Commentaries on the
Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians
of the 16th and 17th Centuries
by Jack Courtis

  - Introduction:  Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians and the Kosmic Internet
  - Tabula Smaragdina Hermetis  - (Book One, 12th diagram)
  - On the "Interpretation and Explanation of the Tabula Smaragdina
    Hermetis" text - (Book One, text accompanying the 12th diagram)
  - Mons Philosophorum (Book One, 6th diagram)
  - Primum Mobile (Book Two, 12th diagram.)
  - Virgin Sophia (Book Two, 1st diagram)
  - Figura Divina (Book One, 21st diagram)
  - The Hermetic Philosophy (Book One, 8th diagram & text)

Primum Mobile
by Jack Courtis

Enlargement (107 kb)

This diagram has 3 circles and therefore the ultimate issue is THREENESS. There are:

• 3 pillars on the Tree of Life; Mercy, Severity and Grace.
• 3 vehicles of human consciousness; body, soul and spirit.
• 3 vehicles of God’s manifestation; Jesus, Christ and Logos.
• 3 orientations to God in the Great Work; knowledge, love and sacrificial action.
• 3 persons of God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
• 3 principles of alchemy; Mercury, Sulfur and Salt.
• 3 Mother Letters of kabala; Alef, Mem and Shin.

No doubt, other trinities can be identified. For the moment, let us tabulate what we have in order to grasp the underlying pattern and then relate it to the diagram:

It is now clear enough that in terms of the Great Work, this diagram is fundamentally about the way in which we orient ourselves to God. This is apparent from the stages of the Great Work:

1. At the level of Action, in our body, we perform the 12 Disciplines.
2. At the level of Formation, through our soul, we reconcile the 7 Pairs of Opposites.
3. At the level of Creation, by our spirit, we align to God by 3 Orientations.
4. At the level of Emanation, our Divine spark unites with God.

When we function consciously in our vehicle of manifestation the spirit, we orientate to God either through knowledge, love or sacrificial action. We can only do this if we have first performed the Disciplines and reconciled the Opposites. However before we can successfully complete the first two stages of the Work, we need to understand the third stage in order to see everything in its proper context. Is this paradoxical? Good, that means we are making progress. Let us therefore begin at the level of Creation, with THREENESS and consider the diagram. We see 3 circles and if we look closely, we realise that one interpenetrates the other, from the Above to the Below. It goes like this:

Behind the top circle

However before we consider the top circle, we must look behind it. What hide there, are principles so difficult to grasp, that they cannot be drawn as a diagram, they can only be named. We are dealing with the Uncreated Eternity and the Unfathomable Primum Mobile.

What does it mean to say that eternity is uncreated? This is essentially a concept to do with time. The Primum Mobile is Latin and means the "first swirlings". To say it is unfathomable, is to make a comment about space. Fundamentally, we are dealing with an ontological "time and space", before the time and space that we perceive, was created. Interestingly, we are dealing with exactly the same concept as the Big Bang of quantum physics. According to physics, before the Big Bang, there was neither time nor space as we know them. There was only the quantum vacuum. An ontologically different "time" and "space". The time and space that we actually perceive, are a product of the Big Bang. Thus if we understand the 3 circles as interpenetrating each other, the centre of the top circle emerges as a Big Bang from the Uncreated and the Unfathomable, alternate ways of naming the quantum vacuum.

Kabalistically, this is the level of reality Emanation. Its principle is unity with God. In human terms this is our Divine spark in fully conscious self-realisation of that unity. Our spark is not a vehicle of consciousness; it is consciousness.

Top circle

This is the smallest in size and the least complex in form. In human terms it is the vehicle of consciousness we know as spirit and in God’s terms it is his vehicle of manifestation the Holy Spirit. How do we know? In the centre is a small circle with the tetragrammaton in Hebrew, God’s Name, IHVH. This is the equivalent of our Divine spark. From the Name there is an outpouring of light with the Latin word fiat, which is a clear reference to God’s command fiat lux ("let there be light"). The 3 Persons appear in this outpouring as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. So the unity at the level of Emanation, begins its differentiation at the level of Creation into the THREENESS that is fundamental to this level.

In his true being, God is symbolised by the number 1. However the fullness of his being, as understood by us, is symbolised by the number 10. Around the perimeter of the circle are nine winged cherubs with a tenth that opens up in order to manifest its nature. There are 10 cherubs because they are not just pretty decorations; they point to the One who is, 10 = 1 + 0 = 1. In human terms, our vehicle of consciousness the spirit, emerges out of unity with a three-fold nature. Please refer to the above table to see the correlations with the number 3. For our purposes the important point is that when we function with full awareness at the level of spirit, we are actively orienting ourselves to God. There are 3 Orientations:

• To God via the left pillar of Severity on the Tree of Life; the way of knowledge. This is best understood by the Greek word gnosis, which refers to much more than left brain intellect. It means a direct grasping of truth which the Buddhists call the "suchness" of things and which Plato would have called truth "in itself". It takes the 12 Disciplines and the 7 Reconciliation of the Pairs of Opposites, before we can have this kind of knowledge. How else can we know God?
• To God via the right pillar of Mercy on the Tree of Life; the way of love. How little we understand this. Again the Greek will guide us, with the word agape. This is a deep spiritual love that is far beyond the shallow sentimentality that we experience in our ordinary lives. Is this hard to grasp? It should be. We can only understand this kind of love when we experience the dark night of the soul.
• To God via the middle pillar of Grace on the Tree of Life; the way of sacrificial action. This is the hardest of all to grasp precisely because we think we understand it the best. Not so. Consider Christ. With full knowledge of what he was doing and with deep love, he acted by offering himself for crucifixion as a living sacrifice. To get a full appreciation of what he did, he sacrificed:

-  His vehicle of manifestation we call Jesus; corresponding to our body.
-  His vehicle of manifestation we call Christ; corresponding to our soul.
-  His vehicle of manifestation we call Logos; corresponding to our spirit.

Who was He who did this? In truth it was God in manifestation. Do we even now understand his sacrificial action? Is this paradoxical and mysterious? It should be.