Well, it’s been a while since I’ve given any updates on my Spirit Pot operation with Bune of the Goetia, so here’s some more recent information.
When I first put the pot together, I was looking to get rich quick. He was the best-looking prospect of the Goetic entities, because his description says “he giveth riches to a man,” and I wanted $7MUSD and change. Things didn’t quite turn out th
Ahh, the Elemental Kings… I’m just going to jump into this with minimal preamble. It’s been a long week already.
In the Second Book of Occult Philosophy, Chapter 7, Agrippa provides a table that presents the Scale of the Number Four. In this Table, the Kings of the elements are listed as the Four Angels ruling over the corners of the world. Under them are the Four Rulers of the Elements, the Four Princes of Spirits, and the Four Princes of “Divels, offensive in the Elements.”
| Fire | Air | Water | Earth | |
| Four Angels ruling over the corners of the world. | Michael | Raphael | Gabriel | Uriel |
| Four rulers of the Elements. | Seraph | Cherub | Tharsis | Ariel |
| Four Princes of divels, offensive in the Elements. | Samael | Azazel | Azael | Mahazael |
| Four Princes of spirits, upon the four angels [angles] of the world. | Oriens | Paymon | Egyn | Amaymon |
Personally, when I work with the Kings of the Elements, I prefer to work with these Angels. I’ve got an angelic connection in general with my Work, and I figure if it’s working as well as it is, why mix things up?
For years, I’ve thought the LBRP got the angels from the Bedtime Sh’Ma, a Jewish version of “now I lay me down to sleep.” I was very pleased to discover they are also considered the angels of the corners of the Earth in Agrippa’s system. The GD got most of their stuff from Francis Barrett’s The Magus anyway, and that was plagiarized from Agrippa almost 100%. Seeing the angels here as the Kings of the Elements has helped me further understand that Angels can share names without sharing their personage. I mean, Michael, King of Fire isn’t going to be the same as Michael Governor of the Sun. There are similitudes, of course, but that doesn’t make them the “same” being. Even if they were the same being, in the office of the King of Fire, Michael will not be behaving as the Governor of the Sun.
One nice thing about discovering these guys are the Kings of the Elements is that I’ve been doing the LBRP in ignorance for years. I’ve managed to build up as decent a relationship with them as can be hoped for, considering the depths of ignorance I was wallowing in.
If you look at the sigils of the ten countenances of God in the Magical Calendar, you’ll see that the names of the angels ruling the planet/sphere are written on one side of the talismans along with the names of their respective Angelic Orders. I believe these are the Orders from which each Angelic King draws their legions of helpers. In working with these spirits, I’m placing the names of the Angels on their talisman along with the name of the Order of Angels presented here.
These spirits represent the malefic aspects of the elements. While Michael might represent a controlled flame, like a candle or a hearth, Samael would represent a burning house. Both are aspects of Fire, and it is important to note that the Princes of Divels are under the authority of the Kings of the Elements.
These four Princes represent the “neutral” spirits of the elements. They are like the worker bees of the elements, in my experience. They, and their assigned legions, are the ones that oversee the manifestation of the elemental manifestations of the directives of the spirits higher up in, uhm, hierarchy.
Now, with the above overview in mind, and remembering the way magicians work with the hierarchies of the spirits, a multitude of possibilites becomes available to the resourceful magician. In terms of the Great Work, we know from the Divine Pymander chapter of the Corpus Hermeticum that the Logos (manifested as the HGA in my interpretation of this system) abides with the righteous and sends an evil Daemon to confound the impious through their sphere of sensation, causing them to be further removed from their memories of their race and value as manifestations of God.
Later in the series, I’ll be getting into more practical work with the Kings that specifically relates to the topic of the four Kings and the eight Princes listed by Agrippa.
I did a ritual the other day with the Four Kings that has shed a lot of light on the subject in general in my personal Work, and I’ll be posting about it separately.
