Probably this chronic mutual suspicion of our neighbour’s capacities—suggesting, in effect, a hierarchy of competence with respect to human consciousness—will never be settled to everyone’s satisfaction.

Georges Bataille, Story of the Eye

Hermetic quote Bataille Eye suspicion

Consider also:

  1. “It is important to understand that there was, for Dee and Kelly, a standard Renaissance view of the divine order and the place of the various echelons of angels within that hierarchy. This view was defined primarily from scripture, but drew the precise form that it did from the Celestial Hierarchy of St. Denis, the Aereopagite, so-called.”
  2. “In any case, this passage of Paul’s is the principle reason for the elaborate development attributed to St. Denis or Pseudo-Dionysus, in his Celestial Hierarchy and in passing as a matter of introduction in his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Conversely, the work of Pseudo-Dionysus is concerned with putting Judeo-Christian angelology in the context of Platonic metaphysics and cosmology.”
  3. “The question is not whether consciousness or whether knowledge, but the quality of the consciousness and of the knowledge. And that invites consideration of the quality of fineness of the human subject—the most problematic standard of all.”
  4. “… For Mercy has a human heart, Pity a human face, And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress.”
  5. “Imagine a sacred wand that has the power to transform existential truths into celestial realities; picture a universal symbol that when gazed upon could raise human consciousness to a higher order of perception”