La Poule Noire (The Black Pullet)

sovereign? And if you have these noble thoughts—as the signs I see upon your face do not allow me to doubt—consider maturely whether you have the courage and the strength to renounce all things that might be an obstacle to reaching the elevation: the spiritual and intellectual ascent from a common state to a state of enlightened mastery for which you were born.

He stopped there and looked at me fixedly, as if waiting for my response, or as if seeking to read into my heart.

I asked him, "What must one renounce?"

— "To everything that is evil, so as to occupy yourself only with what is good; to that inclination which almost all of us carry from birth, and which leads us toward vice rather than toward virtue; to those passions: in an 18th-century context, these refer to uncontrolled emotions and physical desires that distract the mind from reason and spiritual study that make us slaves to our senses and prevent us from devoting ourselves to study, from tasting its sweetness and from gathering its fruits. You see, my dear son, that the sacrifice I demand of you is in no way painful and is not beyond your strength; on the contrary, it will bring you close to perfection: the highest state of human development, often associated with the completion of the 'Great Work' in alchemy and occultism, as far as it is possible for a man to reach it. Do you accept what I propose?"

"O my father," I replied, "nothing is..."