then it hit him, a sensation that would have been familiar to any aspirant ever graduated from the High University. The inherent magic of all undergraduates— the magic of the last minute. The power to embrace any solution, no matter how insane or desperate.

Scott Lynch, In the Stacks [Amazon]

Hermetic quote Lynch Stacks magic of the last minute embrace any solution insane desperate

Consider also:

  1. “In our school we are instructed by Divine wisdom, the heavenly bride, whose will is free, and who comes to him whom she selects. The mysteries which we know embrace everything that can possibly be known in regard to God, Nature, and Man. Every sage that has ever existed has graduated in our school, in which he could have learned true wisdom.”
  2. “That if desperate times call for desperate measures, then I am free to act as desperately as I wish.”
  3. “Whatever it is, I can’t say, for I’ve never seen it and anyone who has is sent insane.”
  4. “To practice black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency, and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires.”
  5. “To the high initiate there was no question of choice in this matter. He knew that the heart turned inward on itself was a very poor alternative for that expansion of being that belongs to the development of the whole latent Divine Powers of the Microprosopus. In other words, the perfect formulation of the Osiris soul, the Holy Spirit of the Divine, made manifest and eternal.”