Another Eve
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Another Eve: A Case Study in the Earliest Manifestations of Christian Esotericism Laura Hobgood-Oster Southwestern University It is I who am the part of my mother; And it is I who am the mother; It is I who am the wife; It is I who am the virgin; It is I who am pregnant; It is I who am the midwife; It is I who am the one that comforts pains of travail; It is my husband who bore me; And it is I who am his mother, And it is he who is my father and my lord. It is he who is my force; What he desires, he says with reason. I am in the process of becoming. Yet I have borne a man as lord. [114:8-16][1] Esoteric tendencies and movements appear consistently within Christianity. At their foundation lies Gnosticism, in early Christianity the sect of "knowing ones."[2] Gnosticism, in its many forms, is based on, though not limited to, the acquiring of gnosis – or "saving knowledge." Indeed a Greek lexicon would distinguish the two terms central to this article – gnosis and esoterikos, but their meanings could be closely connected.[3] Arguably, Gnosticism is the earliest and most affecting of all manifestations of Christian esotericism. From Meister Eckhart to Jacob Boehme to Emmanuel Swedenborg to a plethora of related esoteric strands that
Transcript of Another Eve
Another Eve: A Case Study in the Earliest Manifestations of
Christian Esotericism
Laura Hobgood-Oster
Southwestern University
It is I who am the part of my mother;And it is I who am the mother;It is I who am the wife;It is I who am the virgin;It is I who am pregnant;It is I who am the midwife;It is I who am the one that comforts pains of travail;It is my husband who bore me;And it is I who am his mother,And it is he who is my father and my lord.It is he who is my force;What he desires, he says with reason.I am in the process of becoming.Yet I have borne a man as lord. [114:8-16][1]
Esoteric tendencies and movements appear consistently within Christianity. At their foundation lies Gnosticism, in early Christianity the sect of "knowing ones."[2] Gnosticism, in its many forms, is based on, though not limited to, the acquiring of gnosis – or "saving knowledge." Indeed a Greek lexicon would distinguish the two terms central to this article – gnosis and esoterikos, but their meanings could be closely connected.[3] Arguably, Gnosticism is the earliest and most affecting of all manifestations of Christian esotericism. From Meister Eckhart to Jacob Boehme to Emmanuel Swedenborg to a plethora of related esoteric strands that developed in American Christianity—even in the Shakers with their prophet Albrecht Dürer, “Woman Clothed With the Sun”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 49 Mother Ann Lee—parallels to Gnostic concepts, structures and alternate mythologies can be found.[4] Modern scholars apply the term Gnosticism to a variety of religious movements which developed in the Mediterranean world during the same historical period in which
Christianity formed. "Gnosticisms" provide examples of the religious syncretism occurring throughout the Roman occupied territories in the Hellenistic ethos of the first few centuries of the Common Era. For centuries, insight into Gnosticism's early Christian form had been gathered primarily from influential defenders of developing and consolidating orthodoxy, such as Clement, Origen and Irenaeus. These definers of orthodox Christianity condemned what they labeled as the Gnostic heresy. Indeed, such defense against Gnosticism served as a primary impetus to their momentous theological constructs. In many ways, Christianity's orthodox theological system and doctrine formed in response to Gnostic heresy. Obviously, then, these sources have provided a closely circumscribed lens through which to view Christian Gnosticism for almost two thousand years.
In 1945 an amazingly preserved set of Gnostic works was discovered at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. This find enables modern scholars to glance through an insider "knower's lens" at this incredibly significant aspect of earliest Christianity. The collection of thirteen papyrus codices were composed in Coptic, though most likely translated from Greek, between the third and fifth centuries C.E. This invaluable discovery provides an entirely different and fertile glimpse into Christian Gnosticism, particularly into its complex mythological system, from its own perspective rather than that of orthodox, condemning outsiders. Of course, a religious system which is esoteric in its very essence could never be comprehended through the perspective of outsiders or "unknowers," the only perspective available prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library. For this very reason – the esoteric nature of Gnosticism and its wide-ranging influence – the weight of the discovery of these documents compounds.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 50 The extremely complex mythological system can be found within the Nag Hammadi texts. It provides the map of the maze through which an understanding of the secret truths of salvation conveyed to and among early Gnostics. Indeed the mythic essence, which remains particularly hidden to the minds of those outside of Christian Gnosticism, serves as one of the most fascinating aspects of Gnosticism. As a religious system it does not lend itself to the constructs of systematic theology – a veritable cornerstone of most intense Christian self-articulation. Rather, Gnosticism only becomes comprehensible through the avenue of myth. Processes of formation into the mythological world of Gnosticism unlocked its closed systems of communication and provided a new understanding of self and salvation. Because of its intensive and complex layers an explication of Gnostic mythology often requires that one select a particular aspect of the system rather than attempt to address its entirety. This study, then, will focus on a selected, central theme in Gnostic mythology – the Creation – and one pivotal figure within this re-told story of human origins – Eve.It has been claimed, and I agree, that "the wild profusion of gnostic myths can be traced to a single scriptural source: Genesis 1-3."[5] Stories of Adam and Eve fascinated Gnostic Christians, probably as a result of the myriad allegorical interpretations apparent in this pivotal and foundational myth. Such myths of origin explain more completely than any
other mythological elements why creation is in its current, and in Gnosticism, dreadfully fallen and evil, state:
It is now a matter of understanding, intuiting, and reliving the origi- nal drama, the initial situation that provoked the rise, the establish ment and the triumph of evil, an evil that has now acquired an ontological toughness and substance. . . Myth thus acquires the function of salvation. It describes the way of salvation, reminding the Gnostic of his [sic] true origins and showing him [sic] how to escape from the cosmos. But above all, like all myth, that of the Gnostics is essentially a story of origins; there lies the key of all that one thinks one possesses.[6]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 51 In order to examine Eve, one particular Nag Hammadi text in which she plays a prominent role can serve as the tool – On the Origin of the World (hereinafter OW). Many other texts from the Nag Hammadi library include Eve as a central figure – for example, The Hypostasis of the Archons, and The Apocalypse of Adam. I claim that insight into her representation provides a glimpse into the entire hidden knowledge requisite for salvation within Christian strands of Gnosticism. In other words, understanding the Eve of Gnostic Christianity as contrasted with the Eve of most orthodox manifestations of Christianity illuminates the fundamental nature of this powerful strand of esotericism.
Eve as Revealer of Gnosis
After the day of rest Sophia sent her daughter Zoe, being called Eve, as an instructor in order that she might make Adam, who had no soul, arise so that those whom he should engender might become containers of light. (115:31-35)[7]
In a quest to understand its own soteriology, early Christianity turned to the figure of Eve, demonizing her with unprecedented force. Christ's role in redemption became explicable only in its relationship to the Fall as portrayed in Genesis. Eve, along with her sinister partner the serpent, became the antagonist who, through her wiles, led the paradisical Adam away from God. As this understanding of Eve's inferiority and propensity for sin remains embedded in late twentieth-century culture, a few examples of it as a doctrine during the time period addressed should suffice to provide contrast with the Eve of Gnosticism.
Of course, one must begin with the appearance of Eve as recounted in the second creation account, which tends to be the more prominently retold of the two, possibly because of its intrinsic male/female hierarchical structure.[8] Anima Mundi, or the Worldsoul, from Thurneisser zum Thurn, Quinta Essentia, (Leipzig: 1574
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 52 Presented in Genesis, Christians learned from the story that the creation of woman varied significantly from that of man:So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the male he made into a woman and brought her to the man. (Genesis 2:21-22)[9]
The derivative nature of Eve posits an ontological distinction and inferiority in her from the beginning. Thus Paul, the earliest constructive Christian theologian, can claim:
For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man. Indeed man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man. (I Corinthians 11:8-9)[10]
Almost as an afterthought, upon the failure of all other creatures to satisfy the needs of the male human being, God created the female with the express purpose of being Adam's companion. According to the rest of the story, this creation from Adam's rib may not have been wise, rather it led to expulsion from Paradise.
