Roots and Branches

The possession of Knowledge, unless accompanied by a manifestation and expression in Action, is like the hoarding of precious metals – a vain and foolish thing. Knowledge, like wealth, is intended for Use. The Law of Use is Universal, and he who violates it suffers by reason of his conflict with natural forces. The Kybalion, The Hermetic Philosophy,  by Three Initiates . First Published 1908. Republished 2008 by Forgotten Books, FB &c Ltd., London,  2008; ibid. pg. 111

While All is in THE ALL, it is equally true that THE ALL is in All. To him who truly understands this truth hath come great knowledge. The Kybalion, The Hermetic Philosophy,  by Three Initiates . First Published 1908. Republished 2008 by Forgotten Books, FB &c Ltd., London,  2008; ibid. pg. 48

The half-wise, recognizing the comparative unreality of the Universe, imagine that they may defy its Laws – such are vain and presumptuous fools, and they are broken against the rocks and torn asunder by the elements by reason of their folly. The truly wise, knowing the nature of the Universe, use Law against laws; the higher against the lower; and by the Art of Alchemy transmute that which is undesirably into that which is worthy, and thus triumph. Mastery consists not in abnormal dreams, visions and fantastic imaginings or living, but in using the higher forces against the lower – escaping the pains of the lower planes by vibrating on the higher. Transmutation, not presumptuous denial, is the weapon of the Master. The Kybalion, The Hermetic Philosophy,  by Three Initiates . First Published 1908. Republished 2008 by Forgotten Books, FB &c Ltd., London,  2008; ibid. pg. 39

THE ALL creates in its Infinite Mind countless Universes, which exist for aeons of Time – and yet, to THE ALL, the creation, development, decline and death of a million Universes is as the time of the twinkling of an eye. The Kybalion, The Hermetic Philosophy,  by Three Initiates . First Published 1908. Republished 2008 by Forgotten Books, FB &c Ltd., London,  2008; ibid. pg. 35

That which is the Fundamental Truth – the Substantial Reality  – is beyond true naming, but the Wise Men call it THE ALL. THE ALL must be all that REALLY IS. There can be nothing existing outside of THE ALL, else THE ALL would not be THE ALL.  THE ALL is Infinite Living Mind  –  the illuminated call it SPIRIT! The Universe is Mental  –  held in the Mind of THE ALL. The Kybalion, The Hermetic Philosophy,  by Three Initiates . First Published 1908. Republished 2008 by Forgotten Books, FB &c Ltd., London,  2008; ibid. pg. 28, 31, 32

Physics Meets Mysticism The ALL changes constantly by the initiative of his parts. Author unknown to me. Syntax A man staring at his equations  said that the universe had a beginning.  There had been an explosion, he said.  A bang of bangs, and the universe was born.  And it is expanding, he said.  He had even calculated the length of its life:  ten billion revolutions of the earth around the sun.  The entire globe cheered;  They found his calculations to be science.  None thought that by proposing that the universe began,  the man had merely mirrored the syntax of his mother tongue;  a syntax which demands beginnings, like birth,  and developments, like maturation,  and ends, like death, as statements of facts.  The universe began,  and it is getting old, the man assured us,  and it will die, like all things die,  like he himself died after confirming mathematically  the sy...

Under, and back of, the Universe of Time, Space and Change, is ever to be found The Substantial Reality – the Fundamental Truth. The Kybalion, The Hermetic Philosophy,  by Three Initiates . First Published 1908. Republished 2008 by Forgotten Books, FB &c Ltd., London,  2008; ibid. pg. 25

Mind (as well as metals and elements) may be transmuted, from state to state; degree to degree; condition to condition; pole to pole; vibration to vibration. True Hermetic Transmutation is a Mental Art. The Kybalion, The Hermetic Philosophy,  by Three Initiates . First Published 1908. Republished 2008 by Forgotten Books, FB &c Ltd., London,  2008; ibid. pg. 20

