(47) And when one power toucheth or stirreth the other, and tuneth or soundeth, then the tune or sound goeth forth, and riseth up again in all the powers of the Father; and so all the powers of the Father are again affected therewith, whereby they are always impregnated with the tune, and continually generate it again in every power:

(1) What you afterwards say is as follows: “ That some of those who suffer a mental alienation, energize enthusiastically on hearing cymbals or drums, or a certain modulated sound, such as those who are Corybantically inspired, those who are possessed by Sabazius, and those who are inspired by the mother of the Gods .” It is necessary, therefore, to discuss the causes of these things, and to show how they are definitely produced. That music, therefore, is of a motive nature, and is adapted to excite the affections, and that the melody of pipes produces or heals the disordered passions of the soul, changes the temperaments or dispositions of the body, and by some melodies causes a Bacchic fury, but by others occasions this fury to cease; and, likewise, how the differences of these accord with the several dispositions of the soul, and that an unstable and variable melody is adapted to ecstasies, such as are the melodies of Olympus, and others of the like kind; all these appear to me to be adduced in a way foreign to enthusiasm. For they are physical and human, and the work of our art; but nothing whatever of a divine nature in them presents itself to the view.

(11) A little reflection on what we have said will show the student that the Principle of Vibration underlies the wonderful phenomena of the power manifested by the Masters and Adepts, who are able to apparently set aside the Laws of Nature, but who, in reality, are simply using one law against another; one principle against others; and who accomplish their results by changing the vibrations of material objects, or forms of energy, and thus perform what are commonly called "miracles."

(31) Our problem embraces all act and all experience throughout the entire kosmos- whether due to nature, in the current phrase, or effected by art. The natural proceeds, we must hold, from the All towards its members and from the members to the All, or from member to other member: the artificial either remains, as it began, within the limit of the art- attaining finality in the artificial product alone- or is the expression of an art which calls to its aid natural forces and agencies, and so sets up act and experience within the sphere of the natural.

When I speak of the act and experience of the All I mean the total effect of the entire kosmic circuit upon itself and upon its members: for by its motion it sets up certain states both within itself and upon its parts, upon the bodies that move within it and upon all that it communicates to those other parts of it, the things of our earth.

The action of part upon part is manifest; there are the relations and operations of the sun, both towards the other spheres and towards the things of earth; and again relations among elements of the sun itself, of other heavenly bodies, of earthly things and of things in the other stars, demand investigation.

As for the arts: Such as look to house building and the like are exhausted when that object is achieved; there are again those- medicine, farming, and other serviceable pursuits- which deal helpfully with natural products, seeking to bring them to natural efficiency; and there is a class- rhetoric, music and every other method of swaying mind or soul, with their power of modifying for better or for worse- and we have to ascertain what these arts come to and what kind of power lies in them.

On all these points, in so far as they bear on our present purpose, we must do what we can to work out some approximate explanation.

It is abundantly evident that the Circuit is a cause; it modifies, firstly, itself and its own content, and undoubtedly also it tells on the terrestrial, not merely in accordance with bodily conditions but also by the states of the soul it sets up; and each of its members has an operation upon the terrestrial and in general upon all the lower.

Whether there is a return action of the lower upon the higher need not trouble us now: for the moment we are to seek, as far as discussion can exhibit it, the method by which action takes place; and we do not challenge the opinions universally or very generally entertained.

We take the question back to the initial act of causation. It cannot be admitted that either heat or cold and the like what are known as the primal qualities of the elements- or any admixture of these qualities, should be the first causes we are seeking; equally inacceptable, that while the sun's action is all by heat, there is another member of the Circuit operating wholly by cold- incongruous in the heavens and in a fiery body- nor can we think of some other star operating by liquid fire.

Such explanations do not account for the differences of things, and there are many phenomena which cannot be referred to any of these causes. Suppose we allow them to be the occasion of moral differences- determined, thus, by bodily composition and constitution under a reigning heat or cold- does that give us a reasonable explanation of envy, jealously, acts of violence? Or, if it does, what, at any rate, are we to think of good and bad fortune, rich men and poor, gentle blood, treasure-trove?

