The Hermetic Principle of Cooperation exists in the cooperation of flowering plants and bees, in the cooperation of different cells in an organism, and in cooperation in the human social organism.
Cooperation: The Original Divine Design
“The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden as its gardener, to tend and care for it. Genesis (ii, 15)
“Let us stop here for a moment, dear Unknown Friend, to breathe in again, after the magnitude and significance of this compressed and lapidary statement from Genesis (ii, 15) has so taken our breath from us. The primordial and eternal mission of mankind is thus to cultivate and maintain the ‘garden’, i.e. the world in a state of equilibrium and cooperation between Spirit and Nature! What a world of content is found enclosed in seed form in this statement! May spiritual light—moral and practical, mystical, gnostic and magical—radiate forth when one opens one’s heart and mind to the touch of this seed-statement!” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p440.
“The ecological catastrophe that we touch off by our refusal to cooperate with the purpose for which we were created, not only affects our work, it affects worlds both above and beyond us. Because the whole chain is a self-specified system. Everything hangs together by everything else. So what we experience here is not just global warming and a pandemic. It’s a distress that’s reverberated in all worlds in its own ways. If we took that seriously, we’d wake up fast. So the work of restoration, then, is also the work that restores and heals all worlds.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Rebuilding Trust Feb 2022, 53:37 Day1.2-exchange-between-realms.
Cooperation in Nature and Evolution
“The teaching-impulse called ‘Gemini’ can be expressed by paraphrasing a little the first statement of the Emerald Table of Hermes:
May that which is below be as that which is above, and may that which is above be as that which is below to accomplish the miracles of one thing.
“This is the principle of analogy put into practice, taking its point of departure from the principle of cooperation. It is the opposite of that of the struggle for existence advanced by Charles Darwin as the principle of evolution called ‘Sagittarius’. Nature furnishes us at the same time with a great number of proofs of the principle of cooperation in the process of evolution—perhaps as many proofs as there are of the struggle for existence. The proofs are of a kind such that one could uphold the principle of cooperation to be worthy as the directing principle of natural evolution with the same justification as the principle of struggle may be upheld. Indeed, is it the struggle for existence within an organism—let us say the human body—which explains the effect of the activities of millions of biological units (cells) in the organism or, rather, is it their cooperation? Don’t the cells of the muscles, the nervous system, the glands, the blood, etc., cooperate rather than struggle? And isn’t the life and health of the whole organism due to this cooperation?
“Bees and flowering plants cooperate. Air, light and plants cooperate in photosynthesis, where the miracle of the transformation of inorganic matter into organic matter takes place—where ‘stones’ are transformed into ‘bread’. And, lastly, if mankind had not cooperated more than it had struggled, it would not only not have achieved the international civilization of our time but it would probably have been annihilated. There is therefore no doubt that the principle of cooperation has at least the same rights to be considered as the directing principle of evolution as that of the struggle for existence advanced by Darwinism. In other words, the diurnal principle of Gemini plays a role at least equal to the nocturnal principle of Sagittarius in natural evolution.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p528-529.
“The ‘law’ of the struggle for existence that Darwin observed in the domain of biology will one day cede its place to the law of cooperation for existence which exists already in the cooperation of flowering plants and bees, in the cooperation of different cells in an organism, and in cooperation in the human social organism. The end of the ‘law’ of the struggle for existence and the future triumph of the law of cooperation for life has been foretold by the prophet Isaiah:
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
And the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
And the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
And a little child shall lead them. (Isaiah xi, 6)
“This will be, because the new ‘law’—i.e. a profound change in the psychic and physical structure of beings—will replace the old ‘law’, firstly in consciousness, then in desires and affections, then lastly in the organic structure of beings.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p208.
The Health and Sickness of Creation
“The heart says to us: the cosmos, this marvel of wisdom, beauty and goodness, suffers. It is ailing. This great organism which cannot have been born out of sickness, whose birth must have been due to perfect health, i.e. to perfect wisdom, beauty and goodness, the totality of which was its cradle—this great organism is ailing. The continents—and the planets—grow evermore hard, petrifying: this is the ‘sclerosis’ of the cosmos. And on the surface of its land-masses in the process of petrification, and in the deeps of the seas, and in the air, there reigns the struggle for existence—this is the fever of inflammation in the world.
“But sick as it is, the world still retains—everywhere and always— characteristics of its primordial health, and shows the working of forces of its new health, its convalescence. Because alongside the struggle for existence there is cooperation in order to live, and alongside the mineral petrification, there is the succulent and breathing cover of the plant kingdom. The world can therefore be lauded and wept for at the same time. The world is not what it should be. There is a contradiction between the totality and the details. For whilst the starry heavens represent a harmony of equilibrium and perfect cooperation, animals and insects devour one another and innumerable legions of infectious microbes bear sickness and death to men, animals and plants.
