As is repeated many a time in this and other works, it is not the Philosophers, Sages, and Adepts of antiquity who can ever be charged with idolatry. It is they in fact, who, recognising divine unity, were the only ones, owing to their initiation into the mysteries of Esotericism, to understand correctly the ύπόνοια (hyponoia), or under-meaning of the anthropomorphism of the so-called Angels, Gods, and spiritual Beings of every kind. Each, worshipping the one Divine Essence that pervades the whole world of Nature, reverenced, but never worshipped or idolised, any of these “Gods,” whether high or low — not even his own personal Deity, of which he was a Ray, and to whom he appealed.

>The holy Trias emanates from the One, and is the Tetractys; the gods, daimōns,
>and souls are an emanation of the Trias. Heroes and men repeat the hierarchy
>in themselves.

Thus said Metrodorus of Chios, the Pythagorean, the latter part of the sentence meaning that man has within himself the seven pale reflections of the seven divine Hierarchies; his Higher Self is, therefore, in itself but the refracted beam of the direct Ray.

He who regards the latter as an Entity, in the usual sense of the term, is one of the “infidels and atheists,” spoken of by Epicurus, for he fastens on that God “the opinions of the multitude” — an anthropomorphism of the grossest kind. The Adept and the Occultist know that “what are styled the Gods are only the first principles.” Nonetheless they are intelligent, conscious, and living “Principles,” the Primary Seven Lights manifested from Light unmanifested — which to us is Darkness.