Lisa Mendes, University of Kent, 2007

Astrology, Hermeticism and the Ogdoad

Hermes Trismegistus - the central

figure in the Corpus Hermeticum,
inlaid at the entrance to Siena
cathedral

The Corpus Hermeticum is probably one of the most enigmatic and controversial sets of esoteric texts to have
survived from the early centuries AD. Whilst Renaissance Neoplatonists such as Marsilio Ficino held it in high esteem,
seeing it as a link to an ancient thread of wisdom dating back to the time of Moses 1 ; others branded it a Greek forgery
– a hotpotch of Platonic and Christian ideas mixed in with some Egyptian embellishments for colour and
authenticity. 2 Modern scholars, such as Peter Kingsley and Garth Fowden, are convinced that its true roots lie in
Egypt. 3 On the whole, though, many see in these hermetic writings a huge overlap with the ideas of Neoplatonism 4 ,
including the theurgic magic of Iamblichus. 5 Finally, there are the scholars such as Mahé, who see parallels in
Gnosticism 6 through a common emphasis on rituals that facilitate a personal experience of the divine, as well as a
philosophical accent on inner spiritual knowledge as a path to salvation, rebirth or immortality.

In this essay, I would like to study the role and nature of astrology within the context of the Corpus Hermeticum,
particularly as it relates to an extract from Book XVI. Here, I will be looking at astrology within the context of the
hermetic cosmology, as well as its relationship to what Hermes calls ‘Destiny’. An important part of this discussion
will involve assessing the role and character of the Ogdoad or Eighth Sphere - its links with the zodiac in astrology,
and its role as a threshold between mortal and immortal worlds. I shall also be examining hermetic initiation and
ritual in relation to divination, transcendence and rebirth, as depicted in Book XIII, showing possible overlaps with
Gnosticism and Sufism.

Book XIII of the Corpus Hermeticum describes an initiatory (possibly theurgic 7 or Gnostic 8 ) ritual in which Tat, a
student of Hermes-Thoth 9 , is taught the secrets of rebirth and immortality. 10 This seems to involve casting off the
‘tent’ 11 of the physical body, 12 and travelling to the Ogdoad or Eighth Sphere, where Hermes tells him they are
immune to the corrupting influence of the star spirits, who exert control over mortal flesh and the lower parts of the
soul 13 .

In Book XVI, we learn that these powers who ‘have control over all our affairs upon earth’ through the instruments of
mortal bodies, are the planets and this influence is called Fate or ‘Destiny’. 14
 Lisa Mendes, University of Kent, 2007
Here, Asclepius tells King Ammon:

The spirits who are set as attendants beneath each star according to what each birth merits, take possession of
each one of us at the moment we are born and are given breath…But the rational part of the soul stands free of
the tyranny of these powers and remains fit to receive God.

When by way of the Sun that rational part in a man is illumined by a ray of light (and such men are few), the
spiritual powers cease to affect them. For no spirit or god has any power against one ray from the supreme God.
But all other men are borne and led, both soul and body, by the powers, whose activities they dearly love. It is
their thinking which is misled and misleads, not the love. Thus the powers have control over all our affairs upon
earth through the instruments of our bodies. This control Hermes called Destiny. 15

A number of points stand out in the above passage. Firstly, the notion that the stars are spirits or ensouled. Secondly,
Asclepius states that these star spirits are assigned to human beings at birth, which immediately raises the question of
astrology. And, lastly, we are told that this astral Destiny works through the body and some parts of the soul, but
cannot exert power over the intellect. 16 This implies the existence of a way for human beings to transcend their Fates.
I would like to explore how this might be achieved, particularly in relation to hermetic initiation rituals, such as the
one described in Book XIII of the Corpus Hermeticum. It would also be helpful to understand the role of the Ogdoad
and why it is so important for Hermes and Tat to reach it.