The Guf is the lowest form of soul in some kabbalistic cosmologies. It consists of the actual body we wrap ourselves in. The word “guf” is the source of the English word “goofy,” so you can get an idea of how this soul is viewed in the cosmology of things.
I was talking to a friend today about the horrifyingly embarrassing moments that crop up in my mind as I’m falling asleep, eliciting an audible groan or whimper. I was relieved to know that I’m not the only one that experiences these things, but that doesn’t really help get rid of the horror that still comes when I remember these kinds of events.
The best example I have is when I went down to the end of a shooting range to hang a paper target, and the drill sergeant guy yelled “CEASE FIRE!!!!” at the top of his considerable lungs to get everyone else (who were still shooting) to take a break so I didn’t get killed. Everyone looked over at me, and I’m standing there like an idiot where about thirty people were shooting. Not a happy moment.
What gets me is that this happened almost a decade ago, and to this day, I groan out loud remembering it. I’ve tried to “reclaim” that part of my brain to get rid of this response. Kraig has a retroactive magick section (I think) in his Modern Magick book, and I tried that. I tried going back and reliving the moment in my mind, trying to replace it with a different memory. I’ve tried rationalizing that I’d never been to a shooting range before, I was at the far end of the shooting range, and everyone else was at the other side, where I had assumed they wouldn’t shoot me… but nothing’s worked. It’s always in that light hypnogoguic state between waking and sleeping that I remember standing there in the crisp autumn wind with a crowd made up of fathers and sons and war vets looking at me like I was Forrest, Forrest Gump.
My friend suggested that we can’t forget this kind of thing for a reason, that it serves some purpose. I can see how it can aid survival to never forget how stupid it is to steal a dinosaur’s egg while you think the thing is sleeping, but this was just embarrassing. Socially embarrassing. Sure, we’re pack animals, and it’s required to not do something stupid in public to not get ostracized… but that’s stretching it a bit.
So on a seemingly unrelated tangent, I was reading through Plotinus’ Fifth Ennead. Not too far in, it says:
“A double discipline must be applied if human beings in this pass are to be reclaimed, and brought back to their origins, lifted once more towards the Supreme and One and First.”
“Reclaimed” jumped out at me. I had literally just been talking about reclaiming, so looking for an answer to this question, I read on…
“There is the method, which we amply exhibit elsewhere, declaring the dishonour of the objects which the Soul holds here in honour; the second teaches or recalls to the soul its race and worth; this latter is the leading truth, and, clearly brought out, is the evidence of the other.”
So there are two disciplines required to accomplish the returning to the Source, God, which sums up Plotinus’ idea of what I think of as the Great Work. The discipline of stating the dishonour of things the Soul holds dear here, and the remembrance of the race and worth of the Soul.
Respect of others is what my Guf-Soul holds dear, so dear that an embarrassing moment haunts me for years, permanently ingrained in my neural paths. Dishonouring the “need for respect from others,” (hmmm, pride, perhaps?) isn’t too difficult. I recognize that the opinions of those rednecks at that moment aren’t really that important.
Teaching the Soul its race and worth though… How does this apply in the context of a mortifying memory? The Soul in the Guf at that moment was of God and was God. The value of that Soul is inestimable. How can teaching the Soul its race and value make the horror of that moment go away?
I don’t have an answer, but I do know that I was particularly Guf-ey that day. I’ll be holding these two things together in my mind as I remember what happened, and see what comes of it. Educating the Guf as to its value and source may indeed be the key to getting rid of that disgusting horror.
HERMES, the God who presides over language, was formerly very properly considered as common to all priests; and the power who presides over the true science concerning the Gods is one and the same in the whole of things. – Iamblichus, On the Mysteries
I’m guilty of a terrible crime. If I belonged to an Order, a militaristic organization of magicians with a hierarchy of supervising rank and file to whom I would be accountable, I’m sure I’d frequently be demoted for Conduct Unbecoming a Magician.
Fortunately, I belong to no such Order. There’s no person who has been through more initiations in charge of me. There is no committee of flesh and blood to which someone can report me. There is no chain of command that I must obey.
