What deification means — the divisible soul and its ladder of transformations
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Tat — Τὸ ἀποθεωθῆναι πῶς λέγεις, ὦ πάτερ,
Hermes — Πάσης ψυχῆς, ὦ τέκνον, διαιρετῆς μεταβολαί.
Tat — Πῶς πάλιν διαιρετῆς;
Hermes — Οὐκ ἤκουσας ἐν τοῖς Γενικοῖς ὅτι ἀπὸ μιᾶς ψυχῆς τῆς τοῦ παντὸς πᾶσαι αἱ ψυχαί εἰσιν αὗται ἐν τῷ παντὶ κόσμῳ κυλινδούμεναι, ὥσπερ ἀπονενεμημέναι; τούτων τοίνυν τῶν ψυχῶν πολλαὶ αἱ μεταβολαί, τῶν μὲν ἐπὶ τὸ εὐτυχέστερον, τῶν δὲ ἐπὶ τὸ ἐναντίον. αἱ μὲν γὰρ ἑρπετώδεις οὖσαι εἰς ἔνυδρα μεταβάλλουσιν, αἱ δὲ ἔνυδροι εἰς χερσαῖα, αἱ δὲ χερσαῖαι εἰς πετεινά, αἱ δὲ ἀέριαι εἰς ἀνθρώπους, αἱ δὲ ἀνθρώπιναι ἀρχὴν ἀθανασίας ἴσχουσιν εἰς δαίμονας μεταβάλλουσαι, εἶθ' οὕτως εἰς τὸν τῶν θεῶν χορόν· χοροὶ δὲ δύο θεῶν, ὁ μὲν τῶν πλανωμένων, ὁ δὲ τῶν ἀπλανῶν.
— This 'being deified,' how do you mean it, O father? — Of every soul, O child, being divisible, there are transformations. — How, again, 'divisible'? — Did you not hear in the General Discourses that from one soul, that of the All, are all the souls, these rolling about in the whole cosmos as if apportioned? Of these souls, then, many are the transformations: of some to the more fortunate, of others to the opposite. For the reptilian ones change into water-creatures, the water into land, the land into birds, the airy into humans; and the human souls obtain a beginning of immortality, changing into daimons, and then so into the chorus of the gods — and there are two choruses of gods, the one of the wandering, the other of the fixed.
Tat asks: how do you mean 'to be deified,' father? Hermes: every divisible soul undergoes transformations. Tat: how 'divisible' again? Hermes: did you not hear in the General Discourses that all souls are portions of the one Soul of the All, rolling about the whole cosmos as if apportioned? Their transformations are many — some toward the more fortunate, some toward the opposite. Reptilian souls change into water-creatures, water into land, land into birds, airy into humans; and human souls take a beginning of immortality, changing into daimons, and so into the chorus of the gods — of which there are two, the wandering (the planets) and the fixed.
Asked to unpack 'deification,' Hermes answers with the Hermetic doctrine of the soul's transformations (μεταβολαί) — a version of the metempsychosis Plato dramatized in the Myth of Er and the Phaedrus. The premise is monist: all souls are portions of 'one soul, that of the All (ἀπὸ μιᾶς ψυχῆς τῆς τοῦ παντός),' whirling through the cosmos 'as if apportioned (ὥσπερ ἀπονενεμημέναι)' — separate in appearance, one in origin. This is why the soul is called 'divisible (διαιρετή)': not cut into pieces, but one substance distributed.
Then the ladder, rung by rung: reptile → water-creature → land-animal → bird → human → daimon → god. It is an ascent of dignity, and the human rung is the hinge, for there 'the human souls obtain a beginning of immortality (ἀρχὴν ἀθανασίας ἴσχουσιν),' crossing into the daimonic and finally into 'the chorus of the gods (τὸν τῶν θεῶν χορόν).' The astronomical coda — 'two choruses of gods, the wandering (πλανώμενοι, the planets) and the fixed (ἀπλανεῖς, the fixed stars)' — locates deification in the visible heavens: to be deified is, at the summit, to join the star-gods. This is what CH X.6 meant by the soul 'changed into essence': not annihilation but ascent up a living scale, whose top is the sky itself. The Hermetic cosmos is a stairway, and every creeping thing is somewhere on it.
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