Theos-Talk Archives (January 2004 Message tt00025)

--- In theosophy_talks_truth@yahoogroups.com, "netemara888" 
<netemara888@y...> wrote:
In the course of reading this same book "L'Art..." I came across a 
chapter which made me sit on the edge of my chair. It is a chapter 
called « le lullisme » and it is almost a perfect description of 
Sant Mat. This man named Raymond Lulle or Ramon Lull was a 
philosopher who lived in the 12th century and made his mark there. 
He died in 1316. But before he died he left a great many books and 
influenced by St. Thomas and Albert the Great. It says that about 
1272 he was illuminated on Mount Randa one of the iles of Majorque. 
During this experience he gave the names of God : goodness, 
infinity, eternity and that he penetrated the entire universe.

Here was his genious he revived this art of the memory for the 
middle ages by stating that the art of memory could be based on 
these attributes, a little later he gave his first version « sur 
L'Art » The Art of Lulle is an art of the memory. He used the divine 
attributes to base them on and according to a structure of the 
trinity and believed that this Art was used by the 3 faculties of 
the soul. Many of the Dominicans, grand order of the brothers, and 
the Franciscan order became interested in his work, and thus in 
history they are associated with lullisme.

Lullism not to be confused with the classic Art but has an essential 
difference according to the author. It comes from a philosophical 
tradition such as « platonisme augustinien » or Augustian Platonism. 
These are basically the attributes of God.

Here it gets interesting : Lulle's objective was essentially 
missionary. He believed that he had to persuade the Jews and the 
Muslims to practice this Art with him and to convert them both to 
Christianity. Now, we have the tie between these Midieval men of the 
church and Sant Mat. The author says that Lulle and St. Augustine 
used the names of God to create meditations upon them. However, 
these names are essentially from Judaism and from the mystical 
Judaism called Cabbalism. I have to look into this because there are 
two types of Kabbalism one being christian and one Jewish, unless 
they are saying that the Christian version of Kabbalism was created 
by Lulle.

The author continues to say that the Spanish Jews who were 
contemporaries of Lulle meditated, with a great depth 
particularly, « sur les Noms de Dieu » on the names of God. One of 
these texts being Le Zohar, which was written in Spain at the time 
of Lulle.

I will translate the next sentence as well « the sacred alphabet of 
the Hebrews is supposedly, mystically speaking, contain all the 
Names of God. One form of cabalistic meditation known in Spain had 
a particular development ; it was about meditation on the letters of 
the Hebrew alphabet and of their incessant combination in order to 
form the Names of God. » page 192

Here's where it gets very interesting the author says that Islam 
attached a great importance to the meditation on the names of God, 
in particular islamic myticism known as « soufisme » He continues : 
that meditaiton had been particularly detailed by the mystical sufi 
known as Mohidin, who was supposed to be influenced by Lulle. The 
number of names which Lulle gives are 9 in toto. And these concepts 
are then translated into the letters of the alphabet : B, C, D, E, 
F, G, H, I and K. 

This is important because Lulle later used these letters, because 
every astrologer knows that letters can be changed to numbers and 
numbers can then be given astrological significance (this is 
something I do to shortcut) but this author says that Lulle had a 
sort of astrological medicine. Thus bringing religion and science in 
close quarters.  

Comment : As I noted this book is available in English, but this is 
the first time I have ever seen it, therefore have only the French 
copy. But if you are interested in further study, apparently Lulle 
wrote a great deal. However, being able to find these books or 
translations of them might be difficult. It is also Neo-Platonism 
and this is something which Ken Wilber has made extremely popular in 
his psychology. And it is interesting to note that true to Platonism 
Ken Wilber uses all these levels and constructs on which he hangs 
his psychology. It is also what it would take to understand it.

Thus I have given you the history of the modern basis of the social 
sciences and the hard sciences were later to come out of them. 
What's more it would be interesting to study and really know Sufism. 
I have also maintained that Sufism was the basis of Sant Mat as well 
as the teachings of Theosophy and Blavatsky herself.
--- End forwarded message ---