Grid of the Gods (17 page)

This diagram is significant for a variety of reasons. For one thing, theologically informed readers will find it paralleled in the so-called Carolingian “Trinitarian shield,” a pictogram used to describe the doctrine of the Trinity as it emerged in the Neoplatonically- influenced Augustinian Christianity of the mediaeval Latin Church. Again, it must be recalled in this context that the Greek Fathers objected to this formulation of the doctrine in the strongest possible terms, and viewed this dialectical structure as not so much metaphysical, as “sensory,” i.e., as more applicable to physical mechanics than to dogmatic theology.

More importantly in this context, however, the diagram illustrates how each vertex — God, Space, Kosmos — may be described as
a set of functions or their opposites:

Hermes’ version of the metaphor thus lends itself quite neatly to an analysis in terms of Hegelian dialectic, with Space itself forming the synthesis between God, the thesis, and Kosmos, the antithesis, described in terms of the functions
f1, f2, f3
or their opposites.

To see how, let us extend the formalism by
dispensing with
Hermes’ metaphysical description of the
functions f1, f2, f3
and take the terms God, Kosmos, and Space as the sigils of distinct or discrete topological regions in the neighborhood of each vertex in the diagram on the previous page, and model them as empty hypersets. Since it is possible for combinatorial functions to be members of empty sets, then letting
stand for God, Kosmos, and Space respectively, one may quickly see the lattice work that results from entirely different sets of functional signatures, exactly as was the case in Plotinus, but via a very different route:

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Note that space in Hermes’ version of the metaphor, since it comprises functional elements derived from the other two regions — “God” and “Kosmos” — could be conceived as the common “surface” between the two. Thus, once again, we have our familiar three entities:

1) the “bracketed” region of nothing, or
, Hermes’ “Kosmos”;

2) the
rest
of the nothing, or
, Hermes’ “God”; and,

3) the “surface” that the two regions share, or
, Hermes’ “Space”

With this in mind, let us now look once again at the passage concerning Vishnu and the Hindu version of this primordial triad, from the
Padama Purana
, half a world and millennia removed from the
Hermetica
and related texts of Egyptian provenance:

In the beginning of creation the Great Vishnu, desirous of creating the whole world, became threefold: Creator, Preserver, Destroyer. In order to create this world, the Supreme Spirit produced from the right side of his body himself as Brahmal then, in order to preserve the world, he produced from his left side Vishnu; and in order to destroy the world he produced from the middle of his body the eternal Shiva. Some worship Brahma, others Vishnu, others Shiva; but Vishnu, one yet threefold, creates, preserves, and destroys: therefore let the pious make no difference between the three.
²⁶

Once again, note that the three resulting entities, after Vishnu “differentiates himself,” are described in
functional terms
. So we may substitute the names Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva for Hermes’ God, Kosmos, and Space. And again, one of these, Brahma the “preserver”, appears to be a functional “set” of “nothing” that is a common surface of the other two, Vishnu the creator and Shiva the destroyer:

Androgynous Shiva

Note in the case of the
Padama Purana
that the functional set identified with each region or “manifestation of Vishnu” is described by a function (creation), its inverse (destruction), or the inverse of the other two (preservation). And again, we have the same three entities:

1) the “bracketed” region of Nothing, or
, Hermes’ “Kosmos”, and the
Padama Purana’s
Shiva;

2) the
rest
of the Nothing, or
, Hermes’ “God” and the
Padama Purana’s
Vishnu; and,