Throughout the Corpus Hermeticum, a cosmology of emanation similar to the

Neoplatonic hypostases of Plotinus is outlined. 17 There also appears to be a marked
similarity between the hermetic creation myth in Book I and Plato’s Timaeus. In the
Platonic cosmology, the heavenly bodies, known as the ‘Different’ orbit around the
earth in seven circles or planetary spheres. The ‘Same’ referred to the fixed stars, or
constellations of the zodiac, that moved in a more uniform way to the wandering
planets and in the opposite direction. 18

The Hermetic Cosmos

Illustration copyright Robert M. Place

The Cambridge classicist, Francis Cornford, in his analysis of the Timaeus, theorised that Plato saw the main function
of the planets to be that of ‘marking off the periods of time and so teaching men to count and calculate.’ 19 Robert
Zoller, the scholar of medieval astrology, considers this emphasis on measurement in both Platonic and Hermetic
thinking, to be connected to Fate:

Measure as a concept permits numbering of periods and time. A thing’s Fate or Destiny is related to its form. All
form is measured. Throughout the Corpus Hermeticum references are made to the measure of Man and
Kosmos as well as, by way of contrast, to God’s immeasurability (and hence His being above or beyond Fate or
Destiny). 20

It has been long accepted that one of the hallmarks of astrology is to give a particular quality to a certain moment in
time, whether it be the hour of birth or the period of a planetary transit. Maggie Hyde sums it up when she says:
 Lisa Mendes, University of Kent, 2007

Astrologers, because they focus on the individual’s birth time, and because time itself is measured by the
planetary motions…are therefore understood, and frequently understand themselves, as arbiters of the
timeliness in people’s lives. 21

This idea has led to the much-used quotation by Jung, who, in his early work on synchronicity, famously stated that
‘whatever is born or done in this moment of time has the quality of that moment of time’ 22 However, what we
moderns have largely eliminated from our thought processes is the idea that Time and Fate could somehow be
connected. We shall see later that this is key in understanding astrology in relation to our passage.

Underlying the Platonic model of the universe lay the Stoic doctrine of cosmic sympathy. 23 It is this intricate system of
correspondences between microcosm and the macrocosm that provided an explanatory model for how both astrology
and magic worked in the ancient world. 24 ‘As Above, So Below’. 25 Just as man had a soul, so the planets had spirits 26 .
Garth Fowden outlines Hermetic sympatheia as follows:

…the Hermeticists’ understanding of cosmic sympathy was intimately linked with their daemonology and their
astrology; and it underlies too the philosophical spirituality of later Hermeticism, with its insistence on the
souls’ need to transcend the realm of Fate before it can be reunited with God. 27

He explains that these ‘daemones’ are personifications of the ‘sympathetic energies’ of the cosmos – ‘emanations’ that,

…penetrate to the very core of the body, and attempt to subject the whole man to their will. This, expressed
figuratively, is the crucial doctrine of Fate that played so large a part in the late antique consciousness. 28

Fowden also points out that these powers were often spoken of in terms of light. 29 Henry Corbin’s work with early
Islamic angelology, which was strongly influenced by Neoplatonism, 30 is worth mentioning here. In Spiritual Body,
Celestial Earth, he outlines a four-fold hierarchy of being in which the highest realm is occupied by ‘separated
intelligible Lights’ which have no attachment to any sort of body (whether human or heavenly) and are the cohorts of
God. (Angeli intellectuales.) 31 The next tier down is ‘the world of the Lights governing bodies.’ Here we find two types
of angels – those who govern the celestial Spheres (angeli coelestes), and those who preside over human bodies. 32
These angels echo the planetary spirits mentioned in our passage from the Corpus Hermeticum.

It should be stated that the Greeks had a slightly different angelic hierarchy in
which heroes and daemones sat between the realm of men and angels. 33 It is
therefore difficult to know whether the creatures referred to in our extract are
angels or daemones.

Gustav Dore’s depiction of the empyrean or highest heaven in Dante’s

writings. The empyrean is usually associated with either the ogdoad or the
ninth (crystalline) sphere

In his commentary and translation of the 2nd century Chaldean Oracles, 34 the theosophist G.R.S Mead affirms that the
two sometimes get confused and that this may relate to whether they are considered good or evil by nature.
 Lisa Mendes, University of Kent, 2007
He suggests that this may depend upon one’s standpoint:

…according to Nature they are pure, or indifferent, or non-moral. 35

However in our excerpt it is clear that the spirits associated with the planetary realms are considered to agitate the
soul and rule the body through tyrannical powers, so they do not appear to be angelic. In Book XIII Hermes makes it
very clear to Tat that to be born into the eighth sphere is to be purified, set free from the body and to be born into
Nous. The eighth sphere therefore appears to be a place where one transcends the world of matter (physical bodies)
and Destiny (astrology) both of which are tied up with the daemones as spirits of the lower, elemental realms.

