Saturday, March 27th, 1982

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

March 27, 1982

ALCHEMY; BODHICITTA

TOPIC: Alchemy

SUBJECT: Bodhicitta

SUBSUBJECTS: Idea of Man, Image of God, Nature, Imagination, Mentalism, Meditation, Atwood, Böhme, Jung

CONTENTS:

Reading/discussing Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, "The True Subject"

Analysis of quotes stating man contains Universal Reason within himself; quintessence must be separated through inwardizing process; through it man will find everything within himself

Discussion of what constitutes the "Central Salt of nature" that man can draw to himself; the imagination needs to be purified to become a proper vessel to reveal the soul's wisdom

Continued reading of Atwood, "The True Subject"

Do attraction, repulsion, and circulation refer to the living forms?

Reading of passage on Kabbalistic view of creation and Form (Idea) of Man

Reading/discussing Penny, Studies in Jacob Böhme, on "the senseless unconscious image of man"; this a reference to the eternal generation of bodhicitta by the Intelligible powers of the Nous

Included in the bodhicitta are the reason-principles and the matter necessary to actualize its vision

Bodhicitta equated with Jung's image of God and Plotinus's light from the soul

Reading/discussing Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, "The Mysteries"

Man's life is the subject, the grand distillatory, the thing distilling and distilled

The wisdom of Nature is the wisdom of the soul; to make his marvels possible, alchemist has to have more understanding of Nature's laws than a natural scientist

Discussion of imagination as both necessary medium and obstacle to spiritual knowledge

Discussion of how imagination functions in animals vs. humans; in humans, curtailing its operation leads to life of reason; animals operate through imagination without individual reason power

When imagination stops you have direct contact with Intelligibles; consciousness can forget one part of itself and operate in another part

The cosmic intelligence within you produces the world; getting deeper into Yogacara; going into the details of mentalism

When imagination grasps the Intelligibles, there is a certain amount of ontological damage

Alchemists prescribe a treatment whereby the imagination is turned into light, then circulated and fixed; process starts with dissolution in the totality of reason-principles that constitute you; connection with alternate nostril breathing

Will as the greatest part of purgation; when you try to leave, the material inflictors (karma) will be roused to vengeance

In meditation the will is used in reverse; when you're having fantasies, you either acquiesce or you don't

Imagination as "the Sphinx of the Labyrinth"; explanation of mundifying (fixing or containing) the imagination

Jung's psychological approach vs. Atwood's alchemical approach; processes in imagination indicate something beyond imagination

Plotinus has real ontological wisdom, Proclus keeps getting caught in the passive intellect (imagination)

Dissolution of the conscious personality (complexes, memories, etc.) in the unconscious (light) in meditation; reformulation of personality after emerging from this state

Von Franz's idea of personality expansion mirrors the alchemical dissolution and reconstitution

Jung evolved psychological schemes to help people with ordinary problems; ancient masters focused on direct ontological wisdom and realization

Brief reference to Plato's story from the Symposium about humans as split beings; Gemini twins; soul mates

Final reading about the Universal Spirit as a middle substance, purifying and being purified; wisdom is not won by fools, one must labor rationally in the pursuit

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Mary Anne Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery

• Cornelius Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book III

• Michael Sandivogius, A New Light of Alchymy

• Oswaldus Crollius, Basilica Chymica. Philosophy Reformed and Improved in Four Profound Tractates

• Zohar

• A.J. Penny, Studies in Jacob Böhme

• H.P. Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2

• Thomas Taylor (tr.), Proclus' Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements, Vol. 2

• Porphyry, Sententiae: Auxiliaries to the Perception of Intelligible Nature

• Plotinus, The Enneads (MacKenna translation, 4th ed.)

• Beatrice Lane Suzuki, "Bodhicitta", in Buddhism in England, Volumes 13-14

• Richard Wilhelm (tr.), with Comm. by C.G. Jung, The Secret of the Golden Flower

• Paul Brunton, Notebooks

• Plato, Symposium

• C.G. Jung, CW 14, Mysterium Coniunctionis

PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: I.1.7, III.4.3, III.4.6, IV.1.1, IV.3.19

DIAGRAMS referred to (not with this transcript version) [Transcriber note: [diagram] means the speaker is referencing a diagram as he or she is speaking. If someone is drawing or writing, with audible sounds of chalk on a blackboard, I indicate this by [drawing] or [writing].]

NOTE:

• No partial transcript exists for this class as of 2022.

• This is the Saturday AM class.

TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT 2021. In 2025, IT expands Subsubjects and Plotinus quotes section, completes TOC, adds new notes within transcript, fixes errors/typos. Archival verbatim transcript – V12a.

AUDIO FILES: 1982 0327a, 1982 0327b. [Note: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files.]

1982 03/27 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Alchemy; Bodhicitta

[Audio File 1982 0327a Begins]

AS: --some selections from the Atwood book. In the chapter called "The True Subject". "More Esoteric Consideration of the Hermetic Art and its Mysteries." [Note: Part II, Chapter I.]

S: What page?

S: Page?

AS: Well it-- the chapter begins on 143. But-- [26¼ second pause] Um-- uh Tim-- [15 second pause] And then-- [short pause] It should begin around page-- On 144 just read. She's talking here about what the-- the true subject of the Hermetic Art. So let's start.

S (faint): (Go ahead.)

[Transcriber note: I am using A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery by Mary Anne Atwood, Belfast: William Tait, London: J.M. Watkins, 1918.]

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 144, AS reading]: "Some few, of superior imagination to these, who had glimpses of the Universal Subject, endeavoured to draw light into the focus of their vessels, to compress and entice the ether by magnetical disposition and attractions of various kinds; but their hopes too were vaguely based, there was no Wisdom in their magistery, being ignorant of that internal fire and vessel of the adepts, so essential to the accomplishment of the Hermetic work."

[short pause]

AS: And the next page at the bottom he says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, pp. 145-146, AS reading]: "[Yet] that was the foundation of the whole Hermetic magistery, whence it is said, that if the wise had not found a proper vessel in which to concoct it, the etherial corner stone would never have been brought to light. [short pause] This Hali declares, and Morien, and Albert, saying, [AS reads: And all these people here are saying] that the place is the principle also of the super-natural generation…but they do not openly reveal either… --Philosophers have spoken sufficiently of all that is necessary concerning the work, with [AS adds: the] exception of the vessel; which is a divine secret, hidden from idolators, and without this knowledge no one can attain to the magistery." [See Maria Practica…Artis Auriferae, Vol. II, p. 115. Morieni de Trans. Metal. Interrog. et Resp. p. 27.]

[13¾ second pause]

AS: On one (fact) she'll get into what that is. And he's just warming up here (it seems). On 147, if we go there. Says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, pp. 147-149, AS reading]: "…Agrippa [and] Paracelsus' disciples [AS adds: and so on]…spoke openly, applying the practice of Alchemy to human life; suggesting also, [AS reads: and these suggested also] as did the latter, the method and medium of attraction. For, notwithstanding these, in common with the rest, teach that the Mercurial Spirit is everywhere, and to be found in all things according to the nature of each, yet they do not so much profess to have sought for it in many things, or that it may with equal advantage be drawn forth from all… [11 second pause] … [Besides], to search out the identity through all creatures and minerals, by way of experiment, would seem to be a matter of no small difficulty if we must needs investigate each; but if one subject should be presented with contains all, and the comprehension of each subordinate form in a superior essence, then this one needs only to be investigated for the discovery of all. But the universal orb of the earth…contains not so great mysteries and excellences as Man reformed by God into his image; and he that desires the primacy amongst the students of nature, will nowhere find a greater or better reserve to obtain his desire than in himself, who is able to draw to himself the Central Salt of nature in abundance, and in his regenerate Wisdom possesseth all things, and with this light [AS adds: he] can unlock the most hidden and recluse mysteries of nature. [Centrum Naturae Concentratum, p. 40, &c.] As Agrippa, moreover, testifies, that [AS reads: And so as Agrippa says] the soul of man, being estranged from the corporeal senses, adheres to a divine nature, from which it receives those things which it cannot search into by its own power; for when the mind is free, the reins of the body being loosed and going forth, as out of a close prison, it transcends the bonds of the members, and, nothing hindering, being stirred up in its proper essence, comprehends all things. And therefore man was said to be the express Image of God, seeing he contains the Universal Reason within himself, and has a corporeal similitude also with all, operation with all, and conversation with all. [short pause] [But] he symbolizes with matter in a proper subject; with the elements in a fourfold body; with plants in a vegetable virtue; with animals in a sensitive faculty; with the heavens in an etherial spirit and influx of the superior parts upon the inferior; [AS adds: and] with the angelical [AS reads: angelic] sphere in understanding and wisdom, and with God in all. … And as God knoweth all things, so man, knowing Him, also can know all things, seeing he has for an adequate object Being in general, or, as some say, Truth itself: neither is there anything found in man, nor any disposition in which something of divinity may not shine forth; neither is there anything in God which may not also be represented in man. Whosoever, [AS reads: Whoso] therefore, shall know himself, shall know all things in himself; but especially he shall know God according to whose image he was made; he shall know the world, the resemblance of which he beareth; he shall know all creatures with which in essence he symboliseth, and what comfort he can have and obtain from stones, plants, animals, elements; [AS reads: from stones and so on] from spirits, [AS adds: and] angels, and everything; [and] how all things may be fitted for all things…even how he can draw and bring them to himself as a loadstone, [AS adds: or] iron." [Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, Book III, Ch. XXXVI and XLVI.]

AS: Ok let-- Starting from that last point, is it-- is it clear what he's saying there? I'm not sure. I think this point that-- saying where, you know-- the true subject I think he's saying is to separate this ethereal essence we spoke of, this quintessence, through this inwardizing process. And he says there, within that quintessence, or through it, that man will find in himself everything which he's thought to be outside of himself in the wor-- in the so-called objective world. If he searches within there, he will see that--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, pp. 148-149, AS reading]: "…man was [AS reads: is] said to be the express Image of [AS reads: or] God, seeing that he contains the Universal Reason within himself… … …neither is there anything found in man, nor any disposition in which something of divinity may not shine forth… Whosoever, therefore, shall know himself, shall know all things in himself…"

[short pause]

S: Right.

AS/S(?): You want to--

DB/S(?) (faint): I do.

AS: Yeah.

DB (faint): I think a little bit before the passage that you just read there was a-- a reference to man drawing, how the common salt [AS: Yeah.] (drew) the world to himself.

AS: Yeah this quote, um-- That--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 147, AS reading]: "[But] the universal orb of the earth…contains not so great mysteries and excellences as Man [AS adds: himself] reformed by God into his image…"

AS: Right, and he's trying to point out that-- well--

DB (very faint): Yeah.

AS: And then--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, pp. 147-148, AS reading]: "…[AS adds: he] will nowhere find a greater or better reserve to obtain his desire than in himself, who is able to draw to himself the Central Salt of nature in abundance, and in his [AS reads: this] regenerate Wisdom possesseth all things, and with this light can unlock the most hidden and recluse mysteries of nature." [Centrum Naturae Concentratum, p. 40, &c.]

AS: You want to know what that Central Salt of nature is.

DB (faint): Yeah, because, I mean there are two ways I could look at it but I'm not sure which one is-- or if either one of them is accurate. [short pause] You know, I mean-- I suppose it could be trying to uncover objective reason-principles or perhaps it refers to the capacity of bringing the wakeful intensity of consciousness to other-- other states. But, I don't know what the Central Salt of nature is.

AS: I don't either.

S (faint): What do you mean?

AS: I don't either David, I don't-- I don't-- I don't understand the reference.

DB: I mean--

LR: But why do you pick on that?

AS: What?

DB: Why not?

LR (simultaneously): Well I don't understand the who-- anything in that passage. (AS laughs)

DB: Well I picked that out [couple words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): Finally. I thought the rest of it was more clear but-- (AS laughs a bit)

LR: No-- no David, you were asking me-- I mean, you were asking specifically about that 'cause it-- you understood the rest of it or [S simultaneously, faint: (Go ahead, go ahead.)] that was where you wanted to start?

DB: No I--

LR: No I'm not being funny, I mean it.

DB: Well-- well I [AS simultaneously: See I think--] thought that that was because--

AS (simultaneously): Well maybe we should draw a picture.

DB: I could definitely-- I definitely knew to myself that I didn't understand that, whereas [AS simultaneously: Well--] [AS drawing] I wasn't sure about whether or not I understood the other one(s).

AS: Well we were using a picture like this. Maybe I could use this picture, I don't know if this'll-- if this is appropriate or not. Or maybe we should use the other one, it doesn't matter. We had several of these pictures, (use) any one of which (is--) [student assents, very faint] [drawing] I thought he's going along the same lines here of-- if I could follow this-- I-- again of-- I think when he says here--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 148, AS reading]: "…the soul of man, being estranged from the corporeal senses, adheres to a [AS reads: the] divine nature, from which it receives those things [which] it cannot search into by its own power…[AS: Ok.] it transcends the bonds of the [AS reads: its] members, [and, nothing hindering], being stirred up in its proper essence, comprehends all things."

AS: So I-- I think if we said that the soul contains within itself all of the-- the whole of the Intelligible World, or the whole-- all of the reason-principles, but that so long as it's associated with-- you know, and associated with the body and caught up with the senses, then it's not going to have this wisdom available. So we spoke about this first process of freeing this imaginal essence from its association with the senses, the whole imagination, productive imag-- getting to the productive imagination, which then can be-- how do I say it-- Maybe I haven't got this whole--

S: (Well let's go.)

AS: Let me start again.

VM: Avery, it seemed like we spoke about this once before when we were talking about Jung--

AS (simultaneously): Yeah, I know, but that's--

VM: --the idea of removing-- or not removing, let's say breaking the exclusive attachment of this light in matter to the-- to the material or elemental realm, the instinctual [AS assents] life. And only after that, let's say, separation has been made can one proceed to some kind of unified mind.

AS: Yeah I think it's the same idea as what you're doing, yeah.

