Traditionalism & Metaphysics

Maybe he will embrace me,
Maybe he will trample me underfoot,
Or perhaps he will simply break my heart by not showing up at
all…
That Libertine can do anything he likes,
But he will always be the only lord of my life’s breath!

-- Verse composed by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu expressing the infinitely selfless love of Śrī Rādhā for Śrī Kṛṣṇa

I want to put into effect a radical decision for this channel. On one hand, it has objectively served its purposes to put into perspective the values of metaphysical tradition as I hold them to be and hopefully encouraged the promotion of worthy writings in an engaging way (the manner of exposition being entirely dependent on the former aim). On the other hand, I think the channel has become sufficiently inflated to not stay stagnant but to transcend its previous design. Hence I announce an end to what has been an extremely successful first phase. @Traditionalam will soon become an essay-styled blog, either this December or New Year, focusing on the subjects and topics it has always concerned itself with. I thank all those who have been and will be here.

…Thus Ficino's whole effort of Christian Theologia Platonica, with its prisci theologi and magi and its Christian Platonism, furtively combined with some magic, was as nothing in the eyes of Giordano Bruno, who, fully and boldly accepting the magical Egyptian religion of the Asclepius (and disregarding the supposed intimations of Christianity in the Corpus Hermeticum) saw the Egyptian magical religion as really Neoplatonic theurgy and ecstasy, the ascent to the One. And this was what it really was, for the Hermetic Egyptianism was Egyptianism interpreted by late antique Neoplatonists. However, the Bruno problem is not solved by simplifying him into a late antique Neoplatonist following an Egyptian mystery cult, for the whole great apparatus set in motion by Ficino and Pico had reached him, with all its emotional force, its Cabalist and Christian associations, its syncretism of all philosophies and religions, mediaeval as well as antique, and its magic.

— Frances Yates, “Giordano Bruno and the Cabala”

This reminds one of the praise of the Egyptian language in Corpus Hermeticum XVI (the so-called "Definitions" treatise) in which Asclepius tells king Ammon that the treatise should be preserved in the original Egyptian, and should not be translated into Greek, for the Greek language is diffuse and empty, and the "efficacious virtue" of the original Egyptian would be lost in a Greek translation. If Bruno had read this passage, it would probably have been in Ludovico Lazzarelli's Latin translation in which the point that it is the magical power of the Egyptian language which would be lost in translation into a language lacking in this power comes out very clearly.'

…Bruno's practical magic therefore consists in drawing spirits or demons through "links". The linking-with-demons method was mentioned by Ficino at the beginning of the De vita coelitus comparanda, with quotations from Neoplatonist authors on it, though he protested that he was not using it. Agrippa has a chapter on the links, and this is Bruno's basis though he greatly elaborates it. One way of linking is "through words and song", that is incantations, now no longer regarded as purely natural magic as by Ficino, but invoking demons. Another way is by attracting demons with images, seals, characters, and so on. Another way is through the imagination, and this was Bruno's chief magical method, the conditioning of the imagination or the memory to receive the demonic influences through images or other magical signs stamped on memory. In the De magia, Bruno relates his magical psychology of the imagination to the terminology of normal faculty psychology which, however, he transforms by making the imagination, and more particularly the magically animated or excited imagination, when joined to the cogitative power, the source of psychic energy. This magically animated imagination is "the sole gate to all internal affections and the link of links"

…We have indeed come a long way from the Magia and Cabala system of the Christian Magus, with its safeguards in natural magic and its Hebrew-Christian angels as guarantees for religious magic. Nevertheless Giordano Bruno is the direct and logical result of the Renaissance glorification of Man as the great Miracle, man who is divine in his origin and can again become divine, with divine Powers residing in him. He is, in short, the result of the Renaissance Hermetism

…Agrippa had tried to preserve at least an appearance of Trinitarianism in his expositions of religious magic, stating, for example, that the three guides in religion are Love, Hope, Faith, the orthodox three theological virtues. Bruno, as he takes a wandering course through Book III of the De occulta philosophia, picking out some material, altering, rearranging to suit his purposes, always avoids the "threes", and his guides in religion become four, Love, Art, Mathesis, and Magic. It is in following these four that the religious Magus reaches the highest heights of perfection and power. All are connected with magic combined with Platonic furor. Love is the living virtue in all things, which the magician intercepts and which leads him from the lower things to the super celestial realm by divine furor. Art is the knowledge of how to become joined to the soul of the world. By mathesis we learn how to abstract from matter, motion, and time and to reach intellectual contemplation of the intelligible species. Magic is of two kinds, one bad, the other very good. The good kind, by regulated faith and other laudable kinds of "contractions", corrects the erring, strengthens the weak, and, through the greatest demon, which is love, joins the soul to the divine power.

