The Forbidden Universe: The Origins of Science and the Search for the Mind of God

by Lynn Picknett

  Accordingly [considering the sun’s central position], it is not foolish that it has been called the lamp of the universe, or its mind, or its ruler. [It is] Trismegistus’ visible God … 3

  Copernicus was linking the sun’s physical place in the solar system to resolutely transcendental concepts: that the sun is the universe’s ‘mind’ or the seat of the power that rules all creation, or ‘Trismegistus’ visible God’. And it is in those three words that the greatest clue to understanding Copernicus’ theory lies, for they reveal a hint of the real heresy that was to rock the Vatican to its foundations.

  MAN THE MIRACLE

  To discover why Copernicus’ reference was – and in certain respects still is – so earth-shaking we have to look back at another seminal document, published over half a century earlier, which cited the same mysterious authority.

  Here was a tract that many have called the manifesto of the Renaissance,4 as it crystallizes and embodies the spirit and purpose of that new era. Published in Rome in 1487, it has become known as the Oration on the dignity of man (De hominis dignitate). Intended to be given as a public lecture, but never delivered, it was written by the twenty-four-year-old Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94). As the youngest son of the ruler of the city-state of Mirandola in northern Italy, and Prince of Concord, Pico’s name was already known. Although his family may have been only B-list nobility it was related by marriage to illustrious dynasties such as the Sforzas of Milan and the Estes of Ferrara. Pico had inherited influence, which he was happy to exploit.

  When he arrived in Rome from Florence, after attending various universities, including Paris, Pico had with him a set of nine hundred theses – statements from various philosophical, mystical and esoteric traditions – which, he claimed, were mutually consistent and reconcilable. He said he would demonstrate this in a public debate before Rome’s intelligentsia. But as the majority of his sources were not Christian, his request for a public debate was refused and his work condemned. This was Rome, after all.

  Pico was, however, not to be dismissed so easily. With astonishing courage and foolhardiness (a combination that distinguishes many Renaissance heroes), he published an Apology – in fact, a defence – which included his nine hundred theses and what would have been his opening speech in the debate, the Oration on the Dignity of Man.

  As his chosen title suggests, Pico’s fundamental point concerned the brilliance of humankind and its privileged place in creation. To him, a human being’s defining faculty is his intellect, the hunger for knowledge and the ability to satisfy it.

  According to Pico’s parable, after God made the universe and populated it with the angelic beings of heaven and the beasts of the Earth, each with its specific nature and function, he still needed a creature ‘to think on the plan of his great work’.5 As every niche in the cosmological ecosystem had already been filled, God decreed that Man should ‘have joint possession of whatever nature had been given to any other creature’.6 Furthermore, being of an ‘indeterminate nature’ that was ‘neither of heavenly nor earthly stuff, neither mortal nor immortal’,7 Man could choose with his own free will the attributes of any other created being, earthly or celestial. Only Man has the flexibility to choose his own path:

  … with the sharpness of his senses, the acuity of his reason, and the brilliance of his intelligence [he is] the interpreter of nature, the nodal point between eternity and time.8

  Aligning humanity with angels was fundamentally anathema to the Church of Rome, for whom the doctrine of original sin means that humans are born physically and spiritually soiled, only reaching Heaven if they submit to the Church’s dogma and the pronouncements of its priests. And perhaps not even then.

  Pico’s landmark Oration opens with an appeal to two authorities. The first is ‘Abdala the Saracen’, the ninth-century Muslim scholar Abd-Allah ibn Qutaybah, who declared there was nothing more wonderful in the world than Man. Pico follows with a quotation from the same mysterious sage whom Copernicus would also come to cite: ‘the celebrated exclamation of Hermes Trismegistus, “What a great miracle is man, Asclepius” confirms this [Abdala’s] opinion’.9

  It is easy to see why Pico found himself in such hot water. It was not the best idea to start a debate with Holy City scholars by appealing to the authorities of both a Muslim and a resolutely non-Christian sage, Hermes Trismegistus. Notably, his theses also gave pride of place to the Cabala, the Jewish mystical system (which is very different from the modern cult popularized by Madonna).

