(71) Timaeus: as good as they possibly could, rectified the vile part of us by thus establishing therein the organ of divination, that it might in some degree lay hold on truth. And that God gave unto man's foolishness the gift of divination a sufficient token is this: no man achieves true and inspired divination when in his rational mind, but only when the power of his intelligence is fettered in sleep or when it is distraught by disease or by reason of some divine inspiration. But it belongs to a man when in his right mind to recollect and ponder both the things spoken in dream or waking vision by the divining and inspired nature, and all the visionary forms that were seen, and by means of reasoning to discern about them all

(12) But the reasoning faculty, being peculiar to the human soul, ought not to be impelled similarly with the irrational animals, but ought to discriminate appearances, and not to be carried away by them. The powers, then, of which we have spoken hold out beautiful sights, and honours, and adulteries, and pleasures, and such like alluring phantasies before facile spirits; as those who drive away cattle hold, out branches to them. Then, having beguiled those incapable of distinguishing the true from the false pleasure, and the fading and meretricious from the holy beauty, they lead them into slavery. And each deceit, by pressing constantly on the spirit, impresses its image on it; and the soul unwittingly carries about the image of the passion, which takes its rise from the bait and our consent.

(3) For by nature they be ordained, that with them men should have knowing of all outward bodily things, and on nowise by them come to the knowing of ghostly things. I mean by their works. By their failings we may, as thus: when we read or hear speak of some certain things, and thereto conceive that our outward wits cannot tell us by no quality what those things be, then we may be verily certified that those things be ghostly things, and not bodily things.

(6) It is natural, then, that having a superstitious dread of those irascible [gods], they imagine that all events are signs and causes of evils. If a mouse bore through an altar built of clay, and for want of something else gnaw through an oil flask; if a cock that is being fattened crow in the evening, they determine this to be a sign of something.

(27) And of causes that are occult, some are occult temporarily, being hidden at one time, and at another again seen clearly; and some are occult by nature, and capable of becoming at no time visible. And of those who are so by nature, some are capable of being apprehended; and these some would not call occult, being apprehended by analogy, through the medium of signs, as, for example, the symmetry of the passages of the senses, which are contemplated by reason.

(2) The purpose of this work is not the enunciation of any special philosophy or doctrine, but rather is to give to the students a statement of the Truth that will serve to reconcile the many bits of occult knowledge that they may have acquired, but which are apparently opposed to each other and which often serve to discourage and disgust the beginner in the study. Our intent is not to erect a new Temple of Knowledge, but rather to place in the hands of the student a Master-Key with which he may open the many inner doors in the Temple of Mystery through the main portals he has already entered.

(23) But now the holy God would not let this place of his body (understand the space or room of this world) stand in eternal darkness and ignominy, and leave it to the devils for their proper own, but generated a new regimen or dominion of light, and of all the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of the Deity; which the devil could neither apprehend, nor lay hold on, nor touch; neither was it useful or profitable to him at all.

(2) For only to those who often approach them, and have given them a trial by faith and in their whole life, will they supply the real philosophy and the true theology. They also wish us to require an interpreter and guide. For so they considered, that, receiving truth at the hands of those who knew it well, we would be more earnest and less liable to deception, and those worthy of them would profit. Besides, all things that shine through a veil show the truth grander and more imposing; as fruits shining through water, and figures through veils, which give added reflections to them. For, in addition to the fact that things unconcealed are perceived in one way, the rays of light shining round reveal defects. Since, then, we may draw several meanings, as we do from what is expressed in veiled form, such being the case, the ignorant and unlearned man fails. But the Gnostior apprehends. Now, then, it is not wished that all things should be exposed indiscriminately to all and sundry, or the benefits of wisdom communicated to those who have not even in a dream been purified in soul, (for it is not allowed to hand to every chance comer what has been procured with such laborious efforts); nor are the mysteries of the word to be expounded to the profane.

(27) And therefore when a Man sleeps, so that the Tincture rests, then there are no Thoughts in the Spirit; but the Constellation Air, or Receptacle. rumbles in the Elements, and beats into the Brains what shall (through their Operation) come to pass, which yet is often broke again by another Conjunction, so that it comes not to effect; besides, it can show nothing exactly, except it comes by a Conjunction of Planets and fixed Stars, and that only goes forward, but it represents all [in an] earthly [Manner,] according to the Spirit of this World; so that where the syderial Spirit should speak of Men, it often speaks of Beasts, and continually represents the Contrary; as the earthly Spirit fancies from the starry Spirit, so he dreams.