An immensity of such examples might be adduced, all leading far from any corporeal quality that could enter the body and soul of a living thing from the elements: and it is equally impossible that the will of the stars, a doom from the All, any deliberation among them, should be held responsible for the fate of each and all of their inferiors. It is not to be thought that such beings engage themselves in human affairs in the sense of making men thieves, slave-dealers, burglars, temple-strippers, or debased effeminates practising and lending themselves to disgusting actions: that is not merely unlike gods; it is unlike mediocre men; it is, perhaps, beneath the level of any existing being where there is not the least personal advantage to be gained.

(1) We may, however, beginning from another hypothesis, demonstrate the same thing. We must admit that the corporeal parts of the universe are neither sluggish nor destitute of power, but as much as they excel our concerns in perfection, beauty, and magnitude, by so much also is the power which is present with them greater. Each, likewise, by itself is capable of effecting different things, and produces certain different energies. They are also capable of effecting things much more numerous on each other. And besides this, a certain multiform production extends to parts from wholes; partly from sympathy, through similitude of powers, and partly from the aptitude of the agent to the patient. If, therefore, certain evils and destructions happen to parts, they are salutary and good as with reference to wholes and the harmony of the universe, but to parts they introduce a necessary corruption, either from not being able to bear the energies of wholes, or from a certain other commixture and temperament of their own imbecility, or, in the third place, from the privation of symmetry in the parts to each other.

(3) Such, therefore, as the truth is, such also it is requisite to unfold it to others. It must be said, then, that the maker of images neither uses the celestial circulations, nor the powers which are inherent in them, nor those powers which are naturally established about them; nor, in short, is it possible to come into contact with them. But he artificially, and not theurgically, applies himself to the last effluxions which openly proceed from the nature of them, about the last part of the universe. For these effluxions, I think, being mingled with a partial matter, are capable of being changed and transformed differently at different times. They likewise receive the transposition, from some things to others, of the powers which are in partial natures. The variety, however, of such like energies, and the composition of a multitude of material powers, are not only entirely separated from divine fabrication, but also from natural production. For nature produces her proper works collectively, and at once, and accomplishes all things by simple and incomposite energies. Hence it remains that a commixture of this kind, about the last and manifest celestial effluxion, and about the things which are moved by a celestial nature, is artificial.

(69) Therefore we must consider, that the Noise in the Tincture of Man is [of a] higher [Nature] than [that] in the Beasts; for Man searches and distinguishes all Things which give a Sound, and knows from whence it comes, and how it exists, which the Beasts cannot do, but stare at it, and knows not what it is; whereby it may be understood, that the Original of Man, is out of the Eternal, because he can distinguish all Things that in the Out-Birth came out of the Eternal. And hence it is, that the Body (seeing all Things out of the eternal Nothing are caused to be Something which is comprehensible [or palpable,] and yet there, that Nothing is not a mere Nothing, but is a Source) after the Corrupting shall stand in the eternal Figure, and not in the Spirit, because it is not out of the eternal Spirit; for otherwise, if it were out of the [eternal] Spirit, then it should also search out the Beginning of every Thing, as [well as] Man, who in his Sound receives and distinguishes all Things.

(1) Since, however, we are narrating the wisdom employed by Pythagoras in instructing his disciples, it will not be unappropriate to relate that which is proximate in a following order to this, viz. how he invented the harmonic science, and harmonic ratios. But for this purpose we must begin a little higher. Intently considering once, and reasoning with himself, whether it would be possible to devise a certain instrumental assistance to the hearing, which should be firm and unerring, such as the sight obtains through the compass and the rule, or, by Jupiter, through a dioptric instrument; or such as the touch obtains through the balance, or the contrivance of measures;—thus considering, as he was walking near a brazier’s shop, he heard from a certain divine casualty the hammers beating out a piece of iron on an anvil, and producing sounds that accorded with each other, one combination only excepted.

