Horus, or the Astrognostic Final Judgment

XV

[...due to a lack] of tools, they could arrive at no complete, no true knowledge of nature; and what they did know, they presented under the veil of hieroglyphs, or in mystical expressions The author refers here to the metaphorical use of symbols in ancient "mystery" religions to hide natural truths from the uninitiated. From this, mysterious religions arose; from this, religions emerged that, to all appearances, were very different from one another. At present, clarity and agreement prevail, at least in astronomy and natural science; therefore, clarity and agreement must also prevail in the religious tenets that flow from them.

I have titled my book Astrognostic Final Judgment original: Astrognostisches Endurtheil because astrognosy from Greek astron (star) and gnosis (knowledge); the study of the names and visible positions of the stars is the knowledge of the apparent position and the apparent course of the stars, but does not concern itself, as astronomy does, with mathematical measurements of the true motion, the true size, and the true distance of the stars from one another. Among the ancients, astronomy was almost nothing more than mere astrognosy. This they combined with astrology, or with that deceptive art of prophesying from the constellations. From these two arts—from astrognosy and astrology—they forged their prophecies and their religious systems.

I call the movement of the equinoxes original: Nachtgleichpunkte; points where the sun crosses the celestial equator, making day and night equal precession original: Präzession for the reason that I am primarily looking at the constellations that move away from the aforementioned points according to the order of the signs. If one looks at the points themselves, one must say recession or "backward movement" instead of precession, as is clear in itself.