"...The world was full of marvelous correspondences, subtle resemblances; the only way to penetrate them - and to be penetrated by them - was through dreams, oracles, magic, which allows us to act on nature and her forces, moving like with like. Knowledge is elusive and volatile; it escapes measurement. That's why the conquering god of that era was Hermes, inventor of all trickery, god of crossroads and thieves. He was also the creator of writing, which is the art of evasion and dissimulation and a navigation that carries us to the to the end of all boundaries, where everything dissolves into the horizon, where cranes lift stones from the ground and weapons transform life into death, and water pumps make heavy matter float, and philosophy deludes and deceives...
And do you know where Hermes is today? Right here. You passed him when you came through the door. They call him Exu, messenger of the gods, go-between, trader, who is ignorant of the difference between good and evil."
-- Umberto Eco, 'Foucault's Pendulum'
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