But he recognized in those sounds, the diapason, the diapente, and the diatessaron, harmony. He saw, however, that the sound which was between the diatessaron and the diapente was itself by itself dissonant, yet, nevertheless, gave completion to that which was the greater sound among them. Being delighted, therefore, to find that the thing which he was anxious to discover had succeeded to his wishes by divine assistance, he went into the brazier’s shop, and found by various experiments, that the difference of sound arose from the magnitude of the hammers, but not from the force of the strokes, nor from the figure of the hammers, nor from the transposition of the iron which was beaten. When, therefore, he had accurately examined the weights and the equal counterpoise of the hammers, he returned home, and fixed one stake diagonally to the walls, lest if there were many, a certain difference should arise from this circumstance, or in short, lest the peculiar nature of each of the stakes should cause a suspicion of mutation.

Afterwards, from this stake he suspended four chords consisting of the same materials, and of the same magnitude and thickness, and likewise equally twisted. To the extremity of each chord also he tied a weight. And when he had so contrived, that the chords were perfectly equal to each other in length, he afterwards alternately struck two chords at once, and found the before-mentioned symphonies, viz. a different symphony in a different combination. For he discovered that the chord which was stretched by the greatest weight, produced, when compared with that which was stretched by the smallest, the symphony diapason. But the former of these weights was twelve pounds, and the latter six. And, therefore, being in a duple ratio, it exhibited the consonance diapason; which the weights themselves rendered apparent.

But again, he found that the chord from which the greatest weight was suspended compared with that from which the weight next to the smallest depended, and which weight was eight pounds, produced the symphony diapente. Hence he discovered that this symphony is in a sesquialter ratio, in which ratio also the weights were to each other. And he found that the chord which was stretched by the greatest weight, produced, when compared with that which was next to it in weight, and was nine pounds, the symphony diatessaron, analogously to the weights. This ratio, therefore, he discovered to be sesquitertian; but that of the chord from which a weight of nine pounds was suspended, to the chord which had the smallest weight [or six pounds,] to be sesquialter.

For 9 is to 6 in a sesquialter ratio. In like manner, the chord next to that from which the smallest weight depended, was to that which had the smallest weight, in a sesquitertian ratio, [for it was the ratio of 8 to 6,] but to the chord which had the greatest weight, in a sesquialter ratio [for such is the ratio of 12 to 8.] Hence, that which is between the diapente and the diatessaron, and by which the diapente exceeds the diatessaron, is proved to be in an epogdoan ratio, or that of 9 to 8. But either way it may be proved that the diapason is a system consisting of the diapente in conjunction with the diatessaron, just as the duple ratio consists of the sesquialter and sesquitertian, as for instance, 12, 8, and 6; or conversely, of the diatessaron and the diapente, as in the duple ratio of the sesquitertian and sesquialter ratios, as for instance 12, 9, and 6.

After this manner, therefore, and in this order, having conformed both his hand and his hearing to the suspended weights, and having established according to them the ratio of the habitudes, he transferred by an easy artifice the common suspension of the chords from the diagonal stake to the limen of the instrument, which he called chordotonon . But he produced by the aid of pegs a tension of the chords analogous to that effected by the weights.

(20) Thus Man is drawn and held of both; but the Center stands in him, and [he] has the Balance between the two Wills, viz. between the original and the reconceived [Will] to the Kingdom of Heaven; and in each Scale there is a Maker, who forms what he lets into his Mind; for the Mind is the Center of the Balance, the Senses [or Thoughts] are the Weights that pass out of one Scale into the other; for the one Scale is the Kingdom of the Fierceness, and of Anger; and the other is the Regeneration (in the Virtue [or Power] of God) in the Heaven.

(4) A certain thing of this kind also may take place in the harmony and crasis of the universe: for the same things may be the salvation of the whole, through the perfection of the things inherent and the recipients; but may be noxious to the parts, through their partible privation of symmetry. In the motion, therefore, of the universe, all the circulations preserve the whole world invariably the same; but some one of the parts is frequently injured by another part, which we see is sometimes the case in a dance. Again, therefore, corruptibility and mutability are passions connascent with partial natures. But it is not proper to ascribe these to wholes and first causes, either as if they existed in them, or as if they proceeded to terrestrial substances from them. Hence, through these things it is demonstrated, that neither the celestial Gods, nor their gifts, are effective of evil.