This need to escape the tyranny of astral influence parallels strikingly with the Gnostic tradition, an assertion that is
not lost on scholars such as Jean-Pierre Mahe and Gilles Quispel. 36 In the Gnostic cosmogony, the seven planetary
powers, or archons, are seen not as angels but demons that hold humans in the chains of material bondage. The goal
of gnosis was to reach the Ogdoad – ‘the eighth [heaven}…and place of salvation’. 37

Dan Merkur suggests that the Gnostics, like the Greeks and Mesopotamians, associated this region with the zodiac:

The Ogdoad was…the region of the fixed stars above the twelve houses of the zodiacal belt. Its attainment
conferred immortality in The Paraphrase of Shem, a work of Christian Gnosticism. In the Sethian Gnosticism
of Zostrianos, attainment of the Ogdoad produces immortality by accomplishing a transformation into an
angel. 38

The Ogdoad, then, unlike the seven planetary spheres below it, appears to be associated with angelic, rather than
daemonic spirits. In Platonic terms, the Ogdoad was considered to be the area that divided the realm of Being (the
divine) from that of Becoming (the material world) and the final limit between time and eternity. It was also
considered to be home to the Platonic Forms 39 . In this way, the Ogdoad could be perceived as a threshold between two
worlds or modes of being. One can see very close parallels with this idea in Corbin’s writings on the cosmic Mountain
of Qaf, which in Iranian mythology

…marks the boundary between two worlds, the one visible and the other invisible to the senses. 40

Ascent up the mountain to this ‘eighth climate’ leads the soul to the ‘realm of Infinite Lights.’ It therefore appears to
be similar in function to the Ogdoad in the Corpus Hermeticum because, according to Corbin, it is a place where

…the resurrection of the bodies, or more exactly, the apparition of the ‘spiritual bodies’ takes place. 41

For Corbin, it is also the domain of the archetypes, and the home of the mundus imaginalis - a place of visions and
revelation. 42 Going back to the Chaldean Oracles, the theosophist, G.R.S Mead talks of the eighth firmament as the
‘octave of Light’ and the ‘Borderland between the intelligible and sensible worlds.’ 43 Zoller also equates the Ogdoad
with heaven 44 , in the vein of the Christian Gnostics. 45

Now, let us return to the second observation regarding our extract, relating to Fate and astrology. To see astrology as a
practice which identified the course of Destiny was not an uncommon idea in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. 46
 Lisa Mendes, University of Kent, 2007
In this milieu,

The astrologer might foretell the future, but he could in no way influence it. 47

This sentiment is echoed in the works of Ptolemy, the Alexandrian astronomer considered to be the ‘founding father of
astrology’:

The movement of the heavenly bodies, to be sure, is eternally performed in accord with divine, unchangeable
Destiny. 48

Ptolemaic astrology claimed that the human received its qualities from the ether, an airy substance that was suffused
with the qualities of the heavenly bodies. Astrology therefore

…promised man the ability to understand human temperament and predict events through examination of the
ether, and established the primacy of the 'seed' moment or moment of origin, such as birth itself, at which time
the heavens stamped an impression which would indelibly mark the individual. 49

For the Gnostics, astrology was of little use, because it simply reiterated the burdensome condition of mortality. As
Dan Merkur points out,

The Gnostics believed that astrology worked, but they did not seek to know their horoscopes. Quite the reverse!
They sought salvation from astral determinism, because they regarded Fate as demonic. 50

The Gnostic viewpoint seems most indicative of Asclepius’ position in our hermetic passage, except for the statement
that,

When by way of the Sun that rational part in a man is illumined by a ray of light...the spiritual powers cease to
affect them.

This assertion may have driven some astrologers and magicians to develop techniques and methods that would enable
them to perform such a task.

