DeConick A.D

86
SUPERPOWERS AND MONSTERS
evil inclinations, deceitful lust, domineering arrogance, rash presumption,
greed, and deceit—and that, like kryptonite, enfeeble it.
Once released from these kryptonic trappings, the mind of the initiate
enters the Ogdoadic region, which is the zodiac above the seven planetary
spheres. At this eighth level, the initiate sings hymns to the father who
lives above and beyond the Ogdoad in a region all his own. Subsequently,
the mind of the initiate hastens beyond the Ogdoad, out of the cosmos,
to the One and Only, surrendering to the powers of that superior place.
This is the place beyond the cosmos where Mind is a whole wholly enclosing
itself, free of all body, unerring, unaffected, at rest, containing all
things, and preserving all that exists (Corpus Hermeticum II.12). It is the
moment that the initiate sings to the all-lord, and afterwards is moved to
silence (V.11):
You are whatever I am.
You are whatever I make.
You are whatever I say.
You are everything,
And there is nothing else.
What is not, you are as well.
You are all that has come to be.
You are what has not come to be.
You are the Mind who understands,
The Father who makes his craftswork,
The God who acts,
And the Good who makes all things.
This is how the initiate enters God and is made God. This is gnosis,
when the initiate, like Hermes, flies through the air and becomes a superpower
too (Corpus Hermeticum I.24–26). His guru tells him that he has
come to experience himself as “a godlike living thing, not comparable
to the other living things of the earth, but to those of the heaven above,
who are called gods.” The Hermetic guru continues, “Even more so, if
one dare tell the truth, that the one who is really human is above these
gods as well, or at least they are wholly equal in power to one another.”
The human on earth is a “mortal god” whose ability to cross boundaries
is superior to the celestial gods, who are only “immortal men” (X.24–25).