Unurthed

Two prints by William Blake from his c. 1790 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, reproduced in The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 3.

On the operation of Fire (plate 14, p166):

The ancient tradition that the world will be con
sumed in fire at the end of six thousand years
is true, as I have heard from Hell,

For the cherub with his flaming sword is
hereby commanded to leave his guard at tree of
life, and when he does, the whole creation will
be consumed, and appear infinite. and holy
whereas it now appears finite & corrupt.

This will come to pass by an improvement of
sensual enjoyment.

But first the notion that man has a body
distinct from his soul, is to be expunged; this
I shall do, by printing in the infernal method, by
corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and me-
-dicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and
displaying the infinite which was hid,

If the doors of perception were cleansed
every thing would appear to man as it is, in-
-finite—

For man has closed himself up, till he sees
all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.

More on the ‘doors of perception’ (plate 15, p168):

A Memorable Fancy

I was in a Printing house in Hell & saw the
method in which knowledge is transmitted from gene-
-ration to generation.

In the first chamber was a Dragon-Man, clear-
ing away the rubbish from a caves mouth; within, a
number of Dragons were hollowing the cave,

In the second chamber was a Viper folding round
the rock & the cave, and others adorning it with gold
silver and precious stones.

In the third chamber was an Eagle with wings
and feathers of air, he caused the inside of the cave
to be infinite, around were numbers of Eagle like
men, who built palaces in the immense cliffs.

In the fourth chamber were Lions of flaming fire
raging around & melting the metals into living fluids.

In the fifth chamber were Unnam’d forms, which
cast the metals into the expanse,

There they were reciev’d by Men who occupied
the sixth chamber, and took the forms of books &
were arranged in libraries.

A figure from John Dee‘s 1564 Monas Hieroglyphica (see Latin scans, English translation by Hamilton-Jones).

InTeLlectus iudicat veritatem. Contractus ad Punctum. Vulgaris, Hic, Oculus caligabit, diffidetque plurimum.

Which Josten translates, “Intellect judges the truth. Contracted to a Point. The vulgar eye will here be blind and most distrustful” (Ambix XII, 1964).

Another yantra from Yantra (see previous post).

“Meditation on the yantra takes the most subtle form of all when it consists of inner illumination, a method of mediation without any yogic, ritual, or visual aids… The sadhaka builds up, in deep concentration, a square yantra enclosed by three concentric circles. In the centre of the square he visualizes the emblem of the yoni (a half-moon and bindu). The square symbolizes the vessel of consciousness (cit-kunda) in which burns the fire of consciousness, and into this symbolic fire the adept ‘surrenders’ all his mental offerings [his impulses, his senses, his selfhood, his acts, his self]. This mental offering of his entire being is the prelude to new birth” (p129).

“The essential difference between the outer form of yantra worship (puja) and inward meditation through yantric symbols is that the former produces mental states that are like ‘seeds’ for the future workings of consciousness, while the latter is ‘without seed’ (nirbija) and relies on intuitive apprehension of the real, reveling in the ontological plenitude in which being, knowledge and bliss are inseparable and indistinguishable” (p130).

Four yantras (see earlier post) and a diagram from Madhu Khanna’s Yantra: The Tantric Symbol of Cosmic Unity.

“Yantras function as revelatory symbols of cosmic truths and as instructional charts of the spiritual aspect of human experience. All the primal shapes of a yantra are psychological symbols corresponding to inner states of human consciousness, through which control and expansion of psychic forces are possible.” (p12).

Nepal, c. 18th century (p52).

“Each graphic shape can be seen as a psychological schema: the outer gates are the gates of one’s consciousness; the lotus petal, spiritual enfoldment; the inner geometrical figures, the stages of spiritual ascent; and the bindu, one’s innermost self” (p150).

“Every symbol in a yantra is ambivalently resonant in inner-outer synthesis, and is associated with the subtle body and aspects of human consciousness. Thus, for instance, the bindu in a yantra is cosmic when viewed as the emblem of the Absolute Principle but psychological when it is related to the adept’s spiritual centre. By aligning these two planes of awareness, the yantra translates psychic realities into cosmic terms and the cosmos into psychic planes” (p22).

Sri Yantra, formed by the interpenetration of two sets of triangles, four, apex upward, representing the male principle and five, apex-downward, representing the female principle. Rajasthan, c. 1700 (p112).

“Yantra meditation should should not be understood superficially, as though attention were merely pegged on to a symbol, as for instance when we focus on any symmetrical figure to control our mental flux. On the contrary, genuine yantra meditation produces an active mental state and induces receptivity to symbolic revelations” (p107).

Smar-hara Yantra, the ‘remover of desire’. The circle is the latent Kundalini Sakti, which when aroused can penetrate beyond the successive planes of inwardness illustrated by the five male and female triangles which correspond to the five psychic sheaths that envelop the innermost self (p142).

“One of the most important rituals of yantra worship is the infusing of vital force (prana) into the geometrical pattern of the yantra, called pranapratistha. The goal is to cause the spiritual universe underlying myth and iconography to ‘descend’ into the yantra so that it becomes a radiant emblem and receptacle of cosmic power (sakti-rupa), and consciousness (chaitanya), transforming into sacred archetypal space what is phenomenally no more than a mere design. The transfer of power from the sadhaka to the yantra changes the nature of the diagram, and the consecrration of profane space conversely elevates the sadhaka to realizing the inherent energy of the theophany, so that the yantra becomes a powerful means of contact between the sadhaka and the cosmos” (p98).

Sakti Yantra. The three sides of the yoni, the primordial triangle, creative matrix of the cosmos, stand for the three qualities composing material nature: sattva, the ascending quality, seen as white; rajas, the kinetic quality, seen as red; tamas, the descending quality or inertia, seen as black. Rajasthan, c. 17th century (p113).

“What is counselled is not withdrawal from existence or a cold ascetism which teaches us to sever our links with life, but a gathering up of existence into our own being. This gathering up is effected by cosmicizing the body, and treating it as a ‘tool’ for inner awareness by taming it with yogic rituals, awaking zones of consciousness and activating its latent subtle energies” (p119).

The dynamics of psyche and symbol. This process should be seen in relation to the dynamics of cosmic evolution and involution. Click to view larger version with labels (p75).

“When [the adept] has internalized all the symbols of the cosmos and his body ‘becomes the yantra’, [he] is no longer alienated from the truth that the symbol illustrates, but is transformed into the truth he seeks” (p80).

Continuing on the theme of the last post, another diagram from Vandenbroeck’s Al-Kemi.

“I worked up a construct [below] to show as clearly as possible the qualities which characterize the predominance of each of the three alchemical principles: heat for Sulphur, humidity for Mercury, coldness for Salt. This structure shows the principles and elements held in a network of relations between trinity and quaternary, and ruled by the permutations of two pairs. Completed to the show polarized duality manifesting a vertex of puncticular and irrational oneness, this pyramid of Pythagorean number forms the renowned Tetractys. An exaltation of the four elements reveals a quintessence as basis of the Pentactys, emblem of manifestation traditionally associated with the five senses” (p118).

Click image for larger version.

“Neither formulas, mechanisms, or processes had any bearing upon the science that concerned us. The presentation would be a gesture of knowing intuition, so that the only dependable representation would be an intuitive perception of form — as number, color, sound, volume, or plane-image. It would be an inscription into the fixed salt, not a notation onto memory” (p228-9).

“Aor maintained that the material process of the alchemical opus are banal, that they occur at every moment in every laboratory in plain view of everyone. There are no special or hidden chemical events, and the alchemical processes are of the most usual sort, so common that they escape notice, as is repeated again and again with regard to materia prima in alchemical texts. The difference in the esoteric manipulation lies entirely in the apprehension of the event: it is a matter of perception, of vision” (p147).

Says Aor, “The Oeuvre is not the discovery of a technique, it is nothing of the sort, it is the perception of an existing process. It is the perception that is the object of study and prayer. That is the theoretical part, and after that comes the practice, the proper gesture in matter and time. The perception of a process, the vision of an evolution, that is the first aim of the scientist. Prima materia into Materia prima is a constant process of nature, it is mindless, and therefore beyond the cerebral cortex. That is really the only difficulty. There is no use addressing the analytic mind with Hermetic language; it can do very little with it. Therefore the language of the birds, not spoken, only heard” (p60).

