/lit/ - Literature

why do people always start out reading spurious shit like OP or outright forgeries like the Kybalion? instead of the actually ancient texts like
Corpus Hermeticum, Asclepius: The Perfect Discourse of Hermes Trismegistus, Iamblichus - De Mysterris, Timaeus, A Dialogue Between a Man and his Ba, Hymn of the Pearl (not Gnostic), Macrobius' Description Commentary on Cicero's Dream of Scipio,

Praisegiving to Ptah, Lord of Maat,
King of the Two Lands,
Fair of face on his great seat,
The One God' among the Ennead,
Beloved as King of the Two Lands.
May he give life, prosperity, health,
Alertness, favors, and affection,
And that my eyes may see Amun every day,
As is done for a righteous man,
Who has set Amun in his heart!
So says the servant in the Place-of-Truth, Neferabu,
justified.

(Rerverse)
Beginning of the recital of the might of Ptah, South-ofhio-Wall, by the servant in the Place-of-Truth on the West of Thebes, Nelerabu, justified. He says:

I am a man who swore falsely by Ptah, Lord of Maat,
And he made me see darkness by day.
I will declare his might to the fool and the wise,
To the small and great: Beware of Ptah, Lord of Maat!
Behold, he does not overlook anyone's deed!
Refrain from uttering Ptah's name falsely,
Lo, he who utters it falsely, he falls!

He caused me to be as the dogs of the street, I being in his hand;
He made men and gods observe me,
I being as a man who has sinned against his Lord.
Righteous was Ptah, Lord of Maat, toward me,
When he taught a lesson to me!
Be merciful to me, look on me in mercy!

So says the servant in the Place-of-Truth on the West of Thebes, ' Neferabu, justified before the great god.

Hail to you, great God, Lord of the Two Truths!
I have come to you, my Lord,
I was brought to see your beauty.
I know you, I know the names of the forty-two gods,'
Who are with you in the Hall of the Two Truths
Who live by warding off evildoers.
Who drink of their blood,
On that day of judging characters before Wennofer.
Lo, your name is "He-of-Two-Daughters,"
(And) "He-of-Maat's-Two-Eyes."
Lo, I come before you,
Bringing Maat to you,
Having repelled evil for you.

I have not done crimes against people.
I have not mistreated cattle,
I have not sinned in the Place of Truth.'
I have not known what should not be known,'
I have not done any harm.
I did not begin a day by exacting more than my due,
My name did not reach the bark of the mighty ruler.
I have not blasphemed a god,
I have not robbed the poor.
I have not done what the god abhors,
I have not maligned a servant to his master.
I have not caused pain,
I have not caused tears.
I have not killed,
I have not ordered to kill,
I have not made anyone suffer.
I have not damaged the offerings in the temples,
I have not depleted the loaves of the gods,
I have not stolen the cakes of the dead.
I have not copulated nor defiled myself.
I have not increased nor reduced the measure,
I have not diminished the arura,
I have not cheated in the fields.
I have not added to the weight of the balance,
I have not falsified the plummet of the scales.
I have not taken milk from the mouth of children,
I have not deprived cattle of their pasture.
I have not snared birds in the reeds of the gods,
I have not caught fish in their ponds.
I have not held back water in its season,
I have not dammed a flowing stream,
I have not quenched a needed fire.
I have not neglected the days of meat offerings,
I have not detained cattle belonging to the god,
I have not stopped a god in his procession.
I am pure, I am pure, I am pure, I am pure!
I am pure as is pure that great heron in Hoes.
I am truly the nose of the Lord of Breath,
Who sustains all the people,
On the day of completing the Eye' in On,
In the second month of winter, last day,
In the presence of the lord of this land.
I have seen the completion of the Eye in On!
No evil shall befall me in this land,
In this Hall of the Two Truths;
For I know the names of the gods in it,
The followers of the great God!

Uždavinys The Golden Chain: An Anthology of Pythagorean and Platonic Philosophy

>>15024540
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>>15024484
Then, with a weeping countenance, I made this prayer to the powerful Goddess, saying:
O blessed Queen of heaven! Are you the Lady Ceres, the original and motherly nurse of all fruitful things on earth, who inhabits the land of Eleusis? Are you she who, after finding your daughter Proserpina, conceived such great joy that barren and unfruitful ground was made fruitful again? Or are you the celestial Venus, sister to the God Phoebus, now worshiped within the Temples of the Isle of Paphos and the sacred places of Ephesus? Venus, who in the beginning of the world coupled together all kinds of things with an engendered love, by an eternal propagation of humankind? Venus, who nourishes so many people by the generation of beasts? Ahh...in light of the deadly howlings you are displaying, it is clear that you are the dreaded Proserpina! You have the power to stop and put away the invasion of the hags and ghosts that appear unto humans, and to keep them down in the closures of the earth.You, who are diversely worshiped, you who illuminate all the borders of the earth by your feminine shape! You, nourishing all the fruits of the world by your vigor and force! With whatever name or fashion it is lawful to call upon you, I pray you, please end my great travail and misery, and deliver me from the wretched fortune that has pursued me for so long.Grant peace and rest from my adversities, if it pleases you, as I have endured too much labor and peril. Please remove from me my shape of an ass, and return me to my pristine estate. And if I have offended in any point of divine majesty, let me die rather than live, for I am fully weary of my life.

>>15011209
O you Sole One who shines as the moon, I go forth among the masses to the gates I of the Bark with those who are in the sunshine. The Netherworld has been opened,' for I have gone out in this day; those foes of mine are brought to me, they having been put an end to in the Great Tribunal.

fuck off w(b)itch

start with the Pyramid Texts

>>14937411
should have proofread that, reading this must have been how porphyry felt editing plotinus

Damascius 700 years earlier, explicitly.
Plotinus 1000 years earlier, implicitly.
Plato via negativa 1600 year earlier in Parmenides