The Hermetic Axiom: As Above So Below: "the key that unlocks all locks"
Don Salmon
From, “The Yoga of the katha Upanishad”, by Sri Krishna Prem. An introduction otto the “Hermetic Axiom”: “As Above, So Below”
[Verses from the Katha Upanishad, Chapter 4, verses 10 and 11]
Whatever is here, that is there;
Whatever is There, that also is here;
From death to death he goes
Who sees things here as different
By the manas is this to be realized;
There is not even the slightest difference here.
From death to death he goes
Who sees things here as different
We now come to one of the central teachings that are inscribed on the Inner Door, the teaching known in the West as the Hermetic Axiom and given in the celebrated Emerald Tablet as follows –
“It is true, certain and without falsehood, that whatever is below is like that
which is above; and that which is above is like that which is below: to
accomplish the one Wonderful Work.”
This teaching is to be fond in all the mystical schools. Thus Plotinus tells us that ‘all that
is Yonder is also here’ and the Kabalistic tradition of the Zohar affirms that
‘esoterically the man below corresponds entirely to the Man Above.’ [Footnote: There is also a version in the
Tantrik tradition (Vishvasara Tantra): Whatever is here I Elsewhere, what is
not here is nowhere at all’ One
may also add that the sentence in the Lord’s Prayer ‘Thy will be done on earth
as in heaven’ has the same meaning.]
There are those who have not yet found the Inner Door and who will be disposed to question the application of the term axiom to this teaching. Some will call it mere analogy (and perhaps a dubious analogy) while others will consider that it would be better to call it a postulate of occult philosophy rather than an axiom. Nevertheless the fact remains that for those who have found that Door it is an axiom, the axiom in act, upon which the Hidden Science is built. To him who reaches that Door its truth is as self-evident as is the statement that two and two makes four.
We have already referred to the fact that the manifested universe can be divided into two great Spheres or Hemispheres of being which may be called the Above and Below and which are symbolized by the Celestial and Terrestrial Spheres. These two Spheres are in complete correspondence with each other and that for the very simple reason that the Lower is the reflection of the Upper. Every movement of the Stars is reflected down here on Earth and it is through the study of experience here that we are able ot advance to an understanding of the archetypal structure of experience ‘yonder.’
On all planes and sub-planes of the Cosmos this Axiom rules. It is the master-key which will open all locks. The mere possession of the key as an intellectual doctrine will no doubt lead to all sorts of merely analogical reasoning which may lead the enquirer nowhere in particular; but the image of the key printed on the pages of a book is not the Key and our statement applies solely to him who has found the Key itself. For him the four great Doors that are at the four cardinal points of the Cave of Initiation stand open, Doors that are symbolized in all the temples of India and which will give him entry into strange and secret passages that lead to all the Quarters of the universe. There is a sacred cavern in the Himalayas from which underground passages are popularly supposed to go to far-off Benares and Prayag. The actual passages are probably a myth; nevertheless the symbolism is true, though the mystic cities to which they lead are not the ones bearing the same names that can be reached by rail.
“By the manas is this to be realized,” or, translating more literally, ‘obtained.’ The reason for this statement becomes evident when we consider the central position of manas, the point of intersection between the upper and lower triangles. It is the point-like window through which the Above is reflected as the Below and also the Door which leads form one Hemisphere into the other. To translate manas by that hold-all English word ‘mind’ is to risk complete misunderstanding and to substitute for the real Key that will unlock the secrete passages a brown paper cut-out that will collapse into pulp at the first shower.
The teaching that the Axiom is to be gained by the manas most assuredly does not mean that it is just to be thought about or made the center of a lot of intellectual speculations. The gaining of the Axiom refers to a real process, namely that of transferring the heart consciousness form the false, one-sided center of the personal self to the true center or higher Self.
…Under all conditions the above is reflected in the below through the manasik focus. If, however, that focus is in the lower manas the result… is that the reflection is an unbalanced one, and, of the total range of experience that might be had down here, only a fraction is available to the mental consciousness.
