Philosophia Perennis

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.