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Chain of Being
The name
given to an ancient belief in an immutable order in creation, ranging from the highest
spiritual levels to the lowest inanimate objects on earth. This chain, or hierarchy, of
beings is visualized as stretching as it were from the Throne of God to the very center of
the earth.
Developed as a
philosophical idea by
Plato, added to by
Aristotle, elaborated by the
Neo-Platonists, this
has become a stock image underlying many philosophies and cosmological conceptions. Hell
alone (because it had rebelled from the order of things) was not connected to
this chain, yet the vision of
Dante, resting as it did upon the redemptive
thesis of theology, embraced even Hell
in his view of the chain. At the bottom
of the ladder is inanimate matter (i.e. dirt and rocks). At the top of the
latter are immaterial, spiritual beings like the gods. Half way up the ladder
are humans, which are half material and half immaterial spirit.
Also the Medieval thought as to where man fit in the
universe. It was believed that people were born in their place and meant to stay
there by God's will. Moving up or down on the chain was considered to be an
affront to God's plan. Noblemen were supposed to accept their duty to God and
country and act in a noble manner, just as peasants were not to seek to escape
from their situation and reach above themselves in pursuit of a better life.
See Freemasonry,
Thoth,
Mithra,
Casting Black Magic Spells,
Commanding Spirits,
The Tarot Store and
Divination & Scrying Tools and
Supplies.
Sources: (1) Luck, Georg,
Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Collection of Ancient Texts,
The Johns Hopkins University Press; (2) Mackenzie, Kenneth R. H.,
Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, Part 1,
Kessinger Publishing; (3) Lovejoy, Arthur,
The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the
History of an Idea, Harvard University Press.
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