest to epitomize the macho mentality that currently pervades many societies. This behavior is self-destructive according to the Law ofGender, which describes a reality of mind based on both masculine and feminine components.
20. Shiva and Shakti, the two eternal manifestations of gender. Shiva is the oldest of the great gods of India, pre-dating the gods of the Hindu or Aryan pantheon by millennia.Traces of Shiva extend as far back as 3000 B.C.E., placing him firmly in the Indus Valley civilization. The original inhabitants of ancient India held Shiva as the Supreme god, forhe was forever in a state of actualization due, in part, to his constant awareness of his feminine active principle, the goddess. The ancients of India held that Brahma and Vishnu,the Vedic gods of the Aryans, were puny insignificant upstarts when compared to Shiva. Here Shiva is joined with Shakti to produce the Bindu or Seed of the Universe. Many writers have theorized on various divisions of the mind, such as conscious and subconscious, voluntary and involuntary, passive and active. All of these divisions announce the presence of mental duality. The Hermetists equate the masculine principle of mind to what isnow considered the objective or active mind. Taoists would denote this aspect as yang. The feminine principle of mind corresponds to thesubconscious, passive, or involuntary state of mind. For Taoists, this aspect is yin. Hermetic Philosophy labels these two states of mindthe I and the me. The I represents the masculine principle of mental gender, while the me is indicative of the feminine; I reflects a state ofbeing, while the me component represents the aspect of becoming. The I or masculine mind equates to the intellect and is that level of ourmentality that concerns itself with the work of the will. The feminine principle of mind is much more expansive and far-reaching in its fieldof operation. It concerns itself with the task of generating new and innovative thoughts, concepts, and imaginative formulas. Furthermore,The tendency of the Feminine Principle is always in the direction of receiving impressions, while the tendency of the Masculine Principleis always in the direction of giving out, or expressing. 76 Psychiatrist Rudolph M. Ballentine, in speaking about the I or masculine mind, which he refers to as I-ness, says, When sensory impressions come in via the lower, sensory-motor mind, this I-ness serves to transform them into a personal experience by relating them toindividual identity. It provides a sense of separateness from the rest of the world, a feeling of distinctness and uniqueness. . . . It is theproperty of subjectivity. . . . I-ness does not instinctively flow with nature. It makes possible the question: Whats in it for me? and lendsthe ability to say, These are mine. 77 Though he concurs with his colleagues about the complexity of the term ego it is much more than egotistical behavior Ballentine draws correlations between I-ness and the ego: I-ness is often translated ego. It thinks logically andsequentially. Ego means I in the everyday, ordinary sense: it is the adaptive, competent, common sense self that operates in the world ofcompetition and achievement. 78 Though the two aspects of masculine and feminine mind are similar in kind, they are vastly different in degree. The masculine mind is confined strictly to mundane cerebral impulses, while the feminine mind relates to the more lofty experiences of a greater refinedconsciousness serving nature, oneness, and humanity.
