HERMETICS & GENETICS: CODE OR CODES?

John Robert Colombo Page

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A review of Michael Hayes’ The Hermetic Code in DNA

I quite enjoyed reading this book, but its title is a mouthful of
words, so I have found myself referring to it, in conversation with
friends, as “the new book which I am reading that tries to find a
relationship between the so-called ‘hermetic code’ and the code that
informs the structure of human DNA.” When I say that, people look
amiss or agog, and I know why. I repeat that the author is “trying to
find a relationship” and that it is an struggle worthy of the
exertions of a Sisyphus (an uphill battle) or the frustrations of
Tantalus (an ever receding reward).

The author who so resembles Sisyphus or Tantalus is Michael Hayes is
described on the cover of this quality paperback as “an administrator
at the University of Central England” (formerly Birmingham
Polytechnic) and “the author of ‘The Infinite Harmony: Musical
Structures in Science and Theology’” (McArthur & Co. / Orion Con Trad,
1994). I have yet to see a copy of that publication. After reading the
present book, I find myself moderately curious about it.

The present book is not a new title, for it was originally published
in England in 2004 by Black Spring Press, a quality literary publisher
in London, under the title “High Priests, Quantum Genes.” The edition
that I am reviewing is titled “The Hermetic Code in DNA: The Sacred
Principles in the Ordering of the Universe” and was published earlier
in 2008 by another quality house, Inner Traditions, Rochester,
Vermont, which specializes in book of a specular and spiritual nature.
(Both companies have readily accessible websites.)

Here are some bibliographical details for the American edition under
review: Trade paperback, 6″ x 9″, xviii + 334 pages, ISBN:
978-1-59477-218-4. $18.95. There are 17 chapters with notes,
bibliography, and index. Also included is the arresting Foreword, to
which I will now turn my attention.

The Foreword is a long personal essay from the fountain pen or
personal computer of Colin Wilson. I am second to none in my
admiration of Wilson’s oeuvre, and I really enjoy reading what he
writes for his choice of subjects and his agreeable style. His
strength has always been his remarkable ability to present the
unconventional ideas of “outsiders.” He is a great explainer of
ancient and advanced thinking, though lately he has become more of an
advocate more than an interpreter.

Here, for instance, is the first paragraph of the Foreword to the
present book: “I suspect that the name of Michael Hayes is going to be
remembered together with those of Stephen Hawking and Watson and Crick
as a thinker who has made a revolutionary contribution to our vision
of modern science.”

That is taking a giant step. Indeed, it is equivalent to the step that
Wilson took when he completed “Alien Dawn: An Investigation into the
Contact Experience” (1999). That book about the contactee dimension of
ufology concludes with the statement that the author believes that not
only do aliens exist, but aliens are here right now, walking the
streets of our cities, moving among us. The evidence for this claim is
lacking, but people will believe what excites them and what they want
to believe.

Indeed, when the atomic scientist Leo Szilard was asked if he believed
in the existence of alien beings, he replied that he did. Then he was
asked, “If they exist, where are they?” He replied, “They are here
right now. They live among us. They are called … Hungarians.” Unlike
Szilard’s aliens, Wilson’s critters are creatures or characters from
outer space, from other times, or from other dimensions – hybrid
humans, perhaps. Maybe.

I doubt that Michael Hayes’s name will ever be linked with those of
Hawking, Watson, or Crick – at least not as long as the names of those
scientists are honoured. And Hayes has yet to make a contribution to
“our vision of modern science,” but he has modestly contributed to our
view of “the wisdom tradition.” From now on Hayes’s name will be
linked with a lively and intelligent discussion of a range of subjects
of popular speculative interest. This book of his will be shelved
alongside works of dozens of writers who have contributed to the
“occult sciences” or what I have called in another context
“speculative non-fiction.”

Numerology is one such subject and it has been newsworthy for the last
decade. For instance, the Fortean movie “Magnolia” (1999) features the
number 8. “A Beautiful Mind” (2001) drowns in a tsunami of coded
numbers, zillions of digits. The comedy “The Number 23” (2007) makes
much use of the correspondences of the unlikely number 23. Behind much
of this is the Kaballah and behind that cerebral discipline there are
the 613 Hebrew laws (curiously, the number of bones in the human
body).

