Section 11

As, then, thou dost conceive of God, con-
ceive the Beautiful and Good. For they can-
not be joined with aught of other things that
live, since they can never be divorced from
God.

Just as one thinks of God, so must he think of
the Beautiful and the Good. In so far as he is
able to conceive of God, so will he be able to con-
ceive of the Beautiful and the Good, but no far-
ther. Our ability to appreciate the Beautiful and
the Good is absolutely conditioned by our ability.
to conceive of and appreciate the perfection of
the Unmanifest God, for they are absolutely the
same. Think therefore of them as one and indi-
visible. The Trinity of Ku consists of Her Fab-
rication, or Motherhood, Her Beauty and her
Goodness, and they are co-equal and co-eternal
and indivisible.

Seek'st thou for God, thou seekest for the

PHILOSOPHIA EERMET1CA 117

Beautiful. One is the Path that leadeth unto
It — Devotion joined with Gnosis.

What is the quest of all life? The Moralist
seeks for Goodness. The Artist seeks for Beauty.
The Philosopher seeks for Truth or Wisdom.
The man of Action seeks for Power. All else is
pain, these are the only quests that are worth
while, and those who seek them are the only
ones worthy of our mention in all the human race.
The others are merely swine who seek beastly
gratification, or slaves who merely seek to keep
alive. All the real men, are those who seek for
Wisdom, Eighteousness, Power or Beauty. Where
will the Seeker find that which he -seeks? In God
alone. And also, the Mystic who seeks after
God will find Him only in the Beautiful and the
Good. They are One, and hence must be sought
as one. The great trouble is, so many seek God
as a Person, and of course they find Him not, for
there is no such Being as a Personal God. He
must be sought not as Person but as Principle,
and if we seek Him as Principle, we must have
some conception of the nature of the Principle
we are seeking, before we commence the search,
otherwise we will not know what to look for, and
hence we may find Him and yet fail to recognize
Him. We must seek for God as Absolute Beauty,
Absolute Good, Absolute Wisdom and Absolute
Power. It is in these Principles that God Abides.
Divine Goodness and Divine Beauty are in Ku,
the Mother. Also is She God or Energizing Will,
that Energy from which all Power doth come,
therefore, in Her must one seek for all Power.
Absolute Wisdom is from the Mind or the Father
working in conjunction with the Mother or Ku,
for the Thought of the Mind becomes Wisdom
only when it has been clothed with Substance, and,
energized by Will. Therefore, in Ku is to be

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sought and found that which will satisfy the
Quest of all the Seekers. "When they have found
their Goal, they will have found God. All is
summed up in the Beautiful, hence all should seek
for the Beautiful, that is for the Beauty of Ku,
the Beautiful Grace of the Mother. While we may
see this Beauty in different ways, some may
seek the Beautiful Good, others the Beautiful
Wisdom, others the Beautiful Power, and yet
others the Beautiful Beauty, yet all must seek
the Beautiful. There is but one Path that leadeth
unto it. As it is one thing that is to be searched
out, there must be but one Path to travel. The
Path of Devotion will in every instance fail, be-
cause it develops Devotion but not Wisdom. The
Path of Wisdom will fail because it develops Wis-
dom without Devotion. The Path of Action will
fail, because it develops neither Devotion or Wis-
dom. None of the Marghas of Hindooism will ever
bring one to the Goal at the end of the Quest.
Then what will lead us into the bosom and the
heart of our Mother? There is but one Path
that will do this. We must tread the Old, Old
Path, that of Devotion Joined with Gnosis.

It is very hard to understand the scope of
Gnosis. It is not knowledge, for knowledge comes
through experience and observation, and experi-
ence and observation enter not into the composi-
tion of Gnosis. Knowledge relates to Things
and is the foundation of Science. It deals with
material things. Its field is the sensible kosmos.
Gnosis concerns itself not with this. Gnosis is
not W7isdom, for Wisdom comes through Eeason
and Logic, it is the source of Philosophy, and
Philosophy is not Gnosis. Philosophy is related
to Ideas. Its field is the Intelligible Kosmos, and
Gnosis deals not with this. Gnosis is not Intui-
tion, for Intuition is the co-worker with Eeason.
Gnosis is God-knowledge, it deals with God and

PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETIGA 119

the Divine Intelligence, it is the Knowledge that
comes from the Mind. Gnosis is born in one,
when the Pure and Spotless Eye of the Truth is
born in him. One does not investigate and at-
tain Gnosis. One does not Eeason out Gnosis.
One simply knows Gnosis, without any process
whatsoever. When the Light of God shines into
the Soul and Illumines it with Its Eadiance, then
has Gnosis been born within him. It comes in no
other way. No one can ever teach Gnosis to an-
other. We can only teach the pupil those things
which will evolve him unto the point where he
will contact the Light, and it will shine into his
soul and thus confer upon him Gnosis. No one
in possession of Gnosis will ever try to teach it
to another, he will merely try to develop his
spiritual nature unto the point where he may
attain Gnosis by Its being born in him. Gnostics
are born, they are never made, and yet this birth
is spiritual and never physical. However, great
as is Gnosis, it alone will never lead one unto the
Beautiful. To do this it must have Devotion
joined unto it. This Devotion must be single-
hearted Devotion to the Beautiful and the Good.
Until the Ideal of perfect Beauty has become the
all dominant passion of life through time and
through eternity, this Devotion has not been at-
tained. And also until the ideal of the Perfect
Good has become the abiding love of the heart,
a devouring flame that nothing in all the worlds
can ever quench, in time and in eternity, Devotion
has not been attained. When this perfect Devotion
unto Ideal Beauty and Ideal Good as One, has
been joined unto Gnosis, one has entered the Old,
Old Path. After entering this Path, one must
become his Ideal of the Beautiful and the Good
as well as of the Truth, and then in time he will
find the Beautiful, and when he has found that,
he will have found God. When he has found

120 PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETIGA

God, lie will have found Ku, the Beginningless and
the Endless Mother of all. This is the one Path
which thou must tread, 0 Seeker, if thou wouldst
reach the Beautiful and the Good and thereby
God the one and only One, Thus wilt thou find thy
ever Beautiful, and ever Good Mother the Mother
Divine, Immortal Ku. Dost thou thrill within
thyself? Does thy heart burn within thee at this
thought? Dost thou vibrate from head to foot
at thought of this quest? Does a flame of devour-
ing love spring up within thee, and spread
through thy every fiber, and consume every cell
of thy being, at thought of this search? Then
art thou called unto the quest for the Beautiful,
and hast already entered upon thy search for
the Gnosis of the Good.

6. And thus it is that they who do not know
and do not tread Devotion's Path, do dare to
call man beautiful and good, though he have
ne'er e'en in his visions seen a whit that's
Good, but is enwrapped with every kind of
bad, and thinks the bad is good, and thus doth
make unceasing use of it, and even feareth
that it should be ta'en from him, so straining
every nerve not only to preserve but even to
increase it.

Such are the things that men call good and
beautiful, Asclepios, — things which we cannot
flee or hate; for hardest thing of all is that
we've need of them and cannot live without
them.

Those who do not know anything about Devo-
tion's Path, and hence do not tread it, owing to
their total ignorance of the True Beauty and the
true Good, dare to call man beautiful and Good.
In this they do prove their ignorance and their

PHILOSOPHIA HEBMETICA 121

impiety. This proves that they have not the
faintest inkling of true Beauty and Goodness.
If they had they would never see anything either
Beautiful or Good in man. They are unable to
even conceive of anything transcending the quali-
ties of the human. It is for this reason that in
their ignorance they attribute Beauty and Good-
ness to man, seeing that they know nothing at
all of either, they call that beautiful and good,
which is the highest that they can comprehend.
In this they prove that they are of that ungodly
throng, who have no God. Man as a rule has
never even in his visions seen a whit that is Good.
It is something of which he is incapable even of
dreaming. He is not only incapable of seeing a
whit of the good, in his dreams; but his entire
nature is completely enwrapped with every kind
of bad, so that he is incapable of penetrating
this blanket of the bad, and hence cannot see
beyond it. So thoroughly is he blinded that he
thinks that the bad is good. Thus we see that
such a man has no means of knowing the dif-
ference between the good and the bad. The great-
est fallacy in the world is the idea that conscience
will guide man aright, and that in this way he
can attain a knowledge of the difference between
good and evil. The facts in the matter are that
the human conscience is bad, and that it will in
every instance guide man into following the bad.
It never fails to lead him into the bad. Instead
of being a safe guide, it is ever the case of the
blind leading the blind, and hence they both fall
into the ditch of total badness together. The
conscience of every man is totally bad until he
has entered Devotion's Path and has attained
Gnosis. This alone can lead him to the point
where he will have an apprehension of the Good.
Only Gnostics are able to know the difference be-
tween Good and Evil. From this we can see that

122 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA

conscience is never to be depended upon : but only
is Gnosis able to lead one aright. Owing to this
misleading conscience of theirs, and their total
inability to see the good, they, taking the bad for
good, make unceasing use of the bad. This of
course means that never in a single instance,
their whole life long, do they ever make use
of a single good thing. The doctrine of total de-
pravity is therefore perfectly correct, for if a
man has not even the capacity to know the dif-
ference between good and bad, and always thinks
that the bad is good, it follows that he will never
do any good deed, but will at all times do the bad,
thinking that he is doing the good. The entire
life of such a man is made up of a totality of bad
deeds. The remedy is Gnosis, and that alone will
save man from the bad. Not only is man unceas-
ingly making use of the bad: but is fearful that
this bad may be taken from him, clinging to it at
all tinles as the dearest thing of life. All his life
long, he strains every nerve, not only to retain
all the bad that he has but to continually increase
the sum of the bad that he has. So he is not sat-
isfied with always being as bad as he is, and never
growing any better, but he ever strives with all
the power at his disposal to grow worse and worse
all the time. This is the tragedy of our lives that
we ever cultivate the bad that is in us, and thus
make it grow more and more.