[Sri Krishna Prem has a diagram here, of two triangles, one on top of the other. The bottom triangle is “upright”, the base at the bottom and the point at the top. This represents the “Below” – the three lower spheres of Matter, Life and Mind. The upper triangle is inverted, the bottom point touching the top point of the upper triangle. It represents the “Above” – the three higher spheres of Sat, Chit and Ananda. The central point is the “True Self”, at the intersection of the two triangles. The most interesting aspect of this diagram is that Sri Krishna Prem also shows a “dot” – representing the ‘lower manas – near the bottom of the lower triangle. And then has two dotted lines coming from the top/base of the upper triangle. The lines go down through the lower “manas” and end up on the bottom triangle quite a ways in from the edges of the bottom triangle. This symbolizes the distorted reflection of the upper sphere which is the common experience of most of humanity; hence, for example, resulting in the appearance of a mind or Consciousness-independent universe. The “forms” of the world, when seen as true reflections of the Above, are most certainly not illusions, any more than time is an illusion or the ‘present’ is an illusion. When seen as a reflection of the Divine Upper Hemisphere, “you”, and “I”, and “past” and “future” are as real as the so-called “undifferentiated Consciousness” of the so-called “Absolute” – at least according to the understanding presented here by Sri Krishna Prem; and I might add, this is the perspective of Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga as well, which is quite radically different from the commonly understood view of non-dualism or Neo-Vedanta (or Shankara or Nagarjuna as well). See Georg Feuerstein’s “Encyclopedia of Yoga” for more on this. I’m sorry I don’t know how to reproduce the diagram here – it makes this whole passage crystal clear]
I is thus that we perceive only a small fragment of what we might perceive, all the rest being outside the focus of the waking personal self. Moreover it will be easily seen that the more one-sided the ‘lower,’ the further from the true Center our ego integration is placed, the more limited is our field of vision. Truly we are blinded by our own one-sidedness. This is why ‘the fool sees not the same tree that a wise man see’ [from William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”].
When we can learn to focus our being in the true Center of the Higher manas the world o perception down here undergoes a great expansion. A great range of experience previously hidden from us now becomes manifest and now only is it seen that the Below reflects the Above in perfect correspondence. This is the gaining of the Axiom.
For one who has gained it there can be no more question of states to be achieved after death, of ranges of being to be explored with the aid of supernormal trance states, for all things are open to him here and now. In the calm clear waters of the Manas lake the Stars above are perfectly reflected as the grasses of the field below, and, to the eye of such a Seer, nowhere s there any difference at all. Wherever he looks, Up or Down, he sees he same Divine Harmony, the Harmony of “heaven above, Heaven beneath” and, having seen, he is happy. Nor is this new vision of his in any senses a merely ‘spiritual’ one, using that word with the implications that it has for the average man, namely, of something ‘poetic,’ very beautiful, but not quite ‘real.’ It is an experience that is entirely real, entirely practical. On it is based the whole mighty structure of Occult Science, a science that is infinitely more powerful and far-reaching than the science of our day, one by which, as Hermes put it, ‘many rare wonders are wrought.’ Even true Faith can, as Christ said, move mountains, and Faith, as we have said, is but the reflection of Knowledge not yet fully manifest or available. What then shall be said of Knowledge in its fullness? He who has known the Axiom has the key to all transformations whatsoever. Should he desire to do so he can transmute lead into gold with as much ease as the common test-tube chemist can produce copper out of copper sulphate, and indeed, to quote Christ again, far great things than these can he accomplish “because I go unto my Father.” [footnote: St. John, 14, 12. These last words have of course a mystic meaning which should be evident to him who has followed the Upanishad thus far.]
Such a one is indeed a Siddha, an Adept, Dragon of Wisdom, Master of Immortality, Lord of the Double-Axe.
As for the ordinary man, he who still sees difference between Below and Above, between here and Hereafter, material and spiritual, he, in the words of the text, goes from death to death. This is inevitable because such unbalanced seeing is the vision of the lower or false self and we have already pointed out how death and again death is the inevitable result of any onesidedness of integration. As long as we cannot see the Above and the Below as one and the same, so long are we at a distance from our true Center and so long is the cycle of birth, death and rebirth an inevitable one for us. As the Buddha taught, so long as we identify our being with the atta, the false self, so long are we bound upon the ever-whirling Wheel. Only when we can see things yatha bhutam, as they really are, only then are we free, for only then are we poised in the true Center.
Don Salmon
Many who study mystical literature from outside think that because the descriptions of the Path vary, they therefore refer to different paths, and some even make the further inference that they are 'purely subjective'. But no conclusion could be further from the truth. The teachings of all genuine seers are in realiytin complete agreement; it is only the verbal descriptions which vary. All descriptions, whether those of ordinary common-sense or those of so-called exact science, are symbolic. The words refer to something beyond themselves, something whose nature they can only suggest.
