A moment later Doyle was reflecting that liquor was even more effective than pain—or, probably, throwing up—in reconciling one to reality.

Tim Powers, The Anubis Gates [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher]

Hermetic quote Powers The Anubis Gates reconciling one to reality

Consider also:

  1. “Time enough for food and drink after we’ve sent this fellow to hell.”
  2. “This is why religion can only be advice and clarification, and cannot carry any spurs of enforcement—for only belief and behavior that is independently arrived at, and then chosen, can be praised or blamed.”
  3. The Anubis Gates
  4. “Like most modern magics, he thought bitterly, while it probably did something, it didn’t accomplish what it was supposed to.”
  5. “What is the subtle and sublime mechanism that underlies magick? In whatever system or technique, by some process we manifest mind into reality. Internally we can call it self improvement yet we know there’s so much more. By some arcane, digitally feral technologies our thoughts are often heard by the chaotic web of life, which responds in kind giving us that one sideways glance and cocked smile at just the right fucking moment to be beyond a doubt a sudden mind-blowing manifestation of magick. It’s as if there is a great presence existing in some very real yet abstracted layer of reality that interpenetrates everything, leading from the backs of our minds right to the central servers of the Akashic Record.”