Ambrose, the bishop of Milan in the late fourth century, delves into her extensively in his work Paradise. Eve, as "the first to be deceived," was therefore "responsible for deceiving man," thus Adam "fell by his wife's fault, and not because of his own."[11] At the beginning of the fifth century, Augustine of Hippo clearly stated his understanding of the inferiority of Eve:
Was it because the man would not have been able to believe [the transparent lies of the serpent] that the woman was employed [by the serpent] on the supposition that she had limited understanding, and also perhaps that she was living according to the spirit of the flesh and not according to the spirit of the mind? [12]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 53 Eve symbolizes weakness, sensuality, temptation and disgrace. Second in the order of creation, her purpose was to serve Adam; lacking in wisdom her actions in the garden led to the fall of all humankind. Eve destroyed humanity's hope for paradise on earth and, without the advent of Christ, for hope in eternity.
Augustine and Ambrose interpreted the significance of Eve in the same general time frame as the Gnostic development of mythologies in which Eve played a central role. However,
these two early orthodox Christian theologians, through their explications of the "first" woman, contributed enormously to the construction of both "Eve" and "womanhood" for all subsequent generations of Christians. Indeed, Eve still serves to connect "woman" to that which is secondary and evil, derivative and weak, as that which led to the "fall" of all humanity. Though many Christians in the late twentieth century would understand such a literal construction to be inadequate and misplaced, biblical literalists, whose impact cannot be underestimated in modern Christianity, would continue to blame Eve, and therefore all women, for humankind's expulsion from Paradise. Such beliefs remain embedded in ecclesiastical systems and doctrines worldwide.
But this is not the Eve we meet in Gnostic Christian texts. Here, her descriptions are those of a guide, instructor, and even a savior figure. Her essence and actions serve to provide gnosis and illumination for humanity. She is an "other" Eve. To grasp this overwhelming difference, one must first hear at least a portion of the Gnostic myth as told in OW. The orthodox "Genesis creation myth" and the role of Eve take on an entirely different form when related by the Gnostic community who heard and retold their understanding of creation in OW.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 54 On the Origin of the World:
Selected Portions and Exegesis
Included in this brief exposition are the passages from OW which prove the most pertinent for understanding the Eve of Gnostic Christianity. Here the reader is exposed to what the Gnostics knew that the orthodox Christians did not.
And when they had finished Adam, he abandoned him as an inanimate vessel lest the true man enter his modelled form and become its lord. For this reason he left his modelled form forty days without a soul on the fortieth day Sophia Zoe sent her breath into Adam, who had no soul. He began to move upon the ground. And he could not stand up. (115:3-15)
The seven rulers or authorities - to put it too simply, these rulers - are rather low-level supernatural figures connected to the physical creation, made the body of Adam. However, they determined that Adam, if given a soul, could be more powerful than they; therefore he was created as an inanimate being. Sophia Zoe, a figure seemingly superior to the seven rulers in Gnostic cosmology, gave Adam life through her breath. This ontologically transforming endowment shocked and angered the rulers.
But the giving of life did not empower or liberate Adam fully: he was still relegated to crawling on the ground.[13] His weakness appeased the seven rulers who then took him
and placed him in Paradise, then retreated to their heavens. At this point in the story, Eve enters:
When Eve saw her male counterpart prostrate she had pity upon him, and she said, "Adam! Become alive! Arise upon the earth!" The ouroboros, among the Gnostics a symbol of the aeon, this image from Horapollo, Selecta Hieroglyphica, 1597
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 55 Immediately her word became accomplished fact. For Adam, having arisen, suddenly opened his eyes. When he saw her he said, "You shall be called 'Mother of the Living'. For it is you who have given me life." (116:1-7)[14] Obviously, roles reverse in the Gnostic version of the creation story, though they will address the lack of knowledge of this reversal related through the other telling in Genesis. Rather than Eve's life being created from Adam's rib, Adam's soul is endowed by Eve – she becomes the active giver of life, rather than the passive receiver from Adam.
Eve's role continues to develop in OW :
Then the authorities were informed that their modelled form was alive and had arisen, and they were greatly troubled. They sent seven archangels to see what had happened. They came to Adam. When they saw Eve talking to him they said to one another, "What sort of thing is this luminous woman? For she resembles that likeness which appeared to us in the light. Now come, let us lay hold of her and cast our seed into her, so that when she becomes soiled she may not be able to ascend into her light. Rather, those whom she bears will be under our charge. But let us not tell Adam, for he is not one of us. Rather let us bring a deep sleep over him. And let us instruct him in his sleep to the effect that she came from his rib, in order that his wife may obey, and he may lord over her." Then Eve, being a force, laughed at their decision. She put mist into their eyes and secretly left her likeness with Adam. She entered the tree of acquaintance and remained there. And they pursued her, and she revealed to them that she had gone into the tree and become a tree. Then, entering a great state of fear, the blind creatures fled. (116:8-34)
In their plan to destroy Eve, the authorities create a lie – that Eve
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 56 came from Adam's rib. This fabrication of modeling from Adam's rib becomes the crux around which the orthodox interpretation of Eve, an interpretation which lacks requisite knowledge for salvation, revolves. One need only peruse the dogmatic systems of particular
twentieth century Christian groups to be reminded of the power of the image in justifying the subordination of women.Of course, the rulers are "very glad" that they - the "female creature," along with Adam and their children - were "erring ignorantly like beasts." (118:9-10) Of course the true Eve remained hidden in the tree.
But the story of Eve continues to unfold. The "likeness" of Eve who was with Adam, as opposed to the "true Eve" in the tree, also enacts a central role in salvation. As in the Genesis story, she decides to eat from the tree of gnosis and to share its enlightenment with Adam:
Then their intellect became open. For when they had eaten, the light of acquaintance had shone upon them When they saw that the ones who had modelled them had the form of beasts they loathed them: they were very aware From that day, the authorities knew that truly there was something mightier than they. [119:10-20; 120:13-15]
Obviously, this choice would be lauded by Gnostics, for whom attaining this once hidden knowledge holds the key to their salvation. Two Eves, both of whom contribute uniquely and necessarily to gnosis, hold sway in the Gnostic creation myth. Eve is the secret key to salvation, a key hidden from orthodox Christians.
Implications
What, then, are the implications from an exegesis of this alternate, Gnostic creation mythology? One can only speculate as to the impact of a reconstructed Eve. Interpreted as the cause of the fall of
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 57 humanity from a state of perfection, as the temptress, as the impetus for the loss of paradise, as evil incarnate, Eve serves as the defining figure for all women in Christian history, replaced only in part by another oppressive female figure, the Virgin Mary. The Gnostic Eve, on the other hand, exists as the primary and first instructor, she appears as luminous, and gives the gift of light to humanity. No longer an embodied creature to be loathed and feared, woman carries the light of salvation within herself.The implications of this text, as opposed to the one in Genesis, are revolutionary in terms of the traditional relationship which developed with Christian, patriarchal societies. One more stark example should suffice. In his Lectures on Genesis, Martin Luther restated the orthodox interpretation of Eve:
Although Eve was a most extraordinary creature, similar to Adam so far as the image of God is concerned, that is, in justice, wisdom, and happinesss, she was nevertheless a
woman. For as the sun is more excellent than the moon (although the moon, too, is a very excellent body), so the woman, although she was a most beautiful work of God, nevertheless was not the equal of the male in glory and prestige.
