The sixth sphere, Jupiter, gives him the wish to expand and acquire a richer sense of the personal selfhood. Mars adds impulse and rashness to this urge, and the fourth sphere of the sun gives him a false sense of arrogance at his success. The third region of Venus adds lust to impulse, and the second, Mercury, gives the cunning necessary to pursue it. With the capacity for deceit firmly fixed in the fallen Anthropos, he passes through the zone of the moon, the symbol of increase and decrease, fluctuation and change, and thus man falls into Nature, deprived and depraved by that which promised fulfilment. Poimandres has not revealed an accidental anthropogenesis, however, a pointless tragedy called human existence, for the immersion of man in Nature gives Nature articulation.
Nature is no longer blind, but made intelligible and intelligent through the mystic marriage.
If, being made of Light and Life, you learn to know that you are made of them, you will go back into Light and Life. . . . Let the man who has mind in him recognize himself. By turning towards the divine Self, one can rise through the seven spheres and gain their virtues, their redemptive powers. In turning from the world of change, one gains the steadiness required for ascent. From Mercury comes intelligence to see the way, and from Venus the embracing love of all that lives.