In the present book Hayes devotes chapters to different traditions, so
each has its own special number or numbers. Hayes finds special
relevance in such digits as 3, 3.14157, 4, 7, 8, 22, 64, 838, etc. The
Law of Three and the Octaves of the Ray of Creation are featured. But
no special importance is given to the numbers 1.6, 9, 13, or 613,
perhaps because these come traditions that are not surveyed here– in
this case, sacred architecture, Bahá’i, the superstition of folklore,
and the Kaballah.

Excuse me if I am a little light-headed or flippant, but unlike the
scientists named by Wilson, Hayes undertakes no research, contributes
findings to no scientific publications, and demonstrates no special
scholarly or linguistic abilities or aptitudes. However, what he does
display is an omnivorous curiosity and the ability to respond
creatively to extensive readings in many popular books and a few
serious ones (although it is with the latter that he does express some
serious reservations).

By popular books I mean “eye-openers” like Robert Bauval’s “The Orion
Mystery” (1994) and Christopher P. Dunn’s “The Gaza Power Plant”
(1998). By serious books I mean Richard Dawkins’s “The Blind
Watchmaker” (1988) and Giorgio De Santillana’s “Hamlet’s Mill” (1992).
I am limiting myself to titles selected at random from the first page
of the three-page bibliography. Hayes also credits reprints of G.I.
Gurdjieff’s “Beelzebub’s Tales” (1964) as well as P.D. Ouspensky’s “In
Search of the Miraculous” (1976) and “A New Model of the Universe”
(1977), recalling here and there some of their pertinent passages to
good effect.

“The Hermetic Code in DNA” is hard to beat for a fast-moving survey of
current thought about the interaction of the wisdom tradition from
archaic times to the postmodern period and its possible connection
with the recently revealed structure of the human genome, specifically
its basis in the DNA. It makes use of comparisons and contrasts,
similarities and analogies, and above all it uses associative thought
processes, what in another context Ouspensky called “psychological
thought” to distinguish it from “logical thought.”

I am not going to pursue them here, but two general criticisms that I
have are that there is no discussion of the tendency of the human mind
to find symmetry where none exists, and there is no discussion of the
nature of language itself, the appeal of metaphor, or Northrop Frye’s
“order of words.” Nor is the insight of the poet as distinct from that
of the scientist mentioned. At some later point I may tackle those
criticisms as subjects worthy of consideration in their own right, for
such shortcomings are characteristic of “occult literature” generally.

Basically what Hayes has done is offer a discussion of the scientific
basis for the existence of the spirit, as well as the spiritual basis
for the existence of science. What we have here is a convergence of
two disciplines – call one of them “science,” the other “occult
science.” (Hayes handles this distinction by distinguishing between
“regular science” and what he calls “Science with a capital ‘s’.”) If
I can encapsulate Hayes’s aim in writing this book, it is to find a
convergence and ultimately an identity between hermetic studies and
the structure of the gene. In other words, we have in our genes –
coded in our genetic structure – the wisdom of the ages. It evolves
physically and psychologically through the Law of Three and the Law of
Octaves.

Hayes encapsulates this theme for the reader in the sole detailed
footnote of any length. Here it is: “One would not expect exact
superimpositions to be visible at every level, because the universe is
continually evolving, constantly in flux. But as long as the various
symmetries link in at these main ‘points of entry’ the Hermetic Code
is valid. If anything, the fact that the code can be directly linked
to all of these various symmetries – and many other found throughout
the natural world – is precisely what one would expect of a ‘theory of
everything.’”

Apparently mathematicians and cosmologists are johnny-come-latelys
with their own physical “theory of everything,” trailing by centuries
if not by millennia metaphysicians associated with obscure schools and
monasteries in claiming to have found “a key to the enigmas of the
world.” But enough of beating around the bush. Hayes in his book
focuses on the following subjects and argues in the following fashion.

Introduction. Proponents of all the major belief systems agree that
there is an existence after death, the author writes. Matter is
composed of particles or vibrations of light. There is a timeless or
eternal form of reality. The major religions harness very real forces.
Creation is the result of the Law of Three and the Law of Octaves
embodied in the nature of the mathematical ratio pi. The DNA in the
cells of human bodies has four chemical bases. There are parallels
here with the 64 permutations of the I Ching. Music and specifically
musical harmony offer a scientific key to the tones or wave-lengths
under discussion. He writes:

“As the first recorded version of this archaic science first appeared
in the Nile delta about five thousand years ago, I have called this
musical symmetry the Hermetic Code, after Hermes Trismegistus, the
Greek name for Thoth, the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom …. This is
the Hermetic Code, a universal formula that as we shall find out,
encompasses within it practically everything.” This is another form of
the axiom: ‘As above, so below.’”

