Damiani

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Iamblichus: On the Mysteries

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

June 6, 1981

NEO-PLATONISM; IAMBLICHUS; IMAGES

TOPIC: Neo-Platonism

SUBJECT: Iamblichus

SUBSUBJECTS: Images, Cosmos & "Makers Of Images," Sun In Aquarius & Imagination, Divine Names & Mantra, Two Souls, Drops

CONTENTS:

Fabricator of images & twofold Demiurge

Primordial image & Sun in Aquarius

Spermatic reason-principles = drops

Demiurge: needs partial powers, twofold, last houses of System of Nature, four realms of Kabbalah

Diagram with dignities, powers producing primal image

Iamblichus: a lot in just one page

Primal image, Buddhist position, 12th house

Zeus, Sun in Aquarius, & 12th house production

Immovable essences precede primal image

Sun in Aquarius & spermatic reason-principles

World replenished drop by drop

Keats

"The maker of images"

Doctors need astrology

Astrologer as "maker of images," planetary power

Gems & talismans

Paracelsus astrological example

12th house, acausal mixtures, can have influence

Astrologer versus theurgist, Kalachakra, imagination, sage

Read Timaeus, what to do next

Alexandrian School

Underline "as far as he is human"

Symbols

Powers of human soul versus knowledge of I.P., are the medium

Sage & negating of soul when in contact with Nous

A warning about "words"

Old-time initiates confronted daemoniacal furies; now psychologically we confront our shadow

Amputation of base matter

Sun in Aquarius & its powers

Titans tear Bacchus into seven parts

Idea of Man in 12th house, 11th, & particular man

Nyaya inherence of the universal versus Buddhists

Nous, Soul, cosmic circuit, & knowledge

Names of Gods, contacting their power, mantra

Number 8 & Names as Numbers

"By these names the sun becomes fixed in the heavens" & zodiacal signs, astrology stations

Numbers & Names

Demiurge & Ideas, zodiac

Mantra shakti correlated with Sun in Aquarius

Chaldeans observed stars for a long time

Natal daemon

Two souls quote: higher & lower

Problem: how is the higher soul in the lower?

Body, soul, spirit in cosmic circuit

Cosmic circuit generates mental states, not consciousness

Connection or division, lower soul & higher soul

On leaving a question unresolved

Zodiac, degrees, planets

Higher soul, lower soul, & Demiurge

Jesus asks you to deny your lesser soul

Fate (Gods & Soul)

Higher soul has principle that can lead to Gods

Soul's rationality

11th house = rational soul; 12th house = irrational

Where is refinement in lower soul coming from?

Primal image

Soul looking to Nous or to cosmic circuit

Opinion = looking to cosmic circuit

"Individual" = alliance of Cognitive Isness with portion of cosmic circuit

Interpretation of lower soul's functioning

Drops coming down

Discussion of Tibetan Buddhist "drop within a drop"

Mantra

Where do these drops come from?

The bindu

The luminous milky substance that one drop enters

Discussion: the gandharva reincarnating

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

Iamblichus, Thomas Taylor (tr.), Iamblichus on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians
Plato, Timaeus
Plotinus, The Enneads (MacKenna translation, 4th ed.)
Thomas Taylor (tr.), The Hymns of Orpheus
Kathleen Raine, George Mills (eds.), Thomas Taylor, the Platonist: Selected Writings
Proclus, Thomas Taylor (tr.), The Six Books of Proclus, the Platonic Successor, on the Theology of Plato
Bible, Matthew (16:24)
Herbert V. Guenther, Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism"

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: II.3.17, IV.3.1, V.1.2, V.3.9, VI.7.14

DIAGRAMS appended to this transcript:

FIGURE 1981 0606-1-JF. System of Nature, Demiurge, Production of Images.
FIGURE 1981 0606-2-CdA. System of Nature, Demiurge, Production of Images.
FIGURE 1981 0606-3. Three Hypostases and Two Levels of Cosmology Mapped onto Metaphysical Chart.
FIGURE AD_G_004 Twofold Zeus.
FIGURE 1981 0606-5-JF. Fourth Quadrant Dignities with Third Quadrant Predecessors.
FIGURE 1981 0606-6-CdA. Fourth Quadrant Dignities with Third Quadrant Predecessors.
FIGURE 1981 0606-7-JF. Spirit, Soul, & Body in Cosmos.
FIGURE 1981 0606-8-JF. Saturn in Cosmos.
FIGURE 1981 0606-9-JF. Nous, Soul, & Cosmic Circuit.

NOTES by JF:

This class was part of a 1981 Saturday morning series on Iamblichus: 04/10 (Friday eve); 04/11; 04/18; 04/25; 05/16; 06/06; 06/13. The class date sequence shows gaps; however, other Saturdays in this time period are on Number or the Kabbalah.
Other 1981 class topics, immediately prior to PB's death, appear to have been cosmology, the Idea of Man, the problem of knowledge, Kepler, alchemy, subtle physiology, Tibetan Buddhism and tantra, Kabbalah, the history of Platonism.
On Some Terminology in the Iamblichus classes: The Cognitive Isness can be considered to be synonymous with the Individual Soul principle, the Atman, the Saturn in Leo. "Drops" of light are often referred to. As far as I understand them, these subtle "congealed reason-principles" are coming from the third or Soul quadrant down into the embodied individual; further references to drops may be found in Tibetan Buddhist subtle physiology. "Genesiurgic" is a word used in Thomas Taylor's translation of Iamblichus; Anthony speaks of "genesiurgic tendencies" as being the planetary influences.
Previously printed, distributed 2003.

TRANSCRIBED by jf 2003 from Audio Cassette tapes; reformatted by jf 2018. In 2024, IT updates prefatory matter and footer, replaces tape markers with audio file markers, alters Topic, completes Book List, adds Plotinus quotes section, corrects typos and some listening errors, adds new notes and alters some existing notes within transcript, adds two diagrams and references within transcript to these diagrams, reformats to accord with new conventions. Readable edited transcript – V11r.

AUDIO FILES: 1981 0606a, 1981 0606b. [Note: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files.]

Highlight:

1981 06/06 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Neo-Platonism; Iamblichus; Images

[Iamblichus. On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians. 3rd ed. Tr. from the Greek by Thomas Taylor. London, Stuart & Watkins, 1968 [1821]. [Italicized quotes in text, between *"..."*, are Porphyry's questions being addressed by Iamblichus; square brackets in quoted text are in published version unless otherwise noted; minor variations read on the tape restored to text version in printed book. Pp. 1-16 of the book are the text of Porphyry's letter.]

[Audio File 1981 0606a Begins]

(shuffling around, noises, etc.; AS begins at 0:00:54.3)

AS: (inaudible)

AD: Yes, start. "What kind of art, likewise, is this image fashioned?"

Iamblichus, pp. 191-3 (AS reading): "By what kind of art, likewise, is this image fashioned? For it is said, indeed, to be fashioned by demiurgic art; but this is effective of true essences, and not of certain images. Hence the image-producing art is distant by a great interval from the seminal production of realities. Besides, neither does it preserve a certain analogy with divine fabrication. For divinity does not fabricate all things, either through the celestial physical motions, or through a partial matter, or through powers thus divided; but he produces the worlds by conceptions, will, and immaterial forms, and through an eternal and supermundane soul. The maker of images, however, is said to elaborate them through the revolving stars. But the thing does not in reality subsist so as it appears to do. For since there are certain infinite powers in the celestial Gods, the last genus of all the powers in them is physical. But again, of this power one portion being inherent in spermatic reasons [or productive powers], and prior to these reasons being established in immoveable natures, essentially precedes generation. But another portion being inherent in sensible and visible motions and powers, and in celestial effluxions and qualities, has dominion over the whole visible order of things. This last power, therefore, in all these rules over the circumterrestrial manifest generation in places about the earth. Many other arts, however, as for instance, the medical and gymnastic, use this power, which has dominion over visible generation, and the qualities of the effluxions sent from the heavens employ it, and likewise all such arts as in their operations communicate with nature. And moreover, the image-making art attracts a certain very obscure genesiurgic portion from the celestial effluxions."

AD: Let's start at the top and see if you can make sense out of it.

AS: He starts with this "artificer of these efficacious images" [p. 191].

LR: Is he talking about the Sun in Aquarius as opposed to the Demiurgic Intellect? (silence)

AD: Well, what is he talking about?

LR: He's talking about the fabricator of images, not essences--

VM: It seems to me that there are three fabricators talked: one who knocks on and bangs on stone, makes statues; one who generates images, and I would agree with Linda that's the Sun in Aquarius, and he uses the 'maker of images' in that sense as the motions of the stars and the planetary spheres; and then there's a higher fabrication than that, which I'm not quite sure where to put that fabrication.

AB: I think he was talking about sacrifice and everything and he's trying to establish that the fabrication of the Gods is above the fabrication of images.

VM: Right, right.

AB: I would be bringing them down, to think of them as being involved.

Iamblichus, p. 193 (AD rereading): "[T]he image-producing art is distant by a great interval from the seminal production of realities. ... neither does it preserve a certain analogy with divine fabrication. For divinity does not fabricate all things, either through the celestial physical motions, or through a partial matter, or through powers thus divided; but he produces the worlds by conceptions ... and through an eternal and supermundane soul. The maker of images, however, is said to elaborate them through the revolving stars."

AD: Now divinity here you would say would be the Demiurge?

VM: Well that was Linda's conjecture, I'm not sure.

AD: The Demiurge does not "fabricate all things ... through the celestial physical motions"-- that means the cosmocrators. (VM assents) "Or through a partial matter"? That would be matter, that would refer to matter as formless. "Or through powers ... divided; but he [AD substitutes: the Demiurge] produces the worlds by conceptions, [AD substitutes: Ideas--the ideas that he assimilated] will, and immaterial forms, and through an eternal and supermundane soul." So it would be saying here something similar to what we said when we think of Zeus' double, as two-fold, and that one part contemplates the abiding wisdom, and the other part of Zeus fabricates from his own essence, through the use of the mundane Soul, he fabricates and he has to employ ideas, will, and (inaudible; VM inaudible) and immaterial forms. Yes.

VM: You're saying that one way to symbolize this would be the Jupiter in Sagittarius?

AD: (assents) And he goes on: "The maker of images ... is said to elaborate them through the revolving stars."

VM: (inaudible) That sounds like the Sun in Aquarius. (AD: "The maker of images".) The taijasic consciousness actually unfolds these immaterial forms in the sensible world, through the motions of the planets.

AD: So then images here would mean?

VM: I'd say primal images.

AD: Uh-huh. Primal image(s).

VM: Can include or the entire subject-object relationship as we know it.

AD: Uh-hm. And then he goes on: "[T]he thing does not in reality subsist so as it appears to do. For since there are certain infinite powers in the celestial Gods, the last genus of all the powers in them is physical." So the fabrication or the construction of the primordial image is the last of the powers? "But again, of this power one portion being inherent in spermatic reasons [AD says both"reasoning, reasons"] ... [AD adds: and] prior to these reasons being established in immoveable natures, essentially precedes generation." Now he's saying here of the powers that belong to the Celestial Gods, he's saying part of it is inherent in spermatic reason-principles. Oh by the way, what do you think spermatic reason-principles are? (LR inaudible) Huh? Spermatic reason-principle?

LR: Drops.

AD: Huh? You're right.

S: Right.

LR: You could almost answer that (further) questions (inaudible) the drops. (some student snickers)

AD: Well you don't have to use the word. I don't think the word is very good, 'drops,' it's very misleading, but spermatic reason-principles is much more the point. Because when that comes down into you, then you have knowledge. If you think of drops, alright, you're going to have to fall back to a mythological language. And you fall back into a mythological language you're going to have a little, you know, problem in explaining. And, again he was speaking about this last of the powers [physical] that belongs to the Celestial Gods. He says part of it is "inherent in the spermatic reason [or productive powers], and prior to these reasons being established in immoveable natures, essentially precedes generation." So prior to the drops?

VM: Yes, eternal. It's part of the eternal Soul, or part of the Demiurge.

AD: Go ahead, read the whole page again, and he does it in a page. He does it in a page without the use of mythological language. Which we still can't analyze, you know, but--

VM: We still don't know what he's talking about, he does briefly (inaudible).

S: (inaudible)

AD: Read the page.

Iamblichus, pp. 191-2 (AS rereading): "By what kind of art, likewise, is this image fashioned? For it is said, indeed, to be fashioned by [AS adds: the] demiurgic art; but this [AS adds: Demiurgic art] is effective of true essences, and not of certain images. Hence the image-producing art is distant by a great interval from the seminal production of realities. Besides, neither does it preserve a certain analogy with divine fabrication. For divinity [AS adds: the Demiurgus] does not fabricate all things, either through the celestial physical motions, or through a partial matter, or through powers thus divided; but he produces the worlds by conceptions, [AS adds: by] will, and immaterial forms, and through an eternal and supermundane soul."

AS: He also says in the Timaeus that the Demiurge produces everything that's immortal. That if it was just the Demiurge producing, the whole world would be eternal therefore. But it takes all of the lower powers and so on to elaborate and divide up his eternal fabrication, to get all the partial-- partial powers.

Iamblichus, pp. 192-3, cont. (AS rereading): "The maker of images, however, is said to elaborate them through the revolving stars. But the thing does not in reality subsist ... as it appears. ... For since there are certain infinite powers in the celestial Gods, the last genus of all the powers in them is physical. But again, of this power one portion being inherent in spermatic reasons [or productive powers], and prior to these reasons being established in immoveable natures, essentially precedes generation. But another portion being inherent in sensible and visible motions and powers, and in celestial effluxions and qualities, has dominion over the whole visible order of things. This last power, therefore, in all these rules over the circumterrestrial manifest generation in places about the earth."