We have already seen that, as a Renaissance Magus, Bruno is abnormal in his Hermetism through his rejection of the Christian interpretation of the Hermetic writings and his total "Egyptianism". We should expect to find that his attitude to the Cabala would also be abnormal, and so it is, though in spite of his alarming departures from the norm, Bruno can still be described as belonging into the Hermetic-Cabalist tradition. In his Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo he appears to be totally rejecting Cabala for his purely Egyptian insights, an attitude which accords with his highly unorthodox view of the history of prisca theologia, or prisca magia, in which, according to him, the Egyptians are not only earliest but best, and the Jews and Christians later and worse.

…The Hebrews, continues Bruno after his exposition of the Cabalist system, derived their wisdom from the Egyptians, and he then takes a story out of Plutarch's De hide et Osiride to symbolise Hebrew corruption of Egyptian wisdom, when the Egyptians were made to turn "their bull Opin or Apin" (the Apis bull) into an Ass, which then became for them a symbol of wisdom. The Ass, in short, symbolises all negative theology, whether Cabalist or Pseudo-Dionysian and Christian, but Bruno has a new, or rather an old Egyptian, Cabala, which is his religion and which is expounded in L'Asino Cillenico del Nolano, the dialogue which follows the first part of the work.

One of the speakers in this is actually an Ass which speaks, and it describes itself as a "naturalissimo asino". It contemplates the "works of the world and the principles of nature" and its nature is "physical". It becomes a member of a Pythagorean academy devoted to the "physical", because

It is not possible to understand supernatural things, except through their shining in natural things; for only a purged and superior intellect can consider them in themselves.

Bruno has swept away as "metaphysics" the Cabalistic system of the Sephiroth, the Pseudo-Dionysian hierarchies, the whole superstructure which the Christian Magus had erected upon his natural Magia, to guarantee it from demonic influences, returning to the "natural religion" of the Egyptians, and the natural philosophy or natural religion of the world which he had extracted from Hermetism.

The origin of Bruno's Egyptian Ass is quite clear. We need only recall the Golden Ass of Apuleius, the romance by Apuleius of Madaura about the man turned into an ass who had the vision of Isis on the lonely seashore and became a priest of the Egyptian mysteries. . . . The non-christian Hermetist, the wild magician, Giordano Bruno, proclaims his admiration of Apuleius, the magician, and of the full magic of the Asclepius, by taking the Apuleian Ass as his hero.

Moreover, the Apuleian Ass as a natural philosopher was almost certainly suggested to Bruno by his great hero, Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, the magician. As F. Tocco pointed out, some of Bruno's passages about the ass are taken from Agrippa's De vanitate scientiarum in which he had expounded the occult sciences, in the end rejecting them as vanity, using the ass of ignorance symbol. In the dedication of this work, Agrippa describes himself as having been turned into a "philosophical ass", like those described by Lucian and Apuleius.

…Bruno nowhere mentions the superior power in magic of the Hebrew language. On the contrary, he devotes a significant passage to praise of the Egyptian language and its sacred characters:

. . . the sacred letters used among the Egyptians were called hieroglyphs . . . which were images . . . taken from the things of nature, or their parts. By using such writings and voices (voces), the Egyptians used to capture with marvelous skill the language of the gods. . .

…He who despises painting loves neither philosophy nor nature. If you despise painting, which is the sole imitator of all the visible works of nature, you certainly will be despising a subtle invention which brings philosophy and subtle speculation to bear on the nature of all forms—sea and land, plants and animals, grasses and flowers, which are enveloped in shade and light. Truly painting is a science, the true-born child of nature, for painting is born of nature, but to be more correct we should call it the grandchild of nature; since all visible things were brought forth by nature and these her children have given birth to painting. Therefore we may justly speak of it as the grandchild of nature and as related to God.

…We by our art may be called the grandchildren of God.

