โFriedrich Schiller seems to have had consciousness of this Arcanum when he advanced his doctrine of the synthesis between intellectual consciousness, imposing heavy burdens of duties and of rules, and the instinctive nature of man, in the Spieltrieb (the urge to play). The โtrueโ and the โdesiredโ must, according to him, find their synthesis in the โbeautifulโ, for it is only in the beautiful that the Spieltrieb renders the burden of the โtrueโ or the โjustโ light and raises at the same time the darkness of instinctive forces to the level of light and consciousness. In other words, he who sees the beauty of that which he recognises as true cannot fail to love it โ and in loving it the element of constraint in the duty prescribed by the true will disappear: duty becomes a delight. It is thus that โworkโ is transformed into โplayโ and concentration without effort becomes possible.โ
Beauty or the Beautiful might seem the furtherest thing from oneโs mind when summing up a commentary on the Magician Card. Indeed, if the Magician, as Our Dear Unknown Friend suggests, is the key to the whole of the Major Arcana, and in fact is as the Arcanum of the Arcana, then it would seem that with Beauty being the focus of the final paragraphs of the first letter that it is in fact the key to the Hermetic Path. I do not believe Our Dear Unknown Friend goes astray here.
This [beauty and the feminine] is often a neglected topic in metaphysical systems, since Beauty is considered arbitrary and subjective at best, and prone to artificial eroticism at worst. Yet Beauty is on a par with Truth and Goodness as one of the transcendentals; to neglect it is to fall short. This is clear from the Platonic Tradition:
From Cologero Salvo at Gornahoor.net
โThe first and last lesson of metaphysics in the classical tradition is the erotic orientation of the soul toward being. This is expressed in Parmenidesโ image of the chariot โ ride to heartโs desire; in Platoโs sexual and conjugal metaphors for knowledge; in Aristotleโs dictum โAll men by nature desire to knowโ; in Plotinusโ account of being as beauty; and in Aquinasโ treatment of the transcendentals good, true, and beautiful. Ex visu amor: this desire begins with the most rudimentary encounter with reality which is the nature of all awareness, and is consummated in the intellectual union which is at once perfect apprehension and perfect reality: thinking-being.โ
As is suggested above Beauty is often considered arbitrary and subjective. (The notion that โbeauty is in the eye of the beholderโ is a true statement though not in the way it is popularly understood).
If we pay attention to how Our Dear Unknown Friend speaks of the Hermetic Path we will see that it corresponds with how we tend to view beauty. It seems arbitrary to most and simply the subjective fancies of one who is comparable to a smitten lover. Surely the Hermetic Path is unneeded and unnecessary from the viewpoint of the exoteric form of the Church. This will not be argued against. One cannot argue for the necessity of the beauty of the beloved to one who is not enraptured by Holy Eros.
Cologero Salvo goes on to say that whilst the Truth and the Good raise us up Beauty ever seeks to manifest itself in the world. For this reason, again as mentioned above, it is prone to an โartificial eroticismโ. Because it is as the radiant splendour of God, it, like the beauty of a woman, can be seductive unto the destruction of a man, like a jealous lover who murders his beloved because he seeks possession instead of union. But this danger cannot deter the lover because he knows that without the beauty of the beloved he is incomplete.
This is important. For whilst beauty seeks to manifest itself in the world it also raises the man up so long as he recognises in it the True and the Good. But not to discard the Beautiful along the way because it is as much a โpartโ of the beloved as is the True and the Good. Otherwise the True and the Good become as mere abstractions. No one ever fulfilled their duty, sacrificed their lives or committed any great act of heroism because of some abstract notion of the good and the true but only in as much as they had beheld them in the eyes and smile of their beloved. And as they beheld the beauty of their beloved their duty became a joy. Their work became play and the concentration of their consciousness, effortless.
Who understands that beauty is the bride of truth and cannot be separate? Certainly not he who seeks to possess her and in doing so loses both himself and her at the same time. Neither he who uses her as a prostitute, eventually discarding her as unnecessary and dying alone in the cold and the dark of the many empty-roomed mansion built of his own abstractions.
The Hermetic Path is not just that of the necessary but also the seemingly unnecessary. In Catholic theology The Path of the Cross is, strictly speaking, unnecessary. Yet it is the Love of God that makes the unnecessary, necessary. The necessarily unnecessary is his joy and delight.
So too for those Dear Unknown Friends of these letters of our contemplation.