AS: You know, here where he says "there are infinite powers in the Celestial Gods," he says the "portion inherent in spermatic reasons ... and prior to these ... essentially precedes generation." But the other power is that of the cosmic circuit itself, the fabrications and effluxions of the cosmic circuit. (AD: Avery (inaudible)--) So that seems to be talking about those two, like the two streams.

AD: You remember how we took the Demiurge, put it inside the Metaphysical Chart, and showed how the Demiurge worked, the twofold Demiurge? [Note: See FIGURES 1981 0606-1, 2, and FIGURE AD_G_004.]

AS: Yes.

AD: Put it up here.

AS: (sounds like drawing-on-blackboard) Well we had a couple of ways. One way is to take this-- where we considered the Jupiter in Sagittarius was part of the third quadrant, this is "in himself". And in his other aspect, he's concerned with providing the whole life of the cosmos. In the other aspect he's the leader of the four realms, the Sagittarius, Capricorn, and so on.

AD: And that coincided with what we found out in the Kabbalah? (AS assents) They speak about Kether getting crystallized out of the Ain Soph Aur. [Note: See FIGURES 1981 0606-2, 3. See also Astronoesis, Fig. 162 on p. 340.]

AS: So that would be here. But over here you would have Kether with the four mater-- He says these are the four realms of manifestation, and beyond that is the 3 realms of non-manifestation, beyond manifestation. But even here this Kether which he says gets crystallized out is like the "power inherent in the spermatic reasons ... which is established in immovable natures [and] essentially precedes generation." He seems to be saying that the power of this Demiurge essentially precedes the whole of generation. Because it really is coming from the realm beyond generation. Whereas the production of images, the production of the effluxions of the planetary spheres and so on, seems to really be going on here in the 12th house. Whereas this production, the spermatic reasons are being inserted in here. Or we could say the production of the spermatic reasons would be going from the Jupiter to Mercury?

[Note: See FIGURE AD_G_004 and FIGURES 1981 0606-5, 6 for context for following discussion.]

AD: I think the way we worked that out was that we took the twofold Zeus, and he created-- well-- You remember, in terms of his essence composed of Being, Life, Intellect, Sameness, Difference.

AS: Yes, that was Jupiter Pater, the other Jupiter. (drawing sounds) (inaudible) all the dignities from the 3rd quadrant.

AD: From the 3rd quadrant. And then he informed the Matter of the 4th quadrant. Remember doing it like that?

AS: Yes.

VM: Yes. In fact, the image that was coming to my mind in the context of this discussion was how you-- if you're going to take the Maker of Images as the Sun in Aquarius, the nice thing that you did was to string the-- starting with the Jupiter ring on the outside, and then the Tail ring on the inside so you see the actual infusion of the sort of-- you know, the part that's prior to generation *in* the actual fabricator of images. So that this physical power does get, let's say, invested from a principle outside of generation.

AS: Yes, that would be tracing the reason-principles. He says that the (VM: Right.) "generative Soul is stored up with the reason-principles but not the very originals" in that Plotinus quote. [Note: See Plotinus, II.3.17, last paragraph.] So that Sun is that generative Soul. It's stored up with the reason-principles.

AD: Well, (we put it) over here, put it over here. So, if we put the Saturn [in Libra] here, okay, Tail, (drawing sounds) and then the physical world, alright, so we have the reason-principles here informing the matter, alright? And then we have the combination of the various archetypal powers, alright, the Sun combining them with the matter to produce the whole of this here. Now it's within this realm here that the physical images are produced, our so-called primal image. See how much he condenses in one page? And he's just assuming that you're familiar with the Platonic tradition, that he can say these things in the shortest way possible. In other words he would regard you as some sort of initiate. If you don't understand this page, he would say, heh.

VM: Shouldn't be reading it.

AD: No, you shouldn't be, you know--

AS: (inaudible)

LR: So you're saying only within (VM to AS: Right, yes.) the 12^th house is the primal image fabricated? Is that what you just said?

AD: Yes, yes. And you would see that it would coincide here with the Buddhist position that they take, you know. Their position is in the 12th house, they say we can explain everything from here. And we try to show that they're largely justified in taking that position.

AB: So what you're speaking about is the power of the Gods, and first it's established in the immovable natures preceding generation. That we're putting in Sagittarius? (AD: Well--) I mean out there--

AD: You remember, you have to start out with the quotation where he speaks about Zeus. When he speaks about the way the Soul is going to fabricate the universe. Now whether the individual Soul or the Demiurgic Soul it doesn't matter, both of them will coincide. And he speaks about the distribution, he speaks about the way Zeus, that the essence of Soul was of a particular kind, and he referred to Being-Life-Intellect-Sameness-Difference, and that he would, in fabricating Soul he would combine these, and you would have a particular Soul. A particular Soul being, for instance, the Sun in Aquarius. And the production of the Sun in Aquarius would result in the formation of the 12th-house image. So that the Sun of a particular solar system would be a particular Soul. And that would participate in Being-Life-Intellect-Sameness-Difference. That was the system we worked out some time ago.

LR: So I'm not exactly sure where the spermatic reasons fits in, in that (inaudible). "[O]f this power one portion being inherent in spermatic reasons--"

Iamblichus, p. 192 (AD rereading): "For since there are certain infinite powers in the celestial Gods, the last genus of all the powers in them is physical.… of this power one portion being inherent in spermatic reasons [or productive powers], ..."

AD: Now he's saying that in the cosmocrators, there's this power which he calls the reason-principles, which are going to be distributed in bodies, and that these reason-principles--

LR: --precede-- are prior to--

AD: No-- they're *after* the immovable essences, but--

LR: But they precede that primal image which is being fabricated in the 12th house--

AD: Yes. Yes. And they precede the primal image and he points out by such a vast interval is that separated from the images. Because they are the *cause* of the image. [cf. Iamblichus 191-2]

LR: So is that coming from that Sagittarius or is it coming through the Sun in Aquarius?

AD: No. The image?

LR: The spermatic, the drops--

VM: Wouldn't they be coming from the Soul ring, which we actually left out of this?

AD: We didn't work out the Soul ring, we didn't put the Demiurgic Intellect, the partial Souls within the Demiurgic Intellect.

VM: (inaudible) The way we used to draw starting from the Saturn in Leo, then the Jupiter in Virgo, the Mars, Venus, Mercury in the 3rd quadrant, and then the Moon [in Capricorn] connecting into the Sun in Aquarius. (Are) the spermatic reason-principles are schematically or diagrammatically coming through that? I thought the tentative illumination of matter (inaudible).

AD: Oh-- (inaudible)

AS: I thought that what you were doing Vic, just what you were saying, that you have outside here, like you have this Jupiter (VM inaudible; sounds of drawing) and the Prajapatis around the Sun, and the Tail, that would be the way the this Sun is stored with those reason-principles, and those would be the spermatic reason-principles which the Sun is actually using in fabrication.

VM: So there's no necessity to make reference to the actual Individual Soul?

AS: (In/He's) speaking of this continuity all the way down from the immaterial reason-principles here beyond generation to the spermatic reasons which the Sun is actually employing, and then finally down here to the image-making faculty.

AD: So you're really dealing more with the objective (side). (VM: objective side) So that the objective world, the imaged world that we deal with, alright, is the product of these reason-principles. And again, I know it's going to annoy Linda, that there's a-- I think it's in the *Mystical Hymns of Orpheus*-- I can go get you the quote, he makes it very clear, that the world can be only be replenished by *drops*. Now this is a pretty close paraphrase, not only individually, but the whole of the world is replenished continuously by drop after drop. Since the entirety of the world cannot-- the world as a total cannot receive all that wisdom all at once, it can only get it a drop at time, and it is replenished. So we're speaking about objective manifestation. I think that was in the Hymn to Salina?

JC: I have the quote.

AD: Oh. Read it please.

T. Taylor footnote to Hymns of Orpheus, Hymn to Nature (JC reading): "Since the world has an extended and composite essence, and is on this account continually separated from itself, it can alone be connected by a certain indivisible virtue infused from the divine unity. Again, since from a natural appetite, it is ever orderly moved towards good, the nature of such an appetite and motion must originate from a divine intellect and goodness. [JC comments: And now to the point.] But since, from its immaterial perfection, it cannot receive the whole of the divine infinity at once, but in a manner accommodated to its temporal nature: it can only derive it gradually and partially, as it were by drops, in a momentary succession. So that the corporeal world is in a continual state of flowing and formation, but never possesses real being; and is like the image of a lofty tree seen in a rapid torrent, which has the appearance of a tree without the reality; and which seems to endure perpetually the same, yet is continually renewed by the continual renovation of the stream."

AD: Where was that, the Hymns?

JC: It's page 223, Thomas Taylor The Platonist book, it's in the Hymns, but I think this is a footnote to one of the Hymns. (S inaudible; S2: I can't hear you, Jeff.)

JC: It's a footnote on page 223, Thomas Taylor The Platonist book, it's a footnote to one of the Hymns. (AD inaudible; LR inaudible)

AD: Well, yes, Keats was acquainted with (it). Because towards the end, as a matter of fact, he's made the remark that he had enough of words and images and now he want to get to something closer to reality.

LR: I'll bring that--

AD: You remember the paraphrase?

LR: It said something like, what is it that-- what is the top (orb) of the world, something like that, he said these shimmering drops of light which were wisdom. I can't--

AD: Okay. (inaudible) Now it's obvious one can see that this tradition is primal, I mean it doesn't belong to anybody. I think it was Gabriel told me, he read in Blavatsky that she made the remark that this tradition, the Kalachakra, existed since the beginning of the Europe continent. (S inaudible)

GA: She said it existed before the continent of Europe arose. (student snickers; inaudible)

AB: When you use the quote, the maker of images elaborates the through the revolving stars, the "revolving stars" --that would refer to the seven planetary spheres?

AD: Yes. It would be referring to the wandering stars. They refer to the planets of the wanderers.

AB: And then the ones above them are fixed.

AD: So the "maker" -- would you read that again, please?

Iamblichus, pp. 192-3, cont. (AB rereading): "The maker of images, however, is said to elaborate them through the revolving stars."

AD: And there again, you can see that the kind of imagery that arises in our consciousness and what we know of-- what we know through our reflective consciousness has a basis in reality, this basis in reality is what these cosmocrators fabricated. And obviously they are prior to the images, in that the understanding we see from the images is more likely to be a truer form when we go beyond images or that which fabricated the images. And then he goes on:

Iamblichus, p. 192 (AD rereading): "But another portion being inherent in sensible and visible motions and powers, and in celestial effluxions and qualities, has dominion over the whole visible order of things [AD emphasizes last phrase]. This ... power, therefore, in all these rules over the circumterrestrial manifest generation in places about the earth."

AD: So he's making it very clear that the-- who the rulers of this planet are--

Iamblichus, p. 193 (AD rereading): "Many other arts ... as for instance, the medical and gymnastic, use this power ..."

AD: I think there that he's simply pointing out, and in the footnote he points out, in those days, a doctor who didn't know astrology wasn't a doctor.

VM: Those diploma studies--

S: Yeah, right. (student laughter)

AD: Yes. But there are times when, you know, medicine could be deadly if it's not done at the correct time. (silence) Let's read that last page now, 193-194. Would you? "It must--"

VM: Start at 193?

AD: Yes, the bottom. "Such therefore as the truth." Would you read it?

Iamblichus, pp. 193-4 (VM reading): "Such, therefore, as the truth is, such also is requisite to unfold it to others. It must be said, then, that the maker of images neither uses the celestial circulations, nor the powers which are inherent in them, nor those powers which are naturally established about them; nor, in short, is it possible to come into contact with them. But he artificially, and not theurgically, applies himself to the last effluxions which openly proceed from the nature of them, about the last part of the universe."

VM: I see, but he's using "maker of images" now in a slightly different-- (AS laughs)

AD: Now he's (inaudible)

VM: It's not the guy who works with a hammer and a chisel.

AD: The guy-- The astrologer.

VM: Or the astrologer too. The artist--

AD: That's what it's in reference to.

VM: I was thinking of an artist, but that's fine, an astrologer would work too.

AD: "The artificers of efficacious images" -- in other words, the astrologer, alright. If you think of the astrologer now, and you read that, I think you'll see that's what he's getting at. Continue.

Iamblichus, p. 194 (VM reading): "For these effluxions, I think, being mingled with a partial matter, are capable of being changed and transformed differently at different times. They likewise receive the transposition, from some things to others, of the powers which are in partial natures. The variety, however, of such like energies, and the composition of a multitude of material powers, are not only entirely separated from divine fabrication, but also from natural production. For nature produces her proper works collectively, and at once, and accomplishes all things by simple and incomposite energies. Hence it remains that a commixture of this kind, about the last and manifest celestial effluxion, and about the things which are moved by a celestial nature, is artificial."

AD: Now, you take that apart. And use it-- think of the astrologer as the maker of images. And you get a different version. Just a little--

AB: There's one line, I think from the paragraph before that I think would help a little: [p. 193] "the image-making art attracts a certain very obscure genesiurgic portion from the celestial effluxions."

AD: Yes-- Well, what would that be?

AB: Well, so these powers the Gods that we're talking about, or the rotation of the spheres, if you make, if you're an image-maker, let's say you're an astrologer, or some kind of magician, and you employ the appropriate practices, you actually will attract a little bit of that power of the cosmocrators in that, you know, in that the impermanence of the matter will be able to hold a little bit of it, and you can do something with it.

AD: Did you follow what he's saying?