(39) If you should in this world bring many thousand sorts of musical instruments together, and all should be tuned in the best manner, most artificially, and the most skilful masters of music should play on them in concert together, all would be no more than the holdings and barkings of dogs, in comparison with the divine music, which riseth up through the divine sound and tunes from eternity to eternity.

(601) Am I not right? Yes. Then let us have a clear understanding, and not be satisfied with half an explanation. Proceed. Of the painter we say that he will paint reins, and he will paint a bit? Yes. And the worker in leather and brass will make them? Certainly. But does the painter know the right form of the bit and reins? Nay, hardly even the workers in brass and leather who make them; only the horseman who knows how to use them—he knows their right form. Most true. And may we not say the same of all things? What? That there are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them? Yes. And the excellence or beauty or truth of every structure, animate or inanimate, and of every action of man, is relative to the use for which nature or the artist has intended them. True. Then the user of them must have the greatest experience of them, and he must indicate to the maker the good or bad qualities which develop themselves in use; for example, the flute-player will tell the flute-maker which of his flutes is satisfactory to the performer; he will tell him how he ought to make them, and the other will attend to his instructions? Of course. The one knows and therefore speaks with authority about the goodness and badness of flutes, while the other, confiding in him, will do what he is told by him? True. The instrument is the same, but about the excellence or badness of it the maker will only attain to a correct belief; and this he will gain from him who knows, by talking to him

(54) Now when the light shineth through the astringent, contracted body of nature, and mitigateth it, then the mild, beneficent welldoing generateth itself in the body, and then the hard power grows very mild, and melteth, as ice in the heat of the sun, and is extenuated or rarefied, as water is in the air; and yet the stock of nature, as to the heavenly comprehensibility, remaineth the same.

(67) Now what is it that makes the Hearing, that you can hear that which stirs and makes a Noise? Wilt thou say that it is caused by the Noise of that outward Thing which gives the Sound? No! there must also be somewhat that must receive the Sound, and qualify or mix with the Sound, and distinguish the Sound of what is played or sung; the outward cannot do that alone, the inward must receive and distinguish the Noise. Behold, here you find the Beginning of the Life, and the Tincture wherein the Life consists; for the Tincture of the Crack in the Springing up of the Life, in the Breaking-open of the dark Gate, stands in the Sounding, and has its Gate open (next the Fire-flash near the Eyes) and receives the Noise of whatsoever sounds.

(2) We must rather, therefore, say, that sounds and melodies are appropriately consecrated to the Gods. There is, also, an alliance in these sounds and melodies to the proper orders and powers of the several Gods, to the motions in the universe itself, and to the harmonious sounds which proceed from the motions. Conformably, therefore, to such like adaptations of melodies to the Gods, the Gods themselves become present. For there is not any thing which intercepts; so that whatever has but a casual similitude to, directly participates of, them . A perfect possession, likewise, immediately takes place, and a plenitude of a more excellent essence and power. Not that the body and the soul are in each other, and sympathize, and are copassive with the melodies; but because the inspiration of the Gods is not separated from divine harmony, but is originally adapted and allied to it, on this account it is participated by it in appropriate measures. Hence also, it is excited and restrained according to the several orders of the Gods. But this inspiration must by no means be called an ablation, purgation, or medicine. For it is not primarily implanted in us from a certain disease, or excess, or redundance; but the whole principle and participation of it are supernally derived from the Gods.

(2) For, let “ ignorance and deception be error and impiety ,” yet it does not follow that, on this account, things which are offered to the Gods, and divine works, are false. For a conception of the mind does not conjoin theurgists with the Gods; since, if this were the case, what would hinder those who philosophize theoretically, from having a theurgic union with the Gods? Now, however, in reality, this is not the case. For the perfect efficacy of ineffable works, which are divinely performed in a way surpassing all intelligence, and the power of inexplicable symbols, which are known only to the Gods, impart theurgic union. Hence, we do not perform these things through intellectual perception; since, if this were the case, the intellectual energy of them would be imparted by us; neither of which is true. For when we do not energize intellectually, the synthemata themselves perform by themselves their proper work, and the ineffable power of the Gods itself knows, by itself, its own images. It does not, however, know them, as if excited by our intelligence; for neither is it natural that things which comprehend should be excited by those that are comprehended, nor perfect by imperfect natures, nor wholes by parts. Hence, neither are divine causes precedaneously called into energy by our intellections; but it is requisite to consider these, and all the best dispositions of the soul, and also the purity pertaining to us, as certain concauses; the things which properly excite the divine will being divine synthemata themselves. And thus, things pertaining to the Gods, are moved by themselves, and do not receive from any inferior nature a certain principle in themselves of their own proper energy.

(9) The Law of Compensation is that the swing in one direction determines the swing in the opposite direction, or to the opposite pole-the one balances, or counterbalances, the other. On the Physical Plane we see many examples of this Law. The pendulum of the clock swings a certain distance to the right, and then an equal distance to the left. The seasons balance each other in the same way. The tides follow the same Law. And the same Law is manifested in all the phenomena of Rhythm. The pendulum, with a short swing in one direction, has but a short swing in the other; while the long swing to the right invariably means the long swing to the left. An object hurled upward to a certain height has an equal distance to traverse on its return. The force with which a projectile is sent upward a mile is reproduced when the projectile returns to the earth on its return journey. This Law is constant on the Physical Plane, as reference to the standard authorities will show you.

(35) Behold, thou reasonable Soul, to thee I speak, and not to the Body, thou only apprehendest it:- When the Birth is thus continually generated, then every Form has a Center to the Regeneration; for the whole divine Essence [or Substance] stands in continual and in eternal P Generating (but unchangeably) like the Mind of Man, the Thoughts being continually generated out of the Mind, and the Will and Desiring out of the Thoughts. Out of the Will and Desirousness [is] the Work [generated] which is made a Substance, in the Will, and then the Mouth and Hands, go on to perform what was substantial in the Will.

(56) And so the Soul of Man is out of the same Balance in the Angle of the recomprehended Will, towards the Light, and also in the first Will in itself, in its own Center, where behind it the Darkness is comprehended, and before it is the End of the eternal Band, and in itself there would be nothing but an anxious Source [or Property;] and if any Thing else were to be in it, then the first Will (in the eternal Band) must conceive another Will in itself, to go out of the dark Source [or Property,] into a joyful Habitation without a Source.

(11) The administration of the kosmos is to be thought of as that of a living unit: there is the action determined by what is external, and has to do with the parts, and there is that determined by the internal and by the principle: thus a doctor basing his treatment on externals and on the parts directly affected will often be baffled and obliged to all sorts of calculation, while Nature will act on the basis of principle and need no deliberation. And in so far as the kosmos is a conducted thing, its administration and its administrator will follow not the way of the doctor but the way of Nature.

And in the case of the universe, the administration is all the less complicated from the fact that the soul actually circumscribes, as parts of a living unity, all the members which it conducts. For all the Kinds included in the universe are dominated by one Kind, upon which they follow, fitted into it, developing from it, growing out of it, just as the Kind manifested in the bough is related to the Kind in the tree as a whole.

What place, then, is there for reasoning, for calculation, what place for memory, where wisdom and knowledge are eternal, unfailingly present, effective, dominant, administering in an identical process?

The fact that the product contains diversity and difference does not warrant the notion that the producer must be subject to corresponding variations. On the contrary, the more varied the product, the more certain the unchanging identity of the producer: even in the single animal the events produced by Nature are many and not simultaneous; there are the periods, the developments at fixed epochs- horns, beard, maturing breasts, the acme of life, procreation- but the principles which initially determined the nature of the being are not thereby annulled; there is process of growth, but no diversity in the initial principle. The identity underlying all the multiplicity is confirmed by the fact that the principle constituting the parent is exhibited unchanged, undiminished, in the offspring. We have reason, then, for thinking that one and the same wisdom envelops both, and that this is the unalterable wisdom of the kosmos taken as a whole; it is manifold, diverse and yet simplex, presiding over the most comprehensive of living beings, and in no wise altered within itself by this multiplicity, but stably one Reason-Principle, the concentrated totality of things: if it were not thus all things, it would be a wisdom of the later and partial, not the wisdom of the Supreme.