“It is through the human’s unique combination of soul, sense, spirit, and reason that we are considered divine and have the ability to ascend to heaven.”
The Perfect Teachings
In the Hermetic texts, ascension describes the soul’s return to its divine source. Hermetists imagine the universe as a series of living layers: Earth at the center, surrounded by seven planetary spheres, and higher still the realms of the stars, divine mind, and ultimate God. The soul descends through these planetary spheres to enter a physical body, picking up influences along the way—desires, fears, pride, greed, and other forces that shape human life. These influences were seen as products of fate rather than the soul’s true nature. Ascension reverses this descent. As the soul rises, it gives back each planetary influence, freeing itself from what does not truly belong to it.
Once stripped of these attachments, the soul enters higher realms and ultimately reunites with the divine, a state teachers describe as becoming godlike through knowledge. Importantly, Hermetism also teaches that this ascent is not only an after‑death journey. Through a process of rebirth, a person can experience ascension while still alive by turning inward, quieting the senses, and replacing destructive inner forces with divine qualities such as knowledge, truth, and self‑control.
Ascension is both a cosmic journey and an inner transformation – a map for understanding the soul’s fate and a guide for spiritual awakening in the present life.
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