VM: To follow up on that, Alan, he's saying here is that if, let's say, the astrologer can get this intuition, can draw on these forces, then it is requisite to unfold it to others. So in other words, he shares it, or he uses it on his (clients). But on the other hand, "It must be said, then, that the maker of images neither uses the celestial circulations, nor the powers which are inherent in them," and so on. So he's actually not using the motions of the planetary spheres --in themselves.

AB: There's a very obscure genesiurgic portion that he's (using).

VM: Yes, right. I guess the idea is that you shouldn't confuse the numbers in the ephemeris with the actual motions, of the power of the planetary spheres.

AD: But isn't he saying or making it clear, by saying that the astrologer is actually participating in that power?

VM: In an obscure way, yes.

AD: In an obscure way.

AS: So that means, for example, if you're trying to even conceptually understand certain aspects, you'd have a much better chance of doing it while those aspects are going on.

AD: Or there'd be a more direct participation in that, Avery? See already conceptually with-- that's not the astrologer I'm talking about. The astrologer I'm talking about would experience the effluxions of the planets to use-- in terms of let's say the buildup that's going on in the various bodies that he's working (all over), organic, you know, (AS assents) the physical, (AS: That would be--) (light), warmth. In other words, if you take the elements, alright, (AS: That would be the partial matter.) you speak about the soul of the elements manipulating the various sensible qualities of the body, the true astrologer is somehow aware of that.

AS: That would be what he means, I think, by the partial. These effluxions are mingled with the partial matter. They're capable of being changed and transformed at different times, (AD: Yes.) so (he/it) would be aware of the effect on the actual body.

AD: So that insofar that the effluxions of the planets, alright, are mingled with let's say the water organs in the body or the aerial form of this body, alright, and then he translates that into concepts. But if he doesn't get to that primarily, whether he knows it or not, consciously or unconsciously, he's not participating in their power. (VM: Does this something have to do, for example--) In other words he has effective knowledge.

VM: If in some cases you've mentioned how people would develop certain gems or talisman and so on, and try and let's say channel these astrological power.

AD: Combine these forces, and congeal them into some solid particle, you know, or object. So some of these talismans have a tremendous power.

VM: They're capable of being changed and transformed differently at different times, so he's making a reference (to that).

AD: You remember we gave the example from Paracelsus, you take lead and tin and you melt it down with a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter.

VM: Right, right.

AD: Then you wait for Venus, and you melt copper into it, and then you build this talisman which has all these effluxions or influences congealed, and they call that a talisman.

AB: That's why a doctor would have to be an astrologer, because to understand what's going on in the physical body, you'd have to experience it or see it as the end-results of all these (AD: All these, yes.) cosmic forces.

AD: (inaudible) be. Go ahead.

JL: Are we talking about the powers and forces in the 12th house down here?

AD: Yes.

JL: In the sense that they're acausal?

AD: I don't know what you mean by acausal?

JL: I mean, they don't-- they're kind of a final product, and upon the formation of, let's say, a certain composite of these forces, they cannot produce any further than themselves. And they can become like a mixture, but not itself a--

AD: --another cause or further--

JL: Yes. I mean, they can form, let's say, natural bodies or in a sense kind of psychic entities but as a composite mixture.

AD: Well, they can be in-forming the natural bodies. In other words, the effluxions that they send or the influences that they send can be incorporated into the body and become part of that body and consequently exert the influence that's inherent in it. But that's as far as it will go, I mean, that's the end of manifestation. That's what you probably mean by acausal. But I don't want to use a Samkhya term here.

JL: Well-- Is this something similar to what the occultists speak of as the lower astral?

AD: The lower astral? When you're speaking about the lower astral I don't know what you mean by that. Alright, so I think we can see where Iamblichus is coming from.

GA: Is the difference between, say, the astrologer, in this instance, and the theurgist is that the astrologer works with the material powers, the (inaudible) powers?

AD: Yes.

GA: Whereas the theurgist works actually works with the immaterial form and will of the supermundane soul?

AD: Yes.

GA: So that what the Kalachakra would be getting at is getting at that immaterial form, so that the theurgy could take place in terms of the perception of the will and immaterial form of the divinity rather than (inaudible) (within the 12th house).

AD: Do you follow that? (GA inaudible; LR inaudible)

GA: In trying to understand the difference between the astrologer and the theurgist, it seems the astrologer in this instance is working with the material powers as we described in the 12th house. But he can only work with those powers, by say, knowledge of the time, motions of the planets, and forth. But the theurgist actually works in the realm of the immaterial form and will and conception, as he mentioned on the prior page, of the supermundane Soul. So that the theurgist would actually be working with the forms prior to the powers that make up the material world.

AD: Now do you understand why I'm so skeptical about their claims? (VM: Whose claims?) (inaudible)

GA: Well, in the Kalachakra the claim is, or the-- I guess what is being striven towards is to create immaterial form, in other words to bring about a theurgical operation.

AD: That's why PB (had) made the reference that many of their Gods are imagined. There's a very thin line that divides, you know, the actual recognition and co-operation(,) working with these powers is the immaterial powers, and the imagination that one is doing so.

VM: So you're saying that some of the visualization exercises eventually result in the generation, or let's say, the manifestation of true immaterial powers, others are--

AD: Or cooperation with them.

VM: Or cooperation with them, cooperation with them, the lower individual can't generate the higher.

AD: Yes. Don't (inaudible) the human, the human.

VM: But sometimes it's just the product of the imagination of the practitioner, is that what you're saying? (AD: The last part?) In some cases, it's just the product of the imagination of the practitioner (AD: Yes.) --of the person who's doing the exercises.

AD: The dividing line is very difficult to ascertain between, let's say, a magician and an astrologer who participates somewhat in the knowledge of these things, and the theurgist who's above these things and cooperating with them.

VM: Let me be a little more concrete. (AD assents) You know, you say PB doesn't work with the astrological transits, if he's working on you or he's effecting a certain change on you, it's not easy to correlate it with the-- not that he'll --

AD: He won't contradict the lower.

VM: He won't contradict the lower, but (you) can't get a full understanding by just looking at transits, and in that sense would he be operating more in the theurgic manner?

AD: Yes. If you asked a question, alright, you might assume that the Intellectual-Principle was to respond. The Intellectual-Principle is just a generic name, but he sees a host of powers, you know, that are innumerable. And for certain specific questions certain spiritual realities will be the answer, not any spiritual beings, but certain spiritual beings. But it would come through as an answer from the Nous itself. So if we think of the Nous as a congeries or confluence of many spiritual realities-- [Note: See Plotinus, VI.7.14, second paragraph.] like Plotinus points out the Intellectual-Principle has all these Ideas and Intellectual act within itself-- the question asked of the Nous, it's answered variously according to different powers or intellectual Ideas or contents of that Intellectual-Principle. So he [sage] is there cooperating or working with them, whereas the lower theurgist or the astrologer or the magician at the lower end is trying to manipulate these things. In the end he gets manipulated. Go ahead.

AB: Okay. In the schemata we've been working with, the Ptolemaic one, where you have the seven planetary spheres and they're rotating, but then the last three are fixed. Or else they say they're going in the opposite direction but they appear fixed. In terms of what you were just saying to Vic about the theurgist who is working above the planetary aspects, in that scheme would you say--

AD: I didn't say above. (AB: Well, you--) With it.

AB: With it but-- Is he coming from those upper three levels where you speak of the fixed stars--

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1981 0606a Ends; Side 2 Begins)

AD: --where the quotes were. (AS: Okay.) You want to look up another passage? Another page, another chapter? (noises on tape) By the way, I mentioned at the beginning of the class, we're going to start the Timaeus sometime in July. Start reading it because it'll be hopeless to come to class without having read it, it'd be just a waste of time. Um-- How about 197?

VM: The one on astrology? (AD inaudible, pages turning, etc.) (inaudible) --maybe you could touch on that business about sacrifice which I found very mysterious. (inaudible)

AD: Vic wants to go to passages on sacrifice?

VM: I mean, I'm sure there's other useful things, but if I had to make a wish list-- (AS, other students inaudible)

AD: (inaudible) if don't get it over with, do it next with.

AS: Maybe this one (inaudible).

VM: I can't remember now, it's so long since I read it, there's a whole chapter, a whole section on--

AD: Okay, let's read towards the end, let's read (about) sacrifice, 281-282. (sounds of papers shuffling)

VM: 225, also 281.

AD: (assents) Alright, why don't you read it? Go ahead, Avery.

AS: He says-- [p. 281] "These things also admit of another explanation--"

AD: By the way, Jeff, I wanted to say that although we have, you know, when you read about Alexander the Great and all his conquests which was over a million square miles, it's never been duplicated since or-- But I think the Alexandrian School tried even a greater conquest, which hasn't been attempted anywhere else (inaudible). I (inaudible) want to try to get into the Alexandrian school. And that means Synesius, you know, Ammonias Saccas, Plotinus, what they really were trying. [Note: "History of Platonism" class series began 6/20/81 following Iamblichus.] Okay. 281, do you want to start with? (AS: I don't know.) "The theurgist through the power of arcane signatures" -- Okay, go ahead.

Iamblichus, p. 281 (AS reading): "The theurgist, through the power of arcane signatures, commands mundane natures, no longer as man, nor as employing a human soul; but as existing superior to them in the order of the Gods, he makes use of greater mandates than pertain to himself, so far as he is human."

AD: Underline the parts, underline that part "so far as he is human". Because this will make some of the Neo-Vedantists think that they're gods.

Iamblichus, p. 281 (AS reading): "This, however, does not take place as if he effected every thing which he vehemently threatens to accomplish; but he teaches us by such a use of words the magnitude and quality of the power which he possess through a union with the Gods, and which he obtains from the knowledge of arcane symbols."

AD: (inaudible) It's pretty straightforward.

AS: By symbols, though, he doesn't mean just like images, they're more like-- would you say when they speak about a symbol of the divinity which is implanted in us, or symbol here would be almost like the reason-principles themselves, as symbols of the ideas.

AD: Yes. That the symbol has a wide range-- you know-- Sometimes one could conceive of the whole of sensible manifestation as a symbol for the higher reality, it's a wise range.

Iamblichus, p. 281 (AS reading): "This, likewise, may be said, that the daemons who are distributed according to parts, and who guard the parts of the universe, pay so much attention to the parts over which they preside, that they cannot endure a word contrary [to the safety of these], but they preserve the permanency of mundane natures immutable. They preserve this permanency, therefore, in an unchanged condition, because the order of the Gods remains invariably the same. Hence they cannot endure even to hear that threatened in which the aerial and terrestrial daemons have their existence."

LR: I don't understand when it says (inaudible).

AD: Well, think of-- Instead of using the word 'angel'-- instead of using the word 'daemon' use the word 'angel'.

VM: I think she was referring to something else.

LR: I was referring to the part on the theurgist "no longer as man, nor as employing a human soul." I don't see--

AD: He's not operating with the powers of the human-soul-man. But when he does have or is given this knowledge from the Gods he is operating with their power.

LR: But that's (inaudible) soul, where else would it come from?

AD: It's not a power that belongs to a (unit/human) Soul, it's not a command that's issued from his Soul.

LR: It says "nor as employing a human soul". I don't see, without going into his soul, how he would even arrive at the knowledge superior (to him)--

AD: I'm trying to explain it to you, you're giving me a grammatical explanation.

LR: Well, I mean it's one thing to-- never mind.

AD: I mean-- What you're saying here's an entity that's operating, delivering the commands, alright, but he's not a soul. He's not-- Is this what you're saying, according to the grammatical interpretation of the passage you just quoted me? He's not a human soul, therefore he's nothing, and yet he's delivering orders, commanding (the man). (LR: Well that's not exactly--) No, that would be wrong. So he is a human soul.

LR: I was asking from the passage, is it possible why the-- to have access to the other powers without employing--

S: --human faculties.

AD: The powers that are inherent in the human soul. That's the only way-- (LR: Okay, so then it's really--) He cannot employ the soul powers. How does, for instance, a sage deliver this great knowledge that we want, isn't it by a great negation of everything that is human soul? Can he deliver knowledge for instance of the Intellectual-Principle, or what's above the Intellectual-Principle, and remain a Human Soul? A Human Soul doesn't have that knowledge, it cannot command it. But that doesn't mean that in the process of delivering that information, the human soul gets annihilated or canceled out. It remains invariably a human soul. (LR: I don't get it.) Try again, Avery. Vic, you try. Come on-- (LR: No, I--) Keep asking.

LR: I understand that you're speaking about powers that are *beyond* the human soul powers, and that that's what attempting to (inaudible). We're not trying to (speak of) the powers of the human soul, it goes beyond, given by the Gods, that's not the problem.

AD: The problem is in the transference of that knowledge, alright. (inaudible)

LR: Does one buy--

AD: Huh?

LR: In the transference of the knowledge.

AD: Yes. The human soul as such. Go on.

LR: Is--

AD: Doesn't interfere.

LR: Doesn't interfere but it has to be the medium that the--

AD: Yes! There's nothing wrong with saying it's the medium.

LR: Okay, but that's not the way this passage--

AD: But I'm telling you, you're reading it grammatically.

LR: I'm reading it! Period! I'm reading it!

AS: Therefore grammatically.

AD: Read it again then.

AS: You're not supposed to read it, supposed to (inaudible).

AD: Read it again and interpret according to the grammatical structure.

LR: I'm reading it!

AD: Go ahead.

VM: It's impossible to read without grammar you know.

Iamblichus, p. 281 (LR rereading): "The theurgist, through the power of arcane signatures, commands ..."

AD: No, no, no, just the passage you're interested in.

LR: I am.

Iamblichus, p. 281 cont (LR rereading): "... commands mundane natures, no longer as man, nor as employing a human soul ..."

