Book of the Holy Hierotheos

(Series of three lectures by MBM, November, 1928

according to incomplete notes of GB)

Mead using it as his main work.  Jung also deeply interested.

Book of the Holy Hierotheos just translated and published by the Text Society.

F.S. Marsh, associated with Cambridge University.  Has never been translated until now, although known before.  Packed with the inner tradition.

Connects with profound sources in the Christian Church and has an extraordinary story of the ascent of the mind.

Books of Dionysius in reference to the Christian tradition.  Hill in Athens where he was converted to Christianity.  This idea was accepted until recently by the Christian Church as the foundation head of mystical and inner teachings; and it was believed that he (Dionysius) was taught by Paul.  (Acts 17: Paul comes to Athens and is preaching.)  The men met (meet) on the hill; men of Athens.  At the end it states that Dionysius and a few others were converts of Paul.  So the Christian Church was safe in following Dionysius, the student of the intellectual Paul; and this got by till a little while ago, when historical research proved that Dionysius was not Dionysius at all, but a pseudo-Dionysius who lived at least 500 years later, and took the name of Dionysius because, if he had not he could not have thrown into the Christian church certain teachings which would have been wholly unacceptable if he had not had that letter of introduction – which he probably took from Acts 17.

Dionysius acknowledges as his teacher one Hierotheos.  Who was he? in the translation of this manuscript we find records that the author of this book and this pseudo-Dionysius are intimately connected, belong to the same man, and strengthen the tradition which Hierotheos put through into the Christian church via Dionysius.  No one knows his real name.  He was much drawn to the Christian teachings, but he discovered an enormous lack in the Christian teaching, and he found so much of value in the teachings of one Hierotheos that he attempted to wedge into Christian teachings the cosmogony of this Hierotheos.

This Hierotheos is Proclus, the great Athenian philosopher, the last of the Neo-Platonic school: a man of the highest standing, the teacher of Athens at the time.  The last two figures (?), Orpheus, Pythagoras, and the other great ancients, and all that had come from Egypt….the last of the line.  Proclus was the teacher, the man of marvel (?), who taught the things which are lacking in Christianity.  Dionysius is not accepted now, except by the left wing of the Christian church.  At one time Dionysius’ teachings ran like the deer across England; about the 13th century.

So we should expect traces of great inner teachings.  We have now the last word off the press in findings along those lines.  The Codex 167 sheets, mutilated; in the British Museum, #7189.  There are two copies; a third in Harvard, in the Semitic Museum.  All three were loaned to Marsh as he made the new translation, or the book we have.  It (had been) translated from the Greek into Syriac.  The author makes a connecting link.  Perhaps the original was in Syriac.  It (or he) does not mention the Apocalypse.  It was very late in making its entry into the Syrian.  Syria the great country of the time.  Took the name Hierotheos because that is already in good standing.  Probably a monk (the author).  If so, his book sheds light on an interesting chapter of the Syrian monasteries, or monastic circles; unorthodox.  The direct influence of the Book of Hierotheos on the beliefs and practices in Syrian Christianity was not confined to the sixth century.  Was in use over thirteen centuries.

Preface:  Philios, means love.  Lover of Wisdom.  That it is which commands him to write these things.

High points in the first division.  Twelve chapters.  Things to be understood by different stages.  Geography of the Cosmic plane.  Grading.  Powers of understanding which angels do not possess.  They are only the first rank.  (Each rank) may understand what is beneath it, but not what is above.  Quotes much (from) Daniel.  Also quotes what has now been proven to be Proclus.

The First Good.  It is three-fold.  Akin to the First God.  The old philosophers did not use (the word) God, because it has personality.  In the larger philosophies God is never used for that Source, but is genealogically later.  The First Good is beyond God.  The First Good he speaks of in three ways.  The first phase is that which Brings-into-Existence; the First Name, or the First Nature of the First Good.  The second phase of it: That-Which-Cares.  The third: That-Which-Provides.

The First Trinity:  One, the living, creating Root; (2) strives and labors for the return of that which has become separated; (3) that which provides, because it has made the whole (?) mechanisms in terms of that which has been separated from it (and) is having its existence.  The Ever-Creating Root of all things.  Uses good as an adjective or an adverb 21 (?) times.  Older languages had that way.

