Michael Holme
Know thyself
My own writings, and philosophy in general, hinge on self-knowledge. In truth it's more about the knowledge of what we are not, because I espouse losing of identities and group membership, etc. I talk about the "I am". Amazingly, I wrote my "I am" book first, and only afterwards, did I realise how relevant it was. It was such a thrill when I found I had arrived at such a perennial wisdom all by myself.
Tonight, and for some reason, I recalled my late wife experimenting with the Golden Dawn. Clare had a strong Catholic upbringing, and for example, she went to a strict Convent school. That made her want to experiment lots. There's a list of banned groups, systems, and religions, of the Church. She worked at ticking them off. In her last years she followed Kriya Yoga, but I diverge, Aleister Crowley, the man behind the writer of the book, "The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic", said "know thyself." I tried to find a copy online, and found this next paragraph.
“'The Devil' is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes. This has led to so much confusion of thought that THE BEAST 666 has preferred to let names stand as they are, and to proclaim simply that AIWAZ, the solar-phallic-hermetic 'Lucifer,' is His own Holy Guardian Angel, and 'The Devil' SATAN or HADIT, the Supreme Soul behind RA-HOOR-KHUIT the Sun, the Lord of our particular unit of the Starry Universe. This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade 'Know Thyself!' and taught Initiation. He is 'the Devil' of the Book of Thoth, and His emblem is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection.”
~Magick in Theory and Practice
What's special is that I accidentally found the hit below.
https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/know-thyself.html
It has another 119 quotes about this subject, by about every major thinker from around about the beginning of time.
That's spectacular. It's vital wisdom. I've shared this link at the bottom of my Galley page, for those who don't read my blogs.