LR: That's the passage I'm interested in. (inaudible student comments) How could the human Soul be shut down?

AS: Well, insofar as any kind of motion is in the human Soul, as it were, it's going to--

LR: Well-- (inaudible/AS inaudible) If you restrict the human soul to (inaudible) lower nature that's fabricated in the 12th house, great, that's-- that's--

AD: No, no, we don't have to do that, Linda, but let's put it this way. Let's say you ask the sage for advice. And he's the mouthpiece for the Nous, and directly delivers it, (yes). Insofar that he delivers it, there is use being made of the human soul, it is a medium or a via media through which the Nous is communicating with you.

LR: Right. (inaudible)

VM: On the other hand, don't the (inaudible) say that this communication (inaudible). (several inaudible comments)

AS: Grammatically even-- Linda-- grammatically, you're saying, (LR: That's not from grammar.) No, no, but I'm saying, he says "commands the mundane natures, no longer as man, nor as employing the human soul", he's not saying that the powers-- he's not saying that the powers don't come through the human soul, he's saying insofar as he commands the mundane natures, it's not he as a human is the one that's doing it, it's more the Nous. So he's not saying that it's not a human soul, but it's just insofar as he's commanding these. Because these pertain to "greater mandates than pertain to himself as far as he is human."

AB: There's also the word 'employing' which-- (AS: 'Employing'.) He doesn't mean he's not using his soul operatively but (inaudible).

LR: I don't know what you mean by soul when you're saying that.

AS: You can't do anything that doesn't come from your own volition, Linda.

AD: No, what are you talking about there, we're not talking about that all. Again, you're superimposing a meaning on that because of a grammatical structure that it doesn't have. For instance, when the Soul wants to come in contact with the Nous, or comes in contact with the One, it negates itself, otherwise it cannot have that contact. Now in negating itself, it doesn't mean that it cannot communicate the knowledge it has received. But the knowledge it has received is not knowledge of the human Soul and it is no power or operation of the human Soul. Now if you insist upon reading it grammatically you're going to come up with the fact that say, there's a blank which is communicating (the) knowledge from the Nous.

LCG: I think what Avery said really answers it more easily. (AS: inaudible)

AD: It's the same, it's the same problem-- you keep having this problem that sometimes things are not correctly or grammatically stated. We had that last night in Plotinus a couple of times. Just a slight shade of grammar or structure and you think it means something else. You remember that famous dictum by Aristotle: like for a blind man to look into a mirror expecting to see an image, is like for a man devoid of understanding to read a book.

VM: That's just the feeling I had last Friday. (some student laughter)

AD: Remember, remember-- The better one was this Japanese master walking along and he saw a student reading a sutra, and he stopped and he says, I didn't know blind people could read. (lots of student laughter) That's a warning to all of us about words. Be very careful. That's one of the first disciplines, right? To learn to disassociate your psychological associations that a word has from the meaning that's trying to be conveyed.

LR: On the other hand, when you have a book to read, you try to get at what it's saying, I assume--

AD: No. (some student laughter, comments) You're quite right, Linda.

AS: But isn't the analogy-- that's a good analogy, if you take the book as analogy for the soul-- (LR: Oh.) I'm saying--if you take the book as analogy for the soul, then what it's trying to deliver is like the Nous, it's like if you keep concentrating on the words, then the words can either be transparent or they can interfere with the transmission. And insofar as they're not transparent--

AD: Besides, they're just printed words here. Black spots on white paper.

AS: It's right there in black and white.

AD: It's right there in black and white. (laughs) (inaudible; AS: inaudible/red) "It's right there in black and white", what they mean there it's right there in your mind, there's nothing in the black and white. The next page.

Iamblichus, p. 282 (AD reading): "Daemons preside with a guardian power over the arcane mysteries, and this in so remarkable a degree, because the orderly distribution of things in the universe is primarily contained in daemons. For the parts of the universe remain in order, because the beneficent power ... continues sacred and undefiled, and is not mingled with any opposing error and perturbation. The life of all things likewise remains pure and incorruptible, because the occult vivific beauties of the productive principles in Isis do not descend into body which is born along, and is the object of sight."

AD: Go on, Avery, do you want to read. (AS inaudible)

Iamblichus, pp. 282-3, cont. (AS reading): "But all things continue immoveable and perpetual, because the course of the sun is never stopped. And all things remain perfect and entire, because the arcana in the adytum are never disclosed. Hence, in those particulars in which the whole of things possesses its safety, I mean in arcana being always preserved occult, and in the ineffable essence of the Gods, never receiving a contrary condition; in these, terrestrial daemons cannot endure, even in words, to hear that they subsist otherwise than they do, or that they become profaned; and on this account threatening language has a certain power when employed against them. No one, however, threatens the Gods, nor is such a mode of invocation addressed to them. Hence with the Chaldeans, by whom words used to the Gods alone are preserved distinct and pure, no threats are employed. But the Egyptians, mingling daemoniacal words with divine signatures, sometimes employ threats. You have, therefore, an answer ..."

AS: It seems he says (inaudible).

AD: Well-- There is an interesting example in the *Theology of Plato*. You remember, where Proclus points out that those who want to go to get initiated, um, that they're usually confronted with daemonical furies of some kind. That of course is a dramatic presentation, but in the 20th century I think it would be different.

VM: (They would say it) psychologically.

AD: Yes, psychologically. Or--

VM: They'd say you have to confront the shadow and body, or something like that.

AD: Yes, that would be the psychological interpretation of that. So a person is forced to confront his own negativity, his shadow, or whatever, you know -- whatever particular problem or aspect in his being that has to be purified. And they speak about the mutations, that the Gods are capable of mutating base matter from the soul. And by base matter, I hope you're not thinking of something material. By base matter they mean here, I would say that the-- those things that have been generated in the soul, by its association with body. And it is that which they mean when they say that these have to be amputated. And these are the base matters that have to be amputated. (inaudible) I think he speaks about that somewhere. I think also you'll notice that he's-- there's quite a difference between him and between a theurgist, because he's really a hierophant, actually. (S inaudible; AS inaudible/on matter.)

LCG: (inaudible) I thought Vic wanted to do sacrifice. (inaudible)

AD: (inaudible) sacrifice. I want to leave that for the end.

LR: You mean that one on the daemons that you were talking about?

AD: We're going to do that in the Timaeus. We're going to do it in detail.

LR: But you actually had a passage that (inaudible) but then you said no.

AB: 320.

AD: I think we did that, that was the two Souls. (AB: No.)

LR: No, but that was a different one.

AB: About the essential daemon of the Soul (inaudible) allotted. [Note: Discussed in WG Class 1981 0613.]

AD: Let's go to 288 then, there's a little bit there that-- (shuffling of papers noises) (Vic, would you read?)

Iamblichus, pp. 288-9 (VM reading): "Since, however, every part of the heavens, every sign of the zodiac, all the motion of the heavens, every period of time according to which the world is moved, and all things contained in the wholes of the universe, receive the powers which descend from the sun, some of which are complicated with these wholes, but others transcend a commixture with them, the symbolical mode of signification represents these also, indicating *"that the sun is diversified according to the signs of the zodiac, and that every hour he changes his form."* At the same time, also, it indicates his immutable, stable, never failing, and at once collected communication of good to the whole world. But since the recipients of the impartible gift of the God are variously affected towards it, and receive multiform powers from the sun, according to their peculiar motions, hence the symbolical doctrine evinces through the multitude of the gifts, that the God is one, and exhibits his one power through multiform powers. Hence, likewise, it says that he is one and the same, but that the vicissitudes of his form, and his configurations, must be admitted to exist in the recipients. On this account it asserts *"that he is changed every hour, according to the signs of the zodiac,"* in consequence of these being variously changed about the God, according to the many modes by which they receive him. The Egyptians use prayers to the sun, conformable to these assertions, not only in visions which are seen by the bodily eyes, but also in their more common supplications, all which have such a meaning as this, and are offered to the God conformably to a symbolic and mystic doctrine of this kind. Hence it would not be reasonable in any one to undertake a defence of them."

(somewhere in here air conditioner has been turned on, so is harder to hear)

VM: Anthony, there's a key passage in here: "the sun is diversified according to the signs of the zodiac, and that every hour he changes his form." Is he saying something like the taijasa consciousness which we symbolized by the Sun in Aquarius is really in some ways is infinitely plastic or it can take on any form, and can manifest any of the forms which are inherent in it? And that you don't get in contact with the actual substance of the sun, but the various manifestations which utilize that substance.

AD: (inaudible) We'll try working it out. If we start at the first part we should have some difficulty--

Iamblichus, p. 288 (AD rereading): "... and all things contained in the wholes of the universe, receive the powers which descend from the sun, some of which are complicated with these wholes, but others transcend a commixture with them ..."

MW: It sounds like when we used the picture of the whole solar system being in the 12th house, the stars, and the planetary circuit. And then we say that the upper solar world is what's shining through that (entirety/inaudible), and the intellectuality can behold that whole system.

AD: Yes. Keep going.

MW: But that would be the (inaudible) of the signs of the zodiac and that's all that we're saying is in the 12th house, the powers which descend from the Sun are what-- let's say, those reason-principles (inaudible, coughing) through -- we said like the Sun in Aquarius is like that medium which the higher intellectuality comes through, and then it's informing the fixed stars, and the planetary spheres, that are in the 12th house.

AS: Yes, you can say that in the 12th house, there are the wholes in the universe, like these wholes would be the whole of the elements, the whole of the planetary spheres, and they're receiving this power from the Sun, the Sun in Aquarius, and that some of these powers which descend are um-- (LR inaudible) they (extend), are complicated with the wholes, so that they get-- not distorted exactly-- but differentiated and get (inaudible) manifested or interfered with in some way, with the materiality in which they're (inaudible) eventually effective. But some of the powers coming from the Sun in Aquarius remain completely immune (AD: Intact?) or intact.

AD: Even while they're (inaudible/interfering).

AS: Even while they're infusing the universe. (LR interrupts: In other words--)

MW: The drops, and the winds, you know-- we said the drops don't get commingled--

AS: --with the prakritis.

MW: Right.

AS: (inaudible) Like the prakritis themselves, as soon as some of this energy came through, the prakritis would immediately come in and get commingled with the vasanas which are actually in the earth or the water and so on. But there would be some essence of that which wasn't distorted or wasn't covered up or remained immutable.

LR: Like what about the power to be (imaginative), the imaginative power, before (inaudible) descend (to) these prakritis, these powers would be covered by (inaudible) the different planets, that that the imaginative force would still be something which would come purely through them.

AS: Well, um, the imaginative force.

AD: Perhaps in a more concrete way-- but insofar that the Sun in Aquarius, alright, transmits the Idea of Man for instance, and binds the Idea of Man with the actual physical fabrication of Man-- you have a mixture there. On the one hand, you have the individual fabricated man, the sensible man. And presiding, or remaining as a whole, and not immersed in that, alright, would be the Idea of Man. So that the whole is presiding over the part and is distinct from the part. Alright (inaudible).

JC: Do they mean by the intellectual (inaudible/heart of Bacchus is deserted) even though the Titans distribute its powers in the universe (inaudible) Bacchus.

AS: Yes, that's what (inaudible).

JC: The sun, if the powers of those that intellect which he contains can be distributed by the forces of the stars and planets and so on. But the fabricated image of what that intellectual form represents, it remains in the Bacchus, (AS: in the heart) in the Bacchus principle, the solar principle which is the intellect of the mundane world.

AS: Yes, they say that the Titans tear apart the Bacchus into seven parts.

JC: That (inaudible) soul which is operative in body (inaudible) titanic forces.

AD: So again, let's try again. Alright, how would you explain this?

JC: You said something about the Idea of Man would remain in the Sun, although the forces which would be employed by the Sun are actually that Idea, and is what these planetary and stars and so on, can mix in themselves, they are transmitted by the planets, the fabricated image of that (inaudible) (intellectual form).

AD: So if we said that the inerratic sphere gave us the shape or form of the man; the planetary spheres would give us the visible or apparent appearance of the man; and the cosmocrators provide us with the body which is formed of matter. And you have the distribution, in other words, the man that is produced here would have recourse to these three different principles, alright. Now we're still in the 12th-house universe. But now the Idea of Man, alright, which is coming from the 11th house Sun, presides *over* that [empirical 12th house man], so the whole --the Idea of Man-- is present with a commixture, alright, and yet the Idea of Man remains transcendent to that commixture. So that when the Nyaya logicians speak about *inherence*, alright, when they speak about the inherence of the universal, this is what they're speaking about.

AS: Also Plotinus says that each life lives by Soul entire. [Note: See Plotinus, V.1.2, fifth paragraph.] (AD: Yes.) (inaudible)

JC: The inherence of its presiding Idea.

AD: The whole, presiding over that part.

JC: The stars would be closest to that-- actual form in the sun, insofar as they provide the shape, the shape most similar to the form itself.