The First Good, being equal, homogenous, can’t create irregularities.  Accepted as a philosophic truth.  Like can’t create unlike.  When does differentiation come in, and how did it come about?   He drops that problem.  Goes on to a description of what at-one-ment, what praise-giving indicates, and what yearning indicates.  Praise-giving, he says, belongs to those who have become detached, or separated, not by that which is the same.  That is why we feel bad praising ourselves.  Gives evidence of an affinity of the praiser with the praised, – like appreciation of music, or a picture.  Secondly, evidence of separation, one from the other.  Belongs literally to that which has fallen, or separated below that which is praised.  Yearning also implies relationship, for all rational beings yearn for the essence from which they sprang.

When was the primal unity broken…the likeness first made unlike?

Of the secret which is revealed to Divine Minds.  When that divine mind

(Paul)          he became afraid, and would not reveal it.  Yet Hierotheos gives us material by which we can help ourselves climb.  Can’t make the Ascent without differentiation.  Not an even, homogeneous world.

Daring, in striking at the foundation head of the Christian Church, Christ.  Describes the difference between “being in Christ” and Christ being in you.  (II Cor. 13:5):  If ye know not that Christ is in you, you are reprobate, – if you do not know you have that in you which must be developed into the higher world you are reprobate.  If you are in Christ you are assimilated and contained in Christ — clearly a stage.  But if Christ is in you, he is known and contained in you.  Which is greater.  Christ as only a mansion near to God.  They who are going to the Father must pass beyond the mansion.

So he will immediately go over to Proclus.  He first uses some references to the Christian tradition, which sometimes mentions mansions.  Proclus describes different degrees in the Cosmic, and Hierotheos shows where they reappear in the Christian Bible.  Each stage divine to the one below it.  Saints.  In the Catholic Church.  Angels have been looked upon as gods.  Intermediaries with God.  Paul went only as far as the third rank.

Nine divisions (he gets?) from Proclus.  (Also in the Hebraic tradition.)  Lowest is the rank of the angels.  Leader, Gabriel.  Second, archangels; leader, Michael.  Third, Virtues, and the leader, Haniel.  These three are often referred to as one hierarchy

Second Grouping — Powers, with the leader Raphael; Principalities, with the leader Carmael; three, Dominions, with the leader Zadchiel.

Third grouping: Thrones, with the leader Zaphkiel; next Cherubim, with the leader Zophiel; three, Seraphim, with the leader Uriel.

He shows these are not adequate, but merely the first rough draft.  Like first rough maps, – a first resemblance.

The nine Essences which the Apostle Paul named are divided into 27 ranks, for each is divided into three.  Each again divided into nine further, so that the whole wonderful number of their wonderful Order is 243.  But there are still other divisions; and he uses a number of references, in which he describes how one after another there is a recognition of still further states.  Some of the Essences, he says, have no power to come down, but divine minds can reach their place (or through space?)

Different kinds of consciousness which they have.  Their labors: those which have contemplation and judgment, and are accounted worth of descent into the lower worlds.  Hierotheos says 243, as against the six-fold mentioned by Paul, and the nine-fold, according to Proclus.

I am trying to help you to sketch out the differentiations.  A mansion represents a rank, order, degree, or station.  Christ was made the head of certain Essences. (John, 17:6)

Hierotheos draws on the two greatest authorities accessible at the time: the Christian tradition and, on the other hand, Proclus….the final word in so-called pagan philosophy.  He says Moses did not know some of these things.

 

 

Book of the Holy Hierotheos

MBM Lecture II

November 16, 1928

(Answer to question)  The reason why the separation came about was never told; only what happened when it did.  Because it does not belong to this plane of consciousness.

A three-fold descent from the Good.  The Good makes that which is like to itself.  Gives it the opportunity for choice.  Need not have been in the purpose of the Good when it produced them.  In the separation, each order of essence received (?) qualities which were compatible with its distance, or separation, from the Good.  That happened three times.  The separation is called Fall only in the Semitic tradition.  Only the higher minds permitted to come down.  The essences without consciousness in the first descent.  Then brooding over them.  The ability now to know good and evil.

These things Moses did not know.  The Apostle knew, but would not disclose them.  Spoke indirectly of the world that was before our world.  A time before our time.