Furthermore, Eve bore "the weak part of human nature;" therefore the "rule remains with the husband, and the wife is compelled to obey him by God's command."[15]
Luther's words concerning Eve were written more than a thousand years after those of Augustine, quoted above. Yet, the interpretation of Eve remained veritably unchanged. Obviously, in orthodox Christianity, Eve bears an entirely different meaning than she does in Gnostic Christianity.
Some scholars argue that little significance can be found in this revaluation:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 58 It is easy to see how someone interested in "knowledge" might have considered the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge a step in the right direction rather than a mistake it is only natural that favorable attention instead of censure might be directed toward that person who, according to the inherited tradition, took the leading role in eating of the fruit of gnosis. That this person is female is a given in the tradition but not necessarily something that was of interest to all gnostic interpreters, any more than was Adam's maleness.[16] But such an argument denies the power of the myth. And it is through an understanding of the myth that the knowledge requisite for salvation comes to Christian Gnostics. Without a systematic theology to explain the story, the construction of the story itself remains focal. Certainly, Eve as the initiator of acquiring knowledge or acquaintance would be seen as the foremost ancestor of those who had received gnosis.
More importantly, however, is the understanding of her pivotal role as salvific rather than as horrific and evil. The outcomes of this alternate interpretation may have included an entirely different structure of the male/female duality and hierarchy in Western culture. Of course, such a statement begs to be critiqued as entirely speculative, as it is. But the power of the orthodox Christian interpretation of Eve changed the lives of most women over a two-thousand year period in the West, and continues to do so throughout the world as Christianity permeates myriad cultures. Could not the hidden knowledge of the Gnostics include an anthropology so revolutionary – not androcentric but egalitarian? In acquiring such knowledge of transformation in human relationship, Gnosticism may have believed that one could move forward on the path toward enlightenment.
Salvation remains hidden from unknowing eyes, and those Christians without knowledge, those who did not know the Gnostic creation story, remained and remain in darkness. In a religious metaphorical and mythological system which is solely male is terms A medieval image drawing on the female figure of Wisdom crowned with truth.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 59 of its images of the divine and of its established, male-centered anthropology, a "symbolic hierarchy is set up: God-male-female. Women no longer stand in direct relation to God; they are connected to God secondarily, through the male."[17] The Gnostic Eve, however, is not only luminous, but she is a force equated with the tree of acquaintance, with salvific knowledge itself.
1 All citations from On the Origin of the World are from The Nag Hammadi Library, ed. James Robinson, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Harper, 1988). For ease of reference, they will be cited in the body of the article by original text page and line number, as indicated in Robinson's edition.
2 Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion (Boston: Beacon, 1991, 2nd edition) 32.
3Esoterikos can be defined as private or secret, especially as understood by a select few who have special knowledge.
4 For a concise overview of Gnosticism see: www.gnostic.org.
5 Elaine Pagels, "Adam, Eve and the Serpent in Genesis 1-3," in Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, 412. Other Nag Hammadi texts which include the Genesis creation account(s) are: Gospel of Philip, Exegesis on the Soul, Hypostasis of the Archon, Thunder: Perfect Mind, Apocryphon of John and Apocalypse of Adam.
6 Giovanni Filoramo, A History of Gnosticism, 52-53.
7 All citations from OW are taken from The Nag Hammadi Library, ed. James Robinson, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Harper, 1988). They will be cited in the body of the article by original text page and line number, as indicated in Robinson's edition.
8 The reader is reminded that in the first chapter of Genesis humankind is created "male and female" simultaneously by God.
9 All biblical quotations are taken from The New Revised Standard
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 60 Version, issued by the National Council of the Churches of Christ, 1989.
10 In fairness to Paul, it should be noted that he continues this dialogue by stating that "just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman."
11 Ambrose, Paradise, 4.24, 10.48. For a collection of writings from Ambrose and other "Early Church Fathers" see: http://ccel.wheaton.edu/fathers2/ .
12 Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, 11.37. To view both Latin and English versions of Augustine's works see: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html .
13 The analogy of movement between Adam and the serpent is intriguing here.
14 The etymology of the Hebrew word "Eve" has been interpreted in various ways, including "first woman," "mothers of all living things" or, even "serpent" – thus associating her with the concept that all life originated in a primeval serpent.
15 Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, volume I of Luther's Works, 69, 151, 202. Quotations taken from Margaret Miles, Carnal Knowing (New York: Vintage, 1991) 107-112. Some of the works of Luther can be found on the Wittenberg Project's site: http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/wittenberg-luther.html .
16 Michael Williams, "Variety in Gnostic Perspectives on Gender," Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) 8.
17 Jerry D. Meyer, "Profane and Sacred: Religious Imagery and Prophetic Expression in Postmodern Art." Journal of the American Academy of Religion LXV/1, 42. http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/Hobgood-Oster.html
Stages of Ascension in Hermetic Rebirth Dan Merkur
University of Toronto
In Gnosis (Merkur 1991:56-73), I argued that the gnostic tradition that passed from late antique Gnosticism through Judaism and Islam, before it influenced Western esotericism, engaged throughout its history in practices of both mystical visions and unions. In some eras, the practices were more elaborate than they were in others. In the Paracelsian tradition of spiritual alchemy, initiates sought four specific mystical experiences in a deliberate sequence in order to inculcate a particular doctrinal orientation to mystical practice and metaphysics. Comparably complex mystical initiations have rarely been documented in the general history of religion. The literature occasionally suggests that a single technique of ecstasy, such as reciting a Hindu or Buddhist mantra, or the Muslim la illaha, or the Christian Jesus prayer, is able to induce several experiences en route to the desired experience of union. However, the use of multiple techniques to induce more than one
desired experience is comparatively rare. One may point to shamanism (Merkur 1992) and Tibetan tantra (Hopkins 1977:191-2); but the gnostic tradition is the only instance in a Western culture that has been documented to date. No doubt the topic will repay further research. In this article, I will present my findings concerning a second such instance: the initiatory experiences of the Hermetists of late antiquity, which were legendary and perhaps historical forerunners of Western alchemical initiations.
Hermetism was a Hellenistic system of occultism that flourished in Egypt in the first centuries C.E. It persisted as a living tradition in the city of Haran in Syria as late as the tenth century, when its leading exponent, Thabit ibn Qurra (836-901), established a pagan Hermetic school in Baghdad (Affifi 1951:844; Merkur 1998:20-21). Conjunctio oppositorum, from Nikolaus Mueller, Glauben, Wissen, und Kunst, (Mainz: 1822)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 80 In Haran, Hermetism had been syncretized with late Neoplatonism prior to the rise of Islam (Green 1992:168). The earliest alchemists in the Islamicate included Hermetic authors who wrote under Arabicized pseudonyms: Balinas (Apollonius of Tyana) and Artefius (Orpheus) (Weisser 1980; Della Vida 1938). Prominent Muslim philosophersal-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and otherswere influenced by Hellenistic Hermetic writings (Genequand 1987-88; Affifi 1951). Hermetism later made its way west, possiblythe question remains openas a living esoteric tradition. The Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach, composed circa 1210, blended the quest of the Holy Grail with Hermetic esotericism (Kahane & Kahane 1965). Scottish versions of the Old Charges of Freemasonry, whose earliest extant manuscripts date from around 1400, assert that geometry was founded before the Flood by Jabel son of Lamech, who inscribed the science on pillars of stone that survived the Flood and were rediscovered by "the great Hermarius," who taught the science to humanity (Stevenson 1988:19-22). Marsilio Ficino translated a collection of Hellenistic Hermetic documents from Greek into Latin in the 1460s (Yates 1964), since which time the Corpus Hermeticum has been a mainstay of Western esotericism (Faivre 1995). Freemasonry's legend of Hermes gained new meaning when the Hermetic elements of Renaissance esotericism was grafted onto the craft, beginning around 1599 (Stevenson 1988:22,44,49). Hermetism had its origin in age-old practices of Egyptian magic. To the concerns of the oldest Hermetic literature with conjuring spirits and animating statues, writings of the Hellenistic era added Greco-Babylonian astrology and the then newly developed practice of alchemy (Fowden 1993:65-68). The Egyptian god Thoth, whom the Greeks identified with Hermes and termed Trismegistus ("Thrice-Great"), was portrayed in the Hermetic literature as the divine founder of these occult practices. Other Hermetic texts,
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81 which scholars since Festugiere (1954) have distinguished as philosophical literature, credit Hermes Trismegistus with the revelation of a distinctive trend in late antique philosophy. Festugiere argued that "philosophic Hermetism" and "occult Hermetism" had little to do with each other. Fowden (1993) has argued, however, that the two bodies of literature were not mutually exclusive. They should instead be understood as components of a single Hermetic worldview. I would go still farther. In my view, the philosophic texts of Hermetism can be understood as efforts by ancient theurgists to express themselves in philosophic terms. Like the medieval philosophies of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, the philosophy of Hermetism originated as a rationalization and systematization of existing religious usages. Despite Hermetism's debts, among other sources, to Aristotelian, Stoic, Platonic, and Jewish thought (Fowden 1993:36-37; Pearson 1990), Hermetic philosophy articulated a perspective that was consistent with Hermetic occultism. Hermetism is often and wrongly confused with Gnosticism, which similarly originated in Egypt in roughly the same era. For present purposes, a few salient points of contrast will suffice. Like the God of Stoicism, the Hermetic God was omnipresent and omniscient through the material cosmos. In Gnosticism, by contrast, God was transcendent, and the physical universe was an evil place created by an evil Demiurge (van den Broek 1998). Hermetic ethics celebrated the divine within the world; Gnostic ethics were abstemious, ascetic efforts to escape from the world (Mahé 1998).
