Forbidden Wisdom

A book whose study is forbidden
Once dedicated to a beast;
To be read once and then destroyed
Or you shall have no peace.

--from the Cicada 3301 

first puzzle/ recruitment for the highly intelligent individuals so that they would be tested and profiled and then...?

Well, when I was around 20 I spoke to a man who spoke of a book where every page would lead to a new level of understanding and power but would require that you destroyed the previous page to get to understand the next one.  I never saw the book. But when I saw this poem it suddenly clicked.
Around the time I was reading and interpreting the Halliwell manuscript  -  a combination of two masonic texts that contains the 15 articles and 15 points. They also refer to seven sciences important for the education of a mason.

A few readings of the poem:
You can only study the book if you do not dedicate the study to the beast (perhaps the beast of egoism in you) otherwise you lose your peace. It gives such power, perhaps.

If you dedicate the book study to the beast you cannot study.

What is destroyed the book or the beast. Does the book help to destroy the beast?

Continued forbidden study robs you of your peace.

Continued study starts a war or a lack of peace of mind? War with the beast? Torments by the beast?

Also the last two lines form the logical statement : A AND B OR !C
ABC Formula
000 false
001 false
010 false
011 false
100 false
101 false
110 true
111 true
What can you read once and then not anymore? A puzzle has this nature. Once it is broken you have the solution. You cannot look at the puzzle again the same way until you forget the solution! When you solve the puzzle and the solution is presented  - then you have peace.

What if the beast rather than egoism, is the savage without education? Peace is then for the educated.

Result was something else: the beast was Horus the book, The Book of Law by Aleister Crowley... The book was somewhat forbidden in the then christian world...