A diagram from André Vandenbroeck’s Al-Kemi, memoir of R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz.

Says Aor, “It is interesting to study the senses from the point of view of form-perception, to become aware of their functions as formative instruments. Realize how prejudiced we have become in favor of sight, because it seems to give us the volume so immediately and, we think, so surely, so certainly. But that isn’t even the eye’s primary function; this perception of volume is entirely secondary, it is color that is the primary sight-form… In the same way, volume is secondary form for the hearing function; it is sound that is primary. But volume is the material presence and all the senses partake of it… The immediacy of [sight] is what attracts us, but it is a solution of facility, and without perceptual education, it results in a universe of objects, of things. Actually, for the proportional perception that gives us so many profound hints as to the cosmic constitution, the ear is a far better tool. The laws are harmony are just that, perception of ratios and proportionality, and here the sound-form without equal… That trinity of lower senses can in fact be summed up under the sense of touch, as both smell and taste are a matter of contact… And touch… has contact with volume only.” (p106-7).

“You can say that the universe of form, pervaded by affinity, spans between number and volume. Volume and number are the forms of origin, whereas color and sound are later forms of more advanced evolution. Number exists inside and out of the least mineral structure as surely as does volume. Polarity is already number, in the same way that space is already volume” (p107-8).

“Attention, cher ami, if you really want a beginning, you have to find a totality, a oneness, and where experience is concerned, that oneness must be achieved in the perception of the experience. You can fragment it through an analytic view, which is what we have trained our cerebral cortex to do, or you can identify with the formal and functional essence of the experience and intuitively place it in its cosmic context. That takes a reeducation of the senses for modern man… Without adequate perception, you will encounter a world of objects to register into your brain matter, but you will only rarely be inscribing experience into salt” (p177-8).

An exercise in contemplative geometry from Robert Lawlor’s Sacred Geometry, 1982.

“There are a number of diagrams in the literature of Sacred Geometry all related to the single idea known as ‘Squaring of the Circle’. This is a practice which seeks, with only the usual compass and straight-edge, to construct a square which is virtually equal in perimeter to the circumference of a given circle, or which is virtually equal in area to the area of a given circle. Because the circle is an incommensurable figure based on π, it is impossible to draw a square more than approximately equal to it. Nevertheless the Squaring of the Circle is of great importance to the geometer-cosmologist because for him the circle represents pure, unmanifest spirit-space, while the square represents the manifest and comprehensible world. When a near equality is drawn between the circle and the square, the infinite is able to express its dimensions or qualities through the finite” (p74).

Here I have drawn the former arrangement (perimeter equal to circumference):

The derivation begins with an initial circle (within the square) of radius unity. Along its horizontal diameter are drawn two tangent circles, each with radius one half. Observe that the total circumference of the smaller circles equals the circumference of the initial circle, but the total area of the smaller circles is one half that of the initial circle: “One has become Two” (p73), an image of the primary duality, of yin-yang.

Next are drawn two arcs from the ends of the initial circle’s vertical diameter with radius tangent to the far sides of the smaller circles. This radius is φ, the golden ratio, dividing the vertical radius of the initial circle into the golden section of lengths 1/φ and 1/φ². The two arcs meet to create a vesica that encloses the primary duality — the mouth of Ra, the Word, the vibrating string.

Around the initial circle is drawn a tangent square, with side 2, perimeter 8; and, finally, a large circle is drawn with diameter equal to the width of the vesica, 2√φ, giving a circumference of 2π√φ = 7.993, approximately equal to 8. The circle is squared.

Nicholas of Cusa‘s paradigmatic diagram (figura paradigmatica, a.k.a. Diagram P) from his 1441/2 On Surmises (De Coniecturis), translated by Jasper Hopkins.