There were also differences in their valuations of visions. Jonas (1969) drew attention to the fact that the motif of heavenly ascension was originally intended, for example in Jewish apocalyptic literature, as an objective reality, but was subsequently transformed into an allegory of the mystical path. The mystical appropriation
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 82 of the ascension motif was complete by the second century era of the Alexandrine Christian fathers, St. Clement and Origen (Danielou 1973). The allegorical tradition was also present in the Gnostic literature of Nag Hammadi, although in a slightly different manner. Referring to experiences of visions in general, The Exegesis on the Soul 34 stated: "Now it is fitting that the soul regenerate herself....This is the resurrection that is from the dead. This is the ransom from captivity. This is the upward journey of ascent to heaven. This is the way of ascent to the father" (Robinson 1988:196). For the Gnostics, as for the Alexandrine fathers, ascension was one among several literary tropes that could signify mystical experiences of highly varied manifest contents. In the Hermetic literature, as I shall show, different varieties of mystical experience were each associated with a specific celestial region on the trajectory of ascension. For Hermetists, "ascension" was not a mere metaphor that could be used interchangeably with "resurrection" or "ransom from captivity." A single region of the sky might be termed the seven planetary heavens or the twelve zodiacal mansions, depending on whether it was subdivided horizontally or vertically; but however the region of astral determinism was
called, it differed both spatially and ontologically from the eighth heaven beyond the planets; and the ninth heaven differed yet again. Typologically, the Hermetic view may be seen as a conflation of apocalyptists' heavens with the hypostases of Neoplatonism. Whereas apocalyptists' heavens were all made out of the same sort of ethereal stuff, Hermetic heavens formed three distinctive states of being.
Eliade (1982:298-301) recognized the initiatory character of the so-called philosophical texts of Hermetism, and Fowden (1993:104-115) clarified the basic contours of the mystical experiences that the texts describe as "rebirth." The following account builds on the fine presentation by Fowden but places greater emphasis on the ontological implications of rebirth.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 83 A Hermetic initiate began by neglecting the sensible world in order to achieve an intellectual detachment. Corpus Hermeticum XIII instructed:
Leave the senses of the body idle, and the birth of divinity will begin. Cleanse yourself of the irrational torments of matter....
They use the prison of the body to torture the inward person with the sufferings of sense. Yet they withdraw (if not all at once) from one to whom god has shown mercy, and this is the basis of rebirth, the means and method. (C.H. XIII.7; trans. Copenhaver 1992:50-51)
In Corpus Hermeticum I, Poimandres delivered an equivalent teaching. The sense of self, which is ordinarily based in proprioception of the body, was to be distinguished intellectually from sensation of the body. The resultant idea of self as a purely intelligible quiddity was to be made the basis for an ascetic abandonment of earthly attachments.
In releasing the material body you give the body itself over to alteration, and the form that you used to have vanishes. To the demon you give over your temperament, now inactive. The body's senses rise up and flow back to their particular sources, becoming separate parts and mingling again with the energies. And feeling and longing go on toward irrational nature (C.H. I.24; Copenhaver 1992:5-6).
The passage continues with a description of the person's ascension through the seven planetary zones, where he or she discards "the effects of the cosmic framework": increase and decrease, machination, the illusion of longing, the ruler's arrogance, unholy
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84 presumption and daring recklessness, evil impulses that come from wealth, and the deceit that lies in ambush (C.H. I.24; Copenhaver 1992:6). The ascension was literal, but mental rather than bodily. The ascent beyond the seven planetary zones of the sensible world was a motion of the mind, while it was yet in the living body, in such a way that it became free of the body's subjection to astral determinism. The ascension or, as we should today say, transcendence, was accomplished through a philosophical ascesis. It consisted of a discarding of the influences of astral determinism on the body, its senses and passions, through the achievement, via ascesis, of an experiential sense of the mind's detachment from the body. For Hermetists, such an ascension constituted an ontological change in the status of the mind. Corpus Hermeticum XIII expressed a functionally equivalent doctrine through different motifs. The negative powers were twelve and implicitly zodiacal; but mind had a decad of powers with which to expel them. "The arrival of the decad sets in order a birth of mind that expels the twelve; we have been divinized by this birth" (C.H. XIII.10; Copenhaver 1992:51). For Hermetists, the Neopythagorean decad was a classic proof of the existence of mind. The first ten numbers were a class of ideas that inhered in the structures of the cosmos and, as such, were paradigmatic of the distinctions between idea and matter, and mind and body. The inculcation of the paradigm, through meditation on the decad, served to detach the mind from the senses and so transcend the astral determinism to which a Hermetist's sensible body was subject.
Hermetic initiates were to confirm the validity of locating their senses of self in their minds, and not in their bodies, by experiencing visions to the same effect. Corpus Hermeticum XIII, which is subtitled "On being born again, and on the promise to be silent," had Hermes explain this detail to his son Tat in the course of An image of Hermes, from a Greek vase.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 85 discussing his rebirth: Seeing [. . .] within me an unfabricated vision that came from the mercy of god, I went out of myself into an immortal body, and now I am not what I was before. I have been born in mind....Color, touch or size I no longer have; I am a stranger to them" (C.H. XIII.3; Copenhaver 1992:49-50).
By whatever means Hermetists induced their visions, they experienced visions whose apparent autonomy, or lack of auto-suggestion, was treated as evidence that the "unfabricated vision...came from the mercy of god." Self was consequently to be identified with the mind beholding the vision, rather than with the body that was oblivious to it.