21. The Path of the Microcosmic Orbit. Dr. Michael Frost.
The ancient masters also acknowledged that gender was not limited to the mind mental perspectives and processes but that theentire human body (organs, glands, etc.) was divided into specific areas of gender, which the ancient Chinese categorized as yin and yang.The ancient Egyptians, Indians, and Chinese believed that by practicing particular exercises they could harmonize these elements of yin andyang to create a more balanced masculine and feminine perspective within the mind, which would allow the consciousness to expand beyondthe physical body prior to its demise. They referred to this process as developing the energy body. Developing this energy body awakens apart of the individual that moves instinctively, free from environmental, educational, and karmic conditioning. Organic or internal alchemy is the outcome of these practices. The elements of water and fire and sex and love (called kan and lin by the Chinese) reunite the male and female within each of us. The reuniting of male and female involves the practice of self-intercourse, whichthrough the fusion of the internal sexual energies enables one to give birth to more profound states of awareness. This process also aids inthe development of the soul body, which inevitably leads us to the body of immortality. We must remember that although the terms sexualand sex are being used, they are with respect to the process of creation inadequate. Inexhaustible in its essence, sexual energy is nomore than the primordial creative energy locked within all that is. By using tonal or sound vibrations, manipulation of the pubococygeal muscle, and breathing exercises, our ancestors eventually discovered within the body what has come to be known as the microcosmic orbit. The microcosmic orbit is a pathway within our bodiesthat channels energy or chi up the back from the perineum through the spine, over the head, ending in the palate of the mouth. This is theyang or masculine channel, and all other yang channels connect to this major pathway and are nourished by it. The yin or feminine channelascends from the perineum, up the front of the body, ending at the tip of the tongue. The six yin channels connect to this main channel andare nourished by it. Touching the tip of the tongue to the palate connects the two yin and yang channels, which allows the chi to circulatecontinuously in our bodies. Chi, ki, and prana are words used to identify a form of vital energy that flows through our bodies. It cannot becreated or destroyed, but merely transformed. Chi is the source of all activity in the universe. In humans, primordial or original chi is storedin the kidneys, just below the navel, and the sexual center. The ancient masters perceived that this circuit, or microcosmic orbit a conduitfor chi connects our physical, electro/energetic, and spirtual bodies. Thus the ancients, by their understanding of gender, were able to vary the universal force into two qualities of primordial energy positive and negative, masculine and feminine, or yin and yang. They believed that yin and yang were inseparable tendencies of all energy,and it is impossible for one to exist without the other. With respect to gender, the merging of yin and yang is at the source of all universalaction, making it a factor intrinsic to the creative process and therefore innate in all manifestations of the human experience.
The irony before us is that men constantly deny that which is feminine within us while women, forced to live in a patriarchal culture, areconstantly fighting for greater expression of equality, which forces them to consistently engage the more aggressive male-oriented patterns ofsurvival on both a mental and physical level. Because of improper perceptions of men as being strong and women as being weak, qualities associated with women that are characteristic of the feminine component of the mind are suppressed in men. Therefore, a sensitive man is perceived as weak, for men aresupposed to be macho; for a man to cry is weak, for only women do such things. The vision of why we are on Earth, which is contained inthe feminine mind, is muddled with the aggression, arrogance, and insensitivity of the masculine ego. Joan Armatrading, a modern- daypoet/musician, allowing the words man and woman to represent the masculine and feminine aspects of the mind, has written, Man likes toown/a woman shares/man has his needs/a woman cares. 79 Until men allow the part of their minds that is feminine to be fully engaged with their masculine aspect, they will never understand their true nature and connection with the divine, since they are only half-functional and incomplete. Though gender manifests itself in all thingsand on all planes, humans play a primary role in the evolution of those things through the evolution of our own consciousness. The feminineaspect of mind is the doorway through which all men must sooner or later pass. What men perceive as strength is one dimensional and finite.The Indian goddess Tara embodies the true power of the feminine aspect of mental gender: I guide man to the path of the Divine And guard him from the red W olf and the Snake.I set in his mortal hand my heavenly swordAnd put on him the breast-plate of the Gods.I break the ignorant pride of human mindAnd lead the thought to the wideness of the Truth;I rend mans narrow and successful lifeAnd force his sorrowful eyes to gaze at the sunthat he may die to earth and live in his soul.I know the goal, I know the secret route,I have studied the map of the invisible worldsI am the battles head, the journeys star. 80
CHAPTER 6
The Principle of Rhythm
