Quotes

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. it should transcend a personal god and avoid dogmas and theology. covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity.

The consequence of having seen God is madness, not in the sense that one becomes mentally ill, no, but that a kind of madness is set between you and others: people cannot nor will not understand you.

No man with a prophetic spirit likes to foresee and foresay the doom of his own period. It exposes him to a terrible anxiety within himself, to severe and often deadly attacks from others, and to the charge of pessimism and defeatism on the part of the majority of the people. Men desire to hear good tidings; and the masses listen to those who bring them. All the prophets of the Old and New Testaments, and others during the history of the Church, had the same experience. They all were contradicted by the false prophets, who announced salvation when there was no salvation. “The prophets prophesy falsely, and my people love to have it so”, cries Jeremiah in despair. They called him a defeatist and accused him of being an enemy of his country. But is it a sign of patriotism or of confidence in one’s people, its institutions and its way of life, to be silent when the foundations are shaking? Is the expression of optimism, whether or not it is justified, so much more valuable than the expression of truth, even if the truth is deep and dark?

So it is tempting to divide the ancient temperament into a realm of Dionysus and a realm of Yahweh—hedonism and egalitarianism versus hierarchy and war. On the one hand a willingness to seek delight in the here and now; on the other, a determination to prepare for future danger. A feminine or androgynous spirit of playfulness versus the cold principle of patriarchal authority. …

But this entire dichotomy breaks down with the arrival of Jesus, whose followers claimed him to be the son of Yahweh. Jesus gave the implacable Yahweh a human face, making him more accessible and forgiving. At the same time, though—and less often noted—Jesus was, or was portrayed by his followers as, a continuation of the quintessentially pagan Dionysus.

The United States has always had an ambivalent attitude toward Europe. It wanted Europe to be unified, so it could serve as a more efficient market for U.S. corporations, offering great advantages of scale; but it was always concerned about the threat that Europe might move off in another direction. Many of the issues about accession of the eastern countries to the EU are related to this. The United States is strongly in favor of this accession process, because it is hoping that these countries will be able to undermine the core of Europe, which is France and Germany, big industrial countries that could move in a somewhat more independent direction.

Also in the background is a long-standing U.S. hatred of the European social system, which provides decent wages, working conditions, and benefits. The United States doesn’t want that model to exist, because it’s a dangerous one. People may get funny ideas. And it’s understood that the accession of eastern European countries, with economies based on low wages and repression of labor, may help to undermine the social standards in western Europe. That would be a big benefit for the United States.

At present we educate people only up to the point where they can earn a living and marry; then education ceases altogether, as though a complete mental outfit had been acquired. … Vast numbers of men and women thus spend their entire lives in complete ignorance of the most important things.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

In the beginning there was a vast serpent, whose body formed seven thousand coils beneath the earth, protecting it from descent into the abysmal sea. Then the titanic snake began to move and heave its massive form from the earth to envelop the sky. It scattered stars in the firmament and wound its taught flesh down the mountains to create riverbeds. it shot thunderbolts to the earth to create the sacred thunderstones. From its deepest core it released the sacred waters to fill the earth with life. As the first rains fell, a rainbow encompassed the sky and Danbala took her, Ayida Wedo, as his wife. The spiritual nectar that they created reproduces through all men and women as milk and semen. The serpent and the rainbow taught humankind the link between blood and life, between menstruation and birth, and the ultimate Vodou sacrament of blood sacrifice.

I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless emptiness.

I am the daughter of Fortitude, and ravished every hour from my youth. For behold I am Understanding and science dwelleth in me; and the heavens oppress me. They cover and desire me with infinite appetite; for none that are earthly have embraced me, for I am shadowed with the Circle of the Stars and covered with the morning clouds. My feet are swifter than the winds, and my hands are sweeter than the morning dew. My garments are from the beginning, and my dwelling place is in myself. The Lion knoweth not where I walk, neither do the beast of the fields understand me. I am deflowered, yet a virgin; I sanctify and am not sanctified. Happy is he that embraceth me: for in the night season I am sweet, and in the day full of pleasure. My company is a harmony of many symbols and my lips sweeter than health itself. I am a harlot for such as ravish me, and a virgin with such as know me not. For lo, I am loved of many, and I am a lover to many; and as many as come unto me as they should do, have entertainment. Purge your streets, O ye sons of men, and wash your houses clean; make yourselves holy, and put on righteousness. Cast out your old strumpets, and burn their clothes; abstain from the company of other women that are defiled, that are sluttish, and not so handsome and beautiful as I, and then will I come and dwell amongst you: and behold, I will bring forth children unto you, and they shall be the Sons of Comfort. I will open my garments, and stand naked before you, that your love may be more enflamed toward me.