This Involuntary stage of Creation is sometimes called the "Outpouring" of the Divine Energy, just as the Evolutionary state is called the "Indrawing." The extreme pole of the Creative process is considered to be the furthest removed from THE ALL, while the beginning of the Evolutionary stage is regarded as the beginning of the return swing of the pendulum of Rhythm--a "coming home" idea being held in all of the Hermetic Teachings.
The Teachings are that during the "Outpouring," the vibrations become lower and lower until finally the urge ceases, and the return swing begins.
But there is this difference, that while in the "Outpouring" the creative forces manifest compactly and as a whole, yet from the beginning of the Evolutionary or "Indrawing" stage, there is manifested the Law of Individualization--that is, the tendency to separate into Units of Force, so that finally that which left THE ALL as unindividualized energy returns to its source as countless highly developed Units of Life, having risen higher and higher in the scale by means of Physical, Mental and Spiritual Evolution.
The ancient Hermetists use the word "Meditation" in describing the process of the mental creation of the Universe in the Mind of THE ALL, the word "Contemplation" also being frequently employed.
But the idea intended seems to be that of the employment of the Divine Attention.
"Attention" is a word derived from the Latin root, meaning "to reach out; to stretch out," and so the act of Attention is really a mental "reaching out; extension" of mental energy, so that the underlying idea is readily understood when we examine into the real meaning of "Attention." The Hermetic Teachings regarding the process of Evolution are that, THE ALL, having meditated upon the beginning of the Creation--having thus established the material foundations of the Universe--having thought it into existence--then gradually awakens or rouses from its Meditation and in so doing starts into manifestation the process of Evolution, on the material mental and spiritual planes, successively and in order.
Thus the upward movement begins--and all begins to move Spiritward.
Matter becomes less gross; the Units spring into being; the combinations begin to form; Life appears and manifests in higher and higher forms; and Mind becomes more and more in evidence--the vibrations constantly becoming higher.
In short, the entire process of Evolution, in all of its phases, begins, and proceeds according to the established "Laws of the Indrawing" process.
All of this occupies aeons upon aeons of Man's time, each aeon containing countless millions of years, but yet the Illumined inform us that the entire creation, including Involution and Evolution, of an Universe, is but "as the twinkle of the eye" to THE ALL.
At the end of countless cycles of aeons of time, THE ALL withdraws its Attention--its Contemplation and Meditation--of the Universe, for the Great Work is finished--and All is withdrawn into THE ALL from which it emerged.
But Mystery of Mysteries--the Spirit of each soul is not annihilated, but is infinitely expanded--the Created and the Creator are merged.
Such is the report of the Illumined!
The above illustration of the "meditation," and subsequent "awakening from meditation," of THE ALL, is of course but an attempt of the teachers to describe the Infinite process by a finite example.
And, yet: "As Below, so Above." The difference is merely in degree.
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 concludes with the Hermetic axiom 'As Below, so Above,' linking the cosmic process to human understanding.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The text provides a narrative of cosmic origin through the 'Meditation' and 'Outpouring' of THE ALL.
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 process of 'Outpouring' from THE ALL and 'Indrawing' back to it, outlining a hierarchical flow of creative forces and individualization.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
The text mentions 'aeons upon aeons' and the infinite nature of THE ALL's perspective.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
The text uses 'Meditation' to describe THE ALL's process of mental creation and attention.
The Hermetic doctrine that THE ALL is Mind, and the Universe is mental in nature — a created thought held in the mind of THE ALL. Distinct from unity_of_being in specifying WHAT the underlying oneness is (mind, not an unspecified single substance), and from logos (a mediating ordering word BETWEEN a transcendent God and a separate material world) in collapsing that mediation entirely — under mentalism there is no world outside mind to mediate to.
The text explicitly states that the Universe is a mental creation in the Mind of THE ALL and that 'THE ALL' is Mind.
The Hermetic doctrine of a measured swing or pendulum motion between poles — action and reaction, flow and outflow, rise and fall — operating in mental, physical, and cosmic-historical registers alike. Distinct from apocatastasis (cosmic-scale eschatological restoration after vast cycles) in naming a constant, ever-present oscillation rather than a singular restorative event.
The text describes the Creative process as a 'pendulum of Rhythm' swinging between Outpouring and Indrawing.
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 details how vibrations become lower during Outpouring and higher during Evolution, defining the nature of matter and spirit by vibrational rate.