Things Betwixt

[sdi]

For ah! what is there, of inferior birth,
That breathes or creeps upon the dust of earth,
What wretched creature of what wretched kind,
Than man more weak, calamitous, and blind?

(Zeus speaking. Homer, Iliad XVII, as translated by Alexander Pope.)

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In the meanwhile you will have two kinds of animals, Gods very much differing from men, in sublimity of place, in perpetuity of life, in perfection of nature, and having no proximate communication with them; since those supreme are separated from the lowest habitations by such an interval of altitude; and the life there is eternal and never-failing, but is here decaying and interrupted; and the natures there are elevated to beatitude, but those that are here are depressed to calamity. What then? Does nature connect itself by no bond, but leave itself separated into the divine and human part, and suffer itself to be interrupted, and as it were debile? [... No,] there are certain middle powers, [...] called by the Greek name dæmons.

(Apuleius, On the God of Socrates, as translated by Thomas Taylor.)

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Many occult schools seem teach that humanity is in the middle of the universe—that above us is happiness, below us is misery, and we are poised on the balance between them, partaking of both. I can't see that, at all, at all: it seems to me that, as Homer says, humans have only misery as their lot. Consequently, if the gods are happy, then it must fall to dæmons who partake of both natures.

Just as the highest dæmons are like gods, the highest humans are like dæmons. So, even if you attain—and blessed indeed are you who do!—the work does not end here, and the rewards is, perhaps, only a partial respite from your labors.

I am anxious for a respite, of course, but that mustn't be the reason why we strive.

Comments

[boccaderlupo]

Interesting finds!! Thank you.