There is no code of conduct.
People have these rather stupid ideas of what someone who is “into magic” should look like. They have these ignorant expectations of how Adepts, Masters, and Illuminated Saints ought to behave. They think we should all be like Jesus, turning the other cheek, striving to be gentle and kind, never cursing, never harsh, never subject to raw emotion. As a result of the refinement of the process of the great Work, we’re supposed to be Heroes, with the powers of the Gods and the approachability of mortals.
I’ve met some really powerful magicians, folks who are incredibly illuminated. You can feel the power of their spheres radiating outward from them into the universe around them. Talking to them leaves the weak-willed fawning and gibbering like tweens at a Jonas Brothers concert.
They get angry, depressed, and violent like anyone else. When they do, the world has suddenly collapsed for these dweebs, and they’re left looking like the little girl dressed up like Princess Padme-Amidalla in the Natalie Portman interview video I posted a while back.
Now don’t be all thinking I’m bitching about people that I think I’m better than. I’m not. I have these stupid pedestals in my heart and mind that I put people on too. I’m no better. I’ve learned to take it in stride when my heroes turn out to be human, though. I’ve lowered my expectations. I try to remember some basic things when I meet people I think are really cool:
These three little precious jewels serve to remind me not to set unrealistic expectations on people that they can’t live up to.
WTF does any of this have to do with Iamblichus?
It has a lot to do with the opening he made in his refutation to Porphyry: HERMES, the God who presides over language, was formerly very properly considered as common to all priests.
Hermes, the god who presides over language. Patrick Dunn has provided a better explanation than I can about the role of language and symbol in magic in Magic, Power, Language, Symbol: A Magicians Exploration of Linguistics. If you haven’t read it, you should. We who are Hermetic Magicians are priests of the god of Language. As a Christian, a believer in the Word of God made flesh, I am even more aware of my role as priest to this god in my magical practice.*
Language is symbolic of something else. There’s a difference between the words we use and the things we refer to, the meanings of the words. Different people have different meanings for the same words.
It’s important that we understand that words and our interpretations of them are not the things they represent. Hierophants, for example, are simply “interpretors of the Mysteries.” They aren’t perfect ascended masters, wizened and ready to do everything perfectly in every interaction with every person. There is no job description for Hierophant that includes “having reached my idea of what a Hierophant should be.” Anyone who can interpret the mysteries in a way that provides initiation into the mystery to those seeking his or her advice is qualified. If you expect your Hierophant to be perfect, you’re in for a shock.
The same is true for any spiritual mentor. If the person you’re learning from is in the flesh, they are capable of being wrong about things. Don’t deceive yourself, or you’ll be running head first, full speed towards disappointment. Keep your definitons real, your expectations managed, and at the same time strive for the ideal, knowing that the words, symbols, and entities we interact with are representative of the ideal, not the ideal itself.
* No, I don’t have Hermes as a god before God. That’s against the Law.
To get anything of benefit from the hierarchical representations of God’s servants or ministers, we must first understand the foundational premise behind the formulation of a hierarchy in the first place, and also what an “angel” or minister of God is.
The Premise of Hierarchies in the Western Magickal Tradition
To the neo-platonists and their Christian successors, God was One. It’s a simple concept. Orpheus says:
Pluto and Jupiter, and Phebus, are one;
But why do we speak twice? Gods one alone. (From Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy, Book 3, chapter x)
The sh’ma of Judaism puts it this way:
“Hear o Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”
The One God is beyond understanding, and is described in terms of what it is not due to our lack of ability to comprehend the awesome unity of God. “Ineffable,” “Invisible,” and “Infinite” are terms that do not tell us what God is, but what it is not. The mystic (by virtue of their calling to be a mystic) understands inherently that God is super-essential.
This super-essential Deity is constantly providing a stream of grace (or what we would likely call “energy” today) from itself into all that it created, in order that all of creation might participate with and know God intimately. This stream is called Providence by the Christian mystics, and is understood to be the mechanism by which Grace is delivered. When you see a mystic of neo-platonic christian heritage say that an event was “Providence,” they mean that a person achieved “a closer and fuller understanding of God” (or Grace) through a series of events that might not have seemed to be Grace bearing in the moment.
