Hermes Trismegistus

God the father is eternal and good the evil is like that of rust to copper and man mortal unless the mind becomes divine which is immortal becomes like the dross becomes like the blade from the anvil rendering eternal the fruit

besides the fetish value involved as a canonized esoteric body of culture, gnosticism is appealing to internet people b/c surface readings of work like this absolutize narcissism. but if anyone followed these ideas to their conclusion they would realize its more important that everyone else is god about as much as you are and the lack of emphasis on this point renders this not very useful

Read enough to discover that this so-called root of the "Western esoteric tradition" is basically a Gnostic gospel = this book has nothing to do with either Greek or Egyptian religions, and simply regurgitates and rehashes bits and pieces of the New Testament with some Neo-Platonism and calls it magic. Useful for historical context only.

At first I simply enjoyed a world-dragon filling up a sky to tell me to sit down and shut up, but then I was fascinated to see how much real wisdom this book held. Even when I'm reading it on several levels, it is a fairly easy read, and beautiful as well.