VM (simultaneously): It sounds like the same, right.

AS: I just-- um-- I'm trying to tie it in with the notion we had that there's this light, you know, given off by the soul which is then immersed in this material and has to be freed from it.

VM (faint): Right. Right, right.

AS: But that that light and-- at the one-- on the one hand it's caught up in the whole of this material realm, but on the other hand it is the emission-- emissary or it is the projection from the soul itself and it must already contain within it, if it were to turn around to look to its source, the soul, the soul already contains within it the whole of the universal reason. He says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 148, AS reading]: "…man was said to be the express Image of God, seeing he contains the Universal Reason within himself…"

AS: So Plotinus says our souls do contain the whole of the Intelligible World. [Note: See Plotinus, III.4.3 (last para), III.4.6 (sixth para from end).] But it seems that until this vehicle for that is free, until there's a proper vehicle which is this quintessence or this light--

VM: Some proper vessel is found, to use their language.

AS (simultaneously): Yeah, proper vessel is found, [VM, faint: Right.] that this wisdom can't be made dis-- made available. And it's-- the wisdom is in the soul but as long as the vessel that is necessary for its unfoldment is caught up in the planet-- is caught up in the elements, [VM, faint: Uh-hm.] that it's not a proper vessel to reveal this wisdom. The imagination is not sufficiently purified to become a vehicle for this wisdom which the soul has within it.

AB: Avery?

AS (simultaneously): Now-- Yeah. Yeah, go on.

AB (simultaneously): Wouldn't the emphasis in-- in this chapter and in alchemy, you know, the true subject, be on the (manner/matter) that this wis-- this reason is embodied in this matter or in Nature, and it's through that purification of the imagination that the alchemist then attracts out into himself those reason-principles which were projected and that would be the salt. Or then in the end [AS simultaneously: Right.] of the quote he says he can draw and bring them to himself as a loadstone. When that imagination is free and pure, the wisdom that's in matter can be made available to you. I'm not disagreeing, it just-- I thought the emphasis was on the reason-principles in matter, not in-- in the soul.

AS: Well, but he says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 148, AS reading]: "Whosoever, [therefore], shall know himself, shall know all things in himself; [students assent, faint] [but] especially he shall know God according to whose image he was made; he shall know the world, the resemblance of which he beareth…"

[short pause]

AS: But I think-- I don't think the two are really different. If he does know his own proper-- if he does know this wisdom within himself and he has made this light-- just separated it off, then when he brings it back into the-- you know, that second stage where say he brings it back into the body, it will be like a fit-- like a magnet in which to attract the reason-principles which are in the object, and he won't be caught up again-- or, you know, at least if it's properly contained, then that light won't be caught up again in the body. But it will be able to extract from his ex-- he will be able to extract from his experience the reason-principles or the meanings which are there. Well, it's still hard. Linda, come on, you-- why don't you say something.

AD: Well keep reading a little more, we want to find [AS simultaneously: Yeah.] out who the subject is, read [AS simultaneously: Yeah.] some more for me, ok?

S (simultaneously, very faint): Go ahead, yeah.

AS (simultaneously): Ok. Good. Ok, I'll read a little more. So, this--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 149, AS reading]: "[And] this the adept, Sendivogius, moreover declares: That nature, having her proper light, is by the shadowy body of sense, hidden from our eyes; [AS, faint: Ok?] but if, says he, the light of nature doth enlighten any one, presently the cloud is taken away from before his eyes, and without any let, he can behold the point of our loadstone, answering to each centre of the beams, (viz. of the sun and moon philosophical,) for so far doth the light of nature penetrate and discover inward things; the body of man is a shadow of the seed of nature, and as man's body is covered with a garment, so is man's nature covered with the body. Man was created of the earth, and lives by virtue of the air; for there is in the air a secret food of life, whose invisible congealed spirit is better than the whole world. Oh, [holy and] wonderful nature! which knowest [AS reads: knoweth] how to produce wonderful fruits by water, out of the earth and from the air to give them life!"

[short pause]

AS: Then the next page he says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 150, AS reading]: "Thou hast in thy body the anatomy of the whole world, and all thy members answer to some celestials; let, therefore, the searcher of this Sacred Science know that the soul in man, the lesser world or microcosm, substituting the place of its centre, is the king, and is placed in the vital spirit in the purest blood. That governs the mind, and the mind the body; but this same soul, by which man differs from other animals and which operates in the body, governing all its motions, hath a far greater operation out of the body, because out of the body it absolutely reigns; and in this respect, it differs from the life of other creatures which have only spirit and not the soul of Deity." [Michael Sandivogius, A New Light of Alchemy, pp. 32, 40, 102]

AS: Ok? Now I have-- by spirit here he usually means the astral. Ok? Or, you know, the one-- they a-- that animals have, the common sensorium, the astral, whereas in man he's saying that there is this principle of soul. [short pause] Ok, I-- Want to read-- shall we read a little more? Ok, keep going? Ok.

AD (very faint): Keep reading.

AS: Ok, on the next page. [short pause] It says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 151, AS reading]: "…says Basil, [that] all metals and minerals [AS: The top of 151.] have one root from whence their descent is; he that knows that rightly needs not to destroy metals in order to extract the spirit from one, the sulphur from another, or salt from another; for there is a nearer place yet in which these three, viz., [the] mercury, salt, and sulphur--spirit, body and soul--lie hid together in one thing, well known, and whence they may with great praise be gotten." [See the Stone of Fire, Kirchringius. Ed. Webster's Hist. of Minerals, p. 9, the Extract.]

AS: Ok? And the question still is, what is this one thing in which we're going to find this salt, sulphur and mercury.

VM (simultaneously, very faint): Avery, could you (read that important--)

AS: Yeah. He says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 151, AS reading]: "…all metals and minerals have one root from whence their descent is; he that knows that rightly [AS: That one root.] needs [AS reads: need] not to destroy metals in order to extract the spirit from one, the sulphur from another, or salt from another; for there is a nearer place yet in which these three, viz., [the] mercury, salt, and sulphur--spirit, body and soul--lie hid together in one thing, well known, and whence they may with great praise be gotten. He that knows exactly this golden seed or magnet, [and] searcheth throughly into [AS reads: searches through] its properties, he hath the true root of life… [See the Stone of Fire, Kirchringius. Ed. Webster's Hist. of Minerals, p. 9, the Extract.] … …Paracelsian Crollius [AS reads: Paracelsus] tells us [AS: ok] [AS adds: that] he came to know that the same light and mineral vapour, which produces gold within the bowels of earth is also in man, and that the same is the generating spirit of all creatures." [Crollius' Philosophy Reformed, p. 105.]

[short pause]

AS: So what is it? You tell me. [12½ second pause] Ok? [short pause] Then he goes on, um-- [short pause] On 150-- Ok, and then she goes on to talk about--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 153, AS reading]: "…these three principles of attraction, repulsion, and circulation, the universal accord of life…"

AS: And on 154--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 154, AS reading]: "Although few write so clearly to the purpose as those we have selected, (bit of laughter) yet the more modern class of adepts have in general left hints and suggestions to the same effect; they describe the life of man, as by their Art revealed, to be a pure, naked, and unmingled fire of infinite capability, differing from that of the prone creatures in form, educability, and capacity for melioration in itself. And though it might be supposed, according to the alleged diffusion of the Matter, that, if the Art of separating it were known, it might be taken anywhere (which in part also is true) yet we may consider the object was not simply to obtain the Matter or prove it only, but to improve, perfect, and bring the Causal light to manifestation. [9¼ second pause] And in what our human circulatory system differs and occultly approximates, so that it can be made to comprehend all inferior existences, and supersede nature in her course, may be gathered from this philosophy… …

"Attraction is the first principle of motion in nature; this is generally admitted, but the origin of this universal attraction is occult and incomprehensible to [the] ordinary human understanding. Repulsion is the second principle, and a necessary consequence of the first by reaction. Circulation is the third principle, proceeding from the conflict of the former two."

CDA (faint): Can I ask?

AS: Yeah.

S (very faint): Sure.

CDA: I think it would be helpful if we-- I have no idea what these-- how these principles are relating to [AS simultaneously: To what just went before.] what she was talking about before, if I know that but-- I mean if we could somehow discuss the attraction, repulsion, and [AS: Right.] circulation that mean--

AS (simultaneously): Well before we discuss those-- (AS laughing)

CDA: Well-- or it's silly to go on, one of-- one of the two.

S: Yeah.

AS: See these are all pointing to the same thing but she's not really telling you.

VM (faint): True alchemical fashion.

AS: In-- in true-- And there's this one-- [10¼ second pause] there's this one we also didn't read, it wasn't worked out that I-- well-- Well, let me-- There's one more we should read on 152, we s-- we skipped it but maybe that would make the connection. But I don't think so. Says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 152, AS reading]: "[And] thou, oh, Man…even thou art he who through the breath and power of the water and earth in thyself, conjoinest the elements and makest them one; [and] thyself not knowing what a treasure thou hast hidden in thee, from the coagulation and consent of these powers, producest an essence, called, by us, the expert, the great and miraculous mystery of the world; that is the true fiery water.--…it surmounts in its power, the fire, air, earth and water; for it dissolves radically, incrudates even the mature, constant, and very fixed, fiery and abiding mass and matter of gold, and reduces it into a fit black earth, like to thick spittle…there is nothing in the whole world besides to be found which can do this; to which nothing is shut; [and] though it is [a] precious thing, [AS adds: the] more precious than everything, yet the poor as well as the rich may have it in the same equal plenty. The wise men have sought this thing [AS reads: sought it], and the wise [men] have found it." [Centrum Naturae Concentratum, pp. 80, 81]

[9½ second pause]

LR (faint): Go ahead.

CDA: Well I'll venture a guess just to get the discussion going.

AS: Well I don't know if we-- (AS laughs a bit) Yeah, sure, go ahead.

CDA: That the way we spoke about the-- this-- the soul combines the living forms and these living-- the li-- the living forms are actually the form of-- of life or motion. And if these living forms are congealing with the matter then it seems that in the alchemical process that one would have to be able to distinguish the forms of life that are making the-- that are within the object or within the matter. And that these mot-- these might be the circulation and etc.

JfL: Wouldn't they have to be in the twelfth house [diagram]? Wouldn't you have to look for where it is in Nature [S, faint: That's right.] [CDA simultaneously: It would have to be here, yeah.] instead of the tenth and the eleventh [diagram]?

CDA: No I was just saying that that would be the principle of, [JfL: Uh-huh.] you know, but that-- that it's-- here it's already, you know, combined with everything, that the-- that the process might be to be able to separate the-- these motions of life from the-- one's experience.

AS: Can you say that again? I didn't-- Can you say that again?

CDA (simultaneously): These are the motion-- are these the motions of life that are-- that-- that-- That's-- yeah.

AS: Which, you mean the-- (Yeah) but--

VM (simultaneously): Attraction, repulsion, circulation, are those the living forms. That's what she meant.

CDA (simultaneously): Are those the-- yeah or is that what we would say, the principle of those would be the living forms.

VM (faint): Right.

CDA: And that-- that is she-- is she speaking about the separation of or getting to the-- the essence would mean being able to distinguish these living forms in some way.

S (simultaneously): (You--) no Carol?

S (simultaneously, faint): Wait.

AS: Well, certainly seems like they're-- these are the functions of what we called Nature. I mean I [CDA simultaneously: Yes.] would agree with that. Circulation, attraction and-- attraction, circulation and repulsion. But-- go on Tim, yeah. Go on.

TS (simultaneously): There's a passage two pages long where she actually speaks in English and--

AS: Yeah?

VM: Oh yeah, that would be good, read it.

AS: Where are you Tim?

TS: 170, this is also the passage that was quoted-- quoted last time we read this last week.

AS: Yeah.

TS: Starting on 172.

AS: Uh-hm.

TS: Um-- [short pause, faint background student words] Um--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, pp. 172-173, TS reading]: "These Rabbis explain that in pursuance of a certain arcane (though not wholly inexplicable) necessity, creation falls away always for the sake of individual manifestation, from the consciousness of its primal source; that the principle of re-union nevertheless abides in the generated life of individuals and will in process of time operate to a restitution and higher perfection than could have been accomplished [TS reads: established] if such a fall into this existence had not taken place. Treating of and interpreting as divine symbols, the relations of the Old Testament, they dignify vastly the view of the whole scheme; and placing reason over the head of authority, and inciting man to self-inquiry as the foundation and comprehending identity of every other, they unite in one beautiful system the Religion of [TS adds: the] Intellect with the Philosophy of Life.

"But it is above all by the supreme position which they assign to man in the scale of creation that these Kabalists arrest attention. The Form of man…contains all that is in heaven and earth--no form, no world, could exist before the human prototype; for all things subsist by and in it: without it there would be no world, and in this sense we are to understand these words, The Eternal has founded the earth upon his wisdom. But we must distinguish the true man from him who is here apparent, for the one could not exist without the other; on that form in man, which is the Celestial Prototype, rests the perfection of faith in all things, and it is in this respect that man is said to be the image of God. [Zohar, Part I, fol. 191, recto; Part III, 144, recto.] For there is a wide difference between the idols of the human imagination and the ideas of the divine mind, between man as he is here known, [TS adds: and] the individualized multiplication of a blind will, and that Motive Reason which is his life."

[short pause]

AS: That helps.

TS: And I guess that the-- on the next page there's a little more, (bit of laughter) but--

S (faint): That brings us closer.

S (simultaneously): That helps a lot.

AS (simultaneously): That helps.

S (simultaneously with S above, faint): (This is) supposed to be in English? (laughter)

S: How is this relating to--

VM: That's in English.

AS: This helps a lot Tim but-- (AS laughing, some laughter) but you have to-- you have to just--

S (simultaneously, very faint): I wanted English. (bit of laughter)

TS: Sounds like English to me. (laughter)

VM (amidst laughter): What do you mean then Tim? What do you mean?

S: Yeah.