Once a Hermetic initiand had become persuaded that self was exclusively intelligible, further meditations worked with the newly acquired sense of self. Corpus Hermeticum XI recommended meditations on the cosmic extent of one's own mind as
a means to apprehend God. The fact that the human mind can think about any topic in the cosmos was used to prove that the cosmos is intelligible. The conclusion that the human mind contains the cosmos presupposed an idealist ontology, in this case, an equation of the cosmos and the idea of the cosmos:
Consider this for yourself: command your soul to travel to India, and it will be there faster than your command. Command it to cross over to the ocean, and again it will quickly be there, not as having passed from place to place but simply as being there. Command it even to fly up to heaven, and it will not lack wings. Nothing will hinder it, not the fire of the sun, nor the aether, nor the swirl nor the bodies of the other stars . . . You must think of god in this way, as having everything - the cosmos, himself <the> universe - like thoughts within himself. Thus, unless you make yourself equal to god, you cannot understand god (C.H. XI.19-20; Copenhaver 1992:41).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 86 This Hermetic meditation may be seen as a variant of a Middle Platonic argument about the performative nature of language that is found, for example, in Philo of Alexandria. Philo (1929:187) wrote:
At this moment my ruling part is in literal fact in my body, but virtually in Italy or Sicily, when it is pondering on these countries, and in heaven, when it is considering heaven. Accordingly it often happens that people who are actually in unconsecrated spots are really in most sacred ones, when they are forming images of all that pertains to virtue. (Legum Allegoria I, 62)
Unlike Stoicism, which introduced the term spermatikos logos precisely in order to denote ideas that had performative power (Merkur 1991:101-3), Hermetism chose to ignore Philo's distinction between the literal and virtual. In C.H. XI, self was to be imagined as an unembodied mind that was able instantaneously to be anywhere inside (or outside) the cosmos. The mental exercise was to be treated as an analogy that suggested the nature of God.
Further understanding of the initiatory shift from visionary experience to the apprehension of divine Mind is provided in a text that was not contained in the Corpus Hermeticum, but was instead rediscovered in 1947 in the ancient collection of Gnostic texts that were found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt. Resemblances to the Middle Platonism of Albinus have suggested a date possibly in the second century CE (Parrott 1988:322). Entitled The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth, this long lost text enriches our understanding of the rebirth discussed in C.H. XI.
The Discourse describes Hermes Trismegistus utilizing the technique successfully before he guides his son in the same practice in greater detail. The first part of Hermes' mystical experience
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 87 was a vision that he interpreted allegorically (Pagels 1979:136-37): Lord, grant us the truth in the image. Allow us through the spirit to see the form of the image that has no deficiency, and receive the reflection of the pleroma from us through our praise (Disc. 8-9 57; Robinson 1988:324).
Having interpreted the image in a spiritual manner, Hermes concluded that a divine Mind had fashioned the image within his soul and he presently achieved an experience of communion with the Mind that he postulated:
I [am Mind and] I see another Mind, the one that [moves] the soul! I see the one that moves me from pure forgetfulness. You give me power! I see myself! I want to speak! Fear restrains me. I have found the beginning of the power that is above all powers, the one that has no beginning. I see a fountain bubbling with life. I have said, my son, that I am Mind. I have seen! Language is not able to reveal this. For the entire eighth, my son, and the souls that are in it, and the angels, sing a hymn in silence. And I, Mind, understand." (Disc. 8-9 58; Robinson 1988:324-25).
The use of the second person in Hermes's statement, "You give me power!", indicates a sense of encounter with a divine Presence that Hermes experienced as a personal being. The next statement, "I see myself!", expresses the Hermetic teaching that divine Mind is one's true self. Hermes did not, in this passage, experience an identity or union with Mind. At this stage in his rebirth, he experienced a sense of the presence of Mind that he interpreted doctrinally as himself.
The vision of Mind was simultaneously a means that was utilized by "the one that [moves] the soul" in order to communicate with Hermes:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 88 "The power that is above all powers, the one that has no beginning" transcended the vision, but caused its occurrence. Corpus Hermeticum II explained that "God is not mind, but he is the cause of mind's being; he is not spirit, but the cause of spirit's being" (C.H. II.14; Copenhaver 1992:11). Hermes' son soon had ecstatic experiences of his own, and his comments make clear that visionary experiences were located as experiences of the Ogdoad or Eighth, while
intellectual intuitions were located in the Ninth. In the Hermetic system, a person who was having a vision had transcended his bodily senses and had, as such, ascended beyond the physical realm of the seven planetary heavens. The Hermetists' mind or self found itself in a condition of existence that was entirely literal, even though it was mental rather than bodily. Visionary experience was not a state of consciousness but a state of being, a discrete rank or stage in the great chain of being. The Eighth cosmic region was, in Corbin's (1972) sense of the term, an "imaginal" realm, with its own epistemic and ontic integrity. We might best approximate the Hermetic nuance in modern idiom by speaking not of an Eighth celestial region, but of an Eighth "dimension."
To go on to reach the Ninth cosmic region, the imaginal realm of forms had itself to be transcended. Both meditations and mystical experiences had to be limited to intellectual abstractions:
"Trismegistus, let not my soul be deprived of the great divine vision. For everything is possible for you as master of the universe."
"Return to <praising>, my son, and sing while you are silent. Ask what you want in silence."
When he had finished praising he shouted, "Father Trismegistus! What shall I say? We have received this light. And I myself see this same vision in you. And I see the eighth and the souls that are
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 89 in it and the angels singing a hymn to the ninth and its powers. And I see him who has the power of them all, creating those <that are> in the spirit" (Disc. 8-9 59-60; Robinson 1988:325). The assertion that "he enters into the understanding of the eighth that reveals the ninth" (Disc. 8-9 63; Robinson 1988:326) epitomizes this part of the mystical technique. Visualization practices were used to induce visions of images that had forms. The visualizations were known to be fabricated, but the visions that they triggered were thought to be unfabricated. These reflections on the visions were made during the visionary state while in the company of the envisioned souls and angels. Due presumably to the visions' coherence or intelligibility, initiates postulated the reality of a Mind that was responsible for ideas that took visionary form as images. This Mind was not manifest to the initiate, but the images that manifested its ideas were. The text does not mention whether Mind, in this context, was human or divine.
Once the ninth had been postulated on the basis of the evidence of the eighth, the initiate was ready to move on to the ninth itself. The postulation of Mind was to be used to induce a purely intelligible experience of the divine Creator of "those <that are> in the spirit." Having perceived the intellectual necessity, during visionary experience, of postulating a
Mind beyond one's own, a Hermetist was to accomplish a final ontological movement by proceeding from vision to union. The initiand was to verify the divinity of the human mind, and its equivalence to divine Mind, by seeking an intellectual mystical experience. Corpus Hermeticum XIII described the experience as follows:
"Father, I see the universe and I see myself in mind."
"This, my child, is rebirth: no longer picturing things in three bodily dimensions. (C.H. XIII.13; Copenhaver 1992:52)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 90 The text is equivocal whether the universe was beheld through sense perception as the content of an extravertive mystical experience, or as a content of mental images during a vision, or as an intellectual experience of ideas. Whichever may have been intended, both the universe and self were located in the mind of God; and the intellectual experience of the primacy of mind constituted an ontological shift, a transcending of vision and a becoming of mind, that constituted the Hermetist's rebirth. Corpus Hermeticum I concluded: "This is the final good for those who have received knowledge: to be made god" (C.H. I.26; Copenhaver 1992:6). An intellectual mystical union accomplished the Hermetist's divinization because the Hermetic God was the Mind that contains the cosmos as its thoughts. Like the Gods of Aristotelian and Stoic philosophy, the Hermetic God was a Mind that was immanent throughout the cosmos. Corpus Hermeticum V expressed the doctrine in its title, "That god is invisible and entirely visible." In it, Hermes stated:
The one who alone is unbegotten is also unimagined and invisible, but in presenting images of all things he is seen through all of them and in all of them....the lord, who is ungrudging, is seen through the entire cosmos....there is nothing in all the cosmos that he is not. He is himself the things that are and those that are not. Those that are he has made visible; those that are not he holds within him (C.H. V.2; Copenhaver 1992:18).
