Allen Ginsberg on William Blake’s “Africa” continues from here
“To Trismegistus. Palamabron gave an abstract Law:/ To Pythagoras Socrates & Plato.”
Student: How does Trismegistus fit into that?
AG: Well, let me see. What did Trismegistus do? I could look him up and find (out).
Student: He’s the Hermes.
AG: Yeah.
Student: He’s the original Hermes.
AG: Yeah. Thrice-blessed….
Student: Yeah, but what is being said about him in that…
AG: Well.
Student: … is he being grouped….
AG: Abstract Law. Well, I was thinking he was being grouped as being one of (those precursors): Trismegistus and Pythagoras. Blake was probably thinking in terms of Abstract Mathematical reasoning (as) precursors to Newton. Maybe.
Student: Okay. So he’s grouping them roughly with Pythagoras and Plato.
AG: As bad guys.. Bad guys. Blake is not only putting down Jehovah and Moses, he’s also putting down Thrice-Blessed Hermes, or what was it? And Pythagoras. “Pity would be no more,/If we did not make somebody Poor.” Palamabron, pity, gave Abstract Law.
“Pity would be no more,/If we did not make somebody Poor:/And mercy no more could be,/If all were as happy as me;/ And mutual fear brings peace;/To the selfish loves increase./ And cruelty is a snare,/ And spreads his baits with care..” (Allen quotes from Blake’s “The Human Abstract”)
So, Law would be the cruelty. Pity gave Abstract Law to all these mystics and philosophers and mathematicians.
Let’s see what Damon has to say about Trismegistus, Hermes Trismegistus that would be. That’s why I wish that you would do (the reading) so you could look these guys up, instead of my being here all the time. I looked it up once.
Student: Yeah, I looked it up about Hermes, too.
AG: I don’t remember it now. What did you get out of that?
Student: Oh, well, just that he was from Egypt and that he was like a scholar and a sage and apparently he was the founder of all that Hermetic and he had some connection with Greece ….like I think he wrote in Greek…And he informed them, and so when the Greeks talk about the Egyptian sages, or Egyptian priests, the wise people, he figures as a key. He’s a key figure in those references, I think.
AG: Well here it’s really interesting. Does everybody know who Hermes Trismegistus is besides us two? Raise your hand. Anybody have some (information)? What do you know? Did you read it in (A Blake Dictionary), or do you have any other (source)?
Student: Yeah, I read it in there.
AG: And you?
Student (2): No, I don’t know any more than that.
AG: Well, actually, this essay on Hermes Trismegistus, which is just a half-page, is really great information; just general background information for Western culture, which really impressed me a couple of years ago when I first looked it up. I’d like to read it because it opens up Blake’s view, but it also will give you giant footnotes to William Butler Yeats. Remember the line in Yeats about the great Smaragdine Tablet? Smaragdine Tablet? Does anybody remember that? Yeats talks about it, too. (Editorial note – “Ribh denounces Patrick” from Supernatural Songs – As man, as beast, as an ephemeral fly begets, Godhead begets Godhead,/For things below are copies, the Great Smaragdine Tablet said./Yet all must copy copies, all increase their kind”)
Hermes Tristmegistus was a legendary Egyptian sage … author of various mystical works, such as the Divine Pymander.…”” – (P-Y-M-A-N-D-E-R) – believed by ancients to be “older than Pythagoras and the Seven Sages, a belief accepted by Blake – ‘To Trismegistus, Palamabron gave an abstract Law – to Pythagoras, Socrates & Plato.” Actually, the ‘hermetic books’ are Neo-Platonic,” showing “a good knowledge of the Old Testament, and refer to the New. In Christian thought, he was ranked with the sibyl. Il Penseroso” – (by Milton) -“in his midnight tower studied “thrice great Hermes.'” (Remember that line (from) Il Penseroso – “thrice great Hermes”?)
“Many alchemical and other occult writings were freely ascribed to Trismegistus. Most important was the ‘Smaragdine Tablet” – (the Smaragdine Tablet, the Emerald Tablet) – “reputed to have been found in the hands of his corpse in a cave near Hebron, by a woman, or else” found on his corpse in a cave by none other than “Alexander the Great. It became the basic law of alchemy.” – (So this is where all that comes from, actually).
“The Greek original has never been recovered. The earliest known text is Arabic, in a book by Geber (eighth century), who ascribed it to”Balinas” (Apollonius of Tyana). It reached Latin Europe by the thirteenth century, but was not printed until 1541 at Amsterdam.”
and the text follows. (So this is the great, earliest, most sacred Hermetic Alchemic text in the West):
“True without error, certain, and most true. What is below is like that which is above, and what is above is like that which is below….” (Well, you know that – “As above, so below.” The ghost of Swedenborg. And that also affected Blake somewhat).
“What is below is like that which is above, and what is above is like that which is below, to perform the miracle of the one thing. And as all things were from one thing, by the mediation of one, so all things were produced from this one thing by adaptation. Its father is the sun, its mother the moon, the wind carried it in its belly, its nurse is the earth. This is the father of all perfection of the whole world.
Its power is perfect if it be changed into earth. Separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, gently, with great art. It ascends from the earth to heaven and again descends to earth, and receives the power of things superior and inferior.
Thus you have the glory of the whole world, and all obscurity flies from you. This is the strength of all strengths, because it conquers every subtle thing and penetrates every solid. Thus the world was created. Thence are marvelous adaptations, performed in this way.
Therefore I am called Hermes Trismegistus, having the three parts of the philosophy of the entire world. I have told everything about the operation of the sun
That’s a translation by E.J. Holmyard in the magazine “Nature” for 6th of October, 1923, courtesy of Foster Damon.
“Blake,” says Damon, “rejected this document, and with it all occultism.” Ah-ha! Right on!
Student: “And with it all occultism.”
AG: Right on. “It was the magician trying to be the mystic; it was a material experiment instead of a spiritual experience.” – (This is spiritual materialism. Blake rejected it as spiritual materialism) – ” It was a material experiment instead of spiritual experience, it imposed the will on the four elements, it was the invention of the Spectre. ‘The Spectre builded stupendous Works, taking the Starry Heavens like to a curtain & folding them according to his will, repeating the Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes to draw Los down into the Indefinite, refusing to believe with demonstration.'” – (Throwing Los “down into the Indefinite”. In other words, occult-mysticism, (which is a disease that almost eighty percent in this class suffer from! – some of them)
to be continued
Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately fifty-four-and-a-quarter minutes in and concluding at approximately sixty-two-and-a-quarter minutes in