Guest Post: As below, so below; as above.

By Louis DiVirgilio

The saying comes from Hermes, the Greek name for the Egyptian god Thoth.  The meaning is that our universe is not an anarchy, but is guided, from top downward by universal principles.  The higher reflects itself in the lower, and the lower is an expression of the higher.  All things are essentially linked; nothing is separate from anything else.  If we carefully search with acute awareness within our lives, we would find that our lives are built around the principle of hierarchy.  For example, our families are hierarchical; typically, the order is, father or mother as head, followed by children, grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins.  Let’s look how schools are organized: board of education, superintendent, principle, vice-principle, counselors, teachers, coaches, students, support staff.  Probably the most familiar hierarchy pattern is the ‘organization chart” of directors, C.E.O.’s, Dept. V.P’s, and so on down the line.

Virtually all manner of systems and organizations are hierarchically structured.  In Nature, we see the same hierarchic principle expressed.  Here on our earth its,  humans, insect kingdom, plant kingdom, mineral kingdom.  If you read the ancient Greek Philosopher, Plato, you will find that he said, paraphrasing, that all things manifest, originate and have their equivalent representation in the realm of the ideal, which he termed, “‘nous.”  In Buddhism, all their principles and doctrines originate and unfold from the idea of “basic goodness.”  In the Christian Church, their hierarchic pattern is as follows: first, God the summit, then the Seraphim, then the Cherubim, then the Thrones, then the Dominations, Virtues, then Powers, the Principalities, the Arch-angles, then angles.  What we see operative within hierarchies is a pattern of movement from top or apex moving sequentially downward, in a descending order, like a latter. 

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