  Pico’s Apology only made matters worse. Under pressure from Roman scholars, Pope Innocent VIII swiftly banned it. In the interests of self-preservation Pico retracted his claims, before prudently fleeing to Paris. But the Pope’s arm was long, and even there he was imprisoned. Yet, as we will see, just when all seemed lost, Pico’s fortunes were to turn around.

  Pico’s Oration is illuminating about the Renaissance for several reasons. It reveals the era’s defining characteristic, a dramatic shift in attitudes about humanity: Man suddenly became a being of wonder with limitless abilities and possibilities rather than a miserable creature innately blighted and damned by original sin. It also highlights the clash between two mindsets: the new, open, questioning, eclectic spirit of the Renaissance – in particular its willingness to take seriously sources of wisdom outside the Christian domain – and the old, blinkered, Bible-bound attitude of the Middle Ages. The Church had always been wary of learning for learning’s sake, frowning on novelty and intellectual challenge. The frenzy of interest in new ways to explore the universe and humankind’s place within it was the direct result of being freed from the old shackles. Effectively, the Renaissance represented a great surge of collective self-confidence.

  To ‘think for oneself’ today often implies a rejection of established religion and all forms of ‘superstition’, however this was emphatically not the case among the intellectuals of Renaissance Europe. Most of the traditions from which Pico drew his theses were not established works of physics or mathematics, but metaphysical, mystical and what we have come to know as occult sources. Above all it was the works of Hermes Trismegistus that drove Pico with a passion.

  There were many reasons why the Renaissance happened when it did. One was the renewed interest in the scholars and philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, especially Plato. Many works from antiquity had been lost to Europe but preserved in the Middle East, from where they began trickling back during the late Middle Ages. This became a flood in 1453 when Constantinople, the last bastion of the Byzantine Empire (itself the last bastion of the Roman Empire), fell to the Muslim Ottomans. Another factor was the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, their scholars dispersing into Europe’s intellectual centres. Jewish traditions of learning had until then been ignored in Christian Europe.

  Apart from the intellectual sphere, cultural, economic and political factors all played a part in giving birth to the Renaissance. The fact that its first flowering took place in Florence, for example, was intimately linked to the city’s wealth as well as its republican government.

  One of the most important defining factors of the Renaissance, however, was a renewal of interest in the esoteric, specifically the theory and practice of magic. Given the scale of its impact on the Renaissance and the fact that it was hardly hidden away (as Pico’s Oration clearly demonstrates), it is astonishing that historians completely ignored the influence of this renewed interest on the period until the 1940s, when studies began to reveal its influence over many of its great figures. It is only really over the last half-century or so that the crucial importance of esoteric, magical philosophies has been properly appreciated, as for example in the work of academics such as British historian Frances A. Yates (1899–1981). In a series of books published in the 1960s and 70s, Yates demonstrated that the Renaissance was largely motivated and driven by the ‘occult philosophy’, a blend of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century magical and esoteric systems.

  The term ‘occult philoso
phy’ comes from one of the period’s most important expositions of the principles of magic, Three Books on the Occult Philosophy (De occulta philosophia libri tres) by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, published 1531–33. The Latin occultus simply meant hidden, obscured or, by extension, secret, but not necessarily supernatural. Agrippa’s book would have been understood at the time it was published to be about ‘hidden philosophy’.

  Magic’s reputation enjoyed a major boost in the Renaissance. From being the exclusive province of reclusive, more than usually malodorous and scary individuals, it very nearly became mainstream, and was widely discussed as a respectable aspect of philosophy and even theology. In his Oration, for example, Pico della Mirandola argues that magic is a valid path to knowledge, but is careful to differentiate between the more odius and hellish magic that utilises demons, and the natural magic that comprises the highest realisation of philosophy.10 In the intellectual explosion that was the Renaissance, magic came to be considered an integral part of all aspects of human knowledge.