“Conceive of a pyramid-of-light as progressing into darkness and of a pyramid-of-darkness as progressing into light; and reduce to [that] figurative conception everything that can be investigated, so that by guidance from what is perceptible you can turn your surmise toward hidden [truths]. And in order that you may be aided by means of an example, consider the universe as reduced to the diagram here below. Notice that God, who is Oneness, is as the base-of-light; but the base-of-darkness is as nothing. Every creature, we surmise, lies between God and nothing” (p182).

The Latin labels are unitas: oneness; basis pyramis lucis: base of the pyramid of light; tertium caelum:third heaven; supremus mundus: uppermost world; secundum caelum: second heaven; medius mundus: middle world; primum caelum: first heaven; infimus mundus: lowest world; basis pyramis tenebrae: base of the pyramid of darkness; alteritas: otherness.

“The definition of ‘oneness’ is ‘indivisibility in and of itself and separation from all else.’ Hence, we say that oneness is called by the names of the many characteristics of its power. For whichever names indicate a certain indivisibility, distinctness, and union befit oneness. Now, the [foregoing] diagram includes, under [the label] ‘oneness,’ all such [befitting] things; and under [the label] ‘otherness’ it includes their opposites. Hence, for indivisibility to proceed into divisibility is nothing other than for oneness to descend into otherness” (p183-4).

“If you want to behold, intellectually, oneness in otherness, then pay very careful attention also to the following: viz., that for oneness to proceed into otherness is, at the same time, for otherness to return into oneness. For example, for the soul to be in the body is for the soul to proceed into the body in such a way that the body’s oneness enters into the soul. Likewise as regards form: the more one and the more perfect each form is, the more its proceeding [into otherness] is otherness’s returning [into its oneness]. For by means of a simple act of understanding, conceive of proceeding as conjoined with returning, if you want to arrive at those hidden truths which are more truly attained above reason (which separates progression from returning) by intellect alone (which folds opposites into a single bond)” (p187-8).

“You must notice that light’s descending is nothing other than darkness’s ascending. And God’s being in the world is nothing other than the world’s being in God. And for actuality to proceed into potentiality is nothing other than for potentiality to arrive at actuality. And a point’s ascending into corporeality is nothing other than corporeality’s descending into a point. And for darkness to elevate itself into light is nothing other than for light to descend into darkness. Likewise, for the potentiality of matter to proceed into the actuality-of-form is nothing other than for form’s actuality to descend into matter’s potentiality. Therefore, with intellectual acumen conjoin the ascent and the descent, in order that you may surmise more truly” (p217, c.f. Meister Eckhart’s words on coinherence and God’s eye).

“For the more subtly the mind contemplates itself in and through the world unfolded from itself, the more abundantly fruitful it is made within itself” (p165).

* * *

In edition Codex Latinus Cusanus 218 (1445), the diagram is situated horizontally rather than vertically, an arrangement seemingly familiar to Yeat’s instructors 500 years later (c.f. Yeat’s Concord and Discord with Cusanus’s oneness and otherness).

Ten diagrams from W. B. Yeats’ A Vision (“B” edition, 1937). A Vision details an esoteric geometry and its applications, ambiguously channeled via automatic script and speech by Yeats’ wife, George, then organized and augmented by Yeats himself.

“Life is no series of emanations from divine reason such as the Cabalists imagine, but an irrational bitterness, no orderly descent from level to level, no waterfall but a whirlpool, a gyre” (p40, from Robartes). Indeed, two opposing and interpenetrating gyres form “the fundamental symbol of my instructors” (p68):

“If I call the unshaded cone ‘Discord’ and the other ‘Concord’ and think of each as the bound of a gyre, I see that the gyre of ‘Concord’ diminishes as that of ‘Discord’ increases, and can imagine after that the gyre of ‘Concord’ increasing while that of ‘Discord’ diminishes, and so on, one gyre within the other always” (p68). Here the three-dimensional gyres, or spirals, are represented more easily by cones or triangles.

Yeats labels these “struggling states” (p71) the primary and antithetical tinctures:

The primary tincture, shaded, represents objectivity, Concord, space, the solar, the reasonable, plasticity, passivity; the antithetical tincture, unshaded, represents subjectivity, Discord, time, the lunar, the natural, beauty, unity of being. “Whereas subjectivity tends to separate man from man, objectivity brings us back to the mass where we began” (p72).