Ok, so we have One super-essential God, sending Grace to creation by Providence. Since man is not capable of comprehending all of God at once in our standard mode, when God interacts with us directly, we interpret the aspect of God that we interact with as an entity, a messenger from God, or a representation of Deity, or a god in and of itself. The Goddess Venus, for instance, is that part of the One super-essential deity that represents the human understanding of “Love.” In other cultures, this aspect of God is interpreted as Haniel, the archangel of the sephiroth Netzach.
To understand where this part of God “fits” in the whole process we interpret as Providence, we create models and hierarchies of correspondences so that we can present-progressively interact with that particular part of God as we perform our mundane activities. This touches on the practical purpose behind having a hierarchy in the first place.
The Purpose of Hierarchies
Having a model of Providence allows us to work towards obtaining unity with God. (Note: By unity I mean consciously working with God to accomplish God’s purpose, not the idea that we can somehow consciously become GOD.) When one understands the aspects of God that are functioning at various points in Providence, one can begin to consciously integrate these processes into their daily activities. For instance, knowing that Cherubim means the fullness of divine knowledge, and that the function of this manifestation of God is to illuminate the soul of a man with the divine knowledge of the immanence of deity in all things, one would begin to work with the Cherubim when one is seeking to understand how a situation is supposed to integrate with God’s plan.
This is the Great Work of the Western Mystery Tradition, to be in union with God in all things while in the flesh.
Having crudely put forth the foundational premise and purpose of hierarchies, we can look at what the various hierarchies are. For a better description, see The Celestial Hierarchies, by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopogate, from which the above was distilled.
Some Traditional Hierarchies
The angelic orders of the “cabalists” are associated with the ten sephiroth. Following the lightning path, they are:
Kether – Haioth Hacadosch
Hochma – Ophanim
Prina – Aralim
Hesed – Hasmalim
Geburach – Seraphim
Tiphereth – Malachim
Nezah – Elohim
Hod – Ben Elohim
Iesod – Cherubim
Malchuth – Issim
That’s straight from Agrippa, the original spelling from the English translation by “J.F.” in 1651 intact. If you look in Book 3, Chapter x, you’ll find much more additional information on these orders, such as the particular angel in charge, the planets associated with them, and the biblical personages and the angels that were assigned to them that correspond.
The terms Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels were used by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagate, a Christian mystic who was not a cabalist. Agrippa also uses these, and relates them to the sephiroth, but makes it clear in the text that they are not the names of the hierarchies used by the Hebrews.
Bill Heidrick has a couple of tables that present the names, correspondences to the sephiroth, and the descriptions and functions of these orders in his Magical Correspondences . Know going into it that Bill is the product of traditional Golden Dawn and Ordo Templi Orientis teachings. While his research and facts have been proven to be as accurate as possible, his interpretations are nevertheless influenced by the teaching he received.
Practical Application
To effectively utilize these hierarchies, the mystic or magician must first identify which order is appropriate to their need. Then one would research the names of some of the members of this order, and then contact the entity and request a personal representative from that order to work with for the duration of the operation.
Understanding the premise behind a hierarchy, the procedures of the magickal operations of the Western Mystery Tradition make a lot more sense. Abramelin’s Sacred Magick is an excellent example, with the Holy Guardian Angel being a member of the Order of Powers assigned to you at birth, who “aids the human mind to break free of the forces that draw man to earthly thoughts.” The Goetia can be better understood when it is recognized as a hierarchy of spirits that are closest to the manifest realm, a sub-hierarchy that doesn’t quite extend beyond the realms of Earth, Water, and Air in the platonic model.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to thank Richard Ryan for his Lamed towards presenting something of value and substance rather than simply critiquing someone else’s presentation. Putting this into words has helped me to better understand some of the issues I’ve been struggling with behind the scenes lately regarding cabalism vs. neo-platonic christian interpretations of the Great Work.
