Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. III — G. R. S. Mead (1906)
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1 Cf. the same idea as expressed by Basilides (ap. Hipp., Philos., vii. 27), but in reversed order, when, speaking of the consummation of the world-process, and the final ascension of the "Sonship" with all its experience gained from union with matter, he says of the remaining souls, which have not reached the dignity of the Sonship, that the Great Ignorance shall come upon them for a space.
" Thus all the souls of this state of existence, whose nature is to remain immortal in this state of existence alone, remain without knowledge of anything different from or better than this state ; nor shall there be any rumour or knowledge of things superior in higher states, in order that the lower souls may not suffer pain by striving after impossible objects, just as though it were fish longing to feed on the mountains with sheep, for such a desire would end in their destruction. All things are indestructible if they remain in their proper condition, but subject to destruction if they desire to overleap and transgress their natural limits "(-F- ^- F., p. 270).
psychogenesis which has gone before was the direct teaching of Hermes to the writer; of no physical Hermes, however, but of that Hermes whose "Books" are hidden in the zones (5), of the Hermes whom the writer, as he would have us believe, came to know face to face only after his inner vision was opened, and he had gazed with all-seeing eyes " upon the mysteries of that new dawn " (4).
16. For the new and mysterious fabrication of the man-form, all the seven obedient Gods, to whom the man-souls are kin (17), are summoned by the chief of them, Hermes himself, the beloved son and messenger of the Supreme, " soul of My Soul, and holy mind of My own Mind." l
17- All of the seven promise to bestow the best they have on man.
18. The plasm out of which the man -form is to be modelled is the residue of the mixture out of which the Builders had already made the animal doubles. But the Builder of the man-frames was Hermes himself, who mixed the plasm with still more water.
19. Here the writer inserts a further piece of information concerning the source of his tradition. It is no longer as before what Hermes himself reveals to him in vision, but what the writer was told at a certain initiation called the "Black Rite." This rite was presided over by Kamephis, who is called the " earliest of all," or perhaps more correctly the " most primaeval of [us] all." Kamephis is thus conceived as the representative of a more ancient wisdom than that of Isis, and yet even he but hands on the tradition of Hermes.2
20. The souls are "enfleshed," and utter loud complaints. Apparently not all at first can speak articulately; most of them can only groan, or scream, i Qf. Cyril, C. Jul., i. 35 ; Frag. xvi. 2 Of. §§ 29 and 37.
or hiss. The leading class of souls can, however, so far dominate the plasm as to speak articulately, and so one of their number utters a desperate appeal to Heaven.
21. They have now lost their celestial state, and Heaven is shut away from them ; no longer can they see " without the light." They are shut down into a "heart's small compass"; the Sun of their being has become a light-spark only, hidden in the heart. This is, of course, the logos, the inmost reality in man.
22. The souls pray for some amelioration of their unhappy lot, and the conditions of the moral law are expounded to them. They who do rightly shall, on their body's dissolution, reascend to Heaven and be at rest ; they who do ill, shall work out their redemption under the law of metempsychosis, or change from body to body, from prison to prison.
23. Details of this metempsychosis are then given with special reference to the incarnations of the " more righteous," who shall be kings, philosophers and prophets. Such souls apparently, for it is not expressly so stated, shall, in passing round the wheel of rebirth, when out of incarnation in a human body, have some sort of life with the souls of the leading types of animals, which are given as eagles, lions, dragons, and dolphins. Or, if we are unjustified in this speculation, such souls shall in their animal parts have intimate relation with the noblest types of animal essence (24).