The Kybalion： The Seven Principles of Hermetic Alchemy
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Summary
The Seven Principles of Hermeticism are a distillation of ancient alchemy into seven principles. They can be applied in all areas of your life, from your personal life to your professional life. In this episode, we discuss the context in which they were written, who likely wrote them, and how you can apply them in your own life.
Transcript
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Hello, my brothers and sisters. This is the first video in a new series on alchemy and
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hermeticism that's going to be put into a playlist on my channel. The topic of this
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video is The Seven Principles of Hermeticism from the 1908 book The Kabalian, written by
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the three wise masters. It is a distillation of alchemical theory, of hermetic philosophy.
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Now, I'm sure that most of you have heard the term hermetic before. Some of you are thinking of the
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hermetic order of the golden dawn. Others might be thinking of hermetically sealed.
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Both those terms come from the same origin source, and both of them come from medieval alchemy.
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Hermes Trismegistus is the source of the term hermetic.
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He is the legendary figure to whom many in the 15th century attributed the Prisca Theologiae,
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the original true religion. Attributed to him and Moses, contemporaries, according to legend,
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mentioned, these were the men, the demigods, that brought so much truth and wisdom into
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this world. And the Kabalian, printed in 1908, sums up these philosophies into seven principles.
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So in this video, we're going to be discussing the context in which the Kabbalion was written,
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who likely wrote it, we're going to be discussing the seven principles themselves and how you
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can apply them in your own life, and we're going to be taking a broader overview of what
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are we to make of all these ancient claims to knowledge.
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So as I said, the Caballion was written in 1908, published in 1908, and the authorship
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The Three Initiates are likely, almost certainly, a pseudopigrapha, a nom de plume, a pseudonym
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For William Atkinson, who was a lawyer and a prominent figure in the new thought movement of the early 20th century, we're almost certain he wrote it.
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and now when it comes to pseudopagrapha to false attribution of author this is one of those issues
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that is viewed a certain way by the modern audience by the materialist science we live under
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but likely appeared quite differently if you research the term there were so many
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texts written in ancient times with the authorship attributed to legendary figures
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this is viewed in modern times as trying to claim special authorship trying to
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All they do is they get to pose the truth as best they can speak it.
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we are quite interested in trying to figure out where they came from, when they were written.
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But to attribute these texts to venality, to desire for fame, to dishonesty,
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So in the case of the Kabalian, the fact that it was written by a very prominent figure,
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does that mean we should discount it so readily?
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summation of Hermes Trismegistus, himself likely a pseudepigrapha figure.
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Allegedly a contemporary of Moses, a historical reconstruction, a combination of Hermes,
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the god of communication, and Toth, the Egyptian god of wisdom.
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Who was based upon a real historical figure of King Heracles
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Likely a little bit more mythical than Heracles
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that dream which was reinvigorated during the Renaissance
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that presented in ancient times for all peoples
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That is the vein in which we should approach this work.
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And so with that said, let us get to these seven principles of Hermetic philosophy.
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These seven principles of alchemy, they are, number one, the principle of mentalism, number
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two, the principle of correspondence, number three, the principle of vibration, number
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first we have the principle of mentalism and this is a very ancient view it was at the time of
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publishing very much a reaction against the the simple materialism which was so popular the
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clockwork universe the principle of mentalism is that all is mind that the universe has no
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meaningful existence outside of the realm of perception this is one of those things
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that it's so easy to lose yourself in these days it's so easy to get lost in
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doing what you do living your life that you forget that you are there observing the life
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it's the strangest thing about being an observer is not realizing that you're observing
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that all of this around you your physical environment this youtube video the
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is a simulation being created within your own mind
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your eyes take in data from the universe around you they take in sensory perceptions
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they run it through a filter and then your mind creates this virtual reality
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It goes far more profound than that, obviously.
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But the world is just what we are able to recreate from our understanding, from our own mind.
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Without observation, without perception, without meaning, there's just mechanical functions, meaningless mechanical functions.
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Instead, we have a universe of multiple observers, of negotiated reality in between all the different observers, all the different points of observation simulating their own mental reality.
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what the practitioner of the esoteric arts finds
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that what happens at the highest levels of reality
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and what happens at the most primordial levels of reality
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are seldom concerned with high ideology they are concerned with base level operations
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you go to them with a marital squabble and they say how are you eating
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there is a profound connection between the highest of things and the lowest of things
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everything is vibrating, everything is changing, everything is moving, everything is vibe.
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One of the great errors that the adult mind makes is the conception of object permanence.
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this is a developmental achievement during childhood which becomes a cage because
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there is no object permanence all is change all is moving just some of it moves so slowly that
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we don't notice we mistake something for being the truth for being the absolute when it's
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just a piece of metal that's going to rust away everything is always vibrating up and down
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in between the crude physical world which we directly apprehend and imagine ourselves to be
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a part of and the astral plane which is the realm of ideas of philosophies of mathematics
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while also touching upon higher astral concepts of meaning.
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The ethereal is that level of reality where vibration exists
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next we get the principle of polarity which is the one i find the most interesting
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and it's that all opposites are made out of the same substance
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all opposites are made out of the same substance
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as you get the principle of rhythm and as you can see these are very dualistic laws aren't they each
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one building off of the last one principle of rhythm is that all moves in rhythms you breathe
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then you breathe out, your heart beats, sun comes up, sun goes down.
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This rhythmic change is ongoing and inevitable,
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and you're participating in it whether or not you realize it.
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Principle number six, the principle of cause and effect.
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Now, this might seem like we're going back into simple materialism here.
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The cause and effect, isn't that the primordial assumption underlying the materialist philosophy?
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but the materialist philosophy always imagines itself an outside observer to cause and effect
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some third party that's not consulted by the cause and effect that merely observes
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a cause and the effect, as opposed to the endless, embedded, enmeshed chain of cause and effect
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that's everywhere and constant, and you yourself are a participant within it.
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And finally, principle number seven, the principle of gender, of masculine and feminine,
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This gender conception is very foundational to reality itself.
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And of course, each of us has these opposites within us.
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Once again, principle of mentalism, all is mind.
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Principle of correspondence, as above, so below.
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Principle of vibration, all is vibrating, all is changing all the time.
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You are an embedded chain of cause and effects.
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There's the masculine, the solar, the creative, and the feminine, the absorptive, the nurturing, the destructive.
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These are the elements that make up reality itself.
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so what are we to do with this book how ought we to regard it
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is it an apt description of hermetic philosophy
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and what are we to do with the concept of pseudepigrapha
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now let's go back to the 15th century for a moment if you remember what you were not
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taught in school. This was the Renaissance. After the fall of Rome, we lost 99% of the books ever
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written. They disappeared. Books don't last forever. It's not that they burned up in libraries,
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And when Rome collapsed, when the financial apocalypse hit, we lost 99% of our books.
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The Renaissance is when we began to rediscover the 1% that had been somehow saved in various places.
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And so we have this concept of the Prisca theologia, the one true original philosophy.
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The idea that once upon a time, deep in those books, if we can just find the sacred tome,
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it would have been a school of thought I loved,
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i don't believe there was ever one true tome of knowledge not exactly you know i could be wrong
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on that i could be wrong but it's not the school of philosophy i believe in the school of philosophy
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I believe in is the perennial philosophy. That true religion appears and manifests in different
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times and different places. And it's always the same thing. It sounds a little bit different
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because it's for the people of that time, for the people of that place. But there is this perennial
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Is it some pseudo-scientific work of false authorship and arrogance?
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Einstein published his first theory of relativity.
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And this was also the period where all of the experimental data coming in
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But we were starting to notice the bits that didn't fit.
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When I said all was vibration, how many of you thought about the fact that not only are our photons both a particle and a wave, but in fact all particles are also waves?
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you have to believe that atkinson was either completely on top of the advanced physics
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journals of his time which completely goes against the standard assumptions about material reality
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It's distilled into modern language, but it's also extremely prophetic and useful.
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In many ways, it better represented the contemporaneous theories of relativity
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that Einstein was playing with than anything else did.
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And Atkinson was tapping into the same vein of idea as Einstein.
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This is not some distillation of primordial truth.
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and embrace the quantum mechanical nature of reality,
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which we are still very much struggling to understand.
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Your average atheist cult person still believes in the material billiard ball universe.
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So yes, these concepts of hermeticism and alchemy are extremely valuable.
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and discuss how you can apply them on a daily basis,
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coherent with our current understanding of physics,
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coherent with our current understanding of philosophy and psychology,
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how you can apply all of this to not act like a dunce from the 19th century,
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but instead act like a person from the 21st century
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is that the observer is outside of the experiment.
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This is the issue that comes up with the observer effect.
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that observing the quantum mechanical reaction changes it.
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but if all is mental be aware that you are an observer that you are mentally observing
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this universe you are not your body you are not your drives you are not your emotions
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What you manifest inside yourself, you manifest outside yourself.
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Be aware of what's operating internally, because what's operating internally creates what's operating externally.
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Be aware of the vibration of your surroundings.
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that thing that you think is part of the external world
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which is the source of your greatest inspiration,
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This one in particular is really throwing society off the rails right now.
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the pendulum is getting faster and faster and faster and the harder you fight something
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do you want to be a part of this pendulum when you when you join the part that goes this way
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that's called hubris and nemesis be very very wary of that
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the pendulum can also generate energy for an electric motor whose motor are you fueling
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just waiting for the player character to come push buttons,
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You're actively engaged in this cause and effect at all times.
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Be conscious of every effect which arrives at your door and every cause that you initiate.
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You know, 20 years ago, I think we were completely lost on the gender issue.
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We just knew that the feminists were quite angry about everything.
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We had no conception of the masculine altering reality.
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And you, regardless of your sex, have both of those gendered aspects within you.
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If you go and read the Kabalian, one of the things that stood out to me is that it was written in 1908.
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I hope I've put a little bit more of a modern spin, a little bit more modern profundity to some of these principles than appeared in the original text.
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It didn't take some great act of genius for me to see that, geez, principle of vibration.
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It's just being somebody who perceives reality in the current year of our Lord, the foul
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I think you'll see a little bit further than Atkinson saw when you read his principles.