“Within these cones move what are called the Four Faculties: Will and Mask, Creative Mind and Body of Fate. Will and Mask are the will and its object, or the Is and the Ought; Creative Mind and Body of Fate are thought and its object, or the Knower and the Known. The first two are lunar or antithetical or natural [subjectivity], the second two solar or primary or natural [objectivity]” (p73).

“These pairs of opposites whirl in contrary directions, Will and Mask from right to left, Creative Mind and Body of Fate like the hands of a clock, from left to right… As Will approaches the utmost expansion of its antithetical cone its drags Creative Mind with it — thought is more and more dominated by will. Then, as though satiated by the extreme expansion of its cone, Will lets Creative Mind dominate, and is dragged by it until Creative Mind weakens once more… The Mask and Body of Fate occupy those positions which are most opposite in character to the positions of Will and Creative Mind. If Will and Create Mind are approaching complete antithetical expansion, Mask and Body of Fate are approaching complete primary expansion, and so on. In the following figure the man is almost completely antithetical in nature” (p74-7).

The vertical lines mark the positions of the Faculties in their respective cones. To represent direction, Yeats indicates expanding Faculties along the bottom of the diagram, and contracting Faculties along the top.

“In the following [man is] almost completely primary” (p77).

“In the following he is midway between primary and antithetical and moving towards antithetical expansion” (p78).

“A particular man is classified according to the place of Will, or choice, in the diagram” (p73).

“I have now only to set a row of numbers upon the sides to possess a classification… of every possible movement of thought and of life, and I have been told to make these numbers correspond to the phases of the moon [see last diagram of previous post]. The moonless night is called Phase 1, and full moon in phase 15. Phase 8 begins the antithetical phases, those where the bright part of the moon is greater than the dark, and Phase 22 begins the primary phases, where the dark part is greater than the bright” (p78-9).

Or, drawn lunarly, the Great Wheel:

For each phase, Yeats derives the character and destiny of a man whose Will is so located, and whose Mask, Creative Mind, and Body of Fate have assumed their complimentary locations and influences. This discussion constitutes the largest topic of A Vision. Here are a few excerpts that reveal such interplay.

Phase 10, The Image-Breaker: “If he live like the opposite phase, conceived as a primary condition — the phase where ambition dies — he lacks all emotional power (False Mask: ‘Inertia’), and gives himself up to rudderless change, reform without a vision of form. He accepts what form (Mask and Image) those about him admire and, on discovering that it is alien, casts it away with brutal violence, to choose some other form as alien. He disturbs his own life, and he disturbs all those who come near him more than does Phase 9, for Phase 9 has no interest in others expect in relation to itself. If, on the other hand, he be true to phase, and use his intellect to liberate from mere race (Body of Fate at Phase 6 where race is codified), and so create some code of personal conduct, which implies always ‘divine right’, he becomes proud, masterful and practical. He cannot wholly escape the influence of his Body of Fate, but he will be subject to its most personal form; instead of gregarious sympathies, to some woman’s tragic love almost certainly…” (p122).

Phase 17, The Daimonic Man: “He is called the Daimonic man because Unity of Being, and consequent expression of Daimonic thought, is now more easy than at any other phase. As contrasted with Phase 13 and Phase 14, where mental images were separated from one another that they might be subject to knowledge, all now flow, change, flutter, cry out, or mix into something else; but without, as at Phase 16, breaking and bruising one another, for Phase 17, the central phase of its triad, is without frenzy. The Will is falling asunder, but without explosion and noise. The separated fragments seek images rather than ideas, and these the intellect, seated in Phase 13, must synthesize in vain, drawing with its compass-point a line that shall but represent the outline of a bursting pod. The being has for its supreme aim, as it had at Phase 16 (and as all subsequent antithetical phases shall have), to hide from itself and others this separation and disorder, and it conceals them under the emotional Image of Phase 3; as Phase 16 concealed its greater violence under that of Phase 2. When true to phase the intellect must turn all its synthetic power to this task. It finds, not the impassioned myth that Phase 16 found, but a Mask of simplicity that is also intensity…” (p141).