Having attained unity with the God whose thought was the universe, a Hermetist was presumably empowered to work magic by commanding his thoughts. As a rationalization of already existing Hermetic practices of conjuring, Hermetic rebirth may, as Nock (1933:12) suggested, have been "a curious sacrament of auto-suggestion." Let me conclude, however, by addressing a different set of concerns.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 91
So far as I know, the Hermetic system was the earliest in the West to propose a mystical initiation, consisting of multiple experiences, that is simultaneously a journey through places and a series of changes in the ontology of the self. Its ascension to the sky compares with Jewish and Christian apocalypticism; but its division of ontological states compares with Neoplatonic distinctions among sensibles, intermediates or divisible intelligibles, and indivisible intelligibles. This sequence, which can already be discerned in Iamblichus, was eventually formalized by Proclus as three mystical stages of purgation, illumination, and union. However, the Hermetists slotted imaginals into the middle position that Neoplatonism limited to empirically demonstrable arithmeticals and geometricals. This substitution brought Hermetism to a position on visions that differed from the reductive skepticism of Neoplatonism, which treated visions as ideas that were misrepresented by the senses in the form of images.
The Hermetic position also differed from the pure projections that Gnostics held visions to be. For Hermetists, the imaginal was not a projection whose ever various and impredictable content becomes increasingly pure as one's mind purifies in its progress toward God. The imaginal was instead topographical, an actual and predictable itinerary in a visionary topos that had ontological integrity and coherence.
Although The Discourse was not transmitted to the West in the Corpus Hermeticum, the Hermetic concept of ontologically distinctive locations along an itinerary has been integral to Western esotericism for centuries. Because the Hermetic tradition survived without apparent interruption from late antiquity to be taught at least as late as eleventh century Baghdad, it is not surprising that a series of initiatory experiences were portrayed as an itinerary across nine mountains in Suhrawardi's Treatise of the Birds (1982).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 92 To Suhrawardi, Sufism also owed the introduction of the 'alam al-mithal, the "world of imagination" (Rahman 1964). The notion of an initiatory itinerary in the world of imagination was formalized, or at least made less esoteric, in the Sufism of Najm ad-Din al-Kubra (Merkur 1991:223, 234-35); and its passage from Islam to western Europe may be assumed. Interestingly, Widengren (1950:77-85) demonstrated that the ancient motif of ascension to an audience before a heavenly god was replaced, in the Arabic Hermetic literature, by the motif of entering a subterranean chamber where Hermes sits enthroned, holding a book in his hand. Widengren suggested that the descent of Balinas (the Arabic Apollonius of Tyana) to acquire the Emerald Table of Hermes, along with variant narratives, blended the motif of an initiatory ascension with the motif, found in Egyptian and Hellenistic tales, of the discovery of a book in a subterranean chamber. The motif of the cave of initiation, which found its widest audience through the tale of Aladdin in the 1001 Nights, may also have been influenced by Porphyry's On the Cave of the Nymphs (Taylor 1969), in which a passage in Homer was allegorized as an image of the cosmos. Whatever its sources, the motif of an alchemical initiation by means of a subterranean itinerary is earliest attested in
the writings of medieval Arabic Hermetists. By this route, the motif of ascension in late antique Hermetism was likely historically antecedent not only to such celebrated European alchemical motifs as the Cave of the Philosophers, but also to the climactic encounters in Novalis' Heinrich von Ofterdingen (1796) and Ferdinand Ossendowski's Beasts, Men and Gods (1922).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 93 ReferencesAffifi, A. E. 1951. "The Influence of Hermetic Literature on Moslem Thought." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 13/4:840-855.
Copenhaver, Brian P., ed. 1992. Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius in a new English translation, with notes and introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Corbin, Henry. "Mundus Imaginalis or the Imaginary and the Imaginal." Spring 1972, 1-18.
Danielou, Jean. 1973. Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture: A History of Early Christian Doctrine Before the Council of Nicea, Vol. 2. Trans. John Austin Baker. London: Darton, Longman & Todd & Philadelphia: Westminster Press.
Della Vida, G. Levi. 1938. "Some More About Artefius and His Clavis Sapientiae." Speculum 13:80-85.
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Faivre, Antoine. 1995. The Eternal Hermes: From Greek God to Alchemical Magus. Trans. Joscelyn Godwin. Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press.
Festugiére, André Marie Jean. 1954. La Révélation d'Herm·s Trismégiste, 4 vols. Paris: Librarie Lecoffre, J. Gabalda et Cie.
Fowden, Garth. 1986. The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; rpt. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Genequand, Charles. 1987-88. "Platonism and Hermetism in al-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 94 Kindi's Fi al-Nafs." Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 4:1-18. Green, Tamara M. 1992. The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Hopkins, Jeffrey. 1977. "Supplement," in Dalai Lama, Tsong-ka-pa, & Jeffrey Hopkins. Tantra in Tibet. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 1987.
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Merkur, Dan. 1991. Gnosis: An Esoteric Tradition of Mystical Visions and Unions. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991.
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Taylor, Thomas. 1969. Selected Writings. Ed. Kathleen Raine & George Mills Harper. Princeton: Bollingen Foundation/Princeton University Press.
van den Broek, Roelof. 1998. "Gnosticism and Hermetism in Antiquity: Two Roads to Salvation." In Roelof van den Broek & Wouter J. Hanegraaff, eds. Gnosis and Hermeticism: From Antiquity to Modern Times. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 96 Heavenly Book. Uppsala Universitets Arsskrift 1950:7. Uppsala: A.-B. Lundequistska Bokhandeln. Yates, Frances A. 1964. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
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Archival textsGeorg von Welling, Opus Mago-Cabalisticum et Theosophicum (1735) Esoterica I(1999): pp. 160-171
Johannes Kelpius, A Short, Easy and Comprehensive Method of Prayer, (1761 trs.) Esoterica I(1999): pp. 172-198
George Rapp, Thoughts on the Destiny of Man (1824/1825)Esoterica I(1999): pp. 199-204
Hirtenbrief, [Pastoral Letter] as distributed by the Harmony Society (1855) Esoterica I(1999): pp. 205-241
Book reviews Brian Gibbons, Gender and Mysticism Esoterica I(1999):242-243
Andrew Weeks, German Mysticism and Boehme Esoterica I(1999):244-245
Jean Servier, ed., Dictionnaire critique de L'Ésotérisme,Esoterica I(1999):246-247
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STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
A. Our purposes are to: 1. Live in a manner which honors our respective Higher Selves, and the Craft. 2. Explore and practice the beliefs and traditions of witchcraft. 3. Support one another within the Society in our positive spiritual, emotional and mental evolution, education, applications of knowledge and personal undertakings. 4. Hold ritual workings on our days of power, in order to celebrate the seasons, work our magics, recognize rites of passage and honor our respective Higher Selves. 5. Honor the Earth and each member within the Society as sacred, and work to heal and protect our Selves, our loved ones, and our personal environment. 6. Learn, apply, share and teach the beliefs and skills of witchcraft. 7. To educate others about the practices and beliefs of witchcraft, where appropriate.B. Commitment: All members of the Society must have fully committed themselves to these purposes in their beliefs, activities, and lives.
MEMBERSHIP
A. Qualifications: No person shall be denied the ability to apply and be considered for membership on the basis of gender, race, ethnic background, sexual preference, physical handicap, or age, provided that they have attained the age of majority OR full consent of all parents/guardians in writing. Membership will be offerred to such qualified individuals pending full consensus of the Teachers.B. Degrees of Participation and Membership: Participants in any and all programs sponsored by this Society may include the following: 1. Contributors: People who consider themselves witches or fellow occultists and participate in and/or support the open activities of the Society.
2. Guests: Interested parties who may attend any open activities OR members- only activities when sponsored by a member and with the full consensus of all Teachers prior to the event. 3. Members: Membership in the Society itself shall be limited to: a. Students: Persons who have been accepted as members and are following the prescribed course of study and participation within the Society. b. Teachers: Persons who have been accepted as members, and act not only as students, but also as those from whom knowledge, guidance, and mentor- ship can be offerred to fellow students in the practices and beliefs of witchcraft and their own particular areas of training and specialty.C. Membership Status: Any person's participation or membership may be curtailed, suspended or terminated by decision of the Society, either for lack of parti- cipation and/or attendance issues, or for violation of the Society's expectations.
ADMINISTRATION AND OPERATION
A. Society Synod: This body shall handle the ordinary business of the Society. 1. Membership: The Synod shall consist of all members of the Society. Guests may be invited to attend and/or participate in Synod meetings by Teachers. 2. Scope: The Synod shall discuss all matter of: a. Program planning and activities. b. Induction into the Society and membership in general. c. Finances and budget. d. Outreach, networking and affiliations. 3. Facilitation: The Society Senior(s) shall ordinarily chair meetings of the Synod. Where they are absent or choose to delegate this responsibility, an elect chosen by the Senior(s) shall chair instead. 4. Method of Operation: The Synod shall make decisions by consensus. When con- sensus can not be reached, the Synod may refer the decision to the Senior(s) or, in their absence, the Senior elect, who shall consider all that has been discussed and make the binding decision. 5. Meetings: The Synod shall meet at least quarterly on a regular basis, or as called by any member. 6. Quorom: A quorom shall consist of the members present at a regularly sched- uled meeting of the Synod, or three-fourths of the active membership at any specially called meeting.B. Offices and Duties: The following offices shall be filled by the Synod when- ever a vacancy occurs (offices may be combined where appropriate, and additional offices may be created as the Society deems appropriate): 1. SENIOR(s) - **Seniors shall be elected by a full consensus of all members** The Senior(s) shall have the following duties: a. Chair Synod meetings or provide resources to those doing so. b. Coordinate the teaching program. c. Provide counseling to members as necessary. d. Lead ritual work or provide resources to those doing so. e. Supervise the work of other Officers.
f. Direct the induction of members. g. Supervise the work, study, and training of students. h. Represent the Society to the public. i. Enhance the Society in any aspect possible. 2. SCRIBE - The Scribe shall have the following duties: a. Keep minutes of Synod meetings. b. Handle correspondence as requested. c. Keep records of Society membership, projects, works and activities. d. Notify members of meetings and other important information. 3. AUDITOR - The Auditor shall have the following duties: a. Collect money from any decided-upon dues, fees, or contributions. b. Keep accounts. c. Make purchases. d. Reimburse others for authorized purchases. e. Coordinate fundraising projects. f. Keep files or records related to the Society's legal status. 4. RITUAL/PROJECT/TRIP LEADERS - **These positions are assigned as needed and to be vacated at the conclusion of each event** The Leaders shall have the following duties: a. Coordinate design, logistics and implementation of Society events.C. Guidelines for Conduct: All Contributors, Guests and Members shall be guided in their conduct by their respective Higher Selves. If someone has a problem governing their person, and problems arise, it should be immediately brought to the attention of the Senior(s), and dealt with accordingly, as best suits the purposes and goals of the Covenant.
MEETING SCHEDULE
A. Workings 1. Moon workings shall normally be on the eve of the New and the Full Moon. 2. Holidays shall be held on traditionally celebrated days. 3. Once scheduled, a date shall not be changed unless two or more members request it, and unless everyone can attend on the proposed alternate date. 4. During clement weather, workings shall normally be held outdoors at a site to be established by the Synod. During inclement weather, workings shall be held at the home of a Senior or other member, or in a public place selected by the Synod.B. Classes 1. Site a. Seminars and classes shall be offered at such times and places as the Synod decides. b. Classrooms shall be preferrably outdoors, or some other place designated and/or approved by the Synod. 2. Regularity a. Classes or guided discussion and/or study groups for members shall be held twice each month at least, on a schedule determined by the Synod.
b. Special classes shall be arranged according to the needs of those involved. 3. Curricula a. All curricula shall be established and/or approved by the Synod. 4. Cost a. No fees shall be charged for classes or services. b. Members are expected to furnish their own supplies, and may be asked to share necessary costs of outside resources required for any class (in example - location fees, books, et cetera). c. Teachers may accept personal donations or contributions from students or other contributors, guests or members wishing to reimburse them for the gracious giving of their time and knowledge, but this is not to be ex- pected and solicitation of such is completely unacceptable.C. Field Trips and Special Events 1. The Society shall have at least one retreat yearly to celebrate, work, study and play, to be organized by a special committee of the Synod. 2. Field trips and special events shall be held at such times and places as the Synod deems appropriate.
ATTENDANCE
A. Expectations 1. Members are expected to participate in all holidays, Moon workings and classes unless personally instructed otherwise by the Senior(s). If any member attends fewer than three-quarters of events at which their attendance is requested, their membership shall be subject to review by the Synod.B. Restrictions 1. Moon workings shall be open to members and approved guests only. 2. Holidays will be open to Contributors, Guests and Members, although the Synod may schedule a primary members-only celebration for any holiday as desired. 3. Classes will be designated as "open" or members-only by the Circle.
FINANCES
A. The Circle's income shall include donations, profits from fundraising projects and interest from bank accounts established by the Synod, if any.B. The budget shall be established and disbursements approved by the Synod.C. The Auditor shall make a full report at each quarterly meeting of income and expenditures to the Circle.D. All required forms and reports shall be filed with the state and federal gov- ernments as required and necessary to maintain the Society's legal status.E. Members will not give nor receive monetary payment for their participation in any way with the Society. This includes, but is not limited to, being paid for services such as teaching, guiding others, or offerring mentorship. Members may receive personal donations or contributions from other members, contributors
or guests wishing to reimburse them for the gracious giving of their time and knowledge, but this is never to be implied, expected or solicited.
PRIVACY OF MEMBERS
A. The names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and other informa- tion relating to members shall be considered confidential and may not be disclosed to anyone within or outside of the Society without the express permission of the individual involved.B. Disclosure of confidential information may, at the discretion of the Synod, be considered a violation of the trust of the other members and grounds for ter- mination of their membership within the Circle.
REVISIONS AND AMMENDMENTS
A. Any part of these guidelines may be ammended by consensus of the Womens Fullmoon Circle
An Initiate does not require vast knowledge or advanced skills in Coven leadership, but should be able to minister to their own spiritual needs on a basic level. Some skills in which basic competence is suggested follow...
- Progressive physical relaxation techniques.
- Ability to center oneself emotionally, ground, concentrate, and meditate.
- Ability to enter a trance state, like self hypnosis.
- Simple self purification or cleansing.
- At least two forms of divination.
- Ritual design and leadership.
- Basic spell craft.
- Drawing power from the ambient field, or specifically from lunar, solar or Earth sources.
- Channeling energy to a specific target or purpose.
- Earthing, grounding, or centering excess energy
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THE CATHARS AND THE KABALA
The distinctive forms of medieval kabbalism can with a great deal of certainty be said to have had its birth or rather rebirth in the area of the Languedoc. Many sources place the root of this revival in Spain, however it was not until the early thirteenth century that it was transplanted to places such as Aragon and Castille from the Languedoc.
The time period of this development in Southern France would be between the years 1150-1220. This appears to be a very magical period for intellectual as well as for theological and theosophical speculation. We also received some of the most impressive and enlightened Grail literature from this period.
The area of Languedoc would have been an idea place for Jewish culture to flourish during the 12th and 13th centuries. Catholic Christianity had lost its reign and the much more tolerant Cathars had become the prominent Christian culture of the region. The Cathars detested the corruption of the catholic clergy, and sought to practice a form of Christianity more identical with Primitive Christianity, claiming their own apostolic lineage.