1. The Principle of Mentalism THE ALL IS MIND. The Universe is mental. 2. The Principle of Correspondence As above so below, as below, so above. 3. The Principle of Vibration Nothing rests. Everything moves. Everything vibrates. 4. The Principle of Polarity Everything is Dual. Everything has poles. Everything has its pair of opposites. Like and Unlike are the same. Opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree. Extremes meet. All truths are but half-truths. All paradoxes may be reconciled. 5. The Principle of Rhythm Everything flows, out and in. Everything has its tides. All tides rise and fall. The pendulum-swing manifests in everything. The measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left. Rhythm compensates. 6. The Principle of Cause and Effect Every Cause has its Effect. Every Effect has its Cause. Everything happens according to Law. Chance is but a name for Law not recognized. There are many planes of causation, but nothing es...

Where fall the footsteps of the Master, the ears of those ready for his Teaching open wide. When the ears of the student are ready to hear, then cometh the lips to fill them with Wisdom. The Kybalion, The Hermetic Philosophy,  by Three Initiates . First Published 1908. Republished 2008 by Forgotten Books, FB &c Ltd., London,  2008; ibid. pg. 9

The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of Understanding. The Kybalion, The Hermetic Philosophy,  by Three Initiates . First Published 1908. Republished 2008 by Forgotten Books, FB &c Ltd., London,  2008; ibid. pg. 5

The Decline of the Purely Mechanistic View of the World Continues After the publication of the Special Theory of Relativity (1905) Einstein worked on a refinement and generalization of this theory, which he published in 1915. It became famous as  General Theory of Relativity . Einstein's General Theory of Relativity gave the classical mechanistic world view another very violent blow. Its most succinct statements are that clocks slow down under the influence of gravity (the stronger the force of gravity the more clocks slow down); that matter can condense so much that its gravity becomes so strong that nothing can leave its sphere of influence, not even the light – these are the so-called "black holes";  that our universe is expanding and about 15 to 18 billion years ago must have come out of an infinitely small, infinitely dense and infinitely hot matter accumulation – this singularity is the so-called big bang (today's physics has available scenarios that all...

The Decline of the Purely Mechanistic View of the World The correctness of the mechanistic approach described in the previous parts of this essay must be questioned. As a matter of fact, from the extremely reductionist approach of science and from its attempt to describe the world objectively arise interesting problems and internal contradictions, which seem to lead at least at first glance to a variety of topics that science and the holistic view of mysticism and in particular Buddhism may have in common. On closer inspection, however, it also becomes clear that we actually deal with the approximation of an extreme form of monistic materialism (science) on the one hand to an extreme form of holism (Buddhism) on the other hand, both referring to the material world as well as to manifestations like the I, the self, coenesthesia, self-esteem, and similar as maya (illusion) without going into any detail about how these illusions come about, why they exist, and why we need to live wi...

The Clockwork Universe How much one was convinced that the universe was a gigantic machine – something like a large mechanical clockwork that would work like a giant pocket watch and would be strictly deterministic may become clear from a quotation from the 18th-century mathematician Pierre-Simon de Laplace that I want to attach here. Laplace wrote correspondingly, If an intelligent living being knew all forces acting at a certain moment in time and additionally knew of all matter – from the largest celestial body to the smallest atom – where they are at that moment, and also were able to do the necessary calculations sufficiently fast, it would be able to predict the entire future of the universe, and also to reconstruct the past, completely and down to the smallest detail  [involving all human beings and all human behavior; my note]. That's exactly this horrible idea I have already mentioned in  Part 10  of this essay. The following anecdote is attributed t...

Already in the 17 th century the philosopher and mathematician René Descartes considered the world to be an automaton, a gigantic mechanical machine. Descartes is the founder of the mind-matter or soul-body dichotomy. In this essay, I deliberately use the word dichotomy and do not speak of dualism, because when it comes to dualism I think of a pair of opposites in the platonic sense, i.e., a syzygy, which is something that belongs together with the two poles being mutually dependent (a yin-yang relation for example). The two poles of a syzygy are co-existing whereas the two poles of a dichotomy exclude each other. Descartes, however, divided the world into an objective realm of matter, for which the natural sciences should be responsible, and a subjective realm of spirit and soul, for which religion should be responsible. Ultimately, such concepts as natural science and humanities finally into existence. Today this process is referred to as the Cartesian schism . Descarte...

