Pernety - A Treatise On The Great Art.pdf - cyjack.com

The Great Art page 28manifested and changed into Light, (Divine Pymander, chap. I). It appears probable that the Ancientsunderstood something like this, by the birth of Pallas, issuing from the brain of Jupiter, with the aidof Vulcan, or Light.Not less wise in His combinations than powerful in His operations, the Creator has established suchorder in the organic mass of the Universe, that superior things are mixed without confusion withinferior ones, and become similar to them by certain analogy. 18 The extremes are very closely boundby an imperceptible mean, or a sacred knot, 19 of that adorable Workman, so that all obeys thedirection of the Supreme Moderator, while the bond of the different parts can be broken only by Himwho has combined them. Hermès was right in saying that “that which is below is like that which isabove, in order to perfect all the admirable things which we see", (Tabula Smaragdina).Of the First Matter 20Some Philosophers have supposed a Matter existing before the elements; 21 as they did notunderstand it, they have spoken of it in a very obscure manner. Aristotle, who appears to havebelieved the World eternal, speaks of a universal First Matter, yet, without daring to entanglehimself in the dark windings of the ideas which he had of it, he has expressed himself in regard to itin a very ambiguous manner. He regarded it as the principle of all sensible things, and seems towish to imply that the elements were formed of a kind of antipathy, or repugnance, which wasfound between the parts of this Matter, (de Ortu et Interitu BII, Chap. 1-2). He would have reasonedbetter, if he had seen only sympathy and perfect harmony; since one sees no oppositions in theelements themselves, although one usually thinks that fire is opposed to water. One would not bemistaken, if he noticed that this pretended opposition comes only from the aim of their qualities andthe difference of subtlety of their parts, since there is no water without fire.Thales, Heraclitus, Hesiod, have regarded water as the First Matter of things. Moses appears,(Genesis, Chap. 1), to favor this idea by giving the names Abyss and Water to this First Matter; notthat he understood water as the element which we drink, but as a kind of smoke, a humid vapor,thick and dark, which is condensed, more or less, according to the greater or less density of thethings which has pleased the Creator to form from it. This mist, this immense vapor, was condensedor rarefied into a universal chaotic Water, which thus became the principle of all for the present andfor the future, (Cosmop. Tract 4).In its beginning this Water was volatile, as a mist; condensation made of it a matter more or lessfixed. But whatsoever may have been this Matter, the first principle of things, it was created inshadows too thick for the human mind to see clearly. Only the Author of Nature knows it, and invain would theologians and philosophers wish to determine what it was; yet, it is very probable thatthis dark abyss, this chaos, was an aqueous, or humid, matter, since it would be more easily rarefiedand condensed, and consequently more suitable, because of these qualities, for the construction ofthe heaven and earth.18 The fundamental dogma of the Occult Sciences is resumes in the well-known aphorism: “Harmony results from theanalogy of contraries.” - E.B.19 This secret bond, uniting into a triunity all opposites, whether physical or metaphysical, constitutes the GRANDARCANUM, the Universal Solvent of Alchymists. - E.B.20 The First Matter or Prima Materia, or Hyle, is the Cosmic Ether, the Grand Telesma of Hermès. The AlchemicalTheories are founded upon the unity of matter; the Artificers recognized but one Cosmic element, a chemical absolute whichthey named Azoth. The dogma of the unity of matter, after having been rejected by modern chemistry, is now againattracting the attention of scientists. The Unity of Matter was symbolically represented by a Serpent biting its tail, the circlebeing the hieroglyphic of the continuity of material transformations through a gradual imperceptible progression. E.B.21 .In Hermetic Philosophy, the elements mean certain conditions in which bodies are found: they are the equivalents ofSolid, Liquid, Gaseous, etc.