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-- "The Eighth Book of Hermes Trismegistus"
in The Divine Pymander
2300 BC
" THE GREATEST EVIL IS
THE NOT KNOWING GOD
"Whither are
you carried, O drunken with drinking strong Wine of Ignorance? which seeing you
cannot bear, why do you vomit it up again?
Stand, and be sober and look up again with the Eyes of your heart, and if
you cannot all do so, yet do so many as you can.
For the malice of Ignorance surround all the Earth, and corrupt the
Soul, shut up in the Body, not suffering it to arrive at the Havens of
Salvation.
Suffer not yourselves to be carried with the Great Stream, but stem
the tide you that can lay hold of the Haven of Safety, and make your full course
towards it.
Seek one that may lead you by the hand, and conduct you to the door of
Truth and Knowledge, where the clear Light is that is pure from Darkness, where
there is not one drunken, but all are sober, and in their heart look up to him,
whose pleasure it is to be seen.
For he cannot be heard with ears, nor seen with eyes, nor expressed in
words; but only in mind and heart.
But first thou must tear to pieces, and break through the garment thou
wear
t, the web of Ignorance; the foundation of all Mischief; the bond of
Corruption; the dark Coverture; the living Death; the sensible Carcass; the
Sepulchre, carried about with us; the domestical Thief, which in what he loves
us, hates us, envies us.
Such is the inebriated stupor of apparel, wherewith thou are clothed,
which draws and pulls thee downward by its own self, lest looking upward and
seeing the beauty of Truth, and the Good that is reposed therein, thou should
hate the wickedness of this Garment and understand the traps and ambushes which
it hath laid for you.
Therefore doth it labour to make good those things that seem, and are by
the senses, judged and determined; and the things that are truly, it hides, and
envelop in much matter, filling what it presents unto thee, with hateful
pleasure, that thou canst neither hear what you should hear, nor see what
you should see.
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