Let me just say up front, I really hated writing that last post. There’s so much more than I can cram into a blog post, it’s unbelievable. There are competing doctrines of creation, details given in the Bible that complement the details given in Trismegistus, and Timaeus, the thing that started it all… Man. There’s a lot that was left out.
But that’s yesterday. On to the Harmony of the Spheres!
Ok, so there are spheres within spheres that make up the cosmos beneath the realm of God. There’s a sphere that has the constellations on it, a sphere for each of the planets, a sphere for each of the elements. That’s 12 spheres (hey, just like the number of astrological signs, and the number of tribes of Israel, and the number of apostles, and the hours in a day and in a night, what a freaking coincidence!).
Now, there aren’t “really” 12 spheres. The realm of sensate matter is the lower four spheres, the Elemental spheres. This sphere includes all the physical planets, stars, galaxies, universes, etc. that we can and cannot see. Anything that can be sensed exists in the realm of the the elements, below the sphere of the Moon. So the elemental spheres, while separate and harmonious, blend together in to what we see. This is the sphere that can be sensed through our material bodies.
This leaves us with nine spheres.
The uppermost sphere, that of the constellations, can be viewed as an influencing sphere as opposed to a governing sphere. Agrippa talks a bit about this, and I won’t get too into details here, but suffice it to say that in my understanding of the NP cosmology, the sphere of the constellations is more like a barrier between the realms of the planetary governors (ending at the horizon of Saturn’s Sphere) and the unknowable Realm of God (Light-Divine Darkness-the One). The constellations can be viewed as pinpricks in this barrier through which the infinite light enters the realms of sensation, guiding or feeding as it were, the planetary governors.
Now, what we’ve done here is divided the infinite universe into three parts. The material realm is composed of the four elemental spheres. The seven spheres of the planetary governors is the second part, ending at the barrier of the Sphere of the constellations. Then there’s the infinite realm of God, the third part.
Only the realms of the Planetary Governors and the sphere of matter can be known and interacted with consciously. The higher realms may be experienced, but being before the utterance of the Word, they can’t really be put into words.
The realms of the Planetary Governors exist as pure emanations of God. When viewing God they are passive, but when viewing the realm of Matter, they are active. Being pure in their essence, they are in perfect harmony with one another and with God.
Now I’d like to introduce a concept I’ve used on the blog before (and I don’t claim to have created it), the Sphere of the Magician. Every one of us live in a bubble of perception. Lots of us have read various modern and classical interpretations of existence as being only that which can be sensed. Plato would have totally grokked Robert Anton Wilson, God rest his heathen soul. (I doubt Wilson could grok Plato though.)
This bubble of perception is our sphere within the material realm. The Emerald Tablet of Hermes, an excellent model of magickal operation on its own, bears the famous inscription “that which is above is like that which is below.” Metaphysically speaking, we have a spiritual sphere of sensation as well as the physical sphere of sensation. They aren’t really separated, but it’s easier to think of them as parts than to try to understand the whole all at once. A seed in an orange doesn’t look like an orange, and neither does the peel by itself, but they’re still one thing.
The basic intent of the magician is to get their “sphere” into harmony with the other spheres. Neo-platonic philosophers had various ways of achieving this. Plotinus taught that you could instantly “get it” by realizing your race and value. He talks about denigrating the things of matter and exalting the things of spirit. He, and Porphyry, his student and biographer, believed that the way to reclaim your race and value was through Philosophy, and various forms of Asceticism. Later, some Gnostics and others would take the idea to the extreme. They believed that because matter distracted you from your goal of reuniting with God, then all matter must be inherently evil. Some went so far as to claim that the God that created Matter must have been evil.
Poppycock.