TS/S(?) (faint): Well it seems (like/that)--

AS (simultaneously): Sounds like English but I can't-- (AS laughs)

S (very faint): Just go to that one.

AS: Well, maybe we should-- yeah.

VM (simultaneously): Is he [one word inaudible]

S: Well--

AD (faint): Maybe you should sweat a little bit for once.

AS (simultaneously): Yeah.

S (simultaneously, very faint): [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously, faint): Well, go ahead, go on, you could sweat a little bit.

AS: Sure.

BS/S(?): Read some more.

S (simultaneously): Sweat?

TS: Read some more?

AD (faint): You saw [couple words inaudible] all of a sudden?

CDA (simultaneously): Turn the heat up so we-- (CDA laughs, some laughter)

AS: Yeah.

VM (very faint): Uh-hm.

AS: I mean she still hasn't really told us. I don't know, I'm not sure Tim you're-- We don't want to let out any catch phrases here but--

VM/S(?) (very faint): Yeah, uh-huh. (bit of laughter)

AS: Mainly because we don't have any but-- (AS laughs a bit)

S: But--

S (faint): Go ahead.

AS: But--

LDS (faint): Do your punch line.

AD (simultaneously, faint): It's a clue a little bit what Tim just quoted.

AS: Yeah.

CDA: It is?

TS: You want to work that over or read some more?

AD (very faint): (Two-- two line) and let's see, look for it.

AS (faint): That's right.

S (very faint): Yeah.

TS (faint): Completely just [few words inaudible]

AD (faint): Go ahead.

AS: I can-- I can--

VM: Now by Smith would you interpret those--

AD (simultaneously): Would you need any advice if I give you a clue as to what the true subject is?

TS: I thought that did, um--

CDA/S(?): Is that what it--

AD: Well then how would you translate it into colloquial English? (some laughter) Swear.

TS: Well I thought that what she's speaking of here as the celestial prototype which contains "that Form of man which is-- contains all that is in heaven and earth", I thought that that would be the bodhicitta or the-- the light of the soul which carries in it the--

AD: What's that quotation about?

TS/S(?) (faint): I thought this was [one word inaudible]

AD: That's Böhme's and Blavatsky so let's let-- translate [S simultaneously: Oh.] [LR simultaneously: This is better.] theosophy with the other (students). (some laughter)

LR: Much more--

TS: This will clear it right up.

VM: Go ahead, read it. (some laughter, student words) It might, Tim.

TS: [couple words inaudible] where do I start? "For some years my mind has been warping around this belief…"?

AD (simultaneously): Well that's [couple words inaudible] Over there.

TS: Here?

CDA: Where are you?

TS: Blavatsky?

AD (faint): Yeah. Start there.

S: Where?

TS: Ok. Where am I? Well good thing [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously, faint): [one/two words inaudible]

S: Ok.

TS: Page 393.

AD: They said he made everything clear so--

CDA: Which book?

S (faint): Penny.

VM/S(?): Penny.

S (faint): He's already [CDA simultaneously: Oh.] going in here.

S (very faint): Jacob Böhme.

[Transcriber note: I am using Studies in Jacob Böhme by A. J. Penny, Wipf & Stock Publishers, Eugene, Oregon, 2016.]

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 393, TS reading]: "By the ideas of the Divine mind…"

TS (very faint): Oh no.

LR: Yeah. [TS simultaneously: Here is something.] The one about the-- the corporeity of the--

TS: Ok.

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 393, TS reading]: "By the ideas of the Divine mind becoming substantiated in [the] wisdom--"the corporeity of the Holy Spirit.""

TS: No? Is that-- I'll start up here. (some laughter)

AD/S(?) (very faint): Well that's interesting, let's just go back to it.

S: Right here.

AD: See [couple words inaudible]

TS (simultaneously): [few words inaudible] (ok).

AD (faint): Go on.

TS: Um--

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 393, TS reading]: "[And at this point] one may choose either Böhme's or Madame Blavatsky's teaching, for they are identical as to this, that the idea, the senseless unconscious image of man…"

AD: Slow, slow.

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 393, TS reading]: "…the idea, the senseless unconscious image of man, extant millions of ages before it was engrossed in our coarse flesh and blood, was what subdeific powers worked out into creaturely existence; precisely as our brain holds an outline of the work the hands proceed to execute: let us have a saying from each of these great teachers to illustrate this."A Divine imagination, in which the ideas of angels and souls have been seen from eternity, in a Divine type and resemblance; yet not then as creatures, but in resemblance, as when a man beholdeth his face in a glass; therefore the angelical and human idea did flow forth from the wisdom, and was formed into an image, as Moses saith [TS reads: says]." [Jacob Böhme, Clavis, par. 43] "This true image it is which God from eternity hath beheld with His Holy Spirit in the wisdom, but without substance, which He created into substance, that is, brought substance into this image."" [Jacob Böhme, Third Apology, Text IV, Point IV, par. 18. See also Incarnation, Part I, Ch. II, par. 14, and Threefold Life, Ch. X, par. 14.]

TS: Uh--

AD: Alright, why don't you stop there.

TS (faint): Yeah.

VM: Maybe it's-- be worth reading again Tim, but the language [TS simultaneously: Yeah.] seems a little--

S: Uh-hm.

AD: That's what I like about the 19^th century writers, they all accuse each other of being turbid. [VM: Ah.] So you have A. E. Waite accusing Atwood of not being understandable and you try to read Waite and he's not understandable. They go around in circles.

VM: Right, well--

AD: But the idea is a little clearer here, try it once more.

VM (very faint, possibly part of background): (I was trying to reflect--)

AD: You want to find out who the true subject is.

[short pause]

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 393, TS reading]: "…the idea, the senseless unconscious image of man, extant millions of ages before it was engrossed in our coarse flesh and blood, was what subdeific powers worked out into creaturely existence; precisely as our brain holds an outline of the work the hands proceed to execute…"

TS: Oh I see.

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 393, TS reading]: "…precisely as our brain holds an outline of the work the hands proceed to execute…"

TS: Ok, um--

AD: The analogies are good, aren't they.

TS: Yeah. (some laughter)

VM: That was helpful.

TS: That would-- that [one word inaudible] helpful. [student assents, faint] Um--

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 393, TS reading]: ""A Divine imagination, in which the ideas of angels and souls have been seen from eternity, in a Divine type and resemblance; yet not then as creatures, but in resemblance, as when a man beholdeth his face in a glass; therefore the angelical and human idea did flow forth from [the] wisdom, and was formed into an image, as Moses saith [TS reads: says]." [Jacob Böhme, Clavis, par. 43] "This true image it is which God from eternity hath beheld with His Holy Spirit in the wisdom, but without substance, which He created into substance, that is, brought substance into this image."" [Jacob Böhme, Third Apology, Text IV, Point IV, par. 18. See also Incarnation, Part I, Ch. II, par. 14, and Threefold Life, Ch. X, par. 14.]

AD: Alright now-- now--

VM: Anthony, aren't you speaking-- or, in this language, are we trying to go through the same discussion that you and Avery and David Ruth were struggling with last night, [Note: See WG Class 1982 0326a.] and that is, that the wisdom in this paragraph might be associated with that-- let's say the Jupiter, Universal Soul, ninth house Jupiter [diagram], [AD, faint: Well, (he--)] and the-- the Idea in unified fashion there is taken and--

AD: I don't remember last night.

VM: Alright. So we forget last night. We're speaking about the-- the instantiation of this-- this Idea in Universal Soul into universal manifestation. And, this-- this image of man which they talk about as senseless and unconscious, it's unconscious in the sense of not being reflected-- reflectively conscious and senseless in the sense that it doesn't have normal sense functioning but it's really the Idea of Man being brought into incarnation in the fleshy body that we're speaking about.

AD: Yes, I think we're getting there. You [VM simultaneously: So--] want to read it over again, [VM: Yes.] [student assents, faint] one line [VM simultaneously, faint: I see, and that's-- ok.] at a time or-- go ahead.

VM: (Gee on the) one line at a time, that would be [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Because this you have to try to get an intuition into for yourself.

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 393, TS reading]: "…the idea, the senseless unconscious image of man…"

AD: Alright, stop there.

TS: Yeah.

AD: I mean (what's) he says, senseless unconscious idea of man?

VM (simultaneously): Yeah but see that-- that's the subconscious Idea. [AB: No but--] I think they're using senseless in the sense of not being involved in sense functioning, unconscious [AS simultaneously, faint: Oh yeah.] in the sense of not [JfL/S(?) simultaneously: No but he didn't mean it--] being reflectively conscious.

AS: No he's talking-- he's talking about Nature.

TS (simultaneously): [few words inaudible] of Nature, yeah.

S: Yeah.

AS: I think that's what is-- he's talking about the image which Nature has or the seminal-- the reason-principles within Nature perhaps.

VM: Ok, so it's not reflectively conscious, right? Remember that was the whole thing that Dickie was all upset about last night, that you can have [AS simultaneously: Well he says-- ok.] intelligence that's not self-conscious.

AS: Well the light of nature produces man and all other things in terms of the physical man and all of the other things in the universe and it does so in a--

AD (simultaneously): Isn't he speaking about what made that light?

VM: Made the life or light?

AS: Well--

AD: Light.

AS: When he talks about the wisdom which it has, then he would be talking about what made it.

AD: What made that light.

AS: But when he talks about the production of that light he seems to be talking about Nature.

AD: Yeah. So then basically he's talking about what Jung referred to as the image of God in man.

VM: Ok.

S: Go ahead.

AH: Well, are we saying that the senseless unconscious aspect--

AD: He's just trying to say there that it's an immaterial Idea.

AH: It's not any way associated with human knowledge that that has.

AD: Well, I don't know what you mean by that.

AH: Well, human knowledge [couple inaudible AD words simultaneous with AH] would be a consequence of the sensory and conscious--

AD: No, it's not that kind, it's not that at all.

S (faint): No.

AH: It's not what is--

AD: It's not that at all.

AH: So it's not making that assertion.

AD: 'Idea' I think she has italicized.

TS: Yeah.

AD: I don't think she wants you to confuse it with empirical knowledge.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AH (very faint): So it's fully divested of any human knowledge.

S (very faint): Right.

AD: So it's an imma-- immaterial Idea which has been existent for how long?

TS: Millions--

S (simultaneously): They don't know years.

AD: They don't know.

TS: Millions of ages.

AD: Millions of ages. Tim, read it, never mind writing it. (some laughter) We can't hear your writing. (laughter)

S: You better visualize that.

VM (simultaneously): Write louder.

S (faint): Right. (laughter)

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 393, TS reading]: "…the idea, the senseless unconscious image of man, extant millions of ages before it was engrossed in our coarse flesh and blood, was what subdeific powers worked out into creaturely…"

AD (simultaneously): And we would call that the Intelligibles, alright, subdeific powers. So it's these Intelligibles that went into the creation or were concerned with creating this image of man, and they-- they have a model of that in the Divine Mind or the Divine Wisdom.

VM: A model of the Idea.

AD: The Idea of that-- [student assents, faint] of a Man.

VM (faint): Ok.

S (very faint): Right.

AD: I'm not going to-- I'm-- I'm not going use the word 'bodhicitta' until you people begin to get a-- (at least--)

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1982 0327a Ends; Side 2 Begins)

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 393, TS reading]: ""…yet not then as creatures, but in resemblance, as when a man beholdeth his face in a glass; therefore the angelical and human idea did flow forth from the wisdom, and was formed into an image, [as Moses saith]." [Jacob Böhme, Clavis, par. 43] [10¼ second pause] "This true image it is which God from eternity hath beheld with His Holy Spirit in the wisdom, but without substance, which He created into substance, that is, brought substance into this image."" [Jacob Böhme, Third Apology, Text IV, Point IV, par. 18. See also Incarnation, Part I, Ch. II, par. 14, and Threefold Life, Ch. X, par. 14.]

LDS: Yeah.

DB: So then would it-- he's-- would he be speaking of this germ, this germinal consciousness which is projected from the soul in the Intellectual-Principle into manifestation but I think here he's kind of talking about the period prior to that becoming embodied. But nonetheless it contains within itself an image of the Divine there and he speaks of substance being brought into that. [student assents, very faint] It-- so substance that is being brought into that would-- would be the-- the substance of the-- the World-Soul's imagination.

AD (faint): Well we always refer to it, the matter in the fifth house [diagram].

VM (faint): Like last night, [student assents, faint] right.

S (faint): Yeah.

AD: The tanmatras [couple words inaudible] [VM assents, very faint] In other words, these people are trying to explain something about the generation of the bodhicitta or the light which gets emanated from the soul and goes into a body, alright, and becomes, you know, involved in manifestation, but they're trying to point out that this image of God is the work of these Intelligible Gods and that it's in existence long before corporeal man ever appeared.

AB: And when she says that this idea flowed forth from the wisdom, is that to say that it exists in the Nous as an Intelligible and [AD: Yeah.] it's-- there it's substanceless.

AD: In other words, that-- that bodhicitta which is going to be projected, alright, is the product of the Nous.

AB: And there it's insubstantial. [AD: Uh-huh.] And then we just brought in the--

AD (simultaneously): And then it gets substantialized and we-- we brought out the fact that that means it would have to include the tanmatras or the matter in which it's going to manifest this wisdom that's contained within it.

AB: And-- and that's done by these angelic and other orders of Gods.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, they would refer to them as angelic, yeah. Well these are all--

LDS: Yeah, one question where he speaks of-- where she speaks of God arranges (this) image of substance.

AD: We wouldn't speak of God, we would speak about the Idea in the soul. The Idea(s) or soul, according to Plotinus.

LDS: [couple/three words inaudible]

AD: Alright, go on.

LDS: The line had something to do with if God knows this image eternally in a subs-- substanceless way but then grants it substance, gives it a substance, would that mean there God would-- does it seem that God (would) [one/two words inaudible] refers to the Nous but more to the Demiurge.

