Coincidentia Oppositorum and Hermetic Qaballa

One of my best teachers was a Grand Master of the Dong Han system of Taoist medicine. This guy was what I call "a trick person". Using Taoist Metaphysics he had crafted an herbal energetical formula that could rid a body of arthritis. Now that is trick.

I asked him, "How precisely do you do that?"

He went on to explain something to the effect that the Universe was comprised of energy and that all things held an energetical value defined in terms of Taoist alchemy and the 5 elements of "wood", "fire", "earth", "metal", and "water" and their equivalent delineations. Disease was the blockage of energy in the body. All disease held an energetical value also and through crafting formulas that mirrored identically the disease in its exact opposite, the blockage was canceled out. With the blockage removed, the body simply healed itself.

Now that is trick!

Nicolas Cusa and Coincidentia Oppositorum



The idea that the disease held one value and the cure an exact mirror opposite value finds its Hermetic Qaballist expression in a term coined by 16th century philosopher Nicolas of Cusa known as "coincidentia oppositorum".

The reasoning is something like this:

There are 3 layers of human acquisition of knowledge: 1) Knowledge acquired through one's senses, 2) Knowledge acquired through "reason and logic", and 3) Knowledge acquired through use of the Intellect.

"The principle of contradiction, the basis of Aristotelian Scholastic logic, is good within the limits of reason, but it gives us an improper knowledge of reality.

"We arrive at the knowledge of the reality (God), and hence of unity and the infinite, only by means of a third activity of the spirit, the faculty of intellect, which is supra-rational understanding, mystical intuition. This faculty, overcoming all differences and multiplicity, presents the reality (God) as perfect unity, in which all differences are reconciled in the infinite life, the "coincidence of opposites." The principle of coincidence is for Nicholas of Cusa a new one on which logic must be based in order to arrive at the knowledge of reality.

"Hence the title of Nicholas' work De Docta ignorantia, which indicates the limitation of human understanding (reason) as opposed to the knowledge of God that is free of all such limitation (supra-rational)."

Hence Nicolas of Cusa's work entitled "De docta ignorantia" (On Scientific Ignorance) hinted at the limits of Aristotelian Scholastic logic as such pertained to the acquisition of a knowledge and comprehension of Reality, especially as this term is used from an Occult perspective.

Without the use of the Intellect, or the spiritual faculties of the soul, the Taoist metaphysicist could have known that disease was but a hyper-dimensional mathematical representation of energy. Through fabrication of an exact mirror opposite of the disease, the Taoist metaphysician revealed a practical application of the "unity of opposites".

The Unity of Opposites




In a unity of opposites, the thing, and its exact opposite, are but one and the same. From a logical perspective, 2 = -2. This is not possible using Aristotelian logic, but from a Qaballistic point of view, the object and its opposite may be viewed as one and the same, or one object may be connected to its opposite and continually at war with the same said opposite, or "the thing" and its co-instantiated opposite may represent polar opposites of the same said object.

In the case of the Taoist metaphysician, we may view the disease and its cure as being one and the same. Each energetical formula (the disease and its cure) have equivalent value when one (the disease) is mirrored against the other (the cure). Each opposite when viewed singularly appears as a separate entity, but when viewed holistically, each is a mathematical expression of the other. It is through the logical reasoning as hinted at by Nicolas of Cusa that the intellect is able to comprehend the values of the exact mirror opposite of the healing formula, but the energetical opposite remains.

Another way to view the Unity of Opposites is to imagine an object co-substantiating. A popular way this is explained is that a road inclined must by necessity be a road that has a decline. Each direction presents uniquely different perspectives and consequences upon the object that travels up or down the road. The incline and the decline are by necessity properties of the former or the latter, however.

"The road up and the road down are the same thing." (Hippolytus, Refutations 9.10.3)

Within the Unity of Opposites is the rational idea that all things balance themselves out. From a mathematical representation, we may note that -2 = 2 appears to be "not true", but from a Unity of Opposites, we may note the space between O is precisely "2" from one side or the other, so it matters not. Each number is created from the same central number, which is more accurately defined as 0 (as opposed to arguments of "the 1" or unity") as posited by Jewish metaphysics, for each cancels the other out and are truly opposites from the point of nothingness.

The expression of -2 = 2 is true when viewed from the center, for a Qaballist views this reality as if within the center of a sphere where time and space have no bearing or influence. We simply not that each number appears on the same plane of the sphere from the center, and so each must be equivalent.

"Yin and Yang" of the Tao is another way of understanding this otherwise purely mathematical philosophical expression. Says the Tao,

"The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three produced All things. All things leave behind them the Obscurity (out of which they have come), and go forward to embrace the Brightness (into which they have emerged), while they are harmonised by the Breath of Vacancy." -source.

