Select Works, Section 627

Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.

Divine attributes are described using human actions like waiting, longing, and loving.

Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.

[auto] The divine is defined by what it is not, such as not being corporeal or fixed to place.

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

The text contrasts wisdom with corporeal things, implying the body is not the locus of the divine.

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.

Soul 'reproduces' the Intellectual-Principle, and lower things long toward soul 'by its likeness to its higher' — each level is a legible mirror of the one above.

The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.

[auto] The Good is described as secluded within itself yet sufficient to all.

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 Intellect 'contains' all entities, 'need not look out upon them since it contains them,' and the Collective Life is 'coextensive with all' — the divine pervades and indwells all of creation.

The doctrine that God has no parts, divisions, or composite attributes; pure undivided being.

[auto] It explicitly states wisdom and the Good are entire, not corporeal, and not spread about like a colouring.

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 text implies a hierarchy where others look to the One, though it focuses on the One's nature.

The doctrine that emotions constitute a valid and necessary mode of knowing reality, complementing or surpassing intellectual cognition.

'The greatness and beauty of the Intellectual-Principle we know by the soul's longing towards it' explicitly identifies longing (a feeling) as the mode by which the divine is known.

Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.

[auto] Participation in wisdom is presented as attaining the Good through direct experience rather than distribution.

The practice of stilling the mind and speech to open receptivity to divine knowledge or presence.

The state of being poised within itself suggests a stillness or silence of the divine.

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 directional descent from the unified Intellect through Soul and Nature into 'disjointed being,' describing the staged process of spirit unfolding into multiplicity.

The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.

Love is personified as waiting at the door and striving towards the beautiful.

The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.

Wisdom is treated as a unifying principle accessible to all, akin to a mediating reason.

The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.

[auto] The passage centrally describes the One as an indivisible, self-enfolded unit that is not distributed parcelwise.

The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.

[auto] The text describes participation in the One where lovers attain the Beauty without dividing it.

The dissolution of binary oppositions (male/female, inner/outer, above/below) as a mark of spiritual completion.

[auto] The distinction between the Many and the One is bridged by the indivisible nature of the participation.

Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.

[auto] The text presents the paradox that seclusion is the very reason for the Good's adequacy to all.

The divine fullness or totality of the highest realm, populated by aeons and divine attributes, contrasted with the deficient material world.

The Intellect is described as an 'all-embracing' unity in which 'the several entities have each its own distinct existence' and are 'mutually present within a unity' — a divine fullness containing all its members.

The soul's journey back to its divine origin, reversing the fall into matter through stages of purification or illumination.

[auto] The longing of the Many to find the One where it is implies a journey back to the origin.

A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.

[auto] It mentions love coming up from without and striving towards the beautiful.

The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.

[auto] Wisdom is described as one thing that is entire to all participants simultaneously.