Theos-Talk Archives (March 2002 Message tt00469)

Jerry: Most Theosophists really want to believe that every statement 
in the MLs is correct and accurate. Anyone familiar with Buddhism 
knows this to be a misguided belief, but most Theosophists don't 
study Buddhism except through Blavatsky, and don't want to be 
confused with the facts. While most of the MLs seem to me to be 
accurate, some is not. Probably the biggest fault that I can find is 
the silly notion that Buddha taught that we have some kind of 
permanent eternal Higher Self, while the truth is that he taught 
exactly the opposite.
Buddha taught the anatman doctrine, which is the central core of his 
entire teaching. Theosophy applies this only to the ego or 
personality, whereas it is supposed to be applied to any sense of 
self, including the atma-buddhi monad and Buddha would not approve of 
us simply changing one self for another".

Bri.: I like to continue here with mentioning what I think to be 
further sources of John Dee, that one later also finds back in one 
form or another with Blavatsky.

In fact the "Nous" Blavatsky wrote about in late 1876 contained still 
some of these Renaisance ideas like: "Mind is the quintessence of the 
Soul-and having joined its divine Spirit Nous-can return no more to 
earth. IMPOSSIBLE."

Just before Blavatsky science and faith had already been syncretized 
by mesmerism. And a non-Christian form of religiosity had become an
increasingly available option in Europe. As a result since the early 
19th century, dozens of successful prophets have explained that their 
message is logical and accords with the latest findings of science; 
that their doctrines are not their own innovations but the fruits of 
ancient tradition; and that they can be experienced in the life of 
every person.

Dee had a large library and thus a variety of sources in his 
possession which often left discernible marks in his ritual 
practices. Some of the sources he explicitly refers to in the angelic 
conversations are the Elementis Magicis of Peter of Abano (d. c. 
1316) and the Clavis Agrippae the spurious "Fourth Book of Occult 
Philosophy" which, he notes, "lay in my Oratorie amost vnder my 
wyndow" during the sessions. (Whitby (ed.), John Dee "Actions with 
Spirits", 11, pp. 38 39.)

These works provided him with a brief summary of the standard 
procedures of ceremonial magic, many of them figuring prominently in 
his own angelic conversations. The practitioner desirous "to invoke 
any good spirit" should use seals or lamins made either of metal 
or "in new wax, mixt A species ana colours conformable", shaped 11 
according to the rule of numbers" and with "divine names" written 
upon them. Every instrument used in the rite should be consecrated 
by "anoynting it with holy Oyl, sealing it with some holy Sigil, and 
blessing it with prayer"." The invocations should be recorded in 
a "book of Spirits" made of pure "virgin paper" 
a suggestion that Dee seems to have followed when preparing his own
"Fundamenta invocationum" and the place of the ritual should 
be "clean, pure, close, quiet, free from all manner of noise, and not 
subject to any strangers sight", a piece of advise which Dee found 
some difficulty in observing in a household in which staff and 
visitors were constantly thronging."

In describing the sympathetic relationship between things as 
dependent on similitude, Neoplatonic philosophers elaborated on a 
notion already present in Plato's and Aristotle's works. But they 
also gave it a far more important role, turning similitude into a 
means by which man could magically manipulate natural forces. As 
Synesius wrotc, magians could artificially constructed 
representations such as "voices, substances and figures" as mimetic 
means to tap the powers of the universe.

One of the most famous Renaissance works devoted to this kind of 
imitative magic and of special influence on Dee, is Marsilio 
Ficino's "De vita coelitus comparanda", "On obtaining life from the 
heavens". Published in 1489 as the third part of his "De vita libri 
tres", it gives a lengthy account of how images, words, music and 
songs can be used to draw forces from the celestial bodies. Ficino, 
anxious to avoid accusations of illicit idolatry, stresses in the 
text that this was not accomplished by "worshipping the stars", but 
by "imitating them" and thereby trying to "capture" their "natural 
influence [s] ".` In his work Ficino drew upon a wide variety of 
sources, including the Neoplatonic texts by Iamblichus, Proclus and 
Synesius which he had himself translated into Latin, as well
as medieval authorities like al Kindi, Albertus Magnus and Thomas 
Aquinas.
Despite its syncretistic character, however, the De vita coelitus
comparanda was written as a commentary on a specific section of 
Plotinus' Enneads. This section Ennead 4.3.11 was one of the most 
controversial parts of Plotinus' work, since it alluded to a kind of 
magical statues which ancient magicians had used to attract and 
secure the presence of divine beings.

What Ficino did was to interpret this ancient statue magic not as 
demonic magic, but as sympathetic, and thus licit, magic, having its 
basis in the metaphysics outlined in the preceding chapters of 
Plotinus' Enneads. 

