Knowledge of Atum ***

"To know Atum you must share his identity -
for only like can truly know like.
Leave behind the material world,
and imagine yourself
immeasurably expansive.
Rise out of time to eternity.
Believe that for you
nothing is impossible.
See that you are immortal
and learned in every art and science.
Be at home in the haunts
of every living creature.
Make yourself higher than the highest
and deeper than the depths.
embrace within yourself all opposites--
heat and cold, hard and fluid.
Think yourself everywhere at once--
on land, at sea, in heaven.
Imagine yourself unborn in the womb,
yet also young and old,
and already dead,
and in the world beyond the grave.
See that everything co-exists within Mind.
All times and all places.
All things of all shapes and sizes.

Each living creature
has its own unique voice,
but speech is shared
in common by all humans.
Humankind is One
and speech is also one.
It is translated from tongue to tongue.
Yet whether in Egyptian,
Persian or Greek,
the meaning remains the same.
This is because speech
is an image of Mind,
and Mind is an image of Atum.

By Atum's will,
Mind is like a prize
that human souls may win.
He filled a great bowl with Mind
and sent it down to Earth,
telling a herald to announce:
'Listen, every human heart!
Immerse yourself in Mind
and recognize the purpose of your birth.
Ascend to him who sent this bowl.
Those that bathe themselves in Mind
find True Knowledge
and become complete.
Yet, they are not pleasing
to the mass of men.
They are thought mad and laughed at.
They are hated and despised,
and may even be put to death" .

Thoth Hermes Trismegistus - 'Hermetica'

How long ago?