cosmology
Polarity
The Hermetic doctrine that apparent opposites are identical in nature but differ in degree — two extremes of the same scale (hot/cold, love/hate) — such that one pole can be shifted toward its opposite by a change of degree ('mental transmutation'). Distinct from opposites_transcended (a completion-state marking the path's end, not this doctrine's active technique) and magical_equilibrium (balance held BETWEEN two forces, not identity-by-degree of what looks like two forces).
211 passages · 10 traditions
theosophy105
The Secret Doctrine | Page 2 (part 10)
“Helped by his knowledge of landscapes left behind him, he can get a general and pretty correct idea of the transmural view, if he will only climb to the loftiest summit of the altitudes in front of him.
Once there, he can gaze at it, at hi…”
The Secret Doctrine | Page 3 (part 2)
“The latter is either "awake" or "asleep." The Svabhavikas, or philosophers of the oldest school of Buddhism (which still exists in Nepaul), speculate only upon the active condition of this "Essence," which they call Svabhavat, and deem it f…”
The Secret Doctrine | Page 3 (part 4)
“The orthodox Brahmins, those who rise the most against the Pantheists and Adwaitees, calling them Atheists, are forced, if Manu has any authority in this matter, to accept the death of Brahma, the creator, at the expiration of every "Age" o…”
The Secret Doctrine | Page 3 (part 5)
“But this view does not prevent him from believing in its existence so long as it lasts, to wit, for one Mahamanvantara; nor from applying Akasa, the radiation of Mulaprakriti,* to practical purposes, connected as the World-Soul is with all…”
The Secret Doctrine | Page 3 (part 6)
“." For clearer understanding on the part of the general reader, it must be stated that Occult Science recognises Seven Cosmical Elements -- four entirely physical, and the fifth (Ether) semi-material, as it will become visible in the air to…”
The Secret Doctrine | Page 3 (part 7)
“Herbert Spencer has of late so far modified his Agnosticism, as to assert that the nature of the "First Cause,"* which the Occultist more logically derives from the "Causeless Cause," the "Eternal," and the "Unknowable," may be essentially…”
The Secret Doctrine | Page 3 (part 8)
“Moreover, the Secret Doctrine teaches: -- ( c ) The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul -- a spark of the former…”
The Secret Doctrine | Page 4 (part 2)
“T HE ROOT REMAINS, THE LIGHT REMAINS, THE CURDS REMAIN, AND STILL O EAOHOO IS ONE.
6.
T HE ROOT OF LIFE WAS IN EVERY DROP OF THE OCEAN OF IMMORTALITY, AND THE OCEAN WAS RADIANT LIGHT, WHICH WAS FIRE, AND HEAT, AND MOTION.
D ARKNESS VANIS…”
Show all 105 →western_esoteric70
The Kybalion (Three Initiates) | Chapter II (part 1)
“CHAPTER II THE SEVEN HERMETIC PRINCIPLES "The Principles of Truth are Seven; he who knows these, understandingly, possesses the Magic Key before whose touch all the Doors of the Temple fly open."--The Kybalion.
The Seven Hermetic Principle…”
The Kybalion (Three Initiates) | Chapter II (part 2)
“The ancient Hermetists considered this Principle as one of the most important mental instruments by which man was able to pry aside the obstacles which hid from view the Unknown.
Its use even tore aside the Veil of Isis to the extent that…”
The Kybalion (Three Initiates) | Chapter II (part 4)
“The Hermetists have grasped this Principle, finding its universal application, and have also discovered certain means to overcome its effects in themselves by the use of the appropriate formulas and methods.
They apply the Mental Law of Ne…”
The Kybalion (Three Initiates) | Chapter III (part 1)
“CHAPTER III MENTAL TRANSMUTATION "Mind (as well as metals and elements) may be transmuted, from state to state; degree to degree; condition to condition; pole to pole; vibration to vibration.
True Hermetic Transmutation is a Mental Art."--…”
The Kybalion (Three Initiates) | Chapter III (part 2)
“So you see, therefore, that Mental Transmutation is really the "Magic" of which the ancient; writers had so much to say in their mystical works, and about which they gave so few practical instructions.
If All be Mental, then the art which…”
The Kybalion (Three Initiates) | Chapter VI (part 5)
“With this difference, always, between the various hypotheses--that under the old views Mental Power was ignored as a Natural Force, while under Mentalism it becomes the Greatest Natural Force.