  As Frances Yates demonstrated, the Renaissance occult philosophy was based on three streams of esoteric thought. Of the three, modern academics favour what is now known as Neoplatonism, a philosophy and cosmology developed in the intellectual melting-pot of the Egyptian seaport Alexandria in the second and third centuries CE. Neoplatonism blended the original ideas – then already eight hundred years old – of the great Greek philosopher Plato with other Greek and Egyptian mystical concepts. A second strand was a Christianized version of the Jewish Cabala, which Pico aligned with the occult philosophy in what was to be considered his greatest innovation. But the third, and by far the most important strand, was Hermeticism,11 the philosophy attributed to the legendary wise man honoured by Pico and Copernicus: Hermes Trismegistus, or the ‘Thrice-Great Hermes’. And it is this strand that shifted the world from a morass of ignorance and self-hate to the sunlit uplands of intellectual genius.

  The sheer power of Hermeticism cannot be overestimated. It effectively created the Renaissance, whose essence could be summed up by Hermes’ adage, ‘Magnum miraculum est homo’ (literally, ‘Man is a great miracle’). Hermeticism embraced that fanatical determination to discover, invent and understand, and the overwhelming sense of excitement at the prospect of endless possibilities. It seized the imaginations not only of Copernicus but also later luminaries. It drove them, hearts and minds, to dare to challenge the old thinking and encompass the most radical, even subversive, ideas – which changed the world forever. Their contributions to science would simply have been impossible without Hermeticism. Without Hermes Trismegistus, these great thinkers would never have fully realized their genius.

  KEEPER OF ALL KNOWLEDGE

  Hermes Trismegistus was a legendary Egyptian sage and teacher, whose wisdom was embodied in a collection of books known as the Hermetica. Although during the Renaissance Hermes Trismegistus was taken to be his full name – hence Copernicus simply calling him ‘Trismegistus’ – ‘Thrice-Great’ is an honorific, so his proper name is just ‘Hermes’. He was said to be a descendant of the god Hermes, or his Roman equivalent, Mercury.

  During the Middle Ages, Hermes Trismegistus was a truly legendary figure, known only from odd fragments of his own supposed writings and references to him and his work in ancient texts. One such reference came from Clement, Bishop of Alexandria, who around 200 CE witnessed Egyptian priests and priestesses parading their sacred books and noted that there were forty-two works of Hermes. (Which, if nothing else, according to cult comedy science-fiction writer Douglas Adams, is a number that is sacred to galactic hitch-hikers.)

  Although scattered references to the Hermetica survived, all but one of the actual books had disappeared, at least in Europe. However, hand-written copies of many of the books did still circulate in Byzantium and, significantly, in Islamic centres of learning. At some point eighteen treatises were grouped together and became known as the Corpus Hermeticum. When, by whom and why they were selected, is unknown, but the Corpus was finalized by the eleventh century, and Byzantium seems to be the logical location for its compilation.

  Another important source on Hermeticism was an anthology of around forty fragments, some from the Corpus Hermeticum but others otherwise unknown, compiled by the pagan Macedonian scholar Stobaeus around 500 CE, and including a complete treatise, The Virgin of the World (Korè Kosmou). Another Hermetic text may only be a mere half page long; the Emerald Tablet, but it is difficult to overstate its importance. Allegedly containing the words of Hermes Trismegistus himself, the thirteen alchemical maxims of the Emerald Tablet were believed to have originally been engraved on a tablet fashioned from the bright green jewel itself. Nobody knows for sure if this work has any connection with the Greek Hermetica, since it comes from an Arabic source that entered Europe via Spain in the twelfth century, but it was immensely influential among alchemists, helping cement Hermes’ status as more than merely a wise man. To those whose admiration bordered on worship, he was at the very least a semi-divine teacher.