This metaphysics was an intricate structure built around the concept 
of Logos and its interrelated meanings. In Plotinus' philosophy, the 
termnlogos denoted both the divine "reason" and the formative "cause" 
behind the universe, the immaterial Ideas structuring the material 
cosmos and bringing it into being. But logos also meant "expression" 
in the sense of a diverse and imperfect manifestation of the unified 
intellectuality present in the divine Mind. Such an "expression", 
logos, of the Ideas in the divine Mind was the WorldSoul, an 
omnipresent vital force, making the universe a living being. This 
World Soul operated as a kind of medium between the divine Mind and 
nature by communicating "reason" logos to the material world in the 
form of an "image of the reason within itself'.
This communication of divine reason to the material world was 
accomplished through the agency of what Plotinus termed logoi 
spennatikoi, translated by Ficino as serninales rationes, "seminal 
reasons". The concept of seminal reasons was not unknown in medieval 
philosophy, and in the works of Augustine, Bonaventura and Vincent of 
Beauvais it is ascribed a minor role as "germinal forms", planted in 
matter by God and able to actualize their latent potentialities in 
the course of time. In Aquinas' philosophy the concept disappears 
altogether, supplanted by his notion of the potency
of matter. With Ficino's appropriation of Plotinus, however, the 
concept of seminal reasons re emerged as a key notion in the 
conceptualization of magic.

As he phrased it in De vita coelitus comparanda, the World 
Soul "possesses by divine power precisely as many seminal reasons of 
things as there are Ideas in the Divine Mind" and through these 
seminal reasons the World Soul "fashions the same number of species 
in matter". Every natural entity of a particular kind was an image 
of a seminal reason in the World Soul, which in turn was an image of 
an Idea in the divine Mind. But more importantly,
by acting as conduits of divine power, the seminal reasons causally 
linked species or forms in matter to Ideas in the divine Mind. As 
Ficino wrote, "every single species corresponds through its own 
seminal reason to its own Idea and oftentimes through this reason it 
can easily receive something from the Idea since indeed it was made 
through the reason of the Idea". Thus, the seminal reasons provided a 
means by which man could attract divine forces magically: by 
manipulating "material forms" it was
possible to "allure" the World Soul and "draw a particular gift from 
the Idea, through the seminal reason of the Soul", for the World 
Soul "has created baits of this kind suitable to herself, to be 
allured thereby".

Ficino added that such "baits", making it possible to draw powers 
from the divine Mind, had been termed illices and ilLecebrae by 
Zoroaster and Synesius, thereby emphasizing that he considered these 
authors' differing accounts of magic to be consistent with each 
other."(Ficino, "Three Books on Life", 111.1, pp. 2421243 244/245)

Bri.
The above is part 2 of 14.