(28) There are many accounts of stone images which, because of the substances entering into their composition and the ceremonials attendant upon their construction, were ensouled by the divinities whom they were created to resemble. To such images were ascribed various human faculties and powers, such as speech, thought, and even motion. While renegade priests doubtless resorted to trickery--an instance of which is related in a curious apocryphal fragment entitled Bel and the Dragon and supposedly deleted from the end of the Book of Daniel--many of the phenomena recorded in connection with sanctified statues and relics can hardly be explained unless the work of supernatural agencies be admitted.

(2) But if any one think well to accept the sacred compositions as of things simple and unknown in their own nature, and beyond our contemplation, but thinks the imagery of the holy minds in the Oracles is incongruous, and that all this is, so to speak, a rude scenic representation of the angelic names; and further says that the theologians ought, when they have come to the bodily representation of creatures altogether without body, to represent and display them by appropriate and, as far as possible, cognate figures, taken, at any rate, from our most honoured and immaterial and exalted beings, and ought not to clothe the heavenly and Godlike simple essences with the many forms of the lowest creatures to be found on the earth (for the one would perhaps be more adapted to our instruction, and would not degrade the celestial explanations to incongruous dissimilitudes; but the other both does violence without authority to the Divine powers, and likewise leads astray our minds, through dwelling upon these irreverent descriptions); and perhaps he will also think that the super-heavenly places are filled with certain herds of lions, and troops of horses, and bellowing songs of praise, and flocks of birds, and other living creatures, and material and less honourable things, and whatever else the similitudes of the Oracles, in every respect dissimilar, describe, for a so-called explanation, but which verge towards the absurd, and pernicious, and impassioned; now, in my opinion, the investigation of the truth demonstrates the most sacred wisdom of the Oracles, in the descriptions of the Heavenly Minds, taking forethought, as that wisdom does, wholly for each, so as neither, as one may say, to do violence to the Divine Powers, nor at the same time to enthral us in the grovelling passions of the debased imagery. For any one might say that the cause why forms are naturally attributed to the formless, and shapes to the shapeless, is not alone our capacity which is unable immediately to elevate itself to the intelligible contemplations, and that it needs appropriate and cognate instructions which present images, suitable to us, of the formless and supernatural objects of contemplation; but further, that it is most agreeable to the revealing Oracles to conceal, through mystical and sacred enigmas, and to keep the holy and secret truth respecting the supermundane minds inaccessible to the multitude. For it is not every one that is holy, nor, as the Oracles affirm, does knowledge belong to all.

(5) We shall find the Mystic Theologians enfolding these things not only around the illustrations of the Heavenly Orders, but also, sometimes, around the supremely Divine Revelations Themselves. At one time, indeed, they extol It under exalted imagery as Sun of Righteousness, as Morning Star rising divinely in the mind, and as Light illuming without veil and for contemplation; and at other times, through things in our midst, as Fire, shedding its innocuous light; as Water, furnishing a fulness of life, and, to speak symbolically, flowing into a belly, and bubbling forth rivers flowing irresistibly; and at other times, from things most remote, as sweet-smelling ointment, as Head Corner-stone. But they also clothe It in forms of wild beasts, and attach to It identity with a Lion, and Panther, and say that it shall be a Leopard, and a rushing Bear. But, I will also add, that which seems to be more dishonourable than all, and the most incongruous, viz. that distinguished theologians have shewn it to us as representing Itself under the form of a worm. Thus do all the godly-wise, and interpreters of the secret inspiration, separate the holy of holies from the uninitiated and the unholy, to keep them undefined, and prefer the dissimilar description of holy things, so that Divine things should neither be easily reached by the profane, nor those who diligently contemplate the Divine imagery rest in the types as though they were true; and so Divine things should be honoured by the true negations, and by comparisons with the lowest things, which are diverse from their proper resemblance. There is then nothing absurd if they depict even the Heavenly Beings under incongruous dissimilar similitudes, for causes aforesaid. For probably not even we should have come to an investigation, from not seeing our way,--not to say to mystic meaning through an accurate enquiry into Divine things,--unless the deformity of the descriptions representing the Angels had shocked us, not permitting our mind to linger in the discordant representations, but rousing us utterly to reject the earthly proclivities, and accustoming us to elevate ourselves through things that are seen, to their supermundane mystical meanings. Let these things suffice to have been said on account of the material and incongruous descriptions of the holy Angels in the Holy Oracles. And next, it is necessary to define what we think the Hierarchy is in itself, and what benefit those who possess a Hierarchy derive; from the same. But let Christ lead the discourse--if it be lawful to me to say--He Who is mine,--the Inspiration of all Hierarchical revelation. And thou, my son, after the pious rule of our Hierarchical tradition, do thou religiously listen to things religiously uttered, becoming inspired through instruction in inspired things; and when thou hast enfolded the Divine things in the secret recesses of thy mind, guard them closely from the profane multitude as being uniform, for it is not lawful, as the Oracles say, to cast to swine the unsullied and bright and beautifying comeliness of the intelligible pearls.