And this one difference revolutionizes Life, t…”
The Kybalion (Three Initiates) | Chapter VIII (part 6)
“Only those whose minds have been carefully trained along the lines of the Hermetic Philosophy for years--yes, those who have brought with them from other incarnations the knowledge acquired previously--can comprehend just what is meant by t…”
The Kybalion (Three Initiates) | Chapter IX (part 1)
“CHAPTER IX VIBRATION "Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates."--The Kybalion.
The great Third Hermetic Principle--the Principle of Vibration--embodies the truth that Motion is manifest in everything in the Universe--that noth…”
Show all 70 →christian_mysticism14
The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme | Chapter 2 (part 5)
“The will beholding itself in the mirror of wisdom causes its own image to appear within the groundlessness, and thus it creates a foundation in its own imagination." ( Menschwerdung , ii.
1.) "Wisdom, the eternal virgin, the playmate of Go…”
The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme | Chapter 2 (part 7)
“The light of God has also the quality of the fire, but in it the wrath is changed into love; hate and bitter pain into mild beneficence and sweet desire or satisfaction." ( Menschwerdung , i.
5–16.) "The fountain of love is a clasping and…”
The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme | Chapter 4 (part 4)
“We may say that the world, as we know it, is constituted entirely of forms of heat, or of motion, or of electric conditions, or light, &c., &c.
All this is true in so far as it refers to the relations which it bears towards ourselves.
All…”
The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme | Chapter 5 (part 9)
“1.) "Lucifer having left the harmony of God, the holy name of God separated from him and remained in its own unity; but Lucifer remained in the qualities of the central fire which he had awakened within himself." ( Theosophical Questions ,…”
The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme | Chapter 6 (part 4)
“Then in the spirit of external nature there originated a male and a female kind—namely, in the fiery Mercury the male, and in the watery the female one." ( Clavis , 86.) "On the third day the fiery and the watery Mercury have again entered…”
The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme | Chapter 6 (part 7)
“That which Sol (the sun) is spiritually becomes corporeal in Luna (the moon)." ( Signature , ix.
24.) After the world of stars had begun to exist, the sidereal life appeared by the power of the former—that is to say, that living organisms…”
The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme | Chapter 8 (part 1)
“p.
164 CHAPTER VIII.
NATURE, OR THE THIRD PRINCIPLE.
"The godless seeks for God outside of his own self, and the Christless sectarians seek for a personal Christ in history; but the man of God and the true Christian know God and Christ w…”
The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme | Chapter 8 (part 8)
“For the internal being is continually labouring to manifest itself outwardly.
Thus everything has its own mouth for the purpose of revealing itself, and therein is based the language of nature, by means of which each thing speaks out of it…”
Show all 14 →jewish_mysticism6
The Book of Concealed Mystery (Siphra Dtzenioutha) | 1a
“CHAPTER V.
1.
(It is written) Isa.
i.
4: "Woe unto the sinful nation, unto the people heavy with iniquity, unto the seed of evildoers, &c." (Here the author of the "Siphra Dtzenioutha" reasoneth concerning the small word HVI, "woe," whi…”
The Book of Concealed Mystery (Siphra Dtzenioutha) | 1f
“[The letters of the Hebrew alphabet are divided into three classes, the three mothers as they are called, AMSh; the seven duplex letters, BGDKPRTh, so called because they are sometimes tenues and sometimes aspirates, according to whether th…”
The Kabbalah Unveiled | Introduction, Section 1e
“The seventh space here means Malkuth, the kingdom, or the queen, which together with the six of Microprosopus, makes up the seven lower Sephiroth.
(See Introduction, § 77, further, for the idea of the balance of mercy and judgment.)] 23.…”
The Kabbalah Unveiled | Introduction, Section 1g
“so to speak, not only the executor of judgment, but also the destroyer; destruction as opposed to creation, death as opposed to life.
For the whole Sephiroth are represented as being the balance of mercy and justice, and the tenth Sephira…”
The Lesser Holy Assembly (Idra Zuta Qadisha) | Idra Zuta, Chapter 1 (part 1)
“CHAPTER VIII.
CONCERNING THE FOREHEAD OF MACROPROSOPUS.
87.
THE forehead of His skull is the acceptation of acceptations, whereunto is opposed the acceptation of Microprosopus, like as it is written, Exod.
xxviii.
38: "And it shall be…”
Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Formation) | Section 1c
“These three mothers again represent in the Microcosm or Human form, male and female; the Head, the Belly, and the Chest; the bead from the fire, the belly from water, and the chest from the air lieth between them.
5.
