The Hermetica…Man is a Marvel

The Hermetica…Man is a Marvel

God, the Cosmos and man are three great beings. The Cosmos is an image of God, and man is an image of the Cosmos. Each is made up of many parts, yet each is greater than the sum of there parts. Man was created to be a vehicle through which God could continue to bring order and beauty to the Cosmos. All beings have soul – the Life-force – within them. But only human beings possess the power of Mind, with which we can contemplate the Cosmos and come to know God.

Human beings are the meeting place of spirit and matter. We have, therefore, a dual nature. We are Mind enclosed by a physical body. The human mind is an image of God’s Mind – it is immortal, eternal, divine and free. The human body on the other hand, is mortal and controlled by the laws of Destiny which are governed by the stars.

Hermes dares to suggest that this unique dual nature even places human beings above the gods. The gods – the heavenly bodies – are confined within their permanent orbits in the heavens, and will never move beyond them. A human being, however, may both be on the Earth and, through the power of his mind, ascend to the heavens. In the twentieth century we have used this power to journey literally to the stars and reach back through telescopes to see the origin of the universe.

Being both spirit and matter, man is an intermediary between these two great principles. He is greater than beings who are merely mortal, and above those who are purely immortal. He shares in the creative power of God. He even, with his mind, creates gods in his own human image.

Hermes concludes that man is a marvel, worthy of wonder and reverence – a sentiment that fueled the humanism of the Renaissance. The purpose of human life is to rise above our merely human nature and awaken our divine nature. Human beings have the unique potential to know God, and God’s greater wish is that we fulfill this potential.

The Hermetica,
Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy