(no subject)

Out of nowhere, I'm afflicted with a cold. Ugh.

Phlegm, slimy matter in the throat, sluggishness. (French = Latin = Greek.) The use of the term was due to the supposed influence of the 'four humours'; phlegm causing a sluggish or 'phlegmatic' temperament. = French. phlegme. = Latin phlegma. = Greek phlegma (base phlegmat-), (1) a flame, (2) inflammation, (3) viscous humour, phlegm. = Greek phlegein, to burn. + Latin flag-rare, to burn; see Flame.

a quote from Harold Bloom

[I]nstead of believing that something was and is so, we rely upon an inward knowledge rather than upon an outward belief. Gnosis is the opposite of ignorance, and not of disbelief. As an ancient Greek word widely used by Jews and Christians, Gnosis did not mean knowing that something was so, but rather just knowing someone or something, including knowing God. "Knowing God" has a special twist that makes it the Gnosis: it is a reciprocal process in which God also knows what is best and oldest in you, a spark in you that always has been God's. This means that knowing God is primarily a process of being reminded of what you already know, which is that God never has been wholly external to you, however alienated or estranged he is from the society or even the cosmos in which you dwell.

--Omens of Millennium, p. 235.