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Of the Mysteries

Part II, Chapter 2

Atwood identifies the Hermetic Art with the Theurgy of the Greek Mysteries and argues that the rites really produced what they promised: knowledge of Being, reached by purifying the soul’s intermediate, imaginative spirit (II.2 ¶3–5, ¶8). She sets this against modern Mesmerism, which she says works on the same agent without the ancients’ principles, and identifies that agent with the alchemists’ subject, purified into the Stone (II.2 ¶8, ¶18, ¶25).

The Mysteries were real

Atwood says the Greeks took the Hermetic Art from Egyptians and Persians and called this “Art of Divine works” Theurgy, practised at Eleusis (II.2 ¶2–3). She rejects modern readings of them as fraud, astronomy, agriculture or “immaterial ceremonies” (II.2 ¶4). Antiquity, she argues, held “philosophy, that is to say, Ontological Wisdom” (knowledge of Being) to be their object, and the rites “really efficacious to procure it” (II.2 ¶4). Quoting Iamblicus, Theurgists reached “the Wisdom of true Being” by “arts divinely potent”, not by contemplation or faith (II.2 ¶5). Only the Greater Mysteries promised contact with “that identity whence, as a principle, we make our first descent” (II.2 ¶5).

Mesmerism compared

Writers on Animal Magnetism suggest its Trance reveals the temple mysteries, but Atwood says none rose above therapy (II.2 ¶6). Mesmerists take “the Universal Medium” in its natural state, not knowing how to improve it, and their sleepwalkers cannot tell true revelations from false (II.2 ¶7). The ancients worked “in the same material and with similar instruments”, but on established principles: they judged the natural Spirit degraded, passed its first revelations in the Lesser Mysteries, and separated the Vital Spirit from the “defilements and imaginative impressures” (implanted sense-images) of birth, freeing the “divine eye” that perceives truth (II.2 ¶8). Whether “the medium” here is the Universal Medium or the Vital Spirit, the text leaves open (II.2 ¶8).

Purifying the imaginative Spirit

Quoting Synesius, the Etherial Spirit joins divine natures with the lowest (II.2 ¶10). Atwood adds that even in trance a “false imagination” remains, which must be destroyed before the understanding spirit can “superinduce Divinity” (II.2 ¶10). Purification is slow and needs consent: Atwood holds that “Will is the greatest part of purgation” (II.2 ¶13); Synesius reads Hercules’ labours as the trials that follow breaking the soul’s compact with sense (II.2 ¶13). Self-contemplation with an unpurified Spirit finds only “shadowy impressures” (II.2 ¶14). That Spirit is the Sphinx, which one must “solve, that is comprehend” or be possessed by (II.2 ¶15). Hence, Atwood says, the alchemists wash and dissolve their defiled “vulgar Matter” into the “Mercury of the Philosophers” (II.2 ¶16).

The subject named

Atwood identifies the Mundane Spirit, Aristotle’s “passive intellect”, with the mesmeric agent, “the Common Soul”, and with the Alchemists’ subject, “a thing indifferent, abject, and exposed in all hands” (II.2 ¶17–18). This is only “the gate”; the “philosophic Hercules” must “turn the current of life into another channel, and purify the natural source” (II.2 ¶19). In the Mysteries, Purificative Rites followed the revealment of the Medial Life, restoring “the monarchy of reason in the soul” before the final initiations (II.2 ¶20). This passive “middle substance” purifies itself, “in turn agent and patient”, and “solved and resolved, and wisely manipulated” becomes the Stone (II.2 ¶25–26). Only a philosopher who “has labored rationally” achieves it (II.2 ¶29).

The Work in this chapter

  • Matter: “a thing indifferent, abject” — the Common Soul, the Spirit as first revealed in human life (stated; II.2 ¶17–18).
  • Impediment: “imaginative impressures” — sense-images clouding the Spirit (stated; II.2 ¶8, ¶14).
  • Operator: “Will is the greatest part of purgation” — desire and assent are required (stated; II.2 ¶13).
  • Procedure: “solve, that is comprehend” — understand the Spirit actively from within (stated; II.2 ¶15); “wash it” — cleanse the subject (interpreted; II.2 ¶16).
  • Agent: “agent and patient” — the subject purifies itself (stated; II.2 ¶26).
  • Stages: Medial Life revealed, Purificative Rites, final initiations (stated; II.2 ¶20).
  • Result: “the concrete Stone of philosophers”; the purified “divine eye” (stated; II.2 ¶8, ¶25).

Terms introduced

  • Theurgy — Greek name for the Hermetic Art (II.2 ¶3).
  • Ontological Wisdom — knowledge of Being, the object of initiation (II.2 ¶4).
  • Greater / Lesser Mysteries — final grade promising union with the source; first grade passing the natural Spirit’s revelations (II.2 ¶5, ¶8).
  • impressures — implanted sense-images (II.2 ¶8, ¶14).
  • divine eye — inner faculty that, purified, sees truth (II.2 ¶8).
  • Etherial / Phantastic Spirit — intermediate imaginative spirit; the Sphinx (II.2 ¶10, ¶15).
  • solve — “comprehend” (II.2 ¶15).
  • vulgar Matter / Mercury of the Philosophers — the subject defiled and purified (II.2 ¶16).
  • Common Soul — mesmeric agent and alchemists’ subject (II.2 ¶18).
  • Purificative Rites — stage restoring reason’s rule (II.2 ¶20).
  • Hermetic luminaries — agent and patient; Sun and Moon philosophical (II.2 ¶26).

Authorities cited

Supporting: Clemens Alexandrinus, St Cyrillus, Iamblicus, Heraclitus, Strabo, Servius, Plato, Cicero (the rites, II.2 ¶3–5, ¶8, ¶11, ¶13); Synesius, Olympiodorus, Proclus (the Spirit, II.2 ¶10–15); Aristotle, Albertus Mangus, the adept, Aristhenes, Eirenaeus (the subject, II.2 ¶16–18, ¶26, ¶28). Criticized: Warburton, Sainte Croix, Gebelin, La Pluche, Antiquity Unveiled, Thomas Taylor (II.2 ¶4); mesmerists (II.2 ¶6–7). Bacon raises a difficulty (II.2 ¶21).