This balance could best be defined as nothingness and everything all the same, hence the more accurate philosophical truth that the 1 cannot exist without the 0 and vice versa. This idea is also advanced by the Hindu and the teachings of Buddha,

"Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two."

From a Hermetic Qaballa perception, the binary expression is manifest as "the Word", which is Pi.

Tzimtzum, the "Logos", and the Principal of Contraction



Qaballists view material reality as manifesting or expressing itself through a process of contraction. Take, for instance, a glass of water and sugar. Heat the mixture and then drop in a set of strings. As the water cools, the sugar affixes itself to the string in a crystalline structure.

What you have is "rock candy".

Now expand this idea to the Universe.

The glass of water and sugar may be viewed as the "the Great All". As the water cools, ever more complex series of crystalline structures begin to form. This crystalline structures we may view as the material universe forming through a process of "contraction". This philosophical concept is actually Greek in origin but has found a rich expression in Jewish thinking through their idea of Tzimtzum.

From Lurianic Kabballah, we find an apt expression of this idea.

"The word Tzimtzum has at least two meanings. The first is an ontological meaning connoting "contraction", "withdrawal", or "condensation." The second is an epistemological meaning, which connotes "concealment" or "occultation". "

In the creation of words, one should always be in the lookout for obvious fabrications, especially as they pertain to "sacred nomeclatures". For instance, the "Tzimtzum" deals with the idea of "contraction" and at the same time, "concealment or occultation".

Since "tzimtzum" is purported to be Jewish (trust not such simplifications), all that you had to do was reverse the word TZIMTZUM to reveal the following formula:

MUZT MIZT = MUST MYST

Mystification is at the very core of the Occult as an exercise in the comprehension of reality. According to the Milesians (and Taoist) views of reality, all "things" are interconnected to the greater whole. The contraction of the higher essence gives rise to all things, which then become identified through the crafting of words to describe the things, all of which tie back into the idea of "the Logos".

In analyzing the views of Heraclitis, we find this apt observation:

"Another good example in which the nature of a thing is given by its logos, and by the changes it undergoes, rather than by a list of its ingredients, is found in his discussion of the mixed drink that the Greeks called kykeon (here translated “posset”) — a mixture of wine, barley and grated cheese (76=B125):

"even the posset (kykeon) separates if it is not being stirred."

His point is that the continued existence of a certain kind of thing depends on its undergoing continual change and movement. What makes something a posset is not just what it’s made of (not just any collection of wine, barley, and cheese is a posset), but how it behaves, what kind of process it undergoes.

In a way, then, the logos for something is rather like a recipe. That is, it is more than a list of ingredients. It includes an account of how they are put together, and how they interact.

Hermetic Qaballa and the Craft of the Letters



We may now begin to peer deeper into the "Mystical Craft of Qaballa".

A widely held belief is that the ultimate expression of "contraction" is that the Letters represent the ultimate expression of contraction. The Sepher Yetzirah is but one document that highlights this otherwise Occult reality when it states that reality was crafted upon Letters, Numbers, and Sounds. The Sepher Yetzirah is by far not the only document to hint of this reality.

The idea is that the ultimate expression of contraction is that the Letters, Numbers, Sounds, and other forms of symbolic expressions as the Zodiac signs that, when properly understood and refomulated, provide one with a path back to "the Great All".

A good way this has been described is in a document called "The Doctrine of Coincidentia Oppositorum in Jewish Mysticism" where it the idea is expressed as follows:

"The Chabad Chasidim held that the Tzimtzum, the act of contraction and concealment which wrought all distinctions and brought the world into being, was a linguistic act. According to Schneur Zalman, the Tzimtzum is a revealing/concealing act in which the infinite, Ein-sof, contracts itself into language, specifically in the combinations of letters which comprise the so-called “ten utterances of creation.”[50]

Such contraction into language is both a concealment and revelation of the divine essence.[51]

The Tzimtzum inaugurates a distinction between language and the world which conceals the singular unity of Ein-sof but reveals an infinite multitude of finite objects and ideas. These notions suggest the intriguing possibility that by undoing the Tzimtzum, i.e. by overcoming the distinctions between words and things and thus language and the world, we can return to the primal unity of Ein-sof, the infinite God.

The idea as expressed by Jewish mystics is not in anyway unique to Jewish metaphysics.

The primary alphabet upon which this idea may be genuinely expressed and explained is that of the 26 digit Alphabet of English upon which the Philosophy of the Illuminatus is nore accurately and clearly demonstrated.

Those who are willing to begin their inquiry into the nature of these Letters will come to a comprehensive appreciation as to the genius of what has been created and for which we may argue why English is a truly a "universal language". It is so precisely because it contains universal expositions of hidden truths that all may come to hear.