The religious instinct is deeply implanted in the hearts of men, and may be called the stepping-stone toward true spirituality – but it is not spirituality itself.

William Walker Atkinson, The Astral World

Hermetic quote Atkinson Astral spirituality

Consider also:

  1. “It is after investment with the apron that the initiate is placed in the N.E. corner. Thereby he is intended to learn that at his birth into this world the foundation-stone of his spiritual life was duly and truly laid and implanted within himself; and he is charged to develop it; to create a superstructure upon it.”
  2. “I will go to the Café du Dôme and break my fast humbly with Coffee and Sandwich. May it strengthen me in my search for the Quintessence, the Stone of the Wise, the Summum Bonum, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness!”
  3. “it is intended to be a place where those who earnestly aspire to spirituality may find the external conditions necessary to cultivate it and to acquire the true ‘magic staff’ that will securely support them on their voyage through eternity; namely, the power to recognise divine truth within their own selves–not by any capacity of their own, but by the power of the Light itself, which comes to all men if they are willing that the darkness should be driven away.”
  4. “LET me draw a picture! In auction, I bid a heart, but only with fear and trembling, because my partner may not have any hearts at all. In the new game of Pirate I can bid two hearts and feel more or less certain that either the man–no matter where he sits–with the hearts or the man with the aces and kings, is going to accept me as a partner and so save me from ignominy and ruin. After a bid has been accepted, and a partnership thus established, the next player can make a higher bid, when anybody can accept that bid and so establish a new partnership, and so on indefinitely.”
  5. The True and Perfect Preparation of the Philosopher’s Stone, by the Brotherhood of the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross