The sages aforetime
acquired their knowledge from the Prophets, inasmuch as the latter were the
Exponents of divine philosophy and the Revealers of heavenly mysteries.
(Tablets of
Baha’u’llah: 144-145)
Nowhere is the current transition now going on to a new, spiritual
paradigm of knowledge more evident than in the field of cosmology, with
developments especially prominent in physics and psychology after the Newtonian
paradigm was overthrown by Einstein and the positivist psychology and
epistemology of the late nineteenth century was broken by Freud. And nowhere but in the field of cosmology can
the historical link between the ancient and modern worlds, the divine impulse
and the human response, be better seen. But that is characteristic of perceiving
the end and the beginning as one, if the end is the beginning transformed.
Cosmology is the study of the nature of the universe. There are basically three kinds of cosmology,
because there are basically three levels to the cosmos, spiritual, mental or
symbolic, and physical. These are
matched, roughly speaking, by the three structures of knowledge, religious, artistic,
scientific.
A spiritual cosmology sees the entire cosmos as a sacred
creation infused with sacred power, inclusive of the physical and mental
cosmologies. It is religiously-based and
it explains the existence and nature of things within God’s creation
as the effects of the working of laws and principles in a metaphysical
dimension that surrounds and influences this physical universe.
A
mental or symbolic cosmology would be a philosophical
or poetic cosmology built on imaginative and intellectual understanding of all
things. It would point to the mental
or Mind foundation of the physical universe and give rational or imaginative
knowledge of it. This cosmology is, historically, first a poetic and
then a philosophical cosmology. Poetic
and literary cosmology presents an imaginative understanding of the
cosmos. One does not need to believe it,
as one does religion, nor believe it to be empirically factual, i.e.
corresponding in every important detail to physical reality, as one does
science. Rather it uses a framework of
imagery to build an internally coherent picture. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are
ancient examples, as is the Aeneid by
Virgil. Still later Milton’s Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Blake’s Jerusalem
and Prophetic Books, performed
something of the same function for the English-speaking world of the Elizabethan and then the Romantic
Eras. Eliot’s Four Quartets is a modern-day cosmology of this sort.
A
physical cosmology explains just the physical universe. It is our current
scientific cosmology. It wishes to know
the material laws and facts of how the universe is put together and works.
The religious cosmologies are the first and most
inclusive, incorporating more dimensions within their scope. While the religious expands into or takes cultural
form as, poetic and artistic symbols and other forms of knowledge, because the
divine informs the rational from above, the scientific grows out from these
same symbols into concepts and material facts.
Pondering the nature
of the universe is an ancient art. Poet and critic Paul Valery wrote: “Cosmology is one of the oldest of literary arts.”
And the oldest of these in any philosophic sense is the Hermetic
tradition.
The ancient Hermetic
teachings were laid down by the eponymous figure of the Egyptian Hermes
Trismegistus. The name Trismegistus means “thrice-great” because he
purportedly mastered the three kinds of knowledge—spiritual, mental, material. He
is also called Thoth, Idris, Hermes of Greek mythology, and Mercury. Baha’u’llah writes of
Hermes Trismegistus in the Tablet of Wisdom, calling Him "the Father
of Philosophy." In a footnote of that work it states:
“In one of His Tablets Bahá'u'lláh wrote: 'The first person who devoted himself
to philosophy was Idris. Thus was he named.
Some called him also Hermes. In every tongue he hath a special name. He
it is who hath set forth in every branch of philosophy thorough and convincing
statements. After him Balinus derived his knowledge and sciences from the
Hermetic Tablets and most of the philosophers who followed him made their
philosophical and scientific discoveries from his words and statements...' In
the Qur'án, Sura 19, verses 57 and 58, is written: 'And commemorate Idris in
the Book; for he was a man of truth, a Prophet; And we uplifted him to a place
on high.” (Tablets of Baha’u’llah:147)
The essence of His
teachings was set out in what is known as The Emerald Tablet—which is a symbol
of Revelation, and which was actually chrysolite—also a greenish color stone. (See
Tablets of Baha'u'llah:147)
Its most often
misquoted principle is: As above, so below. It is misquoted because the
principle is actually: As Below, so Above. These terms refer,
metaphorically, to the above of the spirit and the below of matter, but the
above here is also inner, and below is outer: mind and matter.
Through Hermes, or Idris, teachings the
cosmos is knowable as a symbolic structure, an unfolding relation between two
universal realities, the One Mind, which is the Universal Mind, and the One
Thing, or primal, elemental Matter, the prima material,
the basic substance of the universe.
These realities were considered to be interconnected and interrelated, making
a same but different structure. But it
was Mind that in-forms, or puts form into, this
matter, which was the repository of all past and future physical
configurations. That is, active Mind
energized its recipient Matter, giving it life and form and purpose.
These principles of
Hermes teachings were the foundation of alchemy and most other occult arts
around the world. That is, they are not just the origins of systematic
thought but also of science. They unfold
into philosophy and logical thought, which is the conceptual, sparking the
division into rational/irrational, that became focused in the transition in
Greek thought from Homer to Plato.
Though the pre-Socratics may be given the nod for the start of
systematic thought of a certain kind, it was Hermes who laid the foundations
for all symbolic thought, and all knowledge is structures and codes of symbols.
By saying that Hermes teachings were the
foundation for alchemy, the arts and the sciences, I don’t mean that everybody
learned directly from Hermes, for spirit manifests where it wills and does not
need cultural diffusion to create its effects.
Nonetheless, given the similarity of the different alchemical
traditions, it seems that this is a level of collective human consciousness. In any search for
archetypal metaphors of connection between the inner and outer, the spiritual
and material, realms of existence and experience, this philosophy has generated
a whole bunch of different images. The great chain of being, planes of
correspondence, the dance of life which is the vibrations of life along the
hierarchy, are all primary cosmological Hermetic images organizing cosmological
thought down to the Elizabethan Age. The
Hermetic tradition was a powerful stream of thought into the early modern age
when it was banished to the underground—because of the luxurious growth of
imaginary accretions it had acquired by then. Yet well known “modern” users
include Newton and Hegel, scientists and philosophers by day, but alchemists
and occultists by night.
It is, perhaps, this
tradition of thought that Baha’u’llah means when he writes: “Although it is
recognized that the contemporary men of learning are highly qualified in
philosophy, arts and crafts, yet were anyone to observe with a discriminating
eye he would readily comprehend that most of this knowledge hath been acquired
from the sages of the past, for it is they who have laid the foundation of
philosophy, reared its structure and reinforced its pillars.” (Tablets of Baha’u’llah:144-145)
And His Tablet of Wisdom (Hermetic literature is known as wisdom
literature) repeats the essential Hermetic cosmological themes and images,
calling the cosmos “the glorious structure”
built on the Hermetic principle: “these two are the same, yet they are
different.” (Tablets of Baha’u’llah:140)
The hermetic
teachings remain, despite their antiquity, the best philosophical cosmology out
there, perhaps because, as Baha’u’llah asserts, they were divinely
inspired.
