Sacred and Truly Christian Philosophy, or Cosmic Meteorology

12 [tab] Sect. I. Port. IV. Pars I. Lib. I.

...and scattered almost everywhere, the sacred writings seem to testify. But in order that we may now come to those more skilled among the philosophers, we find this opinion of the Cabalists confirmed in the words of Hermes Trismegistus himself, in the first book of the Poimandres original: Pim. 1.; this refers to the first tractate of the Corpus Hermeticum, a collection of Greco-Egyptian wisdom texts central to Renaissance thought. within the sacred discourses, serving as a kind of frontispiece to his work. The words are as follows: I am Poimandres, the Mind of divine power, original: Sum Pæmander mens diuinæ potentiæ by which he seems to hint at the dark Aleph or the hidden GOD. The "Dark Aleph" (Aleph tenebrosum) represents the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In this mystical context, it refers to God in His unmanifested, unknowable state before the act of creation. Then the same author continues in his narration: When he had said these things, he changed his form, and suddenly revealed all things. By these words, therefore, he denotes the conversion of the dark Aleph into the bright Aleph—that is, the transformation of the hidden GOD into GOD the Parent The "Parent" or Creator who manifests in the light.—which he also seems to prove by the effect described in the continuation of his discourse. For I beheld (he says) a certain immense spectacle—namely, all things converted into a sweet and pleasant light, which wonderfully delighted me as I gazed upon it. From wh...