AD: Well, the inerratic sphere would be derived from a certain order of these Mundane Gods, the planetary spheres from the Liberated Order, and go that way. But all these, so to speak, must come from through the medium of the Cosmic Soul, the Sun in Aquarius. Then there's that distribution from the Cosmic Soul to the inerratic, planetary, and (inaudible). And each of those provide a certain aspect necessary to fabricate the man. The sensible man is built. But the Idea of Man which is in the Cosmic Soul, presides over that particular sensible man -- so that the whole is mixed with the part. The whole Idea of Man-- And this is why in one way the Nyaya logicians are justified in their reputation of the Buddhists, when the Buddhists say that nothing has a specific nature, they would point out that you cannot talk to me about anything, there's nothing you can say to me, because it is on the basis that each object has its own specific nature, not an inherent self-existence. Don't confuse-- you see, because this is what the Buddhists will come back and answer. And the Nyaya would just throw that out and say you didn't understand me. The only way I can understand something is that it has its own specific nature or mode of operation which distinguishes it and peculiarizes it from everything else. That has to be the whole, is present with that part. So when the Buddhists are saying there is no self-existent nature, they're speaking about the particular; the Nyayas are referring to what that particular symbolizes, signifies. And if you don't see these things, you'll see the controversy go on until the end of-- until pralaya. And even then it won't stop, it'll probably continue with the pralaya. (student giggles)

AS: Um, a similar example, when we were speaking about the connection between the Nous and the cosmic circuit, the functioning of the cosmic circuit was delivering to the Soul certain knowledge of the Nous. That the Soul was learning through the cosmic circuit, the Soul was learning about the Nous. Now on the one hand, the cosmocrators are actually fabricating these vehicles, building up the vehicles, based upon that Idea from the Nous. So in that way that Idea is actually being mingled in with the actual material constituents of the Soul. But on the other hand, also through the very same cosmic functioning, at certain times the Soul *might* get a certain, might get the direct immaterial knowledge of the Nous itself, (it) might permeate it, without a commixture with the vehicle. So that both of these would have to be present (AD: Yes.) in the Soul.

AD: Well, Plotinus warned us that the Soul is of a very complicated nature and that any simple explanation is just going to be irrelevant. Remember he makes that remark? [Note: See Plotinus, IV.3.1, first paragraph.]

AS: You know, this-- this next chapter is-- I don't think it's irrelevant to what we're doing now but it does have this thing on names. That problem that we sometimes come across in the nomi-- the Buddhist versus the Hindu view of names.

AD: Alright, what page?

AS: Well chapter-- page 289 and 290. He talks about whether the-- and a little further on-- whether there is really a significance to names, also 294.

Iamblichus, pp. 289-90 (AD reading): "For you inquire *"what efficacy there is in names that are not significant."*"

(AD/AS inaudible about pages)

AS: He does talk about that problem because there is a certain, it is related to (inaudible). Like on 294 he says--

AD: Well, (inaudible) significance (inaudible), first of all we have to understand that if there wasn't a certain significance to names, alright, that it would not be possible for-- to have command over--

S: (inaudible/perennial) doctrine.

AD: We know that. The way I was thinking was something like this: if we think of *name*, if we think of *sound* as an utterance, in the sense that it is direct line of communication with the Gods, alright. If we think of names as taking us all the way back to them, the transmission that takes place of the power of the Gods through a vibratory activity, alright. A name, let's say, would embody that vibratory activity, and consequently there would be a revelation of that God's power. Now if that's so, that would mean that the Gods *do have* very specific names and they can be called upon. I think this is the basis of mantra, (S assents) but that does not exclude the possibility that human reflective awareness, being such that it is, will reflect the original vibratory nature of what was being communicated, and make up names *for* it. So that you'd have the nominalist who claims that names do not carry significance.

VM: They're just conventional.

AD: They're just conventionalities. But on the other hand the more primal doctrine seems to be that the utterance, alright, there is the conveyed significance, and that the Gods do have their proper names. These names are not to be confused with the names that *men* give to the Gods.

VM: So there's like a sacred language and a secular language.

AD: Yes, alright. Well in that case, if that's so, then you will see that there will be two theories, you know, about names, alright. The nominalist theory that, you know, they're just words, conventional words. And the other theory, that a person could utter a certain sound or a certain word, which would-- well, Baron du Potet [Note: French esotericist, practitioner of mesmerism, 1796-1881.] is an example, he'd paralyze you with a word. You know, just you wouldn't be able to move. They had really a control over you, right then and there, right on the spot. But then again we never knew what his words were. (S inaudible) They weren't words, they were--

LR: "Stop!"

AS: 'Cause he command-- well he commanded you to forget them as soon as he said them.

LCG: There's something at the very end of that--

AD: But that's the whole theory of mantra, that's the whole basis of the theory of mantra. Go ahead.

LCG: I'm coming from left field-- (inaudible) at the end of that (sentence) (inaudible) Gods, at the end of that sentence, that the "God ... and receive multiform powers from the sun, ... that the God ... is one and the same, but that the vicissitudes of his form, and his configurations, must be admitted to exist in the recipients." I thought of how we were talking about the Number 8, and as being this God as one and as exhibiting his power through multiform powers and um these multiform powers. And these powers exist in the recipient, we could do that like that upside down, that tree [Asvatta tree, binary tree; see Astronoesis and its draft for #8], the one and then all these branches coming off of it, and we could use that as a symbol for the number 8. I remember once you were talking about how in reading things, you can look at passages and, um it's like numbers *spoken*. And anyway this idea brought up the number 8 and I was wondering you know, if that sentence--

AD: I think the correlation that Lauren is trying to make is that -- remember we spoke about the peculiar aseity of that each number has, and that this peculiar aseity often is brought out when we read a paragraph, a certain meaning is brought out, and this meaning can be correlated back to the aseity of a number. So that we ultimately could say, in one way, that all we're doing is reading the meaning of numbers, when we're reading words. I don't see what that has to do with this-- the connection has to be made, though, that the meaning or the aseity or the characteristic peculiarity that the number has, that has to be transmitted through some meaning, or sound. And that the molding or the meaning-- the meaning is independent of the medium in which or through which it is communicated. So that the problem that comes up would be that in the transmission of this meaning, there's an interference by the medium. Again, we're back to the theory of mantra. I don't know if we should get into that. Because the Hindus I think are the only ones who got into it in some depth. Anyway--

AB: You might not want to go into this but (he says) that: "by these names the sun becomes fixed in the heavens."

VM: Where's this from?

AB: In the footnote on 290, he's talking about these names which-- the non-significant names which really (inaudible), and I was wondering what it meant that "by these names the sun becomes fixed in the heavens." Unless he's saying that-- (VM inaudible) He's saying that maybe by these words that the Demiurge himself is what establishes the cosmic order---

AD: I don't follow you, stop.

AB: Well the footnote says, he says: [p. 289] "[Y]ou inquire, *'what efficacy there is in names that are not significant.'*" And he gives the example in the footnote [p. 290] of all these non-significant names, and he says:

Iamblichus book, p. 290 T. Taylor footnote, according to Alexander Trallianus and quoting him: "By these names {Alexander Trallianus says,} the sun becomes fixed in the heavens."

AB: I'm trying to understand what that would mean. (S inaudible) (I'm on) pages 289-290. And I thought one interpretation was like when you speak of the Logos, for the Demiurge, the Logos is speech, and so the speech of the Demiurge would actually fix the sun and the other stars in their proper place in the heavens, and establish the universal order-- that would like the causal level of the (inaudible).

AD: Read it again, would you?

AB: Well it says:

Iamblichus book, p. 290 T. Taylor footnote, according to Alexander Trallianus and quoting him: "By these names {Alexander Trallianus says,} the sun becomes fixed in the heavens."

AB: And he goes on in the paragraph to say that these names which don't appear to have any meaning really do have a significant meaning, and some of them are efficacious in terms of the Gods.

AD: What could he be referring to?

DB: Is he talking about the fabricative capacity of the Demiurgus rather than gnostic? Is that the distinction there (inaudible)?

S: Yes.

LR: Is he talking about false names?

VM: I don't think so.

LR: When you say there's some real names and some--

VM: Let's say they have no secular meaning but they have a sacred meaning. So they have no conventional meanings but then in some ways--

LR: No but he says "names that are not significant"--what does that mean?

VM: That's what I mean, there's no conventional significance.

AB: Like you went up to someone and you said "OM", they would, you know-- I mean, all those secret words wouldn't have any significance.

AD: Remember where he has the worship of animals by the Egyptians? He speaks about the worship of various animals. (sound of turning pages)

LR: What do those words mean, Anthony?

[Audio File 1981 0606a Ends]

[Audio File 1981 0606b Begins]

AD: The Egyptians used to worship these many animal forms, because each of these animal forms signalized [sic] that intellectual principle in operation. Well then-- Then when the sun revolves in the heavens, to get back to your question, insofar that the sun traveled around or through the zodiac, then the-- and the sun took on a different form every hour, now go back to your question.

AB: Well, then he said "by these names the sun is fixed".

AD: Now, what does it mean to say that the sun is fixed?

VM: I think he's talking about, for example, the degrees of the zodiac, the actual, fixed, anyway relatively fixed, signification of each of those degrees.

AS: Like what would determine it? Isn't it similar to the last thing we read about the wholes-- (AB/VM trying to say something during this) --the power of the sun which is immutable, but then it gets mingled in a certain way with these various spheres. So he's talking about the zodiac, the way that the immutable power of the sun (VM: fixed stars) is mingled with the fixed stars or the zodiac, and in that way is fixed.

AB: (inaudible) alchemical (inaudible).

AD: So that when they speak about it they're not referring in any way to the something spatial.

VM: You don't stop the sun.

AB: That the --um, like we speak of image-bearing light, that this power of the sun is fixed or impressed with the zodiacal meaning as it travels through these different houses. And according to the house that it's in, it imparts a different meaning.

AS: What about the names of the-- (silence, seems to be looking something up) (AD inaudible)

JC: (inaudible) "the sun be fixed in the heavens." The question is why is the sun fixed, or how is the sun said to be fixed in the heavens.

AD: Well, we're trying to understand what he means by saying that the sun is fixed by names.

GA: It could refer to the way of keeping time, and names of all the hours, and all the subdivisions. (AS: But these (inaudible).)

AD: Say more--

GA: Because each of the subdivisions of time would conform to these immutable powers (in its own right) (inaudible, someone blowing nose) It seems they would discover names that signify and fix seemingly spatial, you know, fix these qualities, these powers, as if in the heavens. They'd mark it right off, so many stars to the left, you know, and then there's a new station, they call them stations. You know, certain stars rise, 10 degrees, and then there's a new station. And it has a specific name. And certain powers of the sun are correlative with that station.

AS: I don't see how these names have to (inaudible) it seems like-- (S/GA inaudible)

JC: Could you say that each intellectual order in the Demiurgic mind, which is the order for the structure of the universe, could be represented by a certain unfoldment of names, and that in each sphere or level in the world, they have to be understood as fixed by the intellectual conception of the Demiurge, and would be the name appropriate to those conceptions.

AS: Do you know what, I think maybe that's the basis of the Kabbalists assigning numbers to these names. They're really the significances, it's the numbers which are the powers of the unfoldment of that one power, of the Sun, (inaudible) sun. And that these, and that each of these names is essentially tied up with the power of some number. (LR inaudible) That's the basis for their assigning these numbers, when they correlate a number to the name. The opposite is that the name actually corresponds to a number in some way.

LR: Jeff, could you repeat what you said?

JC: Um, he says "by these names the sun is fixed in the heavens." Well, we know from reading the Timaeus and so on that it's in the Demiurgic intellect that the order of the universe is established. And I would assume that there's certain intellectual conceptions in his mind which is the foundation for the structure of the universe the way we perceive it. And that those conceptions could be represented by names, that the Sun would be in a particular position in the middle of the heavens, and would represent, would be represented by-- that that Idea in the Demiurgic mind which places that Idea in the middle of the heavens could be represented in terms of certain names, would represent those Ideas he has, and establishes the sign (and its place).

(silence)

AD: I have the feeling that there's some doctrine here that we're not acquainted with.

VM: Does he make reference to it here in this next footnote? This seems to tie in with what Jeff was saying about-- in the middle of the footnote, he says on page 291:

Iamblichus book, footnote by T. Taylor, p. 291, quoting Proclus (VM reading): "It is, however, necessary to know that *the divine name* of its abiding power, and which is a symbol of the impression of the Demiurgus, according to which it does not proceed out of being, is ineffable and arcane, and known only to the Gods themselves. For there are names adapted to every order of things; those, indeed, that are adapted to divine natures being divine, to the objects of dianoia being dianoetic, and to the objects of opinion doxastic."

VM: And so on. And on the next page he says:

Iamblichus book, footnote by T. Taylor, p. 292 (VM reading): "... divine names unfold the whole essence of the things named, but those of men only partially come into contact with them."

VM: There's a lot in there. It's a whole study. (S inaudible)

AD: Well this is the whole nominal theory. How the universals get into words.

AS: He even makes reference in here to the fact that certain languages are more appropriate, like the Egyptian and the (inaudible).

AD: And he speaks about the employment about (inaudible) names, and not to change them that -- you know, people have a penchant, they want to study the Bible, they learn Hebrew, and others who study the Vedas and learn Sanskrit, they want to get as close as possible to the original sounds and the original alphabet. I think there's a doctrine here that we're not acquainted with which he's stated.

AS: Just one other interesting thing-- like when we correlated those shaktis, the mantra, and so on, that these words are correlated with MantraShakti, and we've correlated MantraShakti with the Sun in Aquarius. [cf. Astronoesis p. 188] I mean, when we correlated the powers, meaning the "protection of manas" -- mantra, the protection of manas and so on. And so when he says that these are the stations of the Sun, or whatever, there certainly is some kind of connection of that Sun with the power of Mantra. if we follow that correlation of the shaktis with the divine names.

AD: Alright. (silence, except for birds singing and mourning dove outside) Wasn't there a footnote on p. 318-- you'd think that that's-- (sounds of turning pages)

AS: The whole of time but is frequent (inaudible)--

[Iamblichus, p. 318, footnote by T. Taylor {not on tape but referred to here}: Through a period of 300,000 years; and Procl. in Tim. lib. iv. p. 277, informs us that the Chaldeans had observations of the stars which embraced the whole mundane periods. What Proclus likewise asserts of the Chaldeans is confirmed by Cicero in his first book on Divination, who says that they had records of the stars for the space of 370,000 years; and by Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. lib. xi. p. 118, who says that their observations comprehended the space of 473,000 years.]

