If you held the belief, child, that I knew everything that hid under every stone and leaf, I must disappoint you. I may have my own understanding of how the art works, sharpened by long years of memory, but I do not know how it will work for you. There is a reason I call magic an art, rather than a science. I might guess, but in guessing too hastily I might influence, or even diminish, your talents—taint you with my predictions.

J Kelley Anderson, Casting Shadows [Amazon]

Hermetic quote Anderson Casting Shadows taint you with my predictions

Consider also:

  1. “The name of the Dweller in the Abyss is Choronzon, but he is not really an individual. The Abyss is empty of being; it is filled with all possible forms, each equally inane, each therefore evil in the only true sense of the word — that is, meaningless but malignant, in so far as it craves to become real. These forms swirl senselessly into haphazard heaps like dust devils, and each such chance aggregation asserts itself to be an individual and shrieks, “I am I!” though aware all the time that its elements have no true bond; so that the slightest disturbance dissipates the delusion just as a horseman, meeting a dust devil, brings it in showers of sand to the earth.”
  2. “It is not unlikely that an artful priest might endeavour to turn their own arms on the innovators; and might avail himself of his abilities as an author to confirm the populace in their ancient errors and superstitions.”
  3. “Soon, you remember only what it wants you to remember.”
  4. “thou must first comprehend thine original Nature in every Point, before thou wast forced to bow before the Gods of Wood and Stone that Men have made, not comprehending the Law of Change, and of Evolution Through Variation, and the independent Value of every living Soul.”
  5. “I passed, confounded, lifeless as the clay, Somewhere I knew not. Many a dismal league Of various terror wove me its intrigue, And many a demon daunted: day by day Death dogged despair, and misery fatigue.”