When we practice physics, for example when we are trying to understand the subatomic world, we are also staying on the circumference of the Circle of Being. We look to the right and to the left. However, our gaze does not reach very far, because the circle is curved, so that we quickly reach a "knowledge-horizon" that reveals itself in the form of all sorts of contradictions and paradoxes modern physics has experienced since the late 19th century, and in particular when it comes to quantum mechanics. We simply cannot know let alone understand what is beyond this horizon. In order to further refine our understanding of ourselves and the world, we are looking at ever smaller units, that is, our way of working and exploring is reductionistic. This is reflected in physics in the attempt to understand the atoms as being composed of smaller subatomic components, which in turn are understood to be made up of even smaller particles, etc. In medicine, this way of thinking has let ...

Next, let's turn to the question: What is consciousness and what is perception? This question sounds simple, but certainly is not easy to answer. It has been my experience that in the case of complex problems, it often helps to graph the situation, initially focusing on the basic components of the problem. The following figure is supposedly based on Simon Magus' teachings who in turn is likely to have fallen back to Platonic ideas. However, by whom this representation actually comes is unimportant for everything else to be discussed here. So let's take a look at the figure below which I'd like to call "The Circle of Being".                                                            The Circle of Being There are three key points: The outer circle (more precisely, its circumference) represents the material world in which we live. ...

In contrast to the philosophers that were before Plato (Pre-Platonists), Plato does not think in absolute but in relative units. For him, there are not the absolute opposites such as warm – cold, or wet – dry or big – small, etc., between which there is literally nothing, but for him every element of such a pair of opposites is able to bring about the other. It is not about absoluteness and BEING, but about relativity and BECOMING. It is about more wet or more dry, warmer or colder, etc. What is wet can always become less wet, i.e. more dry, and finally produce dry. Life can become death and death can become life. If something becomes dry, it must have been wet before. If something dies ( becomes dead) it must have been alive before. When something becomes alive, it must have been dead before, etc. In all these cases, it is not a question of substance arising and passing away, but of a change in the properties or the form of the substance, and this also applies to the substance which...

Let's come back to the topic of the Soul Plato sees the soul as something existing detached from the body. For him, the soul belongs to the ideal pure world to which ultimately our mind belongs, because through it we can recognize the ideal world. But because the soul incarnates (actually has to incarnate) in a body over and over again having to live again and again in the real (i.e., second-class) world, she becomes contaminated and defiled; but she is immortal; she is indestructible. Her true home is the ideal and perfect world, the world of BEING and perfection to which she returns time and again; but the real world, which is the world of temporality and the world of BECOMING destroys that perfection. In his work Phaidon (also Phaedo) Plato presents his ideas of the soul (Phaidon is one of Plato's works written in dialogue form, in which he describes, among others, the last meeting of Socrates with his friends). Actually, in this work he describes the last hours of his...

Plato's doctrine was almost diametrically opposed to this view, even if at a first glance it appears to be only slightly different from it. Plato took the view that the ideal world is  not identical with the real world. Rather, the real world is merely an incomplete, erroneous copy of the ideal world; all really existing objects, whether we perceive them or not, are incomplete copies of the ideal objects. This ideal world, the "world of ideas", is divine in nature, and mathematics is the "ultimate ideal", the eternal essence of reality. Hidden behind the physical world lies the true world of ideas, of fundamental truths and of mathematical beauty. Plato says that normally we are content to live in the world of imperfect copies, and usually do not even attempt to discern the "true world;" we actually do not want to see what may be called the "behind-the-scenes." We would rather be content with the illusion that the world we perceive with ou...