JC: That's 12 periods of sidereal years. 25,000 years (AS: times 12) times 12 (MW: times) (AS: times 300). That's (inaudible).

AD: Repeat that. (JC inaudible) I think this is where Blavatsky got the quotation where she said that the Chaldeans have been known to record astrologically for 300,000 years, have records going back that far.

JC: It probably would take that long observing the heavens to get some idea of what the intellectual idea is that's presiding over it. (inaudible; VM inaudible).

AD: 300,000 years is a long time. (students agreeing: Yup! a long time.)

AS: --and to have records going back 300,000 years.

LR: But they actually observed it for 473,000 years. So for 173,000 they were just observing it before they were (inaudible), so they could be accurate about it. (student inaudible comments, etc.)

AS: Modern science would balk.

VM: No, it wouldn't balk at all, it would say it's a small fraction of the age of the Sun. (Never mind-- later.)

AB: You brought up this whole discussion, in the context of talking about the peculiar daemon. (inaudible student comments)

AD: Let's go over the 308 pages, all the way to the end. That remark, remark, would really (retain/pertain to) that. (sounds of pages turning; S: Chapter VI.) Yes. Alright, we want to retain this for further and future use. So let's go through this, okay. Would you read the important parts, Avery?

AS: The whole first half--

AD: Chapter VI, Chapter VII [Section VIII]. Let's start with chapter VI.

Iamblichus, p. 308 (AS reading): "You say, therefore, *"that according to many of the Egyptians, that which is in our power depends on the motion of the stars."* ... [T]he truth ... [AS adds: of this] however, ... For man, as these writings say, has two souls. And one, indeed, is derived from the first intelligible, and participates of the power of the Demiurgus; ..."

AD: So there he's saying that the Saturn in Leo participates in the Demiurgic power, that's the Soul, okay.

Iamblichus, cont. p. 308 (AS reading): "... but the other [AS adds: soul] is imparted from the circulation of the celestial bodies, to which the soul that sees God returns."

AD: So now he's saying that there's a second kind of soul, if we think of the body on earth, it has a soul, and it has a spirit. Now the soul that we have here is the soul which is given to us by the circulations of the planetary spheres. That's the second soul, alright. So you got two souls, just in case -- (student snickers, comments) And whenever they speak about selling the soul, you better find out which one. (student laughter, comments; S: the right price) Alright, going on--

Iamblichus, cont. p. 308 (AS reading): "These things, therefore, thus subsisting, the soul that descends to us from the worlds follows the periods of the worlds; but that which is intelligibly present from the intelligible, transcends the genesiurgic motion ..."

AD: Alright, now that first part of that sentence -- the soul--

AS: That descends from the motions of the circulation of the spheres, (AD assents) the cosmic circuit. Okay. And that follows the "periods of the worlds". That's subject to the effluxions and so on of the planetary spheres, and in fact being of the origin of those planetary spheres is under the influence of fates. The fates, the motions of the planets and the whole genesiurgic production. But, that which is intelligibly present, like the Saturn in Leo or the pure Soul he says 'transcends' the motions of the planetary spheres. And in some way is exempt from all of the-- he says the--

AD: It's exempt, it's exempt from the functioning of these planets. (S inaudible in background)

AS: Like it's impassive, like that soul does not receive anything back from the motions of the planetary spheres, it's only the lower soul that would retain the effect of those motions.

Iamblichus, p. 308 cont. (AD reading): "... but that which is intelligibly present from the intelligible, transcends the genesiurgic motion, and through this a liberation from fate, and the ascent to the intelligible Gods, are effected."

AD: So he's saying that we have this body, soul, and spirit which-- while we're here, alright. And then he's saying that we have (in) the higher soul, which is part of the Nous, alright. And he's saying that this higher soul is present in the lower soul. (AS assents)

VM: So it's through the higher that the actual ascent to the (inaudible).

AD: That the return back to the Nous takes place. But how is this higher Soul present in the lower Soul?

AS: That's what we tried, it seems that's the whole thing we were trying to do-- we were talking about-- the light imparted by the Soul and the reason-principles and so on, that are congealed. That was that whole problem that we were trying, that we kept hitting on, was how exactly the higher Soul is present in the lower. Or through drops or congealed reason-principles or the light imparted and so on. And it seems to be very important because it's through that, through whatever part of that higher Soul is imparted or present that the ascent back through the planetary spheres and eventually to the Nous is possible.

LR: You know something-- I don't understand the question.

S: What question?

AS: How is it present?

LR: Something about that question that you keep asking really (annoys) me, I don't--

AD: Well, that's a good sign, that's a very good sign, if you don't understand that. (student snickers, comments) Keep it up, (Mary.) (lots of laughter) Because I think you're zeroing in on what we're talking about. Go over this in your mind, go over this in your mind. You have a body, like the body here which you're speaking about comes from the substance of the earth, this body has a soul, this soul is part of the--you know--the planetary effluxions. Now what is that? (LR: What is--) What is this soul which is coming to us or which is 'ours' insofar that we participate in the cosmic circuit?

LR: You mean what is the lower soul? What is the soul (for the) lower of the cosmic circuit?

AD: When we take our cosmic circuit, alright, take the cosmic circuit, and we think of the cosmic circuit within the realm of the soul. (drawing-on-blackboard sounds; see FIGURE 1981 0606-7-JF) If this is the realm of the cosmic circuit, alright, then we're locating the body here, alright, we're locating the soul here, and let's say this is the inerratic sphere, alright, etc. So that the spirit, we located here. This would be kind of a Western (tour) of, you know, of alchemy, or Western occultism, alright. And then we speak about the Soul, which is part of the Intellectual realm, we speak about this here. Now unless we understand something about these here, unless we understand in particular, Soul here, alright, we won't understand how this is interacting with all of this here. In other words, if soul here-- the vibrations-- if we think of this as the inerratic sphere, alright, and that (marks on blackboard) and because of the inerratic sphere and the prime mover, it creates a certain world and there's a certain motion which is set up, and this motion penetrates right down into the body, causing it to breathe, 21,000 or 25,000 times a day, alright, [Note: About 22,000 times a day.] that there's a definite relationship and connection, let's say, between the prime mover or the world, and the body, the (breathing) organism, the inaudible (LR inaudible), okay. But then what would soul mean here? Because we do have to distinguish this soul, alright, from the soul which we're speaking about as out here. And after we distinguish between these two souls, then we have to try to understand how *this* soul, alright, is present in this one. (LR: So--) I didn't create these complications.

LR: So the soul which has a fabrication through a cosmic cause somehow generates almost like a consciousness or an intelligence--

AD: No, you see that-- that's not it. I wouldn't say it generates consciousness.

LR: An intelligence.

AS: But it would generate all the *contents* of consciousness.

AD: Yes we would say all the mental concomitants, all the impulses, volitions, wishes, desires, all these perhaps may be brought-- may be-- may be the mental contents.

LR: Well, I use(d) that word on purpose, a kind of consciousness, because in fact everything you just described is what we're most aware of in the world. (AD inaudible) I mean, it doesn't generator or fabricate THE consciousness, okay, or the awareness.

AD: That's the point we're making, it doesn't generate consciousness-- (AS interrupting, inaudible)

AS: Or even *our* awareness.

AD: But it does generate all these mental states.

LR: Which is mostly what we know.

AS: Yes, but even right when they're known, Linda-- (LR: But that's not-- I'm not--) No, no. But I'm saying that it doesn't generates a kind of consciousness-- I'm sorry-- But it seems like you're saying that, even right now, when the mental states are happening, the very consciousness of those mental states, right here, are produced by the motion of the cosmic circuit (LR inaudible) --is enough-- you seem to be saying that that's enough to explain our awareness of (inaudible).

LR: No. No, I wasn't saying that. No, I know that ultimately that awareness is coming from the higher Soul, and that it's somehow inserted-- But I'm trying to get at--

AS: Well (why don't you say) ultimately? (LR interrupts) (inaudible) by saying ultimately, it seems like you're saying well it's not present, that the other Soul is present--

LR: It is present! I know, that's what you're saying, I know. I'm just-- I'm trying to just change-- I mean, that's such a familiar statement of the problem that I'm trying to shift it around a little, so that we can understand why there's a problem here. And when you say, what is the Soul of that lower, the cosmic circuit um, it seems that even that in asking the question, when you actually list the contents of that lower soul, and you call all the mental states that we live through moment to moment, including the aspects, including the entire chart, including--

AD: All the mental concomitants-- go ahead.

LR: And that's also what's generating the evolution to get back to the-- it's generating the particular way in which that ascent is going to go on.

AD: Not necessarily.

LR: Oh maybe not-- okay, that's a question. (AS: But--) But the actual circumstances, I should say--

AD: Yes.

LR: Will be generated by that.

AD: Yes.

LR: Um, I guess, here's the thing: when you say, How are the two connected, there's a real supposition that there's a complete disconnection.

AD: Well, I have to make that supposition.

LR: But at one point, you actually started, I mean, do you remember when you stated it a little bit differently, and you said that maybe there really is something in that higher Soul that has to do with the fabrication of that lower soul. In other words, when you sunder them, the way they've been sundered now, the way we've spoken of them as being really sundered, or--

AD: Yes--

LR: It's really like taking a knife through yourself and saying the awareness comes from one place and everything else is coming from another place. And how are we going to get those together? But-- (AS: That's why it's just (inaudible)) Isn't there the slight possibly that *something* of the higher Soul is involved in the fabrication of that world? Or at least present with the fabrication?

AD: Present with-- yes. (AS inaudible)

LR: No-- present with the power of fabricating it.

AD: But that may be so, but you see, I still want to keep that division, that real cleft between the two. Because I want to be able to refer to this soul's activity, the lower Soul, to be able to refer to that as prakritis. [cf. Samkhya]

LR: Yes. (inaudible)

AS: But in the way you're stating the problem, though, Linda, it seems we spoke about what's coming from the higher Soul, not just this pure consciousness. But even the problem on the lower level, something goes on in the cosmos, and *in you* there's a certain meaning that's evoked or attributed to that circumstance. How do those two, even--

LR: From the Head.

AS: (They) get correlated. (laughter, snickers from students) Well I mean-- But that's how-- But if you say that the meaning is coming for each individual Soul, is not really coming-- there's something in his experience, there's some kind of knowledge, there's some kind of meaning, it's not purely coming from the lower soul, but really is coming from the higher Soul, from the light imparted. How does the proper aspect in the chart, say, invoke or correlate with the meaning or the knowledge that's present from the higher Soul, from the light imparted by the Soul? How is that higher Soul operatively present? I don't know-- (silence) I mean that seems to be all of those when we were trying to--

AD: There's nothing to fear in leaving a question unresolved, and just let it hang until sufficient understanding comes along to help to resolve it.

S: Can I ask a question?

AD: Go ahead--

S: It's personal, I just wondered about the vibratory rates.

AD: It's not personal, it's universal.

S: Yes. (inaudible) question. When you think of the inerratic sphere there, like all the degrees, and then the cosmocrators forming the body within that, as the planets rotate, forming some sort of body due to that rotation or the aspects made on the degrees, are you considering the different portions-- are the different portions of the zodiac different vibratory rates? Or is that due, are the vibratory rates due to the transformation of the planets as they pass around the circle?

AD: That's the problem.

S: I know. (AS inaudible)

AD: (We) establish a universal rate of vibration, which they claim variously is going on in the prime mover, then as that is transmitted through, let's say, the planetary spheres, it is modified. We haven't been able to resolve that.

S: On the other hand if we didn't have, it seems to me if we didn't have observe the modification of the planetary spheres, there'd be no way to divide the zodiac up into sections, or have a zodiac. (AD: I'm sorry, I didn't follow that.) If you weren't able to observe the effect of the planetary spheres, as they pass through different sections of the zodiac, we wouldn't be able to observe or know that there was a division or conceive of any division within the zodiac. It's hard to conceive of the zodiac as being uniform, although in some sense it is. Well it's hard for me to conceive of the zodiac as being uniform, because it's from here, from the point of view of the embodied soul, being an effect of the planetary spheres and the cosmocrators, we can conceive of the zodiac as distributing the different powers (through/to) these planets. This is the same question as--

AD: Well if we can get back to what were just saying, the problem was in this first chapter. He's speaking about two souls, within the lower soul as the fabrication that's going on by the planetary spheres, and when we think of that as the 'lower Soul' the question comes up, you know, how can I distinguish that from the higher soul, insofar that I'm only acquainted with the lower soul? Yes--

DB: I was just wondering, it seems to me that in order for these planetary motions to fabricate a lower soul, there'd have to be some point of reference around which that lower soul is fabricated, in the sense that there's a specific number of lower souls fabricated. I mean, the universe isn't filled with an indefinite amount of these (souls), but with a specific number of the lower souls that were fabricated by the Demiurge. (inaudible) soul. So that-- I mean, in the sense that they're not arbitrarily fabricated, there would have to be some focal point around which they were made. (AD: So--) Well, in a sense, I mean I'm not trying to answer the question but it seems that-- well almost that the presence of the higher Soul has to be presupposed in order for that fabrication to take place.

AD: Well, the fabrication that takes place is presided over by the Demiurge.

DB: Yes, right.

