Tag Archives: excess

If I were to put it into a very few words, my dear sir, I should say that our prevalent belief is in moderation. We inculcate the virtue of avoiding excess of all lands—even including, if you will pardon the paradox, excess of virtue itself. In the valley which you have seen, and in which there are several thousand inhabitants living under the control of our order, we have found that the principle makes for a considerable degree of happiness. We rule with moderate strictness, and in return we are satisfied with moderate obedience. And I think I can claim that our people are moderately sober, moderately chaste, and moderately honest.

James Hilton, Lost Horizon [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]

Hermetic quote Hilton Lost Horizon prevalent belief moderation virtue avoiding excess paradox itself living control order principle happiness moderate strictness obedience sober chaste honest

The queen has tipped her chalice …

The queen has tipped her chalice to my lips and her intoxicating contents run down my chest soaking my body in her scent

I have been anointed by the daughter of heaven and been named by her heir apparent to the kingdom of her for this moment

She is the mother of my lust and my tower topples under her toplessness only to rise again in anticipation of another impending confusion of tongues

And the babel of the workers as they rush in becomes a ritual song rising and descending without and within, above and below, solve et coagula

At her next touch I dissolve into nothing and then surge forth resolving into pure gold

She is an inspiration to greater and greater intention and the mystery of her religion is the secret sanctuary of my excess

Her dance inspires me to religion within the pylons of her temple and the hieroglyphics there in her inner precincts teach me all the secret spells necessary to survive another afterlife

I am her rememberer and she is my passage to the underworld, and we abide in the darkness lit by an inner light

My negative confession is nothing but stuttering and slips of the tongue in the shadows of her inner temple where the sacred waters are stored for the worthy worshippers to wash themselves

Going down in the dark, I am drowning in light

—John Griogair Bell

 

The Hermetic Library arts and letters pool is a project to publish poetry, prose and art that is inspired by or manifests the Western Esoteric Tradition.