“The ancients always knew that there is an anomaly in the state of the world. Whether they attributed it to the principle of ignorance (avidya) as in ancient India, or to the principle of darkness (Ahriman) as in ancient Persia, or again to the principle of evil (Satan) as the ancient Semites did, is not important; it is always a matter of distinction between the natural world and the unnatural world, between the natural and the perverse, between health and sickness.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p245-246.
Cooperation Between Human and Divine
“The practical meaning of the ‘heaven-earth’ balance is that of cooperation with grace. Human effort is therefore not for nothing in the domain of the working of grace. Chosen or not chosen, having faith or not, it is necessary for us, for example, to ‘forgive those who trespass against us’ here below in order for our trespasses to be forgiven above. There is a correlation—not in measure, but rather in nature—between the scale below, ‘effort’, and the scale above, ‘gift’, of the ‘heaven-earths balance. The correlation between effort below and gift from above is not, I repeat, one of measure or quantity, but rather one of substance or quality. It can be that the forgiveness on my part of one single offence by another can produce the forgiveness of a thousand or so offences of the same nature by me. The ‘heaven-earths balance does not weigh quantity; its working belongs entirely to the domain of quality. This is why there is no quantitative justice in the relationship between efforts below and gifts from above. The latter always surpass the measure of quantitative justice.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p179.
“You can almost see yourself as growing backward out of that essential wholeness which created you. And the whole is already implicit in what you’re growing toward. But our part in the bargain is to cooperate, to surrender.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Living Presence, 24:00 Chapter-3-4-Soul-Work-and-Creative-Energy.
“If you can keep coming back and putting your identity back in that place where you were before nature and creature, then you immediately get a sense of reconnection with the abundance, which simply is. It doesn’t matter in the deepest way, you know, that somebody looked at you cross-eyed. You don’t have to fix the problems of the world. So it knocks the urgency right out of it, and it knocks that need of you to redress this wound, this injustice, you know. It takes all that kind of vitriol out of it. Then, when you’re calm, when you’re open, when you’re responsive like that, you have a better chance of cooperating with the divine harmony, which is always surprising and always out of left field.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Boehme for Beginners, 03:38 07 Track 1-7.
Cooperation in Spiritual Development
“The real work is to cooperate intelligently with the birth of the new.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Integral Light December 2021, 0.1 Overview
“The gateway to the second body lies through the first body. And the real goal is not to beat the poor first body into submission, but to sensitize it to awaken it to the subtle currents already flowing through it. And to work with it through this increasing sensitization to the subtle that already is. To allow it to begin to collect and accumulate the energy within, the vital substantial concentration. That will allow it then to cooperate gladly in the project of continuing sublimation.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Stonington 2022 2nd Body, 44:00 3. The Transubstantiation of Spiritual Substances.
Cooperation Between Faith and Intelligence
“Intuition—understood as the alliance of active wisdom and active intelligence, which is the theme of the nineteenth Arcanum of the Tarot and which not only underlies Hermeticism but is its very reason for existence—presupposes the cooperation of two principles and therefore falls in the category of the revelation whose character is ‘conversation through forces’. Just as the mages from the Orient made a long journey and brought presents to the Child, in following the ‘star’, so also Hermeticism is on the way from century to century to arrive at the manger—not to arrive there with empty hands, but to place there the presents which are the fruit of the millennial-old effort of human intelligence which follows the ‘star’.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p530-531.
“Intuition is therefore the cooperation of human intelligence with superhuman wisdom. It is what creates the link—or the ‘intermediary gnosis’ and ‘intermediary magic’—between the absolute and the relative, between the supernatural and the natural, between faith and reason. Now, intuition can be developed only by people who have faith and who have reason. It is reserved for believing thinkers. Whosoever believes and does not think will never attain it. Whosoever thinks and does not believe will never have the certainty of transcendental things that intuition alone can give.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p536.
“The Kingdom of God brings with it the absolute certainty of the cooperation of faith at first hand and intelligence—it is the kingdom of intuition. This is why the Master made appeal not only to faith but also to intelligence, not only to essential certainty but also to consistent certainty, by stating the fundamental principle of intelligence, i.e. judgement by effects, knowledge of things by their fruits:
You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. (Matthew vii, 16-18)
“This is the briefest and most complete characteristic of intelligence and its role. Its role is immense, if one considers that intelligence is called to constitute an integral part of intuition which, in its turn, determines greatness and smallness in the Kingdom of God.” Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, p537-538.
Logion 49
Yeshua says...
Blessed are those chosen and unified.
The Realm of the Kingdom is theirs.
For out of her you have come,
and back to her you are returning.
Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)
Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot, Jeremy Tarcher, 1985
Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.
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