Plotinus had another student that helped us out immensely as magicians who would rather do something more active than philosophize all day, and who wanted to participate in the matter-manifestation process in a more hands-on way. This guy was Iamblichus. He taught that theurgy, magickal arts and working with spirits were viable means of reuniting with the One, God. That’s the core of this system I’m presenting here. There are various other branches of neo-Platonism, and lots to discuss and argue about, but as magicians working with the NP magickal system, the point is to harmonize our sphere with the spheres above, and through this harmony to join with God, accomplishing what later became known as the Great Work.
Ok, so the other day on Facebook, I took a quiz called “Are you on a Boat.” It turned out I was on a boat. I had no idea what the fuck it was about.
Today I found out. Saturday Night Live has these little movies and I had no idea. Digital Shorts. Hulu, thanks for rotting my brain the rest of the way. If you get a chance, check out Dick in a Box with Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg. And Motherlovers.
But the most important thing you can watch today…
Ok, not the MOST important. Watching other people perform isn’t that important, really. yOu should be all performing your duties as a magician, fulfilling your roles and responsibilities as the Image of God, you fuckin’ slacker…
But in between conjuring angels and demons to rule the world, take a break and watch a day in the life of Natalie Portman. For all the fans of Star Wars, V for Vendetta, and … did she do anything else? Who knows. But this I like.
The best encapsulation of the neo-platonic creation story that I’ve found is in the second book of The Divine Pymander by Hermes Trismegistus. (Check wikipedia for his story.) It’s simple and to the point. Christians like myself can identify enough parallels to feel at ease in it, and pagans can find enough other gods that they feel at home too. It’s a good little catch-all, and that makes sense when you study its history. Which I won’t get into here. Lots of debate around that, and I’d rather get to the point.
My understanding of the Creation is summarized below. There’s a lot I’m omitting for the sake of brevity, but I’m trying to include the required pieces to to lay the foundation.
In the beginning was essential God-the-Progenitor, dwelling in perfect darkness. In that perfect darkness, God still and always resides. By its nature, it radiates infinite pure light. In The Divine Pymander, Hermes Trismegistus is given a vision of the creation of the material realm. Within the infinite light appeared a great darkness, smoking as if it were on fire. Out of the infinite Light leaped a “certain holy Word” and that Word joined itself to the dark mass of Matter that came into being. When this holy Word entered the darkness, it separated into four realms. Fire leaped up highest to be closest to the infinite light, followed by Air, which seemed to hang between the Fire and Earth-Water below.
Next, God created a Workman. This guy created seven governors, each with their own sphere, surrounding the realm of Matter. When he did, the Word leaped up and cohabited with the Workman. This being then set the spheres in motion, and the natural world began creating animals and plants.
Meanwhile, God made Man in Its image. Man was the honored and beloved “brother” of the family. Eventually, after a lot went down (!), Man entered the physical realm, containing a spark of infinite God within, and yet also loving and being loved by Nature. We’re of two natures, mortal and immortal.
The Spark of the Divine within is what gives us “authority” overt the elements, and the seven governors. We’re coworkers though, not masters and slaves.
Ptolemy laid out the basic cosmology of the NP system. the center sphere is the sphere of Earth, surrounded by the sphere of Water, then Air, then Fire. Then there are the seven Spheres of the Governors. Each of these spheres is associated with one of the seven planets of classical astrology, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Around these are the “fixt stars,” whose influence is primarily felt through the planetary governors. Beyond the stars is the realm of eternal light, and sitting in eternal divine darkness, radiating the light outwards and willing existence is the Primum Mobile, God.
The following image displays the basic cosmology of the NP system:
The best encapsulation of the neo-platonic creation story that I’ve found is in the second book of The Divine Pymander by Hermes Trismegistus. (Check wikipedia for his story.) It’s simple and to the point. Christians like myself can identify enough parallels to feel at ease in it, and pagans can find enough other gods that they feel at home too. It’s a good little catch-all, and that makes sense when you study its history. Which I won’t get into here. Lots of debate around that, and I’d rather get to the point.
My understanding of the Creation is summarized below. There’s a lot I’m omitting for the sake of brevity, but I’m trying to include the required pieces to to lay the foundation.
