Launching major high-uncertainty ventures where you must combine maximum personal agency with deep humility toward macro-conditions beyond your control. ---

Approach your work only after praying to the gods to bring your efforts to completion. Once you master this discipline, you will see the true structural composition of both immortal gods and mortal humans. The facing Greek (p. 120) presents a tight synergy between human effort and divine completion: *All' ercheu ep' ergon / theoisin epeuxamenos telesai* ("Set to work, having prayed to the gods to bring it to perfection/completion"). In the Pythagorean system, prayer is never a substitute for *ergon* (hard work); the initiate must initiate the labour, while recognizing that final *telos* (completion) depends on alignment with cosmic intelligences. Once the practitioner has mastered (*kratēsas*) this ethical and ritual syllabus, the reward is **ontological vision**: he comes to know the *systasis* (constitution, structural assembly) of both immortal gods and mortal men—specifically, "how each thing passes through (*dierchetai*) and how each is governed/ruled (*krateitai*)." Ethics and ritual purify the lens so the mind can perceive the mechanics of cosmic governance directly. [INTERPRETATION: PRISCA THEOLOGIA / ESOTERIC] In Iamblichus, Proclus, and Marsilio Ficino, this passage describes the transition from *cathartic virtue* to *theurgic union*. Human reason alone can begin the ascent, but only the invocation (*epiklēsis*) of the Gods can seal the work (*telesai*—from the same root as *teletē*, initiation). Once illuminated by divine grace, the magus perceives the *systasis*—the hidden sympathetic chains that bind mortal things below to immortal archetypes above, seeing how divine power "passes through" every tier of creation and "governs" it from within. This is the *scientia intuitiva* of the adept, against which no material illusion can deceive.