Everything flows out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right, is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates. Kybalion The Law of Rhythm is closely connected to that of polarity. In fact, rhythm actually functions within the polar parameters created by the polarity axiom. The Hermetists hold that all actions are followed by a reaction an ebb and flow, a rising and sinking that manifests inall aspects of universal order. Solar systems, suns, planets, races of humanity, and civilizations are all subject to the Law of Rhythm. Itapplies to religions, creeds, philosophies, governments, and social and national movements. The Principle of Rhythm makes itself evident inthe creation and destruction of worlds, as well as in the rise and fall of nations. The Brahmans of India dramatize this process as theoutbreathing and inbreathing of the god Mahavishnu. As Mahavishnu exhales, universes are created, spiraled to a summit of efficiency, andmaintained. As Mahavishnu inhales, so begins the decline of these star systems until they reach their lowest point of decadence, only toonce again begin their ascent. This procedure manifests on every level of existence. The ancient Hermetists saw this pattern in all things:people are born, grow, meet their demise, and like the phoenix are reborn. We can see rhythm manifested plainly in the seasons. Spring is thebirth or beginning, summer is the period of maturation and constancy, and fall is the encroaching ebb or decline, which ushers in winter, theseason of death; with the passing of winter, there is rebirth in the spring. One lesson of this law is that there is no absolute rest, no cessation from rhythms cycle. That all movement is contiguous with this principle is evident in all natural phenomena the seasons, the recurring orbits of planets, the rise and ebb of ocean tides, and the repeatedoccurrence of comets traversing our solar system. This rhythmic process is also found in human sociopolitical and economic patterns.Events in American history have followed this pattern. These events are believed by some to have been engineered by humans, but thesehumans were unknowingly acting in accord and by the dictates of this axiom. Beginning arbitrarily with the nineteenth century, we can seethat each phase of acceleration was followed by a phase of deceleration. Expansion gives way to downturn. The economic upturn of theindustrial revolution was followed by a period of depression between 1826 and 1847, which involved the shrinking of markets for industrialproducts. The period of machines and massive railroad building, which allowed the rapid production of iron, steel, and coal between 1848and 1873, gave way to the depression of 1873 to 1894. This downturn was marked by a growing export of capital and by efforts to reducethe costs of raw materials. The brief boom of 1894 to 1913 was due to reaping the harvest of the previous periods capital exports and tothe introduction of new technology.
22. Two faces carved in stone from South Asia (India) dated the fourth or fifth century B.C.E. The images depicted here are most assuredly representative of the Harappans whooccupied the Indus Valley complex.
23. Sai Baba, a Dravidian spiritual master from India whose philosophy incorporates the science of the Manvantara. World War I ended this boom, and a period of economic and political gyrations followed from 1914 to 1929. Berlin experienced a revolution as the United States headed into the era of prohibition and racketeering of the roaring twenties. The gross spending and illegalfinancial pursuits of the 1920s created an economic tailspin, ending in the 1929 stock market crash and the beginning of yet anotherdepression, popularly referred to as the Great Depression. The economic, moral, and physical despair of the 1930s ended only with theentry of the United States into another world war in 1942. Although America fought and defeated two enemies, World War II did not last long enough for the country to recuperate financially. It did, however, remove all vestiges of the depression that had engulfed the nation. As the United States entered the 1950s, it was stillrecovering from its past political and monetary entanglements. This was the time of the Korean War, crop failure, a recession, and the 1954Supreme Court ruling on the unconstitutionality of segregation and the beginning of the American Civil Rights Movement. The tumultuous,yet economically prosperous, 1960s gave birth to another recession and the fabricated energy crisis of the 1970s. The lavish, self-indulgent1980s were followed by economic hardship in the 1990s. We could cite example after example, but the point here is to dramatize the obvious: there are cyclical patterns, rhythms that are in operation on several levels of existence. To sociopolitical analysts, these events may seem the cause of basic detectable patterns that reflectthe human machine and how it functions within its environment, but such an observation would be superficial at best. Beneath the mundanerealities of daily life lies the Principle of Rhythm, shaping the destiny of the human race.
24 A and B. Current direct descendants of the Indo-Europeans who overran Europe,
Northeast Africa, and West and South Asia. These men, the last group of their genre, areknown as the Kalash and only number 1200. Labeled as kaffirs or barbarians, they are despised by the people of Pakistan. In the nineteenth century, the Emir of Kabul orderedtheir annihilation and sent thousands of troops onto the steppes and into the mountains. His soldiers slaughtered multitudes of these people, leaving the Kalash as the onlysurvivors.
Of the varied cyclic manifestations of this principle, the most intriguing are the recurrent periods of human activity upon the Earth, even those periods that occurred in epochs now forgotten or intentionally dismissed. The ancients believed that by understanding the nature ofthese cyclic periods one could not only foresee the future of humankind, but could also glimpse the past. The oldest and most accurate of these systems known at this time originated with the indigenous population of ancient India, the Harrapan or Indus Valley civilization, which is presently yielding carbon dates from 7000 B.C.E. 81 The Harrapans believed that the universe was organic and imperishable and that its existence was divided into an ongoing and recurring infinite number of cycles, eachconsisting of a period of improvement and a period of decline. In his book The Divine Science, P.K. Manikkalingam reported that in a periodof improvement, people are of enormous size and live to a very advanced age. They have no need for laws or ownership of property.