AD: Alright, so again, we're still back to the same point. And then we have the production of bodies with souls and each of these bodies has a soul and a unity. And we're trying to understand, well, what is the nature of this soul that they're speaking about. Now, is this soul that they're speaking about which is coming from the genesiurgic motion, is that soul the combination of all the psychical essences which we placed in the 11th house, is that what they mean by soul here, the lower soul? And if that's so, what and how is that different from the higher Soul? (DB: Well--) When Jesus says that you must deny your soul, your soul to follow him, which soul was he asking you to deny? [Note: See Bible, Matthew, 16:24.]

DB: The lesser.

AD: The lesser soul.

DB: Right. That lesser soul is by its very nature capable of modifications and transformations, and it seems to be in the sense what it's all about.

AD: I don't see where you're leading.

DB: Well it's always in this state of motion and transformation.

AD: It's always in a state of changing, yes.

DB: Right. So it would be that, I mean, it would be that distinction between it and the higher Soul which by its nature wouldn't. (AD assents)

AD: Alright, let's leave it hanging there, let's read the next page. Yes--

Iamblichus p. 309-10 (AS reading): "Hence that of which you are dubious is not true, *"that all things are bound with the indissoluble bonds of Necessity,"* which we call Fate. For the soul has a proper principle of circumduction to the intelligible, and of a separation from generated natures; and also of a contact with real being, and that which is divine. *"Nor must we ascribe fate to the Gods, whom we worship in temples and statues, as the dissolvers of fate."* For the Gods, indeed, dissolve fate; but the last natures which proceed from them, and are complicated with the generation of the world and with body, give completion to fate. Hence we very properly worship the Gods with all possible sanctity, and the observance of all religious rites, in order that they may liberate us from the evils impending from fate, as they alone rule over necessity through intellectual persuasion. But neither are all things comprehended in the nature of fate, but there is another principle of the soul, which is superior to all nature and generation, and through which we are capable of being united to the Gods, of transcending the mundane order, and of participating eternal life, and the energy of the supercelestial Gods. Through this principle, therefore, we are able to liberate ourselves from fate. For when the more excellent parts of us energize, and the soul is elevated to natures better than itself, then it is entirely separated from things which detain it in generation, departs from subordinate natures, exchanges the present for another life, and gives itself to another order of things, entirely abandoning the former order with which it was connected."

AD: Alright, so when we go back when he says here:

Iamblichus, p. 309 (AD rereading): "For the soul has a proper principle of circumduction to the intelligible, and of a separation from generated natures; and also of a contact with real being, and that which is divine." [AD repeats last phrase]

AD: Now the Soul again that he's speaking about here, would that be the Cosmic Soul?

VM: (inaudible) the higher soul.

AD: That would be the higher soul. And he says it has a principle, it has a principle which can lead it back to the Intelligible Gods. But then the assumption here would be that this higher Soul is present in the lower soul and must get back to the higher Soul. Then how would we distinguish this higher Soul from the lower soul within which it is situated?

DB: This is just speculative-- But if we speak of the highest portion of the lower Soul, as being the rational part of the soul within the cosmos, that that-- would it not be said that that would be made rational by the presence of the higher Soul in it? And insofar as that rationality is defined and developed and so on and so forth, that the higher Soul, it can use that as a vehicle by which to transcend its position within the cosmos. (AD: I don't understand what you said, could you try--in one or two sentences, just the gist of it?) Well I was just-- basically that the rational aspect of the soul is a pivotal point through which--

AD: --the rational aspect of the soul--

DB: Okay. The rational-- I'm conceiving of the rational aspect in the sense of being the highest portion of the lower part of the soul, okay, the fabricated aspect of the soul. And its rationality is developed and refined by the presence of that higher soul within that vehicle. And as that refinement is taking place, the soul then uses that as the ladder, so to speak, by which it ascends to the Nous.

AS: You had that passage in [Plotinus] V.3.9.

(silence; then drawing-on-blackboard sounds; see FIGURE 1981 0606-8-JF for the following)

AD: Ah, let's see. (more drawing sounds) Now-- Yes, he's speaking about this here, it's a blur isn't it? (referring to diagram; student chuckles) He's speaking about this as the rational soul, the 11th house here, okay. And this as the irrational soul, so in here we could put, let's say, the three spheres, okay: inerratic sphere, planetary spheres, sublunary sphere. And the rational soul presides over this. (knocking-on-blackboard, then drawing sounds) (AS inaudible) Hm? (No), I just want to get to his-- David's statement. Um-- (silence) If in this realm, in the realm of the sensible world, the 12th house world, where we have all these circumstances, alright, and the-- this would be the mental accompaniment. No-- in other words, over here we have the cosmocrators, and they create and fabricate the physical world. This would be the Gods, the Liberated Order, that supply the mental concomitants to that?

AS: Yes. Well we spoke of-- I mean in the previous-- well we were tracing those reason-principles or the spermatic reason-principles coming from that-- coming through the Sun in Aquarius, okay, and now that would be providing all the mental concomitants, as it were, for that realm. But would you say that all is the production of Fate, that would all be under the production of the lower soul? Or that would be what is *producing* or generating the lower soul? The influxion of these spermatic reason-principles into that, into the whole cosmic circuit, is what's-- Like you said drop-by-drop this universe is being manifested, that's objectively the whole cosmos is being manifested by the insertion of these reason-principles by the Liberated Order into the cosmos. You know, we see the image of that. The whole primordial image is fabricated. Or, in this sense-- The generation or the genesiurgic motion, the generation of the lower soul.

AD: How does that rational process get refined?

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1981 0606b Ends; Side 2 Begins)

AD: You interpret the events that are going on in the world, and your interpretation gets refined as you proceed. So that the understanding of the world is going through a refinement process. Now is that refinement part of the cosmic circuitry itself or is it something coming from above the cosmic circuitry? (S inaudible)

AS: See the question here by 'above' though, that's-- there seemed to be a problem because there's two 'aboves'. I mean do you say 'above'-- by 'above' do you mean the actual Liberated Order, say, and those reason-principles which are informing it that way? Or do you mean, as it were, by 'above' that which is coming from the Soul, the higher Soul? (JC: Individual Soul.) The Individual Soul principle, or the Cognitive Isness, or through that channel.

AD: Well, it wouldn't be the first, because the first, insofar that the world itself is the outcome of a rational soul's functioning. We wouldn't be speaking about that refinement.

AS: Right. So it would have to be the second.

AD: So it has to be the second. Right now, how does that come about?

AS: That means we have to speak about how that first Soul is actually participating in the manifestation, the generation of those essences.

AD: And how it's participating.

AS: Well, if you say that there's this drop-by-drop, there's this manifestation of the 12th house, the whole image, from the rationality of the World-Soul through the Sun in Aquarius, and it seems that there would have to be a similar --

DB: It almost seems to be something about-- not the quality of the primal image which is presented in the 12th house, but something within that primal image which is going to, interpret it one way or another. That whole analysis that Guenther goes through, where the thing is divided into the sense and then the field and all the rest of it, within that primal image that there's this possibility of the refinement of the interpretation. [Note: See Herbert V. Guenther, Tibetan Buddhism in Western Perspective, "The Concept of Mind in Buddhist Tantrism". See also WG Classes 1977 0922, 0929, 1006, 1012 where this essay is discussed.] I mean, there's already a kind of built-in interpretation, which is on a (spiritual/particular) level, and within that it seems one can speak of an attempt to develop more of an understating of what's going on.

(sounds of a diagram being drawn; see FIGURE 1981 0606-9-JF for the following)

AD: I think we did something like this, we said that the soul looks to principle above, alright, it understand what is going on here. When the soul looks to the cosmic circuit for explanations and understanding, it gets confused and lost. So I think that Plato was referring to the fact that the Soul has to look to the Nous in order to understand what is really in the cosmic circuit.

JC: When it looks just to the cosmic circuit, it forms opinions based on certain partial images that (have been made) drop by drop.

AD: Forms opinions, yes.

JC: Just a partial view of what's happening.

AD: Well-- opinions has a more derogatory side to it.

JC: Well, misconceptions--

AD: Misconceptions.

JC: It could be right or wrong.

AD: It could be right or wrong. And the fact that you can be right without knowing the reasons shows how much you are wrong.

JC: It's still a partial vision. (AD: Yes.) The total vision comes when the Soul looks to the Nous.

AD: Well-- Let's not talk about a total vision. The understanding of something would have to come from the Nous to the Soul.

JC: Yes.

AD: Alright then, that would mean that this cosmic circuit, alright--

AS: It must be connected, though, to the Nous. I mean?

AD: Well, I'm assuming that, I'm just trying to understand how the rational soul, the functioning that's going on here, alright, (drawing) what he called the secondary soul, the lower soul, how is this lower soul (knocking on blackboard), you know, understood? As distinct from this soul? So if a person has, let's say, certain mental states going on, let's take a person who's not in the body but living just in the mind, in a mental state, alright. Then what would he have to use to interpret the mental states that are going on? It would have to come from the soul, wouldn't it? (JC: From the soul.) Now again, if we take this person we called just a mental person, and put him in a body and in a world, again would have to be operative in order to correct his understanding or refine it? Again, it would have to come from the soul, wouldn't it? (DB: But--) So then within the entire realm of the non-sensuous perceptibles, there has to be dropped in, there have to be dropped in the reason-principles to explain what is going on in the lower soul.

JC: But I wouldn't confuse those reason-principles which are dropped into (inaudible) of the Soul proper, with the lower soul, and try to call the lower soul rational, because it isn't in itself. Rationality comes from that middle ring there.

AD: Alright, we'll grant that. (JC: Okay.) We'll grant that (JC inaudible) -- but the point would be here, if we could think of this entire unorganized or organized system of non-sensuous perceptibles, or your whole scheme of conceptualization, alright, wouldn't it be the *Soul* that is interpreting that? And that the interpretation--we may be presumptuous--but the interpretation is *not* coming from the cosmic circuit. Go ahead, Willie.

WA: I'm just (inaudible)--

AD: Well, I'm just taking--

WA: I'm having trouble, I'm having a lot of trouble here, distinguishing the cosmic from the individual, and in exactly which context-- when you're speaking, when you say that the interpretation has to be coming from the Soul, that interpretation would have to be coming in some form from the Nous in order to--would it not?

AD: Yes, ultimately, from the Nous.

WA: Ultimately from the Nous.

AD: It's the Cognitive Isness that I'm putting in-between, and saying that that's what refines our rationality.

WA: That's what I wanted to ask you about. It's the Cognitive Isness -- granted then, say, that something is given to the Soul by the Demiurgic Intellect, or something, alright. See-- It seems as one way of looking at it is in terms of the cosmos, it's a fabricated, the planetary spheres and all that (inaudible) that's really like -- there is no individual there, that's one reason-principle, like the Cittamattras say, that it's all reducible-- when you talk about the lower soul in that sense, it's part of the planetary spheres or part of the cosmic circuit, it doesn't seem that there is any individual there, personally. And if somehow there is this *cooperation* in, or alliance of the Cognitive Isness with some portion of that--

AD: There is an alliance with the Cognitive Isness with some portion of the cosmic circuit-- (WA: Of the cosmic circuit.) --and I'm calling that portion an individual.

WA: You're calling the portion an individual?

AD: An individual.

WA: Yeah, right, exactly.

AD: Yes. Now we'd have to go around further now, and say, now: What interprets that portion and who is interpreting that portion? It has to be something distinct from the soul which is part of the cosmic circuit. (WA: Right.) It can't be that cosmic circuit.

WA: It has to be an essence entirely distinct.

AD: Yes. And so what it comes to is to say something like this, I think. That the totality of all psychical functioning that is going on, in itself, in itself, it may be rational from the point of view that the Demiurge constructed it, alright, it may be-- but we're not discussing that. What we are discussing is that a *portion*, a portion of it will be irrational to anyone in that portion. In that portion would mean that some Cognitive Isness went into a portion, acquired a soul and that portion is a part of the cosmic circuit, and that portion is what we're calling this lower soul.

WA: Yes.

AD: Now what is it that understands this lower soul and interprets that lower soul's functioning?

WA: The Cognitive Isness.

AD: The Cognitive Isness, yes. It would have to come from above. So then the drops that would come from the soul would go into that realm.

WA: Okay, now when you say the drops come from the soul, those drops are coming down let's say through the subjective series of-- from the Cognitive Isness.

AD: From the subjective soul, alright, they have to be dropped into the subtle soul or the lower soul.

WA: Okay.

AD: That's where the drops are put, into that lower soul.

AS: You know, if we draw the picture that we had before, with the Jupiter--

AD: Wait, wait, can we follow this? (AS: Yes; inaudible student) Then what would happen if these drops are put into the cosmic lower soul-- this is where their whole subtle physiology comes into being? In other words, through this subtle physiology-- or I'm sorry-- subtle psychical physiology-- what was it? the subtle psyche, alright-- it is in that realm that the drops come before they come into the body of the individual.

WA: So you're saying that that precipitation would be like the definition of the individual or a lower soul, in the cosmic--

AD: I wasn't thinking of the definition, I was -- trying to trace how the drops from the soul must go through the subtle soul, or the soul which is part of the cosmic circuit, and then into the individual body.

WA: Yes. By definition, I meant, those drops coming down, you're talking about subtle physiology would actually be the formation or the distinction of those vehicles. Maybe that's not clear. (AD: I don't follow you.) You say you go down through the subtle physiology.

AD: Through the subtle psyche, not the physiology. (WA: Right.) It has to *reach* the physiology, through the intermediary of the soul, the soul which is part of the cosmic circuit.