  The one complete Hermetic book known in Europe in the Middle Ages was the Asclepius, or The Perfect Word, a fourth-century Latin translation of a lost Greek original, a question-and-answer session between Hermes and his eponymous pupil. Asclepius was the Greek god of healing; the pupil in the treatise is his descendant, although he himself is not divine. The names of the characters, including Ammon and Tat (Thoth) who also appear as witnesses to the debate, reveal the Hermetic attitude to both divinity and humankind in general. This has it that while there is a God, human beings who attain a certain level of wisdom can themselves become divine. An example of this is presented in the form of Asclepius’ ancestor, originally a mortal who discovered medicine, and who despite being dead and buried – his mummified body lay in a specially constructed temple – was still able to intercede for the sick. Similarly, Hermes Trismegistus describes himself as a descendant of the god Hermes, who continues to help mankind.

  The Hermetic texts are a mixture of on the one hand philosophical and cosmological teaching, and on the other astrology, alchemy and magic. Over the centuries, and even today, attempts have been made to separate the two, on the grounds that the philosophy itself is sophisticated and coherent, while the astrology and magic is considered primitive and incoherent. (One 1920s edition simply deleted this material.) Some even consider the compilation of the Corpus Hermeticum as an attempt to purge the canon of the most magically inclined texts. Of all the known Hermetica, those in the Corpus are conspicuously the least magical, but even they include some arcane elements – which is hardly surprising given that the philosophy and cosmology are indivisible from an occult worldview.

  THE MIND OF GOD

  The Hermetic books explore an intimately related cosmology, philosophy and theology that is fairly accessible in principle, even if some of the details are as abstruse as an ancient alchemical text, and for similar reasons. While any student might read the books, they are designed to speak only to the heart and mind of those who are worthy of learning their secrets. An ability to navigate the extraordinary allusions and metaphors, and an understanding of the connections between them, is in itself a sort of initiation into a world of spiritual and intellectual wonders.

  Despite the medieval and Renaissance tendency to regard the books as the work of the great Hermes Trismegistus, they are obviously authored by various individuals who ‘present different interpretations of their common doctrine,’12 and with scrupulous honesty often point out that some of the treatises are contradictory.13 The reason for the attribution to Hermes is that all of the authors have chosen to remain anonymous, which – as we will see – is very telling. The writers believe that the common doctrine stems from Hermes, God’s chosen teacher of humankind, ‘the all-knowing revealer’.14

  The Hermetica’s philosophy and cosmology is not only mystical but emphatically magical, embracing different realms of being, from gross matter to the divine spheres, and that of supernatural beings, divine, angelic and dem
onic. But ultimately it is monotheistic, ascribing all creation to a single God, while also encompassing lesser gods and goddesses, a category to which even mortal humans can aspire if they become sufficiently advanced. ‘Advanced’ is not merely the sort of ‘spiritual evolution’ that is today assumed as a badge of superiority by New Agers; great intellectual progress that benefits humanity also qualifies. Asclepius won his godhood for his medical advances. (It certainly beats a Nobel Prize.)

  Unlike the creator-God of Judeo-Christian tradition, however, the Hermetic God is intimately part of his creation. In the Hermetic vision, the universe is God and God is the universe. The cosmos is a living entity, and everything in it is imbued with life. Hermeticism also incorporates the once-common idea of the anima mundi, the world-soul. The Hermetic universe is really more of a great thought, an emanation of the mind of God, than something zapped into being on his orders. But God needs the universe in order to realize himself, as American historian of science and philosophy Ernest Lee Tuveson writes (his emphasis):

  The essential elements of the Hermetist conception of reality is that the world emanates from the divine intelligence, and, as a whole in which each part is an essential component member, expresses that great Mind.15

  As the American philosopher Glenn Alexander Magee – whose speciality is the influence of esoteric thinking, and particularly Hermeticism, on western culture – points out, this explanation of God’s need to create the universe overcomes some of the nonsensical aspects of the biblical creation tale. Magee points out that the traditional Judeo-Christian account provides no good reason why God should have wanted or needed to create either the universe or humankind: what does he get out of it? This was one of the main reasons the Hermetic explanation appealed to the increasingly sophisticated Renaissance thinkers: ‘The great advantage of the Hermetic conception is that it tells us why the cosmos and the human desire to know God exist in the first place.’16