Unfortunately, these bad and ugly things which
men call good and beautiful, and which are cer-
tainly most undesirable, cannot be fled from or
hated, though they should be feared and hated
above all things ; seeing that it is those very bad
and ugly things that separate us from the Beau-
tiful and the Good. The hardest thing of all, and
the greatest curse connected with our life down
here is the fact that we have need of those very
bad and ugly things, and so long as we remain
in the body, we cannot live without them. Our

PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA 123

very life is so wrapped up in them, that life is
impossible without those very things. The great-
est curse of all is, therefore, embodied existence,
and our only salvation is freedom from the body.
The curse that was placed upon man was there-
fore, incarnation in the physical body, and he
will not have been saved until he has attained
freedom from incarnate life. Hence it follows
that so long as a man lives in the world, he can
never attain the Beautiful and the Good. What
then should he do? There is but one course open
to him; while living in the body and thus being
at all times enwrapped with bad, he should ever
seek the Beautiful and the Good by striving after
it, and treading Devotion's Path. In other words,
with Heart and Mind he should serve the Beau-
tiful and the Good, though with his body, he
must of necessity serve the bad. There is no
other course open to him. In his physical life,
no one can avoid an evil life, for the life of the
body is evil per se; but the intelligence and the
Devotion of the heart may rise above it. Thus it
is that the wise have ever attached a great deal
more importance to Spiritual Thought than they
have to a moral life, seeing that the moral life re-
lates itself to the body, and as the body is en-
wrapped with bad, it follows that his morals must
be bad. In other words, the most exemplary
morality will always be a bad morality. The Good
cannot be expressed in conduct, as all conduct is
of necessity bad. The Good Life is a life of
Ideals, not one of actions, hence the relative good-
ness of any man is to be determined not by what
he does, but by the purity and spirituality of his
ideals. We can readily see the inherent badness
of human society, in the fact that it cares very
little about the ideals of any one, and attaches
the greatest importance to his conduct, some-
thing that can never be of any great importance.
The entire moral code is so constructed as to

124 PHILOSOPHIA HERMETICA

make ample provision for all of these bad things.
Labor is one of those bad things, and hence it
is supposed to be the duty of every one to work
himseli to death, and if one shirks this duty of
working himself to death, and becomes indiffer-
ent to labor, he is immoral. Improvidence is
immoral, because it is the duty of every one to
accumulate as much of this world's goods as pos-
sible. To dissipate what he has is immoral,
therefore one should never live above his in-
come, and hence extravagance is immoral. One
is a public benefactor if he uses his intelligence
to increase the wealth of the country, which is
also bad. He is immoral if he neglects his oppor-
tunity to do so, for then he is wasting his talents.
Theft and dishonesty are also said to be immoral,
because they deprive another of his possessions.
This entire world is made up of falsehood, see-
ing that the false pretends to be the true; hence,
it is impossible for any one to lie about any mat-
ter of fact, seeing that all facts are in themselves
lies ; and yet it is immoral to lie, because we must
preserve this particular fabric of lies that we
have in the world. It is immoral for one not to
provide for the material wants of his family, but
as a matter of fact they all relate to the bad, and
the other things are much more important. Char-
ity is considered very moral, because it keeps the
body alive, which is bad; hence, charity is in
itself bad. It is moral to minister to the desires
and passion, and as they are bad, this is also bad.
The entire fabric of sex morality has been ar-
ranged to regulate the gratification of lust in such
a way as to give the greatest measure of sexual
satisfaction, and hence to provide for the bad,
hence sex morality is also bad. Our entire moral
code has been arranged in such a manner as to
make the best possible citizens out of the people,
which means to make the worst possible men and
women out of them. There has never been the

PHILOSOPHIA EERMETICA 125

slightest attention paid to cultivating the Good in
man, for the Good has nothing to do with this
world. In order to become a good citizen, one
must become a bad man, and if one becomes a
relatively good man, he is therefore no good as a
citizen. The purpose of our entire social struc-
ture is to make bad men, and above all things, to
keep all goodness away from them. A good man
is therefore never a moral man, and also a moral
man can never have a trace of goodness about
him. Man must, therefore, serve the bad, by
living a moral life in his body, while serving the
Good by approaching as near It as possible
through the exercise of his Intelligence and his
Heart. The dual life is the only one for him to
live, seeing that he lives in two worlds, in the In-
telligible Kosmos, in his soul, and in the Mate-
rial Kosmos, in his body. It is a mistake to ever
think that the twain will meet. However, I would
say that it is best to reduce the badness of the
body to the minimum, and to increase the good-
ness of the soul to the maximum. In this way
will he advance the fartherest on Devotion's
Path, and thus through Gnosis, reach closer to
the Beautiful and the Good than in any other
way. However, let him never forget, that the
percentage of Goodness in him is to be measured
not by the actions and habits of his body, but by
the Ideals and Devotion of his Soul.