The Universal Essence:  The Universal Essence is that particular essence from which the minds differentiate.  From that place on, there was differentiation, or separation. Therefore it is logical that this Universal Essence will be the one that teaches the Divine Minds.  This is the great level on which all is more or less alike.  If the monad ascends this is the first great Teacher.  Illumination is from the Universal Essence.  (They) Get it from the Cosmic sphere, because their minds, their maturity, contact again this area, and they tap the super-Reservoir where there is all knowledge, – all knowledge that belongs to the lower worlds.

Five different kinds of motions.  Energy, movement, flow.  We would use: energies, functions, grades.  (1) the natural motion.  This is the motion that puts by the things of childhood — childhood of the mind, that is.  It is of the nature of Nature.  Has not transcended nature but is getting ready to.  It is beginning its pilgrimage.  Luke 24:41.  Jesus asked his disciples, children: Have ye all to eat?  These souls were beginning to move intelligently; beginning to take the next step.  Drink is the proper food for infants; solid food the next step.  Are you ready for that which is solid?

(2). The motion that is after nature.  They are still in Nature.  These have resolved to live uprightly, – Ethical Culturists, if you like.  They go high; maybe even called types of angels, but still act close to earth in spite of that.  No trace as yet of contact with larger realms.

(3). Motion outside of nature.  Nature an orderly realm; the way things have been set out.  Garden of Eden.  Those who have a fixation of appetites get into this.  Sink lower and lower, till animal and bestial.

(4)  Motion that is above Nature.  Not after Nature.  These are moving toward the true mystical experience.  Their movement is quiet, silent. A movement without a path (?) because it has no more form left.  It is dealing with energy, or life, itself: fire-air, as against the ethical mechanism which deals with earth-water, although ethically.

(5)  This is a motion which is beyond nature, in that it is outside of nature.  Outer darkness.  Devils.  Belongs to the places below the earth.  A state of being which is below man’s consciousness.  Denser, heavier; that man, with his sensitivities, cannot perceive it.  None of the light that belongs to man’s area — that is, through which man travels.  Different from 3, in that 3 is still an activity that may be experienced by humans going toward what the Church would call sin.

Three essences of demons which are in our world.  Many other variations, but three main ones.  Have authority over our world.  No mind not purified has been able to be set free from them, only the divine mind.  The whole space from earth to heaven divided into three portions, and each of these essences has authority over one of these portions.  Luke 4:6.

The first essence rules all the space from the earth up to the clouds.  The second maintains its sway in all the spaces from the clouds up to the sun.  The third, from the sun to the firmament.  Physical, psychic, mental: (1) earth to moisture; (2) water up to the sun, water to air; consciousness (?) sun bending over the seed is like higher mind, self-conscious mind, which bends down and calls up the materials below.  Mind pivot between lower and higher, mind.  (3) In the scale our author is using, the utmost reach of the human capacity; up into the Cosmic.  The Cosmic begins where the Firmament ends.  Higher mind blending into the Universal, or Cosmic.

Demons represent the forces which rule over these areas.  Whole       which belongs to the mineral kingdom; and that which belongs to the emotional; then the     of the mind; then of that which merges into the Cosmic, which he calls the Firmament.  If you break the law you pay the price, and the demon punishes.  They are demons who never fail.

Each essence less dense as it goes up.  The essence above the sun brighter and purer than all the essences of the demons.  Those who are just starting to move forward, and just leaving nature, are nice and sweet, and oozy — think they are going to jump right in; say only the high essence contends with them.  (or So only, etc.)  Later the three demons contend with them.  The high essence restrains, and rebukes, but also draws them on.  The seed in the ground in the spring feels the sun, but has not met the first frosts, etc. These first ascenders are pathetic in their practical situations.  Otherwise they would not start.  “Come on over.”  In due time the next two descend on it.  Then when it settles down, all three work against it.  Because now it is worthy of attention.  It is really trying to get to heaven.  Has forgotten all about its first assinine assumptions.  It has been disciplined and learned to know something. “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.”  The Quest begins only after the quester has met with failure.  All who go the Way in earnest know it.

Even this last class has not begun the Ascent really – even after the three essences are combating it.  Our author is mighty, and has had a real concept of the regions beyond. “But those who have begun to ascend above our world (above the Firmament) must first unify the good Nature that is in them with itself”, – must remove opposition from its dwelling place, or it will still resist.  That is way past at-one-ment.  Way past the surrender of the self.  If the mind desires to ascent, cross before the senses have become silent, the anger of God will strike it.  Many fall because their bodies are defiled.  You must not only have the power to go up but you must have so fulfilled your human experience that your bodies (physical, ethic, and mental) are spotless.  Otherwise you have not made the perfect experience in your travels in earth.