AD (simultaneously): Well that would be (these) third quadrant, the powers in the third quadrant [diagram]. (And they're) [couple/three words inaudible] Well, when we say that, that insofar that the individual has to manifest the entire universe from within himself, then that means that he has to contain that matter within himself in order to manifest the perceived world. So that Idea of Man also has not only the will of God, alright, which is substanceless or material-less, but, later on in the progress, alright, incorporates into it or the Intelligible powers incorporate into it the necessary matter for it to manifest its knowledge.

LDS: And you're saying that substance then would come from the third quadrant.

AD (faint): In the realm of (number(s)).

S (faint): What?

AD: Go ahead.

AH (faint): (Can you) explain the analogy about the glass?

AD: I don't know that I could explain her analogies. But read it again, read it.

TS: Um--

AD: The whole idea, all we want to get to is what is the true subject. It's all we want to know.

S (very faint): Ok.

AD: You try (reading).

TS: Yeah.

AD: Better go ahead.

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 393, TS reading]: ""A Divine imagination, in which the ideas of angels and souls have been seen from eternity, in a Divine type and resemblance; yet not then as creatures, but in resemblance, as when a man beholdeth his face in a glass; therefore the angelical and human idea did flow forth from the wisdom, and was formed into an image, as Moses saith."" [Jacob Böhme, Clavis, par. 43]

BS/S(?) (faint): What does it mean?

AD: There it amounts to saying that God is looking over you. Let's say the Soul in the Intellect. That God is looking, and his looking is equivalent to the production of that Idea of Man.

S: So would you say--

AH (faint): Sometimes that one about-- It's like-- perhaps more like speaking about that true subject. (That) looking, that Divine looking, is the subjective basis of willing.

[short pause]

TS: Well, the-- the Divine looking is the Demiurge as to-- the Royal Soul is what's looking.

AH (faint): And yet it seems (there's) no connection with that principle to do this (task). It has to be a connective subjective principle that seems [one word inaudible] to do so.

AD: I'm sorry, I still don't follow.

AH (faint): Well, it's been suggested (through) this glass analogy is from the point of view of the Demiurge. And the notion of looking does not refer to the Ideas in the Nous. That primal Idea passes over. Seems it would be a-- we'd be able to find that substance. You have that trace of subject all the way back principially. Well I think it's not--

S (simultaneously): Yeah.

AH: I'm not really very clear on my question.

S: Yeah.

AD: Well read a little more and we'll try to explain.

TS: From this book?

AD: Yeah, just continue with the reading.

TS: Um-- Blavatsky goes on.

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 394, TS reading]: ""Finally, it is shewn in every ancient Scripture and cosmogony that man evolved primarily as a luminous incorporeal form, over which…the physical frame was built by, [TS adds: and] through, and from the lower forms and types of animal terrestrial life [TS reads: types of animals in terrestrial life]."" [H.P. Blavatsky, Secret Doctrine, Vol. II, p. 112. Third and revised ed., 1893, p. 118.]

TS: Uh--

AD: Alright, go ahead, have it.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

DB: Ok so, he-- is it being said there that this luminous incorporeal form would still be within the province of universal manifestation?

TS: There it would seem so.

S (faint): Right.

DB: And that that-- that is the-- the image which he referred to previously of-- [short pause] of the soul in the Intellectual-Principle.

TS (simultaneously): I think she-- I just think she took that large drop down. That luminous form would be like the astral.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AD: Read that once more, I didn't catch it.

TS: Ok.

A.J. Penny [Studies in Jacob Böhme, p. 425, TS reading]: "…the idea is the shape into which the will contracts itself with desire to bring that idea to ultimation; and with that contraction of the will the evolution of a self-conscious and embodied spirit begins; for"not substantial, but figured spirits without corporising have been from eternity." [Jacob Böhme, Forty Questions (1665), Ques. 19, par. 10] Spirit must form some kind of embodiment before its self-consciousness can begin."

S: Hm.

AD: You know, Jacob Böhme was referred to by a few people, especially Blavatsky, as a darling of the angels.

S (faint): Hm [one/two words inaudible] Is that [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Or a nursling of the Dharmakayas.

S (very faint): Yeah.

S (very faint): [one/two words inaudible]

AD: Evidently [AS simultaneously: Yeah.] he had some insight into the Nous and saw some things there that were going on and then tried to explain it. But he was a carver, a shoemaker, he never had any education. So, there's difficulty in understanding some of his written-- writings, but still I think you can get the drift of what he's saying there, he's speaking about the eternal generation of the bodhicitta and all that goes into making it what it is. Wouldn't you say that? He's speaking about all the powers of the Nous or the Intelligibles which are involved in the creation. Because when we say that the soul gives off a light from itself, it sounds very, you know, prosaic. [S, very faint: Poetic.] But now when we try to investigate what is the nature of this light, what goes into constituting this light and making it what it is, you come up with a whole different idea of what bodhicitta is besides calling it the germ of enlightenment.

S: But all this that you're talking about is like coming down from a-- from above, like (a/the) projection from above (the) soul, whereas previously we've been talking about building up out of--

AD: Your experiences on Earth.

S: Yes, a body or a vehicle fit for that bodhicitta. And it does that vehicle or-- that I could possibly read into what he was saying, that there [AD simultaneously: Well--] it seems to be going--

AD (simultaneously): Well, the point would be like this then, if we say-- if we say that the man's divine fragment which is manifested into the world, and from which, let's say, as he goes along in experience, that he extracts meaningfulness from those experiences, then they already have to be within him. Wouldn't they?

[short pause]

AH (very faint): Is it--

S: Yeah then--

AH (simultaneously): It's possible to (extract) true meaning they'd have to be within.

AD: I'm sorry?

AH: If it's possible to extract meaning, that meaning somehow has to--

AD: First within there.

AH: First within there.

AD (simultaneously): But then we would have to consider that there were certain powers that went into forming this image of the Idea of a Man. So that they would have to insert all these reason-principles into that image.

LR: And then they speak of the will being inserted in there and it's like this--

AD: No, the-- the will is first.

LR: But-- right. But the will is inserted in this substance which is now refer--

AD: Substance, yeah, ok. First the will.

LR: The will is first but it get-- but she's-- it seems like they're saying that-- it's first principially. [AD, faint: Uh-hm.] But it has to enter the substance now and that's actually what squeezes out or begins to squeeze out these in-- intelligible meanings, I mean, it's through the will that the meanings or reason-principles which are now buried in the matter, in the substance of the Earth--

AD (simultaneously): But isn't that why-- isn't that why it brings in the matter, to bury the reason-principles in it.

LR: Initially.

AD: Yeah.

LR: Now, says the will--

AD (simultaneously): So when the image-- the image of God which is in man, the Ideas are already included in the tanmatric substance which is incorporated into his image.

LR: Yeah. No I've already assumed that, and [AD simultaneously, faint: Ok.] I'm saying now-- now that it's-- they're in there, it's through the will that they're squeezed out, she says it-- the will has to manifest itself to itself. You know, I mean you say ok, [AD simultaneously: Yeah.] it's all in there but why all of a sudden do--

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, there will becomes creative. The will becomes creative because it's in the process of manifestation, the will is what brings it into being. You got any more quotes from the Atwood on the true subject? Because the work can't even start in alchemy until you know the true subject. I mean what would you do?

AB: And that's under 164.

TS: [few words inaudible]

AD: Yeah.

AH (faint): I wanted to ask a question about the passage Tim read. Just general question now. [S, faint: Here the--] Passage starts and describes this unconscious senseless--

AD: Idea of Man, yeah.

AH (simultaneously, very faint): The Idea of Man.

AD: The Idea of Man.

AH (faint): Now he would say that was Nature.

S (faint): No.

S (faint): No.

AH (very faint): That hasn't been (part of) Nature.

AD: That's going to be eventually projected into Nature but we're speaking about the eternal generation of the Idea of a Man, which is going to be projected into the manifested world, (so-called).

AH (faint): It will be proje-- That first description of Idea, or the one that's senseless and unconscious, you can call it bodhicitta?

AD: What we're getting into, Andrew, is a discussion of what goes into the making of the bodhicitta, [AH simultaneously, faint: I was just--] and it's certainly not Nature.

AH (faint): I was just interested in another way of speaking about that first part.

TS (very faint): That's the (vivarta).

AD: Yeah, we're speaking about the senseless unconscious incorporeal Idea of Man. And what I've been saying is that Nature does not make that, that this is the product of angelic or Intelligible powers in the Nous.

AH (faint): Nature does not make that.

AD: That Idea of Man.

AH (faint): But that Idea of Man is the product of those subdeific powers.

AD: Subdeific means here if you think of deific as the supreme one, there will be secondary powers and (tertiary/subdeific) powers.

AH: So that Idea is a product of--

AD: The Nous' functioning.

AH (faint): But you just said it was the product of subdeific powers.

AD: Yes. Subdeific [one inaudible AS word simultaneous with AD] would be less than the One.

AB: Liberated Gods, Andrew.

AH (faint): So Nous equals subdeific powers.

AD: Yeah. Deity here would correspond to the Transcendent, the One Itself.

AH (very faint): Oh I was thinking--

AD: Yeah, you-- you see these people have their own eighteenth century vocabulary. [S: How about this--] They inherited it from the alchemists.

AH: So that passage isn't-- doesn't posit the ultimate principle, it's starting with something less than it.

AD: He's not talking-- no, he's not talking about the Transcendent, he's-- what-- what he's talking about there is this image of the Idea of Man, alright, the image of God in man is the product of the functioning of the powers of the Nous. That's what it amounts to. When they-- when Plotinus says that the soul projects a power or a light from itself, [Note: See Plotinus, I.1.7.] alright, I'm asking you now that light which it projects from itself, alright, would have to have, if you remember Plotinus the way he speaks about it, he-- he would put it this way, he says, insofar that the eter-- the soul is an eternal and authentic essence, alright, then it-- an emanation from it would have to have the same characteristics. [Note: See Plotinus, IV.1.1, IV.3.19 (last para).] Right? Its-- if its outward-facing hypostasis-- Like if you got fire, there's heat in the fire and there's the heat which is projected from the fire. Now the soul insofar that it is what it is, alright, it has all these powers within itself and is eternal authentic and all that, alright, but then it also projects from itself an outward-facing hypostasis. This which it projects from itself is that light that Plotinus speaks to-- about. Now, that light is going to have to include or be looked upon under the aspect of eternality. That means that that image of God, and over here God simply means the summit of your soul, 'cause that is God, that's the only God you'll ever know.

AH: The summit of what?

AD: Your soul. So it's that light which is projected and that's the image of God. Now, what the paragraph was referring to was what went into making that image, the powers that were involved. Ok?

AH (faint): Yeah I-- I understood it different(ly).

AD: I didn't ask you how you understood it. I don't have that much of a throat left. Now, if you got some idea of what the bodhicitta is, it contains within it all this-- all this marvelous wisdom. If you get a chance, read the article that was read. [Note: Beatrice Lane Suzuki, "Bodhicitta", in Buddhism in England, Volumes 13-14.] I don't-- I don't remember what it-- Last week on the bodhicitta? [Note: See WG Class 1982 0320, article starts on page 24 of the class.] [S simultaneously: (And--)] And my interest was in investigating what this term means. I don't like the term 'bodhicitta' because it's a foreign word. And the only English I know I picked up on the streets of New York.

S: Which wasn't English.

AD: Which wasn't. (bit of laughter) If I can't understand a thing in English I don't want to bother with it. But at any rate, now we got to some idea, this is what you've been reading about in Jung as the image of God in man. [student assents, faint] You remember the way some of the ancient Church fathers spoke about that idea? They said it's not in a physical body. They said it's in the rational soul. You remember? Alright, let's-- let's continue, Avery. [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] Because we want to find out who this subject is.

JfL/S(?) (very faint): [one/two words inaudible] it's not down here.

S: What?

AS: Yeah and--

TS: And you want that other quote, this isn't in that.

S: No I have it behind you.

AD: Did I mark any more passages (on/out of) it?

S: Yeah.

AD (simultaneously): (You might) just go on to Atwood on the Mysteries.

TS (faint): Doesn't seem I marked this.

S (faint): Yeah.

AD/S(?) (faint): Pardon?

S: Yeah.

DB (simultaneously): I'm sorry.

AS (faint): Yeah. Yeah (but I mean--)

TS: Page 174?

S (faint): That was in the car.

AD: Here. Start over here, "Man then…"

TS (simultaneously): [few words inaudible] did you get it, the one on the will?

AS: On 162.

TS (faint, possibly part of background): I got the whole thing xeroxed yesterday.

AD: She gives you a clue when she heads the chapter "The True Subject".

S (faint): Oh.

S: (She makes) you think.

HE (faint): And she tells you what it (is).

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 162, AS reading]: "Man then, shall we conclude at length, is the true laboratory of the Hermetic art; his life…"

AD (simultaneously): So you don't have to go out and buy all that equipment.

TS: No.

CDA (simultaneously): What page are you on?

AS: 162. "Man…"

AB: I'll try--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 162, AS reading]: "Man then, shall we conclude at length, is the true laboratory of the Hermetic art; his life the subject, the grand distillatory [AS reads: distillery], the thing distilling…" (some laughter)

LR: Distillatory you mean.

S: Oh. That's ok.

S (simultaneously): (Look--)

VM: Oh [couple words inaudible] (laughter) [couple inaudible AD words simultaneous with VM] Then they go home.

AS: Yeah that's good. (more laughter)

AD (amidst laughter): That's good Vic.

S (faint): Start it all over again but--

S (simultaneously): But what is--

S: Well we're all--

LR: We are-- we might be in the bowery but--

HE (faint): It's where we're at, I don't know. (some laughter, student words)

LR (laughing, faint): Distillery.

S (faint): You're not driving.

[few seconds of background student talking, bit of laughter]

AS: But that's what he's saying-- that's the same thing. What's a distillatory?

LR: I don't know, but it doesn't sound as much like the bowery.