Human beings are spiritually in touch with themselves and the divine. There are no wars or malice of any kind. In an age of decline, humans live a primitive life, contemplating whether they are a product of civilization or barbarism. All true religion is lost or falsified, and people become dwarf-like in stature, with an average life span of only sixty to seventy years, the last thirty-five ofwhich are immersed in physical pain and suffering. Wars and disease are rampant, and the moral and spiritual fiber of the human race is at itslowest point. Then the pendulum begins to swing in the opposite direction, at times following cataclysmic destruction, and improvementbegins. This system is still alive in India today and is known as the Manvantara, the race cycles, as they apply to the evolution and deterioration of the human species under the Law of Rhythm. Tehuti expressed this phenomenon in terms of the necessity of corruption tobeget aspiration: And corruption hath laid hold upon all things on Earth, and the Providence of the True encompasseth, and will encompassthem. Tor without corruption, there can be no Generation consist. For corruption followeth every Generation, that it may again be generated.For those things that are generated, must of necessity be generated of those things that are corrupted, and the things generated must becorrupted, that the Generation of things being, may not stand still or cease. 82 The Manvantara speaks to this very cyclic process. The Manvantara is divided into four yugas or ages. These ages succeed one another and repeat themselves ad infinitum. Each age is preceded by aperiod of transition called Sandhya or twilight, the time of pruning or purification in preparation for the age that is to follow. The ages oryugas are as follows: 1. Krita or Satya Yuga, which lasts 1,728,000 years, is considered the golden age, or the age of truth and purity.2. Treta Yuga, which lasts 1,296,000 years, is also an age of purity, but of less perfection than the first.3. Dwapara Yuga, which lasts 864,000 years, is characterized by the emergence of conflicting forces and, though the cycle within this age begins in harmoniousaccord, it eventually exhibits the struggle between the high and low, good and evil.4. Kali Yuga, which lasts 432,000 years, is considered by the Manvantara to be the lowest point of humanity. The human race tries desperately to rebound from thespiritual atrocities of the previous age. (The allegory of Adam and Eve being cast from the Garden of Eden.) 83 Right now, we are in the last of these four periods, the Kali Yuga, or the age of darkness, which is said to have begun in the year 3102 B.C.E. with two ominous events. The first was the disappearance of the great warrior sage Krishna, the Christ of India, whose nameliterally means Black One. The second event was the appearance, advance, and conquest of most of Europe and Asia by the Indo-European hordes who referred to themselves as the Hittites, Indo- Iranians, and Aryans, the latter being a name that means the noble ones.Originating on the Eurasian Steppes circa 4000 B.C.E., the Indo-European advance became the mechanism to inaugurate the Kali Yuga. Withsuperior weapons and steeds bred for speed (the Indo-Europeans introduced horses into Asia), these hordes converged on Europe and Westand South Asia. They carried with them a propensity for extreme aggression and violence as never before witnessed in our epoch. To themany nations that would gather to confront them, they must have seemed liked the legions of darkness, and they were. They traveled underthe shroud of the age of Kali the age of darkness, and they were undefeatable.
25. Map showing the various branches which became part of the Indo-European cultural family. The Indo-Europeans who went West became the Greeks, Slavs, Germans, Celts, Thracians, Baits, and Illyrians. Those who invaded the eastern areas became the Anatolians, Phrygians, Armenians, Indo-Iranians, and Tocharians. There were other Caucasian populations, such asthe Hurrians, Lydians, and Assyrians, who were conquered by the Indo-Europeans infiltrating the East, and who eventually succumbed totheir cultural influence. From the regions of Anatolia and Iran, the Indo-Europeans continued to push southward and eastward forcing their way into Mesopotamia, Canaan, and finally Northwest India. All of these geographical areas had for millennia been major centers of civilization forpeople of African descent. The formidable foe that encroached upon them brought a message of dire change. In India an epic poem of great