--- In theos-talk@y..., "bri_mue" <bri_mue@y...> wrote:
> Jerry (Gerald Schueler): The doctrine of hierarchies, while well 
> intended, is a double-edged sword that is getting the TM into a 
jam. The 
> old elist attitude that I am better or more evolved than you is no 
longer 
> acceptable. 
> 
> I have tried to formulate a pathway model that is based on 
Blavatsky's 7 
> planes and 12 globes with their interconnecting pathways as 
described 
> and detailed in my GV Model Ebook. Keep in mind that it is just a 
model, 
> and I often use my Enochian model too (both work pretty well for me 
> even though they are somewhat different - probably because I have 
> united them by placing each the Enochian Watchtowers on each of the 
> Theosophical Planes).
> 
> Bri.: In fact John Dee (and other Renaisance and later 
eslotericists) ) did 
> similar as Blavatsky, that is incorporate the language of science 
of its 
> time and interpreted it along the lines of neo-Platonic and 
occult 
> concepts. Blavatsky having a wider variety of Literature to choose 
from 
> incorporated in addition many of the Romantic occult and 
orientalist 
> literature including some models of 19th century scientism like 
> teachings of evolution and so on.
> 
> Renaisance scientist-theosophist-esotericists like John Dee 
like 
> Blavatsky in "Isis Unveiled" for example, used terms 
like "natural" 
> magic, and spoke about the spiritual "forces" that "operate" 
> this "universe."
> 
> John Dee, like Blavatsky later included an imaginary History, 
reduction, 
> pattern recognition, the assumed "Perenennial Philosophy" and a for 
that 
> time, a less pseudo, "scientism".
> 
> The early TS also according to the research of Dr.Santucci, editor 
of 
> Theosophical History, practiced a form of Theurgy, and according 
to 
> co-founder of the TS Judge, they worked with so-called "Planetary 
> spirits", and see in this context the final chapter of 
Blavatsky's Isis 
> Unveiled "Magic", that can be read on the internet.
> 
> John Dee accommodated the kinship between the Platonic realm of 
> Ideas and the Pythagorean conception of numbers. "For this was "the 
> principall example or patterne in the minde of the Creator," 
according to 
> Dee.
> 
> This notion was lent credence by the Scriptural dictum that 
> God "Created all thynges, in Number, Waight, and Measure", a dictum 
> that caused Nicholas of Cusa (1401 1464) to describe the divine 
Creation 
> as a form of mathematical process in which God employed the common 
> mathematical arts to shape the physical universe:
> 
> In creating the world, God used arithmetic, geometry, music, and 
> likewise astronomy. For through arithmetic God united things. 
Through 
> geometry He shaped them .And so, God, who created all things in 
> number, weight, and measure, arranged the elements in an admirable 
> order. (Nicholas of Cusa ,"On Learned Ignorance" II,13,p.122.)
> 
> These notions prepared the grounds for a reconceptualization of 
> kabbalistic teachings (incorporated in the Globes and rounds model 
of 
> the Secret Doctrine) which placed mathematics at the very centre of 
> kabbalistic interpretive techniques. In his "Conclusiones" Pico 
della 
> Mirandola essentially reversed the relative precedence of the 
kuters and 
> their numerical values, claiming that while magic 
> operated ,through "characters", kabbalah worked through "numbers". 
> And in his "De arte cabalistica" Reuchlin stated that the 
Pythagorean 
> teachings originated "from the teachers of kabbalah" and that his 
> primary reason for writing a book on kabbalah was "to make 
> Pythagorean doctrine better known to scholars". 
> 
> In Monas hieroglyphica Dee made no attempt to explain why 
> mathematics should be regarded as the very foundation of a true 
> or "real" kabbalah, simply presenting the numerological meditations 
as 
> transparent to the initiated and worthy reader. In 
his "Mathematicall 
> Praeface" written six years later, by contrast, there is a 
comprehensive 
> account of the traditional "Mathematicall Artes."
> 
> As Dee pointed out in the Praeface, numbers existed in three forms: 
in 
> the Mind of the Creator, in natural things and in the soul of man. 
> Conceived as the principles residing in the Mind of God, numbers 
were 
> equivalent to the instrument by which the world was formed, a 
process 
> accomplished by God's "numbering" of the yet unformed things and 
> creatures: "in God the Creator, This discretion, in the beginning, 
> produced orderly and distinctly all thinges. For his Numbryng, 
then, was 
> his Creatyng of all thinges". Bearing the reflection of these 
principles 
> within his soul, man was created in the likeness of his Creator; 
but, as 
> Dee pointed out, "our Seuerallyng, distinctyng, and Numbryng, 
createth 
> nothyng". Instead, by "numbering 11 and applying mathematical rules 
> we seize God's creative principles as they are manifested in 
creation, 
> thereby gaining a true and reliable knowledge of nature.
> 
> In the Pythagorean teachings, however, the correspondence be
> tween man's employment of mathematics and God's "creatyng of all
> thinges" went even deeper than this. According to the Pythagorean
> philosophy, the construing of the numeral system and the creation of
> the world could be envisaged as completely analogous processes, both
> having their basis in the same concept the monad. 
> 
> As a mathematical concept, the monad was defined as the originative 
> principle of all numbers. In ancient Greece numbers were graphically
> represented as dots or points set out in a spatial pattern. The 
number
> one, for instance, was simply written as a single point, while the 
num
> ber three was represented as three points arranged in a triangle.
> 
> Just as numbers were conceived of as proceeding from the 
> mathematical monad in a process of individual stages following the 
> initial bridging of the gap between the conceptual and physical 
domains 
> so too the creation was envisaged as a gradual process in which the 
> metaphysical monad traversed the borderline between the 
> conceptual,divine sphere and the world of physical existence. The 
> crossing of this borderline was conceived of as the gradual forming 
of 
> geometrical bodies according to the Pythagorean conception of 
number: 
> imposed upon space, the monad took the shape of a point, two points 
> formed a line; three points formed a surface; and four a spatial 
body 
> the physical universe extended in three dimensions. 
> 
> Diogenes Laertius described this as: "this principle of all things 
is the 
> monad or unit, arising from this monad the undefined dyad or two 
> serves as material substratum to the monad, which is cause; from 
the 
> monad and the undefined dyad spring numbers; from numbers points; 
> from points, lines; from lines, plane figures; from plane figures, 
solid 
> figures; from solid figures, sensible bodies, the elements of which 
are 
> four' fire, water, earth and air; these elements interchange and 
rum into 
> one another completely and combine to produce the universe, 
animate, 
> intelligent, spherical, with the earth at its centre".
> 
> This conception of the creation became a central tenet of 
Pythagorean 
> and Neoplatonic philosophy, repeated and elaborated upon by a 
number 
> of scholars from antiquity to the seventeenth century. In 
Philosophia 
> sacra (1626) Robert Fludd graphically pictured the divine creation 
as an 
> arithmetical progression according to the Pythagorean scheme, 
> beginning in the monad and concluding in the creation of the four 
> elements.
> 
> 
> 
Bri.