The Seba library treats Perfect Nature in 6 passages, across 3 authors (including Corbin, Henry, Moore, Thomas, Bosnak, Robert).
Perfect Nature is so surely the ultimate secret that… we are also told how it is the one part of mystical theosophy revealed by the Sages exclusively to their disciples and never mentioned, whether orally or in writing, outside their circle.
Corbin establishes Perfect Nature as the esoteric summit of Ishraqi theosophy, its attainment constituting the enacted drama of initiation in which inner darkness is illuminated by a pure inner light.
, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, 1971thesis
the ancient Sages… initiated into things the sensory faculties do not perceive, maintained that for each individual soul, or perhaps for several together having the same nature and affinity, there is a being in the spi
Corbin traces how the Avicennan problem of the Active Intelligence is resolved angelologically: Perfect Nature is the individuated celestial counterpart assigned to each soul or spiritual family, not a single universal intellect.
, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, 1971thesis
“The power which is in thee,” in each one of you, cannot refer to a collective guide, to a manifestation and a relationship collectively identical for each one of the souls of light.
Corbin argues that the syzygy of light — the soul’s luminous guide — is irreducibly personal, anticipating the concept of Perfect Nature as a radically individual rather than collective spiritual counterpart.
, The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism, 1971supporting
Ficino was convinced that Hermes was the first to make a move o
Moore’s treatment of Ficino’s Hermetic inheritance situates the Renaissance reception of Hermes Trismegistus — author of the Perfect Nature tradition — within the Florentine Neoplatonist milieu, providing an indirect European parallel to Corbin’s Iranian sources.
, The Planets Within: The Astrological Psychology of Marsilio Ficino, 1990aside
Ficino was convinced that Hermes was the first to make a move o
An earlier edition of the same argument locating the Hermetic corpus — in which the Perfect Nature figure first appears — at the founding moment of Renaissance soul-psychology.
, The Planets Within: The Astrological Psychology of Marsilio Ficino, 1982aside
This highly refined embodiment, called subtle body, is a pure manifestation of primal matter. Subtle bodies are embodiments existing between physicality and abstraction, in a realm of quasi-physicality.
Bosnak’s concept of the subtle body as a refined intermediary between matter and spirit resonates structurally with Perfect Nature’s liminal ontological status as the soul’s non-material yet individuated celestial counterpart.
, Embodiment: Creative Imagination in Medicine, Art and Travel, 2007aside