Interestingly, according to Robert Schmidt, Hellenistic astrology arose more or less parallel to the hermetic movement
and had similar roots, being a unique synthesis of Greek, Egyptian and Chaldean thinking. This had led to speculation
that the Corpus Hermeticum provides the philosophical foundation for the practice of Hellenistic and later, Western
astrology. 51

In fact, the lineage recorded by Firmicus Maternus gives credit to Hermes Trismegistus for the founding of this
astrology, whom he says passed it on to one Asclepius… 52

The very same narrator of our passage! Fowden, too, is confident that the philosophical Hermetica may have
developed in tandem with the practice of astrology and alchemy. In this way, the diviner moves from simply revealing
Fate to become

…the adept of some divinely revealed ‘way’ by which the soul can be purified, and freed from the bonds of
matter. 53
 Lisa Mendes, University of Kent, 2007
Robert Zoller also suggests that an astrological technique may have been developed that aided Hermetists in their
quest for re-ascension to the Ogdoad:

The Hermetic initiation… entails an ascent through the spheres to the Ogdoad or sphere of the fixed stars.
Central to this ascensus is the discovery of the Lord of the Geniture (natal horoscope), for by means of this
knowledge freedom from Fate is achieved.

As Iamblichus tells us in On the Mysteries, this could be discovered either by artificial means [i.e. by astrology],
or by divination [i.e. by theurgia]. Once this ascensus has been achieved, the initiate is heir to both the
knowledge of the gods and to god-like power. Having become a Son of God, he now has magical abilities. 54

In her thesis on classical astrology, Dorian Giseler Greenbaum demonstrates that a technique existed for negotiating
with Fate and was used by later Hellenistic astrologers such as Vettius Valens. It lay in the calculation of the pars
fortunae or Lot of Fortune (associated with the Moon and the body) and Lot of Spirit (associated with the Sun and
one’s soul.) This helped to identify one’s daemon (and therefore one’s Fate) astrologically, and is perhaps part of the
technique which Zoller alludes to in the above quotation. 55 The connection with the Sun to Nous, intellectual
enlightenment and spiritual transcendence in our passage on one hand, and the Lot of Spirit in the astrological chart,
on the other, does seem to suggest that this might well have been the case.

And so we return to our hermetic ritual of Book XIII. This dialogue bears a striking resemblance to a Gnostic codex,
found near Nag Hammadi, called The Ogdoad reveals the Ennead. 56 In this treatise, Hermes and an unnamed
disciple undergo an ecstatic initiation into the mysteries of the 8th and 9th spheres in order to experience a form of
spiritual rebirth through a visionary encounter involving Nous (or God’s Intellect). 57 Commenting on this codex,
Mahé compares it with the Corpus Hermeticum. 58 Both show an emphasis on personal experience of the divine, and
the acquisition of inner spiritual knowledge as a means to salvation, rebirth or immortality. Fowden goes further,
suggesting that

The Hermetic initiation, then, is not merely an encounter, but an interaction, between Man and God; and it is
only by grasping the genuine reciprocity of this experience that we can appreciate the deeply Gnostic core of
Hermeticism. 59

Corbin argues that in the Corpus Hermeticum the attainment of immortality is connected with the attainment of the
daimōn paredos [the personal good daemon) 60 ‘the celestial angel or partner.’ 61
This is achieved through

…rites and injunctions, in the enchantments of a mental iconography or of ecstatic visions. 62

An important point in relation to our earlier discussion needs to be made here. This is that Corbin claims that the
angels that oversee human beings are not separate from that person, but are rather, parts of them.

Every creature is composed of his earthly part and his celestial counterpart, his archetype or angel. 63

In this sense, we may compare this angelic being to a type of consciousness, in much the same way as Hermes talks of
Nous as comprising both the nature of intellect and the source of being in the Corpus Hermeticum. 64

Similarly in Hermeticism the Nous is at once a god, the faculty of intuitive knowledge in man, and his tutelary
angel (as Agathos Daimōn). 65
 Lisa Mendes, University of Kent, 2007

A ‘fravashi’ or Zoroastrian guardian angel from

Persepolis. This was the sort of angel that Corbin was
talking about in his work on Mazdaism and early Persian
angelology

The true nature of Hermes, as both a tutelary angel and an aspect of consciousness (Nous) in the mind of his student
now becomes clear in our passage, as does what occurs during the initiation ceremony of Book XIII. The fact that, in
both the Gnostic and the hermetic versions of this ritual, the two characters either kiss or embrace just before the
climax of the ceremony occurs, could be seen as symbolic of the union between the initiate and his angelic partner. 66
This Corbin emphasises by quoting a passage from Book II.20.

