Hermetic Ties: Art to Esoteric Form

The father of all perfection in the whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into Earth. Separate the Earth from the Fire, the subtle from the gross, sweetly with great industry. It ascends from the Earth to the Heavens and again it descends to the Earth and receives the force of things superior and inferior. By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you. Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing. So was the world created. From this are and do come admirable adaptations, whereof the process is here in this. Hence am I called Hermes Trismegistus, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished and ended.Sir Isaac Newton-Translation of the Emerald Tablet

See: Newton on Chymistry

Again I open this blog post with the understanding that what an artist like Raphael may try to do? May include, much of the philosophy of the times, and have these things descriptively enclosing processes indicative of what they had known, but also of what these things could hide within the self.


In center, while Plato - with the philosophy of the ideas and theoretical models, he indicates the sky, Aristotle - considered the father of Science, with the philosophy of the forms and the observation of the nature indicates the Earth. Many historians of the Art in the face correspondence of Plato with Leonardo, Heraclitus with Miguel Angel, and Euclides with Twine agree.

If we watched of distant spot, of century XX aC emphasizes Hermes Trismegisto, - tri three, megisto megas, three times great; perhaps the perception of infinite older than we have and takes by Mercurio name - for Greek and the Toth - for the Egyptians. Considered Father of the Wisdom and Sciences in Greece, in the cult to Osiris it presided over the ceremonies as priest and he was Masterful in Egypt like legislator, philosopher and alchemist during the reign of Ninus in the 2270 aC.

Etimológicamente speaking, of Hermes, the gr. hermenéuiein, “hermetic” - closed, “hermenéutica” - tie art to the reading of old sacred texts talks about so much to the dark as to which it is included/understood in esoteric form. Part of saberes that it accumulated transmitted through the Hermetic Books that only to the chosen ones between the chosen ones could be revealed. As much Pitágoras and Plato as Aristotle and Euclides were initiated in the knowledge of the Hermetic School.

In Man looking into Space, I wanted to show how casual our science has used these images and not realized the context to which the greater meaning had laid hidden, all the while it is used to "describe cosmology" and the science thereof.

A banner has been been written across these times to which scientists hold to all that is true. In this, the reasons to dismiss any implications of history assigned along side, is asking "what validation" can be given to anything that is spoken from our times now.

I went on in that post, "man looking into space," to explain something about the woodcuts. The art form produced, grabbed my thinking in relation to the "alchemical art forms" and grabs my thinking in regards to the "School of Athens picture."


The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.

I just wanted to say that the essence of this blog post is about "the arches," and I am moving toward that description, and what is happening when we take a picture of them. Look at the "design inherent" and "dynamics" as held to gravity in it's construction. Look at what it can signify in it's "internal expression" about our contact with the world around us. The bridging that it can signify.

I would apologize for leaving this post undone, while views pass by the essence of this post. I am indeed busy with life. So I wanted to clarify this push toward the internal dynamics, while speaking to the psychology of this work.

A scientist may side step this look, while quoting the hermetical values of what may be said by the previous first lady Hillary Clinton. In itself, an empty page, only leaves room for what had to be expressed if it was not gotten the first time? Her attempts at humour, are the attempts to break the "rigidity of the personality?"

The Psychology

Myths and metaphors, like dreams, are powerful tools that draw the listener, dreamer, or reader to a character, symbol, or situation, as if in recognition of something deeply known. Myth's bypass the mind's efforts to divorce information. They make an impression, are remembered, and nudge us to find out what they mean, accounting for the avid interest that Ring audiences have in the meaning of the story.¹

Who has been so colourful in your journeys across the internet to include a wonderful language that takes you into this world of discovery of self? You had to know something about the "psychology of people" in order to give a story by nature, it's mythic description, and "most artful" to draw attention to what lies underneath.

The Alchemists attempted to perfect the One Thing of Hermes, what they called the First Matter, by using specific physical, psychological, and spiritual techniques that they describe in chemical terms and demonstrated in laboratory experiements. However, while the alchemists spoke in terms of chemcials, furaces , flasks, and beakers, they were really talking about the changes taking place within their own bodies, minds, and souls.²

Thus I have given two examples that I had promised sometime back to illustrate some of the "compelling work" that while ancient indeed, is not without it's efforts in todays world. It is the attempt to cross all boundaries, race, gender, and help one to recognize the diversity of the soul with out it's jacket. Shall we call your soul male or female, black or white?

So I am bypassing this, and that has been my message, while the efforts to climb out of the constraints that we have come to recognize within the boundaries of self. Are the realization of the diversity of "all souls" and their time in expression.

Shall we find the excuse to hold ourselves to the thoughts, that while overcoming, the constraints which still exist "within" had to be continually challenged? We have to break the "chains that bind us."

