David held out his hands in a gesture that was supposed to mean, So fucking sorry for something that’s not remotely my fault, but people had already lost interest in him.
John Ajvide Lindqvist, Handling the Undead [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]
if we usually speak of the imaginary as the unreal, the utopian, this must contain the symptom of something. In contrast to this something, we may examine briefly together the order of reality that I designate as mundus imaginalis
Henri Corbin, Mundus Imaginalis, or the Imaginary and the Imaginal
A person in my position is liable to see Sherlock Holmes in the most beefwitted policeman. I did not feel that I was advancing in the confidence of the Germans. I got no secrets worth reporting to London, and I was not at all sure whether the cut of my clothes had not outweighed the eloquence of my conversation. I thought I would do something more public. I wrote a long parody on the Declaration of Independence and applied it to Ireland.
Aleister Crowley, Confessions, Chapter 76
At the same time, I sense something like a Gestapo knock, an attempt by the real world to force itself into my carefully maintained happiness, something undeniably capable of smashing my fragile life. The pain which is unaccountable and new, which speaks of its own growth and victory, which speaks of disorder and loss in short bright stabs.
Mary Sativa, Acid Temple Ball [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]
Something struggled into the light. Will felt the presence of it before he could see it. He felt an answer to the long ache.
Nathan Ballingrud, The Visible Filth [Amazon, Amazon (Collected), Bookshop (Collected), Publisher, Local Library]
Oh God, there’s something in my mind, thinking for me. How long has it been here, twisting me around?
David Brookshaw, “The King is Dead”, The God-Machine Anthology [Amazon, DriveThruFiction]
Who may know his complete likeness, so much being hidden? The Astrals, Elementals, Mind, Soul? We realize something of the body’s mechanism and of the affectiveness of the whole; at its interrelations we may only guess. Every fact gleaned shows us merely greater ignorance of ourselves. Therefore, speak not of God, speak for yourself alone, for when you know yourself you will know your gods.
Austin Osman Spare, The Logomanchy of Zos
The silence that enfolds something kept unsaid points to the unsayable. By being wrapped in silence, what is arcane (kept hidden) comes to participate in what is esoteric (by its nature inexpressible). The secret becomes a symbol of the mystery, participating in what it points to, by the way in which it points to it.
Earl King, Jr., Having and Keeping Secrets: Some Words About Silence and The Hermetic Art of Secrecy
No one tells them what’s hidden in the shadows, therefore it could be anything. Most likely something horrible since no one talks about it. And they are right.
John Ajvide Lindqvist, trans. Ebba Segerberg, Let the Old Dreams Die: Stories [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]
The initiate chooses to set foot on a new path; but the path itself was already there in some form – what is new is the fact that this particular initiate is now walking on it. Initiation is the beginning of something new, and it is the conservation and renewal of something already established.
Sabazius, Initiation
