Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky) · 181 of 225 · tr. Nicholas Bessaraboff and Claude Bragdon
Chapter XXII (part 9)
In like manner he beheld the whole creation, and from that foundation he afterwards wrote his book, " De Signature Rerum ." In the unfolding of those mysteries before his understanding he had a great measure of joy, yet returned home and took care of his family and lived in great peace and silence, scarce intimating to any these wonderful things that had befallen him, and in the year 1610, being again taken into this light, lest the mysteries revealed to him should pass through him as a stream, and rather for a memorial than intending any publication, he wrote his first book, called "Aurora, or the Morning Redness." The first illumination, in 1600, was not complete.
Ten years later (1610) he had another remarkable inward experience.
What he had previously seen only chaotically, fragmentarily, and in isolated glimpses, he now beheld as a coherent whole and in more definite outlines.
When his third illumination took place, that which in former visions had appeared to him chaotic and multifarious was now recognized by him as a unity, like a harp of many strings, of which each string is a separate instrument, while the whole is only one harp .
1 He now recognized the divine order of nature, and how from the trunk of the tree of life spring different branches, bearing manifold leaves and flowers and fruits, and he became impressed with the necessity of writing down what he saw and preserved the record.
He himself speaks of this final and complete illumination as follows: The gate was opened to me that in one quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years at a university, at which I exceedingly admired and thereupon turned my praise to God for it.
For I saw and knew the being of all beings, the byss and abyss and the eternal p.
282 generation of the Holy Trinity, the descent and original of the world and of all creatures through divine wisdom.
I knew and saw in myself all the three worlds, namely, (1) the divine (angelical and paradisical) (2) and the dark (the original of the nature to the fire) and (3) then the external and visible world (being a procreation or external birth from both the internal and spiritual worlds).
And I saw and knew the whole working essence in the evil and the good and the original and the existence of each of them; and likewise how the fruitful—bearing—womb of eternity brought forth.
So that I did not only greatly wonder at it but did also exceedingly rejoice.
Describing "illuminations" Boehme writes, in one of his books: Suddenly .
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my spirit did break through .
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even into the inner-most birth of Geniture of the Deity , and there I was embraced with love, as a bridegroom embraces his dearly beloved bride.
But the greatness of the triumphing that was in the spirit I cannot express either in speaking or writing; neither can it be compared to anything, but that wherein the life is generated in the midst of death, and it is like the resurrection from the dead.
In this light my spirit suddenly saw through all, and in and by all creatures, even in herbs and grass, it knew God, who he is, and how he is, and what his work is; and suddenly in that light my will was set on, by a mighty impulse, to describe the being of God.
But because I could not presently apprehend the deepest births of God in their being and comprehend them in my reason, there passed almost twelve years before the exact understanding thereof was given me.
And it was with me as with a young tree which is planted on the ground, and at first is young and tender, and flourishing to the eye, especially if it comes on lustily in its growing.
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 mystic knows God 'in and by all creatures', reflecting the divine structure within the material world.
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.
The metaphor of the 'harp of many strings' where each is separate but the whole is one implies interconnected resonance.
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.
[auto] It describes the 'descent and original of the world' from the 'trunk of the tree of life spring different branches'.
Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.
[auto] The passage emphasizes direct experiential knowledge through illumination over academic study ('saw and knew more than if I had been many years at a university').
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.
References to 'abyss', 'eternal generation', and the 'byss' suggest an ontological depth beyond finite bounds.
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.
[auto] The passage explicitly states 'I knew and saw in myself all the three worlds', mapping the cosmos onto the self.
The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.
[auto] The text describes the spirit being 'embraced with love, as a bridegroom embraces his dearly beloved bride' and breaking through into the Deity.