The Arches


Golden Rectangle

I took the picture at a time of day when the tide was at exactly the right place to create this image: when the surface of the water reflected the underside of the bridge and they combined, together they produced what I named the Golden Rectangle as a nod to Pythagoras (my hero). The sensation I experienced at the time was of balancing consciousness and feeling.

It probably seems that it is taking time to get to the essence of this post. IN order to get to the "psychological effect" that I am getting too it important to think of the images of these arches. It is about "each of us" and how we relate to the world. How, the "teacher and student" can exist within the same person.

I point to the Heaven's in the case of the "school of Athens, while Aristotle points to what is on Earth?" Shall we leave no doubt of the "physical things" while we understand that there are more ephemeral qualities to these matter states? That we move continuously between them?



The Inner/Outer World

The drawn of our focus is the external world, but, if we were to connect the internal world with that "external view" how shall we do that. How shall we describe the whole being in this exercise?

Part of this "exchange with reality," is that we can know by continually moving this information "through us" and creating "the space around us," we add to the total view "beyond what was apparent" with just the brain's condensible qualities in neurological display?

By 'dilating' and 'expanding' the scope of our attention we not only discover that 'form is emptiness' (the donut has a hole), but also that 'emptiness is form' (objects precipitate out of the larger 'space') - to use Buddhist terminology. The emptiness that we arrive at by narrowing our focus on the innermost is identical to the emptiness that we arrive at by expanding our focus to the outermost. The 'infinitely large' is identical to the 'infinitesimally small'.The Structure of Consciousness John Fudjack - September, 1999

While I quote above, the second part of the quote adds directly to the understanding. Not only are we "crossing the wires here," we are identifying "a aspect of consciousness" that is continuous.

In this metaphor, when we are seeing the donut as solid object in space, this is like ordinary everyday consciousness. When we see the donut and the hole at its center, this is like a stage of realization in which 'form' is recognized as 'empty'. When we zoom in extremely closely and inspect the 'emptiness' at the center, or zoom out an extreme distance away from the object and the donut seems to disappear and we have only empty space - this is like certain 'objectless' states of awareness that can occur in meditation. But the final goal is not to achieve the undifferentiated state itself; it is to come to the special perspective that allows us to continue to see all three aspects at once - the donut, the whole in the middle, and the space surrounding it - this is like the 'enlightened' state, in this analogy. 10 The innermost and outermost psychological 'space' (which is here a metaphor for 'concentrated attention' and 'diffused attention') are recognized as indeed the same, continuous.

So given "this relationship" on what we can build within self, then what use all this knowledge if we cannot grow with it? What of Plato's and Aristotle, as figures within the "centre of" Raphael's painting. Their perspective, "as positions in relation too," the "questioning stance" about this "unity of the circle" in our exchange with reality?



So how would you exemplify "this exchange" with reality while "below the surface" all these "probable outcomes" are the manifestation of that which is real? You extend yourself "out there" while you also extend yourself inside? The "infinite regress," is to find oneself, with all that is "past" in front of you, can allow you to stand on what of, "the future" will pass through?

First Principle saids that you acknowledge your place in the scheme of things as you "stretch" the thinking of the mind? Increase the "neurological frontier" in those neurological connections? Increase, the fluttering of the egg's feature, of that condensible brain/body.

Our attempt to justify our beliefs logically by giving reasons results in the "regress of reasons." Since any reason can be further challenged, the regress of reasons threatens to be an infinite regress. However, since this is impossible, there must be reasons for which there do not need to be further reasons: reasons which do not need to be proven. By definition, these are "first principles." The "Problem of First Principles" arises when we ask Why such reasons would not need to be proven. Aristotle's answer was that first principles do not need to be proven because they are self-evident, i.e. they are known to be true simply by understanding them.

But, Aristotle thinks that knowledge begins with experience. We get to first principles through induction. But there is no certainty to the generalizations of induction. The "Problem of Induction" is the question How we know when we have examined enough individual cases to make an inductive generalization. Usually we can't know. Thus, to get from the uncertainty of inductive generalizations to the certainty of self-evident first principles, there must be an intuitive "leap," through what Aristotle calls "Mind." This ties the system together. A deductive system from first principles (like Euclidean geometry) is then what Aristotle calls "knowledge" ("epistemê" in Greek or "scientia" in Latin).

From here it would not be to unlikely that such dealings with the "reality of the world" would ask that we experiment and from such experiment, we learn the truth of the reality. While what the past is "in front" of us, to what goes beyond to it's future would be like asking the very nature of expression to manifest as this universe and laws of thermodynamics that the arrow of time only moves one way.

"The future" arises from within then? We'll move forward by what choices we make? About our conclusions, about reality?


¹ Ring of Power, Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. Page 3

²The Emerald Tablet, Dennis William Hauck, Chapter 10, Page 151