Hermes'ten Tat'a: Otuz Altı Dekan

Tat. In your former General Discourses you promised to explain about the thirty-six Decans; I therefore ask you to tell me about them now, and to explain their working.—Hermes. I am quite willing, Tat; and of all my teachings, this will be of supreme importance, and will stand highest among them. I bid you mark it well. I have told you before about the zodiacal circle, which is also called the animal-bearing circle, and about the five planet-stars and the sun and the moon, and the several circles of these seven bodies. I desire you then, in your thoughts about the thirty-six Decans also, to bear in mind what I have told you, that so my teaching about the Decans also may be intelligible to you. You must understand that below the circle of this body are placed the thirty-six Decans, between the circle of the universe and that of the zodiac, separating the one circle from the other; they bear up, as it were, the circle of the universe, and look down on the circle of the zodiac. They retard the all-enclosing body,—for that body would move with extreme velocity if it were left to itself,—but they urge on the seven other circles, because these circles move with a slower movement than the circle of the universe. Let us understand then that both the movements of the seven planets and all other things also, are governed by the Decans; or rather, that the Decans stand round about all things in the Kosmos as guardians, holding all things together, and watching over the good order of all things. And further, my son, you must understand that the Decans are exempt from the things that befall the other stars. They are not checked in their course and brought to a standstill, nor hindered and made to move backwards, nor yet are they hidden from sight by the light of the sun. They are free, and exalted above all things.