So in effect arose a very unique opportunity for religious expression in a time when this attitude of tolerance was becoming a rare phenomenon in the world at large. The most interesting aspect of this situation however was that of the co-existence and close proximity of Jewish and Christian Gnostic schools. In fact this became fertile soil where the Judeo-Christian esoteric traditions produced several hybrid strains that continue to enlighten and influence us to this day.
The Bahir, one of the older and most profound of all Kabbalistic texts was well received on many fronts in the Languedoc. The cosmology of the Bahir appears only a
slightly modified form of that of the Christian Gnostics. One of the more important Gnostic ideas found in the Bahir is in the Hebrew word 'ha=male'; the full or the fullness having the same meaning as the Gnostic Pleroma. In the Bahir we find:
What is the meaning of the verse (Deut.33: 23): "And full of the Lord's blessing, take possession of the west and south." That means: In every place the letter Beth (with which the Torah and also the word berakhah begin), is blessed because it is the fullness. This verse may thus be understood: And the "fullness" id the blessing of God. And it is He who gives drink to the needy and with it counsel was taken at the very beginning.
Here the word 'ha-male' does not simply mean the world of angels as it does in other literature, rather it refers to the highest reality in which the 'fullness' of God's blessing is contained. It may also be interpreted as a pool of dammed up waters from which God gives drink to those who thirst.
Another word representing this fullness is 'ALL'. In the Gospel of Truth we find:
They found...the perfect Father who generated the ALL, in the midst of which is the ALL and of which the ALL has need...for what did the ALL need if not the Gnosis concerning the Father.
Compare it to the Gospel of Thomas:
Jesus said: I am ALL and the ALL proceeds from me.
The most common attribute of the Gnostic Pleroma to be found in the Bahir is in the form of the 'cosmic tree'. The mythical cosmic tree has its roots above and grows downward, an image that is known to have numerous parallels in many different cultures, including the Gnostic Bogomils of the Balkans. Concerning the cosmic tree the Bahir says:
It is I who planted this 'tree' that the whole world may delight in it and with it I have spanned the ALL, called it ALL, for on it depends the ALL, and from it emanates the ALL; all things need it and look upon it and yearn for it, and it is from it that all souls fly forth. I was alone when I made it and no angel can raise himself above it and say: I was there before Thee, for when I spanned my earth, when I planted and rooted this tree and caused them to take delight in each other (the tree and the earth) and myself delighted in them -- who was there with me to whom I would have confided this secret?
Here we find that the tree is not only the origin of souls but that God had planted it before anything else in His "earth". From this we may conclude that the tree may be thought of as a primordial tree of souls.
The Bahir further elaborates on the tree:
And what is this tree of which you have spoken? He said to him: all powers of God are disposed in layers, and they are like a tree: just as the tree produces its fruit through water, so God through water increases the powers of the tree. And what is God's water? It is
Sophia, Hokhmah, and the fruit of the tree is the soul of the righteous men who fly from the "source" to the great canal and the fruit rises up and clings to the tree. And by virtue of what does it flower? By virtue of Israel: when they are good, righteous, the Shekinah dwells among them, and by their works they dwell in the bosom of God, and He lets them be fruitful and multiply.
The Bahir thus tells us that the totality of God's powers constitutes not only a tree of souls from which the souls of the righteous fly out and to which they apparently return, but a tree that also depends upon the deeds of the elect of Israel (or the Pneumatics of the Gnostics). The remark in the above passage "he makes them become fruitful and multiply" should be obvious in its inner meaning. The trunk of the tree corresponds to the spinal cord in man, and if his deeds are righteous there will be an ascension within the trunk (which is also known as the great channel). In similar fashion in the East we have the doctrine of the rising of the kundalini through the channels of Shushumna.
Another matter of considerable interest is the specific symbolism and localization of the aeons. Since Sophia (or Hokhmah) is the source that waters the tree then the root is the third Sefirah (Binah), or the Mother in the terminology of the Bahir, and the tree itself represents the totality of the seven other powers that are active in the creative work of the seven days.
ASTROLOGICAL REFERENCES
The potency of the one is also in the other, although there are twelve in each of the three they all adhere to each other and all thirty-six potencies are already found in the first, which is the teli...and they all return cyclically one into the other, and the potency of each one is found in the other...and they are all perfect in the heart.
The Bahir
The number thirty-six would correspond to the astrological decans of that number, and the number twelve to that of the zodiacal signs. Of course, these numbers are not particular to the Bahir, but can be found profusely throughout a great deal of kabbalistic literature, especially in the texts of the Sefer Yetzirah.
Examples of similar astrological and numerical references from Gnostic texts are far too numerous to list; however an example worthy to note is here given:
And when I bring you into the height, you shall see the glory of them in the height; and ye shall be in most mighty wonderment. And when I bring you into the regions of the rulers of fate, Ye shall see the glory in which they are, and compared with their greatly superior glory, Ye will regard this world as the darkness of darkness, and when Ye gaze down on the whole world of men, it will be as a speck of dust for you, because of the enormous distance by which the fate-sphere will be distant from it, and because of the enormous superiority of its quality over it. And when I shall have brought you into the twelve aeons, Ye shall see the glory in which they are; and compared with their greatly superior glory, the region of the rulers of the fate will appear to you as the darkness of darkness, and will
become as a speck of dust for you, because of the enormous distance from you, and because of the enormous superiority of the quality of the aeons over it, as I have already said unto you on another occasion.
Pistis Sophia
IN CONCLUSION
Opponents to the theory of a solid connection of the Kabbalists and Cathars in twelfth century France might say that there is a lack of hard evidence for making such conclusions, however if one uses a fine tooth comb and searches meticulously, there will be little doubt that there was a meeting of the mystic minds, the only question being of what degree.
The most common similarity of both groups is the notion regarding the reality of a separate higher world belonging entirely to God Himself and in which there occur certain dramatic events that have their counterpart in the lower world. This supreme world of the unknown God may correspond, in the case of the Kabbalists, to the Gnostic pleroma. The Cathars recognize four elements as composing that supreme world just as did the circle of Isaac the Blind. The creator God or Demiurge of the Cathars is identical with Satan, has a form and figure in which he appears to the prophets; while on other hand, the true and good God imperceptible to the eye and for all practical purposes is unknowable to the hylic mortals. The Cathar idea of Satan also holds a resemblance in the Bahir of the prince of Tohu, who was the creator of the material world.
The system of syzygies or the coupling of masculine and feminine potencies in the upper world, and its reflection in the lower world can be found in the doctrines of the Spanish Kabbalists as well as the Cathars. This connection, however seems not to be from the immediate influences but rather from a common source within the ancient Gnosis. This may be further deducted by the fact that the idea of the syzygy may be found universally, especially in the east in such rich esoteric traditions as Taoism.
Lastly, the one major issue that our two groups have most in common is that of the transmigration of souls, although the details vary to some degree. The Cathars regarded the higher souls as those of fallen angels that must continue to wander until they attain the body of a Cathar Perfecti did. Similarly, when a student engaged himself to a Kabalistic school, one of the first things taught to the novice was that he probably would not complete his work in the present lifetime (assuming that the present lifetime was the first one to partake of this spiritual path). In fact, the idea of transmigration of souls can be traced back among both traditions to a much older time frame. The earliest Christian Gnostic embraced this idea, as did the Jewish mystics of the same period.
Perhaps the similarities of the Cathars and Kabbalists may be attributed to other factors than direct contact. The mystical concepts accepted by these traditions can also be found in numerous other esoteric lineages, east and west. Due to the geographical barriers between these groups there appears to be ample evidence that these people were drawing
from the same archetypal well of wisdom, and with this in mind, we need only lower our pail into the same well of the collective unconscious.
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