AD (simultaneously): We'll-- we'll get more personal later on why-- why is it distillatory. (bit of laughter) When you got to get to work in fixing that circular light--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 162, AS reading]: "…his life the subject, the grand distillatory, the thing distilling and the thing distilled, and Self-Knowledge to be at the root of all Alchemical tradition? Or, is any one disappointed at such a conclusion, imagining difficulties, (bit of laughter) [S, faint: Or--] or that the science is impracticable because it is humanly based?"

AD: Next passage.

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 163, AS reading]: "Yet, notwithstanding so much scepticism and the slur which ignorance has cast now for centuries upon every early creed and philosophy, [AS reads: so much scepticism and so on] modern discoveries tend evermore to reprove the same; identifying light, as the common vital sustenant, to be in motive accord throughout the human circulatory system with the planetary spheres and harmonious dispositions of the occult medium in space…"

S (very faint, possibly part of background): [couple words inaudible]

[short pause]

S (very faint): Yeah.

AS: Well the next-- the middle of 164.

[short pause, flipping of pages]

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 164, AS reading]: "Yet man, say they, [AS reads: they say] is demonstrated to be a compendium of the whole created nature…having within him, besides those faculties which he exerts ordinarily and by which he judges and contemplates sensible phenomena, the germ of a higher faculty or Wisdom, which, when revealed and set alone, all the forms of things and hidden springs of nature become intuitively known and are implied essentially. This Being, moreover, or Faculty of Wisdom, is reputed so to subsist with reference to nature as her substratal source, that it works magically withal, discovering latent properties as a principle, governing and supplying all dependent existence…"

[short pause]

AD: Did you make anything out of those two passages?

[12 second pause]

LDS: This last-- the last passage seems to [one word inaudible] this-- this germ contains Nature, that is the source of Nature.

[short pause]

S: How do you get that Andrew?

AD: That's Louis.

S: Yeah.

S: Ok.

S: Oh I'm sorry.

LDS: He says this Being, which I think he's referring to the-- the germ--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 164, LDS reading]: "…moreover, or Faculty of Wisdom, is reputed so to subsist with reference to nature as her substratal source, that it works magically withal [LDS reads: with], discovering latent properties as a principle, governing and supplying all dependent existence…"

LDS: That seems to be saying that the--

LR: Yeah but, isn't it Nature working itself out through this principle, I mean I don't think they mean-- I don't know. I mean maybe you're right, I just-- I didn't think it meant that it was the cause of Nature, but more that Nature was working itself throughout-- working itself-- herself out through--

LDS: No my only reference was how it would do it. This germ contains--

LR: The reason-principles in Nature.

LDS: Yeah, all of Nature.

LR: Yeah.

LDS (simultaneously): All of the production in it. That Nature would be its medium to manifest all these elements and reason-principles and--

AB: Isn't that why she says that when this germ is "revealed and set alone, all the forms and hidden springs of nature become known"?

LDS (faint): Yeah. In other words, you're-- you're bringing last night into this. This is--

AB: I'm still not sure why-- how you mean the substrate of Nature. But I think that if you activate that-- the image within you, then you'd have all of Nature revealed to you.

AS: I-- see I think he's just saying that the wisdom that Nature operates with is also the wisdom from soul. Same as your (life/light). And so if you were to reveal-- if you were to find your own life, the light of your own soul, you'd also understand the wisdom with which Nature operates, because that wisdom is also a prior to Nature. It's also the fount-- the fountain of Nature's wisdom by which it creates. If you found that in yourself, you would understand how Nature operates because you would understand all the prior reason-principles with which it operates.

S (very faint): Right.

S: Uh-hm.

AS: He's just saying that that germ of-- of your soul is the same as the germ--

AD (simultaneously): Wouldn't that stand to reason? Because if the alchemist is going to work [AS simultaneously: (To) Nature.] some of these marvels, you know, he's going to have to have some more understanding of Nature's laws than even the natural scientist has. So that faculty has to become operative in him first.

LDS: Yeah, I see what you're (saying).

AD (simultaneously): You see-- you see what you're doing? You're isolating the true subject in you, alright, you're becoming aware that there is such a thing that has this absolute knowledge within, alright, and that this-- through this medium then one could operate, let's say, and understand higher laws of Nature. But we haven't touched on well, how do we get-- how do we get to isolate this subject, this true subject, from what I know myself to be as a subject? Because I conceive of myself as a subject but they're not talking about that. They're not talking about the empirical subject, evidently it's becoming obvious that they're talking about the image of God within you which has to be isolated from you, alright. And you have to learn to work with that. So, [TS/S(?) simultaneously: Well, yeah.] we're getting closer to the notion of what they mean by true subject.

AB: Anthony?

AD (faint): Go ahead.

AB: On the previous page the quote we read and isn't that implying that the thing to be distilled is also the means and the place of the distillation. In other words, somehow this image of God within us is what we have to extract. But at the same time it's what we use to extract itself because it's that wisdom.

AD (simultaneously): It's-- it's-- if you remember Jung made a paraphrase of that.

AB: Consciousness, yeah, is a transformer and the transformation of the original instinctual image, something--

AD: Go ahead.

AH (faint): I thought Louis's point, is it-- is it-- is it being suggested that Nature is contained within that germ?

AD: Well that's something you're going to have to find out.

AH (faint): It would seem--

AD: I'm not going to tell you.

AH (faint): It would seem it would have to be so because if it's possible to find-- find a connection between my soul and the soul of Nature, that's that common origin that--

AB: Yeah but, it doesn't mean that Nature's subsumed within your soul.

AH: Well I didn't say that.

CDA (simultaneously): (His monster.)

AH: I said it is possible for there to be a connection between my soul and the soul of Nature, have to have a common origin.

S (faint): Ok.

AB: That's what [S simultaneously, faint: Yeah.] I thought Avery was saying. Or at least the reason-principles in your soul and in Nature have a common origin.

CDA: Well, I-- if-- if the whole cosmos is within me, so is Nature. How can I know Nature? How could-- if I was-- if I realize the bodhicitta, what Nature would I know other than that which emanated from it?

[short pause]

AD: Good question, let's go on to the next chapter, "The Mysteries".

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

CDA (faint): Ok, you want to try to (unfind) it?

AD: Hm? Well, they got anxieties on the board that says "magnified two hundred thousand times". (bit of laughter)

S: Are you trying to magnify it?

S: Uh-hm. (bit of laughter)

TS: We're quite probably going to reduce it either (way/one).

AS (simultaneously): Ok, I think around page 188 is where you want to start that, on page--

AD: Ok, go ahead, Avery.

AS (faint): Actually not all.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AS (faint): I think this is to the point.

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, pp. 188-189, AS reading]: "Synesius writes [appositely] on the early disciplines, showing the phantastical condition also of the natural understanding essence, before it is purified by art and exalted. This Ethereal Spirit, he says, is situated on the confines of the rational and brutal life, and is of a corporeal and incorporeal degree; [and] it is the medium which conjoins divine natures with the lowest of all. [short pause] And nature extends the latitude of a phantastic essence through every condition of things; it descends to animals in whom intellect is not present; in this case, however, it is not the understanding of a divine part (as in man it ought to be) but becomes the reason of the animal with which it is connected, and is the occasion of its acting with much wisdom and propriety. And it is obvious, he continues, that many of the energies of the human life consist from this nature, or [if] from something else (i.e., to say, from reason), yet this prevails most; [for] we are not accustomed to cogitate without imagination, unless, indeed, some one should on a sudden be enabled to pass into contact with an intelligible essence." [T. Taylor's Proclus on Euclid, the extract from Synesius, Vol. II.]

CDA/S(?) (faint): Yeah.

AD: Avery, you want to explain that?

AS: Well, he-- he spoke about this original condition that the phantastical-- the imagination. That the first-- the early disciplines he's speaking about is first the purifying of the imagination. And before this wisdom which is in the soul or is in the bodhicitta, which is really within us, can be made available, the first stages would be the purifying of the imagination, if he says it's an ethereal spirit and so on. Seems until that time this imagination though is the-- the repository or the vehicle or the connecting medium between this wisdom in the soul and the corporeal life. So, most of the time like in an animal or even most of the condition we're in at most times, it's this imagination which is the medium for this-- for the intelligence in the soul, and we cannot-- we can't directly apprehend that wisdom within us or in the true subject.

AD: Except through the [AS simultaneously: Except through the imagination.] medium of the imagination and the pictures that are in it.

AS: But if we were to be able to transcend that then we could possibly contact that wisdom directly, the reason-principles directly.

AD: So then the imagination here would be an interference in that contact, [AS simultaneously: Well, both.] in other words, to get to that true subject.

AS: Yeah. It's both because it seems that it's an interference since a-- well-- It's an interference on the one hand because the true subject or the light of the soul was-- has to work-- is working through it and so whatever images are in the imagination are obscuring it. On the other hand, it's the only way in which we would get anything of that true subject's knowledge at all. On the one hand it obscures knowledge but on the other hand it's the only medium we have right now for revealing it. So, it seems a necessary obscuration.

S: Is it the--

AD (simultaneously): But, if I remember yesterday we put it down about the third level that ge-- generally empirical knowledge or human cognition in general operates through images.

AS: Yeah, they're from sense.

AD (simultaneously): And from images has a recollection or general ideas. And there's a hint that there's a universal subject there insofar that it can grasp universal ideas. In other words, when you can see the Idea of Man, alright, as exhibited in this man, that man, the other man, that should be a clue or an indication (for/to) you that there's a subject who can grasp directly the Idea of Man without the use or the intermediary of any kind of imagery.

AS: (Yeah/Right). But the way-- the way our condition is mostly, the only apprehension of those universals is through the imagination. And the way-- I think the way you put it was the imagination is the seat of all the memories and traces and so on, and these are what also obscure or interfere with the-- what those Ideas-- well--

AD: Yeah.

AS: It seems to interfere with that inna-- inner wisdom or innate knowledge.

AH: But then the passage refers to animal-- the animal behaving with much wisdom and propriety insofar as that(--) are in touch with the natural law. And then man also, in a large measure, that is his life also. Man has a principle of intellect that the animals don't have and that principle of intellect seems to be a way of speaking about that imagination that-- that both at once is obscuration of a possibility for that--

AS: You're saying--

AH: And it's like through that intellect that man can behave with much wisdom and propriety in a way that the animal--

AD (simultaneously): If that-- if that imagination is curtailed.

AS: Yeah. Andrew, in the line he says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 189, AS reading]: "…it descends to animals in whom intellect is not present; [AS: That is, the imagination.] in this case, however, it is not the understanding of a divine part (as in man it ought to be) but becomes [AS reads: but it does become] the reason of the animal…" [T. Taylor's Proclus on Euclid, the extract from Synesius, Vol. II.]

AS: Ok.

AH: I think that reason of the animal is the imagination in it.

AB: Yeah. [few words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): Yeah. In this-- is that-- that's the only-- In other words, the imagination that the animal-- it-- it seems to be cut off from that next level of dianoia or reason. Now in the ma-- in the human, if that reason or dianoia which is above imagination were allow-- were to come more and more to govern the imagination and curtail its operation, the man would live by reason rather than by his imagination. The animal though has no access to reason. He only has the traces in the imagination.

AH (faint): Do you think (where) the conflict is [AS simultaneously: And sense.] to speak of the imagination that governs the animal's behavior and makes it wise [one/two words inaudible] (can you think of it--) is that like cosmic imagination? It seems like (uncon--) [student assents, very faint] Certainly animal doesn't have individual imagination.

AS: Yeah I would say it has individual imagination, why--

AH: Not the way that we do.

LDS: Well is it like [AS simultaneously: It doesn't have--] species-- like animal species that have within their imagination embedded [AS simultaneously: It do--] patterns of operating, [S simultaneously: Yeah.] patterns of behavior.

AS (simultaneously): Yeah.

LR/S(?): That seems (like--)

AS (simultaneously): But then it would have its own personal-- it would have kind of--

LDS: Personal in a sense but--

AS (simultaneously): I would say it doesn't have per-- it doesn't have an individual reason power, not that it doesn't have imagination. [LDS simultaneously: Well yeah (one/two words inaudible)] It just doesn't have the-- [S simultaneously, faint: Well, not yet.] it doesn't have the individualized reason. So it's con-- it-- so the imagination is con-- is being guided as it were by the instinctual operation of the species. In man there's a possibility that the reason can override the instinctual operation and therefore imagination would tend upward more to the reason, let's say reason, [student assent, very faint] than to be caught up with the instinctual operation.

AB: Yeah the quote--

AS: There's a possibility of that in man.

AB: Quote is that it's-- it becomes the reason of the animal with which it is connected. In other words, it's through the imagination of the creature that it's connected with this reason so, you know, then birds know when it's going to rain and all those kind of things, that that's with propriety [AS: Yeah.] and wisdom.

RG: Could I ask? But what-- what happ-- what-- at what level then when-- when that imagination stops as he says, at what level then is contacted on the first (instant/instance)?

AS: You mean when he's just purely operating in reason?

RG: No. Not when he's yet operating in reason but when we-- when he can stop-- stop the imagination.

AS: Then he would be operating with reason.

LR (simultaneously): Then with the reason.

RG: Not necessarily.

AS: Well what-- what would he be operating with if the imagination [LR simultaneously, faint: Yeah.] stopped and--

LR: We're saying the reason is always there and the imagination is obscuring it. So if the imagination were to cease, [RG: Yeah.] what would be revealed?

S: Deep sleep.

RG (simultaneously): Not necessarily reason.

AS: Then what?

LR: But (what) [couple words inaudible]

RG: The object of what it was imagining on.

AS: The object that it was imagining.

RG (simultaneously): Let-- yeah, let's say you were imagining about something and you stopped imagining about it.

AD: Then you'd have the contact directly with the Intelligible.

AS: Yeah, with the reason--

AD (simultaneously): It would be-- it--

RG (simultaneously): That's right, yeah.

AS (simultaneously): --within you.

AD (simultaneously): There'd be no ontological damage.

RG: Right. Now, what level of existence is first had there?

