He looks stunned, but he keeps smiling. “You want me to –”
Now it’s my turn to smile. “I know, I’m a fucking pervert. You think you can handle it?”
Xnoubis, Tarot Erotica: Tau
Tag Archives: think
One thing I will say: that I do not expect anything to come of qabalistic speculations. I think that they may even be extremely mischievous in times like the present. Our sole business should be to use the Law to reconstruct the world from the chaos into which it is already half tumbled. That formula is a simple one, and requires no specialised training. The work requires the cooperation of tens of thousands of people who have never heard of the Qabalah, and they have to be addressed in language which they can understand.
Aleister Crowley to Charles Stansfeld Jones, correspondence on August 28, 1936
“A gun?” Edward asked with skepticism in his voice. “We have Vincent and Emma watching the camp.” “Eddy,” Michael’s tone turned serious, “we are out here because somebody we know shit about is trying to kill you, and you and the nice magic old lady that just disappeared into the dark woods made me promise not to bring the HPD into this. I think it’s time you took a little more interest in preventing your own fucking death. That sound about right, little buddy?”
J Kelley Anderson, Casting Shadows [Amazon, Local Library]
If I were to put it into a very few words, my dear sir, I should say that our prevalent belief is in moderation. We inculcate the virtue of avoiding excess of all lands—even including, if you will pardon the paradox, excess of virtue itself. In the valley which you have seen, and in which there are several thousand inhabitants living under the control of our order, we have found that the principle makes for a considerable degree of happiness. We rule with moderate strictness, and in return we are satisfied with moderate obedience. And I think I can claim that our people are moderately sober, moderately chaste, and moderately honest.
James Hilton, Lost Horizon [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]
Religion, like nations and individuals, passes through the regular gradation, first of infancy, when religious ideas and thoughts are crude in the extreme; the age of Puritanism, when innocent women and children are burned at the stake for witchcraft, when with gloomy faces and in unsightly dress the poor fanatics sacrificed every pleasure on the altar of duty; the time when Sunday was a day of horror to children from its gloom, a day when every innocent amusement was forbidden. After religion’s infancy comes youth. At that stage, the absurd dress and gloomy faces were not considered essential adjuncts to religion, but free discussion was not allowed upon religious subjects. Everything must be taken for granted, without any investigation on the part of the people. After youth comes manhood, the time when reason has full sway, when superstition and credulities form no part of religious teaching and thought. People are able to think, to reason for themselves. After the age of manhood, comes old age and that is the stage of agnosticism. Questions are being asked, and ideas propounded which must not be overlooked nor treated with contempt. All questions asked in a fair spirit, must be answered in a fair manner. It is not sufficient to say, “it is so”, but good and tangible reasons must be given to prove the truth of an assertion. We are now in the stage of “old age.” Agnosticism and Infidelity are wide spread. After old age comes decay and the decline of the absolutely orthodox. From time immemorial, every religion has passed through the same gradation, of infancy, youth, old age and decay finally comes philosophy.
Lydia Leavitt, Bohemian Society [Amazon, Amazon (Dodo Press), Bookshop (Dodo Press, Gutenberg, Local Library]
“Why do you think it does work? It’s not as if any of this stuff is true.” “Maybe devils love ritual as much as people do,” she said.
China Miéville, The Last Days of New Paris: A Novel [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]
Each generation of feminism has had its bogey-woman, scape goat, “other” one. The message the movement has been trying to send out, wave after wave, is “We are not as bad as you think.” In the ’70s-early ’80s the delineating line was that Lesbianism was not a feminist issue. We all use examples of what we are not to define and illustrate what we are, and in this case, mainstream feminism wanted to be accepted by the middle class. Lesbianism was too “out there” of an issue to talk about without intimidating those who held dear the status quo. … Lesbian needs are still fighting for a place at the feminist table.
LaSara W FireFox, “Outrageous Roots and a Bright Future; Sex and Feminism”
Some of these societies, being based upon a financial scheme for making money, pretending to be able to employ divine powers in their service and to have the will of God at their command for the purpose of procuring for their adherents physical health and worldly benefits, met with great success; for the multitudes will always rush to that camp, where they think that a mine of gold has been discovered and where they are expecting a share; and the holding out promises of making salvation easy has always been the fundamental power of every clerical institution.
Franz Hartmann, The Dangers of Occultism
“You think one of the two’s yours—joy or misery,” Margaret said, “or both. Why, if you don’t, should you mind?”
Charles Williams, Descent Into Hell [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]
