THE EQUINOX
To wish to be at the same time God and Devil is to absorb
in one’s self the most absolute antinomy, the two most
strained contrary forces; it is the wish to shut up in one’s
self an infinite antagonism.
It is to drink a poison which would extinguish the suns
and consume the worlds.
It is to put on the consuming robe of Deianira.
It is to devote one’s self to the promptest
and most terrible
of all deaths.
Woe to him who wishes to know too much! For if
excessive and rash knowledge does not kill him it will make
him mad.
1 An allusion to Shiva, the patron of adepts, who drank the poison generated
by the churning of the ‘Milk Ocean.’ (See Bhagavata Purana Skandha VIII,
Chaps. 5-12.) Levi therefore means in this passage the exact contrary of what
he pretends to mean. Otherwise this “Be good, and you will be happy” chapter
would scarcely deserve the title “Arcanum Arcanorum.”-—O. M.
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