The Egyptian Oedipus, Volume II

CHAPTER II. OF THE HIEROGLYPHIC GYMNASIUM OF THE EGYPTIAN OEDIPUS.

The Heracleotic Chain.

...to be connected to Himself, and to return to the first fountain, He brought it about that they were made fit; but this could by no means happen unless the highest, middle, and lowest beings were bound together by certain chains. This was achieved most aptly through the love and ministry of these Minds referring to the Angelic Intelligences. And this is that Heracleotic Chain original: "catena Heracleotica"; a reference to the "Golden Chain" of Homer or Heraclitus, symbolizing the Great Chain of Being that links all levels of existence connecting all things; this is that ten-stringed instrument decachordon a ten-stringed musical instrument used here as a metaphor for the harmony of the universe of the nature of the Universe, adapting all things into one and the same most beautiful harmony. Thus God flows into all things, but most especially into the Angelic World; this in turn flows into the Celestial World, and the Celestial into the Elemental World in an admirable manner. Again, the triple Choir of the Angelic World, the triple Choir of the Celestial World, and the individual Choirs of this lower World each respond to one another; so much so that there is no string of the lower World that does not have corresponding strings in both the Celestial and Angelic Worlds, according to that famous pronouncement of the more secret Cabalists Jewish mystics and scholars of the Kabbalah:

Harmony of the Angelic Choirs with the World.

There is no herb below, which does not have a planet above saying to it: grow. original: "Nulla herba est inferiùs, quae non habeat planetam superiùs dicentem sibi, cresce."

Therefore, when a string in any series of the World is struck, the remaining corresponding strings will immediately be animated into harmony by a certain hidden force and consensus. Beneath the perfect knowledge of these things lies the greatest mystery sacramentum of the entire secret of nature: whoever knows how to apply like to like will know how to produce marvelous effects in the nature of things. But you will understand these things better from the Diagram placed above, in which you see that the circle encompassing all things signifies the eternal, immutable, and immobile Unity.

Explanation of the figure.

The three circles represent the three Worlds: the Elemental, the Celestial, and the Angelic. Each of these is again seen divided into three other circles, as if into three Choirs; and the individual Choirs of each World are further divided into three small circles, representing the degrees of beings and things in the Universe. The first Worldly circle signifies, through its 9 small circles, the 9 Choirs of Angels. The second signifies the nine orbits of the heavens, which are: the First Mover Primum mobile the outermost sphere in ancient astronomy, the Firmament the sphere of the fixed stars, and the spheres of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. The third circle signifies the nine beings of the Elemental World, which are: man, beast, zoophyte organisms like coral that seem to bridge the gap between plants and animals, tree, shrub, herb, minerals, mixed substances, and the elements. And these are the 27 degrees of beings of the three Worlds. If you join the remaining larger circles to these, 40 circles will emerge—exactly as many as the sum of the aforementioned numbers 1, 3, 9, and 27. The first term, 1, constitutes absolute unity; the second, 3, the superficial or radical; the third, 9, namely the square of three; and finally the fourth, 27, constitutes the cube of three. These, as I said, when joined together give 40, by which the Pythagoreans followers of the philosopher Pythagoras who emphasized the spiritual importance of numbers indicated absolute, radical, plane, and solid numbers. The Hebrews, however, as we have said in our discussion of the Kabbalah, differing with wonderful skill concerning the triple World, make their letters correspond to these numbers. You also see how aptly these things agree with what we said previously regarding the 9 decades of the four Worlds.

Demonstration by the double pyramid, of light and of darkness.

All these circles are encompassed by a double pyramid. The first, the pyramid of light, has its base at the summit of the Angelic or luminous heaven and its apex at the lowest degree of the World. The other, the pyramid of darkness, has its base at the lowest degree of the World—namely, in prime matter, which is deprived of all light and action—and its apex terminates at the summit of the Angelic heaven. From this, it follows that just as the supreme World abounds in a wealth of light, so too does it abound in...