Phase 25, The Conditional Man: “Born as it seems to the arrogance of belief, as Phase 24 was born to moral arrogance, the man of the phase must reverse himself, must change from Phase 11 to Phase 25; use the Body of Fate to purify the intellect from the Mask, till this intellect accepts some social order, some condition of life, some organised belief: the convictions of Christendom, perhaps. He must eliminate all that is personal from belief; eliminate the necessity for intellect by the contagion of some common agreement… There may be great eloquence, a mastery of all concrete imagery that is not personal expression, because though as yet there is no sinking into the world but much distinctness, clear identity, there is an overflowing social conscience. No man of any other phase can produce the same instant effect upon great crowds; for codes have passed, the universal conscience takes their place. He should not appeal to a personal interest, should make little use of argument which requires a long train of reasons, or many technical terms, for his power rests in certain simplifying convictions which have grown with his character; he needs intellect for their expression, not for proof, and taken away from these convictions is without emotion and momentum. He has but one overwhelming passion, to make all men good, and this good is something at once concrete and impersonal; and though he has hitherto given it the name of some church, or state, he is ready at any moment to give it a new name, for, unlike Phase 24, he has no pride to nourish upon the past. Moved by all that is impersonal, he becomes powerful as, in a community tired of elaborate meals, that man might become powerful who had the strongest appetite for bread and water…” (p173-4).

Finally, Yeats, speaking of his own time and place in history (for the Great Wheel can describe history as well as individual man — another topic in A Vision): “When the new gyre begins to stir, I am filled with excitement. I think of recent mathematical research… with its objective world intelligible to intellect; I can recognize that the limit itself has become a new dimension, that this ever-hidden thing that makes us fold our hands has begun to press down upon multitudes. Having bruised their hands upon that limit, men, for the first time since the seventeenth century, see the world as an object of contemplation, not as something to be remade, and some few, meeting the limit in their special study, even doubt if there is any common experience, doubt the possibility of science” (p300).

Reverse and obverse of the Great Seal of the United States, engraved on the back of the American dollar bill, with Campbell’s description from The Inner Reaches of Outer Space (see earlier post).

“Whereas behind the pyramid there is only a desert to be seen, before and around it are the sprouting signs of a new and fresh beginning… a ‘new order of the world’ (novus ordo seclorum)” (p126).

“There at the summit of a symbolic pyramid (the World Mountain) we see an eye within a radiant, upward-pointing triangle (the World Eye, God’s Eye, Eye of Spirit). It is at that point of rest (stasis) at the summit where the opposed sides come together” (p125).

“In the radiant disk above the American bald eagle’s head the stars of the original 13 states are composed to form a Solomon’s seal symbolic of the union of soul and body, spirit and matter. Each of the interlaced equilateral triangles, one upward turned, the other downward, is a Pythagorean tetraktys, or ‘perfect triangle of fourness,’ of nine points, four to a side, enclosing a tenth representing the generative center (‘still point of the turning world’) out of which the others derive their force. The upward triangle is of spiritual, the downward pointing, of physical energy. Thus interlaced, the two represent the physical world as informed by the spiritual” (p128).

“When viewed as outlining a pyramid, the upward pointing triangle matches the pyramid on the reverse of the Seal, with the single point at its apex corresponding to the Eye out of which the expanding form of the universe has proceeded. As symbolized in the traditional Pythagorean tetraktys, the energy emanating from that initial point (which is of the opening both from and to Eternity [cf. prajna eye]) yields, first, duality (2 points: measure and chaos, subject and object, light and dark, odd and even, male and female, etc.), which then relate to each other in three ways (3 points: either a dominant, b dominant, or a and b in accord), whence derive all the phenomenal forms in the field of space-time (4 points: 4 quarters of the earth and heavens). There is a verse in the Tao Teh Ching: ‘The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things'” (p128).

“Connotations of the same order pertain, of course, to the downward turned tetraktys, with its single point at the apex opening also from and to Eternity; so that, ‘What is above is below,’ and the energy of the Spirit (however named), whether from without (as from the Eye, the apex above) or from within the world (the apex below) is one” (p128).