There is a story of a small boy who was being given a lesson in elementary astronomy by his teacher. Having been told that such and such a star was Sirius, and such another Aldebaran, the boy became thoughtful and said, “how do we know that those are their names?' It is doubtless a truism, but it is one which we too often forget in practice, namely, that words mean only what we have agreed that they shall mean. [footnote: This is said without reference to the theory of Mantra and of True Name, discussion of which here would be irrelevant and would lead us too far afield].
The work of scientists is seen to refer to a common body of experience because we have hammered out a common terminology. If, instead of being in very general touch with one another, scientists had to work in little, independent groups, scattered in time and space, each group evolving its own terminology, it would by no means be easy to correlate their researches, though ti would always be possible for one who had both sufficient first-hand experience of science and sufficient patience.
The writings of seers are in a somewhat similar case to such hypothetical scientific studies. They are the products of isolated individuals or groups of individuals, often quite out of touch with similar groups elsewhere, and each of them has used such terms to describe his experience as were suggested by the tradition with which he was most familiar. The results often appears chaotic; but anyone who cars to follow the Path for himself will soon find that the chaos is only apparent, and that the various terms used in any one system are easily translatable into those of another. There will not always be a one to one correspondence, for the groupings of experiences under one head is also largely a personal matter. Whether a given complex of experience is to be taken as a whole or divided into aspects which are given various names is a matter which will vary with the point of view of each individual experiencer.
In the anciety world such ability to translate from one symbolism into another seems to have been more common than it is at present. We read how Greek priests could visit Egypt or Chaldea and at once recognize a given 'foreign' God as a correspondence of such and such a Greek one. The equation of Thoth with Hermes is a well-known example, but its by no means unique. It was possible for any initiated priest of the ancient religions to wander, like Apollonius, over the whole world and recognize his own Gods wherever he went.
The decay of this ability seems to have been connected with the development, somewhere in the first millennium B.C., of the power of abstract thought. Such thought is itself a symbolism, as philosophers are now once more beginning to realize. It is a symbolism, and a very powerful one for certain purposes, but it seems to carry with it a fatal tendency to take itself too seriously and to pose as being more than symbolism. To say that the world is a product o the union of consciousness with content-form is no less symbolic and no more true than to say that it is the marriage of the sun and moon, the union of the Sky God with the Earth Mother; and to say that the universe is an interrelatedness of atoms is as definitely symbolic a statement as that it is the morning stars singing together.
The trouble arises when, because of their great usefulness in certain fields, we take the former type of statement as something more than it is. We tend to take the description in abstract terms as being actual truth, while we relegate the field of concrete symbolism to poetry; and the art of taking poetry seriously is one which, despite all the poetry which has been written, the West has definitely and almost completely lost. The result of this devaluation of one set of symbols is to render ourselves largely incapable of reading them or of thinking accurately with their help. This is a great misfortune because, while it is true that the abstract symbols employed by modern science and philosophy have great flexibility and precision (though less of this latter quality than we are apt to think) the concrete ones are infinitely richer in feeling-content, and feeling-content alone is what can save us from the gray and featureless ghosts of billiard-ball atoms.
The ability to read and think in terms of concrete symbols is of very great importance, for it prevents that vicious abstraction of all value from experience which is so marked a feature of the purely scientific world view. We may compare the two to trade by barter and trade by currency. The former is cumbersome e and not very exact, but it is always in touch with realities and is not liable to be upset, as is currency, by sudden political revolutions or artificial manipulations. The symbolism of five thousand years ago is as valid today as when it was first written, while the abstract symbols of the last century have become almost valueless. Can anyone now read Kelvin or Spencer? [this was written in the 1920s]. The symbols of the archaic world are graven more indelibly than on any granite hillside; they still fill and activate the hearts of men; those of last century science merely cumber the less accessible shelves of our libraries [it might be mentioned that Sri Krishna Prem in his youth – then known as Ronald Nixon – was considered a math/science prodigy. If I remember correctly, he once wrote that it was while serving as a British fighter pilot in World War I that his love for science and math began to fade].
