In Search of the Miraculous

'small cosmos,' analogous to the large one. This establishes, as it were, the idea of the unity and the similarity of the world and man.

"The teaching of the two cosmoses is known from the Cabala and other more

ancient systems. But this teaching is incomplete and nothing can be derived from it, nothing can be built on it. Nothing can be derived from it because this teaching is

merely a fragment split off from another, much fuller, ancient esoteric teaching about

cosmoses or worlds, included one within another and created in the image and the

likeness of the greatest of them, including in itself all the others. "As above, so

below," is an expression which refers to cosmoses.

"But it is essential to know that the full teaching on cosmoses speaks not of two, but of seven cosmoses, included one within another.

"Seven cosmoses, taken together in their relation to one another, alone represent a

complete picture of the universe. The idea of two analogous cosmoses, accidentally

preserved from a great and complete teaching, is so incomplete that it can give no idea

whatever of the analogy between man and the world. "The teaching on cosmoses

examines seven cosmoses:

"The first cosmos is the Protocosmos—the first cosmos. "The second cosmos is the Ayocosmos, the holy cosmos, or the Megalocosmos, the 'great cosmos.'

"The third cosmos is the Macrocosmos—the 'large cosmos.' "The fourth cosmos is the Deuterocosmos— the 'second cosmos.' "The fifth cosmos is the Mesocosmos—the

'middle cosmos.' "The sixth cosmos is the Tritocosmos—the 'third cosmos.' "The

seventh cosmos is the Microcosmos—the 'small cosmos.' "The Protocosmos is the Absolute in the ray of creation, or world 1. The Ayocosmos is world 3 ('all worlds' in

the ray of creation). The Macro-cosmos is our starry world or the Milky Way (world 6

in the ray of creation). The Deuterocosmos is the sun, the solar system (world 12). The Mesocosmos is 'all planets' (world 24), or the earth as the representative of the

planetary world. The Tritocosmos is man. The Microcosmos is the 'atom.'

"As I have already explained before," said G., "what is called 'atom' is the smallest amount of any substance in which the substance retains all

its properties, physical, chemical, psychical, and cosmic. From this point of view there

can, for instance, be an 'atom of water.'

"You see that in the general order of the seven cosmoses the Microcosm and the

Macrocosm stand so far apart from each other that it is impossible to see or establish

any direct analogy between them.

"Each cosmos is a living being which lives, breathes, thinks, feels, is born, and

dies.

"All cosmoses result from the action of the same forces and the same laws. Laws

are the same everywhere. But they manifest themselves in a different, or at least, in

not quite the same way on different planes of the universe, that is, on different levels.

Consequently cosmoses are not quite analogous one to another. If the law of octaves

did not exist, the analogy between them would have been complete, but owing to the

law of octaves there is no complete analogy between them, just as there is no complete

analogy between the different notes of the octave. It is only three cosmoses, taken together, that are similar and analogous to any other three.

"The conditions of the action of laws on each plane, that is, in each cosmos, are

determined by the two adjoining cosmoses, the one above and the one below. Three

cosmoses standing next to one another give a complete picture of the manifestation of

the laws of the universe. One cosmos cannot give a complete picture. Thus in order to

know one cosmos, it is necessary to know the two adjoining cosmoses, the one above

and the one below the first, that is, one larger and one smaller. Taken together, these

two cosmoses determine the one that lies between them. Thus the Mesocosmos and

the Microcosmos, taken together, determine the Tritocosmos. The Deuterocosmos and

the Tritocosmos determine the Mesocosmos, and so on.

"The relation of one cosmos to another is different from the relation of one world to another in the astronomical ray of creation. In the ray of creation worlds are taken in

the actual relation in which they exist in the universe for us, from our point of view:

the moon, the earth, the planets, the sun, the Milky Way, and so on. Therefore the

quantitative interrelation of the worlds one to another in the ray of creation is not

permanent. In one case or on one level it is greater, for instance, the relation of 'all

suns' to our sun; in another case, on another level, it is less, for instance, the relation of the earth to the moon. But the interrelation of the cosmoses is permanent and always

the same. That is to say, one cosmos is related to another as zero to infinity. This means that the relation of the Microcosmos to the Tritocosmos is the same as that of

zero to infinity; the relation of the Tritocosmos to the Mesocosmos is that of zero to

infinity;