(20) For the others, there is spiritual consciousness, led up to by faith, valour, right mindfulness, one-pointedness, perception.

(5) In the different fields of manifestation, the Consciousness, though one, is the elective cause of many states of consciousness.

(34) By perfectly concentrated Meditation on the heart, the interior being, comes the knowledge of consciousness.

(3) 3. The Principle of Vibration "Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates." --The Kybalion. This Principle embodies the truth that "everything is in motion"; "everything vibrates"; "nothing is at rest"; facts which Modern Science endorses, and which each new scientific discovery tends to verify. And yet this Hermetic Principle was enunciated thousands of years ago, by the Masters of Ancient Egypt. This Principle explains that the differences between different manifestations of Matter, Energy, Mind, and even Spirit, result largely from varying rates of Vibration. From THE ALL, which is Pure Spirit, down to the grossest form of Matter, all is in vibration--the higher the vibration, the higher the position in the scale. The vibration of Spirit is at such an infinite rate of intensity and rapidity that it is practically at rest--just as a rapidly moving wheel seems to be motionless. And at the other end of the scale, there are gross forms of matter whose vibrations are so low as to seem at rest. Between these poles, there are millions upon millions of varying degrees of vibration. From corpuscle and electron, atom and molecule, to worlds and universes, everything is in vibratory motion. This is also true on the planes of energy and force (which are but varying degrees of vibration); and also on the mental planes (whose states depend upon vibrations); and even on to the spiritual planes. An understanding of this Principle, with the appropriate formulas, enables Hermetic students to control their own mental vibrations as well as those of others. The Masters also apply this Principle to the conquering of Natural phenomena, in various ways. "He who understands the Principle of Vibration, has grasped the scepter of power," says one of the old writers.

(1) For every question is solved from pre-existing knowledge. And the knowledge pre-existing of each object of investigation is sometimes merely of the essence, while its functions are unknown (as of stones, and plants, and animals, of whose operations we are ignorant), or [the knowledge] of the properties, or powers, or (so to speak) of the qualities inherent in the objects. And sometimes we may know some one or more of those powers or properties, - as, for example, the desires and affections of the soul, - and be ignorant of the essence, and make it the object of investigation. But in many instances, our understanding having assumed all these, the question is, in which of the essences do they thus inhere; for it is after forming conceptions of both - that is, both of essence and operation - in our mind, that we proceed to the question. And there are also some objects, whose operations, along with their essences, we know, but are ignorant of their modifications.

(1) The wise, therefore, speak as follows: The soul having a twofold life, one being in conjunction with body, but the other being separate from all body; when we are awake we employ, for the most part, the life which is common with the body, except when we separate ourselves entirely from it by pure intellectual and dianoetic energies. But when we are asleep, we are perfectly liberated, as it were, from certain surrounding bonds, and use a life separated from generation. Hence, this form of life, whether it be intellectual or divine, and whether these two are the same thing, or whether each is peculiarly of itself one thing, is then excited in us, and energizes in a way conformable to its nature. Since, therefore, intellect surveys real beings, but the soul contains in itself the reasons of all generated natures, it very properly follows that, according to a cause which comprehends future events, it should have a foreknowledge of them, as arranged in their precedaneous reasons. And it possesses a divination still more perfect than this, when it conjoins the portions of life and intellectual energy to the wholes from which it was separated. For then it is filled from wholes with all scientific knowledge, so as for the most part to attain by its conceptions to the apprehension of every thing which is effected in the world. Indeed, when it is united to the Gods, by a liberated energy of this kind, it then receives the most true plenitudes of intellections, from which it emits the true divination of divine dreams, and derives the most genuine principles of knowledge.

(23) A first principle is that the knowing of sensible objects is an act of the soul, or of the living conjoint, becoming aware of the quality of certain corporeal entities, and appropriating the ideas present in them.

This apprehension must belong either to the soul isolated, self-acting, or to soul in conjunction with some other entity.

Isolated, self-acting, how is it possible? Self-acting, it has knowledge of its own content, and this is not perception but intellection: if it is also to know things outside itself it can grasp them only in one of two ways: either it must assimilate itself to the external objects, or it must enter into relations with something that has been so assimilated.

Now as long as it remains self-centred it cannot assimilate: a single point cannot assimilate itself to an external line: even line cannot adapt itself to line in another order, line of the intellectual to line of the sensible, just as fire of the intellectual and man of the intellectual remain distinct from fire and man of the sensible. Even Nature, the soul-phase which brings man into being, does not come to identity with the man it shapes and informs: it has the faculty of dealing with the sensible, but it remains isolated, and, its task done, ignores all but the intellectual as it is itself ignored by the sensible and utterly without means of grasping it.

Suppose something visible lying at a distance: the soul sees it; now, admitting to the full that at first only the pure idea of the thing is seized- a total without discerned part- yet in the end it becomes to the seeing soul an object whose complete detail of colour and form is known: this shows that there is something more here than the outlying thing and the soul; for the soul is immune from experience; there must be a third, something not thus exempt; and it is this intermediate that accepts the impressions of shape and the like.

This intermediate must be able to assume the modifications of the material object so as to be an exact reproduction of its states, and it must be of the one elemental-stuff: it, thus, will exhibit the condition which the higher principle is to perceive; and the condition must be such as to preserve something of the originating object, and yet not be identical with it: the essential vehicle of knowledge is an intermediary which, as it stands between the soul and the originating object, will, similarly, present a condition midway between the two spheres, of sense and the intellectual-linking the extremes, receiving from one side to exhibit to the other, in virtue of being able to assimilate itself to each. As an instrument by which something is to receive knowledge, it cannot be identical with either the knower or the known: but it must be apt to likeness with both- akin to the external object by its power of being affected, and to the internal, the knower, by the fact that the modification it takes becomes an idea.

If this theory of ours is sound, bodily organs are necessary to sense-perception, as is further indicated by the reflection that the soul entirely freed of body can apprehend nothing in the order of sense.

The organ must be either the body entire or some member set apart for a particular function; thus touch for one, vision for another. The tools of craftsmanship will be seen to be intermediaries between the judging worker and the judged object, disclosing to the experimenter the particular character of the matter under investigation: thus a ruler, representing at once the straightness which is in the mind and the straightness of a plank, is used as an intermediary by which the operator proves his work.

Some questions of detail remain for consideration elsewhere: Is it necessary that the object upon which judgement or perception is to take place should be in contact with the organ of perception, or can the process occur across space upon an object at a distance? Thus, is the heat of a fire really at a distance from the flesh it warms, the intermediate space remaining unmodified; is it possible to see colour over a sheer blank intervening between the colour and the eye, the organ of vision reaching to its object by its own power?

For the moment we have one certainty, that perception of things of sense belongs to the embodied soul and takes place through the body.

(2) The greatest remedy, therefore, for all such doubts is this, to know the principle of divination, that it neither originates from bodies, nor from the passions about bodies, nor from a certain nature, and the powers about nature, nor from any human apparatus, or the habits pertaining to it. But neither does it originate from a certain art, externally acquired, about a certain part of such things as are subservient to life. For the whole authority of it pertains to the Gods, and is imparted by them; it is also effected by divine works, or signs; and it possesses divine spectacles, and scientific theorems. All other things, however, are subjected as instruments to the gift of foreknowledge transmitted from the Gods; viz. such things as pertain to our soul and body, and such as are in the nature of the universe, or are inexistent in particular natures. But some things are previously subjacent, as in the order of matter, such as places, or certain other things of the like kind.

(5) This discussion of Nature has shown us how the origin of things is a Contemplation: we may now take the matter up to the higher Soul; we find that the Contemplation pursued by this, its instinct towards knowing and enquiring, the birth pangs set up by the knowledge it attains, its teeming fullness, have caused it- in itself, all one object of Vision- to produce another Vision : it is just as a given science, complete in itself, becomes the source and cause of what might be called a minor science in the student who attains to some partial knowledge of all its divisions. But the visible objects and the objects of intellectual contemplation of this later creation are dim and helpless by the side of the content of the Soul.

The primal phase of the Soul- inhabitant of the Supreme and, by its participation in the Supreme, filled and illuminated- remains unchangeably There; but in virtue of that first participation, that of the primal participant, a secondary phase also participates in the Supreme, and this secondary goes forth ceaselessly as Life streaming from Life; for energy runs through the Universe and there is no extremity at which it dwindles out. But, travel as far as it may, it never draws that first part of itself from the place whence the outgoing began: if it did, it would no longer be everywhere it would be present at the end, only, of its course.

None the less that which goes forth cannot be equal to that which remains.

In sum, then:

The Soul is to extend throughout the Universe, no spot void of its energy: but, a prior is always different from its secondary, and energy is a secondary, rising as it must from contemplation or act; act, however, is not at this stage existent since it depends upon contemplation: therefore the Soul, while its phases differ, must, in all of them, remain a contemplation and what seems to be an act done under contemplation must be in reality that weakened contemplation of which we have spoken: the engendered must respect the Kind, but in weaker form, dwindled in the descent.

All goes softly since nothing here demands the parade of thought or act upon external things: it is a Soul in vision and, by this vision, creating its own subsequent- this Principle , itself also contemplative but in the feebler degree since it lies further away and cannot reproduce the quality or experiences of its prior- a Vision creates the Vision.

for no limit exists either to contemplation or to its possible objects, and this explains how the Soul is universal: where can this thing fail to be, which is one identical thing in every Soul; Vision is not cabined within the bournes of magnitude.

This, of course, does not mean that the Soul is present at the same strength in each and every place and thing- any more than that it is at the same strength in each of its own phases.

The Charioteer gives the two horses what he has seen and they, taking that gift, showed that they were hungry for what made that vision; there was something lacking to them: if in their desire they acted, their action aimed at what they craved for- and that was vision, and an object of vision.

(26) In conclusion we would again remind you that according to the Principle of Correspondence, which embodies the truth: "As Above so Below; as Below, so Above," all of the Seven Hermetic Principles are in full operation on all of the many planes, Physical Mental and Spiritual. The Principle of Mental Substance of course applies to all the planes, for all are held in the Mind of THE ALL. The Principle of Correspondence manifests in all, for there is a correspondence, harmony and agreement between the several planes. The Principle of Vibration manifests on all planes, in fact the very differences that go to make the "planes" arise from Vibration, as we have explained. The Principle of Polarity manifests on each plane, the extremes of the Poles being apparently opposite and contradictory. The Principle of Rhythm manifests on each Plane, the movement of the phenomena having its ebb and flow, rise and flow, incoming and outgoing. The Principle of Cause and Effect manifests on each Plane, every Effect having its Cause and every Cause having its effect. The Principle of Gender manifests on each Plane, the Creative Energy being always manifest, and operating along the lines of its Masculine and Feminine Aspects.

(2) 2. The Principle of Correspondence "As above, so below; as below, so above." --The Kybalion. This Principle embodies the truth that there is always a Correspondence between the laws and phenomena of the various planes of Being and Life. The old Hermetic axiom ran in these words: "As above, so below; as below, so above." And the grasping of this Principle gives one the means of solving many a dark paradox, and hidden secret of Nature. There are planes beyond our knowing, but when we apply the Principle of Correspondence to them we are able to understand much that would otherwise be unknowable to us. This Principle is of universal application and manifestation, on the various planes of the material, mental, and spiritual universe--it is an Universal Law. The ancient Hermetists considered this Principle as one of the most important mental instruments by which man was able to pry aside the obstacles which hid from view the Unknown. Its use even tore aside the Veil of Isis to the extent that a glimpse of the face of the goddess might be caught. Just as a knowledge of the Principles of Geometry enables man to measure distant suns and their movements, while seated in his observatory, so a knowledge of the Principle of Correspondence enables Man to reason intelligently from the Known to the Unknown. Studying the monad, he understands the archangel.

(5) 'Great householders and great theologians of olden times who knew this, have declared the same, saying, "No one can henceforth mention to us anything which we have not heard, perceived, or known ." Out of these (three colours or forms) they knew all.

(2) When the consciousness-principle getteth outside [the body, it sayeth to itself], Am I dead, or am I not dead ?' It cannot determine. It seeth its relatives and connexions as it had been used to seeing them before. It even heareth the wailings. The terrifying karmic illusions have not yet dawned. Nor have the frightful apparitions or experiences caused by the Lords of Death yet come.

(13) The Great Mental Plane comprises those forms of "living things" known to us in ordinary life, as well as certain other forms not so well known except to the occultist. The classification of the Seven Minor Mental Planes is more or less satisfactory and arbitrary (unless accompanied by elaborate explanations which are foreign to the purpose of this particular work), but we may as well mention them. They are as follows: 1. The Plane of Mineral Mind 2. The Plane of Elemental Mind (A) 3. The Plane of Plant Mind 4. The Plane of Elemental Mind (B) 5. The Plane of Animal Mind 6. The Plane of Elemental Mind (C) 7. The Plane of Human Mind

(23) All that we can say is that the Seven Minor Planes of the Great Spiritual Plane (each Minor Plane having its seven sub-divisions) comprise Beings possessing Life, Mind and Form as far above that of Man of to-day as the latter is above the earth-worm, mineral or even certain forms of Energy or Matter. The Life of these Beings so far transcends ours, that we cannot even think of the details of the same; their minds so far transcend ours, that to them we scarcely seem to "think," and our mental processes seem almost akin to material processes; the Matter of which their forms are composed is of the highest Planes of Matter, nay, some are even said to be "clothed in Pure Energy." What may be said of such Beings?

(1) As, then, Knowledge (episthmh) is an intellectual state, from which results the act of knowing, and becomes apprehension irrefragable by reason; so also ignorance is a receding impression, which can be dislodged by reason. And that which is overthrown as well as that which is elaborated by reason, is in our power. Akin to Knowledge is experience, cognition (eidhsis), Comprehension (sunesis), perception, and Science. Cognition (eidhsis) is the knowledge of universals by species; and Experience is comprehensive knowledge, which investigates the nature of each thing. Perception (nohsis) is the knowledge of intellectual objects; and Comprehension (sunesis) is the knolwedge of what is compared, or a comparison that cannot be annulled, or the faculty of comparing the objects with which Judgment and Knowledge are occupied, both of one and each and all that goes to make up one reason. And Science (gnwsis) is the knowledge of the thing in itself, or the knowledge which harmonizes with what takes place. Truth is the knowledge of the true; and the mental habit of truth is the knowledge of the things which are true. Now knowledge is constituted by the reason, and cannot be overthrown by another reason. What we do not, we do not either from not being able, or not being willing - or both. Accordingly we don't fly, since we neither can nor wish; we do not swim at present, for example, since we can indeed, but do not choose; and we are not as the Lord, since we wish, but cannot be: "for no disciple is above his master, and it is sufficient if we be as the master:" not m essence (for it is impossible for that, which is by adoption, to be equal in substance to that, which is by nature); but [we are as Him] only in our having been made immortal, and our being conversant with the contemplation of realities, and beholding the Father through what belongs to Him.

(10) Let this, then, be, for the uninitiated, a conducting guidance of the soul, which separates, as is meet things sacred and uniform from multiplicity, and apportions the harmonious elevation to the Orders severally in turn. But we, who have ascended by sacred gradations to the sources of the things performed, and have been religiously taught these (sources), shall recognize of what moulds they are the reliefs, and of what invisible things they are the likenesses. For, as is distinctly shewn in the Treatise concerning "Intelligible and Sensible," sacred things in sensible forms are copies of things intelligible, to which they lead and shew the way; and things intelligible are source and science of things hierarchical cognizable by the senses.

(41) According to the secret doctrine of the Chaldeans, the universe is divided into four states of being (planes or spheres): archetypal, intellectual, sidereal, and elemental. Each of these reveals the others; the superior controlling the inferior, and the inferior receiving influence from the superior. The archetypal plane was considered synonymous with the intellect of the Triune Divinity. Within this divine, incorporeal, and eternal sphere are included all the lower manifestations of life-all that is, has been, or ever shall be. Within the Kosmic Intellect all things spiritual or material exist as archetypes, or divine thought-forms, which is shown in the Table by a chain of secret similes.

(5) We accept and teach the view of the great Hermetic thinkers of all times, as well as of those illumined souls who have reached higher planes of being, both of whom assert that the inner nature of THE ALL is UNKNOWABLE. This must be so, for naught by THE ALL itself can comprehend its own nature and being.

(1) We undertook to discuss the question whether sight is possible in the absence of any intervening medium, such as air or some other form of what is known as transparent body: this is the time and place.

It has been explained that seeing and all sense-perception can occur only through the medium of some bodily substance, since in the absence of body the soul is utterly absorbed in the Intellectual Sphere. Sense-perception being the gripping not of the Intellectual but of the sensible alone, the soul, if it is to form any relationship of knowledge, or of impression, with objects of sense, must be brought in some kind of contact with them by means of whatever may bridge the gap.

The knowledge, then, is realized by means of bodily organs: through these, which are almost of one growth with it, being at least its continuations, it comes into something like unity with the alien, since this mutual approach brings about a certain degree of identity .

Admitting, then, that some contact with an object is necessary for knowing it, the question of a medium falls to the ground in the case of things identified by any form of touch; but in the case of sight- we leave hearing over for the present- we are still in doubt; is there need of some bodily substance between the eye and the illumined object?

No: such an intervening material may be a favouring circumstance, but essentially it adds nothing to seeing power. ! Dense bodies, such as clay, actually prevent sight; the less material the intervening substance is, the more clearly we see; the intervening substance, then, is a hindrance, or, if not that, at least not a help.

It will be objected that vision implies that whatever intervenes between seen and seer must first experience the object and be, as it were, shaped to it; we will be reminded that anyone facing to the object from the side opposite to ourselves sees it equally; we will be asked to deduce that if all the space intervening between seen and seer did not carry the impression of the object we could not receive it.

But all the need is met when the impression reaches that which is adapted to receive it; there is no need for the intervening space to be impressed. If it is, the impression will be of quite another order: the rod between the fisher's hand and the torpedo fish is not affected in the same way as the hand that feels the shock. And yet there too, if rod and line did not intervene, the hand would not be affected- though even that may be questioned, since after all the fisherman, we are told, is numbed if the torpedo merely lies in his net.

The whole matter seems to bring us back to that sympathy of which we have treated. If a certain thing is of a nature to be sympathetically affected by another in virtue of some similitude between them, then anything intervening, not sharing in that similitude, will not be affected, or at least not similarly. If this be so, anything naturally disposed to be affected will take the impression more vividly in the absence of intervening substance, even of some substance capable, itself, of being affected.