These three mothers d…”
neoplatonism5
Iamblichus: On the Mysteries | Chapter VIII-v
“Hence some of them preside over men, others over lions or other animals, and others over plants; and still more partially, some are the inspective guardians of the eye, others of the heart, and others of the liver.” He adds, “all things, ho…”
Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 78
“Section 3 3. If such be the Nature of Beings and of That which transcends all the realm of Being, Evil cannot have place among Beings or in the Beyond-Being; these are good. There remains, only, if Evil exist at all, that it be situate in t…”
Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 138
“Section 16 16. Then Matter is simply Alienism [the Principle of Difference]? No: it is merely that part of Alienism which stands in contradiction with the Authentic Existents which are Reason-Principles. So understood, this non-existent has…”
Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 189
“Section 2 2. By derivation from that Authentic Kosmos, one within itself, there subsists this lower kosmos, no longer a true unity. It is multiple, divided into various elements, thing standing apart from thing in a new estrangement. No lon…”
Select Works of Plotinus | Select Works, Section 338
“Section 18 18. There remains the question whether the body possesses any force of its own- so that, with the incoming of the soul, it lives in some individuality- or whether all it has is this Nature we have been speaking of, the superior p…”
renaissance_hermeticism5
Agrippa: The Philosophy of Natural Magic, Chapter III — Of the Four Elements, Their Qualities, and Mutual Mixtions | Chapter III, Section 1
“CHAPTER III. Of the Four Elements, Their Qualities, and Mutual Mixtions . There are four Elements, and original grounds of all corporeal things—Fire, Earth, Water, Air—of which all elemented inferior bodies are compounded; not by way of hea…”
Agrippa: The Philosophy of Natural Magic, Chapter LXIII — How the Passions of the Mind Change the Proper Body by Changing Its Accidents and Moving the Spirit | Chapter LXIII, Section 1
“CHAPTER LXIII. How the Passions of the Mind Change the Proper Body by Changing Its Accidents and Moving the Spirit . The phantasy, or imaginative power, hath a ruling power over the passions of the soul when they follow the sensual apprehen…”
The Heroic Enthusiasts, Part I (Gli Eroici Furori) | First Dialogue-d
“Some are called in vain to put in a ready appearance, and are chiefly those which proceed from the lower instincts, and which obey the reason either not at all, or very little; and forcing himself to prevent their actions and condemn those…”
Paracelsus: The Aurora of the Philosophers | Section 1o
“There are also two matters of the Stone, Sol and Luna, formed together in a proper marriage, both natural and artificial.
Now, as we see that the man or the woman, without the seed of both, cannot generate, in the same way our man, Sol, an…”
Paracelsus: Coelum Philosophorum, or Book of Vexations | Section 1g
“It works essentially where otherwise there is no hope.
It accomplishes that which is deemed impossible.
What appears beyond belief or hope emerges into truth after a wonderful fashion.
NOTE ON MERCURIUS VIVUS.
Whatever tinges with a whi…”
hinduism3
The Bhagavad Gita | Chapter VII, Section 1b
“Whichever form (of deity) any worshipper wishes to worship with faith, to that form I render his faith steady.
Possessed Of that faith, he seeks to propitiate (the deity in) that (form), and obtains from it those beneficial things which he…”
The Bhagavad Gita | Chapter IX, Section 1a
“CHAPTER IX.
Now I will speak to you, who are not given to carping, of that most mysterious knowledge, accompanied by experience, by knowing which you will be released from evil.
It is the chief among the sciences, the chief among the myst…”
The Bhagavad Gita | Chapter XVI, Section 1a
“CHAPTER XVI.
Freedom from fear, purity of heart, perseverance in (pursuit of) knowledge and abstraction of mind, gifts , self-restraint , and sacrifice, study of the Vedas, penance, straightforwardness, harmlessness, truth , freedom from a…”
hermeticism1
Corpus Hermeticum 13: The Discourse of Hermes to Tat | Section 1c
“Gnosis of God hath come to us, and when this comes, my son, Not-knowing is cast out.
Gnosis of Joy hath come to us, and on its coming, son, Sorrow will flee away to them who give it room.
The Power that follows Joy do I invoke, thy Self-c…”
mandaean1
Gnostic John the Baptizer — Some Typical Extracts | Section 14
“That the Mandæan religion preserves echoes of a wealth of ancient mythical elements found in Iranian, Babylonian and Semitic traditions is evident on all hands. A process of syncretism had presumably gone on for generations before an impuls…”
sufism1
The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) | STORY VI-b
“They possess freewill and compulsion besides, 4 As in oyster-shells raindrops are pearls.
Outside the shell they are raindrops, great and small; Inside they are precious pearls, big and little.
These men also resemble the musk deer's bag;…”