Reflect on God in this way as having all within himself as ideas: the cosmos, Himself, the whole. If you do not
make yourself equal to God, you cannot understand Him. Like is understood to like. Grow to immeasurable
size. Be free from every body, transcend all time. Become eternity and thus you will understand God. 67

We now see the link between our passage in Book XVI and the ritual described in Book XIII, which interestingly,
Mead calls The Secret Sermon on the Mountain, 68 the former being the goal or aim of the latter. Garth Fowden
summarises it well when he says

It should be clear by now that the knowledge of God that the Hermetic initiation is supposed to bring is not an
external knowledge, of one being by another, but an actual assumption by the initiate of the attributes of God:
in, short, divinization. 69

I hope that by now I have elucidated the Gnostic character of this hermetic ‘ceremony’ and revealed the deeply
divinatory roots of the astrology that developed in relation to this body of writing. Whether the two are incompatible
paradigms will have to be discussed on another occasion, as will the connection between the practical and
philosophical hermetica, and the subtle issues this text raises in relation to fate and embodiment.
 Lisa Mendes, University of Kent, 2007

References

1. Antoine Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism, (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), p.51. The Duomo in Siena features an inlaid floor
portraying this legendary figure. Dating from 1488, the inscription beneath it reads: “Hermes Trismegistus, contemporary of
Moses.” See Jay Kinney & Richard Smalley, Hidden Wisdom (Penguin, Arkana 1999), p. 185
2. Doubts over the dating of the corpus began with Isaac Casaubon in 1614. See Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes,(Cambridge
University Press, 1986), p. xxii. Although with the discovery of related texts in the Nag Hammadi library, this interpretation may
have to be revised. See Jean-Pierre Mahé, “Preliminary Remarks on the Demotic ‘Book of Thoth’ and the Greek Hermetica”,
Vigiliae Christianae vol. 50, no. 4, (1996) pp. 353-354 and Fowden pp. 4-5
3. Peter Kingsley, “Poimandres: The Etymology of the Name and the Origins of the Hermetica”,
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 56, (1993), pp.1-24
4. Robert Zoller, The Hermetic Tradition (2004) accessed from: http://www.new-library.com/zoller/features
5. Zoller, 2004
6. Mahé, 1996 pp. 353-354 and Mahé, “A Reading of The Ogdoad and the Ennead” in Gnosticism and Hermeticism from Antiquity
to Modern Times eds. R. van den Broek and W. Hanegraaf (Albany: SUNY press, 1998), p. 84
7. See Faivre, ”Renaissance Hermeticism and the concept of Western Esotericism” in Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity
to Modern Times” ed. R. Van Den Broek (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997) p.115 and Fowden pp.132-135
8. Gilles Quispel, “Hermes Trismegistus and the Origins of Gnosticism”, (Vigiliae Christianae vol. 46, no. 1, 1999) p.10.
9. It is accepted within the Hermetic literature that Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth were considered to be one and the same
character. See Faivre, The Eternal Hermes, (Grand Rapids: Phanes Press, 1995) p. 76
10. Clement Salaman, Dorine Van Oyen & William Wharton (transl.), The Way of Hermes, (London: Duckworth, 1999) pp. 65-71
(CH XIII)
11. See references to this ‘tent of a body’ in Salaman, Van Oyen & Wharton p. 68 (CH XIII.12) Further on, Hermes says: ‘This is
rebirth, O son, no longer to picture oneself with regard to the three-dimensional body.’ (CH XIII.13)
12. Salaman, Van Oyen & Wharton p.66 (CH XIII. 3 - 4) Hermes repeatedly talks of how, in this sphere, he comes out of himself