…In order that the well-being of the body may not sap that of the mind the painter or draughtsman ought to remain solitary, and especially when intent on those studies and reflections of things which continually appear before his eyes and furnish material to be well kept in the memory. While you are alone you are entirely your own; and if you have but one companion you are but half your own, or even less in proportion to the indiscretion of his conduct. And if you have more companions you will fall deeper into the same trouble. If you should say, ‘I will go my own way, I will withdraw apart the better to study the forms of natural objects’, I tell you that this will work badly because you cannot help often lending an ear to their chatter; and not being able to serve two masters you will badly fill the part of a companion, and carry out your studies of art even worse. And if you say, ‘I will withdraw so far that their words shall not reach me nor disturb me’, I can tell you that you will be thought mad; but bear in mind that by doing this you will at least be alone; and if you must have companionship find it in your study. . . . This may assist you to obtain advantages which result from different methods. All other company may be very mischievous to you.

…The mind of a painter should be like a mirror, which always takes the colour of the object it reflects and is filled by the images of as many objects as are in front of it. Therefore you must know that you cannot be a good painter unless you are universal master to represent by your art every kind of form produced by nature. And this you will not know how to do unless you see them and retain them in your mind.

…I say and insist that drawing in company is much better than alone, for many reasons. The first is that you would be ashamed of being seen among a number of draughtsmen if you are weak, and this feeling of shame will lead you to good study; secondly a wholesome envy will stimulate you to join the number of those who are more praised than you are, for the praise of others will spur you on; yet another is that you can learn from the drawings of those who do better than yourself; and if you are better than the others, you can profit by your contempt for their defects, and the praise of others will incite you to further efforts.

…The painter who draws by practice and judgement of the eye without the use of reason is like a mirror which copies everything placed in front of it without knowledge of the same.

Those who are enamoured of practice without science are like the pilot who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never has any certainty where he is going. Practice should always be based on sound theory, of which perspective is the guide and gateway, and without it nothing can be done well in any kind of painting.

— Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks

The hands and arms in all their actions must display the intention of the mind that moves them, as far as possible, because by means of them whoever has a sympathetic judgement follows mental intentions in all their movements. Good orators, when they wish to persuade their hearers of something, always accompany their words with movements of their hands and arms, although some fools do not take care of such ornaments, and on the tribune seem statues of wood, through whose mouths the voice of some man concealed in the tribune, is conducted by a speaking tube. This practice is a great defect in the living, and even more in painted figures, which, if they are not endowed by their creator with lively actions according to the intention that you imagine to be in such a figure, will be judged twice dead; dead because it is not alive, and dead in its action.

A good painter has two chief objects to paint, man and the intention of his soul; the former is easy, the latter hard, because he has to represent it by the attitudes and movements of the limbs. The knowledge of these should be acquired by observing the dumb, because their movements are more natural than those of any other class of persons.

The most important consideration in painting is that the movements of each figure expresses its mental state, such as desire, scorn, anger, pity, and the like.

In painting the actions of the figures are in every case expressive of the purpose in their minds.

…A picture or rather the figures therein should be represented in such a way that the spectator may easily recognize the purpose in their minds by their attitudes . . . as is the case with a deaf and dumb person who, when he sees two men in conversation—although he is deprived of hearing, can nevertheless understand the nature of their discussion from the attitudes and gestures of the speakers.

The limbs which are subject to labour must be muscular, and those which are not you must make without muscles and soft.

Represent your figures in such action as may be fitted to express what purpose in their minds; otherwise your art will not be good.

How a figure is not worthy of praise unless such action appears in it as expresses the passion of his sentiment. That figure is most worthy of praise which by its action best expresses the passion which animates it.

Old men ought to be represented with slow and heavy movements, their legs bent at the knees, when they stand still, and their feet placed parallel and apart; bending low with the head leaning forward, and their arms but little extended. Women must be represented in modest attitudes, their legs close together, their arms folded, their heads inclined and somewhat on the side. Old women should be represented with eager, swift, and furious gestures, like infernal furies; but the action should be more violent in their arms and head than in their legs. Little children, with lively and contorted movements when sitting, and, when standing, in shy and timid attitudes.

The lover is moved by the thing loved, as the sense is by that which it perceives, and it unites with it and they become one and the same thing. The work is the first thing born of the union; if the thing that is loved be base, the lover becomes base. When the thing taken into union is in harmony with that which receives it, there follow delight, pleasure, and satisfaction.