(34) "There is a mountain situated in the midst of the earth, or center of the world, which is both small and great. It is soft, also above measure hard and stony. It is far off, and near at hand, but by the providence of God, invisible. In it are hidden most ample treasures, which the world is not able to value. This mountain by envy of the devil, who always opposeth the glory of God and the happiness of man, is compassed about with very cruel beasts and other [sic] ravenous birds, which make the way thither both difficult and dangerous; and therefore hitherto, because the time is not yet come, the way thither could not be sought after nor found out. But now at last the way is to be found by those that are worthy, but notwithstanding by every man's self-labor and endeavors.

(35) Now if a man likeneth the Son of God to the globe of the sun, as I have often done in the foregoing chapters, that is spoken in the way and manner of natural similitudes; and I was constrained to write so, because of the lack of understanding of the Reader, that so he might raise his sense or thoughts in these natural things, and climb from step to step, from one degree to another, till he might come into the high Mysteries.

(4) And again, observe ye the days of summer how the sun is above the earth over against it. And you seek shade and shelter by reason of the heat of the sun, and the earth also burns with growing heat, and so you cannot tread on the earth, or on a rock by reason of its heat.

(8) So that we are left wondering whence it came, from within or without; and when it has gone, we say, "It was here. Yet no; it was beyond!" But we ought not to question whence; there is no whence, no coming or going in place; now it is seen and now not seen. We must not run after it, but fit ourselves for the vision and then wait tranquilly for its appearance, as the eye waits on the rising of the sun, which in its own time appears above the horizon- out of the ocean, as the poets say- and gives itself to our sight.

This Principle, of which the sun is an image, where has it its dawning, what horizon does it surmount to appear?

It stands immediately above the contemplating Intellect which has held itself at rest towards the vision, looking to nothing else than the good and beautiful, setting its entire being to that in a perfect surrender, and now tranquilly filled with power and taking a new beauty to itself, gleaming in the light of that presence.

This advent, still, is not by expectation: it is a coming without approach; the vision is not of something that must enter but of something present before all else, before the Intellect itself made any movement. Yet it is the Intellect that must move, to come and to go- going because it has not known where it should stay and where that presence stays, the nowhere contained.

And if the Intellect, too, could hold itself in that nowhere- not that it is ever in place; it too is uncontained, utterly unplaced- it would remain for ever in the vision of its prior, or, indeed, not in vision but in identity, all duality annulled. But it is Intellect and, when it is to see, it must see by that in it which is not Intellect .

No doubt it is wonderful that The First should thus be present without any coming, and that, while it is nowhere, nowhere is it not; but wonderful though this be in itself, the contrary would be more wonderful to those who know. Of course neither this contrary nor the wonder at it can be entertained. But we must explain:

(529) nothing of that sort is matter of science; his soul is looking downwards, not upwards, whether his way to knowledge is by water or by land, whether he floats, or only lies on his back. I acknowledge, he said, the justice of your rebuke. Still, I should like to ascertain how astronomy can be learned in any manner more conducive to that knowledge of which we are speaking? I will tell you, I said: The starry heaven which we behold is wrought upon a visible ground, and therefore, although the fairest and most perfect of visible things, must necessarily be deemed inferior far to the true motions of absolute swiftness and absolute slowness, which are relative to each other, and carry with them that which is contained in them, in the true number and in every true figure. Now, these are to be apprehended by reason and intelligence, but not by sight. True, he replied. The spangled heavens should be used as a pattern and with a view to that higher knowledge; their beauty is like the beauty of figures or pictures excellently wrought by the hand of Daedalus, or some other great artist, which we may chance to behold; any geometrician who saw them would appreciate the exquisiteness of their workmanship, but he would never dream of thinking that in them he could find the true equal or the true double, or the truth of any

(77) And the first quarter is called the east, because it is the first: and the second, the south, because the Most High will descend there, yea, there in quite a special sense will He who is blessed for ever descend.

(144) Direct not thy mind to the vast surfaces of the Earth; for the Plant of Truth grows not upon the ground. Nor measure the motions of the Sun, collecting rules, for he is carded by the Eternal Will of the Father,. and not for your sake alone. Dismiss (from your mind) the impetuous course of the Moon, for she moveth always by the power of necessity. The progression of the Stars was not generated for your sake. The wide aërial flight of birds gives no true knowledge nor the dissection of the entrails of victims; they are all mere toys, the basis of mercenary fraud:, flee from these if you would enter the sacred paradise of piety, where Virtue, Wisdom, and Equity are assembled.

