and may the holy spirit breathe in me, nechthen apotou nechthin arpi ēth, that I may marvel at the holy fire, kyphe, that I may gaze upon the abyss of the dawn, the dread water, nyō thesō echō ouchiechōa, and may the life-giving and all-surrounding aether hear me, arnomēthph;

Now the prayer asks for the initiate's own senses to be remade into organs of vision. He wants the holy pneûma to breathe in him — not air he draws, but a spirit that draws itself through him — and then to marvel, to gaze, to be heard: perception turned into worship. The verbs are the mysteries' own, thaumásō and theásomai, wonder and beholding. One phrase reaches back past this rite. “The abyss of the dawn, the dread water” sets ábyssos beside hýdōr — and ábyssos is the exact word the Greek Old Testament uses for the deep over which the spirit moved before creation (Genesis 1:2). The magician is asking to see the pre-creation water at the place of sunrise, the world's first morning. Knowing where the word comes from is the whole meaning: this is not a landscape but the beginning of things, and the aether that “hears” him is the same divine air that first stirred the deep.