WA: So when you say the subtle psyche, that would be--

AD: Well-- the psyche, yes. (WA: That would be-- ) In other words, if we say this is the body, and the psyche extends-- you know, alright, the psyche extends where, how far? (WA: To the whole universe.) It extends, alright. Alright, it extends , maybe up to the limits of the planetary spheres. And if we said that the individual soul, alright, the lower soul, is the product of the cosmic spheres, then that drop must go into the cosmic spheres or into the planetary spheres, or what you call the psychical realm. And from there traverse and go into the individual. (inaudible)

WA: When you say 'traverses' that and goes into the individual, what I was asking, Is it that drop itself traversing that makes that individual soul-- you say it goes into the-- is there anything besides that drop that distinguishes that individual soul as an individual soul, the lower part?

AD: Yes, the body, and that it has to work through.

GA: They refer to it as a drop within a drop. Because the drop which is the physical body, which they say is the center of the lower, is what those lower souls are centered on, and then there's the drop that's coming from-- (AD: Say it again, now.) The drop within a drop. (AD: Yes.) There's the drop which is the essence of the irrational or the lower spheres, the so-called "drop in the heart". And there's the other drop, the subtle drop within that, the drop within the drop. The one is coming from the outside, the other is the lower, say the essence of the lower soul.

AD: Nah, I don't understand what he's saying. The essence of the lower soul is the drop in the heart?

GA: Yes, well-- (inaudible) The so-called essence of the body, (AD: Yes.) the essence of the body is the drop within the heart. Within that is the other drop.

AD: The drop coming from the psychical? Do they say that?

GA: Well, they don't use that word but they say it's like a drop within a drop, that the subtle mind and motions is one drop. The drop within the heart is the other drop. They have a drop within a drop. One obviously-- the drop in the heart-- obviously signifies the lower soul, or at least insofar that--

LR: Why do you say that? I get confused when you said that--

GA: Insofar that-- like Willie said, How you do you know there's an individual in the cosmos? Well, you have a body.

LR: Because the drop in the heart is the way is the way we're used to thinking of PB's transcendental, point of transcendental (GA inaudible) (inaudible) soul.

GA: Yes, but a drop in the heart is a drop within a drop.

LR: Oh.

GA: Part of that drop is spoken of as being the essence of the white and red constituents of the body. It's spoken of as like a material drop, a subtle material drop. So you could think of it as subtle (inaudible) of the material realm. But there's a drop within that drop, and that is of an even more subtle nature, is what I'm saying-- and that comes from without. So you have the drop coming from without, from the Cognitive Isness, residing within the drop which is the subtle of the material.

VM: Chip, when we say, I don't know if this is a perversion, what we're trying to say, but in some ways, the first drop, wouldn't it be sort of provided by the Cosmic Soul-- that's kind of coming from the objective series and the more subtle one would be coming from the subjective Soul or eventually, ultimately from the Wisdom Consciousness? And that is the-- like in PB's language he says the World-Soul or Cosmic Soul provides the body and individual mind in which the individual has an experience. But the light of the Overself through the heart. I mean, both of them come through the heart. But we're trying to distinguish two levels here.

GA: And then, but it's like the whole problem of what is interpreting that experience? I mean, you still have the problem of what's interpreting the experience. Is it that the Cognitive Isness or that drop that comes from the individual stream, given that it participates in the Demiurgic functioning as well bringing along its subtle light? Or, is that interpretation to some extent already in the cosmic process? And I think they deal with that problem also, I think it goes right back to the problem we were having with the Divine Names and the idea of mantra. When they speak of mantra as protection, what they mean is that mantra is protecting you *from* the irrationality of the 12th house, or the material realm. So the mantra, so to speak, already has the this aspect of Cognitive Isness or intelligibility in it. And it's through mantra, or it's through sound, or these vibrations that's carried by the drop, that you are, that your mental stream is protected from the irrationality or the ordinary chaotic appearance in the lower realm. Again that whole thing, about that mantra as protection, is what it's protecting you from? It's protecting you from the chaos you would experience. If the material stimulus is really assimilated directly without some kind of interpretation, there would be a kind of sundering of the Gods that has taken place, in order to produce the material realms. So you have to have this drop within a drop in order to understand, to make intelligible, the individual stream.

DB: Are you saying that the protection would be, well, not so much from the chaos itself or, you know, the activity there but from an irrational interpretation of that, or, (GA: Yes.) you know, some based on a kind of self-centered feeling?

GA: The protection is the very interpretation of the experience as being part of the Cognitive Isness, or as being part of the nature of the Divine Names. (DB inaudible) If the experience is interpreted as material then the chaos ensues, the mind-stream disintegrates so to speak or becomes irrational. But if the vibrations, if the correct vibrations are attuned to through the drops then the mind-stream is in conformity with the Cognitive Isness and is protected from being sundered into the material (life).

DB: The mind-stream then, you're saying is what corresponds to the lower soul?

GA: Well, I think that's the problem now. Is the interpretation in the lower realm or is it coming from the drop with the Cognitive Isness? And I think it's both. I think on the one hand, in (inaudible) material realms itself there's a certain amount of rationality has been inserted. But -- On the other hand, the individual soul has to get in touch with its own Cognitive Isness in order to attain a higher rationality. But there's a certain level of mantra that's effective in the material realm, you know, which is what they're saying is artificial, not theurgic. It does resemble the arcane symbols, it does in communicate in an obscure way with higher (powers). But there's also the mantram which was would be really efficacious, which would come from the Cognitive Isness. And one is in the imagination, and one is actually, you know, provided by the drops, from the subjective stream.

AD: One more thing, Gabriel, what do they say about this drop in the heart, the indestructible drop in the heart which is material? Do you remember?

GA: The material one? (AD: Yes.) They say that it's made from the essences of the red and the white constituents, (and is) in the body.

AD: Yes, I remember that.

GA: And um-- it also is described as forming within a kind of a luminous milky substance, which reminds me of the starry matter of the protoplasm. Yes. It forms within this kind of luminous milky substance. The--

AD: Then the indestructible drop which is the body, the lower drop, then that would be, that has to relate to the continuity of material bodies.

GA: Yes.

AS: It's like that indestructible atom (inaudible), the word atom, but it would provide the continuity of all the vehicles of the lower soul, rather than of the higher.

AD: Yes, it's what provides the continuity for the Body Monad. In other words when we speak about a breed of animal, alright, what provides the continuity for that species is this indestructible material drop, that they're speaking about now.

AS: Yes. He says that each reason-principle of each of these animals is what contains in itself the principle of matter, which it will need to elaborate, which will then go ahead and elaborate (inaudible) visible forms.

AD: And the other drop (on tape a noise like something has been actually dropped) you can think of the indestructible drop that belongs to the body, alright, we would have to say that the indestructible drop that belongs to the body is part of the cosmic circuit, alright, and the continuity of that indestructible drop guarantees the species' perseverance or the body monad's perseverance. Then insofar that we're speaking about the drop going into that drop, the drop within a drop, now we're speaking about the drop coming from the Soul, alright. (GA assents) Now this would be what we're trying to get at-- The drop that provides the continuity for the body, alright, is it from this drop that the lower soul, the planetary soul, arises?

AS: That would be also what's subject, that's where the lower soul would arise from that. And that be subject to the planetary spheres' functioning. (S inaudible, noises on tape)

GA: They (speak) of that as a thigle or bindu. What's it a bindu for? (AS: for) It's a bindu for the (cosmic) spheres, so that the influxes of all the cosmic spheres can interpenetrate penetrate that drop. (AS/GA talking at once, inaudible)

AS: (inaudible) drop, that's the part that goes up, and the other part goes down. That drop, the essence from that drop, the indestructible one of the physical, the lower soul, actually pervades the whole chakra system. (GA: Right.) That's where the red and white forces of the whole chakra system are distributed from. And therefore whenever when anything went on in the cosmic circuit, that would be the influences of the cosmic circuit would be felt through that as a medium.

AD: So then their theory would be that this indestructible physical drop, is what attracts to itself the influences from the planetary spheres, alright, (AS assents) and consequently becomes what we call the lower soul, or the planetary soul, you know, the soul of that body.

AS: You know, in that diagram, that--

AD: Well, I got that same question, that same question arises-- alright-- then, in this indestructible drop which we said attracts to itself the influences from the planetary spheres, and these influences are equivalent to -- (snaps fingers) the soul! The planetary soul, the soul which is acquired from the planets. Is it in *that soul* that these drops from the soul go into? I have to make a connection, a via media, for how the drops from the soul get into the indestructible drop (within the body).

GA: Yes, I think the drop within the drop then is the bindu which relates the --which-- (AS: Never mind.) The indestructible drop, the material one, allows for the impinging of all the influences from the planetary spheres. And the drop within that drop allows for the drops or the luminous energy of the soul to penetrate that drop. (AD: Say it again.) That the drop within the drop is the bindu or the point which allows for the interpenetration of the reason-principles and the luminous energies of the soul into that drop.

VM: I lost you, Chip, I can't keep straight which drop is which. (several people talking at once)

AS: The light of the soul get imparted to the--

GA: (inaudible) the heart center is like the center of the world. The other heart center has a vertical motion, connected to the subjective stream, and allows for the interpenetration of that Cognitive Isness into the material drop.

MW: But wasn't Anthony's question, is the-- (LR inaudible) The drop that we're saying is the way that the higher Soul enters into the cosmic circuit, would that enter what we call the indestructible drop directly, or is it entering what we were calling the lower soul, and through that into the drop at the heart? (GA: Say that again.) The drop that is within the drop (GA: Yes.) does that have to enter first what we're calling the lower soul, and from there enter--

GA: Yes, first, first it enters-- in fact, the more subtle drop, okay, first enters into this so-called luminous milky substance.

MW: And that's what you're calling the (inaudible).

GA: And around this, the physical drop forms. So it's like the-- my feeling is like the more subtle drop enters into the-- into like the area of the fixed stars, like the protoplasm, like what we're calling the protoplasm of the 12th house, and around that the material forces congregate, forming the indestructible material drop. So it's like the more subtle drop has already made this connection with the lower soul.

MW: Hm.

DB: And, what do you mean, already made?

GA: It's like first the very subtle the drop enters into what they describe as this kind of protoplasm, this luminous milky substance which they describe as being in the womb, prior to the development of the fetus. Around that, the indestructible drop which is the essences of the constituents of the physical, forms, forms around the subtle drop.

LR: So what is that milky substance?

GA: Well-- My assumption is that it has to do with the prime mover, and the zodiac and the inerratic sphere.

LR: So it's not an individual--

GA: It's that the media is between the-- the media between the subtle drop from the Cognitive Isness and the formation of the individual soul, (it) is the rational portion of the cosmos.

S: Chip, it seems like, I don't know, but it seems like you're saying that there is a cooperation between the individual and the cosmos, prior to the formation of the body?

GA: The very formation of the physical drop is around the subtle drop, using the-- and already within the matrix of the 12th house.

AD: The subtle drop is individual.

GA: Well, it's subtle, I think we're speaking of the subtle drop as the higher Soul. There are two Souls; the higher Soul is the Cognitive Isness.

GA: Anthony, could I ask you to clarify that question again? (inaudible) (AD: I'm sorry--)

VM: He'd like for you to articulate the question again.

AD: Yes, basically I'm trying to understand the relation between the drops coming from the Soul, and the drop which is referred to as the material drop. And I was wondering if the so-called material drop represents this continuity of the material body, and that one body would give rise to another body, and that that second body, for instance, must have that essence of body which is indestructible and which, you know, permits the continuance of physical species.

GA: Yes. The material drop is spoken of as actually being the essences of the mother's and the father's material bodies.

AD: Alright now, now that drop, alright, would be coming from the material side. Now the other drop, the Soul as entering into the material vehicle, that-- we'd have to assume that they're both like the Soul-- oh, (three weeks in) the planes, you know, they speak about the gandhaharva [sic] watching a mating couple (GA: Yes.) and it wants to be reborn so it inserts itself into the womb -- that would be the first drop. And then formed around it would be the second drop. (GA: Yes.) So that the subtle would be within the material drop.

GA: Yes. Then in order to get into the womb, the gandharva has to dissolve back into its causal nature. As its desire projects it into the womb, but to get in, it has to dissolve back into this innate mind. It's the innate mind which inserts itself. (S inaudible) See what I mean?

AD: That innate mind would be the drop?

GA: That would be the-- the mind of clear light, the-- that the subtle drops.

AD: The mind of clear light?

GA: Yes.

AD: Then why call it a gandharva?

AS: I don't follow.

GA: Well it isn't. It is a gandharva in the intermediate state, but it can't get into the womb as a gandharva, it has to give up its existence as a gandharva. (AS: I don't follow.) It dissolves, just it has to die on the subtle plane to be reborn in the womb.

AD: Yes, I (understand).

AS: Yes but gandharva is the *lower* soul.

AD: Yes (inaudible).

AS: (I don't know that) he says it's the gandharva as the lower soul, not the higher Soul.

GA: Yes, that's what I'm saying. The higher Soul--

AD: Alright, we'll continue tomorrow, okay?

GA: The gandharva is (AD: Good.) brought to that particular mating couple by its desires.

AS: Right.

GA: But in order to be reborn it has to die.

AS: But the lower-- but that gandharva is the lower soul.

GA: Yes.

AS: Not the light of the higher Soul.

GA: Yes, it has to dissolve back into the light of the higher Soul, and it's that light of the higher Soul which inserts itself.

MW: Then you're going to make (inaudible).

AS: Right.

AD: I (can't) see the resolution of the gandharva as causal or subtle mind. See, that's come up again. This is what the Buddhists are saying. Whereas the others would be saying, no, the gandharva is not-- is not that (inaudible) necessarily.

VM: I thought the gandharva was an entity of craving.

AS: Yes. (inaudible) around the higher Soul.

VM: Not the higher (inaudible).

GA: They say as long as--

[Audio File 1981 0606b Ends]

Anthony Damiani Archive

Class

Saturday, June 6th, 1981