The Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus (2023 Modernized Edition): A carefully composed plain language rendition for modern readers of Hermetic philosophy

by Hermes Trismegistus

Where are you carried, O Men, intoxicated from drinking the strong Wine of Ignorance? If you can’t bear the sight of it, why do you vomit it up again? 2. Stand and be sober, and look up again with the Eyes of your heart. If all of you cannot do it, still do it as much as you can. 3. For the malice of Ignorance surrounds all the Earth and corrupts the Soul, locked away in the Body, not allowing it to arrive at the Havens of Salvation. 4. Do not allow yourselves to be carried with the Great Stream, but you who can lay hold of the Haven of Safety, stem the tide and make your full course towards it. 5. Seek one who may lead you by the hand and conduct you to the door of Truth and Knowledge, where the clear Light is found that is pure from Darkness; where no one is drunken but all are sober. In their hearts they look up to him, whose pleasure it is to be seen. 6. For he cannot be heard with ears, nor seen with eyes, nor expressed in words; but only in mind and heart. 7. But first you must tear the garment you wear to pieces and break through it; that web of Ignorance; the foundation of all Mischief; the bond of Corruption; the dark Shroud; the living Death; the sensible Carcass; the Sepulcher, carried around with us; the domestic Thief who, in this, loves us, hates us, envies us. 8. Such is the hurtful Apparel with which you are clothed, which draws and pulls you downward with itself to prevent you from looking upward and seeing the beauty of Truth and the Good that rests there...