u/AphantasicOwl

I was contemplating book/ch 13 in light of yesterdays post and my finishing of the Corpus Hermeticum, and in light of the responses from a previous post about applying hermeticism in our daily lives.

u/stellarhymns says about how they apply it in their lives by (among other things):

“Studying and practicing astrology to observe the logos expressed down through the cosmos into our worldly affairs.”

u/polyphanes mentions something similar when they said they applied it by: “…regular offerings made to the planetary gods to mark the passage of the heavenly bodies into new phases or signs…”

There seems to be a notion of the study and reverence for the planetary bodies, and this makes given previous conversations regarding book/ch1 and book/ch13, but this leaves me with a question:

If we take book/ch11.6 to heart that “The creator is in everything. He does not dwell in one thing” then are astrology (and therefore alchemy although not otherwise mentioned previously) only a way to understand the logos of God? Put another way, if God is in everything isn’t the spark of his logos revealed in everything as well, and therefore one not necessarily need to practice astrology, etc?

So in passage 11 of book 13, Tat asks Hermes how the twelve tormentors of darkness are driven out by the 10 powers.

Hermes responds in passage 12 with the following (using the translation in The Way of Hermes):

“This tent of the body through which we have passed, O son, is composed from the zodiac and this consists of signs, twelve in number; the body is of one nature and appears in every form; it exists to lead man astray.”

Here’s my interpretation:

We get from book 1 a description of the ascent/descent of the soul into/emerging from the planetary bodies. So I’m taking this passage to mean that when the soul descends into become embodied, it gains essences from the 12 zodiac and, when unilluminated, they manifest as the 12 tormentors.

But really, How have you interpreted this?