Select Works, Section 347

A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness.

The text describes a 'self-contemplating vision vested in its stationary part' within the universe.

Platonic recollection: knowledge as the soul's recovery of what it knew before birth, with learning as remembering rather than acquisition.

The passage explicitly references 'Lethe calling for constant reminding,' aligning with the Platonic concept of recollection and forgetfulness.

The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.

[auto] The passage argues that sensation arises from bodily association and serves utility or need, implying it is unnecessary for a higher state of being free from forgetfulness.

The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.

The passage explicitly parallels the earth's ensouled structure with the human body's ('the earth is ensouled, as our flesh is'), mapping the same soul-phases at different cosmic scales.

The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.

It states that 'Things of earth are certainly affected by what passes in other regions of the All,' describing interconnected cosmic influence.

The doctrine that the divine is present within all things and the universe itself, pervading creation rather than remaining solely transcendent above it. Distinct from unity_of_being (the general claim that all existence is one substance, agnostic about whether that substance indwells its parts) and from kingdom_within (the divine present specifically IN THE INDIVIDUAL human, accessible without mediation) — divine_immanence is the general pervading-presence claim applied to all of creation, not a human-specific indwelling.

The entire passage is a sustained argument that the soul (and ultimately the Intellectual-Principle) is immanent within the earth, pervading it as a whole and in each of its parts.

A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.

The passage describes a clear hierarchical cascade of soul-phases (vegetal principle, sensitive soul, higher soul, Intellectual-Principle) descending into the earth as a whole and its parts.

A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).

The passage describes non-physical soul-phases (vegetal, sensitive, higher soul, Intellectual-Principle) interpenetrating the physical earth, imperceptible to ordinary senses yet constituting its true nature.

The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.

The passage traces a structured descent of the soul through successive phases (vegetal, sensitive, higher soul, Intellectual-Principle) into the material earth, a directional process from spirit to matter.

The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.

The passage draws a direct analogy between human apprehension and the potential perception of the All ('why then should not the All... perceive').