The author’s Introduction takes the reader this far. As a reader of
the book, I like the handling of the details that appear in the
seventeen chapters. As a reviewer all I can do is point out a few of
the approaches that the author takes. Suffice it to say the author
writes very readably, he is familiar with standard popular books on
offbeat topics, and he seems intent on proving that there is a
numerical code if not a Hermetic one that underpins the genetic code
and acts as a cipher for philosophical and theosophical systems.

Here is my simplification of the author’s argument: There is the
four-fold nature of the DNA. There are the four traditional elements
in the natural world. There is a parallel here between scientific
discovery and metaphysical inquiry. Could this be a coincidence? (I am
inclined to say that in many cases the “resemblance” or
“correspondence” is an artifact of the question itself.) Now here is
the author’s argument chapter by chapter (with one sentence or two for
each of the seventeen chapters).

1. “The Sacred Constant.” Ancient wisdom first appeared in Egypt some
5,000 years ago B.C. and it holds the “sacred constant” expressed in
the number 8. This is the Law of Octaves, counting the two do’s. Note
that 8 x 8 = 64, another type of greater harmony associated with the I
Ching.

2. “A Different Way of Seeing.” Rhythms and harmonies of the universe
are expressed by the Hermetic Code, especially as evolution proceeds
by octaves, and this is seen in music and art (Gurdjieff’s distinction
between subjective and objective art) and architecture (René Schwaller
de Lubicz’s views on architectural forms of man).

3. “Music over Matter.” Music (all those octaves) may have managed the
construction of the megaliths, evoked by the phrase “musical magic,”
and perhaps the phenomenon of the “group-mind” as advanced by Colin
Wilson was used by early peoples to great effect: mental building
cranes and cranial forklifts.

4. “The Electron and the Holy Ghost.” Subatomic particles and the
theory of “quantum potential” advanced by David Bohm are considered,
as are the views of Sri Aurobindo, leading to the conclusion that
matter is alive and composed of vibrations and / or light.

5. “Further Light.” Christopher Dunn’s speculations on “sonic /
ultrasonic stone carving and drilling” and Princeton physicist Robert
Jahn are, in a sense, compared. This chapter and indeed much of the
book is “metaphysical” in the sense that literary scholars call John
Donne a “metaphysical poet,” for there is a roping together of
heterogeneous elements to create a greater whole. A sense of the
greater whole may be felt in these two long sentences:

“So the Great Pyramid, the most impressive monument to light ever
created on Earth, massive and imposing as it is, is really no more
than a foundation stone upon which has been constructed another,
infinitely vaster, metaphysical structure, a creation of sorts, whose
indeterminate dimensions are even to this day expanding ever outward
and upward. I am referring here, of course, to the ongoing evolution
of human consciousness, which began its present stage of development
at the time the Great Pyramid was designed, and which has ever since
been guided subconsciously by the also-embracing hermetic principles
embodied within it.”

This is indeed “metaphysical” prose. In another comparison, it
embodies the principle of the hologram, for from a single fragment may
be generated or regenerated the multifaceted whole.

6. “Live Music.” So-called “scientific creationists” and evolutionary
scientists are contrasted and Richard Dawkins is taken to task for his
notion that “stumbling blindly through geological time” led to life as
we know it today, not a noble notion of “transcendental evolution”
whereby “it is possible for individuals to emulate the living cell and
to achieve a similar condition of ‘optimum resonance.’”

Here the author expresses his naked thesis: “I stated above that I
believe that the growth and development of consciousness is an organic
process. Logically it has to be, because the Hermetic Code and the
genetic code are fundamentally one and the same system.”

7. “Extraterrestrial DNA.” Another extension of “the theory of
transcendental evolution” which leads to the Pyramids (“The Lights” is
apparently how these structures were known to the Egyptians of old)
which leads to the star systems above them, Sirius and Zeta Orionis,
as well as to the starry-eyed speculations of Rodney Collin.