S (faint): [one word inaudible]

RG: Let's say we're imagining about Nature, about the principles of Nature, and we stop imagining about them. Would you say then you would be contacting them, [AD simultaneously: Then you'd be--] your Intell-- their Intelligible nature?

AD: You'd be contacting the Intelligibles, yeah.

RG: The Intelligibles of Nature.

AD/S(?) (faint): Uh-uh.

S (faint): Yeah.

RG: No? So there's no way that you can-- if you stop imagining about Nature there's no way you can contact the principle of Nature. You immediately contact its prior.

BB (faint): I think you're right but--

TS: Yeah.

S: I'm confused.

TS (simultaneously): Good.

RG: You never contact [S simultaneously: Yeah, right. (S laughing)] Nature? [VM simultaneously: The odds are (one word inaudible) Dickie.] Is that right? Hm?

AD: Yeah. Because that's just in that way you're speaking about Nature. It's not the object.

LR: It is imagination. Nature is imagination, isn't it the Sun [one/two words inaudible]

AS: No, it's below the imagination.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

LR: But it [few inaudible student words simultaneous with LR] works with-- it is that imaginal essence that it--

AD (simultaneously): Well wait, wait, hold on.

AS: Let's leave out Nature.

AD (simultaneously): I don't want to get stuck on this problem. Yeah.

S (simultaneously): (Let's) begin.

AS: I think his own-- his main point here is just that this-- this imagination and he-- he's talking about in the human as it were, and if the-- we're mostly operating with the imagination, and if-- if we were to transcend the imagination we would be in the realm of reason, or towards the realm we spoke of as the light in the soul or the wisdom in the soul.

AD: It's the same as the Vedantic theory of pratibha.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

CDA: What's that?

AD (simultaneously): And that this intelligence goes all the way down.

AS (simultaneously): Intellectual-Principle.

S (very faint): (Oh), yeah.

RG (simultaneously, very faint): Uh-hm.

AD: But as it goes down, it'll be stratified according to the different levels of existence. And (we) try to point out, look how intelligent the animal operates, you know, he's got-- he's got reason. No, he doesn't have reason.

AH: The question I-- the only question I was driving at is whenever we have this discussion about the imagination in Synesius, it seems we always talk about [one word inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): But this is it.

HE (faint): Yeah I know.

AS: This is from Synesius.

AH (faint): Yeah, yeah.

AS: Ok.

AH (faint): You always talk about two levels of the imagination, you know, reflective and-- Now imagination is like the presented world, but then there's a-- a personal kind of interpretation of that that we refer to as the personal imagination.

AD: No, not in this-- not in this [AS simultaneously: No you can--] problem and he lumps them-- they're-- he lumps them together. If you transcend the-- [few inaudible AS words simultaneous with AD] even if you transcend the imagination, you're automatically in contact with Intelligibles.

AH (faint): So the notion of the imagination as obscuration is the notion of (projected) cosmos.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

AS: He's--

AD: Well, a-- a picture of the cosmos. Yes, they're pictures.

AH (faint): So to stop the imagination is to stop the world in this case.

AD: Stop the world? (bit of laughter)

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

S (faint): Yeah.

VM: How do I get off?

AS: No, you get to the real world. (some laughter) If it-- Andrew, or you could put it the other way, that if you get to the actuality or the reality of the world, if this Intelligible essence you get to is really the essence of the world, then what you normally have is-- is an imagined or reproduced picture of the world. To stop that reproduction would be to get to the essence of it.

AH (faint): That's what I said, stop the world.

AS: No, to stop the-- to stop the imaginal-- to stop the image of the world.

AH: The sense world.

S (very faint): Yeah.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AD: Yeah but, then what you come into contact with would be those powers that are organizing the knowledge which is going to become pictured world. So it isn't that you'd be stopping the world, it's just that your attention would be elsewhere. The same point that we were trying to discuss was that your attention, you could be reading, alright, and you could be concerned with the meaning of what you're reading and the presentation of the words in print is completely ignored and the concentration is on the meaning. So it isn't that the words cease to be. They're still there but you're not giving them any of your attention. So that's one of the things you have to keep in mind, that consciousness can forget one part of itself and operate (on/in) another part. So the-- the attention or consciousness would be immersed in the imagination, operate through the imagination, or could be outside of it and contacting directly these powers let's say that are organizing our knowledge.

Because we're going to have to sooner or later realize that if we speak about mentalism, then you say well, you know, the-- it's not the individual that produces the world but there's a power within him which forces him to perceive the world the way he does insofar that we share in a common world, then what you'd be getting back to would be the fact that this power which operates in you, that is this cosmic intelligence, is also operating in the other person producing in him the same way it's producing in you this so-called external world, ok. Now, the point of mentalism is that all that has to be brought within you. It's not outside of you, it's within you. All this that we're talking about is something going on within you. And until this is understood, mentalism is only grasped on the surface.

AH (faint): Ok. And is that the level of imagination in this passage?

S (faint): Andrew--

AD: I-- I don't follow.

AH: The way that this passage is speaking of imagination as-- Now that is from the point of view of mentalism?

AD: Yeah, you have to elaborate Andrew, I don't follow.

AS: See, like in mentalism you say the world is projected from within. The medium in which it projects it is the imagination. That means you-- it fits in with the [student assents] mentalist (view). The Intelligible World is within the soul and the soul projects it out through the medium of what? The imagination.

AH (faint): That's really my question. Ok.

AS: (That works for me.) And to not focus on the imagination would be to focus on the principles which have produced it. But they're going to be within. You know, if you go searching outwardly and try and investigate [few words inaudible] you won't-- you won't find those reason-principles that have produced the universe. They would be as it were behind, on the obverse side of the imagination.

AD: See I think what you might recognize also is that we're working our way deeper into the Yogacara Vijnavada school. Whereas the presentation that you get in most of the Indian texts are practically greasy, you know what I mean? (laughter) I mean they're-- that they keep repeating the same thing, you try to under-- get to what they're saying [couple inaudible student words simultaneous with AD] and there's nothing there. Whereas this is going into the details of mentalism now. Read some more.

AS: Ok on the next page, 190.

S: Avery?

AS: Actually [S simultaneously, faint: Yeah.] we-- we read this one before, (it's just--)

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 190, AS reading]: "[The Egyptian] Olympiodorus [also] speaks of the natural imperfection of the human understanding, and how far its conceptions are adverse to divine illumination. The phantasy, says he, is an impediment to our intellectual conception; hence, when we are agitated by the inspiring influence of divinity, and the phantasy intervenes…" [See Porphyry's Aids to Intelligibles. Taylor, p. 207, note.]

[Audio File 1982 0327a Ends]

[Audio File 1982 0327b Begins]

AD: Go ahead Dave.

DB: Anthony, is-- is he saying, or is what im-- is implied there that this phanta-- this imagination or organ of phantasy is the province of particular ego-centered form of operating, and as he said-- as he quoted when-- when one is inspired by Divinity and then this phantasy takes over, the inspiration will depart. Seems that the phantasy that's spoken of is the-- the--

AD: Imagination.

DB: The imagination and the form that it's taking is, well, on the one hand to provide it-- provide images for this experience but at the same time to-- to insert the subjective reference, you know, that-- the apparent subjectivity.

AD (simultaneously): The pseudo-(soul), the pseudo-subject.

DB: Yes.

AD: Yeah, the point that has to be now made and understood very clearly is that a certain amount of ontological damage is always in the process of happening when the imagination grasps what is Intelligible.

DB: And-- and the reason that this damage is done is because--

AD: Because of the peculiarity of the imagine-- the imagination. First of all it-- it has to translate something outside of itself into a form or a picture that you can understand, and secondly inherent in the imagination are already peculiarities or vasanas which will interfere with that presentation. So right there you would have an ontological damage performed which in a way can't be helped but it-- it's there for you to look at and to see very clearly.

DB: So-- so then would it-- would it be to-- to say that this imagination is the expression of that apparent subjectivity or that the vasanas that are constituted by it--

AD: The imagination is that within which the human cognition takes place as we understand human cognition.

DB: Uh-hm.

[short pause]

LR: Can you say something about-- can you say something about what it is to keep the mind pinned on--

AD (simultaneously, faint): Well, she's going to talk about that.

LR: Well, I don't think she [few words inaudible] what it is to keep the mind pinned on that-- that ontic seed-thought before the imagination takes over and interprets it. Will it-- which they say is possible obviously and-- So-- but one thing, it's not making an image out of. But is there any-- is there a total absorption there, is there any self-consciousness there, is there any reflective act at all there?

AD: No, that's only when you come out of it.

LR: So that-- so that there's no conceptual or imaginal grasping of that ontic, and--

AD (simultaneously): And-- not until you come back into the human mode of understanding.

LR: And yet you say there's understanding, there's real understanding there. [student assents, faint] So--

[short pause]

AD: See, the alchemists are going to prescribe a treatment or a process by which this volatile substance, this imagination, is first turned into light and then circulated and fixed. Ok, you might come across treatises like that in The Secret of the Golden Flower or Powers of Yoga, things like that, we'll get into them after we understand exactly where-- where any of them what we're trying to do. And you'll see I think the rationale behind many of these exercises, what-- what it is they're trying to do. But that would mean that you would first have to start the process by dissolution. Remember dissolution? That means that you have to immerse yourself into the unconscious, or, let's say, the totality of reason-principles that constitutes you, alright, and from which you're separated, and the art of meditation consists in reinserting you back into that so you get dissolved in that. And then what happens is something that they talk about.

AS: But, I think that was the reference they made to the attraction, repulsion and circulation of the light using pre-- earlier in the-- that book.

AD: Yeah, it's also [couple inaudible AS words simultaneous with AD] the system that they use--breathing through the right nostril, left nostril, making a lot of trouble for yourself, go ahead.

AH (faint): Linda, I'd like to see what-- the point you made he-- it's the same as-- what you're saying, to keep the mind fixed on the ontic seed is to not keep the mind fixed on the ontic seed. Like insofar as there's a notion of at least that self-reflective awareness, there's obscuration of it.

LR: Yeah, it's not-- very hard--

AH (simultaneously, faint): So I-- I actually have to keep my mind fixed on the ontic seed. But insofar as I try, I-- this obscures the ontic seed.

AD: Yeah but all meditation takes place in the imagination before, you know, you get anywhere, that's where it has to operate. You can't help that. But that doesn't mean that you won't break through.

S: No.

AD: In other words, attenuate the imagination to a certain point that it gets fixed and you have a momentary glimpse of something beyond-- beyond the imagination, although in all-- in all likelihood you'll probably just see a blotch of light.

LR: See I think my point was more that what I would call underst-- say you did have a breakthrough, a glimpse for a second, just say you did, you know.

AH: Ok I'll say. (laughter)

AS (amidst laughter): Say again.

LR: What-- what I would normally call the understanding is the trying to grasp that experience [S, faint: Right.] af-- you know, [AS simultaneously, faint: Which happens (after).] after it's over and it's really hard to understand what that real understanding is which is prior to the reflection that goes on.

AD (simultaneously): Oh no, no, you really understand [AS simultaneously, very faint: No, no (one/two words inaudible)] it when you grasp it (here).

LR (simultaneously): That's what I just said.

AD (simultaneously): It's when you come back that you don't understand.

LR: That's what I just said. I said it's what I usually call the understanding is the reflection that's going on, [AD: Yeah.] rather than the actual grasping.

AD: It's the actual contact with the Intelligible when you really have understanding. And then when you return to your ego-consciousness and insert back in the imagination, all the understanding just evaporates and you have the most difficult time trying to recapitulate it in your own understanding.

LR: It seems that that--

AD (simultaneously): Well we're moving slowly, aren't we, huh? Let's go on with "The Mysteries", these are mysteries, although most people don't think so.

S (faint): Right.

AS: Better one small step in the right direction than many giant steps in the wrong direction.

AD: Go ahead, some more.

AS: Um--

S (very faint): Read.

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, pp. 190-191, AS reading]: "As a rational promise to this life of a higher reality, the subsistence of these Universals cannot be too often or too distinctly brought to mind; [for] not only do they reveal in us a necessity of Being beyond present experience, but, adumbrating, as it were, their antecedent light, assist much, if perspicuously beheld, to introduce the Idea of that consummate Wisdom, wherein this reason, becoming passive, receives the substance of her Whole. [short pause] [And] the ancients glowingly describe the truth so conceived as an unquestionable experience; one and the same in all, where difference is merged in objective union."

[15¾ second pause]

AD: Keep going Avery, keep going.

AS: Ok. Um, on the next-- then further towards the bottom.

LR: How about Plato Avery?

AS: Hm?

LR: Are you going to read Plato?

AS: Am I going to read Plato?

AD: Well, we already read it before.

AS (simultaneously): I'm not going to read the underlines. (bit of laughter) [S, faint: No.] On the bottom of 191. 'Cause there's a bottom. Um-- well--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 191, AS reading]: "[And] the extremity of all evil in this life consists, according to the ancients, in not perceiving the present evil and how much human nature stands in need of amelioration; [and] this is a part [of] that two-fold ignorance which Plato execrates, which being ignorant that it is ignorant has no desire to emerge [AS adds: from the ignorance]…"

AS: Well-- says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, pp. 191-192, AS reading]: "But he who lives in the consciousness of something better will meditate improvement, and desire is the first requisite; indeed, without [AS adds: a] desire on our part, art will labour for us in vain, since Will is the greatest part of purgation."

LR/S(?) (very faint): Yeah.

AD: We didn't hear that, right?

S (very faint): (No.)

S (very faint): [few words inaudible] (bit of laughter)

S: What about art?

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 192, AS reading]: "…Will is the greatest part of [AS adds: our] purgation. And through the means of this, [says Synesius], both our deeds and discourses extend their hands to assist us in our assent…"

[short pause]

AS: Says um--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 192, AS reading]: "But the phantastic Spirit may be purified, even in brutes, (some laughter) [continues this author], so that something better may be induced: how much will not the regression of the rational soul be therefore base, if she neglects to restore that which is foreign to her nature, and leaves lingering upon earth that which rightly belongs on high? Since it is possible, by labour and a transition into other lives, for the imaginative soul to be purified and to emerge from this dark abode."