In the beginning was essential God-the-Progenitor, dwelling in perfect darkness. In that perfect darkness, God still and always resides. By its nature, it radiates infinite pure light. In The Divine Pymander, Hermes Trismegistus is given a vision of the creation of the material realm. Within the infinite light appeared a great darkness, smoking as if it were on fire. Out of the infinite Light leaped a “certain holy Word” and that Word joined itself to the dark mass of Matter that came into being. When this holy Word entered the darkness, it separated into four realms. Fire leaped up highest to be closest to the infinite light, followed by Air, which seemed to hang between the Fire and Earth-Water below.
Next, God created a Workman. This guy created seven governors, each with their own sphere, surrounding the realm of Matter. When he did, the Word leaped up and cohabited with the Workman. This being then set the spheres in motion, and the natural world began creating animals and plants.
Meanwhile, God made Man in Its image. Man was the honored and beloved “brother” of the family. Eventually, after a lot went down (!), Man entered the physical realm, containing a spark of infinite God within, and yet also loving and being loved by Nature. We’re of two natures, mortal and immortal.
The Spark of the Divine within is what gives us “authority” overt the elements, and the seven governors. We’re coworkers though, not masters and slaves.
Ptolemy laid out the basic cosmology of the NP system. the center sphere is the sphere of Earth, surrounded by the sphere of Water, then Air, then Fire. Then there are the seven Spheres of the Governors. Each of these spheres is associated with one of the seven planets of classical astrology, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Around these are the “fixt stars,” whose influence is primarily felt through the planetary governors. Beyond the stars is the realm of eternal light, and sitting in eternal divine darkness, radiating the light outwards and willing existence is the Primum Mobile, God.
The following image displays the basic cosmology of the NP system:
The best encapsulation of the neo-platonic creation story that I’ve found is in the second book of The Divine Pymander by Hermes Trismegistus. (Check wikipedia for his story.) It’s simple and to the point. Christians like myself can identify enough parallels to feel at ease in it, and pagans can find enough other gods that they feel at home too. It’s a good little catch-all, and that makes sense when you study its history. Which I won’t get into here. Lots of debate around that, and I’d rather get to the point.
My understanding of the Creation is summarized below. There’s a lot I’m omitting for the sake of brevity, but I’m trying to include the required pieces to to lay the foundation.
In the beginning was essential God-the-Progenitor, dwelling in perfect darkness. In that perfect darkness, God still and always resides. By its nature, it radiates infinite pure light. In The Divine Pymander, Hermes Trismegistus is given a vision of the creation of the material realm. Within the infinite light appeared a great darkness, smoking as if it were on fire. Out of the infinite Light leaped a “certain holy Word” and that Word joined itself to the dark mass of Matter that came into being. When this holy Word entered the darkness, it separated into four realms. Fire leaped up highest to be closest to the infinite light, followed by Air, which seemed to hang between the Fire and Earth-Water below.
Next, God created a Workman. This guy created seven governors, each with their own sphere, surrounding the realm of Matter. When he did, the Word leaped up and cohabited with the Workman. This being then set the spheres in motion, and the natural world began creating animals and plants.
Meanwhile, God made Man in Its image. Man was the honored and beloved “brother” of the family. Eventually, after a lot went down (!), Man entered the physical realm, containing a spark of infinite God within, and yet also loving and being loved by Nature. We’re of two natures, mortal and immortal.
The Spark of the Divine within is what gives us “authority” overt the elements, and the seven governors. We’re coworkers though, not masters and slaves.
Ptolemy laid out the basic cosmology of the NP system. the center sphere is the sphere of Earth, surrounded by the sphere of Water, then Air, then Fire. Then there are the seven Spheres of the Governors. Each of these spheres is associated with one of the seven planets of classical astrology, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Around these are the “fixt stars,” whose influence is primarily felt through the planetary governors. Beyond the stars is the realm of eternal light, and sitting in eternal divine darkness, radiating the light outwards and willing existence is the Primum Mobile, God.
The following image displays the basic cosmology of the NP system: