And how does this image set to its task immediately after it comes into being? By memory of what it has seen? But it was utterly non-existent, it could have no vision, either it or the Mother they bestow upon it. Another difficulty: These people come upon earth not as Soul-Images but as veritable Souls; yet, by great stress and strain, one or two of them are able to stir beyond the limits of the world, and when they do attain Reminiscence barely carry with them some slight recollection of the Sphere they once knew: on the other hand, this Image, a new-comer into being, is able, they tell us- as also is its Mother- to form at least some dim representation of the celestial world. It is an Image, stamped in Matter, yet it not merely has the conception of the Supreme and adopts from that world the plan of this, but knows what elements serve the purpose. How, for instance, did it come to make fire before anything else? What made it judge fire a better first than some other object? Again, if it created the fire of the Universe by thinking of fire, why did it not make the Universe at a stroke by thinking of the Universe? It must have conceived the product complete from the first; the constituent elements would be embraced in that general conception. The creation must have been in all respects more according to the way of Nature than to that of the arts- for the arts are of later origin than Nature and the Universe, and even at the present stage the partial things brought into being by the natural Kinds do not follow any such order- first fire, then the several other elements, then the various blends of these- on the contrary the living organism entire is encompassed and rounded off within the uterine germ. Why should not the material of the Universe be similarly embraced in a Kosmic Type in which earth, fire and the rest would be included? We can only suppose that these people themselves, acting by their more authentic Soul, would have produced the world by such a process, but that the Creator had not wit to do so. And yet to conceive the vast span of the Heavens- to be great in that degree- to devise the obliquity of the Zodiac and the circling path of all the celestial bodies beneath it, and this earth of ours- and all in such a way that reason can be given for the plan- this could never be the work of an Image; it tells of that Power next to the very Highest Beings. Against their will, they themselves admit this: their "outshining upon the darkness," if the doctrine is sifted, makes it impossible to deny the true origins of the Kosmos. Why should this down-shining take place unless such a process belonged to a universal law? Either the process is in the order of Nature or against that order. If it is in the nature of things, it must have taken place from eternity; if it is against the nature of things, then the breach of natural right exists in the Supreme also; evil antedates this world; the cause of evil is not the world; on the contrary the Supreme is the evil to us; instead of the Soul's harm coming from this sphere, we have this Sphere harmed by the Soul. In fine, the theory amounts to making the world one of the Primals, and with it the Matter from which it emerges. The Soul that declined, they tell us, saw and illuminated the already existent Darkness. Now whence came that Darkness? If they tell us that the Soul created the Darkness by its Decline, then, obviously, there was nowhere for the Soul to decline to; the cause of the decline was not the Darkness but the very nature of the Soul. The theory, therefore, refers the entire process to pre-existing compulsions: the guilt inheres in the Primal Beings.

And so now God created the Image, and Similitude, out of the eternal Element, in which the eternal Wonders are originally, and [God] breathed into him...

Now the Question is; What is God's Image? Behold, and consider the Deity, and then you will light upon it. For God is not a bestial Man; but Man...

What is, then, the cause of the image? The majesty of the face, which exhibits the figure to the painter, to be honoured by his name; for the form is ...

This mold was called the Archetype, and this Archetype was in the Supreme Mind long before the process of creation began. Beholding the Archetypes, th...

For every Creature looks but into its Mother that is fixed [or predominant] in it. The material Creature sees a material Substance, but an immaterial ...

The thought which is set between those of the right and those of the left is a power of begetting. All those which the first ones will wish to make,...

Thus is the Birth (and also the first Original) of all the Creatures; and it standeth yet in such a Birth in the Essence; and after such a Manner it...

The maker of images, however, is said to elaborate them through the revolving stars. But the thing does not in reality subsist so as it appears to do....

Thus spake to me Man-Shepherd. And I say: Whence then have Nature's elements their being? To this He answer gives: From Will of God. [Nature] received...

Although indeed, Nature takes hold of the Child in the Mother's Body [or Womb,] and [shapes, figures, or] images it; yet the Region of the Stars has...

Reason must not imagine, that God ever made any Beast out of a Lump of Earth, as a Potter makes a Pot. But he said, Let there come forth all Sorts of...

If you lift up your Thoughts and Minds, and ride upon the Chariot of the Soul, as is before mentioned, and look upon yourself, and all Creatures, and...

The Archetypal and Creative Mind--first through its Paternal Foundation and afterwards through secondary Gods called Intelligences--poured our the...

God created the soul after the image of His highest perfection. He issued forth from the treasure-house of the everlasting Fatherhood in which He had...

Man's Image born of a Woman, here in this Life, is in a threefold Form, and stands in three Principles [or Beginnings;] viz. the Soul, that has its...

Created was the matter which they have; Created was the informing influence Within these stars that round about them go. The soul of every brute and...

Although indeed we can say this with Ground of Truth, that the Constellation images and forms no Man, as to [make him to be] the Similitude and Image...

You adduce, however, as a thing by no means to be despised, “ the artificers of efficacious images .” But I should wonder if these were admitted by...

With respect to the powers, therefore, which remain in the heavens in the divine bodies themselves, there can be no doubt that all of them are...

For as the first Mother (considering her in the Original without the Light) is sour, [or harsh,] dark, hard, and cold, and yet there is the Water-Spir...