When the ascent takes place body is quiescent, and the soul is merged in mind.  And yet, in a real sense, the mind takes the place of the body.  Mind becomes the vehicle, or body, in terms of the way the ascent is made.  You do not ascend via the psychic.  It leaves the earth without movement, and is caught up to the firmament.  The soul has over un……? the soul.  Paul was in this way caught up to the third heaven, and even to Paradise, (Cor. 12.)

The Separation.  The three descents.  The long period of Nothing.  The power of the Sun, or Mind of the All-Creative Parent, brood over and call forth the activity, and bring about the power to know, and choose between good and evil.  The Universal Essence (corresponds with, but is not identical with the Cosmic) from that place differentiation takes place; and it is therefore the logical instructor of the ascending minds.  But see to it that it is the Cosmic, and not the soul, which shines by reflected light, – which shines in the night, and has no value of its own whatever.  Nevertheless, you get illumination there, as you work your way up.

Then discussion of the five types of motion.  They give us the genetic side of the different types of activity which we need to know, to set our figures working on the stage of this mighty process.

Next, the material of the three demons, or rather, the demons of the three essences, were those with which those who are working in earth come in conflict — from whom they learn, and must do battle.  They learn that the essence which is highest works first on the soul coming into the motion that is after Nature.

Even with all this, the real Ascent has not started.  The Cosmic begins beyond that. You don’t hear the call of the real Good till after.  Then your real Ascent begins.

 

 

Book of the Holy Hiekotheos

MBM  Lecture III  November 23, 1928

Mind ascending to the Firmament.  It first appears as a kind of dim light, – fluidic — sometimes equated with Water, – one of the higher waters.  When the mind first contacts it, it is as a child newborn.  Arriving out of darkness into light.  Indicates a new octave.  Labors of Christ, and (?) a point between other regions and those in which man functions.  “This Firmament, the barrier in the midst which was rent asunder” by the Christ.

The mind then passes on, and comes to a place where the keepers of the first Charge of the House of God are to be found.  “Here is the place where I will remain forever.”  But the angels of this particular region begin to teach the ascending mind, and feed it with the spiritual bread which they have, so that the ascending mind is awakened to the realization that this place, marvelous as it is, is not the end.  Great yearning as a result.  Mind, passing up, is again worshipped by the angels, because they know this mind is derived by an area beyond theirs.  Each must worship the essences derived from above it.  So these entities must serve the mind, and regard it with great reverence.  A different quality from the worship we know here.

Then the mind gradually passes on from one hierarchy to another.  The author describes the Ascent through one and two levels — the first and second mansion.  Emphasizes many mansions.

After many mansions are passed through there seems again to be the coming to the end of a rhythm.  The Place of Discernment.  A peculiar and powerful radiance, quite beyond that of the Firmament, or Charge of the House of God.  Calm and pleasant, and the mind rests in it for a time.  A place of separation – a boundary, like the Midst, which Christ penetrated: again a boundary, and a new phase of the Ascent.  The bulk of the author’s quotations are from the Christian tradition, Old Testament and New Testament; presumably because he wants to make friends with the Christians.  (This bit is from a Gnostic source.)  Mind is happy and refreshed, and presently must set out on a new journey.

Here it comes upon most terrifying sufferings, of which he says he is not able to tell.  The entities in charge there are moved to come and worship the mind and help it understand the sufferings which it is now to undergo.  That is the destiny of the ascending mind.  The question is asked of it: Why art thou prepared for suffering?  The answer comes: That I may be purified from my sins.  It must be done consciously.  How would the old philosophy put it?

Now we find that this mind sees divinely the three wonderful Crosses of marble, and it asks for what purpose are these?  (Answer) These are on account of thee.  The ascending mind is terribly disturbed, and is gradually taught what mysteries are to be accomplished.  Here the author stalls.  The crosses are related to those the Christ experienced.  This place is the place of the disposal of evil.  He is taught what he is to do.

These three crosses are symbols of what is expressed in the pattern of the Christ in Gesthemane: ….body, soul, and mind.  Mind on the central cross.  Body and soul are thieves of the mind.  (Discernment is separation, – seeing differently; and you have rest there; Quiescent, as compared with other phases of the ascent, although it has an activity of its own.)

