(11) is above is generally considered superior in dignity and power, in reality that which is in the center is superior and anterior to both that which is said to be above and that which is said to be below. Therefore, it must be said that the first--which is considered as being above--is actually in the center, while both of the others (which are said to be either above or below) are actually beneath. This point can be further simplified if the reader will consider above as indicating degree of proximity to source and below as indicating degree of distance from source, source being posited in the actual center and relative distance being the various points along the radii from the center toward the circumference. In matters pertaining to philosophy and theology, up may be considered as toward the center and down as toward the circumference. Center is spirit; circumference is matter. Therefore, up is toward spirit along an ascending scale of spirituality; down is toward matter along an ascending scale of materiality. The latter concept is partly expressed by the apex of a cone which, when viewed from above, is seen as a point in the exact center of the circumference formed by the base of the cone.

(62) Timaeus: this is a wholly erroneous supposition For inasmuch as the whole Heaven is spherical, all its outermost parts, being equally distant from the center, must really be “outermost” in a similar degree; and one must conceive of the center, which is distant from all the outermost parts by the same measures, as being opposite to them all. Seeing, then, that the Cosmos is actually of this nature, which of the bodies mentioned can one set “above” or “below” without incurring justly the charge of applying a wholly unsuitable name? For its central region cannot rightly be termed either “above” or “below,” but just “central”; while its circumference neither is central nor has it any one part more divergent than another from the center or any of its opposite parts. But to that which is in all ways uniform, what opposite names can we suppose are rightly applicable, or in what sense? For suppose there were a solid body evenly-balanced at the center of the universe,

(5) Often for the purpose of exposition- as a help towards stating the nature of the produced multiplicity- we use the example of many lines radiating from one centre; but, while we provide for individualization, we must carefully preserve mutual presence. Even in the case of our circle we need not think of separated radii; all may be taken as forming one surface: where there is no distinction even upon the one surface but all is power and reality undifferentiated, all the beings may be thought of as centres uniting at one central centre: we ignore the radial lines and think of their terminals at that centre, where they are at one. Restore the radii; once more we have lines, each touching a generating centre of its own, but that centre remains coincident with the one first centre; the centres all unite in that first centre and yet remain what they were, so that they are as many as are the lines to which they serve as terminals; the centres themselves appear as numerous as the lines starting from gem and yet all those centres constitute a unity.

Thus we may liken the Intellectual Beings in their diversity to many centres coinciding with the one centre and themselves at one in it but appearing multiple on account of the radial lines- lines which do not generate the centres but merely lead to them. The radii, thus, afford a serviceable illustration for the mode of contact by which the Intellectual Unity manifests itself as multiple and multipresent.

(15) The centre in the midst of conditions," is a very fine expression. The centre is omnipresent; everything is contained in it; it is connected with the release of the whole process of creation. The condition is the portal. The condition, that is the fulfilment of this condition, makes the beginning, but it does not bring about the rest with inevitable necessity. The meaning of these two words is very luid and subtle.

(104) Now when I write here concerning the midst or centre, that the fountain of the divine birth or geniture is in the midst or centre, the meaning is not that in heaven there is a peculiar or several place, or a peculiar several body, wherein the fire of the divine life riseth up, out of which the seven spirits of God go forth into the whole deep of the Father.

(11) Since there is a Soul which reasons upon the right and good- for reasoning is an enquiry into the rightness and goodness of this rather than that- there must exist some permanent Right, the source and foundation of this reasoning in our soul; how, else, could any such discussion be held? Further, since the soul's attention to these matters is intermittent, there must be within us an Intellectual-Principle acquainted with that Right not by momentary act but in permanent possession. Similarly there must be also the principle of this principle, its cause, God. This Highest cannot be divided and allotted, must remain intangible but not bound to space, it may be present at many points, wheresoever there is anything capable of accepting one of its manifestations; thus a centre is an independent unity; everything within the circle has its term at the centre; and to the centre the radii bring each their own. Within our nature is such a centre by which we grasp and are linked and held; and those of us are firmly in the Supreme whose collective tendency is There.

(40) As far as the middle point or centre has kindled itself, just so big is the sun; for the sun is nothing else but a kindled point in the body of nature.

(9) According to another concept of the ancient wisdom, all bodies--whether spiritual or material--have three centers, called by the Greeks the upper center, the middle center, and the lower center. An apparent ambiguity will here be noted. To diagram or symbolize adequately abstract mental verities is impossible, for the diagrammatic representation of one aspect of metaphysical relationships may be an actual contradiction of some other aspect. While that which

(8) Every soul that knows its history is aware, also, that its movement, unthwarted, is not that of an outgoing line; its natural course may be likened to that in which a circle turns not upon some external but on its own centre, the point to which it owes its rise. The soul's movement will be about its source; to this it will hold, poised intent towards that unity to which all souls should move and the divine souls always move, divine in virtue of that movement; for to be a god is to be integral with the Supreme; what stands away is man still multiple, or beast.

Is then this "centre" of our souls the Principle for which we are seeking?

We must look yet further: we must admit a Principle in which all these centres coincide: it will be a centre by analogy with the centre of the circle we know. The soul is not a circle in the sense of the geometric figure but in that it at once contains the Primal Nature and is contained by it , that it owes its origin to such a centre and still more that the soul, uncontaminated, is a self-contained entity.

In our present state- part of our being weighed down by the body, as one might have the feet under water with all the rest untouched- we bear- ourselves aloft by that- intact part and, in that, hold through our own centre to the centre of all the centres, just as the centres of the great circles of a sphere coincide with that of the sphere to which all belong. Thus we are secure.

If these circles were material and not spiritual, the link with the centres would be local; they would lie round it where it lay at some distant point: since the souls are of the Intellectual, and the Supreme still loftier, we understand that contact is otherwise procured, that is by those powers which connect Intellectual agent with Intellectual Object; this all the more, since the Intellect grasps the Intellectual object by the way of similarity, identity, in the sure link of kindred. Material mass cannot blend into other material mass: unbodied beings are not under this bodily limitation; their separation is solely that of otherness, of differentiation; in the absence of otherness, it is similars mutually present.

Thus the Supreme as containing no otherness is ever present with us; we with it when we put otherness away. It is not that the Supreme reaches out to us seeking our communion: we reach towards the Supreme; it is we that become present. We are always before it: but we do not always look: thus a choir, singing set in due order about the conductor, may turn away from that centre to which all should attend: let it but face aright and it sings with beauty, present effectively. We are ever before the Supreme- cut off is utter dissolution; we can no longer be- but we do not always attend: when we look, our Term is attained; this is rest; this is the end of singing ill; effectively before Him, we lift a choral song full of God.

(6) The self-existent Super-goodness then, as projecting the first gift of self-existent being, is celebrated by the elder and first of the participations; and being itself is from It, and in It; as also the sources of things being, and all the things that be, and the things howsoever sustained by being, and that irresistibly, and comprehensively and uniformly. For even in a monad, every number preexists in the form of a unit, and the monad holds every number in itself singly. And every number is united in the monad, but so far as it advances from the monad, so far it is distributed and multiplied. And in a centre, all the lines of the circle coexist within one union, and the point holds all the straight lines in itself, uniformly united, both to each other, and to the one source from which they proceeded, and in the centre itself they are completely united; but standing slightly distant from it, they are slightly separated; but when more apart, more so. And in one word, the nearer they are to the centre, the more they are united to it and to each other? and the more they stand apart from it, the more they stand apart from each other.

(96) That is, they climb either upward or downward, backward or forward, or crossways, and so the Heart of God is always in the midst or centre, and fitteth itself to every qualifying or fountain spirit.

(74) ["The angelical king is the centre or fountain; as Adam's soul is the beginning and centre of all souls. And, as from the place of the sun was created and generated the planetic wheel or sphere, wherein each star is desirous of the splendour and power of the sun, so the angels are desirous of their Cherubim or prince; all according to God, and to his similitude."]

(54) Timaeus: and the short sides together as to a center, there is produced from those triangles, six in number, one equilateral triangle. And when four equilateral triangles are combined so that three plane angles

(41) Now in the same way that the human life riseth up, so also in that way has the birth of the seven planets and stars risen and sprung up; and therein there is no difference at all. The Centre or Circle of the Birth of Life. The great Depth.

(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.

(3) According to this concept, God is not only a Center but also Area. Centralization is the first step towards limitation. Therefore, centers which form in the substances of AIN SOPH are finite because they are predestined to dissolution back into the Cause of themselves, while AIN SOPH Itself is infinite because It is the ultimate condition of all things. The circular shape given to AIN SOPH signifies that space is hypothetically enclosed within a great crystal-like globe, outside of which there is nothing, not even a vacuum. Within this globe--symbolic of AIN SOPH--creation and dissolution take place. Every element and principle that will ever be used in the eternities of Kosmic birth, growth, and decay is within the transparent substances of this intangible sphere. It is the Kosmic Egg which is not broken till the great day "Be With Us," which is the end of the Cycle of Necessity, when all things return to their ultimate cause.

(57) For the light is in the midst or centre of the birth or geniture, and is the place of life wherein the meek life of God is generated from or out of all the powers of the Father, and in the same place the Holy Ghost goeth forth from the Father and the Son.

(20) But the king is the heart of all the qualities, and has his circumference, court, [or province] quarters or residence in the midst or centre, like a fountain: As the sun stands in the midst among the planets, and is a king of the stars, and the heart of nature in this world, so great also is a Cherubim or king of angels.

(53) All qualities take their beginning-original [finite or transitory origin] in their middle or centre: Therefore observe where the fire is generated; for there riseth up the flash of the life of all the qualities, and it is caught in the water, so that it remaineth shining; and it is dried in the astringency, so that it remaineth corporeal, and becometh shining, bright and clear. Observe here:

(63) Timaeus: it would never be carried away to the extremities because of their uniformity in all respects; nay, even were a man to travel round it in a circle he would often call the same part of it both “above” and “below,” according as he stood now at one pole, now at the opposite. For seeing that the Whole is, as we said just now, spherical, the assertion that it has one region “above” and one “below” does not become a man of sense. Now the origin of these names and their true meaning which accounts for our habit of making these verbal distinctions even about the whole Heaven,