[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
And even while they pronounced their invocations, Asclepios, in a low voice, spoke thus:--
"O Tatius, let us ask our father that our prayers may be accompanied with odors of incense and
perfumes."
Trismegistus heard, and was moved.
"May the omen be favorable, O Asclepios," he said. "It is almost a sacrilege to burn incense or
any other perfume during prayer; He Who is all and Who contains all, desires nothing. Let us
give Him praise and adoration only; the divinest odors are acts of grace which mortals render to
God.
"We give Thee thanks, O Lord Most High, for by Thy grace we have received the light of Thy
knowledge; may Thy Name be adored and venerated, only Name by which Deity is praised
according to the religion of our fathers! For Thou dost vouchsafe to accord to all of us the
ancestral faith, piety, love, and the most worthy and gracious gifts, in that Thou bestowest upon
us consciousness, reason, and intelligence. By consciousness we discern Thee, by reason we seek
Thee, and intelligence endows us with the joy of understanding Thee. Saved by Thy divine
power, let us be glad in beholding the manifestation of Thyself; let us be glad that, from the hour
of our sojourn in the body, Thou dost deign to consecrate us to eternity. The only joy of Man is
the knowledge of Thy majesty. We have known Thee, O magnificent Light, who art apprehended
by Intelligence alone! We have known Thee, O true Way of Life, inexhaustible Source of all
births! We have known Thee, O generative Plenitude of all Nature, Eternal Permanence! And in
this our oraison, adoring the sanctity of Thy holiness, we ask of Thee only to grant that we may
persevere in the love of Thy knowledge, in such wise that we may never separate ourselves from
this manner of life. With which hope being filled, we go forth to take a pure repast without
animal flesh."*
*The words with which this Discourse on Initiation ends are full of significance. The key to the
Hermetic Secret is found when the aspirant adopts the Edenic Life: the life of purity and charity
which all mystics--Hebrew, Egyptian, Buddhist, Greek, Latin, Vedic, with one consent, ascribe
to man in the golden age of his primeval perfection. The first outcome of the Fall, or
Degeneracy, is the shedding of blood and eating of flesh. The license to kill is the sign-manual of
"Paradise Lost." And the first step towards "Paradise Regained" is taken when man voluntarily
returns to the manner of life indicated by his organism as that alone befitting him and thus
reunites himself to the harmony of Nature and the Will of God. No man who follows this path
and faithfully keeps to it will fail to find at length the Gate of Paradise. Not necessarily in a
single life-time, for the process of purification is a long one, and the past experiences of some
men may be such as to shut them out for many lives from the attainment of the promised land.
But, nevertheless, every step faithfully and firmly trodden, brings them nearer to the goal, every
year of pure life increasingly strengthens the spirit, purges the mind, liberates the will, and
augments their human royalty. On the other hand, it is idle to seek union with God in the Spirit,
while the physical and magnetic organism remains insurgent against Nature. Harmony must be
established between man and Nature before union can be accomplished between man and God.
For Nature is the manifest God; and if man be not in perfect charity with that which is visible,
how shall he love that which is invisible? Hermetic doctrine teaches the kinship and solidarity of
all beings, redeemed and glorified in man. For man does not stand aloof and apart from other
creatures, as though he were a fallen angel dropped from some supernal world upon the earth,
but he is the child of earth, the product of evolution, the elder brother of all conscient things;
their lord and king, but not their tyrant. It is his part to be to all creatures a Good Destiny; he is
the keeper, the redeemer, the regenerator of the earth. If need be, he may call on his subjects to
serve him as their king, but he may never, without forfeiting his kingship, maltreat and afflict
them. All the children of God, in every land and age, have abstained from blood, in obedience to
an occult law which asserts itself in the breast of all regenerate men. The mundane Gods are not
averse to blood, for by means of it they are invigorated and enabled to manifest. For the
mundane Gods are the forces of the astral element in man, which element dominates in the
unregenerate. Therefore, the unregenerate are under the power of the stars, and subject to
illusion. Inasmuch as a man is clean from the defilement of blood, inasmuch he is less liable to
be beguiled by the deceptions of the astral serpent. Therefore, let all who seek the Hermetic
secret, do their utmost to attain to the Hermetic life. If entire abstinence from all forms of animal
food be impossible, let a lower degree be adopted, admitting the use of the least bloody meats
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]