In teaching about the Crosses the author sticks to Christian quotations.  These Crosses must be conquered by the mind; but also the mind, body and soul, go to a death.  They suffer.  The angels, or watchers, are changed into demons, and play the part of crucifiers.  This is too great a service to be accomplished by demons; it can only be done by those of a very high rank, and as a glorious service.  It only appears as if done by demons.

Mind has now a peculiar kind of suffering, not known in earlier stages; a low developed mind could not experience it.  All the experiences which the Christian Bible gives about the Cross are drawn upon.  Body, soul and mind suffer.  All go to the death.

Then, presently, the divine Mind again draws near, nakedly — without soul and body, while these remain alone, and surrenders it to the Cross of the passions.  It is taken down from the Cross and buried in the tomb.  Not literally.  The three days in the tomb, and, presently, the return again to consciousness.

No one can become Christ who does not die with this death.  Body and soul also die with it.  Many minds draw near to the suffering of the Crosses, many times.  Not many make the Cross. . . . Mind gathers into itself the values of the soul.  One of the thieves is to be in Paradise with Christ, not the other.  The one who will be in Paradise is the values of the soul, which are assimilated to the mind.  The body does not get to Paradise.  Gives validity to the pattern made by the Christ.

The book goes on to say there are many kinds of crucifixion.  Some with head hung downward.

Mind rises, and re-establishes union with the body and soul, which are now purified, and completely under its control.  Soul absorbed into the mind.  The mind discovers its ascent is by no means over; just as Christ knew his ascent was not over.  (Found only in the inner tradition.)

So the mind sets out again.  Presently it comes to a place where it finds a tree.  A great and mighty Tree.  (Hebrews 12:15)  To minds that have come to this stage the Tree seems foul and horrible.  Its fruits are hideous, and it casts a shadow everywhere. Mind is in almost a state of despair.  If it eats of this Tree it will surely die.

Mind cries out (Romans 7:18).  Presently the mind must begin a second struggle with this Tree.  The first was the Tree of the Cross.  A Voice which says: Hew down the Tree and destroy it, but set the stump of its roots in the earth.  That is philosophy.  The Christian says: his conscience (?) and the children of Israel . . . . a second time.

The author is almost desperate for quotations in the Christian tradition.

Mind is now at a higher level than these quotations indicate.  (Those) from the Jewish are largely of the higher psychic.

Presently an angel appears and hands to the mind a sword.  Begins first to shake the leaves, – cuts down some of the branches, finally the trunk; and tries to toss it to the abyss below and burn it.  But again evil will spring up, and grow, and hold its former position.  The roots of the evil Tree spring up again and again.

Presently the mind which has become divine develops a new realization.  The mind now must make a descent.  Must get to the root of the Tree, – to the roots of things.  An amazing parallel, on a higher octave, with conscious action, and the need of going down into the transliminal.  You can’t clean up till you go way down.  But see to the roots, and render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.

It (mind) is grievously depressed.  Nevertheless, it is encouraged by the angel watchers who are in the way.  Recognizes what is before it, and descends to the opposite place – the pairs of opposites.  Mind descending voluntarily.  Descends to the place beneath the earth…. Comes from the east: “From the rising of the sun shall he begin.” (Isaiah 12:2)

Meets a variety of demons.  For the roots of the Tree are no longer that, but demons.  Like the unity of a dream.  These demons are demons of the four directions: east, west, north and south.  With much effort he conquers those of the east, west and south, but it seems impossible to conquer the demon of the north.  Mind is at the point of beinganguished (?) when the Christ comes to him, sustains him, and lifts him up.  That is another mystery.  The Christ will take hold of the hand of that mind and divinely draw it up from the depths below the earth.  Like a dead man rises up.

Ascends again, and rests.  But sees that the Tree, because of which it descended, is no longer there.  Enjoys divine delight, which puts an end to its former weariness.  Is helped by the angels who minister in the place of the Cross.

After that comes the first heavenly baptism.  Baptism marks beginnings.  Poor Christian Scientists!

The influence of this book lasted thirteen centuries.  The book is based on knowledge, says the author.  Also experience, – for this is the only kind that counts with the higher mind.  The experience of a purified mind.  And says this can only be understood by a pure mind.  The authenticity of the book shows it is based on the experience of those who sired it.  No textbook can do that.  Many think the author is Stephen of Odessa, patriarch in Antioch, in 817.  Probably not.