DB: Avery, could you slow down please?

S (faint): Yeah.

AS: Oh I'm sorry.

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 192, AS reading]: "Since it is possible, by labour and a transition into other lives, for the imaginative soul to be purified and to emerge from this dark abode. [And] this restoration indeed one or two may obtain as a gift of divinity and initiation. Then, indeed, the soul acquires fortitude with [AS reads: and] divine assistance, but it is no trifling context to abrogate the confession and compact which she has made with sense."

AS: In other words one-- once you've been enticed here it's pretty-- it's going to be quite a task to-- to free yourself from that compact with the senses.

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 192, AS reading]: "And in this case force will be employed, for the material inflictors will then be roused [AS reads: will be aroused] to vengeance…[AS: (which), for example] the Sacred Discourse testifies by the labours of Hercules, and the dangers which he was required to endure…"

S (faint): Well I guess--

NR (faint): Saying that if the intellectual functions (are/aren't) suspended or jumping out (at) [one word inaudible] attacks the soul directly, which direction they're going to take, or is it, you know, a prior of that, you know, that that-- they're going to [few words inaudible]

AS: Or is there a prior--

NR: (Of fault/A fall), you know, of-- in other words, the purpose is not that man has fallen from his angelic fate but rather that-- that man is being tested in each direction of (faith/fate).

S (very faint): Yeah.

AS: I don't know if it's tested so much as it seems to be the necessa-- I-- maybe it's not necessary but it seems to be a necessary way to go through first the association with this life of sense and then to gradually work itself out [NR, faint: Out.] is going to do something for the soul that it (could/would) not otherwise have done, rather than just say the whole thing is just for the purpose of testing it or (something like--)

AB: But Avery--

AS: Say that it's for its development, [student assents] individuation.

AB: Isn't also the part that when you do try and leave you'll be almost attacked by Nature who doesn't want [student assents, faint] you to leave.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

TS/S(?): It's not almost.

S: Is that the Dragon there?

AD: Karma.

S (faint): Good luck.

AB: That Nature will extract a debt from you before she lets you go.

AS: Yeah that seemed to be implied here. That's why the soul requires-- it requires the fortitude and divine assistance.

AB: "The material inflictors will then be roused to vengeance."

AS (simultaneously): Yeah. But still she seems to make the point that it's got to be your own will. [student assents] I mean you've got to exert the effort and so on otherwise you won't, as it were, [CDA simultaneously: But--] evoke this divine assistance [CDA simultaneously: Isn't--] unless you first [one/two words inaudible]

NR (simultaneously, faint): But I still don't quite know why, I mean, if (that kind of venturing) is to get back to that Nature, why it send forth in the first place [one/two words inaudible]

S (very faint): (Oh/No).

S: Oh.

[many students at once, few words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): Then we have to read that whole-- Well then we have to read that whole quote from PB I guess [Note: See Paul Brunton, Notebooks, V16, 26:4.257 & Persp., Ch. 26, #49.] [student assents] that Randy [S simultaneously, very faint: Let's do it.] pulled up, [student assents, faint] I mean-- (some laughter)

S: We all like her.

AH (faint): Like the quote [one word inaudible] where, all [one word inaudible]

S (faint): You may.

CDA: I-- I would just like to-- I think that the will is more than just exerting this effort. It seems that, I would like to ask this, that if the will is prior to imagination or to the projection of the imaginal essence, whichever it is, it is the very power of that projection-- is it the very power of that projection. So that the purgation of the will would mean that one would have the power not to project this-- not to project the world in this way. It-- is that what it means?

AD (faint): I couldn't make out the last [one word inaudible]

CDA: If the will is prior to the projection of the imaginal essence or the imagination, it seems that the purgation of the will would be the power not to project and-- this sensible world as sensible, I mean as-- as-- as the-- the light of the soul being--

AD: Yes what was your point though?

CDA: I'm asking is that what it means that the will is purgated?

AD (simultaneously): Well of course, it's prior.

S (very faint): Yeah.

CDA: So-- so if that was-- if that--

AD (simultaneously): And you have to use it in reverse. In meditation you're using the will in the reverse way then.

CDA (simultaneously): Yeah. So if-- but if-- if that were completed, that work were completed--

AD (faint): If that were completed?

CDA (simultaneously): If the will has been purged, [S: Yeah.] what the-- the light of the soul would no longer be-- be projected into the sensible or be--

AS (simultaneously): (I understand what) you're saying, you're saying that the same power of will which is projecting or is causing the manifestation is that very same will or power [CDA simultaneously: That needs to be--] which can also purify it or cut it off. And the very same desire which produced-- you know, which caused the [CDA simultaneously: I'm just trying to get-- yeah, and I'm ju--] projection is also going to--

CDA: I'm trying to get a sense of what state it would be in this process that the will was purged. Then one (will--)

S: [one/two words inaudible]

AB: Avery? I don't know, here's a quote on that in the-- in the appendix where she says that--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 576, AS reading]: "The Universal Will [being represented] as [AB adds: the] agent dissolves the false forms in the self-will represented as [AB adds: the] patient. The great Salt Sea (Wisdom, the Universal Will) dissipates the impure sulphurs [AB adds: that is, the] (desires, phantasms) in the individual will as the strokes of the sun's rays [AB reads: of the sun] dissipate the darkness [of night]."

AB: So that seems to say that you have to bring in a higher will to dissolve these phantastical desires that have been associated with your personal will.

CDA: But that higher will, it seems that once-- once the low-- I mean-- I don't see that there's two wills. There's only one will.

AB: Ultimately.

S: One.

CDA: Right. Ultimately there's only one will.

AS (simultaneously): But she has a passage in the next page, 194. [couple words inaudible] (passage). But it says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 194, AS reading]: "[Accordingly] if the will incline downwards, persisting to grovel, or evil agencies intervene, then, as the Sacred Discourse has it, the Spirit grows heavy and sinks into profound Hades. It is necessary that the mind, once seated in this [AS reads: the] Spirit, should either follow or draw or be drawn by it."

AD: Spirit here would stand for what?

AS: The imagination.

AD (faint): Yeah. Or the astral body.

AS: The astral-- yeah, the imagination. So either the-- either the rational part of the soul or the-- which-- which I would say is where the will is seated, is going to follow the imagination in which case the will is going to-- [CDA: Right.] should be dissipated 'cause it's going to let the imagination lead, let the other things lead. [student assents] [CDA simultaneously: And that's because--] And you're not taking the upper hand.

CDA: Because it is the very power of that imagination.

AS: What is?

CDA: The will.

AS: No I don't--

CDA: No?

AS: I don't think-- if I followed, the will is above the imagination but gets immersed in it unless it (leads/leaves). [student assents] Let me just-- let me just finish reading.

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 194, AS reading]: "It is necessary that the mind, once seated in this Spirit…"

AS: And I think by the mind he means the-- you know, this-- the reasoning part.

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 194, AS reading]: "…[AS adds: is] seated in this Spirit, [AS: The imagination or the astral.] should either follow [AS: That is, follow the imagination.] or draw or be drawn by it. Hence, if growing predominant in folly, she should cease to aspire, the whole identity, being submerged together, would be converted to her life."

AS: In other words, if the imagination growing predominant-- would predominate, then, you know, be caught up in that.

CDA: Maybe it'd be simpler if I just ask, what is the principle of the will.

AD: Let's not-- let's go on with this. Don't get off on will.

AS: Yeah that's--

CDA (simultaneously): It seems pretty important but I'll back off.

AD (simultaneously): You know yourself when you're sitting down and you're having fantasies you either acquiesce or you don't.

CDA: Yeah I know that.

AS: Yeah. So then that-- that will--

AD (simultaneously): You say yes or you say no.

AS: Yeah. That alone shows that the will is not really of the-- [S simultaneously, faint: Don't even notice.] of the imagination but it has power over it.

CDA: Right, right, yeah.

AS (simultaneously): So it must be a prior principle.

CDA: Right, right, right, yeah.

AD (simultaneously): Ok, then let's use it. Let's go on. (laughter)

AS: Ok.

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 194, AS reading]: "For is she not that very Sphinx of the Labyrinth, the devourer of strangers and all who have not the wit to unriddle her and know themselves?"

AD: Who's the Sphinx?

AB: Imagination.

S (simultaneously): Imagination?

S (simultaneously, faint): (Imagination.)

S (very faint): Yeah, now--

S (very faint): Hm.

S: Hm.

TS (faint, possibly part of background): Do you think I just walked in?

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 194, AS reading]: "At all events, such is said to be the nature of the Phantastic Spirit before it is mundified, that he who enters so far as to be profoundly conscious in her essence, will be lost in irrational confusion, if he assume not quickly his intellectual energies and solve, that is comprehend, it on its own ground. For, if [AS adds: the] reason remains passive, this nature at length prevailing, will ravage and devastate [and] take possession of the whole mind, destroying [AS reads: and destroy] its active…"

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, you experience that in a nightmare, right?

AS: It's after that.

AD: You can't depend on your reason to come up and jerk you out of that situation.

[short pause]

DB: Seem--

AD: Go ahead Dave.

DB: The mundification of this Sphinx-like imagination is what we ordinarily refer to as our lives? (laughter)

S (faint): No.

AB: No, David. I think that's the fixation. But before the--

S (faint): What?

AB: She says before the Spirit is mundified, if you enter into it you'll be lost in irrational confusion. So if you mundify the imagination you fix it and then you-- you can-- your reason can prevail. That's how I see it.

DB: But when I was a little baby I didn't have much reason and-- I mean-- I'm in a world of imagination.

AB: So your imagination was not mundified [AS: Right.] and fixed, it was volatile and you were like possessed by it.

AS/TS(?) (simultaneously): And you were brought up here.

[short pause]

DB: Well what does-- then just what does mundified mean?

AB: Made concrete.

S (faint): Mummified.

DB: Before the imagination was mundified.

AB: Yeah, now it's like flying all over the place.

CDA: Fixed maybe?

AB: Now you have to fix it or mundify it. That's what I think they're using that word, I might be wrong but, it's just a very unique meaning to it.

TS (faint, possibly part of background): Yeah [few words inaudible]

S (very faint, possibly part of background): Yeah.

S: Wouldn't you objectify it (perhaps)?

TS: That's--

AS: Oh I know. Mun-- mundified is the same word as mandala. It means to-- it means to contain it. It means [RG assents] to contain or put it into a-- protect it. Yeah, before it's protected. I think mundified means made into a mundus or a world or a mandala.

DB: But-- but I mean-- I guess I'm just--

AS (simultaneously): And that's what ha-- that's the pre-- that-- I mean I'm agreeing-- just following what Alan's saying it's a fixed-- make it so it's fixed. He says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 194, AS reading]: "…he who enters [AS adds: it]…"

AS (faint): Well--

DB: Yeah, could you just reread that please one more--

AS (simultaneously): He said this Sphinx of-- the Sphinx, the imagination--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 194, AS reading]: "…the devourer of strangers and all who have not the wit to unriddle her… At all events, such is said to be the nature of the Phantastic Spirit before it is mundified, [DB: Right.] that he…will be [AS reads: become] lost in irrational confusion, if he assume not quickly [AS reads: if he does not (DB simultaneously: Alright.) quickly assume] his intellectual energies and solve, that is [AS reads: and solve or] comprehend, it on its own ground. For, if reason [AS reads: Because then if the reason] remains passive, this nature…will ravage and devastate and take possession of [AS adds: him]…"

S: Well (then) does the Demiurge have the same problem with his imagination? (laughter)

TS (amidst laughter, faint): [three words inaudible] (to do) with fairytale(./?)

VM: I don't think [AS simultaneously: That's--] (anything) lost.

AB: We would be [few words inaudible]

AS (simultaneously): It's not lawful although--

AB: Then we'd really be in trouble Lauren.

AS: I think maybe we ought to go on. (bit of laughter, student words)

LDS (faint): Yeah.

S (faint): (Sebastian.)

S (very faint): [one/two words inaudible]

S (faint): [one/two words inaudible]

AB: Yeah or hope at all. (bit of laughter)

CDA (faint): Definitely not.

AS: The labyrinth is just a--

NR (simultaneously, very faint): [few words inaudible] rationalization of the [few words inaudible] individuality where the imagination is somehow individualized or individualized around that [couple words inaudible]

AD: I'm sure.

VM (faint): Vaguely.

NR (faint): Can that be--

AS: Or saying that the reason has to come in to put a stop to that imagination, like in the An-- the example Anthony gave of the nightmare now. And in the regular world this [NR simultaneously, faint: Into (one word inaudible)] imagination works-- you know, just works you over unless you can bring in a reason to stop it, rationally put it in its place, bring the reason to bear.

DR: Avery, I think her point is well taken, you know--

AS: Whose?

DR: Lauren.

AS: Oh. About the Demiurge?

DR: Well no, all the stuff about, you know, making something evil out of the imagination. It's like for the purposes of method. But in fact--

AS: I-- I don't see why you say evil.

AB: Paracelsus says it's the cornerstone of madness.

VM: Right. Ok.

AB: The imagination.

DR (simultaneously): Well, let's not say evil, I mean it's-- you know, there's this whole flavor that somehow you have to reverse the process, to not get caught up in the imagination. And so there's, you know, a lot of derogatory statements. But it seems that they're-- the import of that is that, you know, this is another-- you know, another level of transformation of Idea down (towards) yet a final level of these concrete images that more than have to be seen for what it is rather than, you know, put a stop to.

AS: Oh, ok, sure. [student assents, faint] Purified, yeah. [students assent, faint] But I'm not--

AH: In-- in that--

S: Wouldn't that be what (Linda/Lenny) finally did?

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AS: Yeah.

S (very faint): (Uh-hm.)

