2, Page]] 113 THE SECRET WORK OF CHIRAM.
active emanations from the three higher principles in man, namely, "Spirit, Soul, and Mind," or Atma, Buddhi, and Manas.
It is the spiritual and also the material human basis.
Rudimentary man, having been nursed by the "air" or the "wind," becomes the perfect man later on; when, with the development of "Spiritual fire," the noumenon of the "Three in One" within his Self, he acquires from his inner Self, or Instructor, the Wisdom of Self-Consciousness, which he does not possess in the beginning.
Thus here again divine Spirit is symbolised by the Sun or Fire; divine Soul by Water and the Moon, both standing for the Father and Mother of Pneuma, human Soul, or Mind, symbolised by the Wind or air, for Pneuma, means "breath." Hence in the Smaragdine Tablet, disfigured by Christian hands: -- "The Superior agrees with the Inferior; and the Inferior with the Superior; to effect that one truly wonderful Work" -- which is M AN.
For the secret work of Chiram, or King Hiram in the Kabala, "one in Essence, but three in Aspect," is the Universal Agent or Lapis Philosophorum.
The culmination of the Secret Work is Spiritual Perfect Man, at one end of the line; the union of the three elements is the Occult Solvent in the "Soul of the World," the Cosmic Soul or Astral Light, at the other; and, on the material plane, it is Hydrogen in its relation to the other gases.
The To ON, truly; the ONE "whom no person has seen except the Son"; this sentence applying both to the metaphysical and physical Kosmos, and to the spiritual and material Man.
For how could the latter understand the To ON the "One Father," if his Manas, the "Son," does not become ( as ) "One with the Father," and through this absorption receive enlightenment from the "divine instructor," Guru -- Atma-Buddhi?
" If thou would ' st understand the SECONDARY ("Creation," so-called), oh Lanoo, thou should ' st first study its relation to the PRIMARY.
" (Commentary, Book of Dzyan, III.
19.) The first Race had three elements, but no living Fire.
Why?
Because: -- "We say four elements, my Son, but ought to say three," says Hermes Trismegistus.
"In the Primary Circle" (creation) that which is marked reads "Root," as in the Secondary likewise.
Thus in Alchemy or Western Hermetism (a variant on Eastern Esotericism) we find: -- X.
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Flamma .
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Spiritus Hydrargyum .
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Natura .
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Aqua Sal .
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Mater .
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Sanguis [[Vol.
2, Page]] 114 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
And these three are all quaternaries completed by their Root, Fire.
The Spirit, beyond manifested Nature, is the fiery BREATH in its absolute Unity.
In the manifested Universe, it is the Central Spiritual Sun, the electric Fire of all Life.
In our System it is the visible Sun, the Spirit of Nature, the terrestrial god.
And in, on, and around the Earth, the fiery Spirit thereof -- air, fluidic fire; water , liquid fire; Earth, solid fire.
All is fire -- ignis, in its ultimate constitution, or I, the root of which is O ( nought ) in our conceptions, the All in nature and its mind.
Pro-Mater is divine fire.
It is the Creator, the Destroyer, the Preserver.
The primitive names of the gods are all connected with fire, from AGNI, the Aryan, to the Jewish god who "is a consuming fire." In India, God is called in various dialects, Eashoor, Esur, Iswur, and Is ' Vara, in Sanskrit the Lord, from Isa, but this is primarily the name of Siva, the Destroyer; and the three Vedic chief gods are Agni ( ignis ) , Vayu, and Surya -- Fire, Air, and the Sun, three occult degrees of fire.
In the Hebrew ( aza ), means to illuminate, and ( asha ) is fire.
In Occultism, "to kindle a fire" is synonymous to evoking one of the three great fire-powers, or "to call on God." In Sanskrit Osch or Asch is fire or heat; and the Egyptian word Osiris is compounded (as shown by Schelling) of the two primitives aish and asr, or a "fireenchanter." Aesar in the old Etruscan meant a God (being perhaps derived from Asura of the Vedas).
Aeswar and Eswara are analogous terms, as Dr.
Kenealy thought.
In the Bhagavad Gita we read, "Iswara resides in every mortal being and puts in motion, by his supernatural power, all things which mount on the Wheel of Time." It is the creator and the destroyer, truly.
"The primitive fire was supposed to have an insatiable appetite for devouring.
Maximus of Tyre relates that the ancient Persians threw into the fire combustible matter crying: 'Devour, oh Lord!' In the Irish language Easam, or Asam, means 'to create,' and Aesar was the name of an ancient Irish god, meaning 'to light a fire' " ( Kenealy ) .
The Christian Kabalists and symbologists who disfigured Pymander -- prominent among them the Bishop of Ayre, Francois de Tours, in the 16th century -- divide the elements in this way: -- The four elements formed from divine substances and the Spirits of the Salts of Nature represented by - - .
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(Jesus-Christ, Angel-Man, Mikael ) A - .
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Fire E - Y .
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Earth I - O .
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The Eagle .
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Air* [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * To those who would inquire "What has Hydrogen to do with air or oxygena- [[Footnote continued on next page]] [[Vol.
2, Page]] 115 SONS OF YOGA.
H , THE Q UINTESSENCE, [[ HEPHLOX ]], F LAMMA- V IRGO (virgin oil), F LAMMA D URISSIMA, V IRGO, L UCIS A ETERNA M ATER.
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
The entire passage is titled 'The Secret Work of Chiram' and describes the Lapis Philosophorum, the Magnum Opus, and the transformation of base elements into the 'Spiritual Perfect Man' as both laboratory and spiritual allegory.
The universal fluid or medium of occult philosophy — Lévi's Great Magical Agent — that transmits will, thought, and magical influence between minds and matter, and preserves the impress of all forms and actions as a book of consciences; cognate with akasha and the anima mundi. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (a doctrine of hidden affinity) in being a substantival medium that can be charged, directed, and abused.
The 'Soul of the World' is explicitly identified as the 'Cosmic Soul or Astral Light,' the union of three elements serving as the Occult Solvent.
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 Emerald Tablet's 'Superior agrees with the Inferior' is directly quoted, and the entire passage maps spiritual principles (Spirit=Fire/Sun, Soul=Water/Moon, Mind=Wind/Air) onto material elements, making each level a legible map of the others.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
Manas is explicitly called the 'Son' that must become 'One with the Father' (Atma-Buddhi), functioning as the mediating principle between the transcendent source and the material world.
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 'wonderful Work' is explicitly MAN, and the three principles in man (Atma, Buddhi, Manas) mirror the cosmic structure, with the TO ON applying 'both to the metaphysical and physical Kosmos, and to the spiritual and material Man.'
The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology.
The 'Wisdom of Self-Consciousness' acquired from one's 'inner Self, or Instructor' is presented as the key transformation from rudimentary to perfect man, making recognition of one's divine nature the path.
Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma).
The passage is centrally organized around the three higher principles in man — 'Spirit, Soul, and Mind,' or Atma, Buddhi, and Manas — as the foundational tripartite division of the human being.
The Hermetic doctrine that nothing rests — matter, energy, mind, and spirit are a single continuum differing only in rate of vibration, from the grossest matter to the least material spirit. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (affinity resonating BETWEEN separate things) in being a claim about what constitutes any one thing in the first place, and from magical_equilibrium (Lévi's operational balancing technique, which presupposes some vibration doctrine rather than stating this general principle).
The passage states 'All is fire — ignis, in its ultimate constitution,' with air as fluidic fire, water as liquid fire, and Earth as solid fire, presenting matter and spirit as a single continuum differing only in state.