Æsclepius Interpretation, Continued
The Text
Then, filled with disgust for everything, man will no longer feel either admiration or love for the world. He will turn away from this beautiful work, the most perfect alike in the present, the past, and the future. Nor will the languor and weariness of souls permit anything to remain save disdain of the whole universe, this immutable work of God, this glorious and perfect edifice, this manifold synthesis of forms and images, wherein the will of the Lord, lavish of marvels, has united all things in a harmonious and single whole, worthy for ever of veneration, of praise and love! Then darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be deemed better than life, nor will any man lift his eyes to heaven.
Commentary
A roundabout way of describing the Millennial Religious mindset, which waits impatiently for the Rapture and Judgment Day and will do anything to bring it on.
It is standard for the Levantine Religions to hate the world as evil and to desire, with bated breath, its destruction and their ascent to heaven.
In the Middle Ages, monks would retreat into their monasteries, ignoring the world as irredeemably evil. This is precisely the same mindset.
Science is hated for its habit of poking holes in this narrative.
The Text
“In those days the religious man will be youth mad; the impious man will be hailed as a sage; savage men will be deemed valiant; the evil-hearted will be applauded as the best of men.
Commentary
Conservative forces, whether political or religious. Typified by Trump, the ‘religious’ man.
The Text
The Soul, and all that belongs thereto, whether born mortal or able to attain eternal life, all those things that I have herein expounded to you, will be but matters for ridicule, and will be esteemed foolishness.
Commentary
Progressive forces, the pro-science, freethinking, compassionate, and the liberal, A.K.A. ‘Libtards,’ according to conservatives.
The Text
There will even be peril of death, believe me, for those who remain faithful to religion and intelligence. New rights will be instituted, new laws, nor will there be left one holy word, one sacred belief, religious and worthy of heaven and of celestial things. O lamentable separation between the Gods and men!
Commentary
Mass shootings of non-whites, women, Jews, &c. Mass deportation and dehumanization of minorities in the US and some parts of Europe. In other parts of the world, the deaths of ‘Apostates’ and ‘Heretics,’ and the genocides of whole cultures.
Regressives desiring the absence of anyone who does not fit a narrow narrative of a ‘good’ person, or who challenges traditional authority.
The Text
Then there will remain only evil demons who will mingle themselves with the miserable human race, their hand will be upon it impelling to all kinds of wicked enterprise; to war, to rapine, to falsehood, to everything contrary to the nature of the soul.
Commentary
Trump.
Putin.
Kim Jong Un.
Bashar al Assad.
The list of ‘demons’ goes on.
The Text
The Earth will no longer be in equilibrium, the sea will no longer be navigable, in the heavens the regular course of the stars will be troubled. Every holy voice will be condemned to silence; the fruits of the Earth will become corrupt, and she will be no more fertile; the very Air will sink into lugubrious torpor. Such will be the old age of the world; irreligion and disorder, lawlessness, and the confusion of good men.
Commentary
Climate change. Pollution of the land, the air, the water. Not scientific evils, but thoughtless uses of the discoveries of science for short term gain.
The voices of nature’s defenders being ignored or censored.
Evil being hailed as good (witness the Religious Right, lauding Trump as ‘sent by God’) while condemning as ‘socialists’ and ‘communists’ those who try to help refugee children in cages. The same government that separated families sends these helpers to jail for their charity.
The rulings of courts against family separation blatantly ignored by the government.
There are many other examples around the world.
The Text
“When all these things shall be accomplished, O Asclepius, then the Lord and Father, the sovereign God who rules the wide world, beholding the evil ways and actions of men, will arrest these misfortunes by the exercise of His divine will and goodness. And, in order to put an end to error and to the general corruption, He will drown the world with a deluge or consume it by Fire, or destroy it by wars and epidemics, and thereafter He will restore to it its primitive beauty; so that once more it shall appear worthy of admiration and worship, and again a chorus of praise and of blessing shall celebrate Him Who has created and redeemed so beautiful a work. This rebirth of the world, this restoration of all good things, this holy and sacred rehabilitation of Nature will take place when the time shall come that is appointed by the divine and ever-eternal will of God, without beginning and always the same.”
Commentary
Okay, I know this looks bad. Hermes sounds like an Evangelical preacher, here. But there is another, more likely, interpretation.
ONE – We know what will happen, if we do nothing on climate change.
TWO – We know what is happening because we are destroying the environment in other ways.
THREE – The warning of Hermes sounds a lot like the warnings of climate, and other scientists.
Being as we’re talking about the Hermetic Sciences, I think this is a much more plausible interpretation than actual ‘divine’ wrath.
God (nature) will be “arresting these misfortunes,” when he (it)
ONE – “drown(s) the world with a deluge or
TWO – consume(s) it with fire. or
THREE – destroy(s) it by wars and epidemics.”
This sounds a great deal like
ONE – the fires and drownings nature will visit on the Earth (according the the best science we have) as a result of our sustained assault on it.
TWO – the wars we may already be witnessing the beginnings of.
THREE – epidemics are waiting, currently frozen, in melting arctic and antarctic ice.
With the end of us, or at least our civilization, our ability to damage nature will be greatly curtailed.
Nature will restore itself, even (especially) if we are no longer here.