8. “Interstellar Genes and the Galactic Double Helix.” Robert Temple’s
“The Sirius Mystery” is discussed, along with Gurdjieff’s “missing
semi-tones,” to suggest that the universe is a being that is fully
conscious.

9. “The Hermetic Universe of Ancient Times.” The Pythagorean
cosmological system is considered with respect to reincarnation, the
nature of the universe, modern science, metaphysics, and “zoon,” the
Greek term for “a living thing.”

10. “The Hierarchy of Dimensions.” So the universe is “organic,” but
it exists on a hierarchy of planes or levels or dimensions.
“Confused?” the author questions the reader. “To be perfectly honest,
so am I. Frequently. But then we are trying to come to terms with the
imponderable here, and left-brain logic alone can take us only so far
in the quest for the ultimate reality.”

11. “The Fate of the Universe.” Speculation on the fate of the
universe gives equal weight to science-fiction writer Wilbur Wright in
“Time: Gateway to Immortality” and writer-scientist Paul Davies in
“The Last Three Minutes,” to build the argument that there is “music
literally everywhere, in the chromodynamic and atomic scales of
matter, in DNA and the genetic code,” etc.

12. “Inner Octaves.” Outer octaves were explored, so here the
investigation narrows and deeps into the inner octaves, through the
symbol or structure of the Ray of Creation.

13. “The Holographic Principle.” Michael Talbot, author of “The
Holographic Universe,” is a big help here to demonstrate that a part
is as great as a whole, a whole as great as a part.

14. “Quantum Psychology.” What the author calls “quantum psychology”
sheds light on the findings of particle physicists (notably Karl
Pribram), parapsychologists, and neurophysiologists, permitting the
reader to see that there are ways the brain resembles subatomic
particles in their “non-locality.” Here I recall the delicious pun in
the movie “The Golden Compass”: Lord Asriel is described as “a
particle metaphysicist.”

15. “QP2: The Universal Paradigm.” Man is composed of “triple octaves”
of resonance, so we are “‘walking trinities’ composed of our
sensations, emotions, and perceptions,” a point that Hayes argues in
his earlier book “The Infinite Harmony.”

16. “The Shapeshifters.” Mayan and Egyptian texts and Graham Hancock’s
“Fingerprints of the Gods” all lead to an examination of
“extraordinary mental and physical powers” shown by members of “the
Egyptian elite” to permit them to build their monumental structures.

17. “‘Al-Chem’ – the Egyptian Way.” Octaves of resonance are invoked
to account for the harnessing or focusing of exceptional powers for
exceptional effects. The author writes powerfully:

“We know that in the natural course of Darwinian evolution successful
genes can survive all manner of catastrophes: ice ages, rapid
meltdowns, deluges, earthquakes, cometary impacts. In the same way,
the hermetic ideas we are dealing with here – the metaphysical
equivalent of successful genes – have survived all kinds of social
upheaval: wars, dark ages, periods of total ignorance and barbarism,
inquisitions, revolutions, and so on. Therefore we are not speaking in
metaphor: we are talking about organic processes of creation and
evolution, both microcosmic and macrocosmic, which are identical in
every way, with a difference in scale only.”

So much for this Baedeker-like tour of the countryside. My own view of
Michael Hayes’s achievement is that “The Hermetic Code in DNA” is a
literary composition written in an underrated literary form, that of
the “anatomy” – think of Robert Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy” – and
that through accumulation of detail and organization by association,
rather than by classification and disinterested pursuit of its thesis,
it embraces other subliterary forms in an attempt to reveal common
characteristics and congruent conceptions that have to do with the
evolution of nature, man, and spirit. It is an ample and in a way an
impressive anatomical achievement.

How successful is it? That is for the reader to decide, the reader who
is familiar with associative thinking as well as the material that is
included and the material that is excluded, or the reader who is
flustered by all the material and perhaps overimpressed with it. Hayes
is committed to his point of view (Hermetic Code = Genetic Code) to
the exclusion of criticism of sources and common sense reservations.
Even so, Robert Burton was ultimately unhappy with his classic
“Anatomy of Melancholy,” perhaps because most people read it for its
bits and pieces rather than for its “metaphysical” whole.

John Robert Colombo is an author and anthologist who lives in Toronto.
His current publication, 500 pages long, is called “The Big Book of
Canadian Ghost Stories.” He is an Associate, Northrop Frye Centre,
Victoria College, University of Toronto. His website is www.
colomb-plus. ca.