Again Sphinx proposes to men a variety of hard questions and riddles

Again Sphinx proposes to men a variety of hard questions and riddles which she received from the Muses.  In these, while they remain with the Muses, there is probably no cruelty; for so long as the object of meditation and inquiry is merely to know, the understanding is not oppressed or straitened by it, but is free to wander and expatiate, and finds in the very uncertainty of conclusion and variety of choice a certain pleasure and delight; but when they pass from the Muses to Sphinx, that is from contemplation to practice, whereby there is necessity for present action, choice, and decision, then they begin to be painful and cruel; and unless they be solved and disposed of, they strangely torment and worry the mind, pulling it first this way and then that, and fairly tearing it to pieces.  Moreover the riddles of the Sphinx have always a twofold condition attached to them; distraction and laceration of mind, if you fail to solve them; if you succeed, a kingdom.  For he who understands his subject is master of his end; and every workman is king over his work.     -Francis Bacon:  essay "Sphinx, or Science" in his Wisdom of the Ancients, 1609 in Latin; see http://www.bartleby.com/82/28.html
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Edgar Cayce revealed that records of the lost civilization of Atlantis were stored in a “Hall of Records” between the paws of the Great Sphinx.    -Messenger E C Prophet:  Prophecy for the New Millennium, 1999, p. 71
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...to the very heart of the living Guru whom the Sphinx represents      -Messengers M & E C Prophet:  The Masters and Their Retreats, p. 331