Preparing for the Miraculous

8 eleven talksfrom close at hand. Notice, then, that I have referred tothings which you are not permitted to know, though youhave heard about them. So I shall communicate only whatcan be communicated without sacrilege to the understandingof non-initiates.”Egypt and GreeceAn important though forgotten or disparaged sourceof much of the spirituality in the ancient civilizationsaround the Mediterranean was Egypt. This is insufficientlyrealized because the minds of most Egyptologists haveremained closed to spiritual values, forced as they felt tocomply with the positivism of their academic environmentand the dominant Abrahamic religions. It is only recentlythat authors like Martin Bernal (Black Athena) and ChristosEvangeliou (The Hellenic Philosophy: Between Europe, Asiaand Africa) have shown how frequent the exchanges aroundthe eastern Mediterranean were in ancient times, and howdeeply Egypt’s highly developed culture, occultism andspirituality had penetrated into pre-classical Greece.The spirit behind the Egyptian temples, the pyramidsand the animal masks of the gods has surfaced around thebeginning of the Common Era in writings which are calledHermetica. These hermetic texts gained enormous influenceafter being rediscovered during the Renaissance, bought byCosimo de’ Medici and translated by Marsilio Ficino. Longsuspected of not being genuine, they have gradually gainedacceptance as expressions of the authentic wisdom in suchcentres of ancient Egypt as Heliopolis, Hermopolis, and thegreat temples of Luxor and Memphis.“Or are you ignorant, Asclepius,” one reads in the textof the same name, “that Egypt is the image of heaven?Moreover, it is the dwelling place of heaven and all the forcesthat are in heaven. It is proper for us to speak the truth,