AH: The notion of mundified, [AB assents] like in the Chinese text, they talk about the circulation of light is like-- is a circulation of a circular form, it appears like a [one word inaudible] or [student assents, very faint] [one word inaudible] space.

AD: No not yet, not yet. That comes after.

AS: Yeah.

S: I thought this was just--

AD (simultaneously): You first have to get to the state of light, [AS: Yeah.] light, and then you circulate it.

AS: Yeah. This is still at the stage where you're not even-- you don't have that light as-- you're still in the-- you're-- this is the stage where you're still talking about purifying the imagination as like a preliminary. Because I think like the other quote said, if you haven't first done that suppose you do contact the real essence, you know, you stop-- you were-- you did succeed in stopping your imagination for an instant or something and contacted a real essence, the imagination would immediately come back in again.

AH: I-- I was thinking of--

AS (simultaneously): It hasn't sufficiently attenuated.

AH (faint): But you're fixing the imagination so you can put Mercurius in a bottle. The notion of--

AS: Ok. But then you got--

AH (simultaneously, faint): Because if he got out of the bottle then there's unlimited possibilities. Just endless.

AD: Well, you see, Andrew, what I wanted-- why I wanted to go through Atwood was because she's going to work a little differently from Jung. When we go back to Jung, you're going to s-- I think you'll be able to see that the processes he's talking about are going on in the imagination, alright.

AH (simultaneously): Process of Jung.

AS: For Jung.

AD (simultaneously): That Jung speaks about are going on in the imagination and they are indicative of something beyond the imagination. So that symbolically you can begin to see that if-- if let's say-- let's say that the-- one of your inferior functions comes into operation, and there's an upheaval in the whole of the empirical personality, there's an indi-- indication that something ontological, something on the other side of the imagination has happened.

AH (faint): How?

S: Oh.

AD: And so through that you can get some clues. So we'll be able to contrast the way Jung is working and the way the alchemists are working.

AB: Well that's the way you say the unconscious has been via-- the medium to the reason-principles is that what's reflected in the unconscious is the activity of those reason-principles.

AD: I'm sorry, what's reflected in the unconscious?

AB (simultaneously): You've said before that the unconscious is the way that these reason-principles--

AD (simultaneously): Is reflected in the conscious.

AB: Yeah but you said like the inferior function is the-- the-- the means into these reason-principles. That's because the activity of them is reflected in what's unconscious to us. So for instance the inferior function comes up, something real--

AD: Has happened below the threshold.

AB (simultaneously): --below that.

AD: Yeah.

AB: Right. And then we experience is as upheaval.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, and the indication is in your (imagined) experience. And that's why a lot of people who insist on reading some symbolical meaning into what's going on in their imagination, which may not always be. Go on a little more, Avery.

AS: So Proclus for example speaks about this nature, this-- the-- not nature, speaks about this imaginal essence. And he says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 195, AS reading]: "…it folds itself about the indivisibility of true intellect…"

AD: Now, what would that mean it enfolds itself about the true indivisibility of the intellect?

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 195, AS reading]: "…(which is (AS reads: it's) in its centre), conforms itself…"

AS: Well, if-- we said the indivisibility of true intellect, that would have to be like the first soul, I mean the first soul, the Ideas in the soul.

AD: Yeah, would you buy that?

AS: What? What he said?

TS/S(?) (very faint): No I don't think--

AD: It would enfold itself about that second soul.

AS: Second soul.

S (faint): Already.

AD: What we refer to as the bodhicitta.

AS: Yeah, that's the--

AD: There's no imagination in the-- in the-- in that realm.

AS: They think that-- the indivisibility of true intellect, the Nous. But he says it's in the center [couple/three words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, so if we think of the bodhicitta as within us, somehow within us, alright--

AS: He left us there.

AD: --and it tries to operate, it must always go through that imaginal essence.

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AS: The next line I think is more to the point, he says-- and the imagination--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 195, AS reading]: "…becomes perfectly everything from which dianoia and our individual reason consist."

AS: And he's just saying whatever is in the dianoia is-- is portrayed in the imagination. In other words, you're saying the imagination is more the vehicle for the bodhicitta or the-- the second soul, the light, than it is for the-- it's not the vehicle for the Intellectual Soul. That doesn't make any sense. But--

AD: You see what I mean when I say that if you keep following Proclus up, you know, after a while you begin to see that, if you compare him with Plotinus, the difference or the degrees of understanding that they're working with, almost the understanding that Plotinus has is that of a real ontological wisdom, whereas Proclus always gets caught in the passive intellect, that is, the imagined-- imagination, over and over again.

AS (very faint): (This is uh--)

AD (very faint): You can go ahead.

AS: Says--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, pp. 195-196, AS reading]: "[But] the primary and proper vehicle of the mind, [AS: This imagination.] when it is in a wise and purified condition, is attenuated and clear [seeing]; [AS adds: but] when however the mind is sensually affected, then this vehicle is dulled and becomes terrene; the instincts are said to be imperfect just in proportion as the perceptive medium is impure, [and] therefore it needs alternation and solution, as the oracles teach, for the discernment of good and evil, and the proper choice of life. … Hence all those preparations, solutions, calcinations, &c., [AS adds: are needed] before it becomes [to be] the"Mercury of Philosophers"--[AS adds: the] pure, agile, intelligent, living--[AS adds: and] as they say, [in her own sphere, as] a [AS reads: the] queen upon her throne. … The first rule of the work is a perfect solution. [Secret. Tract. Alberti, in fine. Artis Auriferae, p. 130, &c.]

"All [AS adds: of] which we understand with reference to the universal Mundane Spirit, as it is at first consciously revealed in the recipient life of humanity…"

AD: Alright, shall we try? First thing is a solution. That very simply is saying that you-- you must try to immerse yourself-- in meditation you must try to immerse yourself in what you might call the unconscious. And the conscious personality goes through a process of dissolution. Or you might say it is put in a so-- solution or-- in solution, alright.

AS (simultaneously, faint): The state of solution, yeah.

AD: Alright, then when you come out, we'll worry about that later. But that's the first step. So she's practically saying or he's practically saying, you first have to have that experience where by getting immersed in your own unconscious, the conscious personality [AS: (Dissolves.)] is dissolved and then reformulated when it comes out of that and the reformulation is going to be quite a nice thing because it'll be the work of the King within, ok.

AS: That's like the picture we had when we were doing the Jung article. You know like the ego-center which he-- he speaks about an ego being built up, this nucleated thought structure. It's always-- cordons off everything that's within its little sphere from the unconscious. But if the bound-- the boundaries of that were broken, then it would be immersed or dissolved into the unconscious.

AD: You know, another way to think of it, if you could make a little package out of everything that you think yourself to be, all your memories, reflections, everything that you-- alright, and then make a little package out of it and stick it in acid solution. (some laughter)

S: Yeah. (laughter)

AD: Go ahead. Go ahead.

AB/S(?): Anthony?

AB: The way we normally think of the unconscious is like invested with all this imagery, like a dream or something comes up, you know, a symbolic content. But it seems that what you're saying for the unconscious is prior to the imagery or without the imagery. So that when you dissolve or put the ego into the solution, it's without-- wi-- it's with the mind being clean, like without the-- with the imagination being subdued, then you put the ego back into the unconscious and it gets reformulated, not as we would normally think of the unconscious as all these images or fantasies or symbolic--

AD: Yeah basically a lot of the associations that you've built up throughout life, you know, which associations and memories, things like that, they actually do become so concreted that they form complexes, you know. And [LR assents, faint] they become rigid in terms of personality function, alright. And when they're put back into the unconscious, so to speak, that term, you know-- Actually the term would be 'light', put back into that light, then that's like cleansed, that's taken away, alright, and then the personality is operative once again more according to what constituted it than these superficial accretions that environment, society, parents and all that brought-- made possible.

AB (simultaneously): So, like the whole of von Franz idea of the inferior function comes up and then you fall back and then there's an expansion and growth of the personality, it's like really a whole reflection of this process in the imagination.

AD: Yeah but-- again, you see, she's speaking from this side of the imagination.

S (faint): Uh-hm.

AB: Right.

AD: Whereas in the actual practices, alright, he's-- you're on the other side.

AB: Right. But for instance when she says, after an inferior function comes up and is integrated a little that you-- you expand the ego, you move forward. That would be an analog to where you say the ego's dissolved and reconstituted, comes back a better vehicle.

AD: Yeah I follow what you're saying except that one doesn't have to go through a crisis like that in order to (see) [few words inaudible]

AB (simultaneously): Right, right, I was just saying it's an analogy or a-- but it's not the same.

AD (simultaneously): Yeah, one doesn't have to bring in the inferior function to-- You can have satori experience without them there.

AB: But if you're stuck in the imagination in the psychological sense, then it (would/could) only come up through the inferior function.

AD: Yeah, psychological.

AH (faint): It's interesting because Jung spoke of the confrontation with the unconscious (being) [one/two words inaudible] It's like orbit [one/two words inaudible] to this continuity of ego with the unconscious. We seem to speak about that in a very different way here. Like, you speak of the other side is-- is that divine seed within us that wishes us well, you know.

S (faint): Yeah.

AD: You won't believe it anyway.

AH (faint): But, it's always from the point of view of the ego-- it's always from the point of view-- view of the ego that it will experience [one word inaudible] notion of confrontation [couple/three words inaudible]

AD: Yes.

AH: I mean take that little package and throw it in an acid bath, it does not experience it as a--

AD: Well that little package will scream. (laughter) It's confrontation for the ego, sure. (some laughter)

AH (faint): But is there two points of view there? Like whatever (your) psychologists think of confrontation, [S simultaneously: Yeah.] it wouldn't be what [one word inaudible] think it is. (It) is what is destiny.

S (simultaneously, faint): Yeah.

TS (faint): Good try.

AD: A little more, Avery?

S (very faint): You can start anywhere.

AD: What we'll try to do next week, we'll go through some of the Jungian aspects. You know my way of working, the right way and the wrong way together. (laughter)

S (amidst laughter): It's better (that way).

AD: Well what I consider the right way and the wrong way but, I think-- I think I got contrasting what I would call ontological wisdom and psychological, you know, understanding, that you get both views and you see that-- you'll see-- I think you'll see Jung's point of view where he says, "Look I-- I'm working psychologically, I'm not ready for that other stuff." And as a psychotherapist he was more interested in helping people probably whom that you quoted any of these ancient masters would simply flip, so he evolved psychological schemes to help people in their ordinary problems of everyday living. So I-- it'll be a valid contrast I think to work the two of them together. You find some more, Avery?

AS: (Well/No), there's a little more. You're willing to go--

AD: Now my suspicion is that you should be acquainted with most of the contents in this chapter on the mysteries because it's Greek philosophy. It's what they were talking about.

AS (faint): Yeah a lot of it here is from-- she quoted a lot.

S: Yeah.

AD: And the thing that we wanted to I think make clear since we'll be closing up was the awful and tremendous complexity of this notion of the bodhicitta or the double. You remember the story from the Banquet. One guy was speaking about well he says well originally man was a round sphere and he was ferocious and he was able to get anywhere and so the Gods (said/says) we better cut this guy down. So they cut him in half. That's Plato's version of the Gemini twins. So one stays up in heaven and the other one is down here and they're always looking for each other. Remember the Banquet?

S: Yeah, sure.

AD: The guy-- yeah, alright. Soul mates. Alright, so don't confuse soul mates with what goes on down here.

S (faint): (Yeah) [few words inaudible]

S (very faint): Yeah.

AS: Yeah well, then it's just one more passage I [AD simultaneously: Alright, read that one more.] (think that) she has on page 200 and then we could [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): And I can take my head off and go back inside. (bit of laughter)

CDA: Would you teach me how to do that?

AS (simultaneously): Uh, says um-- (CDA laughs, some laughter)

TS (laughing): Yeah, if you want to hear regrets.

S (faint): (What do you mean?)

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 200, AS reading]: "[Few], [AS adds: but] very few, [Philalethes said], there were in his day; [AS: Of Philalethes, whoever.] [and] who will even inquire now, or believe that it is the very same which solved or resolved [AS reads: solves and resolves], and wisely manipulated, becomes to be the concrete Stone of philosophers; in its pure, passive expanse, a mirror of the catholic reason of nature, and the medium…"

AD (simultaneously): Catholic here means universal. (bit of laughter)

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 200, AS reading]: "…the medium of that holy and sublime experience granted to man alone in the divine alliance…

"Take that which is least, and draw it by artifice into the true ferment of philosophers; although our metal is exteriorly dead, yet it has life within, and wants nothing more than that That which in the eyes of a philosopher is most precious should be collected, and that That which the many set more value on be rejected; and these words are manifest without envy, says [the Greek] Aristhenes. O, how wonderful is that thing to which we add nothing different and detract nothing, only in the preparation removing superfluities. [Aristoteles in Rosario, and in the Lucerna Salis.] … [short pause] …[but] this Universal Spirit is described as a middle substance--passive, undetermined, susceptible of conversion and all extremes. [And] such accordingly we understand to be the one thing requisite, purifying and to be purified itself by itself, in turn agent and patient, which are the Hermetic luminaries…"

[13¼ second pause]

AS: I think that's the end of that chapter.

AB: What about-- what about 208?

AD: 201--

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 201, AD reading]: "But a long internal is between, and all the labours of that [AD reads: the] Heroic Intellect to be passed through before the rejected Keystone regains her Head place. None but a philosopher ever achieved the work, or, for reasons that are imperative, ever will. The idle and vicious are totally excluded, nor are the rewards of Wisdom to be won by fools wanting the very principle of melioration in themselves."

AD: The Latin I can't read.

M. A. Atwood [A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 201, AD reading]: "He only that hath it can impart--and he only has it who has laboured rationally in the pursuit."

AD: So David, we'll go on. Ok. If you want to, try reading whatever you can in the Mysterious Conjunction.

[short pause]

S (very faint, possibly part of background): I don't think.

LR (faint): So, (two workers).

S (very faint): Uh-hm.

AH (faint): I forget.

[Audio File 1982 0327b Ends]