and into ‘an immortal body,’ that he has no interest in his former physical form and that his true being is the ‘untroubled,
unlimited, colourless, formless, naked, shining, self-knowing, the unchanging good without a body.’
13. Salaman, Van Oyen & Wharton pp.66-7 (CH. Book XIII.7) and p.77 (CH Book XVI.14-15)
14. Salaman, Van Oyen & Wharton p. 77 (CH XVI. 16)
15. Salaman, Van Oyen & Wharton p. 77 (CH XVI.15-16)
16. The words used are variously ‘rational part’ or ‘Nous’ or ‘intellect’ which all echo Platonic philosophy. Here, Nous alludes to the
highest part of the mind or spirit which is understood as the eye of the soul. CH XII.18-19 alludes to Nous as the stuff that makes all
creatures immortal and that Man stands out because he also shares God’s essence.
17. Patrick Curry & Roy Willis, Astrology, Science & Culture, (Oxford: Berg, 2004) pp. 50, 68-70 See also A.H. Armstrong,
"’Emanation’ in Plotinus”, Mind New Series, vol. 46, no.181 (1937) pp. 65-66 which suggests that the Hermetic writings correspond
very closely with the Enneads in their conception of an emanationist cosmogony. Both use the analogy of light from the Sun to
explain the ‘efflux of life or power from the One.’ Cf Plotinus, Enneads IV.3.11 and CH II and CH XVI
18. Francis Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology (1956, repr, Indiana: Hackett, 1997) p. 74
19. Cornford p. 74. He quotes from the Timaeus:
‘…in order that Time might be brought into being, Sun and Moon and five other stars – ‘wanderers’, as they are called – were made
to define and preserve the numbers of Time’.
20. Seee note 18; Zoller, (2004) p. 10
21. Maggie Hyde, Jung and Astrology (London: Aquarian Press, 1992), p. 154
22. C.G. Jung, ‘In Memory of Richard Wilhelm’, CW vol.15, (1930) p.142; cf Hyde, Cosmology for Modern Time, (unpublished
paper, 2006) p.12 and Hyde, 1992, pp. 154-8
23. Quispel p.10
24. Dan Merkur, Gnosis: An Esoteric Tradition of Mystical Visions and Unions (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993), p. 118
 Lisa Mendes, University of Kent, 2007
25. Isaac Newton (transl.), The Emerald Tablet, downloaded from:
http://www.hermeticfellowship.org/Collectanea/Hermetica/TabulaSmaragdina.html#Newton
26. Fowden p. 126 points out that ‘Late pagans…regarded all aspects of their lives…as being subject, or potentially subject, to divine
power. This assumption was made instinctively and naturally by anybody who shared the general theistic outlook of the age.’
27. Fowden p. 78. Here, Fowden argues that the technical hermetica, often disregarded by hermetic scholars as inferior to the
philosophical corpus, are in fact practical methods developed as applications of these spiritual doctrines, in keeping with the
doctrine of sympathy. See also, The Hermetica as Science, 2004, accessed from: http://www.new-library.com/zoller/features
28. Fowden p. 78. See also Salaman, Van Oyen & Wharton p. 64 (CH XII.21)
29. Fowden, 1998, p.77. See also Salaman, Van Oyen & Wharton p. 76 (CH XVI.13)
30. Zoller, 2004,
31. Henry Corbin, Spritiual Body, Celestial Earth (London: I.B. Tauris, 1990), p. 130
32. Corbin, 1990, p. 130
33. G.R.S. Mead Chaldean Oracles (transl.), (Kessinger: Whitefish, 1992), vol. II p.25
34. The Chaldean Oracles is a considered to be a Hellenistic commentary on a mystery poem and has been described as ‘a syncretic
combination of Neoplatonic elements with others that were Persian or Babylonian.’ Later Neolatonists, such as Proclus and
Iamblichus rated them highly. Many have commented on similarities of the metaphysics with contemporary Gnostic teaching.
Some have suggested that they may have Egyptian origins, emerging out of the melting pot of Hellenistic Alexandria in the first
centuries AD though most consider it to be of Babylonian origin. Some even attribute it to the teachings of Zoroaster. See Ruth
