La Poule Noire (The Black Pullet)

The kind of prophetic tone with which he spoke to me commanded my respect, and I felt the most intense desire to know what he was announcing to me; I told him so in the Turkish language, which I was beginning to understand and speak well enough to make myself understood.

"Your wishes shall be fulfilled," my adoptive father told me. Then, raising one of his hands toward the vault of the subterranean chamber, he added in a solemn tone: "Adore, my son, adore the most good and most great God of the sages, and never pride yourself on the fact that He has caused you to meet one of the children of wisdom, to join you to their company, and to make you a participant in the wonders of His omnipotence." original: Dieu des sages and enfants de la sagesse. These are traditional Hermetic terms. The "God of the Sages" refers to a universal, philosophical deity often associated with alchemy, while "Children of Wisdom" refers to those initiated into these secret arts.

After having completed this kind of invocation, he said to me, while looking at me: "Such are the principles with which you must be imbued; strive to make yourself worthy of receiving the light: in an esoteric context, 'light' symbolizes divine knowledge, truth, and the successful completion of initiation; the hour of your regeneration: a spiritual rebirth or transformation where the initiate leaves behind their old life to become a 'new creature' capable of understanding higher mysteries has arrived: it rests only with you to be a new creature."

"Pray ardently to He who alone has the power to create new hearts, to give you one capable of the great things I have to teach you, and to inspire me to hide nothing from you of the..."