The Hermetica…the Universal and the Particular

The Hermetica…the Universal and the Particular

Everything has a ‘form’. A table, for example, is a horizontal surface supported by legs. This is the ‘universal form’ which all tables share. Every individual table shares the universal form of all tables, but it also has a unique particular form by which we know it to be this table and not that one. One table is large and made of oak. Another table is small and made of plastic. Both are unique and yet both are still tables. If anything deviates too far from this universal form we would no longer call it a table. If a table were to be smashed into pieces, for example, it would have changed form and we would now call it something else, ‘firewood’ perhaps.

Everything is a particular version of a universal form. Every animal for example, both unique and a member of a particular species. All human beings share the quality of being human, but each individual has unique characteristics by which we may tell them apart from other members of our species. Each one of us is a particular version of the universal form "human being'.

This quality of humaness is unchanging and permanent. We are very different from our ancestors, but we are are no more 'human'. The particular forms are always changing. in a single human life we change from being a baby to become an adult and finally an elder. We never remain the same, yet birth, mortality and death are all contained within the universal form of a human life.

Hermes compares the constant universal forms to the fixed constellations of the stars. He compares the changing particular forms to the changing relationships between the stars as revolve in the heavens.

Our fundamental human nature remains the same throughout our life, but our individual fate changes in accordance with the constantly changing pattern of the stars. As in astrology, Hermes teaches that our individual destiny is created by the positions of the planets at our moment of birth. These are the 'gods' who take charge of us, controlling our bodies and shaping our souls,

The Hermetica,
Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy