Quotes

….That the spatiotemporal universe of multiplicity (physical things in time and space governed by causation) is in fact subsumed by at least one higher level of volitionally-imposed organization—and that such a structure is aware of us whereas we are not only not aware of it but normally unable to be aware of it—if this can be made the subject of indubitable observations it would lie beyond any discovery in the prior history of man.

There is a basic Irish belief that clocks were invented by the English, to make people work more than is good for a man.

One cannot shape the world without being reshaped in the process. Each gain of power requires its own sacrifice.

Chapel Perilous is a stage in the magickal quest in which your maps turn out to be totally inadequate for the territory and you’re completely lost. And at that point you get an ally who helps you find your way back to something you can understand. And then after that for the rest of your life you’ve got this question: Was that ally a supernatural helper, or was it just part of my own mind trying to save me from going totally bonkers with this stuff? And the people I know who’ve had that kind of experience, very few of them have come to an absolutely certain conclusion about this.

The Conscious Mind is Always in Danger of Becoming One-Sided, of Keeping to Well-Worn Paths & Getting Stuck in Blind Alleys.

IO Dionysus
I called upon the God
the Womanly One
child of Zeus and Semele

I drank from his cup and joined
the maenad train – in the cup I gaind
escape from care
ecstasy in the vine
god’s blessing under which
the sacred and profane became one
and the gods’ wedding party never ended

Our clothes tore off our bodies
we were uncaring, drunken
our mad hunt coursed the hills, unstoppable
we’d tear apart our meat, raw
our feast
with raw hides we adorned
our wild woman maenad bodies
we went beyond all boundaries
desperate to escape the confines
the expectations of others
the strictures of class bigotry convention
too much to bear
drink the wine and goodbye to care

Until all our former selves
were washed and danced away
we collapsed into the arms of God
when we awakened reborn
former lives cast away, refuse
wake us back to sobriety
Twice-born, we will give thanks
we’ll tell our stories again and again
of running with maenads
and the gift of the gods
we’ll testify
to the gift of the Womanly One
Dionysus.

I am too inquisitive, too skeptical, too arrogant, to let myself be satisfied with an obvious and crass solution of things.

Because higher wages mean more expensive goods and customers don’t want to pay higher prices. While it would make for a simpler narrative, companies like Walmart, Gap, and H&M that have operations in Bangladesh outsource the making of their clothing lines overseas not simply because they want to exploit people on the other side of the world, but because we their customers all but force them to do it. While most of us would be appalled if we saw the working conditions and knew the wages of the people that make the clothes we wear and would no doubt shout our anger from the roof tops, our wallets tell a different story. Our wallets, or more specifically our spending habits reveal the cold hard reality that most of us just don’t give a shit about where we get our clothes, so long as we get them for cheap. Worse yet, as Tony Campolo would say, most of us in the church care more about fact that I just said “shit” than the fact that countless men, women, and children suffer and die everyday as a direct result of our lust for low, low prices. Which is why the problem of evil is hanging in our closets.

Live as a common man and think as a demi-god.

As therefore the Fire is to the Aire, so Aire is to the Water, and Water to the Earth; and again, as the Earth is to the Water, so is the Water to the Aire, and the Aire to the Fire. And this is the root and foundation of all bodies, natures, vertues, and wonderfull works; and he which shall know these qualities of the Elements, and their mixtions, shall easily bring to pass such things that are wonderfull, and astonishing, and shall be perfect in Magick.