How can something be formed out of nothing? When I first began studying Hermeticism, that was my central question. There is, though, a gulf between the meaning of ‘nothing’ and ‘no-thing,’ a distinction many new students of the Hermetic Science fail to make.

In the ‘Golden Chain of Homer,’ a central point about the ‘ubiquitous sentience’ behind all physical reality is its endowment with an unerring instinct (intent) and ‘Capacity’ to emanate itself in three forms. The first form was the ‘ubiquitous sentience’ from which all things have their issuance.

The ‘Golden Chain of Homer’ explains it this way. ‘Ink in an ink well is not nothing, but in itself the ink contains absolutely no letters, numerals, lines, dots, words, numbers, designs, speeches, calculations, nor figures really, but only as potentialities which, however, the creative hand of a skillful, perfect writing master can gradually call form from it and, so to speak, create.’

The ink holds the potential to be expressed as any of the above emanations detailed above, but it takes a specific turn of mind to see into the chaos and elicit from it that particular set of expressions.

But a mind only able to hold all potential without means to achieve that potential does little good to the ultimate goal of the One, which is self-expression. The Second state that the 'ubiquitous sentience' emanates sets the fructifying principle within the seed of chaos into motion.

The 'Golden Chain of Homer' states that the second form of emanation is 'motion agitated into light.' Yet it is still cold. The gentle movement germinated from desire moves it. It agitates its substance which is very volatile into what the text terms' warmth and heat' and gives an example of such an agitation taking place in 'frictions and in fermentation of moist things.'

Well, that's poetic, but what does it mean by the term' motion agitated into light' and 'all frictions and in fermentation of moist things?' Let's look into what is meant by 'motion agitated into light' in this document and dive into 'frictions and in fermentation of moist things' in the next post.

The term 'motion' denotes active operation through prompting from within. At the same time, 'agitation' speaks to change through disturbance. There is one more small piece to the puzzle we need to include to understand the meaning of the phrase' motion agitated into light,' and that is the assignation of the color white to denote the 'pregnant emptiness' of chaos, the 'ubiquitous sentience' from which all things flows. The author references the well-known effect of refraction on white light into the colors of the spectrum.

So now we come to it, this splitting or 'seeming extension' of the One into Two. The extension, though, is 'seeming,' so the two new poles form a tertiary unit because that 'extension' simultaneously encompasses Unity and the dependent emanation of two opposing ends of the spectrum. The context within a document helps to acuate one's understanding of the point put forward. The author of the 'Golden Chain of Homer' describes this second emanation in this manner "In this second state was separated out of Chaos by motion or agitation into light. Yet it is still cold." The light from our Star is warming, but the text states that this light is 'cold.' Here the author alludes to the refraction of light into colored rays that make up the "Lights of the Heavens" or Zodiac. In Hermeticism, the zodiac represents some of the archetypes that compose the models of people, behaviors, and personalities that play a role in influencing human behavior based on innate, universal, unlearned, and hereditary memory. These archetypes are contained within the 'stars that make up one's Esosphere.'

It is through an act of Intention of Will that any potentiality or desire is given nascent expression, not unlike that spark that ignites the fructifying principle of seeds' and allows issuance of its radicle. It is Will that focuses the stream of infinite possibility into a path. The example about the ink well took the writer's Will to form what would be written.

Through an act of Will, the One reflected on itself and knew itself fully in all its varied aspects. That refraction gave birth to the potentialities stored within the 'pregnant emptiness.' This recognition of self and the extension of a seeming separateness would have collapsed immediately upon itself into Unity. The second pole of the 'seemign extension' acts as a container and allows for fully exploring any emanation's potential. That will be the subject of the next post.