(3) Therefore it is that I say, and have said, that evermore when the devil taketh any body, he figureth in some quality of his body what his servants be in spirit. For he enflameth so the imagination of his contemplatives with the fire of hell, that suddenly without discretion they shoot out their curious conceits, and without any advisement they will take upon them to blame other men’s defaults over soon: and this is because they have but one nostril ghostly. For that division that is in a man’s nose bodily, and the which departeth the one nostril from the tother, betokeneth that a man should have discretion ghostly; and can dissever the good from the evil, and the evil from the worse, and the good from the better, ere that he gave any full doom of anything that he heard or saw done or spoken about him. And by a man’s brain is ghostly understood imagination; for by nature it dwelleth and worketh in the head.

(6) Our Divines set themselves Hand and Foot with Might and Main, with their utmost Endeavour, by Persecution and Reproach, against this, [and say,] that Men must not [dare to] search into the deep Grounds what God is; Men must not search nor curiously pry into the Deity. But if I should speak plainly what this Trick of theirs is, it is the Dung and Filth wherewith they cover and hide the Devil, and cloak the injected Malice and Wickedness of the Devil in Man, so that neither the Devil, nor the Anger of God, nor the evil Beast in Man, can be discerned.

(2) For as the World’s illumined by the Sun, so is the mind of man illumined by that Light; nay, in [still] fuller measure. For whatsoever thing the Sun doth shine upon, it is anon, by interjection of the Earth or Moon, or by the intervention of the night, robbed of its light. But once the [Higher] Sense hath been commingled with the soul of man, there is at-onement from the happy union of the blending of their natures; so that minds of this kind are never more held fast in errors of the darkness. Wherefore, with reason have they said the [Higher] Senses are the souls of Gods; to which I add: not of all Gods, but of the great ones [only]; nay, even of the principles of these.

(2) For by thine eyes thou mayest not conceive of anything, unless it be by the length and the breadth, the smallness and the greatness, the roundness and the squareness, the farness and the nearness, and the colour of it. And by thine ears, nought but noise or some manner of sound. By thine nose, nought but either stench or savour. And by thy taste, nought but either sour or sweet, salt or fresh, bitter or liking. And by thy feeling, nought but either hot or cold, hard or tender, soft or sharp. And truly, neither hath God nor ghostly things none of these qualities nor quantities. And therefore leave thine outward wits, and work not with them, neither within nor without: for all those that set them to be ghostly workers within, and ween that they should either hear, smell, or see, taste or feel, ghostly things, either within them or without, surely they be deceived, and work wrong against the course of nature.

(1) MANY wonderful practices follow them that be deceived in this false work, or in any species thereof, beyond that doth them that be God’s true disciples: for they be evermore full seemly in all their practices, bodily or ghostly. But it is not so of these other. For whoso would or might behold unto them where they sit in this time, an it so were that their eyelids were open, he should see them stare as they were mad, and leeringly look as if they saw the devil. Surely it is good they be wary, for truly the fiend is not far. Some set their eyes in their heads as they were sturdy sheep beaten in the head, and as they should die anon. Some hang their heads on one side as if a worm were in their ears. Some pipe when they should speak, as if there were no spirit in their bodies: and this is the proper condition of an hypocrite. Some cry and whine in their throats, so be they greedy and hasty to say that they think: and this is the condition of heretics, and of them that with presumption and with curiosity of wit will always maintain error.