From time to time it is necessary to translate the golden concrete symbols of the ancient writers into the abstract paper currency of modern thought. This, however, is because men no longer wear about their necks substantial gold chains from which they can bite off a link or two to settle their innkeeper's account; they are at home only in the convenient but unstable world of cheque-books. But we must always remember that such translations from the language of eternity into the language of a day are essentially ephemeral. The butterflies of contemporary thought come and go in fluttering succession: the archaic eagles soar in the empyrean through unending cycles. Not Christ alone but every seer can say with truth: 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.'
In particular, the ability to read the concrete symbols is of the utmost importance to one striving to tread the Inner Path, a Path on which feeling and thought have to be fused into a unity. Any one-sidedness in this respect results in a tension in the psyche which will prevent harmonious growth and give rise either to a sterile intellectuality, masquerading as purely philosophic mysticism, or else to a somewhat infantile emotionalism, calling itself devotional religion. In both cases mystical experience may be gained, but it will be experience of an unbalanced sort which will bear in its very texture the stamp of its inadequacy.
One of the most unsatisfactory aspects of scholarly approaches to the subject is this modern inability t0o read concrete symbols and the consequent over-emphasis on words. In his work on Shankara and Eckhart, [Rudolph] Otto discusses the question whether the Vedantik Brahman, the Buddhist Nirvana, and Eckhart's Godhead are the same or different. But what is different? The words, of course, are different: the groups of ideas referred to by the words are also different, to some extent at least. But that is not the end of the matter. That to which these words refer is neither a word nor an idea, and no one who thinks it is can possibly come at the root of the matter. There are not half a dozen of these mystical absolutes floating about in the universe. There is not even one true and several false ones. There is just one Reality which has been symbolized in various ways, each symbol expressing more or less inadequately some one particular aspect of it. 'The Real is one; men describe it in many ways' (Rig Veda).
The writings of the seers cannot and must not be read as if they were so many sets of interesting ideas to be judged by their logical coherency. They are descriptions of experience; and the first necessity, if we would understand them, is to realize that their statements refer to something which is neither r a word nor an 'idea.' The words of the seer are finger-posts pointing to experience, and we shall never understand them aright if we persist in interpreting them according to the method of academic philosophy, which is merely a logicalization and a drawing of inferences from the experience available to all in normal waking consciousness.
The range of the mystic extends far beyond the frontiers of this normal waking world, and only a seer can understand fully the words of another seer. Nevertheless, there is a means by which a partial understanding can be gained, and that is through the intuition, a faculty which is an object of dispute to the learned, an object of cultivation to the wise. Space forbids our entering on any discussion of this faculty, the certainty-giving buddhi of Indian teaching; we will only say that it is a power which depends upon the unity of the whole cosmos, upon the fact that any portion of the universe, even the smallest, reflects in its structure the pattern of the whole. The structure of experience-levels far beyond our normal range is mirrored in that of this level, and the process of intuition is essentially a reading of what is remote by the contemplation of what is near. This is the meaning of what is known as the Hermetic axiom, 'As above, so below' [of which AQAL represents a dim, and rather distorted, reflection], a universal teaching on the Inner Path, a key which will open any lock within the Cosmos. This axiom is to be found in the teachings of all the mystical schools. Three instances may be given:
Neo-Platonic: 'All that is yonder is also Here.' (Plotinus)
Kabbalistic: 'Esoterically the man below corresponds entirely to the Man Above.' (The Zohar)
Upanishadic: 'Whatever is here, that (also) is There. Whatever is There, that again is here (Kathopanishad)
George
"As above, so below"
This phrase comes from the beginning of The Emerald Tablet and embraces the entire system of traditional and modern magic which was inscribed upon the tablet in cryptic wording by Hermes Trismegistus. The significance of this phrase is that it is believed to hold the key to all mysteries. All systems of magic are claimed to function by this formula. "'That which is above is the same as that which is below'...Macrocosmos is the same as microcosmos. The universe is the same as God, God is the same as man, man is the same as the cell, the cell is the same as the atom, the atom is the same as...and so on, ad infinitum."
This message theorizes that man is the counterpart of God on earth; as God is man's counterpart in heaven. Therefore, it is a statement of an ancient belief that man's actions on earth parallel the actions of God in heaven. This pivots on the belief that "all things have their birth from this One Thing by adaptation."
To the magician the magical act, that of causing a transformation in a thing or things without any physical contact, is accomplished by an imaginative act accompanied by the will that the wanted change will occur. The magical act and imaginative act becomes one and the same. The magician knows with certainty that for the change to occur he must will it to happen and firmly believe it will happen. Here it may be noted that magic and religion are akin: both require belief that a miracle will occur.