Majercik, The Chaldaean Oracles Studies in Greek and Roman Religion, vol. 5 (Leiden: Brill, 1989)
35. Mead, vol. II p.26
36. Although this is a contentious area, Jean-Pierre Mahé has quite explicitly shown many overlaps. See Mahé (1996) pp. 353-354.
See also Quispel pp. 1-19
37. Excerpt from The Testimony of Truth, taken from Merkur, p. 120
38. Merkur p. 120
39. Cornford p.24. & Timaeus, 27c-29d
40. Corbin (1990), p.74
41. Corbin, (1990), p. 72
42. Corbin, (1990), pp.76-77. See also Corbin, Mundus Imaginalis downloaded from https://www.kent.ac.uk/secl-
local/DivRes/C2term2/CorbinMundusImaginalis.pdf. “The mountain of Qaf is the cosmic mountain constituted…by the celestial
Spheres that are enclosed one inside the other.” See also Corbin, (1990), p.74 where he specifically refers to the mountain of Qaf in
relation to Ptolemaic cosmology and references it as the ‘mountain surrounding our universe’ and is emerald green like the
‘celestial vault’.
43. Mead vol I, p.75
44. Zoller, 2004, pp. 8,12, downloaded from: http://www.new-library.com/zoller/features.
45. Merkur, p. 120
46. Fowden, pp. 91-94
47. Fowden, p. 93
48. Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos I.2 downloaded from: http://www.preterhuman.net/texts/religion.occult.new_age/www.sacred-
texts.com/astro/ptb/ptb05.htm
49. Angela Voss, ‘The Astrology of Marsilio Ficino – Divination or Science?’, Culture and Cosmos, vol.4, no.2, (2000) pp.29-45.
Downloaded from: http://cura.free.fr/decem/10voss.html
50. Merkur, p. 121
51. See Fowden, p. 78; Zoller, p.6
52. Robert Schmidt, Hellenistic Astrology: An Overview (2005) downloaded from:
http://www.projecthindsight.com/articles/hellenistic.html
53. Fowden p. 94
54. Zoller p. 16.
55. See Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum, Kindled Spirits – The Daimon, Vettius Valens & Plutarch (unpublished paper, 2006) pp. 9-15.
However, as Angela Voss points out, ‘such a conception of direct, quantifiable astral influence’ as is Ptolemaic astrology,
‘presupposes an omniscient astrologer who observes objectively a fixed pattern; indeed it appears to allow him to give an
 Lisa Mendes, University of Kent, 2007
irrevocable judgement on the 'Fate' sealed by the birth moment.’ See Voss, 2001. Many scholars of Hellenistic astrology would be
quick to point out that in fact, this view was not the only one subscribed to during this period. See Schmidt.
56. So named by Fowden p. 5 and generically referred to as Nag Hammadi Codex VI.6 (N.H. VI.6)
57. P.A. Dirkse & D.M. Parrott, “Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth” in James Robinson (ed.), The Nag Hammadi Library in
English, (Leiden: Brill, 1977) pp. 292-297 and Mahé (1998) pp. 79-85
58. Mahé, (1996) pp. 353-354 and Mahé, (1998), p.84
59. Fowden p. 105
60. Corbin, ‘Cyclical Time in Mazdaism and Ishmailism’ in Spirit and Nature: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks (Pantheon
Books, Bollingen Series: New York, 1957), p.140
61. Corbin (1957), p. 141
62. Corbin (1957), p. 142
63. Corbin (1957), p. 137
64. See Salaman, Van Oyen & Wharton pp. 49-52 (CH X.15-51); p. 28 (CH II.14) and p.18 (CH I.6-7)
65. Corbin (1957), p. 141
66. Dirkse & Parrott, p. 295. See also Quispel p. 11
67. Salaman, Van Oyen & Wharton p.57 (CH XI.20)
68.. G.R.S. Mead, The Corpus Hermeticum, accessed from www.blackmask.com
69. Fowden p. 110

Illustrations

1. Hermes Trismegistus in Sienna cathedral from www.alt.religion.com

2. Robert. M. Place, The cosmos as laid out in Hermetic tradition, accessed from: http://thealchemicalegg.com/23trumpN.html
3. Gustav Dore’s The Empyrean accessed from http://rosaecruz.no.sapo.pt/MEcclesia/symbols/Dore-empyrean.jpg
4. The faravahar or symbol of Zoroastrianism – a winged solar disc depicting a Fravashi at Persepolis accessed from:
http://www.livius.org/a/1/iran/faravahar.jpg