(7) Now the multitude of the possessed indeed is unholy, but it is next above the catechumens, which is lowest. Nor is that which has received a certain participation in the most holy offices, but is yet entangled by contrary qualities, whether enchantments or terrors, on a par, as I think, with the altogether uninitiated and entirely uncommunicated in the Divine initiations; but, even for them, the view and participation in the holy mysteries is contracted, and very properly. For, if it be true that the altogether godly man, the worthy partaker of the Divine mysteries, the one carried to the very summit of the Divine likeness, to the best of his powers, in complete and most perfect deifications, does not even perform the things of the flesh, beyond the most necessary requirements of nature, and then as a parergon, but will be, at the same time, a temple, and a follower, according to his ability, of the supremely Divine Spirit, in the highest deification, implanting like in like;--such an one as this would never be possessed by opposing phantoms or fears, but will laugh them to scorn, and when they approach, will cast them down and put them to flight, and will act rather than comply, and in addition to the passionless and indomitableness of his own character, will be seen also a physician to others, for such "possessions" as these; (and I think further, yea, rather, I know certainly that the most impartial discrimination of Hierarchical persons knows more than they, that such as are possessed with a most detestable possession, by departing from the Godlike life, become of one mind and one condition with destructive demons, by turning themselves from things that really are, and undying possessions, and everlasting pleasures, for the sake of the most base and impassioned folly destructive to themselves; and by desiring and pursuing the earthly variableness, and the perishable and corrupting pleasures, and the unstable comfort in things foreign to their nature, not real but seeming;) these then, first, and more properly than those, were shut out by the discriminating authority of the Deacon; for it is not permitted to them to have part in any other holy function than the teaching of the Oracles, which is likely to turn them to better things. For, if the supermundane Service of the Divine Mysteries excludes those under penitence, and those who have already attained it, not permitting anything to come near which is not completely perfect, and proclaims, and this in all sincerity, that "I am unseen and uncommunicated by those who are in any respect imperfectly weak as regards the summit of the Divine Likeness" (for that altogether most pure voice scares away even those who cannot be associated with the worthy partakers of the most Divine mysteries).; how much more, then, will the multitude of those who are under the sway of their passions be unhallowed and alien from every sight and participation in the holy mysteries. When, then, the uninitiated in the mysteries, and the imperfect, and with them the apostates from the religious life, and after them, those who through unmanliness are prone to the fears and fancies of contrary influences, as not reaching through the persistent and indomitable inclination towards godliness, the stability and activity of a Godlike condition; then, in addition to these, those who have separated indeed from the contrary life, but have not yet been cleansed from its imaginations by a godly and pure habit and love, and next, those who are not altogether uniform, and to use an expression of the Law, "entirely without spot and blemish," when these have been excluded from the divine temple and the service which is too high for them, the all-holy ministers and loving contemplators of things all-holy, gazing reverently upon the most pure rite, sing in an universal Hymn of Praise the Author and Giver of all good, from Whom the saving mystic Rites were exhibited to us, which divinely work the sacred deification of those being initiated. Now this Hymn some indeed call a Hymn of Praise, others, the symbol of worship, but others, as I think, more divinely, a Hierarchical thanksgiving, as giving a summary of the holy gifts which come to us from God. For, it seems to me the record of all the works of God related to have been done for us in song, which, after it had benevolently fixed our being and life, and moulded the Divine likeness in ourselves to beautiful archetypes, and placed us in participation of a more Divine condition and elevation; but when it beheld the dearth of Divine gifts, which came upon us by our heedlessness, is declared to have called us back to our first condition, by goods restored, and by the complete assumption of what was ours, to have made good the most perfect impartation of His own, and thus tp have given to us a participation in God and Divine things.

(3) I make no claim for either the infallibility or the originality of any statement herein contained. I have studied the fragmentary writings of the ancients sufficiently to realize that dogmatic utterances concerning their tenets are worse than foolhardy. Traditionalism is the curse of modern philosophy, particularly that of the European schools. While many of the statements contained in this treatise may appear at first wildly fantastic, I have sincerely endeavored to refrain from haphazard metaphysical speculation, presenting the material as far as possible in the spirit rather than the letter of the original authors. By assuming responsibility only for the mistakes which may' appear herein, I hope to escape the accusation of plagiarism which has been directed against nearly every writer on the subject of mystical philosophy.

(2) "This is the spirit of light who has come in them. And by the will of the majesty the spirit gazed up at the infinite light, that his light may be pitied and the likeness may be brought up from Hades. And when the spirit had looked, I flowed out—I, the son of the majesty—like a wave of light and like a whirlwind of the immortal spirit. And I blew from the cloud of the hymen upon the astonishment of the unconceived spirit. The cloud separated and cast light upon the clouds. These separated so that the spirit might return. Because of this the mind took shape. Its rest was shattered. For the hymen of nature was a cloud that cannot be grasped; it is a great fire. Similarly, the afterbirth of nature is the cloud of silence; it is an august fire. And the power that was mixed with the mind—it, too, was a cloud of nature that was joined with the darkness that had aroused nature to unchastity. And the dark water was a frightful cloud. And the root of nature, which was below, was crooked, since it is burdensome and harmful. The root was blind to the bound light, which was unfathomable because it had many appearances.