To bring about such a change the magician uses the conception of "dynamic interconnectedness to describe the physical world as the sort of thing that imagination and desire can effect. The magician's world is an independent whole, a web of which no strand is autonomous. Mind and body, galaxy and atom, sensation and stimulus, are intimately bound. Witchcraft strongly imbues the view that all things are independent and interrelated." These concepts pivot on the belief that all things come from the One Thing, or First Cause, and "Its power is integrating, if it be turned into earth."
The purpose of all rituals in ceremonial magic is to unite the microcosm with the macrocosm to join God, or gods when invoked, with the human consciousness. When such a supreme union is achieved the subject and object becomes one. This is because the magician feels that he is consciously in touch with all elements of the universe, therefore, he can control them. It may be said, the magician feels connected with the universe. This feeling intensifies the more the magician successfully practices his skills. Whenever he experiences a failure he knows that the ritual was not performed correctly.
When feeling unison with the universe the magician knows he has reached his Higher or True Self because he has attained mastery of himself and the universe. Thus he feels his "skillful work ascends from earth to heaven and descends to earth again, and receives the power of the superiors and of the inferiors." Therefore, he "hast the glory of the whole worldtherefore let all obscurity flee from thee." Now the miracles are possible.
Some magicians, including Aleister Crowley, claimed that when the magician reaches this ultimate peak of altered consciousness the miracles are no longer important, the extreme goal becomes the direct union with God. A.G.H.
Charles Leiden
Peter Jones
Sciborg2 Sciborg2
"In Eudoxia, which spreads both upward and down, with winding alleys, steps, dead ends, hovels, a carpet is preserved in which you can observe the city's true form. At first sight nothing seems to resemble Eudoxia less than the design of that carpet, laid out in symmetrical motives whose patterns are repeated along straight and circular lines, interwoven with brilliantly colored spires, in a repetition that can be followed throughout the whole woof. But if you pause and examine it carefully, you become convinced that each place in the carpet corresponds to a place in the city and all the things contained in the city are included in the design, arranged according their true relationship, which escapes your eye distracted by the bustle, the throngs, the shoving. All of Eudoxia's confusion, the mules' braying, the lampblack stains, the fish smell is what is evident in the incomplete perspective you grasp; but the carpet proves that there is a point from which the city shows its true proportions, the geometrical scheme implicit in its every, tiniest detail.
It is easy to get lost in Eudoxia: but when you concentrate and stare at the carpet, you recognize the street you were seeking in a crimson or indigo or magenta thread which, in a wide loop, brings you to the purple enclosure that is your real destination. Every inhabitant of Eudoxia compares the carpet's immobile order with his own image of the city, an anguish of his own, and each can find, concealed among the arabesques, an answer, the story of his life, the twists of fate.
An oracle was questioned about the mysterious bond between two objects so dissimilar as the carpet and the city. One of the two objects -- the oracle replied -- has the form the gods gave the starry sky and the orbits in which the worlds revolve; the other is an approximate reflection, like every human creation.
For some time the augurs had been sure that the carpet's harmonious pattern was of divine origin. The oracle was interpreted in this sense, arousing no controversy. But you could, similarly, come to the opposite conclusion: that the true map of the universe is the city of Eudoxia, just as it is, a stain that spreads out shapelessly, with crooked streets, houses that crumble one upon the other amid clouds of dust, fires, screams in the darkness."
Sciborg2 Sciborg2
'our city and the sky correspond so perfectly,' they answered, 'that any change in Andria involves some novelty among the stars.' the astronomers, after each change takes place in Andria, peer into their telescopes and report a nova's explosion, or a remote point in the firmament's change of color from orange to yellow, the expansion of a nebula, the bending of a spiral of the Milky Way. Each change implies a sequence of other changes, in Andria as among the stars: the city and the sky never remain the same.
as for the character of Andria's inhabitants, two virtues are worth mentioning: self-confidence and prudence. convinced that every innovation in the city influences the sky's pattern, before taking any decision they calculate the risks and advantages for themselves and for the city and for all worlds.'
-invisible cities by calvino
Sciborg2 Sciborg2
"This is the World you made."
"Let me fix it! I want to fix it!"
"Then fix yourself. The world will follow. As Above, So Below."
-Invisibles