‘Lux e tenebris lucet et luceat!’
Prometheus and Hermes are both considered to be ‘tricksters’. Both lay claim to the gift of fire. History though has awarded Hermes the credit of the ability to re-produce it.
Yet it is another to whom we owe thanks for its gift. Prometheus, then Herakles too are credited one after the other with this precious knowledge, dispersed among our kind. Both are deemed to represent the archetypal hero.
But can a trickster also be a hero?
Should a hero also be a trickster?
History records this of Hermes whose role in wit is focused elsewhere:
“[Hermes] held in his hand the golden rod that he uses to lull men’s eyes asleep when he so wills, or again to wake others from their slumber; with this he roused them [the ghosts of the newly dead] and led them on, and they followed him, thinly gibbering … Hermes led them down through the ways of dankness. They passed the streams of Okeanos, the ‘Leukas Petre’ (White Rock), the ‘Pylai Helion’ (Gates of the Sun) and the ‘Demos Oneiron’ (Land of Dreams), and soon they came to the ‘Leimon Asphodelon’ (Field of Asphodel) where the Psykhai (souls) … have their habitation.”
– Homer, Odyssey 24.1 & 99
“She [Maia] bare a son [Hermes] … a bringer of dreams, a watcher by night.”
– Homeric Hymn 4 to Hermes
“A sculptor was selling a white marble statue of Hermes which two men wanted to buy: one of them, whose son had just died, wanted it for the tombstone, while the other was a craftsman who wanted to consecrate the statue to the god himself … In his sleep, the sculptor saw Hermes himself standing at the Gate of Dreams (Pylai Oneiroi). The god spoke to him and said, ‘Well, my fate hangs in the balance: it is up to you whether I will become a dead man or a god!”
– Aesop, Fables 563 (from Babrius, Fabulae 30)
Science and religion view the role of Hermes through a gnostic lens as the Serpent of wisdom, an avatar of the Divine Mind. They saw Seth, the 3rd son of Adam as the Agathodaemon, the Lion, Serpent/Sun and [father of Enoch/ Idris –Hermes Trismegistus]. Seth gave the Sabaeans their faith and with it the western perception of a righteous but ‘hidden god’.
Indeed, ‘mercurial’ eloquence is in fact silence, for the quick silver tongue holds its council, a mystery understood by even the most notorious exponents of the occult, Crowley too it seems deferred to ‘Harpocrates’, the silent Horus – the perfect child. Crowley perceived the path of the lightening flash upon the tree to be that of Silence.
Expressed succinctly in the maxim, to will, to dare to know and to be silent, occultists add – to evolve/evolove. Silence of course refers to the phenomenal periphery, the revealed world of appearances, where experiences are inexpressible by common language.
This effectively protects the sacred from the profane where they are deemed separate [albeit only] in our conscious awareness Therefore, silence is the most arcane mode of transmission. As contemplation between the self and the divine it is a passive act of submission. True magical silence is creative; talk dissipates and disrupts the flow of congress. This is afforded by only two states wherein a total absence of thought and speech induces:
1. dreamless sleep…… the domain of Hermes
2. Samadhi of the highest [non-volitional] kind….. the domain of Seth and of the ‘Hidden God’
These parallel:
- Kenoma: the material void of the earthly world of phenomena – Illusion of Truth
- Pleroma: the spiritual plenitude of the divine world of light – Truth of Illusion
The seven stages of alchemy refer not literally from lead to gold, nor even from Saturn to Sun, but from dross to purity, from dark to light, the ultimate light………..of God the Highest.
But what is ‘ultimate light?
Of course, if the highest light is Zodiacal/Stellar Light [as the *8th stage of ascent], then the 9th being the Crystalline Sphere, the Primum Mobile/Primal Vortex [Kether] is the ‘darkness’ within and without that sensory brilliance.
Medieval Kabbalists considered the 8th level to be final based upon the earlier Chaldean model. It equates with the Throne. the central font of light, the darkness of creation, even of light.
Saturn, the darkest planet is the representative of Set/Har – the Sun/Sirius duality. Set/Anubis = putrefaction – the corruption that heralds new life. He is the Black Dragon, the ancient crocodile of the deep, Tiamat, Leviathan of the Abyss.
His Powers of Air –North and Mercury, are shown on the wings of the caduceus, the dual serpents, enforcing the dual currents of tide and life. The stellar father is hidden behind the solar son, the true and ultimate light of existence! Lead/Saturn to Gold/Sun = Carbon to Diamond = Malkhut to Kether – Saturn to Saturn !!!
So it is then, the unified spirit and soul must begin their journey of rotation through these elements and realms, beginning with Saturn, the serpents’ lair of the underworld, where one overcomes sequential time, moving into ‘kairos’. The soul of the dead is assimilated to the progress of the stars as typified by Sirius, born again of the Mother Nuit in the eastern sky after its disappearance in the west. Superficially, at least, this follows the course of the sun.
Within alchemy, the term INRI means: Igne Naturae Renovatur Integra
[Nature, by fire is renewed in its integrity……………….curious enigmatic metaphor for purification!
It also means: Yud; Nun; Resh; Yud = Fire, Water, Air and Earth – expressed as:
Yud divine masculinity
He divine femininity
Vau physical masculinity
He physical femininity
Mind is not the body, they are entirely separate; one serves the other according to Will.
Pythagoras upheld the principle of the primal oneness, the cosmic egg [of Mitra – the pale white rock] that split into cosmic duality; the impulse toward unification is love [re-union]. Two manifestations develop from the ultimate = consciousness and thought, male and female, one in essence, a mystery beyond being. To the Egyptians [with whom Pythagoras studied], this was the ‘Undifferentiated One’ – the One who is All who is Nothing………. Ayin.
Returning to alchemy, I note that the twin serpents of the caduceus are the Solar [Rosa Rubeus] and Lunar [Rosa Alba] dragons of the philosophers’ Mercury – the Father and Mother [fixed and volatile – sulphur and mercury.] Mercurial water is the agent of transmutation and return to divine unity, the essence of true magical transformation and exaltation, by this essence all things are resolved to their primal or Monadic being – their pristine existence. As each serpent devours the other, a phoenix rises from their ashes – the Perfected Being – Seth!
Mithra is the deific entity, the phoenix that mediates between two ‘lights’, the visible and the invisible. It is the hiddeness of all being, the mysterious force of evolution and of the invisible light: Philosophically, the latent power of cognition, astrologically the source of the light of the heavens, and mystically the creative force of love.
Mithra is not the sun, but the divine vortex of spiritual fire, the Heart of the Universe.
The Sun/Son is its Manifestation.
Mithra is of course the Divine Monad, the First Cause, Ultimate and Divine Truth.
To understand this, we have to meet, face and absorb our challenger whose trials give form to the ‘hidden’ force within and without…
The ‘Adversary’ engenders evolove through affliction and triumph.
The Adversary is all adverse force, the knowledge of opposing faction that finds resolution beyond them……. only in Perfection is such equilibrium won.. ……
Only ‘The’ Trickster is Heroic enough to sacrifice ‘Himself’ to this cause!
People of Goda, the Clan of Tubal Cain 