Horus, or the Astrognostic Final Judgment

XIII

Preface. XIII

among one nation in these, and among another in those dark shrouds, so that the profane original: Profanen; here meaning the uninitiated or common people who were not part of the priestly or scholarly classes, who did not belong to their learned tribes, could not find the key to their secret science. Thus it also happened that eventually the shells themselves were taken for the kernels, the poetic fictions for truths, the shadow for the essence, and the figurative representations of celestial and natural events for divine revelations. They cut up the cloak of truth to make a new one from it, and they believed they had created new truth themselves, although it remained hidden unnoticed beneath the fragmented cloak. They turned the cloak inside out: but the truth wrapped within it was still not recognized. In general, they looked only at the cloak, and not at the truth itself. Jews, Christians, Turks a historical term used by the author to refer to Muslims, and all pagans basically have only one single religion, regardless of the fact that their mythologies turn out very differently, and regardless of their belief that they have very different religions. These supposed different religions have all flowed from the great book of heaven, from the book of nature. They also all unite in the events of the heavens and nature, like many spread-out threads that converge into a common knot.

Regarding the contemplation of Jesus and his disciples, there is nothing further to report, other than that I am ready to publicly recant as soon as I have been thoroughly refuted. But perhaps [some]...