(9) Now the Lord, having come alone into the intellectual world, enters by His sufferings, introduced into the knowledge of the Ineffable, ascending above every name which is known by sound. The lamp, too, was placed to the south of the altar of incense; and by it were shown the motions of the seven planets, that perform their revolutions towards the south. For three branches rose on either side of the tamp, and lights on them; since also the sun, like the lamp, set in the midst of all the planets, dispenses with a kind of divine music the light to those above and to those below.

(83) And when I had gone forth below and seen the heaven, and the sun rising in the east, and the moon setting in the west, and a few stars, and the whole earth, and everything as †He had known† it in the beginning, then I blessed the Lord of judgement and extolled Him because He had made the sun to go forth from the windows of the east, †and he ascended and rose on the face of the heaven, and set out and kept traversing the path shown unto him.

(8) And Jesus and his disciples remained in the midst in an aëry region on the ways of the way of the midst, which lieth below the sphere. And they came to the first order of the way of the midst. And Jesus stood in the air of its region with his disciples. The disciples of Jesus said unto him: "What is this region in which we are?

(77) I saw seven high mountains, higher than all the mountains which are on the earth: and thence comes forth hoar-frost, and days, seasons, and years pass away.

(32) And thence I went over the summits of ⌈all⌉ these mountains, far towards the east ⌈of the earth⌉, and passed above the Erythraean sea and went far from it, and passed over ⌈⌈the angel⌉⌉ Zotîêl.

(4) Afterwards, about that wonderful shaking out from the earth, they say that a great mountain is the knot of lands; and the passage for the waters within the mountains is the root which is below the mountains; they forsake the upper parts so that they may flow into it, just as the roots of trees pass into the earth; a counterpart (ângunî-aîtak) of the blood in the arteries of men, which gives strength to the whole body.

(19) And, thus, think from thyself, and bid thy soul go unto any land, and there more quickly than thy bidding will it be. And bid it journey oceanwards; and there, again, immediately 'twill be, not as if passing on from place to place, but as if being there. And bid it also mount to heaven; and it will need no wings, not will aught hinder it, nor fire of sun, nor auther, nor vortex-swirl, nor bodies of the other stars; but, cutting through them all, it will soar up to the last Body [of them all]. And shouldst thou will to break through this as well, and contemplate what is beyond - if there be aught beyond the Cosmos; it is permitted thee.

(23) The Earth is not eternal, and for the Sake of the Fragility [or Corruptibility,] therefore Man's Body must break [or perish,] because he has attracted the Corruptibility to him. Thus also the paradisical Knowledge, Delight and Joy is departed from him, and he is fallen into the kindled Anger, of the kindled four Elements, which (according to their Fierceness) P qualify with the eternal Anger in the Abyss; although the outward Region of the Sun is mitigated, so that it is a pleasant Habitation, as is seen before our Eyes; yet if the Sun should vanish away, then thou wouldst well see and feel the Anger of God. Consider it well.

(21) " ... unto the path of the Sun-god shalt thou cause to draw nigh

(53) And these mountains shall not stand as the earth before his righteousness, But the hills shall be as a fountain of water, And the righteous shall have rest from the oppression of sinners.'

(83) But seeing it has been the most excellent rising up and generating in the holy heavenly nature, therefore also it is loved by man above all other things in this world. For nature has indeed written in man's heart that it is better than other stones and earth; but nature could not reveal or manifest to him the ground thereof, from whence it is come or proceeded, whereby now thou may observe the Dayspring or Morningredness.

(2) It came to pass then, when Jesus had reached the heaven, after three hours, that all the powers of the heaven fell into agitation, and all were set in motion one against the other, they and all their æons and all their regions and all their orders, and the whole earth was agitated and all they who dwell thereon. And all men who are in the world fell into agitation, and also the disciples, and all thought: Peradventure the world will be rolled up. And all the powers in the heavens ceased not from their agitation, they and the whole world, and all were moved one against the other, from the third hour of the fifteenth day of the moon of Tybi until the ninth hour of the morrow. And all the angels and their archangels and all the powers of the height, all sang praises to the interiors of the interiors, so that the whole world heard their voices, without their ceasing till the ninth hour of the morrow.

(146) Stoop not down, for a precipice lieth beneath the Earth, reached by a descending Ladder which hath Seven Steps, and therein is established the Throne of an evil and fatal force.